Quotes of the Day:

“Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well.” 

- Epictetus

“But all history has taught us the grim lesson that no nation has ever been successful in avoiding the terrors of war by refusing to defend its rights -- by attempting to placate aggression."

- President Dwight D Eisenhower

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 22 (Putin's War)

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (22.09.22) CDS comments on key events

3. The US should help Russian mothers get the truth out about Putin's war

4. HIMARS and MLRS Are Great But Ukraine Needs More M119A3 Artillery Guns

5. Biden’s Iran Policy After the Protests

6. FDD | U.S. May Allow Payment to Iran for Hostages

7. FDD | Israel, Lebanon Near Agreement on Mediterranean Gas Field

8. Biden administration's destructive UN strategy would weaken America and our allies

9. Germany, Japan beefing up their defense spending

10. ‘They Are Watching’: Inside Russia’s Vast Surveillance State

11. While Pledging to Defend Taiwan from China, Biden Shifted on Taiwan Independence. Here’s Why That Matters.

12. ‘We’re ready for the fight’: China ramps up response to Xinjiang report as pressure mounts on Human Rights Council

13.  US Should Formally Recognize Taiwan, Ex-Undersecretary of State Says

14. The U.N.’s Small Success Stories

15. Iran’s Protests, Raisi’s UN Speech, and Nuclear Deal Talks: What to Know

16. Nuclear Strategy Tells Us To Confront Putin’s Nuclear Threats With Boldness, Not Caution

17. Air Force plans more tests of amphibious, armed MC-130J airlifter

18.  U.S. has sent private warnings to Russia against using a nuclear weapon

19. 'Untethered' Air Force general: ‘When you kill your enemy, every part of your life is better'

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 22 (Putin's War)

Maps/graphics: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-22

Key Takeaways

• The Kremlin’s heavy-handed approach to partial mobilization may successfully meet the Kremlin’s internal quota of mobilized personnel, but is unlikely to generate effective soldiers and is prompting significant domestic backlash for little gain.
• The Kremlin is openly not adhering to its promised conditions for partial mobilization.
• Kremlin quotas will likely force local officials to mobilize men regardless of their military status and will likely incentivize the mobilization of ethnically non-Russian and immigrant communities at a disproportionate rate.
• The Kremlin likely attempted to downplay a prisoner swap with Ukraine that is deeply unpopular among Russian nationalists and milbloggers by undertaking the swap the same day Putin announced partial mobilization.
• IAEA negotiations around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant are unlikely to significantly improve the situation at the plant and may provide an opportunity for Russian forces to stage provocations.
• Ukrainian forces likely continued limited counteroffensive operations along the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border and continued attacks toward Lyman on September 22.
• Ukrainian military officials maintained their operational silence regarding Ukrainian ground attacks in Kherson Oblast on September 22 and reiterated that Ukrainian forces are conducting an operational-level interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the frontlines in Donetsk Oblast on September 22.
• Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks west of Hulyaipole on September 22 and continued routine strikes throughout western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Russian occupation forces are hurriedly setting conditions to hold sham annexation referenda across occupied Ukraine from September 23-27.
• Russian officials created polling stations in parts of Russia, ostensibly to enable displaced (in many cases meaning kidnapped) Ukrainian residents of occupied territories to “vote.”
• Russian occupation officials in Ukraine likely expect to be forced to provide personnel to meet Russian regional mobilization quotas after the Kremlin illegally annexes occupied Ukrainian territories.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 22

Sep 22, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, Katherine Lawlor, and Mason Clark

September 22, 8:15 pm ET

Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

The Kremlin’s heavy-handed approach to partial mobilization may successfully meet the Kremlin’s internal quota of mobilized personnel but is unlikely to generate effective soldiers and is prompting significant domestic backlash for little gain. Russian authorities are forcibly recruiting Russian citizens to fight in Ukraine on flimsy pretexts, violating the Kremlin’s promise to recruit only those with military experience. Russian authorities are also demonstrably mobilizing personnel (such as protesters) who will enter the war in Ukraine with abysmal morale. The Kremlin's heavy-handed approach to partial mobilization will likely exacerbate domestic resentment of a measure that would have been unpopular even if implemented without the harsh approaches observed in the last 24 hours.

The Kremlin is openly not adhering to its promised conditions for partial mobilization just 24 hours after its September 21 declaration. Russian officials previously claimed that partial mobilization will only impact 300,000 men and only those with previous military experience.[1] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on September 22 that the practice of administering mobilization notices to detained protesters does not contradict the September 21 mobilization law. Peskov’s threat contravenes the Kremlin's claim that it will abstain from mobilizing men outside of composed reservist lists.[2] Western and Russian opposition media outlets reported instances of Russian military commissars administering draft notices to protesters in Moscow and Voronezh.[3] Russian opposition outlets also reported on a bank IT specialist who had received a draft notice despite never having served in the army or attended military-education courses in university.[4] The IT specialist is likely one of many Russian men who received mobilization notices despite not meeting the stated criteria for partial mobilization. A university student in Buryatia released footage of Rosgvardia and military police pulling students from lessons, reportedly for mobilization, despite Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu repeatedly stating that Russian students will not be mobilized.[5]

Kremlin quotas will likely force local officials to mobilize men regardless of their military status. The quota for mobilized men remains unverifiable, with Kremlin officials claiming that Russia will mobilize only 300,000 men and Russian opposition outlets’ sources suggesting that the number might reach a million.[6] Regardless of the total quota, the Russian federal subjects executing the mobilization order will likely undertake recruitment measures outside of the outlined reservist call-up. Some Russian federal subjects such as the Republic of Yakutia (Sakha) and Kursk Oblast are imposing laws restricting reservists from leaving their places of permanent residence.[7] Russian enlistment officers and police are also reportedly enforcing unscrupulous mobilization practices (as ISW previously observed during their crypto-mobilization campaigns) by calling up men by phone, issuing notices in the middle of the night, and notifying men of their mobilization via state social benefits websites.[8]

The Kremlin will also likely mobilize ethnically non-Russian and immigrant communities at a disproportionate rate. A member of the Kremlin’s Russian Human Rights Council, Kirill Kabanov, proposed mandatory military service for Central Asian immigrants that have received Russian citizenship within the last ten years, threatening to confiscate their Russian citizenship if they do not mobilize.[9] Current Time reported that residents of Kurumkan, a village in the Republic of Buryatia, noted that Russian enlistment officers mobilized about 700 men of the total population of 5,500 people.[10] If witness reports from Kurumkan are accurate, they would indicate that Russian officials mobilized about 25% of the male population from a single village in a majority ethnically Buryat district. An Armenian Telegram channel published a mobilization list from Tuapse, Krasnodar Krai that reportedly consists of 90% ethnically Armenian residents, despite the town’s total Armenian community being only 8.5% of the population.[11]

The Kremlin’s heavy-handed approach to mobilization is prompting public anger and distrust across Russia. Independent Russian human rights outlet OVD-Info reported that protests took place in 42 cities across the country, including protests even in small villages in the Republic of Dagestan.[12] Unidentified assailants set fire to several military recruitment centers and local administration buildings in Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Tolyatti, and Zabailkalsky Krai.[13] The Kremlin will likely subdue such protests in the coming days. However, the declaration of partial mobilization and blatant disregard for even the government-dictated parameters for the mobilization may alienate concerned swathes of the Russian public who were previously more tolerant of the less personally impactful Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Kremlin likely attempted to downplay a prisoner swap with Ukraine that is deeply unpopular among Russian nationalists and milbloggers by undertaking the swap the same day Putin announced partial mobilization. The Kremlin exchanged 215 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs), including captured foreign nationals and Azov Battalion leaders, for at least 55 Russian POWs and political prisoners, including Putin’s personal friend, Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Medvechuk, on September 21.[14] The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed on September 22 that Russian and DNR and LNR POWs were in “mortal danger” in Ukrainian custody.[15] Far-right Russian milbloggers criticized the exchange and asked if the Kremlin had given up on the ”de-Nazification” of Ukraine, one of the stated goals of the Russian invasion.[16] Kremlin propagandists had heavily publicized the capture and planned prosecution of Azov personnel, accusing them of being Ukrainian Nazis. Other milbloggers criticized the Kremlin for enabling what they called Ukrainian information operations and ”allowing Kyiv to manipulate the mood in Russia.”[17] Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov described the exchange as ”incomprehensible,” implied that Chechen forces tortured Azov prisoners in captivity, and implied that Russian forces who capture ”Nazis” should kill them rather than take them as POWs if they will be traded back to Ukraine.[18] Torturing or killing POWs is a war crime and violates the Geneva Conventions.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that it began negotiations to establish a nuclear safety zone around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). Such negotiations are unlikely to significantly ameliorate the situation due to continued Russian efforts to stage provocations at the plant. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated on September 22 that the IAEA had begun “productive conversations” with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and French President Emmanuel Macron in order to establish a Nuclear Safety and Protection Zone at the ZNPP.[19] Despite the positive intentions of external negotiators, Russian forces may use negotiations as an opportunity to stage further provocations at the ZNPP and accuse Ukrainian troops of endangering the safety of the plant, as they have repeatedly done in the past. As ISW has previously reported, Russian forces previously exploited the IAEA presence at the ZNPP in order to accuse Ukraine of disregard for nuclear safety and blame Ukrainian forces for shelling the plant, despite being unable to provide visual evidence to support their accusations.[20] Russian authorities may seek to leverage the IAEA negotiations to accuse Ukraine of nuclear irresponsibility in an attempt to degrade continued Western support to Ukraine.

Key Takeaways

• The Kremlin’s heavy-handed approach to partial mobilization may successfully meet the Kremlin’s internal quota of mobilized personnel, but is unlikely to generate effective soldiers and is prompting significant domestic backlash for little gain.
• The Kremlin is openly not adhering to its promised conditions for partial mobilization.
• Kremlin quotas will likely force local officials to mobilize men regardless of their military status and will likely incentivize the mobilization of ethnically non-Russian and immigrant communities at a disproportionate rate.
• The Kremlin likely attempted to downplay a prisoner swap with Ukraine that is deeply unpopular among Russian nationalists and milbloggers by undertaking the swap the same day Putin announced partial mobilization.
• IAEA negotiations around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant are unlikely to significantly improve the situation at the plant and may provide an opportunity for Russian forces to stage provocations.
• Ukrainian forces likely continued limited counteroffensive operations along the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border and continued attacks toward Lyman on September 22.
• Ukrainian military officials maintained their operational silence regarding Ukrainian ground attacks in Kherson Oblast on September 22 and reiterated that Ukrainian forces are conducting an operational-level interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the frontlines in Donetsk Oblast on September 22.
• Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks west of Hulyaipole on September 22 and continued routine strikes throughout western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Russian occupation forces are hurriedly setting conditions to hold sham annexation referenda across occupied Ukraine from September 23-27.
• Russian officials created polling stations in parts of Russia, ostensibly to enable displaced (in many cases meaning kidnapped) Ukrainian residents of occupied territories to “vote.”
• Russian occupation officials in Ukraine likely expect to be forced to provide personnel to meet Russian regional mobilization quotas after the Kremlin illegally annexes occupied Ukrainian territories.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

• Ukrainian Counteroffensives—Southern and Eastern Ukraine
• Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort—Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Ukrainian Counteroffensives (Ukrainian efforts to liberate Russian-occupied territories)

Eastern Ukraine: (Vovchansk-Kupyansk-Izyum-Lyman Line)

Ukrainian forces likely continued limited counteroffensive operations along the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border on September 22. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops repelled a Russian attack on Kupyansk (northeastern Kharkiv Oblast, near the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border).[21] The General Staff report is consistent with Russian milblogger claims that Ukrainian troops succeeded in breaking Russian defenses along a line that runs between Dvorichna (15km northeast of Kupyansk) to bypass Kupyansk from the north and cross the Oskil River to threaten Russian positions just east of this area.[22] The Russian milblogger also indicated that Ukrainian forces have taken ground east of Dvorichna and are fighting in Tavlizhanka, which is reportedly still contested territory.[23] While ISW cannot independently confirm these Russian claims, they are consistent with previous reporting on continued Ukrainian efforts to penetrate the current Russian defensive lines that run along the Oskil River and push eastward.

Ukrainian forces likely continued attacks toward Lyman on September 22. Several Russian sources reported fighting to the northwest of Lyman and claimed that Ukrainian troops penetrated Russian defenses in Ridkodub and Karpivka, both 20km north of Lyman.[24] Russian sources also stated that Ukrainian forces broke through at Korovii Yar (22km northwest of Lyman) and are continuing attacks in Drobysheve (just west of Lyman).[25] The Ukrainian General Staff seemingly confirmed that Ukrainian troops have made additional advances north of Lyman and stated that Russian troops shelled Yatskivka (25km northwest of Lyman) and Korovii Yar, indicating that Russian forces are targeting newly captured Ukrainian positions in this area.[26]

Southern Ukraine: (Kherson Oblast)

Ukrainian military officials maintained their operational silence regarding Ukrainian ground attacks in Kherson Oblast on September 22 and reiterated that Ukrainian forces are conducting an operational-level interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast. The Ukrainian General Staff and Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command noted that Ukrainian forces continued to strike Russian manpower and equipment concentrations, control points, logistics nodes, and transportation assets through Kherson Oblast.[27]

Social media footage provides visual evidence of continued Ukrainian interdiction efforts against Russian positions in Kherson Oblast on September 21 and 22. Geolocated footage from September 22 shows the aftermath of Ukrainian strikes in Kherson City.[28] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command also stated that Ukrainian troops hit Russian positions and equipment conglomerations around Nova Kakhovka, Beryslav, and Lvove, all along the Dnipro River and within 50km east of Kherson City.[29] Geolocated footage also shows strikes on Nova Kakhkovka on the night of September 21.[30] Ukraine’s Southern Operation Command stated that Russian forces have redeployed air defense units to Beryslav, suggesting that continued strikes are placing constant pressure on Russian positions in Kherson Oblast and necessitating increased defensive measures.[31] Ukrainian forces also struck Russian positions in northern Kherson Oblast around Novovoskresenske.[32]

Neither Russian nor Ukrainian sources discussed specific Ukrainian counteroffensive ground maneuvers in Kherson Oblast on September 22. A Russian milblogger claimed that unspecified positional battles occurring in the direction of Mykolaiv (likely northwest of Kherson City near the Kherson-Mykolaiv Oblast border) and in the direction of Kryvyi Rih (northern Kherson Oblast), but did not provide further details.[33]

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the frontlines in Donetsk Oblast on September 22. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled attacks south of Bakhmut in Zaitseve (8km southeast of Bakhmut) and Odradivka (10km south of Bakhmut along the T0513 highway).[34] Russian sources additionally indicated that Russian troops are fighting in both Zaitseve and Odradivka, making continued attempts to press northward on Bakhmut.[35] The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Territorial Defense Force claimed that DNR troops took control of Zhovanka, 20km south of Bakhmut on the northern outskirts of Horlivka.[36] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Ukrainian troops conducted a controlled withdrawal from the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut and posted imagery reportedly of a bridge over the Bakhmutka River in eastern Bakhmut that Ukrainian forces blew up as they withdrew.[37] The Ukrainian General Staff reported a limited Russian ground attack in western Donetsk Oblast and stated that Russian troops conducted an assault on Novomykhailivka, about 25km southwest of Donetsk City.[38] Russian forces continued routine strikes along the line of contact around Bakhmut, the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area, western Donetsk Oblast, and eastern Zaporizhia Oblast.[39]

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

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks west of Hulyaipole on September 22 and continued routine strikes throughout western Zaporizhia Oblast.[40] Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) stated that SBU special forces conducted a likely series of raids in an unspecified location of Zaporizhia Oblast and destroyed Russian equipment, ammunition stores, and positions over the last several days, suggesting that Ukrainian troops continue to threaten Russian positions and assets in Zaporizhia Oblast.[41] Russian troops continued routine strikes throughout Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv Oblasts, and reportedly utilized an Iranian Shahed-136 drone to attack civilian infrastructure in Kryvyi Rih.[42] Russian-appointed officials in Crimea claimed that Russian air defense systems shot down Ukrainian drones over Dzhankoi, Crimea on September 22.[43]

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

The Kremlin is likely dissatisfied with St. Petersburg officials’ recruitment efforts for regional volunteer battalions. St. Peterburg officials announced that they have completed the formation of three volunteer battalions - Kronshtadt, Neva, and Pavlovsk – after announcing recruitment efforts in July.[44] St. Petersburg’s Chief Federal Inspector Pavel Dashkov noted that ”a number” of military recruitment centers’ employees in St. Petersburg have shown their ”professional unsuitability” when conducting volunteer recruitment campaigns in the city.[45] ISW previously reported that Kremlin-sponsored outlets have blamed St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov for refusing to sign a decree that would heavily advertise recruitment into volunteer battalions.[46]

Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)

Russian occupation forces are hurriedly setting conditions to hold sham annexation referenda across occupied Ukraine from September 23-27. Ukraine’s General Staff reported on September 22 that Russian occupation authorities in Staroblisk, Luhansk Oblast are forming armed groups to go door-to-door and force locals to participate in the referendum.[47] Occupation authorities reportedly forbid the local population from leaving the city during the referendum period. Ukraine’s General Staff also reported that Russian occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast are preparing propaganda campaigns to legitimize the referenda, forming “election commissions,” and are predicating the distribution of humanitarian aid on civilians providing their personal information to occupation authorities—personal information that Russian authorities will likely use to falsify voting records. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on September 22 that it had intercepted documents from the Russian proxy Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) suggesting that DNR officials will allow children ages 13-17 to participate in Russia’s sham annexation referendum. [48]

Russian officials created polling stations in parts of Russia, ostensibly to enable displaced (in many cases meaning kidnapped) Ukrainian residents of occupied territories to “vote.” Russian officials will likely use these hundreds of voting stations to more easily rig the sham referenda. The ambassador of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) to Russia, Rodion Miroshnik, announced on September 22 that the LNR established 201 polling stations across Russia for displaced LNR residents to “vote.”[49] A Russian milblogger reported that Russian authorities established 135 polling stations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast for displaced Ukrainians to vote in the sham referendum for the DNR, LNR, Kherson, or Zaporizhia.

Russian occupation officials in Ukraine likely expect to be forced to provide personnel to meet Russian regional mobilization quotas after the Kremlin illegally annexes occupied Ukrainian territories. DNR officials reported that they would suspend mobilization efforts during the referendum period, but would still accept voluntary contract service applicants between September 23-28.[50] Both the DNR and LNR have practiced forced mobilization since the war began, but may be pausing their efforts to better prepare to meet expected Russian mobilization quotas.[51] The Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedoro, announced on September 21 that Russian occupiers plan to ban draftable Ukrainian men from leaving occupied Zaporizhia Oblast on October 1, likely to preserve a forcibly mobilizable population of Ukrainian men to fight under duress against the Ukrainian military.[52] ISW previously reported that Russian occupation officials began openly preparing ”volunteer battalions” in occupied Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts after occupation authorities announced the rushed referendum dates.[53] ISW continues to assess that Russian forces will likely coerce or physically force some Ukrainian men to fight in these units against the Ukrainian military, as Russian forces have done in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available sa­­­­tellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

[2] https://www dot interfax.ru/russia/863434

[3] https://twitter.com/evangershkovich/status/1572688378604421120; https://zona dot media/chronicle/no-mobilization#49862; https://zona dot media/chronicle/no-mobilization#49867

[4] https://meduza dot io/news/2022/09/22/v-moskve-mobilizovali-ne-sluzhivshego-aytishnika-sbera-posle-rezonansa-v-sotssetyah-voenkomat-izmenil-reshenie

[6] https://novayagazeta dot eu/articles/2022/09/22/kremlin-source-hidden-article-in-putins-mobilisation-order-allows-russia-to-draft-one-million-people-news; https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-ass...

[7] https://www.sibreal.org/a/voenkomat-yakutii-zapretil-rezervistam-uezzhat-iz-gorodov/32045704.html; https://kursk-izvestia(dot)ru/news/189683/

DNGTS: https://46tv(dot)ru/novosti/obschestvo/174545-voenkom-kurskoj-oblasti-zajavil-o-zhestkom-podhode-k-chastichnoj-mobilizacii.html ; https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1572866129940582400/photo/1; https://t.me/CITeam/2745 ; https://t.me/ostorozhno_novosti/11007

[8] https://krymsos dot com/krymsos-u-krymu-okupanty-nadsylayut-povistky-cherez-sajt-derzhavnyh-poslug/;https://www.currenttime.tv/a/v-buryatii-rezervistam-nochyu-vruchali-povestki/32046044.html; https://www.idelreal.org/a/32046288.html; https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1572621878874996736?s=20&t=bqHL23y8M8dtenoucauxNw

[9] https://www dot kommersant.ru/doc/5572240

[12] https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1572956593657974785; https://ovd dot news/news/2022/09/21/spiski-zaderzhannyh-v-svyazi-s-akciyami-protiv-mobilizacii-21-sentyabrya

[13] https://t(dot)co/wal83uoFpb ; https://twitter.com/KyleJGlen/status/1572871179593224192?s=20&t=e0WIPsd8UzlplXr7J6tw9w; https://zona dot media/news/2022/09/22/nn-voenkom; https://zona dot media/news/2022/09/22/tlt; https://zona dot media/news/2022/09/22/zoougolok; https://zona dot media/news/2022/09/22/zoougolok; https://www dot chita.ru/text/incidents/2022/09/22/71675600/

[44] https://www dot fontanka.ru/2022/09/22/71676593/; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[45] https://www dot fontanka.ru/2022/09/22/71676593/

[51] https://meduza dot io/en/feature/2022/07/12/life-here-is-going-downhill

understandingwar.org

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (22.09.22) CDS comments on key events

CDS Daily brief (22.09.22) CDS comments on key events

Humanitarian aspect:

As of the morning of September 22, 2022, more than 1,158 Ukrainian children are victims of full-scale armed aggression by the Russian Federation, Prosecutor General's Office reports. The official number of children who have died and been wounded in the course of the Russian aggression is 391, and more than 767 children, respectively. However, the data is not conclusive since data collection continues in the areas of active hostilities, temporarily occupied areas, and liberated territories.

As reported yesterday, 215 Ukrainian heroes were returned from Russian captivity in the largest POW exchange. 200 Ukrainian defenders were released in exchange for Ukrainian politician and Putin's ally, Viktor Medvedchuk, who is accused of treason in Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities claim that during the last months, law enforcement officers received all possible information from Medvedchuk about the actions he was accused of. The head of the Ukrainian Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, Kyrylo Budanov, noted that the Federal Security Service [of Russia] needed Medvedchuk [for exchange] because he is the person through whom they directly provided financing of many intelligence networks here [in Ukraine].

Five senior officers from among the defenders of Mariupol were exchanged for 55 Russian prisoners of war. The Russian authorities have not officially commented on the exchange.

Five released "Azovstal" defenders, Serhiy Volynsky, Svyatoslav Palamar, Denys Prokopenko, Oleh Khomenko, and Denys Shlega, will remain in Turkey until the end of the war. As President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said, they will stay in complete safety, in comfortable conditions, and under the personal protection of the President of Turkey. Furthermore, according to Zelensky, they will be provided with the opportunity to see their families.

Yesterday evening, the occupiers shelled the Kyivsky district of Kharkiv, 7 garages on the territory of the garage cooperative were destroyed. Due to enemy shelling in the Kupyansky district of Kharkiv Oblast, five people were injured, including a 13-year-old boy; his condition is serious. Another wounded is reported in the Kharkiv district, said the head of the Military Administration, Oleh Synehubov. In the Chuhuiv district, as a result of an enemy missile attack, the upper lock of the Pechenizka dam was damaged. Also, eight people were blown up at land mines in the Chuhuiv district of the Kharkiv region; unfortunately, four of them died, reported the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kharkiv Oblast.

This morning, Russian troops heavily shelled Zaporizhzhya. The enemy hit infrastructure facilities in Zaporizhzhya - 1 person was reported killed and five wounded. Residential buildings, a hotel in the central park (people remain under the rubble), and a TV tower are damaged.

In Donetsk Oblast, on September 21, 5 civilians were killed by Russian shelling: 2 - in Kurakhove, 1 - in Bakhmut, 1 - in Avdiivka, and 1 - in Karlivka. Another 12 people were injured.

At night, the Russians shelled Mykolaiv again. High-rise buildings, gas and water pipelines, cinema and theater courtyards, and administrative buildings were damaged.

In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, around midnight, the Russians shelled Nikopol with "Hrads" - 1 person was reported killed. In the city, 17 high-rise and private buildings, gas pipeline and power lines, two hospitals, a school, a football field, a local history museum, administrative buildings, several shops, and a market were damaged. In addition, a two-story building caught fire in Kryvyi Rih due to an enemy kamikaze drone attack. Rescuers extinguished the fire.

Occupied territories

At the pseudo-referendum of the so-called DPR, minors from 13 to 17 years of age will be allowed to vote, enabling Russian occupation authorities to "expand the electoral base," SBU said based on intercepted documents. Pseudo-referenda are planned in the so-called "DPR" and "LPR " and the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhya and Kherson Oblast. Voting in the occupied territories is planned to be held from September 23 to 27.

The legitimate mayor of occupied Melitopol recorded a video address to the local residents, urging men of the conscription age to leave the occupied territories to avoid forced mobilization.

Operational situation

It is the 211th day of the strategic air-ground offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces against Ukraine (in the official terminology of the Russian Federation – "operation to protect Donbas"). The enemy continues to concentrate its efforts on establishing full control over the territory of Donetsk Oblast, organizing defense and maintaining control over the captured territories, and disrupting intensive actions of the Ukrainian troops in certain directions.

The enemy fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces along the contact line. The Russian military takes measures to regroup troops and constantly conducts aerial reconnaissance.

Over the past 24 hours, the enemy has launched 8 missile and 16 air strikes and carried out 115 MLRS shelling of military and civilian objects on the territory of Ukraine, violating the norms of international humanitarian law, the laws and customs of warfare. The infrastructure of more than 40 towns and villages, including Siversk, Maryinka, Vesele, Neskuchne, Yehorivka, Bezimenne, Biloghirka, Myrolyubivka, Visokopilya, Senkivka, and Huta-Studenetska of the Chernihiv Oblast were damaged as a result of the strikes by Russian troops. The threat of air and missile strikes remains on the entire territory of Ukraine.

Violation of the norms of International Humanitarian Law and customs of warfare remains the norm of the behavior of Russian servicemen in the temporarily occupied territories. Thus, in the Svativ district, in order to hide the engineering equipment, the Russian occupiers forcibly evicted the residents of Honcharivka and Kuzmenivka from their homes and moved them deep into the

temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk Oblast. In Mykolaiv Oblast, the Russian military seized milk trucks from territorial communities and used them to deliver fuel to the war zone covertly.

The Ukrainian Defense Forces Aviation made 41 strikes on enemy positions, damaging 21 manpower and military equipment concentration areas, 4 enemy strongholds, and 15 positions of anti-aircraft missile systems.

Over the past day, Ukrainian missile forces and artillery inflicted fire damage on 24 enemy objects, in particular, on four command and control points of various levels, four areas of concentration of personnel, weapons, and military equipment, and seven ammunition and fuel depots. In addition, four enemy air defense facilities and artillery were in the affected areas.

The morale and psychological state of the personnel of the invasion forces remain low. Kharkiv direction

• Zolochiv-Balakleya section: approximate length of combat line - 147 km, number of BTGs of the

RF Armed Forces - 10-12, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 13.3 km;

• Deployed enemy BTGs: 26th, 153rd, and 197th tank regiments, 245th motorized rifle regiment of the 47th tank division, 6th and 239th tank regiments, 228th motorized rifle regiment of the 90th tank division, 1st motorized rifle regiment, 1st tank regiment of the 2nd motorized rifle division, 25th and 138th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 6th Combined Arms Army, 27th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Tank Army, 275th and 280th motorized rifle regiments, 11th tank regiment of the 18th motorized rifle division of the 11 Army Corps, 7th motorized rifle regiment of the 11th Army Corps, 80th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 14th Army Corps, 2nd and 45th separate SOF brigades of the Airborne Forces, 1st Army Corps of so-called DPR, PMCs.

The enemy shelled the positions of Ukrainian troops with tanks, mortars, barrel and rocket artillery in the areas of Strilecha, Hlyboke, Morokhovets, Gatyshche, Vovchansk, Kamianka, Kupyansk, and Osykove.

Kramatorsk direction

● Balakleya - Siversk section: approximate length of the combat line - 184 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17-20, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.6 km;

● 252nd and 752nd motorized rifle regiments of the 3rd motorized rifle division, 1st, 13th, and 12th tank regiments, 423rd motorized rifle regiment of the 4th tank division, 201st military base, 15th, 21st, 30th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Combined Arms Army, 35th, 55th and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 3rd and 14th separate SOF brigades, 2nd and 4th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Army Corps, 7th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Army Corps, PMCs.

The enemy shelled the Ukrainian Defense Forces with tanks, mortars, barrel and rocket artillery in the areas of Sloviansk, Koroviy Yar, Bohorodychne, Oleksandrivka, Yarova, Pryshyb, Dibrova, Donetske, and Raihorodok.

Donetsk direction

● Siversk - Maryinka section: approximate length of the combat line - 235 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 13-15, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 17 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 68th and 163rd tank regiments, 102nd and 103rd motorized rifle regiments of the 150 motorized rifle division, 80th tank regiment of the 90th tank division, 35th, 55th, and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 31st separate airborne assault brigade, 61st separate marines brigade of the Joint Strategic Command "Northern Fleet," 336th separate marines brigade, 24th separate SOF brigade, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 15th, and 100th separate motorized rifle brigades, 9th and 11th separate motorized rifle regiment of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, 6th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.

The enemy fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces near Mykolaivka, Soledar, Bakhmutske, Bakhmut, Rozdolivka, Yakovlivka, Bilohorivka, Mayorsk, Krasnohorivka, Avdiivka, Kamianka, Opytne, Maryinka, and Vodyane.

Over the past day, Ukrainian troops repelled enemy attacks in the areas of Zaitseve, Odradivka, and Novomykhailivka.

Zaporizhzhya direction

● Maryinka – Vasylivka section: approximate length of the line of combat - 200 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 11.7 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 36th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 29th Combined Arms Army, 38th and 64th separate motorized rifle brigades, 69th separate cover brigade of the 35th Combined Arms Army, 5th separate tank brigade, 37 separate motorized rifle brigade of the 36th Combined Arms Army, 135th, 429th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments of the 19th motorized rifle division of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 70th, 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 136th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 58 Combined Arms Army, 46th and 49th machine gun artillery regiments of the 18th machine gun artillery division of the 68th Army Corps, 39th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 68th Army Corps, 83th separate airborne assault brigade, 40th and 155th separate marines brigades, 22nd separate SOF brigade, 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, and 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.

The enemy fired with artillery at about 16 towns and villages, including Vuhledar, Prechystivka, Hulyaipilske, Neskuchne, Vremivka, and Novopil.

The operational deployment of troops of the 41st Combined Arms Army in the Mariupol direction continues. Up to two BTGs from the 74th and 35th separate motorized rifle brigades have already concentrated in the starting area, and the BTG of the 55th separate motorized rifle brigade has started moving.

The Russian command's decision to strengthen the Melitopol and Mariupol indicates its attention to the maintenance of the land corridor to the Republic of Crimea, even at the expense of other directions.

The 19th and 42nd motorized rifle divisions of the 58th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District are already conducting combat operations in this direction. Three BTGs of the 150th motorized rifle division of the 8th Combined Arms Army are deployed in Maryanka-Velyka Novosilka, two BTGs of the 5th separate tank brigade and 37th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 36th and 29th Combined Arms Army are in the area of Volnovakha.

A week before the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region, the enemy command also moved two BTGs of the 127th motorized rifle division of the 5th Combined Arms Army of the Eastern Military District to this direction.

In addition to the above, in the Melitopol and Mariupol directions, there are enemy tactical formations of the 22nd separate SOF brigade, 810th separate marines brigade, three tactical groups of the "operational component" of the Russian Guard, a combined group of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called "People's Militia of DPR" (mainly from units of the artillery brigade "Kalmius" in almost full strength and at least two rifle battalions of the mobilization reserve of the 1st Army Corps), up to two PMC assault battalions (PMC "Redut" participation is confirmed).

The available information makes us assume that the Russian command is concentrating grouping with forces of up to 18-20 BTGs and continues to increase it in the Zaporizhzhya and Pokrovsky- Malomykhailovsky directions in the section from Kamianske to Volodymyrivka.

Additional enemy BTG from the 78th special forces regiment "Akhmat-North" was deployed to the defense line of the 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division of the 58th Combined Arms Army. Two battalions of the 1st Army Corps and a combined tactical group of the 150th motorized rifle division of the 8th Combined Arms Army took active action in the area of Maryinka and south of it. They are trying to outflank the units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces defending Vuhledar and break through to Kurakhovo from the south and east.

In the areas of Polohy and Nesteryanka, units of the first echelon from the 29th or 36th Combined Arms Armies were deployed to the first line of defense in Kopany and Novoprokopivka (to be confirmed).

Kherson direction

● Vasylivka–Nova Zburyivka and Stanislav section: approximate length of the battle line - 252 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 27, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.3 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 114th, 143rd, and 394th motorized rifle regiments, 218th tank regiment of the 127th motorized rifle division of the 5th Combined Arms Army, 57th and 60th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 5th Combined Arms Army, 135th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments

of the 19th motorized rifle division, 70th, 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division, 51st and 137th parachute airborne regiments of the 106th parachute airborne division, 7th military base of the 49th Combined Arms Army, 16th and 346th separate SOF brigades.

There is no change in the operational situation.

Kherson-Berislav bridgehead

● Velyka Lepetikha – Oleksandrivka section: approximate length of the battle line – 250 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces – 22, the average width of the combat area of one BTG –

11.8 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 108th Air assault regiment, 171st separate airborne assault brigade of the 7th Air assault division, 4th military base of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 429th motorized rifle regiment of the 19th motorized rifle division, 33rd and 255th motorized rifle regiments of the 20th motorized rifle division, 34th, and 205th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 49th Combined Arms Army, 224th, 237th and 239th Air assault regiments of the 76th Air assault division, 217th and 331 Air assault regiments of the 98th Air assault division, 126th separate coastal defense brigade, 127th separate ranger brigade, 11th separate airborne assault brigade, 10th separate SOF brigade, PMC.

More than 25 towns and villages along the contact line were shelled. The enemy made more than

30 sorties of UAVs to conduct reconnaissance, adjust fire and launch strikes on civilian infrastructure objects.

Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area:

The forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet continue to project force on the coast and the continental part of Ukraine and control the northwestern part of the Black Sea. The ultimate goal is to deprive Ukraine of access to the sea and connect unrecognized Transnistria with the Russian Federation by land through the coast of the Black and Azov seas.

After the storm in the Black Sea ended, the number of enemy ships at sea significantly increased. Currently, there are 14 warships at sea providing reconnaissance and blocking navigation in the Azov-Black Sea waters. Among them are three cruise missile carriers: two project 1135.6 frigates and one Buyan-M missile corvette. Up to 24 Kalibr missiles can be ready for a salvo.

Due to the intensification of stormy weather on the coast of the Odesa Oblast, the danger of mines remains.

One of the two submarines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which has remained in the Mediterranean Sea since the beginning of the war (Turkey did not let it into the Black Sea due to the requirements of the Montreux Convention), went to the bases of the Baltic fleet for repairs. It has been confirmed that all four submarines of project 636.3, which are in the Black Sea, have moved to the port of Novorossiysk due to fears of attacks.

Enemy rocket and artillery attacks at Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Ochakiv resumed. The enemy uses cruise missiles, S-300 air defense systems, anti-aircraft missiles, and artillery. On September 21, the port of Ochakiv was fired upon by two Iranian-made kamikaze drones. A very loud flight sound characterizes drones. In fact, the drone can first be heard and then seen. The best means of countermeasures is to mask positions and defense objects.

On September 22, from 00:16 to 00:22, Mykolaiv was subjected to massive enemy missile fire from the S-300 air defense system. As a result, the seaport area was hit; the resort of the state enterprise "Zorya-Mashproekt" (oil depot area), the Mykolaiv Art Drama Theater building, and residential buildings were damaged.

Enemy aviation continues to fly from Crimean airfields Belbek and Gvardiyske over the northwestern part of the Black Sea. Over the past day, 13 enemy Su-27, Su-30, and Su-24 aircraft from Belbek and Saki airfields were involved. The Russian Federation is intensifying aviation use in the south of Ukraine and the Black Sea.

In the area of Sevastopol, enemy forces and means of air defense were repeatedly activated. At night, flights of unidentified lethal aircraft were recorded over the southern coast of Crimea.

On the Omega beach near the entrance to the Sevastopol naval base, an unidentified unmanned reconnaissance craft was found, which sailed unhindered to the Crimean coast.

The domestic political situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has undergone certain changes over the past day inciting informational hysteria about the introduction of the so-called "partial mobilization measures."

The so-called "governor" of Sevastopol Razvozhaev personally headed the conscription commission, which would deal with partial mobilization in the city. He stated, "there could be no other solution when there is a real threat of the destruction of our country." Because of the "partial mobilization" announced in Russia, panic is spreading on the peninsula. There are actually no people willing to fight. Local residents call Putin's initiative "the beginning of the end." Calls to mobilize people from the "LPR/DPR" and the children of officials are spreading.

At the same time, oppression and persecution of Ukrainian citizens [remaining in Crimea] continue, including through illegal court actions.

"Grain initiative": the fourth UN-chartered vessel left with Ukrainian wheat for Afghanistan. On September 22, the bulk carrier BC VANESSA, chartered by the UN World Food Program (WFP), left Odesa port with 30,000 tons of wheat on board. The bulker will arrive at a port in Pakistan, where the grain will be unloaded and delivered to the people of Afghanistan. Currently, the population of this country is suffering from a food crisis. BC VANESSA is one of the seven ships that today took out 107.5 thousand tons of agricultural products for the countries of Asia and Europe from the ports of Great Odesa.

Since the start of the implementation of the "grain initiative," 192 vessels have departed from Ukrainian ports. In total, 4.38 million tons of agricultural products were exported to the countries of Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 22.09

Personnel - almost 55,510 people (+400);

Tanks – 2,236 (+9);

Armored combat vehicles – 4,776 (+28);

Artillery systems – 1,341 (+1);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 318 (0); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 169 (+1); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 3,630 (+20); Aircraft - 253 (0);

Helicopters – 218 (+1);

UAV operational and tactical level - 941 (+9); Intercepted cruise missiles - 241 (+1);

Boats / ships - 15 (0).

Ukraine, general news

The World Bank invested in Ukraine for the first time since the beginning of the war. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is part of the structure of the World Bank, has allocated $30 million for investments in Ukraine and Moldova, the Ministry of Economy reports.

The President created a working group that would create a tribunal for the crimes of the [Russian] occupiers. Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President, was appointed as head, and Andriy Smirnov, deputy head of the Presidential Office, as coordinator.

International diplomatic aspect

There was a sigh of relief in Ukraine, as 215 Ukrainian and several foreign heroic defenders of Mariupol were released under the swap agreement negotiated with the mediation of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. However, while Ukrainians celebrated the return of their worriers, there was a massive outcry among the Russian ultra-nationalists. Paradoxically, Russians disregard their people who were released, while Ukrainians discount those given to Russia, namely Viktor Medvedchuk, a long-term Russian influencer in Ukrainian politics and economy.

"Every [UN Security] council member should send a clear message that these reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately," Antony Blinken told the foreign ministers at the UN Security Council meeting. "We, of course, are attentive to managing escalation in this conflict. We believe that we have been able to navigate those two basic lines [support of Ukraine and avoidance of a direct clash between the US and Russia] for the last several months, and nothing about what's happened in the last 24 hours changes either the President's conviction to stick with Ukraine as long as it takes or for us to pay close attention to all the various scenarios that could unfold including escalation scenarios, and we are planning against those… We are

sending very clear and strong messages to Russia about the consequences of escalation," said a senior Administration official about the POTUS meetings at the UN.

"I pledge that we will sustain or increase our military support to Ukraine for as long as it takes… We will not rest until Ukraine prevails," said the UK Prime Minister.

Any threat from the Russian President to use nuclear weapons is "unacceptable." Still, Germany will continue to support Ukraine and try to prevent an escalation in the war between Russia and Ukraine, the German Chancellor told ARD television.

"The references to nuclear weapons do not shake our determination, resolve, and unity to stand by Ukraine and our comprehensive support to Ukraine's ability to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty as long as it takes… We will continue supporting its efforts through the provision of military equipment as long as necessary," the EU stated in response to Putin's nuclear saber-rattling.

Whether Vladimir Putin succeeded in deterring the West from stepping up its support for Ukraine with more capable weapons (ATACMS and MBTs alike) remains to be seen but politically, he was condemned. Yet, at the same time, Ukraine was assured of support for "as long as it takes."

"As with Crimea, it's imperative that every member of this council, and for that matter, every member of the UN, reject the sham referenda and unequivocally declare that all Ukrainian territory is and will remain part of Ukraine, and no Russian claim to annex territory can take away Ukraine's right to defend its own land," said the US Secretary of State.

The EU condemned the Kremlin's plans to hold illegal "referenda" and consequently annex parts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhya regions. Russia's actions in Ukraine were called a threat to peace and security in Europe and worldwide. The EU and its Member States will never recognize these areas as anything but a part of Ukraine.

Russian opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov reacted to "the partial mobilization" announced by Putin: "They are drafting additional cannon fodder. It's the latest funeral campaign that Putin has announced." He said, "I carefully read Putin's whole order. They are mobilizing everyone." And he is right. There was a covert mobilization before, and contrary to promises and in violation of law, Putin sent to the war conscripts. So, in this logic and translation from the Orwellian language, the so-called partial mobilization means a total one, at least those the military commissariats will be able to capture.

While some Russians went on the streets to protest mobilization (not the war itself), the others set to run. Meduza, a Russian liberal media, even published an article with a list of countries to escape: "Where to escape from Russia right now." It's reported that tickets to countries that do not require a visa were almost immediately sold out, with prices to some destinations like Armenia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan reportedly hitting €2,000 bar. Social media is full of videos

showing long queues to cross the border with neighboring countries. While the Baltic states de facto closed their borders for almost all Russians, Finland is considering imposing more restrictions. "Political asylum is granted to those who are persecuted for their beliefs" or other similar reasons, said the Lithuanian Minister of Defence. Kazakhstan warns that it won't issue permanent residence permits to Russian citizens without Russian authorities' permission. In the meantime, Germany is prepared to accept Russian deserters under certain circumstances. "As a rule, deserters threatened by severe repression receive international protection in Germany," said the country's Interior Minister.

Centre for Defence Strategies (CDS) is a Ukrainian security think tank. We operate since 2020 and are involved in security studies, defence policy research and advocacy. Currently all our activity is focused on stopping the ongoing war.

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3. The US should help Russian mothers get the truth out about Putin's war

I am afraid all the controversy about the recent "secret squirrel" information warfare exposure stuff will prevent the focus on the very important overt work that must be dones such as recommended here.

The US should help Russian mothers get the truth out about Putin's war

Washington Examiner · September 23, 2022

Russians are taking to the streets in protest at President Vladimir Putin's partial mobilization of military reservists. While demonstrators from all backgrounds have participated, it is Russian women who could prove to have the greatest impact. They are poised to resist Putin’s demand that their sons, fathers, and brothers go to war in Ukraine. To help in their cause, the United States should focus information operations on Russian women by encouraging them to protest and spreading their message to others.

Putin’s announcement marks Russia’s first military mobilization since World War II. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that 300,000 reservists would be called up to military service and promised to limit recruitment to those that had previously served in or been affiliated with the military. Of course, most Russians know not to take the government at its word — not with inmates being conscripted and ethnic minorities disproportionately pressured to join the Russian army. But Russia does need the numbers.

The U.S. government estimates that Russian casualties in Ukraine exceed 70,000 killed and wounded. The Kremlin says the figure is far lower. And thanks to a law Putin signed in March, if Russians deviate from the Kremlin's talking points, they can be jailed for five to 10 years. However, these threats did not stop people from protesting on Wednesday. History has repeatedly demonstrated the potential for Russian mothers to mobilize their grief into action. Soviet mothers played a major role in undermining public support for the Soviet war in Afghanistan. In Chechnya, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers played an even more active role, launching large protests and marches against the war. The organization exposed atrocities and advised mothers on how to prevent the conscription of their children. Since 2014, the committee has fought against war in Ukraine, bringing attention to the deaths of Russian soldiers in spite of the Kremlin’s denial of formal involvement during the early stages of the war. During the onset of Russia’s recent invasion this year, the committee again exposed the use of conscripts in combat. The subsequent labeling of the committee under Russia’s "Foreign Agents" law suggests the Kremlin is cognizant of the threat Russian mothers pose to their pro-war narratives.

It is high time that Washington should help ordinary Russians retake the messaging around the invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. is not a stranger to information operations. During the Cold War, information warfare was a successful strategic tool that spread American culture and incited dissent in Eastern Europe. Given that outright conflict between Russia and the U.S. remains a remote possibility, the Kremlin sees its information operations as its most consequential offensive against America. As Russian strategists note, "A new-generation war will be dominated by information and psychological warfare."

Well, two can play at that game.

To counter Putin’s propaganda machine, the U.S. should engage in information operations that specifically help Russian women. Such social media campaigns should be accompanied with memes and videos that show how young Russians are being killed in Ukraine. In order to reach Russians, the U.S. should use the platforms most popular in the country such as VK, Instagram, YouTube, or Telegram. Further, the U.S. should invest in helping Russian-speaking social media influencers who live abroad spread the truth about the state of Putin’s invasion.

Critics will say that American information operations are manipulative, but the Kremlin thrives on making the Russian people feel isolated in their doubts about the government. American information warfare against the Kremlin would help Russians rally around positions they already have, but cannot express safely.

Dr. Ivana Stradner serves as an adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies's Barish Center for Media Integrity, where her research focuses on Russia’s information operations and cybersecurity, particularly Russia’s use of advanced forms of hybrid warfare and the threat they pose to the West. Follow her on @IvanaStradner.

Washington Examiner · September 23, 2022

4. HIMARS and MLRS Are Great But Ukraine Needs More M119A3 Artillery Guns

HIMARS and MLRS Are Great But Ukraine Needs More M119A3 Artillery Guns

19fortyfive.com · by Cam McMillan · September 22, 2022

More M119A3 – What Ukraine Truly Needs: While more modern and long-range weapon systems, especially HIMARS and MLRS, have captured most of the conversation about U.S. military support for Ukraine, the role of cannon artillery cannot be underappreciated.

Long-Range Weapons on the Field

It’s understandable that these big-ticket items get the most attention because of their range, accuracy, and strategic importance. But, despite the never-ending debate about which missiles the U.S. should or should not send, the DoD has made clear that the U.S. will likely retain the status quo of missile and rocket support, remaining hesitant to provide longer-range weapons.

Additionally, while Ukraine’s counter-offensive has been extremely successful, the war is far from over as the DoD foresees a fall of tough fighting before a winter stalemate. Undoubtedly, the effects of HIMARS and MLRS in shaping operations proved vital for the counteroffensive to be as successful as it has been. But the war has moved into a new phase, a phase where Ukraine possesses the momentum and initiative in an offensive where its maneuvering forces are fighting to close in on and destroy the enemy. The mission of the artillery is to enable those maneuver forces to do just that, not simply to flex muscle by destroying long-range targets.

Adapt Equipment Supplies Based on Need

As it has throughout the war, U.S. support should adapt to meet the needs of Ukrainians. In this new phase, cannon artillery will be vital in providing these maneuver forces with the fire support they need. It’s important to remember that the Ukrainian Army is largely modeled after NATO armies, namely the U.S., which currently utilizes brigade combat teams (BCTs) to conduct large-scale ground operations as a “joint team” of varying units. Further, while the U.S. Army is looking to move away from the BCT model, in favor of returning to divisions and corps to meet near pear threats, you fight with the army you have, not the army you want. In the U.S. Army, fire support for BCTs is rarely provided by HIMARS or MLRS. Instead, in most cases, it comes from lighter, towed cannon artillery pieces.

While HIMARS and MLRS may be division- or even corps-level assets, under the discretion of a general, howitzers like the M777A2 and M119A3 are the BCT’s organic assets. This allows the field artillery battalion to be integrated into the larger brigade’s mission and operations, providing fluid and timely fire support to its assigned maneuver battalions and companies.

In quick and decisive offensive operations, where Ukrainian forces are constantly adapting to Russian defenses, these cannon artillery batteries provide the firepower those maneuver units rely on.

M119A3: Making the Case Artillery

This brings us to the U.S. Army’s primary artillery piece in light infantry brigade combat teams (IBCTs), the M119A3 (119ers in artillery vernacular). The 119ers don’t pack the punch or have the range of the M777A2, but that is for good reason. First, they are light enough to meet the needs of light infantry units, retaining high mobility relative to an IBCT’s speed and tempo.

Likewise, their relatively short range, 14.5 km or 19.5 km with RAP (rocket assisted projectile), meets most of the needs of light infantry units that rarely outrun their artillery support like armor or mechanized units. Most importantly, what they lack in range and effect radius is made for with an exceptional rate of fire of 6 rounds per minute for two minutes or three rounds per minute of sustained fire. Finally, the 119er has a comparable digital fire control system to the M777A2, which increases capabilities, both in terms of speed and accuracy. These capabilities allow 119er batteries (6 guns when fully fielded) to emplace, fire, and displace efficiently and quickly. This is crucial in providing timely and accurate fires that meet the needs of Ukrainian maneuver forces. For those readers who keep feeling lost when they hear “combined arms operations” all over cable news, this is a key component: integrating effective and mobile fires with maneuver forces.

Combined Arms Can Be More Effective in the field

Combined arms are especially important when facing an enemy like Russia, which has an entirely different doctrine of warfare, one based around artillery instead of maneuver, and outguns and outranges even most NATO artillery. Those Russian capabilities and doctrine, which treats artillery as “the god of war,” means that Ukrainian artillery needs to shoot quickly and displace quickly before Russian artillery has the chance to counterfire. And, since Ukrainian units can’t take quick and effective Russian counterfire for granted, meaning that they can’t spend too much time firing from the same position, their shots need to count when they fire. The 119er is the ideal weapon system to meet that challenge in terms of mobility, survivability, and capability.

While the M119 would meet many needs of Ukrainian forces, it would also be less of a cost to the U.S., which has depleted many of its reserves by providing longer-range and more modern weapon systems and ammunition. M119s, and the accompanying 105mm ammunition, on the other hand, do not pose the same threat to America’s own defense needs. Many Army units have already transitioned from the M119, seeking longer-range fires and an armament more centered on rockets and missiles. While this means that the U.S. has more M119s in storage, it also means that providing 105mm ammunition is less valuable than the 155mm ammunition of the M777 and M109, which are still very much in service. As the U.S. Army seeks to shift and expand its artillery capabilities to meet near-peer threats in Asia and Europe, meaning moving away from the M119, it can also meet the needs of a crucial partner in Ukraine.

So far, the U.S. has committed to providing twenty 1055mm howitzers with 180,000 rounds of ammunition. We can and should do more. And the U.S. is not the only country that has provided 105mm howitzers to Ukraine. British L119 105mm cannons have already proved effective on the battlefield and superior to the soviet-style D-30 that previously served as the light Ukrainian howitzer. Likewise, Lithuania has handed over some of its own 105mm howitzers. The various 105mm pieces of other NATO nations have joined them.

While providing Ukraine with necessary HIMARS and MLRS is vital, it’s equally important that these big-ticket items don’t distract from other needs. Ukraine needs more than what captures headlines. Warfare is all-encompassing. It is not solely waged in the form of high-level targets and strategic strikes on bridges. At this very moment, Ukrainian soldiers across the front are engaged in direct combat. It is surely a brutal and horrific fight. The average Ukrainian infantryman will likely not have the protection of HIMARS or MLRS. Nor will he or she probably see its impact. That is for the generals and intelligence officials.

Army paratroopers fire M119 105mm Howitzers during gunnery training at Yukon Training Area, Alaska, May 7, 2021.

U.S. Army photo Army Maj. Jason Welch

The infantry and artillery soldiers’ war will be fought where it always has: in the mud and in front of their faces. So, while we ensure strategic needs are met with MLRS and HIMARS, let’s not forget that a Ukrainian infantry platoon is probably in desperate need of fire support right now. The M119A3, and systems like it, are probably the best chance they have.

Cam McMillan served as a field artillery officer in the US Army and is an Iraq combat veteran. Cam works as an assistant director of program administration at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University and is a Masters candidate in global studies & international relations at Northeastern University. The views expressed in this article are solely his own.

19fortyfive.com · by Cam McMillan · September 22, 2022

5. Biden’s Iran Policy After the Protests

Conclusion (and the key question):

The Biden administration faces a simple question: Does it have the political will to act in a sustained manner against Iran’s human rights abuses and repression of protests? Or will the recent string of designations be yet another one-off?

Biden’s Iran Policy After the Protests

The recent wave of unrest is an opportunity to reset America’s approach to the Islamic Republic.

Behnam Ben Taleblu and Saeed Ghasseminejad

12 hr ago

thedispatch.com · by Behnam Ben Taleblu

Dozens of people stage a demonstration to protest the death of a 22-year-old woman under custody in Tehran. (Photo by Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.)

Few world leaders gathered this week for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) appeared as isolated as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. As he delivered predictable anti-American attacks from the podium, Iranians were risking life and limb to protest the Islamic Republic at home. While the Biden administration’s approach to Iran has featured one too many pulled punches, the recent protests offer an opportunity to recalibrate.

The latest round of protests were sparked by the Iranian government’s killing of a woman named Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old had been detained and beaten by Iran’s morality police—which enforce strict Islamic social norms—over alleged violations of the country’s hijab laws. She was pronounced dead at Tehran’s Kasra hospital last week.

Iranian authorities alleged that Amini had a pre-existing health condition, a dubious explanation rejected by her family and broad swaths of Iranian society. Amini’s death touched off days of protests and acts of defiance across the country. Media reports suggest the regime has killed dozens of people already, and that number is expected to rise. Authorities have again resorted to using internet blackouts to mask the regime’s repression and impede protesters. This is not the first time in recent years that demonstrators have moved from demanding reform to openly seeking revolution.

Yet officials from the Iranian government were welcomed to New York this week, as clear a symbol of the Biden administration’s Iran policy incoherence as any. Raisi sits at the helm of the most sanctioned cabinet in Iranian history. Raisi and his chief of staff are subject to U.S. and EU sanctions, yet both were granted visas to New York.

It’s too late to undo this embarrassment, but it’s still possible for the administration to live up to its promise of a human-rights–centric foreign policy. More specifically, Biden and other top national security officials can act on their stated desire to stand with demonstrating Iranians and hold “accountable” those involved in Amini’s death or repressing protests.

We have previously recommended in these pages what amounts to a “maximum pressure” against the Islamic Republic—and one of “maximum support” to the Iranian people. This includes walking away from negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, implementing a “protest policy playbook” to support Iranians who are demonstrating, and isolating the government at international organizations. But there are actions short of these broader steps that can be taken immediately.

The administration currently has all the legal and political authorities necessary to engage in a targeted campaign of designations against those responsible for killing Amini, as well as those cracking down on protesters across Iran.

The administration can work with the Treasury Department to sanction persons and entities who engage in human rights violations or censorship activities, pursuant to executive orders 13553 and 13846. These orders target persons and entities who engage in human rights violations or censorship activities including but not limited to penalizing freedom of expression and assembly, respectively. Put simply, these penalties put offenders on America’s economic blacklist through an asset freeze.

There is also a route for diplomatic pressure. The State Department, under Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2021, can levy a visa ban against foreign government officials and their families for gross rights violations. Children and families of regime elites live extravagant lives abroad. The reason for such a ban was best made by popular retired Iranian footballer Ali Karimi, who tweeted in the aftermath of the killing of Mahsa Amini that, “Their children leave. Our children die.”

On Thursday, the Biden administration drew on some of these authorities to target Iran’s morality police, which is a component of the already sanctioned law-enforcement forces (LEF). The administration also appears to have issued a string of designations against officials who have supported cracking down on protesters in jurisdictions witnessing demonstrations.

Individuals that the administration recently designated include the Tehran and national chiefs for the morality police, Haj Ahmad Mirzaei and Mohammad Rostami. The administration also sanctioned four security officials at the national level including but not limited to the head of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces as well as the Minister of Intelligence. But there are more targets that the administration can and should consider.

Following the logic of local designations, additional provincial law enforcement chiefs could be subject to sanctions due to the use of force against protesters. Two prominent examples include Hossein Rahimi and Ali Azadi, who serve as chief of police for Tehran and Kurdistan. And while LEF chief Hossein Ashtari is already sanctioned, he could be subject to the aforementioned 2021 law to ensure a visa ban against him and his family. The same could apply for Ashtari’s deputy, Qasem Rezaei, in addition to all the other senior security officials designated this week.

Scaling down, the administration could even target LEF commanders of smaller cities witnessing protests and violent repression. Potential candidates could include the commanders of the LEF in Divandarreh, Saqqez, Babol, and Bokan, who are Col. Abbas Abdi, Col. Seyyed Ali Saffari, and Col. Mohammad Zaman Shalikar and Colonel Salman Heydari, respectively. In Bokan for instance, a 10-year-old girl was shot in the head. Washington could also explore the potential applicability of sanctions against local political officials, who are likely to retain ties to LEF units in their jurisdiction such as governors. In Saqqez for instance, protests took place outside of governor Kamil Karimian’s office.

Scaling up, the administration could study the feasibility of sanctioning national level political officials, such General Ahmad Vahidi, who serves as minister of interior, and Issa Zarepour, who serves as minister of information and communications technology. The Treasury Department previously sanctioned Vahidi’s predecessor for control over the LEF, and has already sanctioned Vahidi but not under human rights authorities. Vahidi also has an INTERPOL red notice against him for his role in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Argentina in 1994. Now would be a prudent time to update Vahidi’s designation.

Treasury previously sanctioned Zarepour’s predecessor for internet censorship and throttling internet access, particularly after the Aban or November 2019 protests. Given that the Islamic Republic continues to engage in this activity, Treasury should update its sanctions lists by targeting the next person in charge of continuing internet censorship in Iran.

We aren’t delusional about the chances of this happening, but it would be logical to apply sanctions against Iran’s supreme leader himself, Ali Khamenei. Sitting atop the regime, Khamenei is the ultimate arbiter of Iran’s security policy at home and abroad. He also serves as the country’s commander in chief.

While sanctioned under Executive Order 13876, which targets his office and network of appointees, Khamenei has not been subject to any human rights penalties. This is despite his reported authorization of the violent crackdown in 2019 that led to the death of about 1,500 Iranians. “The Islamic Republic is in danger. Do whatever it takes to end it. You have my order,” is what one source quoting Khamenei told Reuters in December 2019. It’s likely that Khamenei continues to be involved in, or at least made abreast of, regime responses to protests of a similar scale against the Islamic Republic.

The Biden administration faces a simple question: Does it have the political will to act in a sustained manner against Iran’s human rights abuses and repression of protests? Or will the recent string of designations be yet another one-off?

Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) where Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior adviser. Both contribute to FDD’s Iran Program and Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP), among others. The views expressed are their own.

thedispatch.com · by Behnam Ben Taleblu

6. FDD | U.S. May Allow Payment to Iran for Hostages

September 23, 2022 | Flash Brief

FDD | U.S. May Allow Payment to Iran for Hostages

fdd.org · September 23, 2022

The Biden administration may be preparing to issue a national security waiver authorizing the transfer of $7 billion to Iran from South Korean-based accounts subject to U.S. terrorism sanctions. The transfer would proceed in exchange for the release of U.S. hostages and would reportedly be the first step in a multi-phased nuclear deal with Iran. However, the payment may occur prior to the accord’s announcement in order to evade legal prohibitions on suspending Iran sanctions prior to congressional review of a nuclear agreement. Transferring $7 billion to Iran in exchange for U.S. hostages would be a significant change in U.S. policy, which prohibits paying for hostages, and would ignore requests by Gold Star Families to compel Tehran to pay federal terrorism judgments prior to the release of funds.

Expert Analysis

“Paying for hostages is a dangerous policy that incentivizes the kidnapping of American citizens. This is also a slap in the face to Gold Star Families who asked President Biden not to release any funds until all terror judgments are paid. Congress should not allow the administration to circumvent the law by releasing billions in funds tied to terrorism sanctions prior to congressional review of the broader nuclear deal.” – Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor

U.S. and South Korea Coordinating on Iran Deal, Hostages

Following a meeting last week between U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley and South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister, Malley tweeted, “We thank the Republic of Korea for their close partnership, including their efforts to help ensure the return of our wrongfully detained citizens in Iran and to reach a deal on JCPOA.” Malley’s tweet apparently links the potential release of $7 billion held in South Korea to the broader nuclear deal negotiations. In late August, leaked details of the nuclear agreement revealed that the release of $7 billion from South Korea would be the first step taken in a new nuclear deal’s sequencing.

Evasion of Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act

A presidential national security waiver would likely be necessary to facilitate the transfer of funds from South Korea to Iran. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), however, explicitly restricts the president from waiving statutory sanctions as part of a nuclear agreement with Iran for 30 days — giving Congress time to review and potentially reject the deal. By ostensibly tying the $7 billion to the release of prisoners and issuing a waiver prior to announcing a nuclear deal, the administration may intend to provide Iran upfront sanctions relief that would otherwise be in violation of INARA.

A Dangerous Precedent of Paying for Hostages

Even if the $7 billion release of funds to Iran were truly disconnected from the nuclear deal, policymakers should object to a policy of paying for the release of U.S. hostages. In 2015, the Obama administration negotiated a similar scheme alongside the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, sending Iran $400 million — the first installment of a $1.7 billion payment — at the same time Tehran released four Americans. The result was more hostages taken by Iran, including Baquer Namazi, Xiyue Wang, Morad Tahbaz, and Emad Shargi. If $1.7 billion encouraged the regime to take more hostages, $7 billion will guarantee much more hostage-taking to come.

Related Analysis

“Iran Releases a U.S. Resident Taken Hostage,” by Tzvi Kahn

“Tehran Sentences U.S. Hostage to 10 Years in Prison,” by Tzvi Kahn

“Iran’s Hostages-for-Cash Scheme Continues – How Should the West Respond?” by Saeed Ghasseminejad and Annie Fixler

fdd.org · September 23, 2022

7. FDD | Israel, Lebanon Near Agreement on Mediterranean Gas Field

September 23, 2022 | Flash Brief

FDD | Israel, Lebanon Near Agreement on Mediterranean Gas Field

fdd.org · September 23, 2022

Latest Developments

Two years of U.S.-mediated negotiations on demarcating a maritime border between Israel and Lebanon appear to be reaching a conclusion, with senior envoys meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week. In 2020, the Hezbollah-dominated Lebanese government claimed rights to Karish, an Israeli gas field located in the Mediterranean Sea. This insistence constituted a negotiating tactic aimed at compelling Jerusalem to make territorial concessions on the entirety of the disputed maritime area, including Qana, a prospective gas field that lies within both Lebanese and Israeli waters.

Expert Analysis

“Hezbollah, as always, is playing with fire — and, as always, the fuel is being poured from Tehran while ordinary Lebanese and Israelis are liable to get burned. While the Biden administration seeks an Israel-Lebanon deal soon, it should make it clear that this is in no way a response to Hezbollah threats and that Washington and Jerusalem will not be spooked into capitulation.” – Mark Dubowitz, FDD Chief Executive

“Once this deal goes through, the Biden administration will have set the precedent of extracting territorial concessions from Israel under the threat of attack leveraged by the United States on behalf of Iranian assets. What’s more, the deal, by design, will turn Hezbollah into a player in Eastern Mediterranean energy.” – Tony Badran, FDD Research Fellow

Israel’s Ownership of Karish

Karish has always lain within Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Before 2020, Lebanon had never claimed control of Karish and has not formally registered its claim to own Karish with the United Nations. Thus, Lebanon’s claim to it is disingenuous. In June 2022, Israel declared it would begin extracting gas by the end of September despite protests by Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s Threats

Hezbollah has threatened to attack Israeli offshore platforms should Jerusalem fail to meet its demands. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said last month that it could expand its attacks “beyond Karish” if the two countries failed to reach an agreement that satisfies the terrorist group. In late June and early July, Hezbollah launched four drones toward Karish that the Israeli military shot down.

Hezbollah’s objective is to force Israel into conceding the entire disputed area, including all of the Qana prospect, under the threat of terrorism in return for Israel’s retention of its already existing rights to Karish. Israel, noting that Karish is indisputably within its waters, insisted that the rig’s activation will take place as scheduled by month’s end regardless of progress — or lack thereof — in diplomacy.

A Familiar Playbook

Hezbollah is following a playbook familiar to those watching the Vienna talks over Iran’s nuclear program, where Iranian nuclear escalation has led to a steady stream of American concessions. Hezbollah seems to expect intransigence will result in financial benefits, just as Tehran’s stonewalling in Vienna has led to promises of extensive sanctions relief.

Related Analysis

“America’s Regional Integration Scheme Benefits Iran,” by Tony Badran

“Facing failure in Lebanon,” by Cliff May

fdd.org · September 23, 2022

8. Biden administration's destructive UN strategy would weaken America and our allies

Biden administration's destructive UN strategy would weaken America and our allies

UN Security Council would expand under Biden's poorly considered strategy

foxnews.com · by Fred Fleitz | Fox News

Video

Iranian activist Masih Alinejad slams Biden for 'legitimizing' regime by allowing UN visit

Iranian activist and journalist Masih Alinejad reacts to the alleged murder of an Iranian woman over the regime's hijab law and the U.S. government granting visas for Iranian leaders to attend the U.N. General Assembly.

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Similar to his short-sighted call to eliminate the Senate filibuster because it is inconvenient for his legislative agenda, President Joe Biden said in his address to the UN General Assembly that his administration has proposed reforms to expand the UN Security Council and add more veto-wielding permanent members to make the Council "more inclusive."

Biden administration officials have been talking for several weeks about these reforms, apparently, because Russia and China have been using their veto power to block U.S.-backed Security Council resolutions on Ukraine, the Middle East, and North Korea. However, although this proposal has long been backed by most UN members and the foreign policy establishment, it is certain to go nowhere.

The UN Security Council has 15 members. The U.S., the U.K, France, China, and Russia are the five permanent members with veto power. Regional blocs elect the other 10 members for two-year terms. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield recently called this arrangement "an unsustainable and outdated status quo."

Thomas-Greenfield has proposed not just an expansion of the council and the addition of members but also informal restrictions on when the veto can be used and a voluntary requirement for permanent members to explain their vetoes to the UN General Assembly. If implemented, these proposals could evolve into formal limits on the use of the Security Council veto and possibly a way for the General Assembly to override vetoes.

President Biden addresses to the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Unfortunately, the Biden administration is refusing to admit how important America’s Security Council veto has been to protect our interests and those of our allies in the council. Of the 266 vetoes cast to date, 122 were by the USSR and Russia. The U.S. cast 82, often on anti-Israel resolutions.

Given continued hostility against the U.S. and Israel by many UN members, the U.S. will cast more Security Council vetoes in the future. The Security Council veto also continues to serve an important purpose: preventing the five permanent members — all nuclear states — from passing resolutions against each other and promoting consensus.

This is not the first time a presidential administration has attempted to undermine the UN Security Council veto. As a CIA UN analyst in the 1990s, I worked with Clinton administration officials who had their own proposals to do this. However, they went nowhere because the other permanent members were prepared to use their veto power to block any changes to the council.

Although Biden’s proposal to reform the UN Security Council is dangerous and radical, it is dead on arrival because it will be vetoed by China and Russia, who like the council the way it is. His Security Council reform proposal will accomplish further the global perception of the incompetence of the Biden administration’s leadership and foreign policy.

Fred Fleitz previously served as National Security Council Chief of staff, CIA analyst, and a House Intelligence Committee staff member. He is currently vice-chair of the America First Policy Institute Center for American Security. Follow him on Twitter @fredfleitz.

foxnews.com · by Fred Fleitz | Fox News

9. Germany, Japan beefing up their defense spending

From the China Daily.

Germany, Japan beefing up their defense spending

chinadaily.com.cn · by 杜娟

An Airbus A400M military transport aircraft of the German Air Force is pictured in the air during the ILA Berlin Air Show 2022, in Berlin, Germany June 22, 2022. [Photo/Agencies]

Scholz says country's military must become cornerstone of Europe's conventional defense

The shift of defense policies in Germany and Japan, which have strictly limited military spending since being defeated in World World II, is a cause of concern, Chinese experts warned.

At a German armed forces conference on Sept 16, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the German military must become Europe's best-equipped, German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.

"We are making it convincingly clear: Germany is ready to take on leading responsibility for the security of our continent," he said.

The meeting had the title "The Bundeswehr (federal defense) in a New Era — Taking Critical Stock at a Time of War in Europe".

As the continent's most populous country with the greatest economic power and because of its central location in the continent, Germany and its army must become the cornerstone of conventional defense in Europe, Scholz added.

"The core task of the Bundeswehr is to defend freedom in Europe," he said, adding that all of its other tasks, such as providing humanitarian aid and helping with vaccinations during pandemics, had to take a secondary role.

The chancellor said the German government was also ready to review restrictions regarding military export rules that affect joint defense projects, according to Deutsche Welle.

Berlin has made a preliminary decision to buy the Arrow-3 defense system, made by Israel Aerospace Industries, which intercepts ballistic missiles outside Earth's atmosphere, the Jewish News Syndicate reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Scholz met in Berlin on Sept 12, driving home the message that a major defense deal is in the works, according to Bloomberg.

Lapid told reporters that Israel "will play a role in developing Germany's new defense force, namely in the sphere of air defense", and Scholz said his country is "eager to collaborate with Israel" on defense.

Japan is also boosting its military muscle.

To fund a substantial increase in defense spending, the Japanese government is considering issuing special bonds with an eye to raising taxes in the future to pay back the debt, Kyodo News Agency reported.

Increasing corporate or tobacco taxes would be among the options to raise revenue.

In May, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told visiting US President Joe Biden that his government would substantially increase defense spending. Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has called for boosting the defense budget to no less than 2 percent of GDP within five years.

In 1976, the Japanese Cabinet voted to limit the spending to below 1 percent of gross domestic product. The cap was removed from the fiscal 1987 budget, but the figure has mostly remained around the 1 percent threshold, according to the weekly Nikkei Asia.

On August 31, Japan's Ministry of Defense asked for 5.59 trillion yen ($40.4 billion) for fiscal year 2023, its largest ever budget request.

The request, a 1.1 percent increase over the initial budget in this fiscal year, is the 11th consecutive budget increase under a Liberal Democratic Party-led government.

The request will be sent to the Ministry of Finance for consideration, and a decision is expected by late December. It includes funding for 100-plus items — such as the development of domestic standoff missiles that can be fired from the Japan Self Defense Forces vehicles, vessels and aircraft, and the joint development of a next-generation fighter with the United Kingdom, according to Kyodo News.

The Kishida administration has undertaken the revision of all three of the country's key security policy documents — the National Security Strategy, National Defense Program Guidelines and Medium-Term Defense Program — by the end of 2022.

In a China Global Television Network program, Jin Yinan, a Chinese defense adviser, said Germany and Japan have a lot in common.

They are economically developed, with Germany being the economic driving engine of Europe, and Japan an important economic powerhouse in Northeast Asia.

Both are technologically advanced.

And they also both host US troops on their territories, which suggests that the US has some say in their doings.

"Had the Russia-Ukraine conflict not happened, it would be unlikely that the US would allow the two countries to beef up their military defenses," Jin said.

What is alarming is that Germany and Japan have not announced that they would never develop nuclear arms amid their military buildup, the military adviser said.

Li Chao, a researcher at the Institute of European Studies of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said a country's military strength can't be upgraded overnight and it is premature to predict a how and when of a shift in Germany's security policy.

Li added that there is no need to worry about Germany becoming a military hegemon again.

Three German Eurofighter jets will arrive at the Hyakuri Air Base in Ibaraki prefecture, near Tokyo, on September 28 for the first joint training with Japan's Air Self-Defense Force, NHK reported.

chinadaily.com.cn · by 杜娟

10. ‘They Are Watching’: Inside Russia’s Vast Surveillance State

See the interactive article at this link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/22/technology/russia-putin-surveillance-spying.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm_source=pocket_mylist

‘They Are Watching’: Inside Russia’s Vast Surveillance State

By Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano, Aaron Krolik and Aliza AufrichtigSept. 22, 2022

Four days into the war in Ukraine, Russia’s expansive surveillance and censorship apparatus was already hard at work.

Roughly 800 miles east of Moscow, authorities in the Republic of Bashkortostan, one of Russia’s 85 regions, were busy tabulating the mood of comments in social media messages. They marked down YouTube posts that they said criticized the Russian government. They noted the reaction to a local protest.

Then they compiled their findings. One report about the “destabilization of Russian society” pointed to an editorial from a news site deemed “oppositional” to the government that said President Vladimir V. Putin was pursuing his own self-interest by invading Ukraine. A dossier elsewhere on file detailed who owned the site and where they lived.

Another Feb. 28 dispatch, titled “Presence of Protest Moods,” warned that some had expressed support for demonstrators and “spoke about the need to stop the war.”

The report was among nearly 160,000 records from the Bashkortostan office of Russia’s powerful internet regulator, Roskomnadzor.

Together the documents detail the inner workings of a critical facet of Mr. Putin’s surveillance and censorship system, which his government uses to find and track opponents, squash dissent and suppress independent information even in the country’s furthest reaches.

The leak of the agency’s documents “is just like a small keyhole look into the actual scale of the censorship and internet surveillance in Russia,” said Leonid Volkov, who is named in the records and is the chief of staff for the jailed opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny.

“It’s much bigger,” he said.

Roskomnadzor’s activities have catapulted Russia, along with authoritarian countries like China and Iran, to the forefront of nations that aggressively use technology as a tool of repression. Since the agency was established in 2008, Mr. Putin has turned it into an essential lever to tighten his grip on power as he has transformed Russia into an even more authoritarian state.

The internet regulator is part of a larger tech apparatus that Mr. Putin has built over the years, which also includes a domestic spying system that intercepts phone calls and internet traffic, online disinformation campaigns and the hacking of other nations’ government systems.

The agency’s role in this digital dragnet is more extensive than previously known, according to the records. It has morphed over the years from a sleepy telecom regulator into a full-blown intelligence agency, closely monitoring websites, social media and news outlets, and labeling them as “pro-government,” “anti-government” or “apolitical.”

Roskomnadzor has also worked to unmask and surveil people behind anti-government accounts and provided detailed information on critics’ online activities to security agencies, according to the documents. That has supplemented real-world actions, with those surveilled coming under attack for speaking out online. Some have then been arrested by the police and held for months. Others have fled Russia for fear of prosecution.

The files reveal a particular obsession with Mr. Navalny and show what happens when the weight of Russia’s security state is placed on one target.

The system is built to control outbursts like the one this week, when protesters across Russia rallied against a new policy that would press roughly 300,000 people into military service for the war in Ukraine. At least 1,200 people have already been detained for demonstrating.

More than 700 gigabytes of records from Roskomnadzor’s Bashkortostan branch were made publicly available online in March by DDoSecrets, a group that publishes hacked documents.

The New York Times built software and a search tool to analyze the Russian-language documents, spreadsheets, videos and government presentations. Five individuals directly targeted by Roskomnadzor in the files were interviewed, along with lawyers, activists and companies who have battled the agency and other experts on Russian surveillance and censorship.

Roskomnadzor did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is part of authoritarianism,” said Abbas Gallyamov, a former top government official in Bashkortostan who Roskomnadzor scrutinized because of his criticism of Mr. Putin. “They are watching.”

Putin’s Eyes on the Internet

Roskomnadzor (pronounced Ros-com-nod-zor) was started in 2008 as a bureaucratic backwater with a few dozen employees who regulated radio signals, telecom and postal delivery. Its role expanded as Kremlin concerns grew about the internet, which was under less state control than television and radio, leading to more activity from independent and opposition media.

After social media helped facilitate mass protests during the 2010 Arab Spring and in Moscow starting in 2011, Russian authorities had Roskomnadzor exert more control, said Andrei Soldatov, the co-author of a book on Russian internet censorship and surveillance.

From its headquarters in Moscow, the agency squeezed companies that provided internet access. Starting in 2012, the year Mr. Putin retook the presidency, Roskomnadzor built a blacklist of websites that the companies were required to block. That list, which grows constantly, now includes more than 1.2 million banned URLs, including local political news websites, social media profile pages, pornography and gambling platforms, according to Roskomsvoboda, a civil society group tracking the blocks.

Over the last decade, the agency also fined and penalized Google, Facebook, Twitter and Telegram to force them to remove what authorities deemed to be illicit content. In 2016, LinkedIn was shut down in Russia after being sanctioned for not storing data on Russian users in the country’s data centers.

By 2019, authorities wanted internet control to go further. Roskomnadzor ordered new censorship technology, known as a “technical means for countering threats,” installed in telecom networks around the country, including Bashkortostan, according to the documents. The agency then blocked and slowed down websites from Moscow.

Officials demanded that local internet services confirm that the censorship systems had been installed, according to the documents. Schematics showed where the censorship boxes should be placed in the network. Roskomnadzor workers visited sites to be sure the equipment was installed correctly and sent reports on the efficacy of the technology.

One early target of the blocking system was Twitter. In 2021, authorities throttled access to the social media service to a crawl. Since the invasion of Ukraine this year, Roskomnadzor has also blocked Facebook, Instagram and other websites, as well as many virtual private networks, or VPNs, which are used to bypass internet controls.

In 2020, Andrei Lipov, a government technocrat who supports a Russian internet that is more closed off from the West, took charge of Roskomnadzor. Under his guidance, the agency has operated even more like an intelligence service.

Just in Bashkortostan, an oil-rich region with about 4 million residents, Roskomnadzor tracked the online activities of hundreds of people and organizations. It gathered information about government critics and identified shifting political opinions on social media. It compiled dossiers on independent media outlets and online influencers who shared information unfavorable to the government that might gain traction with the Russian public.

“Roskomnadzor was never part of this game before of providing political intelligence,” said Mr. Soldatov, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a pro-democracy think tank. “They’re getting more and more ambitious.”

Vladimir Voronin, a lawyer who has represented activists and media groups targeted by Roskomnadzor, said the agency also became closer to the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the domestic intelligence agency once led by Mr. Putin. The F.S.B. operates a spy system, called the System for Operative Investigative Activities, which is used to monitor phone calls and internet traffic in Russia.

Roskomnadzor helps the F.S.B. watch opponents and identify new threats to Mr. Putin, Mr. Voronin said. “Roskomnadzor is more of a police agency and not only monitors, but persecutes oppositionists, activists and the media,” he said.

Unlike more technologically savvy counterparts in China, where internet surveillance is more automated, much of the work of Russian censors is done manually, the documents show. But what Russia lacks in sophistication it has made up for in determination.

In Bashkortostan, documents like this six-page report on the regional “information space” from December 2021 summarized criticism of Mr. Putin from pundits and bloggers. In the report, officials measured sentiment with a chart showing events that increased public disapproval, such as videos involving opposition activists and news of a possible invasion of Ukraine.

At times, the assessments sound almost like weather forecasts. “Calm with separate minor pockets of tension,” one Roskomnadzor report said, summarizing public sentiment after the arrest of a local activist.

Social media was viewed by the agency as a form of “soft power” that could “influence the opinion of the masses,” according to one document. Roskomnadzor workers watched for “destabilizing subjects” like opposition groups and “antimilitarism,” but also social issues such as drug legalization and “sexual freedoms,” according to some of the documents. Meduza, an independent Russian-language news organization, earlier reported on these specific documents.

Roskomnadzor also tracked local state-run media and political leaders, so that Mr. Putin could keep an eye on both enemies and allies, said Mr. Gallyamov, who is now a political commentator living outside Russia.

In some cases, censors recorded their screens showing detail down to the movements of their computer mouse as they watched over the internet. They monitored overtly political videos and, at other times, focused on less obviously worrisome content, like this viral song by the young rapper KEML. Bashkortostan is known as a hub for rap in Russia.

Roskomnadzor also helped Mr. Putin centralize power far from Moscow. The regional office in Bashkortostan only shared a fraction of its work with the local government, according to one document. Many reports were instead sent straight to the F.S.B. and other central agencies.

The scrutiny took a toll on surveillance targets. ProUfu.ru, a local news site in Bashkortostan that wrote critically about the government, said authorities pressured businesses to stop advertising with it. In the records, censors flagged ProUfu.ru for the critical Ukraine editorial written about Mr. Putin in February. The group was the subject of a regularly updated dossier about its coverage, ownership and top editor.

“Businessmen are threatened with closure for enterprises if they dare to meet us halfway,” the group, which now goes by Prufy, said on its website. “Our resources are depleted.” Prufy declined to comment.

Hunting Navalny

Mr. Navalny, the imprisoned leader of Russia’s largest opposition movement, overshadows Mr. Putin’s other domestic opponents. In Roskomnadzor’s Bashkortostan office, no mention of Mr. Navalny was too small to escape notice.

Workers flagged articles and social media comments about Mr. Navalny and websites where his name appeared in the margins as a related link. In monthly reports, they tallied online criticism of the government day-by-day, often alongside major news developments related to Mr. Navalny.

After ProUfu.ru published a video of an interview with Mr. Navalny in 2020, the site was charged with an administrative violation for posting information about “criminally punishable acts,” according to a record of the infraction included in the files.

The agency worked with different branches of the Russian security apparatus to go after not just Mr. Navalny, but his supporters. In Bashkortostan, the main target was Lilia Chanysheva, a 40-year-old lawyer.

Ms. Chanysheva, who has been a supporter of Mr. Navalny for at least a decade, moved in 2013 from Moscow to Ufa, Bashkortostan’s largest city and where her parents lived. In 2017, she traded a well-paying auditing job with the international consulting firm Deloitte to start a regional office for Mr. Navalny.

“She understood that if she did not do it, no one would,” said Maksim Kurnikov, the former editor of a regional branch of the radio station Echo of Moscow, who got to know Ms. Chanysheva in Ufa.

Ms. Chanysheva planned protests and linked groups who disagreed not just with Mr. Putin’s rule, but also were motivated by local issues like government corruption and environmental exploitation in the mineral-rich Bashkortostan region. She was known for volunteering time to provide legal aid to anyone in need, friends and colleagues said.

Authorities watched her closely, according to the documents. In 2017, Roskomnadzor officials sent a letter to the F.S.B. and other branches of the national security apparatus, warning that Mr. Navalny’s team was uniting “various small oppositional regional communities into a ‘united front.’”

Ms. Chanysheva faced random searches and police arrests. During a presidential campaign by Mr. Navalny ahead of elections in 2018, she spent more than 45 days in jail for holding unauthorized protests and other offenses, colleagues said. With authorities fond of detaining leaders well before organized protests, she made a habit of disappearing and then materializing at the rallies, they said.

“It made them look very stupid,” said Mr. Volkov, Mr. Navalny’s chief of staff, who hired Ms. Chanysheva.

Authorities included Ms. Chanysheva in regular reports about the activity of opposition figures who appeared in local and social media, including a 2020 meeting with activists who fought a real-estate development that would involve cutting down a forest.

Roskomnadzor confronted her with minor infractions, including violations of data-protection rules, according to the records. She topped a list on another document that suggested individuals for expanded monitoring and surveillance.

On a spreadsheet of “leaders of opinion” in Bashkortostan, Roskomnadzor officials highlighted Ms. Chanysheva’s name in dark red along with links to her social media accounts and follower totals.

In October 2020, she was placed on a list of the region’s “destabilizing sources,” and was cited for “criticizing Russian federal and regional government.”

In April 2021, Mr. Navalny’s organizations were forced to disband after the Kremlin listed them as illegal extremist groups. Fearful of being imprisoned, many top operatives left Russia. Ms. Chanysheva stayed. She was arrested on charges of extremism in November 2021.

Roskomnadzor’s censors noted her arrest “caused a resonance both among activists and users on social networks,” according to a record of the incident. They were not overly concerned. At the top of the report, they wrote: “Protest activity was at a relatively low level.”

Ms. Chanysheva, who is being held at a detention center in Moscow, could not be reached for comment. Mr. Voronin, her lawyer, said she spends her time writing letters and sorting trash from recycling. She faces a decade in prison.

The Lone Protester

In the first weeks of the war on Ukraine, Roskomnadzor censors ramped up, according to the documents. They focused not just on the war but its side effects, including the public response to a domestic crackdown on dissent and grumblings about the invasion’s effect on the rising cost of goods.

On Feb. 27, agency officials monitored the reaction to reports that a family from Ufa — including young children — was detained for protesting the war. Another report flagged an item that was spreading quickly online that described how the F.S.B. brutally beat and electrocuted a protester.

“Some users negatively assessed the actions of law enforcement agencies,” they wrote, noting 200,000 users had viewed the news on the messaging app Telegram.

The files also showed how office life went on as normal for the censors, who are part of the security-state middle class that Mr. Putin has built over the past 20 years to consolidate power. The employees marked a national holiday celebrating women and shared memes. In a jocular video passed around the office, they joked about accidentally blocking the Kremlin website and bribing judges with alcohol and chocolate.

In March, the censors highlighted an Instagram post from a protest in Bashkortostan. The demonstrator — a lone individual named Laysan Sultangareyeva — stood in Tuymazy, an industrial town west of the regional capital, to decry the invasion of Ukraine.

The post showed Ms. Sultangareyeva holding a sign that read “No to Putin, No to War.” Comments were filled with emojis cheering her on.

At the protest, police arrested the 24-year-old political activist and kept her in jail overnight. Roskomnadzor censors described her arrest with terse and matter-of-fact language: “Took place, the protester was detained.”

In an interview, Ms. Sultangareyeva said that police intimidated her, asked about her support for Mr. Navalny and made her take a drug test.

Ms. Sultangareyeva, whose Instagram profile once said “making delicious coffee and trying to stay out of jail,” protested twice more in April. She was arrested again. Online posts were used as evidence against her, as were photos shared in a local antiwar Telegram channel. She was fined 68,000 rubles or about $1,100.

“The fact that Roskomnadzor monitors social networks I did not know, but I guessed that they would not leave me without attention,” she said. She recently noticed police-affiliated accounts looking at her Instagram Stories and blocked them.

‘I Thought I Knew What Censorship Was’

Roskomnadzor’s tightening grip has manifested itself in the form of outright censorship.

Three days after DOXA, a media organization run by university students and recent graduates, posted a video calling on students to speak out against Mr. Putin in January 2021, a letter arrived from the agency.

It said the video had been added to a registry of “prohibited information” that “encouraged minors to participate in activities that are dangerous to their health and lives.” Roskomnadzor ordered DOXA to take the video down, said Ilia Sagitov, a reporter for the site who has left Russia.

DOXA complied but then sued Roskomnadzor over the takedown. Mr. Sagitov said the site had been careful not to encourage protest directly in the video and argued there was nothing illegal in it.

At 6 a.m. on April 14, 2021, security forces struck back. In a coordinated raid, Russian police broke into the website’s offices and the apartments of four of its editors. They placed the editors under house arrest and forbade them from accessing the internet.

“We believe that they were tracking everything we were doing back then and desperately trying to find anything to oppress us in any way,” Mr. Sagitov said. “So they finally got it — our video — and immediately started to fabricate this case.”

Still, the site was not blocked and reporters continued publishing articles. Then came the war in Ukraine.

In February, DOXA published a guide to “antiwar disputes in the family and work,” which included 17 answers to the most common arguments justifying the war.

Akin to stories in the United States that prepare people for contentious Thanksgiving dinner discussions, or how to speak to a climate change denier, the article went viral. An illustration from the piece showed a young person debating the war with an older man.

This time, Roskomnadzor swiftly blocked each of DOXA’s three different websites. The sites remain down. Some staff have fled the country while others left the organization fearing for their safety. Roskomnadzor has taken a similar tack elsewhere, blocking more heavily and widely than before, according to those who have been targeted.

“There’s no new level of competence, just a new bigger scale of repression — both digital and real-world,” Mr. Sagitov said. “I thought I knew what censorship was, but it turned out I didn’t. Well, now I know.”

Anton Troianovski contributed reporting from Berlin and Elise Morton from London. Additional production by Joshua Shao.

11. While Pledging to Defend Taiwan from China, Biden Shifted on Taiwan Independence. Here’s Why That Matters.

Conclusion:

President Biden’s embrace of strategic clarity is a welcome and overdue adjustment to U.S. policy, but a critical corollary to that shift should be clear messaging that such a commitment would not be operative if Taiwan were to provoke a crisis by unilaterally declaring independence. In addition, moving to strategic clarity can and should be done in a way that is consistent with the U.S. one-China policy. Last and most important, words must be matched with actions if they are to have the intended effect of deterring China and reassuring allies. A good deal remains to be done if stability in the Indo-Pacific is to be maintained.

While Pledging to Defend Taiwan from China, Biden Shifted on Taiwan Independence. Here’s Why That Matters.

President Biden's comment on Taiwan independence is a break from his predecessors.

cfr.org ·

https://www.cfr.org/blog/while-pledging-defend-taiwan-china-biden-shifted-taiwan-independence-heres-why-matters

Blog Post by David Sacks

September 22, 2022 12:06 pm (EST)

On Sunday evening, President Joe Biden made headlines when he asserted in a 60 Minutes interview that the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if China were to launch an unprovoked attack. His embrace of strategic clarity, however, was not his most notable comment on Taiwan, since this was the fourth time that Biden has articulated such a commitment. Instead, the comment that will raise more alarms in Beijing was Biden’s statement that “Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence…that’s their decision.” While this comment might seem innocuous, it would mark a significant shift in U.S. policy.

Since the United States severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan (formally the Republic of China) in 1979 and established formal diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China, U.S. policy has been to not support Taiwan independence. The State Department’s website currently notes, “we do not support Taiwan independence,” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken used the same language in his major speech outlining the Biden administration’s China policy.

In this regard, the Biden administration’s policy is the same as its predecessors. In the 1982 communique between the United States and China, the Reagan administration stated it had no intention of “pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan’” (i.e. it would not support Taiwan independence). In June 1998, President Bill Clinton went further in his “three nos” statement, articulating that the United States did not support two China’s or one China, one Taiwan, Taiwan independence, or Taiwan’s membership in international organizations that required statehood. When Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian flirted with a referendum that would change Taiwan’s status, the Bush administration expressed its “opposition” to such a move, with Secretary of State Colin Powell stating, “we do not support an independence movement in Taiwan.” President George W. Bush subsequently publicly rebuked Chen, warning, “We oppose any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo. And the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo, which we oppose.”

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This decades-long, bipartisan non-support for Taiwan independence is rooted in a belief that if Taiwan were to declare independence it would likely prompt China to use force against the island. Beijing made this clear in its 2005 Anti-Secession Law, which states, “In the event that the ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan’s secession from China…the state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Most American experts take China at its word, with a recent CSIS survey finding that 77 percent believe China would immediately invade Taiwan if it declared independence.

Indeed, U.S. officials have long believed that Washington needs to be firm in not supporting Taiwan independence in order to deter Taipei from taking actions that could provoke an attack. While many Taiwanese wish for the day when they can pursue de jure independence, they too understand that doing so will likely prompt an attack, which is why support for the status quo among Taiwanese remains strong. According to one long-running survey, more Taiwanese want to maintain the status quo indefinitely (28.6 percent) than any other option, while the second-most popular response is to maintain the status quo and decide at a later date (28.3 percent). Only five percent of respondents want to pursue independence as soon as possible.

Some will argue that President Biden merely misspoke – indeed, after the president’s interview, the White House clarified that U.S. policy had not changed. But officials in Beijing will see this as further evidence that the United States is walking away from its one-China policy. They will view this statement alongside Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s remark that it is “up to Taiwan to decide” whether to declare independence and conclude that there is a coordinated effort underway to shift U.S. policy. They will also note former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s call for the United States to recognize Taiwan as an independent country and former secretary of defense Mark Esper’s recommendation to ditch the one-China policy and see such changes as enjoying bipartisan support.

If China concludes that the United States is supporting Taiwanese independence, it will respond by ramping up its already heightened pressure campaign against Taiwan. This would likely include sending more military aircraft and warships across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, levying additional sanctions on Taiwanese products, further restricting Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, and stripping away some of its remaining diplomatic partners. Taiwan would find itself less secure as a result.

President Biden’s embrace of strategic clarity is a welcome and overdue adjustment to U.S. policy, but a critical corollary to that shift should be clear messaging that such a commitment would not be operative if Taiwan were to provoke a crisis by unilaterally declaring independence. In addition, moving to strategic clarity can and should be done in a way that is consistent with the U.S. one-China policy. Last and most important, words must be matched with actions if they are to have the intended effect of deterring China and reassuring allies. A good deal remains to be done if stability in the Indo-Pacific is to be maintained.

Creative Commons: Some rights reserved.

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License.

View License Detail

cfr.org · by Lindsay Maizland

12. ‘We’re ready for the fight’: China ramps up response to Xinjiang report as pressure mounts on Human Rights Council

GLOBAL NEWS China NEWS

Published on September 22, 2022 18:26. Updated on September 23, 2022 09:53.

‘We’re ready for the fight’: China ramps up response to Xinjiang report as pressure mounts on Human Rights Council - Geneva Solutions

genevasolutions.news · by Michelle Langrand

Xinjiang authorities in Geneva said that they would “adopt proper counter-measures” if western states tabled a proposal on China at the Human Rights Council.

A spokesperson for the Xinjiang government has said China is “ready to fight” if action is taken against the country at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva over its human rights record in the region.

Addressing reporters at the UN’s European headquarters on Thursday, Xi Guixiang said that the country was readying “counter-measures” following reports that a group of countries are considering taking action against China at the forum.

The government delegation is in Geneva to counter-argue the report of former UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, on rights violations committed against the Uyghur muslim and other minorities in Xinjiang.

During a two-hour press conference, the officials denied accusations of discrimination, arbitrary detention and ill-treatment, saying that Bachelet’s assessment “cannot be further from the facts”.

The document, which was presented on 31 August, concluded that some of the widespread abuses could amount to possible “crimes against humanity”.

Guixiang accused the United States and its western allies of “politicising human rights” and said that China “wasn’t afraid” of any proposals that might emerge at the Human Rights Council, which is meeting in Geneva.

Raphael Viana David, Asia programme manager for the International Service of Human Rights (ISHR), said that the visit of the delegation is “a part of China’s wide range of tactics to demonstrate diplomatic support for their own position and to coerce their diplomatic allies into showing support”.

Pressure is mounting on western countries to respond to the damning report and present a resolution requesting for further action on the human rights situation in Xinjiang. But there is fear that the proposal would not get enough votes to pass.

Viana said that there were “strong expectations” on states to act but that the clock was ticking as next Wednesday is the last day to present a proposal.

“We’ve never had this degree of political momentum, interest and concern to allow for a resolution on China,” he said, adding that “states should act regardless of the outcome because it is their moral responsibility”.

genevasolutions.news · by Michelle Langrand

13. US Should Formally Recognize Taiwan, Ex-Undersecretary of State Says

Keith Krach, a former undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment.

US Should Formally Recognize Taiwan, Ex-Undersecretary of State Says

dailysignal.com · by Samantha Renck · September 22, 2022

Formally recognizing Taiwan would provide it with legitimacy and undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s assertion that the island nation across the Taiwan Strait was always part of China, says Keith Krach, a former undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s road map toward war is instructive. Russia is rewriting history to claim ‘legitimacy’ by declaring that Ukraine was part of Mother Russia,” Krach told The Daily Signal in an email. “Likewise, the [Chinese Communist Party] has been arm-twisting governments and organizations into supporting its assertion that Taiwan has always been part of China under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ rubric.”

“The truth is, Beijing destroyed that dubious idea when it absorbed Hong Kong in 2020,” said Krach, adding:

America’s policy insists that the question of Taiwan be resolved through dialogue—without coercion or use of force. Since Beijing has demonstrated that it’s not willing to uphold its side of the bargain, the bargain no longer exists.

Krach said a big reason for formally recognizing Taiwan, which he described as an “independent democracy,” is to take away China’s “claim to legitimacy” over the island. He cited Putin’s assertion about aid to Ukraine as an example for why the policy change is needed.

“Putin has now declared that any military intervention to help Ukraine is a direct attack on Russia that justifies nuclear retaliation. Literally,” he said.

Miles Yu, director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s top adviser on China, listed three lessons Chinese President Xi Jinping should be aware of, based on the Russia-Ukraine war in a conversation with journalist Simone Gao.

“Well, personally, I don’t think Xi Jinping is even teachable of any lessons, but if I were Xi Jinping, I would be aware of the following: No. 1, bullying a small country will never work, as the small will gain more inner strength and external support, becoming much stronger and more lethal in the end,” Yu said, adding:

No. 2, the United States and its allies are determined to defend Taiwan, especially after Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, because the world has realized once an act of aggression started, a chain of aggression may follow, and Taiwan should not be allowed to be the first link of a chain of aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

The third lesson, he said, is that “there are great limits in modern warfare because there are many variables.”

“China may look strong, but it has great weaknesses and vulnerabilities, too. So, a war of aggression against Taiwan may not be that easy to win,” he said.

China has ramped up its hostility toward Taiwan over the past several months, notably since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island in August. One day after the speaker left Taiwan, the Chinese military launched missiles that hit seas south, north, and east of Taiwan, with five landing in the waters of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, according to The New York Times.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is working to ensure Taiwan can counter China’s aggression, having approved the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 on Sept. 14 in a 17-5 vote, CNN reported.

The bill, which was spearheaded by Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., would provide Taiwan with $4.5 billion in security system over four years, Reuters reported.

Nearly 70% of voters agree with Krach’s stance that the U.S. should formally recognize Taiwan as an independent country, according to a Rasmussen poll in August, Newsmax reported.

However, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., spoke out against the U.S. changing its current policy of strategic ambiguity and formally recognizing the island in an Aug. 31 tweet thread.

“It’s a policy that looks strong and tough on China, but does it actually protect our interests? The answer is no,” Murphy said, adding that “recognizing Taiwan doesn’t actually protect Taiwan.”

U.S. foreign policy often builds like a runaway bowling ball. An idea gets rolling, develops uncontrollable momentum, and then, before anyone has really evaluated the idea's merit, it's knocking over everything.

1/ This could be happening today on Taiwan policy. Let me explain:

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 31, 2022

The U.S. currently abides by the Taiwan Relations Act, which was signed into law by then-President Jimmy Carter in 1979. The law is “the cornerstone of U.S. policy towards Taiwan,” Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“Negotiated and passed at the time the United States was moving to officially recognize the government of the [People’s Republic of China], it requires that the United States provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself,” Cheng said, adding:

It also mandates that the U.S. maintain its own armed forces at sufficient level to help maintain peace and security in the East Asia region.

The U.S. also follows the “six assurances,” created in 1982, which ensure that “the U.S. would not ‘set a date for termination of arms sales to Taiwan,’ change any terms of the act, consult with China before selling arms to Taiwan, intervene between Taiwan and China or ‘alter its position about the sovereignty of Taiwan,’ nor ‘pressure Taiwan to enter into negotiations with China’ and formally recognize China’s control over Taiwan,” The Daily Signal reported.

“There is an omnipresent possibility of conflict between China and Taiwan. This is due, in no small part, to Beijing’s insistence that it has the right to use force to effect reunification, if necessary,” Cheng said.

“As the [People’s Republic of China] increases its military capabilities and does little to reduce tensions … that possibility grows,” he said.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please emailletters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

dailysignal.com · by Samantha Renck · September 22, 2022

14. The U.N.’s Small Success Stories

Colombia, Honduras, and Venezuela.

The U.N.’s Small Success Stories

Foreign Policy · by Catherine Osborn · September 23, 2022

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: Sensitive U.N. political missions plod ahead across the region, Ecuador restructures its debt to China, and Mexico hosts the annual Indigenous and Traditional Games.

If you would like to receive Latin America Brief in your inbox every Friday, please sign up here.

The Global Hand at Work

Set against the backdrop of war in Ukraine and painful strains on food and energy supplies, this week’s United Nations General Assembly has been accompanied by stronger-than-usual criticism about the body’s inefficacy at addressing major international issues.

But the U.N.’s high-level stagnancy is not the whole story. The organization also runs many smaller missions that support conflict-resolution and justice efforts in specific countries, including several in Latin America. Though they don’t always make headlines, these U.N. projects often serve as important arbiters.

Colombia offers one example. U.N. monitors were critical to the rapid demobilization of guerrilla fighters after the country’s 2016 peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was signed. Today, the U.N. mission in Colombia is assisting new President Gustavo Petro’s efforts to explore a demobilization deal with other guerrilla fighters who sat out of the negotiations six years ago.

The mission’s “fundamental legitimacy and strength comes from the fact that both sides [of the 2016 peace deal] called for it to be there,” the International Crisis Group’s Ivan Briscoe told Foreign Policy. Even when Iván Duque—who had been opposed to the deal and was resistant to putting his full support behind it—took Colombia’s presidential office in 2018, the mission found a way to continue its work and preserve its legitimacy, Briscoe said.

In Honduras, U.N. envoys are currently in talks with President Xiomara Castro’s government about opening a special anti-corruption commission in partnership with local prosecutors and judges. A similar U.N.-backed commission was founded in Guatemala in 2007, and Castro had pledged to establish one in Honduras when she campaigned for the presidency late last year.

A previous Organization of American States (OAS)-backed effort to install an anti-corruption commission in Honduras in 2016 was short lived, and its mandate was allowed to expire under Castro’s predecessor, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was extradited to the United States and charged for drug trafficking this year.

For such a commission to be effective, analysts have argued, it must be free from political inference. Though Guatemala’s commission revolutionized anti-corruption work in the country over the course of about a decade, then-Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales shut it down in 2018—when it began to investigate him. Castro and the U.N. are negotiating just how much independence the commission will have; for example, U.N. envoys have hesitated at her proposal to allow her administration to choose its investigators, El Faro reported.

“Castro’s challenge lies in keeping [her party’s] nose out of the judiciary,” El Faro’s Roman Gressier wrote. If the commission moves forward with independence, it will amount to “[swimming] against the current … in a region whose courts and top prosecutors … have become subservient to the sitting governments.”

Meanwhile, a U.N. fact-finding mission on Venezuela this week released a new report documenting government forces’ torture and rape of detainees from 2014 to the present and tracing the human rights abuses to plans orchestrated “at the highest levels of the government.” Last month, 125 Venezuelan and international civil society and human rights groups praised the U.N. mission and called for its renewal, writing that it has “advanced a search for truth, justice, and reparation.”

The groups called the U.N. mission’s work complementary to stalled negotiations on Venezuela’s political crisis, writing that its recommendations identify problems that must be addressed in the talks—whenever they resume.

Current U.N. missions in Latin America do not always garner this kind of praise from local human rights groups. In Haiti in particular, some civil society advocates have fiercely criticized the U.N. mission there—which has a mandate to enforce political stability, peace, and human rights—for continuing to back unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry as the country has experienced violent unrest in the wake of former President Jovenel Moïse’s 2021 assassination.

Still, the aforementioned U.N. efforts in Colombia, Venezuela, and Honduras are providing support for peace and justice work in ways their polarized host societies would not be able to do alone.

Upcoming Events

Saturday, Sept. 24: The foreign ministers of the BRICS grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are slated to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Monday, Sept. 26: The U.N. Human Rights Council discusses Venezuela.

Sunday, Oct. 2: Brazilians vote in congressional elections and the first round of the presidential election.

What We’re Following

Disaster anniversaries. Mexico and the Caribbean were pummeled by natural disasters on the anniversaries of previous tragedies this week. A magnitude 7.6 earthquake hit Mexico on Sept. 19, the same day as disastrous 2017 and 1985 quakes, while Hurricane Fiona ravaged Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Turks and Caicos Islands on the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria.

Fiona’s damage was vast, with Puerto Rican authorities registering up to eight deaths by Thursday. The island also experienced a blackout, and 1 million people were reportedly still without power by Thursday morning. In Mexico, Monday’s quake, which left two people dead, came just hours after residents of Mexico City had participated in an earthquake readiness drill. A subsequent quake on Thursday, which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called an aftershock, also reportedly killed at least two people.

Bukele on the ballot. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said last Thursday that he plans to seek reelection in 2024, an announcement that surprised few. El Salvador’s constitution prohibits presidential reelection, but last year, a panel on the country’s Supreme Court—then recently stacked with pro-Bukele justices—ruled it should be allowed. At the time, the U.S. State Department was among those publicly criticizing the ruling.

Reactions from human rights and democracy advocates were harsh. “Today, a new [Hugo] Chávez emerges,” tweeted José Miguel Vivanco, a former Human Rights Watch Americas chief.

The announcement also prompted a letter from a forum of former Latin American and Spanish leaders that urged the OAS to take measures to “promote the normalization of democratic institutionality” in El Salvador, invoking the OAS’s charter on democracy.

A Guatemalan Indigenous man plays a Mayan ball game at San Juan La Laguna in Sololá, Guatemala, on Sept. 18, 2021.

A Guatemalan Indigenous man plays a Mayan ball game at San Juan La Laguna in Sololá, Guatemala, on Sept. 18, 2021.JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP via Getty Images

Pause the soccer talk. Mexico’s national Indigenous and Traditional Games took place this month in the state of Sonora, pitting 500 Indigenous athletes against one another in 125 games and sporting activities. It was the 23rd such annual meeting.

While some games played at the event involved physical tools—such as balls, gloves, and hockey-like sticks—it also featured mountain running and “mental skill games,” such as contests in how to plan for the harvest. Researchers attended the events to better understand how some of them were connected to Indigenous spirituality, organizer Ana Claudia Collado García told EFE news agency.

One of the sports played at the event was ulama, where players hit a heavy rubber ball back and forth using their hips. The pre-Colombian game was played across ancient Mexico and Central America and has enjoyed a revival in Mexico over the past decade, during which Mexico City even opened an ulama court. This month’s competition featured Mexico’s second national ulama tournament.

Question of the Week

Which of the following guerrilla groups had already gone defunct by the time of Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement?

Petro belonged to the group before it demobilized in 1990. The PCC is from Brazil, while Los Pelusos and the ELN are Colombian.

FP’s Most Read This Week

• Kazakhstan Is Breaking Out of Russia’s Grip by Temur Umarov

• Ukraine Put Putin in the Corner. Here’s What May Happen Next. by Amy Mackinnon, Robbie Gramer, and Jack Detsch

• What Russia’s Elites Think of Putin Now by Tatiana Stanovaya

In Focus: China and Ecuador’s Debt Deal

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso in Beijing on Feb. 5.

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso in Beijing on Feb. 5.Li Xiang/Xinhua via Getty Images

Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso said on Monday that his country had reached a deal with Beijing to restructure Ecuador’s debt to China. Lasso has sought such a restructuring since early in his presidency, which began last year, and traveled to Beijing in February to pursue it.

Under the 2007 to 2017 presidency of Rafael Correa, Ecuador took out billions of dollars in loans from China under terms that were opaque to the public, drawing criticism. By this February, Lasso said Ecuador’s outstanding debt to China was $4.6 billion.

Under the new deal, Ecuador will have three more years to pay back its debts to two Chinese state banks, now due in 2027 and 2032, and will also owe lower interest rates on those payments. Lasso said the deal would free up $1.4 billion that would otherwise be spent on debt repayments by 2025. Ecuador also owes China barrels of oil as part of a separate debt, and last week, Ecuador announced China would allow a delay in scheduled deliveries. This will grant Ecuador some additional $709 million in oil revenue through 2027, the country’s state oil company said.

“This looks like a fairly standard rescheduling,” the Council on Foreign Relations’ Brad Setser tweeted about the news. “Necessary, but not earthshattering.”

Lasso celebrated the deal, and economic analyst Alberto Acosta-Burneo told Bloomberg that it was significant not only for providing short-term relief but also because it represented a “relaunch of the relationship with China” and could even pave the way for a new credit line from China in the future. Ecuador is on a tight repayment schedule to the International Monetary Fund and may have trouble borrowing on international capital markets because of its poor rankings from credit agencies, Bloomberg noted.

China has now carried out post-pandemic debt extensions in several countries, but it has rarely done so in cooperation with other creditors. The sheer scale of Chinese lending to developing countries has prompted scholars, such as Ulrich Volz at SOAS University of London, to call for a more multilateral approach to Chinese debt restructurings.

Foreign Policy · by Catherine Osborn · September 23, 2022

15. Iran’s Protests, Raisi’s UN Speech, and Nuclear Deal Talks: What to Know

Iran’s Protests, Raisi’s UN Speech, and Nuclear Deal Talks: What to Know

cfr.org · by Ray Takeyh

The death of Mahsa Amini has sparked large-scale protests in Iran. But President Raisi’s speech at the UN General Assembly signals that the regime is not likely to soften its stance toward the Iranian people nor toward the West.

Demonstrations are ongoing in Iran after a woman died last week in the custody of morality police. How significant are the protests?

Iranian women have been involved in previous protests, but these are notable for their vehemence in opposing regime policies. Still, these demonstrations on the whole should be thought of as part of a continuum of protests addressing a wide range of concerns. In just the past few months, Iran has been rocked by demonstrations prompted by economic grievances involving teachers, retirees, and farm workers, among other groups. Protests against economic conditions have become chronic in Iran, where inflation is running high and the government has weakened support for welfare and other social services. Such protests increasingly turn political in Iran as the regime seeks to tighten its grip.

Dozens of people protest the death of Mahsa Amini on a street in Tehran on September 21, 2022. Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

In August, President Ebrahim Raisi signed a decree for more rigorous enforcement of rules requiring women to wear a hijab at all times in public, which have been in effect since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. This move was widely acclaimed by conservative clerics who now dominate Iran’s appointed and elected institutions as a restoration of cultural standards that seemed to be slipping. The tragedy of Mahsa Amini’s death was almost inevitable. The twenty-two-year-old was arrested last week by morality police and charged with violating the country’s dress code. Amini’s family said she was in good health at the time of her arrest, while police released what they said is footage of her collapsing at the police station before she was declared dead at the hospital.

Will the regime crack down further, or might it offer gestures of accommodation?

The government usually deals with these protests through a mixture of measures. In this case, the president spoke with Amini’s family and called for an investigation to determine the cause of her death, and a representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also visited her family, although Amini’s father has accused the regime of a cover-up. At the same time, the regime has been quick to try to contain the demonstrations by arresting protest leaders and shutting off social media platforms that in the regime’s view act as a contagion. The latest move from authorities was to hold a counterdemonstration of regime supporters on Friday.

Raisi’s address to the UN General Assembly struck a defiant tone. Did he face pressure during his visit to the United Nations to soften the government’s treatment toward women?

Raisi and other hard-line leaders of the Islamic Republic show no deference to Western sensibilities. In his speech, Raisi condemned Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people, for instance, and accused Western nations of applying double standards on human rights. No member of the U.S. delegation at the United Nations walked out during his speech, as U.S. diplomats have done in previous UN addresses by Iranian leaders. Still, U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders condemned the actions of Iran’s morality police, and the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against members of the force.

In his UN address, Raisi also said Tehran will not return to the 2015 nuclear deal without guarantees from Washington that the deal would not be suspended again. Is that what’s holding up the deal’s revival?

Iran seeks some form of guarantee whereby the lifting of severe sanctions and resumed business activities by Western firms cannot be disrupted if a future U.S. president rescinds the agreement. Additionally, Iranian officials have adamantly declared that the concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about illicit nuclear material found at three sites is fraudulent and that the agency’s investigation must close.

Get the Background

What Is the Iran Nuclear Deal?

Raisi reiterated that Iran won’t seek to obtain a nuclear weapon. How credible is that assertion?

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The Iranian government has long maintained that it is not seeking nuclear arms. But if Iran’s nuclear program continues to grow in terms of size and sophistication, it will soon be able to manufacture a bomb if it chooses.

The infrastructure needed for nuclear energy and atomic weapons are compatible and can be exploited for that purpose. The most recent IAEA report indicates that Iran continues to add advanced centrifuges to its inventory and accumulate more enriched uranium. The nuclear deal had limited the number and types of centrifuges Iran can operate to slow down the process of creating highly enriched uranium, which can be used in nuclear weapons.

cfr.org · by Ray Takeyh

16. Nuclear Strategy Tells Us To Confront Putin’s Nuclear Threats With Boldness, Not Caution

Prevailing theories? We don't care if they work in theory - do they work in practice?  

Excerpts:

Strategically, the Western response must be to pursue the conflict until Russia is either ejected from Ukraine, or Putin is overthrown, and there follows a voluntary withdrawal. MIT professor Barry Posen has argued that war-ending negotiations, long before Russia is defeated, are the only possible outcome given that Moscow will not accept defeat, and it has a sufficient nuclear arsenal to escalate on the battlefield. However, Posen is wrong because the center of gravity of Russia’s war in the Ukraine is not the number of tanks or nuclear weapons, although these must nevertheless be defeated or deterred, but the willingness of Russia’s under-forty cohort (those born after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991) to join the ranks of the Russian military. Putin is aware that his social contract with the under-forty cohort is that he redistributes energy wealth and stability, but makes no further demands, in exchange for acquiescence. Forcibly enlisting the under-forty cohort into the military will trigger resistance similar to what the U.S. experienced among its youth in the late-1960s, during the Vietnam War, and will topple the Putin regime.     

How NATO responds to Putin’s nuclear threats will have a determinative impact on signalling China about the coalition of democracies’ response to Beijing’s inevitable nuclear blackmailing of Taiwan. China is currently engaged in a large-scale nuclear weapons build-up, completing its eighth Jin-class ballistic missile submarine, and the construction of 300 missile silos. Any Chinese attempt to blockade or invade Taiwan will occur under a Chinese nuclear umbrella very similar in circumstances of the dilemmas currently facing NATO in Ukraine. What NATO does or fails to do, will affect all subsequent attempts at nuclear compellence against the coalition of democracies.

Nuclear Strategy Tells Us To Confront Putin’s Nuclear Threats With Boldness, Not Caution

By Julian Spencer-Churchill

September 23, 2022

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/09/23/nuclear_strategy_tells_us_to_confront_putins_nuclear_threats_with_boldness_not_caution_855234.html?mc_cid=259fd6284f&mc_eid=70bf478f36&utm_source=pocket_mylist

Prevailing theories of nuclear strategy warn us not to be cautious when responding to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s September 21, 2022 nuclear threat against Western support to Ukraine’s re-conquest of its lost territory. Putin is seeking to “lock-in” a fait accompli of the Russian annexation of the break-away republics of Luhansk and the Donetsk, superficially on the basis of a vote that is meant to signal the principle of self-determination, which is so important to the democracies. Western dismissal of Putin’s threats as the reckless actions of a desperate and losing gambler, neglect the fact that nuclear weapons are only ever used in desperation, or when one state completely dominates another, such as the U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan.  

Putin is gambling that there is no such thing as nuclear super-stability, or what is termed in academia, the stability-instability paradox. This is the observation, poorly understood, that two nuclear forces will cancel each other out, making war “safe from escalation” on the conventional level, thereby increasingly the likelihood of war. In 1969, Communist China provoked the Soviet Union into a border war at several points along their frontier, despite a huge disparity in their nuclear arsenals (10,538 Soviet versus 50 Chinese nuclear warheads). Similarly, in 1999, under Chief of the Army Staff General Pervaiz Musharraf, Pakistan gambled it could back insurgents to seize the mountain crests of Kargil in Indian-occupied Kashmir, and use its nuclear arsenal to cement that fait accompli. India, however, responded with a conventional military counterattack that retook the border region. Nuclear strategist Bernard Brodie argued that since the number of nuclear weapons only has to outnumber the adversary’s cities, and nuclear attacks are notoriously difficult to intercept reliably, even a small arsenal has the same effect as a large force with tens of thousands of warheads (the U.S. and the Soviet Union manufactured 72,000 and 55,000 warheads, respectively, during the Cold War). In fact, the electro-magnetic pulse of a single megaton-range nuclear detonation at 100,000 feet will blind all interception radars within thousands of kilometers, for up to several hours, neutralizing all interceptors.

In both historical cases, conventional conflict took place between two nuclear-armed states, seemingly strengthening the impression that the stability-instability paradox is a real phenomenon. However, there are strong reasons that Putin may be correct that Russia’s nuclear arsenal will not be cancelled out by NATO’s numerically similar arsenal, because the stability-instability paradox only occurs under very peculiar circumstances. First, China initiated its border war in 1969, during the hectic and radicalized decision-making of the Cultural Revolution, and it was ultimately defeated by Moscow’s superior artillery and threats of escalation. Pakistan’s instigation of the Kargil dispute depended heavily on a Islamabad’s constitutionally fragmented decision-making process, in which the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his foreign minister were not even consulted by the army, resulting in Pakistan’s predictable diplomatic isolation and the defeat of its insurgents by India. In both cases, the initiators were also deterred from escalation by much more powerful third parties, such as the U.S.

Whereas Western commentators often see nuclear war as apocalyptic, and peace at any cost as a necessary moral compromise, Russian historiography and strategic culture accepts the sacrifice of individual rights required to avoid invasion by foreigners and the resulting loss of life. Nazi Germany’s explicitly genocidal campaign against the Soviet Union killed between twenty to twenty-seven million persons, and is seen in Russia as a worse outcome than the consequences of a nuclear war. Earlier campaigns by the Wilhelmine Germans 1914-1917, the Anglo-French and Ottoman in Crimea 1853-56, and Bonaparte, each exacted more than a millions Russian deaths. Consequently, during the Cold War, Soviet military doctrine was comfortable with initiating an offensive into Western Europe or Northeast China, in conjunction with a theatre nuclear attack, if the alternative was fighting on Soviet soil. We can therefore take Putin’s threat as partially sincere, or at least popularly supported by the Russian people, to the extent that their political culture accepts the negative social externalities of occupying foreign peoples for the purposes of creating protective buffer states.

Tactically, the Western response to Putin’s threats must be bold confrontation, and ideally this should be transmitted to the Russian people through available technical means, such as cyber-attack insertions into Russian-language social media. The stability-instability paradox may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, in the sense that its reality is a function of the belief in it by the respective crisis decision-makers. During the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear war was avoided when U.S. President John F. Kennedy foisted upon Soviet general secretary Nikita Khrushchev, the choice of the last best opportunity to avoid nuclear war, causing Khrushchev to turn the Soviet flotilla away from a skirmish with the ships of the U.S. blockade. This caused Khrushchev to lose the confrontation, and to be displaced in a coup in 1964. Khrushchev could just as easily have won by shifting the decision to fire the first shot on Kennedy, by directing the Soviet flotilla to pass through the blockade. It is still unclear why Khrushchev submitted to Kennedy’s social construction of which adversary was defending the status quo.

Thus, if the stability-instability is real, then a robust NATO commitment to nuclear war will neutralize Putin’s threats and enable Ukraine to continue to prosecute the war under a NATO nuclear umbrella. If the stability-instability is an illusion, then a robust commitment to using nuclear weapons signals a full-spectrum nuclear response, and this in turn will demonstrate NATO’s escalation dominance. Escalation dominance argues that countries will not begin a nuclear exchange if, at the conclusion of the process of escalation, they extrapolate that they are unable to win. Since NATO can match Russia tit-for-tat in a nuclear exchange at the tactical, theatre, maritime, sub-surface, and strategic levels, any possible political gain Moscow is seeking in Ukraine will be cancelled by the enormous material and political costs of even a very limited nuclear exchange. The principal consequence of the use of nuclear weapons is not their cost (at only a few million per thermonuclear warhead), or the environmental effects (over 900 nuclear weapons were detonated at the Nevada test site near Las Vegas, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were promptly rebuilt), but that their demonstrated use and effectiveness would lead to widespread proliferation that would erode the benefits of general deterrence and the power preponderance of the great powers.

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The modality of the bold confrontation should be technically opaque so that the Russians do not fixate on striking U.S. B-2 bombers in the UK, or U.S. F-15E strike aircraft in Romania, or cruise missile equipped surface action groups deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean or Norwegian Sea. The principles of the NATO response should be automatic, prompt, and proportional, and importantly, not be limited to Ukraine itself. Any delay of more than a few hours, because of a failure to pre-delegate or consult with NATO partners, will further encourage Putin in his nuclear bluster. Ideally, a nuclear response should be conducted by a ballistic missile submarine, so that the identity of the attacker, whether U.S., English or French, remains obscure, and none of the states hosting nuclear weapons, like Germany or Turkey, become targets of retaliation.   

The problem with a NATO nuclear retaliation against Russian forces in Ukraine, is that there will be a scarcity of targets once Moscow evacuates its high-value air and artillery assets from Ukraine and Crimea across the border. Obviously, an attack on Russia will provoke an attack on the continental U.S. To compel a strategic equivalence, NATO should threaten Belarus’ military, Russia’s ally, as it would be comparable to a Russian nuclear attack on Ukrainian forces. To contain horizontal escalation, NATO, and especially the U.S., must advertise that a Russian nuclear strike on a NATO member, or a major NATO ally, like Japan, Israel, or Australia, will result in a direct attack on Russia itself. Striking military targets in Belarus will have the added benefit of demonstrating Russia’s weakness to its allies, and thereby stripping Moscow of its coalition of supporters in Iran or Syria (though not North Korea). It may also trigger a collapse of the Minsk regime and complicate Moscow’s calculations as its buffer states, like Kazakhstan, and Armenia, further break-away.

Strategically, the Western response must be to pursue the conflict until Russia is either ejected from Ukraine, or Putin is overthrown, and there follows a voluntary withdrawal. MIT professor Barry Posen has argued that war-ending negotiations, long before Russia is defeated, are the only possible outcome given that Moscow will not accept defeat, and it has a sufficient nuclear arsenal to escalate on the battlefield. However, Posen is wrong because the center of gravity of Russia’s war in the Ukraine is not the number of tanks or nuclear weapons, although these must nevertheless be defeated or deterred, but the willingness of Russia’s under-forty cohort (those born after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991) to join the ranks of the Russian military. Putin is aware that his social contract with the under-forty cohort is that he redistributes energy wealth and stability, but makes no further demands, in exchange for acquiescence. Forcibly enlisting the under-forty cohort into the military will trigger resistance similar to what the U.S. experienced among its youth in the late-1960s, during the Vietnam War, and will topple the Putin regime.     

How NATO responds to Putin’s nuclear threats will have a determinative impact on signalling China about the coalition of democracies’ response to Beijing’s inevitable nuclear blackmailing of Taiwan. China is currently engaged in a large-scale nuclear weapons build-up, completing its eighth Jin-class ballistic missile submarine, and the construction of 300 missile silos. Any Chinese attempt to blockade or invade Taiwan will occur under a Chinese nuclear umbrella very similar in circumstances of the dilemmas currently facing NATO in Ukraine. What NATO does or fails to do, will affect all subsequent attempts at nuclear compellence against the coalition of democracies.

Dr. Julian Spencer-Churchill is an associate professor of international relations at Concordia University (Montreal), former army engineer officer, and has written extensively on Pakistan, where he conducted field research for over ten years

17. Air Force plans more tests of amphibious, armed MC-130J airlifter

Air Force plans more tests of amphibious, armed MC-130J airlifter

Defense News · by Rachel Cohen · September 22, 2022

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Air Force Special Operations Command is moving forward with plans to turn its cargo planes into weapons-toting, amphibious aircraft.

Two separate projects look to push the limits of what the C-130 Hercules-based airlifters can do in war, particularly in the vast Pacific. One wants to turn the ocean into a landing strip. Another aims to repurpose the planes as makeshift bombers.

“If we constrain ourselves to thinking about [the C-130] as simply a cargo airplane because that’s what it was originally built to do, I think we’re missing something,” AFSOC boss Lt. Gen. Jim Slife told reporters at a roundtable here Tuesday.

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Flight tests of an amphibious MC-130J may start in fiscal 2023, he said. If that succeeds, it could open new opportunities for where and how special operations units can ferry supplies around the world.

“That’s going to give us the ability to turn any large body of water into a landing zone where we can insert [or] extract special operations forces and the equipment and other things that might cause dilemmas for our adversaries,” Slife noted earlier this month.

Congress hasn’t yet approved a defense budget for the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. AFSOC’s money for flight testing is wrapped up in that process, meaning its previous timeline of testing the concept by the end of 2022 will likely be delayed.

In the meantime, Slife said his command is vetting the design in a wave tank to make sure it’s stable. Those tests have gone well so far, he said.

“We started out with a number of digital designs. We ran through a series of testing to figure out, do we want to do a catamaran, a pontoon, a whole applique on the bottom of the aircraft?” Slife said at a Sept. 7 event hosted by the Air and Space Forces Association.

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Officials settled on a design that best balances factors like aircraft drag, weight and performance. It relies on a hardware kit that can be installed in the field as needed, though not without some effort.

Still, Slife said, it’s easier than buying an entire fleet of amphibious planes outright.

Now the command is figuring out the logistics of how the Air Force would support an amphibious plane during real-world operations.

“It’s been 30 years since I studied aerospace engineering, but what I can recall from my time as an engineering student is, if you were going to build an amphibious airplane, you probably wouldn’t start with a C-130. But the C-130 is the ingredient that we have,” Slife said earlier this month.

Battlefield logistics are also a concern for those trying to turn the MC-130J into a bomb truck.

In December, the Air Force experimented with launching an extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile cruise missile, which can hit a target hundreds of miles away, out of the back of a Commando II plane. Now it wants to try toting 12 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles — the same load as the B-52 Stratofortress bomber can carry.

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Similar efforts are underway for the C-17 Globemaster III airlifter.

“It doesn’t require any aircraft modifications, it doesn’t require any special aircrew training. It really just takes advantage of the characteristics of that platform,” Slife said of the MC-130J.

Unlike the B-52, though, an MC-130J needs only a short stretch of dirt or asphalt to take off and land. That complicates the calculus for anyone that might want to take out American infrastructure, Slife said.

“It’s not hard to figure out where all the 10,000-foot concrete runways in the Pacific are. But when you’re trying to figure out where the 3,000-foot straight stretches of road and grass strips are … that’s a different targeting problem for your adversaries,” he said earlier in the month.

The concept still requires some thoughtful planning. Shorter runways may be harder to find, but they become more conspicuous when a pile of missiles is stacked nearby. Palletized munitions can become a target themselves.

“Part of what we’re working through … is weapons storage,” Slife said. “Do we really want them out in the middle of a field somewhere, next to a straight stretch of road?

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AFSOC is also exploring the prospect of adding new sensors and electronic warfare capabilities to its airlifters.

The command plans to test out an active electronically scanned array radar on the plane, which would let it conduct surveillance and provide precision targeting data to other military assets.

Depending on which sort of AESA radar is used, the project could offer the Air Force a way to supplement the ground target-tracking capabilities of the E-8C Joint STARS jets. The fleet is in the process of retiring after more than 30 years in service.

“As we look at what we might need it to do for the next 20 years, we need to look at different capabilities,” Slife said Tuesday. “Things like an AESA radar on a C-130 open up a host of possibilities for everything from airborne electronic attack and airborne cyber effects and things of that nature that, up to now, have not been part of our portfolio.”

These kinds of updates are especially important because it paves the way for America’s partners around the world to do the same, he added. Just three countries own strategic bombers — the U.S., Russia and China — but plenty of militaries fly cargo airplanes.

Proving that an airlifter can double as a bomber opens up new possibilities for what foreign militaries can accomplish in combat. That should be a deterrent, not a provocation, Slife argued.

“It does have strategic implications, but I think that’s all to the positive,” he said.

“This idea of, ‘Well, it’s a cargo airplane. Why would you be using it as a fires delivery platform?’” Slife added earlier in September. “I would turn the question around and say, ‘Why wouldn’t you?’”

About Rachel S. Cohen

Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.

18. U.S. has sent private warnings to Russia against using a nuclear weapon

U.S. has sent private warnings to Russia against using a nuclear weapon

The Biden administration has been sending messages to Moscow about the grave consequences that would follow the use of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine

By Paul Sonne and John Hudson 

September 22, 2022 at 7:03 p.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Paul Sonne · September 22, 2022

The United States for several months has been sending private communications to Moscow warning Russia’s leadership of the grave consequences that would follow the use of a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. officials, who said the messages underscore what President Biden and his aides have articulated publicly.

The Biden administration generally has decided to keep warnings about the consequences of a nuclear strike deliberately vague, so the Kremlin worries about how Washington might respond, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations.

The attempt by the White House to cultivate what’s known in the nuclear deterrence world as “strategic ambiguity” comes as Russia continues to escalate its rhetoric about possible nuclear weapons use amid a domestic mobilization aimed at stanching Russian military losses in eastern Ukraine.

The State Department has been involved in the private communications with Moscow, but officials would not say who delivered the messages or the scope of their content. It was not clear whether the United States had sent any new private messages in the hours since Russian President Vladimir Putin issued his latest veiled nuclear threat during a speech announcing a partial mobilization early Wednesday, but a senior U.S. official said the communication has been happening consistently over recent months.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, wrote Thursday in a post on Telegram that territory in eastern Ukraine would be “accepted into Russia” after the completion of staged “referendums” and vowed to strengthen the security of those areas.

To defend that annexed land, Medvedev said, Russia is able to use not only its newly mobilized forces, but also “any Russian weapon, including strategic nuclear ones and those using new principles,” a reference to hypersonic weapons.

“Russia has chosen its path,” Medvedev added. “There is no way back.”

The comment came a day after Putin suggested Russia would annex occupied lands in Ukraine’s south and east, and incorporate the regions formally into what Moscow considers its territory. He said he was not bluffing when he vowed to use all means at Russia’s disposal to defend the country’s territorial integrity — a veiled reference to the country’s nuclear arsenal.

Biden administration officials have emphasized that this isn’t the first time the Russian leadership has threatened to use nuclear weapons since the start of the war on Feb. 24, and have said there is no indication Russia is moving its nuclear weapons in preparation for an imminent strike.

Still, the recent statements from the Russian leadership are more specific than previous comments and come at a time when Russia is reeling on the battlefield from a U.S.-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Whereas previous Kremlin statements appeared to be aimed at warning the United States and its allies against going too far in helping Ukraine, Putin’s most recent comments suggested Russia is considering using a nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine to freeze gains and force Kyiv and its backers into submission, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a nonproliferation advocacy group in Washington.

“What everyone needs to recognize is that this is one of, if not the most, severe episodes in which nuclear weapons might be used in decades,” Kimball said. “The consequences of even a so-called ‘limited nuclear war’ would be absolutely catastrophic.”

For years, U.S. nuclear experts have worried that Russia might use smaller tactical nuclear weapons, sometimes referred to as “battlefield nukes,” to end a conventional war favorably on its terms — a strategy sometimes described as “escalate to de-escalate.”

On Thursday, Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, told the U.K.’s ITV News that it is possible Russia will use nuclear weapons against Ukraine “to stop our offensive activity and to destroy our state.”

“This is a threat for other countries,” Skibitskyi said. “The blast of a tactical nuclear weapon will have an impact not only in Ukraine but the Black Sea region.”

The Ukrainians have tried to signal that even a Russian nuclear strike wouldn’t force them into capitulation — and in fact could have the opposite effect.

“Threatening with nuclear weapons … to Ukrainians?” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted on Wednesday. “Putin have not yet understood who he is dealing with.”

In an interview with CBS News’s “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday, Biden was asked what he would tell Putin if the Russian leader is considering using nuclear weapons in the conflict against Ukraine.

“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t,” Biden said. “You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.”

Biden declined to detail how the United States would respond, saying only that the reaction would be “consequential” and would depend “on the extent of what they do.”

The Biden administration would face a crisis if Russia were to use a small nuclear weapon in Ukraine, which isn’t a U.S. treaty ally. Any direct military U.S. response against Russia would risk the possibility of a wider war between nuclear-armed superpowers — the avoidance of which the Biden administration has made its No. 1 priority in all of its Ukraine policymaking.

Matthew Kroenig, a professor of government at Georgetown University and director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council, has argued that the best option for the administration, if faced with a limited Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine, might be to step up backing for Ukraine and conduct a limited conventional strike on the Russian forces or bases that launched the attack.

“If it’s Russian forces in Ukraine that launched the nuclear attack, the United States could strike directly against those forces,” Kroenig said. “It would be calibrated to send a message that this is not a major war coming, this is a limited strike. If you are Putin, what do you do in response? I don’t think you immediately say let’s launch all the nukes at the United States.”

But even a limited conventional strike by the U.S. military against Russia would be viewed as reckless by many in Washington, who would argue against risking a full-scale war with a nuclear-armed Russia.

James M. Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said it doesn’t make sense at this point to game out U.S. responses because there is such a wide range of possible Russian actions — from an underground nuclear test that doesn’t hurt anyone to a large-scale explosion that kills tens of thousands of civilians — and there are no signs Putin is close to crossing the threshold.

“If he was really thinking very seriously about using nuclear weapons very imminently, he almost certainly would want us to know that,” Acton said. “He would much rather threaten nuclear use and have us make concessions than actually have to go down the path of nuclear use.”

U.S. officials have been stepping up efforts at the U.N. General Assembly this week to deter Russia from seriously considering what would be the first use of a nuclear weapon in a conflict since the atomic bombings of Japan by the United States in 1945.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at a U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday, said Russia’s “reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately.”

“This week, President Putin said that Russia would not hesitate to use and I quote, ‘all weapons systems available’ in response to a threat to his territorial integrity — a threat that is all the more menacing given Russians’ intention to annex large swaths of Ukraine in the days ahead,” Blinken said. “When that’s complete, we can expect President Putin will claim any Ukrainian effort to liberate this land as an attack on so-called Russian territory.”

Blinken noted that Russia in January joined other permanent members of the Security Council in signing a joint statement declaring, “nuclear war can never be won, and must never be fought.”

Hudson reported from the United Nations in New York.

The Washington Post · by Paul Sonne · September 22, 2022

1​9. 'Untethered' Air Force general: ‘When you kill your enemy, every part of your life is better'

'Untethered' Air Force general: ‘When you kill your enemy, every part of your life is better'

"The pile of our nation’s enemy dead, the pile that is the biggest, is in front of the United States Air Force."

BY DAVID ROZA | PUBLISHED SEP 23, 2022 3:14 PM

taskandpurpose.com · by David Roza · September 23, 2022

An aerospace industry conference took on more of a tent revival feel on Wednesday when an Air Force general took the stage and sought to fire the audience up about the existential threat he said China posed to the American way of life and the urgent work needed to defeat it.

“I’m untethered as of now,” said Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of Air Mobility Command, in his keynote address at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air Space & Cyber Conference at National Harbor, Maryland. “I do have something to say. I can’t see the clock, I’m going to go ‘till I go. I’m finally that rank.”

The general’s speech was titled ‘The Mobility Manifesto,’ and he turned up the volume as high as the title implies.

“I’m gonna speak not speech!” he said. “Means it’s going to come out a little wobbly at times, maybe stutter, I might get some spittle going … Means that I’m Irish! You’ve certainly already heard that when I talk about things that I love I get emotional! And you’ll hear the passion in my voice.”

pic.twitter.com/HvVol3DxTq

— Rachel S. Cohen (@rachelkaras) September 21, 2022

As Minihan laid out, the U.S. military is currently not ready “to fight and win inside the first island chain” in the Pacific against the Chinese military in a potential conflict. This is a problem because “your kids grow up subservient to a rules-based order that benefits only one country if we lose this,” he said.

“There is no access to the global commons. There is no ‘free and open.’ There is no rules-based order. So the stakes are incredibly high,” he continued.

The Air, Space & Cyber Conference is the biggest of the year for the Air and Space Forces, filled with star-studded generals, titans of the aerospace industry, and thousands of service members from both the U.S. and from foreign militaries around the world. This year’s event was the largest ever, with 16,000 registrants and standing room only at several of the speaker panels.

Minihan is far from the first speaker at a service-wide conference to warn about the threat of China and the urgency to face it. In fact, the message was so persistent at the 2021 edition of the AS&C that one reporter made it into a meme. But the general’s passionate tone and one-liners stood out amid the scripted deliveries of most of the other keynote speeches.

“Lethality matters most,” he said. “When you can kill your enemy, every part of your life is better. Your food tastes better. Your marriage is stronger,” Minihan said.

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That kind of language would not be unusual coming from other commanders like the former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a retired Marine general whose famous quotes include “There are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot,” and “If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all.” But, Minihan is not a former Marine rifle company commander like Mattis was. He’s a C-130 transport plane pilot who now commands the Air Force’s C-17 and C-5 cargo jet fleet, plus C-130s, KC-135, KC-10, KC-46, and other refueling and transport aircraft.

“Why is the mobility guy talking about lethality?” Minihan asked in his manifesto. In answer, he reminded the audience that the Air Force has a kill count which could make even Mattis balk.

“This is who we are. We are lethal. Do not apologize for it!” the general said, after listing distinguished Air Force commanders like Gen. Curtis LeMay and Brig. Gen. Robin Olds, who had no scruples against killing the enemy.

“The pile of our nation’s enemy dead, the pile that is the biggest, is in front of the United States Air Force,” he said. “This is why we mutinied! In 1947,” the year the Air Force separated from the Army as the result of an act of Congress.

Gen. Minihan giving his speech rn #ASC22 pic.twitter.com/CJZYNsES1F

— Valerie Insinna (@ValerieInsinna) September 21, 2022

Considering the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean, where a fight with China would most likely occur, the U.S. military likely would not be successful if Air Mobility Command can’t get troops, ammunition, and equipment to the fight fast enough.

“There is too much water and too much distance for anyone else to do it relevantly, at pace, at speed, at scale,” Minihan said. “Everybody’s role is critical, but Air Mobility Command is the maneuver for the joint force. If we don’t have our act together, nobody wins. Nobody’s lethal. Nobody’s in position.”

Minihan is no stranger to making bold statements. In January, the general tweeted a photo of a mental health appointment on his calendar along with the words “Warrior heart. No stigma.” Though many military commanders encourage their subordinates to seek mental health, few open up about their own struggles or efforts to seek help, let alone share their own personal calendar.

“Mental health is simply health,” he told Task & Purpose at the time. “There can be no stigma in my headquarters, command, or family.”

Minihan also earned kudos on social media when his official service photo circulated on Reddit last October, shortly after taking the helm of Air Mobility Command. Though most four-star generals sport a chestful of colorful ribbons on their uniforms in their official service photo, Minihan’s bore only three, all of which were unit-based rather than individual awards.

“Gen. Minihan’s decision to wear these three ribbons is in accordance with AFI 36-2903 guidance to wear ‘all or some’ [ribbons], and the some he selected aligns with his team-focused leadership approach,” Lindsey Wilkinson, the deputy director of public affairs for Air Mobility Command, told Task & Purpose at the time.

Airmen say the general backs up his gestures with words and actions. One airman who worked in aircraft maintenance at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas and as a flight engineer at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas when Minihan was there, told Task & Purpose that the officer “was always approachable, you never felt like you had to be on edge around him.”

Minihan “always truly made you feel as if you were the only person that mattered at that moment when the two of you spoke,” said the airman, who stayed anonymous because they were not authorized to speak with the press.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan, left, Air Mobility Command commander, and Capt. Madeline Slagley, 62nd Maintenance Squadron officer in charge, FaceTime Slagley’s family at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, July 7, 2022. Minihan coined Slagley as a star performer during his visit to JBLM. (Senior Airman Callie Norton/U.S. Air Force)

On Wednesday, the general seemed intent on motivating his people and the larger Air Force to move faster in order to protect themselves in the event of a conflict with China. The U.S. is currently not ready to win in the first island chain in the Pacific, but it can be by August 2023 if everyone moves fast enough, he argued.

“They are tailor-making an air force to kill you,” Minihan said, about China. “Not you, hypothetically, you! Look in the mirror. You!”

Other Americans have faced similar odds in the past. The general referenced World War II commanders like Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, Adm. Raymond Spruance and Gen. Ira Eaker, each of whom faced a “quality, quantity, tailor-made force to kill him.” Those commanders prevailed, and so too can today’s U.S. troops if they “generate your courage. Aim the pointy end at the scary place, and execute,” Minihan repeated three times.

It would also help if Air Mobility Command can address four gaps in its capabilities that the general is concerned about: command and control, navigation, maneuvering under fire, and tempo. To bridge those gaps, Minihan urged his troops to get creative. For example, his troops could fly a KC-46 refueling tanker with just one pilot so that other pilots can fly other jets; or stick 16,000 pounds of gas under the wings of a C-130J so it can fly to a forward-deployed fuel bladder where a fighter can use the gas to fill up.

“I don’t think fighter pilots are the only ones that have the birthright to fly an airplane solo,” Minihan said. “In order to generate the tempo required to win, it’s not hard to imagine” a pilot and refueling boom operator sleeping on the bunk of a tanker jet while another pilot and boom operator pulls a shift flying the plane and refueling friendly aircraft.

“I’d rather test that out now than try to figure that out when the shooting’s going on,” he said.

Lt. Gen. Michael Minihan, center, pilots a C-130J Super Hercules over Central Arkansas, Sept. 17, 2021. A command pilot with more than 3,400 flight hours, Minihan completed his senior officer course on the C-130J during a recent visit to LRAFB. Minihan was promoted to the rank of General prior to assuming command of Air Mobility Command on Oct. 5, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jayden Ford)

But that kind of creativity needs to happen now, the general said, not down the road.

“Nobody is going to care what our plans are for five to 10 years if we lose tomorrow,” he said. “Our toys, our training, our desires are meaningless unless we maneuver them to unfair advantage and unrepentant lethality.”

That was likely why the general chose to be so forceful and passionate in his delivery on Wednesday, and why he chose to call his speech a manifesto.

“I’m not equating the mobility manifesto to things like ‘I have a dream’ or ‘The Declaration of Independence,’” he said. “But I do have intentions, and I do have an opinion, and I do have an objective.”

The general does not have much time to share it, he said.

“We are not ready to fight and win inside the first island chain but we WILL BE in a year,” Minihan said. “‘Well sir, that’s a lot to do in a short time.’ Yeah, no shit.”

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taskandpurpose.com · by David Roza · September 23, 2022

​

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com