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Quotes of the Day:
“As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.”
- Arthur Clarke
"There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men."
- Marcus Aurelius
"Nothing is more securely lodged than the ignorance of the experts."
- Friedrich August von Jayek
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 8, 2023
2. Chinese military stages large-scale military exercises around Taiwan
3. Inspired by Ukraine, Taiwan seeks to bolster military preparedness as China threat continues
4. Camouflage combat utility uniforms OK’d for Pentagon Marines
5. War in Ukraine ‘essentially trench warfare,’ senator says after Kyiv visit
6. The Army Could Not Effectively Address Gen Z's Misconceptions About Army Life in 2022
7. Military experience doesn’t help veterans get elected, but may influence their behavior in Congress
8. China’s chip industry is struggling
9. The war in Ukraine is spilling into Russia
10. UK Preparing to Designate IRGC as a Terrorist Organization
11. Tax Havens Obscured at Least $1.4 Trillion of Foreign Investment in China
12. Ex-NATO chief: Russian forces in Ukraine will be ‘burned through and exhausted’ by end of winter
13. Will US Speaker McCarthy go to Taiwan?
14. The Weaponization of Humanitarian Aid - How to Stop China and Russia From Manipulating Relief Money
15. The Long War in Ukraine – The West Needs to Plan for a Protracted Conflict With Russia
16. In Every Modern War, Ukraine Has Been the Big Prize
17. Don’t Drive Away Smart Students
18. ‘Experts’ Are Fueling Distrust in Vaccines
19. Analysis | Ukraine sees ‘year of victory’ but decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy
20. What three years of China’s covid travel restrictions cost the world
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 8, 2023
Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-8-2023
Key inflections in ongoing military operations on January 8:
- Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov stated on January 8 that Russia plans to begin domestic production of Iranian-made drones.[18]
- Russian forces continued counterattacks to regain lost positions along the Svatove-Kreminna line on January 8.[19] Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai stated on January 8 that Russian forces transferred several battalions from the Bakhmut area to the Kreminna area.[20]
- Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Serhiy Cherevaty stated on January 8 that Russian forces do not control Soledar, and other official Ukrainian sources reported that Ukrainian forces captured Russian positions near Bakhmut.[21] Prominent Russian milbloggers expressed divergent opinions of the potential for the Russian encirclement of Bakhmut.
- Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut and along the western outskirts of Donetsk City.[22]
- Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed on January 7 that 300 Chechen Akhmat-1 OMON personnel deployed to Ukraine.[23]
- Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces used incendiary munitions to strike civilian infrastructure in Kherson City overnight on January 7–8.[24]
- Russian forces are continuing to intensify filtration measures to identify partisans in occupied territories. Russian occupation authorities claimed that likely Ukrainian partisans committed sabotage by mining a gas pipeline in Luhansk Oblast on January 8.[25]
- Russian occupation authorities intensified passportization efforts in occupied territories on January 8.[26]
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 8, 2023
understandingwar.org
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 8, 2023
Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, Layne Philipson, and Mason Clark
January 8, 3:45 pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
ISW is publishing an abbreviated campaign update today, January 8. This report discusses the Russian Ministry of Defense’s (MoD) attempts to claim that Russian forces responded to the December 31 Ukrainian strike on Russian positions in Makiivka; the Russian MoD’s use of a grievance-and-retaliation framework and the resulting creation of negative feedback loops in the pro-war Russian information space; Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s potential attempts to financially exploit Ukrainian natural resources around Bakhmut; and the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense’s (UK MoD) assessment that Russian forces may be preparing for Ukrainian counteroffensive actions along the Zaporizhia and Luhansk oblast frontlines.
The Russian MoD’s attempts to claim Russian forces responded to the December 31 Ukrainian strike against Russian positions in Makiivka are generating further discontent in the Russian information space. The Russian MoD announced on January 8 that Russian forces conducted a “retaliation operation” against Ukrainian forces for the December 31 strike on Makiivka that killed up to 400 mobilized soldiers due to Russian command failures and poor personnel dispersal practices.[1] The Russian MoD falsely claimed the retaliatory strike targeted several temporary Ukrainian deployment points in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, and killed over 600 Ukrainian personnel.[2] This claim is false — a Finnish reporter visited the site of the strike in Kramatorsk on January 8 and noted that it hit an empty school.[3] Several Russian milbloggers responded negatively to the Russian MoD’s claim, pointing out that the Russian MoD frequently presents fraudulent claims and criticizing Russian military leadership for fabricating a story to “retaliate” for the Makiivka strike instead of holding Russian leadership responsible for the losses accountable.[4]
The Russian MoD application of a grievance-and-retaliation framework to many of its operations has created a negative feedback loop with prominent members of the pro-war Russian information space. At the beginning of the massive campaign of strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure in October 2022, the Russian MoD employed a similar framing of “retaliation” against claimed Ukrainian strikes on the Kerch Strait Bridge and other Russian infrastructure.[5] The Russian MoD partially used this framing to mollify escalated demands from the pro-war community to “avenge” Ukrainian actions but provoked an array of responses from milbloggers outlining other instances that the Russian MoD should equally “retaliate” for.[6] The Russian MoD has thus created a negative feedback loop, wherein it attempts to respond to Ukrainian offensive successes with a discrete, retaliatory, offensive action, which then opens the MoD up to continued criticism from discontented Russian milbloggers highlighting their beliefs that the MoD is responding in the wrong manner or to the wrong event. The Russian MoD’s response to the Makiivka strike is a clear continuation of this grievance-and-retaliation model that has once again opened Russian military leadership to staunch criticism of their conduct of the war.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin may be attempting to financially exploit Ukrainian natural resources around Bakhmut and is using the war in Ukraine to connect his military forces with Russian regional officials. An unnamed White House official stated on January 5 that the United States believes Prigozhin seeks to extract salt and gypsum from mines in the Bakhmut area for monetary gain.[7] Prigozhin attempted to justify the importance of mines around Bakhmut and Soledar (which Russian forces have struggled to capture from Ukrainian defenders) on January 7, stating that these mines have “unique and historic defenses” that act as a “network of underground cities.”[8] Prigozhin added that these mines can house personnel and military equipment up to a depth of 80 to 100 meters and claimed that these mines are stocked with weaponry from World War I. Prigozhin’s statements are likely an attempt to both explain the slow pace of Wagner’s advances around Bakhmut but may also partially explain his months-long and costly determination to establish control of the area. A former Russian officer and milblogger criticized Prigozhin and Russian commanders, stating that everyone knew about the existence of these mines when developing an offensive plan and dismissed the claim of the presence of historic weapons in the area.[9] The milblogger also noted even if Russian forces and Wagner troops seize Soledar, Prigozhin and the Russian military will lose strategically due to committing their best forces to an attritional battle.[10] ISW had previously reported that another Russian silovik, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, is reportedly attempting to secure business opportunities in occupied Mariupol.[11]
Prigozhin is also continuing to publicly align himself with select Russian governors in an effort to increase his influence and advance his personal interests in Russia, as opposed to strictly winning the war. Kursk Oblast Governor Roman Starovoit visited the Wagner training facility for the Kursk Oblast People’s Militia on January 8 and reportedly trained alongside Prigozhin and “real men” who are patriots during his visit.[12] Russian outlets claimed that Starovoit even received an offer to sign a contract with Wagner, which he declined due to his public duties.[13] Some Russian outlets even framed Starovoit’s visit to the training ground as model behavior for a Russian politician, further boosting Prigozhin’s image as a patriotic wartime leader in the Russian information space.[14] Prigozhin is likely attempting to rally up support for the legalization of Wagner Group in Russia.
The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) confirmed ISW’s previous assessments that Russian forces are preparing for the possibility of future Ukrainian counteroffensives in Zaporizhia or Luhansk oblasts. The UK MoD reported on January 8 that in recent weeks, Russian forces have expanded defensive fortifications in Zaporizhia Oblast along the Vasylivka-Orikhkiv line and are maintaining a large force grouping in this sector in a way that suggests that Russian commanders are concerned by the possibility of a major Ukrainian counteroffensive push in southern Ukraine.[15] The UK MoD suggested that Russian forces are facing two equally exigent counteroffensive scenarios: A Ukrainian breakthrough on the Zaporizhia line that could seriously challenge the viability of the Russian land bridge linking Rostov Oblast with occupied Crimea, or a Ukrainian breakthrough in Luhansk Oblast that could further unhinge the Russian offensive objective of occupying the entirety of Donbas.[16] ISW has previously noted indicators of preparations for a Russian decisive effort (likely of a defensive nature) along the Svatove-Kreminna line in Luhansk Oblast and assessed that the Russian force posture and prevalence of defensive structures in Zaporizhia Oblast suggest that Russian forces may be preparing for potential Ukrainian efforts against this sector.[17]
Key inflections in ongoing military operations on January 8:
- Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov stated on January 8 that Russia plans to begin domestic production of Iranian-made drones.[18]
- Russian forces continued counterattacks to regain lost positions along the Svatove-Kreminna line on January 8.[19] Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai stated on January 8 that Russian forces transferred several battalions from the Bakhmut area to the Kreminna area.[20]
- Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Serhiy Cherevaty stated on January 8 that Russian forces do not control Soledar, and other official Ukrainian sources reported that Ukrainian forces captured Russian positions near Bakhmut.[21] Prominent Russian milbloggers expressed divergent opinions of the potential for the Russian encirclement of Bakhmut.
- Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut and along the western outskirts of Donetsk City.[22]
- Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed on January 7 that 300 Chechen Akhmat-1 OMON personnel deployed to Ukraine.[23]
- Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces used incendiary munitions to strike civilian infrastructure in Kherson City overnight on January 7–8.[24]
- Russian forces are continuing to intensify filtration measures to identify partisans in occupied territories. Russian occupation authorities claimed that likely Ukrainian partisans committed sabotage by mining a gas pipeline in Luhansk Oblast on January 8.[25]
- Russian occupation authorities intensified passportization efforts in occupied territories on January 8.[26]
ISW will continue to report daily observed indicators consistent with the current assessed most dangerous course of action (MDCOA): a renewed invasion of northern Ukraine possibly aimed at Kyiv.
ISW’s December 15 MDCOA warning forecast about a potential Russian offensive against northern Ukraine in winter 2023 remains a worst-case scenario within the forecast cone. ISW currently assesses the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine from Belarus as low, but possible, and the risk of Belarusian direct involvement as very low. This new section in the daily update is not in itself a forecast or assessment. It lays out the daily observed indicators we are using to refine our assessments and forecasts, which we expect to update regularly. Our assessment that the MDCOA remains unlikely has not changed. We will update this header if the assessment changes.
Observed indicators for the MDCOA in the past 24 hours:
- Nothing significant to report.
Observed ambiguous indicators for MDCOA in the past 24 hours:
- Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Vadym Skibitsky stated on January 8 that Russia is planning to use mobilized personnel in offensive operations in unspecified areas of the front in the spring and summer.[27] Skibitsky stated that Russia will need two months to prepare its military forces for the offensive and that Russian forces’ success depends on their training and provisions.[28]
- Russia deployed more military personnel to Belarus on January 7–8. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense stated that a Russian Military Space Forces aviation element of an unspecified echelon arrived in Belarus on January 8.[29] Independent Belarusian monitoring outlet Belarusian Hajun Project reported that an additional 15 passenger train cars carrying 700–800 Russian military personnel arrived in Vitsebsk, Belarus on the evening of January 7.[30] The Hajun Project reported that Russian armored elements of the same echelon arrived to Vitsebsk, Belarus on January 6, as ISW has previously reported.[31]
Observed counter-indicators for the MDCOA in the past 24 hours:
- The Ukrainian General Staff reiterated that it has not observed Russian forces in Belarus forming a strike group as of January 8.[32]
[12] https://t.me/gubernator_46; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/01/08/gubernator-kurskoy-oblasti-rasskazal-chto-proshel-kurs-podgotovki-v-lagere-chvk-vagnera
[18] https://meduza dot io/news/2023/01/08/sovet-natsionalnoy-bezopasnosti-i-oborony-ukrainy-rossiya-sobiraetsya-zapustit-sobstvennoe-proizvodstvo-iranskih-dronov-kamikadze
[21] https://www.facebook.com/DPSUkraine/posts/pfbid02i8fWznXG3K86t74j2zY6Yj5... ; https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=940911193984952 ; https://armyinform dot com.ua/2023/01/08/okupanty-soledar-ne-kontrolyuyut-sergij-cherevatyj/
[25] https://t.me/mvdlnr_official/2293; https://telegra dot ph/V-Lutuginskom-rajone-proizoshel-vzryv-gazoprovoda-01-08; https://t.me/mvdlnr_official/2294; https://t.me/miroshnik_r/10142;
[26] https://sprotyv.mod dot gov.ua/2023/01/08/rosiyany-prymusovo-pasportyzuvaly-praczivnykiv-zaes/; https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/7886; https://armyinform dot com.ua/2023/01/08/na-zaporizkij-aes-prodovzhuyut-perebuvaty-rosijski-vijskovi-ta-tehnika-agresora/
[27] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/mobilizovanykh-rosiian-planuiut-vykorystaty-v-nastupalnykh-operatsiiakh-navesni-ta-vlitku.html; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/06/russia-preparing-mobilise-...
[28] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/mobilizovanykh-rosiian-planuiut-vykorystaty-v-nastupalnykh-operatsiiakh-navesni-ta-vlitku.html; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/06/russia-preparing-mobilise-...
understandingwar.org
2. Chinese military stages large-scale military exercises around Taiwan
Chinese military stages large-scale military exercises around Taiwan | CNN
CNN · by Eric Cheung,Brad Lendon · January 9, 2023
Chinese fighter jets conduct joint combat training exercises around Taiwan in this August 7, 2022 file photo.
Gong Yulong/AP
Taipei, Taiwan CNN —
China sent 28 warplanes across the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Sunday as Beijing conducted its first large-scale military exercises around the island this year, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said.
The 28 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) planes were among 57 spotted near Taiwan, the ministry said, adding they included J-10, J-11, J-16 and Su-30 fighters, H-6 bombers, three drones and an early warning and reconnaissance aircraft.
Taiwan tasked aircraft, naval vessels and land-based missile systems to respond to the Chinese activities, the ministry said.
A map provided by the ministry showed PLA aircraft crossing the median line in seven places from north to south and flying through Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) south of the island, then turning slightly north to the east of the line.
A statement from the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command said its forces engaged in combat drills around Taiwan on Sunday.
“The exercise focused on land strikes, sea assaults and other subjects, aiming to test the troops’ joint combat capability and resolutely counter the collusive and provocative acts of the external forces and the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces,” according to a statement posted on the state-run China Military Online.
China’s ruling Communist Party views Taiwan – a democratically governed island of 24 million – as part of its territory, despite having never controlled it. It has long vowed to “reunify” the island with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary.
The combat exercise follows a similar one on December 25, in which the PLA sent 47 aircraft across the median line of the Taiwan Strait out of a total 71 that were spotted around the island, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry.
US warship transits Taiwan Strait
China’s military drills Sunday came three days after a US Navy destroyer transited the Taiwan Strait in a “freedom of navigation” operation, the first such voyage reported by the US Navy this year.
The USS Chung-Hoon “transited through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state,” a US 7th Fleet statement said, adding that its route “demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Taiwan flags are seen at the Ministry of National Defence in Taipei, Taiwan, December 26, 2022.
Ann Wang/Reuters
Taiwan extends mandatory military service period to counter China threat
China said it monitored the movement of the US warship and that all its movements were “under control.”
A story in the state-run Global Times tabloid said the PLA would intensify its drills around Taiwan if provocations from outside forces and “Taiwan independence” forces continue.
The Global Times story cited the US destroyer’s transit of the Taiwan Strait and a potential $180 million US arms sale to Taiwan approved by the Biden administration on December 28.
The sale of vehicle-launched anti-tank munition-laying systems “serves U.S. national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” a US State Department statement said.
Washington has long provided arms to Taiwan under the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act, which says the US will provide the island with the means to defend itself.
CNN · by Eric Cheung,Brad Lendon · January 9, 2023
3. Inspired by Ukraine, Taiwan seeks to bolster military preparedness as China threat continues
Excerpts:
"A hidden factor is that every male [now] experiences a program of conscription that is obviously ineffective in producing a useful military response … so it [the defeatist propaganda] does have some effect," says Turton.
Kitsch Liao, assistant director of Atlantic Council's Global China Hub, told Fox News Digital that the same "defeatist" attitude is sometimes expressed in uninformed comments by some in Taiwan about the "low quality" and "ineffectiveness" of weapons being sold to Taiwan by the United States.
"There is some back and forth," said Liao, "but mostly what we buy reflects what Taiwan asks for, so honestly if there are any complaints about what we’re getting, we need to look closer at our own evaluation process. That said, there is a deeper issue regarding a lack of transparency in our force planning and evaluation processes, which can fail to engender the support our armed forces desperately need both from within and without."
As in South Korea, Taiwan wrestles with concerns that mandatory time in the military could mean delayed careers and disrupted lives for its young men, but most seem to agree these concerns are dwarfed by the existential threat posed by Beijing.
Inspired by Ukraine, Taiwan seeks to bolster military preparedness as China threat continues
Taiwan's president recently announced that mandatory military service was to be raised to 1 year
foxnews.com · by Eryk Michael Smith | Fox News
Video
China and Taiwan: Breaking down the military threat
The Heritage Foundation's James Carafano tells "Your World" that there is good news and bad news after China sends 71 planes and seven ships toward Taiwan in 24 hours.
KAOHSIUNG CITY, Taiwan — After close to a decade, men over 18 in Taiwan will again be required to serve a full year in the military rather than just four months, a return to a conscription policy that had been in place since 2013. The new requirement will be phased in over the year and will reportedly apply to males born on or after Jan. 1, 2005.
Speaking to the nation late last month, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen pointed to Ukraine holding off the might of the Russian military for more than 300 days, something she argued was due in no small part to Ukraine’s readiness. Tsai said Ukraine’s strong resistance capacity had "bought time" that allowed the international community to come to its aid. Taiwan’s president said she and her cabinet, as well as military officials, had spent much time debating the issue and that although it was "a difficult choice," expanding the length of conscription was necessary. She also announced that the basic monthly pay for conscripts would jump from around US$212 per month to just under US$662.
Russia’s underperformance in the war in Ukraine has been highly instructive and motivating for Taiwan’s civilian and military leaders. But of course, China has also been taking notes as it watches Ukraine — and for Taiwan, the hope is that China is learning one major lesson from Russia’s stumbles: that even a vastly overpowered nation is hard to beat on its home turf, especially if its people are trained and willing to resist.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen watches a military drill in Penghu, Taiwan, on May 25, 2017. (Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
Experts in both Taiwan and the United States, though, have long expressed worries about a seeming complacency in Taiwan regarding defense. Taiwan’s leadership says they are addressing these concerns with more scrutiny of weapons and tactics — and by reinstating a year of conscription.
In comments to Fox News Digital, Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow and director of defense strategy at the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research, notes that an all-volunteer military is a preference, but both here and globally, it’s becoming harder to recruit professional soldiers.
WHITE HOUSE HOPEFUL WAR WITH CHINA OVER TAIWAN 'NEVER COMES TO PASS': REPORT
"China has increased its force projection capabilities," Su said. "All of this means that Taiwan needs to increase the size of its active army." Su noted Taiwan is carefully studying the examples of nations such as Sweden, Norway and Israel — all of which maintain conscription — as it seeks to overhaul its defense configuration so that "the sum of manpower and firepower can be multiplied for defense by asymmetrical battle strength."
"If it’s going to be four months, we might as well not do it at all. So much money was wasted on these few months of training," a retired Taiwanese air force captain told Fox News Digital. Choosing to withhold his name, the retired captain said, "No one wants a war, and I don’t think one is imminent, but if it comes, we need to have soldiers who at least know the basics." He also compared Taiwan’s military requirements to those in Israel and said a discussion on mandatory training for women could be a good next step.
It’s not hard to understand why Taiwan (officially called the Republic of China) sees a need for conscription; its massive neighbor to the west, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), refuses to disavow using force to "reunify" with this self-governed, fully democratic island of around 23 million. The term "reunify," however, isn’t accurate as Taiwan has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
After close to a decade, men over 18 in Taiwan will again be required to serve a full year in the military rather than just four months, a return to a conscription policy that had been in place since 2013. (Reuters/Ann Wang/File)
China’s bullying of Taiwan permeates every part of the relationship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, from China blocking Taiwan’s participation in health conferences organized by the United Nations to a simulated naval blockade and live missile tests after former U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi defied Beijing and visited Taipei in August 2022.
The new conscription policy was met with a predictable mix of emotions and opinions, but somewhat surprisingly, strong opposition has been sparse and the prevailing response — from both sides of Taiwan’s main political divide — has been support for the government’s move. Before Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, however, this would likely not have been the case.
CHINA WARNS US NOT TO CROSS 'RED LINE' ON TAIWAN, USE 'SALAMI TACTICS'
A volunteer with the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces inspects a damaged military vehicle in the outskirts Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, on March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Marienko)
Ian Easton, author of "The Chinese Invasion Threat," an influential book that examines what a China-Taiwan conflict might look like, told Fox News Digital that he found the change "remarkable" and said, "Only very rarely does a liberal democracy undertake difficult reforms like this in peacetime. Not long ago, the national conscription system was regarded as the third rail of Taiwanese politics: touch it and you die. But now any politician in Taiwan who doesn’t take national security seriously is likely to be in hot water at the polls."
Easton’s observation is illustrated by Enoch Wu, a politician with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Wu, a candidate in a Jan. 8 by-election for a seat in Taiwan’s parliament, made his stance clear in a May 2022 New York Times op-ed, writing, "We seem to expect American sons and daughters to risk their lives to protect our home, while relieving our own of that very duty." Tough words, but it’s a sentiment that’s picked up significant traction over the last year.
A Taiwan air force F-16 drops flares during a live-fire military exercise in Pingtung, Taiwan, May 30, 2019. (Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
Of course, not everyone in Taiwan is happy about the upcoming change. Some parents and their sons have voiced displeasure and concerns. When Teresa Chen, a coffee shop owner in the southern city of Kaohsiung, heard the news, she and her husband did the math and were relieved that their 21-year-old son would not be affected by the change.
"I don’t want him to lose a year, especially as he’s not interested in the military," Chen told Fox News Digital.
On the other side of the same Taiwanese port city of almost 3 million, another set of parents sighed in resignation — 14-year-old Alen is now set to serve a year, and while neither Alen’s parents nor the junior high schooler are looking forward to it, they all agree there are benefits to military service, from character-building to better physical fitness. Other parents agree. One Taipei father told Fox News Digital he’d rather have his son properly prepared for conflict, which of course he hopes never occurs.
A good number of people in Taiwan often argue there’s little point in trying to hold off a full-on invasion from China as it is significantly stronger by almost every military standard, but experts such as Michael Turton, a long-term Taiwan-based writer, blogger and advocate for keeping the island’s democracy free from interference from Beijing, says this kind of "defeatist" attitude is due in no small part to Chinese propaganda.
"Like a dull supervillain, Beijing constantly monologues about the inevitability of Taiwan's annexation. This is often echoed by local pro-China parties," Turton told Fox News Digital.
Soldiers reload a M110 self-propelled howitzer during a live-fire military exercise in Pingtung, Taiwan, on May 30, 2019. (Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
"A hidden factor is that every male [now] experiences a program of conscription that is obviously ineffective in producing a useful military response … so it [the defeatist propaganda] does have some effect," says Turton.
Kitsch Liao, assistant director of Atlantic Council's Global China Hub, told Fox News Digital that the same "defeatist" attitude is sometimes expressed in uninformed comments by some in Taiwan about the "low quality" and "ineffectiveness" of weapons being sold to Taiwan by the United States.
"There is some back and forth," said Liao, "but mostly what we buy reflects what Taiwan asks for, so honestly if there are any complaints about what we’re getting, we need to look closer at our own evaluation process. That said, there is a deeper issue regarding a lack of transparency in our force planning and evaluation processes, which can fail to engender the support our armed forces desperately need both from within and without."
As in South Korea, Taiwan wrestles with concerns that mandatory time in the military could mean delayed careers and disrupted lives for its young men, but most seem to agree these concerns are dwarfed by the existential threat posed by Beijing.
A People's Liberation Army member looks through binoculars during military exercises as Taiwan’s frigate, Lan Yang, is seen in the distance, Aug. 5, 2022. (Lin Jian/Xinhua via AP)
"The Chinese Communist Party is carrying out the largest peacetime military buildup attempted by any country in at least a century," Ian Easton added. "Will Taiwan’s defense reforms be too little too late? Quite possibly. But much still remains to be seen, and there is much the U.S. could do to help Taiwan maximize the hard task it is undertaking. If it isn’t already, Washington should be looking to flood Taiwan with military trainers, advisers and liaison officers and begin large bilateral defense drills and joint patrols of the Taiwan Strait. Despite the monumental threat posed by the PRC, American military engagement with Taiwan is still surprisingly limited and tenuous."
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Whether the United States should or would send more trainers or engage in joint patrols with Taiwan is up for debate, but most Taiwanese seem to be closing ranks and agreeing that, at the very least, men of fighting age should be trained well enough to offer a genuine resistance to a potential Chinese invasion. Local news reported that by 2024, conscripts in Taiwan will undergo a longer boot camp, fire significantly more live rounds and be trained to fire powerful weapons, such as the U.S. Javelin and Stinger missiles.
Eryk Michael Smith is a Taiwan-based correspondent for Fox News Digital, who since 2007, has worked both as a broadcast journalist for the island's only English-language radio station, ICRT, as well as with numerous other publications and local news outlets. In 2021, he and co-host John Ross debuted Formosa Files, the only podcast about Taiwanese history in English. Smith's journalism focuses on Taiwan-China relations, local politics, as well as science and technology developments in the greater China region. He is based in Taiwan's largest southern city, Kaohsiung. He can be followed @ErykSmithTaiwan
foxnews.com · by Eryk Michael Smith | Fox News
4. Camouflage combat utility uniforms OK’d for Pentagon Marines
Excerpts:
“The overall intent of the updated uniform guidance is to reduce the financial burden for our junior officer and enlisted Marines dry cleaning and uniform costs due to daily wear of service ‘B’ or ‘C’ uniform,” Olson’s memo states.
The long-sleeved “B” uniform is designated for the winter months and the short-sleeved “C” uniform for the summer months.
Camouflage combat utility uniforms OK’d for Pentagon Marines
marinecorpstimes.com · by Irene Loewenson · January 6, 2023
Many Marines working in the Pentagon are now allowed to wear their camouflage uniforms, rather than their more formal — and more expensive — service uniforms.
A December 2022 memo from Lt. Gen. Gregg Olson, the director of staff for the Marine Corps, changed the uniform of the day from the khaki service uniform to the woodland-green camouflage combat utility uniform, effective Sunday.
“The overall intent of the updated uniform guidance is to reduce the financial burden for our junior officer and enlisted Marines dry cleaning and uniform costs due to daily wear of service ‘B’ or ‘C’ uniform,” Olson’s memo states.
The long-sleeved “B” uniform is designated for the winter months and the short-sleeved “C” uniform for the summer months.
The Pentagon is home to the Marine Corps headquarters, where top Marine leaders and several supporting agencies have their offices.
The previous rule dictating that Marines wear service uniforms in the Pentagon dates to summer 2020. That guidance went into effect for both Marines and sailors on July 6, 2020. They previously had worn their cammies except on Fridays.
Ed Zeigler, a spokesman for Naval District Washington, told Military.com at the time, “We aligned the Navy-Marine Corps uniform policies in the National Capital Region and the Pentagon Reservation to demonstrate a unified, professional image of our integrated Naval Force.”
The 2020 change came less than a month after Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apologized for appearing in a photo op, in his camouflage combat uniform, with then-President Donald Trump following a quashed Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Washington.
One commentator in The Hill argued that summer that cammies were inappropriate for any troops in the Pentagon: “Let us save the battle dress uniforms for actual combat.”
Marines who work in front offices or regularly interact with top leaders still have to wear the more formal service uniform. Even those who work in back offices are expected to wear the service uniform for meetings with top officers. And all Pentagon Marines have to wear their service uniforms on Fridays, per Olson’s memo, in line with the rest of the force.
By Tuesday and Wednesday, the first days back in the office after the New Year’s Day rule change, Marines already were milling around the food court and strolling the labyrinthine Pentagon hallways in their cammies.
“Financially, it was a huge relief, because cammies are more affordable,” said Sgt. Anthony Marrocco, who works at the judge advocate general office at the Pentagon. “It was really popular, at least for me, being a sergeant, because funds are a little tighter when compared to (for instance) gunnies.”
The service uniforms require dry cleaning, so they are costlier to maintain than camouflage uniforms, which simply can be thrown into a laundry machine. At the Pentagon dry cleaner, it costs $9 to clean the shirt and trousers of a single service uniform. For a Marine who dry cleans just one service uniform a week, it would add up to $468 a year.
Active-duty enlisted Marines with more than three years’ service do receive $738.84 cash allowances each year to spend on their uniforms, according to Corps guidance from October 2022. Those with less than three years’ service get $517.32. They also get a one-time clothing issue upon enlistment.
But a 2021 report by the Government Accountability Office estimated that enlisted service members still had to pay significant sums out of pocket on their uniforms.
Marrocco, who has worked at the Pentagon since Nov. 28, 2022, said he spent approximately $500 to buy two shirts and a coat for his service uniform and to tailor his shirts and trousers in preparation for his role.
In addition to being lower cost, cammies generally are considered to be more comfortable than service uniforms.
“My favorite uniform is the cammies,” Marrocco said, noting that the change seems good for morale. “When hot weather rolls around, we’re going to be sleeves up.”
He added that the service uniform comes in heavier fabric, and its khaki color makes even a little bit of sweat conspicuous.
Marines wearing service uniform trousers typically wear shirt stays on their legs to yank their hems down, whereas the camouflage shirt goes untucked. The shiny corfram shoes that usually accompany the service uniform are more rigid, and require more upkeep, than the combat utility boots.
And replacing broken shirt stays and scuffed corframs can pile on more costs to upkeep of service uniforms, according to Marrocco.
Cammies aren’t the default uniform for all Marines: Drill instructors, recruiters and Marines in ceremonial roles typically wear more formal uniforms like service uniforms or dress blues. Marines, unlike service members in other branches, aren’t allowed to wear cammies in civilian settings.
Sgt. Maj. Troy Black, the top enlisted Marine, wears the service uniform "C" in March 2020. (Sgt. Shannon Doherty/Marine Corps)
Even after the rules changed in 2020 for Department of the Navy service members, most soldiers, airmen and guardians wore their camouflage uniforms in the Pentagon.
The Army, Air Force and Marine Corps authorized camouflage in the Pentagon in 2001, following the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the U.S. Naval Institute. The Navy followed in 2019, only to roll back that change the following year.
The Navy hasn’t changed its uniform of the day guidance, a Navy spokesperson confirmed, so most sailors in the Pentagon are still in solid khaki rather than camouflage.
About Irene Loewenson
Irene Loewenson is a staff reporter for Marine Corps Times. She joined Military Times as an editorial fellow in August 2022. She is a graduate of Williams College, where she was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.
5. War in Ukraine ‘essentially trench warfare,’ senator says after Kyiv visit
War in Ukraine ‘essentially trench warfare,’ senator says after Kyiv visit
By OLIVIA OLANDER
01/08/2023 01:18 PM EST
Politico
“It's almost World War I. It's horrible,” Sen. Angus King said.
“To put it in perspective for Americans: It's as if our East Coast, from Maine to Florida and then west to Houston, Texas, was being occupied by a foreign power,” Sen. Angus King said. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
01/08/2023 01:18 PM EST
The situation in Eastern Ukraine is “essentially trench warfare,” Sen. Angus King said Sunday on CBS, as he underscored what he sees as a need to continue funding the country’s fight against Russia.
“It’s almost World War I. It’s horrible,” King (I-Maine) told “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan, less than a day after returning from a trip to Kyiv.
The latest aid package from the White House, which includes armored vehicles, is designed to deal with this problem, King said. Patriot missiles for air defense will help stop the country’s energy infrastructure from being “pummeled,” he said.
The U.S. should continue funding Ukraine for its own values and self interest, King said, nearly a year after Russia first invaded its neighbor.
“It would be catastrophic to cut off aid to Ukraine at this point,” King said, responding to calls from some House Republicans to reduce some funding to Ukraine.
He added: “To put it in perspective for Americans: It’s as if our East Coast, from Maine to Florida and then west to Houston, Texas, was being occupied by a foreign power.”
After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, King said he was “very impressed” with the level of accountability for how the funds were spent — a key concern of many people opposed to additional aid — as well as Zelenskyy’s understanding that any scandal could end the West’s ability to continue sending assistance.
“This argument that somehow the money’s being wasted, I don’t think holds water,” King said.
Moscow plans to mobilize a new wave of more than half a million men to fight in the war this month, Ukrainian officials said last week.
POLITICO
Politico
6. The Army Could Not Effectively Address Gen Z's Misconceptions About Army Life in 2022
Excerpts:
The "Know Your Army" campaign was the Army's effort to spread awareness about the benefits of service. It also instituted a handful of other initiatives; the Army instituted "quick ship” bonuses of up to $35,000, revised its tattoo policies and extended the markets of its top recruiters nationwide, among others.
Still, despite its best efforts, the Army missed its recruiting goals by 25% in 2022, forcing it to cut its total force projection by 10,000 soldiers. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth also cited tight labor market competition, Army fitness standards and misperceptions among parents for the shortfall.
The Army Could Not Effectively Address Gen Z's Misconceptions About Army Life in 2022
military.com · by Blake Stilwell · January 6, 2023
In generations past, there were a few things we were sure we knew about joining the Army: You got money for college, free health care, access to VA home loans and you could retire after 20 years. Generation Z, the generation of Americans born after 1997, doesn't know any of that, according to a survey released last year -- but they also think they do.
A March 2022 "Know Your Army" national consumer survey of 3,000 people ages 18-76 found that lack of awareness about Army benefits could be a culprit. The survey found that 73% of Gen Zers surveyed believe they know what Army life is like, the highest number recorded from any generation, but their perceptions don't match the reality of Army benefits and careers.
In response, the Army created the "Know Your Army" media campaign, which covered these basic tenets of Army life, from 30 days' paid vacation and parental leave to early retirement and VA home loans.
The survey found 30% of Gen Z respondents believe working in the Army will put them in a combat role. The reality of military life is much different, as only 29% of veterans from all branches reported seeing combat in a 2019 Pew Research study. As the largest branch of the military, the Army offers careers that might deploy, but are unlikely to see actual combat.
Gen Zers also don't know how time in the Army is actually spent. Forty-nine percent of those Gen Zers surveyed believe soldiers have no work-life balance and soldiers get no personal time or vacation days. In reality, military members tend to have more vacation days than the average American worker. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, civilians working for private companies get 10-20 days off per year, depending on how long they've worked at a company.
Then there are those things previous generations were sure they knew about joining the military, like health care, education and retirement. Yet only 53% of Gen Z respondents to the survey reported accurate knowledge about Army tuition assistance programs and GI Bill education benefits. Only 36% knew that training for their Army occupational specialty could lead to advanced training certificates.
Despite the fact that most members of their generation want to own a home but say they can't afford it, only 34% in the Gen Z age group knew about the VA home loan benefits. This includes provisions like not needing a down payment, lower interest rates and not needing private mortgage insurance when buying.
Only 44% knew about the military's health-care benefits for military members, and 42% knew that coverage could extend to their families at little to no cost. Even fewer (21%) knew about the Army's paid parental leave after having a baby, which extends to both parents. Finally, only 31% of those surveyed in the Generation Z age group knew that soldiers are eligible for retirement after 20 years of service.
The "Know Your Army" campaign was the Army's effort to spread awareness about the benefits of service. It also instituted a handful of other initiatives; the Army instituted "quick ship” bonuses of up to $35,000, revised its tattoo policies and extended the markets of its top recruiters nationwide, among others.
Still, despite its best efforts, the Army missed its recruiting goals by 25% in 2022, forcing it to cut its total force projection by 10,000 soldiers. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth also cited tight labor market competition, Army fitness standards and misperceptions among parents for the shortfall.
-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.
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military.com · by Blake Stilwell · January 6, 2023
7. Military experience doesn’t help veterans get elected, but may influence their behavior in Congress
Excerpts:
Highlighting military experience in campaigns and in Congress may politicize the military. The phenomenon of lawmakers highlighting their military experience is likely to have unintended consequences for the relationship between the military and the society it serves. Over the past several decades, many have grown increasingly concerned with the politicization of the military. Many Americans watching in this contemporary political climate view the military through a partisan lens, unaffected by disclaimers that veteran politicians are not endorsed by the Department of Defense. As more veteran candidates use their military experience to claim political advantages — bipartisan or partisan — institutional trust in the military will likely continue to erode.
It is true that many veterans serve honorably in elected office, providing critical policy perspectives and cooperating to achieve legislative results. However, healthy relations between the military and the public rely on strong norms that are threatened when military experience is used to justify political distinctions. These democratic norms are cultivated to ensure the military remains nonpartisan, subordinate and accountable to civilian government authorities — integrated in politics, but ultimately trusted for its accountability to the Constitution over partisan preferences.
Efforts aimed at increasing veteran representation in government, encouraging veterans to highlight their military credentials in campaigns, and harping on the exceptionalism of veterans in politics all risk further politicization of the military. In the end, few may benefit from the references to veteran status in politics and — most threatening to democratic norms — the military may suffer.
Military experience doesn’t help veterans get elected, but may influence their behavior in Congress
BY JOSEPH G. AMOROSO, G. LEE ROBINSON, ISAIAH WILSON III AND RICHARD M. YON, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 01/08/23 11:00 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3803756-military-experience-doesnt-help-veterans-get-elected-but-may-influence-their-behavior-in-congress/?utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sailthru&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d
After a tumultuous process to select a House Speaker, the 118th Congress will begin work this week. Among the ranks of this Congress are 97 lawmakers with military experience, 19 of whom are freshmen. The share of veterans in Congress increased a modest 1 percent from the previous session, but veteran representation in Congress has declined since the early 1970s when nearly three-quarters of members had a military background. Today, less than one in five members served in the military.
Many are alarmed by this decline in veteran representation and also point to the increased polarization and dysfunction in Congress. These concurrent trends motivate efforts on the campaign trail, and on Capitol Hill, to highlight the legislative benefits of military experience. The dominant claim guiding this movement is that electing veterans to Congress can foster bipartisanship and cooperation.
However, in the 2022 midterms, some outspoken conservative veteran candidates leveraged their military credentials in a very different way. These candidates claimed there is no evidence that veterans in Congress are more likely to compromise. Instead, they argued that their military service informs more extreme beliefs on issues such as the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, the justification of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, and the extent of the military’s intervention abroad.
Given these competing narratives, does military experience matter on the campaign trail or in elected office? Here are three things to know about veterans in Congress:
Little evidence suggests that military experience matters to voters. Invoking military service credentials is a campaign strategy as old as our republic. However, our research and that of others suggests veteran congressional candidates do not enjoy a universal electoral advantage. Support for veteran candidates is influenced by partisan preferences and ideological stereotyping. Voters perceive veteran candidates as more conservative, and accordingly, liberal voters tend to view these candidates less favorably.
The results of the 2022 midterms appear consistent with these findings. Of the 196 veterans who ran in the general election, less than half won their races. There is no indication that veterans performed any better than candidates without military experience. Among veterans who did win, three-quarters are Republicans. Additionally, it is unclear whether either of the two veteran campaign narratives were more effective at influencing voters. For example, veteran candidates Eli Crane of Arizona and Joe Kent of Washington both ran competitive races while promoting more conservative positions. Benefiting somewhat from redistricting, Crane unseated the three-term Democratic incumbent, Tom O’Halleran; whereas just last week, Kent finally conceded to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez after contesting the November results.
On the other hand, the more bipartisan narrative resonated with some voters, but not all. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), and John James (R-Mich.) will be sworn-in for their freshman term next week. These three Army veterans and West Point classmates are optimistic that their military bonds will be key to bipartisan legislative collaboration. However, in Georgia, veteran Marcus Flowers challenged incumbent Margorie Taylor Greene, criticizing her support for those who stormed the Capitol and emphasizing his Army values of honor and selfless service. Despite Flowers’ well-funded campaign, Greene easily won reelection.
Evidence suggests veterans in Congress are more likely to be bipartisan. While it is unclear that military experience influences electoral outcomes, military experience does seem to matter for some legislative outcomes. Research on Congress suggests that veteran lawmakers express distinct attitudes when it comes to the use of force or how much oversight Congress should exert on defense policy.
More fundamentally, though, are veterans more likely to reach across the aisle? Our research finds that they are. Veterans serving in the House tend to be more bipartisan, particularly in recent years. Veteran lawmakers are more likely than their nonveteran colleagues to cosponsor bills introduced by members of the opposite party. Additionally, assessments by the Lugar Center’s Bipartisan Index reveal that veteran members consistently outperformed non-veteran members in bipartisan activity from 2013-2020. These results hold even when considering the other factors likely to influence legislative behavior.
While these findings may be encouraging for the many Americans who seek a more collaborative Congress, it is uncertain whether this bipartisan behavior among veterans will hold up in this particularly polarized environment. Of the 97 veterans who will serve in this upcoming session, 48 denied the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including 10 of the 19 freshmen veterans. Disagreement on something as basic as the legitimacy of the electoral system does not bode well for the prospects of policy consensus. Six of the 20 representatives who voted against Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for speaker were veterans, underlying the potential departure from past trends of veterans as sources of cooperation rather than conflict.
Highlighting military experience in campaigns and in Congress may politicize the military. The phenomenon of lawmakers highlighting their military experience is likely to have unintended consequences for the relationship between the military and the society it serves. Over the past several decades, many have grown increasingly concerned with the politicization of the military. Many Americans watching in this contemporary political climate view the military through a partisan lens, unaffected by disclaimers that veteran politicians are not endorsed by the Department of Defense. As more veteran candidates use their military experience to claim political advantages — bipartisan or partisan — institutional trust in the military will likely continue to erode.
It is true that many veterans serve honorably in elected office, providing critical policy perspectives and cooperating to achieve legislative results. However, healthy relations between the military and the public rely on strong norms that are threatened when military experience is used to justify political distinctions. These democratic norms are cultivated to ensure the military remains nonpartisan, subordinate and accountable to civilian government authorities — integrated in politics, but ultimately trusted for its accountability to the Constitution over partisan preferences.
Efforts aimed at increasing veteran representation in government, encouraging veterans to highlight their military credentials in campaigns, and harping on the exceptionalism of veterans in politics all risk further politicization of the military. In the end, few may benefit from the references to veteran status in politics and — most threatening to democratic norms — the military may suffer.
Joseph G. Amoroso (@amoroso_jg) is an assistant professor of American politics at the United States Military Academy.
G. Lee Robinson (@leerobinson2022) is an assistant professor of American politics at the United States Military Academy.
Isaiah Wilson III (@ThinkBeyondWar) is a professor of political science and president of the Joint Special Operations University.
Richard M. Yon is an associate professor of political science at the United States Military Academy and the director of terrorism studies at West Point.
The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not reflect the position of the United States Military Academy, the Joint Special Operations University, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.
8. China’s chip industry is struggling
Excerpts:
China’s chip strategy has involved throwing billions of dollars at the industry, and it appeared to be going awry even before this week’s reports of a pause in the programme. Shortly before the five-yearly communist party congress last October gave Xi an unprecedented third term as party boss, an anti-corruption campaign targeted top officials in the chip industry, including the country’s information technology minister, amid fears that funds were being squandered or stolen.
It is hard to say precisely how much China’s zero-Covid policy cost the country, but the economic hit, directly and indirectly, has been enormous. Last year, analysts at Soochow Securities, a China-based brokerage, estimated that the annual cost of Covid testing alone was running at 1.7 trillion yuan ($257 billion), roughly 1.5 per cent of GDP. This is the context in which the government now appears to be re-examining its massive chip investment programme.
China’s chip industry is struggling
The Spectator · by Ian Williams · January 8, 2023
- Coffee House
Ian Williams
(Photo: Getty)
China is entering the new year with its tech ambitions under a Covid cloud. The enormous cost of the now abandoned zero-Covid policy has badly strained government finances, and the communist party’s pledge to build a world-beating chip industry, already reeling from American sanctions, is falling victim to the familiar ills of cost, waste and corruption.
A much hyped one trillion yuan ($145 billion) investment plan is reportedly on hold. Costly subsidies have born little fruit but they have encouraged graft and provoked sanctions. As a result, government officials are looking at alternative ways of encouraging growth in the semi-conductor industry, according to Bloomberg.
The problems with the chip programme have raised broader questions about whether China’s increasingly autocratic system is capable of innovation
Xi Jinping has pledged that China will ‘resolutely win the battle in key core technologies’, and a domestic semi-conductor industry is fundamental to that ambition. Chips are crucial to the production of products ranging from smartphones to laptops, cars, aircraft and even cookers and refrigerators. The most advanced semi-conductors power artificial intelligence, which has numerous military applications. As relations between the US and China have deteriorated, so they have become a key battleground in the race for supremacy in the technologies of the future. Xi has told Chinese scientists, ‘Technological innovation has become the main battlefield of the international strategic game’.
The US has placed three dozen Chinese tech companies on a trade black list, the so-called ‘entity list’ of firms deemed a threat to national security. More recently it has restricted the export to China of high-performance chips critical for the development of supercomputers, surveillance systems and advanced weapon systems. Washington has also restricted the tools for making the chips. The latest controls are particularly potent because they include foreign-made chips that use American tools and software in the design and manufacturing process. The US dominates the production of such tools, and now any firm using them will require a licence for exporting to China.
The latest trade figures show how these restrictions are starting to bite. Chinese imports of chip-making equipment from the US fell to $349 million in November, roughly half the value of a year earlier. There were also sharp falls in imports from American allies Japan and South Korea. US staff and companies working in the chip sector have been moving out of the country. Tech companies are examining their supply chains – this week it was reported that Dell, the world’s largest computer maker, will stop using Chinese made semiconductors by 2024 and has told suppliers to reduce the use of other China-made components.
This has given Beijing’s efforts to build a domestic chip industry more urgency, though ‘decoupling’ supply chains is a two-way process, which arguably began in China in 2014 with its Made in China 2025 programme. This spelt out Beijing’s strategy to be free of western technology, including chips, by 2025 and to create local champions. It coincided with a greater emphasis on ‘Military-Civil Fusion’, an explicit strategy to make technology developed (or otherwise acquired) by Chinese companies available to the military.
One case in point is a rapidly growing company called Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC), which is based in the city of Wuhan, and is seen by Xi as a national champion in his efforts to develop a domestic chip industry. It has benefited from generous subsidies, and US officials allege that the company works closely with the Chinese military and has violated earlier trade sanctions by supplying chips to Huawei, the Chinese telecoms company. Washington has imposed export controls on the company and US chip equipment suppliers have pulled their US staff out of its facilities. It is a rapid reversal for YMTC, which had been courting high-profile clients, including Apple, which was considering using YMTC chips in some smartphones, triggering outrage from US lawmakers.
China’s chip strategy has involved throwing billions of dollars at the industry, and it appeared to be going awry even before this week’s reports of a pause in the programme. Shortly before the five-yearly communist party congress last October gave Xi an unprecedented third term as party boss, an anti-corruption campaign targeted top officials in the chip industry, including the country’s information technology minister, amid fears that funds were being squandered or stolen.
It is hard to say precisely how much China’s zero-Covid policy cost the country, but the economic hit, directly and indirectly, has been enormous. Last year, analysts at Soochow Securities, a China-based brokerage, estimated that the annual cost of Covid testing alone was running at 1.7 trillion yuan ($257 billion), roughly 1.5 per cent of GDP. This is the context in which the government now appears to be re-examining its massive chip investment programme.
Written by
Ian Williams
Ian Williams is a former foreign correspondent for Channel 4 News and NBC, and author of The Fire of the Dragon: China’s New Cold War (Birlinn).
The Spectator · by Ian Williams · January 8, 2023
9. The war in Ukraine is spilling into Russia
Excerpts:
In addition to covert Ukrainian activities, Moscow is facing anti-war dissent domestically. One movement notably gaining traction since the invasion began has been the Russian Anarcho-Communist Combat Organization (БОАК/BOAK), which has targeted rail infrastructure and firebombed recruitment offices. It is unclear whether Kyiv supports these elements in any direct way, but the group’s actions undoubtedly benefit the Ukrainian resistance and irritate the Kremlin.
As Moscow moves towards escalating the conflict, Ukraine is likely to continue carrying out sabotage activities and striking deep inside Russian territory. Through this approach, the hope is that the country will reduce the level of airpower and military capacity its adversary is able to muster in the coming weeks and months. As the war’s one-year anniversary approaches, this conflict is showing no sign of going away.
The war in Ukraine is spilling into Russia
Ukrainian forces are making moves into Russian territory
unherd.com · by Darran Anderson
by Lucas Webber
Monday, 9
January 2023
Share:
Analysis
07:00
Ukrainian forces are making moves into Russian territory
by Lucas Webber
Ukrainian mortar unit servicemen in the Donbas last month. Credit: Getty.
In recent days, Russian air defences have been struggling to cope with Ukrainian drones entering the country’s airspace. On 3rd January, videos emerged of AD systems firing at objects over the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and explosions were reported above Kursk. The incidents occurred shortly after Ukrainian forces directed multiple-launch rocket systems at Belgorod. These are more signs that the arena for the Ukraine war is becoming ever broader.
Early last month, Ukrainian drones attacked Engels airbase deep inside Russian territory. This particular operation was reportedly carried out in coordination with a military reconnaissance unit, damaging two planes, killing three Russian servicemen, and wounding four others. Satellite imagery later confirmed the strikes and detected the presence of emergency response vehicles at the impacted locations.
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Engels was hit once more in late December. However, the Russian defence ministry deemed it unsuccessful, and there was no official claim issued by the Ukrainian government. Tu-95 Bears and Tu-160 Blackjack bombers were apparently among the aircraft present at the time of the attempts, and some assessments suggest the attacks have prompted Russia to reduce offensive activity launched from the airbase.
Over land, Ukraine has sent reconnaissance and sabotage personnel to make incursions into Russia to disrupt railways, find targets, and conduct other forms of covert action. A four-man team was recently intercepted in the Bryansk region around the time of the second set of drone attacks, and was subsequently eliminated by FSB forces. Shortly after, Moscow asserted the alleged “saboteurs” were in possession of improvised explosive devices and foreign-made weapons.
In a recent interview, Ukraine’s military intelligence leader, Kyrylo Budanov, was asked about the 26th December operation against Engels, replying that he was “glad to see it” and anticipating that such attacks would continuously take place “deeper and deeper” into Russian territory over time.
Previously, Ukraine has been shelling cross-border targets and sabotaging rail infrastructure, and according to US officials was believed to be involved in the assassination of Darya Dugin, the daughter of prominent Russian intellectual Aleksandr Dugin.
These types of operations have likewise been taking place inside Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. Ukrainian forces, for instance, have inflicted significant damage on the Kerch Strait Bridge, killing “collaborators” in Russian-occupied territories, and have been locating military targets behind enemy lines.
In addition to covert Ukrainian activities, Moscow is facing anti-war dissent domestically. One movement notably gaining traction since the invasion began has been the Russian Anarcho-Communist Combat Organization (БОАК/BOAK), which has targeted rail infrastructure and firebombed recruitment offices. It is unclear whether Kyiv supports these elements in any direct way, but the group’s actions undoubtedly benefit the Ukrainian resistance and irritate the Kremlin.
As Moscow moves towards escalating the conflict, Ukraine is likely to continue carrying out sabotage activities and striking deep inside Russian territory. Through this approach, the hope is that the country will reduce the level of airpower and military capacity its adversary is able to muster in the coming weeks and months. As the war’s one-year anniversary approaches, this conflict is showing no sign of going away.
unherd.com · by Darran Anderson
10. UK Preparing to Designate IRGC as a Terrorist Organization
UK Preparing to Designate IRGC as a Terrorist Organization
fdd.org · by Danielle Kleinman · January 6, 2023
Latest Developments
The United Kingdom is preparing to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group, according to media reports this week. The decision, which London will likely announce within weeks, apparently stems in part from Tehran’s efforts to kidnap or kill dissidents on British soil. Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, said in November that Tehran had plotted to kill at least 10 British residents over the past year. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran has deployed assassins as a regular tool of statecraft, regarding assassinations as a key method to ensure the regime’s survival, punish foes, and deter dissent.
Expert Analysis
“Iran’s increasing efforts to assassinate opponents overseas reflect its growing confidence that the West lacks the will to retaliate in a meaningful way. Washington and London can demonstrate otherwise by stating that they will no longer negotiate with Tehran, that they will not provide sanctions relief to Iran, and that they support the Iranian people’s calls for regime change.” — Tzvi Kahn, FDD Research Fellow
A History of Global Terror
According to the State Department, Iran committed as many as 360 targeted assassinations between 1979 and 2020. Tehran’s assassinations have occurred throughout the world, including in Britain, France, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey, Cyprus, Iraq, India, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Thailand, the Philippines, and Iran itself, among other countries. Yet according to a detailed Washington Post report in December, Western officials and documents reveal that the “tempo of the plots has dramatically increased in the past two years, and they are among the most ambitious and far-reaching in recent memory.”
Iran Targets Prominent Dissidents
Some of Tehran’s targets include prominent dissidents. Tehran has plotted to kidnap and assassinate Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad, a leading champion of women’s rights in Iran, on U.S. soil. In April 2022, Israel said it foiled Iranian schemes to assassinate French-Jewish journalist Bernard-Henri Lévy, a longtime critic of the Islamic Republic, in Paris; a U.S. general in Germany; and an Israeli diplomat in Turkey. In 2018, an Iranian diplomat plotted but failed to bomb an annual rally of the dissident group Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) near Paris, which some 25,000 people attended.
Targeting Former U.S. Government Officials
Iran has reportedly threatened several former U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook, among others. The threats likely constitute an attempt to avenge IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, whom the United States killed in January 2020. The United States designated the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019.
An Ideological Imperative
Tehran’s willingness to deploy assassins abroad reflects its Islamist, authoritarian, and revolutionary creed, which seeks to enshrine Iran as the regional hegemon. General Ahmad Qolampour, a senior IRGC official, said in 2016, “The Islamic Revolution does not have any borders…. The Islamic Revolution[ary] Guard Corps does not have the word ‘Iran’ in its title. This means that it seeks to defend the Islamic Revolution and its achievements without regard to particular borders.”
Related Analysis
“Iran Caught Again Trying to Kill Israeli Civilians Abroad,” FDD Flash Brief
“Iran’s Long, Bloody History of Terror and Espionage in Europe,” by Toby Dershowitz and Benjamin Weinthal
fdd.org · by Danielle Kleinman · January 6, 2023
11. Tax Havens Obscured at Least $1.4 Trillion of Foreign Investment in China
Graphics/charts at the link.
Tax Havens Obscured at Least $1.4 Trillion of Foreign Investment in China
- US and Europeans more exposed to China than official estimates
- Report shows key role of tax havens in Chinese fund raising
ByTom Hancock and Spe Chen
January 5, 2023 at 5:40 AM EST
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-05/tax-havens-obscured-at-least-1-4-trillion-of-foreign-investment-in-china?sref=hhjZtX76
US and European investment into mainland China has largely been channeled through offshore vehicles set up by Chinese companies in tax havens, according to newly-published research, suggesting that foreign exposure to Chinese assets is much larger than recorded by official statistics.
US and European investors’ holdings of equities and bonds issued by offshore vehicles controlled by Chinese companies such as Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings reached $1.4 trillion at the end of 2020, according to new estimates from the Global Capital Allocation Project based at Columbia and Stanford universities.
That was almost three times the amount investors from those countries held directly in companies registered in China.
Foreign Investors Finance Big Chinese Firms via Tax Havens
More than 70% of Chinese equities and corporate bonds held by US and European investors are routed through offshore subsidiaries
Source: The Global Capital Allocation Project
Note: Data as of Dec 2020. Estimates are based on IMF CPIS data, US Treasury data, and holdings of insurance companies and investment funds. Euro zone estimates are more uncertain due to sectoral composition and domestic holdings in the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Ireland.
The data shows the depth of the financial links between the world’s second-largest economy and the major developed economies, making any decoupling a challenging prospect. Those links also mean that foreign companies are more exposed to China than previously thought, and US and European governments will need to pay greater attention to potential risks from investment in Chinese companies routed through these offshore entities, the researchers suggested.
“The sums involved, the involvement of retail investors and mutual funds, and the shaky shareholder rights these structures imply, clearly point to a need for regulation,” the researchers said.
The data also mean efforts to regulate global tax havens will need to take into account the interests of Chinese companies. The amount Chinese-controlled offshore entities raised from US and European investors almost tripled from 2016 to 2020, according to the Project.
“There has been a lot of attention and policy effort on regulating tax havens’ activities. Our work points to the growing importance of China in these jurisdictions, and this is likely to make global coordination on policy efforts more important but also more difficult to achieve,” the researchers said.
Western Countries' Investment in China Was Rising
Source: The Global Capital Allocation Project
Note: The estimation includes investments made by large developed economies including US, Euro Area, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
Chinese companies tend to use tax havens less as a tax avoidance mechanism and more as a means to circumvent Chinese government restrictions on foreign ownership in some sectors, and because foreign investors often see foreign courts as more reliable than China’s, the researchers said.
The data is the only publicly available resource which “looks through” investment in companies registered in tax havens to where the invested capital is ultimately used. Most official statistics look at investment by residency, counting an investment in a Chinese-controlled Cayman Islands company as an investment in the Cayman Islands.
Read more on investment flows: China ‘Round Tripping’ Inflates Foreign Investment Data
The Project’s researchers found that US ownership of stocks and bonds issued by Chinese companies was $922 billion higher at the end of 2020 than the US Treasury figures for investment in China. “Under this more comprehensive view, US residents’ portfolios were much more exposed to China up to 2020, leaving them exposed to the subsequent tumble in Chinese tech stocks,” the researchers said.
US Portfolio Exposure to Chinese Firms
Source: The Global Capital Allocation Project
Note: Direct investment refers to data from the Treasury International Capital System of the US Treasury. Indirect investment is the estimation computed by researchers.
The research also has implications for global financial balances. China is recorded in official statistics as a large net creditor to the rest of world in part because its companies have relatively few liabilities to overseas investors. China’s creditor position is “much smaller” when the liabilities of Chinese-controlled companies registered outside China are included, the researchers said.
The project’s data covers investment from residents in the US, the euro area, the UK, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. It is lagging due to the time required to work out the ultimate controllers of companies registered in tax havens.
The value of foreign investors’ holdings of Chinese stocks and bonds has almost certainly fallen since the end of 2020, as increased regulation and crackdowns on tech companies, strict pandemic controls and a property sector slump led many foreign buyers to sell their holdings. The value of all foreign holdings of mainland stocks and bonds is down almost 20% from the peak at the end of 2021, according to the latest data from the People’s Bank of China.
Direct Investment Fell in Recent Years
Value of US holdings of Chinese securities has dropped
Source: US Treasury, shows data for stocks and all bonds
“We’d expect losses to have occurred and the positions to have shrunk due to lower stock prices for many Chinese tech companies, like Alibaba and Tencent. Even at these lower valuation levels, positions including Chinese companies’ offshore affiliates are going to be higher than positions that only include investments in China-resident entities,” said the researchers.
Despite the market volatility, China has continued to make efforts to further open its onshore bond market to foreign investors and passed a new derivatives law which makes it easier to hedge investments. “It remains to be seen whether foreign investors will trust these policies and renter the market,” the researchers said.
— With assistance by Jin Wu
12. Ex-NATO chief: Russian forces in Ukraine will be ‘burned through and exhausted’ by end of winter
Ex-NATO chief: Russian forces in Ukraine will be ‘burned through and exhausted’ by end of winter
BY OLAFIMIHAN OSHIN - 01/08/23 4:32 PM ET
https://thehill.com/policy/international/3804640-ex-nato-chief-russian-forces-in-ukraine-will-be-burned-through-and-exhausted-by-end-of-winter/
Former NATO chief James Stavridis said in an interview that he believes Russian forces in Ukraine will be “burned through and exhausted” by the end of the winter season as the Kremlin’s war against the neighboring country continues.
During an appearance on New York-based radio station WABC 770 morning show “Cats Roundtable,” Stavridis told host John Catsimatidis that he doesn’t see either side having a breakthrough moment during the winter.
“But I don’t see either side having a breakthrough moment — at least this winter,” Stavridis told Catsimatidis. “Unfortunately, the first chance we can get to a negotiation is going to be after the winter. The Russians will be burned through and exhausted, losing so many men, so much equipment.”
Stavridis also said he believes both sides will push for negotiations in the latter part of this year.
“On the Ukrainian side, the pressures from the West, in order to avoid further costs, is going to become significant,” Stavridis added. “When I put it all together, more war to go. Ukrainians win it on the ground. Russians winning in the skies.”
“Let’s all push for a negotiation sometime mid-2023,” he concluded.
Stavridis’s remarks come as Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova said on Sunday that the billions of dollars provided by the U.S. in an effort to support their counterattack toward Russia have been put to good use.
Congress last month passed a $1.7 trillion government funding package that includes $45 billion for Ukraine and other allies of NATO. Some prominent GOP lawmakers have been public about their displeasure with the continuing aid to the sovereign country amid the conflict.
“Every U.S. dollar that is given to us, we’re putting it to a good use,” Markarova said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” “We’re using it as an investment into our joint fight for democracy.”
13. Will US Speaker McCarthy go to Taiwan?
And what effect do we think this will achieve? Let's make sure we have a well thought out plan to support US national security.
Will US Speaker McCarthy go to Taiwan?
China is on edge about McCarthy’s travel plans but the new Speaker and Taiwan both seem cautious about a Pelosi replay
asiatimes.com · by David P. Goldman · January 9, 2023
Chinese media worry that Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), just elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives on an unprecedented 15th ballot, will retrace Nancy Pelosi’s steps to Taiwan and precipitate a crisis with China. McCarthy cheered Pelosi’s nearly disastrous visit to Taiwan last July and declared that he would like to make the same trip as Speaker.
But McCarthy, who has spent his whole career in politics, appears more concerned about how the China issue plays with American voters than with China as such. His first speech to the House of Representatives as speaker mentioned China in the same breath as America’s debt problem, in a formulation that would take a Washington pollster to parse:
We will also address America’s long-term challenges: the debt, and the rise of the Chinese Communist Party. Congress must speak with one voice on both of these issues. This is why we will end wasteful Washington spending. From now on, if a federal bureaucrat wants to spend it, they will come before us to defend it. As for the Chinese Communist Party, we will create a bipartisan Select Committee to investigate how to bring back the hundreds of thousands of jobs that went to China, and then we will win this economic competition.
Evidently, the newly-installed speaker isn’t sure whether the federal debt problem or the China issue will elicit a bigger response from the electorate, so he lumped them together to be on the safe side. McCarthy devoted just ten seconds of a 20-minute address to China.
A Washington adage holds that the best way to bury a problem is to assign it to a bipartisan select committee. Threatening China with such a committee is the least provocative thing any American leader has done in recent months.
Although McCarthy made a “me-too” promise to visit Taiwan during Pelosi’s visit, he hasn’t broached the subject since. It isn’t clear whether Taiwan’s government wants him to show up, either.
Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported on November 21, “Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on Monday said that no official contact had yet been made with the US House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy regarding a trip to Taiwan…Wu told a legislative session that he believed McCarthy’s busy schedule precluded any chance of a trip to Taiwan in the near future.”
That isn’t quite a disinvitation, but neither is it an exhortation for McCarthy to make a Taiwan trip a priority.
Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu may or may not want McCarthy to visit the island. Photo: AFP / Sam Yeh
Beijing remains on edge about McCarthy’s travel plans. Writing in China Daily on January 6, foreign policy analyst Zhong Houtou inveighed, “No matter who is elected the new US House speaker, he or she should not play the Taiwan card to fulfill the United States’ narrow political goals as Nancy Pelosi did… Her visit not only undermined the political foundation of Sino-US relations, but also violated the one-China principle and the three Sino-US joint communiqués. Worse, it sent a wrong signal to separatists on the island, casting a shadow on the peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits.”
But Zhong also observed, “McCarthy is known for his hawkish stance on almost every issue. Yet many ultra-conservative representatives criticized him for not being conservative or harsh enough, which is both a surprise and a dangerous sign.”
One of McCarthy’s critics on the right, former Reagan administration defense official Frank Gaffney, alleged that the new Speaker is the victim of “elite capture” by the Chinese Communist Party due to investments in firms that have assets in China.
“Why has Kevin McCarthy not withdrawn from the House Speaker’s race after six failed attempts to win the post?”, Gaffney wrote before the California Congressman clinched the speakership on the 15th ballot. “It may have less to do with his notorious lust for power than self-preservation.”
Gaffney averred, “The trouble is that Kevin McCarthy has long worked with Sequoia Capital, a firm that has invested heavily in and for China. The botched Benghazi investigation illustrates how a Speaker like McCarthy’s mentor, Paul Ryan, can neuter an inquiry. Ditto the failure of McCarthy’s own China Task Force to examine financial firms like BlackRock and Sequoia’s enabling of our enemy.”
An online search found no public record documents or news reports indicating a relationship between McCarthy and Sequoia Capital.
American analysts with close ties to the armed services, meanwhile, are worried about the possible outcome of a military engagement with China in its home theater.
Writing in Asia Times on January 7, former deputy undersecretary of the navy Seth Cropsey characterized the US navy as a “hollow force.” He warned, “The pace of shipbuilding and virtually every other category of naval preparedness demonstrate that the most critical service in a West Pacific conflict does not believe that war is possible within the next decade.”
The Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry conducts operations in the South China Sea in 2020. Photo: AFP / Samuel Hardgrove / US Navy
The Defense Department’s November 29 report, “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” noted that China had doubled its satellite coverage of its home theater in the past three years and that China’s 2,000 land-based anti-ship ballistic missiles “give the PLA the capability to conduct long-range precision strikes against ships, including aircraft carriers, out to the Western Pacific.”
US anti-missile systems can be swamped by multiple strikes by conventional ballistic missiles, or defeated by China’s hypervelocity glide vehicles, for which there is no conventional missile defense.
Chinese and Pentagon analysts now offer very similar views of China’s military capabilities on its coasts, I reported in a December 6 analysis.
Former Trump administration defense planner Elbridge Colby tweeted on November 6, “Senior flag officers are saying we’re on a trajectory to get crushed in a war with China, which would likely be the most important war since WWII, God forbid.”
It’s not clear who is advising Speaker McCarthy, but he seems more cautious about approaching tripwires in the Taiwan Strait than he did last February.
Follow David P Goldman on Twitter at @davidpgoldman
asiatimes.com · by David P. Goldman · January 9, 2023
14. The Weaponization of Humanitarian Aid - How to Stop China and Russia From Manipulating Relief Money
Excerpts:
None of this is to suggest that the Security Council should refrain from renewing cross-border aid. Even a temporary disruption of aid could be catastrophic for the people of northwest Syria. The UN’s Office of Legal Affairs still considers the resolution a prerequisite for this humanitarian assistance to continue, and UN agencies clearly still feel bound by this internal legal opinion. Although the other members of the Security Council should continue their diplomatic efforts to keep Resolution 2165 alive, the current dilemma will persist until there is a vigorous and transparent debate between the Office of Legal Affairs and numerous outside experts who disagree with its analysis.
Other UN bodies have an important role to play in the case of Syria. As scholar Rebecca Barber has argued, the General Assembly and its relevant committees could pass a resolution underscoring the imperative of continuing cross-border aid in light of conditions in northwest Syria. Such a step would be an important demonstration of global political will and would strengthen the legal argument that Security Council action is not necessary.
More broadly, the United States and its allies should work to enshrine the right to humanitarian assistance even if a sovereign government arbitrarily denies it. This could be done by means of a General Assembly resolution or by an amendment to the 1991 resolution that essentially created the current international humanitarian system. Such amendments could clarify how and when the UN is able to provide for civilians in situations such as the ones that exist today in Syria and Ethiopia. The United States and other champions of the international humanitarian architecture should encourage like-minded nations to build multilateral support for this sort of approach.
Acting now is critical. China and Russia will likely grow even more willing to use their influence on behalf of tyrants as great-power competition grows fiercer. Their weaponization of humanitarian aid is devastating for millions of civilians and will be costly for the United States and its partners. Yet with diplomatic cooperation and persistence, the crisis in Syria could serve as the international community’s chance to tackle the problem head-on and, in the process, save lives in other humanitarian crises, both now and in the future.
The Weaponization of Humanitarian Aid
How to Stop China and Russia From Manipulating Relief Money
January 9, 2023
Foreign Affairs · by Natasha Hall and Hardin Lang · January 9, 2023
Today, the UN Security Council is set to renew a resolution that allows humanitarian aid to be delivered to millions of Syrians without the permission of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In the weeks leading up to the vote, diplomats, aid workers, and millions of Syrians worried that Russia would use its veto in the Security Council to block the cross-border aid. They had good reason to be concerned. Moscow, one of Assad’s closest backers, has long argued that the humanitarian mission violates Syria’s sovereignty, and it has previously vetoed the use of other crossing points for aid delivery into Syria. It appears that this time, the crisis will be averted, at least for the next six months. But the uncertainty about the resolution’s fate has exposed the difficulty of providing humanitarian aid during an era of great-power competition.
In recent years, Russia and China have shown themselves more willing to use their diplomatic muscle and veto power at the Security Council to enable governments to deprive their own people of humanitarian aid. This summer, Russia and China helped Ethiopia delay meetings of the Security Council to discuss the declaration of famine in Tigray, according to Mark Lowcock, the former undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. Famine still has not been officially declared in northern Ethiopia, though nearly half a million children are estimated to be malnourished in Tigray.
To justify limiting or blocking aid, China and Russia argue that sovereignty is inviolable even when oppressive regimes are conducting siege warfare against their own people. Of course, theirs is a very inconsistent application of international law, especially given Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. By politicizing and weaponizing humanitarian aid, China and Russia are expanding their influence at the expense of international stability, humanitarian norms, and human rights.
If oppressive governments can manipulate relief aid to prosecute their own internal conflicts, the international community loses an essential tool to alleviate suffering and manage crises. The United States and its allies must find ways to minimize the impact of great-power competition on humanitarian crises—in Syria and beyond. One way would be to move some of the debates over relief aid out of a polarized Security Council.
THE LAST LIFELINE
The weaponization of humanitarian aid is not a new phenomenon, but the results of it in Syria are particularly acute and tragic. After a revolution broke out in Syria in 2011, the Assad regime systematically denied humanitarian assistance to large swaths of its population, seeking to force the surrender of communities under opposition control or eliminate them altogether. In response, the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2165 in 2014. This resolution allowed UN agencies to fund, deliver, and coordinate aid through four border crossings to areas that Assad’s forces did not control—without the regime’s consent. As a result, aid agencies reached millions of people who would otherwise have remained beyond help.
In recent years, however, Russia—Assad’s indispensable ally—has used its leverage at the Security Council to whittle the resolution’s remit down to a single crossing between Syria and Turkey. Even with these restrictions, UN aid reaches 4.5 million people trapped in northwest Syria, mostly survivors of Assad’s sieges and Russia’s bombing campaigns. Still, Moscow’s efforts have ensured that the vast majority of UN aid is funneled through Damascus, giving the Assad regime more control over aid delivery. This control has allowed Assad to withhold aid from certain areas and channel it to his allies. It also lets him shape the narrative of the conflict itself. Most infamously, the UN hub in Damascus did not disclose the Syrian government’s siege of the rebel-held town of Madaya until shocking images of starving children circulated in the media in January 2016.
Moscow has also used the threat of its veto to extract diplomatic concessions from other Security Council members, including the United States. Last year, it threatened to shut down the remaining crossing, Bab al-Hawa, to secure Security Council approval for early recovery activities in regime-controlled areas and greater support for cross-line aid operations, where humanitarian assistance is channeled through Damascus across the frontlines into opposition-controlled Syria. Cross-line aid delivery gives the Assad regime more control over what aid gets into northwest Syria. It also tends to be poorly coordinated and lacks the robust monitoring mechanisms that govern cross-border aid.
UN aid reaches 4.5 million people trapped in northwest Syria.
This past July, after furious debate at the Security Council, Russia forced through its own draft of the UN cross-border extension, which gave aid groups only six months to plan for how to meet the acute needs of Syrians in northwest Syria. Previously, the resolution would somewhat assuredly be extended for 12 months at a time. This would give aid groups the ability to hire aid workers, plan programs, and run hospitals, schools, water facilities, and food deliveries to serve millions dependent on that aid. With the resolution set to expire on January 10, the Security Council must vote once again on whether to extend the UN mandate for another six months.
The short six-month time frame and the diplomatic uncertainty have left UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations unable to plan an effective humanitarian response. For example, they cannot hire for positions that may or may not be funded. The impact on the ground has been tangible. The Northwest Syria NGO Forum reported last year that over 8,500 nongovernmental jobs in northwest Syria had been cut and over 400 medical, educational, protection, and water and sanitation facilities’ activities suspended. The bottom line is that the mere threat of a Russian veto has already atrophied the humanitarian response.
For Russia, that is likely the point. The Syrian regime and Russia could not quickly retake northwestern Syria by force. They would face an extended and expanded insurgency, complicated by the presence of Turkish troops. But by limiting aid to the region while sporadically bombing it, they are able to contain the opposition and weaken the civilian population. Cutting off cross-border aid altogether would further tighten the noose. Millions of Syrians would pay a terrible price. Many would try to flee to Turkey or other neighboring countries, which have largely closed their doors to Syrian refugees. The results could destabilize an already fragile region, resulting in additional suffering for which U.S. and European donors would foot the bill. The United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom have already been the most generous donors to humanitarian aid worldwide for the past decade and will be hard pressed to sustain those levels.
Worse, the harmful effects of a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria could easily spread beyond the region. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is facing an election later this year, would likely respond to a fresh wave of Syrian refugees by pushing the flow into Europe. The last major movement of Syrian refugees and migrants, in 2015–16, entrenched divisions within European societies, elevated far-right parties, and challenged European conceptions of human rights. Putin would surely rejoice to see Europe face such a situation again.
IS PERMISSION NEEDED?
What Assad and Putin are trying to do in Syria is not new. In 2008, the military government in Myanmar, fearing outside interference by foreign governments, forbade international aid workers from entering the country after Cyclone Nargis left nearly 140,000 people dead and another 2.4 million in peril. Today, Myanmar’s military junta is preventing aid from reaching several ethnic minority areas whether delivered internally or by cross-border means. In the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the federal government, hoping to cut off opposition forces and weaken populations under rebel control, imposed a blockade two years ago on aid and services to millions of civilians. Over the last two years, Russia and China have blocked the Security Council from passing resolutions decrying the humanitarian crisis and calling for stronger humanitarian action in both Myanmar and Ethiopia.
An oppressive government should not be able to decide which of its citizens receive foreign assistance, knowing that Russia and China will protect it at the Security Council. The United States and its allies must find ways to minimize the human tragedy that results when great-power competition plays out in humanitarian crises. In certain cases, removing the Security Council from the equation would be an important first step.
Even before the passage of Resolution 2165, a number of legal scholars had argued that a Security Council resolution is not required to legalize the delivery of cross-border aid in the face of opposition from oppressive governments. The argument is essentially twofold. First, there is no rule of international law that says, unequivocally, that it is illegal for UN humanitarian agencies to cross an international border into part of a country over which the national government does not have territorial control to provide impartial humanitarian assistance in full cooperation with local authorities and local communities.
Second, the Assad regime’s refusal to allow humanitarian assistance to populations in need throughout the conflict suggests a pattern in which alternatives such as cross-border aid are necessary. The UN General Assembly, the Security Council, and the UN emergency relief coordinator have all implicitly or explicitly suggested that the Syrian government’s withholding of consent to humanitarian assistance in non–government controlled parts of Syria is arbitrary. This means, among other things, that the Syrian government has blocked aid in a manner that violates a state’s obligations under international law. For example, states are not allowed to starve civilian populations. Nor can they withhold aid to civilians because those civilians are deemed supportive of the state’s enemies.
The mere threat of a Russian veto has already atrophied the humanitarian response.
More recently, the American Relief Coalition for Syria, a group of Syrian diaspora–led humanitarian organizations, and international lawyers at Guernica 37, a British law practice that focuses on international criminal and human rights law, argued that although action by the Security Council gave a clearer basis for cross-border aid with Resolution 2165, the situation on the ground today makes the resolution only one of several legal justifications for such aid to continue. In short, the regime’s arbitrary denial of aid throughout the conflict and the static lines of control in the country support the argument that cross-border humanitarian assistance is legal.
None of this is to suggest that the Security Council should refrain from renewing cross-border aid. Even a temporary disruption of aid could be catastrophic for the people of northwest Syria. The UN’s Office of Legal Affairs still considers the resolution a prerequisite for this humanitarian assistance to continue, and UN agencies clearly still feel bound by this internal legal opinion. Although the other members of the Security Council should continue their diplomatic efforts to keep Resolution 2165 alive, the current dilemma will persist until there is a vigorous and transparent debate between the Office of Legal Affairs and numerous outside experts who disagree with its analysis.
Other UN bodies have an important role to play in the case of Syria. As scholar Rebecca Barber has argued, the General Assembly and its relevant committees could pass a resolution underscoring the imperative of continuing cross-border aid in light of conditions in northwest Syria. Such a step would be an important demonstration of global political will and would strengthen the legal argument that Security Council action is not necessary.
More broadly, the United States and its allies should work to enshrine the right to humanitarian assistance even if a sovereign government arbitrarily denies it. This could be done by means of a General Assembly resolution or by an amendment to the 1991 resolution that essentially created the current international humanitarian system. Such amendments could clarify how and when the UN is able to provide for civilians in situations such as the ones that exist today in Syria and Ethiopia. The United States and other champions of the international humanitarian architecture should encourage like-minded nations to build multilateral support for this sort of approach.
Acting now is critical. China and Russia will likely grow even more willing to use their influence on behalf of tyrants as great-power competition grows fiercer. Their weaponization of humanitarian aid is devastating for millions of civilians and will be costly for the United States and its partners. Yet with diplomatic cooperation and persistence, the crisis in Syria could serve as the international community’s chance to tackle the problem head-on and, in the process, save lives in other humanitarian crises, both now and in the future.
-
NATASHA HALL is Senior Fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
- HARDIN LANG is Vice President for Programs and Policy at Refugees International.
-
MORE BY NATASHA HALLMORE BY HARDIN LANG
Foreign Affairs · by Natasha Hall and Hardin Lang · January 9, 2023
15. The Long War in Ukraine – The West Needs to Plan for a Protracted Conflict With Russia
No kidding. A BFO (blinding flash of the obvious). Now is not the time for wishful thinking and hoping for a short war.
Excerpts:
As with his Soviet predecessors, Putin needs to be denied the ability to expand his evil empire, but Russia isn’t going to disappear. The West needs a policy toward Kyiv and toward Moscow. It can’t afford to have one and not the other. A free Ukraine is important to the West. And an imperial Russia remains a threat to Europe. Neither containment nor engagement of Russia are sufficient on their own to defend the West while avoiding larger conflict.
Even a nonimperial Russia minding its own business would have security interests. All states do. It’s not weakness for the West to acknowlege that. Russia doesn’t need “security guarantees” as French President Emmanuel Macron suggested in December. But it is reasonable for its legitimate interests, such as the defense of Russia’s internationally recognized borders, to be respected. It can secure itself with its nuclear deterrent, but it does have an interest in lessening military buildups, and thus the potential for unwanted escalation, along the NATO-Russia border, as does the West.
Eventually, the West and Russia will need to adopt some version of the agreements the United States and its allies forged with the Soviet Union between 1975 and 1990 to limit the worst outcomes and create more stability in Europe. The 1975 Helsinki Final Act committed all parties to recognize existing borders and seek change only through peaceful means. The Vienna Document, signed in 1990 and updated periodically in subsequent years, was a set of confidence building measures that limited military activities, mandated the exchange of information on military holdings, and required prior notification of significant troop movements. Its verification and inspection provisions were designed to eliminate the possibility that any country could engage in the large-scale use of military force without prior notice. Such understandings aren’t possible right now. They may not be possible as long as Putin is in power, although the West should test that. But they remain the only viable means of engaging with Russia over the long run, even as Washington defends itself and helps Ukraine defend itself over what is likely to be a long and difficult war.
The Long War in Ukraine
The West Needs to Plan for a Protracted Conflict With Russia
January 9, 2023
Foreign Affairs · by Ivo H. Daalder and James Goldgeier · January 9, 2023
Whenever the United States faces a foreign policy crisis, critics claim that the U.S. government is doing either too much or not enough. So it is with Ukraine. Many fault the Biden administration for failing to provide Ukrainian forces with the heavy weapons—mainly tanks, long-range missiles, and combat aircraft—that they say are needed to expel Russian troops from Ukrainian soil. Others, worried about Western staying power and the rising human and economic costs of the war, urge the administration to pressure Kyiv into negotiating a deal with Russia—even if that means giving up some of its territory.
Neither argument is convincing. The Ukrainian military has surprised everyone with its capacity to defend the country and even retake a good part of the territory it lost at the outset of the war. But ejecting Russian troops from all its territory, including Crimea, will be exceedingly difficult, even with greater Western military aid. Achieving such an outcome would require the collapse of dug-in and reinforced Russian defenses and would risk starting a direct war between NATO and Russia, a doomsday scenario that no one wants. As for negotiations, Russian President Vladimir Putin has given no indication that he is prepared to give up his imperial dream of controlling Ukraine. And it would be just as difficult to convince the Ukrainian government to cede territories to a brutal occupying force in return for an uncertain peace. Given the strong incentives on both sides to continue fighting, a third outcome is much more likely: a prolonged, grinding war that gradually becomes frozen along a line of control that neither side accepts.
The idea that wars always end in either victory or a negotiated settlement is belied by history, and certainly by the existence of multiple frozen conflicts along Russia’s border. Indeed, Ukraine itself provides a prominent example of this. Despite years of on-and-off peace efforts, the war in the Donbas was largely frozen for the eight years preceeding Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The current war may be no different: after more than ten months of brutal fighting, and months of punishing attacks on its civilian populations, the Ukrainian government will not accept Russian control over any of its territory, particularly after witnessing the looting, rapes, and assassinations that have occurred in Russian-held areas. But Russia is equally unlikely to voluntarily give up Ukrainian territory it wrongly believes belongs to Moscow.
So far, Washington and its allies have appropriately focused on the immediate task of helping Ukraine and avoiding escalation. But there is a pressing need to consider the longer term, and to develop policies towards both Russia and Ukraine based on the emerging reality that this war is likely to continue for quite some time. Rather than assuming that the war can be ended through triumph or talks, the West needs to contemplate a world in which the conflict continues with neither victory nor peace in sight. In such a world, the United States and its allies will need to continue providing Ukraine with military support to defend against further Russian aggression. They will need to contain Russia’s larger ambitions by maintaining economic sanctions and isolating Moscow diplomatically. And they will need to ensure that the conflict does not escalate. At the same time, they will need to lay a long-term basis for security and stability in Europe. That will require integrating Ukraine fully into the West while forging a containment policy that emphasizes both deterrence of Russian aggression and efforts to engage Moscow to avoid the escalation of the war to a broader military confrontation that no one wants. Balancing a Ukraine policy with a Russia policy will be challenging over the long-term, but both endeavors will be essential to the future of European security.
NEITHER VICTORY NOR PEACE
The war in Ukraine has been full of surprises. Despite the Biden administration’s public unveiling of intelligence showing Moscow’s preparations for an invasion, many were stunned that Russia used more than 175,000 troops to attack a neighboring country that had done it no harm nor in any way constituted a threat to its security. And even for those who anticipated a full-scale invasion, events did not go as expected: many were surprised that Russia failed to quickly seize control of Ukraine and overthrow its government. Contrary to expectations, Russia’s military was beset by weak and deeply flawed planning, communications, and logistics, which allowed vastly outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces to hold off the Russian advance towards Kyiv. And then, aided by Western military and intelligence assistance of a scale unimaginable before February, Ukraine continued to surprise the world by shifting the course of the war over the summer and retaking about half the territory it had lost in the initial Russian assault. Meanwhile, the West was able to deliver, with suprising resolve and unity of purpose, a punishing economic blow to Russia. Especially notable was Europe’s willingness to end its reliance on Russian fossil fuels at a cost that few had thought European governments would be willing to bear.
Although Ukrainian forces were able to make dramatic gains in the early fall of 2022 and show no sign of letting up the fight, the dynamic of war shifted again in the final months of the year. Ukraine enters 2023 battered and deeply bruised, not least by Russia’s unrelenting missile attacks against its power grid and other civilian infrastructure. Along with reportedly more than one hundred thousand Russian troops, huge numbers of Ukrainian military personnel and civilians have been killed in the war. Moreover, unlike in the first 10 months of war, there will probably be no significant changes to the current lines of confrontation over the coming months. For one thing, Russia lacks the manpower and materiel to go on the offensive anytime soon, and its missile and drone attacks against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure have only hardened Ukrainians’ determination to resist. At the same time, Ukraine will find it increasingly difficult to breach Russian defenses at an acceptable cost. Ukrainian forces may continue to launch successful offensives through specific Russian lines, for example, in the South towards Melitopol and the Sea of Azov. But unless Russian defenses collapse completely, Ukraine lacks the manpower to hold such gains for long without exposing itself to Russian counterattacks elsewhere.
Since the fall, Western strategists have sought to pre-empt a military standoff in two ways. Some, such as the leaders of several Baltic countries, have called for arming Kyiv with more of the heavy weapons it would need to expel Russian forces from all Ukrainian territory; others, including Mark Milley, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, have suggested that Ukraine’s political leaders should consider a negotiated solution that falls short of complete victory but would at least end the fighting. Neither approach stands much chance of success.
There is a limit to what Washington and its allies can and will provide in terms of weapons and military assistance. Part of that limit is the reality that even the United States is running out of excess capabilities to provide to Ukraine. Take artillery shells. In the past year, Ukraine fired as many of them in a week as the United States can produce in a month. Similar shortfalls exist for more advanced weapons. Germany sent its modern IRIS-T air defense system to Ukraine in October, but it has struggled to supply the quantity of surface-to-air missiles necessary for Ukraine to maintain an effective defense. Given the extensive military aid it has already provided and dwindling available supplies, the West is likely to ship a significantly smaller amount of weaponry to Ukraine over the next six months than it did over the last six months.
Ukraine has fired as many shells in a week as the United States can produce in a month.
In addition to supply constraints, Washington and its allies have also been held back in furnishing some sophisticated weapons to Ukraine because of the extensive training that would be required and the risk that such weapons could fall into Russian hands if used in the war theater. Combat aircraft, from F-16s to newer-generation models, fall into the first category. In the second are sophisticated drones such as the Grey Eagle, which, if they were captured by Russian forces, would give Russia crucial insights into U.S. military capabilities and technology.
Then there is the danger of escalation. Moscow has repeatedly warned Washington not to send long-range missiles to Ukraine, including the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, which has a range of 300 kilometers (186 miles) and could strike deep into Russian territory. U.S. President Joe Biden has consistently rejected calls to send these highly capable missiles to Ukraine, arguing that doing so would divide NATO and risk setting off a direct military confrontation with Russia, even a third world war. It’s easy to dismiss these fears, as many seasoned observers do. But it is crucially important that the United States takes the risks of escalation seriously and constantly weighs the risks of not doing enough to help Ukraine against the consequences of doing too much, including the possibility that Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons. The undeniable reality is that there is an inherent limit to how much Ukrainian and American interests overlap in responding to Russia’s aggression.
Of course, the Pentagon and White House are constantly reassessing Ukraine’s needs and what the United States can do to support them. Systems initially ruled out, including longer range artillery and advanced air defenses such as the Patriot, have since been sent to Ukraine. The latest such change concerns armored vehicles, with the U.S. and France agreeing to supply Kyiv with armored fighting vehicles and light tanks. But while these weapons and equipment will help Ukraine, they are unlikely to tilt the balance of power on the battlefield sufficiently to end the war.
If a full military victory by Ukraine is unlikely anytime soon, the prospects for a negotiated peace seem even further off. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated his willingness to “negotiate with all the participants in this process about some acceptable outcomes,” he is clearly insincere. He has always preferred discussing his territorial goals directly with the United States rather than engaging seriously with the Ukrainian leadership; moreover, he has also insisted that the four Ukrainian oblasts or provinces that Russia illegally claimed to annex in September, along with Crimea, which it seized in 2014, are unalterably part of Russia. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, has declared that Kyiv will never accept any Russian claims on Ukraine’s territory and that any final peace would need to recognize Ukraine’s 1991 borders. No amount of Western cajoling will change Zelensky’s stance, which enjoys overwhelming support from the Ukrainian public—despite, or perhaps because of, the extraordinary suffering the war has inflicted on them.
A Better Long Game
With neither outright victory nor negotiated peace likely anytime soon, the war will grind on for the foreseeable future. Russian defenses in the east and south are solidifying along the 600-mile frontline that now divides Russian and Ukrainian forces. Both sides will probe for defensive weaknesses, but barring a broader collapse of one or the other, the line of confrontation is likely to remain more or less where it is now. Exhaustion and a lack of manpower and materiel might even produce long pauses in fighting that could lead to a negotiated disengagement or ceasefire agreement, even if temporary or provisional. Not all wars end—or end in permanent peace settlements. The Korean War ended in an armistice, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War resulted in “disengagement agreements,” which in the case of Israel and Syria are still in effect. Russia is no stranger to living with frozen conflicts, including in Georgia and Moldova.
If such a grim future awaits the Ukrainians—a situation in which a state of war remains present, with or without intense fighting—the West will need a multi-pronged, long-term strategy that neither gives up on Ukraine’s future nor avoids dealing with Russia on issues of mutual interest. While it is exceedingly difficult to imagine working with Putin and his regime, the West may not have much of a choice over the long-term. Putin has been weakened by the accumulating failures of this war, but he has spent 22 years consolidating power to ensure no one can challenge him successfully. Nor is a revolution from below very likely, given Moscow’s continued capacity for repression of the Russian people. And even if Putin were to be removed from power, his successor could well be someone who shares his vision of a Greater Russia and perhaps even believes that he hasn’t been tough enough.
Despite Putin’s brutality, moreover, both Kyiv and Washington have stayed in direct contact with Moscow since the war began. Ukraine and Russia have negotiated prisoner exchanges. With the assistance of Turkey and the United Nations, Russia and Ukraine reached a deal on grain exports that has largely held. And the United States and Russia negotiated the swap of the American basketball star Brittney Griner for the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. In a long war strategy, the West will need to reinforce such contacts, even if there are very few points of agreement with Russia.
To develop an effective approach to dealing with a prolonged war, the West must also keep providing sufficient support to Ukraine to defend the territory it now controls—and to liberate more wherever possible. As Ukraine over time pursues its economic future in the European Union, the United States and NATO countries need to offer a security commitment to ensure that Ukraine has the weaponry it needs to defend itself against Russia over the long term, just as America has done for Israel for decades. Washington should also explore the possibility with its allies of augmenting Ukraine’s promised EU membership with eventual membership in NATO itself.
The 600-mile frontline is likely to remain where it is for the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, Western leaders need to get back to the business of containing the Russia threat. That will require maintaining all the financial, trade, and economic sanctions they have put in place since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. It also means continuing their efforts to end dependence on Russian energy exports. And it entails doing everything possible to prevent Russian access to technologies necessary to sustain its economy, including in the defense sector.
An effective long-term containment policy will require the continued political isolation of Russia. Moscow’s exclusion from sporting and cultural events helps to ensure that isolation, as do votes in the UN General Assembly that demonstrate the lack of support for its illegal war against Ukraine. But a more concerted Western effort is necessary to demonstrate to the countries in the Global South that alignment with Moscow—or nonalignment itself—ultimately erodes the foundations of peace and security on which the international order is based. That does not mean that all countries need to adopt the economic strategy of the West; but it does mean convincing them that Russia is at fault, and that its behavior is the fundamental cause of their economic plight. As part of that effort, Washington and its Western partners can do much more to address the food, energy, and economic crises that have emerged in the wake of Russia’s unprovoked actions—starting by relieving debts and providing food aid to countries most in need.
Finally, containment of Russia will require the West to maintain a strong deterrence posture not just against military threats, but threats to its own institutions and societies as well. This means that Europe will have to increase its defense spending more than it already has in response to Russian aggression since 2014. The United States will need to stay engaged in Europe even as it devotes more and more effort to the China challenge in the Indo-Pacific. In addition, NATO and EU countries need to bolster their individual and joint effort to thwart Russian interference in their elections and respond forcefully to economic intimidation, political interference, and other forms of hybrid warfare. Although parts of Russia’s military have been decimated, Moscow remains a significant threat to the West.
In addition to deterring Russia and isolating it politically and economically, however, the West will also need to maintain communication channels with the Kremlin to avoid a direct NATO-Russia war and to maintain strategic stability. There can be no broader negotiations between the West and Russia as long as heavy fighting continues, but as in the Cold War, there may be opportunities for both sides to pursue confidence-building measures that can help avoid a confrontation that neither wants. One important step would be to begin talks on extending the New START treaty, which expires in 2026, and provides for intrusive inspections and information exchanges about nuclear weapons in both Russia and the United States.
Containing Russia, Strengthening Europe
For the United States and its partners, a long-term containment strategy for Russia is hardly a new idea. After all, the West pursued such a policy toward the Soviet Union for four decades before it produced the “mellowing” of Soviet power that diplomat George Kennan had hoped for when crafting it. But during the Cold War, particularly after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States also pursued diplomacy to avoid the worst outcomes, especially an all-out nuclear war. Even President Ronald Reagan, who criticized détente for giving away too much to the Soviet Union, pursued diplomatic relations at the darkest moments before Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, such as in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet downing of a South Korean civilian airliner in 1983.
As with his Soviet predecessors, Putin needs to be denied the ability to expand his evil empire, but Russia isn’t going to disappear. The West needs a policy toward Kyiv and toward Moscow. It can’t afford to have one and not the other. A free Ukraine is important to the West. And an imperial Russia remains a threat to Europe. Neither containment nor engagement of Russia are sufficient on their own to defend the West while avoiding larger conflict.
Even a nonimperial Russia minding its own business would have security interests. All states do. It’s not weakness for the West to acknowlege that. Russia doesn’t need “security guarantees” as French President Emmanuel Macron suggested in December. But it is reasonable for its legitimate interests, such as the defense of Russia’s internationally recognized borders, to be respected. It can secure itself with its nuclear deterrent, but it does have an interest in lessening military buildups, and thus the potential for unwanted escalation, along the NATO-Russia border, as does the West.
Eventually, the West and Russia will need to adopt some version of the agreements the United States and its allies forged with the Soviet Union between 1975 and 1990 to limit the worst outcomes and create more stability in Europe. The 1975 Helsinki Final Act committed all parties to recognize existing borders and seek change only through peaceful means. The Vienna Document, signed in 1990 and updated periodically in subsequent years, was a set of confidence building measures that limited military activities, mandated the exchange of information on military holdings, and required prior notification of significant troop movements. Its verification and inspection provisions were designed to eliminate the possibility that any country could engage in the large-scale use of military force without prior notice. Such understandings aren’t possible right now. They may not be possible as long as Putin is in power, although the West should test that. But they remain the only viable means of engaging with Russia over the long run, even as Washington defends itself and helps Ukraine defend itself over what is likely to be a long and difficult war.
- IVO H. DAALDER is President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2009 to 2013.
- JAMES GOLDGEIER is Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
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MORE BY IVO H. DAALDERMORE BY JAMES GOLDGEIER
Foreign Affairs · by Ivo H. Daalder and James Goldgeier · January 9, 2023
16. In Every Modern War, Ukraine Has Been the Big Prize
I missed this on New Year's.
In Every Modern War, Ukraine Has Been the Big Prize
The Eurasian heartland is the axis of what the great geographer Halford Mackinder called the “World-Island.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-01-01/russia-invasion-ukraine-has-been-the-prize-in-every-modern-war?srnd=opinion&sref=hhjZtX76
ByHal Brands
January 1, 2023 at 8:00 AM EST
The biggest story of 2022 was the war in Ukraine, which put that country on the front lines of the great struggle of this century: the contest between democracy and authoritarianism. But if the war surprised many observers, the position in which Ukraine finds itself is remarkably familiar.
With only modest exaggeration, we could call the past 100 years or so the Ukrainian Century, for that country has figured centrally in every great global clash of the modern era.
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Ukraine is a strategic prize due to resources and geography. Occupying some of the richest agricultural land anywhere, it produces large shares of the world’s wheat, corn and barley; it accounts for 6% of all calories traded on international food markets. Ukraine is Europe’s second-largest country by geographical size, and overlooks the Black Sea, which links European Russia to the world.
Most important, Ukraine is the hinge connecting what the great geopolitical thinker Halford Mackinder termed the Eurasian Heartland, with its enormous lands, agricultural riches and energy resources, to the economically advanced countries of Europe.
Any European empire seeking to expand eastward must pass through Ukraine; any Eurasian power seeking to project influence into Europe must do likewise. Mackinder had Ukraine (and Poland) in mind when he argued in 1919: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the World,”
Hyperbole, perhaps, but a formula that helps explain why Ukraine has been so tragically prominent in so many terrible struggles.
“As much as anything, World War I turned on the fate of Ukraine,” the scholar Dominic Lieven wrote. Conquering the area, then part of the Russian empire, was central to Germany’s plans to create a resource-rich Mitteleuropa from the North Sea to the Caucasus. When German armies wrested Ukraine away from a post-revolutionary Russia in 1918, Berlin briefly achieved its Eurasian vision — which crumbled when Germany lost the war on the Western front, thereby undoing its Eastern conquests and allowing Lenin’s Soviet Union to create its own Eurasian empire under Communist rule.
Ukraine again loomed large in Adolf Hitler’s dreams of hegemony. It possessed the “living space” and the foodstuffs that could render Germany impregnable against the continent-sized enemies — the British Empire and America — that Hitler ultimately planned to fight for global primacy.
The Nazis’ genocidal “hunger plan” envisioned looting Ukrainian wheat, corn and agricultural products, and leaving as many as 30 million citizens there and elsewhere in the Soviet Union to starve. (In effect, it was a replay of the “red famine” that Joseph Stalin had inflicted on Ukraine in the 1930s as a means of consolidating Moscow’s rule there.) Some of the most desperate battles of World War II were fought on Ukrainian soil, as giant armies collided in this vital zone.
The Allied victory ensured merely that Ukraine remained subordinated to a totalitarian Soviet empire. As the Cold War began, the US sought to exploit the resulting dissatisfaction by parachuting Ukrainian paramilitaries into the country to foment violent resistance.
That initiative was a bloody fiasco, but the geopolitical logic behind it wasn’t entirely wrong. When the Soviet Union began to fragment decades later, it was Ukraine’s decision to bolt by declaring independence — and refusing to participate in schemes to hold a looser union together — that helped seal the system’s fate.
“Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire,” former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski observed in 1994, “but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”
That’s a good guide to understanding why Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his project to restore Moscow’s mastery, beginning with Russia’s meddling in Ukrainian elections in 2004 and culminating in the full-on invasion in February.
Putin targeted Ukraine in hopes of subduing one crucial piece of the post-Soviet landscape, and thereby bringing others, from Belarus to Kazakhstan, into line. A quick Russian victory would have been a testament to the strength and strategic cunning of the world’s autocracies. It would have fundamentally changed the strategic situation in Europe by casting pervasive insecurity from the Black Sea to the Baltic, and left a freshly invigorated Chinese-Russian partnership clearly dominant within Eurasia.
Not much has gone according to plan, and a Ukrainian victory would bring very different consequences. It would make one the world’s leading tyrants look pathetic rather than preeminent. It could create tension in Russia’s partnership with China by forcing an enfeebled Putin to beg for assistance that Beijing would be reluctant to give. It would produce a revitalized Western community with a commanding position against a dangerous but degraded Russia. Once again, a war involving Ukraine will shape the contours of world order.
The war is also a reminder about how core features of geopolitics remain the same, even as so much in the world changes. Geography still matters. Land-hungry tyrants still seek to dominate their surroundings through conquest and murder.
In every generation, optimists hope that the world has left these ugly truths behind. As Ukraine’s experience teaches us, we forget them at our peril.
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17. Don’t Drive Away Smart Students
Excerpts:
With this in mind, we argue that the U.S. government should focus on three main areas to improve the attractiveness of the United States as a destination for Chinese talent. First, adopt a more surgical approach to security screening around migration. Second, reform visa procedures for graduate students in key science, technology, engineering, and math fields. And finally, complement these steps with improved messaging and outreach.
...
Despite the challenges created by declining U.S.-Chinese relations, Washington has an opportunity to better position itself to win this war for scientific and engineering talent. The Biden administration and Congress should take advantage of Xi’s myopic focus on ensuring party primacy and work to strengthen and secure the U.S.-Chinese talent pipeline that has been critical to American innovation capacity. Only by embracing the best aspects of the liberal ideal — respect for individual rights, a posture of openness, and faith in free markets — can the United States succeed against its illiberal competitors.
Don’t Drive Away Smart Students - War on the Rocks
RYAN P. KELLOGG AND ANITA R. KELLOGG
warontherocks.com · by Ryan P. Kellogg · January 9, 2023
Since 2000, over 50,000 Chinese Ph.D. students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math have remained in the United States following their studies at American universities, generating cutting-edge research and founding start-ups valued collectively at $100 billion. For example, Yi Cui, after completing his undergraduate degree in China, came to Harvard University to pursue a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. Since graduating in 2002, he went on to become one of the world’s leading experts in nanotechnology at Stanford University and founded Amprius, a $600 million company that was recently awarded a contract by the U.S. Army to power next-generation tactical gear.
Outcompeting China for talent like Cui is key to preserving American techno-scientific primacy. But winning this competition is becoming more difficult due to restrictive U.S. visa policies and worsening relations between the two countries. Despite this, we believe that the time is ripe for the United States to redouble its efforts. In recent years Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made a strategic error, undermining the sources of Chinese economic growth and innovation by seeking greater control over universities and private markets. Xi’s policies of centralizing power are pushing away scientists and entrepreneurs, who the United States should be eager to recruit. By embracing policies to attract and retain disaffected Chinese talent — such as creating a more targeted migration screening process and providing green cards for Ph.D. students graduating from U.S. universities — Washington can continue to out-innovate its opponents in Beijing.
Brain Gain
Chinese nationals coming to the United States for higher education and research have been a core part of the U.S.-Chinese relationship for nearly 50 years. Beginning in the late 1970s, China’s leaders began to send scholars overseas for academic and scientific exchanges based on Deng Xiaoping’s “Open Door” policy to rebuild the country’s economy following the Cultural Revolution. These exchanges were carefully controlled by the national government and limited to a few years abroad for established, mid-career scholars. However, by the 1980s scholars were allowed greater independence in arranging and self-funding travel, resulting in explosive growth in the number and type of exchanges taking place.
Become a Member
Growth was particularly large for Chinese graduate students enrolling in American universities. From 1987 to 2018, the number of Chinese nationals grew ten times and now makes up 16 percent of total enrollees in U.S. science, technology, engineering, and math programs, with 36,000 currently active doctoral students. In areas identified as critical and emerging technologies by the White House, like artificial intelligence, this share is even higher, at 27 percent.
During this same period, the percentage of Chinese nationals staying long term (at least 5–10 years) in the United States following graduation has been the highest in the world, averaging between 85 and 90 percent. Our research found that these high stay rates were primarily driven by economic incentives — the overall compensation that a Chinese national could earn in the United States in the private sector or academia well outpaced what they could hope to earn in their homeland at the time.
Bringing Home the hai gui
In response to these low return rates of the nation’s best scientific talent, the Chinese Communist Party launched a series of initiatives beginning in 2008 to bring these hai gui (“sea turtles”) back home. The most prominent of these was the Thousand Talents program set up by Li Yuanchao, the head of the Central Committee’s Organizational Department under Hu Jintao from 2007–2012.
Incentives in the program include competitive salaries and bonuses, leadership positions, research funds, housing allowances, and spousal job assistance. Taken together, these packages can rival or surpass the compensation offered by American employers. In addition to these benefits, Li also pushed for liberalization in academia — namely the adoption of Western norms around openness, collaboration, and meritocracy as the key to creating world-class universities and research environments for returnees.
Despite these efforts, the vast majority of U.S.-trained Chinese Ph.D. holders have remained stateside — some 50,000 since 2000. From a Chinese perspective this has been devastating, given that scientific talent sent to the United States often represents the crème de la crème of undergraduates at extremely selective universities. Furthermore, by not returning these researchers are not passing on tacit knowledge that is critical to implementing advanced laboratory techniques or operating equipment. So while the “pull” factors for reverse migration have not been nearly enough for the Chinese Communist Party to reach the end goal of 90 percent return rates for graduate students envisioned by Deng, the United States has been helping in recent years with the “push” factors to reverse this trend.
Security and Migration Policies in Tension
The December 2017 National Security Strategy released by the Trump administration proclaimed a new era of great-power competition with China and included a focus on “reviewing visa procedures to reduce economic theft by non-traditional intelligence collectors” and “considering restrictions on foreign [science, technology, math and science] students.” Although the White House initially considered a full ban on Chinese students, it ultimately embraced less expansive measures, including executive orders like Presidential Proclamation 10043, which remain in place today.
Proclamation 10043, issued in June 2020, stipulates that students who graduate from universities supporting China’s “military-civil fusion strategy” cannot be issued student visas regardless of their degree level or field of study. Given the broadness of the policy, reports suggest that it may affect 3,000–5,000 applicants per year. The wide net being cast prompted many of the top American research universities to send a letter of concern to the State Department seeking further clarity, lest the policy “cause delays” for “critical projects.”
Of equal concern is the unintended impact of these policies on America’s ability to attract and retain Chinese science, technology, math, and science talent. Despite acknowledgement from senior counter-intelligence officials that “ninety-nine point nine percent” of Chinese students do not come to the United States with malicious intent, the insinuation created by such policies — like Proclamation 10043 and the Department of Justice’s now-defunct “China Initiative” — is that all Chinese students are potential spies and agents of the state. This guilt by association is reinforced by high-profile, but unsubstantiated, arrests in recent years, like those of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Gang Chen and University of Southern California professor Xi Xiaoxing, both of which help to create an unwelcoming environment for Chinese students and researchers.
Driven in part by the chilling effects of these policies, the number of Chinese student visas being requested dropped by half in recent years, reported Chinese student intention to study in the United States has fallen, and four out of 10 scientists of Chinese descent are considering leaving the United States out of fear of government surveillance. So, while the threat from espionage is substantial, the policies put in place have had the unintended consequence of making it much harder to attract and retain Chinese talent — a fact recognized internally by Beijing in a push to boost return rates.
Despite this, many within Washington security circles are advocating for visa policies that will only exacerbate the issue, calling for more expansive bans on visas or limiting even basic research collaborations. In doing so, they have suggested substituting Chinese nationals with either domestic talent or students from countries like India that do not pose a geopolitical threat. But this approach will not maintain America’s technological advantage. On the domestic front, better professional opportunities keep most of the brightest Americans from pursuing the often arduous, decade-long path for a Ph.D. And countries like India simply don’t have the equivalent talent based on the quality of their universities or their research specialties, like AI, compared to China.
More restrictive visa policies will bring other problems as well. By limiting contact with Chinese nationals, the United States loses the valuable intelligence into Chinese research developments that these exchanges bring. And, most importantly, by turning away top talent Washington allows the Chinese Communist Party to benefit uncontested from expertise that might otherwise end up in the United States.
Winning the War for Talent
Rather than driving off potential Chinese students, Washington should win them over by embracing deep-rooted reforms to the immigration system to favor highly skilled migrants. Indeed, the timing for this shift in strategy is ideal.
One of the notable trends in Xi’s consolidation of power has been the reassertion of the Chinese Communist Party’s need for control and stability above economic considerations. The subjugation of once-influential tech executives, the renewed focus on Marxist-Leninist ideology, the restored primacy of state-owned enterprises, and the rigid zero-Covid policy has created a chill among China’s academics and entrepreneurial class alike. In this pivot away from his predecessor’s pragmatic, market-oriented policies, Xi threatens to kill the golden goose that powers China’s growing economic and scientific prowess. As with German scientist emigres during the 1930s, driven out due to religious persecution or disillusioned by the loss of academic freedom under the Nazi regime, the United States has a window of opportunity to draw in human capital that may prove pivotal in the competition ahead.
With this in mind, we argue that the U.S. government should focus on three main areas to improve the attractiveness of the United States as a destination for Chinese talent. First, adopt a more surgical approach to security screening around migration. Second, reform visa procedures for graduate students in key science, technology, engineering, and math fields. And finally, complement these steps with improved messaging and outreach.
An immediate reform that the Biden administration can implement is to revise Proclamation 10043 to remove unnecessary barriers to top-level Chinese talent studying in the country. A 2021 Carnegie Endowment report noted that China, like most countries, has active efforts to integrate its universities with its defense sector, so issuing a blanket ban on individuals with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chinese universities could impact up to 100 institutions. Even if the proclamation is not interpreted this broadly, it could still block 20 percent of annual Chinese enrollment in U.S. science, technology, engineering, and math programs. Already, the eight universities currently targeted by the proclamation include some of China’s top universities in the C9 League.
Instead of this shotgun approach, the United States should better define the scope and goals of this policy. Targeting specific departments within these schools with known military ties would be a good start. Even here, it may be overly broad to keep individuals with bachelor’s or master’s degrees out of the United States, since these students are unlikely to be directly involved in high-end research or have networks in the military establishment. Instead, the focus should be on limiting the entry of mid-career researchers with no academic degrees from American universities. These individuals are much more likely to represent a threat based on past breaches of national security.
Visa reform is key to maintaining the Chinese-U.S. talent pipeline. Chief among these reforms is providing a seamless pathway from U.S. graduate programs to the academic or private sector workforce. Proposals like removing the H1B visa cap for graduates from science, technology, engineering, and math Ph.D. programs were proposed under both the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act (CHIPS Act) and the Inflation Reduction Act but removed due to procedural issues. We would go further and recommend that individuals graduating from U.S. universities with a doctorate be immediately eligible for permanent resident status — a Green Card — with preference given to those specializing in critical and emerging technologies. Ideally this status should extend to family members as well, given that our research found that separation from family members is an important factor pulling individuals back to China.
Finally, to win this war for human capital, U.S. politicians should tone down their anti-China rhetoric, making clearer separations between the Chinese Communist Party and the people of China. Racial and ethnic attacks on individuals of Asian descent have increased by 339 percent in the last year, driven in part by inflammatory rhetoric from government leaders. Not only does this rhetoric feed Chinese government propaganda, but it also decreases the appeal of the United States as a destination among exchange students. While America cannot overcome a decade of concerted propaganda that has linked the Chinese Communist Party to the nation itself in many people’s minds, the United States should strive to be the best version of itself in this contest of “democracies vs autocracies” — the type of country that once granted Green Cards for 50,000 Chinese students following the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Despite the challenges created by declining U.S.-Chinese relations, Washington has an opportunity to better position itself to win this war for scientific and engineering talent. The Biden administration and Congress should take advantage of Xi’s myopic focus on ensuring party primacy and work to strengthen and secure the U.S.-Chinese talent pipeline that has been critical to American innovation capacity. Only by embracing the best aspects of the liberal ideal — respect for individual rights, a posture of openness, and faith in free markets — can the United States succeed against its illiberal competitors.
Become a Member
Ryan P. Kellogg is an investor and manager in the energy industry with 18 years experience working in STEM-related fields. Ryan earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and International Business and Politics in East Asia from North Carolina State University and a M.B.A. from the University of California-Los Angeles. His research on migration preferences of Chinese STEM doctoral students in the United States has been cited by Congress, national security think tanks, and academia.
Anita R. Kellogg is an assistant professor at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, National Defense University. She is also a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California-Los Angeles with a focus in international relations and quantitative methods. Her current research focuses on how China uses economic statecraft to achieve its foreign policy goals.
Commentary
warontherocks.com · by Ryan P. Kellogg · January 9, 2023
18. ‘Experts’ Are Fueling Distrust in Vaccines
Experts or anti-vaxxers - Both are unhelpful. I do not care about either.
We are going to continue to get COVID vaccines/boosters.
‘Experts’ Are Fueling Distrust in Vaccines
They opt for derision in place of persuasion and deny or ignore what people see with their own eyes.
By Allysia Finley
Updated Jan. 9, 2023 8:24 am ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/experts-fueling-distrust-vaccines-antivax-public-health-covid-trials-death-misinformation-booster-myocarditis-variant-11673201083?utm_source=pocket_reader
Nearly half of Americans believe Covid vaccines have probably caused a significant number of unexplained deaths, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey last week. In December, Rasmussen reported that a near equal proportion worry that Covid vaccines may have major side effects (57%) as believe they are effective (56%).
People can hold both views at the same time. But the self-professed expert class and many who call themselves journalists dismiss anyone who questions their Covid vaccine orthodoxy as an “anti-vaxxer”—a label as sneering as “climate denier.”
But surveys show that most Americans, including those who didn’t get Covid shots, don’t distrust vaccines in general. Public views on Covid vaccines are more complicated because they are new and haven’t been thoroughly studied. The experts are responsible for vaccine skepticism because they aren’t honest about the potential risks.
The mRNA vaccines use a novel technology to combat a novel virus that is evolving. They were authorized by the Food and Drug Administration on an emergency basis after only 10 months of testing. Vaccine trials usually take about 10 years.
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With thousands dying each day, the FDA in December 2020 decided it couldn’t wait for an exhaustive study and authorized the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines after two large randomized controlled trials showed they were nearly 95% effective against symptomatic infection. But patients had been tracked for only a few months. The trials included too few participants to identify relatively rare adverse effects, especially among those of different age groups or with particular medical conditions. Public-health officials couldn’t conclude with any certainty whether the vaccines cause, for example, neurological symptoms in 1 of every 100,000 recipients or cardiac problems in 1 of every 10,000 young men.
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While the FDA later granted both vaccines full approval, boosters were never tested in large clinical trials. Nor has the government’s recommended vaccine regimen, which for seniors has been five doses in less than two years. Booster recommendations were made on the fly on the assumption that the benefits outweighed the vaccine risks. Last fall two senior FDA vaccine officials resigned, reportedly because political appointees were pre-empting agency scientists and rushing boosters for all adults without enough evidence that they were necessary or safe.
“Since the boosters have potential side effects, however rare, it’s important to direct them to the people who will gain a clear benefit,” they wrote in the Washington Post in November 2021. “A healthy young person with two mRNA vaccine doses is extremely unlikely to be hospitalized with covid, so the case for risking any side effects—such as myocarditis—diminishes substantially.”
They also raised the concern that boosters could lead to immunological imprinting, in which “repeatedly ‘training’ the immune system to fight the original virus could reduce the effectiveness of a variant-specific booster.”
Scientists continue to study and make new discoveries about the virus; the same goes for vaccines. An article in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation last week found a link between myocarditis in teens and higher circulating levels of vaccine spike proteins in the blood. The authors found no correlation with vaccine antibody or T-cell responses, suspected by many as the cause of myocarditis.
A Dec. 22 study in Science Immunology found that repeated mRNA vaccines increased production of a specific class of antibodies known as IgG4, which is associated with immune tolerance. That’s when the immune system continually encounters a foreign agent, learns it isn’t lethal, and stops targeting it. In the case of the vaccine spike protein, IgG4 could make people more susceptible to future Covid infection.
All this deserves more study. To say the human organism and its systems are complicated is an understatement. A little more humility by those who purport to be experts is in order. It’s usually impossible to prove a death or adverse event is caused by a vaccine. But when a friend dies unexpectedly soon after getting inoculated, it isn’t irrational to wonder if a vaccine has contributed.
Stanford health-policy professor Michelle Mello—a vocal critic of vaccine misinformation—described her personal angst in the San Francisco Chronicle when her healthy 45-year-old husband suffered a stroke a few days after his second Covid dose. “Even after what one doctor called ‘a million-dollar workup,’ no one can figure out what happened,” she wrote in July 2021.
When she suggested reporting the stroke to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a self-reporting database that tracks events possibly related to vaccines, “the hospital care team shifted uncomfortably,” apparently worried that “anti-vaccination groups are combing those reports looking for tidbits to support their claims that the vaccines are unsafe.”
The internet is full of stories of unexplained deaths that follow vaccines, many of which may be coincidence but some of which may not. The more the experts deny or ignore what people see with their own eyes, or what new evidence and experience show, the more people will ignore their counsel and be open to charlatans who undermine all vaccination.
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Journal Editorial Report: The week's best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson and Dan Henninger. Images: Getty Images/Bettmann Composite: Mark Kelly
Appeared in the January 9, 2023, print edition as '‘Experts’ Are Fueling Distrust in Vaccines'.
19. Analysis | Ukraine sees ‘year of victory’ but decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy
Excerpts:
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s fortunes will become ever more dependent on variables outside its control, such as Western resolve, the availability of Western ammunition — and events in Russia.
“What we don’t know is what will be happening in Moscow by the end of the year. There are some serious power struggles,” Hodges said. Although there is no immediate evidence of any challenge to Putin’s grip, the emergence of significant dissent in Moscow or a mutiny among disgruntled Russian troops could prove decisive, Alperovich said.
Events in the United States could prove just as significant, Shackelford said. Although Europe’s support is politically important, its military contributions are dwarfed by the vast quantities of arms supplied by Washington, whose future commitment could be in question if Republicans win the White House in 2024.
“If Putin can turn this into a multiyear war of attrition, he will probably be able to wait Ukraine out,” Shackelford said. “It might still drag on for a while, but Ukraine’s shot will really be diminished by that point.”
Analysis | Ukraine sees ‘year of victory’ but decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy
The Washington Post · by Liz Sly · January 8, 2023
LONDON — With upgraded weaponry on the way, Western resolve holding firm, and the Ukrainian army continuing to outmaneuver and outwit Russia’s flailing military, Ukraine’s promised “year of victory” is off to a good start.
If 2023 continues as it began, there is a good chance Ukraine will be able to fulfill President Volodymyr Zelensky’s New Year’s pledge to retake all of Ukraine by the end of the year — or at least enough territory to definitively end Russia’s threat, Western officials and analysts say.
But while Zelensky was rallying Ukrainians to expect victory this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin used his New Year speeches to prepare Russians for a drawn-out fight. Russian troops are digging into fortified defensive positions reinforced by at least 100,000 newly mobilized soldiers, and though it seems unlikely that Russia can seize more territory anytime soon, it will also be tougher for Ukraine to make advances in 2023 than it was last year, despite momentum from recent victories, military experts say.
If Kyiv cannot achieve significant breakthroughs against this entrenched, growing Russian force, there is a risk that the war will become a protracted conflict favoring Putin, said Elizabeth Shackelford of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. A $45 billion aid package approved by Congress will tide Ukraine over for the year, she said, but with U.S. presidential elections in 2024, the longer-term outlook is harder to predict.
“2023 is really the year,” Shackelford said. “If it doesn’t wrap in 2023, Putin will have a very big upper hand. As it is, Zelensky still has a shot because he still has very strong support.”
“After that,” she added, “all bets are off.”
Developments in the first week of the year suggest the prospects for Ukraine are bright, said Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe. He ticked off the advantages Ukraine will be able to exploit, from high morale among an army defending its homeland to superior leadership, cohesion and seemingly unwavering Western support.
The widespread rejection by the United States and Europe of Putin’s call for a temporary cease-fire over the Orthodox Christmas holiday delivered a clear, early reminder that Ukraine is not yet under pressure to enter into negotiations that Western officials say would likely be exploited by Moscow as an opportunity to rearm and regroup for further offensives, while tightening its grip on occupied territories.
A New Year’s Day attack deep behind Russian lines on a makeshift Russian barracks in the occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Makiivka killed at least 89 Russian soldiers, according to Moscow — and maybe many more, according to Ukrainian and U.S. officials.
The strike demonstrated not only Ukraine’s superior weaponry, intelligence and surveillance capabilities but also Russia’s persistent tactical missteps. Moscow blamed the attack on newly arrived recruits using cellphones, which gave away their location. U.S. officials, however, said there was some evidence that Russia had also stored ammunition in the barracks, compounding the number of casualties at the site.
The same day, Ukraine said it had shot down all 45 of the Iranian-made drones launched to tarnish its New Year’s festivities, a sign that Ukrainian air defenses are growing more adept at thwarting Russia’s onslaught against the country’s infrastructure.
Announcements by France, the United States and Germany that they would provide Ukraine with combat vehicles for the first time came as a significant boost to Ukraine offensive capabilities.
Even the weather has been kind to Ukraine, with record-breaking warm winter temperatures in Europe crashing energy prices and sparing citizens the pain that many analysts had predicted would erode European support for the Ukraine war effort.
In his announcement of the donation of light tanks, French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been widely criticized in Ukraine for seemingly seeking to appease Putin, pledged to back Ukraine “until victory,” his most unequivocal statement of support so far.
As long as Western support remains strong, Hodges said he is confident that Ukraine can retake all or most Russian-occupied territory this year — including the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia occupied and annexed in 2014.
The peninsula’s supply routes are potentially vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks using U.S.-supplied HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) precision weapons, and Ukraine may be able to force Russia to withdraw from Crimea even before it is able to retake all of the eastern Donbas region where most fighting is now focused, he said.
“I do believe Ukraine has achieved irreversible momentum and basically there is nothing the Russians can do to change that, unless they figure out a way to persuade the West to lose interest,” said Hodges, who is now a senior adviser to the Washington-based Human Rights First group.
“I see a lot of positives and I don’t see any weakening of resolve of the West,” he added.
But the onus is now on Ukraine to remain on the offensive, which is more difficult than defending terrain, said Rob Lee, a former U.S. Marine now with the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Ukraine’s successes in 2022 were facilitated by Russian mistakes that are less likely to be repeated now that Russian troops are digging in for the long haul, he said. “It’s easier to defend than it is to attack, and the Russians have already set up long defensive positions,” Lee said.
In some ways, Lee said, Ukraine has already won, not only by holding off the initial Russian onslaught but taking back almost half the territory that was snatched by Russia in the first weeks of the war.
“After the first two weeks of the war, it was clear that Russia had failed to achieve its goals,” he said. “Russia’s aims were so ambitious that Ukraine has won just by remaining a sovereign country. But the question now is, can Ukraine achieve what it wants, which is to return at least to the February 24 borders, if not to retake more territory than that.”
“Whether it can do that,” Lee added, “is what is not so clear.”
Much may come down to which side runs out of ammunition first. Western officials have been predicting for months that Russia is at risk of running out of ammunition, and although that hasn’t happened yet, there is continuing evidence that Russian supplies are low.
Ukrainian officials said late last year that the rate of Russian artillery fire along the eastern front is now only one-third of what it was during the summer, when Russian troops were on the offensive. And although Russia has ordered ramped-up manufacturing, it is clear Russian production will not be able to match consumption, said a Western official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.
The depletion of Russian ammunition supplies, especially for artillery, makes it unlikely Russia will be able to mount any kind of successful offensive operation for some time, despite predictions by the Ukrainian military that Moscow is preparing a major offensive, according to an assessment by the Institute for the Study of War.
But it is also far from clear that the West will be able to keep up with Ukraine’s ammunition needs, especially as offensive operations require greater quantities of materiel, said Dmitri Alperovich, chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington-based think tank.
Alperovich predicted that Ukraine will be able to retake some territory this year but not enough to secure a definitive victory. Putin appears only to be doubling down on his determination to subjugate Ukraine, and although Russia currently lacks the capacity to launch successful offensives, the injection of freshly mobilized manpower strengthens its ability to hold back Ukrainian advances.
“I don’t think this will be the year of the end of the war, unfortunately,” Alperovich said.
If the front lines do not shift significantly in the coming year, the path ahead becomes murkier.
The Russian and the Ukrainian economies both will be hard-pressed to sustain a long war. And it is unclear whether each country can generate enough manpower for a prolonged fight. Ukraine has the advantage for now, with a reserve of millions of military aged men despite its smaller size, while Russia hauls convicts out of prisons to sustain its presence on the front lines, Hodges said.
No one is predicting that Ukraine will give up or lose outright to Russia, he said. The Ukrainians remain committed to fighting and the troops remain far more motivated than their reluctant Russian adversaries.
But a long war would defer indefinitely Ukraine’s recovery, reconstruction and the return of refugees. The government would have to maintain hundreds of thousands of troops along the estimated 600-mile front line while its economy continues to collapse, going some way toward achieving Putin’s goal of denying Ukraine success as an independent country.
Over time, Ukraine’s offensive capabilities will be drained by the attrition of experienced and well-trained soldiers, potentially eroding the manpower advantage it has enjoyed, Lee said. And Russia would have a chance to rebuild its economy, supply lines and combat capabilities to potentially launch future offensives, as it did after the front lines froze after the separatist war in Donbas in 2014 to 2015.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s fortunes will become ever more dependent on variables outside its control, such as Western resolve, the availability of Western ammunition — and events in Russia.
“What we don’t know is what will be happening in Moscow by the end of the year. There are some serious power struggles,” Hodges said. Although there is no immediate evidence of any challenge to Putin’s grip, the emergence of significant dissent in Moscow or a mutiny among disgruntled Russian troops could prove decisive, Alperovich said.
Events in the United States could prove just as significant, Shackelford said. Although Europe’s support is politically important, its military contributions are dwarfed by the vast quantities of arms supplied by Washington, whose future commitment could be in question if Republicans win the White House in 2024.
“If Putin can turn this into a multiyear war of attrition, he will probably be able to wait Ukraine out,” Shackelford said. “It might still drag on for a while, but Ukraine’s shot will really be diminished by that point.”
The Washington Post · by Liz Sly · January 8, 2023
20. What three years of China’s covid travel restrictions cost the world
What three years of China’s covid travel restrictions cost the world
Students, scientists and businesspeople are among those who have paid a price for China’s closed borders.
Lili Pike
China Reporter
January 8, 2023
grid.news · by Lili Pike
For more than a thousand days, China has kept its borders largely closed to the outside world, in an effort to guard against the spread of covid. Today, China is taking a giant step out of its isolation, scrapping its quarantine requirement for inbound travelers.
In March 2020, to prevent a wave of “imported” infections, China locked down its borders to foreigners. Millions of international tourists who visit the Great Wall, Forbidden City and dozens of other sights every year were barred from entry. They weren’t the only ones shut out – so were visiting students, scholars, artists and members of delegations and exchange programs that have been a staple of travel to China for decades. Nearly all existing visas to China were suspended, upending countless lives on both sides of the border overnight.
In the nearly three years that followed, Chinese consulates approved only a limited number of business and family-visit visas; tourist visas remained off-limits. And the travelers who were permitted entry faced other obstacles. In tandem with the border restrictions, the Civil Aviation Administration of China strictly limited international flights, sending the cost of tickets soaring. People flying from the U.S. have had to pay $5,000, and sometimes more, for an economy-class ticket to China – several times the average pre-pandemic price. And once travelers arrived in China, they faced at least 14 days of quarantine in a hotel; some were subjected to far longer periods of isolation – up to two months in some cases.
Overall, from 2019 to 2021, travel in and out of China dropped by 80 percent. It’s been an unprecedented cutoff for a country as large and important as China, and it’s had a sweeping impact, from the Chinese diaspora to cultural delegations to global corporations.
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As China neared the end of its quarantine era, Grid reached out to some of those people to help document what’s been lost in the intervening years.
A breakdown in US-China exchange
Even before the pandemic, “engagement” between the U.S. and China had suffered, as American politicians on both sides of the aisle pushed for a more confrontational approach to China. But for people who believed that face-to-face interaction and exchanges between citizens of the two superpowers remained critical -- perhaps even more so because of rising friction between Washington and Beijing – China’s pandemic restrictions struck a crushing blow.
Study abroad programs that send students to China have been hit hard. Madelyn Ross, president of the US-China Education Trust, formerly served as director of China initiatives at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In that role, she planned a SAIS student trip to Wuhan for March 2020 – a month when the city found itself in the throes of the first covid outbreak. The trip was scrapped, but that was just the beginning. Until this fall, when the Chinese government began reissuing student visas, hardly any foreign students were able to attend study abroad and higher education programs in China. It’s not clear exactly how many students were affected, but as of 2018, when the last data was posted, nearly 500,000 foreign students were studying in China.
Ross and her colleagues worked hard to get around the barriers, planning Zoom classes and online conferences. But they couldn’t replicate the feeling of in-person meetings, she said – not least because the time difference offered only narrow windows of a couple of hours each day that were conducive to classes, meetings and events linking participants in both countries.
“It had a really devastating impact on students,” Ross told Grid.
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At a time when U.S.-China tensions had already turned some Americans away from studying Chinese, the restrictions further dampened student appetite. In a 2021 op-ed in The Diplomat, three foreign students whose programs in China were affected wrote that “faced with the reality of virtual study abroad and China’s opaque visa process, many of our peers have walked away from their initial curiosity about China.” Academics have also felt the blow, particularly those who haven’t been able to travel to their research field sites in China.
Dozens of other sectors have felt the impact. For decades, U.S. environmental advocates have traveled to China to provide expertise and learn from Chinese partners. That exchange has broken down, leaving American environmentalists less aware of the on-the-ground reality for Chinese emissions and the latest nuances of climate policy in China. On the flip side, fewer Chinese environmentalists have been able to travel to critical international climate and biodiversity meetings.
Before the pandemic, Jennifer Turner, the director of the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum, traveled regularly to China for meetings and events with Chinese environmental NGOs. The restrictions have “definitely had a bit of a chilling effect on our work,” she told Grid, leading the organization to pivot toward working more on environmental issues involving China’s overseas infrastructure projects. “I don’t have my hand on the pulse as well as I used to.”
The travel barriers haven’t just been frustrating for individuals like Turner and their organizations. Taken together, they have amounted to a significant setback in collaboration between the U.S. and China – the world’s largest carbon emitters – on the planet’s biggest problem.
Business Impact
The travel restrictions have also exacted a huge cost for Chinese companies and global firms that work in China. In a June 2022 survey, 61 percent of the American Chamber of Commerce’s China members – American companies with operations in China -- said that essential staff, including senior executives, were unable to travel to China. A survey from the same month by the U.S.-China Business Council found that travel restrictions were the third largest issue for its members, after covid lockdowns and U.S.-China relations writ large.
“For most of the past few years, covid-related travel restrictions made it impractical for U.S.-based executives to visit their operations in China,” said Craig Allen, president of the U.S.-China Business Council. “This not only created operational difficulties for companies but also narrowed the people-to-people exchanges that are so important for the business community.”
Many companies told the council that they canceled conferences and delayed major business decisions because their executives couldn’t visit China in person. The American Chamber of Commerce also reported that travel restrictions had been a major challenge for companies trying to recruit foreigners to work in China; fewer people were willing to stomach the move given the travel headaches.
There may be long-term impacts for companies, even after the relaxation of the rules. Combined with local lockdowns, the restrictions have led many businesses to rethink their future in China. By the end of 2021, more than one-third of AmCham’s China members said they were either unsure of their future level of investments in China or planned to decrease them if travel restrictions didn’t change.
Divided families
Then there is the personal loss. And here the group that has felt the impact most keenly are the millions of families that have been separated by the travel restrictions.
A Chinese Ph.D. student at Penn State University who asked to remain anonymous told Grid about her experience navigating the restrictions. She went to college in the U.S. and had grown accustomed to traveling home twice a year to see her family in Beijing. The pandemic put an end to that. She couldn’t return home until the summer of 2021.
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“At that time, just going home was just terrible,” she said. “It took me like a month from door to door.” She had to take a circuitous route and ended up in quarantine for 28 days in Xiamen before being able to enter Beijing. She was lucky, she said, because in the lottery-like system of quarantine hotels, she “won” with an ocean-side room. Nonetheless, the travel took a toll. Eventually, she decided that the flights were too costly and the trips too complicated to undertake.
For many others, the situation has proved heartbreaking. “I know a lot of my friends who have lost their grandparents, for various reasons,” the Ph.D. student said, “and they couldn’t go home because of the covid restrictions.”
Reopening won’t happen all at once
In the months leading up to the lifting of the quarantine requirements, China has also started to make it slightly easier to get a visa. Together, these changes have fueled optimism among those who were shut out of China for nearly three years.
Turner says she is restarting conversations with partners in China to plan in-person projects again. Allen, of the U.S.-China Business Council, says that companies are welcoming the change as a key step toward resuming normal business travel. And the Penn State Ph.D. student is hoping to introduce her new fiancé to her Beijing family this summer.
But many barriers remain in place. The government still isn’t allowing tourists in. In its recent announcement, the government only promised to “optimize” visa processing for foreign citizens looking to visit relatives, and travel for business and study without providing any further detail.
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And of course, there is the inconvenient fact that the pandemic is still there. Having reversed its “zero-covid” policy, China is once again the world’s covid hotspot. That alone may slow any rush to return to China, at least in the short term.
As Ross said, “The outlook right now for the covid situation is so bad that nobody is hopping on a plane.”
Cleo Li-Schwartz contributed reporting. Thanks to Brett Zach for copy editing this article.
grid.news · by Lili Pike
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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