Quotes of the Day:

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

- Thomas Paine

“It is wonderful how much time people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his tracks of ennui.”

- Helen Keller

“Your surviving spy must be a man of keen intellect although in outward appearance a fool; of shabby exterior but with a will of iron. He must be active, robust, endowed with physical strength and courage, thoroughly accustomed to all sorts of dirty work; able to endure hunger and cold and to put up with shame and ignominy.”

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 23 (Putin's War)

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (23.09.22) CDS comments on key events

3. 5 takeaways from Biden’s speech to the world

4. Remarks by President Biden Before the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

5. As Russian Losses Mount in Ukraine, Putin Gets More Involved in War Strategy

6. All the Tsar’s Men: Why Mobilization Can’t Save Putin’s War

7. U.S.-led Pacific group to focus on climate, connectivity amid China concerns

8. Blinken to host 'Blue Pacific' event amid competition with China

9. Why the Pentagon’s Disinformation Campaigns Crashed and Burned

10. Why the Protests in Iran Are Different

11. Is Chinese President Xi Jinping under house arrest?

12. Fact Check: Is China Having A Coup And Is Xi Jinping Under House Arrest? Here's What We Know

13. Our Twenty-First Century Eighteenth-Century War By: Edward N. Luttwak

14. Opinion | Is China a juggernaut? Or an ailing giant? Both.

15. Is the pandemic over? Pre-covid activities Americans are (and are not) resuming.

16. All Democracy Is Global

17. Putin’s War, and His Rule, Is in Trouble

18. Use us for combat zone tests, Ukraine minister tells US war industry

19. New AUKUS Resource - SECURITY & DEFENCE PLUS ADVANCING AUKUS

20. AUKUS and Military Education Innovation by Paula Thornhill

21. Army formally activating third Multi-Domain Task Force, focused on the Pacific

22. China may now have air superiority over US in Pacific

23. Wars are won by people willing to fight for comrade and cause

24. Pointed at China, US spreads THAAD all around Guam

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 23 (Putin's War)

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-23

Key Takeaways

• Russian partial mobilization efforts are suffering from serious and systemic problems in their first days, generating popular resentment and setting conditions to produce a mobilized reserve force incapable of accomplishing the tasks Russian President Vladimir Putin has set for it.
• Protests, attacks against recruiting centers, and vandalism have occurred across Russia in the first 48 hours after the announcement of partial mobilization.
• Ukrainian forces continued to advance north and northwest of Lyman.
• Ukrainian forces continued their interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast and maintained operational silence regarding Ukrainian progress on the axis.
• Russian forces continued to launch unsuccessful assaults near Bakhmut and northwest of Donetsk City.
• Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down an Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drone in an unspecified area of the Black Sea, likely near Odesa.
• Russian occupation authorities began the voting period for their sham annexation referenda on September 23 with overt coercion and falsified turnout numbers.
• Russian occupation authorities remained on high alert to prevent partisan attacks against sham election workers, polling stations, and government facilities.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 23

Sep 23, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Kateryna Stepanenko, Katherine Lawlor, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

September 23, 10:00 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 Russian mobilization system is struggling to execute the task Russian President Vladimir Putin set and will likely fail to produce mobilized reserve forces even of the low quality that Putin’s plans would have generated unless the Kremlin can rapidly fix fundamental and systemic problems. Putin and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced that the Russian Armed Forces would mobilize combat-ready reservists to quickly stabilize the frontlines and regain the initiative on the battlefield.[1] Milblogger and social media reports, however, show that Russian military recruitment centers, enlistment officials, and local administrations are mobilizing men who do not meet the Kremlin’s stated criteria, especially Shoigu’s promise that mobilization would prioritize men with “combat experience.” Russian opposition outlets and Telegram channels leaked information suggesting that the Kremlin aims to complete this partial mobilization by November 10 and that the Kremlin is seeking to mobilize 1.2 million men instead of the publicly announced 300,000.[2] ISW cannot verify these reports, but significant available information suggests that this mobilization campaign (the first in post-Soviet Russia) is overwhelming an ineffective and unmotivated bureaucratic system and could fail to generate the much-needed combat-ready reserve force in a short time or at all.

Russian pro-war milbloggers and social media users are raising concerns about unlawful mobilization practices and showcasing many serious Russian mobilization problems on the second day of the mobilization effort. Russian milbloggers reported receiving numerous complaints from social media users that older men, students, employees of military industries, and civilians with no prior military experience are receiving illegal mobilization notices.[3] Shoigu and other officials have repeatedly stated that these categories of individuals would be exempt from this partial mobilization. Other sources reported that Russians are mobilizing airport and airline employees and workers from other industries.[4] The Russian government FAQ portal also indicated that local mobilization-enforcing officials may mobilize part-time students, despite the Kremlin’s declaration that no students will undergo mobilization.[5]

Some milbloggers noted that Russian enlistment personnel are assigning men with prior military service to very different specializations from those in which they served, while other sources recounted instances of military recruitment centers mobilizing men with chronic illnesses.[6]

The quality of Russian bureaucrats and military trainers are also raising fears among the Russian pro-war crowd that the partial mobilization effort may not succeed. Milbloggers noted that employees of the military enlistment centers are unmotivated and underpaid, reducing their enthusiasm to adhere to the envisioned mobilization plan. Milbloggers also pleaded with officers and commanders in charge of preparing mobilized men for war to train them before deployment.[7]

Challenges and errors in the first days of executing a large-scale and demanding partial mobilization in the midst of a failing war are not necessarily surprising, although they suggest that the Russian military mobilization infrastructure was not better prepared for a major war than the Russian armed forces themselves. It is nevertheless conceivable that the Russian Ministry of Defense will address some of the worst problems and get the mobilization effort on track. It is also possible, moreover, that much of the partial mobilization is proceeding more or less as planned and that social media and the milblogger community are highlighting problems that are serious but not necessarily pervasive. Some of the reports suggest, however, that regional mobilization officials have been given quotas to fill and received pressure to fill them in ways that are more likely to cause errors than to reward adherence to the stated principles and the needs of an effective, combat-ready reserve force.

Divergences from the mobilization decree and from Putin’s and Shoigu’s statements about the categories of men who are exempt from mobilization are also causing anger and mistrust toward Russian federal subjects and the Kremlin itself. Some social media footage already shows mobilized men fighting with enlistment officers, arguing with mobilization representatives, and refusing to serve under unlawful orders.[8] Some milbloggers claimed that some of the discontented men who have been wrongfully mobilized would have accepted their fate if they had actually met the mobilization criterium.[9] The Kremlin is thus committing unmotivated and potentially angry men to war with the task of regaining the initiative in an offensive war in a foreign land on a battlefield far from home.

The highly nationalist and pro-war milblogger community is calling on the Kremlin to address these mobilization issues rapidly, but the Kremlin is unlikely to be able to meet their demands. Russian milbloggers express cautious optimism that partial mobilization will reinforce degraded combat units and allow Russian forces to advance in Donetsk Oblast, but are concerned that the Kremlin’s failures to enforce mobilization according to the law and stated policies will create political unrest.[10] One milblogger stated that the Kremlin’s poor handling of the partial mobilization is giving rise to “separatist movements” and opposition media.[11] Another milblogger noted that the Kremlin’s failure to fix mobilization practices within the military recruitment centers may shatter Russians‘ trust in the military-political leadership.[12] A failed or badly flawed partial mobilization campaign may risk further alienation of the Russian nationalist crowd that has been supportive of the war and mobilization.

Disparate mobilization processes across different regions may exacerbate social tensions in Russia already raised by perceived inequalities in the creation of volunteer battalions. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov stated in a live TV broadcast that the Republic of Chechnya will not conduct mobilization because the Republic has already exceeded an unspecified force generation plan by 254 percent.[13] Kadyrov added that Chechnya has already deployed 20,000 servicemen to war since February 24. Kadyrov threatened to mobilize any protesters in Chechnya and send them to the front, however. Kadyrov then seemingly modified his statements by encouraging those opposing mobilization to respect Russian sovereignty instead of using the constitution to avoid service.[14] Kadyrov’s initial statement, addressed to the Chechen public, may be an attempt to both address and discourage criticism of mobilization, the war, and himself within the Chechen community. Kadyrov’s statement could also be a worrisome indicator for the Kremlin—if one of the war’s most vociferous and aggressive advocates feels the need to refuse to mobilize his people, at least publicly, that could indicate that even Kadyrov senses the popular resentment the partial mobilization will cause and possibly even fears it.

Key Takeaways

• Russian partial mobilization efforts are suffering from serious and systemic problems in their first days, generating popular resentment and setting conditions to produce a mobilized reserve force incapable of accomplishing the tasks Russian President Vladimir Putin has set for it.
• Protests, attacks against recruiting centers, and vandalism have occurred across Russia in the first 48 hours after the announcement of partial mobilization.
• Ukrainian forces continued to advance north and northwest of Lyman.
• Ukrainian forces continued their interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast and maintained operational silence regarding Ukrainian progress on the axis.
• Russian forces continued to launch unsuccessful assaults near Bakhmut and northwest of Donetsk City.
• Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down an Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drone in an unspecified area of the Black Sea, likely near Odesa.
• Russian occupation authorities began the voting period for their sham annexation referenda on September 23 with overt coercion and falsified turnout numbers.
• Russian occupation authorities remained on high alert to prevent partisan attacks against sham election workers, polling stations, and government facilities.

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 sources reported that Ukrainian forces continued to repel Russian effort to regain lost positions around eastern Kupyansk on September 23.[15] Ukrainian officials also reported that Russian forces again unsuccessfully targeted a dam over the Pechenihy Reservoir likely in an effort to flood the Siverskyi Donets River and disrupt Ukrainian logistics on its eastern bank.[16]

Ukrainian forces continued to advance north and northwest of Lyman. Russian milbloggers reported that Ukrainian forces have driven into the rear of Russian positions in Lyman from the north, after reportedly breaking through Russian defenses around Karpivka and Ridkodub (about 22km northwest of Lyman).[17] Another milblogger noted that there are no communications with a Russian BARS-13 reservist detachment that was occupying a defensive position near Drobysheve (7km west of Lyman).[18]

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian strikes wounded the commander of the 144th Motorized Rifle Division of the 20th Combined Arms Army of the Western Military District (WMD), Major General Oleg Tsokov in Svatove (about 37km east of the new frontline in Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast).[19] The 144th Division is based in western Russia near the Belarusian border. Its losses in Luhansk Oblast, along with those of the 1st Guards Tank Army of the WMD, confirm that Russia continues to expend some of its premier forces that had been responsible for defending Russian borders against a NATO attack as well as threatening NATO.

Southern Ukraine: (Kherson Oblast)

Ukrainian military officials maintained their operational silence regarding Ukrainian ground attacks in Kherson Oblast but noted that Russian forces continued efforts to restore lost positions and fired along the entire line of contact on September 23. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported on September 23 that Russian forces continued to organize their defense of occupied Ukrainian territories and are using aerial reconnaissance to search for opportunities to regain Ukrainian-held positions.[20]

Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported continued Ukrainian interdiction efforts against Russian positions in Kherson Oblast on September 22-23. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian forces conducted seven airstrikes against Russian forces and anti-aircraft assets on September 23 and conducted 99 fire missions.[21] Ukrainian forces reportedly destroyed two command posts in Henichensk (just north of the Crimean Peninsula) and Kakhovka Raions. Social media users reported explosions on September 22 and 23 in Nova Kakhovka.[22] Ukrainian forces maintained fire control over the Kakhovka Bridge over the Dnipro River.[23] Social media footage published on September 23 depicted additional Ukrainian artillery strikes on a Russian warehouse and damaging a Russian armored vehicle near Liubymivka, 80km northeast of Nova Kakhovka.[24] A Kherson-based Ukrainian source reported on September 22 that Ukrainian forces likely targeted unspecified Russian military positions in Chornobaivka, just north of Kherson City.[25] A Russian milblogger confirmed reports of Ukrainian Tochka-U missile fire into Kherson Oblast.[26]

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 routine shelling and rocket artillery strikes along the front lines around Bakhmut and Donetsk City on September 23 according to the Ukrainian General Staff.[27] Russian forces conducted failed ground assaults on September 23 on Zaitseve and Maryorsk in the Bakhmut area and around Novomykhailivka, Avdiivka, Opytne, and Kamianka in the Donetsk City area.[28]

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

Russian forces are continuing to use Iranian-made drones to strike Ukrainian forces and cities in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down an Iranian-made Mohajer-6 in an unspecified part of the Black Sea, likely near Odesa, on September 23.[29] That attack marks the first time ISW has observed a Mohajer-6 in Ukraine.[30] Russian forces have previously used Shahed-136 kamikaze drones in Ukraine.[31] Odesa City officials reported that Russian forces conducted a drone attack on an administrative building in Odesa on September 23, likely using a Shahed-136.[32] A Russian milblogger claimed that the attack targeted the Ukrainian Navy Headquarters.[33] Ukrainian forces also reportedly shot down two Shahid-136 drones over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[34]

Russian occupation officials claimed that Ukrainian forces broke through Russian defenses in western Zaporizhia Oblast. Russian-appointed Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladimir Rogov claimed on September 23 that a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group broke through Russian defenses near Polohy and traveled toward Rozivka, likely along the N08 highway, in off-road vehicles.[35] The Zaporizhia Occupation Administration announced a 500,000-ruble reward for information leading to the capture of the “saboteurs.”[36] ISW cannot independently confirm these reports.

Russian forces continued strikes on Zaporizhia City on September 22-23. Rogov posted footage on September 22 of Russian rockets striking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and military facilities overnight.[37] Rogov claimed that Ukrainian air defenses damaged civilian buildings by shooting down the rockets. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian rocket attacks struck a Ukrainian military enlistment office and a factory in Zaporizhia City on September 23.[38] Ukrainian Zaporizhia Oblast Administration Head Oleksandr Starukh also reported that Russian forces hit civilian infrastructure in Zaporizhia City.[39]

Russian forces continued routine shelling of Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and Mykolaiv City, Mykolaiv Oblast on September 23. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command and local Ukrainian officials reported on September 23 that Russian forces shelled Nikopol and Marhanets, damaging civilian residences and electrical lines.[40]

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

Ukrainian counteroffensives are likely continuing to attrit and grind down Russian forces even as the Kremlin’s partial mobilization attempts to backfill new personnel to degraded Russian units. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on September 23 that the Russian military delivered the bodies of 105 deceased Russian servicemembers to a military hospital in Rostov-on-Don and reported that preparations are underway for the receipt of 200 additional bodies in the near future.[41]

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 authorities began the voting period for their sham annexation referenda on September 23 with overt coercion and falsified turnout numbers. Ukrainian sources reported that members of the occupation “election commissions” went door-to-door in occupied Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts accompanied by armed men.[42] Voters who turned up at polling stations did not have access to private voting booths; armed occupation forces reportedly showed voters which boxes to check and did not check identification at polling sites.[43] Occupation authorities reportedly stopped people on the streets to force them to vote.[44] The Ukrainian head of the Luhansk Military Administration, Serhiy Haidai, reported that armed men threatened to break into apartment buildings that refused them entrance and told voters who offered identification that ”we already know you.”[45] Haidai reported that occupation authorities are recording the names of those who vote no on the referendum, indicating that Russian authorities are likely preparing to retaliate against uncooperative Ukrainian civilians.[46]

Russian occupation authorities remained on high alert to prevent partisan attacks against sham election workers, polling stations, and government facilities. The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) reported that forces from Rosgavardia, the Russian military police, as well as the Russian Ministry of Emergencies are tasked with the “protection” of annexation referenda measures.[47] Russian occupation authorities in Luhansk Oblast reported that forces from the LNR Interior Ministry, the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry, and Rosgvardia implemented unspecified ”organizational and practical measures” to protect public order and civilian safety during the referendum, including the protection of election commission personnel ”outside the polling stations.”[48] The Russian Ministry of Defense stated on September 23 that sappers from the International Mine Action Center have begun inspecting polling stations and nearby areas in Luhansk for explosives, referring to these as ”anti-terrorist measures.”[49] The Russian head of the “We Are Together With Russia” movement, a likely Kremlin-directed attempt to demonstrate grassroots support for the sham referenda, reported a “terrorist” attack near a residential building in central Melitopol on September 23, likely describing a partisan attempt to disrupt the sham referendum there.[50]

Russian milbloggers already set information conditions to explain away any reported low turnout. One milblogger reported on September 23 that occupation administrations in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia oblasts have not maintained the telephone lines meant to inform residents in Ukraine and Russia about where polling stations are located.[51] The milblogger claimed that no employees answered the phone at informational call centers and that many residents in Ukraine and Russia cannot vote because they do not know where the polling stations are located. Russian milbloggers may use this misleading narrative to justify low turnout or coercive door-to-door “polling” of residents.

Russian media will likely distribute false turnout numbers each day of the sham referendum to maintain a thin veneer of legitimacy. A Russian reporter claimed that 15.3% of voters in Kherson Oblast, 22% of voters in Luhansk Oblast, 20.5% in Zaporizhia Oblast, and 23.6% in Donetsk Oblast turned out to vote on September 23.[52] He did not clarify whether these percentages refer to all eligible voters in each oblast, or only in occupied areas. Russian occupation authorities may have specific quotas of paper ballots to meet for informational purposes, but the results of these sham referenda are pre-determined and will wildly overstate turnout and support for Russian occupation.

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://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/1573304908979355648?s=20&t=g74o...

https://twitter.com/meduza_en/status/1573304231573987330; https://meduza dot io/news/2022/09/23/v-eti-tri-prisesta-dolzhny-vse-muzhiki-byt-tam-dozhd-rasskazal-o-treh-volnah-mobilizatsii; https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/09/23/russia-to-conscript-up-to-1-2-mi... https://meduza dot io/feature/2022/09/23/istochnik-meduzy-v-armiyu-sobirayutsya-prizvat-1-2-milliona-chelovek

[5] https://meduza dot io/news/2022/09/23/studentov-zaochnikov-mogut-mobilizovat-po-resheniyu-prizyvnoy-komissii

[8]https://meduza dot io/video/2022/09/23/rot-zakroyte-chto-vy-orete-vse-igrushki-zakonchilis; https://www dot fontanka.ru/2022/09/23/71680199/; https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1573258049657225216; https://t.me... https://ufa1 dot ru/text/gorod/2022/09/23/71679011/

[13] https://www dot kavkazr.com/a/v-chechne-mobilizatsiya-provoditjsya-ne-budet-kadyrov/32046850.html

[44] https://sprotyv dot mod dot gov dot ua/2022/09/23/rosiyany-pochaly-svoye-volevyyavlennya-ozbroyenni-okupanty-opytuyut-meshkancziv-za-misczem-prozhyvannya/ ; https://t.me/mariupolrada/11123 ; https://t.me/andriyshTime/3066

[49] ttps://t.me/mod_russia/20112; https://t.me/miroshnik_r/8865

understandingwar.org

2. Ukraine:  CDS Daily brief (23.09.22) CDS comments on key events

CDS Daily brief (23.09.22) CDS comments on key events

Humanitarian aspect:

The exhumation of the bodies from the mass burial site in Izyum has been completed. Work continued for a week without interruption. 447 bodies were removed from the graves, including 215 women, 194 men, 5 children, and 22 military personnel. In addition, the remains of 11 people were found, whose gender cannot be determined at the moment, Head of Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration Oleg Synehubov said. Most of the bodies have signs of violent death, and 30 have signs of torture. There are bodies with ropes around their necks, tied hands, broken limbs, and gunshot wounds. Several men have amputated genitalia.

Law enforcement officers discovered 18 places in Kharkiv Oblast where the occupiers tortured Ukrainian citizens and established the identities of more than 1,000 Russian soldiers who committed crimes in the occupied territories, First Deputy Chief of the Main Investigative Department of the National Police Serhii Panteleev said.

A torture chamber and a mass grave were discovered in Kozacha Lopan, Kharkiv Oblast, Chief of the National Police Ihor Klymenko said. Investigators will arrive there shortly. According to the local residents, the occupying forces took some of the captives with them as they were retreating to cover up crimes.

Two Iranian kamikaze drones that flew from the sea destroyed the administration building in the port of Odesa today. One person was killed, Operative command South reported.

On the evening of September 23, air defense forces shot down 2 Shahid-136 kamikaze drones over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. One drone fell into the private yard, starting a fire. Six people were injured, and one person was hospitalized, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Council, Mykola Lukashuk, said.

The Russian military fired at the city of Zaporizhzhya and the Zaporizhzhya district in the early morning hours of September 23. A civilian object and several houses were hit; three people were injured.

The head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, Valentyn Reznichenko, said that in the morning the Russian forces shelled the cities of Nikopol and Marhanets. In Marhanets, two people, a man and a woman, died. According to preliminary information, 9 more were injured, 3 of them were retrieved from under the rubble.

On September 22, the Russian forces shelled Sumy Oblast 11 times, wounding four civilians, Dmytro Zhivytskyi, head of the Sumy Oblast, reported. Two dozen houses and seven vehicles

were damaged. Two businesses, a school, a kindergarten, and a village cultural center were also damaged.

The SBU is investigating more than 1,600 cases of collaborative activity, and 420 people are already awaiting court verdicts, SBU spokesman Artem Dekhtyarenko told at a briefing of representatives of the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine.

According to the data from the Latvian Revenue Service, as of September 22, 6,565 Ukrainians are officially employed in Latvia, and another 181 citizens of Ukraine have registered economic activity.

Occupied territories

The occupation authorities in Crimea said that men who wanted to leave the peninsula could do so only upon obtaining permission from their military commissariat.

Today in the morning, the Russia-installed authorities of the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya Oblasts said they had started the sham "referenda."

Serhii Haidai, the head of Luhansk Oblast Military Administration, said that the "voting" organized at people's homes had started in the occupied part of Luhansk Oblast. People with guns accompany the so-called election commissioners; there is no confidentiality of the "vote," and the paperwork is filled out in the open in people's homes and yards. If residents refuse to open the door, they are told that the "commissioners" will break in. The names of those who mark "no" [for joining Russia] are recorded in a notebook. It's possible to "vote" without proper identification. Haidai believes that Russians go to the homes to look for male residents under the guise of so-called "referenda."

A representative of the Russia-appointed occupation Zaporizhzhya authorities announced today that for some time after the farse "referendum," until Russia admits the territory, it will be independent. The name of the Oblast is not going to change. "Everything is done according to federal constitutional law No. 6 "On the admission of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation and the formation of new entities within the Russian Federation - the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol" – he said.

Operational situation

It is the 212th 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.

The Russian military continues striking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and the homes of the civilian population. The threat of Russian air and missile strikes persists throughout the entire territory of Ukraine.

Over the past day, the Russian forces launched 4 missile and 27 air strikes, and fired more than 75 MLRS rounds at military and civilian targets on the territory of Ukraine, violating the norms of international humanitarian law, the laws, and customs of war.

More than 45 Ukrainian towns and villages were affected by enemy strikes. In particular, Pechenihy, Pryshyb, Yarova, Spirne, Vesele, Bakhmut, Maryinka, Krasnohorivka, Kostyantynivka, Neskuchne, Poltavka, Yehorivka, Bezymene, Kryvyi Rih, Bilohirya, Zaporizhzhya, Bilohirka, Pervomaiske, Mykolaiv, Ochakiv, Vysokopillya, Sukhyi Stavok, Myrolyubivka, Novohryhorivka as well as areas around Shalyhine, Myropilske, Volfyne and Yizdetske in Sumy Oblast.

The Russian forces continue to suffer losses, in particular among their leadership. According to available information, the commander of the 144th motorized rifle division of the 20th combined arms army, Major General Tsokov, was wounded as a result of an attack in the area of Svatove. He was evacuated on September 20.

Between September 19 and 20, 105 bodies of Russian servicemen arrived at the military hospital in Rostov-on-Don, and preparations are underway to receive another 200 bodies soon.

To replenish manpower losses, the Russian military continued forced mobilization in temporarily occupied territories. Thus, in Horlivka, on September 19, representatives of the 1st Army Corps detained and took ten men to military service, regardless of their age or health condition.

Between September 18 and 20, representatives of the Russian PMC unsuccessfully tried to recruit prisoners in the Luhansk pre-trial detention center.

As part of implementing "partial mobilization" measures, the occupation authorities of Crimea announced that most reservists are planned to be recruited from among the employees of private security companies with military service experience. In Sevastopol, some businesses have already been instructed to prepare lists of all employees meeting the requirements.

There is also information about the early graduation of the final year cadets of the air defense military academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Smolensk and their subsequent assignment to positions in the military.

The Russian military leadership plans to hold a meeting with citizens who are in reserve at the base of the Moscow combined military command school between September 26 and October 24.

From September 26 to October 4, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus command plans to rotate the personnel of at least three of the seven BTGs from the grouping deployed near the state border with Ukraine. In addition, most likely, within the next week, the command of the

Belarus Armed Forces plans to increase its number to eight BTGs with servicemen of one of the battalions of the 120th separate motorized rifle brigade.

In the Volyn and Polissya directions, SOF detachments from the 5th separate SOF brigade of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus are deployed and operating, particularly at the state border crossing.

Aviation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces hit 25 areas of the Russian manpower and military equipment concentration and 6 positions of anti-aircraft missile systems. In addition, Ukrainian air defense units destroyed a Mi-8 helicopter and 9 Russian UAVs in various directions.

Over the past day, Ukrainian missile forces and artillery have inflicted fire damage on 6 enemy command and control points, 4 areas of personnel and military equipment concentration, 3 air defense positions, 3 artillery positions, and 3 ammunition depots.

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 Russian military fired tanks, mortars, and artillery of various calibers in the areas around Dubnivka, Hoptivka, Vovchansk, Kamyanka, and Kupyansk.

Over the past 24 hours, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled enemy attacks in the areas around Kupyansk. Ukrainian forces succeeded in breaching Russian defenses along the line that runs near Dvorichna to go around Kupyansk from the north and force the Oskil River, threatening Russian positions east of the area. Ukrainian forces have taken positions east of Dvorichna and are fighting in Tavlizhanka.

The Russian troop grouping, which withdrew from Kharkiv Oblast of Ukraine to the territory of Belgorod Oblast of the Russian Federation, continues to conduct hostilities against the Ukrainian Defense Forces (the front line is actually the state border of Ukraine). At the same time, they are trying to intensively restore combat capability, formally being in the first-line reserve. In particular, there are two BTGs of the 138th separate motorized rifle brigade, one from the 25th

separate motorized rifle brigade of the 6th combined arms army, three from the 18th motorized rifle division, one from the 11th tank regiment of the 11th Army Corps of the Baltic Fleet, one from the 80th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 14th Army Corps and one from the 61st separate marines brigade of the Northern Fleet.

At least half of them lost up to 30-40% of personnel and regular combat equipment, and the military units of the 11th Army Corps suffered the most significant losses.

In total, up to eight BTGs are concentrated in Belgorod Oblast, of which five or six are relatively combat-capable. In addition, two rifle battalions of the mobilization reserve of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR were also deployed to the territory of Belgorod Oblast. After the battles in the northeastern part of Kharkiv Oblast, they were practically incapacitated due to significant losses and the personnel's low morale and psychological state.

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 Russian forces shelled the Ukrainian Defense Forces with tanks, mortars, barrel, and jet artillery in the areas of Mayaki, Mykolaivka, Dibrova, Kryva Luka, Pryshyb, and Siversk.

During the day, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled enemy attacks in the areas around Spirne.

Ukrainian troops continued to attack Lyman, broke through Russian defenses in Ridkodub, Karpivka, and Korovyn Yar, and continued to advance on Drobysheve. In addition, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces advanced north of Lyman.

Russian troops shelled Yatskivka and Koroviy Yar, trying to prevent Ukrainian units from gaining a foothold on the new frontier.

During the last three days, using the railway line to Starobilsk, the enemy moved in three echelons of no less than 110 wagons with materiel items for the needs of the Svatove grouping units (military units of the Western Military District that retreated to Luhansk Oblast). Some supplies continued to Novoaidar; of them, at least 40 railway tanks with fuel and lubricants (a total of up to 2,400 tons of fuel and lubricants were delivered).

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 Russian military fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces near Soledar, Bakhmutske, Bakhmut, Vesela Dolyna, Zaitseve, Vesele, Bilohorivka, Yakovlivka, Krasnohorivka, Opytne, Maryinka, Novomykhailivka.

During the day, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled enemy attacks in the areas of Mayorsk, Zaitseve, Avdiivka, Novomykhailivka, Odradivka, Opytne, and Kamianka. Ukrainian troops made a controlled withdrawal from the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut and blew up the bridge across the Bakhmutka River.

Russian troops are fighting in Zaitseve and Odradivka, stormed Novomykhailivka, and continued strikes along the contact line around Bakhmut in the Avdiyivka-Donetsk area. Territorial defense of the so-called "DPR" claimed that its units took control of Zhovanka.

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.

Vuhledar, Zolota Nyva, Neskuchne, Vremivka, Novoukrayinka, Velyka Novosilka, Mala Tokmachka, Nova Tokmachka, Mali Shcherbaky, Zelene Pole, Zaliznychne and Rivnopillia were affected by the Russian fire.

The enemy continues to build up its grouping in the Vuhledar area. At least two BTGs from the 6th motorized rifle division of the 3rd Army Corps began to advance in the Novopavlivka direction from the training and exercise center "Kuzmynskyi" (Rostov Oblast, Russian Federation). One BTG from the 54th motorized rifle regiment of the 6th motorized rifle division concentrated in the area of Novomayorske, and another BTG from the 10th tank regiment of the 6th motorized rifle division was deployed in the area of the Olhinka village.

Another enemy BTG of the 54th motorized rifle regiment should be expected to be loaded and sent to the Novopavlivka direction tomorrow.

The 3rd Army Corps headquarters, including its forward C2 point and command post, and the 7th separated signal battalion of the 6th motorized rifle division are deployed in Mulino, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russian Federation. However, they are not prepared for march.

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.

Ukrainian troops continued to strike at the Russian troops and equipment concentrations, control points, logistics hubs, and vehicles in Kherson Oblast.

Russian troops continued strikes on Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv Oblasts. They used the Iranian Shahed-136 UAV to attack civilian infrastructure in Kryvyi Rih.

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.

Russian military shelled more than 20 towns and villages.

Ukrainian troops struck Russian positions and equipment concentration in the area of Nova Kakhovka, Beryslav, and Lviv, along the Dnipro River and within 50 km east of Kherson.

Russian troops redeployed air defense units to Beryslav.

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.

Currently, there are 15 enemy warships at sea providing reconnaissance and blocking shipping in the Azov-Black Sea waters. Up to 28 Kalibr missiles on four carriers can be ready for a salvo.

After the stormy weather, the danger of mines persists on the coast of Odesa Oblast. On September 22, servicemen of the mobile demining group of the Ukrainian Navy neutralized a sea mine that was washed onto the coast.

4 enemy submarines of project 636.3 currently in the Black Sea are at the port of Novorossiysk due to the fear of attack.

Russian missile and artillery attacks on Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Ochakiv continue. The Russian military uses S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, MLRS, and artillery. On September 23, the Russian military attacked Odesa with Iranian Shahid 136 kamikaze drones for the first time. Ukrainian air defenses shot down six drones. At least two hit their target.

Russian aviation continues to fly from the Crimean airfields of Belbek and Hvardiyske over the northwestern part of the Black Sea. Over the past day, 10 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.

"Grain initiative": on September 23, 11 ships departed from the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk, and the port "Pivdenny." They have 201,000 tons of food on board for the countries of Asia and Africa.

Bulk carrier ZEKO Y departed from Odesa port, MERRY M, LADY AYANA, MO GAN SHAN, TZAREVICH, GUDENA, NIL DEMIR, SEA DOVE departed from Chornomorsk port, and FORTUNA, GEM STAR, MAVKA departed from Pivdenny port. Since the departure of the first ship with Ukrainian food, 4.58 million tons of agricultural products have already been exported. A total of 203 ships with food for the countries of Asia, Europe, and Africa have left Ukrainian ports.

Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 23.09

Personnel - almost 55,060 people (+550);

Tanks – 2,254 (+18);

Armored combat vehicles – 4,796 (+20);

Artillery systems – 1,355 (+14);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 326 (+8); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 170 (+1); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 3,659 (+29); Aircraft - 254 (+1);

Helicopters – 219 (+1);

UAV operational and tactical level - 950 (+9); Intercepted cruise missiles - 240 (0);

Boats / ships - 15 (0).

Ukraine, general news

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the President's Office, called pseudo-referendums held by Kremlin-appointed authorities in the occupied parts of Donbas, Kherson Oblast, and Zaporizhzhya a "propaganda show." He stressed that no legal act called a "referendum" takes place in the occupied territories; there is just a "propaganda show for z-mobilization."

The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv allowed the detaining of former Minister of Foreign Affairs Kostyantyn Hryshchenko and the former Minister of Justice of Ukraine Oleksandr Lavrynovych, suspected of treason. The suspects are currently hiding outside of Ukraine, and the court's decision enables the prosecution to initiate the procedure for their extradition. According to the investigation, in April 2010, the suspects, acting to the detriment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, defense capability, and state and economic security of Ukraine, in violation of the Constitution and legislation of Ukraine, without actually reviewing the draft agreement extending the stay of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea and without conducting a mandatory legal examination, agreed to it with no reservations.

International diplomatic aspect

"Based on the evidence gathered by the Commission, it has concluded that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine," Erik Mose, an UN-mandated investigation body, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The members of the Commission "were struck by a large number of executions in the areas that they visited. The commission is currently investigating such deaths in 16 towns and settlements." The commission's report highlighted several areas where Russian activities had been particularly harmful, including general, indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, executions, torture, and sexual and gender-based violence. In addition, the commission reported that Russia's "use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in populated areas is a source of immense harm and suffering for civilians" and that many attacks "had been carried out without distinguishing between civilians and combatants," including with the use of "cluster munitions or multi-launch rocket systems and airstrikes in populated areas." The commission will next turn its attention to "filtration" camps in Russian-occupied territories.

Several months ago, the US and 37 other countries invoked the OSCE Moscow Mechanism to examine Russia's adherence to its OSCE Human Dimension commitments on human rights and fundamental freedoms. As a result, the expert mission found that a decade of legislation in Russia "has completely changed the scope of Russian civil society, cutting it off from foreign and international partners, suppressing independent initiatives, stifling critical attitudes towards the authorities, silencing the media, and suppressing political opposition." The report also makes clear that Russia's "repression on the inside and war on the outside are connected to each other as if in a communicating tube."

Though the report shows the suppression of rights and freedoms by Putin's regime, one shouldn't omit the role of Russian society for a social contract includes two parts – the government and society. The totalitarian nature of the current regime is a partial result of the society that didn't oppose the first signs, and the following worrying trends of Putin's regime metamorphose into a de facto fascist state. The time when a protest was risky, but there were chances of success is lost. Now, Russians face the dilemma of being fined, bitten, imprisoned, or sent to Ukraine to kill Ukrainians and die in the senseless war.

"I don't have a rational explanation. It seems to me that this is a combination of resentment, a strategy of hegemony in the region and, I would say, the consequences of COVID-19, isolation," the French President explained his reading of Putin's decision to start the war.

"Macron astonished us at the beginning of the crisis with his, to say the least, unique and critical statement that Putin should not be humiliated and offered an exit ramp. Such statements were disastrous and deeply harmful", said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO secretary- general. He believes that Macron's diplomatic efforts in response to the war in Ukraine were a failure and "deeply harmful" for Kyiv. But later, the French President recalibrated his message and stroke a firmer tone against Moscow. He stated that peace talks can only work if Ukraine's "sovereignty is respected, its territory liberated and its security protected," while "Russia must now understand that it cannot impose its will by military means."

"Putin was pushed by the Russian people, by his party, by his ministers to come up with this special operation," said former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi. He believes that Putin's goals were replacing [democratically elected] President Volodymyr Zelensky with "a government of decent people" and then getting out "in another week." A right-wing coalition, including Berlusconi's party, is expected to win a majority in both houses of parliament and form the next government. Along with the Hungarian government, headed by another friend of Putin, these two might undermine the united stand of the EU on Russia. Hungary's governing party plans to poll Hungarians on whether they support EU sanctions imposed against Russia over its war in Ukraine.

While Vladimir Putin was addressing the nation with the "partial mobilization" news, Moscow's church patriarch was cheering up would-be-mobilized, blessing them for the war in Ukraine. "The fear of death drives the warrior from the battlefield, pushes the weak to betrayal and even to rebel against brother. But true faith destroys the fear of death. And remember that if you laid

down your life for the Motherland, for your friends, then you will be with God in His Kingdom, glory, eternal life," said patriarch Gundyaev. A few months ago, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban saved Kirill Gundyaev from getting into the EU sanctions list by threatening to block a restrictive measure package.

The Finnish government decided to place "significant restrictions on the issuing of visas to Russian citizens and on their entry into the country to prevent serious damage to Finland's international position." So, Finland joins the Baltic states in safeguarding its security and, indirectly, making fleeing Russians realize their responsibility for the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine. At the same time, German politicians from most political parties agree that Russian deserters are welcome in Germany. The German government is now seeking consensus with its EU partners on how to deal with the situation to find a "viable solution," said the government spokesman.

Yet, the traffic-light coalition postponed a vote on the resolution called "Defending peace and freedom in Europe — supporting Ukraine resolutely with heavy weapons now," aimed at providing Ukraine with tanks and other weapons badly needed to expel the Russian invasion forces out of the Ukrainian territory.

Russia, relevant news

The press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitriy Peskov, said that the Constitution of the Russian Federation would immediately come into force with regard to the occupied Ukrainian territories where sham voting ["referenda"] is held. According to him, Russia will consider Ukraine's attempts to return the occupied lands after the so-called "referendum" as an attack on the territory of the Russian Federation.

At a meeting with the operational headquarters for the so-called "special military operation," the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, said there would be no mobilization in Chechnya. He explained this by claiming that during the war in Ukraine, the republic "overachieved the plan."

The American packaging manufacturer Ball Corporation, which accounted for 70% of the aluminum beverage cans production on the Russian market, sold its Russian business to the local "Arnest" group for $530 million, Ball Corporation said in a statement.

The Japanese automaker Toyota stops production in Russia after 15 years of operation. According to Kommersant's interlocutors, the automobile concern could not arrange the supply of components to the Russian Federation. The company, however, will stay in the market and continue providing service to Toyota owners.

The Uzbek unified banking processing center UZCARD said that the Russian card "Mir" service has been temporarily suspended since September 23 "for technical reasons."

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3. 5 takeaways from Biden’s speech to the world

I wonder if President Yoon and President Biden coordinated their remarks.

President Yoon did not mention north Korea. President Biden said the following but did not specifically mention nuclear weapons:

Despite our efforts to begin serious and sustained diplomacy, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues to blatantly violate U.N. sanctions.

I think it was smart of both of them not to mention north Korean nuclear weapons. On the other hand some might argue that by not making Kim Jong Un a major focal point of their speeches that it might drive him to act out because he needs the recognition.

Excerpts:

1) All for U.N. and U.N. for all

2) What, no regime change?

3) Don’t forget China

4) A lack of vision for seemingly hopeless conflicts

5) Are we cool with North Korea now?

5 takeaways from Biden’s speech to the world

Politico

Russia loomed large in the president's address, but there were other lines worth paying attention to.

President Joe Biden address the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, at U.N. headquarters. | Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo

09/21/2022 02:08 PM EDT

NEW YORK — Leave it to Vladimir Putin to rain on Joe Biden’s parade of nations.

The U.S. president’s speech Wednesday to the United Nations General Assembly was always going to have Russia’s war on Ukraine as its top focus.

But the Russian autocrat’s announcement that he will escalate the war through new troop mobilizations and support for referenda leading to annexations of Ukrainian territory — all delivered alongside a barely veiled nuclear threat — prompted some last-minute tweaks to Biden’s address, according to a senior Biden administration official.

The result was a more pointed rebuke of Putin, who, for what it’s worth, doesn’t seem all that scared of pointed rebukes.

In fairness to Biden, his remarks were not all “Russia, Russia, Russia.” Like his predecessors, the American leader used his U.N. platform to tackle an array of topics, from the importance of stopping climate change to the bravery of Iranian women burning their veils in protest of the regime in Tehran. Still, it was hard for those present to escape the chill emanating from Moscow.

Here are a few thoughts on what Biden said, and what he didn’t.

1) All for U.N. and U.N. for all

One theme that Ukrainian leaders keep hitting this week is the need for seemingly neutral countries — the Indias and South Africas of the world — to take Kyiv’s side in the war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy likened it to choosing between “good and evil, light and dark.”

Biden made a similar call but in a more veiled manner. He appealed to other nations to uphold the ideals of the United Nations — the ones that say a country can’t take another’s territory by force. “The U.N. Charter’s very basis of a stable and just rule-based order is under attack,” Biden warned.

It’s a clever tactic. Smaller countries in particular view the United Nations as a venue where they can exercise significant power. Even the tiniest island nation, after all, gets a vote in the General Assembly. And U.N. institutions and legal bodies are places where such countries — which often feel bullied by the great powers, including the United States — can be heard.

But the United States itself doesn’t have the most amazing track record of upholding U.N. standards. It drags its feet on recognizing U.N.-negotiated agreements, invaded a country unprovoked less than 20 years ago and tortured numerous terror suspects, some of whom are still being held without trial. Why should other countries listen to Washington when it comes to the ideals of the United Nations?

2) What, no regime change?

Remember when Biden, apparently unscripted, called for Putin to be toppled? “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” the U.S. president said in March. On Wednesday, standing before the world, Biden made no such statement.

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe it, and there’s a very strong argument that the war in Ukraine will not truly end so long as Putin remains atop the Kremlin. But the stakes feel even higher now than they did a few months ago. Putin seems rattled by Ukraine’s recent gains on the battlefield. His announcement this week, especially the line that he’s not bluffing about using nuclear weapons, suggests he’d rather fight than back down.

It’s an age-old story if there ever was one: A man refusing to let go of power. But Biden, or at least his speechwriters, may have calculated that poking Putin with a call for regime change wouldn’t be especially helpful right now.

3) Don’t forget China

Memo to Xi Jinping: You may have skipped UNGA this week, but Biden isn’t skipping over you.

The U.S. leader didn’t dwell too much on China and its increasingly powerful leader. In fact, compared to the sections on Russia or climate change, the direct references to Beijing were minimal. Still, Biden’s words were just pointed enough to make clear that, Russia or no Russia, he knows it is China that is the bigger long-term threat to American global dominance.

The trick was to talk about it in a way that didn’t alienate many less-powerful countries who feel like the proverbial grass under two fighting elephants. So Biden, as he has before, framed the rivalry as a contest, not a fight, in which Washington is offering fair partnerships, not a future of economic dependency, to nations watching on the sidelines.

“Let me be direct about the competition between the United States and China,” he said. “As we manage shifting geopolitical trends, the United States will conduct itself as a reasonable leader. We do not seek conflict. We do not seek a Cold War. We do not ask any nation to choose between the United States or any other partner. But the United States will be unabashed in promoting our vision of a free, open, secure and prosperous world.”

4) A lack of vision for seemingly hopeless conflicts

Sometimes it’s as if there’s a mathematical formula to what gets mentioned in a U.S. president’s UNGA speech and how long he dwells on it. That formula: The longer-lasting and more hopeless your conflict seems, the less attention the speech will give it, if it gives it any attention at all.

That’s why, in a matter of just seconds, Biden rapidly ticked off the following: the war in Ethiopia (“We support an African Union-led peace process.”); the crisis in Venezuela (“We urge the Venezuelan-led dialogue and return to free and fair elections.”); the disasters in Haiti (“We continue to stand with our neighbor … We have more to do.”); the war in Yemen (“We’ll continue to back the U.N.-mediated truce.”); and, of course, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (“We will continue to advocate for lasting negotiated peace.”).

And then he moved on.

5) Are we cool with North Korea now?

A few years after then-President Donald Trump threatened to “totally destroy” nuclear-armed North Korea during a speech at UNGA, Biden barely mentioned the regime in Pyongyang. He spoke of it glancingly in the context of promoting nuclear non-proliferation, but in mild terms.

Maybe it’s a capacity issue. Biden obviously has plenty of other crises to tackle, including an ongoing war involving a nuclear power. It also could be a reality issue: Nobody seems to have a bright new idea for ending the North Korean nuclear threat, and attempts to restart negotiations appear to have stalled.

Biden may have decided it was better just not to dwell too much on Pyongyang — why provoke it now? But, whether it’s through harsh rhetoric or missile tests, North Korea often seeks attention precisely when it feels ignored.

POLITICO

Politico

4. Remarks by President Biden Before the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Remarks by President Biden Before the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly - The White House

whitehouse.gov · by The White House · September 21, 2022

United Nations Headquarters

New York, New York

11:08 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow leaders, in the last year, our world has experienced great upheaval: a growing crisis in food insecurity; record heat, floods, and droughts; COVID-19; inflation; and a brutal, needless war — a war chosen by one man, to be very blunt.

Let us speak plainly. A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map.

Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter — no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force.

Again, just today, President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe and a reckless disregard for the responsibilities of the non-proliferation regime.

Now Russia is calling — calling up more soldiers to join the fight. And the Kremlin is organizing a sham referenda to try to annex parts of Ukraine, an extremely significant violation of the U.N. Charter.

This world should see these outrageous acts for what they are. Putin claims he had to act because Russia was threatened. But no one threatened Russia, and no one other than Russia sought conflict.

In fact, we warned it was coming. And with many of you, we worked to try to avert it.

Putin’s own words make his true purpose unmistakable. Just before he invaded, Putin asserted — and I quote — Ukraine was “created by Russia” and never had, quote, “real statehood.”

And now we see attacks on schools, railway stations, hospitals, wa- — on centers of Ukrainian history and culture.

In the past, even more horrifying evidence of Russia’s atrocity and war crimes: mass graves uncovered in Izyum; bodies, according to those that excavated those bodies, showing signs of torture.

This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple, and Ukraine’s right to exist as a people. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe, that should not — that should make your blood run cold.

That’s why 141 nations in the General Assembly came together to unequivocally condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine. The United States has marshaled massive levels of security assistance and humanitarian aid and direct economic support for Ukraine — more than $25 billion to date.

Our allies and partners around the world have stepped up as well. And today, more than 40 countries represented in here have contributed billions of their own money and equipment to help Ukraine defend itself.

The United States is also working closely with our allies and partners to impose costs on Russia, to deter attacks against NATO territory, to hold Russia accountable for the atrocities and war crimes.

Because if nations can pursue their imperial ambitions without consequences, then we put at risk everything this very institution stands for. Everything.

Every victory won on the battlefield belongs to the courageous Ukrainian soldiers. But this past year, the world was tested as well, and we did not hesitate.

We chose liberty. We chose sovereignty. We chose principles to which every party to the United Nations Charter is beholding. We stood with Ukraine.

Like you, the United States wants this war to end on just terms, on terms we all signed up for: that you cannot seize a nation’s territory by force. The only country standing in the way of that is Russia.

So, we — each of us in this body who is determined to uphold the principles and beliefs we pledge to defend as members of the United Nations — must be clear, firm, and unwavering in our resolve.

Ukraine has the same rights that belong to every sovereign nation. We will stand in solidarity with Ukraine. We will stand in solidarity against Russia’s aggression. Period.

Now, it’s no secret that in the contest between democracy and autocracy, the United States — and I, as President — champion a vision for our world that is grounded in the values of democracy.

The United States is determined to defend and strengthen democracy at home and around the world. Because I believe democracy remains humanity’s greatest instrument to address the challenges of our time.

We’re working with the G7 and likeminded countries to prove democracies can deliver for their citizens but also deliver for the rest of the world as well.

But as we meet today, the U.N. Charter — the U.N. Charter’s very basis of a stable and just rule-based order is under attack by those who wish to tear it down or distort it for their own political advantage.

And the United Nations Charter was not only signed by democracies of the world, it was negotiated among citizens of dozens of nations with vastly different histories and ideologies, united in their commitment to work for peace.

As President Truman said in 1945, the U.N. Charter — and I quote — is “proof that nations, like men, can state their differences, can face them, and then can find common ground on which to stand.” End of quote.

That common ground was so straightforward, so basic that, today, 193 of you — 193 member states — have willingly embraced its principles. And standing up for those principles for the U.N. Charter is the job of every responsible member state.

I reject the use of violence and war to conquer nations or expand borders through bloodshed.

To stand against global politics of fear and coercion; to defend the sovereign rights of smaller nations as equal to those of larger ones; to embrace basic principles like freedom of navigation, respect for international law, and arms control — no matter what else we may disagree on, that is the common ground upon which we must stand.

If you’re still committed to a strong foundation for the good of every nation around the world, then the United States wants to work with you.

I also believe the time has come for this institution to become more inclusive so that it can better respond to the needs of today’s world.

Members of the U.N. Security Council, including the United States, should consistently uphold and defend the U.N. Charter and refrain — refrain from the use of the veto, except in rare, extraordinary situations, to ensure that the Council remains credible and effective.

That is also why the United States supports increasing the number of both permanent and non-permanent representatives of the Council. This includes permanent seats for those nations we’ve long supported and permanent seats for countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

The United States is committed to this vital work. In every region, we pursued new, constructive ways to work with partners to advance shared interests, from elevating the Quad in the Indo-Pacific; to signing the Los Angeles Declaration of Migration and Protection at the Summit of the Americas; to joining a historic meeting of nine Arab leaders to work toward a more peaceful, integrated Middle East; to hosting the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit in — this December.

As I said last year, the United States is opening an era of relentless diplomacy to address the challenges that matter most to people’s lives — all people’s lives: tackling the climate crisis, as the previous spoker [sic] — speaker spoke to; strengthening global health security; feeding the world — feeding the world.

We made that priority. And one year later, we’re keeping that promise.

From the day I came to office, we’ve led with a bold climate agenda. We rejoined the Paris Agreement, convened major climate summits, helped deliver critical agreements on COP26. And we helped get two thirds of the world GDP on track to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

And now I’ve signed a historic piece of legislation here in the United States that includes the biggest, most important climate commitment we have ever made in the history of our country: $369 billion toward climate change. That includes tens of billions in new investments in offshore wind and solar, doubling down on zero emission vehicles, increasing energy efficiency, supporting clean manufacturing.

Our Department of Energy estimates that this new law will reduce U.S. emissions by one gigaton a year by 2030 while unleashing a new era of clean-energy-powered economic growth.

Our investments will also help reduce the cost of developing clean energy technologies worldwide, not just the United States. This is a global gamechanger — and none too soon. We don’t have much time.

We all know we’re already living in a climate crisis. No one seems to doubt it after this past year. We meet — we meet — much of Pas- — as we meet, much of Pakistan is still underwater; it needs help. Meanwhile, the Horn of Africa faces unprecedented drought.

Families are facing impossible choices, choosing which child to feed and wondering whether they’ll survive.

This is the human cost of climate change. And it’s growing, not lessening.

So, as I announced last year, to meet our global responsibility, my administration is working with our Congress to deliver more than $11 billion a year to international climate finance to help lower-income countries implement their climate goals and ensure a just energy transition.

The key part of that will be our PEPFAR [PREPARE] plan, which will help half a billion people, and especially vulnerable countries, adapt to the impacts of climate change and build resilience.

This need is enormous. So let this be the moment we find within ourselves the will to turn back the tide of climate demastation [sic] — devastation and unlock a resilient, sustainable, clean energy economy to preserve our planet.

On global health, we’ve delivered more than 620 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to 116 countries around the world, with more available to help meet countries’ needs — all free of charge, no strings attached.

And we’re working closely with the G20 and other countries. And the United States helped lead the change to establish a groundbreaking new Fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response at the World Bank.

At the same time, we’ve continued to advance the ball on enduring global health challenges.

Later today, I’ll host the Seventh Replenishment Conference for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. With bipartisan support in our Congress, I have pledged to contribute up to $6 billion to that effort.

So I look forward to welcoming a historic round of pledges at the conference resulting in one of the largest global health fundraisers ever held in all of history.

We’re also taking on the food crisis head on. With as many as 193 million people around the world experiencing acute — acute food insecurity — a jump of 40 million in a year — today I’m announcing another $2.9 billion in U.S. support for lifesaving humanitarian and food security assistance for this year alone.

Russia, in the meantime, is pumping out lies, trying to pin the blame for the crisis — the food crisis — onto sanctions imposed by many in the world for the aggression against Ukraine.

So let me be perfectly clear about something: Our sanctions explicitly allow — explicitly allow Russia the ability to export food and fertilizer. No limitation. It’s Russia’s war that is worsening food insecurity, and only Russia can end it.

I’m grateful for the work here at the U.N. — including your leadership, Mr. Secretary-General — establishing a mechanism to export grain from Black Sea ports in Ukraine that Russia had blocked for months, and we need to make sure it’s extended.

We believe strongly in the need to feed the world. That’s why the United States is the world’s largest supporter of the World Food Programme, with more than 40 percent of its budget.

We’re leading support — we’re leading support of the UNICEF efforts to feed children around the world.

And to take on the larger challenge of food insecurity, the United States introduced a Call to Action: a roadmap eliminating global food insecurity — to eliminating global food insecurity that more than 100 nation member states have already supported.

In June, the G7 announced more than $4.5 billion to strengthen food security around the world.

Through USAID’s Feed the Future initiative, the United States is scaling up innovative ways to get drought- and heat-resistant seeds into the hands of farmers who need them, while distributing fertilizer and improving fertilizer efficiency so that farmers can grow more while using less.

And we’re calling on all countries to refrain from banning food exports or hoarding grain while so many people are suffering. Because in every country in the world, no matter what else divides us, if parents cannot feed their children, nothing — nothing else matters if parents cannot feed their children.

As we look to the future, we’re working with our partners to update and create rules of the road for new challenges we face in the 21st century.

We launched the Trade and Technology Council with the European Union to ensure that key technologies — key technologies are developed and governed in the way that benefits everyone.

With our partner countries and through the U.N., we’re supporting and strengthening the norms of responsibility — responsible state behavior in cyberspace and working to hold accountable those who use cyberattacks to threaten international peace and security.

With partners in the Americas, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, we’re working to build a new economic ecosystem while — where every nation — every nation gets a fair shot and economic growth is resilient, sustainable, and shared.

That’s why the United States has championed a global minimum tax. And we will work to see it implemented so major corporations pay their fair share everywhere — everywhere.

It’s also been the idea behind the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which the United States launched this year with 13 other Indo-Pacific economies. We’re working with our partners in ASEAN and the Pacific Islands to support a vision for a critical Indo-Pacific region that is free and open, connected and prosperous, secure and resilient.

Together with partners around the world, we’re working to ser- — secure resilient supply chains that protect everyone from coercion or domination and ensure that no country can use energy as a weapon.

And as Russia’s war rolls [sic] — riles the global economy, we’re also calling on major global creditors, including the non-Paris Club countries, to transparently negotiate debt forgiveness for lower-income countries to forestall broader economic and political crises around the world.

Instead of infrastructure projects that generate huge and large debt without delivering on the promised advantages, let’s meet the enormous infrastructure needs around the world with transparent investments — high-standard projects that protect the rights of workers and the environment — keyed to the needs of the communities they serve, not to the contributor.

That’s why the United States, together with fellow G7 partners, launched a Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. We intend to collectively mobilize $600 billion

in investment through this partnership by 2027.

Dozens of projects are already underway: industrial-scale vaccine manufacturing in Senegal, transformative solar projects in Angola, first-of-its-kind small modular nuclear power plant in Romania.

These are investments that are going to deliver returns not just for those countries, but for everyone. The United States will work with every nation, including our competitors, to solve global problems like climate change. Climate diplomacy is not a favor to the United States or any other nation, and walking away hurts the entire world.

Let me be direct about the competition between the United States and China. As we manage shifting geopolitical trends, the United States will conduct itself as a reasonable leader. We do not seek conflict. We do not seek a Cold War. We do not ask any nation to choose between the United States or any other partner.

But the United States will be unabashed in promoting our vision of a free, open, secure, and prosperous world and what we have to offer communities of nations: investments that are designed not to foster dependency, but to alleviate burdens and help nations become self-sufficient; partnerships not to create political obligation, but because we know our own success — each of our success is increased when other nations succeed as well.

When individuals have the chance to live in dignity and develop their talents, everyone benefits. Critical to that is living up to the highest goals of this institution: increasing peace and security for everyone, everywhere.

The United States will not waver in our unrelenting determination to counter and thwart the continuing terrorist threats to our world. And we will lead with our diplomacy to strive for peaceful resolution of conflicts.

We seek to uphold peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits.

We remain committed to our One China policy, which has helped prevent conflict for four decades. And we continue to oppose unilateral changes in the status quo by either side.

We support an African Union-led peace process to end the fight in Ethiopia and restore security for all its people.

In Venezuela, where years of the political oppression have driven more than 6 million people from that country, we urge a Venezuelan-led dialogue and a return to free and fair elections.

We continue to stand with our neighbor in Haiti as it faces political-fueled gang violence and an enormous human crisis.

And we call on the world to do the same. We have more to do.

We’ll continue to back the U.N.-mediated truce in Yemen, which has delivered precious months of peace to people that have suffered years of war.

And we will continue to advocate for lasting negotiating peace between the Jewish and democratic state of Israel and the Palestinian people. The United States is committed to Israel’s security, full stop. And a negotiated two-state solution remains, in our view, the best way to ensure Israel’s security and prosperity for the future and give the Palestinians the state which — to which they are entitled — both sides to fully respect the equal rights of their citizens; both people enjoying equal measure of freedom and dignity.

Let me also urge every nation to recommit to strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime through diplomacy. No matter what else is happening in the world, the United States is ready to pursue critical arms control measures. A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

The five permanent members of the Security Council just reaffirmed that commitment in January. But today, we’re seeing disturbing trends. Russia shunned the Non-Proliferati- — -Proliferation ideals embraced by every other nation at the 10th NPT Review Conference.

And again, today, as I said, they’re making irresponsible nuclear threats to use nuclear weapons. China is conducting an unprecedented, concerning nuclear buildup without any transparency.

Despite our efforts to begin serious and sustained diplomacy, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues to blatantly violate U.N. sanctions.

And while the United States is prepared for a mutual return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action if Iran steps up to its obligations, the United States is clear: We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

I continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome. The nonproliferation regime is one of the greatest successes of this institution. We cannot let the world now slide backwards, nor can we turn a blind eye to the erosion of human rights.

Perhaps singular among this body’s achievements stands the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is the standard by which our forebears challenged us to measure ourselves.

They made clear in 1948: Human rights are the basis for all that we seek to achieve. And yet today, in 2022, fundamental freedoms are at risk in every part of our world, from the violations of — in Xinjiang detailed in recent reports by the Office of U.N. — U.S. — reports detailing by the U.S. [U.N.] High Commissioner, to the horrible abuses against pro-democracy activists and ethnic minorities by the military regime in Burma, to the increased repression of women and girls by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

And today, we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights.

But here’s what I know: The future will be won by those countries that unleash the full potential of their populations, where women and girls can exercise equal rights, including basic reproductive rights, and contribute fully to building a stronger economies and more resilient societies; where religious and ethnic minorities can live their lives without harassment and contribute to the fabric of their communities; where the LGBTQ+ community individuals live and love freely without being targeted with violence; where citizens can question and criticize their leaders without fear of reprisal.

The United States will always promote human rights and the values enshrined in the U.N. Charter in our own country and around the world.

Let me end with this: This institution, guided by the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is at its core an act of dauntless hope.

Let me say that again: It’s an act of dauntless hope.

Think about the vision of those first delegates who undertook a seemingly impossible task while the world was still smoldering.

Think about how divided the people of the world must have felt with the fresh grief of millions dead, the genocidal horrors of the Holocaust exposed.

They had every right to believe only the worst of humanity. Instead, they reached for what was best in all of us, and they strove to build something better: enduring peace; comity among nations; equal rights for every member of the human family; cooperation for the advancement of all humankind.

My fellow leaders, the challenges we face today are great indeed, but our capacity is greater. Our commitment must be greater still.

So let’s stand together to again declare the unmistakable resolve that nations of the world are united still, that we stand for the values of the U.N. Charter, that we still believe by working together we can bend the arc of history toward a freer and more just world for all our children, although none of us have fully achieved it.

We’re not passive witnesses to history; we are the authors of history.

We can do this — we have to do it — for ourselves and for our future, for humankind.

Thank you for your tolerance, for listening to me. I appreciate it very much. God bless you all. (Applause.)

11:37 A.M. EDT

whitehouse.gov · by The White House · September 21, 2022

5. As Russian Losses Mount in Ukraine, Putin Gets More Involved in War Strategy

Vladimir "LBJ" Putin?

Excerpts:

With dissent rising in Russia, and military-age men attempting to flee the country to avoid the call-up, U.S. officials say Mr. Putin believes another Ukrainian victory would further erode the popularity of the war, something he cannot risk. Videos widely shared on Twitter in the days since Mr. Putin announced his call-up show angry draftees being scolded by shouting Russian military officials. “Playtime’s over!” yells one military official in one video. “You’re soldiers now!”

Mr. Putin’s conversations with his regional military commanders in Ukraine may also be part of an effort to get more accurate assessments of the campaign. As the war has gone on, American officials have said that Mr. Putin has not been given accurate information from his top military advisers, Sergei K. Shoigu, the defense minister, and Valery Gerasimov, the Russian military’s chief of the general staff.

In addition to blocking a retreat from Kherson, Mr. Putin has raised doubts about Russian efforts to consolidate their position in the northeast near the Oskil River, which the Ukrainian counteroffensive reached this month. Mr. Putin, an American official said, has opposed pulling back there as well, because he is reluctant to hand anything to Mr. Zelensky that looks like a win.

Even as Mr. Putin demands a strategy of no further retreats, American officials said Russian officers themselves are divided on how to respond to the Ukrainian counteroffensives. Some officers believe they should push back hard on Mr. Putin’s directives before the Ukrainians break through their current lines. Others believe they can follow through on Mr. Putin’s directives.

Russia has continued to focus on the south, despite Ukrainian progress east of Kharkiv. While Moscow has sent some reinforcements to embattled northeastern positions, most of the tens of thousands of troops that Russia sent south to the Kherson area — including some of its best combat forces — remain in place.

As Russian Losses Mount in Ukraine, Putin Gets More Involved in War Strategy

The Russian president has rejected requests from commanders in the field that they be allowed to retreat from Kherson, a vital city in Ukraine’s south.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/us/politics/putin-ukraine.html?fbclid=IwAR1p0uIr14ksbK34mSR0pgMLiIbupLQFyGqzfLxgBSBPiGbVqqrf8rM4Q28

By Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Michael Schwirtz

Sept. 23, 2022

WASHINGTON — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has thrust himself more directly into strategic planning for the war in Ukraine in recent weeks, American officials said, including rejecting requests from his commanders on the ground that they be allowed to retreat from the vital southern city of Kherson.

A withdrawal from Kherson would allow the Russian military to pull back across the Dnipro River in an orderly way, preserving its equipment and saving the lives of soldiers.

But such a retreat would be another humiliating public acknowledgment of Mr. Putin’s failure in the war, and would hand a second major victory to Ukraine in one month. Kherson was the first major city to fall to the Russians in the initial invasion, and remains the only regional capital under Moscow’s control. Retaking it would be a major accomplishment for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

Focused on victory at all costs, Mr. Putin has become a more public face of the war as the Russian military appears increasingly in turmoil, forcing him to announce a call-up this week that could sweep 300,000 Russian civilians into military service. This month, Moscow has demonstrated it has too few troops to continue its offensive, suffers from shortages of high-tech precision weaponry and has been unable to gain dominance of Ukraine’s skies.

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But American officials briefed on highly sensitive intelligence said that behind the scenes Mr. Putin is taking on an even deeper role in the war, including telling commanders that strategic decisions in the field are his to make. Although Mr. Putin has accepted some recommendations from military commanders, including the mobilization of civilians, his involvement has created tensions, American officials said.

The officials said that Mr. Putin’s rejection of a military pullback from Kherson has also led to a decrease in morale among Russian troops who have been mostly cut off from their supply lines, and who appear to believe they could be left stranded against Ukrainian forces.

“The situation in Ukraine is clearly dynamic,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview on Friday. “It’s too early for a full assessment, but it is clear to me that the strategic initiative has shifted to the Ukrainians.” But he cautioned that there remains a “long road ahead.”

Mr. Putin’s disagreements over battle lines in Kherson illustrate how critical the war in Ukraine’s south is to both sides, American officials said. Despite Ukraine’s recent advances in the northeast, the area around Kherson is a critical theater in the war, with profound strategic implications for Kyiv and Moscow.

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Some American officials said they saw trouble ahead for the Russian military in the southern theater. A senior U.S. official said this week that Ukraine was well on its way to repeating in the south the gains its forces had managed during a lightning offensive in the northeast earlier this month. If Ukraine pushes Russian forces back farther, Mr. Putin’s hard-fought-for land bridge to Crimea, the territory it captured from Ukraine and annexed in 2014, could eventually be threatened, American officials said.

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The divisions over Kherson are only the latest disagreements between Mr. Putin and his top commanders. Senior Russian officers repeatedly questioned the early plans for the war, American officials said, particularly an initial stage that envisioned a quick strike on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. The Russian officers believed Mr. Putin was going to war with insufficient troops and weaponry, American officials said.

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The Russian officers’ concerns proved correct, and after the defeat of the Russian army outside Kyiv, Mr. Putin eased up his control of military planning. He allowed senior generals to create a new strategy focused on massive artillery barrages, American officials said. The new strategy was effectively a grinding war of attrition that played to the Russian military’s strength and succeeded in pushing the army forward in eastern Ukraine.

Since Mr. Putin ordered his commanders to continue fighting in Kherson, the Russian military has tried to halt the Ukrainian advance there. Last week the Russians blew up a dam on the Inhulets River to make the current counteroffensive more difficult.

But Ukrainian strikes have blown up the crossings over the Dnipro River, which has largely cut off Russian troops from their supply lines on the other side. Russians have had to use pontoon bridges to cross the river, only to see them hit by Ukrainian fire, Ukrainian officials said. “They’ve got units in there who, if the Ukrainians break through the lines, will be cut off and surrounded,” said Seth G. Jones, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I cannot overstate how dicey the situation is for them.”

Pulling back past the Dnipro River would likely allow Russian commanders to hold the line in the south with fewer troops. That would give them more latitude to redeploy forces from Kherson to other areas, either pushing back against the Kharkiv counteroffensive in the northeast, solidifying defensive lines in the eastern Donbas region or opening up a new front in the south.

But Mr. Putin has told commanders he will set the strategy.

“In this war there has been a consistent mismatch between Putin’s political objectives and the military means to attain them,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a defense research institute in Arlington, Va. “At important decision points Putin has procrastinated, refusing to recognize the reality, until the options turned from bad to worse.”

Pulling Russian forces back past the Dnipro River would also be a stark rebuttal to Mr. Putin’s referendum there on joining the Russian Federation. Holding such sham votes is a key objective of Moscow. Blocking them remains one of Kyiv’s top priorities.

With dissent rising in Russia, and military-age men attempting to flee the country to avoid the call-up, U.S. officials say Mr. Putin believes another Ukrainian victory would further erode the popularity of the war, something he cannot risk. Videos widely shared on Twitter in the days since Mr. Putin announced his call-up show angry draftees being scolded by shouting Russian military officials. “Playtime’s over!” yells one military official in one video. “You’re soldiers now!”

Mr. Putin’s conversations with his regional military commanders in Ukraine may also be part of an effort to get more accurate assessments of the campaign. As the war has gone on, American officials have said that Mr. Putin has not been given accurate information from his top military advisers, Sergei K. Shoigu, the defense minister, and Valery Gerasimov, the Russian military’s chief of the general staff.

In addition to blocking a retreat from Kherson, Mr. Putin has raised doubts about Russian efforts to consolidate their position in the northeast near the Oskil River, which the Ukrainian counteroffensive reached this month. Mr. Putin, an American official said, has opposed pulling back there as well, because he is reluctant to hand anything to Mr. Zelensky that looks like a win.

Even as Mr. Putin demands a strategy of no further retreats, American officials said Russian officers themselves are divided on how to respond to the Ukrainian counteroffensives. Some officers believe they should push back hard on Mr. Putin’s directives before the Ukrainians break through their current lines. Others believe they can follow through on Mr. Putin’s directives.

Russia has continued to focus on the south, despite Ukrainian progress east of Kharkiv. While Moscow has sent some reinforcements to embattled northeastern positions, most of the tens of thousands of troops that Russia sent south to the Kherson area — including some of its best combat forces — remain in place.

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Sept. 21, 2022

Can Ukraine Break Through Again?

Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. @julianbarnes • Facebook

Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent, and was part of the team awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for its coverage of the Ebola epidemic. @helenecooper

Eric Schmitt is a senior writer who has traveled the world covering terrorism and national security. He was also the Pentagon correspondent. A member of the Times staff since 1983, he has shared four Pulitzer Prizes. @EricSchmittNYT

Michael Schwirtz is an investigative reporter with the International desk. With The Times since 2006, he previously covered the countries of the former Soviet Union from Moscow and was a lead reporter on a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for articles about Russian intelligence operations. @mschwirtz • Facebook

A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 24, 2022, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Putin Tightening His Grip On Reins Of Ukraine War. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

6. All the Tsar’s Men: Why Mobilization Can’t Save Putin’s War

Excerpts:

Now Putin has sought to remedy the chronic shortage in manpower by mobilizing a very broad category of men, whatever their actual military experience and professional roles. The starting goal is 300,000 extra troops, although the eventual number could be much higher, Rushing them into service without proper kit (winter is coming), equipment, training, and officers capable of leading them, risks carnage in battle and a backlash at home. Meanwhile, Putin’s decree also prevents those already on the frontline on short-term contracts from leaving. This could further worsen the morale and discipline issues that have plagued the Russian side from the start.

It is a common refrain among those who worry about Russia’s next moves that Putin cannot lose. But he can and he might. A series of terrible decisions has led him to undermine Russia’s international position and economic prospects, shatter the reputation of the Russian Federation as a serious military power, and fail in the most important gamble of his career. As with all wars, the future course of this one will have unpredictable aspects, but Ukraine, with a clear strategy, better weapons, and committed forces, has seized the initiative. The mobilization he has announced will not turn this around, and the use of nuclear weapons would make a bad situation catastrophic. Putin is on course to lose, and given the many thousands lives already sacrificed, he fully deserves to do so. 

All the Tsar’s Men

Why Mobilization Can’t Save Putin’s War

By Lawrence Freedman

September 23, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Lawrence Freedman · September 23, 2022

In his September 21 speech about the steps he was taking to win his war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin had to explain why he had not already won. The culprit was NATO, which he faulted for the huge support it has given to Kyiv. When he said “we will certainly use all the means at our disposal” if Russia’s territorial integrity is violated, some saw a link with the earlier part of his speech when he referred to the proposed referendums in occupied territories. But that was left vague. It is hard to establish a red line in areas where the situation on the ground is so fluid. In line with all previous statements, it was toward NATO that his nuclear threat was directed, to deter it from getting even more directly involved in supporting Ukraine.

As for actually turning the tide of the war, his proposed remedy was more troops. He decreed all Russians who had received previous military training to report to service, a mobilization described as “partial” but still looking substantial. Men without past training appear to have been rounded up, including students, who were supposed to have been excluded. Nothing in the seven-minute speech removed the stench of failure surrounding the enterprise. While it remains unclear if the draft can make any difference to the outcome, it has already raised the stakes for Putin at home. As many men are herded sullenly into buses to go to war, others seek to flee the country or, in defiance of draconian security measures, take to the streets to protest.

Failure, however, is not something that Putin and his inner circle can acknowledge. At each stage—the thwarting of his initial offensive against Kyiv in February, the slow grind of the limited advances that Russian forces made in Luhansk in the summer, the sudden breakthroughs by Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv in September—Putin has doubled down. Instead of looking for a way to cut his losses and exit before matters got worse, he has continually insisted that his objectives will be achieved, although the precise nature of those objectives has fluctuated, and even modest gains of territory have taken far longer, and cost far more in troops and equipment, than could possibly have been he anticipated at the outset.

In an article for Foreign Affairs in July, I argued that many of the problems facing Russia during the opening months of the conflict could be attributed to the higher direction of the war. The whole Russian chain of command struggled to cope with an enemy that resisted stubbornly and imaginatively, posing operational problems that had not been anticipated and that Russian forces were ill equipped to deal with. More important still was the delusional nature of Putin’s original decision to invade. As Russia’s supreme commander, Putin viewed the enemy in caricature, his assumptions untested against available intelligence on Ukrainian military preparedness and popular attitudes in Ukraine itself. His distorted understanding led to the arrogant belief that Ukrainian resistance would collapse with the initial Russian push, and that the country could then be easily subjugated. It did not take much knowledge of Ukrainian history to appreciate how difficult both these tasks would be. Even if the initial military moves had succeeded, Russian forces lacked the capacity to pacify such a large population in such a large country.

As has now become clear, these flawed assumptions created an even deeper problem. Because Putin never recognized the invasion as a full-blown military conflict and refused to acknowledge that fact to the Russian public, he found himself with far too little manpower as the initial attack was transformed into a slow, grinding, and enormously lethal war. As a result, he has now been forced to seek new means to replenish his troops, but at a stage at which it will be very difficult to change the momentum. How Russia reached this extraordinary juncture, then, must be understood not only as a consequence of Ukrainian strength and resilience, and Western support, although they have been extraordinarily important, but also as the outcome of a series of military errors on the part of Russia’s own leadership, beginning with its initial invasion strategy.

Blind Into Battle

In the early days of the war, it was hard to imagine that Russia lacked the forces to complete the first stage of taking Ukraine. Its formidable military buildup had been underway for months before the February 24 invasion began. Because Putin had kept nearly everyone—including senior commanders—guessing about how these forces would be used, however, the strategy had not been thought through and so planning was unavoidably inadequate. The intent to invade was communicated to the frontline commanders too late to enable them to make proper preparations. Far too many separate lines of advance were chosen, so that in effect a series of separate wars were fought, each with its own command structure and without an appropriate mechanism in place to coordinate and share resources with the others. As a result, Russia’s initial moves were quickly rebuffed.

Most important, Russia failed to take Kyiv and was unable to destabilize the Ukrainian leadership. Not only surviving but also defiantly rallying his people from the capital, President Volodymyr Zelensky was able to swiftly and successfully press sympathetic countries for arms and ammunition. Now the Russians were caught in a different sort of war from the one they expected. Though they certainly had the advantage in numbers, there was an essential asymmetry in motivation. While Russian forces were unsure of their objectives in Ukraine and waited for orders, the Ukrainians were fighting for their homeland and were prepared to do whatever it took to free it from occupation.

There was no “hearts and minds” component to the Russian campaign.

Great powers fighting smaller countries are expected to have sufficient reserves to cope with early setbacks. But for Russia, poor military leadership compromised this natural advantage. Because Moscow had paid little attention to whether and how the Ukrainians would fight back, its forces soon found themselves taking heavy casualties and their logistical and command systems becoming progressively attenuated. After a month of war they were obliged to retreat from the north to concentrate on operations in the east and south. The Donbas was the territory that Moscow viewed as the heart of the dispute, and for a while it seemed that as Russian forces concentrated on taking the region—using familiar tactics, with heavy artillery barrages wearing down Ukrainian defenses—they might be gaining the upper hand. Even though the Ukrainians were not completely overrun, there were concerns in Kyiv and among its Western allies that the defensive effort would leave them with insufficient capacity to mount counteroffensives of their own. As a result, some Western analysts began making the argument for an early negotiated end to the war that would concede some territory to Russia in return for peace. But such voices were rarely heard in Ukraine. The egregious treatment of Ukrainians stuck in Russian-occupied territories and Russia’s readiness to bombard civilian areas added to Ukrainians’ determination to keep fighting. There was no “hearts and minds” component to the Russian campaign.

Adding to the Ukrainian government’s resolve to continue the fight was the fact that, by June its efforts to persuade other countries to provide weapons more suited to counter-offensives was starting to bear fruit. Ukrainian forces had taken heavy losses as they slowed down Russian advances. But the time gained by this forceful resistance was sufficient to allow more powerful armaments to arrive from the West—including, notably, the U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS)— and for Ukrainian troops to be trained to use them. By this time, as Ukraine was gaining the ability to strike targets over long ranges with high accuracy, Russian forces had run through much of their stocks of precision-guided munitions. Throughout July, Russian ammunition dumps, command posts, logistical hubs, and air defense systems were regularly hit, undermining Russia’s ability to continue its offensives and then enabling Ukraine to begin one of its own, to liberate the Kherson region in the south. That push appeared to be making slow but steady progress when, in early September, the Russians were caught by surprise, as their thinly spread forces around Kharkiv were overwhelmed by a determined Ukrainian offensive that led to a rout of Russian forces on September 10 and a disorderly retreat. After almost seven months of war, the initiative was now with Ukraine.

These events led to the crisis that Putin sought to address in his statement of September 21. Most of all, the crisis that is a direct consequence of his own original decision to launch the war. But how have his subsequent decisions as supreme commander aggravated the predicament that Russian forces now face? They have done this in four ways.

Mistakes Breed Mistakes

Putin’s initial mistake, once it was clear how badly the war was going, was not to use diplomatic means to bring it to an end with some gains to show for all the effort. was the diplomacy surrounding the war. In the weeks after the invasion began, Putin was not short of opportunities for discussions with other world leaders. From February to April, direct talks were held between delegations from Russia and Ukraine, including talks at the foreign-minister level under Turkish auspices. Some progress was made on ideas related to future Ukrainian neutrality in return for security guarantees. But the details were never pinned down, and Russia failed to convince the Ukrainians that any concessions on their part were going to lead to a Russian withdrawal.

After all that had happened, including Russian atrocities in the suburbs of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv’s ability to trust Russia’s word on anything, never high, evaporated completely. Putin’s constant lies and dissembling undermined his credibility to international interlocutors, such as President Emmanuel Macron of France. Just as important, he could never find a way to offer tangible concessions of his own, because to accept less than he had originally demanded would be acknowledging some sort of defeat. In the summer, when a cease-fire proposal from the Kremlin might have achieved a sympathetic reception in some Western capitals, Russia never offered one because it had yet to take all the Donbas.

Second, Putin misjudged the leverage he could get from Russian oil and gas. He gambled heavily that the energy crisis he created, by cutting back supplies of natural gas to Europe, would persuade Western governments to put even more pressure on Kyiv to make concessions and to stop providing it military assistance. These cuts did have dire effects on European economies, in the form of energy shortages and high inflation, but politically they were counterproductive. There was no clamor among Europeans to abandon Ukraine to ease the economic pain. Instead, European leaders put enormous efforts into reducing their dependence on Russian gas, thus losing Russia a vital long-term market.

Third was Putin’s focus, after the failure of the initial Kyiv offensive, on territorial gains in the Donbas. The campaign in the east made more sense politically and could be executed in a more deliberate and systematic fashion. But it also meant concentrating available Russian resources into what was now a narrow segment of a very long frontline and taking high casualties for modest gains. Meanwhile, Russian forces continued to underestimate the Ukrainians. As Ukrainian capabilities improved, Russian vulnerabilities were left exposed, both in terms of vital assets that could not be properly protected, such as the ammunition dumps, and the number of Russian-held areas that were now thinly defended. Moscow lacked the reserves to reinforce defenses in both of the regions to the north and south of the Donbas—Kharkiv and Kherson, respectively—and having opted to defend Kherson because Ukraine had made no attempt to hide its coming offensive, it left Russian forces exposed in Kharkiv.

Russia’s woefully inadequate defenses highlighted the fourth of the problems caused by Putin’s choices. Because the invasion was designed as a limited and, Putin hoped, quick operation, it was not accompanied by a full mobilization. It was not even called a war. This meant that from the start Russia never had enough infantry, and over time the extensive losses in all departments made the situation worse, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Instead of acknowledging the difficulties, Putin encouraged efforts to find new recruits wherever they could be found, using various means to bribe, cajole, and coerce them into service. Many already in uniform, for example from the navy, were ordered into roles for which they had not been trained. The Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary outfit with close ties to the Kremlin, which has used the conflict to build up its own power base, has offered prisoners a way out of their sentences by volunteering for the front. Complex operations have become increasingly difficult to manage because the fighting units have become incoherent, consisting of groups that are poorly trained and have not worked together before. All these deficiencies meant that Ukraine was able to move even more rapidly, and often with negligible Russian resistance, when it launched its Kharkiv offensive in September.

Losing Course

Now Putin has sought to remedy the chronic shortage in manpower by mobilizing a very broad category of men, whatever their actual military experience and professional roles. The starting goal is 300,000 extra troops, although the eventual number could be much higher, Rushing them into service without proper kit (winter is coming), equipment, training, and officers capable of leading them, risks carnage in battle and a backlash at home. Meanwhile, Putin’s decree also prevents those already on the frontline on short-term contracts from leaving. This could further worsen the morale and discipline issues that have plagued the Russian side from the start.

It is a common refrain among those who worry about Russia’s next moves that Putin cannot lose. But he can and he might. A series of terrible decisions has led him to undermine Russia’s international position and economic prospects, shatter the reputation of the Russian Federation as a serious military power, and fail in the most important gamble of his career. As with all wars, the future course of this one will have unpredictable aspects, but Ukraine, with a clear strategy, better weapons, and committed forces, has seized the initiative. The mobilization he has announced will not turn this around, and the use of nuclear weapons would make a bad situation catastrophic. Putin is on course to lose, and given the many thousands lives already sacrificed, he fully deserves to do so. 

• LAWRENCE FREEDMAN is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London and the author of Command: The Politics of Military Operations From Korea to Ukraine.

Foreign Affairs · by Lawrence Freedman · September 23, 2022

7. U.S.-led Pacific group to focus on climate, connectivity amid China concerns

Excerpts:

Campbell added that the group was also working on increasing connectivity among island states.

He said the United States, Australia and Japan had been involved in a number of efforts to advance undersea cables in the Pacific and added, in apparent reference to the summit, "we'll have more to say about this next week."

Campbell said two of the initiatives the Quad group of countries - the United States, Japan, India and Australia - wanted to focus on in the Pacific were maritime domain awareness and increasing communication links among island states with countries like Japan, Australia and India.

"That can only be accomplished through the laying of ... undersea cables. And so, I think the challenge is before us," he said. "We think it's important, and it will require financing and capacity, not just of any one state, but our combined efforts together."

U.S.-led Pacific group to focus on climate, connectivity amid China concerns

Reuters · by Reuters

WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - China's ambitions in the Pacific are a concern for some Pacific Island leaders, White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said on Thursday, but a growing U.S. partnership with allies in the region aims to address issues such as climate change, health and technology links.

Campbell spoke after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted a meeting with foreign ministers from the partners in the blue pacific (PBP)- a group formed in June that includes the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

U.S. officials briefing reporters on the meeting said Canada and Germany intended to formally join the initiative, which seeks to coordinate assistance to the strategically vital region in the face of competition from China.

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"I think as we've seen in some instances, clearly China has ambitions in the Pacific, some of which have caused concern among Pacific Island leaders," Campbell said. But he said the group's agenda would be guided by Pacific Island countries' needs.

"When we engage with Pacific Islanders one of the first things that they say is that for us national security really involves our environment and how climate change is an existential issue for them," Campbell said.

The Blue Pacific event, held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, comes ahead of a Sept. 28-29 summit U.S. President Joe Biden plans to host with Pacific island leaders.

The Biden administration has said that summit reflects its commitment to Pacific Island countries, whose leaders said this month Washington should accept their priorities, making climate change - not superpower competition - the most urgent security task.

Campbell added that the group was also working on increasing connectivity among island states.

He said the United States, Australia and Japan had been involved in a number of efforts to advance undersea cables in the Pacific and added, in apparent reference to the summit, "we'll have more to say about this next week."

Campbell said two of the initiatives the Quad group of countries - the United States, Japan, India and Australia - wanted to focus on in the Pacific were maritime domain awareness and increasing communication links among island states with countries like Japan, Australia and India.

"That can only be accomplished through the laying of ... undersea cables. And so, I think the challenge is before us," he said. "We think it's important, and it will require financing and capacity, not just of any one state, but our combined efforts together."

In a separate meeting, Blinken and his South Korean and Japanese counterparts affirmed a shared commitment to support Pacific Island countries. A joint statement said they pledged to look at ways to better help the island nations access climate finance and reaffirmed support for their efforts to boost maritime security and fisheries protection.

Reporting by Michael Martina, Simon Lewis and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Chris Reese and Richard Pullin

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

8. Blinken to host 'Blue Pacific' event amid competition with China

I have not heard very much about "Blue Pacific" previously.

Excerpt:

The group was formed in June and includes the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. read more India has an observer status with the PBP, White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said in remarks at an event in New York. A few other countries would join too, he said.

Blinken to host 'Blue Pacific' event amid competition with China

Reuters · by Reuters

WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will host the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP) countries on Thursday with the aim of better coordinating assistance to the region in the face of competition from China, a White House official said.

The group was formed in June and includes the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. read more India has an observer status with the PBP, White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said in remarks at an event in New York. A few other countries would join too, he said.

Campbell said circumstances for the Pacific islands countries were "much more dire" than in the past.

"Their livelihoods are threatened," he said, pointing to the "existential" threat they face from climate change and the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism revenue and business.

"Much of the assistance in the Pacific is not as well coordinated as it could be. We have not learned as much about best practices. We're going to seek to do that as we go forward, building on the existing institutions and engagements of the Pacific."

Some different countries would be doing more in the Pacific diplomatically "in terms of business prospects and aid and assistance," Campbell added.

He said there was an "undeniable strategic component" to the stepped up engagement.

"We've seen in the last several years a more ambitious China that seeks to develop footprints militarily and the like in the Indo Pacific ... that has caused some anxiety with partners like Australia and New Zealand, even countries in the region as a whole."

The Blue Pacific event, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, will come ahead of a Sept. 28-29 summit U.S. President Joe Biden plans to host with Pacific island leaders, which Campbell said reflected "a desire to demonstrate clearly our larger commitment to the Pacific going forward."

He said Washington did not want to see the region descend into "zero-sum" competition and he looked forward to conversations with Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and his delegation.

"We are going to step up our game with respect to supporting a variety of initiatives across the Pacific that will positively affect the Solomons as well," he said. "But we've also been clear about what our concerns are and we would not want to see ... a capacity for long-range power projection."

U.S.-China competition for influence in the Pacific islands has intensified this year after China signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, prompting warnings of a militarization of the region. read more

Pacific island leaders said this month Washington should accept their priorities, making climate change - not superpower competition - the most urgent security task. read more

Reporting by Kanishka Singh, David Brunnstrom and Michael Martina in Washington; editing by Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

9 Why the Pentagon’s Disinformation Campaigns Crashed and Burned

.

We are always chasing the "shiny thing." I wonder if this whole debacle is caused by an actual PSYOP unit? Or some other information organization and a contractor?

But if this type of effort does not show any kind of measurable and useful results perhaps we ought to get back to basics and work on strengthening overt information and influence operations. There may be certain situations where covert activities may be appropriate but we need to invest in our overt influence capabilities that are built on foundational values. Of course that does require getting our own house in order which I suppose is why some might think it is easier to revert to covert action.

Why the Pentagon’s Disinformation Campaigns Crashed and Burned

A look at recent covert online operations suggests their effectiveness in influencing public opinion has been greatly exaggerated.

The National Interest · by Tom Robertson · September 22, 2022

The Pentagon announced this week that it will conduct a full-scale evaluation of its psychological operations capabilities, following revelations that it has been conducting covert online disinformation campaigns. Alongside analyzing the legality of such operations, the review should seek to answer a more fundamental question: do these operations actually work?

The Washington Post, in its exclusive reporting on the story, states that roughly 150 U.S.-based social media accounts were identified and terminated by Facebook and Twitter as fakes over the past few years. Many of these accounts are suspected of having been created and managed by Department of Defense agencies or contractors, and the overwhelming majority gained little to no traction in what would seem to have been their principal purpose—weakening support for U.S. adversaries by posting fictional accounts of atrocities and other falsehoods online.

This failure is striking. It runs counter to the commonly accepted view that using social media to sow societal discontent at scale through organized disinformation campaigns is one the most important cyber weapons in the arsenal of sophisticated state actors. It is a dogma that has arisen over the past dozen years, mostly in the context of Russia’s adventurism in its near-abroad. This phenomenon began with Russia’s 2008 incursion into Georgia, where it seeded online discourse with fabricated stories of Georgian aggression, and continued with the waves of disinformation narratives pushed by the Kremlin regarding the supposed illegitimacy of the Ukrainian nation leading up to its 2014 annexation of Crimea, a theme that continues unabated in the context of today’s war in Ukraine.

The crown jewel of Russia’s online disinformation is, of course, commonly accepted to have been its campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. general presidential election (remember the Internet Research Agency and its call center “trolls”). Six years later, there is a general consensus that Russia succeeded in sowing discontent across America in the lead-up to the election. Corners of the intelligence community, along with some particularly partisan pundits, assert the influence was material to the outcome of several electoral districts and, by extension, the election itself.

Perhaps owing to the innate mystique of the narrative, anchored as it is in deception and intrigue, the notion that these disinformation campaigns may not actually achieve meaningful outcomes for their perpetrators is often ignored. Moreover, the complex and continuously evolving nature of the social media platforms on which the campaigns are executed makes measuring their impact somewhat difficult.

Does Disinfo Move the Dial?

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are assets of for-profit corporations and exist to generate revenue. Revenue is intrinsically tied to continuously increasing user traffic and content. In pursuit of this aim, functionality is ever-evolving. For example, video posts replace photo posts, which themselves replaced text posts. In tandem, a relentless focus on the user experience makes the ability to create and upload content ever easier. The result is platforms with ever-increasing reams and streams of data in continuously morphing forms.

The first step in identifying disinformation buried amongst this massive ebb and flow of data is to create repositories into which large subsets of the data can be herded and interrogated. Most data, however, is often unstructured—the string of characters in a text post is, from a data perspective, nearly perfectly random. So, the most logical data repository is one that allows for a wide range of data types, such as the “data lakes” concept. As data is herded into these repositories, uniform characteristics must be identified and tagged to make it easier to query. This begins with the metadata of each unique piece of data, such as the “date/time/stamp” of a photo, but must also include more qualitative characteristics, such as the “tone” of a text message.

This latter effort is where most efforts by the defense community to bound data fall short. Codifying qualitative traits is inexact, messy, and unscientific, and as such often ignored. Thus, when analysts attempt to understand whether a disinformation campaign has impacted “hearts and minds,” they remain blind to these critical data characteristics, relying instead on simple algorithmic tools. One such tool is counting the number of reposts or positive affirmations (“likes”) a given piece of data received over a period of time.

Archetypes are helpful in removing this limitation. Defense analysts should take a page from the playbooks of marketing and consumer behavior practitioners, who have used trial and error to produce commonly accepted “user sentiment” scores based on nuanced variables, including descriptor words in text posts (adjectives, adverbs), keyword combinations, and even sophisticated algorithms such as velocity scores correlating the timing and pacing of posts with emotions.

Isolating a large sampling of data from a popular social media platform like Facebook, ingesting it into a repository in a manner that allows for querying across a spectrum of characteristics—including qualitative ones—and then examining the behavior of known disinformation data within it will provide a comprehensive understanding of the disinformation’s impact.

It is not at all clear that even the most heavily orchestrated disinformation campaigns have ever meaningfully moved the dial on intended audience behavior. Given that the world’s largest and most sophisticated corporations spend hundreds of millions of dollars on social media campaigns to influence consumer behavior by even the tiniest of margins, one suspects that most, if not all, the “covert campaigns” splashed across news headlines are much ado about nothing.

Tom Robertson’s writing on the intersection of cybersecurity, technology, and great power competition has appeared in The National Interest, Global Affairs, First Monday, and elsewhere.

Image: Reuters.

The National Interest · by Tom Robertson · September 22, 2022

10. Why the Protests in Iran Are Different

Conclusion:

The timing of these protests comes at a pivotal time for Iran, with reports surfacing that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is ill (though sources close to the supreme leader have disputed these reports, and he has recently made two public appearances). Iran’s plan for his succession is unclear, as is the possibility that Iran and the United States can reach an agreement to revive the JCPOA, which will greatly impact the country’s trajectory.

Why the Protests in Iran Are Different

The timing of these protests comes at a pivotal time for Iran.

The National Interest · by Blaise Malley · September 23, 2022

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi gave his first major, international in-person speech since his 2021 election on Wednesday, when he addressed the seventy-seventh United Nations General Assembly in New York. Raisi’s speech focused on denouncing “double standards” against Iran and speaking out against the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. Left unmentioned in Raisi’s speech was the backdrop of protests going on in Iran during the last week, which mark the latest and seemingly most intense period of unrest in Iran in recent years.

The spark for these protests was the death of twenty-two-year-old Mahsa Amini. Amini was arrested last week by the morality police for violating Iran’s hijab law, which requires women to cover their hair. Amini’s family says that she was beaten and suffered a fatal head injury while in custody. Iranian officials and state media dispute this account, saying that Amini suffered a heart attack that later put her in a coma.

The response from the population has been quick and widespread. Many have been cutting their hair or taking off their mandatory headscarves, in some cases setting them on fire. Protesters have immediately called for the overthrow of the regime and an end to the Islamic Republic. Human rights groups who have been tracking the ongoing protests say that at least seven people have been killed so far. The Iranian government has responded to unrest by curbing internet access and restricting the ability to use social media platforms, but videos from the protests have gone viral nevertheless.

The regime in Iran is not new to confronting unrest from its people. Over the last few years, protests have erupted as a result of societal and economic injustices like rising inflation or the quality of water. Discontent in Iran has also tended to follow presidential elections. In 2009, protests broke out following the presidential election in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory amid allegations of fraud and voting irregularities, in what became known as the Green Movement. Past protests have consistently been met by violent government crackdowns. An Amnesty International report from 2020 detailed the deaths of more than 300 men, women, and children at the hands of Iranian security forces in one week in November 2019. In total, Reuters reported that 1,500 people were killed in 2019.

But there is a belief among close observers of Iran that the latest round of protests over the last week may be more significant than any of their recent predecessors. “The current wave of protests takes courage from those past protests,” writes Mohammad Ali Kadivar, an assistant professor of sociology and international studies at Boston College, in The Washington Post, “but goes beyond them in some significant ways.” Kadivar enumerates four factors that distinguish these protests: that women are leading the way, that prominent Iranians across the country are speaking out, that many Iranians who do not typically take part in protests have stood up in solidarity with women and university students, and that the protests have cut across ethnic divisions.

The intense response is a result of many factors and injustices that Iranians have been protesting for years, including a controversial election and violent crackdowns against dissenters.

Raisi’s election, in August of last year, came amid the disqualification of all his potential reformist opponents and historically low voter turnout in Iran. The presidential election was part of a more systemic sidelining of the moderate elements in Iranian politics. In the 2020 parliamentary elections, the Guardian Council disqualified three times as many candidates from running as it had in 2016. In the 1980s, the president was part of a regime committee that screened and ordered the execution of 5,000 political prisoners.

While there is a sense among observers of Iran that this round of protests is even more intense than its predecessors this century, there is also a fear that we have not yet seen the full extent of the government’s violent crackdown on protesters.

“This is the regime’s own doing. By blocking reforms, narrowing Iran’s political spectrum, and further limiting freedoms — all the while continuing the corruption, repression and mismanagement — the regime is literally pushing people to choose revolt over reform.” writes Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “But I fear we haven’t seen anywhere near the repressive capacity of the regime yet. There are indications that the state ‘held back’ due to Raisi’s presence in New York.”

The timing of these protests comes at a pivotal time for Iran, with reports surfacing that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is ill (though sources close to the supreme leader have disputed these reports, and he has recently made two public appearances). Iran’s plan for his succession is unclear, as is the possibility that Iran and the United States can reach an agreement to revive the JCPOA, which will greatly impact the country’s trajectory.

Blaise Malley is an Associate Editor at The National Interest. His work has appeared in The New Republic, The American Prospect, and elsewhere.

Image: Reuters.

The National Interest · by Blaise Malley · September 23, 2022

11. Is Chinese President Xi Jinping under house arrest?

From Delhi. Probably F6. I am only seeing thi in the India press.

Is Chinese President Xi Jinping under house arrest?

indiatvnews.com · by Sri Lasya · September 24, 2022

Reports suggest that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been put under house arrest after he was removed from the post of PLA chief.

Edited By: Sri Lasya @laasiyapriya New Delhi Updated on: September 24, 2022 23:52 IST

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Image Source : AP Chinese President Xi Jinping

Highlights

• Chinese President Xi Jinping is currently under house arrest, several media reports claimed
• Reports claimed that international and domestic flights to and from Beijing have been halted
• Military vehicles of the PLA also allegedly were going towards Beijing on 22 September

Chinese President Xi Jinping is currently under house arrest, several media reports claimed on Saturday, adding that the capital Beijing is currently under army control. The reports have not been confirmed by either Chinese credible media, or have been independently confirmed by India TV.

The reports claimed further that international and domestic flights to and from Beijing have been halted, and that the city has been cut off from the rest of the world. Claims add that President Xi Jinping has been put under house arrest after he was removed from the post of PLA chief.

A report by News Highland Vision stated that ex-Chinese President Hu Jintao and former PM Wen Jibao persuaded Song Ping, a former member of the Standing Committee, to join them and take control of the Central Guard Bureau. The CGB is responsible for the security of the President, and the standing committee of the ruling Communist Party of China.

Army convoys leading to Beijing?

Videos that surfaced on social media from unverified accounts suggest large army convoys taking rounds around Beijing. Tweets mention that President Jinping has been sacked.

The videos add that the large army convoy is about 80 km long and is headed to Beijing. Rumours suggest that military vehicles of the PLA were going towards Beijing on 22 September. The convoy allegedly started from Huanlai County near Beijing, ending in the city of Zhangjiakou.

Xi detained at the airport: Reports

As soon as Jintao and Jibao took control of the CGB, rumours add, members of the Central Committee in Beijing were intimated on the phone. This led to Jinping allegedly being detained at the airport when he returned from Samarkand in Uzbekistan, where he attended the SCO summit. Reports stated that the members of CGB have had several closed-door meetings in the past 10 days. The same reports add that this action was taken with the aim of taking power away from Xi.

It is also being said that while Xi Jinping was at Samarkand, the ex-PM and President had plotted against the President. This was a result of Xi's probability to become the Chinese President for the third consecutive time.

Also Read | China: Two former top security officials sentenced to death with 2-year reprieve for corruption

12. Fact Check: Is China Having A Coup And Is Xi Jinping Under House Arrest? Here's What We Know

A key indicator about the possible veracity of this reporting.

Excerpt:

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post has not reported about any coup or political upheaval in China at all. It has posted dozens of tweets in the last 24 hours about various issues concerning China and the world, but not even a remote hint about the alleged development in Beijing.

Fact Check: Is China Having A Coup And Is Xi Jinping Under House Arrest? Here's What We Know

outlookindia.com · by Outlook Web Desk · September 24, 2022

Outlook Web Desk

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Updated: 24 Sep 2022 8:56 pm

The internet is abuzz with reports saying 'something is up' in China, with people's guesses ranging from a political or military coup against President Xi Jinping to potential military activity in Western China.

The evidence cited for such guesses includes reports of cancelled passenger flights in parts of China, Xi not being seen in public for some time, and footage allegedly of military vehicles moving towards the capital Beijing.

However, there is neither any official comment on these guesses nor any confirmed report on military movement towards the capital.

Here we share what's being said on social media, particularly in India, and what are the facts that we know for sure.

Is Xi Jinping facing a coup?

Twitter accounts with several thousands followers have shared that there has been a coup against Xi. Photographs of a successor have also appeared. However, none of these updates are from verified or credible accounts and most of these accounts are of anonymous users.

General Li Qiaoming likely to succeed Chinese president Xi Jinping as next president of China pic.twitter.com/BYfY8hdmwi

— Frontalforce  (@FrontalForce) September 24, 2022

Videos of alleged military movement have also surfaced.

"This video of military vehicles moving to Beijing comes immediately after the grounding of 59 per cent of the flights in the country and the jailings of senior officials. There’s a lot of smoke, which means there is a fire somewhere inside the CCP. China is unstable," said author Gordon G Chang.

This video of military vehicles moving to #Beijing comes immediately after the grounding of 59% of the flights in the country and the jailings of senior officials. There’s a lot of smoke, which means there is a fire somewhere inside the #CCP. #China is unstable. https://t.co/hSUS3210GR

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) September 24, 2022

Defence affairs writer Saurav Jha shared on Twitter that there were no flights over Tibet Autonomous Region of Cihna earlier on Saturday.

"Of direct concern to us here in India. Many Flights to Lhasa Gonggar are also being cancelled. We have to see if there is an uptick in military air traffic over the Tibetan plateau or not," said Jha, hinting at possible military activity in Western China that borders China, where India and China are engaged in a military stand-off for over two years.

Nothing civilian or with its transponder on seems to flying over TAR at the moment. #XiJinping pic.twitter.com/5KbqJ7D7Fr

— Saurav Jha (@SJha1618) September 24, 2022

What experts have said?

Most of the China experts have highlighted that there are no signs of the coup beyond commentary on social media, particularly in Indian circles.

China expert Aadil Brar noted that Xi is likely in quarantine after returning from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, which would explain his absence from public affairs at the moment.

Brar also shared flight data showing there is no disruption of flights. He further shared visuals of public briefings by senior Chinese officials, suggesting that government is functioning normally.

Political activities in Beijing are as usual. Latest Xinwen Lianbo.

So quaint for a "coup". pic.twitter.com/rNYnwI35Zn

— Aadil Brar (@aadilbrar) September 24, 2022

Journalist Zakka Jacob higlighted that Xi has a powerful institutional hold over China which makes a coup unlikely.

"Lots of rumours this morning about a military coup in China. Nothing credible so far. Military coups are unlikely in China because the People's Liberation Army comes under the Central Military Commission. Xi, as General Secretary of the Communist Party heads the CMC. The Army is that of the party, not government," said Jacob in a tweet.

Journalist and author Ananth Krishnan also said there is no evidence so far of a coup.

"While Chinese politics is the blackest of black boxes, I’ve come across zero evidence in Beijing today to substantiate any of the social media rumours," said Krishnan on Twitter, noting that the rumours have surfaced in the run up to the crucial Chinese Communist Party in which Xi is expected to secure an unprecedented third term.

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post has not reported about any coup or political upheaval in China at all. It has posted dozens of tweets in the last 24 hours about various issues concerning China and the world, but not even a remote hint about the alleged development in Beijing.

outlookindia.com · by Outlook Web Desk · September 24, 2022

13. Our Twenty-First Century Eighteenth-Century War By: Edward N. Luttwak

Some history to read for the weekend to apply to the current Putin's War.

Excerpts:

In other words: this war will not end because of Russian suffering: it is not the hunger siege of Leningrad, but more like Moscow’s mosquitos that are surprisingly energetic biters.

So how can the war end? Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ (Herakleitos of Ephesus, Fragment 53): “War is the father of all things”—hence, necessarily, even of peace, by itself exhausting the material resources and manpower necessary to keep fighting, and thereby inducing the acceptance of lesser outcomes—even capitulation—as the costs of better outcomes keeps rising.

The other kind of war termination––the kind that is peddled to innocent students in “conflict-resolution” classes, the kind that gains international applause and Nobel Peace prizes, war-ending not obtained by exhaustive war but by the benevolent intervention of third parties––can never yield peace, only a frozen war as in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the perpetual imminence of renewed war dissuades construction and the return of workers from Germany.

As for peace achieved by the exhaustion of resources—the most durable form of peace because deprivation is better remembered than other people’s deaths—of the two belligerents only Ukraine can run out of material resources.

Our Twenty-First Century Eighteenth-Century War

Every war must end, but no war need end quickly—neither world war makes it to the top ten in longevity.

Wednesday, September 21, 2022  6 min read

By: Edward N. Luttwak

https://www.hoover.org/research/our-twenty-first-century-eighteenth-century-war?utm

Every war must end, but no war need end quickly—neither world war makes it to the top ten in longevity. The nearest parallel to the Ukraine war––the Dutch War of Independence (1568–1648), fought between a smaller but more advanced nation, and the world-spanning Spanish Empire, the superpower of the age––persisted for eighty years because the Spanish kept losing, but there was so much ruination in that declining power.

In our own days, expeditionary wars fought against enemies far away who could hardly fire back, lasted for many years as the different war-ending theories promoted by fashionable generals were tried seriatim to no avail, till the day when evacuation was preferred even if utterly ignominious.

The eighteenth-century wars fought by rival European monarchs who could all converse in French with each other, were enviously admired in the bloody twentieth century, because they allowed much commerce and even tourism to persist—utterly unimaginable even in Napoleon’s wars, let alone the two world wars—and because they ended not in the utter exhaustion of the collapsing empires of 1918, nor in the infernal destructions of 1945, but instead by diplomatic arrangements politely negotiated in-between card games and balls. The 1763 Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years’ war and French America, inadvertently opening the way for the American republic, was not drafted by the victorious British Prime Minister Lord Bute, but by his very good friend the French foreign minister Étienne-François de Stainville, duc de Choiseul, who solved the three-way puzzle left by the French defeat by paying off Spain with Louisiana, Britain with money-losing Canada, and regaining the profitable sugar islands for France, which still has them.

And instead of the winners charging the losers with incurable bellicosity as Versailles did with Germany, or stringing them up individually as war criminals, as in the ending of twentieth-century wars, eighteenth-century winners were more likely to console the losers just short of “better-luck next time”—and in a century in which there was war every single year without exception from 1700 to 1800, if one war ended another necessarily started or at least persisted, allowing a “next time” soon enough.

By contrast, the ensuing nineteenth-century wars held no lessons at all for the twentieth century, which was equally bereft of a Napoleonic superman at the start and ample tropical lands easily conquered later on, while the Crimea expedition in the middle was mostly a counter-example of how not to wage war, and the Franco-Prussian war was just as sterile: all it proved was that there really was only one Helmuth von Moltke who could win wars by parsimonious force, unlike his homonymous nephew who lost a five-year war in its first five weeks; and that there really was only one Otto von Bismarck, who crowned his incomplete 1871 unification of German lands by refusing to complete it by unifying all Germans as the Italians were unified, lest the world combine to make a bigger Germany smaller.

Clearly only the eighteenth-century precedents apply to the Ukraine War. Neither Putin nor Zelensky speaks French but neither needs it to converse in their Russian mother-tongue, and if they do not actually talk (Putin demurely said that he could not possibly be expected to negotiate with Kiev’s drug addicts and Neo Nazis), their officials certainly can, and do so often.

When it comes to the persistence of commerce in war—the habit that Napoleon wanted to break with his Blocus Continental against British exports—every day Russian gas flows to the homes and factories of Ukraine on its way into Western Europe, with Ukraine transferring money to Russia every day, even as it attacks its faithful customer. And, Ukrainian wheat is now shipped past Russian navy vessels to reach the hungry Middle East, after a negotiation unthinkable in twentieth-century wars, or in Napoleon’s either.

In Russia, sanctions have certainly diminished easy access to imported luxuries in local franchised shops, but they still arrive via Turkey at a slight premium…or discount depending on the previous Moscow markup. All over Russia the sanctions have been felt in all sorts of ways because the country was actually more internationalized than anyone realized, including Putin no doubt (arriving in Tomsk at 0600 one winter morning at a temperature of minus infinity, the one place to eat was McDonalds).

But unlike China, which must choose between fighting and eating protein—some 90% of its chicken, pork, and beef is raised on imported cereals plus some 150 million metric tons of soya per annum from U.S. and Canadian Pacific ports, or the Atlantic ports of Brazil and Argentina that would be an ocean too far for China-bound vessel––Russia produces all its own staple foods and can therefore fight and eat indefinitely, and neither does it import any energy as China must.

In other words, just as Russian propaganda has claimed from day one, the sanctions cannot stop the war materially, even if they played a large role in the flight of tens of thousands of elite Russians, once again diminishing the human capital of the largest European nation, as the Bolsheviks and Civil War did a century ago, and the opening of borders did again a generation ago.

It is a problem that the sanctions, which end the war by stopping Russia, might cause defections from the Western camp if the winter happens to be unusually cold, a subject on which Angela Merkel––so enthusiastically applauded for closing nuclear power stations and preferring Russian piped gas over American and Qatari liquified gas––has remained strangely silent.

As for tourism, after a cascade of announced restrictions on Russian tourists, on August 24 the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex announced that a total of 998,085 Russian citizens had legally entered the European Union through land border crossing-points from the beginning of the war to August 22, with more arriving by air via Istanbul, Budapest, and central Asian airports. Other Russians have continued to holiday in the Maldives and Seychelles via Dubai, on the sound eighteenth-century principle that a war should not prevent gentlemen from taking the waters, or diving into them in this case.

The confiscation of yachts from several Russians accused of proximity to Putin generated quite a bit of schadenfreude income to the yacht-less everywhere in the early summer, but did not deprive a great many other Russians from the use of their bedsitters, apartments, houses, palaces and chateaux all over Europe—and there many of them are to be found as of this August writing.

In other words: this war will not end because of Russian suffering: it is not the hunger siege of Leningrad, but more like Moscow’s mosquitos that are surprisingly energetic biters.

So how can the war end? Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ (Herakleitos of Ephesus, Fragment 53): “War is the father of all things”—hence, necessarily, even of peace, by itself exhausting the material resources and manpower necessary to keep fighting, and thereby inducing the acceptance of lesser outcomes—even capitulation—as the costs of better outcomes keeps rising.

The other kind of war termination––the kind that is peddled to innocent students in “conflict-resolution” classes, the kind that gains international applause and Nobel Peace prizes, war-ending not obtained by exhaustive war but by the benevolent intervention of third parties––can never yield peace, only a frozen war as in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the perpetual imminence of renewed war dissuades construction and the return of workers from Germany.

As for peace achieved by the exhaustion of resources—the most durable form of peace because deprivation is better remembered than other people’s deaths—of the two belligerents only Ukraine can run out of material resources.

But now it cannot, because the United States has seemingly added Ukraine’s sustainment to its other entitlement programs along with whatever contribution the British and northern European countries care to make, and the relative pittance given by the largest countries France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

Still less can material deprivation force Russia to withdraw and desist because its population and economy are so little engaged in the war—from the start Putin insisted that it was not a national war warranting the mobilization of all national resources, but merely a “special” (=limited) military operation; accordingly, taxes are not expected to increase but for inflation-effects.

In the days of Herakleitos himself, war was the father of peace principally by killing off young warriors, forcing a relaxation of conflict till the next lot would grow to military age. It was that process that weakened Sparta’s strength as it ran out of life-time-trained Spartiates, with the Theban upstarts of master-tactician Epaminondas delivering the death blow at Leuctra in 371 BCE by killing 400 Spartiates out of 700 in all.

In the Second World War the Germans were clearly running out of men by the end when 16-year- olds served on anti-aircraft gun crews, and the Volkssturm conscripted up to age 60. Some 5.3 million died in uniform, including 900,000 men born outside Germany’s 1937 borders, both Austrians and Volksdeutsche conscripted by the SS, which never acquired the right to conscript in Germany itself. The ever-worsening manpower shortage even forced the SS to betray its most basic principle by recruiting non-Aryan troops, not only Vlasov’s Russian Liberation Army of 130,000 at its peak, but also SS Turkic, Indian (ex POWs), and Arab units recruited by the Palestinian Mufti Amin al-Husseini.

As for the Red Army, it lost millions in defeat and pell-mell retreat in 1941 and then again in 1942, losing still more men on the offensive at the end. But in 1943 Russian generals no longer impatiently marched men over minefields instead of clearing them, nor sent them to attack without artillery support and tanks. By 1944 it was the Russian artillery that conquered battlefields by fire, and that is how Russia did not run out of men, even if its demography remained skewed for decades.

The allies were never in such straits because the British evacuated from Dunkirk more than two-thirds of their soldiers in 1940, then had many South Africans and Indians for their North African misadventures, and by late 1942 at El Alamein they had vastly superior artillery in lieu of infantry, with more of the same in Italy from 1943, when fresh Americans, the French Army’s Moroccan Tirailleurs and Goumiers, and the free Polish II Corps did most of the hard fighting.

So it was not until 1944 that the exhaustion of the British army’s appetite for fighting emerged in insistent demands for the massive aerial bombardments of any significant resistance, or at least energetic air support at every turn. Having started much later, most American servicemen were not even tired when the war ended, with total losses individually tragic but demographically unimportant, as was even more true of all later American fighting till now.

In Ukraine, so far there is no question of war-ending manpower losses. In spite of a declining population, the number of male Ukrainians that annually reach military age is at least 235,000 or 20,000 per month, while Ukrainian casualties, both killed or invalided out of action, have not exceeded 5,000 per month.

As for Russia, colorful stories that relate the use of mercenary units, the lucrative contracts offered to combat volunteers, and most recently, prison recruitment drives, are not true indicators of a manpower shortage: every month more than 100,000 Russian males reach military age, while the monthly average of killed and invalided wounded are under 7,000.

So the stories reveal something else: Putin’s refusal to declare war, mobilize the armed forces, and require conscripts to serve in combat, evidently in fear of the reaction of Russian civil society. Yes of course Russian civil society has been silent on the war, or near enough. But its silence is not the silence of the grave signifying nothing. It is a very eloquent silence: fight your war but leave our sons alone. Because Putin has heeded the tacit injunction, his war can continue well past this winter and the next…

Putin started the war on February 24 with an ultra-modern, high-speed, paralyzing coup de main based on the soundest principles of “hybrid warfare,” which works beautifully in war games, as do its close U.S. siblings beloved by beribboned generals who never fought patriotic Europeans in arms. Having expected therefore to take Kiev in one day, and all Ukraine in three or four (that was, of course, the forecast of the CIA and DIA that partake of the same brew), Putin discovered he was wrong by week one if not before.

Because Putin did not stop then, he cannot stop now, so that we might be headed for another Seven Years’ War. If so, we should fight it in true eighteenth-century fashion: with the most vigorous material support of Ukraine’s war, and no sanctions at all on Russia, because they permit Russian retaliation that weakens our allies’ resolve. And yes, it would be nice to find another Étienne-François de Stainville, duc de Choiseul to find an elegant way out of the war, perhaps by staging face-saving plebiscites, because to hope for Putin’s fall is not a strategy.

14. Opinion | Is China a juggernaut? Or an ailing giant? Both.

Conclusion:

None of this is good news — for China or the rest of the world. Russia has recently shown how a declining power can be more dangerous than a rising one, and the combination of scientific might and economic malfunction is a scary cocktail. There is not much the West can do to stop China from being China. But it can at least prepare.

Opinion | Is China a juggernaut? Or an ailing giant? Both.

The Washington Post · by Sebastian Mallaby · September 24, 2022

By​ Sebastian Mallaby​

Contributing columnist

September 24, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Is China (a) an economic juggernaut, rapidly overtaking the United States in the technologies of tomorrow? Or is it (b) an ailing giant, doomed by demography, failing real estate developers and counterproductive government diktat?

Trick question: China is both. But the country’s weaknesses increasingly dominate its strengths.

Start with the evidence for juggernaut China. Back in 2000, the country’s spending on research and development, government plus private, was about one-ninth that of the United States, according to Organization for Economic and Cooperation and Development statistics. Fast-forward to 2020 and it was 85 percent. Further, by concentrating its resources, China has achieved global leadership in strategic areas. A worldwide ranking of universities, ordered according to how many top-cited papers in math and computing were generated from 2015 to 2018, shows Chinese institutions holding the top seven slots.

Excellence in research has come with dominance in key commercial technologies. Chinese companies lead the world in drones, mobile payments and 5G networking equipment. Chinese consumers’ habit of conducting every aspect of life via smartphones has generated data with an extraordinary density, and cheap Chinese labor allows for the data’s laborious tagging. Combined with double-fisted government subsidies, these two factors give China a head start in the race to train artificial intelligence systems.

China’s venture capitalists are formidable. They have learned the art of disruption from Silicon Valley’s experts: The top Sand Hill Road outfit is Sequoia Capital; the top China outfit is Sequoia China. American and American-trained venture capitalists have launched several other firms in the mainland. Sinovation Ventures, a leading backer of AI, is led by Kai-Fu Lee, an alumnus of Google, Microsoft, Apple and the Carnegie Mellon PhD program.

All of which recently led Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google, to warn that the United States might lose the tech race against China. Since that could include military technology, losing could pose an existential threat. Yet China’s leaders, for their part, face even more profound challenges.

Economic growth in China is projected to come in at just over 3 percent this year. That is much lower than the official target of 5.5 percent; it is positively humiliating relative to China’s performance of a decade ago, when annual growth was around 8 percent. Boosters will ascribe this slowdown to idiosyncratic snags. But the snags collectively point to the big picture. An authoritarian system is reaching its limits.

The first snag is covid-19. China has made a prideful political decision not to import foreign vaccines, so it imposes draconian lockdowns at the first signs of an outbreak. Shanghai, Shenzhen and dozens of other cities have been subjected to economically ruinous curfews that have fouled up global supply chains (and imposed food shortages and other hardships on millions). In the western border town of Ruili, residents were barred from leaving their homes for 119 days between March 2021 and April 2022, Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported.

The second snag is real estate. Again, China has made a political decision not to encourage private consumption, viewing it as irrelevant to the Communist Party’s quest for national greatness. The result is statist contortions that promote unhealthy growth.

In the first decade of this century, China manipulated its exchange rate. This boosted exports, but it also led to an unsustainable trade surplus, the recycling of the receipts into vast piles of U.S. financial instruments and, ultimately, to a queasy feeling of dependence when Wall Street blew up in 2008.

The Communist Party’s next trick was to order banks and local governments to fuel a construction boom. Again, this boosted growth, but it replaced unsustainable foreign-bond buying with unsustainable domestic debt. Sure enough, the country’s largest property developer has defaulted. Buyers of unbuilt apartments are furious. A mortgage boycott has spread to more than 100 cities. Home prices have fallen for 12 straight months. Since real estate drives more than a quarter of the economy, the collapse of the sector threatens a wider slump.

The third snag casts a cloud over China’s strength in tech. For political reasons, again, China cannot tolerate tech titans who aspire to become Elon Musk-style influencers, who list their companies on foreign stock exchanges, or who found companies that help Chinese students apply for colleges abroad. So it has cracked down on the lot of them. This won’t encourage the next generation of technologists to start companies in China.

And then there is demography. In 1979, in yet another fit of statist hubris, China’s leaders imposed a harsh one-child policy, resulting in sex-selective abortions, a gender imbalance, and a fertility rate that cratered even faster than it would have if China had followed the standard pattern of a developing country. Far too late, the government recognized the fuse it had lit, eventually moving to a two-child policy in 2016. Last year, in a panic, the government announced a three-child policy along with programs to encourage childbearing. Fertility shows no sign of picking up.

None of this is good news — for China or the rest of the world. Russia has recently shown how a declining power can be more dangerous than a rising one, and the combination of scientific might and economic malfunction is a scary cocktail. There is not much the West can do to stop China from being China. But it can at least prepare.

The Washington Post · by Sebastian Mallaby · September 24, 2022

15. Is the pandemic over? Pre-covid activities Americans are (and are not) resuming.

Is the pandemic over? Pre-covid activities Americans are (and are not) resuming.

The Washington Post · by Marc Fisher · September 24, 2022

Biden says the pandemic is over — and when it comes to casinos, concerts and cosmetic procedures, Americans seem to agree. For theater, therapy and funerals though, not so much.

By Marc Fisher and Taylor Telford

September 24, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

CarLa Bryant’s family reunion would have celebrated its 46th straight meeting this year, but there will be no such gathering of the generations. Too many of Bryant’s older relatives are still not ready to travel again.

“I’m not around too many people yet,” relatives told Bryant, 56, who lives in Prince William County and works for the Fairfax County government.

Eleven hundred miles away, in Fort Smith, Ark., Terry Davis, a 71-year-old retired Safeway manager, made his family’s reunion a priority. Although last year’s event was canceled because “we didn’t want to put the older people at risk,” this year, “people were adamant: ‘I’m not afraid, I’m coming,’ ” he said. “We’ve kind of gone on with normal life, especially things that are important to us.”

Two-and-a-half years into the coronavirus’s deadly spread, after nearly all government-imposed restrictions have been lifted, as many businesses urge or require workers to come back to their offices, President Biden declared last week that “the pandemic is over.” Yet even as the passion to get back to normal overrides years of caution, many Americans remain conflicted and confounded about what activities are safe.

Americans are coming out of the pandemic in the same kind of dynamic disarray that marked its beginning, with a crazyquilt of contradictory decisions about how to spend their discretionary time and money: Americans are flying again, but they’re not too keen on getting back aboard buses, subways and other public transit. Concert tickets are being snapped up, but theater tickets, not so much. In-person visits to medical doctors have returned to pre-pandemic levels, but mental health counseling remains overwhelmingly virtual.

The blizzard of decisions each person must make — even as the coronavirus remains highly contagious, although without nearly the severe or deadly effects it had in 2020 — can seem blinding:

“I just don’t know,” Bryant said. “I’ve had very few people at my house. This whole topic of remote work has pushed us all farther away from each other. I want our family reunion to get back to normal. I try to do things again: I went to my first movie with friends” — “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” — “but that felt weird. I had a bit of anxiety and I haven’t done it again.”

In the first year of the pandemic, the Bryant clan met online, about 60 of them, not nearly the 125 who usually attend the in-person reunions. Still, it was three hours of songs and games, stories and memories that summoned tears of joy and sorrow alike. The second year, clusters of relatives met in a few cities where the family has a significant presence. This year, covid exhaustion set in and the reunion never got off the ground.

Bryant masks up when she goes to crowded places, but she has gone to three funerals and a baby shower recently and didn’t regret it, though she did find herself edging into a corner, away from other people.

Consciously or not, every day since the pandemic began in March 2020, millions of Americans have calculated their risk of catching the virus if they take part in myriad activities that used to be routine: eating out, going to a movie or concert, seeing friends, visiting a doctor, attending a wedding or funeral.

Almost two-thirds of Americans now believe there is little or no risk in returning to their pre-pandemic lives, and 46 percent of them say they have already done so — the highest level yet recorded in an Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index survey conducted in mid-September.

Even though there are still about 400 covid deaths each week, many Americans have, like Davis, decided to return to activities that feed their souls or help them feel like they’re back in the world again. For family reunions, 2020’s mass cancellations and Zoom gatherings were followed by scotched plans in 2021, and this year by a surge of reunions back to pre-pandemic levels, many fully in-person, but many featuring online elements, said Edith Wagner, editor of Reunions magazine.

“There’s just far fewer hugs online, and that’s driving people back to seeing each other in person, even if they’re still apprehensive,” Wagner said.

As they choose which activities to resume, people’s priorities have varied, resulting in an economic and social hodgepodge — a country still in flux and a comeback that remains spotty.

For example, why is concert-going back to pre-pandemic levels, at outdoor rock festivals and crowded indoor arenas, but theaters, on Broadway or around the country, struggle to draw audiences?

This year, the pop, rock, hip-hop, country and other concerts put on by Live Nation Entertainment, the country’s largest concert producer, are attracting the biggest audiences it’s ever seen, more than 20 percent over 2019’s attendance, according to company data. Through this July, Live Nation had sold more than 100 million tickets, compared to 74 million during the same months of 2019, said Joe Berchtold, the company’s president.

“Everybody’s returned to pre-pandemic levels, across all venues, from small clubs to stadiums and festivals,” he said. That’s true across the concert industry, according to Pollstar, which collects box-office data nationwide. The average number of tickets sold per show jumped above 2019 levels in the first half of this year, the data showed.

But among theaters, symphonies and other arts groups, many of which appeal to an older audience, the number of tickets sold this year is down by 32 percent compared to 2019, said Eric Nelson, who analyzes research for TRG Arts, a consultancy that tracks how more than 140 arts organizations in the United States and Canada fared through the pandemic. On Broadway, the total audience was less than half the size last season as in the season before the pandemic. This fall, to appeal to older patrons concerned that theaters had lifted mask mandates, some theaters added back weekly mask-required performances.

Regional differences also explain some of the inconsistencies, with sales in the Southeast and Great Plains notably stronger than in the Northeast.

“In places that never shut down or never had mask mandates, people are more willing to come back faster,” Nelson said. “Some of those people never broke the habit, while in other parts of the country, they had long periods at home and baking banana bread replaced going out for the evening.”

At the movies, there are plenty of seats to choose from, as fewer than half of Americans and Canadians attended an in-person movie last year, according to a Motion Picture Association report. Theaters have tried to lure fans back by tearing out some seats to make room for big recliners, as well as adding food and alcohol options in many locations. But “it just takes time to get back,” said Patrick Corcoran, vice president of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO).

For now, the movies themselves aren’t back. The country lost about 1,000 screens in the pandemic, but half of those were sold and have reopened, Corcoran said. More than 40,000 big screens remain, according to NATO, but hefty production delays wrought by the pandemic contributed to a sharp drop in releases of both blockbusters and smaller films.

Americans want to be entertained, but the pandemic made staying home a more robust competitor to going out. “In any given year, only 20 percent of the population is going to go to a concert,” Berchtold said. “Those who want to go are going. People are getting back to their lives.”

Working Americans who used to gather at conventions are getting back on planes to popular meeting sites such as Las Vegas, Orlando and San Diego, according to the Events Industry Council, which tracks attendance.

“The demand for in-person events isn’t back to 2019, but it’s strong and growing,” said Amy Calvert, the council’s chief executive. “There’s almost this euphoria: People are so glad to see each other.” Convention organizers are catering to lingering anxiety about big crowds by adding outdoor sessions where participants walk and talk, smaller meetings, and free time for people to meet one-on-one.

Total attendance this year is running at about two-thirds the pre-pandemic level.

Weddings are crowded, but not funerals

In Las Vegas, the return of tourists lifted the nation’s gambling mecca to record business — the same trend seen at casinos around the country: This year is on track to set a record for commercial gaming revenue for the second-straight year, according to the American Gaming Association. In the first half of 2022, total casino revenue exceeded $29 billion, nearly an 18 percent year-over-year increase.

Although online gambling boomed when the pandemic forced many casinos to close, crowds have returned to the felt tables, the association reported.

The choices Americans are making are sometimes not explainable by employer demands, age or geography. Why are weddings nearly back to normal, with full ballrooms and crowded calendars at venues, while funerals remain smaller, less likely to draw large numbers of people, and are often replaced or supplemented by online memorials?

Traditional funerals have become smaller, less formal and, in an increasing number of cases, are being skipped entirely.

Cremations now outnumber burials nationwide, with 59 percent of families choosing the less expensive option so far this year, the National Funeral Directors Association said. The trend toward cremation was well underway pre-pandemic, but it accelerated as families looked to save money or avoid travel, funeral directors said.

“Our family culture is changing fast, and the difficulty of traveling in the pandemic made that much more obvious,” said Walker Posey, who owns Posey Funeral Directors in North Augusta, S.C. “More folks are just divided. We get families who haven’t spoken to each other in years, and they don’t know if a sibling or parent is alive, so they’re not necessarily coming together in grief.”

Although many people, especially older folks, chose to stay home and watch services on a computer during the most intense phases of the pandemic, increasingly they are coming to Posey’s funeral home. “It’s very healthy for them,” he said. “When they couldn’t come together because of the pandemic, there was a lot of friction. You’d hear people make remarks about masks. It was a hot topic. But people are setting those differences aside.”

Davis, the Arkansas retiree whose family reunions resumed this summer, is glad he made attending a relative’s funeral a top priority. It’s time to put family and social connections first, he said, so he’s back to going to his doctors and attending church services, funerals and reunions.

There’s no clear pattern when it comes to which families resumed reunions this year, said Suzanne Vargus Holloman, co-director of the Family Reunion Institute. Holloman’s family scratched their event this summer, but her husband’s proceeded, drawing about 100 people in Columbia, S.C., about as big a crowd as they had had pre-pandemic.

“People all have to make their own risk calculations,” she said, “but when it’s for family, they tend to prioritize it.”

As soon as the virus hit, people vanished from many places where they used to gather: shops, restaurants, sports venues.

Much of the nation’s shopping shifted online, and the road back for bricks-and-mortar stores has been rough. Visits to indoor malls dropped 4.3 percent in August compared to the previous year, and they were down 2.3 percent at outdoor shopping complexes, according to data collected by the Placer.ai Mall Index, which tracks the locations of 30 million internet-connected devices. The picture was even worse for in-person visits to clothing stores (down 10.1 percent) and department stores (down 11.3 percent).

People have been heading back to restaurants, but “several habits that consumers picked up during the pandemic haven’t reverted back to where they were pre-pandemic,” said Vanessa Sink, a spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association. Before covid, about 63 percent of restaurants’ business took place outside their dining rooms — takeout, delivery and drive-through. That figure soared to about 90 percent at the height of the pandemic.

In recent months, the reluctance to eat at restaurants has diminished, but not by a lot: The off-premises share of the business has dropped to about 80 percent, still well above pre-pandemic levels, Sink said.

Returning to fields, but not gyms

At gyms, tracks, fields and other places where Americans get physical, “everything stopped in March 2020,” said Tom Cove, president of the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, which tracks youth and adult participation. But fairly quickly, people returned to activities that let them remain apart from each other. Participation soared between 2020 and 2022 in pickleball (up 39 percent), skateboarding (32 percent), tennis (28 percent) and golf (25 percent).

The only team sport to maintain heavy participation through the pandemic was basketball, Cove said, because it’s often played outdoors and informally, one-on-one or with close family members.

Sports such as soccer, football and baseball, which rely heavily on organized play, with coaches and referees, went into extended hibernation in many places, and when young people and adults came back to them, they tended to play less often, Cove said.

This year, the return to playing fields has been stronger in places where the action only stopped briefly in 2020, including in states where lockdowns were shorter.

“Georgia baseball teams lost maybe a couple of games,” Cove said, “while in California and New York, you lost a season and a half in many places.” Even when leagues have resumed play, it’s often with fewer teams and fewer games, as leagues have lost referees and coaches; some because they’re older and wanted to avoid covid risk, and some because “people are abusing officials more and they’re, like, ‘For $50 and a risk of getting covid, I don’t need it,’ ” he said.

The thirst to get back to youth sports is palpable, Cove said: “Kids missed being with their friends, and team sports provides that. But people have changed. Parents say, ‘Hey, we discovered we like having the family come together for dinner, so maybe we’re not traveling for sports five nights a week.’ ”

Spectator sports, though not yet at pre-pandemic attendance levels, this year made strong progress toward that goal. Major League Baseball has seen attendance jump by more than two-thirds over last year, up to more than 90 percent of 2019 numbers, MLB data shows.

What hasn’t yet come back is fitness clubs, which show “the slowest return of anything we track,” Cove said. The top seven activities Americans have pulled away from all took place in clubs, starting with stationary cycling (down 40 percent), cross-training workouts (28 percent) and cardio kickboxing (27 percent.)

Some Americans haven’t gone back because they belonged to facilities near their workplace and they no longer commute. In other instances, their clubs are simply gone — about 1 in 5 did not survive the pandemic, Cove found.

Some doctors’ visits remain virtual

Before the pandemic, the fitness club was Rose Betts’ stress reliever. A 61-year-old nurse at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, she hit the gym three or four nights a week, working out, doing weight training. She hasn’t been back since 2020.

“I don’t know if I have enough faith in people to know that they’re actually going to wipe down the equipment,” Betts said. Fearful of monkeypox and covid, she still wears a mask everywhere and only dines at restaurants outside.

She misses the ability to go where she wants, do what she wants, hold the people she wants to hold. But even as she remains cautious, there are some things she chooses not to go without, such as tending to her appearance with visits to her plastic surgeon, Stanley Okoro.

“I have things I like to maintain,” Betts said. She swears her last procedure — she had skin around her neck lifted and contoured earlier this month — made her look 10 years younger.

“I run into people and they’re like, ‘Oh, you don’t look 61!’” Betts said. “And I’m sitting here thinking to myself, ‘Yeah, if you only knew.’ People spend their money on new cars, and it makes them feel good. I spend my money on a little nip, tuck, inject, and it makes me feel better.”

Full calendars at many plastic surgeons’ offices reflect a nationwide boost in optional medical procedures. More than three-quarters of plastic surgeons report being busier now than in 2019, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. The group’s survey said Americans are seeking to counter aging effects from pandemic stress and to fix up their looks before returning to in-person interaction.

“People didn’t like the way they looked on Zoom,” said Okoro, 52, a plastic surgeon in Marietta, Ga., whose practice’s revenue more than doubled between 2020 and 2021 as he did more Botox jobs, neck contouring and tummy tucks. He’s seeing more younger patients and more men.

Demand for surgery has been “mind-bogglingly explosive,” said Bob Basu, a plastic surgeon in Houston and a vice president of the plastic surgeons group’s board. His practice is enjoying its 29th-straight month of year-over-year growth, he said, drawing not just the well-to-do, but patients who considered the pandemic a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform themselves while out of the public eye. “Mommy makeovers” — targeting tummies, breasts and other body areas affected by motherhood — have been huge.

“Americans feel like it’s okay to say, ‘Hey, I want to do something for myself,’ ” Basu said.

Across medical specialties, Americans are returning to their doctors’ offices, according to insurance industry claims data. Telehealth visits — by video or phone — soared from 0.16 percent of all visits in spring 2019 to 7 percent of claims a year later, according to FAIR Health, which manages a large database of insurance claims.

That number had slipped back down to 5 percent by this June, the latest month for which data is available, and remote doctor visits will probably plummet further if states tighten the licensing rules that almost all of them relaxed in 2020 to let doctors see patients by video. About half the states have restored pre-pandemic restrictions.

But while people are returning to in-person visits for medical issues, mental health providers tell a different story. Only 16.5 percent of telehealth claims are being made by primary care physicians, according to FAIR Health, whereas 63 percent of remote cases involve mental health providers.

“Patients seem to be demanding more telehealth than face-to-face meetings,” said Vaile Wright, the American Psychological Association’s senior director for health-care innovations. Often, it’s the therapist or counselor who wants to keep the visits remote. “There are fewer no-shows with telehealth, and that’s your only source of revenue, so there’s a financial incentive,” she said. That incentive could disappear if insurers revert to pre-pandemic policies and cover telehealth visits at a lower rate or only in limited circumstances.

But even therapists who like the convenience of online care say something is missing when they can’t see patients in person: “You do lose some of the nonverbal — the foot-tapping, the fidgeting, the behaviors that can be revealing,” Wright said. “You can’t take a patient outside for a walk on a telehealth visit.”

Jaclyn Peiser and Scott Clement contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Marc Fisher · September 24, 2022

16. All Democracy Is Global

This subtitle and the conclusion excerpted below should be the foundation of our overt influence activities campaign.

Excerpts:

Global conditions for democracy are bad and getting worse. The United States needs to politically and financially support the people and organizations struggling, often at great risk, for freedom. This is a moral imperative. And it is in the United States’ national interest to encourage transitions to more democratic, lawful, and accountable governments around the world. Policymakers can’t predict when pivotal opportunities will emerge to champion democratic campaigns or when a backsliding democratic government might confront a crisis that would enable democrats to regain the momentum. Moreover, democrats around the world draw hope, institutional lessons, and tactical insights from interactions with one another. Support for them also reaffirms that political freedom and civil liberties are universal rights to which all people are entitled, irrespective of region and culture.

In his inaugural address, U.S. President John F. Kennedy called on Americans to carry on “a long twilight struggle” against tyranny. When he spoke those words in 1961, democracy was far worse off than it is now. Most countries were autocracies, nearly half of Europe was under Soviet domination, and it was not clear whether free or communist societies would win the Cold War. Today, despite a decade and a half of democratic erosion and recession, the picture is much brighter. About half of all countries are democracies, and even where authoritarian regimes predominate, opinion polls show broad popular support for democracy and the rule of law. Hence, most governments that are not democratic believe their legitimacy depends on claiming that they are.

The gap between their claims and reality renders them vulnerable. Even if they are dissatisfied with democratic politicians and institutions, most people would still rather live in a democracy that offers protection for their rights. They want a democracy that is real and that works. The autocracies of the world—China, Egypt, Iran, and Russia, not to mention Venezuela and Zimbabwe and their unfolding calamities—face severe challenges precisely because of their lack of accountability and open debate. All this suggests that the Zeitgeist can shift back in favor of democracy. But it won’t do so on its own. It requires American power, and a renewal of America’s democratic purpose at home and abroad.

​

All Democracy Is Global

Why America Can’t Shrink From the Fight for Freedom

By Larry Diamond

September/October 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Larry Diamond · September 23, 2022

The world is mired in a deep, diffuse, and protracted democratic recession. According to Freedom House, 2021 was the 16th consecutive year in which more countries declined in freedom than gained. Tunisia, the sole democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring protests that began in 2010, is morphing into a dictatorship. In countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Hungary, and Turkey, elections have long ceased to be democratic. Autocrats in Algeria, Belarus, Ethiopia, Sudan, Turkey, and Zimbabwe have clung to power despite mounting public demands for democratization. In Africa, seven democracies have slid back into autocracy since 2015, including Benin and Burkina Faso.

Democracy is looking shaky even in countries that hold free and fair elections. In emerging-market behemoths such as Brazil, India, and Mexico, democratic institutions and norms are under attack. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has made threats of an autogolpe (self-coup) and a possible return to military rule if he does not win reelection in October. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has steadily chipped away at press freedoms, minority rights, judicial independence, the integrity of the civil service, and the autonomy of civil society. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has attempted to silence critics and remove democratic checks and balances.

Democratic prospects have risen and fallen in decades past, but they now confront a formidable new problem: democracy is at risk in the very country that has traditionally been its most ardent champion. Over the past dozen years, the United States has experienced one of the biggest declines in political rights and civil liberties of any country measured by the Freedom House annual survey. The Economist now ranks the United States as a “flawed democracy” behind Spain, Costa Rica, and Chile. U.S. President Donald Trump deserves much of the blame: he abused presidential power on a scale unprecedented in U.S. history and, after being voted out of office, propagated the “Big Lie” of election fraud and incited the violent rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. But American democracy was in peril before Trump assumed office, with rising polarization exposing acute flaws in American democratic institutions. The Electoral College, the representational structure of the Senate, the Senate filibuster, the brazen gerrymandering of House districts, and lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court have all made it possible for a political minority to exert prolonged outsize influence.

Can a country in the throes of its own democratic decay do anything to arrest the broader global decline? For many, the answer is no. The United States needs to get its own house in order before it lectures others, members of this camp say. Lacking the moral standing to promote freedom abroad, Washington should focus on its own troubles, leaving other countries to deal with theirs. Besides, critics argue, anyone who still thinks the United States can competently promote democracy abroad must have forgotten the disaster that was the Iraq war.

But giving up the fight for freedom would be a tragic mistake. U.S. democracy has always been a work in progress, and the courageous political leaders, activists, journalists, and human rights defenders seeking to achieve or preserve democracy in their countries can’t wait for the United States to fix its own internal problems before it provides help. Most people around the world want political freedom, and they worry about its absence or fragility. Now more than ever, the world needs the United States to support democracy—and the United States needs a more muscular and imaginative approach to spreading it.

This is not to deny the urgent importance of defending and strengthening core features of democracy in the United States. This includes securing future elections against attempts to subvert or overturn them, ensuring that everyone eligible to vote has a fair opportunity to do so, sustaining the tradition of nonpartisan electoral administration, and protecting election officials and officeholders from threats of (not to mention acts of) violence, in part by punishing the perpetrators. Failing to do these things, and failing to strive for deeper reforms to diminish polarization and improve democratic functioning, will weaken the United States’ leverage in the global struggle for democracy and render other countries more vulnerable to authoritarian propaganda.

American foreign policy is not always pro-democratic, however. Policymakers are continually considering what constitutes the United States’ international interests, and in some cases they prioritize good relations with autocratic actors. That said, strong U.S. leadership is necessary—though not sufficient—for the health of global democracy.

Finally, it is not safe to assume that all Americans appreciate the importance of promoting democracy abroad. The case for doing so must be made to each new generation. Whatever happens to the economic aspects of globalization, the world will continue to shrink: people, information, ideas, innovations, and diverse forms of influence cross borders constantly. What was true during the twentieth century is even truer today: every political system is affected by every other, and powerful, aggressive autocracies pose an existential and expansive threat to the world’s democracies. For evidence, look no further than Russia’s war on Ukraine and China’s pressure on Taiwan. A world in which democracy and the rule of law predominate will be friendlier to American interests and democratic values. And it will be a much more peaceful and economically secure world. Who is stealing American high technology and scientific breakthroughs? The greatest threat by far is from the world’s most powerful autocracy, China. It is not the democracies of Asia, Europe, or anywhere else that threaten the security of U.S. supply chains for strategic minerals, semiconductors, and so on. And it is not democratic allies that pose a military threat to the United States, but rather belligerent nuclear armed autocracies such as China, North Korea, Russia, and perhaps, soon, Iran. Morality aside, democracies are far more likely to ensure global peace, property rights, security, and shared prosperity.

Shifts in the Zeitgeist

It is fair to ask whether the global struggle between two political systems, democracy and autocracy, is the best way to frame the U.S. national interest. Critics question whether the United States should begin a “new cold war,” arguing that the current, multipolar world does not fit the old paradigm. And fewer countries are strongly aligned with any great power; U.S. policymakers need to be wary of forcing countries to choose between China and Russia on one hand and United States and Europe on the other. But the United States needs to defend the principles of freedom and territorial integrity, or the coming years will seem a lot more like the 1930s than the 1990s. The hard truth is that the world’s two major autocracies—China and Russia—are waging sophisticated and well-resourced global campaigns to discredit and subvert democracy. And in this new century, the United States and its allies have been ill prepared to fight back. Esteem for American democracy has waned over the past two decades: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, failed efforts at state building abroad, successive financial crises, and the rising pressures of internal populism and extremism have all hurt the United States’ international image. Major European democracies have also been viewed as sluggish and weak in contrast to China, with its rapid modernization, and Russia, with its resurgence as a power on the international stage.

The result has been a major shift in the Zeitgeist. A narrative has been taking hold that democracies are corrupt and worn out, that they lack energy, capacity, and self-confidence. The future, the argument goes, therefore lies with stronger, more efficient authoritarian regimes—China, above all. To be sure, some global public opinion surveys have detected a backlash against China’s neocolonial quest for natural resources, strategic assets, market dominance, and corrupt political influence. But in the developing world, many people now look to Beijing for partnership and inspiration.

A narrative has been taking hold that democracies are corrupt and worn out.

The deference accorded to authoritarian powers can be discerned in the reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Only a slim majority of Africa’s 54 states backed the March 2022 UN General Assembly resolution condemning this act of aggression. The next month, in a vote on suspending Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, 58 countries abstained, including prominent democracies and “semi-democracies” such as Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa. Ninety-three yes votes were enough to expel Russia from the council, but they were a minority of the UN’s 193 members.

The lack of African support for censuring Russian President Vladimir Putin is a sign of the ties his regime has forged with the continent. In exchange for lucrative mining rights and economic access, Russia has provided roughly a dozen African autocrats with formal military assistance and mercenary fighters and has carried out social media disinformation campaigns to help them maintain their rule. Several African countries are also heavily dependent on Russian exports of fertilizer and wheat. Even Africa’s most influential elected leader, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, blamed NATO expansion for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russian influence extends beyond Africa. The majority of intellectuals and leaders in the rest of the developing world refuse to sign up for anything that smacks of a new cold war against Russia or China. Many Latin Americans view Western sanctions as selective and politicized—“a tool of the U.S. hegemony,” according to Guillaume Long, a former Ecuadorian foreign minister. Resentments against European colonialism and “Yankee imperialism” lurk beneath the surface, ready to be stirred by Russian and Chinese propaganda and resurgent leftist movements.

Starting Over

After a decade and a half of losing ground, democracy promotion needs to be reset. The guiding principle for the right strategy is simple: power matters. This is not to endorse using force to impose democracy. That approach almost always fails, and it discredits peaceful efforts. But as the political scientist Samuel Huntington noted, military and diplomatic power create the geopolitical context in which democracy thrives or founders. Preserving U.S. military strength—and the vigor and deterrent capabilities of U.S. alliances and partnerships—is vital to keeping democracies secure against authoritarian encroachment and intimidation. The United States must develop and deploy conventional and new-generation military assets, including a larger navy. This is necessary to deter authoritarian rivals, most of all, China.

In addition, policymakers must hone U.S. economic strength and technological leadership. Ensuring that the U.S. economy remains the world’s most powerful—and that the dollar remains the dominant international currency—is vital. Along with its allies, the United States must continue to lead in such technological frontiers as advanced computing, artificial intelligence, bioengineering, robotics, and semiconductors. Staying ahead in these sectors is crucial to ensuring continued U.S. military superiority and overall global leadership. It also sends a message about the comparative advantage of democratic regimes. People and states like to go with a winner. The United States must demonstrate anew that the combination of democracy and private enterprise is a winning formula.

Maintaining a technological edge will require increased funding from the federal government. Financial resources should be earmarked for research and development, a national industrial strategy to steer and stimulate investment in critical U.S. technology industries, and the onshoring of at least some semiconductor and other high-tech manufacturing.

A newspaper stand in Beijing, August 2022

Tingshu Wang / Reuters

To realize these goals, Congress in late July finally passed the CHIPS Act, which provides more than $52 billion in funding to revive semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, plus tens of billions more in increased support for scientific research and development and for tax credits to further encourage U.S. investment in chip manufacturing. Ideally, in the future Congress will also pass a crucial provision from the original version of the House bill, the America Competes Act, that would lift green card caps for international students graduating from doctoral and many master’s degree programs in science, technology, engineering, and math. U.S. universities draw tremendous talent from around the world, and the United States urgently needs skilled scientists and engineers to help win the race for technological dominance.

The United States also needs a supercharged international public engagement campaign to win over hearts and minds through innovative multilingual media operations. China and Russia have been gaining ground in the battle over ideas and values because they are investing more in it than the United States is. They are, furthermore, unconstrained by any fidelity to the truth. Unlike the often boring truth, lurid disinformation quickly goes viral, and that gives the states that traffic in it an advantage.

But there are two deeper problems that U.S. policymakers can and should address. First, the media landscape in countries around the world has been increasingly distorted by overt censorship and covert efforts to intimidate, control, and corrupt professional journalists. Hence, the United States is losing its most critical allies in the battle for open societies: free and independent media in battleground countries. Second, the United States has no clear strategy to disseminate the values of democracy. Creating one will require a long-term effort, conducted with civic partners and indigenous voices on every continent.

States like to side with winners.

Empowering and sustaining independent media is a critical priority. In partnership with other donors, Luminate, a global philanthropy established by the Omidyar Group, has launched the International Fund for Public Interest Media to fill the gap in financing for independent media around the world. It seeks initially to mobilize $1 billion in annual financing to grow—and in many cases save—independent media. There is no higher priority for democracy assistance than supporting credible and independent newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, and new digital platforms that report the truth. Without them, the United States cannot rein in disinformation or help local movements resist and ultimately retire dictators.

In addition to fostering a healthy international media ecosystem, the U.S. government also needs to buttress its public diplomacy. Closing the U.S. Information Agency in 1999 was one of the biggest mistakes in American global engagement since the end of the Cold War. As James Clapper, the former U.S. director of national intelligence, stated during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2017, Washington needs a “USIA on steroids” that would “fight this information war a lot more aggressively.” When the USIA was shuttered, it was merged into a section of the State Department led by the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. Since then, 17 people have held that title, serving in the job for a little more than a year on average. Since December 2016, seven of the eight incumbents have been in acting rather than permanent roles.

There is no excuse for such apathy from presidential administrations of both parties. The United States needs a general in this global information campaign with the vision, stature, and authority to think boldly. This person must work to craft compelling narratives that tell the United States’ story, rebut false propaganda, foster democratic ideas, and illuminate democratic traditions, struggles, and voices within diverse cultures. These messages should be disseminated creatively, via new media and old. This may require technological leaps to scale the firewalls of state censorship and give people access to new ideas and objective information. Or it could be as simple as producing multimedia libraries of democratic ideas, models, experiences, and institutional forms, translating them into diverse languages, and loading them on thumb drives that could easily be mistaken for pens or lipstick. Civil and human rights groups on the ground and in exile could then find ways to circulate them, even inside dictatorships.

It Starts At Home

To be sure, the United States’ ability to promote democratic values and practices abroad will be difficult if U.S. citizens do not revive their commitment to them at home. If American democracy sinks ever deeper into polarization, stalemate, subversion, and violence, the U.S. message will appear hypocritical, and U.S. allies will be demoralized. Democrats and Republicans cannot agree about how their own country should be governed, but they both favor peaceful efforts to promote democracy abroad, and they both recognize that the world’s most powerful autocracies—particularly China and Russia—pose a grave danger to U.S. national security and the American way of life. What Washington needs is a return to the essential democratic norms of mutual tolerance and restraint in the exercise of power, coupled with an unequivocal commitment by all Republicans to accept future election outcomes.

U.S. policy must also expose and rebuff authoritarian efforts, particularly by China and Russia, to subvert open societies. This malign influence falls between the hard power of military and economic might and the soft power of engagement and persuasion. These states’ covert tactics include pushing their propaganda as legitimate news, buying up local media companies, bribing politicians, intimidating businesses, forging partnerships with hidden agendas and secret conditions, threatening their own citizens abroad, and influencing what universities teach and think tanks publish. These forms of subversion seek not only to degrade resistance to Chinese and Russian global ambitions but also to erode democratic norms.

The U.S. government needs to buttress its public diplomacy.

To fight disinformation and authoritarian propaganda, democracy education is crucial. Schools should teach the principles of human rights, free and fair elections, the rule of law, accountability, transparency, and good governance and do so as much as possible through the lens of each country’s history and culture. Students should learn the history of these ideas, their roots in diverse cultural and religious traditions, and their universal relevance. Through innovative techniques of instruction and engagement, young people should be equipped and inspired to participate in civic life. Authoritarian and illiberal governments will resist these educational endeavors. In some countries, democracy education may need to proceed entirely outside state-controlled classrooms.

Finally, U.S. policymakers should approach countries with empathy. It is imperative to strive to understand the ideologies, emotions, anxieties, and ambitions that motivate other states. Autocrats will never welcome Western demands that they, in essence, give up power. But wanton abusers of human rights must see that there is a price to pay for crushing dissent. Through resilient diplomacy and an artful application of carrots and sticks, U.S. policymakers should seek to persuade authoritarian rulers that if they ease repression and accept greater political pluralism, their countries will benefit economically. Then the United States will be better able to help them preserve their sovereignty and national security, and leaders will be more effective at governing.

What's In It For Them?

A major reason China has won adherents abroad is that the country has offered lending, investment, and technological assistance through its Belt and Road Initiative. Of course, the roads, bridges, ports, and telecommunications networks across Africa, Asia, and Latin America come with strings attached. To participate in the Belt and Road Initiative, recipient countries must contract with Chinese construction firms and borrow money from China at commercial rates. This arrangement can land states in the kind of debt crisis that recently cost Sri Lanka its economic and political stability. Inflation in Sri Lanka is set to peak at 70 percent, and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country in July after nationwide protests.

The United States has long warned countries against entering into financial agreements with China but has offered little in the way of alternatives. Fortunately, that may be changing: U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of the other G-7 countries announced in 2022 that they would work with the private sector to invest $600 billion over the next five years in infrastructure projects in low- and middle-income countries. The U.S. government has pledged $200 billion to this effort, under the rubric of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. Now the G-7 must follow through with these commitments.

The United States must also reform development assistance. Congress should reduce its earmarking of U.S. aid so that more of it can respond to the needs and priorities that recipient countries identify. This is, after all, in the spirit of the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation, which gives development aid in the form of grants to poor countries that adopt economic and political reforms and then facilitates society-wide consultations to select specific development projects to fund. Such development partnerships will make aid more effective and will make foreign leaders more receptive to an important warning: societies incur enormous risks to their privacy, freedom, and national sovereignty when Chinese companies such as Huawei build their telecommunications infrastructure or provide their police and state security with digital surveillance and facial recognition systems.

These initiatives can guide and sustain a grand strategy for democracy over the medium to the long run. But in the short run, democracy faces specific threats and challenges, the outcomes of which will greatly influence the future of world order.

Win the Wars

There is no more important priority than ensuring that Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine’s democracy ends in Moscow’s defeat. In the four months following Russia’s February 24 invasion, the United States committed $5.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including heavy artillery, drones, missiles, and aircraft. But U.S. delivery of that military aid has often been slow, and some of Ukraine’s requests for advanced weapons have not been met. Meanwhile, Russia has continued its withering assault. Led by the United States, the NATO alliance must provide Ukraine with the arms, ammunition, and intelligence it needs to successfully counter Russian aggression.

Victory is not just imperative to protect the Ukrainians’ right to self-governance. How the war ends will prompt other countries to draw conclusions about which way global politics is heading and which type of political system has the greater will and tenacity. If Ukraine emerges from this conflict substantially free and secure, with its prewar territory intact and with aid and investment flowing in to rebuild, several powerful lessons will become clear. Bystanders will realize that democracy is not a weak system but provides the legitimacy, solidarity, and steadfastness necessary for victory, just as it did for the United Kingdom in World War II. The world will also see that the United States, its European allies, and their democratic partners will sacrifice to help an embattled democracy defend itself and to reaffirm the most vital principle of the international order, that territorial aggression will not stand. Finally, it will demonstrate the disastrous incompetence and miscalculation of Putin’s authoritarian state and thus illustrate a larger lesson: when leaders are not constrained by checks and balances and alternative flows of information, they are prone to ruinous blunders.

A polling station in Uttar Pradesh, India, February 2022

Adnan Abidi / Reuters

There is another reason why failure is not an option in Ukraine, and it is the next and possibly imminent existential priority: Taiwan. China appears increasingly determined to “reunify” Taiwan with the mainland for symbolic, political, economic, and strategic reasons. Symbolically, the Chinese Communist Party’s rulers claim that annexing Taiwan would end a long humiliation and restore China’s rightful status as the dominant power in Asia. Politically, the Chinese leadership’s absorption of Taiwan would extinguish the living proof that a Chinese society can govern itself as a liberal democracy. Economically, Taiwan hosts the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities, producing roughly 90 percent of the world’s most powerful chips. And strategically, taking Taiwan would enable China to break past the first island chain—the first chain of archipelagoes out from the East Asian continental mainland—and assert control over not only the South China Sea and its passageways to the Indian Ocean but also the entire western Pacific. China could then push the United States out of Asia and become the hegemon of the Indo-Pacific.

This prospect horrifies the countries of the region, beginning with Washington’s vital democratic partner in East Asia, Japan. But if conquest looks inevitable or if Taiwan eventually falls, most regional states will opt to ride the wave of China’s hegemonic ascent rather than be drowned by it. For this reason, preserving Taiwan’s autonomy as a thriving democracy is an overriding strategic priority not just for the region but for the entire world. If Taiwan can maintain its current course of moderation, avoiding any hint of movement toward de jure independence, and if China can be deterred from attacking Taiwan, crucial time will be purchased for China to change politically. With a rapidly shrinking and aging population and huge contradictions in its excessively state-dominated economy, China will increasingly face deep domestic challenges that may press it in the direction of pragmatism, reform, and a more enlightened vision of what constitutes national greatness.

To secure a democratic Taiwan, the United States and its strategic partners—including Australia, Japan, and allies in Europe—must avoid pointless provocation. This means adhering to the diplomatic status quo, including the “one China” policy, and avoiding the temptation to take steps such as announcing formal diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, which would be symbolically gratifying but would back China’s leaders into a corner. It will also be important for Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s successor to continue her stance of pragmatism and restraint in cross-strait relations.

Preserving U.S. military strength is vital to keeping democracies secure.

At the same time, both the United States and Taiwan must address the deteriorating military balance with Beijing. China is modernizing militarily, acquiring the ships and weapons systems it would need to mount a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan. It is stepping up disinformation in Taiwan, with a continuous barrage of “news” and social media messages smearing Taiwan’s democracy, trying to tilt its politics toward Beijing-friendly politicians, and portraying other democracies as weak and incompetent. Beijing is also escalating military intimidation, including repeated incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. With support from Japan, the United States, and Europe, Taiwan needs to reshuffle this strategic picture. That means more emphasis on asymmetric warfare and larger military reserves. Above all, it means spending more on defense, which, at roughly 2.1 percent of GDP, is still a fraction of the 5.2 percent Taiwan spent in 1990.

Finally, Taiwan could change the dynamic of the political impasse with a dramatic gesture. Taking a page from the National Unification Guidelines adopted by Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui in 1991, Taiwan could establish that as a condition for negotiations on the future shape of its sovereignty, mainland China would have to be a democracy and guarantee fundamental human rights to its citizens. This would signal to the people of mainland China that the real obstacle to dialogue is China’s authoritarian Communist Party, which does not respect the rule of law or political accountability and, therefore, as it showed in Hong Kong, cannot credibly commit to “one country, two systems.” A U.S. information campaign could then puncture Beijing’s social media firewall to amplify this message to the Chinese people.

Don't Feed The Authoritarians

In addition to helping those populations living in the shadow of authoritarian great powers, U.S. policymakers must pay attention to strategically important countries where democracy is struggling. The United States should prioritize Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and—most of all—India, given the size of their populations, their economic potential, and their geopolitical heft. In all these countries, the United States should find innovative ways to support democratic principles, voices, and organizations that do not feed the illiberal nationalist discourses of authoritarian populists.

India poses the hardest challenge. For one thing, the Modi government has made it very difficult for its nongovernmental organizations to receive foreign funding. For another, India is part of the Quad (the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), a strategic partnership that also includes Australia, Japan, and the United States and provides a crucial counterweight to China’s hegemonic ambitions in the region. Thus, U.S. diplomats are wary of ruffling Modi’s feathers. As it balances the tension between calling out Modi’s authoritarian transgressions and maintaining his support on U.S. Indo-Pacific policy, the United States must signal that this new era of strategic cooperation is a long-run bet. But at the same time, the United States must make clear how much more would be possible in trade, investment, and technological cooperation if the current illiberal assaults on critics, opponents, and religious minorities in India were to abate.

The United States also needs to be more agile in response to threats and opportunities—even in countries with less geopolitical weight. Since July 2021, when Tunisian President Kais Saied suspended parliament and seized emergency powers, his actions have increasingly constituted an executive coup against democracy. To make clear the price that will be paid for a failure to restore democracy, the wealthy established democracies should block the International Monetary Fund bailout that Saied needs to manage the country’s economic crisis. More generally, the U.S. government needs to be ready to move quickly, with its democratic allies and with democratic forces in these countries, to label coups for what they are and to preempt and reverse rollbacks of democracy before they congeal into new autocracies. And the United States needs to respond nimbly with incentives and aid when authoritarian divisions and mass demonstrations open new possibilities for democratic transitions.

The Twilight Struggle

Global conditions for democracy are bad and getting worse. The United States needs to politically and financially support the people and organizations struggling, often at great risk, for freedom. This is a moral imperative. And it is in the United States’ national interest to encourage transitions to more democratic, lawful, and accountable governments around the world. Policymakers can’t predict when pivotal opportunities will emerge to champion democratic campaigns or when a backsliding democratic government might confront a crisis that would enable democrats to regain the momentum. Moreover, democrats around the world draw hope, institutional lessons, and tactical insights from interactions with one another. Support for them also reaffirms that political freedom and civil liberties are universal rights to which all people are entitled, irrespective of region and culture.

In his inaugural address, U.S. President John F. Kennedy called on Americans to carry on “a long twilight struggle” against tyranny. When he spoke those words in 1961, democracy was far worse off than it is now. Most countries were autocracies, nearly half of Europe was under Soviet domination, and it was not clear whether free or communist societies would win the Cold War. Today, despite a decade and a half of democratic erosion and recession, the picture is much brighter. About half of all countries are democracies, and even where authoritarian regimes predominate, opinion polls show broad popular support for democracy and the rule of law. Hence, most governments that are not democratic believe their legitimacy depends on claiming that they are.

The gap between their claims and reality renders them vulnerable. Even if they are dissatisfied with democratic politicians and institutions, most people would still rather live in a democracy that offers protection for their rights. They want a democracy that is real and that works. The autocracies of the world—China, Egypt, Iran, and Russia, not to mention Venezuela and Zimbabwe and their unfolding calamities—face severe challenges precisely because of their lack of accountability and open debate. All this suggests that the Zeitgeist can shift back in favor of democracy. But it won’t do so on its own. It requires American power, and a renewal of America’s democratic purpose at home and abroad.

• LARRY DIAMOND is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

Foreign Affairs · by Larry Diamond · September 23, 2022

17. Putin’s War, and His Rule, Is in Trouble

Excerpts:

The mobilization could have some effect on the war, if Russia’s military manages to temporarily substitute reservists for exhausted contract soldiers. But draftees are hardly going to give their best. “We’ve seen in this war how decisive the will to fight is. The Ukrainians have it. But the Russian soldiers don’t understand why they’re there. The mobilization is hardly going to improve the men’s will to fight,” said Zysk.

What a contrast to Ukraine, but also to Finland, which in 1939 faced formidable Soviet invaders. To the Soviets, Finland, a newly independent and badly divided country whose armed forces were extremely rudimentary, seemed an easy conquest. But the Finns believed in their country, they believed in their country’s leadership and especially in their commander, Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, a strategic genius who managed to turn the country’s rag-tag army of 90 percent reservists into a cunning insurgency force that so bedeviled the Red Army that Moscow withdrew after 105 days. While Finland was forced to relinquish some territory, it remained independent.

Russia’s mobilization debacle is playing out for all the world to see. And Putin is testing Russians’ faith in his war and his regime. The men now being served call-up papers may not be politically minded, but their efforts to avoid becoming cannon fodder could turn the mobilization into a movement against Putin’s war—and his regime.

Putin’s War, and His Rule, Is in Trouble

Russia’s mobilization is an epic disaster. Can it become a movement against the regime?

defenseone.com · by Elisabeth Braw

Russia’s mobilization of a reported 300,000 reservists hasn’t proceeded very smoothly. Almost immediately after President Vladimir Putin announced that his government would be calling the reservists up for duty in Ukraine, waves of Russians began fleeing the country, rightly suspecting this was just the first wave of call-ups.

In Ukraine, by contrast, many men have returned home to serve when their country needed them, after the initial government order that barred Ukraine’s fighting-age men from leaving the country as Russia invaded. In Finland, even NHL hockey stars return from America to do military service.

Any successful conscription or mobilization begins with respect for the citizens who are being turned into soldiers. Otherwise, they’ll foil the military effort by not showing up or not doing their best—and in Russia case dramatically demonstrating to the world that Putin’s war, and his rule, is in trouble.

In his surprise address to the nation on Wednesday, Putin said, “I find it necessary to support the proposal of the Defense Ministry and the General Staff on partial mobilization in the Russian Federation to defend our motherland and its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to ensure the safety of our people and people in the liberated territories.”

“Partial” meant the immediate call-up of some 300,000 reservists, but reports already indicate the number could be far greater. Social media is flooded with videos of tearful scenes as called-up men take their leave from their families, while other men ease their unexpected journey to the barracks by taking to the bottle . The news also prompted many other men to swiftly drive to the border with visa-free Georgia or to book flights to Georgia and other countries (including Serbia) that don’t require visas for Russian citizens. At the time of writing, flights to Tbilisi, Belgrade, and Dubai are sold out for the next week or so, and after that they’re exorbitantly expensive or moderately expensive with stopovers in places like Grozny.

It’s hardly surprising that the men are escaping. War service is never pleasant in the first place. Putin’s problem goes far beyond the ugliness of war. Russia’s men are showing the world that Putin’s “partial mobilization” demonstrates that they don’t believe in his war, and thus in his government. And it demonstrates that they don’t believe the mobilization is partial at all.

They’re extremely perceptive. Even though this week’s announcement introduced partial mobilization, Russians can’t be sure that it will remain so. “Until Wednesday 21 September they tried recruiting volunteers, and it didn’t succeed. So they had to mobilise,” Gudrun Persson, a Russia analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency and the lead author of the authoritative Russian Military Capability in a Ten-Year Perspective, told me. “And there’s nothing in the presidential decree that explains what ‘partial’ means, nor is it a term in current legislation. This is mobilization, full stop, for the third time in Russia’s history. The previous times were 1914 and 1941.”

Being part of the first mobilization since World War II doesn’t bode well for the men now arriving in the barracks, and those who may be about to receive their call-up notice. “Until now, the problems Russian conscripts faced mostly involved dedovshchina (hazing), dying during exercises and poor, even if improving, service conditions,” Katarzyna Zysk, an expert on the Russian military at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, told me. “Now, on top of that, there’s a significant risk of becoming cannon fodder.”

Ordinarily, ex-conscripts who are part of the Russian military reserves would not be sent to fight in foreign countries. But because the referendums conducted in Russian-held Ukrainian territories immediately after Putin’s mobilization announcement mean those territories will soon count as Russia, the reservists can be sent there too. “The Russian armed forces are trying to salvage whatever they can and prevent another Kharkiv, where soldiers and civilian representatives appear to have just turned around and fled,” Persson explained.

Putin, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, and their advisers are painfully aware that few men want to serve in Russia’s armed forces. For decades, young Russian men have used highly innovative ways (including PhD studies) to avoid being conscripted, and since the invasion of Ukraine the armed forces have faced such recruitment problems that many contract soldiers have simply seen their contracts extended involuntarily. “Since 2008, Russia has been trying to get away from its large mobiliation armed forces, and instead create a professional force, mobile, with a lot of air power,” Persson said, “And now they do this. This is like World War I, and they’ve not practiced for this contingency involving hundreds of thousands – and possibly more – rudimentarily trained ex-conscripts being sent to the war.”

Shoigu has taken pains to emphasize that draftees will be placed in support roles rather than frontline combat, a logical message to send considering that at least 300,000 families would rebel if their sons were made immediate cannon fodder. But Russia’s military seemed unprepared to receive even support troops. “The Russian armed forces’ endemic corruption is becoming obvious once again,” Persson said. “Soldiers are arriving at their bases and there are no uniforms for them, nothing. It’s shocking.”

The mobilization could have some effect on the war, if Russia’s military manages to temporarily substitute reservists for exhausted contract soldiers. But draftees are hardly going to give their best. “We’ve seen in this war how decisive the will to fight is. The Ukrainians have it. But the Russian soldiers don’t understand why they’re there. The mobilization is hardly going to improve the men’s will to fight,” said Zysk.

What a contrast to Ukraine, but also to Finland, which in 1939 faced formidable Soviet invaders. To the Soviets, Finland, a newly independent and badly divided country whose armed forces were extremely rudimentary, seemed an easy conquest. But the Finns believed in their country, they believed in their country’s leadership and especially in their commander, Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, a strategic genius who managed to turn the country’s rag-tag army of 90 percent reservists into a cunning insurgency force that so bedeviled the Red Army that Moscow withdrew after 105 days. While Finland was forced to relinquish some territory, it remained independent.

Russia’s mobilization debacle is playing out for all the world to see. And Putin is testing Russians’ faith in his war and his regime. The men now being served call-up papers may not be politically minded, but their efforts to avoid becoming cannon fodder could turn the mobilization into a movement against Putin’s war—and his regime.

defenseone.com · by Elisabeth Braw

18. Use us for combat zone tests, Ukraine minister tells US war industry

These kinds of comments lead critics to believe the US. and in particular the US defense industry, wants the war to drag on so it can be a testing ground.

Use us for combat zone tests, Ukraine minister tells US war industry

militarytimes.com · by Todd South · September 21, 2022

AUSTIN, Texas — Mobility tactics, advanced technology and a workshop mentality for fixing battlefield problems all point to Ukrainian success fighting the Russian invasion.

But sustained success in the shadow of a mass Russian military mobilization announced Wednesday means Ukrainian forces need more and better training, arms and ammunition, especially as winter approaches, according to Ukrainian leaders.

Tying Ukrainian needs to the U.S. defense industry, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense retired Maj. Gen. Volodymyr Havrylov here at the annual National Defense Industrial Association Future Force Capabilities Conference had a straightforward pitch.

RELATED

Putin sets partial military call-up, won’t ‘bluff’ on nukes

It’s the first call-up in Russia since World War II and is sure to further fuel tensions with the Western backers of Ukraine.

“If you have some ideas, or some pilot projects to be tested before mass manufacturing, you can send it to us and we will explain how to do it,” Havrylov said. “And in the end you will get the stamp, proved by the war in Ukraine. You will sell it easy.”

The deputy minister referenced unnamed startup companies already doing this, bringing not-yet-fielded products to Ukrainian procurement officials, especially anti-drone, anti-jamming technology.

“And they come back with a product that is competitive in the market now because it was tested in a combat zone,” he said.

Havrylov spoke to an audience of hundreds of defense industry and U.S. military acquisitions personnel after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the first military call up since World War II of an estimated 300,000 civilians for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The announcement comes after a series of humiliating defeats for the Russian military in the seven-month war. Western backers of Ukraine have called it a desperate move.

Havrylov had more choice words.

“It means that we are moving to the end of the Russian empire,” Havrylov said. “This act of desperation after almost seven months of the so-called special operation in Ukraine demonstrated the weakness of Russia and the paper character of the military.”

The deputy defense minister pointed to Ukrainian successes and early challenges that he said their military has overcome.

“Yes, Russia is a huge country, they have more people, they have more equipment,” Havrylov said. “…people here and in Europe think Russia is a sleeping bear, but in fact it is a frightened jackal in a bear skin.”

In this photo taken from video released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu speaks during a meeting in the Russian Defense Ministry office in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia as the fighting reaches nearly seven months. Shoigu said in a televised interview Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022 that conscripts and students won't be mobilized only those with relevant combat and service experience will be. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Though the mobilization announcement captured headlines and broadcasts Wednesday, Havrylov doubted that the call up would be effective for one reason — Russia can’t equip the soldiers it has, let alone another 300,000 untrained troops.

Early in the fight, he said Ukrainians destroyed much of the modernized equipment the Russian military used to invade. That left the next wave of Russian troops with Soviet-era gear.

“That is why we’re not afraid of this mobilization attempt in Russia,” Havrylov said. “They have no resources to prepare this amount of people not only for battle but for the winter period.”

But specific requests and responses to audience questions laid out a series of hardware priorities that Ukrainians need as the war advances and Russian tactics shift.

Those include counter drone, electronic warfare, armored vehicles and longer anti-tank and longer precision fire weapons.

Havrylov stressed that ongoing Ukrainian tactics of keeping units moving quickly and maintaining a dispersed force across their territory have challenged Russian military leaders, bent on continued use of position-based and fires-heavy fighting.

Ukraine’s military success depends on mobility, he said.

But Russian leaders have adapted, mostly by keeping a standoff distance that makes many of the weapons less effective.

Havrylov pointed to the Javelin surface-to-air, shoulder-fired missile as an example. Early in the conflict scores of Javelin shipments sent to the war helped Ukrainians destroy even modernized Russian tanks.

However, the missile has its limits, chiefly range.

And Russians took note.

“It’s all about anti-tank systems with a range of up to 5 kilometers,” he said. “Javelin is okay but is only has a range of 2.5 kilometers. Russia stopped closing to us in less than 5 kilometers.”

Ukrainian servicemen drive atop a tank in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Havrylov suggested anti-tank systems from industry with a 6-kilometer range or kamikaze or suicide drones as options his military could use.

Like tanks and the Javelin, Havrylov said early fighting saw Ukrainian forces hit Russian supply lines and ammunition depots closer to the fight with the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. The Russian military has now moved most of those positions at least 100 kilometers back, outside of Ukrainian fires ranges.

“If we have the capability to destroy targets to 200 kilometers it would be a total disaster for Russia,” Havrylov said. “That’s why we’re asking for (Army Tactical Missile System).”

The Biden administration so far has seen ATACMS delivery as potentially escalating the conflict because Ukrainians could strike Russian territory. Havrylov argued that Ukraine has no plans to strike Russia itself, but the Ukrainian government has its sights set on regaining long-occupied territory.

“We have a lot of targets in our occupied territory, including Crimea,” Havrylov said.

Those tech pieces fit parts of the puzzle that Ukrainians aim to solve, but another factor looms — the dreaded Eastern European winter.

Havrylov had suggestions for that, too.

The Ukrainians need armored platforms to continue their “mosquito tactics” developed before the Russian invasion, using small units with secure communications and drones to strike relentlessly. That’s even more important in the winter, where mobility faces added burdens.

The retired major general told the audience that Ukraine would be “grateful” to have more armored platforms and air defenses for the winter battles that loom.

“We will not only survive, we will have a lot of success in the wintertime,” Havrylov said. “Russia is not ready for that kind of warfare.”

Weapons and tactics hit the top of the list, but repairing gear and training forces made the request roster, too. Early in the war nearly one-third of all equipment problems or malfunctions were due to lack of training for Ukrainian operators, Havrylov said.

A program that takes up to 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers a month to the United Kingdom for infantry and other training has proved effective, Havrylov added, but more remote training in both tactics and technical skills are needed.

He wants training and advising over Skype, Zoom or other options available to soldiers.

Ukrainians need ways to repair their gear or make modifications in the country, rather than sending busted equipment to other nations, which causes difficult delays in equipping fighters, he said.

The United States alone has contributed more than $13.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine since late 2021, according to a Pentagon release in August.

But more tools of the right kind are essential in the coming months, Havrylov said.

“If you have the right items delivered in the right time to the right people you have a real effect in this war,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

About Todd South

Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

19. New AUKUS Resource - SECURITY & DEFENCE PLUS ADVANCING AUKUS

This new website, SECURITY & DEFENCE PLUS ADVANCING AUKUS, will be very useful for all researchers and practitioners who work on AUKUS issues.

Access Home Page HERE.

Access the very useful Briefing Book HERE.

Access the essays HERE.

20. AUKUS and Military Education Innovation by Paula Thornhill

Conclusion:

AUKUS offers a unique opportunity for PME innovation. The price of entry is relatively low and the number of individuals involved is small. Innovation in this area would directly impact only a handful of officers drawn from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, with strong support from the three defense establishments, as well as the right program director, this PME initiative could, within a couple of years, create an AUKUS field-grade officer cohort with an impact well beyond its early, smallish size. This cohort, as it grows and its members move up their respective officer ranks, would possess a deep understanding of the AUKUS partners and the Indo-Pacific region and its key players. Most importantly, it would engender a deep trust that would encourage sharing strategies, intelligence, and operational plans under all circumstances. When thinking about any AUKUS PME program’s costs versus its return on investment, such trust and its attendant benefits are, simply, priceless.

AUKUS and Military Education Innovation - Security & Defence PLuS Alliance

securityanddefenceplus.plusalliance.org · by Paula Thornhill

Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States recently entered into a defense partnership that could effectively challenge China’s efforts to dominate the Indo-Pacific region. Known as AUKUS, this initiative brings together three historic partners to provide Australia with conventionally armed nuclear submarines and make a clear commitment to the development and sharing of advanced capabilities. A shared commitment to a substantive defense program like nuclear-powered attack submarines is a logical place to start since it is a tangible demonstration of trust to share such a technologically advanced program. However, it suggests that this long-term partnership could also thrive through less public but equally enduring opportunities. Beyond the advanced capabilities cited in the agreement, this could allow for better intelligence sharing across the three countries and more closely integrated strategies across the various defense establishments. In all cases, stronger personal ties would deepen linkages across the partnership. For militaries, there is no easier way to deliberately improve personal ties than the professional military education (PME) system, and AUKUS offers a unique opportunity to use PME to create a core cadre of military officers (and potentially civil servants) that could strengthen the trilateral partnership even more.

Why cooperation through PME? Compared to other means of cooperation, PME has a relatively low barrier to entry. Direct and indirect costs revolve around student moves and school tuition, as well as ensuring duties are covered while officers are attending school. Moreover, the time from design to implementation can be measured in months rather than the years associated with building a nuclear submarine. PME thus offers a way to create an AUKUS cadre that could be working together years before Australia commissions its first nuclear submarine.

To be clear, though, an AUKUS PME program would need to differ significantly from current programs involving international students. Putting aside deeper issues associated with institutional PME, existing PME institutions create curricula that compel exchange students to serve as de facto country ambassadors even while participating in an academic program. To build tripartite trust, the AUKUS students must meet on equal terms without additional, albeit informal, responsibilities disrupting that balance. A trilateral, year-long graduate seminar loosely based on the Secretary of Defense’s Strategic Thinkers Program (STP) at Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies offers a potential departure point (full disclosure, I teach in this program).

Some potential program components. Small, intense, Oxford-based tutorial seminars underpin STP. Any AUKUS graduate program could similarly place the student seminar at its core. To ensure success, the initial seminar might consist of no more than nine or 10 students, with each nation offering up a diverse group of students from their key military components. Most importantly, neither a nation nor a service should dominate the seminar’s composition. In terms of content, the seminar would only succeed with a strong, well-developed syllabus. Certainly, considerable thought would need to go into its design and its relationship to possible electives, but the syllabus might include these four major components:

• Comparative analyses focused on the development of the three militaries. This would include potentially contentious issues such as inter-service competition for roles and missions, organizational learning and adaptation, and civil-military relationships.
• Contemporary issues impacting the three militaries, to include, perhaps, recruiting challenges, dispersed operations, and implementation of national strategies. In addition, this could present an opportunity for creative thinking about how the three militaries could work together more effectively to address major strategic and operational problems.
• Historical wartime case studies of previous partnership efforts, with a focus on less successful attempts at partnering as well as the more heralded successes. These case studies would span the 20th and early 21st For example, one seminar block of lessons might focus on World War II, including the creation of the American-British-Dutch-Australian command; coalition operations in the China-Burma-India theater; the Combined Bomber Offensive; and Operation Oboe, the Australian-led amphibious assaults in North Borneo.
• A comprehensive study of Indo-Pacific geography, to include its human, regional, physical, and military Given the vast expanse covered by the Indo-Pacific, the latter might be of particular importance. Servicemembers’ principal operating domain—whether land, sea, air, space, or the information realm—usually shapes their assumptions of how a conflict might unfold, and the Indo-Pacific offers myriad challenges in every domain. Building a shared understanding of these different geographic dimensions and their associated operational demands would enhance understanding across AUKUS.

Two experiential learning aspects could round out an AUKUS PME program. The first would include crisis simulations and wargames to allow the students to wrestle with strategic and operational challenges as a team. A second and critical aspect of an AUKUS program would consist of extensive travel. The travel could include in-depth military staff rides or political-economic-social immersions that would allow students to experience in person what they had studied and debated in seminars and simulations. These are not pleasure trips; each trip would need considerable planning and rigor to meet a specific syllabus objective, demanding student preparation, and sufficient length for the students to absorb the “conditions on the ground.”

Institutional considerations. Assuming such a program has merit, creating it would require institutional agility from the three defense establishments. First, they would need to agree on the type and location of the institution. Concerning the former, the options range widely from a single military institution such as a war college to a military-university conglomerate comprised of some AUKUS war colleges to a military-civilian partnership based on the STP model or even a civilian-university conglomerate that spans the AUKUS alliance, perhaps akin to the PLuS Alliance. The institutional structure would help determine the location for any such AUKUS program. For example, if AUKUS partners determine that regional proximity is critical, this would make Australia the obvious choice, but other factors could make the United Kingdom or United States equally appealing locations. One could even argue for moving the student cohort among the three countries, but that, plus regional travel demands, could well prove exhausting for the students and program director.

The selection of the right program director is perhaps the most important factor in creating a successful AUKUS PME program. This individual must possess great credibility within both higher education and military circles. The military leadership should have sufficient confidence in this individual to minimize the need for close oversight and multiple reporting requirements. Mid-year and end-of-term evaluations, individual conversations with students, and periodic alumni assessments should suffice to assess the program’s success. With three partners to keep apprised of the program, such an undertaking is daunting. In fact, if an AUKUS PME program does materialize, appointing one of the members as the primary partner for oversight could make sense.

Indeed, willingness to cover a larger portion of the program’s costs could be a potential criterion for determining oversight responsibilities. Ideally, for such a small program, the three partners would share the costs equally, but circumstances might dictate differently. While each nation should absorb the military personnel costs for sponsoring its student cohort, the institutional costs of hosting such a program—paying for physical spaces, student services, additional faculty, etc.—could tilt the costs to one partner over the others. In any event, for an AUKUS PME initiative to succeed, the partners would need realistic means to assess this program on behalf of their defense organizations without placing unrealistic demands, whether bureaucratic or financial, on the director.

Adding an 18th AUKUS trilateral working group for Professional Military (& Civilian) Defense Education perhaps offers the best way to explore the potential for military education cooperation. Such a working group would ensure that the three countries understood each other’s specific officer educational development needs while simultaneously working to strengthen the AUKUS partnership. They could explore these various requirements as a group and involve operators, educators, and defense officials as necessary to better understand what a trilateral program might look like. Regardless of its final structure, for an AUKUS program to succeed, it must significantly improve an individual officer’s education and critical thinking skills and result in strengthening the ties that bind this historic partnership.

Developing the AUKUS cadre beyond the classroom. Finally, if the three AUKUS defense establishments agree on the wisdom of creating a unique PME program, they need to recognize that the program could fail to achieve its objectives if it doesn’t provide the proper talent management for its graduates. Ideally, for an AUKUS PME program to succeed, each partner would identify positions at the field grade and even flag officer ranks that would benefit from AUKUS PME graduates. Partners could also consider routine, inexpensive ways to periodically re-immerse AUKUS graduates in partnership dynamics and issues. Such initiatives would ensure the building of expertise and trust beyond the seminar.

Without the partners paying close attention to the talent management of their graduates, military personnel systems could place these graduates in assignments around the globe with little or no ties to the Indo-Pacific or AUKUS. Moreover, individual service requirements for command at various levels could mean graduates never directly apply what they learn as they move from one level of command to the next. In short, the AUKUS members should not establish a first-rate graduate education program if they are unwilling to invest in the proper placement and development of its graduates.

AUKUS offers a unique opportunity for PME innovation. The price of entry is relatively low and the number of individuals involved is small. Innovation in this area would directly impact only a handful of officers drawn from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, with strong support from the three defense establishments, as well as the right program director, this PME initiative could, within a couple of years, create an AUKUS field-grade officer cohort with an impact well beyond its early, smallish size. This cohort, as it grows and its members move up their respective officer ranks, would possess a deep understanding of the AUKUS partners and the Indo-Pacific region and its key players. Most importantly, it would engender a deep trust that would encourage sharing strategies, intelligence, and operational plans under all circumstances. When thinking about any AUKUS PME program’s costs versus its return on investment, such trust and its attendant benefits are, simply, priceless.

About the Author

Paula Thornhill

Paula G. Thornhill is a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general. She is an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies where she teaches in DoD’s Strategic Thinkers Program. She is the author of Demystifying the American Military.

21. Army formally activating third Multi-Domain Task Force, focused on the Pacific

Excerpts:

“We should be able to perform the the organization much quicker with the third and get it to FOC [full operational capability] much quicker than we were with the first and second (MDTF),” Jarrard said.

Jarrard said that the goal for the new MDTF to reach full operational capability in fiscal 2023. After today’s activation, Zinn will start with an initial build and add additional capabilities over time, but declined to go into specifics about timelines for receiving capabilities. While Zinn wouldn’t get into specifics, the MDTFs are supposed to receive the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon and ship sinking Mid-Range Capability once the service starts fielding the new missiles, expected to be next year.

“We’re designed to begin operations before receiving all of our personnel or all of our equipment,” Zinn said.

He added that the MDTF is currently “evaluating opportunities” to participated in exercises and operations, and will start to take part “soon.”

Army formally activating third Multi-Domain Task Force, focused on the Pacific - Breaking Defense

"Our real value comes from us providing options to the joint force here, providing options to the Joint Force commander," the new formation's commander said.

breakingdefense.com · by Andrew Eversden · September 23, 2022

U.S. Army Multi-Doman Task Force (MDTF) and the Japan Ground Self Defense Force (JGSDF) rehearse the sequence of events for the sink exercise for Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2022 at the Pacific Range Missile Facility. (DVIDS)

WASHINGTON —The US Army is formally activating its third Multi-Domain Task Force today as the service looks to provide the joint force with more battlefield options across the vast distances of the Indo-Pacific.

The Army Multi-Domain Task Forces are new, theater-specific units that employ long-range precision effects, including cyber, electronic warfare or long-range fires. The MDTFs are cornerstone to the Army’s belief that in any future fight against China or Russia, the Army will have to confront its opponent in multiple domains, including air, space, sea and cyber, in addition to land.

The units, whose tactical focus is taking out enemy anti-access/area denial systems on the battlefield, are equipped with air defense, intelligence and strategic fires capabilities, in addition to a new high-tech battalion called the Intelligence, Information, Cyber, Electronic Warfare and Space Battalion (I2CEWS), which will provide long-range sensing or non-kinetic attack capabilities. The new task force, based in Hawaii, is second Pacific-focused MDTF.

“The MDTF brings specific capabilities that can operate in a distributed manner across island chains and over long distances,” Lt. Gen. James Jarrard, deputy commanding general of US Army Pacific, told reporters during a roundtable Thursday. “We cannot have too much capacity in those capabilities. I think it is a clear statement by the Army that they understand that this is the priority theater.”

“Our real value comes from us providing options to the joint force here, providing options to the joint force commander,” Col. David Zinn, commander of the third MDTF, said on the call.

The MDTF has “the opportunity to work with advanced and emerging technology and equipment,” Zinn said. “We have soldiers with technical expertise in building an operating networks and soldiers with training to employ our advanced systems.”

The Army now has three multi-domain task forces, one in Europe and another Pacific-based formation based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The service has plans for two more MDTFs, one expected to be Arctic-focused and the other globally responsive.

Jarrard said that the third MDTF wouldn’t be structurally different than its two predecessors. However, Zinn said that the third task force would build up its formation faster based on lessons learned from the first MDTF, including how to assemble a team, how to begin operations and start participating in exercises.

“We should be able to perform the the organization much quicker with the third and get it to FOC [full operational capability] much quicker than we were with the first and second (MDTF),” Jarrard said.

Jarrard said that the goal for the new MDTF to reach full operational capability in fiscal 2023. After today’s activation, Zinn will start with an initial build and add additional capabilities over time, but declined to go into specifics about timelines for receiving capabilities. While Zinn wouldn’t get into specifics, the MDTFs are supposed to receive the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon and ship sinking Mid-Range Capability once the service starts fielding the new missiles, expected to be next year.

“We’re designed to begin operations before receiving all of our personnel or all of our equipment,” Zinn said.

He added that the MDTF is currently “evaluating opportunities” to participated in exercises and operations, and will start to take part “soon.”

breakingdefense.com · by Andrew Eversden · September 23, 2022

22. China may now have air superiority over US in Pacific

We have enver not had air superiority since 1945. This would be a game changer.

China may now have air superiority over US in Pacific

Ageing and fewer US fighters flown by undertrained pilots have likely already fallen behind China’s rapid fleet expansion

asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · September 24, 2022

China’s jet fighter force may have already caught up with the quality and quantity of the US, prompting new urgent calls in Washington to build up and modernize the US fighter fleet.

US Air Combat Command Chief General Mark Kelley said that America’s combat air forces are 12 squadrons short of multiple aircraft types at the US Air Force Association’s annual Air, Space, and Cyber Conference this month, as reported by the Air and Space Forces Magazine.

He cautioned that the US had departed the era of conventional overmatch, with US combat air forces less than half of what they were during the 1991 Gulf War. However, exact aircraft numbers are highly classified; fighter squadrons generally consist of between 18 and 24 jets.

“When you have conventional overmatch, strategic risk is low. But that’s not where we’ve arrived in terms of conventional deterrence,” Kelly said.

He noted that while the US Air Force needs 60 fighter squadrons, it has only 48 of those to carry out its missions for homeland defense, overseas contingencies, overseas presence and crisis response.

He added that while the US Air Force has nine A-10 ground-attack aircraft squadrons, they lack air-to-air and multirole combat capability.

Kelly said these fighter shortages are most acutely felt in the Pacific, noting that the US needs 13 fighter squadrons in the region but now has only 11. In terms of crisis response forces, he mentions that the US is five squadrons short.

Apart from squadron shortages, Kelly mentions that only three out of eight squadrons are transitioning to new aircraft, resulting in a fighter force that is smaller, older and less capable.

He pointed out that the US fighter fleet is, on average, 28.8 years old compared to 9.7 years in 1991, with readiness levels plummeting as pilots get only 9.7 flight hours a month, compared to 22.3 just before the 1991 Gulf War.

A US Air Force captain performs preflight checks on an F-16 Falcon fighter jet before takeoff at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada., April 15, 2021. Photo: Air Force Airman 1st Class Zachary Rufus

Flying is a skill that atrophies without practice, notes Kate Odell in a February 2022 article for the Wall Street Journal. She notes that a fighter pilot needs 200 flight hours a year to stay sharp, with four or three practice sorties a week to maintain proficiency. At one or two sorties, Odell mentions that a pilot will deteriorate in ability and comfort in the cockpit.

Kelly makes a case for a fighter force that will dissuade any opponent from contemplating war with the US, making the case that no country in its proper frame of mind would pick a fight with a country with 134 modernized, well-trained and well-equipped fighter squadrons.

To achieve these force numbers, Kelly states that the US must maintain a production target of 72 fighters per year and keep its allies at a comparable level of capability, as the latter will be critical force multipliers.

He proposes a 4+1 fighter force mix for the 2030s, consisting of F-22s, F-35s, F-15EXs, F-16s, and A-10s. The F-22 will be the primary air superiority platform to be supplanted by the upcoming Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter.

The F-35 would be the workhorse for operations in contested airspace, supported by the F-15EX carrying long-range air-to-air weapons and 5th-generation sensor capabilities. F-16s would be a general-purpose model, while the A-10 will remain in its ground attack aircraft role.

In contrast to the US, Xiaobing Li, in the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, notes that China has 1,800 fighters divided into each of its five theater commands and organized into seven to 10 fighter brigades having three to six fighter groups, with each group having 30 to 50 aircraft. Regarding training, the defense website Global Security notes that in 2017 China’s fighter pilots managed 100 to 110 flight hours per year.

Given the flight hours mentioned by Global Security, there may not be much difference between the flying hours of US and Chinese fighter pilots. However, Lyle Morris notes in a 2016 RAND article that China’s fighter pilot training scenarios are highly scripted and tied to ground control, potentially making them less responsive and adaptable to rapidly-changing combat scenarios.

Morris notes that China has tried to simulate unscripted scenarios with systemic reforms to train its pilots to fight and win against militarily superior opponents such as the US.

The J-20 is China’s most advanced stealth fighter jet in service. Photo: Twitter

He says China has given its pilots the responsibility to make their flight plans and complete autonomy over their sorties. Still, Morris notes that it will take time to reform the rigid operational practices institutionalized in China’s air force.

Apart from reforming rigid training practices, China has fast-tracked its pilot training program, notes Liu Xuanzun in a July 2022 article for Global Times. Liu notes that under the old training program pilot cadets required four to six years of flight training to operate a fourth-generation fighter, but the new program trims the period to three years.

This accelerated training program aims to match the record production rates of China’s fighter jets. In a December 2021 article for Global Times, Liu Xuanzun notes that China’s Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, under the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), achieved record production of its J-15 carrier-based fighter and J-16 multirole fighter jet and even finished its production quotas in advance, despite difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the article did not divulge any precise production numbers. Against America’s 4+1 fighter force mix, China can field a combination of J-20 and FC-31 fifth-generation fighters; J-11, J-15 and J-16 heavyweight fighters in various configurations; and J-10 lightweight fighters.

Moreover, in terms of qualitative improvements to its fighter jets, China has been steadily improving the quality of its jet engines, which were a significant handicap for its fighters, and substantially improving its air-to-air missiles to the point of exceeding Western models in some cases.

Kelly’s proposal to bulk up US fighter strength is reminiscent of the Reagan administration’s 600-ship navy plan, which aimed to overmatch the Soviet Navy.

US F-35, F-16, F-18, F-22, and F-15 jets flying in formation. Photo: Facebook / Popular Mechanics

The US accomplished this massive naval shipbuilding program by investing in proven platforms and, at the same time, making critical investments in emerging technologies, notes Joseph Sims in an August 2022 article for the US Naval Institute.

While Kelly’s mention of tested platforms such as the F-15EX, F-16 and A-10 balanced with newer models such as the F-22 and F-35 may follow this logic, Sims cautions that the US cannot trade quality for quantity, which may give a false sense of actual capability and hence security.

He also says that quantity is essential and that there should be an absolute minimum number of combatant units that force levels are not permitted to go below.

asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · September 24, 2022

23. Wars are won by people willing to fight for comrade and cause

I think we too often ignore and neglect this important, necessary, and correct lesson that has been borne out through history.

Wars are won by people willing to fight for comrade and cause | Aeon Essays

by Scott Atran

Aeon Magazine

Leonidas, King of Sparta, arrived at Thermopylae with a small advance guard to hold off a massive Persian assault in 480 BCE. The invading Persian army was thousands-strong, and the Greek states had yet to mobilise a response. Plutarch records that Xerxes, Persia’s ‘King of Kings’, made a written offer he thought Leonidas could hardly refuse: ‘It is possible for you … by ranging yourself on my side, to be the sole ruler of Greece.’ Leonidas allegedly answered: ‘If you had any knowledge of the noble things of life, you would refrain from coveting others’ possessions; but for me to die for Greece is better than to be the sole ruler.’

Then Xerxes wrote again: ‘Hand over your arms.’

Leonidas famously retorted ‘Come and take them’ (μολὼν λαϐέ/molṑn labé). Leonidas and his ‘300 immortals’ who refused offers to save themselves were eventually slaughtered, but an inspired Greece would win the war. Or so goes the legend that became part of Western civilisation’s creation myth.

Throughout history, the most effective combatants, revolutionaries and insurgents have been ‘devoted actors’ fused together by dedication to non-negotiable ‘sacred values’ such as God, country or liberty. Military incursions nearly always plan for maximum force at the beginning to ensure victory. But if defenders resist, or are allowed to recoup, then the advantage often shifts to those with the will to fight as they increasingly harness resources against their attackers who are maxed-out in terms of what they are able, or willing, to commit: consider Napoleon and then Hitler and their onslaught against Russia, or the United States’ invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Throughout history, those willing to sacrifice for cause and comrades, and for their leaders, have often prevailed against more powerful forces that mainly rely on material incentives such as pay and punishment.

Even when defeated and annihilated, the heroism and martyrdom of those with the will to fight often become the stuff of legend. Consider the Judeans under Eleazar at Masada, the Alamo defenders under Travis, Bowie and Crockett (note: that these men supported slavery or other unacceptable positions is irrelevant to the point here), or the Group of Personal Friends who fought to the end, defending the Chilean president Salvador Allende against Pinochet’s putschists. Or take the last holdouts at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in what might well become a centrepiece of Ukraine’s national creation myth, along with its president Volodymyr Zelensky’s celebrated reply to a US offer of evacuation: ‘I need ammunition, not a ride.’

Such legends continue to endure and inspire in political circles, at military colleges and among the public. And the outcomes of recent and current conflicts continue to demonstrate that non-material factors, such as value-driven commitment and collective resolve, can help mobilise forces and yield greater effectiveness on the battlefield.

Yet, with few exceptions, little scientific attention is ever paid to understanding why this is so or what to do about it. To help fill the void, my team has turned its attention to this issue, with studies of combatants in Afghanistan, Iraq and, most recently, Ukraine – where a heroic will to fight has taken much of the world by surprise.

Misjudging the will to fight has become routine, with often disastrous results for the planners and their publics

In testimony before Congress this March, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, acknowledged misjudging Ukraine’s ability to resist Russia: ‘I questioned their will to fight. That was a bad assessment …’ It’s notable that, at a subsequent hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee in May, Berrier claimed that, overall, ‘the intelligence community did a great job’. The US senator Angus King interrupted: ‘General, how can you possibly say that when we were told explicitly that Kyiv would fall in three days and Ukraine would fall in two weeks?’ Fortunately, this near-fatal mistake in judging Ukraine’s chances, and the then-apparent futility of significant Western support, was offset by Russia’s equally ignorant appraisal of Ukraine’s will to fight.

Misjudging both allies’ and adversaries’ will to fight has become routine among military and political decision-makers, with often disastrous results for the planners and their publics. Addressing Congress in September 2021, General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, blamed ‘strategic failure’ in Afghanistan on neglecting the ‘intangible’ factor in war: ‘We can count the trucks and the guns and the units and all that. But we can’t measure a human heart from a machine.’ As the US president Joe Biden put it in August 2021: ‘We gave [Afghan forces] every tool they could need … What we could not provide them was the will to fight …’

When government agencies discuss the will to fight, the little data they mention involves public opinion polls (where, in fact, some polls monitored by the US State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence Research did indicate that Ukrainians would strongly resist). Although pollsters often claim to use ‘scientific methodology’, there is little science in the techniques most of them use. And seldom do the polls assess levels of intensity and behaviour related to the opinions proffered.

Of course, survey questionnaires can provide scientific insight if structured in ways that allow hypothesis testing, including the relationship between responses and actual patterns of behaviour – an approach embraced by academia but usually absent from standard ‘assessment tools’ used by the US departments of State and of Defense, as well as UK and EU government agencies, in evaluating foreign populations. In fact, recent scholarship shows that the ‘will to fight’, at least in part, can be discretely measured and used to predict behaviour. Findings are clear, but uptake by the many officials and agencies who solicit briefings from my research team is constrained by fear of expending lives and money in vain over relatively short time horizons: that is, everything the sacred and spiritual are not.

To see how this plays out, it’s worth looking at the theatre of Iraq. For several years now, the Minerva Research Initiative of the US Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation have worked to understand value-driven sacrifice and a willingness to fight through a research partnership between Artis International (my team), the Changing Character of War Centre at the University of Oxford, and the National University of Distance Education and the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. Our findings on frontline combatants, including the Iraqi Army, ISIS and Kurdish PKK, among others, are clear. In 2015, when the ISIS frontline was relatively stable, and again in 2016, when the offensive to retake Mosul began, psychological measures in field surveys indicated that willingness to fight and die is greatest for those who fight for sacred values; these groups see ‘spiritual strength’ (ruhi bi ghiyrat, in both Arabic and Kurdish) as more important than material strength (manpower and firepower), and they are often right. As measured by casualties, time at the front and more, only the Marxist-inspired Kurdish PKK fighters matched the religious ISIS fighters for commitment to their beliefs and willingness to sacrifice for a cause.

During 2017, we followed young Sunni Arab men emerging from ISIS rule in the Mosul region. Most people we interviewed initially embraced ISIS as ‘the revolution’ (al-Thawra) against perceived oppression by the US-backed regime. Although many came to reject ISIS’s brutality, a series of psychological measures revealed that ISIS had imbued about half of our sample with its two most sacred values, for which they expressed willingness to self-sacrifice: strict belief in Sharia and in a Sunni Arab homeland. Those believing in these values expressed greater willingness to fight and die than did supporters of a democratic or unified Iraq. Whereas ISIS had lost territorial control, it had not necessarily lost the allegiance of young Sunni Arabs to its core values.

Sanctions against Iran’s nuclear energy programme only increased support for it as a sacred mission

Further studies zeroed in on brain activity through neuroimaging. There, we looked at supporters of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani associate of Al-Qaeda, and Moroccan immigrants in Spain who professed support for armed jihad and strict application of Sharia. Brain studies can be important for at least two reasons: they sometimes reveal neural connections between phenomena never before linked, and they rule out posturing – because neural responses to experimental stimuli are generally beyond conscious control or manipulation.

We identified participants’ sacred values and then probed their willingness to sacrifice for them. Based on brain scans of neural activity, participants showed significantly greater willingness to sacrifice for sacred values (for example, opposing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed) than for non-sacred values (for example, opposing women refusing the veil). Indeed, whenever sacred values were involved, we found evidence that brain activity was inhibited in regions involved with deliberative reasoning and cost-benefit analysis but activity was heightened in areas associated with subjective value and rule-bound judgments (‘just do it because it’s right’, whatever the costs or consequences).

We also found that, among the radical immigrant group, perception of social exclusion resulted in heightened embrace of and readiness to sacrifice for hitherto important but non-sacred values. This somewhat parallels our findings in Iran. There, international sanctions (a form of political exclusion) imposed against the country’s nuclear energy programme only increased support for that programme as a sacred mission. Further brain and behavioural studies indicate that far-Right extremists are also more likely to elevate misinformation to the ‘sacred sphere’ in communicating specious arguments that immigrants threaten their cultural purity. When these buttons are pushed, brain activity heightens in areas that support social cognition and identity processes.

Our latest research not only confirmed how empowering spiritual motivation could be in Iraq, Palestine, Morocco, Lebanon and Spain – it also found the same influence among US Air Force cadets. Spiritual formidability is a primary determinant of the will to fight across cultures, forging loyal bonds of trust and propelling not just combatants but also citizens to charge ahead at great risk to themselves.

History shows that, however strong the esprit de corps of one country’s fighting units, no amount of arms or training ensures its transference to foreign forces.

Just look at what happened in Afghanistan.

In the 19th century, the country became a buffer state between British India and Czarist Russia’s ambitions in Central Asia. The British gave up trying to occupy and rule Afghanistan after the first Anglo-Afghan War, which ended in 1842 when tribal forces slaughtered 16,500 soldiers and 12,000 dependents of a mixed British-Indian garrison, leaving a lone survivor on a stumbling pony to carry back the news.

Still, the British remained determined to control Afghanistan’s relations with outside powers. In 1879, they deposed the Afghan emir following his reception of a Russian mission at Kabul. But the Afghans wanted to recover full independence over foreign affairs, which they did following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. The British army missionary T L Pennell described the situation more than a century ago in his book Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier (1908):

Waziristan [the country of the Waziri, the Mahsud and the Haqqani, whose descendants are current leaders of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban] is … never at peace except when … at war! … For when some enemy from without threatens their independence … they fight shoulder to shoulder, [although] even when they are all desirous of joining in some jihad, they remain suspicious of each other … Mullahs sometimes … rouse the tribes to concerted warfare against the infidels … The more fanatical of these Mullahs do not hesitate to incite their pupils [taliban] to acts of religious fanaticism, or ghaza … The ghazi is a man who has taken an oath to kill some non-Muhammadan, preferably a European … but, failing that, a Hindu or a Sikh.

In short, the British realised that any attempt at permanent occupation or pacification of the warring tribes would only unite them, and that it would be nearly impossible to defeat their combined forces without much greater military and financial means than Britain could afford.

‘They say it’s been so calm since that a man has no opportunity to become a man’

Fast-forward about 50 years. Pulling my Volkswagen van to a stop in Landi Kotal at the top of the Khyber Pass in July 1976, I met two elderly men drinking tea. One was an Afridi tribesman, and the other a Waziri. They had once been tribal enemies, but no longer. As we were talking, four young boys managed to unhinge the engine block from the back of my van and were struggling to lift it away. A soldier – a tall green-eyed Pashtun sweating in a Russian wool uniform in the very hot summer sun – stopped the boys with a stern word, shooed them away, and with a smile that showed pleasure at his command of English, threw up his hands and said: ‘Boys will be boys.’

‘Tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, bad position, bad position,’ the old Afridi tribesman sputtered as he pointed an invisible rifle at the rugged and barren hills of the Khyber Pass.

‘Why bad position?’ I asked the army man. He explained that, here, the luckless English soldiers had passed through in 1919 on their way to losing their third and last war in Afghanistan.

‘Ah, but good position [for] Nadir Khan in Kabul, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, good position,’ gleefully sputtered the man’s equally ancient tea partner, the Waziri tribesman. When I probed further, I was told that Amanullah Khan, Afghanistan’s first emir and king, once lionised for forcing the British from Afghanistan, was then deposed by an alliance of Pashtun tribes spearheaded by Nadir Khan, in good part for education policies that valued science over religion, and included girls.

The Afridi lowered his head: ‘No good position now… Bad position.’

‘Why bad position now?’ I asked.

The soldier queried the two white-bearded gentlemen and came back with a laugh: ‘They say it’s been so calm since that a man has no opportunity to become a man.’

That soon changed. Afghanistan remained independent until 1979, when the Russians (by then Soviets) returned for another go at control, followed in 2001 by the US-led invasion (with Britain as the junior partner) to bring Afghanistan into the Western camp after its brief spell of independence under Taliban control.

On 12 September 2001, Lieutenant-General Mahmood Ahmed, chief of the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, tried to explain the historical context of the Taliban to the US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage. Armitage stopped him: ‘for you and for us history starts today.’ This echoed the Jacobins’ declaration that history began in Year 1 with the French Revolution, a notion repeated in our previous century by Messianic leaders such as Stalin and Mussolini. It’s a pronouncement that leads to a political version of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result. But, for the US, the method behind the madness is rooted in a consistent material rationale: with virtually limitless material assets, almost anything that is concretely conceivable is achievable, including immediate and profound sociopolitical change. This instrumental and utilitarian view helped the US and its allies defeat and then democratise Germany and Japan. But in the past half-century, it has led to political and military fiascos in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, trillions of tax dollars spent in vain, and unfathomable injury and loss of life.

This is because the most committed ISIS fighters and others we see as fanatics do not differ significantly from those we consider the most ardent freedom-fighters of the West: all are willing to sacrifice and fight for comrade and cause. This may be an unsettling proposition to many of us who prefer to defend our own view of good over evil. But without understanding the depth of dedication felt by others, it’s almost impossible to plan effective campaigns. Treating terrorists as criminals or nihilists can obscure the depth of their moral outrage, which helps them take a stand against any physical threat. Often in history, the critical distinction between a terrorist movement and a revolution that aims to destroy or replace entrenched power with a new or very different moral order is whether or not it wins and retains control.

The surer way forward is advancing Western democratic values through financial, media and moral alliances

When, in September 2014, the Islamic State was at the height of power after routing US-backed Iraqi government forces, despite vastly inferior manpower and no air force or heavy arms, the then US president Barack Obama endorsed the judgment of his Director of National Intelligence: ‘We underestimated the Viet Cong … we underestimated ISIL and overestimated the fighting capability of the Iraqi army … It boils down to predicting the will to fight, which is an imponderable.’ Seven years later, after US-backed Afghan government forces were crushed by the Taliban – with no air force, heavy arms or billions spent on training – there was much the same refrain.

By failing to recognise the limits of our ability to impose values that we’ve attained only after a long history of our own, the US and its partners will continue the past half-century’s habit of building up the wrong kind of allies and armies – weakly modelled in America’s image but devoid of spirit arising from their own values and cultures, as in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The surer way forward is advancing Western democratic values by example, through financial, media and moral alliances, and using force only to defend our allies and ourselves.

Myopia regarding allies’ and adversaries’ will to fight is arguably rooted in two, somewhat interdependent, filters on reality: a utilitarian view of human behaviour as geared primarily – or at least ideally – to a rational assessment of actions aimed at minimising material costs and maximising material benefits; and a belief that maximising material benefit and human beneficence (kindness, generosity, and cooperation between individuals or groups) depends on adherence to Enlightenment values of freedom.

For instance, Western, and particularly US, national security strategies are almost exclusively based on rational deterrence through what policymakers term cost imposition. Thus, US military strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the US of 11 September 2001 was based on minimising costs in terms of lives and treasure, while imposing unsustainable costs on its adversaries. Yet the 9/11 suicide attackers held no regard for the costs of their actions, which included the sacrifice of their lives and the potential harm to their families.

Righteous belief in our own values sometimes closes us off to reality

There is also a deep-seated faith that the US can infuse other cultures with our values. Thus, after 9/11 and as a prelude to the invasion of Iraq, George W Bush introduced the 2002 National Security Strategy stating that there is but one

single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise … These values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society – and the duty of protecting these values against their enemies is the common calling of freedom-loving people across the globe and across the ages.

The sentiment is as vainglorious as that of Iran’s then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: ‘[Muslim] religious democracy is the only path toward human prosperity and it is the most advanced type of government that humans can ever have.’

Righteous belief in our own values sometimes closes us off to reality. Our politicians and the mainstream press continually intone that Russia’s attack on Ukraine was ‘unprovoked’ but there was nary a word about the US attack on Iraq as being ‘unprovoked’ – although both Russia and the US justified their respective ‘interventions’ as ‘defensive’ operations, with similar fictions about their enemies in league with ‘terrorists’ (Nazis, Al-Qaeda) and imminent attainment and use of weapons of mass destruction.

These beliefs can cause us to underestimate others. No doubt rational utility and expansions of freedom of thought and action have been important to the US as the pre-eminent world power, to the international order it dominates, and to an increased standard of living, including expansion of the world’s middle class. But for many individuals and cultures, the forced gamble of ‘creative destruction’ of traditional ways of life via winner-take-all competition is too many degrees of freedom to accept. They find defeat of this view worth fighting for.

In fact, the values of freedom we cherish are intellectual creations of the 18th-century European and colonial American Enlightenment, and far from ‘self-evident’ in the preceding 300,000 years or so of our species’ existence (where cannibalism, slavery, infanticide, oppression or extermination of minorities, and so on, were more common fare than freedoms). Moreover, as the Taliban leader Mullah Omar reminded the veteran journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave in June 2001, regarding equality between the sexes: ‘You forget that America and the rest of the world are centuries ahead of us. If you introduced your manners and mores suddenly in Afghanistan, society would implode and anarchy would ensue.’ In sum, successive US administrations have repeatedly overestimated the fighting spirit of foreign forces to defend our freedoms while underestimating the power of alien values to motivate willingness to fight and die, no matter the cost.

During Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Wehrmacht general Günther Blumentritt wrote in his diary:

Many of our leaders grossly underestimated this adversary … Even when surrounded, exhausted, and deprived of a chance to fight, the Russians never back down.

Although the surprise German attack initially advanced rapidly against Soviet forces, the unyielding resistance of Russia’s soldiers and people slowed the advance enough to allow the Red Army to eventually recover and ultimately triumph. Participating in the Red Army’s victory were 4 to 7 million Ukrainian fighters, including Zelensky’s grandfather (his three great-uncles perished during the Holocaust, and his grandparents burned to death in a German massacre).

Speaking this May at a military parade commemorating the 1945 Soviet Victory over Nazi Germany, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin sought to tie Russia’s old fight against Nazi Germany with the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Believing, or compelled to believe, such rhetoric, Russia’s political and military leadership continues to assess Ukraine’s will to fight, and its inspiration in shoring up the Western alliance, as a combination of ‘Nazi’ bluster and bullying, rather than ever-strengthening resolve. Ironically, Ukraine’s current tactics strongly resemble Russia’s approach at Stalingrad. Thus, whereas Russia now, like the Germans before, preferred to pummel cities with long-range artillery and aerial bombing, followed by lightning tank advances with infantry across open spaces, Ukraine’s defenders have profitably adopted the Soviet Second World War tactic of closely ‘hugging’ the enemy with small independent units operating in urban ruins to ambush and snipe at every turn. Russia’s present generals are beginning to learn the Wehrmacht’s lessons in the face of Ukraine’s resistance, which seems closer in spirit to Russia’s sacrifice in the Great Patriotic War.

Yet Russia’s initial assessment of Ukraine’s will to fight, and of Western support and steadfastness, was little different from that of the Western allies themselves. For the most part, they believed a rapid Russian victory was virtually assured, and that any serious Western military support for Ukraine or economic action against Moscow would only further fragment what the French president Emmanuel Macron, echoing the then US president Donald Trump’s claim that NATO was ‘obsolete’, considered in 2019 a nearly ‘brain dead’ NATO. Although Ukraine may ultimately cede territory to overwhelming Russian force, NATO – reinforced by Ukraine’s valiant effort – may well diminish Russia’s national security, economy (decoupled from Europe) and power.

Now we find readiness to sacrifice in Western Europeans even for a foreign country

Since shortly before Russia’s invasion, my team has conducted rolling surveys of Ukrainians and Western Europeans, and their willingness to sacrifice for Ukraine. (Note: complete results and corresponding statistical analyses have yet to be fully peer reviewed.) We used what’s known as ‘mediation analysis’, a statistical method for determining cause and effect between a number of interrelated variables. After surveys of more than 1,000 Ukrainians before and after the Russian invasion, we found that the most powerful predictor of willingness to sacrifice (suffer economic hardship, imprisonment, fighting, family loss, and dying) is how strongly individuals ‘fuse’ their personal identity with Ukraine. The will to fight comes from viscerally feeling at one with their country and expecting it to prevail because of its spiritual authority, including heartfelt inner conviction, bravery and courage.

That fusion was strong before the invasion and remains strong now. The West’s strategists would have known that, had they thought to enquire.

Douglas Stone, a retired major general in the US Marine Forces Reserve who actively served in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, has been working with our Artis research group and medical team in Iraq and now in Ukraine, where he reports: ‘I have NEVER seen a more complete will to fight than in the Ukrainians civil or mil[itary].’

The one major post-invasion change concerns eastern Ukraine (21 per cent of sample, including Donbas). There, fusion with Russia diminished significantly, while fusion with Ukraine and the European Union increased – although both remain stronger in the rest of Ukraine, as does readiness to sacrifice for freedom. Across Ukraine, fusion with freedom also strongly predicts sacrifice for Ukraine when tied to fusion with democracy.

We found a similar pattern in Spain, where more than 2,000 participants answered our questions over seven successive weeks. The best predictor of Spaniards’ willingness to sacrifice for Ukraine is identity fusion with Ukraine, causally tied to perception of the strong spiritual formidability of Ukraine and of Zelensky, and trust in both.

In Spain, willingness to sacrifice for Ukraine also results from identity fusion with freedom, which Zelensky calls the paramount ‘human value’ at stake, and is tied to trust in democracy as well. In the past, we found relatively few Western Europeans expressing willingness to sacrifice for freedom and democracy, but now we find readiness to sacrifice even for a foreign country’s freedom. What changed is that values underpinning Europe’s open society, which mostly had been taken for granted, were suddenly imperilled, made salient, and made seemingly sacred again.

Addressing the US Congress, Zelensky stressed freedom as key to a worthy life in pursuit of happiness. This echoed what Thomas Jefferson, in his initial draft of the US Declaration of Independence in 1776, deemed humankind’s ‘sacred and undeniable’ rights, absolute and non-negotiable, and for which its adherents pledged ‘our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour’ in battle whatever the odds. That commitment is in sharp contrast to political and military decision-makers who ignore their own country’s founding lessons by emphasising material over moral might in executing national security and intelligence strategy.

As with the US National Defense Strategy, the UK’s integrated review of defence and foreign policy seeks ways to augment or offset hard power by building alliances through what Harvard’s Joseph Nye has termed ‘soft power’ – persuading others through cultural influences, economic relationships and diplomatic tact. Will to fight is not about persuading others, however, but rather about harnessing inner conviction that one’s cause is right and deeply shared by those who fight together. Of course, the spiritual formidability associated with the will to fight eventually may diminish in the face of persistent overwhelming force, as we found in our subsequent studies of ISIS supporters following its defeats in Iraq and Syria; however, it also can be readily rekindled once embedded in collective memory.

The current focus of US and NATO security strategy draws lessons from the Ukraine-Russia War. Our research recommends doing that analysis before, not after, a war begins. First assess which populations have the strongest spiritual and moral force, then channel hard power to them. For Ukraine, that analysis could have yielded a greater initial material edge to accompany spiritual and psychological strength. That same approach would stop us from disastrously funnelling resources to groups lacking spiritual and moral force (for example, Vietnamese, Iraqi and Afghan armies) compared with their adversaries (Viet Cong, ISIL, Taliban).

In sum, without rigorous attention to non-material sensibilities, cultural mores and core values of peoples in conflict, winning or attenuating conflict can seem intractable or only resolvable with massive force. Yet a nearly exclusive focus on material factors remains dominant in the West. This optic tends to disregard what Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man (1871), deemed ‘highly esteemed, or even held sacred’ spiritual and moral virtues that ‘give an immense advantage’ to one group over another when possessed by devoted actors who by their ‘example excite … in a high degree the spirit’ in others to sacrifice for cause and comrades, for ill or good. We have a chance to leverage this lesson, by honouring and supporting peoples with the will to fight in defence of the democratic freedoms that we, too, hold dear.

Scott Atranis co-founder of Artis International and emeritus director of research at France’s National Center for Scientific Research; he also holds research positions at the University of Oxford and University of Michigan, and is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of Talking to the Enemy (2010) and In Gods We Trust (2002).

Edited byPam Weintraub

Aeon Magazine

24. Pointed at China, US spreads THAAD all around Guam

Hyperbole in the subtitle? Or an effective warning?

Excerpts;

“There is a misconception that we only protect Andersen Air Force Base. By bringing a launcher out here, we can show all the people here on Rota that we are not just an organization that is defending military assets, but are here to protect their safety as well,” he said.

Navy Admiral Phil Davidson, head of INDOPACOM, told members of Congress in 2021: “China’s own Air Force has put out a propaganda video showing their H-6 bomber force attacking Andersen Air Force Base at Guam, and distributed that quite publicly.”

The Hudson Institute said US “policymakers should educate the American public on the integral role the US territory of Guam plays in the security of the United States and in the American way of life.

“A lack of support domestically to fight from, and for, Guam could convey a lack of political will on the part of US government officials.

“It is wise to make efforts publicly, in rhetoric – for example, Admiral Davidson’s effort to describe Guam’s defense as ‘Homeland Defense System Guam.'”

Pointed at China, US spreads THAAD all around Guam

US military readies new missile configuration in island territory that could become the Pearl Harbor of 21st century in a conflict with China

asiatimes.com · by Richard S Ehrlich · September 23, 2022

The Pentagon wants to scatter its surface-to-air Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile launchers and radar onto diverse tiny islands around Guam, instead of currently concentrating everything at one site there, to survive possible US-China warfare in the West Pacific.

Guam’s strategic air and naval facilities, including Andersen Air Force Base, Naval Base Guam, Marine Corps Camp Blaz, and the Joint Region Marianas Headquarters, are perceived main targets for China if warfare erupts against the US in the Pacific over Taiwan island’s government, or territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Guam island is the nearest American base on US territory to mainland China. China’s largest commercial city Shanghai is 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) northwest from Guam. Andersen AFB would be a vital forward position for launching, re-arming, and repairing US strike aircraft.

“Naval Base Guam is strategically located to support all submarines deployed to 7th Fleet,” the Navy said on its Commander Submarine Force website.

The 7th Fleet, based in Yokosuka, Japan, includes nuclear submarines. The US Army is already testing the diversification of THAAD’s missile launchers and telecommunications on remote islands.

The US Navy is meanwhile preparing West Pacific sites for installations of THAAD’s radar and other equipment, plus possible personnel. Some of THAAD’s mobile assets may be kept on ships. THAAD has been on Guam island since 2013.

THAAD’s missiles currently provide only a sliver of protection and are not strong enough to fully protect Guam, according to Guam-based Joint Region Marianas Commander, Navy Rear Admiral Benjamin Nicholson.

THAAD “gives us protection from ballistic missiles, and some of the other missiles as well, but it is somewhat limited in scope,” Nicholson said in June, according to Air Force magazine.

A THAAD, interceptor missile launcher, operated by the U.S. Army’s 3rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, in place at Andersen Air Force Base’s Northwest Field in Yigo on November 17, 2021. Photo: Facebook

“The new system will provide a more comprehensive ability to defend the island [Guam] from all threat axes, and a larger group of missiles.

“That’s in the works. There’s still a lot of work to be done, on where those parts and pieces will go,” Nicholson said.

The new Guam Defense System would ideally include 360-degree radar and missile defenses against advanced ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, plus sophisticated drones and space weaponry.

Britain’s “BAE Systems has received a contract from Lockheed Martin to design and manufacture next-generation infrared Seeker technology for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor missile,” BAE Systems announced on August 16.

“Guided by BAE Systems’ infrared technology, THAAD interceptors engage ballistic missiles and destroy warheads with kinetic force in or out of the atmosphere,” it said.

Guam, a sunny L-shaped island only 30 miles (48 kilometers) long and eight miles at its widest, is home to 170,000 Americans on its 225 square miles (362 kilometers).

“In a war with China, the American territory of Guam would likely become the 21st Century Pearl Harbor,” reported Task & Purpose, a news site focused on active duty military.

Opponents denounce the THAAD diversification strategy as hype and alarmism for a lucrative, oceanic arms race against China.

“Guam is home to Andersen Air Force Base, from which F-22 Raptors and strategic bomber rotations project US power from the skies, and to the deep-water port Apra Harbor, which plays a critical role in US Navy missions aimed at keeping trade routes open,” the Hudson Institute said in July.

“Guam’s strategic importance is difficult to overstate,” Navy Admiral John Aquilino, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told the House Appropriations Committee-Defense in May.

“The [Defense] Department has committed more than $11 billion for military construction projects on Guam in FY22-FY27.”

Guam’s new, expanded missile defense “will include Navy SM-3 and SM-6 missiles, the Patriot air-and-missile defense system and the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System,” Defense News reported in March.

“Think of it as a distributed system,” said Missile Defense Agency Director, Vice Admiral Jon Hill.

Previous plans for Guam considered Israel’s Iron Dome Missile Defense system, by Rafael, and an Aegis Ashore missile site.

“In 2021, the Army tested the Iron Dome missile defense system on Guam, but its high humidity proved a challenge,” Air Force Magazine reported on June 21.

An Israeli Iron Dome anti-rocket system and an American Patriot missile defense system are shown during a joint US-Israel military exercise on March 8, 2018. Photo: AFP/Getty/Jack Guez

“Now the Missile Defense Agency is proposing a multi-layer defense system, seeking $539 million in fiscal 2023 to begin building a multi-layer defense system for Guam that could be fielded by 2026.”

To test a remote launch’s ability to hit an incoming ballistic missile, a Lockheed Martin manufactured THAAD unit was deployed in March to Rota island, also a US territory, 40 miles (64 kilometers) northeast of Guam.

Rota is expected to be among the “dispersed” tiny West Pacific islands and “austere locations” handling pieces of THAAD’s integrated functions, the report said.

Sites presumably also could include uninhabited and sparsely inhabited rocky isles and outcroppings. The US Army said it was thrilled with THAAD’s test results on Rota island.

“THAAD’s newest piece of equipment, the Remote Launch Kit, proved its worth.

“In a first-ever operation, the air defenders of the E-3 Air Defense Battery used the newly developed Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, remote launch capability to expand their ability to defend the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI),” the Army reported on its website in March.

“The exercise was to demonstrate a new capability we received January — the Remote Launch Kit,” said Army E-3 Air Defense Battery’s 1st Lieutenant Peter Gonsalves.

“On Rota, [we] brought a launcher and wanted to send a message that we can defend the entirety of CNMI,” Gonsalves said according to the Army’s website.

“There is a misconception that we only protect Andersen Air Force Base. By bringing a launcher out here, we can show all the people here on Rota that we are not just an organization that is defending military assets, but are here to protect their safety as well,” he said.

Navy Admiral Phil Davidson, head of INDOPACOM, told members of Congress in 2021: “China’s own Air Force has put out a propaganda video showing their H-6 bomber force attacking Andersen Air Force Base at Guam, and distributed that quite publicly.”

Part of America – Tumon Bay in Guam. Photo: AFP / Mar-Vic Cagurangen

The Hudson Institute said US “policymakers should educate the American public on the integral role the US territory of Guam plays in the security of the United States and in the American way of life.

“A lack of support domestically to fight from, and for, Guam could convey a lack of political will on the part of US government officials.

“It is wise to make efforts publicly, in rhetoric – for example, Admiral Davidson’s effort to describe Guam’s defense as ‘Homeland Defense System Guam.'”

Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based American foreign correspondent reporting from Asia since 1978. Excerpts from his two new nonfiction books, “Rituals. Killers. Wars. & Sex. — Tibet, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka & New York” and “Apocalyptic Tribes, Smugglers & Freaks” are available here.

asiatimes.com · by Richard S Ehrlich · September 23, 2022

25.

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