Quotes of the day:
“If you concentrate exclusively on victory, while no thought for the after effect, you may be too exhausted to profit by peace, while it is almost certain that the peace will be a bad one, containing the germs of another war.”
- B.H. Liddel-Hart
“Every human is like all other humans, some other humans, and no other human”
-Clyde Kluckhon
"The stranger sees only what he knows."
- African proverb
1. Opinion | I was a combat interpreter in Afghanistan, where cultural illiteracy led to U.S. failure
2. U.S. Spies Didn’t Cause Kabul to Fall
3. Notable & Quotable: Jim Webb on Kabul
4. Opinion | Facts are finally starting to penetrate bad Afghanistan punditry
5. ‘The normal military rules are out’ — How veterans helped rescue scores of people from Afghanistan
6. Marine Corps Commandant Wants Review of Afghanistan Evacuation
7. Opinion | Here’s what the media got completely wrong on Afghanistan
8. Lawmakers Ask About Past Blame, Future Security in Afghanistan In Policy Bill
9. White supremacist praise of the Taliban takeover concerns US officials
10. Secretary of Defense Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Milley Press Briefing
11. Special operators are already dealing with a shady piece of Chinese technology the US has been warning about
12. North Korea warns of ‘preemptive strike capabilities’ following US-South Korea military drills
13. Twenty First Century Silk Road: China, the West and The Global Infrastructure Scramble
14. Taiwan Warns China Can ‘Paralyze’ Island’s Defenses in Conflict
15. 'Everybody screwed up': Blame game begins over turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan
16. Majority of Interpreters, Other U.S. Visa Applicants Were Left Behind in Afghanistan
17. U.S. consular officials at Kabul airport struggled with surging crowds and painful choices
18. General acknowledges 'others' killed in drone strike targeting ISIS car bomb
19. How the Taliban Exploited Afghanistan’s Human Geography
20. China's Type 003 aircraft carrier to increase area-denial capabilities around Taiwan
21. The Lion and the Mouse: The Need for Greater U.S. Focus in The Pacific Islands
22. Why Do We Keep Using Stupid War Slogans to Talk About War?
23. The Return of Great-Power Proxy Wars
24. To Compete with China, Take a Page from the Reagan Playbook
25. House panel advances $778B defense bill
26. The Washington Blob on Video
27. The Withdrawal From Afghanistan Should Make Us Reflect on America's True Failure Since 9/11
28. The CIA Spy Who Reinvented the Travel Guide
29. Analyzing the Afghanistan disaster (Part I): Was President Biden bound by the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban?
30. The dawn of America’s latest (“forever”?) conflict: the Over-the-Horizon War of 2021
1. Opinion | I was a combat interpreter in Afghanistan, where cultural illiteracy led to U.S. failure
This OpEd should make all practitioners of unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense cringe and squirm. This is quite an indictment.
When I was commanding the JSOTF in the Philippines in 2006-2007 we were offered a Human Terrain Team (HTT). We were told we had to fund it out of our meager budget. I asked them for an assessment of the tribes in Mindanao and could not get one (not sure if my request was ever transmitted through PACOM). I looked at the information that was provided and I spent a week talking to our intelligence analysts and PSYOP, Civil Affairs, and Special Forces NCOs many of whom had already been deployed to the Philippines 2 or 3 times and often had a lot of experience in the Philippines before 9-11. I asked my NCOs what they thought about the utility of having an HTT and they all welcomed the idea and said they would be happy to work with real experts. I studied the results of our basic 67 question survey that we used to gather information about the social, economic, political, and security conditions in each village and how our analysts tracked the information and how we used it for planning. The depth of knowledge these soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines had about the culture of Mindanao was amazing. If I could have had a proof of concept from the HTT I might have considered accepting the offer (even if we had to carve it out of our budget) but without being able to evaluate their capabilities I was reluctant to accept and did not.
I am reminded of what a good friend of mine wrote here in 2009 for a SOF unit preparing to deploy to Afghanistan:
Don’t Be Martians
4. While adjusting to your new role and striving for the spirit of Lawrence, it’s important to understand that to the Afghans, you are Martians from another planet. So, the first rule is DON’T BE A MARTIAN! Afghans, especially the Pashtuns are the real deal. They live the warrior ethic. They have been living the warrior ethic for more generations than the U.S. has been a nation. Being a land-locked country, they have had to bargain their way through life with some very nefarious neighbors. So the phrase, “you can’t bullshit a bullshitter” applies to the Pashtuns, ten-fold. They must believe you are sincere in what you say and do. They must believe you.
5. Wearing a beard and maybe a local ornamental accessory isn’t enough. Understanding local customs and traditions isn’t enough. When you wear a beard with body armor and sunglasses, you’re a Martian. When you sit down with a Jirga drinking tea, but come off as if this is simply a ritual that you must go through to get something, you’re a Martian (take me to your leader…).
6. Before you can even begin to win hearts and minds, they have to believe you. Watch the 2005 film Walk the Line. Imagine you’re Johnny Cash and the Pashtun Jirga is Sam Phillips and you’re auditioning. You’ll get the picture. Therefore, grow beards…not because they respect men with beards. Grow beards with a complete understanding and acceptance of why Pashtuns grow beards. It’s about attitude, your attitude. Learn Pashtunwali and make it second nature. Help “your” village(s) celebrate their traditions…sincerely and enthusiastically. Ask and learn about the village history and legends/folklore (ask the locals!). You never know what kernel of knowledge will help you in the future.
And this:
1. As I wrote in my note to the 3rd SFG(A) in 2009, the reality on the ground and perception in the Pashtun community supporting the Talibs and drug Warlords is that NATO/ISAF are the Turks and the Taliban are the Lawrences. The Taliban are not a uniform, lock-step outfit. The strategic leadership (once referred to as the Quetta Shura) are coordinating the strategic push. The operational leaders (other Taliban outfits, supporting armed opposition outfits) are generally following along, but acting within their own interests, as well. The significance of this, in the overall success of the offensive, is a lesson for the US Army Special Forces and PSYOP communities. The Taliban took the Unconventional Warfare playbook and ran with it. They tenaciously established shadow governments and auxiliary support groups around the country since late 2008. We’re seeing the fruits of those labors. There’s, of course, more to the story, as with all the points here, but I digress (typing with one thumb on a phone screen).
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/letter-editor-critical-afghanistan-assessment
Opinion | I was a combat interpreter in Afghanistan, where cultural illiteracy led to U.S. failure
Baktash Ahadi served U.S. and Afghan Special Operations forces as a combat interpreter from 2010 to 2012 and is a former chair of the State Department’s Afghan Familiarization course. He is working on a memoir of his service in Afghanistan.
Like many Afghan Americans, I have spent much of the past few weeks trying to secure safe passage from Afghanistan for family, friends and colleagues, with tragically limited success. I also know that many Americans have been asking: Why is this crazy scramble necessary? How could Afghanistan have collapsed so quickly?
As a former combat interpreter who served alongside U.S. and Afghan Special Operations forces, I can tell you part of the answer — one that’s been missing from the conversation: culture.
When comparing the Taliban with the United States and its Western allies, the vast majority of Afghans have always viewed the Taliban as the lesser of two evils. To many Americans, that may seem an outlandish claim. The coalition, after all, poured billions of dollars into Afghanistan. It built highways. It emancipated Afghan women. It gave millions of people the right to vote for the first time ever.
All true. But the Americans also went straight to building roads, schools and governing institutions — in an effort to “win hearts and minds” — without first figuring out what values animate those hearts and what ideas fill those minds. We thus wound up acting in ways that would ultimately alienate everyday Afghans.
First, almost all representatives of Western governments — military and civilian — were required to stay “inside the wire,” meaning they were confined at all times to Kabul’s fortified Green Zone and well-guarded military bases across the country.
Each of my own trips to visit family in Kabul was a breach for which I could have been disciplined. But I’m glad I broke the rules. If my colleagues had been allowed to enjoy the same experiences — the scent of kebab in Shahr-e Naw, the hustle and bustle of Qala-e Fathullah — they might have developed a much better feel for the country, its people and its culture.
As it was, however, virtually the only contact most Afghans had with the West came via heavily armed and armored combat troops. Americans thus mistook the Afghan countryside for a mere theater of war, rather than as a place where people actually lived. U.S. forces turned villages into battlegrounds, pulverizing mud homes and destroying livelihoods. One could almost hear the Taliban laughing as any sympathy for the West evaporated in bursts of gunfire.
Sometimes, yes, we built good things — clinics, schools, wells. But when the building was done, we would simply leave. The Taliban would not only destroy those facilities, but also look upon the local community with greater suspicion for having received “gifts” from America.
Second, the front-line troops were given zero training in cultural literacy. The Marines I worked with were shocked, for example, to hear me exchanging favorite Koran verses with my fellow Afghans, mistaking this for extremism rather than shared piety. When talking to Afghan villagers, the Marines would not remove their sunglasses — a clear indication of untrustworthiness in a country that values eye contact. In some cases, they would approach and directly address village women, violating one of rural Afghanistan’s strictest cultural norms.
Faux pas such as these sound almost comically basic, and they are. But multiplied over millions of interactions throughout the United States two decades of wheel-spinning in Afghanistan, they cost us dearly in terms of local support.
From the point of view of many Afghans, Americans might as well have been extraterrestrials, descending out of the black sky every few weeks, looking and acting alien, and always bringing disruption, if not outright ruin. We failed to understand what made sense for Afghans time and time again. No wonder the Taliban maintained such sway over the past 20 years.
Before long, U.S. troops will be back in Afghanistan, and for the same reason we invaded in 2001: Already, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and other terrorists are regrouping, as recent attacks make clear. And next time, it will be even harder for the West to garner support, given our betrayal to our Afghan allies.
This isn’t just about Afghanistan. When it comes to cultural illiteracy, America is a recidivist. We failed to understand Iraqi culture, too, so that now, many Iraqis see Iran as the lesser of two evils. Before that, we failed to understand Vietnam. And so on. Wherever our relentless military adventurism takes us next, we must do better.
2. U.S. Spies Didn’t Cause Kabul to Fall
I am sure there were intelligence estimates that forecasted ihis outcome.
Excerpts:
Congress shouldn’t let the Biden administration pin its failures on the intelligence community. As the congressional intelligence committees begin their review this fall of the intelligence supplied by the intelligence community to policy makers, they should consider whether the Biden administration’s timing, method and execution of the withdrawal contributed to the downfall of the Kabul government. A simple review of whether intelligence assessments proved true would be inadequate. Congress should also look at whether the April 14 pullout announcement made the collapse inevitable. Midnight pullouts, a diplomatic withdrawal, and U.S. commanders returning home before the withdrawal was complete made the situation worse. To focus solely on the intelligence community, so often the scapegoat for policy failures, insults America’s 20 years of sacrifice in Afghanistan.
U.S. Spies Didn’t Cause Kabul to Fall
The Biden administration apparently wants to make a scapegoat out of the intelligence community.
By Michael Allen
Sept. 1, 2021 1:55 pm ET
ILLUSTRATION: DAVID KLEIN
Biden administration officials may try to blame the U.S. intelligence community for the Afghanistan debacle. The New York Times on Aug. 18 cited an unidentified senior administration official, who claimed that as the situation grew more volatile in July, U.S. intelligence agencies never offered a clear “high confidence” prediction of an imminent Taliban takeover. But the role of intelligence in critical national security decisions is to reduce uncertainty, not to provide perfect clarity.
Intelligence is difficult to collect and sometimes hard to analyze, especially when considering factors like how a foreign fighting force will react to battlefield pressure. Intelligence isn’t perfect—if it were, it would be called information. It is best used to warn against surprises and to understand developments well enough to avoid adverse consequences. Based on the information made public so far, intelligence failure doesn’t appear to be a critical factor in President Biden’s policy decisions leading to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
Mr. Biden was hell-bent on withdrawal. Intelligence gives policy makers an advantage, but it isn’t the fault of the intelligence community if policy makers ignore their reports. Many media reports indicate that Mr. Biden rejected options to keep troops in Afghanistan longer because he believed policy makers were being gamed by generals who supported a greater military presence. He dismissed questions about whether the Afghan government would fall. On July 2 he said, “Look, we were in that war for 20 years. Twenty years. . . . I want to talk about happy things, man.” His public remarks since the Kabul collapse revealed his firmly rooted desire to withdraw on his timeline without regrets.The U.S. intelligence agencies filed public testimony before Congress in April, five days before Mr. Biden’s withdrawal speech, saying that the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces was possible. “Kabul continues to face setbacks on the battlefield” and remains “tied down in defensive missions,” according to that assessment. The testimony even said that “the Afghan government will struggle to hold the Taliban at bay if the coalition withdraws support.” This should have warned the Biden administration not to make rash policy decisions.
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Though it is true the intelligence community at first assessed in April the Afghan National Security Forces could hold off the Taliban for 18 months to two years, cascading failures in the execution of the withdrawal shrunk that timeline. The policy review that led to the April announcement was conducted with the secrecy of the Osama bin Laden raid, and the Biden administration didn’t sufficiently consult Congress, the Afghan government or U.S. allies. The April announcement that withdrawal would begin little more than two weeks later was unexpected. Imagine the demoralizing effect the news had on Afghan soldiers. The announcement gave the Taliban momentum and likely caused an increase in desertions among Afghan soldiers. The original withdrawal deadline of Sept. 11 suggested that the White House was motivated by public relations, not concern for the Afghan troops left behind.
The intelligence community’s job is to gather and analyze the secrets of foreign governments, not our own. As far as the intelligence community knew, Mr. Biden intended to withdraw troops as he said he would: “responsibly, deliberately, and safely . . . in full coordination with our allies and partners.” Yet the U.S. pullout from its military installation at Bagram shows the opposite. U.S. troops shut off the electricity and left in the middle of the night, apparently without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander. While the U.S. departed stealthily for security reasons, the transfer was poorly executed, and a small army of looters soon invaded the base. The midnight departure made the Afghans feel the U.S. had abandoned them, and it shocked Central Intelligence Agency officials.
Congress shouldn’t let the Biden administration pin its failures on the intelligence community. As the congressional intelligence committees begin their review this fall of the intelligence supplied by the intelligence community to policy makers, they should consider whether the Biden administration’s timing, method and execution of the withdrawal contributed to the downfall of the Kabul government. A simple review of whether intelligence assessments proved true would be inadequate. Congress should also look at whether the April 14 pullout announcement made the collapse inevitable. Midnight pullouts, a diplomatic withdrawal, and U.S. commanders returning home before the withdrawal was complete made the situation worse. To focus solely on the intelligence community, so often the scapegoat for policy failures, insults America’s 20 years of sacrifice in Afghanistan.
Mr. Allen served as special assistant to the president and senior director for counteproliferation strategy (2007-09) and majority staff director of the House Intelligence Committee (2011-13). He is author of “Blinking Red: Crisis and Compromise in American Intelligence After 9/11.”
3. Notable & Quotable: Jim Webb on Kabul
This is quite a statement about the state of our democracy:
Even the very best among those who come forward to serve often find that the good they came to do is stultified by distracting debates over the very premise of why the American system of government was created and whether the icons of our past were truly motivated by the words incorporated in our most revered documents.
Notable & Quotable: Jim Webb on Kabul
WSJ · by Aug. 30, 2021 6:24 pm ET
A U.S. soldier looks out the airport in Kabul as hundreds of people gather near an evacuation control checkpoint on its perimeter, Aug. 26.
Photo: Wali Sabawoon/Associated Press
Former Sen. Jim Webb (D., Va.) writing for the National Interest, Aug. 29:
In a perverse way, perhaps we should look at the calamitous blunderings in Afghanistan as an opportunity to demand a true turning point. Americans know that a great deal of our governmental process is now either institutionally corrupt or calcified. . . .
Even the very best among those who come forward to serve often find that the good they came to do is stultified by distracting debates over the very premise of why the American system of government was created and whether the icons of our past were truly motivated by the words incorporated in our most revered documents. The military itself is increasingly being used by leftist activists as a social laboratory to advance extreme political agendas. Congressional oversight leans heavily toward social issues, with too many members struggling without success to focus on accountability at the very top when, for instance, good people at the bottom have to implement poorly conceived plans that might kill them.
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WSJ · by Aug. 30, 2021 6:24 pm ET
4. Opinion | Facts are finally starting to penetrate bad Afghanistan punditry
Excerpts:
This is just one example of many in which arrogant pundits without a military background (let alone access to current intelligence), former national security officials seeking to exonerate themselves and think tank commentators who cheered for the 20-year war operated in a largely fact-free environment. The narrative that the operation was a failure was set at the beginning of the crisis. Instead of allowing reporting to inform the commentary, commentary took fanciful leaps across the media.
Cable TV news outlets as well as online and print media would do well to engage in their own self-reflection of their coverage over the past two decades, often spoon-fed by defenders of the war. Over the past two weeks, cynicism and punditry regularly took the place of fact-based reporting. Especially when it comes to a foreign policy crisis, the media cannot simply rely on the same White men who drove policy (poorly) for takes, especially without disclosing their ties to defense contractors.
The country could have done without the ill-conceived second-guessing disguised as analysis from supposedly neutral reporters. This coverage did not serve to inform or contextualize events. In that regard, members of the media join the list of Americans who might take a moment to consider their errors and excesses.
Opinion | Facts are finally starting to penetrate bad Afghanistan punditry
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Jennifer RubinColumnist Today at 12:00 p.m. EDT · September 1, 2021
Media coverage of the U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan has been characterized by hyperbolic commentary and conjecture — driven in part by former officials for the quagmire who were quick to weigh in on the matter in interviews. One day, some in the pack would holler for the administration to extend the withdrawal day beyond Aug. 31; the next day, others would demand the United States leave before any more service members died.
One of the constant themes of coverage was scorn, bordering on contempt, for the notion that the Taliban might cooperate with the U.S. government in the evacuation. No matter how many times press secretaries for the Pentagon, White House and State Department explained that the administration was in constant conversation to “deconflict” with the Taliban, and no matter how many thousands of evacuees went through Taliban checkpoints, reporters sneered. Why are we trusting the Taliban? Who decided to outsource our protection to the Taliban?
Certainly, the Taliban has been a vicious group trying to enforce religious fanaticism by force. But it now also has to fight off Islamic State-Khorasan and figure out how to run a fractured country. Measured voices — including Aaron David Miller, former Middle East negotiator for the State Department — patiently explained that no one really knows if we are dealing with Taliban “1.0, 2.0 or 3.0.” Wait, facts should inform our opinions and decisions? What a concept.
Press secretaries, generals, the national security adviser and others explained again and again that the administration doesn’t trust the Taliban, but that the United States and the Taliban have a mutual interest in a successful withdrawal. Despite obvious evidence of cooperation, former administration officials denounced the suggestion that practical self-interest (getting the United States out) could trump ideology. H.R. McMaster, retired Army lieutenant general and national security adviser to President Biden’s predecessor, scorned the idea.
In fact, the commentary was off-base. Now actual reporting is filling in the gaps to provide a fuller picture of the Taliban’s actions. CNN reported, “The U.S. military negotiated a secret arrangement with the Taliban that resulted in members of the militant group escorting clusters of Americans to the gates of the Kabul airport as they sought to escape Afghanistan, two defense officials told CNN.” The report continued: “The officials said Americans were notified to gather at preset ‘muster points’ close to the airport where the Taliban would check their credentials and take them a short distance to a gate manned by American forces who were standing by to let them inside amid huge crowds of Afghans seeking to flee.” No wonder military officials described the Taliban’s conduct as “professional.”
NBC News added to the portrait: “Less than 24 hours before the U.S. completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban stopped a bus headed for the Kabul airport and forced all the passengers off, saying the bus might be rigged with explosives and that it had two possible suicide attackers on board, according to the account of a U.S. citizen who was on the bus. The U.S. citizen, whose name NBC News is withholding for security reasons, was on the bus with his six daughters Sunday when Taliban fighters stopped it at the Panjsher Pumping Station just outside the airport, two people familiar with the account said. The Taliban told everyone to get off.” They stayed hidden until they got the all-clear.
NBC also reported: “For more than a week, militants who fought the U.S. for two decades drove Americans through checkpoints, cleared streets so Americans could pass safely and even carried luggage to the airport gates, the officials said. They may have also prevented some attacks, officials said, although the three senior defense officials were unfamiliar with the bus incident.”
This is just one example of many in which arrogant pundits without a military background (let alone access to current intelligence), former national security officials seeking to exonerate themselves and think tank commentators who cheered for the 20-year war operated in a largely fact-free environment. The narrative that the operation was a failure was set at the beginning of the crisis. Instead of allowing reporting to inform the commentary, commentary took fanciful leaps across the media.
Cable TV news outlets as well as online and print media would do well to engage in their own self-reflection of their coverage over the past two decades, often spoon-fed by defenders of the war. Over the past two weeks, cynicism and punditry regularly took the place of fact-based reporting. Especially when it comes to a foreign policy crisis, the media cannot simply rely on the same White men who drove policy (poorly) for takes, especially without disclosing their ties to defense contractors.
The country could have done without the ill-conceived second-guessing disguised as analysis from supposedly neutral reporters. This coverage did not serve to inform or contextualize events. In that regard, members of the media join the list of Americans who might take a moment to consider their errors and excesses.
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Jennifer RubinColumnist Today at 12:00 p.m. EDT · September 1, 2021
5. ‘The normal military rules are out’ — How veterans helped rescue scores of people from Afghanistan
Yes, what comes next?
Excerpt:
Ultimately, the veterans working among the different groups to assist with evacuations had one common takeaway: They’d never seen people so engaged, so united, to accomplish the same mission. They talked about looking to what comes next, and how that same collective energy should be used to care for refugees when they arrive in the U.S., and ensure that government officials have updated lists of those who were left behind.
Today the SECDEF and CJCS said that DOD would be conducting thorough AARs of the evacuation. I hope they do a deep dive on these veteran's organizations and mine their efforts for best practices.
‘The normal military rules are out’ — How veterans helped rescue scores of people from Afghanistan
It was a global effort, one that would run 24 hours a day for as long as necessary. For many it was a way to channel feelings of anxiety, rage, confusion, and sadness into doing something. One more act of service. One more opportunity to help those who had helped them. The war in Afghanistan had gone on for nearly 20 years without a clear mission and now there was one: Rescue as many people as possible.
As the U.S. government scrambled to get Afghan allies and Americans out of Afghanistan after the Taliban took the capital of Kabul on Aug. 15, groups of U.S. military veterans jumped into action to help evacuate vulnerable Afghans and American citizens still trapped in the city. The names of their operations ran the gamut: Pineapple Express, Team America, Save Our Allies, Allied Airlift 21, to name a few.
The groups included more than just veterans; former intelligence officials, diplomats, tech wizards, and everyday citizens who had the time and the conviction to lend a hand pulled together to map evacuation routes, help Afghans around Taliban checkpoints, and coordinate with U.S. personnel on the ground to get people inside the airport. They had day jobs but the rescue effort took priority for many of the veterans who spoke with Task & Purpose.
“People are working outside of their work hours, they’re giving every moment they have, and you know we’re just trying to do the right thing,” said Alex Plitsas, an Army combat veteran who worked with a group of veterans and officials who had previously served in Afghanistan. “And I think for a lot of us, including me having [post-traumatic stress disorder] for a number of years, this has been an opportunity to try to make something positive out of this shit situation and get some closure.”
I haven’t cried like this in a very long time. I’m overjoyed that they are finally on U.S. soil and have reunited with their loving mother, Suneeta. The Afzali family are heroes. Thank you to @CNN anchor @jaketapper who got us the info about the children. #DigitalDunkirk https://t.co/FGdVvfj2nl
— Alex Plitsas (@alexplitsas) August 30, 2021
Mike Jason, a retired Army colonel and interim executive director for Allied Airlift 21, echoed that sentiment, saying it was a way for some veterans to shift their focus from questioning their own losses in Afghanistan, to helping others.
“I lost my battalion [executive officer], I lost one of my best friends over there, I spent a significant amount of my professional career worrying about and being in that region, in Afghanistan, but in the end it gave us this focus to do something,” he said. “At the same time we had kind of that gut punch, that hey it’s over, it’s not a win, it’s not even close. And how do we deal with that?”
Jason, a West Point graduate, said he was texting with a former Army War College classmate, an Afghan military officer, as Kabul was collapsing. He was working to get his friend out, which seemed — and was — possible in the first few days. The possibility to get others out, however, got slimmer and slimmer as time went on. Soon he was roped into a network of other West Point graduates who were working to get Afghan friends out of the country. That group grew into a broader operation to get special immigrant visa (SIV) applicants out; the organization expanded to include roughly 300 volunteers working around the clock.
In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Air Force loadmasters and pilots assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, load people being evacuated from Afghanistan onto a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. (Master Sgt. Donald R. Allen/U.S. Air Force via AP)
Another group was started when a former U.S. Army commando reached out to a private equity investor for help in evacuating thousands of children in Kabul, the Wall Street Journal reported. The request for help resulted in an operation called Commercial Task Force, which was carried out with the help of the United Arab Emirates as a temporary host nation for evacuees. Veterans — alongside other volunteers which included former diplomats, financial donors, and nonprofit workers — helped coordinate evacuations and direct Afghan citizens to safety from a hotel conference room in Washington, D.C., the Journal reported.
Commercial Task Force “dispatched former commandos to Kabul to retrieve evacuees,” the Journal reported. Nick Palmisciano, an Army veteran and founder of the lifestyle brand Ranger Up, was one of those veterans. He explained that the group on the ground was just a handful of people at first, but eventually grew to include 12 members. They worked alongside the State and Defense Department, he said, and were given their own ramp for chartered flights that they’d paid for evacuating Afghans to the UAE.
It wasn’t normal for that to be able to happen, Palmisciano said, but a lot of what happened over the last two weeks wasn’t normal.
“It’s the wild west,” he said. “All of the normal military rules are out, and for the first time that I’ve ever seen it, everybody is fine with it. Everybody was like ‘Yeah we know that there’s usually a 47-page form you have to fill out, but fuck it, just get these people out.’”
In total, Palmisciano estimated over 11,000 people were evacuated through their operation.
This is the team that has worked around the clock for the past 10 days in the Middle East. The 12 of us, plus 2 social workers who just arrived to help the refugees, have evacuated 8,911 refugees into our host country plus 3,000 more elsewhere to assist the state department. /1 pic.twitter.com/VPXZGXYAJ0
— Nick Palmisciano (@Ranger_Up) August 30, 2021
Another group, called Task Force Pineapple, was made up of “current and former U.S. special operators, aid workers, intelligence officers and others with experience in Afghanistan,” ABC News first reported. As of last Thursday, the group told ABC that the “Pineapple Express” had brought roughly 500 Afghan special operators and other “high-risk individuals” and their families into the Hamid Karzai International Airport. Some members of the group were wounded in the suicide bombing on Thursday morning that killed 13 U.S. service members and hundreds of Afghans.
“This Herculean effort couldn’t have been done without the unofficial heroes inside the airfield who defied their orders to not help beyond the airport perimeter, by wading into sewage canals and pulling in these targeted people who were flashing pineapples on their phone,” retired Army Lt. Col. Scott Mann, an Army Special Forces veteran who led the operation, told ABC News.
Because there were several operations happening at once, Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran and founder of the San Diego chapter of the Truman National Security Project, a non-profit focused on national security and U.S. policy, stepped into the center of the web of organizations to launch an operation center of sorts, to streamline planning and communication between the different organizations.
A Marine with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command (SPMAGTF-CR-CC) lifts an evacuee during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 26. U.S. service members are assisting the Department of State with an orderly drawdown of designated personnel in Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Samuel Ruiz).
VanDiver’s operation first started in his home, he said, but it soon became clear they needed somewhere larger “where there were whiteboards, where we could keep track of everything that was going on and try to deconflict.” He noticed “a whole bunch of rogues and scallywags” and amateurs were entering the space, who either may have thought they were helping, but in fact were not, or were intentionally taking advantage of the situation to get attention or raise money for themselves.
Multiple organizations started working together; VanDiver explained they had an intelligence cell doing “regular intel briefings,” they worked to connect people with crews on the ground, including the Commercial Task Force.
“Really the whole purpose of this was to make sure that there was cross-communication going throughout, that we were actively being part of the solution and not part of the problem, not getting in anybody’s way,” VanDiver said. He added that the groups were working with the “hundreds of State Department and DoD employees working their asses off around the clock,” and that the intention was about adding capacity to their efforts, and to already-established refugee and resettlement organizations. He also emphasized that that’s where the focus should be going forward — not “playing cowboy on the ground in Afghanistan.”
The US military evacuation from Kabul is over and that means that the various self-organized groups of veterans involved across #AfhganEvac should be pivoting as well.
The worst thing that can happen is a well-meaning volunteer guide a family they're trying to help into harm.
— Shawn VanDiver (@shawnjvandiver) August 30, 2021
There was also some frustration among those who have stepped up to help — frustration that they even had to in the first place, because of the way events have unfolded so chaotically in Afghanistan. Jason Redman, a Navy SEAL veteran who worked with Task Force Pineapple, told ABC News that he was frustrated “that our own government didn’t do this. We did what we should do, as Americans.”
Elliot Ackerman, a journalist and Marine Corps veteran, wrote in the New York Times that because of President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw troops, “it has fallen to veterans and other civilians to try to save those who are desperately appealing for our help.” Ackerman has been assisting one of the many underground groups working to coordinate evacuations for Afghans seeking to escape.
“It shouldn’t fall to our service members to clean up the mess made by this catastrophic withdrawal,” Ackerman wrote in the New York Times. “And yet it has. … Most of us, I believe, have done it out of a sense of duty and moral obligation, and as a last-ditch effort to uphold the promises we made to our Afghan friends.”
In at least one case, criticism surfaced that a volunteer with one of the groups was pulling a publicity stunt and making things harder for those on the ground. Tim Kennedy, an Army special forces soldier, joined up with the Commercial Task Force and went to the Middle East to assist with evacuation efforts. Criticism of Kennedy, who was there in a personal capacity and not on Army orders, began circulating online, accusing him of bringing in buses of people to the airport only to have them turned around and driven outside of the gate. Critics said he “made more work” for the Marines who were there processing evacuees.
Kennedy responded to some of that criticism himself on Twitter, insisting he was not “running around on my own,” and that the group did not “bring in ‘buses of unverified Afghans.’”
I appreciate that some people are upset with my presence in Afghanistan. I have no desire to lash out. I assume they are trying to accomplish their missions the same way I am trying to accomplish mine, and I love them for it. A few things, though:
— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) August 27, 2021
Palmisciano strongly pushed back on criticism of Kennedy to Task & Purpose, saying the bus incident was an unfortunate situation that resulted from miscommunication between the task force and higher-ups on the ground in Kabul. But, he said, the team was working day and night to get as many people out as they could.
“These guys went all out, they left it all out there trying to save as many people as possible,” Palmisciano said of the task force. “And you’ve got random, no-name dudes, anonymous accounts on the internet talking about something they have no knowledge of. Infuriating.”
Ultimately, the veterans working among the different groups to assist with evacuations had one common takeaway: They’d never seen people so engaged, so united, to accomplish the same mission. They talked about looking to what comes next, and how that same collective energy should be used to care for refugees when they arrive in the U.S., and ensure that government officials have updated lists of those who were left behind.
Hundreds of people gather near an evacuation control checkpoint outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. The Taliban wrested back control of Afghanistan nearly 20 years after they were ousted in a U.S.-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks. Their return to power has pushed many Afghans to flee, fearing reprisals from the fighters or a return to the brutal rule they imposed when they last ran the country. (AP Photo)
“We’re about to quickly transition to the second phase of this,” Plitsas said. “Which is that all of those folks who have served as interpreters, or U.S. citizens, or whoever else had to flee with nothing because they were dual citizens — they’re on their way here, and they’re going to need our support. Particularly ones who volunteered and then worked alongside us … We have a moral obligation to take care of those people when they get here. It can’t turn into a political football over immigration, it needs to be a bipartisan effort to support those who stood by us.”
Jason emphasized that there are “lessons learned” that the different groups can pass on to the government so something like this “never happens again.” VanDiver echoed that, adding that he believes those who worked with the U.S. military and come to the United States deserve veterans benefits, the same as he gets for serving in the Navy.
“This is the most American thing that’s ever happened,” VanDiver said. “A bunch of well-meaning Americans who have some connection to Afghanistan banded together to help save lives, and they had a real impact on getting people through the gate. That’s amazing.”
More great stories on Task & Purpose
6. Marine Corps Commandant Wants Review of Afghanistan Evacuation
Do we think there will be a Long or Holloway Commission for this evacuation? Is Congress capable of organizing something like that?
Berger said they are looking at past reviews to decide on a framework for this review, such as the Long and Holloway commissions that looked into the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission in 1980, respectively.
His spokesman, Maj. Eric Flanagan, clarified in an email Wednesday afternoon that the commandant has asked his headquarters staff to pause, look back at recent events, “and critique what went well and what can improve,” but that it is not a formal commission.
The military evacuation of Americans and Afghans from Kabul involved 6,000 service members, including thousands of Marines. The airlift was the largest noncombatant evacuation in U.S. military history, rescuing more than 123,000 civilians, Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said Monday.
Marine Corps Commandant Wants Review of Afghanistan Evacuation
“While it's relatively fresh in our minds, we need the honest, open critique,” Gen. Berger says.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger wants his staff to examine the recent evacuation mission in Afghanistan to learn what went wrong, what went right, and what the service can learn for the future.
“While it's relatively fresh in our minds, we need the honest, open critique, or a commission or whatever it is, that cracks open what were the options that were available. Who made what decisions at what time. Not so that we can penalize or hang somebody by a yardarm, but actually so that we can learn,” Berger said Wednesday during an event with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Berger said they are looking at past reviews to decide on a framework for this review, such as the Long and Holloway commissions that looked into the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission in 1980, respectively.
His spokesman, Maj. Eric Flanagan, clarified in an email Wednesday afternoon that the commandant has asked his headquarters staff to pause, look back at recent events, “and critique what went well and what can improve,” but that it is not a formal commission.
The military evacuation of Americans and Afghans from Kabul involved 6,000 service members, including thousands of Marines. The airlift was the largest noncombatant evacuation in U.S. military history, rescuing more than 123,000 civilians, Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said Monday.
On Aug. 18, Berger wrote a letter to the force with Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Troy Black on the topic of whether the war in Afghanistan was worth it, in light of the Taliban takeover of the country and the massive evacuation effort then underway at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
“We both believe—without question—that your service was meaningful, powerful, and important. You answered the call to serve, proudly carrying the torch of so many generations of Marines before you,” they wrote, adding, “Was it worth it? Yes. Does it still hurt? Yes.”
Several days later, on Aug. 26, 11 Marines were killed in a terrorist attack at the airport, along with a soldier and a Navy corpsman. Dozens more service members were injured and medically evacuated to Germany, before continuing to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
While it is important to look critically at what happened, Berger said, the past several days have not altered his opinion that the mission was worth it.
“If you were to go to Walter Reed right now to visit a Marine or a sailor or a soldier who's wounded, and you ask them that question, they would respond with, ‘I know it is, because I can tell you how many people we processed through our evacuation control center and put on a plane.’ This is their yardstick,” he said.
7. Opinion | Here’s what the media got completely wrong on Afghanistan
A long interview. But this excerpt is interesting - Afghanistan was the most privatized war.
Excerpts:
Afghanistan is probably the most privatized war fought in modern American history.
Almost everything you can say about the Iraq War, it does apply to Afghanistan. For example, [torture at] Abu Ghraib, right? Iconic moment in the Iraq War — and there were dozens of Abu Ghraibs happening in Afghanistan. There were everything you could imagine: prisoners being killed, prisoners being raped, electrocuted. That was happening constantly, especially before 2006.
When you think about de-Baathification in Iraq, which is the cutting off of the old Baath Party [former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's party]. So there's tens of thousands of people, mostly Sunnis, who are out of work and then incentivized to turn against the occupation. There was something like an equivalent to that in Afghanistan. The exclusion of the Taliban from the government was equivalent, in its effect to de-Baathification.
Then you look at the contracting — Blackwater, infamous in Iraq for the role it's played, and, I think, symbolic of the way in which private security contractors are taking an unprecedented role in the war. Well, Afghanistan is probably the most privatized war fought in modern American history. I mean, most of this war was being fought by people being paid as mercenaries. Now, they didn't have names like Blackwater, because they're all Afghans, but these are all warlords.
Warlordism was not something that's endemic to Afghanistan. It emerged, first, as a result of the CIA's patronage to rebel groups in the 1980s, along with the Soviet Union's destruction of the country. Then it was eliminated by the Taliban in the '90s, and then it re-emerged when the U.S. brought it back, when they literally brought back warlords from outside the country to run the country, very similar to the way the U.S. brought all of these illegitimate actors from outside the country to Iraq to run that country. So the parallels there are pretty striking, and there's no really good reason to say that Afghanistan was, in any way, a good war.
Opinion | Here’s what the media got completely wrong on Afghanistan
msnbc.com · by Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC Opinion Columnist
For the last few weeks, Americans have been struggling to understand how, after 20 years of war and occupation and historic levels of foreign investment in Afghanistan, the Taliban were able to seize control of the country before the U.S. even completed its withdrawal Monday.
It's not a really sustainable state whatsoever. It's a creation of Washington and elsewhere.
Most mainstream news conversation has focused on what went wrong with the withdrawal itself — issues like intelligence failures, bottlenecking in airlifts, visa processing debacles, and insufficient attention to support for the Afghan air force. In these narratives, often authored by legacy media outlets and national security experts steeped in hawkish assumptions about American power, 20 years of effort seemed to fall apart due to President Joe Biden’s poor planning.
But the reality is that the very speed of the collapse of the Afghan security forces requires a much deeper, and more cosmopolitan, understanding of decades of U.S. policy failures in the country.
So I called up Anand Gopal, an award-winning journalist who reports for The New Yorker and wrote the acclaimed book, “No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes.” He’s a trained sociologist and renowned foreign affairs reporter who lived in Afghanistan for years, embedded with the Taliban, speaks the local languages and is well versed in the history of the war-torn nation.
Gopal was in Taliban-controlled territory in July and is returning to the country for yet another round of reporting. We chatted on the phone between his trips about how the how the withdrawal could’ve gone differently, the huge opportunity the US missed in 2001 when the Taliban surrendered, and why the United States' mistakes ran far, far deeper than poor last-second planning.
Aug. 31, 202102:31
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Zeeshan Aleem: Was there a significantly better way to withdraw from Afghanistan?
Anand Gopal: Well, there was and there wasn't.
There was a better way to do it if Washington faced certain hard ground truths. What would have been the better way was if the U.S. government had secured a deal with the Taliban that began a process of transfer of power to them, while the U.S. was still in the country. But that would have meant completely undermining the Afghan government to do that; it would've meant recognizing the Afghan government, basically, is a creation of the U.S. entirely, and has no real legitimacy on the ground. So that would've been a pretty major paradigm shift, almost a greater paradigm shift than just simply cutting and running, I think.
What the U.S. did is kind of buy into its own fiction that the Afghan government was somehow a sovereign actor.
Because the way the Afghan government is structured is that almost all of the funding, something like 80 percent of its revenue, comes from international sources. This is what political scientists call a rentier state. It's a state that owes its very existence to foreign aid, so it's not a really sustainable state whatsoever. It's a creation of Washington and elsewhere.
What the U.S. did is kind of buy into its own fiction that the Afghan government was somehow a sovereign actor and try to treat it as such. So how they sequenced the withdrawal was, "We're going to have a deal with the Taliban, and one of the conditions of that is that the Taliban are going to have to talk to the Afghan government to come to a peace deal."
But why would the Taliban talk to a government that's not a sovereign entity, that has no real stake on the ground? The U.S. should've recognized that and used that leverage over the Afghan government to force the Afghan government and the Taliban to come to a deal before they withdrew. And I think, if they had done that — or, at least, if not come to a deal, come to some sort of mechanism that would've been better than what we see now — that could've also bought time for more orderly withdrawal, especially for all the Afghans who helped the U.S. and want to leave and things like amnesty measures [for people who worked with the U.S. or served in the Afghan government].
The important thing is: What could you salvage from the Afghan government, and have them be part of the new order? Because that would make [the Taliban’s government] even slightly more inclusive. The current order, the danger is, is not going to be inclusive at all, which is the other terrible outcome.
Aleem: What is the biggest thing you've seen American media get wrong about what's been happening in Afghanistan over the last few weeks?
Gopal: Well, it's actually the same thing that they've gotten wrong for the last 20 years, which is that there's actually two Afghanistans: There's the rural Afghanistan, and there's the urban Afghanistan.
Right now, all the coverage is in Kabul, so one would think there is complete chaos in the country. But most of that chaos is just around the airport, and most of Kabul itself is calm. And then life outside Kabul is calm, and for the first time, outside of Kabul there's no war, which, if you talk to men and women in the countryside, especially in those areas that had faced heavy fighting, that's the most significant difference that they've seen, compared to what was there before.
Afghanistan is one of the most rural countries on Earth. The individuals that we tend to hear about are the extreme outliers in Afghan society — which is not to say that they don't deserve a shot and they don't deserve to have a good life in Afghanistan as everyone else does. But if you just focus on these people, you won't actually understand how the Taliban was able to take over. In the countryside, people face very different calculus. They're facing war, and they can be killed either by airstrikes or by roadside bombs or whatever else, and the most important thing they need right now is security, above all else. Afghanistan's been in a civil war for 40 years.
People saw the Taliban as a lesser of two evils to the violence perpetuated by the U.S. and by the U.S. proxies.
That's another thing people miss. They think it's a war between the Taliban and the United States military and the Afghan army, right? That's actually not what's happened. Afghanistan's been in a civil war, and by “civil war” I mean different sections of society have been armed against each other. The Taliban is not just an organization; it's a coalition of different groups, tribes, clans, particular villages, all of whom have been excluded from the 2001 order. And they've been fighting — and, in some cases, fighting enemies that they've had stretching back to 30, 40 years.
Aleem: The Taliban were offering to surrender to the U.S. swiftly in 2001, and their only demand was amnesty, but the Bush administration had said, "We don't negotiate surrenders." Fast-forward to nearly 20 years later, and the U.S. negotiated an agreement with the Taliban in which the Taliban had much more leverage and the U.S. effectively threw its hands up and admitted it had failed to not only eliminate the Taliban as a threat, but even to counteract their rise again.
Is there a case that 2001 was a huge missed opportunity? Might that have created a better overall outcome for Afghans?
Gopal: Oh, absolutely, because the U.S. won the war in 2001. The Taliban were defeated entirely. They put down their weapons; they went back to civilian life. They became teachers and farmers and bus drivers. And in many cases, they even tried to join the new government. The U.S., however, rejected that state of affairs.
From the very beginning, the U.S. had the idea that there's only unconditional surrender; there was no surrender with amnesty. That went from George W. Bush’s defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, on downwards. And so there was a lot of pressure from above on the Afghan elites — who were running the country at the time and interested in offering amnesty — not to do so.
And then, the U.S. also incentivized Afghans to turn against each other. I mentioned this is a country that was in the midst of the civil war. So the U.S. went to one side and started paying that side and saying, "Give us terrorists and give us Taliban members." And so, that side would use that to settle their old scores; they had nothing to do with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Tons of innocent people were rounded up, arrested and killed by the U.S. and its proxies.
If you go back and look at that period between 2001 and 2004, and if you interview military personnel, special forces who were based in Afghanistan at the time, or if you talk to Afghans, one of the striking things is that there was almost no anti-coalition or anti-government activity in Helmand and Kandahar and these kinds of places. They were remarkably peaceful, from that perspective. However, despite that, the U.S. was arresting people right and left, torturing them, sending them to Bagram Air Base or Kandahar Airfield or Guantanamo. Horrific tales of torture. And the U.S. was allying with local warlords and commanders who were just killing people right and left, on the slightest provocation.
So really, you had a one-sided war in those years, between 2001 and 2004, where the U.S. was fighting an enemy that didn't exist, and innocent people were the ones who were suffering. That really is what created the Taliban's resurgence. The Taliban wasn't a popular force in 2001, but in these communities, people saw the Taliban as a lesser of two evils to the violence perpetuated by the U.S. and by the U.S. proxies.
Aleem: In July, you were on the ground in rural, Taliban-controlled territory as the Taliban were sweeping the country. What did you see, and what did you learn about the state of the occupation and its wind-down?
Gopal: Well, I think the biggest thing I noticed on the ground is just how tired people were of fighting. It's really been boiled down to the bare minimum for a lot of people, which is, "Can I go home and go to sleep, and not worry about somebody breaking into my house and try to take my son away?" or, "Can I go to the mosque and not worry about hitting a roadside bomb?"
I interviewed a lot of people who really faced a lot of real deep trauma, because of the kind of loss that they've suffered in the last 20 years — which even for me, as somebody who's been studying this conflict and reporting on it for a long time, even for me, it took me aback. It was shocking for me to see the extent of human suffering.
It's a heavily militarized countryside where everything along the roads is destroyed. There are rusted hulls of tankers here and there. There's empty bases that clearly have had car bombs that have run through them and they're ripped open. There's very few hospitals. There's very few services. There's trauma centers in the big cities, and there's just, every single day, people coming in, stepping on mines or getting droned or whatever else.
The first thing people say when I call them these days is, "Thank God everything's peaceful." They're not even thinking about the kinds of things we think of, like, "Who's going to be in the government? Are the Taliban going to be sharing power? What's the role of women?" Right now, the people I'm talking to, men and women, the thing they say is, "Well, thank God it's just peaceful."
Aleem: The speed of the Taliban's takeover shocked even seasoned analysts and defied U.S. intelligence predictions by a significant margin. What would you say the swiftness of the collapse revealed about what the U.S. was building in Afghanistan for the past 20 years? What are the roots of this failure?
Gopal: The most immediate reason, I think, is that the Afghan military was weaned on the U.S. way of fighting wars, which is almost entirely reliant on air power and on contractors. This goes back to the Rumsfeld Doctrine of the early 2000s, which is to try to decrease the size of the military; decrease the military footprint on the ground; to outsource a lot of the core functions of war-fighting to private contractors; and to shift a lot of the burden of the fighting onto air power.
When the Taliban started to advance, a few things happened at once. One is the U.S. removed its air power, and the Afghan army didn't know how to fight without air power, because unlike the Taliban, they'd been made in the mold of the United States military. Two, all these contractors left, at least the foreign contractors — a lot of the supply chain started to fall in shambles. And then, three, what was left is this military that had no legitimacy on the ground, and nobody was willing to fight and die for the military, because they didn't really believe in it, outside of getting a paycheck or knowing that they're on the winning side. And so, all those things came to a head simultaneously and collapsed like a house of cards.
Aleem: The Iraq War was marked by scandal and widely considered a stain on America's reputation in our mainstream national discourse. But up until just a few weeks ago, Afghanistan has been sort of a foil to that. It's been seen as predicated on a just premise, and largely stayed under the radar, despite its longevity. If you were to compare the two wars, would you say the Afghanistan War deserves that relative freedom from scandal and scrutiny?
Gopal: Yeah, I think it's clear, if we study the history of the last decades, the Afghanistan War was not a good war.
Afghanistan is probably the most privatized war fought in modern American history.
Almost everything you can say about the Iraq War, it does apply to Afghanistan. For example, [torture at] Abu Ghraib, right? Iconic moment in the Iraq War — and there were dozens of Abu Ghraibs happening in Afghanistan. There were everything you could imagine: prisoners being killed, prisoners being raped, electrocuted. That was happening constantly, especially before 2006.
When you think about de-Baathification in Iraq, which is the cutting off of the old Baath Party [former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's party]. So there's tens of thousands of people, mostly Sunnis, who are out of work and then incentivized to turn against the occupation. There was something like an equivalent to that in Afghanistan. The exclusion of the Taliban from the government was equivalent, in its effect to de-Baathification.
Then you look at the contracting — Blackwater, infamous in Iraq for the role it's played, and, I think, symbolic of the way in which private security contractors are taking an unprecedented role in the war. Well, Afghanistan is probably the most privatized war fought in modern American history. I mean, most of this war was being fought by people being paid as mercenaries. Now, they didn't have names like Blackwater, because they're all Afghans, but these are all warlords.
Warlordism was not something that's endemic to Afghanistan. It emerged, first, as a result of the CIA's patronage to rebel groups in the 1980s, along with the Soviet Union's destruction of the country. Then it was eliminated by the Taliban in the '90s, and then it re-emerged when the U.S. brought it back, when they literally brought back warlords from outside the country to run the country, very similar to the way the U.S. brought all of these illegitimate actors from outside the country to Iraq to run that country. So the parallels there are pretty striking, and there's no really good reason to say that Afghanistan was, in any way, a good war.
msnbc.com · by Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC Opinion Columnist
8. Lawmakers Ask About Past Blame, Future Security in Afghanistan In Policy Bill
Will the partisanship in our Congress allow for objective reviews along the lines of the Long and Holloway commissions? Or will they act along the lines of the January 6 instruction commission?
Lawmakers Ask About Past Blame, Future Security in Afghanistan In Policy Bill
Lawmakers on Wednesday made an early attempt to conduct oversight of the withdrawal from Afghanistan the same week the last U.S. troops left the country.
The House Armed Services Committee approved at least half a dozen bipartisan amendments to the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that ask the administration for more details on both the withdrawal and the future security situation in Afghanistan.
But amid the points of agreement, the discussion was peppered with partisan fighting over who is to blame for the tragic scenes that surrounded the last American troops leaving.
Republicans placed the fault squarely upon President Joe Biden, arguing that the White House’s “weakness” will put American citizens and allies at risk as the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorates.
“My concerns have now grown into complete dismay towards the abject failure of this administration,” said Rep. Trent Kelly, R-Miss. “We have been asking for months for greater detail on the so-called ‘over the horizon’ capability...It is now clear this strategy was completely inept from the beginning.”
But Democrats were quick to point out that it took 20 years of policies to reach this point. Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., defended the president’s decision to withdraw, saying that maintaining a small number of American troops was not possible and that Biden faced a difficult choice between withdrawing, and potentially letting the Taliban take control, or surging thousands of troops into harm's way.
“The idea that the only things that went wrong in Afghanistan is what President Biden has done over the past six or seven months is not correct,” Smith said. “The idea that there was some option where we could have just stayed in a perfectly peaceful environment with no risk, I hope this debate gets a little better than that...and honestly looks at what choices were there.”
Lawmakers unanimously approved a series of amendments to the major policy bill intended to help them understand what went wrong with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, including two from Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., that would require the Defense Department to brief the House Armed Services Committee no later than Nov. 1 on why it left Bagram Air Base and why it ended contract maintenance support to the Afghan Air Force.
Some conservative analysts and lawmakers criticized the Pentagon for closing Bagram before the evacuation of American troops, diplomats and Afghan allies were complete, arguing that the secure airfield could have been used instead of the airport in Kabul. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley said at a briefing last month that the Defense Department did not have enough troops in the country to protect both Bagram and the embassy, so the decision was made to close the air base.
The amended bill will direct the Pentagon’s top watchdog on Afghanistan to submit a report to Congress by March 1 on the performance of the Afghan military between February 2020 and August 2021, including why the Afghan security forces were unable to defeat Taliban advances, and how the U.S. withdrawal affected Afghan troops’ capabilities.
The committee also asked the Pentagon to present frequent updates on the security situation in Afghanistan, including quarterly briefings on threats in the country, particularly from Al Qaeda. Lawmakers also added a requirement for the defense secretary to report on Iranian support of the Taliban by March 1.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., spearheaded an amendment demanding the administration to come up with a strategy to preserve the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan and share it with Congress by March 1. Biden has said this is a top priority that can be accomplished with diplomacy, but has offered few specifics.
Lawmakers also asked for a cost breakdown of Operational Allies Refuge, which evacuated Afghan allies from the country after Kabul fell to the Taliban. Under the amendment, the defense secretary will need to provide Congress a breakdown of the cost of caring for Afghan special immigrant visa applicants within 30 days of the department spending $100 million on the operation, plus a new update every 90 days after that.
9. White supremacist praise of the Taliban takeover concerns US officials
Two troubling issues: groups that think the Taliban provides a model for anti-government action and the potential for anti-refugee activity.
Excerpts;
"There are some significant discussions," in which people are expressing support of what the Taliban has done and are looking at it as an example of what anti-government extremists should be doing in the US, the official said, adding that the reaction has been a "little bit surprising."
In Europe and the US, there has also been an "outpouring" of anti-refugee commentary from White nationalists and Neo-Nazis responding to the Taliban's takeover, SITE found.
Commentary on anonymous forums has been particularly violent, according to SITE, which found users discussing taking up arms, and in one case, threatening attacks on refugee assistance organizations in Florida.
The hateful rhetoric is similar to that seen amid Libyan and Syrian refugee waves in the 2010s, which paved the way for violent terrorist attacks in Christchurch and Pittsburgh, according to SITE.
Amid anti-immigrant sentiment, DHS officials have been bracing for whether Afghans themselves will be targeted once they land in the US and are resettled here, a DHS official previously told CNN.
"Will they be the potential target? Will Afghans themselves become targets?" the official said, noting the concern.
White supremacist praise of the Taliban takeover concerns US officials
CNN · by Geneva Sands, CNN
(CNN)As the United States-backed government in Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and US troops raced to leave the country, White supremacist and anti-government extremists have expressed admiration for what the Taliban accomplished, a worrying development for US officials who have been grappling with the threat of domestic violent extremism.
That praise has also been coupled with a wave of anti-refugee sentiment from far-right groups, as the US and others rushed to evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan by the Biden administration's August 31 deadline.
Several concerning trends have emerged in recent weeks on online platforms commonly used by anti-government, White supremacist and other domestic violent extremist groups, including "framing the activities of the Taliban as a success," and a model for those who believe in the need for a civil war in the US, the head of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, John Cohen, said on a call Friday with local and state law enforcement, obtained by CNN.
Cohen said on the call that DHS has also analyzed discussions centering on "the great replacement concept" a conspiracy theory that immigrants, in this case the relocation of Afghans to the US, would lead to a loss of control and authority by White Americans.
"There are concerns that those narratives may incite violent activities directed at immigrant communities, certain faith communities, or even those who are relocated to the United States," he added.
Read More
Far-right extremist communities have been invigorated by the events in Afghanistan, "whether by their desire to emulate the Taliban or increasingly violent rhetoric about 'invasions' by displaced Afghans," according to recent analysis from SITE Intelligence Group, an American non-governmental organization that tracks online activity of White supremacist and jihadist organizations.
Some people are commending the Taliban's takeover as "a lesson in love for the homeland, for freedom, and for religion," SITE said in its weekly bulletin on far-right extremists.
Neo-Nazi and violent accelerationists -- who hope to provoke what they see as an inevitable race war, which would lead to a Whites-only state -- in North America and Europe are praising the Taliban for its anti-Semitism, homophobia, and severe restrictions on women's freedom, SITE found.
Don Lemon: GOP hypocrisy is off the charts and sickening 03:57
For example, a quote taken from the Proud Boy to Fascist Pipeline Telegram channel, said: "These farmers and minimally trained men fought to take back their nation back from globohomo. They took back their government, installed their national religion as law, and executed dissenters ... If white men in the west had the same courage as the Taliban, we would not be ruled by Jews currently," SITE found.
"Globohomo" is a derogatory word used to insult "globalists," the term used by conspiracy promoters to describe their enemy (the evil global elite who control the media, finance, political system etc), according to SITE.
For months, US officials have warned that domestic violent extremism is the greatest threat to the homeland, pointing to the January 6 attack at the US Capitol as a stark illustration of the potential for violence that can occur when conspiracy theories and false narratives flourish.
A significant part of the current threat environment comes from individuals who are influenced by what they see online, Cohen told CNN in an interview last month.
At this time, Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, is not seeing any observed credible threats, or mobilization of online extremist activity, but is concerned that the current online rhetoric highlights ideological concerns and possible threats to public safety, said Joanna Mendelson, associate director of the center.
Extremists often take current events and weave them into their own narrative and worldview, said Mendelson, which is what is taking place in the aftermath of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and amid the humanitarian and military crisis.
"They're taking the same kind of core tropes and themes, and kind of bigoted views of the world, and injecting them into this current event," Mendelson told CNN.
There has been a lot of Islamophobia and xenophobia echoed by White supremacists and anti-Muslim activists, claiming that public safety and national security is threatened because they see refugees through a stereotypical lens as being dangerous criminals or terrorists, according to Mendelson.
A core conspiracy guiding White supremacist ideology is the "the great replacement," the belief that ultimately, the White race is facing its ultimate extinction, she said.
There is also "almost this infatuation and admiration" of the Taliban, Mendelson said, pointing to the notion that an under-equipped insurgent group could successfully defeat a global power.
"The fact that the Taliban at the end of the day could claim victory over such a world power is something that White supremacists are taking note of," she said.
Megan Squire, a professor of Computer Science at Elon University, who researches US-based domestic extremist groups, has seen three main Afghanistan-related trends emerge in platforms used by a range of far-right groups, such as White supremacists, neo-Nazis and Proud Boys-style forums.
The first narrative to emerge among the extreme far-right groups was "reveling in the humiliation" of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan as images emerged of Taliban fighters taking over city after city, along with US equipment left behind, Squire said, both celebrations of defeat and feelings humiliation as Americans.
When one goes deeper into the neo-Nazi groups, you see some celebration of the Taliban, usually related to extremely misogynistic or extremely anti-Semitic discussion, she added.
This type of cross-ideological praise has historical precedent, according to Squire, citing as an example, a meme that circulated in neo-Nazi communities during a particularly misogynist period about "white Sharia," the concept that women should be treated the way the Taliban treats women.
There have been recent examples of right-leaning groups supporting movement overseas that appear ideologically distant. For instance, earlier this summer, QAnon and Donald Trump-supporting online forums celebrated the deadly military coup in Myanmar and suggested the same should happen in the United States so Trump could be reinstated as President. CNN also spoke to followers of the former President in Ventura, California, in February who said they wanted to see a Myanmar-style coup happen here.
However, the most common narrative is around the idea that the US is "importing the Taliban" through the relocation of Afghans and that Afghan refugees are too different to become real citizens, according to Squire.
"It's really an anti-Muslim idea, anti-immigration idea," she said.
Some of the Afghanistan narratives are focused on "the Taliban did it right" and that it should be a "lesson learned" for how we should operate in the US, a US law enforcement official told CNN about the rapid rise of the Taliban as the US withdrew troops.
"That's got us a little concerned," because it suggests an escalation in violence, the official added. For example, there were references to the fact that only 80,000 Taliban were able to defeat an Afghan army of several hundred thousand supported by the US, the official said.
As of February, the Afghan forces numbered 308,000 personnel, according to a United Nations Security Council report released in June -- well above the estimated number of armed Taliban fighters, which ranged from 58,000 to 100,000, CNN previously reported. Though number of Afghan forces has been considered by many to be inflated.
"There are some significant discussions," in which people are expressing support of what the Taliban has done and are looking at it as an example of what anti-government extremists should be doing in the US, the official said, adding that the reaction has been a "little bit surprising."
In Europe and the US, there has also been an "outpouring" of anti-refugee commentary from White nationalists and Neo-Nazis responding to the Taliban's takeover, SITE found.
Commentary on anonymous forums has been particularly violent, according to SITE, which found users discussing taking up arms, and in one case, threatening attacks on refugee assistance organizations in Florida.
The hateful rhetoric is similar to that seen amid Libyan and Syrian refugee waves in the 2010s, which paved the way for violent terrorist attacks in Christchurch and Pittsburgh, according to SITE.
Amid anti-immigrant sentiment, DHS officials have been bracing for whether Afghans themselves will be targeted once they land in the US and are resettled here, a DHS official previously told CNN.
"Will they be the potential target? Will Afghans themselves become targets?" the official said, noting the concern.
CNN · by Geneva Sands, CNN
10. Secretary of Defense Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Milley Press Briefing
Excerpts:
Some of these courageous Afghans fought alongside us, and they and their families have more than earned their places in the land of the free and the home of the brave. And welcoming these Afghans isn't just about what they've done, it's about who we are.
Now, as one mission ends, others must go on. And even during our Afghan retrograde, this -- this department was racing to help victims of natural disasters at home and abroad, and we still are. We've been driving to -- to end the pandemic and we've continued to tackle security challenges from China and Russia, Iran and North Korea.
It's our duty to defend this nation and we're not going to take our eye off the ball. And that means relentless counter-terrorism efforts against any threat to the American people from any place, it means working with our partners to shore up stability in the region around Afghanistan, and it means a new focus to our leadership in this young century, to meet the security challenges from China, to seize new opportunities in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, and to deepen our ties with old allies and new partners, and to defend our democracy against all enemies.
But for today, I want to end with the word to the force and their families. I know that these have been difficult days for many of us, and as we look back as a nation on the War in Afghanistan, I hope that we will all do so with thoughtfulness and respect. I will always be proud of the part that we played in this war.
Secretary of Defense Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Milley Press Briefing
SEPT. 1, 2021
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III; Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley; Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LLOYD J. AUSTIN III: Good afternoon, and thanks for being here.
It's been a busy time for all of us in this department, a proud one and a solemn one, too. We have concluded our historic evacuation operation and ended the last mission of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. America's longest war has come to a close.
Now, both as secretary and as a veteran of our Afghan war, my thoughts have been with the brave Americans who stood up to serve after Al Qaida attacked us on September 11th, 2001, and my heart is with their families and loved ones, and with our friends and allies, and with our fellow citizens whose lives were lost or changed forever over 20 years of war. We remember 2,461 American service members and personnel who paid the ultimate price in this war, and more than 20,000 wounded Americans, some still carrying the scars that you can't see on the outside.
We also remember the thousands of American contractors who lost their lives, and hundreds of our allies and partners from NATO and beyond, and tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers and police officers and tens of thousands more Afghan civilians.
Now, we have just concluded the largest air evacuation of civilians in American history. It was heroic, it was historic, and I hope that all Americans will unite to thank our service members for their courage and their compassion. They were operating in an immensely dangerous and dynamic environment but our troops were tireless, fearless and selfless. Our commanders never flinched and our allies and partners were extraordinary.
The United States evacuated some 6,000 American citizens and a total of more than 124,000 civilians and we did it all in the midst of a pandemic and in the face of grave and growing threats. I am incredibly proud of those who made it happen, and they made it happen with grit and skill and humanity.
Our outstanding men and women showed steady judgment under crushing pressure, including some very young service members who summoned up exceptional courage at close quarters. They ran an international airport, they sped up visas, they fed the hungry, they comforted the desperate and they got plane after plane after plane into the sky.
Our forces risked their own lives to save the lives of others and 13 of our very best paid the ultimate price, and many of them were too young to personally remember the 9/11 attacks. The United States military will always honor their heroism. We mourn with their families and we owe them support through the days and years ahead.
It is noteworthy that, on the day of the attack at the airport, our troops and their partners pushed hard and carried on, putting 89 rescue flights in the air in the span of 24 hours and lifting 12,500 souls to freedom. It has been an enormous achievement, not just by the U.S. military but also by the militaries of our allies and partners, and of course by our teammates at the State Department.
Now the war is over and we're entering a new chapter, one in where our diplomats and our interagency partners take the lead. We're part of an urgent team effort to move Afghan evacuees out of temporary housing in intermediate staging bases in the Gulf and in Europe and on to begin new lives. And I'll be traveling to the Gulf next week to thank our partners there who have done so much to help save and shelter Afghan civilians.
Now, some of those brave Afghans will be coming to make new lives with their families in America, after careful screening and security vetting run by our interagency partners. We're temporarily sheltering some of these evacuees at military facilities here at home and I'm proud of the way that our military communities have welcomed them.
Some of these courageous Afghans fought alongside us, and they and their families have more than earned their places in the land of the free and the home of the brave. And welcoming these Afghans isn't just about what they've done, it's about who we are.
Now, as one mission ends, others must go on. And even during our Afghan retrograde, this -- this department was racing to help victims of natural disasters at home and abroad, and we still are. We've been driving to -- to end the pandemic and we've continued to tackle security challenges from China and Russia, Iran and North Korea.
It's our duty to defend this nation and we're not going to take our eye off the ball. And that means relentless counter-terrorism efforts against any threat to the American people from any place, it means working with our partners to shore up stability in the region around Afghanistan, and it means a new focus to our leadership in this young century, to meet the security challenges from China, to seize new opportunities in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, and to deepen our ties with old allies and new partners, and to defend our democracy against all enemies.
But for today, I want to end with the word to the force and their families. I know that these have been difficult days for many of us, and as we look back as a nation on the War in Afghanistan, I hope that we will all do so with thoughtfulness and respect. I will always be proud of the part that we played in this war.
But we shouldn't expect Afghan war veterans to agree anymore than any other group of Americans. I've heard strong views from many sides in recent days, and that's vital, that's democracy, that's America. As we always do, this department will look back clearly and professionally and learn every lesson that we can. That's our way.
But right now, it's time to thank all of those who served in this war because you are the greatest asset that we have -- you, the extraordinary men and women who volunteered to keep us all safe and your families.
So my prayers are with you and with the Gold Star families who lost loved ones in Afghanistan and with the warriors who mourn their fallen brothers and sisters and with those who bear the wounds of war to body and to soul. We will never forget what you did and what you gave. Our country owes you thanks that won't fade and support that won't falter. The war has ended but our gratitude never will.
And finally, just a word about the Navy helicopter mishap overnight off the coast of California. I know the Navy is working diligently at search and rescue operations. And on behalf of the whole department, I want to pass on our thoughts and prayers for the best possible outcome. It's yet another reminder of the dangers our men and women face every day overseas, at sea, and here at home.
Now let me turn it over to the chairman.
GENERAL MARK MILLEY: Thanks, Secretary.
And good afternoon, everyone.
Three weeks ago the United States military received the mission to conduct a non-combatant evacuation operation from Afghanistan in support of the Department of State in order to evacuate American citizens, the Department of State-designated Afghans with a directed completion date of 31 August. The key military tasks were to secure and defend the international airport in Kabul, evacuate all embassy personnel, evacuate all American citizens that wanted to get out, and evacuate other Afghans as designated by the Department of State and retrograde all of the U.S. military.
In short, the United States military was tasked to conduct two highly complex missions simultaneously: to retrograde while in contact with the enemy and a NEO in a non-permissive environment. We executed that mission in a highly dynamic, dangerous operating environment from a war-torn country and was conducted across nine countries and 26 intermediate staging bases and temporary safe havens.
We deployed between 5,000 and 6,000 military personnel on the ground, some of whom were forward-deployed based on our contingency planning. These elements came from the 82nd Airborne Division, Special Forces, the Marine Corps, along with Navy and Air Force personnel. Flying and support were combat aircraft from the Air Force and the Navy as well as incredible support from the Transport Aircraft, the pilots and crews of the United States Transportation Command. And afloat we had our new Carrier Strike Group.
We flew 387 U.S. military C-17 and C-130 sorties, and we enabled 391 non-U.S. military sorties. A total of 778 sorties evacuated a total of 124,334 people which included almost 6,000 American citizens, third country nationals, and Afghans designated by the Department of State. And we will continue to evacuate American citizens under the leadership of the Department of State as this mission has now transitioned from a military mission to a diplomatic mission.
Evacuees flowed through the intermediate staging base safe havens in Central Command and European Command for onward movement to the United States, a third country, or their home of origin for repatriation. Evacuees complete medical and security screening vetting, in accordance with the lead federal agency's guidance, the Department of Homeland Security.
Currently there is approximately 20,000 evacuees and seven staging bases in five countries in Central Command, another 23,000 in seven staging bases in four countries in Europe, and as of this morning, there are approximately 20,000 Afghans who arrived at eight different military bases in the continental United States.
This mission costs 11 Marines, one soldier and one Navy corpsman their lives, and 22 others were wounded in action. In addition to over 100 Afghans killed and wounded in a horrific terrorist attack on 26 August at Abbey Gate on the southeast perimeter of the airport. Those soldiers, sailors and Marines give their lives so that others may live free. They literally gave their tomorrows for the tomorrows of people they never knew. Those 124,000, they never knew the 13 who died, and they will never know the 22 who were wounded, nor the thousands of dead and thousands of wounded who came before them, but they will now live in freedom because of American blood shed on their behalf.
Nearly two decades have passed since that horrible, dark September day in our nation's history, when 2,977 innocent lives were murdered. Since then, the men and women of the United States military and our interagency partners have fought tirelessly to defeat terrorists in Afghanistan and around the world. Both at home and abroad, their talent, their efforts have carried this fight day and night.
In Afghanistan, our mission -- our military mission has now come to an end, and we're going to learn from this experience as a military. How we got to this moment in Afghanistan will be analyzed and studied for years to come, and we in the military will approach this with humility, transparency and candor. There are many tactical, operational and strategic lessons to be learned.
Eight-hundred-thousand of us in uniform served in Afghanistan over the last 20 years. Our nation spent over $1 trillion, and most importantly, 2,461 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines gave the last full measure of devotion, while 20,691 were wounded, and untold thousands of others suffer with the invisible wounds of war as we close this chapter in our nation's history, and all of those casualties are alongside our allies and partners, and we should never forget that 60,000 Afghan National Security Forces gave their lives in the conduct of this war.
Our counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and the region over 20 years has protected the American people from terrorist attack, and the men and women and children who were just evacuated will ultimately be the legacy to prove the value of our sacrifice. For the past 20 years, there's not been a major attack on our homeland, and it is now our mission to ensure that we continue our intelligence efforts, continue our counterterrorism efforts, continue our military efforts to protect the American people for the next 20 years, and we in the American military are committed to do just that.
For those of us in uniform who served in Afghanistan, for our families who have suffered and sacrificed along our side, for those who have supported us, these have been incredibly emotional and trying days, and indeed, years. We are all conflicted with feelings of pain and anger, sorrow and sadness, combined with pride and resilience. There are no words that I or the secretary or the president or anyone else will ever do to bring the dead back, but we can always honor them. And one thing I am certain of: for any soldier, sailor, airman or Marine and their family, your service mattered and was not in vain. Thank you.
SEC. AUSTIN: Okay, I think we have enough time for a few questions, and we'll start with you, Bob.
Q: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Looking ahead in Afghanistan -- a question for both of you, please -- given the experience of the past couple of weeks at the Kabul airport where U.S. commanders were coordinating, or at least, communicating daily with Taliban commanders to an effect that General McKenzie himself said was at times very helpful -- and -- and also, I noted, General Milley, in your case, you last year had face-to-face meetings with Taliban leaders, at least on a couple of occasions -- I'm wondering what you can -- what you think these experiences say about the prospect for the United States' relationship with the Taliban, to include the possibility of any kind of coordination in counterterrorism operations against ISIS-K in Afghanistan.
SEC. AUSTIN: Well, first of all, let me applaud the initiative of our commanders on -- on the ground who would stop at nothing to accomplish the mission that they were -- they were provided of evacuating as many American citizens, third-country nationals and SIV applicants as possible. We were focused on -- we were working with the Taliban on a very narrow set of issues, and it was just that -- to get as many people out as we possibly could. And so I would not lead to -- I would not make any leaps of logic to, you know, a broader -- to broader issues. I would just say that, again, I'm immensely proud of -- of what -- what our troops have done to this point, and it's hard to predict where this will go in the future with respect to the Taliban.
GEN. MILLEY: I would just say, Bob, you know, the secretary and I both served in Afghanistan, and many of us did, and you all did, too. We don't know what the future of the Taliban is, but I can tell you from personal experience that this is a ruthless group from the past, and whether or not they change remains to be seen. And as far as our dealings with them at that airfield or in the past year or so, in war, you do what you must in order to reduce risk to mission and force, not what you necessarily want to do.
Q: Any possibility of coordination against ISIS-K (inaudible)?
GEN. MILLEY: It's possible.
SEC. AUSTIN: Going -- going forward, Bob, I -- again, I would not want to make any predictions. I would tell you that we're going to do everything that we can to make sure we remain focused on ISIS-K, understand that network, and at -- and at the time of our choosing in the future, hold them accountable for what they've done.
Let's go to Helene Cooper.
Q: Thank you, sir, for doing this. I have a question for you, and then another one for General Milley.
Mr. Secretary, perhaps it's possible that there's no exit from Afghanistan that would not have been chaotic, given what we now know as for all of the reasons that the administration has mentioned. But I would like to know now, in hindsight, is there one thing that you wish that you or the Pentagon had done, could have done differently?
SEC. AUSTIN: Thanks, Helene. I -- I would just tell you that there hasn't been a single operation that I've ever been involved in where we didn't discover that there's something that we could've done better or more efficiently or more effectively, and I'd also say that no operation is ever perfect.
I will tell you that we will do what we always do, and that is to -- to look at ourselves and do after-action reviews and -- and we want to make sure that we learn every lesson that can be learned from this experience. But I want to take the time to -- to do it the right way. And -- and so we'll do that in the days -- in the days ahead.
(CROSSTALK)
Q: -- sorry.
SEC. AUSTIN: I was just going to say I -- I would just say again, Helene, that I'm enormously proud of our -- of our men and women who -- who worked hard to accomplish what they just accomplished, which I think, as I said earlier, is historic and heroic.
Go ahead.
Q: Do you wish you had maybe thrown out the book on the whole SIV -- I mean, the previous administration did leave -- I understand the Biden -- did put a lot of hurdles in the way the SIV program -- that this administration had to then deal with upon arrival. That -- do you think at all that because the Pentagon worked so hard with these people for 20 years, these translators and interpreters, that we should've thrown that whole book out?
SEC. AUSTIN: What I would say, Helene, is that the SIV program is obviously not -- not designed to accommodate what we just did in evacuating, you know, over 100,000 people. And so perhaps this -- this program should be looked at going forward. It is a -- it is a -- designed to be a -- a slow process. Secretary Blinken and -- and -- and the State Department worked hard early on to -- to shorten the timeline that it takes to -- to work your way through that process.
But again, for the type of operation that we just conducted, I think -- I think we need a different type of capability.
Q: And for General Milley, I wanted to ask you about Sunday's drone strike. Can you take us back to that morning? You have intel that ISIS-K is plotting another attack. The military spots a vehicle that you believe is full of -- carrying explosives and we take this car out with a drone strike. And reports now say that we may have -- that 10 civilians -- as many as 10 civilians may have been -- may have been killed.
Because of the urgent threat environment at the time, did preliminary assessments indicate that we may have rushed, relaxed or waived altogether some of the normal checks and balances that we do before a strike like that?
GEN. MILLEY: A couple of things. One is, as we always do on all of these things, we initiated an investigation. We're reviewing all of the video and all of that. But having said that, it -- we -- you know, what do we know, what do we don't know, what do we think sort of thing -- at the -- at the time -- and I think this is still valid -- we had very good intelligence that ISIS-K was preparing a specific type vehicle at a specific type location. We monitored that through various means and all of the engagement criteria were being met. We went through the same level of rigor that we've done for years and we took a strike. So that we did.
Secondly is we know that there was secondary explosions. Because there was secondary explosions, there's a reasonable conclusion to be made that there was explosives in that vehicle.
The third thing, as we know from a variety of other means, that at least one of those people that were killed was an ISIS facilitator.
So were there others killed? Yes, there are others killed. Who they are, we don't know. We'll try to sort through all of that. But we believe that the procedures at this point -- I don't want to influence the outcome of an investigation -- but at this point, we think that the procedures were correctly followed and it was a (righteous strike ?).
SEC. AUSTIN: So we've got time for one more question and we'll go to Barb for the last question.
Q: Thank you, sir. I -- while your messages today from both of you, your messages of compassion and gratitude are certainly understood, in the last several days, both of you have -- multiple times have issued these kinds of messages and statements.
And what I'm curious about is what do you see in the country, with troops, with veterans, that makes you, you know, you -- it's a rare thing that makes you feel these messages must continue? And you -- you have put -- put out so many in the last few days.
And General Milley, I was very struck -- you used the word "pain" and "anger," and that you understood that was out there. So as a combat veteran yourself of Afghanistan, can you help people understand that? Where does your pain and anger come from? If you could both answer your views on this.
SEC. AUSTIN: Yeah, I would start by saying, Barb, that this is the longest war in -- in our history. And so there have been a couple of generations that have participated in the -- in this war and -- and as we've gone about, I've gotten input and reactions that are from all sides of this -- of this issue. And as I said in my -- my opening statement, that's to be expected. And -- and, of course, I -- I respect that.
And I think we have to provide ourselves the time and space to adequately deal with -- with everything that our veterans have been through, and we will work through those issues and -- and the system will be there to support our veterans as we work through those issues. I just think, again, we need to respect each other's views and be supportive of each other.
And the one thing I would say, Barb, is that people will process this differently, and for those who think they need help, please seek help. You know, we're there for you. And as I've -- you've heard me say a number of times before, you know, mental health is health, period.
And -- and so this will take time to work -- for people to -- to -- to work their way through. There are varying opinions on -- on -- on each side of the aisle, and that's to be expected and respected, so.
(CROSSTALK)
Q: Can you both assure -- (inaudible) question (inaudible) General Milley.
GEN. MILLEY: So, Barb, you asked me where my pain and anger comes from. I have all of those same emotions and I'm sure the Secretary does and I'm -- any -- anyone who's served. And -- and I commanded troops and I wasn't born a four star General. I have walked through patrols and been blown up and shot at and RPG'd and everything else. My pain and anger comes from the same as the grieving families, the same as those soldiers that are on the ground.
Last night, I visited the wounded up in Walter Reed. This is tough stuff. War is hard, it's vicious, it's brutal, it's unforgiving, and yes, we all have pain and anger. And when we see what has unfolded over the last 20 years and over the last 20 days, that creates pain and anger, and mine comes from 242 of my soldiers killed in action over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So yeah, I have that. But I'm a professional soldier. I'm going to contain my pain and anger and continue to execute my mission.
(CROSSTALK)
PRESS SECRETARY JOHN F. KIRBY: Thanks, thanks. We have to go. We have to go, guys.
Q: -- American people that --
MR. KIRBY: Thanks, guys.
(CROSSTALK)
Q: -- sent back to Afghanistan.
(CROSSTALK)
11. Special operators are already dealing with a shady piece of Chinese technology the US has been warning about
Excerpts:
Special-operations and conventional forces will have to deal with 5G threats when deployed for combat missions or other operations, such as general reconnaissance.
"Special Operations Forces and its partner forces will be increasingly facing foreign technology-based threats while globally deployed. This is especially the case where Chinese- and Russian-manufactured and controlled telecommunications infrastructure is installed," said Hasken, who has extensive special-operations and intelligence-community experience.
Compromised local networks could be used to collect information about their mission and identities, and their tactics, techniques, and procedures.
Special operators are already dealing with a shady piece of Chinese technology the US has been warning about
A Marine joint terminal attack controller talks to a Navy MH-60S helicopter during training at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada, April 7, 2011.
US Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Kyle McNally
- The spread of 5G mobile communications technology is creating new problems for the US military.
- Compromised networks could give adversaries an opportunity to monitor and attack US personnel.
10 Things in Politics: The latest in politics & the economy
In an increasingly interconnected world, the US military is facing new challenges in old stomping grounds.
Even though the US isn't at war with China, competition with Beijing is already raging, and conventional and special-operations troops deployed around the world are exposed, either directly or through proxies, to Chinese technology that could hinder them in a conflict.
The worst offender is 5G, the same mobile communications technology ordinary people use or will be using in the future.
What's 5G?
US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School students use a cell phone during training in North Carolina, October 22, 2019.
US Army/K. Kassens
5G is the latest generation of mobile communications network technology.
Every 10 years or so, a new generation of mobile communications goes live. 1G, the first generation, arrived with the first cellphones. 2G brought better coverage and texting. 3G introduced data and online services, while 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) brought increased network capacity and improved speeds to address the high demand for mobile data.
5G has download speeds 100 times faster than 4G, meaning that a 3-gigabyte movie would take 35 seconds to download instead of 40 minutes. 5G also has one-tenth the latency as its predecessor, with data response times as fast as a millisecond.
5G promises a transformation of telecommunication networks in a way that makes new capabilities — such as remote surgery, smart cities, and autonomous vehicles — more widely available.
China and 5G
A Huawei booth at the 2020 World 5G Convention in Guangzhou, China, November 27, 2020.
Li Zhihao/VCG via Getty Images
The development of 5G technology is an international affair, with several companies working on their own versions, primarily for domestic consumers.
However, Chinese firm Huawei — which is suspected of stealing its 5G technology from a Canadian firm through cyberattacks — has been deploying its 5G technology worldwide.
Given China's peculiar national security laws, which require individuals and companies to cooperate with the Chinese security services, any Huawei technology around the world is a potential threat to privacy and national security. Through Huawei, Beijing could spy on or disrupt infrastructure and operations during peace or war.
Governments have realized the danger and have been banning Huawei from their networks. The British government did so in 2020, and the US Federal Communications Commission designated Huawei a national security threat in 2021, following several Chinese cyberattacks.
Despite these privacy and security concerns, some countries — especially those in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America — are turning to China for 5G technology. What makes Huawei appealing to these countries is its low cost.
REUTERS/Stringer
"China seeks to supplant global telecommunications competition by providing low-cost infrastructure throughout the developing world. In short, China continues to use the tactic of 'debt diplomacy' as a means of controlling commerce in places like Africa and Southeast Asia, as well as penetrating European and South American markets with 5G technologies," Herm Hasken, a partner and senior operations consultant at MarkPoint Technologies, told Insider.
In exchange for hefty loans and infrastructure like railroads, ports, and telecom networks, Beijing gains access to natural resources, such as oil and minerals. In some cases, China has been able to claim rights to those infrastructure projects when the host country defaults on its loans.
The proliferation of 5G technology also poses threats to the US itself.
The National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency recently released an advisory that identified five areas of vulnerability associated with the introduction of 5G that state and non-state actors could exploit:
- Attempts by malicious state and non-state actors to influence the design and architecture of 5G networks
- A potentially vulnerable 5G supply chain
- 5G working with old, potentially compromised infrastructure
- Limited competition in the 5G market
- New, previously unknown vulnerabilities introduced with 5G
Special operations and 5G
Marines set up a high-frequency antenna a during a field exercise at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, January 29, 2010.
US Navy/Petty Officer 2nd Class Joshua Bruns
Special-operations and conventional forces will have to deal with 5G threats when deployed for combat missions or other operations, such as general reconnaissance.
"Special Operations Forces and its partner forces will be increasingly facing foreign technology-based threats while globally deployed. This is especially the case where Chinese- and Russian-manufactured and controlled telecommunications infrastructure is installed," said Hasken, who has extensive special-operations and intelligence-community experience.
Compromised local networks could be used to collect information about their mission and identities, and their tactics, techniques, and procedures.
US Army Green Berets and Special Operations Command North personnel set up communications with Colorado Springs from their location in the Arctic, September 19, 2020.
US Army/Staff Sgt. Travis Fontane
Special-operations forces "must consider they are operating under a constant state of surveillance while deployed overseas," added Hasken, who spent time at the National Security Agency as the US Special Operations Command's chief cryptologist.
SOCOM's Hyper Enabled Operator initiative is designed to address those threats and "give SOF, Cyber, and conventional forces situational awareness tools that will enable secure communications and force protection techniques required in contested and congested information environments," Hasken said.
The spread of 5G technology also brings opportunities for special-operations forces, especially when it comes to access and information — both essential to shaping the battlespace.
"The location, type, services provided via 5G may help inform SOF operators, Civil Affairs teams, PSYOPS, electronic warfare and communications support teams on critical nodes required to operate with host nation elements while denying such services to internal security or hostile elements attempting to deny, degrade, or totally disrupt US military operations overseas," Hasken added.
5G promises to revolutionize how we work and communicate, but it poses security risks that, if not addressed, could have dire consequences for the public at home and troops in the field.
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.
12. North Korea warns of ‘preemptive strike capabilities’ following US-South Korea military drills
Remember that in 2019 the Propaganda and Agitation Department claimed the new missiles and rockets were for the "fat targets" which are likely Camp Humpreys, Osan , Kunsan, and Cheongju air bases. These have most of the US combat power consolidated there (and Cheongju has the ROK F-35s).
North Korea warns of ‘preemptive strike capabilities’ following US-South Korea military drills
This photo from the state-run Korean Central News Agency shows a missile launch at an undisclosed location in North Korea, March 29, 2020. (KCNA)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — North Korean officials have railed against a recent joint military exercise between the U.S. and South Korea, calling it "the most vivid expression” of a “hostile policy.”
The Aug. 16-26 drills consisted of computer simulations and a smaller number of troops than the thousands of ground forces used in large-scale field exercises of the past.
The drills were “the most vivid expression of the U.S. hostile policy against [North Korea], which is aimed at stifling our state by means of force,” according to the ministry statement.
North Korea may “continue bolstering the national defensive power and preemptive strike capabilities which can strongly contain and eliminate the outside threats," the statement reads.
The statement comes a day after the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog issued a report indicating the regime restarted its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in July. The International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea’s “nuclear activities continue to be a cause for serious concern” and described the evidence as “deeply troubling.”
The agency’s findings corroborate an analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in April that said the regime’s activity “is likely an indicator of a new reprocessing campaign designed to expand North Korea’s inventory of fissile material for nuclear weapons.”
President Joe Biden is aware of the UN’s report and is “closely coordinating” with allies, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday.
“This report underscores the urgent need for dialogue and diplomacy so we can achieve the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Psaki said at a press briefing. “We continue to seek dialogue with [North Korea] so we can address this reported activity and the full range of issues related to denuclearization.”
South Korea’s Ministry of Unification mentioned Pyongyang’s statement during a press briefing Monday and said it “will thoroughly prepare for all possibilities without forejudging the attitude of the North.”
The Unification Ministry will “keep trying to rebuild trust and reinstate relations between South and North Korea as early as possible,” spokeswoman Lee Jong Joo said in the briefing.
Stars and Stripes reporter Yoo Kyong Chang contributed to this report.
David Choi
13. Twenty First Century Silk Road: China, the West and The Global Infrastructure Scramble
Conclusion:
For developing countries, more competition means greater room for maneuver, diversified partnerships, and a greater access to high-quality big-ticket investments. As the late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew once told his American interlocuters, “[G]ive the region options besides China.”[27] And there are signs that Beijing has also got the message. On his part, President Xi Jinping has underscored his commitment to make the BRI more fiscally and environmentally sustainable, taking note of initial criticisms that greeted massive Chinese infrastructure plans across the developing world.[28]
During the 2021 Boao Forum in Hainan, the Chinese leader has also reached out to private investors, including Big Tech companies in the West, in order explore potential public-private-partnership schemes in the future.[29] In the past, China also showed tremendous flexibility when under criticism, most notably when it decided to forego full veto powers within the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).[30]
Even more encouragingly, China’s tech champions such as Huawei’s CEO Ren Zhengfei have expressed their willingness to collaborate with the West and, if necessary, even share part of their 5G technology in order to head of lose-lose-confrontation.[31] Ultimately, infrastructure development schemes shouldn’t be reduced to and defined by an ‘East vs West’ dichotomy, since any binary approach only risks creating a technological iron curtain, which, in turn, could precipitate decoupling within the broader global economy.
Global entrepôts and financial hubs such as Singapore and Switzerland could serve as crucial ‘neutral’ platforms for raising large-scale infrastructure-related capital in ways that transcend any putative “Ne Cold War” between rival superpowers. Given the scale of the global infrastructure challenge, flexible and cross-cutting partnerships schemes, if not tech alliances of convenience, are indispensable to aiding post-pandemic recovery as well as long-term economic dynamism in an increasingly crowded, digitalized world.
Twenty First Century Silk Road: China, the West and The Global Infrastructure Scramble
22 Aug 2021
Richard Javad Heydarian
Beyond Olympic medals or the number of fighter jets and ballistic missiles, the ultimate expression of national power and prosperity nowadays is public infrastructure, both hard (physical) and soft (digital). If anything, infrastructure development capacity has become the ultimate proxy for global influence, if not the pivot of 21st century geopolitics. There are at least three interrelated reasons why infrastructure development has become so integral to national and international discourse in the past decade.
To begin with, rapidly developing economies as well as developed nations are confronting a massive infrastructure spending gap. As early as 2017, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) warned that the Asian region alone is grappling with a $459 billion annual infrastructure financing gap, a sizeable figure that has doubled to almost $907 billion in more recent years amid growing focus on inclusive and socialized infrastructure development. Over the next decade, the Manila-based development bank estimates $1.7trillion annual financing gap in Asia alone. The challenge is even more daunting on the global level, with McKinsey estimating $3.7 trillion annual spending gap until 2035 and the Global Infrastructure Hub estimating a $15 trillion global gap over the next two decades.[1]
Aside from fiscal constraints, the urgency behind infrastructure development is also a reflection of rapid technological advancements in critical infrastructure and the corresponding need to swiftly upgrade existing networks. This is especially true in the telecommunications sector, whereby the advent of next-generation 5G networks has proven a game-changer, both on a technological as well as regulatory level (to be discussed in greater detail in succeeding sections). The full-spectrum disruption wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated the need for digital infrastructure development, as fintech companies and work-from-home regimes upend traditional modes of economic activity.
Infrastructure development has also become important for political reasons, given its (real and perceived) centrality to turbocharged economic growth, large-scale employment-generation, and enhancing the performance-based legitimacy of incumbent administrations. Dating back to ancient empires, leaders often enhanced their political capital by overseeing mega-projects, which transcended their transient tenure in office. Nineteenth century France under Louis-Napoleon III took this political realization to its logical conclusion, best reflected in Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s iconic transformation of Paris’ basic infrastructure and overall aesthetic sensibilities.[2]
A century later, leaders as varied as Dwight Eisenhower and Lee Kuan Yew embarked on similar massive infrastructure initiatives, which altered the face and the fate of their respective nations with long-term economic consequences. Given the deep recession caused by the raging pandemic, a growing number of policy-makers are relying on infrastructure development as their primary counter-cyclical tool to stimulate battered economies. In short, infrastructure development allows policy-makers to hit three stones at the same time, namely (i) upgrade decrepit or outmoded infrastructure to enhance economic competitiveness, (ii) transition into a more diversified and digitalized economy, and (iii) enhance the performative reputation and political capital of incumbent administrations.[3] And if there is one country that has best realized the importance of infrastructure development to our contemporary global order, it’s arguably China. Under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Asian superpower oversaw 2,881 projects across multiple continents, with an estimated value of US$3.45 trillion upon completion, within less than a decade.[4]
The New Vanguard of Globalization
China is not the only Asian country with global infrastructure ambitions. Over the past decade, Japan, the traditional engine of pan-Asian industrialization, has launched its own Connectivity Initiative and Partnership for Quality Infrastructure projects, which cuts across East Asia and beyond. Neighboring South Kora, Asia’s other economic dynamo, has introduced its own “New Northern” and “New Southern” Policies, targeting resource-rich economies in Central Asia, Siberia, and Southeast Asia. Meanwhile India, the other Asian giant, has launched its own International North–South Transport Corridor and East-West Corridor, which cuts across and integrated strategic markets from South Asia to West Asia and the broader Eurasian landmass.[5]
But there is quite nothing like China’s BRI, a multi-trillion-dollar vision that aims to place Beijing at the heart of an emerging global economic order, namely globalization with Chinese characteristics. As Chinese President Xi Jinping put it, the BRI is “the project of the century” like no other, a profound reflection of an increasingly post-American order in Asia and beyond. To be fair, Xi’s predecessors, beginning with Jiang Zemin, had already pushed for a “Go Out” and “Going Global” strategy, encouraging Chinese national champions to expand their footprint in global markets.[6] There were also serious discussions over a “March West” strategy, aimed at bolstering Chinese investments in strategically-located Central Asia and West Asian economies, in response to the announcement of the Obama administration’s announcement Pivot to Asia (P2A) doctrine a decade ago.[7]
To understand China’s BRI is to understand Chinese grand strategy-making. The origins of the BRI are, quite surprisingly, not to be found in Zhongnanhai, the seat of China’s power, but instead in initial efforts by multinational companies and provincial government units to diversify the country’s distribution networks by focusing on land-based transportation via transcontinental railways. In effect “bottom-up commercial interests” — beginning with a 2009 deal between American computer company Hewlett-Packard (HP) and the provincial authorities in Chongqing for cost-effective railway connections between Chinese production sites and European markets — paved the way for an increasingly trans-regional infrastructure network.[8]
As Xi consolidated power over all three pillars of power, namely party, state and central military commission, Beijing incorporated these spontaneous, local-level infrastructure diversification initiatives into a mega-global project under the direction of the national government. In 2014, the BRI plan was officially incorporated into China’s national economic development strategy at the Central Economic Work Conference. A year earlier, Xi and his deputies made a series of pronouncements that underscored Beijing’s newfound role as the vanguard of economic globalization.First came Xi’s major speech in at the Nazarbayev University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the Chinese leader declared his plans for creating a modern version of the ancient Silk Road, which extended from Western Europe to China via the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia. About a month later, Xi, speaking before the Standing Committee of the Politburo (SCP), the country’s elite policy-making body, announced his “peripheral diplomacy” strategy, whereby he made it clear that wining over estranged neighbors through expanded economic influence was of paramount interest.[9]
As prominent Chinese scholar Yan Xuetong bluntly put it: “The policy now is to allow these smaller [neighboring] countries to benefit economically from their relationships with China. For China, we need good relationships more urgently than we need economic development. We let them benefit economically, and in return we get good political relationships. We should ‘purchase’ the relationships.”[10] To this end, Xi launched the BRI — initially covering as many as 64 nations accounting for 62 percent of the world’s population and almost a third of the global economic output — under the supervision of the country’s major policy (rather than purely commercial) banks, namely The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Development Bank, Bank of China, and Export-Import Bank of China.
More than Meets the Eye
In line with Chinese statecraft tradition, the BRI was never about a single objective or two. Nor was it ever about purely economics or, alternatively, a geopolitical scheme per se. In light of the commercially-driven and geographic origins of the BRI, the mega-infrastructure project has always had a development-centered agenda. First of all, the BRI, which originated in the country’s geographic heartland, aimed at narrowing developmental gaps between the more prosperous eastern and southeastern coastal regions clustered around the Pearl River Delta (PRD), on one hand, and the less developed central and western interior regions, which also happen to host most of the country’s ethnic minority groups.
Second, the BRI aimed at assisting and promoting State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), responsible for tens of millions of jobs, through provision of big-ticket projects overseas. This explains why up to 90 percent of BRI contracts concerning transport equipment, worth $263 billion in 2018 alone, went to Chinese SOE contractors. Third, the BRI also helps China to boost domestic growth by overcoming the steady slowdown in global trade, which peaked in 2016.[11] By enhancing the port facilities and transportation capacities of export markets, China would be in a far better position to continue its march as the world’s largest exporting nation.[12]
Nevertheless, the BRI also meant that China would also enhance the country’s strategic foothold across global sealines of communications, as Chinese companies poured massive investments into prized port facilities from Greece to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Strait of Malacca. China’s growing presence in resource-rich Africa, Latin American, and Asian countries also means greater access to strategic commodities, which are crucial to the country’s long-term development.[13]
The BRI also helps China to realize its Internet Plus and Made in China 2025 industrial policy strategies, which aim to increase the country’s domestic self-sufficiency in cutting-edge technologies from 40% local input in 2020 to 70% by 2025. Ultimately, China aims to globalize its industrial and technological standards, as more countries lock into Chinese-exclusive high-tech infrastructure.[14] By the middle of the century, China aims to become “the world’s major scientific and technological power,” one that can boast of “first-class institutes, research-oriented universities and innovation-oriented enterprises.”[15]
At its core, the BRI is part of China’s broader efforts to mitigate structural imbalances within its own economy, enhance its technological self-sufficiency, expand its global investment and technological footprint, and protect its sealines of communications. But it also helps the Asian superpower to establish networks of influence, if not neo-tributary dependence (i.e., Tianxia). Given the sheer breadth and scale of BRI, China’s early and decisive lead has, quite predictably, been met with a mixture of skepticism, regulatory bottlenecks, and geopolitical pushback.
On one hand, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has squeezed sovereign fiscal resources as well as global flow of labor and capital, has taken a toll on BRI projects. Beijing itself has admitted that at least 20% of slated projects were “seriously affected” by the pandemic.[16] This comes on top of political backlash against Chinese infrastructure projects in key regions such as Southeast Asia, a new theatre of Sino-American rivalry, with some countries openly fretting about non-fulfillment of large-scale promises (Philippines), chronic project completion delays (Indonesia), lack of input by local suppliers and regulatory incompatibility (Thailand), and, in the most dramatic case, “debt trap” diplomacy (Malaysia) altogether, with former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhamad openly warning of “new colonialism”.[17]
The Pushback
China’s growing economic footprint has also provoked a pushback by rival powers, most especially the United States, Japan and key Western allies in Europe and Australia. The former Donald Trump administration openly accused China of engaging in ‘predatory’ investment practices; warned key allies against adopting Chinese technology in critical infrastructure, especially 5G networks; and launched counter-initiatives such as the more modest $113 million infrastructure-building fund as well as a more ambitious $60 billion Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) initiative, which aimed at mobilizing private sector investments in strategic destinations; and the Indo-Pacific Transparency Initiative, which aimed at exposing China’s alleged predatory investment practices.[18]
The status of implementation of the Trump administration’s counter-BRI initiatives are, at best, murky. By and large, the consensus among experts is that the former American leadership was more on the offensive and, accordingly, fell short of mobilizing a tangible alternative to China’s BRI. As a result, the Joseph Biden administration has adopted a more (literally and figuratively) constructive approach, whereby Washington, in tandem with key allies, is seeking to provide alternative platforms for global infrastructure development.
There has been a seismic shift in terms of economic policy in Washington and other major Western capitals. In the past year, the new American leadership has picked up where Trump left by negotiating a bilateral high-tech initiative with Japan, activating the Blue Dot Network (BDN) initiative with Australia and Japan, and launching, with fellow Group of 7 (G7) countries, the Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative, which aims to “help narrow the US$40-plus trillion infrastructure need in the developing world, which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic”. Unlike the Trump administration, Biden is more committed to an integrated, alliance-based response to China’s growing influence.[19] The global scramble for infrastructure development is now in full force.
The Biden administration and its allies are gradually and steadily mobilizing a counter-BRI coalition. Their overall goal is not to match China on a dollar-by-dollar basis er se — given the discrepancies in fiscal flexibility and capital mobilization structures between Communist China and Western nations — but instead preserve global standards of good governance and environmental sustainability. And in contrast to China, where the ruling party exercises significant discretion on overall capital mobilization as well as strategic decisions of major companies, the Biden administration and its allies are instead focused on multistakeholder, multilateral initiatives, which draw on the resources and expertise of Big Tech, Wall Street, sovereign wealth funds, civil society groups, and relevant inter-governmental organizations such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
It remains to be seen whether more ‘non-aligned’ countries such as India and Singapore, not to mention Beijing-friendly treaty allies such as South Korea, will be eventually integrated into the Biden administration’s multilateral efforts. So far, however, China’s BRI has faced (real and potential) competition on four fronts. First of all, there is Japan, which, despite the “Lost Decades”, is still the world’s third largest economy and a global manufacturing powerhouse. Under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the country’s longest-serving post-war head of government, Japan proactively doubled down on its strategic investment footprint in key regions such as Southeast Asia.
Eager to keep China’s influence in check, the Abe administration launched a $110 billion infrastructure investment program for Asia, pledging to provide high-quality infrastructure investments that are consistent with good governance standards and, crucially, generate jobs for locals. In particular, Abe targeted fellow US treat allies such as the Philippines, which has been tilting into Beijing’s orbit in recent years. In fact, Japan has remained as the leading export destination, a top long-term investor, and the number one source of Overseas Development Assistance to the Southeast Asian country in recent years. Even in terms of sheer numbers, Japan has confidently gone head-to-head with China.[20]
Crucially, Japanese investments, even when smaller, tend to generate more than four times jobs than those by China. Across Southeast Asia, Japan’s new infrastructure projects (worth $367 billion) are actually larger than that of China’s ($255 billion), with strategic states of Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia absorbing the bulk of Tokyo’s infrastructure development offensive. When Chinese big-ticket projects ran into trouble, as in the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway project, the host country openly sought Japanese assistance to revamp and finish the project. If anything, Japan has consistently been voted as the most trusted external power for Southeast Asia in the annual survey of the Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS).[21]
Japan’s current prime minister Yoshihide Suga, Abe’s protégé and hand-picked successor, has similarly prioritized Japan’s economic diplomacy in Southeast Asia, his first foreign visit destination last year. Suga, the first foreign leader to visit the White House under the Biden administration, has stepped up to the plate by also launching bilateral initiatives to counter China’s BRI. During his mid-2021 visit to Washington, Suga and Biden signed a $4.5 billion joint high-tech infrastructure initiative, with the clear aim of enhancing the two allies’ ability to compete with China in high-end technologies, especially in new-generation telecommunications networks, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and electric cars.[22]
China’s Huawei Technologies Co., in particular, has been a great source of concern for the US and its allies. For a starter, the Chinese telecom giant has rapidly become a global leader and, more crucially, a pioneer in 5G network development, which represents a technological leap that may allow Beijing to exert unprecedented control over flow of data and sensitive communications. Western governments have accused the Chinese company of potentially providing “back door” access to Beijing authorities into the critical infrastructure of host nations.
Though ostensibly a privately-owned company, Western experts have raised alarm bells over new Chinese regulations and national intelligence legislations, which provide the Chinese Communist Party growing supervision over the conduct and strategic decisions of home-grown business entities. As a result, a number of countries, including Australia, Brazil, Malaysia and the United Kingdom have reconsidered their adoption of Huawei 5G network investments.[23]
The US is also actively working with allies and partners such as Sweden, host to Siemens telecom giant, and South Korea, a leading technological power, to not only reconsider collaboration with Huawei but also provide alternative options, including the potential development of 6G technology. Taiwan, the world’s leading chip producer, would also be crucial to an ongoing global high-tech race between the West and China. With the US Department of Commerce mulling a Section 232 investigation into US reliance on Chinese rare earths, counter-BRI initiatives between US and its key allies will likely expand into joint initiatives on strategic resources.[24]
Third, the Biden administration has also revived its predecessor’s ‘minilateral’ initiatives, namely the previously-dormant Blue Dot Network (BDN) in tandem with Australia and Japan. Earlier this year, the three governments, in cooperation with the OECD, hosted a major event in Paris, which brough together leading experts, civil society groups, sovereign wealth fund managers, and 150 global executives responsible for US$12 trillion in combined portfolio. The US State Department hailed the group’s inaugural meeting in Paris as a concerted effort to ensure, “The Blue Dot Network will be a globally recognized symbol of market-driven, transparent and sustainable infrastructure projects.”[25]
Finally, this year also saw the Group of Seven (G7) club of industrialized nations vowing to launch a global infrastructure initiative, namely the “Build Back Better World” (B3W), which aims to provide a “values-driven, high-standard and transparent” alternative to the BRI among developing countries. Over the long-run, an expanded G7, which is set to include Australia, South Korea, and India, is aiming to “collectively catalyze” potentially trillion of dollars, drawn from public-private-partnership schemes, to help narrow the global infrastructure spending gap.[26] Down the road, the main objective of all these interconnected initiatives is to consolidate developmental aid and investment plans of developed nations as well as draw on the expertise, influence and eventually the sizeable capital of global investors to bolster big-ticket infrastructure projects, which are in consonance with and reinforce established good governance standards.
Conclusions
For developing countries, more competition means greater room for maneuver, diversified partnerships, and a greater access to high-quality big-ticket investments. As the late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew once told his American interlocuters, “[G]ive the region options besides China.”[27] And there are signs that Beijing has also got the message. On his part, President Xi Jinping has underscored his commitment to make the BRI more fiscally and environmentally sustainable, taking note of initial criticisms that greeted massive Chinese infrastructure plans across the developing world.[28]
During the 2021 Boao Forum in Hainan, the Chinese leader has also reached out to private investors, including Big Tech companies in the West, in order explore potential public-private-partnership schemes in the future.[29] In the past, China also showed tremendous flexibility when under criticism, most notably when it decided to forego full veto powers within the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).[30]
Even more encouragingly, China’s tech champions such as Huawei’s CEO Ren Zhengfei have expressed their willingness to collaborate with the West and, if necessary, even share part of their 5G technology in order to head of lose-lose-confrontation.[31] Ultimately, infrastructure development schemes shouldn’t be reduced to and defined by an ‘East vs West’ dichotomy, since any binary approach only risks creating a technological iron curtain, which, in turn, could precipitate decoupling within the broader global economy.
Global entrepôts and financial hubs such as Singapore and Switzerland could serve as crucial ‘neutral’ platforms for raising large-scale infrastructure-related capital in ways that transcend any putative “Ne Cold War” between rival superpowers. Given the scale of the global infrastructure challenge, flexible and cross-cutting partnerships schemes, if not tech alliances of convenience, are indispensable to aiding post-pandemic recovery as well as long-term economic dynamism in an increasingly crowded, digitalized world.
References:
For biography of Napoleon III and his legacy, see Strauss-Schom, Alan. 2018. “The Shadow Emperor: A Biography of Napoleon III”, St. Martin’s Press: New York.
Heydarian, Richard Javad. 2019. “The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China and the New Struggle for Indo-Pacific”, Palgrave Macmillan: Singapore, pp. 93-148.
Shambaugh, David. “China’s Soft Power Push.” Foreign Affairs. June 16, 2015. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2015-06-16/china-s-soft- power-push.
Cai, Peter. “Understanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative.” Lowly Institute. March 22, 2017. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/ understanding-belt-and-road-initiative.
Heydarian, Richard Javad. 2019. “The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China and the New Struggle for Indo-Pacific”, Palgrave Macmillan: Singapore, pp. 93-118.
Moriyasu, Ken. “China Needs to ‘Purchase’ Friendships, Scholar Says.” Nikkei Asian Review. March 2, 2015. https://asia.nikkei.com/NAR/Articles/ China-needs-to-purchase-friendships-scholar-says.
Appelbaum, Binyamin. “A Little-Noticed Fact About Trade: It’s No Longer Rising.” The New York Times. October 30, 2016. https://www.nytimes. com/2016/10/31/upshot/a-little-noticed-fact-about-trade-its-no-longer- rising.html.
Hurley, John, Scott Morris, and Gailyn Portelance. “Examining the Debt Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative from a Policy Perspective.” Center for Global Development. March 2018. https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/ files/examining-debt-implications-belt-and-road-initiative-policy-perspective.pdf.; Cai, Peter. “Understanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative.” Lowly Institute. March 22, 2017. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/ understanding-belt-and-road-initiative.
Kaplan, Robert. The Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Random House, 2018.
Reuters Staff, 2016. “China’s President Xi pledges more support for technology firms”, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tech/chinas-president-xi-pledges-more-support-for-technology-firms-idUSKCN0YM089
Reuters Staff, 2020. “China says one-fifth of Belt and Road projects ‘seriously affected’ by pandemic”, Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-silkroad-idUSKBN23Q0I1
Heydarian, Richard Javad 2021. “At a strategic crossroads: ASEAN centrality amid Sino-American rivalry in the Indo-Pacific”, in Rivalry and Response: Assessing Great Power Dynamics in Southeast Asia, ed, Jonathan Stromseth. Brookings Institution Press: Washington DC.
Heydarian, Richard Javad. 2019. “The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China and the New Struggle for Indo-Pacific”, Palgrave Macmillan: Singapore
Klein, Betsy & Maegan Vazquez. 2021. “Biden aims to counter China’s global infrastructure project with new G7 initiative”, CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/12/politics/joe-biden-china-infrastructure/index.html
Ibid.
Sanger, David & Katie Rogers, 2021. “Biden and Suga Agree U.S. and Japan Will Work Together on 5G” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/us/politics/biden-5g-japan.html
Ibid.
See the US State Department official statement https://www.state.gov/welcoming-the-inaugural-meeting-of-the-blue-dot-network-executive-consultation-group/
Wall Street Journal, 2010 “WikiLeaks: Singapore’s Lee Rates China’s Leaders”, https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-CJB-11993
The Economist, 2019. “Ren Zhengfei may sell Huawei’s 5G technology to a Western buyer” https://www.economist.com/business/2019/09/12/ren-zhengfei-may-sell-huaweis-5g-technology-to-a-western-buyer
|
14. Taiwan Warns China Can ‘Paralyze’ Island’s Defenses in Conflict
Excerpts:
Taiwan’s defense ministry reaffirmed a list of seven events that might prompt a Chinese invasion, some of which Beijing has already accused Taiwan of doing:
- Taiwan declares independence.
- Taiwan clearly heads toward independence.
- Taiwan suffers internal turmoil.
- Taiwan obtains nuclear weapons.
- Dialogue on peaceful unification has been delayed.
- Foreign forces intervene in Taiwan’s internal affairs.
- Foreign troops are stationed in Taiwan.
China’s incursions across the median last year appeared to be an attempt to gauge its response, the report said. The PLA’s deployment of mid- and long-range missiles and drills involving aircraft carriers were intended to demonstrate its ability to delay any foreign military intervention, the report said.
Potential Chinese action toward Taiwan include cognitive warfare, gray-area threats, joint military deterrence, seizing outer islands and a decapitation strike, the report said.
Taiwan Warns China Can ‘Paralyze’ Island’s Defenses in Conflict
September 1, 2021, 5:52 AM EDT Updated on September 1, 2021, 7:41 PM EDT
- More alarming tone in annual assessment of Chinese military
- Warning will likely fuel calls in Washington for more support
Taiwan warned that China could “paralyze” its defenses in a conflict, a stark new assessment expected to fuel calls in Washington for more support for the democratically ruled island.
China is able to neutralize Taiwan’s air-and-sea defenses and counter-attack systems with “soft and hard electronic attacks,” Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said in an annual report to lawmakers seen by Bloomberg News. The document offered a more alarming assessment than last year’s report, which had said China still lacked the capability to launch an assault.
While Beijing isn’t believed to possess the transport and logistical capacity necessary for an invasion of Taiwan’s large and mountainous main island, the ministry recommended monitoring Chinese efforts to expand training and preparations for complex landing operations. China already has the ability to seize Taiwan’s surrounding islands, it said.
The ministry said the report speaks for itself and declined further comment.
Policy makers in the U.S. and Japan have expressed growing concern about Taiwan’s vulnerability to attack after decades of Chinese military investment and President Xi Jinping’s efforts to ramp up pressure on the island’s government. The Communist Party views Taiwan as part of its territory, even though it has never controlled it, and has threatened military force to prevent the leadership in Taipei from moving toward formal independence.
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In recent years, the People’s Liberation Army has stepped up incursions into Taiwan’s air-defense-identification zone in what security analysts view as an effort to show its ability to deny any allied effort to defend the island. The U.S. has continued to supply arms to support the government in Taipei, despite breaking ties in favor of Beijing more than four decades ago, and American lawmakers have urged greater efforts to shore up its defenses.
Taiwan’s defense ministry reaffirmed a list of seven events that might prompt a Chinese invasion, some of which Beijing has already accused Taiwan of doing:
- Taiwan declares independence.
- Taiwan clearly heads toward independence.
- Taiwan suffers internal turmoil.
- Taiwan obtains nuclear weapons.
- Dialogue on peaceful unification has been delayed.
- Foreign forces intervene in Taiwan’s internal affairs.
- Foreign troops are stationed in Taiwan.
China’s incursions across the median last year appeared to be an attempt to gauge its response, the report said. The PLA’s deployment of mid- and long-range missiles and drills involving aircraft carriers were intended to demonstrate its ability to delay any foreign military intervention, the report said.
Potential Chinese action toward Taiwan include cognitive warfare, gray-area threats, joint military deterrence, seizing outer islands and a decapitation strike, the report said.
15. 'Everybody screwed up': Blame game begins over turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan
As I noted (HERE) there is a circular firing squad.
'Everybody screwed up': Blame game begins over turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan
WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - A week into the evacuation from Kabul, the U.S. military was forced to take a drastic step: stop all flights from Hamid Karzai International Airport for seven hours because there was nowhere for the evacuees to go.
For months, military officials had urged the U.S. State Department to convince other countries to take Afghans at risk from Taliban retaliation. They had largely failed to secure agreements with other countries, prompting officials across the U.S. government to rush to try to find space for the evacuees.
The Biden administration's scramble was emblematic of failures over the past month, which culminated with a hastily organized airlift that left thousands of U.S.-allied Afghans behind and was punctuated by a suicide bombing outside Kabul's airport that killed 13 U.S. troops and scores of Afghans.
The chaotic end to America's longest war has sparked the biggest crisis of President Joe Biden's seven months in the White House, finger-pointing within the administration and questions about who, if anyone, would be held responsible.
Despite the missteps, the administration carried out one of the largest airlifts in history, evacuating more than 120,000 Americans, Afghans and people of other nationalities amidthe threat of attacks by Islamic State militants.
The last U.S. troops left Afghanistan on Monday. read more
Current and former officials and lawmakers said there is little appetite for Biden to fire or demote top advisers over the handling of the U.S. withdrawal. The Democratic president, meanwhile, has strongly defended his administration's actions.
Frustrated and angry, officials at the Pentagon have privately blamed the lack of urgency leading up to the airlift on the State and Homeland Security departments, who in turn have blamed the White House for slow decision-making.
"Finger-pointing is an ugly Washington sport ... in this case, fingers could be pointed in all directions and probably be right in each case," said Dan Fried, a former senior U.S. diplomat now at the Atlantic Council think tank.
"A failure like this is collective. Everybody screwed up," Fried added.
A source familiar with the matter defended the evacuation planning and said the State Department was unaware of any concerns at the Department of Defense about a lack of urgency in the effort.
White House officials told Reuters that firings have not been discussed, but the administration expects Congress to aggressively investigate the turbulent exit from Afghanistan in hearings.
One Biden administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said any dismissal would be seen as a tacit admission that the president had erred in removing troops unconditionally from the South Asian nation.
Biden, in a defiant speech on Tuesday, defended his decision to withdraw the troops and stood by the evacuation plan.
"Some say we should have started mass evacuations sooner and 'Couldn’t this have be done - have been done in a more orderly manner?' I respectfully disagree," said Biden, who noted that he was ultimately responsible for the withdrawal.
POLITICAL DECISION
Biden's partynarrowly controls the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and aides in both chambers said that, while Democrats would investigate and expect to hold hearings, they are wary of giving Republicans a platform to attack the president.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security advisor Jake Sullivan listen as President Joe Biden delivers remarks on evacuation efforts and the ongoing situation in Afghanistan during a speech in the East Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 20, 2021. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
Democratic congressional committee leaders have pledged thorough reviews of the events in Afghanistan, but they made clear they intend to look into the entire 20-year conflict, which unfolded under the watch of four presidents, starting with Republican President George W. Bush.
On Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the administration has provided many classified and unclassified briefings to lawmakers.
"Now, it's a 20-year war, so there's obviously a lot to dig into," she said.
Democrats want to pursue Biden's domestic agenda - expanding social programs, funding infrastructure and protecting voting rights. On the national security front, they want to highlight their investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
How Congress eventually proceeds will depend on the level of interest from voters.
Less than 40% of Americans approve of Biden's handling of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month that the Biden administration would conduct a "hotwash" - an after-action review - to discover what went wrong in Afghanistan, and that he expected results of that review to be made public.
White House officials said on Tuesday the review had not begun.
WHO IS TO BLAME?
The last month in Afghanistan was a series of failures, from the intelligence and military to diplomatic and immigration fronts, with one core error the failure to anticipate the speed of the Taliban's advance and collapse of the Afghan military.
"In some way, everyone is to blame," a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
Some Republicans have pointed fingers at Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken as the ones most responsible for setting the conditions for a chaotic evacuation, and have demanded their departure.
Republicans also have called for Biden to fire the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who negotiated the Trump administration's 2020 deal with the Taliban that set the stage for the withdrawal.
But when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked whether he thought Biden or Blinken should be impeached, the California Republican did not answer, saying instead his focus was on getting the Americans out of Afghanistan.
Defense officials told Reuters the State Department appeared out of touch with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan and had too much confidence in the Afghan government.
During a congressional hearing in June, Blinken was asked if the administration was considering getting at-risk Afghans out of the country while their cases were being reviewed.
"If there is a significant deterioration in security, that could well happen, we discussed this before, I don't think it's going to be something that happens from a Friday to a Monday," Blinken said.
The Taliban seized two of Afghanistan's three largest cities - Kandahar and Herat - on Friday, Aug. 13 and took Kabul, the capital, two days later.
Reporting by Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle, Arshad Mohammed, Humeyra Pamuk, Jarrett Renshaw. Editing by Mary Milliken, Phil Stewart and Paul Simao
16. Majority of Interpreters, Other U.S. Visa Applicants Were Left Behind in Afghanistan
This is tragic. Imagine this. The people who tried to follow our bureaucratic processes are the ones who did not make it out. They will certainly suffer and some may die due to our inept bureaucracy. And of course this goes back long before the NEO was conducted and even goes back to the last administration and those who do ont want to accept refugees and immigrants into our great country which is a nation of immigrants.
Excerpt:
On Tuesday, the interpreter, identified only as Mohammed to protect his identity, made an appeal for help to Mr. Biden in The Wall Street Journal.
“Don’t forget me,” he said.
In response to the story, Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, said the U.S. wouldn’t forget him.
“We’re going to cut through the red tape,” he told MSNBC. “We’re going to get him and other SIVs out.”
Majority of Interpreters, Other U.S. Visa Applicants Were Left Behind in Afghanistan
U.S. still doesn’t have reliable data on who was evacuated from Afghanistan, a senior State Department official says
The U.S. still doesn’t have reliable data on who was evacuated, nor for what type of visas they may qualify, the official said, but initial assessments suggested most visa applicants didn’t make it through the crush at the airport.
“I would say it’s the majority of them,” the official estimated. “Just based on anecdotal information about the populations we were able to support.”
The Biden administration has been under intense pressure by lawmakers, veterans and other advocates to do more to help the more than 20,000 Afghans who had already applied for visas when the U.S. decided to withdraw. Including their family members, as many as 100,000 Afghans may be eligible for relocation.
The U.S. had only just begun airlifting those in the final stages of the process when Kabul fell.
The U.S. and its allies evacuated more than 123,000 people out of Afghanistan on a combination of military, commercial and charter flights in the final weeks of the mission.
The State Department says it doesn’t have reliable data on the composition, but it says about 6,000 were U.S. citizens. It says fewer than 200 Americans that wanted to leave have been left behind.
Some of the Americans remaining in Afghanistan belong to families comprised of a mix of U.S. citizens, green-card holders, and kin with neither U.S. citizenship nor permanent residency.
“The reluctance of mixed-status families seems to register with [the U.S. government] as not wanting to leave,” said Morwari Zafar, an Afghan-American anthropologist who founded The Sentient Group, a development consulting firm. “The access afforded to them by their status competes with their social and personal obligation to stay with loved ones.”
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The majority of those evacuated were Afghans, including those that worked for foreign embassies, aid programs, media and some that had simply made it through the crowd but had no paperwork.
“Everybody who lived it is haunted by the choices we had to make and by the people we were not able to help,” the State Department official said.
On Friday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the U.S. had evacuated 7,000 Special Immigrant Visa applicants to the U.S. It wasn’t clear whether the figure included family members.
The State Department has repeatedly said it lacks complete data on the composition of the evacuation population.
“Much of that information is going to be forthcoming once these individuals have cycled through transit points in the Middle East, in Europe, and for those who are being relocated to the United States, relocated here,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the State Department’s Special Immigrant Visa program was ill-suited for the circumstances the U.S. faced in Afghanistan.
“The SIV program is obviously not designed to accommodate what we just did, in evacuating over 100,000 people,” he told reporters Wednesday. Mr. Austin, briefing reporters for the first time since all American forces withdrew from Afghanistan on Monday, said the program is “designed to be a slow process.”
“For the type of operation we just conducted, I think we need a different kind of capability,” he said.
Among the visa applicants left behind was an Afghan interpreter who was part of a 2008 mission to rescue then- Sen. Joe Biden and two other senators when their helicopter made an emergency landing in blinding snow in a valley 20 miles southeast of Bagram Air Field.
His application had been snagged in the bureaucracy when the Taliban took over, and now he is in hiding.
On Tuesday, the interpreter, identified only as Mohammed to protect his identity, made an appeal for help to Mr. Biden in The Wall Street Journal.
“Don’t forget me,” he said.
In response to the story, Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, said the U.S. wouldn’t forget him.
“We’re going to cut through the red tape,” he told MSNBC. “We’re going to get him and other SIVs out.”
The State Department senior official said that efforts to help get the most vulnerable Afghans through the crowds and into the airport were hindered by the threat of an attack by Islamic State, limited access points to the airport, and Taliban checkpoints in the approaches to the airport.
In addition, “every credential we tried to provide electronically was immediately disseminated to the widest possible pool,” the State Department official told reporters.
—Michelle Hackman, Courtney McBride and Gordon Lubold contributed to this article.
Corrections & Amplifications
A senior State Department official said Wednesday that the U.S. left behind the majority of visa applicants in Afghanistan. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said he spoke on Tuesday. (Corrected on Sept. 1)
17. U.S. consular officials at Kabul airport struggled with surging crowds and painful choices
Painful and heartbreaking. I have great sympathy for the servicemembers and consular officials who had to deal with what can only be described politely as a soup sandwich. And I have greater sympathy for those we have left behind.
U.S. consular officials at Kabul airport struggled with surging crowds and painful choices
U.S. consular officials waded into massive and increasingly desperate and belligerent crowds of Afghans outside the Kabul airport, searching for familiar faces or valid documents. They sent private instructions and authorization to American and allied citizens and to eligible Afghans, only to see those messages become useless as they suddenly appeared on the phones of thousands pushing toward the gates.
Afghan “entrepreneurs” sold bogus access to other Afghans and then tried to lie or bully their way inside. Taliban fighters manning perimeter checkpoints got conflicting orders from their chains of command or made up their own rules for who got through.
“Everybody who lived it was haunted by the choices we had to make and the people we were not able to help,” a senior State Department official said Wednesday, describing the perspective of consular officials on the ground during the two-week military evacuation effort that ended this week.
Since the last evacuation flight, attention has focused not on the nearly 125,000 who got out but on those who were left behind — 100 to 200 Americans, along with what the State Department official said was “the majority” of tens of thousands of Afghans eligible for special U.S. visas. In response to the chaotic exit, some Republicans have called for President Biden to resign or face impeachment, and many Democrats have voiced criticism.
Veterans and other groups seeking to extract particular Afghans have called Biden feckless, a liar or far worse. Parents of some of the 13 U.S. service members killed Thursday by an Islamic State suicide bomb at an airport gate have cursed him.
But some senior officials have acknowledged that it should have started earlier and could have been better — even as they placed whatever blame the current administration may shoulder on the backs of two decades of unsuccessful U.S. policy.
For both the military and diplomats, there will be congressional inquiries and internal “lessons learned” accountings.
Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland on Wednesday repeated administration assurances that “there is no deadline” for what she said was an ongoing mission. “These efforts did not end on August 31st, and they will not end until we have secured the evacuation of any American citizens and [permanent residents] and Afghans” at risk who want to leave.
Telephone trees are in near-constant contact with Americans inside Afghanistan, Nuland said, as the State Department tries “to ascertain precisely who still wants to leave, their family members, and what routes may or not feel comfortable” for them.
“Messages are being tailored depending upon who they are or where they are,” she said. “The first thing we have to do is ensure that we can get air routes and land routes secure,” while continuing “to evaluate who is where, who they have with them, case by case.”
Marking off a series of figures, Nuland said that since the evacuation began on Aug. 14, a department task force has made 55,000 phone calls and sent more than 33,000 emails to those inside Afghanistan, and that “hundreds and hundreds of U.S. diplomats” have been coordinating with third countries to discuss safe passage.
Afghanistan has land borders with Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Iran and a 50-mile-long border with China that has no road access. Some of those countries have said they will not admit Afghan refugees, and all lie far from Kabul through often-treacherous terrain.
The Kabul airport has been closed since the last U.S. military flight departed just before midnight Monday, Afghanistan time. Nuland said that Turkey and Qatar — both of which have diplomatic missions remaining in Kabul — are “trying to get the airport open [and] we’re relatively optimistic.”
A plane carrying technicians from Qatar arrived there Wednesday, Agence France-Presse and Qatari media reported. Airports in other Afghan cities are reportedly operating, although it as unclear whether the Taliban was allowing charter flights to land and load evacuees.
Taliban officials have said that anyone is free to leave provided they have proper documentation. In the case of Afghans, they have said, that requires not only a visa for another country but also an Afghan passport that the Taliban themselves will have to issue for those who do not have them. Many Afghans in hiding have reported that they have destroyed their documentation, out of fear of the Taliban discovering that they worked for foreign militaries or organizations.
The U.S. Embassy has moved to a new office in Doha, the Qatari capital, where Nuland said that it will handle consular, humanitarian aid and security activities. Asked whether the United States will establish diplomatic relations with a still-to-be-formed Taliban government, she said that “we have made no decisions . . . and we certainly won’t unless and until we see” whether the Taliban fulfills its commitments for inclusive governing and human rights.
Even as Nuland discussed the road ahead, the senior State Department official sought to explain on a more granular level what the past two weeks were like for the hundreds of U.S. officials working on the airport evacuation effort. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the State Department.
“It wasn’t pretty,” the official said. “It involved some really painful trade-offs and choices for everyone involved.”
The official identified five impediments to a “steady throughput” of evacuees, which he listed in descending priority — from U.S. citizens and permanent residents, to citizens of foreign allies, to Afghans holding or eligible for Special Immigrant Visas because they worked in some capacity as part of the 20-year U.S. effort, to other vulnerable Afghans including activists, women and journalists.
Second was that “access to the airport was designed to be difficult,” to prevent attacks by vehicles carrying explosives, suicide bombings or other attacks. The officials were “trying to essentially retrofit a facility designed to restrict access [in order to] provide access,” something that would be “difficult to do . . . even without additional crowds.”
Third, “one of the major misconceptions” during the operation was “this notion that if they got close to the airport it was simply a matter of the United States and allies opening a gate. In fact, all of those people had to first go through Taliban checkpoints.”
“The criteria that the Taliban used to allow [entry] were variable and changed in some cases hourly and at times inconsistent with the indications the Talibs had given to us that they would allow certain people to pass,” the official said.
“It was quite clear that the Talibs on the checkpoints faced some of the same challenges in terms of overwhelming demand for access that we saw at entry points,” the official said, adding that “at various times when there was a surge in a particular place,” their response was not to assign more people to process them but to “simply close it down.” Sometimes only foreigners were allowed through some checkpoints.
The official denied that the Taliban were given lists of eligible evacuees, which some have charged enabled them to find Afghans that may have been in hiding.
“We did not do that,” the official said. “What we did do on a couple of occasions was to ensure that vehicles — buses that were allotted specific times to try to facilitate access . . . had manifests. This was to provide a degree of confidence that Afghans that were on those buses were in fact” those who had U.S. priority.
The fourth constraint was “viral communications among Afghans” about access to the airport. “When I arrived, I attempted to use electronic communication with local staff” to facilitate entry, the official said. “Within an hour, everyone on the crowd had that new ‘pass’ on their phones.”
Finally, there were the communications from those who claimed to be at the gate escorting American citizens or “prominent” Afghans. “In some cases, there were no Americans,” the officials said. “In some cases, there were five Americans with hundreds of Afghans they refused to be separated from.”
Some of those efforts, the official said, were “of an entrepreneurial nature” by Afghans “looking to facilitate access for financial reasons.”
As systems were put in place and broke down, however, “we simply did not have the people or the time to be able to try to sift through that crowd of people demanding access,” which the official said often seemed on the verge of turning into a “mob.”
“That’s not a criticism of people desperate to leave,” the official said. “It’s just that characteristic of human behavior in those kinds of positions.”
18. General acknowledges 'others' killed in drone strike targeting ISIS car bomb
Based on some of the reporting it seems like we struck the right target. The reports of secondary explosions would seem to indicate that the vehicle was a car bomb. Unfortunately it had to be struck in a populated area and it could be that the secondary explosions were responsible for the civilian casualties.
General acknowledges 'others' killed in drone strike targeting ISIS car bomb
The Hill · by Rebecca Kheel · September 1, 2021
At least one person killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul on Sunday was an ISIS facilitator, though there were unidentified “others” slain as well, the U.S. military’s top general said Wednesday amid reports of up to 10 civilians killed in the strike.
In a news conference marking this week’s end to 20 years of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley reiterated that an investigation into Sunday's strike is ongoing, but defended the strike as “still valid” and “righteous.”
“We had very good intelligence that ISIS-K was preparing a specific-type vehicle at a specific-type location,” Milley said, referring to the Afghan branch of ISIS. "We monitored that through various means, and all of the engagement criteria were being met. We went through the same level of rigor that we've done for years.”
“We know from the variety of other means that at least one of those people that were killed was a ISIS facilitator,” added Milley, standing alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “Were there others killed? Yes, there are others killed. Who they are, we don't know. We'll try to sort through all that. But we believe that the procedures at this point — I don't want to influence the outcome of an investigation — but at this point we think that the procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike.”
At issue is a drone strike against a vehicle conducted by the U.S. military Sunday that officials said “disrupted an imminent ISIS-K threat” to the Kabul airport.
Officials have pointed to “secondary explosions” as evidence the vehicle was carrying explosives.
Milley reiterated Wednesday that “because there were secondary explosions, there's a reasonable conclusion to be made that there was explosives in that vehicle.”
But shortly after the strike, reports started emerging that at least 10 civilians from a single extended family who had been nearby were killed, including seven children.
U.S. Central Command acknowledged reports of the deaths, saying that a “large amount of explosive material inside may have caused additional casualties.”
The strike came amid warnings of additional threats from ISIS after the terrorist group conducted a suicide bombing last week outside the Kabul airport during the U.S. evacuation operation, killing scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. troops.
In addition to Sunday’s strike, the U.S. military conducted a drone strike in eastern Afghanistan on Friday that officials said killed two “high profile” ISIS targets and injured a third, though officials have not identified the targets.
U.S. officials have pointed to the two strikes as evidence they will be able to keep terrorist threats in check in Afghanistan even without a U.S. military footprint on the ground.
But critics have argued the reports of civilian casualties highlight the limitations and risks of a drone war.
The Hill · by Rebecca Kheel · September 1, 2021
19. How the Taliban Exploited Afghanistan’s Human Geography
Seems like a very accurate assessment here. Maybe we need to do better assessing non-state fighters.
Excerpts:
Leaving a limited outside force in place, without significant reinforcement, could not have prevented an inevitable Taliban takeover within a matter of months. The Taliban would still have continued their creep into much of Afghanistan’s territory, positioning them to mass forces across many fronts in order to launch a large-scale violent campaign. The combination of the Afghan state’s feebleness and the low force-to-space ratios seen in Afghanistan meant that there were few prospects for long-term stability without a notably larger foreign troop presence that could continue to pressure the Taliban throughout the country’s vast territory.
The Taliban had carefully prepared their strategy and understood the physical and human terrain of Afghanistan. The Taliban were not the first non-state fighters to take the United States by surprise — prior to summer 2014, American officials similarly misinterpreted the strategic capacity of ISIL — and they won’t be the last. The U.S. government’s analysis of non-state armed actors’ capabilities should become more holistic: Policymakers and officials should recognize that such actors often develop military and political institutions that leverage the physical and human terrain in countries where complicated civil wars are being fought.
How the Taliban Exploited Afghanistan’s Human Geography - War on the Rocks
How did the Taliban seize power so quickly? While the weakness of the Afghan state was no secret, the speed of the Taliban’s victory stemmed from a little-appreciated factor: their ability to use Afghanistan’s human geography to exploit that state fragility. In particular, the country’s low population density empowers fast-moving and cohesive attackers.
The country’s overall population density is low — only about 148 people per square mile (57 people per square kilometer). By comparison, Iraq’s population density is 231 people per square mile (89 people per square kilometer). Even in the populated areas of Afghanistan, people are quite spread out, with 26 percent of the population living in urban centers compared to 71 percent in Iraq. Given Afghanistan’s dispersed population, it would have been challenging for a strong state with a cohesive, mobile, and well-trained army to stand firm and counteract the Taliban’s quick-moving offensives. The Taliban did not confront that sort of opponent, of course, and they were able to conduct lightning offensives across many fronts, which fatally stressed the limited cohesion of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.
That scenario was foreseeable: I produced an analysis in 2012 — as the United States began troop reductions — that considered potential outcomes if the International Security Assistance Force fully withdrew from the country. Drawing on lessons from the Taliban’s ascendance in the mid-1990s, that analysis found that the weaknesses of the Afghan security forces and the state’s illegitimacy, combined with the low force-to-space ratios generated by Afghanistan’s terrain and its population distribution, made a quick Taliban victory a reasonably likely outcome.
Following the withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force during summer 2021, the Taliban swiftly and easily occupied vast swaths of sparsely populated territory. They then used that territory to demonstrate their relative strength by launching a set of coordinated, fast-moving offensives. After establishing their military superiority, the Taliban rarely had to use force because they could leverage their geographic reach to intimidate local leaders and convince defenders to flee or surrender peacefully. If the U.S. government had prepared for the intense pressure that a rapid and far-reaching Taliban offensive would put on the Afghan army and local leaders, it could have slowed the Taliban takeover long enough to allow for the orderly evacuation of civilians and at-risk communities.
The Taliban Did This Before
During their initial rise in the 1990s, the Taliban took advantage of Afghanistan’s low population density to conquer large swaths of territory by making deals with local leaders. They then used those areas to launch blitzkrieg-like attacks that overwhelmed the forces of the Northern Alliance, an amalgam of fighters that included units from the (fleeing) central government and Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, and Pashtun militias. Rather than rely on traditional tools such as artillery and armor, the Taliban moved quickly in weaponized pickup trucks (“technicals”) to defeat dug-in defensive positions. Low force-to-space ratios meant that defenders — particularly those without close air support — had significant ground to cover and had to move swiftly and in a coordinated fashion to stand any chance of successfully countering Taliban threats from many directions.
Not only were many of the Taliban’s foes in the 1990s hampered by limited training and mobility. They were often less cohesive than the Taliban due to the fragmented coalition of actors composing the Northern Alliance. As I observed in the 2012 analysis, in conflicts with low force-to-space ratios and limited military capabilities, cohesion is fundamental: In such scenarios, “when forces are not cohesive, they will not move in a coordinated manner to push back breakthroughs and often will be less willing to fight in numerically challenging situations, let alone counterattack under fire.”
When the Taliban faced better-trained and cohesive groups, their progress was often slowed. For example, in March 1995, organized government forces from the Central Corps, reinforced by airlifted troops from Kabul and close air support, turned back the Taliban’s first attempt to surround and seize Herat. Similarly, organized and cohesive government forces decisively withstood assaults on Kabul in 1995. Such instances emphasized the capacity of reasonably prepared troops — especially ones who had air support — to push back the type of mobile warfare used by the Taliban. Even so, in the 1990s, the Taliban’s cohesion and the sheer scale of their offensives overwhelmed the relatively limited groups of well-prepared defenders in the Northern Alliance.
How Things Went From Bad to Worse
The events of the past weeks share many similarities with the Taliban’s initial rise to power over two decades ago and bore out key aspects of what my 2012 analysis suggested might happen. In fact, the Afghan security forces of 2021 were generally worse off than anti-Taliban forces were in the 1990s. While the density and distribution of Afghanistan’s population have not changed significantly since then, in 2021 — unlike in the 1990s — the Taliban enjoyed a presence throughout the country. That allowed them to pressure the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces in multiple locations simultaneously. As a result, the Afghan military had to try to cover large swaths of territory, move quickly to respond to the Taliban’s political and military threats, and attempt to hold its own in pitched battles and counterattacks.
The Afghan security forces were not up to these tasks. The Taliban took a host of provincial capitals and Kabul itself in a matter of days, more quickly than even the most pessimistic, publicly available estimates predicted. The Afghan military lacked the capacity and cohesion required to stand firm and defend against fast-moving offensives across many fronts simultaneously. It had long been clear that it was an anemic force which was ill-prepared to take on a major challenge in a coherent and steadfast fashion. As many have noted, since summer 2013, when Afghan forces assumed the lead responsibility for security in the country, things got worse and worse. By 2021, the Afghan military was poorly organized, lacked the ability to provision and pay its soldiers consistently, and was inadequately trained.
Afghan forces had always been heavily dependent on U.S. air support for troop movement, re-supply, and combat operations. Consequently, when American air support was curtailed sharply in the spring and early summer, the Afghan military was unable to regroup or move units around quickly. That created a major strategic challenge for Afghan forces, which was compounded by the Taliban’s rush toward many urban centers at once. In the few cases in which the Afghan security forces did successfully slow Taliban attacks, as occurred in Lashkar Gah in May of this year, it was because they enjoyed substantial U.S. close air support.
As I predicted in my earlier analysis, after the exit of the International Security Assistance Force, Afghan forces retreated from outposts and checkpoints to urban areas when confronted by Taliban threats, thereby ceding control of supply lines and major highways. This allowed Taliban forces to capture large areas and slowly surround and isolate urban centers, enabling them to pressure officials for deals. Local officials were quick to accept Taliban proposals because they had little allegiance to the central government and knew that Afghan forces were unwilling (and unable) to defend their areas from Taliban offensives. The Afghan military’s lack of preparation, combined with its massive corruption and ethnic infighting, led to very low levels of cohesion and little commitment to the state. Indeed, in the areas where Afghan security forces tried to put up some resistance, many soldiers either fled or actively cooperated with approaching Taliban forces. As a result, after the Taliban demonstrated their superior offensive movement and cohesion during the U.S. drawdown in the spring and early summer, any effective resistance quickly collapsed.
What Could the United States Have Done Differently?
The Afghan security forces, as they were configured and trained by 2021, would never have been able to turn back the Taliban. Many have aptly observed that America’s approach to building partner forces should be dramatically overhauled, but the opportunity to rebuild and repurpose the Afghan military had passed long before President Joe Biden took office.
Notwithstanding that, the realities of the military contest in Afghanistan could have been better managed during the U.S. withdrawal. A small International Security Assistance Force contingent with air support could have held the Taliban at bay for a few more months, protecting urban centers long enough to stage an orderly evacuation. For the Biden administration, this might have had less symbolic value than ending American military involvement in Afghanistan shortly before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but it would have provided time for the Afghan state to come to terms with the withdrawal. Although Afghan government leaders would have watched the Taliban’s territorial reach expand quickly, they would have still had outside forces helping to protect key population centers. Critically, this alternative approach would have also given the United States, and other outside governments, more time to evacuate greater numbers of Afghan allies and activists to safety.
Leaving a limited outside force in place, without significant reinforcement, could not have prevented an inevitable Taliban takeover within a matter of months. The Taliban would still have continued their creep into much of Afghanistan’s territory, positioning them to mass forces across many fronts in order to launch a large-scale violent campaign. The combination of the Afghan state’s feebleness and the low force-to-space ratios seen in Afghanistan meant that there were few prospects for long-term stability without a notably larger foreign troop presence that could continue to pressure the Taliban throughout the country’s vast territory.
The Taliban had carefully prepared their strategy and understood the physical and human terrain of Afghanistan. The Taliban were not the first non-state fighters to take the United States by surprise — prior to summer 2014, American officials similarly misinterpreted the strategic capacity of ISIL — and they won’t be the last. The U.S. government’s analysis of non-state armed actors’ capabilities should become more holistic: Policymakers and officials should recognize that such actors often develop military and political institutions that leverage the physical and human terrain in countries where complicated civil wars are being fought.
20. China's Type 003 aircraft carrier to increase area-denial capabilities around Taiwan
China's Type 003 aircraft carrier to increase area-denial capabilities around Taiwan
People's Liberation Army has extended ability to carry out soft and hard electronic attacks west of Taiwan
3511
2021/09/01 14:09
Illustration of Type 003 aircraft carrier. (Weibo image)
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A report released by the Ministry of National Defense (MND) on Tuesday (Aug. 31) states that China's area-denial capabilities will increase significantly when it completes its domestically developed Type 003 aircraft carrier.
On Tuesday, the MND submitted to the Legislative Yuan its annual report on the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities in which it stated that the Chinese military is continuing to install types of naval and air assets capable of launching electronic attacks and severing communications. The ministry estimates that when the Type 003 aircraft carrier enters service in 2025, China's anti-access and area-denial capabilities will improve greatly.
According to the report, China is boosting its "soft kill" and "hard kill" capabilities to damage telecommunications. The former refers to disrupting communications, while the latter is the use of anti-radiation missiles and other weapons to attack and paralyze signal transceiver equipment.
The report estimated that China's national defense budget this year was more than 1.35 trillion Chinese yuan (US$208 billion), ranking it second only to the U.S. If funds for defense-related scientific research, profits from arms exports, and the defense industry's revenues from foreign sales are taken into account, the budget swells by an additional US$100 billion.
Starboard side and deck of Type 003 aircraft carrier. (Weibo image)
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has continued to strengthen its military readiness, with "unification with Taiwan" as a core interest. China has also increased both its political and military intimidation against Taiwan through hard-line speeches by leaders and cognitive warfare.
The assessment pointed out that Beijing's preparations to use force against Taiwan have been stepped up sharply. The PLA has now extended its ability to carry out soft kill and hard kill electronic attacks to the west of Taiwan, per the report.
The PLA is now believed to have enhanced its ability to use cyberattacks to paralyze Taiwan's anti-aircraft and anti-ship defense systems as well as stifle its ability to launch electronic countermeasures.
View of bow of Type 003 aircraft carrier. (Weibo image)
The report states that the aircraft carriers already being operated by the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), the Liaoning and the Shandong, have increased China's ability to project combat power and normalized cross-island chain sea-training missions.
According to the MND, the PLA continues to produce craft that could conduct landing operations on Taiwan, multiply China's air and naval forces, and strengthen its joint combat capabilities. However, the report determined that if the PLA launches a large-scale landing operation at this stage, it will suffer from problems such as insufficient transportation vehicles and logistical support.
The report does not rule out the possibility that the PLA could commandeer civilian ships to support a mass landing operation, however. It mentions that the PLA's use of gray-zone tactics, such as sending military aircraft to harass Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ) and People's Armed Forces Maritime Militia to conduct operations in Taiwan's territorial waters, is taxing Taiwan's combat capabilities.
21. The Lion and the Mouse: The Need for Greater U.S. Focus in The Pacific Islands
Conclusion:
The U.S. is a Pacific nation with a history of sacrifice on many Pacific islands. Over the last seventy years, the U.S. has invested heavily in the region, underwriting security and empowering citizens of the Pacific island countries to trade and travel freely. We are invested in the Pacific island countries through our shared interests, values, history, and goals and cannot let that investment and partnership atrophy. Enduring the effects of climate change and lacking few elements of power other than geography and natural resources, the region relies on international partners for monetary support and goodwill initiatives.
China is infusing support into the Pacific island countries via Belt and Road Initiatives, mainly infrastructure, revealing China's desire to influence its security posture in the South Pacific. China, like the U.S., recognizes the strategic geographic value of the region and is actively investing in the region. This is a threat to the U.S. influence and values in the region. Currently, the Pacific island countries may view China's involvement in the region via a different lens than the U.S., viewing Chinese involvement more as a short-term opportunity and less with the long-term threat from China. Nonetheless, this U.S. strategy will mitigate the long-term threat China poses in the region.
Based on the vulnerability of the Pacific island countries and their historical preference to work with the U.S., it is wise for U.S. policymakers to use diplomatic and economic instruments of power as carrots instead of sticks. Even though the U.S. might be investing differently and arguably less than the Chinese, who offer large construction projects in the region, the U.S. provides economic support while building personal relationships. In the mindset of offering economic carrots instead of sticks, there is a cultural appreciation and value associated with our support's human element that is difficult to measure. Moreover, U.S. presence and economic and diplomatic support send a crucial public message, thus wielding the informational instrument of power that the U.S. brand is collaborative and cooperative. In a proactive great power competition strategy, maintaining U.S. influence in the Pacific is an investment in the U.S. security future.
The Lion and the Mouse: The Need for Greater U.S. Focus in The Pacific Islands
Laura Keenan September 2, 2021
Earlier this year, The Strategy Bridge asked university and professional military education students to participate in our fifth annual writing contest by sending us their thoughts on strategy.
Now, we are pleased to present one of our third-place winners, from Laura Keenan, a recent graduate of the U.S. National War College in Washington, D.C.
In World War II, under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz, the United States conducted a military strategy of leapfrogging in the Pacific island countries. The leapfrogging approach allowed military forces to bypass heavily fortified islands to reach the Axis powers, preserving time, human capital, and supplies to pursue victory. Access to the geography of the Pacific island countries was necessary during World War II and now in the era of great power competition continues to be necessary for regional security.[1] As a result of the American sacrifice made during World War II, the Pacific island countries, a cluster of fourteen states and home to nine million people, share a profound legacy of appreciation, trust, and shared values with the U.S.[2] The Pacific island countries historically reflected the U.S. preference for diplomatic norms in the way of life and international organizations. Unfortunately, in recent years this congruence has become precarious. The catalyst for this shift can be tied to China actively exerting influence in Pacific island countries through development, economic aid, and security cooperation that endangers the relationship the U.S. shares with them.[3] Chinese diplomatic and economic engagement in the Pacific island countries threatens U.S. influence and values in the region and will become an existential threat to security if not addressed. The U.S. strategy can counter China's power projection in the Pacific island countries by maintaining the existing soft power presence in the region and amplifying the Biden administration's efforts to mitigate climate change. The U.S. can also capitalize on the emerging need for economic development by investing in vaccine diplomacy to fight against COVID-19 to reiterate the U.S. commitment as a partner of choice to the region.
Chinese Influence in the Pacific Island Countries
China's precedent of predatory economic statecraft, mainly seizing geographic assets when country debtors cannot pay debts, foreshadows what might result in the Pacific island countries.[4] Challenged by climate change and lacking prosperity, these island nations rely heavily on their geography and natural resources as elements of power. In the absence of other elements of power, the Chinese may influence the Pacific island countries to use their geography as collateral for financial lending in Belt and Road Initiative projects. Currently, six countries in the group are debtors to the Chinese.[5] China's ability to gain access to geographic assets such as on the island of Kiribati could shift China's sphere of influence to within mere hours from Hawaii. As the U.S. learned during the Cold War, Cuba's proximity to the U.S. during the Cuban Missile Crisis gave Russia a perilous advantage.
In addition to China shifting its borders, China can lease land in the Pacific island countries to house Chinese military bases and disrupt trade routes for others, including the U.S.[6] For example, the country of Vanuatu is suspected of engaging in talks with Chinese security officials about the possibility of a Chinese military base. The bases could offer China an advantage in refueling their ships as well as space operations.[7] Even in the absence of a formal military base, the Chinese might gain access that would allow the opportunity to engage in surveillance. The U.S. conducts ballistic missile testing and space surveillance from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in the region.[8]
Résidence Taina, the location in Tahiti the Chinese Embassy there refused to vacate (Anne-Marie Brady)
Beyond debt diplomacy, China and its citizens are engaging in economic colonization, investing heavily in the region and acquiring hotels, mines, fisheries, and even small islands.[9] Even if the Pacific island countries retain their sovereignty, their ability to withstand Chinese influence will be fraught with challenges. In an example from 2018, the Chinese government refused to vacate a private residence rented by the Chinese consulate in Tahiti. China claimed the house was the territory of the People's Republic of China and set the terms of the agreement going forward. The local government was unable to exert the necessary pressure to counter China.[10] Another example of how the Chinese can control the economies in the Pacific island countries to degrade their will and sovereignty is the weaponization of tourism. To pressure Palau to recognize Beijing instead of Taiwan, China banned travel to Palau, reducing tourists' inbound traffic by half and crippling parts of Palau’s economy.[11]
It is not apparent whether the financial connectedness creates a transactional relationship or whether, as China's economy and those of the Pacific island countries merge, the two regions are starting to share values. Concerningly, countries such as the Solomon Islands and Kiribati shifted diplomatic recognition with Taiwan to show their preference for China. The Pacific island countries are each afforded a vote in the UN despite not having a direct interest in many disputes. As Gregory Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies reflected, "With what is effectively a surplus of 'unused' votes, a market has been created where the service of voting at the UN is exchanged for monetary assistance."[12] In the interest of national security, the U.S. needs the Pacific island countries to remain free from Chinese economic colonization to prevent China from shifting its borders, building up Chinese military bases in the region, shifting its diplomatic recognition away from Taiwan, or exerting undue influence in key international bodies.
Current U.S. Influence in the Region
Since World War II, the U.S. and its allies, Australia and New Zealand, have enjoyed relative goodwill with the Pacific island countries. Many factors have contributed to this cooperative relationship (e.g., economic partnerships, military and security ties, democratic views, shared religion, and cultural and ethnic links). Moreover, the U.S. has a national interest in this region because of critical military access to ports, economic opportunity, and citizens in the Pacific island countries. Notably, the Marshall Islands hosts the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, and the region provides over one-third of the world's tuna.[13] In addition, the U.S. maintains exclusive access to the airspace and territorial waters of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Palau under the terms of the Compact of Free Association, which will expire in 2024.[14]
Despite close ties, the Pacific island countries do not have voting representation in the U.S. Congress, which poses a challenge in garnering congressional interest in the region. However, three U.S. territories—American Samoa, Guam, and Northern Mariana Island—have delegates in the House of Representatives. They represent the interests of their constituents and other member countries of the region. Key congressional allies include individual members and caucuses such as the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CPAC) and the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Task Force. In addition, key members representing districts with large Asian Pacific diaspora populations or who have industry impacted by the Pacific island countries, such as former Senator Inouye of Hawaii, are active on issues affecting the region. Correspondingly, airline, fishing, and the tourism industries lobby for economic interests in the region.
As a critical partner in the region, the U.S. invests in capital and partnerships focusing on the human dimension, distinguishing itself from the Chinese who focus more on monetary infusion and infrastructure projects. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of Interior, Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Department of Education, and Department of Labor collectively have invested over $5.21 billion in assistance to the Pacific island countries.[15] In addition, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Agency for International Development, State Department, Peace Corps, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, and religious ministries actively invest in the geography and community in the Pacific island countries.
Although most Pacific island countries do not have elected voting representation in the U.S. government, they have critical stakeholders in congress, industry, the media, faith-based organizations, and nonprofits with a vested interest in their sovereignty and well-being. As a result, the level of attention in recent decades from critical stakeholders remained relatively constant, albeit insignificant compared to the attention paid in other regions worldwide. China's recent involvement in the region is a reason for greater urgency from the U.S. to emphasize engaging with the Pacific island countries.
U.S. Strategic Approach in the Pacific Island Countries
The U.S. can further work toward supporting the Pacific island countries with two key objectives. The first is to promote economic growth, and the second is to mitigate the impact of climate change. Both improve the self-reliance of Pacific island countries and might reduce the influence of foreign intervention. Thus, as the U.S. recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Biden administration moves forward on an aggressive climate change agenda, the U.S. is in a unique and advantageous position to reinvigorate the relationship with the Pacific island countries.
Vaccine Diplomacy
There is an adage attributed to Sir Winston Churchill: "Never waste a good crisis."[16] As the U.S. is a world leader on vaccination rates and works toward reopening its economy, the U.S. can share this momentum with the Pacific island countries via vaccine diplomacy. Vaccine diplomacy would accelerate the opening of the Pacific island countries’ economies by allowing tourism to return to the region. Tourism accounts for 20-30 percent of economic activity in some parts of the region. As the Pacific island countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by closing its borders, the tourism industry lost jobs and economic security.[17] They enjoyed relatively low rates of COVID-19 because they closed their borders. However, as borders open, the Pacific island countries offer few medical facilities, cannot provide supplemental oxygen, and its population is burdened with preexisting conditions such as obesity and diabetes that make them susceptible to COVID-19. In addition, due to the warm weather in the Pacific island countries and refrigeration capacity issues, vaccination distribution poses a logistical challenge.
The U.S. can wield diplomatic and economic instruments of power to accelerate access to the vaccine for the Pacific island countries and achieve a relatively quick win in enabling them to open their borders for tourism within the following year. In addition to donating to Covax, an international effort backed by the World Health Organization to distribute the vaccine globally, the U.S. government can work with private partners such as Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson to procure and send excess U.S. vaccines to the Pacific island countries.[18] As the U.S. starts to reach saturation on distributing the vaccine in the U.S., it will benefit American pharmaceutical companies to find overseas markets to absorb excess vaccine supplies. In terms of bipartisan support, elected leaders with Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson footprints in their district should be likely champions of this initiative. Vaccine diplomacy will enable the Pacific island countries to open their borders, creating an opportunity for tourism to return safely.
The U.S. must not hesitate to engage in vaccine diplomacy. With the most effective vaccines emanating from the U.S., this is a crucial opportunity to increase confidence and prestige in American science and innovation while offering goodwill to our allies and partners. It would also help anchor the U.S. as a global health leader. COVID-19 is a collective experience for the world, and the U.S. can establish leadership in addressing the ramifications of such a pandemic.
The U.S. competitive advantage over the Chinese is our soft power in the region due to people-to-people relationships. Historically, the U.S. sends aid, but organizations such as the Peace Corps, U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Army National Guard via the State Partnership Program create long-lasting personal and professional relationships with the constituents of the Pacific island countries. These three organizations can work together for a coordinated effort to mitigate health infrastructure and logistical distribution challenges in the region. The U.S. State Department must wield the information instrument of power to convey its active participation as a solid economic, public health, and diplomatic partner.
Deputy Prime Minister Honorable Manasseh Maelanga about to receive his jab of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine as Prime Minister Honorable Sogavare and China’s Ambassador to Solomon Islands H.E. Li Ming congratulates him. (Government of the Solomon Islands)
In the absence of American vaccine diplomacy, the Pacific island countries will understandably welcome support from China. Despite not having vaccinated their entire population, China is already sharing its vaccines with the Solomon Islands as part of a "Health Silk Road" initiative.[19] In a symbolic gesture, the Deputy Prime Minister of Solomon Islands received the first vaccine from China in anticipation of 50,000 more doses arriving. Li Ming, China's ambassador to the Solomon Islands, said, "That proves China and Solomon Islands are genuine friends and trustworthy partners."[20] Although the safety and concern of the people of the Pacific island countries are the foremost concern, it is naïve to think China's intentions are purely altruistic; instead it is a strategic move to build soft power. Early reporting from South America indicates China is using the vaccine access to extort countries to switch their diplomatic allegiance away from Taiwan in exchange for vaccine access.[21] The Biden administration has a diminishing window of opportunity to get a head start or even keep pace with China on inoculating the world against COVID-19, and the Pacific island countries are an excellent part of the world to prioritize.
Climate Change Diplomacy
The Biden administration appointed John Kerry as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and rejoined the Paris Agreement within the administration's first hundred days. These two significant actions contrast with the previous administration's denial of climate change and showcase the common beliefs the U.S. shares with the Pacific island countries. As a result, the U.S. can amplify its recent diplomatic and multilateral efforts to emphasize a narrative of concern with the them.
The appointment of John Kerry as the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate is an example of how the U.S. can embody world leadership on climate action. With a climate czar, the U.S. can showcase its creative willingness to rally like-minded countries to collectively tackle climate issues, as evidenced in the April 2021 World Leaders to Leaders Summit on Climate.[22] Even in the absence of measurable progress on climate change, the willingness of the U.S. to recognize and prioritize climate change will be psychologically comforting and symbolic to the Pacific island countries. It is also essential that the U.S. restores faith in its ability to act as a stable and predictable partner. The exit of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement was a concern of the Pacific island countries, and success with respect to U.S. relations with them will be affected by whether the U.S. maintains participation and adheres to the standards prescribed.
Threats From the Strategy
During the Cold War, Russia paid little attention to the Pacific island countries, and U.S. interest in the region was unmatched. In the context of great power competition, China is eager to build up allies and partners in the region and is opportunistically keen to engage with the neglected or underserved Pacific island countries. Stable and prosperous Pacific island countries will understand more than they do today of their strategic importance to China and the U.S. They might become covetous in their financial expectations of the U.S. The more resources and wealth the Pacific island countries receive from the U.S. and China, the greater the risk that they will become more transactional in their relationships with the U.S. In the absence of economic and military power and prestige, the main strength of the Pacific island countries is their geography and the value of exclusive economic zones, military bases, and fishing.
Tommy Remengesau Jr., former President of Palau (ABC Radio)
Now that the Pacific island countries have economic attention from the U.S., its allies, and China, the Pacific island countries can leverage greater strength in their bargaining for essential agreements. For instance, the Pacific island countries can negotiate to adjust the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) that are due for renewal in 2023 and 2024. The Compacts of Free Association give exclusive rights to base troops on Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.[23] The former President of Palau, Tommy Remengesau Jr., made statements to the U.S. explaining that Palau's allegiance is documented; however, Palau lacks airports and a fully functioning maritime port. According to Remengesau, Palau's relationship with the U.S. costs them valuable tourism from China, and his remarks indicate he views the cost of the U.S.-Palau relationship as more expensive, and he would like the U.S. to provide more infrastructure contributions as compensation.[24] This explicitness foreshadows future behavior if the U.S. and China continue to invest more in the Pacific island countries.
The strategy is not significantly different from previous approaches in Pacific island countries, and this is by design. This strategy intends not to disrupt the region significantly or create rapid transformation; instead, it maintains a steady presence to enable the Pacific island countries to resist Chinese economic colonization. In the past, U.S. investment and attention there were relatively constant, albeit insignificant compared to the attention paid in other regions worldwide. This strategy capitalizes on the enthusiasm for emerging issues with the current administration and Democratic congress, such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Success will be to increase funding and resources enough to make a noticeable difference to the people and leadership of the Pacific island countries but not to shift the investment precedence in the region. Thus, the strategy might create incremental investment mitigating pushback from elected leaders who feel resources need to be conserved or invested elsewhere globally.
Alternative Perspectives
If the U.S. deprioritized its involvement or ceased its investment altogether in the Pacific island countries, this would send a message to China, the Pacific island countries, and U.S. regional allies such as Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. The burden-sharing of the economic and humanitarian support between these four allies fostered a historical legacy of partnership in the region. If the U.S. opted out of the region entirely, this could impact our relationship with other emerging partners such as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. In the absence of support, U.S. allies might find even more ways to cooperate with China in the Pacific island countries, creating more of a quagmire than the U.S. is in today.
Climate change deniers could argue that the U.S. approach to improving the islands' resilience against climate change is unnecessary and a more significant impact would be through social programs investment. Nonetheless, the people of the Pacific island countries believe climate change is real, and that perception is their reality. As a trusted partner, the U.S. is showing cultural awareness and empathy. Even if the U.S. were to provide more funding for social programs but deny climate change, it might have an even more significant adverse effect because the climate change narrative is considered personal for the constituents of the Pacific island countries.
Strategic Leadership
This strategy should not be difficult to implement. Since transition between the Trump and Biden administrations, there is clear and actionable domestic support for dealing with climate change. However, the effects of climate change will take years to assess correctly. Patience and courageous leadership will be needed to stay committed to climate change policy despite economic pressure from industry or a change in the executive branch. Consistency is essential in the region.
The strategy is multi-pronged but does allow for quick wins such as vaccine diplomacy in the region, which will attract congressional allies who have a large diaspora from the Pacific island countries or a large pharmaceutical footprint in their district. As Churchill encouraged, "Never waste a good crisis." The current COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity for bipartisan members to find common ground to work together, even if they would not be likely allies for the strategy. Although it would be ideal if the whole strategy is adopted, interest in one objective over another is an opportunity to bridge members together. Quick wins like vaccine diplomacy might be easy to persuade and spur congressional champions, other issues such as climate change might be more controversial. Fortunately for the strategy, the current Biden administration is publicly supportive of addressing climate change with the appointment of Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. With his extensive contacts in the Department of State, congress, and multilateral organizations, Kerry can amplify the urgency of addressing climate change in the Pacific island countries domestically and within multilateral organizations. Particularly on climate change, the strategy will be most successful by working with global and national leaders and government agencies committed to the issue. Due to bipartisanship polarization on the issue of climate change, it is prudent not to invest significant time or energy trying to persuade those committed to their convictions against climate change. Instead, it will be wise to focus on those leaders within congress and industry change agents to maximize the forward momentum on the issue.
With a climate czar, the U.S. can showcase its creative willingness to rally like-minded countries to collectively tackle climate issues, as evidenced in the April 2021 World Leaders to Leaders Summit on Climate.[25] Even in the absence of measurable progress on climate change, the U.S. willingness to recognize and prioritize climate change will be psychologically comforting and symbolic to the Pacific island countries.
Henry Kissinger is credited with the phrase, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests."[26] As generations age and the memories of the U.S. military's intervention against the Japanese in World War II fades, U.S. leadership must be more careful in assuming that the loyalty among Pacific island countries is unfaltering. For decades, the U.S. had the clear advantage of being one of the few regional partners, as Russia almost entirely ignored the region during the Cold War. However, with current Chinese attention, the U.S. must realize the dynamics have shifted in great power competition. The leadership of the Pacific island countries can compare between actors interested in the region. The U.S. cannot underestimate the importance of the Pacific island countries as more influential partners in the Indo-Pacific command attention. In the famous Aesop fable, "The Lion and the Mouse," the tiny mouse saves the lion, and the lesson echoes today that little friends may prove to be great friends, and it is hard to predict who might be helpful in the future.[27]
Illustration from “The Lion and the Mouse” (Milo Winter)
This administration must be realistic, and part of the strategy is deciding what not to do. Although there is a tremendous need for the Pacific island countries, leadership must pragmatically assess the region with national security globally and unforeseen domestic challenges such as COVID-19 and civil unrest. Leadership needs to invest in the region without sacrificing resources for other competing priorities and account for the capacity and capability of the Pacific island countries to absorb support. Projects must reflect what the Pacific island countries desire and what they can maintain in the future. The U.S. does not want to overwhelm our partners' capacity with our generosity.
Lastly, the strategy is not significantly different from previous approaches. The strategy is not intended to disrupt the region significantly or create rapid transformation; instead, it builds on a steady presence to enable the Pacific island countries to resist Chinese economic colonization. In the past, U.S. investment and attention in the region were relatively constant, albeit insignificant compared to the attention paid in other regions worldwide. This strategy capitalizes on the enthusiasm for emerging issues with the current administration and Democratic congress, such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Success will be to increase funding and resources enough to make a noticeable difference to the people and leadership of the Pacific island countries but not to shift the precedent in the region.
Conclusion
The U.S. is a Pacific nation with a history of sacrifice on many Pacific islands. Over the last seventy years, the U.S. has invested heavily in the region, underwriting security and empowering citizens of the Pacific island countries to trade and travel freely. We are invested in the Pacific island countries through our shared interests, values, history, and goals and cannot let that investment and partnership atrophy. Enduring the effects of climate change and lacking few elements of power other than geography and natural resources, the region relies on international partners for monetary support and goodwill initiatives.
China is infusing support into the Pacific island countries via Belt and Road Initiatives, mainly infrastructure, revealing China's desire to influence its security posture in the South Pacific. China, like the U.S., recognizes the strategic geographic value of the region and is actively investing in the region. This is a threat to the U.S. influence and values in the region. Currently, the Pacific island countries may view China's involvement in the region via a different lens than the U.S., viewing Chinese involvement more as a short-term opportunity and less with the long-term threat from China. Nonetheless, this U.S. strategy will mitigate the long-term threat China poses in the region.
Based on the vulnerability of the Pacific island countries and their historical preference to work with the U.S., it is wise for U.S. policymakers to use diplomatic and economic instruments of power as carrots instead of sticks. Even though the U.S. might be investing differently and arguably less than the Chinese, who offer large construction projects in the region, the U.S. provides economic support while building personal relationships. In the mindset of offering economic carrots instead of sticks, there is a cultural appreciation and value associated with our support's human element that is difficult to measure. Moreover, U.S. presence and economic and diplomatic support send a crucial public message, thus wielding the informational instrument of power that the U.S. brand is collaborative and cooperative. In a proactive great power competition strategy, maintaining U.S. influence in the Pacific is an investment in the U.S. security future.
Laura Keenan is a lieutenant colonel in the District of Columbia Army National Guard. She is a recent graduate of the National War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, the U.S. Government, or of any organization the author is affiliated with, including the Army National Guard, the National War College.
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Header Image: South Pacific Islands (Shutterstock)
Notes:
[2] Thomas Lum and Bruce Vaughn, “The Pacific Islands: Policy Issues,” The Congressional Research Service § (2017), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R44753.pdf.,1.
[7] “Vanuatu Denies It Will Host China Military Base,” BBC News (BBC, April 10, 2018), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-aU.S.tralia-43707975.
[15] “U.S. Government's COVID-19 Response in the Pacific Islands: Pacific Islands,” U.S. Agency for International Development, September 15, 2020, https://www.U.S.aid.gov/pacific-islands/covid-19-response.
[23] “Sunk Coast Fallacy: How Island Nations Should Approach Climate Diplomacy,” Council on Foreign Relations, AugU.S.t 7, 2021, https://www.cfr.org/blog/sunk-coast-fallacy-how-island-nations-should-approach-climate-diplomacy.
[27] “The Lion & the Mouse,” Library of Congress Aesop Fables, accessed May 24, 2021, http://read.gov/aesop/007.html.
22. Why Do We Keep Using Stupid War Slogans to Talk About War?
No should be able to argue against this concluding point:
If Americans are really serious about their own lives and livelihoods, their community, and their country, they will start taking seriously their responsibility to be informed citizens and engage other citizens in serious discussion of serious issues. If they think this is too much of a burden, they ignore one of the few slogans that do have something serious to say — freedom isn’t free.
Why Do We Keep Using Stupid War Slogans to Talk About War?
Instead of talking about the end to wars, it’s time to declare a new one — on stupid slogans about war.
Slogans like a “war to end all wars” are bumper stickers without the bumper. In contrast, statements like “defeat Germany first” and “unconditional surrender” were commitments with serious meat and sinew on America’s strategic backbone.
The problem is knowing the difference, which requires looking behind the intellectual curtain. That rarely happens in our modern discourse over war and peace, which seems confined to 60-second sound bites on Fox and MSNBC.
America was in Afghanistan for almost 20 years. For about 19 of those years, American presidents never talked much to the American people, treating an operation protecting 38 million Afghans and America’s interests like the mad wife hidden away in Jane Eyre—a responsibility best left unseen. Instead, presidents would parachute in, announce their fiats with a sprinkling of the motto of the day, and then be whisked from the podium as soon as possible.
No wonder Americans didn’t know what to think when President Biden abruptly announced “we are out of here” with little in the way of rationale or explanation. It was only after the evacuation turned into a crisis that made the 55 Days at Peking look like a picnic that Biden and his team began spinning explanations. This is akin to giving a lecture on fire safety while the building is burning.
As a result, Americans today are no better informed about wars — why we fight, how we end them, and how we try to avoid them — than they were before folks started flooding the Kabul airport, though Biden did give them an object lesson in how not oversee military operations or “end” this war.
Here is the better lesson to be gleaned from all this: the American people ought to demand better than loose rhetoric about war. In fact, they should insist on serious dialogue with and among their leaders about the decisions they are making that affect our security, freedom, and prosperity.
Forget bumper stickers. Americans ought to understand that our policies begin with defining what America’s interests are and then debating what are the most efficacious ways and means to secure them. We need to hear how force should be used with prudence and judgment. Glib sayings about war do none of that.
Today in America, the screaming elite want us to understand everything through their politics, not our interests. This is true for everything from climate change to critical race theory and the issues of war and peace. Even the tools that are supposed to help us understand what wars are all about, like military history, are overly politicized.
If Americans are really serious about their own lives and livelihoods, their community, and their country, they will start taking seriously their responsibility to be informed citizens and engage other citizens in serious discussion of serious issues. If they think this is too much of a burden, they ignore one of the few slogans that do have something serious to say — freedom isn’t free.
A Heritage Foundation vice president, James Jay Carafano directs the think tank’s research on matters of national security and foreign affairs. Carafano is also a 1945 Contributing Editor.
23. The Return of Great-Power Proxy Wars
Frank Hoffman and Andrew Orner are on a roll discussing proxy wars.
Excerpts:
While U.S. national strategic documents recognize the reemergence of great-power competition, they pay little attention to the salience of lethal proxy forces armed by a competing power. The focus in the 2018 National Defense Strategy was modernization for major contingencies, although then-Defense Secretary James Mattis emphasized that the Pentagon needed to avoid adopting a myopic focus on a narrow or “preclusive form of warfare.” The United States should rethink its force design and its ability to confront proxy forces working on behalf of major rivals. This may include providing additional increases to the special operations community, which will need to address great powers across the continuum of conflict and not just in large-scale conventional wars.
As suggested by Michael Mazarr, U.S. defense planners should expand their thinking about what constitutes appropriate defense strategy. They should incorporate proxy contingencies into U.S. planning as part of the next National Defense Strategy’s revised force-sizing construct. The contingency guidance and sizing construct could include a requirement for sustained proxy scenarios and the provision of appropriate resources for Special Operations Command and Cyber Command. These scenarios currently get little attention in the Pentagon’s analytical agenda and research program, despite ongoing campaigns of malign proxy influence. This subject warrants changes in the warfighting mission priorities in the next National Defense Strategy. Proxy scenarios are likely to occur and could have geopolitical consequences that warrant inclusion in formal Defense Department planning. Curricula in Joint Professional Military Education institutions should also incorporate some attention to proxy wars in the context of strategic rivalries. Indeed, as Aaron Stein and Ryan Fishel have argued in these pages, U.S. forces have already started to contend with a “messy, congested” battlespace in Syria that will likely characterize future proxy conflicts as well.
Just as it learned and honed its extensive experience in alliance management and building partnership capacity in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. government can also absorb lessons from recent conflicts. If history can help to illuminate a dark future, the likelihood of facing proxy forces is much greater than the Pentagon is currently planning for.
The Return of Great-Power Proxy Wars - War on the Rocks
If the United States fights with China or Russia, what type of war will it be? Will it look like the high-tech conflict envisaged in The Kill Chain or will it be closer to the plot of Ghost Fleet? Much of the U.S. strategic debate has been dominated by the perceived need to deter and prepare for large-scale, conventional conflicts — what some in these pages have called a Napoleonic conception of war. But great-power competition does not always manifest itself by direct, protracted, and high-intensity wars.
Throughout history, great powers have often competed by supporting proxy forces. The Cold War, for example, was hardly a “long peace” when one considers the numerous externally abetted, intrastate conflicts and shadow wars that took place. There is no reason to think that U.S. competition with China and Russia will be any different than earlier periods of history.
Both China and Russia have a history of adopting indirect approaches and good reason to avoid competing with the United States in overt and direct military clashes. China has a history of supporting proxies in North Korea and Vietnam, and some analysts argue that it continues to wage sophisticated influence operations and use salami-slicing activities short of direct combat, including through aggressive use of its merchant and fishing fleets as surrogate assets. Likewise, Russia has an extensive background with indirect strategies and deep operational experience with promoting separatists and mercenary forces in unconventional campaigns. One need only look at Russia’s recent and continuing conduct in Ukraine and Syria for proof of its reliance on indirect ways of war.
American policymakers and officials should recognize that proxy wars are one of the most likely ways whereby the United States will come to blows with its great-power adversaries. American strategy and doctrine should reflect that strategic reality and should prepare the United States to successfully confront proxy forces working on behalf of major rivals.
What Are Proxy Wars?
Proxy wars involve the sponsorship of actors by an external state to influence a violent conflict’s outcome for the external state’s own strategic purposes. This definition captures the desire of an external state (the “principal”) to avoid direct action while supporting clients on the ground (state governments or local militia or contractors) as well as the prospect of violence in order to obtain desired political goals. Some scholars have recently proposed definitions that stress support to non-state actors, but that approach falls short of depicting the full range of state, transnational, or commercial entities that have historically been employed by great powers in the midst of strategic rivalry. Our conception does not assume similar interests between principals and clients, but does include the use of surrogates like private military companies, armed volunteers, or computer hacking groups.
Developments That Have Major Implications for Great-Power Proxy Wars
In an extremely prescient article published nearly a decade ago, Andrew Mumford identified four trends that he believed would increase policymakers’ interest in, and the frequency of, proxy fights. While each of these trends has the potential to affect the regularity of proxy wars broadly, we focus on their potential implications for proxy wars amid strategic competition between great powers. The trends identified by Mumford were “a ‘War on Terror syndrome,’” the rise of private military companies, the impact of digital technology, and China’s rise.
International developments, including proxy wars in Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen over the past decade, revealed this to have been an insightful list. Western democracies put up with extended deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years, so the diagnosis of a “syndrome” appears to have been premature. But it may be more evident today, after the Biden administration’s decision to finally withdraw from Afghanistan. In the years ahead, if U.S. policymakers and the American people are eager to avoid sending large numbers of the nation’s servicemembers to fight wars in distant lands, they might turn to proxies or other indirect methods as an alternative.
Mumford’s notion that private military companies would be increasingly employed as proxy forces was proven correct and use of such companies may continue to grow. Both Russia and China have significantly increased their reliance on private military companies in the last few years. While the United States has also increased its own use of such companies, Russian employment of them has been especially pronounced in terms of scale and of the capabilities of companies contracted by Russia. The Wagner Group operates almost as a subsidiary of the Kremlin and has been particularly active in Syria, Ukraine, and Libya. It is allegedly run by Dmitry “Wagner” Utkin, a former special forces commander from Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. Although private military companies have a rather mixed track record, there is an ongoing global expansion in Russia’s use of them that will undoubtedly impact U.S. interests and those of its allies. China, too, is increasing its use of commercial security operations to protect its economic and political interests abroad: It has used 20 international private military companies — and over 3,000 of their personnel — in Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan, and beyond.
Similarly, Mumford correctly assessed that cyber warfare could evolve into a mode of proxy war. That trend has been evident in a spate of attacks on energy and government services that have been conducted by malicious cyber actors who are based on the territory of U.S. rivals. Mumford anticipated that sometimes threats would come in the form of bytes rather than boots on the ground when he quipped, “The twenty-first century is thus likely to see more wars fought by proxy servers than by proxy forces as they have traditionally been conceived.”
The rise of China has been a longstanding issue that many analysts predicted would become the geopolitical topic of the day. What Mumford stated, however, was more specific. He observed that attendant with China’s rise, the world was likely to witness “the use of indirect mechanisms in an attempt to alter the balance between [the United States and China]; and this is increasingly likely to involve some form of proxy, largely because of the high levels of Sino-US economic interdependence.” This possibility may be altered by China’s significant military modernization, which has changed the balance of power in Asia. But, since the initial U.S.-Chinese economic decoupling that is currently occurring will not end the mutual benefits produced by trade, the Chinese government will probably still eschew direct confrontation with the United States. As it has already done in the South China Sea, it will likely use proxies such as its assertive fishing fleets to deny the United States and its allies access to contested spaces.
As Dominic Tierney has correctly noted, future Chinese interventions could be problematic for international stability and U.S. security. “Looking ahead, Chinese intervention is set to increase,” he concluded, since “China’s interests will keep broadening, its appetite for energy and raw materials will enhance its perceived stake in the stability of other countries, and its growing capabilities will boost the temptation to act.” He could have also added that ensuring the safety of China’s diplomats and citizens overseas is a real concern for Beijing. Tierney assessed that the Chinese government is likely to realize that local actors may be the only viable means of protecting Beijing’s interests while minimizing the risks of provoking a serious backlash from other major powers. Sponsoring surrogates — embracing “my enemy’s enemy” — could afford more gain at lower risk levels for Chinese policymakers.
The trends examined by Mumford will continue to influence the character of proxy wars, including those that occur amid great-power competition. There are also additional developments that will influence proxy conflicts. Among those of particular significance are a post-pandemic redefinition of security, a diffusion of technology, a glut of foreign fighters, and an increased number of protracted civil conflicts.
A Post-Pandemic Redefinition of Security
When Mumford published his article in 2013, American perceptions about the benefits of using military force, and willingness to engage with the world, were at a half-century low. That was understandable after the country had spent a decade at war. Since then, a partisan divide over the respective roles of diplomacy and military instruments has emerged, with many Republicans still focused on military primacy and a more unilateral policy while many Democrats emphasize diplomacy and listening to allies.
In addition to being shaped by a weariness and wariness of foreign wars, public opinion in the United States and many of its allies will likely be impacted by weak government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This could increase expectations that governments will better protect their populations from a broader set of threats, including the ravages of pandemics and other calamities, and from severe environmental degradation. The Biden administration has stated that a broader definition of national security is needed. Immigration, crime, cyber security, and resilience are hot topics for voters that could pull resources from traditional military budgets toward homeland security and critical infrastructure. This shift could produce enhanced incentives for American policymakers to abstain from foreign interventions entirely. It could also drive further U.S. reliance on indirect or “over the horizon” options, including technological surrogates and proxy forces.
The COVID-19 pandemic might also have implications for proxy wars because of its effects on armed conflicts. Recent studies suggest that some armed conflicts escalated during the pandemic because parties exploited government weakness, poor public health services, or a lack of international attention because of COVID-19. These worrisome dynamics could affect future levels of armed conflict and increase opportunities for external involvement in such conflicts.
Diffusion of Technology
The diffusion of drones, cyber weapons, and anti-ship missiles to medium powers and even non-state actors could increase the use of such capabilities by surrogates. Iran’s purported strike against Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure — which the Houthis in Yemen claimed they carried out with their drones — demonstrates how states can try to achieve plausible deniability through having technologically capable surrogates. Separatists in Donbas have also benefitted from the use of Russian drones, electronic warfare, and cyber activities against Ukrainian government forces. Proxies and resistance movements could be increasingly capable on land, in the air, at sea, and in cyberspace, whether their capacities are organically developed or derived from a sponsor. This will complicate counter-insurgency operations beyond the purely ground-centric orientation that they have had in the past and where air dominance was a given for Western-supported forces.
A Glut of Foreign Fighters
In addition to using private military companies, great and medium powers could turn to foreign fighters as a means of furthering their own interests. Daniel Byman estimated that, cumulatively, some 40,000 individuals travelled to join up with ISIL in Syria and that 6,000 of those came from Europe. According to scholars, at one point in time, there were 19,000 foreign fighters in Syria originating from 90 different countries. Many of these fighters have received little education for transitioning to a more productive livelihood, but they attained skills and combat experience, and many have taken up employment with various militias. These peripatetic foreign fighters have drawn the attention of analysts for some time and they could supplement private military companies or local militias measurably in the Middle East or perhaps in North Africa. Russia’s employment of veterans from the Balkan wars as mercenaries in Donbas is a good example of how U.S. rivals might use foreign fighters to pursue their strategic aims.
An Increased Number of Protracted Civil Conflicts
The last decade has seen an increase in the number of intrastate conflicts, especially the number of internationalized civil conflicts. If the number of civil conflicts around the world continues to rise, it means there will be more places where great powers might face off in proxy contests.
In the past, such internal conflicts could be mitigated with either U.N. or multilateral peacekeeping interventions. But in an age of great-power competition, U.N. Security Council concurrence for peacekeeping operations could be harder to secure, or the missions and resources could be so limited as to neuter the effectiveness of any U.N. force. International peace missions require a consensus among the permanent members of the Security Council, which could be a rare occurrence in the years ahead given the West’s competitive tensions with China and Russia.
The track record of more robust peace operations is mixed, largely due to constraints placed on intervening forces. In the future, even if and when multilateral peacekeeping operations are authorized, states that have traditionally provided troops to such missions may be reluctant to allocate scarce resources to them because of competing security risks in their own region. As one analyst observed, “A newly assertive Russia and a crumbling Middle East has European decision makers worried that their militaries (exhausted by Afghanistan and shrinking due to budget cuts) may be needed closer to home.” Some Asian states may feel the same way as a result of Chinese assertiveness.
Authorizations for multilateral peace operations, and the robust provision of resources to them, are less likely in the near future. Consequently, the number of ongoing civil conflicts is likely to remain high. In concert with other destabilizing forces — such as economic inequality, extremism, and climate change — civil conflicts will remain a primary venue for major powers to contest their strategic interests, including through the sponsorship of proxies.
Implications for U.S. Strategy and Doctrine
Proxy wars are poised to be a more significant factor in the evolving strategic environment. Events of the last decade suggest the increasing salience of such conflicts, and the additional factors discussed above increase the likelihood of strategic competition waged through indirect but violent approaches.
All the state actors that the United States recognizes as competitors have strategic cultures and past histories in which indirect approaches, including proxy wars, have played a prominent role. This bears detailed study and updated U.S. doctrine that reflects lessons gleaned from historical cases, including Syria. Proxy conflicts are, after all, the ultimate indirect approach.
While U.S. national strategic documents recognize the reemergence of great-power competition, they pay little attention to the salience of lethal proxy forces armed by a competing power. The focus in the 2018 National Defense Strategy was modernization for major contingencies, although then-Defense Secretary James Mattis emphasized that the Pentagon needed to avoid adopting a myopic focus on a narrow or “preclusive form of warfare.” The United States should rethink its force design and its ability to confront proxy forces working on behalf of major rivals. This may include providing additional increases to the special operations community, which will need to address great powers across the continuum of conflict and not just in large-scale conventional wars.
As suggested by Michael Mazarr, U.S. defense planners should expand their thinking about what constitutes appropriate defense strategy. They should incorporate proxy contingencies into U.S. planning as part of the next National Defense Strategy’s revised force-sizing construct. The contingency guidance and sizing construct could include a requirement for sustained proxy scenarios and the provision of appropriate resources for Special Operations Command and Cyber Command. These scenarios currently get little attention in the Pentagon’s analytical agenda and research program, despite ongoing campaigns of malign proxy influence. This subject warrants changes in the warfighting mission priorities in the next National Defense Strategy. Proxy scenarios are likely to occur and could have geopolitical consequences that warrant inclusion in formal Defense Department planning. Curricula in Joint Professional Military Education institutions should also incorporate some attention to proxy wars in the context of strategic rivalries. Indeed, as Aaron Stein and Ryan Fishel have argued in these pages, U.S. forces have already started to contend with a “messy, congested” battlespace in Syria that will likely characterize future proxy conflicts as well.
Just as it learned and honed its extensive experience in alliance management and building partnership capacity in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. government can also absorb lessons from recent conflicts. If history can help to illuminate a dark future, the likelihood of facing proxy forces is much greater than the Pentagon is currently planning for.
Frank Hoffman, Ph.D., is a contributing editor of War on the Rocks and works at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. Andrew Orner is a student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is a student fellow at Perry World House. He is also affiliated with Institute for National Strategic Studies. This article reflects the views of the authors and does not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. government.
24. To Compete with China, Take a Page from the Reagan Playbook
The subtitle is a good Sun Tzu-like bumper sticker. But the author concludes with the most important Sun Tzu dictum. We must be able to attack the enemies' strategy (which depends on recognizing it, understanding it and in the right circumstances, exposing it). This is the most important action in Great Power Competition. As an example I assess this to be a summary of China's strategy:
China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions.
How do we attack that should be a question for strategic planners and policy makers.
Excerpt:
Sun Tzu famously judged that attacking the enemy’s strategy is best and the worst is to attack his armies and cities. In grand strategic terms, fighting represents the failure to inflict enough uncertainty in the mind of a rival to deter his aggression against the peace. Attacking the enemy’s strategy can be done—indeed is done preferably—in peacetime competition. A strategy of technology competition, offensively through industrial policy and defensively through technology security controls, is a way to neutralize rival advantages before the fighting starts.
To Compete with China, Take a Page from the Reagan Playbook - The Bulwark
Thinking geostrategically, competing technologically.
If the United States is to take the initiative in its great power competition with China, we should study America’s last victorious grand strategy. The Reagan administration moved the Cold War to its endgame by taking the initiative through measures short of warfare, and that era’s technology competition holds lessons relevant for a strategy of geoeconomics today. At stake in the Sino-American rivalry is who gets to tilt the table of the twenty-first century and slide trillions of dollars of prosperity and international political influence toward a center of gravity in Beijing or Washington.
Some commentators on the American right roll their eyes at “zombie Reaganism” in the form of a warmed-over 1980s policy agenda, while liberal skeptics have dismissed the accounts of Reaganites who touted a coherent grand strategy pursued by their administration. Yet, for contemporary strategists and diplomatic historians, Reagan’s results stand the test of time. Of course, we cannot and should not try to replay the Reagan performance like an episode of VH1’s I Love the ’80s. Sound answers to a historical set of geostrategic problems underpinned Reagan’s success, but America’s problems of the 1980s are not those of the 2020s. What we need to replicate is that era’s mode of geostrategic thinking and the lessons learned for how to get America out of a rut.
Failing to think geoeconomically over the last three decades blinded us to Beijing’s technology strategy and lost us initiative, but intensifying public-private partnerships for strategic objectives can retake it and enhance American economic competitiveness. Power competition provides the focus and need for American innovation policies, which in turn produce technological breakthroughs that create prosperity when commercialized by the private sector. Debates about what “a foreign policy for the middle class” would look like misses this connective tissue between political power competition and a prosperous middle class.
‘Technological War’
At the heart of the Reagan administration’s competitive strategy was an aggressive pursuit of winning “the Technological War”—the application of a defense industrial base to strategic objectives. The aim is to make your opponent counter your moves, and dance to your tune, in major resource allocations through industrial policy. Technological war targets enemy willpower directly, paralyzing it with demonstrations of superior capabilities, so that a hot war is postponed or not fought. The 1980s have a rich history of such industrial policy.
For example, Reagan-era industrial policies in microelectronics and semiconductor manufacturing were successes that formed the basis of U.S. information technology dominance in the 1990s. In the 1980s, Japanese makers made significant inroads in the semiconductor and high-performance mainframe computer market that were understood to be critical for next-generation military capabilities. To beat back this challenge, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched the Strategic Computing Initiative with $1 billion invested over ten years (1983-93), and also founded the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology consortium in 1987 as a public-private partnership to regain competitiveness for American companies.
Surprise in the mind of enemy staff is a key element of technology strategy. Displays of strategically relevant military, industrial, or scientific breakthroughs—conducted in concert with diplomatic offensives—can sap the adversary’s self-confidence in his offensive operational concepts. This imposes uncertainty on him and gains you the initiative, which when paired with a political-psychological strategy can project dominance, the backbone of deterrence.
Geostrategic Initiative Through Technological Competition
Technological competition is an inevitable fact of international economics, but as a strategy underpinning the military buildup of Reagan’s grand strategy, it was devised by defense intellectuals such as Andrew Marshall, longtime director of the Office of Net Assessment in the Defense Department. Marshall championed the view that America had to determine which of the Soviet Union’s pressure points were most vulnerable to comparative U.S. strengths and selectively compete with them. Later, Reaganites such as Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Fred Iklé approved approaches that paired offensive and defensive moves for such competition.
The offensive move applied our military-industrial base to innovative capabilities that would provoke Moscow to counter them by costly science and technology investments. The most famous and provocative of these was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), but it was hardly the only or most important offensive move to stimulate Soviet fears about U.S. superiority in high technology.
Podcast · September 01 2021
On today's podcast, former congressman David Jolly joins host Charlie Sykes to discuss Kevin McCarthy's threat against t...
The defensive move orchestrated technology security and export controls to deny Moscow access to Western technical innovation and scientific knowhow, make it more difficult for the Soviets to catch up to American expertise. Iklé’s office established technology security policy at the Defense Department for the first time, defining technology as a valuable national security resource and controlling its transfer to allied and friendly governments. Iklé believed—correctly, as we would come to learn—that Soviet industrial theft and economic espionage of Western technology accelerated its military advances in the 1970s.
This technological strategy was the necessary foundation for making effective economic, diplomatic, ideological, and psychological offensives that pushed the Soviet Union off balance and subverted its prestige and willpower in Eastern Europe. America under Reagan took the initiative in the Cold War without firing a shot, and shifted the configuration of force in its favor, through asymmetric military advances powered by technological competition. In this way, the Reagan administration set up the Bush team to win without fighting, and made the 1980s an end game of peaceful victory for America.
Taking Initiative in the Sino-American Competition
Americans lionize the scientist as head-in-the-clouds genius (the Einstein hero) and the inventor as misfit-in-the-garage genius (the Steve Jobs or Bill Gates hero). The discomfiting reality, however, is that much of today’s technological world exists because of DOD’s role in catalyzing and steering science and technology. This was industrial policy, and it worked because it brought all of the players in the innovation game together, disciplined them by providing strategic, long-term focus for their activities, and shielded them from the market rationality that would have doomed almost every crazy, over-expensive idea that today makes the world go round.
For the Sino-American competition, American statesmen must remember this basic offensive move of geoeconomics. A consensus on taking the initiative through industrial policy may be forming already.
But what good is the initiative if you cannot keep it? Industrial security and technology export controls paired with rule-making influence at international scientific organizations are critical defenses. Technology denial aims to keep asymmetric advantages from being unraveled by an adversary’s overt technology transfer, industrial theft, or economic espionage. If properly orchestrated, technology security keeps you on the geoeconomic offensive. Orchestrating domestic technology security measures, multilateral export control regimes, and diplomatic pressure at international institutions will require savvy multilateralism, and they are a major growth area for U.S. defensive action in the Sino-American competition.
For example, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is America’s main defensive instrument to mitigate, on grounds of national security, the risk of legal transfer of sensitive technology or expertise through corporate mergers and acquisitions. But CFIUS relies mainly on voluntary reporting for compliance, and many American lobbyists assist foreign corporate clients with navigating CFIUS procedures to purchase U.S. companies and possess their intellectual property.
U.S. export controls are similarly disjointed. The problem for Washington is coordinating with foreign capitals to block export to Beijing of knowledge or commodities, such as intellectual property or advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, that constitute critical sub-components to the technology competition. The West’s main architecture for technological security in the Cold War, the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), impeded Soviet industrial espionage against critical technologies such as microelectronics. COCOM was abolished in 1994 and replaced with the Wassenaar Arrangement, a deficient successor not aimed at China and mostly restricting conventional arms rather than sensitive science and technology transfers.
The deepest positional moves of technology security occur at scientific and technical regulatory and governance bodies at international institutions like the United Nations. This is the grand chessboard where Beijing tries to convert its scientific leadership into global advantage. U.S. success will preserve Western initiative for defining international legal rules and scientific standards and unravel Beijing’s attempts to play Western countries off each other. Diplomacy in these institutions is the long game for pushing and keeping the PRC off-balance in technology competition.
Sun Tzu famously judged that attacking the enemy’s strategy is best and the worst is to attack his armies and cities. In grand strategic terms, fighting represents the failure to inflict enough uncertainty in the mind of a rival to deter his aggression against the peace. Attacking the enemy’s strategy can be done—indeed is done preferably—in peacetime competition. A strategy of technology competition, offensively through industrial policy and defensively through technology security controls, is a way to neutralize rival advantages before the fighting starts.
25. House panel advances $778B defense bill
House panel advances $778B defense bill
The Hill · by Rebecca Kheel · September 2, 2021
The House Armed Services Committee late Wednesday approved its $778 billion defense policy bill after a more than 14-hour session to consider the measure.
The panel voted 57-2 to advance its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) just after 2:30 a.m. Thursday morning.
The two “no” votes came from Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna (Calif.) and Sara Jacobs (Calif.), who opposed the price tag.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) wrote a $744 billion bill that, when accounting for defense funding outside the committee’s jurisdiction, largely aligned with President Biden’s request for a $753 billion defense budget for fiscal 2022.
While the end result was a bipartisan vote, the approval came after a marathon markup that included partisan debates on everything from the withdrawal from Afghanistan to critical race theory to the overall size of the defense budget.
The markup also came just days after the U.S. military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan after a 20-year war, an ending marked by chaos and death as civilians sought to flee Taliban rules and terrorists killed scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. troops.
Lawmakers in both parties, even some Democrats who support the underlying idea of withdrawing, have criticized the Biden administration’s execution of the withdrawal, particularly the lack of planning to evacuate Americans and vulnerable Afghans before Kabul fell to the Taliban.
Among the GOP amendments, one from Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) would have declared Congress “has lost confidence in President Biden’s ability to perform his duties as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces.” Democrats defeated it in a 28-31 party-line vote.
But several other Afghanistan amendments elicited bipartisan support, including requirements for reports on military equipment abandoned in Afghanistan, the security situation in Afghanistan, threats posed by al Qaeda on plans for “over the horizon” counterterrorism operations, continued efforts to retrieve Americans and Afghan allies left in the country.
Republicans also sought to inject their culture wars into the defense bill debate, including offering amendments that would have banned the military, its service academies and Defense Department-funded grade schools from the “promotion” of what one of the measures described as “anti-American and racist theories, such as ‘critical race theory.’” The amendments failed in party-line votes.
Republicans have targeted critical race theory, a decades-old legal framework examining the intersection of race and law, amid the Pentagon efforts to root out extremists and expand diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the military.
After Democrats balked at the GOP critical race theory amendments, they approved creating a new Office of Countering Extremism within the Pentagon and to allow service members to be discharged for knowingly sharing extremist content online in a 31-28 vote on an amendment from Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.).
Meanwhile, the underlying NDAA aims to tackle military sexual assault by removing the decision to prosecute sexual assault and related crimes from the chain of command, instead creating special victims prosecutor.
While some lawmakers have pushed to go further and remove all serious crimes from the chain of command, no amendments were offered at the markup to do so.
Other amendments that were approved included one to block the use of private funds for National Guard deployments across state lines. The amendment was a response to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) deploying her state’s National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this year using funding from a private donor.
The committee also approved an amendment to make it harder to appoint a recently retired general as Defense secretary by increasing the cooling-off period to 10 years and requiring a two-thirds vote in Congress to waive the law. The amendment comes after Congress granted both Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and former Defense Secretary James Mattis waivers to bypass the current law barring recently retired generals from leading the Pentagon.
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) offered an amendment aimed at restricting the transfer of military-grade weapons to local police departments, as first reported by The Hill. But she withdrew it without a vote because she said she was “just a bit short of the support that I need in order to pass this.”
The Hill · by Rebecca Kheel · September 2, 2021
26. The Washington Blob on Video
Takeaway from this article only CATO and Quincy are the only "sane" think tanks since they advocate doing nothing. This is a competition between the "do somethings" versus the "do nothings." I wonder if the latter is any relation to the famous "know nothings" of yesteryear?
The Washington Blob on Video | The American Conservative
Washington, D.C., is the think tank world capital and home to the eternal seminar. There has always been at least one panel, forum, conference, luncheon, party, or something similar every day to discuss issues of great moment. It’s simply what think tanks do.
Bringing reputedly important thinkers together is supposed to promote discussion of the vital issues of the day. These gatherings help sell philosophies and policies to those who rule, mostly in the executive and legislative branches. Public events also justify donations, demonstrating activity to those who help pay the bills. And there are few better ways to suck up to power than to invite a noted politician or staffer to headline a discussion. The entire process is an enormous industry, with food and drink often the informal bribe to get people to fill a room.
However, the problem was always showing up. Even people located in Washington had to be willing to stop working, trek across town, and sit through sometimes uneventful, even boring, proceedings. It has long been even worse for me. I’ve worked from home since the magazine I edited, Inquiry, shut down in 1984. So the proceeding had to be worth driving across the Potomac into D.C., a fate akin to journeying across the River Styx into you know where.
Which meant I virtually never attended the plethora of available seminars, other than those to which I was contributing. A full-scale conference, with multiple panels, networking opportunities, and a meal or two tossed in, maybe. Spending a couple hours just getting to and from a solo event of uncertain quality, no way.
Then Covid-19 made its appearance and the world went to Zoom (and Skype and the other variants). Suddenly every organization was constantly hosting online events. The larger the think tank, the more and greater variety the offerings—Brookings, Atlantic Council, Wilson Center, and the like never seemed to allow a day to go by without at least one. Sometimes choosing which show of many to watch became a problem.
So I developed a new routine. I would put think tank videos on as background as I worked on email, filed paperwork, clipped newspapers, ate meals, rode my exercise bike, and did most anything else that required little serious attention. It was striking how many electronic productions regurgitated shared conventional wisdom without offering anything new or interesting. Yet snippets of nuance sometimes broke through despite what often seemed like a concerted effort to prevent free thought. And on rare occasion a very serious discussion among bright, creative people emerged, so that recording sometimes required a second listen.
With a focus on the foreign policy side, I’ve come away from the last year almost in awe at the near unanimity of members of what Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes called the “blob”—largely about developing and implementing U.S. foreign policy. This agreement, which sometimes resembles a Red Guards convention circa 1967, did not surprise me. But the forums dramatically demonstrated the uniformity in sentiment and style. A number of consistent realities have shown through.
Big names, preferably sitting legislators or former officials, are the coin of the realm. They need not say anything meaningful, sensible, or even coherent. However, they are frequent headliners, inevitably elevating the prestige of the discussion even when spouting veritable nonsense. On occasion politicians impressed—Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Ro Khanna (D-Ca.) are two who I think generally worth listening to, even though coming from radically different positions. Alas, most others do little other than express platitudes, mumble non sequiturs, offer political affirmations, and waste viewers’ time.
For politicians, especially, the bigger the title, the more obsequious the moderator and inflated the introduction (visualize Mike Pompeo genuflecting, forehead to floor, while babbling praise of Mohammed bin Salman, bonesaw in hand). The speaker involved might be obscure, but his or her accomplishments are presented as legendary. Even the most banausic remarks receive rapturous praise, along with affirmations of the presenter’s legislative record and patriotic commitment. Perennial moderators are especially skilled at verbal kowtows.
Similarly, organizers and moderators routinely proclaim every event to be essential, panel to be great, participant to be distinguished, issue to be critical, and result to be important. After all, who wants to admit that one is wasting one’s time, essentially checking off a job responsibility to justify an organization paycheck. The issue could be the impact of the latest Saudi military offensive on Yemen’s basket-weaving industry or the state of New Zealand kiwifruit production after the latest Chinese BRI initiative, and the superlatives would still flow.
The political biases of participants routinely are ignored and go unmentioned. One recent panel on Cuba included two members of Congress from Florida. This might shock some people, but both paladins expressed horror at the massive human rights violations and extraordinary security threat posed by the communist juggernaut just off the U.S. coast, and emphasized the essential, vital, indeed, overwhelming need to keep and, of course, strengthen sanctions, which should be maintained until the Second Coming, the lion and lamb lay down together, and Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi kiss and make up. Who would have imagined!? Well, some of us, actually, given the composition of their districts.
Only very rarely are there meaningful differences of opinion represented on panels. Most organizations use forums to sell their viewpoint or, at most, delineate shades of differences within their specialized coalition. Very often all the panel members know each other and spend much of their time in mutual praise. Of course, think tanks have no obligation to present a debate. However, this makes many events beyond monotonous, turning them into an intellectual Greek Chorus.
At times the unanimity is campy, as participants attempt to distinguish their views by steadily escalating their claims. Victory goes to the most passionate presenter. With special verve, some groups on the right insist on a military buildup to match the enemy du jour, lest a new Dark Ages shortly descend. At a nominally cosmopolitan group, the score or so of staffers tasked with promoting Ukraine as America’s Most Vital Ally and battling Russia as the new Mordor take special pleasure in attacking fellow scholars at their own organization who dare express a word or two of dissent. Every forum assumes that Moscow must be punished, usually by doubling, trebling or even quadrupling sanctions. I always listen in anticipation, waiting for a participant to slip and blurt out his or her real feelings, calling on Uncle Sam to drop a few nukes on the Kremlin.
The absence of debate runs far deeper than individual policies. Virtually every foreign policy organization believes in the imperative of action. Such groups exist to urge the country forward to fulfill what earlier Americans called “manifest destiny” and more modern sorts with finer sensibilities call “leadership.” Other than a few outliers—the Cato and Quincy Institutes, some leftish groups, and a handful of foreign think tanks—the overwhelming, unrelenting demand is to “do something!” Special credit goes for those who come up with new wars to keep the U.S. military busy. While there are degrees of involvement, action is always required, and usually the more, and bloodier, the better.
Another unvarying principle is that whatever is must forever be, and perhaps should even be a bit stronger. Never is there an organization, alliance, treaty, commitment, discussion, agreement, concordat, accord, or anything else that can be discarded. Never. Rather, everything must be strengthened, improved, expanded, refurbished, and more. NATO is sacred. So is the Paris Accord. And the “mutual” defense treaties with South Korea and Japan. As well as the troop presence in Iraq and Syria. Certainly, the troop presence in Afghanistan, which spawned a spate of emergency forums with participants in near hysteria about the outrage in withdrawing even one American from such a strategically vital spot so precipitously after barely 20 years on station. Such discussions rarely offer even the hint of dissent, presumably because the Truth is considered to be so obvious that only a traitor or an idiot could think differently—and even the slightest disagreement is worse than heresy.
Sometimes there are breaks between conservatives and progressives, say, over unilateralism and multilateralism or diplomacy, sanctions, and military action. When partisanship intrudes, such as in the debate over the Iraq War, issue differences typically widen. Yet even in these cases rarely does even one participant suggest that a problem, of whatever kind, does not warrant some U.S. action. Rather, the debate typically breaks down into a squabble over whether sanctions should be imposed first, before military action, or whether a bombing campaign is so imperative that it should be launched immediately, to be followed by an invasion.
Where reasoning is most wrong viewpoints often are in greatest unanimity. The blob has become very effective at enforcing group think. Of course, the U.S. should have stayed in Afghanistan. Of course, the U.S. should stay in Iraq. Of course, the U.S. should stay in Syria. Of course, the U.S. should have done nation-building in Libya. Of course, the U.S. should have stayed after the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan to build a country for the Mujahedeen. Of course. After all, forever wars are supposed to last forever. How could anyone miss such an obvious point?
Rarely has the official line been so clearly set and carried forth so consistently by online blobbers. Even though the war in Afghanistan has been endless, no one is supposed to refer to it as an endless war. Even though a war has been going on, everyone is supposed to treat it like a peaceful place to deploy American troops, a la Germany or Japan. Even though Afghanistan is as distant as any spot on the planet, everyone is supposed to treat the land as uniquely vital to U.S. survival. Even though Washington has been in Afghanistan for two decades, everyone is supposed to express outrage that American forces did not stay months, years, or decades longer. Even though Afghanistan will now be a problem for its more than half dozen neighbors, everyone is supposed to act like China and Russia have gained a geopolitical asset. Even though 9/11 was planned and manned outside of Afghanistan and future acts also could be planned and manned elsewhere, everyone is supposed to assume that local insurgents in Afghanistan will magically become transnational terrorists, ready to overrun America. Even though the Afghan government proved to be a Potemkin state that collapsed quickly and unexpectedly, everyone is supposed to believe that, nevertheless, it would have lasted for years or even decades with just a handful of Americans sticking around somewhere in a fortified camp or base.
As summer wanes, I’ve enjoyed a bit of a webinar break. Virtually every group has cut back on the frequency of events, and many organizations have stopped recording them. For now, at least, the subliminal messages that war is always good, occupation is always necessary, and social engineering is always just have diminished. For now. However, after Labor Day the establishment institutions are likely to be back with a full webinar schedule, perhaps busier than ever. And that is likely to continue even as in-person events reemerge. There may be more opportunities than ever for intellectual navel-gazing in the nation’s capital.
Still, I think that more selective use of this tool might be good for my mental health as well as policy duties. Some events probably shouldn’t be added to my schedule. The predictable might deserve rejection. Mundane presentations might warrant a quicker exit. And robotic uniformity might warrant a broader search for views beyond adherents to the blob uber alles. After all, even a policy nerd like me gets tired of hearing eternal praise of forever intervention and endless war.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire.
27. The Withdrawal From Afghanistan Should Make Us Reflect on America's True Failure Since 9/11
We should reflect deeply on this failure.
Spoiler alert:
As Americans pause to reflect on all that’s changed inside their country and for the US role in the world over the past 20 years, understanding the limits of US interests in Afghanistan should play a role in how they think about the next 20 years. The greatest failure since 9/11 comes not from the inability to build democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan or to remake US relations with the Muslim world. It’s in the failure of our leaders—and the American people—to extend the unity that existed after the attack to help the United States build a more perfect union.
Two decades later, the greatest tragedy for the United States is the likelihood that another terrorist attack on US soil would further divide the country. A Gallup poll taken in the days after 9/11 gave George W. Bush a 90 percent approval rating as Americans united in support of their president and the ideal of consensus. It didn’t last, of course, but there was a brief moment when Americans were reminded of all they have in common. A generation later, the question we must answer is whether those days are gone for good.
The Withdrawal From Afghanistan Should Make Us Reflect on America's True Failure Since 9/11
Hospital staff help bring in a wounded patient brought by an ambulance at an emergency hospital in Kabul, Aug. 26. Twin bombings struck near the entrance to Kabul's airport on Thursday.
Hospital staff help bring in a wounded patient brought by an ambulance at an emergency hospital in Kabul, Aug. 26. Twin bombings struck near the entrance to Kabul's airport on Thursday. Credit - Marcus Yam—Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
The longest war in US history has come to a close with scenes of violent chaos from Afghanistan. The deaths of US Marines and fleeing Afghans will give the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks an especially bitter edge. There are also daily reminders of just how much American domestic politics has changed. The partisan animosities that followed the disputed 2000 US presidential election are tame compared to what’s happened in the United States over the past five years. Warnings that withdrawal from Afghanistan will lead to “another 9/11” have now become standard political talking points.
As Americans mark this anniversary and cast a wary eye toward Afghanistan’s future, they should remember that what happens next for that country matters far more for many other countries than for the United States. China, Russia, Iran and others will gloat over the withdrawal mess and the US loss of credibility as an ally, but they now have much more immediate worries than Americans do.
Of course, the greatest tragedy is for Afghans themselves, especially those who don’t want the Taliban in power. Afghan girls and women, in particular, will lose hard-won opportunities for freedom. There will be more bloodshed as anti-Taliban tribal militias and ISIS variants compete for ground and influence, and many innocent people will be caught in the crossfire.
The US withdrawal and Taliban takeover will also pose serious problems for Afghanistan’s neighbors. Pakistan’s military and religious extremists are delighted to see Afghanistan in the hands of an organization they helped to create and have supported. Prime Minister Imran Khan says the US retreat “broke the shackles of slavery” for Afghans. But now that they’re in charge in Kabul, the Taliban are less dependent on Pakistan’s goodwill, particularly because they have more options for cash and other resources (see China, in particular) than they did before NATO arrived in 2001. In addition, Pakistan could soon face a refugee crisis as many Afghans flee the Taliban, while extremists within Pakistan could use the Taliban’s victory to boost their own cause. That could lead to terrorist attacks inside Pakistan that destabilize its government too.
The former Soviet neighbors are surely nervous. Vladimir Putin enjoyed the humiliating US retreat, particularly since he well remembers the lines of Soviet tanks leaving that country in 1989 and the impact they had on Soviet international standing. But instability in Afghanistan threatens Russia, which continues to list the Taliban as a terrorist group, with support for radical Islamic extremism, particularly in the South Caucasus. The governments of Central Asian states Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are right to fear a potential wave of refugees if anti-Taliban resistance continues to grow in Afghanistan’s north, and the presence inside that region of ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks add more risks of political instability in Central Asia.
Iran is also happy to see the US government look inept, but the Taliban’s return poses trouble there too. NATO-occupied Afghanistan was a crucial source of dollars via cross-border spillover from Western aid. It will now become a source of refugees, drugs, and economic instability.
No country in the neighborhood has changed more over the past 20 years than China, which will now, for the first time, play an active role in trying to keep Afghanistan stable. Beijing needs to ensure that Afghanistan doesn’t become a haven for extremists angered by China’s persecuted Uyghur ethnic minority and a launchpad for terrorist attacks there or elsewhere in China. Beijing also fears a spillover of violence from Afghanistan into Central Asia, where China has invested heavily in President Xi Jinping’s ambitious “Belt and Road Initiative,” infrastructure projects designed to boost China’s economy and international influence.
Even Europe has more at stake than the US in Afghanistan. EU governments fear from Afghanistan a return to the migration and terrorism fears sparked by Syria’s civil war and unrest elsewhere in North Africa.
As Americans pause to reflect on all that’s changed inside their country and for the US role in the world over the past 20 years, understanding the limits of US interests in Afghanistan should play a role in how they think about the next 20 years. The greatest failure since 9/11 comes not from the inability to build democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan or to remake US relations with the Muslim world. It’s in the failure of our leaders—and the American people—to extend the unity that existed after the attack to help the United States build a more perfect union.
Two decades later, the greatest tragedy for the United States is the likelihood that another terrorist attack on US soil would further divide the country. A Gallup poll taken in the days after 9/11 gave George W. Bush a 90 percent approval rating as Americans united in support of their president and the ideal of consensus. It didn’t last, of course, but there was a brief moment when Americans were reminded of all they have in common. A generation later, the question we must answer is whether those days are gone for good.
28. The CIA Spy Who Reinvented the Travel Guide
Another fascinating chapter in OSS/CIA history:
Fodor was born in 1905 in the small town of Losonc, then in the Kingdom of Hungary (now in Slovakia). He eventually became a naturalized American and he was in the United States when the Munich Pact was signed (ceding the Sudetenland, the western parts of Czechoslovakia, to Hitler). He insisted he would only return to Europe in a military uniform.
Thanks to his language skills (he spoke five languages fluently), he ended up in the Research & Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the World War II precursor to the CIA led by the legendary General William “Wild Bill” Donovan. The unit, innocuously named First Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company, was designed with psychological warfare in mind to spread disinformation and undermine enemy morale.
The CIA Spy Who Reinvented the Travel Guide
Don Heiny/AP
The year 1936 was a momentous year for global travel. The RMS Queen Mary made her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. Aer Lingus took its first flight (from Dublin to Bristol). H.R. Ekins, a reporter for the New York World-Telegram, won a race around the world using only commercial airlines (it took him 18 days, 11 hours, 14 minutes, and 55 seconds). And Eugene Fodor published his first guidebook, 1936 … On the Continent, a 1,200-page doorstop on Europe, the world’s first annually updated travel guidebook.
The guidebook, which for the first time was aimed at middle-class travelers and not necessarily upper-class “grand tourists,” included all the typical sights, but also for the first time encouraged interacting with locals whose worldview might be different from those of readers. “Rome contains not only magnificent monuments and priceless art treasures,” Fodor wrote in the foreword to the 1936 guide, “but also Italians.”
Eugene Fodor, who died at 85 in 1991, profoundly influenced the way Americans traveled in the 20th and 21st centuries; the company he founded, today called Fodor’s Travel, currently publishes 150 titles per year and its website gets 2.75 million visitors a month. (Full disclosure: I have at times in the last decade updated and written the restaurant section for Fodor’s New York City guidebook.)
What most people don’t know was that Fodor was a CIA spy, on their payroll for years. After this secret became public in 1974, Fodor downplayed it and outright shut down questions about it in interviews, groaning, for example, when a reporter from Conde Nast Traveler brought it up to him in in the late ’80s and saying, “Everyone seems to have forgotten what the Cold War was like. The Soviets were a real threat. As an American, you did what you could.”
Fodor was born in 1905 in the small town of Losonc, then in the Kingdom of Hungary (now in Slovakia). He eventually became a naturalized American and he was in the United States when the Munich Pact was signed (ceding the Sudetenland, the western parts of Czechoslovakia, to Hitler). He insisted he would only return to Europe in a military uniform.
Thanks to his language skills (he spoke five languages fluently), he ended up in the Research & Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the World War II precursor to the CIA led by the legendary General William “Wild Bill” Donovan. The unit, innocuously named First Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company, was designed with psychological warfare in mind to spread disinformation and undermine enemy morale.
Fodor interrogated prisoners of war and wrote propaganda leaflets that were dropped in enemy territory. The unit was also responsible for working with resistance groups to carry out acts of sabotage in enemy territory. In spring 1945, he became part of an OSS operation that had him smuggled into Prague to help direct an uprising of the Czech Resistance against the occupying Germans. During that time, he also traveled to Plzen, a town in western Czechoslovakia, helping to liberate the region from the Nazis, as Russian troops advanced from the East, doing the same as they moved toward Prague and, eventually Berlin.
After the war, Fodor’s involvement with the CIA continued. Starting in the 1950s, the CIA began tapping artists, musicians, writers, and journalists abroad for propaganda purposes or for information collecting. “Travel writer” seemed like a good cover for an undercover agent in enemy territory. And a travel writer who formerly worked for the OSS was ideal. A declassified internal OSS assignment from 1946 stated that Eugene Fodor would now have the title “Intelligence Officer.” His location: Prague. His job: “gather[ing] intelligence through overt and covert means as he has in the past. He will not be expected to develop extensive agent chains, but he will be called upon to deal with local nationals on a secure basis.”
One of Fodor’s later assignments was to help foment an uprising in Hungary in 1956. The uprising happened, but the revolution that the CIA hoped would topple the Communist government did not. Fodor claimed that after 1956, he gave up the spy business.
According to documents I obtained in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, this is not true. It just depends how much you want to believe the source—E. Howard Hunt, a veteran CIA agent and, infamously, a convicted Watergate burglar.
On Dec. 31, 1974, The New York Times published an exposé by Seymour Hersh who had obtained classified transcripts from a Senate investigation hearing in December 1973. The article publicly revealed Fodor’s involvement with the agency for the first time.
“My staff ran a media operation known as Continental Press out of the National Press Building in Washington,” Hunt said during his 1973 testimony. “We funded much of the activities of the Frederick D. Praeger Publishing Corporation in New York City. We funded, to a large extent, the activities of Fodor's Travel Guides, distributed by the David McKay Corporation.”
In his 2007 memoir American Spy: My Secret History in the C.I.A., Watergate, and Beyond, Hunt claimed that the CIA, starting in the late ’50s or early ’60s, had bankrolled Fodor’s guidebook company: “We… even published a popular series of travel books—the Fodor Travel Guides. Our reasoning behind the guides was that typically most foreigners only got to know Americans through touristic ‘Ugly American’ stereotypes. So, we hoped to change that impression by people in other countries to come visit ours, enjoy life in the United States, and get to know America better.”
“We’d undergo his losses,” Hunt said of Fodor in the 1973 Senate hearing, “and he was on the CIA payroll and may still be for all I know.”
But that wasn’t the only reason that the CIA wanted to use Fodor and his company as a covert weapon in the Cold War. It was not unusual for the C.I.A. to use artists, writers, journalists, musicians and others for their own gain during the Cold War—both covertly and overtly. Three years after George Orwell’s death, a film version of Animal Farm was released in 1954. It was a fairly faithful rendition of the book, but instead of Orwell’s finale, in which both the humans and pigs are left in egregious light, the film removed the humans, leaving only the dirty pigs, i.e., the fascists. The silent producer of the film was, in fact, the CIA, and it was none other than E. Howard Hunt who visited Orwell’s widow to successfully wrest the rights from her so they could make the more overtly anti-Soviet version.
The agency saw in the abstract art of modern artists like Pollock, de Kooning, and Rothko a kind of very American assertive individualism and so promoted their work abroad, often funding exhibitions. The CIA first funded the Paris Review, and one of its founding editors, the novelist and naturalist Peter Matthiessen, was a spy. Jazz greats Dave Brubeck and Louis Armstrong, among others, were sent around various parts of the planet on CIA-funded tours. Sometimes the artists knew the U.S. government was paying for it. Other times, as in the case of Nina Simone, who was sent on a 1961 tour of Nigeria underwritten by the agency, the performer had no clue.
“I told [the CIA] to make sure to send me real writers, not civil engineers. I wanted to get some writing out of them, and I did too.”
— Eugene Fodor
So it wasn’t surprising to learn from Seymour Hersh’s New York Times exposé that the CIA’s involvement with Fodor went even deeper. When Hersh interviewed Hunt for his Times story, the former agent revealed that the travel books had provided “cover” for CIA agents eager to travel in foreign countries disguised as travel writers. Fodor would later admit this was true, saying, “I told them to make sure to send me real writers, not civil engineers. I wanted to get some writing out of them, and I did too.” In fact, in 1956 Fodor sent some travel writers/CIA agents to Hungary to help rouse a potential revolution against the ruling Communist government.
In a declassified letter that Hunt sent to Fodor on Jan. 13, 1975, two weeks after the Times article appeared, Hunt tried to make amends. “I want you to know that I greatly regret the embarrassment caused you by the New York Times’ revelation of my executive session testimony given in confidence to the Ervin Committee more than a year ago… and I did so on the assumption it would not be publicly revealed.”
And then he added, “The UPI story of today’s date quotes you as stating that you and I never met, or had any dealings, and that of course is not accurate…. There should be a record of at least one meeting between you and me at a CIA office in Washington.”
In an internal CIA memo dated Jan. 24, 1975 that I obtained through a FOIA request, about four weeks after the revelations became public, Fodor called one of his contacts at the agency to express a worst-case-scenario situation that could come from being exposed as an agent. Fodor was from a Hungarian town that is now in Slovakia and his Czech-born wife, Vlasta, still had family in the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc. “I feel like I should let [Hunt] know how he endangered the safety of my family with his revelations, if only to prevent further disclosures and public controversy,” Fodor is quoted in the memo, implying there was possibly more information on his involvement that could come out.
In the memo, it states that the agency recommended to Fodor that he just “give a simple, sterile acknowledgement” of his past activities with the agency and leave it at that.
After that, Fodor downplayed his involvement with the CIA, chalking it up to a patriotic duty, even going so far to say that during the early Cold War nearly every American in Europe had been approached by the agency.
29. Analyzing the Afghanistan disaster (Part I): Was President Biden bound by the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban?
Analyzing the Afghanistan disaster (Part I): Was President Biden bound by the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban?
Regardless of what one might think about the wisdom (or not) of the withdrawal decision, the Administration’s carrying out of that determination has not only been shockingly inept, it has also been marred by misstatements and erroneous assertions that need clarification as they carry the dangerous potential to hobble America’s future actions as the crisis continues.
Need for current analysis
To be clear, such clarifications should come sooner rather than later, particularly since lives remain at risk. Thus, I think Vice President Harris is not quite right when she argues that we should defer “analysis of what has happened” and “focus” on evacuation of American citizens and Afghans.
Actually, the U.S. should take a military-style approach in which both efforts proceed concurrently… and do so with dispatch. In the 21st century, it is imperative that the U.S. do difficult and demanding things simultaneously as otherwise we may continue down the wrong path at what could be great and unnecessary cost. There is much wisdom in the adage that we need to be able to
Current analysis can – and should – inform ongoing operations. In the military, agility, flexibility, and adaption are foundational qualities of successful warfighting, particularly when the circumstances change significantly and the realities on the ground upend the assumptions upon which the original plan was based.
Consequently, it is essential to “maintain freedom of action” to change, if necessary, a course of action, especially when it becomes obvious that things have gone terribly awry. Accordingly, let’s examine the legitimacy of a key assertion.
Locked-in by the Trump agreement?
Although President Biden makes claims about accepting responsibility for the debacle, he nevertheless almost always follows with statements assigning blame elsewhere. Foremost among these is his insistence that he was, in essence, locked into withdrawal by the 29 February 2020 Trump administration agreement with the Taliban.
This is inaccurate. In the first place, let’s note that President Biden has shown no reluctance to reverse any number of Trump actions, so it is unclear why he believes he could not do so here. Secondly, the agreement itself was a political commitment with a non-state actor that is non-binding under international and domestic law. For our third discussion point, let’s explore the international law aspect a bit more.
Fundamental change of circumstances
With the complete collapse of the Afghan government, there certainly has been a “fundamental change of circumstances” that existed at the time of the agreement’s making, and those that were reasonably anticipated to exist at the time of its final execution.
Accordingly, even if the agreement was somehow technically a “treaty,” under international law. the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties provides (art. 62) that a “fundamental change of circumstances” can be grounds for terminating or withdrawing from such an accord. It is true, as many critics have pointed out, that the Afghan government was not formally part of the agreement process, but it is beyond cavil that the U.S. government fully expected it to – at least – survive the troop withdrawal so central to the agreement, as did many Afghans.
Furthermore, the text of the agreement with the Taliban, makes it abundantly clear that the existence of an Afghan government through the withdrawal was an essential assumption forming the basis for the U.S.’s consent. The effect of the absence of an Afghan government at the time of the agreement’s final execution operates, in the word of the Vienna Convention, to “radically…transform the extent of obligations still to be performed under the treaty.” Consequently, even under treaty law, ample grounds exist to terminate or withdraw from the deal.
Material breach
Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, the Taliban were in material breach of the agreement, another circumstance that the Vienna Convention (art. 60) says is grounds for terminating or suspending an agreement in whole or in part even if it were a treaty which the agreement with the Taliban is not.
As FactCheck.org details, the Defense Department’s report to Congress found “that the Taliban and al-Qaeda have been conducting ‘joint attacks’ in Afghanistan in apparent violation of the February 2020 withdrawal agreement.” It also relates:
“The Taliban did not appear to uphold its commitment to distance itself from terrorist organizations in Afghanistan,” the report said. “UN and U.S. officials reported that the Taliban continued to support al-Qaeda, and conducted joint attacks with al-Qaeda members against Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.”
The report went on to say, “General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the commander of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), said in June [2020] that the conditions for a full withdrawal, including a significant reduction in violence and a guarantee not to harbor al-Qaeda, had not yet been met.”
The impact of withdrawal “without conditions”
Finally, what the President did change about the Trump agreement has proven to be disastrous. Specifically, Duke Law grad and former ambassador for counterterrorism Nathan Sales points out, the critical mistake was to
Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen put it plainly in an August 16th essay:
Trump promised a withdrawal based on conditions on the ground. Biden explicitly rejected a conditions-based withdrawal, declaring “we cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal.” By announcing that we were getting out no matter what the Taliban did, Biden gave the Taliban a green light to carry out the murderous offensive we now see unfolding. (Emphasis added).
Thiessen speculates how Trump would likely have responded to the material changes in the circumstances of the agreement, not to mention the Taliban’s breaches of it. He contends:
Trump’s Afghan policy was terrible, and I criticized his outreach to the Taliban. But does anyone really believe he would have let the United States be humiliated in this way? He would have unleashed a bombing campaign the likes of which the Taliban had not seen since 2001.
Ample evidence shows that Trump had no hesitation about using airpower to rein in the Taliban. As discussed last September in this post, the Washington Post reported that “[l]ast year, American warplanes dropped a record number of bombs on Taliban targets in Afghanistan, part of an effort that started in late 2018 to push the Taliban toward a deal to end nearly 20 years of conflict.”
In my May 2021 post, I tried to warn that the loss of airpower that the withdrawal agreement produces would be devastating to the Afghan military. The availability of combat aviation in its several forms was, as Reuters noted in 2019, “one of the few decisive advantages [the Afghan military enjoyed] over increasingly confident Taliban fighters.” In an August 25th essay in the New York Times, an Afghan general talked about how shattering the loss of airpower proved to be to his forces:
He also underlined the impact of the President’s “no conditions” approach to withdrawal:
Mr. Biden’s full and accelerated withdrawal only exacerbated the situation. It ignored conditions on the ground. The Taliban had a firm end date from the Americans and feared no military reprisal for anything they did in the interim, sensing the lack of U.S. will.
Let’s not forget that the need for a “conditions-based” withdrawal was central to military advice that the President Biden rejected. As the New York Times reported in April:
The current military leadership hoped it…could convince a new president to maintain at least a modest troop presence, trying to talk Mr. Biden into keeping a residual force and setting conditions on any withdrawal. But Mr. Biden refused to be persuaded.
Concluding observations
It is clear that the President was not – and is not – legally or morally obligated to adhere to the Trump administration’s withdrawal agreement with the Taliban. Decision-makers should keep this fact in mind as they continue to address the crisis.
Still, the President has also repeatedly claimed that his only options were to either withdraw by the 31st of August or introduce thousands more troops and ramp up the fighting at a considerable cost in American lives and treasure. Was he really confronted with that kind of Manichean choice?
Or was there a middle path – as the military recommended – where he could have proceeded with his aim of full withdrawal, but do so in a “conditions-based” way that could have avoided not just America’s humiliation, but also the emergence of what CNN is now calling a “terror hotbed” in Afghanistan? I’m convinced that the answer is “yes”.
We’ll discuss all that and much more in a future posts, so stay tuned.
But please take a moment today to offer prayers for the families of all the casualties in yesterday’s attacks but especially for the U.S. troops who paid the ultimate price, as well as those who have suffered terrible injuries doing what their country asked them to do.
We must never forget that freedom isn’t free when we send young Americans in harms’ way.
Remember what we like to say on Lawfire®: gather the facts, examine the law, evaluate the arguments – and then decide for yourself!
Update: Part 2 of the series, The dawn of America’s latest (“forever”?) conflict: the Over-the-Horizon War of 2021, is found here.
30. The dawn of America’s latest (“forever”?) conflict: the Over-the-Horizon War of 2021
The dawn of America’s latest (“forever”?) conflict: the Over-the-Horizon War of 2021
Ending a “forever war?” Forget it. It seems we are now embarking upon a new conflict, and one that—even if successful—will be difficult, long, and costly: the Over-the-Horizon (OTH) War of 2021.
In this second installment of our series analyzing the Afghanistan disaster (see Part 1 here) , let’s unpack the implications of some of President Biden’s recent statements about his intention to use OTH capabilities against terrorists.
To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay. I will defend our interests and our people with every measure at my command.
While not an explicit ‘declaration of war’ in a legal sense (only Congress can do that), the inclusion of “anyone who wishes America harm” as being in his sights implies the President will use his Article II, commander-in-chief powers (and any remaining statutory authorizations) to wage a conflict with not only those associated with the Kabul attack, but also with a broader range of terrorist actors who, after the America’s defeat in Afghanistan and the disastrous withdrawal, may be emboldened to strike the U.S. and its allies anywhere, to include the American homeland.
The President doubled-down on his views about OTH capabilities in his address last night when he insisted:
We will maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries. We just don’t need to fight a ground war to do it. We have what’s called Over The Horizon [OTH] capabilities, which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground, or very few if needed.
It is not clear to me the President fathoms how considerable an undertaking it will be to use OTH capabilities to “fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries” in an aggressive enough way to stop al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others who “wish America harm.”
In my view, no one should be deceived into thinking that relying on sporadic airstrikes will be a panacea for the various terrorist threats the U.S. faces. In fact, if the President is serious about what he says, everyone should disabuse themselves of any notion that the OTH war will not require a significant investment of military assets.
Of course, the U.S. has been battling terrorists overseas since 2001, and to date terrorists have been unable to replicate the horror of 9/11. However, the OTH component involved not just a handful of drones strikes, but literally thousands of airstrikes by manned and unmanned aircraft and thousands of special forces raids, the vast majority of which were aided by friendly forces on the ground (or nearby).
As I suggested in Part 1 of this series, a “conditions based” approach to withdrawal might have served the President’s desire to withdraw from Afghanistan without compromising U.S. security. Regardless, ‘we are where’ and everyone ought to acknowledge that the loss of a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is a proverbial ‘game-changer’ that will make stopping the re-emergence of terrorists who can threaten America profoundly more difficult.
As it is now, America will be facing hostilities from terrorist enemies who have been invigorated and emboldened by the Taliban’s success. Indeed, in a CNN interview, even Jake Sullivan, the President’s national security advisor concedes there are terrorist organizations in Afghanistan who are now seeking the “capability to threaten the homeland.”
Sullivan seemed to suggest the threat isn’t impending, but in an ABC News op-ed terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman maintains that the “Afghanistan withdrawal and the Taliban takeover means the terror threat is back.” He adds soberly: “Given how wrong the Biden administrations assumption about Afghanistan have been, it’s difficult to buy its assurances that Al Qaeda can’t strike the U.S.”
We’ll discuss the consequent need for urgency in more detail shortly, but it is inarguable that there are a range of actions the U.S. must take as a result of the debacle in Afghanistan if are to prevent terrorist entities from regrouping and threatening the American homeland, as well as our interests and allies abroad.
Rather than placing focus on the end of a “forever war,” the U.S. response that so enamors the President calls, effectively, for the initiation of a new conflict, the OTH War of 2021. If we want success, we need to accept that this new war will almost certainly be difficult and costly in both blood and treasure. It also will be a long campaign, if not a “forever” war.
To be clear, America–particularly with its unrivaled airpower capabilities–can prevail in a OTH war, provided airpower is applied at the necessary scale and with sufficient intensity, all in the context of a deliberate and well-organized air campaign. Scattered drone strikes won’t suffice; there needs to be a strategy.
It remains to be seen, however, if the President has the willingness to do what is necessary to follow-through on his promise to “maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries” through OTH capabilities.
“Over-the-horizon” (OTH) operations
OTH (pronounced “oh-tore”) operations are, as NPR put it just last May, “more a fuzzy concept than a polished military plan.” The concept essentially means doing things remotely (i.e., “over the horizon”) that would ordinarily be accomplished by forces present in-country, if not on the battlefield itself. It aims to create effects without putting troops into hostilities.
In fact, before the collapse of the Afghan government, the U.S. was going to try to support the Afghan military using an OTH approach. However, in my May 20th post I warned about the difficulty of doing so:
We’ve developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed.
The limitations of OTH operations were quickly exposed. Ten days after the President’s news conference it was evident that the allegedly “developed” OTH capability “to act quickly and decisively” failed to prevent the tragic Kabul airport attack.
Since that time, there were two drone strikes that arguably could be considered OTH operations even though U.S. troops were then still on the ground in Afghanistan. However, though both strikes seemed successful to a degree, they were not collectively sufficient to stop the President and other members of his administration from continuing to warn that further terrorist attacks in Kabul were “”
The real difficulties of OTH warfare
In a thoughtful article, retired NATO commander Admiral James Stavridis details some of the difficulties of OTH warfare, specifically with respect to Afghanistan. He believes the U.S. has “zero chance” of operating from adjacent countries. This means the U.S. would have to rely upon bases in the Arabian Gulf—1,200 miles from Kabul—or Diego Garcia, 3,000 miles distant.
Admiral Stavridis also notes the potential challenges in obtaining the overflight permissions necessary for U.S. combat aircraft to get to land-locked Afghanistan, as well as other, related concerns. He cautions: “Pakistan and Iran might now warn the Taliban of overflights; seek to shoot down cruise missiles; deny manned aircraft through their own air forces; and at a minimum raise hurdles diplomatically.”
The loss of on-the-ground intelligence makes OTH warfare to counter a terrorist threat especially daunting. Admiral Stavridis believes:
The biggest challenge, frankly, is not getting the kinetic tools into play — it is finding, processing and disseminating the human intelligence that would make the airborne or special forces strikes effective. With the total departure of the military and embassy, the CIA will be scrambling to find Afghan operatives who can send up a red flag about Taliban interactions with [al-]Qaeda, and then provide the targeting necessary for a mission.
Likewise, journalist Bill Powell reported in Newsweek that an Obama administration official said OTH operations can work, but “without good intelligence, over the horizon ‘becomes close to impossible.’” He explained the reasoning:
Intelligence analysts usually spend significant amounts of time verifying where a potential target will be and for how long. They must also assess the potential for “collateral damage,” or innocents who might be in the line of fire should a strike occur. In the vast majority of cases, this is done with information provided by human intelligence—sources on the ground. Without forward operating bases or an embassy in a country such as Afghanistan, that task becomes more difficult.
Additionally, Powell says:
Any sources who were left behind in the pullout may be less likely to work with America to supply intelligence – not only because of fear of reprisals from the Taliban or ISIS-K but also because of a loss of faith in American support and rescue.
Satellites and communications intercept technology can mitigate the intelligence-gathering challenge. However, it’s a mistake to underestimate the difficulty of gathering enough intelligence to systematically attack, as President Biden has indicated, “”
Overall, Admiral Stavridis observes:
“Over the horizon” has an exciting, Tom Clancy-like ring to it. But this isn’t fiction, and for now, there’s no counting on America’s ability to keep the Taliban from again doing business with terrorists.
The OTH war will be long, expensive, and resource-demanding
This new war against “anyone who wishes America harm” will be financially costly, and will likely more than cancel out any windfall the President expected the Afghanistan withdrawal might produce. In a must-read column in the Washington Post (“Has Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan made us safer? Clearly not.”), journalist Josh Rogin notes Congressman Tom Malinowski’s (D-N.J.) observations:
The troops the United States withdrew from Afghanistan aren’t coming home — they’re just moving to other foreign bases in the region. They will retain the mission to fight terrorism in Afghanistan . . . just from farther away and with no local partner.
Distance alone will increase the cost and complexity of the OTH war. Retired General David Petraeus who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan points out the enormous resource commitment it will take:
“It’s going to take a fleet of aerial tankers to get [aircraft] there and stay there” to monitor any build-up of a revitalized al Qaeda or the Islamic State. He added it would take hours for MQ-9 Reapers to reach Afghanistan from bases far removed from the land-locked country.
A group of experts argue that the intelligence and special operations forces will require billions in new funding to wage the OTH war:
The bottom line is that more over-the-horizon operations will require resources currently not allocated. US SOCOM and the intelligence community do not have sufficient funding to meet these new challenges. We must ensure that threat organizations that wish us harm cannot reconstitute, and we must preclude them from proliferating terrorism.
The human cost
Sadly, the second drone strike that reportedly destroyed a vehicle with suicide bombers did not go as well. As CNN reports, “the risks inherent in Biden’s promised ‘over the horizon’ anti-terror strategy were highlighted by the deaths of a young Afghan family this weekend in a US strike on what the American military insisted was a vehicle bomb destined for Kabul airport.”
Such deaths are virtually inevitable in any conflict, but the dangers are greater when a strike must be conducted from afar, and the intelligence for targeting is limited. The paucity of intelligence in the absence of Americans on the ground discussed above will undoubtedly continue.
Even the Administration’s own CIA Director admitted in April that: “When the time comes for the U.S. military to withdraw, the U.S. government’s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish. That’s simply a fact.” And that prediction was made when it was assumed there would still be an Afghan partner on the ground with whom to work.
Unfortunately, U.S. forces will likely not be immune from losses. For example, the OTH war could require raids by special operations forces and other troops to, for example, rescue Americans and Afghan allies left behind by the withdrawal, conduct special reconnaissance, or to fulfill mission requirements that cannot be adequately addressed from the air (see the discussion here about the Bin Laden raid).
Clearly, these operations could be extremely dangerous for the service members involved, particularly if they must fight their way to the objective and battle their way to the exfiltration point. Under such circumstances, the potential harm to civilians who could be caught in a crossfire is also readily apparent.
Additionally, regional bases hosting America’s OTH warfighters will no doubt face heightened risk as terrorists and other non-state actors demonstrate an increasing capacity to conduct sophisticated attacks on well-defended locations and bases in the Middle East.
Even Navy warships are at risk. In 2016, the U.S. Naval Institute reported Admiral Stavridis’ assessment:
“I think the Islamic State would love the symbolic aspect of going after a ship at sea,” he said.
“It’s counter intuitive, but a ship, in my view, is at its most vulnerable not when it’s alongside the pier, not when it’s in the open ocean, but when it’s getting underway out to sea.” The Navy must be on alert, vigilant and prepared to counter the terror threat to its deployed forces.
It’s difficult to imagine that Afghanistan-located terrorists will not aim to inflict any kind of attack on the U.S., either at home or abroad. If we need any reminder of their utter ruthlessness, consider that besides this past week’s horrific suicide attack at Kabul, ISIS-K was also responsible for last May’s attack on an Afghan maternity hospital, killing women and children.
Why the OTH war must be waged
As already discussed, it is painfully clear that the withdrawal from Afghanistan will hardly end America’s “forever war” against terrorists. Even if the Taliban prove to be solely interested in Afghanistan, Josh Rogin insists in his essay that:
[T]he terrorists’ war on us, is not over. The enemy is determined to go on fighting. And now we have to fight back from a weaker position.
The Taliban victory presents a remarkable opportunity for these groups to reorganize and threaten the U.S. at home and abroad. Jihadist groups gleefully celebrated the Taliban’s conquest of Kabul on chat rooms and other online platforms, pledging the revitalization of a global jihad.
Senator Mitt Romney was unequivocal when he explained in a CNN interview that the “Taliban and the radical violent jihadists in the world, they haven’t stopped fighting. They’re going to continue to fight us.”
He added:
The war is not over. We’re just no longer at a place where the war had its apex, where the Taliban was able to allow al Qaeda to grow and to attack us on 9/11. We went to Afghanistan because we got attacked on 9/11 and lost thousands of American lives.
The idea that somehow we can pull out of a dangerous place where radical violent jihadists are organizing, and that we can pull out of that, and that’s going to stop them, well, that’s fantasy. They’re going to continue in their effort to regroup and to come after America.
The Economist also weighed-in about how the “space” al-Qaeda now enjoys in Afghanistan might lead to an ability to strike “Western targets”:
For the past two decades, intense American pressure forced al-Qaeda’s leaders underground, hindering their communications and complicating plots. As it abates, the group may reconstitute its ability to strike Western targets. “What’s happening in Afghanistan is just the next phase in the cycle,” says [an expert]. “It might be another five years before anything happens. But they’ve now got the space that they didn’t have, and we should expect them gradually to move back in. The question is whether we will know when it happens.”
All of this means the OTH war needs to be relentlessly pursued with great vigor and urgency. If we are to hope to prevent attacks here at home, the OTH war may extend to countries beyond Afghanistan.
Why? The fact is that the threat of terrorism in the U.S. is much related to overseas efforts. In 2018, Graham Allison of Harvard’s Kennedy School explained why the jihadists have not succeeded in killing more Americans in the U.S.:
Unquestionably, many of the actions taken since 9/11 have prevented attacks. Osama bin Laden had active plans for additional attacks, including aspirations for a nuclear 9/11. What prevented that, first and foremost, was a relentless counterterrorism campaign that killed or captured most of al Qaeda’s leadership and left the others spending most of their time trying to survive rather than perfecting plots for future terrorist attacks. Destruction of their headquarters and training camps meant that thousands of individuals who would have been planning, training and then conducting terrorist attacks never got their chance.
The “relentless counterterrorism campaign” Allison refers to will be markedly more difficult to prosecute against al-Qaeda, ISIS and other groups since they now have Afghanistan to plan, train, and launch attacks where it is now far more difficult for the U.S. to monitor and, when necessary, neutralize threats. Obviously, it’s imperative that America wage its OTH war with sufficient ferocity and determination to keep al-Qaeda, ISIS, and any other terror organization unable to strike the U.S. or its allies around the globe.
A home-grown threat?
We cannot expect the OTH war to handle all the threats the perception – and promotion – of a so-called “Taliban victory” could have on the motivation of extremists already in the U.S. to strike here. Several years ago David Schanzer, Director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, observed that the success of overseas insurgent movements could instigate extremist violence here at home. He makes this insightful assessment:
[T]he incidence of violence by extremist Muslim-Americans rises when foreign insurgent movements are successful – that is, they are gaining territory, they are making claims to be an authentic alternative Islamist society, and they are pushing this message aggressively through social media. When they are ascendant in this way, their call for like-minded diaspora Muslims to “do something” can be compelling to at least a small cohort of Muslim-Americans.
Concluding thoughts
As much as the President – along with his predecessors and others – may have wanted to end the so-called “forever war” against terrorists, the fact is that the disastrous manner of the Afghanistan withdrawal ensures that the war – whether desired or not – will persist, albeit of a different character – if we want to keep the nation safe.
As discussed in Part 1 of this series, the President’s insistence that his only choices were to withdraw or ramp up America’s military forces in Afghanistan, was simply wrong.
Keeping a small, sustainable counter-terrorism presence as military leaders had recommended would have been sufficient to maintain leverage on the Taliban as the President pursued his goal of full withdrawal. As unsatisfying as that may have been in the near term, it would be far better than the disaster with which America is now grappling – and will continue to grapple with for a generation or more.
We should recognize that the impetus to end “forever wars” may be of noble origin, but it can unproductively distort reality, and can lead to terrible policy decisions as we’ve seen with the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. It put our military in an untenable position as it fought to execute the withdrawal mission within ill-considered policy-imposed constraints. It was only the heroism of the troops and their commanders on the ground that prevented a complete catastrophe and an even greater loss of life.
Those who speak of ending “forever” or “endless” wars should be sobered by the truth of the axiom often attributed to Plato that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” In fact, the New York Times asserted in 2013 that “[o]f the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.” For the U.S., a scholar said that in “the entire history of the United States of America there has been a grand total of 15 years when we have not been at war.”
This does not mean Americans are warmongers. While it is certainly true that Americans have made errors in wartime, and some people have wrongly suffered; on balance the U.S. has tried, however imperfectly, to make the world a better place.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse…
A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”
We must guard against those who would, in essence, suggest that freedom is free, that we can just announce a war is over and expect our enemies to agree. In point of fact, the enemy ‘gets a vote’, and right now it appears virtually inevitable that they will elect to continue to seek to harm us and our allies.
We must gird ourselves for the OTH war that we’ll be fighting for the foreseeable future, while at the same time constantly pursuing peace, however remote that dream may be today.
Remember what we like to say on Lawfire®: gather the facts, examine the law, evaluate the arguments – and then decide for yourself!
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.
