PSA: If you receive an email message from david.maxwell181@proton.me please know that it is not from me. Please do not respond to it and please do not click on any links. Someone obviously is using my name with their all purpose sword.

Quotes of the Day:

“In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.” 

– Margaret Thatcher

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” 

– Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, 2007

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.” 

– Sir Francis Bacon

1. Educating the Irregular Warfare Practitioner

2. To Beat China: The Next President Must Master the Ancient Chinese Game of “GO!”

3. US seeks control of Russian S-400s in exchange for Turkey’s return to F-35 program

4. Volodymyr Zelensky's victory plan for Ukraine: 3 key takeaways

5. Setting the Record Straight on the V-22 Osprey

6. Murder in U.S. Continues Steep Decline, F.B.I. Reports

6. Russian aircraft carrier crew sent to frontline in Ukraine

8. Surge in Marines staying in the Corps past their first enlistment

9. Opinion How serious a military threat is China?

10. Stop Politicizing the Military By Peter D. Feaver

11. There’s too much ‘gray area’ in Army extremism policies, lawmakers say

12. The Ever-expanding War in the Middle East: the Questions Multiply By Robert Bruce Adolph

13. Biden’s final UN address: ‘There is so much more I want to get done’

14. The Wargames That Prophesized America’s Defeat in Vietnam

15. What the Hezbollah Pager Attack Reminds Us About the Logic and Risks of Terrorist Innovation

16. Australia’s northern neighbours cautious over US military build-up in Northern Australia

17. Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index says China is chipping away at America's military might but its overall influence is plateauing

18. Israel and Hezbollah Are Escalating Toward Catastrophe

19. The Battle for the BRICS

20.  Want peace in the Pacific? Bring Taiwan into the UN system

21. How a US armor brigade is applying lessons from Ukraine

1. Educating the Irregular Warfare Practitioner

An important article from my good friend and Special Forces brother, Ken Glieman. Ken is also taking over as the editor in chief of Small Wars Journal at Arizona State University (I will remain working for him as a contributing editor). Note also that this journal, Interpopulum: The Journal of Irregular Warfare and Special Operations (https://interpopulum.org/) (which was founded by Chirstopher Marsh and originally titled the Special Operations Journal) is now also published by Arizona State University. It offers long form peer reviewed articles. Small Wars Journal and Interpopulum will be complementary publications.

The entire article can be accessed online here:

https://interpopulum.org/educating-the-irregular-warfare-practitioner/

​This is a very important essay as we look toward developing and sustaining irregular warfare capabilities for the US to be able to address irregular warfare threats across the spectrum of conflict. As T.E. Lawrence said,"Irregular warfare is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge." The late General Downing said: "Who thinks, wins." (adapted from the SAS motto) and General Schoomaker said we must "train for certainty and educate for uncertainty." Education is the key to irregular warfare (of course just as it is for nuclear and conventional warfare as well but we have too often overlooked irregular warfare education for the IW practitioner). 

​This is a very important essay as we look toward developing and sustaining irregular warfare capabilities for the US to be able to address irregular warfare threats across the spectrum of conflict.

​This article is valuable for the references alone. It is good to see our good friend and mentor, the late Warlord emeritus COL John Collins cited for his overlooked work (as noted) on Military Geography (among many of his important writings). I used this reference in the course I used to teach on Unconventional Warfare and Special Operations for Strategists and Policy Makers.

​Lastly, it is heartening to see the educational focus on the practitioner, those who actually develop, plan, AND execute the strategies and campaigns for irregular warfare. They are the men and women in the arena doing the difficult but often overlooked, unknown, and unacknowledged work of irregular warfare.

See the "What is to be done" conclusion below.

Excerpt:

Ultimately, breaking the “boom and bust” cycle of IW education and investment requires a commitment to building a more comprehensive and effective approach to IW that incorporates the expertise and perspectives of a broader range of practitioners. By redirecting funding and building a more inclusive curriculum, and if necessary, renaming IW, we can ensure that IW practitioners are equipped to succeed in this complex and dynamic field.

Educating the Irregular Warfare Practitioner

This article addresses the challenges faced by the United States in maintaining a sustained approach to irregular warfare (IW), historically marked by a “boom and bust” cycle of investment and focus. Despite recent advances, including the establishment of a Department of Defense (DoD) Irregular Warfare Center and the development of curriculum guidance, the U.S. risks underpreparing IW practitioners. The article emphasizes that IW practitioners are not limited to military personnel but include a broader spectrum of professionals in diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement, and the private sector. The text explores key concepts and knowledge areas that IW practitioners need but are often excluded from traditional military education. These include the historical context of IW, social science theories such as identity theory, regime typology, resource mobilization, and the role of non-violent action in gaining legitimacy. The article concludes by recommending measures to integrates history, social sciences, and practical IW lessons to create more comprehensive education programs for this diverse group of practitioners, breaking the cycle of neglect in IW education.

interpopulum.org · by ByKen Gleiman · September 16, 2024

Military scholars and practitioners often speak of a “boom and bust” cycle that characterizes the U.S. approach to, and investments in, irregular warfare (IW).[1] “Boom and bust” refers to the notion that the United States and its military have found themselves involved in warfare characterized as ‘irregular’ throughout history. When one generation begins to develop knowledge, expertise, and capability in fighting irregular conflicts; political, strategic, and budgetary pressures push back to a focus on conventional or traditional warfare while valuable lessons learned are pushed out of curricula and into the archives – or so goes the narrative.

Over the last five years, however, there have been some reasons to think that the country and the Department of Defense (DOD) might have taken measures to break this cycle. There is undoubtedly a renewed focus on conventional warfighting capability in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other conflicts once associated with the “Global War on Terror.”[2] However, there are also encouraging signs for IW, including the establishment of a DOD Irregular Warfare Center (IWC), a recognition of IW’s importance in the recent Defense strategies and other documents, and even a “Curriculum Guide” on IW for professional military education (PME).[3] Despite these efforts, the United States is still at risk of failing to maximize its potential for competing and campaigning through IW. Two related reasons for this risk stand out. First is the failure to correctly identify IW practitioners, and the second is a failure to educate them in a way that provides the concepts, perspectives, and wisdom to be effective.

This article explains who IW practitioners are and what key concepts they should be taught to make them better able to develop strategic and operational approaches to irregular conflict. The answers to both questions may surprise even those who have been active in the IW community of interest. Here’s a hint: The IW practitioner is not necessarily the soldier or even the special operator. Here’s another hint: The concepts that need to be taught and learned are not featured in DOD’s IW Curriculum Guide, though some of them are found in NATO’s new Hybrid Threats and Hybrid Warfare Reference Curriculum.[4] Unfortunately, before these two big questions can be addressed, one must understand the definitions of IW and the controversy surrounding the different schools of thought. The first section explains the definitional controversy and uses that discussion to answer who IW practitioners are. The second section provides a perspective on what subjects and concepts these practitioners need to understand. The concluding section provides some thoughts on corrective action.

Identifying IW Practitioners: definitions of IW (apologies)

For those of us involved in IW education and research, we are a bit tired of this ongoing discourse. IW as a term has a long and sordid history.[5] Our NATO partners don’t seem to like the term and have preferred to substitute for IW terms such as ‘hybrid threats’ and ‘Hybrid Warfare’ though admittedly the overlap is not perfect.[6] Still other scholars would prefer the broader, less militarized term “competitive statecraft.”[7] While the definition of competitive statecraft doesn’t exactly match those of IW, the overlap is significant. Other scholars have even called into question the “categorical confusion” that can be generated by classifying activities or threats as “irregular.”[8] Last year, DOD updated the joint definition from one that had been mostly unchanged since 2008. That did not prevent others from offering their own definitions, including the Army whose current definition still differs from the joint definition. A sample of these definitions are listed in table 1 with key words highlighted for convenience.

SourceIW definitionDOD Dictionary 2023[9]A form of warfare where states and non-state actors campaign to assure or coerce states or other groups through indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities.JP 1-02 (2008–2023)[10]A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s).Army[11]The overt, clandestine, and covert employment of military and non-military capabilities across multiple domains by state and non-state actors through methods other than military domination of an adversary, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional warfare.Marks and Ucko[12]A coercive struggle that erodes or builds legitimacy for the purpose of political power. It blends disparate lines of effort to create an integrated attack on societies and their political institutions. It weaponizes frames and narratives to affect credibility and resolve, and it exploits societal vulnerabilities to fuel political change. As such, states engaged in, or confronted with, irregular warfare, must bring all elements of power to bear under their national political leadership.Seth Jones[13]Activities short of conventional or nuclear warfare that are designed to expand a country’s influence and legitimacy, as well as weaken its adversaries.

The competing definitions make it hard to determine who conducts IW, what activities they are doing, and what objectives they are fighting over. Some definitions are focused on forces and actors; the “who”. Some definitions are focused on the character of actions or activities (covert, non-attributable, asymmetric etc.). Still other definitions, such as the Seth Jones’ definition, emphasize thresholds of conflict, i.e., avoiding escalation and keeping to activities that improve one’s position and don’t provoke conventional or nuclear warfare, commonly referred to as “grey zone.” But the most useful and foundational definitions are the ones, such as Marks and Ucko’s, that are focused on IW as an alternative theory of victory. In other words, rather than focusing on defeating an opposing armed force to achieve victory, coercion and influence are used to gain legitimacy with relevant populations to achieve victory through political power. These are the definitions (or the parts of definitions) that are much more helpful for informing us about who conducts IW and what they should learn.

A key problem in defining IW is the word “warfare.” The new DOD definition makes the cringe-worthy tautological error of using part of a word to define itself. Surely “warfare” itself implies violence, or at least the threat of violence. That is often the presumption of any group of military professionals attempting to define IW. Yet the military’s understandable obsession with violence, far from being foundational in the definitional debate, is perhaps the biggest hindrance to deep understanding of operational approaches. Irregular warfare does NOT need to be violent, though it certainly can be and often is. It is probably coercive, though it need not be exclusively so. The essence of IW is not necessarily in the activities themselves; it is in relevant populations, influence, and legitimacy; coercion and violence are just important parts of the mix, characteristics of activities that become part of something based on why something is being done. They may be necessary, but they are rarely sufficient to characterize an approach or activity as IW. In IW the distinction between what is politics and what is warfare is non-existent. Insert your favorite Clausewitz quote here. If violence and coercion were both necessary and sufficient, we would be talking about conventional or traditional warfare and wouldn’t need IW.

The definitions of IW and even the current authoritative DOD texts bear this out. The Army (the service closest to IW activities) emphasizes that “non-military capabilities” and “methods other than military domination” in its definition. Marks and Ucko (two prominent IW scholars) emphasize “political power,” “political institutions,” “societal vulnerabilities,” and “political change.” Even DOD’s Curriculum Guide dances around this reality leaving lots of signals in the noise. It emphasizes that IW is done, “primarily in collaboration with interagency and other inter-organizational efforts” and dedicates a whole section to the need for “seamless integration of multiple elements of national power – diplomacy, information, economics, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, military etc.” The guide even admits that the military is rarely the main effort.

“DOD is not often the supported element in IW; rather, it is usually a supporting element in an ad hoc relationship coordinated between the various USG allies and partners. Interagency partners have different capabilities to apply to competition.”[14]

If IW is not characterized exclusively, or even primarily, by violence; if influence and legitimacy among relevant populations (as opposed to coercion) are the near objectives and political power the main objective; and if departments and organizations other than DOD and the military are the main effort, then we have an answer to the first question. Who are IW practitioners? Military personnel can and should certainly be included in the group, but they are just a small fraction of some significance; though often over estimated. The real IW practitioners are those who work in intelligence, covert operations, diplomacy, foreign aid, law enforcement, the private sector, the media etc. And yes, some military folks too. IW is more than an interagency effort; it is an inter (and intra) society endeavor.

 What Should IW Practitioners Learn

If we begin with the new premise that the IW practitioner is not exclusively, or even primarily, a soldier or military officer, then it becomes easier to design curriculum for IW at different levels. Even a DOD-centric curriculum guide or reference should begin with theories and concepts that build a common framework for understanding societies, institutions, political power, influence and legitimacy. The DOD Curriculum Guide, however, begins with DOD’s 12 “IW activities” and lists learning objectives such as “Describe the character of IW, its core missions and enabling activities, and its impact on Service missions.” A more appropriate curriculum guide would start by identifying (1) the use of history with historical case studies and themes and (2) social science concepts that might be most valuable for understanding how state and non-state actors use coercion, influence, and legitimacy to pursue political power through relevant populations.[15]

The Use and Abuse of IW History

When it comes to the history portion of an IW curriculum, curriculum designers already have the benefit of the guidance that Sir Michael Howard provided in 1961 for military professionals studying war. Howard’s advice for the study of conventional war is equally applicable for the study of just about any other profession related to security whether it be diplomacy, finance, or policing. IW practitioners should follow Howard’s advice and study IW in width, depth, and context.[16]  

To study IW in width, the practitioner must quickly dispel any juvenile notion that IW is somehow a new phenomenon and then observe the way in which IW has developed over a long historical period. For, as Howard said about warfare in general, “only by seeing what does change can one deduce what does not.”[17] There are continuities and discontinuities to be observed between deep studies of the counterrevolutionary rebellions in the Vendee (France) in 1793 and in the formation and activities of the Klu Klux Klan in the Southern U.S., circa 1867, where relevant populations instilled with narratives of relative deprivation organized and mobilized resources to conduct both violent and non-violent activities in pursuit of political power.

As such, there is also value in studying the history of IW in depth, where IW practitioners might take a single campaign and examine it thoroughly, not just from official histories but from the many angles and perspectives provided by primary sources. It is a valuable thing to read Alistair Horne’s A Savage War of Peace[18], but it is a far more valuable thing to add to it Remy Mauduit’s, The Insurgent Among Us and perhaps the letters, correspondence, and records of some of those Algerians that made up the relevant populations and the source of political power.[19]

Finally, just as Howard advised military practitioners, IW practitioners must study IW history in context.[20] IW campaigns, even more so than conventional campaigns and battles, are not like games or sports matches. They cannot be detached from their political, social, and cultural contexts. In IW, these contexts do not just ‘influence’ the battlefield as they do in conventional warfare, these elements of context define the battlefields. To explain the collapse of the Soviet Union and other communist regimes in the late 20^th century or to understand modern “color revolutions”, one must dive deep into the narratives, organization, communications, resource mobilization, and external support of opposition groups as they sought political power by eroding the legitimacy of regimes and their political leaders.

Just a little Social Science

If only history were enough. The inductive nature of historical inquiry is of immense value to the IW practitioner, however, most of those who need to be educated about IW approaches require the deductive tools of the social sciences to provide frameworks for understanding. The list of social science concepts and theories that have value for the IW practitioner are probably too numerous for this brief essay, but there are a few topic areas that stand out especially given the definitions of IW described in the first section. Unsurprisingly, none of them are found in DOD’s IW Curriculum guide, though a few of them (thankfully) are alluded to in NATO’s reference curriculum.[21] Any serious IW education that intends to focus on the diverse group of IW practitioners must address theories and subjects that are neglected in most PME while simultaneously being of the most value in IW campaigns. For simplicity, I label these topic areas as (1) Identity theory, (2) Regime typology and dynamics, (3) Resource mobilization, and finally (4) Legitimacy and non-violent action. I will discuss each of the four areas, describing key theories and highlighting scholarly works, while also identifying and describing both real and hypothetical situations where understanding these areas might aid (or have aided) the operational level IW practitioner. I will also add, where necessary, words of caution on the limitations of social science in general and of the particular theories in the topic areas.

Identity (Who are you? Who are ‘they’?)

All IW definitions refer—explicitly or implicitly—to “groups” or “relevant populations”, and most emphasize the importance of influence. Before the IW practitioner can hope to design strategies and operational approaches, she must understand the relevant population(s) and groups or other actors. Understanding and defining such populations or groups in any context requires a foundational understanding of identity and more importantly, collective identity. Who people are is based on how they define themselves and how others define them. The social sciences have a lot to teach us about collective identity and, without the benefits of such foundational knowledge, IW practitioners are likely to make the same kind of unforced errors that U.S. forces made in the early days of the Iraq war, where supposed intelligence professionals, trained in enemy orders of battle and conventional force doctrine, decided to define a complex and multifaceted insurgency with the useless and intellectually lazy aggregation, “Anti-Iraqi Forces.”[22]

Teaching concepts of identity to IW practitioners should begin with introductions to foundational works of social identity theory[23], self-categorization theory[24], and collective identity theory.[25] IW practitioners don’t need to be graduate level experts on these topics, but even a cursory understanding is enough to give them the mental models and the vocabulary they need to consult with experts and explore the literature through self-study. Once they understand the basics of how people collectively identify with each other, they can begin to understand the importance of narratives and stories for those identities and then begin to have a framework for understanding the directly practical concepts of narrative and cognitive warfare.[26]  Just as important, the IW practitioner begins to understand that individuals and groups may have complex identity hierarchies and must cope with their own intersectionality of identities. Furthermore, budding IW practitioners begin to understand that identity is socially constructed and therefore can, with concerted effort and time, be changed.

While the sheer volume of excellent works on this topic is too great to list, two works stand out as valuable for their ease of reading and suitability to academic environments. The first is a much-overlooked textbook by John M. Collins, Military Geography: For Professionals and The Public. Though this essay began with the argument that soldiers do not make up the bulk of IW practitioners, Collins’ book on ‘military’ geography has as much to say about identity, influence, and relevant populations as it does about physical terrain and maneuver. While part one of the book concentrates on physical geography as it might be relevant to the cavalry commander, parts two and three focus on cultural and political-military geography respectively.[27] The book needs an update but can be valuable in bringing military and non-military IW practitioners together with a common understanding and vocabulary for both conventional and irregular campaigns. A second book worth reading in its entirety and serving as a basis for discussion is Benedict Andersen’s classic, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.[28]Too many budding IW practitioners fall into the unfair trap of misusing the word “nation” in the IW context. Our entire national security and international relations discourse is working against them. Students are often surprised to realize that a ‘nation’ in its purest definition is not a geographic or even a geo-political entity. We often use it as shorthand for the idyllic concept of ‘nation-state.” DOD and other agencies use the clumsy term, “Partner Nation” to refer to the governments and administrations of foreign countries with whom they work. Yet, fundamentally, a nation is a group of people that share a socially constructed collective identity that can be, and often is, extremely fragile. Like all social constructions, nations require maintenance and reinforcement through narratives that build (or erode) their legitimacy. Grasping this concept and its dynamics can be critical to understanding more advanced IW topics, including resistance and resilience.[29]

Regime typology (The logic(s) of politics)

Most budding IW practitioners have an immature understanding of political power within states (not necessarily nations). The same can be said for the understanding of this incredibly large and diverse concept of so called, “non-state actors.” There is value in helping students understand the distinctions between terms such as state, country, nation, government, administration, and regime.[30] Of these key terms, regime is probably the most important. A regime, in political science, refers to the formal and informal structures and characteristics of political power or, more simply, it is the set of rules and norms that determine political power. States and non-state actors are organized and governed by leaders who emerge through some type of political regime. IW practitioners will be unable to develop successful IW approaches without a foundational understanding of the sources and distribution of political power in the countries and societies they wish to affect. Yet, neither the DOD Curriculum Guide nor the NATO curriculum reference say much about how students might understand political power and influence.

There are any number of valuable books, references and theories about how to observe, frame, and understand political power and influence. One excellent place to start is with the foundational framework of comparative politics known as Selectorate Theory or the logic of political survival.[31] Selectorate Theory and the logic of political survival are helpful for the IW practitioner, as they provide a framework for understanding the dynamics of power and legitimacy in different political systems. Selectorate theory, developed by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues, posits that the stability and policies of a regime are heavily influenced by the size and composition of its “selectorate” (those with a say in choosing the leader) and “winning coalition” (the subset whose support is essential for the leader’s survival).[32] Even dictators like Kim Jong-un have a selectorate and a winning coalition they must appease and reward if they are to survive. In IW, understanding the selectorate can help practitioners identify key power brokers and potential allies or adversaries, thus enabling more effective approaches to influence, while reinforcing or destabilizing the regime. Furthermore, the logic of political survival emphasizes that leaders prioritize their own political survival over national interest, often engaging in policies that favor their winning coalition to maintain power. This insight is helpful in IW, as it helps practitioners gain foresight and exploit the vulnerabilities and motivations of adversary or proxy leaders. By understanding that leaders may prioritize the demands of their winning coalition over broader public welfare, practitioners can design approaches that create political pressure or offer incentives to shift loyalties within the coalition. This knowledge can lead to a more nuanced and effective engagement in IW scenarios, where winning the right hearts and minds and influencing power dynamics are as critical as military victories.

There are certainly pitfalls of over reliance on this singular framework. Its simplicity and generalizability make it an attractive and helpful explanatory and exploratory theory. The IW practitioner must be cautioned to explore the cultural dynamics of such relationships and avoid the temptations of simple authoritarian teleology where every decision of a described dictator or single party system is one of survival and self-preservation.[33]

Resource Mobilization (> than Relative Deprivation)

Another critical topic area for which social science has tools to help explain and explore causality is the why and how of social movements. Social movement theory attempts to answer the complex questions of why and how people rebel and why some organizations or movements succeed while others do not. It’s a bit unsettling to find someone working in IW space that has never heard of Ted Robert Gurr and his theories of relative deprivation, but it is even more frustrating when such would be practitioners have no understanding of the criticality of resource mobilization.[34] Resource mobilization theory claims that all social movements (violent and non-violent) form when people who share grievances or other strong motivations can mobilize resources and act for the purpose of political power and influence. When we say resources, we are not exclusively talking about raw materials, but all the things, tangible and intangible, that are necessary for success. Non-state actors need a lot of the same resources that state actors need. People are almost always the most important resource, but money is probably a close second because it can purchase other resources such as weapons, ammunition, transportation, food etc. (including people). There are other intangibles like training, knowledge, communications, and intelligence. Depending on the context and the political opportunity space, non-state actors might need sanctuary or diplomatic support for international legitimacy. While context will determine what resources actors need, it is the nature of IW that resources and resource mobilization are always critical to the success or failure of IW approaches. The reason many counterinsurgency theorists emphasize separating the insurgent from the population is because of the resources (human and otherwise) that the population can provide. But even if you separate an insurgent from the population, the insurgency can still succeed if it can mobilize resources from abroad across a porous border.

Once practitioners understand the criticality of resource mobilization to non-state actors, the world of IW opens. Suddenly and profoundly, practitioners recognize the importance of financial intelligence and counter threat finance to IW.[35] Far from being one activity of many, these activities become central to approaches to both proxies and threat organizations. Also, the study of proxy warfare becomes much more complicated and nuanced. Both the type and quantity of resources provided to non-state actors from external state and non-state sources becomes critical to success.

Unfortunately, there isn’t enough literature on this topic that is geared specifically toward the IW practitioner. This is in part because IW practitioners have been misidentified as primarily military personnel and the perhaps because the apolitical (or non-partisan) ethos of civil-military relations makes the study of the, highly political, social movement theory somewhat taboo. Nevertheless, there are two useful works that can illuminate the importance of resource mobilization and social movement theory for IW practitioners. The first is McCarthy and Zald’s famous article from the American Journal of Sociology, “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory.” The article was critical in focusing the field of sociology on resource mobilization and compelling scholars to disaggregate social movement sectors into industries and organizations to better understand why some groups succeed or fail.[36] The same logic is powerful in framing violent non-state actors and movements and organizations employing both violent and non-violent approaches. If sociology is a bit too much for students at certain levels, then Marks and Ucko’s free publication, Crafting Strategies for Irregular Warfare, provides some understanding of political opportunity space and the quest for key resources in IW strategies.[37] Although the book is written for PME, it does a great job of emphasizing whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches while emphasizing the importance of political opportunity structures in determining the feasibility and suitability of IW approaches.

Legitimacy and the Efficacy of Non-Violent Action 

Finally, there is the social science behind the concepts of legitimacy and non-violence. Legitimacy itself is a concept that deserves more attention in the social sciences in general and as the term relates to IW in particular. Legitimacy is commonly defined in the social sciences as the belief that a rule, institution, or leader has the right to govern.[38]

There is a close relationship between non-violence and legitimacy. For most modern humans this seems intuitive and the body of scholarly research on this is clear.[39] Non-violent approaches within IW not only have a legitimacy advantage, but they also have a resource mobilization advantage. Studies of non-violent social movements show that non-violent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement, information and education, and participator commitment.[40] It is a sad thing, but the military’s understandable focus on violence and coercion in defining IW has caused an intellectual diversion away from the most effective group of IW tools.

Educating the IW practitioner on the theory and tools of non-violence isn’t hard. The literature is well known. The research of Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan is very comprehensive and their book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, has become a powerful resource for both researchers and activists. Military students of IW might feel a bit out of place in a classroom studying these concepts but the recognition of the greater utility of non-military approaches is likely to build knowledge and wisdom that can be valuable in encouraging strategic restraint and for developing better estimations of the risks of violent approaches. Military students might be inspired and enlightened by Thomas Ricks’ Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil-Rights Movement, 1954-1968. The book highlights the challenges of waging an IW campaign aimed at eroding the legitimacy of an adversary in the eyes of relevant populations for the purpose of political power. Identity, regime typology, resource mobilization, and the efficacy of non-violence toward legitimacy are all central themes, even though Ricks might not frame them in those terms.[41] Chenoweth and Stephan have also done groundbreaking work on understanding external support to civil resistance that clarifies the issues with supporting non-violent proxy efforts.[42] There are also valuable works of prescriptive theory, such as Gene Sharp’s classic work, From Dictatorship to Democracy, which has been a guide for many organizations and leaders trying to mobilize resources to erode or build legitimacy in the eyes of relevant populations for the purpose of political power.[43]

What is to be done?

The U.S. in general and the DoD in particular have already made impressive strides to break the “boom and bust” cycle of IW education and investment. There are several boutique PME programs that go beyond merely teaching about IW activities and dive into theory and history. The College of International Security Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University (NDU) stands out for its curriculum and specific programs, as do some of the courses and programs at advanced service programs for operational planners.[44] These programs have a smattering of non-military students but exist for the military practitioner, not the bulk of the relevant population of IW practitioners as defined here.

Thus, while much has been done, there is much more to be done. The U.S. government and its allies could make two broad categories of related changes. First, they could focus on the real practitioners of IW, including interagency and whole-of-society actors. Second, they could advance education and build IW curricula based more on history and social science rather than on activities.

Recognition that the real IW practitioners are not necessarily soldiers is hard. If making that recognition requires not calling it ‘irregular warfare’ and coming up with a new name and adjusted definition, then perhaps that is necessary.[45] The term, ‘Competitive Statecraft’ is a good start because it clearly implies things that are outside of military power and violence. Perhaps irregular warfare then becomes just those activities led by the military within competitive statecraft.

To achieve this, the United States government could redirect funding from the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Irregular Warfare Center (or change its mission) to an interagency and whole-of-society center that prioritizes research, education, and training for a far broader range of practitioners.[46] Additionally, the DOD could reform its PME enterprise and focus more own outsourcing its degree programs to civilian institutions in joint ventures with other agencies and the private sector.

Once the country is focused on the right group of practitioners, the IW (or newly named) center should build a curriculum guide that is neither military nor activity-centric, but instead focused on the history and social science of IW and the societies where it is waged. This curriculum should include topics such as identity theory, regime typology, resource mobilization, and legitimacy and non-violent action and give a common IW vocabulary across the diverse groups that will implement such approaches.

In particular, the curriculum should help IW practitioners study the history of IW in width, depth, and context, using historical case studies and include social science concepts to understand the complex dynamics of IW. This includes understanding the importance of influence and legitimacy among relevant populations, as well as the role of non-state actors and proxy warfare.

By adopting a more comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to IW education, we can ensure that practitioners are equipped to develop effective strategies and operational approaches that consider the complexities of IW. This will require a shift away from a military-centric focus and towards a more nuanced understanding of the social, political, and economic dynamics that drive IW.

Ultimately, breaking the “boom and bust” cycle of IW education and investment requires a commitment to building a more comprehensive and effective approach to IW that incorporates the expertise and perspectives of a broader range of practitioners. By redirecting funding and building a more inclusive curriculum, and if necessary, renaming IW, we can ensure that IW practitioners are equipped to succeed in this complex and dynamic field.

[1] Department of Defense, “Summary of The Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy” (U.S. Department of defense, 2020), https://media.defense.gov/2020/Oct/02/2002510472/-1/-1/0/Irregular-Warfare-Annex-to-the-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.PDF. Charles T. Cleveland and Daniel Egel, “The American Way of Irregular War: An Analytical Memoir” (RAND Corporation, July 29, 2020), https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA301-1.html.

[2] David Wilson, “Preparing for Large-Scale Combat in the Indo-Pacific,” AUSA, January 26, 2024, https://www.ausa.org/articles/preparing-large-scale-combat-indo-pacific.

[3] (Department of Defense 2020). “Curriculum Development Guide for Irregular Warfare” (Office of Irregular Warfare and Competition, Directorate for Joint force Development (J-7), The Joint Staff, June 3, 2022). Also see https://irregularwarfarecenter.org

[4] “Hybrid Threats and Hybrid Warfare Reference Curriculum” (NATO Headquarters, June 2024), https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/7/pdf/241007-hybrid-threats-and-hybrid-warfare.pdf.

[5] Jared M. Tracy, “From ‘irregular Warfare’ to Irregular Warfare: History of a Term,” Veritas 19, no. 1 (2023), https://arsof-history.org/articles/v19n1_history_of_irregular_warfare_page_1.html.

[6] “Hybrid Threats and Hybrid Warfare Reference Curriculum” (NATO Headquarters, June 2024).

[7] Ryan Shaw, “In Defense of Competition,” Real Clear Defense, accessed July 19, 2024, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/11/11/in_defense_of_competition_803143.html.

[8] Colin S. Gray, “Categorical Confusion? The Strategic Implications of Recognizing Challenges Either as Irregular or Traditional:” (Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Technical Information Center, February 1, 2012), https://doi.org/10.21236/ADA559162.

[9] Catherine A. Theohary, “Defense Primer: What Is Irregular Warfare?,” In Focus (Congressional research Service, January 8, 2024), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12565#:~:text=Simply%20put%2C%20irregular%20forces%2C%20also,to%20occupying%20conventional%20military%20forces..

[10] Catherine A. Theohary, “Defense Primer: What Is Irregular Warfare?,” In Focus (Congressional research Service, January 8, 2024), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12565#:~:text=Simply%20put%2C%20irregular%20forces%2C%20also,to%20occupying%20conventional%20military%20forces.

[11] “FM 1-02.1 Operational Terms” (Headquarters, Department of the Army, February 2024), https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm1-02-1.pdf.

[12] David H. Ucko Marks Thomas A., “Redefining Irregular Warfare: Legitimacy, Coercion, and Power,” Modern War Institute, October 18, 2022, https://mwi.westpoint.edu/redefining-irregular-warfare-legitimacy-coercion-and-power/.

[13] Seth Jones, Three Dangerous Men (W.W. Norton, 2021), https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324006206.

[14] (“Curriculum Development Guide for Irregular Warfare” 2022).

[15] Weeks before the completion of this article, NATO produced a Curriculum reference that was far more useful for purpose. “Hybrid Threats and Hybrid Warfare Reference Curriculum” (NATO Headquarters, June 2024) https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/7/pdf/241007-hybrid-threats-and-hybrid-warfare.pdf .

[16] Michael Howard, “THE USE AND ABUSE OF MILITARY HISTORY,” The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters 11, no. 1 (July 4, 1981), https://doi.org/10.55540/0031-1723.1251.

[17] (Howard 1981)

[18] Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York: NYRB Classics, 2006).

[19] Remy Mauduit, The Insurgent Among Us: My Life as a Rebel, French Officer, and Deserter (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018).

[20] (Howard 1981)

[21] (“Hybrid Threats and Hybrid Warfare Reference Curriculum” 2024)

[22] Emma Sky, The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq, Reprint edition (PublicAffairs, 2016).

[23] H. Tajfel and John Turner, “An integrative theory of intergroup conflict.” In W. G. Austin, & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (1979) (pp. 33-37). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole

[24] John C. Turner and Penelope J. Oakes, “The Significance of the Social Identity Concept for Social Psychology with Reference to Individualism, Interactionism and Social Influence,” British Journal of Social Psychology 25, no. 3 (1986): 237–52, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1986.tb00732.x.

[25] Alberto Melucci, “The Process of Collective Identity,” in Social Movements And Culture (Routledge, 1996).

[26] Dr Ajit K. Maan and Paul L. Cobaugh, Introduction to Narrative Warfare: A Primer and Study Guide (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018).

[27] John M. Collins, Military Geography: For Professionals and the Public (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012).

[28] Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 2016).

[29] Brian Petit, “Can Ukrainian Resistance Foil a Russian Victory?” War on The Rocks, February 18, 2022.

[30] Peter Levine, “Defining State, Nation, Regime, Government,” Peter Levine (blog), May 19, 2023, https://peterlevine.ws/?p=29293.

[31] Bruce Bueno de Mesquita et al., The Logic of Political Survival (New Haven: MIT Press, 2004), https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262524407/the-logic-of-political-survival/.

[32] (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2004)

[33] Iza Yue Ding. The Performative State: Public Scrutiny and Environmental Governance in China, ( Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2022).

[34] Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (New York: Routledge, 2011), https://www.routledge.com/Why-Men-Rebel/Gurr/p/book/9781594519147.

[35] Kevin D Stringer, Madison Urban, and Andrew Mackay, “Counter Threat Finance for Strategic Competition,” The RUSI Journal 168, no. 7 (November 10, 2023): 42–51, https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2024.2323740.

[36] John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory,” American Journal of Sociology 82, no. 6 (May 1977): 1212–41, https://doi.org/10.1086/226464.

[37] Thomas Marks and David Ucko, Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Analysis and Action (2nd Edition) (National Defense University Press, 2022), https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/3163915/crafting-strategy-for-irregular-warfare-a-framework-for-analysis-and-action-2nd/https%3A%2F%2Fndupress.ndu.edu%2FMedia%2FNews%2FNews-Article-View%2FArticle%2F3163915%2Fcrafting-strategy-for-irregular-warfare-a-framework-for-analysis-and-action-2nd%2F.

[38] Ian Hurd, “Legitimacy,” The Princeton Encyclopedia of Self-Determination, accessed July 16, 2024, https://pesd.princeton.edu/node/516.

[39] Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia University Press, 2011).

[40] Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia University Press, 2011).

[41] Thomas E. Ricks, Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022).

[42] Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, “The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns” (Washington DC: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, February 24, 2021), https://www.ericachenoweth.com/research/external-support-in-nonviolent-campaigns.

[43] Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy (Serpent’s Tail, 2012).

[44] CISA program produced the Marks and Ucko framework discussed in this article and runs the Joint Special Operations Master of Arts (JSOMA) program. Advanced PME schools and programs such as the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAAS) or the Naval Postgraduate School’s DA program have curricula that go way beyond just IW “activities”.

[45] Kevin Bilms, “What’s in a name? Reimagining Irregular Warfare Activities in Competition.” War on the Rocks. January 15, 2021.

[46] This is something the Center has already begun to do to some degree.

In this article:

Competitive Statecraft, Featured, Identity, Irregular Warfare, Non-violent Action, Professional Military Education (PME), Resource mobilization, Selectorate theory

2. To Beat China: The Next President Must Master the Ancient Chinese Game of “GO!”

I will never be able to defeat China. As much as I play Go (or Korean Baduk) on my phone and computer and iPad, I just cannot win.

But we do need a serious understanding of Chinese culture to be successful.

My China thesis that I think employs a Go strategy: China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions directly and/or indirectly through proxies, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, while displacing democratic institutions. It takes a long term approach, employing unrestricted warfare and its three warfare to set conditions and achieve objectives.

But I did not realize "cut the shit" was a diplomatic concept.

Excerpts

In World War II, Mao Zedong used a similar strategy against the more powerful Japanese army, likening his approach to attacking puzzle pieces, striking where the enemy was weak and avoiding direct confrontation where the enemy was strong.

This strategy of indirect pressure, long-term encirclement, and patience continues today under Xi Jinping, shaping China's foreign policy, covert action, military tactics, and geopolitical maneuvers, particularly in its relations with its neighbors and the West.

Simply, Mao's "Go" strategy against Japan has informed Xi’s modern strategy against the west, and global competitors.

The next US President must understand this deeply ingrained cultural approach, and master it, or we will fail to effectively confront China's detrimental expanding influence.

...

As the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu said, "Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will not be defeated in a hundred battles."

The next US President must master China’s Go strategy, adopt an equally resilient, long term strategy, and directly confront China's bad behavior.

Diplomatic reciprocal reciprocity (Translation: Give them a taste of their blatant, continued bad behavior, exact a hefty price, teach them that bad behavior begets bad consequences.

Behavior matters amongst civilized nations. (so, Cut-the-shit!).

To Beat China: The Next President Must Master the Ancient Chinese Game of “GO!”

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beat-china-next-president-must-master-ancient-chinese-ken-robinson-kjvgc/?trackingId=JfbIeXeEns3r%2Fz8finip6g%3D%3D

Ken Robinson

National Security, Counter Terrorism, Cyber Security, and Multi-Media Entertainment Professional

September 23, 2024

By: Ken Robinson

Introduction:

China's strategic bad-behavior draws directly from ancient Chinese wisdom, rooted in its cultural and philosophical traditions. It's long past time to "get real with China."

One of those traditions is the Chinese board game Go, a complex game of encirclement and territorial control that emphasizes long-term strategic patience over short-term gains.

The US has been unsuccessful in sustaining a coherent strategy that survives a four year presidential term.

In World War II, Mao Zedong used a similar strategy against the more powerful Japanese army, likening his approach to attacking puzzle pieces, striking where the enemy was weak and avoiding direct confrontation where the enemy was strong.

This strategy of indirect pressure, long-term encirclement, and patience continues today under Xi Jinping, shaping China's foreign policy, covert action, military tactics, and geopolitical maneuvers, particularly in its relations with its neighbors and the West.

Simply, Mao's "Go" strategy against Japan has informed Xi’s modern strategy against the west, and global competitors.

The next US President must understand this deeply ingrained cultural approach, and master it, or we will fail to effectively confront China's detrimental expanding influence.

Mao Zedong's "Go" Strategy Against Japan:

During World War II, Mao Zedong's People’s Liberation Army (PLA) faced the challenge of fighting the technologically superior and well-equipped Japanese forces. Instead of direct confrontation, Mao employed a guerrilla warfare strategy similar to the game of Go, characterized by long-term encirclement, harassment, and small-scale engagements.

Mao's approach was to avoid decisive battles that could annihilate his forces, focusing instead on fragmenting Japanese control over the territory, targeting weak spots, and slowly eroding their operational strength.

In Go, victory is not achieved through the outright destruction of the opponent but by gradually encircling and controlling critical points on the board. Likewise, Mao’s forces harassed Japanese supply lines, disrupted communications, and slowly tightened control over rural areas, eventually leading to Japan’s retreat.

The patience, foresight, and indirect nature of this strategy were key to the success of Mao’s ill equipped, underfunded army.

The Game of "Go" and Its Influence on Chinese Strategy:

The game of Go, with its over 2,500-year history, is a reflection of Chinese philosophy, emphasizing long-term planning, indirect engagement, and encirclement. Unlike chess, which centers around the quick capture of a single piece (the king), Go is about the slow accumulation of territory and the gradual isolation of the opponent's forces.

Success in Go is achieved by outmaneuvering the opponent in a methodical, patient manner, focusing on the long game. This game is a metaphor for the way China approaches geopolitics today, particularly under Xi Jinping. The US has often pursued the short sighted "Burger King - Have it your way - approach." Seeking immediate political results for a long term strategic problem.

We can't win, if we don't know what game we are playing:

Go's Core Principles:

• Strategic Patience: Go requires the player to think many moves ahead, valuing long-term gains over short-term victories. Similarly, China’s strategies are characterized by slow, steady pressure.
• Encirclement: Instead of direct confrontation, Go emphasizes surrounding the opponent, cutting off their options and resources, which mirrors China's approach in geopolitical confrontations, Belt and Road (Silk Road II), and BRICS.
• Flexibility: Go players must adapt to changing board dynamics, reflecting how China shifts its tactics in response to external pressures and opportunities in the international arena.

China’s Modern "Go" Strategy Under Xi Jinping:

Under Xi, China has adopted Mao's strategic thinking to pursue a global strategy of long-term dominance. China does not seek immediate military conquest but uses economic, military, and diplomatic tools to gradually increase its influence and encircle its opponents, much like a Go player methodically takes control of the board.

Territorial Expansion Through the South China Sea: China’s actions in the South China Sea are a textbook example of Go strategy. Instead of direct military confrontation with powerful rivals like the United States, China has opted for island-building and incremental territorial claims. By constructing artificial islands and militarizing them, China slowly tightens its control over this critical waterway, despite international opposition. This is akin to placing stones on the Go board to control key points, steadily expanding territorial claims without sparking an outright war.

Naval Confrontations and Economic Pressures: China has aggressively confronted other nations’ naval forces in the South China Sea, including Vietnam and the Philippines, asserting sovereignty over their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). China has also disrupted the commercial fishing and trading activities of these smaller nations, using its superior naval presence to harass their ships.

Predatory Loans and Infrastructure Projects (Belt and Road Initiative): China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is another example of its Go-like strategy. Through predatory loans and infrastructure investments, China is encircling developing nations, particularly in Africa, South America, and Central Asia. Many countries that accept Chinese loans find themselves unable to repay, leading to debt dependency and subservience to Chinese interests.

For instance, the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota was leased to China for 99 years after Sri Lanka could not repay Chinese loans. This is akin to surrounding your opponent in Go, eventually controlling their territory through indirect means rather than force.

Taiwan and the Pressure of Encirclement: China’s constant pressure on Taiwan exemplifies its long-term strategic patience. Xi’s government has consistently escalated military intimidation, cyberattacks, and economic pressure on Taiwan. However, instead of launching an outright invasion, China employs salami tactics—gradually increasing pressure and surrounding Taiwan diplomatically and militarily.

China’s policy on Taiwan resembles a Go player working towards encirclement without triggering immediate conflict, biding time for the right moment when victory can be secured without provoking a strong external intervention.

Industrial Espionage and Cyber Warfare: China has systematically engaged in industrial espionage and cyber hacking to gain economic and technological advantages over the West. These covert activities target companies and institutions, stealing intellectual property, military technologies, and national security secrets. These efforts mirror Go’s principles of outflanking the opponent, acquiring resources that enable long-term strategic gains.

By penetrating the industries of advanced economies, China strengthens its own technological base while weakening its competitors. This long-term tactic allows China to catch up with, and even surpass, its rivals without the need for direct confrontation.

The Role of Immigration and Political Influence: China’s strategy also includes the immigration of Chinese nationals, often "guest workers" on infrastructure projects who never return home, marry into local communities in the developing world, particularly in Africa and South America. Over time, these Chinese citizens often become politically active, promoting Chinese interests within their adopted countries. This demographic and political infiltration is another form of encirclement, influencing the host nations’ policies from within parasitically, to further China’s long-term strategic goals.

China’s Global Alliances and the "5th Column" Block: China’s support for Russia, Iran, and North Korea represents another facet of its Go-like encirclement strategy. By forming an economic alliance with these nations, China creates a veiled "5th Column" of geopolitical pressure points against Western dominance, particularly the United States. This group also serves to challenge global norms and institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ostensibly promoting a legitimate competitive alternative economic system through the BRICS coalition, while covertly, attempting to shape, and influence legitimate member States.

China's strategic support for Russia in its war with Ukraine further highlights its long-term view of global dominance. By aligning itself with authoritarian regimes that challenge Western influence, China positions itself as a leader of an alternative global order, capable of encircling the West economically and diplomatically. They would like to kill the US petro-dollar.

What Should the West Do?

To effectively confront China’s long-term strategy, the West must first acknowledge the rules and nature of the game they are actually playing. China’s approach is not one of immediate, overt domination but a slow, steady push for incipient influence.

The next U.S. administration must:

1. Recognize the "Go" Strategy: Understanding China's strategic patience is key to countering its moves. The U.S. must adopt a similarly long-term strategy, rather than seeking short-term domestic political victories that do not serve the national interest.

2. Build a Coalition: The U.S. and its allies must form a coalition with teeth, and fangs, to actively resist China’s predatory practices. Nations affected by BRI debt traps should be offered alternative financial and developmental support to reduce their dependence on China.

3. Call Out Aggressive Behavior: The US must openly call out China’s violations of sovereignty against another nation, each and every time in the United Nations - Security Council, highlighting its breaches of international law and violations of sovereignty, as seen in the South China Sea, regardless of China's veto - go on the record - every single time. This will set the example for the ASEAN countries to finally speak with a single, & loud voice for collective security. The polite practice of "Diplomatic selective appeasement" of looking the other way, due to so many transgressions must stop. Do the unpleasant work we send you to the UN to perform,or resign. A Veteran will gladly take your place.

4. Reduce Dependency: The U.S. must get its own house in order, and actively reduce its unwise economic dependency on China, due to the unpunished continued malfeasance its own poorly regulated Banking industry caused ihn 2008.

Americans need to know that as of July 2024, China owns $776.5 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, about 10.3% of the U.S. national debt. Diversifying supply chains and reshoring key industries must be accomplished to significantly diminish China’s leverage on the Federal Reserve, and US foreign policy.

Conclusion:

China’s modern geopolitical strategy under Xi Jinping is deeply influenced by the game of Go, where strategic patience, encirclement, and indirect control are prioritized. Understanding the cultural and historical roots of this strategy is essential for the next US President to effectively counter China’s long-term plans for global dominance.

Protecting our vital national security interest - demands this to happen routinely, aggressively. Forget the Chinese delegations gentlemanly demeanor. Hammer them for their bad behavior, constantly, not their manners at cocktail hour on the diplomatic circuit.

The clock is ticking, its five minutes till midnight - get serious - or retire. Every violation of international law must be met with a strategically selected expulsed Chinese student attending our Ivy League, and technical engineering schools (CALTECH, MIT).

Start with the children of CHINESE DIPLOMATS LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES. How many are already attending our best schools, and making the obligatory "report home?"

By forming strong alliances with real teeth, and bite, challenging China's predatory practices, and reducing economic dependency, the West must aggressively, constantly push back against China’s encirclement - to defend, and safeguard our global stability.

It's either that, or prepare to fight a land, and sea war in Asia. No thank you, not in our interest, unless provoked: Taiwan comes to mind.

As the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu said, "Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will not be defeated in a hundred battles."

The next US President must master China’s Go strategy, adopt an equally resilient, long term strategy, and directly confront China's bad behavior.

Diplomatic reciprocal reciprocity (Translation: Give them a taste of their blatant, continued bad behavior, exact a hefty price, teach them that bad behavior begets bad consequences.

Behavior matters amongst civilized nations. (so, Cut-the-shit!).

3. US seeks control of Russian S-400s in exchange for Turkey’s return to F-35 program

Hmmm... would we make such a "trade?"

Excerpts:

According to Kathimerini, the United States submitted a detailed proposal to Turkey over the summer that would allow it to keep the missiles on its territory but essentially transfer their control to the United States.

As part of the discussions, senior US officials have floated a proposal to transfer the Russian system to the US-controlled part of İncirlik Airbase in southern Turkey. The proposal will reportedly not put Turkey in a difficult situation since neither the terms of its contract with Russia nor any binding clauses will be violated.

US seeks control of Russian S-400s in exchange for Turkey’s return to F-35 program - Turkish Minute

turkishminute.com · by Turkish Minute · September 23, 2024

In a bid to resolve the conundrum over Turkey’s acquisition of a Russian S-400 missile defense system that led to its removal from the F-35 program, the United States has proposed that the US take control of the S-400s in exchange for Turkey’s return to the F-35 program, the Greek Kathimerini newspaper reported, citing sources.

Although Turkey joined the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program (JSF) in 2007 and was one of the partner countries of the program along with other NATO allies, it was removed from the program by Washington in 2019 in protest of the Turkish government’s purchase of the Russian S-400s, which Washington said posed a risk to its fifth-generation warplanes and NATO’s broader defense systems.

According to Kathimerini, the United States submitted a detailed proposal to Turkey over the summer that would allow it to keep the missiles on its territory but essentially transfer their control to the United States.

As part of the discussions, senior US officials have floated a proposal to transfer the Russian system to the US-controlled part of İncirlik Airbase in southern Turkey. The proposal will reportedly not put Turkey in a difficult situation since neither the terms of its contract with Russia nor any binding clauses will be violated.

Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former Pentagon official, confirmed to Kathimerini that White House and Pentagon officials presented the proposal to high-level Turkish government officials in July.

“My sources in the region say that during their July 1-2, 2024 visit to Turkey, Celeste Wallander, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, and Michael Carpenter, special advisor to the president and senior director for Europe at the US National Security Council, recently discussed reviving the F-35 deal with their Turkish counterparts. In exchange for re-entering the F-35 program, they demanded Turkey hand over the S-400s to the United States or transfer them to the US-controlled sector at Incirlik base,” Rubin said.

İncirlik, located in Adana province, is home to the US Air Force’s 39th Air Base Wing.

The day after the visit, the US Embassy in Ankara reported that Wallander and Carpenter had discussed with Turkish officials the development of “additional areas for increased partnership and the goals of increasing long standing defense ties.”

Asked by Kathimerini about the exact state of negotiations between the two sides, Pentagon spokesperson Javan Rasnake said that “since 2019, we have relayed to Turkiye our position on its acquisition of the S-400 system and the consequences for doing so, which are enshrined in legislation. There has been no change in the US position or legislation on this topic.”

According to Kathimerini, the submission of a plan for the transfer of the Russian missile systems to İncirlik, together with the legislative initiatives that were unsuccessfully launched in Congress this summer, proves that efforts to resolve the S-400 issue are in full swing, the options under consideration are varied and possible changes in the US position or legislation may be imminent.

Commenting on this particular stage in the intense process, which is taking place a few months before the US elections, Rubin said that “the most dangerous time in American foreign and defense policy is in the sunset of an administration. Presidents feel unencumbered by accountability. They can do whatever they want without ever having to face the voters again. Ambassadors and assistant secretaries, meanwhile, want to set themselves up with golden parachutes to corporate boards or energy and defense companies. The Biden team seems more reckless than most. If there’s one issue about which there should be consensus in Washington and Brussels, it is that Erdogan’s Turkey is a force for instability throughout the region.”

According to Kathimerini’s sources, the Turkish response at this stage is not positive, but discussions are expected to continue this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“Their Turkish counterparts refused and countered they would just keep them in the box inside Turkey. The deal is not dead, however, as reviving the F-35 deal will be on the agenda for the United States and Turkey when leaders and security officials meet next week at the UN General Assembly,” Rubin added.

Despite warnings from the United States and other NATO allies, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan brokered the deal worth $2.5 billion with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the S-400 missile system in 2017.

Washington also imposed sanctions in December 2020 on Turkey’s military procurement agency as punishment for its purchase of the S-400 under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, which mandates penalties for transactions deemed harmful to US interests.

In an attempt to modernize its aging air force, Turkey’s focus turned to buying F-16s after it was ousted from the F-35 program.

The US government on January 26 approved a $23 billion deal to sell F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, after Ankara ratified Sweden’s NATO membership.

The sale to Turkey includes 40 Lockheed Martin F-16s and equipment to modernize 79 of its existing F-16 fleet.

HALC against Turkey’s inclusion in the F-35 program

Meanwhile, the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC), a Greek lobbying organization in the US, has launched a petition against Turkey’s possible inclusion in the F-35 program, citing Turkey’s alleged violation of US law, its failure to act faithfully as an ally, its undermining of regional peace and stability and its growing collaboration with Russia.

The petition, prompted by the report in Kathimerini, is a letter to four key members of the US Congress, which can block the sale of the advanced aircraft: Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul; ranking member Gregory W. Meeks; and US senators Ben Cardin and Jim Risch, chair and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In the letter, HALC accused Turkey of using American weaponry, F-16s, against US allies such as Greece and Kurdish partners in Syria while violating CAATSA for years.

“The Erdogan government must comply with US law before giving it access to our most advanced weaponry is considered,” the letter says.In July, Greece formally approved an offer to buy 20 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from the United States as part of a major defense overhaul.

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turkishminute.com · by Turkish Minute · September 23, 2024

4. Volodymyr Zelensky's victory plan for Ukraine: 3 key takeaways

The takeaways:

Forcing Russia to peace

Security guarantees

Further western support

Volodymyr Zelensky's victory plan for Ukraine: 3 key takeaways

Newsweek · by Brendan Cole · September 23, 2024

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky will present a suite of proposals to Washington this week which he hopes will end the war that Vladimir Putin started.

Zelensky will travel to the U.N. General Assembly in New York and then go to Washington where he will present a "victory plan" to the U.S. President, Congress and the two candidates in the presidential election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian presidential office for comment over the details of Zelensky's plan which have yet to be officially unveiled, but three key elements have emerged based on his public statements:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint news conference with European Commission President in Kyiv, on September 20, 2024. He has presented a "victory plan" for Ukraine against Russian aggression. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint news conference with European Commission President in Kyiv, on September 20, 2024. He has presented a "victory plan" for Ukraine against Russian aggression. ANATOLII STEPANOV/Getty Images

Forcing Russia to peace

Russian forces have held the momentum in the east of Ukraine for most of this year. The Kremlin has also rejected Zelensky's 10-point peace formula, which among other things, calls for a complete troop withdrawal from Ukrainian territory.

But a source close to Zelensky told the Kyiv Independent that the victory plan would force Putin to no longer ignore a peace formula or summit to end the war.

"A central premise of the plan is the recognition that Russia, under President Putin, has not approached negotiations in good faith," said Leon Hartwell, senior associate at the London School of Economics' think tank, LSE IDEAS.

"While Putin claims openness to dialogue, Moscow remains committed to achieving victory on the battlefield," he told Newsweek, "this refusal to negotiate an end to the war stems from Russia's belief that it can still prevail militarily."

Hartwell believes that a settlement under current conditions would be too costly and so Zelensky intends to shift the balance of power, both on the battlefield and in future negotiations, while refusing to surrender any Ukrainian land.

Ukrainian officials have rejected reports that it includes a partial ceasefire and Zelensky said on September 18, there would be no freezing of the war or move that would Russia to regroup and restart its aggression later.

Meanwhile, Kyiv's incursion into Russia's Kursk region where it has reportedly captured 500 square miles, provides a territorial bargaining chip, which Ukraine would want to hold on to.

"Zelensky knows that the stronger Ukraine's position is in combat, the better its chances of securing favorable terms at the negotiating table," said Hartwell.

Security guarantees

Ukraine failed to be admitted to NATO and other international alliances partly due to disagreements among allies. But U.K. newspaper The Times reported that part of Zelensky's victory plan will be security guarantees along the lines of the mutual defense pact of alliance membership.

The paper also said that Zelensky wants to "Trump-proof" American support for Ukraine in light of the Republican presidential candidate and his running mate JD Vance suggesting the war could end by offering territorial concessions to Russia.

An unnamed western diplomat told the publication that the outcome of November's U.S. election is a key factor in Putin's calculations about negotiations, especially if there might be a government in Washington determined to back Kyiv under a Kamala Harris administration. If Trump wins and offers Putin "a cheap way out, that's the end of it," the diplomat added.

Biden, Harris and Trump "are likely to be cautious about overcommitting military support in the run-up to November," said Hartwell. "This political uncertainty may undermine Zelensky's confidence in sustained U.S. military aid."

Russia's President Vladimir Putin at the Eurasian Women's Forum in Saint Petersburg on September 18, 2024. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is set to present to Washington a victory plan for Kyiv in Putin's full-scale invasion... Russia's President Vladimir Putin at the Eurasian Women's Forum in Saint Petersburg on September 18, 2024. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is set to present to Washington a victory plan for Kyiv in Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. VALERY SHARIFULIN/Getty Images

Further western support

Zelensky's visit coincides with White House efforts to ready a new $375 million military aid package for Kyiv. Ukraine wants this support to continue but also seeks U.S. permission to strike deeper into Russian territory with American-supplied weapons such as ATACMS ground-launched ballistic missiles, which Washington has not granted over fears of escalation.

Ukraine says its needs to conduct long-range strikes to target Russian military installations such as airfields which launch guided bomb strikes from deep within Russia.

"The key question remains whether Zelensky can secure the necessary U.S. backing for these measures," said Hartwell. "Furthermore, will Putin perceive the threat of an intensified Ukrainian offensive as credible enough to push him to negotiate?"

Zelensky was asked by The New Yorker about a shift in rhetoric where once he spoke about "total victory" for Ukraine and a return to its 1991 border, toward becoming more open to negotiations through peace summits.

But in defining victory for Kyiv, Zelensky told the publication it would be something "whose outcome satisfies all—those who respect international law, those who live in Ukraine, those who lost their loved ones and relatives."

Hartwell said: "Zelensky's plan is also likely to emphasize the dire consequences of failing to act now. A protracted war would result in thousands more deaths and might ultimately tilt the scales in Russia's favor."

Newsweek · by Brendan Cole · September 23, 2024

5. Setting the Record Straight on the V-22 Osprey

Setting the Record Straight on the V-22 Osprey | Military.com

military.com · by Military.com Rep. Ronny Jackson Published September 23, 2024 at 9:57am ET

The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.

The crash of a CV-22 Osprey, call sign Gundam 22, off the coast of Japan in November 2023 has generated a wave of unfair scrutiny against the aircraft. The loss of any service member is an absolute tragedy, but the conversation surrounding the V-22 Osprey has become disproportionately negative, often overlooking key facts about the incident and the essential role this aircraft plays in our military's success.

Critics paint a picture of the Osprey as an inherently dangerous aircraft, claiming it is more prone to accidents than other military platforms; however, the data and the facts tell a much different story.

The Marine Corps variant of the Osprey, the MV-22, has become a cornerstone of U.S. military operations, consistently proving its reliability in challenging environments. Despite its extensive use, the MV-22's mishap rate per 100,000 flight hours is "equal to or less than any airframe flown," according to the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric M. Smith. He also recently said, "They're completely safe. They have a better safety record than most aircraft."

When compared to conventional helicopters, like the H-60 Black Hawk or the H-47 Chinook, the V-22's safety record remains well within acceptable industry standards. Beyond its favorable safety record, the Osprey offers significant advantages and capabilities that conventional helicopters cannot match. Its unique tilt-rotor design enables it to take off and land in confined spaces while flying faster and farther than traditional helicopters. These advantages provide critical support in combat, medical evacuation operations, and disaster relief efforts, often meaning the difference between life and death.

The safety of our service members is and always will remain our highest priority. Use of the V-22 aircraft in a variety of critical environments is vital for the success of our men and women in uniform. At every stage of the V-22's lifecycle, from development to combat operations, highly skilled professionals work diligently to ensure the aircraft's safety and effectiveness. During my time in the Navy, and now as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I have spent considerable time flying onboard the V-22; therefore, I know firsthand that this is not just a phenomenal aircraft, but it provides our military with unique capabilities and advantages that we simply cannot afford to be without.

The V-22 operates under stringent protocols and maintenance requirements, reinforcing the confidence military leaders have in the aircraft and its critical role in maintaining readiness and deterrence. While military flight operations are inherently risky, the Osprey remains an indispensable asset in our defense strategy.

We must remember and honor the eight airmen who tragically lost their lives in the mishap of Gundam 22, but we must also avoid any overreaction that would degrade our military's operational capabilities moving forward. The Department of Defense conducted a thorough investigation into the incident, and we are working collaboratively to address the findings while taking the necessary steps to ensure the Osprey continues to operate safely and effectively.

It is the duty of Congress to rely on facts, not fears, when evaluating the V-22 Osprey. This aircraft is a combat-proven asset that deserves our continued support and investment. As we move forward, we will continue to improve and build upon the innovative technology embodied by the V-22, because ultimately, enhancing the capabilities of the V-22 will contribute to a more secure future for our country and ensure our military has the advantages it needs to compete with and win against our adversaries.

-- Dr. Ronny Jackson has served as the U.S. representative for Texas' 13th Congressional District since 2021 and currently serves on the House Agriculture Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. In 2019, after 25 years of service to his country, he retired from the U.S. Navy.

military.com · by Military.com Rep. Ronny Jackson Published September 23, 2024 at 9:57am ET

6. Murder in U.S. Continues Steep Decline, F.B.I. Reports

Some good news.

Murder in U.S. Continues Steep Decline, F.B.I. Reports

NY Times · by Tim Arango · September 23, 2024

Homicides fell 11.6 percent nationwide in 2023, and violent crime overall fell by 3 percent after a surge in crime during the pandemic.

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There were about 2,500 fewer homicides in 2023 than in 2022, according to new F.B.I. figures. Police officers in Philadelphia worked at the scene of a fatal shooting in November. Credit...Steven M. Falk/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated Press

Sept. 23, 2024Updated 3:55 p.m. ET

The number of murders reported in the United States dropped in 2023 at the fastest rate on record, continuing a decline from the surge in homicides during the pandemic, the F.B.I. reported on Monday.

The F.B.I.’s report, which is the agency’s final compilation of crime data for 2023, showed that there were about 2,500 fewer homicides in 2023 that year than in 2022, a decline of 11.6 percent. That was the largest year-to-year decline since national record-keeping began in 1960, according to Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst based in New Orleans.

Overall, violent crime fell 3 percent and property crime fell 2.6 percent in 2023, with burglaries down 7.6 percent and larceny down 4.4 percent. Car thefts, though, continue to be an exception, rising more than 12 percent from the year before.

The latest data is consistent with earlier preliminary reports from the F.B.I., and with research from other organizations and criminologists, all showing continuing declines in most crime, including murder.

Even so, crime remains a point of contention in the presidential race, with the Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, describing American cities as crime-ridden dystopias. Polling shows that Americans remain concerned about crime, and that there is a consistent gap between crime data and the public perception of the problem. For instance, a Gallup poll last year found that 77 percent of Americans believed crime was rising, even though it was actually falling.

“Perceptions of safety are not driven by numbers in spreadsheets,” said Adam Gelb, the chief executive of the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonprofit policy research group that produces its own reports on crime in America. “They are about what people see and hear and feel on the streets, on TV and in their social media feeds. They are not sitting around studying the F.B.I.’s website.”

Some states, most notably California, are weighing tougher criminal justice measures in the face of public concern over crime. In November, voters in the state will decide whether to roll back one of the state’s landmark criminal justice measures, known as Proposition 47. The measure, approved in 2014, lowered penalties for theft and drug crimes and was responsible for a sharp reduction in the state’s prison population.

As residents of all political stripes express frustration with shoplifting and the role of fentanyl and other drugs in perpetuating disorder, polls are showing overwhelming support in California for rolling back Proposition 47.

At the same time, two progressive district attorneys in California who pursued policies to reduce imprisonment are in tough fights to keep their jobs. Both were elected in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis and the social justice protests it provoked. One, Pamela Price in Oakland, faces a recall election driven by concerns about crime. The other, George Gascon in Los Angeles, is in an uphill battle against a more conservative challenger, polling shows.

Though the overall trend in crime is downward, there were still 19,252 murders last year in the United States, according to the F.B.I. And the progress was not uniform, with some cities, like Washington D.C., Greensboro, N.C., and Memphis, Tenn, showing big increases in homicides last year, Mr. Asher noted in an analysis he published on Monday.

“The caveat is that these are national numbers,” said Alex Piquero, a professor of criminology at the University of Miami and the former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics said of the F.B.I. report.

Pointing to a mass shooting in Alabama over the weekend that killed four people, Mr. Piquero said: “When you hear what happens in Birmingham, or you hear what happens in some cities in the United States that still are experiencing firearm violence the way it is, the national numbers won’t mean a lot for those people or those communities. So we have to always remember that we are moving in the right direction, but now is not the time to stop doing what all the people who are invested in crime prevention are doing.”

Criminologists attribute the drop in violent crime to a number of factors, all related to the country emerging from the pandemic: more social services coming back; investments in violence-prevention initiatives; social bonds being re-established; more proactive policing.

“All of those things that were turned off, from a crime prevention point of view, have now been turned on,” Mr. Piquero said.

In a statement, President Biden cited the reduction in crime and pointed to investments in community anti-violence groups that were part of Covid stimulus legislation, saying, “Americans are safer now than when we took office.” He also urged more funding for police departments.

While the F.B.I.’s new report covers crime in 2023, more recent research shows the trend of falling homicides continuing into 2024. A report released in July by the Council on Criminal Justice found that many major U.S. cities had seen sharp drops in homicides this year, and that rates of homicide had returned to prepandemic levels.

And in a database kept by Mr. Asher that tracks murders in nearly 300 American cities, homicides in those cities have declined by nearly 18 percent so far this year — equating to more than 1,200 fewer murders then last year.

Tim Arango is a correspondent covering national news. He is based in Los Angeles. More about Tim Arango

NY Times · by Tim Arango · September 23, 2024

7. Russian aircraft carrier crew sent to frontline in Ukraine

Wow. A lot easier for a skipper to turn sailors left on an aircraft carrier than a brigade commander to get 2000 sailors all to turn left on the ground on the battlefield.

Russian aircraft carrier crew sent to frontline in Ukraine

ukdefencejournal.org.uk · September 21, 2024

In a surprising development, Russia has seemingly formed a mechanised battalion from the crew of its only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov.

This new unit is reportedly involved in ground operations in Ukraine, according to open-source intelligence researcher Moklasen on X (formerly Twitter).

Initially stationed in the Kharkiv region, the battalion has since been redeployed to the Pokrovsk sector, according to the Ukrainian military. The formation of the battalion came to light after a message was shared on Russian social media platform Vkontakte, requesting help in locating personnel from military unit 78987.

This unit recently gained attention following the disappearance of Oleg Sosedov, a sailor from the Admiral Kuznetsov, who went missing during a Russian operation in the Kharkiv region in July. Sosedov, also linked to the battalion, was last seen during an assault on the frontier village of Sotnytskii Kozachok.

The vessel in dry-dock.

Additionally, reports indicate that Russia is also forming infantry units from members of its Aerospace Forces, with these new units playing a role in battles around Kursk.

The Admiral Kuznetsov has faced numerous setbacks since being withdrawn from service for repairs in 2017. Originally planned for modernisation to extend its service life by 25 years, the ship’s overhaul has been continuously delayed by accidents and technical challenges.

One incident occurred in October 2018 when the PD-50 drydock, housing the carrier, sank, damaging the vessel and killing a worker. A crane collapse caused significant damage to the flight deck, further delaying the repair process. The carrier was later moved to the 35th Ship Repair Plant in Murmansk. The difficulties continued. In December 2019, a major fire broke out onboard, killing two workers and injuring more than a dozen others, adding to the delays. Initially expected to return to service by 2023, the completion of repairs has been repeatedly postponed, with current estimates suggesting the ship may not be handed over to the Russian Navy until 2024 or 2025.

Despite these ongoing setbacks, Russian officials remained optimistic about the eventual return of the Admiral Kuznetsov to active duty. Repair work has continued since the ship was dry-docked in May 2022, with upgrades focusing on avionics and power systems.

However, another fire in December 2022 has raised additional concerns about whether the ship will meet its revised schedule for completion. However, with the recent news that the crew has been redeployed to form a mechanised battalion in Ukraine, the handover of the Admiral Kuznetsov now seems unlikely to proceed without a crew.

The ship itself

The Admiral Kuznetsov is a heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser, designed to project air power and support naval operations. One of its key features is its flight deck, which accommodates both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. It typically carries 18 Su-33 fighter jets, capable of performing air superiority, fleet defence, reconnaissance, and close air support missions. These are complemented by six MiG-29K multirole jets, which add versatility in both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. The ship also operates Kamov helicopters, primarily the Ka-27 and Ka-31, which are used for anti-submarine warfare (ASW), search and rescue (SAR), and early warning operations.

The carrier’s ski-jump ramp at the bow allows aircraft to take off without needing catapults, a simpler system than the steam catapults used on many Western carriers. While this design limits take-off speed, it provides a smoother, less stressful launch for pilots. Aircraft accelerate towards and lift off the deck at lower speeds, with their afterburners engaged. The Su-33s are specially designed to perform well with this lower-speed, ski-jump configuration, allowing them to operate effectively within the carrier’s capabilities.

In addition to its air power, Admiral Kuznetsov is heavily armed with surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles, providing both offensive and defensive capabilities. It carries 12 P-700 Granit anti-ship missiles, designed to strike large surface targets at long range. This gives the carrier an additional cruiser-like capability, allowing it to engage in missile warfare independently of its air group. For defence, the carrier is equipped with the 3K95 Kinzhal surface-to-air missile system and Kashtan close-in weapon systems (CIWS), creating a layered air defence against incoming threats like aircraft and missiles.

The Admiral Kuznetsov also has strong anti-submarine capabilities. It is fitted with RBU-12000 anti-submarine rocket launchers, which bolster its defence against underwater threats. Its Kamov helicopters, particularly the Ka-27s, are crucial in detecting and engaging submarines, as they are equipped with sonar and other ASW tools. This enables the carrier to conduct multi-dimensional warfare, countering threats from the air, surface, and underwater simultaneously.

However, unlike most Western carriers, which use gas turbines or nuclear power, Admiral Kuznetsov uses conventional propulsion. Its steam turbines, powered by mazut fuel, produce 200,000 horsepower, giving the ship a maximum speed of 29 knots. While this speed is lower than nuclear-powered carriers, it is sufficient for its operational requirements. The use of mazut, a heavy oil, is notable for generating thick black smoke, a characteristic often seen when the fuel isn’t properly preheated before entering the combustion chamber, giving the ship a visible signature over long distances.

ukdefencejournal.org.uk · September 21, 2024

8. Surge in Marines staying in the Corps past their first enlistment

Surge in Marines staying in the Corps past their first enlistment

The Marine Corps met 114% of its retention goal for enlisted first-term Marines.

Jeff Schogol

Posted on Sep 23, 2024 4:02 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol

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More Marines are staying in the Corps past their first contract than at any other time in the last 14 years.

The Marine Corps is nearing the end of Fiscal Year 2024 with the highest number of first-term Marines who have reenlisted since 2010, Corps officials announced on Monday.

The increase in retention reflects a change in the Marine Corps’ strategy from “recruit and replace” to one that aims to “invest and retain” the most capable Marines, a Corps news release says.

Traditionally, about three-quarters of Marines who enlist do not stay in the Corps beyond their first contract. But in recent years the Marine Corps has sought to create a more mature force by convincing more “first-term” Marines to reenlist.

“One goal of Talent Management is maturing the force, which begins with ensuring our highly qualified first-term enlisted Marines have the opportunity to reenlist and ‘Stay Marine,’” said Maj. Melissa Spencer, a spokeswoman for Manpower & Reserve affairs.

So far this fiscal year, a total of 7,947 first-term Marines have reenlisted, and that means the Marine Corps has met 114% of its retention goal for Marines on their first contract, Spencer told Task & Purpose on Monday. Fiscal Year 2024 ends on Sept. 30.

By way of comparison, the Marine Corps retained a total of 7,082 first-term enlisted Marines in Fiscal Year 2023, she said.

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The first-term Marine reenlistments helped the Corps exceed its overall retention goals for this fiscal year, according to Monday’s news release. The Corps also retained about 5,700 Marines who have reenlisted multiple times, known as “subsequent-term Marines.”

The Marine Corps created several incentives this fiscal year to boost retention, including selective retention bonuses for certain military occupational specialties and more opportunities for Marines to make lateral career moves, according to the news release.

“We continue to maintain our high standards and exceeded our end strength requirement through successful retention and recruiting efforts,” said Lt. Gen. Michael J. Borgschulte, the deputy commandant for Manpower & Reserve Affairs. “Our retention success increased the health of our delayed entry program for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Retaining high-quality Marines and civilians is a key part of the Marine Corps’ strategy to transform itself into a force that can compete against near-peer adversaries, such as China, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith wrote in his most recent planning guidance, which was issued in August.

The Marine Corps has made significant changes into how it recruits and retains Marines as part of its Talent Management 2030 plan, Smith wrote.

“A key component of this is our Talent Management Engagement Platform (TMEP) that provides our Marines a more personally responsive and transparent system for assignments,” Smith wrote.

“I am proud of the initiatives that are underway which give Marines more predictability during the orders process, transparency with their monitors, improved personnel management systems, financial incentives to those who volunteer for a Special Duty Assignment, and bonuses for lateral moves into certain Military Occupational Specialties.”

Smith noted in his planning guidance that both active duty and Reserve officers can opt out of consideration for promotion without harming their careers, allowing them to pursue other educational and career opportunities.

“This effort will expand throughout the total force in the years ahead,” Smith wrote. “We will maintain the trajectory of Talent Management and continue to remind our Marines why they decided to join our Corps in the first place.”

The latest on Task & Purpose

• Four Marines trained an Air Force base to take the Marine Corps fitness test. The Air Force gave them medals for it.
• A guide to the shoulder tabs Army soldiers wear on their uniforms
• The A-10 era is over for this legendary Air Force attack squadron
• This USS Abraham Lincoln sailor proudly wears ‘E-4 Mafia’ patch
• Free Wi-Fi in the barracks, and other quality-of-life improvements coming to all branches

Jeff Schogol

Senior Pentagon Reporter

Jeff Schogol is a senior staff writer for Task & Purpose. He reports on both the Defense Department as a whole as well as individual services, covering a variety of topics that include personnel, policy, military justice, deployments, and technology. His apartment in Alexandria, Va., has served as the Task & Purpose Pentagon bureau since the pandemic first struck in March 2020. The dwelling is now known as Forward Operating Base Schogol.

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol

9. Opinion How serious a military threat is China?

Take a test on Chinese military power from the Washington Post Editorial Board.

Opinion  How serious a military threat is China?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/china-military-threat-united-states/?utm

By the

Editorial Board

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Sept. 20 at 2:42 p.m.

Recruits stand in formation at a military training facility in Taicang, China, on Sept. 9. (AFP/Getty Images)

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Half of Americans now view China as a threat. An invasion of Taiwan or further provocations in the South China Sea could lead to open conflict between American and Chinese militaries. So just how big a military threat is China to the United States right now? How worried should we be?

✓ Check Yourself

The Post partnered with Gapminder, a Swedish nonprofit, to survey 600 people ages 18 to 65. The sample was balanced to reflect U.S. demography.

1 of 5

The average country spends 2.3% of its gross domestic product on its military. How much does China spend?

1.7%

3.7%

5.7%

In terms of the respective sizes of their military forces, China has 3 million active-duty, paramilitary and reserve personnel and the United States has 2.1 million. But they are both dwarfed by North Korea: Though estimates vary widely, the country could have as many as 8.3 million active-duty, paramilitary and reserve personnel. India has between 4 million and 5 million. The numbers are smaller if counting only active-duty personnel — but in the event of a real conflict, reservists and paramilitary troops would no doubt be called up.

2 of 5

The United States has around 750 military bases in 80 countries. How many does China have?

One base in one country

Fifteen bases in seven countries

Two hundred fifty bases in 35 countries

Soldiers participate in a ceremony for the opening of China’s military base in Djibouti on Aug. 1, 2017. (AFP/Getty Images)

China has just one international military base, in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. But even without physical bases, a network of allies mutually bound to defend one another functions as a force projector. The United States has collective security pacts such as NATO, as well as defense agreements with more than 50 individual nations.

3 of 5

When did China last fight in a war?

105 years ago

85 years ago

45 years ago

China’s last full-scale war was its 1979 invasion of Vietnam, launched in retaliation for Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, a Chinese ally. Tens of thousands of Chinese and Vietnamese soldiers, as well as Vietnamese civilians, were killed.

4 of 5

There are currently more than two dozen aircraft carriers operating worldwide. The United States has 11. How many does China have?

Three

Six

Nine

What China does have — what makes it a superpower — is nuclear weapons. Russia has the most with 5,889 warheads, and the United States isn’t far behind with 5,224.

5 of 5

Russia and the United States have more than 5,000 nuclear warheads each. How many does China have?

Around 500

Around 1,500

Around 2,500

U.S. military strategists are right to take a cautious stance toward China, particularly under the increasingly assertive President Xi Jinping. Its possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons, large population and substantial military spending warrant concern. The United States, meanwhile, has globe-spanning defense commitments that China does not, allowing for reduced personnel even as some elements require modernization.

Yet for the moment, the Chinese have not reached anything close to parity with the United States by most conventional metrics. Of course, any future conflict — if it happens — likely would not be fought only by conventional means. There would be an online component, as the two sides attempted to disrupt each other’s infrastructure through cyberattacks. There could be a space component, with attempts to disrupt or destroy each other’s vital satellites. The facts, then, call for neither hysteria nor complacency — but for investing in the tools needed in battle arenas old and new.

10. Stop Politicizing the Military By Peter D. Feaver

Excerpts:

As the first presidential election with both post-all-volunteer force and post-9/11 veterans on the ticket, this campaign could set the tone for future campaigns to come. But so far, the record of the past several weeks is dispiriting. The net effect of this sort of negative campaigning is to further politicize the military, precisely at a time when the United States should be highlighting the nonpartisan ethos of military service as the bedrock of the all-volunteer force and doing all we can to help that force through its recruiting challenges to reach a sustainable footing.

It’s not too late for both parties to elevate the discussion of military service and sacrifice in a manner that will consolidate support for service members and preserve military respect for its civilian leadership.

But if they don’t, we might be left with the worst of both worlds—a weaponization of military service that blows back on the candidates, sullying the reputations of politicians with honorable service in the country’s armed forces, with the only lasting effect being a further coarsening of the bedrock civil-military relationship on which the republic depends.

Stop Politicizing the Military

The tenor of the first U.S. election campaign with post-9/11 veterans on the ticket has been disappointing.

By Peter D. Feaver, a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University

.Foreign Policy · by Peter D. Feaver

• Elections
• United States

September 19, 2024, 6:00 AM

Election-harris-trump-2024-functional-tag-2

Americans are used to seeing military service get politicized in presidential campaigns. They have seen this politicization on full display in recent weeks, with the campaign of former President Donald Trump criticized for the way that Trump turned the gravesites of soldiers who died in the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago into a campaign photo-op that apparently violated Department of Army regulations. The campaign had intended the event as a way of criticizing Trump’s rival in the upcoming election, Vice President Kamala Harris, on the anniversary of that withdrawal, but did so in a ham-handed way that exploited the grief of the Gold Star families who were remembering those who died in the incident. When members of the Harris campaign pushed back with criticisms of their own, the Trump campaign pounced with video from some of the Gold Star families who were politically aligned with Trump.

In addition to this ugly back-and-forth, we are also witnessing the weaponization of military service, in which a candidate’s association with the military is turned from a positive into a negative. Both vice presidential candidates served in the enlisted ranks—Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, as a junior enlisted Marine and Harris’s, Gov. Tim Walz, as a senior enlisted noncommissioned officer in the Army National Guard. What should have been a positive—that both VP candidates volunteered to serve in the country’s all-volunteer force at a time when most Americans did not—has instead become a potential negative, with partisans on both sides casting aspersions on their service.

This politicization of the military is harmful not only to the candidates who engage in it, but also to the republic. It damages the military’s status as a nonpartisan institution that will support civilian control no matter who wins the presidency.

To become the U.S. president, a candidate must pass the commander in chief threshold test. A candidate must convince the voters to trust him or her with the extraordinary power that the president wields in the military domain. There is a policy dimension: Does the candidate understand the threats and offer credible ways of addressing them? And a temperament dimension: How will the candidate react under pressure when the stakes are high? And because of the unique role that the military plays as national institution at the center of the country’s communal life, there also is a ceremonial dimension: Can the candidate embody the dignity required of those moments when the nation remembers the sacrifices made by the few on behalf of the many? Since candidates are competing with others who are trying to pass the same test, partisan politics inevitably winds up tarnishing these efforts.

Campaigns look for ways of checking all of the commander in chief boxes through the use of white papers, endorsements from veterans, well-choreographed photo opportunities, and, if the biographies allow, highlighting their candidates’ own records of military service. It once was commonplace for presidential candidates to have served in the military. But in recent cycles, as candidates have increasingly lacked direct military experience, campaigns have used the endorsements of prominent retired military to try to signal a candidate’s fitness as commander in chief.

The Harris campaign has just released one such list that includes roughly ten individuals identified by their military rank alongside other civilians—notably all of whom have served in Republican administrations. That means the Trump list is likely to make an appearance soon as well. Already both sides gave prominent speaking spots at their conventions to politicians who also happen to be veterans.

But the Trump campaign has taken a page from the 2004 campaign playbook that inspired a new form of political dark arts—“swift-boating,” which was coined by political scientists to describe the activity of a group of Swift boat veterans who opposed then-Sen. John Kerry’s campaign for presidency that year. This time around, Trump’s team has moved quickly to accuse Walz of “stolen valor”—when individuals exaggerate their military records and claim accolades that are not deserved—and of abandoning his National Guard unit by retiring a year before it was deployed to Iraq.

Democrats engaged in some return fire, questioning how much combat a public affairs correspondent like Vance would really see in a six-month tour.

At first glance, Walz is more vulnerable on these issues. It does appear that he has been sloppy at times in making rhetorical flourishes about his biography. And while the retirement vs. deployment controversy hinges crucially on the questions of “what did he know and when did he know it,” the bottom-line claim that he chose to run for Congress rather than try to go to Iraq with his unit is correct. Even if the most strident claims of Walz critics come off as petty to most people outside of the insular world of the retired noncommissioned officers from the Minnesota National Guard, it is undeniable that some of Walz’s descriptions of his own record overstated rather than understated his experience.

The fear that Walz is vulnerable is thus understandable, especially since Democrats and their allies in the media view the 2004 swift-boating as below-the-belt dirty political tricks because most of the charges raised against Kerry about his Vietnam War service by the political group campaigning against him, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, were highly contested, and some were shown to be false. As even the most partisan of Kerry supporters had to admit at the time, however, the candidate had exaggerated his military exploits.

Despite all of the attacks thrown at Walz, though, he remains more popular than his Republican rival. And it is not clear that swift-boating had a major electoral impact in 2004. If military questions were decisive in Kerry’s campaign, it was probably the Iraq War that mattered most, and Kerry’s inability to persuade voters on his position on that conflict may have been the tipping factor.

To the extent that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did have an impact, the key element may have been the way the movement simultaneously undermined Kerry’s greatest asset and highlighted his greatest liability. Kerry became the nominee because the Democrats believed they needed a war hero to run in the first presidential election after 9/11, which was also the first held during wartime since 1968.

But Kerry also was vulnerable to charges of being seen as a phony—a war hero who once boasted about throwing away his medals before later boasting about keeping them, and who, in congressional testimony given in 1971 after he returned from Vietnam, talked up the possibility of war crimes committed by his comrades and referred to the mass of service members who were returning home from Vietnam as a “monster.” Kerry’s attempts to play up his macho image also involved windsurfing on the Columbia River—an image that fit too perfectly his record of flip-flopping on the key issues of the day.

That is the cautionary lesson that Vance and Walz need to internalize. If they make their military record all-important in their case to voters, then they invite the kind of withering scrutiny that both are now receiving. They can only survive that if they are scrupulous in not exaggerating their military exploits—and if they have given in to such embellishments in the past, they must clean up the rhetorical mess quickly and thoroughly.

Walz has some obvious work to do, as his campaign handlers seem to realize. But he has been careful not to hinge his entire candidacy on his status as a veteran. If anything, the campaign seems more inclined to hype his record as a high school football coach. And crucially, there is no evidence of Walz denigrating the service of other veterans or his own time in uniform, as Kerry did while still in the grip of an emotional anti-Vietnam War fervor.

It could even be Vance who is ultimately more at risk. For starters, Vance is an uncertain messenger who may fit the Kerry role every bit as much as Walz does. Vance was for the Iraq War before he was against it, and his evolution confused some of his battle buddies. Vance was against Trump before he was for him. And perhaps most profoundly of all, Vance’s full-throated defense of the Jan. 6, 2021, attempt to thwart the peaceful transfer of presidential power calls into question his own enlistment oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

The more that Vance leans into his military-focused critique of Walz, the more that he exposes himself along similar lines. And, of course, Vance has the additional burden of backing up Trump, who is an even more-flawed messenger on all of these issues. The former president apparently avoided the Vietnam War draft with claims of “bone spurs,” and has reportedly been heard denigrating wounded warriors, prisoners of war, those who died in combat, and even Medal of Honor recipients.

It surely did not help Republicans that when they doubled down on criticizing Walz for exaggerating his military service with a letter signed by 50 Republican veterans in Congress, it turned out that several of the signatories were themselves guilty of making similarly exaggerated claims about their own records.

Though there is little evidence that the attacks on Walz are working for Republicans, there is some evidence that they are annoying other veterans. Perhaps all of this explains why even some of Trump’s ideological allies are encouraging the campaign to leave behind a critique that they consider “thin gruel.”

The same “less is more” principle applies to candidates trying to show that they can handle the ceremonial duties of being commander in chief, as illustrated by the Trump campaign’s awkward observance of the three-year anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Of course, criticism of how the Biden-Harris administration handled the ending of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is fair game. But the Trump team went much further, hyping a photo opportunity with Gold Star families at Arlington National Cemetery and running roughshod over regulations and the cemetery staff in the process.

If former President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is remembered as the optimal way that a political leader can pass the commander in chief threshold test—focusing attention on those who gave their lives so that the nation might live—then surely Trump’s visit to Arlington will be remembered as an example of what not to do.

Rather than weaponizing military service, a better approach would be to explore how each candidate’s time in uniform might have shaped their understanding of the United States’ role in the world, and how they would wield political power if they won the White House. One great question in this spirit would be to ask each of the vice presidential candidates to make their best pitch to other Americans to join the military as they did—and to press them about whether they would still make the pitch even if they did not win the election.

As the first presidential election with both post-all-volunteer force and post-9/11 veterans on the ticket, this campaign could set the tone for future campaigns to come. But so far, the record of the past several weeks is dispiriting. The net effect of this sort of negative campaigning is to further politicize the military, precisely at a time when the United States should be highlighting the nonpartisan ethos of military service as the bedrock of the all-volunteer force and doing all we can to help that force through its recruiting challenges to reach a sustainable footing.

It’s not too late for both parties to elevate the discussion of military service and sacrifice in a manner that will consolidate support for service members and preserve military respect for its civilian leadership.

But if they don’t, we might be left with the worst of both worlds—a weaponization of military service that blows back on the candidates, sullying the reputations of politicians with honorable service in the country’s armed forces, with the only lasting effect being a further coarsening of the bedrock civil-military relationship on which the republic depends.

Foreign Policy · by Peter D. Feaver

11. There’s too much ‘gray area’ in Army extremism policies, lawmakers say

Nothing is ever black and white. But we can do better.

There’s too much ‘gray area’ in Army extremism policies, lawmakers say

armytimes.com · by Nikki Wentling · September 23, 2024

Lawmakers criticized new Army rules about extremism in the ranks, arguing they’re ambiguous and leave too much room for commanders to interpret.

Members of the House Armed Service Committee questioned Army leaders about the rules during a hearing Thursday. The rules, introduced in June, say commanders must ensure troops are trained about off-limits extremist activities, take action when they spot extremism in their units and report any incidents to the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General.

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The rules codify the Pentagon’s definition of extremist activities, which was updated in 2021 to include online interactions that promote terrorism, as well as rallies, fundraising and organizing in support of extremist ideologies, among other prohibited behaviors.

Rep. Jill Tokuda, R-Hawaii, questioned Lt. Gen. Patrick Matlock, the Army deputy chief of staff, about who makes the final determination when a soldier is accused of engaging in a potential extremist activity. Matlock said that responsibility fell to commanders, who could consult with legal and law enforcement experts before coming to a decision on whether something should be labeled as extremism.

“I think the problem here is we have a diffused sense of accountability,” Tokuda said. “If every single command has its own arbitrary, subjective ability to make a determination on an extremist activity, therein lies your problem, and I think you have to answer the question of where does the buck stop.”

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Army imposes stricter rules for addressing extremism among troops

The rules require continued extremism training for troops and offer more precise guidance for how commanders should address extremism in their units.

Rep. Terri Sewill, D-Ala., likewise said there was too much “gray area” about what constituted active participation in extremism. The Army’s rules add another layer of accountability but don’t solve the problem, she said.

“There still seems to be enough of a gulf that you could drive a Mack truck through,” Sewill told Matlock and Agnes Gereben Schaefer, the assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs. “There’s still gray area, and that leads to ambiguity and subjectivity. It makes it harder for those of us who hear legitimate complaints from our service members about extremism to actually have those addressed.”

Sewill joined other Democratic lawmakers to advocate for legislation in 2021 that would’ve established an office of countering extremism within the Defense Department. That measure was dropped due to Republican opposition.

Rep. Jill Tokuda, D-Hawaii, told Army leaders last week that its new rules for rooting out extremism left too much up to interpretation. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., asked Army leaders Thursday about how troops were educated on the extremist policies. The Army’s new rules mandate the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command add information about prohibited extremist activities into initial active duty training, precommissioning training, commander training and professional military education, among other training programs,.

Commanders also have the responsibility of advising troops periodically about extremist activities and how they are “inconsistent with the Army goals, beliefs and values, as well as the oaths of office and enlistment,” the rules state.

Matlock said he had reviewed the training materials ahead of Thursday’s hearing, and he described them as “very well designed.”

“It’s delivered in a standard package across the Army,” Matlock said. “We take maintaining good order and discipline in our formations very seriously, and the extremism policy is a key part of how we do that and deliver combat-ready units.”

This story was produced in partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism. Please send tips to MVJ-Tips@militarytimes.com.

About Nikki Wentling

Nikki Wentling covers disinformation and extremism for Military Times. She's reported on veterans and military communities for eight years and has also covered technology, politics, health care and crime. Her work has earned multiple honors from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors and others.

12. The Ever-expanding War in the Middle East: the Questions Multiply By Robert Bruce Adolph

The Ever-expanding War in the Middle East: the Questions Multiply By Robert Bruce Adolph

https://medium.com/@adolwulfe/the-ever-expanding-war-in-the-middle-east-the-questions-multiply-by-robert-bruce-adolph-a8cc146704e9

Robert Bruce Adolph

·

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4 min read

The American and British militaries have been regularly ordered to attack Houthi positions within Yemen. The attacks make sense. The Houthis are repetitively attacking civilian ships in the Red Sea. The Bab al Mandab separates Yemen and Djibouti by a mere 16 miles, making it one of the narrowest shipping choke points on the planet. The Houthis feel justified in their attacks because of committed US support of the State of Israel in their on-going war with Hamas that has taken the lives of over 40,000 Palestinians. Far too many are innocent women and children. Houthi actions mirror those of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Both groups are thought to be Iranian proxies. No matter if true or not, the war in Gaza is ever-expanding. The dangers are clear and present.

Iran supplies the Houthis the military means for such attacks, currently and primarily missiles and drones. Hezbollah is also beholden to Iran for arms supplies. Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — all members of the Shia variant of Islam — clearly share common cause, hatred of the Jewish State that was thrust upon a major Muslim geographic area by Western powers, often described by scholars as the last gasp of European-style colonialism in the wake of World War II. Nothing in the greater region has been the same since.

Iran, of course, remains on a path to create an atomic bomb. The deal brokered by the Obama Administration and European Union to forestall such an event was unceremoniously cast aside by a spiteful and stupid Trump White House. If such an Ayatollah-controlled device nears becoming a reality, politicians in Jerusalem might feel the need to use their own nuclear bomb against a Tehran that has sworn to “wipe Israel off the map.” Everyone is rightly horrified by what a nuclear war in the Middle East might mean.

Fevered shuttle diplomacy conducted by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is demonstrative of the very real fear within the DC Beltway that a more expansive conflict is already here, one that could drag America into another disastrous war, where the loser is usually the US, not unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the crusty mold of Vietnam.

President Biden made a huge error by committing his government to near total support of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, composed of several right-wing religious fanatics. Some of these have stated that ethnic cleansing by another name is their preferred objective. Ethnic cleansing is commonly termed a crime against humanity. The issue is currently before the International Criminal Court in the Hague, brought by the government of South Africa. Israel is a signatory, and thereby would be expected to accept court judgements. However, it would be no surprise if Jerusalem withdraws from the accord if the court’s ultimate decisions do not go their way.

What will the fragile government of Lebanon do if Israel increases their attacks or even invades their territory? What is the Egyptian response if Gazans are unable to return to their now destroyed homes, driven to “voluntarily resettlement” as currently defined by Netanyahu and the extremists in his administration — the same extremists that keep him in power and out of jail for corruption.

Assaults by Jewish-zealot settlers in the West Bank on Palestinians have markedly increased since the start of the conflict. The settlers seem to have been given license to kill Palestinians by their government in Jerusalem. Citizens in Jordan have brethren living on the West Bank. What might they do if these killings — Gaza and West Bank — continue unabated? The pressing questions multiply like rabbits.

What will Israel do if they are unsuccessful in “eradicating” Hamas, their stated objective and definition of victory? Will Syria be dragged into the fray at the Golan Heights? What happens when one of the non-state variants of Al Qaeda conducts a terror attack on a US target asymmetrically, meaning anywhere in the world? What would the Biden Administration do? Very few governments around the globe support Netanyahu’s non-proportional response to the despicable October 7 Hamas surprise attack on Israel. As the number of what statistician’s call “independent variables” increases the potential for mistakes also proliferates. Nobody knows how this conflict will end or what it will cost. END

About the author —

Robert Bruce Adolph, a retired Army senior Special Forces officer, is a military strategist. He also served as the head of security for UNRWA-Palestine; as the UN Security Advisor for Yemen; as well as Chief of the Middle East and North Africa for the UN Department of Safety and Security. Today, he is a successful international speaker and commentator, as well as author of the much-lauded book “Surviving the United Nations.” Discover more at www.robertbruceadolph.com.

13. Biden’s final UN address: ‘There is so much more I want to get done’

Short 36 second video at this link: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/24/bidens-final-un-address-00180685

"Some things are more important than staying in power." Whatever your political views there is no more powerful statement than this in a democracy.

Biden’s final UN address: ‘There is so much more I want to get done’

Politico

Biden huddles with world leaders as foreign policy crises escalate.

President Joe Biden addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly. | Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

09/24/2024 11:52 AM EDT

NEW YORK – President Joe Biden addressed the United Nations for the final time Tuesday, defending his record and urging an expansion of alliances and democracy to steady a world buffeted by war — even as conflicts in the Middle East and Europe appeared poised to escalate in the concluding months of his term.

“Our task, our test, is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than those pulling us apart,” Biden said, “that the principles of partnership that we come here each year to uphold can withstand the challenges, that the center holds once again.”

Biden traced the progress made during his half-century in politics and made his case that his time in office, which followed four tumultuous years of President Donald Trump, made the world safer and steadier. At times he took a valedictory tone, pointing to his role in renewing and expanding international organizations, global efforts to stand up to autocrats and a push for a post-pandemic world to grow more prosperous.

But the moment also offered a stark reminder of the limits of presidential power and the challenges that Biden faced that remain unfinished. In many parts of the globe, conflict and chaos undercut Biden’s claim that he was leaving behind a more stable world.

An escalating exchange of missiles between Israel and Hezbollah over Lebanon’s border risked triggering a regional war. In Gaza, a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas remains out of grasp after nearly a year of fighting. And in Europe, the war between Russia and Ukraine has slogged into a third year with both sides suffering immense casualties.

Biden used the speech to take on each crisis in turn.

The president spoke as rockets continued to streak the sky over Lebanon, with that nation’s health ministry saying that more than 500 people had been killed since Israel began its bombardment of Hezbollah. That Iran-backed militant group had ratcheted up its own attacks, but Biden urged the two sides cease hostilities before the region is engulfed in conflict.

“Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest,” Biden said. “Diplomatic solution is still possible. It’s the only path.”

The president also urged that “now was the time” to finally achieve a cease-fire deal and took each side to task for delays. While he underscored Israel’s right to defend itself after the Oct. 7 terror attacks, he said that Palestinian lives “must be protected.”

Biden administration officials plan to continue talks for a Gaza cease-fire — but there are few expectations that an agreement could be reached soon. There is great skepticism that either Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is anxious to make a deal, and the Israeli leader’s latest demands have again raised suspicions within the White House that he wants to prolong the war to keep his own grip on power — and potentially help Trump, according to three administration officials not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. Biden also rebuked the Israeli settler violence in the West Bank and again called for a two-state solution, an outcome that Netanyahu has not embraced of late.

As for Ukraine, Biden was unambiguous and said that the world must continue to stand with Kyiv as it continues to fight off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

“The good news is that Putin’s war has failed in its core aim. But we can not let up,” Biden said. “The world has another choice to make: Will we sustain or support? Or walk away and let a nation be destroyed. We can not grow weary. We can not look away.”

That chaos has fueled Trump’s campaign claim that he could bring order to a violent planet. The prospect of his return to the White House hovered over the United Nations, alternately worrying and enticing other world leaders unsure of America’s future role in the world.

While Biden’s speech was not overtly political, it was delivered against an unavoidable electoral backdrop. If his vice president and hoped-for successor, Kamala Harris, wins in November, her foreign policy will likely not differ greatly from Biden’s internationalist vision. But a Trump victory may return the United States to a more isolationist, transactional pose. The former president has made clear his disdain for alliances and global organizations.

If returned to power, Trump has suggested he would embolden Netanyahu to finish the war while also cutting aid to Ukraine and potentially abandoning NATO. Biden and Harris, meanwhile, are slated to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington on Thursday. A frustrated Zelenskyy has urged Washington to allow his military to use U.S.-supplied weapons deep into Russia, which is part of the “victory plan” he is supposed to present to the leaders this week.

Biden also focused in his speech on an array of other issues, including the climate crisis and the environment; a push to steady relations with China; the need to improve the issuance of humanitarian assistance to war-ravaged areas like Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan; and the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence.

And he defended his choice to withdraw the American military from Afghanistan in 2021, though the tumultuous exit led to violence and a rollback of freedoms there, and has become a target of Republicans on Capitol Hill.

“It was a hard decision, but the right decision,” Biden said. “Four American presidents had to face that decision. But I was determined not to leave it to a fifth.”

The president will have a few more moments in the international spotlight — including an appearance at the G20 summit in November and a likely final meeting with China’s Xi Jinping — but his speech Tuesday at the United Nations acted as a capstone of the more than 50 years Biden has spent on the world stage — as a senator, including a stint as the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, as vice president and as president.

Addressing the world leaders, he reflected on the “difficult” decision to abandon his reelection bid, ruefully noting that “there is so much more I want to get done.” But he placed his exit in a global context, reminding his peers to make decisions without their own political interests in mind.

“Some things are more important than staying in power,” Biden said. “It’s your people.”

Harris is not slated to attend the meetings in New York this week, although she may meet with some world leaders in Washington. Still, the global landscape she may inherit will be affected by this and other Biden administration efforts in the closing three months of his term.

While in New York, Biden will also meet with the secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, and deliver separate addresses later Tuesday on both climate change and the global opioid crisis. He is also expected to have a series of meetings — some formal, some informal — with leaders along the sidelines of the summit, including one with Vietnam’s new president.

Politico

14. The Wargames That Prophesized America’s Defeat in Vietnam

Conclusion:

Wargames don’t always get the future right, but they can help highlight the risks of different futures and where there may be strategic or operational flaws. Neither the Sigma games nor today’s Taiwan games can answer the difficult question about whether the United States should defend South Vietnam or Taiwan, but both warn decision-makers about campaigns, arsenals, and publics not primed for a long and costly fight.

The Wargames That Prophesized America’s Defeat in Vietnam - War on the Rocks

Jacquelyn Schneider and Jacob Ganz

September 24, 2024

warontherocks.com · by Jacquelyn Schneider · September 24, 2024

It is the early 1960s and America stands at a crossroads in Southeast Asia. President Lyndon B. Johnson is in the midst of a re-election campaign while attempting to grapple with an escalating situation in Vietnam. The South Vietnamese government appears increasingly weak and unstable as the Viet Cong are increasing the tempo of their attacks. As the president weighs his options, many of his top advisers convene in classified rooms in the bowels of the Pentagon basement to play a series of wargames. These were the Sigma Wargames — a series of political-military simulations played from 1962 to 1967. Featuring prominent figures such as National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Earle Wheeler, and Gen. Curtis LeMay, the Sigma Wargames explored potential scenarios for America’s deepening involvement in Southeast Asia. Could the United States bomb the Viet Cong into submission? Could the United States contain the ground war and minimize its own troop losses? Could the United States keep a war in Southeast Asia from escalating?

The games’ answer to these questions was no. No, the United States could not win the war with strategic bombing alone. No, the United States could not fight and win a limited war. And no, the United States would not be able to control how the conflict escalated in Southeast Asia. Over and over again — despite changes in scenario, game rules, and players — the wargame series predicted that U.S. strategic bombing campaigns in Vietnam would lead to a costly quagmire with severe domestic and international political repercussions.

Despite the remarkably prescient and consistent findings, there is little evidence that the wargame series changed key American decisions about Vietnam. Why? And what can these games that didn’t define Washington’s choices in Vietnam teach us about a simmering crisis with China?

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A Warning Bell

The Sigma political-military wargames were played from 1962 to 1967, starting under the Kennedy administration and continuing through the Johnson administration. From the beginning, the games were different from the operationally focused military campaign games that usually dominated pentagon wargaming. Instead, these games were designed to explore the intersection of strategy and operations, emphasizing the role that politics, economics, and diplomacy would have on the success of U.S. military options. Game players included senior decisionmakers at the highest levels throughout the U.S. government. The games were rich and complex — each one requiring almost 1000 man-hours to design and execute. Their final reports made it the desks of senior cabinet officials, the results included as a part of decision-making conversations at the National Security Council and State Department. For those that study when and why games matter, the Sigma games seem to have all the characteristics of the type of games that could change the course of history.

To make it more compelling, the findings from the games — despite changes in situational context, players, and game design — were remarkably consistent. Even the first game, played under the Kennedy administration, foreshadowed a long and drawn-out conflict and how successful Viet Cong attrition strategies could be against a United States keen to win while fighting only a limited war. As the 1962 red team explained about their strategy, “our objective was to win even though it might take years, while the Blue’s goal appeared to be not to lose.” The lesson from the game, a full two years before the Gulf of Tonkin incident, was that “if US troops are introduced into such a situation they will be there for some time.”

Even though the games concluded that the crisis would settle into a protracted and bloody conflict, blue’s strategy remained consistent across the scenarios. In all of these games, blue attempted to use air campaigns to bomb North Vietnam (and to some extent Laos and Cambodia) into submission. The hope was that the bombing would not only destroy key targets, but also decrease Viet Cong morale and ultimately cause the regime to crumble. But these strategies were ineffective in the game. As the director of the wargame noted in 1964, “Probably [North Vietnam] could absorb any quantity of punishment [South Vietnam] can currently deliver by air and commando type raids — overt or covert — while continuing to mount pressures in [South Vietnam].” Even in 1966, after the United States had significantly escalated in Vietnam, there was still tremendous debate between blue and control about the air campaign and when or how bombing could bring the North Vietnamese to a truce negotiation.

Finally, the games emphasized the role that domestic and foreign public opinion would play in the conflict. As the Sigma I-64 game report concluded, “It appears necessary that strong backing by US public opinion and Congress be obtained for this concept … in addition to moral and legal questions surrounded undeclared war … there are obvious difficulties in determining the extent of Communist involvement.” In 1966, the control directorate argued that, “public opinion might play a more dominating role, from a US standpoint, than the US Team indicated.”

The games were remarkably influential for many of the players. CIA Director John McCone and Undersecretary of State George Ball both documented how the games decreased their confidence in strategic bombing campaigns and escalation in Vietnam. However, despite this influence, perhaps the most enduring puzzle of these games is how little impact they seemed to have made on the Johnson administration. So far, we have been unable to find evidence that the results of the games ever made it past Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s desk to Johnson. And even though evidence from the game was used in the highest level of deliberations between State Department and National Security Council, there seems to have been a more vocal group of players that questioned the games’ design and findings. LeMay, Bundy, and even McNamara railed against the games as useless and biased, without “sufficient weight to airpower” and (for McNamara) an example of a flawed over-emphasis on human emotions over rational damage calculations.

Sigma Games Yesterday, Taiwan Games Today

This may be a historical example, but the Sigma game series also holds a warning for the United States today as Washington faces choices about an increasingly bellicose China and turns to wargames to help understand the cost of defending Taiwan. Recent wargames run by think tanks like the Center for a New American Security and the Center for Strategic and International Studies on a Taiwan conflict bare similar warnings for U.S. decision-makers as those foreshadowed by the Sigma games. Like Vietnam, today’s games find that a war with China will be costly, bloody, and difficult to control, a conflict that promises to deplete already waning U.S. munitions stockpiles and test an uneasy stability between two nuclear-armed countries. And, like the Vietnam games, these China games feature prominent U.S. players: congressional members, former under-secretaries, and four-star generals.

But unlike the Sigma games, which were classified and closely held within a coterie of senior decisionmakers, today’s Taiwan wargames are occurring both within the Pentagon and in the public eye. While Johnson may have been shielded from the Sigma game results by those in his staff who didn’t like their results, it would be almost impossible for the White House to miss the contemporary China games that have been documented in the headlines of the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Meet the Press. There was even a publicized game played by members of Congress.

Games signal to both domestic constituents and adversaries that the United States is serious about a threat, that a state is evaluating what it would take to fight and win a war. They are often the first step in decisions about committing troops or using military force in a crisis. But while games may signal the seriousness of a decision, they cannot always change the mind of decision-makers or budge large bureaucracies (like the Department of Defense).

Further, they are likely to be ignored, suppressed, or discredited when they counter countervailing predilections or desires. Despite current warnings from wargames, the United States has not increased its inventory of munitions or committed troops to Taiwan (or backed away from its ambiguous commitments), nor has Taiwan itself significantly shifted the way it is planning to defend against a Chinese invasion. Entrenched bureaucratic incentives within the U.S. Department of Defense are yet to be moved by the results of these games, and these games have not inspired a public conversation about whether the United States is prepared to spill significant American blood in a conflict over Taiwan.

In 1964, Ball wrote to Secretary of State Dean Rusk about his concerns about escalation in North Vietnam, concluding, “Why are we contemplating an air action against the North in the face of a recently played war game that demonstrated the ineffectiveness of such a tactic?”

Wargames don’t always get the future right, but they can help highlight the risks of different futures and where there may be strategic or operational flaws. Neither the Sigma games nor today’s Taiwan games can answer the difficult question about whether the United States should defend South Vietnam or Taiwan, but both warn decision-makers about campaigns, arsenals, and publics not primed for a long and costly fight.

Become a Member

Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider is a Hargrove Fellow and director of the Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Jacob Ganz is the program manager for the Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Archival materials about the Sigma wargame series are now featured in the wargaming collection at the Hoover Library and Archives and will be explored in a discussion with Lt. Gen. (ret.) H.R. McMaster, Mark Moyar, and Mai Elliott on October 8, 2024.

Image: Yoichi Okamoto via Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Jacquelyn Schneider · September 24, 2024

15. What the Hezbollah Pager Attack Reminds Us About the Logic and Risks of Terrorist Innovation

Conclusion:

As we’ve written elsewhere, terrorists are sometimes adopters of high-tech innovations and sometimes the core drivers of that innovation. And this is decidedly not the time to pull our eye away from terrorist malign exploitation of emerging commercial technologies. But this should be couched in a broader understanding of how and why terrorists innovate. In some cases, a pivot to a creative low-tech solution will be in terrorists’ best interest. As the extremism landscape continues to evolve and shift, we should be ready for the breadth of novel attacks made capable by an innovative collection of adversaries.

What the Hezbollah Pager Attack Reminds Us About the Logic and Risks of Terrorist Innovation - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Austin Doctor, Sam Hunter · September 24, 2024

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Hezbollah may need to resort to homing pigeons. Last week, more 2,500 people in Lebanon and Syria were reported injured and at least ten killed by exploding pagers—yes, pagers. The incident, during which the devices exploded virtually simultaneously, seemed to target members and affiliates of Lebanese Hezbollah, a group designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization. Israel is likely behind the attack. One day later, thousands of two-way personal radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon also detonated.

In the wake of the attack, the Wall Street Journal published a report describing the analog system by which Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, issues commands to his followers. Handwritten, encoded notes delivered by a stable of fleet-footed couriers—a medieval solution to dire constraints.

There are at least two puzzles here. First, pagers, walkie-talkies, and penciled messages are not the cutting-edge tools we tend to expect to be wielded by high-capacity terrorist organizations. Second, Hezbollah’s innovative use of low-tech communications devices seemingly backfired in spectacular fashion. What do these dynamics mean for our understanding and treatment of terrorist innovation?

Our research offers insight into the logic and risks of terrorist innovation and the distinct ways in which terrorist organizations integrate technology into their operations. Rather than a glitch in the matrix, the cases identified above are consistent with the logic of terrorist innovation and offer an important reminder that innovation often doesn’t produce the outcomes it is intended to. Moreover, we argue that groups under tight constraints are compelled to accept the risks that may come with innovation.

Why Does This Matter?

Assumptions about the process of terrorist innovation directly shape where the counterterrorism mission community looks for warnings, collects intelligence, assesses threats, and develops deterrence and prevention measures.

Innovation doesn’t always work. Exhibit A: Hezbollah pagers. Estimates are that 80 to 90 percent of creative ideas fail; yet creativity is required where constraints are severe. Circumventing a skilled and diligent counterterrorism force requires novel approaches. And some groups are better positioned to employ innovative ideas and connect these to desired outcomes than others.

Of course, terrorists are not the only party innovating. For counterthreat efforts, innovations can also expose terrorists to a different set of vulnerabilities. The Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah pagers was a masterstroke. There is a back-and-forth between counterterrorism forces and terrorist forces, as both sides strain to stay on the forward edge of the innovation curve. The Israeli one-two punch not only puts a dent in Hezbollah’s command-and-control apparatus, but it also lands a major blow on morale, cohesion, and trust in leadership.

Terrorist Organizations and the Impetus for Innovation

Terrorist groups champion political aims and use violence to bring about those objectives through fear and intimidation, often targeting the most vulnerable in a society.

Historically, the odds of success—and even survival—are rarely in terrorists’ favor.

Terrorist organizations operate in environments often characterized by tight surveillance, time-tested security measures, and a lethal state apparatus. Coordinated arrests and high value targeting operations have been the demise of many an upstart militant cell. Terrorism scholar Brian Philips, for example, finds in a metastudy that “on average about 50 percent of terrorist organizations do not make it past their first year.”

For terrorist leaders and organizations, concealment and cover are at a premium. This is particularly true for those operating in urban environments.

But here’s the rub; while remaining clandestine, terrorist commanders must maintain basic mechanisms of command and control as well as the capacity for lethality. Innovation offers the means to walk the tightrope.

Innovation centers on solving a problem or challenge with the implementation of an idea that, by standard definitions of creativity, is both novel and useful. Yet there is an oft-forgotten third dimension of creative performance that has particular relevance here. Namely, creative ideas are also characterized by their elegance as well as novelty and utility. Elegance, colloquially speaking, refers to the generation of ideas that produce solutions with the fewest moving parts needed for the novel solution to function. Elegant ideas are robust, stand up to shifting sands, and can be counted on in proverbial bad weather.

The takeaway here is that creativity and innovation need not be flashy or modern. Indeed, simple solutions not yet dreamt of by an adversary are a ripe area for creativity. To equate innovation with high tech is to miss that the novel idea must work and do so consistently. Overwrought designs increase the likelihood of failure. See, for example, perspiration from a foot dampening the sophisticated but sensitive combination of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and triacetone triperoxide (TATP) in an innovative shoe bomb and preventing it from igniting. See, as a counter illustration, the AK-47, whose simplicity and novel design made it the most produced firearm in history. Elegance means more consistent success.

Terrorism, Technology, and Malevolent Innovation

Worldwide, violent extremists are innovating, they are adopting creative means of sustaining their organizations or creating harm and disruption. In many cases, this is made possible by new—or old—technology.

Emerging commercial, off-the-shelf technologies can open newfound pathways to circumventing security protocols, they provide grounds for tactical surprise, and they can expose new targets and vulnerabilities. As a result, much of today’s terrorist innovation hinges on an increasingly accessible suite of new technologies. These are integrated into various stages of the terrorist radicalization, mobilization, and attack cycles. Small drones deliver explosives. Artificial intelligence streamlines the generation of propaganda content. Extended reality can be leveraged for recruitment and training.

In other cases, seeking an edge over counterterrorism forces, some terrorists favor the simple over the sophisticated. Terrorists can anticipate certain benefits from the creative use of basic technology. We highlight three such benefits below.

First, low-tech methods are generally more accessible and affordable. This has certain desirable operational implications. For group members, the threshold of knowledge, skills, and abilities required to operate basic technology is lower, as is the related training burden for the organization. Firearms, basic explosives, and edged weapons remain the predominant tools of terrorist operations worldwide. Basic technology supporting battlefield tactics or intragroup communications can be more readily distributed and employed across the rank and file at speed and scale.

Second, in the case of communications, low-tech methods present security forces with unique surveillance challenges. This permits terrorist commanders to, at least temporarily, pass between the horns of the concealment-versus-control dilemma. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly ordered members in February to stop using cell phones in favor of other methods such as pagers and landlines. A source reportedly close to Hezbollah put it this way in July: “When you face certain technological advances, you need to go back to the old methods—the phones, the in-person communications . . . whatever method allows you to circumvent the technology.”

Finally, from an operational standpoint, low-tech methods can capitalize on cognitive blind spots to achieve tactical surprise. The October 2017 New York City truck-ramming attack changed how law enforcement agencies assess the potential threat presented by vehicles and identify related suspicious activity. Inspired by ISIS, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov drove a rented Home Depot pickup truck into cyclists and runners on a bike path alongside the Hudson in Manhattan. Eight people were killed, and eleven more injured. As illustrated in this attack and others like it, low-tech methods have the related benefit of requiring little preparation and using common items, reducing the footprint of warning indicators that may be tracked to proactively counter plots and attacks.

Looking Ahead

As we’ve written elsewhere, terrorists are sometimes adopters of high-tech innovations and sometimes the core drivers of that innovation. And this is decidedly not the time to pull our eye away from terrorist malign exploitation of emerging commercial technologies. But this should be couched in a broader understanding of how and why terrorists innovate. In some cases, a pivot to a creative low-tech solution will be in terrorists’ best interest. As the extremism landscape continues to evolve and shift, we should be ready for the breadth of novel attacks made capable by an innovative collection of adversaries.

Dr. Austin Doctor is a political scientist at the University of Nebraska Omaha and the head of counterterrorism research initiatives at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center, a Department of Homeland Security center of excellence. He has served as a nonresident fellow with the Modern War Institute at the United States Military Academy at West Point as well as the National Strategic Research Institute, a Department of Defense university affiliated research center. His research focuses on militant actors, terrorism and political violence, irregular warfare, and emerging threats. X: @austincdoctor.

Dr. Sam Hunter is the Regents-Foundation professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Nebraska Omaha and head of strategic initiatives at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Education, and Technology (NCITE) Center, a Department of Homeland Security center of excellence. His research focuses on leadership and innovation, spanning both malevolent and benevolent application. X: @dr_samhunter.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image: Hezbollah member participates in a training exercise in southern Lebanon on May 21, 2023. (Source: Tasnim News Agency)

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Austin Doctor, Sam Hunter · September 24, 2024

16. Australia’s northern neighbours cautious over US military build-up in Northern Australia

Beware the second and third order effects.

Australia’s northern neighbours cautious over US military build-up in Northern Australia

In short:

The US military presence in northern Australia is growing, including increased US defence spending and international participation in joint-force exercises.

Experts say Indonesia, one of Australia's closest Asian neighbours, is concerned the US's expanded presence could increase tensions in the region.

What's next?

Political and security analysts say many countries in the Asia-Pacific are focused on economic development over perceived military threats and want US-China tensions to be dialled down. 

ABC.net.au · September 23, 2024

As the US ramps up its military presence in the Northern Territory, experts say some of Australia's closest Asian neighbours are increasingly concerned about being drawn into the US-China regional rivalry.

This year the Northern Territory hosted the biggest ever Exercise Pitch Black, a biennial Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) joint-military exercise, featuring thousands of personnel and 140 aircraft from 20 nations, including the United Sates, Japan, India and Great Britain.

Across northern Australia, other recurring international military exercises have also expanded in recent years, including Exercise Talisman Sabre, Exercise Kakadu and Predator's Run.

They include a focus on rehearsing the deployment of lethal force, and interoperability — the sharing of military communications and assets between nations.

ADF troops storming a beach on the Tiwi Islands as part of Exercise Predator's Run in the Northern Territory. (Supplied: Australian Defence Force)

In 2005, Talisman Sabre involved just the US and Australia, while in 2025 it will host 19 countries in its largest ever iteration.

US infrastructure on Australian military bases is also being expanded to support western aspirations in the region.

Under the US Force Posture Initiatives, the US defence force is in various stages of spending between $490 and $970 million to expand RAAF bases in Darwin and Katherine, including command centres, barracks and hangars.

Multi-national fighter jets flying in formation over the NT's Top End. (Supplied: Australian Defence Force)

In 2022, the ABC revealed RAAF Base Tindal, outside of Katherine, would host rotations of six nuclear-capable US B-52 bombers, though US and Australian military figures have remained silent over when those deployments will begin.

Darwin already hosts an annual rotation of up to 2,500 US Marines and there are plans to increase that number further, and this month it was flagged that Japanese troops may join them.

Training during Exercise Super Garuda Shield in Indonesia. (Supplied: Australian Defence Force)

Maritime security analyst Bec Strating said the growing US investment in northern Australia was in recognition of the region's geographical proximity to the Asia-Pacific.

“The bases and the infrastructure in north Australia have been an important launching pad for Australia to be able to project power into the region, in defence of its security interests," she said.

Bec Strating says the US sees northern Australia as strategically important. (ABC News: Jak Rowland)

Australia's 2024 National Defence Strategy states that “strategic competition between US and China is a primary feature of Australia’s security environment and will likely have the greatest impact on the regional strategic balance".

During this year's Exercise Pitch Black, US Pacific Air Forces leader General Kevin Schneider said the US was tailoring its war-fighting capabilities to the unique geography of South-East Asia and the Indo-Pacific.

“As we look toward the South-China Sea and East China Sea, which are potential hotspots, we develop our tactics and our capabilities in the US Air Force [and] recognise that we're going to be operating from a number of land-based locations,” he said.

Kevin Schneider says US forces in the region are tailoring their tactics. (Supplied: Pacific Air Forces)

Neighbours more concerned with nation-building than China threat

According to a recent study from London-based think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the US has led around 90 per cent more combined-military exercises in the Asia-Pacific than China in the past two decades.

According to the IISS, the US conducted 1,113 combined-military exercises between 2003 and 2022, with China conducting 128 over the same period.

The IISS report names Australia, India and Indonesia as important military exercise partners in the Asia-Pacific.

It comes as Australia and Indonesia finalised a "significant" defence pact last month.

The Indonesian Air Force (IAF) has participated in Exercise Pitch Black for about a decade, but this year stepped into a leadership role, according to the IAF’s Colonel Anjar Legowo.

Anjar Legowo says Indonesia took on a leadership role for the first time at this year's Exercise Pitch Black. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)

But Jakarta-based international relations analyst Dinna Prapto Raharja said Indonesian cooperation in joint-military exercises should not be seen as the country taking sides in a geopolitical power struggle between China and the US.

“The way you see this kind of military engagements, military cooperation, shouldn't be seen as bipolar between US-China — it’s not the way Indonesians see it," she said.

She said Indonesia’s foreign policy of non-alignment and desire for economic development meant the country was also working closely with China and Russia.

“This is also part of the effort to make sure there is a stable situation and prosperity across the region to also support Indonesia's growth," she said.

The Japanese Navy participating in Exercise Kakadu in Darwin Harbour. (Supplied: Australian Defence Force)

Dr Raharja said there remained concern in Indonesian foreign policy circles that tensions between the US, China and Russia could have repercussions for Indonesia’s critical fishing and ocean trade routes.

“One of the things people speculate here is [that] the determination of the US to portray China in certain ways, or Russia in certain ways, will have implications to the stability in the South China Sea and also to [the] Strait of Malacca,” she said.

The unique military unit defending Australia's northern frontier

Photo shows a man in army uniform on the beach pulling an inflatable boat to shore

In an era of spy satellites and nuclear submarines, Australia's vast northern borders are still being defended by squadrons of soldiers using techniques that are thousands of years old.

“Australia has this agenda with the United States, which is to enhance more of an alert and more agile [posture] against China, and this is the kind of surprise Indonesia needs to anticipate.

"We don't want it to get hotter for the region.”

Professor Strating said Indonesia was one of many countries in the region more concerned with economic development than a perceived military threat from China.

“A lot of countries in our region, whether it’s the Pacific or South-East Asia, they are predominantly concerned about development, about economics, about nation-building — not necessarily about what a rising China means for their defence or military interests,” she said.

Posted 22h ago22 hours agoMon 23 Sep 2024 at 8:37pm

ABC.net.au · September 23, 2024

17. Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index says China is chipping away at America's military might but its overall influence is plateauing

Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index says China is chipping away at America's military might but its overall influence is plateauing

In short:

A new report has found United States military influence in Asia has been further diminished by China, but Beijing's overall influence in the region has stagnated.

The latest Lowy Institute Asia Power Index has found that the US remains the most powerful country in the region just ahead of China.

The report ranks 27 states and territories, analysing economic, defence and diplomatic networks.

ABC.net.au · by SBy Stephen Dziedzic · September 22, 2024

China is continuing to erode the United States's military superiority in Asia, but Beijing's overall power in the region has plateaued, new analysis finds.

The latest version of the Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index, which measures the relative strength of 27 states and territories, has found that the US remains the most powerful country in the region, just in front of Beijing.

The US leads China on six out of eight index measures, with Washington maintaining stronger defence networks, cultural influence and economic capability than Beijing, while China enjoys stronger diplomatic ties and trade relationships across Asia.

"The United States and China appear to be digging in for a long contest," the report says.

"China's power is neither surging nor collapsing, but plateauing. Flatlining economic capability, driven by slower economic growth and longer-term structural challenges, means that China's economic clout, while still commanding, is no longer growing."

Those long-term structural challenges include China's shrinking population.

The United States' successful efforts to bolster defence ties with allies like Japan, Australia and the Philippines has also buttressed its power in Asia.

Australia, the US, Japan and India have different challenges when it comes to power and influence in Asia. (ABC News: Yumi Asada)

The report says the US "continues to confound pessimists by demonstrating its staying power in the region, buoyed by its economic capabilities and alliance networks".

However, Beijing continues to close the gap on Washington when it comes to military capability, as it ploughs vast sums of money into expanding its armed forces.

The report says China is now in a better position than the US to rapidly deploy its military in Asia for a sustained period in the case of conflict — the first time Beijing has inched ahead on that measure.

The index's main author, Susannah Paton, told the ABC that despite the "enduring deficiencies" of the People's Liberation Army, China's investments in military power and its natural geographical advantages were eroding America's position.

"The US has global defence priorities but China has the value of proximity in Asia, and US efforts to address that growing imbalance with China haven't been successful," she said.

She said that the strong growth of the US economy and its comparably strong demographic outlook also bolstered America's broader strategic position in Asia, although China still retained a "huge" lead over the USA when it came to trade ties.

"The US economy has performed relatively better than China's and when you look at future resources and demographic trends, that looks more positive for the US than China," she said.

"But China is still the region's main trading partner, and the US hasn't dented that, which points to continued deficiencies with US economic engagement in the region, and the lack of a dividend from US efforts to encourage private sector in the region."

India on the rise

Meanwhile, India has narrowly eclipsed Japan to become Asia's third most powerful country, according to the index — although both remain way behind the US and China.

Susannah Paton said India's strong economic growth and energetic diplomacy in the region had bolstered its position, although there were still question marks over its trajectory.

"The glass-half-full view of India is that it's growing strongly and its diplomatic influence has increased," she said.

Australia and Japan are strengthening ties as both countries are wary of China's military exercises and operations in the Taiwan strait. (AP: Koji Harada/Kyodo News)

"But the more downbeat assessment is that they're still lagging in their economic relationships with the region. That's no surprise given India's reluctance to join regional trade arrangements and that it remains fairly inwards looking economically."

While Japan retains significant strengths, its economic position in the region has fallen away, with the index noting that its technological advantage has "eroded sharply in the face of competition from other advanced manufacturing hubs in South Korea, China, and Taiwan".

"This has redirected foreign investment away from the Japanese technology sector and, when coupled with demographic headwinds, has contributed to Japan's declining productivity," it says.

However, Japan has simultaneously bolstered its position by quickly growing its defence relationships, particularly with the US and Australia, with the Index saying that Tokyo was "stepping up as a regional security actor in its own right".

Australia is the fifth most powerful player in Asia according to the Index, eclipsing Russia which has suffered a sharp decline in influence as its war in Ukraine saps its focus and energy in Asia.

The Index says Australia's staying power "contradicts a more pessimistic view that over time, it will become a smaller and less relevant player as other much larger economies rise".

Meanwhile, Indonesia has enjoyed a sharp increase in its regional power, driven by its success in forging stronger economic relationships and defence ties with countries across the region.

Posted Sun 22 Sep 2024 at 12:28pmSunday 22 Sep 2024 at 12:28pmSun 22 Sep 2024 at 12:28pm

ABC.net.au · by SBy Stephen Dziedzic · September 22, 2024

18. Israel and Hezbollah Are Escalating Toward Catastrophe

Will efforts to deescalate contribute to actual escalation?

Excerpts:

While the United States enhances efforts to de-escalate, it should also continue to convey its commitment to Israel’s defense. Nasrallah must understand that escalation will not drive a wedge between Jerusalem and Washington. Hezbollah and its patron Iran will be more likely to consider de-escalation if it is understood that Israel is not isolated. Iranian senior leaders have spent the past 11 months pressuring Israel while seeking to stay below the threshold of a full-scale war. They should recognize that if Iran enters into this conflict, the United States is likely to as well, threatening, among other things, Tehran’s primary insurance policy against Israel—Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal and army.

Finally, the United States should continue to push Israel to articulate its plan for winding down military operations against Hamas and prioritizing Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Movement on this front will deny Hezbollah, Iran, and the rest of the axis of resistance the upper hand in a regional narrative that paints Hamas as a legitimate defender of Palestinian interests. Such progress is essential to Israel’s long-term security—something that its leaders, trapped by short-term decision-making, have seemed unable to grasp.

Israel and Hezbollah Are Escalating Toward Catastrophe

How to Avert a Larger War That Neither Side Should Want

By Dana Stroul

September 23, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Dana Stroul · September 23, 2024

Within 24 hours of Hamas’s October 7 terror attack, Hezbollah followed with an attack of its own, launching projectiles from Lebanon into northern Israel. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, explained that the campaign was intended to strain Israel’s resources and force the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), then preparing its response to Hamas in Gaza, to fight on two fronts. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar hoped that Hezbollah, along with other Iranian-backed groups across the Middle East, would encircle Israel in a “ring of fire,” overwhelm its defenses, and threaten its existence.

Yet Nasrallah instead chose a middle-ground approach of incremental escalation—a pragmatic effort to signal solidarity with Hamas without risking Hezbollah’s survival as the most sophisticated and lethal arm of Iran’s proxy network. Since then, Hezbollah has continued to design its attacks to stay below the threshold of a full-scale conflagration. The group has continuously pressured northern Israel, forcing an estimated 80,000 civilians to evacuate their homes (creating a political challenge for the Israeli governing coalition) and forcing the IDF to allocate limited air defense, air power, and personnel to the north. But the confined geographic scope of the attacks; their target selection of military sites rather than civilian areas; and the choice of weapons used, refraining from drawing on an arsenal of precision-guided missiles, are telling.

Until recently, Israel’s leaders opted for retaliatory strikes that didn’t reach the scope or scale to trigger a full-scale war in the north. With each Hezbollah attack, Israel responded with its own pattern of incremental escalation that saw the IDF strike deeper into Lebanon, employ more lethal tactics against higher-profile Hezbollah targets, and create a civilian-free buffer zone in southern Lebanon, from which tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians have been displaced. These daily exchanges always carried a high risk of a miscalculation or accident that would result in a mass casualty event, sending escalation spiraling upward. But for months after October 7, both sides seemed able to keep that risk in check.

Now, however, the violent choreography of incremental escalation and calculated strikes may no longer be sustainable. The shift started in late July, when a Hezbollah rocket attack killed 12 Druze children playing soccer in the Israeli town of Majdal Shams. Israel responded by targeting Hezbollah’s second-in-command, Fuad Shukr, in a residential building in Beirut. At first, the dynamic appeared to be little changed: Israel used precision weapons against Shukr to minimize collateral damage. And after Israel, in late August, preemptively struck Hezbollah missile launchers set to attack military sites in Israel, Hezbollah’s response signaled a limited willingness to escalate. Nasrallah made clear shortly after that he was ready to return to the incrementalism of the status quo ante.

Yet in recent weeks, IDF strikes and targeted assassinations have been occurring at a pace and on a scale that indicate a higher risk tolerance and a readiness to enter a new phase of the conflict with Hezbollah. Back-to-back operations on September 17 and 18, in which Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, set a new record for Hezbollah casualties, with at least 30 dead and thousands injured. Although the operation was designed to limit civilian casualties, since only senior Hezbollah operatives would have been utilizing devices capable of receiving the messages, the group’s integration into the fabric of Lebanese society meant that many of the explosions occurred in civilian areas. On September 20, Israel executed another targeted assassination strike on a group of elite Hezbollah forces meeting in a residential building in a Beirut suburb. This time, an estimated 30 civilians were killed.

The two sides appear locked in an upward military spiral, but both would lose more than they would gain from a full-scale war right now. The incentive structures in Israel and Lebanon should compel both sets of leaders to de-escalate and energize diplomatic arrangements to restore calm on the border. The experience of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and the reality that a war today would be exponentially more devastating—in loss of lives, collateral damage, and the risk of regional spillover—offer additional reasons for both sides to back down. This is also why U.S. negotiators, including the White House envoy Amos Hochstein, have received consistent high-level access in both Israel and Lebanon as they work to negotiate the parameters of a diplomatic arrangement to end hostilities.

The problem is that Nasrallah has linked Hezbollah’s campaign to the war in Gaza. For months, he has received little serious pushback to the notion that de-escalation cannot happen without a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This effectively holds Israel and Lebanon hostage to the decision-making of Sinwar, bound to the decisions of one man hiding in the tunnels beneath Gaza despite clear incentives to de-escalate.

HEZBOLLAH’S ERODING BASE

Hezbollah would lose far more than that it would gain from a full-scale war with Israel. Following the 34-day war in 2006, Nasrallah said he regretted Hezbollah’s cross-border kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, which prompted a severe Israeli military response and the deaths of at least 1,000 Lebanese civilians. Nasrallah appears to recognize that an Israeli air campaign or ground incursion in 2024 would be significantly more devastating for Lebanon, resulting in heavy civilian casualties and collateral damage and risking the already weakening support for Hezbollah across Lebanese society.

An Israeli campaign that intends not to deter Hezbollah but to dislodge it from its entrenched positions and destroy its arsenal would not be limited to military targets or to the country’s south. Hezbollah has long worked to shield its weapons by embedding them in urban and civilian areas throughout Lebanon, assuming that Israel would not risk the reputational harm and accusations of violating international law that would arise from an air campaign that targets civilian areas. But since October 7, Israel has been much more willing to tolerate such criticism, as its offensive in Gaza has made clear. Israel would likely strike Hezbollah’s long-range missile arsenal, much of which is situated in densely populated areas including Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, even if it meant a greater risk of civilian harm.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s support within Lebanon’s multiethnic and religiously diverse society is already weak. Hezbollah is widely viewed as responsible for storing the powerful explosives in Beirut’s port that led to a 2020 explosion, killing several hundred, and the subsequent intimidation of judges and investigators seeking to ensure accountability. A recent Arab Barometer survey indicated that 55 percent of Lebanese have “no trust at all” in Hezbollah. The only part of Lebanese society in which support for Hezbollah remains strong is within the Shiite population, the communities in southern Lebanon reliant on the organization for social and economic support. By failing to take steps to prevent a full-scale war with Israel, the costs of which would be carried by all Lebanese, Hezbollah would receive considerable blame.

What’s more, Hezbollah has incurred heavy operational and leadership losses over the past 11 months, which should prompt serious questions as to how long it can afford to be on the receiving end of Israeli action before the organization suffers generational degradation. These losses would increase exponentially in a full-scale conflict. In April, the IDF said that it had killed six Hezbollah brigade-level commanders and over 30 battalion-level commanders. As of September 20, Israel had assassinated Hezbollah’s operational commander, Ibrahim Aqil, and dozens of commanders in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force. A September 21 IDF statement claimed that “Hezbollah’s military chain of command has been almost complete dismantled.” IDF airstrikes also targeted Hezbollah military bases, command-and-control infrastructure, runways, and weapons caches across southern Lebanon. No military organization can sustain this level of losses without experiencing a significant impact on morale and operational effectiveness. Nasrallah’s refusal to delink his organization’s fate from a cease-fire in Gaza is pushing Hezbollah to the tipping point of operational collapse.

ISRAEL’S MISSING STRATEGY

For Israel, the incentives also argue against a large-scale war with Hezbollah. After nearly a year of fighting in Gaza, the IDF is tired, munitions stockpiles are depleted, public support for Israel’s leaders is weak, Israel’s economy is suffering, and its international and regional standing have significantly eroded. And IDF military planners are well aware that Hezbollah’s more advanced fighting capabilities and sophisticated weapons arsenal would make the Gaza campaign look like child’s play.

Hezbollah’s missile, rocket, and drone arsenal would strain Israel’s defensive capabilities, especially when targeting shifts from military to civilian areas. A Reichman University war game shortly before Hamas’s October 7 attack predicted that Hezbollah can launch 2,500 to 3,000 missile and rocket attacks into Israel per day for weeks. Some estimates calculate Hezbollah’s missile, rocket, and drone arsenal to be at least 150,000 strong—ten times the number of munitions it had during the 2006 war—and it now includes precision-guided munitions that could threaten strategic sites within Israel. Israel’s stock of Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile interceptors would be depleted within days. The Reichman war game also anticipated volleys of precision-guided and loitering munitions targeting Israel’s critical infrastructure and civilian centers; it was assumed that U.S. military assistance would not be sufficient or timely enough to back up strained Israeli air defenses, forcing the IDF to defend only priority areas.

Given the anticipated strain on Israel’s air defenses, Israeli military planners have long assessed that large-scale offensive and preemptive operations would be necessary against Hezbollah. A massive air campaign could take out rocket and precision-guided munitions sites, but even this effort would be complicated by Hezbollah’s network of underground tunnels, which, according to a report from the Alma Research Center, is even more developed than Hamas’s tunnel network in Gaza. Israel might be compelled to use heavier ordnance against these tunnels, increasing the level of destruction across Lebanon. And a ground campaign would ultimately be necessary to clear fighters, weapons caches, and launch sites village by village and tunnel by tunnel, a departure from the recent approach of using just air power and artillery.

The two sides are trapped in an escalatory cycle.

The Biden administration’s May 2024 decision to pause the delivery of certain munitions highlighted a critical vulnerability for Israel: its depleted weapons caches after months of war in Gaza. In July, the IDF acknowledged that it was suffering from a shortage of tanks, after many were damaged in Gaza, as well as ammunition and personnel. There are also reported shortages of spare parts, none of which can be replenished as quickly as an expanded war in Lebanon would require. Some Israeli tanks in Gaza are not fully loaded with shells because of strains on supply. Given the expectation that a war in Lebanon would not be limited in time, scope, or geography, no military would want to initiate a second front with such low levels of operational readiness.

The IDF should also be concerned about the impact on Israel’s manpower. In June, an Israeli organization that provides support to IDF reservists reported that 10,000 reservists had requested mental health support, thousands had been laid off from civilian jobs, and some 1,000 businesses operated by reservists had shut down. It also reported that a significant number of reservists had failed to report for duty after being called up for a second or third time because of burnout. Exhaustion is also prevalent among active-duty forces. In July, four IDF commanders met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sounds the alarm about the state of their forces. Low morale and growing fatigue across Israel’s fighting force should give Israeli decision-makers pause as they consider an expanded war.

Israel’s economy has also incurred significant losses, which would be compounded if the country was embroiled in a follow-on war in Lebanon. Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development indicate that Israel’s economy is experiencing the sharpest slowdown among wealthy countries today, with its gross domestic product contracting 4.1 percent since October 7. Rating agencies such as Fitch have lowered Israel’s credit score, assessing that military spending will increase the country’s deficit. Adding an expanded campaign in Lebanon to the ongoing one in Gaza would considerably exacerbate the strain on Israel’s economy.

THE TOLL OF ESCALATION

Despite the clear incentives for both Israel and Hezbollah to de-escalate, the two sides are trapped in an escalatory cycle. On September 22, Hezbollah responded to Israel’s recent attacks with a barrage of rockets, missiles, and drones targeting what it claimed to be military zones near Haifa—pushing the geographic boundaries of previous Hezbollah strikes and showing a willingness to target areas that are also home to civilians. To date, Israel has refrained from striking Hezbollah precision-guided munitions arsenals that are located in populated civilian areas, yet both sides are showing a willingness to expand targets that would have greater collateral damage and reach further into the other’s territory. Immediately after Hezbollah’s attack, Lebanese civilians received messages instructing them to evacuate areas where Hezbollah stores weapons, and the IDF launched its largest set of strikes since the 2006 war, with more than 300 Lebanese already reported killed. If this scope and scale of strikes continues, it will make clear that Israel has decided to enter a new phase of the war.

Nasrallah trapped Hezbollah when he insisted that its campaign would continue until there is a cease-fire in Gaza. But Sinwar’s maximalist approach to negotiations puts a cease-fire further out of reach, and there is every reason to believe that the IDF will not fully disengage from Gaza for some time, given both Israel’s refusal to agree to a new Palestinian civilian governance structure and the low odds that an international mission or Arab security force would provide security in the absence of a path toward Palestinian statehood. The conditions are set for an ongoing IDF presence in Gaza, which, by Nasrallah’s logic, will prevent Hezbollah from standing down.

Yet Israeli leaders are also trapped. Last week’s pager and walkie-talkie operations and the current phase of Israeli strikes have dealt a significant blow to Hezbollah, and the United States continues to maintain a strong military posture in the region. As a result, Israeli policymakers may be tempted to believe that they can deal a once-in-a-generation below to Hezbollah and rely on the United States for back up should Iran come to Hezbollah’s aid. Yet the Israeli government has not provided the IDF with specific, achievable military goals or articulated a realistic end state for Hezbollah—laying the groundwork for an extended offensive with ill-defined objectives prone to mission creep. (Recently, the government said that one of its war goals is returning displaced Israelis to their homes in northern Israel—a strategic end state, not a military objective that offers operational guidance.) And without international consensus on how to deal with Lebanon given Hezbollah’s stranglehold on the state, Israel risks locking the IDF into another scenario in which military tools are expected to resolve fundamentally political questions.

While the United States enhances efforts to de-escalate, it should also continue to convey its commitment to Israel’s defense.

There are still ways to prevent a full-scale war. The U.S. government has worked for months to negotiate a diplomatic framework in which Hezbollah’s forces move some four miles away from the Israeli border and United Nations and national Lebanese forces move into southern Lebanon. Yet this U.S.-endorsed de-escalation framework is tied to a cease-fire in Gaza, and no one can afford to wait for that outcome. A regional pressure campaign should bring in other parties to press Nasrallah to delink his negotiations from Hamas and Gaza. And the U.S. diplomatic strategy should also shift, moving de-escalation messaging into intelligence rather than traditional diplomatic channels and coordinating more closely with key European governments, such as Paris and Berlin, which retain meaningful leverage in Lebanon. This new engagement format should push for informal understandings rather than official commitments.

While the United States enhances efforts to de-escalate, it should also continue to convey its commitment to Israel’s defense. Nasrallah must understand that escalation will not drive a wedge between Jerusalem and Washington. Hezbollah and its patron Iran will be more likely to consider de-escalation if it is understood that Israel is not isolated. Iranian senior leaders have spent the past 11 months pressuring Israel while seeking to stay below the threshold of a full-scale war. They should recognize that if Iran enters into this conflict, the United States is likely to as well, threatening, among other things, Tehran’s primary insurance policy against Israel—Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal and army.

Finally, the United States should continue to push Israel to articulate its plan for winding down military operations against Hamas and prioritizing Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Movement on this front will deny Hezbollah, Iran, and the rest of the axis of resistance the upper hand in a regional narrative that paints Hamas as a legitimate defender of Palestinian interests. Such progress is essential to Israel’s long-term security—something that its leaders, trapped by short-term decision-making, have seemed unable to grasp.

• DANA STROUL is Director of Research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East from February 2021 to February 2024.

Foreign Affairs · by Dana Stroul · September 23, 2024

19. The Battle for the BRICS

Excerpts:

For the United States and other Western powers, the dynamics inside BRICS underline the necessity of taking the grouping—and the underlying dissatisfaction with the current order—seriously. It is entirely reasonable for rising powers such as Brazil to search for hedging options and to feel dissatisfied with how the United States has steered the existing system. Western powers should focus on not making things worse by, for example, trying to scare middle powers away from joining BRICS, which smacks of paternalism and quasi-colonial interference. In the same way, Western attempts to warn middle powers in the global South about being too dependent on China have proved ineffective.

Western countries can do more to not alienate those middle powers seeking greater space for maneuver and to ensure that BRICS does not become an anti-Western bloc. They should spell out more clearly how certain sanctions relate to violations of international law, and try to be consistent in applying those sanctions against all violators—not just against geopolitical adversaries. Countries in the global South want to escape the hegemony of the dollar when they see Western countries, for instance, freezing Russian central bank reserves in 2022 as a response to the invasion of Ukraine but receiving no punishment for similarly unlawful military interventions in the Middle East and Africa. Wealthy countries can also be better problem solvers for poorer countries, including by sharing technology and assisting with the green transition. And the West should make more genuine efforts to democratize the global order, such as by doing away with the anachronistic tradition that only Europeans head the IMF and only U.S. citizens lead the World Bank.

Such actions would build trust and undermine Chinese and Russian attempts to enlist the global South to an anti-Western cause. Rather than bemoaning the emergence of the BRICS, the West should court those member states that have a stake in making sure that the grouping does not become an overtly anti-Western outfit intent on undermining the global order.

The Battle for the BRICS

Why the Future of the Bloc Will Shape Global Order

By Alexander Gabuev and Oliver Stuenkel

September 24, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Alexander Gabuev and Oliver Stuenkel · September 24, 2024

In late October, the group of countries known as the BRICS will convene in the Russian city of Kazan for its annual summit. The meeting is set to be a moment of triumph for its host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will preside over this gathering of an increasingly hefty bloc even as he prosecutes his brutal war in Ukraine. The group’s acronym comes from its first five members—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—but it has now grown to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia also participates in the group’s activities, but it has not formally joined. Together, these ten countries represent 35.6 percent of global GDP in purchasing power parity terms (more than the G-7’s 30.3 percent) and 45 percent of the world’s population (the G-7 represents less than ten percent). In the coming years, BRICS is likely to expand further, with more than 40 countries expressing interest in joining, including emerging powers such as Indonesia.

Putin will be able to claim that despite the West’s best efforts to isolate Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, his country not only is far from being an international pariah but also is now a pivotal member of a dynamic group that will shape the future of the international order. That message is not mere rhetorical posturing, nor is it simply a testament to the Kremlin’s skillful diplomacy with non-Western countries or to those countries’ self-interested, pragmatic engagement with Russia.

As the United States and its allies are less able to unilaterally shape the global order, many countries are seeking to boost their own autonomy by courting alternative centers of power. Unable or unwilling to join the exclusive clubs of the United States and its junior partners, such as the G-7 or U.S.-led military blocs, and increasingly frustrated by the global financial institutions underpinned by the United States, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, these countries are keen to expand their options and establish ties with non-American initiatives and organizations. BRICS stands out among such initiatives as the most significant, relevant, and potentially influential.

Since the group’s founding, 15 years ago, numerous Western analysts have predicted its demise. Its members were very different from one another, often at odds on various matters, and scattered around the globe—hardly the recipe for meaningful partnership. But BRICS has endured. Even following the global geopolitical earthquake unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the deepening of tensions between China and the United States in recent years, interest in joining BRICS has only grown, with many developing countries seeing the grouping as a useful vehicle to navigate the years ahead.

But despite its allure, the club must grapple with an internal fissure. Some of its members, chief among them China and Russia, want to position the grouping against the West and the global order crafted by the United States. The addition of Iran, an inveterate adversary of the United States, only deepens the sense that the group is now lining up on one side of a larger geopolitical battle. Other members, notably Brazil and India, do not share this ambition. Instead, they want to use BRICS to democratize and encourage the reform of the existing order, helping guide the world from the fading unipolarity of the post–Cold War era to a more genuine multipolarity in which countries can steer between U.S.-led and Chinese-led blocs. This battle between anti-Western states and nonaligned ones will shape the future of BRICS—with important consequences for the global order itself.

THE KREMLIN’S BRICOLAGE

The BRICS summit in Kazan follows years of diplomatic efforts by the Kremlin to turn this alphabet soup of a group first cooked up by Goldman Sachs analysts into a proactive global organization. In 2006, Russia assembled the first meeting of BRIC foreign ministers in New York during the UN General Assembly. In June 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hosted the leaders of Brazil, China, and India for an inaugural summit in Yekaterinburg. And in 2010, the group added South Africa, completing the acronym as it is known today.

Fifteen years ago, the global financial crisis that originated in the United States stoked interest in the BRIC grouping. The failure of American regulators to prevent the crisis and the exposed inefficiency of the Bretton Woods institutions—not to mention China’s sustained spectacular growth as Western economies struggled—spurred calls to redistribute global economic power and responsibility from the West to the developing world. BRICS was the most representative club to express this sentiment. Back then, however, Moscow and its partners largely worked to improve the existing order, not torpedo it. BRICS announced the New Development Bank (NDB) in 2014 to complement existing international institutions and to set up a financial safety net that offered liquidity should any of its members face short-term difficulties. It was meant to supplement, not rival, the World Bank and the IMF.

Russia saw greater purpose and value in BRICS following the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the war in eastern Ukraine, and the coordinated Western sanctions against Russia that followed. Russia portrayed the BRICS summit it hosted in 2015 as a sign that it was not isolated, and that the group could serve as an alternative to the G-7—formerly the G-8, from which Russia had just been evicted. The Kremlin’s sense that BRICS can be a refuge from the domineering hegemony of the United States has only grown more pronounced since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Interest in joining BRICS has grown significantly in recent years.

Russia’s ties to its fellow BRICS members China and India have allowed the regime to weather the Western sanctions campaign. But U.S. sanctions on Russia still affect those countries that don’t intend to punish the Kremlin for the war in Ukraine. U.S. pressure forced many Chinese banks, for example, to end transactions with Russian counterparts this year, thereby disrupting payment schemes and increasing transaction costs for Russian importers. Moscow was troubled to discover that Washington’s toolkit affects not only payments in U.S. dollars but even those in Chinese yuan. Those punitive restrictions also apply to the NDB, which Russia had hoped would serve as a source of funding as Western sanctions shut off other avenues, but the BRICS bank has frozen all projects in Russia.

These complications notwithstanding, BRICS still plays a major role in Russia’s evolving grand strategy. Before February 2022, Moscow hoped for a multipolar order in which Russia could balance relations with the two most powerful countries, China and the United States. The war in Ukraine has smashed the remnants of pragmatism in the Kremlin’s foreign policy. Since Putin perceives the war as part of a broader confrontation with the West, he now seeks to undermine the United States’ positions wherever he can—including by undermining various aspects of current global institutions and by helping to strengthen China’s challenge to U.S. hegemony. This approach can be seen in multiple areas, including Russia’s sharing of advanced military technology with China, Iran, and North Korea; its work to destroy the UN sanctions regime against Pyongyang; and its tireless promotion of payment schemes that can bypass instruments under Western control. Putin summarized the agenda of Russia’s BRICS presidency in remarks in July as part of a “painful process” to overthrow the “classic colonialism” of the U.S.-led order, calling for an end to Washington’s “monopoly” on setting the rules of the road.

In this fight against the Western “monopoly,” Putin identified the most important campaign as the quest to weaken the dominion of the dollar over international financial transactions. This focus is a direct result of Russia’s experience with Western sanctions. Russia hopes that it can build a truly sanctions-proof payments system and financial infrastructure through BRICS, involving all member countries. The United States may be able to pressure Russia’s partners one by one, but that will be much harder or even impossible if these countries have joined an alternative system that features important U.S. partners, such as Brazil, India, and Saudi Arabia. The NDB’s decision to suspend projects in Russia served as a potent reminder that BRICS needs to evolve further to reduce its members’ vulnerabilities to Western sanctions.

CHINA AT THE HELM

Russia may be the angry vocal spearhead of the bid to use BRICS to create an alternative to the U.S.-led global order, but China is the real driving force behind the grouping’s expansion. During the global financial crisis of 2008–10, Beijing shared Moscow’s desire to make BRICS more relevant. China wanted to position itself as part of a dynamic group of developing countries that sought to gradually rebalance global institutions to more fairly reflect shifts in economic and technological power. Under Chinese President Hu Jintao, however, Beijing was unwilling to claim leadership of the grouping, still guided by Deng Xiaoping’s formula of “keeping a low profile.”

Things started to change soon after Xi Jinping became China’s paramount leader, in 2012. In 2013, Beijing concocted an ambitious project that became the Belt and Road Initiative, a vast global infrastructure investment program. Around the same time, China helped launch regional financial institutions in which it would have strong influence: first came the NDB, in 2014, then the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, set up in 2016. The People's Bank of China also pushed the internationalization of the yuan by expanding the use of the Chinese currency in settling trade, extending national currency swaps with other central banks to boost the global liquidity of the yuan, and lobbying for the inclusion of the yuan in the IMF’s special drawing rights basket, making it the only nonconvertible global reserve currency. Through the NDB, through initiatives to use local currencies in bilateral trade, and through efforts to create a pool of national reserve currencies, BRICS plays a significant role in building the multilateral institutions that increase Chinese clout inside the current global order.

China is the real driving force behind the expansion of BRICS.

As U.S.-Chinese relations have plummeted in the last decade, Beijing’s foreign policy has grown more radical. Chinese leaders are convinced that the United States won’t willingly allow China to become the dominant power in Asia, much less deign to share global leadership with Beijing. China believes that the United States is instrumentalizing the alliances and institutions that underpin the current global order to constrain China’s rise. In response, Beijing has embarked on projects such as Xi’s overlapping Global Security Initiative, Global Development Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative, all of which challenge the West’s right to unilaterally define universal rules and seek to undermine the notion of universal values in areas such as human rights. These initiatives point to China’s desire to build a different order rather than simply reform the current one.

China and Russia now have similar ambitions for the BRICS, making Putin and Xi a powerful tandem. Both want to dethrone the United States as the global hegemon, and to that end, Beijing and Moscow seek to make alternative financial and tech platforms immune to U.S. pressure. Deepening multilateralization through BRICS seems like the best path forward. Like Putin, Xi casts this effort in moral terms. As he said at a BRICS summit in 2023, “We do not barter away principles, succumb to external pressure, or act as vassals of others. International rules must be written and upheld jointly by all countries based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, rather than dictated by those with the strongest muscles or the loudest voice.”

Beyond rhetoric, China has led the effort—with Russian backing—to add members to the BRICS. Beijing advocated a maximalist approach, trying to rope in as many countries as possible. It wants to be the leader of a strong and sizable bloc. Lengthy negotiations behind closed doors narrowed the list of new members down to six, which became five after Argentina reneged its commitment to join in the wake of the triumph of the libertarian Javier Milei in presidential elections last fall.

The summit in Kazan will be the first meeting of the expanded BRICS. But Beijing’s aggressive push to enlarge the grouping and expand its role on the international stage comes with a cost. The grouping has become less cohesive and more fragile; not all countries within it share Xi’s and Putin’s anti-Western agenda.

THE SEARCH FOR MIDDLE GROUND

The fissure is apparent among the bloc’s founding members. China and Russia may be on the same page, but Brazil and India remain largely committed to pursuing the reform of global governance without trying to assail the international system as it is currently constructed. Decision-makers in Brasília and New Delhi are keen to take a nonaligned stance and find a middle ground between the West, on the one hand, and Russia and China, on the other. Both Brazil and India have largely sat on the fence when it comes to the war in Ukraine, reluctant to support the West's attempts to isolate Russia but equally unwilling to explicitly side with Moscow, recognizing that the invasion amounts to a flagrant violation of international law. Both countries have benefited in economic terms from the trade diversion caused by Western sanctions against Russia. Brazil purchases discounted Russian fertilizer and last year was one of the biggest buyers of Russian diesel. India, too, buys discounted Russian energy commodities. But neither country desires to cut ties with the West or consign itself to an anti-Western bloc.

Brazil and India are therefore wary of the BRICS’ hardening orientation. Both were initially opposed to China’s push to expand the group, which Beijing first proposed in 2017 under the rubric of “BRICS Plus.” Brazil and India were keen to retain the club's exclusivity, worried that adding more members to the bloc would dilute their own influence within it. In 2023, China stepped up its diplomatic campaign and pressured Brazil and India to support expansion, mostly by casting their resistance as tantamount to preventing the rise of other developing countries. Keen to preserve its own standing in the global South, India dropped its opposition, leaving Brazil no choice but to go along with expansion. Brazil did lobby against adding any overtly anti-Western countries—an endeavor that failed spectacularly when Iran was announced as one of the new members that year.

The way China imposed its preferences at the 2023 summit took Brazilian diplomats by surprise, confirming fears that their country’s role would be diminished in an expanded group helmed by a much more assertive China. These developments have raised concerns in Brazil that being part of BRICS may complicate its strategy of nonalignment. For now, a broad consensus that membership generates significant benefits still holds. Brazil appreciates the chance to deepen ties with other BRICS member states and the added leverage it brings to negotiations with Washington and Brussels. BRICS membership has also helped countries such as Brazil and South Africa, whose bureaucracy had limited knowledge about the non-Western world, adjust to a multipolar order. And it comes with significant face time with Xi and other Chinese decision-makers—a perk that is far from trivial, considering how important Chinese investment and trade have become for countries across the global South.

Brazil and India are keen to take a nonaligned stance between the West and China.

Despite the growing divergence between the explicitly anti-Western camp in the BRICS and the nonaligned camp, all members still agree on a number of fundamental issues that explain why the grouping has become vital to its members. In the view of most countries in the grouping, the world is moving from U.S.-led unipolarity to multipolarity, with geopolitics now defined by the competition among several centers of power. The BRICS grouping, despite its internal tensions, remains a key platform for actively shaping this process. Indeed, seen from capitals across the global South, multipolarity is the safest way to constrain hegemonic power, which, unrestrained, represents a threat to international rules and norms and to global stability. Western policymakers often overlook this baseline agreement among BRICS countries and the part it has played in keeping all members committed to the grouping since its inception.

This shared perspective also explains why much of the developing world looks forward to greater multipolarity in the global order and does not pine for Washington’s or the West’s undisputed preeminence. For many countries, joining BRICS is a seriously attractive proposition. For their part, China and Russia welcome the large number of countries that have expressed interest in joining, including Algeria, Colombia, and Malaysia.

Yet any country that joins BRICS will have to grapple with a key question: Which side are they on? Will they band together with Brazil, India, and other nonaligners, or with the anti-Western faction led by China and Russia? Iran, itself a pariah on the international stage, will strengthen the anti-Western camp. But most other countries will likely view accession to BRICS as a way to strengthen their ties to China and other countries in the global South without downgrading their ties to the West.

Saudi Arabia is a prime example. While Riyadh remains a key ally of Washington, it has sought to deepen ties to Beijing, and has initiated an unprecedented diplomatic outreach in regions where Saudi Arabia traditionally played no role, such as in Latin America and the Caribbean, accompanied by investments in countries such as Chile and Guyana. Latin American governments embrace these initiatives with the same rationale: in an increasingly unstable world heading fitfully toward multipolarity, they would do well to diversify their economic and diplomatic strategies.

CRACKS IN THE WALL

In the West, some critics of BRICS dismiss the outfit as a motley crew that deserves no serious attention. Others believe it is a direct threat to the global order. Both views lack nuance: the emergence of BRICS as a political grouping reflects genuine grievances over the inequities of the U.S.-led order and cannot simply be waved away. But owing to changes in Chinese and Russian grand strategy, the divergences within the group are also growing, and the recent expansion is likely to weaken its cohesiveness.

For now, China and Russia have the upper hand in the internal debate about shaping the future of BRICS. But that may not always be the case. It is true that power in the club is not distributed equally—China's economy is larger than those of all the other founding members combined—but that does not mean that other members cannot resist the transformation of the grouping into a Beijing-led bloc copiloted by Moscow. Brazil and India have for years worked behind the scenes to tone down Russia’s more assertive language in summit declarations, and China, too, will find that it cannot ignore their moderating influence. For example, Brazil’s president explicitly rejects the framing of the BRICS as a counterpoint to the G-7 and often states that the group is “against no one.” Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic adviser to the government of India, recently urged New Delhi to leave the grouping, as its expansion was tantamount, in his view, to a takeover by Beijing and its agenda. But Brazil or India still have significant leverage within the BRICS: their departure would severely weaken the entire outfit in a way that is not in China’s or Russia’s interest.

The grouping will have to manage these tensions and contradictions in the years ahead. The fissures within BRICS are likely to grow but are unlikely to lead to its breakup. To be sure, the group could face very real strains. The technology competition between China and the United States may lead to the erection of a digital iron curtain and the emergence of two separate and incompatible technological spheres, which would make fence-sitting more challenging. Finding a common denominator in the grouping will become more difficult, particularly on sensitive geopolitical issues such as the war in Ukraine. Those differences might make the bloc less influential on the international stage, even as its efforts to advance alternative currencies to the U.S. dollar gather strength.

For the United States and other Western powers, the dynamics inside BRICS underline the necessity of taking the grouping—and the underlying dissatisfaction with the current order—seriously. It is entirely reasonable for rising powers such as Brazil to search for hedging options and to feel dissatisfied with how the United States has steered the existing system. Western powers should focus on not making things worse by, for example, trying to scare middle powers away from joining BRICS, which smacks of paternalism and quasi-colonial interference. In the same way, Western attempts to warn middle powers in the global South about being too dependent on China have proved ineffective.

Western countries can do more to not alienate those middle powers seeking greater space for maneuver and to ensure that BRICS does not become an anti-Western bloc. They should spell out more clearly how certain sanctions relate to violations of international law, and try to be consistent in applying those sanctions against all violators—not just against geopolitical adversaries. Countries in the global South want to escape the hegemony of the dollar when they see Western countries, for instance, freezing Russian central bank reserves in 2022 as a response to the invasion of Ukraine but receiving no punishment for similarly unlawful military interventions in the Middle East and Africa. Wealthy countries can also be better problem solvers for poorer countries, including by sharing technology and assisting with the green transition. And the West should make more genuine efforts to democratize the global order, such as by doing away with the anachronistic tradition that only Europeans head the IMF and only U.S. citizens lead the World Bank.

Such actions would build trust and undermine Chinese and Russian attempts to enlist the global South to an anti-Western cause. Rather than bemoaning the emergence of the BRICS, the West should court those member states that have a stake in making sure that the grouping does not become an overtly anti-Western outfit intent on undermining the global order.

• ALEXANDER GABUEV is Director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.
• OLIVER STUENKEL is Associate Professor at the School of International Relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas in São Paulo and a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Foreign Affairs · by Alexander Gabuev and Oliver Stuenkel · September 24, 2024

20. Want peace in the Pacific? Bring Taiwan into the UN system

Fantasy? Pipe dream?

Want peace in the Pacific? Bring Taiwan into the UN system

The United Nations can start by rejecting Beijing’s false claims about Resolution 2758.

By Lin Chia-lung

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China

September 24, 2024 12:28 PM E

defenseone.com · by Lin Chia-lung

Wong Yu Liang

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Ideas

The United Nations can start by rejecting Beijing’s false claims about Resolution 2758.

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September 24, 2024 12:28 PM ET

• Commentary
• Asia-Pacific
• China
• United Nations

By Lin Chia-lung

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China

September 24, 2024 12:28 PM ET

• Commentary
• Asia-Pacific
• China
• United Nations

Large parts of the world—and billions of people—have enjoyed great prosperity thanks to the peace and stability that prevail across the 97-mile strait separating China from Taiwan. Our island is an indispensable partner in global supply chains, producing more than 90 percent of the world’s high-end semiconductors, including many of the advanced chips that are driving the AI revolution. And half of the world’s seaborne trade passes through the Taiwan Strait, making it a key international waterway.

All this is threatened by Beijing’s attempts to change the status quo across the strait and to expand authoritarianism throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

In recent years, global leaders have used bilateral and multilateral occasions—including G7, EU, NATO, and ASEAN meetings—to highlight the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the strait. Now is the time for the largest international organization of all, the United Nations, to rethink unjustified policies that exclude Taiwan.

The UN should begin by resisting PRC pressure to distort UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, the 1971 decision “to recognize the representatives of [the PRC] Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and to expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it.”

China has since willfully misrepresented Resolution 2758, citing it in assertions that Taiwan is part of the PRC and has no legitimate right to meaningfully participate in the UN and its specialized agencies. This misrepresentation has far-reaching consequences beyond denying Taiwanese citizens and journalists access to UN premises and preventing them from visiting, attending meetings, and engaging in newsgathering. Beijing’s weaponization of Resolution 2758 is one of the key elements in a campaign to establish the legal basis for justifying a future armed invasion of Taiwan.

But in fact, Resolution 2758 addresses only China’s representation in the UN. It does not mention Taiwan. It neither states that Taiwan is part of the PRC nor ascribes to the PRC any right to represent Taiwan in the UN system. In other words, the resolution has nothing to do with Taiwan.

This case is illustrative of the PRC’s growing assertiveness in imposing its will on the international stage. If left unchallenged and uncorrected, Beijing will alter the status quo across the Taiwan Strait, jeopardize peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, and threaten the rules-based international order.

Thankfully, in recent months, several senior U.S. officials have criticized the PRC’s distortion of Resolution 2758 to justify its spurious claim over Taiwan. Furthermore, on July 30, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international organization comprising over 250 lawmakers from 38 countries and the EU, demonstrated their support for Taiwan by passing a model resolution on Resolution 2758. The UN should follow suit.

The PRC’s expansionism will not stop at Taiwan. Other efforts to chip away at long-settled international claims include, for example, the recent regulations introduced by the China Coast Guard. By introducing rules that justify the boarding and detaining of vessels and allow individuals to enter disputed maritime areas, Beijing aims to assert control over international waters and challenge global norms and claims.

History has shown that democratic resolve must be demonstrated ahead of time—before it is too late. As the world’s foremost forum for international cooperation, the UN system is ideally positioned to address regional security challenges and support global economic stability. The ongoing 79th UNGA and its upcoming Summit of the Future present a timely opportunity to address key security concerns while advancing the broader goals of global sustainable development and building a more resilient global community for current and future generations.

Over many decades, Taiwan has proven to be a responsible and reliable partner to those it has worked with. More recently, we have also made significant contributions to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Embracing Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the UN system would be the UN’s best option for heading off regional crises, maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and spurring global prosperity.

21. How a US armor brigade is applying lessons from Ukraine

Learn, adapt, anticipate.

How a US armor brigade is applying lessons from Ukraine

The 1st Armored BCT rigged an old satellite dish to emit like a command post—and ensnared the opposing force.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

Even as the U.S. Army works to modernize its light infantry brigades, one armored brigade is also pushing to adapt—with the tech they already have on hand, service officers said this month.

“We’ve been transforming both in how we approach training and then how we're innovating in the realm of [unmanned aerial systems], counter [drone], and electromagnetic [warfare],” Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, 3rd Infantry Division commander, said at a media roundtable Friday. “Much of what we're doing right now is just using what we have better.”

In July, the division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team got to test out these new tactics, some drawn from observations of Ukraine, at a rotation through the Army’s National Training Center. The center, located at Fort Irwin, California, pits incoming brigades against the highly trained Blackhorse unit in hyper-realistic simulations of actual combat.

Before going to the training center, electronic warfare soldiers first spent time monitoring the 1st Brigade’s command posts and then briefed commanders on what their electronic signature looked like, said Col. Jim Armstrong, the brigade’s commander.

“Every time the battalion [tactical operations center] or the brigade [tactical operations center] went out for training, our [electronic warfare] platoon went out there and mapped them in the spectrum,” he said, speaking at the Fort Moore Maneuver Conference earlier in September.

The electronic warfare platoon was also given commercially available direction-finding equipment to locate enemy positions, and they trained with the unit’s reconnaissance squadron, Armstrong added.

The desert environment of NTC gave the unit no room to hide—if the soldiers who play the enemy saw a cellphone signal, there’d be little doubt it belonged to someone in the 3rd Infantry Division.

So Armstrong brought in fake devices that he hoped would deceive any watchful observers. “Instead of hiding in the clutter, we knew we would have to bring our own clutter to hide in,” he said.

As part of this effort, the unit used the knowledge they’d gained from monitoring the brigade’s command post to set up a decoy command post, complete with tents and their actual satellite trailer. The unit was able to stock the site with its own gear because the soldiers were running their real command post over new Starlink satellite terminals that offer better speeds.

The soldiers then keyed the fake command post’s communications network to emit transmissions as though it was a real command post. The unit also placed cell phones and WiFi pucks in the fake post.

The trick worked: the soldiers who play the enemy jammed the fake command post and also hit the fake site with simulated indirect fire, exposing their own position, Armstrong said.

Still, the experience revealed challenges with the concept, including how to make a fake command post appear to have realistic signs of life. Having soldiers move back and forth across the site would be more realistic, but would open those soldiers up to enemy attack.

“How do you create a footprint out of that without having a soldier there?” Armstrong said.

The unit also struggled to maintain deception planning as the exercise went on, he said.

The unit brought 90 drones to the exercise, Norrie said during the media roundtable. While 70 of these drones were small Black Hornets, used by infantry squads, the remaining 20 drones were larger quadcopters or tethered drones, which can fly longer because of their connection to electricity.

The brigade found the drones useful for artillery target correction and reconnaissance, Armstrong said, as well as helping to monitor the amount of smoke needed to obscure large armored vehicles as they prepared to assault enemy positions.

The unit organized some of its drones into a drone team, said Armstrong, who compared the practice to how the 101st Airborne’s 2nd brigade manages its drones.

“We're in close coordination with folks like the [2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division]," said Armstrong, speaking at the media roundtable. The 101st’s 2nd Brigade is one of three light infantry brigades that are testing new equipment and developing new tactics as part of an Army modernization effort called “transforming in contact.”

Rather than try to constantly deconflict airspace for drones and helicopters, the unit also established that drones could fly any time, as long as they were under 150 feet, Armstrong said during his presentation at the Maneuver Conference.

One-way attack drones should be thought of as munitions for airspace-deconfliction purposes, Armstrong said. “If you’re going to fire a 203 grenade round, you don't call the brigade aviation element” for airspace deconfliction…It’s a mortar round with a camera that can fly.”

In addition to drone operations, the brigade also practiced counter-drone procedures ahead of their training, said Command Sgt. Maj. Ryan Roush. The drills teach a simple lesson, Armstrong said: “If you’re sitting in the open, you're dying,”

Amid all the adaptation, soldiers also grappled with how the elements could quickly negate their tech. As daytime temperatures hit 110 degrees, the brigade’s vehicles got so hot that their artillery coordination software slowed to a crawl for hours.

“The only variant of the [Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle] that has any climate control is the medical variant,” Armstrong said.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

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De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

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Editor, Small Wars Journal

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