Quotes of the Day:
““I believe that it must be the policy of the United States,” he said, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” 3 Truman did not mention the Soviet Union in his speech, but everyone who heard him understood that “armed minorities” referred to Communist insurgents and that “outside pressures” referred to the Kremlin. This became known, almost immediately, as the “Truman Doctrine.” The speech was, effectively, the declaration of the Cold War. It would last forty-four years.”
— The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War by Louis Menand
https://a.co/7jbCf6S
“Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression...”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
“Now and then I am inclined to think that the passion to teach, which is far more powerful and primitive than the passion to learn, is a a factor in the rise of mass movements. For what do we see in the Communist world? Half of the globe has been turned into a vast schoolroom with a thousand million pupils at the mercy of a band of maniacal schoolmasters.”
― Eric Hoffer, Working and Thinking on the Waterfront, June 1958-May 1959
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 3 (PUTIN'S WAR)
2. Retired Army major general: The Russian military invasion has peaked (Interview with retired US Army Major General Mike Repass)
3. Spies come in from the cold as intelligence goes unexpectedly public in Ukraine war
4. Russia shifting focus to show a victory by early May in eastern Ukraine, US officials say
5. What Does Arming an Insurgency in Ukraine Mean?
6. War-Gaming Taiwan: When Losing to China Is Winning
7. Solomon Islands Says It Will Not Allow China Military Base
8. The KMT’s Defense Policy: Toward a Symmetric Posture
9. Zelensky invites Merkel, Sarkozy to Bucha to look at results of concessions to Russia
10. An elite Ukrainian drone unit on quad bikes ambushed Russian forces, helping to defeat Putin's plan to capture Kyiv, report says
11. Finland appears closer to joining NATO despite Russia's threat of military consequences if it does
12. How two dozen retired generals are trying to stop an overhaul of the Marines
13. What Lessons is China Taking from the Ukraine War?
14. Navy and Marines Divided Over the Amphibious Fleet’s Future as Delays and Cancellations Mount in FY 2023 Budget Request
15. Options to Modify Title 10 U.S. Code to Improve U.S. Security Force Assistance
16. Why China won’t mediate an end to the Ukraine war by Joseph S. Nye
17. Pentagon policies don’t do enough to prevent harm to civilians: report
18. Navy SEALs can’t use Washington parks for training, judge says
19. Biden Told the Truth: Putin Has to Go By Garry Kasparov
20. Latest atrocities in Ukraine were inevitable and won’t be the last
21. Ukraine War Update - April 4, 2022 | SOF News
22. Wargaming a Long War: Ukraine Fights On
Ukraine War Update - April 4, 2022 | SOF News
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 3 (PUTIN'S WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 3 (putin's war)
Frederick W. Kagan, George Barros, and Karolina Hird
April 3, 3:30 pm ET
Ukraine has won the Battle of Kyiv. Russian forces are completing their withdrawal, but not in good order. Ukrainian forces are continuing to clear Kyiv Oblast of isolated Russian troops left behind in the retreat, which some Ukrainian officials describe as “lost orcs.” Russian forces had attempted to conduct an orderly retreat from their positions around Kyiv with designated covering forces supported by artillery and mines to allow the main body to withdraw. The main body of Russian troops has withdrawn from the west bank of the Dnipro and is completing its withdrawal from the east bank, but the retrograde has been sufficiently disorderly that some Russian troops were left behind.
The war is far from over and could still turn Russia’s way if the Russian military can launch a successful operation in eastern Ukraine. The current line of Russian occupation in southern and eastern Ukraine is still a significant gain in Russian-controlled territory since the start of the war. If a ceasefire or peace agreement freezes a line like the current front-line trace, Russia will be able to exert much greater pressure on Ukraine than it did before the invasion and may over time reassemble a more effective invasion force. Ukraine’s victory in the Battle of Kyiv is thus significant but not decisive.
The disorder of the Russian withdrawal suggests that at least some of the units now reconcentrating in Belarus and western Russia will remain combat ineffective for a protracted period. Russian troops attempting to refit after pulling back from around Kyiv will likely have to reconsolidate into their units, identify which soldiers are still present, sort out their equipment and assess its combat readiness, and generally reconstitute before they can even begin to receive replacements and new equipment and prepare for further combat operations.
Russian forces are likely abandoning the east bank of the Dnipro fully as well, withdrawing from around Chernihiv to the north and from Brovary to the east. Russian troops will likely seek to hold a salient around Konotop and Sumy long enough to allow their forces to complete their retrograde from near Kyiv but will then likely withdraw back to Russia from almost all their positions west of Kharkiv.
Moscow is attempting to concentrate reserves and some units pulled from the fight around Sumy to reinforce its offensive operations in the east but is encountering serious challenges in that effort. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on April 3 that Russian soldiers are resisting and in some cases refusing orders to enter or re-enter the war effort. The General Staff asserted that the two battalion tactical groups (BTGs) that moved from South Ossetia toward Donbas less than a week ago refused to fight and that plans to move them back to South Ossetia are in train.[1] The General Staff claimed that about 25 soldiers of the Russian 31st Separate Airborne Brigade refused orders to re-enter combat citing excessive losses.[2] The General Staff also asserted that commanders at various echelons in the Russian 3rd Motorized Rifle Division have refused to participate in combat operations.[3] We have no independent verification of these reports, but they are credible in light of the losses Russian forces have suffered and of independent reports of Russian soldiers killing commanders and commanders committing suicide from earlier in the conflict.
Russian efforts to advance its offensive operations in eastern Ukraine made limited progress in the past 24 hours. Fighting continues in Mariupol and on the Izyum-Severodonetsk axis.
Key Takeaways
- Ukraine has won the Battle of Kyiv, and Russian forces are completing their withdrawals from both the east and the west banks of the Dnipro in disorder.
- Russian forces retreating from around Kyiv will likely need considerable time before they can return to combat.
- Incidents of refusals of orders to engage in combat operations among Russian units continue and may lead to the redeployment of two BTGs that had arrived near Donbas within the last few days to their home stations in South Ossetia.
- The continued existence of an independent Ukrainian state with its capital in Kyiv is no longer in question at this time, although much fighting remains and the war could still turn Russia’s way.
We do not report in detail on the deliberate Russian targeting of civilian infrastructure and attacks on unarmed civilians, which are 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.
ISW has updated its assessment of the four primary efforts Russian forces are engaged in at this time:
- Main effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate supporting efforts);
- Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv and Izyum;
- Supporting effort 2—Kyiv and northeastern Ukraine; and
- Supporting effort 3—Southern axis.
Main effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate main effort—Mariupol (Russian objective: Capturing Mariupol and reducing Ukrainian defenders)
Little information about what is occurring in Mariupol is available likely due to the loss/interdiction of communications from the city. Russian media reported fighting in the city on April 2.[4] Russia will likely make much of its final capture of the city for propaganda purposes but has not yet done so, which suggests that it has not yet completed the seizure. The Ukrainian General Staff also noted on April 3 that Russian forces are still preparing efforts to complete their seizure of the city.[5]
Subordinate main effort—Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
The Ukrainian governor of Luhansk Oblast claimed on April 3 that mayors of the towns of Rubizhne, Milove, Stanytsia Luhanska, and Markivka are working with the LNR.[6] LNR officials separately claimed to be clearing Rubizhne and evacuating civilians, while blaming Ukrainian forces for damaging the city (presumably by defending it).[7] We have no independent verification of the LNR claims. It is unclear if the LNR claims are based on actual Russian military control over the towns or on the claimed collaboration of the towns’ mayors. The Ukrainian General Staff report of 2400 April 2 suggested that Russian forces had not yet secured Rubizhne, in any event.[8]
Russian units reportedly attacked Ukrainian positions at various locations throughout Donetsk Oblast but made few gains, according to the Ukrainian General Staff.[9] Social media reports confirm heavy fighting over the past few days.[10]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv and Izyum: (Russian objective: Advance southeast to support Russian operations in Luhansk Oblast; and fix Ukrainian forces around Kharkiv in place)
Russian forces appear to be continuing efforts to concentrate forces to resume the offensive from Izyum toward the southeast but did not launch any large-scale operation in the past 24 hours. The Russians continue to bombard Kharkiv, but the Ukrainian General Staff reported on April 2 that the intensity of the bombardment had somewhat decreased.[11] The Ukrainian General Staff claimed on April 3 that Ukrainian forces had inflicted 80% losses on the Russian 59th Tank Regiment near Kharkiv over an unspecified period.[12]
Russian forces west of Kharkiv and around Sumy appeared to focus on covering the withdrawal of Russian troops from eastern Kyiv.[13] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on April 2 that one battalion tactical group (BTG) of the 1st Guards Tank Army was covering the retrograde of the elements of the 2nd Combined Arms Army from Brovary through Sumy.[14] Local Ukrainian reports indicate that Russian forces still operate from Billopilya to Konotop on April 2.[15] We assess that these reports are likely accurate despite claims by a Ukrainian member of parliament on April 3 that Ukrainian forces had liberated Konotop.[16] Russian forces likely will eventually abandon Konotop and most or all of their positions west of Kharkiv once their withdrawal from the Brovary axis is complete.
Supporting Effort #2—Kyiv and Northeastern Ukraine: (Russian objective: Withdraw combat power in good order for redeployment to eastern Ukraine)
The withdrawal of the main body of Russian forces along both banks of the Dnipro River is likely complete. The disorderly nature of the withdrawal, which apparently left numerous individual Russian soldiers and possibly small pockets of Russian troops behind, makes precise assessments of the situation throughout Kyiv and Chernihiv Oblasts impossible at this time. Ukrainian officials describe their clearing operations as looking for “lost orcs.”[17] We will update our assessments in the coming days as the situation clarifies but anticipate that Ukrainian forces will finish clearing the last remnants of Russian troops from the Kyiv axis within the next few days. There is no evidence that the isolated Russian troops Ukrainian forces are encountering stayed behind deliberately, and the Russian pockets do not appear to be offering coherent or coordinated resistance to Ukrainian clearing operations.
Sourcing for this assessment is available here.[18]
Supporting Effort #3—Southern axis: (Objective: Defend Kherson against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Russian forces continued limited offensive operations in the southern axis. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on April 3 that Russian troops were fighting to retake Oleksandirvka in northern Kherson Oblast after Ukrainian forces regained control of the town in mid-March.[19]
Immediate items to watch
- Russian forces will likely complete their withdrawal from Kyiv along the Sumy axis in the coming days and will probably abandon their remaining positions around Konotop and Sumy thereafter.
- Russian troops around Kharkiv will likely continue to focus on supporting the shift of the main effort via Izyum toward the southeast and may pull back from the immediate environs of the city.
- Russian and proxy forces will attempt to increase the scope and scale of offensive operations to complete the linkup between the Kharkiv-Izyum axis and occupied Luhansk.
- Russian forces will likely secure Mariupol in coming days, and may attempt to launch renewed offensive operations northwest from the city in an effort to seize Donetsk Oblast.
[15] https://tsn dot ua/exclusive/vid-bilopillya-do-konotopu-okupuyutsya-okupanti-situaciya-u-sumah-ta-oblasti-2-kvitnya-2026933.html
2. Retired Army major general: The Russian military invasion has peaked (Interview with retired US Army Major General Mike Repass)
Some important insights in this interview. MG Repass was the visionary as the SOCEUR Commander who initiated the resistance operating concept. And all subsequent commanders should be commended for continuing to develop the concept.
Please note the challenge with US bureaucracy. We are supporting contingency operations with draconian peacetime policies, procedures, and processes. If it is in US interests to support Ukraine then we need to be able to do it at the speed necessary to affect outcomes. We need "in extremis" policies and processes to support our national interests.
BERGEN: As the former commander of US Special Operations in Europe, how would you rate the Ukrainian Special Forces?
REPASS: They have five regiments of Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, and they were in varying degrees of readiness and capability prior to the war. There are some that were NATO-interoperable and some that were not up to those standards. There are other Special Operations Forces units as well, such as the SBU-Alpha troops from the Security Service of Ukraine, that are pretty darn good. They also have special forces in the State Border Guards.
The Ukrainian law on territorial defense, which went into effect in January, directed the Special Operations Forces to be in charge of the national resistance effort. I know that the resistance forces and territorials have been very active in the Russian rear areas. They don't have the numbers or the combat capability to go head-to-head with a Russian battalion tactical group, so they tend to engage the rear echelons of support troops and forces.
...
BERGEN: On NATO, how would you rate its response?
REPASS: The answer to that depends on where you sit. If you're in Kyiv, you would be very frustrated. They are genuinely and very appreciative of the support they've received from all the donor nations. But they expected more support from NATO. There are two different things at play here. The organization, NATO, is not engaged in activities to directly support Ukrainian operations. They are rhetorically and politically supporting what individual nations are doing to support Ukraine, but those nations are coordinating among each other as opposed to coordinating support activities through the NATO alliance structure.
The Ukrainians have several lists of things that they need, but they've got to go through a rather bureaucratic process to acquire them. In some cases, the donor nations are moving at the speed of process rather than at the speed of war.
I'll give you an example: Level IV body armor is capable of withstanding one or two shots from a Soviet-type round. That technology is controlled by the State Department for US export. The Ukrainians will tell you, "Hey, we have the money to pay for this stuff. We're not asking you to give it to us. We're asking you to sell it to us expeditiously." However, the provision of Level IV body armor is subject to a lengthy process to get US approval for delivery to Ukraine. It is late-to-need as a result.
Retired Army major general: The Russian military invasion has peaked
CNN · by Opinion by Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
(CNN)Vladimir Putin's five-week long invasion of Ukraine has peaked, with Russian forces no longer possessing enough combat power to continue to advance, according to one close observer of the military situation.
In interviews Thursday and Friday, the former commander of the US Special Operations Command in Europe, retired US Army Major General Mike Repass, gave his well-informed view of the war in Ukraine. For the past six years, he has advised the Ukrainian military on a US government contract.
While the Russians may be bogged down, Repass says, the Ukrainian side is also under great stress. He said that the Ukrainian counterattacks in recent days may be less effective than the media coverage has suggested. And he says it's also not clear how many casualties the Ukrainians have incurred, which makes any kind of accurate analysis of how they are faring difficult to do.
Repass also contends that the Ukrainians need more S-300 missiles capable of bringing down mid-to-high-altitude jets and ballistic missiles, which would fall below the threshold of instituting a formal no-fly zone requested by the Ukrainians, which the US has rejected. And Repass says that he believes that Putin's "must-haves" in the conflict are securing a land bridge connecting Russia to Crimea on the Black Sea and pushing out the boundaries around the two Russian-proclaimed "republics" of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Disclosure: Repass is on the advisory council of the Global Special Operations Foundation, where I am the chairman of the board. Our conversation was edited for clarity and length.
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Mike Repass: The Russians culminated about 5 days ago. In the military vernacular, "culmination" means you no longer have sufficient combat power to continue to advance in the offense. I believe that the Ukrainians sensed that and started conducting local counterattacks, particularly to the north and west of Kyiv. They also started counterattacks in the east recently. The Ukrainians went on the counteroffensive, but in a limited way. They took the town of Irpin to the west of Kyiv and some other towns, but the news coverage of the counterattacks has, I think, surpassed the actual effects of those operations on the ground.
I'm concerned that it's not a large counterattack because perhaps the Ukrainians don't have enough forces to launch one. So, if they can't muster a larger counterattack around Kyiv, they may have a hard time gathering enough forces to push the Russians back in the east near Donbas.
We really don't know what's going on, on the ground, in granular detail, so it's hard to judge the Ukrainian tactics and capabilities, and -- this is more important -- we have no idea what the Ukrainian losses have been so far. If this devolves into a battle of attrition between both sides and we don't know what the costs to the Ukrainians have been, our analysis about what is going on will be somewhat shallow, quite frankly.
BERGEN: What do you make of the peace talks?
REPASS: I think it's a Russian delaying tactic because they have not established satisfactory facts on the ground. They're not ready to stop fighting because they don't have what they need or want. Unfortunately, I think there will be much more suffering and destruction in Ukraine before there is a ceasefire or peace agreement.
REPASS: The Belgorod strike is extraordinary in my view. Assuming that it was conducted by the Ukrainians, the operation put Russia on notice that their previous sanctuary in the homeland is now potentially at risk. (Ukraine's Security Council Secretary denied responsibility for the attack hours after the Ukrainian defense ministry spokesperson said he would neither confirm nor deny Ukraine's role.) They will no longer have freedom of unrestricted movement in what was previously considered safe rear areas. Russia will have to divert military assets that are currently employed in Ukraine to secure their critical assets and capabilities on Russian soil. Further, the attack destroyed critically needed fuel and other resources needed for the Russians' faltering fight in Ukraine, which will certainly amplify their logistics challenges. Psychologically, it is another blow to Russia's sense of invincibility.
BERGEN: Is there anything that surprised you in the last month?
REPASS: Unfortunately, the biggest surprise is the willingness of Russia to destroy everything. Russia is using unrestricted warfare, short of nuclear war, and we haven't seen this in Europe during the modern era. The only other places that we've seen it is Russia's war in Grozny and then the Russians repeated it in Homs and Aleppo in Syria. Both of those cities are ancient and have archeological significance, and the Russians destroyed both. And Putin did it without penalty or repercussions for his unrestricted use of force to destroy entire cities, including landmarks of cultural and historical significance. Now, he's destroying Mariupol. He's after Kharkiv, and he'll do the same there and with the other cities that he's encircled, if he's given a chance.
So the unrestricted brutality that Russia is willing to use in Ukraine has surprised me, given the prewar Russian rhetoric of "We're brothers," "We're cousins," "We're one people." But it's clear to me that what Putin's going for -- the annihilation of the indigenous population -- is because he doesn't want any potential resistance movements in those cities. Mariupol in particular could be a base for resistance in the midst of his attempt to secure a land bridge from Donbas down to Crimea.
BERGEN: As the former commander of US Special Operations in Europe, how would you rate the Ukrainian Special Forces?
REPASS: They have five regiments of Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, and they were in varying degrees of readiness and capability prior to the war. There are some that were NATO-interoperable and some that were not up to those standards. There are other Special Operations Forces units as well, such as the SBU-Alpha troops from the Security Service of Ukraine, that are pretty darn good. They also have special forces in the State Border Guards.
The Ukrainian law on territorial defense, which went into effect in January, directed the Special Operations Forces to be in charge of the national resistance effort. I know that the resistance forces and territorials have been very active in the Russian rear areas. They don't have the numbers or the combat capability to go head-to-head with a Russian battalion tactical group, so they tend to engage the rear echelons of support troops and forces.
REPASS: It's exceedingly unusual in the modern era. What it tells me is that their command and control processes are very poor. It is also a function of technology and organization. On the organization side, the Russians created battalion tactical groups as their primary war-fighting formations with vastly different armaments and degrees of vehicle mobility. To employ their capabilities properly, they have to string them out across the battlefield in depth, but they don't have the technology and procedures for arranging these forces in the way they need to. This problem is compounded by the poor infrastructure, which forces the armored and heavy vehicles to remain on the limited and narrow roads. As a result, tactical engagements cause traffic jams, which are exacerbated by bad radio communication systems. In combination, the situation requires the senior leaders to go forward to unscrew things, which makes them vulnerable to artillery and sniper fire.
BERGEN: Are you surprised that the Russians are sometimes communicating in the clear on radios or cell phones?
REPASS: Yes, it does surprise me, but it's just evidence that their command-and-control capabilities are insufficient for the way they're organized.
BERGEN: The body bags will start going back to Russia and the funerals will start happening. Does Putin care?
REPASS: I think the consensus among Russia watchers is he either doesn't know or doesn't give a damn. He's impervious to domestic opinion because he's so thoroughly insulated from what's going on domestically. He has a circle of trusted advisers and people around him that he pays attention to, and then he has his very tight circle of security that ensures that he's well protected. Adding to his isolation, Putin has said himself that he barely uses the internet.
He's informed by his own state media, which has only state-approved messages to report. He's living in an echo chamber, and they're not going to report the bad news.
BERGEN: You were a part of a group of retired senior US military and senior Eastern European military leaders that released an open letter on March 9 urging that the Ukrainians be armed with S-300 missiles. Your reason for advocating for the S-300s is they would be below the threshold of setting up a formal no-fly zone, yet would still intercept mid-to-high-altitude jets and ballistic missiles?
REPASS: Right. If you were able to achieve a no-fly zone through your own air defense capabilities, then perhaps there wouldn't be such a political demand from the Ukrainians -- "Give us MiG fighters. Give us a no-fly zone." So, it was somewhat supportive of the administration's position on not instituting a formal no-fly zone, while also supporting the actual requirements on the ground in Ukraine.
BERGEN: And the Ukrainians know how to use the S-300s?
REPASS: Absolutely. They're using the ones that they do have to good effect already.
BERGEN: On NATO, how would you rate its response?
REPASS: The answer to that depends on where you sit. If you're in Kyiv, you would be very frustrated. They are genuinely and very appreciative of the support they've received from all the donor nations. But they expected more support from NATO. There are two different things at play here. The organization, NATO, is not engaged in activities to directly support Ukrainian operations. They are rhetorically and politically supporting what individual nations are doing to support Ukraine, but those nations are coordinating among each other as opposed to coordinating support activities through the NATO alliance structure.
The Ukrainians have several lists of things that they need, but they've got to go through a rather bureaucratic process to acquire them. In some cases, the donor nations are moving at the speed of process rather than at the speed of war.
I'll give you an example: Level IV body armor is capable of withstanding one or two shots from a Soviet-type round. That technology is controlled by the State Department for US export. The Ukrainians will tell you, "Hey, we have the money to pay for this stuff. We're not asking you to give it to us. We're asking you to sell it to us expeditiously." However, the provision of Level IV body armor is subject to a lengthy process to get US approval for delivery to Ukraine. It is late-to-need as a result.
BERGEN: Do you have other concerns?
REPASS: What about the pending humanitarian disaster that's going to happen in Russia with food shortages and other issues that are coming up? Probably by June, there's going to be a substantial humanitarian challenge in Russia, and the West would be well served to start talking about this now.
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They have stopped exporting commodities out of Russia. They have already started rationing some food items like sugar. If the domestic situation gets seriously destabilized due to shortages of food and essential commodities, then perhaps the ruling elites will become unpredictable and desperate to maintain their hold on power. That could lead to substantially increased violence in Ukraine to force a more rapid military outcome.
BERGEN: What's the Russian game plan now?
REPASS: Their initial theory of victory was to decapitate the Ukrainian government, secure a land bridge to Crimea and then seize as much land as possible. He also said he was going to secure the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (regions). The additional land seizure was going to be things that they were willing to bargain away. They have no intention of bargaining away the land bridge to Crimea.
The Russian expedition to Kyiv from the north was well anticipated and superbly defended against by the Ukrainians, and the Russians realized after substantial casualties that they didn't need that. The seizure of Kyiv was (and is) not essential to Russia's success, and was a want-to-have as opposed to a must-have. The land bridge to Crimea is a Russian must-have.
In 2014, when the Russians invaded, they took over Crimea, but they also invaded in the east and created this mythology that there was an indigenous revolution in areas of the Donbas, the two "republics" of Luhansk and Donetsk, which Russia recognized as independent republics in the runup to the war that they're currently in.
That area was heavily industrialized and it has mineral wealth. A lot of the industry was destroyed during the war in 2014, but the coal remains, which Russia is interested in controlling. Extending the political boundaries around the states of Luhansk and Donetsk and securing the land bridge to Crimea would give Putin sufficient political cover to claim some form of victory. It would allow him to then seek a ceasefire or peace agreement. However, I don't see the Ukrainians agreeing to any of this.
CNN · by Opinion by Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
3. Spies come in from the cold as intelligence goes unexpectedly public in Ukraine war
Intelligence can be useful beyond supporting policy and decision makers.
Spies come in from the cold as intelligence goes unexpectedly public in Ukraine war
A local resident walks past a destroyed Russian tank in Dmytrivka, west of Kyiv, undated (Genya SAVILOV / AFP)
LONDON (AP) — The war in Ukraine is the conflict where spies came in from the cold and took center stage.
Since Russia invaded its neighbor in late February, intelligence agencies in the US and Britain have been remarkably willing to go public with their secret intelligence assessments of what is happening on the battlefield — and inside the Kremlin.
The US this week declassified intelligence findings claiming Russian President Vladimir Putin is being misinformed about his military’s poor performance in Ukraine by advisers scared to tell him the truth. On Thursday a British spy chief said demoralized Russian troops were refusing to carry out orders and sabotaging their own equipment.
Jeremy Fleming, who heads Britain’s electronic intelligence agency GCHQ, made the comments in a public speech where he said the “pace and scale” at which secret intelligence is being released “really is unprecedented.”
Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert at University College London, agreed that the very public intelligence campaign “reflects the fact that we now live in a different age, politically and internationally. And this is a different kind of war.”
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Officials say the stream of declassified intelligence — which includes regular briefings to journalists in Washington and London and daily Twitter updates from Britain’s defense ministry — has several aims. Partly it’s to let Putin know he is being watched, and to make him question what he’s being told. It’s also designed to embolden the Russian military to tell Putin the truth, and to convey to the Russian public that they have been lied to about the war.
In this Feb. 14, 2019 file photo, Jeremy Fleming, head of the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) walks in London (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)
The US and Britain also have released intelligence assessments in a bid to deter Russian actions. That was the case with recent warnings Russia might be preparing to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
It’s all part of a closely coordinated trans-Atlantic strategy that has been in the works for months.
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Biden administration officials say they decided to aggressively share intelligence and coordinate messaging with key allies, including Britain, as US concerns about Russian troop movements in autumn 2021 put the intelligence community on high alert.
In early November, US President Joe Biden dispatched CIA director William Burns to Moscow to warn that the US was fully aware of Russian troop movements. The White House has typically been tight-lipped about the director’s travels, but the Biden administration calculated that in this situation they needed to advertise the visit far and wide. The US Embassy in Moscow announced that Burns had met with top Kremlin officials shortly after his trip was over.
Soon after Burns’ Moscow mission, US officials decided they needed to accelerate intelligence sharing.
Officials shared sensitive intelligence with other members of the Five Eyes alliance — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — and also with Ukraine. Director of national intelligence Avril Haines was dispatched to Brussels to brief NATO members on intelligence underlying growing American concerns that Russia seemed intent on invasion, according to a US official familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
Some allies and analysts were skeptical, with memories lingering of past intelligence failings, like the false claim Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that was used to justify the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Late last year, France and Germany led a group of European countries that appeared to be seeing similar military intelligence as the US and Britain, but were less convinced that an invasion of Ukraine was imminent. At NATO, Germany initially blocked the use of a system for helping Ukraine to acquire certain military equipment. France and Germany also blocked NATO from launching an early crisis planning system in response to the buildup, before relenting in December.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Moscow, Russia, March 29, 2022. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
This week, French media reported that the head of France’s military intelligence agency, which failed to anticipate the Russian invasion, has been removed from his post.
Eric Vidaud’s departure comes amid soul-searching among France’s leadership about why it was taken by surprise by the war — which was particularly embarrassing for President Emmanuel Macron, who speaks regularly with Putin. Some see Vidaud as a scapegoat, and note that his removal comes just ahead of this month’s French presidential election.
In January, as Russia amassed troops near Ukraine’s border, Britain’s Foreign Office issued a statement alleging that Putin wanted to install a pro-Moscow regime in Ukraine. The UK said it was making the intelligence assessment public because of the “exceptional circumstances.”
Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 largely silenced the doubters, and drew a unified response from NATO. The release of US and British intelligence is partly designed to shore up that Western unity, officials and analysts say. Both Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson doubt Putin is serious about negotiating an end to the war and want to keep up the West’s military and moral support of Ukraine.
The impact inside Russia is hard to measure. The US official who spoke to the AP said the White House hopes divulging intelligence that Putin is misinformed could help prod the Russian leader to reconsider his options in Ukraine. But the publicity could also risk further isolating Putin or make him double down on his aim of restoring Russian prestige lost since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Ukrainian soldiers carry a body of a civilian killed by the Russian forces under the destroyed bridge in Irpin close to Kyiv, Ukraine, March 31, 2022. The more than month-old war has killed thousands and driven more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes including almost 4 million from their country. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The official said Biden is in part shaped by a belief that “Putin is going to do what Putin is going to do,” regardless of international efforts to deter him.
Galeotti said Western intelligence agencies likely don’t know how much impact their efforts will have on Putin.
“But there’s no harm in giving it a try,” he said. “Because when it comes down to it, in this kind of intensely personalistic system (of government), if one line, or one particular notion, happens to get through and lodge itself in Putin’s brain, then that’s a really powerful result.”
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4. Russia shifting focus to show a victory by early May in eastern Ukraine, US officials say
Excerpts:
The US also assesses that Putin is now preparing for the first time to name an overall commander of the war to try to achieve greater Russian successes, two of the US officials said. The US belief is Putin will likely name a general who has been in the south because that is a place where the Russians have succeeded in their objectives.
CNN previously reported there was no theater-wide commander on the ground in or near Ukraine, and units from different Russian military districts operating in different parts of Ukraine appear to be competing for resources rather than coordinating their efforts, according to two US defense officials.
One of the signs the Russians are regrouping is that their troops pulling out of fighting areas north and east of Kyiv appear to have moved north, in some cases into Belarus, for resupply. The US believes this will put them in position to move southeast into the Donbas region. One Russian battlefield goal in Donbas would be to cut off Ukraine troops already there so they cannot fall back to defensive positions or link up with other Ukrainian forces, officials say.
But a shift in the battlefield to the east on the ground may do little to stop the ongoing Russian air assaults by long-range missiles and aircraft throughout the rest of Ukraine, especially in the south.
Russia shifting focus to show a victory by early May in eastern Ukraine, US officials say
CNN · by Barbara Starr, Jim Sciutto, Alex Marquardt, Jeremy Herb, and Katie Bo Lillis CNN
Washington, DC (CNN)Russia has revised its Ukraine war strategy to focus on trying to take control of the Donbas and other regions in eastern Ukraine with a target date of early May, according to several US officials familiar with the latest US intelligence assessments.
More than a month into the war, Russian ground forces have been unable to keep control of areas where they have been fighting. Russian President Vladimir Putin is under pressure to demonstrate he can show a victory, and eastern Ukraine is the place where he is most likely to be able to quickly do that, officials say. US intelligence intercepts suggest Putin is focused on May 9, Russia's "Victory Day," according to one of the officials.
May 9 is a prominent holiday on the Russian calendar, a day the country marks the Nazi surrender in World War II with a huge parade of troops and weaponry across Red Square in front of the Kremlin. The officials say Putin wants to be able to celebrate a victory -- of some kind -- in his war on that day.
But other officials note even if there is a Russian celebration, an actual victory may be further off.
"Putin will have a victory parade on 9th May regardless the status of the war or peace talks," a European defense official said. "On the other hand: a victory parade with what troops and vehicles?"
Read More
Still, US and European officials say that any deadlines Moscow may set rhetorically don't change the reality on the ground that Russia appears to be preparing for the prospect of an extended conflict in Ukraine.
A European diplomat said that while the Kremlin is talking optimistically, Putin is preparing for a "Chechnya-style long, drawn-out war, because he, to a certain extent, has nowhere else to go on this."
There are several reasons behind the May time frame, the officials say. As the winter freeze ends and the ground softens, it will be harder for heavy Russian ground units to maneuver, meaning that it's vital for those forces to get into place as soon as possible, US intelligence assesses.
Russian-backed fighters have also already been in that region for years. In 2014, Russian separatist forces took control of territory within the the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Putin announced he was recognizing two self-declared independent republics in the Donbas region.
Ukrainian officials have publicly pointed to the date as well. "Ahead of May 9, Putin set the goal of a victory parade for this war," Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said on Thursday.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Friday that the Ukrainians believe they are facing a "very complex and difficult" situation as Putin tries meet a deadline.
"His ultimate goal is, was and will be to take over Ukraine, but he failed. He failed due to a very strong resolve of Ukrainian military and very strong unity of Ukraine and the Western world, and the sanctions that have been imposed by the United States and G7 and the European Union," Yatsenyuk said. "So now, as far as I see, Putin switched to Plan B. My take is that this Plan B has a, kind of, deadline. The deadline is the ninth of May."
The US also assesses that Putin is now preparing for the first time to name an overall commander of the war to try to achieve greater Russian successes, two of the US officials said. The US belief is Putin will likely name a general who has been in the south because that is a place where the Russians have succeeded in their objectives.
CNN previously reported there was no theater-wide commander on the ground in or near Ukraine, and units from different Russian military districts operating in different parts of Ukraine appear to be competing for resources rather than coordinating their efforts, according to two US defense officials.
One of the signs the Russians are regrouping is that their troops pulling out of fighting areas north and east of Kyiv appear to have moved north, in some cases into Belarus, for resupply. The US believes this will put them in position to move southeast into the Donbas region. One Russian battlefield goal in Donbas would be to cut off Ukraine troops already there so they cannot fall back to defensive positions or link up with other Ukrainian forces, officials say.
But a shift in the battlefield to the east on the ground may do little to stop the ongoing Russian air assaults by long-range missiles and aircraft throughout the rest of Ukraine, especially in the south.
CNN · by Barbara Starr, Jim Sciutto, Alex Marquardt, Jeremy Herb, and Katie Bo Lillis CNN
5. What Does Arming an Insurgency in Ukraine Mean?
My view is while I understand the moral hazard people are concerned with when arming citizens to resist, I think we have a moral obligation to assist those who are willing to fight for the defense of freedom. Letting them fall to an aggressor and live under occupation and lose their freedom is the larger "crime" in my mind.
De Oppresso Liber – to help the oppressed free themselves (or help the free to remain free).
Excerpts:
It is difficult to come up with a close historical analogy for this scenario. The decline of interstate war means there are fewer recent cases to draw on, especially cases in which one side is armed with nuclear weapons or backed by a nuclear-armed state, or where at least one side is arming insurgents within their opponent’s borders. (The Iran-Iraq War, Sudan-South Sudan War and Ethiopian-Eritrean War all come to mind here, but they lack the risk of nuclear escalation.) There is just not as much to go on when trying to understand what arming insurgents would look like, or the potential effects on escalation dynamics. One avenue would be to turn to research into pro-governmental militias and variation in types of sponsorship relationships as they sit on an even wider spectrum of internal conflict delegation. Once again, the record stacks against the policy: Proxies become spoilers of peace, play into repertoires of illicit state violence and negatively affect postconflict settings.
Conclusion
The idea of arming a Ukrainian insurgency raises more questions than it answers. What arming an insurgency could mean for the duration of the conflict, for the well-being of civilians, and for the battlefield success of an insurgency depends a great deal on context. During an international crisis, it is not enough to “do something” by reaching for the same simple policy solutions—advocates also need to understand exactly what it is they are proposing and what the implications could be.
What Does Arming an Insurgency in Ukraine Mean?
By Vladimir Rauta, Alexandra Stark Sunday, April 3, 2022, 10:01 AM
Editor’s Note: As the United States and its European allies funnel military aid to Ukraine, the conflict has taken on at least some dimensions of a proxy war—a subject Lawfare has addressed repeatedly. Vladimir Rauta of the University of Reading and Alexandra Stark of New America dissect this perspective, examining which aspects of the existing analysis on proxy war apply to Ukraine and, perhaps more importantly, which do not.
Daniel Byman
***
Proxy wars proved a popular tool for U.S. and Soviet policymakers throughout the Cold War to compete for global influence while avoiding a direct confrontation between the two nuclear-armed powers—to the detriment of the millions of people who were killed in or otherwise harmed by these wars. Yet the strategic appeal of arming proxies did not fade with memories of the Cold War, and the problems they pose remain acute. From debates within the Clinton administration on whether or not to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army, to successive administrations working in tandem with proxies disguised as partners in Afghanistan and Iraq, to President Obama’s hesitation to support Syrian rebels against the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his later embrace of Kurdish militias fighting the Islamic State, arming proxies remains a popular policy tool in response to armed conflict.
As events have unfolded in Ukraine, several prominent voices have advanced the idea of arming an insurgency in Ukraine. Few of these proposals, though, examine the question of what it would mean to support a Ukrainian insurgency. The asymmetry of power between Russia and Ukraine, the fact that Ukrainians are already practicing irregular warfare, reporting that indicates the CIA has been overseeing a training program for elite Ukrainian special operations forces, and a history of successful anti-Soviet resistance shape the prospects of a potential insurgency.
The conversation about arming a Ukrainian insurgency has tended to muddle concepts, including the distinctions between intrastate and interstate wars, and between providing security assistance to governments versus sponsorship of rebels. These may sound like pedantic academic distinctions, but they carry a lot of meaning for policymakers: Supporting and arming a sovereign government is conceptually and practically different from arming an insurgency, in terms of international norms as well as how that support proceeds in practice. Characterizing U.S., British, or NATO and European Union countries’ military assistance to Ukraine as “funneling weapons to kill Russians” obfuscates how this aid is authorized and supported by national legislation and provides poor comparative benchmarks with previous instances of covert and deniable sponsorship of armed non-state actors as proxies.
The debate regarding arming a hypothetical insurgency in Ukraine would benefit from clear definitions. The academic literature, and for that matter international law, draws a conceptual distinction between interstate and intrastate wars. But the literature also demonstrates that these concepts sometimes overlap and that intrastate wars don’t occur in a vacuum; it is helpful to think about “civil war as international politics by other means.” Russia’s war in Ukraine is both an interstate war between two governments, Russia and Ukraine, and an intrastate war between the Ukrainian government and Russia-supported separatists in the breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. And because the war sits at the intersection of these two types of conflict, it has met the definitional requirements and thresholds of an internationalized civil war, namely a conflict in which at least one of the parties is supported with troops from an external state. This means that findings about interstate or intrastate wars—how intervention affects the dynamics or duration of a war, for example, or the sustainability of peace afterward—don’t necessarily apply.
Neither of us knows how Russia’s war in Ukraine will end, or even where it is most likely to go next. Looking at the predictions made by experts on Russia and military operations, however, there are two broad scenarios that would conceptually change the debate about providing material support to Ukrainian forces. Academic research suggests there are important, policy-relevant differences between whether Ukraine is occupied and insurgents wage a civil war against a Russia-imposed government or conflict continues in contested spaces against the backdrop of a tense cease-fire or stalemate.
Scenario I: Civil War
In the first type of scenario, Russia is able to overcome its initial military setbacks enough to send the democratically elected Ukrainian government into exile and attempt to occupy the country and/or install a puppet regime, a contingency for which Western officials are reportedly already planning. Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, has said that if the Zelenskyy government falls and a Ukrainian resistance continues to fight the new Russia-backed government, there “is likely to be a persistent and significant insurgency.” As such, the conflict would become a civil war. This is the set of potential scenarios in which it would make sense to talk about arming an insurgency—and in which insights from the literature on civil war would be relevant.
Arming an insurgency is associated with negative outcomes: wars that are longer, deadlier and more brutal to civilians. Often discussed as a cost-benefit transaction, support for proxies is neither cheap nor risk-free. The costs of supporting the mujahideen in Afghanistan were astronomical, and Obama’s train-and-equip program to support Arab opposition forces in Syria came with a $500 million price tag (and not much to show, either). Indeed, while funding rebels has been shown to be a more fungible form of support compared to others—for example, sanctuary is very common but increases the probability of international conflict—costs come in different forms, thereby making proxy wars more complex and unpredictable in terms of their effects. Specifically, while sponsors substitute the costs of engaging in war directly—saving manpower and some money—they run the risk of retaliation. This retaliation can occur through in-kind support to a rival party, producing a mutual or competitive intervention in which both sides fighting a civil war receive external backing and prolong the conflict; it can also occur as direct punishment targeting the sponsor, given that external support risks initiation of interstate conflicts. For this reason, supporting insurgents in this scenario is an extraordinarily difficult policy choice. Effective support for an insurgency might provoke Kremlin attacks on neighboring countries that provide support and/or safe havens.
The choice of providing support would rest largely on the questions of who the insurgents were and what they could feasibly achieve. The goals of external supporters matter, but they also change. Civil wars are likely to last longer when the aims of sponsors are misaligned with the goals of proxies, but not necessarily when sponsor and proxy goals are more closely aligned. There are important context-specific distinctions between a potential future Ukrainian insurgency and other recent conflicts in which the United States has supported proxy actors, like the Syrian civil war. In fact, partisan warfare and efforts to arm and train local resistance forces during World War II might be a more useful analogy than support for the Syrian opposition. A Ukrainian insurgency against a Russia-backed government would, in all likelihood, have close ties to the democratically elected government, which is important, given new insights into the relevance of rebel leaders’ political backgrounds for their effectiveness in obtaining support. The insurgency in this scenario would also command a great deal of legitimacy and would be capable of unifying opposition on the ground. An insurgency’s being framed as a people’s war against inefficient and insufficient forces of Russian invaders could act as a buffer against fragmentation and invite a reconsideration of assessments of the relationship between external support and postconflict democratization trajectories and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) processes.
Scenario II: Interstate and Intrastate War
The second set of scenarios, which some observers see as more likely due to Russia’s underwhelming military performance so far, would involve some kind of long-term cease-fire or settlement between Ukraine and Russia by which Russia retains its territorial acquisitions and the Zelenskyy government continues to govern the rest of the country. Here, the likely result would be an interstate war (whether frozen or active) in parallel with potential insurgencies in Russia-controlled territories that are closer to internationalized civil wars. Most likely, external actors would continue to provide support for the Ukrainian government but would face a more difficult decision regarding arming Ukrainian insurgents in contested territories. Russia, though, would be likely to continue supporting forces in Ukrainian territory and deploying mercenaries like the Wagner Group.
Arming an insurgency in this case would parallel the efforts of the Ukrainian armed forces. Proxy fighting could follow pockets of resistance that map onto the militias that fought on the side of the government in early 2014-2016 and later either disbanded or integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces—the Azov Battalion, the Right Sector or the privately financed Donbass Battalion. The origins of such battalions and their political preferences might pose similar problems for vetting as was the case with selecting Syrian rebels into U.S. train-and-equip programs; these challenges could be compounded further by the fact that sometimes military assistance pushes rebels to fight in inconsistent locations as well as each other, and could be exacerbated by a potential influx of foreign fighters. Moreover, recent research has shown how these battalions followed self-serving strategies, speaking to classic problems in conflict delegation: proxy liability and unreliability. Within this scenario, and to a certain extent the previous one too, fragmentation could undermine the insurgent effort, especially given that external resources can promote either rebel cohesion or splintering depending on how funds are allocated among rebel elites, while contributing to the prospect of war recurrence.
It is difficult to come up with a close historical analogy for this scenario. The decline of interstate war means there are fewer recent cases to draw on, especially cases in which one side is armed with nuclear weapons or backed by a nuclear-armed state, or where at least one side is arming insurgents within their opponent’s borders. (The Iran-Iraq War, Sudan-South Sudan War and Ethiopian-Eritrean War all come to mind here, but they lack the risk of nuclear escalation.) There is just not as much to go on when trying to understand what arming insurgents would look like, or the potential effects on escalation dynamics. One avenue would be to turn to research into pro-governmental militias and variation in types of sponsorship relationships as they sit on an even wider spectrum of internal conflict delegation. Once again, the record stacks against the policy: Proxies become spoilers of peace, play into repertoires of illicit state violence and negatively affect postconflict settings.
Conclusion
The idea of arming a Ukrainian insurgency raises more questions than it answers. What arming an insurgency could mean for the duration of the conflict, for the well-being of civilians, and for the battlefield success of an insurgency depends a great deal on context. During an international crisis, it is not enough to “do something” by reaching for the same simple policy solutions—advocates also need to understand exactly what it is they are proposing and what the implications could be.
Vladimir Rauta is a lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Reading. He holds a doctorate from the University of Nottingham and was previously a fellow at the Middle East Studies Forum at Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization.
Alexandra Stark is a senior researcher at New America. She holds a doctorate from Georgetown University and was previously a fellow at the Middle East Initiative of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a Minerva/Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
6. War-Gaming Taiwan: When Losing to China Is Winning
Excerpts:
There are many reasons why none of these narratives will come to pass. All it takes is one decision to shift the entire story. And in any war game—not to mention in real-life conflict—there are an untold number of decisions. Just as war games aren’t about victory or defeat, they’re also not critically determined by the so-called road to war, the initial circumstances that drive the game’s conflict. Instead, the dynamic heart of a war game is the way the players leverage and adapt current military doctrine, strategy, and capabilities—and apply them to the problems they face. Did predictable actions yield predictable results? Were there moments of insight or flashes of inspiration when players improvised? Novel decisions lead to new experiences, and new experiences can identify doors that lead to different and better outcomes.
So, in a war game, pay no attention to who won or lost. War-gaming is about the process, not the result—and analyzing that process is what will allow the U.S. military to turn losing into winning.
In 2030, Beijing reaches a deadly decision: reunification with Taiwan at any cost. The rest of the story? It’s up to you.
War-Gaming Taiwan: When Losing to China Is Winning
What military planners learn when they simulate a Chinese attack.
taiwan-china-us-war-games-nicolas-ortega-illustration
Nicolás Ortega illustration for Foreign Policy
In 2030, Beijing reaches a deadly decision: reunification with Taiwan at any cost. Cyberattacks plunge the island into darkness, confusion, and fear. A rain of missiles overwhelms Taiwanese defenses, destroying military bases and communications infrastructure. At sea, the Chinese navy surrounds the country as hundreds of landing craft speed across the Taiwan Strait. As U.S. warships close in, they are overwhelmed by missiles, torpedoes, and drones. Videos of the Chinese blitz and sinking U.S. ships flood the internet. The demoralized Taiwanese decline to raise arms against the Chinese forces storming their shores.
This is the kind of narrative most people imagine when they think of military war games—scenes in the bowels of the Pentagon, units fighting digitally on electronic maps, commanders pondering their next step in a fast-moving crisis. Victory in the simulation, so the popular imagination goes, shows how to win a real-life conflict. Defeat in a war game, on the other hand, is an acknowledgement that any actual conflict will likely be lost.
Contrary to the popular imagination, however, this is not how war games work. Rarely is a war game designed to predict the future or develop a single definitive strategy. Instead, a war game helps military planners and analysts explore and understand a complex problem, regardless of the outcome. Win or lose, the purpose isn’t to define a strategy for the U.S. military but to help it better understand the capabilities it has, what it can already do, and what it needs.
Whether it’s Taiwan or any other potential conflict, the scenario is rarely the focus of the war games we at CNA design for the U.S. Defense Department. Instead, war games are about better understanding how the U.S. military can build deterrence, what technology gaps could hobble its forces, how an adversary’s capabilities might evolve in response to U.S. capabilities, and how all that might impact what Washington should invest in today. Fundamentally, war games strive to explore and distill the fundamental nature of the problem itself—which rarely leads to definitive scenarios or solutions.
In fact, using war games to craft a clear-cut strategy is impossible. Done right, war games are a plausible method of providing a brief and limited glimpse into a possible future—a single future in a multiverse of possibilities. Trying to imitate victory in a war game, on the other hand, means trying to align both sides’ future decisions in a complex conflict with the scenario that played out during the game. Obviously, these decisions are numerous and mostly beyond one’s control.
When military leaders are unwilling to accept failure, they drive the entire Defense Department toward stagnation and safe bets.
Trying to avoid the failures identified in a war game presents a much richer avenue to explore. Did the U.S. side fail because of logistics shortfalls? Was its demise due to a missing capability—or an incorrect assumption about the adversary? War games can be designed to focus on just a single aspect of a conflict, such as the U.S. Navy’s deployment at the start of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, and to stress that aspect to the breaking point. Finding the conditions under which the U.S. side fails is invaluable, because it creates an opportunity to address a weakness. Success, on the other hand, makes it very hard to know where to invest and even harder to convince anyone the investment is worth making. Failure identifies the critical pieces that need attention, and the war game narrative highlights the cost of neglect. Through multiple iterations, a war game can steadily offer clarity on the way forward.
In 2030, Beijing reaches a deadly decision: reunification with Taiwan at any cost. Cyberattacks plunge the island into darkness, confusion, and fear. A rain of missiles overwhelms Taiwanese defenses, destroying military bases and communications infrastructure. At sea, the Chinese navy surrounds the country as hundreds of landing craft speed across the Taiwan Strait. U.S. warships provide critical missile defense to threatened U.S. regional bases. Long-range bombers and guided missiles decimate the landing craft approaching Taiwan, giving the country a brief window to rally its defenses and gather strength against the remaining Chinese troops who reached their shores.
For a war game to be useful, it’s largely irrelevant which potential conflict is played out. The game might use a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as the backdrop—but only as a use case for the military forces being examined. The real takeaways aren’t so much about victory or defeat in a particular conflict but about what’s exposed along the way. Why did deterrence fail in the scenario? Which of the adversary’s capabilities limited the United States’ ability to project force? Fine-grained analysis of questions like these drives progress in the U.S. military and allows it to increase its tactical, operational, and strategic proficiency. It forces hard examinations of information sharing, command and control, processes and procedures, and even organizational structures. None of these things is really about a Taiwan conflict. But if the United States did go to war—over Taiwan, a Baltic state, or any other country—the answers to these questions would help it succeed.
In the words of U.S. Air Force Gen. John Hyten, the U.S. side “failed miserably” during a 2020 war game that reportedly involved a Chinese assault on Taiwan. (The exact scenario remains classified.) But that result wasn’t the disaster it was made out to be by the press. Failure in a war game is a common feature, not a bug. Hyten’s remark proved the game had been a success. “[W]e have to make sure that we fail, and we fail quickly, and we learn from our failures and move fast,” he added in the same speech. When military leaders are unwilling to accept failure, they drive the entire Defense Department toward stagnation and safe bets, opening a window of opportunity for adversaries. The war game is a safe environment for failing fast—and learning to succeed.
In 2030, Beijing reaches a deadly decision: reunification with Taiwan at any cost. Cyberattacks plunge the island into darkness, confusion, and fear. Equipped with U.S. capabilities, Taiwanese defenses stave off the initial wave of Chinese missiles. At sea, the Chinese navy is attacked by swarms of unmanned submarines. As hundreds of landing craft speed unprotected across the Taiwan Strait, they are decimated by this unseen force. Over successive weeks, U.S. warships escort a steady stream of reinforcements. Supported by sensors from U.S. Marines and Special Forces, sophisticated missiles launched by long-range bombers sink the remaining fleet approaching the island. Taiwan begins repairing its infrastructure, mobilizes its reserves, and hunkers down for a long standoff.
The United States can certainly learn from winning a war game, but the lessons are usually narrow. What worked in a single war game has limited utility—it worked against a specific adversary making a specific set of decisions using a specific set of game rules that may or may not accurately reflect the world. Failure, on the other hand, doesn’t require the game to be a perfect simulation. We often hear complaints from players that our war game rules make the adversary “10 feet tall.” But it is better to stress U.S. forces more than to give the adversary too little credit and not stress U.S. forces enough. Stressing the capabilities of the U.S. forces to their breaking point from all sides allows analysts and researchers to identify vulnerabilities and what might be needed to fix them.
In 2030, Beijing reaches a deadly decision: reunification with Taiwan at any cost. Cyberattacks plunge the military ports on the Chinese coast into darkness, confusion, and fear. Hundreds of landing craft, unable to load at the ports, wait for further orders. Most of the Chinese missiles targeting Taiwanese military installations are intercepted by defensive batteries. At sea, the Chinese navy falls prey to advanced mobile mines and hypersonic missiles. U.S. warships lead regional allies and partners in shuttling critical munitions, supplies, and capabilities to the island. Although damaged, Taiwan’s infrastructure succeeds in rapidly transporting troops and supplies to defensive positions, readying the nation to repel the next wave.
There are many reasons why none of these narratives will come to pass. All it takes is one decision to shift the entire story. And in any war game—not to mention in real-life conflict—there are an untold number of decisions. Just as war games aren’t about victory or defeat, they’re also not critically determined by the so-called road to war, the initial circumstances that drive the game’s conflict. Instead, the dynamic heart of a war game is the way the players leverage and adapt current military doctrine, strategy, and capabilities—and apply them to the problems they face. Did predictable actions yield predictable results? Were there moments of insight or flashes of inspiration when players improvised? Novel decisions lead to new experiences, and new experiences can identify doors that lead to different and better outcomes.
So, in a war game, pay no attention to who won or lost. War-gaming is about the process, not the result—and analyzing that process is what will allow the U.S. military to turn losing into winning.
In 2030, Beijing reaches a deadly decision: reunification with Taiwan at any cost. The rest of the story? It’s up to you.
Jeremy Sepinsky is the lead war game designer at CNA and a former CNA field representative with the U.S. Marine Corps.
Sebastian J. Bae is a research analyst on CNA’s gaming and integration team and teaches war game design at Georgetown University and the U.S. Naval Academy. Twitter: @SebastianBae
7. Solomon Islands Says It Will Not Allow China Military Base
Excerpts:
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Thursday that “relevant parties should see the China-Solomon Islands security cooperation objectively and rationally and stop making irresponsible remarks.”
“Attempts to provoke, obstruct and undermine China’s friendly relations with the island countries is not popular and will not succeed,” Wang told reporters at a daily briefing.
“China-Solomon Islands cooperation does not target any third party and is not in conflict with Solomon Islands’ cooperation with other countries. Instead, it complements the existing regional cooperation mechanisms in a positive way,” he added.
The Solomon Islands, home to about 700,000 people, switched its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing in 2019 — a contributing factor to riots in November last year between residents of different islands within the country.
Australian police have been in the capital, Honiara, maintaining peace since then under a bilateral security treaty established in 2017. It provides a legal basis for the rapid deployment of Australian police, troops, and associated civilians in the event of a major security challenge.
Chinese police are already on the islands conducting a training mission.
Solomon Islands Says It Will Not Allow China Military Base
A draft security deal raised alarm in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is trying to assuage those concerns.
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Seeking to counter international fears over its new security alliance with China, the Solomon Islands said Friday it won’t allow China to build a military base there.
But that insistence will do little to ease concerns about the pact from the nation’s traditional partners, including New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.
The leader of neighboring Micronesia added his voice to those expressing trepidation by invoking the bloody battles of World War II and warning that the pact could again see the South Pacific region become a battleground for much larger powers.
The Solomon Islands government said Thursday a draft agreement of the new security pact had been initialed by representatives from the Solomons and China and would be “cleaned up” and signed.
In a statement Friday, the Solomon Islands government said that “contrary to the misinformation promoted by antigovernment commentators” the agreement did not invite China to establish a military base.
“Government is conscious of the security ramification of hosting a military base, and it will not be careless to allow such initiative to take place under its watch,” the statement said.
The statement seemed to more emphatically rule out the possibility of a base after Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare had earlier told parliament it had no intention of asking China to build a base.
Sogavare said his nation sought only peace and prosperity, citing its foreign policy mantra: “We are friends to all and enemies to none.” He said it wasn’t a secret deal but a sovereign issue.
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Under the terms of the draft agreement, China could send police, military personnel, and other armed forces to the Solomon Islands “to assist in maintaining social order” and for a variety of other reasons. It could also send warships to the islands for stopovers and to replenish supplies, which had led to speculation about the possibility of China establishing a naval base on the South Pacific islands.
China has denied seeking a military foothold in the islands and accused others of raising tensions.
Apparently referring to the United States and its allies, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Friday blamed others for militarizing the South Pacific and said the agreement with the Solomon Islands was predicated on maintaining the safety of lives and property and “does not have any military overtones.”
“When it comes to the militarization of the South Pacific region, individual countries, despite strong opposition from regional countries, are bent on creating a militarized coterie and seriously threatening regional security and stability by introducing the risk of nuclear proliferation into the South Pacific,” Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing.
“That wantonly trampled on and damaged the existing stability mechanism in the region,” Zhao said.
China’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Micronesia President David Panuelo wrote a letter to Sogavare saying Micronesia had “grave security concerns” about the “novel and unprecedented” arrangement.
He said the two small nations had become battle grounds during World War II and that it could happen again as China, the U.S., and Australia asserted themselves in the region.
“And is it plausible that, once the spheres have been carved out, that our concerns about climate change — today’s problem — would manifest into all-too-real concerns about a war in our backyards, with our people, our islands, as the playground for children playing as adults?” Panuelo wrote to Sogavare.
The Federated States of Micronesia is home to about 100,000 people. It has diplomatic relations and considers itself a “friend” of China, as well as having a close relationship with the U.S. under a compact of free association.
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Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said Friday that while it respected the Solomons’ sovereignty, the deal showed that China was acting aggressively in the region.
“We need to be very cautious here because the Chinese are incredibly aggressive, the tactics that they’re deploying into small island nations are quite remarkable,” he told Sky News.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern this week described the possibility of Chinese military forces stationed on the Solomon Islands as “the potential militarization of the region.” And the U.S. State Department said Washington did not believe China’s security forces and methods needed to be exported.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Thursday that “relevant parties should see the China-Solomon Islands security cooperation objectively and rationally and stop making irresponsible remarks.”
“Attempts to provoke, obstruct and undermine China’s friendly relations with the island countries is not popular and will not succeed,” Wang told reporters at a daily briefing.
“China-Solomon Islands cooperation does not target any third party and is not in conflict with Solomon Islands’ cooperation with other countries. Instead, it complements the existing regional cooperation mechanisms in a positive way,” he added.
The Solomon Islands, home to about 700,000 people, switched its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing in 2019 — a contributing factor to riots in November last year between residents of different islands within the country.
Australian police have been in the capital, Honiara, maintaining peace since then under a bilateral security treaty established in 2017. It provides a legal basis for the rapid deployment of Australian police, troops, and associated civilians in the event of a major security challenge.
Chinese police are already on the islands conducting a training mission.
8. The KMT’s Defense Policy: Toward a Symmetric Posture
Excerpts:
What are the implications and unresolved questions that follow the KMT’s defense policy? One of them concerns Taiwan’s capability and capacity to achieve sea control in a contingency. Even for country as powerful as the United States, some American experts believe that the best military strategy against the Chinese military in the Taiwan Strait is one of denial. To make its naval strategy credible, the KMT needs to explain in more detail how they plan to meet certain preconditions, such as air superiority, to achieve successful sea control vis-a-vis China.
Another question worth explaining for the KMT is how the Taiwanese armed forces can prepare for a contingency before the various indigenous programs mature. In fact, this is the reason why Washington and Taipei reached an agreement on the Harpoon sales. For example, Taiwan’s production capacity for the Hsiung Feng III anti-ship cruise missile is estimated to be roughly 20 per year. This figure will not increase until mid-2022 when the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology opens new production facilities.
Last but not least, the KMT’s favor of a symmetric defense appears to be defeating their political objective to maintain closer ties with China. According to William Murray, a Naval War College professor who first initiated the “porcupine strategy” concept, one of the advantages to shifting away from a symmetric defense posture is that it would lessen the tension in the Taiwan Strait. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many notable KMT figures expressed their anxiety of how smaller countries could provoke aggression from great powers, and argued for prioritizing of peace in the Taiwan Strait over “following the United States.” Given the KMT’s low risk tolerance for a political and military conflict with China, it is necessary for the party to carefully calibrate the balance between their political and military strategies.
The KMT’s Defense Policy: Toward a Symmetric Posture
Taiwan’s opposition party has adopted a very different posture on defense issues than the ruling DPP.
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Little is known about the defense policy of Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan’s main opposition party, since their landslide defeat in the 2016 presidential election. Their lack of presence in Washington, D.C., during the past six years raises questions about how the party, if it returns to power, would formulate Taiwan’s defense strategy amid the growing Chinese military threat.
Fortunately, some key KMT decisionmakers have commented on defense topics or published articles in Taiwan that allow us to explore the party’s policy direction. Overall, the KMT is in favor of a symmetric defense posture while seeking to pursue more autonomy from Washington in Taipei’s force planning.
The KMT has been consistent in their position on Washington’s push for an asymmetric defense posture: It is dangerous for Taiwan’s defense and sovereignty. Alexander Huang, chief of the KMT’s International Affairs Department, was very critical of the “Fortress Taiwan” policy under the Trump administration’s Defense Department, which prioritized providing advanced missiles, sea mines, and drones to Taiwan. Huang criticized the concept for its purely defensive nature. A “fortress,” in his opinion, is an operational stronghold to be defended with little initiatives and flexibility. Posturing Taiwan as a fortress does not serve any deterrence purpose and can at best delay the invading forces from China, Huang claimed.
The strongest criticism against a U.S.-driven asymmetric defense strategy actually took place during the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference (USTDIC) last October. The KMT delegation, led by Dennis Weng of Sam Houston State University, openly asserted that “Fortress Taiwan can be blockaded, and a porcupine can be starved to death.” Although Weng does not serve in any official position in the KMT, such criticism was very likely to be authorized by the top decision maker in the party. The conference, after all, was Eric Chu’s very first indirect engagement with the United States on defense policy after his successful bid for KMT chair in September 2021.
If it rejects the “Fortress Taiwan” concept, what is the KMT’s alternative vision for the defense posture and missions of the Taiwan military?
In another article, Huang viewed Taiwan as a maritime country whose main interests extend beyond its land mass. He argued that the Taiwan military should not solely prioritize defending against an amphibious invasion, but also possess the capabilities to respond to gray-zone threats by the Chinese military and to protect sea lines of communications (SLOCs). Only by preparing itself for these latter two missions beyond the main island could Taiwan avoid becoming an “isolated fortress” cut off from foreign assistance, Huang pointed out.
This concept is also very coherent with how Huang envisions the role of Taiwan’s navy in the defense of Taiwan. In a policy debate on whether the navy should downsize its developing indigenous frigate from 4,500 tons to 2,000 tons, Huang reiterated the importance of SLOC protection and criticized the prioritization of coastal defense. “If the Taiwan Navy cannot sail afar, it becomes a mere extension of the Army. I think this is very painful for the Navy,” he said.
This position reflects the mainstream opinion in the Taiwan military establishment. In the 2018 National Defense Report, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) proposed a radical reform in its strategic guidance, coined as the Overall Defense Concept (ODC). The ODC highlighted the need for the three services to fight a decisive battle in the littoral areas. Admiral Lee Hsi-Min, then-chief of General Staff and the chief proponent of the ODC, further called for acquiring 60 50-ton miniature missile assault boats for the concept. However, after Lee stepped down in 2019, the MND and the Taiwan Navy reinstated the guidance to prioritize “sea control.” In the 2021 Annual Han Kuang exercise, the Taiwan military divided its field training exercise into four phases: force preservation, comprehensive counter-air operations, joint sea control, and joint homeland defense. In the same year, the Taiwan Navy also scrapped the miniature missile boat project. The military establishment’s opposition to “sea denial” is fairly similar to the position of the KMT.
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The KMT’s support for a symmetric defense occurred amid the Tsai administration’s attempt to shift the military establishment to the other direction. Despite criticisms from some experts about a lack of seriousness, the Tsai administration made a bold step for the FY2022 defense budget that few people give it credit for. For the second time during her presidency, Tsai Ing-wen used the special budget to accelerate the modernization of the military. Notably, in this US$8.6 billion budget, about 34 percent and 18 percent were allocated for indigenous anti-ship cruise missiles and ground-based air defense missiles, respectively. As for the ship-building program, Tsai decided to prioritize the 500-ton Tuo Chiang-class corvettes (which received about 29 percent of the special budget) instead of larger platforms. As to the FY2022 regular defense budget, about 20 percent was invested in the Harpoon ground-based anti-ship cruise missiles. These numbers demonstrate the ruling party’s relatively closer alignment with Washington’s position.
The Tsai administration’s unusual practice to prioritize the purchase of U.S. weapons in the regular instead of the special defense budget triggered another feature of the KMT’s defense policy – seeking autonomy from U.S. interference in Taiwan’s force planning. When reviewing the FY2022 special budget, the KMT Caucus in the Parliament (led by three senior lawmakers) issued a statement that reflected skepticism against the United States. The KMT slammed the listing of Harpoon missiles in the regular defense budget as “a gesture to forcibly pressure the Legislative Yuan to pay the bills on behalf of the Americans” and a “U.S. demand for our side to prioritize the payment for [U.S.] arms sales.” A similar statement was also made by Ma Wen-chun, a KMT lawmaker in the Foreign and National Defense Committee, who further suggested that the U.S. government was forcing Taiwan to buy weapons inferior to indigenous missiles.
This suspicion toward the intention behind U.S. arms sales to Taiwan is not unusual for the KMT. After Republican Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Jim Risch (R-ID) introduced Arm Taiwan Act and Taiwan Deterrence Act, respectively, to support Foreign Military Finance (FMF) to Taiwan, Huang cautioned that the policy demonstrated “the United States’ strong intention to put their hands into our country’s force planning direction.” This position is again linked to the KMT’s aversion to an asymmetric defense – the two pieces of legislation explicitly limit the Taiwan FMF program to asymmetric weapons. Clearly, compared to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the KMT is very cautious about Washington’s influence in the defense and autonomy of Taiwan.
Perhaps the root of KMT’s concern over building an asymmetric defense posture is their lack of confidence in U.S. willingness to intervene militarily if China invaded Taiwan. This February, former President Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT claimed that “the Americans… will sell us weapons and provide us with intelligence, but they won’t send troops.” Such pessimism is also shared by Su Chi, former secretary-general of the National Security Council and a highly respected adviser in the KMT, who asserted in a public event that the United States had neither the capabilities nor the willingness to help Taiwan.
How is U.S. commitment related to the KMT’s vision for Taiwan’s defense posture? Weng’s remark at the USTDIC offered a clue. He indicated that the ODC would become meaningless without “an ironclad U.S. security commitment” and “clear division of areas of responsibility.” What the KMT and Weng might be suggesting was that the Taiwan military would have to step up for “non-porcupine” missions, such as SLOC protection and sea control, should the United States decide not to intervene. If Taiwan adhered to the porcupine strategy and the U.S. decided not to intervene in a conflict, Taiwan would be forced to fight near or inside the island with little buffer.
What are the implications and unresolved questions that follow the KMT’s defense policy? One of them concerns Taiwan’s capability and capacity to achieve sea control in a contingency. Even for country as powerful as the United States, some American experts believe that the best military strategy against the Chinese military in the Taiwan Strait is one of denial. To make its naval strategy credible, the KMT needs to explain in more detail how they plan to meet certain preconditions, such as air superiority, to achieve successful sea control vis-a-vis China.
Another question worth explaining for the KMT is how the Taiwanese armed forces can prepare for a contingency before the various indigenous programs mature. In fact, this is the reason why Washington and Taipei reached an agreement on the Harpoon sales. For example, Taiwan’s production capacity for the Hsiung Feng III anti-ship cruise missile is estimated to be roughly 20 per year. This figure will not increase until mid-2022 when the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology opens new production facilities.
Last but not least, the KMT’s favor of a symmetric defense appears to be defeating their political objective to maintain closer ties with China. According to William Murray, a Naval War College professor who first initiated the “porcupine strategy” concept, one of the advantages to shifting away from a symmetric defense posture is that it would lessen the tension in the Taiwan Strait. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many notable KMT figures expressed their anxiety of how smaller countries could provoke aggression from great powers, and argued for prioritizing of peace in the Taiwan Strait over “following the United States.” Given the KMT’s low risk tolerance for a political and military conflict with China, it is necessary for the party to carefully calibrate the balance between their political and military strategies.
9. Zelensky invites Merkel, Sarkozy to Bucha to look at results of concessions to Russia
Zelensky invites Merkel, Sarkozy to Bucha to look at results of concessions to Russia
The president stated this in his latest video address, Ukrinform reports.
"I invite Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what Russia's policy of concessions has led to over the past 14 years. See with your own eyes the tortured and slain Ukrainians," Zelensky said.
He reminded that today is the fourteenth anniversary of the NATO summit in Bucharest, when a chance was out there to take Ukraine out of the "gray zone" in eastern Europe, out of the "gray zone" between NATO and Russia.
"The gray zone, where Moscow thinks it’s allowed to do anything. Even the most terrible war crimes," the president stressed.
He said that behind optimistic diplomatic statements assuming that Ukraine could become a NATO member, then, in 2008, a refusal was hidden to accept Ukraine into the Alliance, as well as a "senseless fear of Russia on the part of some politicians," who Zelensky says believed that, by rejecting Ukraine, they would be able to calm Russia down and convince it to respect Ukraine and live along with us.
"Over the 14 years since that miscalculation, Ukraine has gone through a revolution and eight years of war in Donbas. And now we are fighting for our lives in the worst war in Europe since World War 2," the head of state said.
Zelensky assured that he did not blame the West or anyone else except the specific Russian military servicemen, who committed crimes against Ukrainians, and those who gave them orders.
"But we have the right to talk about indecisiveness. About the path that led to such Bucha, such Hostomel, such Kharkiv, and such Mariupol. We have no indecisiveness. Whatever bloc we’re part of or beyond, we understand one thing: we must be strong," the president added.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, Irpin, Bucha, Hostomelm and the entire Kyiv region were recently liberated from Russian invaders. Mass killings of Ukrainian civilians by Russians have been recorded in liberated towns and villages. In particular, a mass grave was discovered in Bucha, with almost 300 bodies buried in it, while dozens of bodies were seen laying in the streets, some with their hands tied.
Memo: The 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit, or the 20th NATO Summit, took place in Bucharest April 2-4, 2008. The agenda included the recognition of Kosovo, a military campaign in Afghanistan, the alliance’s enlargement through the accession of Croatia, Albania, and Macedonia, as well as the MAP for Ukraine and Georgia. At the time, the Ukrainian government hoped to obtain the said MAP, but the move saw no support from a number of allies, including Germany and France.
10. An elite Ukrainian drone unit on quad bikes ambushed Russian forces, helping to defeat Putin's plan to capture Kyiv, report says
Innovation in war.
An elite Ukrainian drone unit on quad bikes ambushed Russian forces, helping to defeat Putin's plan to capture Kyiv, report says
Maxar satellite imagery of the northern end of a Russian convoy, southeast of Ivankiv, Ukraine on 28 February 2022.
Satellite image (c) 2022 Maxar Technologies.
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A Ukrainian drone unit used quad bikes and night cover to ambush Russian forces, The Guardian reported.
- Aerorozvidka was first set up by tech-savvy, university-educated Ukrainians.
- The elite unit, which flies up to 300 missions a day, is crucial to the Ukrainian campaign.
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Night ambushes carried out by a team of Ukrainian special forces and drone operators on quad bikes have helped turn the tide of the Russian invasion, The Guardian reported.
Aerorozvidka is a specialist air-reconnaissance unit within the Ukrainian army, which has claimed to have destroyed dozens of Russian "priority targets," including tanks and command trucks.
The unit's commander, Lt Col Yaroslav Honchar, told The Guardian about an ambush near the Ukrainian town of Ivankiv, which helped stop a 40-mile mechanized Russian column heading to attack the capital Kyiv.
Equipped with night-vision goggles, sniper rifles, and remotely detonated mines and drones, the team of about 30 Ukrainian soldiers approached Russian forces by riding on quad bikes through forests under cover of night.
Some of the drones used by the unit were equipped with thermal imaging cameras, and others were capable of dropping small 1.5kg bombs.
"This one little unit in the night destroyed two or three vehicles at the head of this convoy, and after that, it was stuck. They stayed there two more nights and [destroyed] many vehicles," Honchar told The Guardian.
After the attack, Russian forces re-strategized by breaking the column into smaller units to try and continue towards the capital.
However, the same team mounted an attack on the Russians' supply depot, which stopped them from being able to advance, Honchar told The Guardian.
"It all happened because of the work of 30 people," Honchar told the paper.
Aerorozvidka was formed in 2014 by a group of young university-educated Ukrainians and IT specialists who volunteered to design their machines to help resist Russia's invasion of Crimea and the Donbas region, according to The Guardian.
It was founded by investment banker Volodymyr Kochetkov-Sukach, who was killed in action fighting Russian separatists in Donbas in 2015, the paper said.
The unit integrated into the Ukrainian general staff following the success of its operations in Crimea.
Now, the elite unit, which flies up to 300 missions a day, according to The Times of London, has played a key role in bolstering Ukrainian resistance against Russia.
A satellite image showing damage to buildings and fuel tanks on fire at Antonov Airport in Hostomel, Ukraine, March 11, 2022
Maxar Technologies via Getty Images
Along with the attack on the Russian convoy, Aerorozvidka claims to have helped defeat a Russian attack on Hostomel airport near Kyiv, The Guardian said.
Despite the unit's apparent success, it relies upon crowdfunding and donations to get hold of much-needed components such as advanced modems and thermal imaging cameras. These US and Canada-made parts are subject to export controls that prohibit them from being sent to Ukraine, The Guardian reported.
In recent weeks, supporters from around Europe have been donating drone parts and other equipment, such as 3D printers, to help build and repair devices damaged by Russian small-arms fire, per The Times.
Aerorozvidka partly operates using Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system, activated in Ukraine days after Russia invaded.
11. Finland appears closer to joining NATO despite Russia's threat of military consequences if it does
Did Russia calculate this as a 2d or 3d order effect of Putin's War?
Finland appears closer to joining NATO despite Russia's threat of military consequences if it does
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
- Finland appears to be closer to joining NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine.
- A survey showed a majority there want membership, and the prime minister said a decision should be soon.
- Russia previously warned of "serious military and political consequences" if Finland tries to join.
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Finland appears to be getting closer to joining the NATO military alliance despite Russia's threat of military consequences if it becomes a member.
The country's politicians and NATO itself have both pointed to the possibility of Finland joining soon, and a recent survey showed a majority of the country in support of membership in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Sanna Marin, Finland's prime minister, said on Saturday the decision on whether or not to join should happen "this spring," the Financial Times reported.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on March 31 that while the decision to join the bloc was one for Finland to make, he expected that NATO would allow the country to join quickly.
"If they apply, I expect that they will be very welcomed and that we'll find a way to quickly agree the accession protocol and follow up on a membership of Finland," he said.
Finland's National Coalition party, the government's main opposition, also supports NATO membership.
Petteri Orpo, the party's leader, said, according to the FT: "In order to improve our security and guarantee our independence, we should join NATO. We still have a powerful and aggressive neighbor."
Finland shares a long border with Russia.
Russia has threatened Finland should it decide to pursue membership.
In March, a Russian foreign ministry official warned of "serious military and political consequences" if Finland or Sweden, Finland's neighbor, tried to join.
Russian President Vladimir Putin used the possibility of NATO expanding further eastward as a reason for his invasion of Ukraine. He framed Russia's invasion as an act of self-defense against the alliance's growth.
There also appears to be increased public support in Finland for joining the alliance.
A survey conducted by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum Eva think tank in March, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, found that 60% of people supported Finland joining NATO — a massive jump from previous years.
Joining NATO could also bring its own security risks for Finland, particularly if Russia sees it as an act of aggression.
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said last month that applying for NATO membership would come with the "major risk" of escalation in Europe.
Finland was once part of the Russian Empire. After it gained independence, it was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939, but it successfully fought back.
12. How two dozen retired generals are trying to stop an overhaul of the Marines
This is quite the controversy in the Marines.
How two dozen retired generals are trying to stop an overhaul of the Marines
By PAUL MCLEARY and LEE HUDSON
04/01/2022 04:17 PM EDT
Current plans call for shedding troops and equipment in preparation to take on China.
Changes to the Marine Corps spearheaded by Commandant Gen. David Berger represent a fundamental shift in how the Corps equips its troops and goes to war. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo
04/01/2022 04:17 PM EDT
An influential group of over two dozen retired generals has launched a counteroffensive against plans to transform the Marine Corps, and is using their clout in a high-power pressure campaign to get Congress to slam on the brakes.
The roster of personalities includes every living former commandant, along with a slew of other retired four-star generals revered within the Corps. And all of them are bristling at different aspects of foundational changes introduced by Commandant Gen. David Berger, who aims to make the Corps lighter, faster and more capable of doing everything from electronic warfare to sinking ships at sea.
The group of retired generals includes former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, former Joint Chiefs Chair Joe Dunford and John Kelly, a former Homeland Security chief and White House chief of staff.
“This is not a fragmented effort, this is a collective of 30 some generals … including six or seven of the most senior, most credible Marines that I’ve ever worked with,” said Frank Hoffman, distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University and a retired Marine officer. Yet he also noted that Berger’s efforts have already been blessed by Congress and the Pentagon brass, so putting a stop to them now is unlikely.
The Marine Corps’ two-year-old plan represents a fundamental shift in how the Corps equips its troops and goes to war. The Corps’ 400-odd tanks have already been shifted to the Army, helicopter wings put in storage, and infantry units are being reconfigured to become smaller and more nimble.
The changes are part of a wider rethinking of how the military is funded and structured to meet China and Russia, which are challenging post-Cold War U.S. military dominance. It’s no surprise that the Corps in particular, with its mystique of grit and self-reliance, would struggle with such rapid, deep-rooted changes.
A spokesperson for Berger declined to comment on the specifics of the retired general’s criticisms, and instead pointed to statements Berger has made to Congress and in public as to why the modernization push is necessary.
Several of the generals met with Berger on March 3 to voice their concerns, but walked away dissatisfied that they had been heard, Paul Van Riper, a retired lieutenant general who served as head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told POLITICO.
The changes Berger is putting forward “do not meet … requirements and do not meet the needs of the combatant commander,” Anthony Zinni, a retired general and former head of U.S. Central Command, told POLITICO. “We think the cuts are far too drastic and really, greatly diminish the capability of the Marine Corps as a combined arms team and move it away from its traditional role.”
Webb, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, first disclosed the existence of the group. Members meet virtually or in-person on a daily basis to plan their way forward and are stepping up their outreach to members of Congress.
At stake is arguably the most ambitious modernization effort of any of the armed services. It takes to heart the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which said the armed forces need to train and equip to meet the China challenge. The argument in Berger’s new strategy is that in order for the Corps to shift its mission, and absent a massive infusion of new funding, tough decisions had to be made. Getting rid of hundreds of tanks and amphibious vehicles saved about $3 billion, all of which was pumped back into new precision missiles and upgrades for infantry units.
Berger and his supporters have said equipment such as tanks and artillery tubes aren’t suited to that Pacific fight. Rather, modern threats require the U.S. to have long-range precision rockets, small loitering armed drones, and mobile ship-killing missiles that Marines can use to protect U.S. and allied vessels.
But the land war against Russia has shifted Washington’s strategic calculations, and given new impetus to the retired generals’ mission. One of the group’s more vocal forward-facing members, Vietnam vet Bing West, wrote in a recent article that urban battles taking place in Ukraine, and similar fights in Vietnam like Hue City and Fallujah in Iraq prove the need for tanks and heavy armor in modern combat. Without them, Marines “today are less capable than two decades ago.”
In a Marine Corps Times op-ed, Van Riper bemoaned that “the Corps will have more space experts, cyber warriors, influence specialists, missileers and others with unique skills” than “Marines prepared to close with and destroy the enemy.”
Those arguments, some say, fail to take into account the changes in the technologies that China and Russia can bring to the modern battlefield, even if Russia is struggling to use them in Ukraine.
But some experts agree with Berger’s planned changes as the way to evolve the Marine Corps into a force that can compete with China.
Berger’s efforts are the result of “a lot of years looking at the evolving threat environment and the impact of technology” said Dakota Wood, senior research fellow for defense programs at The Heritage Foundation. “Maneuvering is more difficult because things can be spotted, logistic lines are going to be much more challenging to maintain and so when you’re faced with this kind of new battlefield, wouldn’t you want the force to be less logistically intensive and more maneuverable?”
The plan at the heart of the fight, dubbed “Force Design 2030” and released in March 2020, has won praise from many members of Congress and leaders from the other services also seeking to modernize their formations.
The Marines have already mothballed hundreds of Abrams tanks, warehoused several helicopter squadrons, and are rapidly swapping cannons for rocket artillery. The revamp also transforms the Corps’ storied infantry units into smaller, more technologically dependent units. The retired generals say the moves infringe on the Corps’ traditional strengths as a small, tough-as-nails battering ram called on to do everything from storming beaches to fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan.
The retired generals say they have seen no evidence that leaders performed adequate analysis before getting rid of their tanks, and want Congress to press the pause button on Berger’s plan.
“Why are you doing this before you have a full understanding of what you want to do?” Van Riper told POLITICO.
“Normally what would have happened in the past, there would have been a concept, there would have been war games, there would have been field evaluations before these sorts of drastic moves were made,” Van Riper said.
In a sign of how seriously Berger appears to take the generals’ criticisms, the Marine Corps has drafted an unpublished rebuttal to the criticisms that meets some of their points head-on. The changes being made to the Corps won’t take away from its ability to deploy anywhere around the globe, the draft states, and leadership continues to plan for multiple contingencies.
Specifically, “nowhere within the pages of our [Force Design 2030] … have we said that tanks are irrelevant — despite what is happening in Ukraine today,” states the draft, obtained by POLITICO. It also says that the recommendations made by then-Defense Secretary Mattis as part of his Close-Combat Lethality Task Force “have all been accepted, and have resulted in major lethality upgrades for our small units.”
Van Riper said the group of retirees is well aware of the changing threats.
This is not a “bunch of old guys that don’t know what they’re talking about,” he said. “We recognize that the Marine Corps has to make changes … what we want to see is these changes are based on thorough study and analysis, not just projections of what might be needed.”
A Marine Corps spokesperson noted that the Corps has been actively stress-testing these ideas for years, well before Berger took office, primarily through the “Global” series of classified war games at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. The games are run in conjunction with the Navy’s Pacific Fleet and the Army.
The latest version, Global 14, took place in November, and was overseen by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, Berger and Adm. John Aquilino, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. The retired generals could not be briefed on the full scope of the games because they no longer have the required security clearances.
Berger’s plan “challenges the Corps’ culture because it seems to shift its function from offense to defense and trade manpower for technology,” Hoffman said. “Both of these are antithetical to the Marine Corps’ sense of identity.”
Hoffman added that despite some claims that not enough thought had been put into the changes, all of them had been previously vetted by the Pentagon. “It’s been through the requirements-based system, it’s been through the Joint Staff, through [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] and through Congress twice, so it’s not like the Pentagon or Congress were derelict in oversight. I’m pretty sure Berger was nominated and confirmed because he had a track record for thinking forward and having some vision.”
Berger’s plan is not only backed not only by Congress. It’s been welcomed by defense contractors and lobbyists as well, because money is still flowing on a variety of new projects. Major defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies manufacture anti-ship missiles, precision-guided rockets and loitering munitions that the plan outlines as investment areas. Having those factions on board, and the fact that many areas of the restructuring are already underway, make the generals’ effort a long shot.
When asked directly about the Marine Corps’ plans, the head of European Command, Gen. Tod Wolters, told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday that the revamped Corps “dramatically enhance our options … a brown-water force that can shoot, move and communicate and is very expeditionary is priceless for 21st century security.”
The Marines are working through some of their new concepts during the Cold Response war games taking place in Norway, Wolters said, adding, “the Marines are doing a fantastic job of leading from the front and showing the rest of us how to do it right.”
Backers of the changes note that they didn’t originate with Berger. In June 2017, his predecessor, Gen. Robert Neller, told Congress that the Marine Corps is “not currently organized, trained and equipped to face a peer adversary in the year 2025.”
Neller pointed to the use of electronic warfare, precision weapons, and cyberattacks that would confront Marines on future battlefields against China and Russia, adding, “I’m worried that we’re going too slow and that we’re afraid of change.”
13. What Lessons is China Taking from the Ukraine War?
Probably not the same ones we are learning. But it is important that we try to assess the lessons CHina might be learning. Then again, som elessons may be the same and it will be interesting to assess that.
Conclusion:
While China and the PLA will surely watch Ukraine closely and try to take away the correct lessons, there is one uncomfortable parallel which China may be unable to avoid by the very nature of its authoritarian system. The runup to the Ukraine invasion featured multiple strategic miscalculations by Putin, driven at least in part by him surrounding himself with the yes-men who inevitably cling to authoritarian leaders, eager to please and afraid to speak truth to power. This was obvious in the visibly uncomfortable reaction of Russia’s SVR (foreign intelligence) chief as he was publicly pressured to agree with Putin in the days leading up to the war, as well as in the sackings and arrests of multiple military and intelligence officials after the war turned poorly. Authoritarian leaders have systemic problems in gaining reliable intelligence, oftentimes magnified by their overconfidence in their own singular understanding of a situation. As China continues its slide away from a system of intra-Party consensus toward a one-man cult of personality in which dissenting views are increasingly unwelcome, Xi is bound to encounter the same problem. It is unclear whether Xi will learn this lesson from Putin, or make his own similar miscalculations in the future towards China’s own neighbors.
What Lessons is China Taking from the Ukraine War?
From battlefield concepts to geopolitics, Beijing is sure to be watching with avid interest—and some chagrin.
By THOMAS CORBETT, MA XIU and PETER W. SINGER
APRIL 3, 2022 08:00 AM ET
Operation Desert Storm was a turning point in modern Chinese military history. As military planners with the People’s Liberation Army watched U.S. and allied forces make short work of the world’s fourth-largest military (on paper), equipped with many of the same systems as the PLA, it became obvious that China’s quantitatively superior but qualitatively lacking massed infantry would stand no chance against the combination of modern weaponry, C4ISR, and joint operations seen in Iraq. The result was new military concepts and over two decades of often-difficult reforms, which produced the modern, far more capable, “informationized” PLA of today.
Today, the PLA is no doubt closely observing its Russian contemporaries in Ukraine as they under-perform in multiple areas, from failing to take key targets or claim air supremacy to running low on fuel and supplies and possibly experiencing morale collapse, and surely taking away lessons that will shape its own future. Of note, Russia’s experience appears to have confirmed many of China’s recent assumptions behind its investments, such as the utility of unmanned aerial systems in high-intensity conflict, as well as the necessity for the PLA’s 2015 reforms, which aim to fix many of the issues driving Russian failure that the PLA recognizes in itself.
Of the many issues that have contributed to Russia’s physical battlefield woes in Ukraine, one of the most important has been the lack of effective joint or combined arms operations, widely considered essential to any effective modern fighting force. Russia’s poor level of coordination between its various services and branches can only be generously described as incompetent. For example, it has repeatedly failed to provide effective air support to its ground forces or deconflict its air and air-defense forces to avoid friendly fire.
The PLA has long had its own serious issues with joint operations. Traditionally dominated by the Army, the PLA had little success developing a truly joint force until a series of sweeping reforms in 2015 that replaced the former Army-dominated system with a series of joint theater commands. The PLA is thus aware of its own shortcomings and taking steps to fix it, but likely remains far off from being able to conduct truly effective, seamless joint operations. Efforts to conduct joint exercises are becoming more common, but most senior PLA leaders are still relatively inexperienced with joint operations, and even new officers typically do not receive joint education below the corps level. Further, it remains to be seen how far these reforms will go or to what extent they will “stick;” indeed, one reason the PLA did not attempt these reforms until 2015 was because of strong institutional pushback from the Army, whose leaders wished to retain their dominant status.
To China, the Ukraine invasion will reinforce the importance of joint and combined arms operations, while also making clear that such operations are highly difficult to conduct in practice. Russia’s stumbles may give the PLA pause as to whether it is truly ready for all the joint elements that a successful Taiwan seizure would require, including close coordination between sea, air, and land forces.
Another issue which has contributed to Russia’s military woes is the low quality of its conscript force. Indeed, Ukraine has even turned images of Russian POW conscripts being allowed to call their mothers into a weapon in its information warfare. While some militaries, such as Israel, have managed to maintain a high-quality conscript force, a full-time professional force is generally considered to hold numerous substantial advantages, which is why most of the Western world now uses a voluntary recruitment model. Despite the copious hyper-masculine recruiting videos which so excited certain Western politicians, Russia has struggled to attract enough voluntary recruits to move away from its current system of 12-month conscription.
Despite some recent success in recruiting a higher-quality, more-educated voluntary force, the PLA has likewise failed to move away from conscription. It presently requires about 660,000 two-year conscripts, many lacking even partial high-school education, to fill out its ranks. While this does not bode well for the PLA’s ability to conduct complex operations, one area where the PLA may have an advantage over its Russian counterparts is in the area of motivation. The Russian conscripts are not just poorly trained, but also suffer from low morale. Many among the invasion force did not know why they were going to Ukraine, or even that they were going to Ukraine at all. By contrast, the PLA places heavy emphasis on personnel political education, and Chinese conscripts have been raised from an early age to believe in the necessity of “liberating” Taiwan. Still, the PLA is surely watching with concern as a conscript force with at least some similarities to its own fares so poorly, and will likely redouble their campaign to attract more, and preferably higher-quality, voluntary recruits.
Russia also allowed its adversary to dominate the information environment. Due to a combination of overly optimistic assumptions about the political weakness of its foe and logistical reliance on its target’s own communications networks, Russia never launched the long-feared effort to take down Ukrainian communications networks. Putin’s strategists wrongly believed that its own messaging and rapid military advances would go viral across these networks and aid in collapsing the Ukrainian state. As well, many of Russia’s units turned out to need access to Ukrainian civilian networks for their own operations.
Instead, the Zelenskyy regime turned the tables on Russia, winning the information war inside both Ukraine and the West, and in so doing, transforming the greater war. Deft Ukrainian government messaging and a mobilized civilian populace created a new sense of domestic unity, as well as mobilizing essential military aid and historic economic sanctions from a widened network of global allies. In turn, Russian use of civilian networks made it susceptible to intercepts and geolocated targeting of its units. The PLA has streamlined coordination between its cyber, electronic warfare, space, and information warfare efforts through the recent creation of the Strategic Support Force, indicating it recognizes the importance of information dominance. It can be expected to redouble its efforts at cyber/information warfare, as well as encrypted communications, to ensure its own operations don’t suffer the same flaws.
Another ongoing issue has been Russia’s serious problems with poor logistics. The sight of broken-down or abandoned vehicles has become common as Russian forces run out of fuel and other vital supplies. To its credit, the PLA has also been rapidly reforming and modernizing its logistical system as part of the same broad set of 2015 reforms. As part of these reforms, the PLA has emphasized its logistics organizations and created the Joint Logistics Support Force. This force’s training has focused on cooperation with other branches of the PLA, and it has cut its teeth training to establish supply lines during natural disasters. In 2018, the JLSF launched its first major exercise, dubbed “Joint Logistics Support Mission 2018,” featuring medical drones, helicopter-dropped refueling depots, and operations in harsh and remote terrain.
However, while the outward manifestation of many of the issues faced by the Russian military appear to be logistical in nature, the true heart of the issue may be corruption. There are reports that before the invasion Russian military officers sold off their fuel and food supplies, and that these corrupt practices may be responsible for the stalling of a Russian tank column outside Kyiv. In this regard, the PLA has much to fear. Corruption has plagued the PLA for decades, with some PLA officers bluntly stating in 2015 that it could undermine China’s ability to wage war. Reportedly, more than 13,000 PLA officers have been punished in some capacity for corruption since Xi Jinping took power, including more than a hundred generals. This was a particular problem in the logistics sector, where there are more opportunities for corruption and links to the civilian economy.
Yet, despite the reorganization of the PLA and widespread prosecution of corruption cases, it still appears to be a major issue. Anti-corruption efforts are ongoing, with Chinese Gen. Zhang Youxia recently calling for innovative measures to keep up the fight. But the fact that Fu Zhenghua, the man brought in to take down the corrupt former security chief Zhou Yongkang, is himself now under investigation for corruption does not bode well for the long-term effectiveness of China’s efforts. The troubled invasion of Ukraine provides a stark real-world example to Xi, the CCP, and PLA about the impact corruption can have on military effectiveness, and will no doubt cause them to redouble their anti-corruption efforts with a newfound urgency. However given its similar authoritarian system and emphasis on career advancement through patronage, systemic corruption may be baked into the system.
Finally, there is the strategic issue of Beijing’s reaction to the global sanctions that have hit the Russian ruble and economy. The swift and severe economic retaliation of the U.S., EU, and others took Moscow by surprise. Even more unexpected was the rapid withdrawal of almost 500 global corporations, pushed on by an effective effort at naming and shaming them into acting to protect their own brands. A longer-term effort targeting essential elements of Russia’s defense industry will hamstring it for years.
While China will benefit from Russia’s increasing reliance on its goods and services, Beijing can be expected to retool its geo-economic strategy to reduce its vulnerability to a similar nightmare scenario. For example, it will likely redouble its efforts to promote its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System—an alternative to the SWIFT international banking system—among its strategic partners and foreign aid recipients in the developing world.
Likewise, China’s recent “Dual Circulation” economic strategy appears to be aimed at countering a decoupling from China’s trade partners. Further, Beijing has surely observed how easy it was for corporations to withdraw from Moscow. If China is to be exposed to the risk of global sanctions and corporate withdrawal, so too are countries and corporations exposed to dependence on the world’s second-largest economy, and thus the government will likely take efforts to make any sanctions or corporate turn against China as painful a prospect as possible. Either way, policymakers in Washington need to understand that the sanctions being used today against Russia are unlikely be as effective the next time around, as China is not just a different economy, but also will learn from the current conflict and adjust accordingly.
For all these valuable lessons, there is little doubt that China has been watching the ongoing conflict with no small amount of chagrin. Chinese leaders are reportedly surprised and unsettled by the poor military performance of its Russian partners, Ukraine’s resistance, and the level of solidarity from the international community. The image of a much smaller state, against all odds, successfully resisting a larger neighbor surely sits uneasily in the psyches of CCP apparatchiks and PLA officials. It also counters the narrative of overwhelming force and grim inevitability Beijing has sought to instill in the psyches of the Taiwanese people. It is notable that early attempts by Chinese state media to capitalize on the Ukraine invasion in precisely this fashion, illustrating how the United States will surely abandon Taiwan when the chips are down, quietly ceased after the initial days of the war, when it became apparent that the U.S. was not, in fact, abandoning Ukraine. Beyond purely psychological factors, Ukraine also offers a blueprint for successful resistance via asymmetric warfare very similar to Taiwan’s proposed Overall Defense Concept, perhaps giving a jolt to a plan that most analysts agree offers Taiwan its best chance of success against the PLA but has stalled out in the face of bureaucratic resistance.
While China and the PLA will surely watch Ukraine closely and try to take away the correct lessons, there is one uncomfortable parallel which China may be unable to avoid by the very nature of its authoritarian system. The runup to the Ukraine invasion featured multiple strategic miscalculations by Putin, driven at least in part by him surrounding himself with the yes-men who inevitably cling to authoritarian leaders, eager to please and afraid to speak truth to power. This was obvious in the visibly uncomfortable reaction of Russia’s SVR (foreign intelligence) chief as he was publicly pressured to agree with Putin in the days leading up to the war, as well as in the sackings and arrests of multiple military and intelligence officials after the war turned poorly. Authoritarian leaders have systemic problems in gaining reliable intelligence, oftentimes magnified by their overconfidence in their own singular understanding of a situation. As China continues its slide away from a system of intra-Party consensus toward a one-man cult of personality in which dissenting views are increasingly unwelcome, Xi is bound to encounter the same problem. It is unclear whether Xi will learn this lesson from Putin, or make his own similar miscalculations in the future towards China’s own neighbors.
14. Navy and Marines Divided Over the Amphibious Fleet’s Future as Delays and Cancellations Mount in FY 2023 Budget Request
Excerpts:
“And the third is cultural, that is that the infantry gets much smaller. Over the last 20 years, the Marines’ infantry units have probably been cut in half. The focus of certainly the MLRs is on long-range precision strike in the artillery, not the infantry,” Cancian added. “And there’s a concern that – combined with some of the talent management proposals – that the Marine Corps is getting away from its roots of excellence in ground combat, particularly close combat.”
As for the amphibious force structure, Berger has argued the Marine Corps needs both the new, smaller ships like the LAW and the larger amphibious warships that make up the Amphibious Ready Groups.“There is not a tradeoff. Our capacity in the industrial base can handle both. And I know that not anecdotally, but my conversations with leadership at places like Huntington Ingalls is [that] they have the capacity. And they are complementary capabilities,” Berger said in February when asked if the Navy can build both LAW and the larger amphibs.
“They are not a substitute for each other because a traditional amphibious ship has all the attributes that we know and love so much over the years that a Marine Expeditionary Unit and Amphibious Ready Group have been using,” Berger said.
Navy and Marines Divided Over the Amphibious Fleet’s Future as Delays and Cancellations Mount in FY 2023 Budget Request - USNI News
The future Richard M. McCool Jr. (LPD-29) launching at Ingalls Shipbuilding, Mississippi. HII Photo
If the Marines could spend any more money as part of the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget, they’d ask to buy another amphibious warship.
Ranked higher than new F-35B and C Lighting II Joint Strike Fighters or Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, the number one item on the Corps’ FY 2023 unfunded priority list to Congress is $250 million in advanced procurement funding for a new Flight II San Antonio-class amphibious warship. That’s because the Navy doesn’t plan to buy the ship at the top of the Marine Corps’ wish list.
“The funding profile in the President’s budget submission essentially cancels the LPD program following the procurement of LPD-32 in FY23, a program originally planned to procure through LPD-42,” Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the deputy commandant for combat development and integration, told USNI News last week.
After years of working together on naval integration, the line item is the latest example of a growing split between the Navy and Marine Corps, showing how the services have come to an impasse over the future of the amphibious fleet.
Following the rollout of the Navy’s FY 2023 budget, the state of the amphibious force structure is murky. The service’s budget proposal truncates the San Antonio-class LPD-17 Flight II production line and delays the Marine Corps’ new Light Amphibious Warship purchase.
The proposal – already receiving criticism in Congress – is exposing fissures between the two sea services over their visions for amphibious platforms.
There’s a growing divergence between the Navy and Marine Corps, specifically about the LAW, a smaller amphibious ship that’s key to the Marines’ Force Design 2030 initiative and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept, multiple naval observers told USNI News last week.
“There’s this difference of opinion in the philosophy behind the LAW, which is why this debate about LPD-17 Flight II,” is happening, said Hudson Institute senior fellow Bryan Clark.
But with expensive bills like the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program and the Constellation-class frigate, the Navy has insisted its budget proposal balances maintaining the force it has with modernizing for the future, budget officials said on Monday.
“I think it’s money. I think if the Navy had enough money to fund all its high priority programs – aircraft carriers, frigate, the Columbia-class submarine and the Virginia-class attack submarines – as well as investing in the amphibious force, I think they would do it in a heartbeat,” Dakota Wood, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a retired Marine, said of the Navy’s proposal regarding the amphibious ships.
While buying smaller amphibious ships has become a priority for the Marine Corps in recent years, the service maintains it still also needs larger amphibious ships to complete its missions and meet combatant commanders’ needs.
The Marine Corps’ requirement remains 31 large amphibious ships – 10 big-deck LHAs and 21 LSDs or LPDs – which industry experts say should be constructed on four-year and two-year centers, respectively, Heckl told USNI News in a Thursday interview.
But the Navy’s plan to end the LPD-17 Flight II line – originally slated to include 13 ships – combined with plans to retire four Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships in the upcoming fiscal year, would bring the amphibious inventory down to 25 ships in the next five years, Heckl said.
“Amphibious warfare ships are being decommissioned faster than they are procured, delivered, and eventually available for employment,” Heckl told USNI News.
Navy and Marine Corps Divergence
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday speaking at WEST 2022 on Feb. 18, 2022.
The division between the Navy and Marine Corps extends to Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday’s public comments.
Speaking on stage in February at the WEST 2022 conference in San Diego, Calif., Gilday said the Navy needs nine LHAs and 19 or 20 LPDs/LSDs, bringing the total number of large amphibious ships to 28 to 29, which is more in line with the 24 to 28 range in the Biden administration’s FY 2022 30-year shipbuilding plan.
“Perhaps 30 or more smaller amphibious ships [are needed] to support Maritime Littoral Regiments,” Gilday said at the time, referring to ships like LAW.
At the same conference, Berger told reporters the amphibious requirements study – currently in its final stages – would likely call for approximately 31 amphibious ships. In the interview last week, Heckl maintained that 31 is the “bare minimum” number for large amphibious ships.
Navy deputy assistant secretary for budget Rear Adm. John Gumbleton told reporters last week that LPD-32 would be the last amphibious transport dock the service plans to buy in the San Antonio class.
As evident from the top item on the unfunded list, the Marines are against ending the line.
A senior congressional aide told USNI News that ending the LPD-32 line – which has largely been delivering on time and on budget from Ingalls Shipbuilding after problems in the program’s early years – is “short sighted.” Amphibious ships and the four proposed LSD retirements in the FY 2023 budget will likely be a crucial item of discussion as lawmakers draft the National Defense Authorization Act, according to the aide.
“It’s going to be a debate on the overall amphib[ious] force structure in Congress this year, so we’ll see how it all shines out in the end. But we will be debating the four LSDs and talking about amphib force structure writ large, making sure we have the minimum number of ships the Commandant needs,” the aide told USNI News.
The aide said lawmakers’ thinking is more in line with the Marine Corps’ vision of LAW as a more affordable ship the service can buy quickly and that Congress would likely push to buy the ship sooner than FY 2025. The Navy and Marine Corps need both intra-theater lift and forcible entry platforms – smaller amphibious ships like LAWs and larger ships like LHAs and LPDs, respectively – to operate in the region, the aide said.
“If your premise is that you support [these] intra-theater connectors, LAW needs to move. And when I say move, it needs to move forward,” the aide said.
The Navy’s recent request also included LHA-9, – a ship Congress has already authorized and appropriated money for – so the House Armed Services Committee is considering the ship already procured, the aide said.
America-class amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA-6), back, and landing crafts, air cushion attached to Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 5 sail in formation in support of Noble Fusion, Feb. 7, 2022. US Navy Photo
Meanwhile, the Navy doesn’t plan to buy the next LHA – LHA-10 – until FY 2031, meaning there would be an eight- or 11-year gap between LHA-9 and LHA-10, depending on the procurement year assigned to LHA-9, Heckl told USNI News. Delaying the ship’s purchase until then would make “maintaining the line completely untenable for industry, particularly the supply base that construct[s] amphibious warfare ship components,” the deputy commandant said.
As for LAW, Heckl said there’s some risk in delaying the program because the Marine Corps has already begun standing up its Marine Littoral Regiments, the formation the service converted and reshaped to move around smaller units aboard LAW.
“It’s bad. It’s very bad, because at some point as we stand up more and more MLRs, it requires more and more LAW to support them. And we’re only going to be able to go so far with leasing or finding other creative solutions with the Navy,” he said.
Still, the Navy has not formally released a Force Structure Assessment in more than five years, making it difficult to understand where the service stands.
“We really don’t know where the administration’s at because we don’t have a Force Structure Assessment out there. This amphib study is one thing, but even an amphib study with the lack of overall context about where we’re going at with regards to overall force structure, it’s kind of missing the ball with regards to telling Congress about what the military’s requirements are,” the senior congressional aide said.
Developing LAW
An artist’s concept of a modern tank landing ship.
Since the Commandant became the Marine Corps’ top officer, he has put forward proposals to reshape the service, arguing it needs to become lighter and more mobile to move Marines around the Pacific in a potential conflict with China.
A crucial part of that vision is the Marine Corps using smaller, less expensive amphibious ships to shuttle smaller units of Marines between islands and shorelines, where they could set up ad-hoc bases. The LAW, which would land Marines directly ashore, is one of those smaller ships.
The idea, according to the Marine Corps, is that the Marines who move between islands and shorelines aboard LAWs could then fire anti-ship missiles, increase the risk to the adversaries’ fleet and create chaos in the theater during a potential conflict.
While the Marine Corps has said the landing ships are key to moving its new MLRs around the Pacific, the Navy has kept delaying the start of the program.
The first LAW purchase was originally slated for FY 2022 under the Trump administration’s December 2020 shipbuilding plan, but delayed to FY 2023 in the Biden administration’s FY 2022 budget. Now the first purchase is scheduled for FY 2025. The current plan is to buy one the first year, another in FY 2026 and two in FY 2027.
“The first LAW will not deliver within this FYDP,” Heckl told USNI News in a statement. Heckl was referring to the Future Years Defense Program, or the Pentagon’s five-year budget outlook.
Pushing the delivery of the first LAW past FY 2027 means the Marine Corps would receive the ship after the so-called “Davidson window,” which refers to former U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander Adm. Phil Davidson’s testimony to Congress last March that China could try to take Taiwan in the next six years.
The Marines see LAW as an affordable, smaller ship the Navy could purchase quickly for about $150 million per hull. But keeping LAW affordable has become difficult as the Navy evaluates the survivability of a ship that could end up operating in the South China Sea.
“I think they’re not on the same page. I think the Navy essentially wants to truncate the LPD-17 Flight II and use that money to instead by the Light Amphibious Warship, with the idea that the Light Amphibious Warship is going to have to be fairly survivable to be viable inside these contested environments, which means it will be relatively expensive,” Clark told USNI News. “And therefore they need the money from the LPDs to pay for them because if you have a Light Amphibious Warship that costs $300 million – which is something that’s more in the scope of what the Navy’s thinking – then if you want to buy three or four per year, that’s essentially an LPD-17.”
The future USS Fort Lauderdale (LPD 28) departed Huntington Ingalls Shipyard to conduct Acceptance Trials in the Gulf of Mexico. US Navy Photo
“That’s the direction the Navy wants to go. The Marine Corps wants to basically have both. They want to have the LPD-17 Flight IIs and then also buy the LAW, because they view the LAW as a much … less survivable ship, with the idea that they’re not going to drive it into highly contested environments. It’s intended to support mobility, and then if they’re getting shot at, they may not actually use it. They might keep it in port,” Clark added.
Concerned about the history of the Littoral Combat Ship program, the Navy has pushed for more requirements for LAW to make the ship more survivable, while the Marine Corps still wants to quickly buy a less expensive amphibious ship, Clark said.
“I think the debate is fundamentally [that] the Marine Corps feels they’re willing to take those risks and the Navy isn’t on board because the Navy’s worried about the kind of back-pressure they’re going to get from Congress or [the Office of the Secretary of Defense],” he added.
Mark Cancian, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it appears the Navy and Marine Corps may have “two different visions” of LAW, diverging on how small it should be and what kind of defensive systems should go on the ship.
“I think what happened was that the Marine Corps has been running around saying, ‘large ships are too vulnerable. We will never do a large-scale amphibious assault again. We need small ships to operate inside the weapons engagement zone.’ And the Navy and OSD have heard that and said, ‘OK. OK. But what that means is we’re going to stop building large amphibs,’” Cancian said.
Asked about the delay of the LAW program, Cancian said the Navy and Marine Corps could be having a debate about what LAW should look like.
“I can imagine the discussion is about the size and capability of this ship. The Marine Corps had talked about something very small … disposable, barely ocean-capable and with a limited lifetime,” Cancian said.
“And I think the Navy may have balked at that – buying 30 ships with such limited capabilities and maybe having a discussion about buying something larger that would be globally deployable, like the old [Landing Ship Tanks], which would of course be much more expensive but much more capable,” he added. “You could put those out on a routine forward deployment. The ARGs – you could put them in ARGs, which you can’t do with LAWs, at least the original vision of the LAWs.”
Wood attributed the decision to delay LAW and end the LPD line to funding constraints, pointing to the Columbia-class program, the Constellation-class frigate and the Ford-class aircraft carriers as high priority programs where the Navy feels it cannot take any risks.
“It’s the whole category of amphibious capabilities is in competition with those other things, so then it becomes risk management and where the Navy … can take risk,” Wood said.
“There’s always been this question of how many amphibs? What do we think an amphibious force is going to do? Can it get close enough to an objective given the size of LPDs, LSDs, LHAs? So that’s been a problem for years anyway,” he added.
Wood noted the question of survivability – which is where it appears the Navy and Marine Corps disagree on LAW – is a historic problem for Pentagon programs. As the services add more defensive capabilities or armor to platforms, like the Defense Department did with mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles during the Iraq War, they become more expensive. But Wood argued the Navy and Marine Corps cannot afford to go this route with ships.
“I don’t think there is any lost love. I think that the Navy and the Marines Corps services really do want to work well together and that they recognize the importance of naval power in an era where China poses the most substantial challenge to U.S. interests for the next two or three decades. It’s an inherently maritime environment in that part of the world,” he said.
Marine Corps Dissension
US Marine Corps Rouge Fires missile system.
Though embraced in the civilian analyst community, the Marine Corps strategy underpinning the pursuit of LAW is facing heavy criticism from retired Marine generals and officers.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last month, former Navy Secretary Jim Webb described a coordinated effort by retired Marine Corps generals – including almost two-dozen four-stars – to voice apprehensions about Berger’s plans to reshape the force by shedding heavier armor and equipment like tanks.
“After several unsuccessful attempts by retired senior officers to engage in a quiet dialogue with Gen. Berger, the gloves have now come off. The traditional deference has been replaced by a sense of duty to the Marine Corps and its vital role in our national security,” Webb wrote. “Recently, 22 retired four-star Marine generals signed a nonpublic letter of concern to Gen. Berger, and many others have stated their support of the letter. A daily working group that includes 17 retired generals has been formed to communicate concerns to national leaders.”
This means Berger is not only navigating internal Navy dynamics over the budget and the future of the amphibious force structure, but also outside criticism from his predecessors about his effort to reshape the Marine Corps.
“I think they have several concerns. One is that the Marine Corps’s getting smaller and will be challenged to meet its global commitments. One is that the structure is too focused on the western Pacific and the Marine Corps will not be able to participate effectively in operations in other areas,” Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel, said of the officers’ concerns.
The Marine Corps has argued that its strategy, which is focused on the Indo-Pacific, would work in other regions across the globe.
“And the third is cultural, that is that the infantry gets much smaller. Over the last 20 years, the Marines’ infantry units have probably been cut in half. The focus of certainly the MLRs is on long-range precision strike in the artillery, not the infantry,” Cancian added. “And there’s a concern that – combined with some of the talent management proposals – that the Marine Corps is getting away from its roots of excellence in ground combat, particularly close combat.”
Marines board the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) via landing craft, air cushion, March 21, 2022. US Navy Photo
As for the amphibious force structure, Berger has argued the Marine Corps needs both the new, smaller ships like the LAW and the larger amphibious warships that make up the Amphibious Ready Groups.
“There is not a tradeoff. Our capacity in the industrial base can handle both. And I know that not anecdotally, but my conversations with leadership at places like Huntington Ingalls is [that] they have the capacity. And they are complementary capabilities,” Berger said in February when asked if the Navy can build both LAW and the larger amphibs.
“They are not a substitute for each other because a traditional amphibious ship has all the attributes that we know and love so much over the years that a Marine Expeditionary Unit and Amphibious Ready Group have been using,” Berger said.
Related
15. Options to Modify Title 10 U.S. Code to Improve U.S. Security Force Assistance
Excerpt:
Combatant commanders continue to warn of legislative inaction in a world defined by competition between autocracies and democracies. In competition autocratic states enjoy an asymmetric advantage in speed, responsiveness, and reach due to no bureaucratic restrictions or adherence to international norms and laws. The Commander of U.S. Africa Command highlighted the issue of speed warning that U.S. assistance, “can sometimes take a long time to unfold, and that sometimes forces our African partners to go with the bird in hand, which is sometimes China, sometimes Russia[11].” The Commander of U.S. Southern Command outlined the need for flexibility when asking Congress to explore a “21st century flexible and responsible tool to allow us to outcompete and win by meeting our partner’s needs[12].” Inaction risks potential degradation of U.S. access, presence, and influence needed to establish integrated deterrence.
Options to Modify Title 10 U.S. Code to Improve U.S. Security Force Assistance
Major James P. Micciche is a U.S. Army Strategist and Civil Affairs Officer. He holds degrees from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and Troy University and can be found on Twitter @james_micciche. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the USG. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature, nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.
National Security Situation: Without modifications to Title 10 U.S. Code (USC), Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 16, §321 and §333, U.S. Security Force Assistance (SFA) contributions to strategic competition will not be fully realized.
Date Originally Written: March 23, 2022.
Date Originally Published: April 4, 2022.
Author and / or Article Point of View: The author believes SFA can address strategic competitors’ most likely and most dangerous courses of action while also supporting competitive efforts through other instruments of national power.
Background: The DoD defines SFA as “activities that support the development of the capacity and capability of foreign security forces and their supporting institutions[1].” SFA improves the ability of the Joint Force to support, enable, and enhance campaigning across all elements of the competition continuum[2]. Despite SFA’s prominent role in supporting the Integrated Deterrence concept underlying the 2022 National Defense Strategy, current statutory authorities limit SFA’s effectiveness. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act’s (NDAA) Section 1323 (Study on Certain Security Cooperation Programs) and Section 1261 (Report on Security Cooperation Authorities and Associated Resourcing in Support of the Security Force Assistance Brigades) of the Senate’s proposed NDAA signal Congressional interest in improving SFA authorities to address strategic competition[3][4].
Significance: Allies and Partners are a cornerstone of U.S. policy. The first National Security Strategy identified an “area of U.S. strength and Soviet weakness is alliance relationships[5].” Current DoD leadership continues to emphasize Allies and Partners as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities testified to the House Armed Service Committee “The U.S. network of alliances and partnerships is a strategic advantage our competitors cannot match[6].” That advantage enables the realization of Integrated Deterrence, the foundation of the 2022 National Defense Strategy. Integrated Deterrence synchronizes Joint Force and Interagency capabilities with those of Allies and Partners to deter or compel strategic competitors[7]. SFA builds the requisite partnerships and interoperability with Allies and Partners in key locations to generate Integrated Deterrent effects mitigating threats to U.S. interests.
Sun Tzu prioritized negating an adversary’s strategy and then destabilizing their alliances[8]. China, America’s identified pacing threat, did this by investing in capabilities preventing the deployment of U.S. military power. China also uses diplomatic, information, and economic instruments of national power to degrade U.S. access, influence, and presence globally. From Anti-Access Area Denial technologies to coercive economic and diplomatic practices, China is denying options and increasing the costs for the U.S. military. Due to these concerted efforts, the Joint Force now faces two strategic challenges, “time and distance[9].”
SFA provides options for combatant commanders to compete below levels of armed conflict through establishing or maintaining access, presence, and influence while improving partners’ military capability and interoperability with U.S. forces. SFA increases adversarial escalation costs and allows the Joint Force to begin conflict at a positional advantage. Despite SFA’s capabilities, the current statutory authorities do not enable the DoD to maximize its employment of purpose-built SFA formations, like the Army’s Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) and the Air Force’s Mobility Support Advisory Squadrons.
Title 10 USC, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 16, authorizes the majority of DoD security cooperation activities, of which SFA is a subset. The current chapter 16 authorities represent the unipolar world of 1991-2003 or the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) from 2001-2017. Within the current legislative framework §321 (Training with Friendly Countries) and §333 (Foreign Security Forces: Authority to Build Capacity) are the primary mechanisms for the DoD to conduct SFA. Each authority has limitations and strengths but neither is optimized for strategic competition.
Option #1: Congress changes “only with the military forces” to “security forces” within the limitation clause of §321.
§321 authorizes general-purpose forces of the United States to train only with the militaries of partners for the overall benefit of the U.S. unit[10]. §321 prevents the development of new partner capabilities and restricts materiel, construction, or contract support to training events only. While §321 is a flexible option for combatant commanders to establish access, presence, and influence it limits the development and integration to indirect benefits of training with U.S. forces.
Risk: Expanding the amount and type of security forces that U.S. conventional units can train without State Department concurrence risks over-militarizing aspects of U.S. foreign policy and delegitimizing whole of government efforts to develop capacity in non-defense sectors. §321 expansion risks potentially duplicating authorities within §322 (Special operations forces: training with friendly foreign forces) without an overarching program manager like U.S. Special Operations Command’s Joint Combined Exchange Training.
Gain: Increasing the aperture of who U.S. conventional forces can train with increases the flexibility and utility of using §321 to establish access, presence, and influence. This is especially beneficial within nations that have internally-focused security forces that are not part of a traditional military architecture.
Option #2: Congress creates a tenth capacity category authorizing “improved combined military interoperability” in §333.
§333 authorizes materiel, training, and operational support to foreign partner forces in developing capabilities across nine different mission types with seven of the nine being focused on GWOT-era objectives. Unlike §321 activities, §333 missions require Department of State concurrence and coordination and have specific Congressionally appropriated funding through the international security cooperation programs account.
Risk: Despite developing long-term partner capabilities, §333 activities take 18-24 months to approve, preventing its use in emergent and unforeseen requirements. Additionally, both conventional and special operations forces use §333 and its associated funds and adding additional mission types will increase competition for an already limited resource, especially with the loss of overseas contingency operations funding.
Gain: SFA works best over prolonged periods through persistent presence. §333’s ability to build partner capacity and provide materiel and operational support make it ideal for improving the effectiveness of partner forces to deter aggression and generating interoperability with U.S. Forces. Department of State concurrence and monitoring of §333 also facilitates the integration of other instruments of national power.
Option #3: Congress creates an SFA-specific authority and funding source.
§321 broadly allows combatant commanders some flexibility in where they conduct SFA requiring months to approve and fund but vastly limits the long-term impact of their activities. Inversely, §333 is specific in allowing concerted efforts with a given partner that takes years to approve and its codified mission types constrain use to developing nations. Creating a responsive SFA-specific authority and funding source provides the Joint Force the ability to address strategic competition and prioritizes Partners and Allies.
Risk: After the failures of the Afghan National Security Forces in August 2021 and the deaths of four U.S. Army Special Forces Soldiers during an ambush in 2017, there is substantial pushback on increasing the autonomy of the DoD to execute SFA. Increasing SFA’s ability to employ military members in advisory roles requires Congress to assume risk and put faith back into the DoD to execute global competition missions.
Gain: An SFA-specific authority and funding source highlights U.S. commitment to allies, partners, and strategic competition. This authority, with an accompanying appropriated funding source, will generate the long-term strategies needed to maximize the effects of SFA.
Other Comments: Combatant commanders continue to warn of legislative inaction in a world defined by competition between autocracies and democracies. In competition autocratic states enjoy an asymmetric advantage in speed, responsiveness, and reach due to no bureaucratic restrictions or adherence to international norms and laws. The Commander of U.S. Africa Command highlighted the issue of speed warning that U.S. assistance, “can sometimes take a long time to unfold, and that sometimes forces our African partners to go with the bird in hand, which is sometimes China, sometimes Russia[11].” The Commander of U.S. Southern Command outlined the need for flexibility when asking Congress to explore a “21st century flexible and responsible tool to allow us to outcompete and win by meeting our partner’s needs[12].” Inaction risks potential degradation of U.S. access, presence, and influence needed to establish integrated deterrence.
Recommendations: None.
Endnotes:
[8] Griffith, S. B. (1963). Sun Tzu: The art of war (Vol. 39). London: Oxford University Press.
16. Why China won’t mediate an end to the Ukraine war by Joseph S. Nye
Excerpts:
The primary obstacle to Xi’s dream is of course the US, followed by China’s lack of allies other than Russia. Xi and Putin have forged a personal relationship that has reinforced what was previously an alliance of convenience. Even if the war in Ukraine has made that alliance somewhat less convenient, Xi may still feel that it’s prudent to ‘dance with the one who brought you to the party’.
Besides, initiating a Rooseveltian move would probably require more imagination and flexibility than the Chinese leadership is capable of. One also must consider a domestic political element that a Chinese friend recently pointed out to me: with Xi seeking a third presidential term this year, what matters most to him is maintaining the Chinese Communist Party’s control of the country and his own control of the party.
As economic growth has slowed, the party has increasingly relied on nationalism to legitimise its rule. That’s why Chinese official media and nationalistic websites have repeated Putin’s claims that Ukraine is a puppet of the West and that Russia is standing up to America’s bullying of both Russia and China. Support for Putin’s war is in keeping with China’s nationalist ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’.
But while Putin’s invasion has upended world politics, it has not changed the underlying balance of power. If anything, it has slightly strengthened the US position. NATO and America’s alliances have been reinforced, with Germany embracing a far more muscular defence posture than at any time in decades. Meanwhile, Russia’s reputation as a formidable military power has suffered a serious blow. Its economy is weakened, and its soft power lies in tatters. China can no longer tout the alliance of autocracies as proof that the East wind is prevailing over the West.
China could still change the dynamic by seizing its Teddy Roosevelt opportunity. But I doubt that it will.
Why China won’t mediate an end to the Ukraine war | The Strategist
Russian President Vladimir Putin thought he could quickly capture Kyiv and replace Ukraine’s government. Whether he was misled by poor intelligence or by his own fantasies about history, his ‘smash and grab’ failed in the face of effective Ukrainian resistance. He then turned to a brutal bombardment of cities like Mariupol and Kharkiv to terrorise the civilian population into submission—as he had previously done in Grozny and Aleppo. The tragic upshot is that Ukraine’s heroic resistance has been accompanied by increasing civilian suffering.
Is there any way to end this nightmare quickly? One possibility is for Chinese President Xi Jinping to see that he has a ‘Teddy Roosevelt moment’. After the brutal war between Russia and Japan in 1905, Roosevelt stepped in to mediate. He pressed hard for the parties to compromise and ultimately prevailed, thereby boosting America’s global influence and winning himself a Nobel Peace Prize.
Turkey, Israel and France (among others) are attempting to mediate in Russia’s current war, but they don’t have nearly as much leverage with Putin as his ally Xi does. The question is whether Xi has the imagination and the courage to use it.
The answer, thus far, is no. While China has long portrayed itself as a defender of the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, it has tolerated Putin’s brazen violation of the United Nations charter. When the UN Security Council voted on a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion, China abstained. China has criticised Western sanctions against Russia and parroted Russian propaganda about the war being caused by America’s own plans to pursue NATO enlargement, even though it had been clear for years that NATO members weren’t going to vote to admit Ukraine.
China’s unwillingness to criticise Russia has left it sitting on the diplomatic sidelines, unable to wield influence commensurate with its growing economic and military strength. Although Chinese censors limit most news about the war, some in Beijing have openly wondered whether China’s current diplomatic stance best serves its national interests. For example, Wang Huiyao, the president of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing, has suggested that China should mediate to give Putin an ‘off-ramp’ from his disastrous Ukraine policy.
Why might this be in China’s interest? For one thing, China’s position undermines its claim to be a defender of sovereignty, which it uses to appeal to its neighbours in Southeast Asia. Equally important, the war is blunting China’s soft power in Europe, which accounts for five times more of China’s trade than Russia does. The war has also driven up the price of China’s oil and grain imports. Grain prices will become even more salient if China experiences the same degree of severe flooding that it did last year.
As the war drags on and Western sanctions increase, there’s also a danger that secondary sanctions will spill over and harm China. Providing Putin with a face-saving off-ramp could address this and the other dangers the war poses. And it would deepen Russia’s growing dependence on China and boost China’s own global image and standing. Xi might even win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Of course, there would be costs associated with such an initiative. Cautious Chinese diplomats see the war in Ukraine as a decidedly European conflict. If it saps the strength of older powers such as Europe, the US and Russia, China can benefit by standing back and letting the conflict burn itself out. Moreover, although the war is weakening an ally (a potential cost), it also has changed the global political agenda in ways that are advantageous to China. No longer can the US talk about a pivot to Asia, where it would focus its attention on China.
After the 2008 financial crisis, Chinese leaders concluded that the US was in decline, and that led them to abandon Deng Xiaoping’s patient and cautious foreign policy. Nationalism has since been rising in the country, and Xi has expressed the hope that China will decisively displace the US geopolitically by 2049—the centennial of the People’s Republic.
The primary obstacle to Xi’s dream is of course the US, followed by China’s lack of allies other than Russia. Xi and Putin have forged a personal relationship that has reinforced what was previously an alliance of convenience. Even if the war in Ukraine has made that alliance somewhat less convenient, Xi may still feel that it’s prudent to ‘dance with the one who brought you to the party’.
Besides, initiating a Rooseveltian move would probably require more imagination and flexibility than the Chinese leadership is capable of. One also must consider a domestic political element that a Chinese friend recently pointed out to me: with Xi seeking a third presidential term this year, what matters most to him is maintaining the Chinese Communist Party’s control of the country and his own control of the party.
As economic growth has slowed, the party has increasingly relied on nationalism to legitimise its rule. That’s why Chinese official media and nationalistic websites have repeated Putin’s claims that Ukraine is a puppet of the West and that Russia is standing up to America’s bullying of both Russia and China. Support for Putin’s war is in keeping with China’s nationalist ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’.
But while Putin’s invasion has upended world politics, it has not changed the underlying balance of power. If anything, it has slightly strengthened the US position. NATO and America’s alliances have been reinforced, with Germany embracing a far more muscular defence posture than at any time in decades. Meanwhile, Russia’s reputation as a formidable military power has suffered a serious blow. Its economy is weakened, and its soft power lies in tatters. China can no longer tout the alliance of autocracies as proof that the East wind is prevailing over the West.
China could still change the dynamic by seizing its Teddy Roosevelt opportunity. But I doubt that it will.
17. Pentagon policies don’t do enough to prevent harm to civilians: report
I suppose we can always do more and do better. But...
Perhaps we should put some effort into getting other countries abiding by the Law of Land Warfare. We certainly need to push for international war crimes trials to hold those Russians accountable. The timing of this article/report is frustrating when we see what the Russians continue to do in Ukraine.
Excerpts:
The Rand Corp. report focused specifically on the 2017-2018 battle for Raqqa, as Kurdish and U.S. forces teamed up to liberate the city from ISIS. The major causes of civilian casualties were the conditions on the ground and a lack of good intelligence, the report found.
“Nothing we present in this report should be interpreted as accusing coalition forces or leaders of violating the law of war,” according to the findings. “[The Defense Department] abided by its policies and procedures, which go beyond the law of war, at multiple levels to help protect civilians during armed conflict.”
Still, Rand found some issues it recommends DoD improve in its future efforts.
Pentagon policies don’t do enough to prevent harm to civilians: report
The Rand Corp. report focused specifically on the 2017-2018 battle for Raqqa, as Kurdish and U.S. forces teamed up to liberate the city from ISIS. The major causes of civilian casualties were the conditions on the ground and a lack of good intelligence, the report found.
“Nothing we present in this report should be interpreted as accusing coalition forces or leaders of violating the law of war,” according to the findings. “[The Defense Department] abided by its policies and procedures, which go beyond the law of war, at multiple levels to help protect civilians during armed conflict.”
Still, Rand found some issues it recommends DoD improve in its future efforts.
For example, the strategic decision to encircle Raqqa and push in to take out ISIS fighters. While it was effective in doing that part, it was also impossible for civilians to get out of the city, keeping them in harm’s way throughout the battle.
Another major issue was the reliance on air strikes by U.S. forces, making it difficult to get good, on-the-ground intelligence about where civilians were sheltering.
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A new center of excellence will deal specifically with preventing and responding to civilian harm.
“Having more ground forces, specifically infantry units, could have improved U.S. and coalition capabilities to mitigate and respond to civilian harm through interactions with the local population inside Raqqa,” according to the report. “A larger ground troop presence also could have provided a direct link between the battlefield and pilots dropping munitions, conducted targeted raids on buildings housing ISIS snipers, and initiated the civilian casualty response process in the case of unintended incidents of harm.”
The report recommends, largely, finding ways to get better intelligence. The other part of the equation is documenting civilian casualties, which has not been a focus of after-action assessments.
“The U.S. military should improve its data collection methods, including storage of and access to strike data, in a single program to enable more-accurate tracking and recording of civilian-harm incidents,” according to the report.
To that end, the Pentagon has already created a civilian protection “center of excellence,” set to be up and running later this month, to collect and analyze civilian harm reports and implement new policies.
“The department appreciates the insights that this report offers,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday. “I appreciate all the work that RAND put into it. And we know it’ll help inform our own work as we continue to try to improve our approach to civilian harm mitigation and response going forward.”
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members. Follow on Twitter @Meghann_MT
18. Navy SEALs can’t use Washington parks for training, judge says
I hope this will not affect the training for 1st Special Forces Group which has used these areas for training for decades.
Navy SEALs can’t use Washington parks for training, judge says
OLYMPIA, Wash. — A judge has ruled that the Navy SEALs won’t be able to use Washington State Parks as training grounds.
In January 2021, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission voted 4-3 to approve the Navy’s proposal to use up to 28 parks for training purposes for the elite units, where SEALs would emerge from the water under the cover of darkness and disappear into the environment.
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But some citizen groups oppose the Navy's plans.
The Northwest News Network reports the decision rankled many recreationalists, who said during public comments they would avoid these areas for fear that SEALs would watch them without the knowledge or consent of visitors.
On Friday, Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon said the commission’s decision was illegal and outside its purview, which includes the protection and enhancement of parks.
In addition, Dixon ruled the commission violated the State Environmental Policy Act by not considering fully how the trainings could deter visitors.
Opponents of the decision often said the presence of out-of-sight SEAL trainees would incite a “creepiness factor,” removing a sense of calm often found in nature.
Dixon said he couldn’t come up with a better legal term than that.
“It is creepy,” he said.
In earlier public hearings, Navy officials said Washington’s natural landscapes provide critical cold water training for SEALs. Washington’s coastlines and currents pose challenges to SEAL trainees that are difficult to find elsewhere, said Warrant Officer Esteban Alvarado at a Nov. 19, 2020, public meeting, calling the region a critical component in training exercises.
The judge’s decision could be appealed.
19. Biden Told the Truth: Putin Has to Go By Garry Kasparov
The 9 words are still creating controversy. Did they hurt diplomatic efforts? Can they help them? Or does the 24 hour news cycle just pass them by?
Here is a tweet from Tom Nichols that counters Mr. Kasparov's position (it is also an example of courteous discourse over twitter that also provides a substantive recommendation).
RadioFreeTom (@Tom Nichols) Tweeted: It is possible to agree with every word of this piece and yet still think the way Biden ad libbed it didn't do much good.
"There can be no normal relationship with Russia while Putin is in office" is the right message and should have been a speech in itself. https://twitter.com/radiofreetom/status/1510808073757208581?s=27&t=NeR70Sojp19rE2KnLAVOcQ
--
Biden Told the Truth: Putin Has to Go
Ukraine’s sacrifice will be in vain if the West’s moral confusion gives Russia a chance to regroup.
By Garry Kasparov
April 3, 2022 12:17 pm ET
It would also fit Mr. Putin’s usual tactic of taking territory by force and then pivoting to diplomacy to secure his gains. Whether it’s feint or fiction, the pressure by Ukraine and its allies on Russia must only increase. Kharkiv and Mariupol now resemble the gutted ruins Mr. Putin created in Aleppo and Grozny. Yet the weapons Ukraine needs to stop long-range artillery, missile attacks and aerial bombing are still being held back by the U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations.
That should be the real story, not any controversy about President Biden saying Mr. Putin “cannot remain in power.” No free-world leader should hesitate to state plainly that the world would be a far better place if Mr. Putin were no longer in charge in Russia, and one way to help make that come about is to say it. Making it clear that Russia will be a pariah until Mr. Putin is gone is the best way to shake his support among elites, military commanders and ordinary Russians.
The problem came when the White House attempted to walk back the remark, calling it an ad lib that did not reflect a U.S. policy about “regime change” in Russia. This retreat added fuel to my concerns about an internal split in the White House between those who sense the opportunity to toss Mr. Putin into the dust bin of history and those who are afraid of any change in the status quo and who would rather deal with the devil they know.
The latter would be an echo of 1991, when President George H.W. Bush gave his infamous “Chicken Kyiv” speech, reportedly penned by Condoleezza Rice, cautioning Ukraine against rushing to independence from the Soviet Union. Three weeks later Ukraine ignored that advice and declared independence. The Soviet Union collapsed within months.
The updated 2022 recipe calls for keeping Mr. Putin at the negotiating table for the Iran nuclear deal and not giving Ukraine the jets and other offensive weapons it needs to win the war. Everything I hear from other NATO members is that the U.S. has become the obstacle, and an explanation is required. Allowing Mr. Putin to keep an inch of Ukrainian soil after bombing civilians should be unimaginable. Conceding large areas of eastern Ukraine to the invader in exchange for a cease-fire would only give Mr. Putin time to consolidate and rearm for next time—and there will always be a next time. No peace deal should weaken the strong sanctions that have finally arrived, eight years late.
The only drawback to the end of the Cold War was the loss of the moral clarity provided by a clear and present evil. Aside from a handful of fellow travelers and useful idiots, even Ronald Reagan’s critics couldn’t doubt the accuracy of his calling the Soviet Union “an evil empire” in a 1983 speech, as startling as it was to hear a politician speak so plainly in moral terms. It was also a tonic for those of us inside the Soviet Union to hear what we knew to be true said aloud by the leader of the free world.
Mr. Biden’s age may be a negative for some, but he remembers the Cold War. Gaffe or not, his remark reflected accurate instincts: Mr. Putin must go. But the war in Ukraine is also a distraction from his flailing domestic agenda. It’s hard to talk about economic and social issues in the U.S. when a real war is leading the news every night.
So who in Washington is calling the shots on Ukraine? If the Biden administration wants Ukraine to win, someone in the White House should say it and do what is necessary to make it possible. If the U.S. is offering deals to Mr. Putin or pressuring Ukraine to accept anything less than sovereignty over 100% of its territory, we should know. Tactical ambiguity can be useful, but a lack of strategic and moral unity and consistency leads to catastrophe.
Mr. Putin’s Russia is a bankrupt gas station run by a mafia that prefers to spend its time and money in London and New York. Offering any carrots to these war criminals would set the stage for a return to the appeasement and corruption that brought us to this deadly phase. It would also shake the foundation of collective defense in the region. As Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks told me last week, “We are afraid not of Russian tanks, but of Western weakness.”
The outcome in Ukraine will define a new world order, for good or ill. Taiwan and China are watching closely. Xi Jinping’s natural alliance with his fellow dictator is looking less attractive after the free world’s outpouring of support for Ukraine. The U.S. can restore its leadership of the free world, or it can lead from behind while democracy continues to lose ground.
The West fell asleep when the Cold War ended. Ukrainians are sacrificing everything to shake President Biden, the White House and the world awake.
Mr. Kasparov is chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative.
20. Latest atrocities in Ukraine were inevitable and won’t be the last
Latest atrocities in Ukraine were inevitable and won’t be the last
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 12:11 AM ET, Mon April 4, 2022
(CNN)Never again, the phrase often uttered after crimes against humanity, in practice, almost never means never again.
Sickening scenes of mass graves and murdered civilians in Ukraine this weekend, revealed by the pullback of Russian troops from Kyiv, are jolting the world back to some of humanity’s cruelest outrages.
On Sunday, a CNN team saw at least a dozen dead in body bags piled in a mass grave in the town of Bucha, northwest of the capital. Residents said around 150 people are buried there, while the mayor had said in public remarks a day earlier there could be up to 300 victims buried there. CNN was unable to independently verify those numbers or the identities and nationalities of those buried in the grave.
The devastating scenes followed the emergence of images captured by Agence France-Presse in the same town showing bodies of at least 20 civilian men lined in a single street. Some were face down. Others collapsed on their backs, mouths open in horror. One man’s hands were tied behind his back. Another lay alone, next to his bicycle on a grassy bank. Russia — facing a cacophony of global revulsion — characteristically accused Ukraine of faking the horrible scenes. CNN has not been able to independently confirm the details around the men’s deaths.
Perhaps there’s a slim chance that such horrific footage will come to be emblematic of a turning point in the war by catalyzing more robust Western action and a new diplomatic commitment that could turn the tide of the conflict further against Russia.
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But the only conceivable way that Ukrainian civilians could be made safe is if Western forces intervene in the conflict or Russian President Vladimir Putin suddenly calls off his onslaught.
Neither is likely to happen — not least because the West has imposed limits on its own action to avoid a direct conflict with nuclear-armed Moscow. And the Russian leader has always seen the lives of civilians in his way as cheap.
Still, the evidence of atrocities underscores a tragic realization that such evil is not simply the historic legacy of long-past wars.
It will force leaders and citizens to ask — or suppress — the same moral dilemma previous generations faced mostly in retrospect: why was more not done to save innocents from such horror?
The world should not be shocked
The lifeless bodies of civilians, apparently killed execution-style, littering the streets of Bucha brought shocked tweets and comments from world leaders.
But the terrible scenes should not shock anyone familiar with Putin’s brutal tactics and the reality of a callous land war.
Instead, they are the almost inevitable result of a vicious and illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, a backlash from a battered Russian army that didn’t expect much of a fight, and the Kremlin’s fearsome doctrines that rained carnage on Chechnya and Syria, as a 1940s way of total war plays out 20 years into the 21st century.
They spring from the same cruel impulses as the bombardment of cities and hospitals, apartment blocks and air raid shelters by Russian forces in an operation that looks, to most of world, like an attempt to wipe Ukraine off the map.
A week ago, Washington was in uproar over President Joe Biden saying that Putin’s apparent atrocities meant he was a “butcher” who shouldn’t remain in power. Now his supposed gaffe seems less a verbal slip about regime change, which the US says it will not initiate, than a prescient moral judgment.
Zelensky calls for ‘such evil’ to be eradicated
“The world has already seen many war crimes. At different times. On different continents. But it is time to do everything possible to make the war crimes of the Russian military the last manifestation of such evil on earth,” he said.
Zelensky’s poignant statement in a video address was a variation on the familiar refrain — after atrocities from Syria to Cambodia, and Rwanda to Bosnia over the last 50 years, and dating further back to the Nazi Holocaust — that such inhumanity must never be allowed free reign again.
Yet this conflict in Ukraine is susceptible to the same caveats and restrictions on global action to protect civilians from tyrants as many others — including China’s current repression of the Uyghur Muslims or Myanmar’s recent genocide against the Rohingya.
The West simply lacks the political will, the all-out military commitment, the international legal mandate — or an acceptance of the geopolitical consequences that would follow — to undertake interventions to prevent widespread war crimes.
‘We can’t become numb to this’: Blinken condemns Ukraine atrocities 01:24
The most pressing question now is whether the individual tragedies of civilians being ruthlessly killed in Ukraine will do anything to mitigate the wider tragedy of the conflict that indirectly led to their deaths.
The people of Ukraine have been left open to such reprisals since Biden and other Western leaders have decided that direct, military intervention in the conflict — including the establishment of no-fly zones over non-NATO-member Ukraine — could trigger a hot war with Russia, which would risk a nuclear escalation that would threaten all humanity.
In the long term, such evaluations may well be prudent. An elected leader’s first duty is the safety and security of their own people.
Putin clearly understands the West’s dilemma. His nuclear saber rattling at the start of the invasion, for example, triggered widespread alarm in the West and speculation about the mental and emotional state of the man with his finger on Russia’s nuclear button.
While the US has provided huge hauls of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, concern about encroaching over an invisible red line and provoking Putin caused Biden and other NATO leaders to thwart a plan by Poland to send Soviet-era jets to help Zelensky’s pilots establish dominance of the skies.
The next few days will determine whether the horror of the weekend will lead Biden to edge closer to that line. Before news of the atrocities in Bucha broke, sources told CNN’s Jim Sciutto and Kaitlan Collins that the US was ready to facilitate the transfer of Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Ukraine.
World leaders bemoan a weekend of horror
The immediate practical impact of the terrible footage from Bucha was to trigger dismay and condemnation from Western governments, demands for war crimes investigations and promises for even tougher sanctions against the Putin regime.
It’s possible the descent into even deeper horror in Ukraine this weekend could initiate some formal war crimes investigation. But the UN tribunal in the Hague does not conduct trials in absentia. So justice could be years away at best. And while there is value to investigating and documenting war crimes and for holding those lower in the chain of command responsible, it’s hard to see any circumstances in the near future in which Russia would hand Putin over.
Any United Nations action would surely face a veto in the Security Council by Russia. Another of the permanent five members of the council, China, would also likely see any such investigations as potentially threatening given its own poor human rights record.
That limited possibility for accountability means the West could reach for its most familiar tool — more sanctions against Russia, the people around Putin and the Russian leader himself. The alleged atrocities in Ukraine will also certainly lead to more demands for Western leaders to send more lethal aid to the government in Kyiv. It’s even harder to see Russia being allowed back into regular diplomatic activity with Western leaders, at least while Putin is in power.
But despite the potency of Western anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, the debilitating costs being imposed on the Russian economy and the pariah status now stigmatizing Russia, there’s little evidence that Putin will be influenced to let up on civilians. It’s just never been part of his character in more than 20 years of strongman rule.
And while Russian forces appear to be regrouping away from Kyiv — a factor in discovering the atrocities they apparently left behind — Putin is giving every indication of digging in for a long war cemented on eastern Ukraine.
So outrage is, for now, the dominant Western reaction.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the attacks against innocent civilians “despicable” and promised justice through the International Criminal Court. Speaking to CNN’s “State of the Union,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said images of dead civilians were “a punch to the gut” and promised the US would document war crimes by Russia and seek accountability. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed “horror, pain and outrage.” Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the images left him “astonished.”
No doubt the expressions of disgust were sincere. But at times like these, world leaders often seem caught up in contests over who can register the most horror in a process of rhetorical inflation that hides the real questions at stake.
Johnson, for instance, warned that “no denial or disinformation from the Kremlin can hide what we all know to be the truth — Putin is desperate, his invasion is failing, and Ukraine’s resolve has never been stronger.”
But nothing that Johnson said is likely to change the Russian leader’s ruthless approach and willingness to inflict the most brutal pain on civilians. The lessons of history and the strategic limitations of the West furthermore mean it’s almost certain the horrific scenes uncovered in Bucha this weekend are far from the last, or the worst, crimes against humanity of this vicious war.
21. Ukraine War Update - April 4, 2022 | SOF News
Ukraine War Update - April 4, 2022 | SOF News
Curated news, analysis, and commentary about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tactical situation on the ground, Ukrainian defense, and NATO. Additional topics include refugees, internally displaced personnel, humanitarian efforts, cyber, and information operations.
Photo: A prototype Maneuver Short Range Air Defense Stryker assigned to 5-4 Air Defense Artillery Battalion, tracks an Mi-24 Hind during Exercise Saber Strike 22 at BPTA, Poland on February 25, 2022. Read more about the M-SHORAD Weapons System. U.S. Army photo by Maj. Robert Fellingham)
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Russian Campaign Update
The Russians have failed in most all of their objectives in the war thus far. Reports as late as Sunday night (April 3) on social media and some news organizations say that the Russians have conducted a very large and disorderly withdrawal of much of northern Ukraine. In the haste to retreat enclaves of Russian soldiers are now isolated in northern Ukraine. Some open source situation maps are depicting a huge change on the ground situation over the past 48 hours. (@War_Mapper).
Plan B. The Russians are now making adjustments and have staked out more more realistic goals – primarily the capture of the Donbas region as well as a ‘land bridge’ from Russia along northern shore of the Sea of Azov to Crimea. This means they need to secure the city of Mariupol. They will continue to send reinforcements to the fight in eastern Ukraine.
Donbas. Prior to the February 2022 invasion the Russians controlled 1/3 of the Donbas region, while the Ukrainians controlled the remainder. Young men of the Donbas region are being conscripted by the Russians and sent into combat with little training, old rifles, and no equipment or supplies. (Reuters, Apr 4, 2022). At some point, Putin will declare ‘victory’ after having seized additional areas of the Donbass region and consolidates its hold on the coast of the Sea of Azov running from Russia to Crimea.
Map: Donbas region of Ukraine – circa February 2022. Green is the area considered to be part of the Donbas region. Brown is area occupied by Russian forces prior to the February 24, 2022 invasion.
Russian War Crimes in Bucha? Social media and news organizations are reporting that while withdrawing from the town of Bucha (see Google maps) in northern Ukraine the Russians killed civilian men, women, and children in what many are calling a massacre. “Streets of Kyiv suburb ‘littered’ with bodies, 280 buried in mass grave”, New York Post, April 2, 2022. Many observers of the conflict say that there will be more such atrocities committed by the Russians (CNN, Apr 4, 2022). The European Union is considering new sanctions on Moscow in light of the ‘Bucha massacre’ and the secretary-general of the United Nations is calling for an independent investigation. (Aljazeera.com, Apr 3, 2022).
Syrians Arrive in Russia. Hundreds of Syrian fighters are now undergoing training in Russia in preparation for a deployment into Ukraine. There are also reports that Syrians have arrived in Belarus for training. Recruiters in Syria have the names of thousands of fighters who are willing to fight for Russia in Ukraine. Syrian fighters have taken part in conflicts in Libya, Azerbaijan, and the Central African Republic. Over 1,000 private contractors with the Wagner Group are fighting for Russia in the Donbas region.
Fight for the Skies. Slovakia is still willing to part with their S-300 anti-aircraft systems and send them to Ukraine . . . but they are waiting on the go-ahead from the United States and an adequate replacement. Germany has sent a Patriot battery to Slovakia. There are rumors that Washington just can’t seem to cut through its own red tape.
In its many years in Syria supporting the Assad regime Russia has employed air strikes on a large scale against Assad’s opponents. It has not been shy about bombing civilian infrastructure and populated areas. A report from 2019 reviews Russia’s air attacks in Syria. “Russia’s airstrike rules of engagement reviewed”, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), March 14, 2019.
In defense of the aerial attacks on civilian infrastructure and the killing of thousands of civilians Russia has employed the ‘human shield’ argument, saying that Ukrainian forces are deploying their forces, artillery units, and military equipment in residential areas of its cities. “Why we need to challenge Russia’s human shields narrative”, Aljazeera, April 3, 2022.
Maritime Activities. An amphibious landing force on several ships is still positioned in the Black Sea off the coast of Odessa to land a substantial element of Russian naval infantry. However, without the capture of Mykolayiv, an amphibious landing is unlikely. The Russian blockade of Ukrainian shipping continues. NATO is warning that there is a threat of drifting mines certain areas of the Black Sea. It is also warning that the threat to civilian shipping in the area remains very high.
Ukrainian Defense
A combination of Russian withdrawals and Ukrainian counterattacks have resulted in the Russians vacating areas northwest and north of the capital city of Kyiv. One effective tactic of the Ukrainians appears to be the targeting of senior Russian officers. The number of Russian generals killed is staggering. “Why are so many Russian generals dying in Ukraine?”, The Economist, March 31, 2022.
Tactical Situation
Kyiv. The Russian having been moving north towards Belarus away from the city of Kyiv. The city is still experiencing aerial attacks from missile strikes. Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom said that all Russian troops have left the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine. A curfew has been announced by the government for the Kyiv region recently liberated from Russian occupation so that mines and bombs emplaced by the Russians can be neutralized or removed.
Kharkiv. The second largest city of Ukraine, Kharkiv, is still under aerial attack from missiles and rockets. It is not encircled by the Russians and fierce fighting has taken place in the city over the past several weeks. India still has almost 1,000 of its citizens stranded in Kharkiv and Sumy.
Mariupol. The Red Cross was supposed to conduct a major evacuation of citizens from Mariupol on Friday (Apr 1) where 100,000 to 150,000 people remain trapped. However, the Russians are undermining any attempts to conduct an evacuation or to bring relief supplies of food and medicine to the city’s residents. Russia is considered to be just days away from capturing the city. Once captured, the Russian troops committed to the Mariupol siege will likely be involved in the conquest of the eastern Donbas region.
Mykolayiv. Although there is fighting in the outskirts of the city, the Russians are unlikely to be able to capture it. Located on the west bank of the Dnieper River close to the coast of the Black Sea, Mykolayiv is a strategic objective for the Russians that is on the road to Odessa located further west along the coast of the Black Sea.
General Information
Negotiations. Agreements between the Ukrainians and Russians on the evacuation of civilians from besieged cities and the delivery of humanitarian aid have been broken as much as they have been observed. On Friday (Apr 1) the Russians took food and medication that was loaded on 12 buses bound for the southeastern city of Melitopol. They also blocked 45 buses that were to evacuate civilians from Mariupol.
Prisoner Exchange. 86 Ukrainian service personnel were part of a prisoners exchange that took place on Friday (Apr 1) in the Zaporizhzhia region. Of the 86, 15 were women.
Refugees, IDPs, and Humanitarian Crisis. Many European countries are stepping up to welcome the refugees. Poland has accepted almost 3 million. The Netherlands is accepting 50,000 Ukrainians and about 1,500 of them will spend time on a cruise ship docked in Rotterdam. Is Putin using the Ukrainian refugees as a weapon – attacking NATO with over 4 million refugees? (Small Wars Journal, Apr 3, 2022).
UNHCR Operational Data Portal – Ukraine Refugee Situation (Updated daily).
Russia’s Economy – Small Businesses Suffering. Prices for goods and services are going higher everyday, wages are falling, consumption is falling, and supply chain problems are choking the economy. The pullout of foreign businesses and sanctions are hurting the Russians in the pocketbook and wallet. “In targeted Russian economy, businesses operate without Russian products”, The Washington Post, April 2, 2022. Popular opinion among Russians for President Putin has not seemed to have diminished significantly.
Cyber and Information Operations
Tinder Plus, Romance, and Russia. The people of Russia have been kept in the dark about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian official media is providing a distorted picture of the war and misleading the Russian public. Social media in Russia has been shutdown and international media is banned. But there are ways to get through to the average Russia. Learn more in Outsmart Russian War Censorship With Love, Special Love Operation.com.
Releasing Intel for Effect. The period prior to the Russian’s invading Ukraine and over the past few months have seen an unprecedented release of intelligence to the public by government officials in the U.S., UK, and elsewhere in Europe. Intelligence agencies have been remarkedly willing to go public with their secrets about Putin and the events on the battlefield. Part of the reasoning behind this shift in intelligence sharing with the public is to keep Moscow in line – letting Putin and his generals know that the world is watching their next move . . . in hopes that this will alter their decisions. “Secret intelligence has unusually public role in Ukraine war”, Business Standard, April 3, 2022.
China’s Disinformation Campaign. Chinese state-backed media have amplified Russian conspiracy theories to spread disinformation about the war in Ukraine to a global audience. They are parroting Moscow’s talking points. It has become clear that China is aligned with Russia in the information environment. “Chinese Disinformation Seeks to Support Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine”, IntelBrief by the Soufan Center, March 28, 2022.
World Response
$300 Million More for Ukraine from U.S. The United States is sending an additional $300 million in military equipment to Ukraine. These include laser-guide rocket systems, Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems, Puma UAVs, armored wheeled vehicles, ammunition, thermal imagery and optics, communications gear, and more.
Russia’s Trade Status with U.S. A short brief by the Congressional Research Service provides information about the history of Russia’s trading status, the trade impact of removing Russia’s permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), World Trade Organization (WTO) issues, and more. Read Russia’s Trade Status, Tariffs, and WTO Issues, CRS IF12071, April 1, 2022, PDF, 3 pages.
Commentary
NATO’s Priority -Air Defense. Putin’s War in Ukraine could easily spill over into the bordering neighboring countries. Poland and the Baltic countries are at considerable risk – especially from the aerial threat posed by Russia’s advanced surface-to-air missile systems and aircraft. NATO must deploy additional anti-air systems and aircraft to the ‘eastern flank countries’. “Priority #1 for NATO: Upgrading Air and Missile Defense in Eastern Europe”, Real Clear Defense, April 4, 2022.
Remaking NATO. For several years the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a construct searching for a purpose. It soon found itself involved in the Afghan War (Article 5 was invoked in support of the U.S.) and in Iraq with its training mission. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine it now is being re-purposed back to its original mission – confronting Russia (the nucleus of the old Soviet Union). Read more in “The War in Ukraine is Remaking the NATO Alliance”, by Andrew A. Michta, Real Clear Defense, April 4, 2022.
Videos and Podcasts
Video – Ukrainian Drones. Ukraine’s success against Russia can be accredited in some part to its ability to improvise equipment. A firm that manufactured drones for the agricultural industry has switched gears to make drones for the Ukrainian army. Watch “Ukrainian defenders show off improvised drones”, Forces.net, April 1, 2022, 2 minutes.
Video – Ukraine SOF and the Rifle Malyuk. An indigenous rifle seems to be a favorite weapon of the Ukrainian special operations forces. Watch a video entitled How Ukraine’s Rifle Malyuk is Helping its Special Forces Hold Out Against Putin’s Troops”, CRUX YouTube, March 26, 2022, 6 minutes.
Podcast – Putin’s Losses. CSIS International Security Program director Dr. Seth Jones takes part in a discussion about Putin’s battlefield missteps, Russia’s path going forward, how Ukraine can defend itself, and what the United States can do to support Ukraine. The Truth of the Matter, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), March 31, 2022. https://www.csis.org/node/64679
Podcast – Putin’s Bad Cyber Plan. Listen to a discussion about Russia’s cyber capability and willingness to wage cyberwar with Ukraine and NATO. The Truth of the Matter, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), March 31, 2022. https://www.csis.org/node/64672
SOF News welcomes the submission of articles for publication. If it is related to special operations, current conflicts, national security, defense, or the current conflict in Ukraine then we are interested.
Maps and Other Resources
UNCN. The Ukraine NGO Coordination Network is an organization that ties together U.S.-based 501c3 organizations and non-profit humanitarian organizations that are working to evacuate and support those in need affected by the Ukraine crisis. https://uncn.one
Maps of Ukraine
Ukraine Conflict Info. The Ukrainians have launched a new website that will provide information about the war. It is entitled Russia Invaded Ukraine and can be found at https://war.ukraine.ua/.
Ukrainian Think Tanks – Brussels. Consolidated information on how to help Ukraine from abroad and stay up to date on events.
Weapons of the Ukraine War.
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22. Wargaming a Long War: Ukraine Fights On
Wargaming a Long War: Ukraine Fights On - Modern War Institute
In the weeks prior to the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Marine Corps University hosted a four-day wargame to forecast the war’s course. That wargame proved remarkably prescient, accurately predicting almost all of Russia’s major combat movements in the first week of operations. As the war entered its second month, the Marine Corps War College and the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare reopened the wargame with the aim of exploring how the future fight might develop, with a particular emphasis on a national resistance scenario in a Russian-occupied Ukraine.
Our wargame’s advisors came from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, including United States military officers, representatives from NATO countries, two experts on internal Russian decision-making, and a retired Ukrainian colonel with experience on the Ukrainian general staff. The second iteration’s most significant change to gameplay was a switch from each turn representing a single day to three-month turns. This was done to allow us to play out a full year of combat operations within the time allotted to complete the wargame. Lengthening the game turn duration required a higher degree of adjudication abstraction than our previous wargame, but it proved essential to enabling players to look at broader operational and strategic considerations over the duration of a protracted conflict.
After applying expected geostrategic and operational developments over the remainder of this year and into the start of 2023, we determined the Russians reached an operational culmination well-short of their maximal objectives. Given the combination of Ukraine’s proven will and its capabilities in a defensive fight, the prospects for Russian forces in heavy urban combat proved daunting. By the end of the summer, Russia no longer possessed the forces to pursue major simultaneous objectives nor the combat power to conquer a major city. All was not rosy for the Ukrainians, who lacked the combat power to go on the offensive and eject Russia from the occupied territories. With neither side able to achieve decisive military effects in the offense, without exception, the combined teams predicted that without a negotiated settlement the war is headed toward an indefinite stalemate.
The ramifications of such an outcome are immense. First, of course, is the toll in human suffering, as losses mount on both sides, and the refugee crisis remains unalleviated for a year or more. For the United States, a stalemate means that the ad-hoc defense-related resupply arrangements require systemization and the establishment of a quasi-permanent logistics infrastructure. Ukraine’s future success also requires the establishment of training centers that can regenerate Ukraine’s frontline combat power and allow these forces to reenter the fight.
As we conducted the wargame, the surprises came fast and furious. The first was we entered the wargame with a flawed assumption about Russia’s prospects. Initially, we assessed that over the next four months the weight of the Russian force would gradually wear down Ukraine’s military and allow for a complete occupation of the country. After conducting open-source analysis to develop a current operating picture and assessing losses since the start of the war, the team agreed to fast forward one month and assume the collapse of Mariupol, Sumy, and Konotop. The wargamers were then tasked to determine the major operational movements for the summer 2022 campaign, using as the key decision how Russia would employ the maneuver forces freed up by these successes and the option to employ forces held in reserve. In weighing and then employing the wargame to test courses of action, it rapidly became clear that Russia lacks the combat power to collapse the Ukrainian military this summer.
Another surprise for the wargame was the validation of how national leaders’ political objectives trounce the best military advice provided by generals. As the summer campaign played out, the “generals” (wargamers) were forced to decide how best to employ military forces, and shift combat resources, including strategic reserves, to accomplish objectives. Political requirements dominated military decision-making, as the expert military advice on future operations was overruled in favor of seizing objectives deemed more politically important. In this case, our Vladimir Putin ordered spectacular victories were necessary to sustain his own power, repeatedly saying that the postwar condition of the army was of small consequence.
Summer and Fall 2022
Russia’s summer 2022 move prioritized political objectives to achieve iconic successes over improvements of the overall military situation. Despite increasing Ukrainian partisan activity in occupied areas, Russia launched localized and limited offensives in pursuit of these objectives. However, apart from Mariupol, these objectives proved elusive, and most of the Russian-Ukrainian front lines barely budged. The only major exception was a local Ukrainian counterattack that retook a sizable amount of territory northwest of Kyiv.
The major takeaway from this first move is that, despite the lack of movement, frontline attrition remained frightful. Although Russia continues suffering higher attrition rates than its opponent, Ukrainian forces are far from unscathed. The most damaging losses for the Russians are in experienced officers, troops, and armored vehicles, which are the primary targets of local counter-attacks given increasing numbers of portable antitank weapons. The wargame highlighted Ukrainian capabilities to employ killer-drones to knock out Russian vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, and self-propelled artillery. Open sources claim that Ukraine has over fifty such weapons on near-constant patrols and this number is growing. If only one drone in ten kills a vehicle each day, that equates to 150 vehicles a month and 1,350 Russian vehicles losses between now and Christmas. Moreover, the wargame-imposed daily success rate of a mere ten percent is likely a gross underestimate. Add to this the losses inflicted from thousands of anti-tank weapons and the Russians soon ran short on modern armor to support combat operations. Over the wargame’s year-long course, Russian losses in troops and vehicles approached the entire amount it had built up around the perimeter of Ukraine at the conflict’s start.
Despite our intention to devote the rest of the wargame to a possible insurgency or national resistance campaign, the fact that, even if Ukraine was not winning the war, it was certainly not losing it, caused a re-evaluation. As Ukraine still had an intact, discernible, and well-manned front line, it was decided to let the wargame continue on its natural course. What was apparent to all was that the wargame was starting to parallel the situation the warring parties found themselves in 1915, with both sides unable to launch major offensives as manpower and munitions stocks were nearly exhausted.
As the war progressed, attrition challenged both armies’ ability to create operational reserves, as all available forces were required to sustain the line. Thus, by mid-summer, Russia lacked the capacity to conduct more than one operational offensive at a time, and its force would rapidly culminate in front of fierce Ukrainian resistance. For the Ukrainians, they were still holding a long defensive line with an ever-shrinking force, opening the possibility of multiple Russian breakthroughs.
Similarly, both sides in our wargame were limited by a lack of munitions. Current reporting appears to give the Ukrainians an edge, as they are apparently attacking throughout the theater, employing thousands of Javelins and other antitank systems. While important, a superiority in munitions does not equate to a capability to conduct a large-scale offensive to retake lost ground. The initiative remains with the Russians, but grievous and continuing losses limited Russian striking power. Furthermore, with the Russian economy under sustained international assault, it may not be able to resupply munitions, particularly precision-guided missiles and bombs, which already appear to be in critically limited supply. As a result, we reduced the striking capacity of formations as the lack of resupply took its toll.
In game terms, during the summer and fall campaigns, the Russians remained capable of applying pressure at many points along the front but could no longer sustain the four major offensives they initiated the war with. Just sustaining their isolation attempts on Kyiv and Kharkiv consumed and fixed the majority of Russia’s available combat power. As the second turn concluded, taking the conflict into December, the Russians, with severely depleted forces, were forced to make hard choices. Our Russian generals advised shifting to an eastern strategy similar to what Russia announced late last week. But they were overruled by Putin, who insisted on capturing Odessa, despite a lack of progress against Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Thus, Russia employed its strategic reserves for an offensive in the south that culminated short of capturing Odessa. The impact was to extend the front without achieving anything of military or political significance, while also eliminating any further reserve formations in theater. The wargamers did take some time to explore the eastern strategy, and although it likely would have initially caused significant Ukrainian military losses, the Russian offensive culminated before Dnipro and the Dnieper crossings, and with Kharkiv still controlled by Ukraine.
Winter 2022
As its losses mounted and Russian forces prepared to conduct a winter offensive, Ukraine, in the winter turn, faced the decision to either defend in place and continue to contest the Donbas and Kharkiv or withdraw most of its forces back to cover the city of Dnipro and the Dnieper River crossings. A withdrawal, by reducing the front by several hundred miles, freed up substantial forces for reemployment around Kyiv or in the south. It also ceded key terrain in the Donbas and Kharkiv regions. Defending forward would have increased Ukrainian leverage in strategic negotiations but risked a Russian envelopment of the center of Ukrainian defenses. The wargamers opted for a withdrawal of much of the combat power back toward the west, while still holding Kharkiv as an eastern bastion.
During the wargame, adjudicators allowed both sides to sustain the personnel strength of many units through various means—volunteers and reserve manpower for Ukraine, and drafts of new conscripts and foreign mercenaries for the Russians. What could not be replaced in any great numbers, by either side, were vehicle losses. These losses impacted the Russians far more than the Ukrainians on the defense. By the end of a year, vehicle losses brought offensive operations to a near standstill—a natural culminating point.
The game ended with Ukraine growing stronger, but still incapable of retaking lost territory. Russia, on the other hand, needed a prolonged operational and strategic reset, no longer having the combat power to sustain a major advance and with little hope of reviving such power in the near term.
Observations
Ultimately, both sides lack the forces to achieve their ideal outcomes. Without a political compromise, we predicted the military aspects of this conflict will be characterized by stalemate, limited advances, high casualties, and massive equipment attrition on both sides over the next twelve months. Given Putin’s political position, the Russian army will be under heavy pressure to achieve success, which may lead to desperate employment of chemical weapons and/or tactical nuclear weapons to end the battlefield stalemate. However, players assessed that resorting to such tactics invites a United States and NATO response that would be cataclysmic for Russian hopes of ultimate success.
Reluctance on behalf of the United States and NATO to intervene hampers the development of logistics infrastructure needed to provide humanitarian assistance. The wargame indicated a growing demand for some international intervention to address the humanitarian crisis. The wargame also indicated that there are opportunities to conduct limited interventions to preserve and protect humanitarian concerns without presenting a direct challenge to Putin’s political and military operations. A bias toward avoiding the risk of escalation should not prevent consideration of intervention scenarios, such as humanitarian corridors or the establishment of safe havens within Ukraine.
The wargame allowed for differing levels of force generation under several scenarios. The establishment of a force generation capacity to train and equip shattered or new Ukrainian formations, outside of Ukrainian territory, had a marked positive impact in Ukraine’s ability to sustain its defensive positions. Similarly, anything that can be done to interfere with Russian force regeneration further limited its capacity to conduct further assaults. Still, without a sustained flow of munitions and equipment, Ukraine will be challenged to maintain its defensive positions. As for Russia, the game indicated that it will soon lack sufficient trained infantry to capture any major Ukrainian city after Mariupol falls, and will be unable to capture, nor even threaten the defensive viability of, Kyiv or Odesa. Kharkiv remained at risk of becoming isolated. But the wargamers assessed Russia lacks the combat power to quickly seize the city. Kharkiv may be able to hold out until year’s end and beyond unless the Russians halt all other operations to mass combat power around the city. Even then, such an assault will be an extremely costly operation, leaving Russia scant resources to do much else, while opening other areas to Ukrainian counterattack.
The wargame assumed Putin will remain unfazed by economic sanctions until their impact makes it impossible to rebuild his devastated ground forces without a national mobilization, which our experts believe presents a real risk to his regime’s survival. However, throughout the wargame, the economic sanctions imposed upon Russia were a constant backdrop to all else going on. If Russia remains cut off from capital markets, its energy industry sanctioned, and the country’s institutions removed from SWIFT, rapid economic collapse is likely. In that case, Russia will be unable to sustain the likely year-long conflict simulated in the wargame.
Finally, the possibility of a rapid Ukrainian collapse cannot be ruled out. But the wargame did not show any path where such an outcome is likely, as long as the West continues to sustain Ukraine’s resistance. In fact, this wargame indicates it may be time to start talking about the implications of an unambiguous Ukrainian battlefield victory.
After our first wargame, we had the luxury of looking backward to determine the accuracy of the game’s predictions. The results were good enough to give us the confidence to employ the game to look into a more distant future. Still, this is a wargame, and real-life human interactions in the bloody cauldron of war can easily confound our team’s predictions. Still, the game presents a set of interesting possibilities, all of which require more through examination by policy experts, tasked to prepare answers to a problem that seemed absurd in late February 2022–that Ukraine would still be holding its own against the Russian colossus a year hence.
James Lacey, PhD, is the Horner Chair of War Studies at Marine Corps University. He is the author of The Washington War, Gods of War, and the forthcoming Rome: A Strategy for Empire.
Tim Barrick is a retired Marine Corps colonel and the director of wargaming at Marine Corps University.
Nathan Barrick, PhD, a strategist at United States Special Operations Command, is currently a student at the Marine Corps War College and a former US Army Russian foreign area officer.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Marine Corps University, the US Marine Corps, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: James Lacey, Tim Barrick, and Nathan Barrick
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
