Quotes of the Day:
"You do not have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
- Ray Bradbury
"There is no virtue in being old, it just takes a long time."
- Robert A Heinlein - Time Enough for Love
"It should be the aim of grand strategy to discover and pierce the Achilles' heel of the opposing government's power to make war. Strategy, in turn, should seek to penetrate a joint in the harness of the opposing forces. To apply one's strength where the opponent is strong weakens oneself disproportionately to the effect attained. To strike with strong effect, one must strike at weakness."
-Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart (Strategy, 1954)
1. US risks ‘Suez moment’ in a Taiwan war
2. What we know so far about Omicron
3. Why ‘Confrontation’ with China Cannot Be Avoided
4. Israel and Iran Broaden Cyberwar to Attack Civilian Targets
5. Taliban Covert Operatives Seized Kabul, Other Afghan Cities From Within
6. From my dad's death in Afghanistan 20 years ago to Taliban retaking the country. How did we get here? by Jake Spann
7. America has forgotten the lesson of total war | Column
8. Opinion | The Military’s Broken Culture Around Sexual Violence and Suicide
9. Inside Wagnergate: Ukraine’s Brazen Sting Operation to Snare Russian Mercenaries
10. Geopolitical Challenges Cloud Next Chapter in Xi’s Triumphalist History
11. Can America Afford to Take Care of Its Veterans?
12. The Navy is testing a GPS-like device that doesn’t require satellites
13. The United Kingdom: Exclusive: Ranger Regiment selection process before taking on Special Forces roles
14. Opinion | Alex Jones is facing a reckoning. Let it be a warning to other conspiracy theorists.
15. As America retreats, regional rogues are on the rise
16. US misses golden opportunity in the Solomon Islands
1. US risks ‘Suez moment’ in a Taiwan war
Excerpts:
The military element is particularly important in the context of the cross-strait tensions since it was precisely America’s naval interventions that proved repeatedly decisive in the preservation of Taiwanese de facto independence since the end of World War II.
For Beijing, the self-governing island is a constant and humiliating reminder of US primacy and, by extension, its relative weakness in its own backyard.
The handover of Hong Kong from Britain and Macau from Portugal in the twilight years of the 20th century meant that Taiwan has remained as the last and most potent reminder of China’s self-confessed “century of humiliation.”
There are growing fears that Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the “great rejuvenation” of his nation, would not hesitate to forcibly “reunify” Taiwan under mainland rule.
...
Experts believe that the purpose of all these new exercises and deployments is to deter any potential joint US-Japanese intervention in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
“It’s training to target airbases and aircraft on runways by firing cluster munitions, which would ruin both,” a Chinse military insider told the South China Morning Post.
“The ultimate goal of training is not to take action but to deter foreign forces’ attempts to intervene in the Taiwan issue,” he added, emphasizing the centrality of the Taiwan crisis to China’s military planning.
In response to China’s rapidly developing capabilities, the Biden administration is scheduled to update the country’s missile defense policy in early-2022 as part of its broader new National Defense Policy.
US risks ‘Suez moment’ in a Taiwan war
China employing 'win without fighting strategy' to take the island, an invasion that could herald the end of America's Empire
MANILA – In The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, the historian Paul Kennedy argued that “there is [often] a noticeable ‘lag time’ between the trajectory of a state’s relative economic strength and the trajectory of its military/territorial influence.”
Yet China has been a gigantic outlier to the theory, having rapidly modernized the world’s largest armed forces amid decades of sustained economic growth. If anything, Beijing is enhancing both its asymmetric and conventional military capabilities at once.
Over the past three decades, the million-strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has expanded its fleet of fifth-generation fighter jets, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines while consolidating its overall Command Control Communication Computer and Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance, or C4ISR.
Already boasting the world’s largest marine fleet, with gigantic coast guard vessels dwarfing warships of smaller neighboring states, China is also expanding its military and commercial footprint across a string of strategic bases and port facilities in the Indo-Pacific.
Meanwhile, China is also rapidly enhancing its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities – namely, “carrier killer” anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMS) such as the DF-21D and DF-26 platforms, which allows the Asian powerhouse to better exploit its geographic proximity to potential theatres of conflict in Asia.
China’s rapid enhancement of both its conventional and asymmetric capabilities is most pertinent to Taiwan, a self-governing island which Beijing considers a renegade province.
China’s ultimate goal is to win any war without fighting a major battle by making any potential counter-intervention by the US on behalf of Taiwan too costly to bear. As one Chinese military insider put it, “The ultimate goal…is not to take action but [instead] to deter foreign forces’ attempts to intervene in the Taiwan issue.”
Military helicopters carrying large Taiwan flags do flyby rehearsals on October 5 ahead of National Day celebrations amid escalating tensions between Taipei and Beijing. Photo: AFP / Ceng Shou Yi / NurPhoto
Top historian Niall Ferguson and former deputy national security adviser Mathew Pottinger have warned that the US may face a “Suez Moment” over Taiwan, referring to how the 1956 Suez crisis effectively ended the British and French Empires, if it fails to deter a full-scale Chinese invasion in the near future.
The military element is particularly important in the context of the cross-strait tensions since it was precisely America’s naval interventions that proved repeatedly decisive in the preservation of Taiwanese de facto independence since the end of World War II.
For Beijing, the self-governing island is a constant and humiliating reminder of US primacy and, by extension, its relative weakness in its own backyard.
The handover of Hong Kong from Britain and Macau from Portugal in the twilight years of the 20th century meant that Taiwan has remained as the last and most potent reminder of China’s self-confessed “century of humiliation.”
There are growing fears that Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the “great rejuvenation” of his nation, would not hesitate to forcibly “reunify” Taiwan under mainland rule.
Though it’s not clear how long Xi will stay in power, given his removal of presidential term limits, Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng has warned that a potential “full scale” invasion of the island may be a matter of years, as opposed to decades.
In that direction, one of Xi’s top priorities has been the modernization of China’s armed forces. In fact, a more accurate estimate of China’s defense spending, in purchasing power parity (PPP) rather than market exchange rates, places the Asian powerhouse’s actual defense spending at above $500 billion annually, which is only second to, and not far behind from, the US.
Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects a joint military exercise in the South China Sea in April 2018. Photo: Xinhua
Although the US still enjoys significant qualitative advantages over China, the latter is rapidly closing the gap. According to an authoritative study by the RAND Corporation, in an event of direct conflict “[b]oth sides would suffer large military losses” and that, by the year 2025, the US losses “could range from significant to heavy…”
Meanwhile, a bipartisan study by the National Defense Strategy Commission warned that “America’s ability to defend its allies, its partners and its own vital interests is increasingly in doubt,” and that Washington “might [even] struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia.”
Top American experts have gone so far as to describe China as the US’ “near-peer” in the Indo-Pacific, where “60% of the US Navy [stand] against a peer navy, army, and air force — on [China’s] home turf.”
In its most detailed report yet on China’s military power, the Pentagon recently warned of China’s expanding “land, sea, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms”, which could “provide Beijing with more credible military options in a Taiwan contingency.”
At the very least, a top former Pentagon official warned China is hoping to employ a “win-without-fighting strategy”, whereby it “make[s] everyone believe that they climb the escalation ladder all the way to nukes if they have to.”
Over the past five years, China has reportedly launched hundreds of hypersonic tests compared to only nine by the US, according to the US Air Force General John Hyten, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
By all indications, China is doubling down on its edge in the development of maneuverable and highly undetectable hypersonic missiles, which could be deployed for both conventual nuclear forces as well as its asymmetric carrier-killer missile systems.
China’s state-backed AVIC Aerodynamics Research Institute is set to launch a new wind tunnel with the specific purpose of testing the “separation and release” of weapons from hypersonic vehicles, which would “bolster the research and development of China’s hypersonic weapons and equipment.”
Twice larger than its existing facility, the new wind tunnel, which has been under construction for the past two years, is set to simulate conditions eight times the speed of sound.
DF-21D and DF-26 antiship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) have become the mainstay of China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) defenses. Credit: Xinhua.
According to the Pentagon, China’s latest hypersonic missile test in August demonstrated its ability to potentially breach through much of existing US missile defense systems.
Rapidly mastering missile technology, China is now deploying its broad array of medium-range “carrier-killer” missiles, including state-of-the-art DF-16 and more long-range DF-21C, across its eastern coastlines, thus placing all of Japan’s and large parts of the Western Pacific within its range.
China has also reportedly built mock-ups of US fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets, which have been placed in the PLA’s Rocket Force’s Korla Shooting Range in Xinjiang. Previously, test fire simulations involved less advanced US F-15 Eagle fighters, underscoring China’s growing confidence in countering its rivals’ most advanced military hardware.
Experts believe that the purpose of all these new exercises and deployments is to deter any potential joint US-Japanese intervention in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
“It’s training to target airbases and aircraft on runways by firing cluster munitions, which would ruin both,” a Chinse military insider told the South China Morning Post.
“The ultimate goal of training is not to take action but to deter foreign forces’ attempts to intervene in the Taiwan issue,” he added, emphasizing the centrality of the Taiwan crisis to China’s military planning.
In response to China’s rapidly developing capabilities, the Biden administration is scheduled to update the country’s missile defense policy in early-2022 as part of its broader new National Defense Policy.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has announced that its Missile Defense Agency has greenlighted contracts by major arms producers, namely Raytheon Technologies Corp, Lockheed Martin Corp and Northrop Grumman Corp, to develop new missile defense prototypes against hypersonic glide vehicles.
As part of its “integrated deterrence” strategy, the Biden administration will likely also examine the expansion of missile defense systems in coordination with Indo-Pacific allies.
Soldiers wearing face masks to guard against Covid-19 listen to an address by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen during her visit to a military base in Tainan, southern Taiwan, on April 9. Photo: AFP/Sam Yeh
In early November, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned China that Washington and its allies would take unified “action” if Beijing uses force against Taiwan.
Earlier this year, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, during a visit to Brussels for a meeting with NATO allies, warned China against “destabilizing the region” and “provoking further conflict in other disputed areas.”
“The difference between mainland China and Taiwan needs to be resolved through peaceful methods,” Wallace said, warning of aggressive action by Beijing.
Meanwhile, Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton tried to reassure Taiwan by stating it would be “inconceivable” for his country to sit on the sidelines in the event of a conflict.
“It would be inconceivable that we wouldn’t support the US in an action if the US chose to take that action,” Dutton told the Australian media amid deepening defense cooperation among AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) allies.
2. What we know so far about Omicron
Excerpts:
Are current vaccines likely to protect against the new variant?
Again, we do not know. The known cases include individuals who had been vaccinated. However, we have learned that the immune protection provided by vaccination wanes over time and does not protect as much against infection but rather against severe disease and death. One of the epidemiological analyses that have commenced is looking at how many vaccinated people become infected with B.1.1.529.
The possibility that B.1.1.529 may evade the immune response is disconcerting. The hopeful expectation is that the high seroprevalence rates, people who’ve been infected already, found by several studies would provide a degree of “natural immunity” for at least a period of time.
Ultimately, everything known about B.1.1.529 so far highlights that universal vaccination is still our best bet against severe Covid-19 and, together with non-pharmaceutical interventions, will go a long way towards helping the healthcare system cope during the coming wave.
What we know so far about Omicron
New South African Covid-19 variant has very different genetic profile than previous strains and may be immune to current vaccines
Since early in the COVID pandemic, the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa has been monitoring changes in SARS-CoV-2. This was a valuable tool to understand better how the virus spread. In late 2020, the network detected a new virus lineage, 501Y.V2, which later became known as the beta variant. Now a new SARS-CoV-2 variant has been identified, known as B.1.1.529. To help us understand more, The Conversation Africa’s Ozayr Patel asked scientists to share what they know.
What’s the science behind the search?
Hunting for variants requires a concerted effort. South Africa and the UK were the first big countries to implement nationwide genomic surveillance efforts for SARS-CoV-2 as early as April 2020.
Variant hunting, as exciting as that sounds, is performed through whole genome sequencing of samples that have tested positive for the virus. This process involves checking every sequence obtained for differences compared to what we know is circulating in South Africa and the world. When we see multiple differences, this immediately raises a red flag and we investigate further to confirm what we’ve noticed.
In addition, South Africa has several laboratories that can grow and study the actual virus and discover how far antibodies, formed in response to vaccination or previous infection, are able to neutralize the new virus. This data will allow us to characterize the new virus.
3d Variants of Covid-19 Virus (Sars-COV-2). Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta in white background. Shutterstock
The beta variant spread much more efficiently between people compared to the “wild type” or “ancestral” SARS-CoV-2 and caused South Africa’s second pandemic wave. It was therefore classified as a variant of concern. During 2021, yet another variant of concern called delta spread over much of the world, including South Africa, where it caused a third pandemic wave.
Very recently, routine sequencing by Network for Genomics Surveillance member laboratories detected a new virus lineage, called B.1.1.529, in South Africa. Seventy-seven samples collected in mid-November 2021 in Gauteng province had this virus.
It has also been reported in small numbers from neighboring Botswana and Hong Kong. The Hong Kong case is reportedly a traveler from South Africa.
Whether B.1.1.529 will be classified as a variant of interest or of concern, like beta and delta, has not been decided by the World Health Organization yet.
We do not know for sure. It certainly seems to be more than just the result of concerted efforts to monitor the circulating virus. One theory is that people with highly compromised immune systems, and who experience prolonged active infection because they cannot clear the virus, may be the source of new viral variants.
The assumption is that some degree of “immune pressure” (which means an immune response which is not strong enough to eliminate the virus yet exerts some degree of selective pressure which “forces” the virus to evolve) creates the conditions for new variants to emerge.
Despite an advanced antiretroviral treatment program for people living with HIV, numerous individuals in South Africa have advanced HIV disease and are not on effective treatment. Several clinical cases have been investigated that support this hypothesis, but much remains to be learned.
Why is this variant worrying?
The short answer is, we don’t know. The long answer is, B.1.1.529 carries certain mutations that are concerning. They have not been observed in this combination before, and the spike protein alone has over 30 mutations. This is important, because the spike protein is what makes up most of the vaccines.
We can also say that B.1.1.529 has a genetic profile very different from other circulating variants of interest and concern. It does not seem to be a “daughter of delta” or “grandson of beta” but rather represents a new lineage of SARS-CoV-2.
Some of its genetic changes are known from other variants and we know they can affect transmissibility or allow immune evasion, but many are new and have not been studied as yet. While we can make some predictions, we are still studying how far the mutations will influence its behavior.
We want to know about transmissibility, disease severity, and ability of the virus to “escape” the immune response in vaccinated or recovered people. We are studying this in two ways.
Firstly, careful epidemiological studies seek to find out whether the new lineage shows changes in transmissibility, ability to infect vaccinated or previously infected individuals, and so on.
At the same time, laboratory studies examine the properties of the virus. Its viral growth characteristics are compared with those of other virus variants and it is determined how well the virus can be neutralized by antibodies found in the blood of vaccinated or recovered individuals.
In the end, the full significance of the genetic changes observed in B.1.1.529 will become apparent when the results from all these different types of studies are considered. It is a complex, demanding and expensive undertaking, which will carry on for months, but indispensable to understand the virus better and devise the best strategies to combat it.
Do early indications point to this variant causing different symptoms or more severe disease?
There is no evidence for any clinical differences yet. What is known is that cases of B.1.1.529 infection have increased rapidly in Gauteng, where the country’s fourth pandemic wave seems to be commencing.
This suggests easy transmissibility, albeit on a background of much relaxed non-pharmaceutical interventions and low number of cases. So we cannot really tell yet whether B.1.1.529 is transmitted more efficiently than the previously prevailing variant of concern, delta.
Covid-19 is more likely to manifest as severe, often life-threatening disease in the elderly and chronically ill individuals. But the population groups often most exposed first to a new virus are younger, mobile and usually healthy people. If B.1.1.529 spreads further, it will take a while before its effects, in terms of disease severity, can be assessed.
Fortunately, it seems that all diagnostic tests that have been checked so far are able to identify the new virus.
Even better, it appears that some widely used commercial assays show a specific pattern: two of the three target genome sequences are positive but the third one is not. It’s like the new variant consistently ticks two out of three boxes in the existing test.
This may serve as a marker for B.1.1.529, meaning we can quickly estimate the proportion of positive cases due to B.1.1.529 infection per day and per area. This is very useful for monitoring the virus’s spread almost in real-time.
Are current vaccines likely to protect against the new variant?
Again, we do not know. The known cases include individuals who had been vaccinated. However, we have learned that the immune protection provided by vaccination wanes over time and does not protect as much against infection but rather against severe disease and death. One of the epidemiological analyses that have commenced is looking at how many vaccinated people become infected with B.1.1.529.
The possibility that B.1.1.529 may evade the immune response is disconcerting. The hopeful expectation is that the high seroprevalence rates, people who’ve been infected already, found by several studies would provide a degree of “natural immunity” for at least a period of time.
Ultimately, everything known about B.1.1.529 so far highlights that universal vaccination is still our best bet against severe Covid-19 and, together with non-pharmaceutical interventions, will go a long way towards helping the healthcare system cope during the coming wave.
Prof. Wolfgang Preiser, Head: Division of Medical Virology, Stellenbosch University; Cathrine Scheepers, Senior Medical Scientist, University of the Witwatersrand; Jinal Bhiman, Principal Medical Scientist at National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), National Institute for Communicable Diseases; Marietjie Venter, Head: Zoonotic, Arbo and Respiratory Virus Programme, Professor, Department Medical Virology, University of Pretoria, and Tulio de Oliveira, Director: KRISP – KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform, University of KwaZulu-Natal
3. Why ‘Confrontation’ with China Cannot Be Avoided
Excerpts:
Achieving future cooperation with China, therefore, will require confrontation now. Washington and its like-minded allies and partners should do more to confront China on its unfair trade practices, abysmal human rights practices, military aggression, pollution, poor public health record, and nuclear arms buildup. Xi will find cooperation more attractive when he learns that his confrontational approach has backfired.
With regard to China’s nuclear buildup, for example, Washington should augment its own deterrent, including with theater nuclear forces in the Indo-Pacific, to demonstrate to Xi that his aggressive arms expansion will only make China less safe. Seeing his security situation deteriorate may be the only way to persuade Xi to engage in arms control talks. Hoping for cooperation alone will not produce the desired result.
Some will argue that confronting the CCP will lead to more aggressive Chinese behavior and an increased risk of military conflict. They have it backwards. A resolute policy of confrontation now is the United States’ best hope of eventually convincing Beijing to change course and put us on a path toward a genuinely competitive and cooperative future.
Why ‘Confrontation’ with China Cannot Be Avoided
A resolute policy of confrontation now is the United States’ best hope of eventually convincing Beijing to change course and put us on a path toward a genuinely competitive and cooperative future.
Last week, President Joe Biden held a high-profile virtual summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. The summit was intended to place relations between Washington and Beijing on a more stable footing, but (other than several platitudinous statements) the meeting produced no new breakthroughs for Sino-U.S. cooperation. Indeed, the inefficacious exchange raises a bigger question about the true nature of the U.S.-China relationship.
Earlier this year, U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken stated that U.S. policy toward China includes a mix of “cooperation, competition, and confrontation.” Unfortunately, he is only about one-third right.
Despite the fond hopes for cooperation on shared challenges, and all the talk in Washington about great power “competition,” the sobering reality is that the Sino-U.S. relationship is increasingly dominated by its most confrontational elements.
The term “great power competition” became a mantra in Washington after the publication of the 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy. The document correctly recognized that the previous U.S. strategy of trying to cultivate China as a “responsible stakeholder” in a rules-based international system had failed and that a new, tougher approach was needed. The Biden administration has since updated this term to “strategic competition,” promising to prioritize the most strategic, or important, areas of competition.
But competition is not the best word in either case. Competition implies that participants play, and are bound by, the same, agreed-upon rules. Firms compete for market share and athletic teams vie for a championship title within clearly delineated and enforceable bounds.
The U.S.-China rivalry, however, cannot fairly be described as competition because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is systematically violating generally accepted international laws and norms. In the economic sphere, Beijing systematically preys on the global economic system in defiance of its World Trade Organization obligations. It steals intellectual property, subsidizes domestic champions, restricts foreign businesses operating in China, and undercuts competitors with slave labor. The CCP contravenes international humanitarian law by engaging in “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” against Muslim Uighurs and other minorities at home. Militarily, Beijing seizes contested territory from its neighbors, including islands in the South China Sea, despite the Hague Tribunal’s rulings against China’s bogus claims.
Last month, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “We welcome stiff competition” with China. But does Washington really “welcome” cheating on trade, genocide, and territorial aggression? Describing such systemic violations of accepted international standards as mere “competition” seems far too generous. “Confrontation” rings truer.
So too is it hard to find much evidence of cooperation in the current U.S.-China relationship. Even in areas where analysts express hope for engagement, the relationship is best characterized by confrontation. On climate change, China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, accounting for 28 percent of global emissions—nearly double the amount of the United States, and more than all the developed countries combined. As Washington and other powers cut their emissions, Beijing promises to continue increasing emissions until 2030.
In global public health, China is also a major problem. Its initial delay in reporting Covid-19 turned a local breakout into a global pandemic, and Beijing blocks a meaningful investigation into the disease’s origins to this day, making a future reoccurrence more likely.
The story is similar in arms control. China is engaging in an across-the-board nuclear arms expansion that includes building: hundreds of nuclear missile silos in the desert, new nuclear bombers and submarines, and hypersonic missiles. Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump both desired arms control talks with Beijing, but the CCP refused to even come to the table. It is doubtful that Biden will have better luck.
Saying, therefore, that we must cooperate with China on global these challenges is like saying we must cooperate with burglars to reduce break-ins. It is true in a sense, but it greatly stretches the meaning of the term.
To be sure, there remains some meaningful cooperation between the two powers. Washington would like Beijing to continue purchasing American agricultural products, for example. And Beijing wants Washington to retain its commitment to a “One China” policy with regard to Taiwan. But even these remaining elements of cooperation are also increasingly becoming subjects of dispute.
This is not merely a semantic exercise; the words we use have real effects on how we think about the China challenge and what we should do about it. The U.S. government, the American public, U.S. businesses, and U.S. allies and partners need to fully understand that this is an increasingly confrontational relationship, and it is likely to get worse before it gets better. They need to prepare for this reality by getting tougher with China when it breaks the rules and by looking to disentangle themselves from China’s malign influences. Presenting the U.S.-China relationship as a recipe with equal parts cooperation and above-the-board competition creates unhelpful misperceptions with potentially counterproductive results.
This is not to say that Washington desires confrontation with China. Clearly, it would prefer a much more cooperative relationship. But that does not appear possible so long as Xi (and perhaps the Chinese Communist Party) remains in power. The United States and its allies, therefore, should push back hard on China’s rule-breaking to defend themselves and to show China’s leaders that challenging the United States and its allies is too difficult and costly for Beijing, and ultimately not in China’s own self-interest.
Achieving future cooperation with China, therefore, will require confrontation now. Washington and its like-minded allies and partners should do more to confront China on its unfair trade practices, abysmal human rights practices, military aggression, pollution, poor public health record, and nuclear arms buildup. Xi will find cooperation more attractive when he learns that his confrontational approach has backfired.
With regard to China’s nuclear buildup, for example, Washington should augment its own deterrent, including with theater nuclear forces in the Indo-Pacific, to demonstrate to Xi that his aggressive arms expansion will only make China less safe. Seeing his security situation deteriorate may be the only way to persuade Xi to engage in arms control talks. Hoping for cooperation alone will not produce the desired result.
Some will argue that confronting the CCP will lead to more aggressive Chinese behavior and an increased risk of military conflict. They have it backwards. A resolute policy of confrontation now is the United States’ best hope of eventually convincing Beijing to change course and put us on a path toward a genuinely competitive and cooperative future.
Matthew Kroenig is a professor of government at Georgetown and the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He was a senior policy adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2017-2021. His latest book is The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the US and China.
Dan Negrea is a senior fellow in the Scowcroft Center. He served in the Department of State from 2018-2021 as the Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs and as a member of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff.
Image: Reuters.
4. Israel and Iran Broaden Cyberwar to Attack Civilian Targets
The new modern battlefield?
Excerpts:
Neither Israel nor Iran has publicly claimed responsibility or laid blame for the latest round of cyberattacks. Israeli officials refused to publicly accuse Iran, and Iranian officials have blamed the gas station attack on a foreign country, stopping short of naming one.
Experts say the cyberattacks on softer civilian targets could be the start of a new phase in the conflict.
Lotem Finkelstein, head of intelligence at Check Point, a cybersecurity company, said that Iranian hackers had “identified a failure in Israeli understanding” about cyber conflict.
They realized that “they do not need to attack a government agency, which is much more protected,” but could easily attack small, private companies, with less sophisticated security, “that control enormous amounts of information, including financial or intimate personal information about many citizens.”
Each side blames the other for the escalation, and even if there were the will to stop it, it’s hard to see how this genie gets recorked.
“We are in a dangerous phase,” Maysam Behravesh, a former chief analyst for Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, said in a Clubhouse chat on Monday. “There will be a next round of widespread cyberattack on our infrastructure. We are a step closer to military confrontation.”
Israel and Iran Broaden Cyberwar to Attack Civilian Targets
By Farnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman
Published Nov. 27, 2021
Updated Nov. 28, 2021, 12:24 a.m. ET
Iranians couldn’t buy gas. Israelis found their intimate dating details posted online. The Iran-Israel shadow war is now hitting ordinary citizens.
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Tel Aviv, Israel. The personal data of about 1.5 million Israelis were exposed in two recent hacks attributed to Iran.
Published Nov. 27, 2021Updated Nov. 28, 2021, 12:24 a.m. ET
Millions of ordinary people in Iran and Israel recently found themselves caught in the crossfire of a cyberwar between their countries. In Tehran, a dentist drove around for hours in search of gasoline, waiting in long lines at four gas stations only to come away empty.
In Tel Aviv, a well-known broadcaster panicked as the intimate details of his sex life, and those of hundreds of thousands of others stolen from an L.G.B.T.Q. dating site, were uploaded on social media.
For years, Israel and Iran have engaged in a covert war, by land, sea, air and computer, but the targets have usually been military or government related. Now, the cyberwar has widened to target civilians on a large scale.
That attack was attributed to Israel by two U.S. defense officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence assessments. It was followed days later by cyberattacks in Israel against a major medical facility and a popular L.G.B.T.Q. dating site, attacks Israeli officials have attributed to Iran.
Hacks have been seeping into civilian arenas for months. Iran’s national railroad was attacked in July, but that relatively unsophisticated hack may not have been Israeli. And Iran is accused of making a failed attack on Israel’s water system last year.
The latest attacks are thought to be the first to do widespread harm to large numbers of civilians. Nondefense computer networks are generally less secure than those tied to state security assets.
No one died in these attacks, but if their goal was to create chaos, anger, and emotional distress on a large scale, they succeeded wildly.
Cars line up for gas in Tehran on Oct. 27, a day after a cyberattack on Iran’s fuel distribution system.Credit...Vahid Salemi/ Associated Press
“Perhaps there’s a war going on between Israel and Iran, but from the little civilian’s perspective we are being held as prisoners here in the middle and are helpless,” said Beni Kvodi, 52, an editor at an Israeli radio station.
Mr. Kvodi has been openly gay for years, but the hack on the Israeli dating site threatened to expose thousands of Israelis who had not come out publicly about their sexual orientation. The site collected embarrassing information about users’ sexual habits, as well as explicit photos.
Ali, a 39-year-old driver with the national taxi company in Tehran who, like other Iranians interviewed, asked that his last name not be used out of fear for his security, said he lost a day of work waiting in gas station lines that snaked for miles.
“Every day you wake up in this country and you have a new problem,” he said in a telephone interview. “It isn’t our fault our governments are enemies. It’s already hard enough for us to survive.”
Both countries appear to be striking out at civilians to send messages to their governments.
The hack on Iran’s fuel distribution system took place on Oct. 26, near the two-year anniversary of large antigovernment protests set off by a sudden increase in gasoline prices. The government responded then with a brutal crackdown, which Amnesty International said killed more than 300 people.
The cyberattack appeared aimed at generating another wave of antigovernment unrest.
Gas pumps suddenly stopped working and a digital message directed customers to complain to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, displaying the phone number of his office.
The hackers took control of billboards in cities like Tehran and Isfahan, replacing ads with the message “Khamenei, where is my gasoline?”
“At 11 a.m. suddenly the pumps stopped working,” said Mohsen, the manager of a gas station in northern Tehran. “I have never seen anything like this.”
Rumors spread that the government had engineered the crisis to raise fuel prices. Iran’s app-based taxi companies, Snap and Tapsi, doubled and tripled their normal fares in response to drivers having to purchase expensive unsubsidized fuel, Iranian news media reported.
The antigovernment uprising never materialized but the government scrambled to contain the damage and tamp down the uproar. The Oil Ministry and the National Cyber Council held emergency meetings. The oil minister, Javad Owji, issued a rare public apology on state television, and pledged an extra 10 liters of subsidized fuel to all car owners.
President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran, left, meeting with Oil Minister Javad Owji after the hack on Iran’s fuel distribution system in October.
To get pumps back online, the ministry had to send technicians to every gas station in the country. Once the pumps were reset, most stations could still sell only unsubsidized fuel, which is twice the price of subsidized fuel.
It took nearly two weeks to restore the subsidy network, which allots each vehicle 60 liters — about 16 gallons — a month at half price.
But the hack may have been more serious than an inconvenience to motorists.
A senior manager in the Oil Ministry and an oil dealer with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions, said that officials were alarmed that hackers had also gained control of the ministry’s fuel storage tanks and may have had access to data on international oil sales, a state secret that could expose how Iran evades international sanctions.
Because the ministry’s computer servers contain such sensitive data, the system operates unconnected to the internet, leading to suspicions among Iranian officials that Israel may have had inside help.
Four days after Iran’s pumps stopped working, hackers gained access to the databank of the Israeli dating site Atraf, and medical files at Machon Mor Medical Institute, a network of private clinics in Israel.
Files from both hacks — including the personal information of about 1.5 million Israelis, about 16 percent of the country’s population — were posted to a channel on the Telegram messaging app.
The Israeli government asked Telegram to block the channel, which it did. But the hackers, a little-known group called Black Shadow, immediately reposted the material on a new channel, and continued to do so each time it was blocked.
The group also posted files stolen from the Israeli insurance company Shirbit, which was hacked last December and insured employees of Israel’s Defense Ministry.
Three senior Israeli officials, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss secret cyber issues, said that Black Shadow was either part of the Iranian government or freelance hackers working for the government.
Four days after the pumps stopped working in Iran, cyberattacks in Israel targeted a major medical facility and a popular L.G.B.T.Q. dating site.Credit...Amir Cohen/Reuters
Personal data from the dating site could be disastrous “even for those who are already out of the closet,” Mr. Kvodi said. “Each one of us has a very close and intimate ‘relationship’ with Atraf.”
The site contains not only names and addresses, he said, but also “our sexual preferences, who’s H.I.V. positive, who uses prophylactics or does not, along with the fact that the site makes it possible to upload nude photographs and relevant video footage of us and to send them to other subscribers.”
Cyber experts said these hacks were not the work of Black Shadow but knock-on hacks by criminals who used the personal data Black Shadow had posted. In some cases, they blocked the accounts, demanding ransom to restore access.
Neither Israel nor Iran has publicly claimed responsibility or laid blame for the latest round of cyberattacks. Israeli officials refused to publicly accuse Iran, and Iranian officials have blamed the gas station attack on a foreign country, stopping short of naming one.
Experts say the cyberattacks on softer civilian targets could be the start of a new phase in the conflict.
Lotem Finkelstein, head of intelligence at Check Point, a cybersecurity company, said that Iranian hackers had “identified a failure in Israeli understanding” about cyber conflict.
They realized that “they do not need to attack a government agency, which is much more protected,” but could easily attack small, private companies, with less sophisticated security, “that control enormous amounts of information, including financial or intimate personal information about many citizens.”
Each side blames the other for the escalation, and even if there were the will to stop it, it’s hard to see how this genie gets recorked.
“We are in a dangerous phase,” Maysam Behravesh, a former chief analyst for Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, said in a Clubhouse chat on Monday. “There will be a next round of widespread cyberattack on our infrastructure. We are a step closer to military confrontation.”
5. Taliban Covert Operatives Seized Kabul, Other Afghan Cities From Within
No surprise. This is how effective subversion works. It is something we are not good at conducting (or supporting indirectly) and we are certainly not effective at defending against it especially when we are handicppaed as outsiders.
Were we blind to this subversion strategy? Did we not have effective intelligence to identify it? DId we not anticipate it? We need to ask some hard questions. Will this be the subject of any in depth lessons learned research? If we do not understand these threats we will never be able to "compete" effectively in the gray zone of strategic competition.
Taliban Covert Operatives Seized Kabul, Other Afghan Cities From Within
Success of Kabul’s undercover network, loyal to the Haqqanis, changed balance of power within Taliban after U.S. withdrawal
WSJ · by Yaroslav Trofimov and Margherita Stancati
The pivotal role played by these clandestine cells is becoming apparent only now, three months after the U.S. pullout. At the time, Afghan cities fell one after another like dominoes with little resistance from the American-backed government’s troops. Kabul collapsed in a matter of hours, with hardly a shot fired.
“We had agents in every organization and department,” boasted Mawlawi Mohammad Salim Saad, a senior Taliban leader who directed suicide-bombing operations and assassinations inside the Afghan capital before its fall. “The units we had already present in Kabul took control of the strategic locations.”
Mr. Saad’s men belong to the so-called Badri force of the Haqqani network, a part of the Taliban that is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. because of its links to al Qaeda. Sitting before a bank of closed-circuit TV monitors in the Kabul airport security command center, which he now oversees, he said, “We had people even in the office that I am occupying today.”
Members of the Taliban’s Badri 313 special-operations unit were deployed next to U.S. troops during the airlift from Kabul.
Photo: wakil kohsar/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The 20-year war in Afghanistan was often seen as a fight between bands of Taliban insurgents—bearded men operating from mountain hide-outs—and Afghan and U.S. forces struggling to control rural terrain. The endgame, however, was won by a large underground network of urban operatives.
On Aug. 15, after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled Kabul, it was these men who seized the capital city while the Taliban’s more conventional forces remained outside.
Mohammad Rahim Omari, a midlevel commander in the Badri force, was working undercover at his family’s gasoline-trading business in Kabul before he was called into action that day. He said he and 12 others were dispatched to an Afghan intelligence service compound in the east of the city, where they disarmed the officers on duty and stopped them from destroying computers and files.
Other cells fanned out to seize other government and military installations and reached Kabul airport, where the U.S. was mounting a massive evacuation effort. They took control of the airport’s perimeter until better-armed Taliban troops arrived from the countryside in the morning. One agent, Mullah Rahim, was even dispatched to secure the Afghan Institute of Archaeology and its treasures from potential looters.
Mr. Omari said the Badri force had compartmentalized cells working on different tasks—armed fighters, fundraisers and those involved with propaganda and recruitment.
“Now these three types of mujahedeen have reunited,” he said. Mr. Omari himself is now deputy police chief in Kabul’s 12th District.
Their success has helped boost the influence of the Haqqanis within the overall Taliban movement. Badri was founded by Badruddin Haqqani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2012. It now is under the ultimate command of his brother, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is in charge of Afghanistan’s internal security as its new interior minister.
Named after the Battle of Badr that was won by Prophet Muhammad in 624, the Badri force includes several subgroups. The best known is its special-operations unit, Badri 313, whose fighters in high-end helmets and body armor were deployed next to U.S. Marines at the Kabul airport in the two weeks between the fall of Kabul and the completion of the American airlift.
Kamran, who didn’t want his surname to be used, was tasked with taking over his alma mater, Kabul University, and the Ministry of Higher Education.
A 30-year-old from Wardak province west of Kabul, he said he became a Taliban recruiter when he was pursuing a master’s degree in Arabic at the university in 2017. He estimates that, over the years, he persuaded some 500 people, mostly students, to join the insurgency. To maintain his cover, he shaved his chin, wore sunglasses and dressed in suits or jeans.
“Many of our friends who had beards were targeted,” he recalled. “I was above suspicion. While many of our low-ranking friends were arrested, I wasn’t. Even though I was their leader.”
Many of his acquaintances—former classmates, teachers and guards—first realized he was a member of the Taliban when he showed up with a gun on Aug. 15, he said. “Many employees of the ministry and the entire staff of the university knew me. They were surprised to see me,” said Kamran, whose new job is head of security for Kabul’s several universities.
Kamran has since adopted the Taliban’s trademark look: a black turban, a white shalwar kameez and a long beard. As for his suits and jeans, they are gathering dust in his closet. “Those aren’t our traditional outfits,” he said. “I don’t think I will have to wear them again.”
Taliban fighters celebrated in Kabul after a rapid takeover aided by their allies inside the city’s institutions.
Photo: Victor J. Blue for The Wall Street Journal
Similar Taliban cells operated in other major Afghan cities. In Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest metropolis, university lecturer Ahmad Wali Haqmal said he repeatedly asked Taliban leaders for permission to join the armed struggle against the U.S.-backed government after he completed his bachelor’s degree in Shariah law.
“I was ready to take the AK-47 and go because no Afghan can tolerate the invasion of their country,” he recalled. “But then our elders told us no, don’t come here, stay over there, work in the universities because these are also our people and the media and the world are deceiving them about us.”
The Taliban sent Mr. Haqmal to India to earn a master’s degree in human rights from Aligarh Muslim University, he said. When he returned to Kandahar, he was focused on recruitment and propaganda for the Taliban. After the fall of Kabul, he became the chief spokesman for the Taliban-run finance ministry.
Fereshta Abbasi, an Afghan lawyer, said she had long been suspicious about a man who worked alongside her at a fortified compound, Camp Baron near the Kabul airport, that hosted offices for development projects funded by the U.S. and other Western countries.
But it wasn’t until the day after the fall of Kabul—when the man appeared on television clutching a Kalashnikov rifle—that she discovered he was in fact a Taliban commander. “I was shocked,” said Ms. Abbasi, who is now based in London.
The commander, Assad Massoud Kohistani, said in an interview with CNN that women should cover their faces.
A person familiar with Mr. Kohistani’s employment history said he worked for a USAID-funded irrigation project and was previously employed by a United Nations agency as a finance officer. The U.S. Agency for International Development, asked about Mr. Kohistani, said it subjects its Afghan programs to counterterrorism partner vetting.
Run by Westerners, Camp Baron included a hotel with a restaurant that openly served beer and other alcoholic drinks. Ms. Abbasi, like many female colleagues working at Camp Baron, wore a loose head scarf in the office, and sometimes none at all. “I can’t imagine how angry he must have been with us,” she said.
Mr. Saad, the Badri commander, said he was shocked by his initial encounters with Kabul residents like Ms. Abbasi as he arrived to take charge at the Kabul airport at 7 a.m. on Aug. 16. Many of them screamed “You are death” at the Taliban, he recalled.
“It was painful to see Afghan women flee abroad, leaving their bags behind,” he said. “The generation of the past 20 years hadn’t seen us at all and were afraid of us.”
WSJ · by Yaroslav Trofimov and Margherita Stancati
6. From my dad's death in Afghanistan 20 years ago to Taliban retaking the country. How did we get here? by Jake Spann
From my dad's death in Afghanistan 20 years ago to Taliban retaking the country. How did we get here?
Former U.S. Envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad on the botched U.S. departure from Afghanistan, the current situation in the nation since the Taliban takeover, and what it all means for America.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
On Nov. 25, 2001, I was an infant when a group of Marines came to my family’s house in Manassas, Virginia, to inform us that my father, Johnny "Mike" Spann, wasn’t coming home. He had been killed in battle at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress in Afghanistan.
My dad was one of the first intelligence officers sent to Afghanistan after 9/11. His death would be world news in less than 24 hours. Photos of my father and pictures of my mourning mother holding me would be in every newspaper in America.
Shannon Spann and her late husband Johnny "Mike" Spann (FOX)
I grew up alongside the conflict that claimed my dad’s life. In many ways, I know more about the war in Afghanistan than I do about him. I know him as an American hero, but my picture of him as a person is stitched together with fragments of stories passed down to me by my family and my dad’s colleagues.
The experience of missing a person you’ve never known is like missing a ghost. I remember looking for him in the crowd when I graduated high school. All I’ve ever wanted to hear is my father telling me that he’s proud.
Thoughts of my dad and Afghanistan occur more often in the fall, between September and November, especially on Nov. 25. This year, my family and I watched in anger as that nation fell to the Taliban.
Shannon Spann, wife of CIA officer Johnny Michael "Mike" Spann, follows her husband's casket while holding her 6-month old son Jake, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, on Dec. 10, 2001. (AP Photo/Doug Mills, File)
Scott Spellmeyer and Dave Tyson are retired CIA officers who worked with my dad as members of Alpha Team, the combined forces of paramilitary CIA and DOD special forces. Their mission in 2001 was to ensure that Afghanistan would not be a place where terrorist attacks against the U.S. could originate.
"Mike was solid as a rock," Scott said. "A total professional. When the chips were down, he was the one you could count on."
"He was uncompromising in his patriotism and devotion to duty," Dave told me. "His duty was protecting his country and its people. You could always rely on Mike, especially in difficult times."
Dave was at the fortress with my dad when he was killed. "I will forever grapple with his death and there are many times still when I catch myself not believing he was killed," said Dave. "There is a shadow with me always - and it is Mike."
In Scott’s words, "Losing your dad was a tremendous loss to me personally and to the rest of the team. I think we all, in our own way, resolved to carry on and complete the mission as your dad would have wanted us to."
They were successful in severely limiting the Taliban and al Qaeda’s capabilities to carry out attacks against our own country, and the nation of Afghanistan was made more secure.
Scott told me, "When we drove into Mazar-i-Sharif, and actually entered the city, it was like a victory parade. It was like we had won WWII. People were very jubilant."
The U.S. also turned its back on the Afghan allies that made our fight against the Taliban so effective in the first place.
Today, these gains have not held. The Taliban wasted no time in becoming the controlling force in the region once more after the U.S. departure.
So how did we get to where we are today? I learned that we truly lost the moment the mission changed. Dave Tyson was able to explain to me what went wrong in Afghanistan.
When the objective changed from crushing terrorism to trying to "democratize" Afghanistan, that’s when things began to fall apart, according to Dave. "The objective changed to attempting to democratize Afghanistan. Too much, too fast. The U.S. wanted to fundamentally change the country instead of staying with our original mission, which was making Afghanistan a place where terrorist attacks could not originate against the United States."
The U.S. also turned its back on the Afghan allies that made our fight against the Taliban so effective in the first place. "Within months and over the years, we rejected the same warlords we fought with, saying they were bad guys, they weren’t democratic, etc. We could have fully secured peace with them and influenced them, while at the same time working with them to develop a stable situation where sympathies for the Taliban decreased."
Dave sums up his own feelings about how things ended up pretty succinctly. "We succeeded in our original mission. And we could have kept that success going by supporting the people that enabled us to succeed. Instead, we abandoned them and tried to create this new government and society based on our values. That led to failure in Afghanistan in the sense of security. Now we see the Taliban has come back and taken over the country again."
The entire situation seems irredeemable, and in a broad sense that may ultimately be true. However, even in the direst situations there will still be individuals who refuse to back down.
Some have called it the "Digital Dunkirk" in reference the to the rescue of Allied troops trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, France, during WWII. Former allies and families who were specifically being targeted for death after the Taliban takeover reached out through the internet to people in the U.S. who had been involved in the war.
These men and women who stepped up and got people out of Afghanistan felt a tremendous responsibility to help. Watching the nation fall and seeing former allies killed after all of their efforts was very traumatic. My mother was among those who decided to help.
"Everyone I know with a direct connection to Afghanistan has felt a great weight of responsibility for doing everything possible to help families they know personally," my mom said. "I have been inspired to work with individuals who will not stop until the right thing is done even as the system fails."
It is comforting to know that there will always be people like my mom and dad, like Scott and Dave, and all of the members of DOD and Alpha Team. "No one left behind is supposed to be true," concluded my mother. "Many of us still believe it."
7. America has forgotten the lesson of total war | Column
America has forgotten the lesson of total war | Column
By Robert Bruce AdolphTampa Bay Times3 min
The American Civil War was a watershed event with global implications. Beforehand, Western armed conflicts were fought by armies largely on the European-Napoleonic model, which envisioned a victor emerging after winning battlefield engagements of massed armies. The objective was the destruction of the uniformed armed forces’ ability to fight.
Robert Bruce Adolph
Harm to the civilian populace in proximity to battlefields was considered unfortunate collateral damage. But civilians — those not in uniform — were seldom targeted. That all changed in the Civil War. Is there a forgotten lesson from this conflict?
As the Civil War began, the European-Napoleonic model for war was generally still accepted. In the early years of the war, army met army with the expectation that the political and moral questions raised would be decided in battlefield victories by men wearing uniforms. Both sides were led by officers trained at West Point. But the war took a significant turn with President Abraham Lincoln’s appointment of Ulysses S. Grant to general-in-chief of all Union forces.
The series of battlefields defeats suffered by Union armies at the outset of the conflict had convinced both North and South alike that southern military leaders were superior. Although there is a grain of truth here, Gen. Robert E. Lee had major advantages. He fought largely on his home turf of Virginia — familiar terrain — and often on the defensive. The defense is inherently stronger. Plus, he enjoyed the full support of the local populace, where many battles were fought. Lee often knew of Union troop movements because native Virginians readily supplied him intelligence. In other words, the civilian populace was a participant in the conflict.
To win, Grant had to take the fight to Lee, despite the Virginian’s many advantages. Grant knew his losses would be great, but there was nothing else for it. It was the only way. So, Grant’s strategy was unusually aggressive. The Confederates, for their part, did not have to win, but only survive. Lee hoped to eventually force a political settlement.
To achieve ultimate victory, Grant fundamentally changed the rules of the game. In addition to the engagement of armies on battlefields, Grant chose to attack Southern industry and food production that supported those armies. General William T. Sherman’s “march to the sea” that included the destruction of Atlanta was the most notable example. Civilians came to suffer a similar fate as their soldiers.
Grant reasoned that the South could not continue the fight without material support. He was proven right. And this marked a seminal change in the way that many future conflicts would be fought — from the historically accepted clash of armies to the laying waste of cities and agriculturally productive countryside. President Lincoln supported his general throughout. The United States followed an analogous strategy in World War II, where the goal “unconditional surrender” was chosen by both Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Millions died. But both fascism in Europe and imperial ambition in the Far East were vanquished.
It is worth noting that the birthplace of such brutal ideas of warfare was the then still young nation of America. More citizens died in the Civil War than all other U.S. conflicts combined. But the price was terrible and necessary. Slavery was eradicated and the Union preserved. What would the nation have come to look like if Lincoln and Grant had not been steadfast in paying the butcher’s bill?
Our own history has proven that the goal achieved justified the stunning cost in lives spent. It is a terrible kind of arithmetic. Sometimes, and war may be the exemplar, victory absolutely justifies the bloody cost.
If America is not going to resolutely fight to win, then perhaps we should not be fighting at all.
Robert Bruce Adolph is a military strategist and former senior U.S. Army Special Forces soldier and United Nations security chief. His written works have appeared in most U.S. military publications of note, and he is also a frequent contributor to the Tampa Bay Times. He is a public speaker and the author of “Surviving the United Nations: The Unexpected Challenge.”
8. Opinion | The Military’s Broken Culture Around Sexual Violence and Suicide
So tragic and sad. How can we stop this scourge? What can we do? What must we do?
Opinion | The Military’s Broken Culture Around Sexual Violence and Suicide
Cybèle C. Greenberg
Nov. 26, 2021
Credit...Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times; photograph courtesy of the Vassas family
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
By
Ms. Greenberg is a fellow with the editorial board and a former active duty Marine officer.
Anne Vassas loved being a Marine.
She was always smiling. Younger members of her unit saw Corporal Vassas, 20, as something like a mother. Stationed in Iwakuni, Japan, she was re-enlisting for a second tour.
So it came as a shock when Corporal Vassas took her own life in August 2019, a month before her 21st birthday.
Six months after her death, her father was surprised to discover among her belongings pages from a sexual assault report she filed in October 2018. A military investigation into Corporal Vassas’ death later found that she may have been sexually assaulted on three occasions while serving in uniform.
The death of Corporal Vassas, and other deaths like hers, raises questions regarding the military’s ability to care for its service members who experience sexual trauma. In many cases, untreated trauma can have deadly consequences.
There are numerous misconceptions about military suicide. Despite the stereotypes, there is no significant association between combat deployments and the rate of suicide, according to a study in JAMA Psychiatry.
Some experts say that it would be more accurate to blame the problem on the military’s culture of intensity and violence that extends well beyond the battlefield. That includes toxic relationships between service members and continued stigma surrounding those seeking help. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Army and the Marine Corps — the two branches founded on an infantry culture, in which the perception of strength trumps all else — experience the highest suicide rates.
A report by the Defense Department inspector general this month indicates that although the number of sexual assault complaints has doubled in the past decade, the services often cut corners when it comes to investigating and prosecuting them.
Sexual trauma is associated with an increased risk of suicide and is more likely than combat to lead to post-traumatic stress for both men and women. While combat troops get time to recover from their deployments, victims of sexual trauma are often sidelined or forcibly discharged, according to Don Christensen, a retired Air Force officer who is president of Protect Our Defenders, a nonprofit that works to end sexual violence in the military.
Many victims of sexual violence actually experience trauma twice: once, at the hands of the offender, and a second time, at the hands of the institution they serve.
In a July report, the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military found that many of those who reported sexual violence regretted doing so. The backlash often compounds the trauma of the actual assault.
Worse still, some service members attempt suicide after speaking up and seeking help. Studies show that the perception of betrayal by the military bureaucracy in the aftermath of sexual assault is associated with severe depression and self-inflicted violence. Women who served in the military are at 2.5 times the risk for suicide compared to their counterparts who did not.
According to the investigation into her death, Corporal Vassas tried reporting her sexual assaults several times. But the reporting process was perilous. During her initial training, she said that she had been forcibly kissed by another Marine. But when investigators reminded her that having a relationship with another trainee was prohibited, she withdrew her complaint.
While stationed in California, Corporal Vassas told two of her childhood friends that an officer had interrupted another Marine pushing her up against the wall of his room and taking her pants off without her consent, after both had been drinking. She was disciplined over this incident because she was not supposed to be in the barracks for men.
The inquiry into her death suggests that the officer who reprimanded Corporal Vassas ignored the assault and that a military investigator believed she may have been lying about the incident “to get out of trouble for being in the wrong barracks.”
But her medical record tells a different story. Her heightened depression and anxiety can be traced back to late 2018 and were likely “due to the stress induced by the sexual assault” in the barracks, according to a behavioral health assessment. It was also around this time that Corporal Vassas started voicing suicidal ideations to her friends, including one text message that read, “I can’t live with this pain.”
But in February 2019, she was given a clean bill of health and cleared to deploy to Japan. There, Corporal Vassas may have been sexually assaulted yet again, according to Marines in her unit.
Six months after her arrival in Iwakuni, Corporal Vassas was dead.
The contours of her story are all too similar to those of other servicewomen. In May an Army specialist, Kaylie Harris, 21, who reported she was raped by a man after she came out as gay, died by suicide. In 2018 an Army private, Nicole Burnham, 21, died by suicide after incidents in which male soldiers held her down against her will and photographed and assaulted her. Despite some fellow soldiers calling her a “whore,” “slut” and “deserving of rape” after she reported the attacks, the Army was slow to transfer her out of South Korea, according to an investigation by CBS News. In 2009 a 20-year-old Marine, Carri Leigh Goodwin, died from acute alcohol poisoning after, according to a lawsuit, she was raped twice and bullied by her commander for reporting the second rape.
Many factors have contributed to a recent increase in suicide rates for military personnel, and they’re not entirely well understood. The accessibility of guns certainly plays a role: The most common method of suicide across the military is death by firearm. The White House recently announced regulations that will increase the availability of secure gun storage and safety devices.
More research is also needed on the possible correlations between military suicide, the protracted length of recent wars and the rise in traumatic brain injuries from increased exposure to improvised explosive devices.
Despite years of effort and tens of millions of dollars invested in prevention research and programs, suicide continues to afflict military communities. Last year there was a statistically significant increase in the rate of suicide deaths by active duty troops in all services — the highest rate since 2008, when the Pentagon began keeping detailed records, according to the Defense Department’s latest annual suicide report.
An independent Pentagon commission established this year prefaced its findings on sexual trauma with a letter to service members: “We heard you.”
But in at least some important ways, no one listened to Corporal Vassas, Specialist Harris, Private Burnham or countless other service members who experienced unbearable trauma while serving their country.
Many military units still do not take sexual trauma or mental health as seriously as they should and often treat suicide awareness training as a perfunctory exercise. Few active duty military leaders speak out about their own struggles coping with trauma. Those who do often face derailed careers — something that discourages junior troops from speaking up and seeking help themselves.
Ultimately, it is only genuine, supportive human connections with other service members, leaders and veterans — those who believe and understand them — that will save young American troops from feeling there is no way out.
Cybèle Greenberg (@cybele_cg) is a fellow with the editorial board. She is a former active duty Marine officer.
9. Inside Wagnergate: Ukraine’s Brazen Sting Operation to Snare Russian Mercenaries
Along read with a lot of information. Please go to the link to read the entire analysis and to view the photos and documents.
The Bellingcat Investigation Team is an award winning group of volunteers and full time investigators who make up the core of the Bellingcat's investigative efforts.
Inside Wagnergate: Ukraine’s Brazen Sting Operation to Snare Russian Mercenaries
November 17, 2021
-
On 29 July 2020, Belarusian state media announced that the country’s security services had arrested 33 fighters from the Wagner private military contractor. These men were, according to the report, part of a group of more than 200 fighters present in Belarus to destabilise the country in the run-up to its Presidential elections in early August. All of the men, whose names and dates of birth were published in the initial 29 July report, were Russian nationals while a handful also had dual citizenship with Ukraine and Belarus.
-
Although Belarus initially accused Russia of meddling in the August election, the two countries appeared to reconcile with the return of the mercenaries to Russia and further cooperation in military and economic spheres.
- It later transpired that the appearance of the Russian mercenaries had nothing to do with the Belarusian elections or Russian meddling, rather it was part of a Ukrainian sting operation that had been cut short. The political fallout from these events continues to be felt over a year later, drawing in the last two presidents of Ukraine and much of the country’s security, military, and intelligence services.
A year-long investigation by Bellingcat and the Insider has established that the operation which resulted in the capture of 33 mercenaries in Minsk in July 2020 was in fact an elaborate sting conducted by Ukraine’s military intelligence service GUR MOU with the support of the counterintelligence department of the domestic intelligence agency, the SBU. Through the false-flag recruitment of mercenaries for a now defunct private military contractor (PMC), the operation aimed to lure dozens of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian citizens who, in the assessment of the Ukrainian authorities, had committed serious crimes while fighting for Russia-supported military entities in the country’s East.
Many, but not all of the targeted mercenaries, had fought in Ukraine’s Donbas region as part of the infamous Wagner private military contractor (PMC). Others fought as part of Russia-sponsored “volunteer corps” while others had been working directly for Russia’s military or security services. Most of the targeted men had at some point served as mercenaries for the Wagner group, whether in Ukraine or subsequently in Syria, Libya or the Central African Republic (CAR).
10. Geopolitical Challenges Cloud Next Chapter in Xi’s Triumphalist History
Conclusion:
It remains to be seen whether Xi will recalibrate Chinese foreign policy, and if so, what course a correction might take. One route would be to continue to pursue China’s core interests, but to adopt a less strident, more patient and tactful approach to international politics. This re-orientation would be a throwback to the “hide and bide” approach of Xi’s predecessors, Hu, Jiang and Deng, who sought to dial down geopolitical competition in order to focus on economic development. The opposite but perhaps more likely approach would be for China to double down on going it alone. Should Xi adopt this course, Beijing may seek to apply overwhelming strength to secure core interests such as Taiwan. Historically, rising powers that have gone this route have courted disaster by provoking balancing coalitions of disparate partners, which consolidate based on shared threat perceptions. Either way, for Xi, the path to completing China’s national rejuvenation is not immediately apparent, at least not in the international arena.
Geopolitical Challenges Cloud Next Chapter in Xi’s Triumphalist History
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Resolution on its first 100-years of history cements “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义 思想, Xi Jinping xin shidai Zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi sixiang) as the official ideology of China (CPC, November 11). A central premise of the document, which was adopted at the Sixth Plenum of the 19th CCP Central Committee held in Beijing last week, is that General Secretary Xi Jinping’s continued leadership is essential to consolidate the hard earned gains made by China over the last century (China Brief, November 12). The new historical account celebrates the Xi era as a time of triumph when the CCP and the Chinese people have “written the most magnificent epic in the thousands of years of the history of the nation” (People.cn, November 16). In a People’s Daily commentary, Xi observes that the CCP has always emphasized evaluating its history, and that a third resolution on party history is necessary to unify the nation in pursuit of “great new victories” (新的伟大胜利, xin de weida shengli) at this “critical juncture“ (People’s Daily, November 17). Achieving “new victories” alludes to the CCP’s second centenary goal of China becoming a “strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern socialist country” by 2049, i.e., a preeminent world power with a fully developed economy and control of Taiwan (CPC News, September 6, 2017).
The Resolution depicts the Xi era as the apex of a hundred-year long CCP drive to transform China in to “a thriving nation that stands tall and firm in the East” [1]. However, Xi’s vision of a new Sino-centric era is imperiled by major geopolitical headwinds. The front page of Wednesday’s People’s Daily underscores the link between domestic political dynamics and international politics (see picture). Above the fold, the party mouthpiece trumpets the Resolution, while the bottom of the broadsheet features a picture of Xi and President Joe Biden in discussion at the US-China virtual summit (People’s Daily, November 17). Still, days after meeting with Xi, Biden stated that the US was seriously considering a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics; a stark contrast to the robust US participation in the 2008 Summer Olympics, when President George W. Bush led the US delegation to Beijing (Axios, November 18). A lack of diplomatic representation from the US and potentially other major countries would diminish the domestic political value of the games to Xi and the CCP.
Under Xi, China has gone from cordial ties with most other major countries, to increasingly strained, if not outright contentious relations with the US, Europe, Japan, India, the UK, Australia, Canada, and others. None of these relationships will likely experience dramatic improvements soon, particularly as Beijing remains internationally isolated (both physically and diplomatically) due to its doctrinaire “zero-COVID” policy (SCMP, October 16). Notwithstanding the modest reduction in tensions that led to Monday’s XI-Biden meeting, US-China relations have gone from a mix of engagement and competition to outright strategic rivalry in half a decade. Even as China’s relations with the international community have deteriorated over the last several years, Xi has not recalibrated his foreign policy in any significant way (Foreign Affairs, October 6).
A Century of Striving to Overcome Foreign and Domestic Opposition
One difference between the original Chinese text of the Resolution on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century of Striving (中共中央关于党的百年奋斗重大成就和历史经验的决议, Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu dang de bainian fendou zhongdà chengjiu hé lìshǐ jīngyàn de juéyì) and the official translation is that the word – 奋斗(fendou), which means “to strive” or “to struggle”, is omitted from the title of the English version (People.cn, November, 16; Xinhua, November 16). Nevertheless, the term is invoked throughout the document, often in the context of China’s “century of striving” since the CCP’s founding in 1921. According to the Resolution, China’s path from subjugation to national rejuvenation occurred in four stages. Throughout this history, the CCP struggled against various sources of real and perceived opposition: residual feudal and capitalist forces, counterrevolutionary rightist and/or leftist elements, and hostile foreign powers. [The below list is derived from the full text of the Resolution on CCP history (People.cn, November, 16; Xinhua, November 16)].
Four Stages of CCP History
-
1921-1949: New Democratic Revolution (新民主主义革命, Xin minzhu zhuyi geming): After a civilizational nadir when China was reduced to a “ semi-colonial, semi-feudal society”, the CCP rids China of imperialist, feudal and bureaucratic-capitalist oppression, and achieves national liberation through victories in the 1927-1949 Civil War against “reactionary Guomindang forces” and the 1931-1945 “War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression” (China Brief, October 8).
- 1949-1978: Socialist Revolution and Construction (社会主义革命和推进社会主义建设, shehui zhuyi geming he tuijin shehui zhuyi jianshe): During this period, the CCP grapples with political, economic and military challenges as it seeks to foster conducive conditions for the internal development of socialism. The CCP eradicates what it perceives as the primary internal impediment to achieving this goal, which are the remnants of traditional Chinese, or “feudal” society. Externally, the CCP struggles to “oppose imperialism, hegemonism, colonialism, and racism” including in the 1950-1953 “War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.” The Resolution acknowledges Mao’s mistakes, namely the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. However, the chaos of the late Mao era is blamed on “counter-revolutionary cliques” led by opportunists who exploited Mao’s errors- PLA Marshall Lin Biao and Mao’s wife Jiang Qing. This era concludes with the CCP “smashing” Jiang and the Gang of Four, the coterie of leftist radicals who achieved prominence in the Cultural Revolution.
- 1978-2012: Reform, Opening Up, and Socialist Modernization (革开放和社会主义现代化建设, gaige kaifang he shehuizhuyi xiandaihua jianshe): From 1978 on, the party focuses on economic development as the primary means to boost China’s composite national strength. The resolution asserts the party overcame severe “political unrest” in 1989 (Tiananmen), which was encouraged by hostile foreign forces seeking to weaken China and divert it from the socialist path. Subsequently, the narrative asserts that the CCP successfully guided China through several financial crises and other economic shocks; several natural disasters, and the SARS epidemic.
- 2012- : New Era of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (中国特色社会主义新时代 , zhongguo tese shehui zhuyi xin shidai) The onset of the current “New Era,” which coincides with Xi’s ascension to power, is defined by the re-assertion of party :centrality as the CCP strives to transform China into “a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the middle of the 21st century.” The Resolution identifies several impediments to achieving this goal. Foremost is the “principal contradiction” of uneven and unequal development, which the CCP vows to solve through “well-rounded human development” and continued pursuit of “common prosperity.” Another serious ill is corruption, which under previous periods of “lax and weak governance”, i.e., the Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin administrations, infected the party and harmed its relationship with the public; but is now being rectified through Xi’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign. The Resolution commends Xi’s efforts to strengthen external and internal security, credits the CCP for taking a vigorous stand on Xinjiang, Tibet, and China’s “territorial waters”, and avers that “stability will be maintained in Hong Kong and Macao.” Finally, the Resolution reiterates that “resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China’s complete reunification is a historic mission and an unshakable commitment of the Party,” and forecasts that “reunification” is “certain to become a reality.”
Geopolitical Constraints
China faces enormous domestic challenges that may yet obstruct the CCP’s quest for “national rejuvenation”: unsustainable debt levels, an aging population, environmental catastrophe, and energy insecurity; but Beijing’s growing international isolation is also a formidable obstacle to Xi’s ambitions. Despite Xi’s exhortation to “tell China’s story well” international frustrations with China are growing (Qiushi, June 2). A strident approach to international politics, and frequent gaps between Beijing’s rhetoric and its actions, have generated increasingly negative perceptions of China across much of the world. In Western and East Asian countries, which are both China’s primary economic partners and its main geopolitical competitors, perceptions of China are at historically unfavorable levels. Per a late 2020 Pew survey, 86% of people in Japan hold negative views of China as do 81% in Australia 75% in South Korea, 73% in the US, 71% in Germany, and 70% in France (Pew, October 6, 2020). In response to this external backlash, a “siege mentality” has taken hold in Beijing, which has only worsened due to the self-imposed isolation of China’s zero-COVID policy (The Australian, June 23, 2021).
The Resolution cites China’s goal of developing relations and boosting cooperation with other major countries. However, a survey of China’s relations with major countries reveals a tangle of strained ties. The once privileged relationship that Xi’s predecessors carefully cultivated with Washington through a series of routinized strategic and economic dialogues is in disarray. China’s growing assertiveness and military power has pushed Japan to grudgingly revise its post-war pacifist orthodoxy and rearm. Australia has abandoned any consideration of taking a middle road between China and the US. India, long a partner in China’s efforts to foster a multipolar world (e.g. through BRICS), has de-emphasized its non-alignment tradition and upgraded cooperation with its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue partners, the US, Japan and Australia. European states are reconsidering their stances on Taiwan, and aligning with Washington against Beijing on many issues. Even Russia, while still a strategic partner, has grown uneasy with China’s rapid development of new nuclear and other strategic weaponry, and encroachment into its traditional sphere of influence in Central Asia (China Brief, October 22). Finally, most of the leading Southeast Asian states, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore, continue to hedge between China and the US to varying degrees.
Xi’s heavy-handed diplomacy has been especially damaging to cross-strait relations. His January 2019 “Letter to Taiwan Compatriots” explicitly linking One Country Two Systems with the 1992 consensus, the foundation of the more pro-China KMT party’s approach to cross-strait relations, proved disastrous for the KMT in Taiwan’s 2020 elections (State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, April 12, 2019). Xi’s statement was ill-timed as it preceded the eruption of mass protests in Hong Kong against the erosion of the city’s autonomy under One Country Two Systems.
It remains to be seen whether Xi will recalibrate Chinese foreign policy, and if so, what course a correction might take. One route would be to continue to pursue China’s core interests, but to adopt a less strident, more patient and tactful approach to international politics. This re-orientation would be a throwback to the “hide and bide” approach of Xi’s predecessors, Hu, Jiang and Deng, who sought to dial down geopolitical competition in order to focus on economic development. The opposite but perhaps more likely approach would be for China to double down on going it alone. Should Xi adopt this course, Beijing may seek to apply overwhelming strength to secure core interests such as Taiwan. Historically, rising powers that have gone this route have courted disaster by provoking balancing coalitions of disparate partners, which consolidate based on shared threat perceptions. Either way, for Xi, the path to completing China’s national rejuvenation is not immediately apparent, at least not in the international arena.
John S. Van Oudenaren is Editor-in-Chief of China Brief. For any comments, queries, or submissions, please reach out to him at: [email protected].
Notes
[1] This article refers to The Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century of Striving, November 16, 2021, as the Resolution throughout. For the full text of the Resolution in Chinese see- People.cn, November, 16. For the official English translation see- Xinhua, November 16.
11. Can America Afford to Take Care of Its Veterans?
"In times of war and not before,
God and the soldier we adore.
But in times of peace and all things righted,
God is forgotten and the soldier slighted."
-Rudyard Kipling”
Conclusion:
In his first year, McDonough, working with Biden and the Congress, has made significant progress in expanding care and benefits for deserving veterans in some areas. But significant challenges still remain, primarily because of the long wars we have waged in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, over the past half-century, in which more than 6 million servicemen and women have served. And as the Biden administration and Congress continue to expand benefits for these veterans, they need to recognize that the VA budget will continue to grow even more substantially. This is something this country needs to consider as it sends its brave men and women into battle. We may have ended combat in Iraq and Afghanistan but the mental, physical, and fiscal costs of those who have borne the battle will linger for many decades.
Can America Afford to Take Care of Its Veterans?
We may have ended combat in Iraq and Afghanistan but the mental, physical, and fiscal costs of those who have borne the battle will linger for many decades.
In taking over the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Secretary Denis McDonough, only the second non-veteran and the second person not confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate, faced a series of unprecedented challenges in providing for the needs of the 19 million living veterans. The most critical of these can be placed into six categories: the rapidly increasing size of the department’s budget, the dramatic expansion of the number of veterans eligible for disability benefits, providing benefits for those LGBT personnel with less than honorable discharges, the backlog of compensation exams, the high suicide rate among veterans, and GI bill benefits.
Addressing the Ballooning VA Budget
In the twenty years since 9/11, that is from fiscal year (FY) 2001 to FY2021, the VA budget has grown by more than $200 billion or 500 percent. The first budget proposed by the Biden administration continues that trend. It proposed a base budget of $270 billion for FY2022—an increase of $27 billion or 11 percent over FY2021.
But this request does not fully reflect what the country will spend for veterans in FY2021 and FY2022. The Biden administration is also requesting another $18 billion for VA hospital upgrades, as part of its sweeping infrastructure plan, which President Joe Biden signed into law on November 15, 2021, and has already approved another $17 billion for VA programs as part of its Covid-19 pandemic relief plan. Since Congress has approved both these items, it will mean that the FY2022 VA budget will exceed $300 billion, which is more than the total defense budget of our geostrategic competitor, China.
The rapidly increasing size of the VA’s annual budget has troubled some lawmakers. For example, Representative Mike Bost (R-IL), the ranking member of the House Veteran Affairs Committee, has argued that this growth is not in line with demand. He correctly points out that the number of veterans has steadily declined over the last decade and that the number of veterans using the VA has not increased by the same size as the VA budget.
Bost and every other GOP member of the committee wrote a letter to the full House Budget Committee expressing concern over the budget’s current size. They argued that unless altered, the VA’s budget will reach about $500 billion by the end of this decade and that the long-term trajectory and cost of benefit obligations demand better planning and budgeting.
Secretary McDonough has defended the increased benefits arguing that the additional money is needed to permit the VA to deliver high-quality health care and benefits to our veterans at a time when they need it most. Further, the administration has argued that more veterans could become eligible for benefits in the future, even years after they leave the service, if the department continues adding to the list of toxic exposure issues, from Agent Orange and burn pits, representing a significant and increasing budgetary outlay.
While Congress did not pass the FY2022 budget before the start of the fiscal year, the Appropriations Committee did endorse the large increase in the base budget.
While Democrats on the committee noted the increasingly high costs of the total VA budget, they agreed with McDonough that these increased funds are necessary to respond to the needs of the more than 9 million veterans currently receiving care or benefits. But they and the Biden administration did not explain how the country will pay for these dramatic increases. With a defense budget for FY2022 of nearly $800 billion, and a VA budget of at least $300 billion, it will mean that the total cost of providing for those who continue to serve and have served this nation will be about $1.1 trillion a year and more than $11 trillion for the rest of this decade.
Expanding Veterans’ Access to Disability Benefits
Obviously, people who serve in the military and are physically wounded during their time in service, like the approximately 45,000 who have been wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, can receive veterans’ benefits and medical care at VA facilities or private facilities paid for by the VA. The real issue for the country is deciding whether servicewomen and men, who develop physical and mental illnesses, like depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, after leaving the service should receive the same benefits, thus adding to the 4.6 million veterans already receiving disability benefits.
Coming into office, McDonough had to decide whether the VA would give increasing benefits to two major categories: Vietnam Veterans, on and offshore, who may have been impacted by Agent Orange, and veterans of the wars in the Middle East since 1990 to the present who have contracted diseases that may be a result of having been exposed to toxic smoke from burn pits during their time in those war zones.
In addition to deciding whether to give more of these veterans access to free medical care, McDonough will also have to decide what diseases the VA will cover that could have resulted from the two situations and how long a period, after being exposed to these two horrible situations, which diseases will be covered.
At the current time, the VA grants benefits to some 3 million Vietnam Veterans for seventeen diseases related to Agent Orange, the widespread chemical defoliant irresponsibly used during that war, which has and continues to sicken hundreds of thousands of veterans of that conflict. Three conditions were added to the list last December in the FY2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and went into effect in June of this year. They are bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, and Parkinson’s. Adding these diseases potentially adds another 52,000 veterans and another 6,000 family members of deceased veterans to the lists of those who can receive benefits from their exposure to Agent Orange.
The VA estimates that, over the past thirty years, some 3.5 million brave men and women have been exposed to toxic smoke from the irresponsible use of burn pits during their deployments to two major areas. First, the Southwest Asia theater of operations, which includes Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, the Gulfs of Aden and Oman, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian and Red Seas, and the airspace above these locations. Second, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Djibouti from September 19, 2001, to the present. About 250,000 men and women who served in these two areas have already signed up for the VA’s airborne hazards and open burn pit registry, designed to track illnesses related to burn pit exposure, to gain access to veteran’s benefits.
Individuals who already suffer from three illnesses, asthma, rhinitis, sinusitis, which manifest within ten years of their service in these areas already can apply to receive presumptive disability benefits. However, almost half of those who apply as a result of having contracted one of these three illnesses are rejected.
At the present time, the presumptive benefit status does not apply to many of the other respiratory illnesses that members of veterans’ groups have said have occurred in alarmingly high rates among veterans exposed to the burn pits. The administration and Congress are considering adding between eleven and twenty-three more respiratory illnesses and lung cancers to the VA’s presumptive list. Doing so will make at least another 100,000 women and men eligible for VA benefits.
In deciding whether to give more veterans disability benefits, the VA must be aware that since 2001 the number of veterans receiving disability benefits has already grown from 2.3 million to 4.8 million and led to an increase in cost from $20 billion a year to $292 billion.
LGBT Veterans
On September 20, 2021, McDonough announced that tens of thousands of LGBT veterans, forced from the military only because of their sexual orientation and given other than honorable discharges, will be able to receive full veterans benefits despite their dismissal status. Some advocates for this change estimate that, over the past seventy years, nearly 100,000 women and men may have been involuntarily separated based on their sexual orientation. This change comes on the tenth anniversary of the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law which alone forced about 14,000 brave service members to be discharged for simply divulging their sexual orientation. This new policy, which extends medical care, disability benefits, unemployment assistance, and college education—which was previously blocked because of their other than honorable discharges—did not require any legislative action.
Backlog
In March 2021, there was a backlog of about 350,000 compensations exams, which a veteran must take if he or she is to receive disability benefits. This was three times more than the year before and was partially a result of delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. By October of this year, the number had dropped to about 200,000 and the VA hired more than 2,000 new people to assist in reducing the claims backlog. But, it is unlikely to be fixed until late-2022.
Veteran Suicide Rate
Despite increases in the amount that the VA allocates to mental health services and suicide prevention, the suicide rate among veterans has not abated significantly and still is substantially higher than that of the general population. Since 2001, more than 30,000 Global War on Terror veterans have died by suicide. This is more than four times the number who have died in combat. Over the past decade, the VA budget for mental health has grown from about $6 billion to about $11 billion and the amount allocated just to suicide prevention has grown from $68 million to almost $250 million.
In 2019, the last year for which data is available, there were 6,261 veteran suicide deaths, or about seventeen a day. This is 309 fewer than 2018 but still 31.6 per 100,000 people. While this is a step in the right direction, the number is still substantially higher than the rate among nonveteran citizens, which was 16.8 per 100,000. Moreover, if one adjusts for age and sex differences, the rate among veterans was 52.3 per 100,000 people.
GI Bill
Up until July 2021, the VA did not permit the 1.7 million veterans who qualify for both the Post-9/11 GI Bill and the Montgomery GI Bill, which was enacted in 1984 and provides educational benefits similar to those of the Post-9/11 Bill to those who paid an enrollment fee of $1,200 to use both. In fact, the VA made the veterans who qualified for both to sign a form that requested them to forgo their Montgomery GI Bill benefits in order to receive the more generous Post-9/11 Bill.
But in July of this year, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court decision that required the VA to pay veterans an additional year of educational benefits under both the Montgomery GI Bill and the Post-9/11 GI Bill. In essence, this means that some veterans could now receive forty-eight months of educational benefits, thirty-six from the Post-9/11 bill and 12 from the Montgomery Bill. Moreover, there is no longer a time limit on using these benefits and the veterans can pass all of it or part of it to their family members.
Conclusion
In his first year, McDonough, working with Biden and the Congress, has made significant progress in expanding care and benefits for deserving veterans in some areas. But significant challenges still remain, primarily because of the long wars we have waged in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, over the past half-century, in which more than 6 million servicemen and women have served. And as the Biden administration and Congress continue to expand benefits for these veterans, they need to recognize that the VA budget will continue to grow even more substantially. This is something this country needs to consider as it sends its brave men and women into battle. We may have ended combat in Iraq and Afghanistan but the mental, physical, and fiscal costs of those who have borne the battle will linger for many decades.
Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is a Vietnam veteran and a former Assistant Secretary of Defense.
Kaveh Toofan is a special assistant for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress.
Image: Reuters.
12. The Navy is testing a GPS-like device that doesn’t require satellites
The Navy is testing a GPS-like device that doesn’t require satellites
“The future is extremely bright for this line of research."
BY DAVID ROZA | PUBLISHED NOV 24, 2021 5:59 PM
SHARE
The Navy is researching a new technology that could help sailors and Marines navigate in places where the Global Positioning System just doesn’t work.
Unlike GPS signals, cosmic ray muons are a natural source of radiation that can pass through rock, buildings and earth and can be used at high latitudes north of the Arctic Circle, where GPS satellites do not work well due to their orbital constraints, the Office of Naval Research wrote in a press release on Tuesday.
In September, ONR and the U.S. Army Development Command co-funded a group of international researchers who want to show that muons can work as an alternative to GPS and still deliver the same level of precision. They have nine months to show their stuff, and if it works, it could be a game-changer for the military.
“The ability to navigate in polar regions will be of increasing importance in the coming decades as climate change is opening up Arctic waterways to commercial and military activities,” said Dr. Charles Eddy, the lead ONR Global science director for the muon project. “This project, which uses cosmic relativistic particles that continuously impinge on the Earth’s entire surface, offers an innovative approach to the challenge of navigation at high latitudes with little or no GPS service.”
Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class Jeremy Thornton holds signals on the flight deck of the guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61) during flight operations in the Arabian Sea, May 2, 2021 (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Chelsea Palmer)
The question of how to preserve navigation capability is a big one these days, especially as countries like the U.S., Russia and China develop new ways of disabling the satellites that GPS is based on.
“The most important thing that the Space Force supports, from the perspective of a civilian, is the fact that we have GPS,” said Capt. Natalia Pinto, a space operations officer, in a Space Force commercial in August. “That is something that is leveraged by an individual, companies, banks, all sorts of financial institutions. So from the outside looking in, that’s probably the most important thing that we rely on.”
The military uses GPS every day for guiding ships, planes, bombs and so many other things where they need to go. But those signals are easily disrupted by jammers, which block GPS signals, and spoofers, which take them over and feed the user false information, National Defense Magazine wrote in February. Enter, spoof-proof muon technology.
If you’re like me and have never heard of muons before now, have no fear. Muons are one of the fundamental subatomic particles, kind of like electrons but much heavier, according to the Department of Energy. Muons on Earth result from particles in the Earth’s atmosphere colliding with cosmic rays, which are high-energy photons and atomic nuclei coming from the sun or other solar systems or galaxies. Muons exist for only 2.2 microseconds, but they are created constantly in the atmosphere, hitting every inch of the Earth’s surface and passing through nearly any substance at almost the speed of light.
Penetrate nearly any substance you say? Well that’s helpful in case you need to figure out where you are underground or underwater.
A U.S. Army Soldier assigned to the 2nd Cavalry Regiment prepares to control the AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven unmanned aerial vehicle, to scout out the opposing force during Dragoon Ready 21 at the Hohenfels Training Area, April 15, 2021. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Zachary Bouvier)
“Cosmic-ray muons (or atmospheric muons) are ubiquitous and universal,” researchers wrote in a study of muons published in the journal Nature in 2020. “[B]y utilizing this universality and relativistic nature, cosmic muons have a potential to be used for positioning the receiver detector located underwater or underground three dimensionally with a great accuracy.”
The same goes for navigating north of the Arctic Circle. The Navy-funded research into the use of muons for navigation is led by Dr. Chris Steer of the British company Geoptic Infrastructure Investigations Limited. Steer explained that “like echolocation, the timing difference between ‘pings’ — the signals from a crossing muon in our detectors — can allow the user to measure the distance from one detector to another with multiple detectors allowing location by triangulation.”
Researchers have already tested the system in a large water-immersion tank in the United Kingdom. Now the project will move to Finland, specifically into an Arctic lake covered with a meter of ice, the press release said.
“At these high latitudes, conventional GPS measurements are problematic due to their orbital constraints,” ONR wrote.
To make it work, researchers will need a set of highly-synchronized clocks that can work partially underwater in a freezing Arctic environment. But if it does work, it would be a big step up for military navigation.
“The sea is broadly transparent to cosmic ray muons, so we expect there to be a number of scientific subsea navigation opportunities,” Steer said. “Similarly, as cosmic ray muons are highly penetrating and able to pass through many tens to hundreds of meters of rock, it is possible to see that this technology also has strong opportunities in tunnels and other underground settings.”
Using night-vision equipment soldiers clear a room in an underground facility during NIE 13.2, May 12, 2013 (Air Force photo / John Hamilton)
Muon tech is not the only alternative to GPS for figuring out where you are in the world. For example, the Navy has started teaching good ol’ celestial navigation using a sextant and the stars again in recent years.
“That’s an oldie but goodie,” said Richard Mason, a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation. The military could also automate systems to keep track of celestial navigation for service members, Mason suggested.
At a higher-tech level, the military may be close to using quantum science as a ‘hacker-proof’ alternative to GPS, Defense One reported earlier this month.
“These inertial sensors can be used wherever there is a need for position or navigational information, and where a GPS outage is unacceptable or GPS is unavailable,” Peter Schwindt, a scientist at Sandia National Labs, which is researching quantum navigation, told Defense One. “Civilian applications such as aviation and autonomous vehicles are areas where momentary outages of the GPS signal is not acceptable. GPS is decidedly not available underground or underwater so inertial navigation is very important for these operational environments.”
Between quantum science and muons, navigation in the military is becoming much more sci-fi than simply reading a map. But as complicated as it sounds, scientists are excited about what might happen next.
“The future is extremely bright for this line of research,” ONR wrote.
covers the Air Force and anything Star Wars-related. He joined Task & Purpose in 2019, after covering local news in Maine and then FDA policy in Washington D.C. He loves hearing the stories of individual airmen and their families, and he also holds the unpopular opinion that Imperial stormtroopers are actually excellent marksmen. david.roza@taskandpurpose.com Contact the author here.
13. The United Kingdom: Exclusive: Ranger Regiment selection process before taking on Special Forces roles
Exclusive: Ranger Regiment selection process before taking on Special Forces roles
forces.net · by Tom Sables 26th November 2021 at 5:40pm
Forces News can reveal new information about the selection process for the British Army's new Ranger Regiment, which will select soldiers from current battalions to perform tasks often previously reserved for UK Special Forces (UKSF).
Before it expands, four Specialised Infantry Battalions will 'seed' the new regiment: 1 SCOTS (which will become 1st Battalion, Ranger Regiment), 2 PWRR, 2 LANCS, and 4 RIFLES (4th Battalion, Ranger Regiment).
Alongside the Joint Counter Terrorist Training and Advisory Team, these will underpin a new Army Special Operations Brigade, separate from UKSF, to operate in high-threat areas.
Ranger Regiment Selection
Cadre Course – A two-week assessment that selected individuals from throughout the entire Army can tackle, judging their aptitude from the start.
Ranger Course – The second stage sends successful Cadre Course applicants on a six-week course. This could take place in a number of places, including outside the UK.
Those who pass through the Ranger Course then join a Ranger battalion for eight months of training.
This includes fundamental and mission-specific skills training and special role training.
There is also operational partner training at this stage, which will prepare personnel for interaction with foreign UK partners (training, advising and, if necessary, accompanying them).
All personnel who are moving from the Army's Specialised Infantry Battalions to form the Ranger Regiment's 'all arms' battalions will have passed the Cadre Course and Ranger Course already.
Those who fail to pass the courses will return to their cap badges. For example: if someone from 1 SCOTS fails, they would join 2 SCOTS or 3 SCOTS.
An Army Ranger Regiment operator (Picture: MOD).
The Ranger Regiment will be underpinned by emotional intelligence, linguistic skills (these will be taught but personnel must have the capability to learn) and an ability to work in small teams.
A diverse skill set will be required or taught (areas of specialism will vary, but examples could include medic or dog handling capabilities).
While UKSF units such as the SAS (Special Air Service) and the Navy's SBS (Special Boat Service) operate with total secrecy, a Ministry of Defence source told Forces News the Ranger Regiment will be discreet but not secret.
forces.net · by Tom Sables 26th November 2021 at 5:40pm
14. Opinion | Alex Jones is facing a reckoning. Let it be a warning to other conspiracy theorists.
Maybe. But probably not. We have to learn to live with these conspiracy theories. and those who believe them.
Opinion | Alex Jones is facing a reckoning. Let it be a warning to other conspiracy theorists.
Distortions. Lies. Profiteering off the hurt of others. Those are the signature characteristics that mark the radio work of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. So it shouldn’t have come as any surprise that Mr. Jones reacted to a judge’s ruling against him in lawsuits brought by families of those killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., with more distortions, more lies and more attempts to raise money.
Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis earlier this month found Mr. Jones liable for damages in defamation lawsuits brought by the families of eight people killed in the 2012 school massacre after the Infowars host made repeated claims that the shooting was a giant hoax.
The judge ruled that because Mr. Jones had refused to turn over documents ordered by the court, he was liable by default. A similar determination was made by a Texas court in September in two lawsuits filed by victims’ families. Jury trials will next be held to determine the amount of damages.
After Judge Bellis issued her ruling, Mr. Jones went on air and complained about being deprived of a fair trial and invoked his rights to free speech under the First Amendment. Days later, he released a video pleading for money.
Mr. Jones’s claim about being denied a fair trial is undermined by his own refusal to cooperate with the courts in basic procedures necessary to conduct one. Judge Bellis said years of what she called inappropriate conduct by Mr. Jones’s attorneys regarding depositions and the “callous disregard” for her repeated rulings required the most severe sanction of default, which she called “a last resort.” The judge in the Texas case cited the defendants’ “general bad faith” toward the litigation and Mr. Jones’s “public threats,” as well as his contention that the proceedings were show trials.
Multiple efforts by Mr. Jones to have the cases dismissed on First Amendment grounds have been roundly rejected by the state courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. We are the first to stand up for First Amendment rights, but Mr. Jones’s repeated false claims that the shooting at Sandy Hook in which 26 people were killed was a hoax — “staged,” he said, and “inside job written all over it” — were beyond the pale and outside the Constitution’s protections. Mr. Jones, who has now belatedly acknowledged the reality of Sandy Hook, had no credible evidence for his outrageous claims, and his knowing lies did terrible damage to people who already had suffered the tragic loss of loved ones. One family has had to move nearly 10 times and even now is living in hiding.
The families have yet to specify the amount of damages they are seeking, and there is no amount of money that can make up for what they have suffered and will continue to suffer. Their hope, though, is that they will be able to establish that conspiracy profiteering off the tragedy of others is not an acceptable business model. Let’s hope that others in this age of increasing misinformation get that message.
15. As America retreats, regional rogues are on the rise
Another aspect of strategic competition. Many of these will be spoilers in strategic competition between the great powers.
As America retreats, regional rogues are on the rise
Smaller menaces are throwing their weight around more brazenly than ever before
Nov 27th 2021
Addis Ababa, Basra, Caracas, Dubai, Islamabad and Istanbul
IN AUGUST SAMANTHA POWER, America’s aid chief, visited Ethiopia. Not long ago, such an important official from the world’s only superpower would have been welcomed with deference. Instead, her request for a meeting with Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, was ignored. However, Abiy did find time that day to appear on television inspecting drones apparently made by America’s arch-enemy, Iran.
It was an extraordinary snub. America until recently enjoyed friendly relations with Ethiopia. It has been a big donor to a government that depends heavily on aid, and energetically backed the democratic reforms that Abiy had promised when he came to power in 2018. But relations have now soured. America has criticised Abiy for his increasingly authoritarian ways and for waging a brutal civil war. Abiy has responded by thumbing his nose at Uncle Sam and finding less preachy friends.
Turkey, Iran, Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have all reportedly been selling weapons to Ethiopia. Eritrea has sent troops. The UAE has been accused of flying drones for Abiy. It also pledged billions in aid, and has reportedly trained Abiy’s personal bodyguard. Such help may have given him the confidence to wage total war on rebels in Tigray, a northern region, rather than negotiate with them.
The results have been ugly. Jemal Ibrahim (not his real name) was hiding in the Tigrayan mountains when the drones came. One night he saw what he believes were unmanned spy planes buzzing across a cloudless sky. The next morning, he heard explosions in the fields below.
When he went down to look, “what I saw was really dreadful,” he says, his voice faltering. The charred remains of tanks lay twisted by the side of the road. Once, he says, he saw a Land Cruiser ferrying journalists working for a Tigrayan broadcaster explode before his eyes.
Bombs and bullets were supposed to cow the Tigrayan rebels. Instead they have enraged them. The rebels have regrouped, repelled the Ethiopian army and advanced towards the capital, Addis Ababa, which is also threatened by insurgents from the south. The government is arresting ethnic Tigrayans and urging other civilians to arm themselves. Because of the war, millions of Ethiopians are at risk of going hungry.
The disaster unfolding in Ethiopia cannot wholly be blamed on outside interference. But it has not helped. Like many autocratic rulers, Abiy likes dealing with other autocrats. They don’t fuss about democracy and human rights. Their diplomacy is personalised and transactional—we’ll sell you arms, and perhaps our firms will win construction contracts in your country.
Abiy’s refusal to listen to America, which counselled restraint, has cost Ethiopians dearly. And the support of a clutch of medium-sized autocratic powers has hastened Ethiopia’s descent into the abyss.
It is also part of a broader trend. As America retreats from the world, middle-sized powers are throwing their weight around more. No one is surprised that China and Russia project hard power abroad. What is new is that smaller menaces like Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are doing so more brazenly than at any point in recent history. Middle-sized powers now have “an enormous capacity for messing [things] up”, laments a senior UN official.
America is still the world’s greatest power. But since the late 2000s its ability to deter foes and reassure friends has waned. George Bush’s invasion of Iraq ended in failure. Barack Obama drew a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons but did nothing when Bashar al-Assad crossed it in Syria. Donald Trump scorned America’s allies. Joe Biden ditched Afghanistan.
Other countries sense, not exactly a vacuum, but many areas of the world where American power is unlikely to be deployed vigorously. Mr Biden says he had to ditch Afghanistan to concentrate on China. If all his attention is on China, other regimes may calculate that they are free to flex their muscles elsewhere.
They do so for a variety of reasons. Some have legitimate security concerns, and no longer feel they can rely on a superpower to protect them. Some venture abroad to distract attention from failures at home. Some leaders trade military support for commercial advantage—typically for their cronies, not their people. Some are driven by ideology, but more are driven by something cruder: an understanding that if autocrats help each other, they can stay in power longer.
Probably most meddlers have multiple motives, which is why the new world disorder is so much more complicated than the cold war. Consider Venezuela. Under President Nicolás Maduro, its economy has collapsed by 75%. Yet his awful regime survives, with the help of two medium-sized malefactors (Cuba and Iran), and two large ones (Russia and China).
It is hardly surprising that Russia would have the means and motive to back a regime America loathes, or that China would lend it money. But what of Venezuela’s littler helpers? Cuba’s leaders support Mr Maduro because they are soulmates: autocratic, far-left and brutal. Venezuela sends Cuba cut-price oil; Cuba sends back thousands of doctors and spies. The Cubans train Venezuelan medics and interrogators. They also help Mr Maduro snoop on his own security services, to weed out potential coup plotters.
Iran supports his regime for different reasons. At first glance, Shia theocrats have little in common with the hard-drinking, pork-guzzling socialists who rule Venezuela. But they are united by their hatred of the United States and contempt for the wishes of their own people.
Iran is a “mentor” to Venezuela. It teaches it how to dodge United States sanctions, to which it has been subject for far longer, says a former official of Mr Maduro’s government. Since 2019 trade between Iran and Venezuela has risen sharply. Iran sends Venezuela food and fuel in exchange for gold, which has been smuggled via Turkey. Passengers joke that even near-empty flights between Caracas and Istanbul seem strangely heavy at take-off.
In Ethiopia and Venezuela midsized meddlers have emboldened dismal regimes. In Afghanistan a midsized meddler helped install one. Three weeks after the Taliban seized power, reporters spotted a suave guest in Kabul’s swankiest hotel. Though the Afghan capital was overrun by gun-toting jihadists, Lieutenant-General Faiz Hameed, who was then Pakistan’s chief spy, seemed relaxed. “Don’t worry, everything will be OK,” he told a reporter.
Pakistan meddles for geopolitical reasons. The military men who really call the shots there are afraid of India, their great enemy to the south, and also have an interest in exaggerating that fear, since they use it to justify their huge budget, unaccountable power and splendid perks. They long argued that India wanted to encircle Pakistan by forging ties with Afghanistan. So they supported the Taliban, not least by allowing them to use Pakistan as a rear base.
In August, as America pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban took over. Pakistani military officers are crowing. India has lost its influence (which was never as great as Pakistan said it was) and Pakistan has gained a friendlier neighbour.
Meddlers are often muddlers
Yet Pakistan’s victory in Afghanistan could prove pyrrhic. “Pakistan is too poor to support a satellite state,” says Husain Haqqani of the Hudson Institute, an American think-tank. The Taliban are woeful administrators. Under them, Afghanistan's economy is collapsing. Some families are selling their daughters to buy food. Pakistan has no wish to host another surge of Afghan refugees, but if the Taliban provoke another civil war it may have no choice. Fearful of this, Pakistan is pleading with the West to resume aid to Afghanistan, and with the Taliban to be more inclusive. Neither has given much ground yet. Of the two, the Taliban may prove more obstinate.
Turkey, like Pakistan, has real security concerns, even if its ruler, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, often exaggerates them. Kurdish fighters in Syria, allied to Turkey’s home-grown Kurdish separatists, tried to carve out a statelet on Turkey’s border. Turkey saw this as a threat. Mr Erdogan responded by invading and occupying much of northern Syria. Shops there now sell Turkish goods, the Turkish lira has replaced the Syrian dinar, and Turkish flags hang from government buildings rebuilt by Turkish contractors. Locals complain about abuses by the Syrian mercenaries Turkey uses to police the area.
Until the early 2010s Mr Erdogan tended to rely on diplomacy and mediation to defuse complex regional disputes. Today, he seems to think Gordian knots are best torn apart by a Turkish drone. He has deployed warships to the eastern Mediterranean to lay claim to waters Greece and Cyprus consider their own. He has sent troops to Libya. He has helped Azerbaijan win a war against Armenia.
Mr Erdogan does such things partly because nationalism plays well at home. Even the opposition goes quiet when he wraps himself in the flag. And displays of martial prowess take voters’ minds off the economy, which has suffered under his erratic management. Yet Turkey’s new foreign adventurism also derives from a conviction that the country should deploy its army, NATO’s second biggest, to get its way, no matter what its allies think. Mr Erdogan does not want to leave NATO. But he is ready to push relations with the West to breaking point.
Many Turks began to question their reliance on America after its debacle in Iraq, says Alper Coskun, a Turkish ex-diplomat. The questioning accelerated when, in Syria, America outsourced the ground war against Islamic State to Kurdish forces that Turkey considers terrorists. “There is a feeling we’re not getting anywhere with our traditional partners,” says Mr Coskun.
The Turkish government, which detests Mr Assad, was disappointed when Barack Obama failed to punish him for using chemical weapons in 2013. Russia’s subsequent intervention to prop up Mr Assad ended Turkey’s hopes of toppling him, but also taught Mr Erdogan that Turkey too needed to move fast and break things. The thinking in Ankara was that “If the Russians can get things done with hard power, we can follow their path,” says a Turkish official.
In some ways, Turkey’s interventions have succeeded. Turkey helped Azerbaijan win back territory previously occupied by Armenian forces. The armistice gave Turkey a land corridor to Azerbaijan and the rest of the Turkic world. In Libya a government saved from overthrow by Turkish troops recognised dubious Turkish claims in the eastern Mediterranean. By deploying gunboats, Mr Erdogan showed that Turkey was ready to use force to defend what it considers its maritime borders.
But these victories have damaged relations with Europe, America and Middle Eastern powers. “Trust with allies has been completely lost,” says Soli Ozel, of Kadir Has University in Istanbul. Also, stepping into the vacuum left by American inaction and European weakness means having to deal more with Russia. “When Turkey is left alone in the room with Russia, its hand is not as strong as it once thought,” says Asli Aydintasbas of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank. It was Russia that greenlit three of the offensives Mr Erdogan launched in Syria—and also set limits on how far Turkish troops could go.
From minnow to mischief-maker
The trailer for “The Ambush” starts like a Hollywood action flick. Soldiers swap jokes and lift weights before setting out on patrol in an armoured vehicle. Insurgents surround them in a valley. Comrades rush to the rescue, while helicopters swoop overhead. Viewers will have to wait until November 25th to find out if they survive.
The good guys in this film, however, are not from America but from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). And the war they are fighting, as part of a Saudi-led coalition battling rebels in Yemen, is one in which America played only a supporting role.
With just 1m citizens in a population of 10m, and a standing army smaller than the Delhi police, the UAE is surely one of the tiniest countries to make a big-budget blockbuster about its martial exploits. Until recently, when the UAE sent troops abroad, it did so as part of larger Western-led missions. Its troops helped America liberate Kuwait and served with NATO in Afghanistan; its warplanes helped America bomb Islamic State. Like the other Gulf states, the UAE long felt comfortable under an American security umbrella.
Lately, though, the Emiratis have struck out on their own. They deployed thousands of ground troops to Yemen. Emirati drones have bombed faraway Libya. Emirati bases have popped up in Eritrea and Somaliland. The country introduced conscription for male citizens in 2014, and in 2018 extended it from 12 to 16 months.
The UAE is not the only Arab country to get involved in regional conflict. Saudi Arabia is still fighting in Yemen, a battle the Emiratis largely quit in 2019. Egypt has intervened in Libya’s civil war. But both acted against what they saw as neighbouring countries’ threats to their own security.
The UAE’s motives are more diffuse. One is ideological: the UAE views political Islam as an existential threat. It has bankrolled anti-Islamist politicians in Egypt and Tunisia. It has sent countless planes stuffed with weapons to Khalifa Haftar, a warlord who in 2019 nearly overthrew the Islamist-aligned government of Libya.
The UAE’s military policy is intertwined with commerce. Tahnoun bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the national-security adviser, also oversees a business portfolio that includes ports and arms. DP World, a Dubai ports conglomerate, runs terminals in the Horn of Africa. And where it goes, so too goes its army. A base in Assab, on the Eritrean coast, served as a jumping-off point for the war in Yemen. The UAE has trained military and police forces in Somalia. It views the region as strategic, not only for defence but also for trade and food security.
Interventions boost the UAE’s mostly state-owned arms industry. The UAE is one of the world’s ten biggest arms importers, says the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think-tank. By 2030 it aims to produce a third of its military kit at home. Emirati-made armoured vehicles have already been spotted in Libya.
Yet for all its swagger, the UAE has found foreign intervention hard. Since its withdrawal from Yemen it has dismantled part of its base in Assab. It has also scaled back its role in Libya. Officials cast this in high-minded terms—a pandemic-era effort to focus on the home front. In reality, the UAE is pulling back because it has been unsuccessful. The war in Yemen has become a quagmire; Mr Haftar’s march on Tripoli, the Libyan capital, ended in failure.
The master meddler
Early this month a drone laden with explosives crashed into the Iraqi prime minister’s house, injuring seven bodyguards. No one claimed responsibility, but fingers were pointed at Iranian-backed militias.
Iran is perhaps the most successful medium-sized meddler. It backs Hizbullah, a Shia militia with a chokehold on Lebanon, and Hamas, a Sunni Islamist group that rules Gaza. It helped save Mr Assad in Syria and arms the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In 2003 America toppled Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi despot, thereby removing a crucial (if odious) counterweight to Iran. Now Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are so strong that the state fears to confront them. America has occasionally pushed back, most notably when Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, the mastermind of Iran’s covert foreign policy. But his influence lingers.
At home, Iran is a mess. Iranians have been growing poorer for a decade. Most are so frustrated that they boycotted an unfair presidential election this year. Yet the foreign armed groups that Iran supports are thriving. Much of the Middle East is now under their sway.
They are not lavishly funded. Nor are they popular. Most avoid elections, or do badly in them And yet Iran has proved adept at setting up ideological franchises. These are not mere automatons. Iran could not tame the Houthis in Yemen even if it wanted to. In Syria Mr Assad flirts with Iran’s Arab foes. Even Hizbullah, Iran’s most loyal Arab offshoot, controls its own arsenal and decides when to launch wars.
But loose control lets Iran’s franchises dig local roots. Iran may provide seed capital, arms and a guide to assembling drones. Its clients are then expected quickly to start financing themselves, through smuggling, extortion or drug-dealing. Mr Assad, Hizbullah and the Houthis peddle amphetamines, hashish and qat (a narcotic leaf). Iran’s main clients have also captured states, wholly (Syria) or in part (Lebanon, Iraq). The Iraqi state pays the salaries of the pro-Iranian militias that undermine it, handing lump sums to their commanders—hardly a recipe for curbing graft.
Franchising violence spares Iranian blood as well as treasure. Iranians fight for Palestine to the last Palestinian, Israelis quip. Fewer Iranians died fighting in Syria and Iraq than other Shia foreigners. Iran has recruited Shia refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan to join their ranks.
Iran sometimes works with Sunnis but its main aim is to inspire Shias, of whom there are some 100m in the Middle East, to fight its wars. At a warehouse near Basra in Iraq, it signs up volunteers and schools them in its revolutionary creed. Portraits of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, line the walls, along with poems about martyrs. Most Shias reject Iran’s ideology. But those who embrace it have missiles. Indeed, Iran’s franchises add up to what is arguably the Middle East’s most powerful military force. Certainly it can upset the world’s oil supply. In 2019 Iran’s allies in southern Iraq disabled Abqaiq, the world’s largest oil refinery, in Saudi Arabia.
In a multipolar world, the influence of medium-sized powers will surely grow. Many will be benign: think of Japan, Germany or Canada. But as the constraints on midsized malefactors slip, expect more trouble, too. Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, puts it bluntly: “The international order is going to get a lot messier as a result of the US being less involved.” ■
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "The menace of midsized meddlers"
16. US misses golden opportunity in the Solomon Islands
Excerpts:
The US ambassador to Palau showed what a few of the right people in the right places can accomplish. Palau has steadfastly resisted Chinese blandishments and pressure to de-recognize Taiwan and, in 2020, it asked the Americans to set up a military base in the country. The Department of Defense isn’t exactly moving out smartly on this rare offer.
And the US military presence in the Solomons? It appears to be well hidden. There’s a regiment of bored officers building PowerPoint slides at INDOPACOM headquarters. Maybe a few of them can be spared?
And the US Marines ought to have paid some attention to the Solomons given their past history and the Commandant’s new strategy that calls for dispersing small units throughout the Pacific.
And if nothing else, somebody in DOD ought to have considered the disadvantage of letting an adversary establish itself in the Solomons and surrounding regions – and the cost of having to “re-take” these places in any conflict scenario.
Prime Minister Sogavare claims “outsiders” – i.e. the Americans – are behind the recent protests. That’s a good one; if he only knew.
That empty lot in Honiara where the US embassy should be sitting ought to tell him – and the Chinese – everything he and they need to know about American influence in the Solomon Islands.
So what’s to be done? Washington ought to remember that line: If you’re not there, you’re not interested. “Being there” would be a good first step.
US misses golden opportunity in the Solomon Islands
Pacific nation instability presents a strategic opening for US to counter China but the Americans are nowhere to be found
Anti-government demonstrators in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, last week demanded the prime minister step down, citing his government’s alleged corruption and its ties to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). After the police fired teargas at the up until then peaceful demonstrators, chaos erupted.
An outbuilding at the parliament caught fire, a police station was attacked and mobs roamed the town. Over the next two days, much of Honiara’s Chinatown was burned and looted. One “Chinese” shop, festooned with Taiwanese flags, was spared, however.
Americans used to know about the Solomon Islands and why they matter. The word “Guadalcanal” was enough. That’s where US Marines and Japanese forces fought a long, bloody campaign in World War II.
But the US government has barely paid attention to the Solomons for decades, even though they are as important now as they were in 1942.
The Solomon Islands are “strategic terrain” in today’s contest between the PRC and the US and its allies. Hold the Solomons and you can isolate Australia from the US and the rest of Asia. And you can further dominate the Southwest and South Pacific – as Beijing is attempting as part of its long-term political warfare strategy.
The Solomons have been in China’s crosshairs for a long time. In 2019, the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare switched the country’s formal diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the PRC.
Widespread reports and rumors claimed that Sogavare and other influential figures took Chinese cash (and orders) as part of the deal.
Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo: China Daily
Other reports at the time said the Chinese planned to build a military base in the Solomons. The entire island of Tulagi was indeed under contract to a Chinese company until the Solomon Islands government canceled the deal after it was exposed and provoked public protests.
Following the diplomatic switch from Taiwan to the PRC, existing resentments festered – particularly in the populous Malaita province. Malaita’s Premier Daniel Suidani opposed the shift to Beijing and claims to have turned down bribes. Most Malaitans support Suidani and the province has even considered seeking independence.
Sogavare was reportedly not amused by the resistance to his plans, which included opening up Malaita’s vast resources to the CCP-linked companies of his patrons.
When Suidani needed urgent medical treatment earlier this year, the government attempted to prevent him from traveling overseas for necessary treatment – apparently hoping the “Malaita problem” would die with him. And the Australians didn’t help much either, though Suidani ultimately succeeded in getting the help he needed – in Taiwan.
After Suidani’s return, Sogavare reportedly pushed suspiciously well-funded local cronies to table a no-confidence resolution against him in the provincial parliament. However, public resistance was such that the “sponsors” had to withdraw the motion and apologize. Beijing was reportedly behind it all.
A little context is helpful: Recently arrived ethnic Chinese are regarded askance by many Solomons locals. The reasons are familiar wherever the Chinese diaspora is in the Pacific, where they often dominate local commerce, bring in Chinese workers for Chinese-funded projects and export the profits (and raw materials) so the locals see few benefits. And then there’s the organized crime and corruption that comes with it all.
So last week’s protests and rioting should not have been a total surprise. The Australians are now sending troops, police and a handful of diplomats to support the Sogavare government.
Daniel Suidani in a file photo. Image: Facebook
Foreign affairs never lack for irony. Consider that Australia – locked in a nasty economic and political fight with the PRC – is sending troops to support a Solomon Islands’ prime minister that the Chinese reportedly have got in their pocket. And Canberra is supporting him against citizens who want him to step down and Chinese influence eliminated.
Beijing ought to send the Morrison government a thank you note. There are Australians with on-the-ground knowledge of the Solomons – and with ideas on how to move things in a free nation direction. One wonders if Canberra pays them much attention, though.
As for the United States, most Americans don’t have the time or inclination to pay attention to the Solomon Islands. And presumably, the US Embassy has things well in hand. Or at least it would if there was a US embassy in the Solomon Islands. There isn’t one.
The Americans outsourced their foreign policy in this part of the world to the Australians. And by extension America’s interests are outsourced as well. No matter what you say, if you’re not there, you’re not interested.
And Washington has near-zero ability to read the local environment and politics – and to quietly influence local affairs. This is a lost opportunity: There is, in fact, a huge constituency in the Solomons who want the Americans around.
They’ve begged the Americans to open an embassy and even, according to some sources, to establish a military presence. The lack of presence – and interest – on Washington’s part leave many Solomon Islanders perplexed and disappointed.
Ex-president Donald Trump’s administration paid more attention to the Pacific islands than any previous administration. But it couldn’t really get its act together in Southwest and South Pacific in time to take advantage of opportunities to establish a US presence and support US interests.
In 2020, when the Sogavare government tried to economically squeeze Malaita province into compliance, the US ensured $25 million in USAID funds were allocated directly to Malaita. But that was seen as a hurried response to PRC inroads and was no substitute for a full-time presence, such as an embassy would provide.
One already knows the State Department’s excuses: Not enough money or diplomats. Really? There’s never any shortage of foreign service officers bidding on posts in Vienna and Brussels. But very few are angling to get to the Pacific where the living isn’t quite as plush – though the importance to US interests is immense.
Source: Twitter
As for pleading poverty? Maybe take the “R&R” and “home leave” money for US diplomats at hardship posts like London, Paris, Tokyo and the like and apply it to supporting a mission in the Solomons? It’s just a matter of priorities.
The US ambassador to Palau showed what a few of the right people in the right places can accomplish. Palau has steadfastly resisted Chinese blandishments and pressure to de-recognize Taiwan and, in 2020, it asked the Americans to set up a military base in the country. The Department of Defense isn’t exactly moving out smartly on this rare offer.
And the US military presence in the Solomons? It appears to be well hidden. There’s a regiment of bored officers building PowerPoint slides at INDOPACOM headquarters. Maybe a few of them can be spared?
And the US Marines ought to have paid some attention to the Solomons given their past history and the Commandant’s new strategy that calls for dispersing small units throughout the Pacific.
And if nothing else, somebody in DOD ought to have considered the disadvantage of letting an adversary establish itself in the Solomons and surrounding regions – and the cost of having to “re-take” these places in any conflict scenario.
Prime Minister Sogavare claims “outsiders” – i.e. the Americans – are behind the recent protests. That’s a good one; if he only knew.
That empty lot in Honiara where the US embassy should be sitting ought to tell him – and the Chinese – everything he and they need to know about American influence in the Solomon Islands.
So what’s to be done? Washington ought to remember that line: If you’re not there, you’re not interested. “Being there” would be a good first step.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
