Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” 
- President John F. Kennedy, 1961 address to the United Nations

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

“Heresy is another word for freedom of thought.” 
- Graham Greene (1904-1991), author


1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 8 (PUTIN'S WAR)
2. UKRAINE INVASION UPDATE 22
3. How the Ukraine War Will Likely End
4. Why China Chose Russia on the Russo-Ukrainian War
5. China is Russia’s most powerful weapon for information warfare
6. 'No one will ever listen to Russia:' Why Ukraine is winning the propaganda war
7. Possible Evidence of Russian Atrocities: German Intelligence Intercepts Radio Traffic Discussing the Murder of Civilians in Bucha
8. 60 elite Russian paratroopers refused to fight in the invasion of Ukraine, report says
9. Opinion: Why sanctions won't deter Putin
10. Three reasons why defense is beating offense in Ukraine - and why it matters for Taiwan
11. The Cold War Never Ended: Ukraine, the China Challenge, and the Revival of the West
12. Was Ukraine Wrong to Give Up Its Nukes?
13. Is China’s navy as dangerous as so many fear?
14. How Toxic Is Complexity? It Was A Sabotage Tactic In WWII
15. The Threat to the West Is Inside the House
16. Opinion: Virginia’s universities should not support China’s military
17. Japan, Philippines Agree to Boost Security Cooperation
18. Unraveling the tale of Hunter Biden and $3.5 million from Russia
19. Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells 60 Minutes what he saw in Bucha: "Death. Just death."
20. Understanding Vladimir Putin, the man who fooled the world



1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 8 (PUTIN'S WAR)

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 8 (PUTIN'S WAR)
Apr 8, 2022 - Press ISW
Mason Clark and Kateryna Stepanenko
April 8, 5:00pm ET
Ukrainian forces retain control of defensive positions in eastern and southwestern Mariupol, despite Russian claims to have captured most of the city. ISW was able to confirm the specific locations of ongoing Russian assaults on April 8 for the first time in several days. Russian forces continue to attempt to regroup and redeploy units withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine to support an offensive in eastern Ukraine, but these units are unlikely to enable a Russian breakthrough and face poor morale. Russian forces along the Izyum-Slovyansk axis did not make any territorial gains in the last 24 hours. Ukrainian counterattacks toward Kherson continue to threaten Russian positions around the city.
Key Takeaways
  • Ukrainian forces continued to hold out against Russian assaults in areas of southwestern and eastern Mariupol, notably in the port and the Azovstal Metallurgy plant, respectively.
  • Ukrainian forces continued to repel daily Russian assaults in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
  • A Russian Tochka-U missile struck a civilian evacuation point at the Kramatorsk rail station in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 50 and wounding around a hundred evacuees.
  • Russian forces continued attacks south of Izyum toward Slovyansk and Barvinkove but did not take any new territory.
  • Ukrainian counterattacks have likely taken further territory west of Kherson, threatening Russian control of the city.

Russian forces are increasingly refusing to reenter combat, and the Kremlin remains unlikely to quickly redeploy effective forces from northeastern Ukraine to operations in Donbas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that more than 80% of personnel in some unspecified Russian units previously involved in combat operations are refusing to return to the front.[1] Russian commanders are reportedly refusing to release soldiers whose service contracts have expired, forcing them to stay with their units. The Ukrainian GUR (Military Intelligence) claimed to have intercepted a letter from Russian Chief of Missile Troops and Artillery Mikhail Matveevsky to several Russian training centers calling for further censorship of troops undergoing training, and encouraged propaganda highlighting the monetary benefits of serving in the war.[2] Elements of Russia’s 6th Combined Arms Army (CAA), 20th CAA, 1st Guards Tank Army, and coastal troops of the Northern and Baltic Fleets continue efforts to regroup for likely redeployment to eastern Ukraine.[3] The General Staff additionally reported that Russian Western Military District Commander Colonel General Alexander Zhuravlev (the first explicit mention of Zhuravlev since the war began) is planning to remove Major General Ivan Belyavsky from the position of the head of the WMD personnel department due to low recruitment numbers.[4]
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.
ISW has updated its assessment of the four primary efforts Russian forces are engaged in at this time:
  • Main effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate supporting efforts);
  • Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv and Izyum;
  • Supporting effort 2—Southern axis;
  • Supporting effort 3—Sumy and northeastern Ukraine.
Main effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate main effort—Mariupol (Russian objective: Capture Mariupol and reduce the Ukrainian defenders)
Ukrainian forces continued to hold out against Russian assaults in areas of southwestern and eastern Mariupol as of April 8. The Ukrainian Mayor of Mariupol, Petro Andryushenko, issued a statement on April 8 denying Russian claims that they captured central Mariupol on April 7.[5] Andryushenko said Russian forces control a quarter of the city, including the Drama Theater and SBU headquarters, but that this does not constitute the entire “city center.” Andryushenko highlighted that most videos of Russian forces have been geolocated to Mariupol’s outskirts and said Ukrainian forces control the Primorsky District (southwest Mariupol), part of the east bank of the Azovstal District (central Mariupol), the coastline southwest of the city down to Azovs’ke, and several factory areas.
Social media footage depicted Russian and proxy forces conducting assaults on the Azovstal Steel Plant from April 7-8 and pro-Russian sources claimed 3,000 Ukrainian forces remain in the facility, confirming that Ukrainian forces retain a foothold in eastern Mariupol, which Russian forces previously claimed to have captured.[6] Ukrainian forces additionally released footage geolocated to eastern Mariupol of combat with Russian forces on April 8.[7]

Subordinate main effort—Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Ukrainian forces continued to repel daily Russian assaults in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. The Ukrainian General Staff stated Ukrainian forces repelled seven Russian attacks in the past 24 hours and claimed to destroy four tanks, two artillery systems, and 11 vehicles.[8] Russian forces remain concentrated on taking Rubizhne and Popasna in Luhansk Oblast and concentrated on Marinka in Donetsk Oblast.[9] Ukrainian military and civilian officials continued to warn that Russian forces are massing troops for a major offensive in eastern Ukraine.[10]
A Russian Tochka-U missile struck a civilian evacuation point at the Kramatorsk rail station on April 8, killing at least 50 and wounding around a hundred evacuees.[11] Russian attempts to deny the strike are completely false. Pro-Russian Telegram channels and the Russian Ministry of Defense initially claimed Russian forces conducted precision strikes on railway stations in Donbas before deleting the claims once heavy civilian casualties emerged.[12] Russian and DNR sources claimed both that the strike did not occur and that Ukrainian forces launched the strike as a false flag, ludicrously claiming that Russian forces do not use the Tochka-U missile—despite the fact Russia designed the Tochka, has demonstrably used it in previous strikes, and confirmed reports that Russia’s 8th Combined Arms Army (operating in Donbas) is equipped with the missile.[13]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv and Izyum: (Russian objective: Advance southeast to support Russian operations in Luhansk Oblast, and fix Ukrainian forces around Kharkiv in place)
Russian forces continued to shell civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv and its outskirts on April 8.[14] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported that Russian forces are establishing minefields around Kharkiv in expectation of Ukrainian counterattacks.[15]
Russian forces continued attacks south of Izyum toward Slovyansk and Barvinkove on April 8 but did not take any new territory.[16] Local authorities continued to urge civilians to evacuate the area.[17]

Supporting Effort #2—Southern axis: (Objective: Defend Kherson against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Ukrainian counterattacks have likely taken further territory west of Kherson, threatening Russian control of the city. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched unsuccessful counterattacks against Ukrainian positions west of Kherson on April 8.[18] A Canadian volunteer fighting with Ukrainian forces claimed on April 8 that his unit is fighting in Belozerka, 15km west of Kherson, but ISW cannot independently confirm this claim.[19] Mykolayiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim said on April 8 that Russian forces only control Snihirvka (north of Kherson) in Mykolayiv Oblast, confirming previous reports that Ukrainian counterattacks have largely pushed Russian forces back into Kherson Oblast.[20] Kim stated that Russian forces continue to shell Mykolayiv and are attempting to spread fakes that they will attack Mykolaiv with thousands of tanks and 5,000 troops, which Russian forces do not possess in Kherson. Russian forces in the southern direction remain on the defense and continue to lose ground to effective Ukrainian counterattacks.
Supporting Effort #3—Sumy and Northeastern Ukraine: (Russian objective: Withdraw combat power in good order for redeployment to eastern Ukraine)
The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed on April 8 that Russian forces have completely withdrawn from Sumy Oblast, confirming reports from local civilian authorities on April 6.[21] Local authorities warned civilians to not return home and stay away from Russian equipment, much of which has been mined.[22] Ukrainian explosives disposal efforts will likely take weeks or months, with Ukrainian National Police Head Igor Klimenko stating on April 8 that Ukrainian forces have cleared more than 3,000 explosive devices from Irpin alone.[23] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that four Russian battalion tactical groups (BTGs) remain on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border to fix Ukrainian forces in place, though these forces remain highly unlikely to launch new offensive operations.[24]
Immediate items to watch
  • Russian forces will continue reinforcing the Izyum-Slovyansk axis and attempting to advance to and through Slovyansk to encircle Ukrainian forces.
  • Russia is likely cohering forces in Donbas to attempt a major offensive in the coming days or weeks.
  • The Battle of Mariupol continues, and it is unclear how much longer the Ukrainian defenders can hold out.
  • Russian forces have fully vacated the Sumy axis and are regrouping in Belgorod for likely deployment to the Izyum-Slovyansk axis.
  • Some Russian forces are likely to return to home stations in Russia while others will re-enter the fighting in the east.
[13] https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.rus/posts/3200588880183846https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.rus/posts/3200528216856579https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.rus/posts/3200588880183846https://t.me/nm_dnr/7479; https://altyn73 dot livejournal.com/1458271.html; https://hromadske doua/posts/rosiya-namagayetsya-pereklasti-svij-zlochin-u-kramatorsku-na-zsu-rozsliduvachi-vkazuyut-pro-inshe.
[20] https://gordonua dot com/ukr/news/war/na-mikolajivshchini-za-vinjatkom-kilkoh-sil-na-pivdni-orkiv-majzhe-ne-zalishilosja-kim-1603578.html.



2. UKRAINE INVASION UPDATE 22

UKRAINE INVASION UPDATE 22
Apr 8, 2022 - Press ISW
Institute for the Study of War, Russia Team
with the Critical Threats Project, AEI
April 8
The Ukraine Invasion Update is a weekly synthetic product covering key political and rhetorical events related to renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine. This update covers events from April 2-7. All of the ISW Russia’s team’s coverage of the war in Ukraine—including daily military assessments and maps, past Conflict Updates, and several supplemental assessments—are available on our Ukraine Crisis Coverage landing page.
Key Takeaways April 2-7
  • Russian atrocities in Ukraine, Kremlin efforts to falsely blame Ukraine for these atrocities, and continuing Ukrainian battlefield successes have reduced the willingness of the Ukrainian government and society to reach a peace agreement less than total Russian defeat.
  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky specified for the first time that Ukraine’s desired “security guarantees” in lieu of NATO membership are written commitments from several states to provide Ukraine with immediate military aid and enact sanctions on Russia in the event of further Russian aggression.
  • The Kremlin is blaming the United States for Russian atrocities against civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where Russian troops killed around 400 Ukrainian civilians. Western states imposed additional sanctions and expelled Russian diplomats in response to the Russian atrocities.
  • The Kremlin is setting conditions to blame Ukraine for Russian atrocities in occupied areas and may be intentionally doing so in areas where the Kremlin knows Russian forces have already killed civilians to disguise Russian culpability.
  • Russian forces are accelerating operations to install governance structures in occupied Ukraine and are detaining or killing Ukrainian mayors.
  • Kremlin media increasingly seeks to justify Russian atrocities and the intentional targeting of Ukrainian civilians to a Russian domestic audience.
  • The Kremlin is attempting to frame the global economic consequences of its invasion of Ukraine as a result of Western sanctions to call for their removal.
  • Newly announced weapons shipments from the United Kingdom and the United States will supplement Ukrainian supplies and expand Ukrainian capabilities to target Russian forces massed in southern Ukraine and in the Black Sea.
Key Events April 2-7
Negotiations:
Ukraine will not resume negotiations with Russia until Ukrainian and guarantor state negotiators finalize meaningful security guarantees for Ukraine. Russian atrocities in Ukraine and Kremlin efforts to falsely blame Ukraine for these atrocities have reduced the willingness of the Ukrainian government and society to reach a peace agreement less than total Russian defeat.
  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky specified for the first time on April 5 that Ukraine’s desired “security guarantees” in lieu of NATO membership are written commitments from several states to provide Ukraine with immediate military aid and enact sanctions on Russia in the event of further Russian aggression. Zelensky said Ukraine seeks guarantor states that will “provide any kind of weapons within 24 hours” and impose sanctions within 24-72 hours to “repulse and isolate” Russia in the case of further Russian aggression against Ukraine.[1] Zelensky stated on April 6 that the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, Poland, Germany, France, and Israel have expressed varying degrees of willingness to provide security guarantees to Ukraine.[2] Zelensky said that representatives of these states will meet “in the near future” and said that Ukraine will not resume negotiations with Russia until Ukraine and the guarantors reach an agreement.[3] German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed on April 6 that Germany and Ukraine are holding confidential bilateral discussions regarding security guarantees.[4] Zelensky likely seeks a comprehensive package of military aid to Ukraine and pre-planned sanctions on Russia as a deterrent to replace Kyiv’s desired NATO membership. Negotiations on these guarantees will likely take some time, and Ukraine is unlikely to substantially reengage with Russian negotiators in the coming weeks.
  • The Kremlin is increasingly falsely claiming that Western states are forcing Ukraine to continue the war, obfuscating continued Russian military setbacks. Several Kremlin officials falsely claimed that the West staged atrocities in Bucha to justify new sanctions and undermine negotiations.[5] Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova falsely claimed on April 7 that US and NATO state military aid to Ukraine is preventing a peaceful settlement or meaningful negotiations.[6] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov falsely claimed that western states forced Ukrainian negotiators to issue a new proposal on April 6, removing initial promises that security guarantees to Ukraine would not apply to Crimea and that Russia would have the ability to veto any international military exercises in Ukraine.[7]
  • Anger over Russian atrocities and continuing Ukrainian battlefield successes are strengthening the Ukrainian government’s willingness to reject Russian demands. Zelensky said on April 5 that it will be difficult to meet with Putin following the Bucha massacre and stated he will only meet Putin if Russia will “bear all the punishments” for genocide and confirm that Ukraine will not lose any territory.[8] Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov contrarily claimed on April 3 that Russia plans to continue negotiations with Ukraine, but that Putin will only meet with Zelensky after Russia and Ukraine reach a written agreement due to claimed “experience with Ukraine not fulfilling its obligations.”[9]
Russian Domestic Opposition and Censorship
N/A
Kremlin Narratives
The Kremlin continued to set conditions for a potential chemical or biochemical false-flag attack against Ukraine for which it would blame Ukrainian forces and the West. The Kremlin has emphasized this long-running narrative since December 2021.[10]
  • Russia hosted a United Nations Security Council meeting on April 6 to discuss its false allegations of US-funded bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine. The United States and United Kingdom boycotted the meeting, while France and Norway attended but accused Russia of spreading disinformation.[11] China and Brazil called for independent investigations into Russia’s claims. Chinese Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dai Bing said that China welcomes an international inquiry into US bio-military activities and called for greater transparency.[12] China has echoed the Kremlin’s bioweapons narrative since March 2022.
  • Chief of the Russian Military Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces Igor Kirillov claimed on April 6 that the Kremlin has discovered 30 US laboratories in 14 populated areas in Ukraine and linked the labs to the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency.[13] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called on the United States to provide more comprehensive information on alleged US biolabs in Ukraine on April 6.
  • Kremlin-affiliated media amplified “expert” testimony from Kremlin-affiliated academics on April 5 claiming the United States and NATO developed “combat pathogens” in a network of biolaboratories surrounding Russia and Belarus to use against Russia because they are “too scared” to use a nuclear weapon against Russia. These reports claimed for the first time that Germany (rather than solely the US) maintains its own network of inter-related biolabs and implausibly claimed that both the United States and Germany are developing pathogens that would target only ethnic Russians.[14]
Kremlin media increasingly seeks to justify Russian atrocities and the intentional targeting of Ukrainian civilians to a Russian domestic audience. Russian media amplified an op-ed written by Kremlin-affiliated film director Timofey Sergeytsev on April 3 that outlined specific steps to “denazify Ukraine” and sought to justify Russian atrocities.[15] The op-ed claims the entire Ukrainian Armed Forces are Nazis and called for their total “liquidation.” The op-ed additionally stated Ukraine cannot be an independent state and called for a multi-generational effort to alter the educational, informational, and cultural infrastructure of Ukraine that would inevitably constitute “de-Ukrainization.” The op-ed called for the creation of “systemic conditions for the subsequent denazification in peacetime,” including the installation of a permanent Russian information space in Ukraine. The Russian State Duma additionally introduced a draft law on April 4 that would formally falsely claim “that Ukrainian authorities have committed a genocide of the Russian population since 2014.”[16] Russian media continue to amplify this and other claims of the need for “denazification.” The Kremlin’s “denazification” rhetoric and growing calls to destroy Ukrainian society and culture are likely intended to condition Russia’s domestic population to accept further Russian atrocities in Ukraine and harsher crackdowns on civilian populations in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, particularly if Russia makes more permanent territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.
Russian Reactions to Sanctions:
The Kremlin is attempting to frame the global economic consequences of its invasion of Ukraine as a result of Western sanctions to call for their removal. The Kremlin may additionally plan to limit its agricultural exports and is threatening to nationalize European assets in Russia in retaliation for Western sanctions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed on April 4 that anti-Russia sanctions are a “blow to the global economy” after a meeting with the Arab League Contact Group on Ukraine in Moscow, Russia.[17] Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev stated on April 2 that food exports are Russia’s “quiet weapon” and threatened that Russia may limit agricultural exports to “unfriendly countries.”[18]
The Kremlin continues to threaten reciprocal sanctions and the nationalization of foreign assets as it attempts to leverage its energy exports.[19] The Russian State Duma introduced a bill for discussion on April 4 to criminalize any entity that implements sanctions against Russia.[20] Russian energy company Gazprom stopped supplying gas to Germany’s largest storage facility, Reden, on April 5 in likely retaliation for Germany’s nationalizing Gazprom Germania on April 4.[21] Putin additionally threatened that Russia could nationalize European assets within Russia in response.[22] Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced on April 6 that Hungary will pay for Russian gas in rubles, undermining a European effort to avoid propping up the ruble with energy purchases.[23] Meanwhile, the Kremlin continued to seek outlets for its sanctioned goods. Bloomberg reported on April 4 that Chinese state-owned liquified natural gas (LNG) companies are secretly planning to purchase sanctioned Russian gas at a reduced price, and the Kremlin will likely pursue other similar sanctions mitigation efforts.[24]
Belarus:
N/A
Russian Occupation:
The Kremlin is blaming the United States for Russian atrocities against civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Western states imposed additional sanctions and expelled Russian diplomats in response to the Russian atrocities.
  • Russian forces killed around 400 Ukrainian civilians throughout their occupation of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Ukrainian troops reported the civilian deaths of April 4 after recapturing the town.[25] German outlet Der Spiegel reported on April 7 that German military intelligence intercepted Russian radio communications at minimum discussing the murder of civilians in Bucha and possibly indicating targeted killings of civilians were pre-planned.[26]
  • The Kremlin contradictorily claimed both that the United States faked videos taken in Bucha and that Ukrainian forces carried out actual killings. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov and Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharov denied any allegations of Russian involvement in civilian deaths in Bucha and claimed the United States is “organizing and orchestrating” an information war against Russia in a series of statements on April 4.[27] Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Alexander Lukashevich claimed that Ukrainian forces faked reports of mass graves in and around Kyiv to derail peace talks.[28] Peskov claimed that videos of the massacre in Bucha were staged forgeries distributed by the “Kyiv regime.”[29] The Russian Investigative Committee opened an investigation into the spread of “disinformation” regarding the Bucha massacre on April 4.[30] Zakharova separately claimed on April 4 that the Ukrainian military had committed the crimes in Bucha to derail peace talks.[31] Russian Presidential Advisor Dmitry Medvedev attributed the atrocities in Bucha to Nazis and claimed that Ukrainians had been praying for the Third Reich.[32] Russian representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia claimed “only amateurs” would fall for the videos and falsely claimed that Russian forces do not target civilians.[33] Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed that the West had supported Ukraine’s “provocation” in Bucha and was as much a participant as Ukraine.[34]
  • European and western allied states capitalized on renewed international unity to expel Russian diplomatic staff and further isolate Russia from the international community following the exposure of Russian atrocities. Several European Union states expelled Russian diplomats between April 4 and April 7 after the massacre in Bucha was discovered, with several explicitly citing atrocities in Bucha as justification while others listed national security concerns. Lithuania, Germany, France, Latvia, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Estonia, Romania, Greece, Norway, Luxembourg, Ireland, and Austria expelled over 200 diplomats combined.[35] The United States and its allies introduced and passed a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly suspending Russia’s membership on the United Nations Human Rights Council following the atrocities.[36] Russian state media avoided directly attributing Europe’s decisions to expel diplomats to the massacre committed in Bucha and described the expulsions as resulting from Russia’s “special operation” or occurring “against the backdrop” of Bucha.[37]
The Kremlin is setting conditions to blame Ukraine for Russian atrocities in occupied areas and may be intentionally doing so in areas where the Kremlin knows Russian forces have already killed civilians to disguise Russian culpability.
  • The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) People’s Militia claimed on April 6 that Ukrainian propagandists are planning a new “provocation” in the city of Kreminna by creating a “staged video” with the elderly and disabled to accuse Russian forces of atrocities against the population. The People's Militia claimed that those who “participated in Bucha” will take part in this video. The Kremlin or LNR may be aware of atrocities in or around Kreminna and may be attempting to pre-empt accusations of Russian or LNR brutality.[38]
  • National Defense Control Center of Russia Head Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev claimed on April 6 that Ukraine is collaborating with the West to prepare false materials documenting Russian atrocities and that their “[Bucha] scenario” will not work again.[39] Mizintsev said that Western media have completed “provocations involving the civilian population in the cities of Konotop and Trostyanets in the Sumy region, as well as in Borodyanka and Katyuzhanka in the Kyiv region”—all cities previously occupied by Russian forces. He added that Ukraine is preparing “regular provocative materials” about the deaths of civilians in Derhachi, Kharkiv Oblast and claimed that Ukraine or Western media paid civilian crisis actors $25 for their participation. Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov reiterated that claim on April 7.
  • Russian state-owned news outlet RIA Novosti claimed on April 6 that Ukrainian forces are allegedly preparing to murder civilians in Chernihiv for aiding Russian troops.[40]
  • Ukrainian media reported on April 6 that Russian “top leadership” ordered Russian forces to use mobile crematoriums to hide additional evidence of civilian deaths in occupied zones, likely to mitigate additional international backlash like Russia has faced from the reveal of the Bucha massacres.[41]
Russian forces are accelerating operations to install governance structures in occupied Ukraine and are detaining or killing Ukrainian mayors. Permanent Crimean Representative to Russia Georgy Muradov stated on April 6 that Crimea and Russian-occupied southern Ukrainian territories have “restored a single economic complex” and replaced the Ukrainian hryvnia currency with the Russian ruble.[42] Russian forces dispelled an opposition protest with gunfire and explosives in Energodar, Ukraine, on April 2, indicating ongoing Ukrainian resistance in occupied territory.[43] Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuck reported that Russian forces killed Motyzhyn Mayor Olga Sukhenko on April 2 and stated on April 3 that Russian forces have kidnapped 11 Ukrainian mayors since the invasion began.[44] Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) officials appointed pro-Russian politician Konstantin Ivashchenko as mayor of Mariupol on April 5 despite the fact that Ukrainian conventional forces remain active in the city.[45] Russian forces are likely killing other Ukrainian government officials as part of occupation measures.
Drivers of Russian Threat Perceptions:
Newly announced weapons shipments from the United Kingdom and the United States will supplement Ukrainian supplies and expand Ukrainian capabilities to target Russian forces massed in southern Ukraine and in the Black Sea.
  • The UK Ministry of Defense formally announced on April 7 it will send new long-range artillery and Harpoon weapon systems to Ukraine after UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace first discussed the shipments on April 2.[46] These capabilities will threaten Russian naval operations in the Black Sea and would render an already-unlikely Russian assault on Odesa even less likely in the coming weeks. Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin warned that long-range artillery weapons and anti-ship systems in the UK’s new military aid package to Ukraine would be “legitimate targets” in a statement on April 2.[47]
  • The United States announced several new military aid packages from April 2-7 containing drones, armored vehicles, machine guns, Javelin anti-tank missile systems, and biological and chemical protective equipment totaling over $400 million USD.[48] US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also stated that the United States is providing “intelligence to conduct operations in Donbas” to Ukraine during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on April 7.[49]
  • The US Senate passed the “Ukrainian Democracy Defense Lease Act” to waive legal requirements that slow the process of delivering aid to Ukraine on April 6. The US House of representatives is expected to vote on the bill after its two-week recess.[50]
  • NATO announced at the conclusion of a NATO conference on April 7 that the bloc will send unspecified “NATO-standard” equipment and heavy weaponry to Ukraine.[51]
  • Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne announced on April 7 that Australia will send “tactical decoys, unmanned aerial and ground systems, rations and medical supplies,” to Ukraine in its newest military aid package.[52]
  • A Czech defense official reported that the Czech Republic had recently sent T-72 tanks and BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine in a comment on April 5.[53]
The international response to Russian atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine, likely distracted the Kremlin from threatening rhetoric in response to Poland’s offer to station US nuclear weapons in Poland. Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kacyznski stated on April 2 that Poland would like the United States to increase its troop presence in Europe from 100,000 to 150,000 and that Poland would be open to stationing US nuclear weapons on its territory.[54] Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov warned on April 3 that troop buildups in Europe would heighten tensions and argued that nuclear weapons in Poland were “anti-Russian” and a cause for concern.[55] The Kremlin likely intended to escalate that rhetoric and may have begun to discuss stationing Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus. However, the Kremlin media apparatus has instead focused on containing the fallout from Russian atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine.
Foreign Involvement:
N/A
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/05/russia-ukraine-war-news-... https://www.rbc dot ua/rus/news/kakimi-dolzhny-garantii-bezopasnosti-povtorit-1649263832.html.
[2] https://novosti dot dn.ua/news/322533-zelenskij-garantii-bezopasnosti-dlya-ukrainy-soglasny-obsuzhdat-7-stran
[3] https://novosti dot dn.ua/news/322533-zelenskij-garantii-bezopasnosti-dlya-ukrainy-soglasny-obsuzhdat-7-stran
[5] https://lenta dot ru/news/2022/04/05/hysteriabucha/; https://tass dot ru/politika/14298487
[6] https://tass dot ru/politika/14298487.
[7] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/07/russia-ukraine-war-news-... https://meduza dpt io/news/2022/04/07/lavrov-kiev-podgotovil-novyy-proekt-soglasheniya-s-moskvoy-otlichayuschiysya-ot-stambulskih-dogovorennostey; https://russian.rt dot com/ussr/news/987280-lavrov-ukraina-proekt-soglashenie?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS; https://russian.rt dot com/ussr/news/987294-lavrov-kiev-ucheniya?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
[8] https://www.pravda dot ru/news/world/1695587-zakharova_bucha_prestuplenie_peregovory/; https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-04-05-22/... ru/world/2022/04/05/1951922.html
[9] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-says-talks-with-ukraine-not... dot com/politics/1431689; https://riafan dot ru/22691155-peskov_kreml_ne_otvergaet_vozmozhnosti_provedeniya_vstrechi_putina_i_zelenskog
[12] http://english dot chinamil dot com.cn/view/2022-04/07/content_10146441.htm
[13] https://ria dot ru/20220406/biolaboratorii-1782147166.html; https://tass dot com/world/1433645
[14] https://riafan dot ru/22684861-politolog_koshkin_o_biolaboratoriyah_na_ukraine_rossiya_rasskazhet_miru_o_prestupleniyah_ssha_i_nato
[15] https://ria dot ru/20220403/ukraina-1781469605.html; https://ria dot ru/20210410/ukraina-1727604795.html; https://ria dot ru/20210410/ukraina-1727604795.html; https://meduza dot io/news/2022/04/04/na-sayte-ria-novosti-vyshla-kolonka-o-neobhodimosti-deukrainizatsii-ukrainy
[16] https://iz dot ru/1315401/2022-04-04/v-gosdumu-vnesen-proekt-o-priznanii-genotcida-russkikh-na-ukraine
[17] https://iz dot ru/1315471/2022-04-04/lavrov-nazval-antirossiiskie-sanktcii-udarom-po-mirovoi-ekonomike
[20] https://lenta dot ru/news/2022/04/04/gosss/
[21] https://iz dot ru/1315644/2022-04-05/gazprom-ostanovil-otbor-i-zakachku-gaza-v-krupneishee-khranilishche-frg
[22] https://riafan dot ru/22705613-putin_prigrozil_zapadu_otvetnoi_natsionalizatsiei_predpriyatii
[24] https://www.bloomberg dot com/news/articles/2022-04-04/china-gas-buyers-seek-cheap-russian-fuel-shunned-by-the-world; https://inforesist dot org/bloomberg-kitaj-tajno-zakupaet-rossijskij-gaz-s-bolshoj-skidkoj/
[26] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/07/bucha-german-intelligenc... ; https://www.spiegel dot de/international/germany/possible-evidence-of-russian-atrocities-german-intelligence-intercepts-radio-traffic-discussing-the-murder-of-civilians-in-bucha-a-0a191c96-634f-4d07-8c5c-c4a772315b0d
https://meduza dot io/news/2022/04/07/der-spiegel-nemetskaya-razvedka-perehvatila-peregovory-rossiyskih-voennyh-obsuzhdavshih-ubiystva-mirnyh-zhiteley-v-buche
https://riafan dot ru/22689132-senator_dolgov_ssha_pitayutsya_sorvat_peregovori_rossii_i_ukraini_provokatsiei_v_buche; https://tass dot com/politics/1432769; https://tvzvezda dot ru/news/2022451415-urWfu.html; https://meduza dot io/news/2022/04/04/eta-informatsiya-dolzhna-byt-podvergnuta-serieznomu-somneniyu-kreml-ob-ubiystvah-mirnyh-zhiteley-v-buche; https://tass dot ru/politika/14284791; https://ria dot ru/20220405/bucha-1781959993.html
[28] https://tass dot com/politics/1416033https://tass.com/politics/1432873
https://tass dot com/politics/1432857
[29] https://tass dot com/politics/1432019; https://tvzvezda dot ru/news/2022441232-4ywTz.html
[30] https://iz dot ru/1315170/2022-04-04/glava-sk-rf-poruchil-vyiasnit-obstoiatelstva-provokatcii-v-buche
https://www dot rosbalt.ru/russia/2022/04/04/1951767.html
https://tass dot com/politics/1431997
https://lenta dot ru/news/2022/04/04/kreml/
[31] https://tass dot com/politics/1431949
https://www.pravda dot ru/news/world/1695587-zakharova_bucha_prestuplenie_peregovory/
https://iz dot ru/1315302/2022-04-04/rossiia-budet-nastaivat-na-provedenii-zasedaniia-sovbeza-oon-po-buche
https://www dot pravda.ru/news/world/1696447-zakharova_dokazatelstva/
[32] https://www.pravda dot ru/news/society/1695976-dmitrii_medvedev_ukraina_tretii_reikh/
[33] https://riafan dot ru/22715585-nebenzya_predostavil_sovbezu_oon_svidetel_stva_provokatsionnih_deistvii_v_buche
https://tass dot ru/politika/14289331
[34] https://tvzvezda dot ru/news/202246840-rvcE8.html
https://russian dot rt.com/world/news/986533-zaharova-zapad-provokaciya-bucha?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
https://www.rferl dot org/a/lithuania-latvia-germany-diplomats-bucha/31785565.html
[37] https://iz dot ru/1315408/2022-04-04/kompaniiu-gazprom-germania-peredali-na-vremia-pod-upravlenie-germanskogo-reguliatora
https://iz dot ru/1315825/2022-04-05/ispaniia-obiavila-o-vysylke-25-rossiiskikh-diplomatov
https://tass dot com/politics/1432833
https://tass dot com/politics/1432195
[38] https://tass dot ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/14296087
[39] https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/14299047; https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/14299059
[40] https://iz dot ru/1316456/2022-04-06/stalo-izvestno-o-podgotovke-sbu-ubiistva-mirnykh-grazhdan-pod-chernigovom
[41] https://t (dot) me/mariupolrada/9143
[42] https://tass dot ru/ekonomika/14292713
[45] https://iz dot ru/1315685/2022-04-05/novyi-mer-mariupolia-rasskazal-o-vosstanovlenii-goroda https://meduza dot io/episodes/2022/04/05/rossiya-formiruet-okkupatsionnye-administratsii-na-zahvachennyh-territoriyah-ukrainy-zhdat-li-tam-novyh-narodnyh-respublik-i-budut-li-ih-prisoedinyat; https://lenta dot ru/news/2022/04/05/mariupol_mayor/
https://tass dot ru/politika/14260891
https://tass dot com/politics/1432003
https://iz dot ru/1315197/2022-04-04/peskov-nazval-ideiu-kachinskogo-razmestit-iadernoe-oruzhie-ssha-v-polshe-antirossiiskoi


3. How the Ukraine War Will Likely End

Excerpts:
Even so, I cannot predict what a leader will do in the end. But for now, it’s clear to me that Putin will cling to power and blame everyone around him. But every day the war goes on, Putin gets weaker. Ukraine should not be able to resist, NATO should not be united, American economic warfare should not be so powerful. Putin is growing more desperate. He has mumbled about nuclear weapons, the sign of utmost desperation. But he knows he and anyone he may love will die in a nuclear exchange. Even if he is prepared to commit suicide rather than capitulate, he knows that the order to launch must go through several hands, and each of those hands knows that the counterstrike will kill their loved ones. Therein lies the weakness of nuclear war: Retaliating is one thing, initiating another. Putin trusts few people, and he doesn’t know how reliable anyone would be in this situation – nor what the Americans might do if they saw preparation for a Russian launch.
If Putin gives up his position, he is compromised, and perhaps lost. The buzzards are circling. So he must continue to fight until he is forced out and someone else not responsible for the disaster takes over and blames it all on Putin. I think that this can’t end until Putin is pulled from the game.
Obviously, I am moving here away from geopolitical analysis into the political. The former tries to minimize individual influence while the latter emphasizes it. That gives my forecast an inevitable imprecision. But given the situation on the ground, and given Russian internal dynamics, it does seem that all the forces coming to bear on Putin dictate a certain direction. The war will end, but the war is evolving in a way that creates unique pressures on the Russian political system, and, because of the nature of the system, that pressure pivots on Putin.
This is not the only outcome. Ukraine might collapse. Russia might collapse. The Russian army may devise a strategy to win the war. A settlement that is respected might be reached. All of these are possible, but I don’t see much movement in any of these directions. A political end is what I would bet on, with the Russians taking the short end of the stick. I wouldn’t have thought this on the first day of the war, but I think this is likely the shape of the last day.
How the Ukraine War Will Likely End - Geopolitical Futures
April 5, 2022
geopoliticalfutures.com · April 5, 2022
As we consider how the war in Ukraine will end, we must first understand how it began. Russia invaded for geostrategic reasons – having Ukraine as a buffer state safeguards Moscow from invasion from the west – and for economic reasons, which have often gone overlooked. The transition from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation wasn’t exactly lucrative. It may have increased total wealth, but Russia remains a poor country. Its gross domestic product ranks just behind South Korea’s, a respectable placement but hardly where a superpower should be. And in terms of per capita GDP, Russia ranks 85th, nestled between Bulgaria and Malaysia.
Economic statistics rarely tell the whole story, of course, but in Russia’s case they fairly accurately present a country that is poorer than it appears, masked superficially by a top layer of the superrich elite. Life in major cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow is luxurious for the wealthy and bearable for the rest. Life in the countryside is something else entirely.
Individual regimes can’t be solely blamed for Russian poverty. The size of the nation, and the difficulties in areas such as transport associated with its size, makes Russia difficult to govern. From the time of the czars, it has been the state rather than shared economic prosperity that has kept Russia together. Often this has been achieved through the security services, which are tasked with maintaining state power, not with building an economy. It’s little wonder that the country that boasted the Okhrana also produced a president who cut his teeth in the KGB. Rightly or wrongly, Russia’s size and inefficiency tend to demand a strong hand.
This has created an expectation that the state will be strong even if the people are poor. There was pride in the czars and in Stalin – the so-called “man of steel.” But for a ruler to govern Russia, they must demonstrate strength. The intellectuals in Russia speak of democracy and human rights. The people want protection against invaders from without and against impoverishing chaos from within.
Over the years, President Vladimir Putin has made various gestures at improving Russia, but he learned in the KGB that without a strong hand Russia is ungovernable. And he knew that there are two types of strength: The kind that makes other countries tremble, and the kind that keeps homegrown “enemies” in check.
From Belarus to Kazakhstan, Putin has tried, in the only way he sees fit, to rebuild Russia brick by brick. Ukraine is the biggest brick. He believes he had to take it. Russia was becoming restless. Dissidents were being arrested, and foreigners were dismissing it. Strategy and power forced him to act. But the problem was that his instrument of action, the Russian army, was as ineffective as Russia itself. This had not always been the case. As brutal as military service could be, there was a certain pride in it.
The Russian army today seems disorganized, unimaginative and uninspired. The deployment of force, preparation of logistics and command of the battlefields on all levels simply wasn’t there. This was a different sort of Russian army, a bureaucratized one, one more afraid of the czar than of losing to the enemy. Putin demanded a rapid defeat of the enemy. But to rule by strength, you must see clearly and strike decisively at the center of gravity.
Ukraine had no center of gravity, only a widely dispersed light infantry force that provided no single point to destroy. Although that may seem like guerrilla warfare, it is not, and Ukraine surprised its enemy with resilience and unpredictability. The attacker can respond with brutal attacks on the population, but that leaves the Ukrainians with no choice but to fight. The Russian army wasn’t designed for this war, hadn’t planned for this war and has only brutal counter-civilian action to take. And Putin will take it.
The problem, then, is that Putin cannot stop, nor can he reach an agreement with Ukraine that he will keep. Every deal – except for surrender by the enemy – is a revelation of weakness on the part of a weak country and a weak ruler. The only alternatives are ineffective action because the force he sent to war was the wrong force from a country that didn’t have the right one.
He can reach a genuine cease-fire, but if he does, he’s finished. Not being able to defeat the Ukrainians, and held in contempt by others, destroys the myth of his power. Continuing the war endlessly reveals the same thing. As this goes on, Putin’s primary task is to pretend that the defeat is not happening because anything less than victory is a defeat. Every agreement must end in betrayal, and as it happens with guerrillas, they get stronger the longer the war drags out.
A crucial question is whether Russia has strategic reserves. The army has been in the field for over a month, in weather that is still cold, at the end of a logistical line that is problematic. It has been fighting a highly motivated, mobile light infantry force familiar with the terrain. It cannot go on indefinitely. Russia has to rotate its forces. Strategically, it must send more. Instead, it is executing a bloody withdrawal. You don’t fight for the same ground twice unless you have to.
This means that Putin’s war plan is shattered. The resistance has been effective and his troops need a relief he cannot provide. Putin will feint in other directions – perhaps in the Baltics or Moldova – but he lacks the force to fight on another front. He can’t sustain this war easily, especially in the face of NATO soldiers who have so far stayed out of the fray.
Even so, I cannot predict what a leader will do in the end. But for now, it’s clear to me that Putin will cling to power and blame everyone around him. But every day the war goes on, Putin gets weaker. Ukraine should not be able to resist, NATO should not be united, American economic warfare should not be so powerful. Putin is growing more desperate. He has mumbled about nuclear weapons, the sign of utmost desperation. But he knows he and anyone he may love will die in a nuclear exchange. Even if he is prepared to commit suicide rather than capitulate, he knows that the order to launch must go through several hands, and each of those hands knows that the counterstrike will kill their loved ones. Therein lies the weakness of nuclear war: Retaliating is one thing, initiating another. Putin trusts few people, and he doesn’t know how reliable anyone would be in this situation – nor what the Americans might do if they saw preparation for a Russian launch.
If Putin gives up his position, he is compromised, and perhaps lost. The buzzards are circling. So he must continue to fight until he is forced out and someone else not responsible for the disaster takes over and blames it all on Putin. I think that this can’t end until Putin is pulled from the game.
Obviously, I am moving here away from geopolitical analysis into the political. The former tries to minimize individual influence while the latter emphasizes it. That gives my forecast an inevitable imprecision. But given the situation on the ground, and given Russian internal dynamics, it does seem that all the forces coming to bear on Putin dictate a certain direction. The war will end, but the war is evolving in a way that creates unique pressures on the Russian political system, and, because of the nature of the system, that pressure pivots on Putin.
This is not the only outcome. Ukraine might collapse. Russia might collapse. The Russian army may devise a strategy to win the war. A settlement that is respected might be reached. All of these are possible, but I don’t see much movement in any of these directions. A political end is what I would bet on, with the Russians taking the short end of the stick. I wouldn’t have thought this on the first day of the war, but I think this is likely the shape of the last day.
geopoliticalfutures.com · April 5, 2022


4. Why China Chose Russia on the Russo-Ukrainian War
Xi chose Putin.

Excerpts:
Amidst the volatile prospects for Russia and Ukraine, Beijing is probably especially concerned about two potential downsides for China: greater alienation from Europe and the revitalization of American global leadership. Before the war, Beijing was especially attentive to the Europeans because of the importance of China’s economic relationship with EU and NATO countries and its cultivation of Europe as a counterbalance to American power and influence. Prolonged Chinese identification with a bloody war of attrition in Ukraine at the expense of European security and stability will erode the Europeans’ confidence in and engagement with Beijing. This was already apparent at the China-EU Summit on April 1, which EU vice president Josep Borrell described as a “dialogue of the deaf” because Beijing avoided substantive discussion of Ukraine and merely reiterated its call for peace talks.
Similarly, a resurgent “Pax Americana”—fueled by Washington’s success in mobilizing international pressure against Putin—would disrupt or even reverse Beijing’s assessment over the past decade of the relative trajectories of American and Chinese power and influence. Chinese leaders probably hope the current surge in U.S. global leadership will not be sustained due to lingering global concerns—including among U.S. allies and partners—about Washington’s attention span, resources, and domestic political dysfunction. But this too will depend on how and how soon the war in Ukraine ends, as well as what role the United States plays in that process. Like the rest of the world, Beijing is waiting for clarity and closure.


Why China Chose Russia on the Russo-Ukrainian War
China is not going to join a U.S.-led anti-Russia coalition because doing so would violate more of Beijing’s core principles than Putin has with his invasion of Ukraine.
by Paul Heer
The National Interest · by Paul Heer · April 8, 2022
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Beijing has engaged in rhetorical gymnastics in an effort to portray itself as “impartial” but sympathetic to both sides—even though the West has rejected the notion of impartiality in the face of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s brutal and unjustifiable attack on the Ukrainian people. Beijing’s nods to Kyiv have included offering humanitarian assistance, calling for a negotiated peace as soon as possible, and affirming that China’s longstanding support for the principle of upholding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries applies to Ukraine. Needless to say, China’s refusal to condemn Putin’s flagrant violation of that very principle has eclipsed these gestures and reinforced the widespread impression that Beijing has essentially taken Moscow’s side. Although Beijing so far has not provided Russia with substantial relief from economic sanctions or military support, it has echoed much of Moscow’s disinformation and blame aimed at the United States. And as the scale of the atrocities committed by Russian troops has come to light, China’s ambassador to the United Nations all but endorsed Moscow’s denials by advising against a rush to judgment “before the full picture is clear.”
Many foreign observers are puzzled why Beijing has essentially aligned itself with the international pariah that Putin has become. Some have readily attributed it to Chinese president Xi Jinping’s partnership with Putin in the defense and promotion of authoritarianism. Indeed, their shared vision for the world order was outlined in detail in a joint statement issued on February 4—three weeks before the attack on Ukraine—when Putin visited Beijing for the opening of the Winter Olympics. But the “axis of autocracy” refrain oversimplifies Xi’s much more complicated, and still evolving, cost-benefit analysis of how to position China relative to the war in Ukraine.
On one side of the balance sheet, it is self-evident, at least in the West, that Beijing would greatly enhance its international reputation if it “did the right thing” by denouncing Putin’s horrific and unprovoked attack on Ukraine. At the very least, this would have validated and restored some credibility to Beijing’s espoused commitment to the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and noninterference in other countries’ affairs. It might also have forestalled a substantial degradation in European views of China at a time when Beijing has been eagerly courting European Union and European NATO members. And it might have provided an opportunity for a positive breakthrough in China’s severely strained relationship with the United States.
Beijing, however, has clearly opted for the other side of the balance sheet. What outweighs these potential benefits, the liability of association with Putin and his war, and the suspension of some of China’s core principles? First and foremost is the value that Beijing assigns to its relationship with Moscow. It is important to emphasize that Xi’s investment in his personal relationship with Putin is only one layer of China’s more fundamental investment in the principles that have driven its strategic alignment with Russia. These are the principles spelled out in the recent Sino-Russo joint statement, which focused on the shared pursuit of multipolarity, “reform of global governance,” and especially resistance to what Beijing and Moscow view as Washington’s “unilateralism” and infringement on their respective security interests.

The joint statement cataloged a series of complaints against what the two sides characterized as the United States’ efforts since the end of the Cold War to impose its versions of democracy and international law on the rest of the world. As a remedy, Beijing and Moscow called for the “establishment of a new kind of relationship between world powers on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and mutually beneficial cooperation.” This, they say, would be “superior to [the] political and military alliances of the Cold War era” to which Washington remains wedded.
Of particular relevance to the Ukraine issue was the declaration in the joint statement that “Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions.” Beijing joined Moscow in opposing “further enlargement of NATO,” supporting instead new “long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe.” Moscow likewise endorsed Beijing’s opposition to “the formation of . . . opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region” and “the negative impact of the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy.” Chinese officials have since amplified this linkage. In a speech nearly a month after the invasion of Ukraine began, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said Washington’s “Indo-Pacific strategy is as dangerous as the NATO strategy of eastward expansion in Europe. If allowed to go on unchecked, it would bring unimaginable consequences, and ultimately push the Asia-Pacific over the edge of an abyss.” 
This underscores one of the primary reasons that Beijing is unwilling to condemn Russia’s behavior in Ukraine: its empathy with Moscow’s view that NATO expansion, to potentially include Ukraine, reflects a longstanding American disregard or dismissal of Russian security concerns and threat perceptions. This does not mean that Beijing considers Putin’s violence against Ukraine to be justified; on the contrary, all indications are that Chinese leaders have been surprised by and deeply uncomfortable with the nature and extent of the war. But it does mean that Beijing agrees with Moscow that Washington bears some responsibility for fueling the crisis through its pursuit of NATO expansion that excluded and targeted Russia, as well as its encouragement of Ukraine’s efforts to join a Western sphere of influence at Russia’s expense. Indeed, Beijing is essentially equating Washington’s disregard for Russian security concerns since the end of the Cold War with the longer history of Western “humiliation” of China and what Beijing sees as Washington’s persistent disregard of Chinese sovereignty and security concerns.
Beijing’s position on Ukraine cannot be fully understood without recognition of this crucial factor. China is not going to side with the United States against Russia if it means exonerating Washington of its share of the blame for the crisis. Indeed, Chinese diplomats and the Chinese media in recent weeks have doubled down on the assertion that the United States is the ultimate “instigator” of the war in Ukraine. This is why Beijing, in addition to pleading for peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow, has insisted that the United States and NATO should “have dialogue with Russia to address the crux of the Ukraine crisis and ease the security concerns of both Russia and Ukraine.”
China is also not going to side with the United States against Russia if it means retreating from or abandoning the agenda and vision outlined in the February 4 Sino-Russo joint statement, which—notwithstanding Putin’s current violation of it—genuinely reflects Beijing’s overall strategic objectives. In short, China is not going to join a U.S.-led anti-Russia coalition because doing so would violate more of Beijing’s core principles than Putin has with his invasion of Ukraine. Finally, Beijing is not going to denounce Putin because, as Chinese ambassador to the United States Qin Gang said in an American television interview, “condemnation doesn’t solve the problem.”
It is thus clear that Beijing’s cost-benefit analysis of how to respond to the war in Ukraine is inseparable from its strategic posture toward the United States and its calculation that the U.S.-China strategic competition is deepening. As noted earlier, the Ukraine crisis has offered a potential opening for improved U.S.-China relations, but it is hard to see that opportunity being seized at a time when bilateral mistrust is so great, and when Beijing and Washington have divergent views on what fueled the crisis in Ukraine—and probably diverging interests there. Under these circumstances, Beijing likely sees little benefit to be gained from sacrificing its relationship with Moscow in favor of embracing a Washington that has declared China the greatest external threat to the United States and the “rules-based order”; framed the U.S.-China relationship as a struggle between democracy and autocracy; made “stiff competition” the focus of its approach to China at the expense of engagement and cooperation; and appears (in Beijing’s view) to be moving toward a de facto “one China, one Taiwan” policy. Chinese leaders see little reason to expect that any of these elements of what they see as Washington’s hostile approach to Beijing would be altered or relaxed if China denounced Putin’s war in Ukraine.
There is no doubt that China is in a highly uncomfortable position with its implicit acquiescence to a war that is so widely condemned and in violation of its own principles. Chinese leaders almost certainly are hoping that Kyiv and Moscow will quickly negotiate an armistice that relieves Beijing of its dilemmas and restores some semblance of Ukrainian sovereignty. In the meantime, Beijing has been taking steps to mitigate or refute its diplomatic isolation. Chinese diplomats have been especially active across the developing world among countries that have neither condemned Russia nor joined sanctions against it. Beijing may calculate that it can ride out the crisis at an acceptable cost because of China’s global economic clout, the resonance of its criticism of American “unilateralism” and “hegemonism,” and wider empathy with Moscow’s complaints about NATO expansion.
The longer the war in Ukraine persists, however, the more difficult and potentially vulnerable Beijing’s position will become. Escalation by Putin will prolong and exacerbate China’s dilemma, and it will probably highlight the limits on Beijing’s influence in Moscow. Much will also depend on how the crisis unfolds, and how and when it abates or is resolved. A defeated and discredited Putin would degrade the value to Beijing of its strategic partnership with Moscow, and this could make it a net liability for Xi. On the other hand, and paradoxically, it could come as a relief to Beijing if Putin falls from power because the Chinese have ample reason to anticipate that, given the structural drivers of both countries’ discomfort with the United States, any successor Russian government would still subscribe to many, if not most, of the principles in the Sino-Russo joint statement. But as in North Korea, Beijing is neuralgic about any process of regime change in Russia due to the uncertainties involved and China’s lack of control over it.
Amidst the volatile prospects for Russia and Ukraine, Beijing is probably especially concerned about two potential downsides for China: greater alienation from Europe and the revitalization of American global leadership. Before the war, Beijing was especially attentive to the Europeans because of the importance of China’s economic relationship with EU and NATO countries and its cultivation of Europe as a counterbalance to American power and influence. Prolonged Chinese identification with a bloody war of attrition in Ukraine at the expense of European security and stability will erode the Europeans’ confidence in and engagement with Beijing. This was already apparent at the China-EU Summit on April 1, which EU vice president Josep Borrell described as a “dialogue of the deaf” because Beijing avoided substantive discussion of Ukraine and merely reiterated its call for peace talks.
Similarly, a resurgent “Pax Americana”—fueled by Washington’s success in mobilizing international pressure against Putin—would disrupt or even reverse Beijing’s assessment over the past decade of the relative trajectories of American and Chinese power and influence. Chinese leaders probably hope the current surge in U.S. global leadership will not be sustained due to lingering global concerns—including among U.S. allies and partners—about Washington’s attention span, resources, and domestic political dysfunction. But this too will depend on how and how soon the war in Ukraine ends, as well as what role the United States plays in that process. Like the rest of the world, Beijing is waiting for clarity and closure.
Paul Heer is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He served as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2007 to 2015. He is the author of Mr. X and the Pacific: George F. Kennan and American Policy in East Asia (Cornell University Press, 2018).

Image: Reuters.
The National Interest · by Paul Heer · April 8, 2022


5. China is Russia’s most powerful weapon for information warfare

Excerpts:

“When there is clear disinformation targeted at foreign populations, the tech companies have a perfectly legitimate moral case for limiting or removing that propaganda,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive of CCDH, which has researched Chinese state media.
Not all companies have embraced the same level of transparency. TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is Chinese-owned, started its first pilot project to label a few dozen Russian state outlets last month, and the company has plans to start labeling Chinese outlets. Researchers say state propaganda probably has a massive presence on its service — but it is difficult to detect with such limited labels and without providing researchers the ability to review the platform’s data. The company says it is still developing a state media policy.
Rather than adopting ad hoc policies during an emergency like the Ukraine war, platforms should have distinguished long ago between media outlets run by authoritarian governments and outlets, such as PBS or the BBC, that receive support from democratic governments, said Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, which is a member of the Election Integrity Partnership.
Stamos, who once was Facebook’s chief security officer, argued that social media companies should not give a megaphone to state media outlets from countries, such as China, where free speech is suppressed. Russia would now also fall into that category, he said.
“This is the time," Stamos said, “for the tech platforms to finally create rules about state media run by authoritarian governments.”

China is Russia’s most powerful weapon for information warfare
Tech giants and governments have crippled Russian state media, but Chinese outlets push the same talking points.
Yesterday at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine cratered last month after Russian state news channels were blocked in Europe and restricted globally. But in recent weeks, China has emerged as a potent outlet for Kremlin disinformation, researchers say, portraying Ukraine and NATO as the aggressors and sharing false claims about neo-Nazi control of the Ukrainian government.
With over a billion followers on Facebook alone, China’s state-controlled channels offer Russian President Vladimir Putin a powerful megaphone for shaping global understanding of the war — often called a “special operation” in line with Kremlin rhetoric. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, researchers say, Chinese channels have touted the false claim that the United States runs bioweapons labs in Ukraine, have asserted that Ukrainian neo-Nazis bombed a children’s hospital which was in fact bombed by Russian troops, and have suggested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was being manipulated by U.S. billionaire George Soros.
Chinese channels also have given airtime and amplification to high-ranking Russian government officials and to presenters from Russian government channels whose shows have been restricted or blocked. Last month, after a host on Sputnik, the Russian state news outlet, posted a video on his personal YouTube channel discussing how neo-Nazis were on the rise in Ukraine, the clip was tweeted by Frontline, a Chinese government outlet.
“With governments and tech platforms moving to censor or limit the spread of Russian propaganda, pro-Kremlin talking points are now being laundered through influencers and proxies, including Chinese officials and state media outlets that obviously do not face the same restrictions that have been placed on Russian state media outlets,” said Bret Schafer, senior fellow and head of the information manipulation team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonpartisan initiative housed at the U.S. German Marshall Fund that tracks Chinese and Russian state media. “This has allowed the Kremlin to effectively skirt bans meant to limit the spread of Russian propaganda.”
Putin’s success in seeding some of these misleading narratives through proxies and allies is casting doubt on the ability of Western governments and the tech giants to effectively rein in the most pernicious forms of authoritarian propaganda. With China’s help, experts say, Russia also is regaining its ability to cloud the narrative around Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.
“While the world’s eyes are still on Ukraine, and the journalists are there, it’s going to be hard for the Russian government to make great progress. But they can make progress on the edges,” said Kate Starbird, an associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. “And in the long run, if the public is confused enough about what happened, then we might not give our leadership a clear message to take action.”
Since the war’s early days, when the European Commission blocked Russian state channels and Twitter, YouTube and Facebook restricted their reach, Russia has raced to create workarounds. Journalists have uncovered a coordinated campaign to pay TikTok influencers to push pro-Kremlin views, while researchers from the data science company Trementum Analytics have documented pro-Russia trolls spamming YouTube videos about Ukraine with pro-Russian comments.
The Russian government also has used its embassies to push out misinformation to tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and the messaging app Telegram. According to the Israeli disinformation research group FakeReporter, Russian embassies have created at least 65 new Telegram channels since the war began. Twitter stopped recommending these accounts this week.
Fox News and other right-leaning American outlets also have picked up Russia’s talking points — notably when Fox host Tucker Carlson last month promoted to his prime time audience the baseless claim that Ukraine was developing biological weapons with the assistance of the U.S. government. According to disinformation researchers and the fact-checking group PolitiFact, that claim, which has been circulating for years, is a misleading reference to a public health research partnership between the United States and Ukraine; the White House has called it “preposterous.”
Last week, the New York Post wrote an article tying the discredited biolab claim to President Biden’s son Hunter, claiming that the younger Biden had helped secure funds for a start-up that worked on the research biolabs in Ukraine. The Washington Post has reported that Hunter Biden “was not part of a decision" to invest in the start-up.
Meanwhile, highly active online communities, such as anti-vaccine activists and adherents of the radicalized movement QAnon, have seized on the biolab claim and other Russian narratives. An early, prolific spreader of the theory, according to the Anti-Defamation League, was a Virginia man with ties to QAnon.
China is, by far, the Kremlin’s biggest promoter, however. The top four Chinese outlets — CGTN, Global Times, Xinhua News and T-House — command a massive audience with a combined follower count on Facebook of 283 million, according to research from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). All told, Chinese outlets on Facebook have over 1 billion followers, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy — far more than the roughly 85 million total followers for Russia’s main channels.
Asked how Facebook was addressing China’s emergence as a vector for Russian propaganda, Facebook shared several examples of fact checks applied to misleading pro-Russian content from Chinese state media. The company did not respond to questions about whether it has restricted Chinese state media accounts or has plans to do so.
Twitter spokeswoman Madeline Broas said the company had placed some limits on Chinese state media for several years, and that — beginning last Friday — it had begun putting highly-visible labels on any tweet that contained a link to Chinese state media. (Previously, such labels were shown only to people who searched for the account.)
YouTube declined to answer questions about Chinese state media. Spokeswoman Elena Hernandez said the company does fact-check misinformation and that it prohibits content that minimizes, trivializes, or denies the existence of well-documented, violent historical events.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
China and Russia have long been allies, extending back to the Cold War, and view their alliance as a bulwark against Western power. The two countries strengthened their bond ahead of the Ukraine invasion, issuing a joint statement on Feb. 4 describing their relationship as a “no limits” friendship.
Russia has refused to acknowledge the invasion, referring to its actions in Ukraine as a “special operation.” Chinese state media immediately adopted that term, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s tracker, with Chinese accounts using it 180 times between Feb. 24 and March 12. The term “invasion” was mentioned 145 times, but more than the third were references to the U.S. invasion of Iraq — an attempt to equate Russian and American military actions.
Chinese media also began to take up neo-Nazi storylines, according to ASD. Chinese diplomats and state media have tweeted about Nazis more than 140 times since the start of the war, according to the tracker. In the year preceding the war, Chinese state- affiliated accounts tracked by the group tweeted about Nazis only twice. The Azov Battalion, a group partially made up of anti-Russian nationalists and neo-Nazis, has been part of Ukraine’s military since 2014. But experts say the controversial battalion does not have major influence in the country whose president, Zelensky, is Jewish.
Lately, China has focused more attention on blaming NATO for the conflict, researchers say. A recent Facebook post from T-House, a millennial-focused outlet, compared Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO to Hitler’s attempt to conquer Ukraine, according to research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “The moves by the US-led #NATO have pushed the #Russia-Ukraine tension to the breaking point,” said a recent tweet by China’s ambassador to the Asia-Pacific region.
In late March, NATO was the tenth most used key phrase in Chinese tweets, according to the ASD tracker. Meanwhile, China’s consul general in Belfast recently tweeted a false claim from Russian state media that Zelensky is hiding in Poland, a NATO member.
China also is giving a boost to Russian presenters whose audiences appear to have been limited by Western bans. The personal talk show for U.K. presenter George Galloway, host of the “Mother of All Talk Shows” on Sputnik, been shared numerous times by several large Chinese outlets such as Global Times. Currently, the Sputnik website that hosted Galloway’s show appeared to be blocked in the United Kingdom, according to ASD. But his personal YouTube channel, which does not make visible references to his Sputnik backing, continues to stream it.
Galloway did not respond to a request for comment. In a tweet on Wednesday, Galloway tweeted in response to Twitter’s decision to label his account “Russian state media,” saying, “Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work for NO #Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.”
Experts disagree about how the tech companies should police China and other Russian proxies.
The tech companies have cast their crackdowns on Russian media as drastic actions taken under extraordinary circumstances; they largely do not want to impose blanket bans on state outlets. Experts also have noted that if state outlets are banned for disinformation, the tech companies would face increasing pressure to ban nonstate channels that spread misinformation, such as Fox News.
Instead, the tech companies more recently have opted for transparency, such as fact-checking and labeling. In 2018, YouTube began labeling state media outlets. Twitter did so in 2020, as did Facebook.
But labeling is premised on the idea that informed users will make wise decisions about whether to trust content, and that has had mixed results.
In 2020, George Washington University researchers studying the impact of YouTube labels on content from RT found that they were effective at making people more aware of misinformation, but only when the labels were prominently displayed. A separate study from the Election Integrity Partnership, a consortium of prominent disinformation researchers, found that labeling was inconsistent and that tech platforms failed to prominently show the labels in search results.
Since the Ukraine war began, Twitter has added more prominent labels, saying the move has reduced the reach of Russian propaganda by 30 percent. But some advocates said transparency measures are insufficient in the face of China’s global disinformation campaign, and called on the tech giants to do more.
“When there is clear disinformation targeted at foreign populations, the tech companies have a perfectly legitimate moral case for limiting or removing that propaganda,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive of CCDH, which has researched Chinese state media.
Not all companies have embraced the same level of transparency. TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is Chinese-owned, started its first pilot project to label a few dozen Russian state outlets last month, and the company has plans to start labeling Chinese outlets. Researchers say state propaganda probably has a massive presence on its service — but it is difficult to detect with such limited labels and without providing researchers the ability to review the platform’s data. The company says it is still developing a state media policy.
Rather than adopting ad hoc policies during an emergency like the Ukraine war, platforms should have distinguished long ago between media outlets run by authoritarian governments and outlets, such as PBS or the BBC, that receive support from democratic governments, said Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, which is a member of the Election Integrity Partnership.
Stamos, who once was Facebook’s chief security officer, argued that social media companies should not give a megaphone to state media outlets from countries, such as China, where free speech is suppressed. Russia would now also fall into that category, he said.
“This is the time," Stamos said, “for the tech platforms to finally create rules about state media run by authoritarian governments.”


6. 'No one will ever listen to Russia:' Why Ukraine is winning the propaganda war

Excerpts:

Between efforts like this and the stirring speeches delivered almost daily by Zelensky — often directly addressing foreign decision makers or the public in Western countries — Garner said Kyiv has been "mounting a very clever, really smart info war."
Ukraine's success depends on it. Kyiv needs to keep the West onside, to keep billions of dollars in much-needed weaponry flowing across the borders from NATO to its fighters, and to keep tough Western economic sanctions pressing Russia.
The Zelensky posts, sometimes done as selfies outside with only street lights at night, and always in a casual T-shirt, may "look ad hoc and somewhat unscripted," said Garner, but are almost certainly "productions that have been planned and thought through."
Zelensky's address to the U.K. Parliament invokes wartime prime minister Winston Churchill. His speech to Ottawa stresses a first-name relationship with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and includes familiar Canadian references. And, always, hitting the right notes to portray Ukraine as the feisty underdog who deserves help from the West.
In contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears belligerent and isolated, shown sitting at a huge table in the Kremlin. His efforts at waging an information war seem as troubled as his war on the ground.
"He is surrounded by symbols of Russian power," said Anton Shirikov, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin who is researching political propaganda.
"He's saying to the West: 'Look, I'm frightening. I can do lots of terrible things.'"
'No one will ever listen to Russia:' Why Ukraine is winning the propaganda war | CBC News
Analysts say Russia showing unexpected weakness at influencing foreign opinion
Saša Petricic · CBC News · Posted: Apr 06, 2022 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: April 6
CBC · by Saša Petricic
On the very first day of Russia's invasion, a tiny island along Ukraine's Black Sea coast became an early target. It was a minor military loss that Kyiv would turn into a major propaganda victory, in a narrative aimed at a Western audience as much as a domestic one.
Ukraine was about to show its strength at information warfare in the global arena; Russia, to reveal its unexpected weakness at influencing foreign opinion in this conflict, especially in the West.
"Its standing in the world is damaged, probably beyond repair," said Ilya Metveev, a St. Petersburg-based political analyst. Moscow "understands now that it is useless to push Russia's narrative in the West. Whatever they try, this will not work."
As Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov turned its guns on Snake Island on Feb. 24 and demanded surrender, a Ukrainian border guard defiantly radioed back "Russian warship, go f--k yourself."
That recording was quickly circulated by Ukrainian officials, and the guard became a national hero, praised that day by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his sacrifice.
What happened after is a little fuzzy.
At the time, Zelensky said "all the border guards died heroically" in the subsequent attack. It seems they were captured, as Ukraine's navy announced a few days later, then released by Russia. The guard who uttered the now-famous line appeared in person to receive a medal last week.

In late February, the Russian-language Telegram account, SCEPTIK, said 82 Ukrainian soldiers surrendered to Russia at Snake Island, a tiny, remote Ukrainian island in the Black Sea. But Ukrainian officials said 13 soldiers were killed there while defending the outpost. (Telegram/Google Earth)
Days after the Snake Island attack, the Russian warship was reported seriously damaged or destroyed by the Ukrainian navy off the coast of Odesa, with video of the missile attack going viral. But that, too, has since been questioned, with multiple pictures of what appears to be the Vasily Bykov posted online.
Still, the incident set the propaganda tone for Ukrainian resistance from the start, and will be immortalized on a stamp, says Kyiv.
It's the kind of "mythical" tale that has distinguished Ukraine's surprisingly sophisticated fighting spirit in the information war against Russia, just as in the real one, said Ian Garner. He's a lecturer and researcher at Queen's University who is writing a book on Russian propaganda.
Between efforts like this and the stirring speeches delivered almost daily by Zelensky — often directly addressing foreign decision makers or the public in Western countries — Garner said Kyiv has been "mounting a very clever, really smart info war."
Ukraine's success depends on it. Kyiv needs to keep the West onside, to keep billions of dollars in much-needed weaponry flowing across the borders from NATO to its fighters, and to keep tough Western economic sanctions pressing Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks in a video statement with sand bags behind him in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 8 in this still image obtained from social media. (Volodymyr Zelensky/Instagram/Reuters)
The Zelensky posts, sometimes done as selfies outside with only street lights at night, and always in a casual T-shirt, may "look ad hoc and somewhat unscripted," said Garner, but are almost certainly "productions that have been planned and thought through."
Zelensky's address to the U.K. Parliament invokes wartime prime minister Winston Churchill. His speech to Ottawa stresses a first-name relationship with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and includes familiar Canadian references. And, always, hitting the right notes to portray Ukraine as the feisty underdog who deserves help from the West.
In contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears belligerent and isolated, shown sitting at a huge table in the Kremlin. His efforts at waging an information war seem as troubled as his war on the ground.
"He is surrounded by symbols of Russian power," said Anton Shirikov, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin who is researching political propaganda.
"He's saying to the West: 'Look, I'm frightening. I can do lots of terrible things.'"

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Moscow, Feb. 7. (Sputnik/Kremlin/Reuters)
That includes threats to use nuclear weapons, and creating a pretext for a possible chemical attack.
This week, Zelensky accused Russia of committing the worst European atrocities since the Second World War in the city of Bucha, near Kyiv. Hundreds of civilian corpses were discovered after Russian troops withdrew.
Moscow's answer? The scene was a "fake attack," "staged" by Ukraine and the West for "anti-Russian purposes" — propaganda. This despite satellite evidence that the bodies had been lying in exactly those positions for weeks before Russia withdrew, as first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by other media outlets.
Russia's use of disinformation — or 'dezinformatsiya' — goes back at least to the 1950s, when a department of the KGB secret service was active with that name.
Moscow has been blamed for "sowing discord" around Britain's debate over Brexit, through hundreds of fake social media accounts. American intelligence agencies have accused it of interfering in U.S. elections, helping former U.S. president Donald Trump to power in 2016 and then trying to keep Joe Biden out of office in 2020. And Russia has long supported European populist politicians like France's Marie LePen, who pledged to lift sanctions against Moscow "quite quickly" if elected president in 2017.
Russia's internal focus
"Russia had some success" in influencing world events through propaganda, said Metveev, but its invasion of Ukraine has so hardened public attitudes in the West, "completely cancelling all that."
Instead, he said, Putin is focusing his propaganda internally, where he has been "quite effective" in justifying the war so far.
Outside, Moscow's propaganda efforts "are now worth nothing. No one will ever listen to Russia," he said.

In this image made from video released by the Russian Presidential Press Service, Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the nation in Moscow, Russia, Feb. 24. (Russian Presidential Press Service/The Associated Press)
That's especially true now that they hear less from Russia. Moscow's main international media arm, the Russia Today (RT) TV channel, has been taken off the air in many countries, including Canada, the U.S. and Britain.
It's also because of unusually unified public attitudes in the West, "a kind of popular mobilization against Russia," said Natasha Kuhrt, who lectures in International Peace and Security at King's College in London.
"I think that really makes a big difference."
Russia has tried to justify the invasion with different arguments, for instance that NATO expansion is getting too close to Russia and threatening its security, or that the country is full of dangerous Western-funded biolabs that need to be dismantled.
Or that Ukraine needs to be rid of Nazi elements.
"Many in Ukraine have been duped by Nazi and nationalist propaganda," Putin said one week into the invasion, "but some have deliberately gone the way of the Banderites [right wing nationalists] and other Nazi henchmen."
WATCH | Ukrainian president accuses Russia of war crimes in Bucha:
Zelensky accuses Russia of 'genocide,' 'war crimes' in Bucha
2 days ago
Duration 5:23
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with residents in Bucha on Monday and accused Russia of 'genocide' and 'war crimes' in the death of civilians and other alleged atrocities there. 5:23
Pro-Russia Telegram channels are full of images, real and doctored, attributing the destruction of cities like Mariupol to Ukrainian right-wing military squads like the Azov militia. This, despite the fact that they number only around 1,000 members and are not equipped with the heavy weapons necessary to carry out the widespread bombing seen in many areas of Ukraine targeted by Russia.
"A lot of it is contradictory; it's crude, it's more exaggerated than ever before," said Garner.
"The idea is to just bombard people with these images until eventually it seems like there's some grain of truth, and then to try to get them to share with family and friends. At least, that's the intent."
But it has largely failed in the West, even among the normally sympathetic left, said Metveev, who is also a founding editor of the Russian magazine OpenLeft.ru.
"Even in these circles, it's very difficult to stomach an unprovoked invasion," he said.
"How can you argue that Russia is resisting imperialism by attacking Ukraine?"
CBC · by Saša Petricic

7. Possible Evidence of Russian Atrocities: German Intelligence Intercepts Radio Traffic Discussing the Murder of Civilians in Bucha

Good to see the Germans using intelligence to attempt to expose and attack Putin's strategy.

Excerpts:
The radio traffic intercepted by the BND makes it seem as though the atrocities perpetrated on civilians in Bucha were neither random acts nor the product of individual soldiers who got out of hand. Rather, say sources familiar with the audio, the material suggests that the troops spoke of the atrocities as though they were simply discussing their everyday lives.
That, say sources familiar with the audio, indicates that the murder of civilians has become a standard element of Russian military activity, potentially even part of a broader strategy. The intention is that of spreading fear among the civilian population and thus reducing the will to resist.
DER SPIEGEL has learned that more intercepted radio traffic is currently being analyzed, though it is apparently difficult to precisely localize some of the audio. Some of the recordings apparently indicate that incidents such as those in Bucha have also taken place elsewhere. There are reportedly indications of potential atrocities in the area surrounding Mariupol, the large city in southern Ukraine that has been besieged by the Russian military.


Possible Evidence of Russian Atrocities: German Intelligence Intercepts Radio Traffic Discussing the Murder of Civilians in Bucha
Spiegel · by Fidelius Schmid, Matthias Gebauer, Melanie Amann, DER SPIEGEL
The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence service, has acquired gruesome new insights into the atrocities committed by Russian military forces in the town of Bucha near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. DER SPIEGEL has learned that the BND intercepted Russian military radio traffic in which the murder of civilians in Bucha was discussed. Some of the intercepted radio traffic can apparently be directly linked to dead bodies that have been photographed in Bucha.

Following the withdrawal of the Russian military from the town over the weekend, a mass grave was discovered as well as the bodies of several dozen dead civilians left lying on the streets. The hands of some of the victims had been tied, while other bodies showed signs of torture. Numerous women and children are also reportedly among the victims.
The Russian government has vehemently denied that Russian forces are responsible for these war crimes. Several – completely unsubstantiated – claims have been made that the alleged war crimes have been staged by Ukraine. Those claims, however, are contradicted by the statements of numerous witnesses interviewed by reporters from DER SPIEGEL and other news outlets in the town of Bucha.
The intercepted comments now appear to completely refute Russia’s denials. DER SPIEGEL has learned that the BND briefed parliamentarians on Wednesday about its findings. Some of the intercepted traffic apparently matches the locations of bodies found along the main road through town. In one of them, a soldier apparently told another that they had just shot a person on a bicycle. That corresponds to the photo of the dead body lying next to a bicycle that has been shared around the world. In another intercepted conversation, a man apparently said: First you interrogate soldiers, then you shoot them.
Part of the Plan?
The BND material also apparently provides evidence that members of the Russian mercenary unit called the Wagner Group played a leading role in the atrocities. The group is known to have perpetrated similar atrocities in Syria.
Eyewitnesses recently reported that the occupying force in Bucha was initially made up of "young soldiers." Once they were replaced by other units, the witnesses said, the attacks on civilians grew more frequent. Some eyewitnesses have said that Chechen units were in the town. The accounts raise the question as to whether this progression was part of the occupation plan.
The radio traffic intercepted by the BND makes it seem as though the atrocities perpetrated on civilians in Bucha were neither random acts nor the product of individual soldiers who got out of hand. Rather, say sources familiar with the audio, the material suggests that the troops spoke of the atrocities as though they were simply discussing their everyday lives.
That, say sources familiar with the audio, indicates that the murder of civilians has become a standard element of Russian military activity, potentially even part of a broader strategy. The intention is that of spreading fear among the civilian population and thus reducing the will to resist.
DER SPIEGEL has learned that more intercepted radio traffic is currently being analyzed, though it is apparently difficult to precisely localize some of the audio. Some of the recordings apparently indicate that incidents such as those in Bucha have also taken place elsewhere. There are reportedly indications of potential atrocities in the area surrounding Mariupol, the large city in southern Ukraine that has been besieged by the Russian military.
Spiegel · by Fidelius Schmid, Matthias Gebauer, Melanie Amann, DER SPIEGEL

8. 60 elite Russian paratroopers refused to fight in the invasion of Ukraine, report says

I did not know that any independent newspapers in Russia have survived. 

Potentially useful for themes and messages for strategic influence through information advantage. 

Up to 60 Russian paratroopers from one unit in Pskov province refused to fight in Ukraine, according to independent Russian newspaper Pskovskaya Gubernia.
...
The Pskov paratroopers are not the only ones reported to have refused to fight.
At least 11 members of Russia's Rosgvardia National Guard in the Khakassia region similarly rebelled, Newsweek reported, citing Russian-language news outlet New Focus.
...
In a rare frank admission, a Kremlin spokesman admitted on Sky News on Thursday that Russia had "significant losses of troops and it's a huge tragedy for us."

I wonder if there will be a public display of discipline for the unit commander? (if the report is true). Surely Putin must believe this is a leadership "problem." (ethics and moral values are problems in Putin's military).

60 elite Russian paratroopers refused to fight in the invasion of Ukraine, report says
Business Insider · by Alia Shoaib

Russian paratroopers march during the military parade at Red Square on May 9, 2021 in Moscow, Russia
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
  • At least 60 Russian paratroopers from a unit in Pskov province refused to fight in Ukraine, a report says.
  • The troops were fired and some are being threatened with criminal prosecution, a Russian newspaper reported.
  • Russian forces have suffered heavy losses and reports suggest that morale is deteriorating.
Get a daily selection of our top stories based on your reading preferences.

Up to 60 Russian paratroopers from one unit in Pskov province refused to fight in Ukraine, according to independent Russian newspaper Pskovskaya Gubernia.
The troops were fired, and some were threatened with criminal prosecution for desertion or failure to comply with an order, the paper wrote on its Telegram channel.
Insider was unable to verify the report independently.
Pskovskaya Gubernia is a Russian newspaper known for its independent reporting. Amid the country's crackdown on independent media, last month authorities raided the paper's offices and the homes of senior employees, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Local activist Nikolay Kuzmin, who is affiliated with the opposition Yabloko party in Russia, appeared to corroborate the report on Telegram.
Kuzmin said he spoke to a driver who transported some of the paratroopers from Belarus back to Pskov, an important base for Russia's airborne forces.
Russia's military's airborne force, the VDV, has suffered heavy losses in Ukraine, which has dented their previous "elite" status.
One unit within the VDV, the renowned 331st Guards Parachute Regiment, lost its commander, Col. Sergei Sukharev, and at least 39 other members.
Russian forces have suffered heavy losses since it began its invasion of Ukraine, and reports suggest that morale is deteriorating.
The Pskov paratroopers are not the only ones reported to have refused to fight.
At least 11 members of Russia's Rosgvardia National Guard in the Khakassia region similarly rebelled, Newsweek reported, citing Russian-language news outlet New Focus.
Human rights lawyer Pavel Chikhov said on Telegram that Captain Farid Chitav and 11 of his Rosgvardia subordinates refused to invade Ukraine on February 25 because the orders were "illegal," Newsweek said.
Some captured Russians have said that their leaders lied to them about the plan to invade Ukraine, which left them unprepared for the fierce resistance.
Despite the Russian military's many advantages, it has failed to achieve the swift victory it had hoped for in Ukraine.
UK intelligence chief Jeremy Fleming said that Russian President Vladimir Putin "massively misjudged" the situation before invading, partly because his advisers are "afraid to tell him the truth."
NATO estimated last month that between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in action in Ukraine.
In a rare frank admission, a Kremlin spokesman admitted on Sky News on Thursday that Russia had "significant losses of troops and it's a huge tragedy for us."

Business Insider · by Alia Shoaib


9. Opinion: Why sanctions won't deter Putin

Maybe sanctions are not a silver bullet. Maybe they need to be aggressively enforced as part of a broad and holistic strategy.

I am reminded of this quote from Robert Gates:

“Members of Congress love to impose sanctions on countries whose actions they object to, even though usually the only effect is to make the members feel righteous and look tough to their constituents. In fact, all too frequently, the imposition of sanctions is simply a political gesture, intended mainly to show that the United States is doing something in response to another country’s bad behavior without much expectation of success. For example, economic sanctions were imposed on China in 1989 after the brutal suppression of demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in Beijing and on Russia in 2014 after the seizure of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine because no one was prepared to support a military response. The sanctions had little impact on China, and while the post-Crimea sanctions hurt the Russian economy, President Putin would not consider taking the actions required to get them lifted (although they may have constrained him from other acts of aggression).”
— Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World by Robert Michael Gates

Excerpts:

Well, maybe. Strongmen typically don't give much of a damn about the feelings of their people and preside over governments that prohibit a free press and free assembly. They also generally have accumulated vast mountains of ill-gotten wealth in their own countries and therefore may no longer need access to the international financial system to maintain their extremely well-feathered nests.

Let's not forget that after Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Russia was subjected to a range of sanctions by the US and the EU. Those sanctions did nothing to deter Putin from holding on to Crimea, nor from conducting a proxy war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine for eight years during which more than 14,000 people were killed.

For many years the US and the UN have imposed increasingly punitive sanctions on the regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, which haven't derailed Kim from continuing and even expanding his nuclear program.

Meanwhile, for more than a decade, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has imprisoned, tortured and murdered vast swaths of his own population despite an ever-escalating set of US sanctions that began in earnest in 2011 when the Syrian civil war first broke out. Today, Assad has effectively won that war.

In the years before the 9/11 attacks, the UN sanctioned the Taliban because they were sheltering al Qaeda. None of this deterred the Taliban from continuing to host al Qaeda, which launched the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan.





Opinion: Why sanctions won't deter Putin
CNN · by Opinion by Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
Editor's Note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. His forthcoming paperback is "The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World." The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
(CNN)The Biden administration Wednesday slapped sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin's daughters, as well as imposing sanctions on two of Russia's biggest banks.
The ratcheting-up of sanctions on Russia gives the world the illusion that real action is taking place on Ukraine, but will they have any effect on Putin's decision-making? History suggests that this is quite unlikely.
Indeed, the whole theory behind sanctions is fundamentally flawed since it assumes that strongmen like Putin will change their policies if enough pain is inflicted on them, their cronies and their populations.
This theory was outlined by an anonymous senior Biden administration official who explained to CNN on Wednesday that as a result of the escalating sanctions on Russia, Putin would eventually have to reckon with his people.
Well, maybe. Strongmen typically don't give much of a damn about the feelings of their people and preside over governments that prohibit a free press and free assembly. They also generally have accumulated vast mountains of ill-gotten wealth in their own countries and therefore may no longer need access to the international financial system to maintain their extremely well-feathered nests.

Read More
Let's not forget that after Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Russia was subjected to a range of sanctions by the US and the EU. Those sanctions did nothing to deter Putin from holding on to Crimea, nor from conducting a proxy war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine for eight years during which more than 14,000 people were killed.
For many years the US and the UN have imposed increasingly punitive sanctions on the regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, which haven't derailed Kim from continuing and even expanding his nuclear program.
Meanwhile, for more than a decade, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has imprisoned, tortured and murdered vast swaths of his own population despite an ever-escalating set of US sanctions that began in earnest in 2011 when the Syrian civil war first broke out. Today, Assad has effectively won that war.
In the years before the 9/11 attacks, the UN sanctioned the Taliban because they were sheltering al Qaeda. None of this deterred the Taliban from continuing to host al Qaeda, which launched the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan.
Now, of course, the Taliban are back in power in Afghanistan. More than half of the cabinet-level appointees to the Taliban government that were announced in September have some form of UN sanction against them. None of that stopped the Taliban from announcing last month that girls over the 6th grade could not attend school.
For its part, the Trump administration ratcheted up sanctions against the socialist authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro. Today, Maduro remains in power while the Venezuelan population is increasingly immiserated.
This is one area where sanctions do tend to take a toll: they impoverish the populations of the countries targeted by the sanctions.
Exhibit A for this is Saddam Hussein's Iraq. After Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq. Almost a decade later, the Red Cross found that in Iraq "salaries are as low as US$2 a month, there is around 50% unemployment." Meanwhile, Saddam's hold on power remained as tight as ever.
And don't even get me started on Cuba, which the US has sanctioned since the Kennedy administration. Cuba is now experiencing its worst economic crisis in three decades, while the Communist Party remains in control of the island, six decades after US sanctions first kicked in.

To be fair, "smart" actions on the Iranian regime that made it difficult for Iran to plug into the international financial system did bring the Iranians to the negotiating table during the Obama administration. That led to the nuclear deal in 2015 that halted the development of Iran's nuclear weapons program.
But when the Trump administration pulled out of the nuclear deal and re-imposed tough sanctions on Iran, the Iranians expanded their nuclear program and are closer now to having a nuclear weapon than at any time in the past.
One of the only cases where sanctions seem to have produced their intended outcome was against the apartheid regime in South Africa. International sanctions seem to have contributed to South Africa's decision to end apartheid in the early 1990s.
Instead of turning the Russian population against Putin, the war in Ukraine and sanctions imposed by the West, seem to have produced a rally-around-the-flag effect for the Russian leader.
An independent Russian poll released at the end of March found that 83% of Russians approved of Putin's actions, which is up from 69% in January. Even considering that some Russians may tell pollsters what they feel they are supposed to say, Putin appears to be more popular today than he was at the beginning of the year.
The "reckoning" that Putin is supposed to face from the Russian people doesn't appear to be in the works, as yet. That, of course, could change as the US and its allies are imposing on Russia what are some the most stringent sanctions ever imposed on any state. But if the West wants to do something effective to undermine Putin's war in Ukraine, sanctions are unlikely to be effective tools.
What would likely be effective -- in addition to continue supplying anti-tank Javelins and Stinger missiles that are effective against helicopters—is to arm the Ukrainians with as many S-300 missiles as feasible, according to a group of senior retired US military officials and Eastern European former ministers of defense who published an open letter to this effect last month.
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The S-300s can bring down high-flying Russian jets and ballistic missiles, which would create a de facto no-fly zone over Ukraine that would fall short of instituting a formal no-fly zone enforced by jet aircraft, a measure that the US and NATO have rejected as too provocative to nuclear-armed Russia.
Sanctions are feel-good measures for the sanctioning states, but they mostly inflict pain on the populations of the sanctioned, while leaving their rulers in place atop their piles of ill-gotten loot and determined to work their will.
CNN · by Opinion by Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst


10. Three reasons why defense is beating offense in Ukraine - and why it matters for Taiwan
Defense is the stronger form of war.

Clausewitz says:

What is the object of defence? To preserve. To preserve is easier than to acquire; from which follows at once that the means on both sides being supposed equal, the defensive is easier than the offensive. But in what consists the greater facility of preserving or keeping possession? In this, that all time which is not turned to any account falls into the scale in favour of the defence. He reaps where he has not sowed. Every suspension of offensive action, either from erroneous views, from fear or from indolence, is in favour of the side acting defensively. This advantage saved the State of Prussia from ruin more than once in the Seven Years' War. It is one which derives itself from the conception and object of the defensive, lies in the nature of all defence, and in ordinary life, particularly in legal business which bears so much resemblance to war, it is expressed by the Latin proverb, Beati sunt possidentes. Another advantage arising from the nature of war and belonging to it exclusively, is the aid afforded by locality or ground; this is one of which the defensive form has a preferential use.
...
If the defensive is the stronger form of conducting war, but has a negative object, it follows of itself that we must only make use of it so long as our weakness compels us to do so, and that we must give up that form as soon as we feel strong enough to aim at the positive object. Now as the state of our circumstances is usually improved in the event of our gaining a victory through the assistance of the defensive, it is therefore, also, the natural course in war to begin with the defensive, and to end with the offensive. It is therefore just as much in contradiction with the conception of war to suppose the defensive the ultimate object of the war as it was a contradiction to understand passivity to belong to all the parts of the defensive, as well as to the defensive as a whole. In other words: a war in which victories are merely used to ward off blows, and where there is no attempt to return the blow, would be just as absurd as a battle in which the most absolute defence (passivity) should everywhere prevail in all measures.

The US must heed these words as we consider our "quartermastering" of this war. It is not enough to provide support solely for the defense of Ukraine. If we are committed to the survival of Ukraine we must arm it for offensive operations.

I had a Facebook exchange with a retired MARSOC Colonel who is in Ukraine reporting for a media organization. He was showing photos of destroyed Russian vehicles and I asked him about the ratio of Russian to Ukraine casualties and destroyed equipment. He said although the Ukrainian numbers appear appear lower for the Ukrainians there is significant destruction of Ukrainian equipment and numbers of KIA. His concern is that the math is not on the Ukrainian side if the war drags on. This will also be more acute if the Ukrianinas go on large scale offensives, particularly in the tank friendly areas where long range tank battles with favorable air cover may take place. The US, NATO, and European countries must take this into account. and if we do not want to be forced to intervene with NATO troops we need to sufficiently arm the Ukrainians with the advanced weapons systems and sufficient mass to be successful.

While I am a huge proponent of the psychological war that is taking place, its value and contribution, in the end it is only a contribution. Unless Putin capitualtes or is somehow removed from leadership this war may well be decided in the physical domain, on land, in the air, and at sea. And as an aside if we do want to rely on the psychological war it is better supported by taking strong actions in the physical domain by properly arming the Ukrainians. Which brings me to the questions I long to know the answers to: What is our campaign plan for the defense of Ukraine? How is our assessment of it? What are the contingencies? And have we updated our assumptions recently?


Three reasons why defense is beating offense in Ukraine - and why it matters for Taiwan - Breaking Defense
Changes in technology, terrain and society have shifted the balance between offense and defense in ways that favor democracy's defenders in Ukraine — and beyond.
on April 08, 2022 at 9:13 AM
breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · April 8, 2022
Members of the Ukrainian forces participate in an urban combat training exercise. (Ethan Swope/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The following is one in a series of regular analysis pieces by deputy editor Sydney Freedberg.
Ukraine’s surprising success against the Russian invasion shows the character of war is changing. While the Russian military has proven itself unexpectedly inept, there are wider trends at work as well — trends that would hinder any invader anywhere in the world.
That’s bad news for China and other countries that might seek to secure more territory through conquest (and for any remaining American neocons who still advocate preemptive wars on the model of Iraq). It’s good news for democracies, whose strategic goals are overwhelmingly defensive, and especially for smaller nations facing a seemingly overwhelming conventional force.
What’s changing and why? The Ukrainian war highlights military implications of three global trends: precision-guided firepower, sprawling urbanization and mass mobilization. This is not the first time they have shown up; the US itself ran into a similar buzzsaw in Iraq. But Russia’s invasion is the clearest example of how these all play out on a modern battlefield, and as Taiwanese officials have publicly said, Chinese strategists should think hard about the implications for any forcible reunification with Taiwan.
Firepower
There’s an ever-shifting balance between firepower, protection, and maneuver that shapes and reshapes the face of war. Throughout history, when the power of long-range weapons outstrips the protection available against them, it becomes more dangerous to maneuver across the battlefield and safer to stay put under cover. That hinders the attack and favors the defense. Examples include how the English longbows of Crecy and Agincourt disrupted the advance of the French knights, how the machine guns of the Western Front imposed the stalemate of trench warfare — and how Ukraine stymied the Russian advance last month.
The most dramatic examples have been the destruction of Russian tanks by Western-made missiles like the British NLAW and the American Javelin. But heavy armored vehicles are the hardest targets and the easiest to upgrade with advanced countermeasures. (The US Army is installing the Israeli Trophy system on its M1 tanks, for instance). The US experience shows it’s much harder to install anti-missile defenses on lighter vehicles, especially the unarmored supply trucks essential to sustaining any advance. And such thin-skinned vehicles are vulnerable not just to high-end anti-tank missiles but to drones dropping much lighter warheads. In fact, one Ukrainian unit, Aerorozvidka, claims to have halted Russian columns with bomb-dropping drones it designed itself. And even unarmed, off-the-shelf commercial drones can pose a serious threat by spotting targets for Ukrainian artillery or ambushers.

The global proliferation of smart weapons — and of long-range sensors to find targets for them — has implications far beyond Ukraine. Both Russia and China have sought to build “anti-access/area denial” defenses that use long-range anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles to stop US forces from intervening in their regions. Conversely, Western experts like Andrew Krepinevich have argued for similar systems to defend the Philippines, Japan, and Taiwan from China, an approach Taipei has publicly pondered in recent years. The concept, in both cases, calls for using land-based weapons to decimate attacking aircraft and warships as they approach, like a vastly scaled-up version of machine guns at the Somme.
An amphibious invasion is particularly vulnerable to such defenses. Unlike land forces, ships can’t take cover, because there’s no terrain to hide behind on the open sea. Unlike air forces, ships can’t move at hundreds of miles per hour to evade attack. Traditionally, navies avoid land-based threats by staying out of range and using the vastness of the ocean to evade detection – but that’s not an option when the objective is to put troops ashore.
Any Chinese invasion of Taiwan would have to cross over 80 miles of open water — and then fight its way inland across some of the most densely urbanized terrain on earth. Which leads to the next topic:
SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons
Urbanization
Historically, Ukraine has been a highway for invasion: a land of open steppes, wheat fields, and few natural obstacles to the rapid advance of invaders from Mongol horsemen to Nazi tankers. So why have Russian forces failed to seize Kyiv, whose outskirts lie less than 60 miles from their jump-off positions in Belarus, or Kharkiv, just 13 miles from the Russian border?
Part of the answer is urbanization, which physically reshapes the landscape in ways that favor the defense. While the natural features of Ukraine remain unchanged, the human geography is very different than in past wars. Ukraine’s population is actually not much bigger than it was when Hitler invaded — a little over 40 million then, versus 45 million today, according to official figures — but the portion living in urban areas has doubled, to 69 percent. A population density map of Ukraine is speckled with cities — each of them a potential fortress.
As far back as the sixth century B.C., warrior-sage Sun Tzu warned against attacking cities, calling it the worst of strategies. 21st century cities are even tougher: They may not have stone walls, but they feature multi-story buildings allowing ambush from above, concrete structures easily converted into bunkers, and tunnels, or even entire subway systems, that let combatants maneuver underground. The sheer complexity of an urban environment is a nightmare for attacking troops, who lack the defenders’ familiarity with the myriad of back routes, hiding places, and potential ambush zones. Bombarding a city into rubble — as Russia is doing in Ukraine — is effective at slaughtering civilians, but from a military perspective it fills the streets with rubble: more cover for the defenders, more obstacles for the attackers’ advance. No wonder, then, that some of the bitterest fighting in modern times has been in urban areas, from Fallujah and Sadr City in Iraq to Mariupol in Ukraine.
SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons
So, traditionally, most armies’ preferred approach to cities is to avoid approaching them at all. But it’s getting ever harder to go around as the global population grows increasingly urban and urban areas sprawl ever further across the landscape. In 1960, just about a third of the world’s people lived in urban areas, according to the World Bank; by 2020, that figure was nearly 60 percent.
In Taiwan, China’s top target, almost 80 percent of the population lives in urban areas. While the island’s population is much smaller than Ukraine’s — just under 24 million as opposed to 45 million — it’s also concentrated in a much smaller land area, so population density is nine times as high (1,709 per square mile vs. 185). And that population is particularly concentrated on the west side of the country, where any Chinese invasion force would likely have to land. (The east coast is not only further from the mainland but also steeply mountainous).
Such dense urban areas don’t only create physical obstacles to invasion: They create human barriers as well. People packed in close proximity to one another can more easily form social networks, mass protests, rioting mobs, or even insurgencies. And modern technology makes mass mobilization easier than ever before.
Mobilization
Russia ruled most of what is now Ukraine for over 300 years. But today’s Ukraine is much harder to subdue. Historically, most Ukrainians were subsistence farmers, living in isolated villages, with only a slow trickle of news and ideas from outside. Today, most Ukrainians live in cities, and over 60 percent of them have smartphones. For traditional peasants, war and politics were like the weather: inscrutable, dangerous, often disastrous forces that could be endured but never affected. For modern netizens, warfare is interactive, with social media urging them to resist, protest, enlist, make Molotov cocktailsattack supply convoys, and more. Images of victories and atrocities go viral, and leaders like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky can appeal directly to the people.
This phenomenon long predates the internet. Churchill famously rallied British resistance over the radio. Before that, large-scale printing of newspapers, pamphlets, and books fanned the flames of popular resistance movements as far back as the American Revolution. Dictators have exploited mass media as well, with Hitler, Stalin, and the like using propaganda to whip up their populations for total war in ways pre-industrial despots could never equal. The unifying factor is mass communications enabling mass mobilization, but the internet is the latest and most effective form. (Witness the rise of QAnon and the Jan. 6 riots in the US itself).
Members of the military carry a large Ukrainian flag during Ukraine’s Independence Day parade on August 24, 2021(Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)
Of course, websites can be hacked, transmissions jammed, printing presses seized. But even if an invader can shut down communications during wartime — and Russia’s failure to do this in Ukraine is glaring — it’s largely too late if strong national identity has already formed. Years of exposure to mass media helps create such identities by exposing populations to a common language, ideas, and experiences, creating what scholar Benedict Anderson called an “imagined community” that goes far beyond people’s face-to-face connections. And once people identify with something beyond their village, they’re more likely to mobilize themselves to defend it.
In Ukraine today, it’s clear that millions of Ukrainians identify with the national cause, strongly enough to fight for it. What about Taiwan? It is one of the world’s most wired and mobilized societies. As of 2021, 98 percent of the population had a smartphone. 67 percent of them typically turn out for elections — up to 75 percent in 2020.
Now, historically, both Beijing and Taipei agreed that Taiwan was inextricably part of a united China: They just disagreed on who should be in charge. But in recent opinion polls, 68 percent of Taiwan’s population identified themselves as Taiwanese, less than two percent as Chinese, and 28 percent as both. 64 percent said they would “absolutely” or “probably” fight to defend Taiwan.
Those figures suggest a Ukrainian-style territorial defense militia would find plenty of recruits in Taiwan. Armed with modern missiles and drones, and defending urban terrain, they could be a formidable obstacle to any Chinese invasion.
Aggression is hardly obsolete, and China is much stronger than Russia. But Ukraine suggests the right kind of defense is increasingly effective, and democracies around the world should look to its example.

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · April 8, 2022


11. The Cold War Never Ended: Ukraine, the China Challenge, and the Revival of the West


An interesting historical analysis.

Excerpts:

All three of the eruptions that began in 1979 have sputtered. Political Islam long ago revealed its bankruptcy, nowhere more starkly than in Iran. Unable to provide for the development of its economy or the well-being of its people, the Islamic Republic survives through domestic repression, lies, and the emigration of its opponents. China faces demographic problems and a severe challenge to escape the so-called middle-income trap, on top of the manifest failures and impossible contradictions of its governance system. The Leninist regime in Beijing has ceased to be able to tolerate the now vast private sector, whose dynamism is so vital for economic growth and job creation yet so threatening to the regime’s existence. And in the United States and the United Kingdom, the Reagan-Thatcher synthesis ran its course, in part because some of its downsides grew over time, but mostly because its successes altered and partly eliminated the conditions in which it arose and operated. But whereas Islamism and “market-Leninism” cannot foster systems that can reinvent themselves and still remain stable, history indicates that with leadership and vision, a far-reaching renewal of Western rule-of-law systems is possible. What Western countries—regardless of where they are—need now is a new synthesis of substantially expanded opportunity and a national political consensus.
Globally, the West is both envied and resented. In recent decades, Europe and especially the United States have managed to diminish the envy and magnify the resentment, from Latin America to Southeast Asia and lands in between. That dynamic needs to be reversed, but so far, it has only been reinforced by the Western response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which in the short run has put wind in the sails of detractors who seize on the West’s interventionist hypocrisy, self-serving approach to international law, and excessive power.
Empires come and go; blocs endure.
It is seductive to single out Putin and Xi and imagine that individuals rise almost accidentally to the top of major countries and that their removal would solve the geopolitical challenges their regimes pose. Personalities matter, of course, but systems have a way of selecting for certain types of leaders. Eurasian landmass empires are weaker when compared to the modern Anglo-American archetype of surpassing sea power, free trade with other rich nations, and comparatively limited government. The Allies’ victory in World War II enabled that model to encompass not just western Europe but part of central Europe, as well—and, over time, the first island chain in East Asia. China, too, became a trading power, free-riding on the security supplied by the U.S. Navy, building its own navy to protect its position only belatedly. Yet it still suffers from some of the debilitations of a Eurasian power: only one coast, for one, which is largely hemmed in, notwithstanding its seizure and conversion into military installations of coral reefs in the South China Sea. Overbearing states and their attempts at coercive modernization are a backhanded compliment that Eurasia pays to the West. Access to the U.S. and European consumer markets, high-end technology transfers, control of the seas, reserve currencies, and secure supplies of energy and rare metals remain decisive. As Overy’s book shows, a quest for just that and the formation of self-sufficient blocs underlay the run-up to the world wars, their character, and their aftermaths. He conflates this with empire and avers that World War II brought the hammer down on the entire epoch of imperialism.
But empires come and go; blocs endure. Today’s China is arguably pursuing a strategy similar to the one that Nazi Germany and imperial Japan adopted, albeit by all means short of war: to become blockade-proof and sanctions-proof. And now, with Putin having provoked a siege of Russia, Xi will redouble his efforts.
Others will continue to debate whether great-power conflict and security dilemmas are unending. Yet the important point here is not theoretical but historical: the contours of the modern world established by World War II persisted right through the great turn of 1979 and the lesser turn of 1989–91. Whether the world has now reached another greater or lesser turning point depends in large measure on how the war in Ukraine plays out, and on whether the West squanders its rediscovery of itself or consolidates it through renewal.

The Cold War Never Ended
Ukraine, the China Challenge, and the Revival of the West
May/June 2022
Foreign Affairs · by Stephen Kotkin · April 6, 2022
Does anyone have a right to be surprised? A gangster regime in the Kremlin has declared that its security is threatened by a much smaller neighbor—which, the regime claims, is not a truly sovereign country but just a plaything of far more powerful Western states. To make itself more secure, the Kremlin insists, it needs to bite off some of its neighbor’s territory. Negotiations between the two sides break down; Moscow invades.
The year was 1939. The regime in the Kremlin was led by Joseph Stalin, and the neighboring country was Finland. Stalin had offered to swap territory with the Finns: he wanted Finnish islands to use as forward military bases in the Baltic Sea, as well as control of most of the Karelian Isthmus, the stretch of land at the southern end of which sat Leningrad. In exchange, he offered an expansive but boggy forest in Soviet Karelia, bordering Finland far to the north of the isthmus. To Stalin’s surprise, despite serial modifications of his original demands, the Finns rejected the deal. Finland, a country of around four million people with a small army, spurned the Soviet colossus, an imperial power with 170 million people and the world’s largest military force.
The Soviets invaded, but Finnish fighters stalled the poorly planned and executed Soviet attack for months, administering a black eye to the Red Army. Their resistance captured imaginations in the West; British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and other European leaders hailed gallant Finland. But the admiration remained rhetorical: Western powers did not send weapons, let alone intervene militarily. In the end, the Finns kept their honor but lost a grinding war of attrition, ceding more territory than Stalin had initially demanded. Soviet casualties exceeded those of the Finns, and Stalin embarked on a belated top-to-bottom reorganization of the Red Army. Adolf Hitler and the German high command concluded that the Soviet military was not ten feet tall, after all.
Now flash forward. A despot in the Kremlin has once again authorized an invasion of yet another small country, expecting it to be quickly overrun. He has been expounding about how the West is in decline and imagines that although the decadent Americans and their stooges might whine, none of them will come to the aid of a small, weak country. But the despot has miscalculated. Encased in an echo chamber, surrounded by sycophants, he has based his strategic calculations on his own propaganda. The West, far from shrinking from the fight, rallies, with the United States decisively in the lead.
The year was 1950. Stalin was still in power, but this time, the small country in question was South Korea, invaded by North Korean forces after he gave the despot in Pyongyang, Kim Il Sung, a green light. To Stalin’s surprise, the United States formed an international military coalition, supported by a UN resolution; the Soviets, boycotting the UN Security Council, had failed to exercise their veto. UN forces landed on the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula and drove the North Koreans all the way to the Chinese border. Stalin, aided by Washington’s failure to heed its own intelligent reports, effectively managed to shunt his blunder onto the Chinese leader Mao Zedong. China’s People’s Liberation Army intervened in huge numbers, surprising the U.S. commander, and drove the U.S.-led coalition back to the line that had divided the North and the South before the North’s aggression, resulting in a costly stalemate.

And now to the present. Stalin and the Soviet Union are long gone, of course. In their place are Vladimir Putin, a far lesser despot, and Russia, a second-rank, albeit still dangerous, power, which inherited the Soviet Union’s doomsday arsenal, UN veto, and animus toward the West. In February, when Putin chose to invade Ukraine, dismissing its sovereignty and disparaging the country as a pawn in the hands of Russia’s enemies, he was expecting an international response like the one Stalin witnessed when invading Finland in 1939: noise from the sidelines, disunity, inaction. So far, however, the war in Ukraine has engendered something closer to what happened in South Korea in 1950—although this time, the Europeans were ahead of the Americans. Putin’s aggression—and, crucially, the heroism and ingenuity of the Ukrainian people, soldiers and civilians alike, and the resolve and savvy demonstrated by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky—spurred a dormant West to action. The Ukrainians, like the Finns, have kept their honor. But this time, so has the West.
A despot in the Kremlin has once again authorized an invasion of another small country, expecting it to be quickly overrun.
What these parallels show is not that history repeats itself or rhymes; the point, rather, is that the history made in those earlier eras is still being made today. Eternal Russian imperialism leaps out as the easiest explanation, as if there were some sort of innate cultural proclivity toward aggression. There is not. Conversely, however, it would also be simplistic to see Russia’s invasion as a mere reaction to Western imperialism, whether in the form of NATO or its expansion, when the pattern long predates NATO.
These recurring episodes of Russian aggression, for all their differences, reflect the same geopolitical trap, one that Russian rulers have set for themselves again and again. Many Russians view their country as a providential power, with a distinct civilization and a special mission in the world, but Russia’s capabilities do not match its aspirations, and so its rulers resort, time and again, to a hyperconcentration of power in the state in a coercive effort to close the yawning gap with the West. But the drive for a strong state does not work, invariably devolving into personalist rule. The combination of weakness and grandeur, in turn, drives the autocrat to exacerbate the very problem that facilitated his appearance. After 1991, when the gap with the West widened radically, Russia’s perpetual geopolitics endured, as I argued in these pages in 2016. It will persist until Russian rulers make the strategic choice to abandon the impossible quest to become a great-power equal of the West and choose instead to live alongside it and focus on Russia’s internal development.
All of this explains why the original Cold War’s end was a mirage. The events of 1989–91 were consequential, just not as consequential as most observers—myself included—took them to be. During those years, Germany reunified within the transatlantic alliance, and Russian power suffered a sharp temporary reduction—outcomes that, with Moscow’s subsequent withdrawal of troops, freed up small eastern European countries to adopt democratic constitutional orders and market economies and join the West in the EU and NATO. Those events transformed the lives of the people in the countries between Germany and Russia and in those two historical frenemies themselves, but they changed the world far less. A reunified Germany largely remained a nonfactor geopolitically, at least until the weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, when Berlin adopted a far more assertive posture, at least for the moment. Parts of eastern Europe, such as Hungary and Poland, which happened to be among the biggest losers in the world wars and their peace settlements, started to show illiberal streaks and in this way confirmed limitations in the EU’s framework. Although the radical diminution in the size of the Russian state has mostly held (so far), the collapse of Russian power was hardly permanent, just as it was not after the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. The West’s relatively brief respite from great-power competition with Russia constituted a historical blink of an eye.
All the while, the Korean Peninsula remained divided, and China remained communist and continues to insist on its claim to the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan, including the right to forcibly unify it with the mainland. Well beyond Asia, ideologically tinged rivalries and resistance to American power and the West’s professed ideals persist. Above all, the potential for nuclear Armageddon, among the Cold War’s defining aspects, also persists. To argue that the Cold War ended, in other words, is to reduce that conflict to the existence of the Soviet state.
To be sure, far-reaching structural changes have occurred since 1991, and not just in technology. China had been the junior partner in the anti-Western alternative order; now, Russia is in that position. More broadly, the locus of great-power competition has shifted to the Indo-Pacific, a change that began gradually during the 1970s and quickened in the early years of this century. But the foundations for that shift were laid during World War II and built up during the Cold War.

From a geopolitical standpoint, the historical hinge of the late twentieth century was located less in 1989–91 than in 1979. That was the year that the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping normalized relations with the United States and began the Chinese Communist Party’s acquiescence in economic liberalization, which exponentially expanded China’s economy and global power. In the same year, political Islam came to power in Iran in a revolution whose influence reverberated beyond that country, thanks partly to the U.S. organization of Islamist resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Around the same time, amid the depths of stagflation and social anomie, the Reagan-Thatcher revolution launched a renewal of the Anglo-American sphere with an emphasis on free markets, which ignited decades of growth and would eventually force the political left back to the center, with the advent of Tony Blair’s New Labour in the United Kingdom and Bill Clinton’s New Democrats in the United States. This remarkable combination—a market-Leninist China, political Islam in power, and a revived West—reshaped the globe more profoundly than anything since the postwar transformations of Germany and Japan and the consolidation of the U.S.-led West.
The mistaken belief that the Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union spurred some fateful foreign policy choices in Washington. Believing that the ideological contest had been settled definitively in their favor, most American policymakers and thinkers shifted away from seeing their country as the bedrock of the West, which is not a geographic location but a concatenation of institutions and values—individual liberty, private property, the rule of law, open markets, political dissent—and which encompasses not only western Europe and North America but also Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and many other places, as well. In place of the concept of the West, many American elites embraced a vision of a U.S.-led “liberal international order,” which could theoretically integrate the entire world—including societies that did not share Western institutions and values—into a single, globalized whole.
Fever dreams of a limitless liberal order obscured the stubborn persistence of geopolitics. The three ancient civilizations of Eurasia—China, Iran, and Russia—did not suddenly vanish, and by the 1990s, their elites had clearly demonstrated that they had no intention of participating in one-worldism on Western terms. To the contrary, China took advantage of its integration into the global economy without fulfilling its economic obligations, let alone liberalizing its political system. Iran embarked on an ongoing quest to blow up its neighborhood in the name of its own security—unwittingly assisted by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Russian elites chafed at the absorption into the West of former Soviet satellites and republics, even as many Russian government officials availed themselves of the money-laundering services provided by top Western firms. Eventually, the Kremlin rebuilt the wherewithal to push back. And nearly two decades ago, China and Russia began developing an anti-Western partnership of mutual grievance—in broad daylight.
THE WORLD THE WAR MADE
These events precipitated a debate about whether there should or should not be (or whether there already is) a new cold war, one that primarily pits Washington against Beijing. Such handwringing is beside the point; this conflict is hardly new.
The next iteration of the great global contest is likely to revolve around Asia partly because, to a degree that is underappreciated by many Western observers, the last two did, as well. Correcting that misperception, at least when it comes to World War II, is part of the historian Richard Overy’s mission in his latest book, Blood and Ruins, which seeks to shift perspectives on the war and the postwar era by calling more attention to Asia. “The Asian war and its consequences,” he observes, “were as important to the creation of the post-war world as the defeat of Germany in Europe, arguably more so.”
Some of Overy’s arguments read like self-admonishments: the Eurocentric chronology dating the onset of World War II to 1939 “is no longer useful”; “the war should be understood as a global event, rather than one confined to the defeat of the European Axis states with the Pacific War as an appendix”; “the conflict needs to be redefined as a number of different kinds of war,” including “civil wars fought alongside the major military conflict . . . and ‘civilian wars’, fought either as wars of liberation against an occupying power (including the Allies) or as wars of civilian self-defence.” Less conventional for a scholar of Asian or global history is his principal argument that “the long Second World War was the last imperial war.” This contention turns out to clash, however, with his welcome call for greater emphasis on Asia.
Overy sets out his imperialism framework by noting the various major wars before 1914, such as the Sino-Japanese clash of 1894–95, and approvingly quotes Stalin to the effect that a crisis of capitalism “intensified [the] struggle for markets” and that extreme economic nationalism “put war on the order of the day as a means for a new redivision of the world and of spheres of influence.” Overy does not dwell on the fact that Stalin himself sought to forcibly divide the world into hierarchical spheres of influence, albeit ones unrelated to market access. And despite his emphasis on imperialism and his call for a spotlight on Asia, his opening chapters furnish a familiarly Hitler-centric picture of interwar diplomacy and the onset of World War II, his chief subject. He does take a run at a kind of revisionism, recasting British appeasement as “containment” combined with deterrence, even though the arms buildup carried out by London was too slow and the supposed containment lacked credibility. He disregards the 1939 nonaggression pact between Hitler and Stalin, as if the Soviet Union was not involved in the outbreak of the war.
Churchill, U.S. President Harry Truman, and Stalin in Potsdam, 1945
National Museum of the U.S. Navy
In any case, for the millions of Asians caught up in the conflagration, the war had little to do with Hitler or Stalin or British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and everything to do with Japan and its clash with the United States, which Overy relegates to a secondary position in his narrative. He also has difficulty demonstrating the imperial nature of the belligerent armies. The only country that fielded a large-scale imperial army was the United Kingdom; the British dominions mobilized 2.6 million soldiers, and India 2.7 million more. But they were deployed primarily outside the main theaters.

Overy’s book takes flight, however, when it turns to logistics, production, and mechanics. Overy demonstrates, for example, that what today is called “modern warfare” bears little resemblance to the mid-twentieth-century version of industrialized conflict. During World War II, the combatants mostly produced weapons of relative simplicity in prodigious volume, because they had to be operated by the more than 100 million uniformed men and women thrown into combat with comparatively little training. In contrast with many histories of the war, Overy eschews the drama of great tank battles and instead conveys the stupefying loss of nearly all the tanks produced by the combatants. This is a history not of generalship but of unfathomable deprivation, atrocities, and genocide.
It is also a compelling story of organization. Overy illuminates how the sensational initial breakthroughs that the Axis powers achieved had inherent limits—but also how their defeat was not foreordained. “The Axis states all had space rather than time, and it was space that slowed down their advance and brought them to a halt in 1942,” he writes, adding that “the Allies were no nearer invading the Japanese, German, or Italian homelands in 1942, but they now had the time and the global reach to work out how to reorganize and improve their military capability so that they were in a position to do so over the last two years of war.” The slog to victory meant learning the hard way how to fight better and develop the full means to do so. Overy shows how the Soviets painfully absorbed the lessons of German tank warfare and eventually emulated the Nazis’ prowess, revolutionizing standardized tank production despite a massive loss of territory, physical infrastructure, and laborers. The British, meanwhile, underwent their own grind to mimic German air warfare and overhaul their air fleet. Admittedly, Overy is less incisive on how the Americans confronted the most confounding task of all, learning how to fight on oceans, while building out the world’s largest and most advanced navy and air force. Still, he rightly concludes that Allied “military establishments became what the organizational theorist Trent Hone has described as ‘complex adaptive systems’, in which the learning curve”—a term coined in 1936—“could be worked through.”
Ultimately, the war was won not predominantly on the eastern front, where the Red Army suffered unfathomable casualties to annihilate the Wehrmacht, but on the seas and in the air. The United Kingdom and the United States deliberately destroyed the ability of Germany and Japan to produce the weapons of war and to transport them to the front. By 1944, only a minority of the war-making potential of Germany and Japan could even be put into battle. The value to Japan of its vast overseas conquests, with their prodigious natural resources, disappeared once U.S. forces wiped out Japanese merchant shipping. In Germany, even when factories managed to relocate their production (usually belowground), the hasty dispersals introduced higher rates of defects and took workers away from critical manufacturing tasks.
Rather than highlight these Allied achievements, however, Overy emphasizes the costs of the Anglo-American denial strategy. He does note that the Soviet Union did not have the means to engage in systematic economic warfare and that Germany’s attempted ocean blockade of the United Kingdom sputtered, a reflection of Germany’s failure to invest sufficiently in submarines until it was too late. But “in the end,” he concludes, “volume-production and the sharing of military goods proved to be the surer economic contribution to victory.” Needless to say, production and destruction were two sides of the same coin. Overy himself highlights the massive investments in air and naval power to control sea-lanes and mount assaults at a distance and demonstrates the degree to which the Axis powers launched the war to preempt the Allies’ attempt to deny them access to indispensable raw materials, such as oil and rare metals, which the Axis powers did not control. The leaders of Germany and Japan were mesmerized by the unparalleled resources and interdiction capabilities of the British Empire and the continental United States, as well as the sprawling Soviet Union. They felt compelled to fight a war in order to be able to fight a war.
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
Overy’s understanding of empire evinces a pronounced political hue. He suggests, for example, that the postwar Soviet occupation of and coercive imposition of clone regimes in eastern Europe did not constitute imperialism and that British imperialism could be equated with Axis conquests and plundering. “As one Japanese official complained,” he writes, “why was it regarded as morally acceptable for Britain to dominate India, but not for Japan to dominate China?” But not all domination is alike. The British, for all their perfidy, including misgovernance contributing to the 1943 Bengal famine, did not obliterate India’s infrastructure, strafe and shell Indian civilians, coerce millions of Indians into sex slavery, or carry out gruesome scientific experiments on humans—all of which the Japanese did to Asians in China. Overy further implies that the United Kingdom’s single-minded aim in 1945 to recover Malaya and Hong Kong differed little from Japan’s objective to seize and occupy them; in fact, many Asians who rejected British rule could tell the difference between it and Japan’s carnage.
For all his focus on British imperialism, moreover, Overy fails to recount the enormously consequential British recapture of Hong Kong, which the United Kingdom had controlled for a century prior to Japan’s seizure of the territory in 1941. In a book purporting to shift the focus to Asia, he might have credibly made the case that in geopolitical terms, Hong Kong’s fate was more important than that of, say, Poland. Arguably, with the exception of the Soviet capture of Berlin in May 1945 and the stern telegram that U.S. President Harry Truman sent to Stalin in August of that year warning him not to invade Hokkaido (one of Japan’s four main islands), the physical reoccupation of Hong Kong by the British in 1945 exceeded any other wartime episode in its strategic implications.
When Japan’s surrender suddenly appeared imminent in the summer of 1945, surprising Washington, the Truman administration hastily accelerated work on a plan for the hand-over of Japanese-occupied territories and assigned the acceptance of Japan’s surrender of Hong Kong not to the British but to Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist government. The British, however, undertook furious military and political preparations to reclaim Hong Kong for themselves. U.S. officials wanted to satisfy their British allies but also allow Chiang to save face, and so they cleverly suggested that the British could accept the surrender on behalf of the Chinese government. But the British refused that offer, and eventually, Washington acquiesced. Chiang acquiesced as well, dependent as he was on U.S. military and logistical support to reclaim other areas of China. The upshot was that Hong Kong passed from the Japanese back to the British and remained that way even after 1949, when the Communists triumphed over Chiang’s Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War but shrank from attempting to expel the British from the strategic southern port.
Had the British acquiesced rather than the Americans and Chiang, history would have played out very differently. As it was, the communist regime in Beijing was able to take extraordinary advantage of something it would not otherwise have possessed: a world-class international financial center governed by the rule of law. During the period of Deng’s reforms, British Hong Kong ended up funneling indispensable foreign direct investment into mainland communist China—from Japan and Taiwan, especially.
People often ask why Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, when attempting to reenergize the Soviet economy in the second half of the 1980s, did not follow the successful Chinese approach to reforms. Beyond the immense gulf between a highly urbanized, heavily industrialized country and a predominantly rural, agricultural one, the Soviet Union had no Hong Kong to attract and direct incoming investment according to market, rather than political, considerations. No British Hong Kong, no Chinese miracle.

Hong Kong reverted to Beijing’s control only in 1997, under an agreement announced by China and the United Kingdom in 1984. Under the “one country, two systems” arrangement, the Chinese Communist Party agreed to allow Hong Kong to maintain a level of autonomy, democratic rule, and civil liberties, at least until 2047. But Chinese President Xi Jinping has made a mockery of his country’s treaty promises. The logic of communist rule has spurred a vicious and self-defeating crackdown on Hong Kong’s independent sources of wealth, power, and liberty, all of which has threatened the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.
China has no California, and that is by far its biggest strategic deficit.
Such instances of Chinese imperialism do not fit easily into Overy’s end-of-imperialism story line. And Hong Kong is hardly the only place to have been on the receiving end. After all, communist China inherited the Qing dynasty’s multiethnic empire. In 1950 and 1951, the Communists occupied Tibet, which had been self-governing since 1912. Stalin had supported Muslim separatists in the predominantly Uyghur region of Xinjiang during and after the war, but in 1949, he advised the Chinese Communists to encourage Han settlement there. The goal was to bring Xinjiang’s ethnic Chinese population up to 30 percent from five percent so as to foster development and strengthen China’s grip. In 2020, according to that year’s census, Han Chinese made up 42 percent of Xinjiang’s population. A 2018 UN report, whose findings have been corroborated by copious open-source satellite imagery, indicated that Beijing has incarcerated at least one million Uyghurs in “reeducation” and forced-labor camps.
Ethnic tensions were not the only difficulty that faced communist China after its successful military occupation of and legalization of its rule over a swath of what is known as “Inner Asia,” a region that spans from Tibet to Turkmenistan. The terrain itself was forbidding: deserts, mountains, and high plateaus. Nor did it offer China anything equivalent to the American West Coast. China has no California. Today, Beijing is trying to acquire something of an ersatz California to gain access to the Indian Ocean via the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea by extending Chinese infrastructure into volatile Pakistan and Myanmar. But this is no substitute for the real thing, a second coast that provides both an immense security moat and an invaluable commercial highway; California represents the fifth-largest economy in the world by GDP. Lacking anything like it is by far China’s biggest strategic deficit.
HOW THE WEST WAS ONE
Asia has cast a harsh light on a number of Americans celebrated for their grand statesmanship in Europe and the Soviet Union: the envoy George Marshall and his failed mission to China to reconcile Chiang’s Nationalists and Mao’s Communists; the diplomat George Kennan and his ignored recommendations to abandon the Nationalists and to launch a U.S. military invasion of Taiwan that would deny it to both the Nationalists and the Communists; Secretary of State Dean Acheson and his exclusion of the Korean Peninsula from the U.S. defense perimeter. Stalin, more than U.S. policymakers, feared the competitive weight of China, which after his death, in 1953, vied for supremacy within the communist bloc (and across what was then called the Third World). Many analysts blame Clinton for naively encouraging communist China’s accession to the World Trade Organization without proper conditionality or reciprocity. Fair enough. But one could just as well point the finger at President Jimmy Carter for restoring “most favored nation” status to China, a nonmarket economy with a totalitarian regime.
In truth, the original source of the endemic U.S. fumbling over modern China was President Franklin Roosevelt. The wartime leader had a vague intuition about China’s significance in the postwar world he envisioned, but he effectively gave up on China, even as he elevated its status by making it one of the four countries (eventually five) that wielded veto power at
the Security Council in the newly formed United Nations. Churchill was apoplectic over Roosevelt’s notion that China should be afforded the role of a great power (a mere “affectation” on Beijing’s part, in the British prime minister’s view). As Overy recalls, the United States distributed some $800 million in aid to China between 1945 and 1948 (the equivalent of more than $10 billion in today’s dollars), trained 16 divisions of the Nationalist government’s army and assisted another 20, and provided some 80 percent of Chiang’s military equipment, before disengaging from China’s civil war. By pursuing his communist and anti-Western convictions, Mao imposed bellicose clarity on the confused bilateral relationship, and although Americans debated the question, “Who lost China?” for decades after, under Mao, China lost the United States. Today, more than 40 years after the two countries normalized relations, Xi risks doing much the same.
Where the world is now, however, is not a place it has ever been. For the first time in history, China and the United States are great powers simultaneously. China had long been the world’s preeminent country when the 13 American colonies broke free from the United Kingdom. Over the next nearly two centuries, as the United States ascended to become the world’s largest economy and greatest power known to history, China not coincidentally entered a long, dark tunnel of external and especially internal depredations. That ended as the two countries became intertwined in profound ways. That process had less to do with U.S. President Richard Nixon’s kowtowing to Mao, aiming at widening the wedge that Beijing had opened with Moscow, than with Deng’s historic decision to ditch the Soviets, don a cowboy hat during a 1979 visit to Texas, and hitch China’s wagon to the insatiable American consumer market, following the trail that had been so spectacularly blazed by Japan, then South Korea and Taiwan. In the 1990s, Chinese President Jiang Zemin recuperated a vital relationship with a jilted Russia and its military-industrial complex, while retaining China’s strategic orientation toward the United States, allowing Beijing to have its cake and eat it, too.
Putin and Xi in Beijing, November 2014
How Hwee Yong / Reuters
But regimes in Eurasia have a way of reminding the United States and its allies, no matter how deep they have sunk into delusions, about what matters and why. U.S. President Donald Trump exhibited strongman envy and only wanted to cut trade deals, but his presidency spurred a remarkable shift to a hawkish national consensus on China, which has endured the advent of the Biden administration even though many members of President Joe Biden’s team served in the all-too-submissive Obama administration. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Xi’s evident complicity, in turn, shook Europe out of its dependence on Russian energy and its trade-above-all complacency about China and its leader. The view is now widespread that Putin cannot be allowed to triumph in Ukraine not only for the sake of Ukraine and Europe but also for the sake of the Asian strategy that the United States is pursuing with its allies. Moscow is now a pariah, and business as usual with Beijing is no longer tenable. Going forward, nothing is more important than Western unity on both China and Russia. This is where the Biden administration has taken an important step forward, despite its fumbles in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the rollout of the AUKUS security pact.

In China, the lean toward Russia is not solely Xi’s. Chinese nationalists—in the broader public, among experts, and in ruling circles—ardently blame NATO and the United States for the war in Ukraine. They urge China to draw even closer to Russia. These hard-line Chinese want Russia to win, because they want their country to take over Taiwan and believe that the United States will violate any international norm in the pursuit of dominance. Still, some Chinese elites have noted the degree to which Western intelligence agencies have managed to penetrate Putin’s regime, the ease with which Russia was severed from the global financial system, and the ways that a despot in a sycophantic echo chamber can miscalculate in shattering fashion. Maybe allowing one man to turn an authoritarian system that was benefiting myriad interest groups into a personalist fiefdom that risks everything isn’t such a good idea, after all.
Still, whereas Stalin maneuvered to fob off his Korean War blunder onto Mao and the Chinese rank-and-file cannon fodder, in the war in Ukraine, Xi has so far allowed Putin and Russian soldiers to pay the costs of attempting to accelerate the West’s supposed decline and what the Chinese leader repeatedly refers to as “great changes unseen in a century.”
In fact, the West has rediscovered its manifold power. Transatlanticism has been pronounced dead again and again, only to be revived again and again, and perhaps never more forcefully than this time. Even the most committed liberal internationalists, including some in the Biden administration, are coming to see that enduring rivalries constitute an ongoing cold war—that the world as it is came into being not in 1989–91 but in the 1940s, when the greatest sphere of influence in history was deliberately formed to counter the Soviet Union and Stalin. It is fundamentally a voluntary sphere of influence that offers mutual prosperity and peace, in contrast to the closed, coercive sphere pursued by Russia in Ukraine and by China in its region and beyond.
Just as decisive are the less tangible qualities that allow the United States to lead not an imaginary liberal international order but rather a non-geographic West. American leaders frequently err, but they can learn from their mistakes. The country has corrective mechanisms in the form of free and fair elections and a dynamic market economy. The United States and its allies have strong institutions, robust civil societies, and independent and free media. These are the advantages afforded by being unashamedly and unabashedly Western—advantages that Americans should never take for granted.
BLOC PARTY
All three of the eruptions that began in 1979 have sputtered. Political Islam long ago revealed its bankruptcy, nowhere more starkly than in Iran. Unable to provide for the development of its economy or the well-being of its people, the Islamic Republic survives through domestic repression, lies, and the emigration of its opponents. China faces demographic problems and a severe challenge to escape the so-called middle-income trap, on top of the manifest failures and impossible contradictions of its governance system. The Leninist regime in Beijing has ceased to be able to tolerate the now vast private sector, whose dynamism is so vital for economic growth and job creation yet so threatening to the regime’s existence. And in the United States and the United Kingdom, the Reagan-Thatcher synthesis ran its course, in part because some of its downsides grew over time, but mostly because its successes altered and partly eliminated the conditions in which it arose and operated. But whereas Islamism and “market-Leninism” cannot foster systems that can reinvent themselves and still remain stable, history indicates that with leadership and vision, a far-reaching renewal of Western rule-of-law systems is possible. What Western countries—regardless of where they are—need now is a new synthesis of substantially expanded opportunity and a national political consensus.
Globally, the West is both envied and resented. In recent decades, Europe and especially the United States have managed to diminish the envy and magnify the resentment, from Latin America to Southeast Asia and lands in between. That dynamic needs to be reversed, but so far, it has only been reinforced by the Western response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which in the short run has put wind in the sails of detractors who seize on the West’s interventionist hypocrisy, self-serving approach to international law, and excessive power.
Empires come and go; blocs endure.
It is seductive to single out Putin and Xi and imagine that individuals rise almost accidentally to the top of major countries and that their removal would solve the geopolitical challenges their regimes pose. Personalities matter, of course, but systems have a way of selecting for certain types of leaders. Eurasian landmass empires are weaker when compared to the modern Anglo-American archetype of surpassing sea power, free trade with other rich nations, and comparatively limited government. The Allies’ victory in World War II enabled that model to encompass not just western Europe but part of central Europe, as well—and, over time, the first island chain in East Asia. China, too, became a trading power, free-riding on the security supplied by the U.S. Navy, building its own navy to protect its position only belatedly. Yet it still suffers from some of the debilitations of a Eurasian power: only one coast, for one, which is largely hemmed in, notwithstanding its seizure and conversion into military installations of coral reefs in the South China Sea. Overbearing states and their attempts at coercive modernization are a backhanded compliment that Eurasia pays to the West. Access to the U.S. and European consumer markets, high-end technology transfers, control of the seas, reserve currencies, and secure supplies of energy and rare metals remain decisive. As Overy’s book shows, a quest for just that and the formation of self-sufficient blocs underlay the run-up to the world wars, their character, and their aftermaths. He conflates this with empire and avers that World War II brought the hammer down on the entire epoch of imperialism.
But empires come and go; blocs endure. Today’s China is arguably pursuing a strategy similar to the one that Nazi Germany and imperial Japan adopted, albeit by all means short of war: to become blockade-proof and sanctions-proof. And now, with Putin having provoked a siege of Russia, Xi will redouble his efforts.

Others will continue to debate whether great-power conflict and security dilemmas are unending. Yet the important point here is not theoretical but historical: the contours of the modern world established by World War II persisted right through the great turn of 1979 and the lesser turn of 1989–91. Whether the world has now reached another greater or lesser turning point depends in large measure on how the war in Ukraine plays out, and on whether the West squanders its rediscovery of itself or consolidates it through renewal.

Foreign Affairs · by Stephen Kotkin · April 6, 2022

12. Was Ukraine Wrong to Give Up Its Nukes?

"Coulda, woulda, shoulda."

A what if question: Would a nuclear armed Ukraine have been able to deter Russian aggression?

Excerpts:
The United Kingdom and the United States should have taken a wider view of their obligations under the Budapest Memorandum and used it as a framework for more expansive defense cooperation with Ukraine over the last eight years. Such an approach would have reassured Ukrainians that they would not suffer for their decision to disarm and would have boosted the credibility of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. By visibly bolstering Ukraine’s defenses, especially its air and missile defenses, the United Kingdom and the United States would have raised the costs of a Russian invasion and possibly even deterred it.
That ship has unfortunately sailed. But it is not too late to help Ukraine defend itself and, in so doing, defend the nonproliferation regime. Ukraine should have everything it needs in terms of armor, air and coastal defenses, aircraft, and intelligence support to successfully repel the Russian invasion and recover its territory. The United States and the United Kingdom should also communicate clear redlines—such as the use of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons—that if crossed would prompt them to reconsider their nonintervention stance.
Much is riding on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, not least the value of nuclear weapons around the world. If Ukraine beats back the Russian invasion, then countries may come to place less stock in nuclear weapons, potentially paving the way for a world in which no one has the power to unleash nuclear Armageddon. If Ukraine falls to a rogue nuclear power while the United States and its allies stand by, deterred by the specter of nuclear escalation, nuclear renunciation will come to be seen as folly—even if, in Ukraine’s case, it was the only sensible choice.

Was Ukraine Wrong to Give Up Its Nukes?
The Real Legacy of Kyiv’s Post-Soviet Disarmament
April 8, 2022
Foreign Affairs · by Mariana Budjeryn · April 8, 2022
Although Russia has relied exclusively on conventional weapons for its invasion of Ukraine, behind the scenes lurks Moscow’s massive nuclear arsenal. Hours before Russian forces crossed into Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin reminded the world that his country was “one of the most powerful nuclear states” and that anyone who interfered with his war in Ukraine or threatened Russia directly would face “consequences that you have never faced in your history.” Three days later, as global outrage grew, Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to a higher level of readiness. Even without these explicit threats, Russia’s nuclear deterrent would have prevented Western countries from intervening in Ukraine. Beyond supplying Kyiv with anti-armor and light air defense weapons, they will not come to Ukraine’s defense for fear of nuclear escalation, as U.S. President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders have made abundantly clear. Now that Putin’s attempts to seize Kyiv have been thwarted, there is a risk he will use tactical nuclear weapons to bring Ukraine to its knees. And while this scenario remains unlikely, neither Ukraine nor NATO can do anything to prevent it from happening.
This is a particularly bitter pill to swallow for Ukraine, since it was once home to the world’s third-largest cache of nuclear weapons. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited a significant slice of the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal. But in 1994, the newly independent country decided to surrender that arsenal in exchange for assurances from Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States that its sovereignty and territorial integrity would be respected. The agreement, known as the Budapest Memorandum, is one that many Ukrainians have come to regret—first in the wake of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine, and now even more so after its all-out assault on the country. If Ukraine had held on to its arsenal, many have argued, Putin would never have dared to invade the country.
But Ukraine’s regrets about nuclear disarmament are misplaced. True, Ukrainian leaders willingly gave up their nukes, but the complex set of circumstances under which they did so have been grossly oversimplified in the narratives that have taken hold. What Ukraine inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union was less of a usable nuclear deterrent than a proliferation starter kit that could have set the country on a path to becoming a nuclear pariah. The real mistake was not Ukraine’s decision to disarm but the West’s failure to hold up its end of the bargain. The United States and its allies should have done much more to ensure that the right lessons were learned from Ukraine’s disarmament—not only by Ukraine but by any state that might harbor nuclear ambitions.
At stake in Ukraine is not just the future of that country and its people but also something much bigger: the future of nuclear nonproliferation. If Ukraine successfully repels the Russian onslaught and recovers its territory and sovereignty, then the value of nuclear possession will diminish and the cause of nuclear nonproliferation will advance. If, on the other hand, Russia gets away with its invasion, it will have offered would-be proliferators an object lesson in the dangers of disarmament. The United States and its allies must do everything in their power to prevent that outcome.
A SENSIBLE CHOICE
As the Soviet Union began to crumble in 1991, the United States quickly formulated a policy that only one nuclear state should emerge from the rubble. On this, Washington saw eye to eye with Moscow. Everyone agreed that Russia should take over the Soviet Union’s seat on the UN Security Council and succeed it as a nuclear weapon state under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But it was not a given that Russia would emerge as the sole nuclear successor of the Soviet Union. For that to happen, the Ukrainian puzzle would need to be solved.

Initially, Ukraine contested Russia’s claim to a monopoly on the Soviet nuclear legacy. It did so not because it wanted to keep nuclear weapons as a deterrent. To the contrary, Ukraine had started on its path to independence determined to become a state free of nuclear weapons—in part because the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident had galvanized widespread antinuclear sentiment, and in part because Kyiv hoped to extricate itself from Moscow’s military grip. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine was an important staging ground for Soviet defenses against NATO, with roughly one million men under arms, one of five Soviet strategic missile armies, its most modern strategic bombers, and about a quarter of the Kremlin’s total nuclear arsenal stationed on its territory.

It was not a given that Russia would emerge as the sole nuclear successor of the Soviet Union.
But relations between Russia and newly independent Ukraine soured almost immediately. Ukrainian leaders suspected that Russia would find it hard to be an “equal among equals,” as then Russian President Boris Yeltsin had promised. They worried that if Russia monopolized all the most important international positions and statuses previously occupied by the Soviet Union, it would eventually seek influence over the former Soviet states. They were not wrong.
Kyiv therefore took the position that the nuclear armaments on its territory were its rightful property as a legal successor to the Soviet Union on a par with Russia. This did not amount to claiming the right to be a nuclear weapon state. For starters, Ukraine inherited pieces of a nuclear arsenal designed by the Soviet Union for its own strategic purposes—namely, to deter the United States and NATO. The launch authority remained in Moscow—only the Russian president was in possession of the so-called nuclear briefcase and the launch codes to authorize a nuclear strike. Moreover, although Ukraine inherited impressive industrial capacity to manufacture delivery vehicles such as missiles and aircraft, it lacked nuclear fuel facilities needed to produce fissile material for warheads.
In other words, Ukraine could have begun a nuclear weapons program, but doing so would have taken a great deal of time, money, and effort. Although it had capable scientists, engineers, and a loyal strategic aviation and missile officer corps that by 1994 had taken the Ukrainian oath, it would have had to build uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing and nuclear fuel fabrication facilities. It also would have had to design and manufacture nuclear warheads and missiles of shorter ranges in order to deter Russia rather than the United States.
Setting aside these technological challenges, to become a full-fledged nuclear possessor, Ukraine would have had to endure international opprobrium, isolation, and sanctions. The United States and its allies promised in no uncertain terms that Ukraine would become the North Korea of eastern Europe if it chose a nuclear path. Ukraine would have been shunned in international forums. It would have been denied access to Western-controlled international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, whose help Ukraine sorely needed to dig itself out of a deep post-Soviet economic crisis. And it would have to do without Russian shipments of energy supplies, including fuel assemblies for Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, which Moscow would have halted. In other words, whatever security benefits Ukraine would have gained from a nuclear deterrent would have been more than outweighed by their economic and political costs.

To become a full-fledged nuclear possessor, Ukraine would have had to endure international opprobrium, isolation, and sanctions.

To the extent that nuclear disarmament was a choice, then, it was a wise one. Ukraine insisted on a fair deal for relinquishing its nuclear inheritance. It negotiated hard, with little leverage, against two powerful interlocutors, Russia and the United States, who worked in tandem. The resulting settlement, finalized in 1994, included compensation for the fissile material contained in Ukraine’s nuclear warheads. It also included security assurances, codified in the Budapest Memorandum, from three nuclear powers: Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States promised to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, abstain from economic coercion, and refrain from threatening force, nuclear or otherwise. They did not, however, agree to specific enforcement mechanisms that would be triggered by the memorandum’s breach.
Although these assurances fell short of the robust and legally enforceable guarantees Ukraine sought, the memorandum was—and is—an important political document, signed by four heads of state, acknowledging Ukraine’s legitimate security concerns. The Budapest Memorandum became part of the broader international nuclear nonproliferation regime, and until 2014, Ukrainians believed that it would protect them if they ever came under attack.
DEFEND UKRAINE TO DEFEND NONPROLIFERATION
Since 2014, Putin has done much to make Ukrainians doubt the prudence of their nuclear choices. Yet the United States and its allies bear some responsibility for allowing Ukrainian doubts to look justified. In April 2021, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany warned that if the United States and its allies did not allow Ukraine to join NATO or otherwise guarantee its security, the country reserved the right to “revisit its nuclear status.” Then, on February 19, as Russian troops appeared to be readying for an attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky threatened to withdraw from the 1994 agreement if Western nations did not provide real security guarantees. A week into the war, an exasperated Zelensky quipped that the diesel fuel NATO had supplied to Ukrainian troops could be put to better use by burning the Budapest Memorandum.
Zelensky’s caustic remarks might seem unjustified, given that the Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been unprecedented in terms of the scope of military assistance to Ukraine and the severity of sanctions imposed on Russia. But for the last eight years, since Russia’s first invasion, the United Kingdom and the United States have taken a narrow view of their obligations under the Budapest Memorandum. Aside from an initial meeting of the signatories in March 2014, which Russia did not attend, the memorandum has not been a part of the discussion at all. None of the military assistance Washington and London have given Kyiv since 2014 has been framed as fulfillment of their security commitments under the agreement. And for reasons that are difficult to fathom, the United States opted to stay out of the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, leaving France and Germany to lead a process that produced a ceasefire but no peace.

It is not too late to help Ukraine defend itself and, in so doing, defend the nonproliferation regime.
The United Kingdom and the United States should have taken a wider view of their obligations under the Budapest Memorandum and used it as a framework for more expansive defense cooperation with Ukraine over the last eight years. Such an approach would have reassured Ukrainians that they would not suffer for their decision to disarm and would have boosted the credibility of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. By visibly bolstering Ukraine’s defenses, especially its air and missile defenses, the United Kingdom and the United States would have raised the costs of a Russian invasion and possibly even deterred it.
That ship has unfortunately sailed. But it is not too late to help Ukraine defend itself and, in so doing, defend the nonproliferation regime. Ukraine should have everything it needs in terms of armor, air and coastal defenses, aircraft, and intelligence support to successfully repel the Russian invasion and recover its territory. The United States and the United Kingdom should also communicate clear redlines—such as the use of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons—that if crossed would prompt them to reconsider their nonintervention stance.
Much is riding on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, not least the value of nuclear weapons around the world. If Ukraine beats back the Russian invasion, then countries may come to place less stock in nuclear weapons, potentially paving the way for a world in which no one has the power to unleash nuclear Armageddon. If Ukraine falls to a rogue nuclear power while the United States and its allies stand by, deterred by the specter of nuclear escalation, nuclear renunciation will come to be seen as folly—even if, in Ukraine’s case, it was the only sensible choice.

Foreign Affairs · by Mariana Budjeryn · April 8, 2022


13. Is China’s navy as dangerous as so many fear?


For my naval expert friends: What kind of a situation would lead to a "straight-up" naval fight in the Indian Ocean?


Excerpts:

Should China invade Taiwan, it is expected to rely heavily on missiles such as these to keep the U.S. military at arm’s length as they put troops ashore, Heath said. The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s main task would be to fight Taiwanese ships and aircraft and to protect ambitious landings. Chinese surface ships and submarines would likely attack only those U.S. Navy ships that came close to Taiwan.
Overall, the Chinese navy constitutes somewhat of a threat to the U.S. Navy so long as it operates within the envelope of China’s land-based missiles and aircraft, he said.
“But, if you’re talking about a straight-up fight in the middle of the Indian Ocean, I think the U.S. Navy would pretty easily defeat almost anything the Chinese navy has,” Heath said.
Is China’s navy as dangerous as so many fear?
It depends whom you ask.

BY JEFF SCHOGOL | PUBLISHED APR 8, 2022 2:36 PM
taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · April 8, 2022
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While most of the world is watching the struggle between Ukraine and Russia, the eyes of U.S. Navy leaders remain fixed on China, which already has the largest navy in the world, and one that could dwarf the American fleet by the end of the decade.
China plans to increase the size of its People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) from about 355 to 460 ships by 2030, according to the Defense Department’s latest report on Chinese military power. By comparison, the U.S. Navy would shrink from 298 to 280 ships by fiscal 2027 under its current budget proposal — unless Congress forces the Navy to buy more ships than it wants.
By any metric, China’s navy is a powerful force that continues to grow and improve. Yet the issue of just how dangerous China’s ships, submarines, and naval aircraft are to the U.S. Navy is open to interpretation.
A war with China would mean that both the Navy and Marine Corps would have to face their most technologically advanced adversary since World War II. China’s navy and air force combined comprise the third largest air force in the world. The country’s navy also has nine nuclear attack submarines along with 56 diesel boats. Perhaps most importantly, China has a large arsenal of ground and surface-based missiles that would pose a serious threat to U.S. ships and service members.
A Great Wall 236 submarine of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, billed by Chinese state media as a new type of conventional submarine, participates in a naval parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of China’s PLA Navy in the sea near Qingdao in eastern China’s Shandong province, Tuesday, April 23, 2019. (Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press)
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] is also projecting power further out from its periphery, positioning the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] to command an increasingly global presence,” Ely Ratner, assistant defense secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told Congress in March. “The PLA is rapidly improving many of its capabilities, including strike, air, missile-defense, and anti-submarine warfare, as it focuses on integrating information, cyber, and space operations.”
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For years, the ships in China’s navy were no match for U.S. naval forces, but the newest surface ships that China is building are “incredibly capable ships,” said Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), who is the ranking member on the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee and co-chair of Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus.
As China builds more ships with better weapons and radar systems, the Chinese navy poses an increasing threat to U.S. naval forces, Wittman told Task & Purpose. He also noted that as China builds more ships, it will get better at producing advanced combat systems.
AT SEA, OCTOBER 19: China’s type 055 guided-missile destroyer Nanchang sails during the naval exercise Joint Sea-2021 on October 19, 2021 in the Western part of the Pacific Ocean. (Sun Zifa/China News Service via Getty Images)
“When you look at what the Chinese are able to do, they are developing weapons platforms that can hold at risk U.S. assets at a longer distance,” Wittman told Task & Purpose. “A ship’s capability is about several things. It’s not only about weapons systems. It’s also about sensors. It’s things like radars: Can radars see further out. When they’re more capable, that ship has a bigger footprint of what it can do. When you have that capability with sensors and you combine it now with weapons systems that can reach out longer distances, all of a sudden, those platforms have pretty significantly increased capability.”
As of 2020, China’s navy had launched 25 Luyang III class destroyers, each of which has 64 multipurpose vertical launching system cells, which can fire cruise missiles, surface-to-air-missiles, and anti-submarine missiles, according to the Defense Department’s report on Chinese military power. China also commissioned the first Renhai class cruiser in 2020. Those ships will have 112 VLS cells and will likely be outfitted with anti-ballistic missiles when they become operational.
This photo taken on April 24, 2018 shows a J15 fighter jet landing on the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning during a drill at sea. (AFP via Getty Images)
China also commissioned its first domestically built aircraft carrier in 2019 and it is building a second carrier that is expected to enter service by 2024, the report says.
“They are very intent on replicating the effectiveness of the U.S. aircraft carrier — and, I would argue, the same with other ship classes,” Wittman said. “Although they’re still well behind in submarines, they are doing everything they can to try to build that capability. Their diesel boats, while indeed being diesel boats — you can’t underestimate them. Of course, they are building nuclear submarines also.”
While modern Chinese ships feature state-of-the-art missiles and good radar, the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s primary missions are not to take the U.S. Navy head on, said Timothy Heath, a senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization.
Instead, the Chinese navy is focused on responding to contingencies against neighboring countries such as Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and India, Heath told Task & Purpose. The People’s Liberation Army Navy does enjoy major advantages over those naval forces, but China’s fleet is not an equal to the U.S. Navy, he said.
SAINT-PETERSBURG, RUSSIA – JULY 27: China’s frigate Yuncheng (L) and missile destroyer Hefei (R) arrives at St Petersburg to take part in a ship parade marking Russian Navy Day in St. Petersburg, Russia, 27 July 2017. (Sergey Mihailicenko/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
“Against the U.S. Navy in most plausible scenarios, the Chinese navy is actually not that big a threat,” Heath told Task & Purpose. “Their surface ships in general are pretty vulnerable, especially to long-range missiles. The U.S. has superior carrier aviation. We have excellent submarine capability. So, we could get at the Chinese navy fairly easily.”
China’s aircraft carrier force is still in its nascent development phase and the Chinese navy lacks defenses against U.S. attack submarines, Heath said.
In fact, if China invaded Taiwan, the greatest threats to the U.S. Navy would come from China’s land-based missiles and aircraft, not the People’s Liberation Army Navy, he said.
The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force’s arsenal includes anti-ship ballistic missiles that have a range greater than 1,500 kilometers, allowing China to conduct precision long-range strikes on ships, including aircraft carriers, according to the Defense Department’s 2021 report on the Chinese military. China also has intermediate-range ballistic missiles with a range of about 4,000 kilometers that can hit ships as well as U.S. military bases on Guam.
ZHOUSHAN, April 28, 2020 — Special operation soldiers of the Chinese naval fleet for escort mission wave farewell on the deck at a port in Zhoushan, east China’s Zhejiang Province, April 28, 2020. (Xinhua/Jiang Shan via Getty Images)
Should China invade Taiwan, it is expected to rely heavily on missiles such as these to keep the U.S. military at arm’s length as they put troops ashore, Heath said. The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s main task would be to fight Taiwanese ships and aircraft and to protect ambitious landings. Chinese surface ships and submarines would likely attack only those U.S. Navy ships that came close to Taiwan.
Overall, the Chinese navy constitutes somewhat of a threat to the U.S. Navy so long as it operates within the envelope of China’s land-based missiles and aircraft, he said.
“But, if you’re talking about a straight-up fight in the middle of the Indian Ocean, I think the U.S. Navy would pretty easily defeat almost anything the Chinese navy has,” Heath said.
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Jeff Schogol is the senior Pentagon reporter for Task & Purpose. He has covered the military for 15 years. You can email him at schogol@taskandpurpose.com, direct message @JeffSchogol on Twitter, or reach him on WhatsApp and Signal at 703-909-6488. Contact the author here.

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · April 8, 2022


14. How Toxic Is Complexity? It Was A Sabotage Tactic In WWII

The OSS continues to make contributions.

How Toxic Is Complexity? It Was A Sabotage Tactic In WWII

Forbes · by Lisa Bodell · April 8, 2022
Lisa BodellContributor
I focus on simplifying the path to meaningful work and innovation.
Are more approvals required in your company than your main competitor?
Shutterstock
In 1944, the United States’ Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) — forerunner to the C.I.A. — wrote a field manual for agents tasked with sabotaging enemy organizations in the name of American national security. Among its recommended strategies? Complication. The O.S.S. encouraged saboteurs to “insist on doing everything through channels”; and “never permit shortcuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions”; and “see that three people have to approve everything where one would do.”
What was a wartime maneuver 78 years ago is now just a typical weekday for most of us. And after interviewing thousands of employees and leaders across the world for my book Why Simple Wins, I’ve come to understand how even the most nimble companies devolve into tangled webs of complexity.
Here’s a two-sentence explanation: As an organization grows, teams proliferate and layers accumulate, increasing the distance between leadership and the frontline. Ideas and decisions slow and stall in every direction, decreasing productivity and innovation. According to Harvard Business Review, adding a manager creates about 1.5 full-time-equivalent employees’ worth of new work. In other words, the work of your newly hired manager plus 50% of another employee’s work responsibility.
A proven antidote to complexity is de-layering — as Bain & Company refers to it — which flattens your org structure to reduce complexity and improve efficiency. While de-layering may seem daunting, you don’t need expensive consultants to identify areas of opportunity. For reference, truly agile companies typically have only three management layers and even the largest ones shouldn’t have more than six. Look at each org within your existing reporting structure and honestly answer the following questions:
· Are there any redundancies? If so, where?
· Are employees siloed?
· Are more approvals required in your company than your main competitor?
· Could you increase the range of control for certain roles and functions without overwhelming employees? If so, where?
If you answered “no” to every question, congratulations: You can stop reading here. But if you replied with at least one “yes,” deep dive into that trouble spot. For example, if you see evidence of organizational siloes, consider whether leadership is failing to communicate a shared vision — and how to quickly address this oversight. Likewise, if approvals are a known source of bureaucracy, review workflow charts or accounting rules around expenses (or both) to identify both bottlenecks and opportunities to streamline.
De-layering in action can be seen in U.K. supermarket Tesco’s controversial decision in 2018 to flatten its org. The initiative was designed to “remove complexity and “deliver a simpler, more helpful experience for colleagues and customers.” Fast-forward to February 2022, when industry data showed the once-lagging Tesco now continuing to outperform its major rivals.
Battling complexity isn’t easy. But with an org structure that encourages communication and accountability, you’ll be well-positioned to keep it at bay. And when your entire company takes a simplified approach to operations, you can focus on beating the competition — instead of being sabotaged by complexity from within.
Forbes · by Lisa Bodell · April 8, 2022


15. Derek Chollet on US Indo-Pacific Diplomacy and the Russia-Ukraine War

Ukraine will be an important issue with our Aisan allies. NOtna an issues and not the issue, but an important one.

Excerpts:

Our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific are worried about Russia-Ukraine in terms of what it means for them, but also in terms of what lessons China takes from how the world is handling this situation, whether it’s how the world is coming to the defense of Ukraine, also how they’re punishing Russia with sanctions and the effects of the those sanctions on Russia and Russian decision-making. It’s clear, which I experienced first-hand last week in Manila and Hanoi, that our partners are watching this and seeing what lessons China and others can draw from the Russia-Ukraine conflict for their own concerns, for example the South China Sea or Taiwan.
Derek Chollet on US Indo-Pacific Diplomacy and the Russia-Ukraine War
In U.S. interactions with Asian partners, “I expect Russia-Ukraine will be an issue but it won’t be the issue,” the State Department counselor told The Diplomat.
thediplomat.com · by Shannon Tiezzi · April 9, 2022
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On April 7, the U.N. General Assembly voted on a resolution to suspend Russia from its membership in the U.N. Human Rights Council, which saw support from Asia-Pacific countries drop compared to previous resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The vote came amid continued strong U.S. engagement with Asia-Pacific countries. Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was at a NATO meeting including representatives from Australia, Japan, and South Korea, and this weekend will see the India-U.S. 2+2 convene in Washington, D.C., with Ukraine on the agenda.
U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet, a senior policy advisor to the secretary of state, gave an exclusive interview to The Diplomat’s Shannon Tiezzi to discuss U.S. diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific region on the Russia-Ukraine war.
I wanted to start by getting your reaction to the recent vote on suspending Russia’s membership in the U.N. Human Rights Council. A lot of votes shifted away from supporting that resolution toward abstentions or even noes, compared to previous resolutions. Is there a sense of disappointment at that change in support?
No. I think the bottom line is what matters the most, which is that for only the second time in history a country has been removed from the U.N. Human Rights Council. So we’re very pleased with the outcome. We think it’s an outcome that is entirely warranted and justified given what Russia has been doing in Ukraine. After the images coming out of Bucha, it was quite clear I think that the country that can perpetrate acts like that has no place on the U.N. Human Rights Council. My understanding is that Latvia is now taking their place on the council, which I think is is a fitting resolution to this issue.
So no, we were very pleased with the outcome. I think it’s very significant and it sends a very clear message that Russia’s behavior is completely unacceptable and there needs to be accountability for what it’s doing. Just today we heard there is another report of a horrific attack on a train station that has killed at least, in the latest reports, as many as 50 people. Unfortunately, I think we have to assume that once the tide rolls back and Russia retreats further from Ukraine, we are going to find even more evidence of atrocities and crimes against humanity than we’ve seen thus far.
Southeast Asia had a particularly large shift, with even Singapore which has sanctioned Russia itself, abstaining on the latest vote. Was there a concerted U.S. effort to try and get these countries to support it? Do you have any comment on those abstentions?
I think we want to focus on the outcome here. Different countries gave explanations for their vote in different ways. For example, there is an open inquiry into what’s going on inside Ukraine by the Human Rights Council and so some countries said, “Well, we’re not going to vote for expulsion yet. Let’s wait for the conclusion of the inquiry.” Our view was, there’s abundant evidence that there are gross violations of human rights occurring inside Ukraine, and as I said, this will only get worse over time, so we think it warrants a vote. But nevertheless, we are not going to respond over the top in any way if some countries abstained, because the bottom line remains that Russia’s off the Council.
I was in Southeast Asia last week. I was in Vietnam and the Philippines. We talked a lot about Russia and Ukraine. Clearly, Vietnam, for example, is a country with a long relationship with the Soviet Union and then Russia. Its military is quite close to the Russian military. At the same time, they’re clearly struggling with this. Vietnam can related in many ways to the plight of the Ukrainian people, and the resilience and the bravery of the Ukrainian people, in the face of an onslaught by a much larger neighbor.
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One of the things that we talked about, particularly with our Asian friends and our ASEAN friends, is the importance of the fundamental principles at stake, and the idea that if you look at the ASEAN Charter and the core principles expressed in the ASEAN Charter, particularly issues like sovereignty and the peaceful resolution of disputes, all of those are being violated today by Russia against Ukraine. My sense is there’s wide agreement on that within ASEAN, with an asterisk really around Burma, of course.
We’ve been gratified by the level of support and unity we’ve seen thus far, but we’re going to continue the conversation with our ASEAN friends, particularly about ways forward, in terms of their relationship with Russia but also how we can work together to try to address the effects of Russia war against Ukraine.
China switched from an abstention to a no vote, but India did not – it maintained its abstaining vote, as it had in previous resolutions. Do you see a divergence in approaches between India and China? Despite both being reluctant to criticize Russia directly, it seems that they are adopting different positions on the issue.
Oh, there’s no question. Let’s remember where we were two month ago. Putin and Xi, before the Winter Olympics released a 5,000-word joint statement that talks about the fact there are “no limits” to the China-Russia relationship. India is a member of the Quad. India is a close partner of the United States and other Western countries. It has a close relationship with Russia, it has a significant defense relationship with Russia, it has for many years, but it also has a growing defense relationship with us. The United States, several decades ago, was not available as a defense partner for India. Now it is available, and we’ve seen our defense relationship with India transform dramatically over the last decade or so.
Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin will be meeting here in Washington on Sunday and Monday [April 10 and 11] with their Indian counterparts, where we talk about the relationship at large. Obviously they’ll spend a lot of time also talking about the situation with Russia and Ukraine, but more importantly talking about our strategic relationship and all the important issues that the U.S. and India are working on together.
So as we see it, there’s a fundamental difference. There’s no similarly really at all in terms of how we think India’s approaching this and China’s approaching this.
We have been very clear with the PRC leadership. Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, and Secretary Blinken have both said this directly to Chinese counterparts, as has President Biden to President Xi, that China will pay a price if it sides with Russia in terms of providing it material support, if it helps Russia evade sanctions. And I think the Chinese are themselves struggling with this.
There was an EU summit that they were looking forward to that occurred earlier this week [on April 1]. That was a tough summit between the EU and China because the Europeans made clear that they needed to talk about Russia and Ukraine. The Chinese were trying to move on, elide the subject to talk about other things. China clearly has stated as a goal for its own ambitions to have a close relationship with Europe. It’s going to be very hard for them to achieve that if they continue to side with Russia, which they seem to be intent on doing.
Does the U.S. have serious concerns about India helping Russia evade sanctions? There’s been some movement toward increasing purchases of Russian oil and gas.
We’re not concerned about that. That’s not something that we’ve seen as a policy decision [by India] in any way in the same way that we’ve seen China make that kind of policy decision in terms of rather than try to hedge their bets to really go all-in with Russia. We haven’t seen that with India.
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In U.S. diplomatic interactions with Asia-Pacific countries – your trip to Southeast Asia, the upcoming U.S.-India meetings – is Ukraine a top agenda item as those meetings? Or is it one of many agenda items that the U.S. is focusing on right now.
It’s the latter. It’s clearly an agenda item, because the crisis in Ukraine is a global crisis, it’s affecting every country around the world, whether food prices, fuel prices, countries’ relationship with Russia, countries that are deciding to support Ukraine either in humanitarian support or economic support or in some cases military support, whether it’s lethal or non-lethal.
And I think it’s really important to note, I was just in Brussels yesterday with Secretary Blinken, and he had bilateral meetings with the Koreans, the Japanese, and the Australians, who were all there. For the first time at NATO we had our four Asian partners there, and New Zealand was there virtually, but not in person. For the first time those four Asian allies sat around the table together with all 30 NATO countries to talk about NATO in the Indo-Pacific but also Russia and Ukraine. But we also talked about critical issues in the Indo-Pacific region, whether it’s North Korea or China or the situation in Myanmar.
Whether it’s the ASEAN Special Summit that President Biden will host here in Washington, hopefully soon, whether it’s the 2+2 coming up, whether it’s the ASEAN, EAS, APEC meetings coming up in the summertime, I expect Russia-Ukraine will be an issue but it won’t be the issue. There will be many other things to discuss.
Our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific are worried about Russia-Ukraine in terms of what it means for them, but also in terms of what lessons China takes from how the world is handling this situation, whether it’s how the world is coming to the defense of Ukraine, also how they’re punishing Russia with sanctions and the effects of the those sanctions on Russia and Russian decision-making. It’s clear, which I experienced first-hand last week in Manila and Hanoi, that our partners are watching this and seeing what lessons China and others can draw from the Russia-Ukraine conflict for their own concerns, for example the South China Sea or Taiwan.
thediplomat.com · by Shannon Tiezzi · April 9, 2022
15. The Threat to the West Is Inside the House
Excerpts:
Adopting a much harsher tone toward both an EU member (Hungary) and a candidate state (Serbia) would have a deterrent effect on other governments that are toying with the idea of entrenching themselves by undermining principles of rule of law—or of making overtures to Moscow and Beijing. Particularly in the Western Balkans, a reminder that the EU stands for something would have a salutary impact on countries’ genuine efforts to join by actually meeting accession criteria and not simply using the EU as a cash cow.
Washington, too, would do well to signal to Hungary that its current geopolitical outlook is incompatible with having a future in NATO and impose sanctions on Fidesz politicians and the regime’s most prominent kleptocrats. Last year already, the White House started sanctioning Serbian officials who are destabilizing or threatening the integrity of Serbia’s neighbors. That policy ought to be strengthened and expanded further to cover a broader swath of individuals.
Vucic and Orban are clever political actors. But, as the histories of their own countries show, clever triangulation to extract favors from all sides can misfire terribly at a time of war. It is time for the West to force the hands of the two aspiring dictators, make them pick sides, and face the consequences.
The Threat to the West Is Inside the House
Foreign Policy · by Ivana Stradner, Dalibor Rohac · April 8, 2022
The United States and Europe need to toughen up on the spoilers in their own ranks.
By Ivana Stradner, a Jeane Kirkpatrick fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Dalibor Rohac, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks during a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Belgrade on May 15, 2020.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks during a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Belgrade on May 15, 2020. ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP via Getty Images
Russia’s Vladimir Putin may not occupy Ukraine anytime soon, but he is keeping two other European countries firmly in his fold. The results of recent, less than completely free and fair elections in Serbia and in Hungary are victories for the Kremlin. Unsurprisingly, Putin was among the first to congratulate Aleksandar Vucic and Viktor Orban on their reelections. Both of them, after all, had been doing his bidding for years.
Both Washington and Brussels have exercised “strategic patience” in dealing with Hungary and Serbia, hoping for piecemeal change for the better. Yet when both Budapest and Belgrade are openly siding with Russia against the broader trans-Atlantic community at a time of war, the all-carrots approach is no longer tenable. Lest NATO and the European Union be made into paper tigers by Putin’s closest European allies, the two organizations must show their teeth.
Unless the costs inflicted on entrenched leaders such as Vucic and Orban exceed their perceived gains from undermining the blocs they are a part of or wish to join, there is no reason for them to stop misbehaving. There are sharp limits to the Western dialogue-fixes-all approach. Pursuing it further with Belgrade and Budapest, in face of all the evidence, and expecting a different result is the very definition of insanity.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin may not occupy Ukraine anytime soon, but he is keeping two other European countries firmly in his fold. The results of recent, less than completely free and fair elections in Serbia and in Hungary are victories for the Kremlin. Unsurprisingly, Putin was among the first to congratulate Aleksandar Vucic and Viktor Orban on their reelections. Both of them, after all, had been doing his bidding for years.
Both Washington and Brussels have exercised “strategic patience” in dealing with Hungary and Serbia, hoping for piecemeal change for the better. Yet when both Budapest and Belgrade are openly siding with Russia against the broader trans-Atlantic community at a time of war, the all-carrots approach is no longer tenable. Lest NATO and the European Union be made into paper tigers by Putin’s closest European allies, the two organizations must show their teeth.
Unless the costs inflicted on entrenched leaders such as Vucic and Orban exceed their perceived gains from undermining the blocs they are a part of or wish to join, there is no reason for them to stop misbehaving. There are sharp limits to the Western dialogue-fixes-all approach. Pursuing it further with Belgrade and Budapest, in face of all the evidence, and expecting a different result is the very definition of insanity.
The two regimes share more than a superficial affinity manifested recently at the opening of a new Chinese-funded railway between the two capitals, at which the two strongmen attracted ridicule for waving at nonexistent crowds.
Both leaders exploit grievances about their countries’ lost territories and prestige. At the 100th anniversary of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, Orban called on the present generation to reverse the post-World War I settlement and restore a “Great Hungary.” Similarly, Serbian nationalists never quite accepted the demise of Yugoslavia and the emergence of independent countries such as Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina with their own ethnic Serbian populations.
The yearning for former imperial glory promoted by Vucic and Orban harbors the same potential for violence and destruction as the one that is driving Putin’s genocide in Ukraine. In Serbia’s case, to talk of “potential” violence is a dramatic understatement. After the world had seen Slobodan Milosevic’s genocide of Bosniak Muslims in the 1990s firsthand, a young Vucic thought it a good idea to join Milosevic’s government. “For every Serb killed, we will kill 100 Muslims,” he vowed to Serbia’s parliament in 1995.
Since becoming president in 2017, Vucic toned down his rhetoric and pledged to bring Serbia closer toward the EU, although, fundamentally, he has pursued the same agenda as his predecessors. The Serbian government called for the creation of the “Serb World”—a Balkan parallel to Putin’s “Russian World” where all Serbs would live and be united under a common cultural framework. In Montenegro, Serbia seeks to exercise influence via the Orthodox Church. In Bosnia, the Milorad Dodik-controlled Republika Srpska, a client of Belgrade and Moscow, regularly threatens to secede, while keeping the country’s complex federal politics paralyzed.
In all of this, Serbia is largely acting in accordance with Moscow’s wishes. Serbia is completely dependent on Russian energy, which Russia successfully uses as a negotiating tool. Although the EU is imposing severe sanctions on Russia, this week Putin and Vucic discussed further energy cooperation. Moscow has also supplied Belgrade with weapons, securing Serbia’s role as a regional power, which threatens neighboring NATO countries. Serbia’s destabilization of the Western Balkans meets Putin’s objectives by distracting NATO’s leaders and straining their cohesion. To that point, Belgrade and Moscow also pledged to fight “color revolutions” together.
Orban’s methods might be more subtle, but his goals are much the same—and similarly consistent with Putin’s ambitions. The Fidesz party government has been giving away Hungarian citizenship to ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries, buying soccer clubs in formerly Hungarian areas, and channeling funds into Hungarian parties abroad. At regular intervals, Hungary’s neighborhood policy rattles the country’s neighbors, including Slovakia and Romania, which understandably dread the prospect of large irredentist populations holding Hungarian passports on their territory. Beyond undermining regional cohesion, its revanchism has long placed Hungary in a chronic conflict with Ukraine, as Orban has repeatedly undercut Kyiv’s efforts to forge a closer relationship with NATO and the EU.
In Russia’s genocidal war, not only has Hungary ruled out providing any military assistance to Ukraine, but it has also prohibited any such shipments from other NATO countries to move through its own territory. Orban’s government, touting its own 15-year contract with the Russian state energy company Gazprom, has also pledged to veto any energy sanctions. “We will by no means allow Hungarians to be made to pay the price of war,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said last week. In a bow to Yugoslavia’s communist dictator, Josip Broz Tito, Vucic also wants to have a “neutral” foreign-policy balance among Beijing, Moscow, Brussels, and Washington. While Serbia did vote in favor of a recent United Nations resolution calling on Russia to stop its war in Ukraine, it is rejecting any sanctions on Russia over Ukraine and pledged not to join “anti-Russian hysteria.”
For far too long, Vucic and Orban have been able to have their cake and eat it, too. They have benefited, in Serbia’s case, from candidate status and being on the receiving end of EU assistance, and, in the case of Hungary, from the pocketing of literally billions in EU funds by Orban-connected oligarchs. It would be the height of fecklessness for Brussels and Washington to respond to the two leaders’ reelection by doing more of the same.
Following a move by the European Commission on Tuesday, Hungary is being cut off from EU funding on rule-of-law, or “conditionality,” grounds. That situation must be made permanent. Budapest must also be excluded, by default, from future EU initiatives that can be pursued under the rubric of enhanced cooperation among the 26 remaining member states. Serbia’s EU candidate status must be revoked, too. Most importantly, this is time for leadership from Germany. For far too long, Vucic and (even more significantly) Orban were able to hide behind German equivocation on Russia. If Berlin takes a more hawkish view on Putin’s genocidal regime—which it should for reasons unrelated to Serbia and Hungary—the multivector foreign policy pursued by Budapest and Belgrade will no longer be tenable.
Adopting a much harsher tone toward both an EU member (Hungary) and a candidate state (Serbia) would have a deterrent effect on other governments that are toying with the idea of entrenching themselves by undermining principles of rule of law—or of making overtures to Moscow and Beijing. Particularly in the Western Balkans, a reminder that the EU stands for something would have a salutary impact on countries’ genuine efforts to join by actually meeting accession criteria and not simply using the EU as a cash cow.
Washington, too, would do well to signal to Hungary that its current geopolitical outlook is incompatible with having a future in NATO and impose sanctions on Fidesz politicians and the regime’s most prominent kleptocrats. Last year already, the White House started sanctioning Serbian officials who are destabilizing or threatening the integrity of Serbia’s neighbors. That policy ought to be strengthened and expanded further to cover a broader swath of individuals.
Vucic and Orban are clever political actors. But, as the histories of their own countries show, clever triangulation to extract favors from all sides can misfire terribly at a time of war. It is time for the West to force the hands of the two aspiring dictators, make them pick sides, and face the consequences.
Ivana Stradner is an advisor to the Barish Center for Media Integrity at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Dalibor Rohac is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Ivana Stradner is a Jeane Kirkpatrick fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where her research broadly focuses on the intersection of international law and security.
Dalibor Rohac is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies European political and economic trends. He is also a research associate at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in Brussels and a fellow at Anglo-American University in Prague. Twitter: @DaliborRohac
Foreign Policy · by Ivana Stradner, Dalibor Rohac · April 8, 2022


16. Opinion: Virginia’s universities should not support China’s military

Conclusion:

Not all academic collaboration with Chinese entities entails riskand not all Chinese students are spies. But common sense dictates that Virginia’s top schools should not be engaging in any meaningful way with Chinese universities that have formal research links to China’s military.


Opinion: Virginia’s universities should not support China’s military
By Craig Singleton
Yesterday at 10:00 a.m. EDT

Craig Singleton is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on foreign policy and national security.
Following Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) called for the commonwealth and local governments to cut ties with Russian entities. Youngkin’s entreaty was intended to show “solidarity with the Ukrainian people as they defend their country” from Russia’s aggression. Youngkin should not focus solely on cutting the commonwealth’s troubling ties to Russia, particularly as other countries, including China, continue to provide tacit backing to Moscow’s illegal invasion.
Elected leaders can and should take concrete steps to address China’s malign influence throughout Virginia, including divesting state investments in problematic Chinese companies. However, having run on a platform centered on reforming Virginia’s education system, the governor should also prioritize neutralizing China’s overt campaign to steal intellectual property from Virginia’s college campuses.
China has made no secret of its intention to harness its students and professors to advance the country’s military and technological modernization. This strategy, referred to as military-civil fusion, aims to acquire the world’s cutting-edge technologies — including through theft — to achieve Chinese military dominance. Accordingly, Beijing is focused on obtaining everything from foundational knowledge taught on college campuses to cutting-edge research, much of which is not technically classified but still has potential military applications.
To support its defense industry, the Chinese government sponsors Chinese students specializing in 280 of what Beijing calls “disciplines with national defense characteristics” to attend joint degree and exchange programs in the United States. These students then return home to provide the technology and talent necessary to prevail in Beijing’s strategic competition with Washington. Dozens of China’s civilian universities also host defense laboratories where Chinese students and professors contribute to classified research for China’s nuclear weapons program, its cyberespionage platforms and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Details regarding China’s military buildup are well known. What is less understood is that many of the United States’ top universities quietly maintain academic and research partnerships with the same Chinese schools working to give the PLA an edge over the U.S. military. That includes at least three of Virginia’s premier universities: Virginia Tech, Old Dominion University and William & Mary.
Just how bad are these partnerships?
Virginia Tech maintains long-standing academic and research partnerships with Tianjin University, home to two defense laboratories conducting classified military research on cutting-edge technologies in fields such as optoelectronics and propellants. Tianjin also actively supports China’s spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, and has received awards from the MSS for its work on communication and information engineering. Another of Virginia Tech’s premier partners, Tongji University, plays a major role in advancing the PLA’s marine strategy and, in 2019, was added to a U.S. government watch list on account of its ties to China’s military.
For its part, Old Dominion collaborates with Beihang University, one of China’s preeminent defense research universities and a member of the “Seven Sons of National Defense,” a grouping of select Chinese universities whose work exclusively supports China’s military. Beihang’s work includes supporting China’s ballistic missile program and other elements of China’s defense sector. Old Dominion also partners with Minzu University, whose research on facial recognition has been used to identify and surveil ethnic minorities in China, including the country’s persecuted Uyghur population. Likewise, William & Mary’s partner of choice, Beijing Normal University, directly supports China’s unmanned aerial vehicle program and other military-civil fusion-related activities.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Only a minimal amount of due diligence is necessary to uncover what these Chinese schools are up to. Many of them proudly advertise their national security work on their websites. And yet that did not stop these and other Virginia universities from partnering with or accepting millions of dollars from these problematic Chinese schools, according to Department of Education disclosures.
When Chinese leader Xi Jinping says he intends to “exhaust all means” to lure tech talent to China, he means it. That requires state legislators and higher-education leaders to rethink how they manage risk within the broader research enterprise. This is particularly true in the case of Chinese partnerships that might compromise democratic values or policies adopted by the U.S. government in response to threats posed by authoritarian regimes.
Federal, state and local stakeholders, including alumni associations, must pressure the leaders of these and other Virginia universities to properly vet their Chinese partners and to terminate any relationships with those that maintain connections to China’s military-industrial complex. In cases where universities fail to comply, state leaders should consider potential cuts to each university’s state-provided funding.
Not all academic collaboration with Chinese entities entails riskand not all Chinese students are spies. But common sense dictates that Virginia’s top schools should not be engaging in any meaningful way with Chinese universities that have formal research links to China’s military.
17. Japan, Philippines Agree to Boost Security Cooperation

And more bilateral security cooperation among our alliance partners is a good thing. We will never have an "Asian NATO" (No SEATO or NEATO) but our hub and spoke alliance system can work well.

Japan, Philippines Agree to Boost Security Cooperation
Shared concerns about China’s maritime assertiveness have driven a steady strategic convergence between Tokyo and Manila.
thediplomat.com · by Sebastian Strangio · April 8, 2022
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Japan and the Philippines have agreed to bolster security cooperation and expand joint military drills to counter China’s increasing maritime assertiveness, their defense ministers said yesterday.
During a meeting in Tokyo, Defense Minister Kishi Nobuo and his Philippine counterpart, Delfin Lorenzana, reaffirmed the importance of maintaining and strengthening a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” and said that attempts to change the status quo by force were “unacceptable,” according to a statement from Japan’s Defense Ministry.
At the outset of the meeting, Kishi reportedly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, describing it as “unquestionably a unilateral change of status quo by coercion and a clear violation of international law.” As is usual in these sorts of statements, China was not mentioned by name, but Kishi’s references to “coercion” and “unilateral changes to the status quo” clearly also applied to Beijing’s increasingly assertive maritime behavior, which has courted friction with both the Philippines and Japan.
Over the past decade, the Philippines has experienced repeated and prolonged Chinese incursions into its Exclusive Economic Zone. Last month, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) announced that Chinese vessels had maneuvered dangerously close to PCG vessels on at least four occasions over the past year near the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

In particular, the PCG reported “a close distance maneuvering” incident involving a Chinese Coast Guard vessel during a maritime patrol operation close to Scarborough Shoal on March 2. The Philippines later lodged a diplomatic protest against China over the incident, with National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. stating that “we, as a nation, will stand by our established sovereign rights and sovereignty over the area.” China has undertaken similarly assertive actions near the Japan-controlled Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.
The agreements are just the latest indication of the strategic convergence between Manila and Tokyo, due in large part to shared concerns about China’s waxing power. “The Philippines is an island nation like Japan, a littoral state in the South China Sea, and an ally of the United States like Japan,” Kishi told reporters after the meeting. “We consider it a very important country.” Lorenzana responded by saying that they have shown “both countries’ dedication and commitment to further strengthen our overall bilateral defense relations.”
Relations between Tokyo and Manila have long been fruitful, a reality perhaps best symbolized by the fact that Japan is the one major country that maintained good relationship with both the pro-U.S. President Benigno Aquino and his successor Rodrigo Duterte, who indulged in anti-American recriminations and steered the Philippines into closer relations with China.
Under the former, Japan and the Philippines signed a strategic partnership in 2011 and in February 2016, brokered a new defense agreement allowing the transfer of defense equipment and technology from Japan to the Philippines. Under Duterte, in August 2020, the two nations agreed to the Philippines’ purchase of a warning and control radar system developed by Mitsubishi Electric – the first sale of Japanese defense technology to a Southeast Asian nation. In their meeting yesterday, Kishi and Lorenzana agreed to bolster these transfers of defense equipment and technology between the two countries.
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This steady upward trajectory suggests that Philippine-Japan relations will continue to deepen, no matter who prevails at this year’s presidential election.
thediplomat.com · by Sebastian Strangio · April 8, 2022
18. Unraveling the tale of Hunter Biden and $3.5 million from Russia

Unraveling the tale of Hunter Biden and $3.5 million from Russia

Staff writer
Yesterday at 3:00 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/unraveling-tale-hunter-biden-35-million-russia/

“She [Russian billionaire Elena Baturina] gave him [Hunter Biden] $3.5 million so now I would think [Russian president Vladimir] Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it. I think we should know that answer.”
— Former president Donald Trump, in an interview with Just the News, March 29
“The FBI knew of the laptop, knew that Hunter received a $3.5 million wire transfer from the former mayor of Moscow’s wife.”
— Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), interview on Fox Sunday Morning Futures, April 3
Less than 50 days before the 2020 presidential election, the Republican staff of the Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees issued a joint report with a startling claim — that Joe Biden’s son Hunter had received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, a Russian billionaire and the widow of the former mayor of Moscow.
Trump quickly weaponized the factoid, mentioning it 42 times in the final weeks of the campaign. He sharply questioned Biden during the first presidential debate: “They were the ones involved with Russia, turns out not me, it was the opposite. But why did your son get three and a half million from the wife of the mayor of Moscow?”
An attorney for Hunter Biden denied the allegation in 2020 but it has lived on, especially in the right-wing media. Recently Trump called on Putin to reveal what he knows about it.
Trump’s call-out to Putin inspired us to dig deep into this story again. We interviewed people familiar with the transactions, reviewed property and real estate documents and probed for leads in the emails contained on a hard drive copy of the laptop Hunter Biden supposedly left behind for repair in a Delaware shop in April 2019. None of our sources would speak on the record because of continuing investigations of Hunter Biden and his business practices, but we sought confirmation from corporate filings and other records.
The flimsiness of the allegation was apparent from the start merely by carefully reading the Senate GOP report itself.
The executive summary offers a seemingly definitive bullet point almost exactly the same as Johnson’s comment: “Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow.” But the two pages in the report that deal with this transaction are considerably more nuanced, never saying outright that Hunter Biden received this money and making no claim that any laws were broken.
The GOP report itself does not provide evidence to back up the claim that became a talking point — and our reporting has unearthed the best explanation about what really happened. It’s a complicated story, involving a web of corporate entities, that eventually leads to the purchase of millions of dollars worth of real estate in Brooklyn by the Russian billionaire. We found no evidence that Hunter Biden was part of those transactions.
A deal in China
Let’s start our story in China, where Hunter Biden invested in a private investment fund backed by Chinese state entities at a time when his father was vice president — a controversial practice that has raised ethical questions. The allegation that he received this payment hinges on his involvement with a firm called Rosemont Seneca Thornton that initially invested in the fund, generally known as BHR Partners.
The report says that on Feb. 14, 2014, Baturina wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC, which it said was “co-founded” by Hunter Biden. The payment was listed as “Consultancy Agreement DD12.02.2014,” the report said.
The report attributes details on financial transactions to a “confidential document” obtained from the Treasury Department. Johnson and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, in 2019 had announced they had sought Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) on individuals and entities, including Hunter Biden. SARs are akin to an informant’s tips, not evidence of fraud.
Rosemont Seneca Thornton was created on May 28, 2013 according to corporation records, and was incorporated in Delaware, which does not require shareholders or directors to be revealed. But Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, sometimes used “Rosemont” in company names and Biden used “Seneca.” Thornton referred to Thornton Group, run by Jim Bulger, who brought expertise in investing in China.
But almost as immediately as Rosemont Seneca Thornton was created, the partners decided to dissolve it, according to a person with access to the board minutes. The original structure had added unexpected regulatory burdens to Thornton, and so Bulger’s lawyers advised that the group split up, this person said.
Within a year, Chinese corporate records reflected that the foreign investors in BHR were Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC, with 20 percent, and Thornton Group LLC, with 10 percent. Corporate records show Rosemont Seneca Bohai, the replacement corporate vehicle, was formed on Feb. 13, 2014, the day before the Baturina transfer.
In theory, for Hunter Biden, Rosemont Seneca Thornton was no more.
RST unexpectedly lives on
But Rosemont Seneca Thornton was not dissolved as planned. Four people familiar with the company said that Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, controls it. Archer had kept the vehicle alive for his own real estate business, Rosemont Realty, which raised money from Eastern European and Central Asian investors, two people knowledgeable about his activities said. But he did not inform either Hunter Biden or Bulger, they said.
Archer’s secret was exposed when the Senate report was published. Confronted, Archer told Bulger that he had used Rosemont Seneca Thornton to transfer funds from Baturina to purchase real estate in Brooklyn, according to a participant in the conversation.
Archer and his attorney, Matthew Schwartz, did not respond to queries. Hunter Biden’s attorney, Chris Clark, declined to comment.
Baturina did not respond to emailed questions. When the report was released, she told the Daily Mail she was “not interested” in explaining an alleged consultancy fee. Her estranged brother Viktor Baturin claimed to the news organization that “it was a payment to enter the American market.” Baturin, who is reported to be in custody after losing a fraud case filed by his sister, could not be reached for comment.
Hunter Biden’s laptop does not contain significant evidence of direct interaction between Hunter Biden and Baturina, according to a review of emails that have been verified by experts working with The Washington Post as well as emails that the experts were unable to verify.
Her name, for instance, appears as a possible guest for a 2015 dinner that then-Vice President Biden later briefly visited, according to our reporting, but it’s unclear if she attended.
There’s also no sign of a $3.5 million payment in Hunter Biden’s reported income for 2014, the year of the wire transfer. That year, he reported earning almost $1.25 million, according to information contained in a verified laptop email he sent to his lawyer. The email said $400,000 of the income was related to Biden’s board seat at Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
Archer did a lot of business with Hunter Biden and had originally brought him into the BHR deal. But Archer also had many side deals in that period unconnected to his business with Biden. So doing his own deal with Baturina would appear to be part of that pattern.
In February, Archer was sentenced to a year and a day in prison after being convicted of defrauding Native American tribes and various clients in relation to the fraudulent issuance and sale of tribal bonds between 2014 and 2016. “I was doing too many things at once and not paying enough attention,” said Archer before he was sentenced. “I have deep remorse for the victims of the crime.”
Baturina’s deals in Brooklyn
Besides the allegation about Hunter Biden, the GOP report made other claims about payments from Baturina to Rosemont Seneca Thornton. But that part of the report showed sloppiness in the reporting and calls into question the thoroughness of the investigation. The report critically misidentified the recipient, mixing up two entities with virtually the same names.
The Fact Checker identified the correct owner of the entity that received the funds — and traced the money to real estate purchases in Brooklyn that match a statement by Baturina as well as Archer’s admission that he used Rosemont Seneca Thornton to transfer funds for Baturina for real estate investments in Brooklyn.
The Senate report said that “between May 6, 2015 and Dec. 8, 2015, Baturina sent 11 wires in the amount of $391,968.21 to a bank account belonging to BAK USA LLC,” with the transactions listed as “loan agreement.” The report said that nine of the transactions, totaling $241,797.14, were sent to a Rosemont Seneca Thornton bank account, which then transferred the money to BAK USA.
The report said “BAK USA was a start-up technology company headquartered in Buffalo, N.Y., that produced tablet computers in cooperation with unnamed Chinese business partners.” It turns out there were two BAK USA LLCs, but the one that received the payments had a comma in its name — BAK USA, LLC, which corporate records show was formed on May 28, 2014.
In 2016, Baturina issued a statement saying she had opened a representative office in New York to oversee investments in the United States. “Baturina’s company has acquired the first set of commercial buildings next to Barclay’s Centre, a very popular sports and entertainment venue. The company owns the buildings with a total area of 1,500 square meters, and the investment that went into their acquisition totaled US $10 million,” the statement said.
New York City real estate records show that BAK USA, LLC, using the same business address as Archer’s firm Rosemont Capital, on June 27, 2014 had purchased two parcels in Brooklyn within a half mile of Barclays Center. One parcel was bought for $4.1 million and another for $5.4 million, or a total of $9.6 million. The properties had been auctioned by the unclaimed and seized assets program of the United States government.
The property records and a property tax bill directed us to Helen Gotman, who is active in New York City real estate. She confirmed to the Fact Checker she managed the properties on behalf of Baturina.
In 2018, the properties were sold for about $11.7 million each, property records show, for a gain of more than $14 million.
J.P. Folsgaard Bak, a Danish lawyer who moved to the United States to become an entrepreneur, headed the Buffalo company misidentified in the report. The company had closed its doors in 2018 after Trump’s Chinese tariffs made Chinese components more expensive and the tablets unprofitable. Bak said he was reading the Daily Mail in 2020, shortly after the Senate report was released, and was stunned to see an article saying his company had received payments from a Russian billionaire.
The committee staff had not contacted the company before publication of the report. Bak said the story exploded on social media and threats were being made against him and his wife. He sought an immediate correction from the committee but said the company’s appeals were not heeded, with officials being told the burden of proof was on the company.
After the election, on Nov. 18, 2020, the committee issued a supplemental report that on page 16 included a footnote stating: “It appears that the tablet company did not receive the wires, but rather the other entity under the name BAK USA LLC was the recipient of those funds.” Bak said he did not learn of the footnote until May of the following year, when he received a letter from the Grassley’s chief of staff alerting him to it.
The GOP response
Alexa Henning, a Johnson spokesperson, said he stood by the report.
“Our report cited information from factual statements in U.S. government records,” said Taylor Foy, a spokesman for Senate Finance Committee Republicans, in a statement. “We’ve been provided no evidence to change our findings or dissociate Hunter Biden’s financial connections to Devon Archer and Yelena Baturina.” In an apparent reference to the Biden laptop, he added: “In fact, additional evidence has come to light that suggests Hunter Biden and Devon Archer collaborated on financial transactions with Yelena Baturina around the time of the transaction in question, and were involved in additional financial ventures together than had been previously known.”
As for BAK USA, Foy said, “Hunter Biden, Devon Archer and their associates would routinely set up multiple corporations with similar names for limited use.” He said that “the committee received angry messages” from “combative” BAK company officials but sought to clarify the record with the footnote in the supplemental report.
Bak said as far as he knows, no news organization ever corrected its reporting on BAK USA. “Our old company officially is still identified as the receiver of the funds, if you look it up at the Internet,” he said. “Typical Washington strategy: October surprise on front page and subtraction at page 11 next to the crossword.”
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19. Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells 60 Minutes what he saw in Bucha: "Death. Just death."

60 Minutes tomorrow night. I am sure the strategic influence master class will continue.


Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells 60 Minutes what he saw in Bucha: "Death. Just death."
Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells 60 Minutes what he saw in Bucha: "Death. Just death."
April 8, 2022 / 7:00 AM / CBS News
Zelenskyy to appear on 60 minutes this Sunday
60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy inside a government building in Kyiv for a two-part report that airs Sunday on 60 Minutes after coverage of the Masters.

"What must the world understand?" Pelley asked Zelenskyy.
"We are defending the ability of a person to live in the modern world. They say we're defending Western values. I always say, what are Western values? Someone who lives in the United States or Europe, do they also not like children? Do they not want their children to go to university, do they not want their grandfather to live for 100 years? We have the same values. We are defending the right to live. I never thought this right was so costly. These are human values. So that Russia doesn't choose what we should do and how I'm using my rights. That right was given to me by God and my parents," Zelenskyy said.
Pelley also went to Bucha, where residents were killed and evidence of war crimes are emerging. Zelenskyy visited Bucha this week; when asked by Pelley what he saw there, Zelenskyy responded, "Death. Just death."
Pelley has reported on the war in Ukraine since it broke out. He spoke with refugees and those trying to help them from a train station near Poland's border with Ukraine, and embedded with medical volunteers in Lviv as they delivered much needed supplies into the country as hospitals, health care facilities and ambulances have been under attack.
First published on April 8, 2022 / 7:00 AM
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20. Understanding Vladimir Putin, the man who fooled the world


Understanding Vladimir Putin, the man who fooled the world

The Russian president has always shown us exactly who he is. So why did it take the invasion of Ukraine for us to believe him?
The Guardian · by Gideon Rachman · April 9, 2022
Vladimir Putin was annoyed – or maybe just bored. The Russian leader had been patiently fielding questions from a small group of international journalists in the restaurant of a modest hotel in Davos. Then one of the queries seemed to irritate him. He stared back at the questioner, an American, and said slowly, through an interpreter: “I’ll answer that question in a minute. But first let me ask you about the extraordinary ring you have on your finger.”
All heads in the room swivelled. “Why is the stone so large?” Putin continued. A few of the audience began to giggle and the journalist looked uncomfortable. Putin took on a tone of mock sympathy and continued: “You surely don’t mind me asking, because you wouldn’t be wearing something like that unless you were trying to draw attention to yourself?” There was more laughter. By now, the original question had been forgotten. It was a masterclass in distraction and bullying.
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The year was 2009, and Putin had already been in power for almost a decade. But this was my first encounter with him in the flesh, during his visit to the World Economic Forum. Putin’s ability to radiate menace, without raising his voice, was striking. But so was the laughter of his audience. Despite the violence of his Russian government – as demonstrated in Chechnya and Georgia – western opinion-formers were still inclined to treat him as a pantomime villain.
I was reminded of this just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In a televised meeting at the Kremlin with his closest advisers, Putin toyed with Sergei Naryshkin, the head of his foreign intelligence service – making the feared securocrat look like a stuttering fool. The pleasure he took in humiliating somebody in front of an audience was once again on display. But this time, nobody was laughing. Putin was about to plunge Europe into its biggest land war since 1945. Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion on 24 February. Within a month, more than 10 million Ukrainians had fled their homes, thousands of troops and civilians had been killed and the coastal city of Mariupol had been destroyed.

Even though western intelligence services had warned for months that Russia was poised to attack, many experienced Putin-watchers, both in Russia and the west, refused to believe it. After more than 20 years of his leadership, they felt that they understood Putin. He was ruthless and violent, no doubt, but he was also believed to be rational, calculating and committed to Russia’s integration into the world economy. Few believed he was capable of such a reckless gamble.
Looking back, however, it is clear that the outside world has consistently misread him. From the moment he took power, outsiders too often saw what they wanted and played down the darkest sides of Putinism.
In fact, the outside world’s indulgence of Putin went much further than simply turning a blind eye to his excesses. For a rising generation of strongman leaders and cultural conservatives outside Russia, Putin became something of a hero and a role model. As his admirers saw it, the Russian leader had inherited a country humiliated by the breakup of the Soviet Union. Through strength and cunning, he had restored its status and global power, and even regained some of the territory lost when the USSR broke up. And he had delighted nationalists and populists the world over by successfully defying self-righteous American liberals such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, was not simply spouting propaganda when he said in 2018: “There’s a demand in the world for special, sovereign leaders, for decisive ones … Putin’s Russia was the starting point.”

Xi Jinping admires Putin’s strongman leadership style
The Putin fanclub has had numerous members in the west over the years. Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s close adviser and lawyer, expressed admiration for Putin’s annexation of Crimea, remarking: “He makes a decision and he executes it, quickly. That’s what you call a leader.” Nigel Farage, the former leader of Ukip and the Brexit party, and a friend of Donald Trump, once named Putin the world leader he most admired, adding: “The way he played the whole Syria thing. Brilliant. Not that I approve of him politically.” Matteo Salvini, the leader of the populist right Northern League party and a former deputy prime minister of Italy, flaunted his admiration for the Russian leader by being photographed in a Putin T-shirt in Red Square. Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, has said, “My favourite hero is Putin.”
Most important of all, Xi Jinping is also a confirmed admirer. A week after being appointed as president of China in early 2013, Xi made his first state visit overseas – choosing to visit Putin in Moscow. On 4 February 2022, just 20 days before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin met Xi in Beijing for their 38th summit meeting. Shortly afterwards, Russia and China announced a “no limits” partnership. As the joint Russian-Chinese statement made clear, the two leaders are united in their hostility to American global power and to the pro-democracy “colour revolutions” they accuse Washington of stirring up around the world – from Ukraine to Hong Kong. Putin and Xi are both strongman rulers who have centralised power around themselves and encouraged a cult of personality. They are, as Alexander Gabuev, a Russian academic, puts it, “the tsar and the emperor”. Whether this partnership of strongmen will survive the Russian invasion of Ukraine is now one of the most important questions in international politics.
Putin was sworn into office as president of Russia on 31 December 1999. But at first it was not obvious that he would last very long in the job, let alone that he would emerge as the most aggressive challenger to the western liberal order and the pioneer of a new model of authoritarian leadership. As the chaotic Yeltsin era of the 1990s drew to a close, Putin’s ascent to the top job was eased by his former colleagues in the KGB. But he also had the approval of Russia’s richest and most powerful people, the oligarchs, who saw him as a capable administrator and “safe pair of hands” who would not threaten established interests.
Viewed from the west, Putin looked relatively reassuring. In his first televised speech from the Kremlin, given on New Year’s Eve 1999, just a few hours after taking over from Yeltsin, Putin promised to “protect freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of the mass media, ownership rights, these fundamental elements of a civilised society”. In March 2000, he won his first presidential election and proudly asserted: “We have proved that Russia is becoming a modern democratic state.” When Bill Clinton met Putin in the Kremlin for the first time, in June 2000, he declared his Russian counterpart “fully capable of building a prosperous, strong Russia, while preserving freedom and pluralism and the rule of law”.
In his first year in office, he moved to assert the authority of the state and to use warfare to bolster his personal position
Yet while Putin may initially have found it convenient to use the rhetoric of liberal democracy, his early actions as president told a different story. In his first year in office, he moved immediately to rein in independent sources of power, to assert the central authority of the state and to use warfare to bolster his own personal position – all actions that were to become hallmarks of Putinism. The escalation of the war in Chechnya made Putin seem like a nationalist hero, standing up for Russian interests and protecting the ordinary citizen from terrorism. In an early move that alarmed liberals, the new president reinstated the old Soviet national anthem. His promises to protect media freedom turned out to be empty: Russia’s few independent television networks were brought under government control.
As Putin established himself in office, the image-makers got to work crafting a strongman persona for him. Gleb Pavlovsky, one of Putin’s first spin doctors, later described him as a “quick learner” and a “talented actor”. Key images were placed in the Russian media and around the world: Putin on horseback, Putin practising judo, Putin arm-wrestling or strolling bare-chested by a river in Siberia. These photographs attracted mockery from intellectuals and cynics. But the president’s handlers were clear-eyed. As Pavlovsky later told the Washington Post, the goal was to ensure that “Putin corresponds ideally to the Hollywood image of a saviour-hero”.

In any case, Russians were more than ready for a strongman to ride to their rescue. The collapse of the Soviet system in 1991 had allowed for the emergence of democracy and freedom of speech. But as the economy atrophied and then fell apart, many experienced a severe drop in living standards and personal security. By 1999, life expectancy for Russian men had fallen by three and a half years to below 60. A UN report attributed this to a “rise in self-destructive behaviour”, which it linked to “rising poverty rates, unemployment and financial insecurity”. Under those circumstances, a decisive leader who promised to turn back the clock had real appeal.
Long before Trump promised to “make America great again”, Putin was promising to bring back the stability and pride of the Soviet era to those Russians who had lost out in the 1990s. But his nostalgia was not restricted to the social cohesion of Soviet times. Putin also yearned to restore some of the USSR’s lost international clout. In a speech in 2005, Putin labelled the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”. As the years have passed, he has become increasingly preoccupied by Russian history. In the summer of 2021, he published a long essay entitled On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians – which, even at the time, some saw as a manifesto for invasion. Delving through centuries of history, Putin attempted to prove that Ukraine was an artificial state and that “Russia was robbed, indeed” when Ukraine gained independence in 1991.
Fyodor Lukyanov, an academic who is close to the Russian leader, told me in 2019 that one of Putin’s enduring fears was the loss of Russia’s status as one of the world’s great powers for the first time in centuries. His resentment at what he regarded as American slights and betrayals set Putin on a collision course with the west. A landmark moment came with a speech he gave at the Munich Security Conference in 2007.
The Russian president had put the west on notice that he intended to fight back against the US-led world order
That speech was a direct challenge to the west and an expression of cold fury. He accused the US of an “almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts”. The Putin of 2000, who had expressed pride at Russia’s transformation into a modern democracy, had given way to a man who denounced western talk of freedom and democracy as a hypocritical front for power politics.
The Munich speech was not just an angry reflection on the past. It also pointed the way to the future. The Russian president had put the west on notice that he intended to fight back against the US-led world order. It foreshadowed a lot of what was to come: Russia’s military intervention in Georgia in 2008, its annexation of Crimea in 2014, its dispatch of troops to Syria in 2015, its meddling in the US presidential election of 2016. All of these actions burnished Putin’s reputation as a nationalist and a strong leader. They also made him an icon for strongmen throughout the world who rejected western leadership and the “liberal international order”.
This indictment of the west goes back to the 1990s. It is argued repeatedly in Moscow that the expansion of Nato to take in countries of the former Soviet empire (including Poland and the Baltic states) was a direct contradiction of promises made after the end of the cold war. Nato’s intervention in the Kosovo war of 1998‑9 added to the list of grievances proving, in the Kremlin’s eyes, both that Nato is an aggressor and that western talk of respecting sovereignty and state borders was nothing but hypocrisy. Russians were not reassured by the western riposte that Nato was acting in response to ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses by Serbia. As one liberal Russian politician put it to me in 2008, in a moment of frankness: “We know we have committed human rights abuses in Chechnya. If Nato can bomb Belgrade for that, why could they not bomb Moscow?”

Putin’s case against Nato also takes in the Iraq war launched by the US and many of its allies in 2003. For him, the massive bloodshed in Iraq was proof that the west’s self-proclaimed pursuit of “democracy and freedom” only brings instability and suffering in its wake. If you mention the brutal behaviour of Russian forces in Chechnya or Syria in Moscow, you will always have the Iraq war thrown back in your face.
Crucially, the west’s promotion of democracy has posed a direct threat to Putin’s own political and personal survival. From 2003 to 2005, pro-democracy “colour revolutions” broke out in many of the states of the former Soviet Union – including Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. If demonstrators in Independence Square in Kyiv could bring down an autocratic government in Ukraine, what was to stop the same happening in Red Square? In Russia, many believed it was a “fairytale” that these were spontaneous uprisings. As a former intelligence operative whose entire professional career had involved running “black operations”, Putin was particularly inclined to see the CIA as pulling the strings. The goal, as the Kremlin saw it, was to install pro-western puppet regimes. Russia itself could be next.
The shock of the Iraq war and the colour revolutions were the recent experiences that informed Putin’s Munich speech in 2007. And, as the Kremlin saw it, this pattern of western misdeeds continued. Putin points to the western powers’ 2011 intervention in Libya that resulted in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi – something he believes they had promised they would not do.

The overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi is a particularly sore point for Putin
That episode is a particularly sore spot for Putin, since it took place during the four years from 2008 to 2012 when he was serving in the lesser job of prime minister, having stepped aside as president in favour of his acolyte Dmitry Medvedev. As Putin’s supporters see it, a naive Medvedev was duped into supporting a UN resolution that allowed for a limited intervention, only for western powers to exceed their mandate in order to overthrow and kill Gaddafi. They have no time for the response that the Libyan intervention was made on human rights grounds, but that events then took on a life of their own, as the Libyan rebellion gained steam.
Medvedev’s alleged naivety in allowing the Libyan intervention proved useful for Putin, however: it established the idea that he was indispensable as Russia’s leader. Any substitute, even one chosen by Putin, would leave the country vulnerable to a scheming and ruthless west. In 2011, Putin announced that he intended to return as president, after the potential presidential term had been extended to two consecutive periods of six years. This announcement provoked rare public demonstrations in Moscow and other cities, which again fanned Putin’s fears about western schemes to undermine his power. I was in Moscow in January 2012 and witnessed the marches and banners, some of which carried pointed references to Gaddafi’s fate. Putin understood the parallels. He commented publicly about how disgusted he had been by the footage of Gaddafi’s murder – which perhaps reflected a certain concern about his own potential fate. The fact that Hillary Clinton, then America’s Secretary of State, expressed public support for the 2012 demonstrations was deeply resented by Putin and may have justified, in his mind, Russia’s efforts to undermine Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016.
Putin secured his re-election, but his sense that the west remained a threat to Russia was further stoked by events in Ukraine in 2013-14. The prospect of that country signing an association agreement with the European Union was seen as a serious threat in the Kremlin, since it would pull Russia’s most important neighbour – once an integral part of the USSR – into the west’s sphere of influence. Under pressure from Moscow, the Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych reversed course. But this provoked another popular uprising in Kyiv, forcing Yanukovych to flee. The loss of a compliant ally in Kyiv was a major geopolitical reverse for the Kremlin.
Putin’s response was to dramatically raise the stakes, by crossing the line into the use of military force. In February 2014, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, a region that was part of Ukraine but had belonged to Russia until 1954 and was populated largely by Russian-speakers. It was also, by agreement with the Ukrainians, the home of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. In the west, the annexation of Crimea, along with Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine, was seen as a flagrant violation of international law that many feared could be the prelude to further acts of aggression.
But in Russia, the annexation was widely greeted as a triumph – it represented the nation’s fightback. Putin’s approval ratings in independent opinion polls soared to over 80%. In the immediate afterglow, he came closer to achieving the ultimate goal of the strongman ruler: the complete identification of the nation with the leader. Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Russian parliament, exulted: “If there’s Putin, there’s Russia. If there’s no Putin, there’s no Russia.” Putin himself crowed that Crimea had been taken without a shot being fired.
The west’s response was to slap economic sanctions on Russia. But western indignation did not last long. Four years later, Russia hosted a successful World Cup. At the final, Putin sat with the presidents of France and Croatia, two EU nations, in the VIP box in Moscow.

The ease with which Putin annexed Crimea – and the swiftness with which the west seemed prepared to forgive – may have laid the ground for an unjustified confidence that led to the invasion of Ukraine. His overreach is also a reminder of the flaws in the strongman model of leadership. Decades in office can cause a leader to succumb to megalomania or paranoia. The elimination of checks and balances, the centralisation of power and the promotion of a cult of personality make it more likely that a leader will make a disastrous mistake. For all these reasons, strongman rule is an inherently flawed and dangerous model of government.
Tragically, that lesson is being learned all over again – in Russia and Ukraine. An invasion that was meant to secure Russia’s place as a great power and Putin’s place in history has clearly gone wrong. Putin is now involved in a brutal war of attrition. Western sanctions will see the Russian economy shrink dramatically this year, and the Russian middle-class is witnessing the disappearance of many of the consumer goods and travel opportunities that emerged with the end of the cold war.
The unofficial goal of western policy is clearly to force Putin from power. But the endgame may not come as swiftly as we would like. Deeply entrenched in his decades-long mission, Putin is now even less likely to give up power voluntarily, since his successors might repudiate his policies, or even put him on trial.
The prospects for popular uprising are equally poor, despite the many brave Russians who have indicated their disgust over the war. Any protests are likely to be swiftly crushed with violence and imprisonment, as they were in neighbouring Belarus in 2020 and 2021. A third scenario – the possibility of an enlightened group within the elite seizing power – seems out of reach, too. Organising a palace coup against Putin will be very difficult: all dissenters were purged from the Kremlin long ago. Putin also takes his personal security very seriously: several of his former bodyguards have become rich in their own right. While there will be many within Russia who are dismayed by the course that events have taken, orchestrating that diffuse discontent into a coherent plot looks like a formidable challenge.
The difficult truth is that Putin’s strongman style has defined his rule over Russia – and despite his many crimes and misdemeanours, those same strongman tactics may preserve him in power for years to come.
Gideon Rachman is chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times. His new book, The Age of the Strongman, is published by Vintage (£20). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
The Guardian · by Gideon Rachman · April 9, 2022


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

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

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