Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners


Quotes of the Day:

"To be irrational gives you certain answers. Anyone would rather go to somebody who says 2+2=5 and there is no mistake about it than to go to someone who says, well, modern scientific research says that 2+2 is usually 4 but we cant always be certain of course. Of course they'll go for the certain thing even if it's wrong."
- Isaac Asimov

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."
- Harriet Beecher Stowe



1. Beijing’s propagandists flounder as the world asks, ‘Where is Peng Shuai?’
2.  China Can’t Censor Away Growing Anger Over Athlete’s #MeToo Accusation
3. Perspective | The WTA cares enough about Peng Shuai to stand up to China. Does anyone else?
4. Opinion | The battle to protect Taiwan’s democracy is already underway
5. Pentagon Quietly Puts More Troops in Taiwan
6. Biden says U.S. ‘considering’ diplomatic boycott of Winter Olympics in China
7. Prominent scientist who said lab-leak theory of covid-19 origin should be probed now believes evidence points to Wuhan market
8. Why China, Russia, and other autocracies may wield an AI advantage in global cyberwars
9. Analysts: Beijing Behind Rise of Chinese Private Security Companies Worldwide
10. War by Timeframe: Responding to China’s Pacing Challenge
11. Anchorage will be the new home for DoD Arctic Security Studies
12. Book excerpt: ‘Gaza Conflict 2021′ dives into ‘war between wars’
13. Marines end crisis response force rotations in Africa, Middle East in favor of airlifting Army troops
14. Japan is prepared to pay more to support US forces, according to local report
15. 94% of active duty Marines at least partially vaccinated as deadline looms
16. Here’s why Marine expeditionary units could soon take a hit
17. A Discussion with Major General James F. Glynn: The CG of MARSOC
18. The Washington Conference 100 Years Later: Averting Great-Power Conflict in Asia
19. FDD | Confronting Kremlin and Communist Corruption
20. FDD | Poor Cybersecurity Makes Water a Weak Link in Critical Infrastructure
21. Iranian dissidents win right to protest against nuke talks in Vienna
22. Fort Bragg's Special Forces, Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs induct honorary members
23. Why This Singer Is the Only Woman Buried In Fort Bragg's Special Forces Cemetery
24. Confronting the Kremlin's New Hybrid War in Europe
25. ‘Where we belong’: Bond forged in war lands Afghan commando's family in Pennsylvania
26. I’m a Defense Industry Worker. It’s Time to Cut the Pentagon Budget.


1. Beijing’s propagandists flounder as the world asks, ‘Where is Peng Shuai?’
Interesting how an issue like this would trip up the propaganda and agitation department of the CCP (I assume it has one).

Excerpts:

In a statement, WTA chairman and CEO Steve Simon said that CGTN’s claim ‘only raises my concerns as to her safety and whereabouts,’ adding, ‘I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believes what is being attributed to her.’ The WTA has offices in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, so the risk it is running in standing up to the CCP is not insignificant.

It’s hard to see a way out of the impasse. The CCP presents its leadership as unimpeachable, but Peng’s allegation reveals dishonesty and hypocrisy at its highest echelons. At the same time, there’s growing momentum behind the calls for assurances about Peng’s safety that are unlikely to go away until she is seen to be safe and well, and allowed to speak freely.

With the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics just two months away, it’s incumbent on everybody to continue to ask the question: Where is Peng Shuai?




Beijing’s propagandists flounder as the world asks, ‘Where is Peng Shuai?’ | The Strategist
aspistrategist.org.au · by Fergus Ryan · November 19, 2021

As international concern about Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai’s whereabouts grows and more of the world’s top tennis stars weigh in, Beijing’s propagandists are floundering.
Hu Xijin, the impish editor of the rabidly nationalistic Global Times newspaper who is usually never short for words, tied himself in knots on Twitter on Friday. ‘As a person who is familiar with the Chinese system, I don’t believe Peng Shuai has received retaliation and repression speculated by foreign media for the thing people talked about,’ Hu tweeted.
The ‘thing people talked about’ that Hu can’t quite bring himself to say is the accusation of sexual assault Peng made against a former high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official in early November. The grim reality is that the former world doubles champion is most likely being held in detention in retaliation for speaking out.
Hu’s limp attempt at an explanation followed an even clumsier one by China Global Television Network (CGTN) the day before, when the party-state media organisation posted what it claimed was an email from the 35-year-old saying that she was ‘resting at home’ and that the allegation of sexual assault was ‘not true’.
The screenshot of the email lacked a date, header or signature but, on the third line, included a cursor, suggesting it was taken either before the email was sent or as it was being crafted in a text document. In other words, CGTN, an organisation already known for producing and broadcasting forced confessions by dissidents, expects us to believe that Peng typed the email and, while still editing it, took a screenshot to send to them before sending it to the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).
To say CGTN’s claim stretches credulity is an understatement. Here are just some of the questions that spring to mind: Why didn’t CGTN post the email on Weibo, or anywhere else on the Chinese internet? For that matter, if Peng is safe and sound, why didn’t she post the statement to her own Weibo page? Why hasn’t any Chinese domestic media reported on the email? And why is Peng’s name being censored inside the Great Firewall?
Both Hu’s tweet and CGTN’s likely fabricated email share the same lifeless, imitative style of the CCP Propaganda Department. Neither Hu nor CGTN—because, let’s not kid ourselves, it wasn’t Peng—dared to mention the 75-year-old man Peng had accused, former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli. Nor did they even hint at the lengthy post that Peng put on her Weibo account on 2 November that contained the accusation of sexual assault that was promptly censored.
The phoney email’s chillingly robotic tone—‘I hope to promote Chinese tennis with you all if I have the chance in the future. I hope Chinese tennis will become better and better’—was in stark contrast to Peng’s Weibo post which was vivid, plaintive and heartbreaking.
‘I know that someone of your eminence, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, you’ll say that you’re not afraid’, Peng wrote, ‘but even if it’s just striking a stone with a pebble, or a moth attacking a flame and courting self-destruction, I will tell the truth about you.’ While one rings hollow, the other has a resounding ring of authenticity.
‘If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,’ George Orwell wrote in Politics and the English language, but it applies just as equally to any other language, including Chinese. China Digital Times, a website that tracks Chinese internet controls, captured the lament of one Chinese internet user that the country’s censorship and propaganda apparatus has destroyed language and turned learning the truth into a fearful thing:
There is a ‘new normal’ in this land: On hearing about the scandals of high-level officials, our instinctive reaction is fear. We know which side will win before the battle is even fought. Everyone knows this, but no one dares to discuss it; everything is secretive and swept under the rug. Everything is reduced to code words; everyone nudges you into deleting your posts. It’s as if, by the simple act of reading something, we have become the wrongdoers.
For Chinese citizens, reacting with fear is entirely reasonable. The Chinese government has a long history of arbitrarily detaining people involved in controversial cases, controlling their ability to speak freely and making them give forced statements. The possibility that a female tennis player, no matter how famous, will win out against a man who was only recently the seventh-highest official in the CCP is slim. There are already signs that Peng is being thrown down the memory hole.
Thankfully, outside of China, Peng’s peers have not been silenced. World tennis champions Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic have joined a chorus of voices expressing their fears about Peng’s whereabouts. The hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai is trending globally. Importantly, the WTA has called for an investigation into Peng’s complaint and said it is prepared to pull tournaments out of China if it doesn’t get an appropriate response.
In a statement, WTA chairman and CEO Steve Simon said that CGTN’s claim ‘only raises my concerns as to her safety and whereabouts,’ adding, ‘I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believes what is being attributed to her.’ The WTA has offices in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, so the risk it is running in standing up to the CCP is not insignificant.
It’s hard to see a way out of the impasse. The CCP presents its leadership as unimpeachable, but Peng’s allegation reveals dishonesty and hypocrisy at its highest echelons. At the same time, there’s growing momentum behind the calls for assurances about Peng’s safety that are unlikely to go away until she is seen to be safe and well, and allowed to speak freely.
With the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics just two months away, it’s incumbent on everybody to continue to ask the question: Where is Peng Shuai?
aspistrategist.org.au · by Fergus Ryan · November 19, 2021


2. China Can’t Censor Away Growing Anger Over Athlete’s #MeToo Accusation

China Can’t Censor Away Growing Anger Over Athlete’s #MeToo Accusation
The New York Times · by Steven Lee Myers · November 17, 2021
The tennis world is outraged over the latest twist in a star player’s complaint of assault and abrupt disappearance from public life.
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Peng Shuai at the Australian Open in Melbourne in January 2020.Credit...Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

Nov. 17, 2021
First came the shocking #MeToo accusation by a famous athlete against one of China’s top leaders. Then came the accuser’s disappearance from public view, one so thorough that questions swirled about her health and personal safety.
The authorities in China had hoped the apparatus of a repressive state could simply make the whole thing go away. Instead, an accusation by the tennis player Peng Shuai that she was sexually assaulted by a former vice premier, Zhang Gaoli, continues to confront the political establishment as few things have.
The latest pushback on China’s effort to squelch the accusation came early on Thursday after Chinese state media tried to refute it, while saying Ms. Peng was safe and sound. It published an email purportedly written by Ms. Peng herself, saying the sexual assault accusations were not true and asking for officials who run women’s tennis to stop meddling.
The response by the Women’s Tennis Association just hours later was unequivocal, suggesting that the email was very likely a crude fraud. “I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believes what is being attributed to her,” said Steve Simon, the association’s executive director.
The international furor over Ms. Peng’s accusation has erupted only weeks before a major event on China’s calendar — the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The Chinese government now faces a new firestorm of criticism of its behavior, which has added fuel to calls for a diplomatic and commercial boycott of the Games.
“The brazen efforts to silence Peng Shuai seem at odds with China’s focus on making the Beijing Olympics a success,” said Natasha Kassam, the director of public opinion and foreign policy at the Lowy Institute and a former diplomat in Beijing.
Then-Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli in 2016. An accusation by the tennis player Peng Shuai that she was sexually assaulted by Mr. Zhang has challenged the political establishment.Credit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press
“There’s little doubt that the fake statement will only strengthen calls to boycott the Olympics,” she said, adding that the handling of Ms. Peng’s accusation “cast even more shadow” on how the International Olympic Committee has responded to allegations that China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
The committee has long taken a position that sports are separate from the politics of host countries, saying the focus should remain on the athletes and the events. But in China, as in many countries, sports and politics are inextricably intertwined.
Ms. Peng’s case is the first #MeToo accusation leveled against someone within the highest ranks of power in China, the Politburo Standing Committee. It has highlighted the country’s swaggering confidence in its ability to suppress all criticism, including from women who have come forward with accusations of misconduct.
“She is definitely not the first one to be forced into silence and disappeared,” Lü Pin, an activist who founded the now-banned Chinese online forum Feminist Voices, wrote in a message from New Jersey, where she now lives. “This kind of encounter is absolutely not uncommon in China now. The authorities have too much power and no one can hold them accountable.”
What has elevated Ms. Peng’s case is her celebrity at home. As she skyrocketed through the ranks of professional tennis, she was once held up by the Chinese government as a model athlete. “She is like a breeze in women’s tennis,” the People’s Daily, the main newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, wrote in 2013. “She’ll always be our Chinese princess.”
That was shortly after she and her doubles partner, Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan, won the championship at Wimbledon. They won again at the French Open in 2014, the year she reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open as a singles player and was lauded by officials as a “golden flower” of Chinese sports.
On Nov. 2, her accusation became a thorn in the government’s side.
In a long, at times disjointed post published on her verified social media account that night, Ms. Peng described an on-and-off relationship with Mr. Zhang, a former provincial governor who served as one of seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee between 2012 and 2017. When he stepped down, her post said, they reunited and he assaulted her after inviting her to play tennis with him and his wife.
Ms. Peng, 35, described feeling powerless in making accusations against such a politically powerful man. In the account, which has not been corroborated, Ms. Peng acknowledged that she could not provide evidence.
The accusation reverberated, though, in a society where women are often mistreated. Her description of assault has hit a nerve in China’s nascent #MeToo movement, which has struggled to gain momentum as women who come forward as victims are frequently met with heavy-handed legal responses and censorship online.
The international furor over Ms. Peng’s accusation has erupted only weeks away from a major milestone on China’s political calendar — the Winter Olympics in Beijing.Credit...Tingshu Wang/Reuters
“Even if it’s just me, like an egg hitting a rock, or a moth to the flame, courting self-destruction, I’ll tell the truth about you,” she wrote. The post disappeared within minutes, but it has continued to circulate in screen shots. Censors have managed to scrub the Chinese internet of any reports or comments about her or the accusation.
State media have not reported on the episode. A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian, dodged questions about the accusation on Monday, saying, “I have not heard of the issue you raised.” On social media, there are no recent comments about Ms. Peng or her allegations, and posts written by her fans in online forums could not be found.
That silence is in stark contrast to the outpouring of support for Ms. Peng from the international tennis community, a split screen underscoring the effectiveness of China’s censorship tools.
The head of the Women’s Tennis Association has called for an investigation into Ms. Peng’s allegations and even suggested that the tour might stop doing business in China if it did not “see appropriate results.” The governing body of men’s tennis, the ATP Tour, also weighed in with a statement saying the group was “deeply concerned by the uncertainty surrounding the immediate safety and whereabouts” of Ms. Peng.
Some of the world’s best-known tennis players have also joined in drawing public attention to Ms. Peng — at least outside the reach of China’s censors.
“I can’t believe this is even happening in the 21st century,” Liam Broady, the British tennis player, wrote of Ms. Peng’s disappearance. Novak Djokovic, the world’s No. 1 men’s player, said the limited details surrounding Ms. Peng’s disappearance more than two weeks after her post were “shocking.” In calling attention to Ms. Peng’s disappearance, Naomi Osaka of Japan wrote, “Censorship is never OK at any cost.”
The W.T.A.’s response has been far more forceful than other organizations — or even countries — that have found themselves at odds with China’s government. Many have cowered for fear of losing access to the country’s huge markets. In 2019, for example, the National Basketball Association sought to placate the government after Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, expressed support for the mass protests in Hong Kong, leading to a blackout of games in China
Human Rights Watch also criticized top commercial sponsors of the Olympics last week for not speaking out on issues involving labor and other abuses.
It remains unclear what the Chinese government will do next, if the calls for information on Ms. Peng’s whereabouts grow louder. Ms. Peng remains a ranked player, though she has not competed in a tournament since the Qatar Total Open in February 2020. For now, the government appears to be simply waiting for the scandal to go away.
“The party state has reacted as it does to all problems that challenge its moral standing and legitimacy by ‘disappearing’ the problem itself,” said Linda Jaivin, the author of “The Shortest History of China,” among other books. “But Peng Shuai, as an internationally prominent figure, is not so easily disappeared.”
Amy Chang Chien contributed reporting and Claire Fu contributed research.
The New York Times · by Steven Lee Myers · November 17, 2021

3. Perspective | The WTA cares enough about Peng Shuai to stand up to China. Does anyone else?

Perhaps Steve Simon will teach everyone a lesson about standing up to the Chinese bully. It will be interesting to see how this all sorts out geopolitically. And I hope that Peng Shuai is safe. Unfortunately I fear negative outcomes.

Excerpts:
Three days ago the Chinese Communist Party moved to make Xi ruler for life and published a manifesto of more than 36,000 characters that states his future intentions:
To crush Western democratic ideas, wage ideological war to dominate the Internet and take Taiwan and fold it into “full national reunification.” He also called the 1989 tank-crushing, head-cracking brutality in Tiananmen Square the right response.
Nothing is going to change China’s behavior. That illusion departed with the extinguishing of the flame in the 2008 Olympics. But Western bloc countries better change theirs. One of the things that has happened since the ’08 Games is the slow gathering of a disturbing imperviousness, and the disappearance of Peng is an all too ominous indication that this regime has a sense that it can get away with anything. Does anyone really think that, if this autocratic handshake isn’t broken, anything will get better from here?

Perspective | The WTA cares enough about Peng Shuai to stand up to China. Does anyone else?
The Washington Post · November 18, 2021
It is a fact, a contemptible, milk-weak, sordid fact, that the members of the women’s tennis tour have more clean-principled steel when it comes to confronting China than executives at the International Olympic Committee, the NBA, Proctor & Gamble and the Oval Office, to name just a few shoulder-curlers, shrinkers and cringers who can’t seem to find their duty.
It has been two weeks since Peng Shuai, the 35-year-old tennis player who was once No. 1 in the world in doubles, posted a claim on the social media site Weibo that she was sexually assaulted by Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier under Xi Jinping and top Communist Party leader. “Even if I’m destroying myself, like throwing an egg against a rock, or a moth flying into a flame, I will still speak out the truth about us,” the now-deleted post said. She has not been seen since. Search engines in China are scrubbed of her. Apparently even text mentions of her are flagged by state surveillance. Her social media account has disappeared. Meanwhile, Olympic sponsors and U.S. companies continue to funnel traitorous billions into abetting the coverups of the China president’s lurid regime.
The only organization that has shown any vertebrae on the matter of Peng’s disappearance is the Women’s Tennis Association. Coca-Cola? They’re apparently fine with the mysterious disappearance of a woman.
There is no trace of Peng but a sketchy purported message that is all the more sinister because it was released on Twitter by state-owned mouthpiece China Global Television, saying the allegation of rape “is not true. I’m not missing, nor I am unsafe. I’ve just been resting at home and everything is fine.” Yet no one can reach her. As ESPN commentator and former champion Rennae Stubbs remarked on her own Twitter account, “Thanks for the email, Peng Shuai. Now can u send us all a voice mail, picture, and a video with a time stamp?”
Steve Simon, the CEO and chair of the WTA, outright scoffed at the message. “I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believes what is being attributed to her,” he said in a statement. Simon has done what literally no one else seems willing to do: He threatened to cancel the WTA tournaments in China — 10 in all, including the hugely important Tour Finals in 2022 — and to suspend any business there until her safety is verified.
It’s not surprising that the WTA would take a stand. The tour always has been as much about social justice as enterprise. Co-founded by Billie Jean King and the “Original Nine” in the heart of the civil rights movement in 1970, the WTA is rightly using its power as the No. 1 platform in the world for female athletes on Peng’s behalf. King believed that to be listened to, a woman had to be No. 1.
What’s disappointing is the degree to which its exercise of muscle exposes and disgraces others.
The IOC, historical toady of tyrants, distinguished itself with a statement that, as usual, combined fraudulence with cowardice: “We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe.” President Biden said in a meeting with Canada’s Justin Trudeau ever so gently that a “diplomatic” boycott of the upcoming Beijing Winter Games “is something we’re considering.”
There should be no considering, no half-measures of sending athletes and sponsor dollars but no politicians. There should be only a hard boycott of the upcoming Beijing Winter Games — and total commercial extrication from this regime. China’s president is on a concerted campaign to enforce a worldwide gag order over his murderous, rapacious, club-whacking policies. He very much would like to insinuate his power into your phone via surveillance, and he will continue to export his tyranny through trapping market entanglements. The WTA resembles nothing so much as that woman in “Jaws” who alone sees the Great White gliding toward the estuary pond. Everyone else engaged with Beijing seems either inattentive, afraid or compromised and immobilized to the point of tacitly condoning crimes against humanity.
Three days ago the Chinese Communist Party moved to make Xi ruler for life and published a manifesto of more than 36,000 characters that states his future intentions:
To crush Western democratic ideas, wage ideological war to dominate the Internet and take Taiwan and fold it into “full national reunification.” He also called the 1989 tank-crushing, head-cracking brutality in Tiananmen Square the right response.
Nothing is going to change China’s behavior. That illusion departed with the extinguishing of the flame in the 2008 Olympics. But Western bloc countries better change theirs. One of the things that has happened since the ’08 Games is the slow gathering of a disturbing imperviousness, and the disappearance of Peng is an all too ominous indication that this regime has a sense that it can get away with anything. Does anyone really think that, if this autocratic handshake isn’t broken, anything will get better from here?
The Washington Post · November 18, 2021
4. Opinion | The battle to protect Taiwan’s democracy is already underway
Excerpts:

There’s no shortage of ideas on how to increase U.S.-led international support for Taiwan, helping it to maintain its democracy without “encouraging independence.” The Biden administration could open free-trade talks with Taiwan and encourage other countries to do the same, expand government-supported cooperation in the private and nongovernment sectors, push harder for Taiwan’s inclusion in international organizations, and actively thwart Beijing’s attempts to pry away Taiwan’s last few remaining diplomatic allies.

“The long-term military threats to Taiwan are increasing,” said Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington. “But the more immediate threats are actions taken by China that fall into the realm of hybrid warfare and political warfare aimed at subverting institutions and eroding the psychological resiliency of the people of Taiwan.

”The United States’ “strategic ambiguity” about Taiwan’s independence should not stop us from setting out clear policies on how we will help Taiwan to stay free, democratic and prosperous. This objective must be a U.S. national security priority. Deterring China from a military invasion is only one piece of that puzzle.
Opinion | The battle to protect Taiwan’s democracy is already underway
The Washington Post · by Josh RoginColumnist Today at 6:21 p.m. EST · November 18, 2021
Americans are becoming concerned about China’s increasingly menacing military stance toward Taiwan. But the talk about whether Chinese President Xi Jinping intends to take the island by force obscures a more complex struggle. Beijing’s campaign to exert pressure and influence on the island — mostly in nonmilitary ways — is intensifying, and Taiwan needs more help from the United States and its partners to counter it.
President Biden seems to get this, but he has struggled to convey a clear and consistent message on Taiwan. On Monday, Biden and Xi took part in a virtual summit. The next day, Biden made a remark that seemed to contradict the United States’ carefully calibrated policy of “strategic ambiguity,” according to which the U.S. government avoids taking a public position on whether Taiwan is an independent country.
"It's independent. It makes its own decisions,” the president told reporters. Biden later clarified that he was “not encouraging independence,” saying that the Taiwanese people could choose it if they wanted to. “Let them make up their mind. Period,” he said.
The White House played down the president’s comments, affirming that U.S. policy is based on the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (which Biden voted for as a senator) and repeating the long-standing talking point that “the United States strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo.”
It is possible that Biden simply misspoke, but just last month he also made comments on Taiwan in which he seemed to be saying the quiet part out loud. Asked whether the United States would defend Taiwan in the case of a Chinese attack, the president said, "Yes, we have a commitment to do that.” The White House quickly clarified again that U.S. policy hadn’t changed.
Both of these gaffes were unintentionally revealing. They showed that Biden truly believes in preserving the democracy and freedoms that Taiwan enjoys right now, enabling the island to make its own decisions about its future. Meanwhile, the Taiwanese government, led by President Tsai Ing-wen is loudly warning that the threat from China is not just military, that it is “increasing every day,” and that 23 million Taiwanese citizens are fighting to preserve liberal democracy.
“If we fail, then that means people that believe in these values would doubt whether these are values that they (should) be fighting for,” she said last month.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) led a congressional delegation to Taiwan last week and met with Tsai and other political and business leaders there. During an interview, Cornyn told me that the United States has to marshal the international community in a more comprehensive effort to bolster Taiwan’s economic resilience, and not just help Taiwan arm itself to deter a physical attack by China.
“This has been a discussion about, ‘How do we prevent an invasion of Taiwan?’ This trip convinced me, we need to open the aperture and look at other ways that we can deter China,’ he said. “The key to deterrence is to rely on the thing the [People’s Republic of China] does not have, which is our friends and allies in the region.”
The United States and its partners also have a practical incentive for defending Taiwan, Cornyn told me. The island is a critical node in the high-technology supply chains the world depends on. The deal between Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC and the Trump administration to build a semiconductor factory in Arizona is just one small example of how Taiwan has become integrated into U.S. supply chains (and vice versa). Some call this relationship a “silicon shield,” because it links Taiwan’s survival to our economic security.
Allies including Japan, India and Australia are all becoming more vocal about the fact that Taiwan’s fall would be a problem not just for Taiwan, but for the region as a whole. To its credit, the Biden administration has been cautiously moving to coordinate its Taiwan policy with these countries. But much more needs to be done.
There’s no shortage of ideas on how to increase U.S.-led international support for Taiwan, helping it to maintain its democracy without “encouraging independence.” The Biden administration could open free-trade talks with Taiwan and encourage other countries to do the same, expand government-supported cooperation in the private and nongovernment sectors, push harder for Taiwan’s inclusion in international organizations, and actively thwart Beijing’s attempts to pry away Taiwan’s last few remaining diplomatic allies.
“The long-term military threats to Taiwan are increasing,” said Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington. “But the more immediate threats are actions taken by China that fall into the realm of hybrid warfare and political warfare aimed at subverting institutions and eroding the psychological resiliency of the people of Taiwan.”
The United States’ “strategic ambiguity” about Taiwan’s independence should not stop us from setting out clear policies on how we will help Taiwan to stay free, democratic and prosperous. This objective must be a U.S. national security priority. Deterring China from a military invasion is only one piece of that puzzle.
The Washington Post · by Josh RoginColumnist Today at 6:21 p.m. EST · November 18, 2021

5. Pentagon Quietly Puts More Troops in Taiwan

Not sure I would make a big deal about these numbers. There are probably mostly Marine Guard detachments, military attachés, and some administration, communication, and logistics personnel that support the attaches and security assistance activities (e.g, foreign military sales).

Excerpt:


According to the Defense Manpower Data Center, a Pentagon office that collates troop data, the United States now has 39 troops in Taiwan, including 29 Marines, five airmen, three sailors, and two soldiers. That’s a jump from June, when the same office tracked 30 active-duty troops and 15 civilians serving on the island, including 23 Marines, as Foreign Policy previously reported.

Pentagon Quietly Puts More Troops in Taiwan
Foreign Policy · by Jack Detsch · November 18, 2021
Deeper U.S. engagement comes as the wisdom of strategic ambiguity is increasingly questioned.
By Jack Detsch, Foreign Policy’s Pentagon and national security reporter.
NEW FOR SUBSCRIBERS: Click + to receive email alerts for new stories written by  Jack Detsch
A US-made CH-47 helicopter flies an 18-meter by 12-meter national flag at a military base in Taoyuan on September 28, 2021. Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images
The Biden administration added more U.S. troops to Taiwan over the past few months, according to newly published Defense Department data, leaving nearly 40 troops on the embattled island to protect the de facto U.S. embassy and train Taiwanese troops.
The small but steadily growing U.S. footprint—now nearly twice as big as last year—could represent increased concern in the White House and the Pentagon over the island’s fate. While most military officials don’t believe China has made the decision to invade just yet, as Beijing builds up its amphibious forces and hypersonic missiles to potentially soften up Taiwan’s defenses, the temperature has continued to rise, especially after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s virtual coronation in a major party plenum this month. Chinese officials are increasingly outspoken about restoring what they see as a renegade province—by any measure.
“Achieving China’s complete reunification is an aspiration shared by all sons and daughters of the Chinese nation. We will strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification with utmost sincerity and efforts. That said, should the separatist forces for ‘Taiwan independence’ provoke us, force our hands, or even cross the red line, we will be compelled to take resolute measures,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said this week.
The Biden administration added more U.S. troops to Taiwan over the past few months, according to newly published Defense Department data, leaving nearly 40 troops on the embattled island to protect the de facto U.S. embassy and train Taiwanese troops.
The small but steadily growing U.S. footprint—now nearly twice as big as last year—could represent increased concern in the White House and the Pentagon over the island’s fate. While most military officials don’t believe China has made the decision to invade just yet, as Beijing builds up its amphibious forces and hypersonic missiles to potentially soften up Taiwan’s defenses, the temperature has continued to rise, especially after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s virtual coronation in a major party plenum this month. Chinese officials are increasingly outspoken about restoring what they see as a renegade province—by any measure.
“Achieving China’s complete reunification is an aspiration shared by all sons and daughters of the Chinese nation. We will strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification with utmost sincerity and efforts. That said, should the separatist forces for ‘Taiwan independence’ provoke us, force our hands, or even cross the red line, we will be compelled to take resolute measures,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said this week.
According to the Defense Manpower Data Center, a Pentagon office that collates troop data, the United States now has 39 troops in Taiwan, including 29 Marines, five airmen, three sailors, and two soldiers. That’s a jump from June, when the same office tracked 30 active-duty troops and 15 civilians serving on the island, including 23 Marines, as Foreign Policy previously reported.
The steady buildup comes as tensions over Taiwan have risen in recent weeks. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden characterized Taiwan as “independent” in a seeming off-the-cuff break with the U.S. “One China” policy, under which Washington has solely recognized Beijing while holding unofficial diplomatic relations with Taiwan since 1979. Biden and other senior administration officials later walked back the comments, insisting there was no policy change.
Some experts want the Biden administration to take a harder stance in coming to publicly support Taiwan, including with high-level visits by U.S. military and civilian officials, after China held record-breaking exercises in the island’s air defense identification zone in late September and early October.
“I don’t know that the U.S. government is serious about the defense of Taiwan,” said Ian Easton, a senior director at the Project 2049 Institute, a China-focused think tank based in Arlington, Virginia. “Right now, there’s still too many of these old bad habits that have built up in U.S.-Taiwan relations where the U.S. kind of acts like we’re ashamed to be there. Or actually maybe we’re doing something wrong by defending a like-minded democracy, and we don’t want to upset Beijing.”
The numbers from the Defense Manpower Data Center, the Pentagon tracking office, may not provide a full snapshot of U.S. troop numbers; it is not clear whether the tracking accounts for Army Special Forces training in Taiwan, for example. But the latest figure represents another jump from what has been historically a small cluster of U.S. forces. During the late Obama and early Trump administrations, the United States had 10 or so troops on the island, which doubled by the end of former President Donald Trump’s term. The number of U.S. civilians has remained mostly consistent, per Pentagon tracking figures, at about 15.
And that role appears to be expanding: Marines are deployed around the world to help out with embassy security, and U.S. forces that have been quietly rotated in and out of Taiwan for decades have typically helped Taiwan’s military train up on U.S. weapons systems sold under the Taiwan Relations Act. But in the past two years, after intense lobbying from former National Security Advisor John Bolton, U.S. troops have begun to take a more active role, helping the Taiwanese prepare to repel a possible Chinese amphibious assault and train them to continue an armed resistance on land if the People’s Liberation Army tries to mop up with a counterinsurgency campaign.
Some are worried that the growth of U.S. troops in Taiwan could unnecessarily commit the Pentagon to defending the island, further extending the U.S. military and going back on the Biden administration’s seeming desire to extricate more U.S. forces from foreign conflicts.
“The reality is that the American people would not and do not support going to war with China over Taiwan,” said Alexander McCoy, a progressive foreign-policy organizer and one of the co-founders of Common Defense, a veterans group. “That’s just the basic reality. So these members of Congress that are being hawkish about Taiwan, they’re bluffing with their weak poker hand face up on the table, and they’re using our lives as chips, not to mention the lives of all the people who would be caught in the crossfire. It’s just stupid, and I struggle to even know what to say about it.”
Yet Beijing only appears to be moving faster. The congressionally appointed U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its annual report, released on Wednesday, that China had stepped up military coercion in the East and South China Seas, as well as in the Taiwan Strait over the past year. The commission called on Congress to take major steps forward in the U.S. relationship with Taiwan, including by granting multiyear U.S. military aid to the island and priority delivery for U.S. weapons systems, authorizing the deployment of anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles to the region, and allocating money for better missile defense and hardening U.S. bases against possible Chinese attack.
Some Republicans and defense experts are beginning to doubt the wisdom of the United States’ so-called “strategic ambiguity” around the defense of Taiwan, a long-held policy under which Washington is deliberately not clear about whether it would defend Taiwan from Chinese invasion.
“I can’t think of another case in the past 70 years where the U.S. has ever been able to deter a power like China by doing what it’s doing with Taiwan,” said Easton, the China defense expert. “Strategic ambiguity did not deter North Korea from invading South Korea in 1950. It did not deter North Vietnam from invading South Vietnam. It did not deter Saddam Hussein from invading Kuwait in 1990. Those were all cases where we had policies of strategic ambiguity and they failed.”
“The more steps this administration and any future administration can take to be more transparent, the better,” he said.
Jack Detsch is Foreign Policy’s Pentagon and national security reporter. Twitter: @JackDetsch

6. Biden says U.S. ‘considering’ diplomatic boycott of Winter Olympics in China

Excerpts:
During a news briefing shortly after Biden’s comments, Psaki said that the White House has “serious concerns about the human rights abuses we’ve seen” in China and that there are “a range of factors as we look at what our presence would be” at the Olympics.
But Psaki said that she had no update beyond what Biden had relayed and that she wants to “leave the president the space to make decisions.” She offered no timeline for announcing a decision.
Earlier this week, Washington Post opinion columnist Josh Rogin reported that the White House is expected to announce that neither Biden nor any other U.S. government officials will attend the Games.
Among the Republicans advocating a diplomatic boycott is Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who was the president and chief executive of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2002.
In a New York Times essay this year, he said that American athletes should compete in China but that American spectators, diplomats and executives “should stay at home.”
“Limiting spectators, selectively shaping our respective delegations and refraining from broadcasting Chinese propaganda would prevent China from reaping many of the rewards it expects from the Olympics,” Romney wrote.


Biden says U.S. ‘considering’ diplomatic boycott of Winter Olympics in China
The Washington Post · by John Wagner and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. Yesterday at 5:25 p.m. EST · November 18, 2021
President Biden said Thursday that his administration is “considering” a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in China, a move that would allow U.S. athletes to compete but keep government officials from attending the Games in Beijing to protest China’s human rights abuses.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), have advocated for such a boycott.
Biden said a diplomatic boycott is “something we are considering” as he responded to questions from reporters during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Biden has faced pressure to deny Chinese President Xi Jinping the prestige that comes from playing host to global leaders at one of the biggest sporting events in the world. The Games open in early February.
As early as two weeks after Biden was inaugurated, diplomats began private discussions with allies about how to handle the Olympics. Former officials as well as lawmakers were uneasy about the thought of American athletes and dignitaries taking part in a ceremony in China’s capital while more than a million Uyghurs are imprisoned in camps in the country’s northwest.
On Thursday, after Biden’s statements, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who is rumored to be mulling a run for president, said that the administration should implement a full boycott of the Olympics — “No athletes. No administration officials. No corporate sponsors” — and that a diplomatic boycott was “the least, the absolute bare minimum, that any civilized nation would do.”
Beijing has been accused of genocide by the U.S. government for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region and has been heavily criticized for cracking down on democracy advocates in Hong Kong, among other things. In recent days, the international athletic community has raised concerns about Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, a two-time Grand Slam champion in doubles, who reportedly has not been heard from since she accused a high-ranking Chinese political figure of sexual assault.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday responded to reports of an imminent White House announcement of a diplomatic boycott by declaring that Beijing is confident it can deliver a “streamlined, safe and splendid” Games.
Chinese state media has dismissed calls for boycotts of the upcoming Winter Games as an “illogical farce.”
“A boycott of Beijing 2022 on so-called human rights grounds is not against China itself, but actually targets the Olympics Movement,” Xinhua News Agency wrote in a commentary last week.
China has long considered the Olympics a critical platform for improving its global image. Ahead of the 2008 Summer Games, entire blocks of Beijing were rebuilt to beautify the city and residents were given lessons in “civility” and English.
But China’s desire for a celebratory atmosphere was undermined by international concern over human rights abuses, including a harsh crackdown on widespread protests in Tibetan regions in March 2008.
In the past 10 months, Biden has tried to deftly manage U.S.-China relations, speaking up when the Chinese violate international norms or disregard human rights while seeking to avoid outright conflict.
Biden has repeatedly framed U.S. actions at home and abroad as a democratic counterpoint to autocratic and authoritarian nations such as Russia and China, which he has described as a U.S. competitor, not an adversary.
As he faced questions this year about the withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending a two-decade-long war, he said China and Russia would love to see the United States still pouring resources into that country. And this week, bragging about the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan he signed Monday, the president said the investment will make the United States more competitive on the world stage. “For example, because of this law, next year will be the first year in 20 years that American infrastructure investment will grow faster than China’s.”
Later, he framed the bill signing in historic terms.
Biden and Xi engaged in a 3 1/2-hour virtual meeting Monday night. But White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the topic of the Olympics and the attendance of U.S. diplomats did not come up.
During a news briefing shortly after Biden’s comments, Psaki said that the White House has “serious concerns about the human rights abuses we’ve seen” in China and that there are “a range of factors as we look at what our presence would be” at the Olympics.
But Psaki said that she had no update beyond what Biden had relayed and that she wants to “leave the president the space to make decisions.” She offered no timeline for announcing a decision.
Earlier this week, Washington Post opinion columnist Josh Rogin reported that the White House is expected to announce that neither Biden nor any other U.S. government officials will attend the Games.
Among the Republicans advocating a diplomatic boycott is Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who was the president and chief executive of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2002.
In a New York Times essay this year, he said that American athletes should compete in China but that American spectators, diplomats and executives “should stay at home.”
“Limiting spectators, selectively shaping our respective delegations and refraining from broadcasting Chinese propaganda would prevent China from reaping many of the rewards it expects from the Olympics,” Romney wrote.

Ellen Nakashima and Christian Shepherd contributed to this report.
The Washington Post · by John Wagner and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. Yesterday at 5:25 p.m. EST · November 18, 2021

7. Prominent scientist who said lab-leak theory of covid-19 origin should be probed now believes evidence points to Wuhan market

What really happened can we ever know? Will we ever know?  

Excerpts:
The article, by University of Arizona evolutionary virologist Michael Worobey — a specialist in the origins of viral epidemics — does not purport to answer all questions about the pandemic’s origins, nor is it likely to quell speculation that the virus might have emerged somehow from risky laboratory research.
Worobey has been open to the theory of a lab leak. He was one of the 18 scientists who wrote a much-publicized letter to Science in May calling for an investigation of all possible sources of the virus, including a laboratory accident. But he now contends that the geographic pattern of early cases strongly supports the hypothesis that the virus came from an infected animal at the Huanan Seafood Market — an argument that will probably revive the broader debate about the virus’s origins.

Prominent scientist who said lab-leak theory of covid-19 origin should be probed now believes evidence points to Wuhan market
The Washington Post · by Joel AchenbachYesterday at 2:00 p.m. EST · November 18, 2021
The location of early coronavirus infections in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, suggests the virus probably spread to humans from a market where wild and domestically farmed animals were sold and butchered, according to a peer-reviewed article published Thursday in the journal Science that is the latest salvo in the debate over how the pandemic began.
The article, by University of Arizona evolutionary virologist Michael Worobey — a specialist in the origins of viral epidemics — does not purport to answer all questions about the pandemic’s origins, nor is it likely to quell speculation that the virus might have emerged somehow from risky laboratory research.
Worobey has been open to the theory of a lab leak. He was one of the 18 scientists who wrote a much-publicized letter to Science in May calling for an investigation of all possible sources of the virus, including a laboratory accident. But he now contends that the geographic pattern of early cases strongly supports the hypothesis that the virus came from an infected animal at the Huanan Seafood Market — an argument that will probably revive the broader debate about the virus’s origins.
Worobey notes that more than half of the earliest documented illnesses from the virus were among people with a direct connection to the market, and he argues this was not merely the result of the early focus on the market as a potential source of the outbreak. He concludes that the first patient known to fall ill with the virus was a female seafood vendor at the market who became symptomatic on Dec. 11, 2019.
That contradicts a report earlier this year from investigators for the World Health Organization and China, who concluded that the first patient was a 41-year-old accountant with no connection to the market who became sick on Dec. 8. But Worobey said the accountant’s medical records reveal he visited the dentist that day to deal with retained baby teeth that needed to be pulled, but did not show symptoms from the coronavirus until Dec. 16, and was hospitalized six days after that.
The stealthy nature of the virus, which can spread asymptomatically, makes it highly likely that the pathogen began to spread many weeks before any of the cases that were identified. But Worobey said the locations and occupations of the first known patients point to a market origin, with the virus radiating outward into the city of 11 million.
“It becomes almost impossible to explain that pattern if that epidemic didn’t start there,” Worobey said in an interview.
Geography has been central to theories about the origin of the virus. Wuhan is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers study and conduct experiments upon coronaviruses that circulate abundantly in bats in central and southern China. The institute has been a focus of those who argue that an accidental leak from one of its research labs is the most likely explanation for the spillover of the virus into humans.
The Huanan Seafood Market is many miles, and across the Yangtze River, from the virology institute. Few of the early documented cases were anywhere near the laboratory. A second laboratory studying coronaviruses at the Wuhan CDC, which oversaw the city’s coronavirus response, relocated in late 2019 to a spot close to the market.
Worobey’s article immediately drew skeptical responses from two prominent scientists who, like Worobey, have been deeply engaged in the debate over the most likely scenario for the start of the pandemic.
“It is based on fragmentary information and to a large degree, hearsay,” David A. Relman, a professor of microbiology at Stanford University, said in an email after reading an embargoed copy. “In general, there is no way of verifying much of what he describes, and then concludes.”
Jesse Bloom, a computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said the quality of the data from China on early coronavirus infections is too poor to support any conclusion.
“I don’t feel like anything can be concluded with high or even really modest confidence about the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, simply because the underlying data are so limited,” Bloom said. He contends that genetic evidence from early virus samples points to the market as a superspreader event, but not as the location of the first set of infections.
Bloom has been among those sounding alarms about what he feels is overly risky research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That research has generated tremendous controversy, with some Republican lawmakers and conservative media figures focusing on funding for some of the experiments, funneled via a nonprofit group, EcoHealth Alliance, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is led by President Biden’s chief pandemic medical adviser, Anthony S. Fauci.
Worobey’s paper drew strong praise from those favoring the natural zoonosis theory.
“Mike’s piece shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that in fact the Huanan market was the epicenter of the outbreak,” said Robert F. Garry Jr., a virologist at Tulane University and one of the most vocal proponents of the zoonosis hypothesis.
Benjamin Neuman, a virologist at Texas A&M University who was one of the coronavirus experts to give SARS-CoV-2 its name in early 2020, called the report “detailed and compelling, in a way that the most detailed conspiracy timelines have not been. … When the evidence is laid out like this, the association with the market is strong long before anyone realized it — right from the start.”
Worobey and critics Relman and Bloom have one thing in common: They signed the letter to the journal Science in May that called for continued investigation into the virus’s origins, including the possibility of a lab leak.
Soon, public opinion polls showed more people favored the lab-leak theory than the market origin. And Biden ordered his intelligence agencies to look into the matter and report back within 90 days.
In the months since he signed the Science letter, Worobey has become more convinced that the pandemic began as a spillover in the market, where animals known to be capable of harboring the virus — such as raccoon dogs — were sold.
The Science letter was influential in taking conjecture that had once been derided as a conspiracy theory and propelling it into the mainstream of virus-origin debates, even making it, as Worobey puts it, “the leading contender” in the public mind for the origin of the pandemic.
“The pendulum has swung way too far to the other side,” he said.
It has been known since the start of the pandemic that the Huanan market was linked to many early cases, and the first news reports invariably cited it as the likely source of viral spillover. But the joint report from the WHO and China this year presented a murkier picture, noting that some cases in December 2019 had no link to the market: “No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn.”
The market was quickly closed, the animals culled before any were screened for SARS-CoV-2, and everything cleaned and sanitized soon after the outbreak began. Still, a subsequent investigation showed that traces of the virus were found on surfaces in the market, including drains, particularly in the area where vendors sold animals.
Worobey acknowledged that the clustering of infections could be misleading, saying the early focus on the market might have skewed data because epidemiologists might have looked for market-linked infections and missed infections occurring in areas getting less attention — a common tendency in research known as “ascertainment bias.” But he concluded that the timeline and geography of early cases rule out such an error.
Chinese officials have said the Huanan market was not the source of the pandemic. China’s government has pushed the idea that the coronavirus could have been brought to China from overseas, including from Fort Detrick in Maryland and through frozen food imports.
Worobey does not contend that he has proved definitively how the pandemic began. And his article is not a research study presenting all-new data, but rather is labeled a “Perspective” piece. Such articles typically aggregate and interpret information that for the most part has already been in the public domain.
Although the lab-leak idea was at first derided by many scientists and in the mainstream media as a conspiracy theory — one embraced by President Donald Trump and his allies as part of their rhetorical attacks on China and the “China virus” — the failure to find an animal host of the immediate precursor to SARS-CoV-2 has kept all hypotheses on the table.
The 90-day investigation conducted by U.S. intelligence agencies at the behest of Biden was inconclusive. Most agencies favored the natural zoonosis theory. One favored the lab leak. The only firm conclusion was that the virus was not a bioweapon.
Worobey said he was open to the possibility of a lab leak, simply because of the proximity of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to the first outbreak. But he examined the geography question more closely. If the virus came out of the lab, why did the first cases cluster in and around the market many miles away? And that market, he notes, had sold animals that were implicated in the first SARS epidemic of 2002-2003.
“It becomes almost absurd, in my mind, to imagine that this virus started at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and almost immediately that person went to one of the few places that sold raccoon dogs and other animals that were implicated in SARS-1,” he said.
His paper does not mention the Wuhan CDC laboratory. Chinese officials have insisted that SARS-CoV-2 was never in one of the country’s laboratories, nor has it been found through tests in wild or domesticated animals.
Proponents of the lab-leak theory point to the lack of transparency of Chinese officials and the removal of experimental data from a database at the Wuhan Institute of Virology several months before the pandemic. Worobey’s market-origin theory suggests an alternative scenario, one in which authorities were not eager to find proof that the spillover happened in a market with live animals that may have been illegally captured and sold.
Worobey also suggests that Chinese officials may have been embarrassed that the country’s system for identifying and rapidly responding to novel pneumonia-like illnesses — a system put in place after the original SARS epidemic — was slow to detect the outbreak of illnesses caused by the novel coronavirus.
Eva Dou contributed to this report.
The Washington Post · by Joel AchenbachYesterday at 2:00 p.m. EST · November 18, 2021

8. Why China, Russia, and other autocracies may wield an AI advantage in global cyberwars

Excerpt (BLUF):

Here’s the bottom line: America’s autocratic adversaries are pouring astronomical resources into artificial intelligence and data collection because with it they can exert a level of political and economic control—at home and abroad—that regimes of previous eras could only imagine. Armed with increasingly advanced AI systems and never-ending data flows, these autocrats will intensify their assault on both software and hardware layers of the Internet. If democracies like the United States do not wake up to this reality, we risk a distressing future—one where we won’t be able to believe our own eyes and ears.

Why China, Russia, and other autocracies may wield an AI advantage in global cyberwars
Big Think · by Jacob Helberg
The following is an excerpt from The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power, written by Jacob Helberg. This excerpt was published with permission from the author.
In May 2014, a Hong Kong venture capital firm called Deep Knowledge Ventures appointed a new member to its board of directors. Like the five existing board members, this new director was steeped in the science of health care and aging, the firm’s core areas of investment. Like the others, the newest Deep Knowledge board member got to vote on whether to invest in a given company.
But there was one big difference between the five existing board members and Deep Knowledge Venture’s latest addition—the new board member was an algorithm. The algorithm’s name was VITAL, short for “Validating Investment Tool for Advancing Life Sciences.” And VITAL’s advanced capabilities made it—you might say—rather vital. Scrutinizing financing, intellectual property, and clinical trial results, VITAL used artificial intelligence to examine prospective companies much like a human board member. Ultimately, the venture firm credits VITAL’s investment insights with helping them avoid bankruptcy. Even better, VITAL had no need to eat, sleep, or charge anything to the corporate AmEx card.
Most tech firms have not yet appointed AI to their boards. But many are racing to integrate AI into their products, projections, and business models. AI powers self-driving cars and suggests movies we might like on Netflix. The Associated Press has used AI to draft basic articles. IBM’s Watson beat two of Jeopardy!’s greatest contestants and, for good measure, identified genes linked to degenerative illness. In June 2020, the San Francisco company OpenAI’s GPT-3 sent shock waves across the tech industry, proving it possible to algorithmically generate cogent and naturally sounding long-form text on almost any topic. The consulting firm PwC estimates that artificial intelligence will contribute an additional $15.7 trillion to global economic growth by 2030. That’s bigger than China’s entire economy today.
AI has been studied, in some form, for the better part of three-quarters of a century. But the recent explosion in AI applications has been driven by major advances in what’s known as machine learning, which, as the AI expert Pedro Domingos puts it, “automates automation itself.” Key to these machine learning advances is “deep learning,” powered by “neural networks.” In essence, these neural networks mimic how our brains function. Take the process of identifying the image of a cat. In the past, an engineer might have meticulously spelled out certain rules: two triangles on top of a circle likely means “cat.” With deep learning, however, you’d set a neural network loose on an immense dataset of millions of images labeled “cat” or “no cat” and allow the algorithm to puzzle out patterns for itself. (Neural networks have yet to learn to generate good names for cats, however. One such experiment yielded distressing suggestions like “Peanutbutterjiggles,” “Dr. Fart,” and the utterly terrifying “Bones of the Master.”)

Naturally, a technology this transformative won’t be confined to ferreting out furry felines—not if the world’s autocrats have their way. In 2018, a consortium of AI scholars produced a report, “The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence”; it runs for ninety-nine pages. With good reason, the Department of Defense has stood up a Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to “harness the game-changing power of AI.” What steel was to medieval combat, artificial intelligence is to the Gray War.
In 2017, while Silicon Valley and Washington were coming to grips with what had unfolded in the last cyber battle a year prior, Russia’s president had his eye on the next one. “Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind,” Putin said. “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.” That same year, China’s State Council published a “Development Plan for a New Generation of Artificial Intelligence,” laying out steps for China to become the world lead in AI by 2030.
To reach that goal, Beijing has mobilized aggressively. China’s Tencent and Alibaba have set up AI research hubs in Seattle and Silicon Valley, aggressively recruiting top researchers from Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. While some American politicians hem and haw about “picking winners and losers,” the Chinese government offers generous subsidies and other incentives to jump-start homegrown AI growth. Chinese municipalities have begun laying out routes for driverless vehicles and integrating facial recognition into public transit. The eastern Chinese city of Nanjing has invested nearly half a billion dollars to create an AI training institute, lure talented researchers, and streamline the process of launching a company. Apartments have been set aside for employees of AI start-ups; the children of top executives receive sought-after spots at prestigious local schools.
China’s investment appears to be paying off. Of the “Seven Giants” of AI—Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent—three are Chinese. Between 2007 and 2017, Chinese output of government-funded AI academic papers grew a staggering 400 percent. Notably, these Chinese AI papers are increasingly being cited by other researchers as well, presumably indicating that they are producing high-quality work (though it could also just mean more Chinese researchers citing fellow Chinese researchers). Kai-Fu Lee, the Taiwanese-American AI guru, notes, “When asked how far China lags behind Silicon Valley in artificial intelligence research, some Chinese entrepreneurs jokingly answer ‘sixteen hours’—the time difference between California and Beijing.” In Lee’s estimation, China is becoming “a bona fide AI superpower, the only true national counterweight to the United States in this emerging technology.”
Yet the ability to marshal massive resources to achieve AI dominance isn’t the autocrats’ only advantage. It’s also the data. Artificial intelligence is comprised of three elements—data, algorithms, and computing power. More and better data lets you train better algorithms. With a big enough data advantage, even middling algorithms can outstrip the cutting-edge ones. Partly for this reason, Eric Rosenbach and Katherine Mansted, of Harvard’s Belfer Center, write that information “is now the world’s most consequential and contested geopolitical resource,” with many countries believing “that they are in a zero-sum race to acquire and use data.”
Authoritarians—and China in particular—are uniquely positioned to win that race. Historically, totalitarian regimes have compiled reams of data on the people they control. Recall the extensive records amassed by the KGB in East Germany, and a young Vladimir Putin frantically burning them. By the time the Berlin Wall fell, the East German Stasi had amassed so many files on its citizens— documents, photos, recordings—that its archives would have extended nearly seventy miles. But even the Stasi couldn’t have dreamed of the surveillance power of the Chinese state.
Thanks to a proliferation of “online to offline” services—such as ride-hailing, bike-sharing, and food delivery—and the widespread adoption of mobile payment technology, Chinese companies have access to a trove of data that is both mind-bogglingly vast and incredibly detailed. In China, beggars display QR codes for Alipay and WeChat donations. One Chinese bike-share company alone sends 20 terabytes of data to the cloud each day. Whereas U.S. tech companies possess a great deal of data on our online habits—such as our searches and “likes”—China’s tech giants know what you like to buy at the grocery store and where you get your hair done. And rather than being spread among half a dozen different apps, many of these functions are contained in a single app—Tencent’s WeChat—which began as a messaging app and has grown to become “a remote control for life.” And of course, because the country’s National Intelligence Law requires companies to “collaborate with the state intelligence,” what belongs to Chinese companies or companies based in China effectively belongs to the government.
Even more important, the Chinese government doesn’t have to bother with those pesky privacy protections that we cherish in the West. One hundred percent of Beijing’s public spaces are already covered by surveillance cameras. China is on track to install 450 million cameras around the country, part of what the Ministry of Public Safety has termed a system that is “omnipresent, completely connected, always on and fully controllable.” Xi refers to these surveillance systems by the same phrase Mao Zedong once used to encourage Chinese citizens to spy on counterrevolutionaries: “sharp eyes.” Thanks in part to millions of these sharp eyes, China—“the Saudi Arabia of data”—has leapfrogged the United States as the world’s top producer of digital information.
Here’s the bottom line: America’s autocratic adversaries are pouring astronomical resources into artificial intelligence and data collection because with it they can exert a level of political and economic control—at home and abroad—that regimes of previous eras could only imagine. Armed with increasingly advanced AI systems and never-ending data flows, these autocrats will intensify their assault on both software and hardware layers of the Internet. If democracies like the United States do not wake up to this reality, we risk a distressing future—one where we won’t be able to believe our own eyes and ears.
Big Think · by Jacob Helberg

9. Analysts: Beijing Behind Rise of Chinese Private Security Companies Worldwide

It would seem to me these PMCs should be an intelligence and influence target through the one belt one road initiative around the world.

It also seems to me that these PMCs are designed to support the Chinese strategy: China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions.

Excerpts:
"Threats to Chinese assets and nationals, too, were limited," Avdaliani told VOA. "Evacuation operations of Chinese nationals from Libya and Yemen were two cases that made Beijing look at potential threats which would be arising in the future."
In 2011 and 2015, Beijing used the Chinese People's Liberation Army to evacuate Chinese citizens from Libya and Yemen.
"Massive" Chinese international economic involvement since President Xi Jinping's launch of BRI in 2013 and recent attacks against Chinese workers overseas pushed Beijing to reconsider expanding internationally the role of Chinese private security companies, which operate mainly inside China, according to Avdaliani.
"Recent attacks against Chinese workers in Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan are just a small number of cases from the last several years," Avdaliani said.
"Therefore, it is likely that (private security companies') rights to operate abroad with arms (will) be expanded to respond to various challenges."
Chinese private security companies abroad are also a good tool for Beijing to better position itself in the "ongoing great power competition" with the U.S., Avdaliani added.
"The companies will enable Beijing to take and hold initiative in the time when direct military clashes are rare," Avdaliani told VOA.

Analysts: Beijing Behind Rise of Chinese Private Security Companies Worldwide
WASHINGTON —
From Afghanistan to France, Chinese people have been attacked and even killed while living abroad. As security threats to Chinese companies, citizens, projects and investments along the Belt and Road development initiative continue, Chinese companies that used to hire local or Western private security companies have switched to employing more Chinese private security companies, experts said.
Niva Yau, researcher at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, told VOA that China's military reform in 2016 "pushed a lot of former military personnel into the private security sector."
As a result, according to Yau, Chinese private security companies in recent years are expanding to other countries along China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which builds infrastructure projects in Asia and Europe.
As Chinese investments overseas have increased, so has the footprint of Chinese private security companies, making it a multibillion RMB industry.
Yau said that Chinese companies in the BRI are "vulnerable in most of the participating countries where there is higher anti-China sentiment."
"Private security is definitely needed as a practical measure," Yau said. "But the choice to hire Chinese ones is a top-down decision from Beijing to keep its security business handled on its own without interference of third countries."

FILE - A security guard stands outside the venue of the Financial Street Forum annual conference in Beijing, China, Oct. 20, 2021.
According to Yau, one factor is language and the ability to communicate between the security and company staff. Another reason is trust: whether the guards will take the Chinese side or the local people's when a conflict occurs.
How Chinese private security companies behave abroad is also changing, influenced by decision-makers in Beijing and the local tolerance of them, Yau added.
"In Kyrgyzstan, for example, they went from being quite high profile in advertising their services to becoming more low key due to public discussion about their work," Yau said. "In Kazakhstan, they have always had a low profile due to high sensitivity and distrust amongst locals."
Early Chinese private security
The first Chinese private security companies have been around at least since the 1990s and have grown since then, according to a report by the Jamestown Foundation.
In 2009, Beijing legalized Chinese private security companies by introducing a law called "Regulation on the Administration of Security and Guarding Services," which allowed the companies to use arms in some of their services.
Now, 5,200 Chinese private security companies employ more than 4 million security staff, mostly Chinese People's Liberation Army veterans. Some 20 to 30 of these companies operate in BRI countries across South and Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Chinese private security companies account for about 10% of the orders from Chinese companies operating overseas, according to a Zhejiang University report.

FILE - Chinese security personnel stand guard at a mansion on the edge of Beijing, Sept. 29, 2010.
"Huge amounts of security expenses have flowed out to Western security companies," the 2019 report said.
According to Emil Avdaliani, director of Middle East Studies at the think tank Geocase, based in the country of Georgia, China has relied on private security companies in the past, but the companies' scope of activities and geographic expanse were limited.
"Threats to Chinese assets and nationals, too, were limited," Avdaliani told VOA. "Evacuation operations of Chinese nationals from Libya and Yemen were two cases that made Beijing look at potential threats which would be arising in the future."
In 2011 and 2015, Beijing used the Chinese People's Liberation Army to evacuate Chinese citizens from Libya and Yemen.
"Massive" Chinese international economic involvement since President Xi Jinping's launch of BRI in 2013 and recent attacks against Chinese workers overseas pushed Beijing to reconsider expanding internationally the role of Chinese private security companies, which operate mainly inside China, according to Avdaliani.
"Recent attacks against Chinese workers in Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan are just a small number of cases from the last several years," Avdaliani said.
"Therefore, it is likely that (private security companies') rights to operate abroad with arms (will) be expanded to respond to various challenges."
Chinese private security companies abroad are also a good tool for Beijing to better position itself in the "ongoing great power competition" with the U.S., Avdaliani added.
"The companies will enable Beijing to take and hold initiative in the time when direct military clashes are rare," Avdaliani told VOA.

10. War by Timeframe: Responding to China’s Pacing Challenge

An interesting graphic below on the three timeframes. If it does not come through in the message please go to the link: https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/war-by-timeframe-responding-to-chinas-pacing-challenge/?utm_source=pocket_mylist

Excerpts:

The United States should deter the risk of war with China and be prepared to defeat China if war occurs across all timeframes. New operational concepts and organizational changes will be critical to successfully hedging across timeframes. Increasing the striking power of allies and partners can further raise the costs of action for China.
The challenge does not stop there. To deter or defeat a Chinese attack on Taiwan or other forms of aggression in the Indo-Pacific, Washington should assess when this is most likely to occur and plan accordingly. Yet Chinese diplomatic and military reactions to U.S. defense investment strategies will naturally shift the timeframe in which conflict is most likely, and what would happen if a conflict occurred. Bolstering US capabilities in the present could decrease the probability of war today while pushing risk more into the future. Conversely, bolstering capabilities in the long term could increase the short-term risk. This means intelligence assessments and timeframe estimates should not be static. The U.S. intelligence and defense communities will have to work together to integrate updated assessments into a more dynamic defense planning process. It also means that Washington should not let Beijing read its entire defense strategy playbook. Greater opacity about defense planning and investment priorities (to the extent plausible and desirable in a democracy) could help the United States prevent China from adapting to U.S. defense investments by prioritizing planning for war in other time periods. This is important because a Chinese decision to go to war would not just be about when Beijing believes it is ready, but also about whether Beijing believes waiting will increase its relative strength.
By predicting the pace of China’s pacing challenge, Washington can ensure that Beijing doesn’t conclude it has found the right time to attack Taiwan in the next two decades. In other words, if you want peace, prepare for war in the appropriate timeframe.

War by Timeframe: Responding to China’s Pacing Challenge - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Michael C. Horowitz · November 19, 2021
The Latin adage “si vis pacem, para bellum” states that if you want peace, prepare for war. But doing that successfully is much easier if you know when the war might occur.
As it drafts its new national defense strategy, the Biden administration has argued that China is the pacing challenge that should drive U.S. military planning moving forward. However, to plan for a conflict with China — most likely over Taiwan — Washington needs to think harder about the timeframe in which it is most likely to happen. The default U.S. defense strategy is to hedge against the risk of war in all timeframes. In a world of limited budgets, though, it is not possible to maximize U.S. capabilities in all time periods simultaneously. This means that, despite the uncertainty of even the best risk assessments, Washington will need to place bets to sustain its defense leadership in the Indo-Pacific. America may need “more” to deter and defeat China, but the right “more” depends on the timing.
If war over Taiwan is imminent in the next two years, the United States should emphasize readiness and posture over modernization and future investments. If war is most likely later in the 2020s, new warfighting concepts, modernization, adapting off-the-shelf technologies, and delaying retiring some older platforms should become the priorities. If war is most likely in the 2030s or beyond, longer-term defense investments, such as AI-enabled systems that require bigger changes to force structure, combined with innovative operational concepts, should be prioritized.
Success in any timeframe will require new operational concepts, posture changes that complicate Chinese planning, and greater coordination with allies and partners. To make matters more difficult, if the United States is fully transparent about the timeframe in which it thinks war is most likely and how it is investing, China will adapt, increasing the risk of aggression in other time periods. This means that greater opacity about Department of Defense planning and investment priorities is essential. While complete opacity is neither realistic nor desirable in a democracy, some degree of opacity could complicate Chinese planning across all time periods, making deterrence more likely to succeed — and victory for the United States and its allies and partners more likely if deterrence fails. Threading this needle will require greater integration of intelligence analysis into the national defense strategy. It will also require making real choices in that document to direct military service planning.
Potential Timeframes
Everyone hopes that a U.S.-Chinese war will not occur. But in the context of great-power competition, concerns are growing. At present, there are competing perspectives on when U.S.-Chinese conflict is most likely, and what the United States should do in response. The most proximate potential timeframe for war is in the next two years. A massive surge in Chinese air force incursions into Taiwanese airspace in early October may demonstrate that the Chinese are already planning for war in the near term. Ongoing U.S. and Taiwanese investments in advanced munitions, modified Virginia-class submarines, Taiwanese procurement of anti-ship cruise missiles, and other programs would substantially raise the costs of a Chinese invasion further in the future. Knowing this, China could choose to invade before even before their own planned readiness point to forestall future advances in U.S. and Taiwanese capabilities.
A second possible timeframe for war envisions China acquiring the ability to effectively threaten Taiwan in the middle to late 2020s. Xi’s desire to for a legacy-making achievement, and concerns about the sustainability of the Chinese economic growth model, may drive the point of maximum risk to the latter half of the 2020s, since the Chinese will view their window as closing after that. In March 2021, Adm. Phil Davidson, then the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said that China has the intent, and increasingly the capability, to threaten Taiwan “during this decade, in fact in the next six years.” Later that month, while not giving a specific timeframe, his successor, Adm. John Aquilino, said the threat of a Chinese invasion is “closer than most think.” Rear Adm. Mike Studeman stated in July 2021 that there is “clear and present danger” now and within the 2020s. And some interpret the Department of Defense’s annual report on Chinese military power as saying that China seeks to acquire the ability to militarily coerce Taiwan with the credible threat of invasion by 2027.
A third possible timeframe sees the maximum risk of war as happening in the 2030s or beyond, since the Chinese economy is likely to continue growing. In contrast to Davidson, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley argues that while China wants to develop the capability to invade Taiwan by 2027, it does not actually intend to do so — meaning there is more time before the period of maximum risk. In this case, the People’s Liberation Army would face limits on their operational capacity until the 2030s, and/or China’s economic challenges would not generate pressure to fight now. China might also act later so it can first grow its power projection capability to limit the effectiveness of a blockade response or horizontal escalation. It also might choose to wait if its economic power continues to grow and it sees the capacity to defend Taiwan declining.
The Right Responses?
Domestic political constraints make defense budget limits inevitable, meaning it is not possible to simultaneously maximize readiness for today, modernization of force structure for tomorrow, and investments in emerging technologies for the future. So what can the U.S. do?
Short Term
If the risk of Chinese aggression is most likely in the coming two years, then reinforcing America’s forward presence while distributing forces more broadly in the Indo-Pacific would be the best response. In this scenario, the United States should invest in readiness and the ability to operate its current force, buy as many smart munitions as possible with emergency authorizations, and prepare for imminent conflict. It would be nearly impossible to speed up production of submarines as construction timelines recover from the impact of COVID-19. But the United States could look to mature technologies ready for deployment, leveraging prior Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency programs. The United States could also seek to reinforce Taiwan’s defenses with anti-ship cruise missiles, and it could rapidly deploy U.S. troops to Taiwan to convince Beijing that Washington is serious about Taiwan’s defense.
If war is in fact imminent in the next two years, there is almost no time for investments in emerging technologies to pay off, or even to integrate many commercial, off-the-shelf capabilities. Instead, the United States would have to go to war with its current force structure and operational concepts, potentially with some changes in posture. Longer-term investments like modernization would likely have their timelines pushed back.
Medium Term
Alternatively, what if the maximum risk period for a U.S.-Chinese conflict runs from roughly 2024 to 2029? Some have already made the point that, in this scenario, the United States would need to invest in “more conventional hard power — more ships, more long-range missiles and more long-range bombers in the Indo-Pacific,” rather than in emerging technologies with uncertain reliability. In addition, if war is most likely in the latter part of the 2020s, the Biden administration should focus on the types of efforts envisioned by the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. This would involve increasing protection for Guam, building out runways and pre-positioning equipment in additional locations throughout the Pacific to create a more distributed force structure, and speeding and growing purchases of smart munitions.
In this scenario, the Department of Defense should also shift how it thinks about using existing capabilities, including increasing efforts by the Strategic Capabilities Office to use off-the-shelf commercial technologies as force multipliers for existing U.S. assets. It could also think about novel ways to employ capabilities slated for retirement: placing Ticonderoga-class cruisers near U.S. military bases to serve the function of Aegis-ashore systems, or using older submarines as missile batteries.
Inevitably, this approach comes with trade-offs. The emphasis on new equipment and new operational concepts for today’s capabilities would come at the expense of emerging technologies and experimentation that could reshape military power in the 2030s. It also might not solve the readiness and posture challenges for the nearest-term scenario.
Long Term
Finally, if the maximum risk of war is in the 2030s and beyond, there is time for the American military to plan ahead, investing more in emerging technologies and experimenting with new operational concepts in ways that substantially shift U.S. posture and the size and shape of the American military in the Pacific. These investments could involve a greater reliance on AI-enabled capabilities, hypersonics, and shifts in force structure that emphasize swarms and mass over higher-cost, lower-quantity platforms. This approach could create more risk in the nearer term if resources or organizational focus are not available to make progress on posture challenges. The United States could seek to mitigate risk in earlier timeframes by shifting forces from other regions (thus taking more risk in those regions), or enacting acquisition reform that enables more rapid prototyping and deployment of new systems.

Strategies for All Seasons
Any assessment of the “most likely” timeframe for war will be necessarily uncertain. How can the United States hedge against the risk of war in every timeframe, even as it identifies priorities based on timeframe?
First, maintaining advantage requires organizational innovation, not just acquiring technologies. If the U.S. military simply moves forward incrementally, it will increase the risk of relative decline. Failure to develop new operational concepts, modernize forces with sufficient capacity, and invest in emerging capabilities will lead to a scenario in which the United States fights tomorrow’s wars with yesterday’s capabilities. Organizational change, which could require sizing and shaping the force in different ways, is necessary given the extent of the challenge China poses. Decreasing risk across multiple timeframes simultaneously will require acquisition reform to enable more rapid prototyping and deployment, new operational concepts, and changes in posture — all at once.
Second, more external opacity about how the United States thinks about the risk of war and designs its defense strategy and investment portfolio would help. There is always a dilemma when it comes to revealing and concealing capabilities. Revealing capabilities makes them more likely to deter aggression, but the capabilities cannot then surprise an adversary if a conflict occurs. Concealed capabilities cannot deter, but can offer the advantage of surprise in the event of a conflict. Concealing pieces of the U.S. defense investment strategy externally could help complicate Chinese planning, aiding U.S. efforts across time periods. There are some advantages, from this perspective, in focusing on the future but not revealing that focus too clearly. This could similarly apply to efforts to bolster Taiwanese defenses: Some opacity about what exactly the United States is supplying Taiwan, and in what quantity, could also complicate Chinese planning. Especially if war is likely in the short term, opacity could bolster Taiwan’s defenses by making China uncertain about what the United States has done to assist Taiwan, and what exactly Taiwan’s capacity might be.
Third, improving the ability of allies and partners to fight — and especially to strike Chinese assets in the case of attack — could raise the costs of aggression and theoretically help fill U.S. capability gaps. Delivering advanced platforms, as in the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (or AUKUS) deal, can take time, but these agreements serve as valuable signals in the short term. Similarly, building stronger ties with countries like Indonesia and tighter defense relationships with Singapore could signal U.S. support for the region immediately, while also improving these countries’ capabilities over time.
Another alternative would be for the United States to use the threat of nuclear weapons to deter the risk of conventional war, as it did with doctrines such as flexible response and massive retaliation during the Cold War. But whatever one thinks of the merits of this approach, it will not forestall the need for better conventional planning. This is all the more true as the Biden administration seeks to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons and China builds up its nuclear arsenal so as to prevent just such an approach.
Time to Decide
The United States should deter the risk of war with China and be prepared to defeat China if war occurs across all timeframes. New operational concepts and organizational changes will be critical to successfully hedging across timeframes. Increasing the striking power of allies and partners can further raise the costs of action for China.
The challenge does not stop there. To deter or defeat a Chinese attack on Taiwan or other forms of aggression in the Indo-Pacific, Washington should assess when this is most likely to occur and plan accordingly. Yet Chinese diplomatic and military reactions to U.S. defense investment strategies will naturally shift the timeframe in which conflict is most likely, and what would happen if a conflict occurred. Bolstering US capabilities in the present could decrease the probability of war today while pushing risk more into the future. Conversely, bolstering capabilities in the long term could increase the short-term risk. This means intelligence assessments and timeframe estimates should not be static. The U.S. intelligence and defense communities will have to work together to integrate updated assessments into a more dynamic defense planning process. It also means that Washington should not let Beijing read its entire defense strategy playbook. Greater opacity about defense planning and investment priorities (to the extent plausible and desirable in a democracy) could help the United States prevent China from adapting to U.S. defense investments by prioritizing planning for war in other time periods. This is important because a Chinese decision to go to war would not just be about when Beijing believes it is ready, but also about whether Beijing believes waiting will increase its relative strength.
By predicting the pace of China’s pacing challenge, Washington can ensure that Beijing doesn’t conclude it has found the right time to attack Taiwan in the next two decades. In other words, if you want peace, prepare for war in the appropriate timeframe.
Michael C. Horowitz is Richard Perry Professor and director of Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also senior fellow for defense technology and innovation at the Council on Foreign Relations. You can find him on twitter @mchorowitz. Thanks to Katrina McDermott and Jared Rosen for research assistance, and Lauren Kahn for the graphic. All fault for errors lies with the author.
warontherocks.com · by Michael C. Horowitz · November 19, 2021


11. Anchorage will be the new home for DoD Arctic Security Studies

But what is happening with the other Congressional requirement in the 2021 NDAA Sec. 1299L? When will we see the DOD report required for Irregular Warfare?


SEC. 1299L. FUNCTIONAL CENTER FOR SECURITY STUDIES IN IRREGULAR
WARFARE.
   (a) Report Required.--
       (1) In general.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the
   enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, in consultation
   with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the congressional
   defense committees a report that assesses the merits and
   feasibility of establishing and administering a Department of
   Defense Functional Center for Security Studies in Irregular
   Warfare.
       (2) Elements.--The report required by paragraph (1) shall
   include the following:
           (A) A description of the benefits to the United States, and
       the allies and partners of the United States, of establishing
       such a functional center, including the manner in which the
       establishment of such a functional center would enhance and
       sustain focus on, and advance knowledge and understanding of,
       matters of irregular warfare, including cybersecurity, nonstate
       actors, information operations, counterterrorism, stability
       operations, and the hybridization of such matters.
           (B) A detailed description of the mission and purpose of
       such a functional center, including applicable policy guidance
       from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
           (C) An analysis of appropriate reporting and liaison
       relationships between such a functional center and--
               (i) the geographic and functional combatant commands;
               (ii) other Department of Defense stakeholders; and
               (iii) other government and nongovernment entities and
           organizations.
           (D) An enumeration and valuation of criteria applicable to
       the determination of a suitable location for such a functional
       center.
           (E) A description of the establishment and operational
       costs of such a functional center, including for--
               (i) military construction for required facilities;
               (ii) facility renovation;
               (iii) personnel costs for faculty and staff; and
               (iv) other costs the Secretary of Defense considers
           appropriate.
           (F) An evaluation of the existing infrastructure,
       resources, and personnel available at military installations,
       existing regional centers, interagency facilities, and
       universities and other academic and research institutions that
       could reduce the costs described in subparagraph (E).
           (G) An examination of partnership opportunities with United
       States allies and partners for potential collaboration and
       burden sharing.
           (H) A description of potential courses and programs that
       such a functional center could carry out, including--
               (i) core, specialized, and advanced courses;
               (ii) planning workshops and structured after-action
           reviews or debriefs;
               (iii) seminars;
               (iv) initiatives on executive development, relationship
           building, partnership outreach, and any other matter the
           Secretary of Defense considers appropriate; and
               (v) focused academic research and studies in support of
           Department priorities.
           (I) A description of any modification to title 10, United
       States Code, or any other provision of law, necessary for the
       effective establishment and administration of such a functional
       center.
       (3) Form.--The report required by paragraph (1) shall be
   submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex.
   (b) Establishment.--
       (1) In general.--Not earlier than 30 days after the submittal
   of the report required by subsection (a), and subject to the
   availability of appropriated funds, the Secretary of Defense may
   establish and administer a Department of Defense Functional Center
   for Security Studies in Irregular Warfare.
       (2) Treatment as a regional center for security studies.--A
   Department of Defense Functional Center for Security Studies in
   Irregular Warfare established under paragraph (1) shall be operated
   and administered in the same manner as the Department of Defense
   Regional Centers for Security Studies under section 342 of title
   10, United States Code, and in accordance with such regulations as
   the Secretary of Defense may prescribe.
       (3) Limitation.--No other institution or element of the
   Department may be designated as a Department of Defense functional
   center, except by an Act of Congress.
       (4) Location.--The location of a Department of Defense
   Functional Center for Security Studies in Irregular Warfare
   established under paragraph (1) shall be selected based on an
   objective, criteria-driven administrative or competitive award
   process.
Anchorage will be the new home for DoD Arctic Security Studies
militarytimes.com · by Rachel Nostrant · November 18, 2021
The Defense Department announced Nov. 17 that Anchorage, Alaska is the sole candidate city to host the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies, the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Regional Center for the Arctic.
Defense Department Regional Centers are international academic institutions for bilateral and multilateral research and training with the goal of building strong relationships with international security leaders. The Regional Center for the Arctic comes on the heels of growing concerns that as the Arctic warms, ice melts and shipping lanes emerge, the chance for conflict between nations in the region could increase as well.
“The center will support the U.S. Interim National Security Strategic Guidance direction to work with like-minded partners and across the interagency to pool our collective strength and advance shared interests,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a press release announcing the center’s establishment. “It will address the need for U.S. engagement and international cooperation to strengthen the rules-based order in the region and tackle shared challenges such as climate change.”
U.S. Army Alaska has struggled in the past two decades to be the service’s proponent for cold weather warfare amid the wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, former Army Alaska commander Maj. Gen. Peter Andrysiak told Army Times last year. And with conflicts blooming in places like the Himalayas — between India and China — cold weather warfare is re-emerging as a potential source of conflict that the DoD sees as a future readiness issue.
The specific site for the new center in Anchorage will be finalized after the DoD completes the Department of the Air Force’s strategic basing process.
Rachel is a Marine Corps veteran, Penn State alumna and Master's candidate at New York University for Business and Economic Reporting.


12. Book excerpt: ‘Gaza Conflict 2021′ dives into ‘war between wars’


Book excerpt: ‘Gaza Conflict 2021′ dives into ‘war between wars’
militarytimes.com · by Jonathan Schanzer · November 19, 2021
In September of this year, Israel officially came under the area of responsibility of the Pentagon’s Central Command, which covers the wider Middle East. In his new book, “Gaza Conflict 2021,″ Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Vice President for Research Jonathan Schanzer provides an in-depth look at one of the challenges that CENTCOM is undoubtedly grappling with. Specifically, Schanzer delves into what the Israelis call the “war between wars” to degrade Iran’s military capabilities in Syria, the Persian Gulf, cyberspace and beyond. As Schanzer notes, the asymmetric has been an important strategy for Israel. But it may have inadvertently contributed to the Gaza conflict of May 2021.
In December 2020, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi announced that Israel had struck more than 500 targets in Syria during 2020 alone, targeting Iranian and Iran-backed smugglers, fighters, and weapons systems. Kochavi was being understated. One year prior, outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot revealed that Israel had destroyed thousands of military targets in Syria. But as one senior Israeli official quipped at the time, when I pressed him for exact numbers, “Who’s counting?”
For much of the “war between wars” (WBW), Israel operated with the implicit blessing of the Trump administration, which was unequivocally supportive of Israel’s right to diminish the Iranian military build-up on its borders. After Trump’s departure, it was unclear whether President Joe Biden would give Israel the green light to continue. After all, Biden had already signaled his intent to re-enter the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump exited in 2018. Biden certainly did not appear to be openly pro-regime. Still, it remained to be seen whether Israel could continue to operate with impunity.
That question appeared to be answered on January 28, 2021, when Israel struck Iranian and Hezbollah forces in Syria for the first time in the Biden era. In April, Reuters reported that Jerusalem had “dramatically expanded air strikes on suspected Iranian missile and weapons production centers in Syria” as part of Israel’s operations to halt Iranian weapons proliferation to Tehran’s proxies on Israel’s borders. If Washington was unhappy about this, it was not aired publicly.
It is important to note here that Syria was not the only WBW battleground. In recent years, Israel and Iran have slugged it out on the high seas. In March, Israel reportedly struck an Iranian oil vessel bound for Syria. The Wall Street Journal subsequently revealed (perhaps as the result of leaks from the Biden White House) that Israel had targeted maybe a dozen other Iranian vessels since 2019. In April, Israel damaged an Iranian spy ship on the Red Sea and reportedly hit an Iranian fuel tanker with a drone strike. The following month, a mysterious explosion occurred on an Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Syria. Israel was once again suspected.
The Israelis got it as good as they gave. In March 2021, Iran was suspected in an attack on an Israeli freighter near the Persian Gulf. Later that month, an Israeli-owned ship was hit by a missile off the coast of Oman. The following month, another Israeli-owned ship was attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Months after the Gaza war’s conclusion, the Israeli ship Mercer Street was struck by an Iranian drone, drawing condemnation from the United States and the G7.
The WBW has expanded significantly over the years. It was originally designed to weaken Iranian nuclear capabilities, which have advanced alarmingly. In November 2020, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed in his car by a remote-controlled weapon. The culprit was presumed to be the Mossad, which had been widely blamed for six other attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007. There have also been targets of opportunity. For example, the Israelis were involved in the 2020 assassination of Abu Mohammed al-Masri, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, who was living under regime protection in Tehran. The revelation of this arrangement raised new questions about the regime’s longstanding relationship with the terrorist group that attacked America in September 2001.
Israel was also battling Iran in cyberspace. Israel first announced itself on this battlefield in 2010 with the deployment of the “Stuxnet” worm, a joint US-Israeli cyber weapon that set back Iran’s nuclear program for perhaps two years. In 2018, Tehran also accused Israel of launching a cyberattack against Iranian critical infrastructure. In 2020, Israel was suspected of being behind cyberattacks against two Iranian government agencies, as well the Iranian port of Shahid Rajaee.
These operations did not occur in a vacuum. The Iranians were also targeting Israel. In March 2021, Iranian hackers reportedly targeted Israeli medical researchers, government agencies, academia, and tourism agencies. In December of the previous year, Iranian hackers stole data from at least 40 different Israeli companies. In a separate instance, Iranian hackers gained access to Israel’s water system. In fact, 2020 saw Iranian cyberattacks against Israeli companies across a wide range of sectors. According to news reports in 2019, Iranian hackers almost infiltrated Israel’s missile early warning system. And in 2018, it was reported that Iran successfully penetrated the cellphone of Benny Gantz, the IDF’s former chief of staff.
But perhaps the most important event in the WBW was the 2018 operation in which Israel’s Mossad spirited away reams of documents from a secret nuclear archive on the outskirts of Tehran. Nuclear experts were sent scrambling to interpret loads of new information about Iran’s nuclear program after the documents were revealed. Several of those documents helped the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, identify nuclear sites previously obscured by the regime. The documents also helped to raise awareness about the regime’s prior advances in weaponization of its nuclear program.
For the regime in Tehran, the WBW has been deeply frustrating. The regime’s desire for retribution has only grown. In April, just weeks before the war erupted, an Iranian general stated, “The Zionists [Israel] imagine that they can continuously target the Syrian territories and conduct mischief in different places and in the sea and receive no response … [T]he Resistance Front will give a principal response.” Similarly, IRGC commander Hossein Salami declared that “the evil deeds committed by the Zionists [Israel] in the region will turn against themselves and expose them to real dangers in the future.” Shortly thereafter, Salami declared that Israel’s “biggest weakness is that any tactical action could bring about a strategic defeat … just a single operation can ruin this regime.”
Iran appeared to be threatening to deploy its own forces or its proxies to battle Israel. Of course, the Islamic Republic never wages war directly, at least not since the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–1988. Proxies are always a safer bet. Hamas has long been one of the non-state actors to benefit from Iranian military support. To Tehran’s delight, the group’s leaders were openly expressing their willingness to fight Israel again. The winds of war were blowing.
Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War″ is available to purchase now.
Editor’s note: This is a book excerpt and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please contact Military Times managing editor Howard Altman, haltman@militarytimes.com.


13. Marines end crisis response force rotations in Africa, Middle East in favor of airlifting Army troops


Hmmm....

Africa and the law of physics that cannot be violated: time and distance.


Marines end crisis response force rotations in Africa, Middle East in favor of airlifting Army troops
Stars and Stripes · by Chad Garland · November 18, 2021
An Osprey assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161 lifts off from the Expeditionary Sea Base USS Hershel "Woody" Williams, Nov. 12, 2021. Marine Corps aircraft like Ospreys are part of a new approach to crisis response after the service quietly ended rotations of larger units that had begun in the wake of the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. (Malachi Lakey/U.S. Navy)
DJIBOUTI — A medical evacuation in the Indian Ocean last week relied on Marine Corps aircraft recently sent to Africa after the service quietly dropped a crisis response approach born in the wake of the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya.
The MV-22 Ospreys that delivered Air Force pararescuemen to a cargo ship to save a British merchant mariner were from San Diego-based Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161, which deployed to Djibouti in September. So was a KC-130 tanker that provided aerial refueling along the way.
Previously, a Special Marine Air-Ground Task Force in Kuwait sent tilt-rotor detachments to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, Osprey pilot Capt. Marc Meier said in an interview at the base in October.
But the Marine Corps quietly ended rotations of that task force, known as SPMAGTF-Crisis Response-Central Command. The new crisis response approach combines Marine airlift with Army ground forces.
Sailors conduct night operations with MV-22 Osprey aircraft assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161 aboard the Expeditionary Sea Base USS Hershel “Woody” Williams, Nov. 11, 2021. While the Marine Corps quietly ceased rotations of the task force known as SPMAGTF-Crisis Response-Central Command, Ospreys remain a vital part of the service’s crisis response plans. (Malachi Lakey/U.S. Navy)
“The last rotation of the SPMAGTF-CR-CC redeployed last month, and will not be replaced by another permanent element,” 1st Lt. Jack Coppola, a Marine spokesman in Tampa, Fla., said in an email.
Marine Corps officials said earlier this month that they would provide details on the unannounced decision to cease SPMAGTF rotations to the Middle East and Africa.
This week, a service official referred the question to the Pentagon, which did not immediately respond to a query Wednesday.
Commanded by a colonel, the specially tailored task force was made up of over 2,000 troops in command, air combat, logistics and ground combat elements.
There are still Marine Corps units in Central Command and elsewhere capable of rapidly deploying, Coppola said.
“Marines will always provide rapid response capability and serve as America’s 911 force,” he added.
A similar unit at Moron Air Base in Spain, SPMAGTF-CR-Africa Command, was not replaced after its last rotation, another spokesman confirmed by phone.
U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. William Kennedy, a weapons and tactics instructor and MV-22 Osprey crew chief deployed to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, discusses his duties in the cargo bay of a hot Osprey on a runway, Oct. 27, 2021. (Chad Garland/Stars and Stripes)
Capt. Marc Meier, an MV-22 Osprey pilot deployed to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, on a deployment with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161, discusses the squadron’s mission and alert status inside a hangar Oct. 27, 2021, at the U.S. military’s only permanent base in Africa. (Chad Garland/Stars and Stripes)
Instead, a North Carolina-based tilt-rotor squadron was sent to support the Army’s Italy-based 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, which serves as the North and West African response force.
The Marines’ Spain-based crisis response force was stood up in early 2013 to address security concerns in Africa.
That move came in the wake of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012 that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The concept was later adopted in other regional commands.
The Corps was also ending rotations of a Southern Command SPMAGTF that had been headquartered at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, it said in budget documents released in June. That was expected to free up $3 million a year as the service refocuses on the Indo-Pacific region.
In Djibouti, the San Diego-based Osprey squadron’s “main customer” is the Air Force’s elite battlefield rescue and recovery mission, Meier said.
But it’s also an asset for the East Africa Response Force, currently made up of troops from the Army National Guard’s 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain). The squadron has six Ospreys and two KC-130 refuelers, which help extend the range of the tilt-rotor aircraft. The MV-22s can carry heavier loads and fly higher and faster than military helicopters, Meier said, important advantages on the vast African continent.
A screenshot from a video shows a rescue at sea by Air Force pararescuemen of a U.K. civilian mariner in distress, Nov. 13-14, 2021. The Osprey aircraft came from the San Diego-based Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161, which deployed to Djibouti in September. (U.S. Africa Command)
Crews with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161 at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, perform maintenance on MV-22 Ospreys that are part of a new rotational deployment, Oct. 27, 2021, at the U.S. military’s only permanent base in Africa. Crews were put on alert during an unfolding coup about 750 miles away in Sudan. (Chad Garland/Stars and Stripes)
“This place is huge,” Meier said. “You see it on a map, but … until you’re flying around it in the seat, you don’t realize (how big it is).”
Just one day after the squadron reached full operational capability in late October, a coup broke out in Sudan, about 760 miles from Djibouti — about the distance from New York City to Milwaukee.
As U.S. military officials at Camp Lemonnier prepared for a potential mission in the wake of the unrest, they updated plans to account for capabilities the Ospreys offered. Crews were told to be ready to go within a few hours’ notice for a possible embassy evacuation.
“It’s a bit of a humbling experience,” said Sgt. William Kennedy, an Osprey crew chief. “What we’re doing out here is affecting someone’s life.”
Chad Garland
Chad is a Marine Corps veteran who covers the U.S. military in the Middle East, Afghanistan and sometimes elsewhere for Stars and Stripes. An Illinois native who’s reported for news outlets in Washington, D.C., Arizona, Oregon and California, he’s an alumnus of the Defense Language Institute, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Arizona State University.

14. Japan is prepared to pay more to support US forces, according to local report


No surprise. Japan's strategic calculus is different than other host nations.
Japan is prepared to pay more to support US forces, according to local report
Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · November 18, 2021
Three C-130J Super Hercules from the 36th Airlift Squadron at Yokota Air Base, Japan, fly near Mount Fuji, May 11, 2020. (Yasuo Osakabe/U.S. Air Force)

TOKYO – Japan is set to increase funding for American troops stationed in the country starting in fiscal 2022 with an agreement possible next month, according to government sources quoted by the Kyodo news agency.
Washington and Tokyo extended an agreement in February on Japanese financial support for approximately 54,000 U.S. troops. The agreement was due to expire in March but was extended for a year.
Officials have not disclosed the amount of support requested by the U.S. government in future years but it’s likely less than former President Donald Trump had demanded, Kyodo reported Thursday, quoting an anonymous Japanese diplomat.
"Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will make a final decision," the diplomat said, according to Kyodo.
Trump wanted Japan to pay $8 billion a year for hosting U.S. troops in the country, former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” published in June 2020.
This fiscal year, which ends in March, Japan is paying $1.76 billion to support utilities, wages for local national staff and training and relocation costs for U.S. forces, Kyodo reported.
Japan wants the U.S. to spend any additional funds on things such as the maintenance of facilities that U.S. forces share with the Japan Self-Defense Forces rather than the cost of base utilities, government sources told Kyodo.
Japan is looking at adding a clause in the cost-sharing agreement to stipulate that its increased contribution go toward joint training and other activities, according to the sources.
Japan’s new prime minister is eager to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance and increasing his country’s contribution to the cost of hosting American forces is an easy way to do that, Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, said in an email Thursday.
Tokyo slow-walked negotiations with the Trump administration in the hopes of securing a better deal, he said.
“But the security environment in Asia remains tense,” Kingston said, “so Kishida is eager to demonstrate that Japan is a reliable partner and willing to shoulder expanded burden sharing.”
The U.S. will have a strong say in how additional funding is spent, he said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi could sign the agreement during a meeting of the allies' defense and foreign ministers, Kyodo reported. That meeting was expected within the year but could be delayed until early 2022.
Hayashi said during a Nov. 12 news conference that negotiations on host-nation support are continuing based on the February agreement. No specific date was scheduled for two-plus-two meetings as of Nov. 12, Hayashi said.
“Our policy is to continue taking appropriate measures in this negotiation based on the difficult economic situation our country is currently facing,” Hayashi said, “as well as the security situation in the region, which is growing increasingly severe.”
Stars and Stripes reporter Hana Kusumoto contributed to this report.
Seth Robson

Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · November 18, 2021



15. 94% of active duty Marines at least partially vaccinated as deadline looms


94% of active duty Marines at least partially vaccinated as deadline looms
marinecorpstimes.com · by Philip Athey · November 18, 2021
As the Marine Corps’ vaccination deadline inches nearer, 94% of active duty Marines are either fully or partially vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a Marine Corps spokesman.
Active duty Marines must be fully vaccinated or receive a medical, religious or administrative exemption by Nov. 28 in order to stay in the Corps, according to a previously published administrative message.
“Medical exemptions can be either permanent or temporary, based on the duration of the condition which qualifies the service member for medical exemption,” Capt. Andrew Wood said in a Thursday email. “Administrative exemptions are typically short-term in nature and related to logistical considerations.”
“All current exemption requests are being reviewed on a case-by-case basis,” he added. “Each request will be given full consideration with respect to the facts and circumstances submitted in the request.”
Only 75 percent of the Marine Corps Reserve has been recorded as partially or fully vaccinated, but those Marines have an extra month to meet the vaccination requirement, with a deadline of Dec. 28.
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Despite the looming deadline, the commandant does not believe the Corps will have to separate thousands of Marines for refusing the vaccine.
The difference in active duty and reserve vaccination rate may have more to do with the lack of oversight the Corps has on reservists than actual vaccine hesitancy.
“They may have gotten the vaccine last week and we wouldn’t know it,” Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger said on Nov. 4 at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington.
Those who fail to meet that deadline, either active duty or reserve, will be kicked out of the Corps, the administrative message said.
Marines should hear back about exemption requests within a week, Berger said at the Aspen Security Forum.
Though Marines technically still have 10 days to be fully vaccinated, it already is too late to start the vaccination process.
Marines have the option to receive the Pfizer or Moderna two-shot vaccine regimen or the single shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The deadline to receive the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine passed on Oct. 24, according to a MARADMIN. The deadline to receive the first dose of Moderna passed on Oct. 17 and the deadline to receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine passed on Nov. 14.
The Corps has not said how many Marines have requested exemptions, nor has it said how many exemptions have been granted.
As of Oct. 20, no religious exemptions had been granted to Marines for the COVID-19 vaccine, Wood said at the time.
“There is no record of any religious accommodations for vaccination being granted by HQMC in the past 10 years,” he added.
Depending on the number of exemptions, the active duty Marine Corps may boot just under 11,000 Marines for failure to follow orders and take the vaccine.
At the Aspen Security Forum Berger said he did not foresee kicking out “thousands of Marines.
“We’ll have to wait until the end of November to see,” he said.




16.  Here’s why Marine expeditionary units could soon take a hit


Excerpts:
But what’s gotten less attention is Berger’s aims to streamline aviation, taking a hard look at F-35 acquisition and finally getting the service into the drone game at scale. And that means more drone pilots and drones to fight at longer ranges.
And those up-and-coming specially trained and experienced infantry? By Marine veteran and CSIS report author Mark Cancian’s estimation, they’re going to be spread thin, which means some of the bread-and-butter work that the Marines have used as a calling card since the Cold War ended ― the Marine Expeditionary Units ― may suffer.
Cancian notes that flat budget top lines heading into 2022 and beyond have forced Berger to pick equipment instead of people, or at least numbers of people.
The Corps is on a path to shrink the force down to 172,000, which is the level it was before 9/11. In 2020, the Corps was slightly more than 180,000 active duty Marines and nearly 40,000 in the Marine Corps Reserve.
Some of those cuts will come wholesale in unit deactivations. They will have only 22 infantry battalions versus 24 now on paper. The plan is to fully staff those battalions, though ― a kind of unicorn idea for many who’ve served in infantry units over their careers.

Here’s why Marine expeditionary units could soon take a hit
marinecorpstimes.com · by Todd South · November 17, 2021
The Marine Corps is getting smaller, that’s no secret.
But a recently released think tank report diving into the Corps’ budget shows exactly which areas will be shrinking and how that might stretch demands on the force.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies published its “U.S. Military Forces in FY 2022: Marine Corps” on Wednesday.
The report reflects much of what has been acknowledged publicly since the start of Commandant Gen. David Berger’s tenure in 2019. The Corps has to shift to fight alongside the Navy to be relevant in a great power competition with the Russian and Chinese military, but mostly the Chinese.
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They include reservist drone pilots, ditching weapons company and the light armored vehicle's replacement.
That has meant shedding assets and personnel such as tanks and military police while beefing up fires from conventional artillery to longer-range rockets. It’s also meant an overhaul of training for the core of the Corps: the infantry.
But what’s gotten less attention is Berger’s aims to streamline aviation, taking a hard look at F-35 acquisition and finally getting the service into the drone game at scale. And that means more drone pilots and drones to fight at longer ranges.
And those up-and-coming specially trained and experienced infantry? By Marine veteran and CSIS report author Mark Cancian’s estimation, they’re going to be spread thin, which means some of the bread-and-butter work that the Marines have used as a calling card since the Cold War ended ― the Marine Expeditionary Units ― may suffer.
Cancian notes that flat budget top lines heading into 2022 and beyond have forced Berger to pick equipment instead of people, or at least numbers of people.
The Corps is on a path to shrink the force down to 172,000, which is the level it was before 9/11. In 2020, the Corps was slightly more than 180,000 active duty Marines and nearly 40,000 in the Marine Corps Reserve.
Some of those cuts will come wholesale in unit deactivations. They will have only 22 infantry battalions versus 24 now on paper. The plan is to fully staff those battalions, though ― a kind of unicorn idea for many who’ve served in infantry units over their careers.
But the grunts aren’t paying all the dues. The top Marine is reviewing up to 15 percent personnel cuts in headquarters and supporting establishments, Cancian wrote.
Berger hasn’t hidden his hard look at aviation, though details have been sparse.
“I am not convinced that we have a clear understanding yet of F-35 capacity requirements for the future force,” Cancian quotes from Berger’s 2020 posture statement remarks to Congress.
Eventually, the general wants half of his aviation fleet unmanned, he said in his “Unmanned Campaign Framework,” published in March.
For now, he has also detailed in his Force Design 2030 report that he wants six active component unmanned vehicle squadrons for the future force.
That’s double the number currently available.
But Marines piloting those existing drones have limited options.
Cancian points out that as of now, the Corps only has two armed drones as compared to the Air Forces’ 351 armed drones.
The Corps did shift away from its large-scale plan to build a drone that would do everything: the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Unmanned Aerial System Expeditionary, or MUX.
The high price tag had some in Congress balking at the expense. Instead, the Corps has shifted to the MQ-9 Reaper drone as its entry point to higher-level drone work.
The MQ-9 plan, thus far, hasn’t been fully ironed out, Cancian pointes to planning documents that suggest a “loyal wingman” approach, similar to the Air Force’s method of using drones of that caliber.
The additional three squadrons would be stood up by 2026, according to Marine Corps planning documents.
What might affect more Marines and what they do when deployed is the creation of the Marine littoral regiments.
The Marine littoral regiment is the Corps’ current answer for how to be fighting at scale with China in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
There are three planned in total, they’ll be heavy on fires and lighter on infantry but will still need grunts to do the on-the-ground work.
That will draw forces from the MEUs, Cancian argues.
And the Marine littoral regiments can’t really be used the way MEUs are today, he writes.
“The full MLR is too large for routine long-term deployments, deploying just the combat team would leave the rest of the unit incomplete, and deploying a proportional slice would not produce the wide variety of capabilities that forward-deployed Marine units have traditionally had,” Cancian writes. “Instead, the Marine Corps may move to periodic but limited-duration deployments for exercises and engagements with allies and partners.”
That’s especially true if the Corps wants to keep running seven MEUs across the globe with all associated personnel and gear, Cancian wrote.
An option is a tool that the Corps has used increasingly in the past decade: the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force.
As one of the few deployable units smaller than a MEU, it can be designed for unique tasks, but that size difference comes “at the cost of logistics and firepower,” Cancian notes.
About Todd South
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.



17. A Discussion with Major General James F. Glynn: The CG of MARSOC

Excerpts:
MajGen Glynn noted that from such a perspective one could consider MARSOC as focused on optimizing for the 21st century version of regular warfare. “We’re leveraging capabilities in order to bring cross domain awareness of peer adversary actions and activities that are going on right now.”
He argued that bringing their combat experience to the evolving warfare context is a key advantage for the MARSOC force. “The reality of our deployments around the world is that our force is getting very relevant warfighting sets and reps. They know what it’s like to be in a denied environment, at least for a period of time, they know what it’s like to be in a contested environment for extended periods of time. That they’re adapting and adopting both the technology, the techniques, and the manner in which they do business on an evolving basis to operate in such environments.
“We take lessons from our deployed forces now and apply them into the process that we have to certify, validate and verify every formation that we send in support of Special Operations Command. We run a validation process flexible enough to adapt to emergent requirements to make sure we stay relevant and remain current, because that’s our assessment of how quickly things are changing, particularly below the threshold of declared armed conflict.”
A Discussion with Major General James F. Glynn: The CG of MARSOC - Second Line of Defense
sldinfo.com · by Robbin Laird · November 18, 2021
By Robbin Laird
With the land wars over (although counter-terrorism operations sadly not) should MARSOC be abolished? Some have argued this. But as the Marine Corps is reworking how to operate force distribution and integration, why isn’t the small unit operational capabilities of the Raider teams not a key element of the next phase of transformation?
The idea behind the Inside Force is to find ways that smaller clusters of Marines can deploy within a Weapons Engagement Zone, and connect with an Outside Force, either to empower that Outside Force or to deliver decisive effect in a special area of operations.
Also, a key element of the peer fight is to understand how to deal with a core challenge posed by our peer competitors, namely, being able to counter their focus on operating at a level of lethality below outright war but using military and other means to coerce outcomes in their favor.
MARSOC while preparing for a peer fight could also provide a significant real world force element for innovation at the small group level, which can be leveraged and introduced into the wider Marine Corps force. They also could assist in rethinking how to use the assets the Marines already have to enhance combat capability now rather than waiting for whatever innovations arrive and are credible the decade out.
Given the importance of small group operations distributed but integratable with a larger force, the Marine Raiders should be a key part of this next phase of transformation. In effect, the Marines need to take full advantage of MARSOC opportunities and to leverage their potential contributions to shape change going forward.
I had a chance to discuss in November 2021 the challenges and opportunities for shaping the way ahead for MARSOC within the overall transformation of the USMC and its role in the Joint Force with Major General James F. Glynn, the CG of MARSOC. Major General Glynn assumed command of Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) in June 2020. His previous assignment was the Commanding General of Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and Eastern Recruiting Region. A native of Albany, New York, his service as a Marine began in 1989 after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering.
His initial assignment was with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, in Hawaii where he served as a rifle platoon commander throughout Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm and later as the Mortar Platoon Commander. He has served in a variety of command and staff billets at: Marine Barracks 8th & I, Washington, DC; 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Camp Pendleton, California; Marine Corps Recruiting Station, San Antonio, Texas; I Marine Expeditionary Force, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Camp Pendleton, California, and Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command’s (MARSOC) Special Operations School, Camp Lejeune, NC.
More recently, MajGen Glynn served as the Deputy Commanding General of Special Operations Joint Task Force, Operation Inherent Resolve (Forward).
Previously, he served at Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC)—first as the Military Assistant to the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, and then as the Director of the Office of U.S. Marine Corps Communication.
We started by discussing the nature of the change being focused upon at MARSOC. As MajGen Glynn put it: “From the outset of the standing up of MARSOC, we focused on a concept often referred to as I-3: Interoperability, Integration, and Interdependence. And I believe, based on competitors and what their study of our Joint Force capabilities are, the time is now to focus very purposefully on interdependence as a core element going forward.”
“How are we going to be ready for the future? A stand in force approach means that we need to be very deliberate about the development of our capabilities going forward, with a thought towards the interdependencies of what special operations forces are expected to do in support of, and as part of, such a force.”
“By virtue of Title 10, services tend toward the responsibility to engage in crisis response as a core function, and certainly the Marine Corps is crucial to such a mission. The Navy performs some actions in competition, such as freedom of navigation, and all the services focus on reassuring partners and allies. But SOF in general, and MARSOC in particular, focuses on activities that begin before crisis. We are part of the overall engagement in pre-crisis actions and do so by operating and developing relationships with partners and allies to enable them to do their own crisis prevention and response and enable them to tamp down violent extremist organizations that can turn into insurgencies. What we do on behalf of the naval services is provide access and placement to friends, partners and allies in shaping relevant capability in that pre-crisis to crisis phase.”
We then discussed the advantages which flow from smaller group operations to drive innovation in the larger force. I argued that one of the advantages of having small groups like MARSOC is you can be more cutting edge because you’re smaller, and you have less large force consensus building to try something new. And in my view, the Marines have capabilities from the aviation side, right now, Ospreys, F-35s, Vipers/Yankees, and CH-53Ks which can be tapped in new ways to shape innovation going forward while other innovations are shaped in the decade ahead, which in my view will be shaped by actual modular task forces in operations and combat.
MajGen Glynn provided his perspective on this aspect of driving change as follows: “Our size is our strength. We have the agility to make a decision, take one step and pivot 90 degrees to enable that decision. We’ve demonstrated that in a number of areas. That’s obviously considerably more cumbersome to larger formations.”
“What that enables SOCOM, and the Marine Corps is an outsized return on investment for a relatively miniscule investment in time, money and equipment. We can leverage the SOCOM acquisitions mindset of buy, try, decide; in other words, get one, try it. If it’s not good, then don’t use it. If it just needs to be modified, make some modifications, and try it again. And if it’s worthy of investment, then on behalf of the service we can turn it into a program of record and a larger scale investment.”
“We are focused on strategic shaping and reconnaissance with a specific emphasis in the electromagnetic spectrum and information environment. Our ability to bring multi domain awareness and effects to the pre-crisis and crisis phases to, for example, the MARFORPAC commander in his role with the Joint Force Maritime Component Commander, is a key focus for us.”
“Returning to my point with regard to interdependencies, I look at MARSOC operations as part of a Venn diagram, or the image of the Olympic rings. If the capabilities of the service and the SOF component are thought of as rings, how purposeful can we be about where, how, and why they overlap? What are those capabilities that intersect and represent purposeful interdependencies? The Marine Corps prides itself on mission analysis and task organizing for the mission. We have that opportunity on a larger scale right now, and MARSOC, as the Service SOF component, is optimized to be the vanguard of experimenting with interdependencies required for stand-in forces.”
The focus on MARSOC as an Inside Force or Stand in Force, as the Marines call it, does highlight the interdependency nature of their operations. What do they bring to an area of operation? What do they link to enhance their own impact, and to enhance the other elements of the force which operates in or comes to an area of interest? Working innovations in interdependencies to shape effective pre-crisis and crisis responses is a core driver of change for the evolving MARSOC force.
This is how MajGen Glynn put it: “Our name, Marine Raiders, highlights an innovative tradition dating back to 1942. Our company commanders in this organization are Majors and each unit has the capability to engage in multi-domain operations. Throughout these initial 15 years, MARSOC units have significant experience in expeditionary operations, sets and reps as expeditionary advanced operators and that experience is crucial in shaping the way ahead as we work with new approaches and new technologies. At the same time, we have joint and coalition experience, and working with partners and allies is a key part of our operational DNA.
“For the naval forces, our approach to basing and logistics is a key driver of change as well. We are agnostic to where we operate from, but it is influenced by aspects of support like logistics. As long as we get what we need to operate, we are not concerned with how it arrives. If it is by a CH-53, or an unmanned USV, it’s that the logistics capability contributes to enabling where we are. We operate from ships, ashore, can be air dropped, however, we will stay where necessary for the time needed, and a noteworthy aspect of it is about logistical enablement for what can be done in the area of interest.”
“From this perspective, we are clearly interested in adopting new technologies. We can operationally test, evaluate, and take equipment and techniques to a remote location where we’re training or deployed and learn from it. With that experience, we’ve said, “Hey, we’re going to need to fix that thing, but the other thing works. From there, we’ve been able to influence the pace of investment and adoption. I think this approach can become very impactful to the way ahead for the coming Marine Littoral Regiments.”
“Our ability to leverage what we already have, but to do so in new ways, is crucial to innovation with today’s force, as we develop tomorrow’s force. Our ability to operate with the Viper, with the 53K, with the F-35 now, we definitely have an opportunity and are working towards realizing enhanced combat effects from such interdependencies.”
We then concluded by discussing the changing nature of warfare, and how MARSOC can enable the force to enhance its ability to prevail within that changing warfare calculus. In my view, the 21st century authoritarian powers who are peer competitors operate in the warfare spectrum from the use of lethal force designed to achieve tactical or strategic objectives below the threshold of triggering a wider conventional conflict up to the level of nuclear force informed conventional operations.
MARSOC from this perspective is a clear player in frankly both ends of the spectrum, but certainly is a meat and potatoes player in deploying to counter the lethal force supporting the political objectives of what people like to call “hybrid warfare” or operating in the “gray zone.” And with its focus on shaping the kind of relevant interdependencies with other force elements, which can play from either partner or coalition or joint forces, can learn how to be an effective tip of the spear, but even more importantly help shape what indeed the most relevant spear would be in such situations. From this perspective MARSOC is not a force focused on irregular warfare, but on regular warfare 21st century peer competitor style.
MajGen Glynn noted that from such a perspective one could consider MARSOC as focused on optimizing for the 21st century version of regular warfare. “We’re leveraging capabilities in order to bring cross domain awareness of peer adversary actions and activities that are going on right now.”
He argued that bringing their combat experience to the evolving warfare context is a key advantage for the MARSOC force. “The reality of our deployments around the world is that our force is getting very relevant warfighting sets and reps. They know what it’s like to be in a denied environment, at least for a period of time, they know what it’s like to be in a contested environment for extended periods of time. That they’re adapting and adopting both the technology, the techniques, and the manner in which they do business on an evolving basis to operate in such environments.
“We take lessons from our deployed forces now and apply them into the process that we have to certify, validate and verify every formation that we send in support of Special Operations Command. We run a validation process flexible enough to adapt to emergent requirements to make sure we stay relevant and remain current, because that’s our assessment of how quickly things are changing, particularly below the threshold of declared armed conflict.”
Featured Photo: A U.S. Marine Corps UH-1Y Venom is staged during a Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command night raid exercise at Tactical Air Combat Training System Airfield, near Yuma, April 21, 2016. This exercise was conducted during Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course 2-16. Photo by Lance Cpl. Zachary Ford. Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron-1
  1. [1] Sgt. Jesula Jeanlouis, “Marine Forces Special Operations Command Celebrates 15th Anniversary,” (February 22, 2021), https://www.dvidshub.net/news/389559/marine-forces-special-operations-command-celebrates-15th-anniversary.
  2. [2] An interesting look at some of these dynamics is an article by Paul Baily, “Enabling Strategic Success; How MARSOC can help overcome ‘simple minded’ militarism,” Small Wars Journal (January 11, 2021), https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/enabling-strategic-success-how-marsoc-can-help-overcome-simple-minded-militarism.
  3. [1]
  4. [2]
sldinfo.com · by Robbin Laird · November 18, 2021


18. The Washington Conference 100 Years Later: Averting Great-Power Conflict in Asia


History. Pay attention. 

Excerpts:
Not surprisingly, then, Washington’s repeated efforts to engage China in arms control talks have led nowhere. When Harding pitched a conference in Washington to discuss arms control, the British and Japanese governments jumped at the invitation. The Biden administration, like its predecessors, wants to “pursue arms control to reduce the dangers from China’s modern and growing nuclear arsenal.” It would seem, however, that China wants to achieve parity in nuclear weapons with Russia and the United States. If that is Beijing’s aim, arms control has no prospect of achieving worthwhile results before the end of this decade when China’s nuclear arsenal pulls even with the United States. Even then, will China’s rulers be content with nuclear parity, or will they strive for superiority, whatever that might mean in measuring the balance of terror?
The dangerous decade of the 1930s and the breakdown of arms control thus seems a better fit for understanding the strategic predicament that the United States finds itself in today than the period leading up to the Washington Conference. The administration’s nuclear posture review must entertain worst-case scenarios in the face of China’s threatening buildup. China’s refusal to enter arms control negotiations gives President Biden an opportunity to rally domestic political support for modernizing the nuclear triad, strengthening ballistic missile defenses, and developing emerging technologies. Until China’s rulers are convinced that increases in their nuclear forces do not confer a strategic advantage, the United States cannot expect to have the initiative in arms control negotiations that it possessed a hundred years ago in Washington.


The Washington Conference 100 Years Later: Averting Great-Power Conflict in Asia
The world's leading powers agreed to limit a naval arms race in 1921 at the United States’ urging. Lessons from the Washington Naval Conference are still relevant as the United States and China face a potential new arms race today.
The National Interest · by John Maurer · November 18, 2021
A hundred years ago, Washington was the setting for a major international conference called to arrest an emerging competition in naval weaponry and to settle outstanding disputes threatening the peace of Asia. The Washington Conference began with high drama on Saturday, November 12, 1921. President Warren G. Harding opened the negotiations at Memorial Continental Hall near the White House with a welcome address to the conference delegates and the large audience of onlookers that included members of Congress, the well-connected Washington elite, and journalists from around the world. His short, solemn speech called for an end to the competition underway in naval armaments. The celebrated author H.G. Wells, who covered the conference as a journalist, wrote that the president “is a very big, fine-looking man and his voice is a wonderful instrument.” The American public, Wells told his readers, viewed Harding as “a sincerely modest man, determined to do the best that is in him and at once appalled and inspired by the world situation in which he finds himself among the most prominent figures.” In his opening speech, Harding declared that the United States, “Our hundred millions frankly want less of armament and none of war.” The president’s remarks received loud applause from the audience, with William Jennings Bryan, three times a candidate for president and former secretary of state, leading the cheering from the gallery.
After the president delivered his speech, he left the conference hall, and the American Secretary of State Charles Evan Hughes took center stage in leading the opening session. What happened next came as a surprise. Instead of a speech of welcome and pious generalities, Hughes’s speech stunned the other conference delegates and captured the attention of public opinion around the world by presenting a detailed arms control proposal. He called for an immediate stop to the competition in the building of the latest generation of capital ships—that is, the most powerfully armed, large surface warships. His proposal spelled out the names of the ships whose construction would be stopped and of older battleships to be scrapped. The secretary of state demanded: “Preparation for offensive naval war will stop now.”
America’s surprise diplomatic salvo took the delegates by surprise and gave Hughes the initiative in negotiations. Arthur Balfour, the head of the British delegation, called the American proposals “bold and statesmanlike.” The American initiative spurred the negotiators to achieve what had seemed impossible: an arms control agreement to curtail the naval construction planned or underway by Great Britain, Japan, and the United States. To a war-weary world, suffering from a sharp postwar economic downturn and feeling the aftershocks of the global flu pandemic, the agreement hammered out in Washington heralded a triumph of diplomacy and enlightened statecraft.
“Incomparably the Greatest Navy in the World”

This outcome of the Washington Conference was hardly inevitable. Going into the conference, a three-sided arms race in capital ships, involving Great Britain, Japan, and the United States, threatened a return to great power competition soon after the conclusion of the First World War. The war transformed international relations. For the United States, the fighting showed that, in a dangerous world of clashing great powers, an effective foreign policy demanded an increase in the armed forces. To prepare for this new age of heightened dangers, President Woodrow Wilson called for a huge buildup of American naval power, to acquire (in his words) “incomparably the greatest navy in the world.” At the center of the American naval buildup was a new generation of capital ships, more powerful than any that existed in the world’s navies.
Despite the end of the fighting, Wilson refused to curtail the American naval buildup. Quite the reverse, the president continued to advocate a large buildup of American naval power, including new capital ships. To Wilson, the United States faced a stark choice in the postwar world: either join the League of Nations or live in a harsh world of escalating great power competition that would lead to another war. The alternative to joining the League of Nations was an American national security state. In Wilson’s view, an America that withdrew into isolation, showing restraint in providing security commitments to other countries, would need to arm itself in preparation for a return to great power competition and the violent breakdown of international order. Only when the United States and the other great powers joined the League would it be possible to reduce armaments. Wilson thus insisted on building up the navy so long as the United States did not join the League, and the naval buildup conceived as a wartime contingency continued despite the war’s end.
Nor did the change of administrations in the United States, with the election of Harding as president, result in a reduction in the naval buildup. As a candidate, president-elect, and during his first hundred days in office, Harding advocated completing the American warship construction plan put in place by his predecessor. In December 1920, upon returning from a Caribbean vacation, the sun-tanned President-elect called for “a big navy and a big merchant marine.” In Harding’s view, the United States “must be a maritime people, since no nation has ever written a complete page in history that has not taken a prominent place in maritime affairs. ... The navy is the first line of American defense. No nation can hope to be eminent in commerce in these times without a naval institution adequate to protect those rights.” The future economic well-being of the United States as a rising trading state and financial center appeared intertwined with its rise as a naval power.
Once in office, Harding found that his naval ambitions faced considerable domestic political opposition. Within Congress and across the country, voices emerged against continuing the wartime buildup of the navy. The progressive maverick Republican Senator William Borah of Idaho led the opposition in Congress. Today, Borah is best known for his staunch resistance to Woodrow Wilson’s campaign to obtain Senate ratification of the Versailles Treaty and American entry into the League of Nations. Borah refused to accept Wilson’s view that rejection of the League entailed an increase in armaments. He wanted to show that the opposite was the case. He introduced a Congressional resolution calling on the president to invite Britain and Japan to a conference that “shall be charged with the duty of promptly entering into an understanding or agreement by which the naval expenditures and building programs ... shall be substantially reduced.” His resolution captured the public’s mood, and Congress acknowledged popular opinion by voting overwhelmingly to adopt it. The action of the Congress forced Harding’s hand, and invitations were duly sent to attend a conference in Washington to negotiate limits on naval construction.
In preparations for the conference, Harding sought a diplomatic plan of action to disarm domestic political critics as well foreign governments. The president made clear the connection between internal and external politics to the team of policymakers drawing up the American negotiating proposal. The powerful head of the Senate foreign relations committee, Henry Cabot Lodge, dined with the president at the White House, where the discussion revolved around the upcoming arms control conference. Lodge found that President Harding felt “very strongly about having our six battle cruisers built.” But the President “also felt the great necessity ... of making some offer at the very outset as to a general limitation of armaments which would satisfy the desires of the country and put the question straight to the other Powers.” Lodge did “not for a moment believe that either Japan or England will accept it [the American proposal], but if they do not accept it we shall have made our position clear and will lay the responsibility [for failure] where it will belong,—with them.” A month before the opening the conference, Harding was even blunter in an off-the-record interview with a friendly journalist: “We’ll talk sweetly and patiently to them [the other major naval powers] at first; but if they don’t agree then we’ll say ‘God damn you, if it’s a race, then the United States is going to go to it.’” The United States—the country that could best afford an arms race—would call for a stop in the competition. Possessing the world’s strongest economy, the United States held the whip hand in the naval competition. If Britain and Japan refused to settle, the president would regain the initiative in domestic politics to push the naval buildup through Congress.
Harding entrusted to Secretary of State Hughes the lead in devising an ambitious arms control plan. The President’s trust was not misplaced. Before becoming secretary of state, Hughes had a distinguished career of public service. He worked as a successful lawyer in New York before being elected the state’s governor, served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court, and stood as the Republican party’s candidate for President in 1916, losing in a close race to Woodrow Wilson. Hughes dedicated himself to the task of working up the American negotiating position and refused to let the effort get derailed by opposition from within the government. Behind Hughes stood the authority of the President. Working with a small group of trusted and experienced advisors, Hughes kept secret the American plan that he would unveil at the conference’s opening. Hughes’ work paid off in achieving Harding’s intent of gaining the diplomatic initiative for the United States in the negotiations.

Britain—Staying Number One Against a Pacing Challenger?
In Britain, domestic political motivations, as well as strategic calculations, brought the British government to accept the American invitation to attend a conference in Washington. At the war’s end, Britain’s navy was the strongest in the world, and the victory over Germany owed much to British sea power. While Britain had emerged triumphant in the war with Germany, the victory had come at a hideous cost. America’s naval buildup challenged Britain’s hard-won gains. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George refused to renounce Britain’s standing as the world’s leading naval power. In common with most Britons of that era, he considered it as a strategic axiom that Britain’s unique defense requirements called for a navy stronger than any other. Britain’s global security and commercial interests, the long sea lines of communication that linked together the empire’s far-flung territories, and the heavy dependence of the home islands on imports of foodstuffs and raw materials animated this demand for naval superiority. Lloyd George also had an emotional commitment to the tradition of Britannia ruling the waves. He “would pawn his shirt rather than allow America to dominate the seas.” Indeed, Harding’s speech trumpeting a coming era of American naval dominance so infuriated Lloyd George that “he felt like turning the Admiralty on to build all the capital ships they could as fast as possible in order to go for the Yanks.”
Britain’s admirals also did not want to lose the position of naval leadership that the British navy had won by dint of hard fighting during the just-concluded war. Germany’s naval offensives during the war underscored Britain’s vulnerability to a disruption of overseas supply chains and support from the empire. Having defeated the German naval threat, Britain’s admirals were determined to recapitalize the British battle fleet and meet head-on the American challenge by building the latest generation of capital ships. Admiral David Beatty, the uniformed head of the Navy as Britain’s First Sea Lord, vowed never to surrender “supremacy of the sea to America.” He would “resign rather than go down to posterity as the First Sea Lord in office at the time of such a shameful decision.”
The harsh light of the postwar world, however, dampened British enthusiasm for a naval competition with the United States. Despite Lloyd George’s attachment to the creed of British superiority at sea, he feared that a new competition in the building of capital ships might presage another conflict, this time with the United States, just as the naval contest had preceded the war with Germany. In December 1920, Lloyd George held high-level discussions within the British government on how to meet the American naval challenge. In these discussions, Lloyd George asserted that the British government “had to consider what was, in his opinion, about the most important question that had ever been submitted to them—the most important and the most difficult.” In a naval competition with the United States, Lloyd George feared that Britain “should be up against the greatest resources in the world. We should be up against a growing and intensely virile population.” If the government decided “Britain must enter into competition with the United States in naval shipbuilding, it would be the biggest decision they had taken since 1914, and, conceivably greater than that taken in 1914 [for war with Germany].” Britain’s prime minister also considered that an arms race might induce the United States to hurt the British economy. The United States might take punitive steps by demanding exacting terms in the repayment of the British war debt. The discussions among Britain’s leaders echoed Lloyd George’s alarming assessment of the high stakes at risk in the contest for naval mastery. Britain’s political leaders confronted the harsh reality that, if they failed to reach an arms control agreement, “we may see ourselves outdistanced by the American [warship construction] programme unless we are prepared to incur overwhelming expenditure.”

A severe downturn in the British economy added to the urgency of avoiding a naval competition with the United States. Britain’s gross domestic product slumped by 9.7 percent in 1921, a drop in the British economy not matched until almost a hundred years later in 2020. In these hard times, the government came under immense political pressure to curb spending, according to the economic rostrums of the day. Cutting government spending was deemed essential to bring about an economic recovery and to forestall social unrest.
Even major conservative media outlets, which usually supported naval spending, demanded deep cuts in the navy’s budget as the remedy for restoring the country’s economic health, rather than building warships. The press barons, the brothers Lord Northcliffe and Lord Rothermere, used their newspapers to denounce wasteful government spending, including expenditure on warship construction. Northcliffe asked why “should the nations waste thousands of millions on probably useless battleships, about the future utility of which the best experts are now violently divided, even if anybody wanted to fight—which, I firmly believe, nobody does.” Instead of spending money on warships, he suggested, “every million we can spare is needed for the works of real progress, for scientific research, for the cure of cancer, consumption, syphilis and the other real and deadly enemies of the United States, Great Britain and Japan.”
Lord Rothermere, in the mass-circulation Sunday Pictorial, echoed his brother’s call for economy in government spending. Rothermere demanded an end to the government’s “squandermania.” He insisted that the stakes for Britain amounted to nothing less than “solvency or downfall.” He attacked “the folly of the big battleship.” He asserted that “unless this almost bankrupt nation wakes up we may find ourselves irrevocably committed to the building of another fleet of obsolete marine monsters.”
While the barbs of hostile press barons often infuriated Lloyd George, he agreed with them on the matter of curbing the navy’s ambitions to build a new generation of capital ships. Lloyd George believed that the age of the capital ship was over. He did not trust the recommendations of the naval experts. In his view, the technology for fighting at sea was changing rapidly. He believed: “Naval construction was in a fluid state. We must ascertain how best we can spend our money.” To enforce spending cuts and rein in the admirals’ plans for a naval buildup, the prime minister even went so far as to offer Lord Rothermere, one of the government’s harshest media critics, the post of First Lord of the Admiralty, the civilian head of the navy. When Rothermere turned him down, Lloyd George turned to Lord Lee of Fareham to head up the navy. The prime minister provided Lee with clear marching orders: the naval spending “must be cut down and that, if necessary, ‘the Sea Lords must be told to go to hell’.”
Lloyd George thus welcomed negotiations to prevent a naval arms competition between Britain and the United States when the invitation for talks came from Harding. At the conference, the detailed proposal put forward by Hughes met with the quick approval of Lloyd George and the British government. The reaction of Winston Churchill, then serving in the government, captures the relief felt by British leaders when hearing Hughes' dramatic proposal. Churchill told the American ambassador: “He could not find words to express his rejoicing as an Englishman and his pride in his American ancestry. His hat was not only off but as high as he could throw it.” In the American proposal, Britain’s political leaders avoided the nightmare of an expensive competition in capital ships.
Japan—A Responsible Stakeholder
The American naval buildup was also viewed as a security threat by the leaders of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Japan’s dominant position in East Asia, in the view of the Japanese naval strategic planners, rested on the ability of the navy to deter or (if necessary) to defeat any American offensive across the Pacific. To meet the American challenge, the Japanese navy demanded a major increase in warship construction. They wanted to acquire a fleet of eight battleships and eight battlecruisers as powerful as those under construction in the United States. In the minds of Japanese naval officers, these sixteen modern capital ships would act as a deterrent force, shielding Japan’s empire from the United States. By deterring the United States from taking aggressive action across the Pacific, Japan could then pursue a forward foreign policy on the Asian mainland in confronting the rising challenge of Chinese nationalism and the threat from the newly established Soviet state. Admiral Katō Tomosaburō, Japan’s navy minister, won the Japanese government’s approval for warship construction to counter the United States.
The huge cost of the Japanese warship acquisition plan, however, soon tempered the enthusiasm of Japan’s leaders for competing against the United States. To meet the navy’s demands, Japan’s naval budget skyrocketed, increasing more than fivefold from ¥84,974,783 in 1915 to ¥483,590,000 in 1921. Even accounting for wartime inflation, this growth in the navy’s budget was extraordinary. Spending on the navy amounted to almost a third of Japan’s national budget. This spending bill, too, came at a time when Japan, like Britain and the United States, confronted a severe downturn in the economy. It is estimated that the Japanese economy contracted by more than 8 percent during 1921. A deterioration in Japan’s international balance of payments threatened the country’s financial system, and the government looked for support in American loans from Wall Street. Admiral Katō, although a champion of the navy’s buildup, understood that the expense of competing against the United States carried a higher price tag than what Japan could afford. The admiral lamented that Japan’s “national wealth has simply not increased in proportion to naval expenditure, and we cannot proceed at the current pace. I am at my wit’s end.”
Harding’s call for a conference in Washington provided Japan with an opportunity to gain the security at sea that they sought without having to go to the great expense of building a new generation of capital ships. At the beginning of the conference, the Japanese delegates declared: “Japan desires to cooperate with other powers to escape the burden of defense that stifles our industry. On arms reductions, which is a just policy that will eliminate [great power] misunderstanding of Japan and guarantee our security.” By stopping the American naval construction in negotiations, Japan would gain a strategic edge. In negotiations, Katō maintained: “Avoidance of war with America through diplomatic means constitutes the essence of national defense.” If only future Japanese naval and military leaders had held to Katō’s wise counsel, then Japan and the United States would have avoided the clash of arms a generation later.
The government of Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan’s finance minister who became prime minister after an ultranationalist assassinated Hara Takashi, welcomed the negotiated settlement achieved in Washington. Takahashi advocated a foreign policy of collaboration with Britain and the United States, and for Japan to exercise restraint in its dealings with China. Arms control would enable him to reduce the budget of the armed services, thus freeing up resources for what he considered more productive spending on infrastructure improvements and education. “Because of the economic situation,” Takahashi maintained, “we must control the expansion of government expenditures. We must be frugal where we can be frugal.” The Washington Conference enabled him to advance his foreign policy and economic agenda. “Because of the Washington Conference,” he told the Japanese Diet, “we can reduce military expenditures and have a little surplus for the future.” Takahashi wanted to enhance Japan’s power and standing by acting as what our age would call a responsible stakeholder, who would benefit economically by cooperating to uphold the peace in Asia and the Pacific.
The Art of the Deal
While Hughes jumpstarted the negotiations, achieving an arms control agreement in Washington entailed hard bargaining. Katō wanted to keep the Japanese navy as strong as possible relative to the United States. Japanese naval planners demanded that their battle fleet acquire at least 70 percent of the strength of the United States Navy. American naval planners opposed the Japanese demand: they insisted that Japan’s force of capital ships would amount to no more than 60 percent of the United States. To break the deadlock, Katō agreed to the ratio of strength fixed by the American side, but he wanted something in return. To accept an inferior ratio in naval strength, he asked for Britain and the United States to limit the defenses protecting their forward bases in the Western Pacific. By imposing restrictions on the fortification of forward bases, Britain and the United States would have difficulty projecting naval power into the region during the initial stages of a conflict with Japan. Hughes accepted this tradeoff because he believed (quite rightly) that Congress would refuse to fund in peacetime the development of major bases in Guam and the Philippines required for the forward deployment of American naval power. The net strategic result of this tradeoff was to accord naval dominance in the Western Pacific to Japan. Despite the inferior ratio in battle-fleet strength—a minimum deterrent—Japan emerged from the Washington Conference in a strong strategic position.

That the United States succeeded in getting the other great powers to reach an agreement in Washington was due in part to the American invitation coming at the right moment. The workings of democracy, along with the liberal world view held by the leaders of the great powers, set the stage for an international agreement. In Washington, the negotiations built on the plan presented on the opening day by Hughes. While Hughes’ plan was modified during the talks, an agreement emerged that reflected the willingness of leaders to curb spending on weaponry and to show restraint in their foreign policy ambitions. Lord Balfour, the leader of the British delegation, claimed the conference “has been of absolute unmixed benefit to mankind.”
Farewell to Arms Control—Part One
The Washington Conference, however, turned out to be but a truce in the competition for naval mastery in the Pacific. A return to great power competition during the 1930s ended the treaty framework for international cooperation and security in Asia that came out of Washington. Only twenty years would elapse between the fanfare inaugurating the Washington Conference and the opening shots fired by Japanese aircraft attacking forward-deployed American and British naval forces in the Pacific. The battleships regulated by the arms control regime negotiated in Washington became the main targets struck by Japanese aircraft at the war’s beginning.
Although Japan derived important strategic benefits from arms control, the leaders of the Japanese navy did not see it that way. They objected to treaty restrictions that stood in the way of their demands for naval buildup. They wanted an arms race. The famous Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the strategic architect of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, believed that American and British leaders only respected Japan’s “mighty empire rising in the east” because of the country’s growing armed strength. Yamamoto foresaw that “the day may not be so distant when we shall have Britain and the United States kowtowing to us. For the navy, the most urgent task of all is to make rapid strides in the field of aviation.”
While Yamamoto favored building up Japan’s naval air power, the navy brass sought to break out of the arms control framework established at Washington by constructing the Yamato-class battleships. These monster battleships were built in great secrecy to prevent American and British intelligence from knowing their firepower and armor strength. When these battleships joined the fleet in the early 1940s, they were the most powerful in the world.
Meanwhile, those voices in Japan who called for restraint in spending on the armed services were silenced. Takahashi, again serving as finance minister, opposed large increases in spending that the leaders of the armed services demanded, as he had in 1921. In a newspaper interview, he stated that, even if Japan refused to be bound by arms control restrictions, he would continue to resist increased naval spending. He viewed a policy of confrontation with Britain, China, and the United States as utter folly. Japan did not have the economic strength to achieve the imperial dreams that beguiled nationalist extremists. Takahashi’s determined opposition led to his murder during the military uprising of February 26, 1936, when rebellious soldiers broke into his house and killed the elderly statesman while sleeping in his bed. Takahashi’s fate symbolizes the end of the sober judgment exercised by Japan’s leaders who sought security through cooperation with Britain and the United States at Washington. Instead, Japanese militarists and nationalist leaders, possessed by dreams of empire, took control and led Japan to war.
Farewell to Arms Control—Part Two
At a time when American power and purpose in the world is increasingly questioned, the story of the Washington Conference deserves to be remembered because it shows how great powers can cooperate to provide for their security. The United States took the initiative in calling the conference, and its success owed much to the skill and determination of American leaders. Washington could exercise this leadership role because it was backed up by the hard reality of America’s growing economic and naval power. Adam Tooze has noted that “Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the British Empire had been the largest economic unit in the world. Sometime in 1916, the year of Verdun and the Somme, the combined output of the British Empire was overtaken by that of the United States of America.” Perhaps that moment arrived on August 29, 1916, when the so-called Big Navy Act was signed into law by President Wilson. Economic and naval ascendency went hand in hand. The United States possessed the big stick of a naval modernization effort that other countries wanted to limit. British and Japanese leaders had no stomach for a high-stakes contest for naval mastery against the United States. They preferred negotiation to a head-to-head arms race with the United States and feared the consequences if the talks broke down. Alienating Washington might also curtail American support for reviving the international economy.
Today, the prospects for arms control are far less favorable for American leadership. The United States is now involved in a three-way nuclear competition with China and Russia that is much different from the experience of the Cold War. American aims in Asia now stand threatened by the foreign policy ambitions of China’s leaders and an across-the-board buildup of the Chinese armed forces. Projected increases in China’s intercontinental ballistic missile force in land-based silos have exceeded previous American estimates. A report by the Federation of American Scientists concludes: “With approximately 300 apparent silos under construction—a number that exceeds the number of ICBM silos operated by Russia—and an additional 100-plus road-mobile ICBM launchers, China’s total ICBM force could potentially exceed that of either Russia and the United States in the foreseeable future.” The lack of transparency on Chinese decisions about nuclear weapons resembles Japan’s attempts to conceal its capital ship construction during the late 1930s and the increase in Soviet ICBMs that confounded Robert McNamara’s Pentagon during the 1960s. The growing ICBM force will provide Chinese nuclear target planners with an enhanced capability to execute first strikes in wartime. Like Japan during the 1930s, China is no longer content to possess a minimum deterrent force.

Nor is there any force of public opinion or peace movement within China to constrain the nuclear buildup. No free press exists to spur open debate about the strategic wisdom or necessity for acquiring a land-based nuclear force that reaches toward parity with Russia or the United States. At the Washington conference a hundred years ago, a common liberal world view and growing public sentiment against arms spending animated the American, British, and Japanese governments to go to the negotiation table. While liberal domestic political opinion opposed to modernization of the nuclear triad and ballistic missile defenses is a force to be reckoned with today in the United States, no comparable internal pressure pushes China’s authoritarian regime to negotiate.
Not surprisingly, then, Washington’s repeated efforts to engage China in arms control talks have led nowhere. When Harding pitched a conference in Washington to discuss arms control, the British and Japanese governments jumped at the invitation. The Biden administration, like its predecessors, wants to “pursue arms control to reduce the dangers from China’s modern and growing nuclear arsenal.” It would seem, however, that China wants to achieve parity in nuclear weapons with Russia and the United States. If that is Beijing’s aim, arms control has no prospect of achieving worthwhile results before the end of this decade when China’s nuclear arsenal pulls even with the United States. Even then, will China’s rulers be content with nuclear parity, or will they strive for superiority, whatever that might mean in measuring the balance of terror?
The dangerous decade of the 1930s and the breakdown of arms control thus seems a better fit for understanding the strategic predicament that the United States finds itself in today than the period leading up to the Washington Conference. The administration’s nuclear posture review must entertain worst-case scenarios in the face of China’s threatening buildup. China’s refusal to enter arms control negotiations gives President Biden an opportunity to rally domestic political support for modernizing the nuclear triad, strengthening ballistic missile defenses, and developing emerging technologies. Until China’s rulers are convinced that increases in their nuclear forces do not confer a strategic advantage, the United States cannot expect to have the initiative in arms control negotiations that it possessed a hundred years ago in Washington.
John H. Maurer serves as the Alfred Thayer Mahan Distinguished Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The views expressed in this article represent those of the author alone

Image: Flickr.
The National Interest · by John Maurer · November 18, 2021


19. FDD | Confronting Kremlin and Communist Corruption



Excerpt:
Where the BRI goes, corruption follows. The initiative deliberately favors opacity and encourages corruption while justifying both in terms of “non-interference” in the domestic politics of BRI partner states. The infrastructure projects that grow out of this flawed process often prove to have minimal economic value while saddling partner states with massive debt. The United States can and should promote a more effective model of infrastructure development that brings shared prosperity and better governance to our partners.

FDD | Confronting Kremlin and Communist Corruption
fdd.org · by Elaine K. Dezenski CEFP Senior Advisor · November 18, 2021
Introduction
I wish to thank Chairman Cardin, Co-Chairman Cohen, and the members of the Helsinki Commission for the opportunity to speak at today’s hearing. The commission has worked tirelessly to support U.S. economic and military security, combat corruption, and ensure the protection of human rights around the world. The commission also understands that ensuring our national security requires us to address the emerging risks posed by kleptocratic and authoritarian regimes. Refocusing on the foundations of strong democratic governance to address these threats is urgently needed.
The commission has recognized that strengthening our defenses against authoritarian threats starts with strengthening our own defenses. Key elements of the Counter-Kleptocracy Act are now moving forward as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. If enacted, this legislation will substantially strengthen America’s commitment to combating foreign corruption. The act includes language to allow for the prosecution of foreign officials demanding bribes from American businesses. It would close U.S. immigration and money laundering loopholes exploited by kleptocrats. It would call out human rights abusers and advance efforts to document the amount of money stolen by kleptocrats. It would strengthen the U.S. commitment to transparency, enforcement, and accountability. Congress and the Biden administration should work together to advance these sound policies.
Today, the United States faces growing aggression from kleptocrats and authoritarians who seek to erode open, rules-based systems of government in favor of closed, totalitarian regimes. Chief among these threats is China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is seeking to rewrite global norms and rules of engagement with many, if not most, developing nations. Its primary vehicle to achieve this “reframing” of global engagement is its infrastructure investment monolith, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, the BRI is much more than an infrastructure program. It is a “geopolitical enterprise” and the primary vehicle through which China seeks to redefine its political and economic engagement with much of the world.
Where the BRI goes, corruption follows. The initiative deliberately favors opacity and encourages corruption while justifying both in terms of “non-interference” in the domestic politics of BRI partner states. The infrastructure projects that grow out of this flawed process often prove to have minimal economic value while saddling partner states with massive debt. The United States can and should promote a more effective model of infrastructure development that brings shared prosperity and better governance to our partners.
fdd.org · by Elaine K. Dezenski CEFP Senior Advisor · November 18, 2021



20.  FDD | Poor Cybersecurity Makes Water a Weak Link in Critical Infrastructure



FDD | Poor Cybersecurity Makes Water a Weak Link in Critical Infrastructure
fdd.org · by RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery CCTI Senior Director and Senior Fellow · November 18, 2021
Executive Summary
America’s critical infrastructure is only as strong as its weakest link, and in the United States, water infrastructure may be the greatest vulnerability. The significant cybersecurity deficiencies observed in the drinking water and wastewater sectors result in part from structural challenges. The United States has approximately 52,000 drinking water and 16,000 wastewater systems, most of which service small- to medium-sized communities of less than 50,000 residents. These systems operate with limited budgets and even more limited cybersecurity personnel and expertise. Conducting effective federal oversight of, and providing sufficient federal assistance to, such a distributed network of utilities is inherently difficult.
Compounding this challenge, the increasing automation of the water sector has opened it up to malicious cyber activity that could disrupt or manipulate services. This past February, a hacker nearly succeeded in raising the concentration of a caustic agent in the drinking water of a small Florida city one hundred-fold after breaching the system the utility uses for remote-access monitoring and troubleshooting. The automation of such systems reduces personnel costs and facilitates regulatory compliance, but few utilities have invested the savings from automation into the cybersecurity of their new systems.
The expanded attack surface resulting from automation could also allow hackers to cause disruptive and cascading effects across multiple critical infrastructures. “Water is used in all phases of energy production and electricity generation,” the Department of Energy noted in a report on the nexus between the water and energy sectors. Water and power systems are often physically interconnected.
The federal government — in particular, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is the sector risk management agency (SRMA) responsible for the water sector — bears responsibility for the fragility of the sector’s cybersecurity posture. The EPA is not resourced or organized to assess and support the water sector consistent with the scope and scale of the critical infrastructure challenges the sector faces. As part of its congressional mandate to assess and recommend improvements to national cyber resilience, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC) reviewed the responsibilities and performance of all SRMAs. Regarding the water sector, the CSC concluded that there is “insufficient coordination between the EPA and other stakeholders in water utilities’ security.” The Government Accountability Office has expressed similar concerns.
Water infrastructure is critical to national security, economic stability, and public health and safety. Building on the CSC’s concerns regarding the vulnerability of the water sector, this paper analyzes the specific challenges facing this sector and identifies steps that utilities and the federal government — both the legislative and executive branches — should take to mitigate this national vulnerability. A layered approach combining a strengthening of the EPA, improved government financial support and oversight, and a stronger partnership between government and utilities will result in a more secure, reliable, and resilient water sector.
Specific recommendations include:
  • resourcing and empowering the EPA to succeed as the water sector’s SRMA and as the government lead for cybersecurity in the sector;
  • directing some of the EPA’s water sector grant programs exclusively toward cybersecurity issues;
  • increasing funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rural cybersecurity programs;
  • directing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to increase support for the water sector;
  • increasing the federal government’s financial support for water sector associations;
  • encouraging water utilities to increase investments in cybersecurity technology and personnel;
  • improving water utilities’ access to cybersecurity training and assessment resources;
  • establishing a joint industry-government cybersecurity oversight program; and
  • amending the American Water Infrastructure Act to increase the cybersecurity effectiveness of water utility risk assessments.
Acronyms
  • AWIA – America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018
  • AWWA – American Water Works Association
  • CISA – Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
  • CSC – Cyberspace Solarium Commission
  • ERPs – Emergency Response Plans
  • FERC – Federal Electricity Regulatory Commission
  • IT – Information Technology
  • NERC – North American Electric Reliability Corporation
  • NIST – National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • NRWA – National Rural Water Association
  • OT – Operational Technology
  • RCAP – Rural Community Assistance Program
  • RRAs – Risk and Resilience Assessments
  • SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
  • SLTT – State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial
  • SRF – State Revolving Fund
  • SRMA – Sector Risk Management Agency
  • SSA – Sector Specific Agency
  • WaterISAC – Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center
  • WRRO – Water Risk & Resilience Organization
  • WSCC – Water Sector Coordinating Council



21. Iranian dissidents win right to protest against nuke talks in Vienna


Excerpt:

Iranian dissidents and critics of the JCPOA say the deal is fatally flawed because it ignores the Iranian regime’s horrific human rights records, violent repression of its citizens and Tehran’s sponsorship of international terrorism. The planned deal, argue critics, does not seek to restrict the regime’s ballistic missile program. The US government under both democratic and republican administrations has classified Iran’s regime as the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism.
Iranian dissidents win right to protest against nuke talks in Vienna
Austrian court overrules the government's ban of demonstrators.
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL Published: NOVEMBER 18, 2021 02:33
Updated: NOVEMBER 18, 2021 15:48
NEW YORK- An administrative court in Vienna on Friday rejected the police and Foreign Ministry decision to bar Iranian dissidents from protesting in front of the hotel where nuclear talks are being held between the world powers and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Austrian paper Der Standard reported on Monday that the chain of events to oust the dissidents started with an email from a top EU diplomat to the general-secretary of Austria’s Foreign Ministry Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal in June, who sent the complaint, which was first initiated by the Iranian regime negotiators, to the Vienna police.

Tehran’s diplomats said the protestors caused noise that disrupted the atomic negotiations in the Grand Hotel Wien. The Vienna court flatly rejected the noise argument. The court established that the traffic noise level outside the hotel, where the protestors were located, was a decibel louder than the demonstrators on Ringstrasse, a circular boulevard that surrounds the inner city of Vienna, according to the Standard.

The court also noted that the government’s claim that “intolerable noise” was heard one day could not have happened because the police outlawed the demonstration on that day. Police reports obtained by the Standard showed that the demonstrators did not disrupt in any way the talks with loudspeakers or other activities.

An appeal of the legal ruling is not possible.

The Standard did not name the European diplomat who notified Austria’s Foreign Ministry about the alleged noise from the Iranian dissidents. The Jerusalem Post reported in June that Enrique Mora, the deputy secretary-general/political director of European External Action Service for the EU, who was present at the atomic talks, intervened to oust the Iranians who protested across from the Grand Hotel Wien.

Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. (credit: LISI NIESNER/ REUTERS)

The Post obtained a copy of the police order at the time banning the Iranian dissidents’ protest, which was labeled “Stop the dictator in Iran.” In a Skype conversation with the Post in June, Atusa Sabagh, an Iranian dissident, said the Vienna police told protesters that then-Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg, who is the current chancellor, said they “are not allowed to protest.” Sabagh said the protestors told the police that “we will not accept that.”

IRANIAN DISSIDENT Sholei Zamini, who has protested for more than ten years against human rights violations carried out by the clerical regime in Tehran, told the Standard the ruling “showed that the Austrian judiciary can overcome pressure from abroad.”

Annemarie Schlack, the director of Amnesty International in Austria, told the paper that "the decision of the administrative court is gratifying, but unfortunately too late. The demonstrations could not take place in June. We needed legal certainty at that time."

Mora, the Italian diplomat, who Iranian dissidents say has gone to great lengths to placate the theocratic state in Tehran by urging the Austrian Foreign Ministry to silence their protest, sparked intense criticism in August. Nine members of the European Parliament formally complained to EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell about Mora’s presence at the inauguration of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in August.
“Sending such senior representation to the inauguration of a president with such a dark record, at this sensitive time, contradicts European commitments to uphold and stand up for human rights,” noted the MEPs, who added that Raisi’s victory was “a sham election,” and that he has an “appalling record of personal responsibility for the most heinous of human rights abuses.”

The US government sanctioned Raisi for his roles in the mass murder of over 5,000 Iranian prisoners in 1988 and a second mass murder of at least 1,500 protestors in 2019.

The nuclear talks, which are slated to restart on November 29, seek to bring the Iranian regime into compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the formal name for the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the world powers. The agreement provides temporary restrictions on the regime’s capability to produce a nuclear weapons device in exchange for economic sanctions relief.
The US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 because American officials said it did not stop Tehran from developing the world’s deadliest weapons. The US is also negotiating about its re-entry into the pact.

Iranian dissidents and critics of the JCPOA say the deal is fatally flawed because it ignores the Iranian regime’s horrific human rights records, violent repression of its citizens and Tehran’s sponsorship of international terrorism. The planned deal, argue critics, does not seek to restrict the regime’s ballistic missile program. The US government under both democratic and republican administrations has classified Iran’s regime as the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism.


22. Fort Bragg's Special Forces, Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs induct honorary members


Great Americans.

Fort Bragg's Special Forces, Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs induct honorary members
Yahoo! Sports · by Rachael Riley, The Fayetteville Observer
The Special Forces, Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs community named 20 new soldiers, civilians and veterans as distinguished and honorary members during induction ceremonies this month.
The inductees have built the organization through military and civilian endeavors from conflicts in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Somalia, Desert Storm, Grenada, Panama and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson, commander of Fort Bragg's U.S John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.
“They are pillars of our organization because they helped really develop our organization and adopt these structures, training and every aspect in making this organization great,” Roberson said.
The inductees are committed to improving opportunities for men and women in uniform, through "their selfless actions over the years to promote the warfighting ethos and unwavering sense of pride and selfless service,” Col. Charles Burnett, deputy commander of the JFK Special Warfare Center and School said.
Special Forces Regiment Distinguished members

Sgt. Maj. Matthew Williams is welcomed by Lt. Col. Richard Woolshalger as a distinguished member of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Sgt. Maj. Matthew Williams
Sgt. Maj. Matthew Williams served with the 3rd Special Forces Group and received the Medal of Honor recipient for his actions on April 6, 2008, as part of an assault element inserted into Afghanistan.
After the lead element was attacked by an enemy machine gun, sniper and rocket-propelled grenade fire in the Nuristan Province, Williams helped lead a counter-attack up a mountain and across a valley of ice-covered boulders and a rapid, ice-cold, waist-deep river.
Williams moved a wounded team sergeant down the mountain, then went back up to defend the other soldiers, directing suppressive fire and exposing himself to enemy fire.
He helped lead Afghan commandos in a counter-attack that lasted hours, and continually exposed himself to enemy fire as the wounded were evacuated.

Retired Lt. Col. Bennet Sacolick is recognized as a distinguished member of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Lt. Gen. Bennett Sacolick
Retired Lt. Gen. Bennett Sacolick joined the Army as a private in 1981, later commissioning as an officer and joining the 3rd Battalion, 7th special Forces Group.
He is also a former troop commander of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta at Fort Bragg, serving during Operation Restore Hope-Somalia and Operation Desert Storm.
Sacolick’s other assignments include those as Chief of Current Operations for the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg with service during Operation Iraqi Freedom; deputy director for defense of the Counter-Terrorism Center at the Central Intelligence Agency; deputy commanding general and commander of the JFK Special Warfare Center; director of Force Management and Development at the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida; and deputy director of Strategic Operational Planning for the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington, D.C.

Lt. Col. Eugene McCarley is recognized as a distinguished member of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Lt. Col. Eugene McCarley
Lt. Col. Eugene McCarley enlisted in 1955, serving 12 years in the North Carolina Army National Guard and Army Reserves, before volunteering for the regular Army in 1967 during Vietnam.
In Vietnam, he served with the top-secret Military Assistance Command-Vietnam Studies and Observations Group, a joint-service special operations unit.
He participated in Operational Tailwind, a cross-border penetration mission leading a company force into enemy-occupied territory in Laos.
He later testified in a Department of Defense investigation in the late 1990s, after CNN and Time Magazine falsely reported that nerve gas was used and alleged that women and children were killed during the previously classified operation.
The news reports were retracted, and the DOD investigation found that Operation Tailwind was conducted in accordance with rules of engagement, nerve gas was not used and the operation did not target American defectors.
Wounded twice, McCarley secured sensitive information and lead his fellow fighters to secure a crash site in Vietnam.
McCarley’s service continued past 1970, as he served with the National Guard and Army Reserves until 1995.
McCarley died Nov. 19, 2018, in Wilmington.

Retired 1st Lt. Phillip Gonzales is welcomed by Lt. Col. Richard Woolshalger as a distinguished member of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
1st Lt. Phillip Gonzales
Retired 1st Lt. Phillip Gonzales enlisted in the Army Security Agency in 1958 as a trained Morse Code inceptor. After completing airborne school in 1969, he was assigned to the 403rd, Special Operations Detachment, 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam.
Gonzales completed two tours in Vietnam, from 1969 to 1971, and was assigned to the 3rd Mobile Strike Force and various “A-teams” scattered from Northern Highlands to the Mekong Delta.
He received a Special Forces flash tab with 8th Special Forces in 1972.
While serving, Gonzales held jobs as a medical sergeant, intelligence sergeant and communications sergeant.
He’d continue service as a contractor with the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs’ Counternarcotic and Aerial Eradication program, working in Columbia for 20 years to develop medical and security areas of study, as well as trained guerilla armies, and participated in counter-narcotic and medical operations in war zones in Burma, Cambodia, Columbia, Sarajevo, Salvador and Panama with the Nicaraguan Contras.
Gonzales also worked as a medical officer in Iraq and Afghanistan after military retirement and has served as an advanced medical instructor with Joint Special Operation Medical Training Center for the past eight years.

Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry Peters is recognized as the outgoing honorary sergeant major of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Sgt. Maj. Terry Peters
Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry Peters entered the Army on Sept. 14, 1983, and was assigned as an infantryman. to the 101st Airborne Division's 4th Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment.
He held various positions as a gunner, M60 gun team leader, fire team leader and weapons squad leader, before being reassigned to Korea during the summer of 1986. After completing the Special Forces Qualification Course in 1988 as a weapons sergeant, Peters was assigned to the 5th Special Force Group.
Peters has deployed in support of numerous missions, including Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield, before being reassigned to the Special Warfare Center and School.
In 2002, he deployed with Company B, 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Force Group in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
In 2003, he was responsible for all training at Camp Mackall as the 1st Battalion command sergeant major.
In 2004, he was assigned to the Special Warfare Center’s 3rd Battalion, becoming responsible for Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations training courses and the special operations language training program.
Peters served as the senior enlisted advisor to the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines as it conducted a mission in support of Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines from January to July 2007, and in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as the senior-enlisted advisor under 3rd Special Forces Group for Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan from October 2007 to May 2008 and January 2009 to August 2010.
Peters is the regiment’s outgoing honorary command sergeant major.

Retired Master Sgt. Larry Townsend is welcomed as a distinguished member of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Master Sgt. Larry Townsend
Retired Master Sgt. Larry Townsend served in the Army from 1972 to 1992, with 17 of those years with Special Forces.
Following completion of the Special Forces Qualification Course in 1978, he was assigned to the operational detachment under the 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Force Group as a radio operation supervisor. After serving with a Special Forces Demonstration team, he was selected to serve with a Delta operational detachment in 1982 as a base station radio operator and promoted to section crew chief and also participated in the invasion of Grenada to complete a mission to rescue American hostages.
Townsend became wounded when an aircraft was shot down.
From March 1985 to May 1989, he was the principal drill instructor for an Army ROTC Battalion at East Carolina University.
He was later selected by the Special Forces commander to serve as a senior Special Forces doctrine and training analyst to review curriculum and doctrine used by Special Operation Forces units. He retired from the Army in 1992.
Townsend continued to serve as a civilian for the Directorate of Training and Doctrine at Special Warfare Center and School and Joint Special Operations Command, 1st Special Forces Command and deputy director of Operations Support Office and Sensitive Activities Officer for the Office of Special Warfare.

Retired Master Sgt. Joe Walker as a distinguished member of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Master Sgt. Joe Walker
Retired Master Sgt. Joe Walker graduated from Special Forces training in 1967, qualifying as an operations and intelligence and weapons specialist.
He deployed to South Vietnam conducting reconnaissance operations with a 5th Special Forces Group detachment.
After a year-long tour, he volunteered for another year in combat with the Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group, a top-secret action unit that conducted operations behind enemy lines in Laos and Cambodia.
After his second year in combat, he joined the 46th Special Forces Company in Thailand, serving as an instructor for a then-classified CIA program that trained Thai military volunteers and Laotian irregulars for combat against North Vietnamese forces in Laos.
Walker rejoined the observation group for a third year in combat and insisted on finishing his tour when wounded Jan. 15, 1971.
After four continuous years in Southeast Asia, he was reassigned to a Special Forces unit stateside in 1971 and continued to spend more than a decade with Special Forces assignments until retiring in 1982.
After military retirement, Walker worked alongside U.S. and allied special operations personnel and foreign irregulars on six continents and served another 21 years as a civilian with the nation’s premier intelligence and paramilitary operations organization.
This year's Honorary Members of the Special Force Regiment are:

Retired Navy Capt. Chuck Deleot is recognized as an honorary member of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Capt. Chuck Deleot
Retired Navy Capt. Chuck Deleot was an active-duty naval intelligence officer from 1967 to 1972 and retired as a captain in Naval Reserve in 1990.
In 1972, he joined the commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet staff as a computer specialist and became the technical director and deputy director for the Pacific Fleet Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence.
Deleot retired from the federal service in 2001, working as an occasional defense consultant for Science Applications International Corp. as a chief scientist and engineer.
In 2003, he volunteered for the Pinehurst-based Patriot Foundation as its president and chairman.
The organization provides scholarships to children of the conventional Army and Army Special Operation Forces servicemen and women who have been killed or wounded from the Global War on Terrorism.

Jim Moriarty is recognized as an honorary member of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Jim Moriarty
Jim Moriarty is a Marine veteran and Gold Star father who has served the military and Special Forces for four decades as a lawyer and advocate for Green Berets.
He was part of a team that sought to have the Army review the Medal of Honor nomination packet for Lt. Col. Paris Davis, one of the first Black officers in Special Forces.
He also advocated for Medal of Honor recipient Gary Rose, who was previously defamed for his role in Operation Tailwind.
Moriarty has undertaken several pro-bono cases for Gold Star families.
In November 2016, Moriarty’s son, Staff Sgt. James “Jimmy” Moriarty, was a 5th Special Forces Group soldier killed in Jordan along with staff sergeants Kevin McEnroe and Matthew Lewellen.
Staff Sgt. James Moriarty is credited with mortally wounding the shooter, saving another soldier’s life.
His father advocated for the U.S. and foreign governments for a full investigation after the host nation initially blamed the Americans.

Teresa Nugent is welcomed by Lt. Col. Richard Woolshalger as an honorary member of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Teresa Nugent
Teresa Nugent is a former Army telecommunications specialist who was assigned to the Air Defense Artillery Patriot Missile Battalion from 1985 to 1988.
In the 1990s, she started working in the medical nursing field and has spent the past 15 years involved in injury and illness cases involving active-duty special operations personnel.
She’s served as the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s nurse consultant since 2012 and has cared for more than 400 special operations soldiers, coordinating 30 medical evacuations of deployed soldiers and managing 10 Army Special Operation Forces amputees.
She is credited with recommending a streamlined process for traumatic brain evaluation and coordinating with Army Special Operation Forces and the Intrepid Spirit Center at Fort Bragg, along with developing treatment plans for Army Special Operation Forces amputees, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder patients.
Outgoing and incoming honorary regiment leaders

Retired Col. Fredrick Dummar is recognized as the outgoing honorary colonel of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Also honored was retired Col. Fredrick Dummar, a former Special Forces operational detachment commander of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group; a deputy commander of Special Operations Task Force, Kandahar, Afghanistan; deputy commander of 7th Force Group; chief of staff and deputy commander combined Joint Special Operations Task-Force Afghanistan; executive officer of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command; chief of staff Special Operations Joint Task Force-Fort Bragg; and commander of the Afghan National Army Special Operations Command-Special Operations Advisory Group at Camp Morehead Afghanistan from May 2014 to June 2015.
Dummar is the outgoing honorary colonel of the Special Forces Regiment.

Retired Col. David McCracken is recognized as the incoming honorary colonel of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
The incoming honorary colonel is retired Col. David McCracken.
McCracken is a former executive officer of the 7th Special Force Group who’s participated in Operation Just Cause and is a past commander of the 1st Special Warfare Training Group company and battalion, and 3rd Special Forces Group. He retired in 2004.
He is credited with developing the National Counter-Terrorism Center.

Retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Douglas Frank is recognized as the outgoing honorary chief warrant officer of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
The regiment’s honorary outgoing warrant officer is retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Douglas Frank.
Frank previously served as the 7th Special Forces Group warrant officer, leading teams during Operations Just Cause, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
He’s served as chief warrant officer at brigade and command levels, including the 7th Special Forces Group, the 1st Special Warfare Training Group and the U.S. Special Operations Command's Special Operations Joint Task Force-Bragg.
He is credited with spearheading an Army-level study that led to the JFK Special Warfare Center and School becoming one of two organizations in the Army authorized to appoint warrant officers.

Retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 James Korenoski is recognized as the incoming honorary chief warrant officer of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
The regiment's incoming warrant officer is retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 James Korenoski. Korenoski previously served with the 5th Special Forces Group and has served as a weapons sergeant, intelligence sergeant, assistant detachment commander, detachment commander, company, battalion and group operations warrant officer and warrant officer institute instructor.
He was first selected as command chief warrant officer for the 1st Special Warfare Training Group and spent 31 years as 5th Special Forces Group’s command chief warrant officer, with deployments during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Somalia and operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and Inherent Resolve.

Retired Command Sgt. Richard Lamb is recognized as the incoming honorary sergeant major of the special forces regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
The regiment's incoming honorary command sergeant major is retired Command Sgt. Maj. Richard Lamb. Lamb deployed with the 1st Ranger Battalion during the Operation Eagle Claw 1980 mission attempt to free American hostages in Iran.
He served with Ranger battalions, two infantry battalions, four Special Forces Groups, two theater special operation commands and Joint Special Operations Task Force-Horn of Africa.
He was wounded during the Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia, attempting to rescue American soldiers and had deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lamb is credited with negotiating an assignment for a Republic of Korea exchange officer to the U.S Special Operations Command and assisting Republic of Korea Special Operation Forces in transforming force structure and airlift capabilities.
He is also credited with developing an international directorate within the U.S. Special Operations Command to integrate 24 allied officers and 17 partner nations in trans-regional planning initiatives.
Psychological Operations Distinguished Members

Retired Col. Dorothea Burke is welcomed by Lt. Col. Jeffrey Souther as a distinguished member of the psychological operations regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Col. Dorothea Burke
Retired Col. Dorothea Burke commissioned as a military police officer in May 1982 and served on active duty for 30 years, including more than 15 years as a psychological operations officer. She retired in May 2012.
As a military police officer for the 502nd Transportation Battalion in Germany, Burke managed deployment and redeployment of U.S. Forces to Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
As a psychological operations detachment commander with Company B, 6th Psychological Operations Battalion, she led program development in support of the Department of Defense’s response to the Rwanda genocide.
Burke later deployed to Panama to plan and lead a psychological operations task force supporting Joint Task Force Safe Haven and Cuban migrant operations.
She also deployed to Haiti, leading a task force in support of U.N. missions.
Following the events of 9/11, Burke balanced competing requirements to support plans, exercises and operations throughout the area of operations, as well as operations in the Middle East.
When assigned to the Special Operations Command as chief for the Psychological Operations Concept Development Branch, she coordinated plans and programs supporting Department of Defense information operations during the War on Terror.
She later served as chief for the plans and program division of Joint PSYOP Support Element and deployed as chief of staff for Combined Task Force Fervent Archer, leading a mission in the Balkans in support of Special Operations Command-Europe.

Retired Col. Michael Seidl is welcomed by Lt. Col. Jeffrey Souther as a distinguished member of the psychological operations regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Col. Michael Seidl
Retired Col. Michael Seidl commissioned in the Army in May 1979 as an armor officer and was assigned to the 4th Psychological Operations Group in June 1994. He served the next 15 years in psychological operation positions including at the Pentagon as the director for military information support operations and psychological operations.
In December 1995, Seidl deployed to Bosnia as the first operations officer for the Combined Joint Implementation Force information campaign task force for implementation of the Dayton Accords, a peace agreement among the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, ending the war in Bosnia.
He took command of the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion in 1999 and was the first psychological task force commander to the NATO Headquarters in Kosovo.
From 2001 to 2003, he served as deputy commander for the 4th Psychological Operations Group and was assigned to operations for the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command in 2003.

Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Neil Heupel is welcomed by Lt. Col. Jeffrey Souther as a distinguished member of the psychological operations regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Sgt. Maj. Neil Heupel
Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Neil Heupel entered the military in August 1975.
He served in the Marine Corps for four years before joining the North Dakota National Guard in 1982, where he served for seven years before joining the Army Reserve.
Heupel served as command sergeant major for several units including the 13rth Psychological Operations Battalion, 353rd Civil Affairs Command and U.S. Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command.
He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, deploying with the 353rd Civil Affairs Command from September 2004 to May 2005.
His last military assignment with the Psychological Operation’s Commandant’s Office at the U.S. Army Special Warfare Center and School’s U.S. Army Reserve liaison.
Heupel also worked as an architect for 20 years and as a Department of the Army civilian serving as a strategic panner for Psychological Operations at the U.S. Civil Affairs Operations Command at Fort Bragg.

Retired 1st Sgt. Donald Barton is welcomed by Lt. Col. Jeffrey Souther as a distinguished member of the psychological operations regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Retired 1st Sgt. Donald Barton joined the Army in June 1974, serving in various positions — from assistant gunner to a platoon sergeant and serving with the 1st Armored Division and 1st Cavalry Division.
In 1981, Barton reenlisted Army Reserve and reclassified as a psychological operations specialist.
In 1993, he returned to active duty and was assigned at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School and served two years as a psychological operations collective training developer and writer.
In 1997, he was assigned to Pacific Command Battalion, 4th Psychological Operations Group and served as the battalion's first operations sergeant.
In 2001, he was assigned to 8th Army Headquarters in Seoul, Korea, followed by a 2002 assignment to the Pacific Command as a battalion operations sergeant.
In 2003, Barton served in the JFK Special Warfare Center School’s Career Management Field in the Directorate of Special Operations Proponent, where he initiated several proposals that contributed to the health of the force.
He retired after 36 years of service and currently serves as a civilian management analyst in the personnel proponent of the Civil Affairs commandant's office.
Psychological Operations honorary members

Master Sgt. Aubrey LaFosse is welcomed by Lt. Col. Jeffrey Souther as an honorary member of the psychological operations regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Master Sgt. Aubrey LaFosse
Master Sgt. Aubrey LaFosse joined the Army in May 2007 and is assigned as a clarinetist to the Army Band, Pershing’s Own, where she’s spent her Army career.
She’s provided musical support for full honor funerals at Arlington Cemetery and military and diplomatic ceremonies in Washington D.C, including the White House and Pentagon.

Ronald Archer is welcomed as an honorary member of the psychological operations regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Ronald Archer
Ronald Archer joined the Southern Command’s Strategic Studies Detachment, 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg, in 1997.
He has written classified studies represented in the 4th Psychological Operations Group and 8th Psychological Operations Group.
He is currently a senior psychological operations intelligence analyst, with responsibility for Columbia and Ardean Ridge countries of Latin America, as well as Panama and Afghanistan.
In 2013, he became the deputy chief of the 1st Military information Support Battalion Cultural Intelligence Cell.
In 2018, he became the chief of the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion Cultural Intelligence Cell.
He has deployed more than 100 times since 1997 for nearly 2,300 days to Columbia, Afghanistan, Panama, Central America and the Caribbean in support of psychological operations.

Master Sgt. James Kazik is recognized as an honorary member of the psychological operations regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Master Sgt. James Kazik
Master Sgt. James Kazik is the chief arranger and music support group leader of the Army Band, Pershing’s Own.
Kazik enlisted in the Army in 2001 and has written more than 400 arrangements and compositions in support of high visibility missions including five presidential inaugurations, three presidential state funerals and general officer retirement ceremonies.
In 2004, he wrote original music in support of the commemoration of the World War II memorial in Washington D.C.
Kazik has written several pop arrangements in support of the sergeant major of the Army’s “Hope and Freedom” tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kazik also composed original music regimental marches to the Joint Task Force Civil Support, 21st Theater Sustainment Command, and the Psychological Operation Regiment March and song “Libertas et Veritas.”
Distinguished Members of Civil Affairs Regiment

Retired Brig. Gen. Ferdinand Irizarry II is welcomed by Col. Charles Burnett as a distinguished member of the civil affairs regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Brig. Gen. Ferdinand Irizarry II
Retired Brig. Gen. Ferdinand Irizarry II served in the military for 36 years, retiring in August 2015.
He’s served as deputy chief of staff for the U.S. Army Reserve Command and Chief, Readiness Office of the Chief of Army Reserve.
His other assignments include executive officer for the undersecretary of the Army; commander of the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade; chief of staff for the Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command; director of Army Special Operations Forces Proponency; and chief of civil affairs-civil affairs military operations training and doctrine development.
Irizarry also served as deputy commanding general for the JFK Special Warfare Center and School where he was responsible for coordinating the accreditation and recognition of the school as a training Center of Excellence.
His tour in support of contingency operations includes those to Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan with joint and multi-national units.

Brig. Gen. Cornelius Wickersham, represented by Lt. Col. Chad Hutchins, is recognized by Col. Charles Burnett as a distinguished member of the civil affairs regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Brig. Gen. Cornelius Wickersham
Brig. Gen. Cornelius Wickersham enlisted in the New York National Guard in July 1915 and commissioned as a second lieutenant Sept. 13, 1916.
He served on the Mexican border in 1916 then deployed to France in February 1918.
Wickersham’s assignments included those with the 27th Infantry Division and Reserves.
In March 1942, he became the first commandant of the School of Military Government at the University of Virginia, where he pioneered the Army’s first professional civil affairs education that continues today at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School.
In January 1944, Wickersham deployed to England and served as a U.S. military representative to the European Advisory Commission which planned the post-war occupation of Germany.
He was deputy commander of the U.S. Group Control Council in 1944 and assistant deputy military governor until May 1945.
He continued to serve as a lieutenant general in the New York National Guard until his retirement in June 1948.
Wickersham died Jan. 31, 1968.

Retired Col. James Wolff is welcomed by Col. Charles Burnett as a distinguished member of the civil affairs regiment during a Nov. 4, 2021, ceremony at Fort Bragg.
Col. James Wolff
Retired Col. James Wolff commissioned as a military police officer in 1987 and served as a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
He was assigned to the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion after attending Naval Post Graduate School in 1994.
Wolff served as a civil affairs team leader, company operations officer, delta company commander and battalion executive officer, before serving on the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Enduring Iraqi Freedom.
He deployed to Iraq as chief of operations for the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance Southern Region and served as chief of civil administration for the Coalition Provisional Authority South-Central Region.
Wolff returned to Fort Bragg to command the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion from June 2004 to June 2005, followed by becoming the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade’s deputy commanding officer and commanding the brigade from June 2010 to June 2012.
He also had assignments with the U.S. Special Operations Command with duty as the operations officer in the Office of Military Affairs, U.S. Agency for International Development.
Wolff was commandant for the Civil Affairs Regiment in 2014 and was the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s chief of staff for strategy and plans the same year.
He also served as a senior advisor for the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service from February 2016 to March 2017.
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.
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This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Special Forces and other Fort Bragg units induct honorees
Yahoo! Sports · by Rachael Riley, The Fayetteville Observer


23. Why This Singer Is the Only Woman Buried In Fort Bragg's Special Forces Cemetery


Another piece of Special Forces history that is little known outside the Regiment.

Why This Singer Is the Only Woman Buried In Fort Bragg's Special Forces Cemetery
military.com · by Blake Stilwell · November 18, 2021
Martha Raye isn't a name heard much these days. The comic actress and singer was a star of stage and screen who worked in show business for around 60 years by the time of her death in 1994.
In her radio days, she was known for her performances on Al Jolson's "Cafe Trocadero." On television, she was best known for "The Martha Raye Show," which featured a string of notable guest stars. She was probably best known for her USO work during World War II, the Korean War and the war in Vietnam, where she entertained troops so often, she earned the nickname "Colonel Maggie."
Raye was born Margie Reed in Montana in 1916. By the age of 18, she was already on film, performing on the screen and radio in the 1930s. When the United States entered World War II, Raye was more than ready to perform for the troops. Her first stop came in 1942 when she was sent to England. From there, she took her USO show to North Africa with three of her friends, Carole Landis, Kay Francis and Mitzi Mayfair.

Actress Martha Raye entertained U.S. troops in three wars over decades.
Their adventures from England to North Africa were immortalized in the 1944 movie, "Four Jills in a Jeep." Along the way, she was granted the honorary rank of a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps and Army Special Forces for her service to the troops, but the military didn't seem to know who they were dealing with when it came to Martha Raye.
The actress was well-known for pulling that honorary rank when the moment arised. On more than one occasion, Raye was told her performances would have to be put on hold or flights diverted to aid the wounded. She would pull rank so the pilots could go directly to the wounded men and take them to safety, rather than drop her off first. Once on the ground in a medical ward, Raye would help medical personnel in whatever way was needed.
She assisted in medical units so often that it soon became a rumor that she was trained as a nurse before her silver-screen days. This wasn't true; the closest the actress ever got to nursing was serving as a candy-striper in a hospital for a time. As the war ground on, Raye got plenty of on-the-job experience.
She continued performing for the troops in Korea and in Vietnam, where she formed an especially close bond with the men in the Army's Special Forces.
"They ask so little and give so much," she said during the Vietnam War. "The least we can do back home here is give them the love, the respect and the dignity that they, our flag and our country deserve."
Raye served on the front lines of America's 20th century conflicts for a total of 24 years, but to her, the Special Forces were heroes through and through. She entertained them in places no one else would go and tended their wounds at the same time. Raye never complained about the field conditions and lived the same way the deployed troops did the entire time. In 1993, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her lifetime of dedication to U.S. troops.
Raye suffered from myriad health problems at the end of her life, including heart disease and Alzheimer's disease. She died of complications from pneumonia at age 78 in 1994. Her last wish was to be buried at Fort Bragg, the final resting place of many of her heroes. She was buried in October 1994 with full military honors, the only woman interred there.

Martha Raye's 1994 Funeral. (Department of Defense)
-- 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 · November 18, 2021


24. Confronting the Kremlin's New Hybrid War in Europe
Excerpts:
But the EU, NATO, Germany, and France need to act. At least they have all spoken up against Russian aggression against Ukraine in recent days. Impressively, the UK has committed 600 special forces to Ukraine.
If the new German government is serious about ensuring peace in Europe, the single most effective thing it can do is to welcome Ukraine into NATO. Ukraine has been standing up to Russian military aggression for years, serving as a bulwark for the rest of Europe. Germany is not ready to defend itself, so it should help Ukraine do so by supplying it with arms, as the US, the UK, Canada, Poland, and Lithuania are already doing.
Finally, there is the Balkan issue. Tensions are rising again in former Yugoslavia because the EU has reneged on its commitment to hold accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania. In North Macedonia, a pro-European government has just lost power after making ample concessions to the EU in exchange for nothing.
The EU had better get serious about pursuing the idea of a “Europe whole and free and at peace,” as George H.W. Bush put it in May 1989. By immediately initiating accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania, it can help to deter Republika Srpska from flirting with secession from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The US and the EU hold many valuable cards. But they will have to play them fast and effectively to fend off the latest Russian onslaught.
Confronting the Kremlin's New Hybrid War in Europe | by Anders Åslund - Project Syndicate
Nov 18, 2021
With the Kremlin intent on dividing and weakening the European Union, and now probing for vulnerabilities, Western powers must come together and issue a forceful response. History has shown that there must be no accommodation or turning a blind eye to Russian military, political, and economic provocations.
project-syndicate.org · by Anders Åslund · November 18, 2021
With the Kremlin intent on dividing and weakening the European Union, and now probing for vulnerabilities, Western powers must come together and issue a forceful response. History has shown that there must be no accommodation or turning a blind eye to Russian military, political, and economic provocations.
STOCKHOLM – As winter approaches, the Kremlin is instigating trouble in Europe. Its latest machinations include a gas war against Central and Eastern European countries; a migration crisis along Belarus’s borders with Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland; a renewed military mobilization on Ukraine’s eastern border; and agitation for Serbian secession from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Although this campaign has multiple objectives, a common thread runs through it: the Kremlin’s desire to divide and weaken the European Union. That means acquiring Germany’s approval of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as fast as possible; disrupting the EU gas market, with a view to returning to Soviet-style long-term contracts, with gas prices tied to oil; and weakening Ukraine and forcing Moldova to abandon its European Association Agreement and join Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union instead.
The Kremlin tends to send up trial balloons to see what it can get away with before hitting hard if the opportunity arises. That means the West – the United States, the EU, and the United Kingdom – will need to act fast to head off whatever is coming next. The biggest mistake one can make in responding to Russian provocations is to do nothing, or to react too slowly and too softly. As Keir Giles of Chatham House argues, the West must recognize “that confrontation with Russia cannot be avoided because it is already happening.” History shows that “Russia respects strength and despises compromise and accommodation.”
Fortunately, the West already has many effective tools at its disposal, and with the arrival of a new German government that is likely to be less friendly toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, there is an opportunity for new strategic thinking.
The gas war should be easy enough to combat. On July 21, the US and Germany issued a joint statement on Nord Stream 2 declaring “their determination to hold Russia to account for its aggression and malign activities by imposing costs via sanctions and other tools.” After four months of Russian escalation, US President Joe Biden’s administration should feel obligated to end its waiver of congressionally approved sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, and the German government should acquiesce to this. That would swiftly put an end to the pipeline. But if the Biden administration does not act, Congress still can, by adding new compulsory sanctions to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022.
Europe currently has insufficient gas stocks because Gazprom has maneuvered to create artificial scarcity. Russia’s state-owned energy giant owns one-quarter of the gas storage capacity in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, and has kept those facilities empty while filling its domestic tanks to the brim. The obvious solution is for the EU to prohibit Gazprom and other foreign suppliers from owning storage facilities in the EU, and to impose minimum levels of stocks on existing storage capacity. Because the EU is effectively a monopsonist (sole purchaser) of Gazprom’s gas, it should start operating collectively to curtail Gazprom’s monopoly power.
Though the Biden administration has condoned Nord Stream 2 (while prohibiting the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada), it has otherwise refused to involve itself in the European gas crisis. That must change. The US should move to supply Europe with liquid natural gas now that Europe has built the capacity for receiving LNG shipments.
As for the Belarusian border drama, we are witnessing a new type of hybrid warfare, instigated by Belarus’s illegitimate ruler, Aleksandr Lukashenko. NATO and the EU should recognize the situation as such and offer their full support to Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania. The EU Foreign Council was right to sanction all airlines and companies involved in the trafficking of people from the Middle East to the Belarusian border. The US should follow suit by strengthening its own (rather soft) sanctions on Belarus.
Since Biden took office, the US has stood up firmly in defense of Belarus’s southern neighbor, Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the White House in September was a watershed event. Moreover, no fewer than three US cabinet secretaries have already visited Ukraine this year, and on November 10, the US adopted a surprisingly strong US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership. The document commits the US to supporting “Ukraine’s right to decide its own future foreign policy course free from outside interference, including with respect to Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.”
On top of these promising developments, the Ukrainian government has just appointed its most respected member, Oleksiy Reznikov, as its new defense minister. Fresh from the trenches in Donbas, he will visit Washington soon.
But the EU, NATO, Germany, and France need to act. At least they have all spoken up against Russian aggression against Ukraine in recent days. Impressively, the UK has committed 600 special forces to Ukraine.
If the new German government is serious about ensuring peace in Europe, the single most effective thing it can do is to welcome Ukraine into NATO. Ukraine has been standing up to Russian military aggression for years, serving as a bulwark for the rest of Europe. Germany is not ready to defend itself, so it should help Ukraine do so by supplying it with arms, as the US, the UK, Canada, Poland, and Lithuania are already doing.
Finally, there is the Balkan issue. Tensions are rising again in former Yugoslavia because the EU has reneged on its commitment to hold accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania. In North Macedonia, a pro-European government has just lost power after making ample concessions to the EU in exchange for nothing.
The EU had better get serious about pursuing the idea of a “Europe whole and free and at peace,” as George H.W. Bush put it in May 1989. By immediately initiating accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania, it can help to deter Republika Srpska from flirting with secession from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The US and the EU hold many valuable cards. But they will have to play them fast and effectively to fend off the latest Russian onslaught.

project-syndicate.org · by Anders Åslund · November 18, 2021

25. ‘Where we belong’: Bond forged in war lands Afghan commando's family in Pennsylvania
‘Where we belong’: Bond forged in war lands Afghan commando's family in Pennsylvania
USA Today · by Deirdre Shesgreen
| USA TODAY

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Afghan commando and family flee with help from Green Beret buddy
As Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, commando Azizullah Azizyar turned to the Green Berets he served with to help him and his family escape.
Hannah Gaber, USA TODAY
NEW CUMBERLAND, Pennsylvania – A mix of apprehension, anticipation and exhaustion coursed through Matt Coburn’s 6-foot-1-inch frame as he made the 30-minute drive from his house to the Harrisburg airport.
He had his wife's SUV – his truck wouldn't have enough space – and he'd arranged to borrow two car seats. Waiting at the terminal, the retired Green Beret wondered if his Afghan friend would still recognize him with his new beard and without the military buzz cut.
The last time the two men had seen each other was in Kabul, more than a year earlier at “Camp Commando,” a U.S. military base dedicated to training the Afghan National Army’s most elite fighters. Coburn, 47, and Azizullah Azizyar, 33, worked side-by-side for months as top-ranking commanders in their respective militaries, bound by a mission to build up enough Afghan battalions to keep the Taliban at bay as the U.S. prepared to end its longest war.
Neither man ever imagined they would be reunited in south central Pennsylvania – or that their lives would become so inextricably linked after the chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s terrifying return to power.
Azizyar's Delta Airlines flight descended into Harrisburg just before sunset on Oct. 14. On board, he couldn’t conjure an image of what this new town would look like – let alone what this new country had in store for him, his wife and their three young children. The last nine weeks had been a blur of terror and escape, refugee camps and military bases, paperwork and screenings.
“This is the place where we're going to live. This is the place where we belong,” Azizullah told his wife Roqia and their children before their plane landed that day.
When he emerged from the gangway into the airport, the ex-Afghan special commando officer tried to use his limited English to ask for directions.
Then he heard his name. “Azizullah!” Coburn waved his arms to get his Afghan friend’s attention before getting close enough for a big bear hug.
'They would have killed me in front of my family'
When Kabul fell to the Taliban, Coburn was driving home from a family vacation – his first since retiring from the U.S. Army after 24 years of service. He had deployed six times to Afghanistan; he'd trained and befriended hundreds of Afghan soldiers in that time.
Now, his phone was lighting up with messages from Afghan friends pleading for help and fellow veterans sharing evacuation strategies.
“Initially, it was just guidance on survival,” Coburn said. One Afghan soldier sent him a message asking if he should stay at his post, even though then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had fled the country.
The government you were supposed to defend is gone, Coburn told him. "You need to go find your family and protect them."
Azizullah didn't need any prodding. He had joined the Afghan army at age 18 – five years into the U.S.-led war – and rocketed up through the ranks to become the command sergeant major overseeing nearly 20,000 Afghan Special Operations Forces. Those forces were routinely deployed to the worst Taliban havens – making Azizullah a prime target for retribution.
Even before Taliban fighters waltzed into Kabul, he was constantly worried his children would be abducted or he would be killed. He often traveled in an armored vehicle accompanied by body guards.
"I felt danger every moment in Afghanistan," he said.
When he learned that Ghani abandoned Afghanistan, the young father of three raced home and hid his camouflage uniform with its red-and-yellow "Special Forces" patch.
"People were reporting to the Taliban that I was working for the government and was quite important," he said. "If the Taliban found me, they would have killed me in front of my family."
He thought about what it might be like for his two boys, 4-year-old Rashid and 7-year-old Roheed, and his 5-year-old daughter Zainab, to see him executed. Or worse, for the Taliban to kill his children as well.
The family fled Kabul for Jalalabad and went into hiding, until a friend messaged him to say that American veterans were working to get people out.
“My life is in danger … if you can help,” Azizullah wrote in a message to Coburn, sent through a friend who spoke better English.
By that point, Coburn was part of a frantic evacuation effort spearheaded by U.S. veterans, mostly ex-special forces like himself, through a group called Task Force Pineapple.
“I was sleeping 45 minutes a night, trying to help them move and hide,” Coburn said of the Azizyars and other Afghans who had reached out to him.
Azizullah sent copies of his family’s documents, then waited in a haze of sleeplessness and fear. He doesn’t even remember what day it was when he got the call to go to the airport. A neighbor agreed to drive them, and they rode with the lights on inside the car — hoping the Taliban would let them pass if they saw a woman in the vehicle.
The Taliban stopped them anyway and pulled Azizullah out of the car. As they searched him, he thought about all their documents tucked in Roqia’s clothes. He told them she was sick and needed a doctor. The militants let them go, and the family made it to the airport to join the desperate crowd.
Azizullah wore a red scarf to identify himself to Task Force Pineapple's contacts inside the airport; Roqia and the children were also wearing red.
It took 12 hours to get inside the airport.
Azizullah took a deep breath. "They're safe," he said to himself.
Survivor's guilt
The Azizyars arrived in Pennsylvania with few belongings, no money, and no work authorization permits. Azizullah does not speak English, though he understands a little. Roqia has not had any formal education.
Where Coburn and Azizullah once had interpreters to help them communicate about military strategy, they were now using Google Translate to navigate a purely civilian mission: renting a house, signing up for refugee assistance, finding an immigration lawyer, and getting the kids into elementary school.
“This whole thing has been so fast,” Coburn said as he recounted the frenetic days between the fall of Kabul and his friend's arrival. “Each step of the way, I feel like we’re blind people, walking around feeling the elephant.”
Coburn took medical leave from his job at Amazon after realizing the task of helping Azizullah's family resettle would essentially be full time. He was also emotionally and physically depleted, by both the evacuation effort and the "moral injury" of how the U.S. left Afghanistan – with little regard for the Afghan soldiers, particularly the special commandos, who had been bearing the brunt of the war for years.
"Knowing the risk that all of these Afghans are at is crushing me," Coburn said.
"You already have veterans that are suffering from post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety," he said. "Now you're adding in the idea that their friends may be killed and you are helpless to do anything about it."
Since his arrival in the U.S., Azizullah's phone has also been buzzing with messages from those who didn't make it out. Even as he pivots to a new life, he's worried about his fellow soldiers. He's worried about his extended family. He's worried about the fate of his country.
"There's no work and no life," he said. "My colleagues and sergeants tell me that if there could be a way for them and other people (to escape), everyone might leave and no one would remain in the country."
Moving in, moving on
"Good morning! Good morning!"
Rashid, the Azizyars' bouncy, beaming 5 year old, tries out his new English words as his parents pile their belongings onto two metal hotel carts: one small suitcase they brought with them from Afghanistan, along with boxes and bags full of gifts from Coburn and donations that have poured in since their arrival.
Coburn has been paying for the family to stay in a hotel in New Cumberland, a borough of about 7,000 people tucked alongside the Susquehanna River south of Harrisburg. Coburn lives nearby with his wife and teenage son in the neighboring borough of Mechanicsburg.
In the meantime, they've been working with the local chapter of Catholic Charities to find the family permanent housing. Their caseworker found a rental house with owners willing to take a risk on a new immigrant family with no credit history and no employment.
And today is moving day.
"The house is about 16 mins from Matt’s," says a smiling Azizullah. "I'll be close to my friend."
Before arriving here, the family spent 40 days at Fort Pickett in Virginia, where they had health screenings and underwent other vetting measures.
Coburn had told Azizullah he could put his name and address down if he had nowhere else to go. A month later, the Catholic Charities caseworker called asking if he would be willing to sponsor the family. Coburn's response was an unequivocal yes.
"He's my brother," he says as they finish packing up the hotel room.
Rashid grabs Coburn's big forearm and the ex-Green Beret swings him around. Zainab, her curly brown hair in a fountain ponytail, waits patiently for "Kaka Matt" – the Dari word for uncle – to give her a spin. Asked if she knows where they are going, Zainab names the village in Afghanistan where her grandmother lives.
Rosheed is more serious, quieter, with big brown eyes. "Happy," he says when asked how he feels, repeating the answer his father gave.
Azizullah says everything is so different here. He doesn't live in fear. He feels welcomed.
"You have the freedom to wear or do whatever you want," Azizullah says. "If my wife doesn't cover her hair and wears the dresses that she likes, she will not be stopped by people pointing at her."
The family has to wait a few hours before they can fully move into their new house, so Coburn takes everyone to a nearby park. Roqia pushes Zainab on a swing and then hops on one herself. Her hijab slips off as she pumps her legs to go higher.
The biggest US resettlement effort in decades
The Azizyars are among 70,000-plus at-risk Afghans who were evacuated from Afghanistan and brought to the United States, according to figures from the Department of Homeland Security. Many of them are now temporarily housed on military bases across they country. So far, more than 20,000 have left the bases to start new lives here, with the help of resettlement agencies, according to DHS.
"These folks need everything. They need clothing, they need food, they need a place to live, they need legal services," said Sister Donna Markham, president of Catholic Charities USA, one of several nonprofits leading the Afghan resettlement process.
The Biden administration has named ex-Delaware governor Jack Markell to serve as the White House coordinator for the Afghan resettlement program, dubbed "Operation Allies Welcome."

Afghanistan war vets help refugees resettle in US
Members of Team Rubicon, a veteran-focused disaster relief organization, are taking on a new mission: furnishing homes for Afghan refugees seeking safety in the United States. (Nov. 11)
AP
In September, Congress passed an emergency funding bill that included $6.3 billion to help Afghan evacuees and resettlement agencies pay for emergency housing, English classes, job training and other needs. The State Department and other agencies have also teamed up with the private sector and non-profit groups to help Afghans build new lives here.
It won't be enough, advocates say.
Markham and other advocates say they've launched massive fundraising and donation drives to try to meet this historic moment.
"The last time we experienced such a massive influx (of refugees) in such a short time period was several decades ago, when more than 130,000 Vietnamese refugees came to the U.S.," says Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which is also helping with the resettlement effort.

How refugees and asylum seekers can resettle in the US
Since 1975, the U.S. has admitted more than 3 million refugees. Each president determines how many refugees can come in and from where.
Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
"It's essentially a humanitarian disaster response," she says.
The Azizyars and other arriving Afghans will receive a one-time payment of about $1,200 each to get them started, with another $1,000 going to the resettlement agencies for their case management and support services, Vignarajah says.
In Pennsylvania, Catholic Charities has helped Coburn get the Azizyars signed up for food assistance and health care. The family's caseworker is working to get the family U.S. identification cards and plans to provide some English instruction.
"I'd be dead in the water without them," Coburn says of Catholic Charities.
Still, "I'm constantly nervous about, what am I not getting done?" he says. "There's more work and more need than any of us can really get after as private citizens and volunteer groups."
Coburn co-signed the family's lease and put his name on some of the utilities. He's been stocking their fridge and buying the kids everything from swimsuits to action figures and stuffed animals.
Meanwhile, volunteer groups like Task Force Pineapple are still trying to get more vulnerable Afghans out – and keep those left behind alive amid a spiraling humanitarian crisis.
Vignarajah says in her conversations with Afghan refugees so far, their first two questions are usually: How can we help family members that remain in Afghanistan in harm's way? And how quickly can they secure a job?
"There are no easy answers," Vignarajah said, particularly to the first question. "It's obviously heartbreaking knowing that close family – siblings, parents, children – are still facing Taliban retribution."
Fresh trauma
A few days after the Azizyars arrived, Coburn went to pick them up at the hotel for dinner.
We can't go out, Azizullah told him. Roqia has been up all night.
Coburn could see she was despondent. She'd spent hours on the phone with relatives left behind in Afghanistan. She was consumed with anxiety about their future in a country ruled by the Taliban and an economy in free fall.
She was also sick. Coburn took them to urgent care instead of to dinner.
For Coburn, the Azizyars' arrival has been cathartic, a bright spot in the sea of hopelessness that threatened to consume him after the U.S. withdrawal. He lights up when the kids climb him like a human jungle gym.
"Disney or Sesame Street?" he asks when they crowd together on his couch later that day. "Cartoons!" they reply in unison. He scrolls to YouTube and finds the Dari version, then heads to the kitchen to make Azizullah a cup of chai tea.
But he knows that for them, the transition has been a fresh trauma after lives filled with violence and fear.
"Most of them have seen more combat in their lives than almost any American," he says of Azizullah and other Afghan special forces. The family's escape was harrowing, and they were uprooted almost overnight.
"Anybody who has been in a war zone and anyone who has been in a situation where they've had to run for their lives ... they're going to have long lasting, emotional effects that come from that violent situation," says Markham, the Catholic Charities CEO who is also a clinical psychologist.
She said there aren't nearly enough mental health services available and that will be one of the major gaps in the resettlement process.
'The best new Americans'
"This is my room!" Rashid declares. "No, it's my room," his older brother counters.
The boys race through the three-story duplex, exploring the mostly empty rooms, save the donated items lined up along the living room wall. Zainab somersaults across the floor of the back bedroom while her father chats with Coburn on the second-floor balcony.
"You can have your chai out here," Coburn tells Azizullah.
For now, there's no talk of trauma. Azizullah says he feels happy. And perhaps it's no wonder.
In a few hours, Catholic Charities will deliver nearly everything they need to make the rental house into a home: beds and mattresses, dressers and lamps, cups and plates.
Azizullah and Coburn join the small phalanx of volunteers moving everything in, assembling the furniture, putting sheets and blankets on the beds. An American flag flaps in the breeze outside.
Roqia explores the kitchen as a guest shows her how to turn on the electric stove. She says their first home-cooked meal will be shorwa, an Afghan stew with meat, potatoes and other ingredients. She will use the oven to bake her own naan, the soft Afghan bread found in bakeries back home.
Azizullah's biggest worry right now is learning English so he can find a job and support his family. He has the skills to be an electrician, a plumber, a truck driver.
"It can be anything," he says. "I'm a hard-working person."
Coburn says the next big step is to get the kids enrolled in the neighborhood school, just a half-mile from the house. He's trying to pace himself, take it one day at a time.
"The Army in me wants to be like, what's next, what's next," he says.
So what is next? Another Afghan family, a couple who are friends with the Azizyars.
On Nov. 8, Coburn was on his way back to the Harrisburg airport to welcome them.
The man, whose first name is Pashtoon, who was a sergeant major who oversaw the training of Afghanistan's rank-and-file soldiers. (USA TODAY is withholding his last name for the safety of his relatives.) He and his wife Basira moved into the third floor of the rental house with the Azizyars.
Pashtoon and his wife Basira both speak English well and have already started helping the Azizyars learn the language.
"Every day I’m coming over, and they’re trying out new words on me," Coburn says. "They're tag-teaming everything around the house."
The two families plan to help each other find jobs, pay the $950 monthly rent and adjust to their new lives in small-town Pennsylvania.
Coburn wants other displaced Afghans to relocate here too. It's far less expensive than the urban centers where other Afghan-Americans have settled, he argues, and there are more jobs here as well.
It's a good place for them to become "the best new Americans they can be."

AP Poll: Most in US favor Afghan ally refugees
Most Americans want to see Afghans who worked with United States offered resettlement in the U.S., a new poll shows, confirming support across political divides for former military translators and others struggling to escape Taliban rule. (October 4)
AP
Fatema Hosseini, a journalist for Gannett affiliate NewsQuest, contributed to this story.
Dig deeper into Afghanistan:
USA Today · by Deirdre Shesgreen
26. I’m a Defense Industry Worker. It’s Time to Cut the Pentagon Budget.


I’m a Defense Industry Worker. It’s Time to Cut the Pentagon Budget.
Limitless military spending doesn’t help workers like me. Green, union jobs do.
The Nation · by David Story · November 19, 2021
An aerial view of the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C. (Jason Reed / Reuters)
Every year, the story is the same. Congress looks at the Pentagon budget, briefly debates the merits of decades of skyrocketing spending, and then pads it with tens of billions dollars more.

And every year, they do it in my name.
I’m a defense industry worker. I live and work in an area of Alabama referred to as “the Pentagon of the South.” I’m a member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. And I say throwing money at the Pentagon doesn’t help workers like me.
It’s time to cut the bloated Pentagon budget and use those resources where they will actually serve my fellow workers: funding good, green, union jobs.
In September, the House of Representatives passed legislation authorizing an astonishing $778 billion 2022 Pentagon budget. That’s a $37 billion boost from the year before, and more than twice the per annum size of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that has become the center of a storm of Beltway scrutiny. But because it was for the Pentagon, rather than the people, few even batted an eye.
About half of this exorbitant sum is destined to go directly to corporations in the lucrative defense contracting industry. There, executives will fill their pockets and spend a chunk of the remainder lobbying for even more the next year. The majority of Congress, swayed by the industry’s influence, eyeing a cushy board position, or even directly profiting from contractor stocks, will comply. And they’ll justify this decision by invoking the magic word: jobs.
Despite the public’s opposition to unrestrained Pentagon spending, despite the fact that the Pentagon is notoriously wasteful, despite many politicians’ claimed commitments to ending our country’s endless wars, the limitless funding of an overpowered war machine is deemed necessary because it supposedly helps create jobs like mine.
It doesn’t. Study after study has shown that spending on the military industry is one of the least effective ways to create jobs. For every seven jobs created by military spending, investments in clean energy would make 10 (and in health care and education, even more than that). Those who are using our names to excuse their votes for corporate interests are, in effect, stealing jobs that could be ours.
Meanwhile, it is workers who suffer the most from our misplaced budget priorities. It is everyday working people, not the executives at Raytheon, who are sent to fight and die in our nation’s global forever wars—and everyday people in places like Afghanistan and Yemen who pay the price of our failed interventions. It is working communities whose schools are failing, working families that can’t pay their medical bills, and the working class who disproportionately suffer the impacts of the climate crisis.
The reality is that, as in any industry, Pentagon spending is used to fatten the profits for the few, while the workers get pushed to the side.
Unfortunately, the leaders of my union have traditionally gone along with it. Rather than having the vision and courage to fight for what we workers need in the long term, they have decided it’s easier to work hand in hand with industry bosses to try to maintain a failing status quo. We deserve better.
It’s time to cut the Pentagon budget. But when we do, we workers can’t be left behind. Our skills, our talents, from engineers to machinists, should be put to work on the urgent task of building a green economy.
The transition may be difficult at first. But in the long run, it’s a clear win. More jobs means not only less precarity but also more bargaining power, and a stronger union for all of us. Beyond helping workers in our industry, a green job transition is a key step toward ending our nation’s permanent war footing and confronting instead the greatest challenge of our time. That’s a public good for generations to come.
I’m not advocating getting rid of the defense industry entirely. Just cutting it down to the real size that’s needed for our actual defense, and spending the rest to help make sure we’re safe from the imminent threats of climate change, unemployment, and an economy that caters to the interests of the few.
My fellow workers don’t need a fatter Pentagon budget. We need good-paying, green, union jobs, and an economy that works for the many. The next time a politician claims that they’re funding endless war for the sake of jobs, we defense industry workers must stand up and say, “Not in our names.”
The Nation · by David Story · November 19, 2021




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

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

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

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