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1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 13, 2023
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15. In Bakhmut, modern warfare meets World War I-style brutality.
16. Talking to an Investigative Reporter Who Exposed Chinese Influence in Canada
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18. Could Beijing Risk a Diversionary War Against Taiwan?
19. Hard-line House Republicans set up fight over military budget, Pentagon ‘wokeism’
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 13, 2023
Maps/ graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-13-2023
Key Takeaways
- The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on January 13 that Russian forces seized Soledar on the evening of January 12.
- The MoD’s initial announcement (which did not mention the Wagner Group) sparked a significant backlash within the Russian information space, forcing the MoD to issue a second announcement crediting Wagner.
- Prigozhin likely seeks to use the victory in Soledar as a bargaining tool to elevate his authority in Russia.
- Putin may be taking measures to cultivate a cadre of milbloggers loyal to Putin and the Russian MoD to undermine Prigozhin’s effort to elevate himself.
- High-ranking Ukrainian officials continue to forecast an intensification of Ukrainian and Russian operations in the spring of 2023 and that a Russian offensive from Belarus remains unlikely.
- Russian officials’ responses to Russians who have fled abroad risks dividing the Kremlin and the ultra-nationalist pro-war community even further.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly ordered Russian occupation officials to deport Ukrainian children to Russia under medical relocation schemes.
- Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line while Ukrainian forces reportedly continued counteroffensive operations near Kreminna.
- Russian forces continued offensive operations around Soledar, Bakhmut, and Avdiivka.
- Ukrainian Intelligence reported that Russian forces seek to raise personnel numbers to two million by an unspecified date.
- Ukrainian partisan attacks continue to divert Russian resources away from the frontline to rear areas in occupied territories.
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 13, 2023
understandingwar.org
Kateryna Stepanenko, George Barros, Riley Bailey, Angela Howard, Madison Williams, and Mason Clark
January 13, 8:45 pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on January 13 that Russian forces seized Soledar, Donetsk Oblast, on the evening of January 12. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces can now form a “cauldron” around Bakhmut and threaten Ukrainian supply lines running southwest of Soledar that support Ukrainian troops in the city.[1] The Russian MoD notably praised assault and army aviation, missile and artillery troops, and Russian airborne forces for seizing Soledar, without acknowledging Wagner Group’s participation in the fighting for the city. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov maintained that the situation around Soledar is difficult and noted that it is unclear if Russian forces control the settlement at this time, while other Ukrainian military officials reported that Ukrainian forces continued to fight in Soledar during the night of January 12-13.[2] Ukrainian forces may still occupy some positions on the northwestern borders of Soledar but are unlikely to control significant territory within the settlement itself. ISW assessed on January 12 that Russian forces have likely captured Soledar on January 11, but such a victory is unlikely to presage an imminent Russian encirclement of Bakhmut.[3]
The announcement sparked a significant backlash within the Russian information space due to the Russian MoD’s failure to acknowledge the Wagner Group's participation in the capture of Soledar. The Russian MoD issued a follow-up announcement six hours later recognizing Wagner volunteers and assault detachments as participants in the Battle for Soledar and noting that the Russian MoD received numerous inquiries regarding its original commemoration of select Russian forces.[4] The Russian MoD attempted to justify their snub of Wagner by claiming that a Russian “heterogeneous grouping of troops” executed a “joint plan” in the Soledar direction and attributed the assault against residential areas to Wagner forces. Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin vaguely responded to the Russian MoD’s omission of Wagner, stating that he cannot comment on the situation and noting that journalists’ questions about the matter expose their concern over commemorating Wagner’s “heroic capture of Soledar.”[5]
Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin staged conditions for such backlash by personally visiting Soledar days prior to its capture and taking his cadre of Wagner-affiliated milbloggers to commemorate Wagner forces’ daily advances on Russian social media platforms.[6] Prigozhin likely attempted to preempt the announcement on January 12 by accusing unnamed bureaucrats and government officials of “constantly trying to steal victory from [the] Wagner private military company” and belittling its merits.[7] Milbloggers independent or affiliated with Wagner subsequently generated a series of criticisms calling out the Russian MoD for its misrepresentation of the claimed capture of Soledar.[8]
The Russian MoD’s announcement highlighted the existing conflict between the Wagner Group and the Russian MoD – a dynamic that which ISW has previously observed and assessed. Several prominent milbloggers – including those affiliated with the Kremlin – stated that there is an ongoing conflict between the Russian MoD and Prigozhin behind closed doors and within the information space.[9] Some noted that Prigozhin has overpowered the Russian MoD‘s deliberately vague rhetoric, forcing the Russian MoD, and by extension the Kremlin, to end its long-standing policy of refraining from recognizing Wagner and its war efforts.[10] A Kremlin-affiliate milblogger, in turn, claimed that Prigozhin and the Russian MoD are both equally attempting to undermine each other and accused Prigozhin of refusing to recognize the Russian Armed Forces as a participating force on the battlefield.
Former Russian officer and prominent nationalist voice, Igor Girkin, condemned the “acute conflict” between traditional military command and unofficial forces (referring to Wagner) during a time of war and claimed that Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov seek to disband private military companies like Wagner and incorporate its elements into the MoD structure.[11] Girkin stated that Soledar has exposed a major dilemma for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he framed as having the options of either intensifying his efforts to appease both the Russian MoD and Prigozhin; doubling down on either side at risk of losing support for his war; or becoming an arbitrator and the commander-in-chief. ISW had previously assessed that Putin’s efforts to balance the at times mutually exclusive lines of effort of retaining Russian MoD support for his war, publicly distancing himself from military failures, and exploiting Prigozhin’s parallel military forces, may have ramifications on his power.[12]
Prigozhin likely seeks to use the victory in Soledar as a bargaining tool to elevate his authority in Russia. The Russian MoD’s subsequent mention of Wagner forces in response to public outcry signals a significant victory for Prigozhin, solidifying him as a crucial actor in this war. Reznikov stated that Prigozhin needed a victory in Soledar to deliver proof to Putin that his forces are better than the conventional army.[13] Prigozhin also publicized a journalist’s question about his reported upcoming meeting with Putin to discuss victory in Soledar, singling out the question amidst an array of other similar questions on his response to the Russian MoD’s announcement.[14] Prigozhin told the journalist to read his original statement on Soledar instead of “doing nonsense,” despite his comment stating that questions on Russian MoD’s exclusion of Wagner will “need answers but not now.” Prigozhin, who has used intentionally vague messaging in the past, also noted that everyone will soon understand why he withheld comment. While ISW cannot confirm that Prigozhin will have a meeting with Putin, he had previously offered his critiques to Putin on the progress of the war and will likely seize this opportunity to his benefit.[15]
Putin may be taking measures to cultivate a cadre of milbloggers loyal to Putin and the Russian MoD to undermine Prigozhin’s effort to elevate himself. United Russia Party Central Executive Committee Head Alexander Sidyakin, United Russia State Duma parliamentarian Artyom Turovyi, and Donetsk People Republic Head and Putin ally Denis Pushilin met with several milbloggers on January 13.[16] These senior Putin allies presented a group of over 10 milbloggers – including Alexander Sladkov and a journalist who works for Wargonzo – an official certificate of thanks signed by Secretary of the General Council of the United Russia Party Andrey Turchak.[17] This is the latest event in a string of Kremlin efforts to cultivate ties with select milbloggers.[18] ISW previously assessed that the Kremlin undertook efforts to co-opt Sladkov, Wargonzo lead milblogger Semen Pegov, and other milbloggers who were willing to sell out in exchange for political prestige.[19] Putin may seek to cultivate ties with these Kremlin-pliant milbloggers to marshal their media reach against the Prigozhin-aligned milbloggers’ efforts to promote Prigozhin and damage Putin’s reputation in the Russian information space.
High-ranking Ukrainian officials continue to forecast that Ukrainian and Russian operations will likely intensify in the spring of 2023, while a Russian offensive from Belarus remains unlikely. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov stated in a January 13 interview with the BBC that “spring is the best period to refresh [military] movement for all sides” and that Ukrainian officials understand that Russian forces will be ready to start a higher pace of operations in the spring and therefore Ukrainian forces need to be ready to do so as well.[20] Reznikov also stated that the Russian military could be trying to accumulate forces, ammunition, and weapons for an offensive from areas it already occupies in southern and eastern Ukraine.[21] Reznikov’s statement follows Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Chief Kyrylo Budanov’s statement that Ukrainian forces intend to launch a major counteroffensive throughout Ukraine in the spring.[22] ISW has still not observed any indicators that Ukrainian forces intend to halt currently ongoing counteroffensive operations this winter in favor of conducting a major counteroffensive this spring. Ukrainian forces may instead use ongoing counteroffensive operations to set conditions for a potential larger counteroffensive operation this spring.[23] Reznikov’s forecast of a higher pace of Russian operations in the spring partially supports ISW’s assessment that Russian forces are likely preparing for an intended decisive military effort in 2023.[24]
Reznikov also stated that it “would take a lot of time” for Russian forces to prepare an offensive from Belarus and that the Russian military currently “has no resources” to support such an effort.[25] Ukrainian officials continue to routinely state that Russian forces are unlikely to invade Ukraine from Belarusian territory.[26] ISW continues to assess that the most dangerous course of action (MDCOA), a renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine from Belarus, remains unlikely and that Belarusian forces are highly unlikely to join the fighting in Ukraine.
Disagreement over how to respond to Russians who have fled abroad risks dividing Russian officials and exposing the gap between the Kremlin and certain extreme nationalist actors. Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin proposed on January 12 that Russia amend its criminal code to confiscate the property of Russians who fled the country.[27] Occupation Head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov praised Volodin’s proposal to punish the “scoundrels” who “betrayed” Russia.[28] A prominent Russian milblogger amplified Volodin’s proposal and polled his subscribers, finding that the majority supported or strongly supported Volodin’s proposal.[29] Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov opposed Volodin’s proposal, however.[30] Peskov claimed that Russian citizens who left the country “are all our citizens, all equally, and could have different reasons for leaving” and stated that Russian authorities should create conditions to entice Russians abroad to return.[31] The Kremlin may support the return of Russians abroad in hopes of solving growing labor shortages and demographic challenges, avoiding the ostracizing of more moderate Russian audiences, or distancing itself from the demands of the nationalist community. The Kremlin has rhetorically distanced itself from the prevalent nationalist milblogger demands by re-appointing widely criticized and favored military officials and may be attempting to regain control over the Russian information space.[32]
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly ordered Russian occupation authorities to deport Ukrainian children to Russia using medical schemes at a meeting with members of the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC) on December 7. The Kremlin published a list of official orders on January 12 that Putin gave to HRC members on December 7. The document includes an order for Russian occupation officials to take unspecified measures to “meet healthcare system needs” in occupied Ukraine.[33] Zaporizhia Oblast Occupation Deputy Vladimir Rogov stated on January 12 that Putin personally ordered occupation authorities to administer preventative medical examinations to children in occupied Ukraine and that over 110,000 Ukrainian students have undergone medical examinations in occupied Zaporizhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts.[34] Rogov stated that over 450 Russian “specialists” from Crimea and Adygea are conducting these examinations and are discovering thousands of children with undiagnosed medical conditions and sending them – possibly to Russia – for “treatment.”[35] Putin previously thanked Russians for their efforts to send children from occupied Ukrainian territory on “holidays” in Russia in his annual New Year’s speech.[36] ISW has previously reported instances of Russian officials using the guise of “holidays” and vacation schemes to justify the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea.[37] ISW maintains that the forced deportation of Ukrainian children represents a possible violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Key Takeaways
- The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on January 13 that Russian forces seized Soledar on the evening of January 12.
- The MoD’s initial announcement (which did not mention the Wagner Group) sparked a significant backlash within the Russian information space, forcing the MoD to issue a second announcement crediting Wagner.
- Prigozhin likely seeks to use the victory in Soledar as a bargaining tool to elevate his authority in Russia.
- Putin may be taking measures to cultivate a cadre of milbloggers loyal to Putin and the Russian MoD to undermine Prigozhin’s effort to elevate himself.
- High-ranking Ukrainian officials continue to forecast an intensification of Ukrainian and Russian operations in the spring of 2023 and that a Russian offensive from Belarus remains unlikely.
- Russian officials’ responses to Russians who have fled abroad risks dividing the Kremlin and the ultra-nationalist pro-war community even further.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly ordered Russian occupation officials to deport Ukrainian children to Russia under medical relocation schemes.
- Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line while Ukrainian forces reportedly continued counteroffensive operations near Kreminna.
- Russian forces continued offensive operations around Soledar, Bakhmut, and Avdiivka.
- Ukrainian Intelligence reported that Russian forces seek to raise personnel numbers to two million by an unspecified date.
- Ukrainian partisan attacks continue to divert Russian resources away from the frontline to rear areas in occupied territories.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Ukrainian Counteroffensives—Eastern Ukraine
- Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and one supporting effort);
- Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
- Russian Supporting Effort—Southern Axis
- Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Ukrainian Counteroffensives (Ukrainian efforts to liberate Russian-occupied territories)
Eastern Ukraine: (Eastern Kharkiv Oblast-Western Luhansk Oblast)
Russian forces continued limited counterattacks to regain lost positions along the Svatove-Kreminna line, and Ukrainian forces reportedly continued counteroffensive operations in the Kreminna area on January 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Stelmakhivka (16km west of Svatove) and Makiivka (22km northwest of Kreminna).[38] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Ploshchanka (17km northwest of Kreminna) and Chervonopopivka (6km north of Kreminna) and that Ukrainian forces attempted to attack Russian positions near Kreminna.[39] The Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces concentrated sizeable forces in the area for an offensive against Kreminna, although ISW does not forecast specific future Ukrainian operations.[40] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that artillery elements of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division (VDV) defeated Ukrainian assault brigades near Hryhorivka (11km south of Kreminna) and Serebrianka (11km southwest of Kreminna).[41] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces also repelled a Russian assault near Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna).[42]
Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces continued offensive operations around Soledar on January 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults within 19km north of Soledar near Spirne, Rozdolivka, and Sil, and within 6km southwest of Soledar near Krasna Hora and Pidhorodne.[43] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted assaults near Bilohorivka (12km northeast of Soledar) and Berestove (15km northeast of Soledar).[44] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces captured the railway station in Sil (5km northwest of Soledar) and blocked the settlement from three sides, although ISW cannot independently verify these claims.[45] Ukrainian officials stated that Ukrainian forces continue to defend Soledar and Ukrainian drone footage posted on January 13 indicates that Ukrainian forces likely hold positions near the settlement, though ISW cannot confirm the presence of Ukrainian forces within the settlement itself.[46] CNN published a video report on January 13 from a Ukrainian trench roughly three kilometers away from Soledar stating that Ukrainian forces seem to be conducting an organized withdrawal from the settlement.[47] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces are still conducting clearing operations in Soledar as of January 13.[48] These reports indicate that Ukrainian forces maintain an organized defense west of Soledar and that Russian forces are likely prioritizing stabilizing their control of Soledar before attempting further advances. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces have successfully cut Ukrainian forces in Dvorichchia (4km west of Soledar) off from supply routes from Bakhmut and Siversk.[49] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces are conducting assault operations on the outskirts of Paraskoviivka (5km west of Soledar) and Krasna Hora (5km southwest of Soledar).[50] Geolocated footage published on January 12 and 13 shows Ukrainian forces operating in Krasna Hora despite Russian milblogger claims that Russian forces captured the settlement.[51]
Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut on January 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Bakhmut itself and within 16km southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka, Predtechine, and Kurdyumivka.[52] Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Advisor Igor Kimakovsky initially announced that Russian forces had begun the operational encirclement of Bakhmut but retracted that statement following criticism from Russian sources that his claim was inaccurate.[53] Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner Group fighters continued attempts to advance on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut.[54] Russian sources continued to claim that Russian forces have captured Opytne (4km south of Bakhmut), although ISW still cannot independently verify these claims.[55] A Russian milblogger claimed that the capture of Opynte allows Russian forces to advance on the southern outskirts of Bakhmut and attack Ukrainian fortified positions near Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[56] Geolocated footage posted on January 12 indicates that Russian forces have likely made marginal advances south of Ozarianivka (16km southwest of Bakhmut).[57] Former Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Deputy Interior Minister Vitaly Kiselev claimed that Russian forces are preparing for an offensive along the Predtechine-Bila Hora-Dyliivka line.[58]
Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area on January 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults within 27km southwest of Avdiivka near Vodyane, Nevelske, Krasnohorivka, and Marinka.[59] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also conducted offensive operations near Pervomaiske (12km southwest of Avdiivka) and that Russian offensive operations southwest of Avdiivka were aimed at preventing Ukrainian counterattacks.[60] A BARS-13 (Russian Combat Reserve of the Country) affiliated source claimed that Ukrainian forces are fleeing positions near Marinka, although ISW cannot independently verify this claim.[61] Geolocated footage posted on January 13 indicates that Russian forces have likely made advances south of Marinka.[62]
Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack in western Donetsk Oblast on January 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian assault near Velyka Novosilka (55km southwest of Donetsk City) in western Donetsk.[63] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces continued routine indirect fire along the line of contact in Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhia oblasts.[64]
Supporting Effort—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)
Russian forces continued defensive preparations along the southern axis on January 13.[65] Odesa Military Administration Spokesperson Serhiy Bratchuk posted on January 13 a photo of a segment of Russian fortifications in western Crimea, reportedly situated between Zaozerne and Molochne.[66] Ukrainian Operational Command South Spokesperson Natalya Humenyuk stated on January 13 that poor weather conditions around the Kinburn Spit have complicated both Ukrainian reconnaissance efforts and Russian transit efforts.[67] Russian forces continued routine strikes on the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River on January 13.[68]
Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on January 13 that the Russian Armed Forces seek to raise personnel numbers to two million by an unspecified date.[69] This target is half a million higher than the Russian force generation goals Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Ukrainian General Staff Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov reported on January 12 and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu proposed on December 21.[70] The Russian Armed Forces consisted of about 1.35 million personnel as of September 2022.[71] The GUR stated that Russian authorities may launch a mobilization effort “in the coming days” to mobilize an additional 500,000 soldiers.[72] ISW maintains that a second wave of Russian mobilization would neither be a separate effort from ongoing mobilization efforts, nor would it substantially improve Russia’s ability to wage war in Ukraine given Russia’s persistent lack of trainers, supplies, and bureaucratic capabilities to administer large-scale mobilization and prepare troops for combat.
Russian authorities are likely preparing to expand the segments of Russian society eligible for mobilization. The GUR reported that Russian officials are preparing to change mobilization laws, ready military training centers, and are actively setting conditions for a second wave of mobilization.[73] Siber Realii and an opposition Russian source reported that Russian military enlistment offices and public utilities, the Moscow State Budgetary Institution, and Omsk State University are taking steps to verify credentials, restrict worker travel, or prepare to distribute mobilization notices ahead of the second wave of mobilization.[74] The Kremlin is continuing its crypto-mobilization campaign by proposing to mobilize migrants with Russian citizenship, increasing the presence of volunteers from Serbia, and mobilizing personnel in occupied Luhansk and Kherson oblasts.[75]
Kremlin officials issued contradictory statements regarding the expansion of mobilization eligibility, causing significant alarm and confusion among domestic Russian audiences. Russian Human Rights Council member Irina Kirkora confirmed to Russian State Duma Deputy Nina Ostanina and a prominent Russian news outlet that Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov terminated mobilization exemptions for men with three or more children in December 2022.[76] Secretary of the General Council of the United Russia Party Andrey Turchak denounced Ostanina’s claims on January 13 and called on Russians to avoid hypothesizing on the topic of deferral eligibility changes.[77]
Kremlin officials also sparked controversy by suggesting that Russia will commit reservists and civilian men to a mandatory call-up for military training after expanding conscription eligibility as part of the mobilization reserve. Russian State Duma Deputy and Committee on Defense member Lieutenant General Viktor Sobolev announced that men over 30 years of age in the reserve and without prior military service experience would be subject to military training following the adoption of the law extending the legal conscription age.[78] Sobolev noted that Russia needs to develop a trained and combat-ready mobilization reserve, a goal that the Russian Ministry of Defense sought to accomplish in the autumn of 2021 prior to invading Ukraine.[79] Sobolev also proposed on January 11 that all Russian youth receive military training as well.[80] Several Russian milbloggers critiqued Sobolev’s announcement, claimed that he was speaking without authority, and questioned the theoretical effectiveness of training programs for the mobilization reserve.[81] Milbloggers noted that the mobilization reserve is unlikely to adequately prepare called-up men for modern-day combat or have enough resources to properly train them.
A Russian information security group reported on January 12 that scammers used common Russian fears of pending mobilization to carry out a massive phishing scam.[82] The group promised to provide information on the list of the soon-to-be mobilized.[83]
The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported on January 13 that Russian officials plan to use convict labor to address increased wartime production demands and labor shortages.[84] The UK MoD stated that low-tech weapons manufacturers will likely have the greatest demand for convict labor, especially as Russian authorities intensify demands for increased military production.[85] Russia’s largest tank manufacturer, Uralvagonzavod, reportedly told local media in November 2022 that it would employ 250 prisoners.[86] Russia has a far greater supply of potential convict labor, with the Russian Federal Penal Service reportedly overseeing over 400,000 inmates.[87] ISW has previously reported on both Russian failures to meet military production needs and labor shortages due to mobilization.[88]
Extremely low morale continues to limit Russian force effectiveness and to gain attention from Russian sources. Independent Russian news outlet Meduza amplified two videos in which mobilized soldiers from Novosibirsk complained that Russian leadership sent them to the frontlines to leave only when wounded or dead.[89] A prominent Russian milblogger posted on January 13 that one brigade commander polled his soldiers and only one soldier said that he wanted to fight.[90] The milblogger called for the restructuring of Russian forces to address the issue of low morale and called on Russian officials to promote motivated recruits to military leadership positions.[91]
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of and annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)
Russian authorities continue to deport Ukrainian children to Russia under the guise of adoption. Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova Belova amplified a TV Zvezda television report on January 13 that celebrated the “adoption story” of a 16-year-old Ukrainian girl from the Donetsk City orphanage into a family in Russia.”[92] ISW maintains that the forced adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families may constitute a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[93]
Ukrainian partisan attacks continue to divert Russian resources away from the frontline to help secure rear areas. Russian and Ukrainian sources reported an explosion on the outskirts of Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast, on January 13 and showed pictures of a car on fire.[94] Ukrainian partisans may have carried out an attack, given the prevalence of Ukrainian improvised explosive device attacks against cars in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast.[95] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on January 13 that occupation authorities in Zaporizhia Oblast introduced a vehicle inspection system for entry and exit in Berdyansk to “identify suspicious cars” there.[96] Ukrainian government officials reported on January 13 that Russian occupation authorities have intensified search and filtration measures in occupied territories over growing concern about collaboration between the local population and Ukrainian forces.[97] Ukrainian officials reported that Russian occupation authorities are focusing their searches on electronic devices, including recording residents’ IMEI and SIM card numbers.[98]
Russian occupation authorities continue to forcibly relocate Ukrainians in occupied territories. A Russian milblogger claimed on January 13 that Russian forces “evacuated” 250 Ukrainian residents from Soledar, Donetsk Oblast, over the past few days and are currently housing them in Shakhtarsk, Donetsk Oblast, further behind Russian lines.[99]
Russian occupation authorities continue pushing “Russification” policies in occupied Ukrainian territories. A prominent Russian milblogger amplified a report on January 13 that Russian occupation officials started to require all Ukrainian applicants for Russian passports to translate their Ukrainian documents into the Russian language.[100] ISW assesses that this measure supports a larger Kremlin effort to eliminate the Ukrainian identity and proliferate Russian administrative norms in occupied territories.
Russian occupation authorities continue to seize and repurpose civilian hospitals to support the Russian military. Ukrainian sources reported that hospitals in Luhansk Oblast are completely full of wounded Russian service members, that Russian forces have transferred more medics to a military hospital in occupied Kherson Oblast due to an insufficient number of medical personnel, and that Russian forces are equipping more hospitals for military use in Zaporizhia Oblast.[101]
Russian occupation officials acknowledged that they may need over a decade to fully repair war damage to occupied settlements.[102] Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) head Leonid Pasechnik announced on January 13 that he met with the Russian Minister of Construction and Housing and Utilities Irek Faisulin to draft a plan for reconstructing occupied settlements.[103] Pasechnik assessed that Faisulin’s previous experience working on the reconstruction of Mariupol informed their assessment that reconstruction in Severodonetsk would take until 2035.[104] A Kremlin document published on January 12 indicates that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ordered the Russian Human Rights Council to submit requests for compensation to restore damaged housing in occupied territories on December 7.[105]
ISW will continue to report daily observed indicators consistent with the currently assessed most dangerous course of action (MDCOA): a renewed invasion of northern Ukraine possibly aimed at Kyiv.
ISW’s December 15 MDCOA warning forecast about a potential Russian offensive against northern Ukraine in winter 2023 remains a worst-case scenario within the forecast cone. ISW currently assesses the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine from Belarus as low, but possible, and the risk of Belarusian direct involvement as very low. This new section in the daily update is not in itself a forecast or assessment. It lays out the daily observed indicators we are using to refine our assessments and forecasts, which we expect to update regularly. Our assessment that the MDCOA remains unlikely has not changed. We will update this header if the assessment changes.
Observed indicators for the MDCOA in the past 24 hours:
- Nothing significant to report.
Observed ambiguous indicators for MDCOA in the past 24 hours:
- Belarusian units continued conducting exercises. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense reported that artillery elements of the Belarusian 11th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade conducted exercises as part of the joint Russian-Belarusian Regional Grouping of Forces (RGV) on January 13.[106]
- Belarusian military recruitment authorities continued collecting data on Belarusian citizens eligible for military service. Russian state newswire TASS reported on January 13 that a senior Brest Oblast military official stated that Belarusian citizens eligible for military service may face restrictions on foreign travel if they have not provided their personal information to military recruitment centers.[107] Belarusian forces remain unlikely to join Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Observed counter-indicators for the MDCOA in the past 24 hours:
- The Ukrainian General Staff reiterated that it has not observed Russian forces in Belarus forming a strike group as of January 13.[108]
- Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov stated in a January 13 interview with the BBC that Russian forces lack resources to attack Ukraine from Belarus and that such an offensive would require much time to prepare.[109]
Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.
[2] ua/2023/01/13/ukrayinski-vijskovi-trymayut-sytuacziyu-u-soledari-pid-kontrolem-sergij-cherevatyj/; https://t.me/annamaliar/501; https://www.lemonde dot fr/international/article/2023/01/13/guerre-en-ukraine-c-est-la-bataille-de-verdun-du-xxie-siecle-qui-a-lieu-en-ce-moment-a-bakhmout-et-a-soledar_6157720_3210.html#xtor=AL-32280270-%5Bdefault%5D-%5Bios%5D
[4] io/news/2023/01/13/dannaya-boevaya-zadacha-byla-uspeshno-reshena-muzhestvennymi-i-samootverzhennymi-deystviyami-dobrovoltsev-chvk-vagnera-minoborony-rf-o-shturme-soledara; https://t.me/milinfolive/95457
[30] https://tass dot ru/politika/16795105 ; https://life dot ru/p/1551631
[31] https://tass dot ru/politika/16795105 ; https://life dot ru/p/1551631
[33] http://kremlin dot ru/acts/assignments/orders/70349#sel=9:17:OSU,9:32:3ow
https://t.me/vrogov/5791; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign... https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-ass...
[46] https://armyinform.com dot ua/2023/01/13/ukrayinski-vijskovi-trymayut-sytuacziyu-u-soledari-pid-kontrolem-sergij-cherevatyj/ ; https://t.me/annamaliar/501 ; https://t.me/robert_magyar/332
[53]
[67] https://suspilne dot media/358266-situacia-na-kinburnskij-kosi-zalisaetsa-skladnou-cerez-pogodni-umovi-gumenuk/
[69] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/rosiia-planuie-stvoryty-dvokhmilionnu-armiiu.html
[72] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/rosiia-planuie-stvoryty-dvokhmilionnu-armiiu.html
[73] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/rosiia-planuie-stvoryty-dvokhmilionnu-armiiu.html
[74] https://verstka dot media/priznaki-novoy-mobilizacii/?tg_rhash=86cf5f61f61288; https://www.sibreal.org/a/v-omske-vseh-studentov-zastavlyayut-yavitsya-v...
[76] https://t.me/readovkanews/50597; https://t.me/readovkanews/50599; http... ru/society/news/2023/01/13/958899-gosdume-otmenu-otsrochki-mobilizatsii-mnogodetnih-ottsov
[78] https://ura dot news/news/1052618017
[80] https://ura dot news/news/1052618017; https://nsn dot fm/army-and-weapons/v-gosdume-zayavili-chto-u-rossii-ne-hvatit-rezervistov-dlya-voiny-s-nato
[82]https://t.me/in4security/1031; https://t.me/in4security/1032; https://... ru/ekonomika/16793191; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/01/13/rossiyskie-polzovateli-telegram-stolknulis-s-massovoy-fishingovoy-rassylkoy-u-nih-kradut-dannye-pod-predlogom-proverki-spiskov-na-mobilizatsiyu
[83] https://t.me/in4security/1031; https://t.me/in4security/1032; https://... ru/ekonomika/16793191; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/01/13/rossiyskie-polzovateli-telegram-stolknulis-s-massovoy-fishingovoy-rassylkoy-u-nih-kradut-dannye-pod-predlogom-proverki-spiskov-na-mobilizatsiyu
[84] https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613788473063874560; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/01/13/minoborony-velikobritanii-rossiya-ispolzuet-trud-zaklyuchennyh-na-oboronnyh-predpriyatiyah; https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613788473063874560?s=20&t=qpLv9h6M...
[85] https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613788473063874560; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/01/13/minoborony-velikobritanii-rossiya-ispolzuet-trud-zaklyuchennyh-na-oboronnyh-predpriyatiyah; https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613788473063874560?s=20&t=qpLv9h6M...
[86] https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613788473063874560; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/01/13/minoborony-velikobritanii-rossiya-ispolzuet-trud-zaklyuchennyh-na-oboronnyh-predpriyatiyah; https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613788473063874560?s=20&t=qpLv9h6M...
[87] https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613788473063874560; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/01/13/minoborony-velikobritanii-rossiya-ispolzuet-trud-zaklyuchennyh-na-oboronnyh-predpriyatiyah; https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613788473063874560?s=20&t=qpLv9h6M...
[89] https://vk.com/wall-31101527_12290815; https://tayga dot info/180364; https://t.me/ostorozhno_novosti/13745; https://meduza dot io/feature/2023/01/13/vyezzhayut-ottuda-dvumya-metodami-libo-gruz-200-libo-gruz-300
[94] https://t.me/m0sc0wcalling/18059; https://t.me/andriyshTime/5898; https://suspilne dot media/358616-pozeza-duze-velika-v-rajoni-berdanskogo-aeroportu-prolunali-tri-vibuhi/; https://t.me/andriyshTime/5884; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1613944480440422407?s=20&t=44... https://t.me/brdVP/6325
[97] https://t.me/zoda_gov_ua/15998; https://t.me/zoda_gov_ua/16002 ; https://t.me/ivan_fedorov_melitopol/1173 ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid038HiwcDrZ8W2QBvtQQy... dot ua/2023/01/13/rosiyany-namagayutsya-znajty-partyzan-v-pryfrontovyh-mistah/; https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/portfolio/yak-pravylno-vydalyty-informacziyu-z-telefonu/; https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/portfolio/povedinka-zatrymannya/
[98] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/13/rosiyany-namagayutsya-znajty-partyzan-v-pryfrontovyh-mistah/; https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/portfolio/yak-pravylno-vydalyty-informacziyu-z-telefonu/; https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/portfolio/povedinka-zatrymannya/
[101] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0ZU5oQjyC9vtmJ38MSne... https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/13/okupanty-pochynayut-zakryvaty-czyvilni-likarni-na-pivdni-obslugovuyut-tam-vijskovyh/
[105] http://kremlin dot ru/acts/assignments/orders/70349
[107] https://tass dot ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/16796211 ; https://t.me/bazabazon/15364
understandingwar.org
2. Condoleezza Rice: U.S. Arming Ukraine 'Just Common Decency,' Upholding 'International Law'
Video at the link: https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/01/13/condoleezza-rice-u-s-arming-ukraine-just-common-decency-upholding-international-law/
Excerpt:
Rice said, “I say we have never come out of this well when we allow the rule of law, international law, just common decency, to be devastated and the way that Vladimir Putin and the Russians are doing.
Condoleezza Rice: U.S. Arming Ukraine 'Just Common Decency,' Upholding 'International Law'
Breitbart · by Pam Key · January 14, 2023
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday on FNC’s “The Story” that the United States giving Ukraine weapon systems to fight off Russia’s invasion was “just common decency.”
Anchor Martha MacCallum asked, “A lot of people say Putin’s army is nowhere near what everybody thought it was. He is going to lose this. Why are we spending all of this time and money on Ukraine? This is the argument some of them put forth. When we have other concerns here at home and other places in the world? What do you say to them, Dr. Rice?”
Rice said, “I say we have never come out of this well when we allow the rule of law, international law, just common decency, to be devastated and the way that Vladimir Putin and the Russians are doing. We absolutely have to help the Ukrainians stop this, and when I hear, you know, ‘this is not our fight.’ We did not think 1914 was our fight. We do not think 1941 was our fight. Well, in 2001, the fight came home to us. So our helping the Ukrainians defend is also defending us. As to depletion of our own resources, first of all, I don’t think we are going to fight many ground wars in Europe. Hopefully not. If indeed we are stressing supply chains and stressing supplies, that means find a way to backfill, find a way to increase production. It doesn’t mean simply sitting by and not giving the Ukrainians what they need.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Breitbart · by Pam Key · January 14, 2023
3. Why Should We Listen to Gates and Rice About Ukraine?
Why Should We Listen to Gates and Rice About Ukraine?
By Francis P. Sempa
January 14, 2023
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/01/14/why_should_we_listen_to_gates_and_rice_about_ukraine_875711.html
Why Should We Listen to Gates and Rice About Ukraine?
By Francis P. Sempa
January 14, 2023
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service
Former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Robert Gates and former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in an op-ed piece for the Washington Post urge the Biden administration to “urgently provide Ukraine with a dramatic increase in military supplies and capability--sufficient to deter a renewed Russian offensive and to enable Ukraine to push back Russian forces in the east and south.” They also urge our NATO allies to “provide Ukrainians with longer-range missiles, advanced drones, significant ammunition stocks (including artillery shells), more reconnaissance and surveillance capability, and other equipment.” If we don’t help Ukraine defeat Putin, they say, eventually U.S. security will be threatened. Ukraine, they contend, is fighting our “proxy war” against Russia.
Gates and Rice include in their piece the overused comparison between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Winston Churchill, even quoting Churchill’s plea to the United States in February 1941: “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” But Churchill didn’t want just “tools;” he wanted American co-belligerence, and he eventually got it. Zelenskyy most likely doesn’t want just U.S. and NATO supplies; he wants us alongside of him in this war. And if we follow the advice of Gates and Rice we may end up as a co-belligerent with American soldiers, sailors and airmen fighting once again in Europe. Meanwhile, China raises tensions in the South China Sea by conducting another round of military exercises near Taiwan in an ongoing geopolitical confrontation that unlike Ukraine, does involve a vital interest of the United States.
Gates and Rice contend that their proposed course of action is the best way “to avoid confrontation with Russia in the future.” Which raises the question: Why should we trust their judgment? Gates and Rice have a track record over the last two decades--and it is not that good. During the Bush 43 administration, both Gates and Rice supported the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Global War on Terror that distracted the United States from the rise of China and China’s growing strategic partnership with Russia. Gates is on record initially doubting the wisdom of NATO expansion, but later opining that NATO expansion was a major defeat for Russia. Rice was and is an exuberant supporter of NATO expansion, including for Georgia and Ukraine as early as in 2008. Rice not only ignored George F. Kennan’s 1997 prophetic warning that NATO expansion would result in a revival of Russian militarization and imperialism, but also ignored William Burns’ warning directed to her in 2008 which said: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” and “In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players . . . I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
And Gates as Defense Secretary in 2007, said that he did not view China as a strategic adversary of the United States. China, he said, is “a partner in some respects, its a competitor in other respects, and so we are simply watching to see what they’re doing.” What China was doing was engaging in a massive military buildup in both conventional (including naval) and nuclear forces. But Gates’ view was that “its very important for us to engage the Chinese on all facets of our relationship as a way of building mutual confidence.” Four years later, Gates said that China and the United States can cooperate on defense matters, and expressed optimism that U.S.-China military ties were headed in the right direction.
Rice’s crystal ball on China was no better than Gates’. In 2005, Rice reported on President Bush’s talks with Chinese leaders, and noted the areas of cooperation between the U.S. and China, including “a number of strategic issues that we share in common.” She also expressed the administration’s hope that China would move “toward responsible integration into the international system” and “be a force for peace and stability.”
The harsh truth is that on their watch, the United States fought two futile and costly wars in an effort to spread democracy throughout the Middle East. On their watch, the United States engaged in a reckless expansion of NATO that fueled Russian militarism and imperialism. On their watch, China became a hostile peer competitor of the United States even as they both assured us that China was not our strategic adversary. On their watch, the U.S. distracted itself in peripheral wars while its great power adversaries joined in a strategic partnership to overturn the U.S.-led global order. Both Gates and Rice could use a dose of humility. And we should think twice before following their recommendations about Ukraine.
Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21stCentury, America’s Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics and War, and Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier’s Journey through the Second World War. He has written lengthy introductions to two of Mahan’s books, and has written on historical and foreign policy topics for The Diplomat, the University Bookman, Joint Force Quarterly, the Asian Review of Books, the New York Journal of Books, the Claremont Review of Books, American Diplomacy, the Washington Times, The American Spectator, and other publications. He is an attorney, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a former contributing editor to American Diplomacy.
4. How Finland Is Teaching a Generation to Spot Misinformation
Can we learn lessons from this?
But it seems to me the Finland education system is trying to help students use common sense and critical thinking.
I wish we could match the first statement and all our teachers had the same educational philosophy as Ms. Uusialo (and perhaps more importantly, School Boards and parents).
Excerpts:
Finland has advantages in countering misinformation. Its public school system is among the best in the world. College is free. There is high trust in the government, and Finland was one of the European countries least affected by the pandemic. Teachers are highly respected.
....
Ms. Uusitalo said her goal was to teach students methods they could use to distinguish between truth and fiction. “I can’t make them think just like me,” she said. “I just have to give them the tools to make up their own opinions.”
How Finland Is Teaching a Generation to Spot Misinformation
The Nordic country is testing new ways to teach students about propaganda. Here’s what other countries can learn from its success.
nytimes.com · by Jenny Gross · January 10, 2023
Olli Seppala, from left, Aatu Aho-Mantila and Arttu Hati learned about identifying misinformation in class in Hameenlinna, Finland.Credit...Vesa Laitinen for The New York Times
A typical lesson that Saara Martikka, a teacher in Hameenlinna, Finland, gives her students goes like this: She presents her eighth graders with news articles. Together, they discuss: What’s the purpose of the article? How and when was it written? What are the author’s central claims?
“Just because it’s a good thing or it’s a nice thing doesn’t mean it’s true or it’s valid,” she said. In a class last month, she showed students three TikTok videos, and they discussed the creators’ motivations and the effect that the videos had on them.
Her goal, like that of teachers around Finland, is to help students learn to identify false information.
Finland ranked No. 1 of 41 European countries on resilience against misinformation for the fifth time in a row in a survey published in October by the Open Society Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria. Officials say Finland’s success is not just the result of its strong education system, which is one of the best in the world, but also because of a concerted effort to teach students about fake news. Media literacy is part of the national core curriculum starting in preschool.
Saara Martikka taught students about misinformation at the school.Credit...Vesa Laitinen for The New York Times
“No matter what the teacher is teaching, whether it’s physical education or mathematics or language, you have to think, ‘OK, how do I include these elements in my work with children and young people?’” said Leo Pekkala, the director of Finland’s National Audiovisual Institute, which oversees media education.
After Finland, the European countries that ranked highest for resilience to misinformation in the Open Society Institute survey were Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland and Sweden. The countries that were the most vulnerable to misinformation were Georgia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania. The survey results were calculated based on scores for press freedom, the level of trust in society and scores in reading, science and math.
The Spread of Misinformation and Falsehoods
-
Lessons for a New Generation: Finland is testing new ways to teach students about propaganda. Here’s what other countries can learn from its success.
-
Covid Myths: Experts say the spread of coronavirus misinformation — particularly on far-right platforms like Gab — is likely to be a lasting legacy of the pandemic. And there are no easy solutions.
-
A ‘War for Talent’: Seeing misinformation as a possibly expensive liability, several companies are angling to hire former Twitter employees with the expertise to keep it in check.
-
A New Misinformation Hub?: Misleading edits, fake news stories and deepfake images of politicians are starting to warp reality on TikTok.
The United States was not included in the survey, but other polls show that misinformation and disinformation have become more prevalent since 2016 and that Americans’ trust in the news media is near a record low. A survey by Gallup, published in October, found that just 34 percent of Americans trusted the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, slightly higher than the lowest number that the organization recorded, in 2016. In Finland, 76 percent of Finns consider print and digital newspapers to be reliable, according to an August survey commissioned by a trade group representing Finnish newspapers that was conducted by IRO Research, a market research company.
Finland has advantages in countering misinformation. Its public school system is among the best in the world. College is free. There is high trust in the government, and Finland was one of the European countries least affected by the pandemic. Teachers are highly respected.
On top of that, Finnish is spoken by about 5.4 million people. Articles containing falsehoods that are written by nonnative speakers can sometimes be easily identified because of grammatical or syntax errors, Mr. Pekkala said.
While teachers in Finland are required to teach media literacy, they have significant discretion over how to carry out lessons. Mrs. Martikka, the middle school teacher, said she tasked students with editing their own videos and photos to see how easy it was to manipulate information. A teacher in Helsinki, Anna Airas, said she and her students searched words like “vaccination” and discussed how search algorithms worked and why the first results might not always be the most reliable. Other teachers also said that in recent months, during the war in Ukraine, they had used Russian news sites and memes as the basis for a discussion about the effects of state-sponsored propaganda.
Finland, which shares an 833-mile border with Russia, developed its national goals for media education in 2013 and accelerated its campaign to teach students to spot misinformation in the following years. Paivi Leppanen, a project coordinator at the Finnish National Agency for Education, a government agency, said the threat of Russian misinformation on topics such as Finland’s bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “hasn’t changed the basics of what we do, but it has shown us that this is the time for what we have been preparing.”
Even though today’s teenagers have grown up with social media, that does not mean that they know how to identify and guard against manipulated videos of politicians or news articles on TikTok. In fact, a study published last year in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology found that adolescence could be a peak time for conspiracy theorizing. A contributing factor could be social media, with its influence over young people’s beliefs about the world, the study’s authors wrote.
Still, the Finnish government says students are among the easiest group to reach. Now that programs are in place for young people, the government is using libraries as centers for teaching older people to identify online information that is intended to mislead, Mr. Pekkala said.
For teachers of any age group, coming up with effective lessons can be challenging. “It’s so much easier to talk about literature, which we have been studying for hundreds of years,” said Mari Uusitalo, a middle and high school teacher in Helsinki.
She starts with the basics — by teaching students about the difference between what they see on Instagram and TikTok versus what they read in Finnish newspapers. “They really can’t understand fake news or misinformation or anything if they don’t understand the relationship between social media and journalism,” she said.
During Ms. Uusitalo’s 16 years as a teacher, she has noticed a clear decline in reading comprehension skills, a trend she attributes to students’ spending less time with books and more time with games and watching videos. With poorer reading skills and shorter attention spans, students are more vulnerable to believing fake news or not having enough knowledge about topics to identify misleading or wrong information, she said.
When her students were talking this summer about leaked videos that showed Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, dancing and singing at a party, Ms. Uusitalo moderated a discussion about how news stories can originate from videos circulating on social media. Some of her students had believed Ms. Marin was using drugs at the party after watching videos on TikTok and Twitter that suggested that. Ms. Marin denied having taken drugs, and a test later came back negative.
Ms. Uusitalo said her goal was to teach students methods they could use to distinguish between truth and fiction. “I can’t make them think just like me,” she said. “I just have to give them the tools to make up their own opinions.”
nytimes.com · by Jenny Gross · January 10, 2023
5. Taiwan ready to assist Ukraine with digital reconstruction
Taiwan ready to assist Ukraine with digital reconstruction
Reuters · by Andrius Sytas
VILNIUS, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Taiwan is ready to help Ukraine upgrade its digital infrastructure in fields such as remote learning as part of rebuilding efforts after the war, the island's Digital Minister Audrey Tang told Reuters.
Tang was visiting Vilnius in her first foreign visit since being appointed as digital minister in August 2022. She pointed to the digitalisation of Taiwan's education system as an area where the island could help.
"Taiwan has already provided humanitarian aid (to Ukraine) in terms of generators, equipment and so, but we are also thinking about the digital layer," Tang told Reuters on Friday.
"We want to provide what has enabled the various people in Taiwan to be a transcultural learning community, despite very different backgrounds."
Tang said there are no official talks with Ukraine's government on digital cooperation, but she is in contact with personal connections.
Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, saying Kyiv's ties with the West threatened Russia's security. Ukraine and its allies call it an unprovoked war to seize territory.
In Vilnius, Tang laid a wreath on graves of civilians killed in January 1991 at the hands of the Soviet army, during a failed attempt to overthrow the pro-independence government.
Taiwan opened a representative office in Vilnius in November 2021, irking China, which views the self-ruled island as part of its territory.
China downgraded diplomatic ties with Vilnius, prompting the Lithuanian government to withdraw its diplomats from Beijing.
Reuters has reported China was pressuring German companies to stop using components made in Lithuania, which is a member of both the European Union and NATO.
Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius Editing by Sharron Singleton
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Reuters · by Andrius Sytas
6. Authorities Fear Extremists Are Targeting U.S. Power Grid
Excerpts:
A DHS intelligence memo last year warned of “credible, specific plans” by domestic violent extremists “adhering to a range of ideologies” who would “continue to plot and encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure.” Officials said extremists were encouraging attacks on the power grid on encrypted messaging apps and other platforms, making suspicious activity difficult to detect. They also noted that extremists seemed to reference the 2013 attack in California, which is widely cited by some extremist groups as a model of how to cause widespread disruption and get away. At the same time, a 14-page handbook circulated on accelerationist channels on Telegram called for followers to “strike a blow to this system” by damaging electricity infrastructure to “spark revolution and chaos.”
After the Moore County attack in December, federal regulators ordered a review of the physical security of electrical facilities. But experts say the aging state of the nation’s electricity infrastructure, a patchwork of public and private ownership, and the overlapping federal, state and local regulations will continue to make many substations easy targets. And even as authorities work to tighten the security of these facilities, they sound resigned to the attacks continuing.
“A determined adversary with insider knowledge as to what to shoot, and how to cripple key components, is difficult to stop,” says Harrell, the former DHS official. “If the attackers stay underground, don’t highlight themselves, and don’t get caught, they preserve their ability to attack again.”
Authorities Fear Extremists Are Targeting U.S. Power Grid
BY VERA BERGENGRUEN JANUARY 9, 2023 1:24 PM EST
TIME · by Vera Bergengruen
A string of mysterious attacks on power stations across the U.S. has rekindled fears about the vulnerabilities of America’s electricity infrastructure, which security officials have warned presents a growing target to extremists and saboteurs.
Attacks and suspicious activity at U.S. power stations reached a decade-long high last year, with more than 100 reported incidents in the first eight months of 2022, according to a TIME review of the Department of Energy’s most recent data, which runs through August. Since then, there have been at least 18 more publicly reported attacks or potential attacks on substations and power plants in Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, and Washington.
The tally includes at least half a dozen at Duke Energy facilities in Florida and at least six others on electrical substations in the Pacific Northwest in November and December. In one attack on Thanksgiving, two intruders cut through the fencing around a substation in Clackamas County, Ore., and “used firearms to shoot up and disable numerous pieces of equipment and cause significant damage,” according to an incident report. And in the most high-profile incident, intruders breached the gates and opened fire on two Duke Energy substations in Moore County, N.C., in early December, damaging equipment in what local authorities called a “targeted” attack that cut off the power for more than 45,000 people.
It’s not clear who’s behind all this. But the surge has alarmed federal officials and security analysts, who warned last year of “credible, specific plans” by violent domestic groups to attack the power grid. Violent conspiracies focused on targeting and destroying energy infrastructure have become one of the top themes on extremist social-media platforms and messaging apps. In each of the last three years, law enforcement has foiled plots by right-wing extremists designed to sow chaos by attacking America’s electrical infrastructure.
Now, officials say, the rise in incidents suggests the perpetrators may be drawing inspiration from one another, fine-tuning strategies to pursue potentially more damaging copycat attacks. Each incident—and each suspect that escapes undetected—further emboldens a determined cadre of criminals and highlights the U.S. power grid as a target.
“Domestic terror groups understand that citizens losing power from gunfire or sabotage is an easy way to receive media attention, which they crave,” says Brian Harrell, a former Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who tells TIME he expects a significant increase in attacks on U.S. energy infrastructure in 2023. “The utility sector has a real problem on its hands. Power stations are an attractive target, and domestic terror groups know that destroying this infrastructure can have a crippling effect.”
Barriers designed to absorb oil are placed near a damaged transformer that Duke Energy workers said was hit by gunfire that crippled an electrical substation after the Moore County Sheriff said that vandalism caused a mass power outage, in Carthage, North Carolina, U.S. December 4, 2022.
Jonathan Drake—REUTERS
The motives and methods of the recent attacks vary. Some of the perpetrators may have been seeking money, not mayhem. Federal authorities say that the attacks on four substations in western Washington State on Christmas Day, which left more than 14,000 residents in the dark, were perpetrated by two men seeking to knock out power so they could commit a robbery.
Yet many others remain mysterious to law enforcement and federal regulators. The case that most concerns authorities is the Dec. 3 attack on two power stations in Moore County, N.C. A month later, despite an ongoing FBI investigation continues, no one has been arrested for acts of sabotage that left more than 45,000 people without power amid frigid temperatures. Law enforcement officials, who have offered up to $75,000 for anyone who can provide information that would lead to the arrest of those responsible, have said that the perpetrators took aim at the substations with firearms with the intention to cause widespread outages.
Several experts and former officials told TIME they believed that attack was committed by someone who knew what they were doing. “I’m certain that the North Carolina attackers have insider knowledge on substations and critical energy infrastructure and knew how to attack, undetected,” says Harrell, noting they knew where to access sites and what to shoot at—and that no security would be in place.
Jon Wellinghoff, who served as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from 2009 to 2013, says the incident in Moore County was the most sophisticated he had seen since a 2013 attack on the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s substation near San Jose, Calif., in which multiple gunmen fired on the facility and caused $15 million in damages. No one was ever arrested in that case.
Whoever perpetrated the attack in North Carolina “were fairly sophisticated,” Wellinghoff says. “They wanted to knock out a particular area of that county…and were able to select the substation that would knock out that entire line.”
The effectiveness of the attack in Moore County is likely to lead more bad actors or extremist groups to “learn more information about the infrastructure itself and how it operates” online in order to carry out similar attacks, Wellinghoff adds. “You have the ability now to look at selected areas of the country and knock those out depending on how they are interconnected, and that information of where those lines and those substations are is all available to anybody on the Internet.”
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That makes the U.S. power grid—which spans more than 7,300 power plants, 55,000 transmission substations and 160,000 miles of high-voltage power lines—a particularly soft target for determined attackers. “It’s inherently vulnerable, because it’s constructed in such a way that if one part of it can be destroyed or impaired it can have a very significant impact on other larger parts of it very quickly,” says Dr. Granger Morgan, a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University who chaired three National Academy of Sciences reports on the power grid for the federal government. “Kind of like dominoes.”
Saboteurs have been taking aim at this infrastructure for decades. In some parts of the country, for instance, hunting season has always brought an uptick in troublemakers taking potshots at insulators and other equipment. But the attacks like the ones on the North Carolina substations are “a different ballgame,” FERC Commissioner Mark Christie said at the agency’s December meeting, calling them “sophisticated.”
Morgan has also noticed a shift in recent incidents. “These increasing attacks on things like large transformers and circuit breakers are significantly more troubling,” he says, raising concerns of a “copycat effect” which could eventually lead to a more coordinated attack by perpetrators with the knowledge to cause significant damage. “Many of these [power stations] are only blocked off by chain-link fences in the middle of nowhere,” he says, often without personnel guarding them.
An analysis by the FERC reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2014 found that the U.S. could suffer a blackout across the country for weeks or months if saboteurs simultaneously targeted just nine of the 55,0000 substations, threatening the collapse of the entire network. Natural events have previously highlighted this vulnerability. In 2003, tree branches touching power lines in Ohio created a cascading effect that ended in the most widespread blackout in North American history.
Workers set up an automated display warning drivers on NC211 of the power outage in the area and how to approach the upcoming intersections in Southern Pines, N.C., Monday, Dec. 5, 2022.
Karl B DeBlaker—AP
Authorities have said little about the culprits behind the surge in attacks. But officials have suggested they are worried about coordination between more nefarious actors. “Is there something more sinister going on? Are people trying to take part of the grid out and have people lose power on purpose? And for what reason?” Richard Glick, who chaired the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) until Jan. 3, said at a press briefing in December. “I don’t think anyone knows that right now. But there’s no doubt that the numbers are up in terms of reported incidents.”
While there are no public indications that the attacks have been perpetrated by people motivated by extremist groups or ideologies, violent conspiracies and manifestos focused on targeting and destroying energy infrastructure in order to cause fear and chaos have been widely shared on extremist social-media platforms and messaging apps. Law enforcement has foiled several plots inspired by these narratives in recent years. In May 2020, three men claiming to be members of the far-right “Boogaloo” movement were arrested for allegedly conspiring to “firebomb” power substations in Las Vegas to provoke violence during Black Lives Matter protests in the city. The three men, who had military backgrounds, have pleaded not guilty to federal conspiracy charges and still remain in custody awaiting trial in both state and federal courts.
In August 2021, four neo-Nazis in North Carolina were charged with a conspiracy in which they intended to take down a critical substation with firearms and explosives, according to prosecutors. The group, which met on a neo-Nazi accelerationist forum and included two former U.S. Marines, “discussed their plans to take out the power grid” and assembled a list of a dozen targets. They discussed targeting energy infrastructure “for the purpose of creating general chaos and to provide cover and ease of escape in those areas in which they planned to undertake assassinations and other desired operations to further their goal of creating a white ethno-state,” according to the government. Two of the men have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government while others await trial.
In Feb. 2022, three avowed white supremacists pleaded guilty in Ohio to terrorism-related charges for a similar plot to knock out parts of the U.S. power grid, in what prosecutors described as an attempt to cause panic and chaos to start a “race war.” The group “wanted to attack regional power substations and expected the damage would lead to economic distress and civil unrest,” Timothy Langan, the assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said in a statement.
A DHS intelligence memo last year warned of “credible, specific plans” by domestic violent extremists “adhering to a range of ideologies” who would “continue to plot and encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure.” Officials said extremists were encouraging attacks on the power grid on encrypted messaging apps and other platforms, making suspicious activity difficult to detect. They also noted that extremists seemed to reference the 2013 attack in California, which is widely cited by some extremist groups as a model of how to cause widespread disruption and get away. At the same time, a 14-page handbook circulated on accelerationist channels on Telegram called for followers to “strike a blow to this system” by damaging electricity infrastructure to “spark revolution and chaos.”
After the Moore County attack in December, federal regulators ordered a review of the physical security of electrical facilities. But experts say the aging state of the nation’s electricity infrastructure, a patchwork of public and private ownership, and the overlapping federal, state and local regulations will continue to make many substations easy targets. And even as authorities work to tighten the security of these facilities, they sound resigned to the attacks continuing.
“A determined adversary with insider knowledge as to what to shoot, and how to cripple key components, is difficult to stop,” says Harrell, the former DHS official. “If the attackers stay underground, don’t highlight themselves, and don’t get caught, they preserve their ability to attack again.”
More Must-Reads From TIME
Write to Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@time.com.
TIME · by Vera Bergengruen
7. US-China chip war: America is winning
Small victories?
US-China chip war: America is winning
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The fight for dominance in the semiconductor sector is reshaping the global economy
By Suranjana Tewari
Asia Business Correspondent
For more than a century the scramble for oil unleashed wars, forced unusual alliances and sparked diplomatic rows.
Now the world's two biggest economies are battling over another precious resource: semiconductors, the chips that literally power our daily life.
These tiny fragments of silicon are at the heart of a $500bn industry that is expected to double by 2030. And whoever controls the supply chains - a tangled network of companies and countries that make the chips - holds the key to being an unrivalled superpower.
China wants the technology to produce chips. That's why the US, a source of much of the tech, is cutting Beijing off.
The two countries are clearly engaged in an arms race in the Asia Pacific, says Chris Miller, author of Chip Wars and associate professor at Tufts University.
But, he adds, there's more to the race: "[It] takes place both in traditional spheres, like numbers of ships, or missiles produced but increasingly, it's taking place in terms of the quality of Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms that can be employed in military systems."
For now, the US is winning - but the chip war it has declared on China is reshaping the global economy.
The chip-makers
The manufacture of semiconductors is complex, specialist and deeply integrated.
An iPhone has chips that are designed in the US, manufactured in Taiwan, Japan or South Korea, then assembled in China. India, which is investing more in the industry, could play a bigger role in the future.
Semiconductors were invented in the US, but over time East Asia emerged as a manufacturing hub, largely because of government incentives, including subsidies.
This allowed Washington to develop business ties and strategic alliances in a region vulnerable to Russian influence during the Cold War. It's just as useful now, in the face of Beijing's growing influence in the Asia Pacific.
The race is on to to make the best and most efficient chips at scale - and the smaller, the better. The challenge: how many transistors - tiny electrical switches that can turn a current on or off - can you fit onto the smallest bit of a silicon wafer?
"It's what the semiconductor industry calls Moore's law, essentially doubling the transistor density over time, and that's a hard goal to achieve," said Jue Wang, a partner at Silicon Valley at Bain & Company.
"It's what enables our phones to get faster, our digital photo archive to get bigger, our smart home devices to get smarter over time and our social media content to get richer."
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Washington is trying to cut China off from the tech that makes chips
Getting there is not easy even for the top chip-makers. In mid-2022, Samsung became the first company to start mass producing three-nanometre chips at scale. Later that year, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) - the world's biggest chip-maker and a major supplier to Apple - followed.
How narrow is that? Much narrower than a strand of human hair, which is about 50 to 100,000 nanometres.
These smaller "leading edge" chips are more powerful, which means they go into more valuable devices - supercomputers and AI, the internet of things.
The market for "lagging edge" chips - which power the more mundane bits of our lives, such as microwaves, washing machines and refrigerators - is lucrative too. But demand will likely wither in the future.
Most of the world's chips are currently being made in Taiwan, giving the self-ruled island what its President calls a "silicon shield" - in other words, protection from China, which claims the territory.
Beijing too has made chip production a national priority and is investing aggressively in supercomputers and AI. It is nowhere near being a global leader but has been catching up quickly in the past decade, especially in its chip design capabilities, Mr Miller says.
"What you find historically is that whenever powerful countries have advanced computing technology, they deploy them to intelligence and military systems," he added.
This, and the dependence on Taiwan and other Asian countries for supply, is rattling America.
How is the US hobbling China's progress?
The Biden administration is trying to choke China's access to the technology that makes chips.
Last October, Washington announced sweeping export controls making it virtually impossible for companies to sell chips, chip-making equipment, and software containing US tech to China, no matter where they are based in the world.
It also banned US citizens and permanent residents from supporting the "development or production" of chips at certain factories in China.
This hits China hard because it imports both the hardware and the talent that fuels its nascent chip-making industry.
The Netherlands' ASML stands to lose about a quarter of the revenue it used to earn from China. It's the only company that makes the most advanced lithographic machines - the tools that make "leading edge" chips.
"Talent is so important in this area... if you look at the executives of China's semiconductor companies, a lot of them hold American passports, they are trained in the US, and they have green cards. So that is a really big problem for China," says Linghao Bao, analyst at policy research firm Trivium China.
The US also wants to make more chips. The Chips and Science Act offers $53bn of grants and subsidies to companies making semiconductors in the US. Major players are taking advantage of that. TSMC is investing in two plants worth $40 billion in the US, their only facilities outside of Taiwan.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
China buys more than 50% of the chips manufactured globally
Micron, the largest US-based manufacturer of memory chips - essential for supercomputers, military hardware and any device that has a processor - has announced plans to spend up to $100bn over the next 20 years in a computer chip plant in upstate New York.
"The Chips Act is able to bridge the cost gap that exists in production in the US versus Asia," says Sanjay Mehrotra, the chief executive of Micron Technology. "Micron will continue to invest in our fabs [plants] in Asia. What is important is that there'll be a level playing field across the globe."
China's play
The US's restrictions are hitting China where it hurts.
Apple reportedly shelved a deal to buy memory chips from one of China's most successful chip companies, Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC), in the wake of the restrictions.
Global Trade
The Huawei experience is how this is likely to play out, according to Mr Bao. The communications giant went from being the second-largest smartphone maker in the world, after Samsung, to "essentially dead", Mr Bao says.
"So that's how easy it was for Washington to cripple a Chinese tech company. China doesn't really have a good option to respond to that. Previously, the US was targeting individual Chinese companies. But this time, the scope has expanded to the entire country."
Can China do anything in response? Withdrawing goods or services, or imposing its own export controls, could do more damage than good at a time when its economy is facing a severe slowdown.
Beijing has complained to the World Trade Organization (WTO) but a resolution could take years.
Meanwhile, experts say, China will double down on investment and support for its domestic chip-making industry.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
US policy has effectively killed Huawei's smartphone business
"We will focus national strategic needs, gather strength to carry out indigenous and leading scientific and technological research, and resolutely win the battle in key core technologies," President Xi Jinping said at the Chinese Communist Party's 20th Congress in October.
What comes next?
In the short term, the industry has to contend with a global slowdown because of the war in Ukraine, rising inflation and a bumpy re-opening of China's economy.
Beijing will want to tread carefully given that its economy took a huge hit through the Covid pandemic.
"There will still be a lot of back and forth between US companies, Taiwanese companies, Chinese companies and firms from other countries. It's really only at the cutting edge in logic and memory chips, where we're going to see a concerted effort by the US to cut China out of innovation networks and an effort by China to build up its own US-free supply chain," Mr Miller said.
He adds that could mean a partial decoupling of the ecosystem - one focused on China and one on the rest of the world.
That has huge ramifications for the global economy. It will force players to pick sides, possibly cutting many off from accessing the Chinese market.
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8. US carrier strike group begins operating in South China Sea as tensions with China simmer
US carrier strike group begins operating in South China Sea as tensions with China simmer | CNN Politics
CNN · by Oren Liebermann · January 13, 2023
CNN —
A US carrier strike group began operating in the South China Sea on Thursday, the Navy announced, amid heightened tensions with Beijing, which claims much of the body of water as its sovereign territory.
Two Chinese ships are already tailing the US group, a defense official told CNN, which consists of an aircraft carrier, a guided missile cruiser, and three guided missile destroyers.
The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, which has lethal and non-lethal capabilities from “space to undersea, across every axis, and every domain,” according to its commander, entered the South China Sea for the first time as part of its current deployment.
The deployment comes as the US military bolsters its presence in the region in an effort to deter China, which is undergoing a rapid modernization and expansion of its own military and nuclear capabilities.
In this Aug. 16, 2012 photo, CH-46 helicopters take off from the U.S. Marine Corps base in Futenma , in Okinawa, Japan. Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima signed off Friday, Dec. 27, 2013, on the long-awaited relocation of the U.S. military base, a major step toward allowing the U.S. to move forward with plans to consolidate its troops in Okinawa and move some to Guam. Nakaima approved the Japanese Defense Ministry's application to reclaim land for a new military base on Okinawa's coast. It would replace the U.S. Marine Corps base in Futenma, a more congested part of Okinawa's main island. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)
Greg Baker/AP
US and Japan strengthen military relationship with upgraded Marine unit in attempt to deter China
This week, the US and Japan announced a bolstered US Marine presence in Okinawa, which would have advanced intelligence and anti-ship capabilities. The two allies also announced a series of other initiatives designed to bring the militaries closer together in the face of what they see as China’s growing assertiveness in the region.
“We share a common vision with Japan to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific and all the things that we’re doing, you know, point towards that direction,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday, speaking with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their Japanese counterparts in Washington.
Three weeks ago, a Chinese J-11 fighter jet intercepted a US RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea in what the US called an “unsafe maneuver.” The RC-135 Rivet Joint was forced to take evasive action, the US said, when the Chinese jet closed to within 20 feet of the larger, slower reconnaissance jet.
The People’s Liberation Army fired back with their own account of the interception, claiming it was the US aircraft that had “abruptly changed its flight attitude” with a “dangerous approaching maneuver,” despite a Chinese military video showing nothing of the sort.
The encounter underscored the inherent tensions related to the South China Sea, where Beijing has used its own artificial militarized islands to advance a claim of sovereignty not recognized by the US or its allies.
The Chinese Navy routines tails US warships operating in the South China Sea, even claiming on occasion that it drove away the US vessels after they have left the disputed waters.
FUJIAN, CHINA - AUGUST 24, 2022 - The PLA Navy and the PLA Army conduct a cross-day and all-factor live-fire red-blue confrontation drill in Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, China, Aug 24, 2022. (Photo credit should read CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images
War game suggests Chinese invasion of Taiwan would fail at a huge cost to US, Chinese and Taiwanese militaries
In November, China claimed that it forced the USS Chancellorsville out of the South China Sea after it “illegally entered” the waters without Beijing’s approval, which showed the “US is a true producer of security risks” in the region.
The US responded bluntly, calling the Chinese account “false” and the “latest in a long string of (People’s Republic of China) actions to misrepresent lawful US maritime operations and assert its excessive and illegitimate maritime claims at the expense of its Southeast Asian neighbors.”
The US guided missile cruiser was operating in the South China Sea as part of a freedom of navigation operation under international law, the Navy said.
“All nations, large and small, should be secure in their sovereignty, free from coercion, and able to pursue economic growth consistent with accepted international rules and norms,” the US said at the time.
CNN’s Haley Britzky contributed reporting.
CNN · by Oren Liebermann · January 13, 2023
9. Ukraine, Japan and the Korean War’s 21st-Century Parallel
The long shadow of the Korean War. As an aside, this week I participated in a 2 hour documentary that will be broadcast on Fox News Channel (Brett Baier narrating) around Memorial Day on the Korean War and its long term effects.
Excerpts:
Herein lies a final lesson from this history: By provoking the U.S. to put steel into the spine of the NATO alliance, North Korea inadvertently bolstered deterrence in Europe. In this way, a tragic blow-up in Northeast Asia probably helped keep the Cold War from turning hot elsewhere—saving Moscow and the West alike from worse cataclysms.
Ukraine, Japan and the Korean War’s 21st-Century Parallel
As in 1950, destabilizing war is forcing the West to get serious about defense a continent away.
By Vance Serchuk
Jan. 12, 2023 1:24 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-japan-and-the-korean-wars-21st-century-parallel-kishida-russia-defense-spending-military-strategy-11673523175?mod=itp_wsj&ru=yahoo
Tokyo
When Russian forces surged into Ukraine in February 2022, the conflict seemed to spell calamity for the U.S.-led order in Asia. Just as Washington was turning its attention to the Indo-Pacific, a conflagration in Europe promised to distract America from the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party. But nearly a year later, the Ukraine war hasn’t doomed the balance of power in Asia; instead, it may be stabilizing it.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Japan, whose prime minister, Fumio Kishida, visits the White House Friday following historic changes in Tokyo’s national-security and military strategies. Among the bold moves announced last month: a pledge to double defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product by 2027 and to add powerful new capabilities such as long-range missiles to its arsenal. This means that Japan, currently the world’s ninth-largest military spender, could move to third place within five years, behind only the U.S. and China. Already this year its defense budget is due to grow more than 25%.
Tokyo’s embrace of realpolitik is a gift to the free world. It’s also been anything but abrupt. Japan has been slowly modernizing its military and national-security institutions over the past decade with an eye toward an increasingly assertive China. But officials say Russia’s attack on Kyiv helped accelerate these efforts in ways unthinkable 12 months ago. As Mr. Kishida warned last year in previewing the shift: “Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow.”
Japan’s response echoes something that happened at the dawn of the Cold War, when North Korea’s invasion of South Korea unexpectedly supercharged the West’s defense of Europe. Before Pyongyang’s surprise attack across the 38th parallel in June 1950, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was essentially a bluff. Although Washington had sworn to protect its NATO allies against the Soviets, it had neither developed the war plans nor deployed the troops necessary to do so. The U.S. was still on a peace footing in the most important and dangerous theater of its contest with the Kremlin.
But with the onset of the Korean War, the threat of communist armies marching across borders was no longer a mere abstraction. The appointment of the first NATO supreme allied commander and the creation of an allied military headquarters soon followed. The Truman administration also undertook a massive arms buildup—the cost of which it previously balked at—and approved a secret policy paper called NSC-68, which provided a blueprint for a much tougher approach to Moscow.
The biggest loser of the Korean War thus ended up being Stalin. The adventurism of a Soviet client state in a peripheral corner of the Cold War backfired against the Kremlin on its central front in Europe. One U.S. strategist later said, “Thank God Korea came along.” Today, America’s Asian allies increasingly cite Russian aggression as a vital wake-up call that has spurred new military and geopolitical seriousness across the Indo-Pacific.
There are of course differences between the present moment and the early 1950s. North Korea was a Soviet satellite, whereas Russia is a great power in its own right. And if Ukraine is to change the West’s geopolitical strategy in the Indo-Pacific as profoundly as the Korean War did Europe’s, Japan’s leadership has to become the rule, not the exception.
In the U.S., the conflict has been an impetus to increase munitions stockpiles and add surge capacity to the defense-industrial base. In both cases, military deficiencies exposed by the war are starting to be tackled with an eye toward China.
But these are still modest steps relative to the scope and urgency of the challenge in Asia. They likewise pale in comparison with the U.S. response to Korea 70 years ago, when American defense budgets nearly tripled as a percentage of GDP.
Herein lies a final lesson from this history: By provoking the U.S. to put steel into the spine of the NATO alliance, North Korea inadvertently bolstered deterrence in Europe. In this way, a tragic blow-up in Northeast Asia probably helped keep the Cold War from turning hot elsewhere—saving Moscow and the West alike from worse cataclysms.
If the conflict in Ukraine boosts military strength and preparedness in the Indo-Pacific, it too may contribute to the conditions for great-power stability in the long run. Rather than foreshadowing deadlier and more destructive wars to come, Ukraine’s struggle could provide the path to averting them.
Mr. Serchuk is executive director of the KKR Global Institute and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
10. The world has entered the fifth wave of anti-government terrorism
The world has entered the fifth wave of anti-government terrorism
BY CHRISTOPHER P. COSTA, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 01/12/23 1:00 PM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3810480-the-world-has-entered-the-fifth-wave-of-anti-government-terrorism/
In light of a failed far-right coup in December in Germany, fueled by ideologically and historically incoherent fantasies, a global trend is coming into sharper focus. This new trajectory reveals a dangerous hybridization of extremist ideologies and is distinguished by anti-government terrorism.
Even with courtroom revelations of far-right seditious plotting related to the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, I remained uncertain that a new fifth wave of anti-government terrorism arrived — until the coup plot in Germany. I believed that global jihadists would remain the most persistent terrorist threat. After all the U.S., together with partner forces in Iraq and Syria, reportedly killed a jaw-dropping 700 suspected members of ISIS in 2022, five years after its caliphate was lost. Other jihadists have shifted across Africa, from Somalia on the continent’s eastern tip to West Africa, intent on exploiting large swaths of ungoverned space for use as sanctuaries. This pattern plays out in the Middle East and South Asia, too.
But I am now convinced that a fifth wave of anti-government terrorism is underway.
In sum, wave theory refers to political violence in four historical waves. This framing metaphorically likened generational trends in terrorism to waves in the history of shared terrorism ideology and tactics. Importantly, right-wing groups have been present and coexisted in every wave era. Currently, it seems that the terrorist script is flipped with “blurred ideological lines.” So, even though I think that anti-government terrorists are the successors to the fourth or religious wave, jihadists will still remain a persistent undertow that coexists — and may very well cooperate operationally — with anti-government fifth wave groups.
That’s dangerous.
FBI Director Christopher Wray noted that the “purity of radical ideology” is gone. That observation seems to substantiate the idea that hybridized grievances and beliefs are increasingly behind terrorist attacks.
Take the case of U.S. Army Pvt. Ethan Melzer, who began plotting an attack on his own military unit by conspiring online with neo-Nazis and researching jihadists and aligning with their attack patterns. This all crystallized when Melzer conspired with the neo-Nazi organization, 09A, “Order of 9 Angles,” — a group of Satanists and avowed white supremacists. This case is a troubling new archetype of hybridizing ideologies.
It seems that the Federal Republic of Germany is an accidental bellwether of an emerging era of anti-government terrorism. This emergence in Germany is an ironic accident of history because some 900 million people watched ethno-nationalist terrorism play out live during the Munich 1972 Olympic Games.
Last September, after 50 years, Germany exorcised the demons of that troubling phase of terrorism. I had an opportunity to attend a special Munich 1972-related commemoration where I met German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. Just a few months later, Faeser spoke publicly about the failed far-right coup plot in Germany and the anti-government attack on Germany’s rule of law.
Even with the present threat from far-right terrorism, Minister Faeser reminded Germans that they remain in the “crosshairs” of Islamist terrorists. She was referring to a lone perpetrator arrested in Germany for planning to use ricin and cyanide to carry out an Islamist-motivated chemical attack. This disrupted plot comes on the heels of a self-radicalized, Islamist-motivated American charged with attacking three police officers with a machete near Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Islamist-motivated terrorism is a persistent dynamic existing in parallel with a nascent anti-government wave of political violence.
Still, my past work with German colleagues focused on the jihadist terrorist threat. In fact, I was traveling with German colleagues when the Boston Marathon bombing happened. Just a few years later, while on the Trump presidential transition team, and preparing to become the senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, a truck plowed into a packed Christmas market in Berlin, killing and injuring scores of people. The perpetrator was inspired by ISIS propaganda. That attack framed much of the counterterrorism work during the first year of the Trump administration — when the threats came mostly from jihadists, not far-right anti-government extremists.
How terrorism scholars choose to classify the current wave of terrorism is an open question; what is more straightforward is that Germany stayed ahead of their domestic terrorism threats. Germany’s security services kept tabs on extremists like the Reichsbürger movement, and other groups that refuse to accept the legitimacy of the modern German state. Though Germany’s work against anti-government terrorism is instructional, U.S. authorities will approach these threats differently, because America is bounded by its own Constitution.
As clichéd as it seems, national leadership is essential for properly framing domestic terrorism threats. With that being the case, an overriding government aim must be protecting U.S. citizens and unflinchingly focusing on the rule of law, never forgetting that the anti-government domestic terrorist threat comes from only a small percentage of misguided fellow Americans.
But if anti-government terrorism is a fifth wave, America and the rest of the world better get ready because terrorist waves last generations.
Christopher P. Costa is the executive director of the International Spy Museum and an adjunct associate professor with Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, Walsh School of Foreign Service. He is a former career intelligence officer and was special assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council from 2017 to 2018.
11. China committee, NDS commission signals new Congress will focus on Beijing
China committee, NDS commission signals new Congress will focus on Beijing - Breaking Defense
“I’m surprised at times, some of the people who just fall into full-scale China bashing and talk about how terrible China is, which it isn’t. We can't let them do this,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash.
breakingdefense.com · by Ashley Roque · January 12, 2023
Questions over Chinese plans are poised to consume lawmakers time this year. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Congressional lawmakers established two panels this week that prime them to spend 2023 sorting through a host of questions about Chinese ambitions around the globe and the impact on American security.
In the House, members voted 365-65 to set up an Select Committee on China that will be helmed by China-hawk Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., while both chambers announced a bipartisan commission to examine the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) that deems China as Washington’s top strategic competitor.
“China and Russia are both going to be major global powers going forward; That’s not going to change,” the incoming ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. said Wednesday at the Brookings Institution. “We just want to make sure that there are major global powers that are not threatening everybody else… This new China special committee that’s being created…that’s going to be one of their big challenges.”
Although the formally-named House Select Committee on China is in its infancy, Gallagher and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, last month published an op-ed on Fox News outlining their multi-pronged goals, to include shoring up the US supply chain so it does rely so heavily on China; strengthening the US military; and protecting Americans from China’s “theft” of personal information, intellectual property, and jobs.
“We cannot afford to misread the [Chinese Communist Party’s] CCP’s intentions. The select committee will make the urgent case for aiding Taiwan in its self-defense and build relationships with our other Indo-Pacific allies,” the duo wrote.
“As China uses its growing economy to modernize its military, we must also develop new weapons and stockpiles to project power, preserve our global influence, and protect our forces, including in space and cyberspace,” they later added.
Smith said he and Gallagher have begun preliminary conversations over the vision and direction of the committee will take but said he will reserve judgment down the road when it becomes clearer if this will be a productive panel or a “China bashing exercise” and simply goes “sideways” create more conflict than it solves.
“Gallagher is a very smart, very serious person and that gives me cause for optimism that he wants to take this in the right direction,” Smith added. “On the other hand, I’m surprised at times, some of the people who just fall into full-scale China bashing and talk about how terrible China is, which it isn’t. We can’t let them do this; We have to stand up against them on every single turn.”
As House lawmakers work towards standing up that new select committee, they have also been busy working with their counterparts in the Senate establishing a commission to examine President Joe Biden’s 2022 NDS, a mandate included in the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Lawmakers announced on Wednesday that former Congresswoman Jane Harmen, a previous ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, will chair the commission while Eric Edleman will be by her side as the Republican’s co-chair pick.
Edleman, a former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, previously served as the co-chair for the National Defense Strategy Commission established to wade into the 2018 NDS released by the Trump administration. Three additional members will return to the commission as well — Jack Keane, Thomas Mahnken and Roger Zakheim — in a move that could potentially provide a level of continuity. New members of the commission are Mara Rudman, Mariah Sixkiller, and Alissa Starzak.
The eight members are now tasked with examining the 2022 NDS that doubled down on the existing framework that deems China as the “pacing challenge” for the department, and ranks Russia as an “acute threat” that is “immediate and sharp.” North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations follow on the list of threats.
“The commission shall conduct a comprehensive assessment of the strategic environment to include the threats to the national security of the United States, including both traditional and non-traditional threats, the size and shape of the force, the readiness of the force, the posture, structure, and capabilities of the force, allocation of resources, and the strategic and military risks in order to provide recommendations on the national defense strategy” lawmakers wrote in the FY 2022 NDAA.
If the commission adheres to its mandate, a report on its findings and recommendations will be complete by January 2024.
As both panels find their footing over the coming weeks, the administration is plowing ahead with plans to shore up partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region at a time when tensions with Beijing are rising, in part, over Taiwan.
Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, for example, are continuing to work through their 2021 trilateral security pact for the Indo-Pacific region — albeit, not without recent drama — while this week top Japanese officials visited London and Washington to shore up their respective defense relationships.
“China’s belligerence towards Taiwan, towards the region, is beginning to have a negative effect,” Smith said, separately noting “Countries like Japan…they’re taking this very seriously; They’re figuring out how they can build up their defenses.”
breakingdefense.com · by Ashley Roque · January 12, 2023
12. Beyond the Quad: Booming Security Cooperation Efforts in the Indo-Pacific
Excerpts:
Further, Japan and Australia inked a new bilateral security agreement that covers military, intelligence and space and cybersecurity cooperation. The new agreement is an upgraded version of the Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation, which was signed in 2007 when China was less of a threat.
The AUKUS treaty among Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. is another important new security agreement in the Indo-Pacific involving two of the Quad partners. AUKUS was, of course, a lot more important than the other agreements because it relates to Australia’s plans for acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.
Meanwhile, India is also stepping up its defense and security arrangements with other countries. For instance, it has signed military logistics and reciprocal agreements with a number of countries, including Australia, Japan, the United States – the Quad countries – as well as with France, Singapore, and South Korea. However, these do not appear to represent as deep a security cooperative agreement as the other ones mentioned.
Although India has moved up to deepen its security cooperation with its partners, New Delhi may find that the Quad and its other bilateral security agreements are being rapidly outpaced by these new arrangements springing up in the Indo-Pacific.
Beyond the Quad: Booming Security Cooperation Efforts in the Indo-Pacific
New defense and security cooperation efforts are springing up across the Indo-Pacific, between some Quad members and those outside the grouping.
thediplomat.com · by Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan · January 14, 2023
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Quad partners are becoming much more serious about security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. They are coming up with bilateral and other agreements among themselves but also bringing in other countries from Europe, such as France and the United Kingdom, who have an interest in the region. This is not designed to supplant the Quad itself but rather to supplement it.
Nevertheless, there is a danger that the Quad as a group could be left behind as these other agreements become more widespread and more in-depth in their focus on security cooperation.
Most recently, Japan and the U.K. signed a defense agreement that would facilitate deployment of troops in each other’s countries. A Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on the signing of the Japan-U.K. Reciprocal Access Agreement said that the agreement is meant to “simplify procedures when implementing cooperative activities, such as port calls of vessels and joint exercises between the two countries and further promote bilateral security and defense cooperation.” A U.K. government press release said that the agreement “will also cement the UK’s commitment to Indo-Pacific security, allowing both forces to plan and deliver larger scale, more complex military exercises and deployments.”
The Japanese statement noted the current international security context, where the international order is being challenged by Russian aggression of Ukraine as well as [Chinese] “attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force in the East and South China Sea.” Amid those developments, the Foreign Ministry said, Japan and the U.K. are stepping up their security and defense cooperation to “new heights” with the broader goal of realizing a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak remarked that in an “increasingly competitive world, it is more important than ever that democratic societies continue to stand shoulder to shoulder as we navigate the unprecedented global challenges of our time.”
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As highlighted by the press release, the reciprocal agreement comes in the backdrop of an agreement among Japan, Italy, and the U.K. “to develop the next generation of air fighter jets under the new Global Combat Air Program” signed in December. Japan and the U.K. also kickstarted a new bilateral digital partnership to augment their bilateral cooperation in cyber resilience, online safety, and semiconductors.
Japan has been particularly proactive in beefing up its security, given the threat it faces from China. Clearly, China has got the message. In responding to a question on the Japan-U.K. defense agreement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin commented that the region is “an anchor for peace and development, not a wrestling ground for geopolitical competition” and that “China is a cooperation partner for all countries and poses no challenge to anyone.” The spokesperson added that defense agreements “should not target any imaginary enemies, still less replicate the obsolete mindset of bloc confrontation in the Asia-Pacific.”
The Japan-U.S. 2+2 meeting earlier this week was another important indicator of Japan’s changing security approach. Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa and Japanese Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu were in Washington for Security Consultative Committee talks with their counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Both sides reiterated the importance of their relationship in the context of an assertive China, Russian invasion of a fellow U.N. member country, and North Korea’s pursuit or nuclear weapons along with the delivery systems.
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With deterrence as the centerpiece, the joint statement issued at the end of the 2+2 meeting said the U.S. and Japan agreed “to advance bilateral modernization initiatives to build a more capable, integrated, and agile Alliance that bolsters deterrence and addresses evolving regional and global security challenges.” There was also a focus on building up their capabilities in a number of mission areas, including integrated air and missile defense, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, mine warfare, amphibious and airborne operations, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting (ISRT), logistics, and mobility. Additionally, Japan and the U.S. will step up their cooperation for “effective employment of Japan’s counterstrike capabilities in close coordination with the United States.”
Emerging and critical technologies, including space, cyber, and information security, found mention in the statement, with the goal “to strengthen mission assurance, interoperability, and operational cooperation, including through enhanced collaboration in space domain awareness.” The four ministers also reiterated that “the Alliance is stalwart in the face of these challenges and steadfast in support of shared values and norms that underpin the international rules-based order. They renewed their commitment to oppose any unilateral change to the status quo by force regardless of the location in the world.”
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio also visited Washington for a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on January 13.
Japan and Australia, also fellow Quad members, on January 6, 2022, signed an agreement similar to the one signed with the U.K., one that would facilitate “reciprocal access and cooperation” between the militaries of the two countries. While signing the agreement, then-Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison reportedly said that “Japan is our closest partner in Asia as demonstrated by our special strategic partnership, Australia’s only such partnership — an equal partnership of shared trust between two great democracies committed to the rule of law, human rights, free trade and a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Further, Japan and Australia inked a new bilateral security agreement that covers military, intelligence and space and cybersecurity cooperation. The new agreement is an upgraded version of the Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation, which was signed in 2007 when China was less of a threat.
The AUKUS treaty among Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. is another important new security agreement in the Indo-Pacific involving two of the Quad partners. AUKUS was, of course, a lot more important than the other agreements because it relates to Australia’s plans for acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.
Meanwhile, India is also stepping up its defense and security arrangements with other countries. For instance, it has signed military logistics and reciprocal agreements with a number of countries, including Australia, Japan, the United States – the Quad countries – as well as with France, Singapore, and South Korea. However, these do not appear to represent as deep a security cooperative agreement as the other ones mentioned.
Although India has moved up to deepen its security cooperation with its partners, New Delhi may find that the Quad and its other bilateral security agreements are being rapidly outpaced by these new arrangements springing up in the Indo-Pacific.
CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan
Dr. Rajeswari (Raji) Pillai Rajagopalan is the Director of the Centre for Security, Strategy & Technology (CSST) at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.
thediplomat.com · by Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan · January 14, 2023
13. The 6 Horsemen of the Apocalypse for China
Excerpts:
As a byproduct of this rapid change, cities have in one sense remained villages, with village-style management imposed on urban administration. This means that the governance style has become more direct, simplified, and even coarse.
What’s more serious is that urbanization always requires a large amount of land for real estate. When real estate is thriving, it will destroy other industries and create an economic crisis. Therefore, China’s economic crisis is just a superficial reflection of the more deep-seated crisis of urbanization. Urbanization, after driving the Chinese economy’s golden decade, can also lead to a decade or more of economic stagnation.
Failure to grasp the reality of these crises would hamper the Chinese authorities’ governance, mitigation, adjustment, and means to address the problems. The final outcome would be nothing short of unspeakable social tragedies. For instance, the crisis seen in public medical resources today, though driven by the COVID-19 outbreaks, is in fact a manifestation of the aging crisis at its core.
In the future, these Six Horsemen of Apocalypse would surely make their appearance, unleashing shock waves that will be transmitted to the deeper level of society, causing more and more realistic problems and conflicts.
The 6 Horsemen of the Apocalypse for China
The struggles of 2022 highlighted six crises China will have to face now and into the future.
thediplomat.com · by Kung Chan · January 14, 2023
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2022 was not an easy year for China. Outbreaks of COVID-19 and the subsequent strict control measures that induced protests nationwide, as well as the geopolitical challenges that the country faces, are all but outward signs of the crises that the country will encounter soon, or is currently undergoing.
All in all, there are six such major crises, which we can call the “Six Horsemen of the Apocalypse” for China. These problems are not unknown to those who have even a glimpse of the actual situation of the country, though they have not always attracted the attention that they should.
First of all, China is one of the countries facing a serious demographic problem in the form of an aging population. The disastrous effect of this is clearly seen in the current pandemic. There are countless discussions and reports about the spread of COVID-19 in the country, many of which are sensational. However, as China’s population grows older and older, even other common diseases, such as the influenza virus, could have an equally disastrous result – or even worse. The elderly have worse survival rates from such illnesses, so an older population will mean more deaths. China’s pandemic crisis is thus actually a manifestation of its aging crisis, seen in the depletion of public medical resources, and even of social resources, including funeral preparations.
The second of these Horsemen would be a food crisis, which has a lot to do with how the land has been used in China. During the period when real estate was booming at the end of the 20th century, land became a resource for profit, and less and less of it was used in the agricultural sector. Given the country’s huge population, without enough land for growing food, the matter of feeding its people becomes irresolvable for China. At first, China managed by simply importing food from other countries, but the problems kept snowballing. With the eruption of the Russia-Ukraine war, securing China’s food supply has become a prominent issue. After all, China depends heavily on wheat, sunflower oils, fertilizers, maize, barley, and other food products from Ukraine and Russia for domestic consumption and
China is also in a state of crisis regarding debt. With problems constantly emerging and property constantly depreciating, the debt situation already appears to be in a state of crisis, and it will only get worse in the future. Under such circumstances, other countries could resort to financial macro-control capabilities, such as raising interest rates, but it would be hard for China to do so. Because China has a huge amount of household debts, raising interest rates will cause serious social turmoil, as evidenced by the collective refusal by home buyers to pay their mortgage loans in 2022. Such a situation means that China’s financial crisis has deepened to the point where the People’s Bank of China has substantially lost the ability to regulate monetary policies by raising interest rates.
The fourth Horseman is the geopolitical crisis that China is facing. For a long time, China seemed to really believe that its rise had nothing to do with global geopolitics, and that what it achieved depended entirely on the hardworking Chinese themselves. However, the ongoing war in Ukraine has opened a window for China to see the complexity of geopolitics. Hence, like it or not China has to face the onslaught of the marching wheel of geopolitics.
The next Horseman is the supply chain crisis, a result of the era of globalization. China profoundly engages in globalization and is the biggest beneficiary of it, but Beijing has neither the ability nor the willingness to do more to maintain the globalization process as it comes under increasing pressure. China’s ambiguous attitude toward such major events as the war in Ukraine, which seriously shattered globalization, has naturally further boosted de-globalization. In the huge transformation from globalization to de-globalization, supply chains of all sectors in the world will inevitably be restructured, reorganized, and refashioned. This will involve a lot of capital, as well as a huge number of bankruptcies and debts.
The supply chain crisis is already having an acute impact on China. For example, China faces sanctions and restrictions in the semiconductor sector, and this is not entirely due to geopolitical factors. It is also a byproduct of supply chain restructuring in various countries seeking to build self-owned, trusted, and risk-resilient supply chains. This is precisely why the United States will do everything possible to bring TSMC to the country for production.
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The final Horseman facing China is the urbanization crisis. Considering all the crises related to China’s economy and society, many of them are self-inflicted because the root cause is the abnormal development of China’s urbanization. China is a country with an extreme dichotomy between urban and rural areas. Before urbanization, the urban population was less than 100 million, and the remaining nearly 700 million lived in rural areas. Now China’s population has reached 1.4 billion, with over 880 million of them living in cities. That means hundreds of millions of rural people have pushed (or been pushed) into cities.
As a byproduct of this rapid change, cities have in one sense remained villages, with village-style management imposed on urban administration. This means that the governance style has become more direct, simplified, and even coarse.
What’s more serious is that urbanization always requires a large amount of land for real estate. When real estate is thriving, it will destroy other industries and create an economic crisis. Therefore, China’s economic crisis is just a superficial reflection of the more deep-seated crisis of urbanization. Urbanization, after driving the Chinese economy’s golden decade, can also lead to a decade or more of economic stagnation.
Failure to grasp the reality of these crises would hamper the Chinese authorities’ governance, mitigation, adjustment, and means to address the problems. The final outcome would be nothing short of unspeakable social tragedies. For instance, the crisis seen in public medical resources today, though driven by the COVID-19 outbreaks, is in fact a manifestation of the aging crisis at its core.
In the future, these Six Horsemen of Apocalypse would surely make their appearance, unleashing shock waves that will be transmitted to the deeper level of society, causing more and more realistic problems and conflicts.
GUEST AUTHOR
Kung Chan
Kung Chan is the founder of ANBOUND Think Tank and one of China’s renowned experts. His research focuses on economic information analysis, particularly in the area of public policy.
thediplomat.com · by Kung Chan · January 14, 2023
14. U.S. Policy Refuses to Win in Ukraine By Bing West
Conclusion:
In both scenarios, the U.S.-preferred end state — an undefined tie — will collide with the Ukrainian aim of pushing Russia out. Granting blanket sanctuary to an enemy is highly injudicious. As strategist Michael Howard has written, “war should not be conducted in such a manner as to subvert the prospects for a lasting peace.” Unfortunately, giving sanctuary to Russia as the aggressor has become an unquestioned article of faith within the administration and Congress. As long as all military targets in Russia remain off-limits to Ukrainian forces, the war cannot end well for Ukraine or the West.
NATIONAL REVIEW
U.S. Policy Refuses to Win in Ukraine
By Bing West January 13, 2023
https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/u-s-policy-refuses-to-win-in-ukraine/
Past conflicts reveal scant hope for a nation that grants the aggressor a sanctuary. In lost war after lost war, we have repeated that mistake.
Putin’s objective is to occupy a significant portion of Ukraine and retain undisputed control of the Black Sea. He believes U.S. and NATO aid to Ukraine will dwindle in a protracted war.
Ukraine’s end state is to push Russia out of all its territory. Ukraine has proven it has determination and ferocity. The U.S. and NATO, however, refuse to transfer sufficient arms for Ukraine to accomplish that objective.
Unlike Putin and Ukraine, the Biden administration evades stating its desired end. It does not endorse driving Russia out of Ukraine entirely. What it does seek is unknown. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, has suggested that Ukraine cut a deal now. Ukraine understandably rebuffed that notion. So, the second year of the war begins with the administration hoping for some undefined middle ground short of a Ukrainian victory.
One thing is sure: The administration has enshrined Russia as a sanctuary. It insists Ukraine not strike Russian territory. The reason is fear that Putin might respond by detonating a nuclear bomb inside Ukraine. For some irrational reason, the U.S. might retaliate with a nuclear strike. Therefore, Ukraine must be constrained from fighting too effectively because we fear our own suicidal response if Putin acts like a madman. This emotional illogic has dominated the administration’s decision-making from the start of the war. Yet the likely and rational response would be to sever Russia from all global financial, travel, and trade systems. Putin would be a man marked for disposal.
General Milley likes to show a note card from a White House meeting in October 2021, five months before the war began. The card reads: “Contain war inside the geographical boundaries of Ukraine.” That was senseless. The war could not be contained inside Ukraine, because Russia was attacking from inside Russia. The phrase “contain war” is the administration’s code word for treating Russia as a sanctuary.
It was military malpractice for our country’s top general to ignore history. Past conflicts reveal scant hope for a nation that grants the aggressor a sanctuary. In lost war after lost war, we have repeated that mistake. In June 1951, Lieutenant General James Van Fleet, our commander in Korea, urged enveloping the exhausted Chinese/North Korean forces and annihilating them. Instead, Washington treated North Korea as a sanctuary off-limits to our ground forces. The war continued for two more years, at a high cost in casualties and public support.
Similarly, from 1965 through 1968, President Johnson treated North Vietnam essentially as a sanctuary. Yet Russia was providing North Vietnam with thousands of tanks and artillery tubes to kill Americans in South Vietnam. From 2003 through 2008, Syria provided aid and sanctuary for the terrorists attacking Iraq. From 2001 to 2022, Pakistan provided assistance and shelter to the Taliban.
Now we have granted Russia an inviolate sanctuary. The administration vetoed the transfer from Poland of MiGs, ceding air control to Russia. Medium-range weapons such as artillery were withheld for months. Tanks and long-range tactical missiles remain today in the no-transfer list. Drip by drip, treating Russia as a sanctuary has become ingrained within Congress, the public, and the foreign-policy establishment. This has set a disturbing precedent. In the longer term, aggressor nations will conclude that if they acquire nuclear weapons, they ensure their territory is safe from retaliation while they attack other countries.
Sanctuary for Russia bodes ill for Ukraine. In 2023, there are two plausible war scenarios. In Scenario A, trench warfare, analogous to World War I, ensues with relatively little territory changing hands. As its munitions dwindle, Ukraine will ask the U.S. for longer-range weapons to hit munitions depots inside Russia. The request will be denied.
In Scenario B, Ukraine advances steadily. Retreating Russian forces must rely upon their depots just across the border. Ukraine must strike them to consolidate its gains. The most obvious example of Scenario B is the 11-mile Crimean Bridge connecting Russia with Ukraine. Ukraine cannot liberate Crimea without long-range weapons to destroy that bridge. To Putin, the bridge symbolizes his success in restoring the Russian empire. If it is destroyed, Putin will suffer a devastating blow to his authority. However, it is unlikely the Biden administration would provide Ukraine with the weapons to destroy that bridge.
In both scenarios, the U.S.-preferred end state — an undefined tie — will collide with the Ukrainian aim of pushing Russia out. Granting blanket sanctuary to an enemy is highly injudicious. As strategist Michael Howard has written, “war should not be conducted in such a manner as to subvert the prospects for a lasting peace.” Unfortunately, giving sanctuary to Russia as the aggressor has become an unquestioned article of faith within the administration and Congress. As long as all military targets in Russia remain off-limits to Ukrainian forces, the war cannot end well for Ukraine or the West.
Bing West, a former assistant secretary of defense and combat Marine, is the author of a dozen books about Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. His latest is The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War. @BingWest
15. In Bakhmut, modern warfare meets World War I-style brutality.
Excerpts:
If Soledar is actually taken by Russia — and again, this is still a matter of dispute — it will be a significant turning point in the battle, but not necessarily a decisive one. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, assessed on Thursday that taking Soledear “will not enable Russian forces to exert control over critical Ukrainian ground lines of communication into Bakhmut nor better position Russian forces to encircle the city in the short term.”
The ISW has predicted that the Russian effort in Bakhmut may soon reach this “culmination,” meaning an inability to continue major combat operations. But smaller-scale attacks on the city may continue. As with much else in the war, it could come down to which size can maintain its stocks of ammunition the longest. The loss of life, sadly, may be less of an issue.
As CNA’s Edmonds told Grid, “If it’s a game of just throwing people at the Ukrainians, I think the Russians are prepared to do that for quite some time.”
In Bakhmut, modern warfare meets World War I-style brutality.
In the battle for Bakhmut, modern warfare meets World War I-style brutality.
Joshua Keating, Global Security Reporter, and Kseniia Lisnycha, Freelance ReporterJanuary 13, 2023
grid.news
For the past five months, the fighting around one small city in eastern Ukraine has resembled scenes from World War I: a place where soldiers are fighting from old-style trenches, where waves of soldiers make often-fatal charges over open land — and where gains are counted in tiny patches of territory.
The small city is Bakhmut. And as the overall war grinds on, Bakhmut isn’t just a particularly violent battleground. It’s also the most important contest of the war.
Bakhmut’s importance has risen since November, when Ukraine retook the southern city of Kherson and the onset of winter slowed the pace of fighting elsewhere. This week, Russia claimed to have captured the town of Soledar, an even smaller city less than 10 miles outside Bakhmut. The Ukrainian government claims its troops are still holding out there, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged that the situation in the city is “difficult.”
“And what did Russia want to gain there?” Zelenskyy asked in a televised address. “Everything is completely destroyed, there is almost no life left. And thousands of their people were lost: The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes. This is what madness looks like.”
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Madness or not, a victory in Soledar, prewar population of about 10,000, would mark some of the first progress the Russian war effort has demonstrated in months. The capture of Bakhmut would be an even more significant propaganda victory and likely also a boost to the political standing of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin insider whose Wagner Group, a shadowy private military contractor, has been doing the bulk of the fighting there, often publicly clashing with Russia’s regular military in the process.
For Ukraine, the battle has become a symbolic and politically significant struggle, evidence of the country’s willingness to make enormous sacrifices to defend its territory. As Major Oleksii Zakharchenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces, told Grid, “Our army forces will fight for any Ukrainian city, no matter if it is bigger or smaller than Bakhmut. What is Ukrainian, will stay Ukrainian.”
In strategic terms, however, analysts and officials on both sides concede that Bakhmut is of limited strategic value. If it falls, it probably won’t dramatically improve Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chances of achieving his war aims. And holding Bakhmut wouldn’t be a game-changer for Ukraine. All of which raises the question of why so many human lives are being spent fighting over this one small city.
Blood and salt
Bakhmut had a prewar population of around 70,000, which has now shrunk to fewer than 10,000. During the Soviet era, it was known as Artemivsk, after Fyodor Sergeyev, aka “Comrade Artem,” a prominent Bolshevik and ally of Joseph Stalin from Donetsk. The city was renamed in 2016, but the old name is still used in Russia. Before the war, it was known for its sparkling wines and for the salt mines in the surrounding regions. The area also saw heavy fighting during the initial Russian invasion of 2014.
The current battle of Bakhmut began at the beginning of August, after the Russian capture of the nearby cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. Those gains came during the Russian military’s grinding summer offensive to take Donetsk, one of the Ukrainian regions that Moscow has now formally claimed as Russian territory. In the first phase of the fighting, the battle for Bakhmut was waged primarily by the Russian military, but for the last few months, it’s been fought mostly by the Wagner Group, using fighters recruited from Russian prisons, often fighting in poorly organized waves and suffering heavy casualties. One Ukrainian soldier told the Kyiv Independent, “Sometimes we can hear Wagner commanders talk on communications: ‘Run to the Ukrainian trenches, and whoever makes it — you know what to do.’”
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The exact casualty tolls on the two sides are unknown. A U.S. official quoted by Reuters estimated last week that out of Wagner’s force of 50,000 mercenaries, 4,100 had been killed and 10,000 wounded, many of them in fighting around Bakhmut. A top Ukrainian military officer claimed in December that between 50 and 100 Russian troops were dying every day in the Bakhmut battle.
Ukrainian casualties have been high as well. In November, the New York Times reported on one Ukrainian military hospital — the only one in the region — that had treated 240 injured troops in a single day. According to Britain’s ministry of defense, Ukraine has committed “significant reinforcements” to Bakhmut in the past two weeks after suffering high casualties.
Accounts of the fighting itself sound alternately antiquated and futuristic. On the one hand, there are waves of Russian infantry charging over a no man’s land of artillery craters into waiting machine gun nests, like something out of the Western Front in 1916. On the other hand, a Ukrainian artillery spotter sits in an office behind the front lines, directing fire on Bakhmut from an iPad connected to a fleet of drones.
What is it all for?
Maksym Zhorin, former commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, told Grid that he believes Russia’s “military goal is to create conditions for further advancement. They still expect to reach the borders of the Donetsk region. But if the battle for Bakhmut began with such goals, over time it became just a dull meat grinder, in which as many people as possible should die on both sides.”
Bakhmut lies on a strategically important highway and near some important rail links, and taking the city could set up Russian forces for assaults on larger nearby towns in Donetsk like Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
“It’s got some significance, but there are about 20 towns of that size that the Russians would need to take to control the Donbas,” Jeffrey Edmonds, a former Russia director for the White House National Security Council now at the Center for Naval Analyses, told Grid. “It’s not some magical point.”
In Ukraine, the city has taken on enormous political significance. “Hold Bakhmut!” has become a national rallying cry, and Zelenskyy made a point of visiting the front lines in the city immediately before his trip to Washington in December.
But the commander of Ukraine’s land forces, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, also said in a television interview in December, “From the military standpoint, Bakhmut doesn’t have strategic significance.”
That may be an effort by the Ukrainians to downplay the importance of a potential setback, but at least some voices in Russia view Bakhmut the same way. Igor Girkin, the former FSB officer also known as Strelkov, who helped launch the original war in the Donbas in 2014 and has emerged as one of the most prominent hawks criticizing the Russian war effort, called the amount of resources being devoted to Bakhmut “idiotic,” noting that if the city falls, Ukrainian forces will likely just fall back to other positions nearby. “It’s chewing through the enemy’s defenses according to the World War I model,” he lamented in a recent video, in which he called for a revamping of Russia’s offensive strategy.
For Ukrainians, there’s a grim calculation behind the defense of Bakhmut. Even if the city itself isn’t that important, it’s worth defending simply because the resources the Russians are pouring into the battle. As U.S. analysts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee argued in a recent paper, the “successes” of the Russian advance in the Donbas in the spring and summer, which required enormous expenditures of manpower and ammunition, left Russian lines exhausted and vulnerable, setting up the successful counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson in the fall.
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The Russian strategy of raining artillery on Bakhmut for months, turning the city into rubble, may be similarly draining. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say the Russian rate of daily fire has fallen across Ukraine about 75 percent from its wartime high. The more shells and men Russia sends into Bakhmut, the less it will have available for a potential new offensive in the spring. But of course, Ukraine is bleeding troops and resources in Bakhmut as well.
For the Russians, the terrible grind in Bakhmut may be partly motivated by a sunk-cost fallacy: Having poured so much into the battle already, losing is not an option; they need something to show for it. It’s also politically vital for the Kremlin to show some success after the setbacks in Kherson and Kharkiv. And it’s particularly vital for the man who’s taken on Bakhmut as his personal project.
Chef on the hot seat
U.S. officials have recently suggested that Wagner Group boss Prigozhin may be so intent on taking Bakhmut because of the salt and gypsum mines that surround the city. This would be in character for Prigozhin, who is believed to have traded Wagner’s security services for mining concessions in several countries in Africa on the Kremlin‘s behalf. But it’s also likely he has more than salt on the mind.
Nicknamed “Putin’s chef” for his roots in the catering business, Prigozhin has stepped out of the shadows since the war began to become a popular and influential political figure in his own right. In the process, he has often publicly criticized the Russian military and its leaders, demanding the replacement of senior generals. It’s widely believed that a power struggle in the Kremlin has developed between a faction led by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and military chief of staff Valeriy Gerasimov, and another led by Prigozhin and Sergei Surovikin, the general who, with Prigozhin’s support, was appointed to take charge of forces in Ukraine three months ago.
Bakhmut is an opportunity for Prigozhin’s faction to demonstrate its competence compared with its rivals in the Russian military. Prigozhin has publicly accused the military of hampering Wagner’s efforts to take the city by withholding ammunition supplies. In December, Wagner released a video in which two of its fighters in Bakhmut, wearing masks, unleashed a blistering attack on Gerasimov. “We are fighting the entire Ukrainian army, and where are you? There’s only one word to describe what you are,” they said before using a homophobic slur. Prigozhin publicly supported the fighters in the video.
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For the moment, though, Gerasimov may have the upper hand. On Wednesday, Putin handed him direct control over the war in Ukraine, effectively demoting Surovikin. Of course, this may also be something of a poisoned chalice: Gerasimov will be on the hook for future failures. Kremlin analyst Tatiana Stanovaya tweeted on Wednesday that Putin appears to be “wavering between” the two factions in an effort to salvage the foundering war effort. All of this behind-the-scenes maneuvering only makes it more vital for Prigozhin to demonstrate some success in Bakhmut.
02 Maxar satellite imagery of bombed out apartment buildings and homes in Soledar, Ukraine, on Tuesday. Satellite image (c) 2022 Maxar Technologies. (Maxar/DigitalGlobe/Getty Images)
The road ahead
If Soledar is actually taken by Russia — and again, this is still a matter of dispute — it will be a significant turning point in the battle, but not necessarily a decisive one. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, assessed on Thursday that taking Soledear “will not enable Russian forces to exert control over critical Ukrainian ground lines of communication into Bakhmut nor better position Russian forces to encircle the city in the short term.”
The ISW has predicted that the Russian effort in Bakhmut may soon reach this “culmination,” meaning an inability to continue major combat operations. But smaller-scale attacks on the city may continue. As with much else in the war, it could come down to which size can maintain its stocks of ammunition the longest. The loss of life, sadly, may be less of an issue.
As CNA’s Edmonds told Grid, “If it’s a game of just throwing people at the Ukrainians, I think the Russians are prepared to do that for quite some time.”
Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.
grid.news
16. Talking to an Investigative Reporter Who Exposed Chinese Influence in Canada
Excerpts:
Now I have access to the intelligence that can’t be refuted that exactly what I was reporting was happening. And not only do I believe, I’ve been told my reporting has been [the] subject of counternarratives from Chinese espionage and intelligence networks who are very uncomfortable and angry about my reporting. So I don’t know that vindication is the word more than I just, I deeply believe, and I’m told by a lot of people, that really this could be precedent-setting historic work for helping us support Canada's democracy.
People in Canadian police and intelligence, and in other countries, those communities are starting to share information because they see that I’ve got it right, because they see that it’s making a difference in areas where it needs to make a difference.
And even more importantly, my sourcing comes from the communities that are most directly impacted by these networks: Chinese-Canadian, Hong Kong-Canadian, Taiwanese, Uighur communities. And certainly not to suggest that they’re victims without agency. They have great agency, they are some of the best sources to police and intelligence themselves.
And I would add that people inside United Front criminal networks are some of my best sources. And how could that be? Well, China rules by fear, and also inducements and greed. And there are people that could fall out of favor, and people that have consciences, and yet maybe we could say they’re trapped within those networks, that are very eager to share information. They don’t want to see criminal thugs holding a lot of power in the broad community or just in the Asian community in Canada.
Talking to an Investigative Reporter Who Exposed Chinese Influence in Canada
by Sebastian Rotella
Jan. 6, 5 a.m. EST
ProPublica · by Sebastian Rotella
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
An exclusive news report dominated the headlines in Canada in recent weeks: Canadian intelligence had warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about a vast campaign of political interference by China. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service had learned that Chinese consulate officials in Toronto had covertly funded a network of at least 11 political candidates in federal elections in 2019, the report said. The Chinese operation had also targeted Canadian political figures and immigrant leaders seen as opponents of the regime in Beijing, subjecting them to surveillance, harassment and attacks in the media, the report said. Trudeau responded with promises of action, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they were investigating the alleged foreign interference. The Chinese foreign ministry denied the allegations.
Not surprisingly, the report’s author was Sam Cooper. An investigative journalist for Global News, a private Canadian media organization, the 48-year-old Cooper has done hard-hitting work about a surprisingly active criminal underworld rooted in a large diaspora from Hong Kong, a bastion of the mafias known as triads. His best-selling 2021 book, “Wilful Blindness: How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West,” examines violent international gangs involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and, most alarmingly, Chinese espionage and influence activity in Canada.
Cooper and other experts (including U.S. national security officials interviewed by ProPublica) say Canadian political leaders have ignored or minimized the extent of the threat from China. Cooper has received criticism from pro-Beijing figures in the Chinese-Canadian community and is fighting two defamation lawsuits from subjects of his coverage. But his reporting has drawn praise from national security officials, dissidents of Chinese origin and academics in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. It helped spur a governmental inquiry known as the Cullen Commission, which recently concluded that organized crime had laundered billions of dollars in the province of British Columbia. And the latest revelations of Chinese interference are having a potentially dramatic impact on the political debate in Canada.
ProPublica’s conversation with Cooper has been edited for clarity and brevity.
I wanted to ask you first, in terms of your background, how you got involved in this topic.
I went to University of Toronto. I ended up traveling to Japan for some post-university work and culture. And so I really became enamored and fascinated with East Asian culture.
As a young reporter in Vancouver, and also a young family guy, there were things that I noticed. I started to break ground on how influential money from Hong Kong and mainland China was in Vancouver real estate, how it appeared to be driving prices incredibly high in comparison to local incomes. And that led to finally understanding or digging into the underground casino and underground banking nodes and networks that have been feeding Vancouver.
I recognized pretty early there was a huge, high-level pushback on the reporting to dig into the roots of what I eventually found were extremely high-level tycoons from Hong Kong with triad connections [who] had been developing big portions of Vancouver since the 1980s. And this led to a lot of discoveries.
What's remarkable about the history of this issue in Canada in the past decades is that there’s this prophecy that is rejected or ignored. What was your assessment of Project Sidewinder [a Canadian intelligence report leaked in 1999 that warned of the threat from China-connected tycoons, gangsters and spies] when you were looking at this stuff?
Sidewinder, for let’s just call it the Western or Canadian mind, it was too much too early to understand what they were alleging and pointing to. It just was hard to believe. And so … I took the report with a grain of salt. I didn’t swallow it as truth. And there had been a huge pushback on that report from Ottawa, so I was cautious. But you’re absolutely right. This was basically raw intelligence, it was leaked. So people were able to point to a few flaws, or maybe even the odd overreach. But it is absolutely confirmed and true based on my current work, and my book, that the basic elements of what's alleged — that is, that Chinese intelligence and foreign influence operations use high-level gang bosses to both send money abroad and to corrupt Western societies — is absolutely true and confirmed.
In U.S. press and politics, there’s this ongoing focus on Mexico: drugs in Mexico, corruption in Mexico. There’s very little attention paid to national security issues related to Canada. If you read your book, one has to wonder why there hasn’t been more focus on Canada and the extent to which there is a crisis in Canada that just doesn’t get the attention it should in the United States.
Yeah, that’s right. In some ways, Canada makes the perfect host for very sophisticated, powerful, transnational organized crime that doesn’t typically hang bodies from overpasses. The level of sophistication of Asian organized crime is that people that would appear to be gentleman bankers or stockbrokers can be the leaders of transnational drug trafficking gangs. And further than that, people that are respected officials in the Chinese Communist Party at the end of the day are the handlers and bosses of these elite, transnational Asian gangs. Canada as a G-7 nation, as a banking economy that is tied in at the highest levels of respect with the other leading industrial nations, makes a perfect disguise and host for very sophisticated transnational crime.
There is concern in the U.S. government about some of these structural weaknesses in Canadian legislation and the Canadian law enforcement and judicial culture. You give the example that it takes seven months to get a warrant for a wiretap on Sinaloa cartel guys that would take a couple of days in the U.S. or Australia.
I, like many Canadians, you know, just have the innate sense that Canada’s such a stable, well-ordered, law-abiding society. And often that’s true. But what is missed by so many people is that the laws that … prevent overreach into the lives of law-abiding citizens have been exploited, really, by transnational gangs that have so much cover in Canada.
The perfect example of this is Tse Chi Lop, the Canadian citizen who I and others have reported was at the top of this network of networks of the highest triad bosses, The Company. I reported that there clearly are interconnections with Chinese state police and intelligence agencies. This man, this Canadian, was about to fly from Asia to Toronto. And I understand there was some sort of international police operation to divert his flight away from Canada because Australian and United States police did not have the trust that if Mr. Tse landed in Toronto he would be able to be prosecuted and extradited. The concerns there are that Canada’s legal system is just full of holes. It is much too difficult to prosecute powerful criminals. One of the other issues is the lack of an anti-racketeering law to deal with real organized crime. [ProPublica note: During an extradition hearing in the Netherlands last year, Tse told a judge he was innocent of drug trafficking charges.]
But another huge one … is a growing sense that elite capture, and even corruption, within [the] Canadian government, could be an inhibition to tackling people like Mr. Tse. The questions are: Do Mr. Tse and his network, in a roundabout or even a direct way, have hooks into people like Cameron Ortis, the former Canadian RCMP intelligence boss, who fell in a massive corruption case that I wrote about? Beyond Mr. Ortis, could powerful politicians be linked to powerful triad members or triad leaders in Canada? [ProPublica note: Ortis is awaiting trial and has not yet entered a plea, according to press reports. His attorney did not return a request for comment.]
Cooper’s notebook and book "Wilful Blindness" Credit: Shelby Lisk, special to ProPublica
Your book really lays out your focus on organized crime and the casinos. And that underworld then takes you into the question of political influence and how aggressive the People’s Republic of China has been in political influence operations in Canada, with organized crime as a weapon in that. Why do you think that the PRC has been able to do that?
Australia has been … pretty much a perfect analogue of the PRC methods of infiltration and corruption. Australia and Canada [are] very similar societies. Australia and Canada were in the same dire straits in 2015 when, as we know, [Chinese President] Xi Jinping elevated his United Front [the Communist Party’s overseas influence arm] interference networks. But the response since 2015 has been very different. Australia rightly responded with foreign interference laws around 2017, 2018. And we’ve seen some very, very powerful people now implicated in investigations.
In contrast, in Canada, nothing has been done for the similar threat. We have a bipartisan Parliament group of senior officials with access to intelligence reports, sensitive reports, they make recommendations to government. For several years now, they’ve been asking the Liberal government to follow Australia’s example. And there has really been no change.
And what justification do opponents of something as basic as a foreign agent registration act give for opposing it?
I can't find a good justification. Unfortunately, I think we can look at news circumstances such as when Canadian parliamentarians were debating whether to declare China’s actions in Xinxiang a genocide in 2021. Some Canadian senators … went on the record saying that these kinds of discussions would fan anti-Asian racism.
I probed very deeply [former Canadian legislator] Kenny Chiu’s case. The evidence at the time came from what he told me himself, what I had heard about Canadian intelligence’s deep concerns with what happened to Kenny Chiu and others in the 2021 federal election. And also open source reports at the time that said that clearly Mandarin-language media, which is influenced by the Chinese Communist Party and WeChat networks, attacked Kenny first and foremost ahead of the 2021 election, smearing him as an anti-Asian racist. Again, this is a Hong Kong-born Canadian. They call him a racist because he suggested a foreign influence registry. He did not even name China in the bill. He lost his seat.
So that’s what I call a two-pronged attack on Canadian democracy. Beijing is seeking, I have reported, based on Canadian intelligence, to in corrupt ways fund and advance its interests in candidates. And it is seeking to attack Canadian members of Parliament that it would see as threats to Chinese Communist Party objectives.
The response to your latest reports about a Chinese political influence campaign in Canadian politics seems to be unprecedented.
We can see there’s a very robust debate now about what is lacking in Canada’s foreign interference laws. How deep could this corruption go? How aggressive are China’s actions? Could they turn elections in their favor? These questions are now being debated almost every day in Canada’s Parliament. And I can say we’ve never seen that level of attention before.
And in your case, personally, there must be some sense of vindication.
Now I have access to the intelligence that can’t be refuted that exactly what I was reporting was happening. And not only do I believe, I’ve been told my reporting has been [the] subject of counternarratives from Chinese espionage and intelligence networks who are very uncomfortable and angry about my reporting. So I don’t know that vindication is the word more than I just, I deeply believe, and I’m told by a lot of people, that really this could be precedent-setting historic work for helping us support Canada's democracy.
People in Canadian police and intelligence, and in other countries, those communities are starting to share information because they see that I’ve got it right, because they see that it’s making a difference in areas where it needs to make a difference.
And even more importantly, my sourcing comes from the communities that are most directly impacted by these networks: Chinese-Canadian, Hong Kong-Canadian, Taiwanese, Uighur communities. And certainly not to suggest that they’re victims without agency. They have great agency, they are some of the best sources to police and intelligence themselves.
And I would add that people inside United Front criminal networks are some of my best sources. And how could that be? Well, China rules by fear, and also inducements and greed. And there are people that could fall out of favor, and people that have consciences, and yet maybe we could say they’re trapped within those networks, that are very eager to share information. They don’t want to see criminal thugs holding a lot of power in the broad community or just in the Asian community in Canada.
ProPublica · by Sebastian Rotella
17. Bradley Fighting Vehicle Platoon Leader: Ukraine Can't Use Them Immediately to Fight Russia
I disagree with the author for two reasons. First and foremost are the Ukrainian soldiers themselves who have proven very adept at integrating new equipment into the military while they are fighting (like building an aircraft while in flight).
Second, I was a company executive officer in 1983-1984 in Germany in the 3d Infantry Division when we traded in our M113s for Bradleys. I went through NET (New Equipment Training) (though as a Company XO I retained my M113 and did not get a Bradley, but I did go through all the training). We had a week of training jammed into about 6 weeks. Our training is naturally long, slow, and detailed (and designed by contractors from the company, FMC). The Ukrainians can rapidly learn the three weapons systems and how to drive and maneuver the vehicle. Yes the maintenance (and in particular the electronic systems are hard to maintain) is a challenge but again the Ukrainians are a quick study.
I think we will see two outcomes; 1) the Ukraninians will rapidly and successfully integrate the Bradleys, and 2) they will probably develop innovative TTPs that we could learn from.
Bradley Fighting Vehicle Platoon Leader: Ukraine Can't Use Them Immediately to Fight Russia
19fortyfive.com · by Jeff Jager · January 13, 2023
The U.S. military has very limited experience in and a very mixed record with providing the Bradley Fighting Vehicle to foreign partners.
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The U.S. is sending 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine, about a battalion’s worth. As others have documented, the Bradley is a premier combat vehicle. It is “a combat-proven platform that provides outstanding survivability, mobility, and lethality” I can attest to the Bradley’s combat effectiveness, having served as a Bradley platoon leader, company executive officer, and mechanized infantry battalion assistant operations officer in Task Force 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry—one of the most decorated U.S. Army units—forward deployed to Germany, with operational service in Kosovo and combat service in Iraq, including in the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004.
The Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) provides a nearly-unparalleled platform on which to base mobile-protected firepower and/or protected mobility capability.
It is a complex but awesome combat vehicle.
Bradley Fighting Vehicle: Limited International Distribution
Only three countries possess BFVs: the U.S., Kuwait, and Lebanon, with Croatia set to receive 62 BFVs from 2023 to 2026. Kuwait has had BFVs since at least 1996. Croatia has yet to receive BFVs, making Lebanon’s program the most recent and most relevant for understanding the challenges inherent in developing a BFV-based capability.
Unfortunately, Lebanon’s Bradley program suggests the U.S. may struggle to provide combat-capable BFVs to Ukraine, and that Ukraine will almost certainly struggle, initially and over the long term, to train Bradley crews, units, and logistics personnel, maintain BFVs, and sustain a functional BFV operational readiness rate. As with Kuwaiti and Croatian programs, the Lebanese case also suggests that considerable time will pass before Ukraine receives its first shipment of BFVs, and, depending on specifics, an even longer timeline likely exists for Ukraine’s first deployment of Bradleys in combat.
Lebanon Behind the Wheel
The origin of Lebanon’s Bradley program traces back to August 2014, when ISIS and the Al Nusra Front seized territory around the town of Arsal. The battle that followed—the Battle of Arsal—highlighted the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) lack of adequate protected mobility and mobile protected firepower capabilities; 19 LAF soldiers were killed-in-action, with nearly a hundred more wounded in action and dozens more assumed captured. After Arsal, the U.S., using Department of Defense counter-terrorism funding, decided unilaterally (as is the policy for such DoD funding) to provide a mobile-protected firepower capability to Lebanon, eventually selecting the BFV as the platform.
Lebanon’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle program has developed very slowly. Eight years have passed since the program’s inception in late 2014; five years have passed since Lebanon received its first BFVs in 2017. The U.S. and the LAF continue to struggle to bring Lebanon’s BFVs to full mission-capable status, despite the incredible efforts of the LAF and the security cooperation professionals at the U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC) in Lebanon, as well as the rest of the immense U.S. security cooperation enterprise.
I served at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon from 2017 to 2019, first as the foreign military sales officer and then as the ODC Chief, managing the U.S. side of the LAF BFV program. I witnessed first-hand the immense challenge of developing a BFV-based capability with a foreign partner.
In Operation and Running
The main challenge is that the Bradley Fighting Vehicle is an extraordinarily high-tech and complex system of systems that require a substantial level of technical and tactical expertise at the user-level, and an extremely high level of technical expertise at higher echelons to maintain and logistically support.
The U.S. Army has a large number of specialized Bradley courses to train those assigned to units with BFVs, including the Bradley Leader Course and the Bradley Master Gunner Course, and an entire military occupational specialty (MOS) (91M) devoted to BFV maintenance. Additionally, BFV-equipped U.S. Army units rely on the greatest military in the world for provision of all things required to make and keep a BFV-equipped unit mission capable.
Even with the U.S. Army’s incredible logistics and support capability, it takes a dedicated months-long training period to prepare a BFV-equipped unit for combat. Furthermore, the U.S. just barely managed to maintain a BFV operational readiness rate above 90 percent in the 1990s, a rate that plummeted during operations in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. If the U.S. Army cannot maintain an adequate operational readiness rate for BFVs deployed in combat, despite the enormous logistics capabilities of the U.S. military, one cannot realistically expect a foreign partner lacking said capabilities to do so, or to quickly integrate and deploy BFVs once received.
Lebanon’s Bradley program provides an almost inexhaustible list of considerations for what is needed to develop a foreign BFV-based capability. Even assuming that the U.S. delivered brand new, fully mission-capable BFVs to a foreign partner – which definitely was not the case for Lebanon, nor for Croatia nor Kuwait, and seems unlikely for Ukraine – such a program necessarily expands beyond just the provision of BFVs. DoD calls this the full-spectrum approach, in which the U.S. aims to provide “everything an ally or partner may need to successfully perform.” As mentioned, for BFVs, this includes trained Bradley leaders, master gunners, and mechanics, and considerable collective training, as well as ranges and facilities for said training (reports suggest BFV training may occur in Germany).
It also requires technical assistance field teams to support the BFVs; field service representatives to provide higher-level support; large quantities of ammunition for training and operations; testing and calibration equipment for the many technologically-advanced BFV systems, including importantly the TOW missile launcher (which cannot be safely operated without such equipment); conduct of fire trainers; high volumes of spare parts; and communications equipment, to name but a few. Many of these things require separate contracts with multiple different contractors, compounding the program management challenge.
One key factor that will likely determine the success of Ukraine’s BFV program is the actual BFVs the U.S. provides. Multiple options exist: the U.S. could source BFVs directly from Active or Reserve U.S. Army units or from pre-positioned stocks in Europe or elsewhere; order new BFVs from BAE Systems; or divert BFVs bound for Croatia among other options (neither DoD nor EUCOM responded to my information requests for this article).
The U.S. sourced BFVs for Lebanon, and apparently plans to source BFVs for Croatia, from boneyards of aged, older model, BFVs. While Croatia plans to refurbish BFVs itself, the U.S. provided “refurbished” BFVs to Lebanon. Refurbishment takes time, depending on individual vehicle conditions and on the contract standard for refurbishment. The newer the BFV model and the better condition an individual vehicle is in, the faster one can expect refurbishment (if necessary) and subsequent delivery.
Another key factor involves the security cooperation and program management teams on the U.S. government side, including the very talented team at the U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation in Ukraine, U.S. Army Europe-Africa, U.S. European Command (EUCOM), the Joint Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, U.S. Army Security Assistance Command, U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, and many others.
Do any of these entities have Bradley experts dedicated to providing Ukraine BFVs? While one would expect an affirmative response, Bradley experts on the initial U.S. team working on the Lebanon BFV program were non-existent, resulting in many unforced errors and challenges.
Bradley Fighting Vehicle: Can Ukraine Make it Work?
However, Ukraine has already demonstrated an incredible capability to receive, integrate, and deploy various complex weapons systems and vehicles from a range of partners, suggesting that Ukraine may be able to get Bradleys into the fight quickly once the U.S. begins delivery, and perhaps even maintain and sustain them in the mid- to long-term, if the U.S. provides an adequate, full-spectrum package that addresses the above challenges.
Furthermore, there is one key difference between the Ukraine Bradley Fighting Vehicle program and the Lebanon BFV program: EUCOM is executing Ukraine’s program, while U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is executing Lebanon’s. Via EUCOM, the U.S. has since World War II been wildly more successful in building partner capacity in Europe than it has in the Middle East, via CENTCOM. EUCOM’s culture of strategic excellence in security cooperation far exceeds CENTCOM’s more tactical focus, and CENTCOM’s substantial struggles to develop partner capabilities are legion and high-profile (e.g., Iraq and Afghanistan). The combination of a EUCOM-led program and Ukraine’s capabilities may well overcome the sorts of challenges evidenced in Lebanon’s BFV program.
In any case, the timeline for Ukraine deploying BFVs in combat is likely to be lengthy. Even if the U.S. provided the full package of BFVs announced on January 6 to Ukraine that same day (which it did not), and even if these BFVs were the newest, best BFVs in the U.S. Army arsenal (seemingly unlikely), it would take many long months for Ukraine to reach a fully mission capable status, given the training and integration required. With the potential that Ukraine’s BFV program will mimic the BFV programs of Lebanon and Croatia and require refurbishment of boneyard BFVs, an even longer timeline seems likely; it may be a year or longer until Ukraine is using BFVs to defeat Russian forces.
About the Author: Jeff Jager, a retired U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer (FAO), served multiple FAO tours on the USEUCOM-USCENTCOM seam, including as an attaché in Cyprus, a U.S Army Training and Doctrine Command Liaison Officer Turkey, and a Foreign Military Sales Officer and ODC Chief in Lebanon. He also served as a military advisor at the Department of State. He holds a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy; an A.A. in Turkish from the Defense Language Institute; and three M.A.s (Turkish Army War College, security studies; Georgetown University, German and European studies; Webster University, international relations). He is currently a Ph.D. student in Salve Regina University’s international relations program. He can be contacted via LinkedIn.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) of the linked websites, or the information, products, or services contained therein. The DoD does not exercise editorial, security, or other control over the information you may find at these locations. Review of this material by DOPSR does not imply Department of Defense endorsement of factual accuracy or opinion.
19fortyfive.com · by Jeff Jager · January 13, 2023
18. Could Beijing Risk a Diversionary War Against Taiwan?
Excerpts:
In sum, Xi’s personal strength may give him a key advantage against his foes among fellow elites, but, in matters of war, it is an illusion. Xi and his successors may lament their country’s faltering situation, but the state’s weakness will constrain how they respond to a crisis. Although some experts draw comparisons from the current situation with China and Taiwan to the Central and Axis Powers in World Wars I and II as reasons to support the “diversionary war” idea, they are inappropriate given the difference in state capacity. The major combatants in World Wars I and II were nation-states in their prime. China today is a weakened state. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may provide an alternative example of an aggressive declining state, but although shocking, Russia had telegraphed its intentions years in advance through repeated attacks against its relatively small, vulnerable neighbors. In China’s case, Taiwan poses a far more formidable target due largely to its security ties with the U.S. The risks, and demands of the state for war preparation, are accordingly far greater for China than was ever the case for Russia.
Paradoxically, China may have more in common with other late industrial states that are exhibiting disturbing signs of state weakness, including slowing growth, entrenched inequality, simmering public discontent, and governance shortfalls. The U.S., Europe, Japan, and others have shown a general aversion to waging large-scale war in favor of small-scale contingencies that avoid mobilization and that demand little of the public. Like the PLA, these militaries are staffed by professional volunteers and contractors, and the appeal of automated warfare has grown for them as well. China’s politics may be despotic, but that does not negate shared structural weaknesses of the state that may drive it in similar directions. Declining state legitimacy and capacity provide strong incentives for China to favor lower risk options for military action against Taiwan in a crisis. If U.S.-China relations turned bitterly antagonistic, Beijing might consider options to keep Washington at bay in a Taiwan crisis, such as cyber and information operations to foment domestic turmoil. But how a weakened Beijing might escalate conflict in such a situation without destabilizing itself is far from clear. More research is urgently needed to better understand how weakening state capacity might affect considerations of the use of force among rival powers.
Could Beijing Risk a Diversionary War Against Taiwan?
By Timothy R. Heath Friday, January 13, 2023, 8:16 AM
lawfareblog.com · January 13, 2023
China’s deteriorating strategic situation and President Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power appears to raise the possibility that a desperate leadership might risk aggression against Taiwan. But Xi’s ascent to supreme power masks a far more significant development—the weakening of the Chinese state. Beijing’s military options against Taiwan are constrained by the consequences of declining state capacity and legitimacy. Incapable of reversing the situation, Beijing will face growing incentives to favor more limited courses of action when contemplating military options against Taiwan. More research is urgently needed to better understand how weakening state capacity might affect considerations of the use of force among rival great powers.
Once vaunted as the next superpower, China has stumbled in recent years. Coronavirus-related restrictions may have eased after weeks of protests, but now the country appears to be dealing with a major outbreak of the virus. Beijing’s struggles to contain the virus merely exacerbate a worsening economic situation. Per-capita income growth has slowed to a crawl, and there are few good prospects for reviving the country’s flagging growth. The property market, which drives about one-third of China’s economic activity, remains deeply troubled. Unemployment for the country’s youth has hovered around 20 percent through most of 2022. Owing to unresolved structural factors and looming demographic challenges, China’s economy is, accordingly, expected to slow dramatically in coming years, averaging perhaps 2 to 3 percent annually through mid-century.
The compounding troubles coincide with a dramatic consolidation of power by Xi Jinping. At the 20th Party Congress, Xi secured a third term as supreme leader. He has suppressed rivals and elevated repression of dissent to the highest level since Tiananmen Square. Observers have noted the many ways in which Xi has imitated Mao Zedong’s personalized style of rule. Xi himself has encouraged the comparison with pilgrimages to revolutionary historic sites and incessant propaganda that borders on a cult of personality not unlike Mao. Some experts have claimed that Xi has gained more power than Mao ever had, noting in particular the absence of rivals or organized opposition among elites. Xi also presides over a rapidly modernized military that surpasses—by orders of magnitude—Mao’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in lethality and sophistication. By any measure, the PLA is second only to the U.S. military. China also possesses a large state-controlled defense industry. Some experts have claimed that Xi’s unchallenged political power and control of such a large economy and modern military make him “the most powerful man in the world.”
The combination of a weakening strategic situation and an increasingly despotic regime has left Xi with few constraints on his power. Many observers fear that a Beijing despondent over the country’s deteriorating situation could risk military adventurism as a diversion. Analysts warn that the situation could motivate China to risk aggressive behavior against Taiwan, disputed islands in the first island chain, and in foreign policy more generally. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine provides a vivid contemporary example of such a danger, but experts also cite precedents from World War I and II. Hal Brands has warned that China might consider war once it senses that a “geopolitical window of opportunity” may be closing. Moreover, China’s own history provides a precedent in which an internally troubled China carried out a major war along its periphery. In the early 1950s, an impoverished China still grappling with internal unrest leftover from the Chinese Civil War nonetheless undertook a major military intervention in Korea. Supreme leader Mao Zedong ordered columns of “volunteer” troops to fight American forces to a stalemate, at the cost of over a million Chinese casualties.
The argument that an increasingly powerful Xi might hope to stave off a bleak future with military aggression appears compelling. A major flaw in that argument, however, is that it confuses Xi’s political strength with the Chinese state’s strength. Paradoxically, Xi’s ascent to supreme power has coincided with a tremendous weakening of the Chinese state. It is the state’s weakness, not Xi’s personal strength, that will most profoundly determine whether and how China can fight against Taiwan and the United States.
The strength of the state matters in particular for China because of the types of conflicts most commonly envisioned for war involving Taiwan. The U.S. Department of Defense has outlined several possible options, including a joint blockade, a seizure of an offshore island like Kinmen, and a large-scale invasion of the island. Since the U.S. could intervene in any China-Taiwan fight, Beijing would need to prepare for war with the U.S. for any of the options. Combat between U.S. and Chinese forces near the island could involve large numbers of troops, ships, aircraft, and other capabilities—and could result in a massive conflict that proves enormously destructive, as many war games have suggested.
The scale and scope of a potential war near Taiwan carries important implications for China’s politics. Any state can initiate hostilities, but large-scale wars, such as the ones described, require strong states. A strong state is one that is regarded by its people as legitimate, that has a well-developed and relatively efficient government bureaucracy, a prosperous economy, responsive politics, and adequate infrastructure. Strong states have the capacity and resources to wage large-scale war due to their ability to efficiently mobilize available labor, political support, and resources. The U.S., Japan, and the principal European combatants in World War I and II all had strong states. They were able to raise powerful armies, mobilize their entire societies, fight large-scale conventional battles, and sustain a war footing for years.
Such large-scale conventional war is beyond the capacity of weak or weakened states. Weak states are those characterized by high levels of social disorder, unresponsive politics, weak economies, high levels of corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and an inconsistent rule of law. Such states tend to have a low level of legitimacy in the eyes of their people. Accordingly, there is likely to be a high potential for internal political opposition or resistance to state demands. Militaries in such countries tend to feature high levels of corruption, low morale, intercommunal tension, and inconsistent performance on the battlefield. When they fight, weak states often favor mercenaries as both more cost effective and reliable than national militaries. A weakened state with a modern military might be capable of pulling off small-scale attacks against clearly inferior adversaries, as Iraq prevailed against Kuwait and as Russia did in Georgia, Syria, and Chechnya. But they lack the administrative and organizational capacity to sustain large-scale conventional combat against more capable adversaries. Russia’s troubles in sustaining its war effort in Ukraine, for example, owe in part to many weaknesses in state legitimacy and administrative capacity. In weak states located in Africa, operations tend to be smaller scale and consist of irregular operations, often against domestic insurgents. Unmanned systems offer another appealing alternative for weak states that lack resources and access to reliable and effective militaries.
Given this information, is Xi a strong or weak ruler? Paradoxically, he is both stronger and weaker than his predecessors. Within the highest echelons of China’s central government, Xi appears to be more powerful than Mao. Xi’s relentless accrual of central power has been accompanied by a surprising lack of opposition among elites. Having consolidated control over the party, government, and military, he appears unchallenged and, at least in regards to his anti-corruption campaign, he appears popular with the public. No rival has dared to defy him. By contrast, Mao routinely contended with powerful rivals who openly opposed him, such as Liu Shaoqi. As a result, the central leadership experienced frequent power struggles and political violence. By the measure of control over the state, Xi surpasses all of his predecessors, including Mao.
The state over which Xi presides, however, is far weaker than the state that Mao controlled. In the 1950s and 1960s, the newly founded People’s Republic of China enjoyed an extremely high level of legitimacy and exercised totalitarian control. The strong links with the populace owed in part to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) role in evicting foreign powers, abolishing an obsolete and decrepit imperial system, winning a civil war, and ushering China into the modern age. Extensive party penetration of Chinese society and the popularity of Mao’s messianic ideology permitted the supreme leader to routinely mobilize the populace to carry out astounding acts of national sacrifice. For example, Mao oversaw the collectivization of the economy, the mass mobilization of the populace for political campaigns, and the conscription of vast numbers of troops to fight against the Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party) and in the Korean War. The poorly equipped soldiers died in droves bravely charging at the enemy in “human wave” tactics. The ruling party also exercised near total control over the lives of individuals. Party cadres determined where people worked, what benefits they received, and even whom they married.
China’s state control has decayed considerably from the Mao era. The CCP’s own catastrophic policies, such as Mao’s Great Leap Forward which resulted in the deaths of perhaps 30 million people, are in no small part responsible for the state’s faltering links to the populace. Similarly, the Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao in the late 1960s brought enormous chaos and violence, resulting in the deaths of millions more. These disastrous mistakes discredited the party’s ideology and cost it considerable public support, a point acknowledged by the Chinese government. Deng Xiaoping’s liberalizing reforms in the late 1970s restored some luster to CCP rule when rapid economic growth lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Expanding economic opportunities and rising living standards earned supreme leader Deng Xiaoping broad popular support. China experienced a few major protests, most notably that of the Tiananmen Square massacre, but decades of rapid growth otherwise coincided with remarkable political stability in the 1980s and 1990s.
However, the state’s legitimacy has deteriorated considerably since the early 2000s, when opportunities began to stall and the external costs of rapid growth grew intolerable. Although China became the world’s second largest economy in 2010, wealth and income became sharply imbalanced. When Xi took power, the Gini coefficient reached 0.44, exceeding the threshold identified by the United Nations as destabilizing. China has the most billionaires on the planet, but it also has about 600 million people whose monthly income is less than $154. Two-thirds of the country’s population remains impoverished, with few job prospects beyond informal work as trash pickers or street hawkers. Moreover, income for many people has stalled. China’s per-capita income ranked 77th in 2021. Meanwhile, official malfeasance and corruption surged, toxic industries polluted the country’s air, soil, and water, and social welfare benefits for citizens remain meager. China’s coronavirus crisis owes, in part, to an inadequate medical infrastructure that proved ill prepared for infectious disease and the care of a growing elderly population.
Accordingly, discontent and disillusionment have soared. In 2005, the last year the government provided data, there were approximately 87,000 protests. By some estimates, the number had grown to about 180,000 protests a year by the mid-2010s, and there is little evidence of abatement. Since 2011, China’s internal security budget has exceeded that of the military, despite hefty annual increases in defense spending. Many young Chinese, facing diminishing prospects for upward mobility and immensely stressful lives, have adopted an attitude of despair and resignation. In recent years, the culture of “lying flat” has gained currency among young people frustrated by unemployment, soaring housing prices, grueling work hours, and low wages. Chinese citizens report an acute sense of anxiety as they struggle to secure a dwindling slice of a shrinking pie. Popular identification with the party has declined, a point acknowledged by dismayed party academics. China’s state is too strong to be labeled a “weak” or “fragile” state, but the country nonetheless has many features in common with weak states. At the very least, it can be considered a weakened state. Political scientists have measured the weakness with various indicators. The Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index, for example, lists China as 98 out of 178 countries (the U.S. is listed as 46).
Further, China does not have a clear path to building a strong state. With Maoist ideology discredited and the economy incapable of sustaining the soaring growth rates of the Deng years, the CCP’s legitimacy increasingly rests on its ability to satisfy an increasingly diverse set of demands by the people. Yet by the party’s own admission, it cannot meet these needs. In 2021, Xi noted that the “people’s aspirations for a better life have generally shifted from ‘Is there enough?’ to ‘Is it good enough?’” But Xi’s remarks provide little hope for optimism. In a speech published in January 2022, Xi Jinping stated grimly that Chinese officials must not “get people’s hopes up by making promises that we are not able to keep.” Nor does Beijing have the luxury of hiding its state weakness by distributing rent from a single source of revenue to buy elite and popular support, as Russia has done with its mineral revenues.
The reality of a weakened Chinese state carries three important implications for Beijing’s potential use of force against Taiwan. First, the country’s tolerance for casualties will likely decline. Second, Beijing’s tolerance for high costs of war will decline. Third, Beijing’s tolerance for risk will likely decline.
As for the first point—the public’s increasing sensitivity to casualties—calls for patriotic self-sacrifice will ring increasingly hollow to a populace that receives little benefit from the government. Efforts to whip up public enthusiasm for a war that requires immense sacrifices are unlikely to work. After all, the CCP has invested enormous resources to bolster popular support for Xi and the government, with disappointing results. Officials concede that the propaganda is unlikely to succeed on its own and that material incentives are required to extract at least the appearance of public support.
China is already wary of reporting casualties. In its operations abroad, Chinese military forces have acted with considerable caution, refraining from risky operations and downplaying casualties from the violent brawl that occurred with India. Authorities have also obscured data on the number of casualties from the coronavirus due in part to fears over the impact that such disclosures could have on the government’s legitimacy.
Accordingly, military options for Taiwan will have to be scaled to what the public is willing to endure. The Chinese people may take pride in key national accomplishments, such as hosting the Olympics, lunar expeditions, and technological achievements, but are not likely to eagerly back imperial adventures that might cost them dearly. Studies show that Chinese people overwhelmingly oppose war. Whether nationalism is truly on the rise remains unclear. Sentiments among Chinese youth appear to include a complex set of views with only a minority hawkishly supporting a more militant nationalism. But studies show that the situation is even more complex than that, with much sentiment resting in between support and opposition to the regime. China could, perhaps, overcome this limitation by depending more on volunteers and contractors who fight for pay as much as they do for the country. In fact, China already relies primarily on volunteers for its military and security contractors to protect its overseas interests. China has already invested enormously in unmanned aircraft and automated systems, the appeal of which could grow, since the loss of robots will be less politically sensitive than uniformed casualties.
A weakened state also raises the salience of resource constraints. A ruinous war leaving the PLA in tatters would destroy a key pillar of Beijing’s prestige—the creation of a strong military. More importantly, China also faces enormous challenges in accessing the nation’s resources to fund and sustain a large-scale war. Unlike Russia, which can simply extract resources from mineral production, China’s diverse economy relies on taxes from corporations, citizens, and commerce. Accordingly, strategies of total mobilization have become more difficult for China as they are for all other late industrial societies. Military service is unpopular among urban educated youths, despite a dearth of jobs. Resistance to conscription has grown to such an extent that the State Council issued regulations in 2016 outlining penalties for refusal to serve. Further, tax efficiency is notoriously low, owing in part to extensive corruption. The country’s high levels of inequality make it necessary to levy taxes most heavily on powerful, well-resourced elites who may resist such measures. Not surprisingly, Chinese laws and writings on “defense mobilization” use the term to describe a more limited effort than the classic mobilizations of “total wars,” such as those of World War II.
These limitations will constrain China’s military options against Taiwan. With mobilization for total war looking less unlikely at this point, Beijing might find more appealing coercive options that rely heavily on nonmilitary and nonkinetic methods, such as economic coercion, diplomatic pressure, and propaganda. Military operations could augment such efforts in the cyber, information, and psychological warfare domains. Military exercises, drills, and other forms of intimidation and coercion could be useful as well, especially for a weakened regime. In fact, China is already carrying out many of these activities. If Beijing eventually decides that a military intervention is necessary, any large-scale attack could exceed the state’s strength. Further, a large-scale invasion is especially perilous due to the risk of attrition and consequent need to mobilize additional labor and resources. A blockade or smaller scale operations, such as an offshore island seizure, however, could be more attractive. Yet smaller scale options, like an island seizure, offer less hope of compelling Taiwan’s submission. The PLA’s exercise of a joint blockade during former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit could well be an indication of China’s preferred contingency plans. But even in the case of an island seizure or blockade, Beijing would need to face the unappetizing prospect of an uncontrolled escalation should U.S. forces intervene in a significant way.
Being a weakened state will likely encourage Beijing to be more risk averse. Already, top leaders routinely emphasize the importance of reducing risks. In one speech, Xi stated that the CCP should “take the prevention and resolution of major risks” as an “extremely important task.” Beyond speeches, Xi has exercised caution in his own behavior. Compared to his predecessor, Hu Jintao, Xi may have staked a bolder defense of the nation’s interests. But his willingness to take risks is often overstated. It is true that Xi has overseen the expansion of “gray zone” operations against rival claimants in the first island chain. But these confrontations have remained nonlethal to date. China and India also clashed in a fatal brawl under Xi’s watch, but Beijing subsequently sought to deescalate tensions. In short, China under Xi has been repressive and brutal in many ways, but it has not engaged in any of the risky combat operations that Russia practiced for years against Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine in the lead-up to the Ukraine invasion in 2022.
Beijing’s risk aversion may partly reflect Xi’s personal preference, but it more likely owes to the state’s declining capacity and legitimacy. The margin of error is simply thinner today than in the past. China faces a perpetually high level of unrest, underscored by the country’s extensive reliance on repression. Any shock to the political economy could generate upheaval. The spread of the coronavirus pandemic provides a vivid example. Protesters denounced Xi and the CCP last year when lockdowns hurt the economy and people felt that their personal freedom was excessively constrained, even though the government’s policies sought to minimize deaths from the virus. Given the state’s already-fragile legitimacy, the shock of war could be regime ending. After all, it is difficult to envision a riskier act than starting a war that could involve the U.S. An untested military that attempts an opposed amphibious landing would carry a high risk of battlefield failure, the political consequences of which could be devastating. The possibility that a war with the U.S. could result in mass death, economic collapse, and escalation to nuclear war cannot be ruled out either. The risks would be compounded if China attempted to launch an unprovoked “surprise” attack that refrained from psychologically and politically preparing the populace for the hardships of war. Given the enormous risks, an attack launched by a stressed Beijing would likely accelerate its collapse rather than ease any pressure. More plausibly, Beijing will probably continue to favor nonmilitary and nonkinetic military methods of pressuring Taiwan if possible. China can also be expected to maximize efforts to weaken and cut off U.S. support to Taiwan. If a pressured Beijing someday feels compelled to take military action against the island, it might favor blockades or punitive strikes as a last resort after efforts to cajole the U.S. into co-managing the situation had failed, although even this seems doubtful given Beijing’s disinterest in war with Washington.
In sum, Xi’s personal strength may give him a key advantage against his foes among fellow elites, but, in matters of war, it is an illusion. Xi and his successors may lament their country’s faltering situation, but the state’s weakness will constrain how they respond to a crisis. Although some experts draw comparisons from the current situation with China and Taiwan to the Central and Axis Powers in World Wars I and II as reasons to support the “diversionary war” idea, they are inappropriate given the difference in state capacity. The major combatants in World Wars I and II were nation-states in their prime. China today is a weakened state. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may provide an alternative example of an aggressive declining state, but although shocking, Russia had telegraphed its intentions years in advance through repeated attacks against its relatively small, vulnerable neighbors. In China’s case, Taiwan poses a far more formidable target due largely to its security ties with the U.S. The risks, and demands of the state for war preparation, are accordingly far greater for China than was ever the case for Russia.
Paradoxically, China may have more in common with other late industrial states that are exhibiting disturbing signs of state weakness, including slowing growth, entrenched inequality, simmering public discontent, and governance shortfalls. The U.S., Europe, Japan, and others have shown a general aversion to waging large-scale war in favor of small-scale contingencies that avoid mobilization and that demand little of the public. Like the PLA, these militaries are staffed by professional volunteers and contractors, and the appeal of automated warfare has grown for them as well. China’s politics may be despotic, but that does not negate shared structural weaknesses of the state that may drive it in similar directions. Declining state legitimacy and capacity provide strong incentives for China to favor lower risk options for military action against Taiwan in a crisis. If U.S.-China relations turned bitterly antagonistic, Beijing might consider options to keep Washington at bay in a Taiwan crisis, such as cyber and information operations to foment domestic turmoil. But how a weakened Beijing might escalate conflict in such a situation without destabilizing itself is far from clear. More research is urgently needed to better understand how weakening state capacity might affect considerations of the use of force among rival powers.
Dr. Timothy R. Heath is a Senior International Defense Researcher with the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. He has over 15 years experience as a China specialist within the U.S. government and joined RAND in 2014. Heath has authored numerous studies, articles and one book, "China’s New Governing Party Paradigm: Political Renewal and the Pursuit of National Rejuvenation" (2014). He earned his PhD in Political Science from George Mason University.
lawfareblog.com · January 13, 2023
19. Hard-line House Republicans set up fight over military budget, Pentagon ‘wokeism’
No one wins culture wars.
Hard-line House Republicans set up fight over military budget, Pentagon ‘wokeism’
Stars and Stripes · by Svetlana Shkolnikova · January 12, 2023
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., holds a Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle during a congressional delegation visit to Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania in April 2022. The delegation traveled to Romania to engage with U.S. and NATO forces in order to gain a better understanding of strategic efforts in Europe. (Thurnapuf Valle/U.S. Army)
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California vowed the Republican-controlled chamber would not write a “blank check” for Ukraine.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, floated the idea of reducing the number of general officers and doing away with “woke” social policies in the military to cut down wasteful spending.
Talk of budget cuts has engulfed the House since McCarthy’s tumultuous path to the speakership last week came with an agreement to cap federal spending at fiscal 2022 amounts. The concession to the Republicans’ right wing instantly sparked fears of a $75 billion cut to the defense budget.
Some Republicans have tamped down concerns that any belt-tightening will affect the military and some experts say the chances of Congress passing a slimmed down national security budget are virtually nonexistent. But the priorities of ultra conservatives in the House are bound to take center stage as the faction asserts greater influence under the McCarthy speakership.
“Where I think we’re going to maybe see some of this battle play out, as we do every year, is in the National Defense Authorization Act process, where the House Armed Services Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee in Congress can limit and control the use of Department of Defense dollars,” said Jonathan Lord, a fellow at the think tank Center for a New American Security and former staff member on the House committee. “It’s there that you’ll find language — ‘No funds authorized to be appropriated to do x thing’ that we think is ‘woke,’ for example.”
A variety of social issues can fall under the “woke” umbrella, including diversity, equity and inclusion training, funding for women’s reproductive health and support for gender identity initiatives. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., Jordan and other Republicans have argued the military’s attention to “the left’s social agenda” has hurt readiness.
“If we’d focus on getting rid of all the ‘woke’ in our military, we’d have the money we need to make sure our troops get the pay raise they deserve, we’d have the weapons systems and training that needs to be done so that we’re ready to deal with our adversaries around the planet,” Jordan said Sunday on Fox News.
Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., insinuated last month that transgender service members were taking financial advantage of the Pentagon’s policy to provide hormone therapy, mental health care and surgeries for troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria. She said a cadet at Fort Sill, Okla., had told her that he enlisted in the military because he wanted the government to pay for gender reassignment surgery.
“It was shocking that he would actually verbalize that in front of all those officers and other cadets standing there,” Bice said in December during a House Armed Services committee hearing. “This is an issue, and I do think we should be looking at it.”
The cost of transgender care is minuscule when compared to the overall size of the defense budget. The Pentagon spent $15 million treating transgender troops from 2016 to 2021, including about $3 million for surgery, according to the Defense Health Agency. The parts of the spending plan dealing with personnel are so vast and expensive that carving out items targeting “woke” culture will have a negligible impact, said Michael Herson, president of the lobbying firm American Defense International and a former Defense Department official.
“The issue itself is significant to the [Republican] base but as far as dollars are concerned, it’s not significant,” he said.
Some Republican lawmakers might seek to chip away at operation and maintenance, the bulk of the Pentagon budget that funds fuel, supplies, equipment maintenance, training and other operating costs, Herson said. They might also call for reductions in research and development but procurement of weapons will likely get more funding amid the war in Ukraine and China’s rising military power, he said.
“They’re kind of in a box, they have to worry about the Pacific theater — that requires the ability to project power there,” Herson said. “And we’re reminded now that a land war in Europe is not completely out of the question so you also need to invest in artillery, armor and things to support ground forces on the move. It’s a question of: Are there other missions that they’re willing to sacrifice? I don’t see it right now.”
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, argued Wednesday that the military could absorb a smaller spending plan. He unsuccessfully fought in the summer alongside progressive Democrats to slash the defense budget top line by $37 billion.
The U.S. can lean on partners that are beginning to step up to counter the threats posed by China and Russia, Smith said. Getting rid of costly, aging weapon systems that the Pentagon wants to retire instead of fighting to keep them, as some lawmakers do, also can save significant money, he said.
“Do I believe that we can cut the Pentagon budget by 10%, and they would get better at what they do? Yeah actually I do,” Smith said Wednesday at a Brookings Institution panel discussion. “If we have to live with $800 billion, can we do it? Yes, we can.”
Efforts to inflict such a cut have repeatedly failed on the House and Senate floors in recent years, Lord said. That is not expected to change with a House run by a slim majority of Republicans, most of whom back a larger Pentagon budget.
“I think ultimately, looking at both caucuses, the votes are not there to support a straight across top-line cut,” Lord said.
Aid to Ukraine will become more challenging to pass, but the military portion of it will retain strong bipartisan support even among hard-line Republicans, Herson said. Many lawmakers have argued investing in Ukraine’s defense will help prevent further security crises in Europe and reduce Russia’s ability to menace America.
“A lot of these hard-core Republicans will ask for offsets and also increased accountability of where all that stuff is going so it just creates additional hurdles,” Herson said. “The will is still there to get it done, it’s just the how.”
Stars and Stripes · by Svetlana Shkolnikova · January 12, 2023
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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