Quotes of the Day:
"...do not fear the term "'psychological warfare'...just because it's a five-dollar, five-syllable word...[it] is the struggle for the minds and wills of men."
- Eisenhower
“[Strategy] is more than a science: it is the application of knowledge to practical life, the development of thought capable of modifying the original guiding idea in the light of ever-changing situations; it is the art of acting under the pressure of the most difficult conditions.”
- Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War
“The right to provoke, offend, and shock lies at the core of the First Amendment. This is particularly so on college campuses. Intellectual advancement has traditionally progressed through discord and dissent, as a diversity of views ensures that ideas survive because they are correct, not because they are popular.”
- Richard V. Reeves, All Minus One: John Stuart Mill's Ideas on Free Speech Illustrated
1. The Army in 2022: Not Ready for Major Theater War
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17. Russian Force Posture around Ukraine in BTGS as of January 25, 2022
1. The Army in 2022: Not Ready for Major Theater War
A depressing read to start your Sunday.
Conclusion:
A close study of the Army in 2021 suggests that the transition from a land force optimized for the GWOT and one focused on major theater war with near-peer competitors is progressing slowly. Today, the Army is too small, too light and too weak in field artillery, short-range air defense and EW. In a ground war against China or Russia near their borders, the Army would be hard pressed to prevail—even with substantial help from allies and sister services.
None of this is new. The Army has been here before. Its roots run deep in the American experiment and its resilience and adaptability are defining features of an institution that is unique among the Armed Forces. As a flexible and forward-thinking organization, the Army is and should be constantly striving to improve its capabilities in a dangerous world. This review highlights areas of concern and suggests possible solutions. In an uncertain world, one thing is certain: The Army will be called upon again. Much will depend on its readiness to “fight tonight” and win. That, above all, is the true priority.
The Army in 2022: Not Ready for Major Theater War
by Richard D. Hooker, Jr.
In Brief
- As currently organized, the Army is too small, at 10 divisions and 31 brigade combat teams, to engage in major theater war against near-peer competitors in more than one theater.
- With only 11 armored brigade combat teams, the Army lacks the heavy forces needed to deter or prevail against Russian or Chinese land forces.
- Deficiencies in fires, short-range air defense and electronic warfare represent key vulnerabilities that require urgent solutions.
- Opportunities exist to dramatically increase the combat power available to Army division and corps commanders by arming the assault helicopter fleet and by transferring the A-10 from the Air Force to the Army.
- Prioritizing future modernization at the expense of current readiness risks near-term defeat.
Introduction
The U.S. Army today can be rightfully proud of its status as a premier land force. Blooded by a generation at war, the Army has endured severe challenges and has remained a resilient and vital component of American national security. However, these virtues should not stop the Army from constantly examining how it can improve. Today, there are a number of areas that call into question the Army’s readiness to fight and win in major theater war against near-peer adversaries. What follows is an objective critique, focused on how the Army can meet these challenges to prevail in the next great conflict.
The Army Is Too Small
Army endstrength is projected at 485,000 for the active force in 2022.1 As the Army is currently organized, this yields a 10-division, active-duty force that cannot meet the requirements of two simultaneous major campaigns, even with substantial reserve component augmentation.2 For deterrence to be effective, our allies around the world must be confident that America will be there, on the ground, early in the fight. Aggression on the Korean peninsula, for example, cannot mean the collapse of deterrence in Europe or the Middle East due to lack of ground forces. Nor can air or seapower offset an Army that is too small, as air and naval units cannot seize or control the land.3
Since the end of the Cold War, Army leaders have prioritized new technology over endstrength. Implicit in this thinking is the dangerous assumption that technology can compensate for a lack of boots on the ground.4 While both are critical, striking the right balance may be the difference between victory and defeat. Precision fires, improved C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and other technological advances are important and essential, but they cannot seize, hold and control the land. Nor can the reserve component fill the gap in come-as-you-are campaigns, as time is needed to mobilize and deploy substantial National Guard combat formations.5 Ten divisions are not enough. America needs a 12-division active Army to truly meet our national security requirements.6 This increase can be achieved by eliminating or downsizing redundant staffs and organizations, by increasing Army endstrength, or by a combination of both.7
The Army Is Too Light
In 2022, only 11 of the Army’s 31 active maneuver brigades are heavy brigades.8 Thirteen of the Army’s maneuver brigades are light infantry formations, ill-equipped to contend with Russian, Chinese or North Korean heavy forces and massed artillery. While cheaper and easier to deploy, the Army’s many light units cannot realistically compete with today’s threat (in fact, the Russian army has no light infantry for just this reason; even its airborne formations are fully mechanized).
Seven active Army maneuver brigades are Stryker formations, originally called the “interim armored vehicle” and intended to serve as a bridge until the future combat system could be fielded. From conception, Stryker units have suffered from doctrinal and conceptual confusion.9 Stryker units are wheeled, not tracked, and they carry more dismounts than Bradley units, which are intended to fight primarily mounted. But they have poor off-road mobility, are vulnerable to hand-held antiarmor systems, feature towed rather than self-propelled artillery, and they cannot survive when employed against armor, as shown in repeated National Training Center rotations.10 A better solution is to convert Stryker brigades into true heavy brigades, perhaps with the reconditioned M1 and M2 platforms that are now in storage.11 Should Stryker brigades be retained, they should include an armor battalion, as the Russian army does.
The Army Is Undergunned
Army field artillery, formerly a powerful fiefdom, was reduced dramatically in the 1990s and further drawn down following 9/11. The field artillery community at the end of the Cold War comprised 218 battalions. By 1999, this had been reduced to 141 battalions. By 2011, only 61 tactical field artillery battalions remained on active duty.12 The Division Artillery was disestablished while direct support artillery battalions were pushed down into “modularized” brigade combat teams, where their troops were often used as provisional infantry or transportation units, while their leaders manned “non-lethal effects” cells as information operations officers. Five “fires brigades” were retained in the active force, though seldom used in their primary roles.13 Even in a counterinsurgency environment, prominent maneuver commanders publicly decried this loss of capability.14
Today, Army divisions include only the organic cannon battalions found in the maneuver brigades, while each corps has a single artillery brigade equipped with the multiple launch rocket system. An entire generation of field artillery officers has limited experience in massing fires, while field artillery force structure remains atrophied.15
A quick comparison with the Russian army highlights this conundrum. Russian ground forces feature heavy artillery and plenty of it, in cannon, rocket and missile units, with rates of fire and ranges greater than our own systems. Russian maneuver brigades include not one but three artillery battalions (two cannon and one multiple rocket launcher), backed up by formidable fire assets at division and army level.16 There is no Russian counterpart to the M119 105mm towed howitzer which equips the Army’s four light divisions; all Russian cannon units are 122mm or larger. Today, the U.S. Army is outranged and outgunned.
In recent years, Army leadership has addressed this problem, restoring the Division Artillery headquarters and supporting funding for future systems. The Army is transitioning from the M109A6 to the M109A7 155mm “Paladin” howitzer system, continuing the upgrade of this venerable system.17 However, the current focus is on fielding future technologies, above all a very long-range, precision-fires capability.18
Meanwhile, the active force needs more cannon artillery now, on the order of one general support 155mm battalion in each division and an additional cannon artillery brigade per corps. Advances in cheaper GPS technology, ISR, propellants, metallurgy and micro-explosives mean that field artillery can be on the cusp of transition from area to point fire, even against moving targets—a true revolution. These must come at prices that permit maintainability, training and replacement. Above all, field artillery in light brigades and divisions is dangerously outmoded, with poor lethality and obsolete towed systems that are unarmored, slow going into battery and difficult to displace—fatal weaknesses against our likely opponents.19
The Army Lacks Short-Range Air Defense
Like the Armor and Field Artillery communities, Army Air Defense became a bill-payer following 9/11 as the Army reorganized for the Global War on Terror (GWOT). While the high- and mid-altitude air defense community was protected,20 Short-Range Air Defense (SHORAD) effectively disappeared as all divisional Air Defense Artillery battalions were eliminated. Army leaders “accepted risk” by assuming that the Air Force could take on this mission.21
Today, for a variety of reasons, this is no longer the case. Both China and Russia have invested heavily in antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD) technologies that threaten our ability to achieve air dominance in many scenarios. Evolving hypersonic technology and the proliferation of low-flying cruise missiles and unmanned aerial systems complicates this picture. Most urgently, the Army does not have a good answer for drone swarms used to target maneuver forces, fire systems, command posts and the like.22 Additionally, both China and Russia possess advanced attack helicopters in quantity. Lacking an air-to-air capability in Army Aviation, and without SHORAD units, today’s Army divisions are sorely vulnerable.
Army leaders and planners acknowledge this problem and have proposed to reintroduce SHORAD battalions into the divisional structure, but on an indeterminate timeline.23 Current plans project only four Active Army SHORAD battalions in the near future, with “Air and Missile Defense” ranking fifth of the Army’s six modernization priorities.24 In time, legacy Stinger and Avenger systems will be replaced by the “Maneuver-SHORAD” system, planned to include the Hellfire missile, a 30mm gun and Stinger missiles on a Stryker platform. For fixed-site protection of high-value assets, the Army plans to field “indirect fire protection capability” units equipped with a land variant of the Navy’s Phalanx.25
These moves will take years and depend on funding and successful acquisition that cannot be guaranteed. Meanwhile, the Army needs low-altitude air defense now. Reactivation of the Army’s divisional SHORAD battalions as a matter of urgency should be a top priority. They can be equipped with existing Avenger systems, armed with the FN Herstal .50 caliber heavy machine gun and the FIM-92J Stinger missile, while more advanced systems are developed.
Army Aviation has dramatic potential that should be leveraged. For speed, lethality and decisive influence on the land battle, Army Aviation is the Army’s crown jewel. Its principal platforms—the AH-64E, the UH-60M and the CH-47F—are proven, reliable and effective, able to operate day or night and in all weather. Army divisions today include a combat aviation brigade with 48 AH-64 attack helicopters, 30 UH-60 assault helicopters and 12 CH-47 heavy-lift helicopters. The combat aviation brigade also fields 8 UH-60s modified as command and control aircraft and 12 HH-60 medevac aircraft, as well as 12 RQ-7 and 12 MQ-1C unmanned aerial vehicles.
Given the decline in field artillery, Army attack aviation is the most powerful striking weapon available to division commanders. The division’s 48 Apaches can thus launch up to 768 fire-and-forget anti-tank missiles, each with a range of 8 km.26 Operating at stand-off ranges, they are survivable and, with cruise speeds of 150 knots, they can be rapidly repositioned to engage and destroy massed enemy armor. The Apache can also integrate with and control the MQ-1C, which can also be armed.
In the 1980s, the Army Aviation Center experimented with an air-to-air capability for the attack helicopter, but the initiative died as the Cold War drew down. Today, both Russia and China field advanced attack helicopters with a demonstrated air-to-air capability.27 Both also field dense and capable medium- and high-altitude air defenses as well as capable air forces, making air dominance for the United States, especially in the early stages of a ground campaign, problematic. For these reasons, the Army should move quickly to provide an air-to-air capability for its attack and assault helicopters.
Given its serious firepower deficit relative to near-peer competitors, the U.S. Army should also arm its assault helicopter fleet. Though currently equipped only with two 7.62mm door guns, the UH-60 platform was designed to accommodate a full complement of antitank missiles and rockets.28 Using the ESSS (external stores support system), up to 16 Hellfires can be externally loaded, with another 16 carried internally, while both the GAU-19 .50 caliber or the M134 7.62mm mini-gun can be mounted. The aircraft can also be configured with 2.75-inch rockets and the Stinger anti-air missile. (In fact, the MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator aircraft flown by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment are configured with the Hellfire, as are the MH-60R helos flown by the Navy.) This change would dramatically improve the combat power available to division commanders, enabling them to mass lethal fires far more quickly than with ground maneuver units, while also retaining the capability to conduct troop-carrier operations when needed.
A more controversial proposal, but one that clearly merits serious consideration, is to provide the Army with its own fixed-wing close air support. Though considered by many to be a radical proposition, in fact it is not. The Army needs its own fixed-wing air arm for the very same reason that the Navy and Marine Corps do. It has its own unique needs, vital to its success in ground campaigns, that are not met by sister services or by appealing for more “jointness.”29 These needs do not encompass air dominance, long-range interdiction or strategic bombing, classical Air Force missions.
Long before the Air Force separated from the Army, the Navy and Marine Corps established their own air arms, specialized for their own needs and missions. They retain them to this day. As long as the Army Air Forces were subordinated to the Army, its requirements for tactical air power were also met, even as an increasingly independent strategic Air Force evolved.
Today, the Air Force possesses only one airplane optimized for the close air support (CAS) mission, the A-10 Thunderbolt. All other fighter aircraft were designed for different missions and flight profiles. The Air Force has repeatedly attempted to retire the A-10 or, when faced with congressional opposition, to push it into the reserves.30 In 2021, there were 281 A-10 aircraft in service.
A reasonable proposal is to transfer the A-10—an aircraft the Air Force would prefer to cancel—to the Army. The current inventory will support one squadron of 24 aircraft in each division, leaving 41 for training.31 Though the Army’s attack helicopter community is vital, the A-10 is superior to the AH-64 in many ways, being more survivable, longer-ranged and faster, with a mighty weapons load. So configured, the Army could be its own primary CAS provider, though in extremis, it might still call on its sister services for assistance.32 The Air Force would of course retain primacy for air interdiction and strategic bombing.33
The time may be right to make this move. The Army would gain flexible, rapid combat power that it badly needs. The Air Force would be relieved of a platform it has been trying to jettison for years. Inter-service rivalry would be eased. And national security would be enhanced.
The Army Is Not Well Prepared for Electronic Warfare
Electronic warfare (EW) represents another adversary capability that overmatches our own. Russian and Chinese EW is integral to their warfighting doctrine and aims principally to disrupt enemy C2 while protecting their own.34 In the Russian army, EW units are found at every level, from the EW company in every maneuver brigade to the EW brigades found at army level. The Chinese approach is similar. Both Russian and Chinese planners have correctly identified our reliance on secure, satellite-based communications and navigation systems.35 (Offensive cyber operations can also be conducted, but not principally against tactical formations.)
Here the Army lags well behind the adversary. The Army Program of Record is the Terrestrial Layer Intelligence System, or TLIS, which can combine signal intercept and jamming functions. An airborne EW pod for Army drones, called the Multi-Functional Electronic Warfare-Air, or MFEW-Air, is also in the works, as is the Tactical Electronic Warfare System (TEWS) for brigade combat teams.36 All are still in the early stages of development.37 Meanwhile, the U.S. Army today has only a minimal EW capability.38 The Army should therefore accelerate fielding of capable EW systems in divisions and corps.
Conclusion
A close study of the Army in 2021 suggests that the transition from a land force optimized for the GWOT and one focused on major theater war with near-peer competitors is progressing slowly. Today, the Army is too small, too light and too weak in field artillery, short-range air defense and EW. In a ground war against China or Russia near their borders, the Army would be hard pressed to prevail—even with substantial help from allies and sister services.
None of this is new. The Army has been here before. Its roots run deep in the American experiment and its resilience and adaptability are defining features of an institution that is unique among the Armed Forces. As a flexible and forward-thinking organization, the Army is and should be constantly striving to improve its capabilities in a dangerous world. This review highlights areas of concern and suggests possible solutions. In an uncertain world, one thing is certain: The Army will be called upon again. Much will depend on its readiness to “fight tonight” and win. That, above all, is the true priority.
★ ★ ★ ★
Richard D. Hooker, Jr., is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council and a Senior Researcher with the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Program. A career Army officer, his military service included combat tours in Grenada, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, including command of a parachute brigade in Baghdad. His military service also included tours in the offices of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army. A veteran of three tours with the National Security Council, he holds a doctorate in international relations from the University of Virginia and previously served as Assistant Professor at West Point, as the Army Chair at the National War College and as Dean of the NATO Defense College in Rome.
1 Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management and Comptroller), FY 2022 President’s Budget Highlights, Headquarters, Department of the Army, May 2021, 10.
2 This requirement, and how to meet it, is discussed at length in the author’s “American Landpower and the Two-War Construct,” Land Warfare Paper 106, Association of the U.S. Army, May 2015. See also “Providing for the Common Defense: The Assessment and Recommendations of the National Defense Strategy Commission,” U.S. Institute for Peace, 2018, vi.
3 For a more detailed discussion, see the author’s “Airpower in American Wars,” Survival 58, June 2016.
4 “In future wars, the United States must guard against its historical American predilection to assume technology or qualitative warfighting superiority can be a substitute for troop numbers.” Joel Rayburn et al., “The U.S. Army in the Iraq War,” U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2019, 616.
5 Many argue that the reserve component offsets any lack of active duty manpower. While an invaluable strategic insurance policy, reserve combat forces (almost all of which reside in the National Guard) cannot be used in the early phases of a major ground campaign. Though the Guard includes 27 combat brigades, “No large RC brigade combat teams (BCTs) or combat aviation brigades have deployed as full brigades in the first year of a global contingency in more than 50 years.” Joshua Klimas et al., Assessing the Army’s Active-Reserve Component Force Mix (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 20 October 2013), 2.
6 Eric V. Larson, David T. Orletsky and Kristin J. Leuschner, Defense Planning in a Decade of Change: Lessons from the Base Force, Bottom-Up Review, and Quadrennial Defense Review (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2001), 25; General Eric Shinseki, Retirement Speech, 11 June 2003. The author’s “American Landpower and the Two-War Construct” provides a detailed analysis of landpower requirements for simultaneous land campaigns and explains in detail why airpower is a poor substitute.
7 By repurposing existing personnel spaces, utilizing existing cantonment space and facilities previously vacated in the drawdown of the 1990s and reconditioning major combat systems now excess and in storage, the Army can field two additional heavy divisions for under $10B—about 1.5 percent of DoD’s Total Obligational Authority. Information provided by a senior Army Staff G-8 official.
8 The 82d Airborne, 101st Air Assault and 10th Mountain divisions are light infantry formations with three brigades each. The 25th Infantry Division has three light brigades (one of which is airborne) and one Stryker brigade. The 1st Infantry Division currently has two heavy brigades. The 1st Armored Division and 1st Cavalry Divisions have three heavy brigades each. The 2d Infantry Division has two Stryker brigades. The 3d Infantry Division has two heavy brigades. The 4th Infantry Division has two Stryker brigades and one heavy brigade. Non-divisional brigades include one airborne (light infantry) brigade in Italy, one Stryker brigade at Fort Hood Texas and one Stryker brigade in Germany. The Regular Army today thus consists of 13 light infantry brigades, 11 heavy brigades and seven Stryker brigades. Existing plans call for two light brigades to be converted to heavy brigades in the near term.
9 “The Stryker concept has been in a constant state of flux since its inception … the Stryker formation does not have a unified concept. Multiple levels of leadership are pulling the organization in different directions.” Matthew D. Allgeyer, “The American Motor-Rifle Brigade: Issues with the Stryker Brigade Combat Team Concept,” Military Review, July–August 2017, 72.
10 James King, “Never Bring a Stryker to a Tank Fight,” Modern War Institute, May 2017.
11 Hundreds of earlier variants of the M1 Abrams, M2 Bradley and M109 self-propelled howitzer are stored at Sierras Army Depot in Nevada.
12 Major Julian T. Urquidez, USA, “The King is Dead: The Current State of the Field Artillery, Core Competency Atrophy, and the Way Ahead,” Graduate Thesis, U.S. Marine Corps College of Command and Staff, 2011.
13 For example, the Regular Army 17th FA brigade headquarters was employed in Iraq in 2005 as the garrison command for the Victory Base Complex in Baghdad.
15 Colonel David E. Johnson, USA, Ret., and Lieutenant General David D. Halverson, USA, Ret., “Massed Fires, Not Organic Formations: The Case for Returning Field Artillery Battalions to the DivArty,” AUSA Spotlight 20-1, April 2020, 5. Currently, the active Army has no cannon units other than the direct support artillery battalions found in maneuver brigades. Each corps has a single artillery brigade equipped with the multiple launch rocket system.
16 In general, Russian artillery has greater range than comparable western systems and exists in much greater numbers. The standard Russian howitzer is the self-propelled 152mm 2S3, another legacy system found in most Russian maneuver brigades or regiments. (Airborne units are equipped with the 2S31 Vena 120mm self-propelled mortar as well as the dated D-30 122mm towed howitzer.) High-priority, first-line units are equipped with the 2S19 Msta-S howitzer, which has a higher rate of fire and greater range than its counterpart, the U.S. M109 Paladin. The multiple rocket launcher battalion is commonly equipped with the venerable BM-21 Grad system, an area-fire system with a range of up to 45km. Artillery brigades found at higher levels feature larger systems like 240mm self-propelled mortars (2S4), 202mm SP howitzers (2S7M), 220mm rocket launchers (9P140) and 300mm rocket launchers (Tornado-S). These assets are used to weight the main effort in the offense and to disrupt or destroy deeper, high-value targets. See the author’s “How to Fight the Russians,” AUSA Land Warfare Paper 135, 30 November 2020.
17 The M109A7 variant provides incremental upgrades, including slightly increased ammunition storage, increased armor protection, reduced blast over pressure and the ability to fire the XM1113 Insensitive Munition High-Explosive Rocket Assisted Projectile now under development. However, its rate of fire remains one round per minute, and crew size remains unchanged at four.
18 “The Army has identified Long-Range Precision Fires as its No. 1 modernization priority,” Major General Cedric T. Wins, U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, 26 September 2018.
19 Options like the French Caesar, the Czech Dana, the Israeli Iron Saber, BAE’s Archer (in service with the Swedish Army), the South African Rhino and the German KMW Armored Gun Module, among others, all address this need. All are wheeled, self-propelled systems in the 152mm or 155mm range and are therefore more lethal and faster to emplace and displace, but optimized for light infantry formations. Where U.S. towed systems require crews of seven (M119) or eight (M777), these feature crews of three or four.
20 The active-duty Air Defense Community today includes 14 pure Patriot battalions, two Patriot/Avenger battalions and seven Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) batteries, but only three SHORAD battalions. Seven Avenger battalions exist in the Army National Guard.
21 Lieutenant Colonel Gary W. Beard United States Army, “Maneuver Air and Missile Defense in an AntiAccess/Area Denial Environment,” Graduate Thesis, U.S. Army War College, 2018, 6. In a half-hearted effort, the Army provided Stingers to infantry and armor units for employment by Soldiers as an additional duty following the disbandment of divisional SHORAD battalions. The attempt was a failure.
22 Drone swarms have been used with effect in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Nagorno-Karabakh in recent years. The Russian military is known to be developing and fielding both systems and operational concepts for employment of drone swarms, as seen in Kavkaz 2020, a large-scale exercise conducted in Russia’s Southern Military District. See Ridvan Bari Ucosta, “The Revolution in Drone Warfare,” Journal of European, Middle Eastern and African Affairs,” Fall 2020, and Roger McDermott, “Russia’s Interest in UAV Strike Capability Gathers Pace,” The Jamestown Foundation, 16 November 2020.
23 “The re-emergence of great-power competition has left our maneuver forces and key assets vulnerable to enemy air surveillance, targeting and attack from aerial platforms.” Lieutenant General James H. Dickinson, USA, “Army Air and Missile Defense Vision 2028,” U.S. Army Air and Missile Defense Command, March 2019, 10.
24 “U.S. Army Short-Range Air Defense Force Structure and Selected Programs: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, 23 July 2020, 2.
25 Gary Sheftick “Army Rebuilding Short-Range Air Defense,” Army News Service, 3 July 2019.
26 Based on maintenance and availability, a realistic estimate of aircraft operational readiness is 75 percent, or 36 Apaches, yielding an ability to launch 576 missiles.
27 Both the Chinese Z-10 medium attack helicopter and the Z-19 light attack helicopter are equipped with the TY-90 air-to-air missile. The Russian Havoc can be armed with the R-73 air-to-air missile while the smaller Hokum uses the AA-11 anti-air missile.
28 In 2019, Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, completed a six-year development and qualification program for weaponizing the UH-60M with the Hellfire missile, Hydra 70 rockets and various gun systems. This process involved two years of live firing trials conducted at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. The armed UH-60 is in use or on order by Singapore, Columbia, UAS and Tunisia. David Donald, “Armed Black Hawk Completes Qualification,” Aviation International News, 6 February 2018.
29 One measure of priorities is casualties. No jet pilot has been killed in action by enemy fire since 9/11. In contrast, hundreds of Army helicopter pilots and aircrew have been lost.
30 Oriana Pawlyk, “Lawmakers Move Once Again to Rescue A-10 Warthog from Retirement,” Military News, 12 June 2020.
31 In 2021, there ware 281 A-10 aircraft in service. The U.S. Congress approved funding in 2019 for a $1B service-life extension program that will keep the A-10 flying through the 2030s. A-10 Program Review, Northrop Grumman Corporation, 2020.
32 Alternatively, the Army could seek to develop its own fixed-wing close air support platform.
33 Defined as “air operations conducted to divert, disrupt, delay, or destroy the enemy’s military surface capabilities before they can be brought to bear effectively against friendly forces, or to otherwise achieve objectives that are conducted at such distances from friendly forces that detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of friendly forces is not required.” See Joint Publication 3-03, Joint Interdiction, September 2016, GL-4.
34 See “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” Office of the Secretary of Defense Annual Report to Congress, 2019, 64; and, Lester Grau and Charles Bartles, “The Russian Way of War,” U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office, 2016, 289–290.
35 “The PLA, in line with the Chinese historic understanding of information as the key to victory, has focused on countering American C4ISR systems through GPS jamming, Joint Tactical Information Distribution System countermeasures and synthetic radar jamming. These capabilities would be coordinated with computer network attack tools for a more holistic and complete attack against an adversary’s command networks.” Mark Pomerleau, “Breaking Down China’s Electronic Warfare Tactics,” C4ISRNet, 22 March 2017. See also Zi Yang, “PLA Stratagems for Establishing Wartime Electromagnetic Dominance, The Jamestown Foundation, China Brief 19, no. 3; and, Madison Creery, “The Russian Edge in Electronic Warfare,” Georgetown Security Studies Review, 26 June 2019.
36 Sydney J. Freedberg, “Boeing & Lockheed Vie For Cyber/EW/SIGINT System,” Breaking Defense, 17 August 2020.
37 “Most of these systems, however, are still being developed. While the Army has deployed some to a small degree in response to urgent needs, the technologies still await mass fielding to units, meaning most EW soldiers still lack equipment.” Mark Pomerleau, C4ISRNet, 18 August 2021.
38 “The US Army has almost no EW capability,” Creery, 1.
2. American Woman Who Led ISIS Battalion Charged with Providing Material Support to a Terrorist Organization
Excerpt:
As alleged in the criminal complaint, Allison Elizabeth Fluke-Ekren, aka “Allison Elizabeth Brooks,” aka “Allison Ekren,” aka “Umm Mohammed al-Amriki,” aka “Umm Mohammed,” and aka “Umm Jabril,” 42, a former resident of Kansas, traveled to Syria several years ago for the purpose of committing or supporting terrorism. Since her departure from the United States, Fluke-Ekren has allegedly been involved with a number of terrorism-related activities on behalf of ISIS from at least 2014. These activities allegedly include, but are not limited to, planning and recruiting operatives for a potential future attack on a college campus inside the United States and serving as the appointed leader and organizer of an ISIS military battalion, known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, in order to train women on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and suicide belts. Additionally, Fluke-Ekren allegedly provided ISIS and ISIS members with services, which included providing lodging, translating speeches made by ISIS leaders, training children on the use of AK-47 assault rifles and suicide belts and teaching extremist ISIS doctrine.
American Woman Who Led ISIS Battalion Charged with Providing Material Support to a Terrorist Organization
A criminal complaint filed in 2019 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which is now unsealed, alleges that Allison Fluke-Ekren, a United States citizen, organized and led an all-female military battalion on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), and charges Fluke-Ekren with providing and conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Fluke-Ekren was previously apprehended in Syria and transferred into the custody of the FBI yesterday, at which point she was first brought to the Eastern District of Virginia. She is expected to have her initial appearance at the federal courthouse in Alexandria on Monday at 2:00 p.m.
As alleged in the criminal complaint, Allison Elizabeth Fluke-Ekren, aka “Allison Elizabeth Brooks,” aka “Allison Ekren,” aka “Umm Mohammed al-Amriki,” aka “Umm Mohammed,” and aka “Umm Jabril,” 42, a former resident of Kansas, traveled to Syria several years ago for the purpose of committing or supporting terrorism. Since her departure from the United States, Fluke-Ekren has allegedly been involved with a number of terrorism-related activities on behalf of ISIS from at least 2014. These activities allegedly include, but are not limited to, planning and recruiting operatives for a potential future attack on a college campus inside the United States and serving as the appointed leader and organizer of an ISIS military battalion, known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, in order to train women on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and suicide belts. Additionally, Fluke-Ekren allegedly provided ISIS and ISIS members with services, which included providing lodging, translating speeches made by ISIS leaders, training children on the use of AK-47 assault rifles and suicide belts and teaching extremist ISIS doctrine.
The complaint details the eyewitness observations of six separate individuals who collectively observed Fluke-Ekren’s alleged terrorist conduct from at least 2014 through approximately 2017. For example, Fluke-Ekren allegedly told a witness about her desire to conduct an attack in the United States. To conduct the attack, Fluke-Ekren allegedly explained that she could go to a shopping mall in the United States, park a vehicle full of explosives in the basement or parking garage level of the structure, and detonate the explosives in the vehicle with a cell phone triggering device. Fluke-Ekren allegedly considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources. As alleged by the same witness, Fluke-Ekren would hear about external attacks taking place in countries outside the United States and would comment that she wished the attack occurred on United States soil instead.
The complaint further describes Fluke-Ekren’s alleged leadership role in the Khatiba Nusaybah. According to a witness, in or about late 2016, the “Wali” (or ISIS-appointed mayor) of Raqqa, Syria, allegedly permitted the opening of the “Khatiba Nusaybah,” which was a military battalion comprised solely of female ISIS members who were married to male ISIS fighters. Shortly thereafter, Fluke-Ekren allegedly became the leader and organizer of the battalion. Fluke-Ekren’s alleged main objective in this role was to teach the women of ISIS how to defend themselves against ISIS’ enemies. According to another witness, ISIS allegedly mandated women who were staying in Raqqa during the 2017 siege to attend the training. The siege was launched by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against ISIS with an aim to seize Raqqa, the former de facto capital of ISIS in Syria. The battle began on or about June 6, 2017 and concluded on or about Oct. 17, 2017, at which point the SDF regained controlled of Raqqa.
The members of Khatiba Nusaybah were allegedly instructed on physical training, medical training, Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) driving courses, religious classes and how to pack and prep a “go bag” with rifles and other military supplies. According to eyewitness accounts, some of these classes were allegedly taught by Fluke-Ekren. One witness in particular allegedly observed that the leaders of ISIS and the other members of the military battalion were proud to have an American instructor. Fluke-Ekren also allegedly trained children on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and suicide belts.
U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia; Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division; and Assistant Director in Charge Steven M. D’Antuono of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement.
Fluke-Ekren is charged with providing and conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, she faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Raj Parekh and Assistant U.S. Attorney John T. Gibbs from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia are prosecuting the case, with assistance from the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.
A complaint is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
3. FDD | Administration Urges Congress to Fund Semiconductor Production Amid New Data on Shortages
FDD | Administration Urges Congress to Fund Semiconductor Production Amid New Data on Shortages
fdd.org · by Annie Fixler CCTI Deputy Director and Research Fellow · January 28, 2022
A “major supply and demand mismatch” pervades the semiconductor industry, the Commerce Department concluded in a report released on Tuesday. Identifying specific supply chain bottlenecks as well as shortfalls that the market is ill-equipped to solve in the short term, Commerce’s findings will fuel congressional debates about government investment in domestic semiconductor production.
Over the past two years, demand for semiconductors — the essential components of computer chips found in all modern electronics — has jumped 17 percent, and producers cannot keep up despite operating at full capacity, Commerce noted. The “most acute shortages” remain in chips used in a wide variety of products, from cars to medical devices, warned Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. No “apparent short-term solutions,” she added, are in sight for the problems related to production of wafers, thin slices of semiconductor material upon which chips are built.
Chip shortages have hindered manufacturing output across many industries, contributing to higher prices for finished goods and further fueling inflation. For example, because chip consumers have been unable to ensure that their inventory lasts more than a couple days, temporary disruptions to semiconductor production cause ripple effects, leading to shutdowns in automotive factories and other sectors. Some economists estimate that chip shortages could cause a 1 percent drop in U.S. GDP.
Calling this issue an “economic and national security imperative,” Raimondo urged Congress to pass pending legislation that would provide $52 billion to boost domestic chip production over the long-term and help address fragility and risk in the supply chain. The White House is similarly pressing Congress to “catalyze more private-sector investments and continued American technological leadership” in the semiconductor industry.
As if heeding the call, also on Tuesday, House Democrats introduced the America COMPETES Act, a companion to the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which passed last year with bipartisan support, in part because of concerns about China’s investment in and ability to manipulate critical industries such as semiconductors. While the bills differ, they both contain the $52 billion. That money would fund a federal grant program created by the CHIPS for America Act, designed to increase semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing. The White House endorsed the COMPETES Act on Tuesday.
Assuming lawmakers in the two chambers can reach a consensus and send a unified bill to the president’s desk, the Commerce Department will need to implement the CHIPS Act in a way that ensures funding is allocated to deal with the specific risks in the supply chain that the market cannot otherwise address. Both the White House and Raimondo have applauded recent announcements from producers and consumers regarding their efforts to work together to resolve supply chain issues, with the secretary noting that “the private sector is best positioned to address bottlenecks.”
To understand how best to allocate resources, Commerce is seeking input from industry and the public on the design of programs to “incentivize investment in semiconductor manufacturing facilities and associated ecosystems” and to “accelerate research, development, and prototyping.”
A successful policy will also retain and expand U.S. and allied advantages in the sector. For example, even as the majority of semiconductor fabrication is done overseas — by U.S. partners and also by China — America retains a dominant position in semiconductor design, a high-value component of the supply chain and one critical for ensuring adversaries do not insert backdoors or vulnerabilities. Western firms also develop and build the unique manufacturing equipment needed to fabricate the most advanced semiconductors.
While the proposed $52 billion pales in comparison to China’s investment in the semiconductor industry over the past decade, it presents a real opportunity to address future problems in the supply chain as well as long-term geopolitical concerns about critical technology dependencies on China.
Annie Fixler is the deputy director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Trevor Logan is a cyber research analyst. For more analysis from the authors and CCTI, please subscribe HERE. Follow Anne and Trevor on Twitter @afixler and @TrevorLoganFDD. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CCTI. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Annie Fixler CCTI Deputy Director and Research Fellow · January 28, 2022
4. Iran nuclear talks in Vienna won't result in a better deal | Opinion
Excerpts:
The coming weeks will be decisive. In Congress, Republicans have made clear that only a comprehensive treaty that permanently blocks Iran's pathways to nuclear weapons will get bipartisan support. Without such a treaty, they vow to reimpose all sanctions and return to the policy of maximum pressure when power shifts in Washington.
Israel, however, cannot afford to wait. It is increasingly clear that unless significant steps are taken soon, no country will be able to stop the mullahs from developing nuclear weapons.
Iran nuclear talks in Vienna won't result in a better deal | Opinion
Newsweek · by Jacob Nagel and Mark Dubowitz · January 28, 2022
The nuclear negotiations in Vienna continue. The Iranians are setting the tone and pace while the Americans struggle to keep alive the possibility of a deal. The Israelis—for whom these talks will have severe national security implications—are distracted by COVID surges and domestic politics.
There are two parallel paths out of Vienna. One is a return to the 2015 nuclear agreement, although it should be clear by now that this outcome is near impossible. The other is an interim arrangement in which Tehran agrees to a limited freeze on some of its nuclear activities in exchange for billions in sanctions relief.
Israeli leaders have requested that Washington put a stop to the Iranian strategy of slowing down the negotiations. That strategy only allows Tehran to develop its capabilities and draw closer to "nuclear threshold state" status. Once that occurs, no country will be able to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. So far, the American response is feckless dialogue.
Biden's Iran envoy, Robert Malley, is so eager to reach an agreement that he refuses to punish the Iranians for their violations of the 2015 agreement and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nor will he punish them for their lack of cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. His top deputy Richard Nephew and two others reportedly left the team over disagreements with Malley's strategy.
While the focus of the negotiations now is a return to the JCPOA, there is no going back to the deal that only temporarily kept Iran 12 months from a bomb's worth of weapon-grade uranium, and then allowed its nuclear program to expand further. Today, even that 12-month target is no longer possible given the clerical regime's nuclear advances. Tehran has shattered all temporary restrictions and can easily return to nuclear weapons development after key constraints in the 2015 agreement expire.
Most of that nuclear expansion—including the development of fissile materials, uranium enrichment up to 20 and then 60 percent, the operation of advanced centrifuges and the development of uranium metal for use in a nuclear warhead—have occurred since President Biden abandoned the pressure campaign of his predecessor.
A recent interim agreement proposed to the Iranians by Russia, with Mr. Malley's consent, included a cessation of 60 percent enrichment (close to weapons grade) and the dilution or export to Russia of those enriched materials. The proposed deal permitted 20 percent enrichment to continue with no accumulation of new uranium material but permission to maintain existing stockpiles. The advanced centrifuges, installed in violation of the 2015 agreement, would not be destroyed and probably not even dismantled. It's more likely they will remain installed under IAEA seals, ready to resume operation.
In return, Iran would get $8-10 billion in frozen oil money, primarily from South Korea and Japan. This would boost its accessible foreign exchange reserves from $4 billion to $12-14 billion, salvage its ailing economy and provide a war chest to support terrorist proxies. This is on top of recent Chinese purchases of Iranian oil that have spurred minor economic growth.
Then there is the question of the development of nuclear weapons systems. It remains unclear how long it would take for the clerical regime to explode a rudimentary device or develop a nuclear warhead to mount on long-range missiles or UAVs. Estimates range between six months for a test and one to two years for a nuclear-tipped missile.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi looks on during a meeting with Russian President in Moscow on January 19, 2022. Pavel BEDNYAKOV / SPUTNIK / AFP/Getty Images
As part of the current talks, Iranian negotiators demanded the closure of any new IAEA investigations into undeclared nuclear materials and a promise not to reopen the old ones. As a counter, the parties are discussing a "freeze" of the investigations. While it might be framed as a compromise, such a freeze would do serious damage to the IAEA's ability to investigate Iran's nuclear program. Such a decision also would undermine the "unprecedented and intrusive" monitoring and verification regime the Obama administration promised would result from the 2015 deal.
In addition to all these dangerous concessions, Mr. Malley has made no secret of his willingness to lift all sanctions "inconsistent with the JCPOA." Indeed, he intends to lift all restrictions designed to counter Iran's terrorism and missile proliferation activities, including sanctions on the Central Bank, the National Oil Company and many other financial institutions and entities related to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The delisting of the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization may also be in the offing.
Whether the Vienna process yields a "return" to the JCPOA or an interim agreement, it will be a "less for more" deal that contains far fewer nuclear restrictions than even the 2015 deal while yielding tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief for Iran. For those arguing this is a "less for time" deal, the reality is that time benefits Iran. Under any agreement, Iran would get a financial boost while key restrictions disappear. If the clerical regime bides its time, it can emerge with an industrial-size nuclear program, widely dispersed in multiple hardened facilities, with zero nuclear-breakout and easier, advanced centrifuge-powered, sneakout capabilities.
To make matters worse, sanctions relief will harden the Iranian economy against possible future sanctions. And Tehran will convert the coming windfall to build more lethal conventional military and missile capabilities, while funding its terrorist proxies.
Whether the interim agreement reportedly offered to Iran was an American or Russian proposal is irrelevant. The U.S. negotiating team approved most of it. The Iranians rejected it on the assumption that they will get better concessions as U.S. negotiators grow increasingly desperate. Tehran can always come back to the Russian plan as a fallback.
Any agreement coming out of Vienna will be worse than the disastrous 2015 deal. It will send a message to the markets that doing business with Iran is acceptable. Tehran will "launder" its violations while the regime legitimizes its nuclear expansion. The interim agreement calls for three to six additional months to reach another deal. But temporary agreements can become permanent, especially with the Biden administration distracted by other foreign policy crises in Ukraine and China.
Israel has asked the Biden administration to return to a maximum-pressure policy and to bolster the credibility of its military threat. That's falling on deaf ears. The Iranians believe the U.S. is weak and will not attack. They further believe Israel does not have the ability to attack alone.
The coming weeks will be decisive. In Congress, Republicans have made clear that only a comprehensive treaty that permanently blocks Iran's pathways to nuclear weapons will get bipartisan support. Without such a treaty, they vow to reimpose all sanctions and return to the policy of maximum pressure when power shifts in Washington.
Israel, however, cannot afford to wait. It is increasingly clear that unless significant steps are taken soon, no country will be able to stop the mullahs from developing nuclear weapons.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Professor Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a visiting professor at the Technion Aerospace faculty. He previously served as acting national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and as head of the National Security Council. Mark Dubowitz is FDD's chief executive. An expert on Iran's nuclear program and sanctions, he was sanctioned by Iran in 2019.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
Newsweek · by Jacob Nagel and Mark Dubowitz · January 28, 2022
5. IRS plan to scan your face prompts anger in Congress, confusion among taxpayers
We should all be angered by this.
Excerpts:
About 70 million Americans who have filed for unemployment insurance, pandemic assistance grants, child tax credit payments or other services have already been scanned by the McLean, Va.-based company, which says its client list includes 540 companies; 30 states, including California, Florida, New York and Texas; and 10 federal agencies, including Social Security, Labor and Veterans Affairs.
But ID.me’s $86 million contract with the IRS has alarmed researchers and privacy advocates who say they worry about how Americans’ facial images and personal data will be safeguarded in the years to come. There is no federal law regulating how the data can be used or shared.
The system itself also is drawing complaints. Some people have reported frustrating glitches and hours-long delays that have kept them from important benefits, and researchers have argued the company has overstated the abilities of a face-scanning technology that could wrongly flag people as frauds.
IRS plan to scan your face prompts anger in Congress, confusion among taxpayers
Starting this summer, you’ll need to provide a video of your face to access the agency’s website. It’s a major expansion of the use of facial recognition software by the government.
Millions of Americans will soon have to scan their faces to access their Internal Revenue Service tax accounts, one of the government’s biggest expansions yet of facial recognition software into people’s everyday lives.
Taxpayers will still be able to file their returns the old-fashioned way. But by this summer, anyone wanting to access their records — including details about child tax credits, payment plans or tax transcripts — on the IRS website will be required to record a video of their face with their computer or smartphone and send it to the private contractor ID.me to confirm their identity.
About 70 million Americans who have filed for unemployment insurance, pandemic assistance grants, child tax credit payments or other services have already been scanned by the McLean, Va.-based company, which says its client list includes 540 companies; 30 states, including California, Florida, New York and Texas; and 10 federal agencies, including Social Security, Labor and Veterans Affairs.
But ID.me’s $86 million contract with the IRS has alarmed researchers and privacy advocates who say they worry about how Americans’ facial images and personal data will be safeguarded in the years to come. There is no federal law regulating how the data can be used or shared.
The system itself also is drawing complaints. Some people have reported frustrating glitches and hours-long delays that have kept them from important benefits, and researchers have argued the company has overstated the abilities of a face-scanning technology that could wrongly flag people as frauds.
Jeramie D. Scott, senior counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research group in Washington, said the IRS’s outsourcing of identity checks to a private company could weaken the public’s ability to know how information is being used, especially because no federal laws govern how facial recognition should work nationwide.
“You go from a government agency, that at least has some obligation under the Privacy Act and other laws, to a third party, where [there’s a] lack of transparency and understanding, and the potential risks go up,” Scott said.
“We haven’t even gone the step of putting regulations in place and deciding if facial recognition should even be used like this,” he added. “We’re just skipping right to the use of a technology that has clearly been shown to be dangerous and has issues with accuracy, disproportionate impact, privacy and civil liberties.”
The IRS said in a statement that ID.me’s services will “create a better user experience” and that it “takes any reports of inequities in service seriously.” Federal records show the Treasury entered into the two-year contract covering ID.me software and maintenance last summer.
The IRS couldn’t say what percentage of taxpayers have used the agency’s website, but internal data show it is one of the federal government’s most-viewed websites, with more than 1.9 billion visits last year. The agency received more than 169 million tax returns last year, most of which were filed online.
To verify one’s identity, ID.me requires scans of a person’s face as well as copies of identifying paperwork, such as a driver’s license, government-issued ID or utility bill. The company then uses facial recognition software to assess whether a person’s “video selfie” and official photo match.
If the system flags an issue, the person will have to join a live video call with one of the company’s “trusted referees,” who then asks them to hold up physical copies of personal documents such as a passport, birth certificate or health insurance card.
The company’s privacy policy says it can use people’s sensitive or personally identifiable information to “cooperate with law enforcement activities,” and Blake Hall, ID.me’s co-founder and chief executive, said the company alerts its government clients when it detects “clear cases” of identity theft or fraud.
Though people can ask ID.me to delete their biometric data, the company is required to store the data for at least seven years in keeping with federal auditing rules, an IRS filing shows.
Hall said in an interview that the company’s system has met tough security and accuracy standards. He compared the identity checks to someone being asked to present an ID when opening a bank account, saying, “We’re digitizing a process Americans are already quite used to.”
The partnership with ID.me has drawn the attention of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who tweeted that he was “very disturbed” by the plan and would push the IRS for “greater transparency.” The Senate Finance Committee is working to schedule briefings with the IRS and ID.me on the issue, a committee aide said.
Hall dismissed most of the early criticism of the company’s work as either misinformed or fueled by “propaganda” from the credit bureaus and data brokers the government once relied on to verify identities.
Equifax, the credit-reporting company that previously confirmed taxpayers’ data for the IRS, had its $7 million contract suspended in 2017 after hackers exposed the personal information of 148 million people.
As to why the country is paying a private firm to validate its own citizens, Hall said the government’s previous attempts had underperformed ID.me’s product — proof, he said, that “the government is not fast enough to innovate on the access and security side.”
“Folks want to throw stones because we were able to get there first … before the government was ready,” Hall said, but the company’s growth should be regarded as “a sign of the best of our country at work.”
ID.me’s work with the IRS will start in full this summer, when the agency stops accepting previously created online accounts and forces everyone to use newer accounts verified through ID.me. The shift will come at a time when Treasury officials are warning of “enormous challenges” for the IRS, which is overwhelmed by a backlog of returns and years of budget cuts.
The company says 9 of 10 applicants can verify their identity through a self-service face scan in five minutes or less. Anyone who hits a snag is funneled into the backup video-chat verification process; in a chart the company shared with The Washington Post, the average wait time in the second half of 2021 was less than eight minutes, and the busiest weeks saw average waits of about 50 minutes. (The company said it does not track the demographic information of the people not immediately verified.)
Higher wait times in the past few weeks, Hall said, were linked to workers out because of the coronavirus and the snowstorms that pummeled Northern Virginia, where much of the company’s support staff is based. (In late 2020, Hall said call delays in California were partly related to Nigerian cyberattacks.)
The company said it intends to expand its workforce beyond the 966 agents who now handle video-chat verification for the entire country. It has also opened hundreds of in-person identity-verification centers — replicating, in essence, what government offices have done for decades.
Proponents say the systems are quicker, simpler and more reliable than old verification systems, and they have likened the checks to the increasingly mainstream uses of facial recognition in software such as Face ID, which people can use to unlock their iPhones.
Critics say there’s a big difference between a person deciding to use software, which locks their face data on their phone, and being required to send it to a company that retains control of the data for years. Advocates also have warned that the technical demands of an Internet-connected video camera can unfairly burden the millions of Americans with spotty online access or old phones.
Face-scanning software used to verify whether two images are of the same person, known as “one-to-one matching,” is built to address a simpler challenge than the “one-to-many” systems used by federal agents, immigration officers and the police to pick out suspects or witnesses from databases with millions of faces.
But the technology isn’t perfect, and researchers say identity-verification errors can block a person from accessing vital services or allow an impostor to get through. Even the best systems, they add, can make mistakes when shown blurry, dim or low-quality images. Police facial recognition systems have also been blamed for the wrongful arrests of at least three Black men.
ID.me has attempted to address concerns by publishing technical reports such as a 25-page white paper defending the technology’s use in promoting “access, equity and inclusion,” claiming that “combining algorithms with multiple layers of human review mitigates any potential bias that might arise.”
But Joy Buolamwini, an artificial intelligence researcher whose work in 2018 helped reveal the stark racial and gender biases of major tech companies’ face-analyzing systems, said the company’s reports have misconstrued or failed to cite earlier research into the technology’s failures.
Buolamwini pointed to research in 2019 from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal testing laboratory, that found higher rates of false positives on one-to-one algorithms for Asian and African American faces than Caucasian faces. Depending on the algorithm, those rates could be “10 to 100 times” higher, the researchers said.
ID.me, Hall said, licenses its software from two companies that are “best of breed”: Paravision, for one-to-one matching, and iProov, for detecting whether the face on a video is real or a mask. Paravision’s algorithm has ranked among the better performers in the NIST tests, institute data show. (The companies confirmed they work with ID.me but declined to share terms of the deal.)
“To compare a general result across the field with the specific algorithms we use is simply not appropriate,” Hall said. “If someone is going to bring a false assertion, they need to bring proof that the specific algorithms we’re using do in fact discriminate, because there is zero evidence of that.”
Hall said the company has run internal tests on its software and found no signs of racial or gender discrimination. Those tests, however, have not been published or reviewed by external researchers. Hall said the company has also invited other agencies to corroborate their findings, and that officials with an unnamed state government agency had showed similarly positive results in a recent audit of ID.me’s system. That study is also not yet public.
That lack of transparency has raised its own questions. In a statement Monday, Hall said the company did not use one-to-many matching, calling it “more complex and problematic.” But on Wednesday, he reversed his stance, writing on LinkedIn — in a post first reported by the news site CyberScoop — that the company did, in fact, use it to make sure no one registered multiple identities.
Hall, who served as an Army Ranger, co-founded the company in 2010 as TroopSwap, a military-focused deals site that began verifying veterans’ service for store discounts. In the years since, ID.me has exploded with help from tens of millions of dollars in private investments and public government contracts, largely from states seeking to verify unemployment claims.
In 2017, Hall told The Post that the company wanted to “create a ubiquitous ID network” and thought it was a “fundamental problem that digital identity is in the hands of two advertising companies, Facebook and Google.”
But advertising is a key part of ID.me’s operation, too. People who sign up on ID.me’s website are asked if they want to subscribe to “offers and discounts” from the company’s online storefront, which links to special deals for veterans, students and first responders. Consumer marketing accounts for 10 percent of the company’s revenue.
People must opt in to the marketing deals and provide consent before any data is shared with an outside organization, a company official said. If a person is using ID.me to confirm their identity with a government agency, the company will not use that verification information for “marketing or promotional purposes,” the company’s privacy policy says.
Buolamwini, now the founder and executive director of the research advocacy group Algorithmic Justice League, said the company should open its system to outside scrutiny and allow its internal tests to be peer reviewed. Improvements to the systems’ precision, she added, should not obscure broader concerns about the risks of any technology that could deny people access to basic government services en masse.
Federal agencies have run facial recognition searches on some official databases created for other purposes, including for driver’s license and passport photos. Private contractors that collect data on Americans can also find themselves targeted by cyberattacks. Thousands of Americans’ face photos were exposed after a surveillance company working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection was hacked in 2019.
“The potential for weaponization and abuse of facial recognition technologies cannot be ignored, nor the threats to privacy or breaches of civil liberties diminished, even as accuracy disparities decrease,” Buolamwini said.
6. The Russia-Ukraine Crisis Need Not Spiral Into War
Conclusion:
The deal that’s finally struck may be different. No matter. But declaring that none is possible because the military train has left the station and that any compromise equals surrender amounts to defeatism that denies human agency. Worse, it’s downright dangerous. Diplomacy has historically prevented many major crises from spiraling into war. Let’s not declare that it’s doomed on this occasion.
The Russia-Ukraine Crisis Need Not Spiral Into War
By THOMAS GRAHAM and RAJAN MENON
Small diplomatic steps are pointing the way toward compromise.
Peruse the coverage and commentary on the Russia/NATO crisis in the country’s most prominent newspapers and you might conclude that the Russian military juggernaut will soon trample diplomacy by marching into Ukraine and overturning the European security order.
One member of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council staff opined that attacking Ukraine is President Vladimir Putin’s opening move in a gambit to “evict” the United States from Europe. Another Trump staffer warned of a Europe-wide war that would start with an “almost certain” Russian assault on Ukraine, draw in NATO, and create Europe’s worst calamity in 80 years. In some renditions, Putin plays Hitler to Biden’s Neville Chamberlain. Diplomacy is a fool’s errand.
Oddly, in Ukraine—the country facing 100,000-plus Russian troops—the mood is rather different. President Volodymyr Zelensky and his defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov have urged an end of the war hype. They don’t see a Russian attack as imminent; a political solution remains possible. Reznikov expressed his readiness to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu. Meanwhile Russia’s news agency, TASS, stated that Putin is open to receive Zelensky in Russia for talks.
Yes, the talks held between Russia and the United States, NATO, and OSCE members in early January failed, but that didn’t deal a deathblow to diplomacy. It energized diplomacy aimed at preventing war.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken requested a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and the United States shifted its stance, agreeing to provide a written response to the long list of demands in the two draft treaties Moscow presented in late December. The United States has also proposed arms control and confidence-building measures to defuse the crisis, which only a few short months ago it showed no interest in discussing with Russia. The Russians are now studying the American response, and Lavrov intimated that, unlike NATO’s written reply, Washington’s contained “rational grains,” on European security to pursue in further negotiations.
Blinken and Lavrov will meet again. After their first meeting, the U.S. diplomat said a second (virtual) summit between the two presidents was possible. Moreover, the British, French, and Germans have launched their own diplomatic efforts.
None of these initiatives have dispersed the war clouds. Nor do the various interlocutors have any illusions about success—the United States has so far refused to even discuss Russia’s principal demand that NATO abandon its eastward expansion—but the diplomatic activity does demonstrate that a fix remains possible and that dogged efforts continue to find one.
And a political settlement has been Putin’s goal, though those who have followed American press coverage of this crisis and the pronouncements of the punditry could be forgiven for concluding that he seeks war, for its own sake.
Putin understands that he would create myriad problems for Russia by invading Ukraine. He has massed troops around Ukraine to force negotiations—and has succeeded. That should provide grounds for hope, considering the horrible alternative.
Yet the pervasive alarmism here paints the current crisis in Manichean terms, making an American “victory” the only honorable goal. But Russia will not capitulate when its vital interests are at stake and it’s insane to risk war between the world’s two nuclear superpowers. No matter; a former Defense Department official wants Washington to mobilize “an coalition of the willing…to deter Putin and, if necessary, prepare for war”—on Russia’s doorstep!
The only prudent course is to seek a reasonable compromise that moves U.S.-Russian competition on to a safer track and focuses our attention not on outright victory but on promoting a stable, democratic, and economically successful Ukraine over time.
A political solution that puts the lie to prophesies of war remains possible through patient, creative diplomacy. The challenge is to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable: the U.S. insistence that NATO’s door must remain open to former Soviet states and Russia’s demand for a sphere of influence that includes them.
Consider one conceivable compromise. Russia drops its insistence that the West must acquiesce to all its demands in writing, accepts a moratorium on Ukraine’s membership in NATO, as opposed to the permanent ban it has demanded, and agrees that Ukraine will retain the right to acquire weapons and training for self-defense. In exchange, NATO shelves Ukraine’s membership and pledges not to seek bases or deploy troops, missiles, and other strike weapons on Ukrainian territory. The United States and Russia commit to multi-year talks aimed at making Europe more stable and secure through arms control and confidence-building measures. And they agree to update the 1975 Helsinki Accords that undergirded Europe’s stability in the last decades of the Cold War, and for another decade after its end.
The deal that’s finally struck may be different. No matter. But declaring that none is possible because the military train has left the station and that any compromise equals surrender amounts to defeatism that denies human agency. Worse, it’s downright dangerous. Diplomacy has historically prevented many major crises from spiraling into war. Let’s not declare that it’s doomed on this occasion.
Thomas Graham is a Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was the senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff during the George W. Bush administration.
Rajan Menon is the Director of the Grand Strategy Program at Defense Priorities and Senior Research Fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.
7. Is the Biden administration seeking to rejoin controversial UN agency accused of aiding Iran and North Korea
Is the Biden administration seeking to rejoin controversial UN agency accused of aiding Iran and North Korea
UNIDO has been accused of helping U.S enemies
foxnews.com · By Benjamin Weinthal , Ben Evansky | Fox News
Fox News correspondent Alex Hogan has the latest from London on 'America Reports.'
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As negotiators head home from Vienna following weeks of discussions on the Iran Nuclear deal, UN insiders warn the Biden administration might be looking to rejoin a controversial UN agency based in the same Austrian city.
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has been accused of helping U.S enemies through the transfer of dual-use technology that observers say has helped the likes of Iran and North Korea in developing their nuclear programs.
The U.S. quit the agency some 20 years ago citing it as not being fit for purpose, but recent rumblings of a US return has some diplomats scratching their heads. A former Ambassador who was accredited to all international organizations in Vienna, who asked to remain anonymous, said "Diplomatic circles in Vienna are abuzz about the possible return of the U.S. to UNIDO."
The former ambassador said, "it’s believed the amount of money owed in accrued arrears would be US$ 1B, given that when the US left in 1996, it did so without paying its $100-million in dues."
The diplomat recommended that with the installation of a new US Ambassador to Vienna dealing with international organizations, Laura Holgate, should "request the personnel list of UNIDO, which has about 1800 consultants, including those hired without a transparent and competitive process and working remotely from their home countries. It is long overdue to comprehensively investigate and publish, why UNIDO, which is considered both marginal and useless by the Anglosphere states, should employ 1800 permanent consultants, apart from the 650 permanent staff?"
And while a question to the US State Department on the US rejoining UNIDO went unanswered, the UN Mission to Vienna recently praised UNIDO in a Tweet, noting that while not a member, the US has given millions of dollars to the controversial organization since 2012, which came through the US Agency for International Aid (USAID).
Asked by Fox News Digital if the sum was tied to any preconditions, a spokesperson from USAID confirmed they had disbursed $22.2 million to UNIDO since 2012, and noted that it "prioritizes responsible stewardship of U.S. taxpayer resources."
The spokesperson did not directly answer questions about sharing dual-use technologies with U.S foes like Iran and North Korea by UNIDO. However, the spokesperson stated that it monitors all funds that are given to UNIDO, which "includes routine reporting and communications with UNIDO, as well as site visits and evaluations."
The potential move of a US return sparked sharp criticism from President Trump’s former U.S. National Security Advisor, John Bolton, and additional UN and national security experts.
Bolton told Fox News Digital "The U.S. withdrew from UNIDO, as did a number of other developed countries, because UNIDO was widely viewed as ineffective. Nothing has changed that warrants reversing the U.S. decision."
Brett D. Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation, and a leading expert on UNIDO, told Fox News Digital: "As the U.S. concluded in the 1990s when it withdrew, UNIDO does not have a clear purpose and does not contribute to U.S. foreign policy, economic, or development interests. There is no reason to rejoin other than the fact that the Chinese are active in UNIDO. Countering China should be a factor in decisions about participation in UN organizations, but not the only one. A central question must be whether U.S. interests are impacted by the organization. In UNIDO they are not."
Kim Jong Un arrived in Singapore on Sunday in an Air China plane. (AP )
Schaefer added that the Biden administration could be in violation of U.S. law if it rejoins UNIDO.
"In 2018, the Palestinians joined UNIDO as full members. Under U.S. law, U.N. specialized agencies that admit the PLO as a member are prohibited from receiving U.S. funding," Schaefer said. "If the U.S. has provided funding since 2018, I believe that would violate the law."
"Moreover, changing the law would undermine U.S. interests in supporting Israel and advancing peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. In effect, doing so would greenlight Palestinian membership across the UN system," he continued. "For decades, the U.S. has opposed Palestinian efforts to seek recognition and membership in UN organizations absent a peace agreement with Israel because they understood this as being harmful to the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort by removing incentives for the Palestinians to negotiate."
UNIDO could accelerate the Islamic Republic’s capability to build a nuclear weapons device by providing the transfer of dual-use technology that can be used for both military and civilian purposes.
In 2015, UNIDO signed a deal with Iran’s Supreme Council for Science, Research and Technology (SCSRT). The goal of the agreement was to strengthen cooperation on "formulating industrial policies and strategies for investments in education, research and technology."
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that "the United States is always vigilant concerning reports that Iran may be pursuing dual-use technology to enhance its nuclear program. Under the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], the acquisition of dual-use items requires the United Nations Security Council consent under the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 2231."
President Hassan Rouhani, second right, listens to head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi while visiting an exhibition of Iran's new nuclear achievements in Tehran, Iran, in April (Iranian Presidency Office/AP)
Daniel Roth, the research director for United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI,) told Fox News Digital that he found it "unfortunate that the U.S. Mission to the UN saw fit to applaud UNIDO." He explained how Iran uses UNIDO for its own nefarious purposes.
"The composition of the SCSRT (Iran’s Supreme Council for Science, Research and Technology)– which includes the President of Iran as well as several Government Ministers – shows how central both the SCSRT and UNIDO are to the regime’s scientific and technological policies," Roth said.
"We know that Iran is prepared to exploit any avenue to advance its nuclear program. Even the most seemingly innocuous routes like academic exchange with European universities are targets," Roth continued. "The problem of sharing ‘dual-use’ technology – civilian tech with military application – is especially acute and difficult to track. If the regime can make progress under the cover of UN agencies like UNIDO, all the better. Iran’s state-run media spills considerable ink publicizing anything which has the UN’s imprimatur."
Fox News Digital sent questions to the Iranian foreign ministry, Iran’s U.N Mission and the UNIDO field office in Tehran for comment, but they did not respond.
US President Joe Biden addresses the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly on September 21, 2021 in New York. (Eduardo Munoz/Pool/AFP)
UNIDO and its new Director General, a German minister who served under then Chancellor Merkel, Gerd Müller, did not respond to Fox News Digital media inquiries. Müller faced accusations of racism during his tenure as Germany’s development minister.
Roth is not optimistic about Müller remedying UNIDO’s alleged severe deficiencies and reportedly pro-Iranian regime slant.
"With regards to the job itself, it looks like Müller will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor at UNIDO. China’s Li Yong continued funding Iran projects every single year during his eight-year term and clearly enjoyed good relations with Tehran," Roth said. "Since Germany nominated him as its candidate, Müller has given no indication that he is concerned about dangerous tech getting into Iranian hands via UNIDO. Nor has he hinted that the existing programs will be reviewed. Bearing in mind Germany’s poor record when it comes to selling dual-use tech to rogue regimes, one would hope that Müller – as a senior German minister – would be especially determined to resolve these problems."
Earlier this week Müller met with Rafael Mariano Grossi, his counterpart at the UN’s atomic agency, the IAEA. Fox News Digital asked for a readout of the meeting and whether Grossi raised concerns regarding the problem of dual-use technology being abused on the nuclear front concerning Iran and North Korea.
A spokesperson referred Fox to a tweet put out by the IAEA where Grossi congratulated Müller and tweeted about the areas where the two agencies cooperate. But missing from the tweet, the IAEA response was the issue of dual use technology getting into the hands of the likes of Iran and North Korea.
8. In Eastern Ukraine’s Largest City, Pro-Russia Sympathies Wither as War Looms
Is this the result of (or supported by) effective influence operations exploiting Russian heavy handed operations? (I am genuinely asking as I do not know). Actions do speak louder than words:
Excerpts:
The reason for this defiance is simple: Kharkiv residents are keenly aware of what has happened in Donetsk and Luhansk since that region fell under Russian sway in 2014. The economy there has shriveled. Businesses, homes and cars were expropriated by Russian-installed militias. People suspected of pro-Kyiv sympathies were shot or imprisoned. Most residents who could afford to have fled to government-held parts of Ukraine, especially Kharkiv, or to more prosperous Russia.
Even traditionally pro-Russian politicians in Kharkiv acknowledge the force of this example.
“There are no fools anymore. People see that things are bad in Donetsk and Luhansk, and that things are good here. They have war over there and we have peace and quiet over here,” says Sergey Gladkoskok, who heads Opposition Platform for Life, the country’s main Moscow-friendly party, in Kharkiv’s regional legislature.
In Eastern Ukraine’s Largest City, Pro-Russia Sympathies Wither as War Looms
Kharkiv nearly fell to pro-Russian militants in 2014. Now, the city is preparing to fight against a possible invasion.
WSJ · by Yaroslav Trofimov
Back in 2014, when Ukraine’s military conflict with Russia began, pro-Moscow militants seized this government compound, planted a Russian flag on its roof and proclaimed a short-lived breakaway republic.
At the time, pro-Russian sentiment ran high in this industrial city of 1.4 million people just a half-hour drive from the border.
Eight years later, as Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops around Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pointed to Kharkiv as a likely target of an invasion.
But while the city may have been a relatively easy target for Moscow in the past, sentiment here has since shifted dramatically against the Kremlin. Any Russian military operation in Kharkiv is now likely to face significant resistance from ordinary civilians.
In 2014, with street clashes and shootouts between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian groups spreading, it seemed for a few days that overwhelmingly Russian-speaking Kharkiv, just like nearby Donetsk and Luhansk, would slip from Kyiv’s control. Only the intervention of a quick-reaction force dispatched from southwestern Ukraine restored central authority here.
Today, the newly created 113th territorial-defense brigade, part of a military force that would defend Kharkiv against a possible invasion, has more many volunteers than slots, and is beginning to turn people away, its commanders say. A second Kharkiv brigade is being formed to take in these recruits.
“It’s every segment of society, from nuclear physicists to shop assistants to engineers to students, asking to join,” says Mykhailo Sokolov, the 113th brigade’s chief noncommissioned officer. “We will all defend our homes, our spouses, our children, our lovers with weapons in our hands. If their aviation tries to destroy us from the air, we will dig in to fight from under the ground. Where can we retreat to? There’s nowhere to go. It’s our own land.”
Military exercises at a training ground outside Kharkiv.
Photo: VYACHESLAV MADIYEVSKYY/REUTERS
The exercises are being held as Kharkiv has been singled out as a likely target of a Russian invasion.
Photo: VYACHESLAV MADIYEVSKYY/REUTERS
The reason for this defiance is simple: Kharkiv residents are keenly aware of what has happened in Donetsk and Luhansk since that region fell under Russian sway in 2014. The economy there has shriveled. Businesses, homes and cars were expropriated by Russian-installed militias. People suspected of pro-Kyiv sympathies were shot or imprisoned. Most residents who could afford to have fled to government-held parts of Ukraine, especially Kharkiv, or to more prosperous Russia.
Even traditionally pro-Russian politicians in Kharkiv acknowledge the force of this example.
“There are no fools anymore. People see that things are bad in Donetsk and Luhansk, and that things are good here. They have war over there and we have peace and quiet over here,” says Sergey Gladkoskok, who heads Opposition Platform for Life, the country’s main Moscow-friendly party, in Kharkiv’s regional legislature.
So far, there is little sign of crisis in the city. Shopping malls, restaurants and bars are teeming with customers, and no armed troops or military equipment can be seen on Kharkiv’s streets. There is no panic shopping, and supermarkets are fully stocked.
Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov says he has just toured Ukrainian military units deployed along the border and was told that no unusual Russian military activity suggesting an invasion in the immediate future had been observed within 50 kilometers of the frontier. The only indicator of possible trouble so far, he adds, is that some car importers have become reluctant to send new vehicles to Kharkiv’s showrooms, aware of how new cars were looted from Donetsk dealerships in 2014.
Kharkiv holds a special place in Ukrainian history. When the Soviets quashed an independent Ukraine just over a century ago, they established Kharkiv as the capital of the new Ukrainian Soviet republic. The Soviet Ukrainian government, seated in Kharkiv’s modernist Derzhprom building, considered to be Europe’s first skyscraper, returned to Kyiv in 1934.
A showcase of Stalin’s industrialization drive, Kharkiv was also one of the hubs of the Soviet military might, from tank building to nuclear-bomb technologies. Those industries began to decay as new international borders cut them off from traditional customers and suppliers in Russia in 1991. Many closed altogether after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and fanned the military conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky taking part in a celebration of the armed forces in Kharkiv in December.
Photo: presidential press service hando/Shutterstock
“Local businesspeople’s attitudes to Russia are mostly negative now. We’ve lost a lot from this conflict, the market is feverish because of the constant threat of an invasion, and the prices of Russian gas have become so high that using it is often no longer feasible,” says Oleksandr Popov, who owns a hunting-rifle manufacturer, a network of fitness clubs and a security company in Kharkiv. Mr. Popov says these companies currently employ 600 people in total, down from roughly 2,000 in 2014.
Back in 2014, as Russian militants poured into Kharkiv across the then-porous border, about 30% of the city’s population harbored loyalty to the Ukrainian state, estimates Kostyantyn Nemichev, who heads the defense committee uniting pro-Ukrainian groups in the city and leads the local branch of the far-right National Corps party.
After being ousted by street protests in Kyiv in February 2014, Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych initially flew to Kharkiv, where a congress of pro-Russian politicians and elected officials from all over eastern and southern Ukraine had convened. After a short stay here, Mr. Yanukovych proceeded to Crimea and then escaped to Russia.
At the time, Mr. Nemichev was a 19-year-old fan of the local soccer team, FC Metalist, whose supporters fought street battles against pro-Russian youths as Kharkiv’s law-enforcement authorities remained largely neutral, waiting to see which side would emerge victorious.
After weeks of wavering, the city’s mayor and power broker, Hennady Kernes, a former ally of Mr. Yanukovych, sided with the Ukrainian state, and shortly afterward survived being shot by a sniper. Militants of the local pro-Russian group, Oplot, escaped the city to Donetsk, and many other locals with pro-Russian sympathies have since emigrated to Russia.
Now, Mr. Nemichev estimates, some 70% of the city’s residents are loyal to Ukraine, with a quarter, mostly older people, remaining nostalgic for the Soviet past and only about 5% actively supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Sentiment in Kharkiv has switched in favor of Ukraine in the past few years.
Photo: Vyacheslav Madiyevskyi/Zuma Press
“Pro-Russian forces are no longer present on the street. Pro-Ukrainian forces are much stronger, much larger, and possess a military experience,” says Mr. Nemichev, a Ukrainian army veteran who joined a volunteer battalion to fight Russia-backed troops in Donetsk in 2014. “If the Russian army were to come here, they would probably stop at the outskirts of Kharkiv and try to get these pro-Russian forces to rise up from within. Our duty as Kharkivites would then be to extinguish these separatist feelings while our army does its own job.”
It is hard to measure the extent of remaining support for the Kremlin, in part because publicly backing calls to attach Kharkiv to Russia constitutes a criminal offense under Ukrainian law. Billboards of Ukraine’s intelligence service all over Kharkiv provide a hotline to call in separatist threats. Still, in some parts of the city, graffiti proclaiming “Russia: Aggressor” have been altered to become unreadable, presumably by locals who hold a different view of Moscow.
Unlike Kyiv, which has undergone a linguistic transformation in the past eight years, with a much larger share of the population choosing to communicate in Ukrainian rather than Russian, Kharkiv remains overwhelmingly Russian-speaking, like many other cities of eastern and southern Ukraine. That, however, shouldn’t be mistaken for local affinity with the Kremlin or Mr. Putin, said Tetiana Yehorova-Lutsenko, the head of the Kharkiv regional legislature.
“Even if people communicate in Russian, they certainly don’t have the same way of thinking as the people who live in Russia, or as the people who want to live in Russia,” she said. “They think the Ukrainian way. They want to live in a country at peace.”
Festivities in Kharkiv marking the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence in August last year.
Photo: Vyacheslav Madiyevskyi/Zuma Press
WSJ · by Yaroslav Trofimov
9. Biden aides have Situation Room fight about China policy
Uh oh.
Biden aides have Situation Room fight about China policy
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is working to repair her relationship with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan after a Situation Room confrontation in which she accused him — in front of colleagues — of undermining her in the press, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.
Why it matters: The rare window on personal clashes inside the Biden White House also illuminates the tension between the president's trade and national security advisers about how and when to execute aspects of their China strategy.
- The dispute centers more on tactics and turf, and is unlikely to derail Biden's pursuit of a digital trade deal with Indo-Pacific allies after the Trump administration scuttled Obama-era plans for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
- But the heated confrontation shows how future debates can take an ad hominem turn.
- In a twist, Tai's chief of staff, Nora Todd, is leaving her post to start a new position Monday — on Sullivan's staff at the National Security Council.
What they’re now saying: “Katherine and I are all-good — not Washington all-good — regular all-good. The only beef we deal with is beef for export,” Sullivan told Axios.
- Tai said: “Jake is a critical partner in delivering on the president’s vision for a worker-centered trade policy that yields results for ordinary Americans.”
How we got here: During a September meeting in the Situation Room attended by Cabinet members, NSC officials and other staff, Tai accused Sullivan of leaking to the press to undermine her authority.
- Witnesses, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, looked stunned, sources familiar with the matter told Axios. Raimondo's office declined to comment.
- Stories about the confrontation, as well as broader tensions between USTR and the NSC, have since been circulating throughout the West Wing.
The intrigue: Sources said Tai was outraged by stories during September in Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reporting the administration was considering investigating Chinese industrial subsidies under Section 301, which could lead to new tariffs.
- The reports — including an anonymous quote in The Journal that the administration “wants it to be a full-court press” — landed just as Tai’s office was wrapping up its own review of China trade policy.
- She assumed NSC officials had planted the stories to undermine her own review, the sources said.
-
Her position ultimately prevailed: The administration didn't announce any 301 tariffs before she unveiled the new Biden-Harris approach to the China trade relationship during an Oct. 4 speech.
- USTR is a Cabinet-level position that requires Senate confirmation and carries the rank of ambassador but lives inside the Executive Office of the President. Tai, who is fluent in Mandarin, is the first Asian American person to serve in the role
Go deeper: Tai, formerly chief trade counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee, has taken pains to involve lawmakers and labor leaders as the Biden administration recalibrates the country's trade agenda.
- She wants stakeholders to feel they’re shaping trade policies and processes, and avoid them feeling blindsided by any final international agreement.
- While her deliberative approach has been too slow for some administration officials, she retains the trust of key Democratic lawmakers.
- "Ambassador Tai is an indisputably effective advocate for the Biden Administration and its priorities," Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, told Axios.
- "Members of Congress deeply admire her expertise, her character and her commitment to supporting U.S. workers and strengthening our economy through trade policy."
- AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said: "President Biden has championed policies that put workers first. And one of the greatest success stories has been Ambassador Tai’s approach to trade."
What's at stake: A digital trade deal is an alternative to TPP and a way to show allies and partners the U.S. wants to engage in the region.
- The TPP initiative would have aligned approximately 40% of the global economy with the U.S., but former President Obama wasn't able to conclude negotiations or get congressional approval.
- Eleven of the remaining countries — from Australia to Chile — forged ahead with negotiations, and a modified version of the alliance entered into force in 2018.
- Last September, China applied to join the very pact designed to counter it.
10. On Patrol: 12 Days With a Taliban Police Unit in Kabul
On Patrol: 12 Days With a Taliban Police Unit in Kabul
Mohammad Khalid Omer, a Taliban fighter, on a patrol with his policing unit in Kabul, Afghanistan, in November.
Afghanistan Dispatch
Tasked with guarding a Shiite shrine, a police unit offers a telling snapshot of the Taliban’s rank-and-file fighters and the challenges Afghanistan’s rulers face in governing a diverse nation.
Mohammad Khalid Omer, a Taliban fighter, on a patrol with his policing unit in Kabul, Afghanistan, in November.Credit...
Photographs by Victor J. Blue
KABUL, Afghanistan — A young Taliban fighter with a pair of handcuffs dangling from his finger warily watched the stream of approaching cars as he stood in front of a set of steel barricades.
Friday prayers would begin soon at the Sakhi Shah-e Mardan shrine and mosque, a holy Shiite site in central Kabul that he was guarding.
There had been two bombings of Shiite mosques in Afghanistan by the Islamic State in recent months, killing dozens, and this 18-year-old Taliban fighter, Mohammad Khalid Omer, wasn’t taking any chances.
He and his police unit of five other fighters, colloquially known as the Sakhi unit after the shrine they defend, represents the Taliban’s vanguard in their newest struggle after the group’s stunning takeover of the country in August: They won the war, but can they secure the peace in a multiethnic country racked by more than 40 years of violence?
Journalists from The New York Times spent 12 days with the small Taliban unit this fall, going on several patrols with them in their zone, Police District 3, and traveling to their homes in Wardak Province, a neighboring mountainous area.
Hekmatullah Sahel, a Talib assigned to Kabul’s Police District 3, in the hills above the Sakhi Shah-e Mardan shrine and mosque, which his unit is charged with protecting.
Members of the police unit talking with local residents near the shrine.
Inside the Sakhi shrine, a Shiite holy site.
So far, the new government’s approach to policing has been ad hoc at best: Local Taliban units have assumed the role at checkpoints across the country, while in large cities, such as Kabul, Taliban fighters have been imported from surrounding provinces.
Even with only half a dozen members, the Sakhi unit offers a telling snapshot of the Taliban, both in terms of who their core fighters are and what the biggest challenge is for them as Afghanistan’s new rulers: Once a mainly rural insurgency, the movement is now being forced to contend with governing and securing the unfamiliar urban centers it had been kept out of for decades.
No longer are fighters like Mr. Omer sleeping under the stars, avoiding airstrikes and planning ambushes against foreign troops or the Western-backed Afghan government.
The Sakhi unit lives full time next to the shrine in a small concrete room painted bright green with a single electric heater. Steel bunk beds line the walls. The only decoration is a single poster of the sacred Kaaba in Mecca.
Members of the Taliban police unit at their cramped living quarters.
Dinner in their quarters.
The unit had a single electric heater for the cold autumn nights. Their phones are the focus of much of their downtime.
In Afghanistan, many Shiites belong to the Hazara ethnic minority; the Taliban, a Sunni Pashtun movement, severely persecuted Hazaras the last time they ruled the country. But the seeming implausibility of a Talib unit actually guarding such an emblematic Shiite site is belied by how seriously the men appeared to take their assignment.
“We do not care which ethnic group we serve, our goal is to serve and provide security for Afghans,” said Habib Rahman Inqayad, 25, the unit leader and most experienced of them. “We never think that these people are Pashtun or Hazara.”
Reporting From Afghanistan
But Mr. Inqayad’s sentiments contrast with the Taliban’s interim government, composed almost entirely of Pashtun hard-liners who are emblematic of the movement’s harsh rule in the 1990s, and who are perceived as anti-Hazara.
As he spoke in the unit’s cramped barracks, a small speaker often played “taranas,” the spoken prayer songs, without musical accompaniment, popular with the Talibs.
One of the group’s favorites was a song about losing one’s comrades, and the tragedy of youth lost. In a high thin voice, the singer intones, “O death, you break and kill our hearts.”
On a fall day last year as the Sakhi unit looked on, families gathered on the tiled terraces around the shrine, drinking tea and sharing food.
Some cautiously eyed the Talibs patrolling the site, and one group of young men rushed to put out their cigarettes as they approached. The Taliban generally frown on smoking, and the unit has at times physically punished smokers.
Mr. Sahel guarding the shrine.
From left, the Taliban fighters Habib Rahman Inqayad, Mr. Sahel and Mr. Omer at the shrine with a young visitor.
Mr. Omer watching over a road near the shrine.
Another day, two teenage boys came to the shrine, brazenly strolling with their two girlfriends. They were confronted by the Sakhi unit, who asked what they were doing. Unsatisfied with their answers, the Talibs dragged the boys into their bunk room to answer for the transgression. In conservative Afghanistan, such public consorting is taboo, doubly so in a holy site under Taliban guard.
Inside their room, there was an argument among the Sakhi unit about how to handle the two boys: good cop versus bad cop. Hekmatullah Sahel, one of the more experienced members of the unit, disagreed with his comrades. He pushed for a verbal lashing rather than a physical one. He was overruled.
When the teenagers were finally allowed to leave, shaken by the beating they had just received, Mr. Sahel called out to the boys, telling them to come back again — but without their girlfriends.
The episode was a reminder to the shrine’s visitors that the Taliban fighters, while generally friendly, could still revert to the tactics that defined their religious hard-line rule in the 1990s.
For the group of six fighters, contending with flirting teenagers was just another indicator that their days of fighting a guerrilla war were over. Now they spend their time preoccupied by more quotidian policing considerations, like spotting possible bootleggers (alcohol in Afghanistan is banned), finding fuel for their unit’s pickup and wondering whether their commander will grant them leave for the weekend.
Mr. Sahel, right, leading his fellow unit members in evening prayers.
Mr. Omer had joined the unit only months before. “I joined the Islamic Emirate because I had a great desire to serve my religion and country,” he said.
But to some Talibs, Mr. Omer is what is derisively called a “21-er” — a fighter who only joined the movement in 2021, as victory loomed. This new generation of Talibs bring new expectations with them, chief among them the desire for a salary.
They and most other rank-and-file fighters have never received a salary from the movement. Despite seizing billions in American-supplied weapons and matériel, the Taliban are still far from being well equipped. Fighters are dependent on their commanders for basic supplies, and they have to scrounge for anything extra.
Mr. Sahel, at 28, is older than most of his comrades, slower to excite and more restrained. He spent four years studying at a university, working the whole time as a clandestine operative for the movement. “None of my classmates knew that I was in the Taliban,” he said. He graduated with a degree in physics and math education, but returned to the fight.
Relieved the war is over, he and his comrades still miss the sense of purpose it provided. “We are happy that our country was liberated and we are currently living in peace,” he said, but added, “we are very sad for our friends who were martyred.”
Mr. Inqayad in the unit’s patrol vehicle on the streets of Kabul.
Mr. Inqayad admiring a Taliban patch he acquired at the main military goods mall in Kabul, which used to be known as the Bush Bazaar, after the U.S. president, and has since been renamed the Mujahideen Bazaar. Wearing such a patch could have gotten him killed if spotted by the troops of the former Afghan government.
A member of the unit cleaning his weapon.
Every few weeks, the men are allowed to visit their families back in Wardak for two days. On a crisp morning in November, Mr. Inqayad sat in his home in the Masjid Gardena valley, a beautiful collection of orchards and fields hemmed in by mountain peaks.
He explained that many families in the area had lost sons to the fighting, and estimated that 80 percent of the families in the area were Taliban supporters.
Mr. Inqayad attended school until the seventh grade, but had to drop out. Religious studies filled in some gaps. He joined the Taliban at 15.
Recently married, he faces new challenges now that the movement is in power. The only potential breadwinner in his family, he needs a salary to support his wife, mother and sisters, but so far he has not been drawing one.
Mr. Inqayad back home in Wardak Province, greeting a group of boys whose fathers were Taliban fighters who were killed in the war, as his was.
Mr. Omer, left, reaching out to his 1-year-old sister at his family home in Qurbani village in the Chak District of Wardak Province.
Mr. Inqayad’s father, Mullah Gul-Wali, top right, was a Talib in the previous regime. He was killed fighting in the northern province of Balkh during the U.S. invasion in 2001, when his son was just 4.
Back in Kabul, the Sakhi unit loaded up for a night patrol, bundling up to combat the cold wind that blows incessantly from the mountains ringing the city.
Mr. Omer rode in the bed of the unit’s truck, a machine gun resting on his lap and bands of ammunition wrapped around his neck like party beads.
But there was little to warrant the heavy weaponry meant for suppressing enemy troops. Their area of responsibility was quiet, and the men seemed bored as they spun around the city as packs of street dogs chased and snapped at the tires of passing cars.
Mr. Inqayad in Wardak visiting the hilltop grave of his uncle, Gul Rahman, a Talib who was killed in fighting four years ago.“We will never forget our memories of the war or our friends from that time,” he said. “Every time that I remember him, I miss him a lot.”
Sami Sahak contributed reporting.
11. In eastern Ukraine, war-weary soldiers and civilians await Russia's next move
Excerpts:
Vladimir Putin's end game remains unclear. The Russian leader has massed about 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border - maybe just to force concessions from Nato, maybe to mount an invasion and seize another chunk of the country. One possible scenario is a limited incursion, with forces only sent into Eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin would likely try to present them as "peacekeepers", protecting Russian passport holders. Moscow has been busy issuing hundreds of thousands of passports in separatist held territory.
Ukrainian troops insist that if the Russians come, it won't be as easy as annexing the Crimean peninsula in 2014. "We are better prepared this time," said Alyona, a soldier stationed in the East. "I doubt the Russians will invade. They want to create panic and use it as leverage," she said.
Even if there is no ground invasion - and Moscow insists there won't be - damage has already been done. The international chorus of concern about a possible invasion is destabilising this vast Western-looking nation.
President Putin has already achieved a victory, without firing a shot, by weakening the neighbouring state he covets, and forcing the international community to hang on his every word.
In eastern Ukraine, war-weary soldiers and civilians await Russia's next move
By Orla Guerin
BBC News, Donbas, Ukraine
Published
1 hour ago
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Image caption,
Maria is stationed on Ukraine's eastern frontline. "We are standing our ground," she said
The frontlines of Eastern Ukraine are snow-laden and the big guns are largely silent. But snipers are bedded into this winter white wasteland. Ukrainian troops who forget to stay low in their World War One-style trenches risk a bullet to the head.
The conflict here has been frozen in place since 2014, when separatists, backed by Moscow, seized parts of the Donbas region. At least 13,000 people have been killed, both combatants and civilians. Now Western leaders are warning of something much worse - a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. If it comes, the eastern front would be an easy place to start, with the pro-Russian rebels here paving the way.
Maria was trying not to stress about all that. The 26-year-old Ukrainian soldier, talkative and slight, was in her trench, armed with a Kalashnikov and a perfect manicure. She's part of Ukraine's 56th infantry brigade. (The army asked us to stick to her first name, to prevent trolling on social media.)
"I try to avoid politics and not to watch TV, I try not to get too worried," Maria said. "But we are ready. We have had a lot of training. I understand that it won't be like a training exercise, it will be hard for everyone. But our morale is high and we are standing our ground."
Maria has a band of brothers. Two served in Ukraine's national guard. Her youngest brother will soon be heading to the frontline, as a tank gunner. Back home her retired parents are caring for her four-year-old son.
"It was very hard to leave him," she said. "But since I was six years old my dream was to join the army. I didn't think that I would end up on the frontline, but I don't regret that I am here." Nearby, one of her brothers in arms chopped wood with an axe. The cold is a constant threat, like the separatists about a kilometre away.
Image caption,
A Ukrainian soldier prepares food in a makeshift kitchen near the frontlines
Maria walked through a warren of tunnels to her home away from home, a berth below ground. Brightly coloured children's drawings were stuck to the mud walls. "These come from different schools, as a thank you," she said. "It helps to boost our morale."
Maria's war is about the future of her homeland, but there may be far more at stake than the fate of Ukraine. Russia is drawing battle lines in a new Cold war. At issue now is the future shape of Nato, and the established security order in Europe.
US President Joe Biden has warned of a "distinct possibility" that Russia will invade in February and by doing so "change the world". The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson has invoked the horrors of Chechnya and Bosnia. But the soaring international concern is at odds with what you hear from some Ukrainians.
"I don't believe the Russians will come," said a social worker in the east, who did not want us to use her name. "I believe my eyes and my ears. It's actually quieter here now than last month. This is just an information war." This 'nothing-to-see-here' refrain is echoed regularly by Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
But some here are afraid. "Every time I hear a noise my heart pounds," said Ludmilla Momot, a 64-year-old great grandmother with a gold-tipped front tooth. Momot knows only too well what Moscow and its allies can do. Her home of 30 years, in the village of Nevilske, was destroyed last November by separatist shelling. She returned to Nevilske, now a ghost town, to show us the wreckage.
"This is a wound that will last for the rest of my life," she said through tears, glancing at the gaping hole where her front door used to be. "I had to crawl out over the rubble in my nightgown. My feet were bloody. It is the eighth year of the war, how long can our suffering continue?"
Image caption,
Civilians like Ludmilla Momot have lived with war since 2014. "How long can our suffering continue?" she said
Vladimir Putin's end game remains unclear. The Russian leader has massed about 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border - maybe just to force concessions from Nato, maybe to mount an invasion and seize another chunk of the country. One possible scenario is a limited incursion, with forces only sent into Eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin would likely try to present them as "peacekeepers", protecting Russian passport holders. Moscow has been busy issuing hundreds of thousands of passports in separatist held territory.
Ukrainian troops insist that if the Russians come, it won't be as easy as annexing the Crimean peninsula in 2014. "We are better prepared this time," said Alyona, a soldier stationed in the East. "I doubt the Russians will invade. They want to create panic and use it as leverage," she said.
Even if there is no ground invasion - and Moscow insists there won't be - damage has already been done. The international chorus of concern about a possible invasion is destabilising this vast Western-looking nation.
President Putin has already achieved a victory, without firing a shot, by weakening the neighbouring state he covets, and forcing the international community to hang on his every word.
But many Western leaders fear he won't be satisfied with that.
12. Stopping Putin Means Hitting Him Where It Really Hurts
Graphics and video at the link.
Excerpts:
It’s hard to put a finger on where Russia’s murky offshore wealth is and who it belongs to, but at this point it’s safe to say there’s a lot of it. One 2017 study suggested that Russia’s offshore wealth accounted for 54.5% of GDP.
One way to get to Russia’s wallet would be to cut it off from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, which is used to transfer money across borders or settle securities trades. The autocracy’s currency and economy that would seize up if it were denied access to Swift. But Timothy O’Brien suggests that it may not be enough to get to Putin himself. As suggested by the reporting on the Pandora and Panama Papers, Putin stashes his wealth — and his shares in state-owned enterprises — in networks controlled by family members and close advisers. To make Putin feel the same financial pain as his fellow Russians if the country is locked out of Swift, the West would have to identify his networks and freeze accounts located outside of Russia.
That’d be tough. But it’d be worth it.
Stopping Putin Means Hitting Him Where It Really Hurts
To make Russia’s president feel real pain as he pressures Ukraine, he needs to know what his fellow Russians have been feeling.
It’s a tense situation. After the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the possibility of an invasion cannot be ruled out. If it does happen, Ukraine will need support from the rest of Europe and NATO. Ukraine has gradually upped its military spending since 2014, putting it almost on a par with Russia’s spending by share of GDP.
Spending
Military spending as a share of gross domestic product
Source: World Bank
But Russia maintains one of the largest military forces in the world, and it holds every major advantage. By active personnel, Russia’s army is the fifth-largest in the world. By comparison, Ukraine’s army comes in at 22nd.
David and Goliath
Russia's army is a formidable force, especially against Ukraine
Sources: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute; Global Firepower; International Institute for Strategic Studies
Russia’s key demand is a halt to NATO expansion. Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked for guarantees that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the alliance, and demanded a withdrawal from eastern Europe. That, naturally, is a no-go for the allies. In response, James Stravridis suggests welcoming two other nations into NATO with open arms: Sweden and Finland. Late last year, the Russian foreign ministry indicated displeasure with the idea of either joining the alliance. Their membership would make clear to Putin that he does not hold a veto card when it comes to expanding the democratic alliance.
NATO Expansion
A series of eastern European nations have become members of NATO recently
Source: NATO
Note: Partnership for Peace is a NATO program aimed at creating trust between NATO and other states.
The media frenzy makes it seem like an invasion is inevitable. But what about another scenario in which de-escalation is more likely? That’s what Leonid Bershidsky lays out. In short, Putin set a bait trap for Georgia in 2018 to make a devastating first move and — given Ukraine’s rearming of its military — was perhaps rather hoping to spark something similar again. Instead, U.S. President Joe Biden has successfully turned the tables with a big publicity campaign, allowing Western arms supplies to move into Ukraine and landing a blow on Russia’s stocks and currency. With Putin now on the back foot, it’d be advantageous for the Kremlin to wait out the crisis and therefore undermine U.S. credibility.
Andreas Kluth poses the theory that perhaps Putin deliberately created a crisis in which everything is possible at once. In the same way Schrodinger’s cat is both dead and alive, Putin is in permanent superposition of attacking and not attacking, infiltrating and not infiltrating, and has the world’s attention on him. That can’t last forever, though.
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Meanwhile, the tensions are making waves elsewhere, too: Europe’s energy crisis. Europe imports approximately 40% of its gas from Russia, and if a war led to the loss of all those supplies, the region would be forced to take Draconian measures. Javier Blas warns that high gas prices are set to be a new trend, not a one-off. If you’re feeling nice and secure in the U.S., consider this: Russia also has the ability to disrupt global oil markets, which would directly hit Americans. Meghan O’Sullivan explains that that option may have fewer downsides for Russia, and could be more easily disguised as an explosion on a pipeline or an environmental disaster.
Oil Bounces Back
A tight oil market since the beginning of the year could give Russia leverage against Western sanctions
Source: Bloomberg
Offshore
More than half the wealth of Russia's 0.01% was held offshore between 2000 and 2009
Source: World Inequality Database
It’s hard to put a finger on where Russia’s murky offshore wealth is and who it belongs to, but at this point it’s safe to say there’s a lot of it. One 2017 study suggested that Russia’s offshore wealth accounted for 54.5% of GDP.
One way to get to Russia’s wallet would be to cut it off from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, which is used to transfer money across borders or settle securities trades. The autocracy’s currency and economy that would seize up if it were denied access to Swift. But Timothy O’Brien suggests that it may not be enough to get to Putin himself. As suggested by the reporting on the Pandora and Panama Papers, Putin stashes his wealth — and his shares in state-owned enterprises — in networks controlled by family members and close advisers. To make Putin feel the same financial pain as his fellow Russians if the country is locked out of Swift, the West would have to identify his networks and freeze accounts located outside of Russia.
That’d be tough. But it’d be worth it.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
13. U.S. Isn’t Ready for Nuclear Rivalry With China and Russia
Excerpts:
These are problems without obvious solutions. And they are made even harder by the fact that America’s nuclear expertise is not what it once was.
Today, the U.S. is reaping the consequences of its post-Cold War nuclear holiday. Comparatively few top- or mid-level officials, civilian or military, have deep experience in nuclear issues. There is, fortunately, a fair amount of academic expertise on these issues, thanks in part to a few foundations that made countercyclical — and at the time, counterintuitive — investments in nuclear studies. But the U.S. has far less intellectual capital on nuclear issues than it did during the Cold War, and far less than it will need in the years to come.
The importance of nuclear weapons is so great because the consequences of their use would be so profound. The dilemmas surrounding nuclear strategy are so sharp because U.S. strategy requires making credible threats to deliver — and perhaps suffer — incredible destruction. Old questions of deterrence, warfighting and stability are taking on new and complex forms. To successfully handle the challenges of the new nuclear age, America will need all the intellectual firepower it can get.
U.S. Isn’t Ready for Nuclear Rivalry With China and Russia
Joe Biden once envisioned a “world without nuclear weapons,” but Beijing and Moscow are rolling back the clock to the Cold War.
January 30, 2022, 8:00 AM EST
As vice president in January 2017, Joe Biden gave a speech endorsing the idea of a “world without nuclear weapons.” Last year, he took office pledging to reduce America’s reliance on those weapons — perhaps with a promise that Washington would never use nuclear weapons first in a conflict, or perhaps by cutting, even eliminating, the country’s intercontinental ballistic missile force.
Biden’s first year has been a reality check. The threat of Russian aggression in Eastern Europe has reminded American allies of the role that U.S. nuclear weapons might play in their defense. Thanks to a dramatic Chinese nuclear buildup, America will soon confront a nuclear peer in the Pacific. North Korea keeps expanding its arsenal. Some American allies in Europe and Asia have lobbied against a no-first-use pledge or cuts in the U.S. arsenal.
Biden may want a future in which nuclear weapons fade into irrelevance, but that simply isn’t where the world is headed. The U.S. is facing a new nuclear age: an era of fierce, multisided competition, one that is both reminiscent of and far more complex than the Cold War. It has only begun to grapple, strategically and intellectually, with this challenge.
A Twilight Struggle
The U.S. does have lots of experience with nuclear statecraft, as I discuss in my new book, “The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us About Great-Power Rivalry Today.” During the Cold War, U.S. conventional forces were mostly outmatched in Europe and other key theaters. The threat of nuclear escalation was the ultimate guarantee of the free world’s security, and the nuclear balance shaped risk-taking and decision-making on both sides of the East-West divide.
Yet because the use of nuclear weapons would be so horrific, nuclear strategy involved stark dilemmas. How could Washington balance the need to avoid nuclear war with the imperative of being able to win it? Should the U.S. use nuclear weapons overwhelmingly at the outset of a contest, in hopes of prevailing rapidly, or should it escalate gradually, in hopes of limiting the resulting damage? Most fundamentally, how could it credibly threaten to use nuclear weapons if doing so might shatter civilization?
Different presidents offered different answers to these questions. Some of the problems were simply insoluble. But the resulting debates were usually rich and thoughtful; America produced a vast community of individuals — Bernard Brodie, Thomas Schelling, Herman Kahn and Andrew Marshall were some of the standouts — who understood the challenges of the nuclear age. Nuclear war was both unthinkable and all too plausible, so a global superpower had little choice but to prepare for that eventuality as thoroughly as possible.
That changed when the Cold War ended. The threat of Armageddon receded drastically. The U.S. became so militarily dominant that it hardly needed nuclear weapons. Dangers persisted, but they were primarily posed by nuclear terrorism, loose nukes and the weapons programs of relatively weak states such as North Korea.
The post-Cold War era saw continuing reductions in the Pentagon’s nuclear arsenal, often codified in agreements with Russia. In 2009, President Barack Obama called for the eventual abolition of the weapons; he flirted with a no-first-use declaration, even as he approved a costly modernization of America’s existing forces.
There was also an intellectual drawdown, as nuclear strategy went out of style. Ambitious policy wonks and military officers gravitated toward other issues. America’s strategic nuclear arsenal was so far from mind that the 2002 National Security Strategy contained no mention of it at all.
Biden’s speech in January 2017 captured the residual optimism of an era in which great-power nuclear competition seemed like an anachronism. By that point, however, a new nuclear age had already begun.
The New Nuclear Age
If nuclear weapons became less relevant after the Cold War, not everyone got the memo. India and Pakistan pushed their way into the nuclear club, with dueling tests in 1998. North Korea made its small arsenal ever-more menacing. Iran crept toward the nuclear threshold. And it wasn’t just lesser powers improving their capabilities.
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia reversed the nuclear atrophy of the post-Soviet era. As part of a years-long modernization program, Putin’s regime drastically upgraded most of its nuclear missile forces. It invested in “non-strategic” nuclear weapons — torpedoes, short-range missiles and others — and is experimenting with exotic capabilities such as autonomous underwater vehicles and nuclear-powered cruise missiles. Not least, Russia expanded the range of circumstances in which it might use nuclear weapons, making them more central to its military strategy, just as the U.S. was headed in the opposite direction.
Then there is Beijing’s buildup. China may once have possessed a “minimal deterrent” — a small, relatively vulnerable arsenal, designed solely to deter nuclear attack on China itself — but that’s no longer the case. The Chinese test of a fractional orbital bombardment system (in essence, a nuclear-weapon delivery system that orbits the earth before plunging toward its target) is only part of a much larger endeavor.
China is now building a more secure and sophisticated “nuclear triad” — a combination of nuclear-capable bombers, ground-based intercontinental missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Its ICBM force is expanding rapidly. The Pentagon predicts that China will have more than 1,000 deliverable warheads by 2030 — an arsenal worthy of a superpower.
The return of great-power competition has brought with it the return of nuclear rivalry. Meanwhile, conventional weakness is making nuclear weapons even more important to U.S. strategy.
Over the past two decades, Russian and Chinese conventional buildups have dramatically altered the balance of power in Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific. Washington and its allies might struggle to defeat a determined Russian attack on Estonia or a Chinese assault against Taiwan. An old question is becoming newly relevant: Would the U.S. start a nuclear war to avoid losing a conventional one?
The likelihood of a great-power war going nuclear is significantly higher than most Americans probably realize. If China attacked Taiwan, it would probably use its conventional missiles to maul America’s air and naval assets in the Pacific. Within days, the U.S. might face a choice between seeing Taiwan defeated or using low-yield nuclear weapons against Chinese ports, airfields or invasion fleets.
Alternatively, if a U.S.-China war turned into a bloody stalemate, American leaders might be tempted to use nuclear threats or strikes to batter the Chinese into conceding defeat. Does this sound crazy? Washington repeatedly considered nuclear strikes against China the last time the two countries fought a stalemated war, in Korea.
China might also have incentives to go nuclear. Starting, and then losing, a war against the U.S. could be a fatal mistake for President Xi Jinping. If an invasion of Taiwan faltered, Beijing could try to turn the tide, or simply convince America to quit, by firing nuclear-tipped missiles at or near Guam or another important U.S. military facility in the region. Such coercive uses of nuclear weapons may be what China has in mind in enlarging its arsenal today.
Nukes would also loom large in a conflict between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Moscow can conquer territory in Eastern Europe, but it probably can’t win a long war against NATO. The scenario that worries American planners is known as “escalate to de-escalate”: In essence, Russia grabs some land and then threatens to use nuclear weapons, or perhaps even fires a warning shot, to compel NATO to make peace on Putin’s terms.
These possibilities began to influence U.S. strategy under President Donald Trump. That administration touted “limited” nuclear options — the ability to conduct a small number of strikes to defeat Chinese or Russian conventional aggression or to deter their threats of nuclear escalation. It invested in submarine-launched cruise missiles and ballistic missiles that could be equipped with low-yield nuclear warheads. “If you want peace,” wrote one recently departed Pentagon official in 2018, “prepare for nuclear war.”
Credibility Trap
Biden is now facing the same problems. Nuclear weapons are becoming more, rather than less, important; the scope for responsible reductions in the size or role of America’s arsenal is shrinking fast. Yet the dilemmas surrounding nuclear statecraft are as vexing as ever.
First, the fact that it may be necessary to threaten nuclear escalation to defend far-flung U.S. friends does not automatically mean that such threats are credible. During the Cold War, Washington could semi-plausibly threaten to unleash the apocalypse to stop Moscow from conquering Europe and Asia. Today, the idea of starting even a “limited” nuclear war over Taiwan might well strike most Americans as farcical, especially as China’s ability to inflict catastrophic retaliation on the U.S. increases.
A second dilemma pertains to missile defense. U.S. missile defenses can’t blunt an all-out Russian or Chinese attack, but they could complicate the sort of limited strike that Moscow or Beijing might try in a conflict. Or those defenses could simply give America’s rivals incentive to keep building more and better offensive missiles. As of now, there is no consensus in Washington on whether missile defenses will provide crucial strategic advantage or just encourage a costly arms race.
Third, the U.S. has barely begun to wrap its head around the problem of tripolar nuclear competition. During the Cold War, America had only one nuclear peer, the Soviet Union. Soon it will have two.
That could leave some strategists wanting a significantly larger nuclear arsenal, at a time when the Pentagon’s continuing nuclear modernization is already behind schedule and many U.S. conventional forces also desperately need an upgrade. And the dynamics of nuclear deterrence, crisis stability and arms control are likely to grow more complicated with three roughly equal actors involved.
This relates to a fourth issue: We’re in terra incognita when it comes to arms control. Done properly, arms control isn’t silly peacenik stuff: It can be a hardheaded way of keeping nuclear competition within bounds or even steering it into areas that favor the U.S. But the arms control frameworks that Washington and Moscow built during the Cold War have mostly collapsed over the past two decades.
In 2021, Biden and Putin renewed for five years the last significant U.S.-Russian arms control agreement — New Start — and initiated a new “strategic stability dialogue.” Yet it is becoming harder to justify arms control treaties that bind the U.S. and Russia but not China, and so far no one has found the formula for making Beijing play ball.
Finally, how will nuclear dangers affect America’s conventional warfighting plans? Defeating a Russian attack in the Baltics would probably require suppressing air defenses and artillery on Russian territory — which might take NATO across Moscow’s nuclear red line.
In a war over Taiwan, the Pentagon might strike Chinese missile bases — seeking to neutralize China’s conventional missiles but endangering its nuclear missiles as well. If these strikes made Beijing fear that it would lose its nuclear option, it might be inclined to use that option. Any great-power war will be fought in the nuclear shadow, which may impose limits on how far the U.S. can prudently go.
End of the Nuclear Holiday
These are problems without obvious solutions. And they are made even harder by the fact that America’s nuclear expertise is not what it once was.
Today, the U.S. is reaping the consequences of its post-Cold War nuclear holiday. Comparatively few top- or mid-level officials, civilian or military, have deep experience in nuclear issues. There is, fortunately, a fair amount of academic expertise on these issues, thanks in part to a few foundations that made countercyclical — and at the time, counterintuitive — investments in nuclear studies. But the U.S. has far less intellectual capital on nuclear issues than it did during the Cold War, and far less than it will need in the years to come.
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The importance of nuclear weapons is so great because the consequences of their use would be so profound. The dilemmas surrounding nuclear strategy are so sharp because U.S. strategy requires making credible threats to deliver — and perhaps suffer — incredible destruction. Old questions of deterrence, warfighting and stability are taking on new and complex forms. To successfully handle the challenges of the new nuclear age, America will need all the intellectual firepower it can get.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
14. China Closely Watching Western Handling Of Ukrainian-Russian Tensions
Excerpts:
The Kremlin said security in Europe is also set to be on the agenda as Putin heads to China. The summit marks the Chinese leader’s first face-to-face meeting with a head of state in nearly two years and the pair will look to cement their partnership amid the rivalry with Washington.
But while the Russian and Chinese leaders will continue to show “a united front” and although Beijing favors the pressure that Moscow has mounted against the West, Ferenczy says it is unknown if China would be fully supportive of another Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“A Russian invasion would have wider implications for other parts of the world,” she said. “For China, it’s a question about whether that’s good for their interests or if it’s better that Russia holds back.”
China Closely Watching Western Handling Of Ukrainian-Russian Tensions
Beijing is closely following Russia’s military buildup along its border with Ukraine, viewing it as a litmus test for political unity in the West and using the mounting tensions as an opportunity to strengthen its ties with Moscow, analysts say.
In a call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on January 27, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned the United States and its allies not to “hype up the crisis” around Ukraine and called for a peaceful resolution to the escalating crisis, saying Russia’s “reasonable security concerns should be taken seriously.”
“Regional security cannot be guaranteed by strengthening or even expanding military blocs,” Wang said, according to a Foreign Ministry statement, in reference to demands issued by the Kremlin that Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO.
Beijing was relatively mute amid the buildup of more than 100,000 Russian troops, but Wang’s remarks, which echoed messaging from Russian President Vladimir Putin, were China’s most explicit so far in support of the Kremlin, reflecting a growing bond between the two countries’ governments and a shared opposition towards the United States.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov greet each other on the sidelines of a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Dushanbe in September.
While not part of a formal alliance together, Beijing and Moscow have nurtured diplomatic and defensive ties into a strong partnership that looks set to deepen as Putin heads to China to hold a summit with Xi and attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on February 4.
Beyond watching the situation in Ukraine for opportunities to chide the United States and boost relations with Moscow, analysts say China also sees it as a crucial test for American resolve and the strength of transatlantic ties, which could have long-term consequences for how Beijing approaches its own geopolitical flash point in Taiwan.
“China is always watching and seeing how Western alliances like NATO are holding up under pressure,” Theresa Fallon, the director of the Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels, told RFE/RL. “That makes this crisis about much more than just Ukraine. It’s also a broader stress for the West from Beijing’s point of view.”
Litmus Test?
Tensions in the Taiwan Strait, the area that separates the island from mainland China, have grown in recent years, with Beijing routinely sending jets to buzz Taiwanese airspace and holding military exercises close to the island.
Beijing considers Taiwan to be a province of China and “reuniting” with the island has become a legacy issue for Xi. While the Chinese leader repeatedly talks of an eventual peaceful unification with Taiwan, he has said that Beijing would retake it by force if necessary.
With China’s territorial ambitions in mind, the Western response to Moscow’s security demands on NATO and the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine are being watched closely by Beijing.
“Ukraine is a place where Russia and China’s interests are converging,” Jessica Brandt, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told RFE/RL. “They have very different long-term objectives, but in the near term they are united in denting the power of the United States and European cohesion.”
The United States has been vocal in its opposition to Russia’s military movements near the Ukrainian border and Blinken told RFE/RL during a January 27 interview that Russia would face “massive consequences” if it chooses “the path of aggression” with Ukraine.
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But Kremlin demands for a moratorium on NATO expansion and a pullback of the alliance's troops and weaponry away from Russia have also exposed gaps in the Western response.
The United States and its allies have reportedly assembled a punishing set of financial, technological, and military sanctions against Russia that would go into effect shortly after a renewed invasion of Ukraine. But divisions over how to enforce such measures, especially in Germany and France, could lessen their impact.
The lack of cohesion on how best to go about deterring Russia or what measures to take in the event of an attack on Ukraine was also on display following Germany’s refusal to grant reexport licenses to Estonia to send German-made artillery to Ukraine.
“Both China and Russia can press and grow those fissures that already exist in the transatlantic alliance,” Brandt said. “It's a ripe opportunity for them to pursue these goals.”
But while analysts say the tensions in Ukraine are an important test that China is monitoring and that Western disunity could embolden Beijing in the future, the Kremlin's designs on Ukraine are unlikely to shift China’s calculus about using force against Taiwan.
A Taiwanese flag is carried by a Chinook helicopter during a rehearsal for the Island’s National Day celebration in Taipei on October 7.
Unlike Ukraine, the United States is committed by law to protect Taiwan, with the Taiwan Relations Act requiring Washington to ensure the island can defend itself and to treat all threats toward it as matters of “grave concern.” Moreover, many experts believe Beijing prefers to use economic and political tools, rather than military ones, to influence Taipei and allow China to take control of the island.
“There are certainly implications from Russia invading Ukraine that affect China’s calculation in its own context for Taiwan, but that’s just one element among many,” Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, a fellow at National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan and a former adviser to the European Parliament, told RFE/RL. “Ultimately, what China does in Taiwan won’t be decided by what Moscow does in Ukraine.”
A New Kind Of Partnership
Amid Russia’s renewed push against Ukraine, Russian-Chinese bonds appear to be growing to levels that seemed unlikely even a decade ago.
Andrei Denisov, Russia’s ambassador to China, said Moscow regularly updates Beijing on progress in its security talks with the United States, and Chinese state media personalities and diplomats have begun echoing Russia’s talking points over tensions with Ukraine and NATO that portray the alliance as an aggressor and Washington as using the situation for political gain.
Chinese goodwill toward Russia was also on display on December 15, when Xi and Putin talked up their partnership in the face of growing confrontations with the United States and a shared hostility toward the West.
The call highlighted the ways in which Russia and China are drawing on each other for mutual support, with Putin criticizing the AUKUS (Australia, the United States, and Britain) partnership in the Pacific and Xi supporting Moscow’s demands for security guarantees to limit the West’s influence across the former Soviet Union.
Putin meets with Xi via video link from his residence outside Moscow on December 15.
The Kremlin said security in Europe is also set to be on the agenda as Putin heads to China. The summit marks the Chinese leader’s first face-to-face meeting with a head of state in nearly two years and the pair will look to cement their partnership amid the rivalry with Washington.
But while the Russian and Chinese leaders will continue to show “a united front” and although Beijing favors the pressure that Moscow has mounted against the West, Ferenczy says it is unknown if China would be fully supportive of another Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“A Russian invasion would have wider implications for other parts of the world,” she said. “For China, it’s a question about whether that’s good for their interests or if it’s better that Russia holds back.”
15. "Military Conflict": China Just Threatened the US with War over Taiwan
"Military Conflict": China Just Threatened the US with War over Taiwan
China’s Ambassador Warns of “Military Conflict” With the US Over Taiwan: In a rare explicit threat to the possibility of open warfare with the U.S., China’s ambassador to the United States has said the two countries could face a “military conflict” over the future of Taiwan.
“Let me emphasize this…the Taiwan issue is the biggest tinderbox between China and the United States,” Qin Gang said in a radio interview with National Public Radio (NPR), on Friday.
“If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in the military conflict.”
Olympics Once Again Political Theater
Ambassador Qin spoke with NPR at his official residence in a taped interview on Thursday and spoke at length about US-Chinese relations, as well as the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing. “Beijing is ready,” he said, referencing that athletes will live in a bubble during the games to protect them from the COVID-19 virus.
While American athletes will compete in the Olympics, the United States’ diplomats will boycott the games as the Biden administration will not send any official representation to Beijing for the Olympics, citing the Chinese government’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity” against the Uyghur Muslims, an ethnic minority in the Xinjiang province.
“The athletes on Team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100% as we cheer them on from home,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, but added, “We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games.”
Qin said that many of the Uyghurs were terrorists, “The destination for them is prisons,” he said while admitting that they were sent to re-education camps to change their way of thinking, referring to these as “vocational schools.”
He was adamant that the U.S. accusations were “fabrications, lies, and disinformation.”
Chinese Step Up Disinformation Operations in Taiwan:
However, on the subject of Taiwan, the Chinese have been conducting their own disinformation operations. More than 400 fake accounts coming from Chinese content farms run by the PRC have flooded social media, internet forums, and online chatrooms that are popular among the Taiwanese population to undercut the public’s trust in the government, destabilize Taiwanese society and meddle in elections, the country’s Investigation Bureau said. Since last year, they’ve uncovered nearly 2,800 cases of this.
“These accounts are specializing in posting fake news and disinformation to undermine the COVID-19 measures implemented by Taiwan’s health authorities, create confusion, and circulate politically charged messages to generate disputes and conflicts,” said an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “These are clearly products of China’s content farms.”
While the Pentagon continues to be committed to its “one China” policy, under the U.S. Taiwan Relations Act, where Washington recognizes Beijing and not Taipei, under the act’s provisions, the Pentagon continues to provide the means for Taiwan to defend itself.
“We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability while also maintaining our own capacity to resist any use of force that would jeopardize the security of the people of Taiwan,” a spokesperson for the Defense Department said.
Chinese PLA Tank. Image: Creative Commons.
Chinese Continue to Pressure Taiwan’s Air Force
Beijing considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province of China. The former government of China, which was supported by the United States, retreated to the island after being defeated in a civil war in 1949 by communist forces led by Mao Zedong. Back in November the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, told President Biden that any support for Taiwanese independence from the U.S. would be “like playing with fire” and that “those who play with fire will get burned”.
The Chinese continue to ratchet up the pressure, especially with the U.S. consumed with the ongoing situation in Ukraine. Last Sunday, 39 planes from the PRC flew into Taiwan’s protected airspace, the largest incursion since they flew 56 aircraft into Taiwanese airspace in October.
Taiwanese Semiconductor Industry a Hot Point
The U.S. is also concerned about the semiconductor industry in Taiwan and how China could use a cyber attack to cripple it. With 75 percent of the semiconductor industry based in East Asia, and 90 percent of the most advanced semiconductors being produced in Taiwan, that industry is also a major target for the Chinese to corner the market.
The Biden administration is asking Congress to support bills that would increase the U.S. manufacturing of semiconductors to diversify the global market and make it less prone to the Chinese possibly disrupting it.
“Today we barely produce 10 percent of the computer chips, despite being the leader in chip design and research,” the president said. “And we don’t have the ability to make the most advanced chips now — right now…China is doing everything it can to take over the global market so they can try to outcompete the rest of us and have a lot of applications — including military applications.”
Steve Balestrieri is a 1945 National Security Columnist. He has served as a US Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer before injuries forced his early separation. In addition to writing for 1945, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and his work was regularly featured in the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and Grafton News newspapers in Massachusetts.
16. From Washington to Trump to Biden, new presidents meet unwanted foreign crises
The nature of being president.
From Washington to Trump to Biden, new presidents meet unwanted foreign crises
NPR · by Ron Elving · January 30, 2022
Civilian participants in a Kyiv Territorial Defense unit train on a Saturday in a forest on Jan. 22, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Across Ukraine thousands of civilians are participating in such groups to receive basic combat training and in time of war would be under direct command of the Ukrainian military. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
President Biden took office a year ago promising to focus on the domestic crisis of that moment — the COVID-19 pandemic that was killing tens of thousands of Americans each week, confining millions to their homes and hobbling the world's largest economy.
Implicit in that promise was the unavoidable corollary: American involvement in other parts of the world would have to take a back seat to the domestic crisis at hand.
That is, until the reckoning in Afghanistan intruded, and before the Russians massed armored divisions on their border with Ukraine.
Biden now finds himself in the grand tradition of new American presidents who have made much the same promise but struggled to keep it. From George Washington's famous warning against "foreign entanglements" to Donald Trump's mantra of "America First," the pledge to prioritize domestic concerns has been almost as constant as the oath of office itself.
But far more difficult to keep.
Washington himself had no sooner taken that oath than the French Revolution caused convulsions on both sides of the Atlantic. Washington knew how much the French had assisted in his own military success, and also how close his fledgling nation was to renewed war with the British. Yet he held out for neutrality so he could concentrate on defending frontier settlements and federal taxing authority closer to home.
His successor, John Adams, had planned to follow Washington's lead before being derailed by a bit of intrigue known as the XYZ Affair (the letters were code for the names of three French diplomats engaged in a secret correspondence). American envoys trying to negotiate with the new revolutionary government in Paris were met with demands for money. Sentiment in the U.S. turned against the French and an undeclared war ensued on land and sea (sometimes called the Quasi-War). The U.S. bulked up its army and navy and an anti-war movement began in the brand new "Democratic-Republican Party" of Thomas Jefferson.
Tripoli in Libya bombarded by the U.S. fleet during the First Barbary War, 1804. The fleet was there in an attempt to suppress piracy in the North African Barbary states, one of then-President Thomas Jefferson's main foreign policy challenges. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Jefferson was himself a farmer and a believer in the agrarian economy. But when he became the third president, he promptly had to deal with pirates preying on U.S. ships in the Mediterranean Sea and the ongoing struggles between France and the rest of Europe. Unwanted as these and other imbroglios were, Jefferson took advantage of a cash-strapped Napoleon in 1803 to make the Louisiana Purchase, doubling the land mass of the U.S. for the bargain-basement price of $15 million.
You could say that was a bit of foreign policy that worked out well on the domestic front. But most foreign involvements have not be so fortuitous.
James Madison, the fourth president, had to deal with war drums along the frontier and also the return of British redcoats, who burned the Capitol and the White House in the War of 1812.
James Monroe, the fifth president, put forward his famous doctrine against European powers seeking new colonies in the "New World" — an effort to preserve a sphere of influence for the U.S. and minimize conflicts with foreign powers.
The remains of the battleship U.S.S. Maine, which was blown up in Havana harbor, triggering the Spanish-American War. Henry Guttmann Collection/Getty Images
Turning inward
Monroe's time in office was sometimes called the "era of good feeling," if only in contrast to the tumult that preceded it and the descent into civil war that followed. From the 1820s on, from John Quincy Adams through Abraham Lincoln, the issue of slavery would overshadow all other conflicts, foreign and domestic.
The one "foreign war" in those decades was fought with Mexico and it was largely about territory – including much of what Americans have since regarded as America – Texas, California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other states.
It was not until the end of that century that a foreign involvement would again play a central role in U.S. politics. President William McKinley came to office in 1897 intent on the substantial economic problems of his day. But that same year a rebellion against Spain in Cuba heightened tensions between Washington and Madrid. The U.S.S. Maine was dispatched to visit Havana's harbor, where it blew up in 1898, killing 260 on board.
Many in America blamed Spain, and McKinley was unable to resist the war fever. When the brief war was over, Spain had lost much of its remaining empire, and the U.S. had become something of a imperial power.
Americans troops in France in 1917 after the United States entered World War One. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The rush of the 20th century
Since then, few U.S. presidents have been able to hit the hold button on foreign crises. Theodore Roosevelt, who had made a name for himself as a cavalry officer in Cuba, boldly seized territory for the Panama Canal and pursued "gunboat diplomacy" in Latin America. He also inserted himself as a peacemaker in ending the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 (for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize).
But the real plunge into the deep end of the foreign policy pool came a decade later. Woodrow Wilson was in the White House with historically ambitious plans, including a progressive income tax, and would eventually support women's right to vote. But his larger agenda was undermined when the First World War began in Europe and when the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine started building pressure for U.S. involvement. The U.S. eventually joined the war against Germany and its allies, and thereafter Wilson not only attended the peace conference but tried to dominate it. Ultimately, his enthusiasm for a League of Nations was not shared by the Senate and the U.S. never joined.
For most Americans, the 1920s included a welcome surcease from world involvement. But the end of the decade brought a global economic depression that led to damaging trade wars and the self-destructive Smoot-Hawley Tariff in the U.S. The depression got worse, Franklin Roosevelt got elected president in 1932, and the focus remained on the domestic front for another decade. But war had returned to Europe in 1939, and the isolationist sentiment in America did not survive the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941.
A U.S. atomic bomb test explosion off Bikini Atoll, Micronesia. Keystone/Getty Images
The Cold War
The U.S. emerged from the Second World War as the leading military and economic power in the world, its homeland unscathed by the war and its arsenal replete with the only nuclear weapons on the planet. But the Soviet Union had occupied much of Europe and was intent on maintaining a defensive sphere of influence there. In China, a long-running civil war was won by the Communists. Soon, people in the U.S. were obsessing about what many called "the global Red menace."
In this period, Harry Truman became the first U.S. president to take office in the midst of a war (succeeding upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt) and initially had little time for anything else. He saw that war through to its conclusion, including the use of two nuclear bombs, then mounted a stiff resistance against the ambitions of Russia and China. The U.S. entered the war between North and South Korea in 1950 to preserve the anti-communist regime in Seoul but the war dragged on without a conclusion.
In 1952, former World War Two commander Dwight Eisenhower was elected president largely on his promise to "go to Korea" and straighten things out himself. It was a clear break from the longtime tradition of playing down foreign affairs on the campaign trail.
When President John F. Kennedy opened a new national era in the 1960s, he was promising to "get America moving again" in an economic and psychological sense. He hoped to be able to keep that focus, but was immediately confronted on several continents by the Soviet Union. The Berlin wall went up in 1961, and an attempt to roust the communist regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba proved disastrous. A near-war crisis over the siting of Russian missiles in Cuba was perhaps the most enduring episode of Kennedy's brief time in office.
Vietnam and Iran
Lyndon B. Johnson became president upon the assassination of Kennedy in 1963. He immediately concentrated the emotional impact of that event on enacting some of his predecessor's agenda, including passage of a milestone civil rights bill. Johnson got that done, won re-election in a landslide, and came back to office in 1965 with plans for a Great Society guided by generous government spending and sweeping federal authority.
But from his early months in office, Johnson's attention had been divided. The anti-communist regime the U.S. had been backing in South Vietnam was losing. Johnson got Congress to give him authority to escalate the struggle in 1964 and used it aggressively in 1965. Before long that escalation involved half a million U.S. personnel on the ground. Casualties mounted. An anti-war movement arose and gained strength through the remainder of the 1960s, weakening Johnson's Democratic Party enough for Richard Nixon to win the White House in 1968.
Nixon campaigned on a promise to "bring us together" and an implicit promise to end the Vietnam War "with honor" if not necessarily with a clear victory. He, too, wanted to tackle the domestic unrest that had become characteristic of the late 1960s. But unlike many of his predecessors, he knew he had to deal with foreign policy first.
He dedicated most of his first term to re-ordering relationships with Russia and China to make a withdrawal from Vietnam possible. In the end, beset by scandals from his re-election campaign in 1972, Nixon resigned less than halfway through his second term. His was the rare case of the foreign-policy oriented presidency whose plans were frustrated by domestic crisis.
Iranian students climb over the wall of the U.S. embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979. STR/AFP via Getty Images
The next elected president, former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, said little about foreign policy in his rise from relative obscurity to the Oval Office. But in office he had his high and low points defined by international events. He managed to negotiate a lasting peace deal between Israel and Egypt (the Camp David Agreement of 1978). But he ran aground on the Islamic fundamentalist revolution in Iran the following year. After Carter allowed the former shah of Iran to enter the U.S. for cancer treatment, radical students in Tehran seized the U.S. embassy there and held more than 50 Americans hostage for 444 days, releasing them the day Carter left office.
Reagan and the Evil Empire
Ronald Reagan did not beat Carter on foreign policy alone, by any means. But he was fortunate to arrive at a time when Iran and other hot spots around the world were cooling. The Soviet Union, which Reagan had inveighed against for decades as a conservative commentator and governor of California, was lurching toward its final break-up when he was president. It was difficult for Russia in that era to match Reagan's increases in defense spending.
Reagan generally enjoyed genial relations with world leaders, including with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom he concluded an ambitious nuclear arms-reduction deal. Reagan also managed to minimize damage from an ill-conceived three-way deal to free hostages in Iran through a secret arms sale to that country (with profits secretly passed on to anti-communist rebels in Central America).
In the end, he could turn over the tiller to his vice president, George H.W. Bush, who promised to be "the education president" but wound up spending an extraordinary amount of his time on world affairs. He could bask in the glow as the Berlin Wall came down on his watch. He also enjoyed strong public approval for his takedown of a drug-dealing dictator in Panama in 1989 and his successful multi-national effort to drive Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait in 1991.
Still, Bush was distracted from his own domestic priorities often enough to allow Bill Clinton to defeat him in 1992 by promising to "focus like a laser" on the economy (which also came to mean health care). For a time, America's erstwhile enemies were over the horizon again. Foreign policy did not intrude until, in his second term, Clinton joined with NATO allies to resolve a war in the Balkans. Clinton was fortunate that no American personnel were killed in that brief war.
President George W. Bush, left, surveying the damage at the site of the World Trade Center on Sept. 14 2001 in New York City, just three days after the terrorist attack that brought down the towers. Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images
The War on Terror
George W. Bush arrived in the Oval Office in 2001 and devoted himself to two issues the elder Bush might have liked to have had the chance to pursue – a generous tax cut and an education bill negotiated with the Democrats.
But in the second Bush presidency, the world came calling in a way it had not since 1941. Suicide attacks by well-organized terrorists killed nearly 3,000 Americans in the World Trade Center in New York and at the Pentagon. Bush immediately pivoted to a "global war on terror" that would define his first term, help him win a second and ultimately trap the U.S. in the role of occupying power in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Campaigning not as an opponent of "all wars, just stupid wars," Barack Obama took over the White House in 2009 with the nation once again consumed with an immediate economic crisis (what would become the "Great Recession" of 2008-10). Eight years later, the U.S. was still stuck in its unwanted roles in Kabul and Baghdad and wrestling with successor terrorist groups such as ISIS in Syria and Africa.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hands then-President Donald Trump a World Cup football during a joint press conference after their summit on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. Chris McGrath/Getty Images
A president without precedent
In a sense, Donald Trump brought his first foreign crisis into office with him, a holdover of the campaign, during which he had encouraged Russia to seek the lost emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. The Russians did not find those, but they did obtain thousands of emails sent by Democratic operatives during the campaign, which were subsequently published by Wikileaks.
The damage that did to Clinton is difficult to quantify. But its significance was magnified later on when U.S. investigators proved that Russian operatives, some robotic, had also been flooding social media platforms with anti-Clinton messages throughout the campaign year.
This led to a two-year probe headed by former FBI director Robert Mueller, which confirmed the Russian anti-Clinton interference but did not find evidence the Trump campaign itself had played a role in it. But soon after this crisis had subsided, a new one arose. It was learned that Trump had held up military aid to Ukraine while pressuring that country to announce an investigation into the business dealings of Hunter Biden, son of the former vice president who is now President Biden.
The House impeached Trump for that, but the Senate did not muster even close to the two-thirds majority needed to convict. Thereafter, Trump would continue to question the value of NATO and the U.S. commitment to defend western Europe.
There were plenty of other foreign issues in Trump's term. U.S. troops were still in harm's way in Syria as well as Iraq, and North Korea's dictator was warning he would arm his newest missiles with his newest nuclear warheads and threaten anyone in the Pacific region. Iran was testing the limits of the nuclear agreement it had signed with the U.S. and its European allies
In Afghanistan, nearly two decades years of U.S. military presence and all manner of aid had not established a government with enough public support to suppress a resurgent Taliban. Long a critic of "endless wars," Trump made a deal with the Taliban and set a date for U.S. withdrawal as of May 1, 2021.
But all these were issues Trump inherited from his predecessors and left to Biden. Trump's main foreign policy attitude was always to question orthodoxy and challenge existing arrangements and alliances, doubting or denying their value for the average American. If something did not benefit the U.S. at least as much as other nations involved, Trump saw it as contrary to his mantra of "America First."
For that reason, Trump's foreign policy posture remained among the more popular aspects of his presidency. And that has proven problematic for his successor, whether he tries to maintain what worked for Trump or to change it.
NPR · by Ron Elving · January 30, 2022
17. Russian Force Posture around Ukraine in BTGS as of January 25, 2022
Useful graphics from the Institute for the Study of War. It might be useful to bookmark this page.
RUSSIAN FORCE POSTURE AROUND UKRAINE IN BTGS AS OF JANUARY 25, 2022
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FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
