Quotes of the Day:

"We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth." 

- John F. Kennedy

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." 

- Thomas Jefferson

"Today the man who is the real risk-taker is anonymous and nonheroic. He is the one trying to make institutions work." 

- John William Ward

1.Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 18, 2023

2. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, August 18, 2023

3. Russia risks war with NATO in Black Sea, former top commander in Europe warns

4. NATO must respond to Russia’s provocations in Belarus

5. Weakened States Pose Problems for War Scenarios

6. Should the West Fear Putin’s Fall?

7. A Defense Agreement Likely to Deepen Chinese Rancor

8. Opinion | What just happened: Storm clouds loom for China’s economy

9. Will China's slowdown pull the US into recession?

10. China Launches Drills Near Taiwan After Vice President’s U.S. Stopovers

11. Four key questions for US China policy

12. Russian soldiers are fighting Ukraine high on amphetamines, a report claims. The Nazis did it first.Russian soldiers are fighting Ukraine high on amphetamines, a report claims. The Nazis did it first.

13.  Pentagon study calls for reforms at US military academies to combat wave of sexual assaults

14. Her Flight Instructor Sexually Harassed Her. The Marine Corps Tried to Kick Her Out.

15. Ukraine’s recent focus on Crimea draws skepticism from corners of the Biden administration

16. Chinese troops arrive in Thailand for "Commando 2023" joint army training - China Military

17. Emerging economies are pushing to end the dollar's dominance. But what's the alternative?

18. Intelligence Agencies Warn Foreign Spies Are Targeting U.S. Space Companies

19. Russia Admits Ukrainian ‘Sabotage Groups’ Crossed Dnipro River

20.  Biden administration searching for ways to keep US forces in Niger to continue anti-terror operations despite overthrowing of government

21. How to Kill Chinese Dynamism

22. Analysis | Gen. Milley on Ukraine, Tuberville and ‘wokeness’

23. American democracy is cracking. These forces help explain why.

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 18, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-18-2023

Key Takeaways:

• The Washington Post reported on August 17 that the US intelligence community has assessed that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will fail to reach Melitopol in western Zaporizhia Oblast and will not achieve its principal objective of severing the Russian land bridge to Crimea.
• It is premature to make assessments about the overall success of ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive operations occurring along several lines of advance toward several different apparent objectives.
• Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on August 18 and have reportedly advanced further near Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• The Kremlin has intensified its effort to increase its long-term control over the Russian information space, threatening the credibility of Russian sources that inform the wider Western coverage of battlefield realities in Ukraine.
• Ukrainian Operational Command South Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk challenged Russian claims that Russian authorities have adequately repaired the Chonhar bridge after a Ukrainian strike on August 6.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, along the Aviivdka-Donetsk City line, and in the eastern Donetsk-western Zaporizhia border area on August 18 and advanced in some areas.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 18, 2023

Aug 18, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 18, 2023

Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Angelica Evans, Christina Harward, and Frederick W. Kagan

August 18, 2023, 6:20pm ET 

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12:00pm ET on August 18. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the August 19 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

The Washington Post reported on August 17 that the US intelligence community has assessed that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will fail to reach Melitopol in western Zaporizhia Oblast and will not achieve its principal objective of severing the Russian land bridge to Crimea. The unverified intelligence assessment reportedly states that effective Russian defensive operations and dense minefields have constrained Ukrainian advances and will continue to do so.[1] Anonymous US officials reportedly stated that Ukrainian forces will advance to within several miles of Melitopol but not further.[2] A Ukrainian advance to within a few miles of Melitopol would bring the critical road and rail connections on which Russia relies to supply its forces within range of Ukrainian artillery systems, severely compromising Russia’s ability to continue to use them for that purpose. It is unclear from published reports why US intelligence analysts have reportedly concluded that seizing Melitopol is the only way Ukraine can sever the Russian land bridge. ISW has, in fact, assessed that Ukraine has many options for severing critical Russian ground lines of communication along the northern Sea of Azov coast of which the seizure of Melitopol is only one.[3] US Secretary of State Antony Blinken notably offered a diverging opinion from the alleged intelligence assessment on August 15, stating that the prospects for Ukraine’s counteroffensive to make significant “strategic gains” will remain unclear for at least a month or longer.[4]

It is premature to make assessments about the overall success of ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive operations occurring along several lines of advance toward several different apparent objectives. ISW has consistently assessed that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will be a protracted, non-linear series of operations, which will likely continue to occur in phases of differing tempos.[5] The Ukrainian counteroffensive is not a discrete set of scheduled operations, and current counteroffensive operations are likely setting more favorable conditions for larger significant operations.[6] ISW continues to assess that Ukrainian counteroffensive operations are significantly degrading defending Russian forces and that the overall degradation of the Russian defensive line creates opportunities for any Ukrainian breakthrough to be potentially operationally significant.[7]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on August 18 and have reportedly advanced further near Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut, Berdyansk (Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area), and the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) directions.[8] Geolocated footage published on August 17 and 18 indicate that Ukrainian forces maintain positions in northeastern Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv), from which Russian sources had previously claimed that Russian forces had expelled Ukrainian forces.[9] The footage confirms that recent Ukrainian advances in the Robotyne area have likely been tactically significant, and ISW previously assessed that such advances are likely reflective of a significant degradation of the Russian forces defending the area.[10] Russian milbloggers claimed on August 18 that Ukrainian forces control northern Robotyne and conducted assaults in unspecified areas south and southeast of the settlement after Russian forces “temporarily withdrew” from Robotyne itself, suggesting that Ukrainian forces have made further advances in the area.[11] The relative speed of these alleged Ukrainian advances suggests that the areas north of the settlement may have been heavily more mined than areas into which Ukrainian forces are currently trying to advance.[12] Geolocated footage published on August 18 also indicates that Ukrainian forces made marginal gains south of Urozhaine in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area.[13]

The Kremlin has intensified its effort to increase its long-term control over the Russian information space, threatening the credibility of Russian sources that inform the wider Western coverage of battlefield realities in Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) held the “Arms and Society: Mental Security Strategy” psychological operations conference as part of the ongoing Army-2023 forum on August 17.[14] The conference included discussions about the historical, ideological, geopolitical, informational, and psychological aspects of the “special military operation” and “informational and ideological concepts” to combat the “information policy of unfriendly countries.” The conference featured prominent voices in the Russian information space, including politicians, political voices, journalists, and prominent Russian ultranationalist milblogger Yevgeny Poddubny, signaling the MoD’s likely effort to consolidate control over pro-war voices and messaging.[15] Russian federal censor Roskomnadzor announced on August 18 that the Russian State Duma will consider legislation in the fall that would criminalize the publishing of information on Russian military asset locations, Ukrainian strike locations, and strike aftermaths.[16] This effort immediately follows recent similar Crimean occupation and Russian Federal Council efforts, and the Russian information space largely did not react to these prior efforts.[17] A prominent Russian milblogger dryly commented on Roskomnadzor’s August 18 announcement that Russian authorities finally cracked down against military censorship after a year and a half of war.[18] Another Russian milblogger claimed that implementing these censorship measures will drive Russians to stop following Russian information space voices and listen to pro-Ukrainian and pro-Western channels instead.[19]

The Russian ultranationalist community has widely considered Russian milbloggers to be the last remaining credible voice on the war in Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s effort to censor and control their reporting may eliminate that trust. The Kremlin’s effort to control moblogger content, therefore, threatens to undermine the Kremlin’s other effort to leverage select Russian milbloggers’ connections to the wider ultranationalist community.[20] Kremlin control over milblogger content would replace tactical and operational reporting on the war in Ukraine with unchallenged Kremlin narratives and make accurate coverage of battlefield realities more challenging.[21]

Ukrainian Operational Command South Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk challenged Russian claims that Russian authorities have adequately repaired the Chonhar bridge after a Ukrainian strike on August 6. Humenyuk stated on August 18 that Russian officials continue repairs on the Chonhar and Henichesk bridges and that Russian officials are struggling with repairs due to a lack of suitable specialists willing to travel to dangerous areas.[22] Humenyuk stated that Russian forces are attempting to use alternative pontoon crossings at the Chonhar and Henichesk bridges to transport large loads of materiel because the bridges are currently unable to support large loads.[23] Humenyuk also stated that Russian military logistics continue to rely on the M-17 (Armyansk-Oleshky) route through the Armyansk checkpoint.[24] Humenyuk’s statement that Russian forces continue to use an alternative pontoon crossing at the Chonhar Bridge for heavy loads indicates that Russian authorities likely opted for quick, short-term repairs at the bridge instead of more time-consuming, long-term repairs. Russian authorities have likely chosen to prioritize partially reopening critical ground lines of communications (GLOCs) over fully repairing bridges supporting critical military and civilian transport.

The Russian MoD accused Ukrainian forces of targeting Russian ships in the Black Sea with an unmanned naval drone overnight on August 17 to 18. The Russian MoD claimed that the Russian Pytlivy and Vasily Bykov patrol ships destroyed the Ukrainian drone before it hit a Russian vessel in the southwestern part of the Black Sea (approximately 237km southwest of Sevastopol).[25] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that the Pytlivy and Vasily Bykov patrol ships were accompanying a tanker from the Mediterranean Sea and speculated that a drone may have targeted the tanker.[26] The milblogger speculated that Ukrainian forces may have launched the drone from the civilian container ship Joseph Schulte, as the Joseph Schulte was allegedly traveling through the Bosphorus Strait at the same time as the attempted strike.[27] The milblogger conceded that the location of the drone’s launch remains unclear, however. ISW previously reported on August 16 that the Joseph Schulte was the first civilian vessel to travel through a Ukrainian-created temporary corridor for civilian vessels in the Black Sea.[28] The milblogger’s suggestion that Ukrainian forces may have launched the naval drone from a civilian ship is likely an attempt to justify further Russian escalation in aggressive Black Sea posturing and set informational conditions to justify future Russian strikes on civilian ships traveling through the Black Sea.

Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) Director Viktor Zolotov is allegedly attempting to remove Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu from his post. Russian lawyer Kirill Kachur, who was charged by the Russian Investigative Committee in absentia for embezzlement and bribery in 2022 and claims to have insider knowledge about internal Kremlin politics, alleged that Zolotov hoped to replace Shoigu with “one of his former subordinates and former adjutants to Vladimir Putin” as Defense Minister – possibly referring to current Tula Governor Alexei Dyumin, who previously worked in the Presidential Security Service as Putin’s bodyguard and adjutant and as Zolotov’s deputy.[29] The source claimed that the recent bill allowing Rosgvardia to receive heavy military equipment was the Kremlin’s compensation to Zolotov for rebuffing his effort to remove Shoigu.[30] Another Russian insider source had claimed on August 3 that Dyumin is also attempting to remove Shoigu as Defense Minister.[31]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reiterated boilerplate rhetoric intended to weaken international support for Ukraine at the Second “International Anti-Fascist Congress” in Minsk, Belarus. Shoigu stated that the Congress will focus on uniting international efforts to eradicate Nazi ideology and insinuated that Western elites and the Ukrainian government promote neo-fascist ideology.[32] Shoigu claimed that representatives of more than 30 countries are attending the congress.[33]

Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) reportedly attempted to use civilians to sabotage weapons shipments to Ukraine in Poland. The Washington Post reported that the GRU attempted to recruit civilians in Poland to commit sabotage operations, including the derailment of trains on a railway through which more than 80 percent of military equipment delivered through Poland to Ukraine flows.[34] The GRU also reportedly recruited civilians to post pro-Russia propaganda fliers in public spaces, hide tracking devices in military cargo, scout Polish seaports, and place cameras along railways.[35]

Key Takeaways:

• The Washington Post reported on August 17 that the US intelligence community has assessed that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will fail to reach Melitopol in western Zaporizhia Oblast and will not achieve its principal objective of severing the Russian land bridge to Crimea.
• It is premature to make assessments about the overall success of ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive operations occurring along several lines of advance toward several different apparent objectives.
• Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on August 18 and have reportedly advanced further near Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• The Kremlin has intensified its effort to increase its long-term control over the Russian information space, threatening the credibility of Russian sources that inform the wider Western coverage of battlefield realities in Ukraine.
• Ukrainian Operational Command South Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk challenged Russian claims that Russian authorities have adequately repaired the Chonhar bridge after a Ukrainian strike on August 6.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, along the Aviivdka-Donetsk City line, and in the eastern Donetsk-western Zaporizhia border area on August 18 and advanced in some areas.

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

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

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line and reportedly advanced on August 18. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Synkivka (8km northeast of Kupyansk), Kyslivka (20km southeast of Kupyansk), and Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna).[36] Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to advance towards Bilohorivka on August 17 and that Russian forces are using hastily-prepared “Storm Z” units manned by convicts to probe Ukrainian defenses in this sector of the front.[37] Former Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) spokesperson Eduard Basurin claimed that Russian forces advanced along the Synkivka-Ivanivka line (up to 20km southeast of Kupyansk) and towards Petropavlivka (7km east of Kupyansk) on August 18.[38] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces control Pershotravneve (21km east of Kupyansk) and continue to advance in the area.[39] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces continued offensive operations near Synkivka.[40]

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line but did not advance on August 18. The Russian MoD and Russian Western Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Yaroslav Yakimkin claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Synkivka, Vilshana (15km northeast of Kupyansk), the Mankivka tract (about 15km east of Kupyansk), Novoselivske (14km northwest of Svatove), Berestove, Kharkiv Oblast (20km northwest of Svatove), Hyrhorivka (11km south of Kreminna), Dibrova (7km southwest of Kreminna), and Berestove, Donetsk Oblast (30km south of Kreminna).[41] Russian milbloggers claimed on August 17 and 18 that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near the Serebryanske forest area (10km southwest of Kreminna) and that Ukrainian infantry conducted unsuccessful attacks near Torske (15km west of Kreminna).[42]

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

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations near Bakhmut on August 18 but did not advance. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations south of Bakhmut and entrenched themselves in new positions.[43] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian armored assault with artillery support near Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[44] A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed that the situation on Bakhmut’s southern flank remains tense despite a general decrease in the intensity of fighting in the area.[45]

Russian forces conducted ground attacks near Bakhmut on August 18 but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations northwest of Dubovo-Vasylivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut) and near Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut) and Bila Hora (12km southwest of Bakhmut).[46] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces unsuccessfully counterattacked from Dubovo-Vasylivka in the direction of Bohdanivka.[47] Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that Chechen Akhmat Spetsnaz elements continue to operate in the Klishchiivka direction and claimed that Russian forces maintain complete control over Klishchiivka.[48] The Russian MoD posted footage claiming to show elements of the Russian 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade (VDV) operating near Klishchiivka.[49]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on August 18 but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued to repel Russian advances near Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City) and Krasnohorivka (directly west of Donetsk City).[50] The Russian MoD claimed that elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Avdiivka and Marinka.[51]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on August 18 but did not make any confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Keramik (14km northeast of Avdiivka) and southeast and east of Novokalynove (13km northeast of Avdiivka).[52] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces conducted offensive operations on Avdiivka’s northern flank in the direction of Keramik on August 17 and claimed that Russian forces captured unspecified Ukrainian positions in the area.[53]

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

The Russian MoD claimed on August 18 that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack near Mykilske (27km southwest of Donetsk City) in western Donetsk Oblast.[54]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and advanced on August 18. Geolocated footage published on August 17 and 18 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced southeast of Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) along the T0518 (Velyka Novosilka to Staromlynivka) highway.[55] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked near Urozhaine and advanced towards Kermenchyk (15km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[56] Russian milbloggers reported continued fighting near Pryyutne (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka), Urozhaine, and Zavitne Bazhannya (12km south of Velyka Novosilka).[57]

Russian forces reportedly continued limited offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area but did not advance on August 18. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to recapture lost positions near Urozhaine and Novodarivka (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[58]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the western Zaporizhia Oblast border area and reportedly advanced on August 18. Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced in northern Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv).[59] One milblogger claimed that Russian forces “temporarily withdrew” from Robotyne and claimed that fighting is ongoing south of Robotyne.[60] Other milbloggers claimed that Russian forces repelled the Ukrainian attacks and that Ukrainian forces do not control any part of Robotyne, however.[61] Geolocated footage published on August 17 and 18 shows that Ukrainian forces maintain positions in northern Robotyne despite the Russian claims to the contrary.[62] Russian sources also reported Ukrainian attacks near Novopokrovka (16km southeast of Orikhiv).[63]

A Ukrainian official indicated that Russian authorities are struggling to compensate for traffic and damage to the Kerch Strait bridge. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk stated that the Kerch Strait Bridge is still unable to consistently accommodate traffic and that Russian authorities maintain special schedules for and occasionally block road and railway traffic over the bridge to avoid overwhelming it.[64]

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

Russian officials continue crypto-mobilization efforts focused on increasing the number of recruits signing contracts with the Russian MoD. Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Representative Andriy Yusov stated on August 18 that Russia mobilizes roughly 20,000 people per month as part of a campaign focused on signing individual contracts.[65] Yusov added that this force generation effort primarily targets migrant workers and residents who have recently received a Russian passport.[66] Russian sources reported on August 18 that Russian authorities have conducted raids in Belgorod Oblast, the Chuvash Republic, and St. Petersburg against migrants who have Russian citizenship but who have not registered with military registration and enlistment offices.[67] Independent Russian outlet Dozhd reported on August 17 that residents in Amur, Moscow, Ulyanovsk, Penza, and Lipetsk oblasts have received summonses for the ”reconciliation and accounting of data” with military registration and enlistment offices.[68] Russian military registration and enlistment offices are likely coercing people to verify data in order to attempt to compel them to sign contracts with the MoD as part of the crypto-mobilization effort.

The Kremlin is allowing Russian defense enterprises and other enterprises to trade in foreign currencies without restriction, likely to combat increasing constraints that sanctions have placed on the Russian economy and defense industrial base (DIB). Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees on August 18 allowing the Russian state development firm Vnesheconombank (VEB), Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec, and the Russian defense holding group Tactical Missiles Corporation to trade in foreign currency without restrictions.[69] Putin signed a similar decree for Russian stated-owned energy company Rosneft on August 16.[70] The Russian Presidential Administration posted the decrees to the government portal under decrees concerning Russian agricultural products, likely trying to hide the new trade allowances.[71]

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

Russian President Vladimir Putin will personally choose candidates for Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) head, bypassing direct elections. The People’s Council of the LNR adopted a law on August 18 stating that People’s Council deputies will hold a secret ballot to elect the head of the LNR from a list of Putin’s chosen candidates.[72]

Russian authorities continue to prepare for the upcoming regional elections in occupied Ukraine. Russian Kherson Oblast election commission chairperson Marina Zakharova stated that the occupation administration continues training election observers to ensure the “transparency and legitimacy of elections” and that law enforcement will guard all polling stations.[73] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian election observers and rally organizers have arrived in the occupied territories and that representatives from the Russian Central Election Committee will oversee the elections.[74] The Center also reported that Russian authorities are requiring employees of state-owned enterprises to vote in groups on specific days.[75] Russian occupation authorities previously used police and claimed independent observers to falsely portray the September 2022 annexation referenda as transparent and lay claim to their legitimacy, as ISW previously reported.[76]

Russian officials and occupation authorities continue to establish patronage programs between Russian federal subjects and occupied territories to integrate occupied territories into Russia. The Kherson Oblast occupation administration stated that Ryazan Oblast and the ruling United Russia party are supporting social infrastructure projects in occupied Novotroitskyi Raion, Kherson Oblast.[77]

Russian authorities continue to forcibly deport Ukrainian children from occupied Ukraine to Russia. Former LNR Ambassador to Russia Rodion Miroshnik claimed that Russian authorities will send 150 children aged 6-12 and their mothers from occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts to the Klyazma sanitorium near Moscow for a three-week “rehabilitation” program.[78] The Kherson Oblast occupation administration claimed that Russian authorities sent a group of children from occupied Kherson Oblast to Kaluga Oblast as part of an education program scheme.[79]

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

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko reiterated boilerplate rhetoric and Kremlin talking points in an interview about the war in Ukraine on August 17. Lukashenko claimed that Ukrainian officials are concerned about the potential use of nuclear weapons and the deployment of the Wagner Group to Belarus.[80] Lukashenko also claimed that he and not the Russian government had the idea to deploy Wagner to Belarus and confirmed that Wagner’s deployment to Belarus was one of the security guarantees that Lukashenko offered to Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin during the negotiations to end Wagner’s armed rebellion on June 24.[81] Lukashenko may be attempting to posture himself as exerting control over Wagner’s presence in Belarus in order to avoid the impression that decisions about Wagner’s future in Belarus are made within the Kremlin and thus undermine Belarusian sovereignty.

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

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

2. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, August 18, 2023

Map and citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-august-18-2023

Key Takeaways  

1. Republic of China (ROC) Vice President and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Lai Ching-te gave an interview with Bloomberg in Taiwan on July 27, which Bloomberg released on August 14. The publication of Lai’s statements in a leading English-language magazine helps him project his message to a wider American audience compared to attacks from the CCP and KMT that aimed to undermine Lai’s legitimacy.
2. KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih emphasized nuclear energy policy during a press conference to burnish his national security credentials. Hou focused on his energy policy to portray the KMT as a responsible party on national security without having to address his cross-strait policy.
3. Typhoon Doksuri made landfall in China on July 28. A CCP directive implemented in November 2022 slowed the PRC’s emergency response to the typhoon, which drew criticism from CCP-affiliated media.

CHINA-TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, AUGUST 18, 2023

Aug 18, 2023 - Press ISW

China-Taiwan Weekly Update, August 18, 2023

Authors: Nils Peterson, Frank Hoffman, and Ian Jones of the Institute for the Study of War

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

Data Cutoff: August 15 at 5pm

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

Key Takeaways  

1. Republic of China (ROC) Vice President and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Lai Ching-te gave an interview with Bloomberg in Taiwan on July 27, which Bloomberg released on August 14. The publication of Lai’s statements in a leading English-language magazine helps him project his message to a wider American audience compared to attacks from the CCP and KMT that aimed to undermine Lai’s legitimacy.
2. KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih emphasized nuclear energy policy during a press conference to burnish his national security credentials. Hou focused on his energy policy to portray the KMT as a responsible party on national security without having to address his cross-strait policy.
3. Typhoon Doksuri made landfall in China on July 28. A CCP directive implemented in November 2022 slowed the PRC’s emergency response to the typhoon, which drew criticism from CCP-affiliated media.

Taiwan Developments

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

Lai Countered CCP-KMT Messaging in a Bloomberg Interview

Republic of China (ROC) Vice President and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Lai Ching-te gave an interview with Bloomberg in Taiwan on July 27, which Bloomberg released on August 14.[1]  Lai emphasized maintaining the status quo with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) across the Taiwan Strait while explaining the basis for ROC’s sovereignty to an American audience. Lai stated he is willing to engage with the PRC so long as there is “parity and dignity.”[2] He elaborated on this phrase by highlighting the basis for cross-strait relations lies in the sovereignty of the ROC. Lai stated the reality that “Taiwan is already a sovereign, independent country called the Republic of China. It is not part of the People’s Republic of China. The ROC and PRC are not subordinate to one another. It is not necessary to declare independence.”[3] This means Lai’s call for engagement with the PRC with “parity and dignity” is based on the PRC treating the ROC as a sovereign equal. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never been willing to meet this condition nor met with a serving DPP leader. The CCP and KMT separately framing Lai as a radical worker for Taiwan's independence serve as political attack lines.[4] These lines inaccurately portray the DPP as working to subvert the existing status quo and do not represent the DPP's position of strengthening their already independent state: the ROC.

The publication of Lai’s statements in a leading English-language magazine helps him project his message to a wider American audience compared to attacks from the CCP and KMT that aimed to undermine Lai’s legitimacy. The DPP-leaning Liberty Times reported on August 1 that KMT Acting Representative in the United States Victor Chin spread rumors in US-Taiwan policy circles that Lai sought to visit the Washington area during his upcoming transit.[5] The KMT sought to portray Lai as a provocateur in the US-ROC relationship in spreading this rumor. Lai’s English-language rejection of Taiwan's independence in favor of Taiwanese sovereignty countered this rumor. KMT Chairman Eric Chu also argued on August 3 that Lai made foreign observers nervous as the “golden grandchild of Taiwan independence.”[6]  The People’s Republic of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Spokesperson Zhu Fenglian issued a statement in response to the interview claiming that Lai is a “troublemaker” and that his “arguments are a complete lie.”[7] The Vice Chairman of the Kuomintang Cultural Association Lin Jiaxing independently echoed this PRC attack on Lai by stating that Lai’s comments and interviews with foreign media have caused confusion and “deepened the world’s worries” about his “pro-independence” stance.[8]

Election Update: Civil Nuclear Policies

KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih emphasized nuclear energy policy during a press conference as a means to burnish his national security credentials. Hou promised to restart the two decommissioned nuclear power plants at Jinshan and Kuosehng and resume maintenance and safety inspections at both sites. He also promised to extend the lifespan of the single remaining operational plant at Maanshan. Hou further stated that he would review the decision to discontinue the construction of a fourth nuclear power plant at Lungmen.[9] Taiwan halted construction at the site in 2014 following years of political, legal, and regulatory delays.[10] Hou also cited the necessity of maintaining a stable energy supply as an imperative national security matter as part of his justification to use nuclear energy.[11] Hou stated that power shortages without nuclear energy are also a concern of Taiwanese citizens, implicitly criticizing the ruling DPP’s energy policy.[12] The DPP criticized Hou for not detailing how he would deal with the plants’ nuclear waste.[13] The ROC Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng also questioned the validity of restarting the decommissioned plants.[14]

Hou emphasized his energy policy to portray the KMT as a responsible party on national security without having to address cross-strait policy, an issue where the ROC’s populace heavily favors the DPP.[15] The KMT’s cross-strait policy emphasizing economic and cultural relations with the PRC is deeply unpopular among the Taiwanese electorate. Recent polling numbers demonstrate the KMT’s unpopularity. Hou is polling last among the three presidential candidates at only 16 percentage points on the question of who could best protect Taiwanese sovereignty.[16] He is also polling last by 16 percentage points in the presidential election.[17]

The points Hou raised during the press conference also distinguish his views on nuclear energy from the DPP’s platform. The DPP has maintained a nuclear-free Taiwan as its party platform since 1999 and has promised to phase out nuclear power by 2025.[18] DPP presidential candidate and Vice President Lai Ching-te has broadly supported President Tsai Ing-wen’s efforts to de-nuclearize Taiwan but advocates for maintaining nuclear plants for emergency use.[19] This discrepancy between the party’s platform and his policy demonstrates that Lai will sacrifice ideological purity on the nuclear issue due to the utility of nuclear energy in select circumstances.

China Developments

This section covers relevant developments pertaining to the People’s Republic of China and the governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Centralization Slowed CCP Response to Typhoon Doksuri

Typhoon Doksuri made landfall in China on July 28. Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered “all-out efforts” on search and rescue and the maintenance of “overall social stability” on August 1.[20] This included mobilizing the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Central Theater command to support response and rescue operations, as well as assist with evacuation efforts. It also included mobilizing more than 500 rescuers from organizations such as the Blue-Sky Rescue Team, which is the PRC’s largest non-governmental humanitarian organization.[21] The typhoon significantly impacted China’s Hebei Province, which wraps around Beijing, bringing the most rainfall that the capital had experienced in 140 years.[22] The state-controlled Global Times reported on August 4 that 133,000 citizens of Zhouzhou, which is 50 miles southwest of Beijing, needed to be evacuated.[23] CCP-aligned news outlet The Paper also attributed the PRC’s slow response to Doksuri to a November 2022 directive from China’s Ministry of Emergency Management. The directive requires any non-public relief organization that seeks to assist in response efforts to obtain an official letter from the Ministry of Emergency Management.[24] The Blue-Sky Rescue Team, for example, explained that its response time was significantly delayed due to having to wait for official permission to deploy to affected areas.[25]

This demonstrates the negative impact that centralization had on incentivizing low level party cadres to take risks and work effectively with the rescue teams to address the emergency. The CCP has historically severely punished officials whom it has judged to lack effectiveness during crisis response.[26] This resulted in local officials not taking charge during this crisis before, according to former Chinese water systems engineer Wang Weiluo, Xi ordered so on August 1.[27]  The failure of the local cadres to integrate emergency response teams in response to Typhoon Doksuri fits into this pattern.

3. Russia risks war with NATO in Black Sea, former top commander in Europe warns

Excerpt:

"If Russia starts seizing vessels or seeks to scare them away, I think it likely NATO will respond by supporting a humanitarian corridor for shipping," Stavridis said. The alliance could protect vessels going to and from the Ukrainian port of Odesa "with NATO combat aircraft overhead and possibly NATO warships in escort.

Russia risks war with NATO in Black Sea, former top commander in Europe warns

Politico · by Gabriel Gavin · August 16, 2023

Politico Pro Free From

Kyiv’s allies may have to establish a shipping corridor after the collapse of the U.N. grain deal, Admiral James Stavridis says.

Tensions in the Black Sea have escalated dramatically since Russia unilaterally withdrew from a U.N. grain deal in July | David Hancock/U.S. Navy via Getty Images

By

August 16, 2023 9:16 pm CET

4 minutes read

Moscow risks sparking a direct war with NATO by intercepting ships in international waters and seeking to impose an economic stranglehold on Ukraine, NATO's former Supreme Allied Commander Europe is warning.

Ex-U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, who led the alliance's forces on the continent between 2009 and 2013, told POLITICO that escalations at sea — including the boarding of a Turkish ship on Sunday — could force Kyiv's partners to intervene to prevent Ukraine's economy being crippled.

"Russia's actions in the international waters of the Black Sea create a real risk of escalating this to a war at sea between NATO and the Russian Federation," said Stavridis. NATO, he went on, "is not going to provide all the weapons and money for Ukraine, only to watch Russia strangle their economy with an illegal blockade."

On Tuesday, Russia's defense ministry confirmed it had fired warning shots before boarding the Şükrü Okan, a Palau-flagged cargo ship that the Ukrainian foreign minister identified as Turkish. Sensitively, the inspection happened in the southwestern Black Sea, off the coast of Turkey, a NATO heavyweight. Stavridis slammed the tactic as "tantamount to piracy," with the Kremlin going to greater lengths to undermine trade between Ukraine and the rest of Europe.

"If Russia starts seizing vessels or seeks to scare them away, I think it likely NATO will respond by supporting a humanitarian corridor for shipping," Stavridis said. The alliance could protect vessels going to and from the Ukrainian port of Odesa "with NATO combat aircraft overhead and possibly NATO warships in escort."

Tensions in the Black Sea have escalated dramatically since Russia unilaterally withdrew from a U.N. grain deal in July and warned that ships traveling to Ukrainian ports could be seen as military targets. In response, Ukraine showed its willingness to target Russian energy exports with a maritime drone attack on a tanker, and declared the waters around Russia's Black Sea ports to be a "war risk area" from August 23.

In response to the Russian withdrawal from the grain deal, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg accused Russia of "dangerous and escalatory actions in the Black Sea," partly also in reference to Russia's bombardment of Ukrainian ports. NATO added it was "stepping up surveillance and reconnaissance in the Black Sea region, including with maritime patrol aircraft and drones."

Stavridis argued that support from NATO members bordering the Black Sea, namely Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, would mean "the Russian Black Sea fleet would be militarily overmatched."

Turkey has urged Russia to rejoin the grain deal and its National Security Council has said that tension in the Black Sea is "not in anyone's benefit." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is reportedly set to meet with Putin at the end of the month, with the cereals trade likely to be on the agenda.

Until Russia's withdrawal, the U.N.-broken grain deal was credited with ensuring that 32.9 million tons of crops safely left Ukraine's Black Sea ports, averting the risk of famine in poorer nations. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his government would "refuse to extend" that agreement, instead electing to provide grain for free to certain African countries on a case-by-case basis.

Following the move, Moscow's armed forces struck Ukrainian grain depots along the Black Sea coast, destroying a reported 60,000 tonnes of food. Russia has also repeatedly hit the Ukrainian Danube river ports of Reni and Izmail, just a few hundred meters from the border with NATO-member Romania, with missile strikes seemingly targeting the grain trade. Moscow's defense ministry warned that “all vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo.”

Despite that, Kyiv has declared a "temporary corridor" for maritime traffic from its southern ports, allowing ships that have been confined to harbor for weeks to enter international waters. On Wednesday, Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov announced that the first vessel, a container ship under the flag of Hong Kong, had set sail, despite the threat from Moscow."

4. NATO must respond to Russia’s provocations in Belarus

Conclusion:

Some may argue that this would provoke Russia. But if there is anything to learn from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it is this: The Alliance’s failure to conduct more forceful deployments to Central Europe in the months leading up to that attack, when Moscow massed forces on Ukraine’s frontiers, only further emboldened Putin. When considering provocations that warrant a snap exercise, recent events in the Suwalki Gap should be at the top of the list.

New Atlanticist

August 17, 2023

NATO must respond to Russia’s provocations in Belarus

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/nato-must-respond-to-russias-provocations-in-belarus/

By Ian Brzezinski

Tensions have escalated in the region surrounding the Suwalki Gap, a strategically significant corridor linking Poland to Lithuania—and thus also to Latvia and Estonia. The narrow corridor is flanked by Russia’s heavily militarized Baltic enclave, Kaliningrad, and Belarus, whose leader, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, is a supplicating ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Were Putin to seize the corridor, the three Baltic states would effectively be cut off from the rest of NATO.

Over the last month, the Wagner Group—a paramilitary group that has served as Russian storm troopers in Ukraine and who are notorious for their brutality—has been prominently training Belarusian special forces at a military range three miles from the Polish border. As many as ten thousand Wagner troops have deployed to Belarus following their June munity against the Russian General Staff, according to a senior commander in the group.

Lukashenka, knowing Polish concerns about the Wagner Group, tried to goad the Poles. He publicly said: “Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I will: We are starting to get stressed out by the Wagnerites. They’re asking to go west: ‘Let us go!’” He added that the Wagner fighters have been talking about an “excursion” to Warsaw and Rzeszow. Earlier this month, two Belarusian helicopters violated Polish airspace near Bialowieza, a region south of the Suwalki Gap. Just last week, Belarus began military exercises in the Grodno region adjacent to the Suwalki Gap, further animating concerns in Poland and Lithuania.

These actions are unsurprisingly consistent with provocations by Putin. In late July, he accused Warsaw of intending to take back territories Soviet leader Joseph Stalin seized from Poland during World War II, including “a good chunk of Ukraine . . . to take back the historic lands.” He added that “it’s well known that they dream of Belarusian lands as well.”

Putin has accompanied his heated rhetoric with military action. In addition to sending the Wagner Group to Belarus, he continues to use Belarusian territory to stage aggression against Ukraine and recently announced that Russia has deployed nuclear weapons to Belarus. In June, Russia conducted a mass military exercise in the Baltic Sea at the same time NATO conducted its annual and long-scheduled BALTOPS naval exercise. This month, Moscow announced the launch in the Baltic of Ocean Shield, an even larger exercise involving six thousand personnel, thirty warships and boats, and thirty aircraft.

Putin’s objectives are obvious. He seeks to probe the Alliance’s defenses. He is trying to seed dissension among the NATO allies. And he is trying to undercut Central European confidence in the Alliance.

The case for a snap exercise

Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia have responded by reinforcing their borders, with Warsaw sending some ten thousand military troops to its frontier with Belarus. But their response should be part of a NATO response to these provocations, one that goes beyond rhetorical condemnation and demonstrates the Alliance’s military readiness and capability.

NATO should conduct a no-notice exercise in the Suwalki Gap, deploying maritime, air, and ground assets from other Alliance member states. The purpose would be to demonstrate and test operational readiness in coordination with Polish and Lithuanian forces and NATO Enhanced Forward Presence battalions now stationed in those two countries. 

The Alliance’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Forces (VTJF) would be an ideal element to serve as the core of this demonstration of force. This force, twenty thousand soldiers strong, features air, maritime, and special operations forces components as well as a multinational land brigade of five thousand troops. Leading elements are tasked to be ready to deploy within three days.

During the Cold War, NATO counterforce deployments exercises were a routine response to military provocations by the Soviet Union, including those similar to what Putin is doing in the region around the Suwalki Gap. NATO needs to do the same today.

A VTJF deployment would demonstrate that NATO does not fear conflict with Russia—an impression that allied leaders have unfortunately contributed to by repeating, mantra-like, that the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must not “NATO-ize” the conflict to avoid World War III. That mantra has only led Putin to question the Alliance’s resoluteness.

Such a deployment would underscore the operationalization of NATO’s new military strategy, which was rolled out at the Alliance’s summit in Vilnius in July. The Concept for Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area is designed to enable the Alliance to more effectively respond to aggression, including provocations such as those that Putin is orchestrating near the Suwalki Gap.

Such a “snap exercise” would contribute to the ongoing rejuvenation of the Alliance’s war-fighting mindset and the practice of rapidly and assertively countering Russian provocations through rigorous demonstrations of resolve, unity, and force.

Some may argue that this would provoke Russia. But if there is anything to learn from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it is this: The Alliance’s failure to conduct more forceful deployments to Central Europe in the months leading up to that attack, when Moscow massed forces on Ukraine’s frontiers, only further emboldened Putin. When considering provocations that warrant a snap exercise, recent events in the Suwalki Gap should be at the top of the list.

Ian Brzezinski is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Formerly, he served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy.

5. Weakened States Pose Problems for War Scenarios

Conclusion:

Defense planners should accordingly account for these political vulnerabilities in their defensive and offensive preparations. In defensive terms, planners should no longer assume a united and stable domestic front. A strike on U.S. forces may not result in a “Pearl Harbor” moment of national unity but merely exacerbate acute and intractable political divisions, much like the COVID-19 pandemic did. Planners must ensure sufficient resources are allocated to control the peril of organized domestic violence. Military operations must also be scaled to what a perpetually fragile state of public support can endure. For offensive operations, China’s vulnerabilities will likely pose lucrative targets. Perpetually discontented minority regions, potential fractures between the central government and powerful regional powerholders, and simmering discontent across the country could combust under the pressures of war. Any attack on China’s domestic security would, of course, invite retaliation in kind. Where the war could escalate from that point cannot be predicted, but in all likelihood, serious domestic threats for both sides would persist so long as the war endures.

Weakened States Pose Problems for War Scenarios

Any question of conflict between the United States and China must take into account diminishing state legitimacy and capacity, the privatization of violence, and the rise of non-state actors and identities.

The National Interest · by Timothy R. Heath · August 17, 2023

When Yevgeny Prigozhin attempted to overthrow the Russian government with his mercenary company, the Wagner Group, Western observers gleefully described the near-coup as proof of President Vladimir Putin’s weakness. But a more careful consideration suggests self-congratulation may be less warranted than worry. Russia’s political weaknesses are severe but exacerbated by three features widely shared by large, industrialized countries, including the United States and China: 1) a weakening state, 2) the privatization of violence, and 3) the increasing power of non-state groups and identities. These features pose difficult but manageable challenges during peacetime and relatively small-scale combat operations. However, the same features could prove combustible under the pressures of a major war. The potential for an armed insurrection of some type can no longer be regarded as unthinkable.

Central governments around the world are experiencing declines in legitimacy owing to their inability to ensure equitable services and opportunities for their citizens amid slowing economic growth and worsening inequality. The United States and Europe have experienced upheaval over police misconduct, receding social welfare benefits, and waning economic prospects. China also faces severe inequality, threadbare social welfare benefits, and diminishing opportunities but has avoided mass protest at the cost of relentless repression and political indoctrination. Yet the outbreak of anti-Xi protests over the Zero-Covid restrictions showed the limits of Beijing’s iron-fisted approach. Across the industrialized world, discontent simmers.

The privatization of violence exacerbates the problem of weakening legitimacy. The state’s eroding monopoly on violence is occurring in the form of violence by criminals and other private actors, as well as through a deepening dependence on military contractors. In the United States, violence committed by criminals, lone gunmen, and political extremists has terrified populations and eroded confidence in law enforcement. Distrust of authorities has, in turn, motivated individuals to procure their own weapons to protect themselves. China’s level of violent crime remains as high as that of the United States, with news frequently carrying reports of knife-wielding mass killings. Collusion between the police and mafia gangs has further eroded public confidence in local authorities.

The weakening legitimacy of nation-states carries profound consequences for the militaries that serve them. As a state’s legitimacy declines, so does the willingness of young people to fight for them. Militaries have little choice but to rely on well-compensated professionals and, increasingly, contractors. About half the personnel serving in U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were contractors, for example, and virtually all of China’s overseas security operations are undertaken by contractors. Thus, states are experiencing a decline in their monopoly on violence and a loosening grip on their armed forces.

Third, the declining legitimacy of central governments and the privatization of violence coincides with the increasing appeal of non-state groups and identities. For many citizens, ethnic, religious, pop culture, and other identities and groups have become more compelling than patriotism. Subnational and transnational identity groups can wield outsized influence thanks in part to the amplifying effect of digital media. As trust in the government erodes, such communities may view authorities as obstacles or even predators. In the United States, armed militia groups have threatened elected officials, for example, while in China, minority groups have lashed out violently against the state’s repression, and clientelism increasingly dominates local politics and industry.

Fragmentation goes beyond non-state actors. Subnational governments have become more resistant to national authority as well. In the United States, political polarization and persistent low trust in the federal government have exacerbated problems of defiance by state governments. Armed militias and aggrieved individuals occasionally threaten government authorities, as happened in the stunning attempts to kidnap Michigan’s governor or in the attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband. China’s provinces routinely defy Beijing’s demands to curtail counterproductive economic practices that compound debt problems. Chinese officials have also struggled to control defiant populations in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. And prospects for compelling Taiwan’s subordination appear more remote than ever.

The combination of weakened states, the privatization of violence, and the growing power of non-state and subnational groups, governments, and identities raise new security risks for all states. These trends have long wrought havoc across the developing world but also increasingly menace the developed world. The perils remain modest in peacetime because a developed state’s resources suffice to ensure an uneasy stability. For similar reasons, small-scale military operations that demand little in terms of additional taxes or conscripted labor also pose little threat to national stability. After all, President Putin faced little danger when he waged myriad minor conflicts from 2008–2014. China similarly managed a brawl with India on its border and has carried out various gray zone operations in the first island chain with little threat of instability. And the United States has for years sustained relatively small-scale operations, particularly in counter-terrorism, after scaling back its large-scale commitments in Iraq in the face of widespread war wariness.

However, shocks or immense strains can expose lingering vulnerabilities. In the United States, the devastation inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with considerable upheaval, culminating in the unprecedented January 6, 2023 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of infuriated citizens. In China, the accumulated stress of rapid growth, acute inequality, and pervasive corruption fueled hundreds of daily local protests beginning in the 1990s. To cope with the unrest, the internal security budget surged and, since 2010, has exceeded the defense budget. The ruthless Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai exploited discontent by cultivating a political style that antagonized Beijing. Alarmed, Chinese leaders eventually brought about his downfall. Moreover, Xi Jinping has carried out a massive crackdown under the banner of “anti-corruption” while enforcing brutal repression and relentless political indoctrination to deter further challengers and control unrest.

Large-scale war between two of the wealthiest powers in the world could push these states past their breaking point. Many war games explore the scenarios where U.S. and Chinese military forces collide in the South China Sea. But the political risks of war may not appear until well after those hypothetical clashes. Russia’s military forces performed poorly, but Putin’s control remained intact during the first few months of the invasion. Difficulties arose when the country exhausted its pool of professional troops. When unenthusiastic conscripts performed disappointingly, Moscow turned to Wagner’s contract soldiers, who exploited their leverage. Other military leaders subsequently challenged Moscow’s authority, and Putin’s grip has accordingly appeared doubtful.

Similarly, the United States and China would likely require more trained troops after their initial clashes. Although much attention has focused on the challenges of replenishing munitions and weapons, refilling the ranks of highly trained troops could prove even more problematic. Military service remains widely unpopular in post-industrial societies, partially because their militaries already rely so heavily on well-compensated professionals and contractors. A war involving massive casualties and a decline in living standards—as a U.S.-China war would almost certainly entail—would probably erode popular support for the two governments even further.

Replenishing troops would require either conscription or contractors. The United States might favor contractors to avoid the political upheaval that might accompany conscription. China, by contrast, might probably favor conscription over the politically perilous expedient of recruiting contractors who felt little obligation to the Chinese Communist Party. Russia’s experience suggests the former could offer better battlefield performance at the price of doubtful control. In contrast, conscription might offer stronger political control at the cost of uncertain battlefield performance. And with available resources committed to the war effort, fewer would be open to address domestic needs. An unpopular war by a government incapable of meeting the needs of the people would be extremely vulnerable to political upheaval. The spread of domestic disorder and violence would only sap support for the government even further. Amid such a volatile condition, a few disastrous battles or unexpected setbacks could be enough cause to spark intrastate violence or an armed rebellion.

Whether private groups, contractors, or elements of the national military might risk violence amid a large-scale U.S.-China war is unknowable. But there are sound reasons to be concerned. Throughout history, warfare has frequently consisted of a considerable commingling of interstate and intrastate war. The industrial age in which consolidated, unified states experienced secure home fronts while waging major war remains historically abnormal. Russia’s case suggests this anomalous period may be ending. Russia’s institutional weaknesses are far graver than those of the United States or China. Still, the past few years show that the United States, China, and other major countries have significant political liabilities of their own. In a large-scale war, the danger that violent civil conflict, military insubordination, or popular rebellion could erupt cannot be discounted. Organized domestic violence could take different forms. Disaffected non-state actors could exploit the uncertain environment to challenge authorities. Alienated communities could attack other communities. Emboldened political rivals could attempt to seize power. Such dramatic actions are commonplace in fragile developing countries today. They could emerge in some form in the United States or China if weakened by the stresses of a major war.

Defense planners should accordingly account for these political vulnerabilities in their defensive and offensive preparations. In defensive terms, planners should no longer assume a united and stable domestic front. A strike on U.S. forces may not result in a “Pearl Harbor” moment of national unity but merely exacerbate acute and intractable political divisions, much like the COVID-19 pandemic did. Planners must ensure sufficient resources are allocated to control the peril of organized domestic violence. Military operations must also be scaled to what a perpetually fragile state of public support can endure. For offensive operations, China’s vulnerabilities will likely pose lucrative targets. Perpetually discontented minority regions, potential fractures between the central government and powerful regional powerholders, and simmering discontent across the country could combust under the pressures of war. Any attack on China’s domestic security would, of course, invite retaliation in kind. Where the war could escalate from that point cannot be predicted, but in all likelihood, serious domestic threats for both sides would persist so long as the war endures.

Timothy R. Heath is a senior international defense researcher with the RAND Corporation.

Image: Shutterstock.

The National Interest · by Timothy R. Heath · August 17, 2023

6. Should the West Fear Putin’s Fall?

Yes if we are not prepared for the contingency.

Less so if we are prepared.

What have we done to prepare for such a contingency?

But perhaps we would be more afraid of his successor? Are we shaping the information environment to influence a successor? E.g., to give him (or her) options if Putin is deposed (or dies)?

Excerpts:

Putin, for his part, has used a strategy long favored by dictators. He has ruthlessly suppressed the liberal-minded opposition at home while tolerating extreme nationalist critics, including those who call for a nuclear strike against Ukraine, Europe and even the U.S. Their posturing has made him look like the lesser evil, a relative moderate on the Russian political stage.

“It’s hard to think that a successor to Putin is going to be any better,” Sen. Shaheen said. “The fact is that we’ve got an autocratic, dictatorial society where civil society groups have not been allowed to operate, where non-government organizations have been thrown out and where the media has been silenced.”

Retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan, a former U.S. defense attaché in Moscow, points out that Putin’s critics inside the Russian establishment are not calling for peace. “They would be coming into power not to end the war but to improve the execution of the war,” he said. “Their slogan as they take power would be: ‘President Putin has failed us. We didn’t do what we said we were going to do.’ It isn’t a question about how to pull back and slow down. This is about how to escalate it to truly get what they need.”

As Wagner troops marched on Moscow in June, the Biden administration was anxious not to be seen as supporting the mutiny. Senior officials reached out to Ukraine and NATO members bordering Russia, urging them not to make any moves that could be interpreted as taking advantage of Russia’s domestic turmoil.

“You can imagine people running that country who would be more erratic and undisciplined,” a senior Biden administration official said. “But Putin has been pretty erratic himself.”

Should the West Fear Putin’s Fall?

Some believe the war in Ukraine won’t end until Russia’s president is deposed, but a takeover by a more radical or less predictable successor would carry big risks of its own.

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/should-the-west-fear-putins-fall-f4e0a818

By Yaroslav TrofimovFollow

Aug. 18, 2023 12:26 pm ET

Presiding over a conference in late July titled “Russia: The Land of Possibilities,” President Vladimir Putin flinched as a tourism official described plans to hold the traditional spring picnics called mayovka. Under the czar, the Bolsheviks had used these seasonal outings as a ruse to conceal their subversive plotting.

“Mayovka is an alarming word,” Putin said, furrowing his eyebrows. “I hope this is a mayovka that won’t lead to a revolution, because we have already exhausted the limit for revolutions in the previous century.”

“We are for evolutions,” the official assured him, smiling uncomfortably.

Since the June 24 mutiny by the Wagner paramilitary group, which revealed so plainly the brittleness of the Russian regime, the possibility of a revolution, coup or other forced end of Putin’s 23-year reign has appeared more likely.

The war that Putin has unleashed on Ukraine continues to go badly. Russia’s generals and troops are now grumbling more openly about losses and failures as they fight to stop a Ukrainian offensive. The Russian president’s onetime aura of strength is steadily dissipating. Wagner’s uprising has “exposed the inexorable decay of the unstable autocracy over which Putin presides,” said Richard Moore, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, in a recent speech.

On all sides of the conflict, minds are increasingly focused on what a post-Putin Russia might look like. Would his successor be better or worse for Ukraine, the outside world, and Russians themselves? And what policy changes today could produce a desirable outcome?

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, seen here in 2019, says ‘It’s hard to think that a successor to Putin is going to be any better.’ PHOTO: PETE MAROVICH/GETTY IMAGES

Planning is difficult given the uncertainties of Russian politics and the West’s limited ability to exert influence there. And for all his current troubles, Putin, who turns 71 in October, could still be around for years to come. “You have to be very careful about making assumptions about what may happen,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, who is a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations. “It may be a greater risk, and it may be a greater opportunity. We don’t have an answer to that yet.”

In the debate now taking place, Russian opposition groups, Ukraine and some of Russia’s immediate neighbors highlight the potential upside of Putin’s fall. Virtually anyone would be better than Putin, they say, for the simple reason that a successor wouldn’t own the war and would find it easier—and perhaps politically expedient—to extricate Russia from what is by far its deadliest conflict since World War II.

“As long as Putin is in place, the war will go on,” said Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, one of the leading personalities of the anti-Putin opposition in exile. “The one thing that we know with certainty is that Putin will continue the war until the very end, until the last dollar, until the last soldier. For him, war is the only way to maintain power.”

In Washington and some other Western capitals, however, the dominant mood is caution. To many officials, the Wagner revolt underscored the risks of a takeover by a more radical and less predictable Russian nationalist, who could unleash much deadlier repression to shore up the regime.

Despite making the catastrophic mistake of invading Ukraine, they say, Putin so far has refrained from executing enemies at home and has remained a calculating, rational actor when it comes to nuclear escalation. That may not be the case with a more impulsive and less experienced successor.

The ease with which Wagner mutineers advanced on Moscow before aborting their June uprising also conjured the possibility of a full collapse of the Russian state and its breakup into rival nuclear-armed fragments. Some Western officials who previously feared a strong Russia now dread the prospect of a Russia that’s too weak and unstable—a concern that has affected discussions of what sort of military aid to provide Kyiv.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, in Rostov-on-Don during the mutiny on June 24. PHOTO: ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

Putin, for his part, has used a strategy long favored by dictators. He has ruthlessly suppressed the liberal-minded opposition at home while tolerating extreme nationalist critics, including those who call for a nuclear strike against Ukraine, Europe and even the U.S. Their posturing has made him look like the lesser evil, a relative moderate on the Russian political stage.

“It’s hard to think that a successor to Putin is going to be any better,” Sen. Shaheen said. “The fact is that we’ve got an autocratic, dictatorial society where civil society groups have not been allowed to operate, where non-government organizations have been thrown out and where the media has been silenced.”

Retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan, a former U.S. defense attaché in Moscow, points out that Putin’s critics inside the Russian establishment are not calling for peace. “They would be coming into power not to end the war but to improve the execution of the war,” he said. “Their slogan as they take power would be: ‘President Putin has failed us. We didn’t do what we said we were going to do.’ It isn’t a question about how to pull back and slow down. This is about how to escalate it to truly get what they need.”

As Wagner troops marched on Moscow in June, the Biden administration was anxious not to be seen as supporting the mutiny. Senior officials reached out to Ukraine and NATO members bordering Russia, urging them not to make any moves that could be interpreted as taking advantage of Russia’s domestic turmoil.

“You can imagine people running that country who would be more erratic and undisciplined,” a senior Biden administration official said. “But Putin has been pretty erratic himself.”

The one event most likely to trigger a regime change in Moscow in the foreseeable future would be a comprehensive Russian military defeat in Ukraine. But the war is nowhere near that point. The situation on the front lines has not been catastrophic for Russia so far this year. Ukraine’s long-anticipated offensive, launched in June, has made only limited gains, encountering stiff Russian resistance as Washington withheld long-range missiles requested by Kyiv and slow-rolled permissions to supply F-16 jet fighters owned by European allies.

Regardless of front-line developments, limiting military assistance to Ukraine over concerns about Russia’s domestic situation would be a strategic mistake, many Western officials argue.

“We don’t want an unstable Russia,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in an interview. “But we have to relate to the present, which is that Russia has waged a fully-fledged war on a neighboring country, and for all the other neighbors that has huge implications. “

As a historical matter, revolutions in Russia have usually been triggered by military setbacks: losing a war against Japan in 1905, huge casualties during World War I, and the failure to secure Afghanistan in the 1980s, which was one of the factors that precipitated the Soviet Union’s dissolution.

Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, where military failure hastened the fall of the U.S.S.R. PHOTO: MIKHAIL EVSTAFIEV/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP/GETTY IMAGES

Putin himself alluded to that history during the Wagner uprising, saying that the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 “had stolen the victory” of Russian soldiers and resulted “in a giant cataclysm, the destruction of the army and the collapse of the state, with the loss of huge territories.”

Ukraine’s supporters argue that fears of a similar collapse today are as misplaced as the West’s trepidation about the consequences of the Soviet Union’s breakup in 1991. At the time, President George H.W. Bush famously argued for keeping the U.S.S.R. together in the name of stability, and in a speech to the Ukrainian parliament he urged Ukrainians to remain under President Mikhail Gorbachev’s control.

“Exactly the same arguments were used when Gorbachev was there: Let’s not rock the boat, or the Soviet empire will collapse. But when the Soviet Union did collapse, it was good for many countries that finally got their freedom back,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in an interview. “We shouldn’t really think this way about Putin. This ‘stable’ Russia has launched a full-scale war. We can’t influence internal processes that are going on inside Russia, but I don’t think it can be any worse than it is right now.”

In Ukraine, hopes run high that internal tensions in Russia would make it impossible for Moscow to continue prosecuting the war. Kyiv’s HUR military intelligence service is sponsoring Russian exile military formations that occasionally make cross-border raids into Russia’s Belgorod region and proclaim their desire to seize Moscow. Militarily useless but politically symbolic Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow aim to embarrass Putin and make it harder for him to retain the support of Russian elites. HUR chief Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov has even displayed in his office a map of Russia dismembered into several independent statelets.

“Anyone else coming to power after Putin will have the ability to be more flexible and more moderate, not because he is a better person but because doing so would be more advantageous to him,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former minister of defense. “These are intelligent people, and they understand perfectly well what they are doing. When the day comes, they will be running one after another, shouting that they were the first who had tried to do something to stop this.”

The trajectory of Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin, who remains a political force in Russia after striking a deal with Putin to abort the June rebellion, appears to validate such hopes. Initially one of the most ferocious advocates of the war in Ukraine, Prigozhin declared in June that it had been based on false premises and could have been avoided if Putin had shown enough flexibility, though he stopped short of calling for a withdrawal. Many Russian liberal opposition leaders, and even some of the Ukrainian-backed Russian insurgents, voiced their support for his march on Moscow.

“Prigozhin was clearly part of a group that sought to end a war that is impossible to win,” Kasparov said. “He is a scoundrel and a war criminal, but he looks at things differently. The fact that Prigozhin would send Putin to The Hague should he find it to be expedient one day is beyond doubt.”

Such expectations are too optimistic, countered Michael Kofman, a Russia military expert at the Carnegie Endowment. “The majority of leaders who inherit wars continue them. They’re locked into them, and often they escalate them in an attempt to end the war that their predecessor had created,” he said. “Another leader may not have Putin’s fixation on Ukraine, but nonetheless may not have any other way out because Putin has already begun to convert the Russian economy and the Russian state onto a wartime footing, and politically it would be very risky to start converting it back.”

While successors to strong authoritarian leaders tend to be less repressive at home, Kofman added, they aren’t necessarily safer for the outside world. Nikita Khrushchev, who took over after Stalin’s death in 1953, emptied most of the Gulag prison camps and ended his predecessor’s policies of mass murder and deporting entire ethnic groups. But Khrushchev also pursued a more reckless foreign policy, risking nuclear annihilation during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. “A next Russian leader is likely to be better, but not necessarily better for Ukraine—in the same way that Khrushchev wasn’t better for the United States during the Cold War than Stalin,” Kofman said.

A Russian ICBM test in October 2022. Putin has been rational and calculating when it comes to nuclear escalation in Ukraine, which may not be the case with a less experienced successor. PHOTO: RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Much will depend on how any future change in the Kremlin occurs. The best hope for peace may lie in a choreographed succession that happens with the agreement of the main factions of Russia’s elites, said Samuel Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College London.

A regime that retains unity and control over the state propaganda machine could “explain to people that Putin was a war criminal and that he lied to people and there was no reason to go to war,” he said. A return to competitive politics, by contrast, could complicate that task: “It becomes very difficult to see an elected leader winning votes by explaining to people that they were being lied to and that they were wrong.”

Elites who disagree over Putin’s succession could also fight it out in the streets rather than at the ballot box, said Marat Gelman, a former Putin adviser and one-time senior state TV executive who has now embraced the anti-regime opposition. “The threat of a civil war is evident,” he said. “Putin has destroyed all the institutions. If he leaves power, the regions will no longer submit to the center the way they do now.”

In any case, given the tensions bubbling up within Russia, the country’s next leader would likely have to focus first on consolidating power at home and fending off rivals. “Anybody after Putin could be worse than Putin,” said Reinhard Bütikofer, a German member of the European Parliament. “But he would certainly be weaker than Putin.”

Yaroslav Trofimov is The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent.

Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the August 19, 2023, print edition as 'Should the West Fear Putin’s Fall? Hopes and Fears for A Post-Putin Russia'.

7. A Defense Agreement Likely to Deepen Chinese Rancor

Remember what Xi told former ROK President Moon in 2017: The three "No's" – no more THAAD, no integrated missile defense, and no trilateral alliance. We are de facto presenting him with the 2d and 3d "no."

A Defense Agreement Likely to Deepen Chinese Rancor

By David Pierson and Olivia Wang

Aug. 19, 2023, 

5:06 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by Olivia Wang · August 19, 2023

What its signers, Japan, South Korea and the United States, call deterrence, China characterizes as encirclement, even provocation.

President Biden hosted President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea, left, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan at Camp David on Friday.Credit...Samuel Corum for The New York Times

By David Pierson and

Aug. 19, 2023, 5:06 a.m. ET

Ever since members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization sprang into action to help Ukraine try to thwart Russia’s invasion last year, China has warned about a similar U.S.-led security alliance forming in Asia that would seek to hobble Beijing’s ambitions and provoke a confrontation.

President Biden’s Camp David summit on Friday with the leaders of Japan and South Korea most likely reinforces Beijing’s perception. The talks saw Japan and South Korea put aside their historical animosities to forge a defense pact with the United States aimed at deterring Chinese and North Korean aggression.

Mr. Biden, who met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea, sought to emphasize at a news conference that the summit was not “anti-China.” But Beijing will almost certainly find Mr. Biden’s assertion unpersuasive. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has accused the United States of leading Western countries in the “all-around containment, encirclement and suppression of China.”

“It is appropriate to say that the Camp David summit is possibly a starting shot for a new cold war,” Lu Chao, an expert on Korean Peninsula issues with the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Communist Party newspaper, the Global Times, on Friday.

A screen showing footage of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing, in July. Mr. Xi has accused the United States of leading an international campaign of “encirclement and suppression of China.”Credit...Tingshu Wang/Reuters

The Camp David agreement requires the United States, Japan and Korea to hold annual talks, expand joint military exercises, and establish a three-way hotline for crisis communications. In a statement, the countries also criticized China’s “dangerous and aggressive behavior” in the South China Sea and reaffirmed the “importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

The language on Taiwan, which could be read as a warning to Beijing not to attempt to take the island by force, will most likely rankle Chinese leaders for drawing Japan and South Korea closer into a dispute that has traditionally been restricted to the United States, China and Taiwan. Just this week, China’s defense minister, Li Shangfu, visited Moscow and warned against “playing with fire” when it came to Taiwan. He added that any effort to “use Taiwan to contain China” would “surely end in failure.”

The Camp David agreement follows a string of moves by the Biden administration that Beijing views as hostile. Those include a clampdown on China’s access to advanced chip technology; a three-way security agreement with Australia and Britain; the strengthening of the so-called Quad grouping of the United States, India, Australia and Japan; and an increased American military presence in the Philippines.

As the United States, Japan and South Korea have drawn closer, China has responded largely by doubling down on the strategy that has been a source of concern to Washington and its allies in the region.

Li Shangfu, China’s defense minister, left, and Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, at a conference Tuesday in Moscow.Credit...Yuri Kochetkov/EPA, via Shutterstock

China has been holding joint military exercises with Russia, notably on Japan’s doorstep and near Alaska. It has pressed its claim over Taiwan with a steady increase of military pressure, including by launching a new round of air and naval drills on Saturday. It has been engaging in increasingly provocative behavior in the South China Sea.

In a possible sign that tensions could escalate further in the region, Japan said on Friday that it scrambled fighter jets to track two Russian patrol aircraft seen flying between the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, where Russia and China were holding joint naval exercises.

A day earlier, 11 Chinese and Russian naval ships, including destroyers, were spotted sailing between the southern islands of Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture, northeast of Taiwan. China has increasingly concentrated military drills on Taiwan’s east coast facing the Pacific Ocean as part of an “all-around encirclement” strategy aimed at demonstrating how the island can be choked off from outside help.

“Sending 11 ships in a joint patrol with Russia close to Okinawa is either a response to the Camp David agreement, or an explanation for why Tokyo and Seoul are strengthening their own defense capabilities and alliances,” said Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore and a former U.S. Defense Department official on China.

A still image from a video, released by Russian Defense Ministry, showed what it said to be Russian and Chinese navy ships jointly patrolling the Pacific Ocean and holding naval exercises in the East China Sea on Friday.Credit...Russian Defense Ministry, via Reuters

“Deterrence is increasingly hard to come by in northeast Asia, so I fully expect all the parties to redouble their respective efforts,” he added.

China indicated that the joint air and naval drills around Taiwan on Saturday were in response to a recent visit to the United States by Taiwan’s vice president, Lai Ching-te. China has objected to even brief stopovers in the United States by Taiwanese officials.The exercises were just as likely to be directed at the United States, which Beijing has openly criticized for its support of Taiwan.

Beijing has often warned Tokyo and Seoul not to be drawn into the Taiwan issue, depicting Washington as a puppet master manipulating its allies. In an editorial on Wednesday, the Global Times likened South Korea to a “kindergarten child receiving a sticker from their teacher” by agreeing to attend the summit at Camp David. That excitement, the editorial said, should instead be replaced with “a sense of deep trepidation and caution.”

China has also invoked ethnicity to try to drive a wedge between the sides. Last month, Wang Yi, the country’s top diplomat, warned Japan and South Korea that “no matter how yellow you dye your hair, or how sharp you make your nose, you’ll never turn into a European or American.”

Chinese analysts expressed skepticism that Seoul and Tokyo can set aside problems in their relationship stemming from Japan’s brutal, decades-long occupation of the Korean Peninsula in the first part of the 20th century.

College students protesting a visit to Japan by President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea, in March, in front of a statue symbolizing Korean laborers forced to work in Japan during colonial rule.Credit...Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press

“Their relations still face many barriers,” said Zhao Minghao, a professor at the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University. “Beijing will on one hand express worry and dissatisfaction, but on the other hand, continue observing” for cracks in the alliance.

Beijing has dangled economic incentives as recently as this month by increasing the flow of Chinese outbound tourists to Japan. The strategy underscores the economic heft of China, which is the top trading partner for both Japan and South Korea. It is also a reminder of the possibility that China might retaliate with economic measures. In 2017, China boycotted many South Korean businesses and shunned its K-pop stars after Seoul allowed the United States to deploy an antimissile system in South Korea.

To China’s chagrin, Russia’s war in Ukraine has brought Japan and South Korea closer to NATO. Mr. Kishida paid a surprise visit to Ukraine in March and met with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Japan has also supplied Ukraine with 100 military trucks.

That has deepened fears in Beijing of a so-called mini-NATO in Asia, though Friday’s agreement falls short of mirroring the trans-Atlantic alliance in a crucial way. The Camp David pact requires the United States, Japan and South Korea to treat any security threat to one as a threat to all and to respond by holding mutual discussions. That is far less stringent than NATO’s Article 5, which requires members to “take action” if one is attacked.

Now, China will be watching for signs that the alliance will expand, drawing in other countries like the Philippines, said Song Zhongping, a commentator in Beijing who is a former military officer. Mr. Song called that a “worst-case scenario” for China because it would create an “Indo-Pacific NATO.”

President Ferdinand E. Marcos Jr. of Philippines inspecting an artillery system during joint military exercises with U.S. forces, in the Philippines in April.Credit...Ezra Acayan for The New York Times

Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based scholar who focuses on U.S.-China ties, said the new alliance should not overly threaten China, especially if it was more defensive in nature.

“We believe that Japan and South Korea understand the big picture and won’t jointly challenge China because they are not able to,” Mr. Shen said. “There is no need for China to worry because they are smart. They know they cannot defeat China.”

Hisako Ueno contributed reporting.

David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. More about David Pierson

Olivia Wang covers news in mainland China and Hong Kong for The New York Times. She joined The Times in 2022. She has a master’s degree in journalism and bachelor’s degree in social sciences from the University of Hong Kong. More about Olivia Wang

The New York Times · by Olivia Wang · August 19, 2023

8. Opinion | What just happened: Storm clouds loom for China’s economy

Excerpts:

A slowing economy and fears of a coming period of deflation pose a very real risk for the party and for Xi if they can no longer point to a booming economy to justify their authoritarian grip. High youth unemployment, plus a collapse of the property sector — where most Chinese invest their savings — is a potentially combustible combination.

Autocrats facing domestic troubles often look for an overseas crisis to deflect attention from problems. China has lately become more bellicose toward Taiwan and more assertive in the South China Sea. As the economic news worsens, the danger of a potential conflict will likely increase.

Opinion | What just happened: Storm clouds loom for China’s economy

The Washington Post · by Washington Post Staff · August 18, 2023

The latest news from China is ominous. A range of indicators suggests that Beijing is facing economic headwinds. Growth has failed to meet expectations. Foreign investment is sagging. The crucial housing market is soft. Companies and government institutions are struggling under mounds of debt. On Thursday, the giant property developer China Evergrande filed for bankruptcy. On top of all this comes news that the economy has entered deflation — raising fears of a downward spiral of the type that crippled mighty Japan in the 1990s.

What does it all mean? We asked our columnists to weigh in.

Sebastian Mallaby: Demographics are destiny

The deep cause of China’s economic slowdown — and the strongest reason to believe that it is lasting — is its demographic collapse. Last year the country’s population fell for the first time since 1961, a landmark that had not been expected until 2029 or later. From here on, China’s demographic decline will accelerate: The United Nations projects that the country’s head count will plummet from today’s 1.4 billion to below 800 million by century’s end. You have to go back to the plagues and famines of the late medieval period to find a loss of population so severe.

China is following the pattern of other high-saving, high-investment economies in Northeast Asia. Economic systems that suppress consumption and living standards eventually face a comeuppance: They create legions of stressed young couples who don’t want to make babies. Accordingly, China is one of the world’s most expensive places to raise a family, a fact that has driven fertility down to an all-time low of 1.2 children per woman. In 2021, the government adopted a pronatalist “three-child policy,” but fertility is one thing that central planners don’t control.

But China’s rock-bottom fertility also reflects distinctly Chinese characteristics — specifically, the authoritarianism of the Communist Party. Because of selective abortion and neglect of baby girls, China has around 30 million fewer females than males. And because China experiences steady net outward migration, it cannot fix its problem by attracting foreigners. Mobile and aspirational people tend to shun aggressively authoritarian regimes.

The rapid fall in China’s population delivers a double punch to the country’s prospects. Fewer workers mean less growth: Over the next 75 years, China’s working-age population will contract even faster than its general population. At the same time, the graying of the population will fuel pressure for more welfare spending — witness this year’s street protests against medical insurance reforms by tens of thousands of seniors in Wuhan and Dalian.

Even with its population falling below 800 million by 2100, China is projected to be the world’s second-most-populous country, with twice as many people as the United States. But China is going to change substantially. It will play less of a role as the world’s brash insurgent, gobbling up export markets and clamoring to buy companies and real estate. It will be more the grumpy incumbent, worried about its creaking welfare system and stubbornly low growth.

Catherine Rampell: Discontent among the young

For generations, the Chinese Communist Party has held onto power partly through an implicit bargain with its citizenry: Sacrifice your freedoms, and in exchange we’ll guarantee ever-rising living standards.

That deal has not held up for today’s youths.

Until quite recently, China’s young people seemed poised to take on the world — and many of them appeared to believe they would. They’ve shown a streak of hyper-nationalism, stoked by the country’s leadership and reinforced by China’s growing economic and geopolitical strength. China’s Gen Z came of age, after all, in the wake of the country’s accession to the World Trade Organization and amid a rapid rise in incomes. China’s resilience in the wake of the financial crisis, particularly relative to the sluggish recovery across most of the West, suggested China and its citizens had nowhere to go but up. Political dysfunction in many of those same Western democracies, expertly exploited by Chinese propaganda, reinforced this perception, too.

Chinese youths are also more educated than ever before, with a record 11.6 million estimated to graduate college this year. This is an incredible achievement for a country where, as recently as 2000, roughly 1 in 10 adults was not considered literate.

But the post-covid economic slowdown has caused job opportunities, particularly those in tech and other fields coveted by new grads, to dry up.

Youth unemployment has been climbing all year, with the jobless rate for those ages 16 to 24 hitting an all-time high of 21.3 percent in June. Then this week, the government suspended the data series altogether. Young people who do find work are often subject to grueling, 72-hour workweeks and burnout. A rash of media stories report that many 20-somethings are dropping their careers to become “full-time children,” meaning they’re exiting the formal job market and receiving a stipend from their parents to focus on chores and other filial duties.

Rather than continue to dangle ever-rising wealth and employment prospects before Gen Z, or even express much empathy for their dashed hopes, Chinese leadership has basically told young people to stop whining and ratchet down their expectations. President Xi Jinping has said young people must learn to “eat bitterness” (an idiom that roughly means to toughen up by enduring hardship). Today’s youths, leaders say, are not too good for manual labor or moving to the countryside — experiences Xi and his generation once had to endure.

Perhaps it’s unsurprising that the end of the country’s draconian lockdowns coincided with a surge in emigration. Reports of disillusionment among young people are now common; the question ahead is whether any resulting frustration and anger will be turned inward or outward.

Lawrence H. Summers: China’s economy is finally hitting a wall

There can now be little doubt that just as the conventional wisdom way overstated the economic prospects of Russia in 1960 and Japan in 1990, so have China’s prospects been greatly exaggerated in this decade. Indeed, I think there is a good chance that, measured at market exchange rates, U.S. gross domestic product will exceed China’s for the remainder of this decade.

As with Russia and Japan, this reflects the fact that countries whose growth is driven by super-high capital investment in manufacturing eventually hit a wall. As in those cases, it reflects demographic disaster, with the number of births in China now less than half of what they were seven years ago and marriage rates collapsing. On top of that, China’s export growth engine is stalled by a lack of global willingness to accept more of its production, and its infrastructure and real estate sectors still must work off the massive overbuilding of recent years.

In Russia and Japan, tremendous technology — exemplified by Sputnik in the case of the Soviet Union and electronics leadership in Japan — was not enough to prevent relative economic decline. The same will likely be true in China, even if it were to end its corrosive political interference with top companies. What does all this mean for the United States? No one should conclude that we can be complacent about the Chinese geopolitical challenge. Indeed, nations that see the economic route to glory foreclosed can become irrational and dangerous.

It is not Xi’s intention to wish us well; he does not seek to be slotted into the global order on our terms or desire to maintain current balances of power. Our buildup of alliances needs to be complemented by increased national security spending and firm signals that aggression will not be tolerated.

At the same time, however, we must be careful that valid security concerns do not lead to economic policies that provoke the very kinds of aggression that worry us most.

Policies that limit commerce with China are surely necessary in some areas on national security grounds. But contrary to what is often asserted by advocates, they exacerbate inflation, reduce the purchasing power of middle-class incomes and interfere with American competitiveness.

To build on national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s recent formulation, if we’re going to fence off some “yards” of our economy from China, it is at least as important going forward that yards be small as it is that the fences be high.

Max Boot: Be careful what you wish for

For the past decade, Americans have been transfixed by the specter of a rising China. We’ve worried that the Chinese economy would destroy American jobs and that the Chinese military would draw the United States into a war over Taiwan. Now comes evidence that China’s economy is stagnating — and those problems are unlikely to go away, because China’s population is rapidly aging and declining. The “Chinese century” might be over before it has begun.

That should be good news, right? Not so fast.

China has been a chief driver of the global economy for the past two decades. Imports of Chinese goods keep prices low for U.S. consumers and China’s purchases of U.S. Treasury bills keep interest rates lower than they would otherwise be for U.S. home buyers. The loss of jobs to China ended around 2010, while the creation of new jobs linked to China trade continues. U.S. exports to China amounted to $192 billion in goods and services and supported more than a million U.S. jobs in 2021. Little wonder that Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen warns that China’s current economic slowdown is a “risk factor” for the U.S. economy.

There is geopolitical risk as well. Although conventional wisdom dating to the time of Thucydides has it that we should fear revisionist powers on the rise, the historical record indicates that declining revisionist powers might be even more dangerous. Germany, notes Hal Brands of Johns Hopkins University, launched both World War I and World War II in a mood of “deep pessimism caused by the fear of impending decline.” More recently, Russia, a country in a demographic death spiral, launched an invasion of Ukraine in the hope of reclaiming lost imperial glory.

China’s economic slowdown could cause Xi to pursue more authoritarian and militaristic policies — even an invasion of Taiwan — to contain rising domestic discontent and channel popular anger against external foes. Paul Heer, a former U.S. national intelligence officer for East Asia, warns that U.S. export-control policies and tariffs are creating a convenient scapegoat, allowing Xi to blame the United States for China’s economic woes. “We should take no comfort in China’s economic slowdown,” Heer told me, “because it will probably increase domestic tensions and problems inside China, which has never been a good thing for the U.S., or for U.S.-China relations.”

In short, evidence of China’s economic woes should be filed under “be careful what you wish for.” A declining China might be more dangerous than a rising China.

Josh Rogin: A great economy is simply not Xi’s top priority

China’s economic problems should not come as a surprise. They’re merely the latest (and most dramatic) evidence of trends that have been building for years.

This is no accident. For years now, President Xi has been prioritizing political control and social stability over economic development. Before, during and after the covid-19 pandemic, Xi has made decisions based on what’s good for him, the Chinese Communist Party and China’s national security — in that order. Maximizing economic growth clearly comes somewhere lower on the list.

“What’s really going on here is that people are realizing late that China’s growth has been declining since 2011 and is going to continue to decline,” said Derek Scissors, Asia economist and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Xi is willing to pay high economic costs for the sake of political control, social stability and the ability to influence other countries.”

Beijing claimed only 6.3 percent growth in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, which was slower than many Wall Street analysts expected. Western economists see obvious remedies: Beijing should cut interest rates, weaken its own currency and reinflate the real estate bubble. Yet Xi doesn’t seem interested in doing any of that.

Outwardly, Beijing has embarked on an economic charm offensive, inviting world leaders and claiming China is “open for business.” But internally, Xi’s government is restricting the release of basic economic data that investors depend on, while raiding foreign businesses and arresting so many foreigners that the U.S. government is warning Americans it’s not safe to travel there. No wonder foreign investment is drying up.

Xi has crushed China’s own innovation machine, imposing party control over the technology, education, gaming and other sectors. China’s expanded use of economic coercion abroad has alienated countries, including Australia, Lithuania, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan, to name just a few. No wonder China’s trade numbers are down.

Again, these are not new developments. Xi’s tech crackdown began in 2019. Debt woes have been mounting since 2008. Demographic problems are the result of policies set in the 1970s.

China’s economic growth will continue to slow. The Chinese Communist Party undoubtedly wants a good economy. It just wants power more.

David Ignatius: Peril for Taiwan

However much we might enjoy China’s economic troubles, we shouldn’t assume that what’s bad for them is necessarily good for the United States and its allies. A falling China presents its own set of problems.

My biggest worry is that decline will give Xi even more reason to play the nationalist card. If he can’t give the Chinese people “common prosperity,” maybe he will be tempted to give them Taiwan.

A June report by the Council on Foreign Relations underlined how Xi has tied China’s unification with Taiwan to “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” A 2022 white paper called it “indispensable” and “an essential step” for China’s restoration. Xi said in a March 2023 speech to the National People’s Congress that reunification “is the essence of national rejuvenation.”

The council’s task force warned: “As China’s economic growth has slowed under Xi, he has increasingly turned to nationalism to justify the CCP’s monopoly on power. With a further downturn, he could turn to the Taiwan issue to rally support for the CCP and his personal rule.”

A fast-growing China didn’t have to choose between guns and butter. It seemed able to deliver both. But with slower growth, Xi will have to make harder choices. News reports from Beijing this week suggested that the Chinese leadership doesn’t plan to follow the standard Western path of using economic stimulus to boost growth. The consumer economy will likely suffer. But will the military? I doubt it. The largest weapons buildup in history is likely to continue.

Much like Russia, a declining China might focus even more on Western threats and imagined plots. In his “Sinocism” blog this week, analyst Bill Bishop noted that China’s intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), has created a new social media site on WeChat to animate the spy fever. The move “makes complete sense given how in the Xi Era everything is national security,” Bishop wrote.

The MSS blog warned ominously this week: “We have reached the most critical moment, defending national security, and we cannot yield an inch, not a single step can be conceded.”

Keith Richburg: Xi will face a crisis of legitimacy

There is now little doubt that China’s post-pandemic economy is in the doldrums. Most worrisome of all for the country’s Communist rulers is the youth unemployment rate, apparently so bad the government stopped publishing statistics. Officially, more than one-fifth of young people between 16 and 24 are out of work, although many experts suspect the number is higher. Officials have been telling young people to stay in school longer, take a less prestigious job or go to work in the countryside rather than enter such an inhospitable job market.

Unemployed and potentially restive youths must be particularly concerning to Xi, who is just completing the first problem-plagued year of his unprecedented third term in power. China’s young people have historically been at the forefront of reformist movements and rebellions that have challenged the existing order. They include the student-led May Fourth Movement of 1919 and the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square uprising that was brutally crushed by the People’s Liberation Army.

After the Tiananmen massacre, China’s rulers adopted an unspoken social compact with the population: The Communist Party offers them boundless economic growth, the opportunity to get rich and some expanded personal freedoms in exchange for its continued right to rule. For the first 30 years of the Communist regime, starting in 1949, the party claimed its legitimacy by virtue of having emerged victorious from the civil war. Since paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s opening and reform program in 1979, the party has based its right to rule on having presided over China’s rapid economic growth and development — or what is called “performance legitimacy.”

A slowing economy and fears of a coming period of deflation pose a very real risk for the party and for Xi if they can no longer point to a booming economy to justify their authoritarian grip. High youth unemployment, plus a collapse of the property sector — where most Chinese invest their savings — is a potentially combustible combination.

Autocrats facing domestic troubles often look for an overseas crisis to deflect attention from problems. China has lately become more bellicose toward Taiwan and more assertive in the South China Sea. As the economic news worsens, the danger of a potential conflict will likely increase.

The Washington Post · by Washington Post Staff · August 18, 2023

9. Will China's slowdown pull the US into recession?

Will China's slowdown pull the US into recession?

The Week · by Joel Mathis

China's economy may create problems for America

Illustrated / Getty Images

by

August 17, 2023

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China can't seem to shake off its post-COVID economic slump. Will that weakness backfire on the American economy? CNBC reported that the People's Bank of China cut interest rates this week in an effort to spur economic growth, amidst a "confidence crisis" that has seen exports fall dramatically, factory production slow down, and housing sales crater. "In a crisis such as this … you can't really call it a consumption crisis or investment crisis," one economist told the network. "It's really a confidence crisis."

"The concern is that that weakness could spill over to the U.S.," Bloomberg reported. And American officials have taken notice. President Biden earlier this month called China's economy a "ticking time bomb," while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the slowdown will have "some spillovers to the United States." And all of this comes as the U.S. is maneuvering to avert its own recession.

"China's worsening economy is hurting corporate America," the Wall Street Journal reported. American companies that are "deeply rooted" in China face strong headwinds, including big corporate names like DuPont, Dow and Caterpillar. Countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland that depend on exports to China are also hurting. "The China export market is a big deal for them, and China has not rebounded like we all expected it would," said one observer. Will China's slowdown hurt the world economy?

What the commentators are saying

China's supercharged economy "for many years looked like a miracle," John Cassidy wrote for the New Yorker, but now it "could be descending into an extended slump." But China now accounts for a fifth of the world's economic output, so its current slowdown "has important implications for other countries, including the United States." A weakened China might bring down the price of gasoline, but it would also depress imports of "factory machinery, electrical equipment, and medical devices" from other countries." The global consequences of a Chinese recession "are difficult to predict."

The slowdown comes as America is "hitting China with trade curbs," William Pesek noted at Nikkei Asia. Donald Trump imposed tariffs on the country during his presidency, and Biden has presided over a further decoupling from China's economy. Now the "cumulative collateral damage now bears watching." A Chinese stumble resembling America's Great Recession in 2008 would be in nobody's interest. There is a risk that "the U.S. is going too far, and imperiling its own future."

Or maybe China's economic struggles will benefit the U.S., Matt Phillips wrote at Axios. Its weak economy has produced a weak currency, "meaning its exports are falling in price for foreign buyers, like those in the U.S." And a continued slowdown means China "will consume fewer raw materials," resulting in lower commodities prices. Conversely, attempts by the government to jump-start economic growth could end up "reversing some of the recent downward pressure on U.S. consumer prices." One thing is clear: "What happens in China … doesn't just stay in China."

What's next?

The question now is how much worse it can get for China, the Japan Times reported. Unlike consumers in the West, Chinese residents "were left largely to fend for themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic" and so they never went on a "revenge spending spree" coming out of the crisis. Now youth unemployment is above 21% and worries about the property market mean that many Chinese "may already feel economic pain as deep as during a recession." The new interest rate cuts are probably "too small to make a meaningful difference."

Don't expect a quick rescue, Barron's warned. China has a shrinking population, rising debts on the balance sheets of homegrown companies and local governments, and the central government's efforts to spur the economy have so far proved "underwhelming." China might be on the path to "a slow-burn, Japanese-style deflationary situation." That means that U.S. companies that do big business in China — like Caterpillar — are "at risk." But the American economy should weather the storm, one analyst said. "The least vulnerable economy is the U.S. and the U.S. dollar will continue to move higher and keep outperforming the rest of the world."

The Week · by Joel Mathis

10. China Launches Drills Near Taiwan After Vice President’s U.S. Stopovers

Certainly not unexpected.

China Launches Drills Near Taiwan After Vice President’s U.S. Stopovers

Lai Ching-te, the front-runner for Taiwan’s presidency, made transit stops in New York and San Francisco as part of a trip to South America

By Joyu Wang

Aug. 19, 2023 4:03 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/china-launches-drills-near-taiwan-after-vice-presidents-u-s-stopovers-3f48b79a?mod=hp_lead_pos11

The Taiwanese military said it detected at least 42 PLA aircraft flying near its airspace. PHOTO: EASTERN THEATRE COMMAND/VIA REUTERS

TAIPEI—China’s military launched fresh drills around Taiwan, in an expression of its displeasure at two stopovers in the U.S. this week by Lai Ching-te, the island democracy’s vice president and front-runner to the presidency.

Beijing’s military response came roughly a day after Lai returned to Taipei early Friday local time at the end of a weeklong trip to Paraguay, with plane transits in the U.S. on the way in and out of the South American country, one of Taipei’s few remaining formal diplomatic allies.

On Saturday, the Eastern Theater Command of China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, said it had launched joint sea and air readiness patrols around Taiwan’s main island.

“This is a stern warning to the secession forces advocating ‘Taiwan independence’ with external powers,” said Senior Col. Shi Yi, a spokesman for the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command, which oversees the forces positioned closest to Taiwan.

In a roughly 30-second-long video clip released by the Eastern Theater Command, Chinese jet fighters and warships could be seen conducting operations as cinematic music played in the background.

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For decades, Taiwan has looked to its east coast as a safe haven to survive a Chinese invasion until allies, particularly the U.S., can arrive to assist. But PLA activity around the island’s east has thrown that strategy into question. Illustration: Adam Adada

Shi said that Saturday’s drills would continue—without specifying when they would conclude—with a focus on practical combat capabilities, such as practicing coordinated maneuvers involving naval ships and aircraft, according to a statement posted on the Eastern Theater Command’s official account on social-media platform Weibo.

Taiwan’s military, in a statement of its own Saturday, condemned the drills and promised to dispatch “appropriate force” in response to what it called China’s “irrational provocations.”

“Not only does this fail to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, but it also highlights their aggressive and bellicose mind-set and further solidifies the true nature of their military expansionism and dominance,” Taipei’s Defense Ministry said in its statement, referring to the roughly 100-mile body of water that separates Taiwan’s main island from the Chinese mainland.

The Taiwanese military said it detected at least 42 PLA aircraft flying near its airspace, including J-16 and Su-30 jet fighters, between 9 a.m. and 12:50 p.m. local time on Saturday, with 26 of them crossing the midway point of the Taiwan Strait. Eight Chinese warships were also deployed to carry out the patrol drills, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said in its release.

Video footage from China’s CCTV showed a Chinese warship in an area around Taiwan. PHOTO: /CCTV/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The PLA announcement didn’t explicitly mention Lai, nor his closely watched stopovers in New York and San Francisco. Beijing had lodged unusually strong verbal protests ahead of Lai’s trip. Leaders of China’s Community Party, which has never ruled Taiwan but claims it as part of its territory, have long vowed to take control of the island—by force if necessary—and have been unnerved by a recent warming of ties between Washington and Taipei.

Lai had told reporters in Paraguay on Tuesday that “if China were to use my U.S. transit visits as a pretext” to launch military drills, “it would validate the ongoing reports by international media that China is attempting to use military threats to meddle in Taiwan’s elections.”

In a separate statement Saturday, Lin Yu-chan, a spokeswoman for the presidential office, described the Chinese military activity as part of Beijing’s aim of stirring up fear in Taiwan and interfering in the coming elections. She urged China to “immediately stop such unilateral actions that only bring instability to the region and trouble to the international community.”

Lai is the front-runner to succeed President Tsai Ing-wen in a coming three-way race for Taiwan’s presidency that is set to be held in January. While the presidential election is still five months away, analysts said the race is too close to call, particularly given Taiwan’s reputation for volatile politics.

Though both Tsai and Lai are members of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, the current vice president is viewed in both Washington and Beijing as more aggressive in asserting Taiwan’s independence—a red line for China. In interviews, Lai has pledged to maintain the status quo across the Taiwan Strait if elected to lead Taiwan.

After Lai’s 24-hour stopover in New York at the beginning of the week, Lai transited through San Francisco for another 10 hours. During his stop in California, he met with Laura Rosenberger, the head of the U.S.’s de facto embassy in Taipei, and attended a dinner event with members of the overseas Taiwanese community in San Francisco.

Leaders of China’s Community Party, which has never ruled Taiwan but claims it as part of its territory, have long vowed to take control of the island—by force if necessary PHOTO: /CCTV/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Both Washington and Taipei have sought to keep Lai’s public appearances in the U.S. brief and low-key. Unlike Tsai, who met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) during a transit stop in California in April—marking the highest-level political meeting a Taiwanese president has held while on U.S. soil—Lai spoke only in closed-door settings while in the U.S.

Separately, the U.S. and Taiwan trade representatives said Saturday that they had held a new round of trade talks, on the heels of a first agreement signed earlier this year. The new round of talks, which took place in Washington between Monday and Friday, was focused on agriculture, labor and the environment, according to a statement by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

The trade negotiations—which coincided with Lai’s trip—were kept under wraps until their conclusion, according to one official familiar with the matter, partly because of concerns about generating a strong reaction from Beijing, which opposes all official exchanges between Washington and Taipei.

Write to Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com

11. Four key questions for US China policy

The questions:

1. Is there room for a demarcation of regional influence and commitments that both Beijing and Washington could accept?

2. How likely is a Chinese hegemony over the Indo-Pacific region?

3. How would your national interests fare under a PRC hegemony? 

4. Is a gentler Chinese foreign policy possible in the foreseeable future?

Four key questions for US China policy

Plausible competing answers to each show the need for America’s best collective intellectual effort to avoid bad outcomes

asiatimes.com · by Denny Roy · August 18, 2023

Harvard University Professor Stephen M Walt asserts in a recent article in Foreign Policy that five key questions should guide US policy toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Walt’s key questions involve China’s future economic strength; the impact of US attempts to deny China access to advanced technologies; Xi Jinping’s leadership competence; the “effectiveness” of balancing against China by other countries; and the outcome of the Sino-US contest to attract coalition members.

I am inspired by Walt’s basic idea, but I would phrase those key questions differently. Therefore I offer my own (shorter) list.

1. Is there room for a demarcation of regional influence and commitments that both Beijing and Washington could accept? By “accept,” I mean there is no longer a significant danger of war breaking out. China and the United States have conflicting agendas for the region, including demands for freedom of maneuver, special relationships, and preferences for how specific strategic questions are resolved.

It is possible that the US and PRC governments’ respective vital interests, those they would go to war over, are actually limited enough that Beijing and Washington could agree to stay out of each other’s way and make the agreement work—something like the 1814-1914 Concert of Europe.

Conversely, the clashing US and PRC agendas might be overlapping and irreconcilable, with too many issues on which neither country would accept a compromise and both are willing to fight over.

One example would be Chinese inability to tolerate the United States being the strongest strategic actor in the region, combined with the US government being determined to hang onto this role. Another example would be Beijing deciding that a war to immediately enforce claimed PRC sovereignty over Taiwan or the South China Sea is better than tolerating perceived US obstruction.

A Chinese nuclear-powered Type 094A Jin-class ballistic missile submarine takes part in a military display in the South China Sea. Photo: Handout

The answer to this question determines whether the US government should focus its effort on reaching a lasting détente with China or on preparing for an expected war.

2. How likely is a Chinese hegemony over the Indo-Pacific region? This incorporates Walt’s question about China’s future economic strength into a bigger question. Xi’s assertive foreign policy has been built on expectations of China surpassing the United States as the world’s pre-eminent power. China’s military power and global political influence rest on continued high economic growth and escape from the “middle-income trap.” If, however, China cannot maintain the extraordinarily rapid economic growth it has enjoyed for four decades, Beijing must adjust its regional and global aspirations downward.

There are increasing indications that the PRC economy is hitting a wall. In addition to long-anticipated structural problems such as a decrease in the cohort of factory working-age people relative to retirees and over-reliance on exports and building infrastructure versus domestic consumption for growth, more issues have emerged recently: the Xi regime’s prioritization of political correctness over economic vitality, local government debt, a faltering property market, youth unemployment, and diminishing foreign investment.

There is, however, at least one other major variable besides China’s economic strength that bears on the prospect of China establishing regional dominance: pushback from the region (similar to Walt’s question of whether balancing would be effective).

Even if China surpassed the United States to become the world’s top economy, the United States would remain a close second. If the United States cooperated with a few equally determined regional states, this coalition might successfully oppose PRC expansionism and bullying and preclude a Chinese hegemony.

A more interesting question, and one that goes beyond Walt’s analysis, is whether enough regional states might band together in the absence of continued US leadership to prevent China from dominating the region.

This possibility isn’t tested while the US remains forward deployed in strength because regional states have an incentive to let Washington take the lead in confronting aggressive PRC behavior.

Rather than accommodating China, these states might be willing to devote more resources to their own defense and incur more risk if left on the front lines by a retrenching United States.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Photo: Asia Times files

Asking this question, then, leads to the conclusion that with little or no additional US effort, China faces two very large obstacles to achieving regional hegemony. Its own economy may weaken to the point where it cannot support a push for domination. Or regional resistance, with or without the United States, may be robust enough to block China from dictating regional affairs.

Whether the United States and regional countries determine it is worthwhile to resist Chinese domination depends on their answer to the third key question.

3. How would your national interests fare under a PRC hegemony? If it could, China would replace the system of rules and norms supported by Washington with a different system. Support for a “free and open Indo-Pacific” would be out, replaced by respect for PRC “core interests.”

For Americans, the issue is as follows. A regionally dominant China – facilitated by a withdrawal of forward-deployed US military forces and abrogation of US alliances – might cause a net increase in American security and a reduction of US defense costs (by practically eliminating the risk of a US-PRC war, and by China taking over the responsibility of policing transnational threats such as terrorist activity), while generally not obstructing US businesses from continued access to the region. The benefits might be sufficient to assuage US guilt over abandoning regional allies to life in a Sino-centric order. Having allies, after all, is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Alternatively, however, Americans might expect that a Chinese hegemony would be intolerable because China-US tensions would remain high over other strategic issues, and because China would seek changes to global arrangements that would make the United States less safe and prosperous, including Beijing using its influence to greatly constrain US trade and investment opportunities in the region.

4. Is a gentler Chinese foreign policy possible in the foreseeable future? Xi Jinping has pursued a foreign policy that features more intimidation and less cooperation. But is this a permanent end-state for China, establishing an endlessly antagonistic relationship between China and the US bloc? Xi Jinping has made a lot of mistakes and enemies during his rule. The current lack of dissent in China does not mean there is not a large wellspring of desire for a less oppressive government, one that might implement a more Deng Xiaoping-like foreign policy. Or perhaps Xi himself may decide to moderate his own foreign policy, either because of international blowback or because China gets through what turns out to be a temporary phase of great power immaturity.

Those were the days, my friends: Deng Xiaoping (left) was willing to exert patience. Xi Jinping? Photos: Bangkok Post files

If the character of China’s external posture is changeable, and important foreign relationships might be at least a factor in that change, Washington should consider whether policies crafted to meet the immediate perceived challenges posed by a hostile China support or unintentionally work against the realization of what Americans would consider positive changes in future Chinese foreign policy.

These four questions invite a re-examination of the foundational assumptions of policy-making. The importance of the US-China relationship, the global ramifications of the current bilateral crisis and the fact that there are plausible competing answers to each of these questions all demonstrate the need for our best collective intellectual effort to avoid the bad outcomes that are all too possible.

Denny Roy (RoyD@EastWestCenter.org) is a senior fellow at the East-West Center, Honolulu. He specializes in strategic and international security issues in the Asia-Pacific region.

This article was originally published by Pacific Forum. Asia Times is republishing it with permission.

Related

asiatimes.com · by Denny Roy · August 18, 2023

12. Russian soldiers are fighting Ukraine high on amphetamines, a report claims. The Nazis did it first.Russian soldiers are fighting Ukraine high on amphetamines, a report claims. The Nazis did it first.

I think if I were a Russian going into the meat grinder I would take drugs too.

Russian soldiers are fighting Ukraine high on amphetamines, a report claims. The Nazis did it first.

Business Insider · by Erin Snodgrass

Adolf Hitler arrived at Kroll Opera in Berlin, April 28, 1939 to address the Reichstag.AP Photo

• Ukrainian soldiers have speculated that Russian troops are fighting while high on amphetamines.
• Militaries throughout history have drugged soldiers to enhance their performance on the battlefield.
• Nazi troops were given methamphetamines during World War II to decrease fear and increase aggression.

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The Russian military may be taking a page from the Third Reich's playbook as the brutal war in Ukraine drags on.

A May report from the Royal United Service Institute cited Ukrainian military personnel who said Russian soldiers they encounter often appear to be "under the influence of amphetamines or other narcotic substances," an observation various Ukrainian soldiers have made several times over the last year.

But supposedly drugged-up Russian troops in Ukraine are only the most recent installment in a long, global history of militaries seeking to boost their armies' performance on the battlefield by any chemical means necessary — a tactic most infamously deployed by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Norman Ohler, author of "Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich," studied rare archival documents and spoke to first-hand witnesses to argue the thesis of his 2015 book: That drugs — more specifically, a low-dose pharmaceutical pill akin to modern-day meth — fueled the Third Reich and played a major role in the German army's early-war blitzkrieg success across Europe.

"Drugs have often played a role," Ohler told Insider of wartime strategy. "But the Nazis took it to another level and really had successes because of the drug use, which they otherwise probably would not have had."

The Third Reich was fueled, in part, by methamphetamine

The "miracle" meth pill, as Nazi Germany touted it, was developed in the country in the late 1930s and hit the market as Pervitin, an over-the-counter pharmaceutical that quickly took the nation by storm. The small dosage, which is equivalent to about three milligrams of modern-day meth, according to Ohler, made people more alert and happier, he said.

Pervitin was already popular among civil society when Dr. Otto Ranke, the director of the Institute for General and Defense Physiology, who was tasked with improving the capabilities of the country's soldiers, began to envision what the drug might do for Germany's boys headed toward war.

The drug decreased fear, increased aggression, reduced the need for sleep, and improved performance of simple tasks, Ranke found. Many soldiers had even brought it with them when the war started, Ohler said.

"They said it makes it easier for them to do their job, killing people or invading a foreign country," Ohler told Insider.

Adolf Hitler at the Western Front on May 14, 1940AP Photo/Hoffman

Soldiers were stocked with Pervitin as the drug stood its "first real military test" when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, according to a TIME report. The rapid overrun in Poland cemented Pervitin's success and introduced a new form of Nazi warfare known as blitzkrieg, which was characterized by quick, surprising, and mechanized attacks on unsuspecting enemy troops.

"It enabled the German army to do blitzkrieg in the West. They didn't need to sleep once they started attacking," Ohler said. "They were charging through France and Belgium and Holland, unafraid, not stopping, while the British and French troops were sleeping."

The German army cited Pervitin as a decisive factor in the winning campaign, Ohler said, and it supplied its troops with millions of pills ahead of the army's attack on the Soviet Union. Even the magic drug, however, could not win Germany that 1941 battle.

As the war dragged on for another four years, Pervitin continued to be deployed to soldiers, Ohler said, but the one-time miracle drug began to cause dependency issues and depression among users. Germany even organized a rehab program for "overflown" pilots, or those who were addicted to the drug, Ohler said.

After the Nazis were defeated, production of Pervitin continued in Germany, moving to the black market, according to Ohler. Decades later, the drug was used by East German border troops seeking to stay awake as they manned the Berlin Wall, he said. The drug wouldn't be made illegal until the 1980s, Ohler told Insider.

Rampant drug use flew in the face of Nazi ideology

The German army's dependence on methamphetamines during World War II stood in stark contrast to the Nazi's clean-cut, anti-drug image. The use of Pervitin among soldiers prompted resistance from high-ranking Nazi leaders, who were concerned with maintaining the party's ideals, Ohler said.

German military leaders, however, were focused first and foremost on trying to win a war.

"The army is the army. In the field, it has to fight. It doesn't care about ideology," Ohler said.

Ohler found evidence that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was aware of the fact soldiers were using Pervitin, but never publicly acknowledged his feelings toward the drug. The dictator himself was abusing opioids near the end of his life, including an early form of OxyContin, according to medical records reviewed by Ohler.

Many other militaries have relied on chemical help amid wartime

As Insider reported earlier this year, several countries have a history of supplying their soldiers with performance-enhancing drugs. British stores used to sell syringes of heroin as gifts for troops during World War I; the British and American armies both relied on other amphetamines and stimulants during the Second World War after witnessing the drugs' success for the Germans, Ohler said, and the US military distributed painkillers and "pep pills" — also known as speed — to soldiers headed toward long-range reconnaissance missions during the Vietnam War.

Alcohol has also been a common battle bedfellow throughout history. The Russian military gave its soldiers vodka rations to get through World War II; France opted for red wine; and alcohol remained the "number one" drug for Germans during the war, Ohler said.

Amid the life-or-death stakes of war, performance-enhancing drugs, despite their numerous and notable downsides, maybe too enticing a boost to pass up.

"I would be surprised if drugs were not being used in the Ukrainian-Russian war," Ohler said. "It's too good for an army."

Business Insider · by Erin Snodgrass

13. Pentagon study calls for reforms at US military academies to combat wave of sexual assaults

Is it woke to want to stop this criminal behavoir?

Pentagon study calls for reforms at US military academies to combat wave of sexual assaults

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4157392-pentagon-study-calls-for-reforms-at-us-military-academies/

BY BRAD DRESS - 08/17/23 4:35 PM ET

A new Pentagon study says the U.S. military academies must step up efforts to address a spike in reported cases of sexual assault and harassment among cadets and midshipmen, including strengthening mental health services and peer leadership structures.

An independent commission team released its report after investigating and reviewing procedures at three military academies that reported a surge in sexual assaults and misconduct cases this year: the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Commission officials said in the study that practices and procedures at the academies have “not kept pace with the changing characteristics of incoming students at the academies” and could actually be “exacerbating [an] unhealthy climate.”

The commission team, established by the office of the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness (USD P&R), concluded that “harmful behaviors will continue to increase until the climates and environment contributing to that increased risk are modified.”

They said academy students are expected to fix problems themselves, often feel disconnected from the wider academy community and struggle in a toxic climate of hazing and harassment.

Following the report, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memo urging a greater effort to address the crisis, saying academies have “far more work to do to halt sexual assault and harassment.”

“Data continue to suggest that the occurrence of these crimes is trending upward,” Austin wrote. “That is disturbing and unacceptable. It endangers our teammates and degrades our readiness.”

Thursday’s report recommended allowing cadets and midshipmen to seek mental health services and expanding the range of such services available.

It also called for more transparency and accountability for individuals who harm, bully, sexually assault or harass others, and to provide more supervision of peer structures with experienced officers and non-commissioned officers, among a number of other recommendations.

In the memo released Thursday, Austin said each secretary of the military branches overseeing the academies must send him a plan of action report by Oct. 31 explaining how they will address the recommendations provided.

The Defense Department will also establish a Service Academy Climate Transformation Task

Force that will meet regularly to discuss the climates at the military academies, Austin said.

14. Her Flight Instructor Sexually Harassed Her. The Marine Corps Tried to Kick Her Out.

​A long sad read. Again, is it woke to want to stop this?

Her Flight Instructor Sexually Harassed Her. The Marine Corps Tried to Kick Her Out.

thewarhorse.org · by Sonner Kehrt · August 18, 2023

The invitation to the Padre Island Burger Club in Texas came in while Marine Corps 1st Lt. Allison Bennett was out sailing on a friend’s boat. A flight instructor in her naval aviation training squadron texted that he was meeting with a future flight student. He wanted to know if Bennett could swing by to give her some tips.

Bennett had messaged a bit with the Marine instructor, mostly about flying, but she didn’t know him well. Personal relationships between flight instructors and flight students are strictly forbidden. But Bennett wanted to pay forward the camaraderie she’d found since she’d started flight training six months earlier, in April of 2020. The sailboat outing was wrapping up, so she asked a fellow flight student to tag along, and the two women headed to the restaurant.

Four T-6B Texan II aircraft fly near Corpus Christi, Texas. Photo by 1st Lt. Pawel Puczko, courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps.

When they arrived, they found the instructor with several friends. He didn’t introduce Bennett to any prospective flight students, she later told investigators, and no one seemed interested in talking about flight school. After a few drinks, when Bennett and her friend tried to head out, the instructor offered them a ride home, she said.

Instead, he and his friends took the two women to his house, Bennett says. There, she says, he tried to kiss her, and she pushed him away. The next day, he asked the two women to meet him in a nearby park, where he warned them not to tell anyone what had happened, Bennett and her friend told investigators. His career was on the line, they said he told them. So were their futures as Marine aviators.

The women agreed.

“I didn’t know if I would have to fly with him in the future,” Bennett later told a board of inquiry. “Being an instructor in my squadron, he kind of controlled my future, my grades, everything.” Allison Bennett is a pseudonym—the officer requested not to use her real name out of fear her comments would lead to retaliation in her military career.

The instructor denied these allegations to investigators.

After the meeting in the park, the instructor kept texting her, asking to meet up, according to text messages reviewed by The War Horse.

After Bennett reported the texts, her command informed her she was suspected of violating military law—twice. The first time was for inappropriately fraternizing with her instructor. The second time was for inappropriate conduct.

Both times, her military chain of command cleared her of wrongdoing, and ultimately, the officer she accused of harassment was removed from the Marine Corps.

But then the Marine Corps removed Bennett from the flight training program.

Student naval aviators conduct a formation training flight in T-45C Goshawk jet trainer aircraft. Photo by Lt. Michelle Tucker, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

Statement after statement from other instructor pilots submitted on her behalf attested to her professionalism and her ability to complete training.

“She is, in all honesty, the hardest working individual I have had the privilege to fly with as an instructor,” one instructor wrote. “[S]he is the type of student that I want to instruct; she wants to succeed, is coachable, is humble, and is prepared to work at bettering herself.”

Another wrote, “[First] Lt. [Bennett] is the type of aviator I would proudly serve next to in the fleet.”

After she was removed from training, Bennett filed the Marine Corps equivalent of an equal employment opportunity complaint. When the report came back, nearly five months later, the Marine Corps and Navy determined that most of her allegations were unsubstantiated. The investigating officer recommended that Bennett be transferred out of aviation to a new specialty within the Marine Corps.

The general who signed off on the findings ignored that recommendation. Instead, he recommended removing Bennett from the Marine Corps altogether.

The naval aviation training program, which takes Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard flight students through ground school and primary flight training up through advanced training on specific aircraft, is vaunted for its highly rigorous training, which has produced generations of extraordinary pilots.

But decades after opening its ranks to women and minorities, naval aviation is still mostly staffed by white men. In interviews and documents reviewed by The War Horse, nearly two dozen current and former flight students and instructors painted the naval aviation training program as an environment that can be toxic for students who don’t fit a certain mold. They encounter a spectrum of discrimination—often by the instructors who grade them—ranging from biased assumptions to outright targeting. In the Marines, the least diverse of all the military branches, the atmosphere is particularly troubling.

For some trainees, this environment manifests in a cascade of slights in a culture where they don’t always feel welcome. Women and students of color in the Marines and Navy say they struggled to find mentors and instructors with whom they could connect, and that they were not given the same chances to recover from errors that their white, male classmates were.

“There’s a lot of people that just didn’t want to see me be successful,” one Black officer, who chose to leave aviation training in 2021, told The War Horse. Like other current and former flight students, he requested to speak anonymously out of fear that his comments would affect his military career.

A female Marine told The War Horse that certain interactions colored her experiences in flight training, with an instructor telling her he couldn’t be left alone in a room with her because she was a woman. He wanted to help her study, he said, but shouldn’t—because all the analogies he could offer for the relative position of planes flying in formation were sexual innuendos.

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“It’s just kind of like a continuum of harm,” she says. “It sends the message that we have to work twice as hard to earn half the recognition. And it just signifies to me that this is not an organization I want to remain a part of.”

Students reported feeling like they quickly gained reputations for being difficult or unable to succeed—reputations that followed them, supported by gossip among flight instructors. Some students believed that bias or overt retaliation played a role in their being removed from flight school—that by speaking up, they were seen as troublemakers—and that senior officers inappropriately bent policies to “check the boxes” to fail certain students.

“There are protocols and they’re written down, but if a [commanding officer] can find a way to manipulate the information, they can make it work out [how they want],” one former instructor tells The War Horse.

T-6B Texan II training aircraft are staged on the tarmac at a regional jetport after being evacuated from their home station in preparation for Hurricane Isaac. (Ty C. Connors/U.S. Navy)

The military knows this is a problem. Since the fallout from the Tailhook scandal in 1991, in which Navy and Marine pilots sexually assaulted more than 80 women, including fellow officers, at a naval aviation convention, the military has promised to improve aviation culture for women—a promise it has also made to pilots of color, who train and fly in a predominantly white profession. And concerns about the training environment for student pilots are not new. In 2020, the Navy’s own investigation into a shooting by an international flight student in Navy training the year before found that command climate problems in flight training, in which instructors demeaned certain students and used homophobic and ethnic insults, made the shooting more likely to occur.

But little has changed. The Navy and the Marine Corps, already facing a critical pilot shortfall, have failed to grow the ranks of minority pilots. While the number of female flight students has increased in recent years, women still report bias and harassment—as do students of color.

“You’re either part of the good old boys’ club or you aren’t,” says another officer, who was an instructor pilot from 2018 to 2021. “It was this very archaic, locker-room, toxic, type A-like mentality.”

‘I’m Going to Serve My Country or Forever Wish I Had’

When Bennett joined the Marine Corps two years before flight school, she was the type of candidate the Marine Corps says it wants: bright, driven, dedicated. She earned an advanced degree before deciding to serve in the military.

“It was just kind of like a call to service that I’d always had, but never acted on,” Bennett says. “I was in graduate school and was like, ‘Well, it’s either now or never. I’m either going to serve my country or I’m going to live my life wishing I had.’”

Despite some early challenges, Bennett was committed to flying. After learning she was prone to severe airsickness, she made it through a brutal airsickness remediation course. Then, on her first solo flight, alone in the cockpit, the plane suffered a full hydraulic failure. Bennett managed to land the plane safely.

“EXCELLENT job handling an actual aircraft malfunction!” her instructor wrote in her grade sheet after the flight.

Not long before she started flight training, Bennett met up with a fellow Marine for coffee. According to unredacted documents provided to The War Horse from a source who was not involved in the investigation, Bennett told investigators the two had matched on Tinder, a dating app. But when they realized that they were both headed to flight training, he as an instructor and she as a flight student, they quickly agreed not to meet up again.

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Their relationship stayed professional, and the Marine, Maj. Rowdy Meinen, became her senior Marine—the officer who oversaw all the Marine flight students in the squadron.

One night, not long after she started flight training, Bennett missed a phone call from Meinen. Shortly after, he texted her a picture of his penis, she told investigators.

Student naval aviators conduct a formation flight in T-6B Texan II aircraft above the Corpus Christi area. Photo by Lt. Michelle Tucker, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

Bennett was shocked. She quickly deleted the photo, and Meinen sent a face-palm emoji. The next morning, he texted that he’d had too many drinks, according to text messages reviewed by The War Horse.

Meinen declined, through a Marine Corps spokesperson, to talk with The War Horse.

Bennett decided not to say anything. Meinen had previously been professional, and she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. But she also worried about sticking out, she told investigators.

Students told The War Horse that trainees who stuck out in any way—including by speaking up about issues—could be seen as problem children.

“People feel pressure to keep their heads down and earn their wings of gold,” a former instructor tells The War Horse.

Survey data from some training units supports this idea. In a Marine administrative command overseeing Marine flight students, 90% of respondents in a 2021 command climate survey agreed with the statement, “In my unit, military members/employees who file a sexual harassment complaint would be blamed for causing problems.”

Eighty-five percent believed that people who filed such a complaint would be discouraged from moving forward with it.

A 2022 survey of a primary training squadron reported similar numbers.

“I know people keep saying, ‘Oh, it’s changing a little.’ I don’t see it.”

A Navy pilot tells The War Horse that, after calling out misogyny at her squadron, fellow students called her a “fucking bitch.” “You shouldn’t have brought that up,” she says they told her. “You’ll get everyone in trouble—good guys too.”

“I know people keep saying, ‘Oh, it’s changing a little,’” a former Marine Corps pilot who was sexually assaulted by a fellow pilot in 2003 told The War Horse. “I don’t see it.”

It’s not only sexual misconduct. Minority flight students say they felt nervous to report what they saw as unfair treatment for fear they would be labeled “difficult.” One Black former flight student tells The War Horse he noticed a pattern of certain flight instructors failing him on flights, even though he met stated benchmarks, because they “felt” he wasn’t a strong enough flier.

One instructor was no longer scheduled to fly with the student, because of his pattern of giving the student unusually low grades or failing his flights, the former flight student says. But the student’s failed flights continued to count against him, and he was removed from flight school just weeks before finishing the program, he says.

“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to [be] blacklisted by my superiors who may now view me as an unprofessional service member and targeted as a troublemaker,” the student wrote in an account of his experiences in flight school. “The truth is there are repercussions when one speaks up about unfair treatment or asking for accountability of parties involved.”

In August 2020, Bennett failed a flight. A friend from flight school had died just days before in an accident off-base, so her instructor arranged for her to appear before a Human Factors Board—a common evaluation to assess whether external factors are influencing a pilot’s performance.

A Marine major named Alex Smith—an instructor pilot who outranked Bennett—served on the board. A few days later, Bennett ran into Smith at a local park, where they talked about her board. The next day, Smith texted Bennett. He offered to help her study for the check flight she would need to get back to piloting solo. Bennett thanked him for his offer but told him she didn’t want to impose on his evening, according to messages reviewed by The War Horse.

Through his lawyer, Smith declined to comment on this story.

Several weeks later, Bennett texted Smith a picture of a sailboat, telling him she had finally made it out on a boat. They exchanged a few messages, and then Smith asked her to join him at the Padre Island Burger Club, where he was “briefing up” a prospective flight student, he told her.

Bennett discussed whether she should go with a fellow flight student, and the two decided to go together to ensure it was appropriate, they told investigators.

In the weeks after, the texts kept coming, according to messages reviewed by The War Horse. Smith checked in with Bennett a day later. A few days after that, he invited her out to a bar. Then to his boat. To watch a movie at his place.

“I remember being like, ‘Oh hell no. I’m not gonna go meet this guy,’” Bennett says. She was friendly in her responses, but she declined again and again, trying to let him down gently.

But Smith also hinted he planned to take her on a cross-country flight, according to an unredacted investigation provided to The War Horse by a source who was not involved. It would be an overnight training trip with just a few other people, where she’d fly alone with Smith for hours.

In interviews with investigators, Smith denied these allegations. The Marine Corps ultimately determined he had harassed Bennett, according to documents reviewed by The War Horse.

“I felt like I was going to be kind of trapped,” Bennett says. “It’s like an animal that got snared by something and you want to get away but you can’t, and you just have to kind of be calm.”

Bennett asked the flight coordinator, a civilian Navy employee, if there was a way to avoid flying a cross-country flight with Smith. Around the same time, Meinen, the senior Marine who Bennett alleged had sent her a picture of his penis, told Bennett he was hearing rumors about something going on between Smith and her, according to the investigation.

Bennett corrected him. She didn’t report what happened after Smith asked her to come by the Padre Island Burger Company, but she told him Smith wouldn’t stop texting her. It made her uncomfortable, she said, and she didn’t want to fly cross-country with him.

“I didn’t really know how to report it,” Bennett says. “I guess I thought that by telling someone higher in rank, they’ll just know what to do with it.”

The Defense Department policy on harassment informs commanders and supervisors that upon learning of a sexual harassment complaint, they must inform the victim of official reporting options and procedures, make sure they’re aware of support resources, and investigate complaints as appropriate.

Meinen took none of these required actions, according to the investigation. He told Bennett that he was friends with Smith. He’d ask him to stop bothering her, and he would make sure they weren’t scheduled for any flights together. But he also threatened her with a nonpunitive letter of caution, saying she needed to stop texting Smith as well, Bennett told investigators.

Then, Bennett told investigators, Meinen told her a story about a female aviator whose call sign referred to an airplane dropping a bomb—because she was known as a place where male pilots could go to “drop their loads.”

In an interview with investigators, Meinen denied telling Bennett this, but confirmed it was a story he had told before.

“The vibe I got,” Bennett later told investigators, “is to not get a reputation like [that].”

‘There Is No Desire for Change Whatsoever’

Fifty years ago, eight female naval officers entered flight training at Pensacola. A year later, six of them graduated: the first women to earn their naval aviation wings of gold. Twenty years later, in 1993, Sara Deal Burrow became the first female Marine to start flight training, following a policy shift that allowed women to fly combat aircraft.

But half a century after women began flying in the Navy, and 30 years after the first female Marine Corps pilot, the percentage of female aviators in both those services remains low.

The Navy declined to answer questions from The War Horse regarding its percentage of female aviators. But recent media reports put the percentage of female naval aviators between 12% and 15%, compared with just over 20% of the Navy generally.

The Marine Corps also declined to answer questions from The War Horse regarding its percentage of female aviators. Women comprise about 9% of the total Marine Corps—far lower than the other military branches.

Data obtained from the Navy shows that in 2022, female students made up about 18% of primary flight training students, up from 13% in 2021. The data is not broken down by service branch.

In the fighter jet community, widely seen as the most elite flying force in the military, the ranks of women are minuscule. The Navy’s storied Blue Angels accepted its first female fighter jet pilot just last year.

The same is true for pilots of color. Seventy-five years after Jesse Brown became the first Black naval aviator to complete training, the percentage of Black naval aviators is persistently low.

The Navy declined to provide data regarding the rates of non-white naval aviators. According to a Military.com investigation, in 2018 Black aviators made up 1.9% of Navy jet pilots. The Navy’s first Black female fighter pilot received her wings just three years ago.

The Marine Corps also declined to provide any data regarding minority pilots to The War Horse. The Military.com investigation found that Black pilots made up less than 1.7% of all Marine Corps pilots in 2018. Data The War Horse obtained from the Navy shows that the overall percentage of Black students in flight training has not significantly shifted in the past five years. In both 2017 and 2022, the percentage of Black students hovered below just 4% of primary flight students—but between 7% and 8% of those who left primary training.

“There is no desire for change whatsoever,” says Col. Ché Bolden, a retired Marine Corps flight officer who conducted a 2021 study for the Marine Corps on systemic barriers facing Black pilots, which was not publicly released. The Marine Corps declined to comment on his statement.

Brig. Gen. Brian Cavanaugh, deputy director for operations, joint staff, retires Col. Anthony “Ché” Bolden at a ceremony in 2019 at the Navy-Marine Corps Stadium’s Akerson Tower in Annapolis, Maryland. Photo by Andrew Milner, courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps.

In 2021, there were three jet pilots of color out of 581 in the Marines, Bolden tells The War Horse.

The lack of diversity is an existential threat. The military is struggling to recruit and retain members. Among pilots, the shortage is particularly acute, and technical and safety issues have bottlenecked the Navy’s training program, slowing down the minting of new pilots.

“In a fully volunteer force, and in a time when we’re having difficulties recruiting, we need to make sure that everyone feels welcome in our military,” Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat from New Jersey and former Navy helicopter pilot, tells The War Horse.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat from New Jersey and former Navy helicopter pilot, listens to two U.S. Army Reserve members while visiting Liberty Village, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 2021. Photo by Staff Sgt. Mikaley Kline, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.

In the Marine Corps, the fighter pilot shortage quadrupled from 6% in 2006 to 24% in 2017. Last year, the Corps authorized signing bonuses of $210,000 for some pilots who agreed to stay on active duty for another six years.

The pressure to find qualified instructor pilots is high. When Bennett met Smith, the flight instructor who sent her inappropriate text messages, they were stationed together in Training Squadron VT-28, one of two primary training squadrons in Corpus Christi, Texas.

But Smith hadn’t started out in VT-28. Initially, he had been assigned as an instructor in its sister squadron, VT-27, in a temporary duty status.

But after a series of incidents there—including calling female flight students names like “sweetheart” and “cupcake,” allowing a male flight student to live with him while the student was going through a divorce, and allegations he had been seen drinking with a flight student—he was removed from the squadron, according to documents reviewed by The War Horse.

The Marine Corps and Naval Air Forces did not respond to questions about Smith’s removal from the squadron.

The commanding officer of VT-27 saw Smith’s use of nicknames as “a shocking violation of the instructor and student professional relationship,” he later told a Marine Corps board of inquiry.

He refused a request from the Marine Corps administrative flight command to reaccept Smith as a flight instructor in a permanent status and relayed concerns about Smith to the command of VT-28, the commanding officer told the board of inquiry.

But squadrons have an extremely high flight tempo and are often short instructor pilots, the commanding officer testified.

“They wanted a flier,” he told the board, “so they accepted him.”

‘I Couldn’t Focus on Just Flying’

Smith wasn’t the only instructor moved to an instructor position after concerns about inappropriate behavior emerged.

Maj. Kyle Maschner was a flight instructor and the officer in charge of the administrative unit that oversaw Marine flight students. It was an open secret among flight students that he had been removed from the Blue Angels, where he had flown the C-130 “Fat Albert” support plane, after he inappropriately touched a female enlisted sailor, six officers told The War Horse, including two former members of the Blue Angels.

Maschner declined to comment to The War Horse through a Marine Corps spokesperson. The Navy and Marine Corps did not respond to requests for comment about the incident.

When investigators later asked Col. William Hendricks, the commanding officer who oversaw many of the Marines in flight training, his opinion of Maschner’s posting to an instructor position, the investigators likened it to putting “the fox in the hen house.”

Hendricks said he had little choice. “I try to put the very best person I can in the job,” he told them. “I have limited options of who I can put in these positions, so I get who I get.”

But he believed Maschner deserved a second chance, he told investigators, noting that the Marine Corps had elected to retain him.

“My conclusion was this is a genuinely good person who made a bad mistake,” Hendricks stated.

Hendricks declined to comment to The War Horse through a Marine Corps spokesperson.

Bennett didn’t try reporting the harassment by Smith again, she says. But months later, after she had graduated from primary flight training and moved on to her intermediate phase, her primary flight instructor, Robert Zetelski, heard a rumor, according to the investigation. He called Bennett, and she told him about the evening at the Padre Island Burger Company and the texting that followed.

Zetelski immediately informed the squadron’s chain of command.

“I was like, ‘Hey, I got some information that you need to know about—like right now,’” he says.

He made a formal report of sexual harassment in accordance with Marine Corps policy, he says. But when the investigating officer spoke with Bennett, he read her Article 31 rights—the rights given to someone suspected of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Even though Smith had a history of issues with flight students, Bennett was suspected of fraternization—socializing with her flight instructor, which is prohibited.

After that, Bennett says, she heard nothing: no further interviews, no update, no notification as to the outcome of the investigation. Zetelski noticed a shift in her.

“Her demeanor changed,” he tells The War Horse. Where once she was focused and saw feedback as an opportunity to improve, now even small corrections caused her to panic.

“If she didn’t do well in an event, she would call me crying and being like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t,’” he says.

She struggled emotionally after being told she was under investigation, Bennett says. She felt constantly on edge as she waited for months for any sort of news.

“It was really hard, because I just never knew what was going on, if I was going to be put in jail or the brig, or, like what they were investigating—was I in trouble? Was I not in trouble?” she says. “What did the other instructors know? Were people judging me? Or did they think I was, like, a hussy or something? It really took away from my ability to just focus on flying.”

She failed a flight with an instructor pilot who had been present when she was informed she was suspected of fraternization. By then, Bennett had been cleared—the investigation had been closed for months. But Bennett had never been informed of the outcome, she says.

“Aviation is about performance, but it’s also about how much people like you.”

Then she failed another flight and, in a panic after she landed, kept asking the instructor if there was anything she could do to fix the flight. She told him she’d do anything to make it through flight school.

Hendricks, the commanding officer, opened an investigation. This time, Bennett was suspected of inappropriate conduct.

In an interview with investigators, the flight instructor who failed her said that asking if there was anything she could do to pass the flight was unprofessional—a military aviator should expect to adhere to standards. But other officers interviewed, including Hendricks, suggested that they believed Bennett may have been offering something in exchange for a better grade.

“She sexually propositioned two male [instructors],” one flight instructor, who was not in the cockpit during either of Bennett’s failed flights, told investigators. “The only saving grace is that she did it to two gentlemen that had the moral fiber to deny that.”

‘They’re Telling Us Only White Men Have Been Good Enough’

In documents and interviews with The War Horse, women and students of color described feeling like some instructors held them to different standards from their peers and said they struggled to connect with the officers grading them.

“Aviation is about performance, but it’s also about how much people like you,” says Lt. Col. Erin Black, a retired Marine Corps pilot. “Women and nonwhite [people] are already at a disadvantage, because they’re women and nonwhite. They don’t get the presumption of performance.”

One former flight student tells The War Horse that a flight instructor informed her she should append the word “please” to all of her radio communications—something that contradicts military radio protocols and which none of the men in her squadron were required to do.

A Latino officer characterized flying with a certain instructor as being “hated for no reason.” Another student, in an account documenting what he observed between a flight instructor and a Black student, wrote that “the cockpit environment became noticeably hostile,” describing the instructor as “aggressive” toward the Black student and unwilling to teach him when he made mistakes.

Naval aviators taxi back after a training flight in T-6B Texan II single-engine turboprop aircraft. Photo by Lt. Michelle Tucker, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

“Students would say, ‘Oh, yeah, that instructor is awesome,’” another Black former flight student said. “And it’s like, You’re telling me that that instructor is awesome. That instructor asked if I had a brain aneurysm inside the plane.”

“Ducks pick ducks,” says Bolden, the retired flight officer. “People are comfortable with who looks like them.”

The lack of diversity in leadership has real consequences. One female Navy pilot tells The War Horse that she wasn’t aware she could request to reschedule a critical evaluated flight two days after she was sexually assaulted in flight school in 2020, in part because there was no one in leadership she felt comfortable speaking with.

“It’s not like every male instructor there was breathing down my throat or yelling or anything, but there was just sort of an overall atmosphere that I felt, as a young single woman, that I was just unsafe in general, and I couldn’t really put my finger on it at the time,” she says. Her squadron had just one female instructor, she says, with whom she had never flown.

Last year, the Coast Guard officer in charge of overseeing Coast Guard flight students, who train alongside Navy and Marine students, was investigated and found to have inappropriately touched two female flight students while intoxicated.

“The Coast Guard takes allegations of inappropriate conduct seriously, thoroughly investigates each case, and holds perpetrators appropriately accountable,” a Coast Guard spokesperson told The War Horse. “The Coast Guard promptly investigated the allegations and, after substantiating misconduct, awarded non-judicial punishment and relieved the member from primary duties.”

Roderick Stevenson, a Black officer who was removed from flight training last year, told The War Horse that, after being corrected by one flight instructor in the cockpit, the instructor asked him, “Do you want to punch me?”

“I’m an African American male,” Stevenson says. “I’m about 5’10”, about 210 [pounds]. Not a small guy. That question just sparked so many—just like, All right, now I know what’s going on. They’re trying to make me out to be this aggressive man.”

He also provided The War Horse with a video of a different white flight instructor confronting him at his home after an altercation between their dogs on private property, in which Stevenson’s dog jumped on her dog after Stevenson left his dog unattended in the yard.

Ensign Jesse L. Brown, the first Black Navy aviator to complete training, sits in the cockpit of an F4U-4 Corsair fighter, circa 1950. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

The next day, after seeing Stevenson biking with his dog next to him off-leash, the instructor came to his home. In the video, Stevenson offers to pay any vet bills she had incurred the day before. The instructor repeatedly demands his rank and command so she can report him to the military for “not following the rules.”

Although the incident had occurred the previous day, in the video the flight instructor calls the police on the Black flight student while she stands on the sidewalk outside his home. Stevenson says the incident terrified his young daughter.

Stevenson says he informed his command after the instructor posted his address on social media and then continued to show up outside his home. Although the police eventually issued the instructor a trespass warning, the flight student felt his command did not take the incidents seriously and did not consider how it affected him to fly with instructors he knew were friendly with her, he says.

Naval Air Forces officials declined to comment to The War Horse about the incident. In response to an inquiry from a senator, the Navy wrote that it completed a “formal inquiry” and found that both officers “had a mutually antagonistic and acrimonious relationship as neighbors.”

Instructor pilots are responsible for grading student flights, which plays a role in the type of aircraft students will eventually fly: Only high-scoring students qualify to train on jets.

Marine Corps data obtained by The War Horse for one of the two Marine aviation training units shows that in recent years, 51% of white men scored high enough for jet training. Among white women, that number was 38%. Just 21% of Black men and 14% of Black women qualified for jet training.

Bolden, the retired flight officer, tells The War Horse that while he was studying diversity in Marine Corps aviation, he kept encountering the same idea.

“The recurring theme from everybody we talked to that was not of color or a woman: ‘The Marine Corps is a performance-based organization. … [T]he best performers are the ones that advance and excel,’” he says.

“They’re sitting there, looking at us and telling us, ‘Well—only white men have been good enough.’”

‘I Don’t Think Women Belong in the Navy’

The second investigation into Allison Bennett found no evidence that she offered anything in exchange for a better grade. But again, no one told her the outcome of the investigation, she says.

Rather, the week after the investigating officer reported his findings to the command—stating that Bennett lacked “emotional maturity” and should be formally counseled on appropriate interactions between students and instructors—Bennett learned that, based on her flight performance, her future in flight training was under review.

Navy policy lays out a clear procedure for evaluating concerns about a student’s flying ability: The student flies with the commanding officer, and if they fail that, a Training Review Board determines whether they’ll remain in training.

Bennett was not given the opportunity to fly with the commanding officer, nor was she evaluated in a Training Review Board, according to documents reviewed by The War Horse. Instead, the command informed her she would be subject to a Service Level Review Board—a formal Marine Corps review, reserved for unusual cases.

The Marine Corps did not answer questions about why Bennett was evaluated via a Service Level Review Board.

Soon, Bennett heard about another Service Level Review Board—one that had happened six months earlier.

First Lt. Hannah Groom joined the Marine Corps late. Before she signed up, she had earned a doctorate in physics, and she dreamed about becoming an astronaut.

“I really wanted to fly,” she says. “I was in Young Marines as a child. Deep down, I always wanted to be a Marine.”

In officer training and flight school, Groom had earned a reputation as a straight shooter—somebody who would not sit idly by when she saw things that weren’t right.

“She’s not a ‘yes man,’” a peer from the Marines wrote in a letter of support for Groom. It was a trait that had brought her both derision and praise from her peers in her officer training course, after Groom, a gay woman, called out fellow Marines for using homophobic slurs. In another letter, a fellow Marine specifically noted Groom’s “dedication to uphold what is right, even when the right thing is the hardest thing to do.”

Capt. Sarah Deal, the first female Marine Corps helicopter pilot, flies a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter over Camp Pendleton, California, during a training exercise. Photo by Jeff Viano, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

So when an instructor pilot during Groom’s primary flight training told a story in front of her that she says began with the sentence, “You can’t trust women pilots,” Groom reached out to a female mentor in the Navy for advice.

“I think this needs to be address[ed],” she texted. She wrote that she liked the instructor but she worried other flight students would think it was OK to say similar things, according to messages reviewed by The War Horse. “I don’t know if this would affect my grades, I hope it wouldn’t but you never know,” she wrote.

Groom decided to report the incident to her class adviser, according to an unredacted investigation provided to The War Horse by a source who was not involved in it. Her adviser didn’t address the complaint, she told investigators. So Groom went to the next officer in the chain of command.

The instructor pilot disputed the allegations to investigators and said Groom misconstrued a story he told about a particular female pilot. In their investigation, the Navy and Marine Corps did not find fault with the command’s handling of the complaint. The squadron commanding officer discussed inappropriate comments with flight instructors, and afterward, the instructor who made the comment called Groom.

But rather than apologizing, she alleges in documents reviewed by The War Horse, he told her she needed to have thicker skin to get through flight school: These types of comments would be common in the aviation community.

The instructor told investigators he did not say this.

Other officers told The War Horse they heard similar comments in flight school. “Women aren’t lethal. I don’t think they belong in the Navy,” one pilot says a fellow student told her in training. She says an instructor also said that “girls have a harder time with trim,” or balancing the aircraft. “It’s just ergonomics or whatever,” he said.

Groom’s complaint was never formally documented, as required by Navy policy, and the command equal opportunity officer never contacted her about resolving the complaint, she says.

Several months later, Groom learned she would be evaluated at a Service Level Review Board over concerns about her professionalism. A week and a half earlier, in a formal report, her senior Marine had written she had “an established trend of unprofessional conduct,” noting he had counseled her a month earlier for “unkempt appearance, poor attitude, lack of motivation, lack of composure, lack of bearing and disparaging a Senior Officer.”

The officer wrote that attitude and professionalism issues were apparent in a review of Groom’s training record. But out of nearly 130 flights in flight school, only four instructors had written anything negative about Groom’s attitude—all of them after she reported her concerns about her instructor’s comment about not trusting women pilots. More than 20 instructors wrote overtly positive comments about her motivation and attitude.

“[She] is extremely receptive to instruction and learns quickly,” one instructor wrote just a week before the report documenting her unprofessionalism. “1st Lt Groom has a fantastic attitude and professionalism.”

“I’m not perfect, but I’m not a shitbag,” Groom says. “There’s definitely, to me, a double standard of what is a woman being assertive, versus a woman being aggressive?”

Groom’s board—which consisted of four officers, including Maschner, the Marine who had been removed from the Blue Angels for misconduct—voted to retain her in training. The official order from the board informed Groom that staying in training relied on “her ability to maintain professionalism and proper officer conduct.”

If she screwed up again, she was out.

Bennett’s review board, six months after Groom’s, ended differently. The board—also four officers, including Maschner—focused on Bennett’s performance under stress. Even though the command investigation found that Bennett had not propositioned anyone, a different board member later told investigators in Bennett’s equal opportunity investigation that he found Bennett’s behavior “very disgusting,” stating that, “The Marine Corps absolutely has the right to remove you from training if you are propositioning one of the [instructors] following a flight,” according to documents reviewed by The War Horse.

After a brief recess, the board voted to remove her from flight school. She did not receive a clear explanation as to why, and she was not afforded an opportunity to meet with the commanding officer afterward, she said in documents reviewed by The War Horse. Hendricks told investigators he was not informed Bennett had requested to meet with him, although a board member said at the time that Hendricks declined to meet with her.

A few days later, Hendricks officially removed Bennett from training, writing that she was a “below average performer.”

‘The Squeaky Wheel Gets Ostracized’

In March of last year, the Marine Corps convened a board of inquiry to examine Smith’s record. At the end of the proceedings, the Marines separated Smith, according to documents reviewed by The War Horse. But Bennett had already been removed from training.

In an appeal to congressional representatives, another woman recounted a male flight instructor, with his flight suit unzipped past his groin, who told her that her flight suit wasn’t zipped high enough. She said he told her she should take out her breasts, while he took out his testicles, and they would have a contest to see who could withstand zipping up their flight suit longer. Other instructors present did nothing, she said.

A pilot who spoke with The War Horse stressed that behaviors like this came from a minority of pilots, but said there was little tolerance for those who pushed back.

“Women and minorities in the military have a fear of repercussions later in their careers, because aviation is based entirely on your reputation,” she says. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? Well, it’s not frickin’ like that here. The squeaky wheel gets ostracized.”

These issues are not confined to naval aviation training. An independent review of sexual assault in the military reported in 2021 that “most” of the survivors it interviewed regretted reporting their assaults, with women reporting that, among other things, they were often ostracized by their leaders and peers.

F/A-18 Hornets fly in formation while approaching Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, Calif., in support of the centennial of Naval Aviation. Photo by Cpl. Jamean Berry, courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Another study found that nearly a third of service members experienced retaliation after reporting sexual assault.

“I think that it just continues to discourage people from reporting,” says Black, the retired Marine Corps pilot. “They know it’s gonna be a shit show. And they likely know it could end their career.”

After Groom’s review board, she was concerned that women’s experiences in flight school weren’t taken seriously. She’d heard of other flight students who had been subject to sexist comments and flight students who had been sexually assaulted. Then she heard Bennett’s story.

“Hearing everything that she went through … infuriated me,” Groom says.

In November of 2021, not long after Bennett was removed from flight training, Groom failed a flight. Her command scheduled a Human Factors Board.

In a conversation with a Navy officer who would sit on the board, Groom vented her frustration. The Navy officer was a uniformed victim advocate—a military member who provides information and support for victims of sexual assault. Groom told the officer about Meinen, the senior Marine who Bennett alleged sent her an unsolicited picture of his penis, and she mused about speaking to the press about the problems she was seeing, according to documents reviewed by The War Horse.

Groom believed their conversation was confidential. But the officer briefed their meeting up the chain of command. And although an unsolicited picture of genitals constitutes sexual harassment, the officer did not act upon the claim, later saying she thought it had already been handled.

A few days later, the commanding officer of Groom’s training squadron formally counseled her that her comment about speaking out could be perceived as a threat against the command. The next week, she was removed from flight school. And a week and a half after that, she was read her Article 31 rights for violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

She, too, was under investigation.

Our Journalism Depends on Your Support

Groom was not accused of any specific violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Rather, the memo initiating the investigation, signed by Hendricks, directed the investigator to look into any instances of potential “substandard performance of duty.”

“If there had been substandard performance, and there had been documentation thereof, they wouldn’t have to do an investigation,” Black says.

After their removal from flight training, Groom and Bennett filed Prohibited Activities and Conduct complaints, the Marine Corps equivalent of an equal employment opportunity complaint, in January 2022, alleging that they experienced harassment and bullying in flight training. Bennett also alleged she had been sexually harassed. According to Marine Corps policy, an investigation must begin within three duty days of a commander accepting a complaint.

But the Marine Corps did not appoint an investigating officer while the command investigation into Groom continued, according to documents provided to The War Horse from a source who was not involved.

During that investigation, the investigating officer interviewed just three witnesses, two of whom Groom had named in her equal opportunity complaint. He failed to interview any of the more than 20 instructors who had written positive comments about her attitude and motivation during flight training.

In March, the head of the Marine Corps’ training command signed off on the investigation into Groom, which found a trend of unprofessionalism and recommended she no longer serve as an officer. Groom says she was not informed of the outcome.

The same day—a full two months after the women filed their equal opportunity complaints—he appointed investigating officers to look into the complaints.

It was another three months before the women got word back. When the joint Navy-Marine Corps investigation was finally completed in July 2022, it had combined the women’s complaints—although they had filed separately—and found that their allegations were unsubstantiated. It did note that Smith’s harassment of Bennett had previously been substantiated.

The equal opportunity investigation included interviews where the investigating officers asked witnesses about any “rumors” or “unfavorable impressions” of Groom. It also determined there was no reason to investigate whether Meinen had sent Bennett a picture of his penis. He denied it to investigators, and while one of the investigators noted in his interview notes that Meinen was sweating and nervous during the questioning, the investigators wrote that “both officers have a motive to misrepresent this matter and the credibility of both officers is at least suspect.”

The Marine Corps declined to respond to questions about the incident. Months later, the military eventually did investigate it, according to officers familiar with the case.

“I was a federal prosecutor and I directed FBI investigations,” Sherrill, the congresswoman, tells The War Horse. “But you don’t have to be that to look at this investigation. I mean, you could read a Nancy Drew novel with this investigation. It was not hard to see [that it was poorly done],” she said of the equal opportunity complaint investigation.

U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Kevin M. Iiams, commanding general, Training and Education Command, during his frocking ceremony at Harry Lee Hall in Quantico, Virginia, Aug. 3, 2021. Iiams recommended two women Marine Corps pilot trainees should be separated from the Marine Corps after they filed complaints alleging sexual harassment and gender discrimination by their flight instructors. Photo by Lance Cpl. Jesse Schremmer, courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps.

The investigating officers, referencing the command investigation into Groom throughout, recommended she be removed from the Marine Corps. Bennett, they said, should be reassigned to another specialty.

But Lt. Gen. Kevin Iiams, the head of the Marine training and education command, disagreed.

Iiams declined to speak with The War Horse through a Marine Corps spokesperson.

As a result of the investigation into their equal opportunity complaints, he determined, both women should be separated from the Marine Corps.

Their performance of duty had been substandard.

‘Sexual Harassment’s a Crime. Period.’

For months, Bennett and Groom waited, expecting to be removed from the Marine Corps any day.

Then, this past April, in a congressional budget hearing, Rep. Sherrill asked Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and other senior Navy and Marine Corps leaders about the two women.

“The stories I’m now hearing out of Pensacola”—where pilots start their training—“could just as easily have been stories coming out of the Tailhook conference in Vegas,” Sherrill told Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and other senior Navy and Marine Corps leaders.

Just days after the hearing, Bennett and Groom received a memo from the commandant of the Marine Corps. After months in administrative limbo, the two women learned that they were being reinstated in flight training. All the materials related to their removal would be wiped from their records. There was no explanation.

Both women said they were told they needed to decide in fewer than 48 hours whether they wanted to resume training.

The Marine Corps did not answer a detailed list of questions about the women’s experiences. A statement from Maj. James Stenger, a Marine Corps spokesperson, to The War Horse said, “All matters surrounding the two Marine flight students were processed and resolved at the administrative level. The Marine Corps fully supports the Marines in their return to training.”

In June, Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, raised Bennett and Groom’s experiences during a confirmation hearing for Gen. Eric Smith, now the acting commandant of the Marine Corps. She asked what the Marine Corps had learned about how to handle sexual harassment and retaliation claims going forward.

Smith did not point to specific lessons but told Sen. Gillibrand, “Sexual harassment, sexual assault’s a crime. Period. All-stop.” He said he was committed to making sure “that the standard which they should expect is that anyone who shows up to flight training, regardless of who they are, receives the exact same syllabus and the same opportunities to earn their wings of gold.”

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Eric M. Smith, left, acting commandant of the Marine Corps, reenlists Cpl. Haley Dominguez, an aviation operations specialist with Marine Heavy Helicopter Training Squadron 302, at Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina, on July 24, 2023. Smith told members of Congress in April that he was committed to making sure “that the standard which they should expect is that anyone who shows up to flight training, regardless of who they are, receives the exact same syllabus and the same opportunities to earn their wings of gold.” Photo by Cpl. Christopher Hernandez, courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps.

The War Horse asked the Marine Corps multiple times how it was supporting women and minority aviators, as well as about any efforts it had to diversify its pilot corps. The Marine Corps did not comment.

Naval Air Forces officials also did not respond to a list of questions about Groom and Bennett’s experiences nor answer questions about its efforts to support diversity in naval aviation.

Publicly, Naval Air Forces has highlighted diverse aviators on its social media platforms. For years, the Navy has hosted a career training symposium for female aviators, and in 2021, it introduced maternity flight suits for pregnant aviators. That same year, it hosted its first-ever diversity, equity, and inclusion summit for naval aviators.

These changes matter, an officer who attended the diversity summit tells The War Horse. “I’m hopeful in the next decade it will be different,” she says.

“These types of things are always driven from the top,” Sherrill, the congresswoman, says of changing cultures, whether in the military or in any large organization. “We need to create a fighting force with a great culture, a great climate, great dedication to duty. … When we find leaders who don’t live up to those standards, we need to make sure they’re not in leadership.”

“People would make my life a living fucking hell if they found out I contributed to this.”

Multiple officers tell The War Horse that after the diversity, equity, and inclusion summit, they were contacted to submit their experiences as part of an inspector general investigation into the training culture within the naval aviation pipeline.

But several officers say they had not received updates on the investigation and did not know its outcome. Naval Air Forces did not respond to questions about the inspector general investigation.

And even as the Navy builds official support for diverse aviators, its efforts are not always embraced in the officer corps. In a pilot meme account on Instagram, a post mocked the diversity, equity, and inclusion summit after it was announced.

The account also crassly made fun of people who might report such posts.

Most flight students who spoke with The War Horse were adamant about anonymity, saying they feared repercussions in their careers.

“People would make my life a living fucking hell if they found out I contributed to this,” one pilot says.

Both Groom and Bennett said that after speaking with a Marine Corps public affairs officer, they believed they could face repercussions after this story published.

After she received the memo stating she was not being separated from the Marine Corps and could return to flight training, Groom says she met with her command.

“I was like, ‘Wait. I have some questions,’” Groom says. She asked how she would be protected from any reprisal—many of the same officers who had given negative testimony in her investigations were still involved with flight training.

She didn’t have any reason to worry, she says she was told. This was a professional command.

This War Horse investigation was reported by Sonner Kehrt, edited by Kelly Kennedy, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Headlines are by Abbie Bennett. Prepublication review was completed by BakerHostetler.

thewarhorse.org · by Sonner Kehrt · August 18, 2023

15. Ukraine’s recent focus on Crimea draws skepticism from corners of the Biden administration

Ukraine’s recent focus on Crimea draws skepticism from corners of the Biden administration

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-s-recent-focus-on-crimea-draws-skepticism-from-corners-of-the-biden-administration/ar-AA1fr93w?

Story by By Katie Bo Lillis and Natasha Bertrand, CNN •

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kraine has ramped up missile strikes on Russian-occupied Crimea in recent weeks in an effort to disrupt Russian logistics and resupply efforts as fighting rages in southern Ukraine – but it’s a strategy that some US officials in Washington are viewing with skepticism.

For some military and Biden administration officials, Ukrainian attacks on Crimea are at best a distraction, and at worst, a valuable waste of resources in a strategy that many analysts now believe has left Ukraine stretched too thin between multiple axes of attack.

“It’s knocked the Russians off balance a bit, but it is not doing anything decisive,” a senior defense official told CNN. “And it would probably be better for everyone for them to just focus on the counteroffensive.”

Ukraine has in recent weeks used long-range missiles to strike two bridges linking Crimea to Russian-occupied territory in southern Ukraine, and on Saturday, targeted the only bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia. With roughly a third of the peninsula now within the range of US-provided HIMARS artillery, according to one senior Western intelligence official, Ukraine has also stepped up strikes on Russian ammunition dumps and other logistics and resupply infrastructure there.

Russian investigators work at the accident scene on the section of a road sloping to one side following an alleged attack on the Crimea Bridge, that connects the Russian mainland with the Crimean peninsula across the Kerch Strait, in this still image taken from video released July 17, 2023. - Investigative Committee of Russia/Reuters

© Provided by CNN

“There’s more and more pressure on Crimea, and especially so in recent weeks,” that official told CNN. “I mean, they get pounded.”

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Crimea holds a deep symbolic importance to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered his forces to invade and illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014. And it is also a strategically vital logistics hub for Russia’s war effort; its location on the Black Sea has made it sought-after territory for centuries.

For Ukraine, the attacks are an integral part of their counteroffensive strategy, intended to try to isolate Crimea and make it more difficult for Russia to sustain its military operations on the Ukrainian mainland, a Ukrainian source familiar with the strategy told CNN.

In general, Ukrainian strikes in the south have slowed and complicated Russia’s resupply and logistics maneuvers, the Western intelligence official said. And another US official said that if the Ukrainians are ultimately able to breach Russia’s extensive network of defensive lines and move forward, then targeting ammunition depots and resupply lines in Crime will be beneficial to the counteroffensive writ large.

But because the emphasis on Crimea is relatively new, multiple US and Western officials said that it was difficult to judge yet how much of an impact the attacks are having on Russia’s ability to withstand the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukraine has conducted “some pretty good attacks on logistics and command and control” in Crimea, one US military official said, but “I don’t think those effects have fully come to bear.”

But so far, some US officials and outside analysts say, the attacks do not appear to be having much of an impact. In 10 weeks of fighting, Ukraine has failed to break through Russian defensive lines – something some critics believe is because Ukraine failed to prioritize any one effort and instead spread their resources too thin across multiple fronts.

For now, the United States is not actively advising Ukraine against striking Crimea, according to the senior defense official. But the longer the counteroffensive drags on without significant gains, analysts say, the greater its chances of failure.

“The reality is this offensive does not have some eternal runway to go on through the fall,” said one source familiar with internal Pentagon discussions on the matter.

A stalled offensive

US and Ukrainian officials openly acknowledge that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has not proceeded as quickly as had been expected and war-gamed in the months leading up to the push.

Ukraine has sought to roll back Russian gains in three different directions, with active fighting along front lines in the northeast, near the town of Bakhmut, and in the south, where Ukraine has sought to sever the so-called land bridge connecting Russia to Crimea by driving forward to the southerly Sea of Azov.

Some US and western officials insist that the Russian defensive lines are limited to a single line of forces, suggesting that if Ukraine is able break through, Russia will be vulnerable from the rear. But after 10 weeks of fighting, the front lines remain fixed. And eventually, the brutal math of warfare – the plain number of bullets and bodies that an army has to throw into the fight – may not be on Ukraine’s side.

“It puts into question how much Ukraine will have available in combat strength to exploit any breakthrough,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Russian forces proved far less brittle than hoped over the past several months.”

Miles of minefields laid by Russia have kept Ukraine at bay and for weeks now, and the two sides have been engaged in a grinding fight within a narrow, unchanging band along the frontlines.

Ukraine has for now largely abandoned more complex maneuvering that the US had trained its military to use in favor of smaller-unit engagements and heavy use of artillery, which US officials are privately concerned about, CNN has reported.

The US and Europe are struggling to provide Ukraine with the large amount of ammunition it will need for a prolonged counteroffensive, and Western officials are racing to ramp up production to avoid shortages on the battlefield that could hinder Ukraine’s progress.

Some Western officials have defended the Ukrainian strategy on the battlefield, arguing that Ukraine is responding to the reality it faces on the ground.

Ukraine, “like the Russians, are engaged in an act of war and they are adapting to what they see and experience on the battlefield,” said the senior Western intelligence official. “What they’ve learned that is, smaller unit and tactics are more likely to be successful, to try to cause those holes in those frontlines complemented by longer range precision strike from artillery, and even cruise missiles to soften that line.”

“You can understand why they’ve done what they’ve done,” the US military official said. “I don’t know if the US army only had artillery and no air, if we wouldn’t be fighting somewhat similarly.”

These officials and others are careful to say that the story is not yet written on the outcome of the counteroffensive. The senior Western intelligence official said that they were “cautiously optimistic … for the potential for the Ukrainians to have a breakthrough because as the Russians commit more and fix more in place, it gives the Ukrainians an easier target to identify and go after.”

But within the US military, optimism is dimming that Ukraine will have a major breakthrough any time soon.

“I’m not too optimistic that we’ll be at the Sea of Azov by Christmas,” said the US military official.

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16. Chinese troops arrive in Thailand for "Commando 2023" joint army training - China Military

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

A report from the Chinese press.

Chinese troops arrive in Thailand for "Commando 2023" joint army training - China Military

eng.chinamil.com.cn · by Li Weichao

By Zhou Junyi and Zhong Junjie

PHITSANULOK, Thailand, Aug. 17 -- The Chinese troops to participate in China-Thailand "Commando 2023" joint army training, which is composed of service members assigned to a brigade of the PLA 74th Group Army, arrived at a joint training area in Phitsanulok of Thailand on August 16 to make preparations for the upcoming joint training exercise.

The joint training will take place in Thailand from mid-August to early September. With joint counter-terrorism operations as the subject, the training aims to enhance counter-terrorism cooperation between the Chinese and Thai armies, promote the development of mil-to-mil relationship, and play a constructive role in maintaining peace and stability in the region.

"The joint training is an important measure for both sides to explore joint counter-terrorism operations and exchange combat and training experience. It holds great significance for enhancing both armies' capabilities to carry out special operations tasks, and strengthening practical cooperation in the field of training," said Zheng Gang, commander of the Chinese participating troops.

eng.chinamil.com.cn · by Li Weichao

17. Emerging economies are pushing to end the dollar's dominance. But what's the alternative?

If we lose the dollar as the reserve currency we will not be able to fund our national defense.

Emerging economies are pushing to end the dollar's dominance. But what's the alternative?

AP · August 19, 2023

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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Business has vanished at Kingsley Odafe’s clothing shop in Nigeria’s capital, forcing him to lay off three employees.

One culprit for his troubles stands out: The U.S. dollar’s strength against the Nigerian currency, the naira, has pushed the price of garments and other foreign goods beyond the reach of local consumers. A bag of imported clothes costs three times what it did two years ago. The price these days is running around 350,000 naira, or $450.

“There are no sales anymore because people have to eat first before thinking of buying clothes,” Odafe said.

Across the developing world, many countries are fed up with America’s dominance of the global financial system — especially the power of the dollar. They will air their grievances next week as the BRICS bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa meet with other emerging market countries in Johannesburg, South Africa.

But griping about King Dollar is easier than actually deposing the de facto world currency.

The dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has shrugged off past challenges to its preeminence.

Despite repeated talk of the BRICS countries rolling out their own currency, no concrete proposals have emerged in the run-up to the summit starting Tuesday. Emerging economies have, however, discussed expanding trade in their own currencies to reduce their reliance on the buck.

At a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers in June, South Africa’s Naledi Pandor said the bloc’s New Development Bank will seek alternatives “to the current internationally traded currencies” — a euphemism for the dollar. Pandor was sitting alongside Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and China’s Ma Zhaoxu — representatives of two countries that are especially eager to weaken America’s international financial clout.

The BRICS grouping dates to 2009. Originally, it was just BRIC, a term coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill to refer to the rising economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa joined in 2010, adding the “S” to the name. More than 20 countries — including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela — have expressed interest in joining BRICS.

In 2015, the BRICS countries launched the New Development Bank — an alternative to the U.S. and European-dominated International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

“Developing nations are itching to loosen the grip of Western dominance and open the door to a new world order where the East commands equal, if not greater, influence,” said Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan political activist who has defended a law Uganda passed this year prescribing the death penalty for some homosexual acts.

The legislation prompted the World Bank to announce this month that it was halting new lending to the East African country.

Critics in the developing world are especially uneasy about America’s willingness to use the dollar’s global influence to impose financial sanctions against adversaries — as it did to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine last year.

They also complain that fluctuations in the dollar can destabilize their economies. A rising dollar, for instance, can cause chaos abroad by drawing investment out of other countries. It also increases the cost of repaying loans denominated in dollars and buying imported products, which are often priced in dollars.

Kenyan President William Ruto has grumbled this year about Africa’s dependence on the dollar and the economic fallout from its ups and downs, while the Kenyan shilling plunges in value. He’s urged African leaders to join a fledgling pan-African payments system that uses local currencies in a push to encourage more trade.

“How is U.S. dollars part of the trade between Djibouti and Kenya? Why?” he asked at a meeting, to applause.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has supported a common currency for commerce within the South American bloc Mercosur and for trade among BRICS nations.

“Why does Brazil need the dollar to trade with China or Argentina? We can trade in our currency,” he told reporters this month.

But if the dollar’s drawbacks are easily apparent, the alternatives to it are not.

“At the end of the day, if you want to keep your reserve safe, you’ve got to put it in the dollar,” said Daniel Bradlow, a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria and a lawyer specializing in international finance. “You’re going to need to borrow in dollars. Everybody can see all the problems with doing this, but if there was an alternative, people would use it.”

As it stands, 96% of trade in the Americas from 1999 to 2019 was invoiced in dollars, 74% of trade in Asia and 79% everywhere else, outside of Europe, which has the euro, according to calculations by U.S. Federal Reserve researchers.

Still, the dollar’s hold on global commerce has loosened somewhat in recent years as banks, businesses and investors have turned to the euro and China’s yuan.

But 24 years after the euro was introduced, the world’s No. 2 currency still does not rival the dollar for international gravitas: The dollar is used in three times as many foreign-exchange transactions as the euro, Harvard University economist Jeffrey Frankel said in a study last month.

And the yuan is limited by Beijing’s refusal to let the currency trade freely in world markets.

“None of the alternatives to the dollar managed to get to the dominance level,” said Mihaela Papa, senior fellow at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of global affairs. “So the idea that now, overnight, you will have a new BRICS currency that would (cause) a major upheaval — it takes time, it takes trust ... I see this path as very long.”

The dollar still has its supporters. In Argentina, Javier Milei, who emerged from primary voting Monday as the front-running presidential candidate in October’s general election, is calling for the dollar to replace the country’s embattled peso.

In Zimbabwe, Lovemore Mutenha’s liquor store collapsed when hyperinflation hit in 2008. He only managed to resuscitate the business when the country abandoned the local currency for a basket of currencies dominated by the dollar.

“The U.S. dollar has given us our life back. We can’t do without it,” Mutenha, 49, said in the working-class suburb of Warren Park near the capital, Harare. “How can one budget with the Zimbabwe dollar that is always changing in value? It is not stable, and we have been burnt before.”

In 2019, the government reintroduced the Zimbabwean currency and banned foreign currencies in local transactions.

But the revamped Zimbabwe dollar floundered. U.S. dollars kept trading in the black market, and the government lifted the ban. Now, 80% of transactions in the country are in U.S. dollars.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube often pleads with people to embrace the local currency.

But even government workers clamor to be paid in U.S. dollars, arguing that almost all service providers accept only the greenback.

Prosper Chitambara, an economic analyst in Harare, said the U.S. dollar “has always had a stabilizing effect.” But Zimbabwe’s economy, which has little industry, low investment, few exports and high debts, can’t attract enough dollars to meet the needs of everyday commerce.

It has led to a niche business on the streets of the capital: Vendors mend worn out or shredded $1 notes for a small fee.

____

Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa; Mutsaka from Harare, Zimbabwe; and Wiseman from Washington. AP reporters Cara Anna in Nairobi, Kenya; Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda; and David Biller in Rio de Janeiro contributed.

AP · August 19, 2023

18. Intelligence Agencies Warn Foreign Spies Are Targeting U.S. Space Companies

Of course they are. Why we would think otherwise?

Intelligence Agencies Warn Foreign Spies Are Targeting U.S. Space Companies

By Julian E. Barnes

Reporting from Washington

Aug. 18, 2023

The New York Times · by Julian E. Barnes · August 18, 2023

U.S. officials say Chinese and Russian spy agencies are trying to steal technology from private American space companies and preparing cyberattacks that could disable satellites in a conflict.

A broad warning from the federal government said that foreign intelligence services could be targeting space firms, their employees and the contractors that serve those companies.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Aug. 18, 2023, 9:00 a.m. ET

Chinese and Russian intelligence agencies are targeting American private space companies, attempting to steal critical technologies and preparing cyberattacks aimed at degrading U.S. satellite capabilities during a conflict or emergency, according to a new warning by American intelligence agencies.

The National Counterintelligence and Security Center, the F.B.I. and the Air Force issued a new advisory to American companies Friday morning. The broad warning to industry said that foreign intelligence services could be targeting space firms, their employees and the contractors that serve those companies.

Space companies’ data and intellectual property could be at risk from attempts to break into computer networks, moles placed inside companies and foreign infiltration of the supply chain, officials said.

“Foreign intelligence entities recognize the importance of the commercial space industry to the U.S. economy and national security, including the growing dependence of critical infrastructure on space-based assets,” the Counterintelligence Center warning said. “They see U.S. space-related innovation and assets as potential threats as well as valuable opportunities to acquire vital technologies and expertise.”

While the United States still builds and launches multimillion dollar reconnaissance and communications satellite, much of American innovation in space is being done by commercial companies, including those that conduct launches and others that build and field satellites.

Intelligence agencies are increasingly dependent on the private-sector space industry, and U.S. officials are worried about the interest Chinese and Russian spy services have shown in those companies, based on recent F.B.I. investigations and intelligence collection on foreign intelligence plans. American officials believe innovations by SpaceX, Blue Origin and other private companies have given the United States a huge advantage in space, one that is envied by foreign adversaries.

Security measures vary greatly from company to company, and some U.S. officials believe the space industry needs to tighten protections against attempts by Chinese and Russian intelligence agencies to infiltrate them.

Since 2017, the Justice Department has charged Chinese, Russian and Iranian nationals in various schemes to steal space-related technology. Last October, five Russian nationals were accused in an indictment of trying to illicitly acquire “semiconductors and microprocessors used in satellites, missiles, and other space-based military applications” from American companies. In 2019, a Chinese national was sentenced to federal prison for trying to acquire a radiation-hardened power amplifier used in space applications.

And some companies have disclosed infiltration attempts. In 2020, United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin which puts many national security satellites into orbit, suggested a Chinese firm had tried to infiltrate its supply chain. The supplier did not succeed in extracting critical intelligence.

American officials also believe rendering ineffective space-based communications and imaging satellites is likely to be the opening moves of any future conflict. As Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February last year, hackers linked to the Russian government conducted a cyberattack against Viasat, a U.S.-based communications firm, in an attempt to disrupt Ukraine’s ability to command its troops.

As the war has gone on, Russians have focused on jamming satellites. SpaceX’s low-earth orbit satellite network Starlink has also proved critical to Ukraine’s war effort.

The warning issued Friday advises companies to track anomalous incidents on their computer networks to look for potential breaches, develop protocols to identify potential foreign agents inside the business, conduct due diligence on potential investors and prioritize the protection of the most important intellectual properties.

Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. More about Julian E. Barnes

The New York Times · by Julian E. Barnes · August 18, 2023

19. Russia Admits Ukrainian ‘Sabotage Groups’ Crossed Dnipro River

Russia Admits Ukrainian ‘Sabotage Groups’ Crossed Dnipro River

kyivpost.com

War in Ukraine Counteroffensive Armed Forces of Ukraine

A Kremlin-installed official said Kyiv’s troops “were able to hide on the outskirts of the settlement” of Kozachi Laheri but claimed they had since been “cleared out.”

by Kyiv Post | August 18, 2023, 5:11 pm

Ukrainian troops in action at an unspecified location. PHOTO: Ukrinform.

Ukraine’s armed forces crossed into the Russian-occupied east bank of Kherson region and took positions there, the region's Russian-installed governor said Friday.

He said Ukrainian “sabotage groups” had managed to hide out on the outskirts of the Russian-controlled town of Kozachi Laheri, near the Dnipro river, but that they were later “cleared out” by Moscow's forces.

“On the first day of the provocation... individual sabotage groups were able to hide on the outskirts of the settlement,” Moscow-installed official Vladimir Saldo said.

“As of today, the Kozachi Laheri area has been completely cleared physically -- there is no Ukrainian military there,” he added, in comments published by the TASS news agency.

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s special forces conducted a daring raid of a settlement on the occupied left-bank of the Dnipro River.

According to the independent Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and its sources, early in the morning, Ukrainian forces landed up to seven boats – each carrying around six to seven soldiers – near the settlement of Kozachi Laheri, and then broke through Russian defensive lines, and advanced up to 800 meters deep.

A pro-Russian milblogger said that the raid caused “some inevitable and extremely painful problems” to Russian forces.

But Kyiv remained tight-lipped – at the time, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said Ukraine "does not confirm the information" about the raid.

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Russian Missile Strike on the Historical Center of Chernihiv - Updated

Russian missile hits center of Ukrainian city of Chernihiv

She later said confirmed that "certain (Ukrainian) units performed certain tasks," on the left bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson.

"We cannot give details," she added.

Russian military bloggers said last week that Ukrainian detachments were present in the town and were shelling there, but that Moscow's forces were still in control of the settlement.

Russia's admission comes as Ukraine pushes ahead with its long-awaited counteroffensive to recapture territory controlled by Russian forces.

Ukraine recaptured the west bank of Kherson region last November, and has been launching sporadic operations on the east bank since.

While it has acknowledged difficult battles, including in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, where Russia says it is advancing, Kyiv says its forces have gained ground in the east.

kyivpost.com

20. Biden administration searching for ways to keep US forces in Niger to continue anti-terror operations despite overthrowing of government

Biden administration searching for ways to keep US forces in Niger to continue anti-terror operations despite overthrowing of government | CNN Politics

CNN · by Natasha Bertrand,Oren Liebermann · August 17, 2023

CNN —

The Biden administration is searching for ways to keep US forces and assets in Niger to continue anti-terror operations, even as it becomes increasingly unlikely that the military junta that overthrew the country’s government last month will cede power back to the democratically elected president.

The Pentagon is evaluating what authorities it can use to continue to operate in a primarily intelligence gathering role in Niger if the military takeover there is deemed a coup d’etat by the State Department – a legal determination that would strip the US military of some of its authorities and funding to engage in security cooperation with Nigerien forces.

If a coup determination is made, administration officials have also explored the possibility of issuing a waiver to allow certain US military activities to continue, officials told CNN. Congress for the first time last year incorporated the waiver into its 2023 omnibus spending bill, allowing the secretary of state to waive the restrictions on national security grounds.

A National Security Council spokesperson declined to comment on “what decisions could be made,” but said that “any decision we take will be in accordance to US law.”

Supporters of mutinous soldiers demonstrate in Niamey, Niger, Thursday July 27 2023.

Sam Mednick/AP

'Washington has to thread a very difficult needle' on Niger response, experts say

“While we continue to give diplomacy a chance and continue force protection measures for US personnel and facilities, our force posture in Niger has not changed, and we continue to evaluate next steps in service of both our democratic and security goals,” the spokesperson told CNN.

Many administration officials believe that keeping a presence in Niger is vital to efforts to tackle terrorism in the region and argue that it’s feasible even amid the domestic political turmoil there. Several of the junta leaders have worked with and been trained by the US as part of the US’ security cooperation with the country, officials said, and Nigerien military leaders have not voiced anti-American sentiment or asked the US to leave.

A key variable is Brig. Gen Moussa Barmou, the American-trained commander of the Nigerien special operations forces who has helped lead the military takeover and proclaimed himself Niger’s chief of defense.

Maj. Gen. J. Marcus Hicks, the former commander of Special Operations Command Africa who worked closely with Barmou, said he “is not anti-western,” and added that it would be feasible for the US to continue working with the Nigerien military.

“Barmou is a friend to a lot of us in the US military,” he said. “I have no sense that they want us to leave.”

Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland met with Barmou when she traveled to Niger earlier this month to try to negotiate a return to democratic rule in the country. Barmou also keeps in touch with several current and former US military officials he has worked with over the years, sources told CNN.

‘The grayest of the gray areas’

The US military mission in Niger is one of the main reasons why the US has held off so far on legally declaring the situation a military coup d’etat, instead engaging in extensive diplomacy to try to reverse the Nigerien military takeover, officials said. The Economic Community of West African States, France, and the EU have all deemed the situation a coup.

“We have assets and interests in the region, and our main priority is protecting those interests and protecting those of our allies,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said on Tuesday. “So a [coup] designation … certainly changes what we’d be able to do in the region, and how we’d be able to partner with the Nigerien military.”

But a decision to keep US assets in place could create friction with allies and other countries in the region concerned about potential US cooperation with the military junta currently in control of Niger.

Niger's now ousted former President Mohamed Bazoum pictured when he was in power in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on June 23, 2022.

Sia Kambou/AFPGetty Images

Niger junta says 'high treason' evidence gathered to prosecute ousted president Bazoum

“It’s like the grayest of the gray areas you could think of,” said Alan Van Saun, a former Army special forces officer who worked with Barmou in Niger. “We absolutely have a national interest in that area staying secure. But we also have an international interest in promoting democratic processes and due process. So how do we continue to support the military? How do we continue to achieve our interests, while also not encouraging future coups?”

White House and Pentagon officials are extremely wary of leaving the country and giving up the US drone air base near Agadez, Niger, known as Air Base 201, officials told CNN.

The drone flights out of Agadez have given the US the ability to monitor threats in the Sahel region from a relatively close and stable position, especially as the number of violent terror organizations have carried out a growing number of attacks in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso. According to the Africa Center, a Defense Department think-tank, violence linked to militant Islamists killed an estimated 8,000 people in the region in 2022, nearly double the previous year.

Officials also fear that pulling the approximately 1,100 US troops currently stationed in Niger out of the country could leave a vacuum that Islamist militants and the Russian mercenary organization Wagner Group try to exploit.

“Despite their public statements claiming they support Nigerien security, the leaders of this attempted coup are putting Niger’s security at risk, creating a potential vacuum that terrorist groups or other malign groups may exploit,” the NSC spokesperson said.

Mahamadou Hamidou/Reuters

ECOWAS orders 'immediate activation' of standby force in Niger

Van Saun said he believes Barmou is “playing a long game,” however, and doesn’t see the takeover as a temporary arrangement.

“He is strategic and has been playing the long game for his whole adult life,” Van Saun said. “The fact that he was willing to potentially sacrifice the US military support and military aid means that the whole group is convinced that they are on the right side of justice.”

For now, the pressure to pull out of the country is not as great as it would be if the Nigerien military asked the US to leave or if violence erupted.

“The lack of violence has given us the time to explore a range of options,” one defense official said.

‘Niger is our access to the Sahel’

Hicks told CNN that he believes the coup attempt and the possibility the US will pull out of the country “bodes poorly for our counterterrorism efforts in the region.”

US forces could fall back to Côte d’Ivoire and base intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets there, if given permission, Hicks said. But he added that “Niger is our access to the Sahel, and the appearance is now that we’re going to lose it, barring some creative way to not call this a coup.”

Already, the US has suspended its security cooperation with the Nigerien military while officials evaluate how to move forward amid the military takeover, which has “limited’ the US ability to collect intelligence in the region, a US defense official said.

One major concern for US officials is that pulling forces out of Niger could be irreversible, representing the permanent loss of a military presence that played a crucial role in US intelligence efforts gathering in the region.

The relatively limited military footprint in Niger allowed the US to carry out surveillance and reconnaissance missions in the region, but it was never intended to be the primary force carrying out offensive operations, according to Joseph Siegle, who heads the Africa Center’s research and strategic communications program. The US rarely launched counter-terrorism strikes in the Sahel, instead passing the intelligence on to national partners to engage a target.

“That isn’t the role the US has wanted to play,” said Siegle. “The personnel and equipment [the US military] has in Niger is mostly for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance types of efforts – it’s about understanding, it’s about getting information, it’s about movements and communications and things that are evolving on the ground, which are then provided to the national security partners.”

But it’s a mission that would be far more difficult to carry out from outside Niger, given the country’s close proximity to Mali, Burkina Faso and other nations that have seen an increase in violent extremism.

Following the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, the US military touted its ability to conduct so-called over-the-horizon operations in the country, but the missions require flying in unmanned drones from thousands of miles away and severely limiting the time the drone could spend over the target area.

Removing forces from Niger could create a similar situation, forcing the US to fly drones from potentially distant airfields and requiring the US to secure overflight rights to reach Niger, a sensitive matter to negotiate with any country.

“Presumably, there are other ways that the US could gain information from a more distant location, but Niger provides a very central location for this,” said Siegle. “Especially as you’re trying to support real time operations for the security forces, time and precision matters.”

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.

CNN · by Natasha Bertrand,Oren Liebermann · August 17, 2023

21. How to Kill Chinese Dynamism

How to Kill Chinese Dynamism

Aug 18, 2023​  

YASHENG HUANG

https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/china-innovation-growth-based-on-hong-kong-outsourcing-rule-of-law-market-institutions-by-yasheng-huang-2023-08

Those who believe that Chinese entrepreneurship and growth have thrived under a magical formula of statism ignore the role that Hong Kong played in providing the conventional pillars of market finance and the rule of law. Without this escape valve, China's great economic success story never would have happened.

BOSTON – In Lonely Ideas: Can Russia Compete?, MIT historian of science Loren Graham shows that many technologies pioneered by Soviet and post-Soviet Russia – including various weapons, improved railroads, and lasers – nonetheless failed to benefit the national economy in any substantial way. The reason for this abysmal failure, he concludes, is Russia’s lack of entrepreneurship.

1. Innovation
2. 
   

The same insight can be applied to Imperial China. Many ideas that originated there were lonely orphans and brought little to no benefit to the Chinese economy. By contrast, the China of the post-1978 reform era moved in an altogether different direction from both Russia and China’s own past. As the reforms took root and blossomed, China began to develop a large, dynamic private sector with many entrepreneurs who were highly motivated and capable of bringing technologies to scale.

Chinese ideas and innovations were no longer lonely but had quite a lot of company. More importantly for China’s economy, they were regularly deployed to generate growth, employment, and the tax revenues that helped keep the Communist Party of China (CPC) in power.

Imperial China was inventive, but it was not innovative. As the late economist William Baumol showed, this distinction is crucial. Inventions alone do not contribute to economic growth. Rather, growth is powered by innovation – the entrepreneurship and business-development activities that take inventions to the market through commercialization. Capitalism is an innovation machine because it provides the mechanisms needed to turn inventions into economy-boosting innovations.

Under the reformist CPC, China became such an innovation machine. Yet China’s vibrant high-tech sector remains puzzling to many.

In their best-selling 2009 book, Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, journalists Dan Senor and Saul Singer show how a culture of informality, risk-free inquiries, and organizational egalitarianism – all supported by government policies and programs – helped make Israel a global entrepreneurial success story. The authors offer vivid details of subordinates pushing back against their superiors, even in the military – an institution that is synonymous with hierarchy.

China, by contrast, is top-down, hierarchical, and repressive, stifling individual initiative. It seems to lack Israel’s culture of democracy, rule of law, and protection of property rights. Chinese laws place no meaningful constraints on Chinese leaders, and Chinese finance is dominated by the statist banking system. While venture capital grew exponentially in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, big tech companies such as Alibaba, Huawei, and Lenovo were not funded by Chinese VC in their startup phase.

China, thus, represents the polar opposite of Israel. Yet it, too, became a startup nation. Chinese entrepreneurship has flourished even without rule of law and market-based finance, and even though autocracy is widely assumed to be antithetical to innovation. What explains this outcome?

THE CHINA CONUNDRUM

Among commentators and scholars, there is a deeply rooted view that China has discovered and crafted “a third way” to foster dynamic innovation: a development model that harnesses the efficiency of the market economy and the power of the state without having to rely on the institutional prerequisites of capitalism, such as rule of law and market finance. I disagree. In my new book, The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline, I show that Hong Kong, at least until very recently, functioned as a hidden-in-plain-sight source of rule of law and market finance for many high-tech entrepreneurs in China.

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Though mainland China does not have rule of law and market finance, it effectively outsourced those functions to Hong Kong after Deng Xiaoping succeeded Mao Zedong and launched China’s reform era. Consider the history of the global computer giant Lenovo. Founded in 1984 under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), its business was domiciled in Hong Kong from 1993 onward, a move that played a vital role in the company’s early development.

Acquiring the ability to tap into Hong Kong’s finance was a major milestone in Lenovo’s rise. After the initial funding it received from the CAS, the company raised much of its initial financing in Hong Kong’s conventionally Western capital market, both during its startup phase and through subsequent rounds of capitalization as it grew.

In 1988, Lenovo received HK$900,000 ($115,000) from China Technology, a Hong Kong-based firm, to invest in a joint venture in Hong Kong. Then, in 1994, Lenovo went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising the funding needed for the company’s investments in China. Statist Chinese finance was nowhere to be seen.

Hong Kong was still a British colony in 1994, and between 1997 and 2019, it operated under the “one country, two systems” formula. Though the territory was under Chinese sovereignty, it preserved its legal and operational autonomy as a historically laissez-faire economy with a market-oriented financial system, rule of law, and secure property rights. China did not furnish any of these core functions, but its reformist government made them available to some of its entrepreneurs. 

This new access to growth-enhancing institutions was an unheralded and, most likely, unintended effect of the open-door policy that Deng had initiated. That policy’s big contribution lay not just in allowing foreign companies to establish factories in China, but, crucially, in linking Chinese entrepreneurs with global venture capital and in allowing some Chinese citizens and businesses to exit. China’s own capable entrepreneurs were given a way out of a very bad system. Let’s get this straight: China’s success has less to do with creating efficient institutions than with providing access to efficient institutions elsewhere.

OUTSOURCING THE RULE OF LAW

Those who believe that Chinese entrepreneurship somehow thrived under a magical formula of statism thus ignore the role that Hong Kong – and a number of other overseas domiciles – played in providing the conventional pillars of innovation-driven economic growth. To appreciate this perspective, just imagine a scenario in which China had the same statist banking system and the same technical and entrepreneurial human capital, but no Hong Kong at its doorstep. You would not see anything like Lenovo’s development story.

That is why it has been so common among Chinese high-tech firms to register their assets outside mainland China’s legal system. Within the BAT trio of internet giants (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), only Tencent is registered in China (in Shenzhen). (Incidentally, Tencent was backed early on by Naspers, a media company in South Africa.) Alibaba Holding, according to one registry, is registered in the Cayman Islands, though another registry shows that its Chinese operating unit was established in 1999 as a joint venture between a Hong Kong concern and a Chinese firm. Most likely, the Cayman unit established its Chinese operating unit through a holding company in Hong Kong.

Similarly, Baidu Holding is registered in the British Virgin Islands, and its Chinese operating unit, established in 2000, is a wholly owned foreign firm, with the same legal status as Lenovo Beijing and Lenovo Shanghai. The biggest facial-recognition firm in China, SenseTime (which the US government has blacklisted), and ByteDance, the ultimate holding company of TikTok, are registered in Hong Kong, while China’s second-largest e-commerce company, JD.com, is registered in the Cayman Islands.

As journalist Mara Hvistendahl noted in late 2018, there are nine Chinese firms among the world’s 20 biggest tech companies, and only three of them are fully domiciled domestically: Tencent, Xiaomi, and Ant Group (whose parent firm is foreign-registered). The other six – Alibaba, ByteDance, Baidu, Didi Chuxing, Meituan, and JD.com – all have domicile connections to establishments registered in Hong Kong or other overseas territories.

LONELY AGAIN

To be sure, Chinese high-tech entrepreneurs have also benefited from other factors, such as the scale advantage offered by millions of well-trained technical personnel and the growth opportunities associated with a rapidly increasing GDP. But access to the rule of law and market-based safe harbors such as Hong Kong and foreign localities was crucial. An under-appreciated aspect of globalization is that it brought to China not only foreign markets but also propitious institutional conditions and global risk capital. We need to recognize this institutional effect to get the China story right.

This recognition exposes the inaccuracy of the view that China can do without efficient market-based institutions. The story of Lenovo is precisely about their importance. The company was able to tap into these institutions because China was accidentally fortunate enough to border one of the world’s most laissez-faire economic systems. China is special not because it has cracked the code of state capitalism, but because its system has had an escape valve.

This is another reason why we need to get the China story right. Other countries that want to foster entrepreneurship would be making a huge mistake if they tried to emulate China’s domestic financial and legal institutions and practices. As successful as Lenovo and other Chinese high-tech businesses are, the special circumstances around Hong Kong suggest that they do not represent a generally applicable model.

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Sadly, many commentators, and Chinese policymakers themselves, do not seem to grasp this point. In her new book, Keyu Jin of the London School of Economics argues that China’s unique development model – “beyond socialism and capitalism” – enabled its miracle growth without a need for Western contrivances such as the rule of law and market finance. She mistook the genuine enlightenment during the reform era that allowed Chinese entrepreneurs to circumvent a statist system for the virtues of that system. Remarkably, her book comes at a time of massive capital flight from China, much of it driven by Chinese entrepreneurs who fear for the security of their persons and property. The incongruity is jarring.

Similarly, in a 2019 commentary for The New York Times, Eswar Prasad of Cornell University argues that Hong Kong is no longer that important to China, because the Chinese economy now dwarfs that of Hong Kong. Whereas Hong Kong was one-fifth the size of the Chinese economy in 1997, he observes, it was only one-thirtieth the size in 2018.

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But allow me to cite a different set of statistics. My book profiles three leading biotech firms in China: BeiGene, WuXi AppTec, and Zai Lab. Not for nothing, all are registered in Hong Kong, like so many other Chinese high-tech firms. Imagine arguing that the US Constitution is useless because it has zero GDP. As flawed as it is, Prasad’s argument is revealing as an accurate reflection of how most China watchers have discounted the importance of the rule of law and market finance.

Is this how policymakers in Beijing also think about Hong Kong? Probably. Now that the 2020 National Security Law of Hong Kong has eviscerated the “one country, two systems” formula that provided a semblance of legal protection to Chinese entrepreneurs, they could be in for a rude awakening.

Hong Kong has been dragged away from the rule of law toward China’s “rule by law” – and this at a time of geopolitical tensions, deglobalization, and increasing economic insularity. New safe harbors have emerged, such as Singapore, but this time they are hosting economic refugees from China rather than performing the institutional functions that previously powered China’s high-tech entrepreneurship. Soon, China will feel the effects of no longer being able to outsource the rule of law and the other basic ingredients of innovation-driven growth, and it will pay a steep price for getting basic economics so egregiously wrong.

YASHENG HUANG

Writing for PS since 2001

12 Commentaries

Yasheng Huang, Professor of Global Economics and Management at MIT Sloan School of Management, is the author of the forthcoming book The Rise and the Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline (Yale University Press, August 2023).

​22. Analysis | Gen. Milley on Ukraine, Tuberville and ‘wokeness’

Analysis | Gen. Milley on Ukraine, Tuberville and ‘wokeness’

Analysis by Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer

with research by Tobi Raji

August 18, 2023 at 6:06 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Leigh Ann Caldwell · August 18, 2023

Good morning, Early Birds. Sadly, a missed opportunity with this one-time real-life Barbie Dreamhouse. But has anyone built the Mojo Dojo Casa House? Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here. Thanks for waking up with us.

In today’s edition … What we’re watching: Camp David summit … American democracy is cracking. These forces help explain why. … but first …

At the Pentagon

Gen. Milley on if Ukraine can win: Define ‘win’

Gen. Mark A. Milley has just 42 days left in his tenure as the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As as he nears the end of a long, illustrious and sometimes controversial career, we sat down with Milley on Wednesday in his Pentagon office at a round table adorned with challenge coins from around the world and four televisions tuned to four different news channels — Fox, CNN, MSNBC and the BBC.

We spoke about a wide range of topics, including Ukraine, the United States' withdrawal in Afghanistan, Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s blocking of military promotions and nominees and military recruitment challenges.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Responding to some Republicans who have criticized the pace of providing weapons to Ukraine

“I’ve been a participant from the very beginning — even before the Russians invaded Ukraine — in the decision-making with President Biden, the National Security Council and [Defense] Secretary [Lloyd] Austin, etc. I’ve not seen any slow walking whatsoever. We have provided Ukraine lots of equipment, munitions, a huge amount of military assistance, and there’s also a lot of civilian assistance, money, etc. But military assistance, we provided Ukraine with enormous amount.

We've provided them with the right amount of equipment at the right time in order to achieve the objectives that they needed to achieve at the moment in time.”

On the counteroffensive against Russia in Ukraine

“The Russians are in pretty rough shape. So they’ve suffered huge amount of casualties. Their morale is not great. Their leadership is questionable and spotty, depends on what type of unit. The strategic level of leadership is clearly having a lot of friction. Logistics is not great. So, the Russians are, though, in the defense. So [Ukraine’s] fighting the fight. I had said a couple of months ago that this offensive was going to be long, it’s gonna be bloody, it’s going to be slow. And that’s exactly what it is: long, bloody and slow, and it's a very, very difficult fight.”

Our colleagues John Hudson and Alex Horton broke last night that Ukraine will fail to reach a key offensive goal of reaching the key southeastern city of Melitopol, according to people familiar with U.S. intelligence.

On if Ukraine can win

“That depends on what you mean by the word ‘win.’”

“For Ukraine, this is an existential fight. It’s a fight for survival. But for the rest of Europe and for the rest of the world, really, for the United States, it’s about those rules, to make sure those rules stay in place. What Putin has done is a frontal assault on those rules of the international order that have been in existence now for eight decades since the end of World War II.

If the end state is Ukraine is a free, independent sovereign country with its territory intact, that will take a considerable level of effort yet to come. And this is a long, very difficult, high casualty-producing war that’s ongoing. You can achieve those objectives through military means. That’s gonna take a long, long time, but you can also achieve those objectives maybe possibly, through some sort of diplomatic means.”

On if any backchannel diplomatic talks between Russia and Ukraine have begun

“I’m not going to comment on any future things or ongoing negotiations or any that kind of stuff. I would just say that there is various ways to accomplish those objectives. And I would say right now, it’s probably too early to tell this. This counteroffensive hasn't run its course yet. So we have to see where this thing ends up and then move from there.”

On the military holds by Tuberville (R-Ala.) in protest of DOD’s abortion policy

“I don’t want to enter into the whole discussion of abortion and the culture war. I’m staying out of all that.

So now you’re up to, probably, I don’t know somewhere between three [thousand] and 4,000 people, humans, children, spouses, the officers themselves that are being impacted by this in a negative way — increased uncertainty, can’t go to school, can’t change jobs, can’t get settled.

About a third of our assignments change pretty much every year. So you’re looking at about a third of the organizations in the U.S. military globally, are without predictable, consistent leadership. And the guy who’s in the job right now would either have to extend or defer retirement or defer the next assignment and there’s a real ripple effect to all of this. So there is a real readiness impact to all of this and that concerns me. And the sooner we can get to a resolution, I think the better.”

(Gen. Milley’s nominated replacement, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., is one of the 301 military officials and flag officers being blocked by Tuberville. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has not yet committed the hours of floor time to confirm Brown as Tuberville’s holds pile up.)

On the four indictments of former president Donald Trump, who appointed Milley to his position

“It would be entirely inappropriate for me as a commissioned officer, and more so as the chairman, to ever comment on a current or former president and especially with ongoing legal cases.”

On if “wokeness” is contributing to recruiting challenges as Republicans allege:

“There’s clearly a recruiting challenge ongoing and you saw numbers. And the Army is particularly challenged to meet its numbers.

So why is that? I think there’s a lot of reasons. There’s never a single causal factor. So anyone who out there is saying that this is the reason, I would challenge them on that.

First, I would start with covid. Kids in this country, essentially, didn’t go to school for two years and getting into high schools for our recruiters, to get into high schools, is one of the keys to recruiting, to meeting the numbers.

Second thing is … some of the data indicates that there’s a much greater spike in recruits failing the ASVAB test, which is the academic test to get into the military. Why is that? I don’t know. I’m not an academic. I’m not a teacher. But I suspect that there’s some contribution there — of not being in high school, and then missing two years of school and then failing ASVAB test. So that's a contributing factor.

I think another contributing factor is clearly this perception of quote, “wokeness,” and I personally think that it’s overstated. There are things that are done in the military that certainly, you know, raise that as an issue, but the actual facts suggests that it’s much less significant than perhaps the perception is.”

On, as he calls it, perceived “wokeness”

“I’ll use drag queen shows as an example. That’s been out there. I don’t agree with drag queen shows being on military bases. I don’t think that’s appropriate. And neither does Secretary Austin. So Secretary Austin put a stop to it. How many times it happened? It happened a few. That’s true. Probably shouldn't happen. But it did. But to say that that is, you know, somehow the entire military went woke because a handful of drag queen shows that shouldn't happen to begin with, I think is an overstatement.

Same thing with critical race theory. So agree or disagree with critical race theory, it is not a theory that the Department of Defense or the military is embracing and shoving down people’s throats.”

On if he supports investigations including those by House Republicans into the Afghanistan withdrawal, which was completed two years ago this month

“Of course. I think any time that you can shed light and truth, determine lessons learned, I think that’s a valuable exercise.

These are early on, these are immediate, these are after-action reviews that give us some insights into some of the lessons learned. And I would say that you’re probably not going to get a holistic, balanced picture by professional historians for years to come. Because if you look at past wars, that’s how long it usually takes — at least a decade or more — to get the fulsome picture. But Congress doing one? Of course.”

For our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, CIA officers, Department of State officers — anyone who served in Afghanistan over twenty plus years — the cost in blood was high, but every single one of us who served in Afghanistan should hold their heads high. They served with skill, dedication and honor. For two decades our nation was not attacked from Afghanistan — that was our mission, and each one can be rightly proud of their service.”

On what he’d say to the 13 Abbey Gate families who are testifying before Congress next month

“We owe those Gold Star families everything. We owe them transparency, we owe them honesty, we owe them accountability if appropriate. We owe them the truth about what happened to their loved ones. The United States Marine Corps went out and briefed 13 of those or 11 of those families, the Army briefed one and the Navy briefed one. And there was a large investigation done.

I wasn’t at those briefings, but I trust the Marine Corps did the best they could — have given every piece of information that they could. If there was issues with that, we need to take whatever corrective action is necessary.

And and our hearts go out to those families. This is a personal thing for all of us in uniform. We don't like what happened in Afghanistan. We don't like the outcome of Afghanistan. I got that. But we owe it to the families to take care of them. Their sacrifice cannot be in vain.”

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly quoted Milley as saying: “What Putin has done is a frontal assault on those rules of the international order that have been in existence now for a decade since the end of World War II.” He said: “What Putin has done is a frontal assault on those rules of the international order that have been in existence now for eight decades since the end of World War II.” This version has been updated.

23. American democracy is cracking. These forces help explain why.

Something to reflect on over the weekend.

​For those not committed to making our democracy work what would you rather have replace it

(and for those who say we are not a democracy but a republic as I learned in our political philosophy class long ago we are Federal Democratic Republic)

I for one still believe in our Constitution and if we protect it, it will protect us. But we have to work at it and want to make it work.

Excerpts:

The failure has multiple origins, including a collapse of trust in institutions. But one of the most significant is a collision between forces both old and new.

The old dates to the writing of the Constitution — debates and compromises that resulted in representation in the House based on population and in the Senate based on equal standing for the states; the odd system by which we elect presidents; and lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices. In general, the founders often distrusted the masses and sought to create structural protections against them.

The newer element, which has gathered strength in recent decades, is the deepening polarization of the political system. Various factors have caused this: shifts within the two parties that have enlarged the ideological gap between them; geographic sorting that has widened the differences between red and blue states; a growing urban-rural divide; and greater hostility among individuals toward political opponents.

American democracy is cracking. These forces help explain why.

Behind the sense that the political system is broken lies a collision between forces both old and new

By Dan Balz and Clara Ence Morse

Updated August 18, 2023 at 10:34 a.m. EDT|Published August 18, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Dan Balz · August 18, 2023

In a country where the search for common ground is increasingly elusive, many Americans can agree on this: They believe the political system is broken and that it fails to represent them.

They aren’t wrong.

Faced with big and challenging problems — climate, immigration, inequality, guns, debt and deficits — government and politicians seem incapable of achieving consensus. On each of those issues, the public is split, often bitterly. But on each, there are also areas of agreement. What’s broken is the will of those in power to see past the divisions enough to reach compromise.

The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is both an extreme emblem of what happens when democracy stops functioning as it should and the result of relentless attacks by former president Donald Trump on the legitimacy of the election process based on lies and distortions, a continuing threat to U.S. democracy.

In more routine ways, the political system feeds frustration and discontent with its incapacity to respond to the public’s needs. There is little on the horizon to suggest solutions.

The failure has multiple origins, including a collapse of trust in institutions. But one of the most significant is a collision between forces both old and new.

The old dates to the writing of the Constitution — debates and compromises that resulted in representation in the House based on population and in the Senate based on equal standing for the states; the odd system by which we elect presidents; and lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices. In general, the founders often distrusted the masses and sought to create structural protections against them.

The newer element, which has gathered strength in recent decades, is the deepening polarization of the political system. Various factors have caused this: shifts within the two parties that have enlarged the ideological gap between them; geographic sorting that has widened the differences between red and blue states; a growing urban-rural divide; and greater hostility among individuals toward political opponents.

The result is that today, a minority of the population can exercise outsize influence on policies and leadership, leading many Americans increasingly to feel that the government is a captive of minority rule.

Twice in the past two decades, the president was elected while losing the popular vote — George W. Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016. That had happened only three times in the previous 200-plus years. The dynamic extends beyond the presidency to the other two branches of government.

A new Washington Post analysis found that four of the nine current justices on the Supreme Court were confirmed by senators who represent a minority of the U.S. population. Since 1998, Republicans have had a majority in the Senate a total of 12 years but did not during that time represent more than half the nation’s population, The Post’s analysis of population data and Senate composition shows.

The Post also found that during Trump’s presidency, 43 percent of all judicial and governmental nominees were confirmed by senators representing a minority of the population. Under President Biden, not quite 5 percent of nominees were confirmed by senators representing a minority of the population.

The state of democracy is not uniformly negative. In moments of crisis especially, elected officials have found common ground. At times, government action does reflect the public will. Under Trump, bipartisan congressional majorities passed and the president signed multiple rounds of relief during the covid-19 pandemic. Biden and Congress came together to pass a major infrastructure package in 2021. Last year, there was bipartisan agreement on legislation to spur production of semiconductor chips in the United States.

At times, protection of minorities and their rights from the will of the majority is needed and necessary. Checks and balances afford further protections that nonetheless can seem to hamstring government’s ability to function effectively. But on balance, the situation now is dire. Americans are more dissatisfied with their government than are citizens in almost every other democracy, according to polling.

Henry Brady, professor of political science and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, has been studying these issues for many years. As he surveys the current state of the United States’ democracy, he comes away deeply pessimistic. “I’m terrified,” he said. “I think we are in bad shape, and I don’t know a way out.”

This is the first in a series of reports examining what is fueling the visceral feeling many Americans have that their government does not represent them. Alongside debates over specific policies, the overall state of democracy roils the national discussion. Heading into the 2024 presidential election, this issue is likely to be a critical factor for many voters.

Distrust in government

Trust in the federal government began to decline during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and then took a big hit amid the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. There have been occasional rebounds — after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, or during the late 1990s when the economy was doing well. But for the past two decades — through good economic times and bad — mistrust has been persistent.

Individual institutions have suffered as well. Of late it is the Supreme Court’s reputation that has been damaged due to rulings that have gone against popular opinion and a heightened sense that the court has become politicized. For Congress, the decline has been ongoing for decades. Only Wall Street and television news have seen more precipitous declines in trust over the past four decades, according to calculations published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Americans have long been skeptical of the power of the central government. Scandals and corruption over the years have added to the problem. Lately, officials have openly attacked the very institutions of which they are a part, making it even harder for the bureaucracy to function effectively. No one has done this more than Trump. Attacks on institutions have been a hallmark of his time in politics.

While there is some universality to these conditions, citizens in only a handful of democratic countries take a dimmer view of their government than Americans do of theirs.

Polarization

For much of the United States’ history, the constitutional system created by the founders worked reasonably well. The Civil War is an obvious exception, and other periods have tested the collective will. But overall, government generally functioned, even if not perfectly.

More recently, however, the system’s weaknesses became more apparent as tribalism shapes much of political behavior and the Republican Party has departed from its historical moorings. Trump’s impact has distorted traditional Republican conservatism and has led many Republicans to accept as reality demonstrably untrue beliefs. The best example of that is that a majority in the GOP say Biden was not legitimately elected. The hard-right wing of the Republican Party and Trump voters in particular have been resistant to compromise.

“In comparison to European countries, our constitutional system is not well suited for polarized political parties,” said Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford Law School.

Election of presidents

The Constitution created an unusual mechanism for electing the president — an electoral college. It was built on assumptions that over the years have proved to be faulty.

The founders distrusted a system based on the popular vote, fearing many citizens would not be well-informed. They put power in the hands of electors. They thought the House would often end up picking the president, not anticipating the effects of what quickly became a two-party system in the United States. The rationale for the current system has been overrun by the realities of today’s politics.

“It was created because the founders couldn’t figure out what to do,” said George C. Edwards III, a political science professor at Texas A&M University and author of “Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America.” “It doesn’t work at all as the founders intended.”

During the first two centuries of the country’s history, there were only three cases in which the person elected president lost the popular vote, in 1824, 1876 and 1888. Now it has happened twice in a quarter century and could happen again in 2024. In both 2000, when Bush became president, and 2016, when Trump was elected, the popular vote supported the Democratic nominee, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, respectively, yet the electoral college vote went in favor of the Republican.

During the past two decades, the number of competitive states in presidential elections, where the victory margin has been five percentage points or fewer, has declined. Meanwhile, the number of states decided by margins of 15 percentage points or more has increased, based on an analysis of state-by-state results by The Post.

Because the outcome in the most competitive states can be decided by a relatively small number of votes, Republicans now have a significantly better chance of winning in the electoral college than in the popular vote. Democrats, meanwhile, roll up huge margins in deep blue states like California that give them no significant boost in the electoral college math.

Congress

In the Great Compromise among delegates to the Constitutional Convention, the House was to be divided based on population, while the Senate would give each state equal representation regardless of population.

In times past, many state delegations to the Senate were split between the two major parties. In 1982, for example, about two-dozen states had split representation. Today there are only six true splits, and those states account for about 9 percent of the U.S. population.

Republicans tend to have full control in less populated states, creating an imbalance in the number of senators they send to Washington and the percentage of the national population they represent. Even when they have recently held a majority in the Senate, they represent a minority of the population. In 2024, two of the nation’s least populous states — West Virginia and Montana — could flip control of the Senate from Democrats to Republicans, if GOP challengers prevail over Democratic incumbents.

This has had an impact especially on confirmations of judicial nominees and senior executive branch appointees. During the four years Trump was in office, nearly half of the individuals nominated for key positions were confirmed by senators representing a minority of the population. No other recent president had more than 5 percent confirmed by senators representing a minority of the population.

Through gerrymandering, population dispersion and the sorting of where people prefer to live, competition for House seats has declined.

The overwhelming majority of districts now lean strongly either to Republicans or to Democrats. In those districts, that makes the primary election more important than the general election. Because turnout is generally concentrated among the most fervent voters in primary contests, more extreme candidates have an advantage. This has widened the ideological gap in the House, which makes compromise even more difficult.

It has also led to the kinds of dysfunction seen this year, such as the multi-ballot marathon to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as speaker, or the threats to let the government default on its debts that ultimately were avoided by an old-fashioned bit of compromise.

As the number of swing districts has declined, another phenomenon has become evident: Even in open-seat races, which historically have been more contested than those involving incumbents, the number of landslide victories by members of both major parties has increased dramatically.

The Supreme Court

Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last nine presidential elections. But during that time, Republican presidents have nominated six of the nine current members of the Supreme Court. Four of the nine justices, including the three nominated by Trump, were confirmed by senators representing a minority of the population.

The percentage of Americans represented by senators voting to confirm justices has been decreasing over the past half century. Now that justices can be confirmed with a simple majority vote, rather than a supermajority, the phenomenon of confirmation by a majority of senators representing a minority of citizens has become commonplace when Republicans hold the Senate majority.

State legislatures

In Washington, political divisions have led to gridlock and inaction on many issues. In the states, the opposite has occurred because states have increasingly become either mostly red or mostly blue.

In just two states is the legislature split between Republicans and Democrats. In more than half of the states, the dominant party enjoys a supermajority, which means they can override vetoes by a governor of a different party or generally have their will on legislation.

Similarly, full control of state government — the legislature and the governor’s office — is the rule rather than the exception. Today 39 states fit this definition. The result is a sharper and sharper divergence in the public policy agendas of the states.

The dominant party has been able to move aggressively to enact its governing priorities. That has meant tight restrictions on abortion in Republican states and few or no restrictions in blue states; it’s meant challenges to LGBTQ rights in red states and affirmation of those rights in blue states.

These divisions have made it possible for the dominant party to govern with little regard to the interests of those with allegiance to the minority party and often little accountability as well. The result is two Americas with competing agendas and values.

Public opinion vs. public policy

The gap between public policy and public opinion is one major consequence of today’s frozen federal government. Three of the most talked-about issues reflect that: abortion, guns and immigration.

On abortion, most Americans oppose last year’s Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ended the constitutional right to abortion. On guns, big majorities favor individual proposals to tighten laws, but the gun lobby remains powerful enough to block action.

On immigration, there has been a majority for some years favoring tougher border controls along with a path to citizenship, with some penalties, for the millions of undocumented immigrants living here. Every effort to deal with this in Congress over the past two decades has failed, including attempts to resolve the plight of people brought here illegally as children, known as “dreamers.”

The Constitution

One way to deal with some of the structural issues — the electoral college, a Senate where a minority of the population can elect a majority of members or the lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices — would be by amending the Constitution. But the U.S. Constitution, though written to be amended, has proved to be virtually impossible to change. Nor is there cross-party agreement on what ails the system. Many conservatives are satisfied with the status quo and say liberals want to change the rules for purely partisan reasons.

It was the drafters of state constitutions who saw the need for amending such documents. Over the history of the country, state constitutions have been amended thousands of times — more than half of all those proposed. But while there have been about 12,000 proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Congress has submitted just 33 to the states, of which 27 have been ratified.

The last amendment was approved in 1992, and that was a provision that had been proposed along with others that became the Bill of Rights. In reality, it has been half a century since a contemporary amendment has been ratified. Given the political conditions in the country, the prospect of two-thirds of both the House and Senate voting to propose an amendment and then three-fourths of the states ratifying it seems extremely unlikely.

To remain a living document, the Constitution needs to be adaptable to changing times, perspectives and conditions. The alternative to amending the Constitution is through judicial interpretation by the Supreme Court. Today the court is dominated by “originalists” who interpret the document through a strict reading of the words and times in which it was written — long a goal of conservatives. But the America of 2023 is not the America of the framers of the Constitution in the late 18th century, a time when enslaved people were counted as three-fifths of a person and women did not have the right to vote.

Not all countries have written constitutions — Britain, for example. But the amendment process when functioning effectively is “a mechanism to peaceful revolution,” said historian Jill Lepore, who directs the Amendments Project at Harvard University. So there is value to a written constitution, but only if it can be changed.

“The danger,” Lepore said, “is that it becomes brittle and fixed — and then the only way to change your system of government or to reform a part of it is through an insurrection.”

About this project

In the analysis of population data and Senate composition, The Post’s count of senators in each year represents the composition of the Senate on Jan. 31 of that year, with two exceptions: Al Franken is counted in the 2009 Senate and Norris Cotton is counted in the 1975 Senate. In the analysis of confirmations over time, The Post examined all Senate roll call votes with a result of “confirmed.” For all senators who voted to confirm a given nominee, The Post calculated the percent of Americans from the states of those senators that year, with each senator representing half of their state population. Many nominees to various positions were confirmed with a voice vote or through a unanimous consent agreement; these confirmations are not reflected in this data. In the analysis of House elections, The Post determined open House races using several sources, including FEC and MIT elections results data.

Reporting by Dan Balz and Clara Ence Morse. Editing by Griff Witte. Copy editing by Mina Haq. Project editing by KC Schaper. Design and development by Courtney Beesch and Tyler Remmel. Design editing by Betty Chavarria. Illustrations by Courtney Beesch with images from iStock. Topper animation by Emma Kumer. Photo editing by Christine T. Nguyen. Graphics by Clara Ence Morse and Hanna Zakharenko. Graphics editing by Kevin Uhrmacher. Data editing by Anu Narayanswamy. Visual enterprise editing by Sarah Frostenson. Research provided by Monika Mathur. Additional editing, production and support by Philip Rucker, Peter Wallsten, Jenna Johnson and Tom Justice.

The Washington Post · by Dan Balz · August 18, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com