Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners





Quotes of the Day:


“In the future, we should anticipate seeing more hybrid wars where conventional warfare, irregular warfare, asymmetric warfare, and information warfare all blend together, creating a very complex and challenging situation to the combatants; therefore it will require military forces to posses hybrid capabilities, which might help deal with hybrid threats.” - Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono

"As a nation we are not really trying to win the cold war. We are relying on armaments and armies to win a hot war if a hot war comes. But winning a hot war which leaves a cold war unwon will not win very much for very long. Our present facilities for the “war of ideas” should enable us to retard the advance of international communism, dull the edge of its propaganda and help to give the free world a breathing space. This itself is important. But these facilities will not enable us to win the cold war. Nor perhaps will even larger facilities enable us to win it, until as a nation, or mutually with other nations, we can couple what we are able to say overseas more effectively with what we are able to do overseas."
- Dr Wilson Compton, Administrator of the International Information Administration, 1952

“I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor provisions; I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country in his heart and not with lips only follow me.”
-Giuseppe Garibaldi





1. In light of great power competition, DOD reevaluating irregular warfare and info ops

2. Hundreds of Chinese drones flying over DC restricted airspace

3. Who said it, when, and why? Part I (Historical Quotations)

4. Bombed, not beaten: Ukraine's capital flips to survival mode

5. Defense Primer: Ballistic Missile Defense

6. Army tests blood delivery drones, applying lesson from war in Afghanistan

7. Ukrainian Hospital Stymied Russians With Defiant Doctors and a Fake Covid Outbreak

8. The Russia-Ukraine War ends when Russia quits

9. UN rights body deplores Iran crackdown, establishes probe

10. Opinion Why artificial intelligence is now a primary concern for Henry Kissinger

11. Growing discontent towards Taiwan’s ruling party over escalating tensions, sluggish economy

12. Commentary: China seeks return to traditional engagement but wolf warrior diplomacy isn’t going away

13. The Changing Role of Special Operations Forces

14. Diplomats frustrated by the DEA's dark side

15. Retired U.S.general predicts how new phase of Ukraine war will unfold

16. Nobel laureate Maria Ressa launches book ‘How to Stand Up to a Dictator’ in London

17. US aid to Ukraine puts pressure on Pentagon's arms stockpile





1. In light of great power competition, DOD reevaluating irregular warfare and info ops


Irregular warfare is afterall a "struggle" (on so many levels - from trying to define it to actually conducting it).


​Note active deterrence as a subset of integrated deterrence and the use of crisis for the space between competition and conflict​.


Note the heavy reliance on the technical (e.g., EW and cyber).


Excerpts:


“What we’re struggling with right now [is] how do we evolve irregular warfare and our understanding thereof for great power competition, for challenging Beijing and Moscow, maybe differently than we were in the global wars on terror over the last couple of years,” Richard Tilley, director of the Office of Irregular Warfare and Competition, whose office is also tasked with force design updates, said during the NDIA SO/LIC Symposium Nov. 18. “We’re in a period of transition where we’re trying to figure out what is irregular warfare in this new era.”
​...
Nestled beneath one of the DOD’s top pillars of its National Defense Strategy, integrated deterrence, is a new concept being gamed out for the information force: active deterrence.
“As we look at potential near-peer conflict, that phase between competition and conflict right now is called crisis, and that brings into your mind this idea of ‘Oh no, something just happened, what do we do about it?’ We coined a term that is a phase now that we call active deterrence. Now think of this as a military subset of integrated deterrence,” said Thomas Browning, deputy chief technology officer for mission capabilities in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.
Behind this concept — which he said is still “mostly in the wargame room right now” — is how DOD can use capabilities such as cyber, electronic warfare, deception, perception management and other information-type capabilities together to change the adversary’s calculus for going to war.​





In light of great power competition, DOD reevaluating irregular warfare and info ops

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · November 21, 2022

As the Department of Defense is still transitioning from over two decades of counterinsurgency operations and doctrine to now challenging nation-states, it is examining what irregular warfare and information operations look like against these sophisticated actors.

“What we’re struggling with right now [is] how do we evolve irregular warfare and our understanding thereof for great power competition, for challenging Beijing and Moscow, maybe differently than we were in the global wars on terror over the last couple of years,” Richard Tilley, director of the Office of Irregular Warfare and Competition, whose office is also tasked with force design updates, said during the NDIA SO/LIC Symposium Nov. 18. “We’re in a period of transition where we’re trying to figure out what is irregular warfare in this new era.”

Tilley said that the lessons from the counterinsurgency era are still valuable as the DOD continues to contend with violent extremist organizations and proxy fights will persist into the future, noting that the conflict in Ukraine is providing a “crash course” for a population to resist an invader or occupier.

“We’re going to face the problem that we have in Ukraine probably again and probably several other times over the coming decades. We need to figure out how to play in this information environment, how to influence populations, how to determine what a population’s will to resist is and how to do that,” he said.

Ukraine is also demonstrating that DOD must evolve its understanding of irregular warfare, Tilley said, especially as it applies to understanding a population’s will to resist and succeed.

For instance, the conventional wisdom was that Ukraine would fall very quickly to Russia, he said, noting “we’re trying to figure out why did we get that so wrong,” along with a long recent list of mea culpas. Those include the Iraqis not repelling ISIS from the city of Mosul and the swift defeat of the Afghan army by the Taliban.

“We don’t have a good track record of trying to identify this will to resist in these proxy and surrogate and ally populations,” Tilley said. “But I think what we can hopefully do in the information space is trying to figure out better metrics and better analyses that allow us to understand that better.”

DOD is good at quantitative analysis such as the number of forces or assets, but not at qualitative analysis.

The private sector could be a good place to turn for that given its long history with commercial marketing campaigns.

“You look at marketing, that is qualitative analysis. What makes people drink Coke, what makes people drink Pepsi and how do you market to those individuals? I think the private sector has used the information domain through marketing to the Nth degree because that’s how you make money. That’s how you’re profitable,” he said.

“I think we, as the department and in the national security enterprise, need to be able to pull some of those lessons and try to figure out, how do you quantify and assess within the IC that local population’s will to resist because, quite frankly, proxy warfare is not going anywhere and whether it’s Europe or whether it’s the Pacific, it’s going be back and we need to have a better understanding of how our partners and allies are going to fight, are going to resist because if we keep missing, next time we may not be as fortunate where the Russians weren’t probably as capable as we thought they were and the Ukrainians were a little bit more resilient than we thought we were and they didn’t get overrun,” Tilley added.

Deterrence and ‘active deterrence’

When it comes to developing a future force, Tilley said DOD is looking at creating a joint force that can deter conflict in what officials call the competition phase that exists below the threshold of war. But deterrence and winning are not necessarily synonymous.

“The point is not necessarily to win the war against these adversaries — the point is to deter that war. We have to really think about how are we using the information environment to message and to influence that adversary so they don’t take actions that we don’t want them to do, so we don’t have to get ourselves into it into a war,” he said. “You get through a whole bunch of ways that aren’t warfighting. You do demonstrations, you do exercises, you do reveal and conceal, you do deception. You do all these different things, but we don’t have a good conceptualization of how those things all nest together.”

Nestled beneath one of the DOD’s top pillars of its National Defense Strategy, integrated deterrence, is a new concept being gamed out for the information force: active deterrence.

“As we look at potential near-peer conflict, that phase between competition and conflict right now is called crisis, and that brings into your mind this idea of ‘Oh no, something just happened, what do we do about it?’ We coined a term that is a phase now that we call active deterrence. Now think of this as a military subset of integrated deterrence,” said Thomas Browning, deputy chief technology officer for mission capabilities in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

Behind this concept — which he said is still “mostly in the wargame room right now” — is how DOD can use capabilities such as cyber, electronic warfare, deception, perception management and other information-type capabilities together to change the adversary’s calculus for going to war.

He recognized that active deterrence is a bit of an oxymoron because it’s done after deterrence fails.

“It’s really this idea of how could we put those non-kinetic capabilities together in a way that has a meaningful effect on the adversary, meaningful effect on both their intent and ability to execute conflict,” Browning said.

His office has been conducting a series of exercises called Eloquent Omen that is gaming the concept out.

It is “pulling those threads of how do I take these capabilities and not just prove out that cyber tools could work, not prove that EW could work, but this integration of an information campaign where the cyber is accentuating the EW is accentuating the messaging that I’m trying to bring across,” Browning said. “We’re trying to think through those potential, and I’ll call them plays or capabilities, where we’re taking cyber and EW and making those actual integrated capabilities much in the way you would do with kinetic operations and I don’t think that’s the norm today.”

One key lesson he said they’ve learned from these exercises is that proper and early signaling to adversaries matters.

“A lot of the EW and cyber moves that we made, the adversary didn’t have context for understanding what they were seeing or why they were seeing and it walked us into this understanding that I’ve really got to start messaging early,” Browning said. “I’ve got to start developing understanding in their mind, literally, of how to understand me so as you start developing those non-kinetic tools previous to conflict when you don’t necessarily have the authorities to execute though. There’s the time to actually build that story through messaging and through [information operations] so that as they see the effects, you get the intended response out of the adversary.”

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · November 21, 2022



2. Hundreds of Chinese drones flying over DC restricted airspace


Excerpts:

Sources told POLITICO they don’t believe the Chinese government is directing the drones, which are made by China-based DJI. But officials are beginning to see risks in U.S. consumers buying up Chinese tech that can enter one of the world’s most secure airspaces and potentially become another government’s surveillance system, or worse.
“The reality is, people on the tech side always said, ‘Look, at any point in time the Chinese can take control of a DJI that’s flying in the air,’” an anonymous government contractor told POLITICO.



Hundreds of Chinese drones flying over DC restricted airspace

americanmilitarynews.com · by Justin Cooper · November 23, 2022

Hundreds of Chinese-made drones have flown into restricted airspaces over Washington, D.C., in recent months and officials are playing catch-up to stop the foreign-made tech from spying on those restricted areas. While China may not be controlling these drones directly, any Chinese-made devices could still be covertly sending data back to China.

Sources told POLITICO they don’t believe the Chinese government is directing the drones, which are made by China-based DJI. But officials are beginning to see risks in U.S. consumers buying up Chinese tech that can enter one of the world’s most secure airspaces and potentially become another government’s surveillance system, or worse.

“The reality is, people on the tech side always said, ‘Look, at any point in time the Chinese can take control of a DJI that’s flying in the air,’” an anonymous government contractor told POLITICO.

Commercial drones, including those by DJI, use “geofencing” to prohibit drones from entering into restricted airspace such as those over D.C. But a government contractor told POLITICO there are “YouTube videos that could walk your grandparents through” how to bypass those constraints and allow users to fly their drones wherever they want.

Data shared with Congress shows more than 100 drone incursions over a recent 45-day period into the protected airspace over D.C., according to POLITICO. One instance over the summer briefly stopped air traffic at Reagan National Airport, as reported by the Washington Post.

Since those restrictions are easily and often bypassed, the drones are probably even more vulnerable to hackers backed by a government such as China’s. A POLITICO source used the metaphor of someone who gets a DJI drone for Christmas “and is unwittingly collecting data for somebody who could become a serious adversary.”

To start addressing these concerns, the FAA has required a digital system akin to license plates for drones and is testing new detection technology at airports, POLITICO reported.

But Congress has reportedly stalled on the issue. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) this year introduced two bills to regulate drones: one to ban DJI drones from accessing U.S. telecommunications, and another to ban the U.S. government from purchasing Chinese drones. Both bills have stalled out.

Rubio told POLITICO that any tech with Chinese roots “holds a real risk and potential of vulnerability that can be exploited both now and in a time of conflict.”

“Anything that’s technological has the capability of having embedded, in the software or in the actual hardware, vulnerabilities that can be exploited at any given moment,” Rubio added.

The U.S. government is considering other security risks posed by off-the-shelf drones, like their ability to be easily weaponized.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said earlier this month that the agency is “investigating, even as we speak, several incidents, even within the U.S., of attempts to weaponize drones with homemade [improvised explosive devices],” according to POLITICO.

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americanmilitarynews.com · by Justin Cooper · November 23, 2022


3. Who said it, when, and why? Part I (Historical Quotations)


As many know I am a collector (and user) of quotes. What Matt Armstrong does here is not only provide answers to this week's quiz but also provides context, background, and rationale for the quotes. I believe there are so many quotes that are timeless and even though written or spoken in times past they may fit into today's context and ;therefore, are still relevant in the modern era. Of course the discussion of whether they remain relevant or not is useful itself because it makes us think hard about today's context and conditions as we try to apply a timeless quote. You will see many of these quotes again (as you have seen many of them in the past)




Who said it, when, and why? Part I

mountainrunner.substack.com · by Matt Armstrong

Happy Thanksgiving from an American in Switzerland. Yesterday was merely Thursday here, and with my wife and daughter in the US, I BBQ’d ribs for my son. (Though it was about 39F/4C at the time, it wasn’t a problem with my Big Green Egg.) Though Thanksgiving isn’t really an “export,” Black Friday has a real presence here. Explaining why the sales day is called that and why it’s today is always an interesting experience in cultural exchange.

I did get out for a short and easy ride on the trails with the gravel bike yesterday morning at 5:15a (see picture). This morning’s planned 5a forest run was replaced with walking the dog while I talked to my dad in California while it was still Thanksgiving there. Priorities.


Now on to some of the answers to the quiz earlier this week I called “It’s been said…” Below are answers to the first six questions since this write-up was getting a bit long as I felt some context was necessary to properly situate the quote to at least infer relevance to the present rather than allow any semblance with the present a mere coincidence.

Ok, on to the answers…

Q1:

It is necessary to remember, in the first place, that this war is not one that is being fought by the military forces alone. There are economic, psychologic, social, political and even literary forces engaged, and it is necessary for us in order to defeat the enemy, to understand fully the strength of each. Nor can the investigation stop with the forces of the enemy: it must extend to each country in the world and to every people. The question of winning the war is far too complicated and far too delicate to be answered by a study of only the powers and resources of the nations in arms.

When: 1918, selected by 37% of the respondents (1945 chose 26%, 1952 enjoyed 37%).

Source: The Functions of the Military Intelligence Division, Military Intelligence Division of the US Army General Staff (October 1, 1918)

The statement was a product of several years of analysis and consideration of the relationship of public opinion to national security by the US Army War College, then operating as a think tank to the General Staff, who in turn served as advisors to the Secretary of War. The Secretary of the Navy worked closely and helped shape these efforts and resulting suggestions, including work that sought to establish a “Department of Information,” also referred to in draft as a Committee or Bureau of Publicity, for the psychological defence of the nation. (Note: the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy were cabinet secretaries until the National Security Act of 1947, which established the Secretary of Defense.)

In April 1918, the War College published a model of national power with four top-level components. The college wrote “that in the ‘strategic equation’ of war there are four factors – combat, economic, political and psychologic – and that the last of these is coequal with the others.” Later that year, a study of the Military Intelligence Division of the US Army General Staff put this “CEPP” model, though for whatever reason I usually write it as PPCE, into perspective with the statement above. The “strategic equation” was discussed further in public, sort of, in a 1920 edition of The Naval Review by The Naval Society (“For Private Circulation among Its Members”). The image seen on the header of this post is a chart of this “strategic equation/”

Some readers may see a similarity between the modern concept of the four instruments of power, which is often seen as “DIME” for Diplomacy, Information, Military, and Economics. DIME, however, is based on an organizational model and thus was originally framed as “instruments” rather than “elements” or “factors” of power. When introduced, Diplomacy pointed to the State Department, Information to the US Information Agency, Military to the Defense Department, and E to various elements from the White House to Commerce to Treasury. The inherent defective nature of DIME is a subject I’ve considered, researched, debated with others, and written about here and there (plus a draft, not yet submitted paper) for many years. A problem of the DIME model can be seen in the desire to modify it by adding -FIL to represent equities of other government organizations involved in Finance, Intelligence, and Law Enforcement. They are not “elements” or “factors” of power and they reinforce segregation and inhibit integration. A revealing discussion comparing the differences in the intentions and rational inferences of “diplomatic” versus “political,” “military” versus “combat,” and “information” versus “psychologic” is beyond the scope here, so I’ll stop and move on to the next statement.

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Q2:

For many years there has been widespread discussion of the need for reorganizing the Department of State. Students, publicists, members of Congress, and members of the Department itself have repeatedly pointed out that the Department has not been geared up to performing the functions required of the foreign office of a great twentieth-century world power.
The chief criticisms of the Department have been four: (1) that there was lacking a basic pattern of sound administrative organization, (2) that the type of personnel found both at home and abroad was inadequate for the job required in foreign affairs today, (3) that the Department was too far removed from the public and from Congress, and (4) that it was not prepared to provide leadership for, and maintain the necessary relations with, other federal agencies.

When: 1944, selected by 21% of the respondents (1951 garnered 36%, 1961 received 43%).

Source: Laves, Walter H. C., and Francis O. Wilcox. “The Reorganization of the Department of State.” The American Political Science Review 38, no. 2 (1944): 289–301.

The State Department in 1944 was a mess, not just because it had taken a back seat to the War Department. Both authors had been well-positioned in government to write this monograph, and both had very distinguished careers (see this obit for Laves and Wikipedia for Wilcox). The authors described how new agencies created during the war “relieved the State Department of many operations and made unnecessary the expansion of its personnel for these purposes. However, there fell to the Department the important and complicated task of keeping the activities of the agencies in line with our foreign policy.” Incidentally, Dean Acheson later lamented in his 1969 autobiography how the department “muffed” responsibilities and that roles like research and intelligence died because of “gross stupidity” in the department. He also described how departmental roles “succumbed to the fate of so many operating agencies with which the State Department has had a go, including economic warfare, lend-lease, foreign aid, and technical assistance. In all of these cases, either the Department was not imaginative enough to its opportunity or administratively competent enough to seize it, or the effort became entangled in red tape and stifled by bureaucratic elephantiasis, or conflict with enemies in Congress absorbed all the Department’s energies.” I cannot recall an analysis of the State Department recalling either the Laves & Wilcox paper or Acheson’s invective. That the present-day State Department is in deep need of a major restructuring and reworking the organizational culture is an understatement. It took 44 years for the department to self-address its deficiencies in the prior century, suggesting it might be reasonable to expect a change in another two decades or so. Congressional interest in the State Department is virtually nil, as I lamented when I testified this summer (3:30a where I was, 9:30a in DC), so don’t hold your breath change will be imposed from there.

Back to Laves and Wilcox. The following passage from their paper spotlights their argument about an absence of a “sound administrative organization.”

One needs only to glance at the first accompanying chart to realize that the State Department, as so often happens in nearly all kinds of organizations, grew through the years pretty much like Topsy, with divisions added at random when new jobs appeared on the horizon. As a result, the Department's organizational chart reminded one somehow of the curious contours of the Department building itself. Divisions were indiscriminately placed under the direction of the Assistant Secretaries and the Under Secretary without any clearcut administrative pattern. Assistant Secretary Berle, for example, handled such widely disparate functions as finance, aviation, Canada, and Greenland, besides supervising the unrelated activities of the Passport Division, the Division of International Conferences, and the Translating Bureau.

Some notes on the statement above. The reference to Topsy is likely to a character in Harriet Beacher Stow’s book, not the electrocuted elephant. The “curious contours of the Department building” refers to the State, War and Navy Building, where the State Department was still headquartered until it moved to its present location in Foggy Bottom in 1947. The State, War and Navy Building is now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and still sits next to the White House. The broad consensus at the time was the State, War and Navy Building was “no aesthetic treat.” As one newsman described it at the time, “If you’re ever looking out of the window in this building, and you see a man on the street shudder when he looks toward it, you can bet your life that man is an architect.”⁠

Q3:

Modern international relations lie between peoples, not merely governments. Statements on foreign policy are intelligible abroad in the spirit in which they are intended only when other peoples understand the context of national tradition and character which is essential to the meaning of any statement. This is especially true of a collaborative foreign policy which by nature must be open and popular, understood and accepted at home and abroad. International Information activities are integral to the conduct of foreign policy.

When: 1945. An apology is due here as I provided the option of 1944 instead of 1945. However, 1944 was the closest answer though only 15% picked it (1920 garnered 38%, 1953 received 46%).

Source: MacMahon, Arthur. Memorandum on the Postwar International Information Program of the United States (July 5, 1945). 1945.

This 241-page report was an internal analysis launched in January 1945 and completed in July 1945. The few references you might see to this report, outside of my writing, generally refer to the abridged December 1945 edition (135 pages), made public in an attempt to sway the US press to support a Congressional and State Department international information program, of which radio was a sideshow intended to spin out into government-funded non-profit. According to one report, about 100 copies of the December 1945 edition were produced (I have one of them). This distribution backfired as the report contained two footnotes that weren’t to be released to the public (at the very least, they would have been labelled “Sensitive but Unclassified” in the State Department’s current classification scheme), including one that included the following remark from the Second Secretary at the US Embassy in Mexico City dated September 26, 1944: “So far as Mexico is concerned, at least, any argument that Reuters and the BBC are not British Government agencies is completely untenable…⁠” Reuters and its US partner, the Associated Press, were unhappy with the allegation. In the unofficial history of Reuters, the situation covers six pages. The AP used the situation to launch its attacks on the State Department’s information programs, focusing on the radio operations as competition and illicit, claiming any association AP had with the radio program, commonly referred to as the Voice of America in 1946, would taint the AP. While it objected to VOA using its material, the AP had no problem with the Russian “news” service TASS using AP material, a fact pointed out by other press and the State Department at the time.

MacMahon was a political scientist at Columbia University, later president of the American Political Science Association, and, in modern terms, a contractor to the department to provide internal analyses such as this. The State Department had just created the position of Assistant Secretary of Public and Cultural Relations in December 1944, raising public information up from an administrative sideshow to have a higher profile. The job was dual-hatted for foreign and domestic engagement, with no semblance of any need to firewall either. Archibald MacLeish was confirmed to the assistant secretary job that month. The following month, after meetings with his colleagues elsewhere in government, tasked MacMahon with figuring out the future needs. In six months, MacMahon produced this report, and it served as a roadmap for the State Department and Congress in structuring and authorizing the global engagement programs at the State Department, some of which are commonly referred to as “public diplomacy” today.

Q4:

As a nation we are not really trying to win the cold war.

When: 1952, selected by 33% of the respondents (1948 garnered 17%, 1962 received 50%)

Source: Dr Wilson Compton, Administrator of the International Information Administration, “Report on International Information Administration—1952” sent to the Secretary of State, December 31, 1952.

The IIA has generally been lost to history, but I’ve been trying to revive it in light of the misguided calls to “bring back USIA,” calls that have no idea what USIA did, did not do, or have any grasp that USIA was an example segregating and marginalizing information from policy. For more on IIA and USIA, see The Irony Of Misinformation: USIA Myths Block Enduring Solutions by Chris Paul and me, published earlier this year.

The sentence by Compton above opened a paragraph in his report worth sharing here.

As a nation we are not really trying to win the cold war. We are relying on armaments and armies to win a hot war if a hot war comes. But winning a hot war which leaves a cold war unwon will not win very much for very long. Our present facilities for the “war of ideas” should enable us to retard the advance of international communism, dull the edge of its propaganda and help to give the free world a breathing space. This itself is important. But these facilities will not enable us to win the cold war. Nor perhaps will even larger facilities enable us to win it, until as a nation, or mutually with other nations, we can couple what we are able to say overseas more effectively with what we are able to do overseas.

IIA was beginning to work. It did a lot more than USIA ever did, and substantially more with greater influence on policy and the integration of information into policy and programs than most of the “bring back USIA” genre imagine is necessary. As a reflection of the size and perceived value of the IIA mission, half of the State Department’s personnel was under IIA, and IIA commanded more than 40% of the department’s budget. However, Ike’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, disliked the idea of public engagement and happily ejected a lot of USIA under the guise that reducing the size and scope of the department would allow him to focus on the traditional concepts of diplomacy. Years earlier, Dulles had supported the idea of segregating information and direct engagement from diplomacy with a proposed cabinet-level Department of Peace, an operation that would have closely overlapped with the IIA model, so we should not be surprised that he took advantage of Sen. McCarthy’s attacks on the information program and Senators’ concerns about the libraries (largely because they contained books or magazines critical of individual Senators, which was the basis of Nevada’s McCarran’s critique of the program).

Compton’s lament intended to highlight a lack of leadership and commitment to engaging in the “war of ideas” during the militarization of US foreign policy.

Q5:

We believe these phrases indicate a basic misconception. for we find that the “psychological” aspect of policy is not separable from policy, but is inherent in every diplomatic, economic or military action. There is a “psychological” implication in every act, but this does not have life apart from the act. Although there may be distinct psychological plans and specific psychological activities directed toward national objectives, there are no “national psychological objectives” separate and distinct from national objectives.

When: 1953, selected by 33% of the respondents (1963 garnered 17%, 1972 received 50%)

Source: President’s Committee on International Information Activities (1953).

This followed Compton’s report mentioned above, which was made public at a Senate hearing at the end of 1952. Eisenhower launched this committee soon after taking office, with William H. Jackson of Princeton as chair. Jackson, not to be confused with C.D. Jackson, was charged with studying of the “cold war” (lowercase and quotes drawn appeared in contemporary news reports, the cold war was not yet a proper noun). The above statement is critical of the Truman administration’s Psychological Strategy Board, which conceived of separate “national psychological objectives” and “psychological policies.” Eisenhower replaced the PSB with his Operations Coordinating Board in 1953. I’ll not delve into whether Eisenhower’s creation of USIA violated the abovementioned principles. (Spoiler: the creation of USIA did violate the principles and also the very recommendations that supported removing the information function from State, all of which set specific requirements that were ultimately never met. For more, The Irony Of Misinformation: USIA Myths Block Enduring Solutions for a brief discussion of this or my Operationalizing Public Diplomacy chapter).

Q6:

But [the author] documents the difficulties, noting misconceptions rife in government officialdom and among other wielders of power, let alone intellectuals, about the nature and needs of political communication. He notes the absence of doctrine. He traces out disagreements between departments of the government (State and Defense especially) about who should wield this weapon and how, in war or in peace. He calls for concerted action under the wise and dramatic leadership of a President standing above departmental parochialism and conflict, aided by a co-ordinator in the White House. He insists that we must match ideas harmoniously with policies and actions, but claims we have not “found our ideas.”

When: 1960, selected by 36% of the respondents, with 1953 garnering 64% (!!) while 1967 received 0%.

Source: Review by Charles A. H. Thomson in 1960 of Murray Dyer’s The Weapon on the Wall (1959).

Dyer suggested replacing “psychological warfare” with “political communication,” as Thomson wrote, “an already well-fashioned weapon on the wall, waiting only to be taken down and used in the service of democratic values.” Dyer’s book is good (my copy came from a West German Army library), and Thomson’s critique is useful by revealing the defects in Dyer’s book as a roadmap forward (“more concerned with the developments to date than with the future”) while acknowledging the book’s value in not just revealing the present organization, but often why it is organized that way. Books like Dyer’s, in my opinion, provide value, not because of their suggested roadmaps, but to provide clarity that so many of the issues, dilemmas, threats, and opportunities of political warfare than many modern texts that imagine a freshly discovered new world have, for the most part, been debated and discussed already.

This quote is noteworthy in another way. Thomson worked at the State Department during the war and may have sat next to MacMahon, as both were, at a time, listed as advisors. Thomson left State for the Brookings Institution where, in 1948, he published a very useful 397-page analysis, Overseas Information Service of the United States Government (my copy is filled with paper bookmarks), which looks at the wartime activities and goes up to early 1948.

Well, at over 3,000 words, that’s enough for now. I’ll share the answers and some context to the remaining five statements in a couple of days.

mountainrunner.substack.com · by Matt Armstrong


4. Bombed, not beaten: Ukraine's capital flips to survival mode


How will the international community step up to support the Ukrainian people this winter?


Bombed, not beaten: Ukraine's capital flips to survival mode

AP · by JOHN LEICESTER, HANNA ARHIROVA and SAM MEDNICK · November 24, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Residents of Ukraine’s bombed capital clutched empty bottles in search of water and crowded into cafés for power and warmth Thursday, switching defiantly into survival mode after new Russian missile strikes a day earlier plunged the city and much of the country into the dark.

In scenes hard to believe in a sophisticated city of 3 million, some Kyiv residents resorted to collecting rainwater from drainpipes, as repair teams labored to reconnect supplies.

Friends and family members exchanged messages to find out who had electricity and water back. Some had one but not the other. The previous day’s aerial onslaught on Ukraine’s power grid left many with neither.

Cafés in Kyiv that by some small miracle had both quickly became oases of comfort on Thursday.

Oleksiy Rashchupkin, a 39-year-old investment banker, awoke to find that water had been reconnected to his third-floor flat but power had not. His freezer thawed in the blackout, leaving a puddle on his floor.

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So he hopped into a cab and crossed the Dnieper River from left bank to right, to a café that he’d noticed had stayed open after previous Russian strikes. Sure enough, it was serving hot drinks, hot food and the music and Wi-Fi were on.

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“I’m here because there is heating, coffee and light,” he said. “Here is life.”

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said about 70% of the Ukrainian capital was still without power on Thursday morning.

As Kyiv and other cities picked themselves up, Kherson on Thursday came under its heaviest bombardment since Ukrainian forces recaptured the southern city two weeks ago. The barrage of missiles killed four people outside a coffee shop and a woman was also killed next to her house, witnesses said, speaking to Associated Press reporters.

In Kyiv, where cold rain fell on the remnants of previous snowfalls, the mood was grim but steely. The winter promises to be a long one. But Ukrainians say that if Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intention is to break them, he should think again.

“Nobody will compromise their will and principles just for electricity,” said Alina Dubeiko, 34. She, too, sought out the comfort of another, equally crowded, warm and lit café. Without electricity, heating and water at home, she was determined to keep up her work routine. Adapting to life shorn of its usual comforts, Dubeiko said she uses two glasses of water to wash, then catches her hair in a ponytail and is ready for her working day.

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She said she’d rather be without power than live with the Russian invasion, which crossed the nine-month mark on Thursday.

“Without light or you? Without you,” she said, echoing remarks President Volodymyr Zelenskky made when Russia on Oct. 10 unleashed the first of what has now become a series of aerial attacks on key Ukrainian infrastructure.

Western leaders denounced the bombing campaign. “Strikes against civilian infrastructures are war crimes,” French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov acknowledged Thursday that it targeted Ukrainian energy facilities. But he said they were linked to Ukraine’s military command and control system and that the aim was to disrupt flows of Ukrainian troops, weapons and ammunition to front lines. Authorities for Kyiv and the wider Kyiv region reported a total of 7 people killed and dozens of wounded.

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Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said: “We are conducting strikes against infrastructure in response to the unbridled flow of weapons to Ukraine and the reckless appeals of Kyiv to defeat Russia.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also sought to shift blame for civilian hardship on Ukraine’s government.

“Ukraine’s leadership has every opportunity to bring the situation back to normal, has every opportunity to resolve the situation in such a way as to meet the demands of the Russian side and, accordingly, end all possible suffering of the civilian population,” Peskov said.

In Kyiv, people lined up at public water points to fill plastic bottles. In a strange new war-time first for her, 31-year-old Health Department employee Kateryna Luchkina resorted to collecting rainwater from a drainpipe, so she could at least wash her hands at work, which had no water. She filled two plastic bottles, waiting patiently in the rain until they had water to the brim. A colleague followed behind her, doing the same.

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“We Ukrainians are so resourceful, we will think of something. We do not lose our spirit,” Luchkina said. “We work, live in the rhythm of survival or something, as much as possible. We do not lose hope that everything will be fine.”

The city mayor said on Telegram that power engineers “are doing their best ” to restore electricity. Water repair teams were making progress, too. In the early afternoon, Klitschko announced that water supplies had been restored across the capital, with the caveat that “some consumers may still experience low water pressure.”

Power, heat and water were gradually coming back elsewhere, too. In Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, the governor announced that 3,000 miners trapped underground because of power blackouts had been rescued. Regional authorities posted messages on social media updating people on the progress of repairs but also saying they needed time.

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Mindful of the hardships — both now and ahead, as winter progresses — authorities are opening thousands of so-called “points of invincibility” — heated and powered spaces offering hot meals, electricity and internet connections. More than 3,700 were open across the country of Thursday morning, said a senior official in the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

In Kherson, hospitals without power and water are also contending with the gruesome after-effects of intensifying Russian strikes. They hit residential and commercial buildings Thursday, setting some ablaze, blowing ash skyward and shattering glass across streets. Paramedics helped the injured.

Olena Zhura was carrying bread to her neighbors when a strike that destroyed half of her house wounded her husband, Victor. He writhed in pain as paramedics carried him away.

“I was shocked,” she said, welling with tears. “Then I heard (him) shouting: ’Save me, save me.”

__

Mednick reported from Kherson, Ukraine.

__

Follow AP coverage of the war in Ukraine at: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

AP · by JOHN LEICESTER, HANNA ARHIROVA and SAM MEDNICK · November 24, 2022


5. Defense Primer: Ballistic Missile Defense


The short 2 (3) page report can be downloaded here: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23317724/defense-primer-ballistic-missile-defense-nov-23-2022.pdf 

Defense Primer: Ballistic Missile Defense - USNI News

news.usni.org · November 25, 2022

The following is the Nov. 23, 2022, Congressional Research Service report, Defense Primer: Ballistic Missile Defense.

From the report

The United States has been developing and deploying ballistic missile defenses (BMD) to defend against enemy missiles continuously since the late 1940s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United States deployed a limited nuclear-tipped BMD system to protect a portion of its U.S. land-based nuclear ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) force in order to preserve a strategic deterrent against a Soviet nuclear attack on the Homeland. That system became active in 1975 but shut down in 1976 because of concerns over cost and effectiveness. In the FY1975 budget, the Army began funding research into hit-to-kill or kinetic energy interceptors as an alternative—the type of interceptor technology that dominates U.S. BMD systems today.

In 1983, President Reagan announced an enhanced effort for BMD. Since the start of the Reagan initiative in 1985, BMD has been a key national security interest in Congress, which has appropriated well over $200 billion for a broad range of BMD research and development programs and deployment of BMD systems here and abroad.

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is charged with the mission to develop, test, and field an integrated, layered, BMD system (BMDS) to defend the United States, U.S. deployed forces, and U.S. allies and partners against ballistic missiles of all ranges and in all phases of flight. The FY2023 budget request is $24.7 billion for missile defense, $9.6 billion of which is for MDA.

Ballistic Missile Threats

After an initial powered phase of flight, a ballistic missile leaves the atmosphere and follows an unpowered trajectory or flight path before reentering the atmosphere toward a predetermined target. Ballistic missiles have an effective range from a few hundred kilometers (km) to more than 10,000 km. Short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) range from 300-1,000 km and are generally considered for tactical military use. Medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) have a range from 1,000-5,500 km, although most are armed with conventional warheads and range less than 3,500 km. ICBMs range further than 5,500 km and are generally considered as strategic deterrent forces.

Most of the world’s ballistic missiles belong to the United States and its allies and partners; however, China and, in particular, Russia also have significant numbers of ICBMs. Russia continues to possess intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles (3,500-5,500 km), which led to the U.S. withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The 2022 Missile Defense Review additionally identifies ballistic missile threats from North Korea and Iran.

North Korea likely has an arsenal of hundreds of SRBMs that can reach all of South Korea and perhaps dozens of MRBMs (whose reliability at this point remains uncertain), capable of reaching Japan and U.S. bases in the region. North Korea has flight-tested two types of road-mobile ICBMs that have the range to strike the U.S. homeland. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has assessed that “North Korea’s continued development of ICBMs, IRBMs, and [submarine-launched ballistic missiles] demonstrates its intention to bolster its nuclear delivery capability.”

Download the document here.

Related

news.usni.org · November 25, 2022



6. Army tests blood delivery drones, applying lesson from war in Afghanistan


Learn, adapt, anticipate.


Army tests blood delivery drones, applying lesson from war in Afghanistan

Stars and Stripes · by J.P. Lawrence · November 24, 2022

A U.S. Army aerial drone delivers a payload of medical supplies during the exercise Project Convergence 22 at Fort Irwin, Calif., Oct. 28, 2022. The drop was part of Army efforts to find aerial drones that can deliver medical supplies, such as blood, to wounded troops as fast as possible. (Thiem Huynh/U.S. Army)


Army drones are dropping packages of simulated blood over the Mojave Desert in an effort to find better ways to rush medical supplies to wounded troops as quickly as possible.

In recent months, soldiers at Fort Irwin, Calif., have practiced gathering the drone cargo after the supplies drift to the ground, attached to small, orange-and-white parachutes.

Lessons from two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, scenes from Ukraine and fears of future conflicts with countries such as China are driving the efforts, researchers told Stars and Stripes.

“The need is pretty clear: making sure that whole blood is accessible to forward medics,” said Nathan Fisher, chief of medical robots and autonomous systems at the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, at Fort Detrick, Md.

Fisher’s medical supply drone, known as Project Crimson, was what flew overhead and dropped off the fake blood at Fort Irwin during a training scenario for a mass-casualty situation.

The exercise ran from late September into November and included medical personnel from the U.S. and Australian armies.

The FVR-90 drone used by the Army can take off and land vertically, and carry up to 22 pounds of temperature-controlled whole blood to troops up to 250 miles away, a TATRC statement last year said.

“This drone supports medical field care when casualty evacuation isn’t an option,” Fisher said in the statement. “It can keep whole blood and other crucial items refrigerated in the autonomous portable refrigeration unit and take it to medics in the field with wounded warriors.”

One of the bitterest lessons learned from 20 years of American wars is the necessity of preventing blood loss on the battlefield quickly, said Air Force Col. Stacy Shackelford, a doctor and chief of the San Antonio-based Joint Trauma System.

The Afghanistan War and the Russia-Ukraine war in particular were on the minds of military medical officials this summer when they developed seven recommendations for improving the Defense Department’s blood supply program, Shackelford told Stars and Stripes.

One recommendation was research into blood delivery by drone, she said.

The U.S. had complete air superiority in Iraq and Afghanistan, and troops relied on the ability to quickly and safely fly the wounded to field hospitals for emergency care. But that might not be possible in future wars with countries that have anti-air missiles and fighter jets, Shackelford said.

“I think it’s going to come down to drone delivery of blood by some type of unmanned vehicle that can fly in and drop off more blood or more bullets, whatever is needed, Shackelford said, in a statement this summer.

Besides speedier delivery, supplying blood to the battlefield by drone has a cost advantage in comparison to using helicopters or training more medics to conduct transfusions under fire, officials said.

The time frame for turning UAVs into flying military blood banks is not all that distant, in the Army’s estimation.

It’s “really just around the corner,” researcher Adam Meledeo said, according to the statement.

Stars and Stripes · by J.P. Lawrence · November 24, 2022


7. Ukrainian Hospital Stymied Russians With Defiant Doctors and a Fake Covid Outbreak


A "whole of society" commitment to resistance.


Appears to be a modern adaptation of the OSS SImple Sabotage Manual. https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/glorious-ukrainian-resistance


"Kyiv Calling - Live for resistance" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWQUkRKqp2E


Ukrainian Hospital Stymied Russians With Defiant Doctors and a Fake Covid Outbreak

In occupied Kherson, Tropinka staffers outwitted—and outwaited—the invaders, as they fought over hallway posters and the flag out front

By Ian LovettFollow

 | Photographs by Virginie Nguyen Hoang for The Wall Street Journal

Nov. 25, 2022 5:30 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukrainian-hospital-stymied-russians-defiant-doctors-fake-covid-11669243198?mod=hp_lead_pos5

KHERSON, Ukraine—The first time Russian soldiers came to Tropinka Hospital, they told Leonid Remiga, the hospital’s chief physician, to take down the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag hanging over the main entrance. He refused.

“You can shoot me if you want,” 68-year-old Dr. Remiga recalls saying, “but I’m not going to do it.”

The Russians left without insisting. But that meeting on March 7, days after Russia seized this southern city, was the start of a battle for control of the hospital that raged through the entire occupation. The Russians detained two doctors, banned Ukrainian symbols and put hand-picked people in charge. To thwart them, the staff faked a Covid-19 outbreak, hid equipment and spied for Ukrainian forces.

The staff’s resistance was part of an eight-month, mostly unarmed campaign by Kherson residents to keep the city Ukrainian—and out of Moscow’s full control—for as long as possible. Thousands joined anti-Russian protests in the city’s central square and, when the demonstrations were violently quashed, turned small acts of resistance into part of everyday life—even at the risk of being detained or tortured.

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Kherson was the only regional capital Moscow seized in this year’s invasion, making it a strategic prize for both sides. Russia’s struggle to exercise control over the city exposed a critical miscalculation in Mr. Putin’s invasion: He expected his takeover would be welcomed as a liberation, or at least silently tolerated, in Russian-speaking areas.

“In their imagination, they had this belief that all Ukrainians would support them,” said Yaroslav Yanushevych, governor of the Kherson region. “What they found was the opposite.”


A battle of wills broke out at Tropinka Hospital between the staff and Russian occupation officials.

PHOTO: VIRGINIE NGUYEN HOANG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Founded in 1914, Tropinka Hospital reflected Ukraine’s lack of investment in infrastructure since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Its unadorned, five-story main building is surrounded by a handful of satellite offices with stone floors and fluorescent lights. There are no automatic doors. Dogs sometimes lounge in the entryway to escape the cold.

Still, Dr. Remiga, who had served as the chief physician since 1995, was committed to the hospital and to Ukraine. A former city councilman and member of Ukraine’s European Solidarity political party, he believed the country’s future was with the West, and harbored little nostalgia for Soviet times. When the invasion began, Dr. Remiga planned how to keep the hospital out of Russian hands.

Days after Dr. Remiga refused to take the flag down, more Russian soldiers arrived in an armored personnel carrier intent on converting Tropinka into a military hospital​.​

Dr. Remiga, still spry with a white goatee, greeted them in full protective gear, including a body suit and foot covers, and told the troops they couldn’t come in because of a Covid outbreak. Staff had plastered the walls with warnings of rampant infections. The ruse worked, and the soldiers left.


Doctors and nurses faked a Covid outbreak to avoid turning the building into a hospital for Russian troops.

Over the following weeks, doctors treated some wounded Russian soldiers and civilians from frontline villages. Around 200 locals sheltered in the basement while the city was under shelling.

In April, Dr. Remiga’s wife, son and grandchildren left for Ukrainian-controlled territory. He decided to stay.

“Our hospital couldn’t become a Russian hospital,” Dr. Remiga said. “All the employees felt this way…I couldn’t leave them.”

The Russians tried to win over Dr. Remiga. Occasionally, two men dressed in black would show up and ask if he needed anything. He assumed they were from the FSB, Russia’s security service. With supplies of prescription drugs running low, Tropinka was almost out of insulin. Dr. Remiga asked the men in black for help. They soon brought insulin.

Meanwhile, anti-Russian protests gripped the city. Thousands thronged the central square, waving Ukrainian flags, jumping onto tanks and shouting at the Russians to get out. Dr. Remiga says he attended several demonstrations, and encouraged staff to join. Some staffers went further, secretly reporting on Russian movements to contacts in Ukrainian intelligence.


Medical staff at Tropinka take care of an elderly patient.

Soon, civilians began showing up at the hospital with eyes stung by tear gas and bruises from beatings with night sticks. By May, they were appearing with bullet wounds to the legs from ricochets as the Russians shot at the ground to disperse the crowds. “They became more strict,” Dr. Remiga said. “The period after May 8,” when the last major protest took place, “was a period of depression.”

Russian soldiers began knocking on residents’ doors to ask them about posts on social media saying “Kherson is Ukraine.” The city’s elected mayor was detained in June and hasn’t been seen in public since.

The Russian-installed administration of the Kherson region didn’t respond to requests for comment.

On June 7, Dr. Regima was summoned to a meeting. Two local men and one Russian sat across from him. Several armed Russian soldiers stood behind them. A camera pointed at Dr. Remiga.

One of the local men, Vadim Ilmiyev, introduced himself as the region’s healthcare minister, then began to shout at Dr. Remiga, saying he was spreading an anti-Russian mood in the hospital, and they needed to get rid of him.

At one point, Dr. Remiga said, he stood up and said they were in his office. A soldier hit him on the back with the butt of a pistol.

The hospital’s head nurse, Larisa Maleta and a few other employees were called in. Mr. Ilmiyev said Dr. Remiga had been fired. Then he pointed at Ms. Maleta.

“You’re now the head doctor,” he told her, as she and Dr. Remiga recalled.


Leonid Remiga, left, and Larisa Maleta conspired to thwart Russian initiatives during the occupation.

Ms. Maleta, a somber-looking 51-year-old, says she protested that she wasn’t a doctor. Mr. Ilmiyev insisted the job was hers. “They didn’t care,” she said. “They just wanted to start controlling the hospital.”

Mr. Ilmiyev, whom hospital employees said left Kherson with Russian forces, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Dr. Remiga said the Russians told him he was headed to jail. He felt sick. As they left the office, he realized he couldn’t speak.

He was having a stroke.

His colleagues convinced the Russians that he could die if he didn’t stay at the hospital. Then they whisked him away for treatment.

The next day, Ms. Maleta went to speak to Dr. Remiga, who was recovering well. She told him she was going to quit. She didn’t want to work for Russians.

“No, you have to stay,” he told her. “Better you than one of their people.”

The two made a deal: She wouldn’t quit, and he’d help her run the hospital from his sickbed.

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That night, Ms. Maleta said, she also called Ukrainian security services to tell them what had happened, and make clear she wasn’t going over to the other side.

“It was difficult. Eighty percent of the [hospital] staff realized I was doing something useful. Twenty percent thought I was a collaborator,” Ms. Maleta said.

One of her first acts was to take down the hospital’s Ukrainian flag. Ms. Maleta said she agreed to that only to avoid letting the Russians have the satisfaction of removing it themselves. Still, she said, she slow-walked other orders.

She and Dr. Remiga said their strategy was to appear to comply, but avoid signing anything. After putting up posters the Russians brought—and taking photos to show Mr. Ilmiyev—Ms. Maleta said staff took them down again. She warned Mr. Ilmiyev that doctors would quit if he tried to make them sign contracts with the Russian government—something that would have violated Ukrainian anticollaboration laws. He backed off, she said.

All the while, Dr. Remiga remained in the hospital. After spending the first two weeks in bed, he began to take walks. His deputies consulted with him and asked him to sign documents so employees would keep receiving salaries from the Ukrainian government. Once a week, in the evening, staff would drive him home to change clothes and feed his cats.


Dr. Remiga resumed his post after the Russians pulled out.

Mr. Ilmiyev and his deputies inquired about Dr. Remiga all the time, Ms. Maleta said, often asking if he was bothering her. “No, he’s getting treatment. That’s it,” she recalls responding.

Bit by bit, Mr. Ilmiyev tried to get Ms. Maleta to work more closely with the Russian administration, she said. At the end of July, she decided she was done.

Early on Aug. 1, Ms. Maleta set off toward Ukrainian-held territory, leaving behind her husband, daughter and grandson.

When she didn’t arrive at work that morning, Russians came looking for Dr. Remiga. He was off on a walk when they reached his hospital bed.

They had moved on to another part of the hospital when he returned a few minutes later. Warned by nurses, he packed a few things, then slipped out of the building using a little-known route through the intensive care unit. One of the hospital’s drivers took him to a distant relative’s house in the city.

By that point, a summer exodus from Kherson was under way, amid a Russian crackdown on all things Ukrainian.

Firemen were interrogated at their stations. Parents were warned that if they didn’t send their children to Russian-run schools in the fall, the kids could be taken from them. Residents were detained for passing out humanitarian aid. White-blue-and-red billboards were erected around Kherson, promising free healthcare and declaring, “Russia is here forever.”


A generator keeps this wing of Tropinka Hospital supplied with electricity during frequent blackouts.

Around the same time, Ukraine started hitting Russian bases and supply lines in the region with U.S.-made long-range missile systems, seeking to cut off Russian troops in the city.

By August, Russian soldiers were showing up at hospitals in droves, complaining of headaches or back pain in hopes they’d get sent home.

“One guy said he had problems with his knees,” said Andriy Koksharov, head of Tropinka’s trauma department. A scan showed there wasn’t much wrong, but the soldier asked Dr. Koksharov to exaggerate. Dr. Koksharov wrote that he had arthritis and needed to leave the front. “The fewer of them the better,” he said. “I was ready to sign it for the whole army.”

Employee departures accelerated at Tropinka after the Russians installed a new head doctor, Irina Sviridova, a local cardiologist. She hired Pavel Novikov, a former Tropinka doctor, as her deputy, and they began integrating the hospital into the Russian healthcare system. Employees received salaries in rubles for the first time in August and were banned from entering data in the Ukrainian healthcare database.

Dr. Sviridova couldn’t be reached for comment.

Dr. Koksharov eventually found himself the only doctor in his department, after his three colleagues left. The anesthesiology department was reduced to three doctors from nine.

On the morning of Aug. 17, four soldiers knocked on the door of Dr. Koksharov’s office. He was soon in a car with a bag over his head.


Andriy Koksharov, head of the trauma department, was detained for several days.

His wife, Oleksandra Koksharova, a nurse at the hospital, ran to Dr. Sviridova’s office and asked for help. Dr. Sviridova told her the Russian FSB was actually in charge. “I’m just sitting in the chair,” Ms. Koksharova recalls her saying.

Dr. Koksharov, 55 years old, said he was taken to jail but released unharmed several days later.

Dr. Remiga, meanwhile, was on the run, staying a few days with one friend, a few days with another. He remained in the city and continued to meet with staff. Sometimes they went to the apartment where one of his deputies was living. Other times, they met at bus stations or a street market, places where they could fade into a crowd.

On Sept. 20, he was heading to a meeting at a deputy’s house. As he drove up, he saw Dr. Novikov, Dr. Sviridova’s deputy, sitting nearby in one of the hospital cars. He thought little of it.

As Dr. Remiga stepped out of the car, four soldiers with guns surrounded him, he said, along with two men in black, who he guessed were FSB.

Dr. Remiga said he saw Dr. Novikov walk over and speak to the soldiers. Then a bag was put over his head.

“I presume Novikov was there to identify me,” Dr. Remiga said.

In an interview with the Journal, Dr. Novikov said Dr. Sviridova had sent him on an errand, and he hadn’t known Dr. Remiga would be there. But he admitted to identifying him for the soldiers.


Tropinka hospital employees handle water bottles donated by the International Red Cross.

Dr. Remiga said he was thrown in a cell for four people that now held eight. Each morning when the guard entered, the prisoners had to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and say “Glory to Russia. Glory to Putin,” Dr. Remiga said. Anyone who refused was severely beaten, he said. They also had to learn the Russian national anthem, and guards would point at individual prisoners, who then had to sing it.

Dr. Remiga said he was largely spared punishments because of his advanced years and was released after about a week on condition that he stay away from the hospital.

In Dr. Remiga’s absence, Tropinka was being transformed.

Russian men wearing black, whom staff assumed were from the FSB, roamed the halls. A Sept. 22 order required the removal of all Ukrainian symbols from hospital grounds. All documents were to be completed in Russian.

Dr. Novikov, 35 years old with a 1-year-old at home, relayed the orders to department heads. Then he walked through the halls with a Russian-installed official, showing him that flags and university diplomas bearing tridents, the Ukrainian national symbol, had been removed.

In October, however, Dr. Novikov said he began to defy or ignore orders from Dr. Sviridova.

On Oct. 18, Russian-installed officials announced that they were leaving the city for territory more firmly under Kremlin control. Two days later, they ordered the hospital to suspend admissions, discharge patients and prepare to evacuate.

Dr. Novikov and another staffer said he told department heads he would defy the order.

Like many locals who worked with the Russians, Dr. Sviridova left Kherson in late October, according to several staffers. Days later, she called Dr. Novikov.

“You got an order and it seems like you’re not going to follow it,” Dr. Novikov recalls her saying. He says he told her that was correct.


The oncology department at Tropinka.

In the last days before the full Russian withdrawal from Kherson, officials showed up at the hospital, eyeing equipment to steal. Employees took computers home so the Russians couldn’t swipe them. One doctor hid the remote to a CT scanner and told the Russians it wouldn’t work if they took it. In the end, they took only a microscope and a centrifuge.

The Russians were gone from Kherson by Nov. 10. Ukrainian forces arrived the next day.

Staffers debate the role Dr. Novikov played. Most call him a collaborator. Some say he also saved the hospital. He said Ukraine’s security service, which is largely responsible for investigating collaboration allegations, hasn’t contacted him.

On Nov. 12, Dr. Novikov showed up at the hospital. Dr. Regima asked what he was doing there, then told him to leave his keys with the guards.

Out of 460 doctors at the hospital when the invasion began, only 70 remained when the Russians left Kherson, Dr. Remiga said. Many who left are now heading back to the city.

The Ukrainian flags are hanging outside Tropinka again. The Russian propaganda billboards around the city are being torn down.

Back in October, Russians began stripping the blue-and-yellow paint from a fence outside the hospital. They never finished the job.


A Russian billboard saying ‘our priority is health care’ has been altered with a sticker reading, ‘Kherson is Ukraine.’

Nikita Nikolaienko contributed to this article.

Write to Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com




8. The Russia-Ukraine War ends when Russia quits



Can Ukraine successfully wage a war of exhaustion? (In a war of exhaustion the objective is to defeat the enemy, the objective in a war of exhaustion is to defeat a nation's will to fight.)


Ukraine appears to be executing a Ukraine version of Dau Tranh especially the political struggle aspect.


Dau Tranh Strategy: Integrated political and Military Struggle


Political Struggle:


Dan Van - Action among your people - total mobilization of propaganda, motivational & organizational measures to manipulate internal masses and fighting units


Binh Van - Action among enemy military - subversion, proselytizing, propaganda to encourage desertion, defection and lowered morale among enemy troops.


Dich Van - Action among enemy's people - total propaganda effort to sow discontent, defeatism, dissent, and disloyalty among enemy's population.


Military Struggle:


Phase 1: Organizations and Preparation - building cells, recruiting members, infiltrating organizations, creating front groups, spreading propaganda, stockpiling weapons.


Phase 2: Terrorism - Guerrilla Warfare - kidnappings, terrorist attacks, sabotage, guerrilla raids, ambushes, setting of parallel governments in insurgent areas.


Phase 3: Conventional Warfare - regular formations and maneuver to capture key geographical and political objectives.


See Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1991), p. 216.



The Russia-Ukraine War ends when Russia quits | Opinion - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

By Alexander Crowther and John Nagl

penncapital-star.com · by Capital-Star Guest Contributor · November 23, 2022

Ukraine’s military has been lethal against Russian forces, but that won’t end the war

November 23, 2022 6:30 am



KYIV, UKRAINE – JANUARY 22: Civilian participants in a Kyiv Territorial Defence unit train on a Saturday in a forest on January 22, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Across Ukraine thousands of civilians are participating in such groups to receive basic combat training and in time of war would be under direct command of the Ukrainian military. While Ukrainian officials have acknowledged the country has little chance to fend off a full Russian invasion, Russian occupation troops would likely face a deep-rooted, decentralised and prolonged insurgency. Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops on its border to Ukraine. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

By Alexander Crowther and John Nagl

Just a few weeks ago, Russian forces held a sham referendum that saw Kherson and three neighboring territories be claimed as Russian land, annexed from Ukraine.

In the past few days, however, Ukrainian forces have taken back Kherson, the only regional capital that Russia had seized following its “special military operation.” In Kherson, Ukrainian forces were able to easily defeat the Russian forces that occupied the region despite Russia sending thousands of conscripted troops to fortify their position last month.

When the invasion was first launched in February, the question was how long Ukraine would stand not how long it would take for Russia to win.

In 2014, Ukraine’s military suffered a convincing defeat from Russian forces in Crimea. A former top commander of Ukraine’s armed forces said the military was in “ruins” in 2014.

Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine’s military underwent a vital transformation both in how to fight and what they were fighting with. In 2016 Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko ordered a large overhaul of military operations ranging from command and control to medical logistics. Spurred by their fear of a Russian invasion, the changes and improvements were implemented quickly and effectively.

Support from the West has helped. The United States ramped up its support of Ukraine after the annexation of Crimea, giving Ukraine $2.7 billion between 2014 and 2022 in military aid and weapons.

Two weapons in particular, anti-tank Javelins and HIMARs, have helped Ukraine defend against the Russian offensive. With the anti-tank javelins, Ukraine has disarmed a lethal pillar for Russian armed forces, causing Russia to lose half of its tanks in Ukraine. HIMARs have given Ukraine the ability to attack Russia behind their front lines, targeting ammunition depots and other strongholds.

Beyond the improvements in command and weapons within the Ukrainian armed forces, vital to their success is their fighting spirit. Patriotism and a staunch belief in their sovereignty has fueled Ukrainians across the country to support the war at risk of their lives.

In Ukraine, a month that has shaken the world | John Nagl

Despite Ukrainian successes, the war is far from over. Russia continues to hit civilian infrastructure in Ukraine with missiles and Russia is building up their military presence in Crimea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not give up Crimea easily; he believes it is rightfully Russia, and even personally drove the first semi-truck across the bridge that connects Crimea to Russia. Ukraine wants Crimea back and isn’t willing to give it up without a fight. When Ukraine and Russia begin to fight in Crimea the war could easily devolve into a frozen conflict with the front lines not changing for months; no amount of support and patriotism can prevent that.

This war ends when Russia quits, and Russia will eventually pull out of the war because of the pressure of the sanctions levied against them by Western states. On Sept. 5, Bloomberg reported on a confidential document they had obtained from within the Russian government that indicated Russian was in a far more dire economic situation then they are publicly willing to admit.

The report, along with research from the United States Treasury, suggests Russia is being impacted by the tariffs both in terms of supply chains and revenues.

One of the first sanctions the United States announced against Russia was the banning of exports of computer chip materials. Russia does not have the capabilities to produce their own computer chips and the effect of that sanction has already been seen through Russia’s inability to properly produce missiles. Civilian grade computer chips used for household appliances are being found in Russian missiles and other military equipment.

As Russia continues to be unable to access parts for computer chips, missiles and other equipment will become less effective.

Additionally, the Bloomberg report estimates that 200,000 IT specialists could leave the country in the next three years, a direct indication of the brain drain Russia is experiencing. The report estimates that the economy may not return to pre-war levels for the next decade.

With counter-offensive, a change of momentum in Ukraine | Opinion

Even more dangerous for Russia, and what could ultimately cause them to pull out, is the West’s growing ability to function without Russian oil. Putin is funding the war through one of the only commodities Russia is still allowed to export, oil.

A full cutoff of oil and gas exports to Europe could cost as much as $6.6 billion a year in lost tax revenues, according to the report. If the war becomes a frozen conflict that spans months and years, Europe’s decreasing demand for Russian oil and an inability to reinforce troops in Crimea could see the entire army collapse.

Putin will destroy Russia with a high-cost war and a lack of funding for it, and risks collapsing the whole economy over a “special military operation.”

It is long past time for the Ukraine War to end; sadly, only Putin’s departure from power will accomplish that objective.

Alexander Crowther is a research intern and John Nagl is a Professor of Warfighting Studies at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. This article represents only their views and not those of the United States Army nor the Department of Defense. Nagl’s work appears frequently on the Capital-Star’s Commentary Page.

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The Russia-Ukraine War ends when Russia quits | Opinion

by Capital-Star Guest Contributor, Pennsylvania Capital-Star

November 23, 2022

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9. UN rights body deplores Iran crackdown, establishes probe


Good work by all the diplomats of like minded human rights supporting countries involved. It is a start and a step in the right direction. But what comes next?


UN rights body deplores Iran crackdown, establishes probe

AP · November 24, 2022

BERLIN (AP) — The U.N. Human Rights Council voted Thursday to condemn the bloody crackdown on peaceful protests in Iran and create an independent fact-finding mission to investigate alleged abuses, particularly those committed against women and children.

A resolution put forward by Germany and Iceland was backed by 25 countries, including the United States and many European, Latin American, Asian and African nations. Six countries opposed the move — China, Pakistan, Cuba, Eritrea, Venezuela and Armenia — while 16 abstained.

The United Nations’ top human rights official had earlier appealed to Iran’s government to halt the crackdown against protesters, but Tehran’s envoy at a special Human Rights Council on the country’s “deteriorating” rights situation was defiant and unbowed, blasting the initiative as “politically motivated.”

The protests were triggered by the death, more than two months ago, of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police for violating a strictly enforced Islamic dress code.

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Thursday’s session in Geneva is the latest international effort to put pressure on Iran over its crackdown, which has already drawn international sanctions and other measures.

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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who was on hand, said the situation presented “a test of our courage.”

“The United Nations were founded to protect the sovereignty of every state, but a regime that uses this power to violate the rights of its own people is violating the values of our United Nations,” she said.

“On many occasions, we have called upon Iran to respect these rights to stop the violent crackdown on protesters, the bloodshed, the arbitrary killing, the mass arrests, the death penalties,” Baerbock said. “The only answer we received was more violence, more death.”

Khadijeh Karimi, deputy of Iran’s vice president for Women and Family Affairs, criticized the Western effort as part of a “politically motivated move of Germany to distort the situation of human rights in Iran.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran deeply regrets that the Human Rights Council is abused once again by some arrogant states to antagonize a sovereign U.N. member state that is fully committed to its obligation to promote and protect the human rights,” Karimi said.

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She trumpeted her government’s efforts to foster the role of women in the workplace and higher education and accused Western countries of turning a blind eye to rights abuses in places like Yemen, Palestinian areas, or against indigenous peoples in Canada — which the Canadian government has acknowledged.

Karimi acknowledged the “unfortunate decease” of Amini and said “necessary measures” were taken afterward, including a creation of a parliamentary investigative commission. She accused Western countries of stoking riots and violence by intervening in Iran’s internal affairs.

The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, expressed concerns that Iran’s government has not been listening to the world community.

“The people of Iran, from all walks of life across ethnicities, across ages, are demanding change. These protests are rooted in long standing denials of freedoms, in legal and structural inequalities, in lack of access to information and Internet shutdowns,” he said.

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“I call on the authorities immediately to stop using violence and harassment against peaceful protesters and to release all those arrested for peacefully protesting, as well as crucially, to impose a moratorium on the death penalty,” he added.

The proposal by Germany and Iceland aimed to ratchet up scrutiny that for years as been carried out by the 47-member-state council’s “special rapporteur” on Iran, whose efforts have been shunned by the Islamic Republic’s leaders. Western diplomats say Tehran has led a quiet push in Geneva and beyond to try to avoid any further scrutiny through the new council resolution being considered on Thursday.

The council will now set up a “fact-finding mission” to investigate rights violations “especially with respect to women and children” linked to the protests that erupted on Sept. 16. It also demands that Tehran cooperate with the special rapporteur, such as by granting access to areas inside Iranian territory, including places of detention.

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The team would be expected to report back to the council in mid-2023.

Several Western diplomats expressed anger at China’s last-minute attempt to nix the planned probe from the resolution. Beijing’s representatives had said the fact-finding mission “obviously would not help solve the problem” and “may will further complicate the domestic situation in Iran.”

But that effort was ultimately defeated, with just five other nations backing China’s proposed amendment.

The U.S. envoy to the Geneva-based council, Ambassador Michèle Taylor, said it was important to pass the resolution creating a fact-finding mission “because of Iran’s demonstrated unwillingness to investigate numerous credible allegations of human rights abuses by members of its security forces and other officials.”

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Taylor said she was “personally appalled” by China’s attempt to sink the proposal.

“Some who have defended the Iranian authorities have sought to cast this merely as a cultural issue,” she said. “Let us be clear: no culture tolerates the killing of women and children.”

Amini remains a potent symbol in protests that have posed one of the most serious challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 2009 Green Movement protests drew millions to the streets.

At least 426 people have been killed and more than 17,400 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group monitoring the unrest.

Activists said Iranian security forces on Monday used heavy gunfire against demonstrators in a western Kurdish town, killing at least five during an anti-government protest at the funeral of two people killed the day before.

AP · November 24, 2022




10. Opinion Why artificial intelligence is now a primary concern for Henry Kissinger




Excerpts:

Kissinger’s first major public comment on AI was a 2018 essay in the Atlantic magazine headlined “How the Enlightenment Ends.” The article’s subtitle summarized its chilling message: “Philosophically, intellectually — in every way — human society is unprepared for the rise of artificial intelligence.”
Kissinger told the cathedral audience that for all the destructiveness of nuclear weapons, “they don’t have this [AI] capacity of starting themselves on the basis of their perception, their own perception, of danger or of picking targets.”
Asked whether he was optimistic about the ability of mankind to limit the destructive capabilities of AI when it’s applied to warfare, Kissinger answered: “I retain my optimism in the sense that if we don’t solve it, it’ll literally destroy us. … We have no choice.”


Opinion  Why artificial intelligence is now a primary concern for Henry Kissinger

The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · November 24, 2022

Henry Kissinger spent much of his career thinking about the dangers of nuclear weapons. But at 99, the former secretary of state says he has become “obsessed” with a very modern concern — how to limit the potential destructive capabilities of artificial intelligence, whose powers could be far more devastating than even the biggest bomb.

Kissinger described AI as the new frontier of arms control during a forum at Washington National Cathedral on Nov. 16. If leading powers don’t find ways to limit AI’s reach, he said, “it is simply a mad race for some catastrophe.”

The warning from Kissinger, one of the world’s most prominent statesmen and strategists, is a sign of the growing global concern about the power of “thinking machines” as they interact with global business, finance and warfare. He spoke by video connection at a cathedral forum titled “Man, Machine, and God,” which was this year’s topic in the annual Nancy and Paul Ignatius Program, named in honor of my parents.

Kissinger’s concerns about AI were echoed by two other panelists: Eric Schmidt, former chief executive of Google and chairman of the congressionally appointed National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which issued its report last year; and Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology.

The former secretary of state cautioned that AI systems could transform warfare just as they have chess or other games of strategy — because they are capable of making moves that no human would consider but that have devastatingly effective consequences. “What I’m talking about is that in exploring legitimate questions that we ask them, they come to conclusions that would not necessarily be the same as we — and we will have to live in their world,” Kissinger said.

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“We are surrounded by many machines whose real thinking we may not know,” he continued. “How do you build restraints into machines? Even today we have fighter planes that can fight … air battles without any human intervention. But these are just the beginnings of this process. It is the elaboration 50 years down the road that will be mind-boggling.”

Kissinger urged the leaders of the United States and China, the world’s tech giants, to begin an urgent dialogue about how to apply ethical limits and standards for AI.

Such a conversation might begin, he said, with President Biden telling Chinese President Xi Jinping: “We both have a lot of problems to discuss, but there’s one overriding problem — namely that you and I uniquely in history can destroy the world by our decisions on this [AI-driven warfare], and it is impossible to achieve a unilateral advantage in this. So, we therefore should start with principle number one that we will not fight a high-tech war against each other.”

U.S. and Chinese leaders might start a high-tech security dialogue, Kissinger suggested, with an agreement to “create at first relatively small institutions whose job it will be to inform [national leaders] about the dangers, and which might be in touch with each other on how to ameliorate” risks. China has long resisted nuclear arms control negotiations of the sort that Kissinger conducted with the Soviet Union during his years as national security adviser and secretary of state.

U.S. officials say the Chinese won’t discuss limiting nuclear weapons until they have achieved parity with the United States and Russia, whose weapons have been capped by a series of agreements starting with the 1972 SALT treaty, negotiated by Kissinger.

The world-changing power of AI has become a primary concern for Kissinger in his late 90s, with Schmidt as his guide. The two co-wrote a book last year with MIT professor Daniel Huttenlocher titled “The Age of AI: And Our Human Future,” which described the opportunities and dangers of the new technology.

Kissinger’s first major public comment on AI was a 2018 essay in the Atlantic magazine headlined “How the Enlightenment Ends.” The article’s subtitle summarized its chilling message: “Philosophically, intellectually — in every way — human society is unprepared for the rise of artificial intelligence.”

Kissinger told the cathedral audience that for all the destructiveness of nuclear weapons, “they don’t have this [AI] capacity of starting themselves on the basis of their perception, their own perception, of danger or of picking targets.”

Asked whether he was optimistic about the ability of mankind to limit the destructive capabilities of AI when it’s applied to warfare, Kissinger answered: “I retain my optimism in the sense that if we don’t solve it, it’ll literally destroy us. … We have no choice.”

The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · November 24, 2022


11. Growing discontent towards Taiwan’s ruling party over escalating tensions, sluggish economy




Growing discontent towards Taiwan’s ruling party over escalating tensions, sluggish economy

By Calvin Yang Victoria Jen Channel NewsAsia3 min

View Original


The opposition Kuomintang could win 15 out of the 22 mayoral and county magistrate seats available at Saturday’s local elections, one political opinion tracker has found.

Taiwan's local elections are typically a chance for voters to show their dissatisfaction with the party in power.

TAIPEI: A growing discontent towards Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over the slowing economy and escalating tensions with China could affect its chances at the upcoming local elections. 

Many of the DPP supporters appear to have switched their support to its main rival Kuomintang (KMT) and other parties ahead of Saturday’s (Nov 26) elections, according to polls. 

Taiwanese political opinion tracker DailyView has projected that the opposition KMT could win 15 out of the 22 mayoral and county magistrate seats, while the DPP could win just five.

TENSE CROSS-STRAITS TIES

This comes as cross-strait relations with China grow increasingly tense. 

In early August, China held its largest military exercises around Taiwan, following United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island. 

A recent poll found that the drills have made more than 70 per cent Taiwanese feel that the chances of a military confrontation across the strait have increased considerably. 

The DPP’s tactic of highlighting Beijing’s threat proved successful in the 2020 presidential race, when it won in a landslide.

But with escalating cross-strait tensions, observers believe such fiery rhetoric against China could turn voters off.

National Taiwan Normal University professor Chu Chao-hsiang said: “The drills have made the Taiwanese feel China’s military threat is real. Plus, there’s the bloody experience of the Ukraine war shown on television. It makes people wonder what Taiwan would be like if the same situation happens.”

Beijing has also imposed trade sanctions against some agricultural, fishery and bakery products from Taiwan, raising concerns among the public.

National Taiwan University professor Peng Jing-peng said: “China’s ban on agricultural and fishery imports is a big blow, especially to voters in central and southern Taiwan. This would also affect the way they vote.

TAIWAN’S SLUGGISH ECONOMY

The slowing economy is also on voters’ minds. 

At Huanhe South Road Integrated Market in central Taipei, for instance, vendors called on the government to put the people’s interests first, instead of the party’s priorities. 

One vendor said: “The key is to boost the economy, not just use empty slogans during the election campaign. They need to interact with ordinary people to understand how difficult their lives are.”

The strong support for KMT’s Taipei mayoral candidate Chiang Wan-an, the great-grandson of former Taiwanese president Chiang Kai-shek, would have been unimaginable just months ago, with the area considered to be a DPP stronghold.

Huanhe South Road Integrated Market chairman Ling Sheng-tung is one of Mr Chiang’s supporters. He had switched his support from the ruling DPP, as he is unhappy with the government’s strong stance towards Beijing. 

“People want peace across the strait and the economy to be prioritised,” said the 55-year-old. “No countries want war. It’s bad for everyone, especially the ordinary people. We just want to live our lives in peace. 

“We should just have peaceful exchanges across the strait. There's no need to resist China to protect Taiwan.”



Insiders from the DPP have estimated that support for them in the area has fallen, from 70 per cent to less than 40 per cent.

This could foretell woes for the party at the local elections, which are typically a chance for voters to show their dissatisfaction with the party in power.

With President Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP required to step down at the end of her current term, the results could reshape the political landscape for 2024, when the presidential election will be held.

Source: CNA/ca(fk)(sn)




12. Commentary: China seeks return to traditional engagement but wolf warrior diplomacy isn’t going away


I guess you cannot put the wolf warrior genie back in the bottle.




Commentary: China seeks return to traditional engagement but wolf warrior diplomacy isn’t going away

Beyond the Xi-Biden meet at the G20 summit in Bali, what does the Chinese president’s return to in-person diplomacy with world leaders tell us? Former diplomat James Carouso weighs in.

By James Carouso Channel NewsAsia4 min

View Original


Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the G20 summit in Bali, in November 2022.

WASHINGTON DC: The G20 summit in Bali in November marked the return of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the world stage. And it appears he was missed.

In Xi’s nearly three years of self-imposed COVID-19 isolation, China seemed to have only gotten more aggressive in its “wolf warrior” diplomacy.

In 2020, Beijing slapped hefty tariffs on Australian imports after Australia promoted an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 in China. It halted imports from Lithuania in a dispute over Taiwan in 2021. Earlier this year, China was accused of harassing foreign military aircraft and ships.

Diplomatic engagement at any level had always been used by China as a carrot and stick. Those who angered China were denied meetings or any contact at all with Chinese officials.

For years, no Australian ministers were able to speak with their Chinese counterparts and bilateral relations deteriorated to their lowest point. In response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, discussions on issues from climate change to military relations were ended.

But the wolf warrior approach has given, at best, mixed results.

Mistrust of China grew dramatically among citizens and governments in Western nations and East Asia. This, combined with harsh zero-COVID policies and tightened control over private businesses, meant global supply chains have been shifting out of China.

Its aggressive diplomacy has also increased unity as countries organized themselves to push back against China – from AUKUS and the Quad to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) labelling China a “systemic challenge”.

Talks between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden were described by China as a "new starting point" as the two sides look to wind down tensions.

A RETURN TO MORE TRADITIONAL DIPLOMACY FOR CHINA

Have things taken a turn for the better after the G20 summit?

Xi had a flurry of formal meetings with nine leaders, with state media China News Service reporting that Xi was the "focal point of the whole summit" and that world leaders "clamoured to speak" with him.

These meetings were held without preconditions and without Chinese limitations on what could be discussed. The imagery was warm, handshakes and smiles all around.

The consistent message from Xi’s meetings was that China sought a return to more traditional diplomacy and engagement, even with countries that disagreed with China over such matters as trade, human rights, Taiwan and China’s role in restraining Russia on Ukraine.

While no apparent progress was achieved, in most cases it was agreed that discussions would continue, with some leaders invited to Beijing.

Of course, the most important meeting was between Xi and United States President Joe Biden; their first face-to-face since Biden’s election in 2020.

Nothing concrete was announced thereafter but Xi and Biden got what they came for after a mere three-hour meeting: A clear re-statement that the US continues to abide by the One China policy and does not support a unilateral declaration of independence from Taiwan; and a “floor and guardrails” to manage US-China competition and an agreement to restart bilateral climate change talks and perhaps re-establish military lines of communication.





In the face of persistent inflation and the uncertainties from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it was in the interest of both sides to calm international tensions and reassure financial markets.

Competition for influence in countries such as G20 host Indonesia was clear as both US and China made major announcements of new economy-focused initiatives with President Joko Widodo. A return to in-person diplomacy also meant Xi could attend the trial run of the China-built Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail, as a tangible achievement of his signature Belt and Road Initiative.

LEADERS XI JINPING DID NOT MEET

With Chinese diplomacy on full display, whom Xi did not have a formal meeting with is also of note.

Indian Prime Minister Modi is studiously avoiding Xi until China withdraws from the territory it took over in the last few years, an Indian precondition to any discussions. It's easy to forget, but India is the only country in decades to have had soldiers killed in combat with China, just two years back - with the potential for escalation at any moment.

The one discordant note to Xi’s G20 was his interaction with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Clearly aware that cameras were rolling, Xi chided Trudeau for leaking their informal discussion to the media as “not appropriate”.

Was this because Canadian-Chinese relations remain tense following China’s arrest of two Canadians on spying charges, who were later apparently swapped for Meng Wanzhou, a senior Huawei executive arrested in Canada for fraud amid accusations that China has attempted to influence the outcome of Canadian elections? Perhaps.

But more likely it was because Xi had asked that their meeting not be discussed publicly or only after China had announced that it had taken place and Trudeau had broken that understanding.





WOLF WARRIOR DIPLOMACY ISN’T GOING AWAY

Xi came into these meetings from a position of strength. In October, Xi was anointed Chinese Communist Party leader for a unprecedented third term, with all those who might oppose him removed from party leadership.

Of note, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, known for advancing wolf warrior diplomacy, was elevated into the Politburo.

So, while Xi worked hard to show a kinder, more patient and positive global face of China, he also showed he remains a man who expects his desires to be fully respected by other sovereign states.

Military buildups in China and the US and its allies show no signs of slowing in the wake of all these summit meetings.

James Carouso is a Senior Fellow and Chair of the Australia Advisory Board at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, and a former Acting US Ambassador to Australia.

Source: CNA/ch



13. The Changing Role of Special Operations Forces



As I have written, I am a back to basics/first prinicples kind of guy:


"The Two SOF Tinities:" (https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/two-special-operations-trinities)

ØMissions: 

1. Irregular Warfare

2. Unconventional Warfare

3. Support to Political Warfare


ØThe Comparative advantage of SOF:

1. Influence

2. Governance

3. Support to indigenous forces and populations


ØWith exquisite capabilities for the no fail CT and CP national missions

The Changing Role of Special Operations Forces

sofrep.com · by Guy McCardle · November 24, 2022

2 hours ago

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A Special Forces soldier assigned to 10th Special Forces Group takes part in a training exercise in Boeblingen, Germany. US Army photo by Visual Information Specialist Jason Johnston

Current National Defense Strategy

Back in April 2022, General Richard Clark, commander of US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and Christopher Maier, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, announced the release of a sixteen-page document outlining the “Vision and Strategy” of US Special Operations Forces (SOF). This came on the heels of the Department of Defense (DOD) release of the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS); a factsheet outlining the highlights can be found here.

To fully understand the role SOF plays in national defense, we must first understand the broader picture of the National Defense Strategy. According to the factsheet, the US has four defense priorities, these are:

  1. Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC (People’s Republic of China)
  2. Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, allies, and partners
  3. Deterring aggression while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary, prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe.
  4. Building a resident Joint Force and defense ecosystem.

A joint special forces team moves together out of an Air Force CV-22 Osprey aircraft during Emerald Warrior, our largest joint and combined special operations exercise. Photo by Air Force Senior Airman Clayton Cupit.

Take note that counterterrorism activities are no longer listed as a top defense priority. As a matter of fact, the word “terrorism” does not appear once on the non-classified NDS fact sheet.

The document continues:

“The Department will act urgently to sustain and strengthen deterrence, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as our most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department.”

They keep spelling it out for us; China is our biggest threat. That is something we must keep in mind and not get too bogged down with involvement in the war in Ukraine. It’s a primary tenet of special operations training; never take your eyes off the bad guy.

Russia is mentioned next:

“Russia poses acute threats, as illustrated by its brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. We will collaborate with our NATO Allies and partners to reinforce robust deterrence in the face of Russian aggression.”

This further puts matters into perspective. Russia is the number two bad guy. So we need to keep a close eye on them, but the PRC is our number one concern.

Tertiary threats are addressed:

“The Department will remain capable of managing other persistent threats, including those from NorthKorea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations.”

These are the “also-rans.” Important to keep an eye on, but not the main focus at this time. That said, in the special operations community, focus can shift instantly, and we must be prepared to address any threat anytime, anywhere. I misled you earlier; while it is true that the word “terrorism” does not appear in the NDS fact sheet, it does mention “violent extremist organizations” as a persistent threat. If you want to learn more about what the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) has to say about violent extremism, click here for access to the 2021 edition of US Violent Extremist Mobilization Indicators. It’s your tax dollars at work.

If you want to track the activities of current terrorist groups, click here and check out the Counter Terrorism Guide webpage maintained by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. As you’ll quickly see, terrorism is still alive and well worldwide. However, it steals a line from Tom Clancy; it does not present the same “clear and present danger” to our nation as it once did.

The Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahidin—commonly known as al-Shabaab, is still alive and well in the region. Image from the National Counterterrorism Center

The Future of SOF

The cover page of the SOCOM document outlines the future of the American SOF. Image from the United States Special Operations command

Starting with the attacks of 9/11 over two decades ago, US special operations forces have concentrated primarily on counterterrorism efforts. While this mission remains on their radar, the focus of the national defense of the United States has shifted to keeping tabs on the activities of the People’s Republic of China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. As a result, operators who may have spent their entire careers fighting the war on terror may wonder how they fit in.

Assistant Secretary Maier spoke at the National Defense Industrial Association Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict Symposium last Friday, November 18th. Speaking of the future of SOF, he said,

Read Next: SecDef Taking the Reins of SOF is Not a Coup, It’s Law

“Where I think there is going to be tremendous transition and change — and I would say we’re already along that path — is really applying the capabilities and the thinking — and in many respects the talent that is unique to SOF — to the rest of the National Defense Strategy challenges.”

I read that and thought, “Ok, great. The only constant in change, but how are we going to change?”

Fortunately, Mr. Maeir addressed that issue a bit. He continued,

“There’s not a lot of institutional knowledge that goes back, frankly, to the pre-2001 era,” Maier said. “So there’s a significant amount of … education but also advocacy required in these conversations, in some cases just to get a seat at the table. And then being able to apply in those conversations … whether it’s planning or policy discussions the role SOF can play and where there’s key roles SOF can help to provide options for senior decision makers.”

Here, he is being quite frank and realistic. Times have changed, areas of interest have changed, and SOF has to change along with it. If not, they might not get what he calls “a seat at the table.” So they need to define their role in a changing global environment. And that is what the Special Operations Forces Vision and Strategy document does.

I’ll cover the document’s highlights in an attempt to bring you up to speed on the future of American SOF in 2022 and beyond.

Who We Are

If I had to sum it up in three words, I’d say that SOF is an innovative problem solver. These extraordinarily dedicated and talented individuals devote their lives to taking on the most complex of challenges. The more challenging, the better. As the SEALs say, “The only easy day was yesterday.” SOF is a community, and you don’t have to wear a tab or a trident to be part of that community. There are several other SOF professionals for every operator: military support personnel, contractors, DOD civilians, and family members pulling together to ensure operational readiness. It takes a village and a fairly big one at that.

What We Do

The document explains that SOF “respond swiftly to crises worldwide and accomplish high-risk, politically-sensitive missions with a low signature and small footprint.” In addition, they “cultivate strong relationships with our global network -allies, partners, joint, interagency, multinational, industry, and academia.” Like it or not, SOF troops are ambassadors for the US and the rest of our armed forces. They are widely looked up to and emulated.

I love the next bullet point in the document. Part of it reads that SOF “…create dilemmas for our adversaries”. Classic. If the Rangers, SEALs, or Delta are coming for you, it will not be your best day.

Where We Are Going

SOF remains balanced and ready to take on any conflict asked of them. The vision and strategy document mentions that they will utilize “sustainable counterterrorism to safeguard the Nation.” While for the rest of the foreseeable future, this will be part of their mission, even if it doesn’t align neatly with the main objectives of the National Defense Strategy. Asymmetric warfare is a big part of what SOF does, and they are damn good at it. Small units will always be needed to go in the middle of the night to places with names you can’t pronounce to fix problems you didn’t know existed. That’s just the nature of the beast.

SOCOM, however, realizes that the force must evolve. “Evolve into what?” you may ask. According to them, “current and future threats demand SOF evolves into a force capable of creating strategic, asymmetric advantages for the nation as a key contributor of integrated deterrence.”

Special Forces soldiers on their way to work. Image from US Army War College

Integrated Deterrence

In a piece published online by the US Army War College, Scott Harr discusses integrated deterrence, which he calls a “new concept.” He quotes Colin Kahl, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, in his attempts to define the phrase. Mr. Kahl says, “In terms of integrated … we mean, integrated across domains, so conventional, nuclear, cyber, space, informational. [It is also] integrated across theaters of competition and potential conflict [and] integrated across the spectrum of conflict from high-intensity warfare to the gray zone.”

Ok, I think I understand. In broad terms, this is SOF being involved and non-compartmentalized.

Jim Garamone quotes Kahl in a 2021 piece he wrote for the DOD news. He notes, “The concept in this case also means integration of all instruments of national power.” Those instruments are government and military. He quotes Kahl as saying, “Most importantly, it means being “integrated across our allies and partners, which are the real asymmetric advantage that the United States has over any other competitor or potential adversary.”

We’re starting to dig deep down the rabbit hole on this one, but that is necessary to understand the vision and future strategy of SOCOM for SOF. For example, you might wonder what Kahl means by “asymmetric advantage.” The best definition of the term I could find is from a company aptly named Asymmetry Observations.

They tell us,

“Asymmetric advantage is based on knowing something that creates value or has an edge that others don’t. An asymmetric advantage is protected and maintained through the distinctions between knowledge of a concept vs. actually being able to do it.”

We know or gain knowledge of the true capabilities of our adversaries that gives us the edge over them. While knowledge is power, it isn’t necessarily deterrence. Garamone reminds us that deterrence “has been at the heart of US policy since the Cold War.” I would argue that the idea of American deterrence goes back to Teddy Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick” philosophy of foreign policy.

Kahl tells us that the traditional definition of deterrence does not necessarily hold today. He says, “We need to think about deterrence differently given the existing security environment and the potential scenarios for conflict that we’re trying to deter. We at [the] Department of Defense need to have the capabilities and the concepts to deny the type of rapid fait accompli scenarios that we know potential adversaries are contemplating, so they can’t make a rapid lunge at our partners and allies before they believe the United States can show up.”

Prevention. He’s talking about using SOF as a prophylactic force rather than just a reactive force. Being given actionable intelligence and acting on that to deter what is euphemistically called “negative outcomes.” Sure we already do that to some extent, and those missions almost always remain classified. We don’t want to alarm the American people with “what could have happened,” At the same time, we don’t want to encourage bad actors to develop destructive plans knowing it will gain them recognition.

Kahl ponders some more on the subject,

“We also have to make ourselves more resilient because, frankly, we know that our adversaries have developed theories of victory, cognizant that they wouldn’t do particularly well in a protracted conflict with the United States,” he said. “So they don’t intend to fight a protracted conflict. Instead, they intend to blind us and deafen us and slow us down.”

Twenty years we spent in Afghanistan. Two long, painful, bloody, expensive decades…and the Taliban knew we’d leave in the end, and they’d still be there. It reminds me of the Bruce Springsteen anti-war song, Born in the USA (and no, it is not a patriotic tune, read the lyrics and think about them). The singer says he “Had a brother at Khe Sahn, fighting off the Viet Cong. They’re still there; he’s all gone.” Meaning, of course, his brother (either biological or military) was killed in the fighting, yet the VC remained. So what was it all for? A lot of people ask that same question about Afghanistan…and Iraq.

There is much more to the SOCOM vision and strategy for the future of SOF in the United States military. Unfortunately, time, space, and attention span preclude addressing all of it here. However, it is quite a lot to digest. But a plan exists, and it seems like a good plan. Special operations forces, by their nature, have always been dynamic and adaptable. These qualities will keep them relevant and at the tip of the spear for years to come.

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sofrep.com · by Guy McCardle · November 24, 2022


14. Diplomats frustrated by the DEA's dark side


Interesting comment (faint praise?) on the military.


Excerpts:

In this category are agencies whose promotion structure and operating environments are more domestic. Frequently when these officers report to an embassy as a head of an agency it is their first overseas work experience. Often, ambassadors witness them freelance out of a surfeit of exuberance, like the mission-driven Department of Defense. DoD types, however, have strict discipline ingrained in their culture, and when counseled as to the realities of a foreign, diplomatic "battlespace" compared to being in garrison or at war, most adapt well.
But there are also those who scoff at the notion of Chief of Mission authority and pursue their own agendas because, well, they have their own agendas which don't necessarily include the President's foreign policy. That would include the DEA, the Department of Justice, and certain elements of the multi-headed hydra that is the Department of Homeland Security. 

Diplomats frustrated by the DEA's dark side

Following a series of scandals the DEA needs to be made more accountable in the foreign policy hierarchy. Ambassadors should have more say.

POR::

JOHN FEELEYy

JAMES D. NEALON

PUBLICADO 22 NOV 2022 – 03:12 PM EST | ACTUALIZADO 22 NOV 2022 – 03:12 PM EST

univision.com · by Univision

Recent media reports have highlighted DEA agents getting in trouble around the globe. As ambassadors, we certainly saw our share of unprofessional, indeed criminal behavior.

From the pursuit of unauthorized commercial sex - and it bears saying that DEA is hardly an exclusive offender in this realm - to embezzlement, fraud, and even active collaboration with the drug traffickers they are meant to be pursuing, DEA agents are among the most likely candidates to receive loss of confidence letters from an ambassador.

Usually, less formal personnel action – the bureaucratic woodshed - is effected to avoid scandal or drawing undue notoriety to an embassy.

American ambassadors are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. When they arrive in their country of assignment they carry with them a document called a Chief of Mission letter. This letter is signed by the President of the United States and instructs - it doesn't suggest or recommend - that the Ambassador exercise authority and oversight over all U.S. government people and programs in that country.

The purpose of the letter is obvious. The President, and his administration, require accountability on the one hand and a single point of contact on the other. History has taught us that successful foreign policy requires that the President's vision is both unified and coordinated in its implementation, rather than multiple agencies conducting their own foreign policies and pursuing more narrow objectives. It's also crucial that when the President, the Congress, or any senior official wants to know what is going on in country X, there is one responsible authority they call on to get a full and accurate picture.

Not surprisingly, there are agencies that are historically good at recognizing and adhering to Chief of Mission authority. The State Department, USAID, Agriculture, Commerce, and CIA, generally color between the lines. Their career officers are bureaucratically and culturally raised within a foreign affairs milieu.

Then there are the other guys.

In this category are agencies whose promotion structure and operating environments are more domestic. Frequently when these officers report to an embassy as a head of an agency it is their first overseas work experience. Often, ambassadors witness them freelance out of a surfeit of exuberance, like the mission-driven Department of Defense. DoD types, however, have strict discipline ingrained in their culture, and when counseled as to the realities of a foreign, diplomatic "battlespace" compared to being in garrison or at war, most adapt well.

But there are also those who scoff at the notion of Chief of Mission authority and pursue their own agendas because, well, they have their own agendas which don't necessarily include the President's foreign policy. That would include the DEA, the Department of Justice, and certain elements of the multi-headed hydra that is the Department of Homeland Security.

Are the non-compliers disloyal; are they actively trying to sabotage the President and by extension, the Ambassador? We suggest not. But their actions are no less disruptive for being carried out by loyal and hard-working public servants.

The root of the problem lies in diametrically opposed bureaucratic cultures and operating environments. Most DEA agents have been US street cops. Most DoJ officials sent overseas have served as Assistant U.S. Attorneys, or are career DoJ staff - folks for whom judicial independence, the sanctity of an investigation, and the sacrosanct pursuit of a conviction in a US court trump all other considerations. This makes for an extremely bad fit when joining a diplomatic organization, where relationships and policy goals are measured in shades of frustrating gray, and where the ambassador is, by presidential order, the boss.

Based on our collective experience working at embassies in the Western Hemisphere over 4 decades, we suggest that the Biden Administration should attempt to correct this repeated pattern of behavior.

Following the conviction this year of one-time star DEA agent, Jose Irrizarry, DEA is already engaged in an accountability exercise with an outside authority. This is positive. They should consider:

- Not allowing any DEA agent to assume a country or regional director position without less than 7 years overseas experience working in a diplomatic environment;

- All money laundering investigations that involve money drops, wires to shelf accounts, or similar movements of government money to bad guys for the purposes of evidence collection, should be first approved by an at-post small group committee comprised of the other law enforcement agencies resident in country and the Deputy Chief of Mission or the Ambassador.

- Any investigation into a senior host government official, his/her family or known associates, MUST be specifically briefed to the Ambassador by senior DEA headquarters staff and the country DEA office before it begins. There currently exists a Special Activity Review Committee (SARC) process that DoJ runs in Washington that is meant to do this, but it is broken. DoJ is not fully transparent with its State counterparts, often leading to Ambassadors COM's being invited along for the crash landing of an impending DoJ announcement of an indictment, but not on board for take-off to coordinate with appropriate host government officials.

Unlike many Washington problems, this one has an obvious fix and we urge the Biden Administration to take action.

univision.com · by Univision



15. Retired U.S.general predicts how new phase of Ukraine war will unfold




Retired U.S.general predicts how new phase of Ukraine war will unfold

Newsweek · by Brendan Cole · November 24, 2022

The former commanding general of the United States Army Europe has said that Russia will try to force a pause in fighting in Ukraine so its troops can regroup.

Mark Hertling said in a Twitter thread on Thursday the conflict was now entering its fourth phase. The first phase involved Russia's initial intentions of executing a change of government in Kyiv and controlling ports on the Black and Azov Seas.

The second phase included a struggle by both sides for personnel, equipment and ammunition, while the third phase saw Ukrainian forces generate momentum.

Hertling said that now Moscow is seeking to create a "frozen conflict" along the lines of the situations in Transnistria, a Russian-dominated unrecognized republic in Moldova, and the similarly unrecognized breakaway Georgian republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.


Ukrainian military personnel stand on a tank in Kherson, Ukraine on November 23, 2022. Former U.S. general Mark Hertling has warned that Russia would seek to create a "frozen conflict" in Ukraine. Chris McGrath/Getty Images

But Hertling said that a cessation in hostilities could allow Russia to "rebuild their force and attack again" and that the West "should not fall for this ruse."

He said that Moscow "must not be allowed" to create another frozen conflict with "shifty attempts at cease fires."

"Ukraine will still win this fight, regain their territory and sovereignty. But there's lots of fighting ahead," he said.

Ukraine is 9 months into this fight. They're at the start of a new phase (Phase IV). Let’s review & then look at what may be ahead.

In this AAR, I’ll include past descriptions, slides I made at different times, news articles…and predict what we may need to watch.

Here goes. 2/
— MarkHertling (@MarkHertling) November 24, 2022

Hertling, who commanded the 1st Armored Division and Task Force Iron/Multinational Division-North in Iraq during the troop surge of 2007 to 2008, also predicted that Iran, which is supplying drones, and reportedly missiles to Russian forces, would continue to step up its support for Moscow.

Meanwhile, Moscow's forces will focus on the "continued destruction" of Ukrainian infrastructure and "the suffering of the Ukrainian people as a strategic objective to gain concessions."

"Ukrainian morale will be tested" with continued Russian attacks against civilian infrastructure but the country "will persevere."

Following Russia's withdrawal from Kherson, Hertling believed that Ukraine's force "will slowly grow in capabilities" although a continued maneuver east of the Dnieper River and into the Russian occupied Donbas region "will prove to be a much tougher fight."

He said that the Ukrainian armed forces face fights in the east and the south of the country which will be "tougher" because of trickier terrain, longer supply lines and the issue of fielding new weapons and tactics.

Hertling's comments come as Petro Kotin, head of nuclear power company Energoatom, warned of the consequences of continued Russian attacks against Ukrainian nuclear power plants, saying on Thursday that such attacks risked "nuclear and radioactive catastrophe."

A day earlier, Ukrainian officials said three nuclear power plants on territory held by Ukrainian forces had been switched off after the latest wave of Russian missile strikes.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.

Newsweek · by Brendan Cole · November 24, 2022




16.  Nobel laureate Maria Ressa launches book ‘How to Stand Up to a Dictator’ in London



I cannot wait to read my good friend's new book. Kindle and the hardback will be released on 29 November on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/How-Stand-Up-Dictator-Future/dp/0063257513/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1669390040&sr=8-2


I sent the article at this link out a couple of months ago when I heard her speak in Korea, but it is well worth reading and executing so I am including it again.


"FULL TEXT: Maria Ressa, Dmitry Muratov’s 10-point plan to address the information crisis"

https://www.rappler.com/technology/social-media/full-text-maria-ressa-dmitry-muratov-10-point-plan-address-information-crisis/




Nobel laureate Maria Ressa launches book ‘How to Stand Up to a Dictator’ in London

rappler.com · by Lian Buan · November 24, 2022

LONDON, United Kingdom – The tickets to the launch of Nobel laureate Maria Ressa’s book, “How to Stand Up To A Dictator,” were sold out. Some attendees had to stand at the back of the room by the bar at The Conduit in London, a creatives and thinkers club, because all seats were taken. Ressa, a journalist of 36 years, was not able to keep any of her schedules (she was booked by the hour) because of the volume of people who want an autograph and a photo with her.

Ressa’s rockstar treatment in London was in stark contrast to the situation back home, especially online.

“Queen of fake news,” said a comment posted on the Rappler livestream. On Twitter, a Duterte supporter was defensive: “Who’s the dictator? Duterte who stepped down from the presidency after six years?”

The online hate and the discrediting of many Filipino journalists are what Ressa talked about in the book, named by the popular London bookstore chain Waterstones “as among the best political books of 2022.

Ressa launched it, with London as the first stop, during the honeymoon period for the new president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the disgraced dictator ousted by a People Power revolution 36 years ago. The 32 million votes of Marcos – among the biggest in Philippine electoral history – is more or less the same base of former president Rodrigo Duterte, the dictator referred to in the book. Or, one of the dictators, among them Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

“I think we have to look beyond politics, we have to look at values. I don’t believe our values have changed, I think Pinoys are the most sensitive and empathetic, and that’s why I chose the Philippines, we have to remember the good,” Ressa said in an interview with this reporter at the end of the launch on Wednesday, November 23.

Her agent, who looked on, was raring to whisk her away because she had to catch a red-eye flight to Madrid, where she would continue to advocate against the dangers of social media.


‘No regrets’

Earlier on Wednesday, at the University of Wesminster for a “Women in Journalism” talk, Ressa said: “I don’t believe that these are the values of Filipinos, I don’t believe that we think it’s okay to kill,” referring to the online army defense of Duterte’s bloody drug war. Human rights groups say this so-called “war on drugs” has killed up to 27,000 people in six years. It is now under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity.

Which is why for the better part of the tumultuous Duterte presidency, Ressa – who specialized in tracing terrorism networks especially when she was with CNN – pivoted to disinformation data: Are people really that vile, or have the platforms enabled hate to thrive? As she explains in her book, it is the latter.

“What’s happening in the Philippines would not have happened without Silicon Valley and Facebook,” Ressa said at the launch Wednesday evening, hosted by How to Academy and The Conduit’s co-founder Paul van Zyl.

Beginning September 2016, as the drug war death count soared, Ressa and Rappler published a series on the weaponization of the internet. Rappler was pummeled after that. Today, Ressa is convicted of cyber libel (on appeal), on trial for five tax charges, sued for two more connected to securities, and Rappler is always on the brink of closure, no thanks to a buzzer-beating move of the Duterte government to affirm a shutdown order in the last two days of its presidency. Ressa was in London on a travel bond, which had to be applied for and secured laboriously before many courts – the latest the Supreme Court where her appeal on her cyber libel conviction is pending.

Ressa writes in her book about the weaponization series that set off the many nightmares of Rappler and its staff: “I have no regrets. I would do it all over again.”

The chapter after that begins with a photo of a beaming Ressa with Zuckerberg’s arm around her. It was a meeting in California in 2017, one of Ressa’s futile attempts to convince big tech to change their ways for the good. She talked about her disappointments with the “tech bros” in detail in her book.

She also wrote in great detail about her personal life which, as with most journalists, is not easy. Journalists are never the story, but to make sense of what had happened and why Rappler chooses to hold the line, Ressa had to go as far back as her early childhood to the formative and explorative periods of adulthood to figure out why she would later stand up to a dictator.

“All of the things we live through is translated to data, and I began to understand it, and people kept asking me, ‘How do we react to it?’ And the response to how we react to it is layered upon layers of layers of values. I’ve never written quite like this, it’s all the whys in one place, but I feel old enough,” said Ressa.


In How to Stand to a Dictator, there are intimate looks into the toughest calls she had to make as a journalist – from getting news reporter Ces Drilon out of captivity from terror group Abu Sayyaf, to handing in her resignation as head of News and Current Affairs of ABS-CBN.

At the University of Westminster, she recalled the day she and the co-founders of Rappler – all women, fondly called manangs (older sisters) – told the staff in 2018 that the Securities and Exchange Commission had revoked the company’s license. “Everyone has a different risk level, and I said if you or your parents are afraid, tell us, and we will try to place you in a different news organization. And I have to tell you not one of our editorial team wanted to leave, it was scary as hell but it’s almost like – coal under the greatest pressure becomes diamond.”

“Journalists sacrifice because it is the right thing to do at this moment in time,” said Ressa at The Conduit, pitching a three-fold approach to “winning the last two minutes of democracy,” the last one being, “demand better journalism and make journalism an antidote to tyranny.”

‘We’re not a sinking ship’

The book discussed a pivotal moment one day in London in 2020, during a meeting with international lawyers led by Amal Clooney, when Ressa was pushed to seriously think about this question: What if I just don’t come back?

“It was the first time in a long time that I felt alone,” Ressa wrote, but “[the Philippines] is where I have to be and it’s what I have to do…there is no other choice.” At a gathering exclusive to Filipinos on Saturday, November 19, Ressa said: “What I don’t like are rats deserting a sinking ship. And we’re not sinking, not yet.”

Ressa likes to quote Milan Kundera: “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” She also likes to warn against TikTok, and its central role in what Shoshana Zuboff called surveillance capitalism.

Ressa’s book is both cerebral and tender. It discusses moments in time that Filipinos still very much alive today have lived through – from Ferdinand E. Marcos to Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. And there’s something for everyone to take away.

My takeaway was very pessimistic, one I told Maria in a personal message and whose content is confidential until it’s not. But I leave you with Maria’s takeaway, and by doing so, breaking confidentiality also. But I thought you should know.

“We can win this if we stay the course.” – Rappler.com

rappler.com · by Lian Buan · November 24, 2022





17. US aid to Ukraine puts pressure on Pentagon's arms stockpile





US aid to Ukraine puts pressure on Pentagon's arms stockpile

The Washington Post · by Tara Copp | AP · November 24, 2022

WASHINGTON — The intense firefight over Ukraine has the Pentagon rethinking its weapons stockpiles. If another major war broke out today, would the United States have enough ammunition to fight?

It’s a question confronting Pentagon planners, not only as they aim to supply Ukraine for a war with Russia that could stretch years longer, but also as they look ahead to a potential conflict with China.

Russia is firing as many as 20,000 rounds a day, ranging from bullets for automatic rifles to truck-sized cruise missiles. Ukraine is answering with as many as 7,000 rounds a day, firing 155 mm howitzer rounds, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and now NASAMS air defense munitions, and thousands of rounds of small arms fire.

Much of Ukraine’s firepower is being supplied through U.S. government-funded weapons that are pushed almost weekly to the front lines. On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced an additional round of aid that will provide 20 million more rounds of small arms ammunition to Kyiv.

“We’ve not been in a position where we’ve got only a few days of some critical munition left,” Pentagon comptroller Michael McCord told reporters this month. “But we are now supporting a partner who is.”

U.S. defense production lines are not scaled to supply a major land war, and some, like for the Stinger, were previously shut down.

That’s putting pressure on U.S. reserves and has officials asking whether U.S. weapons stockpiles are big enough. Would the U.S. be ready to respond to a major conflict today, for example if China invaded Taiwan?

“What would happen if something blew up in Indo-Pacom? Not five years from now, not 10 years from now, what if it happened next week?” Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, said, referring to the military’s Indo-Pacific Command. He spoke at a defense acquisitions conference this month at George Mason University in Virginia.

“What do we have in any degree of quantity? That will actually be effective? Those are the questions we’re asking right this minute,” he said.

The Army uses many of the same munitions that have proven most critical in Ukraine, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, Stinger missiles and 155 mm howitzer rounds, and is now reviewing its stockpile requirements, Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition, told reporters Monday.

“They’re seeing what Ukraine is using, what we can produce and how fast we can ramp up, all of which are factors you would work into, ‘OK, how (big) does your pre-war stockpile need to be?” Bush said. “The slower you ramp up, the bigger the pile needs to be at the start.”

The military aid packages the U.S. sends either pull inventory from stockpiles or fund contracts with industry to step up production. At least $19 billion in military aid has been committed to date, including 924,000 artillery rounds for 155mm howitzers, more than 8,500 Javelin anti-tank systems, 1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft systems and hundreds of vehicles and drones. It’s also provided advanced air defense systems and 38 HIMARS, although the Pentagon does not disclose how many rounds of ammunition it sends with the rocket systems.

The infusion of weapons is raising questions on Capitol Hill.

This month, the administration asked Congress to provide $37 billion more in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine in the post-election legislative session, and to approve it before Republicans take control of the House in January. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who is seeking to become speaker, has warned that Republicans would not support writing a “blank check” for Ukraine.

Even with fresh money, stockpiles cannot be quickly replenished. Several of the systems proving most vital in Ukraine had their production lines shut down years ago. Keeping a production line open is expensive, and the Army had other spending priorities.

The Pentagon awarded Raytheon a $624 million contract for 1,300 new Stinger missiles in May, but the company said it will not be able to increase production until next year due to parts shortages.

“The Stinger line was shut down in 2008,” LaPlante said. “Really, who did that? We all did it. You did it. We did it,” he said, referring to Congress and the Pentagon’s decision not to fund continued production of the Army’s anti-aircraft munition, which can be launched by a soldier or mounted to a platform or truck.

Based on an analysis of past Army budget documents, Center for Strategic and International Studies senior adviser Mark Cancian estimates that the 1,600 Stinger systems the U.S. has provided to Ukraine represent about one-quarter of its total arsenal.

The HIMARS system, which Ukraine has used so effectively in its counteroffensive, faces some of the same challenges, LaPlante said.

“The thing now that is saving Ukraine, and that everybody around the world wants, we stopped production of it,” he said.

HIMARS production was shut down by the Army from about 2014 to 2018, LaPlante said. The Army is now trying to ramp up production to build up to eight a month, or 96 a year, Bush said.

HIMARS effectiveness in Ukraine has increased interest elsewhere, too. Poland, Lithuania and Taiwan have put in orders, even as the U.S. works to rush more to Ukraine. If the conflict drags on and more HIMARS ammunition is prioritized for Ukraine, that could potentially limit U.S. troops’ access to the rounds for live-fire training.

The Pentagon this month announced a $14.4 million contract to speed production of new HIMARS to replenish its stocks.

“This conflict has revealed that munitions production in the United States and with our allies is likely insufficient for major land wars,” said Ryan Brobst, an analyst at the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

The U.S. also recently announced it would be supplying Ukraine with four Avenger air defense systems, portable launchers that can be mounted on tracked or wheeled vehicles, to provide another shorter-range option against the Iranian drones being used by Russia's forces. But the Avenger systems rely on Stinger missiles, too.

Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said stockpile concerns were taken into account.

“We wouldn’t have provided these Stinger missiles if we didn’t feel that we could,” Singh said at a recent Pentagon briefing.

___

Follow AP coverage of the war in Ukraine at: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

The Washington Post · by Tara Copp | AP · November 24, 2022











De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com


V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcastForeign Podicy
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

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