Quotes of the Day:

 "Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation being the only thing essential." 

- Thomas Jefferson

"The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule." 

- Albert Einstein

 "I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." 

- Elie Wiesel

1. How North Korea Taught Iran to Entrap and Threaten Israel

2. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 7 (Putin's War)

3. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (07.09.22) CDS comments on key events

4. On Resistance: A Primer for Further Research

5. Ukraine leader says his forces recapture towns and villages in big eastern push

6. Millions in China's Chengdu thrown into extended COVID lockdown

7. China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Bind: No Easy Way Out Despite the Cost

8. The real meaning of a striking new letter from former military officials

9. How Beijing Benefits From a New Iran Deal

10. Opinion | Waging Psychological War Against Russia

11. FDD | Israel Thwarts Terror Plots in West Bank, Yet Threats Continue

12. U.N. nuclear watchdog has "serious concern" about North Korea

13. Russia’s Ukraine Setbacks (OpEd)

14. US condemns ‘unprecedented’ Iranian cyberattack against Albania

15. Ukraine launches second counteroffensive in northeast

16. The U.S. Army Has a Fentanyl Problem (Thanks to Mexico and China)

17. ‘These Kids Are Dying’ — Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg

18. Russia claims a 'hybrid war' has been declared against Moscow by 'malicious' adversaries

19. Not So Fast: Insights from a 1944 War Plan Help Explain Why Invading Taiwan Is a Costly Gamble

20. Escaping the Cave: An Analysis of Russian and American Strategic Cultures Influence on War, Peace, and the Realm In Between

21. Ukraine Holds the Future

22. $2.8 Billion in Additional U.S. Military Assistance for Ukraine and Its Neighbors

23. A new Alex Jones trial is expected to probe the finances of his misinformation empire

24. What have the AUKUS partners spent the last year doing?

25. Will Xi Jinping Continue to Rule China?

1. How North Korea Taught Iran to Entrap and Threaten Israel

FDD | How North Korea Taught Iran to Entrap and Threaten Israel

While the West appeases Iran, Israel is now battling Tehran's efforts to engulf the Jewish state in a 'ring of fire' – a strategy the theocracy adopted from its longstanding partner-in-intimidation, North Korea

Mark Dubowitz

Chief Executive

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow

fdd.org · by Mark Dubowitz Chief Executive · September 7, 2022

As its technology has advanced, Tehran has armed its proxies on Israel’s borders with precision-guided missiles, saturation-fire rockets, and explosives-laden unmanned aerial vehicles. The ultimate, complementary weapon – the nuclear bomb – will be added to this intimidating arsenal.

This strategy, which gives the theocracy the conventional tools to regularly harass the Jewish state, while giving the theocracy a nuclear tripwire that might well prevent Jerusalem from bringing real pain to Iran, is similar to what the Kim regime has deployed on the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang pioneered this strategy of “integrated deterrence” – conventional military forces, special operations, and weapons of mass destruction – to provide freedom of maneuver for political warfare and diplomatic blackmail.

It wouldn’t at all be surprising given the intimate contact between these two states – North Korean missile experts have aided Tehran in developing longer-range missiles; the former Iranian president and clerical major domo Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani gleefully recounted in his diaries how “special” shipments from North Korea evaded the U.S. Navy – included “lessons-learned” guidance for use against Israel.

Israeli officials have used the term “ring of fire” to describe the weaponry wielded by Iranian-backed forces: missiles in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, lethal unmanned aerial vehicles in Yemen, and rockets in Gaza. This recalls the “sea of fire” that Pyongyang threatened to engulf South Korea with during a flare-up of tensions in 2011.

As was the case with North Korea’s massed artillery that could reach Seoul, the enemy’s conventional weaponry could deter Washington or Jerusalem from taking military action to halt an obvious, decades-old nuclear advance.

The Kim regime’s nuclear weapons project as well as its development of delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, proceeded largely unfettered. Iran certainly wants the same freedom of action; it could bankroll its own version with an estimated $1 trillion dollar in sanctions relief that would come with a new nuclear deal with the Biden administration.

Recall that North Korea exploited the 1997 Sunshine Policy, which transferred billions of dollars from Seoul to Pyongyang, saved North Korea from famine, and financed the regime’s nuclear program. The Kim regime’s first atomic test occurred in 2006; five more followed through 2017; a seventh test is expected by the end of this year.

Jerusalem is now waging an asymmetric shadow war with Iran to prevent something similar from happening. The Israelis call it the “war between wars.”

They are destroying Iranian-linked military facilities and weapons transfers to third-party countries with the goal of preventing Tehran from turning Tel Aviv into a Seoul on the Med. Jerusalem previously stopped two nuclear programs with military strikes, in Iraq in 1981 and in Syria in 2007, the second of which North Korea assisted in constructing. It’s not at all unlikely that Iran had a hand in assisting the development of Syria’s nuclear facility.

As with the South Korean capital, Tel Aviv is home to a critical mass of the country’s population, commerce, and technology and military infrastructure. It has key government installations and, on its outskirts, Israel’s only fully functioning international airport. Strikes by precision-guided missiles or UAVs, accompanied by the random chaos of rocket salvoes, could kill thousands of Israelis while paralyzing the city – and Israel as a whole. It could diminish, even end, crucial foreign investment.

The regime in Iran is wielding the threat of this scenario to safeguard its final dash toward nuclear weaponry. Like North Korea, the rulers in Tehran know that world powers are especially likely to capitulate; the mullahs believe that America is not prepared to take military action to stop Iran’s nuclear march given that it could embroil Washington in another Middle Eastern war. They also calculate that, without U.S. support, Israel could only do limited damage to their nuclear program and would not risk a simultaneous conflict on every border with Iranian proxies.

The Israelis recognize Iran’s strategy. They well understand the historic fecklessness of the international community’s approach to threats from rogue regimes. Disrupting Iran’s “ring of fire” is a top priority for Jerusalem. It is extraordinarily difficult, however, for Israel to try to do what his necessary when the Americans and the Europeans – the Jewish state’s most important allies – are augmenting the treasury and abetting the nuclear quest of an enemy that has built its foreign policy and defining rhetoric on antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

One would think after the North Korean experiment, after the frightfulness of the twentieth century, Westerners would have more foresight and backbone.

Mark Dubowitz is the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Twitter: @mdubowitz. David Maxwell, a retired U.S. special forces colonel who served in Korea, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Twitter: @DavidMaxwell161. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

fdd.org · by Mark Dubowitz Chief Executive · September 7, 2022

2. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 7 (Putin's War)

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-7

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 7

Sep 7, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, George Barros, Layne Philipson, and Mason Clark

September 7, 9:30 pm ET

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

Ukrainian forces in southeastern Kharkiv Oblast are likely exploiting Russian force reallocation to the Southern Axis to conduct an opportunistic yet highly effective counteroffensive northwest of Izyum. Ukrainian forces likely used tactical surprise to advance at least 20km into Russian-held territory in eastern Kharkiv Oblast on September 7, recapturing approximately 400 square kilometers of ground. Russian sources claimed that Russian troops began deploying reinforcements to the area to defend against Ukrainian advances, and the Russian grouping in this area was likely understrength due to previous Russian deployments to support ongoing efforts to capture the remainder of Donetsk Oblast and support the southern axis.[1] Ukraine’s ongoing operations in Kherson Oblast have forced Russian forces to shift their focus to the south, enabling Ukrainian forces to launch localized but highly effective counterattacks in the Izyum area.[2] Russian milbloggers voiced concern that this Ukrainian counterattack seeks to cut ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Russian rear areas in Kupyansk and Izyum, which would allow Ukrainian troops to isolate the Russian groupings in these areas and retake large swaths of territory.[3] These milbloggers used largely panicked and despondent tones, acknowledged significant Ukrainian gains, and claimed that the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south may be a distraction from the ongoing actions in Kharkiv Oblast, which they name as the main Ukrainian effort.[4] The level of shock and frank discussion of Ukrainian successes by Russian milbloggers speaks to the scale of surprise achieved by Ukrainian forces, which is likely successfully demoralizing Russian forces. While it is unlikely that the southern counteroffensive and effort to attrit Russian forces in southern Ukraine is a feint for renewed operations in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukrainian forces likely took prudent advantage of a reallocation of Russian troops, equipment, and overall operational focus to launch localized counteroffensives toward critical points in Kharkiv Oblast.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to deny the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) September 6 report on the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). Putin claimed that there is no Russian military equipment on the grounds of the ZNPP other than Rosgvardia elements.[5] Rosgvardia elements have carried out both occupation functions and frontline combat operations during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s admission that there are Rosgvardia elements on the plant’s grounds further confirms that Russian forces have militarized their presence at the ZNPP despite constant Russian denials. Putin also accused the IAEA of acting under Western pressure to not directly blame Ukraine of shelling the plant. As ISW previously assessed, the IAEA report was a coded yet damning condemnation of Russian activities at the ZNPP.[6]

Key Takeaways

• Ukrainian forces are skillfully exploiting Russia’s deployment of forces away from the Izyum-Kharkiv area to retake territory and threaten Russian GLOCs in the area, prompting demoralized responses from Russian milbloggers.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to deny the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) September 6 report on the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
• Ukrainian forces continued strikes on Russian logistics nodes, manpower and equipment concentrations, transportation networks, and command and control points in Kherson Oblast.
• Russian and Ukrainian sources reported kinetic activity in northern Kherson Oblast and in western Kherson Oblast along the Kherson-Mykolaiv border.
• Russian forces conducted ground attacks north of Kharkiv City, northwest of Slovyansk, northeast of Siversk, south and northeast of Bakhmut, and northwest of Donetsk City.
• Ukrainian forces gained 400 square kilometers of territory northwest of Izyum on September 6-7 as part of an opportunistic and highly effective counteroffensive in southeastern Kharkiv Oblast.
• Russian occupation authorities announced November 4 as the potential date for annexation referenda in occupied areas of Ukraine.

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

Ukrainian officials reiterated on September 7 that Ukrainian forces are targeting Russian logistics nodes, manpower and equipment concentrations, transportation networks, and command and control points in Kherson Oblast.[7] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command noted that Ukrainian troops carried out over 250 fire missions between September 6 and 7.[8] The Ukrainian General Staff noted that Ukrainian strikes have significantly damaged Russian fuel and ammunition stores, impacting Russian logistical capacity and undermining combat capabilities along the Southern Axis.[9]

Social media footage taken by residents of Kherson Oblast on September 7 provides visual evidence of the continuing Ukrainian operational-level interdiction campaign. Ukrainian forces likely targeted Russian military assets and logistics nodes in two main areas—around Kherson City and around Nova Kakhovka (55km east of Kherson City). Residents reported an explosion and posted pictures of smoke in Oleshky, about 7km southeast of Kherson City.[10] Ukrainian sources also reported strikes in the Chornobaivka area (on the northern outskirts of Kherson City) on the night of September 6 to 7.[11] Geolocated images posted on September 6 confirm that Ukrainian forces struck Russian positions in Hola Prystan, 10km southwest of Kherson City.[12] Ukrainian military officials confirmed that Ukrainian troops struck a Russian bridge crossing in the Hola Prystan area and that an unspecified Russian unit lost 70 soldiers in that strike.[13] Local reports additionally provide visual evidence of Ukrainian strikes in the Nova Kakhova area near Vesele and Kozatske, both about 3km north of Nova Kakhovka across the Dnipro River.[14] Satellite imagery shows damage to the Nova Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and the nearby road bridge, which appears to have fallen away almost completely.[15] Ukrainian sources claimed that Ukrainian strikes hit a Russian equipment concentration in the Nova Kakhovka area.[16]

Ukrainian and Russian sources reported kinetic activity along two main lines of effort in Kherson Oblast on September 7: in northern Kherson Oblast south of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border and in western Kherson Oblast along the Mykolaiv Oblast border. Geolocated combat footage and imagery further confirm that Ukrainian troops advanced into Vysokopillya and Novovoznesenske, both within 5km of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border.[17] Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), inadvertently confirmed that Ukrainian forces are making gains in western Kherson Oblast in the Sukhyi Stavok pocket (about 65km northeast of Kherson City and along the Inhulets River). The Russian MoD claimed that Russian strikes targeted Ukrainian force concentrations in Bilohirka, Sukhyi Stavok, and Andriivka, which indicates that Ukrainian troops are holding positions south of the Inhulets River.[18] Russian sources continued to discuss Ukrainian offensive operations around Sukhyi Stavok and the surrounding settlements of Bezimmene, Kostromka, Velyke Artakov, and Shchastlyve.[19]

The Russian MoD and other Russian sources continued to downplay Ukrainian counteroffensive operations and emphasize claimed Ukrainian manpower and equipment losses along the Kherson Oblast frontline.[20] The Russian MoD stated that Ukrainian forces did not conduct any offensive operations in the Mykolaiv-Kryvyi Rih direction on September 7.[21] Several Russian milbloggers similarly shifted their focus to ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive actions in Kharkiv Oblast and did not report on operations in the south in their usual granular detail. Both the Russian MoD and the Russian milblogger information space will likely reorient focus in the coming days to developments in Kharkiv Oblast, especially as many milbloggers are adopting the position that the Kherson Oblast counteroffensive is a deliberate Ukrainian distraction from operations in Kharkiv Oblast.[22]

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

• Ukrainian Counteroffensives
• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort- Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort 1- Kharkiv City
• Russian Supporting Effort 2- Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Russian Main Effort- Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack northwest of Slovyansk on September 7. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops repelled a Russian attack in the area of Dolyna, about 18km northwest of Slovyansk along the E40 Izyum-Slovyansk highway.[23] Russian forces also conducted routine artillery strikes along the Izyum-Slovyansk line and on areas north and northeast of Slovyansk.[24]

Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack northeast of Siversk on September 7. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian troops attacked near Hryhorivka, about 10km northeast of Siversk.[25] Russian forces continued routine artillery strikes on settlements around Siversk.[26]

Russian forces continued ground attacks northeast and south of Bakhmut on September 7. The Ukrainian General Staff indicated that Russian troops attempted to advance north toward Bakhmut from the outskirts of Horlivka around Zaitseve, Mayorsk, and Mykolaivka Druha—all within 20km south of Bakhmut.[27] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported Russian attacks near Vesela Dolyna (5km southeast of Bakhmut) and the Soledar-Bakhmutske area (10km northeast of Bakhmut).[28] The Russian MoD confirmed reports from September 6 that Russian troops took full control of Kodema, 13km southeast of Bakhmut, and are continuing to push northwards toward Zaitseve and the southern outskirts of Bakhmut itself.[29] Russian forces continued routine artillery attacks on Bakhmut and surrounding settlements.[30]

Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack along the northwestern outskirts of Donetsk City on September 7. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops attacked around Opytne, about 5km northwest of Donetsk City.[31] Russian sources continued to discuss claimed Russian advances from Pisky towards Pervomaiske, about 10km northwest of Donetsk City.[32] Geolocated combat footage indicates that Russian forces are continuing marginal, block-by-block advances within Marinka, on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City.[33] Russian troops continued routine artillery strikes along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline.[34]

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks southwest of Donetsk City or in eastern Zaporizhia Oblast on September 7 and continued routine artillery strikes in these areas.[35]

Supporting Effort #1- Kharkiv City and Eastern Kharkiv Oblast (Russian objective: Defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum and prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border)

Ukrainian forces advanced at least 20km deep into Russian-controlled territory north of Izyum toward Kupyansk and recaptured about 400 square kilometers on September 6-7. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced southeast along the E40 and N26 highways towards Izyum and Kupyansk, respectively.[36] Geolocated footage shows that Ukrainian forces also advanced northeast along the T2110 highway from Balakliya, Verbivka, Yakovenkove, Volokhiv Yar (at the intersection of the T2210 and E40), and towards Shevchenkove (at the intersection of the T2210 and N26).[37] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces are attempting to advance on Savintsi (just north of Zalyman on the R78), which would cut Balakliya from rear GLOCs.[38] Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces likely aimed to take control of the network of GLOCs—including the T2210, E40, and N26 highways—to set conditions for further advances south on Izyum and east on Kupyansk.[39] Local sources reported that Ukrainian forces struck Izyum and Kupyansk (Russian sources claimed using HIMARS), likely to prevent Russian forces from supplying and reinforcing the front lines from these cities.[40] Russian forces targeted Ukrainian rear areas in Yavirske, Pryshyb, Andriivka, Lyman, and Zmiiv, all northwest of Balakliya on the R78.[41]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks north of Kharkiv City on September 7. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground assaults near Pytomnyk and Ruski Tyshky, both within 15km of Kharkiv City.[42] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces made significant unspecified advances towards Bayrak, Peremoha, and Shestakove—all on the road connecting Rubizhne to the T2104 ground line of communication (GLOC) west of the Siverskyi Donets River - but provided no evidence to support these claims.[43] Russian forces continued routine artillery and rocket strikes on Kharkiv City and the surrounding settlements.[44] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups conducted unspecified operations in Bilyi Kolodyaz, Vovchansk, and Hnylytsya, all deep in the Russian rear east of the Siverskyi Donets River.[45]

Supporting Effort #2- Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks in western Zaporizhia Oblast on September 7 and continued routine air and artillery strikes along the line of contact in Zaporizhia Oblast.[46] Russian and Ukrainian sources continued to claim that the other side shelled Enerhodar and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) throughout the day on September 7.[47] Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov reported that Russian shelling damaged the “Luch” substation, causing power outages throughout the city.[48] Russian forces continued routine missile and artillery attacks along the frontlines in Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts on September 7.[49]

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

Russian and occupation authorities announced November 4 as an ideal date for scheduling annexation referenda in occupied territories and continued setting conditions for the referenda. Russian Federation Council First Deputy Chairman Andrey Turchak announced that occupation authorities in Ukraine should “properly and symbolically” hold the annexation referenda on Russian National Unity Day on November 4.[50] The Kherson Oblast occupation administration announced that the Kherson annexation referendum will occur on November 4, confirming ISW’s prior assessment that occupation authorities will likely delay annexation referenda from their previously stated deadlines of mid-September.[51] Other occupation administrations will likely also push back their referenda to coerce increased civilian cooperation with the occupation governments. Zaporizhia Occupation Administration Council Member Vladimir Rogov announced that the Zaporizhia Oblast occupation administration will pay social benefits to Ukrainians who reside in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast even if their primary residence is in another occupied territory or in unoccupied Ukraine, indicating that the occupation administration aims to convince or coerce more civilian support for annexation referenda.[52] The Kharkiv Oblast occupation administration distributed the first 15 Russian passports to Vovchansk, Kharkiv Oblast, residents on September 7.[53] Russian occupation authorities will likely further delay this deadline due to continued failures to impose their authority and the disruption of ongoing Ukrainian operations.

Russian and occupation authorities continued cracking down on Ukrainian partisan and collaboration activities on September 7. The Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard) press service announced that Rosgvardia forces in occupied Ukraine detained 137 Ukrainians collaborating with Ukrainian forces, SBU, and alleged nationalist organizations within an unspecified timespan.[54] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces detained 40 civilians in Kupyansk, Kharkiv Oblast, in an unspecified timespan, possibly to reduce Ukrainian visibility during ongoing counteroffensive operations in the Kupyansk direction.[55]

Russian occupation authorities are likely preparing to hold more sham trials of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs). The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) General Prosecutor’s Office announced on September 7 that it charged an unspecified number of Ukrainian POWs with unspecified war crimes on September 7 and will hold the trials in Donetsk City and Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast on unspecified dates.[56] The DNR General Prosecutor’s Office noted that DNR courts previously sentenced foreign-fighter POWs to death, indicating that DNR courts will likely sentence these Ukrainian POWs to similar or the same sentences.[57]

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.

[20] https://t.me/mod_russia/19609; https://t.me/vrogov/4728; https://ria dot ru/20220907/ukraina-1815148396.html?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fyandex.ru%2Fnews%2Fsearch%3Ftext%3D; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/40004

[50] https://er dot ru/activity/news/andrej-turchak-pravilno-provesti-referendumy-na-donbasse-i-v-osvobozhdyonnyh-territoriyah-4-noyabrya; https://t.me/kommunist/9098; https://www.interfax-russia dot ru/specoperaciya-na-ukraine/turchak-predlagaet-provesti-golosovanie-v-donbasse-4-noyabrya; https://t.me/stranaua/62443

[54] https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/15686221; https://iz dot ru/1392046/2022-09-07/rosgvardeitcy-zaderzhali-137-posobnikov-ukrainskikh-natcionalistov; https://t.me/NeoficialniyBeZsonoV/17388; https://t.me/swodki/158941

understandingwar.org

3. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (07.09.22) CDS comments on key events

CDS Daily brief (07.09.22) CDS comments on key events

Humanitarian aspect:

As of the morning of September 7, 2022, more than 1125 Ukrainian children are victims of full- scale armed aggression by the Russian Federation, Prosecutor General's Office reports. The official number of children who have died and been wounded in the course of the Russian aggression is 382 and more than 742, respectively. 236 children are considered missing, and 7,343 children have been deported to Russia. 5,437 children have been found. However, the data is not conclusive since data collection continues in the areas of active hostilities, temporarily occupied areas, and liberated territories.

The Prosecutor General's Office launched a pre-trial investigation into the possible torture and murder of a civilian volunteer from Great Britain by servicemen of the Russian armed forces, Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told a press briefing today. Kostin said that the volunteer was illegally captured by the Russian military in April 2022 in the territory of Zaporizhzhya Oblast while helping to evacuate the civilian population. He was taken to the occupied Donetsk Oblast. In July, the occupying authorities reported that he died "as a result of illness and stress". His body was returned to Ukraine after a month and a half of negotiations and had marks of physical injuries that could indicate his brutal treatment, which could have been the real cause of his death. SBU is investigating the case.

The city of Slovyansk, Donetsk Oblast, was shelled on the morning of September 7. A school and a residential building were hit, the head of the town military-civilian administration, Vadym Lyakh, reported. Three bodies – two men and a woman, were recovered from the rubble of the building by the end of the day.

In the morning, the Russian army launched a rocket attack on Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, destroying the psychiatric hospital building, Kramatorsk City Council reported. There were no victims.

On September 7, the Russian forces twice opened mortar fire on the territory of the Esman community, the head of the Sumy Oblast Military Administration, Dmytro Zhivytskyi said. There was a total of 17 hits. No victims or destruction were reported.

On September 7, around 00:30, the Russian forces launched two rocket attacks on the Nemyshlyan district of Kharkiv. Civilian infrastructure was hit. At about the same time, the Russian army launched a missile attack on the city of Zmiiv in the Chuhuiv district of Kharkiv Oblast. The rocket hit the ground near a medical facility, the Chuhuiv district prosecutor's office reported and a heat-producing plant in Zmiiv.

Out of 195 days of the war, Mykolaiv was not shelled 27 days (including today), and four of these days were in the last 10 days, Head of Mykolayiv Oblast military Administration Vitaliy Kim said.

He believes this is because the Ukrainian armed forces destroy ammunition depots containing S- 300 missiles meant for Mykolaiv.

In Mykolaiv Oblast, since the start of the full-scale war, 44 children have suffered injuries from mine explosions of various degrees of severity, two of the children have died in a hospital, the head of the Mykolaiv Oblast Council, Hanna Zamazeyeva, said.

In Zaporizhzhya Oblast, the Russian shelling destroyed 51 buildings on September 6. Evacuation of the civilian population from the temporarily occupied territory continued. 1,477 people were evacuated, including 357 children, Zaporizhya Oblast Military Administration reported.

Occupied territories

According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian MOD, the Russian occupation authorities continue to prepare for the so-called “referenda” in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories and plan to invite “international observers”. Among them is Gunnar Lindemann, an MP from the federal state of Berlin representing the Alternative for Germany party, Ulrich Eme, a representative of the Alternative for Germany and a former Bundestag member; the head of the "representation" of the so-called "DPR" in Turini (Italy) and regional adviser of the "Brothers of Italy" party Maurizio Marrone, the co-founder of the political and strategic analysis center Startpol (France) Xavier Moreau, chairman of the "Serbian League" party Aleksandr Djurdjev, chairman of the "representation" of the so-called "DPR" in Verona (Italy) Palmarino Zoccatelli, the head of the "representative office" of the so-called " DNR " in Belgium, Chris Romano, the director of the "representative office" of the so-called " DNR " in Finland, Johan Beckmann. The date of the “referenda” has been postponed again. However, due to the Ukrainian offensive, the new date suggested by the head of the United Russia party Andrey Turchank is the Day of the Russian Unity – November 4.

According to the mayor of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, the city was again under fire from the Russian forces. The power supply disappeared throughout the town several times during the day.

Abductions are recorded daily in the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson Oblast. In just one day, 4 such cases were recorded, Kherson Oblast Police Directorate reported. Two of them were 37 and 36-year-old males trying to evacuate their families to the territory controlled by Ukraine; a 53-year-old man was abducted from his office.

The head of the Russian proxy quasi-state DPR said that the case of the Ukrainian “Azov” battalion was sent to court. The local proxy authorities blackmail Ukraine and the west by statements that a moratorium on capital punishment cannot be discussed for as long as “war crimes against the republic’s residents” continue, while the Russian Ombudswoman Moskalkova says that she supports such a moratorium, because there are other ways to punish criminals.

Operational situation

It is the 196th day of the strategic air-ground offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces against Ukraine (in the official terminology of the Russian Federation – "operation to protect

Donbas"). The enemy continues to concentrate its efforts on establishing full control over the territory of Donetsk Oblast, maintaining the captured parts of Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, and Mykolaiv Oblasts.

Over the past 24 hours, the Russian military has carried out more than 13 missile and 35 air strikes on military and civilian targets on the territory of Ukraine, flying up to 50 sorties for the purpose. In particular, infrastructure was affected in the areas of Kharkiv, Velyki Prohody, Bilohirka, Kostromka, Sukhyi Stavok, Bezimenne, Bayrak, Asiivka, Pryshyb, Tetyanivka, Vremivka, Novomykhailivka, Velyka Novosilka, Poltavka, Olhivske, Novopil, Velyke Artakove, Bila Krynytsia, Ternivka, Novogrigorivka, Blahodativka. The Russian forces conduct high-intensity aerial reconnaissance with UAVs. Mortar shelling was recorded in the areas around Hai, Hrinivka of Chernihiv Oblast and Volfyne, Zapsillya, Manukhivka, Nova Huta, Sopych, Myropillya and Stukalyvka of Sumy Oblast.

A threat of continuing air and missile strikes throughout the territory of Ukraine persists.

Private military companies operating in the temporarily occupied territories, in particular, in Oleksandrivka, Kharkiv Oblast, suffer significant losses. Some units count more than 40% in seriously wounded and killed. Many bodies have not been identified and are counted as missing.

The enemy continues to improve the logistical support of its troops.

Units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces hold their positions and prevent the Russian forces from advancing deep into the Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian military successfully repelled Russian attacks in the areas of Hryhorivka, Zaitseve, Soledar, Bakhmutske, Bakhmut, Vesela Dolyna, Opytne, Novobakhmutivka, Kodema, Avdiivka, Dolyna, Maryinka, and Lyubomirivka.

During the day, to support the ground groupings, the aviation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces carried out 35 strikes and destroyed ammunition depots, inflicted damage on almost 40 Russian strongholds and places of manpower and equipment concentration, and Russian air defenses in the Donetsk and Pivdenny Bug directions.

In general, air defense units of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed a Su-25 aircraft, a Ka-52 helicopter, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and five Kh-101 cruise missiles in different directions.

Ukrainian missile troops and artillery continue to strike at the Russian manpower and military equipment, conduct counter-battery combat, and disrupt the Russian control system and logistical support. In general, the Ukrainian shelling damaged 7 control points, particularly at the corps level, 13 areas of Russian manpower concentration, nine air defense facilities, and EW equipment. Radar and communication stations, bridges and pontoon crossings, 8 ammunition depots and AVLBs of various levels were affected, significantly reducing Russian combat and logistical capabilities.

Due to significant losses, the number of enemy units withdrawn to restore combat capability has increased. In addition, units of private military campaigns are forced to be replenished with prisoners in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. These individuals are offered amnesty, citizenship of the Russian Federation and remuneration for their participation in the war against Ukraine.

The "Murman" rifle company, presumably newly formed in the Russian Murmansk Oblast and merged into the 200th separate motorized rifle brigade, was transferred to Ukraine on September 6, and the “Komi” motorized rifle company of the Northern Fleet was transferred to Ukraine on August 30.

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

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

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

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

Ukrainian units attacked the Kupyansk railway junction with the HIMARS anti-aircraft missile system. The 3rd separate tank brigade and the territorial defense brigade broke through the positions of the Russian troops in Vilkhuvatka, Yakovenkove, and Verbivka, circled Balakliya from the north and broke into its outskirts. This caused panic among the Russian forces and led to a disorderly retreat of the so-called "People's Militia of the LPR" regiment, which was "defending" the city. According to unconfirmed reports, the general staff of the Russian grouping in this direction has left the city. The Russian units retreated 15-20 km in the eastern direction and took a position at the frontier of Morozivka, Savyntsi, Rakivka, Dovhalivka and Zalyman. Russian troops retreated from the checkpoints six kilometers west of Balakliya.

In the direction of Pechenihy - Stara Hnylytsia, two BTG from the 144th motorized rifle division tried to break through the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces but were repulsed.

The Russian military repeatedly tried to break to the south through Husarivka and get to the rear of the Ukrainian units that had gotten to the Ivanivka-Schaslyve frontier. They tied to reach the close northwestern approaches to Izyum but were also stopped and suffered losses.

The Russian forces shelled the areas of Prudyanka, Chornohlazivka, Myronivka, Velyki Prokhody, Ruska and Cherkaska Lozova, Ruski and Cherkaski Tyshki, Slatyne, Mospanove, Husarivka and Zalyman areas.

Kramatorsk direction

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

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

The Russian forces did not engage in active hostilities. They shelled Sloviansk, Velyka Komyshuvakha, Dolyna, Krasnopillya, Dmytrivka, Dovhenke, Mazanivka, Brazhkivka. It also shelled the areas around Tetyanivka, Kryvya Luka, Spirnyi, Vesely, Hryhorivka, Bogorodichny, Sydorovo, Zakitny, Platonivka, Siversk, Ivano-Daryivka, Verkhnokamyanskyi, Soledar, and Hryhorivka.

In the Lyman area, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces liberated Ozerne, Brusivka, and Stariy Karavan.

Donetsk direction

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

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

PMC "Wagner" conducts combat operations on the southern outskirts of Kodema. Using the heavy flame-throwing TOS-1 systems, the Russian Armed Forces destroyed an entire district of Pervomaiske.

The enemy also fired mortars, tanks, barrel and rocket artillery at the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the areas around Bakhmutske, Bakhmut, New York, Zaitseve, Vesela Dolyna, Mayorsk, Yakovlivka, Yuryivka, Opytne, Rozdolivka, Avdiivka, Vodyane, Tonenke, Pervomaiske.

Ukrainian troops repelled Russian attacks in Maryinka.

Zaporizhzhya direction

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

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

The enemy 3rd Army Corps (Reserve) launched an offensive into Zaporizhzhya, attempting to capture two villages west of Orikhov, anticipating a rapid advance in the northern direction.

The enemy did not carry out other active offensive operations. The areas of Maryinka, Krasnohorivka, Novomykhailivka, Vugledar, Solodke, Shevchenko, Zolota Nyva, Pavlivka, Vremivka, Velyka Novosilka, Paraskoviyvka, Neskuchne, Novoandriivka, Mali Shcherbaky, Mala Tokmachka, Shcherbaky, Bilohirya, Novopol, Vilne Pole, Shevchenko, Novodanylivka, Hulyaipilske, Dorozhnyanka, Chervone, Poltavka and Zaliznychne were affected by the Russian fire.

On September 6 in Berdyansk, Ukrainian partisans blew up the occupation commandant of Berdyansk, Artem Bardin.

Kherson direction

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

● Deployed BTGs: 114th, 143rd and 394th motorized rifle regiments, 218th tank regiment of the 127th motorized rifle division of the 5th Combined Arms Army, 57th and 60th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 5th Combined Arms Army, 135th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments of the 19th motorized rifle division, 70th, 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division, 51st and 137th parachute airborne regiments of the 106th parachute airborne division, 7th military base of the 49th Combined Arms Army, 16th and 346th separate SOF brigades

There is no change in the operational situation. Ukrainian artillery hit one of the two ferry crossings created by the Russian forces across the Dnipro River near Kherson. The ferry sank along with a load of Russian military equipment.

BTGs of an unspecified separate motorized rifle brigade and the 126th separate coastal defense brigade were transferred from Novaya Kakhovka to the north.

Obituaries to Russian servicemen indicate that the Russian Federation transferred parts of the 147th ап artillery regiment of the 2nd motorized rifle division of the 1st Tank Army to Kherson Oblast.

Kherson-Berislav bridgehead

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

11.8 km;

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

Over the past day, the units of the 128th separate mountain assault brigade penetrated 10 km into the Russian defense and liberated Novovoskresensk. Russian units of the airborne forces and PMC "Wagner" continue to hold the southern outskirts of Arkhangelske.

Units of the 35th separate marines brigade defeated units of the Russian airborne forces and liberated Kostromka, Bezimenne and Shchaslyve and jointly with units of the 17th separate tank brigade went on to Chkalove.

Ukrainian troops repulsed an attempted Russian offensive near Lyubomyrivka and fought against the Russian forces near Shmidtove and Ternovi Pody.

The command of the Russian 49th Combined Arms Army is trying to build a new line of defense to the south employing two BTGs from the 76th air assault division and the 124th tank battalion.

The Russian forces fired barrel and rocket artillery along the entire line of contact. In addition, the Russian military made more than 84 UAV sorties to conduct aerial reconnaissance.

Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area:

The forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet continue to project force on the coast and the continental part of Ukraine (through missile strikes and possible amphibious assaults) and control the northwestern part of the Black Sea. The ultimate goal is to deprive Ukraine of access to the sea and connect unrecognized Transnistria with the Russian Federation by land.

The number of enemy ships stationed in the Black Sea is 14 warships and boats. Two Kalibr cruise missile carriers, namely two "Buyan-M" type corvettes, are in the area of the southern part of Crimea, ready for a missile attack. Up to 16 Kalibr missiles may be ready for a salvo.

Most large amphibious ships are in the ports of Novorossiysk and Sevastopol for replenishment and scheduled maintenance. There are no signs of preparation for an amphibious assault on the southern coast of Ukraine.

One submarine of the 636.3 project is located in Sevastopol on high alert, and three are in Novorossiysk.

A Russian corvette, minesweeper and boats are on patrol in the Sea of Azov.

Russian aviation continues to fly from the Crimean airfields of Belbek and Hvardiyske over the northwestern part of the Black Sea. Over the past day, 9 Su-27, Su-30 and Su-24 aircraft from Belbek and Saki airfields were involved. Northward flights of an unknown UAV probably of Iranian origin were recorded In the area of the "Hvardiyskyi" airfield in Crimea.

The movement of military equipment by road and rail transport through the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in the direction of Kherson Oblast remains intensive. Railway freight trains arrive in the territory of Kherson Oblast from the direction of the occupied Crimea, unloading military equipment and ammunition at the "Kalanchak", "Brylivka", and "Novooleksiiivka" stations. In particular, on September 6, about 100 tanks and several S-300 air defense systems were delivered.

The Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN, Vasyl Nebenzia, threatens to terminate the Istanbul Agreement since no single ship with agricultural products has left Russian ports. In contrast, Ukraine has already exported more than two million tons of food. This was reported [both by] the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) and Russian propaganda media. However, no reasons why Russian ships do not transport cargo are given. Furthermore, nobody blocks the ports of the Russian Federation, and there are no more sanctions on the export of agricultural products.

At the same time, as of the morning of September 7, the total tonnage of grain and other agricultural products exported from three Ukrainian ports is 2 million 212 thousand 972 tons. A total of 204 ships were allowed to move at this time — 108 arriving at Ukrainian ports and 96 departing from them.

Operational losses of the enemy from 24.02 to 07.09

Personnel - almost 50,610 people (+460);

Tanks – 2,097 (+20);

Armored combat vehicles – 4,520 (+36);

Artillery systems – 1,194 (+15);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 300 (+4);

Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 156 (0); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 3,320 (+15); Aircraft - 237 (+1);

Helicopters – 208 (+1);

UAV operational and tactical level - 880 (+4); Intercepted cruise missiles - 214 (+4);

Boats / ships - 15 (0).

Ukraine, general news

General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskyi, First Deputy Chairman of the National Security, Defense, and Intelligence Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, published an article “Prospects for running a military campaign in 2023: Ukraine’s perspective.” The article states that the war will last into 2023. It also asserts the strategic importance of Crimea for possible Russian offensive actions in the south of Ukraine. The article stresses the importance of providing long-range artillery capabilities to Ukraine to correct the current imbalance and to build up Ukraine’s long- range firing capacity. Russian feeling of impunity is named as the source of the Russian aggression, and the authors call on Ukraine’s partners to make sure Russia does not go unpunished in case the threat of using tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Ukraine is realized.

Deputy Prime Minister - Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk is appointed the Head of the coordination headquarters for the de-occupied territories. The HQ was set up on September 7 by CabMin's decision to deal with the issues related to the recuperation of the territories liberated from the enemy, reconstruction of government and citizen properties, and restoration of their proper functioning.

The Cabinet of Ministers approved the plan of activities to mark the Day of Resistance to the Occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, which is observed in Ukraine on February 26 – the day when a large protest rally in support of Ukraine’s unity took place in Simferopol in 2014. The presidential decree instituted the Day on February 26, 2020.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyi appointed heads of the Security Service Directorates in Chernihiv and Kherson Oblasts. Artem Borysevych was appointed Head of the Kherson Directorate and Oleksiy Lyah – Head of the Chernihiv Directorate.

An electronic petition to President Volodymyr Zelensky demanding that Ukrainian citizenship is not granted to the Russian opposition leader Oleksandr Nevzorov has gathered the necessary 25,000 signatures and has to be reviewed by the President.

International diplomatic aspect

Poland can rely only on two European allies, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, said Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the ruling PiS party, at the Economic Forum in Karpacz, Poland. The statement reflects shared interests and readiness to pursue them and the growing mistrust in major old European powers. Instead of turning to Germany, its NATO ally and the world's 5th largest arms exporter, Poland inked a $5.7 billion main battle tank and howitzer deal with South Korea.

Since the beginning of the all-out invasion, Berlin has been looking for various excuses not to support Kyiv to the extent it can. Talking to the Bundestag, Chancellor explained his unwillingness to provide Ukraine with tanks by referring to the United States, which hadn't sent their tanks first. There seems to be a progress, though, because the last time, he explained his unwillingness by the desire to avoid the Third World War. However, Olaf Scholz blocks not only the delivery of tanks but even Dingo all-protection transport vehicles, more than 500 of which are available for transfer. In the meantime, last week, Germany sent Ukraine four anti-aircraft tanks, Gepard and the first counter-battery radar system COBRA.

"We are playing with fire, and something very, very catastrophic could take place," Rafael Grossi, Head of the IAEA, told the UN Security Council meeting urgently called by Russia over the situation at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. However, the Russian Permanent Representative to the UN wasn't happy with the report presented by the IAEA team even though he had no time to familiarize himself with the document.

One of the report's conclusions is that military activities at and around the ZNPP must be stopped. "This requires agreement by all relevant parties to the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone," it said. The UN Secretary-General demanded that Russian and Ukrainian forces commit to halting all military activity around the plant and agree on a "demilitarized perimeter" that would include "a commitment by Russian forces to withdraw all military personnel and equipment from that perimeter and a commitment by Ukrainian forces not to move into it." The Russian diplomat rejected the idea saying the proposal "is not serious" and "the Ukrainians will immediately step in and ruin the whole thing. We're defending; we're protecting the station." Vassily Nebenzia played a buffoon by saying that "in fact, it is not militarized. There is no equipment at the station."

Vladimir Putin has vowed to "revise" the terms of the grain deal under which Russia unblocked Ukrainian Black Sea ports. He accused Ukraine and the West of shipping only 3% of grain to the developing countries in need, while the rest – to the West, though the deal has no clause on where shipments may go. Russia is carrying on its disinformation campaign targeting developing countries. From the beginning, Moscow blamed the West for the food crisis, failing to mention that it was the war of aggression against Ukraine that aggravated the situation. Russia secured the non-sanctioning of its companies that export grain and fertilizers even though no sanctions had been imposed on them as there were no plans to do so.

"We must cut Russia's revenues, which Putin uses to finance his atrocious war in Ukraine," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announcing the EU plans to set a price cap on Russian natural gas. "An attempt to limit prices by administrative means is just ravings; it's sheer nonsense," Putin replied on the idea of a price cap. "Will they make political decisions violating the contracts?" he said. "In that case, we will just halt supplies if it contradicts our economic interests. We won't supply any gas, oil, diesel oil or coal." However, the Russian President omitted facts that it was Russia that violated contracts by demanding payments in rubles, reducing and cutting off gas supplies to its customers etc.

Russia, relevant news

The ban on visiting the Baltic countries for Russian nationals holding Schengen visas will come into force within ten days, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgar Rinkevich said.

The PPF group, which owned Home Credit Bank, announced its withdrawal from the Russian banking market, Russian publication Kommersant reports.

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4. On Resistance: A Primer for Further Research

Please go to the link to access all the embedded hotlinks. https://mwi.usma.edu/on-resistance-a-primer-for-further-research/?mc_cid=495d40e617

Perhaps I missed it in the hot links but there appears to be no loinage to the ARIS Project at USASOC. (Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies) 

 Here: https://www.soc.mil/ARIS/ARIS.html. and here: https://www.soc.mil/ARIS/books/arisbooks.html

​There are a wide range of resources and references at the project thanks to the hard work and vision of Paul Tompkins in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab National Security Division.

Resistance is the foundation of Unconventional Warfare, irregular warfare, political warfare, revolution, and insurgency.

"Activities to enable a resistance or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow a government or occupying power through and with an underground auxiliary, or guerrilla force in a denied area."

On Resistance: A Primer for Further Research - Modern War Institute

mwi.usma.edu · by Andrew Maher · September 8, 2022

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Authors’ note: This primer reflects the discussion of an expert panel on resistance as a deliberate strategy featuring Major General Patrick Roberson, Dr. Ulrica Pettersson, Dr. Byron Harper, and Dr. James Kiras.

The war in Ukraine has produced many acts of notable resistance. Ukrainian civilians have defied Russian occupation forces and, through thousands of seemingly minor actions, sabotaged Russia’s efforts from behind enemy lines. Simply spray-painting traffic signs in the early days of the war, for example, denied easy navigation to Russian soldiers and introduced a source of friction. More recently, Ukrainians collaborating with Russia have been violently targeted. The war has sparked renewed interest in concepts and activities related to resistance, but what exactly is resistance and what can we learn from Ukraine?

What is Resistance?

Dr. Pettersson introduced the concept of resistance, which the Resistance Operating Concept as

a nation’s organized, whole-of-society effort, encompassing the full range of activities from nonviolent to violent, led by a legally established government (potentially exiled/displaced or shadow) to reestablish independence and autonomy within its sovereign territory that has been wholly or partially occupied by a foreign power.

Key within this definition is the idea of a “whole-of-society” effort. Some nations have used the term “total defense” to describe their resistance strategy, as it draws attention to a comprehensive military and societal resilience effort led by a whole-of-government approach. Dr. Harper noted that a mere 2 percent of society is part of the government, with an inherent obligation to participate in defense. The remaining 98 percent could be an ambivalent majority, as David Galula might say, and the rebel’s dilemma is how to mobilize collective action in the face of potentially high costs. What defines resistance, then, is understanding how the 2 percent might motivate, support, and mobilize segments of the 98 percent to engage in nonviolent and violent actions in defense of the nation.

Resistance also includes a broad range of methods. In fact, nonviolent approaches are often more effective, particularly against authoritarian regimes. As a result, resistance—whether in Paris in 1944 or Kyiv in 2022—is not just a military task, but a societal task that requires organization and leadership. Resistance is most effective when prepared in peacetime and underpinned by operations that emphasize resilience, so that society can cope with foreign-imposed crises.

Historical Examples of Resistance

Throughout the panel discussion, participants highlighted examples of resistance in World War II, the Cold War, and beyond. The World War II cases focused primarily on the European front, including the Baltic region’s “Forest Brothers,” the French Resistance, Norway, Denmark, and elsewhere. These cases were presented with the context of supporting efforts from the British Special Operations Executive. In the Cold War era, Sweden and Switzerland were key examples of nations that adopted a resistance strategy, yet these remained planned and hypothetical efforts that were never tested against an invader, so analysts cannot be confident in their assessments of how effective they might have been. In the modern era, the panel noted that the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 sparked a renaissance of interest in resistance, building upon the lessons of earlier eras. Major General Roberson offered lessons from both the Kurdish resistance to Saddam Hussein and efforts to foment resistance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Participants also discussed the unique moral and ethical questions associated with resistance operations, citing a number of case studies including the Dutch Resistance, the heroic efforts of the Polish Home Army, and Operation Anthropoid in Czechoslovakia. These cases all highlight the ethical concerns inherent in supporting resistance movements against regimes that might conduct reprisals against local populations and violate the laws of armed conflict.

Analyzing case studies from these historical eras demonstrates the importance of understanding the nature of the occupying regime, its capacity to operate as a police state, and the capacity for local resistance. These lessons, alongside other vignettes, were noted in the scholarly efforts of Will Irwin, including Support to Resistance, Decision-Making Considerations in Support to Resistance, and How Civil Resistance Works. The panelists also noted the efforts of Otto Heilbrunn, Gene Sharp, Erica Chenoweth, and Richard Shultz.

What is Today’s Model of Resistance?

Estonia, Sweden, Finland, and other states have made resistance preparations based on the model of the “indigestible hedgehog”: the hedgehog that displays its defenses to both deter attacks from predators and demonstrate the difficulty of digesting it. Likewise, Resistance strategies aim to deter through denial and then impose costs—both moral and material—if deterrence fails. Moreover, successful resistance relies on a preplanned strategy, rather than an emergent response to a foreign invasion. This is because grassroots movements do not have comparable levels of organization, legitimacy, and resilience in the face of repression.

In addition, resistance movements often benefit from external state support, but foreign powers typically have less skin in the game, leading to lower levels of commitment. This problem holds especially true when resistance movements face an authoritarian opponent willing to employ indiscriminate violence. For example, Russian tactics of terrorism and long-term attrition may weaken Ukrainian resistance and diminish NATO’s support. Maintaining internal and external resolve is therefore critical, and it requires a shared understanding among Ukraine’s supporters. The panel noted that a community of interest has formed in response to Russia, which integrates lessons from today’s conflicts. This “intellectual interoperability” strengthens resistance concepts and practice.

Resistance in Ukraine and Future Research

Much of Ukraine’s unlikely success against a much larger and stronger invader flows from its diligent preparations starting in 2014, following the Russian annexation of Crimea. The panel cited three factors that have led to the successful use of resistance. First, Ukraine leveraged wide-scale participation in national defense through legislation passed in July 2021. Second, external allies exhibited impressive unity of effort in coordinating support to Ukraine. Third, foreign special operations forces advising Ukrainian counterparts were invested in understanding the Ukrainian perspective; as Dr. Harper noted, they had gone “49 percent native” which allowed them to masterfully understand how to support Ukraine.

Despite the success of resistance in Ukraine, many questions remain unanswered and provide avenues for future research. First, why was the Ukrainian resistance strategy unable to deter a Russian invasion? Moreover, how can a state know if it is deterring a threat? Resolving these questions may help analysts and policymakers measure and define success in peacetime.

Another outstanding question will be the implications of substantial, overt international assistance. The international community has significantly contributed to the Ukrainian government’s ability to enhance, support, and maintain resistance. How well do international interests overlap with local interests, and how does this impact internal resolve to resist and external resolve to support resistance?

Finally, analysts do not fully understand the impacts of modern technology on resistance. Everyone with a smartphone is a potential resistance fighter. This lowers the barrier to entry for participation in armed conflict and enables a host of functions like intelligence reporting, fire coordination, and rapid information sharing.

The topics covered in this discussion and outlined above offer an avenue for research to expand the existing body of knowledge on resistance—a topic that, given the contemporary security environment, demands further investigation by practitioners and scholars alike.

Dr. Martijn Kitzen is a senior nonresident fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative and a professor at the Netherlands Defence Academy where he holds the chair of irregular warfare and special operations.

Andrew Maher is the engagements director for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, an Australian Army officer, and a lecturer with the University of New South Wales Canberra on irregular warfare.

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

Image credit: President of Ukraine

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mwi.usma.edu · by Andrew Maher · September 8, 2022

5. Ukraine leader says his forces recapture towns and villages in big eastern push

Ukraine leader says his forces recapture towns and villages in big eastern push

Reuters · by Pavel Polityuk

• Summary
• Companies
• Zelenskiy speaks of good news in eastern Ukraine
• Says his forces have recaptured towns and villages
• Hundreds of square kilometres retaken - Western analysts
• Russia silent on any territorial losses
• Putin says Russia won't lose in Ukraine

KYIV, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke of "good news" on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, saying his army had retaken some towns and villages from Russia in what open source analysts said looked like a deep and sudden thrust behind Russian lines.

In his daily late night address on Wednesday, President Zelenskiy said he had received news that his forces had liberated a slew of settlements in the Kharkiv region in a counter offensive that some Western analysts suggested had seen Kyiv recapture around 400 square kilometres (154 square miles) of territory.

"This week we have good news from Kharkiv Oblast. All of you have most likely seen reports about the recent activities of Ukrainian defenders. And I think every (Ukrainian) citizen feels proud of our warriors," said Zelenskiy.

Kharkiv region borders Russia and its main city, Kharkiv, has for months been struck by Russian missiles after Moscow failed to take it in the early stages of its Feb. 24 invasion.

In a sign that the situation in the area was still highly fluid though, Zelenskiy said it was too early to name the recaptured towns and villages while thanking two airborne brigades and a mechanised brigade for what he called their bravery.

Such a thrust, if confirmed and the gains are held, would be a significant boost for Kyiv, which is keen to show its Western backers that it can change the facts on the ground by force and deserves continued financial and weapons support.

There is additional pressure on Kyiv to demonstrate that before winter sets in amid threats by Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt all energy shipments to Europe if Brussels goes ahead with a proposal to cap the price of Russian gas. read more

In a boost for Kyiv, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday that President Joe Biden had approved an additional $675 million in weapons to Ukraine as he and other defence ministers met in Germany to discuss how to continue supporting Ukraine in the long-term. read more

THRUST BEHIND RUSSIAN LINES

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, which follows the war day-by-day, said the Ukrainian military looked to have made significant progress on Wednesday.

"Ukrainian forces likely used tactical surprise to advance at least 20 km into Russian-held territory in (the) eastern Kharkiv Oblast (region) on September 7, recapturing approximately 400 square kilometres of ground," the ISW said.

Russia has confirmed fighting in the area but has not confirmed any territorial losses, though unverified social media accounts run by Russian military experts have suggested Moscow did suffer setbacks and will need to urgently reinforce.

Ukrainian Presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych, in a video posted on YouTube, said Ukrainian troops had surprised Russian defenders at the town of Balakleiia.

"The Russians are saying that Balakleiia is encircled when in fact (our troops) have gone much further."

A pro-Russian official from the region, Rodion Miroshnik, said on Telegram that Balakleiia remained in Russian hands although there was fighting north of the town.

Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield accounts but Yuri Podolyak, a Ukrainian often quoted by pro-Russian officials, also said Russian troops were surprised by the Ukrainian advance.

"The enemy had considerable success near Balakleiia with a relatively small force ... It would appear that Russian forces slept through this advance and were expecting it elsewhere," he wrote on Telegram.

"Everything would seem to depend now on the speed with which reserves are brought into the fight ... there have been significant losses."

ENERGY BATTLE

Ukraine has for weeks been talking about a big counter offensive in the south, which is also underway though details about it are sparse. Western military analysts believe Russia may have left itself exposed in other areas as it rushed to reinforce the south.

Heavy fighting was also reported on Thursday in areas near the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine after Kyiv warned it might have to shut down the plant to avoid disaster. read more

Putin said in a speech on Wednesday that Russia would not lose what he calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, an exercise he has described as an attempt to preemptively protect his country's security against an expanding NATO. read more

Asked about the war's progress, Putin said: "We have not lost anything and will not lose anything."

He also threatened to halt all energy supplies to Europe if Brussels adopted a proposed price cap on Russian gas, the latest Western step to deprive the Kremlin of funds to finance the war.

Europe usually imports about 40% of its gas and 30% of its oil from Russia.

The United States and France says Moscow is already using energy as a "weapon" to weaken Europe's opposition to its invasion, with the main conduit for Russian gas into Europe, Nord Stream 1, shut for maintenance.

Russian gas giant Gazprom GAZP.MM said on Wednesday that Russian natural gas deliveries to European Union countries have dropped by 48% so far this year, with the decline totalling 49% if the UK is included.

Putin denied using energy as a weapon.

Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Andrew Osborn, Editing by William Maclean

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Pavel Polityuk

6. Millions in China's Chengdu thrown into extended COVID lockdown

Will this someday be interpreted as a self inflicted wound that led to severe economic problems and potential internal instability?

Millions in China's Chengdu thrown into extended COVID lockdown

Reuters · by Ryan Woo

BEIJING, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The Chinese city of Chengdu extended a lockdown for a majority of its more than 21 million residents on Thursday to prevent further transmission of COVID-19 while millions more in other parts of China were told to shun travel in upcoming holidays.

Chengdu, the capital of southwestern China's Sichuan province, was locked down on Sept. 1 after COVID cases were detected, becoming the largest Chinese metropolis hit with curbs since Shanghai's lockdown in April and May.

Since last week, Chengdu has mostly reported fewer than 200 new infections a day, a tiny fraction compared with outbreaks in other parts of the world. It found 116 new cases for Sept. 7 versus 121 the day earlier, authorities said on Thursday.

The lockdown had been expected to be lifted on Wednesday but officials said late in the day that the virus still posed a risk in some areas and extended the lockdown for 16 million of the city's residents.

Those under lockdown will be tested every day and anyone who tests positive will be quarantined. Residents in areas deemed high-risk are not allowed out of their homes.

Chengdu is aiming for zero new community infections within a week, its COVID prevention and control command said in a statement.

The extension puts a further strain on the city, which recently has also endured heatwaves, power cuts and an earthquake.

"I'm concerned the lockdown will be further extended," said Zhang Yue, a Chengdu resident.

"Many people aren't taking it seriously. In some neighbourhoods, people secretly meet up to play mah-jong, while some refuse to do the tests scheduled early in the morning."

'MINIMISE TRAVEL'

China has been battling to contain the highly transmissible Omicron variant, imposing lockdowns of various degrees to stop its spread. Shanghai was locked down in April and May while Xian, Shenzhen and Guiyang have also undergone lockdowns and restrictions.

Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry, a state-owned firm that manages Apple's (AAPL.O) cloud services data centre in Guiyang, said in a statement that many employees were living and working on site, away from their families.

"Every employee sees this chance to participate in this great war as his honor and pride!" the company said on Wednesday.

Japanese brokerage and investment bank Nomura said that, as of Tuesday, 49 Chinese cities had various levels of lockdowns or control measures, with an estimated 291.7 million people affected, up from 161.3 million the previous week.

Those people accounted for 20.7% of China's population and come from areas that contribute 24.5% of its gross domestic product, Nomura said.

Chinese stocks edged lower on Thursday, defying a rally in other Asian markets as COVID clouded the economic outlook.

Nationwide, China found 1,439 new infections on Wednesday, the National Health Commission said. Cases have been reported in every region and province in recent weeks. read more

Cities have urged residents to refrain from non-essential trips in the run-up to a week-long National Day holiday at the beginning of October and a Communist Party Congress in mid-October, when President Xi Jinping is widely expected to secure a precedent-breaking third term as leader. read more

"The general public is encouraged to celebrate the National Day holiday where they are and minimise travel to other cities," an official at China's health authority told reporters on Thursday.

Those who travel to other provinces will be subject to a COVID test upon arrival, he said.

Reporting by Ryan Woo and Roxanne Liu; Additional reporting by Bernard Orr, Liu Siyi and Brenda Goh; Editing by Gerry Doyle, Robert Birsel and Edmund Klamann

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Ryan Woo

7. China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Bind: No Easy Way Out Despite the Cost

It will take real leadership to get out of this mess. Does China have what it takes?

China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Bind: No Easy Way Out Despite the Cost

By Vivian Wang The New York Times7 min

View Original

From vaccines to propaganda, Beijing has prioritized politics over science, creating conditions that make it difficult for China to join other countries in adapting to life with the coronavirus.

Covid testing in Chengdu, China, last week. The government locked down the 21 million residents of the city, one of country’s biggest and most economically important, this month. Credit...Wu Hao/EPA, via Shutterstock

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Tens of millions of Chinese confined at home, schools closed, businesses in limbo and whole cities at a standstill. Once again, China is locking down enormous parts of society, trying to completely eradicate Covid in a campaign that grows more anomalous by the day as the rest of the world learns to live with the coronavirus.

But even as the costs of China’s zero-Covid strategy are mounting, Beijing faces a stark reality: It has backed itself into a corner. Three years of its uncompromising, heavy-handed approach of imposing lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing to isolate infections have left it little room, at least in the short term, to change course.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has made clear that zero Covid is as much an ideological undertaking as a public health one. He has tied support for the policy to support for the Communist Party, and hailed its execution as proof of China’s edge over Western democracies. He has prioritized nationalism over the guidance of scientists. Any reversal, or adjustment, would seem to undercut his vision, especially ahead of a major Communist Party meeting next month where Mr. Xi is all but assured to extend his rule.

The emphasis on politics has created practical problems. Beijing has refused to approve foreign vaccines, opting instead to provide only less effective homegrown ones to its 1.4 billion people. The government has pushed propaganda depicting the virus as having devastated Western countries, feeding widespread stigma and a fear of infections even among the young and healthy. It has silenced voices seeking to offer a different approach, labeling them traitors.

Buoyed by its early success at containment, the party was slow at first to encourage vaccination, leaving many older Chinese vulnerable. Since few Chinese have natural immunity from the virus, the risks of loosening controls are potentially even higher.

“That sort of makes the zero-Covid policy self-sustaining,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

President Xi Jinping of China has tied his Zero Covid policy to support for the Communist Party, and hailed its execution as proof of China’s edge over Western democracies.Credit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press

At least 65 million Chinese are currently under some form of lockdown, according to a tally by Chinese media, including the southwestern city of Chengdu, home to 21 million people. In cities that are not battling outbreaks, quashing Covid still dictates the rhythms of daily life. Residents line up for mandatory, regular testing and obsessively monitor their health codes, digital markers that dictate whether they can move freely.

Many Chinese have found ways to cope, even if reluctantly: putting in longer hours to scrape up more money, cutting back on spending. Complaints about a shortage of medical care or food often emerge, but some residents say they support the overarching goal.

“Who can get used to this?” said Zhang Lang, a grocery store owner in the southwestern city of Guiyang, who has been under lockdown for three days. “But there’s no choice,” he said. “The epidemic is coming. Do you want what happened in America to happen here?”

Read More on China

• Controlling the Narrative: As cases of abuse against women trigger outrage across China, Chinese officials are trying to censor the online conversation, wary of any dissent they cannot control.
• More Covid Lockdowns: Nearly every province in China has recorded recent coronavirus infections, leaving some 60 million people locked down. Weariness is growing by the day.
• A Long-Awaited Report: The United Nations released its much-delayed assessment of the mass detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim groups in China, accusing the country’s leadership of human rights violations.
• Big Tech Reconsiders: Worried about geopolitical tensions and stung by pandemic shutdowns, Apple and other tech companies are shifting some of their manufacturing out of China. But the production of its latest iPhone shows how difficult the transition can be.

Still, the question is how long China’s calculus will remain in favor of the current approach. Youth unemployment is soaring, small businesses are collapsing and overseas companies are shifting their supply chains elsewhere. A sustained slowdown would undermine the promise of economic growth, long the central pillar of the party’s legitimacy.

“The social and economic cost will continue to increase. So I think ultimately they’re going to reach a point where the cost exceeds the benefits,” Dr. Huang said. But, he added, “it just might be farther off.”

For now, officials are sticking closely to the status quo, imposing the most extensive lockdowns in months to contain a series of new outbreaks.

Nearly empty roads in Chengdu last week. Prolonged and repeated lockdowns have left residents trapped inside homes and worried about their incomes and paying rent.Credit...CNS, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The authorities in Guiyang, population six million, ordered a partial lockdown this week after detecting several hundred cases in recent days. In Shanghai, where one asymptomatic infection was announced on Tuesday, officials imposed a one-week lockdown on a hotel where the patient had stayed and urged all residents not to leave the city during a public holiday this weekend.

Because of the high political stakes, local governments are likely to err on the side of overreaction to contain outbreaks, said Chen Xi, an associate professor of public health at Yale University. Scores of city officials have been fired or otherwise punished after cases emerged in their jurisdictions. The party meeting on Oct. 16 is adding to the pressure on officials.

“Given the sensitive timing before the party congress, local governments are afraid of making any mistakes, making the central government’s policies unnecessarily more stringent,” Professor Chen said.

China’s pursuit of zero Covid has often been single-minded, overriding all other concerns. Hospitals trying to avoid the risk of infection have turned away patients in dire need of care. Enforcers of lockdowns have barged into people’s homes or killed pets left behind by quarantined owners. When a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck Luding County in Sichuan Province on Monday, residents in the locked-down city of Chengdu, the provincial capital, were blocked from leaving their homes even as buildings shook, according to widely circulated posts on social media.

After a public outcry, Chengdu health officials clarified that physical safety was the top priority in the case of natural disasters.

The challenge for China is that its own policies have made it harder to ease restrictions. While other countries prioritized vaccinating the elderly, China made older residents among the last to be eligible, citing concerns about side effects. And it never introduced vaccine passes, perhaps sensitive to public skepticism of its own vaccines.

In late July, about 67 percent of people aged 60 and above had received a third shot, compared to 72 percent of the entire population. Medical experts have warned that an uncontrolled outbreak could lead to high numbers of deaths among the elderly, as occurred during a wave this spring in Hong Kong, which also suffered from low vaccination rates.

But those considerations are entangled with politics, too. China has refused to approve Western mRNA vaccines, though it has struggled to produce its own; its homegrown, inactivated vaccines have proved less clinically effective.

Cai Xia, a retired professor at the Communist Party’s top academy, attributed China’s inflexible approach to Mr. Xi’s desire for total control. In an essay published Wednesday in Foreign Affairs, Ms. Cai, who now lives in the United States, said Mr. Xi had overruled health experts throughout the pandemic.

“A leader more open to influence or subject to greater checks would not likely have implemented such a draconian policy, or at least would have corrected course once its costs and unpopularity became evident,” she wrote, in reference to this spring’s lockdown in Shanghai, which led many residents to report shortages of food and medical care. “But for Xi, backtracking would have been an unthinkable admission of error.”

There may come a point at which the economic consequences of zero Covid force Beijing to consider a reset.

Youth unemployment has reached a record 20 percent, according to official statistics in August. The nearly three dozen Chinese cities under some form of lockdown represent one-third of China’s entire economic output, according to Hao Hong, the chief economist and a partner at Grow Investment Management in Hong Kong.

Survival is top of mind for business owners like Lu Wei, 50, who runs a restaurant in Daqing, in northeastern China. She and her husband have been sealed at home for three weeks, and she worries about how she will pay rent. She is relying on the government for deliveries of fresh vegetables and drawing from her store of pickled vegetables when they don’t arrive.

But Ms. Lu said she was used to measures such as daily testing and believed they could keep her safe. She said she did not have any specific changes she would like to see to Covid policies, other than perhaps the flexibility to order online food deliveries.

“I just hope we can achieve zero as soon as possible,” she said.

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting. Li You contributed research.

© 2022 The New York Times Company.

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8. The real meaning of a striking new letter from former military officials

Continue the debate on civil military relations. Does this contribute positively or negatively? 

Do you interpret the letter and effort the same way as this author?

The real meaning of a striking new letter from former military officials

An open letter quietly calls for resistance within the defense establishment.

By Zeeshan Aleem MSNBC3 min

View Original

Eight former secretaries of defense and five former chairs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff published an open letter Tuesday intended to “review” the best practices for maintaining “healthy” American civil-military relations. The letter listed what experts considered to be a basic and outwardly uncontroversial set of principles to ensure civilian control and the rule of law in the American political system. But what stood out about the missive was that the officials felt compelled to write it.

The real inspiration for the letter, which was signed by former officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations, can be found in a line in the introduction. The signers express concern about “polarization that culminated in the first election in over a century when the peaceful transfer of political power was disrupted and in doubt.”

The letter’s reassertion of civil-military norms is meant to be a rejection of Trump’s transgressions.

The clear subtext, experts say, is that these former officials were shocked by Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert American democracy — and his efforts to use the military to do it. By writing the letter, they were emphasizing that Trump’s attitude toward the military was unacceptable — and signaling that any future attempts by politicians to follow in his footsteps should face resistance from the defense establishment.

Trump’s attempts to overturn the election included multiple efforts to use the military as a personal security force and tool of authoritarian rule. Trump asked the nation’s highest-ranking military officer to shoot antiracist protesters “in the legs.” Trump considered invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy troops in the streets to put down protests before the election, and his allies suggested using it to help him stay in office after the election. He also contemplated directing his defense secretary to seize voting machines after the election, according to an executive order that was never issued. On the fateful day of Jan. 6, 2021, he wanted the National Guard deployed to protect sympathetic protesters who were there to aid his attempt to thwart the certification of the 2020 election.

The letter’s reassertion of civil-military norms is meant to be a rejection of Trump’s transgressions — as well as those who abetted him. The former officials noted that “it is the responsibility of senior military and civilian leaders to ensure that any order they receive from the president is legal” and argued that “military and civilian leaders must be diligent about keeping the military separate from partisan political activity.”

Biden takes aim at Republicans, says ‘democracy is at stake’

“This list is clearly a condemnation of Trump and his acolytes, which includes many GOP Senators,” Stephen M. Saideman, a political scientist at Carleton University in Canada, wrote on his blog. Other experts in civil-military relations hailed the letter as a solid start to reviving norms.

Part of the likely reason the letter is being written now is that these former defense officials believe — as many political analysts also do — that Trump still poses a threat to the democratic project, most tangibly through a third presidential run. Maintaining a democratic government requires civilian and military leaders to be “vigilant and mindful,” they write.

The letter also comes days after President Joe Biden decided to have two Marines flank him as he spoke last week about how MAGA Republicans pose an existential threat to the republic. As I noted in my analysis of Biden’s pointed stagecraft, he was showcasing his belief and hope that the military shows allegiance to democracy over any partisan agenda or authoritarian challenge to the political system in the coming years.

The reality is that the military’s relationship with civilian rule is inescapably political. In a case of contested power, the military has a unique and pivotal role in conferring state officials with power and legitimacy. This letter is the latest attempt by the Washington defense establishment to intellectually and socially organize around the idea that defending the rule of law and democracy requires being alert to the threat posed by Trumpism.

9. How Beijing Benefits From a New Iran Deal

Excerpts:

A weak Iran deal could lead to greater instability in two contested theaters—the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific—with the Ukraine war raging in a third.

Responding to these and future Iranian provocations will undermine efforts to shift some regional resources to the Indo-Pacific, an area that is far more important to China’s hegemonic interests. Indeed, Chinese scholars have argued as much, noting that instability in the Middle East reduces “Washington’s ability to place focused attention and pressure on China.” Without sustained U.S. capabilities in the Indo-Pacific, China could be confident enough to conduct even riskier military maneuvers than those it recently concluded in and around Taiwan’s territorial waters. In other words, a weak Iran deal could simultaneously lead to greater instability in two contested theaters—the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific—with the Ukraine war still raging in a third.

All told, agreeing to a new, weaker Iran deal must be weighed against other pressing U.S. security objectives, of which China ranks first. And as negotiations currently stand, it’s clear that the regime in Tehran is not the only one that benefits. Beijing is a big winner of the new nuclear deal, too.

How Beijing Benefits From a New Iran Deal

Foreign Policy · by Craig Singleton · September 7, 2022

Analysis

The nuclear agreement could unleash Chinese activity in the Gulf and complicate U.S. goals in the Indo-Pacific.

By Craig Singleton, a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and then-Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and then-Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019. VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO/AFP via Getty Images

Supporters of a new Iran deal claim it will put Tehran’s atomic program “in a box” so that Washington and its allies can finally focus on countering Beijing’s increasing belligerence in the Indo-Pacific. But a shorter, weaker deal that significantly strengthens Iran’s hand will have the opposite effect: It will lead to greater instability in both the Middle East and Indo-Pacific while enabling China to deepen its influence throughout the Gulf.

Years of punishing international sanctions have left Iran diplomatically and economically isolated, with Tehran seeking greater support from other autocratic regimes. That extends to its partnership with China, which in recent years has become Iran’s top trading partner, a leading destination for energy exports, and a major investor in Iranian industry. While Sino-Iranian military cooperation has ebbed from its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, the two countries engage in periodic military exchanges, joint exercises, and port calls. In January, for example, 11 Iranian vessels joined three Russian ships and two Chinese vessels in a series of joint tactical and artillery drills in the northern Indian Ocean. Likewise, China actively supports Iran’s cruise and ballistic missile programs, providing it with technology that has been integrated into systems used against U.S. forces in neighboring Iraq as recently as 2020.

Nevertheless, the Sino-Iranian partnership has its limits. Clearly, both countries remain committed to undermining the U.S.-led rules-based order, often taking each other’s side during disputes with Washington. But China’s strong relationships with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—Iran’s chief regional adversaries—have forced to pursue a balanced engagement strategy in the Gulf.

For instance, while Iran heralded a 25-year $400 billion military and trade cooperation agreement in 2021 with China as a “complete roadmap” for the relationship, Beijing purposefully downplayed the still-undisclosed deal, simply calling it a “general framework for China-Iran cooperation.” Similarly, China’s diplomatic partnership with Iran, handled mainly at the ambassadorial level, pales in comparison to its much higher-level coordination with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Those relations are managed by a senior Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee official, Han Zheng, and the director of the party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, Yang Jiechi, respectively.

Beijing’s sanctions aversion mirrors its refusal to help Moscow evade sanctions over Ukraine, even as Xi and Putin talk of their “limitless” partnership.

Of course, economics and access are the driving forces behind today’s Sino-Iranian partnership, in which China exercises considerable leverage over Iran. Beijing’s largesse, enabled in part through the purchase of Iranian oil by Chinese companies in violation of sanctions, has provided Tehran with a vital economic lifeline as well as funding for its destabilizing activities. Over the years, China has also made strategically timed investments in critical Iranian industries, such as mining and transportation. These moves are aimed at helping Beijing secure unfettered access to Iran’s natural gas and oil reserves—the world’s second and fourth largest, respectively—to satisfy China’s skyrocketing energy demands. China also recognizes the value of Iran’s geographic proximity to major commercial shipping routes, which Beijing hopes can one day be harnessed to resuscitate its floundering Belt and Road Initiative.

These geopolitical chess moves aside, the two countries remain woefully short of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s stated goal of increasing bilateral trade to $600 billion by 2026. In 2021, their trade amounted to less than a paltry $15 billion, almost unchanged from 2020. Similarly, Chinese foreign direct investment in Iran has held steady at around $3 billion. For context, China’s trade last year with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates was valued at $87 billion and $75 billion, respectively. The reason: China sees Iran as a risky bet and will continue to do so long as sanctions remain in place. This helps explain why notable Chinese companies, such as Huawei and Lenovo, have withdrawn or wound down their Iran-based operations and why Chinese purchases of Iranian oil dropped sharply during the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign. Beijing’s sanctions aversion mirrors its refusal to help Moscow evade sanctions over its war on Ukraine, even as Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin talk of their “limitless” partnership.

But China’s Iran calculus will almost certainly change if a new nuclear deal goes into effect. Free from the threat of sanctions, China will almost certainly ramp up its investments in and trade with Iran, deepening not only its influence there but in the region as well. China’s increased access will be most acutely felt in a handful of strategically significant industries, many of which carry serious national security ramifications. For instance, whereas U.S. sanctions led state-owned China National Petroleum Company to back out of a multibillion-dollar deal to develop natural gas in the South Pars field—the world’s largest gas deposit by far—in 2019, Chinese firms will probably reexamine the viability of this and other lucrative energy initiatives, some of which are overseen by Iran’s military. China will also expand its reach throughout Iran’s steel, gold, and aluminum sectors, having previously invested in other materials processing projects that enabled Iran to produce inputs for its missile program.

The same applies to infrastructure and transportation-related projects aimed at connecting Iran to China’s regional networks in South and Central Asia. That includes a planned train route between Iran and China’s Xinjiang province, where the United Nations recently determined Beijing is committing “serious human rights violations,” such as forced labor and sterilizations. Tehran will also lean on Beijing to modernize its telecommunications architecture, including requesting assistance in installing the same artificial intelligence surveillance technology that China has exported to other autocratic regimes. The result will be even more censorship and political repression for millions of Iranians.

Just as troubling is that Iran will reap a massive financial windfall if and when a new deal is signed. Financial modeling suggests Tehran could gain access to $275 billion in frozen reserves during the deal’s first year and at least $1 trillion in new oil revenues by 2030. U.S. officials have acknowledged the deal contains no enforceable safeguards preventing Iran from using its windfall to support its subversive activities or funding of terrorist proxies. To be fair, Beijing has an interest in promoting stability in the Gulf, if for no other reason that instability often leads to shocks and disruptions to energy markets. Chinese officials may very well communicate as much to their Iranian interlocutors in a post-deal environment.

But the reality is that China’s leverage over Iran will likely erode as sanctions sunset and Tehran diversifies its external relationships. At the same time, China’s reliance on Iran may very well increase as Beijing becomes gradually more dependent on Iranian energy suppliers to meet its insatiable domestic needs. All told, this inverse power dynamic will leave Beijing less able to meaningfully constrain or shape Iran’s malign behavior.

And there is little doubt regarding Iran’s eventual plans. Earlier this year, the U.S. military was forced to respond to attacks on U.S. and UAE troops in Abu Dhabi, orchestrated by Iranian-affiliated rebels in Yemen. In June, fast-attack boats operated by Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stalked U.S. vessels in the Persian Gulf, leading to a near-collision at sea. Just last month, Iranian-backed militant groups attacked a U.S. military base in southeast Syria, and reports surfaced that the IRGC sought to assassinate former U.S. government officials. And last week, an IRGC ship attempted to capture a U.S. maritime drone operating in international waters.

A weak Iran deal could lead to greater instability in two contested theaters—the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific—with the Ukraine war raging in a third.

Responding to these and future Iranian provocations will undermine efforts to shift some regional resources to the Indo-Pacific, an area that is far more important to China’s hegemonic interests. Indeed, Chinese scholars have argued as much, noting that instability in the Middle East reduces “Washington’s ability to place focused attention and pressure on China.” Without sustained U.S. capabilities in the Indo-Pacific, China could be confident enough to conduct even riskier military maneuvers than those it recently concluded in and around Taiwan’s territorial waters. In other words, a weak Iran deal could simultaneously lead to greater instability in two contested theaters—the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific—with the Ukraine war still raging in a third.

All told, agreeing to a new, weaker Iran deal must be weighed against other pressing U.S. security objectives, of which China ranks first. And as negotiations currently stand, it’s clear that the regime in Tehran is not the only one that benefits. Beijing is a big winner of the new nuclear deal, too.

Craig Singleton is a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former U.S. diplomat. Twitter: @CraigMSingleton

10. Opinion | Waging Psychological War Against Russia

Dissident groups are a form of resistance. Just saying.

A key point in psychological operations (and not just in Russia):

When dissident opinions come from sources that Russians deem trustworthy, they let down their guard. 

Excerpts:

During the Cold War, the U.S. was overtly and covertly supporting dissident groups. Although it is important to engage with exiled Russian dissidents and amplify their voices, this is not necessarily the most effective method to reach the ordinary Russian and change their perceptions. Pro-Putin Russians do not watch dissident channels. A more effective method to reach Putin’s heartland is to work within their own community. A critical aspect in Russian culture is trust. When dissident opinions come from sources that Russians deem trustworthy, they let down their guard. The United States therefore should seek to quietly form partnerships with Russian-speaking social media influencers to help them spread messages inside Russia to counter the Kremlin’s pervasive disinformation.

Putin has eagerly waded into the West’s information space in recent years. He’s interfered in elections in Europe and the United States, stoked internecine fights within our country and otherwise sought to weaken our democratic institutions. Now, the Biden administration can force the Russian dictator to defend himself. The United States has a variety of tools at its disposal to conduct effective information operations within Russia — and simply spreading the truth about Putin’s real weakness is the most powerful weapon of all.

Opinion | Waging Psychological War Against Russia

Politico

Magazine

Opinion | Waging Psychological War Against Russia

The U.S. has a real opportunity to erode Putin’s propaganda.

Since launching his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has shuttered what was left of Russia’s independent media and restricted Russians’ access to major Western social media platforms and various Western news agencies. | Michael Probst, File

Opinion by David R. Shedd and Ivana Stradner

09/07/2022 04:30 AM EDT

David R. Shedd is former acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Ivana Stradner is an advisor to the Barish Center for Media Integrity at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The fight for Ukraine will not just be won on the battlefield. For all the high-tech weaponry the West has delivered, psychological war against Russia remains a key opportunity for the United States.

Historically, such an approach focused on selling Russians on the American dream. But this strategy is a relic of the Cold War, ill-suited to present-day Russia. Instead of pitching the benefits of Levi’s and Hollywood, U.S. information operations should use Russian nationalism to turn the tables on the Kremlin — highlighting the war’s damage to Russia, exposing government corruption and inequities inside Russia, and exploiting resentment among Russia’s ethnic minorities. These, dare we say, Russia-style tactics will bear more fruit than tales about the wonders of American democracy.

The U.S. government is no stranger to information operations of this kind. During the Cold War, to highlight the Soviet Union’s weaknesses and provide genuine news to the captive nations of the Soviet empire, Washington pioneered the delivery of world news through its Voice of America initiative and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. These public information programs were instrumental in the fight against communism. Since launching his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has shuttered what was left of Russia’s independent media and restricted Russians’ access to major Western social media platforms and various Western news agencies. But through the widespread use of VPN internet access, the United States can deliver information inside Russia as well as use Russian surrogates to post social media messages on Russian platforms.

Of course, there are differences between modern America and the modern Russian Federation; most Russians today don’t want their country to ape the United States — they are nostalgic about the “Great Russia.” Polling by Moscow’s independent Levada-Center suggests 75 percent of Russians, fed a steady diet of anti-Americanism and Russian propaganda by state media, view the U.S. in a negative light. Nationalism has steadily risen in Russia as well, with 56 percent of citizens now regarding Josef Stalin as a “great leader.”

This rise in nationalism can be an asset for the U.S. in its psychological war with the Kremlin. Russians are very proud of their country, and Putin has stoked this sentiment with two decades of nationalist rhetoric. As a result, promoting democracy as an alternative system of governance is unlikely to appeal to the average Russian. Rather, like the famous Arnold Schwarzenegger video condemning Putin’s attack on Ukraine, a more effective approach would be to underscore just how Putin has degraded Russia’s “greatness” at home and abroad with his bloody war in Ukraine. Accurate, neutral information is a potent weapon amid ceaseless propaganda. Effective information operations could show Russians how their country went from a nation of international respect and prestige to a global pariah. Rather than rejecting nationalist tendencies, such an effort would play on many Russians’ desire to regain their country’s lost glory.

Likewise, undermining Putin’s carefully cultivated strongman image can erode support among key pro-Kremlin constituencies. These messages could note how weak Putin’s prosecution of the war has been as well as how he and his allies have enriched themselves even as the public struggles. In addition to exposing the wealth of oligarchs, for instance, a successful campaign would also focus on how Russia’s leader of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, enjoys his luxury $40,000 Breguet watch while almost 20 million Russians live in poverty. Soviet leaders themselves were disciplined for questioning Russian nationalism. Alexander Yakovlev, the head of the Central Committee’s Propaganda Department, was demoted in 1972 after publishing an article in Literaturnaya Gazeta where he criticized Russian nationalism. Similarly, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was deported and stripped of his citizenship due to “performing systematically actions that are incompatible with being a citizen,” following a press campaign that painted him as “choking with pathological hatred” and lacking patriotism for the Soviet Union.

Humor can be a powerful tool in these endeavors. Amid Moscow’s draconian censorship laws, the “your tongue is your worst enemy” rule — meaning be careful what you say — has always been the key to survival. In 2019, the Russian parliament passed a law threatening 15 days in prison for “blatant disrespect” toward the state, its officials and Russian society. But even Stalin could not stop satire, which became the most popular form of political protest in the former Soviet Union.

Current U.S. information operations should revive a similar focus on humor — and give Russians fodder to tell their own jokes. Since the Ukraine war began, Putin has invoked Stalin’s legacy numerous times. Well, two can play at that game. Take the famous Stalin slogan “Life has become better, comrades!” That could easily be adapted to the current situation in Russia to mock Putin. The Kremlin knows humor can be a dangerous tool in information operations; just a few years ago, Russia’s culture ministry banned the satirical hit film The Death of Stalin on grounds that the film was “extremist” and “aimed at humiliating the Russian people.” But it cannot track and block every piece of satire that enters the information space.

U.S. information operations should also seek to fuel anti-Kremlin grievances among Russia’s ethnic minority groups. Groups such as the Buryats, the Yakuts and the Chechens face consistent discrimination, while the state turns a blind eye. Meanwhile, during the war in Ukraine, the Russian army has recruited vastly higher rates of soldiers from minority groups than other groups, resulting in an elevated rate of minority casualties. This recruitment process represents the Kremlin’s continual exploitation of those living in poorer regions who lack employment opportunities. Putin already fears that ethnic minorities could form secessionist movements that divide Russia’s multiethnic society. As such, he has sought to impose his “power vertical” on these groups. For example, Moscow just stripped the head of Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan of his title as president of the region, which had sought independence back in the 1990s. Washington should ensure every Tatar in Russia knows what they have lost and encourage them to fight for their rights.

During the Cold War, the U.S. was overtly and covertly supporting dissident groups. Although it is important to engage with exiled Russian dissidents and amplify their voices, this is not necessarily the most effective method to reach the ordinary Russian and change their perceptions. Pro-Putin Russians do not watch dissident channels. A more effective method to reach Putin’s heartland is to work within their own community. A critical aspect in Russian culture is trust. When dissident opinions come from sources that Russians deem trustworthy, they let down their guard. The United States therefore should seek to quietly form partnerships with Russian-speaking social media influencers to help them spread messages inside Russia to counter the Kremlin’s pervasive disinformation.

Putin has eagerly waded into the West’s information space in recent years. He’s interfered in elections in Europe and the United States, stoked internecine fights within our country and otherwise sought to weaken our democratic institutions. Now, the Biden administration can force the Russian dictator to defend himself. The United States has a variety of tools at its disposal to conduct effective information operations within Russia — and simply spreading the truth about Putin’s real weakness is the most powerful weapon of all.

The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not imply endorsement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Intelligence Community or any other U.S. government agency.

POLITICO

Politico

11. FDD | Israel Thwarts Terror Plots in West Bank, Yet Threats Continue

FDD | Israel Thwarts Terror Plots in West Bank, Yet Threats Continue

fdd.org · September 7, 2022

Latest Developments

Israel’s Chief of the General Staff Aviv Kohavi stated on Monday that since late March, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have apprehended approximately 1,500 wanted Palestinians in the West Bank and thwarted “hundreds of attacks.” Kohavi’s statement highlights the significant threat posed by Palestinian terrorist organizations in the territory, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and others.

Expert Analysis

“The sharp uptick in IDF activity in the West Bank is a direct result of a spike in Palestinian terrorist activity. Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority has lost control of pockets of the West Bank, and the result has been terror attacks against Israelis and increased lawlessness on both sides of the green line. The IDF is working overtime on a terrorist-containment strategy to ensure that the West Bank does not fall into the hands of Iran-backed terror groups.”

– Enia Krivine, Senior Director of FDD’s Israel Program and National Security Network

“It’s clear the Palestinian Authority’s control over areas of the West Bank has eroded. The loss of control has led to an inability to fight terrorism in the PA’s own back yard. Israel is supporting the PA by carrying out operations against organizations such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which continues to gain ground as the PA loses control in areas of the West Bank.” – Joe Truzman, Research Analyst, FDD’s Long War Journal

A Long-Simmering Threat

For years after the 2000-2005 intifada, areas of the West Bank such as Jenin were relatively peaceful and benefited from Israeli Arab tourism. However, in recent years, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) rule over these areas has weakened. Some of this stems from frustration with the leadership of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected in 2005 to serve a four-year term but has refused to hold presidential elections since he took power. Some of this also stems from a deliberate strategy, launched by Hamas and PIJ, to destabilize the West Bank as part of a broader bid to gain greater control.

The PA Is Complicit in Attacks Against Israel

Kohavi said the PA’s inability to “properly govern” areas under its control has provided “fertile ground” for terrorism. The U.S.-supported Palestinian Security Forces (PSF) cannot yet operate at the same level of professionalism as the IDF. In some cases, PA intelligence officers, PA customs police, and members of the PSF have been complicit in attacks against the IDF since last year.

The IDF Has Increased Operations in the West Bank to Curb the Chaos

The uptick in terror activity in the West Bank has occurred primarily in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus. Militants have established a joint operations room in Jenin to respond to IDF incursions. This fusion center enables Palestinian terrorists from different (and sometimes competing) factions to fight the IDF together. The result is a recent spike in clashes between IDF troops and Palestinian militants.

Chicken and Egg

Some Palestinians are warning that continued Israeli operations in the West Bank could provoke a wider conflict. On the other hand, Israeli security services assert that if the IDF does not neutralize the threats in the lawless pockets of the West Bank, the problem will only worsen. This is a conundrum that both the PA and Israel will need to address separately and together, particularly if the goal is to prevent a broader crisis.

Related FDD Analysis

• “Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is an Iran-Supported Terror Organization,” FDD Flash Brief
• “Disrupting Palestinian Islamic Jihad a smart play by Israel,” by Enia Krivine

fdd.org · September 7, 2022

12. U.N. nuclear watchdog has "serious concern" about North Korea

U.N. nuclear watchdog has "serious concern" about North Korea

Reuters · by Reuters

ZURICH, Sept 7 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog has "serious concern" about North Korea's atomic programme, it said in an annual report to members on Wednesday, urging the country to comply with Security Council resolutions.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi had sounded the alarm in June, noting that building work expanding key facilities at North Korea's main nuclear site at Yongbyon was advancing. read more

The reclusive state has staged a series of missile tests this year and some analysts believe it is preparing to resume testing nuclear weapons after a five-year hiatus. read more

In the annual report released on Wednesday, the IAEA said excavation work commenced in March near Adit 3 at a nuclear test site close to the settlement of Punggye-ri to reopen the test tunnel after its partial demolition in May 2018. Excavation work at Adit 3 was possibly completed by May, it said.

Several timber support buildings were also built at the site, and the IAEA observed work to shore up portions of a washed-out road nearby.

"The reopening of the nuclear test site is deeply troubling, as is the expansion of the reported centrifuge enrichment facility (at Yongbyon) and the continued operation of the 5MW(e) reactor and other facilities," the agency said in a summary of its findings.

"The continuation of the DPRK's nuclear programme is a clear violation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions and is deeply regrettable," it added, using the acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Grossi called upon the country to comply with its obligations under U.N. Security Council resolutions, cooperate with the IAEA, and resolve outstanding issues, especially those that have arisen since IAEA inspectors left in 2009.

Reporting by Michael Shields; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

13. Russia’s Ukraine Setbacks

Russia’s Ukraine Setbacks

Putin’s threats and scramble for arms show he’s under pressure.​

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-ukraine-setbacks-vladimir-putin-iran-north-korea-ukraine-weapons-11662501169​

By The Editorial BoardFollow

Sept. 7, 2022 7:08 pm ET

Russia’s war against Ukraine seems to have taken a modest turn in Ukraine’s favor, and one sign is Vladimir Putin’s new threats and his scramble for arms from his own client states.

Russia expected its February blitzkrieg to end in a quick victory, but the conflict has bogged down and Ukraine is now pressing an offensive in the south aimed at busting up Russian logistics and taking back territory. Russia has had to spend down its munition stores. It is having a hard time replenishing smart weapons in particular because of the West’s embargo on selling computer chips and other components that go into modern weapons.

Thus the Kremlin’s Operation Tin Cup toward Iran and North Korea, two of the world’s worst rogues. U.S. intelligence officials whispered to the press on Monday about Pyongyang’s help for Moscow to relieve “severe supply shortages.” This follows last month’s reports that the mullahs of Iran are supplying drones to the Kremlin. Countries claiming great power status typically provide client states with weapons, not vice versa.

You can also measure Mr. Putin’s anxiety by his threats Wednesday to further curtail Russian energy exports and renege on his deal to let Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea. Russia has recently cut off the natural gas flow to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, and Mr. Putin threatened to extend the cutoff and add oil and refined products. He wants to increase the political pressure on European leaders going into the cold winter months. But any such cutoff would also hurt the Kremlin’s revenue to fund the war.

As for grain, Mr. Putin struck the deal to allow Ukrainian exports this summer lest Russia be blamed for famine around the world. He accused the West on Wednesday of “blatant deception” in somehow taking advantage of the deal at the expense of providing food to the developing world.

But Mr. Putin knows the food market is global and one of the goals of the export deal was to lower food prices by increasing supply. That helps consumers in poor countries too. If Mr. Putin does block Ukraine’s grain exports, he’ll be responsible for the suffering.

The U.S. could also warn Mr. Putin that if he does block Ukraine’s grain, a coalition of the willing would consider naval escorts for Ukrainian grain ships. A similar plan worked to escort oil from the Persian Gulf in the 1980s against threats from Iran. With his military struggling with manpower and supplies, Mr. Putin can’t be eager to challenge Western ships engaged in a peaceful escort mission.

The Ukraine war is far from over, and Mr. Putin may escalate his brutality and extortion. But Moscow’s sound and fury show that Ukraine’s resistance and foreign support are making a difference. Continuing the supply of advanced weaponry is crucial to stopping Mr. Putin’s designs on Kyiv, and on the front-line nations of NATO if he isn’t stopped. Ukraine is under pressure but so is Russia.

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Appeared in the September 8, 2022, print edition as 'Russia’s Ukraine Setbacks'.

14. US condemns ‘unprecedented’ Iranian cyberattack against Albania

US condemns ‘unprecedented’ Iranian cyberattack against Albania

BY JARED GANS - 09/07/22 10:40 AM ET

The Hill · by Rebecca Klar · September 7, 2022

The U.S. National Security Council (NSC) on Wednesday called for Iran to be held accountable for an “unprecedented” cyberattack it said the country committed against Albania in July.

NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a release the United States condemns Iran’s actions and plans to hold Iran accountable for threatening the security of an ally and setting a “troubling precedent” for cyberspace.

A cyberattack temporarily shut down multiple Albanian government digital services and websites on July 15. Prime Minister Edi Rama said in a statement addressed to the Albanian people on Wednesday that an investigation confirmed “without a shadow of a doubt” that the attack was not conducted by individuals or independent criminal organizations, but state-sponsored group.

Rama said investigators reviewed “indisputable” evidence that Iran ordered the attack and engaged four groups that conducted it, including one that has previously launched cyberattacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Cyprus.

He said Albania has cut diplomatic relations with Iran effective immediately and ordered all diplomatic, technical, administrative and security staff at the Iranian embassy to leave within 24 hours.

Watson said the U.S. government has been working alongside private sector partners for weeks to support Albania’s efforts to recover from and investigate the attack. Albania is an ally of the U.S. as a member of NATO.

Trump special master ruling ‘troubling,’ legal experts say States wasting billions on new highways, rather than fixing old ones: report

Watson said Iran’s conduct ignores established peacetime norms of a state refraining from damaging infrastructure that provides a service to the public.

“Malicious cyber activity by a State that intentionally damages critical infrastructure or otherwise impairs its use and operation to provide services to the public can have cascading domestic, regional, and global effects; pose an elevated risk of harm to the population; and may lead to escalation and conflict,” she said.

Rama said damages from the attack are minimal as all systems returned fully operational and no irreversible wiping of data occurred.

The Hill · by Rebecca Klar · September 7, 2022

15. Ukraine launches second counteroffensive in northeast

Ukraine launches second counteroffensive in northeast

By Liv Klingert flip.it2 min

View Original

Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive not only in the country's south but also in the northeast. "While Putin's southern forces are locked in fighting or digging trenches, a second front has opened up in northeastern Ukraine," Oleksi Arestovych, Advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on Telegram.

The attack takes place in conjunction with the southern counteroffensive in the Kherson region. "We are advancing across almost the entire front line." According to the government advisor, Russia is moving forward in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bachmoet, but "without success."

Arestovych is hopeful that Ukraine can defeat Russian forces in Kherson "in the coming months," adding that he expects a "significant advance" in the east. "The Russian army will not be as strong as it was at the beginning of the summer."

In addition, the British Ministry of Defence wrote in its latest intelligence update on 7 September that there is now heavy fighting on three fronts: in the north near the city of Kharkiv, in the east in the Donbas region, and in Kherson in the south.

Russia's main efforts are reportedly being placed an advance on Bakhmut in the Donbas, according to British intelligence.

However, commanders now face a dilemma on whether to focus on this offensive, or defend against Ukrainian advances in the south.

Related News

It is unclear whether the northeastern attack around Kharkiv has been a surprise for Russia. "If the Ukrainians have achieved operational surprise around Kharkiv, will demonstrate just how the Russian military is in disarray," said Philip O'Brien, Professor of Strategic Studies at The University of St.Andrews, on Twitter.

"I assumed through all the different monitoring devices (from satellites, to UAVs to cyber and more) that such operational surprise would be…Almost impossible. Plus it’s right over the border from Russia. If the Russians missed this, their military is in worse shape than expected. Also a really good sign that Ukraine has its security in the best possible shape," O'Brien continued.

He added that Russia may have known an attack in Kharkiv was ongoing but was not able to counter it. "If so, that’s a disarray of a different kind and shows the inflexibility in the Russian military."

16. The U.S. Army Has a Fentanyl Problem (Thanks to Mexico and China)

I believe this is a form of Unrestricted Warfare.

The U.S. Army Has a Fentanyl Problem (Thanks to Mexico and China)

19fortyfive.com · by Steve Balestrieri · September 7, 2022

Fentanyl and more – How China and Mexico are poisoning our military: The Army is in the midst of a recruiting shortfall, despite a record retention rate, and the recent news isn’t going to help its recruiting matters anytime soon. Still smarting over a sexual assault crisis that rose by 13 percent, there is an alarming increase in drug overdose deaths, even among elite units.

A recent article in Rolling Stone magazine highlighted the problem that Ft. Bragg, NC, has with illicit drugs, and death by drug overdose is now the leading cause of death for soldiers at the sprawling military base that is the home of the 82nd Airborne and the 18th Airborne Corps, as well as the 3rd Special Forces Group. The Special Forces training pipeline is also located at Ft. Bragg.

But it isn’t just a Ft. Bragg problem. It is an Army and a nationwide issue that has to be addressed. During this year’s college spring break, six cadets from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point were hospitalized in Florida for ingesting cocaine laced with fentanyl.

The number of drug overdose deaths is rising alarmingly in the U.S. In 2020, there were nearly 92,000 overdose deaths in the U.S., with 56,516 dying from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. In 2021, there were more than 107,000 Americans that died of drug overdoses, which is the highest annual death toll ever recorded and a 15 percent increase over 2020.

But a closer look reveals that much of the illicit drugs – but not all – responsible for accidental overdoses can be traced to the Mexican drug cartels who get their precursor chemicals from China.

Why the Huge Spike in Drug Overdose Deaths?

In asking the question above, the answer is probably twofold. First, it seems more people have begun using illicit drugs as a way to cope with the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the second factor is that since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a massive influx of the distribution of fentanyl all across the United States. According to Dr. Volkow, Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, methamphetamine and cocaine overdose deaths have also spiked.

“Fentanyl is being used not just to be sold by itself, but very frequently sold to contaminate heroin or, more recently, to contaminate cocaine and contaminate methamphetamine, and, even more recently, to contaminate illicitly manufactured prescription drugs,” she said.

“And because fentanyl is so potent, it increases the risk of overdose significantly. So, people that in the past were able to take drugs more or less safely are now actually at a very high risk of overdosing,” she added.

Fort Bragg Has Lost a Staggering Amount of Troops Recently

The piece in Rolling Stone states that “a total of 109 soldiers assigned to Fort Bragg, active and reserve, lost their lives in 2020 and 2021, casualty reports obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show. Only four of the deaths occurred in overseas combat operations. All the rest took place stateside. Fewer than 20 were from natural causes. All the rest were preventable. This is a seemingly unprecedented wave of fatalities on a modern U.S. military installation.”

The Army reported 45 deaths on base in 2020, but through the Freedom of Information Act, Rolling Stone learned there were 56. In 2021, a Ft. Bragg spokesman said the number of deaths on the base was 38, but Rolling Stone learned that the number was 53. According to the Army there were six drug overdose deaths on base, but there were probably at least 11, as many were to have died from “unspecified” illegal substances.

Local newspaper, The Fayetteville Observer, reported on the alarming month where soldiers died at an alarming rate from unexplained causes, and published an article on Oct. 30,2021 that tied together the cases of “six soldiers found dead in barracks on post.” Ft. Bragg’s answer was to stop posting any notices about drug-related deaths.

Fentanyl overdoses are now the leading cause of deaths in the United States for people under the age of 45. There has been an explosion of counterfeit Xanax, Adderall, hydrocodone, percoccet, and other legal drugs that are purchased on the street, many of which are laced with fentanyl. Many of these overdoses may in fact be accidental poisonings. Where are all of the illicit fake drugs coming from? Not to mention cocaine and meth that are laced with fatal amounts of fentanyl.

The Mexico/China Connection

Not only are the Mexican drug cartels running nearly unchallenged south of the border, but their presence is being felt here in the United States and they are operating with the same deadly approach that they use in Mexico. And worse still, they have been operating for over 30 years with help from Chinese chemists.

First by getting the precursor drugs to make methamphetamine, but now the Chinese are shipping vast amounts of fentanyl to Mexico, where the two main cartels (the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) are the most important Mexican suppliers of the drug and its precursors are running their own factories, which produce fake pills as well as lacing cocaine and meth that come across our borders.

China’s Efforts to Destroy and Destabilize America

I spoke with Derek Maltz, who was a member of the DEA for 28 years. Maltz was the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Special Operations Division (SOD) for almost 10 years and previously held the position as the Chief of the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force, which is the oldest and largest drug task force in America.

Maltz is quick to point out this isn’t a Red vs. Blue issue, it is a Red, White, and Blue issue that is killing our citizens.

A battery of 105mm Light Artillery guns manned by 103 Regiment (V) Royal Artillery opens fire during a military pageant.

The versatile 105mm light gun is used by the parachute and commando field artillery regiments of the British Army.

The light gun can be towed by a medium-weight vehicle or carried around the battlefield underslung by a Chinook helicopter.

Royal Artillery L118 light guns are fitted with an automatic pointing system (APS), which enables the gun to be unlimbered and in action in 30 seconds. APS is based on an inertial navigation system, operated via a touch screen, it replaces the traditional dial sight.

This all began around 2008-2009 when the U.S. was bombarded with “bath salts” and other synthetic drugs produced in Chinese labs.

The first big fentanyl outbreak of overdose deaths occurred in the Midwest in the mid-2000s and took thousands of lives.

The DEA tracked the production facility to a single lab in Toluca, Mexico, where one of the lab’s operators told authorities that he’d bought the necessary chemicals from a Chinese company. Once Mexican authorities shut down the lab, the overdoses stopped.

Unlike in Latin America, where the DEA built up solid contacts with host nation police and para-military counternarcotics officers, China posed different problems. The Chinese insisted that they did not have a fentanyl problem. What they had was a fentanyl strategy.

Maltz told me that this is “China’s strategy of destroying and destabilizing America from within by distributing its poison.” He characterized it as “unrestricted warfare.”

Weapon of Mass Destruction

Fentanyl is extremely powerful; a sugar packet packet-sized bag of fentanyl can kill 500 people. So much fentanyl is floating into the U.S. that the San Diego and Imperial California border crossings seized 5,091 pounds of fentanyl coming into the U.S. and it didn’t slow down the availability of the drugs in the country.

In just the past five years, drug overdose deaths are up 2,200 percent in California.

Maltz and many others (some in Congress in a bipartisan move) want to designate fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. Maltz wants to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations.

“How would Americans react if we learned Hezbollah or al-Qaeda was setting up a bioweapons factory in Mexico? The cartels and China are doing just that.”

He and many others want the U.S. to take on the cartels, and that will require strikes on labs and Special Operations teams operating inside of Mexico. If that were to happen, we would need the Mexicans to get on board. Will it happen? Time will tell, but the problem isn’t going away, it is only getting worse.

Expert Biography: Steve Balestrieri is a 1945 National Security Columnist. A proven military analyst, he served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer in the 7th Special Forces Group. In addition to writing for 19fortyfive.com and other military news organizations, he has covered the NFL for PatsFans.com for over 11 years. His work was regularly featured in the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and Grafton News newspapers in Massachusetts.

19fortyfive.com · by Steve Balestrieri · September 7, 2022

17. ‘These Kids Are Dying’ — Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg

The Rolling Stone article that is bringing light to this problem.

‘These Kids Are Dying’ — Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg

A staggering total of 109 soldiers assigned to Fort Bragg died in 2020 and 2021. Dozens have lost their lives there to drug overdoses. Now, their families are demanding answers — and accountability

BY SETH HARP

Illustration by Joan Wong

SEP 4, 2022 8:09 AM

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/inside-the-overdose-crisis-sweeping-fort-bragg-1396298/

RACHEAL BOWMAN, A single mother from Aberdeen, Maryland, was finishing up her shift as a postal worker the afternoon of June 11, 2021, when she got a worrisome call from her son’s girlfriend. Her son, Matthew Disney, a 20-year-old soldier stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, wasn’t answering his phone. Neither his girlfriend nor his mom nor his little sisters could reach him. “It was very unlike him,” Bowman says. “Matthew’s sister has been incredibly ill her whole life” with a rare intestinal disorder. “When she calls, he answers.”

Her son was the child she never had to worry about, Bowman tells Rolling Stone. As a boy, he was well-behaved and supportive of his mom, who had been through a nasty divorce and struggled financially. He was “upbeat and passionate” about baseball, football, and video games. And for as long as she could remember, he’d had it in his head to join the military. “He had the very strong belief that if you were able-bodied, you should serve your country,” Bowman says. “Whether you like your president or not. He could tell you all about other countries where it was mandatory.”

Disney considered all the service branches, and decided on the U.S. Army. He enlisted after high school, trained as a radar operator and, in March 2020, was assigned to an airborne artillery regiment at Fort Bragg. He had done nine parachute jumps, and the last time he spoke to his mom, he was excited to do his 10th. But that Friday in June, he had the day off. “Hours were going by and he was not responding to any of us,” Bowman says. “This was extremely out of character.”

Bowman and her daughters called up some of Disney’s friends, fellow soldiers at Fort Bragg, and they alerted the fire guard on duty, she says, who located surveillance footage of Disney and another radarman, Spc. Joshua Diamond, entering the barracks at 11 the night before. But when they knocked on Diamond’s locked door, no one answered. Neither the fire guard nor the military police would open Diamond’s door by force, because 24 hours hadn’t elapsed, meaning he and Disney couldn’t be considered missing persons. “Even though there were family members saying something is wrong,” Bowman says, “they would not open the locked door.”

Bowman was frantic. She contacted a family friend in Maryland, a colonel in the Army, and he made some calls that evidently spurred the military police into action. They called Bowman and asked her permission to track her son’s phone. “And then it was crickets,” she says. “Everything went silent. The second I gave my permission to ping his phone, the MPs wouldn’t talk to us.”

The Army follows a strict procedure for notifying the next of kin of casualties, and always sends a uniformed officer to deliver the bad news in person. But around midnight, Disney’s sister received an anonymous call. Bowman was standing on the front porch. “I just heard her scream,” she says. “And I went inside, and she was on the kitchen floor with Matt’s girlfriend, screaming ‘This isn’t fucking funny. Who the fuck are you? What kind of sick joke is this?’”

The caller would only tell them that Disney was “no longer alive.” Bowman placed phone call after desperate phone call and, at two in the morning, got through to her son’s battalion commander. He confirmed that Disney had been found in Diamond’s room, lifeless. “I’m so sorry,” she remembers him saying. “He was a good kid.” But he wouldn’t tell her what had happened, only that Disney “didn’t do anything to hurt himself.”

On top of the shock and grief of learning that her only son was dead, Bowman was confused. If it wasn’t suicide, then what had happened to Matthew? All she could think was that the other soldier, Diamond, must have done something to harm him.

That was not the case. In fact, Diamond was dead, too. His body had been found slumped over Disney’s on the floor, almost as if in an embrace. And many Fort Bragg soldiers have died recently under similar circumstances — quietly, in their barracks, in their bunks, in a parked car, or somewhere off-post, from no outwardly apparent cause. According to a set of casualty reports obtained by Rolling Stone through the Freedom of Information Act, at least 14 — and as many as 30 — Fort Bragg soldiers have died in this way since the start of 2020. Yet there has been no acknowledgment from the Army or reporting in the national press on any aspect of this phenomenon, nor word one from any member of Congress. Only the families of the victims have been informed — discreetly, and in private.

Disney’s memorial service was in July. “We were getting ready to go into the chapel,” Bowman says, and Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, came into the room and personally informed her that the results of a toxicology report were in. The cause of death was acute fentanyl intoxication.

Donahue, who has since been promoted to lieutenant general, did not respond to a request for comment sent to Fort Bragg. But Rolling Stone obtained Disney’s Defense Department Form 1300, a “report of casualty,” which essentially functions as a military death certificate. It confirms that he died accidentally from an overdose of fentanyl.

That only compounded Bowman’s confusion. “My son was not a drug user,” she insists. Under no circumstances would he have wittingly ingested fentanyl. Addiction ran in the fa mily, and Disney’s little sister had endured dozens of surgeries, and periodically relied on or had to withdraw from opioids, so he was well aware of the risks they entailed. “Fentanyl, ketamine, Narcan, laudanum, Percocet, morphine,” Bowman says. “These are drugs that we talked about on a very regular basis.”

However, one conversation she never had with her kids was about counterfeit pills. Military investigators informed her that Disney had ingested an imitation Percocet, a prescription painkiller. “I had never in my life heard of a fake Percocet that looked legit from a pharmacy,” she says, “until my son took one and it killed him.”

A STAGGERING TOTAL of 109 soldiers assigned to Fort Bragg, active and reserve, lost their lives in 2020 and 2021, casualty reports obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show. Only four of the deaths occurred in overseas combat operations. All the rest took place stateside. Fewer than 20 were from natural causes. All the rest were preventable. This is a seemingly unprecedented wave of fatalities on a modern U.S. military installation.

Casualties of the Home Front Matthew Disney (left) and Joshua Diamond (below) were found dead in their barracks after taking a fake Percocet that had been laced with fentanyl. According to a set of casualty reports obtained by Rolling Stone, at least 14 — and as many as 30 — Fort Bragg soldiers have died in this way since the start of 2020. “All these deaths are happening in the same way, and no one is talking about it,” says Racheal Bowman, Disney’s mom. “It’s all swept under the rug.”

Images courtesy of the families

Forty-one Fort Bragg soldiers took their own lives in 2020 and 2021, making suicide the leading cause of death. A spokesman for the Army, Matthew Leonard, confirmed that no other base has ever recorded a higher two-year suicide toll. There were also a shocking number of incidents of soldier-on-soldier violence. Since mid-2020, 11 Fort Bragg soldiers have been murdered or charged with murder, including one murder-suicide. Five Fort Bragg soldiers were shot to death, and one was beheaded. Rolling Stone has previously reported on the rash of violent crime at Fort Bragg and investigated several of the unsolved murders. The newly obtained documents shed light on another kind of killer stalking soldiers and go a long way toward explaining the record-setting death toll.

Fourteen of the casualty reports state explicitly that the soldier died from a drug overdose. Eleven of these identify fentanyl as the fatal agent. In five other cases, the soldier died at a young age from acute renal or liver failure, or from a heart attack — medical events that young people typically don’t experience, but that can be brought on by heavy drug abuse, complications from mixing drugs, or organ damage from the use of banned steroids. In addition, there were two cases where soldiers died from “undetermined” causes after being found unresponsive, for a total of 21 probable drug-related deaths in the two years ending December 2021. By comparison, there were about 13 illness deaths at Fort Bragg over the same period, 14 car and motorcycle crashes, and three fatal training accidents. Putting aside instances of self-harm, then, accidental overdose is the leading cause of death at Fort Bragg.

Rolling Stone obtained the casualty reports from the U.S. Army Human Resources Command, not Fort Bragg, where officials have been not at all forthcoming. A spokesman for the base — a colonel — said that the number of deaths in 2020 was 45. According to the reports, it was 56. Another spokesman, a captain, stated in writing that the 2021 death toll was 38. In fact, it was 53. The same captain also told Rolling Stone that the number of opioid overdoses last year was four. In reality, it was at least six, and probably 11, if you count all of the deaths that were likely drug related. When confronted with these facts, Fort Bragg officials deflect blame and point to trends in the general population. “We do not see this as an isolated issue that only plagues Fort Bragg,” Capt. Matt Visser wrote in an email. He pointed to the proximity of Interstate 95 — the highway from Miami to New York, a notorious drug-trafficking corridor — which “increases the accessibility of substances” to Fort Bragg soldiers.

In most cases, there is no announcement when a soldier OD’s. For instance, on Feb. 23, 2020, Spc. Christopher Jenkins, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst, died of “fentanyl and dextromethorphan intoxication,” according to his casualty report. Though it occurred on Fort Bragg, there was no press release, and no news reports of the death of this active-duty soldier, who was from West Palm Beach, Florida. No obituary was published, and Jenkins left no trace on the internet.

Other Fort Bragg soldiers who died of an overdose with no public notice in 2020 and 2021 include Spc. Christhiam Gonzalez-Pineda, a helicopter repairman originally from Honduras who died from the acute effects of unspecified “illegal substances,” per his casualty report; Pfc. Anthony Savala, an infantryman from California who died from a cocktail of Benadryl, benzodiazepines, and fentanyl; Spc. Zachary Bracken, a Green Beret candidate from Maryland who died from a combination of alcohol and fentanyl; Sgt. 1st Class Michael Tardie, an infantryman from Arizona who died from the same mixture; Sgt. David Mazzullo, a signals-intelligence analyst from New York who died from an overdose of heroin and fentanyl; and Spc. Matthew Meadows, a parachute rigger from Texas who died from fentanyl alone. None of these deaths were made public.

In other cases, for reasons that aren’t clear, Fort Bragg did make an announcement when a soldier died of an overdose, but in a vague and euphemistic way that made no mention of drugs. For example, a Special Forces candidate from Ohio named Jamie Boger was found “unresponsive in his barracks,” according to a March 16, 2020, press release; his casualty report shows that he died of cocaine and fentanyl intoxication. Likewise, on Nov. 11, 2020, Spc. Terrance Salazar, an infantryman from Texas, was found “unresponsive in his room”; he died from mixing alcohol and cough syrup. Pfc. Mikel Rubino, an infantryman from California, was “found unresponsive in his barracks room” on Aug. 13, 2021; he died from a fentanyl overdose, according to his casualty report. Six weeks later, an artillery spotter from Texas was found “unresponsive” in his off-post housing; his cause of death remains pending determination.

The artillery spotter died in the first week of October 2021, a month during which Fort Bragg soldiers were losing their lives at the incredible rate of one every three days. The local newspaper, The Fayetteville Observer, picked up on the trend of soldiers dying from unexplained causes and published an article on Oct. 30 that tied together the cases of “six soldiers found dead in barracks on post.” After that, the public-affairs office seems to have quit announcing overdose deaths altogether. The incidents of apparently healthy young men turning up “unresponsive” stopped.

“The Army was like, ‘Here, go tie ribbons on trees,’ ” says Disney’s mom. “They need to start talking about the problem. But they don’t want to acknowledge it.”

Nonetheless, another 21 Fort Bragg soldiers died over the subsequent five months — one from a confirmed overdose, and nine others from causes pending determination. The most recent soldier to turn up lifeless on Fort Bragg from causes that the Army can’t or won’t explain was Maj. Eric Ewoldsen, on March 25, 2022. Ewoldsen was not just any soldier. According to multiple sources, he was an officer on Delta Force, a top-secret manhunting unit said to be the most selective organization in the entire Department of Defense. It’s a mystery how Ewoldsen, a 38-year-old fitness fanatic, ended up slumped over in a parked vehicle somewhere on Fort Bragg, but sources close to his family say that no foul play was involved. “His death is not a result of malpractice or anything nefarious,” Ewoldsen’s former Delta Force teammate Cody McBride wrote in an email.

“All these deaths are happening in the same way, and no one is talking about it,” says Racheal Bowman, Disney’s mom. “It’s all very secretive. It’s all swept under the rug.” She adds, “This is obviously a problem. How is it that nobody knows about it?”

MANY PEOPLE ASSUME that because soldiers are regularly drug-tested they can’t use illicit substances. This assumption is mistaken. The Army has long taken a more lackadaisical attitude toward drug use than some might expect. Many years ago, when I enlisted, my recruiter asked me not whether I smoked marijuana but rather, “When was the last time?” He then showed me a minifridge in his office that was full of detox drinks that he said would allow me to pass a urinalysis. Later, when my unit was about to deploy to Iraq, a sergeant in my platoon tested positive for cocaine. Nothing happened to him.

To an even greater extent than Americans in general, U.S. soldiers are overworked, stressed out, and chronically deprived of sleep. To cope with the demands of their physically and emotionally taxing jobs, they turn to a whole range of potent substances, legal and illegal, whether it’s a hyper-caffeinated energy drink to boost a predawn workout, an off-duty joint to ease a chronic injury, steroids to obtain an edge in selection for an elite unit, or a line of cocaine in the bathroom of a bar after a deployment. Hard-drug use is increasingly apparent in the Special Forces. A group of Navy SEAL whistleblowers told CBS News that the military’s drug-testing protocols are “a joke.” In many cases, there’s no institutional incentive for commanders to punish soldiers for simple possession or use. It’s an offense best dealt with quietly and administratively. But fentanyl has changed the calculus.

Fentanyl overdose is now the leading cause of death among American adults under the age of 45. The cheaply manufactured, perniciously addictive, superpotent nightmare drug has contaminated the whole range of illicit narcotics in the United States. People who think they’re taking cocaine, Xanax, hydrocodone, or some other relatively softer substance may end up ingesting it unknowingly. Indeed, many of these deaths should not be considered overdoses at all, but rather accidental poisonings.

“He definitely didn’t know it was fentanyl, that’s for certain,” says a close friend of Spc. Joshua Diamond, the radarman whose room Disney was found dead in. “Based off of text messages they found on his phone, he purchased a Percocet.”

Or so he thought. It’s not clear whether Diamond and Disney split one pill or took one each. Their families learned from investigators that Diamond had purchased the pill or pills from a fellow soldier in the 82nd Airborne, who got them off the dark web.

Diamond grew up in Taunton, Massachusetts, a small town south of Boston. According to the friend (who wanted to remain anonymous because he works in law enforcement), Diamond did “backbreaking jobs” in his twenties, “roadwork,” and joined the Army at the age of 34 in search of “structure in his life.” He wanted “something he could be proud of,” the friend says, “a stable career.”

The region of Massachusetts where he and Diamond grew up together is “riddled with overdose deaths,” he says, but the friend is vague about Diamond’s past use of drugs. “I don’t want to sit here and say he was a saint and a choirboy,” he says. “Anything that he was involved in, it wasn’t a lifestyle.”

The last time he saw Diamond, in May 2021, he had recently redeployed from Iraq. “His life was in good shape,” the friend says. “He was planning to ask his girlfriend to marry him. He was doing great. That’s why it’s so devastating. I thought he was going to learn a craft and be proud of himself. Instead, he got put in a pine box.”

THE DIRECTOR OF the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Dr. Nora Volkow, tells Rolling Stone that the number of opioid overdose deaths in the United States has been rising relentlessly for the past two decades. At first the problem was prescription pills, then heroin. She compares the emergence of fentanyl around 2015 or 2016 to the Omicron variant of Covid-19. “It just took hold everywhere,” she says.

Racheal Bowman

Jared Soares

Fentanyl is a classic example of the reliable tendency, well-known to economists, of drug and alcohol prohibitions to produce new substances that are ever-more potent, compact, cheap to manufacture, and toxic to users. Unlike heroin, fentanyl can be synthesized in a lab with no need to grow poppy plants. It is so highly concentrated that it can be distributed efficiently through the mail. “It is more powerful, more addictive, more rewarding,” Volkow says, “and much more likely to result in an overdose.”

On average, she says, members of the military are less likely to die of an opioid overdose than the general population, in large part because of entry-level screening that excludes people with preexisting substance-use disorders. However, recent studies show a “fast and dramatic” rise in the absolute number of overdose deaths among active-duty military men, she says. “They have been going up, just like in the whole United States.” She adds that the military medical system has been “very proactive” in its response, “particularly in the distribution of Naloxone.”

In addition to casualty reports from Fort Bragg, Rolling Stone obtained the casualty reports for every U.S. soldier, Army-wide, who died in 2021. The documents show that of 505 total deaths, 33 were confirmed overdoses. That alone would make overdose a leading cause of death among American soldiers, behind suicide, illness, and accidents, but well in excess of homicides and combat fatalities. However, just like at Fort Bragg, there are a substantial number of deaths from what the Army has labeled “undetermined” causes. If deemed overdoses, these would significantly increase the total. These 27 cases “pending determination” include a soldier who was found “unresponsive” in his barracks in Vicenza, Italy; three soldiers stationed in Alaska who were found dead over the winter, two at home and one in a vehicle; another Alaska-based soldier who died down in California from what the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner determined was a fentanyl overdose; and the deaths of two Special Forces soldiers, one in El Salvador and one in Long Island, New York, from causes the Army hasn’t determined.

Whatever the true total of soldier overdoses, it’s clear that a lopsided percentage of them take place at Fort Bragg, which is distinct from most other bases in that it’s overwhelmingly populated by male soldiers in combat-arms units. It is a base full of trigger pullers, where many have done multiple deployments to Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. Most recently, it was the 82nd that evacuated the Kabul airport when the U.S. withdrew. Nolkow says that while soldiers are less likely than civilians, on average, to develop a drug habit, “the psychological distress of being deployed, seeing people die, and being in a war zone” makes combat veterans “more vulnerable to drug taking and very heavy drinking as they try to auto-medicate the intense anxiety associated with PTSD.”

According to medical experts, alcohol and drug misuse are second only to depression and other mood disorders as predictors of suicidal behavior. Trauma feeds into both suicides and overdoses, which oftentimes can be hard for medical examiners to tell apart.

The surge in both at Fort Bragg coincided with the demoralizing end of the war in Afghanistan, in which the Special Forces and the 82nd Airborne played so prominent a role. That dispiriting defeat, after 20 years of hard fighting against a determined enemy, no doubt contributes to the malaise driving soldiers to drug themselves with opioids and other toxic narcotics. There are historical parallels here to the widespread use of heroin by American soldiers at the tail end of the Vietnam War. Military leaders will deny it and say that morale is high, but there is a palpable sense of purposelessness and disillusionment hanging over bases like Fort Bragg. “It’s a depressing place,” says a young soldier in the 82nd who was having breakfast at the nearby McDonald’s recently. “Everyone hates it.”

“The Army really had no interest in how he died,” says one grieving mother. “I have many unanswered questions, but nobody seems to give a shit.”

Despite the lack of reporting on this issue, Fort Bragg knows it has a problem. In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesman said that the base had taken a number of new measures recently to decrease the distribution of drugs on-post. They had stepped up police presence at the gates, increased background checks on visitors, deployed more drug-sniffing dogs, and raised the frequency of random urinalysis testing, Capt. Visser wrote. Nevertheless, drug-related crime increased a full 100 percent in fiscal year 2021, an officer in the provost marshal’s office admitted to the local ABC affiliate. According to data obtained by Rolling Stone, no fewer than 232 Fort Bragg soldiers were charged last year under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with possession, use, or distribution of a controlled substance, including an incident in which an MP was accused of moonlighting as a drug dealer, and selling Oxycodone from his cop car. And 2021 saw a continuation of a trend that Rolling Stone has previously reported on: Green Berets and other elite soldiers getting into the drug game.

Last year, I wrote about the case of Billy Lavigne, a dope-dealing Delta Force operator found murdered in the woods outside of Fort Bragg in December 2020. Two sources who knew Lavigne now say that they believe he was working with the North Carolina operation of a Mexican drug-trafficking cartel.

“That man worked for the cartel,” says a tattoo artist who saw Lavigne in November 2020, shortly before he was found shot to death in the back of his own truck. “He was transporting crystal meth. He was driving with people that were coming back from their pickup location, and collecting money if somebody was being a problem and not wanting to pay.” She adds, “I rode with him a couple of times to Atlanta, where they were doing the cooking.” In her view, “it had to have been the cartel that killed him.”

Lavigne was out of his mind on drugs and committed a string of irrational crimes from 2018 to 2020, including the murder of his best friend, a fellow Green Beret. Though the sheriff and DA’s office let him off the hook every time in an apparent favor to Delta Force, the cartel didn’t appreciate him drawing so much attention, the tattoo artist says. “It’s something called green-lighted,” she explains. “It means you’re going to be killed.”

Lavigne’s murder remains unsolved. “My speculation is he got involved with the cartels and was probably selling or moving stuff,” says James Reese, a retired Delta Force lieutenant colonel who knew Lavigne personally and worked with him in Iraq. “He probably started owing them money and couldn’t pay. Then the sandman came for Billy.”

Also unsolved is the cryptic case of Enrique Roman Martinez, the young Fort Bragg soldier from Chino, California, who was beheaded during a May 2020 camping trip with six of his comrades from the 82nd. Rolling Stone recently obtained CID’s entire 1,526-page investigative file on the suspected murder case, which makes clear that LSD played a key role in what went down. The partially redacted documents, including the campers’ handwritten statements, paint a picture of an outing to the beach that devolved into a bad psychedelic trip, then a horror movie, but never quite make clear who the culprits were that chopped off Martinez’s head.

More recently, in May 2021, a master sergeant in the 82nd named Martin Acevedo III was arrested in a joint raid by the Department of Homeland Security and the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. The feds seized more than two kilos of coke, several firearms, and $99,808 in cash from his house on Green Heron Drive, and hit him with heavy-duty trafficking charges. Acevedo pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced in August 2022.

Four months after Acevedo’s arrest, a Special Forces staff sergeant named David Rankine was charged with drug trafficking for importing “diverse amounts of anabolic steroids” into the United States. Rankine was also charged with cocaine use, child endangerment for allegedly snorting and injecting drugs in front of a minor, as well as sexual assault for forcing a woman to perform oral sex on him at gunpoint. He pleaded guilty to all but the child-endangerment charge and was sentenced to five years in prison.

To better understand the psychology of soldiers — particularly elite soldiers — who turn to drug trafficking, I wrote to Master Sgt. Daniel Gould, a Green Beret who won a Silver Star for valor in Afghanistan, only to be convicted in 2019 of conspiring to import a large quantity of cocaine into the U.S. from Colombia. “I had a great paycheck, and I didn’t need to do what I did,” Gould wrote back in a letter from federal prison, where he is serving a nine-year sentence. Money was part of what motivated him, he explained, but he mostly did it for the challenge, out of boredom, and because he’d lost touch with right and wrong due to the moral gray zone Special Forces soldiers so often inhabit: “The opportunity was there, and I took the risk.”

Gould’s scheme might have succeeded had it not been for a captain named Stephen Murga. Murga, an infantry officer assigned to the DEA station in Bogotá, got suspicious when Gould asked him to load a pair of punching bags onto a C-130 bound for Florida, and to not stop by the U.S. embassy on the way to the airfield. “I knew something was going on,” Murga tells Rolling Stone. “Knowing Dan, I wouldn’t put anything past him.” Murga tipped off the DEA, and Gould was forced to turn himself in.

Gould was an “adrenaline junkie” and a “war hero brought down by his ego,” in Murga’s estimation. “His Silver Star citation is the key to his persona. He was a Special Forces team leader. They were ambushed by the Taliban. He assaulted the ambush line, and killed, like, 14 of them.”

The adulation and praise that Gould received as a result made him feel as though he was untouchable, Murga says. He adds that it’s a “character arc” common to a lot of elite soldiers, in his experience. “I worked with a lot of SF operators over the past five years,” he says. “I don’t think he was motivated by money, but by danger and excitement. He thought he could get away with it.”

ALTHOUGH THE PRESIDENT is commander in chief, Congress has broad authority to fund, organize, manage, and regulate the military, and when necessary, to reform it. This was apparent in 2020, when the House Armed Services Committee created an independent review board to assess the leadership failures that led to 28 soldier deaths at Fort Hood, Texas, in the span of a single year. At the conclusion of that damning investigation, the Pentagon sacked nearly the entire chain of command at Fort Hood.

Twice as many soldiers died at Fort Bragg for two years running, and across the board, there were more incidents of homicide, suicide, and drug overdose. Sexual assault is also a major problem at Fort Bragg, as Rolling Stone has previously reported. Yet Congress has done absolutely nothing about it.

Fort Bragg is left to police itself, but there are serious questions about the sufficiency of the military justice system to deal with systemic drug crimes and substance abuse. When a soldier dies from an overdose or an accidental drug poisoning, it’s not always obvious who should be held responsible, or to what degree.

Friends of Disney’s told his mom the name of the soldier suspected of selling the deadly fake Percocet to Diamond. That soldier was recently convicted of seven counts of drug distribution, busted down to private, dishonorably discharged, and sentenced to a year in prison. Bowman says she can’t understand why he wasn’t charged for an offense like manslaughter. “He’s not in trouble for the deaths that he caused, because he didn’t know what he bought,” she says, incredulously. “Why are you not responsible for the risk that you just took?”

It is understandable that Bowman would want to see heavier punishment. “There’s zero accountability,” she says. “That’s why these kids are dying.”

But it’s not at all clear that greater retributive justice would do anything to alleviate the drug crisis on Fort Bragg, or in the Army more generally. Even if the military jailed dealers for life, it would do nothing to bring back Disney and Diamond, or any of the others who have succumbed to overdoses recently. Nor would increased law enforcement do much to deter other soldiers from distributing drugs on-post, in all likelihood. Get-tough measures on part of police and prosecutors have done nothing to reduce the demand for narcotics, and demand will always beget supply. The 50-year history of the failed War on Drugs has taught nothing if not that.

Perhaps there is no greater symbol of our definitive loss in that interminable war than Fort Bragg itself. From this flagship base, the beating heart of the U.S. special-operations complex, the military apparatus behind the global War on Drugs deploys to the far corners of the world. Green Berets train security forces in countries like Colombia, El Salvador, and Honduras. Delta Force reportedly took part in the anti-cartel operations that killed Pablo Escobar and captured El Chapo Guzmán. Yet drive down Bragg Boulevard into the Bonnie Doone neighborhood of Fayetteville, and in between the storage facilities, mobile-home dealerships, and tattoo parlors, you will find roach motels full of addicts, indigent veterans camped out beneath bridges, and strung-out junkies hanging around boarded-up trap houses. The dismal tide of synthetic opioids and amphetamines has penetrated Fort Bragg’s high-security gates, permeated through to the lowliest privates’ barracks, and caused at least a dozen overdose deaths in just the last year. These dead soldiers, who far outnumber combat casualties, are clearer proof of the United States’ unequivocal defeat in its longest-running international military campaign than a white flag run up over the main parade field. As the old saying goes: The War on Drugs is over — drugs won.

ON THE MORNING of Feb. 16, 2021, Andrea Bracken and her family gathered together at Arlington National Cemetery to inurn the ashes of her son Zachary. His death two months earlier had come as a complete shock to her and her husband. Spc. Zachary Bracken, a Special Forces candidate at Fort Bragg, was just 24. He had been an athlete in high school and a football player his freshman year of college, but dropped out in hopes of becoming a Green Beret. “He went into the Army with a purpose,” Andrea says. “He wanted to go into Special Forces. He wanted to be a combat medic.”

Her son’s story is not atypical. He had dabbled in drugs before, including marijuana and Ecstasy. “He tried things,” Andrea says. “Zach was very transparent.” But he never would have chosen to take fentanyl, she believes. “My son was an EMT already,” she says. “He knows what drugs are what.”

Bracken is one of three Green Beret trainees, or soldiers in the Special Warfare Training Group, to die of a drug overdose recently. (The others were Pfc. Jamie Boger, in March 2020, from cocaine and fentanyl; and Staff Sgt. Van-Michael Ellis, in October 2021, from cocaine and alcohol.) The incident occurred when Bracken was off duty, at a friend’s wedding. His blood-alcohol level was 0.11 percent at the time that he died, at 10:35 a.m. on Dec. 5, 2020, according to a report obtained through the FOIA. Bracken’s system also contained 0.012 milligrams of fentanyl per liter of blood — a lethal dose.

That’s not what it says on his death certificate, though. “‘The cause of death could not be determined,’” his mother says, quoting the county medical examiner. “That’s the way she put it.” Andrea also had difficulty obtaining Bracken’s vital records from the Army. “Can I get my son’s records?” she asked them. “They said, ‘Sure.’ But they’ve had some issue.

“Although they expressed sympathy,” Andrea continues, “the Army really had no interest in how he died. I have many unanswered questions, but nobody seems to give a shit.”

It’s a bitter sentiment echoed by the family members of other overdose victims. “They won’t give me any answers,” says Diamond’s best friend, who was his legal next of kin. “They really hold their cards close to their vest. The whole thing was weird. They kept shuffling me around.”

“The Army was just like, ‘Here, go tie ribbons on trees,’” says Bowman. “They need to open their mouths and start talking about this. The Army needs to say, ‘Yes, this is a problem. We know this is a problem, and we are going to try to remedy the problem.’ But they don’t want to acknowledge it.”

It was freezing cold that February morning when the Bracken family met in Arlington. Above the uniform white tombstones, the trees were bare. Among the mourners was Zachary’s sister, then 22. “She was his best friend,” Andrea says.

The funeral ceremony had already begun. But there was one final shock in store for the family, as the military added insult to injury. There was some kind of confusion in Zachary’s burial paperwork. “As we’re waiting with many, many, many people, they come out and tell us we’re going to have to take our son’s remains home,” she recalls. “They said that there was a glitch in the information that they got, and something was overlooked. They told us that we would have to take him home with us.”

They drove back to Norfolk, Virginia, with Zachary’s ashes in the car. At this point in the story, Andrea begins to cry. “There’s no dignity in it,” she says through tears. “It’s no dignified way to die.”

Rolling Stone · by Seth Harp · September 4, 2022

18. Russia claims a 'hybrid war' has been declared against Moscow by 'malicious' adversaries

Stop your whining Putin. You are not the victim (or you are a victim of your own decision making)

Russia claims a 'hybrid war' has been declared against Moscow by 'malicious' adversaries

By Aparna Shandilya flip.it2 min

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As West continue to isolate Russia over invasion of Ukraine, the deputy foreign minister of Russia, Sergey Ryabkov claimed on September 6 that an "all-out war" has been declared against his nation. He told the International Affairs journal that Russia is the target of a hybrid war and that the gravity of the situation should not be understated.

Ryabkov claims that throughout its history, Russia has consistently demonstrated its ability to persevere through the most challenging circumstances with honour in order to come out stronger and better able to defend both its own interests and the interests of its people.

In an interview with the publication, the Russian diplomat asserted, "The gravity of the current period should not be underestimated. An all-out war has been declared on us. It is being waged in hybrid forms and in all spheres. Our opponents, our adversaries are malicious to an extreme extent."

Russia to buy ammunition from North Korea: US

According to a newly downgraded US intelligence report, the Russian Ministry of Defence is in the process of obtaining millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea for its ongoing conflict in Ukraine. According to the Pentagon's press secretary, "the information that we have is that Russia has expressly requested ammunition."

He claimed the US has observed signals that Russia has addressed North Korea, but he had no more details, such as whether money has changed hands or cargo are in the works. According to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, US information indicates that Russia is interested in purchasing "millions of rounds" of North Korean ammunition, but no further specifics were provided.

Russia-Ukraine War

In a report delivered to the UN Security Council on September 6, the UN nuclear watchdog claimed its investigators discovered extensive damage at the site. Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said his team closely observed shelling near the power plant and confirmed the presence of Russian personnel and military equipment.

The research also discovered that Ukrainian employees were under constant high stress and strain, which raised the risk of human mistake. "We're playing with fire, and something very, very bad could happen," Grossi warned. Meanwhile, according to a senior presidential adviser, a "parallel" counteroffensive is taking place in eastern and northern Ukraine, as well as in the south.

​19. Not So Fast: Insights from a 1944 War Plan Help Explain Why Invading Taiwan Is a Costly Gamble

See the map at the link: https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/not-so-fast-insights-from-a-1944-war-help-explain-why-invading-taiwan-is-a-costly-gamble/​

But as Sun Tzu said, "never assume the enemy will not attack, make yourself invincible."

Not So Fast: Insights from a 1944 War Plan Help Explain Why Invading Taiwan Is a Costly Gamble - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Benjamin Jensen · September 8, 2022

If you click on enough articles, watch television, or read testimony by military leaders, you might think an invasion of Taiwan is imminent. Think tank panels spring up daily discussing how Beijing is learning from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Speculation abounds with worst-case scenarios imagining Xi Jinping using the West’s distraction in Ukraine to invade Taiwan.

While wargames and focusing attention on Taiwan’s real security challenges are important, the accompanying noise can be misleading and misses the hard reality of planning amphibious operations in the era of precision strike capabilities and information warfare. Here, historical cases illuminate some of the enduring challenges associated with invading Taiwan. While analogies are never perfect, recognizing patterns by cataloguing similarities and differences across cases helps identify key planning challenges.

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In 1944 U.S. military planners drafted a plan to invade Taiwan: Operation Causeway. The plan was ultimately rejected by senior leaders due to the high costs and risks relative to alternatives for advancing against Tokyo. Analyzing Causeway provides a historical baseline against which to assess the enduring challenges of joint forcible entry operations, particularly those executed from the sea. Put simply, crossing a contested sea only to fight on complex, canalizing terrain against a deliberate defense-in-depth makes amphibious assault in Taiwan a more complex operation than even the famed 1944 Operation Overlord — the D-Day landings. A mix of Taiwanese defense planning and the reality of modern battle network competition compound these challenges, making an invasion likely harder in 2022 than in 1944.

Amphibious Assault

Amphibious assaults are a subset of joint forcible entry operations. These operations “seize and hold lodgments against armed opposition.” While there are a range of other amphibious operations, joint forcible entry is strictly concerned with assault. In joint doctrine, there are five notional stages to entry operations: 1) preparation and deployment; 2) assault; 3) stabilization of the lodgment; 4) introduction of follow-on forces; and 5) termination/transition criteria. Chinese military planning condenses these activities into three phases: 1) advance; 2) assault and penetration; and 3) exploitation and consolidation. The People’s Liberation Army divides its amphibious landing capability between its army and marine corps, with the heavy amphibious warfare associated with a Taiwan scenario in the army while its marine corps serves as a flexible expeditionary response force. Furthermore, where U.S. planning differentiates between ship-to-shore and ship-to-objective maneuver, the Chinese military divides amphibious operations between coast-to-coast and vessel-to-coast, showing the centrality of the Taiwan scenario to their doctrine and planning.

Given the complexity and risk associated with conducting landing operations in a hostile, uncertain, and non-permissive environment, amphibious assaults are usually seen as unavoidable components of larger campaigns. In the spring of 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff debated two courses of action designed to continue their advance to Japan. General MacArthur advocated advancing in the Philippines and seizing Luzon, which formed the base of Operation Musketeer. Admiral Chester Nimitz, alongside the Joint Staff including Admiral Ernest King, General George C. Marshall, and Army Air Force Chief of Staff Henry H. Arnold, favored bypassing Luzon and seizing Taiwan, contending that it gave them closer airbases and ports to support their advance against Japan. Where MacArthur focused on the Philippines, the Joint Staff preferred Operation Causeway, which was more oriented on theater objectives. According to the plan, turning Taiwan into an advanced base would allow the United States and its partners to “(1) Bomb Japan. (2) Support further advance into China. (3) Sever Japanese sea and air communications.”

Today, Chinese leaders would likely see an amphibious operation as a desperate last resort rather than an intermediate military objective. The end state is reunification, not establishing a staging area to further pressure Japan. Instead of taking a more indirect approach involving gray-zone pressure, a blockade, and coercive pressure designed to create a war atmosphere and pressure Taipei consistent with Chinese doctrinal writing on strategic deterrence as a continuum, Xi would only gamble and attempt to seize and exploit a lodgment as prelude to occupying the entire island. Based on historic studies of counterinsurgency — which highlight the need for 25 counterinsurgents per 1,000 citizens — this occupation force would need to be almost 600,000 strong (60 percent of the current active force) after defeating the Taiwanese armed forces, whose cohesion remains untested. China could mobilize enough forces to carry out occupation duties. The challenge would likely be the military operation that sets the conditions for a prolonged occupation. A closer look at the planning considerations in Operation Causeway illustrates that the harder challenge for Beijing would be establishing and exploiting a lodgment without suffering combat loses that dwarf Russian attrition in Ukraine.

To Establish a Lodgment, You Need to Isolate the Objective

The first challenge in invading Taiwan would be shaping or “advance” operations designed to change the correlation of forces and set conditions for landing. Causeway envisioned three phases: 1) a preliminary campaign to isolate Japanese forces on the island, which included reducing Tokyo’s ability to reinforce its garrison and counterattack in the air and sea domain; 2) an amphibious assault to seize a port and establish a lodgment; and 3) follow-on operations to destroy Japanese forces and build up airfields and ports on the island for future operations. Of note, this phasing construct is consistent with current Chinese military doctrine referenced above.

During the initial phase of Operation Causeway, which planners assumed would last 27 days, assault forces would move from across the Pacific and into staging areas while over 800 aircraft operating in an area up to 600 miles away from Taiwan attacked surface combatants, airfields, and other high-value targets. These operations would pave the way for Fast Carrier Task Forces to act as a covering force supporting the amphibious assault with close air support 96 hours prior to the attack. Of note, heavy bombers and other army aircraft planned to shift to targets on Taiwan 10 days prior to the anticipated attack to reduce Japanese indications and warnings and the ability to move forces to bolster their garrison on the island. Today, these missions could leverage rocket forces and aircraft in mainland China, potentially reducing the timeline. What would not change is the requirement to isolate the objective. China would need to be prepared to target any combatant supporting Taiwan in East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and the Luzon Strait.

In Operation Causeway, naval forces supported isolating the objective. Six task groups — each with three carriers, four battleships or cruisers, and 12 destroyers — would sortie to interdict Japanese ships and aircraft. The equivalent in today’s military would be six carrier strike groups each with a supporting surface action group. Even if China opted for land-based aviation and its rocket force to reduce this covering force requirement, it would still require large concentrations of aircraft and mobile rocket launchers to isolate Taiwan and prevent other countries from intervening. Challenges with aerial refueling, airborne command and control, and even the massive logistics required to move jet fuel and munitions to support sustained sortie generation and fires missions could limit the Chinese military’s ability to provide a large enough covering force. Furthermore, Beijing’s naval forces would be held at risk by Taiwan’s land-based anti-ship cruise missiles operating alongside its surface combatants. China can isolate Taiwan by air and sea, but the costs and risks are uncertain.

Despite China’s overwhelming advantages in long-range missiles and aircraft operating from secure mainland bases, there would still likely be air and naval battles in the littorals associated with a joint forcible entry operation. Even if Beijing wins that battle, the attrition it suffers could complicate its decision on whether to proceed with the amphibious attack, an operation that would involve incurring additional loses. For a comparison, the Battle of Okinawa, the alternative to Operation Causeway, saw 368 allied ships damaged or destroyed, including 120 amphibious landing craft. Losses to amphibious landing craft would be particularly problematic for China if Taiwan sabotaged key ports. More recently, it took little more than the sinking of a small number of Russian ships to deny the Black Sea as littoral maneuver space necessary for conducting amphibious operations.

As seen in the Causeway timeline, Beijing will confront key temporal tradeoffs between surprise and unity of effort as it moves from the advance to assault phase. Moving the air and naval resources into position required for setting conditions for a landing would produce indicators and warnings. As China shifted from destroying Taiwan’s navy and air force to supporting the landing force, it would risk revealing the location of the amphibious assault. While Chinese military doctrine calls for joint firepower strikes as well as combined information and firepower assaults — or blitz — the timing and sequencing of these operations would still have to be integrated with amphibious assault objectives and the extent to which sustained fires might give the enemy time to reposition. In other words, you can concentrate fires on the objective and reveal your intentions or risk leaving the beach landing at risk.

China has the overwhelming preponderance of force, but Taiwan’s hardened facilities, mobile radars, and asset mix would make it difficult for Chinese planners to be confident they had degraded Taiwan enough to proceed to the assault phase. More critically, China would have to make a critical decision early in the war: whether or not to strike U.S. and Japanese bases and assets in its advance phase. Keeping the United States and Japan out of a war with Taiwan would significantly alter the balance of forces but risk counterattacks and/or counter-landing operations.

To Occupy an Island, You Need a Port

In the second phase, Operation Causeway called for simultaneously overrunning modern Kinmen Island to secure lines of communication while seizing a lodgment in the southern port of Kaoshing with a force of 402,000 soldiers and marines, compared to 98,000 Japanese defenders — a 4:1 ratio. This relative combat power ratio didn’t take into account the overwhelming allied superiority in ships and aircraft or terrain which, consistent with modern approaches, would push the ratio closer to 10:1. For a modern comparison, Taiwan has 170,000 active duty personnel and over 1 million trained reservists, coupled with advanced air defense and coastal defense capabilities and decades of building hardened fighting positions and obstacles that would complicate an amphibious assault. Even if Beijing accurately assesses relative military power, hard under any circumstance, they would still confront difficulty in assessing the population’s will to fight, a key feature of the war in Ukraine.

In analyzing Taiwan in 1944, planners concluded that the geography made it necessary to establish a lodgment on the southern tip of the island and use it as a base of operations to build up enough combat power to clear the coastal plan on the west of the island — where the majority of the population lives — from south to north. Terrain and logistics drove the selection of the landing objective. The port in Kaoshing was seen as the best candidate, given that it was near an airfield and there were northern and eastern rivers outside the city which the amphibious force could use as an initial defensive perimeter.

Image courtesy of the U.S. government

According to the plan, “the strength of total forces to be employed … is limited by the capacity” of the port. The plan envisioned sending in teams to repair and develop airfields, ports, and identifying intermediate staging areas to reconstitute forces. The staff estimated it would take over 90 days just to build up enough combat power to shift from the assault phase to what modern PLA doctrine calls exploitation and consolidation. In other words, without a working port, China would likely struggle — in the same way imagined in 1944 — to introduce enough forces to defeat the Taiwanese military in less than 90 days.

The requirement to use a port to build up combat power on the island created a critical vulnerability. According to the 1944 plan, “it is estimated that enemy action to block and damage the harbors and bridges and our offensive operations will greatly curtail the harbor and road capacities in the early stages.” While China has shorter lines of communication to project power to Taiwan than the Causeway plan envisioned, it likely still needs a port and would struggle to expand the lodgment against a determined defender. Operation Causeway planners estimated that the assault phase would result in 37,000 causalities (roughly 10 percent of the force) in less than 60 days. These casualty counts exceed even the largest estimates from Ukraine. There is also the open question of whether China’s authoritarian state and censors can hide mass casualties for an extended period of time from a digitally savvy public. China has enough combat power to overwhelm Taiwan, but the losses and operational difficulties could make it a pyrrhic victory at best.

Conclusion: The Unlikely Invasion

Ultimately, war is a continuation of politics by other means. Politicians can gamble even when confronted with difficult military plans just as military leaders can skew estimates to gain political favor. What ultimately pushed the U.S. Joint Chiefs to decide against invading Taiwan was a mix of the logistical nightmares inherent in the operation alongside General MacArthur’s efforts, which included direct outreach to political figures, to push for invading Luzon. By late summer 1944, planners decided to postpone a decision on whether or not to execute Operation Causeway based on progress in the Southern Philippines. By September 1944, they set aside the plan altogether and focused on Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa.

The sheer size, scale, and complexity involved with invading Taiwan likely checks even the most self-serving and impetuous instincts inside the Chinese Community Party. Court sycophants and hawks have viable alternatives to invading Taiwan that they can recommend as they seek to win favor and shape the future of modern China. The enduring challenges associated with terrain, logistics, and force-ratios on display in Operation Causeway have only compounded over time. Even if the plan is not a guide used by the Chinese military, it offers a reminder of the complexity of joint forcible entry operations.

Military planners are tasked with balancing the most likely and most dangerous enemy courses of action as they develop viable options for political leaders. The more democracies — and not just the United States — can help Taiwan deny littoral access and beachheads, the less likely Chinese leaders will be to pursue an amphibious landing. Furthermore, the more this assistance supports alternative coercive scenarios like countering a blockade and large-scale air incursions, the better it helps Taiwan deter by denial and buy time for new political and economic forces to walk back more aggressive tendencies in Beijing. For example, helping Taiwan build resiliency into its battle networks supporting the tracking (and targeting) of Chinese forces will help Taipei offset Beijing’s power preponderance. If the reality of integrated deterrence and JADC2 come to fruition, these local partner networks could also provide options for the United States and partner nations to plug into Taiwan’s battle network, further complicating Beijing’s calculus.

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Benjamin Jensen, Ph.D., is a professor of strategic studies at the School of Advanced Warfighting and a senior fellow for future war, gaming, and strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the views or positions of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Benjamin Jensen · September 8, 2022

20. Escaping the Cave: An Analysis of Russian and American Strategic Cultures Influence on War, Peace, and the Realm In Between

Some might argue the US does not have any trepidation about using force.

Conclusion:

Like its Soviet and Imperialist predecessors, the Kremlin does not share the West’s trepidation for using force. Instead, Moscow justifies its use of force when it serves its interests and, unlike the U.S., is unencumbered by universal moralistic notions. In short, what Russia does today is not new. It would be naively short sighted to believe that the heated competition between the Kremlin and the West would cease under new leadership in Moscow.

From an American perspective, the agitated U.S.-Russo relationship is a long-term issue, requiring grand strategic formulation akin to NSC-68 and Project Solarium. Further, any strategy must account for identified rivals, competitors, and allies’ strategic cultures. In doing so, an American strategy can move beyond rudimentary yet essential structural realist and optimistic neo-liberalist arguments for international behavior. As it articulates in its recent NDS, if the U.S. is serious about deterrence, then the nation must not treat nations as aggregated, monolithic entities, informed by a universal rationality.[103] Instead, rationality must be understood within a cultural context.[104] Deterrence is about estimating and influencing enemy intentions by communicating a threat of pain.[105] Deterrence is about conditioning someone else’s behavior to one’s own. In short, deterrence is about communication. Therefore, a nation must not communicate deterrence in its own rationality; it must communicate deterrence in the rationality an adversary understands. Failing to heed this advice risks remaining captive to our respective strategic cultural cave, shackled to misinformed interpretations of the shadows, and unable to escape.

Strategic Culture’s Allegory

The Flickering Shadows of Strategic Culture

Now Playing on the Cavern Walls: War, Peace, and the Realm In-Between

Illuminating the Shadows: American and Russian Strategic Cultures Contrasted

Interpreting the Shadows

Plotting the Escape

Out of the Shadows and Into the Light: Escaping the Cave

Escaping the Cave: An Analysis of Russian and American Strategic Cultures Influence on War, Peace, and the Realm In Between

Steven Nolan  September 8, 2022

thestrategybridge.org · September 8, 2022

Earlier this year, The Strategy Bridge asked civilian and military students around the world to participate in our sixth annual student writing contest on the subject of strategy.

Now, we are pleased to present an essay selected for Honorable Mention from Steven Nolan, a recent graduate of the U.S. Joint Advanced Warfighting School.

Russia is engaged in an undeclared state of war that the U.S. does not recognize and refuses to accept. The war’s battlespace is everywhere and, until recently, not isolatable to any particular point on a map. Unlike the Cold War, however, today’s Russo-American rivalry has less to do with the ideological incompatibility of Communism and Liberal-Capitalism and more to do with diverging strategic cultures and the logic of realpolitik. Russia believes that Western nations’ desire to maintain hegemony weakens international and domestic institutions, destroys the Russian economy, and increases geopolitical instability.[1] From the American point of view, Russia serves as a globally destabilizing and disruptive force to enhance its global influence.[2] Russia, according to the 2017 United States National Security Strategy, “wants to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests…[and] seeks to restore its great-power status and establish spheres of influence near its borders.”[3] The problem is not that the two nations view each other as rivals or competitors. Instead, just as it was at the onset of the Cold War, the U.S. does not appreciate Russia’s perceived permanent state of war with America.[4]

Strategic Culture’s Allegory

In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” prisoners grow up, bound to a cave in almost total darkness. Behind them is a raised ledge adorned with statues and a fire. Based on the angle of the statues and the placement of the fire, the prisoners watch, memorized by the shadows dancing across the cavern wall. As the shadows move and contort, the prisoners devise elaborate stories to help them understand what they see. The prisoners also play games guessing how the shadows may move next, earning praise from others when they guess correctly. Since the shadows are the only thing the prisoners see, they believe that the shadows and the stories they create are real and true. Then, one day, a prisoner escapes from their bonds and ascends to the surface. Initially, the prisoner does not accept what they see as real. However, as the prisoner begins acclimating to their new world and reflecting on their experience in the cave, they understand how their previous surroundings shaped their perception of reality. The prisoner returns to the cave, attempting to share this knowledge with the others. Unfortunately, the other prisoners did not believe the story and threatened to kill the escapee if he tried setting them free. The U.S. and Russia share a similar story.

The U.S. and Russia view each other as bound prisoners within a cave. Neither nation understands nor believes their respective interpretation of the shadows is authentic. The U.S. and Russian approaches to strategic realities diverge because of their equally divergent strategic cultures. From a U.S. perspective, the culture mismatch leads to an incomplete understanding of how Russia views war, conflict, and the use of force as a tool for achieving its national interests in today’s strategic environment. Ultimately, the misunderstanding leads to misperception and uncertainty regarding Russian measures throughout the competition continuum.[5] In their dimly lit cave, it appears, the shadows of their respective strategic cultures influence U.S. and Russian policies, strategy, and action within the competition continuum.

The Flickering Shadows of Strategic Culture

Strategic culture is the evolution of national character studies and a derivative of political culture theory.[6] Both political and strategic culture advocates purport to offer alternative explanations for a state’s behavior or to elucidate shortcomings of neoclassical realist theory.[7] The two concepts differ, however, in their respective focus. While political culture broadly concerns itself with politics and policy, strategic culture homes in on war and strategy.[8]

Strategic culture critics claim the theory is too broadly defined, difficult to measure, and risks explaining too much.[9] While strategic culture proponents concede that the concept is flawed and can be elusive, researchers and practitioners alike continue to explore the phenomena because, as Colin Gray observed, ignorance and contempt for culture only leads toward dire consequences.[10] In this regard, critics agree. Strategic planners cannot afford to become complacent and must continually assess an adversary’s strategic culture.[11] However, strategic planners must also ask for what purpose and to what end does strategic culture help?

Snyder described strategic culture as an amalgamation of ideals reinforced within a strategic community, resulting in habitual and cognitive behaviors.[12] In a similar vein, Stephen Rosen observes that strategic culture frames a nation’s rationale for waging war through its shared beliefs and assumptions.[13] Adding precision to Rosen’s definition, Andrew Scobell concludes that strategic culture concerns war’s role in resolving political affairs.[14] Both Rosen and Scobell parallel Colin Gray’s conception of strategic culture. To Gray, strategic culture is analogous to a national style, deriving from historical experience, geographic orientation, and ideological environment.[15]

Not all strategic culture supporters agree that there is a clear cause-and-effect relationship between culture and behavior. Gray, Booth, and Herring concur that strategic culture influences or shapes preferences and tendencies, but culture is not rigidly deterministic.[16] In short, strategic culture is contextual. Gray maintains that strategic culture is an input and an output; thus, linking specific behaviors to culture is almost impossible.[17] Despite these shortcomings, what matters, Gray concludes, is the centrality and importance of strategic culture in determining the nature and character of war.[18]

The thematic commonality among the disparate strategic culture definitions is that strategic culture is the confluence of a nation’s history, geography, and political culture. These three factors constantly interact to create an ecosystem, serving as a cognitive framework, influencing a nation’s, state’s, or group’s preferences toward security affairs. Ideas modify and modulate a nation’s political culture while events update, revise, or reinforce a state’s historical experience. Geography is the steadiest of the three strategic culture elements but is also influenced by climate change. The output of a nation’s strategic culture is its narrative and behavior. Narratives take form in official documents, speeches, and policies, while behavior materializes in a whole host of actions that reside along the competition continuum.[19]

Strategic Culture Inputs and Outputs (Author’s Work)

Now Playing on the Cavern Walls: War, Peace, and the Realm In-Between

War and peace share a dyadic relationship bookending the competition continuum.[20] On one side of the pole, in its most destructive form, war materializes as an epic scrabble leading to the annihilation of humanity. On the other side, in the grandest sense, peace is humanity realizing the utopian ideal of its full potential. History demonstrates, however, war and peace emerge in various forms, abstractions, and somewhere between these two extremes.

Hobbes viewed war as a condition or state of humankind; the potential and inclination, rather than actual fighting one another, were sufficient for states to be at war. Clausewitz regarded war in slightly more specific terms. War, for Clausewitz, was violent and served a political purpose;[21] war was fraught with danger, chance, and uncertainty;[22] and war required an element of friction that distinguished a real war from a “war on paper.”[23] Nevertheless, history reveals that empires, civilizations, and nation-states maintained a supple understanding of both notions.

Ideas of war and peace ranged from non-existent to the eternal human condition. In Ancient Egypt, war was a prominent and necessary royal action taken on behalf of the gods, intended to maintain order and world stability.[24] In Ancient India, war was entirely the endemic reality; peace did not exist.[25] For the Ancient Chinese, war was considered a waste of resources, entirely destructive, and had no benefit to the people.[26] However, war was also part of a universal cosmic rhythm.[27] Therefore, war was vitally important to the state, demanding thorough study and understanding.[28] Unlike Ancient India, Ancient Greeks did not accept war’s endemic nature and sought to control it.[29] In practice, though, the Greeks found war intermittent but permanent, ubiquitous, and at the discretion of the hegemonic power’s interests.[30] War, for the Greeks, was a never-ending hegemonic power struggle. The Romans realized that their military force was costly, brittle, and a limited instrument of power, albeit capable and potent, the Romans preferred monetary measures, manipulative diplomacy, and force-presence to deter would-be attackers.[31] Similarly, the Byzantines peace merely as an interruption of war, whereby once one enemy was defeated, another would emerge.[32] Unlike the Romans, though, the Byzantines considered a decisive victory illusory;[33] therefore, war’s purpose was to contain immediate threats through expedients and ruses of war, relying upon large-scale combat as a last resort.[34] In both the Roman and Byzantine empires, large-scale combat was only one of many forms that war could manifest. Not unlike Sun Tzu’s dictum of subduing one’s enemy without fighting or Liddell Hart’s indirect approach, the Byzantines ensured victory while sparing itself from the high costs of direct, large-scale combat through adroit grand-strategic maneuvering.[35]

Sun Tzu, Liddell Hart, and the Byzantines’ approach may have referred to an ideal grand strategy rather than war’s nature. Liddell Hart affirms this notion when he postulates that war bounds strategy, but grand strategy “looks beyond war to the subsequent peace.”[36] Further, one of grand-strategy’s goals is to regulate national instruments of power to “avoid damage to the future state of peace for its security and prosperity.”[37] Equally, Sun Tzu maintains that the best war policy involves taking a state intact.[38] If one presumes that Sun Tzu, Liddell Hart, and Clausewitz are all correct in positing that: 1) victory is war’s main object, 2) military victory is not the equivalent of the political object, and 3) “objectives can often be attained without any fighting,” then war can take the form of something other than a reciprocating violent struggle.[39] Therefore, war is not about violence, combat, or fighting, per se. Instead, war, as Liddell Hart articulated, is about compelling an enemy to one’s will by seeking a “strategic situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its continuation by a battle is sure to achieve this end.”[40]

In the Soviet era, leaders accepted a modified Clausewitzian conception of war as a continuation of politics and as a political instrument.[41] In a sense, war and politics were considered conjoined twins. Each was separate, but their connection formed a coherent whole. In the Soviet mind, if war was a continuation of politics, it was logical that politics was a continuation of war.[42] Lenin did not believe that, in politics, an “absolutely inextricable position” existed.[43] For Lenin, there must always be freedom to choose the political means necessary to achieve the desired end, violent or otherwise. In essence, conciliation in politics was impossible.[44] Contemporarily, it appears that Russian strategic thought and understanding of war integrates concepts from antiquity and borrows from its Soviet predecessor. Evgeny Messner provides the link between the two.

The essence of Messner’s ideas centers on the notion that the psychological domain is war’s fourth dimension.[45] Writing several decades before Max Boot identified information as the fourth world revolution and prior to WWII, Messner contended that the perpetual influencing of the enemy’s mind and weakening their political will was integral in future warfare.[46] Messner’s importance within today’s context is two-fold. First, Messner’s assertion that there is not a clear distinction between the “state of war” and the “state of peace” is found in modern-day Russia’s speeches, writings, and security documents.[47] Secondly, if war and peace are distinguishable from one another, what, then, is peace?

The phenomenon of war, it seems, is not unlike the shadows dancing across the cave walls in Plato’s Allegory. The form and meaning of war are more indicative of the prisoner’s imagination than of reality.

Sir Henry Maine quipped: while war is as “old as humankind,” peace seems to be a “modern invention.”[48] Sir Michael Howard agreed, finding that the thinkers of the Enlightenment, specifically Immanuel Kant, invented peace and that peace consists of “an international order in which war played no part.”[49] Paul Diehl and other peace theorists extrapolated further on that notion, providing a peace continuum, describing the varying degrees of international relationships.[50] In short, war and peace cannot merely be envisioned in black and white terms; they are an amalgamation of conditions, relationships, and circumstances leading to a myriad of possible outcomes in a world colored in varying shades of gray. The phenomenon of war, it seems, is not unlike the shadows dancing across the cave walls in Plato’s Allegory. The form and meaning of war are more indicative of the prisoner’s imagination than of reality.

Illuminating the Shadows: American and Russian Strategic Cultures Contrasted

Russian and American views of the world, their ambitions, and conceptions of one another are figuratively worlds apart. The U.S. has always believed that democracy, the rule of law, and human rights were universally understood and accepted values. Democracy, in the words of President Harry Truman, is “based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice.”[51] Conversely, Russia perceives democracy, the rule of law, and human rights as the modern-day trappings of Western power. At best, Moscow views democracy as a “dysfunctional and dying form of government” that no longer suits today’s world.[52] At worst, as the Chairman of the Russian Investigation Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, noted: “democracy or rule by the people is nothing other than the power of the people themselves enacted in their interests. These interests can be attained only by means of the greater good, not absolute freedom and the tyranny of individual representatives of society.”[53] Moreover, whereas the U.S. strives but does not always act in a non-zero-sum manner in world affairs, Moscow believes and acts as though its national prosperity and security are relative and finite to that of other nations. The implication of these differing world views portends a perpetual, contentious relationship where both nations view each other’s intentions and actions with suspicion or outright contempt.

The U.S. and Russia both maintain global interests and ambitions; however, each nation seeks to realize its goals in opposing ways because of their differing world views and capabilities. According to multiple U.S. Presidents, the U.S. maintains its leadership within international institutions because American global leadership has been an indispensable contributor to ushering in an era of “unparalleled global prosperity.”[54] This exceptional self-perception, principally its commitment to the democratic ideal, drives a perceived high moral obligation in foreign policy formulation. As Dexter Perkins asserted, “high-sounding declarations and general appeals to international morality” often frame and characterize American international action.[55] James McCormick similarly found this assertion evident from the 19th century and beyond.[56]

The Kremlin interprets U.S. “moral leadership” as the catalyst for what it contends is a “crisis of the Western liberal model.”[57] To Russia, morals and morality are conditional, not universal, similar to conceptions of the truth or right and wrong.[58] The pliability of the truth serves as a demonstration and source of power. Giles explains that, in the Russian mind, when two entities know that what has been said or done is deceitful, but a weaker side is powerless to challenge, it serves as a mechanism for power politics.[59] For example, when Putin told world leaders to their face that Russian troops were not in eastern Ukraine in 2014, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he intended to reveal the powerlessness the world had on Russian actions.[60] When Moscow continues to claim that current operations in Ukraine constitute a “special mission,” not waging war, the Kremlin intends to establish that its “might equals right” while also demonstrating that it makes its own rules.[61] The West views this conduct as a violation of what it believes is a de facto, universal set of cultural values that undergird international, multilateral behavior. Russia deems this “universal standard” as a form of American unilateralism.[62]

Moscow does not believe that universal norms govern behavior, let alone uphold an international order. As Ofer Fridman noted, the Russian mindset gravitates toward an Eastern holistic tradition, seeking contextualized solutions rather than accepting universally applicable rules or formulas.[63] Unfortunately, the only apparent universal agreement between the U.S. and Russia is their disagreement on how world affairs should be settled. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Russian actions over the past two decades, considered natural from their perspective, were deemed morally unacceptable to the West. Conversely, U.S. actions, considered innocent from the Western viewpoint, were depicted as threatening to Russia.

The U.S. views NATO enlargement as a peace and stability promotion activity involving mutual agreement among sovereign nations. Moscow considers NATO expansion and its activities as “a matter of paramount significance” for Russian security.[64] Color revolutions, to the U.S., were “democratic movements,” exemplifying a people’s right to self-determination and deserving recognition as a remarkable American achievement.[65] Russian authorities regarded Color revolutions as socially engineered, soft-power tools intending to effectively achieve a “post-modern coup d’état.”[66] While the U.S. claims that its Russian-targeted sanctions aim to stem the Kremlin’s maleficence, Moscow argues those sanctions are “unlawful, politically motivated” and part of a “crude attempt” to “enforce its will on others.”[67] In all of these instances, what the U.S. deems a measure short of armed conflict and short of war, Russia conceives the same measure as an act of war.[68] In short, the shadows of American and Russian strategic cultures form coherent strategic interests, goals, and objectives; however, as shown in the table below, Moscow and the U.S. retain drastically divergent, impossibly incompatible, and woefully irreconcilable interpretations of them.

Interpreting the Shadows

Russian strategic culture biases the nation toward proactive engagement throughout the competition continuum. Unlike the U.S., Russia does not view war and peace as separate states; instead, Russia sees life as a struggle, and peace is merely a “place to stop and rest for a while.”[69] Like their Soviet predecessor, the Moscow elite views peace as a political instrument or “breathing space” to secure future strategic advances.[70] Lenin emphasized this mental construction in his writing and speeches. For Lenin, there must always be freedom to choose the political means necessary to achieve the desired end, violent or otherwise. Today, as Galeotti and Kofman note, Russia shares the Soviet “technique of uncertainty” whereby articulated objectives are intentionally broad and ambiguous so it can avoid confined, non-adjustable policy positions.[71] Consequently, the Russian position is akin to the Byzantines, seeing decisive victory as illusory and peace merely as an interruption of war.[72]

As Diehl found, however, peace is much more than a temporary state.[73] This assertion forces us to infer and induce Moscow’s conception of peace. Negative peace provides the closest analog in the Russian mind. While positive peace connotes a pattern of institutionalized cooperative interaction between states, negative peace simply denotes relationships that retain the unlikelihood of high-level militarized conflict.[74] Unlikely, however, does not imply impossibility or improbability. Similar to Hedley Bull’s description of guardian powers, Moscow’s eternal belief that it is a great power means it has the right to help determine the international system’s peace and security issues.[75] In essence, peace consists of Moscow maintaining a sphere of influence whereby weaker nations submit themselves as tributary states to the Russian Federation.

The Hobbesian worldview of Russian strategic culture parallels Marxist-Leninist dogma, albeit implicitly, and is reinforced by its historical experiences.[76] Political, historical, and geographical contexts have shaped Russian strategic culture and characterized the Russian strategic realities for a millennia.[77] Borrowing from their lineage, today’s Russia stokes a statist patriotism relying on the nation’s thousand-year history.[78] One may conclude, therefore, similar to the Soviet Union, Russia views both war and peace as a means to a political end instead of something to be avoided or achieved.

This strategic logic creates a significant cognitive barrier in conceptualizing limited war campaigns.

American strategic culture, conversely, is firmly grounded in the nation’s founding principles, cultivated by its geography, and propagated by its perceived exceptional history. John Locke’s concepts of liberty, freedom, and inalienable rights serve as the presuppositions for U.S. strategic action.[79] However, the perceived universalism of these beliefs causes U.S. policymakers problems when dealing with an adversary that does not share similar values.

War, for Americans, is not war, unless it is a crusade. War is a “lamentable aberration, a detour in the historical process, and, indeed, a moral evil.”[80] The moral crusade-like quality of American intervention means the U.S. tends to frame its conflicts within a good versus evil context.[81] America’s generational struggles—the War of 1812, the Civil War, WWI, and WWII—inform this crusading logic.[82] Although U.S. leaders quote Clausewitz’s oft-cited “war is a continuation of policy with other means,” in reality, Americans diagnose war as a symptom of failed policy, which means once war begins, all pre-war policy is invalidated.[83] Thus, the U.S. wages war to alter and reform the political circumstances that caused the war, not seek an adjustment to the balance-of-power or any precise political goal.[84] This strategic logic creates a significant cognitive barrier in conceptualizing limited war campaigns.

According to Boyle and Lang, this cognitive barrier leads toward two types of intervention. First, the U.S. takes a limited approach with states or local actors when those entities promise open markets and good governance.[85] Alternatively, when entities threaten core assumptions of liberal ideology, U.S. policymakers become vindicationists, punishing those that depart from the natural order.[86] This finding is consistent with Farrell’s assertion that liberal democracies’ distrust of non-democracies leads to an increased probability of war because each lacks the cognitive capacity for conceiving peaceful relations.[87] Further, Farrell’s findings match those of Goertz et al. and Bayer. According to Goertz et al., the presence of a single-democracy dyad in an international relationship decreases the likelihood of a positive peace situation by 26 percent.[88] As Bayer explains, the relations between states must reach a tipping point before democratic governance is a factor in improving a relationship.[89] In short, the presence of a democratic government within a relationship does not automatically lead toward peaceful relations and can, in some instances, increase the likelihood of the formation of a rivalry and possibly war.

It seems that the source of U.S. and Russian friction stems from the variance and divergence of their respective strategic cultures. Unlike the Russian continual struggle mentality, the U.S. maintains a Kantian notion of an achievable perpetual peace. Consequently, the U.S. sees peace as an achievement and war as an avoidable condition, while Russia does not make a similar distinction.

Although Russian strategic culture enables the nation to move fluidly across the competition continuum, the strategic environment helps reinforce their predilections toward Messner’s idea of subversion-war. To be clear, this does not mean that Russia cannot and will not employ overt military force to achieve political objectives; the current Russo-Ukrainian war and contemporary historical record prove that assertion otherwise. However, this does mean that understanding Russian action and inaction through a theoretical lens of strategic culture ought to compel the U.S. and its Allies toward reorienting their strategies and reorganizing their military structures to compete with Russia effectively. More importantly, the U.S. and its Allies must decide the lengths they are willing to confront, deter, or accommodate Russian behavior beyond the binary notion of war and peace.

Plotting the Escape

It may be cliche to borrow from Clausewitz to reinforce the argument of this essay. However, to paraphrase Colin Gray, “if Thucydides, Sun-Tzu, and Clausewitz said it, it is probably worth repeating.”[90] Clausewitz identified war as the continuation of policy with other means, and his advice on approaching war remains apt today.[91] War, Clausewitz explains, must be approached “judiciously, according to the characteristics and development” of its nature.[92] Thus, the U.S. cannot and should not approach Russia as it did the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Equally, strategic leaders should not solely continue conceptualizing war through the flickering shadows of their strategic cultural lens. If the U.S. does not heed this advice, as David Kilcullen warns:

[The U.S. will] confront an adversary with a vastly broader cultural understanding of conflict, [leading toward] two equally dangerous things. First, [the U.S.] can be engaged in conflict with an adversary who considers himself to be at war with us, and yet not realize that fact…Second, an equal and opposite danger is that we can be engaged in activities that seem innocuous or peaceful to us…and our adversaries can perceive these as acts of war and respond accordingly.”[93]

In this author’s view, the U.S. is an unstoppable force when the government and its people unify in a singular, shared purpose or consider themselves in a state of war—a case in point is how the nation responded after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Unfortunately, without acknowledging and accepting the divergent strategic culture of Russia, the U.S. will continue struggling to develop coherent and integrated policies toward Russia.

The U.S. must find ways of integrating and mobilizing all its instruments of power, as it would in a declared state of war. Doing so will enable the U.S. to effectively compete with Russia throughout the entire competition continuum, especially in the realm of measures short of armed conflict. For too long, the U.S. has underestimated Russia’s willingness to use whatever means necessary to accomplish political aims or react to international political slights. As Frank Hoffman stated in testimony given during a 2017 House Armed Services Committee, Russia conducts diplomacy and engages other nations throughout the entire competition continuum. The U.S., according to Hoffman, must understand, conceptualize, and integrate a similar full-spectrum mentality that is “consistent with our values and democratic principles.”[94] The implied morality of Hoffman’s shares a Clausewitzian logic. If war is an “act of force to compel our enemy to do our will” and will is “itself a moral quality,” then war is more than physically destroying an adversary.[95] Instead, it is about subordinating an adversary’s will to our own. Therefore, as Gray asserted: “it is not much of an intellectual stretch to argue that war, coercion, and deterrence are all intercultural struggles.”[96]

Out of the Shadows and Into the Light: Escaping the Cave

In analyzing American and Russian strategic cultures, it is tempting to believe that once one determines how strategic culture shapes each nations’ preferences for decisions, one may also suppose that their strategic culture is somehow fixable. This sentiment is an intellectual dead end and entirely misses the point. Strategic culture is a package of robust variables and traits “not easily amended, let alone overturned, by acts of will.”[97] As Gray points out, “even if you recognize some significant dysfunctionality in your strategic [culture], you may not be able to take effective corrective action.”[98] Strategic culture’s persistence, however, does not mean it cannot or does not evolve.

Strategic culture evolution occurs in three ways: crisis events (e.g., war), dissonance, or political elites negotiating a new strategic reality.[99] Crisis events serve as an external shock, forcing a nation to revise its way of mitigating similar future crises. [100] Culture changes also transpire when ideas internal to the paradigm conflict with one another. An example of this tension is found in U.S. support for democracy and human rights and the extent it is willing to defend the ideal abroad. When a nation faces a strategic culture dilemma, it must reconstruct its historical narrative to support foreign policy changes.[101] The final path to strategic culture change is when a nation’s strategic leaders devise, normalize, and legitimize new conceptions of reality. In this instance, political elites craft strategies, reorient political structures, and implement new policies to frame political discourse. So long as the “negotiated reality” does not encounter dissonance or an external shock, a nation’s leaders can slowly shift strategic culture. In all cases, though, strategic culture bounds and encodes the nation’s rationality.[102]

Putin is not the exception to Russian strategic culture; he personifies it. While it is imprudent to completely dismiss the scale and magnitude of Putin’s influence on Russian foreign policy, this thesis shows that Russia’s narrative, rationale, and action follow similar historical patterns that go beyond stereotypical conceptions of authoritarian regimes.

Russia, and by extension Russians, have always believed that they are a great power. Consequently, a great power dictates when, where, and how rules apply in the Russian mind. Unlike the Soviet Union, however, Russia does not seek to dominate the world, it merely wants to influence it to achieve political aims. Moscow wins when the Liberal World Order falters. Ever since the Cold War ended, Russia has felt disrespected by the West and especially the U.S. As a result, the Kremlin has used all means available to gain the prestige and recognition it feels the nation deserves.

Like its Soviet and Imperialist predecessors, the Kremlin does not share the West’s trepidation for using force. Instead, Moscow justifies its use of force when it serves its interests and, unlike the U.S., is unencumbered by universal moralistic notions. In short, what Russia does today is not new. It would be naively short sighted to believe that the heated competition between the Kremlin and the West would cease under new leadership in Moscow.

From an American perspective, the agitated U.S.-Russo relationship is a long-term issue, requiring grand strategic formulation akin to NSC-68 and Project Solarium. Further, any strategy must account for identified rivals, competitors, and allies’ strategic cultures. In doing so, an American strategy can move beyond rudimentary yet essential structural realist and optimistic neo-liberalist arguments for international behavior. As it articulates in its recent NDS, if the U.S. is serious about deterrence, then the nation must not treat nations as aggregated, monolithic entities, informed by a universal rationality.[103] Instead, rationality must be understood within a cultural context.[104] Deterrence is about estimating and influencing enemy intentions by communicating a threat of pain.[105] Deterrence is about conditioning someone else’s behavior to one’s own. In short, deterrence is about communication. Therefore, a nation must not communicate deterrence in its own rationality; it must communicate deterrence in the rationality an adversary understands. Failing to heed this advice risks remaining captive to our respective strategic cultural cave, shackled to misinformed interpretations of the shadows, and unable to escape.

Steven Nolan is a U.S. Air Force officer, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Weapons Instructor Course, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, and National Defense University’s Joint Advanced Warfighting School. The views expressed ithe author’s alone, and do not reflect official policies or positions of the U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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Notes:

[1] President Vladmir Putin, National Security of the Russian Federation (Russian Federation, 2021), 3, 17.

[2] President Joseph R Biden Jr, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (The White House, 2021), 6, 8 , 14.

[3] President Donald J. Trump, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (The White House, 2017), 25.

[4] Colin S. Gray, War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History, 2nd edition (Abingdon, UK : New York: Routledge, 2011), 191.

[5] The JP 3-0 uses the conflict continuum to describe the range of military operations from peacetime to wartime activities. The JDN 1-19 reorients the conflict continuum war and peace scale into a world neither at peace nor at war, “the competition continuum describes a world of enduring competition conducted through a mixture of cooperation, competition below armed conflict, and armed conflict.” The Atlantic Council report expands the JDN 1-19 competition continuum concept further by adding specified enemy actions while proposing a U.S. strategy to counter adversary advantages throughout the continuum. DoD, Joint Publication 3-0: Joint Operations (Washington, DC: US GPO, 2018), V–4; DoD, Joint Doctrine Note 1-19: Competition Continuum (Washington, DC: US GPO, 2019); Clementine G. Starling, Tyson Wetzel, and Christian Trottie, “Seizing the Advantage: A Vision for the next US National Defense Strategy” (Atlantic Council, December 22, 2021), 31–46, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/atlantic-council-strategy-paper-series/seizing-the-advantage-a-vision-for-the-next-us-national-defense-strategy/.

[6] Colin S. Gray, “Comparative Strategic Culture,” Parameters 14, no. 4 (1984): 27; Ken Booth, “The Concept of Strategic Culture Affirmed,” in Strategic Power: United States of America and the USSR, ed. Carl G Jacobsen (Springer, 1990), 121; John Street, “Political Culture - From Civic Culture to Mass Culture,” British Journal of Political Science 24, no. 1 (1994): 96; Frederick C. Turner, “Reassessing Political Culture,” in Latin America In Comparative Perspective: New Approaches To Methods And Analysis, ed. Peter H. Smith (Boulder: Routledge, 1995), 195; Jeffrey S Lantis, “Strategic Culture: From Clausewitz to Constructivism,” in Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction (Springer, 2009), 34.

[7] John S. Duffield et al., “Isms and Schisms: Culturalism versus Realism in Security Studies,” International Security 24, no. 1 (1999): 156–80; John S. Duffield, “Political Culture and State Behavior: Why Germany Confounds Neorealism,” International Organization 53, no. 4 (ed 1999): 768–69; John Glenn, “Realism versus Strategic Culture: Competition and Collaboration?,” International Studies Review 11, no. 3 (2009): 523, 530, 545.

[8] For additional information on the evolution of political and strategic culture, respectively, see Camelia Florela Voinea, “Political Culture Research: Dilemmas and Trends. Prologue to the Special Issue,” Quality & Quantity 54, no. 2 (April 1, 2020): 361–82; Anand V., “Revisiting the Discourse on Strategic Culture: An Assessment of the Conceptual Debates,” Strategic Analysis 44, no. 3 (May 3, 2020): 193–207.

[9] Michael C Desch, “Culture Clash: Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security Studies,” International Security 23, no. 1 (1998): 150–52; Duffield, “Political Culture and State Behavior,” 773–74; Colin S. Gray, “Out of the Wilderness: Prime-Time for Strategic Culture” (Washington, D.C: U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum, July 2006), ii, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA521640; Antulio J. Echevarria, “Strategic Culture: More Problems Than Prospects,” Infinity Journal 3, no. 2 (2013): 41; V., “Revisiting the Discourse on Strategic Culture,” 193; Antulio J. Echevarria, “Colin Gray and The Paradox of Strategic Culture: Critical but Unknowable,” Comparative Strategy 40, no. 2 (March 4, 2021): 174.

[10] Colin S. Gray, “Strategy and Culture,” in Strategy in Asia: The Past, Present, and Future of Regional Security, ed. Thomas G. Mahnken and Dan Blumenthal, 1st edition (Stanford, California: Stanford Security Studies, 2014), 92–93.

[11] Echevarria, “Colin Gray and the Paradox of Strategic Culture,” 175.

[12] Snyder’s strategic culture definition was tailored toward nuclear strategy. However, removing that portion of Snyder’s description does not detract from his assessment of strategic culture’s consistency. Jack L. Snyder, “The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Operations” (RAND Corporation, January 1, 1977), 8.

[13] Stephen Peter Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies (Cornell University Press, 1996), 17.

[14] Andrew Scobell, China’s Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2.

[15] Gray, 22.

[16] Colin Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National Style (Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1986), 35–39; Booth, “The Concept of Strategic Culture Affirmed,” 126; Eric Herring, “Nuclear Totem and Taboo: Or How We Learned to Stop Loving the Bomb and Start Worrying,” 1997, 11.

[17] Colin S. Gray, “Out of the Wilderness: Prime Time for Strategic Culture,” in Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Culturally Based Insights into Comparative National Security Policymaking, ed. Kerry M. Kartchner, Jeannie L. Johnson, and Jeffrey A. Larsen (Springer, 2009), 223–27.

[18] Gray, 227, 231.

[19] Strategic culture is a non-linear ecosystem that typically evolves slowly. However, since each antecedent is modulated by some variable, the significance or impact of that variable could dramatically revise the output of a nation’s strategic culture.

[20] The JP 3-0 uses the conflict continuum to describe the range of military operations from peacetime to wartime activities. The JDN 1-19 reorients the conflict continuum war and peace scale into a world neither at peace nor at war, “the competition continuum describes a world of enduring competition conducted through a mixture of cooperation, competition below armed conflict, and armed conflict.” The Atlantic Council report expands the JDN 1-19 competition continuum concept further by adding specified enemy actions while proposing a U.S. strategy to counter adversary advantages throughout the continuum. DoD, JP 3-0: Joint Operations, V–4; DoD, JDN 1-19: Competition Continuum; Starling, Wetzel, and Trottie, “Seizing the Advantage,” 31–46.

[21] Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton University Press, 1976), 89.

[22] Clausewitz, 104.

[23] Clausewitz, 119.

[24] The Egyptians did not have a word for “war” or “peace.” Instead, they referred to “war” as “campaign, battle, or army, while “peace” equated to “quietness, satisfaction, or mercy.” Susanne Bickel, “Concepts of Peace in Ancient Egypt,” in Peace in the Ancient World: Concepts and Theories, ed. Kurt A. Raaflaub (John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 48–49, 54–55.

[25] Johannes Bronkhorst, “Thinking about Peace in Ancient India,” in Peace in the Ancient World: Concepts and Theories, ed. Kurt A. Raaflaub (John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 87–88.

[26] Robin D. S. Yates, “Searching for Peace in the Warring States: Philosophical Debates and the Management of Violence in Early China,” in Peace in the Ancient World: Concepts and Theories, ed. Kurt A. Raaflaub (John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 108.

[27] Yates, 112.

[28] Sun Tzu, The Illustrated Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith, The Definitive English Translation by Samuel B. Griffith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 91.

[29] Kurt A. Raaflaub, “Greek Concepts and Theories of Peace,” in Peace in the Ancient World: Concepts and Theories, ed. Kurt A. Raaflaub (John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 126.

[30] Raaflaub, 130, 142–44.

[31] Edward N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century CE to the Third (JHU Press, 2016), 2.

[32] Edward N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Harvard University Press, 2011), 58.

[33] Clausewitz conceded this point as well, stating “the ultimate outcome of a war is not always to be regarded as final. The defeated state often considers the outcome merely as a transitory evil, for which a remedy may still be found in political conditions at some later date.” Clausewitz, On War, 80.

[34] Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, 257.

[35] Tzu, The Illustrated Art of War, 115; Basil Henry Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2nd rev. ed (New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Meridian, 1991), 5, 324–27.

[36] Liddell Hart, Strategy, 322.

[37] Liddell Hart, 322.

[38] Tzu, The Illustrated Art of War, 115.

[39] Tzu, 106; Liddell Hart, Strategy, 338; Clausewitz, On War, 96.

[40] Liddell Hart, Strategy, 352.

[41] Stephen Possony, “A Century of Conflict: Communist Techniques of World Revolution,” in The Communist Conspiracy: Strategy and Tactics of World Communism, by United States Congress. House Committee on Un-American Activities, vol. 1 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1956), 19; Jacob W. Kipp, “The Other Side of the Hill: Soviet Military Foresight and Forecasting,” in Soviet Strategy and The New Military Thinking, ed. Derek Leebaert and Timothy Dickinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 250–51.

[42] Possony, “A Century of Conflict: Communist Techniques of World Revolution,” 20.

[43] Nathan Leites, The Operational Code of the Politburo (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1951), 31.

[44] Leites, 76.

[45] Ofer Fridman, Russian Hybrid Warfare Resurgence & Policisation, eBook (London, 2018), chap. 2.

[46] Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (Penguin, 2006), 13–15.

[47] Fridman, Russian Hybrid Warfare Resurgence & Policisation, 64.

[48] Maine, Sir H. J. S. 1888. International Law: A Series of Lectures Delivered before the University of Cambridge. Cambridge, 8; Quoted in: Hans Van Wees, “Broadening the Scope: Thinking about Peace in the Pre-Modern World,” in Peace in the Ancient World: Concepts and Theories, ed. Kurt A. Raaflaub (John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 158.

[49] Michael Howard, The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order (Yale University Press, 2000), 29–31.

[50] In their landmark The Puzzle of Peace, Goertz et al. analyzed six indicators to construct a framework measuring positive-peace relationships. The number, prominence, and degree to which states handle disputed issues determine placement along the continuum, with “severe rivals” and “security cooperation relationships” serving as the poles. The four interrelated characteristics were: 1) absence of major territorial claims, 2) institutions for conflict management, 3) high levels of functional interdependence, and 4) satisfaction with the status quo. In severe rivalry relationships, each state views the other as an enemy or competitor, leading to an extent threat of war, and driving both to prepare for its occurrence. In contrast to rivalries, negative peace is somewhat of a no-man’s land. Within this category, relationships may take on the appearance of rivalries or friendships. The absence of major territorial claims, the establishment of institutions for conflict management, high levels of functional interdependence, and satisfaction with the status quo characterize the “positive peace zone.” In this relationship, war or the use of military force between members is unthinkable or has a zero probability of occurring. Gary Goertz, Paul F. Diehl, and Alexandru Balas, The Puzzle of Peace: The Evolution of Peace in the International System, 1st edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).

[51] President Harry S Truman, Inaugural Address of Harry S. Truman (Washington, D.C.: Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, 1949), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/truman.asp.

[52] Putin’s Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security (Simon and Schuster, 2018), 43.

[53] Mariya Zheleznova and Nikolay Epple. 2016. “Pens of the Motherland: Why High-Ranking Officials Are Fighting the United States in the Russian Media.” Vedemosti. April 18, 2016. Quoted in: Graeme P. Herd, Understanding Russian Strategic Behavior: Imperial Strategic Culture and Putin’s Operational Code (London: Routledge, 2022), 98.

[54] Biden Jr, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, 6, 11, 13, 16–17, 20; Trump, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 17, 22, 31, 40–41, 46; President Barack H. Obama, National Security Strategy (The White House, 2015), i–ii, 15.

[55] Dexter Perkins, “The Moralistic Interpretation of American Foreign Policy,” in A Reader in American Foreign Policy, by James M. McCormick (Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1986), 21.

[56] James M. McCormick, “Diplomatic History,” in Routledge Handbook of American Foreign Policy, ed. Steven W. Hook and Christopher M. Jones, 1st edition (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 22.

[57] Putin, National Security of the Russian Federation, para. 19.

[58] Keir Giles, Moscow Rules: What Drives Russia to Confront the West (Washington, D.C.; London: Brookings Inst. Press/Chatham House, 2019), 109.

[59] Giles, 112.

[60] Ashish Kumar Sen, “Mr. Putin’s Lies Hiding in Plain Sight,” Atlantic Council (blog), May 28, 2015, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/mr-putin-s-lies-hiding-in-plain-sight/.

[61] Christopher Bort, “Why The Kremlin Lies: Understanding Its Loose Relationship With the Truth,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, accessed February 1, 2022, https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/01/06/why-kremlin-lies-understanding-its-loose-relationship-with-truth-pub-86132.

[62] Nicolai N. Petro, “Russia’s Moral Framework and Why It Matters,” The National Interest (The Center for the National Interest, September 24, 2015), https://nationalinterest.org/feature/russia%E2%80%99s-moral-framework-why-it-matters-13923.

[63] Ofer Fridman, “The Russian Mindset and War: Between Westernizing the East and Easternizing the West,” in Special Issue on Strategic Culture, ed. Jeannie Johnson (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2022), 31.

[64] “By Enlarging NATO, West ‘Spat Upon’ Russia’s Interests Despite Good Relations, Putin Says,” TASS, June 9, 2021.

[65] U.S. White House, “Fact Sheet: President Bush’s Accomplishments in 2005,” accessed November 2, 2021, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051222-2.html.

[66] Herd, Understanding Russian Strategic Behavior, 58; Miroław Minkina and Malina Kaszuba, “Color Revolutions as a Threat to Security of the Ressian Federation: The Analysis of Russian Perspective,” Torun International Studies 1, no. 14 (2021): 80.

[67] “Putin Warns of ‘quick and Tough’ Response to Any Provocation by the West,” France 24, April 21, 2021, https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210421-putin-warns-of-quick-and-tough-response-to-any-provocation-by-the-west.

[68] Oscar Jonsson, The Russian Understanding of War: Blurring the Lines Between War and Peace, 2019, 2.

[69] Volodymyr Yermolenko, “The New Russian Attack on Ukraine: Is It Real?,” Explaining Ukraine, accessed December 15, 2021, https://soundcloud.com/user-579586558/ep-58.

[70] Stalin, Joseph, Sochineniya, Institut Marksa-Engelsa-Lenina pri TsK VKP(b), Gosudarstvennoe Izdatelstvo Politicheskoi Literaturi, Moscow, 1948, 167-168. Quoted in: Leites, The Operational Code of the Politburo, 85; Jonsson, The Russian Understanding of War, 41.

[71] Mark Galeotti, “Controlling Chaos: How Russia Manages Its Political War in Europe,” European Council of Foreign Relations (ECFR), September 1, 2017, 8–10; Michael Kofman, “A Comparative Guide to Russia’s Use of Force: Measure Twice, Invade Once,” War on the Rocks, February 16, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/02/a-comparative-guide-to-russias-use-of-force-measure-twice-invade-once/.

[72] Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, 58.

[73] Paul F. Diehl, “Exploring Peace: Looking Beyond War and Negative Peace,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 1 (March 1, 2016): 1.

[74] Goertz, Diehl, and Balas, The Puzzle of Peace, 36; Herbert Kelman, “Transforming the Relationship Between Former Enemies: A Social-Psychological Analysis,” in After the Peace: Resistance and Reconciliation, ed. Robert L. Rothstein (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999), 197; Benjamin Miller, “Hot Wars, Cold Peace,” in War in a Changing World, ed. Zeev Maoz and Azar Gat (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 100.

[75] According to the Hobbesian world view, great-power states are the “guardians” or “custodians” of the international order and maintain powerful militaries. Similar to the concept of “suzerainty,” guardian powers limit the external sovereignty of non-incorporated states in their empire or alliance while allowing “almost complete” autonomy in internal matters. In a Hobbesian world, all states are sovereign; some are just more sovereign than others. Additionally, Bull argues that great powers are recognized as such and have the right to help determine the international system’s peace and security issues. Moreover, great powers preserve the international order’s balance by preventing the emergence of a hegemon. In the Hobbesian tradition, states, especially great powers, are unencumbered by moral or legal restrictions while pursing goals and interests. Hedley Bull, Andrew Hurrell, and Stanley Hoffman, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 4th ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 17, 24, 97, 195–96, 201; E. Wayne Merry, “The Origins of Russia’s War in Ukraine: The Clash of Russian and European ‘Civilizational Choices’ for Ukraine,” in Roots of Russia’s War in Ukraine, ed. Elizabeth Wood et al. (Washington, D.C; New York: Woodrow Wilson Center Press / Columbia University Press, 2015), 28–31.

[76] Hobbes saw humankind’s existence as “poor, nasty, [and] brutish,” people must divest their liberties to a sovereign authority to “prevent Discord and Civil War.” Hobbes viewed the world as being in a perpetual state of war, stating, “during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.” Thomas Hobbes, Hobbes: Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck, 2nd Revised Student Edition (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 88-89, 125.

[77] David R. Jones, “Soviet Strategic Culture,” in Strategic Power: United States of America and the USSR, ed. Carl G Jacobsen (Springer, 1990), 35.

[78] Marlene Laruelle, Russian Nationalism, Foreign Policy and Identity Debates in Putin’s Russia: New Ideological Patterns after the Orange Revolution (Columbia University Press, 2014), 7–8.

[79] For a more thorough reading on Locke’s views on the social contract, see John Locke, Locke: Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett, Student Edition (Cambridge England; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 271, 287–88, 336, 344, 362, 384–85.

[80] William R. Emerson, “American Concepts of Peace and War,” Naval War College Review 10, no. 9 (1958): 3.

[81] Theo Farrell, “Strategic Culture and American Empire,” The SAIS Review of International Affairs 25, no. 2 (2005): 5, 12; Colin Dueck, “Hegemony on the Cheap: Liberal Internationalism from Wilson to Bush,” World Policy Journal 20, no. 4 (2003): 1–11; Thomas G. Mahnken, “United States Strategic Culture,” in Comparative Strategic Cultures Curriculum Project: Assessing Strategic Culture as a Methodological Approach to Understanding WMD Decision-Making by States and Non-State Actors, ed. Jeffrey A. Larsen (McLean, VA: Science Application International Corporation, 2006), 6–7, 9, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA521640.

[82] Mahnken, “United States Strategic Culture,” 6; Dominic Tierney, “How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War - Foreign Policy Research Institute,” November 6, 2010, chap. 1.

[83] Clausewitz, On War, 69, 87; Joseph Caldwell Wylie Jr, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (Naval Institute Press, 2014), chap. 7; The Principles of Strategy for An Independent Corps or Army in a Theater of Operations (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff School Press, 1936).

[84] Emerson, “American Concepts of Peace and War,” 5.

[85] Michael J Boyle and Anthony F Lang Jr, “Remaking the World in America’s Image: Surprise, Strategic Culture, and the American Ways of Intervention,” Foreign Policy Analysis 17, no. 2 (2021): 1.

[86] Boyle and Lang Jr, 1–7.

[87] Farrell, “Strategic Culture and American Empire,” 5.

[88] Reşat Bayer, “Peaceful Transitions and Democracy,” Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 5 (September 1, 2010): 542.

[89] Bayer, 542.

[90] Colin S. Gray, Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy (Washington, D.C: Potomac Books, 2009), 58.

[91] Depending on where a reader pulls Clausewitz’s “continuation of policy” quote from On War, a reader will see “policy by other means” or “policy with other means.” Clausewitz, On War, 69, 87; James R. Holmes, “Everything You Know About Clausewitz Is Wrong,” accessed November 4, 2021, https://thediplomat.com/2014/11/everything-you-know-about-clausewitz-is-wrong/.

[92] Clausewitz, On War, 153.

[93] David Kilcullen, “Strategic Culture,” in The Culture of Military Organizations, ed. Peter R. Mansoor and Williamson Murray (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 51–52.

[94] Hon. William M. Thornberry et al., “The Evolution of Hybrid Warfare and Key Challenges,” Statement before the House Armed Services Committee 22 (2017): 5.

[95] Clausewitz, On War, 75, 184.

[96] Gray, “Out of the Wilderness: Prime Time for Strategic Culture,” 231.

[97] Colin S. Gray, “British and American Strategic Cultures” (Paper prepared for the symposium, Democracies in Partnership: 400 Years of Transatlantic Engagement, Williamsburg, VA, April 18, 2007), 7; Jeannie L. Johnson, The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture: Lessons Learned and Lost in America’s Wars (Georgetown University Press, 2018), 17.

[98] Gray, “Out of the Wilderness: Prime Time for Strategic Culture,” 231.

[99] Lantis, “Strategic Culture: From Clausewitz to Constructivism,” 44–45; Heiko Biehl, Bastian Giegerich, and Alexandra Jonas, eds., Strategic Cultures in Europe: Security and Defence Policies Across the Continent, vol. 13 (Potsdam, Germany: Springer VS, 2013), 12–13; Gray, “Out of the Wilderness: Prime Time for Strategic Culture,” 232, 236.

[100] In the American case, examples include, but are not limited to: WWI, WW2, the Berlin Airlift, Korean War, Vietnam War, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Restore Hope, September 11th, 2001, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the Russian case, examples include, but are not limited to: WW1, the Bolshevik Revolution, WW2, the Berlin blockade, Cuban Missile Crisis, Afghanistan, fall of the Soviet Union, Chechnyan Wars, Color Revolutions, Russo-Georgia conflict, supporting Assad regime in Syria, Annexation of Crimea, and current Russo-Ukrainian War. Kerry M. Kartchner, Jeannie L. Johnson, and Jeffrey A. Larsen, eds., “Introduction,” in Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Culturally Based Insights into Comparative National Security Policymaking (Springer, 2009), 6.

[101] Lantis, “Strategic Culture: From Clausewitz to Constructivism,” 45.

[102] Johnson, The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture, 16.

[103] Lloyd J. Austin III, Fact Sheet: 2022 National Defense Strategy (U.S. Department of Defense, 2022), https://media.defense.gov/2022/Mar/28/2002964702/-1/-1/1/NDS-FACT-SHEET.PDF.

[104] Jeannie L. Johnson, “Conclusion: Toward a Standard Methodolical Approach,” in Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Culturally Based Insights into Comparative National Security Policymaking, ed. Kerry M. Kartchner, Jeannie L. Johnson, and Jeffrey A. Larsen (Springer, 2009), 244.

[105] Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence: With a New Preface and Afterword, Revised edition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 23, 35.

thestrategybridge.org · September 8, 2022

21. Ukraine Holds the Future

Excerpts:

Ukraine is fighting a war against a tyranny that is also a colonial power. Self-rule means not just defending the democratic principle of choosing one’s own rulers but also respecting the equality of states. Russian leaders have been clear that they believe that only some states are sovereign, and that Ukraine is nothing more than a colony. A Ukrainian victory would defend Ukrainian sovereignty in particular and the principle of sovereignty in general. It would also improve the prospects of other post-colonial states. As the economist Amartya Sen has argued, imperial famines result from political choices about distribution, not shortages of food. If Ukraine wins, it will resume exporting foodstuffs to the global South. By removing a great risk of suffering and instability in the global South, a victorious Ukraine would preserve the possibility of global cooperation on shared problems such as climate change.

For Europe, it is also essential that Ukraine win and Russia lose. The European Union is a collection of post-imperial states: some of them former imperial metropoles, some of them post-imperial peripheries. Ukrainians understand that joining the European Union is the way to secure statehood from a vulnerable peripheral position. Victory for Ukraine will have to involve a prospect of EU membership. As many Russians understand, Russia must lose, and for similar reasons. The European states that today pride themselves on their traditions of law and tolerance only truly became democracies after losing their last imperial war. A Russia that is fighting an imperial war in Ukraine can never embrace the rule of law, and a Russia that controls Ukrainian territory will never allow free elections. A Russia that loses such a war, one in which Putinism is a negative legacy, has a chance. Despite what Russian propaganda claims, Moscow loses wars with some frequency, and every period of reform in modern Russian history has followed a military defeat.

Most urgently, a Ukrainian victory is needed to prevent further death and atrocity in Ukraine. But the outcome of the war matters throughout the world, not just in the physical realm of pain and hunger but also in the realm of values, where possible futures are enabled. Ukrainian resistance reminds us that democracy is about human risk and human principles, and a Ukrainian victory would give democracy a fresh wind. The Ukrainian trident, which adorns the uniforms of Ukrainians now at war, extends back through the country’s traditions into ancient history, providing references that can be used to rethink and revive democracy.

Athena and Poseidon can be brought together. Athena, after all, was the goddess not only of justice but of just war. Poseidon had in mind not only violence but commerce. Athenians chose Athena as their patron but then built a fountain for Poseidon in the Acropolis—on the very spot, legend has it, where his trident struck. A victory for Ukraine would vindicate and recombine these values: Athena’s of deliberation and prosperity, Poseidon’s of decisiveness and trade. If Ukraine can win back its south, the sea-lanes that fed the ancient Greeks will be reopened, and the world will be enlightened by the Ukrainian example of risk-taking for self-rule. In the end, the olive tree will need the trident. Peace will only follow victory. The world might get an olive branch, but only if the Ukrainians can fight their way back to the sea.

Ukraine Holds the Future

The War Between Democracy and Nihilism

By Timothy Snyder

September/October 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Bloodlands · September 6, 2022

Russia, an aging tyranny, seeks to destroy Ukraine, a defiant democracy. A Ukrainian victory would confirm the principle of self-rule, allow the integration of Europe to proceed, and empower people of goodwill to return reinvigorated to other global challenges. A Russian victory, by contrast, would extend genocidal policies in Ukraine, subordinate Europeans, and render any vision of a geopolitical European Union obsolete. Should Russia continue its illegal blockade of the Black Sea, it could starve Africans and Asians, who depend on Ukrainian grain, precipitating a durable international crisis that will make it all but impossible to deal with common threats such as climate change. A Russian victory would strengthen fascists and other tyrants, as well as nihilists who see politics as nothing more than a spectacle designed by oligarchs to distract ordinary citizens from the destruction of the world. This war, in other words, is about establishing principles for the twenty-first century. It is about policies of mass death and about the meaning of life in politics. It is about the possibility of a democratic future.

Discussions of democracy often begin with the ancient city-states of Greece. According to the Athenian legend of origin, the deities Poseidon and Athena offered gifts to the citizens to win the status of patron. Poseidon, the god of the sea, struck the ground with his trident, causing the earth to tremble and saltwater to spring forth. He was offering Athenians the power of the sea and strength in war, but they blanched at the taste of brine. Then Athena planted an olive seed, which sprouted into an olive tree. It offered shade for contemplation, olives for eating, and oil for cooking. Athena’s gift was deemed superior, and the city took her name and patronage.

The Greek legend suggests a vision of democracy as tranquility, a life of thoughtful deliberation and consumption. Yet Athens had to win wars to survive. The most famous defense of democracy, the funeral oration of Pericles, is about the harmony of risk and freedom. Po­­seidon had a point about war: sometimes the trident must be brought down. He was also making a case for interdependence. Prosperity, and sometimes survival, depends on sea trade. How, after all, could a small city-state such as Athens afford to devote its limited soil to olives? Ancient Athenians were nourished by grain brought from the north coast of the Black Sea, grown in the black earth of what is now southern Ukraine. Alongside the Jews, the Greeks are the longest known continuous inhabitants of Ukraine. Mariupol was their city, until the Russians destroyed it. The southern region of Kherson, where combat is now underway, bears a Greek name borrowed from a Greek city. In April, the Ukrainians sank the Russian flagship, the Moskva, with Neptune missiles—Neptune being the Roman name for Poseidon.

As it happens, Ukraine’s national symbol is the trident. It can be found among relics of the state that Vikings founded at Kyiv about a thousand years ago. After receiving Christianity from Byzantium, the Greek-speaking eastern Roman Empire, Kyiv’s rulers established secular law. The economy shifted from slavery to agriculture as the people became subject to taxation rather than capture. In subsequent centuries, after the fall of the Kyiv state, Ukrainian peasants were enserfed by Poles and then by Russians. When Ukrainian leaders founded a republic in 1918, they revived the trident as the national symbol. Independence meant not only freedom from bondage but the liberty to use the land as they saw fit. Yet the Ukrainian National Republic was short lived. Like several other young republics established after the end of the Russian empire in 1917, it was destroyed by the Bolsheviks, and its lands were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Seeking to control Ukraine’s fertile soil, Joseph Stalin brought about a political famine that killed about four million inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933. Ukrainians were overrepresented in the Soviet concentration camps known as the gulag. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler’s goal was control of Ukrainian agriculture. Ukrainians were again overrepresented among the civilian victims—this time of the German occupiers and the Red Army soldiers who defeated the Germans. After World War II, Soviet Ukraine was nevertheless subjected to a slow process of Russification in which its culture was degraded.

When the Soviet Union came to an end in 1991, Ukrainians again seized on the trident as their national symbol. In the three decades since, Ukraine has moved, haltingly but unmistakably, in the direction of functional democracy. The generation that now runs the country knows the Soviet and pre-Soviet history but understands self-rule as self-evident. At a time when democracy is in decline around the world and threatened in the United States, Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression provides a surprising (to many) affirmation of faith in democracy’s principles and its future. In this sense, Ukraine is a challenge to those in the West who have forgotten the ethical basis of democracy and thereby, wittingly or unwittingly, ceded the field to oligarchy and empire at home and abroad. Ukrainian resistance is a welcome challenge, and a needed one.

THE APPEASEMENT TEST

The history of twentieth-century democracy offers a reminder of what happens when this challenge is not met. Like the period after 1991, the period after 1918 saw the rise and fall of democracy. Today, the turning point (one way or the other) is likely Ukraine; in interwar Europe, it was Czechoslovakia. Like Ukraine in 2022, Czechoslovakia in 1938 was an imperfect multilingual republic in a tough neighborhood. In 1938 and 1939, after European powers chose to appease Nazi Germany at Munich, Hitler’s regime suppressed Czechoslovak democracy through intimidation, unresisted invasion, partition, and annexation. What actually happened in Czechoslovakia was similar to what Russia seems to have planned for Ukraine. Putin’s rhetoric resembles Hitler’s to the point of plagiarism: both claimed that a neighboring democracy was somehow tyrannical, both appealed to imaginary violations of minority rights as a reason to invade, both argued that a neighboring nation did not really exist and that its state was illegitimate.

In 1938, Czechoslovakia had decent armed forces, the best arms industry in Europe, and natural defenses improved by fortifications. Nazi Germany might not have bested Czechoslovakia in an open war and certainly would not have done so quickly and easily. Yet Czechoslovakia’s allies abandoned it, and its leaders fatefully chose exile over resistance. The defeat was, in a crucial sense, a moral one. And it enabled the physical transformation of a continent by war, creating some of the preconditions for the Holocaust of European Jews.

The war in Ukraine is a test of whether a tyranny that claims to be a democracy can triumph.

By the time Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, beginning World War II, Czechoslovakia no longer existed, and its territories and resources had been reassigned according to German preferences. Germany now had a longer border with Poland, a larger population, Czechoslovak tanks, and tens of thousands of Slovak soldiers. Hitler also now had a powerful ally in the Soviet Union, which joined in the destruction of Poland after invading from the east. During Germany’s invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940 and during the Battle of Britain later that year, German vehicles were fueled by Soviet oil and German soldiers fed by Soviet grain, almost all of which was extracted from Ukraine.

This sequence of events started with the easy German absorption of Czechoslovakia. World War II, at least in the form that it took, would have been impossible had the Czechoslovaks fought back. No one can know what would have happened had the Germans been bogged down in Bohemia in 1938. But we can be confident that Hitler would not have had the sense of irresistible momentum that gained him allies and frightened his foes. It would certainly have been harder for the Soviet leadership to justify an alliance. Hitler would not have been able to use Czechoslovak arms in his assault on Poland, which would have begun later, if at all. The United Kingdom and France would have had more time to prepare for war and perhaps to help Poland. By 1938, Europe was emerging from the Great Depression, which was the main force attracting people to the political extremes. Had Hitler’s nose been bloodied in his first campaign, the appeal of the far right might have declined.

POSTMODERN TYRANTS

Unlike Czechoslovak leaders, Ukrainian leaders chose to fight and were supported, at least in some measure, by other democracies. In resisting, Ukrainians have staved off a number of very dark scenarios and bought European and North American democracies valuable time to think and prepare. The full significance of the Ukrainian resistance of 2022, as with the appeasement of 1938, can be grasped only when one considers the futures it opens or forecloses. And to do that, one needs the past to make sense of the present.

The classical notion of tyranny and the modern concept of fascism are both helpful in understanding the Putin regime, but neither is sufficient. The basic weaknesses of tyrannies are generic and long known—recorded, for example, by Plato in his Republic. Tyrants resist good advice, become obsessive as they age and fall ill, and wish to leave an undying legacy. All of this is certainly evident in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Fascism, a specific form of tyranny, also helps to explain today’s Russia, which is characterized by a cult of personality, a de facto single party, mass propaganda, the privileging of will over reason, and a politics of us-versus-them. Because fascism places violence over reason, it can be defeated only by force. Fascism was quite popular—and not just in fascist countries—until the end of World War II. It was discredited only because Germany and Italy lost the war.

Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia, January 2020

Dmitri Lovetsky / Pool / Reuters

Although Russia is fascist at the top, it is not fascist through and through. A specific emptiness lies at the center of Putin’s regime. It is the emptiness in the eyes of Russian officials in photographs as they look into a vacant middle distance, a habit they believe projects masculine imperturbability. Putin’s regime functions not by mobilizing society with the help of a single grand vision, as fascist Germany and Italy did, but by demobilizing individuals, assuring them that there are no certainties and no institutions that can be trusted. This habit of demobilization has been a problem for Russian leaders during the war in Ukraine because they have educated their citizens to watch television rather than take up arms. Even so, the nihilism that undergirds demobilization poses a direct threat to democracy.

The Putin regime is imperialist and oligarchic, dependent for its existence on propaganda that claims that all the world is ever such. While Russia’s support of fascism, white nationalism, and chaos brings it a certain kind of supporter, its bottomless nihilism is what attracts citizens of democracies who are not sure where to find ethical landmarks—who have been taught, on the right, that democracy is a natural consequence of capitalism or, on the left, that all opinions are equally valid. The gift of Russian propagandists has been to take things apart, to peel away the layers of the onion until nothing is left but the tears of others and their own cynical laughter. Russia won the propaganda war the last time it invaded Ukraine, in 2014, targeting vulnerable Europeans and Americans on social media with tales of Ukrainians as Nazis, Jews, feminists, and gays. But much has changed since then: a generation of younger Ukrainians has come to power that communicates better than the older Russians in the Kremlin.

The defense of Putin’s regime has been offered by people operating as literary critics, ever disassembling and dissembling. Ukrainian resistance, embodied by President Volodymyr Zelensky, has been more like literature: careful attention to art, no doubt, but for the purpose of articulating values. If all one has is literary criticism, one accepts that everything melts into air and concedes the values that make democratic politics possible. But when one has literature, one experiences a certain solidity, a sense that embodying values is more interesting and more courageous than dismissing or mocking them.

Tyrants resist good advice.

Creation comes before critique and outlasts it; action is better than ridicule. As Pericles put it, “We rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our own hearts and hands.” The contrast between the sly black suits of the Russian ideologues and propagandists and the earnest olive tones of Ukrainian leaders and soldiers calls to mind one of the most basic requirements of democracy: individuals must openly assert values despite the risk attendant upon doing so. The ancient philosophers understood that virtues were as important as material factors to the rise and fall of regimes. The Greeks knew that democracy could yield to oligarchy, the Romans knew that republics could become empires, and both knew that such transformations were moral as well as institutional. This knowledge is at the foundation of Western literary and philosophical traditions. As Aristotle recognized, truth was both necessary to democracy and vulnerable to propaganda. Every revival of democracy, including the American one of 1776 with its self-evident truths, has depended on ethical assertions: not that democracy was bound to exist, but that it should exist, as an expression of rebellious ethical commitment against the ubiquitous gravitational forces of oligarchy and empire.

This has been true of every revival of democracy except for the most recent one, which followed the eastern European revolutions of 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. At that point, as Russia and Ukraine emerged as independent states, a perverse faith was lodged in “the end of history,” the lack of alternatives to democracy, and the nature of capitalism. Many Americans had lost the natural fear of oligarchy and empire (their own or others’) and forgotten the organic connection of democracy to ethical commitment and physical courage. Late twentieth-century talk of democracy conflated the correct moral claim that the people should rule with the incorrect factual claim that democracy is the natural state of affairs or the inevitable condition of a favored nation. This misunderstanding made democracies vulnerable, whether old or new.

The current Russian regime is one consequence of the mistaken belief that democracy happens naturally and that all opinions are equally valid. If this were true, then Russia would indeed be a democracy, as Putin claims. The war in Ukraine is a test of whether a tyranny that claims to be a democracy can triumph and thereby spread its logical and ethical vacuum. Those who took democracy for granted were sleepwalking toward tyranny. The Ukrainian resistance is the wake-up call.

EARNEST STRUGGLE

On the Sunday before Russia began its latest invasion of Ukraine, I predicted on American television that Zelensky would remain in Kyiv if Russia invaded. I was mocked for this prediction, just as I was when I predicted the previous Russian invasion, the danger that U.S. President Donald Trump posed to American democracy, and Trump’s coup attempt. Former advisers to Trump and President Barack Obama disagreed with me in a class at Yale University, where I teach. They were doing nothing more than reflecting the American consensus. Americans tend to see the war in Ukraine in the long shadow of the 9/11 attacks and the American moral and military failures that followed. In the Biden administration, officials feared that taking the side of Kyiv risked repeating the fall of Kabul. Among younger people and on the political left, a deeper unease arose from the lack of a national reckoning over the invasion of Iraq, justified at the time with the notion that destroying one regime would create a tabula rasa from which democracy would naturally emerge. The idiocy of this argument made a generation doubt the possibility that war and democracy could have something to do with each other. The unease with another military effort was perhaps understandable, but the resemblance between Iraq and Ukraine was only superficial. Ukrainians weren’t imposing their own vision on another country. They were protecting their right to choose their own leaders against an invasion designed to undo their democracy and eliminate their society.

The Trump administration had spread cynicism from the other direction. First Trump denied Ukraine weapons in order to blackmail Zelensky. Then he showed that a U.S. president would attempt a coup to stay in power after an electoral defeat. To watch fellow citizens die in an attempt to overthrow democracy is the opposite of risking one’s life to protect it. Of course, if democracy is only about larger forces and not about ethics, then Trump’s actions would make perfect sense. If one believes that capitalist selfishness automatically becomes democratic virtue, and that lying about who won an election is just expressing an opinion like any other, then Trump is a normal politician. In fact, he brazenly personifies the Russian idea that there are no values and no truth.

Americans had largely forgotten that democracy is a value for which an elected official—or a citizen, for that matter—might choose to live or die. By taking a risk, Zelensky transformed his role from that of a bit player in a Trump scandal to a hero of democracy. Americans assumed that he would want to flee because they had convinced themselves of the supremacy of impersonal forces: if they bring democracy, so much the better, but when they don’t, people submit. “I need ammunition, not a ride” was Zelensky’s response to U.S. urgings to leave Kyiv. This was perhaps not as eloquent as the funeral oration of Pericles, but it gets across the same point: there is honor in choosing the right way to die on behalf of a people seeking the right way to live.

For 30 years, too many Americans took for granted that democracy was something that someone else did—or rather, that something else did: history by ending, alternatives by disappearing, capitalism by some inexplicable magic. (Russia and China are capitalist, after all.) That era ended when Zelensky emerged one night in February to film himself saying, “The president is here.” If a leader believes that democracy is just a result of larger factors, then he will flee when those larger factors seem to be against him. The issue of responsibility will never arise. But democracy demands “earnest struggle,” as the American abolitionist Frederick Douglass said. Ukrainian resistance to what appeared to be overwhelming force reminded the world that democracy is not about accepting the apparent verdict of history. It is about making history; striving toward human values despite the weight of empire, oligarchy, and propaganda; and, in so doing, revealing previously unseen possibilities.

“LIVING IN TRUTH”

On the surface, Zelensky’s simple truth that “the president is here” was meant to undo Russian propaganda, which was claiming that he had fled the city. But the video, shot in the open air as Kyiv was under attack, was also a recovery of the meaning of freedom of speech, which has been forgotten. The Greek playwright Euripides understood that the purpose of freedom of speech was to speak truth to power. The free speaker clarifies a dangerous world not only with what he says but by the risk he takes when he speaks. By saying “the president is here” as the bombs fell and the assassins approached, Zelensky was “living in truth,” in the words of Vaclav Havel, or “walking the talk,” as one of my students in prison put it. Havel’s most famous essay on the topic, “The Power of the Powerless,” was dedicated to the memory of the philosopher Jan Patocka, who died shortly after being interrogated by the communist Czechoslovak secret police. Putin, a KGB officer from 1975 until 1991, extends the sadistic tradition of interrogators: nothing is true, nothing is worthy of sacrifice, everything is a joke, everyone is for sale. Might makes right, only fools believe otherwise, and they should pay for being fools.

After 1991, the nihilism of late communism flowed together with the complacent Western idea that democracy was merely the result of impersonal forces. If it turned out that those forces pushed in different directions, for example, toward oligarchy or empire, what was there then to say? But in the tradition of Euripides or Havel or now Zelensky, it is taken for granted that the larger forces are always against the individual, and that citizenship is realized through the responsibility one takes for words and the risks one takes with deeds. Truth is not with power, but a defense against it. That is why freedom of speech is necessary: not to make excuses, not to conform, but to assert values into the world, because so doing is a precondition of self-rule.

Those who took democracy for granted were sleepwalking toward tyranny.

In their post-1989 decadence, many citizens of North American and European democracies came to associate freedom of speech with the ability of the rich to exploit media to broadcast self-indulgent nonsense. When one recalls the purpose of freedom of speech, however, one cares less about how many social media followers an oligarch has and more about how that oligarch became wealthy in the first place. Oligarchs such as Putin and Trump do the opposite of speaking truth to power: they tell lies for power. Trump told a big lie about the election (that he won); Putin told a big lie about Ukraine (that it doesn’t exist). Putin’s fake history of eastern Europe, one of his justifications for the war, is so outrageous that it provides a chance to recall the sense of freedom of speech. If one of the richest men in the world, in command of a huge army, claims that a neighboring country does not exist, this is not just an example of free expression. It is genocidal hate speech, a form of action that must be resisted by other forms of action.

In an essay published in July 2021, Putin argued that events of the tenth century predetermined the unity of Ukraine and Russia. This is grotesque as history, since the only human creativity it allows in the course of a thousand years and hundreds of millions of lives is that of the tyrant to retrospectively and arbitrarily choose his own genealogy of power. Nations are not determined by official myth, but created by people who make connections between past and future. As the French historian Ernest Renan put it, the nation is a “daily plebiscite.” The German historian Frank Golczewski was right to say that national identity is not a reflection of “ethnicity, language, and religion” but rather an “assertion of a certain historical and political possibility.” Something similar can be said of democracy: it can be made only by people who want to make it and in the name of values they affirm by taking risks for them.

The Ukrainian nation exists. The results of the daily plebiscite are clear, and the earnest struggle is evident. No society should have to resist a Russian invasion in order to be recognized. It should not have taken the deaths of dozens of journalists for us to see the basic truths that they were trying to report before and during the invasion. That it took so much effort (and so much unnecessary bloodshed) for the West to see Ukraine at all reveals the challenge that Russian nihilism poses. It shows how close the West came to conceding the tradition of democracy.

BIG LIES

If one forgets that the purpose of free speech is to speak truth to power, one fails to see that big lies told by powerful people weaken democracy. The Putin regime makes this clear by organizing politics around the shameless production of fiction. Russia’s honesty, the argument goes, consists of accepting that there is no truth. Unlike the West, Russia avoids hypocrisy by dismissing all values at the outset. Putin stays in power by way of such strategic relativism: not by making his own country better but by making other countries look worse. Sometimes, that means acting to destabilize them—for instance, in Russia’s failed electoral intervention in Ukraine in 2014, its successful digital support of Brexit in the United Kingdom in 2016, and its successful digital support of Trump in 2016.

This philosophical system enables Putin to act but also to protect himself. Russians can be told that Ukraine is the center of the world and then that Syria is the center of the world and then again that Ukraine is the center of the world. They can be told that when their armed forces intervene in Ukraine or Syria, the other side starts killing its own people. They can be told one day that war with Ukraine is impossible and the next that war with Ukraine is inevitable, as happened in February. They can be told that Ukrainians are really Russians who want to be invaded and also Nazi satanists who must be exterminated. Putin cannot be backed into a corner. Because Russian power is equivalent to control over a closed media system, he can simply declare victory and change the subject. If Russia loses the war with Ukraine, he will just claim that he has won, and Russians will believe him or pretend to do so.

For such a regime to survive, the notion that democracy rests on the courage to tell the truth must be eliminated with violence if it cannot be laughed out of existence. Night after night, Kremlin propagandists explain on television that there cannot be a person such as Zelensky, a nation such as Ukraine, or a system such as democracy. Self-rule must be a joke; Ukraine must be a joke; Zelensky must be a joke. If not, the Kremlin’s whole story that Russia is superior because it accepts that nothing is true falls to pieces. If Ukrainians really can constitute a society and really can choose their leaders, then why shouldn’t Russians do the same?

Zelensky at an event commemorating fallen Ukrainian soldiers, Lviv, August 2022

Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / Reuters

Russians must be deterred from such thoughts by arguments about Ukraine that are as repulsive as they are untrue. Russian war propaganda about Ukraine is deeply, aggressively, deliberately false, and that is its purpose: to make grotesque lying seem normal and to wear down the human capacity to make distinctions and check emotions. When Russia murders Ukrainian prisoners of war en masse and blames Ukraine, it is not really making a truth claim: it is just trying to draw Western journalists into reporting all sides equally so they will ignore the discoverable facts. The point is to make the whole war seem incomprehensible and dirty, thereby discouraging Western involvement. When Russian fascists call Ukrainians “fascists,” they are playing this game, and too many others join in. It is ridiculous to treat Zelensky as part of both a world Jewish conspiracy and a Nazi plot, but Russian propaganda routinely makes both claims. But the absurdity is the point.

Democracy and nationhood depend on the capacity of individuals to assess the world for themselves and take unexpected risks; their destruction depends on asserting grand falsehoods that are known to be such. Zelensky made this point in one of his evening addresses this March: that falsehood demands violence, not because violence can make falsehood true, but because it can kill or humiliate people who have the courage to speak truth to power. As the Russian thinker Mikhail Bakhtin has observed, to live inside a lie is to become the tool of someone else. To kill or die inside a lie is even worse, in that it enables a regime such as Russia’s to reconstitute itself. Killing for lies has generational consequences for Russia, even beyond the tens of thousands of dead and mutilated young citizens. An older Russian generation is forcing a younger one through a gauntlet, leaving the political terrain so slippery with blood that the young can never advance, and the old can hold their places until death. Ukraine is already governed by a generation that is accustomed to choosing its own leaders, an experience Russians have never had. In this sense, too, the war is generational. Its violence, in all its forms, is meant to eliminate the Ukrainian future. Russian state media has made Moscow’s genocidal aspiration plain, over and over again. In occupied territories, Russians execute male Ukrainian citizens or force them to go and die at the front. Russians rape Ukrainian women to prevent them from wishing to have children. The millions of Ukrainians forcibly deported to Russia, many of them women with young children or of child-bearing age, have to accept what they know to be false to avoid prison and torture. Less dramatic but still significant is Russia’s deliberate destruction of Ukrainian archives, libraries, universities, and publishing houses. The war is fought to control territory but also wombs and minds—in other words, the future.

Russia embodies fascism while claiming to fight it; Russians commit genocide while claiming to prevent it. This propaganda is not entirely ineffective: the fact that Moscow claims to be fighting Nazis does distract many observers from the fascism of Putin’s regime. And before North Americans and Europeans praise themselves for winning the battle of narratives, they should look to the global South. There, Putin’s story of the war prevails, even as Asians and Africans pay a horrible price for the war that he has chosen.

FAMINE AND FICTION

Putin’s propaganda machine, like the rest of his regime, is funded by revenue from oil and gas exports. The current Russian order, in other words, depends for its existence on a world that has not made the transition to sustainable energy. Russia’s war on Ukraine can be understood as a kind of preview of what uncontrolled climate change will look like: petulant wars waged by mendacious hydrocarbon oligarchs, racial violence instead of the pursuit of human survival via technology, shortages and famine in much of the world, and catastrophe in parts of the global South.

In Ukrainian history, political fiction accompanies political famine. In the early 1930s, when Stalin undertook what he called an “internal colonization” of the Soviet Union, much was expected of Ukraine’s fertile soil. And when his plan for rapid collectivization of agriculture failed, Stalin blamed a long list of ready scapegoats: first Ukrainian communists, then imaginary Ukrainian nationalists whom the communists supposedly served, then imaginary Polish agents whom the nationalists supposedly served. The Politburo, meanwhile, enforced requisitions and other punitive measures that ensured that about four million Ukrainians perished. Those abroad who tried to organize relief, including the Ukrainian feminist Milena Rudnytska, who happened to be of Jewish origin, were called Nazis. This list of fantasy enemies from 1933 is startlingly similar to Russia’s list today.

There is a larger historical pattern here, one in which the exploitation of the fruits of Ukrainian soil is justified by fantasies about the land and the people. In ancient times, the Greeks imagined monsters and miracles in the lands that are now Ukraine. During the Renaissance, as Polish nobles enserfed Ukrainian peasants, they invented for themselves a myth of racial superiority. After the Russian empire claimed Ukrainian territory from a partitioned Poland, its scholars invented a convenient story of how the two lands were one, a canard that Putin recycled in his essay last year. Putin has copied Stalin’s fantasies—and Hitler’s, for that matter. Ukraine was the center of a Nazi hunger plan whereby Stalin’s collective farms were to be seized and used to feed Germany and other European territories, causing tens of millions of Soviet citizens to starve. As they fought for control of Ukrainian foodstuffs, Nazis portrayed Ukrainians as a simple colonial people who would be happy to be ruled by their superiors. This was also Putin’s view.

It appears that Putin has his own hunger plan. Ukraine is one of the most important exporters of agricultural goods in the world. But the Russian navy has blockaded Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, Russian soldiers have set fire to Ukrainian fields, and Russian artillery has targeted grain silos and the rail infrastructure needed to get grain to the ports. Like Stalin in 1933, Putin has taken deliberate steps to risk the starvation of millions. Lebanon relies heavily on Ukrainian grain, as do Ethiopia, Yemen, and the fragile nations of the Sahel. Yet the spread of hunger is not simply a matter of Ukrainian food not reaching its normal markets. The anticipation of shortages drives up food prices everywhere. The Chinese can be expected to hoard food, driving prices higher still. The weakest and the poorest will suffer first. And that is the point. When those who have no voice die, those who rule by lethal spectacle choose the meaning of their deaths. And that is what Putin may do.

A Ukrainian victory would give democracy a fresh wind.

Whereas Stalin covered up the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s with propaganda, Putin is using hunger itself as propaganda. For months now, Russian propagandists have blamed a looming famine on Ukraine. The horror of telling such a lie to vulnerable African and Asian populations is easier to understand in light of the Putin regime’s racist, colonial mindset. This is, after all, a regime that allowed an image of Obama fellating a banana to be projected onto the wall of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, and whose media declared the last year of the Obama administration “the year of the monkey.” Putin, like other white nationalists, is obsessed with demography and fears that his race will be outnumbered.

The war itself has followed a racial arithmetic. Some of the first Russian soldiers to be killed in battle were ethnic Asians from eastern Russia, and many of those who have died since were forcibly conscripted Ukrainians from the Donbas. Ukrainian women and children have been deported to Russia because they are seen as assimilable, people who can bolster the ranks of white Russians. To starve Africans and Asians, as Putin sees it, is a way to transfer the demographic stress to Europe by way of a wave of refugees fleeing hunger. The Russian bombing of Syrian civilians followed a similar logic.

Nothing in the hunger plan is hidden. At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2022, Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of the state-run network RT, said that “all of our hope lies in famine.” As the skilled propagandist understands, the point of starving Africans and Asians is to create a backdrop for propaganda. As they begin to die, Ukrainians will be scapegoated. This might or might not work. All past fantasies about Ukraine and its foodstuffs were at one time believed by influential people. Russian propaganda today has an edge in the global South. In much of Africa, Russia is a known quantity, whereas Ukraine is not. Few African leaders have publicly opposed Putin’s war, and some might be persuaded to parrot his talking points. Across the global South, it is not widely known that Ukraine is a leading exporter of food—nor that it is a poor country with a GDP per capita comparable to that of the countries it feeds, such as Egypt and Algeria.

There is some reason for hope. Ukrainians have been trying to communicate the reality of their position to people in the global South, so that they can speak the truth about Moscow’s hunger plan and thereby make it impossible. And as Ukraine has gained better weapons from the United States and Europe, Russia’s hold on the Black Sea has weakened. In July, Ukraine and Russia signed agreements with Turkey that should, in principle, allow some Ukrainian grain to leave the Black Sea and feed Africans and Asians. Yet the day after it signed the agreement, Russia fired missiles at the port of Odessa, from which Ukraine ships much of its grain. A few days after that, Russia killed Ukraine’s leading agribusinessman in a missile strike. The only sure way to feed the world is for Ukrainian soldiers to fight their way through the province of Kherson to the Black Sea and to victory.

THE LAST IMPERIAL WAR

Ukraine is fighting a war against a tyranny that is also a colonial power. Self-rule means not just defending the democratic principle of choosing one’s own rulers but also respecting the equality of states. Russian leaders have been clear that they believe that only some states are sovereign, and that Ukraine is nothing more than a colony. A Ukrainian victory would defend Ukrainian sovereignty in particular and the principle of sovereignty in general. It would also improve the prospects of other post-colonial states. As the economist Amartya Sen has argued, imperial famines result from political choices about distribution, not shortages of food. If Ukraine wins, it will resume exporting foodstuffs to the global South. By removing a great risk of suffering and instability in the global South, a victorious Ukraine would preserve the possibility of global cooperation on shared problems such as climate change.

For Europe, it is also essential that Ukraine win and Russia lose. The European Union is a collection of post-imperial states: some of them former imperial metropoles, some of them post-imperial peripheries. Ukrainians understand that joining the European Union is the way to secure statehood from a vulnerable peripheral position. Victory for Ukraine will have to involve a prospect of EU membership. As many Russians understand, Russia must lose, and for similar reasons. The European states that today pride themselves on their traditions of law and tolerance only truly became democracies after losing their last imperial war. A Russia that is fighting an imperial war in Ukraine can never embrace the rule of law, and a Russia that controls Ukrainian territory will never allow free elections. A Russia that loses such a war, one in which Putinism is a negative legacy, has a chance. Despite what Russian propaganda claims, Moscow loses wars with some frequency, and every period of reform in modern Russian history has followed a military defeat.

Most urgently, a Ukrainian victory is needed to prevent further death and atrocity in Ukraine. But the outcome of the war matters throughout the world, not just in the physical realm of pain and hunger but also in the realm of values, where possible futures are enabled. Ukrainian resistance reminds us that democracy is about human risk and human principles, and a Ukrainian victory would give democracy a fresh wind. The Ukrainian trident, which adorns the uniforms of Ukrainians now at war, extends back through the country’s traditions into ancient history, providing references that can be used to rethink and revive democracy.

Athena and Poseidon can be brought together. Athena, after all, was the goddess not only of justice but of just war. Poseidon had in mind not only violence but commerce. Athenians chose Athena as their patron but then built a fountain for Poseidon in the Acropolis—on the very spot, legend has it, where his trident struck. A victory for Ukraine would vindicate and recombine these values: Athena’s of deliberation and prosperity, Poseidon’s of decisiveness and trade. If Ukraine can win back its south, the sea-lanes that fed the ancient Greeks will be reopened, and the world will be enlightened by the Ukrainian example of risk-taking for self-rule. In the end, the olive tree will need the trident. Peace will only follow victory. The world might get an olive branch, but only if the Ukrainians can fight their way back to the sea.

• TIMOTHY SNYDER is Richard C. Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University and the author of Bloodlands and On Tyranny.

Foreign Affairs · by Bloodlands · September 6, 2022

22. $2.8 Billion in Additional U.S. Military Assistance for Ukraine and Its Neighbors

$2.8 Billion in Additional U.S. Military Assistance for Ukraine and Its Neighbors - United States Department of State

state.gov · by Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

HomeOffice of the SpokespersonPress Releases...$2.8 Billion in Additional U.S. Military Assistance for Ukraine and Its Neighbors

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Press Statement

September 8, 2022

It has been seven months since President Putin’s February invasion of Ukraine, and the war’s terrible toll continues to mount. Thousands of civilians killed or wounded, 13 million Ukrainian civilians forced to flee their homes, historic cities pounded to rubble, horrifying reports of ongoing atrocities, nuclear power stations put at risk, food shortages, skyrocketing food prices around the world. Ukraine’s extraordinary front-line defenders continue to courageously fight for their country’s freedom, and President Biden has been clear we will support the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes. I reiterated this message to President Zelenskyy and his team today in Kyiv, which remains ̶ and will remain ̶ the capital of a sovereign, independent Ukraine.

I also informed President Zelenskyy that, pursuant to a delegation of authority from the President, I am authorizing our twentieth drawdown since September 2021 of U.S. arms and equipment for Ukraine. This $675 million drawdown includes additional arms, munitions, and equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories ̶ equipment that Ukraine’s forces have used so effectively for their country’s defense.

In addition, we are also notifying Congress today of our intent to make a further $2.2 billion available in long-term investments under Foreign Military Financing to bolster the security of Ukraine and 18 of its neighbors; including many of our NATO Allies, as well as other regional security partners potentially at risk of future Russian aggression.

These announcements will bring the total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to approximately $15.2 billion since the beginning of this Administration.

The United States is providing security assistance alongside our allies and partners from more than 50 countries to support Ukraine’s defense. The capabilities we are delivering are carefully calibrated to make the most difference on the battlefield.

We stand United with Ukraine.

state.gov · by Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

23. A new Alex Jones trial is expected to probe the finances of his misinformation empire

​

Good. Follow the money. Hopefully this will be a warning to people like him and to the people who provide money and prop up people like him. Of course he was just doing what many large corporations do when they must protect their profits and assets from suits.

A new Alex Jones trial is expected to probe the finances of his misinformation empire​

The Infowars host “doomsday prepped” his wealth to protect it from judgments, victims’ families allege ahead of Connecticut trial.

Jason Paladino

Investigative Reporter

September 8, 2022​

grid.news · by Jason Paladino

The next question facing Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist facing lawsuits from the families of Sandy Hook victims: How much is Alex Jones really worth?

Jones and his media operation, Infowars, for years falsely claimed the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, and the victims and their families were actors. In a recent Texas case, a jury awarded nearly $50 million in damages to parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim. Now, a Connecticut jury will decide the amount of damages to award several other parents of children who were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.

The previous trial in Texas already exposed new details about Jones’ empire, including what the families call a scheme to hide his wealth. An expert witness in that trial testified that Jones’ empire was likely worth as much as $270 million, but he began transferring funds out of his businesses and eventually declared bankruptcy after the families filed defamation suits against him.

Observers told Grid there is a good chance the Connecticut case will result in steeper damages for the plaintiffs than the Texas jury awarded in August.

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While Connecticut has limits on punitive damages, experts say the state is generally more plaintiff-friendly, and the Connecticut case features over a dozen plaintiffs claiming harm from the Infowars campaign, compared with the two Texas plaintiffs, possibly justifying a higher award.

Jones claims he and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, can’t afford to pay the awards. The family’s attorneys and a judicially appointed trustee have cast doubt on that.

What to expect

Next week’s trial is slated to start Tuesday and consolidates three suits against Jones and his companies. The trial will determine how much Free Speech Systems owes nine Sandy Hook families, the daughter of the school’s principal and a first responder from the shooting.

It’s likely to illuminate the inner workings of Free Speech Systems, along with a web of shell companies controlled by Jones and his family members.

A Connecticut judge rendered a default judgment against Jones in November 2021 in part because Jones’ lawyers were not complying with discovery requests. This means that next week’s trial will focus solely on what damages should be awarded.

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For years, Jones used his radio and internet broadcasts to push a conspiracy theory that the 2012 mass shooting was a government-orchestrated “false flag” operation intended as a pretext to confiscate Americans’ guns. “Don’t ever think the globalists who hijacked this country wouldn’t stage something like this,” Jones said on his show the day of the shooting. “They kill little kids all day, every day.”

Jones’ lies led to years of harassment and threats against the parents of the school-aged victims. One family was forced to move nearly 10 times since the shooting.

Jones, who has since admitted the Sandy Hook shooting was real, raked in cash from his operations throughout the period. While his shows generated revenue, court filings indicate much of his income flowed from a profitable supplement and doomsday preparation business he frequently advertises on his shows. It’s not uncommon for Jones to follow a segment on likely societal collapse or nuclear war with an ad for buckets of shelf-stable food or iodine pills to prevent radiation sickness. At one point in 2018, Infowars was bringing in over $800,000 a day.

“Doomsday prepping” for default judgments

The Sandy Hook parents allege that as judges began ruling against Jones and his companies, he devised a plan to shield his assets by shifting millions out of his companies’ coffers and falsely claiming several companies, including Free Speech Systems, had gone bankrupt.

“During the Defamation Cases, the Jones Debtors doomsday prepped for these eventual judgments by diverting assets,” the plaintiffs claimed in one filing. Lawyers for Jones have disputed that characterization. None responded to Grid’s requests for comment.

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Roughly $70 million moved from Free Speech Systems to Jones’ own accounts, according to forensic economist Bernard Pettingill Jr., an expert witness called to the stand in the Texas trial on behalf of the plaintiffs. Millions more were transferred to separate corporations with names like PQPR Holdings Limited controlled by Jones and his parents, Pettingill testified last month.

In a court filing, PQPR’s attorneys argue this conclusion is false, the result of “misunderstanding the difference between a balance sheet and an income statement.”

Separately, Free Speech Systems reported a massive debt to PQPR in bankruptcy filings, which Jones’ attorneys claimed was for supplements they allege PQPR had provided over the years and had never been paid for. The debt was reported just three weeks after the Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the sanctions against Jones in that case, resulting in a default judgment, timing that the Sandy Hook lawyers say is suspicious. Pettingill called the debt a ruse.

“On the books Alex Jones is carrying this gigantic, $53 million note, when in reality he’s using that note as a clawback to pay himself back,” Pettingill told the Texas jury. Pettingill was limited in what documents he was able to gather because Jones’ attorneys did not comply with discovery, he testified. This testimony echoed that of another attorney in the bankruptcy case.

Jones and his company claimed after the first jury award that Infowars was running on empty. “We are so broke … I’m worried about our bankruptcy to emergency stabilize Infowars, and we have a plan. But to do that we need support,” Jones told his viewers the day before the jury awarded the parents another $45.2 million.

Outside experts Grid contacted tended to agree with Pettingill. “The circumstances suggest this claim was dreamed up relatively recently,” said Minor Myers, a professor of law at University of Connecticut School of Law, “as a way to divert more value of the estate into friendly hands.”

The Sandy Hook families are arguing in multiple lawsuits that Jones is scrambling to shield the assets of Free Speech Systems from damage awards by transferring money out of the company to family members. Grid reviewed financial documents made public in the case and found recent payments of $240,000 to a Nevada LLC controlled by Jones’ sister, Marleigh Jones Rivera. The payments came after the default judgments were entered. Jones’ sister was once an employee of Infowars, but it’s not clear if she remains on the payroll. Rivera did not respond to requests for comment.

Why it matters

The impact of these cases on Jones’ operations appears negligible, at least for the moment. He continues to produce shows promoting conspiracy theories, although he has acknowledged Sandy Hook was not a false flag operation.

“Infowars hasn’t changed that much” in recent weeks, even as the defamation suits have moved ahead, according to Michael Edison Hayden, senior investigative reporter at Southern Poverty Law Center. Hayden has been following Jones and Infowars closely and investigating the inner workings of the business. “It’s still doing many of the things it once did.”

After the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Jones “went about halfway toward suggesting it was staged, or that it was part of some ‘op,’” Hayden recounted. “[Jones] is trying to dip his feet into the same sort of pool that has awarded him so much money.”

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But the importance of the Jones defamation trials goes beyond Sandy Hook and Jones himself, said Amanda J. Crawford, assistant professor at University of Connecticut.

“[These cases] are the first really big, high-profile test of how we can hold people accountable for conspiracy theories in this misinformation moment that we’re in,” said Crawford, who’s writing a book on the connections between mass shootings and misinformation. “The misinformation that followed Sandy Hook was the beginning of a new era of conspiracy theories. The year of the shooting was the first year that over half of American adults were on social media.”

Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.

grid.news · by Jason Paladino

24. What have the AUKUS partners spent the last year doing?

What have the AUKUS partners spent the last year doing?

Defense News · by Megan Eckstein · September 7, 2022

WASHINGTON — The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have spent the last year discussing in detail the capabilities that each partner of the so-called AUKUS agreement will bring to the table for a future Australian nuclear-powered attack submarine, according to the undersecretary of the U.S. Navy.

Speaking at the Defense News Conference on Wednesday, Erik Raven said he doesn’t have submarine design announcements yet, but could say the three nations are focused on “how to get there in the smartest way to make sure this partnership pays dividends well into the future.”

It’s been nearly one year since the allies signed the security pact under which the U.S. and U.K. would share nuclear-powered submarine technology with Australia. The three nations agreed to an 18-month consultation period to work through what would be involved in a multinational nuclear submarine development effort.

“Some time in the future, journalists and historians are going to look back at this moment and look at how much work has been done over the past 12 months of this consultation period and ask: ‘Why can’t [the Defense Department] react as quickly to a major program and establish requirements and a process to meeting those strategic goals as quickly as we have been doing?’ ” Raven said.

“We don’t have solutions ready for prime time, but what we have been doing over the last 12 months is really spending it engaging with our partners, understanding what capabilities we all have to bring to the table, what capabilities are needed, and start aligning those against how are we going to perform to plan,” he added.

Top of mind shortly after the AUKUS announcement was choosing the class of submarine the Royal Australian Navy may use — the U.S. Navy’s Virginia-class submarine, the British Royal Navy’s Astute-class submarine or something new. But the conversation later turned toward whose industrial base has the capacity to handle additional construction work.

Rear Adm. Scott Pappano, the program executive officer for strategic submarines, has closely tracked industrial base issues related to his top-priority Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, as well as what capacity remains to build and maintain the Virginia attack subs.

Although he’s not directly involved in AUKUS conversations, he said last month that, “if we are going to add additional submarine construction to our industrial base, that would be detrimental to us right now without significant investment to provide additional capacity and capability to go do that.” He added the U.K. submarine-industrial base faces similar constraints.

Despite the challenges, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday has called the arrangement “a strategic stroke of brilliance … for all three countries.”

“That puts all three countries working in lockstep with advanced capabilities to put us in a position where we’re not just interoperable, but we’re interchangeable,” he said.

Raven noted that the National Defense Strategy focuses the U.S. military on China and that AUKUS is a prime example of how to approach that. Not only does the collaboration create a new high-end platform to deter or counter China, but it also launches a discussion about basing and forward presence that could help U.S. naval forces spend more time forward in the Pacific, he explained.

Another issue gaining early attention is training. Given the length of time it takes to grow enlisted and officer leadership who understand nuclear propulsion, the U.S. and U.K. are looking at training opportunities now.

Legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress in June would establish a training program in the United States. The program would induct at least two Australian officers each year to receive training at the Navy’s nuclear propulsion school, enroll in the Submarine Officer Basic Course and then be assigned to duty on an operational U.S. submarine at sea.

During a recent commissioning ceremony for a new Astute-class sub, the U.K. announced Royal Australian Navy personnel are already participating in specialized nuclear training courses conducted by both the U.K. and U.S.

Several American leaders have noted the importance of starting this training this early, given it takes years to prepare an officer to take command of a nuclear-powered sub. In fact, it takes so long that women first began serving on American submarines in 2011, and more than a decade later, no woman has commanded a sub yet. Last month, however, a female senior enlisted sailor was selected to serve as chief of a sub.

About Megan Eckstein

Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.

25. Will Xi Jinping Continue to Rule China?

​My friends from China tell me that Xi's continued leadership of the​ party, the military and as president is at some risk. Another term is not guaranteed.

Conclusion:

With China’s future in the balance, an abrupt changing of the guard now would be an unnecessary risk. In the face of such immense challenges, what the CCP wants more than anything is strength and stability. The hard truth is that President Xi Jinping, up until this point, has given China exactly that.

Will Xi Jinping Continue to Rule China? - The American Conservative

The American Conservative · by Bradley Devlin · September 6, 2022

The Chinese Communist Party is preparing to make a pivotal decision next month: whether to give a third term to President Xi Jinping. If the CCP breaks precedent, as expected, and votes for him yet again come October’s twice-a-decade Communist Party congress, Xi will become the longest serving head of state in the history of the People’s Republic.

At 69 years old, a year beyond the CCP’s customary age for retirement, it seemed Xi might decide to ride off into the sunset. But that will not be the case, given that Indonesian President Joko Widodo said Xi plans on attending the Group of 20 summit in Bali come November.

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It may be true that the last few years of Xi’s second term have not gone according to plan. China continues to struggle in vain for Covid-zero, and new lockdowns in Chengdu amidst a new viral outbreak suggest China does not have plans to abandon the strategy. The economy’s growth rate was slowing before Covid, but has further declined because of the pandemic. And a Western pivot toward Taiwan is ratcheting up tensions in China’s backyard, increasing pressure on Xi from within the party to take the island by force if necessary.

Nevertheless, Xi has much to boast about. He has been able to capitalize on a strong national identity rigorously enforced by the Communist Party and the country’s newfound wealth thanks to liberal economic reforms, wielding both hard and soft power to make China the foremost power in Asia. The Belt and Road Initiative, which Xi started rolling out in speeches in 2013 with the vision of restoring the Silk Road, has extended Chinese investment in nearly 150 countries. Investments throughout the global south and Middle East have made beneficiaries increasingly beholden to China and its economy, something the CCP exploits for its benefit in diplomacy. While these infrastructure projects have been riddled with problems, such as construction delays and excessive costs, China-dependent countries left discontent with the Belt and Road can ill afford to scrap their parts of the effort entirely.

One of President Richard Nixon’s key foreign policy insights was that Washington should maintain better relations with both Moscow and Beijing than the two have with one another. In Nixon’s time, the challenge of that was reversed, given the USSR was America’s main geopolitical adversary, while today, the main rival is China. Nixon’s insight has been lost on policymakers in Washington, but it seems it has not been lost on President Xi.

Under Xi, China has continued to improve its relationship with Russia. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement that pledged mutual support in key areas of foreign policy. Russia promised to support the One China principle, and China promised to support calls to end NATO enlargement; though, China may not be as resolute in defending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as Putin might have hoped when signing the deal. The two nations also pledged cooperation on artificial intelligence and energy, among other things. A joint statement from the signatories said, “friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”

And, of course, Xi’s China has drastically expanded the nation’s navy and fortified its presence in the South China Sea by creating new islands and contesting claims other countries make on islands that China claims as its own.

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This is all part of Xi’s “wolf warrior diplomacy,” an aggressive diplomatic strategy that uses China’s economic influence to maintain a level of codependence that prevents the West from more forceful opposition to China’s efforts. China has not forgotten the period of “national humiliation” it suffered under Western powers that established colonial holdings, and is done apologizing for a system that the CCP views as an unquestionable success.

I remember a conversation with TAC contributing editor Curt Mills from a while back. Paraphrasing a headline from a CCP outlet, he told me, “Mao made China one, Deng made China rich, and Xi made China strong.” At this moment in time, it’s hard to suggest this isn’t the case.

Which means we will likely be talking about President Xi at least until 2027—and possibly beyond, in light of the ages of our current set of world leaders and the Chinese president’s refusal to appoint a successor at the 2017 congress. China can ill-afford to take a risk on an inexperienced, unprepared, and unproven successor to Xi given the challenges the country is set to face in the next decade.

The root of most of these problems is China’s precarious demographic situation, the most pressing issue for Xi and the CCP. China’s population, currently 1.4 billion, is expected to peak in the next decade if it has not already peaked. The size of China’s population undergirds the size and strength of its economy—especially since China’s newfound wealth has transitioned it into an interstitial phase of development, a production-based economy with strong consumerist tendencies. When it comes to military conflict, any country is forced to think twice about fighting a war against a country that boasts a population over 1 billion.

This demographic peak helps explain the torrent of activity we’ve seen from China on the world stage under Xi. Xi knows that if China does not act now to solidify its position as a superpower—economically, militarily, and otherwise—it might not have another chance for the rest of the century. It adds a new sense of urgency to the ongoing situation in Taiwan. If China acts too quickly, its military may not be fully equipped to take the island—an operation that would likely be the largest amphibious assault in history—leading to a protracted conflict that would very likely spill over into a hot war with the United States and its allies in the region. Act too slowly, and China could miss the window where it feels confident that it can outlast any defense Taiwan, the U.S., and other allies could muster.

China’s one-child policy, which lasted for nearly four decades from the late ‘70s to 2016, led to massive numbers of sex-selective abortions. Many Chinese families refused to bring a pregnancy to term if the child was not a boy. The result: from the millennial generation onward, China’s population has skewed heavily male, with 120 boys for every 100 girls. But as the children born under the one-child policy age into adulthood, the number of men in China in their late 30s who have never been married is expected to quintuple by 2030. Regimes that preside over a population with an excess of single, never-married men have a problem.

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The sex imbalance also bodes poorly for China’s fertility rate, which has predictably declined since the one-child policy was enacted. Last year, it was 1.16—one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and far below the 2.1 OCED standard for ensuring a stable population. The Chinese government has attempted to rectify its fertility crisis by first incentivizing families to have two children, and then adding more incentives for families to have three children last year, including additional tax deductions, better medical insurance, and longer maternity leave. But the projections for 2022 remain bleak, as new births are expected to fall below 10 million—600,000 fewer than 2021’s total, which was more than 10 percent lower than 2020’s. Even with the CCP’s efforts to increase the number of births per woman, decades of the one-child policy have predictably made the population of child-bearing-aged women much smaller.

If current trends hold, China’s population will become increasingly geriatric. Somewhere around the year 2080, China’s elderly population (those 65 and up) will outnumber China’s total of working-age adults. By 2100, China’s working-age population is expected to sit at just one-third of its 2014 peak. In just an 80 year span, China’s population could go from 1.4 billion to just under 600 million. That’s still almost twice the size of the United States, but represents a nearly 60 percent drop. The Chinese population would be the smallest it’s been since Mao Zedong was named chairman of the People’s Republic.

With China’s future in the balance, an abrupt changing of the guard now would be an unnecessary risk. In the face of such immense challenges, what the CCP wants more than anything is strength and stability. The hard truth is that President Xi Jinping, up until this point, has given China exactly that.

The American Conservative · by Bradley Devlin · September 6, 2022

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

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email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com