Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

Education on the value of free speech and the other freedoms reserved by the Bill of Rights, about what happens when you don't have them, and about how to exercise and protect them, should be an essential prerequisite for being an American citizen — or indeed a citizen of any nation, the more so to the degree that such rights remain unprotected. If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us…In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness." 
- Carl Sagan, astronomer

“I don't give a damn what others say. It's okay to color outside the lines.” 
- Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970), musician

“If I decide to be an idiot, then I’ll be an idiot on my own accord.” 
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)


1. The 'Ulcer' Strategy: How the US Military Could Wage War on China
2.  After taking in Afghan commandos, the British military may try to build another elite special-operations force
3. Converging Ways of War: Russian, China and America
4. How We Can Save Ukraine
5. Drones Take Center Stage in U.S.-China War on Data Harvesting
6. New Characteristics for Chinese Socialism?
7. McMaster, Afghanistan, and the Praetorian Mindset
8. How Loitering Munitions Can Help Counter China
9. Women are the Future of America's National Security
10. Protests erupt in Poland over plan to force out U.S. broadcaster Discovery
11. How America can avoid the 'Other Thucydides Trap'
12. Is the cure for America’s ‘next war-itis’ a military culture shift?
13. Paradox of US democracy
14. Reporter's notebook: 'Gallagher effect' haunts ship fire case. Did the Navy learn its lesson?
15. China’s new military base in Africa: What it means for Europe and America
16. Philippines grapples with typhoon aftermath as death toll tops 300
17. With hunger, poverty growing in Afghanistan, Biden pressured to ease sanctions
18. Who Really Chooses to Become a Suicide Bomber?
19. Afghanistan: What We Left Behind
20. US ‘closer to civil war’ than most would like to believe, new book says
21. Russia, Europe, and Great Power Politics Gets Real
22. The Flying Tigers: How a group of Americans ended up fighting for China in WW II
23. A Single Sentence In The Defense Authorization Act Is A Major Change In US-Taiwan Defense Cooperation
24. Millions of angry, armed Americans are preparing to seize power if Trump loses in 2024




1. The 'Ulcer' Strategy: How the US Military Could Wage War on China
Who would have thought the Napoleonic Wars might still have relevance? "War by contingent '' - an ulcer or troublemaking strategy for the Navy and Marine Corps. I would add to the trouble making strategy the resistance operating concept and the employment of indigenous partners to deter external invasion or if deterrence fails to resist with all means necessary.



The 'Ulcer' Strategy: How the US Military Could Wage War on China
19fortyfive.com · by ByJames Holmes · December 19, 2021
David Berger wants to give Xi Jinping an ulcer. Early this month the U.S. Marine Corps commandant signed out the “Concept for Stand-in Forces,” a strategic directive that outlines how small marine units will operate along Asia’s first island chain in concert with the U.S. Navy fleet to make things tough on China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) during a conflict in the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait, or South China Sea.
Think of the “Concept for Stand-in Forces” as a statement in the ongoing armed debate that is the U.S.-China strategic competition. In strategic competition, each competitor develops and flourishes implements of armed might in an effort to convince audiences able to sway the competition’s outcome that it would be the victor should a dispute come to blows.
If successful a competitor deters or coerces its antagonist, persuades the antagonist’s allies and partners to desert what looks like a losing cause, and woos allies and partners into rallying with what looks like the winning cause.
China was the first mover in the U.S.-China competition, developing concepts for access and area denial and fielding armaments to make A2/AD a working reality. This marked the PLA’s opening statement in the armed debate. Namely, PLA rocketeers, aviators, and mariners would pummel U.S. forces forward-deployed in the theater at the outbreak of war while preventing a union between those forces and reinforcements steaming westward across the Pacific from U.S. seaports.
In the process, the PLA would give itself time to conquer Taiwan or otherwise fulfill its goals before anyone could intercede in force. And for a time the U.S. military seemed to accept the premise of A2/AD, namely that U.S. forces would back out of the region in wartime before battling their way back in. The Pentagon’s short-lived AirSea Battle concept seemed founded on this precept.
Yet rerunning World War II would have given China precisely the time it coveted. Nearly four years elapsed between the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the surrender ceremony on board the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Few would give Taiwan, Japan, or China’s other Asian rivals much chance of holding out that long without American succor.
Evacuating the Western Pacific to preserve the force would have been tantamount to surrendering.
Hence the U.S. sea services’ casting around in recent years for ways to defy A2/AD and stay in the region to balk Beijing’s designs. The U.S. Marine Corps and Navy intend to break up their fleets and ground forces into smaller, cheaper, and more numerous components while equipping them with new technology so they still pack a wallop.
The navy wants swarms of light combatant ships able to fight in a “distributed” fashion, dispersing in space to evade the brunt of access denial. A smaller percentage of the fleet’s combat power would reside in each hull, and thus the fleet could afford to take losses in action yet retain enough combat power to fight on to victory.
Which is the point, after all.
The marines likewise want to decompose the force into lighter, nimbler units equipped with missiles and advanced sensors. Light amphibious warships would ferry these units from island to island when need be. They would help out the fleet through scouting and counter-scouting while sporting the ability to land a blow.
In short, naval forces will stand in, defying China’s efforts to impose its desires by force, rather than standoff in hopes of reversing aggression later. Stand-in forces and the associated family of concepts comprise the sea services’ rejoinder to PLA A2/AD.
The approach owes homage to the British Army and Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1807 Sir Arthur Wellesley, later Lord Wellington, led a modest-sized army ashore in Portugal. In the ensuing seven years Wellington’s army, supported from the sea, fought alongside Portuguese and Spanish partisans.
The allies’ directive: plague the French. The expedition had no determinate aims. The authorities in London allocated Wellington a certain amount of resources and sent him forth to sow mayhem. Napoleon had little desire to wage war to France’s west when the major fighting raged to its east. And yet he had to—or acquiesce in a hybrid threat on the Iberian Peninsula.
And that was the point.
The Iberian campaign siphoned away forces from Napoleon’s primary theaters of interest while deflecting his mind from more important things. Maritime historian Julian Corbett calls this mode of warfare “war limited by contingent,” meaning war governed not by specific aims sought but by the means assigned to commanders. Strategists normally think in terms of ends, ways, and means: figuring out ways to use assigned means to accomplish certain ends. The goal sought determines the resources apportioned and how they are used.
In effect war by contingent dethrones ends—in normal times the paramount factor—from the strategic formula, putting ways and means in charge of the enterprise. Operations and tactics are good when they throw the enemy’s efforts awry.
War by contingent, then, is a troublemaking strategy. Napoleon outdid Corbett in branding it. The little emperor called the Peninsular War his “Spanish ulcer.” An ulcer isn’t fatal, but it nags constantly. It distracts and enfeebles. For Corbett, an ulcer strategy means “the intrusion into a war plan which our enemy has designed without allowing for our intervention, and to which he is irrevocably committed by his opening movements,” or “intervention to deprive the enemy of the fruits of victory.”
Such a strategy makes mischief for an enemy in a larger struggle, promises gains disproportionate to the resources allotted, and compels the enemy to respond at a steep cost whether its leadership wants to or not. It works best in a theater that can be isolated from the sea. It deploys a joint land/sea “disposal force,” an amphibian contingent made up of enough assets to do the foe harm, but not enough to cause the primary effort to fail once it’s detached from the main force.
Napoleon had his Spanish ulcer; now let’s give Xi Jinping a Pacific ulcer.
Dr. James Holmes holds the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and served on the faculty of the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs. A former U.S. Navy surface-warfare officer, he was the last gunnery officer in history to fire a battleship’s big guns in anger, during the first Gulf War in 1991. He earned the Naval War College Foundation Award in 1994, signifying the top graduate in his class. His books include Red Star over the Pacific, an Atlantic Monthly Best Book of 2010 and a fixture on the Navy Professional Reading List. General James Mattis deems him “troublesome.”
19fortyfive.com · by ByJames Holmes · December 19, 2021



2. After taking in Afghan commandos, the British military may try to build another elite special-operations force

"Afghan Gurkhas?"

After taking in Afghan commandos, the British military may try to build another elite special-operations force
Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou

Afghan special forces.
Rahmat Gul/AP
  • Members of the Afghan army's special-operations forces are among the many Afghans who fled the Taliban takeover.
  • Those forces are highly trained and well regarded, and the UK is considering incorporating some into the British military.
  • The British army has a history of taking in foreign fighters, some of whom have earned their own fearsome reputations.
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In the final days of the hectic withdrawal from Kabul, US and Coalition forces evacuated tens of thousands of their citizens and Afghans who had worked with them.
Among those evacuated were Afghan special operators who fiercely fought the Taliban and faced brutal deaths if captured. The UK, which has taken in several hundred Afghans, is considering setting up a special-operations unit of former Afghan commandos in the British Army.
It wouldn't be the first time the British military has done that. There is already a specialized unit of foreign fighters serving in the British Army.
The Gurkhas

Gurkha patrol team members receive their orders before their Cambrian Patrol in the UK's Brecon Beacons National Park, October 11, 2021.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
The Gurkhas hail from four warrior tribes from the steep mountains of Nepal. When the British first came into contact with them during the colonization of India, they found them to be fierce adversaries.
The British were so impressed by their fighting spirit and abilities that they created Gurkha units in their own military.
For over 200 years now, the Gurkhas have been an integral part of the British Army, serving in all major conflicts, including the two world wars, Korea, the Falklands, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
In the two world wars alone, 200,000 Gurkhas fought for the British, 43,000 of whom died. A total of 13 Gurkhas have received the Victoria Cross — the British equivalent to the US's Medal of Honor.
"My experience with Gurkhas has been overwhelmingly positive," a former Special Boat Service operator told Insider.

Soldiers of the Second Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles return machine-gun fire during a field-training exercise at Camp Adazi, Latvia, June 18, 2015.
US Army/Capt. Ryan Jernegan
The former SBS operator recalled a mission in Afghanistan during which he and others bunked at a Gurkha forward operating base for a few days as they pursued a high-value Taliban target.
"This was a very bad dude and we had been chasing him for a while," the former SBS operator said. "The area was pretty dangerous. Every time the Gurkhas stepped out of the FOB, they got in a firefight or found" an improvised explosive device, the former commando added.
While the SBS operator's unit was out on an operation in pursuit of their target, the Taliban attacked the FOB in force, "but the Gurkhas stood their ground valiantly and repelled the Taliban. In the morning, we come back, and there was mayhem. The FOB had got a good beating," the former commando said.
While looking over the battlefield in and around the FOB, the SBS operator saw a young Gurkha covering the surrounding fields with a machine gun.

Gurkha soldiers with Khukuri knives during their Gurkha Training Company pass-out parade at the Infantry Training Centre in Catterick, England, December 2, 2021.
Ian Forsyth/Getty Images
"I can still remember him. He was covered in dust and had a blackened face from all the gunpowder. He looks up at me with a cheeky smile, white teeth shining. After eight-plus hours of combat, he was still cheerful!" the SBS operator told Insider. "I think that moment right there summarizes the Gurkhas. Cheerful but tough. I wouldn't want to be their enemy."
There are 3,500 Gurkhas serving with the British today. About 200 spots in their ranks open every year, for which about 28,000 applicants apply. But Gurkhas don't serve just in the British Army.
The Singaporean military has a Gurkha unit that garnered international attention in 2018, when it was tasked with providing security for the summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Gurkhas have developed a fearsome reputation for bravery and warriorship — the Khukuri knife they carry feeds the reputation.
An Afghan 'Gurkha' unit?

Afghan special forces arrive in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, September 29, 2015.
Thomson Reuters
Afghan special-operations forces are highly regarded in a country with a long history of fearsome fighters.
Afghans drove the Soviets out of the country after 10 years of fighting in the 1980s, and the Taliban has fought against the US and Coalition forces for 20 years, albeit with varying levels of intensity.
Like their predecessors who fought the Soviets, Afghan commandos relied on considerable foreign assistance, but they gained extensive combat experience. Those who managed to survive the very high casualty rates and escape Afghanistan are battle-proven.
But matching the Gurkhas will be "a tall order," the former SBS commando said.
With Gurkhas, the former commando added, "you have a citizen-warrior culture that has passed down from father to son for generations. Nepalese boys and teens line up by the hundreds for an opportunity to join the Gurkhas, and those who don't make the cut are kind of disgraced in their society. It's a tough world, for sure, but it's a mirror of their realities, history, and culture."

An instructor inspects a 60-mm mortar during an Afghan National Army Special Operations Command mortar course, at Camp Commando in Kabul, April 3, 2018.
NATO/Robert Ditchey
The US special-operations community's view of Afghan commandos is mixed. American special operators have served with great and dedicated Afghan commandos as well as with unmotivated and unimaginative ones.
Setting up an Afghan unit within the British Army may be feasible in the short-term. Afghans have fought a fierce enemy for years, and many already know how the British military operates. The British armed forces are already quite ethnically diverse, reflecting the UK's colonial history, which the British special-operations community has used that to its advantage.
However, such a unit might be difficult to sustain in the long-term, as recruits may run out. Directly recruiting from Afghanistan would be fraught with security risks. Potential future recruits from Afghanistan would have less training and may be less reliable, making such a unit that much less realistic.
While an Afghan unit may not be feasible, the British special-operations community could still take the opportunity to add individual Afghan commandos to its ranks.
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.

Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou


3. Converging Ways of War: Russian, China and America

A useful overview of concept development in the three countries.

Excerpts:
Where the three national concepts all agree is that future war is, to use Chinese terminology, a system confrontation. The Russians and the Chinese include the wider society in envisaging the adversary system while the United States is more constrained and focused on hostile military forces. In this, Russia, China, and the US have all raised the importance of the immediate pre-war period, essentially agreeing that this is ‘the initial period of war’ not a fundamentally different period. For all, the boundary between peace and war continues to be purposefully blurred. Gray zone is not just a Chinese forte.
...
In general, the three nations all stress fighting deep using multi-domain attacks including kinetic, electronic and cyber. The deep is much more than just the battlespace of World War Two or the Cold War. The deep is now global. In this, the US and China are seeking to impose adverse physical and technical impacts on the opposing system whereas the Russians place much more emphasis on negatively impacting the adversary’s cognition.

Converging Ways of War: Russian, China and America » Wavell Room
wavellroom.com · by Peter Layton · December 16, 2021
Experimental Feature: Audio Read Version
Thinking about major war is back in fashion as forever wars shuffle off and near-peer conflicts become considered plausible. Counter-insurgency is giving way to postulated high intensity wars between technologically advanced great powers. The operational level concepts that describe in an abstract manner how military forces might be used in such battlespaces are being dusted off and revised.
Such concepts have long lineages and have progressively evolved. This process means that the modern operational concepts of most nations are more alike than different. In many respects they converge around the same ideas, some first elaborated by Soviet inter-war military thinkers. In a future major war, the two opposing sides may then work off similar foundational ideas and, even if not fully realising it, be set on waging somewhat symmetrical operations. In this regard, Russian, Chinese and US operational concepts are interesting to discuss to throw up commonalities and differences in emphasis between their thinking, and also where one might be stumbling towards the next evolutionary step.
A Soviet heritage
In the interwar period, Soviet strategists argued that instead of conceptualising the adversary force arrayed on the battlefield in a thin, linear fashion as in World War One’s trench warfare, it should instead be viewed as being a system. The adversary force was much more than solely the frontline of combat soldiers and included second echelon forces, reserves, indirect fire units, transportation means, logistic support, and command and control elements. Moreover, like any system, this force was more than the sum of its parts. Given this, simply attacking the frontline was inadequate as new combat forces were always being moved forward into the frontline to continue fighting. Soviet thinkers conceived the enemy as a system but crucially this was a system with considerable depth.
Soviet thinkers stressed defeating this system through shock, both physical and cognitive. The aim was to cause system paralysis neutralising the opposing systems operational rationale so it could not perform the tasks assigned it by the strategic level.
The way to achieve this shock was threefold. Firstly, through placing an operational manoeuvring group into the defence’s depth that fragmented the adversary forces. This separated the frontline from its necessary rear support and degraded force cohesion.
Secondly, simultaneity. That is attacking both the frontline and in depth simultaneously. The intent of this was to force the adversary force elements to fight independently and thus destroy the system’s synergies, prevent the adversary force retiring in good order, stretch the adversary’s fighting resources, and interrupt the command and control system’s dynamics.
Thirdly, maintaining the momentum relative to the adversary forces and disrupt their movement and tempo.
Modern heritage
Modern Russian strategists have built on this Soviet legacy and incorporated experiences from campaigns in Syria and the Ukraine. However, the conceptualisation of the depth of the opposing system has shifted from being simply that of the military forces, as the interwar Soviet thinkers postulated, to encompassing the entirety of the opposing state including its society. Accordingly, the means of deep penetration have been broadened beyond just the military forces originally envisaged into hybrid warfare, soft power, and information warfare. The system paralysis and shock sought to achieve victory is now not just to the adversary’s military forces but also targets the state.
This expansion of the physical dimensions has been accompanied by an expansion in time with a new stress on the initial period of war (IPW). This begins before the start of combat operations when the soon-to-be warring states start conducting operations to create favourable conditions for when their military forces are finally committed. The broad intent is to have pushed the adversary to the edge of defeat by the time hostilities begin by damaging its political and economic situation.
IPW activities not just increase the ‘fog of war’ for the adversary but also aim to manipulate them psychologically and cognitively. In recent years more emphasis has been placed on ‘reflexive control’, the systematic shaping of the adversary’s perceptions, and thus decisions, in a way that they voluntarily act in a way favourable to Russia’s strategic interests. This is achieved by manipulating the adversary’s ‘sensory awareness of the outside world’ through disinformation, repositioning military forces, and creating time pressures so as to alter their understanding of ‘the material world.’
Overall, the Russians place much greater stress in their operational concepts on attacking an adversary’s cognition than China or the US. This may be because their long range strike capabilities are weaker and so compensation is sought by endeavouring to use an adversary’s networks against it.
China’s embrace
Chinese military thinkers have paid close attention to Russian military thought. The modern People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) development has been strongly influenced by Soviet and now Russian strategic thinking, military doctrine and force structure developments. Prominent in this is the PLA’s adoption of also viewing war from a system perspective. The PLA considers contemporary military conflict as a ‘systems confrontation’ between ‘opposing operational systems’. Accordingly, the PLA conceives of its war-winning entity as an operational ‘system of systems’ composed of five sub-systems: the command system, the reconnaissance intelligence system, the firepower strike system, the information confrontation system, and the support system. The firepower strike system and the information confrontation system are often combined and referred to as the integrated operational force system.
The PLA’s theory of victory is based on using information dominance, precision strikes, and joint operations to paralyse, or ideally destroy, the critical functions of an enemy’s operational system. These cyber, electronic, and physical attacks are aimed to disrupt information flows within the adversary system, degrade its essential elements and nodes, and upset the adversary systems operating tempo. Once the adversary system cannot effectively function and becomes less than the sum of its parts, the enemy will then “lose the will and ability to resist.”
The PLA has long acknowledged cognition, particularly in terms of the ‘three warfares”: public opinion, psychological impact, and legal warfare. Moreover, there is an emerging interest in cognitive control warfare, which has some resonances with Russia’s ‘reflexive control’ construct. However, the PLA today places more importance on systems destruction through waging target-centric warfare aimed at either physically destroying the system or disrupting it technically.
America returns
In returning to thinking about major wars, the United States is building on its 1980’s AirLand Battle concepts that originally incorporated some Soviet ideas and which underpinned the successful 1991 Desert Storm campaign. In this, the US has now moved past the former’s extended battlefield ideas into new notions of an expanded battlefield across the five domains of land, sea, air, cyber and space. In warfighting throughout these multiple domains the focus is on achieving so-called convergence: “the ability to enable any shooter, with any sensor, through any headquarters with the right authorities, in near real time.” This operational concept abandons the older linear kill chains in single domains for resilient multi-domain ones that can leverage multiple pathways to achieve the same effect.
Like the original Soviet and AirLand Battle ideas, the new American multi-domain operations concepts envisage simultaneously engaging the adversary in both close and deep areas. Firepower, manoeuvre, and deception will be used to dislocate the enemy forces, fragmenting them physically and cognitively to allow friendly units to penetrate deep into rear areas, gain local superiority and achieve favourable force ratios. This approach is anticipated to impose complexity on the enemy’s command and control. But, as in the PLA’s concept, a significant focus in US thinking is on physical effects.
Russian thinking is also having an impact. In a manner similar to the Russian IPW construct, the United States is placing renewed emphasis on the pre-war period by reconceiving it as a time of continuous competition that may flow into conflict. The pre-war phase is envisaged to include detailed tactical and operational intelligence preparation of the battlefield, counter adversary reconnaissance activities, analysis of the operational environment and civil network, deception operations, and information warfare.
At the strategic level, the emerging and still evolving integrated deterrence idea aims to bring convergence to the pre-war period. Multi-domain operations involving conventional American forces are seen as being integrated with nuclear forces, cyber, non-military instruments of national power and the assets of partner nations and allies. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sees these diverse elements being “all woven together and networked in a way that is so credible, flexible and so formidable that it will give any adversary pause.” Implicit in this is seeing war from a system perspective and thus able to be deterred by threats of striking deep using fires of all types, as very broadly conceived, in a manner that influences an adversary’s cognition. There are inchoate hints here of China’s cognitive control warfare and Russia’s ‘reflexive control’.
Common ground and a possible next step
Where the three national concepts all agree is that future war is, to use Chinese terminology, a system confrontation. The Russians and the Chinese include the wider society in envisaging the adversary system while the United States is more constrained and focused on hostile military forces. In this, Russia, China, and the US have all raised the importance of the immediate pre-war period, essentially agreeing that this is ‘the initial period of war’ not a fundamentally different period. For all, the boundary between peace and war continues to be purposefully blurred. Gray zone is not just a Chinese forte.
Russia, China, and the US are similarly all moving towards interchangeability warfare, a form of warfare that accentuates protection and firepower while restraining mobility. The force does not move around the battlefield, instead letting the range and lethality of its firepower substitute for mobility. This firepower ascendancy is essentially a late Cold War idea; Glenn Ottis wrote: “we…will fight conventional battles using firepower of all kinds from longer ranges, much of it indirect – not eyeball-to­eyeball using direct fire. We ‘ll use long range fires as the spearhead of the attack to the extent that the ground manoeuvre forces may only need to mop up after the fires.”
The idea has expanded so that today fires will be all-domain including virtual. With firepower ascendancy, war becomes a “battle of signatures” where the aim is to disappear amongst the battlespace clutter. The mantra becomes aggregate to attack, disaggregate to survive. An obvious Achilles heel in interchangeability warfare is logistics; the use of firepower requires extensive supply and so is inherently vulnerable in high intensity wars.
Conclusion
In general, the three nations all stress fighting deep using multi-domain attacks including kinetic, electronic and cyber. The deep is much more than just the battlespace of World War Two or the Cold War. The deep is now global. In this, the US and China are seeking to impose adverse physical and technical impacts on the opposing system whereas the Russians place much more emphasis on negatively impacting the adversary’s cognition.
This interest in cognition hints at the next operational concept evolution.
The Russian concept of hybrid war is evolving into being a conflict in which diverse means, including military operations, are used to support an information-centred campaign. The aim of this campaign is not adversary force destruction but to gain “control over the fundamental worldview and orientation of a state”. Such a move, when combined with ideas about considering the whole society beyond its military, is a step beyond notions of total war first realised in the First World War.
Total war was seen as a new style of conflict that was not just between armies but rather between whole nations. The Second World War took this broad, cross-societal mobilisation and gave it depth. Ilya Ehrenburg called it “deep war”, a time when the demands of making war went deep into the social fabric and into people’s lives.
The evolving Russian operational concepts are going in a direction where there is not just a blurring between peace and war but a merging of combatants and non-combatants. Amongst other concerns, just war theories, and laws of armed conflict may well be rendered obsolete. Moreover, given that operational concepts quickly diffuse, others may adopt it and use it in reverse upon its originator. Conceptual evolution can carry dangers.
About the author Related Posts

Peter Layton
Dr. Peter Layton is a Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University and an Associate Fellow, Royal United Service Institute (London). He is the author of the book Grand Strategy. His papers, articles, and posts may be accessed here.
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wavellroom.com · by Peter Layton · December 16, 2021

4. How We Can Save Ukraine

Excerpts:
Some may have concerns about provoking Russia into escalation. But Mr. Putin is comfortable with provocations; he manufactures them whenever he pleases. We need to remind Moscow and the international community of his history of belligerence, proceed publicly along established lines of support, and not be cowed by the Kremlin’s response. Tiptoeing around Mr. Putin won’t prevent the worst; it’ll ensure it happens.
Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Biden has always worked on strengthening the NATO alliance rather than antagonizing it, and he confronts Mr. Putin rather than consoling him. This puts Mr. Biden in a good position to take decisive action to defend Ukraine. But he has to act now.
If there’s one lesson we should have learned from the past 20 years of war, it is that conflicts are much easier to start than they are to end. We need to stop this war before it begins.
How We Can Save Ukraine
Biden is well positioned to prevent a Russian invasion, but the U.S. needs to act quickly.
WSJ · by Seth Moulton
The U.S. would be lucky if Mr. Putin honestly wants to negotiate. He’s moved more than 120,000 troops into position for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Putin comically refers to the military buildup as a “training exercise,” but there’s no mistaking the purpose of a force that size. And if such an invasion is successful, Ukraine could be only his first stop. Our nearby allies, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—and the thousands of American troops stationed there—could be next. That’s why I recently went to Ukraine to ensure the U.S. is prepared. But I found that Ukrainian and American plans aren’t properly aligned to deter Russian aggression.
At this point, U.S. options are limited. President Biden has already said he won’t send more troops. Mr. Putin, on the other hand, has almost every option open to him, from simply using this force for intimidation and extortion to mounting a full-scale Blitzkrieg-style invasion of Ukraine. But Washington still has a brief opportunity to deter Russia from taking drastic action. It would take a rapid readjustment of U.S. strategy.
As in 2014, when America failed to deter Mr. Putin’s Crimea offensive, Ukraine and the West are better prepared to respond to an attack than to prevent one. Ukrainian officials speak proudly of how their troops, veterans and ordinary citizens will organize a resistance and fight the Russians in the streets. I don’t doubt their sincerity or resolve—the Ukrainian people are tough, resilient and fiercely independent, despite Mr. Putin’s propaganda to the contrary. But if Russian forces overwhelm Ukrainian lines quickly, the resistance may be put down before it has a chance. America and Ukraine need to make it clear to Mr. Putin that Russian losses, for both his troops and his economy, will be too much to bear on day one. To that end, there are three things Washington must do.
First, dramatically increase the speed of weapons procurement for Ukraine, and do so publicly. Washington must clearly articulate to the world how the weapons we provide will force Mr. Putin to incur substantial losses of Russian troops right away, not merely over time. Weapons deployments shouldn’t be focused solely on the Eastern front, but rather on a broader set of threats to cities all over Ukraine. Antiship missiles, for instance, should protect cities along the Black Sea coast.
Second, organize effective sanctions. They must be targeted, powerful and widely agreed on in advance by NATO. Mr. Putin likely thinks he can survive Western sanctions, because the ones leveled before have been too broad and not supported by enough of our allies, allowing Mr. Putin and his oligarch friends to work around them This time, Mr. Putin needs to know that he’ll have trouble buying a soda five minutes after he invades, not that he might possibly face some financial consequences in the future after lengthy international debate. This is the only way for sanctions to be a real deterrent.
Third, clearly communicate the grave consequences of invading—not only to Mr. Putin, but to the Russian people. Russia has no problem spreading disinformation all over America; we should not hesitate to tell his people the truth. He seems to have bought into his own propaganda that most Ukrainians are pro-Russian and an invasion would come at a low cost. The truth is most Ukrainians value their independence and democracy and have been trying to formalize their relationship with the West by pushing for accession into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for more than a decade. With American military equipment and strong economic sanctions from the West, any fight with Ukraine would become painful and bloody for Russia. If Mr. Putin can’t hide from this reality, he may think twice about sending troops across the border. His domestic support has suffered from a weak economy and rampant Covid.
Some may have concerns about provoking Russia into escalation. But Mr. Putin is comfortable with provocations; he manufactures them whenever he pleases. We need to remind Moscow and the international community of his history of belligerence, proceed publicly along established lines of support, and not be cowed by the Kremlin’s response. Tiptoeing around Mr. Putin won’t prevent the worst; it’ll ensure it happens.
Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Biden has always worked on strengthening the NATO alliance rather than antagonizing it, and he confronts Mr. Putin rather than consoling him. This puts Mr. Biden in a good position to take decisive action to defend Ukraine. But he has to act now.
If there’s one lesson we should have learned from the past 20 years of war, it is that conflicts are much easier to start than they are to end. We need to stop this war before it begins.
Mr. Moulton, a Democrat, represents Massachusetts’ Sixth Congressional District.
WSJ · by Seth Moulton

5. Drones Take Center Stage in U.S.-China War on Data Harvesting

The argument in the first sentence below is what will get us into trouble. That assumption is dangerous and is based on the misguided belief that the CHinese or others will not be able to exploit the large amounts of data available. I think AI could help solve those types of problems.

Excerpts:
Worries about DJI drones transmitting images of air bases or power plants to Chinese intelligence are unrealistic, said Wackwitz, whose consulting firm is based in Hamburg, Germany. “The amount of data is way too big, so where is the actual harm?” he said. “To me, it appears to be a reason to push the Chinese manufacturers out of the market.” 
Still, U.S. policy makers from both major parties are becoming more convinced of the DJI threat. Their popularity among ordinary consumers only adds to the danger, according to Nazak Nikakhtar, a partner and co-chair of the national security practice at Washington-based law firm Wiley Rein LLP who served in the Commerce Department from 2018 to 2021.
“The consensus is that more likely than not our information is being collected by these Chinese drones,” Nikakhtar said. “People are also flying these things in their own homes,” she added. “You add these factors up together and it’s pretty scary.”
But Miller, the YouTube drone reviewer from Indiana, is confident DJI will be able to withstand the latest assault from Washington, as consumers just want the “best product for the best price possible,” he said.
“I don’t see DJI going anywhere anytime soon even with these blacklist placements,” Miller said. “Unless Washington cracks down on consumers from purchasing the drones in the first place.”



Drones Take Center Stage in U.S.-China War on Data Harvesting
China’s DJI makes most of the drones Americans use, and now it’s in the cross-hairs.
December 19, 2021, 4:00 PM EST



In video reviews of the latest drone models to his 80,000 YouTube subscribers, Indiana college student Carson Miller doesn’t seem like an unwitting tool of Chinese spies. 
Yet that’s how the U.S. is increasingly viewing him and thousands of other Americans who purchase drones built by Shenzhen-based SZ DJI Technology Co., the world’s top producer of unmanned aerial vehicles. Miller, who bought his first DJI model in 2016 for $500 and now owns six of them, shows why the company controls more than half of the U.S. drone market. 
“If tomorrow DJI were completely banned,” the 21-year-old said, “I would be pretty frightened.” 

The DJI Spark gesture-controlled drone at a launch event in New York in 2017.Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg
Critics of DJI warn the dronemaker may be channeling reams of sensitive data to Chinese intelligence agencies on everything from critical infrastructure like bridges and dams to personal information such as heart rates and facial recognition. But to Miller, consumers face plenty of bigger threats to the privacy of their data. “There are apps that track you on your smartphone 24/7,” he said.
That attitude is a problem for American officials who are seeking to end DJI’s dominance in the U.S. On Thursday, the Biden administration blocked American investment in the company, a year after President Donald Trump prohibited it from sourcing U.S. parts. Now, lawmakers from both parties are weighing a bill that would ban federal purchases of DJI drones, while a member of the Federal Communications Commission wants its products taken off the market in the U.S. altogether. 
In many ways, DJI has become the poster child of a much wider national security threat: The Chinese government’s ability to obtain sensitive data on millions of Americans. In recent weeks, former top officials in both the Obama and Trump administrations have warned that Beijing could be scooping up personal information on the citizens of rival nations, while walling off data on China’s 1.4 billion people. 
“Each new piece of information, by itself, is relatively unimportant,” Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School who served in the Pentagon under President Barack Obama, wrote in Foreign Affairs, referring to surveillance and monitoring technologies. “But combined, the pieces can give foreign adversaries unprecedented insight into the personal lives of most Americans.”

A DJI Spreading Wings S900 multirotor drone during the UAS Mapping 2014 Reno Symposium in Reno, Nevada, in 2014.Photographer: Chip Chipman/Bloomberg​
Chinese President Xi Jinping has been far ahead of the West in realizing the importance of data in gaining both an economic and military advantage, according to Matt Pottinger, a former deputy national security adviser in the Trump Administration. “If Washington and its allies don’t organize a strong response, Mr. Xi will succeed in commanding the heights of future global power,” he wrote in a co-authored New York Times op-ed last month. 
The data battle strikes at the heart of the U.S.-China strategic competition, and has the potential to reshape the world economy over the coming decades — particularly as everything from cars to yoga mats to toilets are now transmitting data. Harnessing that information is both key to dominating technologies like artificial intelligence that will drive the modern economy, and crucial for exploiting weaknesses in strategic foes. Concerns related to data security “will be a defining issue for the next decade” as technological advances lead to “explosive demand” for ever more bits of information, according a former U.S. government official who specializes in global technology policy at risk consultancy Eurasia Group. The result, he added, is likely an almost complete bifurcation of the internet, reflecting the values of competing political systems. 
“The democratic and authoritarian digital worlds will be built on largely different hardware, with different standards, and limited points of connection,” Triolo said. “This will drive up costs for businesses operating across these two spheres, reduce innovation, and lead to geopolitical tensions, reduced trade, and a much more complex world for companies to operate within. Other countries will be forced to choose sides in this divide, and this will be painful and costly.”
Already, data security concerns are starting to balkanize manufacturing supply chains and financial markets amid fears that governments will weaponize information gleaned from smartphone apps, medical devices and consumer products like drones. Policy makers in both the U.S. and China are rushing to implement more measures to protect their citizens’ data. 


The DJI flagship store in Shanghai on Dec. 16.Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
Beijing has acted more swiftly, passing laws this year aimed at preventing user data from seeping into the wrong hands while strengthening the government’s ability to control information held by private firms, part of a wider crackdown on its biggest tech companies. Xi mandated cybersecurity reviews for all Chinese companies that want to list on foreign exchanges, effectively prompting ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc. to delist in the U.S. and head to Hong Kong after just five months. 
The Trump administration homed in on data in 2020, moving to ban two of China’s most widely used apps, ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat, while urging allies to embrace a so-called Clean Network with communications networks free from Chinese companies and equipment. 
But the Clean Network never took off, as U.S. security partners in Asia that rely on China for trade balked at dividing the world into competing data blocs. President Joe Biden then revoked the bans on TikTok and WeChat while ordering a sweeping review seeking recommendations on actions to protect sensitive American data. His administration has yet to release the results or articulate a clear policy on what data constitutes a national security threat. 
Despite that, U.S. policy makers are zeroing in on some companies in the data space that dominate their field. In the drone world, no firm is more prolific than DJI: The Chinese company commands more than 50% of the U.S. drone market, the FCC said in October, and research firm DroneAnalyst estimates it sells about 95% of the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, priced between $350 and $2,000 targeted at consumers.
In 2019, Trump signed a bill prohibiting the military from purchasing Chinese-made drones and drone components. A year later, the Commerce Department put DJI on its Entity List, which bars U.S. suppliers from selling to it without an exemption. Republicans with presidential ambitions like Senators Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio have co-sponsored the bipartisan American Security Drone Act, which would ban all federal purchases of DJI’s drones. The Senate’s top Democrat, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has pushed similar legislation via a separate bill.
And DJI could face more trouble soon. 

Brendan CarrPhotographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Brendan Carr, one of four FCC commissioners, said in October that the regulatory body should consider a ban on approvals of DJI’s equipment, citing the “vast amounts of sensitive data” collected by its drones. In an FCC statement, Carr warned DJI may be a “Huawei on Wings,” referring to the Chinese telecommunications giant the U.S. has sought to hobble with sanctions over spying concerns.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel declined through a spokesman to comment on Carr’s call for restrictions on DJI. 
Any moves by the FCC to stop approvals of DJI’s equipment would cripple the company’s operations in the U.S., according to Conor Healy, government director for the Pennsylvania-based surveillance research group IPVM. 
“Eventually they just wouldn’t have anything left to sell in the U.S.,” Healy said. “We’re creating this situation where the Chinese can’t sell gear to the world, and vice versa.”
China has regularly blasted moves to block its firms from access to certain technology and markets, accusing the U.S. of abusing the concept of national security “to hobble Chinese companies.” At the same time, policy makers in Beijing have stressed the need to become self-reliant on key technology like advanced chips to end dependence on the West. 

DJI didn’t answer questions from Bloomberg News about its data policies or marketing strategies. The company also didn’t comment on last week’s blacklisting by the U.S. DJI spokesman Adam Lisberg referred to a 2020 statement from when the Commerce Department put DJI on its list of companies prohibited from purchasing from American suppliers without an exemption.
“DJI has done nothing to justify being placed on the Entity List,'' the company said then. “We have always focused on building products that save lives and benefit society. DJI and its employees remain committed to providing our customers with the industry’s most innovative technology. We are evaluating options to ensure our customers, partners, and suppliers are treated fairly.”

The company has already reduced its reliance on foreign suppliers of semiconductors, motors and cameras, said David Benowitz, head of research at DroneAnalyst and a former DJI employee. 
“They saw the writing on the wall,” he said. “They’ve really isolated themselves. DJI is in its own space where it owns most of the things it relies on.”

And whether being added to the Treasury Department’s blacklist barring U.S. investment has much impact on the closely held company is up for debate. 

In August, DJI told investors — which have included venture capital firms Sequoia Capital China and Accel Partners LP — that getting added to the Entity List had no material impact on sales and operations in North America, according to a person familiar with the situation who didn’t want to be named discussing a private matter. DJI earned $914 million in 2020 on revenue of $3.25 billion, the person said.

As a private company in a competitive industry, DJI doesn’t disclose details about its financial and market performance, spokesman Lisberg said in response to a request for comment on the communication with investors and last year’s earnings. 

Frank Wang in Shenzhen in 2015.Source: Visual China Group/Getty Images
Frank Wang, DJI’s billionaire founder who started the company in 2006 as a university student in Hong Kong, rarely speaks to the media. Its president, Roger Luo, said that the dronemaker was in no rush to go public, Bloomberg Businessweek reported in March 2020. “Investors will pay attention to profit,” he said. “We want to avoid restrictions and focus on our passions.”
Amid rising concerns about Chinese surveillance, in 2019 DJI introduced its Government Edition drones, designed to ensure that photos, video and other data never leave the device. The information, it said, “therefore can never be shared with unauthorized parties including DJI.” 
The company has since expanded on those efforts, offering users a Local Data Mode that prevents the transmission of all drone data over the internet. “DJI is committed to protecting drone user data, which is why we design our systems so drone users have control of whether they share any data with us,” it said in a July 2020 statement.

Klon Kitchen, a security expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, says despite DJI pledges, the devices aren't secure.
“These drones are one update from being non-compliant,” Kitchen said in an interview. Information could flow through drone-control apps that suck data out of users' mobile phones, he said.
But DJI and other Chinese companies face an even bigger hurdle: Few Western governments trust Beijing. China’s National Intelligence Law requires organizations to assist in espionage — and keep those activities secret.

Generations of the Phantom drone at DJI’s headquarters in Shenzhen.Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
Governments should assume that Chinese spy agencies will find value in information gathered by DJI’s drones, according to Andrew Shelley, director of Aviation Safety Management Systems Ltd., an advisory company based on the North Island of New Zealand that works with government clients.
“For the average recreational user who might be taking selfies on the beach, it’s probably true that DJI is not interested in their data,” he said. “But collectively, the Chinese government is interested in our data. We don’t understand just how much of a threat that is.”
The barrage of concern over security risks from DJI’s drones is starting to hurt, mostly in the lucrative market for corporate customers. The company’s share of the $2 billion global commercial drone sector dropped to 54% in the first half of 2021, down from 74% in 2018, according to DroneAnalyst.
DJI Loses Altitude
The company's domination of commercial drones is waning
Source: DroneAnalyst
Note: 2021 data for first half of the year
 
DJI’s fightback strategy is fairly simple: Insulate the company from sanctions, build products that are better and more affordable than anything on the market, and win over the next generation of users. 
Last year, DJI started a new education division, offering a small drone priced at just $240 as well as software to help schoolteachers instruct young students on basic coding. In October, the company enlisted cinematographers — including three Oscar winners — to promote a drone with new stabilization technology and a range of other advanced features. Other devices include one that can stay in the air for as long as 46 minutes and another for cropdusting that “can cover 40 acres in an hour.”

A DJI drone during a demonstration for the Los Angeles Fire Department in 2019. Photographer: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Even DJI’s rivals are impressed. 
“They’re totally killer at what they do,” said George Matus, founder of Salt Lake City-based Teal Drones Inc., a subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Red Cat Holdings Inc., which sells UAVs for reconnaissance, public safety and inspections to the U.S. Defense Department. DJI has “a huge workforce of engineers that makes sure every piece of hardware on their drones is perfect.”

At the same time, Matus appreciates U.S. actions against DJI. A Teal drone was among five approved by the Pentagon for military and federal use, and the company is now seeking to double its some 20-person workforce and ramp up production capacity, he said. 
“Originally it was super-hard competing against DJI: It became a race to the bottom on price and they just totally obliterated most of the market,” said Matus, who founded the company in 2014 when he was 17. Now, government support has “allowed companies like Teal to survive and thrive. American companies have some room to grow.”
Most of DJI’s U.S. rivals are now smaller companies like Teal after larger competitors like GoPro Inc. and 3D Robotics Inc. exited the market. The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit in October announced a new round of 11 approved vendors for UAVs, most of them American and two from Switzerland.
The lack of similar alternatives to DJI is a concern for local police departments that receive some funding from Washington and could be hindered by rules banning federal spending on DJI equipment, said Luke Goldberg, president of Chatsworth, California-based Enterprise UAS, owner of several drone distributors. Most U.S.-made commercial drones, he said, could cost as much as 30% more and offer fewer features. 
Defenders of DJI — such as Kay Wackwitz, chief executive officer of Drone Industry Insights — say the U.S. attacks on DJI are more about protecting the country’s ability to make drones than fears about data.

DJI's new agricultural drone at a launch ceremony in Shenzhen in 2020.Photographer: Mao Siqian/Xinhua/Getty Images
Worries about DJI drones transmitting images of air bases or power plants to Chinese intelligence are unrealistic, said Wackwitz, whose consulting firm is based in Hamburg, Germany. “The amount of data is way too big, so where is the actual harm?” he said. “To me, it appears to be a reason to push the Chinese manufacturers out of the market.” 
Still, U.S. policy makers from both major parties are becoming more convinced of the DJI threat. Their popularity among ordinary consumers only adds to the danger, according to Nazak Nikakhtar, a partner and co-chair of the national security practice at Washington-based law firm Wiley Rein LLP who served in the Commerce Department from 2018 to 2021.
“The consensus is that more likely than not our information is being collected by these Chinese drones,” Nikakhtar said. “People are also flying these things in their own homes,” she added. “You add these factors up together and it’s pretty scary.”

But Miller, the YouTube drone reviewer from Indiana, is confident DJI will be able to withstand the latest assault from Washington, as consumers just want the “best product for the best price possible,” he said.
“I don’t see DJI going anywhere anytime soon even with these blacklist placements,” Miller said. “Unless Washington cracks down on consumers from purchasing the drones in the first place.”

6. New Characteristics for Chinese Socialism?

Excerpt:

Back in the 1940s, as the communist revolution was moving toward success, cadres within the CCP wrote diaries and took part in sessions that turned “self-criticism” into “self-awareness.” By becoming aware of their own faults (including sins such as “petit-bourgeois subjectivism”), they were supposed to emerge as psychologically secure new socialist women and men. Despite its avowed commitment to “self-criticism,” the party will not likely encourage such self-reflection in the coming decade. What the resolution suggests instead is the party’s desire to forge a nationalist identity that seems very different from that expressed by Mao in the 1940s. This reinvented identity does not reject the premodern past in favor of a rationalist present. As articulated in the resolution, it embraces an anti-liberal imperative, combining selected elements of Confucianism and Marxism and framing China in opposition to the so-called liberal international order that prevailed in the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet the CCP’s insistence on repressing alternative readings of its history suggest that, however unspoken, a deep insecurity persists about the future success of the party’s project.

New Characteristics for Chinese Socialism?
How a CCP Resolution Connects Xi to China’s Marxist Past
December 20, 2021
Foreign Affairs · by Rana Mitter · December 20, 2021
During the communist era in East Germany, the ruling elite adopted a song with the uncompromising line Die Partei, die Partei, die hat immer recht (“The Party, the Party, which is always right”). Today’s Chinese Communist Party is not quite so blunt. A resolution on China’s history issued by the CCP in November strikes a more nuanced note: “The Party is great not because it never makes mistakes, but because it always owns up to its errors, actively engages in criticism and self-criticism, and has the courage to confront problems and reform itself.”
The Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party Over the Past Century is only the third statement of its kind. The CCP issued similar documents in 1945 and 1981 under Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, respectively, intended to forge an official narrative of the party’s past—and define its orientation and trajectory in the present. Leaders within the party debate at length about the draft, which CCP researchers must revise repeatedly before it emerges as an official proclamation. The verdicts of these resolutions are regarded as definitive and reappear widely, including in media articles, school textbooks, and speeches by lower-level officials.
This resolution is one of the most significant—and revealing—documents that the CCP has issued in years. First, it suggests that although Chinese President and CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping dominates the political landscape, it is his position as leader of the party, rather than his personal charisma, that gives him legitimacy; no individual is bigger than the party. The resolution also shows how China is groping toward a new ideological synthesis, trying and struggling to combine Marxism, Confucian thought, and the legacy of modern history. And the resolution makes explicit the CCP’s aim to extend its influence around the world.
This document is no doubt part of Xi’s bid to place himself in the pantheon of the CCP’s most revered leaders. But it is revealing of much more than Xi’s personal ambitions. The 2021 resolution underlines the abiding role of ideology in China’s understanding of itself and its global purpose. In its selective representation of the past, the document suggests a greater impatience with dissent of any kind and seeks to stake the party line in the arguments taking place within the inner circles in Beijing. But even a document as authoritative as this one contains contradictions, pointing to uncertainties and anxieties within the CCP’s thinking. Declarative statements of strength often hope to veil fears of weakness.
THE MARCH OF HISTORY
The November resolution seeks to mark a turning point, looking back over the past century of the party’s existence and laying the groundwork for the current prevailing ideological framework, known in official terminology as “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.” It cements Xi’s status as a supreme leader of world-historical importance, mentioning his full name 23 times, compared with 18 mentions of Mao, the founder of the People’s Republic of China.

But far exceeding either of these names is the repeated mention of the party itself, referred to over 650 times in the original Chinese document. Unlike in Russia, for instance, where political structures are essentially built around the figure of President Vladimir Putin, in China, as the resolution shows, politics revolve around the party. Putin wrestles with a kind of historical ambiguity; he has at once inherited and broken away from the legacy of the Soviet Union, a balancing act that proved tricky in 2017 when Russian authorities had to figure out how to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Xi, by contrast, appears in the resolution as the standard-bearer of the CCP, the clear inheritor of a continuous historical trajectory set in motion by the party’s rise to power. Xi dominates China’s political landscape, but he has chosen to expand the role of the party—as opposed to the mechanisms of the state—over the past decade, in a reversal of the trend seen in the first decade of this century when the development of the state took precedence over the expansion of the party apparatus. Even the most dominant leader in decades must acknowledge the extent to which his own power depends on the CCP’s honeycomb-like pervasiveness across China. Tellingly, the resolution labels the Cultural Revolution “catastrophic”—the Mao-backed movement in the 1960s and 1970s was the last major attempt to overhaul and smash the party’s structures.
The resolution cements Xi’s status as a supreme leader of world-historical importance.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that Xi simply fades into the background of the march of the party’s history. He stands apart even from stalwart figures such as Mao. The resolution offers criticism of Mao for two vast undertakings of his rule, the upheavals of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. “Comrade Mao Zedong’s theoretical and practical errors concerning class struggle in a socialist society became increasingly serious,” the resolution states, “and the Central Committee failed to rectify these mistakes in good time.” Xi, by contrast, is portrayed purely as a rectifier of mistakes committed by others, cleaning up the mismanagement and corruption of purged party leaders such as Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang.
The resolution comes at the end of a decade when the bounds of political discussion have narrowed considerably in China. Before Xi came to power in 2013, intellectuals and think tanks engaged in a range of debates about the role of civil society in China; the media would to some extent feel free to criticize authorities; and political reforms suggested a more pluralist politics as well as a relatively positive view toward many aspects of cooperation with the West. Under Xi, public discourse has grown more constricted and liberalizing reforms have dried up. But the resolution nevertheless offers signs of ongoing, unresolved debates.
For instance, historians will find revealing statements about the past that reflect the party’s more hard-line turn under Xi. The resolution claims that “the rectification movement—a Party-wide Marxist ideological education movement—was launched in 1942 and yielded tremendous results.” This is a telling description. The rectification movement, which took place largely in the CCP’s northwestern base area during the war against Japan between 1942 and 1944, used psychological tactics and sometimes physical violence to mold party members into adherence to Mao’s rule. Praise for the coercive tactics of that era suggests approval of similar ones in the present, as well as a reluctance to brook any deviation from party orthodoxy. The resolution condemns Chen Duxiu, a founder of the party who was expelled in 1929 and became a Trotskyist, for “rightism” and Wang Ming, an early communist leader who was shuffled out of power and eventually went into exile in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, for “leftism.” Neither figure is much discussed in either China or the West today. Yet in 2021, the resolution still took time to name and shame them, implying that ideological deviance might lead to permanent ignominy. Some other figures, however, sit in limbo. The document condemns the Tiananmen Square killings of 1989 as a “severe political disturbance,” but Zhao Ziyang, the party general secretary who was purged after the massacre, remains unnamed, neither rehabilitated nor condemned, suggesting that CCP leaders have yet to agree to a definitive judgment on him.
READING BETWEEN THE LINES
An ostensible focus on history belies the resolution’s concern with the present and future. In a piece earlier this year in Foreign Affairs, I described the directions of Chinese policy today in terms of the “ACGT model,” a mingling of authoritarianism, consumerism, global ambition, and technological innovation to create a unique political model. The resolution refers to all four of those factors. It praises the party’s success in making China “a country of innovators and a global leader in science and technology.” It also suggests that China can successfully craft a society that is both consumerist and socialist, one that can “protect the rights and interests of workers and consumers.” It is hard to imagine the two previous iterations of the resolution in 1945 and 1981 specifying “consumers” as a separate category from “workers.” In 2021, the party feels obliged to acknowledge the aspirational desire of Chinese citizens for a middle-class lifestyle.
At the same time, the resolution warns against the encroachment of liberal ideals. “We must remain on guard against the erosive influence of Western trends of political thought,” the text notes, “including the so-called constitutionalism, alternation of power between political parties, and separation of powers.” Instead, “we must confine power to an institutional cage and ensure that powers are properly defined, standardized, constrained, and subject to oversight in accordance with discipline and the law.” This, once again, is a declaration of the centrality of the party (the “cage”), a vision not of one-man rule under Xi but of an all-powerful political apparatus. It should be noted that not all “Western” thought is beyond the pale: both Karl Marx and the German anti-liberal legal theorist Carl Schmitt are widely praised in Chinese policy circles today, the former explicitly in the resolution and the latter by implication.

This resolution, in a striking shift from the inward-looking nature of its 1981 predecessor, is unabashedly global in its ambition: “We have accelerated work to strengthen our international communication capacity, with the goal of telling well China’s stories and the Party’s stories, making China’s voice heard, and promoting exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations.” For years, China’s self-presentation at home has differed markedly from its presentation abroad. At home, the Marxist history of the party has continued to feature centrally. In its overseas messaging, however, Beijing has broadly denied the importance of ideology, a view encouraged by Western partners who wanted to believe that ideology was out in China and pragmatism was in—to the benefit of doing business in the country. The new resolution makes much more explicit what was there all along: the party has always been a Marxist party. According to the CCP, the 2008 financial crisis made its vision of the world only more urgent:
Our continued success in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of our times has enabled Marxism to take on a fresh face in the eyes of the world, and significantly shifted the worldwide historical evolution of and contest between the two different ideologies and social systems of socialism and capitalism in a way that favors socialism.
The new emphasis on Marxism does not mean a return to the ideology of class conflict prevalent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Instead, it signals a more explicit articulation by Chinese leaders of a worldview shaped by Marxist ideas of “struggle,” “contradiction,” and historical inevitability, in which the competition between China and the United States holds a prime position, along with the need to wrestle with domestic tensions between economic growth and environmentally friendly development.
Yet the resolution is ambiguous on one major question regarding Chinese global ambitions: Is China’s rise a peculiar, idiosyncratic phenomenon or does Beijing offer a model to which other countries can aspire? At one point, it argues that “the Party has led the people in pioneering a uniquely Chinese [my italics] path to modernization, creating a new model for human advancement.” But it then suggests that “the Party has promoted the development of a human community with a shared future, and offered Chinese wisdom, Chinese solutions, and Chinese strength for addressing major issues facing humanity.” The language of the resolution draws on terms with a distinctly traditional, Confucian feel (for instance, “When the path is just, the common good will reign over all under Heaven”). Such references have a dual purpose: they appeal to a domestic audience with culturally resonant Confucian terms while using language that sounds broadly consensual and nonthreatening to the outside world. Both of these tactics are in sharp contrast to the anti-traditional ideology of the Cultural Revolution, which sought to smash “old culture” and signal that China was a would-be revolutionary disrupter on the global stage. Still, there persists the sense that this is an ideological work in progress: one long sentence defines all the things that a vaguely defined Chinese thinking does not reflect (including “mechanical” Marxism or “foreign models”), without being explicit about just what Chinese thinking actually is.
China’s identity is also defined negatively in terms of the threat from the outside world. The resolution’s drafters invoke the familiar notion of a China long under siege from foreign adversaries. The experience of Chinese history, and particularly the period of weakness between the Opium Wars in the nineteenth century and World War II, prompted a stark overall thought from the party’s theorists: “Constant concessions will only invite more bullying and humiliation.” Yet the party would do well to think how that claim reads to the outside world. For so many countries concerned by a rising, bristling Chinese power, that sentence could easily be turned around on China itself.
UNSPOKEN INSECURITY
Back in the 1940s, as the communist revolution was moving toward success, cadres within the CCP wrote diaries and took part in sessions that turned “self-criticism” into “self-awareness.” By becoming aware of their own faults (including sins such as “petit-bourgeois subjectivism”), they were supposed to emerge as psychologically secure new socialist women and men. Despite its avowed commitment to “self-criticism,” the party will not likely encourage such self-reflection in the coming decade. What the resolution suggests instead is the party’s desire to forge a nationalist identity that seems very different from that expressed by Mao in the 1940s. This reinvented identity does not reject the premodern past in favor of a rationalist present. As articulated in the resolution, it embraces an anti-liberal imperative, combining selected elements of Confucianism and Marxism and framing China in opposition to the so-called liberal international order that prevailed in the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet the CCP’s insistence on repressing alternative readings of its history suggest that, however unspoken, a deep insecurity persists about the future success of the party’s project.

Foreign Affairs · by Rana Mitter · December 20, 2021

7. McMaster, Afghanistan, and the Praetorian Mindset
Excerpts:
McMaster is an American hero, not only on the battlefield but in the war for the intellectual soul of the U.S. Army. His views on warfare helped shape a generation of officers, including the author. But his correct view of war’s nature has not translated into feasible policy. By failing to distinguish concerns from vital interests this worldview lacks the wherewithal to make difficult strategic decisions.
America is and will remain the world’s sole superpower. But even massive reserves of power are finite, requiring an adept strategy based on a healthy understanding of the world as it is. Good strategy also requires an engaged but not overly deferential public. U.S. policy will succeed when it prioritizes threats and interests and aligns them with the resources available, not assuming it cannot do as it wishes abroad with no consequences to the nation’s budget, civil-military relationship, or moral standing.


McMaster, Afghanistan, and the Praetorian Mindset
divergentoptions.org · by Divergent Options · December 20, 2021
Lieutenant Colonel John Bolton, U.S. Army, is a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. He previously commanded Bravo Company, 209th Aviation Support Battalion, served as the Executive Officer for 2-25 Assault Helicopter Battalion, and the Brigade Aviation Officer for 4/25 IBCT (Airborne). He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College’s Art of War Scholars Program and holds degrees in military history and mechanical engineering. An AH-64D/E Aviator, he has deployed multiple times with Engineer, Aviation, and Infantry units.
Title: McMaster, Afghanistan, and the Praetorian Mindset
Date Originally Written: November 20, 2021.
Date Originally Published: December 20, 2021.
Author and / or Article Point of View: The author believes some national security professionals are taking the wrong lessons from Afghanistan, blaming a non-existent lack of public support for the failure of the American campaign.
Summary: Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, USA(ret) recently blamed the U.S. public for a “lack of support” in Afghanistan. McMaster’s claim evokes the legacy of dangerous “stabbed in the back” mentalities that emerged after Germany’s defeat in WWI and the U.S. Army’s withdrawal from Vietnam. Instead of blaming others, the U.S. military would benefit from a far-reaching study to discover the institutional lapses and shortcomings that precipitated failure.
Text: Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), has rightfully lambasted the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan as embarrassing. However, McMaster goes too far in calling the withdraw a “defeat” with severe implications for American credibility[1]. More troubling, in a recent column, McMaster blamed the U.S. public and unnamed leaders who allegedly failed to back the American military[2]. According to McMaster, “There are a lot of people in senior positions in government who have never led anything… they’ve never done anything except maybe in academic environments or write policy papers[3].”
McMaster is wrong about Afghanistan and his narrative endorses a praetorian mindset – one dangerously close to the “stab in the back” dogmas that took hold in Weimar Germany after World War I and among the American Military Officer Corps after Vietnam[4]. Leaving Afghanistan will have few, if any, long-term effects on American security but the war’s impact on civil-military relations portends pernicious tensions, especially if military leaders adopt McMaster’s mentality.
McMaster says America was fighting “one-year wars” in Afghanistan for two decades, obscuring the reality that the U.S. military chose this rotational model and often failed to adapt to local conditions[5]. But the 2017 Afghanistan “surge” engineered by McMaster while he was APNSA was more of the same. The McMaster Surge did not quell violence, deter the Taliban, nor generate effective (or loyal) Afghan Defense Forces[6]. From 2017-2020 Americans did more of the same: hunting the Taliban and training and foisting expensive equipment on poorly trained and often barely literate Afghan forces[7]. Americans were also dying. During the author’s 2017-18 tour, six Soldiers died during a time when Afghans were supposedly in the lead. “Bureaucratic capture” is the only way to explain how otherwise intelligent professionals can endorse logically inconsistent, sunk-cost arguments about a strategically unimportant place.
Rather than explain why Central Asia has relevancy at home, McMaster and others have made expansive credibility arguments – we must stay there because we are there. In doing so, McMaster bastardizes historian Zachary Shore’s “strategic empathy[8].” But instead of understanding the domestic and cultural sources of U.S. adversaries’ actions, McMaster’s “strategic empathy” justifies expansive American action by equating all challenges as likewise threatening. Better to employ a rational consideration of interests and achievable ends, especially amid a public justifiably skeptical of employing force[9]. Moreover, American credibility has shades – eschewing a non-vital commitment in Afghanistan is hardly relevant to the enduring North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance, for example. Tellingly, according to McMaster, violating the 2019 U.S.-Taliban agreement and staying in Afghanistan would not have affected American credibility.
Despite the folly of throwing good Soldiers after bad policy, McMaster and the praetorians see no systemic failure in American national security institutions. Instead, McMaster blames the “defeatist” U.S. public for a lack of support – as if 20 years and trillions of dollars materialized without public consent and Congressional support[10]. If anything, the public and Congress were far too lenient with oversight of the Afghan efforts, largely bequeathing whatever national security leaders wanted.
The irony of a former APNSA decrying “policy paper writers” is palpable but McMaster certainly knows better. An accomplished soldier-scholar, his doctoral thesis (later turned in the book Dereliction of Duty) savaged senior officers who allowed President Lyndon Johnson to lurch America toward tragedy in Vietnam. Once U.S. forces began fighting, the Joint Chiefs of Staff did little to question U.S. Army General William Westmoreland’s fundamentally flawed strategy. Consequently, Johnson felt boxed in by his own military advisors. Unfortunately, in an unnerving reprisal, American strategy in Afghanistan developed little beyond asking for “more time,” “more money,” “more troops,” while leaders proclaimed “great progress” or “being on the right azimuth[11].” To paraphrase the Afghanistan Special Investigator General John Sopko, “so many corners were turned, we were spinning[12].” When Americans did speak out, as in the case of a U.S. Army Special Forces officer who grew tired of his Afghan partner’s pederasty or an officer who described rampant false reporting in 2012, they were ignored[13].
As documented by the Washington Post’s “Afghanistan Papers,” false hopes and false reporting were mainstays of Afghanistan strategy across multiple administrations[14]. A 2014 Army report demonstrated the war’s toll on the ethics of Army Officers, finding lying and false reporting had become “common place[15].” Officers, the report said, were often “lying to themselves.” Civil-military distrust arising from Afghanistan needs to be analyzed in this context. If the public shares blame, it is for being too credulous – treating soldiers like saints and senior leaders as anointed heroes, too pious to be questioned, let alone contradicted. Blaming the public is insipid at best and dangerous at worst. Here McMaster espouses a praetorian view of civil-military relations grossly out of step with the American tradition.
Leaving Afghanistan is exactly the exactly the type of prioritization McMaster called for in his 2017 National Security Strategy. While the Afghanistan withdrawal was embarrassing[16], leaving demonstrates that United States can make unpleasant distinctions between what is long-standing and what is vital. A perpetual counter-terrorism mission in Afghanistan would (and did) distract from other regions. Rather than abandon a failed project, McMaster continues to advocate for doubling down on efforts that were often corrupt and ineffective[17]. It is foolhardy to adopt a national security paradigm predicated on long-term occupations and defense posture anathema to the American public and much of Congress.
McMaster is an American hero, not only on the battlefield but in the war for the intellectual soul of the U.S. Army. His views on warfare helped shape a generation of officers, including the author. But his correct view of war’s nature has not translated into feasible policy. By failing to distinguish concerns from vital interests this worldview lacks the wherewithal to make difficult strategic decisions.
America is and will remain the world’s sole superpower. But even massive reserves of power are finite, requiring an adept strategy based on a healthy understanding of the world as it is. Good strategy also requires an engaged but not overly deferential public. U.S. policy will succeed when it prioritizes threats and interests and aligns them with the resources available, not assuming it cannot do as it wishes abroad with no consequences to the nation’s budget, civil-military relationship, or moral standing.
Endnotes:
[1] McMaster quoted in Hal Boyd, “Gen. H.R. McMaster on America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Deseret News, October 27, 2021, https://www.deseret.com/2021/10/27/22747222/general-hr-mcmaster-on-americas-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-trump-national-security-adviser-biden.
[2] H.R. McMaster, “Honor Veterans by Having the Will to Win,” Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/honor-vets-the-will-to-win-war-military-service-veterans-day-afghanistan-taliban-mcmaster-11636576955
[3] McMaster quoted at the 4th Great Power Competition Conference, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvx1rmU-QAU&t=2093s
[4] See Summers, On Strategy and Evans, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for discussion of the “stabbed in the back” narratives.
[5] McMaster interviewed by Chuck Todd, Meet the Press, August 29, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/mcmaster-afghanistan-a-one-year-war-fought-20-times-over-119712325910
[6] See Human Rights Watch, “Afghanistan: Events of 2018,” https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/afghanistan; Craig Whitlock, “Afghan Security Forces’ Wholesale Collapse Was Years in the Making,” The Washington Post, August 16, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/afghan-security-forces-capabilities/2021/08/15/052a45e2-fdc7-11eb-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html
[7] See Alexandra Kuimova and Siemon T. Wezeman, “Transfers of major arms to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2020,” SIPRI, September 3, 2021, https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2021/transfers-major-arms-afghanistan-between-2001-and-2020.
[8] McMaster, lecture to George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs, March 2021, https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/hr-mcmaster-stresses-strategic-empathy-effective-foreign-policy
[9] Anna Shortridge, “The U.S. War in Afghanistan Twenty Years On: Public Opinion Then and Now,” Council on Foreign Relations, October 7, 2021, https://www.cfr.org/blog/us-war-afghanistan-twenty-years-public-opinion-then-and-now
[10] Kyle Rempfer, “Trump’s former national security adviser says the public is fed ‘defeatist narrative’ that hurts the US in Afghanistan,” Military Times, May 9, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/hr-mcmaster-defeatist-narrative-hurting-us-afghanistan-strategy-2019-5
[11] See “Afghan ISAF commander John Allen sees ‘road to winning’,” BBC News, February 10, 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-21399805; Sara Almukhtar, “What Did the U.S. Get for $2 Trillion in Afghanistan?,” The New York Times, December 9, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html; Chris Good, “Petraeus: Gains in Afghanistan ‘Fragile and Reversible’; Afghans Will Take Over in Select Province,” The Atlantic, March 15, 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/03/petraeus-gains-in-afghanistan-fragile-and-reversible-afghans-will-take-over-in-select-provinces/72507.
[12] Dan Grazier, “Afghanistan Proved Eisenhower Correct,” Project on Government Oversight, November 1, 2021, https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2021/11/afghanistan-proved-eisenhower-correct/
[13] See Joseph Goldstein, “U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies,” The New York Times, September 20, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html; Dan Davis, “Truth, Lies, and Afghanistan,” Armed Forces Journal, February 1, 2012, http://armedforcesjournal.com/truth-lies-and-afghanistan
[14]Craig Whitlock, “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War,” The Washington Post, December 9, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/
[15] Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras, “Lying to Ourselves,” Strategic Studies Institute, February 2015, https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/466
[17] SIGAR, “Corruption in Conflict: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan,” September 2016, https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/sigar-16-58-ll.pdf
divergentoptions.org · by Divergent Options · December 20, 2021

8. How Loitering Munitions Can Help Counter China

Conclusion:

The development of LMs is changing the character of warfare. In the Nagorno-Karabakh War, that change took Armenian forces by surprise. The Pentagon must work urgently with allies such as Israel to support the Marine Corps’ new operational concept and ensure U.S. forces never confront a similar surprise.
How Loitering Munitions Can Help Counter China
“Suicide drones” are already tapped to fill various roles, but more are needed, and faster.
By RYAN BROBST, BRADLEY BOWMAN and MAJ. LAUREN HARRISON
defenseone.com · by Ryan Brobst
An effective military response to China requires “small but lethal, low signature, mobile and relatively simple-to-maintain” forces, positioned “close-up and forward,” according to a new U.S. Marine Corps operational concept and recent comments by Commandant Gen. David Berger. One of the best ways to increase small-unit lethality and counter anti-access/area-denial, or A2AD, challenges is to develop, procure, field, and integrate more loitering munitions. Allies such as Israel that produce world-class LMs can help.
Sometimes referred to as “suicide drones,” LMs are a cross between missiles and surveillance drones. They vary in size and capability: some can loiter for just 15 minutes, while others can fly for hours and reach targets a thousand kilometers away. They carry cameras to identify targets—either independently or by transmitting images to their operator—and a warhead that detonates on impact. LMs typically have low radar, visual, and thermal signatures that help them evade air defenses. They can be carried by vehicles— some even by individuals—making them easier to transport, operate, and maintain than larger drones or aircraft.
LMs combine maneuver, surveillance, and strike functions at relatively low cost. This shortens the time between detection and engagement. In a conflict, the force that can close the kill chain the quickest is likely to prevail.
That’s what happened in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, when Azerbaijan used the Harop and other Israeli-made LMs in their quick victory against Armenia. The Harop is a large LM with a flight time of six hours, a 1,000-kilometer range, and a 23-kilogram warhead. At the onset of the war, Azerbaijani forces used the Harop to strike Armenian air defenses before moving on to armored vehicles and other targets. One Armenian soldier reportedly said, “We cannot hide, and we cannot fight back.”
The war lasted just 44 days, and China and Russia undoubtedly took note. China already fields the CH817, an anti-personnel LM with a munition weighing less than two pounds; the WS-43, with a reported endurance of 30 minutes and a 20-kg warhead; and the air- or -ground-launched CH901, which can reportedly loiter for up to two hours, operate in swarms, and destroy light armored vehicles.
Russia has been developing LMs, too. In 2019, Moscow introduced the KUB-BLA, with a reported endurance of 30 minutes and a payload of two to three kilograms; and the Lantset LM, with a reported combat radius of 40 km and a diving speed of more than 300 kmh. The Russian military knows that LMs can be effective. It was largely Russian-made air defenses that took a beating from Israeli-made LMs in Nagorno-Karabakh. Israel itself has used LMs to destroy Syria’s Russian-made air defenses multiple times, facilitating subsequent aircraft strikes against Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sites.
Russia and China, who are increasingly conducting military exercises together and sharing lessons, are likely to prioritize the continued development and fielding of LMs. Accordingly, Pentagon war planners should assume that U.S. forces will likely confront LMs in any conflict with Russia and China—and not just those two. Given China’s increasingly prolific drone sales and Moscow’s longstanding arms sales prowess, the Pentagon should expect Chinese and Russian LMs to proliferate rapidly around the world.
Nor are China and Russia the only ones sprinting to develop and field LMs. Iran, which makes a variety of them, was among the first to employ them against U.S. forces. Since February, Iranian proxies are suspected of using LMs in attempts to kill Americans in Iraq, at ErbilAin Al-Asad Air Base, and an airfield in Harir. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said this year that the spread of small, cheap drones, of which LMs are a subset, is “the most concerning tactical development” since the advent of improvised explosive devices in Iraq.
Clearly, the U.S. military must be prepared to defend against LMs, individually and in swarms. But the Pentagon should use LMs to go on the offensive, too. LMs can help support Gen. Berger’s operational concept and address one of the most pressing challenges confronting the joint force: overcoming A2AD networks that seek to prevent U.S. military operations from operating or resupplying within a geographic area.
The U.S. military needs a mix of “stand-off” munitions that can fire from outside the A2AD bubble as well as “stand-in” munitions that can fire from within. While new classes of missiles are being developed to fill the first role, LMs could help fill the second, enabling strikes on enemy radars, air defense capabilities, missiles, and associated A2AD infrastructure.
U.S. efforts are already underway to develop LMs for U.S. fixed and rotary-wing aircraft as well as warships, greatly expanding employment options. But the Pentagon is wise not to stop there. The Army and Marine Corps should field LMs to small ground maneuver units as well, fostering the type of disaggregated force employment required in heavily contested environments.
Indeed, the Marine Corps has declared LMs to be its number one acquisition priority. In June, the Corps ordered the Israeli anti-tank Hero-120 LM, which it will use as a precision munition and surveillance tool to fulfill its Organic Precision Fires-Mounted system requirement.
As well, the U.S. military currently operates the Switchblade 300 anti-personnel LM, which can loiter for 15 minutes with a 10km range, has a warhead similar to a 40mm grenade, and saw use in Afghanistan. U.S. Special Operations Command subsequently purchased the Switchblade 600, which carries an anti-armor warhead that can destroy launch vehicles, radars, and other A2AD components. But it may not arrive until January 2023.
Other Pentagon LM development efforts include the hypersonic Vintage Racer. The Army is working on the Air Launch Effects program, which aims to combine air-launched LMs with swarm technology.
Many of these efforts are laudable and worthy of support. Yet U.S. forces need more LMs and faster. To that end, Israel can serve as a vital partner for the Pentagon in ensuring that U.S. warfighters have cutting-edge LMs as soon as possible. Indeed, Israel, a global leader when it comes to LMs, produces many systems including the SkystrikerOrbiterRotem, and the Harop, which was so effective in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Purchasing existing LMs, however, will not be enough to stay ahead of potential adversaries. The Pentagon and Israel’s Ministry of Defense would be wise to use the new U.S.-Israel Operations-Technology Working Group to identify common intelligence-informed military requirements for next-generation LMs. The allies should then combine research and development programs to field those new LM capabilities to American and Israeli forces as quickly as possible.
The development of LMs is changing the character of warfare. In the Nagorno-Karabakh War, that change took Armenian forces by surprise. The Pentagon must work urgently with allies such as Israel to support the Marine Corps’ new operational concept and ensure U.S. forces never confront a similar surprise.
Ryan Brobst is a research analyst at the Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Bradley Bowman is senior director of CMPP, where Maj. Lauren Harrison is a visiting military analyst. The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Air Force or the Department of Defense.



defenseone.com · by Ryan Brobst

9. Women are the Future of America's National Security
I expected to read recommendations for leaders in National Security. But alas, that is not what this essay is about.
Women are the Future of America's National Security
Women’s empowerment should not be viewed as a charitable contribution. Supporting them is based on a calculated, U.S. interests-driven assessment.

by James Jay Carafano Ana Quintana
The National Interest · by James Jay Carafano · December 19, 2021
Here's What You Need To Remember: The United States now has a cabinet-level strategy to help women in underprivileged countries before conflicts, during the violence, and in the peace-building process.
Three years ago this week, the United States became a world leader in women’s empowerment. That’s when, in one of President Donald Trump’s first official acts in office, the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Act was signed into law.
The United States now has a cabinet-level strategy to help women in underprivileged countries before conflicts, during the violence, and in the peace-building process. Yes, WPS is international in scope, but it is not some vanity nation-building exercise. Strict criteria determine when to engage and where. Activities are undertaken only in countries where it will advance U.S. national security interests.
The United States is the first—and so far only—country with such a law on its books. Yet waiting for other nations or international organizations to lead on this issue was not an option. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted a women’s peace and security resolution in 2000. Twenty years and nine additional frivolous resolutions later, no UNSC member other than the United States has yet to translate the resolutions’ words into law, much less action.

Women’s empowerment is not a “feminist issue” or a “wedge issue” of gender politics. Conservatives understand the unique value of women in families and communities and why it should be tied to foreign policy.
Complementing the security portion of their women’s agenda, is the administration’s hallmark Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative (WGDP). Through funding from United States and private sector sources, this initiative aims to economically empower 50 million women by 2025. Historically, U.S. assistance has often been channeled to ineffective non-governmental organizations or corrupt governments. This initiative by-passes those middlemen and bureaucracies, sending funds directly to dynamic, grassroots change-makers and allowing them to generate prosperity via free markets.
Women’s empowerment should not be viewed as a charitable contribution. Supporting them is based on a calculated, U.S. interests-driven assessment. Investing in their futures can prevent the rise of repressive regimes and extremist organizations.
How? As the primary caregivers, women are the first to see warning signs of radicalism and impending violence. If a problem or conflict does break out, women have historically been the first to speak out.
Need an example? When Al Qaeda terrorists occupied Timbuktu in Mali, local women rallied against the militants and their imposition of sharia law. After the terrorists ravaged and left the African city, women became politically engaged to prevent their return.
Closer to home, Mexico has found that replacing police officers with women was found to reduce corruption and increase action against drug cartels.
From these examples, we can see that WPS, implemented wisely, has the potential to be a low- investment, high-yield tool for advancing U.S. interests. As the old maxim tells us, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And promoting stability before conflicts emerge means keeping peace keepers and troops at home.
Of course, not every country is on board with such initiatives. Nations like the People’s Republic of China and the theocracy in Iran are dead set on challenging this agenda, and Beijing and their ideological allies are successfully co-opting the UN system to advance their destructive ideology.
China, Cuba, and Russia will once again win seats on the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) this year. Like wolves in sheeps’ clothing, they don the cloak of UN legitimacy while violating human rights (up-to and including genocide against the Uighurs) and launching illegal military campaigns. Clearly, it is past time to get the UN back in order.
In the meanwhile, expect the current administration to continue leading the free world on women’s empowerment. Inconsequential forums and toothless resolutions are no measure of success. Vulnerable women and the American taxpayer deserve meaningful action and tangible, positive outcomes.
U.S. public diplomacy and civil society efforts are now making a difference. They have overcome legal barriers to women’s participation in the Colombia peace processes. They are staunching radicalization in countries like Nigeria. Their in-the-field programs in Burma, Somalia and Venezuela are strengthening women’s abilities to rebuild their countries.
This kind of foreign policy is long overdue.
A Heritage Foundation vice president, James Jay Carafano directs the think tank’s research on matters of national security and foreign relations. Ana Quintana is a senior policy analyst in Heritage’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies.
Image: Reuters.
The National Interest · by James Jay Carafano · December 19, 2021

10. Protests erupt in Poland over plan to force out U.S. broadcaster Discovery

Excerpts:
The legislation, yet to be signed into law by President Andrzej Duda, was unexpectedly rushed through parliament on Friday. It seeks to force the U.S. media giant to sell a majority in its local unit, TVN—the country's biggest independent broadcaster which often airs reports critical of Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
The government led by the PiS has maintained that the legislation seeks to limit foreign influence over local media. Discovery is the only media company that would be affected by the bill if it were to be signed into law, Politico has reported.
TVN Discovery on December 17 called the decision to push the bill through parliament on Friday "an unprecedented attack on the free media."
"This is not just about one channel," Rafal Trzaskowski, mayor of the capital Warsaw and a former opposition presidential candidate said in an address to demonstrators on Sunday. "In a moment [there will be] censorship of the internet, an attempt to extinguish all independent sources of information—but we will not allow that to happen."
As thousands demonstrated outside the president's palace, Emilia Zlotinska, 38, told Agence France-Presse: "We need free speech. I would like the president not to sign it."


Protests erupt in Poland over plan to force out U.S. broadcaster Discovery
Newsweek · by Isabel van Brugen · December 20, 2021
Poles took to the streets on Sunday to stage nationwide protests, with thousands rallying outside Poland's presidential palace over a controversial media law that would force out U.S. broadcaster Discovery Inc.
Polish Prime Minister Calls 'Polexit' Fake News Day After Massive Protests
Read more
The legislation, yet to be signed into law by President Andrzej Duda, was unexpectedly rushed through parliament on Friday. It seeks to force the U.S. media giant to sell a majority in its local unit, TVN—the country's biggest independent broadcaster which often airs reports critical of Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
The government led by the PiS has maintained that the legislation seeks to limit foreign influence over local media. Discovery is the only media company that would be affected by the bill if it were to be signed into law, Politico hasreported.
TVN Discovery on December 17 called the decision to push the bill through parliament on Friday "an unprecedented attack on the free media."
"This is not just about one channel," Rafal Trzaskowski, mayor of the capital Warsaw and a former opposition presidential candidate said in an address to demonstrators on Sunday. "In a moment [there will be] censorship of the internet, an attempt to extinguish all independent sources of information—but we will not allow that to happen."
As thousands demonstrated outside the president's palace, Emilia Zlotinska, 38, told Agence France-Presse: "We need free speech. I would like the president not to sign it."
Footage aired by the popular news channel TVN24 on Sunday as protests took place across the country showed demonstrators in the country's capital shouting "free media" and waving Polish and EU flags.
"We have to be here today because free media are a pillar of democracy," protester Beata Laciak, a sociology professor, told Reuters in Warsaw.

A man wears a protective face mask and holds a banner advocating for press freedom during a protest over media freedom at the UNESCO-listed Main Square on December 19, 2021 in Kraków, Poland. Thousands took to the streets on Sunday over a controversial media law that seeks to force U.S. media giant Discovery Inc to sell a majority in its local unit TVN. Omar Marques/Getty Images
Rallies also took place in the southern city of Kraków, with protesters holding banners advocating for press freedom. Slogans read "Hands off TVN" and "Free Poland, Free People, Free Media."
TVN Discovery said in a statement that it is "extremely concerned" about the result of the vote, but "remains resolute in its defense of the rights of the Polish people and the TVN business."
"The act as adopted is an attack on core democratic principles of freedom of speech, the independence of the media and is directly discriminatory against TVN and Discovery," the company added.
The company also said that it would "use all legal means to continue the mission of our media in Poland," adding that it trusted the president would veto the legislation.
Duda hasn't yet signaled whether he will sign the controversial bill into law, but on Friday, he said he would "analyze" it.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price issued a statement on Friday urging Duda to protect press freedom.
"The United States is deeply troubled by the passage in Poland today of a law that would undermine freedom of expression, weaken media freedom and erode foreign investors confidence in their property rights and the sanctity of contracts in Poland," Price said.

People wear protective face masks and hold banners advocating for press freedom during a protest over media freedom at Kraków's UNESCO-listed Main Square on December 19, 2021 in Poland. On Friday, Poland's parliament passed a controversial law that prevents foreign companies from owning a majority of Polish media firms, a policy which could force the U.S. media giant Discovery to sell part of its stake in broadcaster TVN. Omar Marques/Getty Images
Newsweek · by Isabel van Brugen · December 20, 2021

11. How America can avoid the 'Other Thucydides Trap'

Excerpts:
Scholars may debate whether Thucydides was right. He may underrate Sparta or overdo his criticism of the masses. Yet on one point, Thucydides is indisputable: Too much internal division weakens a society beyond the point of no return.
Americans need to remember that our rivals have an interest in seeing us divided. With that in mind, we must balance disagreement with respect and solidarity. We don’t want a future historian to write a book about America’s defeat. We don’t want to be the subject of a study in which the word “love” barely appears. We don’t want to fall into the Other Thucydides Trap.
How America can avoid the 'Other Thucydides Trap'
The Hill · by Barry Strauss, Opinion Contributor · December 17, 2021
The holiday season is a time for coming together. It’s a time to think of those close to us, but it’s also a time to reflect on the larger sphere of which we are but a part: our community, our country and the power above. To them we owe our freedom. And in this season, we should also remember that freedom requires friendship: a healthy democracy requires debate, but with too much disunity, things fall apart.
Americans are becoming aware of this. A respected pollster this year found that nearly half of the country thinks that civil war is coming. Opinions may be cheap in the digital age, but the number is still striking. Nor is it surprising — not given the amount of political violence in the last two years. It’s far from the democratic ideal.
Not only does disunity hurt us at home; it weakens us abroad. Countries know that it’s cheaper to stoke division in a rival’s society than to go to war. The United States has often supported domestic opposition groups in foreign rivals, from Soviet dissidents to pro-democracy protestors in the Arab Spring. Likewise, our competitors interfere with American elections and give at least verbal backing to protesting groups here, both on the right and the left.
But don’t take it from me; Thucydides said it long ago. The irascible old man wrote “The Peloponnesian War” around 400 BCE. A general exiled from his home in Athens as punishment for defeat, he spent the next two decades chronicling his country’s downward spiral. He described a war that lasted 27 years and brought misery across a wide canvas, stretching from Sicily to what is today Turkey.
The result was a classic book, but not one full of cheer. An index of Thucydides’s mood: He wrote the word “love” only twice in his 500-plus pages, and then only in reference to popular passions. His subject was war in all its horror.
In recent years, Thucydides has surprisingly made the headlines. “The Thucydides Trap,” a theory by Harvard Professor Graham Allison, warns of the danger of war when a rising power threatens an established power. Thucydides wrote about the rivalry between Athens and Sparta. But substitute China, a rising power, for Athens, and substitute the United States, an established power, for Sparta, and you have today’s world.
The trap, in Allison’s opinion, is war. It’s an awful prospect, and it is understandable that the Chinese ambassador to the United States mentioned the danger of the Thucydides Trap. Scholars disagree about which is more dangerous, an established power that feels threatened or a rising power feeling its head.
But in any case, there is a different issue. Let’s call it the “Other Thucydides Trap.”
The Other Thucydides Trap is the failure of a free society to set limits. Athens is the classic case. Athens began the war as the favorite. It had Greece’s strongest economy, its biggest navy, its largest alliance and its most dynamic and educated population. Yet by war’s end, Athens had lost everything. Walls, fleet, alliance — all were gone. The economy was a shambles and the demographic losses from disease, desertion and battle casualties were enormous. No wonder Thucydides makes such grim reading.
Yet Thucydides doesn’t give Sparta credit for winning. The war, he says in effect, was Athens’ to lose, and it lost it. The reason is simple: the home front. Sparta was an oligarchy and a closed society. It managed to hold its ruling class together during the long conflict.
But Athens was a democracy, and its leaders turned on each other and stoked popular divisions. Eventually political debate grew so contentious and the blame game so bad that a coup d’etat briefly took power; civil war was barely avoided. Yet Athens recouped and kept fighting for nearly another decade.
“The Athenians did not finally succumb until they fell the victims of their own internal disorders,” Thucydides writes. Sparta didn’t win the war; Athens lost it. Athens defeated itself because its leaders could not come together for the good of the whole.
Scholars may debate whether Thucydides was right. He may underrate Sparta or overdo his criticism of the masses. Yet on one point, Thucydides is indisputable: Too much internal division weakens a society beyond the point of no return.
Americans need to remember that our rivals have an interest in seeing us divided. With that in mind, we must balance disagreement with respect and solidarity. We don’t want a future historian to write a book about America’s defeat. We don’t want to be the subject of a study in which the word “love” barely appears. We don’t want to fall into the Other Thucydides Trap.
Barry Strauss is a military historian and classicist at Cornell University and the Corliss Page Dean Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of “The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium” (Simon & Schuster, March 2022).
The Hill · by Barry Strauss, Opinion Contributor · December 17, 2021



12. Is the cure for America’s ‘next war-itis’ a military culture shift?

So many call for culture shifts. But how do we really "shift culture?" Can we really shift our culture?

Is the cure for America’s ‘next war-itis’ a military culture shift?
militarytimes.com · by Daniel Langhorne, The War Horse · December 19, 2021
Editors Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
As Conrad Crane got ready for a date one Friday night in 1975 while stationed at Homestead Air Force Base, Florida, he received a call from the commander of his Nike Hercules missile battery. The CO wanted to conduct a surprise inspection of the barracks with drug-sniffing dogs.
Expecting some debauchery three days before payday, Crane, a platoon leader and battery executive officer at the time, unsuccessfully tried to convince the commander to call off the inspection. He refused.
“The Air Force drug dogs had so many alerts in the first three rooms that they burned out their olfactory nerves, and the Air Force had to put them down,” says Crane, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and chief of historical services and support at the U.S. Army War College.

Damage Controlman 1st class Kevin To (left) provides instructions to Yeoman 2nd class Tavian McKinney during a urinalysis onboard Naval Air Facility Atsugi in July. The urinalysis program is used to provide comprehensive alcohol and other drug abuse prevention. (MCS3 Olivier Clement/Navy)
Because the dogs lost their senses of smell, Crane says the Air Force tried to sue his battery to recover the cost of the dogs. And Crane could do virtually nothing to get rid of his drug-addicted soldiers: Rather than kicking them out, he could only send them to rehab. Like the rest of the country, the military also faced race-relations problems around this time, as well as deep resentment, if not anger, among many enlisted soldiers toward the officer corps, Crane says.
“It was just difficult to get rid of the bad apples—and there were so many bad apples,” Crane says.
The war in Vietnam had just ended. The draft was over. And nobody was signing up to join the military — even as the Cold War continued, with its threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. At the same time, military leadership licked its wounds and went back to what it knew: tanks and planes.
As the war in Afghanistan brings an end to the forever wars, experts worry about an experience similar to what the military faced after the Vietnam War: an exodus of exhausted troops, an increase in substance abuse and racism, and leaders who may be so focused on beefing up the defense budget that they don’t pay attention to the task of new warfare, even as China threatens TaiwanRussia threatens Ukraine, and the diminished resources and landscapes caused by climate change send military planners scurrying to keep up.
But Crane and other experts say that, done right, the moment could provide a chance to pause — to think about what those future battles might look like, and to brainstorm how the military could pivot from scandal to spearhead in how it handles racism and sexism, and how it could encourage a new generation to join its ranks.
‘What needs to come out of this is a more honest discussion’
After the Vietnam War, there was a great deal of interest in integrating new weapons, like the Abrams main battle tankBradley infantry fighting vehicle, and Apache attack helicopter. As the Pentagon focused on how to defeat Soviet tank battalions charging through the Fulda Gap and taking West Germany, leadership worked to train a professional officer corps, as well as to develop the National Training Centers needed to practice land warfare. Lost were the counterinsurgency techniques developed in Vietnam: Small-unit tactics didn’t necessarily demand big civilian contracts, and they weren’t needed during the Cold War and Desert Storm.
But fully five years after the 9/11 attacks and after the United States had already established itself in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon again deemed counterinsurgency methods necessary, and Gen. David Petraeus called in Crane to help write a counterinsurgency manual, beginning with his experiences in Vietnam as well as the military’s then-classified fight in El Salvador.
“Our adversaries are constantly watching what’s going on in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Crane said at the time. “They’re adapting and drawing insights, and they’re going to make us fight this different kind of war. This manual is not a solution for Iraq or Afghanistan, but it will prepare soldiers and Marines for where we are going in the future and the enemies we will face.”

Conrad Crane, center, was the lead author of the Army’s counterinsurgency manual during the Iraq war after Gen. David Petraeus, left, asked him to. They are pictured with Col. John Martin who also was an author on the project. (Army)
But the COIN manual didn’t always trickle down to the company — or political — level in a meaningful way, and Crane’s group essentially had to push troops trained to “break things” to think about “winning hearts and minds.” New presidents and new generals brought in more troops, trained local militaries to fend for themselves, and even tried to negotiate with the original enemy, but then they watched in disbelief as ISIS took over hard-won areas of Iraq, and the Taliban took over Afghanistan without even a hint of a fight.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, as well as in the first couple of years in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army learned tactical lessons in counterinsurgency missions, says Gregory A. Daddis, a retired Army colonel and director of the Center for War and Society at San Diego State University. But American civilian leaders failed to recognize that no matter how many thousands of service members deployed, billions of dollars were invested, or new four-star generals assumed command, they would not accomplish the stated mission: to equip and train Afghan security forces that could independently keep Taliban fighters from taking over the country.
“Over the course of the last few decades, we’ve had this faith that a new approach, a new strategy, a new commander will come in and somehow save the day,” Daddis says, adding that this doesn’t accord with the historical record.

Gregory Daddis speaks on a panel at the U.S. Army Center of Military History on the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive. (U.S. Army Center of Military History)
But this does: Once again, discussions at the Pentagon focus on great power competition, reflecting what former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates coined as “next war-itis.” The institutional Marine Corps and Army tend to plan for the next war, rather than being introspective about what went right and wrong as conflicts wind down, says Heidi Urben, a retired Army intelligence commander and Chamberlain fellow at Howard University.
Those tendencies — as well as the seemingly eternal push for more defense spending — may send the United States toward a repeat of Cold War expectations as the Pentagon rolls out the B-21 strategic bomberTriton unmanned surveillance aircraftlight amphibious warships, and hypersonic missiles.
When there’s no existential threat, political leaders must work harder to justify hundreds of billions spent on the defense establishment. Casting China as a “pacing threat” — ”the only country that can pose a systemic challenge to the United States in the sense of challenging us, economically, technologically, politically and militarily,” as Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has said.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin listens to Col. Chris Jones, Task Force Liberty J4 commander, during a visit to Liberty Village at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, Sept. 27, 2021. The Department of Defense, through U.S. Northern Command, and in support of the Department of Homeland Security, is providing transportation, temporary housing, medical screening, and general support for at least 50,000 Afghan evacuees. (Staff Sgt. Jake Carter/Air Force)
“What needs to come out of moments like this is a more honest discussion about matching political objectives to military capabilities,” he says.
‘What do you get ready for?’
Critically thinking through issues of readiness, modernization, and emerging threats will be essential, experts say, as the United States navigates the way forward from Afghanistan.
Today, it seems unlikely the Fulda Gap will provide a battleground. Special Forces will undoubtedly continue to use counterinsurgency methods essentially worldwide. Drones make warfare seem more like a video game to the voting public. And the threat of cyberattacks will mean the treasure portion of “blood and treasure” could hit on a personal level as every civilian could be at risk. In the background, the threats of old lurk.
While the Pentagon’s focus remains on modernizing information systems, integrating unmanned vehicles, and demonstrating interoperability with the militaries of allied nations, emerging threats have forced the Pentagon to pivot.
The United States finds itself in an ambiguous dance with China over the island nation of Taiwan. Although there has never been an ironclad security commitment to defend Taiwan if China invades, modern weapons continue to flow into the country. Last year, U.S. Special Forces released a video of Green Berets training alongside Taiwanese commandos.
At least 90,000 Russian troops have staged along the Ukrainian border and stoked unrest against the pro-Western government. The United States has transferred high-end anti-tank missiles and patrol ships to the country, according to Reuters. The California National Guard also has maintained a state partnership program with the Ukrainian military that has shared expertise in border security, emergency response, and civilian-military relations since 1993.
Great power competition isn’t the only mission in front of military planners. U.S. forces are still fighting ISIS and al-Qaida in SyriaIraq, the Horn of Africa, and other areas of conflict.
Before sending U.S. forces into a new war, the U.S government must realize that the United States will have to stay in that country for a long time, Crane says. The most recent successful interventions — World War II and the Korean War — still require an American military presence more than 70 years later.
And he wonders whether it is more important to develop new technology or new ideas about engaging in wars.
“What do you get ready for?” Crane says. “The most likely mission is probably some kind of stability operation, or the most dangerous mission — which is this full-scale, blown-out war, which requires all kinds of combat stuff — and so it’s a dilemma.”
Politically, more spending plays out as more national security, as well as more money for states that house defense manufacturers — which means there’s an eternal cycle of lobbying and campaign contributions and contracts slipped into the annual budget.
“And clearly, as we’ve seen both in the Cold War, and today, there are political rewards for showcasing your commitment to national security,” Daddis says. “It’s much safer politically to focus on the threat of China than it is to focus on the threat of climate change.”
The withdrawal from Afghanistan creates a window for the Army and Marine Corps to invest in cyber warfare. The Army tends to favor traditional combat arms — infantry, armor, and artillery — as central to what the service is and how it prioritizes funding and manpower, Urben says. But these forces may not be the linchpin in future conflicts.
“While I agree that it is a phenomenal opportunity to invest, I’m somewhat pessimistic on anticipating wholesale resource shifts away from, say, Brigade Combat Teams in order to further invest in nontraditional roles that you speak of, like cyber,” Urben says.
‘It’s a family business’
As senior leaders make these decisions, there has been little pressure from voters to change how things are done. This comes in large part because of the military/civilian divide. Less than 10 percent of the U.S. adult population has served in the military, according to the Pew Research Center, and because so many people are recruited from the same geographical and socioeconomic categories, many Americans don’t have family members or neighbors who serve.
“My own observation of what’s going on [in] the Army is it’s a family business,” Crane says. “What you’ve got is more and more of the soldiers are coming from the same places. It’s nowhere near the melting pot it was during the draft.”
The nation’s privileged youth have largely been steered toward attending prestigious universities and pursuing private-sector careers. And many families in this demographic view military service as a risky endeavor better suited for someone else, Crane says.
This means the American public is not at war and doesn’t personally bear the consequences of choosing conflict.
President Joe Biden remains among the few political leaders with a child who has served in the military. Having more politicians with the same personal stake in a war could make the country think twice about attacking, Crane says.
But just as with the end of the Vietnam War, scandals and battle fatigue will likely impact military recruitment efforts — not just in numbers, but in quality.
“The Army was more than hollow. Parts of it were very rotten,” recalled Gen. Montgomery Meigs, former commander of U.S. Army Europe, about the end of the Vietnam War. In 2001, Meigs wrote an article about his leadership experience in the Army War College’s Parameters.
In 1972, the Army under Chief of Staff Gen. Creighton Abrams sought to rebuild, and the service created an “expeditious discharge program” that allowed commanders to bypass court-martial. The U.S. Army in Europe ejected 1,300 soldiers in just four months to boot drug addicts, gang members, and other troublemakers, according to The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today, by Thomas E. Ricks.
But it wasn’t enough. Benefits and pay decreased during the 1970s, and recruiting fell with it, according to the Congressional Research Service. By the end of the decade, both the Army and Navy missed their recruiting goals, and only half of soldiers had graduated from high school. And more than 40 percent of the new soldiers got booted before their first enlistment ended–often for bad behavior.
“The challenge Army leaders had in the late 1970s was rebuilding an army, and it was done in the context of transitioning to a volunteer force,” Urben says. “That was seismic, and we don’t have that same task ahead of us today.”
At the time, the military couldn’t raise the money it needed to operate its units at full strength, let alone fund modern weapons. Introspection took a backseat to survival. Beyond the defeat, the Defense Department faced major scandals that affected public perception: The My Lai massacre led to cries of “baby killers” as soldiers returned home. In 1965, Black soldiers made up about 22 percent of all combat deaths in Vietnam, though they made up only 11% of the force. And while the percentage dropped to about 13 percent by 1967, it ultimately led Black soldiers to avoid the infantry, as well as to seek a skill that would be marketable in the civilian world. Drugs remained a problem through the 1970s. And while Black and white soldiers served side by side during the war, racism again came to the fore when they returned home.

Maj. Gen. Gary W. Johnston, right, commanding general, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, passes the brigade colors to Col. Heidi A. Urben, the new 704th Military Intelligence Brigade commander, during a change of command ceremony, at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 2018. (Staff Sgt. Cashmere Jefferson/Army)
As the services struggled, officers left for better opportunities or didn’t commission in the first place, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Today, scandals have once again roiled the conversation:
The murder of Spc. Vanessa Guillén forced the Army to take a hard look at how it has failed to move the needle on rooting out sexual harassment and sexual assault in the ranks. Earlier this year, service leaders took to social media to convince any opponents that women make the military more lethal and capable.
But women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community look at these types of scandals and wonder if there is a place in the military where they feel like they belong. Service members have been told to find another job if they harbor intolerance, but in some cases, admitted extremists have been allowed to remain in uniform for months.
The Pentagon has said it plans to discharge service members who have declared allegiance to extremist groups.
Some leaders have internalized a false sense that they can either do their job well or focus on stewarding their unit’s internal culture — but they can’t do both, Urben says. But much of the change, as well as the introspection, must come from within.
“The idea that the constant churn of deployments back to back is preventing us from really getting quality attention to the systemic challenges within our ranks…” Urben says. “Hopefully that myth steps to the wayside.”
Still, that voluntary, professional force may be the military’s saving grace, Daddis says. While many veterans of Afghanistan were upset to see the country fall to the Taliban within weeks of the last American boots leaving, and certainly many see the need for cultural change, they may not be ready to give up a career they’ve put ahead of personal safety, family, and comfort.
In fact, in spite of the hit to morale, don’t expect an exodus, Daddis says.
“I don’t necessarily think that you will see a brain drain, if you will, after Afghanistan,” he says, “because there’s still going to be committed professionals in the organization that want to see [it] succeed — especially in the aftermath of what many consider to be a failed effort.”
This War Horse feature was reported by Daniel Langhorne, edited by Kelly Kennedy, fact-checked by Ben Kalin, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar.
Daniel Langhorne is the Engagement Editor for The War Horse, managing social media, newsletters, and membership development. He started his journalism career at the Orange County Register as a staff writer covering city government, the Nixon Presidential Library, housing, education, and water. Since 2015, Daniel has reported on military affairs and many other topics for Military.com, Law360, and the Los Angeles Times. Daniel earned his bachelor’s degree in English and Political Science from Chapman University.


13. Paradox of US democracy

A critique of US democracy from a Chinese born writer educated and living in Singapore.

Conclusion:

There is a profound contradiction in the USA-style democracy itself. Democracy should be the aspiration for the majority to achieve their hope of glory as human beings. Therefore, the substance of democracy must be in the form of economic prosperity, social justice, security and a decent life. History has proven that the representative democracy advocated by the USA only produces politicians who speak merely for their own interests.

The U.S. has been influencing the international community in the discourse of democracy. The U.S. is no longer the beacon of democracy, and it should try to prevent its own political decay before educating other countries.

Paradox of US democracy
The Korea Times · December 20, 2021
By Sun Xi
During Dec. 9-10, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden held the virtual Summit for Democracy, together with representatives from 108 selected countries. The summit was intended to forge a common agenda to strengthen democratic institutions, but unfortunately it became paradoxical.

Democracy in the U.S. is mainly a political tool to satisfy its own political goals and interests, but not for the interests of the majority people that should be inherent in the core meaning of democracy. The U.S. has always flaunted itself to be the role model and best teacher for democracy, but ironically it may be one of the most authoritarian countries in the world.

History speaks for itself. The U.S. and its allies are responsible for military operations in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The U.S. will not hesitate to use brutal practices, including wars or invasions of other countries, under the name of democracy and human rights, but merely for the sake of the U.S.' political and economic interests. Even during this COVID-19 pandemic, some in the U.S. have been playing the political game of virus origin-tracing.

The U.S. has been constantly applying double standards on democracy and human rights issues. Brian Becker, the executive director of the "Act Now to Stop War and End Racism" coalition, said that America has often forcibly exported its democracy to other countries. The U.S. government has imposed its own political system and values on a number of others, regardless of the huge differences in terms of economic development level, history and culture. Clearly, such a compulsory sale of democracy is undemocratic.

The military interventions carried out by the U.S. government and its outsourced Private Military Companies (PMC) have created chaos, poverty and injustice in some recipient countries. In fact, the involvement of the U.S. military and its PMCs have been destructive and counterproductive to the fundamental principle of democracy.

Moreover, the U.S version of democracy only focuses on procedural aspects, but ignores the substance of democracy, namely the substantial involvement of the people. Procedural democracy is prone to become a manipulative political process because it makes the people only as "voters" who are only required to vote in the general elections every few years.

According to US democracy, people are not placed as the basis and goal of democracy. Democracy should not be interpreted narrowly as a political democracy that only relies on people's participation, which is carried out through a general election mechanism, but it should be implemented as an economic and social democracy that delivers real social welfare for the whole nation.

There is a profound contradiction in the USA-style democracy itself. Democracy should be the aspiration for the majority to achieve their hope of glory as human beings. Therefore, the substance of democracy must be in the form of economic prosperity, social justice, security and a decent life. History has proven that the representative democracy advocated by the USA only produces politicians who speak merely for their own interests.

The U.S. has been influencing the international community in the discourse of democracy. The U.S. is no longer the beacon of democracy, and it should try to prevent its own political decay before educating other countries.

Sun Xi, a 1980s China-born alumnus of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, is an independent commentary writer based in Singapore.


The Korea Times · December 20, 2021



14. Reporter's notebook: 'Gallagher effect' haunts ship fire case. Did the Navy learn its lesson?

Gallagher and his case may haunt us for a long time.

Reporter's notebook: 'Gallagher effect' haunts ship fire case. Did the Navy learn its lesson?
sandiegouniontribune.com · by Andrew Dyer · December 18, 2021
SAN DIEGO —
Three years after former Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher first sat in a San Diego military courtroom to begin his fight against a possible life sentence, another sailor found himself inside the same courthouse and the same courtroom last week.
Seaman Apprentice Ryan Sawyer Mays — who, at 19, also strove to become a SEAL but gave up after less than a week of training — faces charges that could put him away for life if convicted. And, similar to the Gallagher case, the Navy is counting largely on witness testimony to make its case against Mays — at least as can be told from what’s been made public at this early stage.
Mays is charged with the willful hazarding of a vessel and aggravated arson in the 2020 fire on the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard. The ship burned for four days and was so thoroughly damaged the Navy opted to sell it for scrap rather than repair it.
Mays denies starting the fire.
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Prosecutors allege Mays was seen going into the ship’s lower vehicle storage area, where investigators say the fire began on July 12, 2020, just minutes before sailors first saw smoke that morning. They say he then escaped through a small hatch leading to a conflagration station and up a narrow ladder to a passageway two decks above the “lower v.”

Mays’ three-day Article 32 hearing featured testimony from witnesses and investigators, including a fire investigator from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who said all accidental causes of the fire were eliminated, leaving only arson. In the military system, prosecutors must only prove they have probable cause to prosecute Mays during the Article 32. The hearing officer will next issue a recommendation as to whether Mays will face court-martial.
Don King, a San Diego-based military attorney and recently retired Navy judge, said that is likely.

“They hardly need any proof (to make) a probable-cause determination,” King said. “I think this case is for sure going to trial but it’s certainly not a slam-dunk based on what was heard at the Article 32.”
At court-martial, however, the government will still need to prove Mays’ guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — something King said is very much in the air given the evidence that’s so far been made public.
“I don’t think it’s a very strong case at all,” King said. “Eyewitness testimony can be effectively countered by cross-examination, which could potentially raise reasonable doubt.”
The Navy’s prosecution against Gallagher blew up spectacularly as prosecutors stepped on one rake after another and appeared unprepared for the legal maneuvering and courtroom theatrics of Gallagher’s savvy, high-powered defense lawyers.
When the lead prosecutor was caught trying to track defense attorney emails in what a judge ruled was an illegal violation of Gallagher’s rights, he was fired from the prosecution team. Another Navy lawyer was added and had just days to prepare for the most closely-watched military trial in recent memory.
Gallagher’s defense team, led by Tim Parlatore and one of then-President Donald Trump’s lawyers, Marc Mukasey, took turns attacking the Navy’s eyewitnesses to Gallagher’s alleged war crimes, which included killing a wounded teenage ISIS combatant in Mosul, Iraq.
Famously, the Navy’s key witness changed his story on the witness stand and claimed that he, not Gallagher, killed the ISIS prisoner. Navy prosecutors were left scrambling and never recovered momentum in the trial.
To King, the appointment of Navy Capt. Jay Jones as supervising prosecutor suggests the Navy is taking a different approach to its prosecution of Mays.
“Jay is probably the best prosecutor in the Navy,” King, who was a staff judge advocate in San Diego during the Gallagher trial, said in an interview. “We probably would have had a different result (in that case) if we had someone like him. They brought the best prosecutors because they don’t want to make the same mistakes they made in Gallagher.”
King, who is now in private practice, has no connection to the Bonhomme Richard case, but said he does know the Navy’s prosecutors as well as Mays’ civilian defense attorney, Gary Barthel.
Cmdr. Rich Federico, who is lead prosecutor in the case, is a Navy Reservist and federal public defender. King said Federico might be the next-best Navy prosecutor after Jones.
Mays’ defense is led by Gary Barthel, whom King described as an experienced military lawyer who will be crucial in ensuring Mays has a strong defense.
King cautioned against reading too much into the evidence presented at the Article 32, saying that prosecutors might only present just enough evidence to establish probable cause.
“The prosecution doesn’t want to tip their hand at the type of evidence they might have at trial,” King said.
sandiegouniontribune.com · by Andrew Dyer · December 18, 2021



15. China’s new military base in Africa: What it means for Europe and America
Excerpts:
The Equatorial Guinea naval base news broke a week after the 29-30 November FOCAC 2021 summit in Dakar, Senegal. Moving away from its traditional emphasis on infrastructure development, Beijing used the meeting to emphasise a new theme of building “a China-Africa Community with a Shared Future in the New Era.” Within the framework of fostering this “China-Africa Community”, FOCAC’s Action Plan 2022-2024 calls for the strengthening of “the implementation of the China-Africa peace and security plan” aimed at supporting “the building of the African Peace and Security Architecture.” When seen in the context of the previous two FOCAC action plans, it seems clearer than ever that Beijing is aiming for the consolidation of a continent-wide system of security relations between Africa and China.
Equatorial Guinea presented China with an opportunity to establish a military presence on the Atlantic. But the country’s government is not alone among African nations with a high indebtedness to China and in which Beijing plays a central economic development role. It is possible that other Chinese naval bases may yet appear on Africa’s Atlantic coast. Whether or not it builds such new installations in the short term, Beijing’s consolidation of a pan-African security architecture will undoubtedly lead to their establishment in the long term. In such circumstances, the continent of Africa itself would serve a forward-base for Beijing to project power directly towards north America and Europe.
Experience has taught – as shown in 2015 when Beijing began some serious military spending in Africa – that further investment could also signal a new and more transformative involvement in Africa’s political and economic development. Whatever happens, the United States’ and Europe’s continued delivery deficit in economic engagement with Africa relative to China will come at a mounting geopolitical cost.

China’s new military base in Africa: What it means for Europe and America
A permanent Chinese military installation in Equatorial Guinea is the culmination of nearly a decade’s investment in Africa – and will not be the last of such bases on the continent’s Atlantic coast


Michaël Tanchum @michaeltanchum on Twitter
Associate Senior Policy Fellow
ecfr.eu · by Michaël Tanchum · December 14, 2021
In one of Africa’s smallest countries, one of the largest shifts in China’s global strategy appears to be under way. Unnamed US officials are reported to have warned that Beijing plans to establish a permanent military installation in Equatorial Guinea. If true, beyond the obvious strategic challenges posed by China possessing a naval base on the Atlantic for the first time, the move signals a new phase in the country’s Africa policy. This holds far-reaching geopolitical implications.
Africa is the largest regional component of China’s $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to reconfigure the architecture of global commerce. The 46 African nations that have signed onto the BRI represent over 1 billion people and cover about 20 per cent of the Earth’s landmass. The consolidation of Chinese military power on the continent in the form of such new bases – combined with the expansion of Beijing’s already considerable economic influence – would shift global power dynamics, eroding US dominance, and relegating Europe to the sidelines of international affairs.
There are already approximately 10,000 Chinese enterprises in Africa, which, according to a 2017 McKinsey report, generated $180 billion a year in revenues and could reach $250 billion by as early as 2025. These commercial opportunities have resulted in 1 million Chinese citizens making Africa their permanent home since 2000. Consequently, China has entrenched its military and security apparatus in Africa, but it has managed to do so largely without provoking an international backlash. In the two decades since the founding of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000, Beijing has astutely avoided placing a heavy overt troop presence on the continent, such as those maintained by France and the United States. Instead, Beijing has integrated a military and security component into its economic partnerships with African states, making China’s defence presence in Africa part of the fabric of the continent’s development.
The FOCAC summits take place every three years, and each one agrees an action plan for each side to work on until the next meeting. Examining the content of these plans reveals a clear trajectory of Beijing creating a pan-African security architecture with China at its core. The establishment of a naval base in Equatorial Guinea may signal that a new phase in this agenda has begun.
How Equatorial Guinea became part of China’s African military equation
Although home to mainland Africa’s third smallest population, Equatorial Guinea boasts the highest GDP per capita, thanks to its over 1 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves. First discovered in 1996, Equatorial Guinea’s hydrocarbon wealth has been the economic underpinning of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo’s 41-year rule, which is marked by accusations of human rights abuses and charges of embezzlement by him and his family. Transparency International’s annual index ranks Equatorial Guinea as the fourth most corrupt country in the world. The president’s son and likely successor, Vice-President Teodoro “Teodorin” Nguema Obiang Mangue, has recently been convicted of embezzlement in France. The British government has frozen his assets and barred him from entering the United Kingdom.
While US oil companies have conducted most of Equatorial Guinea’s oil exploration and production, China has become the country’s primary development partner. In 2006, the China Exim bank and the Government of Equatorial Guinea signed a $2 billion oil-backed buyer’s credit facility agreement for the development of the Port of Bata as a modern deep-sea port facility. The China Communications Construction Company completed construction work for the port’s expansion in December 2014. The following year, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China signed a similar $2 billion financing deal to support infrastructure development, local activities of Chinese businesses, and the government itself. The China Exim bank extended the government a credit line of half a billion dollars. Bata Port was eventually inaugurated in 2019.
Economics played the lead role in this military-economic development complex, but the dynamics appear to be entering a new phase.
All the while, declining revenues due to corruption, mismanagement, and periods of slumping oil prices meant that Equatorial Guinea was becoming increasingly indebted to China. In 2020, Beijing became the country’s main partner in combatting the covid-19 pandemic, donating 100,000 Sinopharm vaccines and then selling an additional 500,000 vaccines to the Obiang government. By 2021, Equatorial Guinea’s debt to China amounted to an estimated 49.7 per cent of GDP. Despite eleventh-hour US outreach to Equatorial Guinea, culminating in a visit by the US principal deputy national security adviser to discuss maritime security, the Obiang government appears to be moving forward with plans to host a Chinese naval base.
China’s advancement of a pan-African security architecture
The construction of a Chinese naval base in Equatorial Guinea has wider implications than merely a cautionary tale of Beijing’s debt-trap diplomacy. Since 2015, China has been incrementally developing a systematic, pan-African approach to security on the continent. In September of that year, speaking before the UN General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping signalled Beijing’s focus on engaging African security mechanisms by pledging $100m in military assistance to the African Union to support the creation of an African Standby Force and the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises. At the December 2015 FOCAC summit, China announced it would invest $60 billion in Africa – an unprecedented tripling of the amount pledged at FOCAC 2012. At the same meeting, China committed to direct military engagement with African partners and distributing $60m in military assistance, provisions that were incorporated into FOCAC’s Action Plan (2016-2018).
In 2017, in the middle of its three-year ramping up of military assistance and economic investment, China established its first overseas military base in Djibouti, on the coast of the Horn of Africa. Djibouti, situated at the strategic entrance to the Red Sea corridor across from Yemen, also hosts military installations belonging to the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, the UK, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. Consonant with China’s multilateral messaging – China provides more troops to UN Security Council (UNSC) peacekeeping missions than all the other UNSC permanent members combined – Beijing was able to portray its unilateral military presence as part of the international effort to combat piracy and protect global trade passing through the Suez Canal. China has participated in the Shared Awareness and De-Confliction interface, which coordinates the respective anti-piracy efforts of the US-led multinational Combined Taskforce 151 and EU NAVFOR in waters off the Horn of Africa. Nonetheless, China’s establishment of its Djibouti base, with a dock reportedly capable of accommodating aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, is also in keeping with its journey towards consolidating a continent-wide security presence.
China’s systematic, pan-African security agenda was made more explicit at the 2018 FOCAC summit, whose Action Plan (2019-2021) called for the establishment of 50 separate programmes to enhance security coordination between China and its African partners across the continent, including the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum and the China-Africa Law Enforcement and Security Forum. Chinese state-owned enterprises already spend $10 billion on security globally, a sizeable portion of which is spent in Africa on hiring Chinese security support, ranging from regular military and civilian police to ‘private’ security companies.
What next?
The pursuit of large-scale commercial infrastructure signals strategic intent, and the expansion of China’s military presence across Africa in the wake of the BRI is not unexpected. Beijing’s adroit interweaving of economic soft power and hard power has produced a symbiosis between the growing number of Chinese commercial enterprises across Africa and the proliferation of China’s new security arrangements across the continent. While economics played the lead role in this military-economic development complex, the dynamics appear to be entering a new phase.
The Equatorial Guinea naval base news broke a week after the 29-30 November FOCAC 2021 summit in Dakar, Senegal. Moving away from its traditional emphasis on infrastructure development, Beijing used the meeting to emphasise a new theme of building “a China-Africa Community with a Shared Future in the New Era.” Within the framework of fostering this “China-Africa Community”, FOCAC’s Action Plan 2022-2024 calls for the strengthening of “the implementation of the China-Africa peace and security plan” aimed at supporting “the building of the African Peace and Security Architecture.” When seen in the context of the previous two FOCAC action plans, it seems clearer than ever that Beijing is aiming for the consolidation of a continent-wide system of security relations between Africa and China.
Equatorial Guinea presented China with an opportunity to establish a military presence on the Atlantic. But the country’s government is not alone among African nations with a high indebtedness to China and in which Beijing plays a central economic development role. It is possible that other Chinese naval bases may yet appear on Africa’s Atlantic coast. Whether or not it builds such new installations in the short term, Beijing’s consolidation of a pan-African security architecture will undoubtedly lead to their establishment in the long term. In such circumstances, the continent of Africa itself would serve a forward-base for Beijing to project power directly towards north America and Europe.
Experience has taught – as shown in 2015 when Beijing began some serious military spending in Africa – that further investment could also signal a new and more transformative involvement in Africa’s political and economic development. Whatever happens, the United States’ and Europe’s continued delivery deficit in economic engagement with Africa relative to China will come at a mounting geopolitical cost.
ecfr.eu · by Michaël Tanchum · December 14, 2021


16.  Philippines grapples with typhoon aftermath as death toll tops 300


Thoughts and prayers for our friends in the Philippines.

Philippines grapples with typhoon aftermath as death toll tops 300
Reuters · by Karen Lema
1/5
Houses and trees damaged by typhoon Rai are seen, in Surigao del Norte province, Philippines, December 18, 2021. Picture taken December 18, 2021. Philippine Coast Guard/Handout via REUTERS

  • Summary
  • Typhoon Rai among deadliest to hit the Philippines
  • Some central, southern areas still cut off
  • Military deploys planes, ships air to deliver aid
  • Typhoon death toll rises to 375, say police
MANILA, Dec 20 (Reuters) - More than 300 people have been in killed by a powerful typhoon in the Philippines that destroyed homes, flooded towns, severed power and communications lines and displaced hundreds of thousands in its central and southern regions.
Military airplanes and naval vessels were dispatched on Monday to carry aid to areas devastated by Typhoon Rai, as the country grappled withthe strongest of 15 such storms to hit the archipelago this year.
"We are still assessing the damage, but it is huge," Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters on Monday. "The first thing we are doing is address the food and water (supplies) and medical care of the injured."

Lorenzana told the armed forces to deliver relief goods using all available assets, and send in more troops if necessary.
The number of storm-related deaths climbed throughout Monday as rescue efforts continued in hard-hit areas.
As of 1000 GMT, the death toll from Rai has risen to 375, the police said in a report, making it one of the deadliest typhoons to have struck the Southeast Asian nation. The number of injured has climbed to 500, while 56 people were missing.
The count, which according to the police was subject to validation, far outstripped the 58 deaths recorded by the national disaster agency, which said it was still checking reports from affected areas.
The majority of the deaths reported by police were in the central region of Visayas, home to dive spots in Bohol province, among some of the most popular tourist destinations, and the Caraga region in northeastern Mindanao.
Provincial governor Arthur Yap told broadcaster CNN Philippines he feared the death toll could rise further, as a lack of mobile telephone links made it hard to gather information.
Rai, which made landfall as a category 5 typhoon on Thursday, revived memories of the devastation brought in 2013 by Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded, which killed 6,300 people in the Philippines.
Rai displaced nearly 490,000 people in the Philippines before moving toward the South China Sea over the weekend.
It left a trail of destruction in the provinces of Cebu, Leyte, and Surigao del Norte, including Siargao, which is popular with surfers, and the Dinagat Islands.
President Rodrigo Duterte, who visited typhoon-stricken areas over the weekend, promised funds of about 2 billion pesos ($40 million) to help in recovery efforts.
Reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz and Karen Lema; Editing by Ed Davies and Clarence Fernandez and John Geddie
Reuters · by Karen Lema

17. With hunger, poverty growing in Afghanistan, Biden pressured to ease sanctions


How can and how should we help the Afghan people who are suffering?


With hunger, poverty growing in Afghanistan, Biden pressured to ease sanctions
The Washington Post · by Karen DeYoung and Missy Ryan Yesterday at 6:57 p.m. EST · December 19, 2021
The Biden administration is facing mounting pressure from lawmakers, aid groups and former officials to restart the flow of billions of dollars in aid and cash to Afghanistan, where a humanitarian crisis is growing increasingly perilous.
Last week, three former U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan and four former U.S. ambassadors to Kabul, along with other former senior officials, called on the administration to consider relaxing policies that froze the Afghan government’s foreign assets and cut off U.S. financial assistance that, along with other donor funding, once accounted for three-quarters of that nation’s revenue.
“What is needed is the courage to act,” the authors said in a statement published by the Atlantic Council. They noted United Nations estimates that only 5 percent of Afghanistan’s about 40 million residents have sufficient food as well as that 97 percent of the population will fall below the poverty line in the next 18 months, saying the United States has “a reputational interest and a moral obligation” to help save them.
In a separate letter last week to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, nearly 40 bipartisan members of Congress, including the Democratic chairs of the main national security committees in the House, also appealed to the administration to consider new steps.
“We don’t want to help the Taliban, but we don’t want to see Afghans starving in the winter either,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who helped to spearhead the effort. “We want the millions of Afghans who are not going to leave the country, but who are trying to defend the gains of the last 20 years, to know that the United States is still behind them.”
“If you want to help people survive the winter,” Malinowski said in an interview, “you can’t wait until spring.”
Long-standing sanctions against any dealings with the Taliban and a cash crunch have choked off commerce in a country suffering from the combined impact of lost income, spiraling prices for basic necessities and prolonged drought.
“There is no simple solution here,” said a senior administration official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policymaking. “Years of war and drought, on top of the Taliban’s forced takeover of the country and the absence of a functioning financial system have precipitated the severe humanitarian crisis we are witnessing now.”
“Reserves, salaries, [humanitarian] assistance or other tools will not be enough” to deal with “the systemic economic challenges Afghanistan is facing,” the official said.
Some steps have been taken, including the U.S. provision of more than $208 million in money for humanitarian aid, funneled through international agencies to avoid the Taliban. The Treasury Department issued licenses that eased sanctions to allow money flows for emergency food, medicine and shelter, and the transfer of cash remittances to non-sanctioned individuals in Afghanistan. The department also told foreign banks and governments they do not need to fear U.S. prosecution engaging in such activity.
The World Bank, following a decision by its U.S.-dominated board of governors, released $280 million from its otherwise-frozen Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund last week, with part of the money designated to a United Nations program that directly pays salaries to health-care workers. Officials said the program soon may expand to include teachers and other civil servants, many of whom have not been paid for most of the year.
But those efforts have been largely piecemeal and don’t address the systemic problems of a nonfunctioning economy. Money remains the primary source of leverage to influence the new Afghan government; in addition to what the Biden administration says are legal impediments to opening the spigots, there is pressure from other lawmakers and some inside the administration to do less instead of more to rescue the Taliban from problems of its own making.
“The reason the economy is not working is because the Taliban deposed the government” and they’re “still working to figure out” how to run the economy, said a senior Treasury official who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. “There is more money moving into the economy than people think,” but large amounts are heading right back out, he added, citing a December United Nations estimate of $10 million a day.
The official said the people of Afghanistan “don’t have confidence” in the Taliban government, which is formed of militants with a bad track records of abusing human and civil rights, and so they are taking their money, “storing it in their house or moving it out of the country” to foreign banks.
The idea of returning to business as usual in Afghanistan is anathema to many, according to several people familiar with the internal deliberations. Since August, Taliban progress has ranged from little to none in meeting U.S. and international demands, including an end to providing safe haven for groups such as al-Qaeda; inclusion of non-Taliban officials in the government; nationwide guarantees of full rights for minorities and women; and public school through grade 12 for girls as well as boys.
But a growing number of administration officials, particularly in the U.S. State Department, are pushing for more flexibility, with some arguing that the Taliban has been more cooperative in addressing international concerns than it is given credit for. The administration, these officials say, must decide whether it wants the government in power to fail or if it wants to use its influence in ways that help more Afghans survive.
Laurel Miller, a senior official for Afghanistan during the Obama and Trump administrations who is now at the independent International Crisis Group, voiced concerns similar to those expressed by a number of current officials who are reluctant to speak out publicly.
“I recognize that it’s very difficult, in the immediate aftermath of losing a war, to contemplate supporting a state that is run by your former enemies,” she said. “But the Afghan people need a state that functions, to at least a minimal degree. There is no way to entirely circumvent the Taliban if you’re going to prevent the continued collapse of the entire economy.”
Humanitarian organizations say that the foreign donor assistance they are distributing, in the form of food, shelter and medicine, will never be enough. And time is running out as Afghanistan’s basic institutions and infrastructure fall apart — including sanitation, electricity, transportation and other systems established over 20 years with U.S. funding and expertise.
“The urgency is not lining up with the severity of the economic collapse and the speed of the economic collapse,” said Amanda Catanzano, an official at the International Rescue Committee, which is providing cash assistance and other humanitarian aid in nine Afghan provinces.
One of the endangered institutions is Afghanistan’s Central Bank, established in the rewritten 2004 constitution and modeled on the U.S. Federal Reserve. Four of the Bank’s board members remain in Afghanistan; others are abroad.
Shah Mehrabi, a board member who also teaches at Montgomery College just outside Washington, has proposed that the Biden administration allow the limited, monitored release of about $150 million to $200 million a month from the bank’s overseas reserves. That is about half of what the Central Bank formerly sold monthly at auction, Mehrabi said, but enough to provide currency stability, allow continued individual bank withdrawals and pay for essential imports.
“The Central Bank remains intact, following the laws based on which it came into being — an autonomous entity, independent, with no intervention by the government at all as to how to conduct fiscal policy,” said Mehrabi, chairman of its audit committee.
When the Taliban entered Kabul in mid-August, Mehrabi said, he ordered all Central Bank reserves held in the vault at its headquarters to be counted. That $63 million in Afghan currency, U.S. dollars and gold since has been drawn down to circulate cash in the economy, allowing Afghans to withdraw up to $400 a week from their bank accounts, pay some salaries and purchase imports.
The reserves held overseas — totaling more than $10 billion, $7.1 billion of it held in the U.S. Federal Reserve — in normal times are constantly rolled over, as foreign currency is deposited from trade, portfolio investments and other sources, then auctioned off in international markets and used to inject liquidity and regulate markets at home.
With Afghanistan’s funds now frozen by the Biden administration and European banks, the Central Bank cannot perform any of those functions.
The auctions are conducted electronically, and auditors could monitor their use inside Afghanistan, Mehrabi said; if there was any Taliban misappropriation, “they can cut off the funds.”
The Biden administration says that releasing the money is far more complicated than it appears, even if the administration wanted to, because of existing sanctions on the Taliban as an organization and on individual militants.
For the moment, officials said, it is legally impossible. All of Afghanistan’s U.S. reserves are the subject of litigation by victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks in this country and other terror victims who have won monetary judgments against the Taliban. While the money previously was off limits as property of the non-Taliban Afghan government, the equation changed when the Taliban itself became the government, the victims have argued since.
A federal court has attached the money. A hearing on the matter that had been scheduled for Dec. 3 was postponed until late January at the Justice Department’s request.
Even if courts deem the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan, no country has recognized it as the legitimate government. The Taliban remains a specially designated terrorist organization, and none of its officials would be recognized as having the legal right to sign for the government or receive a check, persons familiar with the situation said.
Mehrabi said proposals for circumventing the Central Bank to inject money into Afghanistan — using the United Nations to distribute cash through the private banking system, for example — would create a “parallel institution” that would destroy the one that already exists.
The Treasury official countered that the Taliban has taken no steps to preserve the Bank. They “haven’t gotten control of the economy. The Central Bank has set no interest rate, capital controls or taxations,” the official said.
Ronald Neumann, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan during the George W. Bush administration and now heads the American Academy of Diplomacy, said leakage of aid funds to the Taliban could be minimized but probably not eliminated entirely.
“If you’re immobilized by the search for a perfect solution,” Neumann said, “a lot of people are going to die.”

The Washington Post · by Karen DeYoung and Missy Ryan Yesterday at 6:57 p.m. EST · December 19, 2021


18. Who Really Chooses to Become a Suicide Bomber?

Excerpts:
The finding that socialization can push people toward engaging in political violence raises a crucial question: Can we use the same socialization process to prevent rebel, terrorist, and combatant mobilization?
If social ties influence how likely people are to engage in political violence, counterterrorism policies that try to improve people’s welfare, economic conditions, or political rights may not deter mobilization. Instead, policymakers who want to prevent political violence should seek to disrupt, or change, the socialization process within potential combatants’ social networks. For example, if we can identify the central members of a community and persuade them to push back and criticize politically violent behaviors and views, we may be able to use individuals’ social network ties to turn people away from dangerous paths. Limited counterterrorism efforts focused on persuasion and removing bad actors within a person’s social network may be more effective than counterterrorism policies that aim for more sweeping change.

Who Really Chooses to Become a Suicide Bomber? - Modern War Institute
mwi.usma.edu · by Jared F. Edgerton · December 20, 2021
Why do suicide bombers sign up for their deadly missions? Beyond promises of paradise, there seems to be little in it for those who die carrying out attacks, while the organization that sent them claims the glory. There are some common threads: research suggests attackers are often recruited in prison, and they are more educated and come from wealthier backgrounds than the general population. But systematic data is hard to come by, and much about attackers remains obscure.
To better understand the radicalization process, I analyzed, in recently published research, thousands of documents filled out by ISIS recruits. Those documents show that among ISIS volunteers, the choice to become a suicide bomber is driven less by individual factors such as education, religiosity, and unemployment, and more by socialization. Having family or friends who were also suicide bombers made new ISIS members dramatically more likely to sign up for terminal missions themselves. Policymakers should take note. Intervening in social networks may be an effective way to prevent political violence of all kinds.
A Family Affair
In March 2016, an ISIS terrorist cell carried out a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks at Zaventem Airport and Maalbeek metro station in Brussels, Belgium. The blasts killed thirty-two people and injured 340, making the bombings one of the deadliest ISIS attacks in Europe and the worst in Belgium’s history.
Two of the three bombers who died were brothers, Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui. Natives of a working-class neighborhood in the northwest of Brussels, the Bakraouis had both previously served time in prison, where Belgium law enforcement believes they were radicalized. Research on terrorist mobilization has shown that many attackers, like the Bakraouis, first joined terrorist organizations while in custody. Alongside violent histories and time in prison, the brothers shared another attribute with terrorists, rebels, and other combatants: each had family members or peers linked to political violence.
That should be no surprise. Criminologists and sociologists have found associations between deviant behavior and what is known as primary and secondary socialization—that is, influence from one’s family and peers. Watching family members and friends, and internalizing their actions and views, shapes how we behave and what we believe. Socialization is associated with how people vote, the ideologies they choose, and the ways they engage with politics. Often this has positive effects, for instance when activists inspire others around them to become more engaged in their communities. But criminologists have also linked the socialization process to deviant behaviors, including substance abuse, domestic violence, and gang membership.
Many terrorist and rebel organizations, from al-Qaeda to Boko Haram, put siblings, family members, and friendship groups in prominent roles or use them together as foot soldiers, including the Boston Marathon bombers and ISIS with the Sri Lankan Easter day attackers. The prevalence of family members and friends in terrorist organizations suggests that strong social ties may help researchers understand patterns of participation in terrorist and rebel groups. And socialization may also shed light on why people engage in certain types of political violence, such as volunteering to be a suicide bomber—a far graver step even than joining a terrorist group.
Blood Will Out
In recently published research, I move beyond anecdotal accounts of family members in violent organizations. I show that just as socialization helps explain criminally deviant behavior, it can also help explain why people participate in political violence, even volunteering to be suicide bombers.
To understand the social connections of ISIS members, I analyzed original data from nearly three thousand individual ISIS visa entry forms that were leaked in 2016 to Western news media and intelligence agencies by a disillusioned former ISIS soldier. These forms, which asked a list of twenty-three questions, were filled out by each new ISIS volunteer when he or she entered Syria.
The new combatants were asked their home city and country, the names of family members, who recommended they join, and their date of entry, as well as what they wanted to do for ISIS. On the last question, volunteers could choose to be a suicide bomber, soldier, or administrative worker. By using the combatants’ answers for their home country, family members’ names, the person who recommended they join, and date of entry, I was able to reconstruct the family and peer social networks of each new combatant and match that data to the jobs for which they volunteered.
The upshot? Combatants with family members and peers who volunteered for suicide missions were, holding other demographic characteristics constant, more likely to volunteer to be a suicide bomber themselves. Another finding: aside from the effect of having more family members and peers volunteer to be suicide bombers, other characteristics that are typically associated with suicide bomber mobilization had only a tiny or even a negative correlation. Education had no discernable effect. Unemployment and religiosity both had a negative association with the likelihood that a combatant would volunteer to be a suicide bomber. Family, friends, peers, and other social ties were far more consequential for understanding patterns in political violence among ISIS volunteers than their individual characteristics.
Thicker Than Water
The finding that socialization can push people toward engaging in political violence raises a crucial question: Can we use the same socialization process to prevent rebel, terrorist, and combatant mobilization?
If social ties influence how likely people are to engage in political violence, counterterrorism policies that try to improve people’s welfare, economic conditions, or political rights may not deter mobilization. Instead, policymakers who want to prevent political violence should seek to disrupt, or change, the socialization process within potential combatants’ social networks. For example, if we can identify the central members of a community and persuade them to push back and criticize politically violent behaviors and views, we may be able to use individuals’ social network ties to turn people away from dangerous paths. Limited counterterrorism efforts focused on persuasion and removing bad actors within a person’s social network may be more effective than counterterrorism policies that aim for more sweeping change.
Jared F. Edgerton is a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Human Trafficking Data Lab.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Beshr Abdulhadi (adapted by MWI)
mwi.usma.edu · by Jared F. Edgerton · December 20, 2021



19. Afghanistan: What We Left Behind


Afghanistan: What We Left Behind
From items material and sentimental to bits and pieces of ourselves and our souls to friends who fought alongside us, here is what remains in Afghanistan after America’s withdrawal

MIL & INTEL
By Nolan Peterson | December 19, 2021
coffeeordie.com · by Nolan Peterson · December 19, 2021
Scott Elwell, an Army officer from the 10th Mountain Division, commanded a battery at a forward operating base in the far northwestern corner of Afghanistan — a place they called “the end of the world.” A November 2010 firefight wounded eight of Elwell’s men and killed a popular sergeant first class named Todd Harris.
Afterward, the American soldiers turned an empty bomb canister into a memorial for their fallen friend. They taped Harris’ picture to the outside and wrote messages to him on the metal with a Sharpie marker. When it was time to go home four months later, Elwell had to leave the bomb canister memorial behind. Something about Army regulations or whatever. So on that final morning, with the last CH-47 Chinook helicopter on its way to pick up his remaining soldiers after 12 months at war, Elwell knelt down and taped his Bronze Star medal to the inside of the canister, out of sight, with a large amount of electrical tape. He whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I suppose the gesture seems sort of silly now or perhaps, to others, even meaningless,” Elwell says a decade later. “Medals and ribbons are merely pieces of metal and cloth. I couldn’t bring him back. I couldn’t make his family whole again. I left more behind that day than a simple medal — I left a part of me that will never be whole again too. I’m so sorry, Todd.”
Soldiers with Charlie Battery, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, fire an M-777 howitzer in southern Afghanistan Aug. 21, 2012. US Army photo by Lt. Col. Daniel F. Bohmer.
Alexander’s army left behind new cities and legends of blue-eyed progeny. The British left behind their garrisons and the Durand Line. And when we arrived, we found what the Soviets had left behind and put it to our use. We lived on their bases and used their runways and drove on the roads they’d built. We observed evidence of the Soviets’ defeat — the rusted tanks and trucks and picked-apart planes — and shook our heads in awful wonder at the fate of our former enemy.
Now we wonder whether another foreign army will one day commandeer our old bases and similarly shake their heads at all the things we left behind. If that ever happens, and it most likely will, then those other soldiers will surely find the words “Keavy Metal” scribbled in a few odd places across Afghanistan. That’s the nickname that Keavy Rake left behind. On walls, in bathrooms, on desks and doors and chairs and Hesco barriers. Every place she visited in Afghanistan, the Air Force officer used a Sharpie marker to tag her presence, no matter how impermanent it had been. Deep down, she knew America would leave one day. And when she imagined the Taliban, her enemies, taking over all the places she’d been, Rake wanted them to know she’d been there first.
“It was a flex on them — like, ‘I was here mothafuckas,’” she says later. “Afghanistan was ours while we were on the ground and in the air. We owned that space. I wanted people to know that. Right, wrong, or indifferent.”
Cpl. Quinton McCloud and Zamp, his military working dog, search the inside of a compound for signs of insurgency during Operation Grizzly IV July 29, 2013. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Bobby J. Yarbrough.
Afghanistan wasn’t called the “forever war” for nothing. For those of us who served, the war was a fixture of life as perennial as the holidays. We measured time by deployment cycles. We got used to war as a way of life, living in that constant no man’s land between coming and going, preparing and recuperating. A lot has changed since 2001, but the war in Afghanistan was always there, even when we did not go to it. And it was sometimes hard to go on living when we knew our war wasn’t over. At some point over the past 20 years, every American who served in Afghanistan has privately wondered, Have I done enough?
For many Americans the war became an abstraction that had little bearing on their day-to-day lives. And we sometimes wondered how life at home could go on so easily while the war was still there. For some of us, home started to feel a little like a foreign country, and fellow veterans were the only ones who spoke our language. The war was our shared experience. A tribal bond. And our tribe kept growing as the years advanced and we passed the baton down to younger and younger generations — including some soldiers who weren’t even alive on 9/11.
After a certain point, we didn’t know what victory was supposed to look like. But we knew one thing for sure: Outright defeat was never going to happen so long as Americans were there. Until that horrific attack on Aug. 26, 2021, that killed 13 Americans, we hadn’t lost a soldier in combat in a year and a half. And during the war’s waning years, only a shadow of the 100,000 of us who had once been in Afghanistan remained. Would a stalwart force of a few thousand American troops have been enough to avoid the disaster that struck Kabul on Aug. 15, the day the Taliban took over? We’ll never know.
Now we’re all home and our war is over, so what’s the thing to do? Do we mourn, get mad, or just quietly move on? It’s probably too soon to say. Best we can do for now is simply take a moment and remember what we left behind. We must remember, because when the towers fell, “never forget” became the mantra for which we marched to war.
Lance Cpl. Timothy Kinkade, a team leader with the Combined Action Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, jumps across a stream in Gowragi, Afghanistan, while on patrol during a clearing operation, Oct. 1, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
We left behind a lot of stuff in Afghanistan. Things with mass and volume that emitted smells and reflected colors — the inanimate detritus of America’s military-industrial might. Forklifts and trucks and aircraft and generators and gym equipment and more than 100,000 shipping containers. We left behind night-vision goggles and weapons and radios. We tore apart at least 850 MRAPs and turned them into scrap. We left behind nearly 200 million pounds of vehicles, equipment, and other gear — altogether worth billions of dollars. We left behind weapons and ammunition, too. Much of it belongs to the Taliban now.
When he departed Afghanistan for the last time seven years ago, Russell Worth Parker was dismayed by how much gear and equipment America had chosen to leave behind and go to waste. “What struck me most was watching the reduction of MRAPs,” says Parker, who was a Marine officer. “It was apparently more cost effective to destroy them than transport them home. There was a huge lot of them next to the flight line, and every time I flew somewhere their assemblage was reduced as they were processed through a huge shredder. It was like watching stop-motion photography.”
At the time, Parker was reading a book that described the logistics surge that had landed all that American stuff in Afghanistan in the first place. The subsequent waste he witnessed highlighted America’s listless aims in Afghanistan. “We just responded to moments for 20 years,” Parker says.
We left what we’d built: new roads, new schools, and new wells. We left barbed wire and Hesco barriers and plywood huts and fabric tents and stacked CONEX trailers. We left behind empty flagpoles and extinguished burn pits and fortress walls constructed from concrete barriers that we’d decorated with murals depicting our unit emblems and the twin towers.
Marines with Task Force Southwest fire a 120mm mortar in support of Operation Maiwand 11 at Camp Shorab in Jan. 28, 2018. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Conner Robbins.
We left what we’d brought: laptops and electric keyboards and guitars and video games and water bottles and MREs and Rip It energy drinks and packets of Met-Rx protein powder. We transported these things halfway around the planet to re-create in the war little slices of our American lives. Yet, when it was time to go, we left so many of those things behind. Why were they so easily discarded? Had they lost their value? Perhaps — but not for the Afghans who found them. Today a market exists outside of Bagram Airfield where merchants pawn our “leave-behinds.”
We left evidence of the violence we inflicted on our enemies. Over a combined 16 months in Afghanistan, F-15E pilot Matt Cisar left behind 5,000 pounds of tritonal high explosive. “But these are the things we tell ourselves and others to compartmentalize the experience,” Cisar says. “And I say this with humility knowing that we — aircrew — did not have the same existential encounters that many of our soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and coalition partners did.”
Years later, knowing he’d never go back to Afghanistan, Cisar left behind an empty whiskey glass on his dining room table. “Reading news of the US leaving Bagram and seeing friends’ reactions on social media got me thinking on a deeper level,” Cisar says. “A glass of whiskey helped.”
A CH-47 Chinook crew chief pulls security from the ramp of the helicopter while flying over Paktika province, Afghanistan, Dec. 18, 2009.
Chris Brownlee, an Army combat engineer, cherished his compass. It had a green aluminum body, a locking bezel, and a green lanyard. In the age of GPS, Brownlee took comfort in the compass’s simplicity. He even used it to relay enemy positions to within an accuracy of 10 meters for Navy F/A-18 warplanes.
“My compass let me know where I was and where my men were,” he says. “I used it in the worst firefight of my life.”
In the summer of 2012 in Ghazni, however, Brownlee says he lost his way.
“I picked up a pomegranate and tried to eat it while two dead men, the pomegranate owners, dangled from a tree,” he says. “I was looking for a sweet and tart snack and contemplating how little blood was coming off their bodies. None of us even checked to see if they were alive. They may have been.”
When Brownlee left Afghanistan, he lied about losing the compass and was charged $48 to replace it.
“I lost my moral compass in Afghanistan,” he says, “but at least I’ve still got the one I stole from the Army.”
A US Marine patrols through a corn field in Helmand province Sept. 18, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
Some things we brought to war we left as gifts. Sebastian Junger, a conflict journalist, left behind his jacket when he departed Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley during the fall of 2000 — about one year before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“I was with [Ahmad Shah Massoud’s] forces as they fought the Taliban,” Junger says. “It was very cold and I had a thick fleece jacket, vaguely military, that I wore a lot. Before I left, I gave it to a young Afghan guy who was helping us. We’d gone through a lot on that trip, and I was relieved to get out of there alive, and it felt good to give something away.”
On his first tour in Afghanistan in 2006, Mark Jacobson, a diplomat who served in the Army and Navy, left behind a University of Michigan baseball hat. He gave the hat to a child at an orphanage.
Phil Caruso, an Air Force intelligence officer, left behind a pair of woolen slippers that his sister had knitted for him to wear under his boots in winter. He left the slippers with an “extremely poor” Afghan man who had repeatedly crossed over the mountains from Pakistan to deliver intelligence reports to the Americans.
“During one of our meetings, I noticed he literally had holes in his shoes, which he somehow survived with in his travels,” Caruso says. “I took the slippers out of my boots and gave them to him to stay warm. I later tried to get him out of Afghanistan but failed to get the intelligence bureaucracy behind me to do so. I don’t know what happened to him.”
An Afghan security guard near Camp Morehead in Kabul’s Rishkhor área in December 2012. Photo by Karim Delgado.
When he left Afghanistan in 2009, Marine infantryman James LaPorta left his rigger’s belt behind with an Afghan interpreter. “In some ways, he looked like a child playing dress-up in his father’s clothes,” LaPorta says. “Nothing fit as it was supposed to, which is analogous to the war itself.”
For her Afghan friends, Keavy Rake left behind clothes — jackets, flannels, T-shirts, stuff like that. She left cameras and books and DVDs. Even jewelry and makeup. And selfies, too. She left behind a lot of selfies. “Many Afghans had their first experience with an American woman with me around and wanted pictures with me,” she explains. For one Afghan interpreter who’d become a friend, Rake left behind a bracelet and a headband. For another friend, a female Afghan soldier with a teenage son, Rake left a stack of clothes and shoes and bags and books and “really good” headphones and two care packages from America.
“I wish I could have left more,” Rake says. “I knew I’d leave and we’d all leave. Especially toward the end. These things we left behind, the rest of our generation will never know. The entirety of my adult existence is overshadowed by Afghanistan. I left behind parts of my soul, my heart, my friends. I think about it often — these things we left behind.”
Cpl. Mary Warren helps an Afghan boy with a letter-writing exercise during class at the Forward Operating Base Geronimo schoolhouse July 15, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
Army pilot Travis Clovis left behind some pieces of a helicopter he crashed — a refueling probe, composite rotor blades, and a lot of aluminum. But those were replaceable things. The friends he later lost to other accidents were not. “When I think about the war, I debate in my own head our impact and whether or not now is the time to leave,” Clovis says. “But mostly I think about Steve, Tom, Scooter, Howie, Randy, and J.B.”Yes, we left a lot of things in Afghanistan. But we left behind no missing Americans and no prisoners. And we did not leave our dead in cemeteries on foreign soil, as we did in other wars. We brought them all home, but we will never recover the unfinished arcs of their 2,461 interrupted lives. And we must also remember the more than 100,000 Afghans who died, soldiers and civilians alike. We fought this war together, and we will forever carry the names of all the lives we lost.
For Clayton Hutmacher, an Army pilot who commanded the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, four names are etched into his memory: Mark O’Steen, Tom Gibbons, Greg Frampton, and Danny Kisling. These Army special operations aviators died Jan. 30, 2003, after their helicopter crashed during an exercise on a range outside of Bagram Airfield. A special operations task force recovered the four bodies.
“It was windy and cold the next evening when we sent our fallen home to their families on board a C-17,” says Hutmacher. “I think of them often.”
A UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter from Task Force Heavy Cav flies over Afghanistan May 21, 2019. US Army photo by Sgt. Jordan Trent.
No matter when we served, at one point or another we all had to walk away from a war we’d not yet won and a country we came to care for but never really got to know.
Adrian Bonenberger, who was an Army Ranger officer, left behind a mystery during his second deployment to Afghanistan. Despite repeated entreaties to local Afghan officials, he was never allowed to enter a uniquely beautiful mosque within the town of Imam Sahib. Years later, he still wonders what he might have found inside.
“So the inside of that mosque, which many locals averred was especially beautiful and a place to which people would travel — perhaps a mosque of some antiquity and history — will be forever mysterious to me, a sign of that which I couldn’t access or accomplish while I was in Afghanistan,” Bonenberger says.
We left behind an unfinished job and an undefeated enemy. An abandoned embassy and all the ashes of our burnt documents. We did not leave behind the Stars and Stripes, but the Taliban’s flag now flies where ours once did. That hurts. But we have to learn to live with it.
Members of the Afghan National Army in September 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
We’ve all heard stories of American veterans from World War II coming to terms with their former German and Japanese foes. Even America’s Vietnam veterans have been able to achieve a separate peace with their old enemies. Why, then, does it seem so impossible to imagine a future when we, too, take our families on prepackaged tours of our old battlefields? Why, then, does it seem so absurd to consider a distant day when we shake a Taliban veteran’s hand and forgive him, and ask for his forgiveness, too? Why is our war so different from all the others?
Or are we just too close to it to understand how ordinary of a war it really was? Perhaps the older we get, the more we will want to forgive. Perhaps forgiving will be the only way to make sense of such senselessness. Or maybe not. Maybe this really is the “forever war.” Maybe we’re condemned to remember the war for how it really was, not how we wanted it to be.
After years of shifting strategies, our leaders now claim that “degrading” al Qaeda and killing Usama Bin Laden were always the end goals. They should have told us that 10 years ago and saved us a lot of trouble. Why did we leave behind so many lives and limbs to fight a war they now say was unnecessary? And why did we inspire the hopes of a nation, only to abandon it in the end?
We’ll never forget how awful it was to watch, from afar, as those desperate crowds gathered on the tarmac at Hamid Karzai International Airport. All those people who believed in the dream we promised them. Rather than face the Taliban’s retribution, some sought the slimmest chance of survival hanging from the landing gear of a C-17. They did not find it.
Evacuees board a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 21, 2021. US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Taylor Crul.
As I pen these words, we left behind tens of thousands of Afghan interpreters and local contractors and about 50,000 unapproved special immigrant visa applications — and all the shattered lives those numbers represent. We left behind the lines of civilians at Kabul’s ATMs as they tried to withdraw their life savings before the Taliban arrived. And the lines at the passport offices as thousands tried to round up the necessary documents to flee the country. Few succeeded. Many of the 250,000 Afghans who worked with the US over the years were left within the forsaken crowds, clutching the hand of a family member with their eyes suspended above the horizon to watch as an Air Force jet, their last hope, shrank into the distance.
We left behind some 39 million Afghan civilians with a median age of about 18 years and an average life expectancy of less than 66 years. We left behind an infant mortality rate that had reduced by half since 2001. We left behind 9 million Afghan students — including 3.5 million young women and girls. We left behind 210,000 teachers — one-third of whom are women. We left behind a literacy rate among women that climbed from 20% in 2005 to 39% in 2017. We left behind the awful chance that all this progress will soon be a rumor.
“I hope we did more good than bad,” says Molly Skovlund, an Army medic. “To see everything we fought for get lost to the Taliban so fast was very disappointing. It’s like everything all the veterans did and went through and everything we accomplished got pushed to the side and doesn’t matter anymore.”
Afghan girls watch as Lance Cpl. Karl Schmidt, squad automatic weapon gunner, guard force, Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, makes his way to set up a vehicle checkpoint near Forward Operating Base Geronimo May 30, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
While she was deployed to Kandahar from July 2019 to February 2020, Skovlund befriended a 9-year-old Afghan girl named Nasiki. Gunmen had stormed the girl’s home and killed her parents and shot her in the head. When Skovlund first met her, Nasiki could barely move half her body. She was also mortally afraid of her disfigured appearance — too ashamed to even look in the mirror.
Skovlund worked hard to gain Nasiki’s trust. She kept coming back, day after day until one day Nasiki took a leap of faith and decided to trust the American. The girl took Skovlund’s hand and began to draw a henna tattoo on it. If Skovlund moved her hand away, Nasiki pulled it back. The two became inseparable, and over time Nasiki’s body began to heal. Her young soul followed suit. One day, Nasiki gave Skovlund a plastic bracelet as a gift. From then on, Nasiki would pull up the sleeve on Skovlund’s camouflage blouse to make sure the bracelet was still there. It always was.
As Skovlund’s departure neared, she scoured the local bazaar for a farewell gift and found a dark blue moonstone prayer necklace, which sparkled a little bit in the right light. On her last afternoon in Afghanistan, Skovlund took Nasiki for a walk along the Kandahar boardwalk. She bought the girl a smoothie and then gave her the necklace. Nasiki’s eyes illuminated. She said, “Why are you giving this to me? I don’t deserve this.”
“You sure as hell do,” Skovlund replied.
Lance Cpl. Tom Morton, a team leader with 3rd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment hands an Afghan child a toy during a security patrol in Garmsir district Feb. 25, 2012. US Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Reece Lodder.
It was Skovlund’s habit to not be outside with Nasiki during the muezzin’s calls to prayer. Knowing that Nasiki took her prayers seriously, Skovlund worried about committing some irrecoverable cultural faux pas. So when that outing on the boardwalk overlapped with afternoon prayers, Skovlund felt a pang of anxiety — the last thing she wanted was to offend Nasiki on their last day together.
Then the girl took hold of Skovlund’s hand and led her to an out-of-the-way spot under an awning where they knelt together and prayed. Nasiki prayed slowly, clearly enunciating the words she sang so that Skovlund could follow. When the prayers were over, the two of them hugged. “She was so happy,” Skovlund says, adding: “It was really hard to leave her.”
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan a year and a half later, 22-year-old Skovlund felt a profound mix of anger and shock and disappointment. Above all, she worried about never seeing Nasiki again.
“I knew all the good I did wasn’t going to last long,” Skovlund says. “Now, seeing it all fall apart, I just feel like I lost a lot of people who meant the world to me.”
An Afghan boy nervously attempts to recite and complete the phrase, “My name is ___” during class at the Forward Operating Base Geronimo schoolhouse in Afghanistan July 8, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
We left behind faces, the memories of which will haunt us forever.
Elizabeth Dumbaugh, an Army explosive ordnance disposal officer, was riding in a US convoy when she noticed a girl beside the road. The girl stood alone in a mud-caked street between mud-brick walls and held one hand over her heart and waved at the passing Americans with the other. Instinctively understanding the moment was one to remember, Dumbaugh snapped a picture of the Afghan girl. One split-second instant, thereafter immortalized in some digital pixels. Dumbaugh still has the photo today, and she looks at it often. For a long time, the image symbolized the hopeful future for which she’d spent her youth fighting. Now it stands for something else.
“She waved at us as we passed,” Dumbaugh says, recalling the girl. “I felt a sense of humanity, then and now. Though it probably sounds a bit absurd, I felt a sense of leaving those people behind. I especially feel for the young girls whose lives and futures are and will be profoundly impacted by a Taliban-controlled government.”
My brother, Drew, remembers an imprisoned woman he encountered in the city of Bamiyan. She had been raped by a group of men and was in prison for having sex out of wedlock.
“I have no idea what happened to her, but deep down I know she is still sitting in a cell somewhere serving a punishment for a crime for which she was the victim,” says Drew, who was an Air Force officer. “The sadness of that situation still weighs on me. I still think about that woman from time to time. Sometimes her face will pop in my head when I am out having a drink with a friend or dinner with my fiancée. It makes me feel immense guilt and sadness for her and renders me unable to enjoy the wonderful moment I am in. It’s hard to square the cruelty that woman was and is still being subjected to, with the world I now live within. They seem like parallel universes, and I can’t make sense of how they can coexist.”
Chief Warrant Officer 2 James Law, the Jump Platoon commander and battalion gunner for 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, walks across a bridge in Nawa, Helmand province, Afghanistan, during a sandstorm Oct. 22, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
David Noblit left both legs, two fingers, a chunk of his arm, and part of his spirit in Sangin, Afghanistan. “I’m still pushing through and taking full advantage of this second chance that I have at life,” he says. “I am happy to just be here.”
On Oct. 21, 2010, Noblit, a Marine combat engineer who specialized in detecting improvised explosive devices, was clearing a compound in Sangin, the most fought-over piece of Afghan territory at the time, when he stepped on a pressure plate IED. The blast burst his eardrums — his ears still ring to this day.
“As I lay in a pool of my own blood calling for doc, I had so many emotions running through my head,” Noblit says. “I was pissed that they got me. I was sad because I felt like I let my brothers down. I was scared because I didn’t want to die. I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect in my future. Was I going to live? Was my wife going to stay with me even though I am the way I am now? Is my son still going to love me? Am I still going to be able to be a good father?”
When he came back from the war, Noblit was in a dark place. But with the unshakable support of his family, he fought through it, bit by bit. In the end, he found the answers to all those questions he’d asked himself in the roil and the torment of the moment immediately after the bomb exploded. Yes, his son, Cayden, still loved him. And yes, his wife, Amanda, stayed by his side. In fact, she was his “rock” through everything, he says.
Lance Cpl. Guillermo Gonzales, a squad automatic weapon gunner assigned to India Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, clears a compound during Operation Thresher in Trek Nawa, Afghanistan, July 23, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
A decade after losing his legs in Afghanistan, Noblit has found his separate peace. He once again fishes and hunts big game. He goes out for rides and “wind therapy” on his trike. He plays sled hockey for a team called the USA Warriors, and he coaches youth football. Noblit says if he could change what happened in Sangin, he wouldn’t. Of course, he wants his legs back. Of course, he wants to live a normal life again. But his greatest source of gratitude these days is to simply breathe and be present. To exist.
Like any soldier returned home from war, Noblit often thinks about what he left behind. However, he also gained an education, which no degree can ever match. You have to live this lesson to truly understand it. What David Noblit learned is that the things we leave behind do not always create permanent voids, forever reminding us of what we’ve lost. Sometimes, they create empty spaces where new versions of ourselves can take root. We thereafter evolve into people who could never have existed, if it weren’t for what the war took.
“Many people who have gone to war have left things behind. Some have left more than others, and if you have ever been on a combat deployment you know what I’m talking about,” Noblit says. “We have left behind weapons, gear, sweat, brothers, body parts, and blood. It’s hard for civilians to understand that when you go through something like that, we come back different.”
Service members say goodbye to 1st Lt. Scott J. Fleming during his memorial service at Patrol Base Jaker, Afghanistan, Sept. 25, 2010. Fleming died supporting combat operations Sept. 17, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
Scientists say that all the cells in our body regenerate every seven to 10 years. So, in a material sense, the people we were when the war began no longer exist. We’ve been reborn at least two, maybe even three times since then. We’ve also evolved in immaterial ways, leaving behind pieces of ourselves that possess no physical proof of their existence other than the words we use to describe them.
“I left behind my heart,” says Scott Buchanan, the director of Iraq and Afghanistan policy for the secretary of defense. “I’ll always hold a special place for the friends I’ve made among the Afghan people, and for the children.”
Jess Gonzalez says she left “some of her humanity” in Afghanistan. “I was a very impressionable 21-year-old when I got there and thought that I was going to make a difference,” says the former Marine. “A year in Afghanistan and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears later I realized how naive I was to think that I could actually make a difference. It was like this huge slap in the face about how insignificant I was in the big scheme of things.”
Among the immaterial, we may include the irrecoverable years of our youths, as well as our uniquely American innocence — that steadfast belief in history’s tendency to arc in the right direction. “I left the naivety of knowing a world without war,” says Matt Cisar, the F-15E pilot.
“We learn of war as children, we study war as cadets, and we prepare for war as officers,” Cisar says. “But it was not until flying overhead, spending countless hours watching innocent people — Afghan men, women, and children — live their lives, then seeing that world turn upside down in an instant as a convoy drives by and an explosion goes off. Seeing families run for cover, seeing parents care for their children, seeing troops care for their injured comrades, and, in some very sad cases, seeing civilians turn to combatants in a moment’s time. These are memories that I unfortunately will never fully leave behind. Instead, I surrendered the blind innocence that we as Americans take for granted and am left with a deep sense of responsibility to ensure that my children grow up in a world free of the existential fear that Afghans have endured for generations.”
A US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle returns to the fight after receiving fuel from a KC-135R Stratotanker over Afghanistan May 28, 2008. US Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Andy Dunaway.
We left behind uncountable moments during which we wanted to be home. We left behind intervals of time that had lost all meaning. Seconds that lasted minutes. Minutes that lasted hours. Months that now occupy more memory space than all the other years we’ve so far lived.
“Ever since I came home, there is a void I feel inside that I know will never go away,” says my brother, Drew. “The last time I felt truly whole was when I left Afghanistan for the last time. I distinctly remember standing on the steps leading up to the aircraft I was commanding for the last time. We were about to embark on our return journey back to the US. I remember seeing the dull lights of Bagram Airfield wavering behind a curtain of dust. I remember looking out and telling myself this is the last time I will be important. This is the last time you will have meaning. This is the last time your life is an adventure. I felt a tremendous amount of guilt that I was placing my own personal desires of having a corporate career, a steady lifestyle, the promise of making money, above the one version of myself I felt actually mattered. I knew as soon as the door shut and our wheels lifted off, I left the best version of me in Afghanistan.”
The war was often ugly. But not always.
Cpl. Mark Hickok, a 23-year-old combat engineer from North Olmstead, Ohio, patrols through a field during a clearing mission in April 2011. US Marine Corps photo by Cpl. John M. McCall.
We remember the Hindu Kush mountains that looked purple in the distance and we caught ourselves wondering whether Alexander or Kipling or some Soviet grunt had ever seen these same mountains and similarly admired the natural beauty of a land so often soaked in blood. “I was always astonished by the beauty of the country and found myself wondering what it would be like in Afghanistan if it wasn’t for the history of turmoil,” says Justin Mastrangelo, an Air Force special operations pilot. “So much beauty the world isn’t able to experience.”
“It’s a beautiful country and I met a lot of wonderful Afghan people,” says Gonzalez, the former Marine. “I hope one day to return as a guest.”
In Afghanistan we experienced a spectrum of emotions that far exceeded what civilian life has to offer. Back home, therefore, we lived shallowly, only skipping across the surface of life, never returning to the highs or lows of what we felt in war. Normal life, whatever that is, sometimes seemed silly and pointless. A gray rerun that could leave us feeling hollow. Even in times of comfort, we often found ourselves missing the hardships of deployments. The tough times at least made us feel something. And that’s what we miss the most — feeling truly alive.
But what we miss about the war isn’t nostalgia. Nostalgia implies that we only remember the good parts of a memory, and ignore the awful remainder. And we will never forget the awful parts of war. The war will always be there within us, and in times of personal peace we sometimes feel the phantom presence of the things we left behind.
Afghan day laborers and Cpl. William C. Kaylor of Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, watch an MV-22 Osprey land at Forward Operating Base Geronimo, Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 14, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
At home after serving in Afghanistan, Air Force officer Lauren Johnson could still feel the weight of her M4 carbine rifle and M9 pistol. She missed the feeling of safety from the pistol’s pressure against her thigh, the “comfort of sameness” in the sturdy, steadying grip.
“A purse strap felt inane across my chest where my rifle’s sling should be,” she says. “My guns brought comfort in a place marked by chaos, fear, and frustration. When everything familiar seemed to slip between my fingers, the guns remained solid and stable. The left behind guns represent a moment in time in the life of Lauren — a version of myself I will never be again — somewhere between a girl and a woman, desperately clinging to optimism and naivety, a good, dutiful soldier. Something I resented, yet yearn for now that it’s gone.”
We left behind a way of life with its unique customs and quirks. Like the two signs that F-15E aircrew at Bagram slapped for good luck each time they headed out the door to their awaiting warplanes. One sign read: “Taliban Alley — 2 Miles,” an homage to the famous “MiG Alley” sign from the Korean War. The other sign was a reminder. It stated: “The Mission is an 18-Year-Old with a Rifle. All else is support.”
A KC-135 Stratotanker connects with a Belgian F-16 Fighting Falcon during aerial refueling over Afghanistan Aug. 18, 2011. US Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen.
Like museum pieces, artifacts from the F-15E “Strike Ops” building at Bagram are now preserved at the officers’ club at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. There was a special spot, however, that had to be left behind, a corrugated steel fire pit where the aircrew smoked cigars and debriefed after combat sorties. It was “a place to decompress around a fire, like warriors have done for centuries,” says Jeremiah Carlson, an F-15E weapons system operator.
Just a few days after he arrived in Afghanistan on his first deployment, Carlson stood on the tarmac at Bagram and watched as soldiers loaded a flag-draped coffin onto an awaiting transport plane. A joint terminal attack controller named Brad Smith had been killed by an IED. His remains were on their way home. Carlson had dedicated his youth to training for war — and now he understood why.
“We all had grim faces walking back, but a determination to not let that happen again, to do whatever we could to support those guys on the ground,” he says. “No matter what. Every last drop of gas, every bomb, every bullet.”
Pallbearers carry the casket of a US service member killed in action Aug. 26 during operations at Hamid Karzai International Airport. US Marine Corps photo by 1st Lt. Mark Andries.
We left behind the things we shared. A street named “Disney,” a base nicknamed “Rocket City,” a port-a-john named “Blue Rocket,” and a tough-as-nails Toyota Hilux named “Haulin’ Ass.” Ian Teegarden, an Air Force special operations pilot, left behind his unit’s “Morale Tactical Operations Center.” The plywood-walled hut was where the pilots — who went by the call sign “Draco” in combat — would gather during downtime between missions. It was common ground, a town square, a place where the war-worn veterans would mingle on equal terms with the “fucking new guys.”
“Generations of Dracos sat in that same plywood hut, watching the same stupid movies and playing the latest Call of Duty together,” Teegarden says. “It was the place where we all bonded together. And despite the constant rotation of faces and personalities, it remained a happy spot in a desensitizing experience. Many times, especially in the early days, it felt more like home than being back in the states did.”
Acceptance into that hut, where stories of combat missions were traded as casually as sports scores, marked a symbolic milestone in any young pilot’s career. To take a seat in that Spartan room and get the silent nod of respect from a pilot who was on her fifth, sixth, or seventh deployment meant you were a part of the tribe. A part of history. A member of the American generation that went to war in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. It took a lot to get into that hut — university or the academy and then pilot training and then survival training and then, at last, qualification in your airframe. And during all those years you often wondered if you were good enough to fly in combat and guard the lives of Americans and decide the fate of our enemies. All those questions. And now you had your answer. You had your seat in the hut.
“That plywood hut was the one thing I always wished we could bring home but never could,” Teegarden says.
Capt. Jonathan Lewenthal and Capt. Eric Scheibe, AV-8B Harrier pilots with Marine Attack Squadron 231, Marine Aircraft Group 14, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, fly over southern Helmand province, Afghanistan after conducting an aerial refuel Dec. 6, 2012. US Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Gregory Moore.
I’ll never forget my first arrival in Afghanistan. An Army chaplain recited the poem “Invictus” as the C-17 cargo plane spiraled to a blacked-out landing at Bagram. He intoned, “Out of the night that covers me, / Black as the pit from pole to pole, / I thank whatever gods may be / For my unconquerable soul. …”
On a commercial flight into Kabul a few years later, I drank a Diet Coke and snacked on a protein bar as we flew over mountains I recognized from combat missions. This time, no chaplain recited poetry as we landed. Rather, the flight attendant instructed me to fold up my tray table. It’s a bit jarring to return as a witness to a war in which you once fought. Most wars don’t last long enough for that to happen; ours certainly did.
While I was in Afghanistan as a journalist in 2013, I spent a day at Bagram with my brother, Drew, who was deployed at the time as part of a mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. That night we sat together by the runway and smoked cigars and watched fighter jets take off. The afterburners glowed purple in the night and the engines snarled and the bombs showed on the wing pylons. The word “epic” got tossed around a lot that night. There was also something strangely terrifying about the experience.
Together with Drew, my brain suddenly understood that this was no waking dream. It dawned on me at last — I could actually die here. For the rest of that trip to Afghanistan I had this constant, chilling feeling that everything I was doing, I might be doing for the last time. If you’ve ever been to war, then you probably understand what I mean.
Senior Airman Noah Lindquist, a 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron loadmaster, tests his night vision goggles in the back of a C-130J Super Hercules at Bagram Airfield before a sortie Feb. 22, 2016. US Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Robert Cloys.
I parted ways with Drew and left by helicopter for a tour of several forward operating bases. Places like FOB Shank in Logar province, which US soldiers jokingly referred to as “Rocket City” due to the frequency of Taliban attacks. The name fit; the place was under nearly constant siege by indirect fire. During one particularly close call, I was standing outside enjoying an energy drink when a Taliban rocket loaded with a white phosphorus warhead exploded almost directly over my head. The base’s Phalanx gun had shot it out of the sky, and the resulting spray of shrapnel had showered down around me. It was a miracle I wasn’t hurt, or worse.
However, reality didn’t sink in until I returned to my bunk that night. Inside, I’d left a lot of things strewn about — a laptop, a half-finished letter, some protein bars, a book dog-eared to the last page I’d read. I saw these things and understood them as the “leave-behinds” of my existence. That’s when it hit me — I should have died today. What if I had been standing just a little to the left or to the right? What if I had left lunch five minutes earlier? What if, what if, what if …
That’s what war does, you know. It reminds you that life doesn’t last forever. “One day,” we so often say when talking about the things we want to do or the words we want to say. War teaches you that you don’t have an infinite amount of “one days” left. You understand that everything you do in a war zone you might be doing for the last time, so you think hard about the things you’ll leave behind. You finish that letter to your dad. You order your mom flowers. You recommit to a lover. You apologize to those whom you’ve wronged. You resolve to be a better person and to not waste the second chance you’ve been gifted.
A Marine with Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1 pets a dog in a compound during a clearing operation in southern Marjah, Afghanistan, Dec. 2, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Shawn P. Coover.
In March 2010, Mark Zambon was on his fifth deployment when a Taliban bomb blew off part of his left hand. The distal joints on his thumb, index, and middle finger were all gone. After he was evacuated, Zambon’s fellow Marines took the separated pieces of his digits and tossed them in a fire. They held a sort of battlefield vigil for the small pieces of their friend’s body that had died that day.
No one expected Zambon to return to war, but while he was home in California recuperating his wounded hand during the summer of 2010, Taliban IEDs continued to exact a heavy toll on Marines in Helmand province. As one of the best EOD technicians in the Marine Corps, Zambon knew he could save lives if he went back. So the 25-year-old Marine volunteered for his sixth combat deployment.
On a cold winter day in January 2011, Zambon retired to the basement of an Afghan building in Sangin, took off his boots, and sat cross-legged on the floor. At the time, the Marines were weathering 10 or 11 IED attacks a day and taking a lot of casualties. Nevertheless, Zambon found a moment of peace in the quiet stillness of that basement with his legs folded in front of him. Massaging his feet through his cotton socks, he felt an overwhelming amount of gratitude for his feet and his legs.
“I think it was a premonition,” he says.
A few days later, Zambon’s three-man EOD team was on patrol in a village near Sangin when an Afghan woman appeared on the side of the road and began to yell something in Dari. The Marines didn’t have an interpreter with them that day — Jan. 11, 2011 — so no one understood the woman as she warned that her 15-year-old son had buried an IED in the path they were about to cross. Then Zambon’s world went black. When he came to, his eyes were shut. He thought: Was that a bomb? Did I just get blown up?
Cpl. Daniel Hopping, an assaultman with Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, shields himself from dust being kicked up from a CH-53E Super Sea Stallion lifting off during a mission in Helmand province, Afghanistan, April 28, 2014. US Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Joseph Scanlan.
A fire team leader’s voice on the radio asked if everyone was all right. Another voice, that of his squad leader, said: “Don’t step there, it hasn’t been swept yet.”
Zambon felt hands on his body. The hands of his friends. The hands picked him up and put him in the back bed of an Afghan National Police Ford Ranger. They sped away, passing through the Sangin bazaar. They went so fast the truck caught air and Zambon’s body banged against the metal bed. He was conscious the whole time. As the truck bounced along the potholed road, Zambon asked his assistant team leader, “Hey Dan, are my legs gone?”
“Yeah,” Dan said.
Well, that’s that, he thought.
Inside the American base’s shock trauma platoon tent, a doctor used a spring-loaded, multineedle device to stamp ketamine into Zambon’s sternum. Before the drug took hold, he had time to say one last thing to Dan: “You’ve got the team. Be safe, bro.” And then he was gone.
An American service member in Afghanistan Oct. 14, 2010. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga.
More than a decade later, Zambon recalls these events without a touch of self-pity. “It was nothing more than a work-related injury, just a hazard of the job,” he says matter-of-factly over speakerphone while driving his Ford F-150 around Sacramento, California. He offhandedly jokes that his legs probably became a “lucky snack” for a few Afghan hounds. He muses about the possibility of a patch of “epic” Afghan pomegranates or grapes growing somewhere near Sangin, nourished by the power of all that “upper-peninsula-of-Michigan-born blood” he left behind.
Zambon does not mourn what he’s lost. He celebrates the life he’s gained. After losing his legs, he returned to active-duty service for a while and taught a new generation of Marine EOD technicians. Later, he worked on Capitol Hill as an advocate for veterans rights. He’s now married to a woman named Marta, and they’re building a future together; she’s pursuing a Ph.D. in psychology and he’s studying to become a lawyer.
“There were absolutely dark times — losing my legs was a similar grieving process to losing a friend,” Zambon says. “There are stages of grief, and you can’t cut corners. I had to honor that process. It’s how the emotional body excises a wound, like the physical body excises a splinter.”
The turning point of Mark Zambon’s recovery was on July 5, 2012, when he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. At the summit, Zambon cut into the volcanic soil with his EOD digging knife. The knife, which he’d once used to bury bombs, had last touched the earth in Afghanistan. He dug deep, as he’d been trained to do, and at the bottom of the hole he laid the dog tags of two friends who’d died in battle.
“Cutting into the summit of that volcano crater was really special for me,” Zambon says. “It was a way to celebrate my buddies, Mike and Josh. To remember our bond, our friendship, our love. I wanted to suffer for them, and to do it happily, lovingly.”
Cpl. Chan Lathung, a crew chief with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 362, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, scans for insurgent activity during a general support flight over Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 26, 2012. US Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Isaac Lamberth.
After burying the dog tags for good, he did a handstand.
A Vietnam veteran once told Zambon that people die twice. Once, when they leave their bodies. Again, when their names are mentioned no more. Well, Zambon had carried his friends’ names to the summit of Kilimanjaro and now they were a part of the mountain. A part of the earth. Forever.
His task completed, Zambon took a moment to admire the view. The rising sun and the full moon showed low on the horizon at the other end of the sky. In the first of the sun the mountain cast a far-reaching shadow across the open plains below. The world looked very beautiful from where he stood.
“Looking out at the expanse of Africa, I saw that all in life has its season, its finite start and end; that the season of injury had been completed and the season of conquering the injury had begun,” he says. “I saw the value in taking a step back from daily hardship to see the bigger picture, to recognize life as it goes by and even in the space of hardship to relish being alive.”
Mark Zambon took a first step, that one upon which all others depend, and began the long journey home.
This article first appeared in the Fall 2021 edition of Coffee or Die’s print magazine as “What We Left Behind.”
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coffeeordie.com · by Nolan Peterson · December 19, 2021


20. US ‘closer to civil war’ than most would like to believe, new book says

We are going to be reading a lot of these stories especially as the insurrection date of January 6th nears.

US ‘closer to civil war’ than most would like to believe, new book says
Academic and member of CIA advisory panel says analysis applied to other countries shows US has ‘entered very dangerous territory’
The Guardian · by Martin Pengelly · December 20, 2021
The US is “closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe”, a member of a key CIA advisory panel has said.
The analysis by Barbara F Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego who sits on the Political Instability Task Force, is contained in a book due out next year and first reported by the Washington Post.
It comes amid growing concern about jagged political divisions deepened by former president Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 election.
Trump’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was caused by mass electoral fraud stoked the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, over which Trump was impeached and acquitted a second time, leaving him free to run for office again.
The “big lie” is also fueling moves among Republicans to restrict voting by groups that lean Democratic and to make it easier to overturn election results.
Such moves remain without counter from Democrats seeking a federal response but stymied by the filibuster, the Senate rule that demands supermajorities for most legislation.
In addition, though Republican presidential nominees have won the popular vote only once since 1988, the GOP has by playing political hardball stocked the supreme court with conservatives, who outnumber liberals 6-3.
All such factors and more – including a pandemic which has stoked resistance to government – have contributed to the divide Walter has studied.
Last month, she tweeted: “The CIA actually has a taskforce designed to try to predict where and when political instability and conflict is likely to break out around the world. It’s just not legally allowed to look at the US. That means we are blind to the risk factors that are rapidly emerging here.”
The book in which Walter looks at those risk factors in the US, How Civil Wars Start, will be published in January. According to the Post, Walter writes: “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war.
But “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America – the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or Ivory Coast or Venezuela – you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely”.
“And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”
Walter, the Post said, concludes that the US has passed through stages of “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” and may now be in “open conflict”, beginning with the Capitol riot.
Citing analytics used by the Center for Systemic Peace, Walter also says the US has become an “anocracy” – “somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state”.
The US has fought a civil war, from 1861 to 1865 and against states which seceded in an attempt to maintain slavery.
Estimates of the death toll vary. The American Battlefield Trust puts it at 620,000 and says: “Taken as a percentage of today’s population, the toll would have risen as high as 6 million souls.”
On Sunday, Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton adviser turned biographer of Abraham Lincoln and Guardian contributor, said: “The secessionists in 1861 accepted Lincoln’s election as fair and legitimate.”
The current situation, he said, “is the opposite. Trump’s questioning of the election, which was at first rejected by Republican leaders after the attack on the Capitol, has led to a crisis a genuine crisis of legitimacy.”
With Republicans’ hold on the levers of power while in the electoral minority a contributing factor, Blumenthal said, “This crisis metastasises, throughout the system over time, so that it’s possible any close election will be claimed to be false and fraudulent.”
Blumenthal said he did not expect the US to pitch into outright civil war, “section against section” and involving the fielding of armies.
If rightwing militia groups were to seek to mimic the secessionists of the 1860s and attempt to “seize federal forts and offices by force”, he said, “I think you’d have quite a confidence it would be over very, very quickly [given] a very strong and firm sense at the top of the US military of its constitutional, non-political role.
“… But given the proliferation of guns, there could be any number of seemingly random acts of violence that come from these organised militias, which are really vigilantes and with partisan agendas, and we haven’t entered that phase.
“The real nightmare would be that kind of low-intensity conflict.”

Members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group, on the East Front of the US Capitol on 6 January. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Among academics, Walter is not alone in diagnosing severe problems with US democracy. In November, the International IDEA thinktank, based in Sweden, added the US to a list of “backsliding” democracies, thanks to a “visible deterioration” it dated to 2019.
It also identified “a historic turning point … in 2020-21 when former president Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results”.
Polling has revealed similar worries – and warnings. In November, the Public Religion Research Institute asked voters if they agreed with a statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
The poll found that 18% of respondents agreed. Among Republicans, however, the figure was 30%.
On Twitter, Walter thanked the Post for covering her book. She also said: “I wish I had better news for the world but I couldn’t stay silent knowing what I know.”
The Guardian · by Martin Pengelly · December 20, 2021


21. Russia, Europe, and Great Power Politics Gets Real

Excerpts:
America hasn’t caught up to that mood shift just yet but is beginning to feel it. The honeymoon period a Democratic U.S. president gets in Europe, the applause and the relief, wasn’t just cut short – it barely happened. While we attended conferences and issued joint communiques about Pivots and grand strategy, the starting gun of the new era went off.
The U.S. and its allies have chosen this state of affairs, and are forced into increasing dissonance as they maintain via statement and sanction an order that will be tested by sabotage and subversion. As Putin marches his troops and poses on the border of Ukraine, the world takes a deep breath as the era of major state-to-state conflict reemerges. Whether or not he moves to expand his holdings, likely as an imperial outpost versus a recreated union, that it’s now an option on the table tells us much about what the next years may hold. The grievances of the non-Western powers may be exorcized by the decade’s end.


Russia, Europe, and Great Power Politics Gets Real
19fortyfive.com · by ByJason Killmeyer · December 17, 2021
In American movies set in Europe in the 1970s, it’s usually grey outside. The clothing is drab, almost sepia-toned, the kind popular then. Bohemians wear black, the rest rust orange or similarly shaded. Political tension permeates as cosmopolitans mix, and affiliations range from Marxist to ultranationalist to anti-colonialist.
The Munich Olympic massacre and the oil shock of 1973 changed the mood in Europe. Assassinations, attempted and successful, followed increasingly in the wake of Munich. The 1970s saw a dramatic increase in terrorist attacks, mostly bombings, as a range of conflicts and passions made themselves felt in the continent’s cities.
Europe is not experiencing that type of violence now, nor even the atmosphere of vulnerability to Islamist terror that arose in the middle part of each of the past two decades. But a pall settles in, nonetheless. It accumulates over time as Russia poisons regime opponents in Salisbury and shoots them in Berlin. It thickens as a plane is shot down, as the tea of a defector is poisoned, as borders shift, and acts of what we used to call hacking look more and more like state-directed sabotage and subversion.
That’s the environment U.S. personnel now operate in throughout Europe. One in which those deployed to once-friendly confines are deciding it may be safer to leave their families at home. Assassinations are back on the table, as is the risk of border skirmishes and much worse. And from Vienna, to Tbilisi, to Berlin, that same U.S. personnel critical to diplomatic channels are now subject to a series of what may turn out to be directed energy attacks from a foreign adversary.
As Putin masses on the border, the Biden administration is plainly unprepared for this moment, as is most of Washington. This is not the post-Middle East occupation era they wanted, one in which cleaner great power competition and multilateralism presented well-worn pathways for policy. Instead, troop buildups, and Black Sea patrols, and an independent NATO capability make clear that hard power is increasingly relevant. And it’s exercised in increasingly unique ways.
As one recent commentator said, the wires are fraying. And as wires fray, it’s the sensitive and dangerous parts that are exposed underneath the coating. That’s where we stand as the presuppositions and rhetoric that rested on top of hard power alliances are exposed. They are exposed because the hard power underpinning those niceties is no longer guaranteed, the shape of the alliances in doubt, and the beginnings of new blocs might just be barely visible in the distance.
America hasn’t caught up to that mood shift just yet but is beginning to feel it. The honeymoon period a Democratic U.S. president gets in Europe, the applause and the relief, wasn’t just cut short – it barely happened. While we attended conferences and issued joint communiques about Pivots and grand strategy, the starting gun of the new era went off.
The U.S. and its allies have chosen this state of affairs, and are forced into increasing dissonance as they maintain via statement and sanction an order that will be tested by sabotage and subversion. As Putin marches his troops and poses on the border of Ukraine, the world takes a deep breath as the era of major state-to-state conflict reemerges. Whether or not he moves to expand his holdings, likely as an imperial outpost versus a recreated union, that it’s now an option on the table tells us much about what the next years may hold. The grievances of the non-Western powers may be exorcized by the decade’s end.
Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Jason Killmeyer is a counterterrorism and foreign policy expert specializing in emerging technology applications. For more than ten years, Jason worked in national security, including as Chief of Staff of Global Defense, Security & Justice at Deloitte Consulting LLP. Jason has a Master’s in Middle Eastern Studies with an M.A. thesis on post-invasion Iraqi politics.
19fortyfive.com · by ByJason Killmeyer · December 17, 2021

22.  The Flying Tigers: How a group of Americans ended up fighting for China in WW II

Some interesting history with which we should all be familiar.

As an aside indgeeonus support is critical to almost everything we do overseas.

Flying Tigers historians are quick to point out how essential ordinary Chinese people were to the mission. Those who paved runways did so as volunteers, Tam says, "to help the American fighters because they were fighting for China, fighting for freedom."
Chinese villagers also suffered immensely to help when pilots were shot down. "The Japanese would go into these villages and they would torture and mutilate and kill the villagers in an attempt to find out where the Flying Tigers were. And in most instances, the villagers would not tell them," Jobe says. "They would suffer the consequences."
"I think, really, the remembrance and the respect for the Flying Tigers was really genuine in China," Tam says.
"The people of the United States volunteered to help China. They put their lives at risk to save the Chinese," he adds, leading many Chinese to think of those Americans as "always friends of China."

The Flying Tigers: How a group of Americans ended up fighting for China in WW II
NPR · by James Doubek · December 19, 2021

Pilots from the American Volunteer Group sit in front of a P-40 airplane in Kunming, China, on March 27, 1942. The group was notable for its unusual mission: Its members were mercenaries hired by China to fight against Japan. AP
Eighty years ago this week, a small group of American aviators fought in their first battle in World War II.
Their mission was unusual: They were mercenaries hired by China to fight against Japan.
They were called the American Volunteer Group and later became known as the Flying Tigers. Though only in combat for less than seven months, the group became famous at the time for its ability to inflict outsize damage on Japan's better-equipped and larger aircraft fleet.
Their victories came when Japan seemed unstoppable. "The AVG was a bright spot in history when everything was bleak and black, and they have received a lot of recognition for that," says Larry Jobe, president of the Flying Tiger Historical Organization.
On the 80th anniversary of their first combat, here's an abbreviated history of how Americans ended up fighting for China.
The Sino-Japanese war

Japanese troops rush in to attack Chinese soldiers at Changsha in 1939. In 1941, Japan was on the offensive in its war against China. Keystone/Getty Images
In the West, 1939 is considered the start of World War II. But in Asia, China and Japan had been at war since 1937.
China was already fighting its own civil war between the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek and Communist forces. The two sides came to a truce to fight against the Japanese. China, however, had little air power to fend off Japanese bombings.

Enter Claire Lee Chennault, a U.S. Army aviator, instructor and tactician, once described by Time magazine as "lean, hard-bitten, taciturn." Health problems and disputes with his superiors pushed him into retirement from his position with the Army Air Corps in 1937, at age 43.
But he quickly got a lucrative job offer with the Chinese Air Force, which was operating under Chiang's Nationalist government. Chennault was asked to come survey the readiness of its fleet.
"Chiang Kai-shek thought he had 500 airplanes," says Nell Chennault Calloway, who is Chennault's granddaughter and CEO of the Chennault Aviation & Military Museum in Monroe, La. "Chennault said, 'You have 500, but you only have 91 that fly.' That's how far behind they were in aviation."
Once the war with Japan officially broke out that summer, China hired Chennault as an adviser to its air force. He became its de facto commander.

Claire Lee Chennault first went to China to survey the Chinese Air Force's readiness, and stayed on to lead the creation of the American Volunteer Group. Fox Photos/Getty Images
By 1940, after losing backing from the Soviets, China desperately needed more planes. At the time, the U.S. was not officially part of World War II. But President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was concerned about the prospect of Japan defeating China and turning its sights on the U.S.
Chennault traveled back to the U.S., pulling what strings he could to get planes. With the help of T.V. Soong, a Chinese official who was also Chiang's brother-in-law, a deal was worked out to allow China to buy 100 American-made Curtiss P-40 fighter planes.
As for who would fly and maintain them, many of the pilots in China's existing air force were poorly trained. So Chennault sent recruiters to U.S. military bases.
"He managed to get Roosevelt to allow some of our military pilots — that was the original AVG — to resign their commissions in the U.S. military and go to China as mercenaries, basically, because it was against the international rules for any American military person to be involved in the conflict over there," Jobe tells NPR.
This was mid-1941 — before Pearl Harbor and before the U.S. declared war on Japan.
"By using Chinese funds to buy the aircraft and supplies and pay the salaries of the proposed crews, the U.S. government could retain a façade of neutrality, while helping China against the Japanese," the Department of Defense's history of the Flying Tigers explained.
To make recruitment easier, pilots and mechanics were offered pay that was often more than double what they were making before.
So in summer and fall of 1941, 99 pilots — 59 from the Navy, seven Marines, and 33 from the Army — traveled to Asia, along with about 200 support crew, according to the DOD's history. About a dozen of them were Chinese Americans, says Yue-him Tam, a Macalester College history professor who studies China and Japan.
Those who traveled had various motivations — a change of scenery or a chance to show their skills in combat. Calloway thinks many stayed to help with the "desperate situation" in China. Some came for the money.
Pilot Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, who would go on to receive the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross, told Aviation History Magazine in the 1980s: "I resigned my commission and accepted the job with the AVG in September 1941, since rank was slow in coming and I needed the money. ... And with an ex-wife, three kids, debts and my lifestyle, I really needed the work."
Burma was central to keeping China supplied

Chinese laborers working to repair the Burma Road in southwest China, circa 1944. During World War II, this long windy road from Burma through the mountains was essential to keeping China supplied. U.S. Army Signal Corps/Library of Congress
The AVG's base was in Kunming in southwestern China, far from areas under Japanese occupation.
There was a hitch to being there, however — no runways to land planes.
So thousands of Chinese built them by hand. "The Chinese people — the peasants, the working class people in particular, also — volunteered to help to build those runways and airports and also provide services to the American pilots," Tam tells NPR. "They didn't have any tools, modern tools. They used their bare hands, actually, to build those runways."
Meanwhile, the Americans did some training at a British airfield in Burma, the country now called Myanmar.
Their early training was not particularly successful. The pilots had far less experience than Chennault had wanted. Three pilots died and planes and equipment were damaged in various accidents.

Members of the American Volunteer Group flew Curtiss P-40 planes, pictured. By performing certain maneuvers, they were able to exploit some weaknesses in the Japanese aircraft. Three Lions/Getty Images
It wasn't long before they had to put their training to use. The Flying Tigers' first combat came on Dec. 20, 1941 — 13 days after Pearl Harbor and 12 days after the U.S. declared war on Japan. Japanese bombers attacked the AVG base at Kunming.
The AVG "shot down nine of 10 Japanese bombers. So they were the first Americans actually to have a victory in World War II," Calloway says. Their only loss was one AVG plane that the pilot crash-landed after running out of gas; he was uninjured, according to the DOD's history.
In the following days, the focus of their combat quickly shifted to near Rangoon, Burma. Burma was a British colony at the time and the AVG would assist the British air force in defending Rangoon against Japanese attacks.
Burma was of vital importance to China's war efforts. Japan had sealed off China's coast from supply lines, so China depended on supplies coming in from the port of Rangoon over the mountainous Burma Road to Kunming.
The planes of the AVG, the Curtiss P-40, were not as good as those of the Japanese. But by performing certain maneuvers as outlined by Chennault — namely, high-speed diving and climbing — the AVG pilots were able to exploit some weaknesses in the Japanese aircraft.
"Although, the A.V.G. was blooded over China, it was the air battles over Rangoon that stamped the hallmark on its fame as the Flying Tigers," Chennault later wrote in his memoir Way of a Fighter, as quoted by the AVG Flying Tigers' official website.

Pak On Lee of Portland, Ore., George Lum of New York City, and Kee Jeung Pon of New York City were among the Chinese American mechanics who served in the AVG. Here they are pictured in Kunming, China, in November 1942 working on a Curtiss P-40 of the 23d Fighter Group, which evolved from the AVG. Department of Defense, Department of the Air Force/National Archives
Fighting continued through January and February 1942 in Burma and Japanese-controlled Thailand.
"They are credited with shooting down 299 Japanese airplanes confirmed, about that many unconfirmed, and only lost 12 of their own in actual combat, which is a record that's never been broken to this day," Calloway says.
The Japanese forces, however, outnumbered and overpowered the AVG and the British. Rangoon fell in March 1942. But their efforts slowed down the Japanese advance, kept supply lines open and helped China continue to fight.
The AVG was integrated into the U.S. military

Pilots of the Flying Tigers run for their Curtiss P-40 fighters as an air raid warning sounds at an unknown airbase in China on Nov. 2, 1943. The AVG was integrated into the U.S. military in 1942 as part of the 23d Fighter Group, which continued to use the name Flying Tigers. AP
By this point, the U.S. was formally at war with Japan and there was no need for pretense. U.S. military leaders pushed for the AVG to be absorbed into the U.S. Army Air Forces. Chennault rejoined the Army in April 1942.
The AVG continued to fly missions into the spring and summer, including stopping a Japanese advance over a crucial river gorge in May, after which Japan "never again threatened" China from the west, the DOD history notes.
On July 4, 1942, the AVG was officially integrated into the new 23d Fighter Group. A handful of pilots and support crew stayed on, but most of the men from the original AVG rejoined their previous branch of the military. Others became civilian transport pilots in China or went back to the U.S. to work as civilians.
Chennault was promoted to brigadier general and led the China Air Task Force, which included the 23d and other units, before assuming command of the 14th Air Force in China in March 1943. He stayed in China for the rest of the war, before retiring from the military (again) in 1945.
An 80-year legacy

A visitor walks past the images and old uniforms of the Flying Tigers at the Anti-Japanese War Museum in Dayi county in China's Sichuan province in 2005. Museums and memorials in China and the U.S. remember the AVG. Liu Jin/AFP via Getty Images
The AVG quickly gained fame in the U.S. and China for its early victories — it was a morale boost when the war was going in Japan's favor.
It's unclear who came up with the nickname "Flying Tigers," though it was used as early as a week after their first battle, when Time magazine said the "Flying Tigers swooped, let the Japanese have it." Other publicity came when T.V. Soong, who had earlier worked with Chennault in Washington to gather the planes, helped get The Walt Disney Company design the group's logo of a Bengal Tiger jumping through a V for victory sign. And John Wayne played a character based on Chennault in the 1942 movie Flying Tigers.
Today there are several plaques, memorials and museum exhibits dedicated to the Flying Tigers in China, the U.S., Taiwan and Thailand. The Flying Tiger Heritage Park opened in 2015 in the southern Chinese city of Guilin, built in collaboration with Jobe's Flying Tiger Historical Organization.
The last surviving member of the original AVG, Frank Losonsky, died in February 2020.

A group of 52 U.S. World War II veterans who had served in China, including members of the Flying Tigers, visit Chongqing, China, in 2005 to attend memorial events. China Photos/Getty Images
Flying Tigers historians are quick to point out how essential ordinary Chinese people were to the mission. Those who paved runways did so as volunteers, Tam says, "to help the American fighters because they were fighting for China, fighting for freedom."
Chinese villagers also suffered immensely to help when pilots were shot down. "The Japanese would go into these villages and they would torture and mutilate and kill the villagers in an attempt to find out where the Flying Tigers were. And in most instances, the villagers would not tell them," Jobe says. "They would suffer the consequences."
"I think, really, the remembrance and the respect for the Flying Tigers was really genuine in China," Tam says.
"The people of the United States volunteered to help China. They put their lives at risk to save the Chinese," he adds, leading many Chinese to think of those Americans as "always friends of China."
NPR · by James Doubek · December 19, 2021


23. A Single Sentence In The Defense Authorization Act Is A Major Change In US-Taiwan Defense Cooperation

RIMPAC.

A Single Sentence In The Defense Authorization Act Is A Major Change In US-Taiwan Defense Cooperation | SOFREP
sofrep.com · December 19, 2021
23 hours ago
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CAMP H.M. SMITH, Hi - In this file photo, Ships and submarines participating in Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise 2012 sail in formation in the waters around the Hawaiian Islands July 27, 2012. RIMPAC is a U.S. Pacific Command-hosted biennial multinational maritime exercise designed to foster and sustain international cooperation on the security on the world?s oceans.
Buried within the more than twenty-one hundred pages of the National Defense Authorization Act is a single sentence that signals a historic change in defense cooperation between Taiwan and the United States. It quietly sits in Section 1248 and simply reads,
“It is the sense of Congress that the naval forces of Taiwan should be invited to participate in the Rim of the Pacific exercise conducted in 2022.”
Rim Of The Pacific
The Rim of the Pacific Exercise or RIMPAC is the world’s largest joint naval exercise. First held in 1971 it includes the combined fleets of the United States, Great Britain, Japan, Australia, and Canada. In the past, other nations have also participated such as Chile, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand.
The exercise tests new weapons, sensors, tactics, communications systems, and interoperability procedures between the U.S. and the ships of other friendly nations. Running approximately two weeks in length RIMPAC concludes with the sinking(SINKEX) of a decommissioned vessel by missiles, gunfire, and torpedoes. You can watch the destruction of the ex-USS Durham here. She gets popped by a couple of Harpoon anti-ship missiles

Other nations, even potential adversaries like Russia and China have been invited to observe the exercise.
But never Taiwan.
Communist China has been engaged in an ever-increasing series of provocations and escalations aimed at Taiwan aimed at asserting its dominance over the island and the Pacific region in general.
In October of this year, China has flown some one hundred and fifty aircraft into Taiwan’s air defense zone which has prompted Taiwan to launch fighters to intercept them. China’s intent with the sorties is to exhaust Taiwan’s defense resources, in terms of money and material. Taiwan refers to this as “Grey Zone” warfare.
On a single day in October, fifty-four aircraft from Communist China violated the Taiwanese air defense zone.
These incursions are also aimed at U.S. support for the island as they are accompanied by warnings from Beijing that the U.S. must stop giving military assistance support to Taiwan.
A Measured Response By The U.S.
The U.S. response has been measured and cautious. Some would say even timid. It has included increasing arms sales to Taiwan, closer contact with the island’s government, and sending detachments of Army Special Forces to train the Taiwanese army in unconventional warfare techniques.
“Top 10 Most Powerful NAVY in the World,” created by Felix 10s,
These responses have not yet resulted in a decline in provocations by the Bejing since they do not include economic sanctions which is where things would really have an impact. The access to international trade and banking is the engine that drives the economy of Communist China and provides them with the currency to fund their military. Hitting them in the wallet would be the most effective means of deterring their moves against Taiwan and the other flexing the communists are engaged in at reefs and small island chains that they are claiming belong to them.
These island territorial claims have brought Beijing into conflict with Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and even India.
Adding Taiwan to the Pacific Rim Exercises which are held every two years is a sign of recognition that deterring the territorial and political aims of Communist China in the Pacific must become a foreign policy priority for the U.S. and its allies in the region.
Beijing takes a slow, incremental approach to its foreign policy aims. It prods and probes looking for weaknesses to exploit but will step back from direct confrontation. Its economy is based on foreign trade with the West even as it postures against the West as its adversary. As a result, Communist China recognizes that a war with Western countries in the Pacific would bring with it some pretty dire economic consequences. Having control of the waterways of the South China Sea and the Formosa Straits wouldn’t be worth much to China if there was no trade passing through these waters and its own ships were denied entry to the ports of Western countries and Japan.

sofrep.com · December 19, 2021


24. Millions of angry, armed Americans are preparing to seize power if Trump loses in 2024

Yes, a one sided piece. But this excerpt and the statistics are really,really troubling Both parties are losing faith in democracy for different reasons and both extremes have nothing but contempt and hatred for the other side rather than a love for our nation and a respect for the Constitution wit the desire to continue the great American experiment to work toward a more perfect union. Some of us seem to have forgotten our ideals and the principles upon which our great nation rests.

Excerpts:
Both Democrats and Republicans are rapidly losing faith in the integrity of U.S. elections. Democrats worry that voter suppression and election interference from Republican state officials will deny millions of Americans their say at the polling booths. A PBS NewsHour/ NPR/ Marist poll in early November reported that 55 percent of Democrats saw voter suppression as the biggest threat to U.S. elections. Republicans claim, contrary to the evidence, that Democrats have already manipulated vote counts through fraud to steal a presidential election. An October CNN poll found that more than three-quarters of Republicans falsely believe Joe Biden's 2020 election win was fraudulent.
According to the Constitution, Congress and the Supreme Court are supposed to settle those sorts of dueling claims. Given the growing intensity and polarization of political life, would either side accept a decision that handed a contested 2024 election result to the other?

Millions of angry, armed Americans are preparing to seize power if Trump loses in 2024
Newsweek · by David H. Freedman · December 20, 2021
Mike "Wompus" Nieznany is a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran who walks with a cane from the combat wounds he received during his service. That disability doesn't keep Nieznany from making a living selling custom motorcycle luggage racks from his home in Gainesville, Georgia. Neither will it slow him down when it's time to visit Washington, D.C.—heavily armed and ready to do his part in overthrowing the U.S. government.
Millions of fellow would-be insurrectionists will be there, too, Nieznany says, "a ticking time-bomb" targeting the Capitol. "There are lots of fully armed people wondering what's happening to this country," he says. "Are we going to let Biden keep destroying it? Or do we need to get rid of him? We're only going to take so much before we fight back." The 2024 election, he adds, may well be the trigger.
Nieznany is no loner. His political comments on the social-media site Quora received 44,000 views in the first two weeks of November and more than 4 million overall. He is one of many rank-and-file Republicans who own guns and in recent months have talked openly of the need to take down—by force if necessary—a federal government they see as illegitimate, overreaching and corrosive to American freedom.
The phenomenon goes well beyond the growth of militias, which have been a feature of American life at least since the Ku Klux Klan rose to power after the Civil War. Groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, which took part in the January 6th riot at the Capitol and may have played organizational roles, have grown in membership. Law enforcement has long tracked and often infiltrated these groups. What Nieznany represents is something else entirely: a much larger and more diffuse movement of more-or-less ordinary people, stoked by misinformation, knitted together by social media and well-armed. In 2020, 17 million Americans bought 40 million guns and in 2021 were on track to add another 20 million. If historical trends hold, the buyers will be overwhelmingly white, Republican and southern or rural.
America's massive and mostly Republican gun-rights movement dovetails with a growing belief among many Republicans that the federal government is an illegitimate tyranny that must be overthrown by any means necessary. That combustible formula raises the threat of armed, large-scale attacks around the 2024 presidential election—attacks that could make the January 6 insurrection look like a toothless stunt by comparison. "The idea that people would take up arms against an American election has gone from completely farfetched to something we have to start planning for and preparing for," says University of California, Los Angeles law professor Adam Winkler, an expert on gun policy and constitutional law.

West Ohio Minutemen, an armed militia, stand guard near Public Square during the second day of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 19, 2016. Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty
Both Democrats and Republicans are rapidly losing faith in the integrity of U.S. elections. Democrats worry that voter suppression and election interference from Republican state officials will deny millions of Americans their say at the polling booths. A PBS NewsHour/ NPR/ Marist poll in early November reported that 55 percent of Democrats saw voter suppression as the biggest threat to U.S. elections. Republicans claim, contrary to the evidence, that Democrats have already manipulated vote counts through fraud to steal a presidential election. An October CNN poll found that more than three-quarters of Republicans falsely believe Joe Biden's 2020 election win was fraudulent.
According to the Constitution, Congress and the Supreme Court are supposed to settle those sorts of dueling claims. Given the growing intensity and polarization of political life, would either side accept a decision that handed a contested 2024 election result to the other?
Such a decision would more likely bring tens of millions of protesters and counter-protesters into the streets, especially around the U.S. Capitol and possibly many state capitols, plunging the country into chaos. Although many Democrats might be inclined to demonstrate, a larger percentage of Republican protesters would almost certainly be carrying guns. If the Supreme Court ruling, expected in mid-2022, on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen establishes an unrestricted right to carry a gun anywhere in the country, bringing firearms to the Capitol in Washington, D.C. could be perfectly legal. Says Winkler: "The Supreme Court may be close to issuing the ruling that leads to the overthrow of the U.S. government."
If armed violence erupts the 2024 elections, quelling it could fall to the U.S. military, which may be reluctant to take arms against U.S. citizens. In that case, the fate of the nation might well be decided by a simple fact: a big subset of one of the two parties has for years been systemically arming itself for this very reason.
"I hope it's just too crazy to happen here," says Erica De Bruin, an assistant professor of government at Hamilton College, who studies coups around the world. "But it's now in the realm of the plausible."
Enemy at the Gates
Many Republicans are increasingly coming to see themselves less as citizens represented by the federal government, and more as tyrannized victims of that government. More than three-quarters of Republicans reported "low trust" in the federal government in a Grinnell College national poll in October; only a minority of Democrats agreed. From this point of view, peaceful elections will not save the day. More than two out of three Republicans think democracy is under attack, according to the Grinnell poll, which echoes the results of a CNN poll in September. Half as many Democrats say the same.

Security forces respond with tear gas after the US President Donald Trump's supporters breached the US Capitol security. Probal Rashid/Getty
Mainstream news publications are filled with howls of protest over political outrages by Republican leaders, who are reflecting the beliefs of the party mainstream. But the small newspapers in the rural, red-state areas that are the core of the Republican party's rank and file are giving voice to a simpler picture: Politics are dead; it's time to fight. "Wake up America!" reads a September opinion piece excoriating Democrats in The Gaston Gazette, based in Gastonia, N.C. "The enemy is at our gates, God willing it is not too late to turn back the rushing tide of this dark regime." The piece goes on to quote Thomas Paine's exhortation to colonists to take up arms against the British. "We are in a civil war," a letter published in September in The New Mexico Sun likewise warns Republicans, "between the traditional Americans and those who want to impose socialism in this country and thus obtain complete government control of its citizens."
Evidence that a significant portion of Republicans are increasingly likely to resort to violence against the government and political opponents is growing. More than 100 violent threats, many of them death threats, were leveled at poll workers and election officials in battleground states in 2020, according to an investigation by Reuters published in September—all those threat-makers whom Reuters could contact identified as Trump supporters. In October 2020, 13 men were charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat; all of them were aligned with the political right. Nearly a third of Republicans agree that "true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country," according to a September poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, a non-partisan group. That's three times as many as the number of Democrats who felt the same way.
Guns are becoming an essential part of the equation. "Americans are increasingly wielding guns in public spaces, roused by persons they politically oppose or public decisions with which they disagree," concludes an August article in the Northwestern University Law Review. Guns were plentiful when hundreds of anti-COVID-precaution protestors gathered at the Michigan State Capitol in May 2020. Some of the armed protesters tried to enter the Capitol chamber.
Those who carry arms to a political protest may in theory have peaceful intentions, but there's plenty of reason to think otherwise. An October study from Everytown for Gun Safety and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) looked at 560 protests involving armed participants over an 18-month period through mid-2021, and found that a sixth of them turned violent, and some involved fatalities.
One indication of how far Republicans may be willing to go in violently opposing the government is their sanguine reaction to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Republicans by and large see no problem with a mob of hundreds swarming and forcing their way into the seat of American government. Half of Republicans said that the mob was "defending freedom," according to a CBS/YouGov poll taken just after the insurrection. Today two-thirds of Republicans have come to deny that it was an attack at all, according to an October survey by Quinnipiac University. "There's been little accountability for that insurrection," says UCLA's Winkler. "The right-wing rhetoric has only grown worse since then."
Most Republican leaders are circumspect when it comes to supporting violence against the government, but not all. Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a controversial character who remains popular among many Republicans, reportedly told an enthusiastic gathering of Trump supporters in October that if and when a "serious" insurrection springs up, "there's very little you're going to be able to do about it."
Ex-Army Generals Fear Insurrection or 'Civil War' in 2024
Read more
Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, another prominent Republican popular with the rank and file, opined that the January 6 insurrectionists were simply doing what the Declaration of Independence tells true patriots to do, in that they were trying to "overthrow tyrants." The real threat to democracy, she added, are Black Lives Matter protesters and Democratic "Marxist-communist" agents. Greene and Representative Madison Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina, have referred to some of the insurrectionists as "political prisoners."
Trump himself, of course, has nurtured a constant undercurrent of violence among his supporters from the beginning of his first presidential campaign. In 2016 he publicly stated he could shoot someone in the street without losing any of his political support, and he went on to encourage attendees at his rallies to assault protesters and journalists. When demonstrators at a rally in Miami were being dragged away, Trump warned that next time "I'll be a little more violent." At a 2016 rally in Las Vegas, he openly complained to the crowd that security wasn't being rough enough on a protester they were removing. "I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you," he said.
Today Trump openly declares the January 6 rioters to be "great people." In October, he suggested that Republicans might not want to bother to vote in the 2022 or 2024 elections because of their concerns over fraud in the 2020 election. At the same time, he declared that he would achieve an "even more glorious victory in November of 2024." The notion that Republicans could turn their backs on voting booths while sweeping Trump to glory only makes sense if Trump envisions a path to taking power that doesn't require votes.
Republicans approve of that sort of talk. The October Quinnipiac poll found that while 94 percent of Democrats insist Trump is undermining democracy, 85 percent of Republicans say he's protecting it.
Where the Guns Are
In his acclaimed history of the early days of the American Revolution, "The British Are Coming," author Rick Atkinson explains one major reason why America became the first British colony to succeed in winning freedom, where others had failed. "Unlike the Irish and other subjugated peoples," he writes, "the Americans were heavily armed." Muskets, he points out, were "as common as kettles" among the colonists, and American riflemen were among the world's finest marksmen. That possession of and skill with guns, combined with the colonists' deep passion for ridding themselves of what they saw as government tyranny, would help carry the day against otherwise long odds.

On display at a gun shop in Wendell, N.C., an AR-15 assault rifle manufactured by Core15 Rifle Systems. Chuck Liddy/Getty
Today the many Republicans who have convinced themselves that they, too, must cast off a tyrannical government have plenty of guns. Americans own about 400 million guns, according to the Switzerland-based Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. (The U.S. government doesn't track gun ownership.) The vast majority of those guns belong to Republicans. Gallup found that half of all Republicans own guns, nearly three times the rate of gun ownership as among Democrats. Gun owners are overwhelmingly male and white and are more likely to live in the rural south than anywhere else. Those demographics mesh neatly with the hard-core segment of the Republican party.
Gun sales have spiked wildly in the past two years. About 17 million people, or more than six percent of the population, bought 40 million guns in 2020 alone, according to research from Harvard and Northeastern Universities. Sales for 2021 are on track to add another 20 million to the total, according to gun-industry research firm Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting.
While there's data to suggest Democrats are stepping up their modest share of the gun-buying, recent history suggests that the great majority of these guns are going to Republicans. According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were more than twice as likely to own a gun as their Democratic counterparts.
Former Iowa Representative Steve King, long known as someone unafraid to say out loud what many other Republicans are thinking, is confident that his party is better armed. "Folks keep talking about another civil war," he posted to Facebook in 2019. "One side has about 8 trillion bullets... Wonder who would win?"
The impulse for violent insurrection among Republicans is getting some of its energy from the mostly Republican gun-rights movement, and vice-versa. That's a relatively new phenomenon. The right to own guns was long a passionate cause of conservatives, without ever posing much apparent threat to democracy. But that's changing fast.
In 2000, 60 percent of gun owners cited hunting as the reason they bought guns, according to a Gallup poll. Many of the rest listed "sport," which generally means target shooting. But by 2016, 63 percent were saying they bought guns for self-defense. That shift was brought on by growing paranoia about street crime and mob violence, a fear constantly pumped up on Fox and other right-wing media, which have long been conjuring up the notion that urban gangs and other trouble-makers are increasingly running rampant through suburbs and beyond.
Over the past four years those fears have been blurring into anti-government, pro-Trump, and in some cases white-supremacist movements. "We've seen the flourishing of a different view of gun rights, one that focuses on the necessity of owning guns in order to fight a tyrannical government," says Winkler. "The promotion of that idea has made it all the more likely that some people will come to see the government as a tyrannical one that needs to be overthrown." The resulting gun-rights-driven, anti-deep-state radicalism echoes throughout Republican-heavy social media and other communications channels.
The gun industry didn't create that conflation of gun ownership and an imminent patriotic armed uprising, but it has amplified it. A 2020 article on the website of AZ Big Media, Arizona's largest business-news publisher, advised readers this way: "If you're waiting to buy the firearm you've been eyeing for a while, now is the time. Don't wait until the presidential election. We don't know what's going to happen, but regardless of who is elected into office, the chaos and violence are likely to grow larger."
Palmetto State Armory, a gun-parts manufacturer and gun retailer out of Columbia, South Carolina, puts it this way on their website: "Our mission is to maximize freedom, not our profits. We want to sell as many AR-15 and AK-47 rifles as we can and put them into common use in America today," adding that doing so "safeguards the rights of the people against tyranny." A 2019 Drew University study noted that one out of four of gun manufacturers' most-viewed YouTube videos invoked patriotism. "There's a commercial interest feeding that sense of needing guns to defend against the government," says Risa Brooks, a political scientist at Marquette University.
The National Rifle Association played a big role in pumping up the "own guns to protect America from leftist tyranny" theme. "If the violent left brings their terror to our communities, our neighborhoods, or into our homes, they will be met with the resolve and the strength and the full force of American freedom in the hands of the American people," said NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre in 2017. That same year, an NRA spokesperson railed against Trump's opponents, adding: "The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth." There wasn't much question about what that fist would be clenching.
The NRA also put out the notion that gun-control policies enacted by Nazis and aimed at Jews were a critical enabling element of the Holocaust. That claim has been thoroughly debunked by historians, but Ben Carson, Trump's secretary of housing and urban development, publicly tied gun control to the Holocaust. Texas Senator Ted Cruz has also explicitly linked gun rights to fending off federal menace, stating that guns "serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny." Trump himself hinted at the darkest of connections between gun ownership and taking down a Democrat-led government, proposing during his first presidential campaign that the "Second Amendment people" might be able to stop Hillary Clinton if she won.
How It Might Go Down
What might lead to large-scale armed threat or even violence around the 2024 elections? There may be only one narrow path to avoiding it: A comfortable, incontestable win by Trump, assuming he's the Republican candidate. Democrats might despair at the loss, but it's not likely that they will go into mass protests against what could be seen as a legitimate election win.
But if Trump loses, by any margin, and is unable to overturn the results through legal or political means, it seems likely Republicans will declare the election fraudulent. In 2020, the conviction—against all evidence—that Trump had the presidency stolen from him brought an insurrectionist mob to the U.S. Capitol. The mob was mostly unarmed, undoubtedly thanks to Washington D.C.'s strict gun-control laws.

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) sits beside Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Rifle Association (NRA) Wayne LaPierre (R), during a meeting on Trump's Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on February 1, 2017 in Washington, DC. Michael Reynolds/Getty
In 2024, that sort of mob, which will have been fed for four years on false claims of a "Big Steal" and exhortations to fight back against tyranny, will likely be far, far larger. If gun-control laws are weakened by the Supreme Court, they will also likely be heavily armed. In addition to Washington, D.C., the ACLED report found that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Oregon face the largest risk of armed uprisings in contested elections, followed by North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, California, and New Mexico. But shortly after the January 6 insurrection, the FBI warned that all 50 state capitols were at risk. "There has been a recent and worrisome effort to frame showing up with guns as an appropriate way to challenge an election result you don't like," says Marquette's Brooks.
If Trump wins, but by a small margin that Democrats can attribute to Republican laws and tactics aimed at suppressing Democratic votes, massive protests around the country are inevitable. Democrats won't have to stretch their imaginations to make that claim: In 2021, 43 states proposed more than 250 laws limiting voting access. Georgia slashed the number of ballot boxes, a practice almost always aimed at communities with high percentages of minority residents. Iowa closed down most early voting. Arkansas upped the requirement for voter ID. And Utah made it easier to selectively purge voters from its lists.
If Trump loses on votes, but the loss is overturned by the actions of partisan state election officials, legislatures or governors in key battleground states, and that reversal is protected by a Republican Congress or the Supreme Court, protests are again inevitable. And again, that sort of reversal is far from implausible: There are 23 states where Republicans control both the legislature and the governorship, including several of the battleground states. In 2022 Republicans stand to gain control of three more key states—Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Any state controlled by one party is in a good position to try to overturn an election vote, as Trump and many Republicans urged state officials to do in 2020. "We've seen a trend of Republican governors and legislatures appointing party officials more willing to claim voter fraud, and giving themselves more power to undermine elections at a local level," says Hamilton College's De Bruin. For these and other reasons, America has been steadily dropping on the widely cited Freedom in the World ranking of countries by how democratic they are. The US has fallen from the company of large, Western European countries to end up today alongside Ghana and Mongolia.
Whatever the circumstances that might bring on large-scale protests from Democrats in 2024, their presence in the streets could bring out armed Republican counter-protesters bent on protecting Trump's nominal win and, in their minds, defending democracy against left-wing mobs. "It's a fair concern that If Trump called on them to come out and suppress the mobs, they might respond," says Lindsay Cohn, associate professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.
Nieznany, the Vietnam vet, insists that if Democratic protests include any violence, as was the case with several Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 in mostly isolated instances, then right-wing counter-protesters will be justified in shooting. "Rocks, bottles and bricks can kill you as fast as a bullet will," he says. That's the sort of logic that in August 2020 brought Kyle Rittenhouse and his AR-15-style rifle to a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he shot three protesters, killing two, claiming self-defense. A jury acquitted him of all charges.
Based on their actions at protests in recent years, police forces can be counted on for a strong response—against the Democratic protesters, that is. The ACLED found that the police used force in Black Lives Matter protests more than half the time but only a third of the time at right-wing demonstrations. In any case, few police forces are prepared to effectively come to grips with tens of thousands of armed protesters.
Enter the Military
If police can't or won't deal with an armed uprising, the last hope for a peaceful resolution would probably be the National Guard and military. Only the governor can call out the National Guard in a state, and only the president can deploy the military. To send in the military to quell disturbances on U.S. soil, the president must invoke the Insurrection Act, last used in 1992 by then-President George H. W. Bush to help restore order during the Los Angeles riots.
Joe Biden would likely still be president at the initiation of election-related violence, so if the National Guard were unable to quiet things down in one or more states—or if a governor refused to call in the Guard—it would fall squarely on Biden's shoulders to make that call. He wouldn't need any state government cooperation to do it. "It would be an entirely legitimate role for the American military in those circumstances," says Kori Schake, director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
The National Guard or military would almost certainly prevail in shutting down the worst of the violence and protecting the government. But two key questions arise: Would military leadership accept Biden's orders to deploy against an armed uprising? And if it did, would the rank and file follow their commanders' orders to take up arms against fellow Americans whose motivations might resonate with many of their own?
The military leadership still feels chastened by the outcry after Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accompanied Trump to a photo op across a Lafayette Square forcibly cleared of peaceful protesters in June 2020, says Brooks. "They're going to be reluctant to get involved," she says. "The military takes an oath to the Constitution, not to a particular president." Biden, too, is likely to see calling in the military as a last resort, she adds. But if the situation is dire, and Biden seems justified in making the call, the leadership will comply, whatever their misgivings, she says.
As for the possibility that the Guard or military rank and file might refuse to follow orders to take up arms against armed Trump supporters, the Naval War College's Cohn deems it unlikely. "There isn't a ton of evidence that the rank and file are solidly behind Trump," she says. "But whatever their beliefs, they're highly professional. No more than a tiny percentage would refuse."
She points out that Trump worked hard to align himself with the rank and file, even while distancing himself from military leadership. And yet there was little sign of overt support from the rank and file when Trump was trying to whip up mobs in January to support his baseless claims of election fraud—even though former Trump National Security Advisor and retired Army General Michael Flynn was at the same time openly calling for the military to take control of the government.
Absent a strong response from some combination of police, National Guard and military, it's easy to see how Republicans would be in a position to essentially take control of the country simply by virtue of their massive arsenal. "Both sides might be equally convinced of the illegitimacy of the other's actions," says Winkler. "What's asymmetric is the capability to inflict violence."
Let's hope it doesn't come to that, and that there's a relatively peaceful resolution to what's likely to be a contentious, hotly disputed election. But that result isn't assured. And even if any conflict ends quietly before it gets too far, experiencing a near-miss might leave our already fragile democracy more weakened and vulnerable. It's hard to say what it would take to repair it.
Nieznany may speak for millions when he insists it's too late. "There are too many of us ready to give our lives to take the country back," he says. "We need a civil war."
In the Magazine
Newsweek · by David H. Freedman · December 20, 2021





















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.

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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