Quotes of the Day:

"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." 

- Reinhold Niebuhr

"A year from now you may wish you had started today." 

- Karen Lamb

"What will our children remember of us, ten, fifteen years from now? The mobile we bought or didn't buy? Or the tone in our voices, the look in our eyes, the enthusiasm for life - and for them - that we felt? They, and we, will remember the spirit of things, not the letter. Those memories will go so deep that no one could measure it, capture it, bronze it, or put it in a scrapbook." 

- Sonia Taitz

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 13, 2023

2. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, July 13, 2023

3. Meteorologists say Earth sizzled to a global heat record in June and July has been getting hotter

4. Chinese military's three-day show of force increases headache for Taiwan

5. Biden says 3,000 Reserve troops can be sent to Europe to support NATO, Ukraine

6. Biden admin believes hack gave China insights into US thinking ahead of Blinken's crucial Beijing visit

7. China-linked hacker hits State Department email accounts

8. Analysis | What we know (and don’t know) about the government email breach

9. Pacific allies want more exercises with US, munitions similar to what US is sending to Ukraine

10. Ukraine war: How have Western weapons performed in combat?

11. US paying contractor to quietly supply Bulgarian 155mm shells to Ukraine

12. Ordering the Selected Reserve and Certain Members of the Individual Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty

13. Reservists Set to Deploy for Europe NATO Mission Following New Biden Order

14. Ukraine's spymaster comes out of the shadows

15. Incredible Video Shows Ukrainian Seals Raiding Russian-Occupied Island in the Dnipro

16. Women Fighting Putin’s Troops Reveal Their Agonizing Secrets

17. Bombers Surge in the Pacific: B-52s Arrive in Guam, B-1s in Japan

18. Exposing the Dangers of the Influence of Foreign Adversaries on College Campuses

19. The Upside of U.S.-Chinese Competition

20. Microsoft Email Hack Shows Greater Sophistication, Skill of China’s Cyberspies

21. US military chief praises Japan's defense funding boost as a buttress against China and North Korea

22. Air Force general who predicted war with China leads 'unprecedented' training exercise

23. Pentagon’s Top General, Mark Milley, Calls for Faster Weapons Sales to Taiwan

24. 26th MEU is now Special Operations Capable | SOF

25. Three Admirals Approved to Retire Amid Senate Confirmation Hold, Temporary Naval Academy Leader Chosen

26. A US Green Beret drill with fake guerrilla fighters shows how Sweden has been preparing for an 'unconventional' clash with Russia

27. From Exception to Norm: Closing the Women, Peace, And Security Implementation Gap Through Joint Professional Military Education

28. War Books: A Summer Reading List

29. July 2023 Irregular Warfare Center Newsletter

30. AI Won’t Really Kill Us All, Will It?

31. ChatGPT Comes Under Investigation by Federal Trade Commission

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 13, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-13-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Former Commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army (CAA) Major General Ivan Popov claimed in leaked audio that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu dismissed him for expressing persistent grievances about problems on the western Zaporizhia Oblast frontline to senior commanders.
• Popov likely attempted to appeal to the Kremlin to partially or fully strip Gerasimov of command over operations in Ukraine.
• Gerasimov may have tried to shield Putin from unwanted criticism to uphold Putin’s ignorance by firing Popov before he could appeal directly to the Kremlin.
• Popov’s attempt to directly appeal to Putin for support and his insubordination of Gerasimov’s command is indicative of a pattern of corrosive behavior that has developed within the Russian command and the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
• Russian milbloggers expressed varied reactions to Popov’s dismissal, though none disagreed with Popov’s complaints about problems Russian forces experience on the front.
• Disruptions to the Russian command overseeing Russian defensive operations in southern Ukraine will likely have some immediate but marginal impacts on Russian forces.
• Popov’s dismissal over the issue of Russian casualties and reported complaints about lack of force rotations further supports ISW’s assessment that Russian defenses in Ukraine are likely brittle
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the frontline on July 13 and made gains in some areas.
• The Kremlin reportedly ordered the detention and suspension of several senior military officers following the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion on June 24, supporting ISW’s prior assessment that the Kremlin likely intends to purge the MoD of figures viewed as disloyal.
• Russian forces conducted a series of Shahed drone strikes across Ukraine on July 13.
• Russian and Ukrainian sources engaged in positional battles near Kreminna.
• Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks and reportedly advanced around Bakhmut.
• Ukrainian and Russian forces continue to conduct ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Ukrainian forces reported conducting limited offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast and continued counteroffensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia oblasts border area.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations and made some gains in western Zaporizhia Oblast as of July 13.
• Russia may not be fulfilling some of its commitments to Iran in their bilateral security partnership, even as the Russian military continues to rely heavily on Iranian-made drones in Ukraine.
• The Associated Press (AP) reported on July 13 that Russian forces and occupation administrations are conducting a wide scale campaign to detain and abuse civilians and are planning to build additional internment infrastructure in the occupied territories.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 13, 2023

Jul 13, 2023 - Press ISW

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 13, 2023

Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, Kateryna Stepanenko, Christina Harward, and Mason Clark

July 13, 2023, 8:50 pm ET

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

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 1:00pm ET on July 13. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 14 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Former Commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army (CAA) Major General Ivan Popov claimed in leaked audio that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu dismissed him for expressing persistent grievances about problems on the western Zaporizhia Oblast frontline to senior commanders. Russian State Duma Deputy and former Deputy Commander of the Southern Military District (SMD) Lieutenant General Andrei Gurulev leaked Popov’s audio message on July 12 in which Popov stated that Russian command fired him for expressing grievances over the lack of support for Russian forces and replaced him with Lieutenant General Denis Lyamin.[1] Popov claimed that he expressed concerns to the “highest level” of Russian command over the lack of Russian counter-battery warfare capabilities, the absence of artillery reconnaissance stations, significant Russian casualties from Ukrainian artillery fire, and other issues.[2] Popov claimed that Shoigu fired him because his honesty in voicing various problems in the Russian military threatened the Russian command. Popov claimed that he chose to “call a spade a spade” in the name of his dead comrades instead of “remaining in silent cowardice.”[3] Russian sources previously claimed that Chief of the Russian General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov dismissed Popov for expressing concerns over the need for troop rotations in western Zaporizhia Oblast amid Ukrainian counteroffensive operations.[4]

Popov was very likely aware that a recipient of his message in the veteran community of the 58th CAA would leak the audio recording. Popov reportedly distributed the recording to various actors including commanders, personnel, and veterans of the 58th CAA.[5] Gurulev, a former Chief of Staff of the 58th CAA, posted the recording on his Telegram channel on July 12, after which some prominent voices of the Russian ultranationalist community criticized Gurulev for breaking the sanctity of a private chat.[6] The voices accused Gurulev of leaking the audio in order to politicize the situation and bolster his own public appeal. Popov’s choice to distribute the audio to voices within the Russian veteran community suggests that he likely used unofficial or non-secure channels to distribute this message and that he was likely aware of the risk of using such channels for a supposedly limited audience. Popov may have intended for some recipients to leak the audio. Gurulev is a prominent voice in the Russian veteran community who has previously criticized the Russian MoD’s conduct of the war, so was likely to distribute such a recording from an insecure channel.[7]  One milblogger claimed that Popov purposefully released the audio to demonstrate that Popov does not fear the wrath of the Russian military command.[8] A Russian source leaked Popov’s grievances and reports of his dismissal on July 11 prior to the leak of the recording, which may suggest that Popov may have coordinated the timing of the July 12 leak.[9]

Popov equated himself with a rebellion leader less than a month after the Wagner Group rebellion, regardless of whether he intended for the recording to leak. Popov referred to himself as "Spartak” - his longtime callsign - and his subordinates as “gladiators,” likely deliberately invoking the memory of Roman slave rebellion leader Spartacus.[10]Popov may have used this comparison to underscore his self-portrayal as separate from the inept and actively harmful Russian military command. Popov claimed that Russia’s “most senior [military] commander” (likely referring to Gerasimov) is attacking Russian forces from the rear as they defend against the Ukrainian counteroffensive on the frontline and painted himself as morally obligated to raise his concerns with the Russian military command. Popov’s portrayal of himself as a rebellion leader with grievances against the MoD - whether intentionally or otherwise - is notably reminiscent of the self-portrayal and rhetoric of Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin leading up to and during his June 24 armed rebellion.[11] Popov notably has no known affiliations with Wagner or Prigozhin, however.

Popov likely attempted to appeal to the Kremlin to partially or fully strip Gerasimov of command over operations in Ukraine. Popov’s indications that senior Russian command was responsible for the operational decisions he opposed and the absence of Southern Military District (SMD) Commander Colonel General Sergey Kuzovlev in the controversy may suggest that Gerasimov is playing a more active role in overseeing operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast. Russian sources have speculated that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) commander and rumored deputy theater commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky recently assumed Gerasimov‘s responsibilities for operations in Ukraine, although ISW has not observed confirmation that such a transfer of responsibilities has occurred.[12] Even if Gerasimov is not directly in charge of the Russian defensive operations in southern Ukraine, Popov’s complaints against the Russian military command suggest that Gerasimov still has significant command over operational decision-making in Ukraine. Popov therefore likely aimed to bypass Gerasimov’s responsibilities as overall theater commander by directly asking Putin to overrule Gerasimov, although it is unclear to what extent Popov aimed to depose Gerasimov of his authority.

Popov likely modeled his attempt to secure Putin’s favor for his desired goals off of Teplinsky’s successful appeal to Putin in March.[13] Teplinsky temporarily resigned in January over a conflict with Gerasimov about the use of VDV forces in human wave attacks around Soledar and reportedly used connections in veteran communities to directly appeal to Putin on March 15 to rally support for the anti-Gerasimov group within the MoD.[14] Popov’s message to current and former SMD personnel likely sought to recreate the effect of Teplinsky’s outreach after Popov failed to initially bring his complaints directly to Putin. Popov may have more ambitiously sought to seize on possible Kremlin concerns about the widespread disdain for Gerasimov in order to elevate his own standing in a way reminiscent of Teplinsky’s alleged rise to deputy theater commander.

Gerasimov may have tried to shield Putin from unwanted criticism to uphold Putin’s ignorance by firing Popov before he could appeal directly to the Kremlin. A source reportedly affiliated with the Russian security services claimed that Popov announced that he would appeal to Putin before Gerasimov dismissed him from his position, which may indicate that Gerasimov directly responded to Popov’s threat.[15] ISW had previously observed that Putin has ignored complaints from Russian officials who spoke on behalf of Russian servicemen – likely to distance himself from Russian military failures. For example, the Secretary of the United Russia Party‘s General Council Andrey Turchak delivered a blunt briefing directly to Putin in February 2023 regarding the dire state of the Russian winter-spring offensive but was unsuccessful in triggering a command change.[16] ISW assessed that Teplinsky’s appeal to Russian veteran communities, however, forced Putin to respond to the complaints about the need for preparations for Ukrainian counteroffensives as of March.[17] The anecdote showcases that Putin preferred to remain ignorant until he faced potential backlash from military officials and Russian veterans. Putin may have instructed Gerasimov to prevent and resolve similar compromising situations before these incidents reached the Kremlin.

Popov’s attempt to directly appeal to Putin for support and his insubordination of Gerasimov’s command is indicative of a pattern of corrosive behavior that has developed within the Russian command and the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. Popov’s and Teplinsky’s attempts to prompt Putin to act against Gerasimov are reminiscent of Prigozhin ’s June 24 rebellion, during which Wagner forces attempted to force Putin to remove Gerasimov and Shoigu.[18] Three prominent figures within the Russian war effort in Ukraine (Teplinsky, Prigozhin, and Popov) have now attempted to weaken Gerasimov and Shoigu’s authority due to a deep concern about the attrition of their forces and have attempted to use their responsibility over key sectors of the front to go outside of the chain of command to compel the Kremlin to act in their favor. ISW has previously assessed that public disagreements between Russian forces in Ukraine over supplies and combat tasks and the Russian Ministry of Defense’s (MoD’s) apparent need to negotiate with subordinate commanders on these issues suggest that there are severe chain of command problems.[19]

The growing precedent of commanders subordinate to Gerasimov conducting outright insubordination to achieve desired goals may be the result of an incentive for commanders to violate the chain of command. Russian commanders may be increasingly taking the wellbeing of their forces into their own hands in the face of the Russian MoD’s continued failures to address endemic issues with the Russian war effort in Ukraine. The increasingly fragile Russian chain of command may prompt a critical command and control crisis in the future, in which field commanders’ support for the Russian military command could become increasingly hollow.

Russian milbloggers expressed varied reactions to Popov’s dismissal, though none disagreed with Popov’s complaints about problems Russian forces experience on the front. Many Russian sources characterized Popov as “intelligent,” “competent,” and “authoritative” and claimed that he was a good commander who had wide support of his troops.[20]  Popov is a respected commander who has followed a promising promotion path similar to that of generals who have gone on to command military districts, and ISW does not have any reason to doubt milblogger characterizations of Popov as an effective and respected commander. Some Russian sources used Popov’s firing to express longstanding disdain for the Russian military command and Gerasimov, claiming that the Russian military command never listens to their complaints.[21] Wagner-affiliated sources attempted to co-opt Popov’s grievances by likening Popov to Prigozhin and describing their situations as beloved and respected commanders who faced punishment for voicing genuine concerns.[22] Other milbloggers noted that Popov and Prigozhin held many similar unresolved complaints that eventually led to Wagner’s armed rebellion, regardless of Prigozhin’s personal ambitions.[23] Milbloggers also expressed concerns that continued outspoken dissatisfaction from senior Russian commanders following the Wagner armed rebellion could set a precedent for Russian forces conducting armed protests.[24] Prominent Russian milblogger and former Russian officer Igor Girkin cynically claimed that Russian forces are only one major military defeat away from conventional Russian forces conducting their own march on Moscow.[25] Russian milbloggers notably did not disagree with Popov’s list of problems on the frontline, with one milblogger explicitly asserting that ineffective Russian counter-battery fire and artillery reconnaissance result in Russian casualties that diminish Russian forces’ long-term ability to hold defensive positions.

Disruptions to the Russian command overseeing Russian defensive operations in southern Ukraine will likely have some immediate but marginal impacts on Russian forces. ISW has observed that the 58th CAA’s 19th and 42nd Motorized Rifle Divisions are heavily committed to defending against Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[26] Popov’s sudden firing may temporarily disrupt Russian command and control in these areas and degrade Russian morale given the widespread support Popov had among Russian servicemembers of the 58th CAA. These impacts will likely be marginal and ISW continues to assess that Russian forces in the area are conducting a sound doctrinal defense.[27]

Popov’s dismissal over the issue of Russian casualties and reported complaints about lack of force rotations further supports ISW’s assessment that Russian defenses in Ukraine are likely brittle. ISW has previously assessed that Russian forces lack the reserves to rotate frontline units and that without operational reserves Russian forces would have to fall back to prepared defensive positions without significant support in the case of a Ukrainian breakthrough.[28] Popov’s complaint about Russian casualties from artillery fire likely indicates that Russian forces need rotations and reinforcements to sustain their defenses in western Zaporizhia Oblast. Russia’s lack of reserves likely made it impossible for Gerasimov to seriously consider Popov’s appeal, and Popov’s dismissal has further illustrated that Russian forces are unable to conduct force rotations. The apparent theater-wide lack of force rotations suggests that Russian forces would have to rely on existing and already degraded forces in the event of any Ukrainian breakthrough. Popov’s complaints about Russian forces’ poor counterbattery capabilities and significant Russian casualties from Ukrainian artillery fire are likely a result of what ISW assesses to be a Ukrainian effort to attrit Russian forces defending in southern Ukraine.[29]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the frontline on July 13 and made gains in some areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut, Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast), and Berdyansk (Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area) directions.[30] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces achieved partial success in the Novodanylivka-Shyroka Balka (roughly 3km south of Orikhiv) and Mala Tokmachka-Novopokrovka (6-13km southeast of Orikhiv) directions.[31] Ukrainian officials also reported that Ukrainian forces advanced on Bakhmut‘s southern flank.[32] Geolocated footage published on July 11 shows that Ukrainian forces recently made limited advances north of Krasnohorivka (9km north of Avdiivka).[33]

Russian forces conducted a series of Shahed drone strikes across Ukraine on July 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 20 Shahed-131/136 drones from Kursk Oblast and the Sea of Azov, two Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea, and one Iskander-M missile from occupied Dzhankoi, Crimea.[34] Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces targeted Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad, and Kyiv oblasts.[35] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian air defenses shot down all 20 Shahed drones and both Kalibr missiles.[36] Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces constantly use combined missile and drone strikes and seek opportunities to bypass Ukrainian air defenses to inflict maximum damage.[37] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that they conducted a successful group strike with sea-based long-range high-precision weapons and destroyed Ukrainian ammunition storage facilities.[38]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated boilerplate Russian rhetoric to deter Western security assistance to Ukraine following the NATO summit. Lavrov claimed that Russia would recognize the appearance of F-16s in Ukraine as a nuclear threat because F-16s are technically capable of carrying nuclear warheads.[39] The US and other NATO states are extremely unlikely to provide F-16s to Ukraine with the specific modifications necessary to carry nuclear weapons, and the notion of Ukraine acquiring nuclear weapons is preposterous. Many airframes and other common weapons systems are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons if the weapons or warheads have the correct modifications.[40] Lavrov also claimed that Ukraine rejected multilateral negotiations frameworks from China, Brazil, and African states.[41] ISW has consistently assessed that Russia is currently highly unlikely to meaningfully engage in any negotiations framework despite efforts to signal falsely otherwise.[42] ISW has assessed that the Kremlin routinely amplifies information operations about nuclear escalation with the West over the war in Ukraine or Russia’s willingness to negotiate in an effort to weaken Western support for Ukraine.[43]

The Kremlin continues to navigate the aftermath of Wagner’s armed rebellion, as the future of the Wagner Group and Prigozhin continues to be unclear. Geolocated footage published on July 13 purportedly shows Wagner forces driving along the M4 highway in Voronezh Oblast redeploying from field camps likely in the rear of Russian occupied Ukraine.[44] A Russian milblogger claimed that the footage showed Russian police escorting the convoy and buses with Belarusian license plates, possibly indicating the convoy’s destination.[45] The Russian military continues to express concerns over the security of the SMD headquarters in Rostov-on-Don after Wagner forces surrounded the building during the armed rebellion. Images published on July 13 show that Russian forces placed gabions filled with sand around the headquarters, and milbloggers claimed that unspecified Spetsnaz personnel and an armored car equipped with a machine gun are stationed outside the building.[46]

Russian outlet RTVI reported on July 12 that companies associated with Prigozhin have received nine contracts with Russian businesses amounting to 1.064 billion rubles (about $11.8 million) since Wagner’s armed rebellion on June 24.[47] The largest contract is reportedly between the company Prodfutservis and the Ministry of Education of Mytishchi in Moscow Oblast for over 705 million rubles (about $7.8 million) to supply meals to public schools from 2023 to 2025.[48] Other customers include Russian government linked entities such as the hospitals subordinate to the Moscow Department of Health and the Medical and Health Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which claimed that it had not received complaints over catering services and therefore had no grounds to terminate the contract. It is unclear if Prigozhin is still linked to these companies, however.

The Kremlin reportedly ordered the detention and suspension of several senior military officers following the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion on June 24, supporting ISW’s prior assessment that the Kremlin likely intends to purge the MoD of figures viewed as disloyal.[49] The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on July 13 that Russian authorities detained at least 13 senior military officers and suspended or fired around 15 senior officers following the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion on June 24.[50] Russian authorities reportedly detained Wagner-affiliated Deputy Commander of Russian Forces in Ukraine Army General Sergei Surovikin, former Russian Deputy Defense Ministry for Logistics Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, and other unnamed senior officers. Russian authorities also reportedly detained and later released Surovikin’s deputy Colonel General Andrey Yudin and deputy head of Russian General Staff’s Main Directorate (GRU) Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev. The WSJ reported that one source claimed that the detentions are intended to ”clean ranks” of those Russian President Vladimir Putin no longer sees as trustworthy.[51]

Russian authorities arrested the Russian Deputy Minister for Digital Development Maxim Parshin for allegedly accepting bribes. The Russian Investigative Committee announced the arrest on July 13, and Russian State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein claimed that Russian law enforcement witnessed Parshin accept a bribe of 3.5 million rubles ($33,350), after which law enforcement detained him.[52] Russian authorities also arrested the Director of the Budget and Financial Technologies LLC, Alexander Monosov, for attempting to bribe Parshin.[53]

The Russian Ministry of Digital Development and the Union of Journalists expressed support for measures that would grant Russian military correspondents some type of veteran status. Russian Union of Journalists Head and state propagandist Vladimir Solovyev announced that the Union of Journalists and the Russian Ministry of Digital Development mutually support an effort to officially designate Russian military correspondents as “veterans of military journalism.”[54] Russian Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) Head Leonid Slutsky stated on July 5 that the LDPR aims to pass legislation that will grant military correspondents the status of combat veterans, which would afford these milbloggers state guarantees and payments in cases of injury or death in Ukraine.[55] ISW assessed that Russian ultranationalist figures are likely supporting these measures to court the Russian milblogger community as a key constituency.[56] The Kremlin could use such measures to exert more control over milbloggers and determine who qualifies as a recognized milblogger, however.

Key Takeaways:

• Former Commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army (CAA) Major General Ivan Popov claimed in leaked audio that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu dismissed him for expressing persistent grievances about problems on the western Zaporizhia Oblast frontline to senior commanders.
• Popov likely attempted to appeal to the Kremlin to partially or fully strip Gerasimov of command over operations in Ukraine.
• Gerasimov may have tried to shield Putin from unwanted criticism to uphold Putin’s ignorance by firing Popov before he could appeal directly to the Kremlin.
• Popov’s attempt to directly appeal to Putin for support and his insubordination of Gerasimov’s command is indicative of a pattern of corrosive behavior that has developed within the Russian command and the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
• Russian milbloggers expressed varied reactions to Popov’s dismissal, though none disagreed with Popov’s complaints about problems Russian forces experience on the front.
• Disruptions to the Russian command overseeing Russian defensive operations in southern Ukraine will likely have some immediate but marginal impacts on Russian forces.
• Popov’s dismissal over the issue of Russian casualties and reported complaints about lack of force rotations further supports ISW’s assessment that Russian defenses in Ukraine are likely brittle
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the frontline on July 13 and made gains in some areas.
• The Kremlin reportedly ordered the detention and suspension of several senior military officers following the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion on June 24, supporting ISW’s prior assessment that the Kremlin likely intends to purge the MoD of figures viewed as disloyal.
• Russian forces conducted a series of Shahed drone strikes across Ukraine on July 13.
• Russian and Ukrainian sources engaged in positional battles near Kreminna.
• Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks and reportedly advanced around Bakhmut.
• Ukrainian and Russian forces continue to conduct ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Ukrainian forces reported conducting limited offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast and continued counteroffensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia oblasts border area.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations and made some gains in western Zaporizhia Oblast as of July 13.
• Russia may not be fulfilling some of its commitments to Iran in their bilateral security partnership, even as the Russian military continues to rely heavily on Iranian-made drones in Ukraine.
• The Associated Press (AP) reported on July 13 that Russian forces and occupation administrations are conducting a wide scale campaign to detain and abuse civilians and are planning to build additional internment infrastructure in the occupied territories.

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

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast) 

Russian sources claimed that Russian forces made territorial gains and conducted offensive operations near Kupyansk and Svatove on July 13. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces cut off Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in an unspecified area along the N26 Chuhuiv-Mylove highway, which passes through Kupyansk and Svatove, although ISW has not observed evidence corroborating these Russian claims at this time.[57] Russian sources claimed that fighting continued in Novoselivske (16km northwest of Svatove) and that the frontline now runs along the Novoselivske railway.[58] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces counterattacked near the forest belt in the vicinity of the Novoselivske railway line and that Russian forces conducted offensive operations south of Novoselivske and near the Novoselivske railway.[59]  A Russian milblogger indicated that elements of the Russian 27th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st Guards Tank Army, Western Military District) are fighting in the Novoselivske area.[60] Russian sources also claimed Russian forces conducted ground attacks near Kuzemivka (14km northwest of Svatove).[61] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian advances in this area would create conditions for Russian forces to partially encircle Novoselivske and develop further attacks towards Stelmakhivka (16km west of Svatove).[62] Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian offensive operations near Novoselivske were unsuccessful, however.[63]

Russian and Ukrainian forces engaged in positional battles near Kreminna on July 13. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked Russian positions near Dibrova (4km southwest of Kreminna) and Kreminna.[64] Former Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Ambassador to Russia Rodion Miroshnik claimed that Russian forces engaged with Ukrainian forces in the Kreminna and Serebryanske forestry areas.[65] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces continued assault operations near Torske (13km west of Kreminna).[66] Another milblogger indicated that medical personnel of the 74th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (41st Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) operated in the Torske direction.[67] Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions east of Nevske (19km northwest of Kreminna), east of Terny (15km northwest of Kreminna), and near Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna).[68] Former Russian officer Igor Girkin claimed that Russian forces continued attacks west of Kreminna and Svatove in an effort to pull Ukrainian reserves to the Luhansk Oblast frontline from their positions in the Bakhmut area.[69]

A Ukrainian official observed that Russian forces are accumulating a powerful grouping of forces in the Kupyansk and Lyman (west of Kreminna) directions. Cherevaty stated that Russian forces are concentrating airborne (VDV) forces, unspecified infantry formations, BARS (Russian Combat Army Reserve) units, territorial defense elements, small private military companies (PMC) like Veterany PMC, and Storm-Z assault groups on the Luhansk Oblast frontline.[70] Cherevaty also identified that Chechen units are operating near Svatove but noted that these forces are carrying out purely policing tasks.[71]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian Objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks and reportedly advanced around Bakhmut on July 13. The Ukrainian General Staff and Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Ukrainian forces continue counteroffensive operations north and south of Bakhmut and advanced on Bakhmut’s southern flank.[72] Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty reported that Ukrainian forces have the initiative around Bakhmut and are advancing to new positions in unspecified heights.[73] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that elements of the Russian Southern Group of Forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Vesele (20km northeast of Bakhmut).[74] Footage published on July 13 purportedly shows elements of the 3rd Assault Detachment (a subunit of unknown size) of the 137th Guards Airborne (VDV) Regiment (106th Guards VDV Division) repelling a Ukrainian attack in the Soledar direction (12km northeast of Bakhmut).[75] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian forces from heights near Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[76] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted attacks near Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut) and Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut) and that fighting is ongoing near Berkhivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut).[77]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks around Bakhmut on July 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled all Russian attacks near Berkhivka.[78] Cherevaty reported that unspecified Chechen formations are operating near Klishchiivka in an internal security capacity with no combat value.[79]  A Russian milblogger claimed that unit of the 106th Guards VDV Division is placing mines in areas near Bakhmut every night and can install over 400 mines in two hours.[80] Footage published on July 13 purportedly shows elements of the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic Army Corps) operating in the Bakhmut direction.[81]

Ukrainian and Russian forces continue to conduct ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on July 13. Geolocated footage published on July 11 shows that Ukrainian forces recently made limited advances north of Krasnohorivka (9km north of Avdiivka).[82] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Krasnohorivka, Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka), Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City), and Novomykhailivka (30km southwest of Donetsk City).[83] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Avdiivka, Keramik (10km north of Avdiivka), and Marinka.[84]  Prominent Russian milblogger and former Russian officer Igor Girkin claimed that Storm-Z assault units continue to attack in the direction of the Avdiivka industrial zone.[85] Footage published on July 12 and 13 purportedly shows elements of the 10th Tank Regiment (3rd Army Corps, Western Military District) operating in the Avdiivka direction and elements of the 33rd Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 20th Motorized Rifle Division (8th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) operating in the Marinka direction.[86] The UK MoD reported that Russian forces, likely Chechen formations, conducted many vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attacks near Marinka throughout June and that most VBIEDs detonated before reaching their intended target due to anti-tank mines and direct fire.[87]

Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes

Ukrainian forces reported conducting limited offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast on July 13. A Russian source claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group north of Volodymyrivka (10km southeast of Vuhledar).[88]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia oblasts border area on July 13. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled two Ukrainian ground attacks near Rivnopil (8km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) and Novodonetske (11km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[89] Other Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces additionally attacked near Pryyutne (14km southwest of Velyka Novosilka), Makarivka (5km south of Velyka Novosilka), and Staromaiorske (8km south of Velyka Novosilka).[90] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces have increased the intensity of offensive activity in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia oblasts border area and that fighting in that area is becoming attritional.[91]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations and made some gains in western Zaporizhia Oblast as of July 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian operations in the Novodanylivka-Shyroka Balka (roughly 3km south of Orikhiv) and Mala Tokmachka-Novopokrovka (6-13km southeast of Orikhiv) directions were partially successful.[92] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces captured a position of the Russian 71st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) northeast of Robotyne (11km south of Orikhiv).[93] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Robotyne, however.[94] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks along the Pytaykhatky-Zherebyanky line (23-26km southwest of Orikhiv).[95]

Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces maintain a limited presence in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast as of July 13. The Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian artillery fire prevents Ukrainian forces from reinforcing or resupplying the grouping near the Antonivsky Bridge in east bank Kherson Oblast.[96]

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated that Russian occupation authorities are still refusing IAEA personnel access to some critical areas of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). The IAEA stated on July 12 that Russian ZNPP operators still have not allowed IAEA personnel to access the rooftops of reactor containment units to inspect for the presence of explosives.[97] The IAEA noted that IAEA personnel at the ZNPP have not observed any mines or other explosives during inspections of other areas so far. The IAEA also stated that the ZNPP is preparing to transition reactor no. 4 from cold shutdown to hot shutdown and reactor no. 5 from hot shutdown to cold shutdown for routine maintenance of reactor no. 5.

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

Russia may not be fulfilling some of its commitments to Iran in their bilateral security partnership, even as the Russian military continues to rely heavily on Iranian-made drones in Ukraine. United Kingdom based research group Bourse and Bazaar reported on July 13 that current and former Iranian diplomats claimed that Iran completed payments for 50 Russian SU-35 fighter jets during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s second term between 2017 and 2021.[98] Russia has yet to deliver SU-35s to Iran despite speculations to the contrary, and Bourse and Bazaar’s Iranian sources reportedly stated that Russia will likely fail to deliver the fighter jets to Iran by the end of 2023 as promised.[99] The Wall Street Journal reported on July 13 that retrieved Iranian drones in Ukraine show that Iranian companies are replicating drone components that they previously used to source from Western firms.[100] Weapons investigators in Ukraine have reportedly discovered parts in downed drones indicating that Iranian private electronics firm Sarmad Electronics Sepahan has started producing analogs for parts that used to come from Japanese electronics manufacturers.[101] Iran‘s efforts to produce their own components appear to be in part focused on maintaining the supply of drones to Russia, though these efforts to domestically produce key components also have inherent value to Iran. The failure to deliver the Su-35 to Iran is unlikely to disrupt existing Iranian commitments to provide Russia with drones, although the delayed deliveries may become a larger obstacle in continued efforts at strengthening the Russian-Iranian bilateral security partnership.

Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems) 

The Associated Press (AP) reported on July 13 that Russian forces and occupation administrations are conducting a wide scale campaign to detain and abuse civilians and are planning to build additional internment infrastructure in the occupied territories.[102] AP obtained a Russian government document dated January 2023 that outlined plans to build 25 new prison colonies and six new detention centers in occupied Ukraine by 2026, signaling that the Russian government is likely planning to detain thousands more Ukrainian citizens.[103] Russian plans to build new internment infrastructure in the occupied territories are consistent with Russia’s intention to maintain long-term control of the occupied territories.

AP reported that the Ukrainian government estimates around 10,000 civilians could be detained throughout Russia, Belarus, and the occupied territories.[104] ISW has previously reported that Ukrainian officials are aware of the Belarusian facilitation of deportation schemes.[105] AP reported that Ukrainian detainees are being held in at least 40 various detention facilities in Russia and Belarus and 63 facilities in the occupied territories.[106] AP discovered that Russian officials force detainees who are not imprisoned in detention centers to build fortifications and dig trenches along the lines of combat to protect Russian forces.[107] AP also interviewed dozens of government officials and witnesses, including 20 former detainees.[108] AP noted that every former detainee mentioned the prevalence of physical and mental torture in detention centers.[109] Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov stated that at the beginning of the invasion, Russian forces focused on detaining activists, pro-Ukrainian community leaders, and veterans but that recently there has been ”no logic” to the detentions.[110] AP reported that many detainees have been arrested for speaking Ukrainian and simply existing in the occupied territories.[111]

The Ukrainian Resistance Center released a report on July 13 on the “Situation in the occupied territories in the first half of 2023.”[112] The Resistance Center reported that Russia continues efforts to ”legalize” its power in the occupied territories through regional elections and is carrying out policies intended to change the demographic composition of the occupied territories through the deportation of children.[113] The Resistance Center also reported that Russian-funded economic and infrastructure projects are intended to facilitate the further integration the occupied territories with the Russian economic zone and Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs), as ISW has previously reported.[114] The Resistance Center noted that the most significant challenge for the Russian and occupation administrations is the resistance of the local population, which is particularly strong in the southern occupied regions.[115]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks).

Russian milbloggers continued to speculate on the future of Wagner Group in Belarus. A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Wagner forces began preparations to transfer personnel to Belarus after they turned their heavy weapons, small arms, and ammunition over to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD).[116] The milblogger claimed that after Wagner forces arrive in Belarus, they will train Belarusian forces in coordination with the Belarusian MoD and will retain their organizational structure. The milblogger observed that Wagner is undergoing the process of restructuring its activities.

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

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

2. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, July 13, 2023

Maps/graphics//citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-july-13-2023

Key Takeaways

1.     Cross-strait issues have reemerged as the prominent topics of debate in the Taiwanese presidential election.

2.     The Cyberspace Administration of China renewed its crackdown on “self-media” to create an internet order governed by stricter central censorship.

CHINA-TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, JULY 13, 2023

Jul 13, 2023 - Press ISW

China-Taiwan Weekly Update, July 13, 2023

Authors: Nils Peterson of the Institute for the Study of War

Editors: Dan Blumenthal and Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute

Data Cutoff: July 12 at 9AM ET

The China–Taiwan Weekly Update focuses on Chinese Communist Party paths to controlling Taiwan and relevant cross–Taiwan Strait developments.

Key Takeaways

1.     Cross-strait issues have reemerged as the prominent topics of debate in the Taiwanese presidential election.

2.     The Cyberspace Administration of China renewed its crackdown on “self-media” to create an internet order governed by stricter central censorship.

Taiwan Developments

This section covers relevant developments pertaining to Taiwan, including its upcoming January 13, 2024 presidential and legislative elections.

Elections

The Taiwanese (Republic of China) political spectrum is largely divided between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT). The DPP broadly favors Taiwanese autonomy, Taiwanese identity, and skepticism towards China. The KMT favors closer economic and cultural relations with China along with a broader alignment with a Chinese identity. The DPP under President Tsai Ing-wen has controlled the presidency and legislature (Legislative Yuan) since 2016. This presidential election cycle also includes the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je who frames his movement as an amorphous alternative to the DPP and KMT. It is normal for Taiwanese presidential elections to have third party candidates, but none have ever won. The 2024 Taiwan presidential and legislative elections will be held on January 13, 2024 and the new president will take office in May 2024. Presidential candidates can win elections with a plurality of votes in Taiwan.

Cross-strait issues have reemerged as the prominent topics of debate in the Taiwanese presidential election. The sexual assault and barbiturate scandals that the Taiwanese media space focused on for most of May and June are no longer the top media stories, nor are they significantly shaping the election. DPP presidential candidate Lai Ching-te and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen publicly apologized for the sexual assault scandal that primarily affected the DPP in early June and launched three internal party processes to prevent further sexual harassment in the party.[1] The barbiturate scandal that primarily affected KMT presidential candidate and New Taipei City mayor Hou Yu-ih in May to June prompted Hou to publicly apologize for the scandal.[2] New Taipei City’s education department randomly checked several dozen preschools and tested the blood of 34 children throughout June, but found no trace of barbiturates.[3] The KMT and DPP candidates’ remarks in early July moved the electoral narrative away from the scandals and back to focusing on cross-strait relations. KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih and DPP presidential candidate Lai Ching-te have separately re-emphasized the centrality of cross-strait issues for the election since early July, after media coverage of the scandals subsided.

• Lai published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on July 4 detailing his “four-pillar plan for peace.” He called for increasing Taiwan’s military deterrence, treating economic security as a national security matter, partnering with democracies around the world, and supporting the cross-strait status quo.[4] The article ignited criticism from the KMT and TPP. KMT spokesperson Lin Jiaxing stated that Lai’s four pillars make it “difficult to maintain the status quo” and contain confrontational thinking that will exacerbate cross-strait tensions.[5] TPP presidential candidate Ko Wen-je criticized Lai’s four pillars as unachievable under a DPP administration because of its poor relations with China that make dialogue difficult.[6]
• Lai also framed the presidential election as a choice between moving closer to the White House or Zhongnanhai (the CCP leadership compound). He stated Taiwan is moving closer to the White House under President Tsai Ing-wen and that he would continue leading the country in that direction as president.[7] This prompted the pan-blue media outlet China Times to criticize Lai as aiming for independence and being biased towards the United States.[8]
• Hou Yu-ih recanted his opposition to extending mandatory conscription for Taiwanese men from four months to one year. Hou stated on July 3 that he would limit mandatory military service to four months to “ensure stability and peace on both sides of the strait.”[9] Hou stated on July 4 that he does not oppose the government’s plan to extend compulsory military service to one year but that he is opposed to the DPP’s “3+1” system. This system allows university students to complete both their degree and military service in four years.[10]

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Beijing is trying a “more subtle approach” to influence Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election. This “more subtle approach” involves the CCP not directly attacking the DPP as much as in previous elections.[11] Instead, the party takes a combination of coercive actions. SCMP cited an unnamed Taiwanese security source stating that the CCP aims to generate fear in Taiwan by equating a vote for the DDP with a vote for war. It also aimed to place the onus for cross-strait tensions on the DPP via messaging on TikTok and more frequent PLA military activity near Taiwan. The source claimed that the CCP is pushing narratives to the Taiwanese domestic audience that frame countries friendly to Taiwan, such as the United States, as unreliable.[12] The unnamed source also stated that the CCP coerces Taiwanese public opinion by “first suspend[ing] the import of certain Taiwanese products, only to resume shipments as the elections approached.”[13] This is consistent with ISW’s prior assessments that the CCP has leverage points over each of the Taiwanese presidential candidates regarding cross-strait policy due to the peace versus war election narrative framing.[14] The CCP’s efforts indicate that the party is setting conditions to shape the Taiwanese political landscape regardless of the outcome of the Taiwanese presidential election.   

China Developments

This section covers relevant developments pertaining to China and the governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The Cyberspace Administration of China renewed its crackdown on “self-media” to create an internet order governed by stricter central censorship. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) launched the crackdown on self-media in March 2023. It aimed to eliminate “harmful information” such as that which does “damage to the party and government image.”[15] The July 2023 regulations go further by forbidding censored accounts from making money and gaining followers and blocking other users from interacting with the censored accounts’ past posts. The new regulations also require the censored accounts to mark the time and date for all photos and videos and stipulate that those without timestamps will be marked as computer generated. Posts that include the logos of the party, government organizations, or the PLA require manual review.[16]

The CAC initially operationalized this crackdown by banning the social media accounts Health Insight and Media Camp that reported on Covid-19 governance scandals and investigative journalism in China, respectively.[17] The new regulations and crackdown show that the CCP aims for a stricter crackdown on self-media that it can centrally control, however.

The Fengqiao Experience may be the CCP’s framework for ensuring a backup form of internet control. The Fengqiao Experience refers to the party mobilizing the population to root out and shame alleged class enemies in China during the 1960s before the Cultural Revolution.[18] The Fengqiao Experience entailed the purging of party members—including Xi Jinping’s father, Xi Zhongxun—which isolated them and their families from the rest of respectable Chinese society pending rehabilitation by party leadership. This process of isolation involved moving some, such as Xi’s family, to the Central Party School as social pariahs for re-education and persecution in struggle sessions during the Cultural Revolution.[19] The term Fengqiao Experience became disreputable due to its association with the Mao years. Xi has brought the term back since becoming General Secretary in 2013.[20] The new CAC regulations articulate virtual isolation along lines somewhat similar way to the societal purges of the Fengqiao Experience. The CAC crackdown aims to deny users the ability to show solidarity with a censored user by interacting with their posts.

The party has also drawn on the Fengqiao Experience for offline informal societal policing functions. The party has held summits praising community policing groups, such as the Chaoyang Masses and Wulin Aunties, under the banner of the Fengqiao Experience.[21] These groups function as a semi-decentralized force to ensure “correct” behavior that does not stray from the party’s political line or breach societal norms. The CCP could replicate the informal system of neighbors reporting on each through groups like the Wulin Aunties in online settings via anonymous reporting for users suspected of violating CAC “self-media” guidelines.

3. Meteorologists say Earth sizzled to a global heat record in June and July has been getting hotter

Just the facts.

Excerpts:

The increase over the last June’s record is “a considerably big jump” because usually global monthly records are so broad based they often jump by hundredths not quarters of a degree, said NOAA climate scientist Ahira Sanchez-Lugo.

“The recent record temperatures, as well as extreme fires, pollution and flooding we are seeing this year are what we expect to see in a warmer climate,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald. “We are just getting a small taste for the types of impacts that we expect to worsen under climate change.”

Both land and ocean were the hottest a June has seen. But the globe’s sea surface — which is 70% of Earth’s area — has set monthly high temperature records in April, May and June and the North Atlantic has been off the charts warm since mid March, scientists say. The Caribbean region smashed previous records as did the United Kingdom.

The first half of 2023 has been the third hottest January through June on record, behind 2016 and 2020, according to NOAA.The increase over the last June’s record is “a considerably big jump” because usually global monthly records are so broad based they often jump by hundredths not quarters of a degree, said NOAA climate scientist Ahira Sanchez-Lugo.

“The recent record temperatures, as well as extreme fires, pollution and flooding we are seeing this year are what we expect to see in a warmer climate,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald. “We are just getting a small taste for the types of impacts that we expect to worsen under climate change.”

Both land and ocean were the hottest a June has seen. But the globe’s sea surface — which is 70% of Earth’s area — has set monthly high temperature records in April, May and June and the North Atlantic has been off the charts warm since mid March, scientists say. The Caribbean region smashed previous records as did the United Kingdom.

The first half of 2023 has been the third hottest January through June on record, behind 2016 and 2020, according to NOAA.

Meteorologists say Earth sizzled to a global heat record in June and July has been getting hotter

AP · July 13, 2023

ASSOCIATED PRESS

An already warming Earth steamed to its hottest June on record, smashing the old global mark by nearly a quarter of a degree (0.13 degrees Celsius), with global oceans setting temperature records for the third straight month, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.

June’s 61.79 degrees (16.55 degrees Celsius) global average was 1.89 degrees (1.05 degrees Celsius) above the 20th Century average, the first time globally a summer month was more than a degree Celsius hotter than normal, according to NOAA. Other weather monitoring systems, such as NASA, Berkeley Earth and Europe’s Copernicus, had already called last month the hottest June on record, but NOAA is the gold standard for record-keeping with data going back 174 years to 1850.

The increase over the last June’s record is “a considerably big jump” because usually global monthly records are so broad based they often jump by hundredths not quarters of a degree, said NOAA climate scientist Ahira Sanchez-Lugo.

“The recent record temperatures, as well as extreme fires, pollution and flooding we are seeing this year are what we expect to see in a warmer climate,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald. “We are just getting a small taste for the types of impacts that we expect to worsen under climate change.”

Both land and ocean were the hottest a June has seen. But the globe’s sea surface — which is 70% of Earth’s area — has set monthly high temperature records in April, May and June and the North Atlantic has been off the charts warm since mid March, scientists say. The Caribbean region smashed previous records as did the United Kingdom.

The first half of 2023 has been the third hottest January through June on record, behind 2016 and 2020, according to NOAA.

NOAA says there’s a 20% chance that 2023 will be the hottest year on record, with next year more likely, but the chance of a record is growing and outside scientists such as Brown University’s Kim Cobb are predicting a “photo finish” with 2016 and 2020 for the hottest year on record. Berkeley Earth’s Robert Rohde said his group figures there’s an 80% chance that 2023 will end up the hottest year on record.

That’s because it’s likely only to get hotter. July is usually the hottest month of the year, and the record for July and the hottest month of any year is 62.08 degrees (16.71 degrees Celsius) set in both July 2019 and July 2021. Eleven of the first dozen days in July were hotter than ever on record, according to an unofficial and preliminary analysis by University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer. The Japanese Meteorological Agency and the World Meteorological Organization said the world has just gone through its hottest week on record.

NOAA recorded water temperatures around Florida of 98 degrees (36.7 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday near the Everglades and 97 degrees (36.1 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday near the Florida Keys, while some forecasters are predicting near world record level temperatures in Death Valley of around 130 degrees (54.4 degrees Celsius) this weekend.

NOAA global analysis chief Russ Vose said the record hot June is because of two main reasons: long-term warming caused by heat-trapping gases spewed by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that’s then boosted by a natural El Nino, which warms parts of the Pacific and changes weather worldwide adding extra heat to already rising global temperatures. He said it’s likely most of June’s warming is due to long-term human causes because so far this new El Nino is still considered weak to moderate. It’s forecast to peak in the winter, which is why NOAA and other forecasters predict 2024 to be even hotter than this year.

While El Nino and its cooling flip side, La Nina, “have a big impact on year-to-year temperatures, their effects are much smaller over the long run than human-caused warming,” said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth and the tech company Stripe. “Back in 1998, the world had a super El Nino event with record global temperatures; today the temperatures of 1998 would be an unusually cool year. Human-driven climate change adds a permanent super El Nino worth of heat to the atmosphere every decade.”

Global and Antarctic sea ice levels were at record lows in June, NOAA also said.

“Until we stop burning fossil fuels, this will only get worse,” Climate scientist Friederike Otto of the Imperial College of London said in an email. “Heat records will keep getting broken, people and ecosystems are already in many cases beyond what they are able to deal with.”

___

Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

AP · July 13, 2023

4. Chinese military's three-day show of force increases headache for Taiwan

Excerpts:

According to figures from Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, 38 PLA aircraft were detected around the island in the 24 hours ending at 6 a.m. local time on Wednesday, 33 in the same period Thursday and 30 during the same period Friday.

Over those 72 hours, 73 PLA aircraft either crossed the strait’s median line – an informal demarcation point that Beijing does not recognize but until recently largely respected – or entered the southeastern or southwestern parts of the island’s ADIZ.

...

“Beijing hopes Taipei will just accept unification as inevitable and allow Chinese forces in without resistance. They are trying to diminish if not destroy the Taiwan population’s will to resist,” he said.

But even if that tactic does not work, the continued presence of large numbers of PLA warplanes and ships around Taiwan can lull the island’s defenders – both the Taiwanese military and any potential external reinforcements – into complacency, he said.

​

Chinese military's three-day show of force increases headache for Taiwan | CNN

Analysis by Brad Lendon, CNN

Published 2:19 AM EDT, Fri July 14, 2023

CNN · by Brad Lendon · July 14, 2023

CNN —

China’s military has been on a surge of activity around Taiwan this week, sending dozens of warplanes past the median line of the Taiwan Strait and into the key regions of the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ).

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) activity has a range of implications, none of them positive for Taiwan or cross-strait stability, analysts say.

According to figures from Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, 38 PLA aircraft were detected around the island in the 24 hours ending at 6 a.m. local time on Wednesday, 33 in the same period Thursday and 30 during the same period Friday.

Over those 72 hours, 73 PLA aircraft either crossed the strait’s median line – an informal demarcation point that Beijing does not recognize but until recently largely respected – or entered the southeastern or southwestern parts of the island’s ADIZ.

China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy of Taiwan as its territory despite never having controlled it, and has spent decades trying to isolate it diplomatically. Beijing has not ruled out using force to take control of the island.

The PLA aircraft detected this week included fighter jets, H-6 bombers, anti-submarine warning aircraft and reconnaissance drones, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said.

The ministry said it tasked combat air patrol warplanes, naval vessels and land-based missile defense to monitor the PLA aircraft, along with nine Chinese warships that were present around the island.

Their response underscores the problem that increased PLA activity poses to Taiwan, said Carl Schuster, a Hawaii-based analyst and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

CNN

video

Taiwan's military is preparing in case China attacks. See how

When Taiwan’s military responds to PLA operations, it taxes the island’s systems and equipment.

“Constant use creates a maintenance headache that reduces readiness until (spare) parts are delivered and installed,” he said. “Also, air frames and hulls require inspection and refurbishment as certain age and stress times are reached.”

He also says surges in PLA activity are aimed at wearing down the mental ability of Taiwan’s people to resist a potential takeover by Beijing.

“Beijing hopes Taipei will just accept unification as inevitable and allow Chinese forces in without resistance. They are trying to diminish if not destroy the Taiwan population’s will to resist,” he said.

But even if that tactic does not work, the continued presence of large numbers of PLA warplanes and ships around Taiwan can lull the island’s defenders – both the Taiwanese military and any potential external reinforcements – into complacency, he said.

Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu speaks during a news conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 26.

Carlos Garcie Rawlins/Reuters

Military exercises suggest China is getting 'ready to launch a war against Taiwan,' island's foreign minister tells CNN

Under the Taiwan Relations Act, Washington has agreed to give Taiwan the ability to defend itself, largely through weapons sales, although President Joe Biden has said repeatedly that US troops would defend the island in the event of a Chinese invasion.

Either way, with US equipment or even fighting troops, it may become too late for Washington to come to Taipei’s rescue if large amounts of PLA planes and ships are already on station around the island.

“The longer the delay in reacting to PLA buildups, the less time available to match or counter that buildup. The US margin of advantage is too slim to achieve success if its forces move too late,” Schuster said.

From the PLA’s perspective, sustained drills are a necessary part of readiness to execute any move on Taiwan, the former US Navy captain said.

“PLA forces need constant training since such skills are perishable and exercises offer both training in those skills and opportunities to rehearse and examine some aspects of war plans,” he said.

“Military operations are complex, like American football. The plays and drives require constant practice and rehearsal to be conducted effectively,” Schuster added.

A Chinese fighter jet refuels during military exercises near Taiwan on April 12, 2023.

Xinhua/AP

US flight in Taiwan Strait

China last held three days of intensive military drills around Taiwan in April, exercises the PLA said “comprehensively tested joint combat capabilities of its integrated military forces under actual combat situation.”

“Forces in the command is ready for combat at all times, and will resolutely destroy any type of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist or foreign interference attempts,” a PLA statement after the April drills said, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

As for this week’s drills, a report in the state-run Global Times said they “aim to safeguard national sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity.”

“Such drills are becoming more combat-oriented and more intensive in order to deter and prepare for interferences from external forces,” the report said, citing Chinese experts.

Meanwhile, the activity in and around the Taiwan Strait in the past few days hasn’t been limited to the PLA.

Getty Images

China and Taiwan loom large behind Ukraine at NATO summit

A US Navy P-8A reconnaissance jet transited the strait on Thursday, according to a statement from the US 7th Fleet in Japan.

“The aircraft’s transit of the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military flies, sails and operates anywhere international law allows,” the statement said.

On its English-language website, the PLA accused the US military of hyping the situation, and a spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command said PLA troops tracked and monitored the US plane.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told CNN Thursday that he doesn’t see confrontation between the US and China involving Taiwan as “imminent” or “unavoidable.”

“But having said that it’s my job to make sure that we have to continue to maintain a credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific,” he said. “The most credible deterrent is a combat capable force and that’s what we have today.”

CNN’s Zahid Mahmood contributed reporting.

CNN · by Brad Lendon · July 14, 2023

5. Biden says 3,000 Reserve troops can be sent to Europe to support NATO, Ukraine

Biden says 3,000 Reserve troops can be sent to Europe to support NATO, Ukraine

Stars and Stripes · by Doug G. Ware · July 13, 2023

Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division and the 18th Airborne Corps file onto an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft in February 2022 at Fort Bragg, N.C., now Fort Liberty. The soldiers deployed to Europe following the Pentagon’s announcement of additional forces moving from the United States in support of NATO allies. (U.S. Army)

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden signed an executive order Thursday that makes as many as 3,000 American reservists available to go to Europe in support of NATO efforts amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The purpose of the order, Biden said, is to better support Operation Atlantic Resolve, a mission that launched almost a decade ago after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

“Since 2014, U.S. European Command has provided combat-credible forces for rotational deployment to Europe … to demonstrate good commitment to NATO,” Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of operations for the Joint Staff, told reporters Thursday. “This reaffirms the unwavering support and commitment to the defense of NATO’s eastern flank in wake of Russia’s illegal, unprovoked war on Ukraine.”

In Biden’s order, he said the move making thousands of Reserve troops available is needed to back up American forces already involved in the defensive operation.

“Reserve mobilizations under this authorization are not to exceed 3,000 total members at any one time, of whom not more than 450 may be members of the Individual Ready Reserve,” Biden said in a letter informing Congress of his order. “These Reserve component forces are to augment the active forces … to enhance the United States’ ability to sustain its heightened level of presence and operations.”

The Pentagon stressed the order doesn’t simply send 3,000 more troops to Europe, but rather it only makes reservists available to go if EUCOM decides they’re needed. For example, Sims said commanders in Europe might decide a Reserve unit is better suited to handle certain tasks than active-duty troops who are already there.

Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States had put thousands of additional American troops in areas neighboring, or near, Ukraine — such as Germany, Poland and Romania — to support NATO’s eastern flank. Biden’s administration has also given Ukraine tens of billions of dollars in military aid at the same time, including an $800 million package last week.

“The United States European Command is preparing to use new authorities in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve, in continuation of U.S. commitment to NATO collective security, peace and stability,” Navy Capt. Bill Speaks, a spokesman for U.S. European Command, said Thursday. “This will not change current force posture levels in Europe.”

The Pentagon also said Atlantic Resolve is now being designated as a “contingency operation,” which is a move to add operational flexibility and troop benefits.

“It unlocks capabilities and authorities that enables us to provide better support,” said Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s top spokesman. “This includes things like … personnel related entitlements that give activated reservists the same benefits as active-component personnel.”

Biden’s order comes after he met this week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the NATO summit in Lithuania. During the summit, he and other NATO leaders agreed to expedite Ukrainian membership and said Kyiv will receive an invitation once certain conditions are met, such as improved defense standards and equipment.

“Ukraine's future lies at NATO," Biden said Wednesday at the conference, where the United States and G7 nations Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Britain and Italy issued a joint declaration of support for Ukraine. “We are going to help Ukraine build a strong capable defense across land, air and sea."

Stars and Stripes · by Doug G. Ware · July 13, 2023

6. Biden admin believes hack gave China insights into US thinking ahead of Blinken's crucial Beijing visit

Excerpts:

The amount that China was able to learn from the hack was limited because it only breached an unclassified system, and US officials generally operate with the assumption that anything on the unclassified systems can be hacked. Still, it provided the Chinese government with additional knowledge from the private discussions of US officials heading into Blinken’s visit.

Another target of the hack, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is also expected to soon visit China.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Blinken “raised” the issue of the hack in a meeting with top Chinese official Wang Yi in Indonesia on Thursday, a senior State Department official said.

Biden admin believes hack gave China insights into US thinking ahead of Blinken's crucial Beijing visit | CNN Politics

CNN · by Kylie Atwood · July 13, 2023

CNN —

The Biden administration believes that a Chinese hacking operation which breached US government email systems, including the State Department, gave the Chinese government insights about US thinking heading into Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing in June, according to two US officials.

The hack – which Microsoft said was launched in mid-May – was discovered by the State Department right around the time of Blinken’s visit to Beijing, officials said. But it was not immediately clear that China was behind it and it was not widely known about within the department, they said.

The news that the hack allowed China to access information ahead of a crucial visit that US officials hoped would start a reset of relations after months of tensions underlines the complexities of modern diplomacy but it’s unlikely to shock US officials who are well aware that two major global powers spy on each other’s communications.

US officials have consistently labeled China as the most advanced of US adversaries in cyberspace, a domain that has repeatedly been a source of bilateral tension in recent years. The FBI has said Beijing has a larger hacking program than all other governments combined.

China has routinely denied the allegations.

Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images

China-based hackers breached US government email accounts, Microsoft and White House say

China has long accused US intelligence agencies of conducting their own cyber-espionage against Chinese assets. Classified US documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden a decade ago claim that the NSA made extensive efforts to infiltrate Chinese telecom company Huawei’s equipment to spy on intelligence targets.

Microsoft Executive Vice President Charlie Bell said that the company began investigating after customer reports came into the company on June 16 – the same day that Blinken departed the US for his trip to Beijing.

The amount that China was able to learn from the hack was limited because it only breached an unclassified system, and US officials generally operate with the assumption that anything on the unclassified systems can be hacked. Still, it provided the Chinese government with additional knowledge from the private discussions of US officials heading into Blinken’s visit.

Another target of the hack, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is also expected to soon visit China.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Blinken “raised” the issue of the hack in a meeting with top Chinese official Wang Yi in Indonesia on Thursday, a senior State Department official said.

Dita Alangkara/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Blinken meets top Chinese diplomat as efforts to ramp down tensions continue

“He made clear that any action that targets US government, US companies, US citizens is a big concern and we’ll respond appropriately,” the official told press traveling with Blinken.

The official said they would not “get into the specifics” of the extent to which the hack was raised in Blinken’s meeting with Wang, nor would they characterize the US or Chinese response.

“We have consistently made clear that any action that targets US government, US companies, American citizens, is a deep concern to us and that we will take appropriate action to hold those responsible accountable and the secretary made that clear again tonight,” the official said.

On Wednesday State Department Spokesperson Matt Miller said that the department had “detected anomalous activity” in June. He said the department immediately took steps to secure the system and notify Microsoft of the event.

“As a matter of cybersecurity policy, we do not discuss the details of our response. The incident remains under investigation, and we continuously monitor our networks and update our security procedures,” Miller added.

CNN’s Sean Lyngaas and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.

CNN · by Kylie Atwood · July 13, 2023

7. China-linked hacker hits State Department email accounts

China-linked hacker hits State Department email accounts

A "surgical campaign" by Storm-0558 gained access to unclassified U.S. government email accounts using forged authentication tokens, U.S. and Microsoft officials said.

BY CHRIS RIOTTA

STAFF REPORTER, NEXTGOV/FCW

JULY 13, 2023 01:00 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Chris Riotta

The State Department acknowledged today that it was hit with a cyber intrusion targeting email accounts last month. A report released Tuesday night by Microsoft attributed the breach to a threat group in China.

Agency spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to specify the exact date of the breach and also declined to confirm any connection to China or any links between the breach and the recent China trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

"I can say that last month the State Department detected anomalous activity. We did two things immediately: one we took immediate steps to secure our systems and two, took immediate steps to notify Microsoft of the event." Miller told reporters. "As a matter of cybersecurity policy. We do not discuss the details of our response. The incident remains under investigation," he said.

A senior Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency official described the cyberattack as a "surgical campaign" that targeted a "small number of mailboxes" during a phone call with reporters on Wednesday. That official declined to confirm what agencies and organizations were impacted in the breach,

A senior FBI official also said on the call that the Bureau was "working closely" with Microsoft and impacted federal agencies to investigate the attack.

"This intrusion should not be compared to Solar Winds," the FBI official said. "The impact of a months-long, targeted campaign like this one is much narrower than the 18,000 victims through a single technical update."

Microsoft concluded that a China-based actor known as Storm-0558 gained access to email accounts belonging to approximately 25 separate organizations, including government entities, beginning on May 15. The company began investigating the anomalous mail activity nearly a month later and determined that Storm-0558 used forged authentication tokens to gain access to the accounts.

The hackers used Microsoft's Outlook Web Access in Exchange Online and Outlook.com to access the unclassified email accounts, according to the announcement, as part of an apparent effort to collect intelligence and "achieve espionage objectives."

"This type of espionage-motivated adversary seeks to abuse credentials and gain access to data residing in sensitive systems," the announcement said.

Microsoft alerted impacted customers prior to releasing a public statement this week and completed mitigation procedures for the nearly 25 victim organizations, including adding "substantial automated detections for known indicators of compromise" linked to the recent attack. The company also said it found no evidence of further access to additional email accounts.

The news comes amid an increase in cyberattacks impacting government agencies and networks. Last month, it was revealed that cybercriminals leveraged a vulnerability found in the popular MOVEit file transfer service to steal data from underlying MOVEit databases in a hack that impacted several federal civilian agencies, though CISA director Jen Easterly confirmed that it did not present a systemic risk to national security.

Lawmakers and industry stakeholders have increasingly urged the White House to nominate a director to lead the Office of the National Cyber Director following Chris Inglis’ retirement earlier this year.

A group of cybersecurity organizations sent a letter to the White House Wednesday demanding the president nominate a replacement by the end of the month, warning that the federal cyber leadership vacuum could hinder the administration as it seeks to implement its national security strategy released earlier this year.

Microsoft said it is partnering with CISA and others while continuing to investigate the latest breach. The company also said that no further action was required from its customers.

defenseone.com · by Chris Riotta

8. Analysis | What we know (and don’t know) about the government email breach

Analysis | What we know (and don’t know) about the government email breach

The Washington Post · by Tim Starks · July 14, 2023

Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! TGIF. So, so, so much TGIF. Like, the amount you’d get from an Alchemy Jug.

Below: Court documents say Twitter didn’t pay fees to a privacy assessor, and Arizona escalates a probe into alleged efforts to swing the 2020 election. First:

Government emails got hacked in a suspected attack on Microsoft from China. Here’s what we know — and some mysteries.

Every day, more information is coming to light about alleged Chinese hackers’ breach of U.S. government emails by exploiting a flaw in Microsoft’s cloud software. But there’s plenty we still don’t know.

Let’s walk through the knowns and unknowns so far, relying heavily on the reporting of my colleagues Ellen Nakashima, Joseph Menn and Shane Harris.

When did it start, and what’s the timeline?

Microsoft said the hackers gained access on May 15. The State Department first discovered the intrusion on June 16 and told the company that day. The timing of the breach falls about a month before Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China, which made him the first secretary of state to do so in five years.

Microsoft disclosed the hack in a blog post late Tuesday. The company said it began investigating on June 16 and has “successfully blocked” the hackers, which it described as a “China-based actor Microsoft is tracking as Storm-0558.”

Who’s affected and how?

Among U.S. government agencies, the State and Commerce departments are the only victims we know of, at least so far. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, whose department has imposed stiff export controls on Chinese companies, is the only known Cabinet-level official whose email was breached.

The campaign is notably very, very targeted.

• A senior Department of Homeland Security official, who like others spoke to my colleagues on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, counted nine U.S. victims among those targeted, and only a small number of email accounts were successfully compromised.
• Microsoft said 25 total organizations around the globe got hacked.
• Other targets include a congressional staffer, U.S. think tanks and a U.S. human rights activist, according to officials and security professionals.

A senior FBI official said there’s no evidence the hackers got any classified information or accessed anything beyond email inboxes. But the breaches gave China insights in advance of Blinken’s China trip, two senior Biden administration officials said in a story by Kylie Atwood of CNN. Raimondo also has a pending trip to China.

Who’s looking into it?

The FBI is still investigating.

Blinken raised the issue of China’s hacking during a meeting between U.S. and Chinese diplomats in Indonesia on Thursday, Bloomberg News reported. But the State Department didn’t say whether he directly confronted his counterpart over the Microsoft attack.

The United Kingdom’s National Cybersecurity Centre also said on Thursday that it is probing what happened and how widespread it is in that country, and is staying in touch with Microsoft about it, per James Pearson of Reuters.

Who’s behind the attack?

Microsoft blamed a China-based attacker that’s focused on espionage. While the espionage motive usually suggests government-connected hackers, Microsoft didn’t specify any links.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) also pointed to the Chinese government, also known as the PRC, in a news release. “The Senate Intelligence Committee is closely monitoring what appears to be a significant cybersecurity breach by Chinese intelligence,” he said. “It’s clear that the PRC is steadily improving its cyber collection capabilities directed against the U.S. and our allies.”

But the Biden administration has notably neither attributed the attack to China nor said anyone specific at all was behind it. An FBI official did say that the administration would “impose costs” on the responsible party.

That lack of attribution didn’t keep China from lashing out at the U.S. government. Here’s Chris Bing of Reuters with the Chinese response:

Lengthy comment from chinese foreign ministry on today’s news in which the USG/microsoft discovered a stealthy, highly sophisticated chinese cyber espionage operation against federal agencies: pic.twitter.com/B4V3dnjV7H

— Chris Bing (@Bing_Chris) July 12, 2023

How did they do it?

This is where some of the biggest mysteries remain.

The hackers used forged authentication tokens to get into the email accounts using “an acquired Microsoft account consumer signing key,” wrote Charlie Bell, executive vice president of security at Microsoft Security.

But U.S. officials are still investigating how, precisely, the attackers got the signing keys — extremely valuable tools — from Microsoft. “That is an area of urgent focus,” the DHS official said.

And Microsoft isn’t answering additional questions from media outlets about what happened — not even to say whether they’ll ever reveal the precise vulnerability, as Jon Greig of the Record said on Twitter:

@Microsoft told me that none of the Patch Tuesday releases were connected to the attack on U.S. government Outlook accounts.

But they declined to say what the exploited vulnerability is and whether it will ever be revealed@TheRecord_Media #Microsofthttps://t.co/jThy3CcRX3

— jon greig (@jgreigj) July 13, 2023

Some outside observers offered this to Ellen, Joseph and Shane:

• Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike, suggested that an insider could have hacked or compromised Microsoft. That’s because the hackers could only create that key with “a more powerful internal key controlled by Microsoft,” as my colleagues said in paraphrasing Meyers.
• “This attack used a stolen key that Microsoft’s design failed to properly validate,” said Jason Kikta, chief information security officer at Automox and former head of private sector partnerships at U.S. Cyber Command. “The inability to do proper validation for authentication is a habit, not an anomaly.”

Over at Wired, Andy Greenberg solicited yet more theories, some more troubling than others. Ultimately, said Jake Williams, a former National Security Agency hacker who currently teaches at the Institute for Applied Network Security, Microsoft hasn’t answered key questions, and he said “I think there’s a lot more transparency that we should expect.”

What are the policy questions?

The Biden administration has been urging tech companies to make their products secure-by-default, part of which means making them secure with no additional paid security services required.

After Microsoft vulnerabilities figured into the landmark SolarWinds hack, Microsoft gave more free log access to government customers, giving agencies more insight into activity on their networks. The DHS official said that helped the government discover the May intrusions.

But there are some haves and have-nots here. Not everyone gets access to that level of log access.

“It is our perspective that every organization using a technology service like Microsoft 365 should have access to logging and other security data out of the box,” the DHS official said.

Read more on the Microsoft logging particulars in this story from Robert McMillan and Dustin Volz of the Wall Street Journal.

A second and related issue dovetails with concerns about Microsoft’s ubiquity as a software vendor to the U.S. government, the subject of an amendment to the Senate version of the annual defense policy bill.

At least one official at a Microsoft competitor took note of the breached emails to raise the same concern. Here’s Amit Zavery, vice president/general manager and head of platform for Google Cloud, speaking out on Twitter (with his caveat that “views and comments are my own”) in an echo of past arguments:

Security is a team sport, but it’s hard to defend when only one team is giving up goals. “Monoculture” in govt productivity software creates an easy attack surface. I hope this latest in a series of incidents pushes the U.S. govt to look at alternatives. https://t.co/NW0AGGkgt1

— Amit Zavery (@azavery) July 13, 2023

The keys

Twitter didn’t pay privacy assessor following Musk takeover, court documents say

A Twitter legal complaint cited by House Republicans in a Thursday hearing omitted key information from a deposition related to company allegations that the Federal Trade Commission tried to influence independent auditor Ernst & Young, the firm hired to assess Twitter’s compliance with an FTC data security order, our colleague Cat Zakrzewski reports.

• Cat writes: “David Roque, an Ernst & Young partner, told lawyers during a deposition last month that Ernst & Young contacted Twitter weekly, repeatedly asking the company to pay outstanding invoices totaling $500,000. He said the firm parted ways with the company amid ‘constant turnover’ on Twitter’s executive team.”
• The report adds: “‘There would have been a large burden on a smaller number of people to execute the same control structure,’ Roque told an FTC investigator, who asked how the ‘resource constraints’ would affect Twitter’s data security program.”

The developments come amid a standoff between the consumer protection regulator and social media company owned by Elon Musk. The FTC under Chair Lina Khan has recently warned Twitter that its failure to respond to agency requests puts it out of a consent order.

“The agency has also said it will consider Twitter in violation of its order if Musk does not appear for a deposition July 25 in San Francisco,” Cat adds.

House and Senate lawmakers introduce bill to revamp FISA, a key government cybersecurity bill

House and Senate lawmakers unveiled a bill this week to revamp the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) in an effort to modernize and address governmental changes in the federal cybersecurity landscape.

“The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2023 will improve coordination across the federal government to help civilian federal agencies and contractors protect their networks against cybersecurity threats,” according to a release by lawmakers that adds that the bill “also clarifies roles and responsibilities for key agencies that lead federal information security policy and operations.”

The bill would overhaul a 2014 version of FISMA and aims to support more effective federal cybersecurity practices and improve coordination between the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and major federal cyber agencies.

• For instance, FISMA 2023 would direct all civilian agencies to report cyberattacks to Congress and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and grants CISA additional cyber incident response authorities.
• The bill also requires OMB “to develop guidance for federal agencies to use so they can efficiently allocate the cybersecurity resources they need to protect their networks,” according to the committee.

The bill is backed by a slew of cyber-focused lawmakers, including Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.); House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and the committee’s top Democrat, Jamie Raskin (D-Md.); and the top lawmakers on the Oversight Committee’s cybersecurity and IT subcommittee, Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.).

Arizona escalates probe into alleged efforts to swing 2020 election toward Trump

Arizona’s head prosecutor is expanding a criminal investigation into alleged attempts by Republicans to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state when they signed and transmitted paperwork declaring former president Donald Trump the winner, our colleague Yvonne Wingett Sanchez reports, citing two people familiar with the matter.

• Yvonne writes: “Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the probe.”
• “Investigators have requested records and other information from local officials who administered the 2020 election, the two people said, and a prosecutor has inquired about evidence collected by the Justice Department and an Atlanta-area prosecutor for similar probes,” the report adds.

The investigation is in a “fact-gathering” phase, said Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy, who also declined to say whether subpoenas have been issued.

• “This is one of several investigations into attempts to overturn the election results,” Yvonne notes. “There is a federal criminal probe being led by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to examine the sprawling efforts in several states intended to reverse Trump’s loss.”

Government scan

ONCD acting director told she will not receive nomination, leaving key cyber agency’s future in limbo (The Record)

ONCD official sets path for ‘regulatory harmonization’ effort (MeriTalk)

New White House cyber plan leaves digital identity action items out (Nextgov/FCW)

Hill happenings

Senate Dems say 'massive' taxpayer privacy breach needs DOJ probe (Politico)

FTC faces pressure from Twitter, Republicans over privacy investigation (CyberScoop)

Democratic lawmakers call on FEC to consider crackdown on deepfake campaign ads (CNN)

Industry report

Twitter’s verified ‘scam store’ accounts thrive as humans flee the site (Motherboard)

National security watch

Professors sue Texas over TikTok ban, signaling First Amendment fight (Drew Harwell)

Global cyberspace

Beautiful Bauhinia: "HKLeaks" – The use of covert and overt online harassment tactics to repress 2019 Hong Kong protests (Citizen Lab)

The last Russian hacker kick at the NATO summit: a questionable data leak (Cybernews)

Cyber insecurity

Security flaws in Honeywell devices could be used to disrupt critical industries (TechCrunch)

SEO expert hired and fired by Ashley Madison turned on company, promising revenge (Krebs on Security)

Researchers demonstrate AI ‘supply chain’ disinfo attack With 'PoisonGPT' (Motherboard)

Encryption wars

Google Play will enforce business checks to curb malware submissions (Bleeping Computer)

Privacy patch

Fed ends Capital One breach-related enforcement action (Cybersecurity Dive)

Daybook

• The House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act at 9:15 a.m.
• Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) discusses technology geopolitics with the German Marshall Fund at 11:30 a.m.
• The Atlantic Council convenes a discussion on resilient cloud computing on Monday at 11:30 a.m.

Secure log off

On this day in 2001, the Code Red worm began infecting computer systems. pic.twitter.com/3LhqU7BQ0e

— Today in Tech History (@DayTechHistory) July 13, 2023

Thanks for reading. See you next week.

The Washington Post · by Tim Starks · July 14, 2023

9. Pacific allies want more exercises with US, munitions similar to what US is sending to Ukraine

The very buried lede is the last paragraph on "magazine depth." We are seeing the effects of our withered industrial base in our support to Ukraine.

Excerpts:

United States Indo-Pacific Command is working to bring more domains and partners into its exercises. And they are quickly working up new digital interfaces, such as a new mission partner environment, to allow very different militaries to share data and work together quickly.

That doesn’t necessarily mean every nation in the Pacific is interested in providing a unified front to China in every possible scenario. And because there is no formal military alliance among them, it’s unclear which nations might come to the aid of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. But regional players like the Philippines are becoming more bold in discussing China, if not exactly as a threat, then at least the primary motivation for their desire to train with one another and train harder. “There's a much more overt discussion,” about that, Bartholomees said.

Even without a formal mutual defense treaty or alliance, regional players will play a key role in any potential conflict in the Pacific and in deterring one, he said.

The Chinese military has some key advantages when it comes to a Pacific fight: the overwhelming size of their military, the large number of rockets and fires they have (also known as magazine depth), and their internal logistics and resupply lines, Bartholomees said.

“We may not be able to counter the mass. We can through allies and partners so that needs to build over time. The magazine depth is an industrial issue that, obviously, all of our nations are fighting to get on top of. But interior lines are something that we can influence through campaigning forward, having forced his posture forward.”

Pacific allies want more exercises with US, munitions similar to what US is sending to Ukraine

China’s neighbors are learning from the Ukraine war—including the value of long-range fires.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii-U.S. allies in the Pacific, with an eye on Ukraine, are asking U.S forces to convene larger joint force exercises and requesting M142 HIMARS capabilities and howitzer rounds—munitions that have been critical to Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression, but that are also in short supply.

“Frankly, our allies and partners are watching very closely what's happening in Ukraine. They’re very interested in how they preserve their territorial integrity,” Army Brig. Gen. James Bartholomees, chief of staff to United States Army Pacific, or USAPAC, told Defense One during an exclusive interview in Hawaii.

Both Australia and Taiwan are scheduled to operate HIMARS in the future. But there are other ways the United States can get the system to other regional partners.

The military has been conducting live-fire exercises with the Philippines, Japan, Australia, and other countries in the region recently. “All of those are synchronized with the ally or partner and their equivalent capability so that we can conduct rehearsals of how we would employ those fires. So from a HIMARS perspective, yes…high demand.”

But all of that demand could put a strain on the supply of HIMARS artillery, particularly given the intense need for those munitions in Ukraine. And 155-millimeter howitzer shells are also in demand in the Indo-Pacific. “We are actually seeing some demand there. And that munition challenge with 155s, it's significant,” particularly by the Indian armed forces, he said.

The Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force, or MDTF, teams, have a long-range fires battalion. In May, one of the MDTF teams completed an exercise with the Philippines. Next month, there’s a similar exercise in Indonesia—Super Garuda Shield—which will also include a long-range fires component, but not an MDTF team.

Said Bartholomees, exercises like Super Garuda Shield are growing in scope and complexity, at the request of the host countries who want to test how well they can operate as a joint service, but also with partner nations in the region for a unified front. That’s a big change from previous exercises, where militaries would look to more modest objectives.

Now, says Bartholomees, “the conversation is more going to ‘Hey, how do we rehearse together if we were going to fight as a combined force? How would we exercise all of these capabilities?’”

Pacific nations may not want to host a big U.S. long-range missile battery pointed at China, but the ability to host and train with long-range fires teams is a part of the draw, Bartholomees said. “We're finding there's a thirst for that, because they want the training that comes with it. And that's something we didn't really anticipate.”

United States Indo-Pacific Command is working to bring more domains and partners into its exercises. And they are quickly working up new digital interfaces, such as a new mission partner environment, to allow very different militaries to share data and work together quickly.

That doesn’t necessarily mean every nation in the Pacific is interested in providing a unified front to China in every possible scenario. And because there is no formal military alliance among them, it’s unclear which nations might come to the aid of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. But regional players like the Philippines are becoming more bold in discussing China, if not exactly as a threat, then at least the primary motivation for their desire to train with one another and train harder. “There's a much more overt discussion,” about that, Bartholomees said.

Even without a formal mutual defense treaty or alliance, regional players will play a key role in any potential conflict in the Pacific and in deterring one, he said.

The Chinese military has some key advantages when it comes to a Pacific fight: the overwhelming size of their military, the large number of rockets and fires they have (also known as magazine depth), and their internal logistics and resupply lines, Bartholomees said.

“We may not be able to counter the mass. We can through allies and partners so that needs to build over time. The magazine depth is an industrial issue that, obviously, all of our nations are fighting to get on top of. But interior lines are something that we can influence through campaigning forward, having forced his posture forward.”

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

10. Ukraine war: How have Western weapons performed in combat?

Sigh... is the nature of war changing?

"Bradley BMP"?

I do not think this is an example of the nature of war changing - the character yes, but not the nature. And yes, I know that is semantics to most and only some people parse the difference between nature and character. The point we should all agree on is that warfare is continually evolving (but the nature has remained constant  :-))

One of the notable features of this conflict is the large-scale use of drones. César Pintado says that it is in Ukraine that drones have become a basic element of warfare. He calls it a "revolution":

"The nature of warfare is changing before our eyes, sometimes quietly, sometimes spontaneously, but without doubt the foundations are being laid for a revolution, for a completely different way of fighting. It is like the introduction of aviation in the First World War."

Ukraine war: How have Western weapons performed in combat?

By Andrey Poznyakov  & Frances Lopez  •  Updated: 14/07/2023 - 07:15

The war in Ukraine is forcing experts to rethink ideas about war and is becoming a serious test for armaments.

euronews.com

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last year, dozens of countries have moved to support Ukraine by providing it with humanitarian and military aid as a matter of principle.

Among the weapons supplied to the Ukrainian armed forces are both long-used and relatively new pieces of equipment. For all of them, the full-scale war in Europe has become a kind of test of their effectiveness in the conditions of modern combat operations.

"The nature of warfare is changing before our eyes, sometimes quietly, sometimes spontaneously, but without doubt the foundations are being laid for a revolution, for a completely different way of fighting. It is like the introduction of aviation in the First World War.

Cesar Pintado

International Campus for Security and Defence

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which studies the problems of globalisation, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, international partners have promised Ukraine more than 80 billion euros worth of military aid. But how effective are those weapons in real combat conditions?

High-profile failures

According to military expert César Pintado, Leopard tanks and Bradley BMP infantry vehicles, for example, have had "a bad start". At the same time, the shortcomings of some older models, such as wheeled tanks, have come to light, indicating that they are no longer worth using in modern warfare.

• The US will provide cluster munitions to Ukraine as part of a new military aid package
• Will F-16 fighter jets be a game-changer in the war in Ukraine?

Analysts, however, tend to attribute this to mistakes in the use of such vehicles and a lack of training. Matthew Schmidt of the University of New Haven draws attention to the difference in approaches to warfare in the West and the East. He says it's important to consider that established interoperability with other branches of the military serves as a kind of multiplier to increase the effectiveness of the same tank battalions in the US, and that training takes time and practice:

"If French tanks were operated by well-trained NATO troops, there would be fewer losses of these tanks in Ukraine. Not because NATO troops are technically more adept at interacting with tanks, but because they know how to operate them in combination with other systems such as artillery or infantry. They have better communication skills."

Schmidt believes that, over time, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have been able to significantly improve their handling of Western equipment. But it takes more than that to succeed in warfare.

A war of the present and the future

One of the notable features of this conflict is the large-scale use of drones. César Pintado says that it is in Ukraine that drones have become a basic element of warfare. He calls it a "revolution":

"The nature of warfare is changing before our eyes, sometimes quietly, sometimes spontaneously, but without doubt the foundations are being laid for a revolution, for a completely different way of fighting. It is like the introduction of aviation in the First World War."

Matthew Schmidt, for his part, is less inclined to praise the use of drones. On the contrary. In his opinion, strike drones have rather shown their ineffectiveness.

"Communication and electronic warfare have played a much more important role," says the University of New Haven professor of international affairs, national security and political science.

He cites as an example a programme to collect eyewitness accounts of Russian military movements: The AFU used already existing services to send complaints about problems in the housing and utilities sector so that Ukrainians could share information with the army.

"Once cross-checked and confirmed, this data significantly improves the awareness and coordination of troops in the combat zone," Schmidt notes.

A Ukrainian serviceman launches a drone over Russian positions near Bakhmut, Ukraine, Friday, July 7, 2023.Evgeniy Maloletka/Copyright 2020 The AP. All rights reserved

He also notes the importance of wiretapping and suppression of communications systems. Particularly in the early months of the Russian invasion, these allowed for the interception of classified information and prevented Russian units from sharing information. According to Schmidt, the development of these areas is key to Ukraine's success in a future confrontation with Russia, as the sides seek to strengthen their military capabilities:

"Do you see these innovations now? I think it will be even better. Now it has to be done quickly. You have to improvise. But in a future stabilised conflict, we will see many long-term innovations. And on the Russian side, it will take the military a decade or more to rebuild what they lost in this war. And the main thing the Russians will learn from this war is that their systems are not very good."

euronews.com

11. US paying contractor to quietly supply Bulgarian 155mm shells to Ukraine

How is our "magazine depth?" The Arsenal of Democracy needs partners. We cannot do it alone.

US paying contractor to quietly supply Bulgarian 155mm shells to Ukraine

A $402 million contract suggests the former Soviet-bloc country is now producing NATO-standard artillery rounds.

BY SAM SKOVE

STAFF WRITER

JULY 13, 2023 06:27 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

For months, Bulgaria’s pro-Russian president fought to keep his country from joining an EU effort to make 155mm artillery shells for Ukraine. He appeared to lose that battle in June, when the country’s pro-Ukraine defense minister declared that the NATO ally would “not exclude” the possibility that domestic firms would produce the ammunition.

But according to Army and U.S. contracting documents, Bulgaria has been providing 155mm shells to Ukraine all along—through the United States, with deliveries scheduled through next year.

The hitherto unreported deal sheds light on how the United States has procured the coveted munition, how Bulgaria is delicately balancing its foreign policy, and how some small companies have unseated major defense giants amid the stresses of the Ukraine war.

Ukraine’s hunger for shells has defined the artillery-centric war, with Ukrainian gunners firing as many as 240,000 rounds a month, or 12 times the U.S.’s monthly production. The U.S. effort to feed Ukrainian cannons has taken many forms, but one of the largest is a $522 million U.S. Army contract awarded in January to defense giant Northrop Grumman and a smaller company, Global Military Products. Delivery was to start in March, the Army said.

The contract announcement (along with a correction issued later) said the two firms would compete for smaller orders under the $522 million cap through 2027. But information posted to the Federal Procurement Data System shows that the bulk of the money—$402 million—has already been allocated to Global Military Products.

It also indicates where the shells are coming from: Bulgaria.

The award stands in contrast to the declarations of Bulgarian politicians, particularly Russian-leaning President Rumen Radev, who said in March that Bulgaria would never supply the round.

Even Bulgarian officials sympathetic to Ukraine noted that their largely Soviet-equipped army has no stocks of the NATO-designed ammunition and said that their country has only “experimental production” capabilities.

And after Radev’s stance was overridden by the new, pro-European government that formed in June, officials regretfully explained that Bulgaria would be unable to swiftly contribute to the European Union’s plan to send one million 155mm rounds to Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, when this project was announced, we expressed passivity,” Defense Minister Todor Tagarev said.

The U.S. contracting documents, however, imply the existence of major 155mm production capabilities in Bulgaria, experts said.

“Manufactured in Bulgaria is the most straightforward explanation here,” said Greg Sanders, deputy director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at think-tank CSIS.

Others concurred, such as Matthew George, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and Jerry McGinn, a former senior career official in the Defense Department’s Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy.

The $402 million contract could buy as many as 800,000 155mm shells at $500 apiece, though George cautioned that shipping, packaging, and other services would likely drive the per-unit cost higher.

The Bulgarian embassy did not provide comment to Defense One.

Defense One contacted two companies identified by Bulgarian officials as having the experimental capability to make 155mm shells. The first, VMZ, said that it did not have the ability to make the ammunition. The second, Transmobile, did not respond to repeated emails. Both VMZ and Transmobile advertise 155mm shells on their websites.

Defense One also contacted Global Military Products CEO Marc Morales, who declined to comment.

The Army's choice of Global Military Products illustrates how the war in Ukraine has reshaped the defense industry, with smaller companies now finding they can successfully compete with defense industry giants amid a global hunger for arms and ammunition.

Founded in 2013, the Florida-based company is not a natural player in the market for NATO-designed artillery shells—unlike Northrop Grumman, the defense-industry behemoth that shared the Jan. 30 contract with them and already makes 155mm-related equipment.

Global Military Products got its start by buying Soviet-designed weapons from Bulgaria and other countries for Special Operations Command and “likely” supplying them to Syrian rebels, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. The Pentagon paid the company about $34 million a year from 2016 to 2021, according to USAspending, a government-run contract-tracking website. Last year, the company’s U.S. government-related revenues rose dramatically, to $323 million, according to USASpending.

Much of that money appears to be tied to Ukraine. In addition to the money spent on Bulgarian 155mm shells, the U.S. military is also paying Global Military Products $118 million for Gepard anti-aircraft systems. A U.S. defense official confirmed to Defense One that the systems were funded by the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a fact visible in the archived versions of the original announcement.

The company also has a second contract for 155mm ammunition, valued at $232 million and labeled as a foreign military sale, but it is not clear whether those shells are going to Ukraine.

Global Military Products’ contract to send 155mm shells to Ukraine follows a long effort to build ties in the eastern European country. Months before the Russian invasion in February 2022, the company signed an agreement with Ukraine’s state weapons manufacturer, Ukroboronprom, to bring U.S. military products to Ukraine.

The war appears to have strengthened these ties. In July 2022, the company hired Denis Vanash, a former Ukrainian politician who had recently worked as an advisor to the Ukrainian minister of defense, according to his LinkedIn profile. Vanash declined to comment to Defense One.

Global Military Products’ ties may even run to the top of Ukraine’s military hierarchy. On April 1, 2022, shortly after Ukraine beat back Russia’s assault on Kyiv, the company’s LinkedIn page posted a screenshot of what they said was a WhatsApp conversation with Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

In the post, the company tagged Marc Morales and Global Military Products marketing coordinator Lyubov Tavzel. Both are smiling widely in pro-Ukrainian t-shirts as they hold Soviet-made weapons.

“Marc Morales,” the person sending the photo wrote in Cyrillic underneath the photo.

Zaluzhniy responded in the international language of texts: Ukrainian flags and emojis of flexing biceps.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

12. Ordering the Selected Reserve and Certain Members of the Individual Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty

Ordering the Selected Reserve and Certain Members of the Individual Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/07/13/ordering-the-selected-reserve-and-certain-members-of-the-individual-ready-reserve-of-the-armed-forces-to-active-duty/

1. HOME
2. BRIEFING ROOM
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By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 121 and 12304 of title 10, United States Code, I hereby determine that it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of Operation Atlantic Resolve in and around the United States European Command’s area of responsibility. In furtherance of this operation, under the stated authority, I hereby authorize the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a service in the Navy, under their respective jurisdictions, to order to active duty any units, and any individual members not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit of the Selected Reserve, or any member in the Individual Ready Reserve mobilization category and designated as essential under regulations prescribed by the Secretary concerned, not to exceed 3,000 total members at any one time, of whom not more than 450 may be members of the Individual Ready Reserve, as they deem necessary, and to terminate the service of those units and members ordered to active duty.

    This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

                            JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 13, 2023.

13. Reservists Set to Deploy for Europe NATO Mission Following New Biden Order

How will the American people respond to this? 3000 is not yet relatively much "skin in the game" but will this be argued that this is the first step of a slippery slope?

Reservists Set to Deploy for Europe NATO Mission Following New Biden Order

military.com · by Konstantin Toropin · July 13, 2023

President Joe Biden signed an executive order Thursday that will allow the Pentagon to tap into reserve forces for deployment to Europe as part of its long-standing NATO mission on the continent.

According to a copy of the order released by the White House, it allows the military to use up to 3,000 reserve service members to augment its forces in Europe, which grew in reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Pentagon said last year it increased the troop presence on the continent by about 20,000 troops as Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to seize the country, bringing the total U.S. force in Europe to more than 100,000.

"It's unlocking additional forces for use in support of this operation," the Pentagon's top spokesman, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, told reporters on a phone call Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, the Joint Staff director for operations who also briefed reporters, said, "These authorities will enable the department to better support and sustain its enhanced presence and level of operations" in Europe.

Sims stressed that "these are not additional forces."

"Over time, where we may have had someone from an active component organization doing something, that job now, under these authorities, may be something that a reserve component unit may be able to do," he said.

The mission -- officially dubbed "Atlantic Resolve" -- goes back to 2014 when the U.S. was trying to bolster the NATO alliance and deter Russia's aggression in Ukraine's Donbas region. That year, Putin ordered the invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea, triggering international condemnation.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the mission has gained increased relevance and attention -- and the U.S. has contributed more than $40 billion in security assistance, as well as training for Ukrainian troops.

Sims noted that the mission will be considered a "contingency operation," which "benefits troops and families with increases in authorities, entitlements, and access to the reserve component forces and personnel."

The designation means more "personnel-related entitlements that ... give activated reservists the same benefits as active component personnel," as well as a way for the Pentagon to better track spending directly associated with the mission, Ryder said.

The units that will be providing the service members have yet to be identified.

"It will really depend on what's required from the commander," Sims said. As a result, it is unclear whether the move will mean a deployment of new or different military equipment.

-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin.

military.com · by Konstantin Toropin · July 13, 2023

14. Ukraine's spymaster comes out of the shadows

Ukraine's spymaster comes out of the shadows

Reuters · by Tom Balmforth

• Summary
• Ukrainian spy boss builds up unusually public profile
• Kyiv is beating Moscow in 'information war', he says
• Spy chief says his agency is focused on agent network

KYIV, July 14 (Reuters) - He wears a pistol to interviews with foreign journalists and discusses wartime intelligence. Weapons and military gear are strewn on the floor of his Kyiv office. He says he has "sources" close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For an intelligence chief running Ukraine's spy operations during war with Russia, Kyrylo Budanov, 37, has built up an unusually public profile that he has used to get his message out and to menace Russia from afar.

These days, a spy boss cannot stay in the shadows, he says.

"It's not possible without this, not anymore," the head of Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) told Reuters in an interview at his heavily defended headquarters in the capital.

"And all the next wars are going to look like this. In any country in the world. We can say that we're setting a trend here."

Ukraine drew conclusions about the need to get its message across since 2014, when Moscow took the world by surprise to seize Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and unleash a proxy war in the east, he says.

"We completely lost the information war in 2014. And the war, which began in (2022) - we started here in a completely different way. And now the Russians are losing the information battle."

Since a mercenary mutiny in Russia last month made Moscow's ruling system appear more opaque and unstable, Budanov has used the opportunity to weigh in about what Ukraine's spies know about their enemy.

In parts of his interview reported by Reuters earlier this week, he said the mutinying Russian mercenaries had headed for a nuclear base in pursuit of a backpack-sized atomic weapon. Several Russian sources that spoke to Reuters confirmed parts of that account.

Budanov also cited an intercepted survey conducted by the Russian Interior Ministry that he said showed mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had support inside Russia.

He provided no evidence, but noted that he accurately predicted Russia would invade before the full-scale war broke out last year. "Who turned out to be right? Us."

"We have our own sources. In the closest offices (to Putin), so to say. This is why we usually know what's going on."

REVILED IN RUSSIA

Enigmatic and intense, Budanov sat behind his desk in military fatigues under a painting of an owl - the symbol of his agency - sinking its talons into a bat, the emblem of Russia's military intelligence directorate.

The blinds of his office were drawn with sandbags in the windows.

Appointed in August 2020, Budanov has seen his popularity and public profile surge inside Ukraine during the war, where he is portrayed as a behind-the-scenes mastermind of efforts to strike back at Russia. In Russian media he is a hate figure.

The Kremlin decried as "monstrous" a remark he made in May that "we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine".

Russia has blamed Ukrainian secret services for the murders of a pro-war Russian blogger and a pro-war journalist. Kyiv denies involvement. Russian media reported that a court in Moscow had arrested Budanov in absentia in April on terrorism charges.

The prospect of a spy agency sending assassins to hunt down Ukraine's enemies has drawn comparisons with Israel's Mossad. Budanov doesn't resist the analogy.

"If you're asking about Mossad as being famous (for) ... eliminating enemies of their state, then we were doing it and we will be doing it. We don't need to create anything because it already exists."

Budanov began his military career as a special forces operative and served in the east after Russia illegally annexed Crimea and its proxies took over Ukraine's eastern fringes. He was wounded three times.

Since he took charge of the spy service there have been numerous failed attempts on his life, including a botched car bombing in which the assailant was blown up.

"The only thing I can say is that they haven't stopped attempting it, but I will repeat – it's all in vain," he said.

In late May a Russian air strike hit his headquarters on Kyiv's Rybalskyi Peninsula, sparking Russian media reports that he had been gravely wounded. Budanov played down its significance.

"That wasn't their first attempt. But, as you can see, once again, we're here in the main quarters of this building. When you were outside, you could see people walking, and working. Everything is working as it should."

Reporting by Tom Balmforth Additional reporting by Sergiy Karazy Editing by Mike Collett-White and Peter Graff

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Tom Balmforth

15. Incredible Video Shows Ukrainian Seals Raiding Russian-Occupied Island in the Dnipro

Incredible Video Shows Ukrainian Seals Raiding Russian-Occupied Island in the Dnipro

kyivpost.com

Ukraine’s special forces released a video by of elite “Seals” – Russian milbloggers called them “devils swimming along the Dnipro” – showing speed boats and drones executing a deadly operation.

by Pete Shmigel | July 14, 2023, 10:01 am

Using hi-tech speed boats and drones, Ukrainian naval special forces, “Seals,” are conducting operations along the islands of the Dnipro River, including a deadly one captured on video.

The Command of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine yesterday released a video on Facebook of a mission performed on a Russian-held position on a Dnipro River island in the Kherson region.

The Command said that the operation by troops of the 73rd Special Forces Maritime Center destroyed an enemy boat, killed three Russian soldiers and wounded five others. The unit is nicknamed “Seals” after their US Navy counterparts.

A pro-Russian milblogger yesterday posted that “devils still swim along the Dnipro in high-speed boats."

The released video opens with an unmanned surveillance drone conducting aerial reconnaissance of an unnamed island on the Dnipro.

Footage from the drone shows how it discovers a Russian observation post on a small rocky outcrop of the island.

The drone’s camera then zooms in on Russian soldiers jogging away from the observation post while the narrator indicates that they may be carrying drone blocking technology. Potentially as a result of that technology, Ukrainian special forces – whose unit is part of the Ukrainian navy – are said to lose contact with the surveillance drone.

Their commanders, however, decide that enough information has been collected to warrant a mission against the Russian observation post.

Following planning, the video says, a special forces assault team using two rigid inflatable speed boats is deployed during the night to commence an attack at dawn. Their mission is being remotely coordinated using drone and other communications means.

On inspection of the video, Kyiv Post assesses the speed boats used in the operation likely to be US-provided Willard Sea Force 730 or Willard Sea Force 11M speedboats (7 and 11 meters long respectively), 10 of which Ukraine’s navy has.

The boats are globally valued by special forces, according to military analysts, because they are equipped with Furuno navigation radar, forward-mounted 7.62mm heavy machine guns, and are very fast, nimble and quiet.

According to Censor.net, depending on configuration, the price of an 11-meter boat is about $850,000; the seven meter boat costs around $350,000.

Photo:censor.net

“On arrival at the observation post, it is decided to not open fire, but rather to draw fire to better visually establish the positions of enemy personnel,” the video’s narrator says.

A soldier can then be seen opening up with the heavy machine gun in the bow of one of the boats, as it closes on the observation post from about 100 meters.

“During the firefight, the Ukrainian Special Forces closed the distance to the enemy to some 15 to 20 meters. As a result, they were able to liquidate two enemy soldiers and injure a third,” the narrator says.

At this point, it is explained that the 2-boat team, which appears to consist of around 10 well-equipped soldiers, navigates upriver for safety and to further observe the situation. There, they begin to draw Russian artillery fire, which lands around them in the river.

More footage explains that Russian boats were then deployed to the area and it was decided to use FPV (first-person view) drones in an attempt to neutralize them.

The video proceeds to show a small craft in open water being hit by an explosion and then a second small craft rushing to it to transfer wounded. As the Russian craft retreat, they are again hit with drone strikes.

In this phase of the operation, the narrators says that an additional Russian soldier was killed and four more are wounded.

Since the beginning of Ukraine’s summer offensive, there have been reports of Ukrainian assault groups operating in the vicinity of the Antonivka Bridge across the Dnipro River near Kherson. They are believed to have a foothold on the left-bank of the Dnipro there, and, in an attempt to dislodge the small Ukrainian contingent, it has been a site of consistent Russian shelling and other activity for some weeks.

kyivpost.com

16. Women Fighting Putin’s Troops Reveal Their Agonizing Secrets

I hope we can learn from these terrible experiences. And no the answer is do not put women in the front lines. Look at the incredible contributions they make. We need them. We need to properly provide the right gear and conditions for them.

But this is a demonstration of an incredible will to fight for their homeland:

Despite shortages in even the most basic resources like sanitary pads, the dedication of scores of Ukrainian women who are fighting in the war is unwavering, Kolesnyk told The Daily Beast.

“For a housewife somewhere in Oregon, it would probably sound crazy that pregnant women fight on the front to defend Ukraine, but our country is constantly under attack, so even pregnant women fight against Russian invaders until they are seven months pregnant. I currently have requests for specially designed uniforms and other important items from at least 10 pregnant soldiers,” he said. “We have shortages for every single item… So far nobody has managed to actually help.”

Women Fighting Putin’s Troops Reveal Their Agonizing Secrets

SLIPPING THROUGH THE CRACKS

A special kind of suffering is taking place among military women on the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Anna Nemtsova

Published Jul. 10, 2023 4:51AM EDT 

The Daily Beast · July 10, 2023

Zemliachky Archives

KYIV—Vladimir Putin’s war has been grueling for hundreds of thousands of soldiers fighting against Russian troops on the front lines—but the invasion has been particularly brutal on the roughly 60,000 women serving in the Ukrainian army, according to multiple sources who spoke with The Daily Beast.

Besides the regular horrors of war, Ukrainian women who spoke with The Daily Beast said that the lack of appropriate equipment and resources for female soldiers often puts them in greater danger than their male counterparts—including ill-fitting uniforms, boots, body armor, and tools to help them relieve themselves on the battlefield.

“Try to go to the toilet in the woods at 4 degrees Fahrenheit... All of us got cystitis or inflammation of the ovaries and back pain,” one 24-year-old Ukrainian soldier, Julia, told The Daily Beast in Kyiv this week. “After a year of the war we have a bouquet of all sorts of health issues.” (Julia and several other women who spoke with The Daily Beast for this story asked to be identified only by their first names.)

Julia’s 28-year-old sister, Alina, is also serving in Ukraine’s armed forces. In an interview with The Daily Beast alongside her sister, she said the health issues caused by the lack of female urination devices or diapers as “the least of the problems we have.”

Women in the army are often forced to “stumble in men’s shoes that are too big,” or run in “huge pants” that slow them down in critical situations, Alina said.

A Ukrainian women soldier 28-year-old Svetlana, who served as a captain in the Ukrainian Armed Forces is seen on the frontline in Donbass, Donetsk, Ukraine on August 15, 2022. (Photo by

Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

“But the hardest is to run in the army’s standard, 30-pound-bulletproof vest—which just never fits snugly to the body with boobs like mine,” she said. “If I take the army armor off and get wounded or get killed, there would be no compensation paid to me or my family. Our lives, our security often depend on what we wear on our body and our feet, how healthy we are.”

Before the war, the two sisters worked as programmers in the tech industry and had just saved up enough money for a planned vacation to Bali. All that changed in February last year, when they canceled their tropical getaway and opted instead to volunteer in the fight against Putin’s invasion—first on the outskirts of Kyiv, then in Donetsk.

More than 100 military women have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war, either in combat on the front lines, during evacuation missions, or while working with the press. But many of the basic issues hindering women in the war appear to be avoidable: Experts and soldiers who spoke to The Daily Beast said they believe that access to uniforms, medicine, and equipment specific to the needs of women would translate to more success on the battlefield.

There are some efforts in Ukraine to address this problem. The Daily Beast met with Alina and Julia at a warehouse event organized by the charity organization Zemliachky, a group dedicated to supporting Ukrainian military women, where a limited supply of new summer uniforms designed for women were showcased and distributed. At the event, organizers explained that they negotiated with army officials to approve the uniform, which features lighter body armor that is specifically designed for the female body.

Addressing the uniforms at a press conference on Thursday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that additional “models of body armor and helmets for women are already being tested in combat units. When there is a conclusion, the ministry by its order will approve the standard and officially order them for the system of defense.”

Ukrainian soldier Runa.

Zemliachky Archives

Runa, a petite 28-year-old army volunteer, was thrilled when she got her new uniform from Zemliachky. Before that, the former Kyiv florist—who now commands an artillery unit—was wearing uniforms about four times her size, including 30 pounds of body armor that made her muscles ache. “It fits perfectly even for me, whose size is hard to find,” she said in a video showcasing the uniform.

The founder of Zemliachky, Andriy Kolesnyk, told The Daily Beast that the organization currently has enough funds to get uniforms to only 10 percent of the 9,000 women who need them.

“We have to provide women with hundreds of items but the priority ones are uniforms—we need $1 million to produce uniforms and shoes for all women. We need just $1 million to dress up all of our women defenders in the right-sized uniforms this summer. Both their effectiveness and security depend on how freely they can move, run, crawl, load weapons, or operate a drone,” he said.

During the event, Ksenia Draganyuk, a 27-year-old military volunteer who supports the organization, pulled out a box labeled “Feminine Urinary Director.”

Ukrainian soldier Ksenia.

Zemliachky Archives

“Here is what us girls use, when there is no chance to pee. When we asked all our girl soldiers about their health issues, 90 percent of them complained of cystitis and yeast infections,” she said. “So our job is to make sure women soldiers stay healthy because they are Ukraine’s future mothers.”

Despite shortages in even the most basic resources like sanitary pads, the dedication of scores of Ukrainian women who are fighting in the war is unwavering, Kolesnyk told The Daily Beast.

“For a housewife somewhere in Oregon, it would probably sound crazy that pregnant women fight on the front to defend Ukraine, but our country is constantly under attack, so even pregnant women fight against Russian invaders until they are seven months pregnant. I currently have requests for specially designed uniforms and other important items from at least 10 pregnant soldiers,” he said. “We have shortages for every single item… So far nobody has managed to actually help.”

The Daily Beast · July 10, 2023

17. Bombers Surge in the Pacific: B-52s Arrive in Guam, B-1s in Japan

Bombers Surge in the Pacific: B-52s Arrive in Guam, B-1s in Japan

July 13, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/bombers-pacific-b-52s-guam-b-1s-japan/?mc_cid=84f661db95&mc_eid=70bf478f36

The U.S. Air Force’s bomber presence in the Indo-Pacific swelled significantly in the past two weeks, as more B-52 Stratofortresses arrived on Guam and B-1 Lancers landed in Japan. 

B-52s and Airmen from the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., landed at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, on July 5. They join B-52s from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., that deployed to Guam last month on a Bomber Task Force mission. 

“The Bomber Task Force is designed to enhance the high-end readiness of the bomber force while also advancing our interoperability with allies and partners,” said Lt. Col. Jared Patterson, 20th EBS commander, in a statement. “Each mission flown further demonstrates our ability to provide agile combat ready forces and long-range strike capabilities to combatant commanders around the globe.” 

Five days later, two B-1s and around 25 Airmen from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, arrived at Misawa Air Base, Japan, on a separate Bomber Task Force rotation. 

“Having the B-1 here in Japan further showcases the United States’ commitment to the Indo-Pacific region and our Allies and partners,” said Lt. Col. Andrew Marshall, 345th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron commander, in a PACAF release. 

Since arriving in Guam in mid-June, the Minot B-52s have flown integration exercises over the Korean Peninsula and were the first USAF B-52s to land in Indonesia. Within the past week, the bombers also took part in the Northern Edge military exercise in the Gulf of Alaska.  

Bomber activity in the Pacific has surged with increased tensions in the region. In the past six months alone, USAF bombers flew more than half a dozen sorties over the Korean Peninsula and conducted multiple integration exercises with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. 

While bombers in Guam are common, however, deploying B-1s to Misawa is unusual. B-1s have rarely flown out of Japan on Bomber Task Force deployments in the past. Their arrival follows a Stars & Stripes report July 12 that one of the Minot B-52s was forced to make a rare emergency landing at Yokota Air Base, Japan, due to an in-flight maintenance issue. Further details about the cause have not been released.

A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress assigned to the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, lands on the flightline on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, July 10, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Nia Jacobs

18. Exposing the Dangers of the Influence of Foreign Adversaries on College Campuses

Videos at the link below. Craig Singleton's full written testimony can be downloaded here: https://www.fdd.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/FDD-Testimony_Singleton_Exposing-the-Dangers-of-the-Influence-of-Foreign-Adversaries-on-College-Campuses.pdf

Excerpts:

Notwithstanding growing bipartisan alarm and action, the Chinese government and other authoritarian actors have nevertheless embraced ever-more sophisticated means to deepen their influence and access throughout American academia. Even worse, obtaining a complete and accurate understanding of these activities has been severely hindered by weak, often contradictory, regulatory oversight and long-standing transparency gaps at the federal and state levels. If left unaddressed, the economic and strategic losses stemming from these systemic deficiencies risk undermining America’s commercial and military advantages. More troubling, however, is that these malign activities stand to jeopardize the ability of faculty, staff, and students to debate ideas freely without fear of intimidation and retribution by hostile foreign nations and/or their on-campus proxies.

Of course, the United States is not alone in facing these complicated challenges. Indeed, Washington has much to learn from the collective experiences of other democracies, including Australia, which are waging similar campaigns to combat malign influence throughout their higher education systems. Policymakers in Washington also stand to gain from lessons learned at the state level, particularly in Florida, where the state legislature unanimously passed first-of-its- kind legislation aimed at protecting post-secondary institutions and their students from the evolving threat posed by adversarial “countries of concern.”

July 13, 2023 | Congressional Testimony

Exposing the Dangers of the Influence of Foreign Adversaries on College Campuses

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/07/13/exposing-the-dangers-of-the-influence-of-foreign-adversaries-on-college-campuses/

Craig Singleton

China Program Deputy Director and Senior Fellow

Hearing video

July 13, 2023

Excerpt

of full written testimony

Introduction 

Chairman Owens, Ranking Member Wilson, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify about foreign adversary influence on U.S. college campuses. I am pleased to provide relevant research and policy insights from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research institute, where I serve as a senior fellow.

Today, foreign adversary nations are engaged in far-reaching campaigns to exploit the United States’ open, collaborative nature in furtherance of their strategic, military, and economic goals. Nowhere is this threat more acute than on U.S. college campuses. China, Russia, Iran, and other authoritarian regimes fully recognize that the United States’ higher education system underpins America’s innovation, science and technology leadership, and economic competitiveness. In taking advantage of opaque, often-unregulated academic exchanges, these nations and their state- backed companies stand to circumvent the massive costs and accompanying risks associated with conducting their own research and development — all at the expense of the United States, its allies, and its partners.

The threat posed by these adversarial actors extends well beyond technology transfer and intellectual property theft as a means to enhance their composite national strength. Increasingly, America’s adversaries are also leveraging their unfettered access to U.S. college campuses to stifle free speech protections, monitor student activities, and propagate disinformation and other false narratives. As a result, these countries have succeeded in weaponizing such access to sow social division, undermine faith in public institutions, and restrict open discourse. These and other brazen activities pose significant challenges to academic freedom and, if left unchecked, threaten to seriously erode the integrity of America’s academic ideals.

No doubt, openness, freedom, and diversity represent fundamental pillars of our democracy and serve as intrinsic strengths of the United States and our way of life. Maintaining America’s competitive edge thus hinges on a shared commitment to open academic and scientific exchange. But so, too, must we embrace common-sense measures to protect our intellectual capital and discourage its misappropriation as well as to counter authoritarian attempts to promote on- campus censorship and intimidation. The key then is to strike an appropriate balance between preserving our values and protecting U.S. national security as we enter this renewed era of great- power competition.

Despite the scope and intensity of the threat, the United States has, in my view, never been better positioned than it is today to tackle these and other emerging challenges on campus. One reason: members of Congress, working on a bipartisan basis, have in recent years instituted a number of significant measures aimed at inoculating America’s higher education system from the corrosive actions of China and other countries. Those efforts included passing legislation prohibiting U.S. universities hosting Chinese government-supported Confucius Institutes (CIs) from receiving Defense Department funding for Chinese language study. This lone provision in the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2019 led to a dramatic decrease in the number of CIs operating across the United States, from a high of 113 in 2018 to 10 today.

Notwithstanding growing bipartisan alarm and action, the Chinese government and other authoritarian actors have nevertheless embraced ever-more sophisticated means to deepen their influence and access throughout American academia. Even worse, obtaining a complete and accurate understanding of these activities has been severely hindered by weak, often contradictory, regulatory oversight and long-standing transparency gaps at the federal and state levels. If left unaddressed, the economic and strategic losses stemming from these systemic deficiencies risk undermining America’s commercial and military advantages. More troubling, however, is that these malign activities stand to jeopardize the ability of faculty, staff, and students to debate ideas freely without fear of intimidation and retribution by hostile foreign nations and/or their on-campus proxies.

Of course, the United States is not alone in facing these complicated challenges. Indeed, Washington has much to learn from the collective experiences of other democracies, including Australia, which are waging similar campaigns to combat malign influence throughout their higher education systems. Policymakers in Washington also stand to gain from lessons learned at the state level, particularly in Florida, where the state legislature unanimously passed first-of-its- kind legislation aimed at protecting post-secondary institutions and their students from the evolving threat posed by adversarial “countries of concern.”

19. The Upside of U.S.-Chinese Competition

Excerpts:

Xi’s approach in this regard is the better one, and U.S. leaders should emulate it. The reality is that a number of Asian countries—such as Singapore and Vietnam—neither have nor want systems modeled on that of the United States. Chest-beating about democracy can alienate people who have watched U.S. democracy falter at home. Xi’s rhetoric avoids suggesting that other countries must ally themselves ideologically with China in order to cooperate with it, leaving space for them to benefit from and keep the peace with both Beijing and Washington.

Tension is a given between the two most powerful countries in the world. But if they can both stick to a strategy of institutional balancing, the rewards of competition should outweigh the risks.

The Upside of U.S.-Chinese Competition

How Institutional Balancing Promotes Stability in Asia

By Kai He

July 14, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Kai He · July 14, 2023

During the G-20 summit in Bali last November, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of responsibly managing the competition between their countries. “I absolutely believe there need not be a new Cold War,” Biden said. For his part, Xi stressed that the two countries share a common interest in “no confrontation and peaceful coexistence.” Recognizing the devastating consequences of military conflict, both leaders pledged to avoid it. Nevertheless, even if they can avoid conflict, the two countries are locked in a competition that will extend into the foreseeable future. As they navigate it, the rest of the world will look on nervously.

But there is a potential silver lining to U.S.-Chinese competition: the rise of “institutional balancing.” Unlike in traditional military balancing, whereby countries seek to equalize their power through arms buildups and defense alliances, institutional balancing involves countries seeking advantage by using the rules and norms associated with international institutions.

Some scholars have begun to characterize institutional balancing as yet another alarming axis of confrontation, even a form of war. But this approach to competition is not only less violent than warfare. It can, in fact, be healthy—strengthening international cooperation, forcing multilateral institutions to become more relevant and dynamic, and prompting more investment in public goods. Institutional balancing provides a way to compete responsibly without resorting to military conflict.

American leaders can be particularly tempted to think of any aggressive competition with the United States within a Cold War frame, wherein all jockeying is hostile or destabilizing. If Washington and Beijing pursue institutional balancing in the right way, however, they could make the coming bipolar age even more peaceful than the previous, unipolar one.

A NEW KIND OF BATTLEFIELD

Institutional balancing is not a new concept in global politics. Since the end of the Cold War, both the United States and China have pursued it to enhance their power. As a strategy, it has two varieties: inclusive and exclusive. Inclusive institutional balancing entails a state incorporating a rival into an international institution whose norms constrain the rival’s behavior. One example is the successful effort by the United States, in 2001, to incorporate China into the World Trade Organization. China’s accession required it to liberalize parts of its economy and allowed countries to lodge complaints against it within the WTO’s framework.

Exclusive institutional balancing, by contrast, is when a state seeks to exclude a rival from an agreement or an institution, undermining its influence or pressuring it to engage on less advantageous terms. The United States used exclusive institutional balancing when it intentionally excluded China from the 2008–15 negotiations that resulted in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. By excluding China, the United States significantly limited China’s access to over 40 percent of the global economy.

The last 30 years of institutional balancing between the United States and China can be understood in two phases. The first phase spanned the early 1990s up to the 2008 global financial crisis. Although that era was characterized by deepening economic interdependence and accelerating globalization, it was essentially unipolar: the general assumption was that the United States would remain more influential than China.

During that phase, both the United States and China mainly used existing multilateral institutions, especially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to pursue inclusive institutional balancing. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), in which the United States participates, was particularly useful to China. By insisting on a principle of non-interference, China has effectively blocked the ARF from addressing the matter of Taiwan since 1994.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States and China have used institutional balancing to enhance their power.

The United States has also deepened its relations with ASEAN, developing a strategic partnership with the organization in 2015 and hosting U.S.-ASEAN summits in 2016 and 2022. As of 2019, ASEAN has become the favored U.S. diplomatic partner in its “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy. The United States also used the ASEAN Regional Forum as a specific means to engage China with the hope of socializing China into international society. In 1998, with the United States and ASEAN’s encouragement, China published its first white paper on national security in order to fulfill the ARF’s requirement to increase military transparency.

The second phase of U.S.-Chinese institutional balancing is still ongoing. After the 2008 global financial crisis exposed the weaknesses of U.S.-led free-market capitalism, non-Western and emerging economies began to challenge U.S. hegemony more aggressively. This changed landscape led the United States and China to focus more on exclusive institutional balancing, creating new institutions to exclude and target each other. In 2017, the United States revived the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) with Australia, India, and Japan, which had failed to gain traction a decade earlier. Thanks to this revitalized dialogue, in the last five years, Quad countries have ramped up their joint military exercises and announced a range of initiatives in vaccine diplomacy, climate change, technology, and infrastructure.

China, meanwhile, pursued exclusive institutional balancing by creating or expanding security institutions that leave out the United States. A chief example is China’s 2013 launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive network of projects and investments to upgrade infrastructure in more than 100 countries at a projected total cost of up to $8 trillion. The Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, a long-standing intergovernmental forum to promote cooperation, peace, and security in Asia, was moribund for years until China rebooted it in 2014 to advocate for “Asia for Asians,” a direct challenge to the U.S.-led bilateral alliance system in Asia.

To counterbalance U.S. power in Eurasia, China also sought to expand the influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which it originally founded with Russia in 2001 to fight terrorism, ethnic separatism, and religious extremism in the region. In 2017, with China’s encouragement, the SCO admitted India and Pakistan, making it the world’s largest regional organization in terms of the population it covers. Iran was admitted in 2022 and Belarus is expected to join this year.

THE BATTLE’S YIELD

On the surface, these moves might seem like worrying steps down a road that ends with a U.S.-Chinese confrontation. But in East Asia and Southeast Asia, institutional balancing has increased, not reduced, stability and security.

First, it has encouraged existing regional institutions to improve, lest they become marginalized. For example, in the first decade of this century, ASEAN finally addressed one of its long-standing weaknesses: its failure to include member countries’ defense secretaries in regional security dialogues. In 2006, ASEAN established a Defense Ministers’ Meeting, and in 2010, it expanded that forum to include eight dialogue partners: Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Russia, and the United States. In 2017, ASEAN made this meeting a standing annual forum, significantly strengthening security cooperation among participating countries.

And new multilateral organizations have emerged, seeking to take advantage of Washington’s and Beijing’s hunger for influence. One is the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual Singapore summit hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank based in the United Kingdom, with the support of the Singaporean government. There, top defense officials from the Asia-Pacific and beyond gather, engaging in discussions and debates on regional security matters.

Institutional balancing between the United States and China has directly benefited individual countries in the region, as well. Both China and the United States have had to offer incentives to ASEAN states to maintain or gain leadership in the region. For example, for 25 years, Southeast Asian leaders have longed for a legally binding international code of conduct to resolve conflicts in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. And for many years, China simply resisted though it signed the non-binding Declaration on the Conduct in the South China Sea in 2002. But in the mid-2010s, as China sought to wield institutional power through ASEAN, the organization also pressed China to accelerate negotiations toward a code of conduct, yielding a draft negotiating text in 2018. And early this year, against the backdrop of China’s increasing rivalry with the United States, Beijing signaled that it is ready to move even faster.

Developing countries have benefited immensely from the U.S.-China competition.

The United States has also deepened its cooperation with ASEAN. In 2009, then President Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to meet with all ten ASEAN heads of state as a group. That same year, the United States joined the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, a framework for the peaceful resolution of disputes in the region, and three years later, it officially joined the annual East Asia Summit. The Biden administration has collaborated with ASEAN on new health, transportation, women’s empowerment, environment, and energy initiatives and greenlighted a Department of Defense investment of $10 million annually to train emerging Southeast Asian defense leaders and foster connections between them and their U.S. counterparts.

Finally, this institutional balancing game has contributed to infrastructural improvements throughout Asia. Building on the Belt and Road Initiative, in 2015, China established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a tool to boost its regional influence. To counter those developments, the United States proposed infrastructure initiatives such as the 2019 Blue Dot Network with Australia and Japan, a project to promote the development of trustworthy standards for infrastructure. Washington followed that with the 2021 Build Back Better World initiative and the 2022 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII); both seek to provide comprehensive alternatives to the BRI.

Developing countries have benefited immensely from this competition. Through engagement with ASEAN, and following PGII frameworks, Washington committed in 2021 to investing $40 million in emerging Southeast Asian economies to help make the region’s power supply cleaner and more efficient. That investment is expected to generate $2 billion in financing.

With loans from the BRI, Laos began construction that same year on a massive $6 billion railway project, the largest public works initiative in the country’s history. More recently, a few months ago, Pakistan received a $10 billion loan from Beijing to upgrade its main railway network. That upgrade forms part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a BRI centerpiece with an estimated total cost of $60 billion. Although some critics have expressed concern that these loans will create debt traps for recipient countries, they are nevertheless essential for their economic development, given their limited options for infrastructure financing. The resulting economic growth contributes to peace in the region, too.

A SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

In the last few years, bilateral relations between the United States and China have degraded, recently pushing them toward the brink of a hot war over Taiwan. The task for their policymakers is to manage their rivalry so it is less tense and risky. Guiding the competition further toward institutional balancing instead of military buildups and alliance confrontation is the best way forward.

Institutional balancing is almost always more peaceful than military standoffs. It is true that institutional balancing can spark diplomatic tensions among states. But these almost never flare up into conflagrations. Institutional balancing can be beneficial, however, only if it sticks to three preconditions, none of which have been adequately followed so far.

First, it must remain limited by the logic of nuclear deterrence. No matter how vigorously they pursue institutional balancing, the United States and China will likely continue to compete for military power. But they cannot cross this competition’s redline. It would be extremely dangerous for either side to miscalculate the other side’s capabilities or resolve or to engage in nuclear brinkmanship.

Institutional balancing is almost always more peaceful than military standoffs.

Next, it is essential for both countries to emphasize strengthening, not weakening, their economic interdependence. So long as the United States and China are interdependent, their economic ties and the relationships between their citizens serve as guardrails against military escalation. These countries will compete vigorously. But their leaders must not vow to end their reliance on each other to score domestic points, as former U.S. President Donald Trump did repeatedly. They must ensure that their rhetoric and actions do not seem to support decoupling.

Finally, it is crucial for the two countries to avoid framing their competition in ideological terms. Biden has often described the contemporary world as embroiled in “a battle between democracy and autocracy.” Although the Chinese Communist Party is exceptionally ideological at home, when Xi speaks to other countries, he never characterizes China’s competition with the United States as an existential battle between irreconcilable worldviews. If Biden has, at times, tried to be an ideological boxer in foreign affairs, Xi prefers tai chi, avoiding direct contact.

Xi’s approach in this regard is the better one, and U.S. leaders should emulate it. The reality is that a number of Asian countries—such as Singapore and Vietnam—neither have nor want systems modeled on that of the United States. Chest-beating about democracy can alienate people who have watched U.S. democracy falter at home. Xi’s rhetoric avoids suggesting that other countries must ally themselves ideologically with China in order to cooperate with it, leaving space for them to benefit from and keep the peace with both Beijing and Washington.

Tension is a given between the two most powerful countries in the world. But if they can both stick to a strategy of institutional balancing, the rewards of competition should outweigh the risks.

• KAI HE is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Centre for Governance and Public Policy at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace.

Foreign Affairs · by Kai He · July 14, 2023

20. Microsoft Email Hack Shows Greater Sophistication, Skill of China’s Cyberspies

But they were caught. Does that mean they really are not more sophisticated? Or did they deliberately allow themselves to be caught to demonstrate their capabilities or to hide more sophisticated hacking. What are we not seeing and detecting? Or do they just want us to think and worry about what we think we might not be seeing and detecting? 

Microsoft Email Hack Shows Greater Sophistication, Skill of China’s Cyberspies

Hackers adapt to U.S.’s growing cyber defenses, learn to tread lightly and avoid detection

https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-email-hack-shows-greater-sophistication-skill-of-chinas-cyberspies-7f7cff67?mod=hp_lead_pos5

By​ ​Dustin Volz,​ ​Robert McMillan​ ​and​ ​Josh Chin

July 14, 2023 12:01 am ET

The hack of email accounts of senior U.S. officials including the commerce secretary is the latest feat from a network of Chinese state-backed hackers whose leap in sophistication has alarmed U.S. cybersecurity officials. 

The espionage was aimed at a limited number of high-value U.S. government and corporate targets. Though the number of victims appeared to be small, the attack—and others unearthed in the last few months linked to China—demonstrated a new level of skill from Beijing’s large hacker army, and prompted concerns that the extent of its infiltration into U.S. government and corporate networks is far greater than currently known.

Even just a few years ago, Chinese hackers were known among cybersecurity investigators for loud smash-and-grab heists of intellectual property, military technology and even a database of U.S. government employees’ personal information. The sometimes crude tactics, while effective, were often geared toward collecting huge troves of data rather than spying persistently on valuable targets, and typically left traces that made the hackers easy to identify and guard against in the future.

China’s hacker army used to be “noisy” and “rudimentary,” George Barnes, the deputy director of the National Security Agency, said Thursday at an intelligence conference. The new hack and others identified in the past few months have shown that Beijing’s sophistication “continues to increase,” he said.

The latest attack focused on the Microsoft email accounts of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, State Department officials and others not publicly disclosed. It is already being rated by some security experts as among the most technically sophisticated and stealthy ever discovered, though many details—including how it began—haven’t been shared by Microsoft. It and other recently disclosed cyber-espionage operations suggest Chinese hackers can now burrow deep into high-level computer networks and evade detection for months or even years.  

The latest attack focused on the Microsoft email accounts of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and other officials. PHOTO: JEFF KOWALSKY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

The U.S. hasn’t formally linked the attack to China, though Microsoft attributed it to a Chinese hacking group and officials and lawmakers have said Beijing is responsible. China has denied the allegations. 

China long relied on techniques such as blasting malicious spam at hundreds of thousands of inboxes with little effort on the chance even a single unsuspecting target would reveal a password. In some instances, hackers would clumsily roam around a network until they tripped a security alert that enabled defenders to quickly kick them out, cybersecurity researchers said.

In 2015 the U.S. and China agreed to scale back cyberattacks, and operations against Western targets appeared to decline. Then, in 2020 they began to increase again, only with much greater sophistication.

Fueled by the threat of ransomware attacks mostly emanating from Eastern Europe, companies had gotten better at detecting attacks. So the Chinese switched focus and began hitting devices on the edge of corporate networks—hacks that were less likely to trigger security warnings, said Charles Carmakal, the chief technology officer with Google’s Mandiant cybersecurity group.

With the latest attack, the Chinese went a step further in their stealth technique. They gained access to the guts of Microsoft’s cryptographic protection system and used it to produce digital tokens—long strings of numbers and letters that are stored in the browser and act as a digital passport for Microsoft’s online services. 

“They’re hitting where the log data doesn’t exactly light up like a siren to tell you what’s wrong,” said Matt Durrin, director of training and research at the security consulting firm LMG Security. 

U.S. officials and Microsoft researchers disclosed on Tuesday that hackers linked to China breached email accounts at more than two dozen organizations, including some U.S. government agencies. American officials later said that Raimondo and senior officials at the State Department were among those in the government whose unclassified accounts were compromised. 

“It was a very advanced technique and capability and I imagine it was very valuable to the actor that used it,” said Carmakal. That was likely a reason why it appears to have been used on a small number of high-value targets, he said. “The more they used it, the greater the likelihood of getting caught.”

Cybersecurity specialists at the State Department detected the espionage campaign in June, around the time when Secretary of State Antony Blinken was planning a visit to Beijing to try to shore up deteriorating relations between the two powers. 

Blinken raised the hacking issue Thursday during a meeting in Jakarta with China’s top foreign-policy official, State Department spokesman Matt Miller said.

“We have consistently made clear that any action that targets the U.S. government, U.S. companies, American citizens is of deep concern to us, and that we will take appropriate action to hold those responsible accountable,” Miller said. “And the secretary made that clear again tonight.”

William Mauldin and Warren P. Strobel contributed to this article.

Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com, Robert McMillan at robert.mcmillan@wsj.com and Josh Chin at Josh.Chin@wsj.com

21. US military chief praises Japan's defense funding boost as a buttress against China and North Korea

US military chief praises Japan's defense funding boost as a buttress against China and North Korea

AP · July 14, 2023

TOKYO (AP) — The highest-ranking U.S. military officer on Friday encouraged Japan’s commitment to doubling its defense spending over the next five years, calling Tokyo’s controversial push for a stronger military crucial to confront rising threats from North Korea and China.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, mentioned Japan’s need for improvements in cruise missile defense, early warning missile systems and air capabilities, all of which would help the United States as it looks to counter North Korea’s push for a nuclear missile program capable of pinpoint-targeting the U.S. mainland and China’s increasing aggression against Taiwan, the democratic island that Beijing claims as its own.

China has “invested enormously in their military” and aspires to be “the regional hegemon in all of Asia, really probably in the next 10 to 15 years,” Milley said.

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North Korea’s ambassador blames US for regional tensions in a rare appearance at UN Security Council

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to bolster his country’s nuclear fighting capabilities as he supervised the second test-flight of a new intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the mainland United States.

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North Korea has test-fired its first intercontinental ballistic missile in three months after it threatened “shocking” consequences to protest alleged spying by United States military flights.

North Korean leader’s powerful sister says warplanes repelled US spy plane

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has alleged that the country’s warplanes repelled a U.S. spy plane that flew over its exclusive economic zone.

That “could become very unstable; it could become very dangerous, and I think having a powerful Japan, a militarily capable Japan that has a close alliance with the United States and other countries, will go a long way to deterring war,” Milley said.

Milley’s comments to reporters at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in downtown Tokyo provide an explicit U.S. military analysis of an increasingly unstable security situation in northeast Asia. With more than 80,000 U.S. troops in Japan and South Korea, and rising military moves by North Korea and China, the possibility of war in the region has become a growing worry. Washington wants its allies, particularly in Tokyo and Seoul, to do more.

Japan, meanwhile, has long wrestled with the need for a strong military amid domestic and regional wariness about anything seen as overly aggressive. Japanese soldiers overran much of Asia in the years leading up to World War II, and the nation is still viewed with anger by many in surrounding nations because of a perception that it hasn’t been fully repentant.

Milley also addressed the most recent missile test-launch by North Korea, a solid-fuel ICBM that he said “clearly demonstrates an intent to develop a capability to strike the continental United States.” While not providing specifics about the North’s missile program, he said: “It has our attention.”

Japan’s budget for the coming fiscal year provides a record 6.8 trillion yen ($50 billion) in defense spending, up 20% from a year earlier. That includes 211.3 billion yen ($1.55 billion) for deployment of U.S.-made long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles that can be launched from warships and can hit targets up to 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) away.

The hefty defense budget is the first installment of a five-year, 43-trillion-yen ($315-billion) military spending plan as part of Japan’s new National Security Strategy, which was announced in December.

The new spending target meets NATO standards and will eventually push Japan’s annual defense budget to about 10 trillion yen ($73 billion), the world’s third biggest after the United States and China.

“I have no doubt that the Japanese military could rapidly expand in scale, size, scope and skill very, very fast,” Milley said.

Milley also spoke of the need to speed up U.S. military assistance to Taiwan, mentioning the island’s need for better air defense, mines and air-to-air and shore-to-ship capabilities.

“What we’re opposed to is any ... use of military to compel some sort of unification,” Milley said. “Taiwan should have the capability to defend itself” as a way to deter any aggression by China.

“The speed at which we the United States or other countries assist Taiwan in improving their defensive capabilities, I think that probably needs to be accelerated in the years to come,” Milley said.

AP · July 14, 2023

​22. Air Force general who predicted war with China leads 'unprecedented' training exercise

Air Force general who predicted war with China leads 'unprecedented' training exercise

“I don’t believe conflict is inevitable. I don’t believe it’s unavoidable,” Gen. Mike Minihan told NBC News. “But I also believe that ready now is what matters most.”

NBC News · by Courtney Kube

ONE THOUSAND FEET OVER TINIAN ISLAND, Northern Mariana Islands — U.S. Air Force Capt. Brenden “Biggie” Small peers out the window of a C-130 as roughly a dozen other aircraft deploy parachutes carrying supplies to a small group of troops assembled below.

The mission is part of a training exercise involving 70 aircraft and more than 3,000 airmen from seven countries — the largest readiness exercise in Air Mobility Command history.

“On this scale,” it’s “really unprecedented,” Small says.

For the first time, the exercise, called Mobility Guardian, is focusing on the Pacific as the U.S. gears up for a potential conflict with China.

Over two weeks, airmen from the U.S. and its allies are practicing resupply missions, aerial refueling and medical evacuations at bases in Hawaii, Guam, Australia and Japan.

Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of Air Mobility Command, at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu on Sunday.Josiah Patterson for NBC News

“I don’t believe conflict is inevitable. I don’t believe it’s unavoidable,” said Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of the command. “But I also believe that ready now is what matters most. So ready now is the foundation of deterrence. And ready now is also the foundation of decisive victory.”

Minihan made headlines in January when he wrote a controversial memo warning his commanders the U.S. could be at war with China in two years. The memo directed all Air Mobility Command personnel to prepare for a potential fight with China and practice their marksmanship — “fire a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most.”

“Aim for the head,” Minihan added.

In an interview at U.S. Pacific Air Forces Headquarters in Hawaii, Minihan said he stands by the memo.

“I’m not trying to be provocative. I’m not trying to be coy,” Minihan said. “I’m trying to provide my formation with the tools and the action and the priority necessary to win.”

U.S. and allied service members practice medical evacuations on an Airbus A400M at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu on Sunday.Josiah Patterson for NBC News

Airmen work with medical equipment on an Airbus A400M at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu on Sunday.Josiah Patterson for NBC News

In recent months, the Chinese and U.S. militaries have had two close calls in the western Pacific.

The Defense Department says a Chinese fighter jet flew dangerously close to a U.S. military surveillance plane over the South China Sea on May 30. Days later, a Chinese naval ship came within 150 yards of a U.S. destroyer in the Taiwan Strait, cutting across its bow. China rejected the Pentagon’s description and blamed the U.S. for both incidents.

The close encounters reinforce growing concerns that the two superpowers could stumble into an unintended conflict. China’s military might has grown considerably in the past decade, and Taiwan remains a flashpoint.

Other experts caution that while tensions are high, an armed conflict between the U.S. and China is unlikely given how closely interconnected the two countries’ economies have become. They say that talk of war is exaggerated and that it worsens divisions between Washington and Beijing.

With U.S.-China relations under strain, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with President Xi Jinping in June in a bid to reduce tensions.

“We have no illusions about the challenges of managing this relationship. There are many issues on which we profoundly, even vehemently, disagree,” Blinken said at a news conference after the meeting.

But “it’s the responsibility of both countries to find a path forward, and it’s in both our interests and the interests of the world that we do so,” he added.

Minihan made headlines in January when he wrote a controversial memo warning his commanders the U.S. could be at war with China in two years.Josiah Patterson for NBC News

The previous three Mobility Guardian exercises took place in the continental U.S. But with the threat of a potential conflict with China growing and the logistical challenge of getting people and supplies across the ocean, the Pentagon decided to move the training exercise to the region where it was most likely to play out.

“We’re here in the Pacific, and we’re enjoying all the tyrannies of geography,” Minihan said. “So, specifically, distance and water. We’re challenging ourselves and our crews to maneuver in this theater at the relevance that is needed to win. And so far, so good. It’s going really well.”

Joining the U.S. in the exercises are airmen from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and France.

British forces hang the U.S. flag under New Zealand's and Britain's flags in an Airbus A400M at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu on Sunday.Josiah Patterson for NBC News

British personnel at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu on Sunday.Josiah Patterson for NBC News

“The U.S. military is ready to deliver power,” Minihan said.

But he said it’s not up to him whether a war with China breaks out in the next few years.

“Regardless of the timeline, my job is to be ready now,” Minihan said. “And my obligation as the commander of Air Mobility Command is to be ready now to provide that deterrence and to be ready to provide that decisive victory.”

A Royal Air Force plane at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu.Josiah Patterson for NBC News

“I'm not trying to be provocative. I'm not trying to be coy,” Minihan said. “I'm trying to provide my formation with the tools and the action and the priority necessary to win.”Josiah Patterson for NBC News

NBC News · by Courtney Kube

23. Pentagon’s Top General, Mark Milley, Calls for Faster Weapons Sales to Taiwan

Pentagon’s Top General, Mark Milley, Calls for Faster Weapons Sales to Taiwan

In Tokyo, chairman of joint chiefs says Beijing should get message that costs of attack would exceed benefit

By Gordon Lubold

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July 14, 2023 4:15 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagons-top-general-mark-milley-calls-for-faster-weapons-sales-to-taiwan-696f6504?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with Japanese Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada in Tokyo on Friday. PHOTO: KAZUHIRO NOGI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

TOKYO—American arms sales and deliveries of weaponry to Taiwan should be faster if the U.S. is to dissuade Beijing from taking military action against the island, the Pentagon’s top general said Friday. 

“I think that’s probably something that needs to be improved,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Tokyo. “The speed at which we, the United States, or other countries assist Taiwan in improving their defensive capabilities—I think that probably needs to be accelerated in the years to come.” 

Milley, in Tokyo to meet with Japanese leaders before leaving Saturday for Seoul, said the U.S. believed in self-determination in the region and opposed military action by China that could compel unification with Taiwan.

“If Taiwan has the military capability to signal to the leadership in Beijing that an attack on Taiwan, the cost, risk, of an attack on Taiwan, would exceed any potential benefit, then theoretically, if the leaders in Beijing are rational, they won’t do that militarily,” Milley said. “They will try some other nonmilitary means of doing it.”

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Taiwan’s military has carried out live fire drills on the island’s southern coast, firing missiles from armored cars to destroy targets close to shore in a simulation of repelling invading forces. Photo: Ann Wang/Reuters

Beijing regards democratically self-ruled Taiwan as a part of Chinese territory and has said it would use military means to take control if necessary. The U.S. acknowledges—but doesn’t endorse—Beijing’s claims over Taiwan. Congress is obligated by law to help Taiwan defend itself against an attack, though Washington has traditionally declined to say whether the U.S. military would intervene directly in such a scenario.

China has intensified sorties by jet fighters and other military aircraft around Taiwan in recent days as the island prepares to hold annual military exercises later this month. In the most recent wave on Thursday, 17 Chinese military aircraft flew across the midway point of the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait that divides the island from China, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. 

Taiwan has for years ordered high-profile weaponry from the U.S.—including tanks and jet fighters—but American officials have encouraged Taipei to buy more practical arms for defense against a potential invasion. Milley said Taiwan needed air defense, air-to-air defensive capabilities and antiship precision munitions as well as improved command-and-control capabilities. 

U.S. officials acknowledged in November a $19 billion backlog of arms deliveries to Taiwan, weaponry that had already been approved that had yet to reach Taipei. The Pentagon and State Department, concerned that allies and friends such as Taiwan aren’t getting needed arms in time, are re-examining a bureaucratic system that American arms customers and others have described as sluggish and risk-averse.

A major arms package for Taiwan that would come from American stocks similar to the kinds of arms supplies Washington has provided Ukraine has been delayed. That initiative is expected to be worth at least $300 million, U.S. officials have said. 

Milley, who retires in September, is on one of his last trips to the region. After meeting with military leaders of Japan and South Korea at the U.S. military’s Pacific headquarters in Hawaii earlier this week, he is visiting each country for separate meetings. 

Milley hopes to nudge Tokyo and Seoul, which have begun to repair relations after years of discord, to come together to confront common threats, especially China and North Korea. Pyongyang launched an intercontinental ballistic missile during the meeting in Hawaii. Milley said the countries were still determining a response to the launch.

Write to Gordon Lubold at gordon.lubold@wsj.com

24. 26th MEU is now Special Operations Capable | SOF

Deju vu all over again or back to the future?

My inside conspiracy theorist says this is being to demonstrate that USSOCOM can take cust to the SOF operational force and other forces could assume some missions. Unfortunately, a MEUSOC, despite being very capable on a multitude of missions cannot replace a number of the high demand forces such as Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological operations which are likely to bear the brunt of SOF cuts. 

26th MEU is now Special Operations Capable | SOF

sof.news · by DVIDS · July 14, 2023

Courtesy story II MEF.

II Marine Expeditionary Force has certified the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit as a Special Operations Capable Marine Air-Ground Task Force. The designation of MEU(SOC) is a first for the Marine Corps in more than a decade. The designation continues to demonstrate the Marine Corps’ ability to integrate with the Joint Force in support of daily campaigning, crisis response, and integrated deterrence missions.

The 26th MEU(SOC) executed an enhanced pre-deployment training program (PTP) over the past seven months, validating the specific force design, equipment sets, and training continuum associated with a special operations capable Marine Air-Ground Task Force. A MEU(SOC) designation broadens a combatant commander’s options when considering responses to a variety of essential campaigning and crisis response options in their areas of operation. These additional options enhance the force projection that an Amphibious Readiness Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit team already provides and showcases how the ARG/MEU is ideal for both crisis response and campaigning with allies and partners, including allied and partner special operations forces (SOF).

“The MEU(SOC) designation is important as it more accurately describes the MAGTF operational capabilities our forward deployed Marine Expeditionary Units provide geographic combatant commanders as the Immediate Response Force (IRF) in support of ongoing campaigning activities or in times of crisis.”

Col. Dennis Sampson, Commanding Officer of the 26th MEU(SOC)

After successfully demonstrating high proficiency and battle-staff competencies across all MAGTF mission essential tasks and warfighting functions, to include MEU/SOF-I3 (interoperability, integration, and interdependence), II MEF officially approved the re-designation to MEU(SOC).

“The MEU is a natural partner with special operations forces. The 26th MEU(SOC) has demonstrated a high level of competency and proficiency in all mission sets, to include MEU/SOF-I3, throughout their entire work-up in preparation for the upcoming deployment. This advances the U.S. joint force’s naval warfighting capabilities as we offer a ready naval expeditionary force with greater operational capabilities. MEU(SOC) is a return to our maritime and littoral roots.”

Lt. Gen. David Ottignon, Commanding General of II Marine Expeditionary Force

The timing of the designation of the 26th MEU(SOC) follows their final advanced at-sea period, Composite Unit Training Exercise. The exercise ended June 8, 2023, serving as the unit’s culminating at-sea event within an intense seven-month enhanced PTP.

“The MEU(SOC) is a naval expeditionary force with the operational capabilities necessary to dominate within the littorals while fusing joint force capabilities – to include SOF – in support of a Joint Force Commander, Theater Special Operations Commander, or Fleet Commander. When combined with the Amphibious Ready Group, the MEU(SOC) is able to exploit the asymmetric advantages the sea provides as maneuver space over any potential adversary in concert with our SOF partners or complimentary to SOF activities.”

Col. Dennis Sampson, Commanding Officer of the 26th MEU(SOC)

During the early stages of compositing the MAGTF, the 26th MEU(SOC) deliberately reorganized and trained Marines and Sailors from across II MEF to form the 26th MEU(SOC) Maritime Special Purpose Force (MSPF). The MSPF provides the MEU MAGTF Commander with a rapid, multi-domain, direct-action capability, coupled with highly specialized skills and enablers to meet the challenges associated with MAGTF and joint operations. The MSPF serves as the premier, all-domain action-arm of the MAGTF with special skills, capable of rapidly responding to emergent requirements and crises.

Photo: The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) departs Naval Station Norfolk for a scheduled deployment, July 10, 2023. U.S. Marines and Sailors of the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group (BAT ARG) / 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) (Special Operations Capable) (SOC) departed Norfolk, Virginia, and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina after completing a comprehensive, nine-month training program. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Manvir Gill)

Originally developed in 1985, the MEU(SOC) program was spearheaded by the 28th Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Paul X. Kelley and undertaken by then II Marine Expeditionary Force Commanding General, Lt. Gen. Alfred M. Gray. At that time, the 26 Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU), the predecessor to 26th MEU, was the first unit to be certified as Special Operations Capable (SOC) under the command of Col. James M. Myatt. The re-designation and deployment certification of the 26th MEU(SOC) in 2023 is the first in more than a decade for II MEF and the Marine Corps.

“It’s fitting for the 26th MEU to be the MAGTF to re-establish the MEU(SOC), considering the legacy of the unit. We are very proud of our heritage and strive to honor the successes and sacrifices of those who have gone before us.”

Col. Dennis Sampson, Commanding Officer of the 26th MEU(SOC)

The enhanced pre-deployment training was conducted in conjunction within the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, under the supervision of II MEF, within a realistic threat-based scenario reflective of U. S. 6th Fleet, 5th Fleet, and 7th Fleet operating environments. Additionally, during several of the major training events, the 26th MEU(SOC) worked directly with Theater Special Operations Commands and supported large scale exercises conducted by Naval Special Warfare Command, showcasing the 26th MEU(SOC) as the natural partner for SOF and the relevance of MEU/SOF-I3.

“MEU(SOC) highlights the relevancy, the true power projection capacity and unique maritime capabilities of our forward deployed MAGTFs operating within a fleet. This enhanced special operations capable MEU benefits II MEF, the Marine Corps, the joint force, and our nation.”

Lt. Gen. David Ottignon, Commanding General of II Marine Expeditionary Force

Throughout the enhanced pre-deployment training, the 26th MEU(SOC) implemented a rigorous training program, including multiple MEU/SOF integrated events with elements of Naval Special Warfare Command and Marine Forces Special Operations Command. The integrated training between the 26th MEU(SOC)’s Maritime Special Purpose Raid Force and SOF personnel included tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel, direct-action and combined-arms live-fire exercises such as simulated raids, and special patrol insertion and extraction, maritime interdiction operations, and non-combatant evacuation operations. This occurred during a series of land-based MEU exercises and advanced at-sea periods from distributed locations from the littorals of eastern North Carolina to the southern point of Florida.

“Close coordination and habitual relationships between conventional forces and SOF is important, especially when dealing with the complexities associated with the current operating environment. The enhanced PTP and collective MEU/SOF integrated training events leading up to the re-designation as MEU(SOC) were intended to build trust with the SOF community. The 26th MEU(SOC) truly exceeded our initial expectations. These Marines are ready.”

Col. William Lombardo, II MEF Assistant Chief of Staff of Operations and a former Commanding Officer of 2nd Marine Raider Battalion

*********

The courtesy story was first published by the II Marine Expeditionary Force on July 7, 2023 by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. DVIDS content is in the public domain.

sof.news · by DVIDS · July 14, 2023

25. Three Admirals Approved to Retire Amid Senate Confirmation Hold, Temporary Naval Academy Leader Chosen

Three Admirals Approved to Retire Amid Senate Confirmation Hold, Temporary Naval Academy Leader Chosen - USNI News

news.usni.org · by Sam LaGrone · July 13, 2023

U.S. Capitol on Dec. 29, 2022. USNI News Photo

THE PENTAGON – Three Navy three-star admirals will retire while the service moves to find temporary replacements amidst an ongoing hold on Senate confirmations for military leaders.

The commanders of Naval Sea Systems and Naval Installations commands and the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy will leave the service this year despite their White House-nominated replacements being stalled by an ongoing confirmation hold from Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Navy officials confirmed to USNI News Thursday.

Each position will have a temporary commander to fulfill the duties of the outgoing three-star positions.

NAVSEA commander Vice Adm. Bill Galinis will retire, and Program Executive Officer Ships Rear Adm. Tom Anderson will oversee the command, which is responsible for the maintenance and acquisition of ships and submarines, a source familiar with the move told USNI News on Thursday.

The nominee to lead NAVSEA, Rear Adm. Jim Downey, relinquished his command of PEO Carriers earlier this month and is now serving as a special assistant to the office of the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition (RDA), pending his confirmation to the NAVSEA job.

Vice Adm. Sean Buck, the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, will also retire this year. Two sources familiar with the transition confirmed to USNI News that Rear Adm. Fred Kacher will serve as the acting superintendent. Kacher is the nominee to lead U.S. 7th fleet and is currently serving on the Joint Staff. Rear Adm. Yvette Davids was nominated to lead the service academy earlier this year.

Current U.S. 7th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Karl Thomas will remain in the Japan command pending his own confirmation to be the director of Naval Intelligence in the Pentagon.

Vice Adm. Yancy Lindsey, the commander of Navy Installations Command, was allowed to retire, and Rear Adm. John Menoni from the OPNAV staff will fill until a replacement is confirmed.

The moves are part of the Navy’s shuffling of leadership responsibilities as nominees are on hold pending confirmation from the Senate.

USNI News understands the Navy is the only service to approve retirements for general and flag officers as the services manage the leadership transitions, as of Thursday.

“We’ve leveraged every available authority to relocate people to meet their needs and the needs of the Navy. We’re also honoring approved retirement requests so our teammates that planned to complete their lifetime of service can move on to the next chapter of their journey,” Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti wrote to flag officers and senior captains last week in a letter reviewed by USNI News.

“As you and your teammates step up and take on additional responsibilities or move into temporary acting positions, we must all roll up our sleeves, and tighten the circle of trust and support that has seen our Navy through past challenges. Ensure there is 100% clarity in [command and control] and that our high standards are set and maintained.”

On Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told USNI News there was no set Defense Department policy on how the services could manage their leadership transitions.

Ryder told reporters that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with Tuberville on Thursday. Austin stressed to Tuberville the national security problems stemming from the leadership stalls in a brief conversation, Ryder said.

A spokesman from Tuberville referred USNI News to a tweet from a correspondent from Alabama news outlet Yellow Hammer News when asked about the conversation with Austin.

“At 1:30PM EST, @SenTuberville spoke with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Coach said he’s grateful for the cordial and productive conversation and looks forward to continuing dialogue in the near future,” reads the Tweet.

Tuberville has placed the hold over a Pentagon policy of allowing service members to be reimbursed for travel for non-covered reproductive healthcare. He argues that the policy violates the law that restricts federal funds for abortion.

As a result of the hold, 76 flag officers and 30 Marine general officers cannot move to new positions, including high-profile roles like the chief of naval operations, the director of naval reactors and fleets in the Atlantic, Middle East and the Western Pacific.

Additionally, the White House has not selected a nominee to succeed Adm. Mike Gilday as chief of naval operations. Gilday is due to retire in August.

If the hold isn’t lifted by the end of the month and a confirmation vote is held, the leadership backup is likely to continue into September due to Congress’ planned August recess, two defense officials told USNI News.

Related

news.usni.org · by Sam LaGrone · July 13, 2023

26. A US Green Beret drill with fake guerrilla fighters shows how Sweden has been preparing for an 'unconventional' clash with Russia

I know there are some who will try to take issue with this conclusion:

The success of Kyiv's commandos proves that unconventional-warfare is still a valuable mission set that can be applied against any foe.

A US Green Beret drill with fake guerrilla fighters shows how Sweden has been preparing for an 'unconventional' clash with Russia

Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou

A US Army Special Forces soldier instructs Swedish Home Guard troops on combat tourniquet application in Kalix on May 28.

US Army/Staff Sgt. Anthony Bryant

• In May and June, US Army Green Berets conducted unconventional warfare training in Sweden.
• Unconventional warfare is meant "to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow" a government or an occupier.
• Sweden is used to such a threat, having spent decades next to the Soviet Union and now Russia.

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After months of tough negotiations, Turkey's president announced his support Sweden's NATO membership bid on Monday, moving the Scandinavian country a step closer to becoming the transatlantic alliance's newest member.

The addition of Sweden, already a close US military partner, will increase NATO's ability to deter and counter Russia. Swedes have been preparing for a potential war with their larger neighbor for decades, and they can teach the rest of the alliance a thing or two.

Indeed, a recent drill in northern Sweden where US Green Berets trained a guerrilla force to take on the Swedish Home Guard shows how the Swedes are planning an unconventional response to a clash with the Russians.

Sweden's unconventional warriors

Swedish Home Guard soldiers move through a taiga forest during a reconnaissance lane in Kalix on June 1.

US Army/Staff Sgt. Anthony Bryant

Unconventional warfare is a versatile mission set that can be used to overthrow a government or defeat an invading army. In the US military, unconventional warfare is the bread and butter of the Green Berets of US Army Special Forces.

US Army Special Operations Command defines unconventional warfare as "activities conducted to enable a resistance movement of insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power." To do that, Green Berets work "through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area."

While other members of the US special-operations community took on unconventional-warfare missions during the past 20 years of fighting in the Middle East, the Green Berets remain the premier force for it. Using knowledge of the local culture and language, teams of about 12 Green Berets recruit, train, and advise much larger partner forces into combat.

Swedish Home Guard soldiers patrol with US Special Forces soldiers during an exercise in Sweden in November 2020.

US Army/Sgt. Patrik Orcutt

In late May and early June, Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group, which is assigned to Europe, trained with members of Sweden's Home Guard, which consist of "stand-by units" assigned to territorial defense and crisis response.

The US and Swedish troops trained for a variety of skill sets and missions, but halfway through the exercise, shifted into a scenario where the American commandos trained "a simulated guerilla force" composed of other Swedish troops, to take on the Home Guard.

Forming and training a guerrilla force to take on a larger unit is a classic unconventional-warfare scenario. During the drill, the Green Berets worked with their partners to plan missions that "would degrade, disrupt or destroy Home Guard capabilities," according to a US Special Operations Command Europe press release.

"The scenario gave us time to almost completely rehearse what we'd be doing in irregular warfare — conducting a link-up with a force we didn't know too much about, working through assessments, hitting a few targets to see what their capabilities are, what we have to work with and what direction we need to go," the Green Beret team sergeant said in the release.

US Army Green Berets work with friendly forces during a personnel-recovery scenario in Kalix, Sweden on May 29.

US Army/Staff Sgt. Anthony Bryant

Sweden isn't new to the Russian threat. Swedes lived in the Soviet Union's shadow during the Cold War and saw a few tense encounters with their neighbor but remained neutral until joining the EU in 1995. Despite working closely with NATO, Sweden was still militarily non-aligned until it sought NATO membership earlier this year.

During the Cold War, the Swedish government did try to prepare the public for emergencies, distributing pamphlets with guidance for how to response to conflict or other crises. Stockholm revisited those guidelines in 2018, issuing an updated document with tips and instructions for dealing with natural disasters, conflicts, and other disruptive events, including cyberattacks and disinformation.

"We must be able to resist various types of attack directed against our country," it says.

The information in the pamphlet would be key to a special-operations force conducting unconventional warfare against the Russians, as a key tenet of the mission set is winning the hearts and minds of the local population.

Winning wars unconventionally

US Army Green Berets demonstrate detainment procedures during training in Kalix, Sweden on May 29.

US Army/Staff Sgt. Anthony Bryant

While the US military has a long history with unconventional warfare, it leaned into the mission set two decades ago.

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Pentagon opted to give special operators a leading role in the campaign against Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies. Instead of committing large numbers of conventional forces, the US military went in with Green Berets, Delta Force operators, and Night Stalkers, crushing the Taliban in a shift campaign that lasted a few weeks.

The US military is now shifting away from those kinds of campaigns and refocusing on the large-scale, conventional wars it would expect to fight against Russia or China. Unconventional warfare can still play an important role in that kind of war, but it would be a supporting role.

Cadets talk to role-players during West Point Irregular Warfare Group's Unconventional Warfare Exercise in April 2019.

US Military Academy

During the fierce fighting in North Africa during World War II, commandos from the British Special Air Service and Commonwealth Long Range Desert Group harassed German and Italian forces with constant raids behind enemy lines and were even able to destroy more aircraft on the ground than Allied air forces did in the air. German Gen. Erwin Rommel was forced to move large forces away from the frontline to defend his supply lines and airfields.

Today, Ukraine is running an unconventional-warfare campaign in Russian-occupied territory and within Russia. Ukrainian special operations have been scouting Russian positions, marking them for strikes by long-range weapons and sabotaging Russian logistical nodes and command-and-control centers.

The success of Kyiv's commandos proves that unconventional-warfare is still a valuable mission set that can be applied against any foe.

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. He is working toward a master's degree in strategy and cybersecurity at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies.

Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou

27. From Exception to Norm: Closing the Women, Peace, And Security Implementation Gap Through Joint Professional Military Education

I am sure critics will criticize this as "wokeness." Women are on the battlefield and fighting (just read the Daily Beast article about women fighting in Ukraine). Women affect national security everywhere in myriad ways. Women cannot be an afterthought. Tell me differently or prove me wrong.

From Exception to Norm: Closing the Women, Peace, And Security Implementation Gap Through Joint Professional Military Education - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Tahina Montoya, Joan Johnson-Freese · July 13, 2023

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With passage of the 2017 Women, Peace and Security Act, the United States became the first country to mandate implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) framework. In accordance with act requirements, Congress released a report in July 2022 evaluating the progress of the four US government agencies charged with implementation—the Department of State, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and US Agency for International Development (USAID). While progress was noted across all agencies, it was inconsistent. According to the report, for example, the Department of States invested $110 million, USAID $239 million, and Department of Defense $5.5 million for execution. Setting aside the discussion of how much is the proper amount to spend to fulfill the requirements specified by Congress—a vital discussion that should continue and be informed by regular reviews of progress made by each agency—DoD is clearly lagging far behind, a fact that becomes even more apparent when considering the vastly larger budgets apportioned to it than either the Department of State or USAID. Moreover, the differences in budget allocations among the implementing organizations create and exacerbate a WPS implementation gap and hamper collaboration. They also reflect differing perspectives on WPS relevance to organizational mission success. Thus, understanding relevance is a prerequisite to successful WPS implementation and education becomes both a fiscally responsible and necessary step in moving WPS implementation forward within DoD.

In 1986, Congress passed the sweeping Goldwater-Nichols DoD Reorganization Act, designed to address issues associated with intraservice rivalries that hampered mission success during the Vietnam War, the Iran hostage crisis, and the invasion of Granada. In addition to establishing command structure changes, Goldwater-Nichols also mandated that military officers complete joint professional military education (JPME) as a prerequisite for certain joint assignments and promotion categories. Education was thereby recognized as the right means for instilling “jointness” both within and between services. Subsequently, through designations of special areas of emphasis and legislation, education has repeatedly been recognized as the right means for mainstreaming key concepts and topics relevant to the military into the forces. As the July 2022 congressional report section on professional military education (PME) states, “The Department has recognized that WPS is an important field of study and as such, must be incorporated into how the Department educates its commissioned and non-commissioned officers to think strategically and identify creative approaches to joint warfighting and sustaining momentum in the Department’s campaigns.” While the benefits of mainstreaming WPS relevance through JPME are clear, integrating WPS into JPME has been hampered by organizational silos and organizational cultures that often still see security as primarily linked to men.

The Benefits of Mainstreaming WPS Relevance Through JPME

There are multiple benefits to incorporating WPS into JPME. Doing so would not only help align DoD with its Department of States and USAID counterparts to alleviate the already widening WPS knowledge gap between the agencies, but would do so with minimal fiscal impact to the DoD budget. JPME institutions already exist, are fully staffed—many including a WPS chair or lead—and are increasingly working together on WPS implementation. Incorporation of WPS principles into the core curriculum of JPME organizations is a logical next step. Further, incorporation addresses Defense Objective 1 in the 2020 DoD WPS Strategic Framework Implementation Plan, to ensure that the DOD “exemplifies a diverse organization that allows for women’s meaningful participation across the development, management, and employment of the Joint Force,” and mandates that DoD do so through JPME. In addition to abiding by published directives, incorporating WPS principles into JPME provides the United States with a stronger voice when encouraging partner nations to do the same.

More directly, incorporating WPS principles into DoD through JPME enhances readiness. In other words, WPS enables a US military that is a more effective fighting force, one that is better equipped and more capable of fulfilling any of the broad range of mission it may be tasked with. Failure to have troops prepared in advance resulted in the United States’ initial struggle to engage and work with a key source in the Middle East, women. Rather than being ready for the fight, the United States was forced to play catch-up, driving the development of rushed, ad hoc, separate training for cultural support teams and female engagement teams, while already at war. Having WPS principles incorporated throughout JPME would ensure gender perspectives, empirically shown to be relevant to conflicts and DoD missions, are part of standard operating procedures in future engagements.

For example, during the resettlement of Afghan evacuees into the United States after the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Operation Allies Welcome was the first time two specific roles—gender focal points (GFPs) and gender advisors (GENADs)—were part of the mission planning process, as opposed to being an afterthought. Trained gender advisors were deployed to each of the eight task forces established throughout the country to serve as a cultural bridge between Afghanistan and the United States. They were there, as stated by Northern Command, to “provide a gender perspective into decision making; build relationships and trust with female guests; ensure women had equitable access to information and were able to voice their issues, concerns and ideas; and provide English classes and education on US cultural norms and expectations.” Accounting for those considerations better situated the task forces to advance an otherwise hectic mission, enhance evacuees’ perceptions of the United States, and ultimately contribute to more positive diplomatic and national security benefits. Unfortunately, gender perspectives and considerations prevalent in Operation Allies Welcome remain operational exceptions, rather than the norm.

Additionally, mainstreaming WPS principles into DoD through JPME provides future forces, including US allies who attend JPME, with valuable threat assessment, strategy development, and force enhancement tools, like the consideration of gender, not available elsewhere. In essence, incorporating WPS in JPME will not only benefit the United States on a national level; educating international officers attending JPME (many of whom are the future leaders of their respective countries) will, undoubtedly, also benefit the United States from a diplomatic and international perspective.

On June 16, 2023, with the publication of its WPS Strategic Action Plan, the Department of the Air Force became the military department to establish how its services—the Air Force and the Space Force—would implement WPS. The plan specifically identifies training as the department’s first WPS objective. Within that objective, intermediate objectives are identified that explicitly state that the department “incorporates WPS principles and gender perspectives into all training and professional military education.” Formalizing a strategic action plan that recognizes the role PME plays in institutionalizing WPS is a step in the right direction, but DoD-wide implementation requires other services to commit to the same, and then follow through. Follow-through in this regard has been slow, at best.

Inhibitors: Educational Silos and Organizational Culture

Gender is not the first topic difficult to understand and implement through JPME. But the JPME enterprise has rightly tackled those difficult topics—topics that span multiple overlapping academic silos and are vital to US national defense—just as it must with gender.

One of those difficult topics has been jointness. Part of the rationale behind the Goldwater-Nichols JPME requirement was to promote jointness. Jointness is essentially a force enhancer, intended to improve military effectiveness, and thus is a topic overlapping all aspects of military operations. Consequently, instilling jointness required integration into multiple JPME lessons across multiple, often siloed, departments for it to become standard operating procedure and part of future operations and doctrine. In crises, military organizations execute how they train, and they train according to doctrine.

The requirement to integrate jointness throughout JPME curriculum meant that every faculty member had to understand and seamlessly integrate it into the curriculum. At times, and at some PME institutions, faculty had to be incentivized. For example, for a time, the Naval War College annual faculty ratings included considerations of how well individuals instilled jointness into their teaching. Being part of their annual ratings encouraged faculty to become familiar with and incorporate jointness into their courses. Incentivizing faculty might also need to be the case with WPS.

Space security provides another example of challenges that accompany integrating crosscutting topics into military studies. Space operations includes four mission areas: space force enhancement, space support, space control, and space force application. Within space force enhancement, space capabilities aren’t important somewhere, they are important everywhere. Space security also has highly technical aspects and classification issues, further complicating its understanding and teaching. Consequently, JPME institutions have long struggled with questions regarding how to teach its importance, uses, and limitations as those considerations require at least limited knowledge of physics, engineering, policy, law, strategy, and security considerations. DoD has worked to address these issues for decades, and became part of the impetus behind the 2019 creation of the Space Force. Creation ensured the development of a critical mass of individuals with the requisite knowledge, clearance, and access to decision-makers to make inclusion of space security considerations part of national security standard operating procedure.

The incorporation of both jointness and space security in JPME offers insights applicable to WPS. In the case of jointness, the limited technical or classification components involved eased its incorporation, which should similarly make JPME incorporation of WPS more achievable. Additionally, as with jointness, the will and faculty motivation to incorporate concepts into their classrooms is key to implementation. The space security example offers an example of how, with the creation of the Space Force, DoD looked externally, to different organizations, to attract the expertise required to successfully develop and achieve the mission. This could also be the case with WPS, at least initially. In both cases, jointness and space security were topics that encountered organizational friction in JPME integration. In the case of gender considerations, however, in addition to friction, despite presidential and congressional direction to implement WPS, there has been outright organizational resistance centered on outdated notions of whether and how gender is relevant to national security.

Though well-established empirically, the relationship between gender and security has been largely unrecognized in academic courses related to international relations or security studies in both civilian and PME academic institutions. In military commands and PME institutions, that knowledge gap inhibits WPS implementation, forcing WPS advocates to rely on individual access to senior leaders and those individual leaders’ willingness to learn about WPS. The creation of two courses, WPS 100 and WPS 200, offered through Joint Knowledge Online was intended to provide leadership an introduction to WPS, at times and in ways convenient to them, but it remains utilized predominantly by action officers—those specifically tasked with ensuring a unit or organization is fulfilling WPS requirements—rather than the broader cohort of leaders necessary to effect widespread cultural change.. WPS 100 and WPS 200 are currently prerequisites of GFP and GENAD training, training essential to building a formally trained cadre of experts that serves an entirely separate, but equally beneficial, purpose. Separate from GFP and GENAD training, broadly integrating WPS principles throughout JPME ensures all service members have a basic understanding of WPS relevance to security. One does not, and is not intended to, replace the other as both are essential to expand the understanding and relevance of gender to security and military operations within DoD.

The perspectives of authors whose works are being read, promoted on military reading lists, and included as core curriculum in JPME remain predominantly male authored. This, in itself, evidences that security is still seen as a primarily male field by leadership and JPME administrators. For context, among 2022 military reading lists, the Air Force list was the most diverse, with 8 of 21 of the recommended books authored by women; followed by the Navy, 4 of 12; the Marines, 7 of 46; and the Army, 1 of 113. Regarding core curriculum readings, based on two in-house surveys regarding articles used in JPME, women authored or coauthored only about 10 percent of students’ readings. Conversely, a quick review of articles in Foreign Affairs between May/June 2022 and May/June 2023 shows that women authored or coauthored nearly 37 percent of works published. Similarly, 55 percent of articles and editorials published by the Harvard International Review from April 2022 to April 2023 were authored by female scholars. The issue, then, is not a lack of women-authored security-related articles being available, but rather, a lack of recognition and endorsement of such work in military institutions.

Organizational cultures tied to gender stereotypes and adverse to thinking beyond those gender stereotypes are inherently skeptical of recognizing gender as a security factor tied to readiness and mission success. But, as with JMPE being effectively used to overcome service rivalries in favor of jointness, even if faculty had to be incentivized to do so, education can effectively drive the change that is required to effectively implement WPS.

Incremental Steps

It is laudable that many JPME institutions have hired WPS chairs, conducted workshops, and held conferences on WPS. But, like gender advisors and gender focal points within other commands, WPS chairs can only do as much as their personal access to amenable leaders allows. JPME offers a means to continuously reach and educate the fighting force as a whole. Further, one person (or even a handful of people) cannot integrate gender perspectives into a curriculum taught by multiple faculty members in various departments. It must be integrated by the entire faculty.

Understandably, however, many JPME faculty members are reluctant to integrate gender considerations into curriculum, as most are largely unfamiliar with the subject themselves. Ensuring integration of gender perspectives into course material requires offering faculty development opportunities to learn about WPS. Like jointness, gender is not a stand-alone topic, but one that permeates throughout security studies. Like space, gender considerations must be worked into wargaming, exercises, and doctrine. While this is beginning to happen, it is still only by exception. Development of a WPS primer outlining core elements of WPS that institutions can adapt to their circumstances, faculty, student body, and budget and that is flexible enough to be used by both domestic and international organizations is needed. This primer would provide guidance on what key topics need to be integrated into core curriculum, not how to teach it, and would facilitate WPS standardization across JPME.

Finally, but not inconsequentially, mainstreaming WPS into DoD through JPME serves as a mechanism to address the issues continually surrounding and negatively impacting the military regarding sexual assault. At a March 2023 briefing on the 28 percent rise in sexual assault and harassment reports at military service academies, a DoD official called the statistics “extremely upsetting and disappointing.” In April 2023, DoD provided Congress with its Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military for fiscal year 2022, reporting a total of 8,942 sexual assault reports throughout DoD, a 1 percent increase from the previous year. In addition to the immeasurable trauma experienced by survivors, these statistics also represent a threat to maintaining an effective workforce and readiness, making sexual assault and sexual harassment a direct threat to US national security. While DoD is taking steps to counter sexual assault in the military (addressing the issues that already exist), WPS education at JPME would contribute to preventing sexual assault (taking steps to address issues before they develop).

DOD has an opportunity build on the successes noted in the July 2022 congressional report and JPME provides the mechanism to do so effectively. Failure to consider efficient implementation of WPS in JPME will only hamper opportunities to facilitate mission readiness and ensure mission success.

Tahina Montoya is an officer and gender advisor in the Air Force Reserve and a fellow at Women in International Security.

Joan Johnson-Freese is a professor emeritus at the Naval War College, senior fellow at Women in International Security, and author of Educating America’s Military and Women, Peace and Security: An Introduction.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or that of any organization the authors are affiliated with, including the Department of the Air Force and the Naval War College.

Image credit: Chief Mass Communication Specialist James E. Foehl, US Navy

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Tahina Montoya, Joan Johnson-Freese · July 13, 2023

28. War Books: A Summer Reading List

​Only a select few of us would read ​anything about Clausewitz on the beach in the summer.

War Books: A Summer Reading List - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Michael Hennelly · July 14, 2023

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Editor’s note: Welcome to another installment of our weekly War Books series! The premise is simple and straightforward. We ask an expert on a particular topic to recommend books on that topic and tell us what sets each one apart. War Books is a resource for MWI readers who want to learn more about important subjects related to modern war and are looking for books to add to their reading lists.

This week’s Installment comes from Michael Hennelly, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former West Point professor. He lists seven books that directly or indirectly explore themes of leadership and explains why they warrant a place on your summer reading list.

Master and Commander to Blue at the Mizzen, by Patrick O’Brian

Twenty books that are a joy to read. They can be read for the sheer delight of immersing in exciting and well-written books or they can be read to explore at a granular level the various steps (and missteps) of Jack Aubrey’s leadership journey. If there were any justice in the world, Hollywood would make more than one movie from this series.

Clausewitz, by Sir Michael Howard

Slogging through 125 chapters of On War is probably not the best way to be introduced to Clausewitz. The alternative is to read Sir Michael Howard’s delightful and short (seventy-three pages!) book, which was published as part of the Oxford University Press Past Masters series.

The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen

Soldiers rarely (if ever) turn to books written by management scholars for insights into strategy. Army chief of staff reading lists famously ignore books written by business school professors. But Christensen provides a fascinating insight into one of the most fundamental strategic challenges facing any army—how to effectively respond to a rapidly changing world.

A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel

Long before she became famous with the publication of Wolf Hall Mantel gave us an elegantly written and intricately plotted portrait of a society undergoing revolutionary change. Seen through the eyes of three French revolutionaries—Danton, Robespierre, and Desmoulins—we are confronted with the existential challenges faced by leaders in chaotic and dynamic social circumstances.

Hell in a Very Small Place, by Bernard Fall

One of the most intriguing questions of military history is “How could the French have lost at Dien Bien Phu?” Bernard Fall, one of the most influential writers on the Indochina Wars, provides a riveting account of the actions taken by French strategic and tactical leaders that led to this national catastrophe.

George C. Marshall: Education of a General, 1880–1939, by Forrest Pogue

Although Pogue eventually provided a four-volume biography, the first volume of Marshall’s life is especially inspiring to any leader. Omar Bradley once said that Marshall was his ideal of an officer and, after reading Pogue’s biography, we know why. In an Army that only valued seniority, Marshall spent decades consciously and effectively preparing himself to excel at the challenge of command.

Lee’s Lieutenants, by Douglas Southall Freeman

Many of America’s wars have been “come as you are” affairs so it is interesting to consider the example of an army that was rapidly built from scratch and immediately thrown into mortal combat. Most people will not want to read all three volumes of Lee’s Lieutenants but luckily, Stephen Sears has provided a one-volume abridgment. Forty-seven soldiers served under Lee as major generals and 146 soldiers served under him as brigadier generals. Using a leadership canvas of this size, Freeman provides an astonishingly vivid array of insights into some of the most fundamental aspects of leadership.

Michael Hennelly served twenty-one years as a field artillery officer and foreign area officer in the US Army. He taught international relations In West Point’s Department of Social Sciences as an active duty officer and later served as a civilian professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership. He holds a doctorate in strategic management and has taught strategy to executive MBA students at three universities.

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

Image credit: Lara Poirrier, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Michael Hennelly · July 14, 2023

29. July 2023 Irregular Warfare Center Newsletter

​Access the 2 page PDF at this link: https://irregularwarfarecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2023-7-IWC-Spotlight.pdf​

July 12, 2023

July 2023 IWC Newsletter

https://irregularwarfarecenter.org/news/newsletter/july-2023-iwc-newsletter/

Welcome to the monthly newsletter for the IWC. This newsletter is designed to keep our community up-to-date on the latest news and events happening within the organization.

Please click here or on the image below to open the newsletter PDF:

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30. AI Won’t Really Kill Us All, Will It?

AI Won’t Really Kill Us All, Will It?

The AI doomers are trying to scare us. Here is what we should really be worried about.

By Hanna Rosin

The Atlantic · by Hanna Rosin · July 13, 2023

In recent months, many, many researchers and computer scientists involved in creating artificial intelligence have been warning the world that they’ve created something unbelievably dangerous. Something that might eventually lead humanity to extinction. Paul Christiano, who worked at Open AI, put it this way: “If, God forbid, they were trying to kill us, they would definitely kill us.” Such warnings can sound bombastic and overblown—but then again, they’re often coming from the people who understand this technology best.

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, host Hanna Rosin talks to The Atlantic’s executive editor, Adrienne LaFrance, and staff writer Charlie Warzel about how seriously we should take these warnings. Should we think of these AI doomers as street preachers? Or are they canny Silicon Valley marketers trying to emphasize the power of what they’ve built?

In Europe, there is already a broad conversation about limiting AI surveillance technology and inserting pauses before approving commercial uses. In the U.S., coalitions of researchers and legislators have called for a “pause,” without any specifics. Meanwhile, with all this talk of killer robots, humanity may be overlooking the more immediate dangers posed by AI. We talk about where things stand and how to orient ourselves to the coming dangers.

Listen to the conversation here:

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts

The following transcript has been edited for clarity.

Hanna Rosin: I remember when I was a little kid being alone in my room one night watching this movie called The Day After. It was about nuclear war, and for some absurd reason, it was airing on regular network TV.

The Day After:

Denise: It smells so bad down here. I can’t even breathe!

Denise’s mom: Get ahold of yourself, Denise.

Rosin: I particularly remember a scene where a character named Denise—my best friend’s name was Denise—runs panicked out of her family’s nuclear-fallout shelter.

The Day After:

Denise: Let go of me. I can’t see!

Mom: You can’t go! Don’t go up there!

Brother: Wait a minute!

Rosin: It was definitely, you know, “extra.” Also, to teenage me, genuinely terrifying. It was a very particular blend of scary ridiculousness I hadn’t experienced since—until a couple of weeks ago, when someone sent me a link to this YouTube video with Paul Christiano, who is an artificial intelligence researcher.

Paul Christiano: The most likely way we die is not that AI comes out of the blue and kills us, but involves that we’ve deployed AI everywhere. And if, God forbid, they were trying to kill us, they would definitely kill us.

Rosin: Christiano was talking on this podcast called Bankless. And then I started to notice other major AI researchers saying similar things:

Norah O’Donnell on CBS News: More than 1,300 tech scientists, leaders, researchers, and others are now asking for a pause.

Bret Baier on Fox News: Top story right out of a science-fiction movie.

Rodolfo Ocampo on 7NEWS Australia: Now it’s permeating the cognitive space. Before, it was more the mechanical space.

Michael Usher on 7NEWS Australia: There needs to be at least a six-month stop on the training of these systems.

Fox News: Contemporary AI systems are now being human-competitive.

Yoshua Bengio talking with Tom Bilyeu: We have to get our act together.

Eliezer Yudkowsky on the Bankless podcast: We’re hearing the last winds begin to blow, the fabric of reality start to fray.

Rosin: And I’m thinking, Is this another campy Denise moment? Am I terrified? Is it funny? I can’t really tell, but I do suspect that the very “doomiest” stuff at least is a distraction. There are likely some actual dangers with AI that are less flashy but maybe equally life-altering.

So today we’re talking to The Atlantic’s executive editor, Adrienne LaFrance, and staff writer Charlie Warzel, who’ve been researching and tracking AI for some time.

___

Rosin: Charlie, Adrienne—when these experts are saying, “Worry about the extinction of humanity,” what are they actually talking about?

Adrienne LaFrance: Let’s game out the existential doom, for sure. [Laughter.]

Rosin: Thanks!

LaFrance: When people warn about the extinction of humanity at the hands of AI, that’s literally what they mean—that all humans will be killed by the machines. It sounds very sci-fi. But the nature of the threat is that you imagine a world where more and more we rely on artificial intelligence to complete tasks or make judgments that previously were reserved for humans. Obviously, humans are flawed. The fear assumes a moment at which AI’s cognitive abilities eclipse our species—and so all of a sudden, AI is really in charge of the biggest and most consequential decisions that humans make. You can imagine they’re making decisions in wartime about when to deploy nuclear weapons—and you could very easily imagine how that could go sideways.

Rosin: Wait; but I can’t very easily imagine how that would go sideways. First of all, wouldn’t a human put in many checks before you would give access to a machine?

LaFrance: Well, one would hope. But one example would be that you give the AI the imperative to “Win this war, no matter what.” And maybe you’re feeding in other conditions that say “We don’t want mass civilian casualties.” But ultimately, this is what people refer to as an “alignment problem”—you give the machine a goal, and it will do whatever it takes to reach that goal. And that includes maneuvers that humans can’t anticipate, or that go against human ethics.

Charlie Warzel: A sort of a meme of this that has been around for a long time is called “the paper clip–maximizer problem.” You tell a sentient artificial intelligence, “We want you to build as many paper clips as fast as possible, and in the most efficient way.” And the AI goes through all the computations and says, “Well, really, the thing that is stopping us from building as many paper clips as we can is the fact that humans have other goals. So we better just eradicate humans.”

Rosin: Why can’t you just program in: “Machine, you are allowed to do anything to make those paper clips, short of killing everyone.”

Warzel: Well, let me lay out a classic AI doomer’s scenario that may be easier to imagine. Let’s say five, 10 years down the line, a supercomputer is able to process that much more information—on a scale of a hundred-X more powerful than whatever we have now. It knows how to build iterations of itself, so it builds a model. That model has all that intelligence—plus maybe a multiplier there of a little bit.

And that one builds a model, and another one builds a model. It just keeps building these models—and it gets to a point where it’s replicated enough that it’s sort of like a gene that is mutating.

Rosin: So this is the alignment thing. It’s suddenly like: We’re going along, we have the same objectives. And all of a sudden, the AI takes a sharp left turn and realizes that actually humans are the problem.

Warzel: Right. It can hack a bank; it can pose as a human. It can figure out a way through all of its knowledge of computer code to either socially engineer by impersonating someone—or it can actually hack and steal funds from a bank, get money, pose as a human being, and basically get someone involved by funding a state actor or a terrorist cell or something. Then they use the money that it’s gotten and pay the group to release a bioweapon, and—

Rosin: And, just to interject before you play it out completely, there’s no intention here. Right? It’s not necessarily intending to gain power the way, say an autocrat would be, or intending to rule the world? It’s simply achieving an objective that it began with, in the most effective way possible.

Warzel: Right. So this speaks to the idea that once you build a machine that is so powerful and you give it an imperative, there may not be enough alignment parameters that a human can set to keep it in check.

Rosin: I followed your scenario completely. That was very helpful, except you don’t sound at all worried.

Warzel: I don’t know if I buy any of it.

Rosin: You don’t even sound somber!

LaFrance: [Laughter.] Why don’t you like humans, Charlie?

Warzel: I’m anti-human. This is my hot take. [Laughter.]

Rosin: But that was a real question, Charlie. Why don’t you take this seriously? Is it because you think steps haven’t been worked out? Or is it because you think there are a lot of checks in place, like there are with human cloning? What is the real reason why you, Charlie, can intelligently lay out this scenario but not actually take it seriously?

Warzel: Well, bear with me here. Are you familiar with the South Park underpants gnomes?

South Park Gnomes (singing): Gotta go to work. Work, work, work. Search for underpants. Hey!

Warzel: For those blissfully unaware, the underpants gnomes are from South Park. But what’s important is that they have a business model that is notoriously vague.

South Park Gnome: “Collecting underpants is just Phase 1!”

Warzel: Phase 1 is to collect underpants. Phase 2?

South Park Gnome 1: Hey, what is Phase 2?

South Park Gnome 2: Phase 1, we collect underpants.

Gnome 1: Yah, yah, yah. But what is Phase 2?

Warzel: It’s a question mark.

Gnome 2: Well, Phase 3 is profit! Get it?

Warzel: And that’s become a cultural signifier over the last decade or so for a really vague business plan. When you listen to a lot of the AI doomers, you have somebody who is obviously an expert, who’s obviously incredibly smart. And they’re saying: Step 1, build an incredibly powerful artificial-intelligence system that maybe gets close to, or actually surpasses, human intelligence.

Step 2: question mark. Step 3: existential doom.

I just have never really heard a very good walkthrough of Step 2, or 2 and a half.

No one is saying that we have reached the point of no return.

LaFrance: Wait. But Charlie, I think you did give us Step 2. Because Step 2 is the AI hacks a bank and pays a terrorist, and the terrorists unleash a virus that kills humanity. I would also say that I think what people who are most worried would argue is that there isn’t time for a checklist. And that’s the nature of their worries.

And there are some who’ve said we are past the point of no return.

Warzel: And I get that. I’ll just say my feeling on this is that image of the Terminator 2: Judgment Day–type robots rolling over human skulls feels like a distraction from the bigger problems, because—

Rosin: Wait; you said it’s a distraction from bigger problems. And this is what I want to know, so I’m not distracted by the shiny doom movie. What are actually the things that we need to worry about, or pay attention to?

LaFrance: The possibility of wiping out entire job categories and industries, though that is a phenomenon we’ve experienced throughout technological history. That’s a real threat to people’s real lives and ability to buy groceries.

And I have real questions about what it means for the arts and our sense of what art is and whose work is valued, specifically with regard to artists and writers. But, Charlie, what are yours?

Warzel: Well, I think before we talk about exterminating the human race, I’m worried about financial institutions adopting these types of automated generative AI machines. And if you have an investment firm that is using a powerful piece of technology, and you wanna optimize for a very specific stock or a very specific commodity, then you get the possibility of something like that paper-clip problem. With: “Well, what’s the best way to drive the price of corn up?”

Rosin: Cause a famine.

Warzel: Right. Or start conflict in a certain region. Now, again—there’s still a little bit of that underpants gnome–ish quality to this. But I think a good analog for this is from the social-media era. Back when Mark Zuckerberg was making Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, it would have been silly to imagine it could lead to ethnic cleansing or genocide in somewhere like Myanmar.

But ultimately, when you create powerful networks, you connect people. There’s all sorts of unintended consequences.

Rosin: So given the speed and suddenness with which these bad things can happen, you can understand why lots of intelligent people are asking for a pause. Do you think that’s even possible? Is that the right thing to do?

LaFrance: No. I think it’s unrealistic, certainly, to expect tech companies to slow themselves down. It’s intensely competitive right now. I’m not convinced that regulation right now would be the right move, either. We’d have to know exactly what that looks like.

We saw it with social platforms, when they called for Congress to regulate them and then at the same time they’re lobbying very hard not to be regulated.

Rosin: I see. So what you’re saying is that it’s a cynical public play, and what they’re looking for are sort of toothless regulations.

LaFrance: I think that is unquestionably one dynamic at play. Also, to be fair, I think that many of the people who are building this technology are indeed very thoughtful, and hopefully reflecting with some degree of seriousness about what they’re unleashing.

So I don’t wanna suggest that they’re all just doing it for political reasons. But there certainly is that element.

When it comes to how we slow it down, I think it has to be individual people deciding for themselves how they think this world should be. I’ve had conversations with people who are not journalists, who are not in tech, but who are unbridled in their enthusiasm for what this will all mean. Someone recently mentioned to me how excited he was that AI could mean that they could just surveil their workers all the time and that they could tell exactly what workers were doing and what websites they were visiting. At the end of the day, they could get a report that shows how productive they were. To me, that’s an example of something that could very quickly be seen among some people as culturally acceptable.

We really have to push back against that in terms of civil liberties. To me, this is much more threatening than the existential doom, in the sense that these are the sorts of decisions that are being made right now by people who have genuine enthusiasm for changing the world in ways that seem small, but are actually big.

I think it is crucially important that we act right now, because norms will be hardened before most people have a chance to grasp what’s happening.

Rosin: I guess I just don’t know who “we” is in that sentence. And it makes me feel a little vulnerable to think that every individual and their family and their friends has to decide for themselves—as opposed to, say, the European model, where you just put some basic regulations in place. The EU already passed a resolution to ban certain forms of public surveillance like facial recognition, and to review AI systems before they go fully commercial.

Warzel: Even if you do put regulations on things, it doesn’t stop somebody from building something on their own. It wouldn’t be as powerful as the multibillion-dollar supercomputer from Open AI, but those models will be out in the world. Those models may not have some of the restrictions that some of these companies, who are trying to build them thoughtfully, are going to have.

Maybe you’ll have people like we have in the software industry creating AI malware and selling it to the highest bidder, whether that’s a foreign government or a terrorist group, or a state-sponsored cell of some kind.

And there is also the idea of a geopolitical race, which is part of all of this. Behind closed doors they are talking about an AI race with China.

So, there are all these very, very, thorny problems.

You have all of that—and then you have the cultural issues. Those are the ones that I think we will see and feel really acutely before we feel any of this other stuff.

Rosin: What is an example of a cultural issue?

Warzel: You have all of these systems that are optimized for scale with a real cold, hard machine logic.

And I think that artificial intelligence is sort of the truest sort of almost-final realization of scale. It is a scale machine; like it is human intelligence at a scale that humans can’t have. That’s really worrisome to me.

Like, hey, do you like Succession? Well, AI’s gonna generate 150 seasons of Succession for you to watch. It’s like: I don’t wanna necessarily live in that world, because it’s not made by people. It’s a world without limits.

The whole idea of being alive and being a human is encountering and embracing limitations of all kinds. Including our own knowledge, and our ability to do certain things. If we insert artificial intelligence, in the most literal sense it really is sort of like strip-mining the humanity out of a lot of life. And that is really worrisome.

Rosin: I mean, Charlie, that sounds even worse than the doom scenarios I started with. Because how am I—say, as one writer or Person X, who as Adrienne started out saying, is trying to pay for their groceries—supposed to take a stance against this enormous global force?

LaFrance: We have to assert that our purpose on the planet is not just an efficient world.

Rosin: Yeah.

LaFrance: We have to insist on that.

Rosin: Charlie, do you have any tiny bits of optimism for us?

Warzel: I am probably just more of a realist. You can look at the way that we have coexisted with all kinds of technologies as a story where the disruption comes in, things never feel the same as they were, and there’s usually a chaotic period of upheaval—and then you sort of learn to adapt. I’m optimistic that humanity is not going to end. I think that is the best I can do here.

Rosin: I hear you struggling to be definitive, but I feel like what you are getting at is that you have faith in our history of adaptation. We have learned to live with really cataclysmic and shattering technologies many times in the past. And you just have faith that we can learn to live with this one.

Warzel: Yeah.

Rosin: On that sort of tiny bit of optimism, Charlie Warzel and Adrienne LaFrance: Thanks for helping me feel safe enough to crawl out of my bunker, at least for now.

The Atlantic · by Hanna Rosin · July 13, 2023

​31. ChatGPT Comes Under Investigation by Federal Trade Commission

ChatGPT Comes Under Investigation by Federal Trade Commission

FTC is examining whether artificial-intelligence app harmed people by publishing false information

By John D. McKinnon

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Updated July 13, 2023 10:21 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chatgpt-under-investigation-by-ftc-21e4b3ef?utm

ChatGPT has gained popularity for its ability to generate humanlike outputs of text in response to prompts.  PHOTO: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON—The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether OpenAI’s ChatGPT has harmed people by publishing false information about them, posing a potential legal threat to the popular app that can generate eerily humanlike content using artificial intelligence.

In a civil subpoena to the company made public Thursday, the FTC says its investigation of ChatGPT focuses on whether OpenAI has “engaged in unfair or deceptive practices relating to risks of harm to consumers, including reputational harm.” 

One question asks the company to “describe in detail the extent to which you have taken steps to address or mitigate risks that your large language model products could generate statements about real individuals that are false, misleading or disparaging.” 

The new FTC investigation under Chair Lina Khan marks a significant escalation of the federal government’s role in policing the emerging technology.

Khan, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, said the agency is concerned that ChatGPT and other AI-driven apps have no checks on the data they can mine.

“We’ve heard about reports where people’s sensitive information is showing up in response to an inquiry from somebody else,” Khan said. “We’ve heard about libel, defamatory statements, flatly untrue things that are emerging. That’s the type of fraud and deception that we are concerned about.”

For critics of the FTC, the probe represented another venture into uncharted territory for an agency that has suffered recent legal setbacks in its antitrust enforcement efforts.

“When ChatGPT says something wrong about somebody and might have caused damage to their reputation, is that a matter for the FTC’s jurisdiction? I don’t think that’s clear at all,” said Adam Kovacevich, founder of Chamber of Progress, an industry trade group. 

Such matters “are more in the realm of speech and it becomes speech regulation, which is beyond their authority,” he said.

It is “disappointing to see the FTC’s request start with a leak and does not help build trust,” tweeted OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman on Thursday, referring to initial reporting about the subpoena.

Altman said that the company will work with the FTC.

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During a Senate subcommittee hearing in mid-May, Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, touted the benefits of AI and acknowledged potential downsides of the technology. Photo: Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

Marc Rotenberg, who heads a group that filed a complaint with the FTC over ChatGPT in March, said it might be unclear whether the agency has jurisdiction over defamation. But “misleading advertising is clearly within the FTC’s purview,” said Rotenberg, president of the Center for AI and Digital Policy. “And disinformation relating to commercial practices is already, according to the FTC, an area within its authority.”

The complaint regarding ChatGPT called it “biased, deceptive and a risk to privacy and public safety,” and arguing that it satisfies none of the FTC’s guidelines for AI use.

The FTC has broad authority to police unfair and deceptive business practices that can harm consumers, as well as unfair competition, but critics say Khan has sometimes pushed its authority too far—as illustrated by a federal judge’s decision this week to dismiss the FTC’s attempt to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

At the House committee hearing Thursday, Khan came under fire over her agency’s investigation of Twitter’s privacy protections for consumers. Republicans say the probe was driven by liberals angry over Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and his loosening of content-moderation policies. And Twitter asked a federal court Thursday to terminate a 2022 settlement it agreed to with the FTC over alleged privacy violations, saying it had been subject to a “burdensome and vexatious enforcement investigation.”

Khan responded that the agency was only interested in protecting the privacy of users and that “we are doing everything to make sure Twitter is complying with the order.”

In its civil subpoena to OpenAI, the FTC asked the company detailed questions about its data-security practices. It cited a 2020 incident in which the company disclosed a bug that allowed users to see information about other users’ chats and some payment-related information. 

Other topics covered by the FTC subpoena include the company’s marketing efforts, its practices for training AI models, and its handling of users’ personal information. The FTC inquiry was reported earlier by the Washington Post.

The Biden administration has begun examining whether checks need to be placed on artificial-intelligence tools such as ChatGPT. In a first step toward potential regulation, the Commerce Department in April put out a formal public request for comment on what it called accountability measures.  

The White House’s Office of Science Technology Policy is working to develop strategies to address both the benefits of AI, such as the possibility of using it to expand access to government services, as well as harms such as increased hacking capabilities, discriminatory decisions by AI systems, and the potential for AI-generated content to disrupt elections.

Lawmakers in both parties—in an effort led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.)—have made regulating artificial intelligence a priority for the current Congress. 

In addition to concerns about potential reputational risks, lawmakers say they worry that AI tools can be abused to manipulate voters with disinformation, discriminate against minority groups, commit sophisticated financial crimes, displace millions of workers or create other harms. Lawmakers have been especially concerned about the risks of so-called deepfake videos, which falsely depict real people taking embarrassing actions or making embarrassing statements.

New legislation or other measures are likely months away, if not longer. And lawmakers must worry that any significant action they take will risk slowing the pace of U.S. innovation, in what is shaping up as a vital competition with China to dominate the markets for AI tools.

ChatGPT’s creators have themselves urged more government oversight of AI development. 

In a hearing in May before Congress, Altman called on lawmakers to create licensing and safety standards for advanced artificial-intelligence systems, as lawmakers begin the bipartisan push toward regulating the powerful new tools available to consumers.

“We understand that people are anxious about how it can change the way we live. We are too,” Altman said of AI technology at the Senate subcommittee hearing. “If this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong.”

Altman has been traveling the world talking about both the promise and perils of AI. He has met with heads of state including French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Write to John D. McKinnon at John.McKinnon@wsj.com and Ryan Tracy at ryan.tracy@wsj.com

​

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com