Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all."

- MIchael Rivero

"We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is part of thought."

- Oliver Sacks

"Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups,parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule."

- Friediech Nietzsche

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 3, 2023

2. Ukraine President Zelenskyy says defense minister Oleksii Reznikov will be replaced this week

3. Chinese Gate-Crashers at U.S. Bases Spark Espionage Concern

4. Ukraine’s Zelensky Appoints Crimean Tatar Executive as New Defense Minister

5. Faced With Evolving Threats, U.S. Navy Struggles to Change

6. Low Crawling toward Obscurity: The Army’s Professional Journals

7. Reimagining America’s Professional All-Volunteer Army

8. Perseverance and Adaptation: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive at Three Months

9. Civil-Military Translation: Encoding, Signaling, and Survival

10. ‘Where Is the Money?’ Military Graft Becomes a Headache for Ukraine

11. Analysis: Part of China's economic miracle was a mirage. Reality check is next

12. Spy agencies battling the fentanyl crisis fear their most powerful weapon is at risk

13. The US and Chinese air forces are rethinking whether it's possible to control the air

14. Why Modi Can’t Make India a Great Power

15. Assessing the Development of Taiwanese Identity

16. War, peace and Taiwan’s presidential election

17.Forget deglobalization: AI will make industry more global

18. Ukraine Has Won the Battle to Penetrate Russia’s First Defensive Belt (What Happens Now?)

19. Robin Sage, Fort Liberty combat test for Special Forces, starts later this month in 26 NC counties

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 3, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-3-2023

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian military officers offered notably frank and direct commentary about the prospects of further Ukrainian advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast and indicated that the series of prepared Russian defensive positions immediately ahead and further south of the Ukrainian advance may be less challenging to Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian military officials particularly noted that advancing Ukrainian forces can operate more freely in areas with sparser Russian minefields.
Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations and advanced near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhia Oblast on September 3.
Several Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continue to operate on the left (east) bank of the Dnipro River in occupied Kherson Oblast.
Russian forces conducted a series of drone strikes targeting Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast on September 3.
The Russian military appears to be recruiting personnel at scale through ongoing crypto-mobilization efforts, although the quality and allocation of these new servicemembers remain unclear.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, in western Donetsk, in the western Donetsk–eastern Zaporizhia border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced in some areas on September 3.
Russian law enforcement is patrolling and guarding polling stations in occupied Ukraine to prevent citizens from expressing opposition to the elections and recording the voting process.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

Sep 3, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 3, 2023

Riley Bailey, Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, Christina Harward, and Mason Clark

September 3, 2023, 6:05pm ET

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

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12pm ET on September 3. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the September 4 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian military officers offered notably frank and direct commentary about the prospects of further Ukrainian advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast and indicated that the series of prepared Russian defensive positions immediately ahead and further south of the Ukrainian advance may be less challenging to Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Commander Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who commands the Ukrainian grouping in southern Ukraine, discussed Ukraine’s counteroffensive in an interview with The Guardian on September 2.[1] Tarnavskyi stated that Ukrainian forces have decisively breached Russian forces’ “first line of defense” and that he expects faster Ukrainian gains as Ukrainian forces press on a weaker “second line” of defense.[2] Ukrainian forces have advanced up to the next series of prepared Russian defensive positions in certain areas in the Robotyne area in western Zaporizhia Oblast, although many Russian sources assert that these positions are the first, not the second, defensive layer in a multi-echeloned Russian defense in southern Ukraine.[3] Ukrainian officials and Russian milbloggers are using different terminology to describe the same positions. Russian sources characterize the first series of positions that Ukrainian forces have previously breached as a forward line without giving it an ordinal number, and the series Ukrainian forces are currently approaching as the first main line of defenses — while Ukrainian forces characterize these positions as Russia’s second line of defenses.

Tarnavskyi stated that Russian forces devoted 60 percent of their time and resources into building the series of defensive positions that Ukrainian forces have now breached and only 20 percent each to the two subsequent defensive layers further south.[4] This breached series of Russian defensive positions consists of a system of interconnected Russian trenches and dugouts guarded by anti-tank ditches and dense minefields, and Tarnavskyi’s reporting supports ISW’s previous observation that Russian forces may have not extended similarly challenging preparations throughout subsequent series of defensive layers, particularly regarding the density of minefields.[5] Russian defensive positions are not uniform in strength across the frontline in western Zaporizhia Oblast, and Tarnavskyi’s description of weaker Russian defensive positions may refer only to the immediate Robotyne area. Tarnavskyi also commented on the weight of Ukrainian efforts elsewhere in southern Ukraine and suggested that the Ukrainian advance in western Zaporizhia Oblast is an operational priority.[6]

Ukrainian military officials particularly noted that advancing Ukrainian forces can operate more freely in areas with sparser Russian minefields. Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun stated on September 3 that minefields near the next series of Russian defensive positions are less dense than the initial defensive layer that Ukrainian forces advanced through.[7] Shtupun and Tarnavskyi both stated that Ukrainian forces are deploying more vehicles in these areas and maneuvering more equipment and troops towards the next Russian defensive layer, but they acknowledged that minefields will still present a significant threat.[8] Tarnavskyi stated that Ukrainian forces spent more time on mine clearing than they expected to at the beginning of the counteroffensive and that consistent Russian artillery and aviation fire forced Ukrainian infantry to conduct mine clearing only at night.[9] Shtupun added that heavy minefields forced Ukrainian breaching operations onto narrow paths — the exact intent of minefields under Russian defensive doctrine.[10] Ukrainian forces may now be better positioned to maneuver more freely in the tactical rear of the breached Russian defensive layer. Tarnavskyi’s description of the Russian minefields may pertain only to the immediate Robotyne area, and Ukrainian forces may encounter heavily dense minefields at certain sections of subsequent series of Russian defensive positions. Although Ukrainian forces certainly face further hard fighting regardless, Tarnavskyi characterized Ukrainian forces as having successfully broken through the most difficult Russian defenses.

Ukrainian military officials noted that the strength of the next series of Russian defensive positions around Robotyne will likely depend on Russian force composition in the area. Tarnavskyi stated that Ukrainian forces in the Robotyne area are destroying the Russian units that provide cover for retreating Russian forces and that Russian forces are operating in defensive “patches,” likely referring to strongpoints rather than a continuous defensive line.[11] Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Oleksandr Rodyansky stated that upcoming Russian defenses are not as well protected.[12] Shtupun also noted that Russian forces are deploying reserves of unknown quality to defend in the area.[13] Shtupun is likely referencing the lateral redeployment of previously degraded elements of the 7th Guards Airborne and 76th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Divisions to the Robotyne area from elsewhere in the theater.[14] Tarnavskyi stated that Russian forces are deploying reserves from both Ukraine and within Russia, likely referencing Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence (GUR) Head Kyrylo Budanov’s statement on September 1 that the Russian military deployed elements of a newly created “reserve army” (the 25th CAA) to allow Russian forces to conduct further lateral redeployments to strengthen the defense in southern Ukraine.[15] Tarnavskyi noted that Russian forces will run out of their best soldiers sooner or later, giving Ukrainian forces an impetus to attack more often.[16] Tarnavskyi acknowledged that Ukrainian forces are also losing their “strongest and best” and must therefore concentrate on certain areas of the front as a result.[17] Shtupun optimistically noted that additional Ukrainian successes will allow Ukrainian forces to commit more personnel to the ongoing Ukrainian breach of Russian defenses in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[18]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations and advanced near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhia Oblast on September 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the Melitopol direction (western Zaporizhia Oblast).[19] Geolocated footage published on September 2 and 3 indicates that Ukrainian forces control southern Klishchiivka.[20] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun stated that Ukrainian forces achieved unspecified successes in the direction of Verbove (18km southeast of Orikhiv).[21]

Several Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continue to operate on the left (east) bank of the Dnipro River in occupied Kherson Oblast. Generally reliable Russian milbloggers have consistently claimed since August 30 that Ukrainian forces maintain positions on the left bank of the Dnipro River northwest of Pidstepne and in the Antonivsky Bridge area.[22] One milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces have been able to transfer supplies and personnel to positions on the left bank during the past week.[23] Another milblogger claimed that units of mobilized personnel and volunteers are defending in the Kherson direction after unspecified Airborne (VDV) elements departed for Zaporizhia Oblast.[24] The milblogger is likely referring to elements of the 7th Guards Mountain VDV Division, which ISW observed deploying from the Kherson direction to the Robotyne area in Zaporizhia Oblast in late August.[25] The Kherson Oblast area is likely relatively poorly defended if the milblogger’s claims of mobilized personnel and volunteers replacing VDV elements are true.

Russian forces conducted a series of drone strikes targeting Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast on September 3. Ukrainian military sources reported that Ukrainian air defenses downed 22 of the 25 Shahed drones that Russian forces launched from Krasnodar Krai and occupied Crimea.[26] Most Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian drones struck Ukrainian port infrastructure in Reni, Odesa Oblast.[27] Several Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), claimed that Russian strikes primarily targeted Ukrainian military fuel storage facilities near the ports.[28] Russian sources claimed that Russian Shahed drones also struck port infrastructure in Izmail, Odesa Oblast.[29]

The Russian military appears to be recruiting personnel at scale through ongoing crypto-mobilization efforts, although the quality and allocation of these new servicemembers remains unclear. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev stated on September 3 that 280,000 people signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) since the start of 2023.[30] Medvedev noted that this figure includes individuals formerly in the Russian military reserve or who previously fought as volunteers. Russian State Duma Deputy Andrey Gurulev stated on September 3 that Russian officials intend to sign a total of 420,000 contracts before the end of 2023.[31] Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced on June 10 that all volunteer formations were required to sign military contracts with the Russian MoD by July 1, so Medvedev and Gurulev’s figures likely include many volunteers that have already been fighting in Ukraine; however, ISW cannot independently confirm how many of these claimed 280,000 personnel are entirely new to the war in Ukraine.[32] Regardless, the Russian military is continuing to successfully recruit for the war in Ukraine at scale. The level of training and combat experience of these contract personnel likely varies, as the Russian military advertises contracts ranging from a few months to two years.[33] These contract soldiers are likely less skilled and experienced than the Russian military’s pre-war number of “kontraktniki,” professional long-service soldiers. Contract soldiers received greater training and occupied key positions (such as technicians and vehicle crews) in Russian units, with relatively elite units such as Airborne (VDV) formations having a higher proportion of kontraktniki.[34] Many units suffered heavy losses among kontraktniki at the beginning of the war and have unlikely been able to reconstitute with the same quality of personnel.[35] State Duma Deputy Viktor Sobolev stated that the Russian General Staff determined the 420,000 figure as necessary for the creation of new formations and units, likely referencing Defense Minister Shoigu’s intent to form many new Russian army formations.[36] However, the Russian military faces the competing priorities of establishing long term new formations and rushing personnel to the front in Ukraine. As ISW previously reported, new formations earmarked for reserves have reportedly already deployed to the frontline ahead of schedule.[37]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on September 3 that he dismissed current Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov and intends to replace him with Rustem Umerov.[38] Umerov is currently the chairman of Ukraine’s State Property Fund.[39] Zelensky stated that he believed the Ministry of Defense “needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both military and society at large” and that he hopes the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada will confirm Umerov this week.[40]

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian military officers offered notably frank and direct commentary about the prospects of further Ukrainian advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast and indicated that the series of prepared Russian defensive positions immediately ahead and further south of the Ukrainian advance may be less challenging to Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian military officials particularly noted that advancing Ukrainian forces can operate more freely in areas with sparser Russian minefields.
Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations and advanced near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhia Oblast on September 3.
Several Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continue to operate on the left (east) bank of the Dnipro River in occupied Kherson Oblast.
Russian forces conducted a series of drone strikes targeting Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast on September 3.
The Russian military appears to be recruiting personnel at scale through ongoing crypto-mobilization efforts, although the quality and allocation of these new servicemembers remain unclear.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, in western Donetsk, in the western Donetsk–eastern Zaporizhia border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced in some areas on September 3.
Russian law enforcement is patrolling and guarding polling stations in occupied Ukraine to prevent citizens from expressing opposition to the elections and recording the voting process.

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Activities in Russian-occupied areas

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove line on September 3 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Novoyehorivka (15km southwest of Svatove).[41] Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor stated that Russian forces resumed offensive actions near Novoyehorivka after significant Russian losses over the past week prompted a short pause in Russian offensive activity in the area.[42] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces continued offensive actions seven kilometers away from Kupyansk and near Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove).[43] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces captured six unspecified positions northwest of Petropavlivka (7km east of Kupyansk) on September 2.[44]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited unsuccessful ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on September 3. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed on September 3 that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian counterattacks near Serhiivka (13km west of Svatove), Hryhorivka (11km south of Kreminna), and Kuzmyne (6km southwest of Kreminna).[45] Russian Central Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Alexander Savchuk claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Torske (15km west of Kreminna) and the Serebryanske forest area south of Kreminna.[46]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations near Bakhmut and advanced on September 3. Geolocated footage published on September 3 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced further into southern Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[47] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Zaliznyanske (12km northwest of Bakhmut), Dubovo-Vasylivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), Bakhmut, and Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[48] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces continue to assault heights near Klishchiivka.[49] The milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces have reduced their operational tempo near the Berkhivka reservoir north of Bakhmut.[50] Another Russian milblogger claimed on September 2 that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack near Berkhivka (6km north of Bakhmut).[51] A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted reconnaissance-in-force operations near Zaliznyanske and Rozdolivka (15km northeast of Bakhmut) on the evening of September 2.[52] The milblogger also claimed that Russian forces repelled four Ukrainian assaults along the Bakhmut-Klishchiivka line.[53]

Russian forces continued ground attacks near Bakhmut on September 3 but did not make any confirmed advances. Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Ilya Yevlash stated that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful counterattacks in the Bakhmut direction.[54] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces counterattacked near Kurdyumivka (12km southwest of Bakhmut).[55] Another Russian milblogger posted footage purportedly showing elements of the Russian 31st Guards Airborne (VDV) Brigade striking Ukrainian forces near Bakhmut.[56]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on September 3 but did not advance. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled two Ukrainian attacks near Vesele (6km north of Avdiivka) and Staromykhailivka (19km southwest of Avdiivka).[57] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian and Russian forces skirmished near Avdiivka and Marinka (on the western outskirts of Donetsk City).[58]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on September 3 and advanced. Geolocated footage posted on September 2 indicates that Russian forces advanced in Marinka.[59] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on September 3 that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations east of Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka), near Avdiivka and Marinka, and south of Krasnohorivka (directly west of Donetsk City) and Novomykhailivka (10km southwest of Donetsk City).[60] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted assault operations on the outskirts of Krasnohorivka.[61] Another Russian milblogger amplified footage claiming to show elements of the Russian 9th Motorized Rifle Brigade (Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] 1st Army Corps) striking Ukrainian positions in the Avdiivka direction.[62]

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

A Russian milblogger claimed on September 2 that fighting is ongoing in western Donetsk Oblast where a meeting engagement occurred northwest of Yehorivka (7km south of Vuhledar).[63]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the administrative border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts on September 3. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked along the Pryyutne-Urozhaine line (up to 16km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[64]

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations along the administrative border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts near Pryyutne (16km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) on September 3.[65]

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in western Zaporizhia on September 3 and reportedly advanced. Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun stated that Ukrainian forces achieved unspecified successes in the direction of Verbove (18km southeast of Orikhiv).[66] A Russian milblogger claimed on September 2 that Ukrainian forces are expanding their foothold between Novoprokopivka (13km south of Orikhiv) and Verbove.[67] The milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces control northern and central Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) while the southern part of the settlement is contested.[68] Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces retain control of the southern outskirts of Robotyne, while others claimed that Russian forces retreated to the south.[69] Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Robotyne and Verbove.[70] A Russian source claimed on September 2 and 3 that Ukrainian forces continue assaults near Verbove from the northwest.[71] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are attacking east of Novoprokopivka in the direction of Pshenychne (17km southeast of Orikhiv).[72]

Russian forces reportedly conducted limited counterattacks in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not advance on September 3. A Russian source claimed that Russian forces attacked southwest and south of Robotyne and near Verbove.[73] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces have had problems with the timely delivery of ammunition to the frontline, communications, and excessive bureaucracy in the area.[74]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on September 2 that two more civilian vessels have successfully passed through the Ukrainian-created temporary corridor in the Black Sea as part of Ukrainian efforts to circumvent Russian attempts to curtail maritime traffic.[75]

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

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported that Russian forces are attempting to recruit foreign citizens to fight in Ukraine as part of continued crypto-mobilization efforts. The UK MoD reported that the Russian military has been posting recruitment advertisements online offering initial payments of 495,000 rubles (about $5,140) and monthly salaries of 150,000 rubles (about $1,973) in Armenia and Kazakhstan since late June.[76] The UK MoD stated that Russian recruitment efforts have particularly targeted the ethnic Russian population of Qostanai Oblysy in northern Kazakhstan.[77] The UK MoD also reported that the Russian military has attempted to recruit Central Asian migrants in Russia by offering monthly salaries of up to 40,100 rubles (about $4,160) and by promising them a quicker path to Russian citizenship.[78] The UK MoD noted that there are at least six million Central Asian migrants in Russia.[79]

Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Russian law enforcement is patrolling polling stations in occupied Ukraine to prevent citizens from expressing opposition to the elections and recording the voting process. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on September 3 that Russian authorities in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts have dispatched policemen to monitor citizens in and around polling stations.[80] The Kherson Oblast occupation administration posted photos on September 3 of Russian police and Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard) personnel at polling stations in occupied Kherson Oblast and rejected claims that Russian law enforcement is threatening civilians to vote.[81]

Russian occupation authorities continue to attempt to artificially increase voter turnout for the Russian regional elections in occupied Ukraine. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on September 3 that Russian authorities stopped organized deportations of Ukrainian citizens from occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts at the beginning of August so that more people could vote in the Russian regional elections.[82] The Kherson Oblast occupation administration claimed that individuals can use Ukrainian-issued identity documents, including passports and any other official document issued before September 30, 2022, to register to vote.[83]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus)

The Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) continued the “Combat Brotherhood 2023” operational-strategic command staff exercises in Belarus on September 3.[84]

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

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

2. Ukraine President Zelenskyy says defense minister Oleksii Reznikov will be replaced this week

Excerpts:

Resnikov’s removal comes after a scandal around the Ministry of Defense’s procurement of military jackets. In August, Ukrainian investigative journalists reported that the materials were purchased at a price three times higher than normal and that instead of winter jackets, summer ones were ordered. In the customs documents from the supplier, the jackets were priced at $29 per unit, but the Ministry of Defense paid $86 per unit. Reznikov denied the allegations during a news conference last week.

Ukraine President Zelenskyy says defense minister Oleksii Reznikov will be replaced this week

AP · by Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] · September 3, 2023

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that defense minister Oleksii Reznikov will be replaced this week with Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar lawmaker.

Zelenskyy made the announcement on his official Telegram account, writing that new leadership was needed after Reznikov went through “more than 550 days of full-scale war.”

Later in his nightly address, Zelenskyy said he believes “that the Ministry needs new approaches and different formats of interaction both with the military and with society.”

“The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine is well acquainted with this person, and Umerov does not require additional introductions. I expect support for this candidacy from parliament,” the president told the nation.

Umerov, 41, a politician with the opposition Holos party, has served as head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine since September 2022. He was involved in the exchange of prisoners of war, political prisoners, children and civilians, as well as the evacuation of civilians from occupied territories. Umerov was also part of the Ukrainian delegation in negotiations with Russia over the U.N.-backed grain deal.

Resnikov’s removal comes after a scandal around the Ministry of Defense’s procurement of military jackets. In August, Ukrainian investigative journalists reported that the materials were purchased at a price three times higher than normal and that instead of winter jackets, summer ones were ordered. In the customs documents from the supplier, the jackets were priced at $29 per unit, but the Ministry of Defense paid $86 per unit. Reznikov denied the allegations during a news conference last week.

U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters in Delaware on Sunday that he was aware Zelenskyy had replaced his defense chief. Asked if he had any comment, Biden said, “Not publicly.” The U.S. Department of Defense also declined to comment.

Zelenskyy’s announcement came after two people were hospitalized following a 3½-hour Russian drone barrage on a port in Ukraine’s Odesa region on Sunday, officials said.

The attack on the Reni seaport comes a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to meet with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the resumption of food shipments from Ukraine under a Black Sea grain agreement that Moscow broke off from in July.

Russian forces fired 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones along the Danube River in the early hours of Sunday, 22 of which were shot down by air defenses, the Ukrainian air force said on Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, described the assault as part of a Russian drive “to provoke a food crisis and hunger in the world.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the attack was aimed at fuel storage facilities used to supply military equipment.

Putin and Erdogan’s long-awaited meeting is due to take place in Sochi on Russia’s southwest coast on Monday.

Turkish officials have confirmed that the pair will discuss renewing the Black Sea grain initiative, which the Kremlin pulled out of six weeks ago.

The deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022 — had allowed nearly 33 million metric tons (36 million tons) of grain and other commodities to leave three Ukrainian ports safely despite Russia’s war.

However, Russia broke away from the agreement after claiming that a parallel deal promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertilizer hadn’t been honored.

Moscow complained that restrictions on shipping and insurance hampered its agricultural trade, even though it has shipped record amounts of wheat since last year.

The Sochi summit follows talks between the Russian and Turkish foreign ministers on Thursday, during which Russia handed over a list of actions that the West would have to take in order for Ukraine’s Black Sea exports to resume.

Erdogan has indicated sympathy with Putin’s position. In July, he said Putin had “certain expectations from Western countries” over the Black Sea deal and that it was “crucial for these countries to take action in this regard.”

Elsewhere in Ukraine, three people were killed in two separate attacks by Russian shelling in the Donetsk area Sunday. An 85-year-old man was named among the victims after being crushed by the rubble of his own home, Ukraine’s Prosecutors’ Office reported.

A 36-year-old man was also killed in another Russian attack on Ukraine’s Kherson region.

Ukrainian prosecutors announced Sunday that they had opened a war crimes investigation into the death of a police officer killed by Russian shelling on the town of Seredyna-Buda on Saturday afternoon.

Two other police officers and one civilian were wounded during the attack, which hit Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

AP · by Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] · September 3, 2023

3. Chinese Gate-Crashers at U.S. Bases Spark Espionage Concerns

This is weird. But my question is if they are doing something so obvious what is it that we are missing? All warfare is based on deception.

Chinese Gate-Crashers at U.S. Bases Spark Espionage Concerns

Washington has tracked about 100 incidents involving Chinese nationals trying to access American military and other installations

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/chinese-gate-crashers-at-u-s-bases-spark-espionage-concerns-cdef8187

By Gordon Lubold

, Warren P. Strobel

and Aruna Viswanatha

Updated Sept. 4, 2023 12:02 am ET

The incidents appear designed to test security practices at U.S. installations, such as a government rocket-launch site in Florida. PHOTO: EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/GETTY IMAGES

WASHINGTON—Chinese nationals, sometimes posing as tourists, have accessed military bases and other sensitive sites in the U.S. as many as 100 times in recent years, according to U.S. officials, who describe the incidents as a potential espionage threat.

The Defense Department, FBI and other agencies held a review last year to try to limit these incidents, which involve people whom officials have dubbed gate-crashers because of their attempts—either by accident or intentionally—to get onto U.S. military bases and other installations without proper authorization. They range from Chinese nationals found crossing into a U.S. missile range in New Mexico to what appeared to be scuba divers swimming in murky waters near a U.S. government rocket-launch site in Florida.

The incidents, which U.S. officials describe as a form of espionage, appear designed to test security practices at U.S. military installations and other federal sites. Officials familiar with the practice say the individuals are typically Chinese nationals pressed into service and required to report back to the Chinese government.

The FBI examined evidence earlier this year after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon that caused rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. PHOTO: FBI/ZUMA PRESS

Concern over the base intrusions comes amid rising U.S.-China tensions, which spiked after a Chinese balloon overflew the U.S. earlier this year carrying what officials said was surveillance equipment. The incidents also cast a light on concerns that Beijing is using nontraditional means to gather intelligence on U.S. soil, whether through proximity to bases or through Chinese-produced commercial equipment that could be used to spy.

Officials at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment, and the Pentagon only responded broadly to the issue. Government officials referred queries to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which said it wouldn’t comment on the issue.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington challenged the U.S. view of the incidents. “The relevant claims are purely ill-intentioned fabrications,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson with the embassy. “We urge the relevant U.S. officials to abandon the Cold War mentality, stop groundless accusations, and do more things that are conducive to enhancing mutual trust between the two countries and friendship between the two peoples.”

The incidents are concerning enough that Congress might look at legislation on the issue, according to Rep. Jason Crow (D., Colo.). Crow, a member of the intelligence committee, said lawmakers are concerned that some of these cases fall between the cracks, because most trespassing laws are state and local, and not federal.

“We need to work closely with our state and local partners to train them and equip them,” he said. “Right now, they don’t know how to deal with it.”

Some incursions are benign, such as those involving people who say they are following Google Maps to direct them to the nearest McDonalds or Burger King, which happens to be on a nearby military base. Others appeared to be more troubling, people familiar with the review said.

Officials described incidents in which Chinese nationals say they have a reservation at an on-base hotel. In a recent case, a group of Chinese nationals claiming they were tourists, tried to push past guards at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, saying they had reservations at a commercial hotel on the base. The base is home to the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, which is focused on Arctic warfare.

Congress is looking at legislation to deal with gate-crashing, according to Rep. Jason Crow (D., Colo.), a member of the intelligence committee. PHOTO: MICHAEL BROCHSTEIN/ZUMA PRESS

These cases at times occur in rural areas where officials indicate there is little tourism far from a commercial airport. The individuals use what appears to be scripted language when confronted by security guards, according to officials familiar with the tactics. When stopped, the Chinese nationals say they are tourists and have lost their way.

The problem of low-level Chinese intelligence collection like this is well known in intelligence circles, said Emily Harding, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former deputy staff director at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It is a numbers game, she said.

“The advantage the Chinese have is they are willing to throw people at collection in large numbers,” she said. “If a few of them get caught, it will be very difficult for the U.S. government to prove anything beyond trespassing, and those who don’t get caught are likely to collect something useful.”

Harding said that because most incidents in the U.S. can be pursued only as trespassing, the Chinese government gives a collective shrug for those who do get caught. That would be unlikely if an American were to be caught inside China, she said.

“The latter is unlikely to get what we would consider a fair trial,” Harding added.

The base penetrations are considered a concerning and growing trend, U.S. military and other officials said.

In some cases, individuals did gain unauthorized access to a base, “often by speeding through security checkpoints,” said Sue Gough, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

“These individuals are often cited criminally, barred from future installation access and escorted off-base,” she said.

Gough declined to comment on any specific incidents, citing security concerns.

The Pentagon said it has conducted several base security reviews since 2018, some of them in concert with other agencies. A review done late last year focused on the physical security of the roughly 1,400 gates at the U.S. military’s bases, as well as other aspects of base security.

“The results of the reviews have and will continue to inform changes to the protective posture of our bases,” Gough said.

Every day, there are more than 10,000 “controlled turnarounds” of individuals who arrive at military-base gates. They are mostly drivers who are confused about where they are supposed to go, and are turned around without incident. Some of those warrant additional checks and some trigger an investigation. “The incidents are generally low-level, and so far none of them indicate espionage,” Gough said of those turnaround cases.

However, there are other incidents serious enough to raise concerns with U.S. officials. There are repeated cases in which Chinese nationals have been found taking pictures at a U.S. Army range, according to people familiar with the matter. They often start off at nearby White Sands National Park, where visitors like to barrel down the sand dunes on rented slides, but then leave that area and cross into the adjacent missile site, the officials said.

In some cases, the individuals have used drones to bolster their surveillance efforts.

There have been repeated incidents at an intelligence center based in Key West, Fla., starting some years ago, where Chinese nationals, saying they were tourists, were found swimming in the waters near the military facility and taking pictures, according to officials familiar with the matter.

In at least one instance, an incursion there resulted in arrests and prosecutions that were made public. In 2020, three Chinese citizens were sentenced to about a year in prison after pleading guilty to illegally entering the naval air station in Key West, and taking photos by either walking around the fence line and entering it from the beach, or driving in and ignoring orders to turn around.

In another incident, Chinese nationals appear to have been found scuba diving off Cape Canaveral, home to the Kennedy Space Center. The area is the launch site for spy satellites and other military missions. A spokesman for Homeland Security Investigations’s Tampa, Fla., field office said the incident was part of a continuing investigation and declined to comment further.

U.S. officials also describe incidents around the White House in which Chinese nationals posing as tourists leave the designated tour area to take pictures of the grounds, including communications gear and the positions of security guards, before being shooed away by the Secret Service.

In 2019, a Chinese woman was sentenced to eight months in prison after being convicted of unlawfully entering former President Donald Trump’s Mar -a-Lago estate in Florida. She entered the estate carrying two passports, four cellphones and other electronics.

At Alaska’s Fort Wainwright, home to the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, Chinese nationals said they had reservations at a hotel on base and tried to push past guards. PHOTO: JOHN PENNELL/ARMY

In many cases, those who have trespassed on bases, apparently deliberately, have simply been detained briefly and then escorted out of the country, officials familiar with the incidents said.

No cases appear to have resulted in espionage charges, but in a 2019 incident, two Chinese diplomats were expelled from the country on suspicions of espionage after they improperly drove, with their wives, onto Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, Va., a highly sensitive U.S. military facility where U.S. Navy SEALs train.

Base officials pulled a firetruck into the road to stop the vehicle, officials said. China denied the diplomats were involved in espionage.

Write to Gordon Lubold at gordon.lubold@wsj.com and Warren P. Strobel at Warren.Strobel@wsj.com

4. Ukraine’s Zelensky Appoints Crimean Tatar Executive as New Defense Minister

Excerpts:

Zelensky, in a message released Sunday night, didn’t offer a reason for Reznikov’s dismissal. “I believe that the ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and the society at large,” he said.

The defense ministry was implicated in heavily publicized controversies in recent months as Ukrainian media discovered that officials were purchasing food and, later, winter uniforms at inflated prices. No evidence has been made available that Reznikov was involved in any corrupt activities, or that any Western military supplies were diverted.

The Ukrainian military was also rocked by corruption scandals at the regional recruitment offices, where several senior executives have been detained on charges of running rackets that allowed men to avoid mobilization and service on the front line by paying bribes. With losses mounting on the Zaporizhzhia front, corruption in mobilization matters has become a highly charged political issue.

Ukraine’s Zelensky Appoints Crimean Tatar Executive as New Defense Minister

Rustem Umerov to take over as Zelensky removes former defense minister Reznikov amid graft controversies

By Yaroslav Trofimov

Sept. 3, 2023 6:01 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelensky-appoints-crimean-tatar-executive-as-new-defense-minister-ee7bcbf6?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_165&cx_artPos=1

KYIV—Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has tapped a Crimean Tatar executive to be the country’s new minister of defense, changing the ministry’s leadership amid procurement scandals as Ukrainian troops fight to advance toward the Crimean Peninsula that was annexed by Russia in 2014.

The new appointee, Rustem Umerov, until now the head of Ukraine’s state property fund and a special presidential envoy, played a key role in some of Ukraine’s most sensitive diplomatic negotiations since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

If confirmed by Parliament in coming days, Umerov would become the most senior of several Crimean Tatar officials in the upper levels of the Ukrainian government, a sign of the community’s wholehearted embrace of the Ukrainian cause and of Kyiv’s commitment to retake the peninsula.

The Tatars used to run Crimea until Russian Empress Catherine II annexed the peninsula in 1783 and dismantled the Crimean Tatar state, which was affiliated with the Ottoman Empire. Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin deported the entire Crimean Tatar people to Central Asia and northern Russia in 1944, and the surviving Tatars and their descendants were only allowed to return to Crimea in the late 1980s. They currently make up roughly one-ninth of Crimea’s population.

The former minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, a lawyer by training, was heavily involved in lobbying Ukraine’s Western partners for more military supplies, and is credited with helping ensure that the country received ever more sophisticated weapons systems as it stopped the Russian invasion and began to regain lost land.

Zelensky, in a message released Sunday night, didn’t offer a reason for Reznikov’s dismissal. “I believe that the ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and the society at large,” he said.

The defense ministry was implicated in heavily publicized controversies in recent months as Ukrainian media discovered that officials were purchasing food and, later, winter uniforms at inflated prices. No evidence has been made available that Reznikov was involved in any corrupt activities, or that any Western military supplies were diverted.

The Ukrainian military was also rocked by corruption scandals at the regional recruitment offices, where several senior executives have been detained on charges of running rackets that allowed men to avoid mobilization and service on the front line by paying bribes. With losses mounting on the Zaporizhzhia front, corruption in mobilization matters has become a highly charged political issue.

Oleksiy Reznikov lobbied Ukraine’s Western partners for military supplies, and is credited with helping to ensure that the country received ever more sophisticated weapons systems. PHOTO: GLEB GARANICH/REUTERS

Western critics of military aid to Ukraine have seized on allegations of corruption as a reason to cut that vital assistance, increasing pressure on the Zelensky administration to show that it is serious about tackling graft.

On Friday, President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with leaders of Ukraine’s anticorruption institutions, underscoring the importance of independent and impartial investigation, prosecution and adjudication of “corruption cases no matter where they lead,” according to a White House statement.

Ukrainian defense ministers, particularly in wartime, don’t have anywhere near the authority of a U.S. Secretary of Defense, and Reznikov’s replacement is unlikely to lead to material changes on the battlefield.

The commander-in-chief of Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, oversees the campaign, while overall strategy is determined at frequent meetings of the Stavka, the high headquarters that is headed by Zelensky and includes both the military and the civilian leadership.

The Ukrainian defense minister’s role in the past 18 months focused above all on procurement matters, one of the reasons Reznikov was spending a large amount of time traveling to meetings and conferences abroad.

Umerov, who served as a lawmaker for an opposition party before the war, became an important member of the Ukrainian negotiating team with Russia within days of the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, traveling for peace talks in Belarus. He and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who visited Kyiv as he attempted to mediate a deal, developed mysterious symptoms consistent with poisoning at the time, but have since recovered.

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine floundered after Ukraine repelled Russian forces around Kyiv in late March 2022, and subsequently found evidence of massacres perpetrated by Russian troops in the town of Bucha near the capital.

Appointed as Zelensky’s special envoy, Umerov has fostered close ties in the Muslim world, particularly with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he most recently met a week ago.

Negotiations with Turkey were instrumental in securing last year a deal with Russia to start exporting Ukrainian grain. Umerov also played a major role in a September 2022 agreement that involved the mediation of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and led to an exchange of hundreds of prisoners, including the commanders of Ukrainian forces who had been taken captive in Mariupol.

“Mr. Umerov doesn’t need any additional introductions,” Zelensky said in his Sunday announcement.

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com

5. Faced With Evolving Threats, U.S. Navy Struggles to Change

Faced With Evolving Threats, U.S. Navy Struggles to Change

A new generation of cheaper and more flexible vessels could be vital in any conflict with China, but the Navy remains lashed to big shipbuilding programs driven by tradition, political influence and jobs.

By Eric Lipton

Reporting from Pascagoula, Miss., and Manama, Bahrain

Sept. 4, 2023

The New York Times · by Eric Lipton · September 4, 2023

The 800-acre Huntington Ingalls complex in Pascagoula, Miss., is one of seven major Navy shipbuilding yards across the country.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Sept. 4, 2023

A symphony of sorts echoed through the sprawling shipyard on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi — banging, hissing, beeping, horns, bells and whistles — as more than 7,000 workers hustled to fill orders fueled by the largest shipbuilding budget in the Navy’s history.

The surge in spending, $32 billion for this year alone, has allowed the Huntington Ingalls shipyard to hire thousands of additional people to assemble guided missile destroyers and amphibious transport ships. “More ships are always better,” said Kari Wilkinson, the president of the shipyard, pointing to the efficiencies that come with a steady flow of contracts and the jobs they create.

But the focus from Washington on producing a stream of new warships is also creating a fleet that some inside the Pentagon think is too wedded to outdated military strategies and that the Navy might not be able to afford to keep running in decades to come.

Half a world away, at a U.S. Navy outpost in Bahrain, a much smaller team was testing out a very different approach to the service’s 21st-century warfighting needs.

Bobbing in a small bay off the Persian Gulf was a collection of tiny unmanned vessels, prototypes for the kind of cheaper, easier-to-build and more mobile force that some officers and analysts of naval warfare said was already helping to contain Iran and could be essential to fighting a war in the Pacific.

Operating on a budget that was less than the cost of fuel for one of the Navy’s big ships, Navy personnel and contractors had pieced together drone boats, unmanned submersible vessels and aerial vehicles capable of monitoring and intercepting threats over hundreds of miles of the Persian Gulf, like Iranian fast boats looking to hijack oil tankers.

Now they are pleading for more money to help build on what they have learned.

“It’s an unbelievable capability — we have already tested it for something like 35,000 hours,” said Michael Brown, who was the director of the Defense Innovation Unit, which helped set up the unmanned drone tests in Bahrain. “So why are we not fielding that as fast as possible?”

The U.S. Navy has been testing an unmanned aquatic drone, made by Ocean Aero, in Bahrain.Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

The contrast between the approaches in Pascagoula and Bahrain helps to illustrate one of the biggest challenges facing the Navy.

At no moment since World War II has the service faced a more urgent demand to embrace new technologies and weapons systems, given the rising threat from a now formidable Chinese military.

The Navy’s top brass talks frequently about the need to innovate to address the threat presented by China. The Defense Department’s own war games show that the Navy’s big-ship platforms are increasingly vulnerable to attack.

But the Navy, analysts and current and former officials say, remains lashed to political and economic forces that have produced jobs-driven procurement policies that yield powerful but cumbersome warships that may not be ideally suited for the mission it is facing.

An aversion to risk-taking — and the breaking of traditions — mixed with a bravado and confidence in the power of the traditional fleet has severely hampered the Navy’s progress, several recently departed high-ranking Navy and Pentagon officials told The New York Times.

“The U.S. Navy is arrogant,” said Lorin Selby, who retired this summer as a rear admiral and the chief of naval research after a 36-year career in which he helped run many of the Navy’s major acquisition units. “We have an arrogance about, we’ve got these aircraft carriers, we’ve got these amazing submarines. We don’t know anything else. And that is just wrong.”

Resistance to risk-taking and change for the military can also be found among members of Congress.

Leadership on Pentagon budgets on Capitol Hill is dominated by lawmakers from shipbuilding communities like Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi. The industry directs tens of millions of dollars of campaign contributions to key lawmakers and mounts lobbying campaigns pushing the Navy to build more ships.

In just the past eight years, Congress has added $24 billion in extra money to build ships, more than any other part of the Pentagon budget, even as lawmakers have cut spending on repairs to the fleet, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Congress has also balked at efforts to retire older ships that the Navy says provide only marginal warfighting capacity, leaving the service at risk of not being able to afford basic maintenance and staffing costs.

The result, officials acknowledge, has been to bring into focus how slow the Navy has been to provide the funding and attention to the rapid innovation that many analysts say is necessary — even as money pours into conventional shipbuilding programs.

Capt. Alex Campbell of the Navy, whose job this year has been to find ways to buy cheaper, faster, more innovative technology, said the amount of money that had been allocated to the effort so far was minuscule.

“It’s the dust particle on the pocket lint of the budget,” he said.

No one is arguing that the Navy no longer needs traditional warships; in fact, a large fleet of fast-attack submarines would be particularly vital in any conflict with China.

To many analysts, industry executives and current and former military officials, the open question is how quickly the Navy can embrace the tactical opportunities by also arming itself with a new generation of weapons that are more maneuverable, cheaper to build and less devastating to lose. Even as the big shipyards are booming, companies that make unmanned platforms like those being evaluated in Bahrain are struggling to remain afloat.

“Right now, they are still building a largely 20th-century Navy,” said Bryan Clark, a former Navy budget planner who serves as a consultant to the service.

Adm. Michael M. Gilday, who previously served as the chief of naval operations, conceded that the Navy had been taking baby steps as it tried to revamp its approach to warfighting.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times

The biggest barriers to transforming the Navy include its antiquated procurement system, which takes years to build out detailed specifications for new ships and then years more to get money allocated to build them.

The Navy must also radically revamp the way it organizes its fleet, critics of the current system say, to better allow its large platform ships to operate alongside a diverse fleet of unmanned vessels to better collect information on threats and instantly launch attacks.

Commanders who are comfortable with decades-old tactics and concepts are having a hard time accepting the need for changes, several recently departed Navy officials said.

Navy leaders have said they are committed to shifting to a new operational approach they are calling “distributed maritime operations,” a combination of traditional ships and unmanned drones that will allow them to spread out their forces.

In a statement to The Times, Carlos Del Toro, the secretary of the Navy, said the service had made “profound progress” over the past two years in starting to modernize its fleet. It is preparing to take additional steps soon, he said, including the creation of a unit called the Disruptive Capabilities Office.

“I am doing everything in my power to ensure that we stay at the forefront of building the warfighting capabilities and industries of the future,” said Mr. Del Toro, a former commander of a guided missile destroyer built in Pascagoula. “We are committed to innovation and advancing technological advances to maintain our strategic edge as a nation.”

But Adm. Michael M. Gilday, who until last month served as the chief of naval operations, conceded that the Navy had been taking only cautiously measured steps.

“Revolutionary change is really hard, and we’ve learned sometimes the hard way when we move too fast, we make big mistakes,” Admiral Gilday said in a speech this year. “And so our path really has been more evolutionary. It’s been more deliberate, but it has been focused.”

A Mississippi Empire

More than 7,000 people work at the Huntington Ingalls shipbuilding yard in Pascagoula, Miss.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Thousands of workers in hard hats pour through the gates at the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula before the pre-dawn horn sounds at the start of a shift, offering a regular reminder of what an enormous operation the shipbuilding effort is here — the largest manufacturing employer in Mississippi.

The most prominent of the four classes of ships the shipyard produces are the Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyers, 509-foot vessels that are considered the workhorses of the Navy.

The destroyers can handle a range of missions, including hunting down and destroying enemy submarines, attacking other ships in nearby waters and firing precision missiles to strike far-off targets on land. The Navy already has 73 of them and has deals to build 16 more, at a price tag of about $2 billion apiece.

The ships are built one chunk of steel at a time.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

A welder fuses different sections of steel together.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Four different classes of military ships are built at the shipyard in Pascagoula.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Congress approved a $32 billion burst of spending for the Navy this year.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

The problem is that despite their awesome power, these types of destroyers, like certain other traditional warships, are increasingly vulnerable — especially in a conflict with China over Taiwan, according to repeated war game exercises conducted by the Pentagon, its contractors and outside consultants.

China has built up its own navy and air force, as well as an elaborate network of anti-ship missiles along its southern and eastern coasts and on islands it has constructed in the South China Sea.

The risks to U.S. Navy ships in any conflict in that region are so severe that the United States is left with two undesirable options, according to researchers at RAND Corporation, a think tank that has run a series of war game exercises for the Pentagon.

If the Navy ships choose to approach China, many will be hit by Chinese missiles and damaged if not destroyed, resulting in lost U.S. ships and casualties on a scale unseen since World War II, the war games repeatedly concluded.

“We lose a lot of people, we lose a lot of equipment, we usually fail to achieve our objective,” David A. Ochmanek, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who now works at RAND, said during a public discussion of some of the research, a summary he reiterated in a recent interview.

Alternatively, the ships will stay hundreds or even thousands of miles from the area, making it much harder for Navy aircraft or missiles to reach their targets and leaving the initial engagement largely to Air Force bombers, Navy submarines and some long-distance Navy strikes, the war game exercises concluded.

“What it comes down to is, in many cases, the Navy surface fleet doesn’t play a major role,” said Michael Bohnert, a war games engineer at RAND.

One of the best ways for the Navy to counter this challenge, Mr. Ochmanek said, would be to rapidly deploy a fleet of armed, unmanned vessels and drones that can get close to Chinese targets. But, he added, “I have not been impressed with the speed at which they’re moving on that.”

Instead, the debate in Washington remains largely focused on protecting and expanding traditional platforms.

The Pentagon this year proposed delaying the purchase of one of the ships, known as an amphibious transport dock, that Huntington Ingalls builds at its Pascagoula yard, citing the rising cost.

Again and again, lawmakers pressed Navy officials not to delay, and think tanks and consulting firms funded by the shipbuilders pushed out opinion pieces instead urging the Navy to build more manned ships.

“Congress can spark a renaissance of shipbuilding by offering a demand signal for a major maritime buildup,” said Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Mr. Wicker managed late last year with other lawmakers like Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, also a shipbuilding state, to add $2 billion to the Navy budget to build an extra destroyer.

In a statement to The Times, Mr. Wicker said he had pushed the Navy to embrace unmanned vessels as well as to build traditional ships. “Backing traditional platforms or shifting completely toward advanced technology is a false choice,” he said.

Shipbuilders and other contractors that provide equipment installed on these ships have also flooded lawmakers with campaign contributions, totaling more than $90 million just in the past five years. Some of the largest chunks of that money went to lawmakers who lead the budget and Pentagon oversight committees, including Mr. Wicker.

Carnell Gray has been a welder at the shipyard for almost 10 years.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Huntington Ingalls, which has built more than 70 percent of the Navy’s fleet of warships, has its own small army of lobbyists.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Huntington Ingalls has been building military ships in Mississippi for 85 years.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Alexandra Davison has worked at the shipyard in Pascagoula for three years and is now a sheet metal foreman.Credit...Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

Huntington Ingalls, like the other major contractors, also has its own small army of lobbyists. They include two former House leaders (Richard A. Gephardt, Democrat of Missouri, and Robert Livingston, Republican of Louisiana, who was the speaker-designate before resigning) and a former Senate majority leader (Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi), as well as Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor and Republican National Committee chairman.

When the Senate moved this summer to adopt its bill authorizing Pentagon spending for the 2024 fiscal year, it called for the Navy to move ahead with construction of the additional ship sought by Mr. Wicker, in spite of the Pentagon’s push for a delay.

Soon after that move, the Navy announced a multibillion-dollar commitment through 2027 to build nine more of the destroyers at Pascagoula and a second private shipyard, which will help assure job security for thousands of workers. Even before that, Huntington Ingalls had told investors it was carrying a $46.9 billion backlog of orders for ships, the largest in its history.

Experiment in the Persian Gulf

A T-38 Devil Ray, an unmanned vessel that can reach speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, in the waters off Bahrain.Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

On a bay just off the Persian Gulf, two very unusual Navy vessels moved about: one built for speed, the other endurance, but both unmanned. They were there to help track and intercept threats from Iran, which has been seizing oil tankers and harassing ships passing through a vital choke point of international commerce.

One, the T-38 Devil Ray, which can reach speeds of up to 90 miles per hour — faster than just about any other vessel in the Navy — was awaiting its next assignment. Alongside it was the Ocean Aero Triton, whose solar-power system allows it to operate for three months at a time without any need to refuel.

With more U.S. warfighting assets shifted toward Asia, the Navy’s Fifth Fleet — which covers a 2.5 million-square-mile expanse that encompasses the Persian Gulf and part of the Indian Ocean — has had to figure out how to do more with less.

The experiment behind the Devil Ray and the Triton, nicknamed Task Force 59, has become a fulcrum for the debate over whether the military is moving fast enough to embrace new and more flexible ways of adapting to a changing threat environment.

The experiment in Bahrain started after Admiral Selby, then the chief of the Office of Naval Research, proposed that the Navy try out some of the unmanned vessels as part of an annual Navy exercise off San Diego in early 2021. He said he found enormous enthusiasm for the idea among frontline commanders in the Pacific and the Middle East.

“We are trying to improve Navy power, but we need to do more than that: We need to reimagine Navy power,” he said in an interview this summer, just after retiring from the Navy. “We’re kind of at a pivotal point in history. It is vital that we throw off old conventions.”

The effort in Bahrain took off with the support of Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of Navy forces in the region. But it was a shoestring effort, led by Capt. Michael D. Brasseur, who had worked on a similar project for NATO.

The unmanned vessels have done a great deal to expand the effectiveness of the Navy ships based in Bahrain, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper said in an interview.Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

The control room of Task Force 59, which tests aquatic and aerial drones, in Bahrain.Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

The Navy had already contracted with traditional suppliers like Boeing and L3Harris to develop unmanned vessels with names like Orca, Snakehead and Sea Hunter. But several of those projects were already years behind schedule and tremendously over budget — or had such severe problems they were quietly canceled.

The team in Bahrain took a very different approach, turning to smaller, more entrepreneurial companies and sidestepping the bureaucracy that slows and complicates big weapons programs. It found partners in companies like Saildrone, Anduril, Shield AI and Martac, which had never built a major Navy ship.

Task Force 59 also used creative business models to get the innovative vessels in the water quickly. Saildrone, of Alameda, Calf., makes surveillance vessels that operate on their own for up to a year. But rather than buying the vessels, the Navy purchased the data they were collecting, saving on maintenance as well as acquisition costs.

Many of the new breed of vessels and drones do not carry weapons, but their sophisticated cameras, mine-sensing devices and other sensors allow the Navy fleet based in Bahrain to keep watch over a larger chunk of the waters it patrols.

“It is a gigantic increase in awareness of what’s happening and thus increasing your ability to respond,” Admiral Cooper said.

When Iran began to intercept oil tankers this year, the unmanned vessels for the first time were used to lead the patrol, navigating through the Strait of Hormuz ahead of the U.S. military ships.

A Triton Ocean Aero in Bahrain.Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

More aquatic drones were on display at the U.S. Navy base in Manama, Bahrain.Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

The drones are loaded with various cameras and other sensors, beaming data back to a command center.Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

Saildrone was given the annual Navy League of the United States top award for technology innovation.Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

“The cameras on those boats are pretty amazing — you can see people’s expressions, read their name tags, even see their facial hair,” Captain Brasseur said.

Given that war games had demonstrated the need for thousands of unmanned devices for surveillance, interdiction and attack purposes to prepare for any conflict with China, Admiral Selby pushed colleagues at the Pentagon to figure out a way to rapidly buy thousands of similar devices for the Navy to use worldwide.

But again and again, he said, he ran into roadblocks. He proposed that the Navy create a new high-ranking officer who would have the authority and funding to build a so-called hybrid fleet in which the new generation of unmanned vehicles would operate in conjunction with traditional warships.

The response he said he received from the Navy: It did not have an available “billet” — authorization to fill a high-ranking post — to follow up on his plan.

“You now run up against the machine — the people who just want to kind of continue to do what we’ve always done,” Admiral Selby said. “The budgeting process, the congressional process, the industrial lobbying efforts. It is all designed to continue to produce what we’ve already got and make it a little better. But that is not good enough.”

“We have an arrogance about, we’ve got these aircraft carriers, we’ve got these amazing submarines. We don’t know anything else. And that is just wrong,” said Lorin Selby, who retired this summer as a rear admiral after a 36-year career in which he helped run many of the Navy’s major acquisition units.Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

The city of Manama is home to Naval Support Activity Bahrain, where the Navy bases ships that patrol the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.Credit...Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

The Navy has agreed to expand the experiment conducted in Bahrain to at least one other part of the world, around Latin America, mostly for immigration and drug interdiction efforts. But so far it has not adopted detailed new operational strategies that will govern how to integrate these unmanned platforms broadly across the Navy nor allocated large sums of money to start buying them.

The contractors that have built these unmanned drones are still waiting for major orders, even though commanders from various Navy fleets have made clear they are anxious for their own allotment of the new tools.

“There just is not the leadership at the top to say, ‘Get it done,’” said Richard Jenkins, the founder and chief executive officer of Saildrone, whose surveillance vessel Navy officials said had been one of the most valuable tools demonstrated out of Bahrain.

The company could deliver as many as 400 of its vessels a year. But so far, it has Navy contracts for only 16, including the six still being used around Bahrain.

A similar sentiment was expressed by Ken Perry, a former nuclear submarine captain who is now an executive at ThayerMahan, a Connecticut-based company that has invented an unmanned device that tracks enemy submarines at a fraction of the cost of the large vessels the Navy uses.

“They refuse to take money from the legacy programs,” Mr. Perry said. “The Navy, big industry and other key stakeholders are vested in the current shipbuilding enterprise.”

Eric Lipton is a Washington-based investigative reporter. A three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, he previously worked at The Washington Post and The Hartford Courant. More about Eric Lipton

The New York Times · by Eric Lipton · September 4, 2023

6. Low Crawling toward Obscurity: The Army’s Professional Journals

Graphics at charts and the link: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/September-October-2023/Obscurity/

Low Crawling toward Obscurity

The Army’s Professional Journals

Maj. Zachary Griffiths, U.S. Army

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Command and General Staff College (CGSC) students attend a class at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, circa 1960. The professional journal Military Review has provided a venue for CGSC students to share information and present ideas regarding the military since 1934. (Photo courtesy of the Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library)

Congress has cut the U.S. Army’s personnel strength down to 452,000—the lowest since the end of World War II. The last time the Army lived on starvation rations between wars, more than a dozen professional military journals prepared the profession for the challenges of that war.1 Today, the situation is bleaker. The Army’s branch magazines publish fewer pages, less often, and more erratically to an audience who has migrated away from print to downloadable PDFs to web-first publications with active social media.

Gen. Edwin F. Harding, commanding general of the 32nd Infantry Division. As a major, Harding was appointed editor of Infantry Journal. His modernization of the journal more than doubled the number of subscribers. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

This article challenges the Army and Combined Arms Center to consider the state of professional military discourse today. There is a need to improve the current situation, so this article argues for two concrete steps toward renewal. First, the Army should modernize toward web-first platforms to reach soldiers where they are. Second, the Army should consider modest incentives for writing and editing professional military publications.

Rather than low crawling toward obscurity, the Army should renew its professional publications.

Empowered: A Renewed Infantry

By 1 April 1934, the audience for Infantry Journal had dwindled. Fewer than 4,000 subscribers read the “atrociously written articles,” and the Great Depression made the $3 subscription too much for many people to afford.2 Fortunately, Maj. Gen. Edward Croft, the chief of infantry, appointed Maj. Edwin Harding as its editor. Fresh from his studies at the Army War College, Harding brought experience from editing the Infantry School’s Mailing List.3

Harding sought tough critiques of the official line and promising new authors who challenged the status quo. Better articles, new features like book reviews and editorials, and a modernized look grew subscribers to more than 10,000 in just four years.4 The renewed Infantry Journal also resuscitated other military journals by showing them how to maximize their potential.

Today, as in previous interwar periods, the Army’s branch magazines need renewal. Between 1982 and 2020, Infantry, Armor, Engineer, and Field Artillery (Fires before 2020) have published fewer issues with fewer pages more erratically. The average number of issues and pages per year dropped from 5.25 per branch and 1,821 pages total to 3.5 issues per branch and just 442 pages. While aiming for quarterly publication, these branch magazines published anywhere from one to six issues per year between 2018 and 2020.5

As branch content has wavered, so too has engagement. Branch magazines recently transitioned to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service—a little-known and little-browsed data repository. “Hits” average in the hundreds or low thousands per issue with only single-digit downloads. Contrast this with an article I coauthored for West Point’s Modern War Institute (MWI) that hit 38,627 pageviews on just the first day. Social media engagement by branch journals is similarly weak, with no dedicated social media and single digit mentions of their journals on branch-specific accounts.6

The distance between editorial staffs and their communities has also widened. For Military Review, the masthead has dropped from 100 percent military in 1955 to 18 percent in 2022 as the mean military staff member increased from a junior major to a lieutenant colonel. Magazines like Infantry no longer have Hardings, instead relying on retired military or civilian editors, which may distance themselves from the problems of the force.7 Branch journal content and connection with the force require renewal.

(Composite graphic by Michael Lopez, Army University Press)

To chart a path forward, this article recommends modernizing military publications to web-first formats and incentivizing authors and volunteer editors to write. These conclusions are based on a review of military journals, original research into the writing patterns of the Army’s authors, and an original survey of those authors.

Understanding Military Journals and Authors

Military professional journals and magazines serve multiple important purposes for the Army. While manuals and policy provide authoritative guidance, professional journals provide a venue for leaders to inform the force of the reasons behind changes.8 Other articles build communities around shared challenges or present lessons for immediate incorporation by units and the field and ultimate adoption into doctrine.9 Writing also identifies solutions to problems felt in the field and facilitates lateral connections in the Army’s hierarchy. Books like Leonard Wong and Stephen J. Gerras’s Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession achieve several of these goals, identifying the shared burden of compliance and leading to a mandatory training reduction.10 Writing also offers an outlet for perspectives that may not find a receptive audience within traditional command structures.

Additionally, the significance of improving writing skills cannot be overstated for military professionals. For example, the Commander’s Assessment Program’s inclusion of writing highlights the importance of this critical skill for issuing orders and communicating effectively.11 Professional writing fosters the critical thinking skills that Army Doctrine Publication 6-22, Leadership, codifies as a necessary attribute of Army leaders.12 High-quality military journals effectively convey command priorities and challenge orthodoxy, contributing to the overall health and professionalism of the military.

Military journals are full of articles encouraging officers to write, but fewer seek to understand military writers or their writing habits.13 The only authorship survey I could find was a survey of 392 Marine Corps authors in 1988. That study found intrinsic motivations for authors predominated and that a lack of time was the biggest barrier to writing.14

Table 1. Army Professional Publication Landscape

(Table by author)

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Two other studies have examined engagement with military journals and their content. One bright spot is a 2008 monograph by Kareem Montague on military learning. In it, he found a decrease in reader engagement from January 1998 to December 2007 based on published letters to the editor in Infantry, Armor, Fires Bulletin, and Army Logistician, and a survey of students at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. About forty years earlier, Alonzo Coose Jr. critiqued Military Review’s satisfaction of its mission by publishing the results of a 1968 readership survey and reviewing 133 articles.15 Others have studied the content of military journals.16 Despite these writings on military writing, none explore who military authors are or how they could help renew military journals—a real gap in how we holistically understand “talent management.”

To help understand the Army’s authors, this article analyzes the publications of and surveys military professional authors who published in eight outlets between 1 January 2022 and 20 April 2023. In total, Parameters, Military Review, Infantry, Armor, Field Artillery, Engineer, MWI, and War on the Rocks published 992 articles from 1,376 authors. Of the 1,376 authors, I identified 457 individual authors in the U.S. Army.

Patterns in Military Professional Publication

Web-first, Army institutional, and branch magazines confront authors as they decide where to publish (see table 1). They might aim for web-first outlets like War on the Rocks or MWI. These outlets publish 1,500-to-2,500-word articles quickly to large audiences. To reach an Army institutional audience, authors may write 5,000-to-8,000-word articles with more extensive review for Military Review or Parameters. Finally, writers focusing on branch-specific issues may write for their branch magazines. Branch magazines publish with more erratic schedules and less editorial oversight, but they focus on issues relevant to a branch that might not be appropriate for other outlets.17

A variety of web-first outlets reach military audiences. These include War on the Rocks, MWI, From the Green Notebook, Task and Purpose, the Military Leader, and others.18 These outlets center around a webpage with written content that is easily viewable on either desktop computers or mobile devices—key information conduits that are more appropriate for today’s digital generation. They may have multiple “channels” such as MWI’s Irregular Warfare Initiative or Project 6633 with more niche content and podcasts. Web-first outlets may have an institutional affiliation as MWI does with West Point or be independent outlets like War on the Rocks or From the Green Notebook.

Web-first outlets publish a mix of military and nonmilitary authors. Together, War on the Rocks and MWI published 28 percent articles written by military authors. War on the Rocks published 78 military and 370 civilian authors, and MWI published 160 military and 256 civilians. On web-first outlets, 111 Army authors published 145 articles with a median of one article per author and a maximum of five. Of the authors, 105 were officers, two were noncommissioned officers, three were cadets, and one was unknown based on the biography.

The Army’s institutional journals speak to strategic and operational-level issues. Parameters is the journal of the Army War College. It publishes complete issues and individual articles as PDFs, which are not mobile friendly, though the Army War College produces podcasts like the A Better Peace, Decisive Point, Conversations on Strategy, and others. Military Review “provides an established and well-regarded Army forum to stimulate original thought and debate on topics related to the art and science of land warfare.”19 Army University Press also publishes more specialized journals, such as two foreign language versions of Military Review, the NCO Journal, and the Journal of Military Learning. Military Review has best adapted to modern standards with content optimized for mobile, desktop, printed forms, and podcasts, but reach remains limited without a dedicated and significant social media presence.

Institutional outlets publish more than half military authors, primarily officers. Together, Parameters and Military Review published 61 percent articles by military authors, with Parameters publishing 33 military and 33 civilians and Military Review publishing 78 military and 39 civilian authored articles. In the institutional outlets, 84 Army authors published 92 articles with a median of one article per author and a maximum of three articles per author. Of the authors, 83 authors were officers and one was a warrant officer.

Branch centers of excellence publish professional bulletins or, less formally, branch magazines. These bulletins are specific to a particular functional area and act as a forum for explaining, digesting, or debating Army doctrine, policy, or other definitive information. Branch magazines may assist with specific training and professional development. However, according to Department of the Army Pamphlet 25-40, Army Publishing Program Procedures, branch magazines typically include “technological developments; strategy, tactics, techniques, and procedures; ‘how-to’ pieces; practical exercises; training methods; historical perspectives; monographs and summaries of research papers; views and opinions; and letters to the editor.”20 Branch magazines serve a crucial role in promoting lateral communication and sharing lessons across different units, but they have not appreciably modernized.

Branch magazines publish primarily military authors. Together, the four branch magazines under study published 89 percent of articles by military authors with Infantry and Armor publishing 96/110 and 94/107 military, respectively, and Engineer and Fires publishing 52/55 and 52/57 military, respectively. Of the 275 military authors, 268 are in the Army with 235 officers, 26 noncommissioned officers, nine warrant officers, three cadets, and two unknowns.

Figure 1. Stovepiped Publications by Authors of More than One Article

(Figure by author)

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Beyond specific types of outlets, Army writers appear to publish within a single outlet stovepipe. While 407/457 Army authors published only one article, only 10 percent (5/50) of authors who published more than one article in this period published in multiple outlet types (see figure 1). This stovepiping suggests that military authors either may not understand the writing landscape or they return to outlets where they have a relationship with a certain editorial team.

This review of eight military writing outlets revealed two authorship trends. First, the median author is an Army officer who published one article. Second, authors who published more than one article published overwhelmingly within the same outlet type. Only five authors published articles in more than one outlet type. But who are these officers and what motivates their writing? This article reports on the results of a survey of these Army authors in the following section.

Survey of Army Authors

Renewing military publications requires better understanding of who writers are and what motivates their writing. The surveyed writers overwhelmingly had advanced civilian education, cited intrinsic motivations for their writing, and reported a lack of time as their primary barrier to writing. When working with editors, they valued timely communication and feedback, and clear submission guidance. Writers also generally considered volunteer editorial teams a viable method to improve timeliness and content quality.

The survey of military professional authors collected 70 responses from 457 Army authors for a response rate of 15.3 percent.21 Of those 70 responses, two responses were discarded: one had not written an article in the period under study and one was recently retired, which manifests in varying response numbers for different questions.

The following sections report on writer demographics, what makes professional military outlets effective, cultivating writers, and the viability of volunteer editors.

Demographics. Authors are whiter and more male than the Army overall, perform well, and have advanced civilian education degrees. The median respondent was a white, non-Hispanic or non-Latino male, high-performing active-duty Army major between 30 and 39 years old with a master’s degree who published two articles and has completed the Captains Career Course and one broadening opportunity. For race and ethnicity, 61 respondents identified as white, three identified as black, one as white and Asian, and one as American Indian or Alaska Native. Five identified as Hispanic or Latino, and only two respondents identified as women.

A range of ages and ranks responded. For ages, two identified as under 25, 19 between 24–30, 24 between 30–39, 19 between 40–50, and four over 50. Company and field-grade officers were most common with two noncommissioned officers, one warrant officer, 27 company-grade officers, 36 field-grade officers, and one general officer.

Writers also perform well and are highly educated. Forty-one of 66 respondents reported having “5 Most Qualified” or “4 of 5 Most Qualified” evaluations of their last five evaluations. For education, 49 of 68 respondents had advanced civilian education at the master’s level or above and military education appropriate for their grade. Additionally, 45 had completed one or more broadening opportunities such as teaching or a fellowship. Military writers perform well across the Army’s metrics but are overwhelmingly white and male.

The median Army writer differs than the median officer at least in terms of diversity. According to a 2008 snapshot from the Military Leadership Diversity Commission, 16.9 percent of Army officers between O-1 (second lieutenant) and O-6 (colonel) are female, while only 2.9 percent of writers were. Likewise, 22.6 percent of Army officers in the same grades are from a non-Hispanic minority, while only 7.4 percent of writers were.22 The author could not find similar data for ages, education, or performance.

Respondents reported a range of publication histories: 10 had written one article, 16 had written 2–3, 25 had written 4–10, 10 had written 10–30, and five had written more than 30. For those authors who published more than one article over the course of their careers, 54 of 58 had published at more than one outlet, with 25 publishing in two to three outlets and 26 publishing in four to 10 outlets.

Effective military outlets. Analysis indicates outlets succeed because they are online and publish quality content. Authors prefer online content twice as much as podcasts or print content, which were the next most preferred. These preferences were mirrored in their engagement habits and their perceptions of their peers.

Military authors overwhelmingly considered War on the Rocks, Military Review, and MWI the most influential outlets. Of 116 outlets cited, War on the Rocks garnered 28 mentions, Military Review 18, and MWI 17. Of Army publications, respondents found that Military Review generally succeeded in meeting its mission, though they were less confident in either branch magazines or Parameters.

Table 2. Engagement with Professional Content

(Table by author)

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Writers overwhelmingly engaged by reading articles online (65/237 responses), followed by discussion on social media or in chat groups (42) and by a three-way tie among listening to podcasts, reading print articles, and writing articles (34 each). When thinking about the habits of their peers, writers thought reading online articles was most common (60/167 responses), followed by discussion on social media or in chat groups (52) and listening to podcasts (37). Authors also pointed out that many service members engage with “meme” pages on Instagram and other platforms, which may offer a method to drive engagement with more professional military content. Table 2 depicts consumption frequency by authors. Authors visit websites or social media daily or weekly, as opposed to monthly or seasonally for branch or institutional publications. Online engagement dominates, whether reading online articles, discussing professional issues with their peers, or listening to podcasts.

Authors also most appreciate quality content. Seventy-four percent of respondents rated “quality of content” as their most important factor. Three factors vied for second place. Seventeen percent rated “senior leader engagement” as their second most important factor with regular publication schedule and having a balance of informative and argumentative articles at 14 percent. Likewise, when asked how to improve branch magazines, 38 percent of respondents prioritized content quality, 19 percent prioritized formatting for mobile viewing, and 16 percent prioritized publishing more frequently.

Given the dominant preferences for quality content optimized for online viewing, preferences for War on the Rocks, Military Review, and MWI make sense. This section then makes clear what other military outlets should do to improve their engagement. First, transition to web-first content. Branch magazines and Parameters should stop posting articles in PDF and publish in formats easily viewed on mobile devices or desktops without downloading. Second, military professional outlets must embrace social media. Formally published content may trigger debate, but effective social media use can drive engagement with content and encourage further written discourse. Finally, outlets must publish quality content. Increasing quality means developing writers and editing their work effectively.

Developing writers and publishing writing. Driving an idea to publication is tough but can be taught. Civilian education is an important component of writing professionally. Intrinsic factors motivate writing, while time and other commitments serve as barriers to writing more, and timely and clear feedback are key components of an editorial process.

Civilian education cultivates military writers. When asked to rank factors associated with when they started writing, 64 percent of respondents rated their civilian education as the most important. After civilian education, 22 percent rated self-teaching as the first or second most important factors, followed by on-the-job training at 21 percent and military education at 19 percent. In a free-response question on starting to write, education—especially civilian education—stood out as associated with starting to write professionally.

Free-response questions provide nuanced anecdotes that illustrate how they started writing; 29/65 mentions involved education, with 18 of those specifically mentioning civilian education. Other reasons included intrinsic motivation (8), mentorship (6), and desire to influence (6). Whether civilian education causes writing or those more likely to write pursue civilian education is not clear. Either way, civilian education may develop the writing skills necessary but perhaps not sufficient for professional writing unless coupled with internal motivation.

Writers attribute their motivation to intrinsic factors. When asked to rank their reasons for writing, 63 percent of respondents ranked “having an idea to share” as their top reason. After “having an idea to share,” 23 percent ranked “contributing to the field” and 15 percent ranked “personal satisfaction” as their first or second motivation. Factors that might benefit an individual such as networking opportunities or career advancement were much lower. As these answers are self-reported, readers might consider this result with some skepticism. However, intrinsic motivation does accord with the limited recognition writers receive.

Generally, authors receive limited personal recognition for their writing. The most common recognition mentioned in a free-response question included notes from soldiers in the field (14), some sort of senior leader recognition in a star notes or emails (11), or a command writing award (9). Other responses included a professional military writing award such as the Red Quill (6), follow-on opportunities such as speaking in a class or at a conference (6), a small award such as an Army Achievement Medal or coin (5), public recognition at a formation or other event (4), or service on a commander’s initiatives group (1). Of note, eight respondents indicated they had never received any recognition. This lack of recognition is notable, as the barriers to writing are significant.

When asked about barriers to writing, time and other commitments dominated the responses. When asked to rank order barriers to writing, respondents rated “lack of time” as 28 percent more of a barrier than “other commitments” and 61 percent more of a barrier than the next barrier, limited access to resources. These answers accorded with their free-response answers. Of 32 responses, 23 explained why they did not write more as a lack of time (13) or other commitments (10). Other responses included burdensome editorial processes (3), skepticism by the chain of command (2), lack of impact (2), and insufficient motivation (2). Of note, writers generally felt free from censorship.23

Editorial experiences can also impact whether and how often writers write. Of 348 responses, writers rated timely communication and feedback (63) as their top choice, followed by clear submission guidance (57), constructive criticism (48), and respect for the author’s idea and voice (46), and a collaborative editing process (41) as the most important factors. For those who reported they had a relationship with editors, 32 of 139 responses felt this relationship helped them better understand the outlet, followed by better communication and feedback during submissions, greater likelihood of acceptance, and increased confidence in the final product (27 each).

Table 3. Publication Timeliness by Outlet

(Table by author)

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While authors did not cite timeliness of publication as a major factor, the wide variation in timeliness may impact author publication decisions. Table 3 shows web outlets to publish much more quickly than branch or other publications. Certainly, publications must find a balance between timeliness and quality, but neither branch outlets nor Military Review employ a peer-review process, suggesting they could speed their publication process with greater staff or emphasis on timeliness.24

Motivated intrinsically and cultivated by civilian education, military writers overcome time barriers and other commitments and develop relationships with editors to publish quality content. The following section explores whether volunteer editors could spur a new wave of professional military discourse.

Quality content and volunteer editors. Volunteer editorial teams could renew military journals. In fact, about one-quarter of authors would voluntarily edit military journals, especially if provided modest incentives or recognition (see figure 2). Twenty-four of 68 were either “very likely” or “likely” to proofread or format articles (3–5 hours per month), 16 were likely to coordinate with authors (4–6 hours per month), 16 were likely to screen submissions (6–10 hours per month), and 13 were likely to edit articles (10–15 hours per month). Additionally, writers willing to volunteer in one category would consider others as well. The mean correlation between those four categories is 0.696. This means that a volunteer for any of these activities would likely consent to related volunteer tasks. About one-quarter of surveyed authors would edit, suggesting the Army may have a pool of more than 100 potential editors.

Figure 2. Volunteerism and Editorial Tasks

(Figure by author)

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However, an outlet seeking volunteers may need to cast a wide web. No individual characteristics such as rank, age, or education was correlated with propensity to volunteer. This suggests volunteerism is an individual attribute and not common to particular groups. To draw on this potential editorial augmentation, the Army should ask them—and consider modest incentives.

Modest changes to annual evaluations or record briefs could stimulate volunteerism. Of the 98 responses to multiple-choice and free-response questions about incentives, 40 and 46 indicated that adding publications and volunteer editorial activities to the record brief or evaluation would encourage them. Of the remaining 12, three stated no incentive was required, seven thought other forms of command or board recognition would be necessary to stimulate volunteerism, and two had other comments.

Finally, when asked in a free-response question whether they had other thoughts on a volunteer model, the primary issues related to time and the editorial team. Nine authors were skeptical of the time burden associated with editing, while eight sought to make sure the editorial team avoided cliquishness or overly stringent standards for publication. The Army could harness volunteerism to renew branch magazines by asking individuals if they would like to volunteer and providing them modest recognition for their work.

The survey of Army authors delved into writer attributes, the characteristics of effective military outlets, developing and encouraging writers, and the viability of volunteer editors to help renew military publications. Authors considered outlets like War on the Rocks, Military Review, and MWI to be the most influential, emphasizing the importance of quality content optimized for online viewing. The survey also revealed the impact of civilian education on starting to write, the intrinsic motivation of writers, and the challenge of time constraints on publication. Authors identified timely communication, feedback, and clear submission guidance as essential elements in the editorial process. As an augmentation to professional editorial teams, volunteer editors offer a way to improve timeliness and content quality—the aspects authors identified as most important to effective outlets. To renew military publications, the Army should transition to web-first content, embrace social media, and provide modest incentives for editorial volunteers.

Conclusion

In the 1930s, Harding’s hard work renewed the Infantry Journal. He modernized the format, sought out and cultivated writers who wrote well, and empowered a talented team. Then Lt. Col. Dwight Eisenhower appreciated the “extraordinary transformation [Harding] effected in [their] journal” while Gen. George C. Marshall described the Infantry Journal as “far ahead of any other military publication.”25 Effective written discourse certainly helped set the Army on a path toward success in World War II.

Today, the Army has another opportunity to renew. The following three steps offer a path to transform the Army’s publication portfolio.

1. The Army must modernize branch magazines and invest in social media presences. Rather than publishing magazines as only PDFs, outlets should optimize for mobile or desktop viewing to reflect the evolution of modern media. To encourage further debate, articles should be easily shareable and have metadata compatible with citation tools like Zotero. As an interim or final step, branch magazines could tap into established brands, social media presence, and channels for niche content by partnering with outlets like MWI. Costs associated with modernizing will be modest, perhaps a few thousand dollars per outlet, and could be less if branches partner with existing outlets.

Moving or assimilating branch content into such platforms would break down the existing publication stovepipes, building relationships between authors and editorial teams who publish quality content. Writers engage with professional content on websites and social media each day. They must find the Army’s writing there.

2. The Army should stimulate quality writing and editing with modest talent management incentives. Survey respondents overwhelming agreed that adding publications and volunteer editorial activities to record briefs or annual evaluations would motivate them to volunteer as an editor. Annotation of writing would also help boards identify those who communicate well.

These changes might also diversify writing. The Army’s current authors are worryingly homogeneous: the median author was a white male with an advanced civilian degree. Women represented just 3 percent (2/68) of the writers, while 16 percent (10/61) are a racial or ethnic minority—far below the Army’s averages of 16.9 percent and 22.6 percent, respectively. Small policy changes would both encourage volunteer editing and more diverse voices.

3. The Army should encourage introspection on four points:

First, all outlets should periodically survey readers, authors, and senior leaders to assess their success.26
Second, the Army should consider why civilian education is the most-cited factor associated with professional writing. The Command and General Staff College requires written work from all resident programs and faculty emphasize the writing rigor there, but authors reported military education as the fourth of fifth influences on learning to write professionally.27
Third, others could investigate how often and under what conditions student monographs transition into published work at Military Review or other outlets. These monographs are typically published online, but ideally, they also spur continued written professional engagement.
And fourth, commands and schools should assess their writing awards programs. Assuming even one person reviews articles submitted for these awards, the return on awards programs for encouraging professional writing appears to be surprisingly small. Thoughtful consideration of these points would certainly benefit the Army generally and professional discourse more specifically.

Renewal of the Army’s publications is a simple task: modernize the format and incentivize authors and volunteer editors. Leadership at the Combined Arms Center can empower the next generation of the Army’s professional discourse—just like the chief of infantry did almost one hundred years ago.

Notes

Joseph Ingham Greene, ed., The Infantry Journal Reader (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1943), v.
Leslie Anders, “The Watershed: Forrest Harding’s Infantry Journal, 1934–1938,” Military Affairs 40, no. 1 (1976): 12, https://doi.org/10.2307/1986843.
Ibid. Readers should note that Infantry Journal is a predecessor of ARMY, while Mailing List is the predecessor of today’s Infantry.
Ibid., 15.
While page numbers may be a crude metric, branch journals remain roughly consistent over time. They have no advertisements and simple page layouts, making the number of pages published a rough measure for content.
Zachary Griffiths, “Bring Back Branch Magazines,” Modern War Institute at West Point, 27 April 2023, accessed 20 June 2023, https://mwi.usma.edu/bring-back-branch-magazines/; “Twitter Search: from: fortbenning Infantry Magazine,” Twitter, accessed 20 June 2023, https://twitter.com/search?src=typed_query&q=from%3Afortbenning%20infantry%20magazine.
Armor magazine retained a military editor until 2009, while the other branches transitioned to fully civilian staffs more than a decade prior.
See Stephen J. Townsend, “Accelerating Multi-Domain Operations: Evolution of an Idea,” Military Review 98, no. 1 (September-October 2018): 4–7, accessed 20 June 2023, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/September-October-2018/Townsend-Multi-Domain-Operations/.
See Donni Reed and Zachary Griffiths, “Making Tactical Innovation Happen: Five Tips for Leveraging Creativity and Experimentation in Your Unit,” Modern War Institute at West Point, 18 September 2020, accessed 20 June 2023, https://mwi.usma.edu/making-tactical-innovation-happen-five-tips-for-leveraging-creativity-and-experimentation-in-your-unit/.
See Leonard Wong and Stephen J. Gerras, Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession (Carlisle, PA: Army War College Press, 2015), accessed 20 June 2023, https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/466/; Meghann Myers, “The Army Just Dumped a Bunch of Mandatory Training to Free Up Soldiers’ Time,” Army Times (website), 24 April 2018, accessed 20 June 2023, https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/04/24/the-army-just-dumped-a-bunch-of-mandatory-training-to-free-up-soldiers-time/.
Everett Spain, “Reinventing the Leader-Selection Process: The U.S. Army’s New Approach to Managing Talent,” Harvard Business Review, November-December 2020, accessed 20 June 2023, https://hbr.org/2020/11/reinventing-the-leader-selection-process.
Steve Ferenzi, “The Death of Critical Thinking in the Military? Here’s How to Fix It,” Real Clear Defense, 14 January 2021, accessed 20 June 2023, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/01/14/the_death_of_critical_thinking_in_the_military_heres_how_to_fix_it_656486.html; Army Doctrine Publication 6-22, Leadership (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office [GPO], 2019).
See Todd A Schmidt, “Where Have All the Warrior-Scholars Gone? A Challenge to All Military Professionals,” Military Review 103, no. 1 (January-February 2023): 3–4, accessed 20 June 2023, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/January-February-2023/Letter-from-the-Editor/; Donald A. Zoll, “The Decline of Military Literature,” Parameters 2, no. 1 (1972), accessed 20 June 2023, https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol2/iss1/20/; Kenneth E. Lay, “Military Writing,” Military Review 44, no. 7 (July 1964): 53–60, accessed 20 June 2023, https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p124201coll1/id/657/; and many others.
Drew Allen Bennett, “Characteristics of Successful and Unsuccessful Writers for a Military Journal” (PhD diss., Texas A&M, 1991), 8; Kareem P. Montague, The Army and Team Learning (Fort Leavenworth, KS: School of Advanced Military Studies, 2008), 41–51, accessed 20 June 2023, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA485558.pdf.
Alonzo L. Coose Jr., A Critical Evaluation of Military Review (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1970), accessed 20 June 2023, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0713374.pdf.
John R. Combs, “Management versus Leadership as Reflected in Selected Military Journals (1970–1985)” (master’s thesis, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1986), accessed 20 June 2023, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA172831.
Outlets exist that are beyond the scope of this article. Authors may write for Army, the magazine of the Association of the United States Army, branch association magazines like Army Engineer, or other service journals, for example.
These websites can be found at War on the Rocks, https://www.warontherocks.com; Modern War Institute at West Point, https://mwi.usma.edu; From the Green Notebook, https://www.fromthegreennotebook.com; Task and Purpose, https://www.taskandpurpose.com; and The Military Leader, https://www.themilitaryleader.com.
“About,” Army University Press, accessed 20 June 2023, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/About/.
Army Pamphlet 25-40, Army Publishing Program Procedures (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 2021), 54.
This survey used the Microsoft Forms application as part of the Army’s Office 365 cloud. Note that this platform had significant drawbacks. More than twenty-five authors wrote me emails indicating they could not access the survey. The Combined Arms Center appeared to be completely blocked, removing at least twenty-one authors from the pool. Respondents could choose whether to answer questions, so not all questions have sixty-eight responses.
Military Leadership Diversity Commission, “Demographic Profile of the Active-Duty Officer Corps,” Issue Paper No. 13 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, September 2008), 2–3, accessed 20 June 2023, https://diversity.defense.gov/Portals/51/Documents/Resources/Commission/docs/Issue%20Papers/Paper%2013%20-%20Demographic%20Profile%20of%20Active%20Duty%20Officer%20Corps.pdf.
Questions about freedom to write, the influence of the chain of command, and the influence of public affairs produced mean and median agreement that writers were generally free to write what they wanted. However, for all questions at least one writer felt very restricted.
Anders, “The Watershed,” 15.
Readers should note that Military Review developed Online Exclusives to more rapidly publish articles independent of or ahead of publication in the journal. This is a laudable effort that could be improved with greater social media reach to increase awareness.
The last survey occurred in 1991. See “Reader Survey,” Military Review 71, no. 5 (May 1991): 95–96, https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p124201coll1/id/488/rec/4; Coose, A Critical Evaluation of Military Review.
“Degree Programs,” U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, last updated 19 April 2023, accessed 20 June 2023, https://armyuniversity.edu/cgsc/degreeprograms; Trent J. Lythgoe, “Some Modest Advice for the Command and General Staff Officer’s Course Class of 2020,” The Field Grade Leader, 19 January 2019, accessed 20 June 2023, https://fieldgradeleader.themilitaryleader.com/cgsc-advice/.

Maj. Zachary Griffiths, U.S. Army, is a career Special Forces officer. He invites you to visit https://www.hardingproject.com to learn more about renewing professional military writing. He tweets at @z_e_griffiths.

7. Reimagining America’s Professional All-Volunteer Army

Conclusion:

Today’s senior Army leaders are the product of twenty years at war. Like their post-Vietnam predecessors, they are responsible for the profession. They must initiate a set of conversations—within the Total Army, then among senior leaders in the executive and legislative branches—and take the action necessary to assure that the future of America’s professional volunteer force is ready to respond as well as it has for the past fifty years. This will be difficult and challenging, especially given the acrimony that surrounds any serious discussions today, but it must be done for the sake of the Nation.

Reimagining America’s Professional All-Volunteer Army

Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, PhD, U.S. Army, Retired

Lt. Gen. Lawson W. Magruder III, U.S. Army, Retired

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/September-October-2023/All-Volunteer-Army/

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Lt. Col. Richard A. Montcalm, commander of 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, leads recruits in the Oath of Enlistment on 18 April 2023 at the Douthit Gunnery Complex on Fort Riley, Kansas. (Photo by Sgt. Jared Simmons, U.S. Army)

Today’s senior civilian and military Army leaders face a challenge, different from but as complex and pressing as the one their post-Vietnam predecessors tackled: What should America’s Army look like? During the Vietnam War, the United States relied on the deeply unpopular draft. By the early 1970s, social, political, economic, technological, and strategic conditions within the United States converged, leading to the conclusion that America needed a professional volunteer force. Both adjectives are important. The force created at the end of the Vietnam War became volunteer, but it took years to evolve into the professional Army that fought the First Gulf War. That Army has served the Nation well. However, conditions have changed significantly since the end of the Cold War and the winding down of America’s post-9/11 wars. Now the Nation is in a multipolar, great-power period, and it is time to reexamine, perhaps even reimagine, the relationship between America’s Army—Active, Guard, and Reserve—and the contextual conditions that shape it.

The professional volunteer Army emerged fifty years ago, and since then, contextual conditions have changed; as a result, there are major issues senior leaders face today.

Phase I. End of the Vietnam War to the Conclusion of the First Gulf War: Converging Conditions

By 1970, American society had rejected the Vietnam War and the draft that fed it. Why this rejection came about has been the topic of books, conferences, and studies for decades. While academics and strategists disagreed as to the cause of this rejection, all agreed that a professional volunteer force would better serve America. Ending the draft was done relatively quickly in 1973, but recruiting and building a professional Army took much longer.

The volunteer force. Bernard Rostker’s I Want You! The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force captures the story of how the Army adapted.1 Rostker’s book is a thorough account of transforming a conscription-based personnel system into a recruited-based one that fit its strategic and domestic context. It is a fascinating story involving sets of senior leaders in Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon that detail multiple studies and the vast amount of work required by political and military staffs. I Want You! demonstrates that the shift to a recruited-based Army evolved over multiple years and multiple administrations—assisted by a Congress that had 80 percent of senators and 74 percent of representatives who had worn the uniform.2

In close coordination with Congress, Army leadership first focused on adjusting personnel policies. Among the most dramatic were changes to the Army’s pay and benefit systems that had to become competitive with the civilian market because the Army, corporate America, and college admissions departments were now competing for the same pool of high-quality high school graduates.

The Army is not platform-based; it is people-based. So, to establish a volunteer Army, senior leaders began recruiting and retaining those who met the new standards. The U.S. Army Recruiting Command had to reorganize itself, educate its workforce, design a marketing campaign, and execute it. The Army settled upon “Be All You Can Be,” which resonated with potential recruits and those serving. With a smart marketing campaign, the right set of bonuses and incentives, competitive pay and compensation packages, the Army slowly filled itself with high-quality, initial-entry soldiers.

Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger (lower left) and Le Duc Tho (upper right) initial the Paris Peace Accords on 23 January 1973 in Paris. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird followed the signing by announcing, “I wish to inform you that the Armed Forces henceforth will depend exclusively on volunteer soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.” (Photo from the White House via Alamy)

Recruiting and retention had to mesh, however. An increase in the number of married soldiers and junior sergeants was one of the big effects of creating a volunteer force. Senior Army leaders understood that they recruited individuals but retained families. Retaining families meant adapting personnel policies, creating family-centered services, and improving the overall quality of life on Army posts. A soldier’s spouse and family viewed retirement, medical, commissary, post exchange, daycare, and educational benefits as important parts of the attractiveness of service and offsets to the risks and demands inherent to a soldier’s life. As the years progressed, the number of two-soldier and single-parent families increased. Over time, the Army also realized that deploying a family-centric Army meant creating organizations, procedures, and services that could support families when one or both soldier-parents were gone. Spouses and families were very keen to understand how they would be taken care of when their soldier-spouse or soldier-parent deployed.

A very important but little-understood personnel cost associated with the volunteer Army concerned the expansion of the Army’s civilian workforce, which grew to do garrison jobs soldiers had previously performed. In the draft era, a normal year included training, readiness, and support cycles. In the support cycle, soldiers did garrison chores—cut grass; guarded various places on post; and provided augmentation to various garrison activities like gyms, theaters, and other administrative and morale and welfare operations. The volunteer soldier expected to do the job they volunteered for, the job the Nation was paying them to do.

(Composite graphic by Beth A. Warrington, Military Review)

The Big Five

A professional force. Senior Army leaders learned from their own experiences in Vietnam that the Army must become a professional force defined by its values and performance.3 In 1970, the chief of staff of the Army directed the Army War College to study the status of professionalism in the force.4 The study found a significant gap between a desired climate characterized by “individual integrity, mutual trust and confidence, unselfish motivation, technical competence, and unconstrained flow of information” and the existing climate perceived as embodying

selfish behavior that places personal success ahead of the good of the Service, looking upward to please superiors instead of looking downward to fulfill the legitimate needs of subordinates, preoccupation with the attainment of trivial short-term objectives even through dishonest practices that injure the long-term fabric of the organization, incomplete communications between junior and senior leaders which leave the senior uninformed and the junior feeling unimportant, and inadequate technical or managerial competence to perform effectively.5

The study concluded that the “fix” to these problems was complex, would take time, and would hinge on Army senior leaders taking the initiative. In response to this study, for over fifteen years, several chiefs of staff and other senior leaders—in close coordination with the secretary of the Army, Department of Defense, and Congress—executed a set of programs to create the high-quality, highly trained, professional force that they envisioned. It meant that the Army’s senior leaders had to transform many of its major systems and institutions and in some cases, create new ones.6

A huge part of the transformation involved reorienting its fighting focus from counterinsurgency fighting to the conventional wars in Central Europe and Korea. That mindset change demanded that the Army develop and field new fighting doctrine and ensure that doctrine would take advantage of the modern equipment fielded in the late 1970s and 80s: the M1 Abrams tank, the M2/3 Bradley, the UH-60 Black Hawk, the AH-64 Apache, and the Patriot (known collectively as “the Big 5”). Fielding this equipment was part of reorienting the Army from Vietnam to Central Europe—the main strategic requirement of the time. The reorientation consisted not only of fielding new equipment and new fighting doctrine but also adopting a new training methodology and revamping the leader (officer and noncommissioned officer) development programs.

Most of the concepts for the Big 5 were born in the 1960s as replacements for second-generation World War II equipment. As the Vietnam War came to an end, the need for this new generation of equipment became more urgent. By the early 1970s, the Army was ill-prepared to defend NATO. Its equipment was out of date. The cascading fielding of the Big 5 took many years. As each unit was “modernized,” however, the process excited both soldiers and leaders. All saw old equipment turned in as symbolic of moving from under the shadow of Vietnam toward becoming a new Army.

Field Manual 100-5, Operations (1982)

The Army’s new fighting doctrine unfolded iteratively. First came “Active Defense” in 1976, a doctrine developed in response to the technologies and tactics used in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.7 Although ultimately rejected by the Army, the Active Defense doctrine spurred leaders at every level to think more rigorously about fighting a technologically enhanced, lethal, conventional war. This thinking—in conjunction with the fielding of a massive set of new equipment, the influx of high-quality soldiers, improvements in leader development, and enhancement of pay and compensation—all combined to invigorate the Army.

Ultimately, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command—a new command created in 1973—produced AirLand Battle doctrine in 1982, which would be central to everything the Army did for the next several decades.8 Like fielding the Big 5, AirLand Battle doctrine energized Army leaders. The doctrine taught combat, combat support, and combat service commanders how to integrate their efforts at each echelon and between echelons. The tenets of the doctrine—initiative, agility, depth, and synchronization—drove new approaches in training and leader development.

The importance and effect of the Army’s adopting a revolutionary training methodology is hard to overstate five decades after its implementation. Today, the changes the Army made in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s are viewed as routine, the way the Army has always done business. It was not so at the start.9

The first major shift in the Army’s approach to training was to change from time based (e.g., two weeks allocated to platoon training) to standards based (e.g., platoons will train on the following tasks until their performance meets prescribed standards). This was called performance-oriented training. All training—from initial entry through every echelon of individual and collective training—became performance, not time, oriented. It is not an understatement to say that the shift in training philosophy was the foundation of America’s professional Army.10

The second major shift in training directed that all units derive their training focus from their wartime missions. This was called the mission-essential task list (METL). All units of the same type would no longer train on the same tasks—for example, all tank platoons across the Army training on the same generic platoon tasks. Instead, every unit in the Army would train on the tasks they were expected to execute in the warfighting plans designed for Central Europe or Korea. Using this focus, training took on a new sense of urgency and relevancy.

Third, training went from top-down directed to a mixture of top-down and bottom-up. For example, a division might conduct a major training exercise that would include several division-level, mission-essential tasks. But in preparation for this exercise, brigade, battalion, company commanders as well as platoon and squad leaders conducted their training meetings to determine which of their METL tasks would be their focus during the division exercise. Further, in conjunction with the other NCOs within their units, unit command sergeants major would identify which individual tasks they would evaluate during collective training. This was called multiechelon training. This shift ensured leaders at every level understood what they were going to do in training and why.

Soldiers move forward with a Stryker Combat Vehicle in support 31 October 2019 during Decisive Action Rotation 20-02 at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California. (Photo by Brooke Davis, U.S. Army)

Next, the new training doctrine required that all training would be planned, prepared, executed, evaluated, and redone, if necessary, until all tasks were performed to standard.11 Planning took place via a set of nested training meetings during which the leader or commander reviewed the individual, leader, and collective tasks; identified which tasks they had to perform; ensured the training resources were available to set the right conditions for training; and allocated sufficient time to perform to standard and retrain if necessary. The doctrine stipulated that primary trainers were two echelons above the training unit. In other words, battalion commanders ensured that platoons were properly trained; brigade commanders, companies; and division commanders, battalions, etc. This two-echelon method reinforced the Army’s desire for all leaders to be able to use their initiative and act within the intent of senior leaders two levels above.12

Senior commanders executed their responsibilities by first planning training during quarterly, semiannual, and annual training briefs. Second, they created the conditions for all tasks to be performed under realistic conditions. Finally, they personally observed and evaluated training. Evaluation took place through brutally honest, unit-led after action reviews to ensure training standards were met or the task redone.

The capstone collective training events for brigades and below were conducted at combat training centers (CTC). The first of the Army’s CTCs was the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California—announced in 1979 and activated in 1980. Later, the Army opened the Joint Readiness Training Center, first located at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, then moved to Fort Polk, Louisiana. The last CTC was the Combat Maneuver Training Center at Hohenfels, Germany. Units would deploy to these CTCs to execute selected METL tasks, fighting against an aggressive opposing force and observed by highly qualified observer/controllers that were permanently stationed at the CTC. It was the ultimate test, meant to clearly identify shortcomings in unit home-station training.

Division and corps commanders were put under the warfighting microscope too, but mostly in constructed reality rather than in live exercises. The Army created the Battle Command Training Program (BCTP, now called the Mission Command Training Program). Via computer generated scenarios, division and corps commanders “fought” an opposing force as proficient as those in the live CTCs. This program evaluated the state of training of division and corps commanders and their staffs. CTCs and the BCTP ensured that no soldier, leader, or unit would go unevaluated. This new approach to training radically improved the quality of performance throughout the Army.

To lead volunteers, create professionals, and execute the new training doctrine, the Army needed to upgrade its leader development programs for both officers and NCOs. The Army adopted a “select-train-promote” methodology and a “Be, Know, Do” approach to accomplish this upgrade. Army values—ultimately standardized as loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage—were woven into the fabric of professional education curricula and officer and NCO efficiency reports.

Battalion-and-above commanders were centrally selected at the Department of the Army level against Army-wide standards, and command tours were lengthened and standardized. For NCOs, central selection began at the staff sergeant. Further, at each level of professional education, officers and NCOs were taught what they had to be (character), know, (skills), and do (behaviors) appropriate for the level of responsibility they were to assume.

The officer education program expanded, including a company command course, a battalion staff course, and a precommand course for commanders of battalions and above—these in addition to officer basic courses, the Command and General Staff Course for majors, and the War Colleges for lieutenant colonels. The Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), a school for competitively selected majors and an even smaller set of lieutenant colonels, was one of the most important innovations in officer education. Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales described this school in Certain Victory as a place where majors “would study the art of war in an intensive program of reading, military history, practicing computer wargames, and writing extensively.”13 “By the time of the Gulf War,” Scales reported, “SAMS graduates had established a reputation as some of the best staff officers in the Army.”14

The NCO education system was completely overhauled. As an NCO develops, the scope of his or her responsibility expands as well, so the Army developed an education program that matched this reality. At each level, sergeants learn the theory and practice of leadership appropriate to the rank and responsibilities the NCO will assume. The Army established common curricula for every level of NCO leadership: a Basic Leadership Course for sergeants, an Advanced Leadership Course for staff sergeants, and a Senior Leadership Course for sergeants first class. Later, the Army created a Sergeants Major Academy and other leadership courses to ensure continued leadership education for the NCO corps. Ultimately, command sergeants major were included in the precommand course formerly just for the commanders, thus emphasizing the command team concept. All these programs were key to professionalizing the NCO corps and help it become capable of leading and training the high-quality soldiers recruited to serve.

Creating a professional, volunteer Army meant applying all these changes—in recruiting, retention, personnel, equipment, doctrine, training, and leader development—not only to the active Army but also to the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve. The active Army, Guard, and Reserve became so closely integrated in the period between the end of Vietnam and the First Gulf War that any operational use of Army forces required using substantial parts of the Guard and Reserve. This shift was called the “Total Force” policy.15

Even though the Army reduced significantly in overall size during this period, it increased the number of its active divisions. Gen. Creighton Abrams accomplished this increase in combat power by including one Army National Guard brigade—called roundout brigades—and selected Army Reserve battalions within active division structures.16 The Army also shifted the majority of combat service support capacity to the U.S. Army Reserve. By the mid-to-late 1980s, 52 percent of combat forces and 67 percent of combat support and combat service support units in the Army were in the Guard and Reserve.17 The sequential use of the Guard and Reserve, which had dominated the draft-era Army, changed radically. Henceforth, any operational use of the Army would simultaneously use all components.18

M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks of the 3rd Armored Division move across the desert 15 February 1991 during Operation Desert Storm. A Bradley Fighting Vehicle can be seen in the background. (Photo by Photographer’s Mate Chief Petty Officer D. W. Holmes II, U.S. Navy)

The proof of the proficiency of America’s professional volunteer army came in two operations: The Panama Invasion (December 1989–January 1990) and the First Gulf War (August 1990–February 1991). In Panama, a dictator was deposed and captured, and a democratic government put in place. In Iraq, Kuwait was liberated, and the Iraqi army routed. Both operations were done quickly and decisively. In Panama and Iraq, America and the world watched the result of decades of professionalization. America’s professional all-volunteer Army became the gold standard by which all other armies were measured.

The battalion commanders who executed these operations had entered service at about the time it became a professional volunteer force. The generals who led these operations were Vietnam veterans whose wartime experience was a driving force behind the leadership they provided for over a decade and a half. These officers, and the sergeants who were the backbone of the Army, were the product of more than better pay—they were the result of sustained transformational change of one of the world’s largest organizations.19

In over fifteen years of multiple, interrelated changes and iterative improvements, the Total Army had become more than the sum of its parts. Between the end of the Vietnam War and the First Gulf War, the transformed professional volunteer Total Army was aligned with its social, political, economic, technological, and strategic context. The professional volunteer Army was not just a fix to the problem of social resistance to the draft. Rather, it was the answer to two much broader questions: What did the Nation expect the Army to do, and how could such a force be created within acceptable risk?20

Phase II. The End of the Cold War to the Conclusion of America’s Post-9/11 Wars: Changing Contextual Conditions

Two major disruptive changes followed Panama and the Gulf War. First, the Cold War ended with the Soviet Union, America’s primary threat, dissolving. Second, information age technologies seemed to promise a “Revolution in Military Affairs.” Some used both to question the size, composition, and purpose of America’s Army. Later in this period, two potentially dangerous gaps emerged: the first, between the size and composition of the Army and the Nation’s strategic needs; the second, between the Army and the citizens on whose behalf it serves.

Two potentially dangerous gaps emerged: the first, between the size and composition of the Army and the Nation’s strategic needs; the second, between the Army and the citizens on whose behalf it serves.

The end of the Cold War and information age technology. With the Soviet Union dissolved, some concluded that the era of ideological struggles had ended, and any potential World War III was a thing of the past, so a peace dividend was in order. In the 1990s, that dividend came in the shape of about a 30 percent cut in Army size and budget—even as the operational tempo (OPTEMPO) of the Army increased significantly. The size of the National Guard and Army Reserve was also reduced, increasing the pace of deployment for the remaining units as well. Sequential and overlapping small-scale contingency operations of the 1990s—Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, and others, had a

negative effect on retention of active soldiers, but had an even more significant impact on Reserve and National Guard units not accustomed to such use. … In fiscal year 1986, Reserve components contributed nine hundred thousand man-days of service; by fiscal year 1999 that figure had skyrocketed to 12.5 million man-days.21

By the mid-to-late 1990s, senior Army leaders were faced with the effects of high OPTEMPO, especially for Special Forces and among military occupational specialties like military police, engineers, civil affairs, and other specialties that were low density but in very high demand.

In addition, the level of precision demonstrated in the First Gulf War, both in the air and on the ground, plus the increased availability of near-real-time intelligence, convinced some to expand the peace dividend because they believed all future wars would be rapid and decisive operations—faster and on a larger scale than the Gulf War. Ground force size, so the argument went, could be offset by precision air forces, long-range rocket and missile fires, and smaller, high-tech ground units. Some advocates believed information would be so accurate and ubiquitous that the fog of war would be lifted, and battlefield reserves would no longer be required—another reason for reducing ground forces.

Technology-inspired academicians, strategists, and leaders—some in uniform—promulgated the belief that war itself had changed. They defined war, and therefore warfighters, very narrowly: conventional; technology-enhanced; shock and awe, rapid, decisive operations. Everything else was “other than war.” And, since the Army existed to fight and win the Nation’s wars, a strain of thinking evolved both among military and civilian strategists that considered “operations other than war” somebody else’s business.

The 1990s was a bifurcated period. On the one hand, the Army shrunk, for many held the belief that a large ground force would never again be necessary. On the other hand, the actual strategic demands of multiple small-scale contingency operations increased the use of the Total Army significantly. The professional volunteer Army that won in Panama and the Gulf War no longer seemed to fit the strategic environment unfolding in the early post-Cold War period. It was too large and too tied to a form of conventional combat that many believed was obsolete—even as it was overused. As Rosa Brooks observed, “We no longer know what kind of military we need, or how to draw sensible lines between civilian and military tasks and roles.”22

The Army “digitized” in the mid-1990s to early 2000s, and smaller Army units became more lethal. But lost in the zealotry of the time was this: size still mattered because rapid, decisive operations described only one possible way future war might be fought and waged. A tension developed, therefore, between the desire to retain a professional volunteer Army for the kind of rapid, decisive war many thought was the future and the affordability of a professional force needed to both prepare for that future and serve the Nation’s immediate strategic needs.

Costs rose continuously: costs of civilianizing garrison activities, of pay and benefits, of modernizing and improving the technological capacity of equipment, of continual improvements in training—both for live training exercises as well as constructive and virtual reality simulations. The combination of reducing the size of the Army and rising costs often drove senior army and political leaders to make size and composition decisions sometimes based more on affordability than on strategic needs—decisions that exacerbated the already growing problem of overusing an ever-smaller force.

In the absence of the Cold War threat, with the “promises” of technology, and in the face of rising costs, the two-war construct for sizing the Army ultimately was abandoned. It was replaced first by a base force and a contingency force construct, then by a two-major-regional-contingency requirement, and finally a one-and-a-half war model. The Total Army was affected.23

Even before the attacks of 11 September 2001, the Nation’s strategic reserve—the National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve—was becoming a de facto operational reserve. In fact, during the more than twenty years of post-9/11 war, the Nation’s reserve forces have become excellent operational reserves. In the process, however, the Nation was left with an atrophied strategic mobilization capacity. The Nation’s ability to expand its military and industrial base is all but gone—just as the global environment has made both strategically important.

The Guard and Reserve reduced in size at the end of the Cold War like the active force. And while not hollow, they are both suffering from recruiting and retention shortages and challenges like the active Army. More recently, it seems the Army may be intending to cast the Guard and Reserve as both an operational and strategic reserve force—risking overpromising and underdelivering.

Politically, the risks associated with continued reduction of the Total Army were considered low since technology and precision as well as ubiquitous information could offset size. Precision would also reduce the ammunition required, even as the cost of precision munitions increased. Political leaders also considered the risk of a smaller, more precise Army acceptable because future wars would be rapid and decisive—not prolonged.

But then came the attacks of 11 September 2001. Reality spoke: not all forms of wars would be rapid and decisive. After the initial invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States found itself fighting two prolonged theater wars as well as a third global war against jihadi extremists—all at the same time. The large ground force that would never be needed was needed. Technology mattered a lot in each of these wars, but so did the numbers of ground troops. Information was extensive, but not ubiquitous; ambiguity and uncertainty reemerged as verities on the battlefield as well as in Washington, D.C., as it fought and waged these wars.

The size of the ground force necessary in Afghanistan, Iraq, and globally was offset somewhat by technology and information, but the Total Army never grew large enough to fight two regional and one global war simultaneously. The overused Total Army of the post-Cold War period became the overused Total Army of the post-9/11 period—so much so that Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston recently said, “We have an enormous strain on soldiers. We’re busier now than we ever have been.” He called the situation a “huge concern” for himself and other leaders.24

The actual Army strength required to fight and wage three wars simultaneously was masked during the post-9/11 wars by the substantial growth of contractor support. Contractors assumed many security, maintenance, supply, logistics, construction, administrative, and food service functions formerly done by the Army combat service support organizations long since cut from the Total Army force structure.

The result has been that costs soared—not only the ammunition, equipment, maintenance, and supply costs to fight three wars simultaneously but also the costs associated with the wartime civilian structure and the psychological cost of multiple back-to-back combat rotations. On the surface, America’s Army remains the global gold standard for a professional force and its OPTEMPO has not prevented it from meeting every mission the Nation assigns to it. Below the surface, however, the Army’s foundation may be cracking.

Spc. Semaj Girtmon (left) and Spc. Jaycob Plasek, assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, supporting the 4th Infantry Division, load an M249 belt-fed light machine gun during a live-fire exercise on a range at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Poland, 5 July 2023. Thousands of soldiers have deployed from the United States to reinforce Europe either as part of strengthening NATO’s defense or assisting the Ukraine military, straining the already stretched U.S. forces. (Photo by Sgt. Alex Soliday, U.S. Army)

Two gaps? Some of the Army’s shrinkage after the Cold War was natural, the normal response after any war. Another part, however, was anything but natural. It resulted from a core false belief: that American technology and proficiency would guarantee that all future wars would be short, rapid, and decisive. Some even predicted that war in the future would be conducted below the threshold of conventional war, in what are called “gray zones”—which, again, would require only Special Forces and a small Army.25

The Army’s size bumped up a bit during America’s three post-9/11 wars but not enough to offset the requirement of fighting three wars simultaneously. Furthermore, during the 9/11 wars, Army modernization virtually stopped. As was the case in Vietnam, the primary focus was on immediate fighting requirements. Equipment necessary to fight in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the global war against jihadi extremists improved significantly, as did many intelligence and command-and-control capabilities. Longer-term strategic needs took a back seat.

Adding to the strain of an already stretched force is a pace of operations that has not slowed since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq. Well over ten thousand soldiers, for example, have deployed from the continental United States to reinforce Europe either as part of strengthening NATO’s defense or assisting the Ukraine military. The result is a gap between an overused, too-small Total Army and current U.S. strategic requirements.

A second gap is also emerging between America’s Army and the society on whose behalf it fights. It is too early to say definitively, but the length of the three post-9/11 wars, the repetitive overuse of soldiers and leaders, and the ambiguity associated with the conduct and ending of the post-9/11 wars may be factors affecting American citizens’ propensity to serve. Wars are fought for political aims, and the sacrifices of those fighting and of their families are seen as “worth it” when they result in achieving the identified aims. On the one hand, the United States has not been attacked since 9/11, though military, intelligence, and police forces have thwarted several attempts. On the other hand, al-Qaida has been reduced but not destroyed; the Islamic State, though limited, still prowls; Afghanistan has returned to Taliban control; and Iraq is hardly the democratic ally in the Global War on Terrorism as originally intended. The result is that the trust between echelons within the Army that was evident following the Panama and Gulf Wars is not fully present now. Further, trust between the military and its political leaders is also weakening, as is the trust between the American people and its Army.

“Since the 1990s, the propensity [for military service] of young Americans has steadily declined.”26 Generational attitudes, and the culture wars going on throughout the United States, are very likely affecting not only decisions made by today’s youth but also the advice given to them by those who influence such decisions.

Vocal and repeated accusations of the Army either being too woke or too brutish—especially by high-profile media personalities and journalists as well as by senior political leaders or retired senior military leaders—matter. Even more, political campaigns on both sides of the aisle organizing “soldiers for ___” or “veterans for ___” bring the Army into partisan politics and suggest that soldiers are just one more political action group. America’s culture wars also manifest among retired senior military officers. Lining up generals and admirals on stage as props to demonstrate military support for one candidate over another creates an impression that there are “Democratic” generals and admirals and “Republican” general and admirals, not senior officers who swear allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

Overall, American citizens are still very proud of their Army and respectful of it, as are America’s civilian leaders, but both groups are growingly disconnected. Kori Shake and Jim Mattis discuss this disconnection in their 2016 book Warriors & Citizens: American Views of Our Military.27 While they conclude that the relationship between America’s military and its civilian society is fundamentally strong, they identify an unhealthy disparity between those who fight and those on whose behalf fighting is done.28

Over time, these trends could create too large of a separation between America and America’s Army, which would have strategic consequences. In fact, Warriors & Citizens says at one point that public ignorance about the military is already problematic. It encourages “politicians to consider their strategic choices hemmed in by public opposition and to shift responsibility for winning policy arguments onto the military; [public ignorance] impedes sustained support for the war effort; permits the imposition of social policies that erode battlefield lethality; fosters a sense of victimization of veterans that skews defense spending toward pay and benefits; and distances veterans from our broader society.”29

As the volunteer force celebrates its fiftieth year, two sets of questions come to the fore. First, to what degree are the converging social, political, economic, and strategic conditions that spawned America’s volunteer Army following the Vietnam War now diverging? And if they are, is this divergence a problem? Second, to what degree does America’s professional volunteer Army fit the Nation’s strategic requirements?

An initial reading of Warriors & Citizens might suggest that, while there are some worrisome trends, the relationship between the Army and current social, political, economic, technological, and strategic conditions is not yet breaking. All should be cautious of such a reading, however, for the book was published in 2016, meaning its research and writing took place before 2015—before the pandemic, the embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan, the 6 January attack on Congress, the widening divisiveness in public discourse, the enduring recruiting crisis, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and China’s more assertive military stance. A more current source of information on this topic is Peter Feaver’s Thanks for Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the U.S. Military.30 His analysis may provide additional insight. Questioning the viability of the relationship between America’s Army and its contextual conditions could not come at a more important time.

Phase III. A Complex and Unstable Multipolar, Great Power Strategic Environment: Does America’s Total Army Still Fit?

The myth of war as a rapid, decisive operation was exploded first by the post-9/11 wars and now by the Ukraine War. Additionally, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan—should such an invasion occur—is unlikely to be rapid and decisive and may even spread to engulf the Indo-Pacific region. The possibility of war in all its forms is rising. Present before our eyes is the potential for a prolonged, conventional war in Europe and the potential for another in the Indo-Pacific—just the kind of wars thought in the 1990s to be a thing of the past. Furthermore, other threats remain: jihadi extremists; the ever-present nuclear-armed, rogue North Korea; a weakened Russia threatening the use of nuclear weapons as well as destabilizing Europe and the Middle East; China’s rise in Asia and beyond; and Iran’s partnerships with Russia and China, destabilizing operations throughout the Middle East, quest for nuclear arms, and emerging relationship with Saudi Arabia. The emerging global security environment raises the question of the relationship between America’s Total Army and the Nation’s strategic requirements. The base questions for the Army’s senior leaders and the Nation are similar to those of the 1970s: What kind of Total Army, to include its industrial and materiel base, does America need in our actual strategic environment? And, how can the U.S. create this Army within affordable risk?

The current cultural milieu as well as the lack of experience and understanding of the military among political leaders (only 34 percent of senators and 18 percent of representatives have served in the military) will hinder making the appropriate adaptive decisions necessary to align the Total Army with America and the strategic environment.

America’s senior political and military leaders must ask themselves fundamental questions, just as their predecessors did at the end of the Vietnam War. This discussion must extend to the Nation’s political leaders in the executive and legislative branches. Unlike the period in which the professional volunteer Army was created, however, the current cultural milieu as well as the lack of experience and understanding of the military among political leaders (only 34 percent of senators and 18 percent of representatives have served in the military) will hinder making the appropriate adaptive decisions necessary to align the Total Army with America and the strategic environment.31

These challenges, however, cannot divert leaders from addressing at least these critical issues:

The Nation has never been able to afford the size of Army, to include its industrial and materiel base, that strategic requirements demand. So what size is associated with acceptable risk based upon the actual strategic requirements of today’s global environment and the realities of fighting and waging multiple kinds of wars? The size of America’s Total Army cannot be based upon the world as we would like it to be or the war we would like to fight. Today’s strategic environment may require better expansibility than the Army currently has. Expansibility, therefore, should be part of the discussion of right-sizing the Total Army to today’s world. Part of any discussion should also include an analysis of a newly conceived version of conscription. In the end, senior leaders may reject the idea, but to do so preemptively would be intellectually self-limiting.
The Army’s people programs are not just about pay and benefits. They’re about readiness of individuals, leaders, units, and families. Too few Americans remember the sad state of Army readiness at the start of World War II, the beginning of the Korean War, or the hollow Army of the 1970s. Fortunately, those nadir years don’t describe today’s Total Army, but the future may begin to resemble the past unless substantial changes occur in recruitment, training time (which differs from deployment time), and quality of life issues.
Joining the Army has never been just about the pay or benefits. They are important, but more important is serving the Nation, being part of something greater than oneself, doing one’s part as a citizen, and embracing a willingness to sacrifice in defense of our Nation. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in 2010, however, “For a growing number of Americans, service in the military, no matter how laudable, has become something for other people to do.”32 How can senior political and military leaders increase the “propensity to serve” among recruit-aged citizens and their influencers? How can they expand the pool of young citizens who are qualified for service? The answers to these questions require extended civil-military cooperation, especially with congressional leaders. In the end, raising and sustaining America’s Total Army is a congressional responsibility.33 To be sure, the Department of the Army has a lot of self-reflection and work to do with respect to recruiting and retention as well as how insulated the Army has become. Equally sure is that Congress must act (a) to address the national problems that have reduced the pool of available recruits to less than 25 percent of American youth, (b) to help reduce the effects of culture wars and partisan political action on the Army, (c) to show that citizenship and service to the Nation are important values in a democracy, and (d) to place compensation at a level that soldiers no longer need food stamps or other programs to augment their salary.
Adaptation to available technology, to strategic requirements, and to allocated funding has always meant that the Total Army’s end strength and force structure is dynamic. So, how can the Total Army and the industrial and materiel base be gradually restructured to provide the Nation with the Army it needs? Twenty years of war has delayed serious modernization within the Army. Some plans exist, and some monies have been made available, but major improvements in the industrial base, the acquisition system, and the Army’s infrastructure remain more fallow than cultivated fields.
The wars the Army will fight will not be in the continental United States. The Russia-Ukraine war has made evident that deploying troops, weapons, equipment, ammunition, and supplies requires more sea and airlift than is currently available. Strategic flexibility and responsiveness—important in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere—require a modern support base and secure supply chain. The right balance of forward deployed units and those stationed within the United States, upgrading and securing the materiel base, providing adequate transportation means, and suitable deployment mechanisms, therefore, must be part of any discussion.

Facing these and other issues head-on will begin to produce a Total Army that is once again aligned with the social, political, economic, technological, and strategic conditions of the current historical period. No doubt many of the capabilities, systems, units, and programs of today’s Army can, and should, be continued or modified. Equally without doubt, however, is that the contextual conditions from which the professional volunteer Army emerged have changed drastically. The Army must adapt—in size and composition. Further, the adaptation must realign the relationship between America’s Army and the society on whose behalf it fights.

Today’s senior Army leaders are the product of twenty years at war. Like their post-Vietnam predecessors, they are responsible for the profession. They must initiate a set of conversations—within the Total Army, then among senior leaders in the executive and legislative branches—and take the action necessary to assure that the future of America’s professional volunteer force is ready to respond as well as it has for the past fifty years. This will be difficult and challenging, especially given the acrimony that surrounds any serious discussions today, but it must be done for the sake of the Nation.

Notes

Bernard Rostker, I Want You! The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2006).
Drew DeSilver, “New Congress Will Have a Few More Veterans, but Their Share of Lawmakers Is Still Near a Record Low,” Pew Research Center, 7 December 2022, accessed 30 June 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/07/new-congress-will-have-a-few-more-veterans-but-their-share-of-lawmakers-is-still-near-a-record-low/.
Gen. Dennis J. Reimer (retired, former chief of staff of the Army), email with authors, 30 May 2023.
U.S. Army War College, Study on Military Professionalism (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 30 June 1970), 53–54, accessed 30 June 2023, https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll11/id/1644.
Ibid., 13.
For an account of this period of transformation, see James Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1995).
John L. Romjue, From Active Defense to AirLand Battle: The Development of Army Doctrine, 1973–1982 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command [TRADOC], 1984).
Ibid.
In the 1970s, the authors were company grade officers who served together first in the 82nd Airborne Division, then in the newly formed 2nd Ranger Battalion. Both were not just observers of the Army’s training transformation but also early implementors of it.
Chief of Staff Gen. Creighton Abrams created the modern Ranger battalions as much to demonstrate to the Army how this new training methodology could work as to provide the Army with a new operational capability.
The performance-oriented training methodology adopted in the 1970 was first capture in a series of TRADOC pamphlets, then in Field Manual 25-100, Training the Force (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, October 1988).
At the time, this was called “decentralized command,” now it’s “mission command.”
Robert H. Scales, Certain Victory: The US Army in the Gulf War (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 1994), 27.
Ibid., 28.
Ellen M. Pint et al., Review of Army Total Force Policy Implementation (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2017).
For an excellent summary of these two decisions, see Conrad Crane’s “Post-Vietnam Drawdown: The Myth of the Abrams Doctrine,” in Drawdown: The American Way of Postwar, ed. Jason W. Warren (New York: New York University Press, 2016), chap. 10, Kindle.
Scales, Certain Victory, 18.
The roundout concept brought all components closer together. Ultimately, it increased professionalism, improved readiness, and allowed the Army to retain necessary force structure. But it was not without problems. Active, Guard, and Reserve personnel policies, funding methodologies, training standards, and readiness procedures all had to be rationalized. This rationalization took much senior leader effort and a lot of time. One of the main challenges for the Total Army, however, came during the First Gulf War. After the 48th, 155th, and 256th National Guard combat brigades received their active-duty notification for Operation Desert Storm, it took them much longer to get ready than expected. To further complicate Army National Guard deployment, some Guard leaders thought that the active component placed additional training requirements on them to meet deployment certification, which only one of the three brigades managed to reach. This controversy resulted in an extensive series of extremely sensitive discussions among the senior leaders of each component and Congress. In the end, the Total Army became even more closely knitted together, however. Scars formed within the Army’s components, but the fruit of this knitting was born out in America’s post-9/11 wars where U.S. Army Guard and Reserve units deployed repetitively and successfully.
Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers.
These questions developed from an email exchange between Col. (Ret.) Len Fullenkamp and the authors, 3 June 2023.
Crane, “Post-Vietnam Drawdown,” in Warren, Drawdown, loc. 246, Kindle.
Rosa Brooks, “Civil-Military Paradoxes,” in Warriors & Citizens: American Views of Our Military, ed. Kori Shake and Jim Mattis (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2016), 22.
The military shifted from a threat-based model to determine the appropriate size of the force to a capability-based model. The latter provided increased flexibility but also began to mask increasing levels of risk inherent in the force.
James Clark, “Soldiers under ‘Enormous Strain’ Warns Army’s Top Enlisted Leader,” Army Times (website), 12 May 2023, accessed 30 June 2023, https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2023/05/12/soldiers-under-enormous-strain-warns-armys-top-enlisted-leader/.
For a summary of this false belief and its strategic consequences, see James M. Dubik, America’s Global Competition, The Gray Zone in Context (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War, February 2018), accessed 30 June 2023, https://www.understandingwar.org/report/americas-global-competitions-gray-zone-context; James M. Dubik, The Future of War and America’s Strategic Capacity (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War, November 2021), accessed 30 June 2023, https://www.understandingwar.org/report/future-war-and-america’s-strategic-capacity.
Ulysses J. Brown and Dharam S. Rana, “Generalized Exchange and Propensity for Military Service: The Moderating Effect of Prior Military Exposure,” Journal of Applied Statistics 32, no. 3 (2005): 259–70, accessed 30 June 2023, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02664760500054590.
Shake and Mattis, Warriors & Citizens.
Ibid. Several essays in Warriors & Citizens address this problem: Rosa Brooks’s “Civil-Military Paradoxes,” 21–68; Mackubin Thomas Owens, “Is Civilian Control Over the Military Still and Issue?,” 69–96; and Shake and Mattis’s conclusion, “Ensuring a Civil-Military Connection,” 287–326.
Shake and Mattis, Warriors & Citizens, 19–20; see, especially, Brooks, “Civil-Military Paradoxes,” in Shake and Mattis, Warriors & Citizens, 39–49.
Peter D. Feaver, Thanks for Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the U.S. Military (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023).
DeSilver, “New Congress Will Have a Few More Veterans.”
Robert Gates, quoted in Brooks, “Civil-Military Paradoxes,” in Shake and Mattis, Warriors & Citizens, 23.
U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 12.

Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, PhD, U.S. Army, retired, is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, president and CEO of Dubik Associates, and a Senior Fellow at AUSA’s Institute of Land Warfare. He commanded 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, during the 1994 Haiti intervention; was the deputy commanding general of 1st Cavalry Division in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and was the commanding general of 25th Infantry Division, I Corps, and the Multinational Security and Transition Command, Iraq, in 2007–2009. He is the author of Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory and has published over three hundred essays, op-eds, monographs, and chapters in books. He has a PhD in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University.

Lt. Gen. Lawson W. Magruder III, U.S. Army, retired, commanded the Joint Readiness Training Center and Fort Polk, U.S. Army South in Panama, and the 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War and Operation Restore Hope in Somalia. He holds a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA from Central Michigan University. His book A Soldier’s Journey Living His Why: Inspired by a Little Green Book is a memoir focused on leadership lessons learned during the transformation to a volunteer professional force.

8. Perseverance and Adaptation: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive at Three Months

Excerpts:

Looking at where the offensive stands today, Ukraine’s decision to attrit Russian forces via fires and advance incrementally with small units played to its strengths. This is a grueling fight. The combat power and reserves available to both sides will play a significant role in determining the outcome. Ukraine’s offensive neither is over, nor has it failed. Ukraine’s prospects depend on how well Western countries resource the Ukrainian war effort into the fall, replace lost equipment, and provide the necessary enablers — above all, artillery ammunition. Ultimately, in planning for their support, Western countries must also think beyond the offensive, rather than taking a wait and see approach. This includes learning lessons from this spring and summer to improve Ukraine’s chances in future offensives. Western efforts should be geared to the assumption that the war will continue well into next year, balancing long-term transition programs, such as the transfer of F-16s and scaled up unit training, with managing Ukraine’s more immediate needs.

The West ought to be introspective about missing important decision points, which had a profound impact on the course of the war, constraining everyone’s options later on. Decisions about future support should have been made well before this offensive even began, assuming that it was unlikely to end the war. Instead, another cycle of attritional fighting may ensue after this offensive, followed by yet another surge effort to restore Ukraine’s offensive potential. In short, the West has been unappreciative of the lead times required to reconstitute military potential or provide Ukraine with a decisive advantage.

The recent anonymous criticism by officials spilling select narratives in the press, rather than fostering an open discussion about Ukraine’s challenges and successes, reveals enduring problems in this war effort: The first, is a lack of Western understanding of how Ukrainian forces fight. The second, which is closely related, is an insufficient Western presence on the ground to enable closer coordination or even the invaluable understanding that could be offered by battlefield observers. Western capitals have sought to keep this Ukraine’s war, avoiding an in-country presence that includes contractor support or trainers. To be clear, there are Western contractors and companies operating independently in Ukraine, but this is not the same as a government sanctioned and supported effort. There is much more that could be done without becoming directly involved in fighting or deploying uniformed personnel on the ground. The hitherto cautious approach has clear limits to its efficacy. Western support thus far has been sufficient to avert a Ukrainian defeat, and arguably has imposed a strategic defeat on Russia, but not enough to ensure a Ukrainian victory. Independent of the outcome of this offensive, Western countries need to be clear-eyed about the fact that this will be a long war. Taken together, Western industrial and military potential greatly exceeds Russia’s, but without the political will, potential alone will not translate into results.

Perseverance and Adaptation: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive at Three Months - War on the Rocks

MICHAEL KOFMAN AND ROB LEE

warontherocks.com · by Michael Kofman · September 4, 2023

On June 4, Ukraine launched its long-awaited offensive. The operation has proven to be a test of Ukrainian determination and adaptation. Despite stiff resistance, Ukrainian forces have made steady gains in a set-piece battle against a heavily entrenched force. Ukraine’s main effort is a push from Orikhiv, with the goal of driving south past Tokmak and ideally reaching Melitopol. If successful, this would sever Russian lines along the Black Sea coast and endanger supply routes from Crimea. The second is at Velika Novosilka, a secondary offensive operation likely aimed at Berdyansk, also along the coast. The third is a supporting offensive along the flanks of Bakhmut further to the north. Ukraine has made gains here, pinning several Russian airborne units. The offensive is gaining momentum, and much remains undecided, but three months in offers an opportunity to take stock of the operation thus far.

This has become a war of tree lines, with shifts in the line often counted in hundreds of meters. Artillery fire and drones dominate the battlefield, as small groups of infantry advance through dense minefields, field by field, tree line by tree line. Progress has been fitful and slower than expected, as acknowledged by President Volodymyr Zelensky and now former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. However, Ukraine’s recent gains illustrate that it has worn down Russian defenses over time, leveraging an advantage in fires and long-range precision weapons to steadily press Russian forces back from their defensive positions. That said, Ukraine will need to both break through Russian lines and exploit that success to reach its objectives. Much could be decided in the coming weeks.

As we and others predicted, this kind of operation was bound to be difficult and costly. Without air superiority, a decisive advantage in fires, and limited enablers to breach Russian lines, any military would have faced similar struggles in such an operation. This is especially so against a force that had time to entrench, preparing a layered defense replete with minefields and fortifications. Ukraine’s military changed tactics, from initially trying to breach Russian lines in a mechanized assault to taking a more familiar attritional approach that achieved incremental gains. Over time this approach can work, and has worked for the Ukrainian armed forces in the past, but each battle has its own context with a different set of conditions, geography, and forces in play.

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Ukraine needs more air defense, mine clearing, and similar enabling capabilities. Western assistance over the past 18 months has enabled Ukraine, but it has also limited Ukraine’s options, resulting in undertrained units having to go up against a well-prepared defense without the benefit of air support. However, the challenges of this are not only due to capability and capacity shortcomings. The Ukrainian military continues to struggle with scaling offensive operations, and conducting combined arms operations at the battalion level and above, with most attacks being at the level of a platoon or company. These are important areas to address in Western training programs, as we have discussed with our colleagues in various episodes of the War on the Rocks podcast and the Russia Contingency.

There is no single answer to the challenges Ukraine faces. The problem cannot be reduced to a lack of Western tactical aviation. The more important factors remain ammunition, training, providing the necessary enablers, and effective resource management in a war of attrition. War requires regular adaptation, since few plans survive contact with the enemy, but the process of adaptation equally requires identifying what has worked and what has not. The ability to discuss these challenges openly (which, in our view, doesn’t include leaks to newspapers from behind a veil of anonymity) is what separates successful militaries from those like Russia’s, which often falsifies success and buries bad news. Indeed, a poor understanding of how Ukraine’s military fights, and of the operating environment writ large, may be leading to false expectations, misplaced advice, and unfair criticism in Western official circles.

Ukraine’s summer offensive is coming down to the balance of attrition over time, which side has more reserves, and who can better manage their combat power in a prolonged slugfest. In order to sustain Ukraine’s war effort, Washington should support Kyiv’s preferred approach, which means resourcing ammunition for an intensive fight, providing the requisite long-range strike systems, and supporting enablers. However, it should also learn from this experience, tackling long-term issues such as training, helping Ukraine improve its ability to conduct operations at scale, and transitioning to employ Western airpower along with the associated organizational changes to make it effective. It is also critical for Western countries to draw the right lessons from the development and performance of Ukraine’s new brigades to improve future training efforts. The details in discussed in this article are based on open sources and our own field research in Ukraine, but do not disclose anything that is not publicly available about ongoing operations.

State of Play

The offensive has thus far played out as a shaping phase, an initial breaching effort, followed by a prolonged attritional period with fitful gains, leading to the better progress seen in more recent weeks, as both sides are increasingly forced to pull from their reserves. In advance of the offensive, Ukraine spent several weeks conducting shaping operations to set the conditions for the assaults, including attacks on Russian command and control with Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles, raids into Russia’s Belgorod region, and various sabotage efforts. These were designed to weaken Russia’s ability to defend and potentially force Moscow to redirect forces away from Ukraine’s main effort. The initial axis of attack began with a localized counteroffensive around Bakhmut in mid-May, designed to draw Russian forces there by steadily pressuring the flanks. Then Ukrainian units attempted an advance along the Velika Novosilka axis in the south, followed by a push from Orikhiv farther west in Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian forces made gains along the flanks of Bakhmut, but the initial advances along the main axis in the south were not as successful as anticipated. In the second week, Ukraine managed to capture a string of towns running south of Velika Novosilka, but the progress afterwards there has been slow. What appeared to be the main axis of advance in this offensive, led by the 47th Mechanized Brigade south of Orikhiv toward Robotyne, also stalled early on. Most of the gains have been at the first Russian line of defense, but this is also where Russian forces had focused their defensive effort, making them particularly significant. The Ukrainian attack has created a salient that is steadily being widened. At the time of this writing, Ukrainian forces have degraded the defending Russian units, and show signs that they may have penetrated the main defensive line near Verbove, but the details are too early to assess. Ukrainian forces have recently liberated Robotyne, and pushed east of it, which represents an advance of about ten kilometers since the offensive began. The distance of advance has been similar on the Velika Novosilka axis at the furthest point.

Ukraine’s overall gains along the three axes of the counteroffensive (Map by Nathan Ruser, based on data from DeepState, an established Ukrainian OSINT source)

Ukraine’s initial plan appeared to be an effort to advance along several axes to reveal weaknesses that could reveal the best place to breach Russia’s main defensive belt. It is therefore likely that Ukraine sought to force Russia into a decision to deploy reserves to the front line, thereby reducing the Russian military’s ability to respond to a breach. Rather than a singular main effort, the campaign was split along several fronts to impose a dilemma.

Five of the first nine new NATO-trained and -equipped brigades were committed at the beginning of the offensive. The 47th and 33rd Mechanized Brigades assaulted south of Orikhiv axis as part of 9th Corps, and the 37th Marine Brigade and 31st and 23rd Mechanized Brigades fought along the Velika Novosilka axis. These were backed by established and more experienced units fighting alongside them. Supporting at Velika Novosilka were elements of 68th Jaeger Brigade and 35th and 36th Marine Brigades, as well as the 120th, 110th, and 129th Territorial Defense Brigades. Along the Orikhiv axis the supporting units included the National Guard’s 15th Brigade, the 128th Mountain Assault, and 65th Mechanized Brigade. It appears Kyiv’s original plan was for the 9th Corps to rapidly advance to the first main line of Russian defenses south of Orikhiv before committing its second echelon — the 10th Corps — to breach and then exploit with a task force of reserve brigades. The reserves included existing and newly formed airmobile and air assault brigades, such as the 46th and 82nd.

Ukraine committed elements from several other Western-trained brigades to the east. These include the 22nd Mechanized Brigade near Bakhmut, the 32nd Mechanized Brigade on the Kupyansk front, and the 21st Mechanized Brigade on the Kreminna front. It appears these three were not part of the first nine new brigades, which might explain why they were sent to the supporting axis in Bakhmut and to defend the Kreminna-Svatove front in Luhansk Oblast instead of the main axis in the south. More recently, elements from the 43th Mechanized Brigade and the 38th Marine Brigade have been committed near Svatove and on the Velika Novosilka axis, respectively.

Much of the fighting inside the towns Ukraine has liberated thus far has been done by more experienced brigades, with the exception of the efforts by the 47th Mechanized Brigade and more recently the 82nd Air Assault Brigade. Similarly, progress can be seen along the Bakhmut axis, featuring Ukraine’s more experienced units without new Western equipment such as the 24th and 28th mechanized brigades; 3rd, 5th, and 92nd Assault, and 80th Air Assault Brigades. Indeed, it appears some of the new brigades were used to replace elements from experienced brigades on the Kreminna-Svatove front, so they could be used around Bakhmut. Ukrainian special operations forces are also supporting the advance by assaulting Russian trenches and operating drones to locate and destroy targets. Elements from the 73rd Naval Special Operations Center took part in Ukraine’s advance on Robotyne, and teams from the 3rd and 8th special purpose regiments reportedly continue to operate in the Bakhmut area.

Map of Ukrainian gains along Bakhmut’s flanks and near Soledar (Map by Nathan Ruser, based on data from DeepState, an established Ukrainian OSINT source)

While there is no way to truly know what percentage of combat power has been committed, at this point most of the Ukrainian brigades expected to be involved in the offensive, including air assault reserve units, are contributing to the fight in one fashion or another. It is unclear if Ukraine is transferring additional forces from other fronts, though some recent reporting suggests this might be the case. Russia has also deployed strategic reserves, including the 7th Guards Mountain Air Assault Division and 76th Guards Air Assault Division, and elements of its Dnipro task force in Kherson.

A Hard Start

Ukraine likely has more combat power available to continue the attack, but heavier equipped units were indeed committed early in the operation, and the initial attack was not mere reconnaissance or probing, but rather a focused effort to rapidly break through Russia’s forward positions. Indeed, 9th Corps’ 47th Mechanized Brigade is arguably the best equipped new brigade with Bradley M2A2 infantry fighting vehicles. Images also showed that Leopard 2A6 tanks as well as scarce Leopard 2R and Wisent mine-breaching vehicles took part in the brigade’s initial assaults, which indicated that the Orikhiv axis was the priority and not just a probing or diversionary action.

The initial assault fell victim to a myriad of planning, reconnaissance, and coordination issues, which have been widely covered in the news. However, as we explore these, it is important to note that any Western military forced to employ units with only a few months of training would have struggled with such challenges.

One Ukrainian unit ran into problems that forced it to miss the start of the assault by a couple of hours. This meant the unit went into the assault long after the main suppressive artillery barrage had been fired, leaving its assault forces vulnerable to unsuppressed Russian artillery and antitank guided missiles. That advance was supposed to occur under the cover of darkness but instead happened near dawn, negating the advantage provided by their Western armored vehicles’ superior night vision capabilities. Another Ukrainian unit mistook the friendly units holding its flank for the initial Russian line and in the confusion engaged the friendly force . A different grouping became disoriented at night, stacking the formation, which made them vulnerable to Russian artillery and antitank guided missile fire. In some cases, vehicles from the new brigades might have struck mines emplaced by the units whose lines they had to pass through or run into mines by deviating from lanes cleared by the mine-clearing vehicles. These issues were not characteristic of the overall offensive, but of the initial problems faced by new brigades.

Some commentators had assumed the initial assault was not the main effort, and three months in, some still characterize the offensive as in its “early stages.” This reveals the continued problem with a lack of understanding of how Ukrainian forces typically operate. A Ukrainian brigade in the attack in practice is often two or three companies advancing, reinforced by armor, and support elements. A reinforced company or company tactical group is the main element of the assault. Even then, coordination is difficult and prone to mishaps, as the initial offensive illustrated. It takes an entire brigade to plan this kind of action. Significantly increasing the scale is a challenge for Ukrainian forces, especially among newer brigades who lack the experience and command staff training. The initial assault was the breaching effort, but it did not succeed.

Around Bakhmut, for example, many of Ukraine’s mechanized assaults feature one to two squads backed by two tanks. Ukrainian tank units, according to our field research, rarely mass at the company level because of the risk of losing too many tanks at once. Tank battles are rare. Tanks spend much of their time supporting infantry and providing indirect fires. They generally operate in pairs, or in platoons, supporting infantry attacks. This offensive has largely been characterized by platoon-level infantry assaults, fighting tree line to tree line. Despite their size, brigades often have a limited number of platoons and companies that have assault training, constraining the forces available for such tasks. Ukrainian forces conduct mechanized assaults when the conditions permit it, but Russian minefields, antitank capabilities, and artillery remain a potent threat whenever Ukraine masses combat power near Russian defenses. This reality stands in stark contrast to expectations that hundreds of tanks or infantry fighting vehicles will charge forward into Russian lines in a cinematic assault.

Western criticism — often appearing in the form of anonymous leaks by officials — sometimes holds that Ukraine won’t mass forces and accept the inherent casualties in such an assault. This fails to appreciate the real constraints on that military’s capacity to employ forces at scale. The United States has been misinterpreting this as a failure to commit forces to the offensive. Ukraine’s challenges at scaling how it employs forces cannot be overcome by a few months of training and Western equipment. Ukraine’s military excels at mobile and positional defense. It is also highly effective in small unit tactics and in effective employment of fires to degrade the Russian military. Given the challenges the new brigades faced at the beginning, brigade assaults with multiple battalions instead of companies likely would have exacerbated coordination issues and led to greater losses. There is also a failure to appreciate that steep losses to the assault element can significantly impact a brigade’s ability to continue operations and the confidence of its command staff. This is especially so for newer brigades with non-veteran troops.

Ukrainian preferences stem from an understanding of where their strengths lie, given the organizational capacity, experience, force quality, and limited enablers to support a larger scale assault. Western training efforts have suffered from being overly compressed, but also Ukrainian units are not necessarily trained in the West the way they would actually fight in Ukraine, using the same systems, tactics, techniques, and procedures. This is in part because Western training efforts cannot necessarily replicate said conditions. All of this points to the need for future Western training efforts to evolve — to become better linked to the realities of this war and how Ukrainian forces fight it — but also for greater understanding of the operating environment.

The Ukrainian attempt to breach Russian lines in the early days of the offensive was not deterministic for how the offensive would unfold, but it was an important test of whether newly formed brigades with Western equipment and training could more effectively overcome a prepared Russian defense. The offensive also featured a corps structure for the first time helping to coordinate logistics for the various brigades involved, with an overall operational or “front” command layer above the corps. This strategy made choices and took on risk. Putting new brigades into the lead assault role, along the two most expected axes of advance, with a plan that involved nighttime operations, compounded the risk. In addition, Ukraine chose the Orikhiv-Tokmak area as the main axis of advance, which is the most fortified part of the Russian defenses. These units faced a daunting task against a well-prepared defense with dense minefields, entrenched troops, numerous antitank guided missiles, loitering munitions, and attack helicopters backing the Russian lines.

However, based on our research in Ukraine, it also appears the new brigades lacked sufficient unit cohesion and experience, making mistakes that experienced brigades were less likely to make. Not just the infantry battalions and breaching elements but also the artillery and supporting components were new, while the brigade staff lacked sufficient time to train. These brigades were also comprised of freshly mobilized personnel, many without prior military experience, with officers pulled from other units. The new brigades were unfamiliar with the terrain, having not been previously deployed in that area. Asking them to conduct their first assault, in some cases at night, was a tall order. The new brigades’ issues forced other units — including less-well-equipped national guard units — to step into their assigned tasks, in some cases completely replacing them on the line. Indeed, even poorly equipped territorial defense units, which are typically used to defend, have taken part in capturing towns as part of the counteroffensive. Notably, some new brigades have performed better. After early setbacks, the 47th Mechanized Brigade managed to adapt and to advance, and the 82nd Air Assault Brigade appears to have achieved success soon after it was committed. This is likely because their training and equipment was prioritized among the new brigades, and possibly due to the 82nd commitment until much later in the offensive.

Defaulting to Attrition

After the first week, the operation moved into an attritional phase, not dissimilar to the offensive in Kherson. Ukrainian forces have been degrading the Russian defense with artillery fire, HIMARS, drones, and select strikes with Storm Shadow missiles against high-value targets. Ukraine is also attempting to interdict the flow of Russian supplies from Crimea by striking the connecting bridges and rail stations, including a strike on the Crimean bridge, reportedly with naval drones. An intense counter-battery battle has been playing out between Ukrainian and Russian artillery units, with HIMARS increasingly used in a counter-battery role due to improved Ukrainian ability to target behind Russian lines, and apparent distribution of HIMARS systems to individual units.

Despite the natural tendency to focus on settlements liberated, the balance of attrition will prove more significant in shaping Ukraine’s offensive prospects than anything else. This war has consistently demonstrated the difficulty of orchestrating a combined arms offensive against a prepared defense, with attrition proving the key enabler for maneuver warfare. This is in part due to the inability of one side to attain air superiority over the other, but the issue cannot be reduced to this single factor. Given Russia’s layered defensive lines, minefields, and entrenchments, it was unlikely that the Ukrainian military will be able to attain a breakthrough without first inflicting high levels of attrition on the defending Russian force. That said, this process is not necessarily linear, and lines can collapse once available manpower is no longer available to defend them or reinforcing units cannot deploy in time.

To some extent this approach favors the way Ukraine fights, even though it is not representative of what Western allies may have wished to see. Ukrainian forces prefer sequenced assaults, making fires the decisive element and exploiting with maneuver, less so using fires as a supporting component of a maneuver force. Ukrainian infantry has been conducting assaults typically as platoon- and company-sized elements. This is painfully slow and by itself cannot generate momentum, but Ukrainian units are generally better than Russian ones in the close battle. Ukraine is also likely sustaining less attrition by operating in small, dismounted units, but it offers less of an opportunity to achieve a rapid breakthrough. Similarly, with penetrating intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, Ukraine has been gaining the advantage in the counter-battery battle over time. Steady decimation and blinding of Russian artillery fire by targeting counter-battery radars have helped Ukraine establish a visible fires advantage.

Ukraine has killed multiple Russian generals in Storm Shadow missile strikes and has targeted logistics nodes and key bridges. These strikes have complicated Russian operations, enabling progress, but by themselves, long-range missiles have not proven a panacea. Part of the reason is Russian adaptation after the introduction of HIMARS systems last year, hardening command and control nodes, dispersing logistics, and pushing supplies directly to the front. A robust strike campaign to isolate the theater of operations by focusing on Russian lines of communication might have greater effect. Yet four months of strikes with Storm Shadow missiles suggest that the task of severing Russian supply lines with missiles alone is harder than some might believe.

Attrition makes for poor headlines, but it plays to Ukraine’s strengths, whereas attempting to scale offensive maneuver under such difficult conditions does not. It is, however, burdensome to resource, pressuring Washington to finally authorize dual-purpose improved conventional munitions — cluster munitions for lack of artillery ammunition available. Cluster munitions are a nasty weapon with lingering effects, but there is no other way to sustain Ukraine’s demands for artillery ammunition. This was a critical decision, extending the timeline available to give Ukraine’s approach the opportunity to succeed. They are also more effective against forces in the open and manned trenches. But the dual-purpose improved conventional munition stockpile is not just meant for the offensive. It will be used to sustain Ukraine’s war effort well into next year, until Western production increases sufficiently. This suggests that the primary factors affecting Ukraine’s offensive could still be ammunition and force availability.

A Daunting Task

In the south, the Russian military entrenched at the level of a combined arms army. In practice, this means overlapping minefields, strong points, concrete reinforced trenches, bunkers, and multiple defense lines with communication trenches between them. Russian forces have also adapted with nasty innovations — for example, decoy trenches mined with explosives that can be remotely detonated once they are occupied by Ukrainian soldiers. Russian anti-tank guided missile teams have deployed cameras in front of their positions to identify advancing Ukrainian vehicles, and they have dug tunnels that can be used to transfer ammunition, equipment and personnel They regularly counterattack lost positions, though the overall strategy is not to retain lines at any cost.

Minefields are presenting one of the greatest challenges to Ukraine’s offensive, not dissimilar to the situation Russian units faced in Vuhledar over the winter. Russian forces have deployed more mines than normal in Russian doctrine, according to our field research. Individual Russian company positions generally have minefields with hundreds or thousands of TM-62M antitank mines in front of their positions. They have been stacking three TM-62M mines on top of each other specifically to destroy — not just damage — the mine-rollers and trawls used by breaching vehicles and tanks. These are supplemented by TM-83 explosively formed penetrator antitank mines, often placed in tree lines to target tanks and armored vehicles from the side as they drive down the dirt paths that frequently run parallel.

These antitank mines are often mixed with antipersonnel mines to inflict greater losses when vehicles are disabled, including PMN-4 pressure plate mines, OZM-72 bounding mines, and MON-50 and MON-200 directional fragmentation mines. Russian forces are also using FAB-100 and FAB-250 aerial bombs as improvised mines. Russia is remotely deploying mines with artillery, ISDM Zemledeliye mine-laying systems, and even drones, such as the POM-3 and PFM-1 antipersonnel mines. These are used to refill lanes cleared by Ukrainian sappers and to mine roads behind Ukraine’s front lines. Ukrainian mine-clearing vehicles, including those that carry mine-clearing line charges, are a priority target for Russian defenders and antitank guided missile teams. This has forced Ukraine to employ them more cautiously.

Ukrainian infantry units are having success assaulting Russian positions, but the mines force them to move in a slow and deliberate manner to reach them. Even when infantry units can advance on foot, lanes have to be cleared to bring up vehicles. This complicates casualty evacuation for advancing infantry units and makes it more difficult to bring other supporting capabilities, such as air defense, logistics, and artillery, closer to the front line, which are critical for sustaining momentum. In addition, Ukraine’s advantages in night vision capabilities, which have been strengthened by Bradley vehicles and Leopard tanks, are reduced by these minefields. According to Ukraine’s Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, who commands the offensive in the south, “As soon as any equipment appeared there, the Russians immediately began to fire at it and destroy it. That’s why de-mining was carried out only by infantry and only at night.” The presence of mines, even when paths are cleared, has a psychological effect on traversing forces that makes most combat tasks more difficult.

Russian defenses were also stronger than expected, stymieing the initial assault. As Tranavsky has also said “In my opinion, the Russians believed the Ukrainians would not get through this line of defence. They had been preparing for over one year. They did everything to make sure that this area was prepared well.” This is different from the fighting in Kherson last year, where secondary lines were well manned while the forward positions folded quickly. In the south, Russian units have densely deployed antitank guided missiles along the forward line. They are defending by employing drones for observation, a heavy use of artillery, antitank guided missile strikes by infantry and spetsnaz units as well as Ka-52 attack helicopters, Lancet and improvised commercial first-person-view drone loitering munition strikes, and glide bombs dropped from Russian fighters and bombers. Ka-52, first-person-view drone, and Lancet-3 strikes are a pernicious problem, because advancing forces lack the same air defense and electronic warfare coverage when attacking.

Russia has also begun deploying modernized Ka-52M helicopters, which can launch the Vikhr-1 and longer-range LMUR antitank missile beyond the range of Ukrainian tactical air defenses. In many cases, a tank or armored vehicle will become immobilized after hitting a mine and then be destroyed by attack helicopters or drones. Russia is forced to ration the use of artillery due to ammunition shortages, but still employs artillery fire and aviation to disrupt advances. Although minefields can be penetrated, breaching them while the defender has good observation and can employ artillery and precision-guided weapons proves costly.

At the end of July, Ukraine began to commit elements of the 10th Corps in assaults along the Orikhiv axis in the south. After more than a month of primarily small-unit dismounted advances in the south, Ukrainian forces attempted a mechanized assault again in company-sized elements, particularly east of Robotyne. The Ukrainian military likely hoped to commit 10th Corps after the 9th Corps had already breached the first main defensive line. 10th Corps includes the NATO-trained 116th, 117th, and 118th Mechanized Brigades, as well as the National Guard 3rd and 14th Brigades. Although these 10th Corps brigades largely replaced 9th Corps at the front, 9th Corps’ 47th Mechanized Brigade continues to fight and recently helped liberate Robotyne.

In mid-August, Ukraine appears to have begun committing elements from its reserves, including the 46th Airmobile and 82nd Air Assault Brigades. The addition of these units seems to have achieved quicker results, as Ukrainian forces liberated the heavily fortified town of Robotyne and continued to advance to the south and east. The current situation is fluid. Geolocated footage and reporting suggests Ukrainian forces, possibly a reconnaissance unit, have advanced past the anti-tank obstacles on the first part of the “Surovikin line” towards Verbove. Though it is unclear if this is just a small dismounted force, or if Ukraine has managed to breach those defenses with vehicles. Ukrainian forces have also advanced towards Novoprokopivka and its eastern flank. The Ukrainian military appears focused on further degrading the Russian defenses and widening the salient, because a narrow advance could leave its forces vulnerable to counterattacks on the flanks. The renewed assault does point to a changing dynamic, forcing the Russian military to react in order to try and stabilize the situation.

Map of Ukraine’s offensive thrust south of Orikhiv, what appears to be the main effort (By Pasi Paroinen, member of Black Bird Group, a Finnish OSINT organization)

The coming weeks are likely to prove decisive, as the battle hinges on available reserves and resolve. Despite recent advances in Staromaiors’ke and Urozhaine, Ukrainian forces are approximately 11 kilometers from the main defensive line along the Velika Novosilka axis, and it appears they have shifted resources to the Orikhiv axis instead. Though the distance to the “main lines” is a less relevant metric than the attrition being inflicted. What matters most is where Russian forces choose to concentrate and man their defense.

Although the 82nd and 46th Brigades achieved results, they were enabled by other units having spent weeks of fighting over those areas. Russian forces appear worried and have also deployed reserves. There are indications that Russia has transferred elements from the airborne force’s 7th and 76th Air Assault Divisions, as well as other forces, to that axis. The Russian military likely made this decision after Ukraine began to commit its reserve units, which reduced the risk of a strong Ukrainian advance elsewhere. Ukraine’s recent advances appear to be largely conducted by dismounted units, but to achieve momentum, they will need to employ mechanized formations again. This will put to the test whether weeks of attrition, establishing an advantage in fires, and deep strikes against bridges, logistics, and command-and-control nodes have set the necessary conditions for a Ukrainian breakthrough. In particular, Ukraine’s ability to effectively suppress and degrade Russian anti-tank capabilities could prove critical.

Map of Ukraine’s offensive thrust south of Velika Novosilka (By Pasi Paroinen, member of Black Bird Group, a Finnish OSINT organization)

For Russia, the problem is straightforward: The entrenchments matter most if they’re manned. If their forces are degraded, and they lack reinforcements, these defenses will slow down but not impede Ukraine’s advance. It also depends whether Russia chooses to employ its reserves for counterattacks or to man the multiple lines of defense. For Ukraine, the primary challenge is not in breaching Russian lines, but rather doing so with sufficient forces in reserve to exploit that breach toward its objectives.

Russia’s Defense: Doctrine or Folly?

Despite appearances, Russia is not executing a true defense in depth. Russian forces are set up for such a defense, which enables a defender to degrade the attacker as they advance, trading space for attrition. They have constructed three defensive belts, minefields in between, communication trenches, and hardened defensive points in between. This was likely Gen. Sergei Surovikin’s vision (and his name provides the nickname for these defensive lines). But Surovikin is not in charge. Gen. Valeriy Gerasimov, the chief of general staff, is. He has consistently demonstrated poor military judgment and a weak understanding of what Russian forces can and cannot do, most recently in the failed Russian winter offensive. Russian forces have chosen to defend forward of the Surovikin line, concentrating their efforts on holding the first line of defense and the towns that anchor it. To be clear, the first line does feature extensive entrenchments, including tunnel networks. The follow on lines include machine dug trenches, anti-tank ditches, dragons teeth, and likely more minefields. The Russian decision to defend forward has favored Kyiv because it allowed Ukrainian artillery to attrite the Russian units deployed.

In Russia, the strategic concept of “active defense,” often mentioned by Valeriy Gerasimov, encourages maneuver defense and counterattack. This may be what we are seeing from Russian forces now. Essentially a defensive-offense, active defense envisions persistent engagement of an opponent rather than emphasizing a static or positional defense. Russia’s defense has featured regular counterattacks, which also depleted its armor, and available maneuver forces. The Russian military is rotating troops through the front line, but that force has been steadily worn down. On the other hand, Ukraine has also expended considerable combat power fighting in the first line of Russian defenses before reaching the other defensive belts and entrenchments. The course of this battle is therefore increasingly determined by who has the most reserves available and who pursues the best force management strategy over time.

Russian forces have consistently counter attacked during Ukraine’s counteroffensive. While in some cases they have been able to retake towns seized by Ukrainian units or prevent consolidation, their strategy is aggressive and costly. Given the dearth of forces available, the Russian approach has been aggressive and overconfident. Russian units are often fighting in front of their best fortifications instead of leveraging them for advantage. They can fall back if they are put in a disadvantageous position, but this approach has major tradeoffs: If Russian forces suffer too much attrition in holding forward positions or counterattacking to return them, they risk leaving their forces too weak to properly defend the rest of the defensive line. Hence, an “active” approach has stymied Ukraine’s advance, but at the cost of depleting the Russian defense forward of what were considered the ‘main lines.’ Consequently, solely looking at whether Ukraine has broken through the defensive lines is the wrong way to evaluate this offensive’s progress. Most of the fighting, and the attrition, has taken place at the first Russian line of defense, which Ukraine has pressed through at Robotyne and near Verbove.

Russia has a sizable force in Ukraine, but the quality varies significantly, and a sizable portion of that force consists of mobilized regiments. In the south, it appears the front line is largely being held by a mix of regular tank and motorized rifle regiments, mobilized units, naval infantry, and Storm Z units, which are manned by convicts. Storm Z units are distributed to motorized rifle companies to use as forward-deployed expendable infantry, typically along the first line of defenses. Naval infantry and more capable motorized rifle troops hold strong points and towns and are used for counterattacking. The Russian defense features echeloned battalions, with others in the rear. In addition, elements from the 22nd and 45th Spetsnaz Brigades are reportedly defending in the Orikhiv axis. These units appear to be playing a key role in locating targets for artillery strikes and providing a greater anti-armor capability to conventional units with antitank missiles and loitering munitions.

When in contact some Russian units have fled, but others have held their positions even when under pressure from advancing Ukrainian forces. This reinforces the challenge of integrating soft factors and intangibles such as morale into assessments, because the observed effects can be inconsistent and difficult to generalize. Some Russian units are defeated by smaller Ukrainian elements, some abandon positions, and others hold the line and counterattack. Poor morale surely afflicts Russian forces — with attendant effects on cohesion and performance — but it has not yet been severe enough to destabilize their lines and thereby permit sizable Ukrainian advances.

As an example, as we learned during our field research in June 2023, Russia’s 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Division, 58th Combined Arms Army) defended a key part of the front south of Orikhiv that included Robotyne. As of late June, it was reinforced with a Storm detachment, two Storm Z convict detachments, multiple companies and reconnaissance groups from the mobilized Territorial Troops’ 1430th Motorized Rifle Regiment, a company from the 71st Motorized Rifle Regiment, an Akhmat motorized rifle battalion, and a battalion from the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade. Russia appears to have added a fourth motorized rifle battalion to the regiment’s table of organization, which lacks armored vehicles like the other battalions, to provide more infantry. Compared to its prewar structure of three motorized rifle battalions, the 291st defended with a force closer to the size of six or more infantry and motorized rifle battalions plus a tank battalion and other supporting assets.

The regiment was defending with two echelons. The first was held by two of its motorized rifle battalions reinforced with the less-well-equipped and -manned 1430th Motorized Rifle Regiment’s companies and Storm Z detachments, as well as the battalion from the more elite 810th Naval Infantry Brigade, which was defending Robotyne. The second echelon was composed of two motorized rifle battalions, and the tank battalion was held in reserve. The regiment’s other motorized rifle battalion was rotated to the rear to receive new equipment and personnel, and additional companies from the 1430th Motorized Rifle Regiment can likely be rotated to replace losses in the first echelon. Elements from the 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade are also operating along the regiment’s front.

Compared to Russian defenses earlier in the war, the 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment had been defending less frontage — approximately 11 kilometers — and with additional reinforcements had sufficient forces to maintain a second echelon of defenses as well as reserve. It could also afford to rotate battalions when they sustained attrition, so the exact units and composition have varied over the past two months. Indeed, it appears Russia has decided to not rotate the regiments holding the front line, but instead to rotate companies and battalions from other formations. This is true for both elite naval infantry units and the mobilized territorial troops regiments. The 291st sat behind well-fortified prepared positions and dense minefields, antitank ditches, and other obstacles. Thus, the 291st was better positioned to handle assaults without requiring the commitment of division or higher-level reserves. This is in contrast to Russian forces in Kharkiv in September 2022, when some Russian units were only at 20 percent strength and lacked a cohesive defensive posture. Once the initial line was breached there, Ukrainian forces were able to advance quickly. The situation is less favorable for Ukraine in Zaporizhzhia and southern Donetsk.

Fixing Russian Forces at Bakhmut

Ukrainian forces have also continued to progress on Bakhmut’s flanks after a series of successful counterattacks in mid-May as Wagner forces captured the western parts of the city. These counterattacks initially targeted relatively weak Russian military units that were moved from Vuhledar to guard the flanks of Wagner units. The Russian military units that arrived were poorly prepared, and weak coordination with Wagner forces hampered their defense. However, all Wagner forces were reportedly replaced in Bakhmut at the beginning of June, and most of Russia’s airborne forces are now deployed to the area, including elements from the 31st, 11th, and 83rd Air Assault Brigades as well as the 106th and 98th Airborne Divisions. Russian military units that had been attached to Wagner during the assault on the city returned to the Ministry of Defense’s control as well.

Ukrainian units at Bakhmut have made progress, most notably the 3rd Assault Brigade’s advance to Klishchiivka. In addition, Russian units in this direction appear to be taking heavy losses, including the 31st Air Assault Brigade, which was pulled back from the front line. The Russian military had less time to prepare defenses in the area compared to the south. However, Russian mines and artillery are still hindering Ukrainian forces. In contrast with the southern axis, the Ukrainian units around Bakhmut are almost all experienced brigades, most of which spent much of the winter defending along the frontlines. These units will likely continue to achieve tactical gains, but a deeper advance in this direction may require additional brigades and resources to be committed. Indeed, there has been intense fighting but little movement along the front line around Klishchiivka over the past month.

Close up of Ukraine’s offensive around Bakhmut (By Pasi Paroinen, member of Black Bird Group, a Finnish OSINT organization)

The challenge with the ongoing battle for Bakhmut is that the opportunity there cannot be exploited without pulling units from Ukraine’s southern offensive. Behind Bakhmut, Russia has better established lines of defense, making a breakout unlikely. At Bakhmut, many of Ukraine’s best units are fighting in a supporting offensive, while its newer and less experienced units are on the strategically significant axis in the south. Although Ukraine’s assaults have forced Russia to commit a large force to defend Bakhmut, Russia still had other reserves it could commit to the south. The losses inflicted on Russian airborne forces could sap Russia’s future offensive potential, but Ukrainian brigades there may also become exhausted by winter. A similar situation set in last year, leading to months of indeterminate fighting once the lines froze.

On Tradeoffs in Strategy

Bakhmut looms large in this offensive, and not just because of Ukraine’s recent advances there. Kyiv made a choice to stake the summer offensive on newly trained brigades that would receive NATO equipment instead of experienced units. Kyiv bought time to train these new brigades by keeping its experienced brigades on the frontline over the winter and spring, often with only a minimal rotation. Many of Ukraine’s best brigades played a key role in defending Bakhmut, including the 3rd Assault and 93rd Mechanized Brigades. Compared to other parts of the front, the fighting in Bakhmut was less favorable for Ukrainian defenders once Wagner took control of the flanks in January and February 2023. When Russian forces were within direct-fire range of the remaining roads into Bakhmut held by Ukrainian forces, resupply, casualty evacuation, and the rotation of units to the city became more dangerous and costly.

Ukraine committed several brigades to hold the city without including additional units holding the flanks and the roads leading out of it. Ukrainian forces fighting in the city faced a worse attrition ratio than the forces on the flanks. While this ratio varied, we estimate it as probably 1:3 to 1:4 Ukrainian to Russian casualties over the course of the battle. Wagner’s heavy reliance on “expendables” — poorly trained and equipped convicts — was more effective in urban terrain than across open fields, particularly when Ukrainian forces were holding high ground. Wagner forces were used for assaults, not defense, and would not have been manning the line in the south. Conversely, Ukraine could have held the high ground west of the city with far fewer units and resources. In an attempt to hold Bakhmut, Ukraine committed itself to an attritional fight under difficult conditions, with a significant percentage of the Russian losses among expendable convicts. Ironically, Russia’s problems began in earnest when Russian forces were saddled with defending Bakhmut.

As a counterfactual, if more experienced Ukrainian brigades were given the new equipment, they may not have committed many of the errors the new brigades made at the beginning of the counteroffensive. They also would have been able to adapt faster. Indeed, one reason Ukraine is having more success south of Bakhmut is due to the 3rd Assault Brigade, which continues to advance despite attrition. But its continued deployment to Bakhmut, as well as some of Ukraine’s other best brigades, is somewhat surprising given that the priority axis of advance is Orikhiv. Of course, pulling more experienced brigades from the front during Russia’s winter offensive would have risked losing more territory, and political considerations and foreign perceptions are hardly irrelevant. Ultimately, strategy comes down to choices and Kyiv had no cost-free or risk-free options.

Observers have also argued that Ukraine would have achieved greater success if it had received F-16 fighters. Western aircraft would undoubtedly have helped Ukraine during this offensive if Ukrainian pilots had started training on these aircraft early in the war. Even if that had happened, they might not have proven decisive, because of Russia’s extensive air defenses and tactical aviation. F-16 fighters will eventually help Ukraine contest the airspace, but having Western aircraft does not automatically convey the ability to attain air superiority. Too often airpower is treated as talismanic, as though it can resolve every challenge on the battlefield. What U.S. airpower can achieve is not representative of a typical Western air force because of the extensive U.S. investments that have been made in enablers, supporting capabilities, organizational capacity, and experience in integrating air-land operations. Those effects are not likely to come from F-16s alone, and their performance also depends on the missiles and additional systems provided. It is worth noting, the United States itself has not faced a capable air defense network akin to Russia’s in recent decades.

Combined arms operations, coordinating airpower with land forces, are much more difficult than just integrating infantry, armor, and artillery. Ukraine’s military is doctrinally, and structurally, oriented toward decisive employment of land-based fires, not airpower. In Western countries, it is often the opposite. This is not to say that a Western military could have done better in this offensive, but to make clear how much a military needs to change about itself to achieve air superiority, and the types of effects often associated with Western airpower. Attaining air superiority is therefore about more than getting aircraft and well-trained pilots. We think Ukraine is up to the challenge. F-16s will enable much better integration with Western weapons systems and give the Ukrainian air force the ability to push Russian airpower farther behind the forward line of troops. Acquiring F-16s is therefore an important step, and the sooner Ukraine can switch to employing Western platforms, the better.

Similarly, Ukraine has extensively employed Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles in this offensive, with range and payload similar to the long-sought-after Army tactical missile system short-range ballistic missile. By itself, Storm Shadow has made a notable contribution, but has not proven to be a “game changer.” Russian adaptations have also complicated the picture. The Russian military no longer relies on massive ammunition depots near the front lines. Instead, ammunition is often picked up by trucks at rail stations in Crimea or Russia, which are transferred to units in Ukraine. The transfer points change regularly, and a missile strike will not cause the same level of disruption as occurred in the summer of 2022 when HIMARS first arrived. That said, Russian logistics are still potentially vulnerable in Crimea, and much further behind Russian lines.

Ukraine cannot just interdict Russian supply lines with long-range missiles and press Russian forces out. If this was so, Ukraine would have little need for a major offensive in the first place. It could pummel away with Storm Shadow missiles and wait for the Ground-Launched Small-Diameter Bomb, with a range of 150 kilometers, to be deployed. Without persistent presence and reconnaissance over the routes in question, such interdiction does not work well in practice, and the munitions are not available to sustain it. In Kherson, HIMARS systems ranged Russian resupply routes across the Dnipro River for over four months. Russian forces were able to sustain themselves via a single bridge and a ferry network, eventually withdrawing over 30,000 troops. Russian positions in Zaporizhzhia are connected via land corridors running east and south to Crimea. Even when within range of tube artillery, supply roads have proven difficult to interdict, raising questions about what “fire control” can achieve. Indeed, the entire offensive in the south, and the long-running battle of Bakhmut, have played out with both sides’ positions barely a few kilometers from each other.

What the past 18 months of fighting illustrate is that Western nations need to develop a long-term plan to sustain and improve Ukraine’s war effort instead of pinning hopes on the next capability that will be introduced on the battlefield. For example, the Army Tactical Missile System would be a useful addition to Ukraine’s arsenal and should be provided, but there needs to be a more holistic approach to increasing Ukrainian capabilities. Often it is more about the basics — more M113s, Humvees, light mobility, night vision, and mine-clearing equipment could have more impact in aggregate than any one advanced weapons system.

Getting Beyond the Offensive

Much could have been done sooner by the West to increase defense industrial capacity sufficient to sustain Ukraine’s war effort. For example, European countries need not have waited 13 months to begin making serious investments in artillery production. The same could be said of scaling up training programs. Ukraine’s recent experience shows there’s more to creating combat-effective units than Western infantry fighting vehicles and more capable tanks. They have saved many lives, and Ukraine’s motivated soldiers can quickly adopt Western systems, but this can lead to the erroneous assumption that the time necessary to train cohesive units, and their commanders, can too be dramatically shortened. It is unclear why the training for Ukraine’s summer offensive had to be such a compressed effort, rather than something that was begun much earlier in 2022.

Looking at where the offensive stands today, Ukraine’s decision to attrit Russian forces via fires and advance incrementally with small units played to its strengths. This is a grueling fight. The combat power and reserves available to both sides will play a significant role in determining the outcome. Ukraine’s offensive neither is over, nor has it failed. Ukraine’s prospects depend on how well Western countries resource the Ukrainian war effort into the fall, replace lost equipment, and provide the necessary enablers — above all, artillery ammunition. Ultimately, in planning for their support, Western countries must also think beyond the offensive, rather than taking a wait and see approach. This includes learning lessons from this spring and summer to improve Ukraine’s chances in future offensives. Western efforts should be geared to the assumption that the war will continue well into next year, balancing long-term transition programs, such as the transfer of F-16s and scaled up unit training, with managing Ukraine’s more immediate needs.

The West ought to be introspective about missing important decision points, which had a profound impact on the course of the war, constraining everyone’s options later on. Decisions about future support should have been made well before this offensive even began, assuming that it was unlikely to end the war. Instead, another cycle of attritional fighting may ensue after this offensive, followed by yet another surge effort to restore Ukraine’s offensive potential. In short, the West has been unappreciative of the lead times required to reconstitute military potential or provide Ukraine with a decisive advantage.

The recent anonymous criticism by officials spilling select narratives in the press, rather than fostering an open discussion about Ukraine’s challenges and successes, reveals enduring problems in this war effort: The first, is a lack of Western understanding of how Ukrainian forces fight. The second, which is closely related, is an insufficient Western presence on the ground to enable closer coordination or even the invaluable understanding that could be offered by battlefield observers. Western capitals have sought to keep this Ukraine’s war, avoiding an in-country presence that includes contractor support or trainers. To be clear, there are Western contractors and companies operating independently in Ukraine, but this is not the same as a government sanctioned and supported effort. There is much more that could be done without becoming directly involved in fighting or deploying uniformed personnel on the ground. The hitherto cautious approach has clear limits to its efficacy. Western support thus far has been sufficient to avert a Ukrainian defeat, and arguably has imposed a strategic defeat on Russia, but not enough to ensure a Ukrainian victory. Independent of the outcome of this offensive, Western countries need to be clear-eyed about the fact that this will be a long war. Taken together, Western industrial and military potential greatly exceeds Russia’s, but without the political will, potential alone will not translate into results.

Become a Member

Michael Kofman is a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on the Russian military and Eurasian security issues. He served as director of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses, where he conducted research on the capabilities, strategy, and military thought of the Russian Armed Forces.

Rob Lee is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program and a former Marine infantry officer

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Michael Kofman · September 4, 2023

9. Civil-Military Translation: Encoding, Signaling, and Survival

Excerpts:

The US Army has long recognized the need to document its technical language for outsiders. US soldiers have privately compiled and published dictionaries since 1810, acknowledging that without these lexicons, military language is incomprehensible to both civilians and other members of the military. The first official US military dictionary was published in 1944, documenting thousands of official Army terms, abbreviations, and acronyms that had unique importance within the Army and little utility outside of it. Military jargon has been confounding since the founding, raising the questions: Why did the Army develop such a unique lexicon? And what are the effects of a distinct military-specific language on civil-military relations?

Jargon is often described as deleterious to communication, which is only partially true. Jargon is extremely useful within technical communities as it speeds and eases communication. However, to outsiders, jargon encodes technical information and creates information asymmetries. Beyond communication, the language boundary between the military services and civilian oversight has broader material, symbolic, and organizational implications. Jargon can be used intentionally to signal knowledge of a topic or obedience to a higher authority. Furthermore, its connection to funding and prioritization enables organizations to strategically apply language as a survival strategy. These functions beyond communication allow us to better understand civil-military translation and the purpose, power, and longevity of military jargon.

...

Lastly and most critically for civilian oversight, it is necessary to recognize the incentive structures that make language a signal or an organizational tool for survival. “Military mania” is less “partial insanity” than rational survival strategy. When lack of alignment with stated priorities risks an organization’s restructuring or defunding, clear communication becomes secondary to survival. Volcano response becomes an exercise in lethality.

Military jargon has existed for hundreds of years and will continue to persist. Jargon use is not a mark of failure, but a feature of the system of organizations, functions, and incentives that make up the constellation of US civilian and military organizations. Jargon opens a door to “the secret kingdom” of expertise and knowledge. Without knowledge of that technical language, the door remains tightly closed. We also must recognize that at times, what the word means is less important than what the word does. Only by applying all our available lenses—doctrine, funding, hierarchy, and many more—can we fully decode the mania.

Civil-Military Translation: Encoding, Signaling, and Survival - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Elena Wicker · September 4, 2023

In 1786, Benjamin Rush, a Founding Father of the United States, described a “partial insanity” gripping American soldiers. A politician, physician, and former surgeon general of the Continental Army, Rush diagnosed American “military mania” as individuals’ overuse of military technical language and disregard of history. He wrote that “it is impossible to understand a conversation with these gentlemen without the help of a military dictionary.” Centuries later, despite Rush’s diagnosis and subsequent legislation, writing guidance, training, and doctrine, the language of the United States military still requires its own dictionary.

The US Army has long recognized the need to document its technical language for outsiders. US soldiers have privately compiled and published dictionaries since 1810, acknowledging that without these lexicons, military language is incomprehensible to both civilians and other members of the military. The first official US military dictionary was published in 1944, documenting thousands of official Army terms, abbreviations, and acronyms that had unique importance within the Army and little utility outside of it. Military jargon has been confounding since the founding, raising the questions: Why did the Army develop such a unique lexicon? And what are the effects of a distinct military-specific language on civil-military relations?

Jargon is often described as deleterious to communication, which is only partially true. Jargon is extremely useful within technical communities as it speeds and eases communication. However, to outsiders, jargon encodes technical information and creates information asymmetries. Beyond communication, the language boundary between the military services and civilian oversight has broader material, symbolic, and organizational implications. Jargon can be used intentionally to signal knowledge of a topic or obedience to a higher authority. Furthermore, its connection to funding and prioritization enables organizations to strategically apply language as a survival strategy. These functions beyond communication allow us to better understand civil-military translation and the purpose, power, and longevity of military jargon.

The Development of Mil-Speak

Military jargon did not begin in, nor is it unique to, the United States. This is made clear by French “soudardant” from the 1500s, the quadrilingual Lexicon Tetraglotton’s military terms of “warr and soldiery” of 1660, and the many historical military manuals from across the globe. Today, the US military is infamous for its labyrinthine vocabulary and profusion of terminology and acronyms impenetrable to the uninitiated. Rosa Brooks described learning to “speak DoD” as requiring a “total-immersion language course.”

Unique functional dialects are common in communities of practice, defined as “aggregate(s) of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavor.” Medical professionals, “tech bros,” academics, lawyers, and countless other fields have developed jargon, jokes, legends, and other systems of meaning unique to their mutual endeavor. National security is a shared endeavor, but the professional experiences of civilians and uniformed military often differs—those experiences initiating individuals into related but different communities of practice.

Military language is not monolithic—there is no uniform mil-speak. Air Force jargon is not the same as Army jargon, which is not interchangeable with Marine Corps or Navy terms. Furthermore, the joint dialect has been described as a totally different language from that of the Army. Not only does each service have a unique style and dialect, but occupational specialties within the services have their own dialects. A history professor at West Point (47K) likely does not share jargon with an astronaut (40C) or a bandmaster (420C). Even within the Army, jargon is extremely fragmented.

Because jargon is tied to functions rather than individuals, individuals move between these communities, learning the appropriate jargon for each function as they progress through a career. The result is multilingual soldiers, familiar with the jargon of each functional role that they have occupied. Importantly, non-uniformed employees of the services learn jargon in the same way. Department of the Army civilian employees with no uniformed experience speak functional fragments of the Army dialect.

Encoding Information and Linguistic Distancing

The military’s deep technical knowledge about capabilities, activities, doctrine, and more creates an information asymmetry that can complicate civilian control and oversight. Jargon enables this asymmetry. First, jargon encodes military technical information, masking information from outsiders until translation occurs. Second, jargon distances and conceals certain military functions from the principals.

Technical jargon encodes the activities of the military in the unique dialect codified in hundreds of dictionaries, strategies, and doctrine publications. Capstone doctrine for the armed forces clearly states that doctrine “provides a military organization with a common philosophy, a common language, a common purpose, and a unity of effort.” These reference documents create a uniquely military system of meaning that requires training to access. In some cases, jargon puts a technical veneer over an object that requires no technical expertise. Temporary duty assignments (TDY) are work trips, personally owned vehicles (POV) are cars, personnel manning documents (PMD) are rosters.

By setting the military apart and allowing technical language to flourish, the “alchemy of linguistic distancing” renders certain activities less visible. The most commonly cited examples of this abstraction is language for the act of killing, such as “neutralizing targets.” The accidental death of civilians during attacks on military targets are referred to as “collateral damage” or even more obliquely as “CIVCAS”—an abbreviation of civilian casualties. The term “lethality” was officially codified in doctrine in October 2022 as meaning “capability and capacity to destroy”—not the typical standard English understanding of capacity to cause death. Through language, the emotional and physical experience of war is obscured by the snappy specialized terminology of technical processes.

Civilians untrained in navigating the web of military reference documents are at a disadvantage when attempting to conduct oversight responsibilities. Further complicating communication, organizations like Congress have technical information masked by their own jargon. Jargon can be used to mask and distance activities intentionally. However, more often mistranslation is a case of individuals with limited time and resources, struggling to fully translate their own jargon, inadvertently undermining the transparency that they seek to create.

Signaling Authority and Obedience

The existence of a language boundary also creates opportunities for signaling. Often as signals, the words themselves become more important than their meaning. The ability to use technical terminology appropriately requires experience or training and thus jargon can become a proxy for that experience. Excessive technical language can bamboozle listeners into a false perception of expertise. One study found that the more difficult a written work is to understand, the more likely it is to be seen as important and prestigious. Problematically, one can learn to use jargon appropriately without fully understanding what it means.

Jargon adoption also signals obedience to oversight or individuals at higher levels of the organization’s hierarchy. Key terms introduced in the National Security Strategy will appear in the National Defense Strategy and National Military Strategy. Integrated deterrence was introduced in the 2022 National Security Strategy, despite the twenty-seven types of deterrence already in existence. The term immediately began to cascade down the hierarchy of strategic documents, including the 2022 National Defense Strategy and other strategic messaging. These cascading usage effects are often less about the term’s meaning than they are about enacting power relationships.

Buzzwords or introduced jargon are not always used because individuals believe in the explanatory value of the terms lethality or integrated deterrence. Rather, organizations display the buzzword to show deference to leadership and avoid decreased funding or support. Buzzwords may lack explanatory value but they carry the weight of relevance and the focus of leadership. This creates a serious risk for oversight, as it is challenging to differentiate true organizational change from cosmetic relabeling that simply parrots the desired words.

Strategic Priorities and Organizational Survival

Language choices allow agents to activate the material functions of jargon. Jargon is a bureaucratic tool for moving resources within an organization. Jargon adoption allows organizations to avoid losing their funding when their function is deprioritized. For example, the 2018 National Defense Strategy focused on “joint lethality in contested environments,” calling for department restructuring if current design “hinder[s] substantial increases in lethality.” This engendered several incidents of creative jargon usage.

In June 2018, the Pentagon held a briefing series titled “Showcasing Lethality.” One of the missions highlighted in this series was the Hawaii National Guard’s response to erupting volcanoes. When asked to talk about the “lethality component” of volcano response, the briefer described how the work illustrated the “dual purpose” of the National Guard, serving as “real world training that is a force enabler to folks down range that are absolutely tied to the warfight.” Volcano response has little to do with “the warfight” or joint lethality. However, the 2018 National Defense Strategy contained a clear directive to “consolidate, eliminate, or restructure” organizations that did not support lethality. Logically, in response to this existential threat, the Hawaii National Guard had to justify how one of its core activities supported a critical strategic priority.

National strategy shapes dozens of subordinate documents and tends to be highly abstract. Abstractness creates space for organizations to place their efforts under the umbrella of different strategic priorities. It is critical to note that there is not necessarily conscious evasion or malevolence in these bucketing processes. People believe in the importance of their organizations and their work. In the face of overt statements that unmatched activities will be restructured or canceled, language matching becomes a survival strategy. Strategies can only list so many priorities and, inevitably, some military functions are left out. Oversight bodies must recognize the constraints that their language creates, while also looking beyond the labels to assess programs.

Learning to Decode

Historically, attempts to improve intramilitary and civil-military communication have focused on restricting jargon use. In 1910, the Army’s Field Service Regulations included its first writing guidance, outlining the importance of clarity, decisiveness, and brevity. Through the 1990s, Field Manual (FM) 101-5, Staff Organization and Operations simply stated: “Do not use jargon.” The Army has had some success in shrinking doctrinal terminology. Today, there is one-eighth the number of official terms than existed in 1944. As for the joint community, the reverse is true. From 1948 until the early 2000s, codified jargon grew 700 percent. Addressing the quantity and functions of jargon is not only a linguistic question—it is a bureaucratic, legal, and structural one. But mitigating some effects of jargon on civil-military communication is possible.

First, as individuals, we must learn to recognize our own jargon. We do not “stand outside” of our areas of expertise or our topics of analysis. Every school, training, and work environment teaches us functional jargon. Identifying our own jargon is particularly challenging because cognitively, humans struggle to accurately identify personal background knowledge as not being universally known. If writing about any topic specific to your profession or on which you have received specific training, most words particular to that topic are likely jargon.

Once jargon is recognized, it can be translated for a different audience. Effective communication is not always about avoiding jargon, it can be about using the correct jargon. Today, the current FM 5-0, The Operations Process no longer advises officers to not use jargon in internal memoranda. Instead, it tells them to communicate “using doctrinally correct military terms and symbols.” When communicating within one’s community, use the approved jargon. In the regulations concerning correspondence, writers are told to not use military jargon in letters to people outside of the Department of Defense. Once jargon has been identified, it can be replaced with plain language or the jargon of the community for whom you are writing.

Lastly and most critically for civilian oversight, it is necessary to recognize the incentive structures that make language a signal or an organizational tool for survival. “Military mania” is less “partial insanity” than rational survival strategy. When lack of alignment with stated priorities risks an organization’s restructuring or defunding, clear communication becomes secondary to survival. Volcano response becomes an exercise in lethality.

Military jargon has existed for hundreds of years and will continue to persist. Jargon use is not a mark of failure, but a feature of the system of organizations, functions, and incentives that make up the constellation of US civilian and military organizations. Jargon opens a door to “the secret kingdom” of expertise and knowledge. Without knowledge of that technical language, the door remains tightly closed. We also must recognize that at times, what the word means is less important than what the word does. Only by applying all our available lenses—doctrine, funding, hierarchy, and many more—can we fully decode the mania.

Dr. Elena Wicker is a presidential management fellow at US Army Futures Command. She completed her PhD at Georgetown University and is a nonresident Fellow with the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare at Marine Corps University. Dr. Wicker researches the history of US military lexicography, the politics of military document drafting, and the bureaucratic power of jargon and terminology to shape innovation and modernization.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States military, the Department of Defense, or the US government.

Image credit: Staff Sgt. Benjamin Raughton

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Elena Wicker · September 4, 2023

10. ‘Where Is the Money?’ Military Graft Becomes a Headache for Ukraine

‘Where Is the Money?’ Military Graft Becomes a Headache for Ukraine

By Andrew E. Kramer

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Sept. 4, 2023

Updated 8:02 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by Andrew E. Kramer · September 4, 2023

The removal of the defense minister highlights the enduring challenge of corruption in Ukraine, which has emerged as a rare area of criticism of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s leadership.

Ukrainian Army soldiers unload munitions from the back of a truck last week. Irregularities in procurement of weapons have been a persistent challenge for Ukraine. Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Sept. 4, 2023, 6:58 a.m. ET

The removal of Ukraine’s minister of defense after a flurry of reports of graft and financial mismanagement in his department underscores a pivotal challenge for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wartime leadership: stamping out the corruption that had been widespread in Ukraine for years.

Official corruption was a topic that had been mostly taboo throughout the first year of the war, as Ukrainians rallied around their government in a fight for national survival. But Mr. Zelensky’s announcement Sunday night that he was replacing the defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, elevated the issue to the highest level of Ukrainian politics.

It comes at a pivotal moment in the war, as Ukraine prosecutes a counteroffensive in the country’s south and east that relies heavily on Western allies for military assistance. These allies have, since the beginning of the war, pressured Mr. Zelensky’s government to ensure that Ukrainian officials were not siphoning off some of the billions of dollars in aid that was flowing into Kyiv.

Just last week, the United States’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with three high-ranking Ukrainian officials to discuss efforts to stamp out wartime corruption. It comes as some lawmakers in the United States have used graft as an argument for limiting military aid to Ukraine.

Mr. Zelensky has responded to the pressure from allies and criticism at home with a flurry of anticorruption initiatives, not all of them welcomed by experts on government transparency. The most controversial has been a proposal to use martial law powers to punish corruption as treason.

Mr. Reznikov, who has held a range of positions during Mr. Zelensky’s tenure, submitted his resignation Monday morning. He has not been personally implicated in the allegations of mismanaged military contracts. But the widening investigations at his ministry posed a first significant challenge for the government on anti-corruption measures since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

In a photo released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service, President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife, Olena Zelenska, attended a wreath-laying ceremony in Kyiv in August.Credit...Agence France-Presse, via Ukrainian Presidential Press Service

“The question here is, ‘Where is the money?’” said Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Ukraine, a group dedicated to rooting out public graft that is now focused on war profiteering.

“Corruption can kill,” Ms. Kaleniuk said. “Depending on how effective we are in guarding the public funds, the soldier will either have a weapon or not have a weapon.”

At one point this year, about $980 million in weapons contracts had missed their delivery dates, according to government figures, and some prepayments for weapons had vanished into oversees accounts of weapons dealers, according to reports made to Parliament. Though precise details have not emerged, the irregularities suggest that procurement officials in the ministry did not vet suppliers, or allowed weapons dealers to walk off with money without delivering the armaments.

Ukrainian media reports have pointed to overpayments for basic supplies for the army, such as food and winter coats.

The public revelations of mismanagement so far have not directly touched foreign weapons transferred to the Ukrainian Army, or Western aid money, but they are nonetheless piercing the sense of unquestioning support for the government that Ukrainians had exhibited throughout the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Two officials with the Defense Ministry — a deputy minister and the head of procurement — were arrested during the winter over the reports of the purchase of overpriced eggs for the army. Mr. Zelensky fired the heads of military recruitment offices last month after allegations emerged that some took bribes from people seeking to avoid the draft.

His proposed initiative to treat corruption as treason set off a wave of criticism that it could lead to an abuse of martial law powers.

Oleksii Goncharenko, a member of Parliament in the opposition European Solidarity party, said of Mr. Zelensky’s record, “I cannot praise his efforts in fighting corruption during the war period.”

Oleksii Reznikov, the departing defense minister, during a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, in August.Credit...Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Government officials acknowledge that some military contracts failed to produce weaponry or ammunition, and that some money has vanished. But they say that most of the problems arose in the chaotic early months of the invasion last year and have since been remedied.

Mr. Reznikov, the departing defense minister, said last week that he was confident the ministry would return prepayments to suppliers that have gone missing.

Military spending now accounts for nearly half of Ukraine’s national budget, and the reports of contracting scandals point to a shift in the sources of public corruption.

Before the full-scale invasion, the primary source of embezzlement had been poorly run state companies, of which there were more than 3,000 on the government’s balance sheet. Money was siphoned off through myriad schemes by wealthy insiders, while the national budget, propped up by foreign aid, absorbed the losses.

Anticorruption groups say the huge influxes of funds to support the war has prompted them to shift their focus to military spending.

Ukrainian investigative journalists have highlighted overpayment for basic supplies for the army, like eggs for 17 hryvnia, or 47 cents, each — far above prevailing prices, according to a report in Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, a Ukrainian newspaper. Canned beans were bought from Turkey at more than the price for the same cans in Ukrainian supermarkets, the newspaper reported, even though the military would be expected to purchase at less than retail prices.

The ministry also bought thousands of coats that turned out to be insufficiently insulated for Ukraine’s bitter winters.

Western donors are closely watching how Ukraine tackles the problem, the chairwoman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s anticorruption committee, Anastasia Radina, said in an interview.

Particularly worrying is the proposal to punish corruption as treason because it could allow the domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U., which is under direct control of the president, to investigate official corruption.

Ukrainian soldiers carry food supplies for their comrades at a frontline position in eastern Ukraine in April.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

The meeting last week with Mr. Sullivan, the American national security adviser, included the heads of a specialized investigative agency, a prosecutorial office and a court that were set up after Ukraine’s Western political pivot in 2014, with help from the United States and international lenders such as the International Monetary Fund. These are the Ukrainian agencies that could lose power under Mr. Zelensky’s treason proposal.

Western governments are wary of the agencies’ potential weakening, Ms. Radina said, adding that if the proposal goes forward, “most likely they will object.”

But, overall, Ms. Radina, a member of Mr. Zelensky’s governing Servant of the People party, defended the government’s efforts to fend off graft in wartime.

The arrest this past weekend of Ihor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s richest men, was seen as a sign of the drive to curb oligarchs’ political influence. Suspected of fraud and money laundering, Mr. Kolomoisky supported Mr. Zelensky’s 2019 election campaign, but since the war began, the president has appeared to break all ties with him.

In other crackdowns this year, investigators pursued one of their highest-profile prosecutions ever for bribery, against the chief of Ukraine’s Supreme Court, who was ousted and arrested in May. In addition, a deputy economy minister is on trial, accused of embezzling from humanitarian aid funds.

That high-level cases of corruption are coming to light is positive, said Andrii Borovyk, director of Transparency International in Ukraine, rather than an indication of a nation bogged down by insider dealing; it shows that the country can fight the war and graft at the same time, he said.

“Scandals are good,” he said. “The war,” Mr. Borovyk added, “cannot be an excuse to stop fighting corruption.”

Andrew E. Kramer is the Times bureau chief in Kyiv. He was part of a team that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for a series on Russia’s covert projection of power. More about Andrew E. Kramer

The New York Times · by Andrew E. Kramer · September 4, 2023

11. Analysis: Part of China's economic miracle was a mirage. Reality check is next

I think I recall hearing this from Derrick Scissors more than a dozen years ago.

Analysis: Part of China's economic miracle was a mirage. Reality check is next

Reuters · by Joe Cash

BEIJING, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping's first major reform plans a decade ago were also his boldest, envisaging a transition to a Western-style free market economy driven by services and consumption by 2020.

The 60-point agenda was meant to fix an obsolete growth model better suited to less developed countries - however, most of those reforms have gone nowhere leaving the economy largely reliant on older policies that have only added to China's massive debt pile and industrial overcapacity.

The failure to restructure the world's second-largest economy has raised critical questions about what comes next for China.

While many analysts see a slow drift towards Japan-style stagnation as the most likely outcome, there is also the prospect of a more severe crunch.

"Things always fail slowly until they suddenly break," said William Hurst, Chong Hua Professor of Chinese Development at University of Cambridge.

"There is a significant risk in the short term of financial crisis or other degree of economic crisis that would carry very substantial social and political costs for the Chinese government. Eventually there's going to have to be a reckoning."

China came out of its Maoist planned economy in the 1980s as a largely rural society, badly in need of factories and infrastructure.

By the time the global financial crisis hit in 2008-09, it had already met most of its investment needs for its level of development, economists say.

Since then, the economy quadrupled in nominal terms while overall debt expanded nine times. To keep growth high, China in the 2010s doubled down on infrastructure and property investment, at the expense of household consumption.

China's debt was 3 times the GDP in 2022

That has kept consumer demand weaker as a portion of GDP than in most other countries and concentrated job creation in the construction and industrial sectors, careers increasingly spurned by young university graduates.

The policy focus also bloated China's property sector to a quarter of economic activity and made local governments so reliant on debt that many now struggle to refinance.

The pandemic, a demographic downturn and geopolitical tensions have exacerbated all these problems to the point that the economy has found it hard to recover this year even as China reopened.

"We're at a moment when we are seeing some structural shifts, but we should have seen these coming," said Max Zenglein, chief economist at MERICS, a China studies institute.

"We're just beginning to be confronted with the reality. We're in untested territory."

The end of China's economic boom will likely hurt commodity exporters and export disinflation around the world. At home, it will threaten living standards for millions of unemployed graduates and many whose wealth is tied up in property, posing social stability risks.

China's household spending as a proportion of GDP lags that of most other countries.

CRISIS VS STAGNATION

Aside from short-term solutions, which would likely only perpetuate debt-fueled investment, economists see three options for China.

One is a swift, painful crisis that writes off debt, curbs excess industrial capacity and deflates the property bubble. Another is a decades-long process in which China winds down these excesses gradually at the expense of growth. The third is switching to a consumer-led model with structural reforms that cause some near-term pain but help it re-emerge faster and stronger.

Property sector performance January to July

A crisis could unfold if the massive property market collapses in an uncontrolled way, dragging the financial sector with it.

The other high-stress point is local government debt, estimated by the International Monetary Fund at $9 trillion. China promised in July to come up with a "basket of measures" to address municipal debt risks, without detailing.

Logan Wright, a partner at Rhodium Group, says Beijing has to decide which portion of that debt to rescue, as the amount is too large to provide full guarantees of repayment, which the market currently regards as implicit.

"Crisis is going to occur in China when government credibility falters," he said.

"When all of a sudden funding is cut off for the remaining investments that seem subject to market risk, that's a huge moment of uncertainty in China's financial markets."

But given state control of many developers and banks and a tight capital account that limits outflows into assets abroad, that is a low risk scenario, many economists say.

Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, expects there would be plenty of buyers if Beijing consolidates debt given limited investment alternatives.

"I am more in the slow growth camp," she said. "The more debt is piled up for projects that are not productive, the lower the return on assets, particularly public investment, and that really means that China cannot grow its way out."

Avoiding a crisis by extending the adjustment period, however, has its own stability risks with youth unemployment topping 21% and around 70% of household wealth invested in property.

"One of China's biggest success stories, building a strong middle class, is also becoming its biggest vulnerability," said MERICS' Zenglein. "If you look at it from the perspective of a younger person, you are now at risk of being the first post-reform generation whose economic wellbeing might hit a wall. If the message is tighten up your belts and roll up your sleeves, that's going to be kind of a hard sell."

Reuters Graphics

REFORMS, THIS TIME?

The third path, actively switching to a new model, is considered very unlikely, based on what happened to Xi's 60-point programme.

Those plans have barely been mentioned since 2015 when a capital outflows scare sent stocks and the yuan tumbling and engendered an official aversion to potentially disruptive reforms, analysts say.

China has since backed away from major financial market liberalisation while plans to rein in state behemoths and introduce universal social welfare never quite materialised.

"Right now is a time in which there's a potential for the train to change direction to a new model, and I think there's appetite to do that," said Hurst.

"But at the same time there's a great fear of the short-term political and social risk, especially of provoking an economic crisis."

Additional reporting by Liangping Gao and Kevin Yao; Graphics by Kripa Jayaram; Editing by Marius Zaharia and Sam Holmes

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Joe Cash

Thomson Reuters

Joe Cash reports on China’s economic affairs, covering domestic fiscal and monetary policy, key economic indicators, trade relations, and China’s growing engagement with developing countries. Before joining Reuters, he worked on UK and EU trade policy across the Asia-Pacific region. Joe studied Chinese at the University of Oxford and is a Mandarin speaker.

Reuters · by Joe Cash

12. Spy agencies battling the fentanyl crisis fear their most powerful weapon is at risk

Spy agencies battling the fentanyl crisis fear their most powerful weapon is at risk

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article278604734.html

BY MICHAEL WILNER

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 01, 2023 4:22 PM

The lobby of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. PHOTO COURTESY OF CIA Graphic by Rachel Handley and Gabby McCall

Tracking the Fentanyl Trade

As fentanyl devastates communities across the United States, Americans are fighting the epidemic on multiple fronts. This is the war against America’s deadliest drug.

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WASHINGTON

American spies and intelligence agencies are quietly on the frontlines of a global battle against fentanyl, a drug ravaging communities across the United States. Now a tool the CIA says is critical to that fight is at risk in Congress this fall.

A 9/11-era surveillance program is enabling the intelligence community to monitor the production line of fentanyl overseas – from the smuggling of chemicals across

the Pacific to its assembly in clandestine facilities throughout Mexico. Known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the program allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to surveil foreigners who are located abroad and communicating on U.S. internet and phone service providers, without obtaining a warrant.

Intelligence officials tell McClatchy it has become a crucial asset in their fight against a synthetic opioid killing more Americans each year than all other drugs combined.

But the program appears imperiled for the first time since its creation 15 years ago by a new set of critics and amid political fallout over the investigation of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Section 702 is the reason intelligence officials know that the overwhelming majority of chemicals used in fentanyl trace back to China, officials said. And it has provided intelligence linking at least one foreign government official to the trade.

Intelligence collected using Section 702 has proven critical in disrupting specific transfer attempts of vast quantities of fentanyl pills across the U.S. southern border, a U.S. intelligence official told McClatchy, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence operations, and has allowed the U.S. government to warn commercial shipping giants that smugglers are using their freight to conceal chemical loads.

“702 is really the only source of information that allows us to stay dynamic in thwarting the threat,” the intelligence official said. “If we were to lose it, it would make us blind.”

The program has also been instrumental in the recruitment of foreigners abroad to spy for the United States to penetrate smuggling organizations, monitor their tactics and disrupt the supply chain of fentanyl before it reaches the homeland as a finished product, multiple intelligence officials said.

It has helped the CIA learn the habits of potential spies before they are even approached for recruitment. And intelligence officials said it has also helped

protect agents from being placed in danger in the field, when remote surveillance of a target is a viable alternative.

The intelligence official described a scenario in which a drug cartel is preparing to smuggle thousands of fentanyl pills to the United States in a single run. Its chemical suppliers in Asia, its pill press manufacturer, its choice of commercial shipper and its ultimate choice of smuggler would all be talking – communications that can be monitored in real-time using the FISA program.

“Section 702 has allowed us to illuminate networks in the global supply chain – from precursor to shipment, from soup to nuts,” the intelligence official said. “It gives us insight into some of the quantities and potency of some of the drugs produced. It’s given us insight into specific smuggling techniques that the networks use to avoid detection.”

“They’re communicating not unlike other businessmen,” the official added. “They have profits, they have margins, they have middlemen, they have lawyers.”

Andrea McCutcheon looks at photos of her daughter Valerie Vineyard, who died from a fentanyl poisoning on May 27, 2021 at the age of 19, and her boyfriend Harrison. Vineyard and Harrison were both found unconscious the morning after they decided to take a Percocet pill. Vineyard’s boyfriend survived, but she did not. Chris Torres ctorres@star-telegram.com

Democrats have long questioned whether Section 702 infringes on the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. The program allows intelligence officials to collect data on targeted individuals with precision and speed by compelling a U.S. telecommunications provider, such as Google or Verizon, to provide the contents of specific email accounts or phone lines of foreigners abroad without the need for a warrant.

As a consequence, it also allows for incidental collection of communications between U.S. citizens and those foreign targets – a backdoor, critics argue, for the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Civil liberties advocates also question whether, even with creative interpretations, the law permits intelligence officers to collect information for counternarcotics operations.

Republicans, too, are now raising questions over the program, accusing the FBI of abusing FISA powers in its investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign. An internal review of the FBI investigation found that its application for a FISA warrant on one of Trump’s top campaign advisers at the time was based on false information.

“It’s evident that the FBI has been weaponized, and it’s far past time for reforms after the FBI has repeatedly used their power to go after political opponents,” Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, told McClatchy when asked for his position on Section 702 reauthorization. “I’ll be watching this closely as it moves forward.”

The bipartisan skepticism puts Section 702 in jeopardy for the first time since its initial passage in 2008, when the program was first designed to track down terrorist plots.

Biden administration officials are growing anxious over the fate of the program, which is set to expire at the end of the year.

“We are hearing calls for reform from both sides, without agreement on what the reform should be,” a senior administration official said. “And until we get the votes we need to confirm they are a yes on reauthorization, we will be concerned.”

A DIFFERENT BATTLE

The debate has shed light on the intelligence community’s use of the program to fight a pervasive drug crisis.

“We’re dealing with a very deadly threat in fentanyl,” Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis Kenneth Wainstein told McClatchy. “It’s horribly lethal. Its trafficking sale is incredibly lucrative. The Mexican drug-dealing cartels are heavily involved in it, with deadly efficiency, and they don’t care about the human results of that trade.”

“When you put those things together, that makes for a very dangerous threat to our nation, to our people, to our national security,” Wainstein said. “It’s a threat that has come to the fore that we didn’t have to deal with in the past.”

For decades, intelligence agencies have been able to monitor acres of foreign coca farms and opium poppy fields from the air before crops were turned into cocaine and heroin. Intelligence officers could trace the entire supply chain with basic surveillance tools that help them disrupt major drug trafficking operations.

Fentanyl poses a new kind of threat, U.S. officials say, because of the source of its basic ingredients and the simplicity of its production.

Since 2018, fentanyl has driven a record surge in drug overdose deaths across the country. Over 70,000 Americans died from synthetic opioids – primarily fentanyl – in 2021, the last year with verified data from the National Institutes of Health, accounting for 66% of all overdose deaths that year. Provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics suggests that overdose deaths plateaued in 2022.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas participates in a fireside chat with the Under Secretary of Intelligence and Analysis, Kenneth L. Wainstein, at the Nebraska Avenue Complex in Washington, DC, on June 7, 2023. Tia Dufour Photo Courtesy of DHS

The Mexican government has been a cooperative partner, U.S. officials said. But Chinese entities smuggling precursor chemicals are constantly adapting their tactics. Todd Robinson, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, said last month that Beijing “needs to do more as a global partner” to disrupt the fentanyl trade, given its position as a primary source of critical materials.

“Instead of selling the finished product, you now have an incredible array of Chinese companies selling precursor chemicals which are then shipped, in various ways, overwhelmingly to Mexico, which cartels then mix in relatively simple ways,” Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Josh Geltzer told McClatchy.

Producers take advantage of the bustle of commercial shipping traffic to transport the chemicals from China to Mexico, and from there can simply produce the drug

in the secretive settings of store basements and apartment units.

“One pill really can kill,” Geltzer added, “so I think it raises the stakes in our effort to reduce the supply, and in understanding the supply chain at the earliest stages.”

PROGRAM IN JEOPARDY

For a decade, the political debate over Section 702 largely stemmed from privacy advocates alarmed by the broad powers afforded to U.S. intelligence agencies under the surveillance law.

The Obama administration secretly secured approval from a FISA court in 2011 to use the program to search Americans’ communications with foreign individuals without warrants, including intercepted phone calls and emails, in cases related to national security investigations. It was one of many revelations on the program unveiled by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, in 2013, before he fled to Russia.

Section 702 was reauthorized in 2018. But the program was back under scrutiny within months of that vote, after the inspector general of the FBI published a scathing report outlining systemic abuse at the agency of its surveillance authorities.

The FBI had used false statements in its application for a warrant to surveil Carter Page, a foreign policy advisor to Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign who was suspected of coordinating with Russia. Nearly one in five FISA queries at the agency failed to comply with legal standards.

A used package of Narcan lies on the ground in East St. Louis on Aug. 22. Narcan is a brand of naxolone, a medication designed to rapidly reverse overdose of fentanyl, heroin and other opioids. Joshua Carter Belleville News-Democrat

In May, a FISA court unsealed its memorandum finding the FBI had misused Section 702 over 278,000 times, including searches of individuals involved in protests around the killing of George Floyd in 2020, suspects in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, and donors to an unnamed candidate for Congress.

The inspector general’s report, a subsequent audit, and the unsealed court documents seemed to confirm the worst fears of progressives long opposed to the expansive use of FISA authorities – and added new critics on the right allied with Trump, who has railed against the surveillance law ever since.

The most recent audit published in May found the FBI has since come into regular compliance with the law. But that hasn’t stopped lawmakers from threatening to oppose its renewal amid broader criticism of the surveillance law.

In June, a hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee laid bare bipartisan skepticism of the program and the risk that Congress could fail to reauthorize it.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, urged his colleagues to support reauthorization, invoking his party’s promise to combat the fentanyl trade. But he acknowledged a difficult path lay ahead trying to find consensus.

“Law enforcement personnel need to be armed with tools they need to detect and respond to increasingly sophisticated threats from our nation’s adversaries,” Tillis later told McClatchy. “There have also been disturbing documented abuses of FISA that cannot be repeated.”

‘COST OF FAILURE IS REAL’

Ahead of a deadline to renew the law by the end of the year, McClatchy asked lawmakers across the country whether Congress’ failure to reauthorize the program would impact the trajectory of the fentanyl epidemic.

A majority of those asked across both parties said they support reauthorization with significant reform – but with time running out, few articulated the reforms required to earn their support.

The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which advises presidents on the quality and legality of foreign intelligence activities, issued a report in July warning that reauthorization “may be in jeopardy” due to failures at the FBI and the political fallout.

“Complacency, a lack of proper procedures, and the sheer volume of Section 702 activity led to FBI’s inappropriate use of Section 702 authorities, specifically U.S. person queries,” the report said.

But the board “found no evidence of willful misuse of these authorities by FBI for political purposes,” it continued, noting the Justice Department had only identified three incidents of intentional misconduct from among millions of FBI queries using Section 702 information.

“The cost of failure is real,” the board report asserted, warning of broad consequences for national security if the program is not renewed. “If Congress fails to reauthorize Section 702, history may judge the lapse of Section 702 authorities as one of the worst intelligence failures of our time.”

The board recommended several reforms to secure congressional passage that the administration has largely endorsed, proposing the FBI hire a designated compliance officer and also the establishment of an independent review office that directly reports to the president. And it recommended compelling the Justice Department to remove the FBI’s authority to search Americans’ names using Section 702 data for evidence in crimes unrelated to national security threats.

It also suggested that Congress should direct the government to “submit a new counternarcotics certification under Section 702” to the surveillance court, with much of their reasoning redacted.

CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Courtesy of CIA Courtesy of CIA

A U.S. official said that, “under the current authorities, there are circumstances in which (intelligence) collection on foreign narcotics traffickers is authorized.” Congress has been briefed on the use of Section 702 to track drug cartels, whose communications with Chinese suppliers have then been collected secondhand. But

a new certification could broaden the power of intelligence agencies to monitor secondary players in the fentanyl trade.

“The reform debate is about this program’s broad intrusion on Americans’ privacy,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “If the purpose of Section 702 is to target foreigners for intelligence purposes, as officials often say, then they should stop stonewalling robust protections for Americans.”

Toomey questioned whether existing legal certifications for use of Section 702 allowed for intelligence collection unrelated to threats from foreign government entities, terrorist organizations, or weapons of mass destruction. Not all certifications for FISA use are public – yet another criticism among advocates of transparency.

“There is no evidence that a warrant requirement for Americans would harm national security,” Toomey said.

While Section 702 first passed in the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11, use of the program has expanded significantly over time. Section 702 first passed into law in 2008 – months after Apple brought the iPhone to market, leading a global expansion of U.S. telecommunications that has proven serendipitous and invaluable to the American intelligence community.

Other surveillance powers allow intelligence agencies to collect communications data overseas. But then the burden falls on intelligence officials to obtain that material on foreign communications servers, often in hostile territory, and to comb through tranches of data, a time-consuming task. Intelligence officials say those tactics also risk intercepting the communications of Americans – and do not allow the sort of precise, speedy searches that have made Section 702 so powerful.

Today, the reliance of transnational criminal organizations, hostile government actors, terrorist groups and drug cartels on U.S. communications platforms provides a strategic advantage to the United States that would be foolish to waste, the U.S. intelligence official said. The official noted that 60% of the material in the president’s daily brief – intelligence information compiled for the president every day – relies on information collected using Section 702.

“No one is satisfied with where we are on the fentanyl issue,” said Geltzer, the president’s deputy homeland security advisor, noting thousands of Americans are still dying from the drug each month.

But critics of the government’s response to the epidemic, and of the surveillance program, risk aggravating both, he said.

“I would say to them, don’t blind us to the insights that have at least gotten us this far,” Geltzer added. “At a minimum, don’t blind us to that which already has helped us make some progress against this threat.”

Daniel Desrochers of the Kansas City Star and Danielle Battaglia of the Charlotte Observer contributed reporting.

This story was originally published August 29, 2023, 9:00 AM.

MICHAEL WILNER

202-383-6083

Michael Wilner is McClatchy’s Senior National Security and White House Correspondent. A member of the White House team since 2019, he led coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. Wilner previously served as Washington bureau chief for The Jerusalem Post. He holds degrees from Claremont McKenna College and Columbia University and is a native of New York City.

13. The US and Chinese air forces are rethinking whether it's possible to control the air

We have had the luxury and promise of air superiority since the Korean War. If we are not going to ensure air superiority how should we adjust our doctrine so that we can operate with it?

The US and Chinese air forces are rethinking whether it's possible to control the air

Business Insider · by Michael Peck

The wreckage of a Ukrainian fighter jet in a field in Kherson in January.

Pierre Crom/Getty Images

Advanced sensors and long-range weapons are making air superiority harder to achieve.
The US and Chinese air forces are both thinking about how they'd try to control the air in a war.
Experts on both sides see achieving permanent control of the air as increasingly unlikely.

The classic definition of air superiority comes down a simple proposition: Your air force can conduct its assigned missions while keeping an enemy air force from doing the same.

Yet the US and China are grappling with the realization that control of the skies doesn't mean what it used to. Strategists on both sides are wondering whether it's even possible to achieve aerial dominance for more than brief periods against near-peer adversaries.

"You're going to have to think about it temporally," Clinton Hinote, who retired from the US Air Force as a lieutenant general earlier this year, said during a recent Aviation Week podcast. "You can organize your force to create superiority so that you can do something and then you'll retreat back or try to regroup."

"It will be a struggle back and forth for air superiority," added Hinote, whose last position was as the Air Force's chief futurist.

A US Air Force KC-135 refuels F-22s over the Atlantic in April 2018.

US Air Force/Staff Sgt. Carlin Leslie

There are different degrees of aerial dominance. The most comprehensive is air supremacy, which the US Air Force defines as when "the opposing force is incapable of effective interference within the operational area using air and missile threats." It describes the sort of environment enjoyed by American airpower in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The next level is air superiority, which the Air Force defines as "control of the air by one force that permits the conduct of its operations at a given time and place without prohibitive interference from air and missile threats." Think of the invasion of Normandy in 1944, where the Luftwaffe was more of a nuisance than threat, or of Vietnam, where the massive US bombing campaign was impeded but never halted by North Vietnamese MiGs and anti-aircraft weapons.

These concepts date to the 1920s and the Italian airpower theorist Giulio Douhet, who argued that air forces should be independent rather than part of armies, as was common at the time.

Douhet also believed that strategic bombing alone could win wars by destroying enemy cities, which would paralyze the economy and collapse civilian morale. Doing that required preventing the enemy from using its airpower in the same way. "The one effective method of defending one's own territory from an offensive by air is to destroy the enemy's air power with the greatest possible speed," Douhet wrote.

US Army Air Force B-17s bomb an aircraft factory in eastern Germany during World War II.

ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images

Douhet's theories on strategic bombardment proved wrong — neither Germany, Japan, nor North Vietnam sued for peace because of bombing — but his notion of control of the air lived on.

US bomber raids over Germany in 1944 were designed to lure the Luftwaffe's fighter force into the air, where they could be destroyed by American fighters. The spectacular Israeli victory in 1967 was preceded by a surprise aerial assault that destroyed the Arab air forces on the ground, enabling Israeli ground troops to receive constant air support without interference.

But what is remarkable about the ongoing war in Ukraine is the limited impact of airpower. Despite the presence of advanced jets, especially on the Russian side, both air forces are flying cautiously in the face of surface-to-air missiles such as the Soviet-designed S-300 or newer Western-made air defenses. Drones have more freedom to operate, but even those face high losses to physical and electronic countermeasures.

China's military is also wondering whether it's even feasible to control the skies permanently during a conflict between forces with comparable numbers of long-range weapons.

A Chinese J-10 fighter jet at the Zhuhai Air Show Center in November 2022.

Zhou Guoqiang/VCG via Getty Images

Given the ability of such forces to deny each other control of the air, the goal should shift from control at "all times over all areas" to pursuing "air superiority for key tasks at key times and over key areas," three authors affiliated with the China's Air Force Command College wrote in the Chinese military's official newspaper this spring.

Other Chinese critics point out that a variety of new systems, including drones and cyberwarfare, will vastly complicate any quest for aerial dominance.

"The PLA is clearly refuting the feasibility and the necessity of achieving command of the air as Douhet originally conceived it," Derek Solen, a researcher for the US Air Force's China Aerospace Studies Institute, wrote in a July article for the Jamestown Foundation think tank.

"This conceptual change has two implications," Solen wrote. "First, it is unlikely that the PLA will seek absolute control of the air in future campaigns such as an invasion of Taiwan. Second, the PLA will likely reduce its spatial and temporal requirements for control of the air as its capabilities to conduct multi-domain operations improve."

Chinese J-20 stealth fighter jets train in Guangdong in November 2022.

Yu Hongchun/Xinhua via Getty Images

Indeed, both the US and China are moving away from a single-minded focus on air combat and emphasizing multi-domain warfare, a loosely defined concept that includes land, air, sea, space, cyberwarfare, electromagnetic spectrum, and information operations.

The ability to operate across those domains "allows you to not think of the symmetric fight in the air where you just have fighter airplanes" that are "going after it" against other fighters, Hinote said. "It's still important that we can do that, but if you can use other domains to establish air superiority and to attack the adversary's use of the air, that's good."

US ground troops haven't faced attacks from enemy aircraft since the Korean War. A future where that kind of air dominance can't be achieved would seem to be a major threat to the way America wages war.

Interestingly, however, Hinote believes a lack of air supremacy might not be so terrible when fending off an attack — such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine or a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

"I'm of the opinion that as we think about this idea of denial, even a state of mutual denial of air superiority, that's part of air superiority, and it generally favors the defender," Hinote said. "And we're generally on the sides of the defender."

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master's in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Business Insider · by Michael Peck

14. Why Modi Can’t Make India a Great Power

Excerpts:

But in the long run, Modi’s project will take a toll on the authority and credibility of the Indian state. It will open up fault lines between and among India’s many communities—divides that will widen and cement into permanent gulfs. The country could eventually confront what the British Trinidadian writer V. S. Naipaul called “a million mutinies,” threatening India’s own being. The northeast’s various other ethnic groups might begin fighting with each other. India’s southern states, which have their own distinct languages and identities, could demand more freedoms from New Delhi. Kashmir and Punjab—which do not have Hindu majorities—could experience renewed sectarian violence and insurgencies. Both places are on India’s volatile border, and so conflict in either would bode poorly for New Delhi’s international dreams.

The BJP’s goal is to create an India where Hindus control everything.

Even if Hindu supremacy does not result in widespread civil strife, the Indian government’s nationalist program could still undermine its bid for global leadership. New Delhi likes to argue that its aspirations are peaceful, but the RSS has long spoken of trying to establish Akhand Bharat: a fantastical, greater India in which New Delhi would govern over all or part of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet. When the Modi government unveiled a new parliament building in May, it even featured a mural of the entity. Multiple countries lodged formal complaints in response.

None of those countries, of course, are part of the West, which has nothing to directly fear from India’s regional goals. Indeed, Western governments seem to believe they will gain. The United States and Europe both openly hope that as India grows more powerful, it can serve as a strong check on China. As a result, they have gone out of their way to avoid criticizing New Delhi, irrespective of its bad behavior.

But the violence in Manipur clearly shows the limits of the India’s potential under Modi. The country will not be able to effectively defend its borders if it has to divert military force to suppress internal unrest. It cannot serve as a counterweight to China if it is burdening other parts of Asia with domestic conflicts. In fact, India will struggle to be effective anywhere in the world if its government remains largely preoccupied with domestic strife.

For New Delhi’s Western partners, an India that cannot look outward will certainly prove disappointing. But it will be more disappointing for Indians themselves. Theirs is the largest country in the world; it should, by rights, be a global leader. Yet to be stable enough to project substantial authority, India needs to keep peace and harmony among its diverse population—something it can accomplish only by becoming an inclusive, plural, secular, and liberal democracy. Otherwise, it risks turning into a Hindu version of South Asia’s other countries, such as Myanmar and Pakistan, where ethnic dominance has resulted in tumult, violence, and deprivation. Everyone who wants India to succeed should therefore hope that New Delhi can see the problem with its vision—and change course before it is too late.

Why Modi Can’t Make India a Great Power

Government-Backed Intolerance Is Tearing the Country Apart

By Sushant Singh

September 4, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Sushant Singh · September 4, 2023

Starting September 9, New Delhi is scheduled to host the G-20’s 18th annual summit. The event, in the eyes of the Indian government, will mark the country’s growing international importance. “During our G-20 presidency, we shall present India’s experiences, learnings, and models as possible templates for others,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared last year, when his country assumed the organization’s leadership. This August, he asserted that India’s presidency would help make the world into “one family” through “historic efforts aimed at inclusive and holistic growth.” The government’s message was clear: India is becoming a great power under Modi and will usher in an era of global peace and prosperity.

But 1,000 miles away from New Delhi, in the northeastern state of Manipur, India is caught in a conflict that suggests it is in no position to serve as an international leader. Over the last four months, ethnic violence between Manipur’s largest community, the Meiteis, and its largest minority, the Kukis, has killed hundreds of people and rendered 60,000 people homeless. Mobs have set fire to over 350 churches and vandalized over a dozen temples. They have burned more than 200 villages.

At first glance, it may seem like the violence in Manipur will not hinder Modi’s foreign policy ambitions. After all, the prime minister has traveled the world over the last four months without having to talk about the conflict. It did not come up (at least publicly) in June, when U.S. President Joe Biden rolled out the red carpet for Modi in Washington, D.C. It was not mentioned when Modi landed in Paris three weeks later and met French President Emmanuel Macron. And the issue has not arisen during his visits this year to Australia, Egypt, Greece, Japan, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates.

But make no mistake: the events in Manipur threaten Modi’s goal and vision of a great India. The state’s violence has forced the Indian government to deploy thousands of troops inside Manipur, reducing the country’s capacity to protect its borders from an increasingly aggressive China. The conflict has also hampered India’s efforts to be an influential player in Southeast Asia by making it hard for the country to carry out regional infrastructure projects and by saddling neighboring states with refugees. And the ongoing violence could give other Indian separatist and ethnic partisan groups an opening to challenge New Delhi’s primacy. If these organizations do begin to rebel, as some of them have in the past, the consequences would be disastrous. India is one of the most diverse countries in the world, home to people from thousands of different cultures and communities. It cannot function if these populations are in intensive conflict.

There is little reason to think that tensions will ease under Modi, and plenty of reason to think they will get worse. The prime minister’s central ideological project is the creation of a Hindu nationalist country where non-Hindu people are, at best, second-class citizens. It is an exclusionary agenda that alienates the hundreds of millions of Indians who do not belong to the country’s Hindu majority. It is also one with a track record of prompting violence and unrest—including, now, in Manipur.

Modi’s allies and supporters like to argue that the prime minister is personally transforming India into a new superpower. Modi’s deputies, for example, suggest that the prime minister has earned respect unmatched by any previous Indian leader. Modi “exudes India in many ways, and I think that has had a big impact as well on the international community,” Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, remarked in June. The country’s pliant media have declared that Modi is vishwaguru: the world’s teacher and guide. But Manipur shows that India stands little chance of becoming a global leader so long as Modi is at the helm. Great powers need to be stable, and the ruling party’s exclusionary policies will open the country’s various fault lines, creating chasms that lead to violence and drain the state’s capacity. Manipur has sent Modi a warning. He is ignoring it at India’s peril.

SONS OF THE SOIL

Modi is not the first Indian politician to promote Hindu nationalism and majoritarianism. The prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have spent decades trying to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra, or a nation exclusively of Hindus. Along the way, the groups have routinely provoked bloodshed. The groups, for example, inspired the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. The RSS helped destroy a historic mosque in 1992, which set off widespread riots.

But although Hindu nationalism has been around for decades, the movement has amassed more power than it ever has before. Manipur provides an insight into how. In theory, the state should be unfavorable terrain for Hindu supremacists. Its Meitei majority does not traditionally identify as being Hindu; they have instead followed an animistic faith, one with its own beliefs and traditions. The community’s language is not Hindi, nor is it one of Hindi’s cousins. In fact, until the late 1990s, the Meitei nationalist movement sought independence from India. Meitei organizations should, if anything, oppose Hindu nationalists ruling the country.

But the BJP and the RSS have worked to get ethnic groups that form the majority in their own states to join their cause (except when they are Muslims), arguing that these groups deserve to dominate their regions—just as Hindus should dominate India overall. Sometimes, the BJP and RSS even try to amalgamate smaller communities of animistic faiths into the Hindu tradition. Their message does not always land, but in Manipur, it appears to have done so. Many Meiteis now say they are Hindus, and the community’s nationalists identify as part of the BJP’s program. They believe that they are the original inhabitants of the Manipur—the sons of the soil—and that Kukis are illegal immigrants from Myanmar. Their argument mirrors the one made everywhere by the RSS, which claims that Hindus are the original inhabitants of India whereas Muslims and Christians are outsiders.

Great powers need to be stable.

The state’s chief minister, Nongthombam Biren Singh, has fashioned himself accordingly. Once a pluralist politician from the Indian National Congress—the main opposition party—Singh joined the BJP in 2017 and has positioned himself as a Meitei partisan since 2022. He won Manipur’s state elections again for the BJP, and he has been leading the charge against the Kukis. In the months before the conflict began, he adopted a policy of arbitrarily evicting Kuki villages under the pretense of protecting forests. Beginning in February, his government began checking the biometric details of people living in Kuki-dominated hill districts in order to identify “illegal immigrants.” In March, he blamed “illegal immigrants from Myanmar” engaged in the “drug business” for protests against the state’s efforts to evict Kukis from their villages. And in April, he told an RSS-controlled newspaper that “foreigner Kuki immigrants have taken control of the social, political, and economic affairs of the native tribal people of the state.”

Singh’s policies and rhetoric are squarely at odds with the Indian constitution, which was designed to safeguard marginalized groups. The document affords all of the country’s indigenous minorities—including the Kukis—special protections to secure their land, language, and culture. But under Modi, those protections are falling apart. After winning reelection in 2019, Modi’s government quickly stripped Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, of its constitutionally enshrined protections. He then split the state in two and downgraded the resulting components from states into federally controlled territories. Anticipating widespread unrest, Modi deployed vast numbers of troops into what was already a militarized region and shut off the area’s internet. It was a brutal response, and one that sent a message to other protected groups.

That included the Kukis, who are now at risk of losing their own protections. In April 2023, the state’s high court ruled that the state government must recommend whether Meiteis should be given access to the same set of privileges granted to the Kukis, including reserved jobs, reserved university seats, and the ability to buy land in Manipur’s hill regions. (In the context of Indian politics, this effectively meant telling the state it had to give Meiteis access to these privileges.) The decision, immediately condemned by Manipur’s Kuki and other tribal communities, kicked off the recent unrest. As tribal groups marched to protest the order, they began fighting against Meiteis who supported it. Soon, the clashes escalated into organized bloodshed. Meitei-majority areas in the Manipur’s Imphal valley were cleansed of all ethnic Kukis. In response, Kukis targeted Meitei households in their midst.

But even though both sides have resorted to violence, it is clear that tribes have borne the brunt of the carnage. Kuki women have been raped and subject to other forms sexual violence. Indian soldiers have done little to arrest armed Meitei men. Manipur’s police have done almost nothing while Meitei groups ransacked their armories. Since the conflict started, mobs have taken more than 4,900 weapons and 600,000 rounds of ammunition—including mortars, machine guns, and AK-47s—from Manipur’s stockpiles. Almost 90 percent of these weapons have been taken by Meitei militias.

WEAK LINKS

The Kukis are not an isolated ethnic group. Instead, they belong to a broad network of tribes that live in Manipur, Manipur’s neighboring states, and two of India’s neighboring countries: Bangladesh and Myanmar. As a result, tens of thousands of Kuki families have fled into these jurisdictions, turning Manipur’s conflict into a regional issue.

The exodus and violence have undermined Modi’s grand strategy. Under Modi’s “Act East” policy, for example, India is trying to build infrastructure connecting its remote northeastern states with Southeast Asian countries. But the instability has delayed these ambitious projects. The government, for instance, cannot begin a planned highway linking India to Myanmar and Thailand until there is peace in Manipur. It also cannot start a project that would improve the Indian northeast’s coastal access by building a road to the Burmese river town of Paletwa. (Civil conflict in Myanmar is holding up these endeavors as well.) India’s bid for greater influence in Southeast Asia therefore remains stalled, even as China continues its heavy regional spending under the Belt and Road initiative.

The spillover is not the only way that Manipur’s violence has made it harder for New Delhi to compete with Beijing. Over the last 40 months, the Chinese and Indian militaries have been locked in a series of heated—and sometimes lethal—border standoffs, as China works to grab Himalayan territory from India. As a result, protecting India’s borders has become one of the country’s main foreign policy objectives. But to send troops to Manipur, the federal government had to pull a whole mountain division of roughly 15,000 soldiers away from the Chinese-Indian border, weakening India’s defensive posture.

China, of course, may not capitalize on India’s border weakness; Beijing has its own security priorities and issues. But even if the conflict in Manipur does not end up directly helping China, the violence will still degrade India’s international position. Since its independence from British colonial rule in 1947, India has been bedeviled by many separatist insurgencies. Sikh separatists, for example, waged a bloody, failed campaign for independence in the northern state of Punjab during the 1980s and 1990s. Maoist insurgents fought against India in parts of the country’s east and center. Some of these groups still exist, and they occasionally remind Indians of their presence by carrying out spectacular acts of violence. The central government’s complete collapse in Manipur could embolden all of them to challenge New Delhi, putting India’s security establishment under increased pressure and diverting its energy and resources away from major external threats.

And yet despite these risks, Modi has been remarkably blasé about the conflict. He has not visited Manipur, and he has refused to meet with elected representatives from the state. He has not chaired a meeting about the violence, nor has he issued major statements condemning the deaths or suffering of Manipur’s people. He did not react even when the house of his junior foreign minister was burned by a large, angry mob in the state’s capital. His silence was broken only after 78 days, when he spent all of 36 seconds criticizing the violence after a video of two naked Kuki women being harassed and paraded went viral. Modi talked about the fighting again a few weeks later, but only when opposition parties tabled a no-confidence vote in parliament in order to force him to speak about the issue. Even then, Modi raised the subject about 90 minutes into his remarks, after all the opposition lawmakers staged a walkout in frustration.

KING OF THE ASHES

There are several explanations for Modi’s silence. One is Manipur’s location. The state, tucked into India’s northeast corner, is seen as a distant land—barely connected to the country psychologically, physically, and now digitally. (The government has largely shut down Manipur’s internet in response to the unrest.) Another is that Manipur is home to just three million people, a tiny fraction of India’s 1.4 billion residents, and so the country’s BJP-friendly media can easily ignore its politics. A third is that Modi may believe he can fix the conflict without saying anything, simply by throwing more troops and police at it.

But the final explanation for Modi’s silence is more chilling: the prime minister cannot condemn what is happening because it would expose the debilitating contradiction between his ideological project and his vision for a strong India. The BJP’s goal is to create an India where Hindus, as the party defines them, control everything. It is encapsulated in the BJP’s old unitary slogan—“Hindi, Hindu, Hindusthan”—and is evidenced in its virulently anti-Muslim election campaigns. (During the 2019 national elections, Amit Shah, now India’s home minister and Modi’s second-in-command, called Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh “termites.”) Letting the Meiteis dominate the Kukis is perfectly in keeping with this majoritarian vision. It may, in other words, be the natural outcome of Modi’s politics.

Modi has certainly behaved as if he does not mind Meitei dominance. The prime minister could fire Singh, or he could use his considerable weight to make the country’s armed forces actually check Meitei violence. But he has not. Instead, Modi has placed his political interests ahead of the requirements of India’s constitution. He has decided that, although the BJP’s behavior in Manipur may alienate some voters, it is more likely to help by rallying Meiteis to the party’s side. Corralling the country’s Hindu majority through exclusionary rhetoric and actions has, after all, helped Modi win commanding national elections.

But in the long run, Modi’s project will take a toll on the authority and credibility of the Indian state. It will open up fault lines between and among India’s many communities—divides that will widen and cement into permanent gulfs. The country could eventually confront what the British Trinidadian writer V. S. Naipaul called “a million mutinies,” threatening India’s own being. The northeast’s various other ethnic groups might begin fighting with each other. India’s southern states, which have their own distinct languages and identities, could demand more freedoms from New Delhi. Kashmir and Punjab—which do not have Hindu majorities—could experience renewed sectarian violence and insurgencies. Both places are on India’s volatile border, and so conflict in either would bode poorly for New Delhi’s international dreams.

The BJP’s goal is to create an India where Hindus control everything.

Even if Hindu supremacy does not result in widespread civil strife, the Indian government’s nationalist program could still undermine its bid for global leadership. New Delhi likes to argue that its aspirations are peaceful, but the RSS has long spoken of trying to establish Akhand Bharat: a fantastical, greater India in which New Delhi would govern over all or part of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet. When the Modi government unveiled a new parliament building in May, it even featured a mural of the entity. Multiple countries lodged formal complaints in response.

None of those countries, of course, are part of the West, which has nothing to directly fear from India’s regional goals. Indeed, Western governments seem to believe they will gain. The United States and Europe both openly hope that as India grows more powerful, it can serve as a strong check on China. As a result, they have gone out of their way to avoid criticizing New Delhi, irrespective of its bad behavior.

But the violence in Manipur clearly shows the limits of the India’s potential under Modi. The country will not be able to effectively defend its borders if it has to divert military force to suppress internal unrest. It cannot serve as a counterweight to China if it is burdening other parts of Asia with domestic conflicts. In fact, India will struggle to be effective anywhere in the world if its government remains largely preoccupied with domestic strife.

For New Delhi’s Western partners, an India that cannot look outward will certainly prove disappointing. But it will be more disappointing for Indians themselves. Theirs is the largest country in the world; it should, by rights, be a global leader. Yet to be stable enough to project substantial authority, India needs to keep peace and harmony among its diverse population—something it can accomplish only by becoming an inclusive, plural, secular, and liberal democracy. Otherwise, it risks turning into a Hindu version of South Asia’s other countries, such as Myanmar and Pakistan, where ethnic dominance has resulted in tumult, violence, and deprivation. Everyone who wants India to succeed should therefore hope that New Delhi can see the problem with its vision—and change course before it is too late.

SUSHANT SINGH is a lecturer at Yale University and a Senior Fellow at Centre for Policy Research in India.

Foreign Affairs · by Sushant Singh · September 4, 2023

15. Assessing the Development of Taiwanese Identity

For those really trying to understand Taiwan (and to assess their will to fight) this 64 page report may be useful. It can be accessed here: https://isdp.eu/content/uploads/2023/08/ISDP-Special-Paper-Taiwan-Identity-3.pdf

Assessing the Development of Taiwanese Identity

Bo-jiun Jing and Torbjörn Lodén

SPECIAL PAPER August, 2023

READ FULL TEXT

The subject of contemporary Taiwan inevitably evokes controversy concerning its political, national, and cultural identity, especially the fervent dispute regarding its sovereignty and global recognition. Should Taiwan be recognized as a sovereign and independent state under the name of the Republic of China (ROC), or should it be seen as an “inseparable part of one China,” as claimed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC)? Should the people in Taiwan be considered culturally Chinese, or should they be seen as a separate cultural entity?

A compelling underpinning of Taiwan’s assertion of separate nationhood and statehood derives from its emphasis on a distinct historical narrative that diverges from that of the PRC. Furthermore, its political democratization has undeniably contributed to the rise of Taiwanese identity. At the same time, it is hard to deny that Taiwan shares much of the Chinese cultural legacy with mainland China and other parts of the Chinese-speaking world. Therefore, it appears that the discussion of these issues would benefit from consistently differentiating between the notions of statehood and cultural identity.

Within the pages of this meticulously curated volume, this ISDP Special Paper edited by Bo-jiun Jing & Torbjörn Lodén surpasses mere comprehension of the context surrounding the contested statehood of the ROC or Taiwan. The quartet of articles in this Special Paper delves deeply into the unique facets of Taiwan’s identity politics, adopting historical, indigenous, and international relations perspectives. Contributions by well-known experts on the subject offer invaluable insights into the essence of Taiwanese identity, its evolutionary trajectory, and potential directions for the future.

16. War, peace and Taiwan’s presidential election

Excerpts:

The upcoming election is not only an important opportunity for the Taiwanese people to determine their destiny, but its outcomes will also shape the global situation for the next four to eight years.

Geopolitical competition has intensified, along with concern over how tensions in the Taiwan Strait might affect peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. With the world’s largest chip supplier located in Taiwan, a potential war would disrupt the chip supply and affect the global economy.

So far, neither Ko, Lai or Hou have explained how they might mitigate potential conflict with China. But all three candidates assert their ability to maintain peace – what they perceive as a primary concern among Taiwanese voters.

While the candidates would undoubtedly approach interactions with China differently, all three will work towards the optimal scenario of Taiwan upholding its existing democratic system, while averting conflict.

Achieving this ideal path may necessitate the re-initiation of dialogue with China.

War, peace and Taiwan’s presidential election

DPP’s Lai Ching-te’s pro-independence leanings have China and US on edge while more pragmatic rival candidates lag in the polls

asiatimes.com · by Wen-Chi Yang

The Taiwanese people will soon vote for their president, vice president and legislators in January 2024. Past elections have always been dominated by the two major political camps — the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT).

But recent elections have shown increasing voter dissatisfaction with polarization. In 2014, independent candidate Ko Wen-je became the mayor of Taipei and was re-elected in 2018. In 2019, Ko founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which emphasizes technocracy and transparency.

In the 2020 legislative election, the TPP became Taiwan’s third-largest party. The rise of a new political force has significantly altered Taiwan’s political landscape and has the potential to shape future election outcomes, with Ko having a legitimate shot at the presidency.

The TPP can be seen as a “third way” in Taiwan, a political philosophy emerging in the late 1990s and described by British sociologist Anthony Giddens as “the renewal of social democracy in a world where the views of the old left have become obsolete, while those of the new right are inadequate and contradictory.”

In Taiwan and elsewhere, the third way calls for a new approach to politics that transcends traditional left–right distinctions and seeks to find a middle ground while emphasizing pragmatic governance and welfare reform.

But Ko and the TPP face formidable challengers at the ballot box from the ruling DPP’s Lai Ching-te and the KMT’s Hou Yu-ih. Each candidate promises a different approach to cross-strait relations.

Hou Yu-ih promises a different position on cross-strait relations. Image: Twitter

The DPP’s Lai has described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence” and his party has a long history of advocating for Taiwanese nationhood.

Although he recently tried to clarify that there is no need to formally declare independence, his public statements and activities on the matter have not alleviated concerns from the United States and China.

The KMT’s presidential candidate is vague on the China question. The KMT engages Beijing through the so-called 1992 Consensus, which is understood as “one China with respective interpretations” by both China and Taiwan.

The last KMT president Ma Ying-jeou held a historic meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping under this framework in 2015. But Hou has consistently avoided taking a definitive stance on cross-Strait relations, with his ambiguity generating fissures within the KMT.

The TPP’s cross-strait policy takes a “middle path,” upholding a pragmatic attitude of “promoting exchanges and increasing goodwill” to advance cross-strait interactions.

Ko Wen-je has used the phrase “one family across the Strait” on several occasions, including at the Taipei–Shanghai twin city forum held during his tenure as Taipei mayor. Ko has also endorsed four reciprocal actions to undergird the relationship — to know, understand, respect and work with each other.

All three candidates have adopted ambiguous positions on China policy, preferring to observe public sentiment before formulating their views to secure the most votes. But history suggests that either a DPP or KMT victory would likely see a continuation of each party’s existing policies.

Neither outcome is without risk.

The DPP’s approach of strengthening Taiwan’s democracy, ties with the United States and self-defense capabilities may increase the likelihood of conflict, while the KMT’s pro-China stance does little to protect Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Although most polls show Lai ahead, followed by Ko and Hou, Lai’s assertive pro-independence stance risks a backlash from Beijing as well.

Based on three important indicators — the probability of war, economic outlooks and the possibility of improving cross-Strait relations, Ko appears to be the most pragmatic choice for Taiwan’s next president. He may also be the easiest for China to swallow. The major question now is whether the non-progressive camp can consolidate.

Tech billionaire Terry Gou announced his intention to run as an independent candidate on August 28, though Gou still needs to gather about 300,000 voter signatures by November 2 to ensure his candidacy.

Despite Gou’s claim that he intends to facilitate party alternation, both domestic and international media analyses unanimously suggest that Gou’s candidacy will ensure Lai’s victory in the election.

Foxconn founder Terry Guo is given a small chance of winning next year’s presidential election. Photo: Twitter Screengrab

The upcoming election is not only an important opportunity for the Taiwanese people to determine their destiny, but its outcomes will also shape the global situation for the next four to eight years.

Geopolitical competition has intensified, along with concern over how tensions in the Taiwan Strait might affect peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. With the world’s largest chip supplier located in Taiwan, a potential war would disrupt the chip supply and affect the global economy.

So far, neither Ko, Lai or Hou have explained how they might mitigate potential conflict with China. But all three candidates assert their ability to maintain peace – what they perceive as a primary concern among Taiwanese voters.

While the candidates would undoubtedly approach interactions with China differently, all three will work towards the optimal scenario of Taiwan upholding its existing democratic system, while averting conflict.

Achieving this ideal path may necessitate the re-initiation of dialogue with China.

Wen-Chi Yang is Director of the Center for Australian Studies, College of International Affairs at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan. She is currently Visiting Fellow at the Australian Studies Institute, the Australian National University.

This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

asiatimes.com · by Wen-Chi Yang

17. Forget deglobalization: AI will make industry more global

Forget deglobalization: AI will make industry more global

Next technological breakthroughs preclude ‘decoupling’ as industry leaders lean on data to transform business

asiatimes.com · by Chris Scott

BALTIMORE – While economic pundits and policymakers opine on the decoupling of the US and Chinese economies, a revolution that will bring the opposite is already underway.

It’s increasingly clear that industrial applications of artificial intelligence will make economies more global, despite geopolitical tensions that grab much of the world’s attention.

In fact, as an Asia Times webinar audience discovered Tuesday, the dynamics driving industrial innovation make closer integration more critical than ever before.

The webinar brought together panelists intimately familiar with the factory floors and corporate offices that are the driver’s seat of a 4th Industrial Revolution transforming business at a dizzying pace.

The linchpin of this transformation is the collection and analysis of large swaths of data to create AI algorithms making industrial processes more efficient.

Maximillian Dommermuth of German engineering giant Bosch Rexroth AG underscored that any players dragging their feet will get left in the dust. Dommermuth, head of training, digital transformation at Bosch, illustrated the dynamic at play:

“Take one machine, and record data for twenty thousand days. You would need a little bit more than fifty years and you get your data set, and then you can produce a nice AI algorithm… Or you can take twenty thousand of the same machines around the world and collect their data. Then you need one day to do the same AI algorithm,” he said.

“Technology implementation,” Dommermuth stressed, “goes far beyond purchasing technology.”

“When you buy a car, you don’t purchase a new factory. Similarly, when you invest in technology,” he explained, “you’re not acquiring an entirely new organization. Instead, it’s like fine-tuning your car, upgrading it with new technology, and finding yourself in a modern cockpit…

“You have dashboards, visualizations, and all the necessary technology for autonomous driving. However, when you try to accelerate, you encounter an unexpected roadblock. The car doesn’t move, and your company remains stagnant. You realize that something crucial is missing — the tires, symbolizing the lack of IT infrastructure required for progress.

“Additionally, you discover another missing element — fuel, representing the absence of necessary data for important tasks. As you inspect further, you find that everything appears to be rusted through, highlighting that you lack the right people and qualifications to kickstart the initiatives.”

Former CTO of China’s Huawei, Paul Scanlan, who is currently an advisor to the telecom giant’s president, was emphatic that to benefit from AI, global collaboration is crucial.

“The only way you’re going to be able to scale any of the solutions that we’re talking about, whether they’re focused on circularity and sustainability or focused purely on efficiency or innovation is to collaborate,” Scanlan said in his webinar remarks.

Technological improvements will eventually be adopted universally, he added, as they tend to be once they’ve been proven successful. “At the end of the day, one of us is going to look at the other and say, ‘that’s pretty brilliant’ despite which country we come from or which company we are working for.”

Dommermuth explained that this plays out across industry sectors and company sizes.

“When it comes to aspects such as infrastructure, strategy, and scaling up processes, there are commonalities. It’s not limited to mass production; the challenges are unique in their own way. Mass production, as exemplified by Taylorism during past industrial revolutions, involved producing the same product repeatedly to boost productivity and efficiency. But today, customers dictate what they want to buy. As a result, manufacturers have to adapt to smaller lot sizes,” which Dommermuth says places a greater reliance on some of these new technologies.

“As you move towards smaller lot sizes, the importance of having a robust data infrastructure becomes even more evident. It enables the automation of various tasks that would otherwise be labor-intensive if done manually.”

Huawei’s much-touted Pangu system has attracted attention for its industry-specific AI models, which Scanlan says have already been deployed across a wide range of industries.

“We have models that do everything from mining and manufacturing to drugs. Just take drugs for instance, we’ve trained this system to decode 100 million naturally occurring compounds. Then it only takes about six weeks to make a match between a disease and drug. And by the way, that’s not really a drug. It’s a naturally occurring compound. So suddenly the cost of the drug is 70% to 80% less.”

“Take freight trains,” Scanlan continued, “we take millions of photographs of the rolling stock, watch the behavior, train the AI and then maintenance costs fall significantly. And that translates directly to a conveyor belt in a manufacturing facility or a mining plant, or a food production plant.”

Ultimately, the panelists agreed, technological innovation will be pushed by industry needs not geopolitical trends.

“If your targets are similar, you should work together because you can learn from each other and you can get the right application and the right way to drive this… if you look at the world, we all want to be efficient, we will all want to be driving our new developments,” Dommermuth said.

“If you don’t start today,” he cautioned, “You cannot accelerate later because you won’t get on the road. It means you have to start now so that you can really get your benefits out of it in the end.”

If you missed it, you can catch the full webinar, 4th Industrial Revolution: De-Risking or Re-Coupling?,on Youtube by clicking here.

asiatimes.com · by Chris Scott

18. Ukraine Has Won the Battle to Penetrate Russia’s First Defensive Belt (What Happens Now?)

Conclusion:

Ukraine has won the battle to penetrate Russia’s first main defensive belt. It is unclear whether they have sufficient capacity to continue pushing through additional belts before being slowed down or stopped by weather. One thing, however, is quite certain: the war is far from over and the cost in men and material to continue fighting will keep piling up.

Ukraine Has Won the Battle to Penetrate Russia’s First Defensive Belt (What Happens Now?)

On Friday, the Ukrainian military revealed that the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) had finally broken through the first line of Russia’s vaunted main line of defense in the Zaporezhia region. Many hope the breakthrough will facilitate a more rapid breach deeper into Russia’s defense. A careful analysis of the tactical situation, however, reveals the situation for the UAF remains tenuous.

19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Davis · September 3, 2023

A careful analysis of the tactical situation, however, reveals the situation for the UAF remains tenuous.

Ukraine Scores a Win

The specific area of the penetration of the first belt of Russia’s main defensive system is just east of the village of Robotyne, which Ukraine recently captured, and about three kilometers west of the village of Verbova. The first problem for Ukraine is the amount of time it has taken to arrive at the first line and the resources it took to achieve it.

The UAF launched their offensive on June 5, and it took nearly three months to arrive at the first major line of defense. Ukraine suffered significant casualties in personnel and equipment over the first three months of this operation, especially in Western-provided armor. The last time the West promised large numbers of tanks and armored personnel carriers was late last year. It is unclear how Ukraine can replace these current losses and still maintain the momentum to keep pressure on Russian lines.

Second, the path Ukraine has clawed out to reach the breach near Verbova makes the UAF vulnerable to flank attacks, as Russian forces still control a long ridgeline of elevated terrain overlooking the western heights above Robotyne, as well as a line to the east of Ukraine’s current direction of attack.

At present, Russia is able to keep persistent artillery and drone strikes focused on the main road from the Ukrainian rear that is necessary to move new troops and supplies into the breach, and wounded soldiers out.

If the UAF attempts to continue penetrating beyond this breach in Russia’s line, it will risk creating the conditions for a cauldron in which they could become vulnerable to Russian attack on three sides – or in a worst case scenario – have mobile Russian reserves cut the neck of the cauldron and trap the entire Ukrainian battle group, cut off from all support. To prevent that outcome, the UAF will have to expand the flanks of their penetration and wrest control of the high ground from Russia to the West.

At the moment, Russia is preventing Ukraine from consolidating its control over Robotyne owing to that high ground to the west, but also because of a series of trenchlines and defensive strong points to the south of the village. The Russians also hold the village of Novoprokorivka, about 1,500 meters to the south. Ukraine must capture Novoprokorivka to enable it to continue exploitation of the breach in the main line of defense.

If Ukraine is able to secure its flanks and neutralize its current vulnearability, the next target beyond the breach would be the village of Verbova. It is about six kilometers from Robotyne, and Ukraine has thus far cut that distance in half. Ukraine has indeed reached the first line, but thus far only a few infantry squads have infiltrated past the line. To open the gates for substantive Ukraine forces, they will have to fully penetrate and then expand the hole in the line.

Ukraine will have to move armored forces past the line of dragon’s teeth, then traversing the approximate 1,000m to the first large line of a tank ditch, and then defeat the forward strongpoints of Russia’s defense of Verbova. The gap between the dragon’s teeth and the tank ditch are littered with hundreds of meters of anti-tank and anti-personnel minefields.

The Russians are aware of what Ukraine will try to do, and are using artillery and anti-tank missile crews to fire on the UAF formations, complicating any attempt to clear the minefields. Before Ukraine can make a concerted push to take Verbova, they must eliminate Russian positions on both flanks while simultaneously clearing the three levels of obstacles (dragon’s teeth, tank ditch, and minefield).

Ukraine had a similar problem getting to and then through Robotyne, so they have the capacity and knowledge of how to navigate these difficulties. The unknown issue, however, is knowing how many resources they lost while chewing through the first 10km of Russia’s defense. That attack began on June 5, and took the better part of three months and untold number of armored vehicles and likely thousands of killed and wounded infantrymen to buy those gains.

But What About the Weather in Ukraine?

A recent Ukrainian video shows what appears to be a full battalion of fresh German armor is ready to engage the Russians, indicating the UAF still has the ability to throw a major punch. Whether that will be enough to take Verbova or not remains to be seen, or whether they can take the next 10km in anything less than three months is unknown. To succeed in that task will require not merely more tanks and troops, but also the cooperation of the weather – which may be a bigger roadblock than the Russians.

The rainy season begins in this part of Ukraine as soon as the latter half of September. But October and November are likely to be very damp and muddy. Most of the fields through which Ukrainian armor must pass to push through the Russian defenses require them to traverse large expanses of open fields. Those fields, however, will become mud bogs in weeks. If armored vehicles get stuck in the mud, they will not be able to maintain the momentum necessary to bring mass to a given part of the line at a time of Ukraine’s choosing, and will be easy targets for Russian artillery and FPV drones.

In all probability, Ukraine will spend the last weeks before the onset of the rainy season to solidify its gains, expand its control over the western heights of Robotyne, and if possible, complete the capture of Verbova. That will be a tall order, but one that is possible. By any measure, breaching Russia’s first main line of defense has been a hard-fought and meaningful accomplishment for the UAF.

There remains, however, still about 25km of additional belts of Russian defenses and strong points to even reach Tokmak, and another 75 road kilometers to reach the strategic objective of Melitipol. Once the Ukrainian offensive reaches culmination, likely within weeks, Russia will begin the process of expanding and improving the remainder of the defensive lines south of Verbova, making it even harder to penetrate once Ukraine has built up new offensive capacity, possibly as late as Spring 2024.

Ukraine has won the battle to penetrate Russia’s first main defensive belt. It is unclear whether they have sufficient capacity to continue pushing through additional belts before being slowed down or stopped by weather. One thing, however, is quite certain: the war is far from over and the cost in men and material to continue fighting will keep piling up.

Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” Follow him @DanielLDavis.

From the Vault

The Navy Sent 4 Battleships To Attack North Korea

‘Sir, We Hit a Russian Submarine’: A U.S. Navy Sub Collided with a Nuclear Attack Sub

Did A Russian-Made Missile ‘Strike’ an F-35 Fighter?

19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Davis · September 3, 2023

19. Robin Sage, Fort Liberty combat test for Special Forces, starts later this month in 26 NC counties

Just a reminder. We should be grateful to NC and the citizens of these 26 counties for supporting US Special Forces.

Robin Sage, Fort Liberty combat test for Special Forces, starts later this month in 26 NC counties

cbs17.com · by Rodney Overton · September 2, 2023

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WNCN) — For the first time since Fort Bragg was changed to Fort Liberty, U.S. Army Special Forces will be conducting a combat training exam across 26 North Carolina counties — including Wake County — and three counties in South Carolina.

“Robin Sage,” which will run from Sept. 15 to 28, is the culmination exercise and has been the litmus test for soldiers striving to earn the Green Beret for more than 40 years.

Raleigh officials apologize after Army training was ‘more disruptive’ than anticipated

Special Forces candidates assigned to the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School patrol are tested in the final phase of field training called “Robin Sage” in central North Carolina.

This year, Fort Liberty officials said the exercise includes Carter County in Tennessee, which is on the North Carolina border near Boone and Blowing Rock.

The exercise drew criticism in 2019 when helicopters and simulated weapons fire lit up an office building along Capital Boulevard in Raleigh.

The more than 6,700 Army Green Berets are highly trained commandos who usually work in 12-person teams that are often used for specialized combat and counterterrorism operations and to train other nations’ forces in battle skills.

Soldiers in a past Robin Sage field exam. DVIDS photo

During the Robin Sage training, students will be fighting in a fictional nation called “Pineland” which in the past has been an “environment of political instability characterized by armed conflict, forcing soldiers to analyze and solve problems.”

For a realistic experience, the role-playing “unconventional warfare exercise” involves more than the Special Forces candidates. Military service members will act as “guerrilla freedom fighters,” Special Forces officials have said in the past.

Civilian volunteers usually also take part.

Fort Liberty military members will act as realistic forces opposing the students and as guerrilla freedom fighters, also known as Pineland’s resistance movement.

The training mission exercises could include “controlled assaults” and “engagements” while soldiers train, eat, and sleep in the area.

Some Raleigh residents feel owed apology after ‘disruptive’ Army training exercise

The U.S. Army wants to alert residents to the exercise, as they may see flares or hear blank gunfire during the training. The Army typically works in coordination with local public safety officials and “controls are in place to ensure there is no risk to persons or property.”

In March 2019, the Robin Sage exercise descended on the Capital Plaza Hotel in Raleigh and was “considerably louder and more disruptive than the city anticipated,” Ralegh officials said afterward. Wake County is again in the list of counties this year, but it’s not known if any action will take place in urban areas.

If area residents do have concerns, they are asked to contact local law enforcement, who are in touch with military officials.

Special Forces candidates assigned to the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School take part in the final phase of field training known as Robin Sage in central North Carolina, September 28, 2021. (U.S. Army photo by K. Kassens)

The North Carolina counties in this year’s Robin Sage are: Avery, Alamance, Anson, Bladen, Brunswick, Cabarrus, Chatham, Columbus, Cumberland, Davidson, Duplin, Guilford, Harnett, Hoke, Lee, Montgomery, Moore, Randolph, Richmond, Robeson, Rowan, Sampson, Scotland, Stanly, Union, and Wake

The Special Forces exam will also take place in the South Carolina counties of Chesterfield, Dillon and Marlboro.

Following the completion of the two-week Robin Sage exercise, soldiers will graduate from the Special Forces Qualification Course training. From there, they move on to their first assignments in the Army Special Forces.

Robin Sage has been conducted since 1974.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

cbs17.com · by Rodney Overton · September 2, 2023

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."

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RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

Ukraine President Zelenskyy says defense minister Oleksii Reznikov will be replaced this week

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Chinese Gate-Crashers at U.S. Bases Spark Espionage Concerns

Washington has tracked about 100 incidents involving Chinese nationals trying to access American military and other installations

Ukraine’s Zelensky Appoints Crimean Tatar Executive as New Defense Minister

Rustem Umerov to take over as Zelensky removes former defense minister Reznikov amid graft controversies

Faced With Evolving Threats, U.S. Navy Struggles to Change

A Mississippi Empire

Experiment in the Persian Gulf

Low Crawling toward Obscurity

Empowered: A Renewed Infantry

Understanding Military Journals and Authors

Patterns in Military Professional Publication

Survey of Army Authors

Conclusion

Notes

Reimagining America’s Professional All-Volunteer Army

Phase I. End of the Vietnam War to the Conclusion of the First Gulf War: Converging Conditions

Phase II. The End of the Cold War to the Conclusion of America’s Post-9/11 Wars: Changing Contextual Conditions

Phase III. A Complex and Unstable Multipolar, Great Power Strategic Environment: Does America’s Total Army Still Fit?

Notes

Perseverance and Adaptation: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive at Three Months - War on the Rocks

Civil-Military Translation: Encoding, Signaling, and Survival - Modern War Institute

‘Where Is the Money?’ Military Graft Becomes a Headache for Ukraine

Analysis: Part of China's economic miracle was a mirage. Reality check is next

CRISIS VS STAGNATION

REFORMS, THIS TIME?

A DIFFERENT BATTLE

PROGRAM IN JEOPARDY

‘COST OF FAILURE IS REAL’

The US and Chinese air forces are rethinking whether it's possible to control the air

Why Modi Can’t Make India a Great Power

Government-Backed Intolerance Is Tearing the Country Apart

By Sushant Singh

SONS OF THE SOIL

WEAK LINKS

KING OF THE ASHES

Assessing the Development of Taiwanese Identity

Bo-jiun Jing and Torbjörn Lodén

War, peace and Taiwan’s presidential election

Forget deglobalization: AI will make industry more global​

Ukraine Has Won the Battle to Penetrate Russia’s First Defensive Belt (What Happens Now?)

Ukraine Scores a Win

But What About the Weather in Ukraine?

Robin Sage, Fort Liberty combat test for Special Forces, starts later this month in 26 NC counties

Forget deglobalization: AI will make industry more global