Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

–Arthur Schopenhauer

“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”

– Buddha

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

– Albert Einstein

1. China-Linked Hackers Breach U.S. Internet Providers in New ‘Salt Typhoon’ Cyberattack

2. China Says It Test-Fired Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

3. U.S. and Allies Call for Three-Week Pause to Head Off Israel-Hezbollah Ground War

4. U.S. ‘Unimpressed’ With Ukraine’s Victory Plan Ahead of Biden-Zelensky Meeting

5. Tuberville ends hold on promotion of Austin aide after private meeting

6. Overcoming the Fear of Escalation

7. China pressures Myanmar ethnic groups to cut ties from forces perceived as close to US

8. US stopped Israel from launching Hezbollah war in October based on false alarm – report

9. The War That Would Not End

10. Jemaah Islamiyah Disbands Itself: How, Why, and What Comes Next?

11. Drones are changing warfare. The U.S. military is working to adapt

12. Japan Warship Asserts Right To Sail Through Taiwan Strait: Media

13. Russian Disinformation Is Spreading. Europe Could Learn From the US.

14. Advancing to the Litani and Restoring Deterrence by Mick Ryan

15. Meet the Afghan general who wants to take on the Taliban

16. ‘Every lever of statecraft’ needed to overcome Pacific threats, commander says

17. United States Announces $5.55 Billion New Military Assistance for Ukraine

18. A Serious Pentagon Must Hold a ‘Plucking Board’

19. Bipartisan duo of lawmakers to introduce 'Ships for America Act' following election

20. Increased efforts, lower goal help Army end recruiting slump

21. Call for Submissions: Policy Recommendations for the New Administration (from the Irregular Warfare Institute)

22. Big Tech’s Coup

23. Populism's Broken Economic Promises

24. Is a Responsible Strategic Threat Assessment Too Much to Ask For?

1. China-Linked Hackers Breach U.S. Internet Providers in New ‘Salt Typhoon’ Cyberattack

What more evidence do we need to realize that CHina is conducting Unrestricted Warfare?

China-Linked Hackers Breach U.S. Internet Providers in New ‘Salt Typhoon’ Cyberattack

It is latest intrusion into core U.S. infrastructure by entities tied to Beijing

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/china-cyberattack-internet-providers-260bd835?mod=hp_lead_pos10&utm

By Sarah Krouse

Follow, Robert McMillan

Follow and Dustin Volz

Updated Sept. 25, 2024 5:35 pm ET

FBI Director Christopher Wray says China poses a massive cyber threat. Photo: Abbie Parr/Associated Press

Hackers linked to the Chinese government have broken into a handful of U.S. internet-service providers in recent months in pursuit of sensitive information, according to people familiar with the matter.

The hacking campaign, called Salt Typhoon by investigators, hasn’t previously been publicly disclosed and is the latest in a series of incursions that U.S. investigators have linked to China in recent years. The intrusion is a sign of the stealthy success Beijing’s massive digital army of cyberspies has had breaking into valuable computer networks in the U.S. and around the globe.

In Salt Typhoon, the actors linked to China burrowed into America’s broadband networks. In this type of intrusion, bad actors aim to establish a foothold within the infrastructure of cable and broadband providers that would allow them to access data stored by telecommunications companies or launch a damaging cyberattack.

Investigators are exploring whether the intruders gained access to Cisco Systems routers, core network components that route much of the traffic on the internet, according to people familiar with the matter.

A Cisco spokeswoman said the company is investigating the matter. “At this time, there is no indication that Cisco routers are involved” in the Salt Typhoon activity, the spokeswoman said.

Microsoft is investigating the intrusion and what sensitive information may have been accessed, people familiar with the matter said. A spokesman for the company declined to comment.

China has made a practice of gaining access to internet-service providers around the world. But if hackers gained access to service providers’ core routers, it would leave them in a powerful position to steal information, redirect internet traffic, install malicious software or pivot to new attacks, said Steven Adair, the founder of Volexity, a cybersecurity firm that has investigated China-backed intrusions.

Former U.S. intelligence officials said the alleged attack appeared audacious in scope, even by the standards of past major breaches achieved by Chinese hacking squads.

“This would be an alarming—but not really surprising—expansion of their malicious use of cyber to gain the upper hand over the United States,” said Glenn Gerstell, former general counsel at the National Security Agency.

Gerstell, who spent decades working as a lawyer on telecommunications and technology matters, noted that China for years had relied on cyber theft to steal industrial and military secrets before quietly positioning itself inside American critical infrastructure. “Now it seems they are penetrating the very heart of America’s digital life, by burrowing into major internet-service providers,” he said.

Last week, U.S. officials said they had disrupted a network of more than 200,000 routers, cameras and other internet-connected consumer devices that served as an entry point into U.S. networks for a China-based hacking group called Flax Typhoon. And in January, federal officials disrupted Volt Typhoon, yet another China-linked campaign that has sought to quietly infiltrate a swath of U.S. critical infrastructure.

“The cyber threat posed by the Chinese government is massive,” said Christopher Wray, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s director, speaking earlier this year at a security conference in Germany. “China’s hacking program is larger than that of every other major nation, combined.”

U.S. vs. China: An Underwater Fight for Fiber-Optic Power

U.S.-China Tensions

Tracking the complicated relationship of the world's two largest economies

Appeared in the September 26, 2024, print edition as 'Beijing Blamed For U.S. Hacking Barrage'.

2. China Says It Test-Fired Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

So when I am going to read about pundits challenging the China Hawks and asking are we willing to trade Hawaii for Taiwan? That is the same argument that Korea critics (to include Elbridge Colby) are making when they ask are we willing to trade Seattle for Seoul? In both cases they are arguing that we should not be putting US citists and territory at risk by defending another country against a nuclear/ICBM armed enemy. What do these pundits have in common when they ask such questions? They are supporting XI and Kim Jong Un's political warfare strategies.

With our fear of escalation and this Chinese test can we expect Kim Jong Un to conduct an ICBM test in the near future?

China Says It Test-Fired Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

Launch of long-range missile carrying dummy warhead lands in Pacific Ocean as regional tensions run high

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/china-says-it-test-fired-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-273612fc?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

By Clarence Leong

Follow and Austin Ramzy

Updated Sept. 26, 2024 12:45 am ET

Military vehicles carrying ICBMs during a military parade in Beijing in 2019. Photo: Roman Pilipey/Shutterstock

SINGAPORE—China said it test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday, a rare public acknowledgment that is likely to increase tensions with its neighbors.

The ICBM, which was carrying a dummy warhead, fell into “expected sea areas” in the Pacific Ocean, China’s Defense Ministry said, without specifying the exact location. The ministry said the launch, which was carried out by the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, was part of routine annual training and wasn’t directed against any country or target.

Navigational warnings indicated the missile was launched from Hainan Island in southern China and landed in the South Pacific, analysts said.

China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said Beijing had notified “relevant countries” ahead of the launch, though it didn’t specify which countries.

China Daily, a Chinese state-media newspaper, reported that this was the country’s first such test in more than four decades.

A White House national security spokesperson said: “We will continue to press for substantive bilateral engagement on issues related [to] the PRC’s nuclear weapons expansion and measures to address the risks driven by the PRC’s buildup,” referring to the People’s Republic of China.

Australia said it has sought an explanation from China and is “concerned by any action that is destabilizing and raises the risk of miscalculation in the region.”

“The launch comes in the context of China’s rapid military buildup, which is taking place without the transparency and reassurance that the region looks for from great powers,” according to a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson.

New Zealand called the launch “an unwelcome and concerning development,” according to a Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

Japan’s military said last week a Chinese aircraft carrier and two other Chinese vessels had sailed between Japanese islands near Taiwan. Photo: Japan’s Ministry of Defense/AFP/Getty Images

Drew Thompson, a senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, wrote on X that the timing of China’s launch appeared to be motivated at least in part by geopolitical frictions with Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.

“Timing is everything,” wrote Thompson, a former Pentagon official. “This launch is a powerful signal intended to intimidate everyone.”

China is developing its nuclear arsenal, including expanding its stockpile of warheads, the Pentagon has said.

One likely motivation in that buildup is to limit the U.S.’s ability to intervene in any conflict over Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy that China claims as its own. China’s leaders have seen U.S. wariness over direct involvement in Ukraine as a validation of the need for a powerful nuclear force, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Taiwan held military drills last month. Photo: Chiang Ying-ying/Associated Press

Wednesday’s test could help provide data for those modernization efforts, and shows that China is “abandoning some of its previous restraint” when it comes to expanding its nuclear capabilities, said Henrik Stålhane Hiim, a professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies.

China’s modernization program has come under scrutiny as its rocket forces have been at the center of one of the country’s most significant cases of military corruption in recent years.

Last year, China purged its defense minister, Li Shangfu, who was formerly the director of a satellite-launch base and director of the military’s armaments department.

Beijing later removed nine senior officers from their roles in the country’s legislature, including five who held positions in the PLA Rocket Force, which controls the military’s nuclear and conventional missiles. Li and Wei Fenghe, a former defense minister who was previously a commander of the PLA Rocket Force, were expelled from the Communist Party and their cases referred to prosecutors.

The high-profile launch “aims to re-establish the credibility of the rocket force,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace with a focus on nuclear policy. “Beijing believes that any perceived weakness in its strategic military power could encourage more assertive policies from the U.S. and its Western allies against China.”

Noting that the U.S. regularly conducts long-range tests of its ICBMs, Zhao said that “Beijing may feel that the time has come for China to do the same, unapologetically engaging in military activities that mirror those of the U.S.” The U.S. conducted two such tests in June.

Li Shangfu was removed from his post as China’s defense minister last year. Photo: Andy Wong/Associated Press

China is estimated to have about 500 nuclear warheads, while the U.S. has 5,044 and Russia 5,580, the Federation of American Scientists said in March. The Pentagon has estimated that China will have a stockpile of 1,500 warheads by 2035.

Beijing has long feared encirclement by the U.S. and its allies, and China’s ICBM test launch comes amid concerns about U.S. missile systems being set up around its periphery. Several years ago, it failed to stop South Korea from installing a U.S. missile-defense system despite a pressure campaign aimed at Seoul. Over the past few weeks, it has railed against a U.S. medium-range missile system that has been set up in the northern Philippines.

Separately on Wednesday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it detected 23 Chinese military aircraft around the island, all but one of which had crossed into the island’s air-defense identification zone. The region has been on edge this week as a Russian military reconnaissance plane entered Japan’s airspace on Monday, prompting Japanese jet fighters to fire warning flares in response. On the same day, Russia and China each sent four warships through a strait dividing the Russian island of Sakhalin from the Japanese island of Hokkaido, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry.

Write to Clarence Leong at clarence.leong@wsj.com and Austin Ramzy at austin.ramzy@wsj.com

3. U.S. and Allies Call for Three-Week Pause to Head Off Israel-Hezbollah Ground War

The US national security "prime directive?" No escalation. We will do everything we can to prevent escalation, second and third order (and long term) effects be damned.

U.S. and Allies Call for Three-Week Pause to Head Off Israel-Hezbollah Ground War

Window of opportunity to prevent a wider war is closing, U.S. officials acknowledge

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/biden-administration-floats-temporary-cease-fire-to-head-off-israel-hezbollah-ground-war-6dac4767?mod=hp_lead_pos1&utm

By Lara Seligman

Follow, Nancy A. Youssef

Follow and Summer Said

Updated Sept. 25, 2024 11:39 pm ET

A rescuer in a suburb of Beirut checks a building Tuesday that was hit in an airstrike. Photo: Hassan Ammar/Associated Press

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is urgently pressing for Israel and Hezbollah to pause their escalating aerial attacks into and from Lebanon for 21 days, hoping to head off a full-scale ground war that appears increasingly likely, according to U.S. officials.

Despite a growing buildup along Israel’s northern border, U.S. officials think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government doesn’t want a wider war and is looking for a diplomatic resolution and that Hezbollah wants breathing room after Israel decimated its leadership and degraded its weapons arsenal in recent weeks.

The U.S. and France in a joint statement called for a 21-day pause in the fighting on Israel’s northern border. Senior Biden administration officials told reporters Wednesday night that now was the right time to call for a cease-fire, hinting strongly that Hezbollah and Israel would eventually agree to the proposed deal, though they have yet to confirm their acceptance.

“The situation between Lebanon and Israel since Oct. 8, 2023, is intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation,” a statement by the U.S. and France, joined by allied nations, said. “This is in nobody’s interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken first discussed the possibility of this proposal with his French counterpart on Monday, a U.S. official said. He spent the next two days on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly shuttling between European and Arab partners on the text, the official continued, including getting agreements from the leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The United Nations Security Council met on the escalation in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, during the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Wednesday. Photo: david dee delgado/Reuters

Blinken and Amos Hochstein, the White House envoy tasked with brokering a peace between Hezbollah and Israel, discussed the idea with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati throughout the week.

“We were able to generate significant support from Europe as well as the Arab nations…it’s important the war does not widen,” President Biden told reporters Wednesday night.

Two senior administration officials insisted that a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah could provide necessary diplomatic space for Israel and Hamas to agree to their own pause, a deal that has eluded the Biden administration for months.

Arab officials said the U.S. plan envisions a halt in attacks by Hezbollah and Israel, followed by a U.S.-led diplomatic effort to reach a more permanent settlement, which would address land disputes along the Israel-Lebanon border and reconstruction of areas of southern Lebanon damaged in airstrikes.

At the same time, negotiators would resume talks on a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in hopes that a halt in fighting there would ease the pressure on Hezbollah to keep up its rocket attacks on northern Israel, the Arab officials said.

Hundreds of Israeli Strikes Kill More Than 550 People in Lebanon

U.S. ‘Unimpressed’ With Ukraine’s Victory Plan Ahead of Biden-Zelensky Meeting

Kyiv’s proposal focuses on weapons and loosening restrictions on long-range missiles, Western officials say

https://www.wsj.com/world/u-s-unimpressed-with-ukraines-victory-plan-ahead-of-biden-zelensky-meeting-23e87bff?mod=hp_lead_pos4&utm

By Alexander Ward

Follow and Lara Seligman

Updated Sept. 25, 2024 5:52 pm ET

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Wednesday. Photo: Valery Sharifulin/Zuma Press

NEW YORK—The Biden administration is concerned that the Ukrainian leader’s plan for winning the war against Russia lacks a comprehensive strategy and is little more than a repackaged request for more weapons and the lifting of restrictions on long-range missiles, U.S. officials said.

For months, President Volodymyr Zelensky billed the plan as a framework to defeat Russia, and he is set to brief President Biden on the specifics Thursday during a high-profile White House meeting, the first time the Biden administration will get to hear the framework in its entirety.

But senior U.S. and European officials knowledgeable of the broad outlines of the plan say it offers no clear path to a Ukraine victory, particularly as Russian forces make slow but steady gains on the battlefield.

“I’m unimpressed, there’s not much new there,” one of the senior officials said.

A Rare Look Inside Snake Island as Ukraine Battles to Control Black Sea

The War in Ukraine

News and insights, selected by the editors

Appeared in the September 26, 2024, print edition as 'U.S. Is Skeptical of Ukraine’s Victory Plans'.

5. Tuberville ends hold on promotion of Austin aide after private meeting

Good news. But that must have been quite a meeting with the Senator.

Tuberville ends hold on promotion of Austin aide after private meeting

Lt. Gen. Ronald P. Clark was among the senior Pentagon staff who earlier this year did not inform the White House or Congress that the defense secretary was hospitalized.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/25/tuberville-austin-aide-promotion/

5 min

169

Lt. Gen. Ronald P. Clark briefs the media at the Pentagon in 2022. (Lisa Ferdinando/Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs)

By Dan Lamothe

September 25, 2024 at 1:37 p.m. EDT

Sen. Tommy Tuberville quietly ended his blockade on the promotion of a senior military aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after the Alabama Republican, under pressure from colleagues on Capitol Hill, met privately with the aide on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter.

Lt. Gen. Ronald P. Clark was approved for promotion to four-star general and to serve as the commander of all U.S. Army forces in the Pacific after a “detailed discussion” with the senator, Mallory Jaspers, a spokeswoman for Tuberville, said Wednesday.

Tuberville had placed the hold on Clark’s promotion while questioning whether the general had a role in the Pentagon’s secrecy when Austin was hospitalized in intensive care early this year with complications from prostate cancer surgery.

“While there were certainly failures elsewhere, the Senator is confident that LTG Clark more than fulfilled his duties during the Secretary’s hospitalization,” Jaspers said in a statement. “Senator Tuberville is thankful for LTG Clark’s many decades of service to our nation and wishes he and his family the best in his new assignment.

The standoff, first reported by The Washington Post this month, ended despite previous assertions from Tuberville’s office that the senator first wanted to assess the results of a Defense Department inspector general review into how Austin and his staff managed the secretary’s health crisis. That review has not been released yet, and a spokesperson for the inspector general’s office, Mollie Halpern, said she could not share information about it while the work is ongoing.

The situation with Clark, 58, bears similarities to an extended freeze that Tuberville placed on hundreds of military promotions last year, in a dispute over the Pentagon’s rarely used policy of providing travel reimbursement to personnel who seek an abortion outside of the state where they are stationed. That stalemate exasperated Pentagon officials and gummed up the military’s personnel system for months. Tuberville eventually backed down after his Republican colleagues decried the tactic.

In this latest instance, at least one Republican colleague of Tuberville’s urged him to handle the situation differently and drop the hold, said a Senate aide familiar with the issue, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations between lawmakers.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) enters an elevator at the U.S. Capitol in November. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

Clark’s promotion was among a batch of more than 6,000 that the Senate approved in a bloc vote Tuesday evening. Senate records show that President Joe Biden sent Clark’s nomination to the Senate on July 11 and that it was confirmed by a Senate voice.

Clark’s next assignment will place him at the forefront of the U.S. government’s efforts to contain China and defend Taiwan, a national security challenge that most Democrats and Republicans agree is among the most pressing as Washington and Beijing compete for influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Others confirmed for significant new assignments include the incoming commanders of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations throughout Latin America, and U.S. Forces Korea.

A U.S. defense official, asked about Tuberville’s change in approach, touted Clark’s extensive leadership experience and “strategic expertise,” and expressed gratitude to the Senate for having “confirmed many of these highly qualified officers for critical positions to our national security.”

Clark was serving as Austin’s senior military assistant when the defense secretary underwent surgery on Dec. 22 to treat prostate cancer and a week later was admitted to intensive care with severe complications. Austin, who turned 71 in August, spent about two weeks in the hospital and was diagnosed with infections in his urinary tract and bladder.

The incident prompted an outcry when it emerged that Clark and other senior members of Austin’s staff did not know about his cancer diagnosis and surgery until he was in intensive care on Jan. 2, and then withheld that information from Biden and senior White House officials for two more days.

The Pentagon disclosed Austin’s hospitalization to Congress and the American public Jan. 5, angering lawmakers from both political parties. Defense officials stressed that at no point was command and control of the U.S. military in doubt, but they have struggled to explain why they waited days to make the proper notifications.

Austin’s chief of staff at the time, Kelly Magsamen, was sick with the flu, according to the Pentagon’s account of the incident, but other senior defense officials, including Clark and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., did not inform the White House or Congress after learning what had happened. Magsamen resigned in June for what the Pentagon said were unrelated reasons.

In February, Austin apologized for his lapse in judgment, saying the cancer diagnosis was a “gut punch” that he did not handle well.

“I want to be crystal clear: We did not handle this right. I did not handle this right,” he said at a Pentagon news conference. “I should have told the president about my cancer diagnosis. I should have also told my team and the American public, and I take full responsibility.”

6. Overcoming the Fear of Escalation

Wow. I did not expect to read this proposal based on the headline though the subtitle should have telegraphed it for me.

Excerpt:

Wars are won on the ground. Western deployments could be made behind the lines at strategic points in Ukraine to block any Russian advance, as some have suggested. Odessa should have been garrisoned long ago as part of the larger effort to protect grain shipments vital to world food supplies. The message would be that NATO is intervening to bring peace, preserve Ukrainian independence, and force negotiations from a position of strength. Putin still has not fully conquered the lands he illegally annexed, and Kyiv currently holds Russian territory it could trade for a Russian withdrawal on advantageous terms. This fragile moment should be seized to fulfill U.S. and NATO strategic objectives. Without such an intervention, the war will continue as Putin believes he can wear down Ukrainian defenses and undermine Western resolve to bring victory by 2026. The United States cannot afford to play the “forever war” game favored by our adversaries.

If Biden wants to leave a real legacy to his country and the world after his four years in office (and do his successor an immense favor), he will continue to move forward and upward to end the wars in Europe and the Levant by outmaneuvering the aggressors and restoring credible deterrence in these theaters or any others.

Overcoming the Fear of Escalation

The Biden administration’s fear of escalation with both Russia and Iran has overlooked the manifest weaknesses of both adversaries.

The National Interest · by William R. Hawkins · September 25, 2024

Samuel Byers, in a recent article in this publication, is perfectly correct to ask and answer:

The relevant question is whether the effort we exert in the Red Sea, the resources we expend, and the opportunity costs that those represent are proportional to the value of the results they have achieved. To this, the answer is decidedly no.

However, it is a dynamic situation with the potential to evolve so that we do not have to wait for the next president to consider a “disproportional response” to end the interconnected conflicts across the Levant.

The U.S.-led response to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea has been defensive, focusing on intercepting Houthi missiles and drones while only striking sites in Yemen supporting the anti-shipping campaign. The Houthi attacks are meant to exact a cost from those who support Israel’s counterattack into Gaza following Hamas’ horrendous terror attacks on October 7. The Houthis and Hamas are backed by the Iranian regime, as is Hezbollah, which has continued to fire rockets and drones into Israel during the Gaza and Red Sea battles.

It must be remembered how far the U.S. has come in its reaction to the escalation of violence in the region. When President Joe Biden entered the White House, he immediately cut off all aid to the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen and pushed for a cease-fire. Yemen was called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis (the same argument as in Gaza today). The Obama administration had supported Riyadh’s war effort with logistics, weapons, and intelligence, as did President Donald Trump. Biden’s action reflected the majority view of Congress, comprised of Democrats, including then-Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) and a handful of isolationist Republicans led by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). Trump then vetoed their bill. Now, American forces are in direct combat with the Houthis.

The Biden administration has feared escalation into a regional war, preferring to keep the conflict limited to Iran’s proxies. When Iran escalated with its first direct attack on Israel on April 13, it was successfully met by a united American, European, and Arab response backing up Israel’s air defense. But then Washington pressured Israel not to retaliate in kind.

Four months later, the U.S. deployment of naval forces in the region looked markedly different. The Navy continues to intercept Houthi attacks, but its most recent deployment of two carrier strikes was not in the Red Sea. The USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carriers sailed to the Sea of Oman near Iran instead. In addition to the two carrier groups, three additional guided-missile destroyers are also present to provide offensive and defensive firepower. This is not a deployment merely to sustain a “forever war” but to end it.

Also notable is the deployment of the nuclear missile submarine USS Georgia to the region. This is an Ohio-class vessel, carrying 150 Tomahawk cruise missiles. This is not a warship meant merely to defend shipping from Iranian or proxy attacks; rather, it is intended for retaliation and deterrence. The very public disclosure of this deployment is meant to threaten Tehran with escalation “beyond their ability to reply in kind,” to use Byers’ phrase.

This seems to have worked so far. Tehran has not launched the promised revenge barrage for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Instead, this mission was passed to Hezbollah, but Israel’s airstrikes preempted its massive strike, so only a small fraction of weapons was launched and easily countered. Tehran then offered to reopen talks on its nuclear program, a possible shift to diplomacy resulting from the threat of escalation rather than U.S. “restraint,” as advocated by left-wing and isolationist critics. Adversaries will only talk of peace if they believe things will get markedly worse for them if they do not.

It is time to apply this same approach to the war in Ukraine. Despite previous commitments to Kyiv, Biden initially refused to do anything beyond imposing sanctions on Russia should Vladimir Putin turn his military exercise into an invasion. The declaration that there would be no serious military response eliminated deterrence. Ukraine’s valor in resisting Putin’s early blitz to wipe the country off the map rallied Western support and generated a flow of aid. Yet, the United States has been behind the curve in providing advanced weapons and has continued to restrict Kyiv’s right to use long-range weapons against targets in Russia for fear of “escalation” into the general war Putin has threatened since the invasion.

After the recent G-7 meeting demonstrated allied unity on Ukraine, Putin declared, “Calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the extreme adventurism of Western politicians.” Yet, the West accepting a strategic defeat in Ukraine will produce a destabilizing effect across the world, inviting aggression elsewhere. The Russian nuclear threat is clearly a bid for escalation dominance based on fear, jumping to the highest rung on the ladder because its leaders know it is at a disadvantage on the lower rungs. European leaders see Putin’s bluff for what it is better than many Americans. The use of tactical nuclear weapons would make Putin’s regime a global pariah state. The claim that Russia has “lost the West but gained the rest” would collapse. Even Beijing has warned Moscow against any nuclear use. And Putin has been assured that there would be retaliation, devastating even if conducted only with conventional weapons (nuclear retaliation held in reserve). The balance of power favors the massive U.S.-NATO alliance, which can escalate beyond Russia’s ability to respond and avoid defeat.

President Biden and British prime minister Keir Starmer were correct to dismiss Putin’s threat that allowing Ukrainian use of Western missiles to strike targets in Russia (the way Russia is striking across Ukraine) would mean NATO “was at war with Russia.” Beyond harsh language, Russia has done little to respond to the escalating flow of weapons to Ukraine and the slow but vital lessening of restrictions on their use. Russia is not trying to provoke escalation but deter it with threats of irrational actions that it knows would doom its own future. The time is thus ripe for direct Western intervention, if not formally by NATO, then by a “coalition of the willing” to use Putin’s fear of escalation to impose an end to the war.

At the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting on August 28, the allies pledged to “send Ukraine additional strategic air defense systems, including more Patriot batteries, and Allies agreed that together they would provide a minimum of 40 billion euros of security assistance in the next year.” Ukrainian president Zelenskyy wants NATO members to provide the same kind of direct defense Israel received. And he should get it. Had the early debate on declaring a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine been resolved positively, the war might have ended quickly. This would be an escalation in defensive efforts that would signal possible further escalation.

Wars are won on the ground. Western deployments could be made behind the lines at strategic points in Ukraine to block any Russian advance, as some have suggested. Odessa should have been garrisoned long ago as part of the larger effort to protect grain shipments vital to world food supplies. The message would be that NATO is intervening to bring peace, preserve Ukrainian independence, and force negotiations from a position of strength. Putin still has not fully conquered the lands he illegally annexed, and Kyiv currently holds Russian territory it could trade for a Russian withdrawal on advantageous terms. This fragile moment should be seized to fulfill U.S. and NATO strategic objectives. Without such an intervention, the war will continue as Putin believes he can wear down Ukrainian defenses and undermine Western resolve to bring victory by 2026. The United States cannot afford to play the “forever war” game favored by our adversaries.

If Biden wants to leave a real legacy to his country and the world after his four years in office (and do his successor an immense favor), he will continue to move forward and upward to end the wars in Europe and the Levant by outmaneuvering the aggressors and restoring credible deterrence in these theaters or any others.

William R. Hawkins is a former economics professor who has worked for conservative think tanks and on the Republican staff of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has written widely on international economics and national security issues for both professional and popular publications, including the Army War College, the U.S. Naval Institute, and the National Defense University.

Image: Karolis Kavolelis / Shutterstock.com.

The National Interest · by William R. Hawkins · September 25, 2024

7. China pressures Myanmar ethnic groups to cut ties from forces perceived as close to US

Are we conducting strategic competition with China over Burma/Myanmar?

China pressures Myanmar ethnic groups to cut ties from forces perceived as close to US

September 25, 2024 1:13 AM

By Nyein Chan Aye

voanews.com · September 25, 2024

Washington —

China, which has long influenced Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups, is pressuring the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA — part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance that includes the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA) — to avoid aligning with other opposition forces that China perceives as Western-backed, experts say.

The MNDAA, also known as the Kokang ethnic armed group, whose members are Mandarin-speaking Han Chinese native to Kokang, reposted a statement on social media confirming their alliance with China.

“Our political red line is not to form alliances or work together with those who are against China,” read the statement, which was briefly posted Sept. 4 and reposted on Sept. 19.

Analysts say that Beijing’s pressure on ethnic armed groups, especially the MNDAA, reflects its strategic interests in maintaining control over Myanmar’s political landscape. Strategically located along Myanmar’s northeastern border with China, the MNDAA is being pushed to sever ties with opposition forces that Beijing views as having U.S. support.

China used its economic and political leverage when it reportedly cut off trade and supplies to Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang region, to create distance between the MNDAA and the National Unity Government (NUG) — the pro-democracy shadow government leading the fight against the ruling junta.

“The MNDAA’s statement is a follow-up to China’s warning that the ‘three bottom lines’ must not be crossed,” said Than Soe Naing, a veteran political analyst based in Myanmar.

The “three bottom lines,” articulated by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in August, call for Myanmar to avoid civil strife, remain part of ASEAN, and prevent external interference.

According to a political analyst based in Yangon who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, there is a perception in China that the National Unity Government and certain resistance forces, as well as some ethnic armed organizations, are close to the United States and are receiving U.S. support.

“This policy reflects China’s emphasis on preventing external forces from interfering in Burma's affairs, which Beijing views as critical to its regional strategy,” said political analyst Than Soe Naing, using an alternative name for Myanmar.

So far, Beijing has not commented on the MNDAA’s statement, despite the group’s request for China’s help to resolve the conflict and its willingness to cease fighting and cooperate with Beijing to negotiate a solution to Myanmar’s crisis. Myanmar also has not commented on the MNDAA’s statement.

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s military continues airstrikes in northern Shan State. According to a Sept. 24 MNDAA social media post,a recent strike killed one civilian and injured 16 in Lashio, former headquarters of the junta’s Northeastern Command.

Beijing’s interests in Myanmar

Frequent visits by Chinese officials to Myanmar have reinforced perceptions that Beijing is siding with Myanmar’s military because it perceives the opposition groups to be in alignment with the United States, observers say.

“China sees the NUG and the People’s Defense Forces as Western-backed entities, and for China, that is a red line,” said Thomas Kean, senior consultant for Myanmar at the International Crisis Group.

According to Hla Kyaw Zaw, a China-based expert on China-Myanmar relations, Myanmar offers China a valuable connection to the Indian Ocean, providing an essential trade route that would allow Beijing to compete more effectively in the region with the United States.

“If Myanmar is stable, China’s southwestern land-locked provinces will have a safe and secure outlet to the sea,” Hla Kyaw Zaw explained. “Beijing wants these initiatives to move forward quickly.”

China is the largest investor in Myanmar, and the internal conflict is “not conducive to foreign investment and trade,” according to a Stimson Center report.

That said, Kean told VOA that despite MNDAA’s public stance on China, the group may still maintain limited cooperation with resistance forces to secure its territorial interests.

Nan Lwin, head of the Myanmar China studies program at the Institute for Strategy and Policy - Myanmar, said, “If China is to be credible for the Myanmar peace process, it will need to have a multi-country approach.”

Balancing act for opposition

Earlier this year, the National Unity Government, or NUG, issued its first formal policy statement on Beijing, pledging to safeguard Chinese investments and enterprise as resistance forces continue to gain ground in areas near the Chinese border.

However, the Yangon-based analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity said this policy is insufficient to win over China, which seeks complete control in the region and wants to prevent any outside influence, particularly from the United States, near its strategic access point to the Indian Ocean.

“The more the conflict escalates on its border, the greater the risk of disagreements between China and the U.S. on Myanmar,” Kean said.

voanews.com · September 25, 2024

8. US stopped Israel from launching Hezbollah war in October based on false alarm – report

This is not a good look for us if accurate.

US stopped Israel from launching Hezbollah war in October based on false alarm – report

Atlantic story on first days of war says US intel discredited suspicions of Hezbollah infiltration, averting strike; claims MBS told Blinken he doesn’t care about Palestinian issue

https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-details-how-us-stopped-israel-launching-hezbollah-war-based-on-false-alarm/

By ToI Staff

Today, 12:32 am

Israeli tanks in Metula, near the border with Lebanon, October 11, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

In the opening days of the war, the US frantically tried to reach senior Israeli officials huddled to plan a major strike on Hezbollah to tell them they were not acting rationally and relying on bad intelligence, according to a US report Wednesday.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan eventually managed to pass a dictated note to Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer warning him against launching a preemptive strike against Hezbollah on October 11, according to the Atlantic, which provided further revelations on the 90-minute panic in Israel that evening over a suspected invasion by the Iran-backed terror group.

Without providing sources, The Atlantic reported that top Biden administration officials were persuading the government to avoid launching a preemptive strike on Hezbollah when Dermer informed Sullivan that Hezbollah paragliders had flown across the border — similar to Hamas’s October 7 massacre days earlier — and fired shots at a funeral.

Meanwhile, more than 2 million Israelis were sent to shelters over false sirens in northern communities warning of drone attacks on the evening of October 11. Fears were fueled by media reports that 15-20 drones from Lebanon supposedly crossed into Israeli territory.

The cabinet was poised to approve a preemptive strike on Hezbollah, but the claims of a Hezbollah infiltration could not be backed by the CIA or the US military, The Atlantic reported.

Sullivan failed to directly get a hold of Dermer, who was locked in the cabinet meeting. Instead, he dictated a short note to the minister through his chief of staff, which was said to read: “You’re not making rational decisions. You’re acting in the fog of war on the basis of bad intelligence.”

With Israel still reeling from Hamas terrorists storming across the Gaza border that Saturday and massacring at least 1,200 Israelis in border towns, the prospect of a similarly murderous mass invasion by Hezbollah along the northern border sparked panic in a country on edge.

Early reports indicate dozens of drones launched from Lebanon at Israel on the evening of October 11, 2023; they proved to be false (Red Alert Screenshot via X)

Israeli fighter jets were already in the air when US President Joe Biden managed to convince Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand down at the last minute, according to a Wall Street Journal report in December.

The Atlantic reported that Dermer informed Sullivan that the cabinet had called off the attack 45 minutes after receiving the note, thereby potentially avoiding all-out war with Hezbollah days after October 7.

‘Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t’

The Atlantic also shared quotes from a January 8 meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who expressed interest in normalization with Israel on the condition that Jerusalem would commit to allowing the establishment of a Palestinian state. A Saudi official described The Atlantic’s account of the conversation as “incorrect.”

MBS reportedly also told Blinken during the meeting in Saudi Arabia he would not need the Israelis to commit to a total halt on counterterrorism raids in Gaza in exchange for a normalization deal.

“They can come back in six months, a year, but not on the back end of my signing something like this,” he said, according to the report.

“Seventy percent of my population is younger than me,” the de-facto Saudi ruler reportedly said. “For most of them, they never really knew much about the Palestinian issue. And so they’re being introduced to it for the first time through this conflict. It’s a huge problem. Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do, so I need to make sure this is meaningful.”

Israel’s commitment to advancing a Palestinian state is considered a key sticking point with the current right-wing Israeli government, which has repeatedly rejected the possibility of such a move, especially in the wake of the October 7 attack, saying that doing so would be tantamount to rewarding terrorism.

After the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war following the terror group’s deadly October 7 onslaught, Saudi Arabia largely put on ice US-backed plans for the kingdom to normalize ties with Israel, two sources familiar with Riyadh’s thinking said earlier this year.

But Saudi officials have continued to publicly and privately say since the start of the war that a normalization deal with Israel is still on its diplomatic agenda, while publicly pushing for a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

MBS, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, said just weeks before the fighting broke out that Riyadh was getting closer to a deal, but talks were essentially frozen in the first months of the war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a tent on January 8, 2024. (Saudi Press Agency)

‘He just stood there, punching buttons’

Another anecdote shared by the Atlantic appeared to describe the prime minister’s inability to operate a copy machine.

During his October 16 visit to Israel, Blinken worked to convince Netanyahu to open Gaza’s Rafah border crossing to allow badly needed humanitarian aid into the Strip. Until then, Israel had imposed a total closure on the Strip.

According to the report, Netanyahu and Blinken went to make a copy of the agreement they drafted at the Kirya Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv. Netanyahu struggled to figure out how to operate the machine. “He just stood there, punching buttons,” the report said.

9. The War That Would Not End

This excerpt below probably is the most succinct description of the American perspective on the Hamas war. Note the priority on preventing escalation.

explains Excerpts:

Biden’s response to Netanyahu was, in essence, what McGurk had texted Herzog: We’re with you. But the administration assigned itself a larger mission than full-throated solidarity in the aftermath of the attack. It wanted to avert a regional war that might ensnare the United States. It aspired to broker an end to the conflict, and to liberate the estimated 251 hostages that Hamas had kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. It sought a Gaza free from Hamas’s rule, and the dismantlement of the group’s military capabilities. And despite the scale of those tasks, it accelerated its pursuit of the Saudi normalization deal.

What follows is a history of those efforts: a reconstruction of 11 months of earnest, energetic diplomacy, based on interviews with two dozen participants at the highest levels of government, both in America and across the Middle East. The administration faced an impossible situation, and for nearly a year, it has somehow managed to forestall a regional expansion of the war. But it has yet to find a way to release the hostages, bring the fighting to a halt, or put a broader peace process back on track. That makes this history an anatomy of a failure—the story of an overextended superpower and its aging president, unable to exert themselves decisively in a moment of crisis.

The War That Would Not End

Inside the year-long American effort to release the hostages, end the fighting in Gaza, and bring peace to the Middle East

By Franklin Foer

The Atlantic · by Franklin Foer · September 25, 2024

On October 6, 2023, Brett McGurk believed that a Middle East peace deal was within reach—that the Biden administration just might succeed where every administration before it had failed.

McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, was meeting in his office with a group of Saudi diplomats, drawing up a blueprint for a Palestinian state. It was the centerpiece of a grand bargain: In exchange for a Palestinian state, Saudi Arabia would normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. At a moment when Israel was growing internationally isolated, the nation that styled itself the leader of the Muslim world would embrace it.

The officials were there to begin hammering out the necessary details. The Saudis had assigned experts to redesign Palestine’s electrical grid and welfare system. The plan also laid out steps that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank would need to take to expunge corruption from its administrative apparatus.

At approximately 11 p.m., several hours after the meeting adjourned, the whole vision abruptly shattered. McGurk received a text from Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog. “Israel is under attack,” Herzog wrote. McGurk quickly responded, “We are with you.”

Just after nine the next morning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived at the White House. Blinken had planned to travel to Saudi Arabia that week to further flesh out the vision for a Palestinian state with the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Now Blinken stepped into the Oval Office with McGurk to brief President Joe Biden about Hamas’s attack on southern Israel.

They couldn’t present Biden with a full picture; the Israeli Defense Forces were still fighting battles with Hamas across the south. The president had a simple question: “How much worse is it going to get?”

As video footage capturing Hamas’s rampage began to emerge, aides showed it to Biden. He absorbed an account of Israeli children murdered in front of their parents. “This is on a different level of savagery,” he told McGurk.

When Biden spoke by phone with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister sounded shaken. Netanyahu told Biden that Hamas’s invasion might be a prelude to an apocalyptic assault on the Jewish state, emerging from every direction. “In the Middle East, if you’re seen as weak, you’re roadkill,” Netanyahu said. “You cannot be seen as weak. And we need to respond to this, and we need the U.S. to be with us. If not, all of our enemies are going to be coming after us.”

Biden’s response to Netanyahu was, in essence, what McGurk had texted Herzog: We’re with you. But the administration assigned itself a larger mission than full-throated solidarity in the aftermath of the attack. It wanted to avert a regional war that might ensnare the United States. It aspired to broker an end to the conflict, and to liberate the estimated 251 hostages that Hamas had kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. It sought a Gaza free from Hamas’s rule, and the dismantlement of the group’s military capabilities. And despite the scale of those tasks, it accelerated its pursuit of the Saudi normalization deal.

What follows is a history of those efforts: a reconstruction of 11 months of earnest, energetic diplomacy, based on interviews with two dozen participants at the highest levels of government, both in America and across the Middle East. The administration faced an impossible situation, and for nearly a year, it has somehow managed to forestall a regional expansion of the war. But it has yet to find a way to release the hostages, bring the fighting to a halt, or put a broader peace process back on track. That makes this history an anatomy of a failure—the story of an overextended superpower and its aging president, unable to exert themselves decisively in a moment of crisis.

I. The Bear Trap

October 11

Above all else, Joe Biden—who could remember the dawn of the atomic age, when schoolkids practiced hiding under their desk—feared escalation. When presented with the chance to send more potent arms to Ukraine, he would ask, “Will this increase the likelihood of nuclear war?” And four days after the Hamas attack, it seemed as if his abiding fear of a crisis spinning out of control was about to be realized.

At 7:48 a.m., Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, received a call from Tel Aviv. A trio of Netanyahu’s top national security advisers—Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi—told Sullivan they were convinced that Hezbollah was about to launch a war on Israel from Lebanon. And they said their cabinet preferred to initiate the war preemptively.

Since October 8, Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy committed to Israel’s destruction, had been firing rockets at northern Israel, in a display of solidarity with Hamas. Hamas’s invasion had caught Hezbollah and its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, by surprise. Nasrallah, who had envisioned leading his own invasion of Israel, was irked that Hamas had moved first, and annoyed that it had failed to give him the courtesy of a warning.

Hezbollah’s initial salvos seemed calibrated to assure Israel that it didn’t want a full-blown conflict. But now Israel could see Hezbollah units mobilizing just across the border. The Iranian-backed militia had begun using tactical radios, a telltale sign that it was preparing for war.

At 9:55 a.m., Biden called Netanyahu to talk through the potential ramifications of a preemptive attack on Hezbollah. Biden understood that the Israeli leadership, having failed to avert the last attack on the homeland, was panicked at the prospect of missing another. He told the prime minister: “If you launch this attack, you’re guaranteeing a major Middle East war. If you don’t, there’s a lot we can do to deter that. If Hezbollah attacks, I’m with you all the way. If you start the attack, that’s a much different picture. Let’s take our time.”

Just as the president began his call, McGurk received a message via a back channel that he used to communicate with the Iranians. They wanted the White House to know that they opposed Hezbollah’s entry into the war and were trying to calm tensions. Iran might have been lying, but Sullivan passed the message along to Dermer, hoping to persuade the Israeli cabinet to delay a preemptive strike.

Right when the administration felt as if its arguments had broken through, Sullivan stepped out of the Oval Office to take another call from Dermer. Hezbollah militants, Dermer told him, had drifted across the border in paragliders just as Hamas had done four days earlier; its gunmen had opened fire on a funeral. These reports, Dermer said, had tipped the cabinet debate in favor of attacking.

Sullivan called CIA Director William Burns and General Erik Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations across the greater Middle East. Neither could corroborate the reports of paragliders entering Israeli territory.

Sullivan scrambled to get Dermer on the phone, but couldn’t reach him. He managed to track down Dermer’s chief of staff, who said his boss was locked in a cabinet meeting. Sullivan dictated a short note to Dermer: You’re not making rational decisions. You’re acting in the fog of war on the basis of bad intelligence.

Forty-five minutes after Sullivan’s note, Dermer called to tell him that the cabinet would heed Biden’s advice; it had voted against striking Hezbollah. The Israelis had determined that no militants were paragliding into the country. By the narrowest of margins, Israel avoided going to war because of a failure to distinguish Hezbollah fighters from a flock of birds.

October 13

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who had argued vociferously for a preemptive attack on Hezbollah, was peeved that the Americans had pressured Israel to wait. Now it was U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s job to wrap his arms around his distraught counterpart. The Biden administration was trying to smother Israel with reassurance so that it could nudge Israeli policy makers in its preferred direction.

The administration believed that the Israelis were on the brink of executing a brutal, poorly conceived war plan in Gaza. In fact, it was barely a plan. On October 7, the IDF didn’t have the schematics for a ground invasion of Gaza on the shelf.

In the dazed aftermath of the massacre, the army had quickly cobbled one together. American officials considered the proposed assault to be intolerably blunt: a brief warning to evacuate, followed by bombardment, followed by 30,000 troops barreling into Gaza.

As Austin and Gallant met in the Kirya, the sprawling campus in Tel Aviv that houses the Ministry of Defense, the American tried to gently, and Socratically, express his skepticism. Austin believed that he and Gallant were talking soldier to soldier, so he described the hard lessons he’d learned while overseeing the battle of Mosul in the war against the Islamic State: “You’ve got to take into account how you’re going to address civilians.”

He also urged Gallant to consider how allocating so much of the IDF’s resources to Gaza would create a vulnerability that Hezbollah might exploit.

Austin kept pressing, “How does this end?”

There was no clear answer.

After his own consoling visit to Tel Aviv, Antony Blinken sprinted across the capitals of the Middle East. In Doha, where the political leadership of Hamas resided in luxurious exile, Blinken arrived to tell the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, that the U.S. wanted him to consider evicting Hamas from his country.

But the emir had a complaint of his own: “We’ve been talking to Hamas, and Hamas is ready to release some of the hostages.” In return, Hamas wanted Israel to pause the air strikes that had been pounding Gaza. “We’ve been trying to talk to the Israelis,” the emir said. “We can’t get anyone to focus on it.”

The problem, as the emir explained it, was that Hamas had succeeded beyond its most extravagant expectations on October 7, not simply murdering more Jews than it anticipated, but seizing more hostages than it could manage.

In his diplomatic deadpan, Blinken replied, “I will follow up on this.” But some of his aides were gobsmacked. They couldn’t believe that Israel would pass up an opportunity to rescue women and children kidnapped into Gaza. As soon as Blinken boarded his plane, he called Dermer.

Dermer said that he would get to work on it. But throughout October, Biden-administration officials kept finding themselves struck by the Israeli government’s unwillingness to explore hostage negotiations. Perhaps it was just the chaos that reigned in the aftermath of the attacks, but they began to feel as if there was a stark difference in outlook: Where the Americans were prepared to negotiate with Hamas, the Israelis wanted to obliterate it. Where the Americans worried about hostages dying in captivity, Israel retained confidence in its ability to stage daring rescues.

The Americans believed that the threat of invasion gave the Israelis leverage over Hamas. The best chance at extricating women and children from the tunnels of Gaza, they thought, was before the IDF began a ground operation—a fleeting opportunity that might never come again.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Israel on October 16, 2023, after discussions in six Arab states to coordinate efforts against Hamas and address Gaza’s humanitarian crisis. (Jacquelyn Martin / AFP / Getty )

October 16

As Blinken toured the region, Israel began to bombard Gaza with an intensity that unnerved otherwise sympathetic Arab leaders. In Amman and Riyadh, Cairo and Abu Dhabi, Sunni heads of state privately intimated that they wished for the resounding defeat of Hamas, the Palestine branch of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood movement that threatened their own regimes. They also accused Netanyahu of bringing catastrophe upon his country by allowing Qatari money to strengthen Hamas’s rule of Gaza—the other Gulf States resented Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood—despite their emphatic warnings about the dangers of that arrangement. But Israel was making it difficult for them to remain neutral. Hearing the Arabs’ complaints, Blinken decided to add one last stop on his tour, a return visit to Israel, where he would press Netanyahu to allow aid into Gaza.

Before he landed, he felt sure that the Israelis would accede to allowing trucks full of basic goods to enter the Strip. In the parlance of diplomacy, that agreement was “prebaked.”

But when Blinken visited Netanyahu, the prime minister balked.

Netanyahu told Blinken that he would negotiate the matter with Biden when he arrived in two days. Blinken replied that the president wouldn’t board a plane without a humanitarian agreement in place.

It was lunchtime, and Blinken retreated to the acting ambassador’s home in Jerusalem, hoping that Netanyahu would reconsider in his absence.

At 6 p.m., Blinken met Netanyahu at the Kirya. But the hours apart had done nothing to resolve the differences. Netanyahu kept arguing that his hands were tied. “I have got people in the cabinet who don’t want an aspirin to get into Gaza because of what’s happened.” Ministers wanted to inflict collective punishment. “That’s not me,” he added, “but that’s people in my coalition.”

An air-raid siren cut their discussion short, sending them to a tightly packed bunker, where Netanyahu, Blinken, and Gallant awkwardly passed the time. When they returned to their meeting, Netanyahu ended it. He told Blinken that he needed to discuss everything with his cabinet. He left the secretary and his staff in a bureaucrat’s small underground office, so deep that it had no cellular connection, while Netanyahu ran his meeting several doors down.

Periodically, members of the cabinet would emerge and present the Americans with a new proposal. Gallant suggested building a new railway system to transport aid, rather than allowing trucks into Gaza.

Netanyahu suggested that Israel could send a team to Gaza to assess the situation.

“You can’t eat an assessment,” Blinken responded.

Blinken held the leverage: the promise of the presidential visit that Netanyahu craved.

At 1 a.m., Netanyahu said that Israel would open the Rafah border crossing, which connected Gaza with Egypt. But he also insisted on sitting with Blinken for another hour, drafting the announcement of the agreement. Once they’d hashed out a statement, they walked into a closet to make a copy. Netanyahu couldn’t figure out how to operate the machine. He just stood there, punching buttons.

October 17–18

Air Force One was supposed to leave for Israel in a matter of hours, but Brett McGurk had forgotten his passport at home. Weaving his way through traffic in Washington, he heard a news report on the radio that a rocket had just struck Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing 500 civilians. Shit, he exclaimed to himself; what’s going on? Before he had time to think, Israeli officials began lighting up his phone, denying responsibility for the strike.

Twenty minutes later, back at the White House, he found the president huddled with Jake Sullivan, along with Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon, advisers who occupied Biden’s innermost circle. King Abdullah of Jordan called. Amman was supposed to be Biden’s second destination. He didn’t want Biden coming to his country at such a sensitive moment.

As aides began to debate canceling the trip, Biden called Netanyahu, who quickly said, “It wasn’t us. I’ll get you all the intel.” He promised that by the time Biden landed, he would be able to show definitively that Israel hadn’t bombed the hospital. McGurk wasn’t so sure. But Biden concluded that he couldn’t tolerate the consequences of calling off the trip. The Israelis needed him.

(Proof soon came that the hospital had been hit by an errant rocket fired by the Iran-affiliated Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement.)

While Air Force One made its way through the night, Biden kept revising the speech he would deliver to the Israeli public. The president had long described himself as a Zionist, with sympathy for the Jewish people cultivated in him by his father. He had so many Jews on his staff that he sometimes joked with them about “our people.” Now, at Israel’s moment of greatest need, he wanted to be its friendly uncle, Ray-Bans dangling from his hand, dispensing hard-earned wisdom.

The October 7 attack had sapped Netanyahu of self-confidence. It had taken him more than a week to meet with hostages’ families; he was avoiding the public, which blamed him for the security failure. After Biden arrived in Tel Aviv, he wasn’t just bucking up the prime minister; he was, in effect, executing the parts of the job that Netanyahu couldn’t manage in his stunned detachment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hugs President Joe Biden upon his arrival at Ben-Gurion airport on October 18, 2023. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty)

For hours, Biden huddled with the Israeli war cabinet. To the world, that meeting looked as if Biden was claiming ownership of Israel’s coming military campaign. The bear hug risked becoming a bear trap.

But it wasn’t his war to run; all he could do was pose questions about the planned invasion of Gaza.

Biden was trying to get the Israelis to pause long enough to regain their emotional equilibrium and better calibrate their response. He offered to send three generals to lend their experience by poking holes in Israel’s plans and making suggestions. The Israelis had little desire to accept advice. But Biden was sitting in Tel Aviv, and an offer from the superpower that would help defend them in a war against Iran wasn’t something they could decline.

October 27

After his visit, Biden began to ratchet up the pressure. He wanted Netanyahu to refrain from launching a ground invasion. Instead of capturing major urban centers or displacing civilian populations, he urged Israel to consider waging a counterterrorism campaign, with a series of surgical raids and strikes against Hamas’s leadership and infrastructure.

The Israeli war cabinet dismissed the president’s alternative because it would leave Hamas intact and, the Israelis worried, able to carry out another assault like October 7. But Israel didn’t want to broadcast differences of opinion with the Americans to their enemies. Quietly, Netanyahu told Biden that he had to go in.

The invasion plan, however, was scaled back. Israel would send a fraction of the soldiers it initially intended in order to capture Gaza City, the hub of Hamas’s command-and-control structure. After a brief pause, the army would continue to Khan Younis, the epicenter of the tunnel network. The war would be over by Christmas.

What the Israelis described was much more aggressive than Biden’s plan. But the administration considered it well reasoned, not an overreaction. It made provisions to protect civilian life.

Twenty days after October 7, the IDF cut cell service in the Gaza Strip. It seized the beach road into Palestinian territory, then curved toward Gaza City. Netanyahu told his nation, “This is the second stage of the war.”

Blinken attends a meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee Secretary General Hussein al-Sheikh on November 4, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst / AP)

November 24

All of the American warnings about the battle for Gaza City included premonitions of a high number of Israeli casualties. But only about 70 IDF soldiers died in the fighting. The Israelis succeeded in trouncing Hamas in the north far more efficiently than their leaders had dared hope. That victory presented a diplomatic opportunity, because the IDF had always intended to pause its attacks after the battle anyway.

Biden assigned Burns, the CIA director, to pursue a cease-fire deal. The rumpled, self-effacing spymaster was also the administration’s most experienced diplomat, a former deputy secretary of state who had earlier served as ambassador to Jordan and then Russia. Biden liked to hand Burns tasks that would otherwise have flowed to the secretary of state. Unlike Blinken, the CIA director could travel the world unannounced, without a retinue of reporters trailing him. And he had relationships with the two figures who, in theory, had the greatest chance of persuading Hamas to come to the table: Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, known as MBAR, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, and Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s intelligence chief.

The two countries held sway over different corners of Hamas. Qatar served as the primary patron of the group’s exiled political wing, which had relocated to Doha in 2012. Egypt, abutting the Gaza Strip, shared the management of the Rafah border crossing with Hamas. It had a direct relationship with the militants waging war.

To influence the course of the conflict, the negotiators needed the assent of one man, Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. His brutality toward Israelis; his indifference, at best, to the death of Palestinian civilians; his sense of theological certainty about his mission; and his resignation to the possibility of his own death made him an almost impossible negotiating partner.

Even so, Sinwar thought strategically. He’d spent many years in an Israeli prison, where he’d learned Hebrew and voraciously consumed news from international sources. And the hostage negotiators benefited from a fleeting confluence of interests: Sinwar wanted to release the babies and small children among the hostages; having militants change diapers was not the end goal of his operation.

When the four-day cease-fire deal began—50 hostages released in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners and a four-day pause in the fighting—Burns remained in a state of constant anxiety. Israel said it would extend the cease-fire an additional day for each 10 additional hostages Hamas released. According to the deal, the hostages and prisoners exchanged were limited to women and children.

Each day, when the two sides published the names of those to be released, Burns braced himself for an objection that would cause the tentative peace to collapse. The Biden administration had successfully prodded the Israelis to develop a more nuanced, more realistic battle plan—and to prioritize the release of the hostages. The benefits of its diplomacy were on display in the faces of the 105 hostages who returned to their families. (Twenty-three Thai nationals and a Filipino were freed in a separate deal.) Then, after seven days, everything fell apart.

Blinken departs Tel Aviv for Jordan on November 3, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst / AFP / Getty)

II. The Dream Palace

Early December

In Gaza, the suffering was immense. As the fighting resumed, NGOs operating in the territory reported a humanitarian catastrophe: widespread hunger, a water system that had stopped functioning, a surge in infectious diseases, a near-total breakdown of the public-health apparatus. Although the death toll was subject to fierce dispute, and estimates rarely attempted to disentangle civilian and military casualties, the numbers were nonetheless harrowing. By early December, approximately 15,000 people had died. The Financial Times described northern Gaza as “virtually uninhabitable.” The Wall Street Journal called the conflict “comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.”

A backlash against Biden’s support for Israel was growing, not just among pro-Palestinian activists, but within the administration itself. In early December, a group of White House interns published an anonymous letter accusing the president of callously ignoring civilian deaths. A State Department official resigned in protest. Dissent began to filter into the Situation Room. A group that included Jon Finer, the deputy head of the National Security Council, and Phil Gordon, national security adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, quietly complained about Israeli tactics.

Brett McGurk would push back against the complaints, invoking his stint overseeing the siege of Mosul during the Obama administration, as the U.S. attempted to drive ISIS from northern Iraq: We flattened the city. There’s nothing left. What standard are you holding these Israelis to?

It was an argument bolstered by a classified cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Israel in late fall. American officials had embedded in IDF operating centers, reviewing its procedures for ordering air strikes. The cable concluded that the Israeli standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardment were not so different from those used by the U.S. military.

When State Department officials chastised them over the mounting civilian deaths, Israeli officials liked to make the very same point. Herzl Halevi, the IDF chief of staff, brought up his own education at an American war college. He recalled asking a U.S. general how many civilian deaths would be acceptable in pursuit of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the jihadist leader of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. The general replied, I don’t even understand the question. As Halevi now explained to the U.S. diplomats, Everything we do, we learned at your colleges.

December 14–15

When the Israelis first outlined their campaign, they estimated that it would be over by Christmas, as if they would deliver an end to the conflict as a holiday gift for their American benefactor. Then they would shift to a counterterrorism operation using precision raids and targeted operations, just as Biden wanted.

But Christmas was little more than a week away—and an end to the war seemed distant. Jake Sullivan went to Tel Aviv to press the war cabinet to conclude the operation.

The Israelis assured Sullivan that the end would come soon enough. They were about to eliminate a substantial portion of the underground tunnel system, to break the military capacity of their enemy. They simply needed a few more weeks, until the end of January, or perhaps February.

“This is starting to sound like just basically smashing your way around the entire Strip indefinitely,” Sullivan told them.

Despite his empathy for Israel, he had arrived at a dispiriting conclusion: The government had no plausible theory of victory, no idea how it might wrap up the conflict.

December 23

Sullivan’s doubts stoked Biden’s frustrations. He was suffering politically on Israel’s behalf, heckled at his public appearances by protesters and at odds with a faction of his own party, but Netanyahu didn’t seem to care. The lack of reciprocity angered Biden. He was learning the hard way what his predecessors in the Oval Office had also learned the hard way: Netanyahu was not a give-and-take negotiating partner.

Biden called Netanyahu with a long list of concerns, urging him to release tax revenue that Israel owed to the Palestinian Authority, the government in the West Bank, which Netanyahu was always trying to undermine in his quest to prevent the establishment of an autonomous, fully functioning state there.

“You can’t let the PA collapse,” Biden told him. “We’re going to have a West Bank catastrophe to go with the Gaza catastrophe.”

As Netanyahu began to push back, Biden couldn’t contain his pique and barked into the phone, We’re done.

They wouldn’t speak again for almost a month.

Antony Blinken meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in al-Ula, Saudi Arabia, on January 8. (Chuck Kennedy / State Department / Anadolu / Getty)

January 8

Al-Ula was the realization of Mohammed bin Salman’s dreams—a remote oasis that had come to represent the young monarch’s theory of modernization, how he would turn his country into the spear tip of the 21st century. In the middle of the desert, he had erected a destination brimming with five-star resorts and luxurious spas. There was even a plan to build a satellite branch of the Centre Pompidou.

The Saudi crown prince, known as MBS, maintained winter quarters at al-Ula. He took meetings in a tent lined with thick rugs and plush cushions. This is where he greeted Blinken, who arrived at dusk in pursuit of his own dream, a vision that traced back to the earliest days of the Biden presidency, when McGurk had traveled to the kingdom.

Biden took office spoiling for a fight with the Saudis. During the campaign, he had announced his intention of turning the kingdom into a “pariah.” But after McGurk explained the sanctions that the administration was about to impose on Saudi Arabia, he found himself on the receiving end of one of the prince’s flights of enthusiasm. MBS disarmed McGurk by announcing his desire to normalize relations with Israel, following the path that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain had traveled a few months earlier with the signing of the Abraham Accords.

Netanyahu kept offering tantalizing hints of his own enthusiasm for the same vision. Two years after McGurk’s visit, in early 2023, the prime minister called Biden and told him that he was prepared to reconfigure his coalition to build domestic support for a deal. Netanyahu would first have to overcome his lifelong aversion to a Palestinian state, because that was a nonnegotiable Saudi demand. But he said that he was willing to go there, even if he had to break with the theocrats in his coalition to make it happen.

And in the early fall of 2023, the administration moved ever closer to hatching a normalization deal between the old adversaries. The deal was a grand bargain: Saudi Arabia and the United States would enter into a mutual-defense treaty, which required Senate ratification. The United States would help the Saudis build a nuclear-power program for civilian purposes, and in return Saudi Arabia would remain committed to the dominance of the U.S. dollar and American interests in the region.

The events of October 7 seemed destined to doom the deal. When Blinken visited MBS soon after the attack, the crown prince could hardly contain his anxiety about the prospect of anti-Israel protests in his streets, about the prospect of a regional war.

But in Blinken’s head, the contours of the deal still felt as relevant as ever. The administration began to imagine its diplomacy proceeding along two separate, but deeply interconnected, tracks. It would cut one deal with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, which would have some of those countries supply troops to stabilize Gaza in the aftermath of the war. And then it would cut a separate deal with the Saudis, who would not only recognize Israel but also fund the reconstruction of Gaza.

Blinken had come to al-Ula looking for a signal from MBS that such a deal was still plausible.

As they settled in the tent, MBS shocked Blinken. A hardened piece of Washington conventional wisdom held that MBS felt a kinship, born of shared authoritarian tendencies, with Donald Trump. But after the 2018 murder of the Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, MBS had become a voracious student of American politics. He spoke frequently with Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump’s, and those conversations helped lead him to a fresh analysis of Saudi interests. (In the capitals of the Middle East, Graham is viewed as a potential secretary of state in a second Trump administration, so his opinions are given weight.)

From the April 2022 issue: Graeme Wood on the crown prince, a murder, and the future of Saudi Arabia

MBS told Blinken that the Biden administration represented his best chance for realizing his plans: Two-thirds of the Senate needed to ratify any Saudi-U.S. defense pact, and he believed that could happen only in a Democratic administration, which could help deliver progressives’ votes by building a Palestinian state into the deal. He had to move quickly, before the November election risked returning Trump to power.

“What do you need from Israel?” Blinken wanted to know.

Above all, MBS said, he needed calm in Gaza. Blinken asked if the Saudis could tolerate Israel periodically reentering the territory to conduct counterrorism raids. “They can come back in six months, a year, but not on the back end of my signing something like this,” MBS replied.

He began to talk about the imperative of an Israeli commitment to Palestinian statehood.

“Seventy percent of my population is younger than me,” the 38-year-old ruler explained. “For most of them, they never really knew much about the Palestinian issue. And so they’re being introduced to it for the first time through this conflict. It’s a huge problem. Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do, so I need to make sure this is meaningful.” (A Saudi official described this account of the conversation as “incorrect.”)

He wanted Blinken to know that he was pursuing this deal at the greatest personal risk. The example of the assassinated former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat weighed on him, an unshakable demonstration that the Muslim Brotherhood would wait patiently to exact murderous revenge on an Arab leader willing to make peace with Israel.

“Half my advisers say that the deal is not worth the risk,” he said. “I could end up getting killed because of this deal.”

January 9

Blinken hoped that Netanyahu still hungered for diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. Normalization would, after all, be the capstone of what the prime minister considered his legacy project: brokering peace with the Arab Gulf States. And, in MBS’s view, it would almost certainly create space for other Muslim nations to follow: Qatar, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, a slew of African states.

Iran was the force that could weld together this unlikely coalition. The Islamic Republic’s aspirations to regional hegemony, its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and its willingness to fund and train militant groups frightened both the Middle East’s Sunni Arab rulers and its Israeli leaders. By working together, though, Israel and the Sunni states might be able to contain Iran. It was a plausible enough vision, but it had failed to account for an Iranian veto.

If October 7 was designed to halt Israeli-Arab rapprochement, it had been wildly successful. And the only hope of reviving the process rested on Netanyahu overcoming a deeply ingrained instinct. Ever since losing his premiership in 1999, after making concessions to the Palestinians under pressure from the Clinton administration, he’d seemed determined never to alienate the Israeli right wing again. He almost always choked when forced to utter the words Palestinian state.

Sitting with Netanyahu, Blinken asked if he wanted to continue pursuing a deal with MBS. “If you’re not serious about this it’s good to know, because we can just close up shop here.”

Netanyahu said he remained emphatically interested.

Spelling out the obvious, Blinken told him that he would need to publicly express his support for Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu replied that he could find a way to make that commitment, although he allowed that it might take some finessing of language.

When Blinken mentioned that MBS also needed calm in Gaza, Netanyahu said that he could supply that, too.

After they finished their private discussion, Blinken joined Netanyahu in a cabinet meeting. Rather than seeking to restore calm, however, the ministers were discussing plans for ramping up the war. Netanyahu said nothing to contradict them.

As they left the meeting, Blinken grabbed him and said, “Prime Minister, what we just heard there—it’s not consistent with what we talked about in your office.”

He replied, “I know. I’m working on it.”

January 31

Beneath central Gaza City, the Israelis experienced the shock of another intelligence failure. Of course they knew about the tunnels of Gaza. In the popular vernacular of the prewar era, they were dubbed the Metro. But as the IDF cleared Hamas from the city and began to burrow beneath it, it was stunned by the branching passageways it encountered. The Israelis began to refer to it as the Kingdom. They realized that the tunnels were far deeper than they had known. And as the army moved into Khan Younis, it began to comprehend their scale. It was possible, the Israelis estimated, that as many as 450 miles of tunnel were beneath the Strip.

The network had been built to withstand an Israeli invasion. Entryways were booby-trapped. Steel blast doors protected living quarters so that they could withstand air strikes. Militants’ apartments were adorned with ceramic tile to create a comforting illusion of home. The tunnels contained machinery to manufacture the long-range rockets that Hamas periodically launched at civilian targets in Israel. It was even possible to drive a car through the widest passageways.

The discovery of the full extent of the system extended Israel’s timeline. Conquering the subterranean world was painstaking, perilous work; fanciful schemes, such as pumping the passages full of seawater, failed to clear the tunnels. And the IDF kept uncovering computers filled with revelatory information, leading it to new targets.

Israeli soldiers stumbled into Yahya Sinwar’s lair under the city of Khan Younis soon after he had fled, leaving behind bags of cash that he desperately needed. The near miss was a forking moment: Killing Sinwar might have allowed Israel to feel the catharsis that comes with retribution, opening the way to negotiate an end to the war.

In the months that followed, Sinwar was the lizard that grew back its tail. After the IDF would crush his battalions, it would then withdraw its troops. Israel didn’t want to become an occupying force, with the casualties and burdens that would entail. The world didn’t want that either. But without a continued IDF presence in the cities it conquered, Hamas returned to the sites of its defeat. It reconstituted itself, both physically and spiritually. Sinwar had developed a new sense of his own resilience, American intelligence came to believe, and a suspicion that he might just survive.

March 5

Every time Antony Blinken visited Israel, he found himself in endless meetings with politicians who delivered posturing soliloquies, which reporters who hadn’t been in the room somehow managed to quote later in the day. He began arranging private conversations with Benny Gantz and Yoav Gallant.

Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff turned leader of the centrist opposition, was the great hope for a politically viable alternative to Netanyahu. And in the late winter, he privately indicated to the State Department that the premiership might be within his reach.

The administration thought it could see a path to provoking a political crisis within Israel: Present the Saudi deal to the Israeli public, and if Netanyahu rejected it, Biden could explain its wisdom. Voters would be left to choose between Netanyahu and a sunnier alternative vision of Israel’s future.

To boost his standing, Gantz scheduled a trip to the White House. The visit deeply irked Netanyahu. The Israeli embassy was instructed not to arrange meetings on Gantz’s behalf while he was in Washington.

Two of Blinken’s top deputies, Barbara Leaf and Derek Chollet, met Gantz in his suite at the Willard hotel. It was the former general’s first trip outside Israel since October 7, his first time emerging into a world that had largely shifted its sympathy from Israeli hostages to Palestinian children. As Gantz sipped his coffee, Chollet and Leaf took turns excoriating him for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It wasn’t hard to read the surprise on his face; he wasn’t prepared for how differently Americans had come to see the war.

Upon returning to Israel, Gantz told colleagues that Netanyahu was endangering Jerusalem’s relationship with Washington. The warning was both accurate and self-serving; the time had arrived for Gantz to make his move.

But Gantz, ever the Boy Scout, hesitated to resign from the government in the middle of a war or to call for new elections, as he had long hinted he would. His hour had come, and then it swiftly passed him by.

Benny Gantz visits the U.S. State Department on March 5 to discuss humanitarian aid in Gaza. (Chuck Kennedy / State Department / abacapress.com / Reuters)

March 9

Biden was feeling hoodwinked. First, the Israelis had said the war would be over by Christmas; then they’d said it would be over by February. Now they said they wanted to invade Rafah, which would extend the war for several more months.

It seemed to the White House as if the Israelis had learned nothing. They planned to encircle Rafah, the last intact city in Gaza, where refugees from across the Strip had gathered, and then clear it block by block. They had no serious plan for evacuating and rehousing civilians.

In one meeting with Blinken, Ron Dermer boasted that the Israelis had ordered 80,000 tents for evacuees. But in the course of the meeting, the Israelis admitted that the number was actually closer to 40,000. Even the larger number, though, wouldn’t come close to housing more than 1 million refugees.

Biden’s team understood why the Israelis wanted to enter Rafah, which bordered Egypt. Every tunnel resupplying Hamas with smuggled bullets and rockets ran beneath it. The IDF had left it out of the initial plan because its leaders expected to sustain a large number of casualties just tackling their original targets. But as the war had gone on and they’d learned how to fight Hamas, their confidence had grown and their plans had evolved.

Five months into the fighting, Biden and his administration were still reacting to events as they unfolded, and appeared no closer to bringing the conflict to an end. Now, for the first time, he told the Israelis he’d had enough. He couldn’t support an invasion of Rafah without a better plan for limiting Palestinian suffering. In an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart, he said that this was his “red line.”

Palestinians rush trucks transporting international aid from the U.S.-built temporary aid pier near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on May 18. (AFP / Getty)

III. David’s Sling

April 1

At about 11 a.m., a group of Israeli officials piled into the White House Situation Room. Jake Sullivan had prepared a lacerating speech: “You’re about to be responsible for the third famine of the 21st century.” But before he could even sit down, Sullivan noticed that the face of the usually gregarious Hadai Zilberman, the military attaché from the Israeli embassy, was creased with worry. He stepped out of the room to talk with Zilberman and Ambassador Herzog.

The Israelis explained that they had just struck a building in Damascus. That, in itself, was not a big deal. As far as the U.S. was concerned, Israel had freedom of action in Syria.

But Herzog and Zilberman intimated that this situation was different. For starters, they had killed three generals and four officers in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. That included Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the general in charge of Iran’s covert activity in Lebanon and Syria and an old friend of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And there was a complicating wrinkle: The building abutted the Iranian embassy.

“You did what?” Sullivan asked in disbelief. “Was it part of the embassy?”

The Israelis said they couldn’t be sure, but they didn’t believe that it was.

On social media, however, the Iranians were already claiming that Israel had destroyed its consulate, which constituted sovereign Iranian soil.

Sullivan felt his frustration rising: Does Israel really need this right now? Does the United States really need this right now?

In truth, the Israelis hadn’t fully considered the reverberations, although the Mossad had argued that the strike wasn’t worth the risk. That evening, Iran sent the U.S. a message via the Swiss, holding it responsible and hinting that retaliation would extend to American targets.

Later in the week, the administration sent its own muscular message: Don’t attack Israel. A strike on Israel would draw the region into war; it would draw the U.S. and Iran into conflict.

April 12

Iranian retaliation was often theatrical, severe enough to demonstrate resolve to the regime’s hard-liners but mild enough to preclude a cycle of escalation. But this time, the intel suggested something worse.

At first, the three-letter agencies had predicted that Iran would hurl about a dozen ballistic missiles at Israel. Over the course of a week, however, those predictions had swelled to as many as 50. The number suggested an effort to draw not attention, but blood.

General Kurilla had flown across the region, coordinating an international response to the impending assault. Missiles would be tracked from space and shot down by American ships. The Israelis would use their layered interceptors: the Arrow systems, Iron Dome, David’s Sling. American and British fighter jets would knock down drones before they could enter Israel, which meant operating in Jordanian and Saudi airspace. Kurilla even convinced Arab states that their air forces should participate in knocking down drones, proof of concept for an emerging anti-Iranian alliance.

Lloyd Austin reported that the allies were prepared, but the Pentagon worried that some missiles and drones would slip past the patchwork defense. It seemed almost inevitable that Israel would respond in turn, and that the wider war the administration had worked so hard to avoid would be on.

April 13

“It’s already under way,” Austin told the room.

At about 5:15 p.m., Biden had gathered his advisers in the Situation Room—his intelligence chiefs, his national security adviser, the secretaries of state and defense. The vice president joined remotely, via videophone, as did General Kurilla, who was in Jordan.

The Iranians had unleashed their first salvo, an armada of drones flying slowly toward Israel. This was just the prelude, but Austin was already rushing to tamp down the next phase of the conflict. He had called Yoav Gallant and urged him in the strongest terms not to retaliate without consulting the U.S.

Kurilla periodically disappeared from the screen in search of the latest intelligence. The U.S., the U.K., and their Arab allies had already begun swatting down the drones, he reported. Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s most sacred sites, was helping defend the Jewish state. (Saudi Arabia has not confirmed or denied its involvement.)

But drones were slow and easy pickings. The bigger tests, Kurilla warned, were the ballistic missiles. He estimated that they could be in the air within the hour.

“What are the primary targets?” the president asked.

The bulk of the missiles were expected to fall on an air base in Israel’s Negev desert, but cities might also be struck. The Houthis, Iran’s proxies in Yemen, might target the resort city of Eilat. Iraqi and Syrian militias might take aim at Haifa. “The numbers are the problem,” Austin said. “They are trying to overwhelm air defense.”

Biden, as always, worried about escalation. “I want to make sure we know what the hell we’re doing,” he said. “It’s one thing to defend Israel. It’s another thing to use force against Iran.”

He was uncertain how ferociously the Israelis might react, but he was sure that they would. “If they don’t respond, I’ll eat this table,” he said.

Then, at 6:34, Kurilla told the room that the full Iranian assault had begun. Screens filled with images of missiles launching. Maps of the Middle East were covered in arcing red lines, tracing the trajectory of lethal projectiles that would land in 12 minutes.

At 6:52, Kurilla appeared again, and said that at least four drones or ballistic missiles had struck their intended target at the Nevatim air base, but he didn’t know the damage. Other drones and missiles were still in the air, and he was unsure if more would follow.

The officials at the table began to retreat from the room to call their own sources, in search of greater clarity. The meeting anxiously dissolved, without any sense of the scale of the crisis.

At 8:07, it reconvened. Austin had just spoken with Gallant. Five of the Iranian missiles hit the air base, he said. Only one struck an occupied building, but it inflicted minimal damage. There was one report of a civilian killed by shrapnel. (It turned out to be false.)

“This is extraordinary,” Austin said, beaming.

It was one thing to design an air defense system, integrating land, sea, and space, and stitching together Arabs, Jews, and Americans. It was another for that system to work nearly perfectly in the heat of battle.

But Sullivan broke the ebullient mood: “I just spoke to my counterpart; there are many voices in the war cabinet that are strongly urging for striking back very quickly.”

Biden picked up the phone to call Netanyahu. He wanted the prime minister to know that Israel had already miscalculated once, by attacking the Iranian facility in Damascus. It couldn’t afford to miscalculate again.

“Tell people that you succeeded. Tell them that you’ve got friends. Tell them that you have a superior military. But if you go after Iran, we’re not going to be with you. Not a joke.”

“I understand, Joe,” Netanyahu responded, “but these guys still have a lot of capability left, and they could do it again.”

After he hung up, Biden told the room that although he’d instructed Netanyahu to “take the win,” he knew he wouldn’t. Biden’s goal wasn’t to prevent Israeli retaliation, but to limit it. He went to bed still unsure whether he had headed off a regional war.

Israel’s war cabinet discusses an attack launched by Iran in Tel Aviv on April 14. (Israeli Government Press Office / Getty)

April 18

In the days that followed, the Israeli war cabinet debated the form that retaliation would take. Sullivan feared that the Israelis wanted to put on a “firework show,” calibrated to project superiority and provoking an endless exchange of missiles.

Sullivan kept calling Israeli officials, and he found that they understood the risks of escalation.

Gallant told him that Israel would engage in a precision response, without announcing the target of the strike or the damage it exacted, so that Iran could save face.

On the evening of April 18, Sullivan and Brett McGurk watched from the Situation Room as Israel struck an air base outside Isfahan, not far from an Iranian nuclear site. It wasn’t the scale of the attack that impressed, but its stealth. Eluding Iran’s air defenses implied that Israel could strike Iran anywhere it wanted, at any time it desired.

But McGurk and Sullivan couldn’t be sure whether the restraint that Israel displayed would preclude escalation. That night, the intelligence showed that Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the Iranian commander who’d overseen the April 13 attack, was aching to fire more missiles at Israel. His view, ultimately, was the dissident one. Iranian media portrayed Israel’s retaliation as ineffectual, hardly worthy of a response. The next day, the Iranians passed yet another message along to the U.S., this time through the United Nations envoy in Lebanon. They were done.

IV. Breaking Up

Blinken walks with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant toward the Gaza border at the Kerem Shalom crossing on May 1. (Evelyn Hockstein / AFP / Getty)

May 1

Antony Blinken was headed back to Washington after an exhausting set of meetings. Even at home, he couldn’t escape the conflict. In front of his suburban-Virginia house, protesters had erected an encampment, which they called Kibbutz Blinken, implying that he held dual loyalties. Blinken was the highest-ranking Jew in the executive branch—and the only member of the administration subjected to such treatment. Protesters threw red paint at cars that were leaving his house. They shouted at his wife, “Leave him, leave him.”

When things seemed especially bleak, Blinken liked to quote an aphorism coined by George Mitchell, who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, ending decades of sectarian strife in Northern Ireland. While pursuing the deal, Mitchell said, he’d had 700 days of failure and one day of success.

Blinken was at the end of one not particularly successful day. In Jerusalem, he’d confronted Netanyahu and his cabinet about Israel’s plans for invading Rafah.

He told them: You’re going to have to make your own decisions, but go into this clear-eyed; understand the consequences for our relationship.

Netanyahu seemed braced for a possible rupture: If this is it, this is it. If this is where we end, this is where we end. You have to do what you have to do. We have to do what we have to do.

That wasn’t the response the Americans in the room had expected, and it left them dazed. For the entirety of the war, they had avoided a rift in the alliance, but perhaps the alliance was dissolving, despite Biden’s warm feelings, despite all the political costs he’d absorbed on Israel’s behalf.

May 8

Biden told aides that he didn’t want to see Israel raze Rafah, where the IDF was already operating, with the same American bombs that had flattened northern Gaza, so he ordered the suspension of the shipment of certain heavy munitions. But this was an impulsive decision—rendered in anger after Netanyahu crossed Biden’s Rafah red line. The administration hadn’t figured out how to communicate the decision to the Israeli government, but the Israelis were bound to notice that the weapons shipments had been delayed.

Yoav Gallant learned about it from underlings, then confronted Blinken to confirm it. Reports of the slowdown leaked to the press. But instead of discouraging Netanyahu, Biden’s rash move had thrown him a political lifeline.

Over the course of his career, Netanyahu had always excelled at picking fights with Democratic presidents as a means of boosting his standing with right-wing Israeli voters. Now Biden had given him the pretext for the same comfortably familiar play once more.

Netanyahu began to publicly argue that Biden’s caution, his hand-wringing about civilian casualties, was preventing Israel from winning the war. Republican members of Congress were leveling the same accusation, only without any pretense of diplomatic niceties. Senator Tom Cotton told Face the Nation, “Joe Biden’s position is de facto for Hamas victory at this point.”

May 31

After months of drift, Biden was at last aggressively attempting to impose his will and bring the fighting in Gaza to a close. In the State Dining Room of the White House, he delivered a speech—and presented a four-and-a-half-page plan—describing the mechanics of a cease-fire, distilling months of negotiation between Israel and Hamas. Only this time, the proposed deal wasn’t being hashed out behind the scenes between the parties, but issued from the mouth of the president of the United States.

Biden intended to stuff Netanyahu in a box by insisting publicly that Israel had agreed to his proposal—even though he knew that the right-wing members of the Israeli government would likely reject it, and that Netanyahu had made a habit of pushing for better terms even after he’d committed to a deal. But with its invasion of Rafah advancing, and as it gained control of the smuggling tunnels in the south, Israel was on the brink of ending the most intensive phase of the war.

The president described Hamas as the key obstacle to the deal, and he directed his administration to use every means at its disposal to pressure the group. After Biden’s speech, Blinken called MBAR, Qatar’s prime minister, and told him that he needed to evict Hamas from his country if it rejected the cease-fire. Before Blinken hung up the phone, MBAR agreed.

By now, it had been 237 days since Hamas had kidnapped some 250 hostages. And by the IDF’s count, it still held about 100 alive, and the bodies of at least 39 others. Striking a deal offered the best chance of bringing them home, and Biden was finally investing the prestige of the presidency to make it happen.

August 1

Throngs crammed the streets of Tehran, accompanying a casket carrying the body of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political wing and its chief negotiator in the cease-fire talks. A remotely detonated bomb had exploded at the guesthouse where he was staying for the inauguration of Iran’s new president.

Israel declined to publicly assume responsibility, but in a message to the State Department, it bluntly owned the assassination and blamed Haniyeh for a long list of horrific acts. Although the Israelis had given no specific warning, they had previously told the Americans of their intent to eliminate the upper echelon of Hamas’s October 7 leadership; with Haniyeh gone, only two remained.

As Blinken absorbed the news on a trip to Asia, he called MBAR. “It was shocking because he was the one that was mainly overcoming the obstacles to get into a deal,” the Qatari prime minister complained.

But American officials weren’t overly concerned about the negotiations. Hamas, they judged, would replace Haniyeh and continue to negotiate, just as Haniyeh had continued to negotiate after Israel killed three of his 13 sons and four grandchildren.

What worried them more was that Haniyeh’s death was just one of several attacks by the Israelis. Hours before, an air strike had killed Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander, in retaliation for a rocket that killed 12 children playing on a soccer pitch in the Golan Heights. About a week before that, Israel had struck the Houthis in Yemen, avenging a drone attack on Tel Aviv.

After Haniyeh’s death, Iran threatened to reprise its April attack on Israel. In response, the United States began following the same well-trodden steps, moving a carrier and a submarine into the region, and sending stern warnings to Tehran through back channels. Officials began mobilizing the allies. This time, though, other countries were hesitant to come to Israel’s defense. The Saudis and Jordanians worried that by protecting Israel, the U.S. was giving it license to launch ever more perilous attacks in the region. Although they eventually joined the preparations for defending against an assault, the administration began to worry that these repeated trips to the brink were exhausting its luck.

August 21

When President Biden had presented his outline for a cease-fire in May, Netanyahu’s advisers had signaled that he endorsed it. But in late July, Israeli negotiators sent a letter backing away. To agree to the deal, Israel said that it needed five new amendments, including stationing Israeli troops on Gaza’s southern border, along the Philadelphi corridor.

The administration felt as if Netanyahu was scuppering a deal just as one seemed plausible. It leaked the Israeli letter to The New York Times in frustration, as evidence of the prime minister’s bad faith.

But Biden thought he needed to bring Netanyahu back in line himself. On the phone, he implored him to compromise, implying that he would pin blame for any collapse of the talks on the prime minister.

The burst of presidential pressure was hardly unexpected—and Netanyahu was clearly prepared for it. Worried that he might be portrayed as the saboteur who prevented the return of the hostages, he told Biden that he would dial back his demands. His counterproposal didn’t diverge much from the deal that the administration had judged that Hamas would accept.

For a time in August, Hamas was an equally frustrating barrier to progress, as it waited for Iran to avenge Haniyeh’s death. But as time passed without a counterstrike, the administration began to believe that Iran, like Netanyahu, didn’t want to be accused of ruining a deal. Hamas’s tone shifted, suggesting a willingness to negotiate.

A cease-fire, and the release of hostages, seemed closer than ever.

August 31

Jake Sullivan decamped to New Hampshire for Labor Day weekend, so that he could be with his wife, Maggie, who was running in a Democratic primary for Congress. That Saturday, he received a call from William Burns, reporting that the IDF had found six corpses in a tunnel beneath Rafah. The Israelis couldn’t yet confirm it, but they were convinced that the bodies were those of hostages, murdered execution-style, and that Hersh Goldberg-Polin was among them.

Over the past 11 months, Sullivan had met regularly with the families of the American hostages held by Hamas, often in a group. But he also spoke separately with Hersh’s mother, Rachel, with whom he felt a particular connection. Through their conversations, Sullivan had formed a mental portrait of her 23-year-old son, a dual U.S. and Israeli citizen—a single human face for Sullivan’s broader effort to reunite the hostages with their families.

Day after day, he had worked to save Hersh’s life. I’ve failed, he thought to himself. I’ve objectively failed.

Read: Hamas’s devastating murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin

At 8 o’clock that evening, Sullivan dialed into a secure call with Biden, Finer, Blinken, and McGurk. Phil Gordon joined on the vice president’s behalf. As a group, they reviewed the past 11 months. Could they have done anything differently? Had they overlooked any opportunities for securing the release of the hostages?

Sullivan wondered if a deal had ever been possible. Hamas had just killed six of its best bargaining chips, an act of nihilism.

Over the course of two hours, the group batted ideas back and forth. In the end, they threw up their hands. There was no magical act of diplomacy, no brilliant flourish of creative statecraft that they could suddenly deploy.

After all the trips to the region, all the suffering witnessed on those trips, all the tough conversations, all the cease-fire proposals, the conflict raged on. Three hundred thirty-one days of failure, and the single day of success was still beyond their grasp.

* Illustration sources: Chip Somodevilla / Getty; Jacquelyn Martin / AFP / Getty; Menahem Kahana / AFP / Getty; Abed Rahim Khatib / Anadolu / Getty; Said Khatib / AFP / Getty; Jalaa Marey / AFP / Getty; Bashar Taleb / AFP / Getty; Khames Alrefi / Middle East Images / AFP / Getty; Said Khatib / AFP / Getty; Ali Jadallah / Anadolu / Getty; Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty

The Atlantic · by Franklin Foer · September 25, 2024

10. Jemaah Islamiyah Disbands Itself: How, Why, and What Comes Next?

Too good to be true? I know a lot of people who worked hard on this threat. Hopefully this will be satisfying.

Excerpts:

The question remains: what will come next for the community formerly known as Jemaah Islamiyah? They still have members abroad, including 10-12 in Syria and 20 studying in Yemen. Whether they will accept the decision is an open question. However, JI’s former leaders appear committed to dakwah and education and if members of the community are disillusioned, they are keeping that quiet.

One of the key leaders involved in the dialogues spoke about his views on what the future held: “We will keep our schools strong. JI won’t stop struggling for an Islamic state because an Islamic state is not just for JI but for humanity. We will do dakwah and education through good works. Not through violence. Five to six years from now, I will be doing dakwah to bring people closer to JI’s perspective, without using JI’s name.”

Densus 88 and the Ministry of Religious Affairs should do their part to help JI members reintegrate back into society through destigmatization campaigns in villages, towns, and cities to ensure that former members and their children can be accepted by broader Indonesian Muslim society. Programs like Community-Based Correction, a mentoring program run by local governments in tandem with local civil society and businesses, can assist individuals in developing a post-group identity. Densus 88 would do well to allow JI some measure of privacy in this socialization effort rather than turning these meetings into a media spectacle, which could have the adverse effect of humiliating JI members and sympathizers in a tenuous period. JI members need to feel as though they belong, and that Indonesia is inclusive enough to also include them.

Jemaah Islamiyah Disbands Itself: How, Why, and What Comes Next? - The Soufan Center

thesoufancenter.org · by Gaby Tejeda · September 26, 2024

September 26, 2024

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Jemaah Islamiyah Disbands Itself: How, Why, and What Comes Next?

AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim

Bottom Line Up Front

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Islamist extremist group based in Indonesia, declared it would disband itself in late June.
Jemaah Islamiyah leaders chose to eliminate the organizational JI so that the underlying community could survive.
Jemaah Islamiyah will retain its network of 60 Islamic boarding schools but must revise the curriculum to eliminate extremist content.
A team headed by Bambang Sukirno, a Jemaah Islamiyah leader, in conjunction with representatives from the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs and counter-terrorism unit, is socializing the decision to rank and file members in JI strongholds and at JI schools to increase the likelihood of in-group acceptance and to prevent splinters.

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), Southeast Asia’s most significant and influential Salafi-jihadist organization, declared it was disbanding earlier this summer on June 30. Surrounded by 15 senior leaders, spiritual leader Thoriqudin (alias Abu Rusydan) declared on video that he and the other leaders were dissolving the current structure and “returning to the lap of the Republic of Indonesia.” As part of that effort, they would work with the Indonesian Ministry of Religion to revise the curriculum at their 60 schools to eliminate extremism and conform to the national curricular standards. To demonstrate its commitment, JI surrendered its caches of weapons and provided the authorities with a list of members of the militant wing as well as the names of members who had trained in Syria.

Jemaah Islamiyah chose to sacrifice the organization to ensure the survival of their community. This was a multi-generational jihadi community bound by familial ties, marriages, friendship, shared experiences, mentor-protégé ties, and business relationships. By prioritizing the community over the organization, its members could be free to form new dakwah (Islamic propagation) organizations, open new schools, to join various above ground organizations and in so doing, work toward an Islamic society and state through political, economic, and societal mechanisms.

This decision to disband was the culmination of a 16-year process of reconsidering tactics and strategies that began with a revision of perspective on the use of violence. In 2008, when Para Wijayanto took over as JI’s amir, Jemaah Islamiyah had already begun shifting to a dakwah first strategy, eschewing the use of violence or participation in jihad within Indonesia proper. According to the Institute for the Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), a non-profit organization based in Jakarta, “Abu Rusydan had argued in 2009 that JI could not hope to survive without the support of the [Indonesian Muslim] community and there was clearly no support for violence.”

Evidence of this strategic shift can be seen through changes in JI’s decision-making calculus and in its discourse. For example, JI forswore retaliation against Densus 88 (the Indonesian counterterrorism unit) for the 2007 raids on the Tanah Runtuh compound in Poso that had resulted in the deaths of 14 of its members. In 2010, Para Wijayanto forbade JI members from participating in a training camp in Aceh, the westernmost province in Indonesia, even though all other major violent extremist organizations had sent members.

Writing together, Sidney Jones, executive director of the Institute for the Policy Analysis of Conflict and Solahudin, author of The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, note that between 2009 and 2019, no Jemaah Islamiyah member carried out any terrorist attacks or participated in jihad in Indonesia proper. During the same period, Para Wijayanto was socializing a broader and more inclusive perspective on jihad. In 2016, after a lengthy debate on this issue, Para Wijayanto permitted JI members to join in the demonstrations against then governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok). According to Alif Satria, an associate research fellow with the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), JI issued a fatwa supporting participating in peaceful demonstrations as “jihad through words.” This was new as the organization had typically associated jihad (struggle) with qital (battle). Moreover, JI permitted its members to vote in the 2019 presidential elections, confirming the political direction JI had already embarked upon.

However, it had not revised or abandoned its goal of an Islamic state or its view that I’dad (preparations) were necessary. To that end, it created a training program to improve its capacity to defend that future state. According to professors Julie Chernov Hwang and Kirsten Schulze, this included basic training run out of private homes — “the gym program” — and three to six months of paramilitary training in Syria for the top graduates of that program. Para Wijayanto shared that JI members were sent to train with the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat an-Nusra, Ahrar as-Sham, Suquour al Izz, and Hayat Tahrir al Shams. Eventually, JI set up its own training camp for its members near Salma, Syria.

The discovery of domestic and international training resulted in a massive crackdown by Indonesian police. Alif Satria states that by 2023, JI members accounted for 59 percent of all arrested terror suspects. It is during this period, with JI’s top leaders in prison, that dialogue between key JI leaders both in and out of prison and a select group of Densus 88 officers began about the future of JI. These discussions ultimately resulted in the decision this summer to dissolve the organization and its structure, with JI retaining control of its schools.

Interviews with two of the signatories of the June 30 statement explain the logic that underpinned JI’s decision to dissolve the organization. One senior Jemaah Islamiyah leader shared an ideological justification behind the decision to reconcile with the state and dissolve: “We came to the realization we cannot make war with the state and we’ve been coming to that realization for some time…. There was broad agreement between Para Wijayanto, the JI ulama and JI intellectuals that the government and the state were not kafir (infidel) or thoghut (unIslamic). Therefore, they cannot be the enemy.”

Another senior leader who had been intimately involved in the dialogues with Densus 88 offered a pragmatic assessment: “We cannot hold any activities, or we will go to jail. We cannot choose an amir because he would be sent to jail. If we don’t exist as an organization, all the wanted men can come out of hiding and come home. This is the key reason we dissolved. We looked at historical precedent. We assessed our experiences. We analyzed all of this, and we came to the conclusion that we are a community based on brotherhood. We do not need an organization.”

As IPAC notes, if JI continued its current path, its schools would eventually have been seized and more members would have been arrested. However, JI was a community first; even if they dissolved the organization, they would retain their core social ties. Disbanding would liberate them from the straitjacket in which they were operating and free them to continue their non-violent activities under other names. They could join other organizations already in existence that performed dakwah for a more Islamic society; they could establish new organizations to work for a more Islamic society and state; and they could continue to run their schools.

However, first it was necessary to explain the decision to the rank-and-file members, supporters, and the local leaders who may not have been a party to the dialogues. Therefore, JI set up a team under the leadership of Bambang Sukirno, a senior JI leader, to socialize the decision among the grassroots together with representatives from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Densus 88. At these meetings they explained the Islamic basis of their decisions and answered questions.

According to one senior leader who played a key role in the dialogues with Densus 88, these efforts have been met with acceptance. “[Our members] understand samino wa’atonah (To hear and to obey). That is part of our internal socialization that members and candidates for membership learn in the study sessions.” Another leader who played the role of facilitator between JI and the government concurred, asserting that the members who would have dissented had already departed JI to join Noordin M. Top’s al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago in 2004, Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid in 2008, or the Aceh training camp in 2010. Those who remained were loyal, committed, and obedient.

To date, JI’s socialization efforts resulted in hundreds of ex-terrorist prisoners, rank and file members, and sympathizers declaring they would “return to the Republic of Indonesia.” According to local news reports, these include 177 members of the province of North Sumatra; 180 members from the city of Cirebon; 500 members from the city of Klaten, 124 sympathizers from the district of Poso and the towns of Morowali, North Morowali and Tojo Una; 54 members from the city of Palu; 56 members from the province of South Sumatra as well as members from the cities and towns of Indramayu, Kuningan, Subang, Majalengka, Bengkulu and Tasikmalaya.

The question remains: what will come next for the community formerly known as Jemaah Islamiyah? They still have members abroad, including 10-12 in Syria and 20 studying in Yemen. Whether they will accept the decision is an open question. However, JI’s former leaders appear committed to dakwah and education and if members of the community are disillusioned, they are keeping that quiet.

One of the key leaders involved in the dialogues spoke about his views on what the future held: “We will keep our schools strong. JI won’t stop struggling for an Islamic state because an Islamic state is not just for JI but for humanity. We will do dakwah and education through good works. Not through violence. Five to six years from now, I will be doing dakwah to bring people closer to JI’s perspective, without using JI’s name.”

Densus 88 and the Ministry of Religious Affairs should do their part to help JI members reintegrate back into society through destigmatization campaigns in villages, towns, and cities to ensure that former members and their children can be accepted by broader Indonesian Muslim society. Programs like Community-Based Correction, a mentoring program run by local governments in tandem with local civil society and businesses, can assist individuals in developing a post-group identity. Densus 88 would do well to allow JI some measure of privacy in this socialization effort rather than turning these meetings into a media spectacle, which could have the adverse effect of humiliating JI members and sympathizers in a tenuous period. JI members need to feel as though they belong, and that Indonesia is inclusive enough to also include them.

Julie Chernov Hwang is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Goucher College, a Senior Research Fellow at the Soufan Center, and a Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar.

thesoufancenter.org · by Gaby Tejeda · September 26, 2024

11. Drones are changing warfare. The U.S. military is working to adapt

Excellent report. Some fascinating technology and concepts. Just like always at our training centers, things do not always go right (which is how we learn for course).

Listen to the 8 minute report at the link.

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/25/nx-s1-5090032/drones-are-changing-warfare-the-u-s-military-is-working-to-adapt

The transcript is below.

Drones are changing warfare. The U.S. military is working to adapt

NPR · by Tom Bowman · September 25, 2024

As the war in Ukraine drags on, the U.S. military is paying special attention to how drones are shaping the fight. The technology is already changing how the U.S. Army prepares for future conflicts.

Sponsor Message

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

The war in Ukraine is dragging on. Each side is losing ground, then gaining ground. And at the center of that fight are drones. High in the sky, they drop bombs on troops and armor. They spy on targets with an unblinking eye. And they have caught the attention of the U.S. military as it prepares its own future fights.

NPR's Tom Bowman recently watched an Army exercise in Louisiana and joins us now. Hi, Tom.

TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.

CHANG: So do you get the feeling that the U.S. military is learning a lot of lessons from the war in Ukraine?

BOWMAN: You know, Ailsa, they are, and this is really the first major war where you have drones playing a vital role. You know, some military experts I talk with are comparing it to other technological advancements we've seen in past wars that were a leap forward, like the machine gun in World War I.

CHANG: Interesting. OK. And I'm guessing that drones were also front and center in this Army exercise that you watched at Fort Johnson in Louisiana, right?

BOWMAN: That's right. They were, and it was - they were used by an Army unit out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, a brigade of the 101st Air Assault Division, and also the resident opposition force, called OpFor, at this training base deep in the Louisiana woods. So they use them as well. And there was this kind of cat and mouse game with drones. Top Army leaders were there as well, and all said we're seeing the future. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF DRONE WHIRRING)

BOWMAN: The drone rises high into the air. It's a quadcopter - four rotors on a plastic base no bigger than a dinner plate. In seconds, it's more than 100 feet above us.

JAMES STULTZ: Yes, James Stultz, I'm the brigade commander.

BOWMAN: Colonel James Stultz stands in the woods, his face smeared with camouflage paint like the several thousand soldiers under his command, along with some 100 drones. He knows they are both a blessing and a curse. They can spot his enemy, but they have drones too, so his command post in the training area, called the box, looks like a few humps covered in green netting.

STULTZ: It is super small, and it smells really bad 'cause we've been in the box for about nine days - pretty sour. Come on in.

BOWMAN: It's small for a reason.

STULTZ: So when he flies over, he doesn't see a large tent complex that looks like a command post. So he can't tell what this is. And so he has to either send ground forces to confirm or deny, or he just has to watch us. And so we're trying to blend in with all the other entities on the battlefield. A needle in a stack of needles.

BOWMAN: When Stultz served in Afghanistan, the Army had the luxury of living in large bases with massive buildings and dining halls, huge radar dishes and antenna farms.

STULTZ: We weren't worried that the Taliban or whoever anti-Afghan forces were hunting us.

BOWMAN: That's because the Taliban on rare occasions used some crude drones, but they had nothing like the swarms of drones sent into the skies by the Ukrainians and the Russians.

The size of a command post isn't the only change now in warfare. Drones can also detect electronic emissions - those unseen waves from a radio, a cell phone, even a Fitbit watch or an electric razor.

STULTZ: We didn't really care about our electronic magnetic spectrum emissions there in Afghanistan, right? Because...

BOWMAN: And that will change with a more sophisticated enemy like the Chinese military.

STULTZ: We do know, in a large-scale combat operation, that they are, that the enemy that we may be facing are absolutely collecting on that spectrum.

BOWMAN: And the enemy knows the bigger the electronic signature, the more important the target, like a brigade headquarters with the top leaders. So those lumps of camouflage that serve as his command post, they emit no electronic emissions. Those emissions that keep the command post, or CP, connected, they're found instead some 100 yards away.

Chief Warrant Officer Vidal Perez explains it all. Instead of massive communications trucks they used in the past, now it's just a Humvee, not only small, but fast.

VIDAL PEREZ: We're able to remove them off that Wi-Fi and hot spots and plug them directly into our network. So the CP no longer has any of that. Our only time constraint would be running the fiber.

BOWMAN: The fiber cable to the command post - and Perez and his fellow soldiers say they're able to have a small presence, so a drone would not sense they are really part of a command post.

PEREZ: They haven't been able to find us yet.

BOWMAN: It's kind of hard to believe.

PEREZ: We found it a little hard too.

BOWMAN: Yeah.

PEREZ: But they haven't.

BOWMAN: And their drones? Captain Charles O'Hagan is holding one - all black, with blades and gadgets attached to it. It looks like a high school science experiment.

CHARLES O'HAGAN: This is a drone. It's a quadcopter. It's small. We have a Wi-Fi adapter here and then a power source.

BOWMAN: The drone can not only go after the enemy force, but help track the best route for his soldiers to attack.

O'HAGAN: The infantry battalions can then pull that down and understand, hey, this route supported two ISVs, one Humvee and one high-mobility trailer. So that just gives options in terms of their avenues of approach.

BOWMAN: The captain also has a bag of high-tech tricks - decoys, the size of a playing card. They can spread them out to mimic those electronic emissions, make that opposing force, called Geronimo, think they're hitting a prize target, like that headquarters.

O'HAGAN: So when Geronimo flew - overflew us, they would not have a clear picture of what we look like on the battlefield, and that worked.

BOWMAN: The soldiers are here for two weeks of training and are now about nine days in. Tonight is a key event. They'll attack a mock village a few miles away, try to take it from that opposition force. No real bullets are used. Each soldier is equipped with little knobs on their uniform. They light up when they're hit. It's basically laser tag.

UNIDENTIFIED RADIO OPERATOR: For line three, the attack had a contact departed on timeline with two 864s arriving...

BOWMAN: Senior leaders listen to the radio chatter and monitor the fight in a control center with large video screens. There's a mass of blue diamond icons for the 101st, red for the OpFors. The soldiers start to move by road, by helicopter. In the end, it didn't go well for the 101st.

(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)

BOWMAN: They couldn't mass enough troops to take the village. And the drones, they virtually destroyed some of Colonel Stultz's counter-artillery radar.

(SOUNDBITE OF MARCHING FOOTSTEPS)

BOWMAN: A few miles away in a parking lot sits the future - a mechanical dog with an assault rifle fastened to its back. It can search a house or a building so a soldier isn't threatened. There's a large metal storage box, seemingly innocent until a button is pushed and rises up a pack of missiles and, of course, drones.

(SOUNDBITE OF ELECTRONIC BEEPING)

BOWMAN: What we got here?

GREGORY KITT: What we got here? So this is called the Seeker. This is actually 3D printed for less than $700. It'll carry a 1 1/2- to 3-pound payload.

BOWMAN: Chief Warrant Officer Gregory Kitt is a burly Green Beret out of Fort Carson, Colo. He points to another drone that can fit in your palm. There's one that looks like a toy rocket. Still another is a quadcopter, like the one we saw in the woods.

KITT: We've got some other little guys to show you. Like, just the size - this is the size that the Ukrainians are using, that they carry the little anti-army munitions on them. And with these, this is what's popping those T-90s, all the tanks over there.

BOWMAN: The T-90 - that's the main Russian battle tank. Lessons learned from Ukraine - that's given the Army a sense of urgency about drone warfare. Kitt served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he says having these drones would have been a real game changer.

KITT: When I look at it now, I wish I'd have had some of this because we wouldn't have had to send guys into dangerous situation. Guys got hurt, hitting IEDs. I could have sent a drone in.

CHANG: Thank you for taking us there, Tom. You mentioned that senior Army leaders were there for this exercise. Did you talk with them about when other units will be going through this kind of training?

BOWMAN: Yes. You know, the top Army officer, General Randy George, was there, and he said he wants more and more soldiers to go through this training. And the Army says it will take years, however, to outfit the force with all this high-tech gear, but analysts say they have to move quickly because adversaries are adapting much faster.

CHANG: That is NPR's Tom Bowman. Thank you so much, Tom.

BOWMAN: You're welcome.

NPR · by Tom Bowman · September 25, 2024

12. Japan Warship Asserts Right To Sail Through Taiwan Strait: Media

Good.

Japan Warship Asserts Right To Sail Through Taiwan Strait: Media

Barron's · by AFP - Agence France Presse

Beijing views Taiwan as a renegade province and claims jurisdiction over the body of water that separates the island from China.

The United States and many other countries argue such voyages are usual, citing freedom of navigation.

Washington and its allies have lately increased their crossings of the 180-kilometre (112-mile) Taiwan Strait to reinforce its status as an international waterway, angering Beijing.

Earlier this month, China accused Berlin of heightening security risks in the Taiwan Strait, a day after two German military vessels sailed through the waters.

Japan is a key US ally, and its reported first sailing in the Strait comes after Tokyo in August slammed what it called the first confirmed incursion by a Chinese military aircraft into its airspace as a "serious violation" of its sovereignty.

The Yomiuri Shimbun daily, citing unnamed government sources, said that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had instructed the move due to concern that doing nothing following China's intrusion into Japanese territory could encourage Beijing to be more assertive.

Earlier this month, a Chinese aircraft carrier sailed between two Japanese islands near Taiwan for the first time.

Tokyo called the incident "totally unacceptable", while China said it had complied with international law.

Beijing has said it would never renounce the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in recent years upping the rhetoric of "unification" being "inevitable".

In response, Taiwan has strengthened economic and political ties with its allies -- most notably the United States, its biggest weapons provider -- while increasing its defence budget.

The reported sailing comes as Kishida's ruling party holds a party leadership election on Friday that will be a de facto vote to decide Japan's next prime minister.

Candidates in the race have been debating a range of issues, including diplomacy and security in response to China's growing military clout in the region.

Because the conservative Liberal Democratic Party holds a parliamentary majority, the winner is certain to become prime minister, and will likely call a snap election to shore up their mandate.

kh-kaf/lb

Barron's · by AFP - Agence France Presse

13. Russian Disinformation Is Spreading. Europe Could Learn From the US.

Excerpts:

This difference in enforcement is partly due to larger political problems.

Ongoing tension exists between EU countries about how hard to blunt the Russian threat, and no criminal sanction powers are available under the bloc’s new digital rulebook.

Yet, it also stems from decisions made by the EU on where to focus its resources. Alongside Russian interference, the bloc’s enforcers are also probing social media companies’ protection of minors and their willingness to open their internal data to outsiders in the name of transparency.

The contrast — with U.S. authorities thwarting an immediate threat, and European officials struggling to contain similar Russian covert interference — should be remembered by those in Washington that lament, “Why can’t Congress do that?” when they see Brussels enacting digital rules.

Europe’s new social media laws do hold many of Silicon Valley’s biggest names to account like never before. But when confronted with a foreign government actively trying to subvert November’s election, U.S. officials already had the legal powers — and, more important, the willingness — to act.

Russian Disinformation Is Spreading. Europe Could Learn From the US.

Here’s why the U.S. is outpacing European efforts.

Politico · by Digital Politics

The real way to fight election interference.

Ongoing tension exists between EU countries about how hard to blunt the threat from Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and no criminal sanction powers are available under the bloc’s new digital rulebook. | Pool photo by Gavriil Grigorov

By Mark Scott

09/25/2024 12:00 PM EDT

Mark Scott is a senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab where he oversees the think tank’s comparative digital policy work. His newsletter, , publishes each Monday.

In the ongoing battle to combat Russian election interference, Washington just showed Brussels what real enforcement looked like — and it didn’t take glitzy new social media rules to hobble Moscow’s global disinformation machine.

First, the Justice Department seized and shut down scores of Kremlin-backed websites that pretended to be those of American outlets like the Washington Post and Fox News to peddle clandestine Russian propaganda at U.S. voters. Then, the Treasury Department sanctioned high-profile Russian officials, including the editor-in-chief of RT. The Justice Department indicted two separate Russians for funneling $10 million into a Tennessee-based company that produced millions of social media posts that spewed Russian disinformation directly into people’s smartphones.

Europe hasn’t done anything close to that — despite Russia also targeting countries across the Atlantic with similar covert tactics.

It’s a reminder that while the European Union has long championed itself as the global frontrunner on digital rulemaking to combat the Russian threat, it’s struggling to keep pace with the United States when it may matter most.

The EU boasts recently passed social media laws, known as the Digital Services Act, that empowers local authorities to force the likes of Facebook and TikTok to take down foreign efforts that undermine elections. If not, companies may face hefty fines of up to 10 percent of their global revenue. The message from Brussels: Big Tech needs to get tough on how Russian disinformation reaches Europeans, or else.

But European officials have moved slowly to thwart Russia’s foreign interference.

In April, Europe’s executive branch, known as the European Commission, opened an investigation under its new social media laws into how Meta had allowed Russian-backed fake news websites to flourish. The Kremlin had created sites pretending to be European outlets like Germany’s Der Spiegel and France’s Le Monde that targeted Europeans, often via social media ads bought on Facebook and Instagram.

Russia’s global operation, dubbed ‘Doppelganger,’ targeted Americans as well as Europeans, and was first discovered in 2022. It involved scores of spoofed news outlets’ websites, including that of POLITICO, though the efforts didn’t always garner traction with social media users.

“If we suspect a violation of the rules, we act,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, when the Meta probe began. “Big digital platforms must live up to their obligations.”

Fast forward to September, and Europe’s enforcement remains patchy, at best.

Meta says it is complying with Brussels’ ongoing probe, but the investigation is still months away from completion. Many of the faked European news sites — still spreading Russian disinformation about Ukraine and Europe’s socio-economic woes — are readily accessible to locals, and are widely shared on platforms like X and Facebook.

So far, no one has been arrested for the covert activities.

In contrast, U.S. federal law enforcement hit Moscow where it hurts the most: its ability to reach Americans with covert propaganda ahead of the upcoming presidential election.

The Department of Justice shut down 32 faked Russian websites, and Kremlin officials have either been sanctioned or indicted. Unlike Brussels’ reliance on new digital rules, Washington fell back on decades-old laws, including arcane trademark rules, to root out the attempted interference and hold individuals to account, immediately, for their role in the clandestine activity.

“The Justice Department’s message is clear,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland in announcing the indictments. “We have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic system of government.”

These tactics are not perfect. It’s likely Russia’s efforts to skew November’s election are wide-ranging and ongoing, despite the recent takedowns and indictments. Almost all the Kremlin officials remain out of reach of U.S. law enforcement and will not be affected by the recent sanctions.

Yet Washington succeeded where Brussels — and its new social media rulebook — has not because it targeted the cause, not the symptom, of foreign interference.

The federal government took aim at Russia and its agents, kneecapping direct efforts to interfere in the country’s democratic institutions in one fell swoop. It didn’t need social media rules to do that. The U.S. could rely on existing sanctions against foreign meddling in local affairs.

Brussels, in contrast, targeted its investigation on Meta. It was a move that avoided direct pushback against Moscow to focus on how Putin’s lies reached people via social media.

This difference in enforcement is partly due to larger political problems.

Ongoing tension exists between EU countries about how hard to blunt the Russian threat, and no criminal sanction powers are available under the bloc’s new digital rulebook.

Yet, it also stems from decisions made by the EU on where to focus its resources. Alongside Russian interference, the bloc’s enforcers are also probing social media companies’ protection of minors and their willingness to open their internal data to outsiders in the name of transparency.

The contrast — with U.S. authorities thwarting an immediate threat, and European officials struggling to contain similar Russian covert interference — should be remembered by those in Washington that lament, “Why can’t Congress do that?” when they see Brussels enacting digital rules.

Europe’s new social media laws do hold many of Silicon Valley’s biggest names to account like never before. But when confronted with a foreign government actively trying to subvert November’s election, U.S. officials already had the legal powers — and, more important, the willingness — to act.

Politico · by Digital Politics

14. Advancing to the Litani and Restoring Deterrence by Mick Ryan

These themes are enduring and should be well known and understood.

Excerpts:

In reviewing all these reports, some common themes emerge. It is important to understand these before any new war because the same kinds of challenges are likely to emerge in any new Israeli operation in southern Lebanon.

Theme 1: Tactical competence does not make up for failures in strategy.

Theme 2: Air Power matters but is not in itself a war winning solution.

Theme 3: Realistic, rigorous and assessed training is a key foundation for operational success.

Theme 4: Tested and relevant doctrine is vital.

Theme 5: Leader development must be improved.

Advancing to the Litani and Restoring Deterrence

A special assessment of what lays ahead in the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/advancing-to-the-litani-and-restoring?utm

Mick Ryan

Sep 26, 2024

Israeli air strike in Lebanon. Image: Reuters

Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, told soldiers to prepare for a possible incursion into Lebanon, where they would “go in, destroy the enemy there and decisively destroy” Hezbollah’s infrastructure. Washington Post, 25 September 2024

Israel might again conduct a ground operation into southern Lebanon.

As a possible prelude to such an operation, the Israelis this week conducted an air strike that appears to have decapitated the Hezbollah Radwan force leadership, a special force designed to infiltrate into northern Israel. Israel also targeted and destroyed many of Hezbollah’s missiles in their storage locations (particularly in fake houses) in southern Lebanon. Around 1600 strikes were conducted by the IDF, which is a very significant level of effort for their Air Force.

There were many casualties on the ground, and the balance of civilians and Hezbollah in the casualty numbers remains unknown. While these strikes have been destructive, Hezbollah is estimated to possess somewhere between 100 and 200 thousand missiles of varying range and precision. Therefore, just how much of an impact these strikes will have on Hezbollah’s capacity to attack Israel remains to be seen.

In the past day, Hezbollah also launched a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv. The alleged target was the headquarters of Mossad. The missile was intercepted by the IDF, but was an indication of Hezbollah capacity, and the potential for further escalation in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

The trajectory of this conflict appears to be trending towards a more intense and more violent confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah.

However, the big question is whether the recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon are designed to deter Hezbollah from any escalation or are shaping operations for a larger scale Israeli ground operation in southern Lebanon.

Restoring Deterrence

The Israelis appear to have two options available to them in the near term. The first option is to continue the current tempo of strikes in Lebanon, which is about restoring deterrence against Hezbollah. The second option is that these strikes are actually the preliminary phase of a larger mission against Hezbollah south of the Litani River. Both are examined below.

Restoring Deterrence. One of the themes that I discussed in the wake of my visit to Israel in December 2023 was ‘restoring deterrence’. (You can read my report on this topic here). In nearly every discussion with security officials, the failure of deterrence on 7 October was a central issue. The important follow-on issue then was how to restore deterrence, particularly against Hamas and Hezbollah.

In the case of Hamas, restoring Hamas has involved its destruction at the hands of the IDF. This has also been accompanied by massive destruction and death in Gaza, which might influence the support of Hamas in future. But by the same token this might also provide a new generation of recruits for Hamas.

Hezbollah is a different organisation. It is larger and possesses very capable fighting units and a massive arsenal of short, medium and long-range rockets which could be used against Israel. Hezbollah has been firing barrages of rockets into northern Israel since October 2023, necessitating the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis from that part of the country. The government of Israel is keen to restore deterrence in its fight against Hezbollah and have its citizens return to its homes in northern Israel. The latest strikes will be part of that effort.

The pager attacks last week, as well as those against other communications devices, are also part of this restoring deterrence effort. These attacks will have been designed to kill or injure Hezbollah members. More importantly it will have been designed to impact their confidence in communication systems and corrode the ability of Hezbollah’s leadership to command-and-control elements the various components of Hezbollah.

Preparing for a Ground Operation. If restoring deterrence cannot be achieved through these strikes, a ground operation might then be undertaken by the Israelis.

Such an operation is something that the IDF has been thinking about and preparing for over the past decade, so we might expect a different concept of operations compared to their previous large-scale operation in southern Lebanon in 2006. This will be different in concept and execution from the operations conducted in Gaza since last year.

Southern Lebanon has a different density of urban settlements, which means that any ground combat will be a mix of urban (in the many small towns that do the region) and in the hills and vegetated areas south of the Litani River. This may make target discrimination a little easier for the Israelis.

While the physical environment of southern Lebanon is quite different to Gaza, so to is the enemy that the Israeli’s will face. Hezbollah has well trained ground forces who are able to conduct what we might recognize as combined arms operations. Their troops have experience from Syria, which they will import back into Hezbollah units, and will be fighting on home ground. Hezbollah also possesses more effective anti-tank and anti-air weapons, and probably have a better anti-drone capability than Hamas did in Gaza. All of these factors will complicate operations for the Israelis.

Fighting in Southern Lebanon is Tough

The Israelis have experience in southern Lebanon. They have been there before, and they know the ground and have a good appreciation of the capabilities of Hezbollah. As Bret Stephen’s writes in a recent article:

2006 Hezbollah launched a guerrilla raid into Israel. It led to a 34-day war that devastated Lebanon, traumatized Israel, and concluded with a U.N. resolution that was supposed to disarm the terrorist militia and keep its forces far from the border.

Or as an earlier report from the RAND Corporation described it:

A Hezbollah raid along the Lebanon-Israel border on July 12, 2006, resulted in the capture of two IDF soldiers and others killed and wounded. The response from Jerusalem was both quick and violent, surprising Hezbollah’s leadership and triggering a monthlong conflict…The event left the IDF a chastened force and Israel an introspective nation.

The operation, which lasted a little over a month, was largely seen as a failure. Despite its overwhelming military and economic advantages, Israel did not defeat Hezbollah in the war. Israel also did not achieve its publicly stated goals at the outset of the war, especially those related to returning the soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah, or the disarming of Hezbollah in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1559.

But how might the lessons of the 2006 war in Lebanon inform any Israeli operation in southern Lebanon in the near future?

A wide variety of reports were produced by Israeli and Western military organisations and think tanks in the wake of the 2006 operation. The IDF was particularly rigorous in reviewing the lessons of the 2006 war. And an independent commission, the Winograd Commision, was formed to investigate the war. As Amir Rapaport has written:

The process of drawing lessons from the war was the most comprehensive and thorough in Israel’s history. A series of investigative committees, headed by reserve officers and senior academics, were established a few weeks after the war. Their work formed the basis for an official document that presents the lessons of the war and main recommendations for changes in the IDF.

In reviewing all these reports, some common themes emerge. It is important to understand these before any new war because the same kinds of challenges are likely to emerge in any new Israeli operation in southern Lebanon.

Theme 1: Tactical competence does not make up for failures in strategy. Israeli failures in strategy were a key finding of the Winograd Commission, which Israel established to investigate the conduct of the 2006 war. The final report of the Winograd Commission noted that:

We found serious failings and flaws in the lack of strategic thinking and planning, in both the political and the military echelons.

In a report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Tony Cordesman wrote that “it is far from clear that Israel’s leaders ever had a real strategic consensus on any aspect of the war, that they agreed on…goals at the time Israel began fighting or that they had pursued goals consistently or with proposer coordination.”

Civilian and military leaders appear to have possessed different views on the aims of the operation into Lebanon. There were differences between senior military and political leaders over what military operations could accomplish, and these differences were not resolved. This ensured that an integrated war strategy, which included military as well as other non-military actions, was neither developed nor integrated.

In 2007, a preliminary report by the Winograd Commission was released. It criticized the Israeli Prime Minister for having “no organized plan” for the invasion of southern Lebanon, and for not seeking sufficient military advice on the operation.

Without an explicit and agreed strategy to drive and shape military efforts, tactical operations are largely directionless. Tactical activities might achieve local objectives, but the purpose for their conduct is missing. This lack of a strategy, and a way to link tactical actions through campaigns and military strategy to political outcomes, was a major lesson from the war in 2006.

Theme 2: Air Power matters but is not in itself a war winning solution. Air power received a lot of negative critique in the wake of the 2006 war, and eventually led to the Israeli chief of defence, a key air power advocate, resigning. The Israeli leadership’s faith in airpower before the war, a means to lower risk and conduct a low-casualty response to the challenges of Hezbollah, was found to be misplaced. The application of air power was not able to provide a full solution to the challenges of Hezbollah asymmetric operations and their hiding among the people.

The use of air power did not fail in 2006, but it should never have been viewed as the comprehensive solution that it was by senior Israeli leaders. As Sarah Kreps wrote in her critique of Israeli airport during the 2006 war, a key lesson is perhaps not airpower is a categorical failure, but that it does not promise the antiseptic elixir that some leaders are seeking.

Interestingly, in the lead up to the 2006 war, the Israeli Air Force declared that it would no longer provide fixed wing close air support for Israeli ground forces due to priority strategic missions. Consequently, ground forces involved in the incursion into Lebanon were not given the full level of support that might have otherwise been available.

Theme 3: Realistic, rigorous and assessed training is a key foundation for operational success. IDF investigations after the war, which used multiple incidents during the war as case studies, found that the basic training for units in the IDF was unacceptable, and that this had contributed to the challenges experienced during the 2006 Lebanon war.

For example, simple coordination between neighboring units and formations was lacking. Another example was that army units before the war lacked standards for collective training, and therefor their operational effectiveness could not be assessed – until they entered combat. Collective training activities before the war were frequently cancelled at short notice (one report noted 25% of battalion training operations were cancelled at short notice in the period 2001-2005).

Infantry mobility before 2006 was not sufficient for them to keep up with the IDF tank corps, and infantry-tank coordination was lacking. The collection and distribution of tactical intelligence when the war began was a lower priority than strategic intelligence capabilities. Finally, the training of reserve units was a low priority compared to regular units, and reservists (around 30,000 of whom were mobilised for the war) entered the war with insufficient training and preparation.

Theme 4: Tested and relevant doctrine is vital. A primary lesson in IDF reports on the war was the need to reformulate the Operational Art. Many of those interviewed in the wake of the war saw the doctrine on Israel’s Operational Art, which was introduced just three months before the war, as a significant contributor to failure in Lebanon. With titles such as The General Staff’s Operational Art for the IDF, Systemic Design and Effects-Based Operations, the Winograd Commission identified that this new doctrine had been officially approved in the IDF without undergoing suitable testing and wider education within the organization beforehand.

To make matter worse, conformism ensured that even when senior leaders thought the new doctrine was bad, few dared speak up. As one report found:

A sensitive issue regarding the conduct of the General Staff in the period preceding and during the Second Lebanon War is that of conformism – the “swimming with the current” – of most of the generals. The changes instituted by Haloutz were accepted by the members of the staff almost without opposition.

The doctrinal aspects of this took some time to remedy. As Gabi Sidoni writes:

Since the Second Lebanon War, several attempts were made to formulate a current operational concept for the IDF, but these did not evolve into a working document. Only in August 2015, a little over nine years after the war, was a new conceptual document issued – The IDF Strategy.

Theme 5: Leader development must be improved. In the wake of the war, Israel recognized that many of the difficulties it faced during the 2006 Lebanon War were failures of leadership. As a RAND examination noted:

The actions and judgments of the prime minister, defense minister, and many commanders at echelons from IDF chief of staff to those below brigade demonstrated, in one way or another, that more attention to educating leaders and their staffs is necessary. There were tactical failures: It was reported that tactical-level commanders in too many cases never left their command posts to cross into southern Lebanon and gauge conditions at the front. There were operational-level shortfalls: Fears of soldier casualties first stopped attacks and later slowed them to the pace of bulldozers constructing new roads. There were strategic misjudgments: Expectations regarding what could realistically be expected of air power were naïve.

Another fundamental failure of leadership was that the vast majority of forces committed on the ground had only been training in the kinds of security missions conducted during intifada operations. This focus on a single type of operation denies a force the capacity to adapt quickly in wars and increases the risk to the force when it is employed on alternative missions.

These failures of leadership are often systemic and require changes across the entirety of a military institution’s education and training efforts. Whether they have been fully addressed remains to be seen.

A Fork in the Road

There are many other lessons from 2006. The Israeli’s were rigorous in studying the lessons of the war. Some elements of the Winograd Commission, the principal investigation of the war which released its final report in 2008, remain classified. But the IDF has changed many of aspects of its organisation, training and leadership which led to the lessons described above and the failures of the 2006 Lebanon war. Layered on top of these lessons and changes are more recent learning about new technologies and their application on the modern battlefield from Ukraine and Gaza.

However, whether that means the IDF would be more successful in any near future incursion into Lebanon remains to be seen. These lessons are not predictors of future performance. They do indicate the kinds of challenges the IDF may face during an invasion of southern Lebanon.

Importantly, Hezbollah has also been watching and learning since 2006. As the old saying goes, “the enemy always gets a vote.” IDF effectiveness and military success in Lebanon will be influenced by the changes in Hezbollah organisation, training, tactics, and equipment over the past 18 years.

Whether Israel chooses to continue its strikes to restore deterrence, or pursues a large-scale invasion of southern Lebanon, it is unlikely there will be a significant reduction in the tempo of the conflict in the near term. Both Hezbollah and Israel have indicated that they possess the will and the capacity to continue their current operations for some time to come.

The coming days will provide further insights into whether the reality of a larger and more destructive war sees the conflict continue in its current form or shifts to a different phase of large-scale ground and air combat within southern Lebanon.

The 2008 Winograd Commission final report found that the decision to react immediately to the 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldiers reduced Israel’s strategic options to either a standoff war or a full-scale invasion. History doesn’t repeat, but it appears to be rhyming.

(Images: Hezbollah DR3 missile - Alma Research and Education Centre; Merkava tanks in Lebanon on 2006 - Jerusalem Post)

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15. Meet the Afghan general who wants to take on the Taliban

The scene described below is one of the many dilemmas SF soldiers experience with their G Chief at Robin Sage. It is a very delicate situation to balance security with building trust.

Excerpts:

Sadat, 39, is a polarizing figure. In his memoir “The Last Commander,” published in August by Bombardier books, he admits his blunt and combative manner garnered powerful enemies — including Ashraf Ghani, the last president of Afghanistan — and sometimes put him at odds with the U.S. generals ostensibly there to support Afghan military efforts.

In one of the book’s scenes, he describes telling off a U.S. Army one-star who demanded he and other Afghan soldiers be searched and turn over their weapons before entering their own headquarters for a mission briefing.

Ultimately, Sadat said he threatened to shut the general out of the meeting entirely.

“I walked in with all my combat gear on, carrying my M-4 rifle,” Sadat writes. “I hated myself for being so rude, but we needed to make a point. This was our war. America was a supporting partner.”

By Sadat’s account, the months prior to the 2020 Doha Agreement, a peace deal with the Taliban that set the stage for U.S. withdrawal, had yielded significant victories by the Afghan military in holding and retaking key territory.

Sadat felt the deal hamstrung Afghan forces, limiting their ability to engage with and pursue the Taliban just as their military efforts were gaining momentum. It was a feeling of betrayal, Sadat says in his book, that would only be compounded the following year as American forces began to withdraw.

Meet the Afghan general who wants to take on the Taliban

militarytimes.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · September 25, 2024

In rural Mason Neck, Virginia, among homes with Confederate flags hanging out front and towering pickup trucks occupying driveways, a stately brick mansion makes for an unexpected neighbor.

In the home’s front lawn, sitting amid manicured shrubs, rises an even more unusual sight: the flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. It is one that has not flown in its own country since 2021, when U.S. forces departed and top leaders fled, ceding control to the Taliban.

Former Afghan Lt. Gen. Sami Sadat believes he’ll once again see that flag ascend in Afghan skies.

This is his home, and also the hub for the Afghanistan United Front, an organization he founded — and largely self-funds — to “unite Afghans and return Afghanistan to the constitutional order, ensuring that Afghans can enjoy freedom, peace, and prosperity.”

Inside the house, behind Sadat’s desk, is another Afghan flag, one he took from the compound of the provincial governor of Helmand province when Sadat ordered the evacuation of the province’s capital city of Lashkar Gah on Aug. 12, 2021.

“We made a promise to take this flag back,” Sadat said in an interview with Military Times.

While few Afghan generals over the course of the 20-year war became internationally known, Sadat’s profile rose higher than most.

He was prominently featured in the 2022 National Geographic documentary Retrograde, which followed the officer, then in control of the entire Afghan Army, as he sought to hold the line amid crumbling order in the final days before the fall of Kabul.

Sadat as the Afghan Army commander prior to the fall of Kabul. (Courtesy of Sami Sadat)

Sadat, 39, is a polarizing figure. In his memoir “The Last Commander,” published in August by Bombardier books, he admits his blunt and combative manner garnered powerful enemies — including Ashraf Ghani, the last president of Afghanistan — and sometimes put him at odds with the U.S. generals ostensibly there to support Afghan military efforts.

In one of the book’s scenes, he describes telling off a U.S. Army one-star who demanded he and other Afghan soldiers be searched and turn over their weapons before entering their own headquarters for a mission briefing.

Ultimately, Sadat said he threatened to shut the general out of the meeting entirely.

“I walked in with all my combat gear on, carrying my M-4 rifle,” Sadat writes. “I hated myself for being so rude, but we needed to make a point. This was our war. America was a supporting partner.”

By Sadat’s account, the months prior to the 2020 Doha Agreement, a peace deal with the Taliban that set the stage for U.S. withdrawal, had yielded significant victories by the Afghan military in holding and retaking key territory.

Sadat felt the deal hamstrung Afghan forces, limiting their ability to engage with and pursue the Taliban just as their military efforts were gaining momentum. It was a feeling of betrayal, Sadat says in his book, that would only be compounded the following year as American forces began to withdraw.

In May 2021, all the contractors responsible for the Afghans’ fleet of Black Hawk helicopters left at the same time, without the handoff process needed to keep the aircraft maintained and flying, according to his memoir.

Sadat describes the pain of listening to U.S. troops blow up their remaining caches of ammunition, leaving none behind for Afghan allies. It makes his frustration and helplessness visceral.

“As a time when we were rationing every round, the sight of mortar shells being fired uselessly into the desert, one after another, was demoralizing,” he writes.

Sadat holding his memoir. (Hope Hodge Seck)

The Afghanistan United Front, or AUF, is itself something of an act of defiance. It shares many common aims with the National Resistance Front (NRF) of Afghanistan, led by former Afghan politician Ahmad Massoud and headquartered in Tajikistan.

Sadat said he reached out to Massoud soon after the fall of Afghanistan with interest in joining his movement, but the NRF had adopted an approach — and older Afghan flag — associated with mujahideen factions of the 1990s. Sadat insisted on standing behind Afghanistan’s last constitution, and its final flag.

NRF leaders perceived a power struggle, and Sadat ended up on his own. He now says he’s open to changes to the Afghan government once the people are back in control, but believes the guiding documents and symbols of the country must remain constant until then.

“We need something for now to bind our legal claim, and that is the constitution and a constitutional order,” he said.

The extent of Sadat’s network of allies is hard to ascertain. His book features advance praise from H.R. McMaster, a former U.S. national security advisor and retired Army lieutenant general who calls it “an invaluable perspective on the American self-defeat in Afghanistan.”

Sadat has also toured with Australian counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen and Thomas Kasza, a U.S. Army veteran who founded an organization to support Afghans who assisted special operations troops.

In 2022, Sadat met with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and became a contributor to the Republican-led committee report on Afghanistan’s fall released in September.

Sadat said he aligns with the report’s perspective on President Joe Biden, whose “abandonment” of Afghanistan speaks, he believes, to Biden’s longstanding contempt for the country.

And while he remains in friendly communication with other U.S. military leaders he once worked with in Afghanistan, those individuals have made clear they are unable to get involved in his cause, he said.

Where he has the most support, meanwhile, is at the ground level of his home country, among the scattered Afghan military forces.

“We could mobilize tens of thousands of soldiers in a matter of months,” he said, adding that the Taliban’s suffocating rule in Afghanistan was also stirring up the fight in young men who’d never previously served. “We believe that thousands and thousands of fresh recruits will also rush to the call.”

Sadat says he believes 'tens of thousands' of Afghan fighters would rally to defeat the Taliban once called upon. (Courtesy of Sami Sadat)

Before that comes to fruition, lessons must be gleaned from failures of the past.

Sadat said he believes the HFAC Republicans’ report provided “a sense of accountability” for the U.S. government’s mistakes and failures in Afghanistan leading up to the country’s collapse. But he wishes the report probed deeper into the risk the Taliban pose today, not only to the Afghan people, but also to the Western world as the extremist movement gains strength and lends support to other radical Islamist groups.

“Another 9/11 attack and major global attacks is not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when, because they’re preparing,” Sadat said. “So, there are two ways the Americans can do this. One way is to support us, so we can go and … destroy them inside Afghanistan. The other way is, the Americans wait and fight them in Europe and the Middle East and inside America.”

It remains unclear when the time will be right for AUF to launch its planned political and military offensive against the Taliban. Sadat said he can’t discuss the timeline, but made clear the group can’t afford to wait forever.

An upcoming book tour that will usher him to locations across the United States — including stops in Texas, Arizona and New York — will, he hopes, raise more resources and awareness for the AUF to continue its work.

“As soon as we have enough resources, we’re going to go and start our campaign,” Sadat said.

“And in this, we’re not asking anyone’s permission.”

militarytimes.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · September 25, 2024

16. ‘Every lever of statecraft’ needed to overcome Pacific threats, commander says

How many levers of statcraft are there? Not a snarky comment I am just curious because I do not know. It might be useful to list them out and make sure we have all of them identified so we can know which one we need to pull on quickly in any given circumstance.

‘Every lever of statecraft’ needed to overcome Pacific threats, commander says

Adm. Paparo met Chinese counterpart in Hawaii after video call earlier this month.

By Jennifer Hlad

Managing Editor, Defense One

September 25, 2024 04:34 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Jennifer Hlad

KONA, Hawaii—The U.S. military services are “doing everything that’s possible within the laws of physics” in the Indo-Pacific right now, but the region’s challenges require “every lever of statecraft, not just the military lever,” Adm. Samuel Paparo told Defense One in an interview.

On a balcony overlooking the ocean at the Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defense Conference, the leader of Indo-Pacific Command called the region “the key strategic problem to the United States,” and said all-domain operations “are a requirement” in the theater.

“This is a time for agnosticism in all-domain operations. Every formation is applicable in every domain. So, you know, we are open to every formation that can operate in every domain… and all units are required to operate in all domains. Not encouraged—required,” Paparo said.

Paparo met with senior military leaders from 28 countries and NATO at the conference, whose theme was “The future Indo-Pacific: Building a resilient and interconnected region.”

Among them was Gen. Wu Yanan, who leads the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theater Command. Their in-person meeting continued a conversation begun in a Sept. 9 video call between the U.S. and Chinese commanders.

Only “time will tell” whether the communication will continue, Paparo said, but the video call “was a professional and courteous exchange of information, where I began by urging safe and professional conduct of forces, by pointing out a number of occasions where the [People’s Republic of China] hazarded U.S. and allied and partner forces throughout the theater.”

Wu “then made expressions of [China’s] own policy, none of which were a surprise,” Paparo said, after which he suggested that the two “could have a channel of communication unaffected by policy…where he and I could ensure that there were no miscalculations.”

Wu was “positive, but non-committal” on the idea of a regular communication channel, Paparo said, adding that his attendance at the conference “was a very positive sign.”

A press release issued by INDOPACOM after the conference noted that Paparo “underscored the importance of sustained lines of communication between the U.S. military and the PLA” in the in-person meeting.

China, of late, has been having fewer run-ins with the U.S., but more with allies, which is “why this channel is so important,” Paparo said.

Many of the recent aggressions have targeted Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, including a June attack by the Chinese coast guard on a Filipino naval craft involving an ax.

“This is how the gray zone is defined…actions by a state actor, where they use aggression in such a way…that achieves ends with violence, in a way that minimizes the risk of open, acknowledged armed conflict. There’s always a risk of employing gray zone operation, but an ‘armed attack’ is amorphously defined,” Paparo said.

“An ax is a dangerous weapon. And it’s, there’s a Philippine sailor minus a thumb. His name’s Jeffrey. There’s a human side to this. And that human side, it also includes the Philippine fisher folk, who are poor, whose livelihood depends on fishing these waters.”

Amid the escalating tensions, Paparo said in August that the U.S. is open to the idea of the U.S. escorting Philippine ships in the region. But, he clarified to Defense One, he was merely saying INDOPACOM is prepared to do so if asked.

“That’s my duty as a commander, and it’s my duty to have options prepared to cross the range of military operations,” he said.

Tensions have also escalated on the Korean peninsula, with North Korea launching multiple short-range ballistic weapons last week.

North Korea’s actions “bear watching,” Paparo said. “We’re deeply concerned with the growing numbers of deepening partnerships among North Korea-Russia, PRC-Russia.” He added, “While we remain concerned, we also remain confident in our ability to deter and respond to aggression in the north.”

China and Russia “are demonstrating their ability to cooperate, and they’re demonstrating their, quote, no limits partnership,” he said. …“Having foreseen this, we have a significant, significant deterrent and response posture partnership ongoing with INDOPACOM and NORTHCOM ongoing presently that’s ready to intercept, ID, escort forces, and respond to forces…to ensure there’s no seams.”

For the conference, Paparo said the greatest possible outcome could be that “we come out of it with a common understanding of the environment, and we leave with a greater trust, so that when a problem arises, you have a baseline of trust, so that you can pick up the phone immediately and you can solve problems. And that’s the greatest currency there is: Trust.”

defenseone.com · by Jennifer Hlad

17. United States Announces $5.55 Billion New Military Assistance for Ukraine

I suppose some would say President Zelensky had a fruitful visit.

I imagine that based on the partisan rhetoric of late toward Ukraine that we will see this "discussed" on the campaign trail.

What is it that Kant said about "doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do?"

United States Announces $5.55 Billion New Military Assistance for Ukraine

Press Statement

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

September 26, 2024

https://www.state.gov/united-states-announces-5-55-billion-new-military-assistance-for-ukraine/

Today, as part of the surge of assistance that President Biden directed ahead of his meeting with President Zelenskyy, the Department notified Congress of the intent to direct the drawdown of up to approximately $5.55 billion in defense articles and services from DoD stocks for military assistance to Ukraine under Presidential Drawdown Authority.

This drawdown utilizes the remaining authority of the Presidential Drawdown Authority under section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance for fiscal year 2024 provided by the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024, which will expire on September 30, 2024. We are taking this step to ensure this Authority does not expire and the United States can fully utilize the funding appropriated by Congress.

By doing so, the United States will be able to continue to provide a surge in defense articles and services to Ukraine from DoD stocks under planned drawdowns in the weeks and months ahead. These drawdowns have been made possible by strong bipartisan support from Congress.

The United States is committed to supporting the Ukrainian military with the equipment they need to strengthen their position on the battlefield, defend their territory and people from the Kremlin’s brutal aggression, and prevail in this war to secure a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace. As President Biden has made clear, the United States and the international coalition we have assembled will continue to stand with Ukraine.

18. A Serious Pentagon Must Hold a ‘Plucking Board’

As an aside I was interviewed by Dr. Marion when he worked in the USSOCOM historian's office. I provided him with all my information about our work in the Philippines and he promptly classified everything and wrote a classified history that arguably no one has ever read. The USASOC historian's office took all the interviews from many of us and all our documents and published a full edition of Special Warfare Magazine (and a later one as well 2 years after)with stories from the mission using only pseudonyms in place of our names. (Of course I wonder if anyone read those either). I know Robert Kaplan did because he sent an email to SECDEF Rumsfeld that generated a snowflake that was promptly ignored. But I digress. This article is about another history, "Plucking."

Excerpts:

A plucking board must be one element if U.S. defense restoration is to take place. Why? Simply this: since the Pentagon began mandating leftist, racist Critical Race Theory (CRT)-based ideological indoctrination under the term DEI and, in the process, diverting precious resources from legitimate combat readiness in favor of utopian foolishness, no U.S. senior military leader is known to have done what Air Force chief of staff Gen. Ron Fogleman did a generation ago. In 1997, Fogleman – universally admired and respected by those who know him – resigned on principle due to the scapegoating of an Air Force one-star who was blamed for the Khobar Towers attack in 1996.

Twenty-five years later, a safe estimate is that near-zero general/flag officers resigned on principle when the Biden Pentagon implemented its morale-lowering and combat readiness-degrading initiatives within the now-dwindling ranks. Sadly, dozens of examples could be brought forward which demonstrate similar ideological indoctrination of the armed forces, directly or indirectly. One telling case, however, occurred in May 2021 when Secretary Austin fired a lieutenant colonel who dared to challenge the department’s CRT/DEI-based mandates. Prior to investigating, Austin relieved the officer on grounds of participating in “prohibited partisan political activity.”

A Serious Pentagon Must Hold a ‘Plucking Board’

By Forrest Marion

September 26, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/09/26/a_serious_pentagon_must_hold_a_plucking_board_1060999.html?mc_cid=8c09bbad57&mc_eid=70bf478f36

On 1 September 1939 – the day Hitler invaded Poland to begin the Second World War – George C. Marshall officially took the reins as chief of staff of the United States Army. Marshall was to lead the Army through the entirety of the war. For the next two years, however, as Hitler’s military overran most of Europe and threatened Great Britain’s survival, General Marshall devoted himself to preparing the peacetime army “if war came” – a war many Americans still hoped desperately to avoid.[i]

During the First World War, culminating as the First Army’s assistant chief of staff for operations, Marshall had witnessed the problem of field commanders who were past their prime. Marshall’s biographer, noted military historian Forrest Pogue, wrote that in 1939-1941 Marshall “was haunted by recollections of the droves of unfit commanders” that Pershing had sent to reclassification because they “no longer had it.” Marshall himself wrote, “Men who had sustained a reputation for soldierly qualities, under less trying conditions, proved too weak for the ordeal and became pessimistic calamity howlers.”[ii]

In the two decades of bare-bones funding between the wars, Marshall “fought the dead hand of promotion by seniority.” Finally in a position to do something about the seniority system, as the army expanded in 1940 and ‘41 Marshall built a command system “to be able to put my finger on the man I wanted” for particular leadership posts. Pogue wrote, “. . . he was preparing an army for war and felt that the selection of those who could lead in battle was a duty he owed the state.”

To ensure impartiality in the process of eliminating unfit senior officers from consideration for higher-level and combat commands, Marshall appointed six retired officers, headed by his predecessor, General Malin Craig. Marshall’s “plucking board,” as it was called, was “empowered to remove from line promotion any officer for reasons deemed good and sufficient.” Those removed were given one year to retire. As Marshall told the board, “Critical times are upon us.”

So, it is today.

As in 1940, the United States faces increasingly threatening rogue actors abroad, led by China – including its space forces – and a host of lesser would-be aggressors. Anyone paying attention knows that U.S. combatant commands might be called upon to protect national security interests on very short notice. But as countless military historians and others have observed, leadership remains the key to military success, or failure.

The last American general to orchestrate a strategic victory in a real war, Marshall was lauded by Churchill as the Allies’ “true ‘organizer of victory.’” The sole reason Marshall was not tasked by President Roosevelt to command the 1944 Allied invasion of northwest Europe was due to his broad grasp of the strategic situation not only in Europe, but worldwide. As FDR told him, “I didn’t feel I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington.”

Unless an unlikely up-and-coming Marshall appears to shake things up, a serious Department of Defense – which has proven itself utterly unserious since 2021 – must take the initiative to change its course: reordering priorities; reestablishing proven standards and culture; restoring military competency and merit-based advancement; and rebuilding the trust of the American public. These are indispensable components which have been upset, dangerously degraded, or threatened by the social justice/woke revolution that has ravaged the country to incalculable loss, aided and abetted by an unserious administration in Washington. In June 2023, the Chinese took their measure of American leadership and declined to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue Asian security summit in Singapore. In another era, such a rebuff was unthinkable.

Following the firing, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) wrote to Secretary Austin to express his concerns:

If the Department of Defense finds that . . . statements on CRT qualify as

a “partisan cause,” it would then follow that the Department recognizes CRT itself as

reflecting one side in a partisan debate. Yet if CRT is partisan, it must be asked why this

ideology is increasingly being pushed on U.S. service members. It has become

increasingly clear that the Department is actively pushing CRT through “diversity and

inclusion” trainings, recommended reading materials, and cadet instruction. The

Department therefore cannot call . . . statements on CRT “partisan” without being

implicated in the same partisan advocacy.

When queried, Wicker’s staff found no record of a response from the Secretary. No surprise, because Wicker had nailed them. Similar to a number of serious thinkers during these “critical times,” one writer at the Center for the American Way of Life observes rightly, “A military consumed by politics and identity threatens the very integrity of our republic.”

In the above firing and a host of other cases in recent years, every senior officer who failed to push back in some way – up to resigning as General Fogleman did – has proven complicit in the degrading of U.S. military combat readiness and morale. Each one who remained silent contributed to the ongoing recruiting crisis fueled by the Pentagon’s ideologically-driven contempt toward white males, who – like it or not – historically sustain the vast majority of U.S. combat losses during hostilities. Understandably, many traditionally serving American families have discouraged their young men from joining a military whose leaders have proven themselves complicit in, 1), viewing white males as suspected extremist-racists, and 2), undermining the military’s warrior ethos.

To borrow the term of Marshall’s day, such complicit officers are unfit.

A modern-day plucking board, examining each record, might aim to retire up to 1/3 of each senior officer cohort 120 days apart, perhaps beginning with current three- and four-stars. In one year’s time (three boards), the DEI-complicit in a given cohort could be headed toward retirement – or, into the DEI Industrial Complex where they belong – making room for the merit-based advancement of actual leaders. Something along this line is required for a future chief of staff or defense secretary to be able to put his “finger on the man . . . wanted,” as did Marshall with the support of his boss, Secretary of War Henry Stimson.

As in Marshall’s day, the selection of those capable of leading in battle remains “a duty . . . owed the state.” Prior to battle, however, another duty owed, is leaders worthy of the trust of families to send their young men into service. To meet these sober obligations, a requisite plucking awaits.

Forrest L. Marion is a retired Department of the Air Force military historian; his most recent works are Flight Risk: The Coalition’s Air Advisory Mission in Afghanistan, 2005-2015 (Naval Institute Press, 2018) and Standing Up Space Force: The Road to the Nation’s Sixth Armed Service (Naval Institute Press, 2023).

Notes:

[i] Most information on Marshall contained herein taken from Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope (New York, 1965), chapter IV; and his George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory (New York, 1973), chapter XVI.

[ii] George C. Marshall, Memoirs of My Services in the World War, 1917-1918 (Boston, 1976), 175-76.

19. Bipartisan duo of lawmakers to introduce 'Ships for America Act' following election

Can legislation fix our shipbuilding problems? Aren't these problems part of a larger issue with the state of our defense industrial base?

Perhaps we need Goldwater Nichols type legislation to fix our defense industrial base? "The Kelly-Waltz Defense Industrial Base Reorganization Act"

Excerpts:

Kelly and Waltz have spent the past year publicly floating a handful of ideas that, in their view, would bolster the country’s maritime industrial base, both the commercial shipping side as well as military shipbuilding. During the event at CSIS, the duo said they supported a maritime czar of sorts — a single individual inside the executive branch whose authorities span across maritime issues related to both the Defense and Transportation Departments.

Bipartisan duo of lawmakers to introduce 'Ships for America Act' following election - Breaking Defense

Both Sen. Mark Kelly and Rep. Mike Waltz have spent the past year publicly floating some of the ideas that will be included in the legislation.

By Justin Katz

on September 25, 2024 at 11:55 AM

breakingdefense.com · by Justin Katz · September 25, 2024

Ships assigned to the George Washington Carrier Strike group sail in formation during a strike group photo exercise. (U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Christopher Stephens)

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan and bicameral duo of lawmakers say they plan to introduce legislation aimed at boosting the United States’ civilian and defense maritime industries following the upcoming election.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz. and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla. plan to introduce their “Ships For America Act” following the November election, which they said today at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies has garnered support among shipbuilding executives.

“We need to make it more cost effective to operate US-flagged vessels with some cargo preference,” said Kelly. “We need regulatory reform and some financial support to the industry, like tax credits, and then building up our shipbuilding capacity to make sure that we’re going to be able to have more US-flagged ships here at home, and then the workforce [shortage] issue.

“This legislation addresses all [of] those areas extensively,” he continued.

Kelly and Waltz have spent the past year publicly floating a handful of ideas that, in their view, would bolster the country’s maritime industrial base, both the commercial shipping side as well as military shipbuilding. During the event at CSIS, the duo said they supported a maritime czar of sorts — a single individual inside the executive branch whose authorities span across maritime issues related to both the Defense and Transportation Departments.

Waltz’s Florida district encompasses the city of Jacksonville, also home to a Naval Air Station Jacksonville. While Kelly’s state of Arizona is less invested in shipbuilding directly, the senator is a graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy and has been vocal about urging lawmakers to take action to address a national shortage in merchant mariners.

Earlier this year, Waltz and Kelly, along with signatures from more than a dozen other lawmakers, sent a letter to the White House calling on the administration to “prioritize U.S. maritime defense.”

“The group [of lawmakers] called on the president to establish an interagency maritime policy director, designate maritime infrastructure as ‘critical infrastructure,’ invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) for shipbuilding, and develop a whole-of-government maritime ‘de-risking’ strategy to reduce dependency on Chinese maritime infrastructure and industry,” according to a statement from the lawmakers’ offices released alongside the letter.

20. Increased efforts, lower goal help Army end recruiting slump

I know people will pan the fact that one quarter of the recruits need a prep course. But perhaps that is simply a realistic recognition of the state of our society and our military age personnel. There are just not the numbers of fit youth available for recruiting. I know the numbers and research will show that many of these will turn out to be ill suited and will fail in larger numbers than those who do not require a prep course. But I have to believe that the fact that they are willing to volunteer and go through the additional hardship of training preparation to try to better themselves has to have some positive value and be a positive indicator. Yes the state of our youth volunteering for service is a reflection of society but maybe many young people do want to seek positive change.

Increased efforts, lower goal help Army end recruiting slump

One-quarter of recruits used the service’s new pre-enlistment course to get up to snuff.

By Sam Skove

Staff Writer

September 26, 2024 04:16 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

The Army beat its recruiting goal this year through a combination of lowered targets and increased efforts, after failing to hit higher goals in 2022 and 2023.

The service recruited 55,300 soldiers against a goal of 55,000 in fiscal 2024, the service said Thursday. The service also saw 11,000 people commit to enlist in fiscal year 2025 under the Delayed Entry Program, more than double last year’s total.

The service also enlisted 6,000 more soldiers in specialties it deems critical this year compared to last, said U.S. Army Recruiting Command chief, Maj. Gen. Johnny Davis, speaking at a Thursday media roundtable.

Last year—fiscal 2023—the service recruited 50,181 soldiers against a “stretch goal” of 65,000, as Army Secretary Christine Wormuth put it, with 4,611 signing up for deferred entry. At the time, the Army presented the Delayed Entry Program numbers as part of its overall recruiting contracts, leading to reporting that the Army had hit 55,000 contracts.

In 2022, the Army recruited 44,901 new members, well short of its goal of 60,000.

The Army’s press release did not say why the service sought 55,000 recruits in 2024 after seeking 60,000 and 65,000 in previous years. But the lowered target comes as the service works to consolidate undermanned formations created by past recruiting shortfalls.

The Army has blamed poor recruiting numbers in part on the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as more prosaic issues like obesity, a strong U.S. economy, and the failure to meet the Army’s drug policy.

One major contributor to this year’s success was the Army’s “Future Soldier Preparatory Course,” a two-year-old initiative to prepare prospective soldiers for the Army’s required physical and academic tests.

In fiscal year 2024, 13,206 soldiers passed from the course to basic training. The course has taken over 28,000 recruits since it was launched, with over 90 percent of those recruits graduating, said Brig. Gen. Jennifer Walkawicz of Army Training and Doctrine Command. The Army expanded the course earlier this year, adding a total of four training companies.

Other measures included a major new recruiting campaign that revived an 80’s-era slogan, “Be All You Can Be,” which launched in March 2023. The Army also temporarily increased medical personnel at intake centers to make the onboarding process more efficient, according to an Army press release.

The Army announced structural reforms to recruiting last October. New initiatives include establishing recruiting as a separate military occupational specialty, creating a recruitment experimentation group, and setting a goal to rely less on high-school recruiting. In August, the Army graduated its first class of recruiters under the new specialty. The service also

launched an AI program in the last two months to identify potential recruits.

Army leaders were cautious about declaring an end to their recruiting struggles, though.

“We’re going to have to kind of keep fighting hard for our new recruits,” said Wormuth, citing low employment and an expected decrease in the population as factors working against Army recruiters.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

21. Call for Submissions: Policy Recommendations for the New Administration (from the Irregular Warfare Institute)

I think I am going to submit a draft paper I have for an Irregular Warfare presidential decision directive using NSDD 32 from President Reagan. Here is the outline and the conclusion. (I am already also working on two projects for new recommended Korea policy as well)

1. Strategic Objectives:

2. Political and Diplomatic Warfare:

3. Support for Proxy Forces and Non-State Actors:

4. Cyber and Technological Warfare:

5. Economic Warfare:

6. Military Support and Deterrence:

7. Psychological and Information Warfare:

8. Coalition Building:

9. Planning and Flexibility:

10. Implementation:

Institutionalize Irregular Warfare:
Operationalize Irregular Warfare:
Sustainment:

11. Integration with NSDD-32’s Principles:

Conclusion:

This irregular warfare plan, grounded in the principles of NSDD-32, offers a blend of political, economic, and military actions designed to counter modern adversaries. By integrating both traditional and contemporary elements of irregular warfare, the U.S. can maintain strategic superiority while mitigating the risks of full-scale conflict.

Call for Submissions: Policy Recommendations for the New Administration

September 26, 2024 by Tobias Bernard Switzer

https://irregularwarfare.org/articles/call-for-submissions-policy-recommendations-for-the-new-administration/

When a new American president takes office on January 20th, they will confront a dangerous national security environment shaped by Irregular Warfare (IW) challenges. From cyber warfare and gray zone conflicts to terrorism and insurgency, these challenges demand immediate, actionable solutions.

The Irregular Warfare Initiative invites you to contribute fresh, pragmatic, and non-partisan policy recommendations to help shape the next administration’s approach to these threats. We welcome contributions from practitioners, policymakers, and academics alike.

Submission Guidelines:

Focus: Propose practical and specific solutions to improve the US and its allies’ abilities to counter IW threats. Examples include:
Realism: Submissions should consider current resources and constraints. Avoid idealistic ideas or unrealistic budget increases. Vague recommendations for more interagency cooperation or trillions of extra spending aren’t helpful. We need practical, cost-effective solutions.
Originality: Submissions must be original and unpublished.
Evidence-Based: Recommendations should be backed by data, case studies, or well-supported arguments. Use hyperlinks for citations, not endnotes.
Clarity and Accessibility: Write in clear, accessible language. Avoid jargon to ensure your piece is understandable to a broad audience.
Length: Maximum 2,000 words.
Deadline: November 4th, 2024.
Follow the Irregular Warfare Initiative’s publication guidelines.

Selected submissions will be published on our website.

How to Submit:

Submit your essay as a Word document via this link

This is your opportunity to influence how the United States tackles Irregular Warfare in the years ahead. We look forward to your insights.

Until then,

Keep Warfare Irregular!

Tobias Bernard Switzer is the Editorial Director of the Irregular Warfare Initiative

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.

Main Image: Altered Uncle Sam I Want You – Poster April 28, 2011 (by DonkeyHotey via Flickr)

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

22. Big Tech’s Coup

Excerpts:

At a more fundamental level, governments must shift the emphasis from passing laws to enforcing them in an agile manner. They need to anchor laws in core principles of justice, equality, nondiscrimination, and liability while doubling down on concrete, tangible enforcement mechanisms that can endure the next, inevitable technological breakthrough. Too often, enforcement is an afterthought, and oversight bodies are left underresourced. Governments must fix this problem by creating more powerful sticks. They could, for example, use procurement to induce behavioral change. As the largest spenders on information technology, states around the world have the financial sway needed to enforce cybersecurity and nondiscrimination standards as well as to hold companies accountable for violating existing laws or being negligent in preventing data breaches. They might do so by establishing a three-strikes model. After three clear strikes, a company should be out of the bidding market.

But the most nefarious tech companies must be outright banned from selling their antidemocratic technologies. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce finally added the NSO Group, the Israeli firm that produces Pegasus spyware, to the Entity List, which limits the ease with which they are traded. This designation is well deserved: Pegasus is a spyware tool popular with repressive governments looking to surveil activists, journalists, and political opponents. But it came far too late. For years, the United States and other countries waffled on banning the company as it (and other firms like it) grew stronger and more sophisticated.

Regulations are just one part of the path forward. States should also invest significantly in creating public digital infrastructure, stronger academic research, and a better digital public square. Additionally, societies need to build a culture of tech ethics and accountability that compels companies to make the right decisions.

Any time the Musks of the world refuse to listen to judges and regulators, it is a good reminder of the fact that states have the ability to rein in big tech and prioritize democratic governance, if only they wanted to. It is not too late to stop the tech coup. But governments need to enact real, systemic reforms to win their power back and enshrine the rule of law.

Big Tech’s Coup

How Companies Seized Power From States—and How States Can Claw It Back

By Marietje Schaake

September 26, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by The Tech Coup: How To Save Democracy from Silicon Valley · September 26, 2024

On August 30, the Brazilian Supreme Court banned X—the social media platform formally known as Twitter—from its country’s Internet. The ban was the culmination of a months-long fight between Elon Musk, the platform’s owner and the world’s richest man, and Alexandre de Moraes, one of the court’s justices. Moraes was tasked with investigating the role of online disinformation in attempts to keep former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in power, despite losing the election. As part of these duties, Moraes had ordered X to take down hundreds of accounts spreading disinformation. In response, the platform accused the justice of censorship. Musk withdrew the representatives X legally needed to operate in Brazil, which eventually led the justice to prevent Brazilians from accessing the platform altogether.

Musk did not take kindly to the decision, comparing Moraes to an “evil tyrant.” But Musk did not confine his anger to harsh denunciations. According to reporting by The New York Times, he actively worked around the order. First, Musk encouraged Brazilians to use virtual private networks (VPNs) to evade the blockage. Then, his Starlink satellite network, which provides Internet service to subscribers directly from space, continued providing access to the site. Finally, X rerouted its Internet traffic through new servers, allowing it to circumvent Brazil’s telecommunication controls altogether.

Under mounting pressure from authorities in a country with a significant number of X users (and asset seizures), the company eventually agreed to block the disinformation accounts and pay off its fines. But the brazenness with which a tech mogul was able to defy a state’s decision makes a stark and scary fact very tangible: democratic governments have lost their primacy in the digital world. Instead, companies and their executives are increasingly in charge. This power shift is the sum of society’s systemic dependence on technology firms, the legal gray zones in which they operate, and the unique characteristics of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. It is a product of how public institutions have been stripped of their technological knowledge, agency, and accountability. It is a reality that generations of politicians of various parties have allowed to set in.

If democracy is to survive, leaders must fight this coup head on. They need to shrink their overdependence on powerful tech companies. They must empower public interest technology as a counterweight. They need to rebuild their own tech expertise. Most of all, they must build effective and innovative regulatory regimes that can meaningfully hold tech companies (and governments using tech) to account. Doing so is needed to sustain open, free, and vibrant digital societies based on the rule of law.

The Brazilian case is a reminder that it is not too late. Democratic authorities can reclaim their sovereignty and assert themselves effectively in tech—if they choose to use their muscles.

ALL THAT POWER

Private firms are constantly producing new technological inventions, but policymakers have failed to keep pace. In the United States, two key tech regulations, the Communication Decency Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, were passed decades ago—in 1996 and 1998, respectively—long before Steve Jobs had even thought of the iPhone. In the years since, tech companies have progressed from developing products to operating entire systems that affect domains previously exclusively governed by states, such as digital infrastructure and its security guarantees. By unleashing their powerful tools and services into a world without proper guardrails, tech companies have become the de facto governors for technologies of great geopolitical significance, including facial recognition systems, satellite Internet connections, and some facets of intelligence collection. Microsoft has a Threat Intelligence Center that gathers insights as if it were the National Security Agency. Cryptocurrency companies mint their own money like the Federal Reserve. Amazon’s clean energy portfolio surpasses that of some countries, even as it builds power-hungry data centers.

As their authority grows, tech CEOs are becoming larger-than-life figures. Musk is perhaps the most obvious example, given his direct attacks on world leaders and involvement in politics. But other executives have also assumed outsized prominence in public life. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has routinely been called to testified before Congress. He has argued that his business is key to the U.S. competition with China (and should thus be left untouched). Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft executives also frequently show up in Washington. In a one hearing, John Kennedy, a Republican senator, even asked the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, whether he might run a possible U.S. AI regulatory agency. Politicians have abdicated their responsibility to unelected, unaccountable technology leaders.

As a result, tech firms large and small now exercise unprecedented power over even the most critical infrastructure. For example, they dominate undersea data cables, which serve as the transportation system for almost all the world’s Internet traffic. Nearly 99 percent of the world’s data travels through them, including $10 trillion in daily financial transactions and highly sensitive government information. Without the cables, all kinds of essential activity would become impossible. They should therefore be governed and secured by states or intergovernmental bodies. But instead, companies build, use, and maintain them as policymakers stand on the sidelines.

Tech companies are also deeply involved in state bureaucracies, making governments vulnerable in mundane but serious ways. In 2013, for example, Dutch tax authorities deployed controversial, privately built algorithmic risk assessments to identify fraudulent taxpayers. It was a disaster: because of faulty assessments, including through racial profiling, tens of thousands of families lost their homes, jobs, and custody over their children as the opaque, self-learning risk assessment tool was rigorous and discriminatory. The political fallout ultimately drove the government to resign and permanently damaged people’s trust in the state. But the company that deployed the faulty software has emerged relatively unscathed. Similar algorithms remain in use and on the market around the world, with the potential to wreak even more havoc.

WEAPONS OF WAR

Tech’s power grab extends to another core activity of states: war. AI applications have controversially been used to identify massive numbers of targets in Gaza. Ukraine uses satellite companies to gain intelligence and to communicate. This reliance has given tech firms remarkable leverage over how countries handle their defense. One of the companies Ukraine depends on, for example, is Starlink, which has emboldened Musk to weigh in on the conflict’s course. He has done so to call for peace negotiations along the lines of Kremlin objectives, irritating Kyiv and its supporters.

In other instances, tech firms have effectively become direct parties to conflicts. Confrontations increasingly take place in cyberspace, and so states increasingly depend on private companies for defense. Consider what happened when Colonial Pipeline’s networks were struck by a ransomware attack in 2021. The company is one of the biggest energy providers in the United States, and so the strike halted the flow of oil across much of the U.S. East Coast. Several U.S. states declared states of emergency as lines formed at gas stations. Flights had to be rerouted. At a meeting with tech CEOs in the aftermath of the attack, U.S. President Joe Biden conceded that “the reality is most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector.” He continued: “The federal government can’t meet this challenge alone.” It was a rare, open admission that the governmental had lost power when it comes to protecting the country in the digital realm.

Despite the growing use of destructive cyberattacks, the White House considers such attacks to be below the threshold of war. There are also no clear-cut international rules about what cyberattacks are prohibited. Espionage through digital means is typically not considered a violation of state sovereignty, so it is left unpunished. In 2022, Paul Nakasone, then the head of U.S. Cyber Command, said that the United States used offensive cyber capabilities to take out Russian targets but did not consider such attacks a direct engagement of Russia. Washington did, however, draw a redline at NATO’s borders for physically fighting Moscow’s forces.

In the midst of all this legal and political ambiguity, companies have become more comfortable acting as mercenaries. Spyware firms are for hire and sell sophisticated intelligence tools to dictatorships and democracies alike. Companies also play key roles in crucial nodes online: Amazon Web Services uses machine learning algorithms to go after state-sponsored threats, and Google’s Threat Analysis Group takes YouTube channels offline for running coordinated influence operations. These kinds of operations shift the domain of conflict to nonstate actors who have radically different motives—and levels of accountability—than governments.

THE MATRIX IS EVERYWHERE

Too often, states operate at an information disadvantage when it comes to technology. With few exceptions, they lack the access to information as well as expertise required to understand (let alone regulate) new algorithms and inventions. Because knowledge is power, this dearth leaves policymakers in a weak negotiating position vis-à-vis powerful tech companies, which leads to even more outsourcing. Companies such as Palantir Technologies are now trusted to perform critical data analyses when it comes to matters of defense, health care, and border control. They are doing so even though they lack the democratic authority, accountability, and experience needed to make these calls. “Saving lives and on occasion taking lives is super interesting,” Alex Karp, Palantir’s CEO, said in an interview with The New York Times in the summer of 2024—as if life-and-death decisions were a computer game.

Tech firms are also consolidating power through their pocketbooks. The biggest tech companies are exceptionally wealthy: Microsoft’s market cap stands at $3.2 trillion, more than the GDP of France, the seventh-largest economy in the world. As a result, these firms have no problem spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying. And the lobbyists often find they are pushing on open doors. Because politicians and other officials have so little tech expertise, corporate representatives can easily mold their thinking. Tech companies have similarly used their money to frame the world’s collective understanding of their industry by investing in think tanks, conferences, and academic institutions.

One of the frames tech businesses have been most successful in promoting is that, as Facebook put it when trying to dissuade European regulators from implementing the EU’s data protection directive in 2012, “regulation stifles innovation.” This argument is as wrong as it is self-serving, especially as big tech companies become gatekeepers and make life for innovative start-ups difficult. Yet the phrase remains popular through today. Regulation is dynamic, not fixed, adjusting as industries do. In many cases, responsible guardrails have actually sparked innovation. Companies, for instance, invented more environmentally friendly or sustainable products after stricter environmental protection laws came into force. And even if regulation did slow innovation, the tradeoff may well be worth it. Philosophically, innovation is not more important than the rule of law, consumer protection, nondiscrimination, or any of the other values central to democracy. If an innovation has the potential to curtail fundamental rights or contradict public values, regulation has every right to supersede it. Politicians should recognize this fact and act accordingly.

But even if they do, they will run into more barriers. Tech companies have gained more power by refusing to explain how their products function. As a result, academics cannot independently research the inner workings of algorithms or AI applications. Tech firms engage in outright deception, too. When Microsoft sought political approval for a data center in Iowa in 2016, it did so under the pseudonym “Project Osmium.” Bidding behind shell companies has become the norm among tech companies. Uber took this practice of obfuscation further with Greyball. In that project, according to reporting by The New York Times, Uber identified law enforcement officers in jurisdictions where the company was not yet authorized to operate. It then made it so that, when they opened the app, they would struggle to determine whether Uber was, in fact, available in their areas. In this way, the company was able to work while evading detection. Outside of sporadic fines, governments have not done enough to rein in these practices, demand transparency, and hold companies accountable.

Regulators are further hampered by the raw pace at which tech advances. Companies have avoided the law in part by inventing technologies so quickly that they stay ahead of it. They can then engage in questionable behavior without having to worry about policy blowback. Clearview AI, for example, scraped the entire Internet for faces before anyone noticed. Large language models were trained on the text body of the entire Internet before governments could weigh in on questions about data protection or intellectual property rights, assuming laws protecting those rights are in force. As companies hoover up masses of information only to lock it behind corporate walls, public institutions lose access to information, and thus agency and credibility. The result is a death spiral, where private power eventually exceeds the capacity of public accountability.

REEL IT IN

So far, democratic governments appear to be shockingly unconcerned about the rising power of tech companies. Activists and journalists have repeatedly set off alarms about the industry, but consecutive U.S. administrations have been deliberately lax when it comes to the sector, hoping to laissez-faire their way through any and all concerns. The EU has been more proactive, but very few of its laws are aimed at ending the power grab. Democracies need a clear vision of how to comprehensively govern tech.

In a society where tech companies cumulatively have critical decision power, the government should take more effective action. The good news is that should they decide to, there are many ways democratic governments can move forward. They involve increasing policymakers’ knowledge about the workings of tech products and then effectively reining in businesses. Governments could start by adjusting trade secrecy protections for the age of algorithms. They should require that researchers have access to data and that tech systems used in the name of governments are accessible, for example, through Freedom of Information Act requests. Doing so would allow the public to learn how these systems operate, facilitating a well-informed regulatory debate. In a similar vein, companies should be held to stronger transparency standards when it comes to bidding on land and energy contracts for data centers or disclosing their investors. If a company is unwilling to say who funds them, they are unfit to do business in the open market.

To take advantage of this newfound transparency, lawmakers would also have to build up internal technology expertise. Such experts would balance out the cacophony of lobbyists trying to frame how lawmakers understand technology. The United States, for example, might bring back the Office of Technology Assessment, a congressional body that helped legislators understand new telecommunications and computing innovations and operated in full from 1974 to 1995. Policymakers need an OTA, or an OTA equivalent, in order to navigate an era that includes artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology.

It is not too late to stop the tech coup.

At a more fundamental level, governments must shift the emphasis from passing laws to enforcing them in an agile manner. They need to anchor laws in core principles of justice, equality, nondiscrimination, and liability while doubling down on concrete, tangible enforcement mechanisms that can endure the next, inevitable technological breakthrough. Too often, enforcement is an afterthought, and oversight bodies are left underresourced. Governments must fix this problem by creating more powerful sticks. They could, for example, use procurement to induce behavioral change. As the largest spenders on information technology, states around the world have the financial sway needed to enforce cybersecurity and nondiscrimination standards as well as to hold companies accountable for violating existing laws or being negligent in preventing data breaches. They might do so by establishing a three-strikes model. After three clear strikes, a company should be out of the bidding market.

But the most nefarious tech companies must be outright banned from selling their antidemocratic technologies. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce finally added the NSO Group, the Israeli firm that produces Pegasus spyware, to the Entity List, which limits the ease with which they are traded. This designation is well deserved: Pegasus is a spyware tool popular with repressive governments looking to surveil activists, journalists, and political opponents. But it came far too late. For years, the United States and other countries waffled on banning the company as it (and other firms like it) grew stronger and more sophisticated.

Regulations are just one part of the path forward. States should also invest significantly in creating public digital infrastructure, stronger academic research, and a better digital public square. Additionally, societies need to build a culture of tech ethics and accountability that compels companies to make the right decisions.

Any time the Musks of the world refuse to listen to judges and regulators, it is a good reminder of the fact that states have the ability to rein in big tech and prioritize democratic governance, if only they wanted to. It is not too late to stop the tech coup. But governments need to enact real, systemic reforms to win their power back and enshrine the rule of law.

MARIETJE SCHAAKE is a Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and at the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. From 2009 to 2019, she served as a Member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands. She is the author of The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy From Silicon Valley, from which this essay is adapted.

Foreign Affairs · by The Tech Coup: How To Save Democracy from Silicon Valley · September 26, 2024

23. Populism's Broken Economic Promises

Excerpts:

Our research dug beneath the anecdotes and found a common thread. To do so, we used an algorithm that compared the trends in a country’s economy before and after the rise of a populist to those in similar countries not ruled by populists. Overall, we found that populists in power cause considerable economic damage, especially in the medium and long run. After 15 years, GDP is on average 10 percent lower in populist-run countries than in nonpopulist ones.

There are two main explanations for why populists are bad for economic growth. One is protectionism. Populists traffic in nationalist rhetoric and, predictably, practice economic nationalism once in office. On the left and right alike, populists impose tariffs and pursue fewer trade agreements, thereby slowing the flow of goods and services. They also erect barriers to foreign investment, undermining economic growth.

The second reason is even more fundamental. In their efforts to stay in power, populist leaders undermine the rule of law. They are unafraid to trample on norms and legal codes and to weaken democratic institutions, firing judges or launching investigations into businesses that stand in their way. Standard indicators for judicial, electoral, and media freedom fall significantly after populists come to power. This weakening of institutions is in turn bad for economic growth, investment, and prosperity, as years of research have shown. That is because functioning democratic institutions constrain the executive and protect civil society (including companies) from arbitrary interference, which is important for investment, innovation, and growth.

The economic history of populism since 1900 thus makes clear that populist governments tend to be damaging. Populist leaders may promise to protect and support ordinary people but often do the opposite. Their countries experience declines in both economic growth and political freedoms. Populists may manage to hold on to power anyway by polarizing the electorate and by manipulating the political system in their favor. But they cannot claim to have solutions to economic problems.

Populism's Broken Economic Promises

How Countries With Populist Leaders Get Left Behind

By Manuel Funke, Christoph Trebesch, and Moritz Schularick

September 26, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Manuel Funke, Christoph Trebesch, and Moritz Schularick · September 26, 2024

Over the last few decades, populists have come to power in a long list of countries. Italy elected Silvio Berlusconi, and Turkey empowered Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Venezuela had Hugo Chávez and now Nicolás Maduro; its neighbor, Brazil, was governed by Jair Bolsonaro until 2023. Argentina’s current president, the anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei, is clearly a populist. And the United States voted Donald Trump into power in 2016. It may do so again.

Dazzling, entertaining, sometimes downright grotesque, populist leaders span the political spectrum. Chavez and Maduro are socialists, whereas Milei and Trump are conservatives. Sometimes, the leaders defy simple left-right categorization. What they all have in common is a desire to consolidate power by using the same, angry message. Populists sell themselves as outsiders fighting for the masses, representing "the real people" against a corrupt elite.

Populism is surging. But even though its effects on countries’ political systems and the extent to which it fosters democratic decay have been widely discussed in recent years, but its economic implications have been understudied. What economic policies do populists pursue, and with what results?

To fill this gap, we carried out a comprehensive study of populist leadership across the world. We built a data set covering 120 years of history and 60 countries and identified 51 populist leaders whom we define as those who place a conflict between the “people” and the “elites” at the center of their electoral campaigns or governance. We then studied the economic policies they pursued and the consequences that followed.

The findings were grim. Although, on the surface, populist leadership may seem to have mixed economic effects, we found that most populists weaken a state’s economy, especially in the long run. They do so in large part by undermining the rule of law and by eroding political checks and balances. Our study makes clear that although populists may sell themselves as the solution to a country’s ills, they tend to make life worse. Populists, in other words, hurt the “real people” they claim to be saving.

EXTENDED STAY

Throughout modern history, populism has experienced two main waves. The first came in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and its turbulent aftermath. During the Cold War, populism receded, but after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, populism returned with a vengeance. Today, the world is again in an age of populism. A record high came in 2018, with 16 of the 60 countries we surveyed, representing more than 30 percent of global GDP, governed by populists. Today, populists still govern more than a dozen states.

Although populists transcend the ideological spectrum, there are significant differences between left-wing and right-wing populists. Right-wing populists emphasize ethnic and cultural divisions, accusing elites of colluding with minorities and immigrants and prioritizing their interests over those of the “true people.” On the left, populists attack economic and financial elites for plundering the country at the expense of the local working population. Left-wing populism is mainly a story of the mid-twentieth century, experiencing a brief revival in the first decade of the 21st century. But right-wing populism has skyrocketed in recent times.

In both cases, populism is a serial phenomenon. Countries that have already been governed by populists have a higher probability of another coming to power. Argentina—home of the first modern populist leader, Hipólito Yrigoyen—has been governed by populists for almost 40 percent of its history since 1900. Italy has had populist leadership for 29 percent of that period. Slovakia has been governed by populists almost 60 percent of the time since winning independence in 1993.

Today, the world is again in an age of populism.

Part of the reason for this endurance is that populists are political survivors. They rarely disappear quickly or on their own. Instead, they do everything they can to increase their chances of retaining power, be it through their core strategy of polarization and agitation or through more drastic methods such as new electoral laws, takeovers of the media, and intimidation of the judiciary and opposition.

As a result, populists are in power for an average of six years, compared with three years for nonpopulist rulers. They are much more likely to be re-elected, with a probability of 36 percent, compared with only 16 percent for nonpopulists, a gap explainable by their popularity as well as their adeptness at insulating themselves from the levers of democracy.

Take the former Italian prime minister Berlusconi, a billionaire media tycoon who rose to power by posing as an anti-establishment politician in the wake of the country’s corruption scandals in the early 1990s. Often referred to as a "clown" by opponents and the international media for the seemingly endless scandals that defined his time in the public eye, Berlusconi nevertheless retained power longer than any other prime minister in Italy’s postwar history. He left office in 2011, having governed the country on and off for close to two decades, but Italian politics remains fundamentally shaped by his populist image. Many of his successors have been populists, including the current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose anti-immigrant, anti-EU campaign drew heavily from the populist playbook.

HOME WRECKERS

Despite populism’s durability, there has been little systematic research on how economies develop and perform when populists come to power. But it is easy to find examples of populists causing economic damage. Brexit, for which the populist politician Boris Johnson was the lead champion, wrought economic disaster. The “Global Britain’’ envisioned by Brexit’s supporters has lagged behind its peers ever since, its economy growing five percent less than comparable countries over the last eight years. Decoupling Britain’s economy from the European single market has led to declines in trade, investment, and consumption.

Berlusconi’s policies in Italy deserve similarly poor marks. Since his arrival on Italy’s political scene, the economy has stagnated, with sluggish GDP growth and productivity; since 2000, average annual economic growth rate is stuck at around half a percentage point. The education system remains in crisis, and the country’s brightest minds have emigrated.

More drastic examples can be found in South America. Chávez and Maduro together turned Venezuela, once a wealthy oil exporter, into a poorhouse within 20 years. Protectionism, nepotism, and nationalizations of the oil, mining, finance, telecommunications, and agriculture industries, among other sectors, created an economic disaster without precedent in a modern peacetime state—resulting in famine, medical crises, and mass migration out of the country. In Argentina, President Néstor Kirchner and his successor and wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, also led their country off the financial cliff. A few years of export-driven growth were followed by rampant inflation and national bankruptcy.

But the economic performance of populist leaders is not so easily generalized. The United States under Trump saw economic growth rates comparable to those of previous presidencies. Other populists, such as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Erdogan in Turkey, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have also had some degree of economic success during their time in office.

The economic history of populism since 1900 makes clear that populist governments tend to be damaging.

Our research dug beneath the anecdotes and found a common thread. To do so, we used an algorithm that compared the trends in a country’s economy before and after the rise of a populist to those in similar countries not ruled by populists. Overall, we found that populists in power cause considerable economic damage, especially in the medium and long run. After 15 years, GDP is on average 10 percent lower in populist-run countries than in nonpopulist ones.

There are two main explanations for why populists are bad for economic growth. One is protectionism. Populists traffic in nationalist rhetoric and, predictably, practice economic nationalism once in office. On the left and right alike, populists impose tariffs and pursue fewer trade agreements, thereby slowing the flow of goods and services. They also erect barriers to foreign investment, undermining economic growth.

The second reason is even more fundamental. In their efforts to stay in power, populist leaders undermine the rule of law. They are unafraid to trample on norms and legal codes and to weaken democratic institutions, firing judges or launching investigations into businesses that stand in their way. Standard indicators for judicial, electoral, and media freedom fall significantly after populists come to power. This weakening of institutions is in turn bad for economic growth, investment, and prosperity, as years of research have shown. That is because functioning democratic institutions constrain the executive and protect civil society (including companies) from arbitrary interference, which is important for investment, innovation, and growth.

The economic history of populism since 1900 thus makes clear that populist governments tend to be damaging. Populist leaders may promise to protect and support ordinary people but often do the opposite. Their countries experience declines in both economic growth and political freedoms. Populists may manage to hold on to power anyway by polarizing the electorate and by manipulating the political system in their favor. But they cannot claim to have solutions to economic problems.

MANUEL FUNKE is a Senior Researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
CHRISTOPH TREBESCH is Professor of Economics and Research Director at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
MORITZ SCHULARICK is President of the Kiel Institute.

Foreign Affairs · by Manuel Funke, Christoph Trebesch, and Moritz Schularick · September 26, 2024

24. Is a Responsible Strategic Threat Assessment Too Much to Ask For?

Thu, 09/26/2024 - 2:41am

Is a Responsible Strategic Threat Assessment Too Much to Ask For?

By al Dhobaba

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/responsible-strategic-threat-assessment-too-much-ask

Well, my last article failed to generate a cacophony of calls from recruiters eager to get me back into a uniform, so I suppose I’ll step on a few more toes.

As early as 2008, Army Colonel and West Point history professor Gian Gentile led a chorus of voices that characterized counterinsurgency operations as a dangerous distraction from what might be characterized as “real soldiering”: combined arms maneuver, force-on-force combat, and engagements against what are popularly referred to as “near-peer threats.” By 2015, most of the American defense establishment was onboard! Counterinsurgency was over! Land wars in developing countries were passé! China was a rising power, and America would pivot its attention to the Pacific to contain it! Russia was resurgent, threatening the interests of America and American allies the world over! It was time to reconfigure the service branches to deter or defeat these strategic competitors!

Don't get me wrong, I'm also concerned about strategic competition from Russia and China. However, I offer a modest proposal: shall we take a deep breath and conduct a sober threat assessment before we all go overboard on “managing the risks” from these supposed “near-peer threats”?

First, let's just disabuse ourselves of the notion that the phrase “near-peer threats” carries any real meaning in either of these cases.

Even in its current state — which many would concede to be marginally compromised following two decades of prolonged operations, an inconsistent funding paradigm, and tasking that exceeds resourcing — the American military can put troops virtually anywhere on the planet in a matter of hours. Marine Expeditionary Units are afloat aboard U.S. Navy ships, which can themselves impose American will — be it belligerent or benevolent — on the roughly half of the global population who live within cruise missile and/or helicopter range of the oceans. Air Force bombers and/or transports, carrying ordnance and/or Army airborne units, can reach virtually every other remaining inch of the world's surface in reasonably short order. Once they've donned their ridiculous uniforms, such that they resemble villains from an episode of Star Trek, the Space Force presumably adds to this ensemble cast: plucky, Carellian comic relief, perhaps. (I doff my cap to any of you who picked up on any of the disparate components of that joke.)

Neither Russia nor China come anywhere near to this level of capability — certainly nowhere in the proverbial ballpark of “near-peer” status.

Shall we start with China? Aside from occasional hand-to-hand border skirmishes against the Indians, the People's Liberation Army hasn't fought a serious conflict in decades. Their last significant engagement was the failed campaign against Vietnam between 1979 and 1980. As recently as 2008, Beijing struggled to transport troops, most of whom are conscripts, to provide relief to earthquake victims in Sichuan Province.

Many commentators, particularly those looking to beef up America's cyber security defenses, look to the PLA Air Force as evidence of Chinese success in industrial espionage: the Chengdu J-20 looks like the American F-22! Except... No. The J-20 features a variety of design differences, most notably a pair of forward-mounted canards that presumably expand its radar signature. Aside from this, making an aircraft look like a competitor's more advanced aircraft isn't actually that hard. Not unlike the Simpsons episode “Class Struggle in Springfield,” in which Marge repeatedly alters a single bargain bin Chanel suit into a variety of different designs, Iran has built a cottage industry out of turning aging Northrop F-5 Tiger II airframes into anything from phony stealth fighters to F/A-18 Hornet knock-offs. To assume that Chinese officials aren't doing the same — particularly when Chinese engineers reportedly struggle to produce a functional home-grown jet engine — is simply naive.

And, in recent months, corruption within the Rocket Force — a distinct service branch roughly analogous to U.S. Strategic Command — reportedly resulted in the sale of ICBM fuel, and its replacement with water in fuel storage tanks. Finally, much can be said about the PLA Navy (PLAN), which is really more of a coast guard with limited blue water capacity. Perhaps the best description I've heard of the PLAN was offered up by noted British maritime historian Andrew Lambert in a 2021 interview:

“The Chinese fleet is a diversion from their real agendas, which are domestic... When all of this is done, and China is stable, and they've worked their course for the twenty-first century, the navy will probably disappear. They're not spending much money on this, this is a very cheap navy. There's a lot of stuff, but it's not expensive stuff. Second-hand rusty Russian aircraft carriers, Chinese copies of rusty Russian aircraft carriers, a bit of photoshop, roughly the same number of destroyers and frigates as the Americans, but not in the same ballpark in terms of capability. It's largely a show for the populace, and it's to use the nationalism card as tool for the creation of the new empire.”

How about Russia?

The Red Army built a reputation during World War II by slaughtering Germans at Stalingrad and occupying Berlin, and sustained it during the Cold War by keeping a swath of imperial holdings in check. Even during the Soviet Union's waning months, one excuse for the vaunted Iraqi army's spectacular failure was that they used export versions of their Soviet sponsors' equipment, not the real McCoy. Russia’s lengthy effort to retain separatist Chechnya commenced in 1994, and concluded in 2009 due largely to sheer bribery. Remember, dear reader, that Chechnya is slightly larger than Connecticut, and currently boosts about a third of its population. In 2008, when Russian forces annexed portions of Georgia, success depended upon fielding more vehicles than could break down on the road – because no shortage of Russia’s inventory did precisely that. Not exactly the juggernaut that it’s usually portrayed to be.

Fast forward to 2014, and the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula effectively depended upon the spontaneous abrogation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, by which Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan had been cajoled into surrendering the very nuclear arsenals that would have deterred Russian interventionism in the first place. Then, more so by marginal success at covert action than actual military prowess, Russia's “little green men” fomented a civil war in Ukraine's disputed territories that eventually became the casus belli for the 2022 invasion. Strategically adept, yes, but not exactly a case study in conventional warfare.

To say that Russian ground forces' performance in Ukraine since 2022 has been an embarrassment would be charitable. Russian national logistics have been such that Vladimir Putin has infamously sourced artillery shells, and now possibly troops, from North Korea. Just a reminder on that note: Russia's traditional military strength, its core competency, has been artillery. Useful idiots interviewed by Western media sources — I'm looking at you, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis — buy into the ridiculous claims that Moscow has managed to streamline and reinvigorate Russia's defense production, clearly oblivious to the fact that post-2022 specimens lack many of the key components that made their original production models nominally effective. The current solution to Ukraine's drone-dropped ordnance appears to be an entire sheet metal shed built atop Russian tanks, limiting the platforms' effectiveness by restricting the rotation and elevation of the main cannon. This and other field expedient solutions to hand grenades dropped by hobbyist quadcopters give a whole new meaning to the Iraq War vintage phrase, “hillbilly armor.”

Meanwhile, whereas America used private security contractors to safeguard facilities, convoys, and civilian officials, Russia threw Wagner Group mercenaries straight at the front lines before resorting to conscripting inmates, and now foreigners who happen to find themselves in Russia. While recruiting sergeants on both sides of the conflict have struggled to source enough bodies to fill uniforms, these measures in Russia represent the brand of desperation that arises when a sovereign nation's own citizens see little enough value in a war effort that they resort to measures like voluntary exile and self-harm to avoid fighting it.

All of this took place against a backdrop of Russian intervention in the Syrian Civil War that has, nearly a decade on, failed to fully consolidate Bashar al Assad's position.

Elsewhere, in the skies above Ukraine, Russian's Air Force lacks the critical mass to establish air supremacy. As more advanced Western airframes like the F-16 begin to arrive in Ukrainian skies, Russian pilots may even lose air superiority. This state of affairs also arises from Russian logistical challenges: Russian industry infamously engineers competitive aircraft that can only be produced in limited numbers, curtailing effective training, maintenance, and inventory management practices. Russia also claims that the Sukhoi Su-57 Felon and Su-75 Checkmate aircraft employ advanced stealth capabilities — a capability that Russian industrial espionage efforts have attempted to exfiltrate from American sources since the early 1980's — but open source reporting calls these claims into question. In 2008, Moscow made headlines by sending a pair of nuclear-capable Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bombers on a “training patrol” to Venezuela, governed at the time by infamously portly strongman Hugo Chavez. When asked about this development in 2009, a notoriously frank American official stated, under Chatham House Rules, that “If Vladimir Putin wants to fly those old planes down there to hang out with that fat ass, he can be my guest.” Patrols such as these, using those “old planes,” continue, but seem to serve little purpose other than to prompt NATO pilots to run their interception drills.

Surely, the storied Russian navy must have gotten its act together since 1991, right? Well... No, not really. Starting with Russia's sole aircraft carrier (or, in order to skirt the Montreux Convention, “aircraft-carrying cruiser”), the Admiral Kuznetsov has infamously broken down during several modest deployments since 2014, and eventually had to be accompanied full-time by a tug as a precaution against propulsion failure. Its current refurbishment began in 2018, suffered from a variety of mishaps and malfeasance by officials supervising its repairs, and is currently projected to leave its shipyard in 2025; but it may remain in port longer than that, as its crew has allegedly been converted into a “mechanized battalion” and rerouted to Ukraine for frontline service. Additionally, during the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Ukrainian attacks have turned several prominent components of the Black Sea Fleet into artificial reefs, euphemistically speaking. These are merely the proverbial high points of the Russian navy’s decline.

Since Putin took control of the Russian government in 2000, the Kremlin has announced a series of modernization and upgrade initiatives that never seem to come to fruition. For example, amid an announced program to deliver fifty surface ships to the Russian fleet in 2024 — we believe you, Komrade Kommissar, really, we do! — Moscow's flagship naval construction project is the mega-submarine Belgorod. Belgorod constitutes a dramatic modification of the long-unfinished hulk of an Oscar II class submarine (the same class as the ill-fated Kursk) that will, allegedly, carry a mini-sub, an autonomous nuclear-powered torpedo, and other autonomous vehicles. It's bonkers, almost certainly beyond Russia's actual capacity to deliver on, and — according to several credible analysts — the sort of thing one should expect from someone like Vladimir Putin: a “big ideas” guy who fixates on exciting initiatives and larger-than-life super-weapons, rather than the sort of nuts-and-bolts logistical administration and project management that keep a modern military functioning. Thus, Russian sailors might one day set sail aboard a temperamental, semi-functional super-submarine. Meanwhile, on the front lines in Ukraine, Russian troops are short of rifle ammunition and body armor, and firing North Korean artillery rounds.

As Thomas Rid, one of the most underrated strategic commentators of our generation, noted in a 2018 interview:

“Russia is in deep trouble. Their economy is not doing well, their young, bright minds want to leave the country because they're so frustrated at home. Russia is [utilizing 'active measures'] out of weakness, not strength.”

And the inevitable rebuttals? Xi Jinping wants to use the Belt and Road initiative to retake China's place as a global superpower! Vladimir Putin wants to reassemble the Soviet Empire! Yeah, and I want to surreptitiously acquire some bootleg Uranium from some Libyans so that my best friend, a discredited and geriatric nuclear physicist, can help me make a few specific alterations to the timeline. Unfortunately for me, Xi, and Vlad, there's often a difference between what we want, and what's actually possible. In neither case has either state earned “near-peer” status, and neither state is a serious conventional military threat to the United States. If you disagree, I just don't think you're paying close enough attention (or else, you may have an ulterior motive of one sort or another, but let’s table that for the time being).

Strategic competition? Sure. Obviously. In 2024, I'd hate to be a Filipino sailor or a Ukrainian infantryman. In the Pacific, the AUKUS submarine deal, awkward though its announcement was for Paris, is clearly a smart move, and the next occupant of the Oval Office should prioritize another shot at a more viable Trans-Pacific Partnership. Economic deterrence by way of the 2022 CHIPS Act and other efforts to control the semiconductor market are among the few coherent foreign policy moves that the sitting administration can be credited with. Elsewhere, sustained support to Ukraine would be even better if someone could develop a coherent strategy that delivered a win for Kyiv without “fighting to the last Ukrainian,” as I've heard the current approach described. Indeed, the potential for Chinese and Russian conventional forces to undermine American interests by way of confrontation with America's allies and partners is clear and present. These circumstances, in and of themselves, do not render those competitor forces “near-peer” – at least, not if “peered” with the United States. As some politicians are fond of noting, most of America’s allies and partners fall far short of “near-peer” status themselves.

Couched differently, the question is not whether China and Russia do or do not constitute strategic competitors to the United States. The answer to this question is clearly “Yes, they do.” The terms “strategic competitor” and “near-peer” are not, in and of themselves, mutually inclusive. The second question, then, should be very simple: how? Meaning, in what manner or form? The answer to this question should, then, determine the form of America's response.

An example I've often offered up in conversation is the 2003 Iraq War, which the Pentagon — even upon recognizing its character as an insurgency — attempted to treat as a conventional campaign. General Eric Shinseki, the Chief of Staff of the Army whom the Bush 43 Administration controversially sidelined, has been vindicated in some circles for having opined that the Iraq campaign would require a significantly larger force package than the United States intended to send. As one plucky Internet meme puts it, “Well yes, but actually, no!” Five million troops wouldn't have been enough if they had all been combat arms troops and their support package. The delayed, then rapid, reconfiguration of America's combat training centers betrayed the indisputable fact that American forces prepared for a repeat of the 1991 Gulf War, rather than the vastly more complicated conflict that the Pentagon found itself mired in. The quality of troops sent – this is to say, what type of troops, rather than whether or not they were well-trained or effective in their roles – was at least as important as how many were deployed. Consider it this way: a thousand carpenters might be great at building a house, but eventually, you're going to need a plumber, and an electrician, and a roofer, and an HVAC guy... You get the idea.

Similarly, with regard to Russia and China, conventional deterrence is important. However, if both challengers' conventional forces fall well short of the “near-peer” mark, Washington should focus development efforts on assets and programs that will counter the methods that Moscow and Beijing are most likely to employ. You know, a realistic threat assessment to inform how those threats should be countered. This is why a responsible threat assessment is so important: at present, the Pentagon risks failure at countering actual strategic competitors by way of a mismatch of strategic efforts.

So, what does a successful campaign of countermeasures for this “new Cold War” look like? As a matter of fact, we have some clues by way of precedent from the last Cold War.

Let's start with the military itself. Conventional deterrence? Absolutely! But during the original Cold War, actual, force-on-force confrontations between American and Soviet conventional forces basically didn’t happen. Instead, the respective competitors tended to engage one another indirectly, via proxies, by providing either open or covert support to sympathetic governments and/or rebel groups. So, for example...

The U.S. Army will continue to field conventional brigades that are capable of traditional, conventional warfare. Conversely, “Big Army” should get serious about Security Force Assistance, which some analysts currently perceive as little more than an effort to preserve conventional force structure. Oh, and sorry, Special Forces: direct action may be fun, but your real value to the nation lies in training and advising proxy forces like foreign partner armies and militias, not in carrying out kinetic raids or building bespoke special operations units.
The U.S. Navy remains oriented around aircraft carriers: either the Nimitz and Ford class supercarriers, or the amphibious assault ships that form the core of the Navy’s expeditionary strike groups. Proxy engagements require a “brown water navy” capability akin to that which the Navy deployed in Vietnam.
The U.S. Air Force loves fast, stealthy aircraft that can be used to establish and maintain air supremacy, or else deliver precision-guided munitions against advanced targets, with minimal risk to the lives of the air crew. In proxy engagements, the Air Force’s needs look a lot more like the infamously cancelled OA-X program, augmented by remotely-piloted aircraft operating in capacities similar to those witnessed in Ukraine and elsewhere.
The U.S. Marine Corps seeks to restore its perceived distinction from the U.S. Army after two decades spent being pressed into service as a de facto second land army. While several options exist, core among these should involve the Corps’ return to their traditional role as a standby amphibious force, poised to initiate short notice amphibious operations in support of American strategic goals.
[insert something pithy and upbeat about the Coast Guard and Space Force here]

Y'know what that sounds a lot like? The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere, that the Army and Air Force in particular have spent years actively trying to bail out of. Sorry, generals, we all know that it's easy to fight uniformed conscripts in second rate tanks and jets. Unfortunately, many of the “foreign enemies” that you all swore to defend the Constitution from remain guerrillas in street clothes brandishing Kalashnikovs and RPG launchers donated by America's nation state adversaries. They're still going to require a significant portion of your attention, too.

Of course, the military represents only one of the many national capabilities that America needs to reorient in order to keep these strategic competitors in check. America’s intelligence community is rife with opportunities for reform and reorganization to ensure that intelligence professionals are oriented toward twenty-first century threats. Various departments, led perhaps by the Departments of State and Commerce, must improve America’s export control regime to ensure the persistence of American competitive advantages. Critically, the Department of State remains overdue for reorganization and revitalization, in part to relieve the military of their persistent but ill-fitting role as America’s leading diplomatic and international development agency. Additionally, multiple agencies carry the weight of improving America’s digital resilience, both within and beyond the federal sector, against both natural and anthropogenic disruptions.

One doesn’t need to spend much time reading the news to know that most of the focus has been on reorienting the Pentagon to resume a conventional warfare posture, rather than addressing these other, and equally critical, shortfalls. This is to say nothing of the intelligence community, whose share of post-9/11 failures and frustrations merit their own article, even as they continue to score occasional high profile wins against America's adversaries. Even those Americans who recognize that diverse workforces offer operational benefits could be forgiven for concluding that the so-called “Three Letter Agencies” have come to prioritize inclusion quotas over efficiency, competence, and mission accomplishment.

And yes, I’ll dare to say it: for all the focus on defending democracy overseas, Russian and Chinese propagandists have, in recent years, thrived upon vulnerabilities in domestic democracy that America and other Western allies have allowed to fester. Much ink has been spilled about Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election, while ignoring Stacey Abrams’ refusal to accept the results of Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial election. Without delving deeper, it’s plain to see that election integrity, be it the result of voter fraud or voter suppression, is a bi-partisan issue.

In America, Europe, and elsewhere, even more ink has been spilled about the resurgence of the so-called “far right,” but this label is often used as an excuse by mainstream politicians to ignore key issues like immigration policy and economic immobility that impact the everyday lives of members of their own electorates. One of the first rules of war, politics, or any other competition is to deny one’s opponent an opening. If American officials (and their Western counterparts) truly care about “making the world safe for democracy" – and they should! – then the best way to undercut "disinformation" and "active measures" propagated by foreign competitors is to deny them the satisfaction of these controversies. The Western world is in a much better place when the apparatchiks in Moscow and Beijing have to resort to claiming that the CIA invented HIV, rather than exploiting the legitimate concerns about electoral shenanigans or poor governance.

Ultimately, some sort of bi-partisan, inter-agency effort to assess where America's adversaries are actually concentrating their efforts — as opposed to this foolishness about “near-peer threats” — would facilitate both a data-driven shoring-up of Western defenses, but also, a more effective campaign to nullify foreign adversaries where they're strongest. It would be the epitome of fighting both smart, and hard.

So, how about it? Oh... No? Well, that's disappointing. Which leads me to my next diatribe...

Al Dhobaba (“The Fly”) is the pseudonym of a freelance foreign policy analyst and military historian. Having trained as a naval officer, a congenital medical condition prevented him from commissioning, leading him to pursue an ongoing career as a security practitioner. His professional experience includes providing force protection training for deploying soldiers, managing physical security at a DoD activity in the USCENTCOM theater, and advising federal, state, and private sector organizations on information security management. He holds a bachelor’s degree in History and a master’s degree in International Relations.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

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