Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Because we decline to fight genuine, strategically conceived political warfare, a considerable part of our billions in foreign-aid dollars has been wasted, squandered on useless projects, ... or used to build up industry for the enemy or his friends to inherit."

- James Burnham, Sticks. Stones, & Atoms (1961)

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

- Oscar Wilde

"Make sure you’re not made ‘Emperor,’ avoid that imperial stain. It can happen to you, so keep yourself simple, good, pure, saintly, plain, a friend of justice, god-fearing, gracious, affectionate, and strong for your proper work."

- Marcus Aurelius

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 13 (Putin's War)

2. What Does China Want? Beijing’s ambitions are about to crash into its problems.

3. More U.S. lawmakers visit Taiwan 12 days after Pelosi trip

4. Time to Sanction the Kremlin’s Ministry of Truth

5. Totalitarians Inc.

6. Right to vote being snatched from Solomon Islanders by PRC-backed PM

7. Rushdie attack reveals — again — true nature of Iranian regime

8. FDD | FAQ: Iran’s Demand to Close the UN Nuclear Watchdog’s Investigation

9. Russia's war priority: reorient units to strengthen southern Ukraine, UK says

10. Taiwan’s Patriot missiles to get massive US upgrade

11. Thailand-China ‘Falcon Strike 2022’ air force drill kicks off today

12. U.S. Says Al Qaeda Has Not Regrouped in Afghanistan

13. Taiwan 'matters far more to the world economy' than many people realize, economist explains

14. Putin Can't Fix This: Russia Struggling to Replenish Ukraine Troops

15. US missiles credited as key in Ukraine fight with Russia

16. America Needs Leaders With Fresh Eyes

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 13 (Putin's War)

Maps/graphics: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-13

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 13

Aug 13, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Angela Howard, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

August 13, 8pm ET

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

Ukrainian forces are continuing efforts to disrupt Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) that support Russian forces on the right bank of the Dnipro River. Ukrainian forces struck the bridge on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) dam again on August 13, reportedly rendering the bridge unusable by heavy vehicles.[1] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command had previously reported on August 10 that the Kakhovka HPP dam bridge was unfit for use.[2] The Kakhovka bridge was the only road bridge Russian forces could use following Ukrainian forces’ successful efforts to put the Antonivsky road bridge out of commission. The UK Defense Ministry has claimed that Russian forces now have no bridges usable to bring heavy equipment or supplies over the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast and must rely mainly on the pontoon ferry they have established near the Antonivsky road bridge.[3] ISW cannot confirm at this time whether Russian forces can use the Antonivsky rail bridge to resupply forces on the right bank of the Dnipro River.

Russian forces cannot support mechanized operations at scale without a reliable GLOC. Bringing ammunition, fuel, and heavy equipment sufficient for offensive or even large-scale defensive operations across pontoon ferries or by air is impractical if not impossible. If Ukrainian forces have disrupted all three bridges and can prevent the Russians from restoring any of them to usability for a protracted period then Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnipro will likely lose the ability to defend themselves against even limited Ukrainian counterattacks.

Indicators of degraded Russian supplies resulting from the disruption of Russian GLOCs over the Dnipro River would include: observed fuel and ammunition shortages among Russian forces in western Kherson Oblast; abandoned Russian vehicles; decreased intensity and, finally, cessation of Russian ground assaults and artillery attacks; possibly increased instances of Russian looting; increased reports from Russian soldiers about supply shortfalls; increased numbers of Russian prisoners of war taken by Ukrainian forces; and an observed absence of new heavy machinery transported to western Kherson. Such indicators could take days or weeks to observe depending on how much Russian forces have been able to stockpile supplies on the west bank of the Dnipro and how successful Ukrainian forces are at finding and destroying those stockpiles while keeping the bridges inoperable.

Ukrainian Mykolaiv Oblast Head Vitaly Kim reported that unspecified Russian military command elements left upper Kherson Oblast and relocated to the left bank of the Dnipro River, suggesting that the Russian military leadership is concerned about being trapped on the wrong side of the river.[4] Ukrainian Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs Rostislav Smirnov also stated that Russia has deployed 90% of its air assault forces (presumably 90% of those deployed in Ukraine) to unspecified locations in southern Ukraine to augment Russian defenses or possibly prepare for Russian counteroffensives.[5] It is unclear whether the Russian airborne units Smirnov mentioned are concentrated exclusively in Kherson Oblast or also deployed near Zaporizhia. Elements of the Russian 7th Airborne Division are known to be operating in Kherson Oblast as of at least August 10.[6] The concentration of Russian Airborne Forces in western Kherson Oblast could indicate Russian efforts to use forces to defend against a Ukrainian counteroffensive that they are more likely to be able to exfiltrate by air if they are unable to hold the Ukrainians back or reestablish their GLOCs. Airborne forces are easier to move by aircraft than regular mechanized forces, of course, although the Russians could find it challenging and very risky to try to move forces by air given Ukrainian attacks on airfields in Kherson Oblast and Russian failure to secure air superiority.

Russian forces may be reprioritizing advances in northeastern Donetsk Oblast in order to draw attention from Ukrainian counteroffensive actions in Southern Ukraine. Russian forces had seemingly scaled back offensive actions east of Siversk and conducted sporadic and limited ground attacks while relying heavily on artillery barrages of surrounding settlements since August 6.[7] However, since August 11, Russian forces have increased the number of limited ground attacks in the Siversk area.[8] These attacks, along with continued assaults in the direction of Bakhmut, may constitute an effort to draw Ukrainian materiel and personnel to the Bakhmut-Siversk line in northeastern Donetsk Oblast in order to detract Ukraine’s attention from critical areas in the South, where Ukrainian troops have been conducting effective counterattacks and may be setting conditions to launch a counteroffensive.[9] Russian forces may hope to shift both tactical and rhetorical focus away from the south in order to alleviate pressure on their own operations along the Southern Axis. ISW will continue to monitor the situation around Siversk.

Key Takeaways

Ukrainian forces are continuing efforts to disrupt Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) that support Russian forces on the right bank of the Dnipro River.
Russian forces may be reprioritizing efforts in northeastern Donetsk Oblast in order to draw Ukrainian attention away from the Southern Axis.
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks northwest of Slovyansk, east of Siversk, and south and east of Bakhmut.
Russian forces conducted a limited ground assault north of Kharkiv City.
Russian and Ukrainian authorities accused each other of shelling the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russian authorities are failing to pay Russian reservists and members of volunteer units for service in Ukraine.
Russian-backed occupation authorities are likely dealing with internal challenges that are complicating efforts to administer occupation regimes and institute restoration projects in decimated areas of Donbas.

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

Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian Troops in the Cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City
Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis
Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks northwest of Slovyansk near the Kharkiv-Donetsk Oblast border on August 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to break through Ukrainian defensive lines southwest of Izyum near Nova Dmytrivka (about 32km northwest of Slovyansk) and southeast of Izyum near Dolyna (about 15km northwest of Slovyansk along the E40 highway).[10] Russian forces additionally continued artillery strikes along the Izyum-Slovyansk line and hit Bohorodychne, Dovhenke, Krasnopillya, Dibrovne, Kramatorsk, and Slovyansk.[11]

Russian forces may be reprioritizing efforts to advance on Siversk and conducted several limited ground attacks east of Siversk on August 13. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian troops attempted to advance northward on Siversk along the Mykolaivka-Vyimka line.[12] Russian forces also continued efforts to push westward on Siversk from positions at the Lysychansk Oil Refinery in Verkhnokamyanske (13km east of Siversk) and Ivano-Darivka (8km southeast of Siversk).[13] Russian military correspondent Evgeniy Lisitsyn posted footage, reportedly of a Russian military convoy moving towards Siversk, which may correspond with the seeming intensification of ground attacks in this area over the last few days.[14]

Russian forces continued ground attacks east and south of Bakhmut on August 13. Russian forces fought northeast of Bakhmut near Yakovlivka (13km northeast of Bakhmut) and are reportedly trying to advance on the eastern outskirts of Soledar (10km northeast of Bakhmut) on the territory of the Knauf Gips Donbas gypsum plant.[15] Several Russian sources claimed that Russian and proxy forces have gained a foothold on the northeastern outskirts of Bakhmut itself and are fighting along Patrice Lulumba Street.[16] ISW cannot independently confirm whether Russian forces are conducting active attacks in Bakhmut, but will continue to monitor the situation. Russian forces additionally continued ground attacks south of Bakhmut and attempted to advance from Vidrodzhennya (15km southeast of Bakhmut), the Vuhlehirske Power Plant (18km southeast of Bakhmut), and Zaitseve (5km south of Bakhmut).[17]

Russian forces conducted several ground attacks north and southwest of Donetsk City on August 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces attempted to advance through Ukrainian defensive lines in Oleksandropil and Krasnohorivka- 30km and 23km north of Donetsk City, respectively.[18] Russian forces additionally attempted to advance on Avdiivka from Spartak, about 4km south of Avdiivka.[19] The Ukrainian General Staff notes of Russian attacks north and south of Avdiivka are consistent with a statement made by a Russian source that Russian troops are attempting to focus on encircling Avdiivka from the south and north in order to capitalize on recent advances around Pisky and compensate for a generally stymied offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.[20] Russian forces additionally attempted to improve their tactical positions near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border and conducted ground attacks southwest of Donetsk City near Pavlivka and Novosilka.[21]

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

Russian forces conducted limited ground assaults along the Kharkiv City axis on August 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces retreated following UAV reconnaissance and unsuccessful attempts to improve their tactical positions near Pytomnyk (8km from the northern outskirts Kharkiv City).[22] Russian sources claimed that soldiers of the Russian 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade entered Udy (32km from the northern outskirts of Kharkiv City) on August 13.[23] Ukrainian sources did not support this claim, and ISW cannot independently confirm or deny those reports. Russian forces continued to conduct limited airstrikes northeast and southeast of Kharkiv City as well as to target Kharkiv City and surrounding settlements with S-300 missiles, rockets, and shelling.[24]

Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)

Russian and Ukrainian authorities again accused each other of shelling the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast on August 13. Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Russian forces shelled the Zaporizhzhia NPP from positions in Vodyane on the southwestern outskirts of Enerhodar on the Dnipro River, damaging the first block of the pumping station of the Thermal and Underground Communicatons Workshop.[25] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Ambassador to Russia Rodion Miroshnik claimed that Ukrainian forces fired nine rounds of unspecified munitions at the NPP from unspecified positions.[26] Geolocated footage posted to Twitter and Telegram on August 13 shows a Russian Pion 203mm artillery system operating roughly 11km from the Zaporizhzhia NPP.[27]

Russian forces did not make any confirmed territorial gains on the Southern Axis on August 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground assaults near Suhky Stavok, Kherson Oblast, confirming a Ukrainian bridgehead over the Inhulets River.[28] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces attempted three failed ground assaults with tank support towards Andriivka, Shyroke, and Oleksandrivka.[29] Russian forces struck Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast with 30 Grad MLRS rockets.[30] Ukrainian sources reported loud explosions in Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast and Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, possibly from partisan activity.[31] Russian forces continued shelling along the line of contact.[32]

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

Russian reservists and members of “volunteer” units are reporting that Russian authorities have failed to deliver on promised benefits and pay. Russian authorities have reportedly placed recruits with no experience into positions as commanding officers at the company level or higher, failed to provide sufficient food, ammunition, or cigarettes to soldiers, failed to provide for the funeral arrangements of volunteer soldiers killed in action, and dumped soldiers in remote locations in Russia without transport home once their contracts expired. Several volunteers who have already returned home from Ukraine stated that they felt “deceived” and treated worse than regular contract soldiers.[33] Meanwhile, Russian officials have sent contract soldiers who refuse to fight following their deployment to Ukraine to special detention camps in Popasna and Bryanki, Luhansk Oblast, among other locations.[34] Russian officials continue to struggle to replace large personnel losses, prevent desertion, and to fund and logistically support the enticements necessary to do so.

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

Russian-backed occupation administrations are likely experiencing internal challenges that are preventing the coherent implementation of occupation regimes and impairing the ability of occupation officials to conduct reconstruction projects in decimated areas of Donbas. Workers from Russian water services company Mosvodokanal posted a video appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin wherein they claimed that they never received payment for their work in Schastia, Luhansk Oblast.[35] Mariupol Mayor Advisor Petro Andryushchenko similarly noted that Russian authorities brought workers from St. Petersburg to Mariupol and neglected to pay them. [36]

The prevalence of imported Russian labor in occupied regions of Ukraine suggests that Russian occupation authorities are struggling to persuade or forcibly coerce meaningful numbers of Ukrainian residents to work on reconstruction projects and may fit into the wider Kremlin campaign of population displacement by importing Russian citizens to Ukraine with promises of financial compensation. However, consistent reports that such Russian citizens have not been paid for their work in occupied areas of Ukraine indicate that occupation administrations lack coherent plans and financial backing from the Kremlin to carry out occupation agendas beyond employing Russians to work on service projects. Russian-backed occupation administrations are likely facing internal fragmentation over occupation agendas, as ISW has previously noted, which are likely exacerbated by a lack of direction and support from the Kremlin.[37]

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

[6] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/ne-meniaiut-nas-nykh-ra-p-zdobole-to-vsyo.html; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ-3UClONZk&ab_channel=ГоловнеуправліннярозвідкиМОУкраїни

[25] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/okupanty-obstriliuiut-zaes-z-sela-vodiane-ta-hotuiut-provokatsii-pid-ukrainskym-praporom.html

[34] https://novayagazeta dot eu/articles/2022/08/12/voiska-vyshli-iz-stroia

[35] https://twitter.com/mediazzzona/status/1558384643182821376 ; https://zona dot media/news/2022/08/13/mosvodokanal

understandingwar.org

2. What Does China Want? Beijing’s ambitions are about to crash into its problems.

I am going to order this book As if my "too read" pile needs to get any taller).

Excerpts:

This is the outrageously ambitious China that the United States, and the world, are now familiar with. And as China amasses the means of global power—from influence in international organizations to the world’s largest navy by number of ships—it often seems as though it has embarked on an unstoppable ascent. “The East is rising, and the West is declining,” Xi likes to say. But it’s sometimes hard not to wonder if Xi and his lieutenants are as buoyant as they seem. Careful analysts of Chinese politics detect subtle anxiety in government reports and statements. Themes of bounding optimism are mixed with “words of caution and deep insecurity,” one such analyst wrote last year.

Xi acknowledges, even as he touts Beijing’s power, that there are many ways in which “the West is strong, and the East is weak.” He warned, even in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, of “looming risks and tests.” He declared that China must make itself “invincible” to ensure that “nobody can beat us or choke us to death.” And he advised his cadres to prepare for brutal struggle ahead.

Xi’s not wrong to worry. On closer inspection, it turns out that there is another China, one beset by multiplying problems at home and multiplying enmities abroad. Economic growth has slowed to a crawl. Productivity has collapsed, while debt has ballooned. Xi’s government is careening into ruinous totalitarianism. Water, food, and energy resources are becoming scarce. The country faces the worst peacetime demographic collapse in history. Not least, China is losing access to the welcoming world that enabled its ascent.

Whatever its propagandists may say, this China will struggle mightily to surpass the United States over the long term. For that very reason, it may actually be more dangerous in the near future. Peaking powers usually become aggressive when their fortunes fade and their enemies encircle them. China is blazing a trail that often ends in tragedy: a rapid rise followed by the threat of a hard fall.

What Does China Want?

Beijing’s ambitions are about to crash into its problems.

By Hal Brands, the Henry A. Kissinger distinguished professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Michael Beckley, an associate professor of political science at Tufts University.

Foreign Policy · by Hal Brands, Michael Beckley · August 13, 2022

The greatest geopolitical catastrophes occur at the intersection of ambition and desperation. Xi Jinping’s China will soon be driven by plenty of both.

In our new book, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, which this article is adapted from, we explain the cause of that desperation: a slowing economy and a creeping sense of encirclement and decline. But first, we need to lay out the grandness of those ambitions—what Xi’s China is trying to achieve. It is difficult to grasp just how hard China’s fall will be without understanding the heights to which Beijing aims to climb. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is undertaking an epic project to rewrite the rules of global order in Asia and far beyond. China doesn’t want to be a superpower—one pole of many in the international system. It wants to be the superpower—the geopolitical sun around which the system revolves.

That ambition is now hard to miss in what CCP officials are saying. It is even more obvious in what the CCP is doing, from its world-beating naval shipbuilding program to its effort to remake the strategic geography of Eurasia. China’s grand strategy involves pursuing objectives close to home, such as cementing the CCP’s hold on power and reclaiming bits of China that were ripped away when the country was weak. It also includes more expansive goals, such as carving out a regional sphere of influence and contesting American power on a global scale. The CCP’s agenda blends a sense of China’s historical destiny with an emphasis on modern, 21st-century tools of power. It is rooted in the timeless geopolitical ambitions that motivate so many great powers and the insatiable insecurities that plague China’s authoritarian regime.

Book cover of Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China

This article is adapted from Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China by Hal Brands and Michael Beckley (W.W. Norton, 304 pp., $30, Aug. 16, 2022).

The greatest geopolitical catastrophes occur at the intersection of ambition and desperation. Xi Jinping’s China will soon be driven by plenty of both.

Although China’s drive to reorder the world predates Xi, it has accelerated dramatically in recent years. Today, CCP officials outwardly evince every confidence that a rising China is eclipsing a declining United States. Inwardly, however, Beijing’s leaders are already worrying that the Chinese dream may remain just that.

China’s grand strategy is typically found more in a rough consensus among elites than in detailed, step-by-step plans for the future. Yet there is ample evidence that the CCP is pursuing a determined, multilayered grand strategy with four key objectives.

First, the CCP has the eternal ambition of every autocratic regime: to maintain its iron grip on power. Since 1949, the Chinese regime has always seen itself as being locked in struggle with domestic and foreign enemies. Its leaders are haunted by the Soviet collapse, which brought down another great socialist state. They know that the collapse of the CCP-led system would be a disaster—and probably fatal—for them personally. In Chinese politics, paranoia is thus a virtue rather than a vice. As Wen Jiabao, then China’s head of government, once said, “To think about why danger looms will ensure one’s security. To think about why chaos occurs will ensure one’s peace. To think about why a country falls will ensure one’s survival.” The CCP has historically gone to enormous lengths—plunging the country into madness during the Cultural Revolution, killing hundreds or perhaps thousands of its own citizens amid the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989—to protect its power. And the goal of perpetuating the CCP’s authority is at the core of every key decision. Xi’s fundamental purpose, as a reporter summarized one official’s explanation in 2017, was “ensuring the leading role of the Communist Party in all aspects of life.”

Second, the CCP wants to make China whole again by regaining territories lost in earlier eras of internal upheaval and foreign aggression. Xi’s map of China includes a Hong Kong that is completely reincorporated into the CCP-led state (a process that is well underway) and a Taiwan that has been brought back into Beijing’s grasp. Elsewhere along its periphery, the CCP has outstanding border disputes with countries from India to Japan. Beijing also claims some 90 percent of the South China Sea—one of the world’s most commercially vital waterways—as its sovereign possession. Chinese officials say that there is no room for compromise on these issues. “We cannot lose even one inch of the territory left behind by our ancestors,” Xi told then-U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis in 2018.

The CCP’s third aim is to create a regional sphere of influence in which China is supreme because outside actors, especially the United States, are pushed to the margins. Beijing probably doesn’t envision the sort of outright physical dominance that the Soviet Union exercised in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The CCP envisions, rather, using a mix of attraction and coercion to ensure that the economies of maritime Asia are oriented toward Beijing rather than Washington, that smaller powers are properly deferential to the CCP, and that the United States no longer has the alliances, regional military presence, or influence necessary to create problems for China in its own front yard. As Xi said in 2014, “It is for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia, solve the problems of Asia, and uphold the security of Asia.” Other officials have been more explicit. In 2010, then-Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told 10 Southeast Asian countries that “China is a big country and you are small countries, and that is a fact.”

The final layer of Beijing’s strategy focuses on achieving global power and, eventually, global primacy. State media and party officials have explained that an increasingly powerful China cannot comfortably reside in a system led by the United States. Xi has talked of creating a global “community of common destiny” that would involve “all under heaven being one family”—and presumably obeying the fatherly guidance of the CCP.

Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, makes no bones about who will shape global affairs once China’s national rejuvenation is achieved: “By 2050, two centuries after the Opium Wars, which plunged the ‘Middle Kingdom’ into a period of hurt and shame, China is set to regain its might and re-ascend to the top of the world.” The struggle to “become the world’s No.1 … is a ‘people’s war,’” the nationalist newspaper Global Times declares. “It will be as vast and mighty as a big river. It will be an unstoppable tide.”

The four layers of Chinese grand strategy all go together. The CCP argues that only under its leadership can China achieve its long-awaited “national rejuvenation.” The quest for regional and global power, in turn, should reinforce the CCP’s authority at home. This quest can provide legitimacy by stoking Chinese nationalism at a time when the regime’s original ideology—socialism—has been abandoned. It can deliver prestige, domestic as well as global, for China’s rulers. And it can give China the ability, which it is using aggressively, to silence its international critics and create global rules that protect an autocratic state.

Chinese grand strategy thus encompasses far more than the narrowly conceived defense of the country and its ruling regime. Those goals are tightly linked to the pursuit of an epochal change in the regional and global rules of the road—the sort that occurs when one hegemon falls and another arises. “Empires have no interest in operating within an international system,” writes former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in his book Diplomacy, “they aspire to be the international system.” That’s the ultimate ambition of Chinese statecraft today.

Americans might be surprised to find that Chinese leaders view the United States as a dangerous, hostile nation determined to hold other countries down. Yet even as China has, in many ways, flourished in the Pax Americana, its leaders have worried that Washington threatens nearly everything the CCP desires.

It cannot escape the attention of Chinese policymakers that the United States has a distinguished record of destroying its most serious global challengers—Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union—as well as a host of lesser rivals. Nor can Chinese officials forget that the United States is poised to frustrate all of the CCP’s designs.

From Mao Zedong to Xi, Chinese leaders have seen the United States as a menace to the CCP’s political primacy. When the United States and China were avowed enemies during the early Cold War, Washington sponsored Tibetan rebels who fought against that regime, while also supporting Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-shek and his claim to be China’s rightful ruler. In recent decades, American leaders have insisted they wish China well. But they have also proclaimed, as then-U.S. President Bill Clinton said in 1997, that the country’s authoritarian political model puts it “on the wrong side of history.”

After the Tiananmen Square massacre, and in response to CCP atrocities against the Uyghur population more recently, the United States even led coalitions of countries that slapped economic sanctions on China. The CCP sees through the subterfuge, one Chinese politician explained: “The U.S. has never given up its intent to overthrow the socialist system.”

Even when the United States has no conscious design to undermine dictators, it cannot help but threaten them. America’s very existence serves as a beacon of hope to dissidents. CCP members surely noticed that protesters in Hong Kong prominently displayed U.S. flags when resisting the imposition of authoritarian rule in 2019-2020, just as the protesters in Tiananmen Square erected a giant sculpture resembling the Statue of Liberty 30 years earlier. They howl in anger when U.S. news organizations publish detailed exposes of official crimes and corruption in Beijing. Things that Americans view as innocuous—for instance, the operation of nongovernmental organizations focused on human rights and government accountability—look like subversive menaces to a CCP that recognizes no limits on its own power. The United States simply cannot cease threatening the CCP unless America somehow ceases to be what it is: a liberal democracy concerned with the fate of freedom in the world.

The United States stands athwart China’s road to greatness in other ways. The CCP cannot make China whole again without reclaiming Taiwan, but the United States shields that island—through arms sales, diplomatic support, and the implicit promise of military aid—from Beijing’s pressure. Similarly, the United States obstructs China’s drive for dominance in the South China Sea with its Navy and its calls for freedom of navigation; its military alliances and security partnerships in Asia give smaller countries the temerity to resist Chinese power. Washington maintains a globally capable military and bristles when China tries to develop something similar; it uses its heft to shape international views of how countries should behave and what sort of political systems are most legitimate. Beijing must “break the Western moral advantage,” noted one Chinese analyst, that comes from determining which governments are “good and bad.”

To be clear, China doesn’t reject all aspects of the U.S.-led order: The CCP has brilliantly exploited access to an open global economy, and its military forces have participated in United Nations peacekeeping missions. But Chinese leaders nonetheless appreciate, better than many Americans do, that there is something fundamentally antagonistic about the relationship: The CCP cannot succeed in creating arrangements that reflect its own interests and values without weakening, fragmenting, and ultimately replacing the order that currently exists.

Even at moments when Beijing and Washington have seemed friendly, then, Chinese leaders have harbored extremely jaded views of U.S. power. Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, whose economic reforms relied on U.S. markets and technology, argued that Washington was waging a “world war without gunsmoke” to overthrow the CCP. Such perceptions, in turn, lead to a belief that realizing China’s dreams will ultimately require a test of strength with the United States. The CCP faces a “new long march” in its relations with the United States, Xi said in 2019—a dangerous struggle for supremacy and survival.

Xi is right that the countries are on a collision course. The CCP’s grand strategy imperils America’s long-declared interest in preventing any hostile power from controlling East Asia and the western Pacific. That strategy is activating America’s equally long-standing fear that a rival that gains preeminence on the Eurasian landmass could challenge the United States worldwide. China’s drive for technological supremacy is no less ominous: A world in which techno-autocracy is ascendant may not be one in which democracy is secure.

The basic reason why U.S.-China relations are so tense today is that the CCP is trying to shape the next century in ways that threaten to overturn what the United States has achieved over the last century. This raises a deeper question: Why is Beijing so set on fundamentally revising the system, even if doing so leads to dangerous rivalry with the United States?

The answer involves geopolitics, history, and ideology. In some ways, China’s bid for primacy is a new chapter in the world’s oldest story. Rising states typically seek greater influence, respect, and power.

Yet China isn’t simply moved by the cold logic of geopolitics. It is also reaching for glory as a matter of historical destiny. China’s leaders view themselves as heirs to a Chinese state that was a superpower for most of recorded history. A series of Chinese empires claimed “all under heaven” as their mandate; they commanded deference from smaller states along the imperial periphery. “This history,” writes veteran Asia-watcher Michael Schuman in his book Superpower Interrupted, “has fostered in the Chinese a firm belief in what role they and their country should play in the world today, and for that matter, into the distant forever.”

In Beijing’s view, a U.S.-led world in which China is a second-tier power is not the historical norm but a profoundly galling exception. That order was created after World War II, at the tail end of a “century of humiliation” in which a divided China was plundered by rapacious foreign powers. The CCP’s mandate is to set history aright by returning China to the top of the heap. “Since the Opium War of the 1840s the Chinese people have long cherished a dream of realizing a great national rejuvenation,” Xi said in 2014. Under CCP rule, China “will never again tolerate being bullied by any nation.” When Xi invokes the idea of a CCP-led “community of common destiny,” he is channeling this deeply rooted belief that Chinese primacy is the natural order of things.

Not least, there is the ideological imperative. A strong, proud China might still pose problems for Washington even if it were a liberal democracy. But the fact that the country is ruled by autocrats committed to the ruthless suppression of liberalism domestically turbocharges Chinese revisionism globally. A deeply authoritarian state can never feel secure in its own rule, because it does not enjoy the freely given consent of the governed; it can never feel safe in a world dominated by democracies, because liberal international norms challenge illiberal domestic practices. “Autocracies,” writes the China scholar Minxin Pei, “simply are incapable of practicing liberalism abroad while maintaining authoritarianism at home.”

This is no exaggeration. The infamous Document No. 9, a political directive issued at the outset of Xi’s presidency, shows that the CCP perceives a liberal world order as inherently threatening: “Western anti-China forces and internal ‘dissidents’ are still actively trying to infiltrate China’s ideological sphere.” The perpetual, piercing insecurity of an autocratic regime has powerful implications for Chinese statecraft. Chinese leaders feel a compulsion to make international norms and institutions friendlier to illiberal rule. They seek to push dangerous liberal influences away from Chinese borders. They must wrest international authority from a democratic superpower with a long history of bringing autocracies to ruin. And as an authoritarian China becomes powerful, it inevitably looks to strengthen the forces of illiberalism overseas as a way of enhancing its influence and affirming its own model.

There is nothing extraordinary about this. When the United States became a world power, it forged a world that was hospitable to democratic values. When the Soviet Union controlled Eastern Europe, it imposed communist regimes. In great-power rivalries since antiquity, ideological cleavages have exacerbated geopolitical cleavages: Differences in how governments see their citizens produce profound differences in how those governments see the world.

China is thus a typical revisionist state, an empire trying to reclaim its cherished place in the world, and an autocracy whose assertiveness flows from its unending insecurity. That’s a powerful—and volatile—combination.

Foreign Policy · by Hal Brands, Michael Beckley · August 13, 2022

3. More U.S. lawmakers visit Taiwan 12 days after Pelosi trip

Continued VIP visits are going to wear on the Taiwanese government officials and the quasi US Embassy (American Institute in Taiwan) personnel who have to arrange and escort these visits. (slight attempt at humor though for the coordinating officials they are not laughing)

More U.S. lawmakers visit Taiwan 12 days after Pelosi trip

washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A delegation of American lawmakers arrived in Taiwan on Sunday, just 12 days after a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that prompted an angry China to launch days of threatening military drills around the self-governing island that Beijing says must come under its control.

The five-member delegation, led by Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, will meet President Tsai Ing-wen and other officials to discuss U.S.-Taiwan relations, regional security, trade, investment and other issues, the American Institute in Taiwan said. The institute represents the U.S. government, which does not have official ties with Taiwan.

China responded to Pelosi’s Aug. 2 visit by sending missiles, warships and warplanes into the seas and skies around Taiwan for several days afterward. The Chinese government objects to Taiwan having any official contact with foreign governments, particularly with a high-ranking congressional leader like Pelosi.

A Taiwanese broadcaster showed video of a U.S. government plane landing about 7 p.m. Sunday at Songshan Airport in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital. Four members of the delegation were on the plane. Markey arrived on a separate flight at Taoyuan International Airport, which also serves Taipei. The group will be in Taiwan until Monday as part of trip to Asia, the American Institute said.

The other members of the delegation are Republican Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a delegate from American Samoa, and Democratic House members John Garamendi and Alan Lowenthal from California and Don Beyer from Virginia.

Chinese warplanes have continued crossing the midpoint of the Taiwan Strait on a daily basis even after the conclusion of the military exercises last Wednesday, with at least 10 doing so on Sunday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said.

The 10 fighter jets were among 22 Chinese military aircraft and six naval ships detected in the area around Taiwan by 5 p.m. on Sunday, the ministry said on its Twitter account.

A senior White House official on Asia policy said late last week that China had used Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to launch an intensified pressure campaign against Taiwan, jeopardizing peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region.

“China has overreacted, and its actions continue to be provocative, destabilizing, and unprecedented,” Kurt Campbell, a deputy assistant to President Joe Biden, said on a call with reporters.

“It has sought to disregard the centerline between the P.R.C. and Taiwan, which has been respected by both sides for more than 60 years as a stabilizing feature,” he said, using the acronym for the country’s full name, the People’s Republic of China.

China accuses the U.S. of encouraging independence forces in Taiwan through its sale of military equipment to the island and engaging with its officials. The U.S. says it does not support independence for Taiwan but that its differences with China should be resolved by peaceful means.

China’s ruling Communist Party has long said that it favors Taiwan joining China peacefully but that it will not rule out force if necessary. The two split in 1949 during a civil war in which the Communists took control of China and the losing Nationalists retreated to the island of Taiwan.

Campbell, speaking on Friday, said the U.S. would send warships and planes through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks and is developing a roadmap for trade talks with Taiwan that he said the U.S. intends to announce in the coming days.

___

Moritsugu reported from Beijing.

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washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

4. Time to Sanction the Kremlin’s Ministry of Truth

Conclusion:

Russia, in short, can be denied one of its most powerful weapons: the power to lie about its crimes and manipulate global audiences under the protection of free speech. All the U.S. needs is the will to act.

Time to Sanction the Kremlin’s Ministry of Truth

When media platforms obey their paymasters’ orders to become complicit in their crimes, they are no longer media.

Emanuele Ottolenghi and Ivana Stradner

Aug 12

thedispatch.com · by Emanuele Ottolenghi

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sputnik TV. (Photo by Sergei Savostyanov/SPUTNIK/AFP/Getty Images.)

Last March, the U.S. Department of Treasury announced sanctions against Russian intelligence-directed media outlets. While blocking outlets with clear ties to intelligence services was a step in the right direction, these sanctions did not address Russia’s more globally popular streaming services: Russia’s state-owned channels, RT and Sputnik. While most social media platforms and TV providers have either demonetized or blocked RT’s content, it is still accessible through a simple google search. Without government sanctions, RT will continue to find loopholes to circumvent censorship. Therefore, the Biden administration has the authority to and must target these disinformation sources with sanctions.

The basis for U.S. sanctions: Not speech.

Americans are understandably proud of the unfettered access to information that the Constitution’s First Amendment rights protect. But U.S. sanctions against Russia’s propaganda machine are not the kind of censorship that First Amendment jurisprudence was developed to prevent. Neither RT nor Sputnik News would be shut down—they operate from Russia—nor are their journalists in danger of being silenced, detained, or prosecuted—other than by their own employer, if they do not toe the party line. Indeed, none of them face the kind of harassment, arrest, or threats to their lives that Russian dissidents and journalists critical of the Putin regime have routinely suffered for years.

The basis for sanctioning RT and Sputnik is that, rather than providing independent news coverage and analysis, these stations have been designed by the Kremlin to control the information space and discredit opposing views by fabricating pretexts that justify Russia’s aggression and by systematically obfuscating and denying the truth. Indeed, RT’s editor-in-chief once said that “The weapon of information … is used in critical moments and war is always a critical moment. … [Information] is a weapon like any other.” Russia’s state-owned media are integral to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its global efforts to destabilize democracies through disinformation campaigns.

The Kremlin’s current manipulation ecosystem is determined to cover up the worst war crimes seen in Europe since Bosnia and, arguably, World War II, including mass executions and mass deportations; state-sanctioned looting and the systematic rape of civilians; widespread, documented torture and murder of prisoners of war; the wanton destruction of cultural heritage; and the indiscriminate targeting of civilian infrastructure. Kremlin disinformation also aims to orchestrate an echo chamber of Western-based influencers—journalists, NGOs, and politicians—who can amplify the Kremlin’s party line among their audiences, discredit opponents of Russia’s actions, and influence their domestic politics in Russia’s favor.

Yet apart from the March sanctions toward minor Russian outlets, the United States has taken no further action to fight back Russian propaganda, effectively enabling its spread. Top U.S. TV streaming providers like DirecTV, Sling TV, Dish, and YouTube have banned RT and Sputnik’s streaming services. However, RT’s live news is still available on its website through a Google search. RT’s and Sputnik’s content is also still accessible through its official accounts and those of its reporters on U.S.-based social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

There is already a solid track record of the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioning TV channels backed by terrorist organizations and rogue regimes that seek to not just to spread their propaganda but also incite violence and recruit followers for violent activities. These include Hezbollah’s Al Manar and Al Nour TV, Hamas’ Al Aqsa Television, Iran’s state television, IRIB, Venezuela’s Globovision Tele and its Miami namesake subsidiary, Lebanon’s Lana TV, the Occupied Crimea-based News Front, and the Bosnian Serb channel Alternativna Televizija. In all these cases, the sanctioned channels directly engaged in human rights violations, corruption, terrorist recruitment, or intelligence gathering (with intelligence agents posing as correspondents). Furthermore, in all above cases, the news they broadcasted was not free speech; it was the rhetoric of their paymasters’ party line.

Therefore, in the Treasury’s decisions to censor these outlets, neither their political slant nor their impact on U.S. audiences was relevant. Rather, the rationale for sanctions was that these platforms engaged in activities that had nothing to do with press freedom—incitement of and material support for acts of terrorism in Al Manar’s, Al Nour’s, and Al Aqsa’s cases; gross human rights violations in the case of Iran’s state television; violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the case of Globovision; material support for a criminal and corrupt regime, in Lana TV’s case; and propaganda directly controlled by its corrupt owner, in Alternativna Televizija’s case.

These precedents make it abundantly clear that our First Amendment pieties are not absolute: When media platforms obey their paymasters’ orders to become complicit in their crimes, they are no longer media. They are accessories to illicit conduct—in the case of Russian state media, accessories to war crimes, mass atrocities, and, potentially, genocide.

In addition to the Treasury’s strong precedent of sanctioning violent and corrupt news outlets, the White House has clear authority to combat Russian state media like RT and Sputnik News. One such legal basis is Executive Order 14024, which President Biden signed on April 15, 2021. Executive Order 14024’s aim is to “block property” with respect to “specified harmful foreign activities of the Government of the Russian Federation.” These include “extraterritorial activities targeting dissidents or journalists,” efforts “to undermine security in countries and regions important to United States national security,” and the violation of “well-established principles of international law, including respect for the territorial integrity of states.”

As Marshall Billingslea—the former assistant secretary for terrorist financing in the Treasury Department and current senior fellow at the Hudson Institute—told us, “Russian state media are instrumentalities of the Russian state.” Russian media uphold a totalitarian dictatorship that stifles freedom of speech, prosecutes and persecutes dissidents, and is now engaged in an unprovoked war of conquest and annihilation against a peaceful neighbor.

Thus, insofar as RT and Sputnik are accessories to the kind of harmful activities that President Biden specifically named in E.O. 14024, they are legitimate targets for U.S. sanctions.

Russia’s Ministry of Truth.

There is ample evidence that Russia’s state-owned media outlets are Kremlin policy tools, not news platforms. They enable Russia’s denial of its own well-documented war crimes to gather credibility in a cross-section of foreign media.

A key component of the Kremlin’s disinformation strategy is targeting global audiences. In addition to broadcasting in Russian, state media channels such as RT and Sputnik produce content in more than 30 languages such as Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, and Spanish. Through these networks, the Kremlin weaponizes news to deny facts and control or distort the global information space. Recently, Russia has spread disinformation claiming Western sanctions are to blame for the global grain shortage caused by the war in Ukraine; Russia has targeted countries in Africa and the Middle East, where the grain shortages have had the worst impact. In an interview with RT Arabic, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed the West was hurting these regions to get them to partake in “anti-Russia” sanctions. By eroding the integrity of open debate, the Kremlin can amplify a self-serving narrative of victimhood, engage in whataboutism on a global scale, fabricate falsehoods to discredit the Kremlin’s adversaries, and generally lie about anything antithetical to Russia’s goals.

Why should we care about Russia’s propaganda machine? While the West views information as a space to protect freedoms, Russia sees it as a space to control narratives and silence opposition. As Russian Minister of Defense, Sergey Shoigu, declared in 2021, “information has become a weapon.” Weaponizing state-controlled media is integral to Russia’s new 2021 National Security Strategy (NSS), which devotes an entire section to information security.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union used psychological manipulation as part of a political warfare toolkit referred to as “active measures.” The Kremlin has adapted Soviet era “active measures” to the modern world by making use of new technologies and social media platforms. Russia’s NSS does not acknowledge the use of information operations offensively. However, a close read of the Russian Ministry of Defense definition of information warfare refers to the offensive purpose of information operations. It defines information war as the confrontation “between two or more States in the information space with the goal of inflicting damage to information systems, processes, and resources, as well as to critically important structures; undermining political, economic, and social systems; carrying out mass psychological campaigns … in order to destabilize society and the government.”

Despite Shoigu recently blaming the West for establishing propaganda centers in Eastern Europe, Russia’s new NSS emphasizes expanding cooperation with foreign powers on information security. Indeed, in May, Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Oleg Khramov announced that Russia plans to conclude agreements on ensuring information security with Azerbaijan, Serbia, and Tajikistan.

Outwardly, Russian state media appears legitimate, with newscasts, talk shows, sophisticated productions, reporters, and correspondents. However, as Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said, outlets like RT and Sputnik “are not independent media, they are assets, they are weapons, in the Kremlin’s manipulation ecosystem.” Even President Putin confirmed that, although he envisioned RT as a channel that should “provide an unbiased coverage of the events,” “the channel is funded by the government, so it cannot help but reflect the Russian government’s official position on the events in our country and in the rest of the world, one way or another.”

The Kremlin’s Ministry of Truth is succeeding.

Wikipedia entries cite hundreds of Russian state media as authoritative sources, guaranteeing millions of daily views for stories that inevitably spin the Kremlin way. Russian disinformation dominates Google News results for important Ukraine-related topics. Kremlin-concocted conspiracy theories range from claims that nonexistent U.S.-sponsored bioweapons labs in Ukraine are responsible for the monkeypox outbreak to claims that the U.S. plans to use drones in Ukraine that will spray poison on Russian troops. These stories have spread rapidly through Russian media outlets such as RT and Sputnik and reached millions of Americans through media platforms such as Fox News, poisoning our public discourse.

Moscow’s propaganda has been similarly successful in achieving amplification in the West through infiltrating conspiracy-prone groups, such as anti-vaccine groups and QAnon circles. Just two weeks ago, on July 29, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Aleksandr Viktorvich Ionov, a Russian operative working with the FSB, for acts including paying U.S. political groups to protest the domestic media’s censorship of Russian propaganda supporting the war in Ukraine.

RT and Sputnik do not only engage in disinformation but also in cyber operations. For example, in 2020, Sputnik’s Spanish-language website hosted malware files linked to stories about the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which were posted on Twitter.

There is also considerable evidence that Russian state media companies RT and Sputnik have significant relationships with Julian Assange and Wikileaks. For example, the U.S. intelligence community assessed that Russia’s military intelligence organization relayed leaked DNC documents to Wikileaks in 2016. U.S. intelligence also confirmed that RT’s leaders visited Assange in Ecuador’s embassy in 2013, one year after RT announced that it would broadcast a talk show hosted by Assange.

This is relevant because Russia’s military considers both “cybersecurity” and “information operations” under the umbrella of “information security.”

In short, Russian state-owned media are nothing but an echo-chamber for their employer: the Kremlin.

The U.S. should follow its allies.

RT and Sputnik have already been blocked in Canada, Great Britain, and across the European Union. After ordering the removal of Russian state-owned media from search results, the EU also imposed sanctions on RT and Sputnik in March. In May, the EU took more steps in defending European digital space and banned additional Kremlin-backed media platforms, such as RTR Planeta, Russia 24 and TV Centre. While Russia recently appealed these sanctions, the EU has remained steadfast.

The U.S. should take Russia’s information assault as seriously as its Western allies. Were the U.S. to pass sanctions, the consequences would be significant, both at home and abroad. RT and Sputnik News would continue to broadcast from their Moscow studios. However, U.S.-based social media companies could block their accounts, severely limiting global access to their content. And U.S. secondary sanctions—which extend the impact of U.S. sanctions beyond the U.S. jurisdiction—would discourage the financial sector from transacting payments linked to the two networks, including salaries for journalists, running costs for newsrooms, stringers, equipment rental and the like. While Russia’s foreign language outlets would remain available elsewhere outside of Western countries, U.S. sanctions would severely degrade the distribution channels available to Russia.

Russia, in short, can be denied one of its most powerful weapons: the power to lie about its crimes and manipulate global audiences under the protection of free speech. All the U.S. needs is the will to act.

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research foundation based in Washington D.C. Follow him on Twitter @eottolenghi. Ivana Stradner is an advisor to FDD’s Barish Center for Media Integrity where her research focuses on Russia’s information warfare. She tweets at @ivanastradner.

thedispatch.com · by Emanuele Ottolenghi

5. Totalitarians Inc.

Excerpts:

Why? The conventional wisdom dictates that for all the current cooperation between Iran and Russia, past enmity and divergent goals continue to undermine their relationship. According to this view, shared interests persist, but so do divergent ones. All is shrouded in the fog of historical rivalry and mistrust.

A sure sign that this reassuring view might be off the mark is what regime apologist Seyed Hossein Mousavian—the former Iranian ambassador to Germany who bizarrely distributes his pro-regime propaganda from an academic post at Princeton University—wrote in February to downplay the depth of Iran’s cooperation with Russia. Relations are good, he stated, but “far from truly strategic.” Mousavian has a history of running interference on Iran’s behalf, since his days in Berlin in the 1990s, when Iran was on trial for the murder of Kurdish activists in a local restaurant. When a man like Mousavian takes to the pages of The National Interest to reassure Americans that the Moscow-Tehran axis is not a thing, it’s probably a thing.

...

Today, Russia has moved beyond cruel realpolitik and propagates the view that its new manifest destiny is to wipe an entire people off the map of Europe while stemming the tide of moral decay it attributes to the West. Depicting the West as irredeemably decadent and depraved is not unprecedented—Russia has been officially bemoaning our depravity since the 19th century. What is new is that this discourse, amplified by Russia’s propaganda supporting its rape of Ukraine, has become so vicious that it echoes Iran’s bloodcurdling dehumanization of Israel and its righteous contempt for the West.

Russia and Iran are revisionist powers bent on reestablishing their hegemonic rule. They have found enough common ground to align where it matters most: undermining U.S. influence and values. Russia is not just engaged in a war of aggression against its neighbor; it wants to upset the global balance of power by building a league of authoritarian states that includes Iran, China, and Venezuela—a strategy that is clearly reminiscent of the Cold War.

The past is not a foreign country, to borrow the title of a landmark essay by the historian Anita Shapira. It carries weight. Ancient rivalries can be overcome by new realities. Moscow and Tehran are drawing closer. Pretending otherwise is to flirt with disaster.

Totalitarians Inc.

Why is Joe Biden alternately ignoring and funding the ever-closer alliance between Iran and Putin?

BY

EMANUELE OTTOLENGHI

Tablet · by Emanuele Ottolenghi · August 12, 2022

Are Russia and Iran forging a strategic alliance?

Vladimir Putin’s recent trip to Tehran for a trilateral summit with Iranian leaders and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggests so. As does Russia’s use of imported Iranian drones, based on stolen U.S. technology. As does the $10 billion role being openly played by Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear company, in helping Iran build its nuclear weapons program.

Yet the Biden administration prefers to see things differently. Ignoring large sections of observable reality, President Joe Biden continues to rely on Russia as a good faith mediator to negotiate a return to the failed Iran nuclear deal of 2015—better known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This reliance requires the White House to dismiss the obvious fact that Russia’s mediation is really advocacy on Iran’s behalf, which in turn helps to fuel Russia’s war machine in Ukraine and make a mockery of U.S. sanctions against Putin. Yet the convergence of Tehran’s and Moscow’s interests does not translate into a full-fledged alliance, many experts say.

Why? The conventional wisdom dictates that for all the current cooperation between Iran and Russia, past enmity and divergent goals continue to undermine their relationship. According to this view, shared interests persist, but so do divergent ones. All is shrouded in the fog of historical rivalry and mistrust.

A sure sign that this reassuring view might be off the mark is what regime apologist Seyed Hossein Mousavian—the former Iranian ambassador to Germany who bizarrely distributes his pro-regime propaganda from an academic post at Princeton University—wrote in February to downplay the depth of Iran’s cooperation with Russia. Relations are good, he stated, but “far from truly strategic.” Mousavian has a history of running interference on Iran’s behalf, since his days in Berlin in the 1990s, when Iran was on trial for the murder of Kurdish activists in a local restaurant. When a man like Mousavian takes to the pages of The National Interest to reassure Americans that the Moscow-Tehran axis is not a thing, it’s probably a thing.

The problem for the Biden administration is that, for more than 18 months now, it has expressed unwavering faith in the power of multilateral diplomacy, which includes the Russians, to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The White House is negotiating with Russia and Iran as if there were no war in Ukraine; no Russian criminal negligence regarding nuclear safety in Ukraine’s occupied areas; no Russian nuclear saber rattling against the West; and no ongoing, documented JCPOA violations by Iran—to say nothing of a Kremlin with zero credibility in upholding any agreement it signs. Yet when it comes to questions of nuclear war or peace, Putin is suddenly a trustworthy partner.

Treating major national security crises such as Russian aggression in Europe and Iran’s rush to nuclear weapons capability as if they inhabited parallel universes may be expedient. But it signals a lack of comprehension of the growing alignment between two authoritarian regimes whose approaches to the biggest policy questions facing each largely overlap. Spoiler: They are not on the side of the West. This is a reality Washington has sought to compartmentalize in the hope of reaching, yet again, an elusive grand bargain in the Middle East with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Washington needs to confront the deepening relationship between two paranoid dictatorships for what it is: an emerging coalition of totalitarian rogue states, backed by China, which is hellbent on reshaping the world and overturning the Western democratic rules-based order. This order, imperfect though it is, promotes human rights, democracy, free trade, open societies, and good governance. It rejects the use of force for conquest, and believes in the power of diplomacy, goodwill, and good faith cooperation between nations. This is the order that Iran and Russia, whether or not the White House considers them good faith diplomatic partners, wish to subvert.

Since the 2012-16 Iranian- and Russian-backed siege of Aleppo in support of the murderous Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, the Moscow-Tehran axis has only grown stronger, its strategic cooperation deeper, and its reciprocity more encompassing. Just as Russia came to Iran’s rescue in Syria in 2015, Iran is now willing to return the favor in Ukraine. And with each step, the two regimes are drawing closer.

Exhibit No. 1: The Islamic Republic styles itself as a defender of the oppressed against imperialism. Yet Iran voiced public support for Russia’s imperialist war of aggression in Ukraine and coordinated disinformation operations with Moscow to peddle Russian conspiracy theories in order to excuse its mass atrocities. That’s not because of a passing moment of strategic convergence. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the West wanted to prevent “independent and strong” Russia. In Tehran’s view, Moscow is oppressed by the West, which uses Ukraine as its pawn.

Exhibit No. 2: Iran is not just paying lip service to Putin’s imperial quest; it is also providing material support to Russia’s war effort. Amid the diplomatic flurry of tyrants patting each other’s backs, the Biden administration revealed that Iran may soon supply its drones to the Russian army. According to Ukrainian authorities Russia has already deployed them in combat. Iran, meanwhile, has launched a logistical airlift to Russia since the beginning of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Weapons caches from Iraq have been finding their way to Russia through Iran for quite some time.

Exhibit No. 3: Tehran and Moscow have negotiated a 20-year economic and military cooperation agreement. Their bilateral trade is reportedly growing. Russia’s energy industry is ready to invest in Iran’s natural gas—a lucrative sector that suffered a lost decade due to international sanctions and the withdrawal of Western energy giants from Iran. The ultimate beneficiary of this alliance will be China, which stands behind both countries, and has an unquenchable need for imported energy.

Exhibit No. 4: Western sanctions on Russia and China not only encourage the two governments to work together, but also breed a sense of shared grievance and common destiny. No wonder they have both begun to take small steps to de-dollarize their bilateral trade. This is not just transactionally convenient; it is a move imbued with an aspiration, no matter how delusional, to undermine the global dominance of the U.S. dollar in international trade and finance. The two countries also cooperate to stymie Western sanctions: In 2018, for example, the U.S. Treasury Department targeted an Iranian-Russian oil network that helped Assad bypass U.S. sanctions. Iran has also agreed to assist Russia in the field of aircraft spare parts and maintenance, where Iran’s aviation sector, long under sanctions, has extensive experience both in procurement and in manufacturing that can now assist Russia’s newly sanctioned fleet. Meanwhile, Russian entities are helping Iran evade sanctions on its own energy sector.

Exhibit No. 5: Iranian-Russian military cooperation is growing, as is a shared commitment to prop up anti-Western regimes. Iranian media recently reported that Russia and Iran are poised to participate in joint military exercises in Venezuela alongside China and others. The exercises, a yearly Russia-sponsored war games’ competition, include Iran, China, Belarus, Myanmar, and “Abkhazia” (the Russian-occupied “republic” in Georgia). Russia just reportedly launched a spy satellite on Iran’s behalf that it initially plans to use for its war in Ukraine.

Russia and Iran, in their previous incarnations, had a long history of rivalry, especially in the buffer zones and borderlands between the two empires, which, over the centuries, Russia gradually gobbled up from Iran. The shah sided with the United States during the Cold War, and the Islamic Republic, despite its anti-Western, Marxist-tinged revolutionary fervor, looked to the godless communists with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. “Neither East, nor West,” thundered the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s founder, first supreme leader, and ideologue-in-chief.

Yet rivals of yesteryear have more than once become staunch allies: The past enmity between the United States and Great Britain and between France and Germany is the subject of light banter today. As for Russia and Iran, some of their interests still do not coincide: Since 2015, for example, Russia has allowed Israel to thwart Iranian military escalation in Syria and Lebanon, although that too may be changing, given Russia’s increasingly vocal criticism of Israel’s stance on Ukraine and its threat to close the Jewish Agency’s Russia offices.

As far as strategic convergence goes, look no further than the respective Russian and Iranian echo chambers and the content of their disinformation ops, which are so aligned that their stated policies toward the United States have become virtually indistinguishable.

Russia’s propaganda supporting its rape of Ukraine echoes Iran’s bloodcurdling dehumanization of Israel.

Copied link

Though the ideological premises for close alignment predate the Syrian civil war, the current pattern of close cooperation began to consolidate in the crucible of that war, which engulfed the Levant as the Obama administration was finalizing the details of the JCPOA in 2015.

When Bashar Assad, a wily and cruel dictator who preferred to destroy his own country and murder its people than concede power to popular protests, was in danger of losing control, he had only Iran and Russia to save him. Qassem Soleimani, the late commander of the elite Quds Force unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, boarded a commercial flight in Tehran and headed to Moscow in July of 2015, as nuclear negotiations in Vienna were in their final stages. Soleimani was on a mission to finalize the details of Iranian-Russian military cooperation in Syria’s civil war. Both countries worried that the Assad regime and its Iranian auxiliaries were being overrun in Aleppo. Russia’s air support could change that.

Soleimani’s gamble succeeded. Russia, already supplying the Assad regime with weapons and diplomatic cover, entered the fray and ruled the skies while Soleimani deployed every proxy militia Iran could mobilize on the ground. Russia’s entry into the war led to a reversal of fortunes for Assad and Iran. Aleppo was turned to rubble but restored to Assad’s control. The regime emptied Syria’s Sunni countryside, sending tens of thousands of Syrians to Assad’s torture chambers. Many more fled as refugees, pressuring neighboring states and Western sensitivities in what would become the first great, man-made refugee crisis of the 21st century.

Today, Russia has moved beyond cruel realpolitik and propagates the view that its new manifest destiny is to wipe an entire people off the map of Europe while stemming the tide of moral decay it attributes to the West. Depicting the West as irredeemably decadent and depraved is not unprecedented—Russia has been officially bemoaning our depravity since the 19th century. What is new is that this discourse, amplified by Russia’s propaganda supporting its rape of Ukraine, has become so vicious that it echoes Iran’s bloodcurdling dehumanization of Israel and its righteous contempt for the West.

Russia and Iran are revisionist powers bent on reestablishing their hegemonic rule. They have found enough common ground to align where it matters most: undermining U.S. influence and values. Russia is not just engaged in a war of aggression against its neighbor; it wants to upset the global balance of power by building a league of authoritarian states that includes Iran, China, and Venezuela—a strategy that is clearly reminiscent of the Cold War.

The past is not a foreign country, to borrow the title of a landmark essay by the historian Anita Shapira. It carries weight. Ancient rivalries can be overcome by new realities. Moscow and Tehran are drawing closer. Pretending otherwise is to flirt with disaster.

Tablet · by Emanuele Ottolenghi · August 12, 2022

6. Right to vote being snatched from Solomon Islanders by PRC-backed PM

Excerpts:

The Chinese Communist Party is not going to stop until it’s stopped. And the more proxies it can gather to its fold the stronger it will get, and the more damage it will do. There is no avoiding this fight, unless you want to accept submission. Currently, it’s Solomon Islanders (among others) who are on the front line. They need back-up. If they don’t get it, and they fall, it spreads.

It’s not too late. Instead of talking about articles that were a year ahead on predicting the problems, we can listen to local leaders and be talking about articles that were a year ahead on finding the solutions. We have a chance, and a responsibility, to stop the need for any new dawn ceremonies.

Right to vote being snatched from Solomon Islanders by PRC-backed PM - The Sunday Guardian Live

Cleo Paskal

Published : August 13, 2022, 7:01 pm | Updated : August 13, 2022, 7:55 PM

sundayguardianlive.com · August 13, 2022

Sogavare has introduced a Bill to postpone elections. Reaction on the ground is seething. Likely Sogavare and his backers in Beijing don’t mind violence so they can activate the China security deal.

On 8August, dignitaries, including US Ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, gathered for a dawn ceremony on Bloody Ridge in Solomon Islands to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of the brutal battle for Guadalcanal. Kennedy’s father, future President John F. Kennedy, almost died during the campaign—his life saved by two Solomon Islanders.

Absent from the ceremony was Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. He was busy doing something that could, once again, turn Solomons into a dangerous ground zero in the Pacific.

Being an avid reader of this paper, of course you knew it was coming.

For those who haven’t been following along at home, here’s a quick recap.

Beijing has studied the importance of the vast Pacific Islands region—for instance, you need to be able to hold it, or deny it to others, to take Taiwan. It also knows the cost and difficulty of taking it by force, as those on Bloody Ridge remembered.

So, Beijing has worked on its consolidation of the region by using political warfare to “island hop” beyond the first island chain and set up political, economic and, increasingly, force-capable forward operating sites across the region.

Its goals for the region were made explicit in its proposed “China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision” and supported by the “China-Pacific Island Countries Five-Year Action Plan on Common Development (2022-2026)”.

Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo called them, in a letterto other Pacific Island Country (PIC) leaders: “the single-most game-changing proposed agreement in the Pacific in any of our lifetimes.”

The agreement wasn’t signed, but it’s unlikely China thought it would be. It was a way of flushing out opponents (for example President Panuelo), identifying compliance (for example the several PIC leaders who signed secret bilateral deals that reportedly contain elements of the larger “Vision”), and seeing if the “Free World” was going to do anything about it.

The response was largely the diplomatic equivalent of rending of cloth and gnashing of teeth, though the US did make a series of announcements, including that it would be opening new embassies. And Congress quickly backed the move in a bicameral, bipartisan bill designed to support opening the missions.

However, the efforts would have resonated more in the region if the US was taking advantage of access it already has. For example, the US currently doesn’t have Ambassadors appointed to several of its existing PIC Embassies, including Fiji, which NSC Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell identified by name as a US “hub” for the region.

China and its proxies don’t seem to be deterred, or much perturbed, and are forging ahead on their plans. As we saw this week in Solomon Islands.

Given you are a regular reader of this newspaper, you will not be surprised to hear that last week pro-PRC Solomon Islands PM Sogavare put forward a bill to postpone elections. You had read here, in these pages back in September 2021, that he was putting in places the pieces he needed to do just that—with Beijing’s help.

We reported that, using PRC-donated “Constituency Development Funds”, PM Sogavare’s government had given money to 39 of the 50 MPs in Parliament: “the number, with a small buffer, required to change the Constitution. Sogavare is on record as wanting to move the next election from 2023 to 2024, something that would require a constitutional change.”

Then, in our 23 April 2022 interview, you read that respected Solomons political leader Hon. Peter Kenilorea Jr. said there were more indications it was coming: “I can see from the [government] budget that it’s clear the government is not taking the election seriously, because they haven’t put adequate budget aside for the preparations for next year’s elections. For me, that is the biggest indicator. I was looking out for those numbers. And I don’t see them.”

Sogavare’s“reason” to put off democracy was also reported here. Over a month ago, we wrote: “The excuse he’s giving to postpone elections is Solomons is hosting the Pacific Games in 2023 and the country doesn’t have enough for both the Games and an election.”

Well, as of last week, it’s official, Sogavare introduced the Bill to postpone elections because of the Games.

Reaction on the ground is seething—triggering talk of a resurrection of the Civil War that caused so much pain to the country.

Likely Sogavare and his backers in Beijing don’t mind violence—and perhaps are even hoping for more “unrest” so they can activate the China security deal, and have an even better excuse to hold off on elections (that Sogavare is likely to lose) for even longer.

Sogavare has been preparing for just that scenario. There are Chinese “police trainers” in the country and he publicly thanked the Chinese Ambassador for “the 22 police vehicles, 30 motorcycles, two police water cannons, eight police drones and advanced CPP (close personal protection) equipment, which are valued at $SBD22 million ($3.97 million)”.

Given there is no kinetic external threat to Solomons, this seems to only make sense if you are going to war with your own people.

If that happens, the unrest could spread to other areas. The situation is dangerous.

Given the international community has had almost a full year to prepare, what has the response been?

Mostly: “we are concerned”, “don’t look at me”, “what are we supposed to do—it is a sovereign country”.

Well, let’s start with basics. The Constitution of Solomon Islands opens with: “We the people of Solomon Islands, proud of the wisdom and the worthy customs of our ancestors, mindful of our common and diverse heritage and conscious of our common destiny, do now, under the guiding hand of God, establish the sovereign democratic State of Solomon Islands”.

This is an attempted coup against the people of Solomon Islands. Sogavare is trying to steal their sovereignty. He is trying to turn his country into a clone of China, by taking control of media, signing secret security deals, using bribery to change the Constitution and preparing to instigate and then crush dissent.

If you care about sovereignty, the people of Solomons must be able to vote in 2023.

Here are some ideas for how that can happen, many coming from Solomon Islanders themselves.

* Pacific Island Countries complain that they are pawns in great power games and they want “agency”. This is their moment to step up. Sogavare is using the excuse of the Pacific Games to “postpone elections” (democracy delayed is democracy denied). Will PICs let themselves be used to oppress members of their “family”?

Or will they make it clear that any country going to the Games is supporting the suppression of democracy in Solomons. And any athlete participating is saying their chance at a medal is more important than a Solomon Islander’s right to vote.

* Similarly, this should be a make or break moment for the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), the chosen regional engagement venue for Washington. The PIF has done very little in the face of several other regional crises (in the last 2-3 years alone: Covid response, Covid recovery, crisis at the University of the South Pacific, China’s security deals, countries leaving the PIF, etc.).

The PIF should either offer to assist in making the elections possible, or recommend that countries don’t participate in the Games if elections aren’t held. This situation is so egregious, if the PIF doesn’t do anything, it is very hard to say what it is for.

* Australia and New Zealand should investigate the disproportionate assets in their countries held by those around Sogavare—including his family members and the 39 MPs.

* It should be made clear those found guilty of national-security corruption will no longer be eligible for visas to Australia, New Zealand, US, etc, including—if the Pacific Island Forum is serious about being a force for good in the region—any Pacific Island Forum country. Not even transit visas.

* Support local media and organizations in Solomons investigating corruption.

* India can work with local partners to help them learn from its successful pushback against Chinese political warfare in places like Maldives.

* Stop saying things like “Solomon Islands is making a deal with China”. Be clear. It is Sogavare and his clique that are making a deal with China. Solomon Islands, as per its Constitution, is the people of Solomons, and they do not like this direction, which is why Sogavare is trying to keep them from the ballot box. Respect them enough to make the difference.

* Australia and New Zealand need to stop doing things that make the situation worse.

Example? Soon after Sogavare announced he was going to try to postpone the elections because he couldn’t afford both the Games and the elections, Australia announced it was giving Sogavare’s government AUD$16.68 million for… the Games.

Countries need to realise this is not business as usual. This is a coup with Chinese characteristics, and if it’s not stopped in the Solomons, it will spread.

Kiribati is already on the continuum, and there is potential for serious (and completely avoidable) violence in Malaita, Bougainville, Chuuk and possibly New Caledonia. Timor-Leste is also on China’s menu, bringing it ever closer to the Indo-Pacific chokepoints.

Those willing to stand up for their people, like President Panuelo, need support. Now. Those trying to soak more blood into the soils of their countries for the sake of personal ambition need to be called to account. Yesterday.

The Chinese Communist Party is not going to stop until it’s stopped. And the more proxies it can gather to its fold the stronger it will get, and the more damage it will do. There is no avoiding this fight, unless you want to accept submission. Currently, it’s Solomon Islanders (among others) who are on the front line. They need back-up. If they don’t get it, and they fall, it spreads.

It’s not too late. Instead of talking about articles that were a year ahead on predicting the problems, we can listen to local leaders and be talking about articles that were a year ahead on finding the solutions. We have a chance, and a responsibility, to stop the need for any new dawn ceremonies.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian Special Correspondent as well as Non-Resident Senior Fellow for the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

sundayguardianlive.com · August 13, 2022

7. Rushdie attack reveals — again — true nature of Iranian regime

Excerpts:

Doctors say that Rushdie will likely lose an eye. The nerves in his arm were severed. And his liver was damaged. Authorities are now working to determine whether the Islamic Republic ordered this attack, or whether it was merely inspired by the Khomeini edict.

In truth, this is a distinction without much difference. The illiberal and repressive regime in Iran unleashed chaos back in 1989. It continues to do so today. Whether ordered directly or inspired, these attacks on American soil must be met with resolve by our elected leaders.

This is not the time to yield billions of dollars in sanctions relief to the regime. This is the time for policies that isolate the Islamic Republic, along with warnings that violence against former officials, intellectuals and dissidents will not stand.

Rushdie attack reveals — again — true nature of Iranian regime

BY JONATHAN SCHANZER, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 08/13/22 3:00 PM ET

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

The Hill · · August 13, 2022

On Feb. 14, 1989, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, condemning author Salman Rushdie to death for blasphemy. Rushdie had recently penned the book “The Satanic Verses,” which depicted Rushdie’s interpretation of the life of the prophet Mohammed, including an episode in which the prophet was unable to distinguish between revelation and the influence of Satan.

More than three decades later, on Aug. 12, 2022, Rushdie was stabbed in the neck by New Jersey resident Hadi Matar, who reportedly was “sympathetic to Shia extremism.” The attack came amidst a flurry of other thwarted plots by the Islamic Republic against former U.S. officials and Iranian dissidents. While some may have seen it as ancient history, the Khomeini fatwa clearly still reverberates today.

In 1989, Khomeini sentenced Rushdie to death. On Tehran radio, the Supreme leader stated: “I would like to inform all intrepid Muslims in the world that the author of the book Satanic Verses, which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur’an, and those publishers who were aware of its contents, are sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, where they find them.”

In essence, Khomeini pitted Islam against the West. The following day was a national day of mourning in Iran. Crowds poured into the streets, stoned the British Embassy, and chanted “Death to Britain” repeatedly. A $2.8 million bounty was put on Rushdie’s head.

Three days later, American booksellers B. Dalton, Waldenbooks and Barnes & Noble decided not to stock Rushdie’s book, while the book’s publisher, Viking/Penguin, closed its offices amidst bomb threats to install a new security system.

On the fourth day, Rushdie made the following statement: “As author of The Satanic Verses, I recognize that Muslims in many parts of the world are genuinely distressed by the publication of my novel. I profoundly regret the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam. Living as we do in a world of many faiths, this experience has served to remind us that we must all be conscious of the sensibilities of others.”

Ignoring the apology, Khomeini repeated his death edict the next day. On Feb. 20, the International Rushdie Defense Committee was founded in London by writers, booksellers, journalists and human rights groups who decried Iranian “armed censorship.” The day after that, the European Community withdrew their heads of mission from Tehran. Iran responded in kind. The Iranian parliament soon voted to sever all relations with the UK, where law had recently been passed condemning Khomeini for incitement, and another calling for Rushdie’s safety.

Elsewhere around the world, hell broke loose. Violent demonstrations, bomb threats, and clashes were reported in India, Germany, Thailand, Pakistan, Turkey, Australia, France, and beyond. Here in the United States, firebombs caused damage in two California bookstores. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution condemning the threats against Rushdie and his publishers, affirming its commitment to “protect the right of any person to write, publish, sell, buy and read books without fear of intimidation or violence.”

Violence continued through the spring of 1989. Muslims in Belgium were gunned down after speaking out against the fatwa on television. London bookstores were firebombed for carrying The Satanic Verses, amidst a spate of other clashes and demonstrations. Norwegian bookstores were set afire after releasing a translation of Rushdie’s book. A bookshop in Sydney was also firebombed.

That August, an adherent to Khomeini’s ideology accidentally blew himself up in his London hotel room. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon deemed him “the first martyr… who died while preparing to attack the apostate, Salman Rushdie.”

While Khomeini died on June 3 that year, his fatwa forced Rushdie into hiding for many years to follow. In fact, the continuity of enforcement of Khomeini’s edict cast a bright light on the Islamic Republic’s violent and intolerant ideology. It was one thing for this repressive regime to clamp down on the free speech of its own citizens. It was quite another to try and curtail the free expression of intellectuals beyond its borders.

The Iranian regime’s radical ideology has not changed in the intervening years.

If anything, it has hardened.

Intermittent attempts by Western governments to probe for signs of moderation have failed. This is the case even today. The attack on Rushdie comes amidst desperate diplomatic efforts in Vienna to encourage the regime to curb its dangerous nuclear ambitions. The regime has responded not only with this attack, but also several other plots targeting former U.S. government officials, such as former National Security Advisor John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Iranian dissidents, such as journalist Masih Alinejad.

Doctors say that Rushdie will likely lose an eye. The nerves in his arm were severed. And his liver was damaged. Authorities are now working to determine whether the Islamic Republic ordered this attack, or whether it was merely inspired by the Khomeini edict.

In truth, this is a distinction without much difference. The illiberal and repressive regime in Iran unleashed chaos back in 1989. It continues to do so today. Whether ordered directly or inspired, these attacks on American soil must be met with resolve by our elected leaders.

This is not the time to yield billions of dollars in sanctions relief to the regime. This is the time for policies that isolate the Islamic Republic, along with warnings that violence against former officials, intellectuals and dissidents will not stand.

Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, is senior vice president at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The Hill · by Zach Schonfeld · August 13, 2022

8. FDD | FAQ: Iran’s Demand to Close the UN Nuclear Watchdog’s Investigation

FDD | FAQ: Iran’s Demand to Close the UN Nuclear Watchdog’s Investigation

Andrea Stricker

Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program Deputy Director and Research Fellow

fdd.org · August 12, 2022

What is Iran now demanding as a precondition for it to rejoin the 2015 nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)?

At a new round of talks last week between Iran and six world powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China, collectively known as the “P5+1”), the clerical regime demanded the closure of a probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into Iranian nuclear activities that may violate the binding Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As a party to the NPT, the Islamic Republic has signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, requiring Tehran to declare all sites where it produces or uses nuclear material. In 2019 and 2020, the IAEA detected man-made uranium particles at three sites Iran had not previously disclosed. Tehran has continually obstructed IAEA efforts to determine the source of this undeclared material and the activities that led to its production.

Did world powers close a previous IAEA probe into the “possible military dimensions,” or “PMD,” of Iran’s nuclear program?

The IAEA previously investigated potential military aspects of Tehran’s nuclear program following international exposure of clandestine nuclear sites and activities in Iran. In essence, the agency investigated whether the Islamic Republic researched or sought to build atomic weapons as part of its nuclear program. In July 2015, under the terms of the JCPOA, the P5+1 instructed the IAEA to provide a “final” PMD assessment by December 2015 summarizing the agency’s conclusions to date about Iran’s nuclear weapons-related activities.

In theory, Iran had an obligation to cooperate and provide truthful answers to the agency, but the P5+1 signaled they would ensure the closure of the investigation regardless of whether Tehran cooperated. Knowing it would not be held accountable, Iran failed to cooperate. The IAEA issued a report casting doubt both on Tehran’s responses to its inquiries and on the peacefulness of the regime’s nuclear program. Nevertheless, the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors voted to remove the matter from the agency’s active investigations. This supposed resolution of the PMD issue enabled the P5+1 to proceed with implementing the JCPOA, which went into effect in January 2016.

Iranian officials are now asking the P5+1 to shut their eyes once again, but to new evidence that Iran had or maintains a nuclear weapons program, which the regime denies categorically.

What is the IAEA investigating today?

In 2018, Israeli intelligence seized a set of Iranian files from a Tehran warehouse, proving beyond any doubt that the regime had a nuclear weapons program up until 2003. This “nuclear archive” contained new photographic evidence and information about nuclear weapon production facilities, associated equipment, plans, personnel, and technical progress. The archive also contained memoranda by senior Iranian officials showing that in 2003, the regime plotted to downsize and better hide its efforts while continuing to pursue the capability to make atomic weapons.

Israel provided the archive materials to the IAEA, which deemed them to be authentic. In 2019 and 2020, the IAEA requested access to three Iranian sites where it believed nuclear material had been present, based on evidence from the archive. The IAEA also sought information and explanations about a fourth site. Tehran had an obligation to cooperate with this probe pursuant to its NPT safeguards agreement but instead obstructed IAEA access to the sites and sought to sanitize them and hide evidence.

Nevertheless, when IAEA inspectors ultimately visited three of the undeclared sites, they detected man-made uranium particles. (Iran had razed the fourth site years ago, but the IAEA visited another, related site). The IAEA reported in May 2022 that “for more than two years,” Tehran “has not provided explanations that are technically credible” to account for the presence of this uranium, nor has Iran explained its activities at any of the sites. This led the IAEA Board of Governors to censure Tehran in June 2020 and June 2022 and call on it to cooperate immediately.

What is the IAEA’s mandate in Iran?

The IAEA is an independent agency charged with overseeing the peacefulness of atomic programs worldwide. As a party to the NPT, Iran has agreed to implement agency safeguards against military uses of its nuclear capabilities. This means that the IAEA can seek access to sites in Iran and investigate Tehran’s failure to abide by its safeguards agreement, including the regime’s refusal to declare facilities and activities relevant to atomic weapons or nuclear material production or use.

Iran’s NPT obligations precede and are entirely separate from the JCPOA. Therefore, the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA does not reduce Iran’s NPT obligations in any way, shape, or form. Tehran accepts its NPT obligations in principle, even if refuses to honor them in practice.

What happens if world powers pressure the IAEA to close its inquiry?

The IAEA’s Board of Governors, composed of representatives of 35 member states, set a new precedent in 2015 by pressuring the agency to close its inquiry into Iran’s nuclear weapons activities even though inspectors had not completed their work. The board chose to do so even though the information reported by inspectors indicated that Iran failed to provide full and truthful answers to their questions. (See Question 2.)

As part of negotiations aimed at restoring the JCPOA, Washington and its European allies are working to resolve the disagreement about the agency’s latest probe by offering to end it if Iran credibly accounts for the origins of the man-made uranium particles inspectors found in 2019 and 2020. (See Question 3.)

A proposal reportedly put forth by the European Union would close the matter via a Board of Governors resolution if Iran “duly addressed” the outstanding issues. If Tehran did so, the P5+1 would submit an IAEA resolution “removing the need for the Board’s consideration of these issues” and deem it “no longer necessary” for “the [IAEA] Director General to report on those issues,” effectively halting the probe.

If Iran’s cooperation were inadequate but the P5+1 sought to close the probe regardless, the IAEA’s director general, Rafael Grossi, would be in a tough position. Grossi has said he will not submit to political demands to end his agency’s investigation, and could push back against P5+1 efforts to undercut the IAEA’s mandate. Nevertheless, the Board of Governors sets policy, and Grossi would be in an untenable position should he flout the board’s demands. Resignation may be his only possible recourse. However, Grossi has hinted that he favors restoring the JCPOA because it would provide temporary limits and enhanced monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities, and may state that he had no choice but to comply with the board’s decision.

What would closing the IAEA investigation mean for Iran’s ability to build atomic weapons? What else could world powers do to stop Tehran?

Tehran’s demand that world powers close the IAEA probe is a concerning indicator that the regime seeks to maintain clandestine atomic weapons activities to preserve and further Iran’s “readiness” to build nuclear weapons. Since 2003, evidence has steadily emerged that Tehran never halted its atomic weapons program. If the IAEA Board of Governors shuts down the investigation, the United States and its allies will never learn how close Iran came to building a nuclear weapon. Nor will they know how much of that capability Tehran retains and may be developing further.

With no investigation to hold it accountable, Iran could preserve or expand its nuclear weapons knowledge while feigning compliance with a revived JCPOA. Thus, by waiting patiently for the JCPOA’s restrictions to expire, the Islamic Republic could emerge with both the know-how and fissile material it needs to make nuclear weapons. By 2027, the agreement would allow Tehran to have a vastly expanded advanced centrifuge program for uranium enrichment. By 2030, Iran could earn some $1 trillion in revenue from sanctions relief. The result may be a regime that is technically unstoppable should it choose to make nuclear weapons, backed by an economy that is highly fortified against Western attempts to change its calculus or inflict penalties.

World powers should address the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program today rather than permitting the threat to metastasize. They should prioritize the IAEA’s investigation, end talks on restoring the JCPOA, snap back UN Security Council sanctions on Iran, exert massive economic pressure on Tehran, and restore a credible threat of military deterrence while seeking a stronger and more permanent diplomatic solution than that provided by the JCPOA.

fdd.org · August 12, 2022

9. Russia's war priority: reorient units to strengthen southern Ukraine, UK says

Russia's war priority: reorient units to strengthen southern Ukraine, UK says

Reuters · by Reuters

Aug 14 (Reuters) - Russia's priority over the past week has likely been to reorient units to strengthen its campaign southern Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Sunday.

Ukraine and Russia have traded accusations over multiple incidents of shelling at the Zaporizhzhia facility in southern Ukraine. Russian troops captured the station early in the war. read more

Russian-backed forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in the Donbas continued to attempt assaults to the north of Donetsk city, according to the intelligence update.

Particularly heavy fighting has focused on the village of Pisky, near the site of Donetsk Airport, the British Defence Ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin on Twitter.

Ukraine's military command on Saturday said "fierce fighting" continued in Pisky, an eastern village which Russia had earlier said it had full control over. read more

UK also said the Russian assault "likely" aims to secure the "M04 highway", the main approach to Donetsk from the west.

Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Michael Perry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

10. Taiwan’s Patriot missiles to get massive US upgrade

Excerpts:

The high cost of Patriot interceptors could be a limitation in acquiring more missiles to counter multiple ballistic missiles, which may have penetration aids and decoys that force Taiwan to waste its missiles in preparation for subsequent air and missile strikes.

Finally, the advent of China’s hypersonic weapons may also render Taiwan’s Patriot system obsolete. On July 31, China’s state-run media outlet Global Times reported that China conducted a test firing of its DF-17 hypersonic missile in a veiled warning to Pelosi’s anticipated visit to Taiwan on August 2.

As no current missile defense system is effective against hypersonic weapons, Taiwan’s Patriot missiles, given their various limitations, may give a false sense of security and encourage military planners on both sides to take even more escalatory actions.

In future, China may ramp up missile tests and combat aircraft overflights to expose vulnerabilities in Taiwan’s defenses, prompting the latter to respond with military drills and further stoking already tense cross-strait relations.

Taiwan’s Patriot missiles to get massive US upgrade

China’s recent missile and fighter jet overflights exposed holes in Taiwan’s missile defenses that a Patriot overhaul won’t credibly fix

asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · August 14, 2022

The US and Taiwan have renewed a missile engineering contract to upgrade the self-governing island’s Patriot missile defense systems against China’s growing missile threats and overflights.

The Taipei Times reports that the contract was announced by Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense on August 11, with Focus Taiwan citing a notification regarding the contract on the Taiwan Government e-Procurement System website. Currently, Taiwan operates the Patriot Advanced Capability 2 (PAC-2) and PAC-3 Guided Enhancement Missiles (GEM) systems.

The South China Morning Post reported that the US$83 million contract, signed by Taiwan’s military and the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto US embassy on the island, would help to assess and improve the performance of Taiwan’s Patriot missile batteries for the next four and a half years.

Focus Taiwan reported that the missile upgrade program runs from July 20, 2022, to December 31, 2026. Moreover, it notes that Taiwan’s current Patriot missile inventory consists of MIM-104F and GEM missile rounds.

The South China Morning Post report notes that Taiwan will upgrade its PAC 2 missiles to PAC 3 GEM standards with longer-range missiles. The report also notes that the PAC 3 GEM has two types of missiles, with the extended range version capable of intercepting ballistic missiles at 600 kilometers.

In addition to upgrading legacy systems, Focus Taiwan notes that in 2021 Taiwan also purchased PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missiles, with the first batches to be delivered in 2025 and 2026.

The same news source notes that the MIM-104F can intercept ballistic missiles, while the MSE variant has a longer range than the standard round, covering the middle area between the MIM-104F and terminal high altitude air defense systems with Taiwan receiving this upgrade between 2025 and 2026.

A Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile launcher. Credit: US Army/ commons.wikimedia.org.

The US-Taiwan contract aims to maintain the original combat capability of Taiwan’s Patriot missile defense systems, but does not increase the number of missiles Taiwan possesses, notes Lu Li-shih, a former instructor at the Taiwanese Naval Academy at Kaohsiung, as cited by the South China Morning Post.

However, China’s recent military exercises and missile drills over Taiwan in the aftermath of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to the self-governing island may have exposed holes in Taiwan’s missile defenses.

Despite being advertised as one of the world’s most advanced missile defense systems, the Patriot may be ineffective in certain combat situations. For example, in a 2018 Foreign Policy article, Jeffrey Lewis points out the ineffectiveness of Saudi Arabia’s Patriot missile systems against the ballistic missiles fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Lewis also points out that the US Army may have manipulated figures about the Patriot’s performance during the 1991 Gulf War, initially claiming near-perfect performance intercepting 45 out 47 ballistic missiles but later revising this figure down to 50% and after that expressing “higher confidence” in just a quarter of intercepts.

With questionable reliability in intercepting ballistic missiles, the Patriot system may have limited capabilities against fighter jets as well. While the South China Morning Post noted that Taiwan had used the Patriot’s high-powered radars to track People’s Liberation Army (PLA) activities in the Taiwan Strait, Patriot missile interceptors are not equipped to counter fighter jets, notes defense analyst Kris Osborn in The National Interest.

Osborne mentions that although the Patriot system can track and destroy ballistic missiles and multiple maneuvering targets, its capabilities fall short of shooting down incoming fighter jets. The writer did not mention specifics about the system’s limitations but they most likely stem from the Patriot’s limited capabilities against low-flying targets, as shown by the successful attacks of Iranian drones against Saudi oil facilities, despite Riyadh’s Patriot missile system.

Defense analyst Stephen Bryen notes in Asia Times additional glaring limitations of the Patriot system. First, Bryen mentions that Patriot interceptors are fired when an incoming missile is at its terminal phase when the missile is just a few thousand feet above the ground and near its target. At that phase, the incoming missile can jettison a smaller and harder to intercept warhead or release decoys such as chaff to confuse missile defense radars.

Second, he mentions that the Patriot may have limited target discrimination capabilities. Citing Saudi Arabia’s experience with the system, Bryen notes that the Patriot may have difficulty distinguishing between the main body of ballistic missiles and their separated warheads. Finally, Bryen mentions that even if the Patriot system worked, it would be pointless if the system struck a missile body instead of its lethal warhead.

A so-called highly-lofted trajectory ballistic missile attack by China may blunt the effectiveness of Taiwan’s Patriot missile systems. Indeed, such limitations may have caused Japan to cancel its plans to procure two Aegis Ashore systems in 2020.

The Missile Defense Agency conducts the first intercept flight test of a land-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense weapon system from the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex in Kauai, Hawaii. Photo: US Missile Defense Agency / Handout / Leah Garton

A 2020 article in the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs notes that the Aegis Ashore system or ballistic missile defense (BMD) is generally incapable of defending against ballistic missiles fired in a highly-lofted trajectory – although it mentions that software upgrades may help to mitigate this limitation in the future.

The same article mentions that North Korea could fire medium and intermediate-range missiles at higher angles to strike targets such as South Korea and Japan, resulting in an extremely high terminal phase velocity and undermining the effectiveness of any missile defense system. It also notes that the Patriot missile system cannot defend against such an attack and that no current missile defense system is optimized to defend against such.

Moreover, the article notes that in such an attack missile defense radars often lose track of the target when it reaches its apex and regains track of it too late for interceptor missiles to hit their mark.

Furthermore, as interceptor missiles are flying against gravity, it is much harder for them to re-adjust, catch up and hit the target at the right angle, in contrast to the constantly-accelerating hostile missile.

Moreover, the Patriot system may have numerous limitations in the Taiwan Strait operating environment. For example, the Eurasian Times reported on August 7 that the PLA launched 11 Dong Feng missiles into the waters around Taiwan, noting that the island did not use its Patriot interceptors against the incoming missiles.

The report notes multiple reasons for Taiwan’s apparent standing down to China’s ballistic missile launches. First, China’s ballistic missiles flew above the Karman Line, which is 100 kilometers above Earth and is in the airspace limit. Simply put, Taiwan did not intercept China’s missiles since they were not in its airspace but rather in outer space.

Second, the source notes that the boost phase of China’s Dongfeng missiles takes place within China’s territory and is out of range of Taiwan’s defenses. Although the missiles’ mid-course phase is above Taiwan, it is outside Taiwan’s airspace while in outer space.

While Taiwan can intercept China’s ballistic missiles in their terminal phase, such an interception has a short window of time considering the Patriot’s potentially mediocre performance as shown in Saudi service and the possibility of a highly-lofted trajectory attack.

Third, the Eurasian Times mentions the cost of Patriot missile interceptors may have prevented Taiwan from using its limited stock of rounds. The source notes that one Patriot interceptor costs US$16 million, compared to one of China’s Dongfeng missiles, which costs around $660,000.

A formation of Dongfeng-17 missiles takes part in a military parade during the celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China at Tian’anmen Square in Beijing. The Ukraine war may be fixing PLA leaders’ eyes on more basic capabilities – like mobile infantry. Photo: Xinhua / Mao Siqian

The high cost of Patriot interceptors could be a limitation in acquiring more missiles to counter multiple ballistic missiles, which may have penetration aids and decoys that force Taiwan to waste its missiles in preparation for subsequent air and missile strikes.

Finally, the advent of China’s hypersonic weapons may also render Taiwan’s Patriot system obsolete. On July 31, China’s state-run media outlet Global Times reported that China conducted a test firing of its DF-17 hypersonic missile in a veiled warning to Pelosi’s anticipated visit to Taiwan on August 2.

As no current missile defense system is effective against hypersonic weapons, Taiwan’s Patriot missiles, given their various limitations, may give a false sense of security and encourage military planners on both sides to take even more escalatory actions.

In future, China may ramp up missile tests and combat aircraft overflights to expose vulnerabilities in Taiwan’s defenses, prompting the latter to respond with military drills and further stoking already tense cross-strait relations.

asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · August 14, 2022

11. Thailand-China ‘Falcon Strike 2022’ air force drill kicks off today

One of our 5 treaty allies in the Asia-Pacific.

I wonder if some Vietnam era US airmen are scratching their heads about the communists now using this base.

Thailand-China ‘Falcon Strike 2022’ air force drill kicks off today

Thailand and China’s 10-day joint military exercises “Falcon Strike 2022” kicked off in Udon Thani on Sunday.

nationthailand.com · August 14, 2022

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) will hold this fifth annual drill at Udon Thani’s Wing 23 Airforce base, defence expert Chaiyasit Thantayakul said.

He added that this drill will enable RTAF to consider the role of China's airborne early warning and control aircraft system and its performance to search for targets at long distances.

“These exercises will also help PLA understand the performance of Western weaponry and training methods as Thailand mainly purchases weapons and adopt training from the West,” he added.

According to the report, the exercises will focus on air support, ground assault and force operation.

PLA will deploy six J-10C/S fighter jets, a JH-7AI fighter-bomber and a Shaanxi KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft in the venture. RTAF, on the other hand, will deploy five Gripen aircraft, three Alphajet attack aircraft and a SAAB 340 AEW early warning and control aircraft.

“The joint exercise is aimed at enhancing mutual trust and friendship between the air forces of the two countries, deepening practical cooperation and promoting the continuous development of China-Thailand comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership," Beijing said.

This is the first time that China is sending a JH-7A1 fighter-bomber to the drill, a Chinese military expert said.

This exercise is one of the few large-scale joint exercises in the history of the two countries that involves complex training subjects and complete military equipment, other experts said.

Thailand and China began these military exercises with fighter jets in 2015 with the last being held in 2019, also in Udon Thani. The last two annual drills were put on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Published : August 14, 2022

By : THE NATION

nationthailand.com · August 14, 2022

12. U.S. Says Al Qaeda Has Not Regrouped in Afghanistan

I hope this is an accurate assessment though I think some analysts and counterterrorism experts have their doubts.

U.S. Says Al Qaeda Has Not Regrouped in Afghanistan

The New York Times · by Eric Schmitt · August 13, 2022

A new intelligence assessment of the Al Qaeda threat was prepared after a drone strike killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the group’s leader. But some outside counterterrorism specialists said it was overly optimistic.

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Taliban security stood guard this month in Kabul, Afghanistan, during a protest against the U.S. drone strike that killed Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s top leader.Credit...EPA, via Shutterstock

Aug. 13, 2022

WASHINGTON — American spy agencies have concluded in a new intelligence assessment that Al Qaeda has not reconstituted its presence in Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal last August and that only a handful of longtime Qaeda members remain in the country.

The terror group does not have the ability to launch attacks from the country against the United States, the assessment said. Instead, it said, Al Qaeda will rely on, at least for now, an array of loyal affiliates outside the region to carry out potential terrorist plots against the West.

But several counterterrorism analysts said the spy agencies’ judgments represented an optimistic snapshot of a complex and fast-moving terrorist landscape. The assessment, a declassified summary of which was provided to The New York Times, represents the consensus views of the U.S. intelligence agencies.

“The assessment is substantially accurate, but it’s also the most positive outlook on a threat picture that is still quite fluid,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former top U.N. counterterrorism official.

The assessment was prepared after Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s top leader, was killed in a C.I.A. drone strike in Kabul last month. The death of al-Zawahri, one of the world’s most wanted terrorist leaders, after a decades-long manhunt was a major victory for President Biden, but it raised immediate questions about al-Zawahri’s presence in Afghanistan a year after Mr. Biden withdrew all American forces, clearing the way for the Taliban to regain control of the country.

Republicans have said that the president’s pullout has endangered the United States. The fact the Qaeda leader felt safe enough to return to the Afghan capital, they argue, was a sign of a failed policy that they predicted would allow Al Qaeda to rebuild training camps and plot attacks despite the Taliban’s pledge to deny the group a safe haven. Last October, a top Pentagon official said Al Qaeda could be able to regroup in Afghanistan and attack the United States in one to two years.

Administration officials have pushed back on the most recent criticisms, noting a pledge Mr. Biden made when he announced al-Zawahri’s death.

“As President Biden has said, we will continue to remain vigilant, along with our partners, to defend our nation and ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorism,” Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council, said in an email on Saturday.

Yet some outside counterterrorism specialists saw the new intelligence assessment as overly hopeful.

A U.N. report warned this spring that Al Qaeda had found “increased freedom of action” in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power. The report noted that a number of Qaeda leaders were possibly living in Kabul and that the uptick in public statements by al-Zawahri suggested that he was able to lead more effectively after the Taliban seized power.

“This seems like an overly rosy assessment to the point of being slightly myopic,” Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York, said of the intelligence analysis. He added that the summary said “little about the longer-term prospects of Al Qaeda.”

Al-Zawahri’s death has once again cast a spotlight on Al Qaeda, which after Osama bin Laden’s death in 2011 has largely been overshadowed by an upstart rival, the Islamic State. Many terrorism analysts said Saif al-Adel, a senior Qaeda leader wanted by the F.B.I. in the bombings of two United States embassies in East Africa in 1998, was likely to succeed al-Zawahri. He is believed to be living in Iran.

“Basically, I find the I.C. assessment convincing,” said Daniel Byman, a professor at Georgetown University, referring to the U.S. intelligence community and its new analysis of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Mr. Byman has in the past voiced skepticism about a resurgent Qaeda threat.

But other counterterrorism experts disagreed. One point of dispute involved claims in the intelligence summary that Al Qaeda had not reconstituted its threat network in Afghanistan and that al-Zawahri was the only major figure who sought to reestablish Al Qaeda’s presence in the country when he and his family settled in Kabul this year.

“Zawahri was THE leader of Al Qaeda, so his being protected by the Taliban while he provided more active guidance to the group was in of itself reconstitution,” Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace, wrote in an email.

“This approach fails to account for the group Al Qaeda is today and the fact that even a small number of core leaders can leverage Afghanistan to politically direct the group’s affiliate network,” Mr. Mir wrote. “Al Qaeda doesn’t need large training camps to be dangerous.”

Some counterterrorism experts also took issue with the government analysts’ judgment that fewer than a dozen Qaeda members with longtime ties to the group are in Afghanistan, and that most of those members were likely there before the fall of the Afghan government last summer.

“Their numbers of active, hard-core Al Qaeda in AfPak make no sense,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “At least three dozen senior Qaeda commanders were freed from Afghan jails a year ago. I very much doubt they have turned to farming or accounting as their post-prison vocations.”

Mr. Hoffman said that Qaeda operatives or their affiliates had been given important administrative responsibilities in at least eight Afghan provinces. He suggested the timing of the government assessment was “to deflect attention from the disastrous consequences of last year’s shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

The intelligence summary also said that members of the Qaeda affiliate in Afghanistan, formerly known as Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, or AQIS, were largely inactive and focused mainly on activities like media production.

But a U.N. report in July estimated that the Qaeda affiliate had between 180 to 400 fighters — “primarily from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Pakistan” — who were in several Taliban combat units.

“We know from a range of sources that AQIS participated in the Taliban’s insurgency against the U.S. as well as operations against ISIS-K,” Mr. Mir said, referring to the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan, a bitter rival of Al Qaeda.

There was broad agreement on at least two main points in the intelligence summary, including that Al Qaeda does not yet have the ability to attack the United States or American interests aboard from Afghan soil.

The U.N. report in July concurred with that judgment, explaining that Al Qaeda “is not viewed as posing an immediate international threat from its safe haven in Afghanistan because it lacks an external operational capability and does not currently wish to cause the Taliban international difficulty or embarrassment.”

And government analysts as well as outside terrorism experts agreed that Al Qaeda in Afghanistan would, in the short term, most likely call upon a range of affiliates outside the region to carry out plots.

None of these affiliates pose the same kind of threat to the American homeland that Al Qaeda did on Sept. 11, 2001. But they are deadly and resilient. The Qaeda affiliate in East Africa killed three Americans at a U.S. base in Kenya in 2020. A Saudi Air Force officer training in Florida killed three sailors and wounded eight other people in 2019. The officer acted on his own but was in contact with the Qaeda branch in Yemen as he completed his attack plans.

The New York Times · by Eric Schmitt · August 13, 2022

13. Taiwan 'matters far more to the world economy' than many people realize, economist explains

Data, graphs, and charts at the link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/taiwan-world-economy-economist-explains-123545383.html

Taiwan 'matters far more to the world economy' than many people realize, economist explains

Dani Romero·Reporter

Sat, August 13, 2022 at 5:35 AM·3 min read

finance.yahoo.com

China's latest military exercises encircling Taiwan have clear ramifications for the global economy, following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taipei.

"Taiwan matters far more to the world economy than its 1% share of global GDP would indicate," Gareth Leather, Senior Economist in the Emerging Asia team at Capital Economics, wrote in a note.

The military exercises included live-fire drills and missile launches, restricting access to ships and aircraft in the area. Data compiled by Bloomberg shows more than 40 vessels have navigated around the drill zones south of Taiwan’s main port.

(Source: AFP)

"A further escalation in cross-strait tensions that cut Taiwan’s export off from the rest of the world would lead to renewed shortages in the automotive and electronics sectors and put further upward pressure on inflation," Leather wrote.

He noted that Taiwan is the world’s largest producer of the processor chips "that are increasingly ubiquitous in new products," having twice the market share of the next biggest producer.

Leather added that 92% of the most advanced semiconductors are made by TSMC in Taiwan, making its dominance at the high end even greater. So if Taiwanese semiconductor supply were disrupted for a prolonged period, electronics and automotive manufacturers would struggle to find alternative suppliers.

Taiwan is by far the world’s biggest producer of the processor chips that are increasingly ubiquitous in new products.

Taiwan’s autonomy has become a key geopolitical interest for the U.S. due to the island's dominance in the global market for microchips. Semiconductors, which go in everything from smartphones to cars, have become an integral piece to our daily lives.

In a 2021 report from the Biden Administration, it was explained that "the United States is heavily dependent on a single company – TSMC – for producing its leading-edge chips." Also in the report, "the lack of domestic production capability also puts at risk the ability to supply current and future national security and critical infrastructure needs."

A student shows a chip that he tests inside a yellow room lab in Tainan, Taiwan, February 23, 2022. Picture taken February 23, 2022. REUTERS/Ann Wang

While Washington and Beijing are locked in a fierce race to become the global leader in high-tech industries, U.S. Congress passed the Chips and Science Act last week, providing $52 billion in subsidies for America’s semiconductor sector.

This would shore up our homegrown chip industry, with around $39 billion being allocated for building new chip fabrication plants on U.S. soil. In the meantime, any added bottleneck would only make the global production of goods particularly vulnerable.

If production facilities become damaged, the stakes are extremely high as it takes two-to-three years to build a semiconductor plant from scratch, according to Leather. The implications would be "extremely expensive" replacing lost manufacturing capacity and it wouldn't be "possible to re-establish TSMC’s most advanced facilities without its personnel and intellectual property."

Given the size of the electronics industry in parts of Asia and motor industry in parts of Europe, these economies are particularly vulnerable.

Another challenge would be an electronic shortage, which in turn would lead to an increase in prices, adding more pressure to global inflation.

Leather warns that If Taiwanese semiconductor supply were disrupted for a prolonged period, electronics and automotive manufacturers would struggle to find alternative suppliers. This would lead to many firms having to halt production.

"While electronic goods themselves make up a fairly small share of CPI baskets, widespread chip shortages would hit the output of a wider range of consumer goods and even digital services," Leather explained. "Consequently, a major escalation over Taiwan would constitute yet another supply shock, keeping inflation high for even longer."

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Dani Romero is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @daniromerotv

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14. Putin Can't Fix This: Russia Struggling to Replenish Ukraine Troops

Logistics - you know the rest about professionals.

For want of a nail....

Putin Can't Fix This: Russia Struggling to Replenish Ukraine Troops

19fortyfive.com · by Jack Buckby · August 14, 2022

Alexei Tabalov, a lawyer who heads up the Conscript’s School legal aid group, told The Associated Press this week how a large number of Russian troops are actively looking for ways to leave the military and stop fighting in Ukraine.

“We’re seeing a huge outflow of people who want to leave the war zone – those who have been serving for a long time and those who have signed a contract just recently,” Tabalov said.

It comes after the Pentagon this week confirmed that as many as 80,000 Russian troops have been wounded or killed on the battlefield, and as private military contractor PMC Wagner actively recruits prisoners to help replenish Russia’s dwindling number of troops on the battlefield.

Tabalov also told the press how it appears as though “everyone who can is ready to run away” and that the Russian Ministry of Defense is “digging deep to find those it can persuade to serve.”

Not only is the Kremlin relying on the support of private military contractors, but regional administrations are also reportedly forming “volunteer battalions” that are regularly promoted on state television, with volunteers being promised salaries that range between $2,150 and $5,500 per month.

This month, the Kremlin’s recruitment drive – which the Russian government denies exists – saw more than two dozen regions form 40 volunteer units made up of thousands of residents willing to assist the Russian military in Ukraine. The Russian government is also reportedly reducing its training requirements and offering large sign-up bonuses to men ready to fight.

Supply Lines Could Pose Next Challenge

As Russia struggles to find enough troops to ramp up operations in eastern and southern Ukraine, Kyiv has warned that the Ukrainian military is capable of attacking almost all of Moscow’s supply lines in occupied territory. Ukrainian officials revealed that a Russian ammunition depot close to the Antonivskiy bridge in occupied Kherson was struck by missiles on Friday, killing 11 Russian troops.

Natalia Humeniuk, a representative of the Ukrainian southern military command, revealed how almost all of Russia’s supply routes were now under “supply control,” meaning that Ukraine is capable of striking those locations using Western-supplied rocket systems.

“Our forces are controlling the situation in the south, despite the enemy trying to bring in reserves even though almost all their transport and logistical arteries have been hit or are under our fire control,” Humeniuk said on national television.

Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.

19fortyfive.com · by Jack Buckby · August 14, 2022

15. US missiles credited as key in Ukraine fight with Russia

US missiles credited as key in Ukraine fight with Russia

BY LAURA KELLY AND ELLEN MITCHELL - 08/13/22 5:58 AM ET

The Hill · by Laura Kelly · August 13, 2022

U.S.-provided anti-radiation missiles have helped take out some of Russia’s most dangerous weapons systems in Ukraine in recent days.

But the missiles, only recently confirmed to be in the hands of Ukraine’s air force, are just one part of a complicated strategy to expel Kremlin forces completely from the country, a Ukrainian fighter pilot told The Hill.

The pilot, who identifies himself by his call sign of “Juice,” said the country’s air force has recently used the anti-radiation missiles to suppress Russian air defense systems.

Their presence in Ukraine was confirmed for the first time Monday by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl, who said the missiles have been included in several recent lethal aid packages from the United States and make existing Ukrainian capabilities more effective.

“It’s a great support for us. Actually, it’s one of the most advanced weapons that we have at the moment,” Juice said, but he stressed that the missiles are only “one part of the complex mission.”

Though Department of Defense officials have not identified the specific anti-radiation missiles or the number sent, CNN reported that the munitions are AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, which can hit targets more than 30 miles away.

“They are very expensive, and we have a limited number,” Juice said, adding that they have to be selective in their targeting, taking out the Russian army’s “most dangerous” long-range missile systems.

The U.S. anti-radiation missiles are thought to be involved in the destruction of at least five Russian anti-aircraft artillery systems, four S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile systems and a Pantsir-S1 missile system, the Kyiv Post reported Monday.

Such battlefield successes are key in breaking through intense, yet stagnant, fighting along what is considered a 2,000-kilometer (1,243-mile) front line dividing Ukraine from the Russian-occupied territory in the east and south.

But the nation needs more help, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has continued to push for the international community to step up its support. The aid is critical for Ukraine’s armed forces to push Russia back by destroying its supply lines and breaking down its will to fight before winter, when conditions could change the battlefield and the geopolitical stage, he warns.

To that end, the Pentagon has signaled it is preparing to scale up its collaboration with Ukraine’s air force — a critical component in the country’s defense — to include U.S. service members beginning to train Ukrainian pilots on advanced American fighter jets.

“There are real questions about what would be most useful in terms of assisting the Ukrainian air force and improving its capabilities. It’s not inconceivable that down the road Western aircraft could be part of the mix on that, but the final analysis has not been done,” Kahl said in a briefing with reporters.

Even as Ukrainian ground troops put to effective use American-provided High Mobility Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and multiple launch rocket systems — celebrated for their ability to disrupt and destroy Russian military supply lines — Juice said that he hopes the U.S. will help with the needs of the air force.

“I totally understand that HIMARS and Howitzers, UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], all of that are critically important for our armed forces,” he said. “But we are still saying that the air force, in modern war, is too important, too critical. And we need to improve our capabilities.”

Alex Gorgan, a Ukrainian infantry officer who launched a private initiative that is training Ukrainian pilots on Western aircraft, seconds that, calling Ukrainian pilots “priceless.”

Gorgan said it is impossible for Ukraine to retake occupied territory from the Russians without quickly building up its air force capacity.

Gorgan launched his initiative, called the Training Center for Pilots of Advanced Military Aircrafts, alongside Andrey Vavrysh, CEO of SAGA Development, and in coordination with the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.

Gorgan said the idea for this initiative came while he fought in the trenches of eastern Ukraine in March, under intense shelling from Russian forces.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my God. We need this specific airplane, A-10 Thunderbolt, which gives close air support for infantry,’” he recalled.

“But the United States cannot give the plane because we don’t have pilots, but we don’t have pilots because we don’t have planes, so we have to break this circle. The weakest point of this circle is the ability to have previous study,” he said.

Gorgan’s initiative focuses on using flight simulators to begin training pilots on the A-10 as well as other advanced aircraft Ukraine hopes to receive.

U.S. lawmakers have identified pilot training as key to beginning the process of delivery of advanced war planes.

A proposal by Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), included in the House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act, aims to provide $100 million to train Ukrainian pilots to use American planes.

The list of needs, demands and hopes is long.

Ukrainian officials have long called for American-made F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.

The Ukrainians also view attack helicopters as critical in carrying out a robust defense — Juice brought up Boeing’s AH-64 Apache helicopters, though conceded it is unlikely, and that they would settle for the Bell AH-1 SuperCobra or Bell AH-1Z Viper.

“Of course I’m not a helicopter expert, but in general I know their needs, and all these helicopters are the platforms for modern aiming systems, reconnaissance and modern precision missiles,” he said.

“We could provide the very precision attacks without any civilian casualties … exactly, precisely, to target and from large distances to be safe from the enemy’s air defense,” he added.

The Ukrainian air force has long been in touch with the U.S. Air Force, and since the start of the invasion, Juice said, the Americans have provided not only advice in those first few critical weeks but also friendship.

“They are trying just to help, just by any possible way, even just a friendly conversation. ‘How are you? Are you still alive?’” he says with a laugh but adds more seriously that the pilots consider each other “brothers in arms,” referring back to a tragic training accident in 2018 when both a Ukrainian and an American pilot were killed.

GOP under fire for rhetoric over IRS On The Money — Dems’ big bill makes it out of Congress

“U.S. Air Force became the real brothers in arms for us, with blood on our soil,” he said, adding that the 2018 exercise was critically important in their training, as it was designed specifically to prepare against a full-scale Russian invasion — four years after Moscow had seized territory in Ukraine’s east and on the Crimean Peninsula.

“We understood that these fallen guys won’t ask [us not] to continue. Their wish was to make this, make it happen, to continue to complete this mission,” Juice said.

“Because the mission of this exercise was to prepare us against war with Russia,” he added.

The Hill · by Laura Kelly · August 13, 2022

16. America Needs Leaders With Fresh Eyes

I do not much care for this author's politics and actions. But I do agree we need a lot more younger leaders in civilian and military leadership roles.

America Needs Leaders With Fresh Eyes

By Stuart Scheller

]August 14, 2022

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/08/14/america_needs_leaders_with_fresh_eyes_148046.html

Americans searching for leaders will find hope in a new generation of veterans shaped by service during the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Those who led, bled, and carried dead in America’s foreign wars understand what’s best about this nation and how to preserve it. I served in combat commands in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I have no doubt that America will find its future leaders among the talented young officers with whom I served.

Military service over the last two decades can do a lot to prepare someone for action in the public arena. But former service members must break free of the servile mindset pervading the U.S. military if they are to rise to the leadership challenges facing America. To advance in today’s military, asking questions, calling out problems, or being anything other than a yes-man is frowned upon, even outright punished. Loyalty to “the system” is valued above warfighting skill, leadership, and critical thinking.

And yet, look at the record of this “system” since World War II: failure to accomplish political objectives in Vietnam, Beirut, Kosovo, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. Even worse, government has depleted economic, diplomatic, and information resources in pursuit of what turned out to be failed objectives. All the while, top generals have insulated themselves from accountability by deflecting blame toward politicians, adjacent foreign diplomacy departments, and junior service members.

Fear of blame-shifting leads most active-duty military members to remain silently and singularly focused on their compartmentalized jobs. Inept leadership across the entire military leads to confusion about its role in foreign policy. Political “experts” pontificate about how jobs, inflation, and domestic security impact voting more than foreign affairs. Despite what these so-called experts think, the military arm of foreign diplomacy is critical to preserving America’s prosperity.

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Since Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen-point speech in 1918, America has served as the international system’s leader. But since Vietnam, American leaders have recklessly chased problems across the world without a long-term strategy for increasing national power. National power directly correlates to the amount of influence a nation can impose upon the international system. Thus, if American leaders want to maximize their ability to influence the international system, our foreign policy strategy should seek to increase our national power at a pace above or commensurate with competitors, without recklessly engaging in power-draining conflicts abroad. Ultimately, America’s influence on the global order determines its influence over all issues, including jobs, inflation, and domestic security.

America cannot afford another out-of-touch generation of senior military and civilian leaders, but here we are. As Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was advancing the idea that the greatest threat facing his department was COVID-19, Russia was staging forces on the border of Ukraine; America was preparing to exit the longest war in American history; and the Defense Department was decaying internally from procurement, promotion, and education problems. Due to misplaced priorities, the Afghanistan evacuation a year ago this month failed, and the global order deteriorated. Furthermore, when President Biden was asked about a military investigation that outlined a series of failures following the Afghanistan evacuation, he stated that he rejected conclusions in the investigation. When asked which parts he rejected specifically, he again summarily stated, “I reject it,” without further explanation.

The American people could demand accountability by applying pressure on their elected politicians. American taxpayers should not be incentivizing inept military leadership with annual blank checks of $750 billion. Americans were outraged and rightly traumatized when CEOs of large corporations received huge bonuses after the infamous bailouts during the 2008 recession. So why do we continue incentivizing ineffective military leadership?

All is not lost. Though we desperately need a new generation of leaders capable of working within the system to enhance, rather than squander, national power on the global stage, America retains historic advantages, including the largest national GDP and the resources of information and diplomacy around the globe. Most importantly, we have the best young military talent in the world.

Young officers who served this nation for the past two decades went off to war at the expense of lucrative business opportunities and professional accreditations. They chose a lifestyle of courage and sacrifice. Ironically, lucrative corporate positions and professional accreditations are what fill up the bios of our current career politicians. But reading, writing, and living foreign diplomacy for the past two decades provided the GWOT generation an education not found inside an Ivy League classroom. What they know cannot be bought with any corporate bonus.

And so, our country needs this courageous generation to serve again. We need young veterans and active military members to think critically and offer reasoned assessments about how the military’s approach to war has failed America. No excuses or justifications. Blindly following the footsteps of predecessors will only replicate their failures. Though previous foreign policy disasters have been absorbed and the system has continued functioning despite degradation to national power, this pattern ultimately will end in disaster. The most effective leaders in our military and civilian life will be those who see the problem, speak up, and break the cycle. Our warriors coming home should embrace this as their next mission.

Stuart Scheller served 17 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He deployed to combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Beirut, and was awarded for valor. He is the author of the forthcoming memoir, Crisis of Command (Knox Press, 2022).

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

VIDEO "WHEREBY" Link: https://whereby.com/david-maxwell

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

V/R

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Phone: 202-573-8647

Personal Email: d avid.maxwell161@gmail.com

Web Site: www.fdd.org

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

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FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

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