Quotes of the Day:

Alas! In order to rectify past grievances, free ourselves from present hardships, eliminate future threats, stimulate and enhance the weakened conscience of our people, eradicate the shame that befell our nation, ensure proper development of human dignity, avoid leaving humiliating legacies to our children, and usher in lasting and complete happiness for our posterity, the most urgent task is to firmly establish national independence. Today when human nature and conscience are placing the forces of justice and humanity on our side, if every one of our twenty million people arms himself for battle, whom could we not defeat and what could we not accomplish?

We do not intend to accuse Japan of infidelity for its violation of various solemn treaty obligations since the Treaty of Amity of 1876. Japan’s scholars and officials, indulging in a conqueror’s exuberance, have denigrated the accomplishments of our ancestors and treated our civilized people like barbarians. Despite their disregard for the ancient origins of our society and the brilliant spirit of our people, we shall not blame Japan; we must first blame ourselves before finding fault with others. Because of the urgent need for remedies for the problems of today, we cannot afford the time for recriminations over past wrongs.

- Korean Declaration of Independence, 1919

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/korea/march_first_declaration.pdf

“Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority, but to their inhumanity.” 

- James Baldwin, African, American, novelist, poet, playwright, intellectual, and social critic, 1924 to 1987.

“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in chichi hardly anyone now anything about science and technology.” 

- Carl Sagan

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 12, 2023

2. IntelBrief: Was the NATO Summit in Vilnius a Success, or Did it Fall Short of Expectations?

3. Digital Trenches: IO and Asymmetry of Values | SOF News

4. Thousands of Ukraine civilians are being held in Russian prisons. Russia plans to build many more

5. NATO allies offer Ukraine security assurances as Biden hits out at 'craven' Putin

6. China's exports fall most in three years as global economy falters

7. China's US envoy makes rare Pentagon visit for security-related talks

8. Senate panel wants to green-light US military cyber ops against Mexican cartels

9. The Cold War Trap – How the Memory of America’s Era of Dominance Stunts U.S. Foreign Policy

10. The Prigozhin copycats are coming for Putin

11. Biden nominates Mingus as next US Army vice chief of staff

12. Biden Braces NATO for Long Conflict With Russia, Making Cold War Parallel

13. Meta's Threads wants to become a 'friendly' place by downgrading news and politics

14. Gen. George, nominee for Army chief of staff, plans to promote value of service as fix for recruiting crisis

15. Should America Push Ukraine to Negotiate With Russia?

16. Russia Detained Several Senior Military Officers in Wake of Wagner Mutiny

17. Special Operations Forces Institution-Building: From Strategic Approach to Security Force

18.  Put Educational Wargaming in the Hands of the Warfighter

19. US Army Guard Special Forces Practice Counterinsurgency in West Virginia

20. Ridge Runner Builds Readiness for NG Special Forces | SOF News

21. Overlooked No More: Hannie Schaft, Resistance Fighter During World War II

22. Why inflation is losing its punch — and why things could get even better

23. Do Not Let China Attack America from America

24. Inside the secret cyberwar against Putin’s regime

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 12, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-12-2023

Key Takeaways:

• The Group of Seven (G7) Coalition and NATO signed agreements to offer Ukraine long-term security commitments during the NATO Summit in Vilnius on July 12.
• Ukraine secured additional bilateral security and defense agreements during the second day of the NATO summit on July 12.
• The Russian information space continues to exhibit a generally muted response to the NATO summit. The muted Russian response belies the reality that the summit demonstrated the degree to which the 2022 Russian invasion has set back the goals for which the Kremlin claims it launched the war.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the frontline on July 12 and reportedly made gains in some areas.
• Russian forces conducted another series of Shahed drone strikes across Ukraine on July 12.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that the Wagner Group has almost completely handed weapons and military equipment over to the MoD.
• Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin claimed that certain members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle may push Putin to end the war in order to depose him.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove line.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces continued skirmishes in the Kreminna area, where Russian forces reportedly made limited gains.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts.
• Ukrainian forces continued limited mechanized assault operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Russian officials continue to grapple with the issue of securing Russia’s international borders.
• Russian occupation authorities are using the promise of medical treatment to coerce residents of occupied territories to receive Russian passports and relocate to Russian territory.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 12, 2023

Jul 12, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 12, 2023

Riley Bailey, Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Angelica Evans, and Frederick W. Kagan

July 12, 2023, 7:15pm ET

Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 1:30pm ET on July 12. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 13 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

The Group of Seven (G7) Coalition and NATO signed agreements to offer Ukraine long-term security commitments during the NATO Summit in Vilnius on July 12. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO has agreed on a three-part package that will give Ukraine a multi-year program of practical assistance, create a NATO-Ukrainian coordination council, and commits NATO to allow Ukraine to join the alliance without going through a Membership Action Plan (MAP).[1] G7 members Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Italy, Britain, and the United States signed a general framework document called the “Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine” aimed at offering the Ukraine military, financial, and intelligence support and stated that each member of the G7 will enter into bilateral security negotiations with Ukraine regarding the document.[2] Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated that other countries would have the opportunity to join the declaration at a later stage.[3] The general framework document also reportedly promises immediate steps to swiftly provide Ukraine with all necessary support in the event of a new attack but did not specify what that support would look like.[4] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the agreements reached at the NATO summit mean that Ukraine would receive formal security guarantees, although neither the NATO nor the G7 agreements currently provide such guarantees.[5] Ukraine did secure notable agreements that will strengthen long-term Western support for Ukraine at the NATO summit, and these agreements will likely serve as the framework for potential increases in Western security assistance to Ukraine.

Ukraine secured additional bilateral security and defense agreements during the second day of the NATO summit on July 12. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov signed agreements with Swedish Defense Minister Paul Jonsson on cooperation in the field of defense procurement and with the French Defense Ministry on increasing French military assistance to Ukraine by 170 million euros.[6] The Ukrainian Presidential Office announced that Australia will send an additional 30 Bushmaster armored vehicles to Ukraine.[7] The UK government stated that the UK will provide Ukraine with an additional 50 million pounds in security assistance, including additional ammunition for Challenger tanks.[8] Norwegian Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram stated that Norway will provide an additional NASAM (Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) support package, including two additional fire control centers, two launch units, and spare parts.[9] Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida noted that Japan will provide Ukraine with $30 million in non-lethal equipment including drone detection systems.[10]

The Russian information space continues to exhibit a generally muted response to the NATO summit. Many Russian sources claimed that they have long had access to planning documents for the summit and that none of the resulting agreements come as a surprise, and many milbloggers claimed that the summit has been a “failure” for Ukraine because Ukraine did not secure immediate NATO membership.[11] Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev emphasized that participants of the summit are acting in “predictable ways” and that the West will continue to provide Ukraine with military aid, and Russia will therefore continue to pursue the same goals in Ukraine.[12] Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov delivered boilerplate Kremlin rhetoric by stating that the G7’s provision of “security guarantees” to Ukraine is “potentially very dangerous” and an encroachment on Russian security interests.[13]

The muted Russian response belies the reality that the summit demonstrated the degree to which the 2022 Russian invasion has set back the goals for which the Kremlin claims it launched the war. The aim of preventing NATO expansion and, indeed, rolling back earlier rounds of NATO expansion and pushing NATO back from Russia’s borders was one of the Kremlin’s stated demands before the invasion.[14] The Kremlin has repeated this aim continually throughout the war. The lack of general outcry within the Russian information space regarding developments at the NATO summit, as well as Finland’s NATO accession and Turkey’s agreement to forward Sweden’s accession protocol, likely indicates that the Kremlin has internalized these defeats and desires to avoid dwelling on them. Many Russian sources are reporting on the NATO summit in a dispassionate and muted manner that is not commensurate with the wider defeat that the summit actually represents for Russia’s pre-war aims.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the frontline on July 12 and reportedly made gains in some areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut, Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast), and Berdyansk (Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area) directions.[15] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Ukrainian forces achieved partial success along the Bila Hora-Andriivka and Bila Hora--Kurdyumivka lines (up to 13km southwest of Bakhmut).[16] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Major Valerii Shershen stated that Ukrainian forces achieved partial success and advanced along the frontline in the Berdyansk direction.[17] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces also advanced near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut) southwest of Velyka Novosilka, Donetsk Oblast, and south of Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[18]

Russian forces conducted another series of Shahed drone strikes across Ukraine on July 12. Ukrainian military sources reported that Russia launched 15 Shahed drones from Kursk Oblast and that Ukrainian air defense forces shot down 11 of the launched drones.[19] Russian forces have notably not conducted missile strikes aimed at Ukrainian infrastructure over the past few days as the NATO summit is ongoing in Vilnius, behavior that diverges somewhat from previous Russian patterns of conducting missile strikes to correspond with major international political events that are relevant to the war in Ukraine.[20]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that the Wagner Group has almost completely handed weapons and military equipment over to the MoD. Russian MoD spokesperson Igor Konashenkov announced on July 12 that the Wagner Group transferred more than 2,000 pieces of equipment and weapons to the Russian MoD.[21] Konashenkov stated that the transferred weapons include T-90, T-80, and T-72 tanks, multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), anti-aircraft missile systems, howitzers, anti-tank guns, mortar systems, armored tractors, armored personnel carriers, vehicles, and small arms.[22] Konashenkov stated that the Russian MoD transferred all the equipment and armaments to rear areas where Russian repair and recovery units will maintain and prepare the equipment for use.[23] Konashenkov also claimed that dozens of units of the transferred equipment had never been used in combat conditions.[24] A Russian milblogger challenged Konashenkov’s claims about the equipment and claimed that a RU MoD employee stated that while Wagner’s equipment was in good condition, it had clearly seen combat and that there was no unused equipment.[25] The Russian MoD announcement, following the Kremlin‘s acknowledgment of Putin’s June 29 meeting with Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, is likely part of the Kremlin’s wider narrative effort to portray itself as fully in control and the Wagner rebellion as a settled affair.[26]

Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin claimed that certain members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle may push Putin to end the war in order to depose him. Girkin claimed that Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion succeeded, resulting in a power redistribution according to the plans of Prigozhin’s patrons, whom Girkin suggested include Presidential Administration First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko, billionaire and Putin’s reported personal banker Yuri Kovalchuk, and energy executives Arkady and Boris Rotenberg.[27] Girkin claimed that the power structure including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Moscow Oblast Governor Andrei Vorobev, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has been weakened following the rebellion. Girkin claimed that members of the “Ozero Cooperative” – an association unifying the dachas of Putin and several members of his inner circle in Leningrad Oblast – want to oust Putin in favor of one of its own members, such as Prigozhin or Kiriyenko. Girkin claimed that the “Ozero Cooperative” first aims to sabotage Russian military operations, the defense industrial base (DIB), and control of rear areas to make Putin realize he must accept defeat in the war. Girkin warned that the “Ozero Cooperative” members will target the Ministry of Defense, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), and other structures outside the control of the presidential administration.

Girkin’s claims are likely part of his ongoing effort to diminish Russian political and domestic support for a potential ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, but his targeting of specific members of Putin’s inner circle is notable. Girkin has repeatedly accused Prigozhin of being part of the faction arguing in favor of freezing the lines in Ukraine while Girkin has argued in favor of a grinding, protracted war effort, as ISW has previously reported.[28] Kiriyenko in particular is a prominent Kremlin mouthpiece for domestic policy and occupation matters. Kiriyenko has reportedly positioned himself to expand his political reach in recent years, including into education development, oversight of regional elections, development of the Russian internet and information bloc, and political nongovernmental organizations.[29] Russian opposition outlet Meduza, citing sources within the presidential administration, previously reported that Kiriyenko is attempting to position himself as a possible successor to Putin.[30] Meduza’s sources saw Kiriyenko’s lack of connection to regional governments or businesses as undermining his prospects but noted that Kiriyenko is likely able to overcome these issues. Girkin is most likely attempting to portray Prigozhin as a direct threat to Putin’s regime in order to encourage harsher Kremlin action against Prigozhin and discourage any efforts to freeze the front in Ukraine. Girkin may be trying to discredit Kiriyenko and other claimed Prigozhin patrons to undermine any support that Prigozhin may have among any possible remaining prominent patrons.[31]

Key Takeaways:

• The Group of Seven (G7) Coalition and NATO signed agreements to offer Ukraine long-term security commitments during the NATO Summit in Vilnius on July 12.
• Ukraine secured additional bilateral security and defense agreements during the second day of the NATO summit on July 12.
• The Russian information space continues to exhibit a generally muted response to the NATO summit. The muted Russian response belies the reality that the summit demonstrated the degree to which the 2022 Russian invasion has set back the goals for which the Kremlin claims it launched the war.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the frontline on July 12 and reportedly made gains in some areas.
• Russian forces conducted another series of Shahed drone strikes across Ukraine on July 12.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that the Wagner Group has almost completely handed weapons and military equipment over to the MoD.
• Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin claimed that certain members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle may push Putin to end the war in order to depose him.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove line.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces continued skirmishes in the Kreminna area, where Russian forces reportedly made limited gains.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts.
• Ukrainian forces continued limited mechanized assault operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Russian officials continue to grapple with the issue of securing Russia’s international borders.
• Russian occupation authorities are using the promise of medical treatment to coerce residents of occupied territories to receive Russian passports and relocate to Russian territory.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these 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 the Ukrainian 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.

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Russian and Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove line on July 12. Geolocated footage shows that Russian forces have advanced further east of Kotlyarivka (22km southeast of Kupyansk) as of July 11.[32] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks near Novoselivske (14km northwest of Svatove) and Karmazynivka (12km southwest of Svatove).[33] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Novoselivske.[34]

Russian and Ukrainian forces continued skirmishes in the Kreminna area, where Russian forces reportedly made limited gains as of July 12. Geolocated footage published on July 12 indicates that Russian forces do not hold positions in Torske (14km west of Kreminna) despite Russian milblogger claims to the contrary.[35] Russian milbloggers largely claimed that Russian forces broke through Ukrainian positions in Torske and advanced up to the eastern outskirts of the settlement.[36] Russian milbloggers also claimed that elements of the 21st Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) captured a height east of Nevske (14km northwest of Kreminna) near the Zhuravka gully, and that Ukrainian forces launched counterattacks to attempt to retake the positions.[37] The Ukrainian General Staff claimed that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Vesele (31km south of Kreminna).[38] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks near Torske, Zolotarivka (17km south of Kreminna), Verkhnokamianka (20km south of Kreminna), and Spirne (25km south of Kreminna).[39]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian Objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area on July 12. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations north and south of Bakhmut.[40] Ukrainian General Staff Spokesperson Andrii Kovalev reported that Ukrainian forces achieved partial success in the Bila Hora-Andriivka (10-12km southwest of Bakhmut) and Bila Hora-Kurdyumivka directions (12-13km southwest of Bakhmut).[41] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces gained a foothold on a height east of Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut) and have almost reached the E40 Bakhmut-Slovyansk highway.[42] Another milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked the southwestern outskirts of Berkhivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut).[43] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces broke through Russian defenses close to Berkhivka but that Russian artillery units forced Ukrainians to retreat.[44] The Russian MoD claimed that units of the Russian Southern Group of Forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Spirne (27km northeast of Bakhmut), Vesele (20km northeast of Bakhmut), Sil (14km northeast of Bakhmut), Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut), and Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut).[45]

Russian forces counterattacked Ukrainian positions in the Bakhmut area on July 12. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Hryhorivka (8km northwest of Bakhmut) and east of Orikhovo-Vasylivka.[46] Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces counterattacked Ukrainian positions on the northern outskirts of Klishchiivka and pushed Ukrainian units from the outskirts of the settlement and Klishchiivka‘s surrounding dominant heights.[47]

Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on July 12. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued to repel Russian attacks near Avdiivka, Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka), Nevelske (14km southwest of Avdiivka), Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka), Pobieda (32km southwest of Avdiivka), and Novomykhailivka (36km southwest of Avdiivka).[48] The Russian MoD claimed that units of the Russian Southern Group of Forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Vodyane (8km southwest of Avdiivka), Pervomaiske, and Krasnohorivka (22km southwest of Avdiivka).[49] Russian Southern Group of Forces spokesperson Vadim Astafeyev claimed that units of the Russian Southern Group of Forces destroyed Ukrainian infantry units attempting to break through Russian defenses in the direction of Vodyane.[50] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces attacked towards Lastochkyne (4km northwest of Avdiivka) but have not entered the settlement.[51] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces launched unsuccessful offensive operations near Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka) and on the outskirts of Krasnohorivka.[52]

Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on July 12. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian assault in the direction of Petrivske (14km southwest of Vuhledar).[53] The Russian MoD also claimed that Russian forces stopped Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups near Solodke (17km east of Vuhledar) and Vuhledar.[54]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts on July 12 and reportedly made gains in the area. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Berdyansk direction (Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area), and Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Major Valerii Shershen stated that Ukrainian forces achieved partial success in this direction and advanced along the frontline.[55] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian assault near Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and thwarted a Ukrainian reconnaissance-in-force operation near Rivnopil (11km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[56] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are advancing north and south of Pryyutne (16km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[57] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully counterattacked towards Blahodatne (5km south of Velyka Novosilka).[58]

Ukrainian forces continued limited mechanized assault operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 12. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Melitopol direction (western Zaporizhia Oblast).[59] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled two Ukrainian assaults near Robotyne (12km south of Orikhiv).[60] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian infantry attacked with armored vehicle support near Robotyne and in the direction of Verbove (18km southeast of Orikhiv) and amplified footage purporting to show Russian forces striking Ukrainian armored vehicles in the Orikhiv direction.[61] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continued assaults overnight from July 11 to 12, with one milblogger claiming that Ukrainian forces stopped assaults in the area as of the morning of July 12.[62] One milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces continued attacks on a seam of the Russian defense between positions of the 291st and 70th Motorized Rifle Regiments (both part of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District).[63] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces entered Russian trench positions in the area and advanced by up to one kilometer north of Robotyne.[64] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces counterattacked northeast of Robotyne and pushed Ukrainian forces out of one of the strongholds of the 71st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District).[65] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces also conducted several unsuccessful assaults near Zherebyanky (26km southwest of Orikhiv) and Pyatykhatky (25km southwest of Orikhiv).[66] Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky described Ukrainian assaults in the area as a large-scale offensive, although Zaporizhia Oblast occupation deputy Vladimir Rogov stated a few hours earlier that reports of Ukrainian offensive in the area are false.[67]

The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed that Ukrainian forces conducted a direct strike on a hotel in Berdyansk, occupied Zaporizhia Oblast, which Russian sources claimed was the site of the 58th Combined Arms Army headquarters.[68] Russian sources claimed that the July 11 Ukrainian Storm Shadow cruise missile strike on the 58th Combined Arms Army headquarters killed Southern Military District Deputy Commander Lieutenant General Oleg Tsokov.[69] ISW assesses that Tsokov’s presence at the reported command post of the 58th CAA suggests that he was personally overseeing the army responsible for repelling Ukrainian counteroffensives in key sectors of western Zaporizhia Oblast.[70]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces also struck the outskirts of Tokmak with cluster munitions on July 11.[71] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted the strikes with Western-provided cluster munitions and argued that Ukrainian forces waited until the announcement of the transfer of the munitions to use them.[72] Ukrainian forces have their own stocks of non-Western cluster munitions and ISW has not seen visual confirmation that Ukrainian forces struck Tokmak on July 11.

Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continue to maintain positions on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast near the Antonivsky Bridge as of July 12.[73] A prominent milblogger claimed that the Ukrainian grouping on the left bank is not conducting offensive operations and that Russian forces are located a few hundred meters to the south.[74] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces have stopped assaults near the Antonivsky bridge because of Ukrainian artillery superiority in the area.[75]

Russian forces are using naval assets to resolve traffic jams at the Kerch Strait Bridge. Russian Navy Commander Maxim Rykhlov stated on July 11 that the Russian Navy deployed two large landing ships to act as vehicle ferries in the Kerch Strait after the Russian Ministry of Transport requested the Navy’s help in cases of large traffic congestion in the direction of Crimea.[76] ISW previously assessed that an influx of Russian tourists to Crimea generated serious traffic jams along one of Russian most important ground lines of communication.[77]

Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)

Russian officials continue to grapple with the issue of securing Russia’s international borders. “A Just Russia—For Truth” party leader Sergey Mironov announced on July 12 that he sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin calling for the recreation of border troops that had previously been liquidated as an independent entity and transferred to the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2003.[78] Mironov emphasized that in current conditions, it is clear that fully equipped and designated border troops are needed to protect Russian border areas.[79] ISW previously assessed that Mironov is connected to Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, and Prigozhin notably called for strengthening border defenses prior to the Wagner Group rebellion on June 24.[80] The affiliation of Prigozhin and Wagner-affiliated factions with the issue of border security may coalesce as a new point of tension within the domestic political sphere over the backdrop of past incursions of all-Russian pro-Ukrainian groups into Belgorod Oblast and claimed Ukrainian strikes on various Russian border and rear areas, especially if Wagner-affiliated individuals feel that the existing Russian security apparatus is incapable of adequately securing border areas. Mironov’s suggestion to resurrect border troops independent of the FSB is also noteworthy considering reports that FSB Head Alexander Bortnikov was involved in discussions with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko regarding security guarantees for the Wagner Group and Prigozhin following the Wagner rebellion.[81] Mironov and some Wagner-affiliated officials may be considering a contingency under which Wagner fighters are used to staff independent border security organs.

Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Russian occupation authorities are using the promise of medical treatment to coerce residents of occupied territories to receive Russian passports and relocate to Russian territory. The Rostov State Medical University (an entity subordinate to the Russian Ministry of Health) stated on July 11 that four doctors of its doctors are providing medical services in Henichesk, occupied Kherson Oblast.[82] Rostov State Medical University noted that if higher-tech treatment is required, the specialists will arrange for the transfer of patients to the clinic in Rostov Oblast.[83] The Ukrainian Resistance Center noted that transfer to Rostov Oblast for medical treatment is free on the condition that the patient holds a Russian passport, suggesting that Russian authorities are using the promise of medical treatment to coerce people to obtain Russian passports and leave Ukrainian territory.[84]

Russia continues to remove Ukrainian children deeper into occupied areas of Ukraine and deport them to Russia. A prominent Russian milblogger posted a crowd-funding advertisement on July 11 calling for their subscribers to donate to help transport children from Donbas to occupied Crimea.[85] The milblogger claimed that subscriber donations have already provided for the transfer of 200 children from Donbas and that more funds are imminently needed to bring children to the “Olympus” children’s camp in Crimea.[86] A Telegram channel affiliated with the Kherson Oblast occupation administration additionally reported that 700 children aged six to 16 years old have gone to “rest and improve their health” in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic.[87] Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko reposted footage from the Russian “Oplot TV” channel claiming that the Mariupol occupation administration has taken guardianship of 444 orphans in Mariupol.[88]

Russian and occupation authorities are planning to create a joint economic macro-region between Russian regions and the occupied territories of Ukraine. The Voronezh Oblast Department for Economic Development stated on July 10 that it has presented a draft agreement on the creation of the “Donbas Commonwealth” macro-region that will unite the industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural potential of Voronezh and Rostov oblasts with occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.[89] The Donbas Commonwealth is intended to facilitate the integration of occupied Donetsk and Luhansk into the Russian legal, political, and economic spheres and intensify interaction in the fields of trade, investment, industrial communication, entrepreneurship, construction, transport, and housing and communal services.[90]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks).

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

Belarusian maneuver elements continue to conduct tactical-level exercises. Unspecified elements of the Belarusian 6th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade conducted tactical defensive exercises to defend against ground attacks, laying minefields, and firing on targets with small arms, BMP-2 weapons, and drones.[91]

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

2. IntelBrief: Was the NATO Summit in Vilnius a Success, or Did it Fall Short of Expectations?

Excerpt:

While the Vilnius Summit lifted the fog around Sweden’s own pathway into NATO, Ukraine’s remains as murky as ever. During the summit, NATO issued a vague invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance at an unspecified future date, recalling U.S. President George W. Bush’s infamous promise to incorporate Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance during the 2008 Bucharest Summit. By declining to enumerate a clear action plan or timeline to do so, Bush ultimately failed to provide either country with any tangible security benefits to offset the ire they consequently received from Russia. Kyiv fears a repeat of 2008, halfhearted actions that encourage Putin’s continued aggression.

IntelBrief: Was the NATO Summit in Vilnius a Success, or Did it Fall Short of Expectations? - The Soufan Center

thesoufancenter.org · by Michaela Millender · July 13, 2023

July 13, 2023

SHARE |

IntelBrief: Was the NATO Summit in Vilnius a Success, or Did it Fall Short of Expectations?

AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin

Bottom Line Up Front

• Sweden is poised to join NATO after Türkiye withdrew its veto threat just ahead of NATO’s annual summit this week in Vilnius, Lithuania.
• Türkiye’s course correction came after receiving positive responses from the U.S. regarding sales of F-16s to Ankara, while Erdogan’s demand for an improved relationship with the European Union will be more cumbersome and take time.
• Ukraine’s future NATO membership remains murky, with the alliance offering new security guarantees short of membership, with a possible future invitation if certain benchmarks were achieved over time, drawing a rebuke from Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.
• As France agreed to supply Ukraine with new long-range missiles and a group of NATO members formed an F-16 training program for Ukrainian pilots, the United States faces criticism from human rights groups over its pledged cluster munitions, which are banned by over 120 countries due to civilian casualty risks.

As heads of state and high-level international officials gathered in Lithuania for NATO’s annual summit running from July 11-12, several major issues faced the alliance, including Sweden’s stalled admission, Ukraine’s long-promised, yet unfulfilled, membership, and additional military aid commitments to support the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Vilnius Summit also comes at a remarkable time for the alliance and the war in Ukraine: not only is Ukraine’s counteroffensive underway, but it also comes a mere two weeks after a major military mutiny by the Wagner Group exposed the fragility of NATO’s primary adversary, Russia. The summit’s hosting of four Asia-Pacific states – Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan – illustrated NATO’s increased wariness toward China.

In a surprising about-face on the eve of the summit, Türkiye announced that it would drop its months-long opposition to Sweden’s admission to NATO. The news broke not long after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a new condition for his approval of Sweden: Türkiye’s own addition to the EU community, though few serious observers gave this much credence. The deal was seemingly done on the back of U.S. promises to sell Ankara F-16s, although the connection has been dismissed by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Türkiye’s veto threat was Sweden’s last major barrier to ascendance. The only other holdout, Hungary, had stated it would back Sweden once Türkiye’s block was lifted. However, even prior to its formal admission, Sweden was already collaborating with NATO in certain respects, even participating in the alliance’s largest-ever air exercise in June. Yet, as a non-member, Sweden could not fully participate in the full-range of the alliance’s benefits, such as intelligence-sharing and operational planning.

Charles Michel, President of the European Council, announced that the Council had invited the EU Commission and its High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to submit a report on “reenergizing” EU-Türkiye relations. While analysts are rightly doubtful that this week’s negotiations will result in Türkiye’s outright addition to the union, early reports suggest Michel is willing to make concessions regarding immigration, visa requirements for Turkish travelers, and economic links. Türkiye’s 26-year-old EU bid had been considered defunct following Erdogan’s domestic political crackdown in 2016, as he increasingly contradicted key tenets of democratic governance and human rights that predicate EU membership.

While NATO reaffirmed its 2008 commitment to integrate Ukraine, the alliance’s joint statement did not give any clear indication of when that could be expected to occur, saying only that it would happen once NATO’s membership was in agreement and “conditions are met.” The news did not sit well with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy, who blasted the statement as “absurd” and suggested that his country’s membership was being withheld to provide a future bargaining chip with Russia in the event of a negotiated settlement of the war. The conditions for Ukraine’s addition to NATO will evidently no longer include fulfilling the obligations of a Membership Action Plan traditionally required of alliance prospects. In waiving this requirement, the joint statement said that Ukraine had become “increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance.” The summit also served as a launchpad for a new NATO-Ukraine Council, which held its inaugural meeting yesterday.

In contrast, weaponry remains one area where it appears NATO can continue to deliver concretely for the Ukrainians. After initially refusing to do so over fears of escalating the conflict with Russia, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on July 11 that his country would join the United Kingdom in delivering long-range missiles to Ukraine. The United Kingdom became the first country to supply Ukraine with such missiles in May and remained the only country to do so prior to Macron’s announcement. Pressure is now building in the U.S. for the Biden administration to supply Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which, if supplied, would provide Kyiv with critical capabilities in its counteroffensive. The summit also saw further progress on the fighter jet front, with the establishment of a training coalition designed to prepare Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s as well as a flight training center in Romania. While the coalition received the United States’ blessing to offer training, delivering the jets to Ukraine still has not received the necessary U.S. authorization.

As reluctance to deliver long-range missiles and fighter jets fades, controversy over U.S. cluster munitions shows that NATO members are still not all in complete lockstep on all military aid matters. A new weapons package announced by the United States on July 7 will provide Ukraine with a type of anti-personnel and anti-armor rocket/artillery shell which launches grenades over a wide area. Cluster bombs, however, risk civilian casualties, as undetonated grenades can remain on battlefield locations long after the fighting is over, where civilians can accidentally explode them. Over 120 countries have signed a treaty against the use of cluster munitions – including most NATO members like the United Kingdom, Germany, and France – though the United States, Ukraine, and Russia have not. In the initial days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Russia’s reported use of weapons like cluster bombs could “potentially be a war crime.”

Ukraine and the United States say the cluster munitions will allow Ukraine to clear out entrenched Russian soldiers and other Russian defensive assets amid what they claim are dwindling Ukrainian artillery munitions. Now, various U.S. officials are seeking to change the narrative around these weapons by distinguishing them from Russia’s own cluster bombs in two ways: by claiming that the U.S. munitions are more effective and by trying to establish a moral distinction between the invading and defensive forces. The former issue centers around the proportion of bombs that go undetonated after launch. U.S. officials have claimed the so-called “dud rates” of the Gulf War-era grenades being sent to Ukraine are as low as approximately two percent – compared to the 30-40 percent some have alleged of Russia’s stockpile. Meanwhile, National Security Advisor Sullivan has suggested that there is a qualitative difference in the use of cluster munitions by an invading force less interested in providing for the safety of the residents of the foreign land from which they may one day depart, and Ukraine, who is fighting for its own national survival, and will be responsible for its land long after the war is over.

While the Vilnius Summit lifted the fog around Sweden’s own pathway into NATO, Ukraine’s remains as murky as ever. During the summit, NATO issued a vague invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance at an unspecified future date, recalling U.S. President George W. Bush’s infamous promise to incorporate Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance during the 2008 Bucharest Summit. By declining to enumerate a clear action plan or timeline to do so, Bush ultimately failed to provide either country with any tangible security benefits to offset the ire they consequently received from Russia. Kyiv fears a repeat of 2008, halfhearted actions that encourage Putin’s continued aggression.

thesoufancenter.org · by Michaela Millender · July 13, 2023

3. Digital Trenches: IO and Asymmetry of Values | SOF News

​Excerpts:

In an era where ‘the pen is mightier than the sword‘, we are in an arms race for narrative control. The challenge for western democracies is to strike a balance between protecting our information environment from adversarial influence operations while upholding the principles of freedom of speech and open information access that define us.

In this tug-of-war, the key is not to choose between one over the other, but rather to find a way to uphold both commitments simultaneously. This requires a nuanced and multi-faceted approach. A purely defensive posture, focused solely on identifying and countering disinformation, is not enough.

​

Digital Trenches: IO and Asymmetry of Values | SOF News

sof.news · by Guest · July 12, 2023

By Riccardo Catalano.

In the rapidly evolving information environment of the 21st century, a new battlefield has emerged, one where influence operations have taken center stage. Transversal to the “Cognitive Dimension” of warfare, and the six domains, the Information Environment is a battleground that knows no geographic boundaries, and is accessible from any point around the globe through a few taps on a smartphone or keystrokes on a computer.

According to NATO’s doctrine, “the information environment is an aggregation of individuals, organizations, and systems that collect, process, disseminate, or act on information”.

While western democracies champion the virtues of a free and open Internet, certain adversarial nations are exploiting this openness to their advantage. China, Russia, and Iran have weaponized social media and press freedom in a sophisticated and strategic influence campaign, while maintaining a tightly controlled media environment within their own borders.

The openness of Western societies provides fertile ground for disinformation campaigns. Adversaries can easily disseminate false or misleading narratives through social media platforms and digital news outlets, exploiting freedom of speech to sow discord and confusion.

In contrast, the highly controlled media landscape in countries such as China, Russia, and Iran, effectively shields them from reciprocal influence operations.

One primary example is Russia’s activities during the conflict in Ukraine and more broadly across western democratic elections. With state-sponsored troll farms and the use of artificial intelligence bots, the Russian government has systematically spread disinformation to create societal divisions and challenge democratic values.

Similarly, China’s influence operations are not only aimed at promoting a positive image of China globally, but also at creating divisions within western societies. China’s combination of strict domestic censorship, such as the “Great Firewall,” and its prolific use of platforms like TikTok and WeChat for influence operations presents a particularly asymmetrical threat.

Iran, while technologically behind China and Russia, has also engaged in digital influence operations. Their efforts have focused on inciting discord among western allies and spreading anti-western propaganda.

Confronting this asymmetry requires a multi-pronged approach. The western alliance must prioritize the protection of their own information environment while developing capabilities to penetrate the adversaries’ information barriers. This includes investing in technologies to detect and counteract disinformation, and educating the public on how to recognize and respond to foreign influence efforts.

Civilian professionals with experience in digital marketing, social media, and information security can play a crucial role in this battle. Their expertise can be used to create compelling narratives that support democratic values, while their understanding of information flow and audience analysis can help identify and neutralize adversarial influence operations.

In an era where ‘the pen is mightier than the sword‘, we are in an arms race for narrative control. The challenge for western democracies is to strike a balance between protecting our information environment from adversarial influence operations while upholding the principles of freedom of speech and open information access that define us.

In this tug-of-war, the key is not to choose between one over the other, but rather to find a way to uphold both commitments simultaneously. This requires a nuanced and multi-faceted approach. A purely defensive posture, focused solely on identifying and countering disinformation, is not enough.

Democracies must go on the offensive, leveraging the skills and resources of both the government and private sectors to effectively communicate democratic values, reinforce societal resilience against disinformation, and promote critical thinking. Initiatives like digital literacy programs, fact-checking services (truly independent ones), and public awareness campaigns can go a long way towards equipping citizens with the tools to discern reliable from unreliable information.

***********

Author: Riccardo Catalano is a former SGT in the Italian Air Force. He is now a copywriter and editor. His writings can be found on his blog at https://www.narrazionistrategiche.net/.

sof.news · by Guest · July 12, 2023

4. Thousands of Ukraine civilians are being held in Russian prisons. Russia plans to build many more

Imagine the hardship and suffering that is taking place among these imprisoned Ukrainian civilians. The world cannot allow this to stand and continue. If we fail to do all we can to ensure a Ukrainian victory that allows Ukraine to repatriate their citizens, then we will have blood on our hands, Over the top rhetoric? Maybe so for some. Just tell us you do not care about what is happening to these Ukrainians. 

Thousands of Ukraine civilians are being held in Russian prisons. Russia plans to build many more

AP · July 13, 2023

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian civilians woke long before dawn in the bitter cold, lined up for the single toilet and were loaded at gunpoint into the livestock trailer. They spent the next 12 hours or more digging trenches on the front lines for Russian soldiers.

Many were forced to wear overlarge Russian military uniforms that could make them a target, and a former city administrator trudged around in boots five sizes too big. By the end of the day, their hands curled into icy claws.

Nearby, in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, other Ukrainian civilians dug mass graves into the frozen ground for fellow prisoners who had not survived. One man who refused to dig was shot on the spot — yet another body for the grave.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are being detained across Russia and the Ukrainian territories it occupies, in centers ranging from brand-new wings in Russian prisons to clammy basements. Most have no status under Russian law.

Seen through a peephole, a sheet covers the window of a jail cell in a police department in Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Ukrainian civilians said they were held and tortured at the site by Russian soldiers. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

And Russia is planning to hold possibly thousands more. A Russian government document obtained by The Associated Press dating to January outlined plans to create 25 new prison colonies and six other detention centers in occupied Ukraine by 2026.

In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in May allowing Russia to send people from territories with martial law, which includes all of occupied Ukraine, to those without, such as Russia. This makes it easier to deport Ukrainians who resist Russian occupation deep into Russia indefinitely, which has happened in multiple cases documented by the AP.

Many civilians are picked up for alleged transgressions as minor as speaking Ukrainian or simply being a young man in an occupied region, and are often held without charge. Others are charged as terrorists, combatants, or people who “resist the special military operation.” Hundreds are used for slave labor by Russia’s military, for digging trenches and other fortifications, as well as mass graves.

Ukrainian civilians describe a network of formal and informal prisons across Russia and the territories it occupies, where they endure routine torture, psychological abuse and slave labor. An AP investigation reveals the extent of Russia’s prison network and plans to build even more. (July 13)(AP video Vasilisa Stepanenko/production Mark Vancleave)

Torture is routine, including repeated electrical shocks, beatings that crack skulls and fracture ribs, and simulated suffocation. Many former prisoners told the AP they witnessed deaths. A United Nations report from late June documented 77 summary executions of civilian captives and the death of one man due to torture.

Russia does not acknowledge holding civilians at all, let alone its reasons for doing so. But the prisoners serve as future bargaining chips in exchanges for Russian soldiers, and the U.N. has said there is evidence of civilians being used as human shields near the front lines.

The AP spoke with dozens of people, including 20 former detainees, along with ex-prisoners of war, the families of more than a dozen civilians in detention, two Ukrainian intelligence officials and a government negotiator. Their accounts, as well as satellite imagery, social media, government documents and copies of letters delivered by the Red Cross, confirm a widescale Russian system of detention and abuse of civilians that stands in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.

A handwritten calendar is seen on the wall of a building in which Ukrainian civilians said they were detained and tortured by Russian forces, in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

This photo provided by Ukrainian investigators in 2023 shows a baton found a building used by Russian forces in Izium, Ukraine. Civilians who had been detained by Russian soldiers described being tortured with instruments like this. (AP Photo) –

AP

Electronic equipment sits on a table in a building Ukrainian civilians said they were detained and tortured by Russian soldiers in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. Civilians have described how equipment like this was used to electrocute them. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) –

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Some civilians were held for days or weeks, while others have vanished for well over a year. Nearly everyone freed said they experienced or witnessed torture, and most described being shifted from one place to another without explanation.

“It’s a business of human trafficking,” said Olena Yahupova, the city administrator who was forced to dig trenches for the Russians in Zaporizhzhia. “If we don’t talk about it and keep silent, then tomorrow anyone can be there — my neighbor, acquaintance, child.”

Spoons sit in a stack of bowls at a police department, left behind after the area was liberated from Russian forces, in Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Ukrainian civilians said they were held and tortured at this site by Russian soldiers. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

INVISIBLE PRISONERS

The new building in the compound of Prison Colony No. 2 is at least two stories tall, separated from the main prison by a thick wall.

This facility in Russia’s eastern Rostov region has gone up since the war started in February 2022, according to satellite imagery analyzed by the AP. It could easily house the hundreds of Ukrainian civilians who are believed detained there, according to former captives, families of the missing, human rights activists and Russian lawyers. Two exiled Russian human rights advocates said it is heavily guarded by soldiers and armored vehicles.

The building in Rostov is one of at least 40 detention facilities in Russia and Belarus, and 63 makeshift and formal in occupied Ukrainian territory where Ukrainian civilians are held, according to an AP map built on data from former captives, the Ukrainian Media Initiative for Human Rights, and the Russian human rights group Gulagu.net. The recent U.N. report counted a total of 37 facilities in Russia and Belarus and 125 in occupied Ukraine.

AP map built on data from former captives, the Ukrainian Media Initiative for Human Rights, and the Russian human rights group Gulagu.net. (AP Map/Marshall Ritzel)

Some also hold Russian prisoners accused or convicted of a variety of crimes. Other, more makeshift locations are near the front lines, and the AP documented two locations where former prisoners say Ukrainians were forced to dig trenches.

The shadowy nature of the system makes it difficult to know exactly how many civilians are being detained. Ukraine’s government has been able to confirm legal details of a little over 1,000 who are facing charges.

At least 4,000 civilians are held in Russia and at least as many scattered around the occupied territories, according to Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled Russian human rights activist who talks to informants within Russian prisons and founded Gulagu.net to document abuses. Osechkin showed AP a Russian prison document from 2022 saying that 119 people ‘‘opposed to the special military operation’’ in Ukraine were moved by plane to the main prison colony in the Russian region of Voronezh. Many Ukrainians later freed by Russia also described unexplained plane transfers.

In all, Ukraine’s government believes around 10,000 civilians could be detained, according to Ukrainian negotiator Oleksandr Kononeko, based on reports from loved ones, as well as post-release interviews with some civilians and the hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers returned in prisoner exchanges. Ukraine said in June that about 150 civilians have been freed to Ukrainian-controlled territory, and the Russians deny holding others.

“They say, ‘We don’t have these people, it’s you who is lying,’” Kononeko said.

The detention of two men from the Kherson region in August 2022 offers a glimpse at how hard it is for families to track down loved ones in Russian custody.

Artem Baranov, a security guard, and Yevhen Pryshliak, who worked at a local asphalt plant with his father, had been friends for over a decade. Their relationship was cemented when both bought dogs during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Baranov’s common-law wife, Ilona Slyva. Their evening walks continued even after Russia seized their hometown of Nova Kakhovka — shy Baranov with a giant black Italian mastiff and Pryshliak with a toy poodle whose apricot fur matched his beard.

Their walk ran late the night of Aug. 15, and Pryshliak decided to stay at Baranov’s apartment rather than risk being caught breaking the Russian curfew. Neighbors later told the family that 15 armed Russian soldiers swooped in, ransacked the apartment and seized the men.

For a month, they were in the local jail, with conditions relaxed enough that Slyva was able to talk to Pryshliak through the fence. Baranov, he told her, couldn’t come out.

She sent in packages of food and clothes but did not know if they were reaching him. Finally, on Baranov’s birthday, she bought his favorite dessert of cream eclairs, smashed them up, and slipped in a scrap of paper with her new Russian phone number scrawled on it. She hoped the guards would have little interest in the sticky mess and just pass it along.

A month went by, and the families learned the men had been transferred to a new prison in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Then the trail went dark.

This photo provided by his family shows Artem Baranov. Baranov, a security guard, and Yevhen Pryshliak, who worked at a local asphalt plant with his father, had been friends for over a decade. On the night of Aug. 15, 2022, Pryshliak decided to stay at Baranov's apartment in the Kherson region rather than risk being caught breaking the Russian curfew. Neighbors later told the family that 15 armed Russian soldiers swooped in, ransacked the apartment and seized the men. (Family photo via AP) –

AP

This photo provided by his family shows Yevhen Pryshliak with the toy poodle he bought during the coronavirus pandemic. On the night of Aug. 15, 2022, Pryshliak decided to stay at the apartment of his friend, Artem Baranov, in the Kherson region, rather than risk being caught breaking the Russian curfew. Neighbors later told the family that 15 armed Russian soldiers swooped in, ransacked the apartment and seized the men. (Family photo via AP) –

AP

Four more months passed. Then a call came from the family of a man they had never met but would soon come to know well: Pavlo Zaporozhets.

Zaporozhets, a Ukrainian from the occupied Kherson region charged with international terrorism, was sharing a cell in Rostov with Baranov. Since he faced charges, he had a lawyer.

It was then that Slyva knew her gift of eclairs — and the phone number smuggled within them — had reached its destination. Baranov had memorized her number and passed it through a complex chain that finally got news of him to her on April 7.

Baranov wrote that he was accused of espionage — an accusation that Slyva scorned as falling apart even under Russia’s internal logic. He was detained in August, and Russia illegally annexed the regions only in October.

“When he was detained, he was on his own national territory,” she said. “They thought and thought and invented a criminal case against him for espionage.”

Baranov wrote home that he was transported across prisons with his eyes closed in two planes, one of which had about 60 people. He and Pryshliak were separated at their third transfer in late winter. Pryshliak’s family has received a form letter from the Rostov prison denying he is an inmate there.

Light streams through a hole in the ceiling of a jail in which Ukrainians civilians said the were tortured by Russian forces, in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Debris lies on the floor of a building used by Russian forces where civilians said they were held and tortured, in Izium, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. Torture was a constant, whether or not there was information to extract, according to every former detainee interviewed by the Associated Press. A U.N. report from June said 91% of prisoners “described torture and ill-treatment.” (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) –

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Bars cover a window of a room in a police department in Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Ukrainian civilians said they were held and tortured at this site by Russian soldiers. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) –

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

The number of civilian detainees has grown rapidly over the course of the war. In the first wave early on, Russian units moved in with lists of activists, pro-Ukrainian community leaders, and military veterans. Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov was taken when Russian forces seized control of his city but exchanged within a week for nine Russian soldiers, he said.

Then they focused on teachers and doctors who refused to work with the occupation authorities. But the reasons for apprehending people today are as mundane as tying a ribbon to a bicycle in the Ukrainian colors of blue and yellow.

“Now there is no logic,” Fedorov said.

He estimated that around 500 Ukrainian civilians are detained just in his city at any time — numbers echoed by multiple people interviewed by the AP.

A Ukrainian intelligence official said the Russian fear of dissidents had become “pathological” since last fall, as Russians brace for Ukraine’s counteroffensive. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation.

The AP saw multiple missing person notices posted on closed Ukrainian social media chats for young men seized off the streets. The messages, written in Ukrainian, describe detentions at gunpoint at home and on the street, with pleas to send information and emojis of hearts and praying hands.

The Geneva Conventions in general forbid the arbitrary detention or forced deportation of civilians, and state that detainees must be allowed to communicate with loved ones, obtain legal counsel and challenge allegations against them. But first they must be found.

After months writing letter after letter to locate Pryshliak, his sister-in-law Liubov thinks she knows why the prisoners are moved around: “So that the families cannot find them. Just to hide the traces of crimes.”

Olena Yahupova sits for a portrait in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Thursday, May 18, 2023. Yahupova was forced by Russian soldiers to dig trenches for months with more than a dozen Ukrainian civilians, including business owners, a student, a teacher, and utility workers. She could see other crews in the distance, with armed guards standing over them. Most wore Russian military uniforms and boots, and lived in fear that Ukrainian artillery would mistake them for the enemy. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

SLAVES IN THE TRENCHES

Hundreds of civilians end up in a place that is possibly even more dangerous than the prisons: the trenches of occupied Ukraine.

There, they are forced to build protection for Russian soldiers, according to multiple people who managed to leave Russian custody. Among them was Yahupova, the 50-year-old civil administrator detained in October 2022 in the Zaporizhzhia region, possibly because she is married to a Ukrainian soldier.

Under international humanitarian law, Yahupova is a civilian — defined as anyone who is not an active member of or volunteer for the armed forces. Documented breaches of the law constitute a war crime and, if widespread and systematic, “may also constitute a crime against humanity.”

Religious icons hang from bars on a window inside a building in which Ukrainian civilians said they were detained and tortured during the Russian occupation of Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. Many civilians described how having images of icons in their cells helped them endure the ordeal. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A prayer and an angel are drawn on a wall of a building in which Ukrainian civilians said they were detained and tortured, in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. Those who leave detention say captives endure routine torture, psychological abuse and even slave labor in centers ranging from brand-new wings in Russian prisons to clammy basements, an Associated Press investigation found. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) –

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

An electric kettle and cup of tea are drawn on a wall which Ukrainian civilians said they were detained and tortured, in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. Russia has created a vast detention system across 2 countries to hold thousands of Ukrainian civilians. An AP investigation found routine torture, slave labor, and psychological abuse. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) –

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

But the distinctions between soldiers and civilians can be hard to prove in a war where Ukraine has urged all its citizens to help, for example by sending Russian troop locations via social media. In practice, the Russians are scooping up civilians along with soldiers, including those denounced by neighbors for whatever reason or seized seemingly at random.

They picked Yahupova up at her house in October. Then they demanded she reveal information about her husband, taping a plastic bag over her face, beating her on the head with a filled water bottle and tightening a cable around her neck.

They also dragged her out of the cell and drove her around town to identify pro-Ukrainian locals. She didn’t.

When they hauled her out a second time, she was exhausted. As a soldier placed her in front of a Russian news camera, she could still feel the dried blood on the back of her neck. She was going to give an interview, her captors told her.

Behind the camera, a gun was pointed at her head. The soldier holding it told her that if she gave the right answers to the Russian journalist interviewing her, she could go free.

But she didn’t know what the right answers were. She went back to the cell.

Three months later, without explanation, Yahupova was again pulled outside. This time, she was driven to a deserted checkpoint, where yet another Russian news crew awaited. She was ordered to hold hands with two men and walk about 5 meters (yards) toward Ukraine.

The three Ukrainians were ordered to do another take. And another, to show that Russia was freeing the Ukrainian civilians in its custody.

Except, at the end of the last take, Russian soldiers loaded them into a truck and drove them to a nearby crossroads. One put shovels into their hands.

Illustration depicting Olena Yahupova, a Ukrainian civil administrator, being forced to dig trenches in oversized clothing by Russian soldiers in occupied Ukraine. (AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

“Now you will do something for the good of the Russian Federation,” he said.

And so Yahupova ended up digging trenches until mid-March with more than a dozen Ukrainian civilians, including business owners, a student, a teacher, and utility workers. She could see other crews in the distance, with armed guards standing over them. Most wore Russian military uniforms and boots, and lived in fear that Ukrainian artillery would mistake them for the enemy.

The AP confirmed through satellite imagery the new trenches dug in the area where Yahupova and a man on the Ukrainian crew with her said they were held. He requested anonymity because his relatives still live under occupation.

“Sometimes we even worked there 24 hours a day, when they had an inspection coming,” he said.

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows trenches dug near an intersection in Berdiansk, Ukraine on Dec. 19, 2022. Olena Yahupova, a 50-year-old civil administrator, described being forced by Russian soldiers to dig trenches for months at this site with other Ukrainian civilians. (Maxar Technologies via AP)

The man also spoke with other Ukrainian civilians digging mass graves nearby for at least 15 people. He said one civilian had been shot for refusing to dig. Satellite imagery shows a mound of freshly-dug earth in the spot the man described.

The man escaped during a Russian troop rotation, and Yahupova also made her way out. But both said hundreds of others are still in the occupied front lines, forced to work for Russia or die.

When Yahupova returned to her home after more than five months, everything had been stolen. Her beloved dog had been shot. Her head ached, her vision was blurred, and her children — long since out of the occupied territories — urged her to leave.

Olena Yahupova stands for an X-ray in a hospital in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Thursday, May 18, 2023. Now safe in Ukrainian territory, Yahupova wants to testify against Russia – for the months it stole from her, the concussion that troubles her, the home she has lost. She still reflexively touches the back of her head, where the bottle struck her over and over. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Olena Yahupova kisses her husband, Arthur Yahupov on the day of their wedding ceremony in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on June 7, 2023. After escaping detention by Russian soldiers, she traveled thousands of miles through Russia, north to the Baltics and back around to the frontline in Ukraine, where she reunited with her husband serving with Ukrainian forces. Earlier married in a civil ceremony, the two got wed in church. (AP Photo/Oleksandr Brynza) –

Oleksandr Brynza/AP

Olena Yahupova stands with her husband, Arthur Yahupov during their June 7, 2023 wedding ceremony in Kharkiv, Ukraine. After escaping detention by Russian soldiers, she traveled thousands of miles through Russia, north to the Baltics and back around to the frontline in Ukraine, where she reunited with her husband serving with Ukrainian forces. Earlier married in a civil ceremony, the two got wed in church. (AP Photo/.Oleksandr Brynza) –

Oleksandr Brynza/AP

She traveled thousands of miles through Russia, north to the Baltics and back around to the front line in Ukraine, where she reunited with her husband serving with Ukrainian forces. Earlier married in a civil ceremony, the two got wed this time in church.

Now safe in Ukrainian territory, Yahupova wants to testify against Russia — for the months it stole from her, the concussion that troubles her, the home she has lost. She still reflexively touches the back of her head, where the bottle struck her over and over.

“They stole not only from me, they stole from half the country,” she said.

A chair is seen down the hallway of a building which Ukrainian civilians said had been used as a torture center by Russian forces in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. Civilians said they were detained and tortured at the site when the area was occupied, and many described being tortured while being strapped to office chairs. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

TORTURE AS POLICY

The abuse Yahupova described is common. Torture was a constant, whether or not there was information to extract, according to every former detainee interviewed by the AP. The U.N. report from June said 91% of prisoners “described torture and ill-treatment.”

In the occupied territories, all the freed civilians interviewed by the AP described crammed rooms and cells, tools of torture prepared in advance, tape placed carefully next to office chairs to bind arms and legs, and repeated questioning by Russian’s FSB intelligence agency. Nearly 100 evidence photos obtained by the AP from Ukrainian investigators also showed instruments of torture found in liberated areas of Kherson, Kyiv and Kharkiv, including the same tools repeatedly described by former civilian captives held in Russia and occupied regions.

Many former detainees spoke of wires linking prisoners’ bodies to electricity in field telephones or radios or batteries, in a procedure one man said the Russians dubbed “call your mother” or “call Biden.” U.N. human rights investigators said one victim described the same treatment given to Yahupova, a severe beating on the head with a filled water bottle.

Viktoriia Andrusha sits for a portrait in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 23, 2023. Andrusha, an elementary school math teacher, was seized by Russian forces on March 25, 2022, after they ransacked her parents’ home in Chernihiv and found photos of Russian military vehicles on her phone. By March 28, she was in a prison in Russia. Her captors told her Ukraine had fallen and no one wanted any civilians back. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Viktoriia Andrusha, an elementary school math teacher, was seized by Russian forces on March 25, 2022, after they ransacked her parents’ home in Chernihiv and found photos of Russian military vehicles on her phone. By March 28, she was in a prison in Russia. Her captors told her Ukraine had fallen and no one wanted any civilians back.

For her, like so many others, torture came in the form of fists, batons of metal, wood and rubber, plastic bags. Men in black, with special forces chevrons on their sleeves, pummeled her in the prison corridor and in a ceramic-tiled room seemingly designed for quick cleaning. Russian propaganda played on a television above her.

“There was a point when I was already sitting and saying: Honestly, do what you want with me. I just don’t care anymore,” Andrusha said.

Along with the physical torture came mental anguish. Andrusha was told repeatedly that she would die in prison in Russia, that they would slash her with knives until she was unrecognizable, that her government cared nothing about a captive schoolteacher, that her family had forgotten her, that her language was useless. They forced captives to memorize verse after verse of the Russian national anthem and other patriotic songs.

Illustration of Viktoriia Andrusha, a Ukrainian elementary school math teacher, being held in a room where she was threatened with torture by Russian soldiers. (AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

“Their job was to influence us psychologically, to show us that we are not human,” she said. “Our task was to make sure that everything they did to us did not affect us.”

Then one day, without explanation, it was over for her and another woman kept with her. Guards ordered them to pack up, cuffed them and put them in a bus. The weight Andrusha had lost in prison showed starkly in the cast-off jacket that hung from her shoulders.

They were soon joined by Ukrainian soldiers held captive elsewhere. On the other side, Andrusha saw three Russian soldiers. Although international law forbids the exchange of civilians as prisoners of war, the U.N. report on June 27 said this has happened in at least 53 cases, and Melitopol Mayor Fedorov confirmed it happened to him.

A man detained with Andrusha in March 2022 is in captivity still. She doesn’t know the fate of the others she met. But many former captives take it upon themselves to contact the loved ones of their former cellmates.

Andrusha recalled hours spent memorizing whispered phone numbers in a circle with other Ukrainians, on the chance one of them might get out. When she was freed, she passed them along to Ukrainian government officials.

Andrusha has since regained some of her weight. She talks about her six months in prison calmly but with anger.

This selfie photo provided by Anna Vuiko shows her with her father, Roman Vuiko. Roman was one of the earliest civilians detained by Russian forces, in early March 2022. A former glass factory worker on disability, he had resisted when Russian soldiers tried to take over his home in suburban Kyiv, neighbors told his adult daughter. They drove a military truck into the yard, shattered the windows, cuffed the 50-year-old man and drove away. (Anna Vuiko via AP)

“I was able to survive this,” she said, after a day back in the classroom with her students. “There are so many cases when people do not return.”

In the meantime, for loved ones, the wait is agony.

Anna Vuiko’s father was one of the earliest civilians detained, in March last year. A former glass factory worker on disability, Roman Vuiko had resisted when Russian soldiers tried to take over his home in suburban Kyiv, neighbors told his adult daughter. They drove a military truck into the yard, shattered the windows, cuffed the 50-year-old man and drove off.

By May 2022, Vuiko was in a prison in Kursk, Russia, hundreds of kilometers (miles) away. All his daughter has gotten from him since is a handwritten letter, which arrived six months after he was taken away and four months after he wrote it.

Illustration depicting Ukrainian civilian Roman Vuiko being detained by Russian soldiers. (AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

The standard phrases told his daughter nothing except that he was alive, and she suspects he has not received any of her letters.

“I think about it every day,” she said. “It’s been a year, more than a year. … How much more time has to pass?”

___

Arhirova reported from Kyiv. Contributors include Michael Biesecker in Washington, Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kherson and Evgeniy Maloletka in Zaporizhzhia.

AP · July 13, 2023

5.  NATO allies offer Ukraine security assurances as Biden hits out at 'craven' Putin

NATO allies offer Ukraine security assurances as Biden hits out at 'craven' Putin

Reuters · by Steve Holland

• Summary
• LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
• Zelenskiy says what Ukraine got from the summit was 'unambiguous clarity that Ukraine will be in NATO'
• Zelenskiy: 'I believe we will be in NATO once the security situation stabilises. Put simply, when the war is over, Ukraine will be invited into NATO and Ukraine will clearly become a member of the Alliance.'
• Biden: 'One thing Zelenskiy understands now is that whether or not he's in NATO now is not relevant' as long as he has the commitments
• Russian foreign ministry: NATO is returning to "Cold War schemes," Moscow will "respond in a timely and appropriate manner"

VILNIUS, July 12 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of having a "craven lust for land and power" at the end of a NATO summit on Wednesday where Ukraine won new security assurances from the U.S. and its allies for its defence against Moscow.

Members of the world's most powerful military bloc offered the prospect of long-term protection a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy decried as "absurd" a refusal to offer an invitation or timetable for Ukraine's entry into NATO.

Ukraine has been pushing for rapid membership while fighting a Russian invasion unleashed in February 2022 that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions.

Instead, a declaration by the G7 group of the world's most industrialised countries launched a framework for bilateral negotiations to provide military and financial support, intelligence sharing and a promise of immediate steps if Russia should attack again.

"Our support will last long into the future. It's a powerful statement of our commitment to Ukraine," Biden said alongside Zelenskiy and leaders of the G7, which is made up of the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

Speaking in Vilnius, Lithuania, at the end of the two-day meeting on Russia's doorstep, Biden said Putin had badly underestimated the resolve of the U.S.-led military alliance.

"NATO is stronger, more energized and yes, more united than ever in its history. Indeed, more vital to our shared future. It didn't happen by accident. It wasn't inevitable," Biden said.

"When Putin, and his craven lust for land and power, unleashed his brutal war on Ukraine, he was betting NATO would break apart ... But he thought wrong."

Swallowing his disappointment over the lack of a membership timetable, Zelenskiy hailed NATO's "practical and unprecedented support for Ukraine" and said that at the summit Ukraine had obtained "unambiguous clarity that Ukraine will be in NATO".

He tweeted: "I believe we will be in NATO once the security situation stabilises. Put simply, when the war is over, Ukraine will be invited into NATO and Ukraine will clearly become a member of the Alliance. I felt no thoughts of any other sort."

At a meeting with Zelenskiy, Biden promised him the U.S. was doing everything it could to meet Ukraine's needs and acknowledged Zelenskiy's frustration about the scale and speed of support.

"Your resilience and your resolve has been a model for the whole world to see," Biden said. "I look forward to the day when we're having the meeting celebrating your official, official membership in NATO."

"The bad news for you is, we're not going anywhere. You're stuck with us," Biden joked, prompting laughter from Zelenskiy.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan had said Biden would discuss the issue of long-range missiles with Zelenskiy when they met.

U.S. President Joe Biden, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attend a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine council, during a NATO leaders summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 12, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman

Speaking to reporters later, Biden said: "One thing Zelenskiy understands now is that whether or not he's in NATO now is not relevant" as long as he has the commitments that have been made at the summit. "He's not concerned about that now."

Zelenskiy told Biden he wanted to thank "all Americans" for the billions of dollars in aid his country had received.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said he had told Ukraine that its international allies were "not Amazon" and Kyiv needed to show gratitude for weapons donations to persuade Western politicians to give more.

Zelenskiy said: "We were always grateful to the UK, prime ministers and the minister of defence because the people are always supporting us."

Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. have been negotiating with Kyiv for weeks over a broad international framework of support, encompassing modern advanced military equipment such as fighter jets, training, intelligence-sharing and cyberdefence.

In return Ukraine would pledge better governance, including through judicial and economic reforms and enhanced transparency.

The first sitting of a new NATO-Ukraine Council was also held on Wednesday, a format designed to tighten cooperation between Kyiv and the 31-nation alliance.

'POTENTIALLY VERY DANGEROUS'

NATO is built around mutual security guarantees whereby an attack on one is an attack on all, and it has carefully avoided extending any firm military commitments to Ukraine, worried it would risk taking it closer to a full-on war with Russia.

Ukraine has been wary of any less-binding security "assurances", given Russia's invasion already trampled the so-called Budapest Memorandum under which international powers committed to keeping the country safe in exchange for Kyiv giving up its Soviet-era nuclear arms.

Speaking earlier alongside Zelenskiy, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine was closer to the alliance than ever before, and brushed aside new warnings from Russia about the consequences of supporting Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the security arrangements for Ukraine were not designed to be a substitute for full NATO membership and said the commitments at the summit marked a high point for the West's support for Kyiv.

Russia, which says NATO's eastward expansion is an existential threat to its own security, swiftly lashed out.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was "potentially very dangerous" for the West to give Ukraine security guarantees.

The Russian foreign ministry said the summit showed that NATO was reverting to "Cold War schemes" and added that it would respond "in a timely and appropriate manner, using all means and methods at our disposal."

Reporting by John Irish, Steve Holland, Justyna Pawlak, Sabine Siebold, Andrew Gray, and Max Hunder, Writing by Gabriela Baczynska, Matthias Williams and William Maclean; Editing by Alex Richardson, Howard Goller and Rosalba O'Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Andrew Gray

Thomson Reuters

Andrew is a senior correspondent for European security and diplomacy, based in Brussels. He covers NATO and the foreign policy of the European Union. A journalist for almost 30 years, he has previously been based in the UK, Germany, Geneva, the Balkans, West Africa and Washington, where he reported on the Pentagon. He covered the Iraq war in 200...

Reuters · by Steve Holland

6. China's exports fall most in three years as global economy falters

​Global economy faltering? The US inflation rate fell to 3%.​ (yes I know there is more to the global economy than the US inflation rate0.

China's exports fall most in three years as global economy falters

Reuters · by Joe Cash

BEIJING, July 13 (Reuters) - China's exports fell last month at their fastest pace since the onset three years ago of the COVID-19 pandemic, as an ailing global economy puts mounting pressure on Chinese policymakers for fresh stimulus measures.

Momentum in China's post-COVID recovery has slowed after a brisk pickup in the first quarter, with analysts now downgrading their projections for the economy for the rest of the year.

Outbound shipments from the world's second-largest economy slumped a worse-than-expected 12.4% year-on-year in June, data from China's Customs Bureau showed on Thursday, following a drop of 7.5% in May.

Imports contracted 6.8%, steeper than an expected 4.0% decline and the previous month's 4.5% fall.

Reuters Graphics

"The global downturn in goods demand will continue to weigh on exports," said Zichun Huang, China economist at Capital Economics, with a further decline in exports seen likely before they bottom out towards the end of the year.

"But the good news is that the worst of the decline in foreign demand is probably already behind us," she added.

Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics

Lv Daliang, a spokesperson for the General Administration of Customs, blamed the poor export performance on "a weak global economic recovery, slowing global trade and investment, and rising unilateralism, protectionism and geopolitics," in comments at a news conference in Beijing.

Exports to the United States - the top destination for Chinese goods - have fallen the most among its major trading partners over the first half of the year, as diplomatic tensions mount over chip technology and other issues, while exports to Russia have risen sharply, although from a modest level.

With exports accounting for about one-fifth of the economy and the troubled property sector for about one-third, China's prospects have dimmed for a quick recovery after COVID-related lockdowns battered the economy in 2022.

A Reuters poll showed China's economy likely grew 7.3% in the second quarter from a year earlier, when lockdowns in Shanghai and other big cities dampened output, while full-year growth was forecast at 5.5%. The statistics bureau will release second-quarter gross domestic product data next Monday.

The government has set a modest GDP growth target of around 5% for this year, after badly missing last year's goal.

"Soft exports and deflationary pressure will add to calls for stimulus, but I don't think the scale of support will be enormous," said Xu Tianchen, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

"This is owing to fiscal constraints on the government, they need to borrow more to fund larger expenditure," he added.

PRESSURE FOR STIMULUS

Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who took up his post in March, has promised to roll out policy measures to boost demand and invigorate markets, but few concrete steps have been announced and investors are growing impatient.

The Chinese yuan slipped against the dollar after the data was released, but analysts said further currency weakness was expected to be limited as investors set their sights on next month's Politburo meeting and any potential action on economic stimulus.

"The big question in the next few months is whether domestic demand can rebound without much stimulus," said Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.

Factory activity in China has been shrinking in recent months, while consumer prices teetered on the edge of deflation in June and producer prices fell at their fastest pace in more than seven years.

Chinese imports of semiconductors fell 13.6% in June, slower than the 15.3% drop seen in May but signalling limited appetite among Chinese manufacturers for components to re-export in finished goods.

Demand for raw materials also showed signs of weakness, with copper imports down 16.4% in June compared with a year earlier.

Reporting by Joe Cash and Ellen Zhang; Editing by Edmund Klamann

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Joe Cash

Thomson Reuters

Joe Cash reports on China’s economic affairs, covering domestic fiscal and monetary policy, key economic indicators, trade relations, and China’s growing engagement with developing countries. Before joining Reuters, he worked on UK and EU trade policy across the Asia-Pacific region. Joe studied Chinese at the University of Oxford and is a Mandar...

Reuters · by Joe Cash

7. China's US envoy makes rare Pentagon visit for security-related talks

An interesting development. Oh to be a fly on the wall in that conversation.

China's US envoy makes rare Pentagon visit for security-related talks

Reuters · by Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - China's ambassador to the United States held a rare meeting at the Pentagon on Wednesday with the top U.S. defense official for Asia, the Pentagon said, in talks that followed U.S. criticism of Chinese reluctance to engage in military communications.

A brief Pentagon statement said Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng discussed defense relations and "a range of international and regional security issues" in talks with Ely Ratner, a U.S. assistant secretary of defense.

"Ratner also underscored the Department's commitment to maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between the United States and the PRC," Pentagon spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Martin Meiners said, using the acronym for China's official name.

The discussions lasted about 90 minutes, Meiners said.

In a statement early Thursday, China's embassy in Washington said Xie urged the U.S. to meet China halfway to gradually return relations between the two countries and their militaries to the right track.

"A healthy and stable China-U.S. relationship is in the common interest of both countries," Xie said in the meeting, according to the statement.

Xie also requested "the U.S. side to take action to remove obstacles, manage differences, handle Taiwan and other important and sensitive issues cautiously in accordance with the principles of the three Sino-U.S. joint communiques."

Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, said the meeting was "quite unusual."

"The Chinese ambassador does not often meet with U.S. senior defense officials," Sun said. "It suggests China is at least responding to U.S. concerns, but the actual progress still requires time and negotiations."

With U.S.-China relations at a low over national security issues, including Taiwan, U.S. export bans on advanced technologies and China's state-led industrial policies, Washington has been trying to repair ties between the world's two biggest economies.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited China earlier this month and climate envoy John Kerry is expected to visit next week. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Beijing last month, the first trip to China by a U.S. secretary of state since 2018.

But Beijing snubbed U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's efforts to hold an in-depth meeting with his Chinese counterpart at a defense forum in Singapore last month, and military communications have stalled.

"We have regularly reached out to thicken our crisis communications and crisis management channels with Beijing and they have serially pushed us off," Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's top policy adviser, told a forum in London on July 10.

China has publicly cited U.S. sanctions as an obstacle to military dialogue. Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu has been sanctioned since 2018 over the purchase of combat aircraft and equipment from Russia's main arms exporter, Rosoboronexport.

But Kahl said in London that China appeared to be concerned that Washington was going to use crisis management channels "so we can have more crises".

"When we have these conversations with them, they're like: 'If you don't want crises, there's a simple answer ... Get out. Like, you're not a Pacific power," Kahl said, adding that was a strange thing to hear as someone from the Pacific coast state of California.

Sun said Beijing was unlikely to accept a defense minister-level meeting with Austin unless Washington addresses the sanction on Li.

"Some have argued that the Li-Austin meeting would be a prerequisite for working-level mil-to-mil to resume. It doesn’t have to be, but it makes sense given the protocol," Sun said.

Reporting by Phil Stewart, David Brunnstrom and Rami Ayyub, and Liz Lee in Beijing; editing by Mark Heinrich and Diane Craft

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Phil Stewart

Thomson Reuters

Phil Stewart has reported from more than 60 countries, including Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and South Sudan. An award-winning Washington-based national security reporter, Phil has appeared on NPR, PBS NewsHour, Fox News and other programs and moderated national security events, including at the Reaga...

Reuters · by Phil Stewart

8. Senate panel wants to green-light US military cyber ops against Mexican cartels

Why not? Is there any big downside? Will such operations have a significant effect on cartel operations (I would think so and hope so).

Senate panel wants to green-light US military cyber ops against Mexican cartels

A provision in the SASC version of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act tasks the secretary of defense with developing a strategy to use cyber to disrupt illicit activity crossing the southern border.

BY

MARK POMERLEAU

JULY 12, 2023

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · July 12, 2023

A Senate panel wants to explicitly authorize the Pentagon to use its cyber forces to combat illegal activity stemming from Mexico.

A provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act would allow the secretary of defense, along with other federal agencies and in consultation with the Mexican government, to “conduct detection, monitoring, and other operations in cyberspace to counter Mexican transnational criminal organizations that are engaged” in a variety of activities that cross the southern U.S. border.

Such activities include smuggling of illegal drugs and controlled substances, human trafficking and weapons trafficking, according to the bill. The legislation was approved by the committee at the end of June, but the bill’s full text wasn’t released until Tuesday.

The committee is couching this activity under existing authority that places the Department of Defense as the single lead U.S agency for the detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs into the country, along with broader authorities to conduct military cyber operations.

The provision states that the authority “may be used to counter Mexican transnational criminal organizations, including entities cited in the most recent National Drug Threat Assessment published by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.”

Members of Congress have long been harping on the illicit drug trade that has brought unprecedented amounts of fentanyl into the U.S. and has led to an epidemic of overdose deaths. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, more Americans under 50 have died from fentanyl than any other cause of death recently, including heart disease, cancer, homicide and suicide.

As part of the provision, senators also want a strategy with 60 days of the law’s enactment, for conducting operations in cyberspace to combat this activity as well as quarterly briefings to update lawmakers on such operations to include the nations they were conducted in.

The strategy should include, among other things, a description of cyber presence and activities — to include information operations — of the organizations previously described, a description of any previous cyber actions taken by DOD against such groups, and descriptions of security cooperation agreements and work with the Mexican government.

According to Herb Lin, a senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, the bill’s provision is just clarifying existing authority the Pentagon already has to conduct such operations.

“As far as I can tell, it clarifies existing authority. It explicitly gives DOD authority to do something that I think that they could’ve done without it,” he told DefenseScoop. “It’s not a directive that they should do things, it gives them explicit legislative authority to do that. The language says [the secretary of defense] MAY conduct detection, monitoring, and other operations in cyberspace to counter Mexican transnational criminal organizations, but it does not say MUST.”

The DOD has a long history combating drug cartels and illicit activity from criminal groups, especially in Latin America.

Lin said this legislation makes the authority to conduct counter-drug ops via cyber explicit. “I don’t know if DOD really needs this legislation to do it, but if DOD wants to do it, it doesn’t hurt to explicitly have the authority,” he added.

Other cyber experts says it helps further codify U.S. Cyber Command’s roles within the government.

“I don’t see it as a tacit approval for use of force — maybe they feel like they could grow into that. It seems like they’re just formalizing Cybercom’s role in the monitoring, looking at the communications and maybe disrupting the communications of these groups,” Gary Brown, a professor at National Defense University and formerly the first senior legal counsel for Cybercom, told DefenseScoop.

Since Cybercom’s inception, it has straddled a line between military operations and intelligence efforts given it was co-located with the National Security Agency, which is responsible for conducting foreign intelligence. The two organizations continue to share a leader, and Cybercom at times has struggled with an identity crisis.

“None of this would have been outside their role because the language [of the NDAA] seems aimed at things on the net. This really would have been within their mission anyway, but the idea may be to clarify the specific role of Cybercom,” Brown said. “I think they’re trying to find that sweet spot we’ve been searching for since Cybercom stood up between intel and operations. The things that they’re doing now are things that would might have been in NSA’s wheelhouse previously.”

In the past, there were debates both inside and outside government as to how the Defense Department would protect the country in the digital realm. It was clear the U.S. military had responsibility to defend the United States from kinetic attacks such as missile salvos, but tackling cyber threats was a trickier problem.

“There was long frustration in Cybercom that, if you look through DOD, on the kinetic side, of course, DOD defends the homeland, we defend the United States. But in cyber, at first, we were limited to defending DOD networks and not civilian networks,” Brown said. “I think there’s just been a desire to move a little further out and say, ‘Hey, if cyber is part of aggression against the homeland, then Cybercom should have a role in in defending the homeland against that aggression.’ On the cyber side, I think because these things that they spelled out — human trafficking and particularly drug trafficking has a direct effect in the United States, I think there is a role for DOD in this.”

As threats, especially in the digital and cyber domains, have evolved in recent years, the Pentagon has been forced to evolve in kind to protect the nation. For example, Cybercom now views securing elections as an enduring responsibility. It also has sought to combat ransomware actors abroad, before they reach networks in the homeland, to protect U.S. citizens from having their data stolen.

The SASC provision aims to extend DOD and Cybercom’s responsibility to defend the nation to threats stemming from the southern border, even from non-state actors.

However, some are worried about the expansion in authority and potential responsibility.

“One challenge with the ‘defend the nation’ mission in cyberspace is that it can be scoped widely or narrowly — especially because cyberspace touches on so many aspects of the nation. I think in this case, it is being scoped too widely,” Erica Lonergan, assistant professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a former senior director on the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, told DefenseScoop in an email.

“Extending the defend the nation mission to counter drug trafficking by Mexican drug cartels runs the risk of stretching the mission beyond its original intent. Cyber operations demand significant investment in resources and, in an environment where the [cyber mission force] has a limited number of skilled personnel and capabilities to conduct these operations, prioritizing drug cartels will inevitably mean taking resources away from other mission areas, which are more important,” she added.

Lonergan noted that the National Defense Strategy priorities the U.S. military deterring major conflict and aggression from nation-states in a return to so-called great power competition, identifying China as the “pacing threat.”

While cyberspace will play a key role in the future, with limited resources, DOD should be prioritizing — and Mexican drug cartels are relatively low on that priority list, she said.

“The reality is that Mexican drug cartels are likely to present an easier target, and demonstrable successes in this area will make it tempting to shift even greater resources toward counter-drug trafficking and away from strategic threats — especially because peer- and near-peer nation-state competitors are harder (and therefore more frustrating) targets than most non-state actors,” she added.

Traditionally — with the exception of fighting terrorist groups such as ISIS — DOD’s cyber forces have largely focused on countering advanced nation-state threats such as Russia and China. However, Lin expects cyber tools to be used more in the future against a host of activity.

“Cyber doesn’t have to be used just against the high-end actors. My prediction is that cyber is going to be increasingly a weapon of choice against bad guys at all levels,” he said. “Because it’s cheaper than deploying forces to the ground and there’s no political cost in doing it. [There are] all kinds of interesting reasons why you’d want to use cyber force instead of soldiers to conduct operations against non-state entities that are hostile. For example, no boots on the ground means no American casualties. Also, U.S. decision-makers may see using cyber force as less than full-blown intervention but more than just something minor, like economic sanctions.”

Brown noted that sometimes criminal issues can eventually rise to the level of a major national security problem.

“We could color this [issue of illegal drugs and cartels] as purely criminal activity. I think at some point, again, particularly with the drug issue, it does become a no kidding, national security priority,” he said. “Once it reaches a certain level, it goes beyond just criminal. It continues to be criminal, but it also becomes a national security issue and the DOD and the intelligence community just may be better resourced and postured to handle that at scale.”

A reconciled version of the NDAA must be passed by the Senate and House and signed by the president before becoming law.

In This Story

• cyber
• Mexico
• NDAA
• SASC
• U.S. Cyber Command

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · July 12, 2023

9. The Cold War Trap – How the Memory of America’s Era of Dominance Stunts U.S. Foreign Policy

I have an alternate concern. I am afraid that anything done during the Cold War will be rejected because it was done during the Cold War. I believe there are many things that we did during the Cold War that would be of great value in the current and future strategic environment. We should not be rejecting concepts and ideas just because they were associated with the Cold War.

Conclusion:

The United States must break out of the Cold War straitjacket if it is to succeed in the dawning multipolar era. Today, the U.S. foreign policy community is struggling within historical confines that cripple its imagination, that need not exist, and that are easily escaped if analysts only broaden their perspective by reaching deeper into the past.

The Cold War Trap

How the Memory of America’s Era of Dominance Stunts U.S. Foreign Policy

By Justin Winokur

July 13, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Justin Winokur · July 13, 2023

When U.S. policymakers and commentators need guidance, they habitually turn to the Cold War. They mine its events for lessons, consult its characters for advice, and compare its features to the present. Cold War history sets the terms of debate over the United States’ approach to the world. U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent assertion that there “need not be a new Cold War” with China is only the highest-profile example of an analytic reflex that grips the entire foreign policy community.

This Cold War compulsion hinders more than it helps. The incongruence between today’s realities and the history of the Cold War has stunted the search for a new American strategy. For roughly 80 years, U.S. policy has been predicated on the country’s preponderance of economic, military, technological, and political strength. This dominance allowed the United States to seek the unconditional surrender of the overstretched Axis powers in World War II, the containment of a rising but war-ruined Soviet Union, and regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, most analysts agree that the United States’ declining share of global GDP, narrowing military advantages, decreasing technological supremacy, and waning diplomatic influence mean that Washington will soon face a multipolar world for the first time since World War II. Yet Americans remain captured by ideas from a vanishing era when their power reigned supreme.

Cold War history has become a straitjacket constraining how Americans perceive the world. Dominating their knowledge of the past, it warps how they understand conflict, how they approach negotiations, how they think about their capabilities, and even how they analyze problems. It does so by limiting the scope of debate to the possibilities of an unusual and bygone time. This narrow frame of reference misleads those who seek to learn from the Cold War and obscures centuries of historical inspiration for those who seek to move beyond it. To manage the coming multipolar order, the U.S. foreign policy community must study earlier eras when states struggled to survive without the advantages of overwhelming power. By familiarizing themselves with different styles of statecraft, Americans will gain the tools to better handle the multipolar future.

The Cold War Straitjacket

Whether they accept or reject the analogy, virtually everyone in U.S. foreign policy circles takes the Cold War as their reference point for world affairs. The result is a shallow historical debate. The Biden administration treats the Cold War as the archetypical rivalry—whose gravity it is desperate to escape. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has argued that the United States must reject “neo-containment,” that “the old Cold War construct of blocs is not coherent,” and that the United States should “heed the lessons of the Cold War while rejecting the idea that its logic still applies.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken has insisted that “I don’t think [the Cold War] reflects the current reality in a few ways,” while Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has noted that “we do not seek a new Cold War, an Asian NATO, or a region split into hostile blocs.” The 2022 National Security Strategy emphasized that U.S. policymakers “do not seek conflict or a new Cold War.” Conversely, Blinken has argued with respect to the Long Telegram (the 1946 document written by the U.S. diplomat George Kennan that enshrined “containment” as a policy doctrine) that “you could literally insert Russia and Putin for what he [Kennan] says about the then Soviet Union.”

Across the aisle, Trump administration officials also use Cold War history as their touchstone. In 2020, Mike Pompeo, then the secretary of state, said that “what’s happening now isn’t Cold War 2.0. The challenge of resisting the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] threat is in some ways worse.” The 2017 National Security Strategy stated that “today’s challenges to free societies are just as serious, but more diverse” than those of the Cold War. And in April, the former national security adviser John Bolton argued that the U.S. should write a new NSC-68 (the 1950 State Department document requesting massive rearmament) to confront China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

Historians such as Hal Brands, Niall Ferguson, and M.E. Sarotte have argued that the United States is in a new Cold War with China and Russia. Analysts including Fareed Zakaria, David Ignatius, Edward Luce, and Walter Russell Mead routinely parse Cold War analogies for wisdom. Roughly two-thirds of the books on history, politics, and international relations named “best of 2022” by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy focus on the period during or after World War II, when a preeminent United States was challenged only by ambitious but weaker powers.

It is no coincidence that these policymakers and thinkers have been struggling to chart a new course for the United States in the world. A hyper-fixation on “the American era” limits strategic imagination. By framing reality with outdated ideas and practices, it normalizes a style of statecraft that should be notable not for its timelessness but for its strangeness. And by crowding out alternative historical examples, it deprives analysts of a broader base of knowledge that could help them think creatively. Even when analysts disavow the analogy, they contribute to a conversation that treats the Cold War as the ultimate precedent for international rivalries. This leaves them with the vexing task of designing new approaches from scratch.

Cold War history grossly constrains how Americans perceive the world.

A frame of reference based on Cold War history misleads policymakers in numerous ways. For one, Cold War history makes conflict appear to resemble an on-off switch. Stories of the United States containing the Evil Empire and leading the Free World to victory narrow the spectrum of international relationships to a binary between friendship and total rivalry. This perception makes intermediate degrees of tension difficult to understand. Thus, the many variations of what Sullivan has termed “managed coexistence” for U.S.-Chinese relations have been needlessly difficult for the policy community to imagine and accept. Butting up against Cold War absolutes, Americans struggle to understand gray areas between friend and foe.

Cold War history also warps assumptions about how to deal with distasteful partners. The most-studied negotiations of the Cold War era portray dealmaking with rivals as either shameful or boldly revolutionary. The resolution of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 hinged on a top-secret quid pro quo designed by the Kennedy administration to be fully deniable. The détente with the Soviet Union engineered by U.S. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, which compensated for declining American power, involved compromises on human rights and anti-communism that tarnished the administration’s reputation. By contrast, the Chinese-American rapprochement under Nixon is regarded by many observers as a groundbreaking transformation. These stories make negotiations with rivals appear to carry impossibly high stakes, even though such diplomacy is a standard practice between countries seeking to advance mutual aims.

Focusing on the history of the Cold War limits how Americans view their capabilities and makes it hard for them to imagine a less-militarized foreign policy. Looking back only as far as World War II allowed William Burns, a former deputy secretary of state and now the CIA director, to hail the Cold War as a golden age of American diplomacy in a 2019 Foreign Affairs article. But a longer view reveals that the postwar era was characterized by a U.S. defense apparatus built to project military power around the globe and force Moscow to concede to Washington’s demands. This system allowed the military, the CIA, and the secretary of defense to strengthen their positions in the policy process at the expense of the State Department and even the president.

Finally, the inflated memory of the Cold War obscures other eras of history that could be more helpful to contemporary policymakers and analysts. By limiting the menu of available historical knowledge, Americans’ reflexive study of the Cold War deprives them of the benefits of what some scholars call “applied history”: using history to clarify the present, illuminate an issue’s origins, and gain vicarious experience. These are the main analytic methods policymakers use in their daily work, and they are stunted when Americans neglect centuries of history before the Cold War. Together, these effects of Cold War myopia prime Americans to perceive the world through the eyes of a dominant, uncompromising United States after Pearl Harbor. But the United States is not about to reprise that era, and Americans steeped in the Cold War are unequipped for the emerging multipolar world.

Old History, New Ideas

In their seminal work, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, the political scientist Richard Neustadt and the historian Ernest May warn readers about historical analogies that dominate decision-makers’ analysis despite being unhelpful or misleading. The Cold War has become one such analogy. To take just one key metric, Harvard’s Avoiding Great Power War Project has shown that the U.S. share of global GDP—a foundation of national power—declined from 50 percent after World War II, to around 20 percent in 1991, to less than 17 percent today. As Burns argued in Foreign Affairs in 2019, “the United States is no longer the only big kid on the geopolitical block.” In this situation, there is only one way to escape the unhelpful Cold War framework: study more history.

For Americans to think clearly about their approach to a multipolar world, they must learn about states that have navigated multipolar orders in the past. They could start by examining the Thirty Years War in the seventeenth century, when the Habsburg Empire faced a spasm of violence caused by a series of overlapping disputes—a power conflict between Europe’s monarchies, a decades-old Dutch revolt against imperial control, and the century-old religious frictions of the Protestant Reformation—and resolved each in different agreements: one recognizing Dutch independence, one resolving the central European religious and power conflict, and one settling the dispute between France and the Spanish Habsburgs. Or analysts could consider the Congress of Vienna in the nineteenth century, which restructured Europe in the wake of Napoleon’s wars to better manage two conflicts: one over power, addressed with a new territorial arrangement guaranteed by a security alliance and by institutions for conflict resolution, and one over governance, addressed with agreements on governing principles and an alliance of conservative states. Or policymakers could consider the Anglo-German antagonism beginning in the late nineteenth century, during which the United Kingdom and Germany enjoyed a mutually beneficial trading relationship while simultaneously waging a geopolitical competition. These cases make it easier to imagine, for example, how the United States and China might untangle and manage disputes in arenas such as trade, ideology, and geopolitics rather than surrender to an all-encompassing cold war.

History might also change how analysts perceive dealmaking with adversaries. The Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 occurred when Austria joined its age-old rival, France, in a war against an alliance between two former antagonists, Great Britain and Prussia. A similar process occurred when in the early twentieth century the United Kingdom reconciled with old adversaries—France, Japan, Russia, and the United States—to lighten the burden of protecting its colonies while focusing on a rising Germany. In that confrontation, London and Berlin attempted repeatedly from the late 1890s to the early 1910s to ease their rivalry in talks concerning their navies and colonies. Chinese history is rife with examples of dynasties making deals with enemies. The Han and Song dynasties each developed elaborate treaty, trade, and diplomatic systems to coexist with powerful neighbors whom they could not defeat in war, while simultaneously working to increase their relative power. They also developed ways of thinking and talking about these relationships that—along with a self-aggrandizing tradition of court history—helped shield their claims of superiority from the distasteful realities of compromise and coexistence with rivals. As U.S. dominance wanes, these histories illuminate how states have compensated for weakness by prioritizing objectives, making tradeoffs, and shifting partnerships—a way of thinking and acting far removed from the rigidity of the Cold War’s binaries.

Americans must remember how states made foreign policy without the benefit of overwhelming power.

History can also help analysts learn how to manage capabilities in a world of limited resources. Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries provides ample instances of states mismatching commitments, diplomacy, military power, economic power, and administrative bandwidth. The overextended Dutch slipped from the ranks of the great powers between the early 1600s and late 1700s by failing to balance their rivalries with their resources. France’s ambitious diplomacy through the 1700s created a slew of foes on both land and sea that demanded too much of its capabilities and capacity for management. With the important exception of the Vietnam War, Cold War history does not accustom Americans to the problems states have faced when failing to align ends, ways, and means.

These and other such histories can help sensitize Americans to a different way of seeing the world: one based on tolerable tradeoffs, not intransigence; on the difficult prioritization of goals, not total victory; on practical policy, not zealotry; on the integration of military and economic power with diplomacy, not brute force; and on coexistence with people whom Americans can neither change nor ignore. Of course, Americans cannot find easy answers by copying some old strategic playbook. They must always start with the unique aspects of their place and time, such as cultural values, domestic politics, technological advances, and the unprecedented demands of today’s transnational issues. They should also not overcorrect by forgetting the Cold War, which birthed the institutions and ideas that helped shape the United States of today. And they should not idealize the statecraft of these earlier, violent times, when war was considered a commonplace tool of policy and not the tragic failure of diplomacy that it is. Despite all this, ignoring how people made foreign policy without the benefit of overwhelming power will lead Americans into a dangerous world—one in which their inability to grapple with change may cause self-destructive bloodshed.

The United States must break out of the Cold War straitjacket if it is to succeed in the dawning multipolar era. Today, the U.S. foreign policy community is struggling within historical confines that cripple its imagination, that need not exist, and that are easily escaped if analysts only broaden their perspective by reaching deeper into the past.

• JUSTIN WINOKUR is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at the University of Virginia and a Research Affiliate of the Applied History Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.

Foreign Affairs · by Justin Winokur · July 13, 2023

10. The Prigozhin copycats are coming for Putin

Really? I wonder how this will play out?

Interesting analysis(?) or speculation.

Conclusion:

For Putin, the Wagner rebellion destabilised the ground beneath him as much as it did the walls around him. Though his public responses have appeared restrained so far, the better to project an image of calm, his command is no longer absolute. Even if he is able to neutralise Prigozhin and bring Wagner under his own control, the threat from within the Kremlin and from the nationalist grassroots will remain. And far from an aberration, Prigozhin’s coup may be looked back upon as a turning point, the first link in a concatenation of coups, counter-coups and civil wars, all-too bloodily familiar to Russia and its people.

The Prigozhin copycats are coming for Putin

The Wagner rebellion isn't over

BY MICHAL KRANZ

unherd.com · by Michal Kranz · July 12, 2023

Kremlinology is like reading tea leaves or astrology. It is closer to an art than a science — little is as it seems, and what information does trickle out has often only been released to service further palace intrigue. Nearly three weeks after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner rebellion, the Kremlin is doing everything in its power to project a façade of resilience and normality. But nothing could be further from the truth. And despite the opacity of Moscow politics, some fundamental threats to Putin (of which Prigozhin is only a particularly grisly manifestation) are beginning to emerge.

Putin is now engaged in a power struggle on three fronts: against the still-lingering forces of Prigozhin and Wagner; against discontents within his own military hierarchy; and against the Russian public itself which, spurred on by nationalist influencers, have proven themselves far from loyal to the regime. Putin knows that Prigozhin’s rebellion could open a Pandora’s Box of pretenders and uprisings for the rest of his reign. But at a deeper level, the nationalist Right, for whom Prigozhin has become the favoured avatar, now offers an alternative to Putin’s monopoly on political thought in Russia. And this is a far more fundamental threat to Putinism — the emergence of an ideological movement to challenge the stranglehold he has maintained on Russia’s political culture for a generation.

Like what you’re reading? Get the free UnHerd daily email

Already registered?

Far from defeated, Prigozhin now stands as a symbol of future defiance. Though his coup failed to topple the Russian Defence Ministry, for now his Wagner Group continues to operate outside of the military establishment. And though the Russian authorities have already begun to dismantle his personal commercial empire, Prigozhin is far from penniless: Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko confirmed that he had arrived in St Petersburg to claim billions in cash assets and personal weapons that had been seized, while authorities cleared him of financial responsibility for the rebellion. The balance of power between him and his President is therefore unclear, with Putin clearly unable to clear or quash him. This week, the Kremlin confirmed that Prigozhin met with Putin after the uprising “and pledged loyalty to the Government” — messaging that contrasts sharply with the continuing demonisation of the Wagner leader in the Russian media.

The contradictory narratives around Prigozhin’s future continue to pile up. But for now, he remains active and substantially autonomous. In a recent broadcast, he stated that Wagner fighters would be back on the frontlines in Ukraine soon, in direct contravention of his deal with Putin, which stipulated that Wagner would relocate to Belarus. The group reportedly continued to recruit new fighters in Russia for some time after the rebellion, before finally announcing it would pause as it withdrew from the country — which reportedly has yet to materialise. All of this amounts to a highly frustrating set of circumstances for Putin. He has been reduced to chipping away at Prigozhin’s power instead of confronting him. And this demonstrates his continuing dependence on Wagner: he understands the role the group has played in Ukraine, and would rather reorganise than disband it so as to maintain its influence in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

So Wagner remain a dormant but present threat. But more proximate are the copycat-rebels Prigozhin may inspire from elsewhere in Putin’s administration. It was evident from the moment that Wagner captured Rostov-on-Don without any resistance and embarked on its march toward Moscow nearly unopposed that Prigozhin may have had help on the inside — a notion that is more terrifying for Putin than the rebellion itself. There are claims that General Sergei Surovikin, one of the most senior members of Putin’s military brass, knew of Prigozhin’s plans in advance. And since the revolt, documents have emerged showing that he and 30 other high-ranking military and intelligence officials had been secret “VIP members” of Wagner since 2018. Surovikin has not been seen in public since he released a video during the rebellion, leading US intelligence reports to suggest he may have been detained or arrested. Other military leaders, such as Deputy Defence Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov, who was filmed negotiating with Prigozhin in Rostov (potentially under duress), were also conspicuously absent from recent broadcasts by the Ministry’s leadership this week.

At the very least, the rebellion has exacerbated divisions within the Russian security state, while the influential Russian military blog Rybar, founded by a former Defence Ministry press officer, claims that Putin is in fact executing a “purge”. The scale will remain obscure until Putin is finished, but given the circumstances, a significant reorganisation must be taking place in which personal loyalty to Putin will become the chief currency. Putin has always privileged fealty over competence — Surovikin, a well-regarded military commander who once headed Russia’s operations in Ukraine, was later replaced by Gerasimov, who, despite being widely seen as incompetent by many Kremlin critics including Prigozhin, has served as a faithful foot soldier for his President. For what Putin truly fears is lack of control over his circle of strongmen, the so-called siloviki.

But, rare for an aspiring autocrat, the last front on which Putin has been forced to defend himself is in the theatre of public opinion. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, analyst Tatiana Stanovaya correctly pointed out that Putin has never derived his authority from the Russian people. Nonetheless, public perception still matters, because any form of dissent undermines the central narrative of Putinism: that the only way to secure Russia’s historically justified status as first among nations is through allegiance to Putin and his circle.

Not only did Prigozhin publicly speak out against Putin’s establishment from the outside, but in his broadcasts he often spoke directly to the Russian public. In doing so, he violated another pillar in Putin’s power — the idea the Russian people should remain depoliticised and allow the authorities manage the country as they see fit. The sight of civilians in Rostov greeting Wagner with open arms and shaking Prigozhin’s hand is a spectacular affront to this. And, according to the Levada Center, one of the largest independent polling organisations left in Russia, support for Wagner sat at 58% in the days leading up to its rebellion, including the day when Prigozhin laid out why he believed the Ukraine war had been started for corrupt reasons. Although this support dropped on the day of the rebellion, it continued to hover around 30% for days afterward, despite near-universal denunciations of Prigozhin on mainstream Russian media.

In tandem with these media attacks, Putin has also apparently felt compelled to demonstrate that he can also command the allegiance from ordinary Russians. In a somewhat uncharacteristic move after his long years of isolation during the pandemic, Putin appeared in front of a doting crowd in Derbent in the Republic of Dagestan, on the southern fringes of the Russian Federation. The Wagner rebellion has changed the rules of the game, and Putin has been forced to adapt. But it’s not the disorganised masses of far-flung Derbent that Putin is most concerned about.

After quashing the last vestiges of Russia’s liberal opposition, and successfully entrenching his historically-informed vision of traditionalist Russian nationalism, Putin positioned himself as the ideological north star of modern Russia. But as the war in Ukraine exposed his inabilities to deliver on that vision, this hegemony began to crack, and the same nationalists Putin had inspired soon took note. Prigozhin gave voice to many of these concerns about the management of the war, including from sub-regime agitators such as Rybar. Now, Rybar and other influencers are bristling at the Kremlin’s campaign to discredit Wagner’s achievements in Ukraine, and are picking fights with a Russian Ministry of Defence that is increasingly frustrated with its inability to get these milbloggers to fall in line with the official narrative. Offline, too, support for Wagner continues to fester, as students brandishing the group’s flags in Moscow earlier this month demonstrated.

For Putin, the Wagner rebellion destabilised the ground beneath him as much as it did the walls around him. Though his public responses have appeared restrained so far, the better to project an image of calm, his command is no longer absolute. Even if he is able to neutralise Prigozhin and bring Wagner under his own control, the threat from within the Kremlin and from the nationalist grassroots will remain. And far from an aberration, Prigozhin’s coup may be looked back upon as a turning point, the first link in a concatenation of coups, counter-coups and civil wars, all-too bloodily familiar to Russia and its people.

unherd.com · by Michal Kranz · July 12, 2023

11. Biden nominates Mingus as next US Army vice chief of staff

Biden nominates Mingus as next US Army vice chief of staff

Defense News · by Jen Judson · July 12, 2023

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden nominated Lt. Gen. James Mingus to become the Army’s next vice chief of staff, according to a notice in the Congressional Record.

Mingus, who will pin on a fourth star if confirmed by the U.S. Senate, comes from the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, where he has served as director since June 2022. He joined the staff in October 2020 as director for operations.

Over the last year, one of his duties has included serving on a new high-level team focused on rushing military aid to Ukraine.

A 1985 graduate from Winona State University in Minnesota, Mingus was commissioned as 2nd lieutenant through the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps. He became a platoon leader in 5th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, Seventh Army in Germany in 1988, serving there for four years.

He joined the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty), North Carolina, in 1992. Mingus also took command of the Long Range Surveillance Detachment, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment there and became the aide-de-camp to the 82nd’s commander.

The three-star also commanded another Long Range Surveillance Company within the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg.

Mingus took a three-year teaching job in 1997 as an assistant professor of military science at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Then he attended the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Following his time in academia, Mingus joined the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia, serving as a liaison officer and operations officer. Later he would take command of the regiment’s Regimental Special Troops in 2007.

Returning to Fort Bragg in 2003, he became the chief of the Joint Planning Group with Joint Special Operations Command.

If confirmed, Mingus would work closely with Gen. Randy George, who is nominated to be the next Army Chief of Staff. Both have been commanders of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado. George commanded the brigade from 2008 through 2010 and Mingus replaced him in 2010.

Mingus later returned to Fort Carson in 2015 as the 4th ID’s deputy commanding general (maneuver) after a time at US Central Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, as the chief of the Commander’s Action Group and a stint in the J-5 directorate as the deputy director of the Special Plans Working Group.

Mingus also served as director of the Mission Command Center of Excellence at the US Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth for two years. Then he took command of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg until 2020.

George, who is the current vice chief, testified today in a confirmation hearing to become the next Army chief of staff before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Biden nominated him to be the next chief in April.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville will retire from military service next month.

About Jen Judson

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

12. Biden Braces NATO for Long Conflict With Russia, Making Cold War Parallel

Biden Braces NATO for Long Conflict With Russia, Making Cold War Parallel

The New York Times · by Zolan Kanno-Youngs · July 12, 2023​

By David E. Sanger and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

David Sanger, a former longtime foreign correspondent, has covered summits with five American presidents. Zolan Kanno-Youngs has covered the White House under President Biden, including the president’s trips to South Korea, Japan and Britain. They reported from Vilnius, Lithuania.​

Concluding a NATO summit focused on the war in Ukraine and other fast-changing challenges, President Biden vowed that the alliance would oppose Russian aggression for as long as needed.

President Biden speaking at Vilnius University on Wednesday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

July 12, 2023

President Biden concluded a meeting of NATO allies on Wednesday in Vilnius, Lithuania, with an address to that country, and the world, comparing the battle to expel Russia from Ukraine with the Cold War struggle for freedom in Europe, and promising “we will not waver” no matter how long the war continues.

His speech seemed to be preparing Americans and NATO countries for a confrontation that could go on for years, putting it in the context of momentous conflicts in Europe’s war-torn past. And he cast it as a test of wills with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has shown no interest in giving up on an invasion that has not gone according to plan, but has locked him in a war of attrition.

“Putin still wrongly believes that he can outlast Ukraine,” Mr. Biden said, describing the Russian leader as a man who made a huge strategic mistake in invading a neighboring country and now is doubling down. “After all this time Putin still doubts our staying power. He is making a bad bet.”

The speech, at Vilnius University, came after a series of important victories for Mr. Biden as NATO’s de facto leader, at a time of rapid change for the alliance.

His success in cajoling President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to drop his objections to Sweden’s admission as the 32nd member of NATO makes it possible to turn the Baltic Sea into a region bounded almost entirely by the alliance (though Mr. Erdogan suggested that Turkey’s Parliament may not take up the issue until October). NATO nations committed to boosting military spending that the United States has long complained was inadequate.

At the same time, Mr. Biden managed to quash an effort by Ukraine, with the support of Poland and several of the Baltic nations, to give a timetable for Ukraine to formally enter the alliance. Under NATO’s policy requiring collective defense, the president has said that admitting Ukraine with the war underway would put the United States in direct conflict with Russia. NATO stated on Tuesday that Ukraine would be invited to join some day, but not when or under exactly what conditions.

That prompted an angry outburst from Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, that the allies smoothed over with promises of more aid and the inaugural meeting on Wednesday of a new “NATO-Ukraine Council.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine shakes hands with President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania at the summit on Wednesday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Mr. Zelensky, faced with making the best of what he could get, called the move a victory on Wednesday, and sat for the first time as an official partner — if not a member — of NATO. It is essentially a nonvoting member, something Mr. Zelensky is selling at home as a halfway step to full status.

Though NATO has not given a timetable for Ukraine to join, Mr. Zelensky, in a statement, showed no such hesitation. “I believe that we will be in NATO as soon as the security situation is stabilized,” he said. “In simple terms, the moment the war is over.”

NATO nations also committed to funneling hundreds of millions of dollars in new aid to Ukraine, just days after Mr. Biden made a reluctant decision to give cluster munitions sought by Ukraine. The weapons are banned by treaty by more than 100 nations, but not by Russia, Ukraine or the United States, and both sides in the war have used them.

“One thing Zelensky understands, whether or not he is in NATO now is not relevant” because of the commitments made by the alliance, Mr. Biden told reporters as he was about to depart for Finland, NATO’s newest member.

Mr. Biden’s speech, on a bright summer evening in the midst of Vilnius’s restored “Old Town” of cobblestone streets, was attended by an enthusiastic crowd of about 10,000 people waving Lithuanian, American and Ukrainian flags. It had strong echoes of similar speeches Mr. Biden has given in Warsaw and around Europe, praising the power of alliances — a clear, if unspoken, contrast to President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to dismantle NATO, which the former president repeatedly called “obsolete.”

As in his other speeches rallying the allies, Mr. Biden celebrated the new sense of unity and purpose the Ukraine invasion has given NATO, as it expands and confronts a reality that seemed unlikely just two years ago: a land war in Europe, mixing trench warfare and drone warfare.

An enthusiastic crowd of 10,000 people attended Mr. Biden’s speech.Credit...Filip Singer/EPA, via Shutterstock

But it was Mr. Biden’s explicit references to facing off against the Soviet Union that differentiated this speech from past ones — even though the administration has, until now, rejected most Cold War comparisons.

“America never recognized the Soviet occupation of the Baltics,” Mr. Biden told the cheering crowd. And he made it clear that, in turn, it would never recognize Mr. Putin’s territorial annexation.

Mr. Biden knew those comparisons would have a particular resonance in this graceful Baltic capital: Lithuania was part of the Russian empire starting in 1795, and after two decades of independence, it was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, seized by Nazi Germany in 1941 and recaptured by the Soviets in 1944. It regained independence in the early 1990s, and became a NATO member in 2004.

During the NATO meeting here, pro-Ukrainian messages flashed on city buses, Vilnius residents put placards with epithets about Mr. Putin in their windows, and a huge crowd gathered to welcome Mr. Zelensky when he arrived. A packed crowd gathered to hear Mr. Biden speak, including children leaning out of windows to watch him.

Mr. Biden framed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as part of a global challenge facing democratic societies. He said the world was at an “inflection point,” where it must choose between democracy and autocracy. The message has origins in his 2020 campaign, but he has leaned into it even more to persuade Americans that they should care about a war thousands of miles from home.

He emphasized the need to protect the Indo-Pacific, a region crucial to the United States’ growing competition with China, in a nod to Asian allies that have helped aid Ukraine and isolate Russia. And Mr. Biden said the world would need to address “the accelerating threat of climate change,” another key focus of the NATO summit.

But there was also a sense at the meeting that NATO is entering a protracted struggle with Russia. The communiqué issued on Tuesday described Russian advances in nuclear weapons, space vehicles, cyberwarfare and disinformation, and committed members to new spending and new partnerships to counter it in all those realms.

Not once in their public comments did NATO leaders discuss talks with Russia for a cease-fire or Korea-style armistice — a silent recognition that Ukraine insists on retaking far more of its territory before negotiating, and that Mr. Putin has signaled no willingness to pull back.

At a news conference at the end of the NATO sessions, Mr. Zelensky doubled down on his commitment never to give up any inch of land to Russia, saying outright that there is no room for territorial compromise. “We will never give away our territories and we will never exchange them for any frozen conflict,” he told reporters.

Ukrainian soldiers organize artillery shells after firing a howitzer toward Russian positions, near Kreminna, in eastern Ukraine, last week.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

Mr. Zelensky told reporters that talks were underway over whether the United States would send a missile called ATACMS, pronounced “attack ’ems,” with a range of 190 miles — much farther than other American-supplied arms. Mr. Biden has so far declined to give the missiles to Ukraine because of concerns that it could prompt Mr. Putin to escalate.

Such arguments have been a recurring theme of the war, with Mr. Biden at first refusing certain weapons for fear of how the Kremlin — whose officials have repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons — might respond, and eventually agreeing to send them: HIMARS rocket artillery, Patriot air defense systems, tanks and more.

Mr. Zelensky said that just as he had “started conversation about cluster munitions many months ago,” he has been discussing ATACMS with Mr. Biden’s aides. “I’m very grateful to President Biden for the results that we have received,” he said, clearly aware of the critique that his public thanks to the administration have been insufficient.

“So just wait,” he said, “not everything at once.”

Mr. Zelensky appeared to go out of his way to praise the Biden administration, a day after calling it “unprecedented and absurd” not to give a timetable for NATO membership. The Ukrainian president throughout the war has often pressed the West for more weapons, funding and assistance from the alliance in an effort to sustain the fight against the Russians.

But on Wednesday, he thanked the United States profusely for its backing, saying in a meeting with Mr. Biden, “you spend this money for our lives.”

The decision not to invite Ukraine to join NATO yet prompted some concern that it could prolong the war, because Mr. Putin knows that Kyiv might quickly join the alliance once the fighting ends.

Mr. Biden’s speech seemed to be preparing Americans and his NATO allies for a confrontation that could go on for years, putting it in the context of conflicts in Europe’s wartorn past.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

“It is a Catch-22 for the alliance, and that’s why this could have been, and the next summit can be, the opportunity to make it clear that Ukraine is invited,” William B. Taylor Jr., former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under the Bush and Obama administrations, said in an interview.

During a testy exchange at the NATO public forum on Wednesday, Daria Kaleniuk, the director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Ukraine, asked Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, what she should tell her 2-year-old son, who has already experienced air raids in Ukraine: “That President Biden and NATO didn’t invite Ukraine to NATO because he’s afraid of Russia?”

Mr. Sullivan defended the administration, saying the U.S. had “stepped up to provide an enormous amount of capacity to help ensure that Ukraine’s brave soldiers have the ammunition.”

He added, “The president said quite simply that he’s not prepared to have Ukraine in NATO now because it would mean that the United States and NATO would be at war with Russia now.”

David E. Sanger is a White House and national security correspondent. In a 38-year reporting career for The Times, he has been on three teams that have won Pulitzer Prizes, most recently in 2017 for international reporting. His newest book is “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age.” More about David E. Sanger

Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent covering a range of domestic and international issues in the Biden White House, including homeland security and extremism. He joined The Times in 2019 as the homeland security correspondent. More about Zolan Kanno-Youngs

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Biden Braces NATO for Slog Against Russia

The New York Times · by Zolan Kanno-Youngs · July 12, 2023

13. Meta's Threads wants to become a 'friendly' place by downgrading news and politics

There is still a lot of chaos and confusion and for me a lot of junk posts and "threads." I want it for the news (less politics). Twitter has served well as kind of an early warning news source and I hope Threads can do so as well. I am hoping as I develop the right list of people and organizations to follow that Threads will serve me well for queuing news events.  

I am on Threads as @maxoki161 

Meta's Threads wants to become a 'friendly' place by downgrading news and politics

NPR · by Bobby Allyn · July 12, 2023

Top Meta executive Adam Mosseri has said that the company's new Twitter competitor Threads does not need the "negativity" of news and politics on the platform. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Days after the public launch of Twitter rival Threads, Meta executive Adam Mosseri was surprisingly transparent about the company's distaste for the news media: Meta will not be doing anything to encourage hard news and politics on the platform, he wrote.

Amid Twitter's turmoil under Elon Musk, more than 100 million people have rushed to join Threads, making it the most swiftly adopted app in history.

But if Meta executives have their way, Threads will not be where people turn to debate policy issues, or catch up on local political developments and learn about breaking news that could affect their lives.

Instead, Threads is being offered as a text-version of Instagram, where celebrities, influencers and corporate brands dominate. Or as Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg put it, a "friendly" shelter from the noisy and chaotic world of news and politics.

"Will this decision make society dumber?" Solomon Messing, a former Facebook research scientist said in an interview with NPR. "Gosh, it's really hard not to say yes."

News isn't a big social media moneymaker

Messing, who is now a research professor at New York University, has published research examining how social media shapes the public's grasp of politics and news events, and how being exposed to news on social media influences someone's likelihood to vote.

The conclusion was fairly obvious.

"When folks see more political content in their news feeds, they tend to become more interested in politics," Messing said. "They tend to develop more consistent policy preferences. They tend to report voting at higher rates."

Yet to Meta, the business case is straightforward: Want a big return on investment, or ROI? Then start pushing anything other than news and politics.

Messing adds: "What's the ROI on being a politics-focused social network versus a celebrity-focused social network?"

Alex Stamos, former chief security officer at Facebook, said the company learned long ago that the news industry needs social media platforms more than the platforms need the news.

"Overall, the amount of engagement and therefore money the company makes from hard news has shown to be quite small," Stamos said.

Political drama has plenty of fans

What keeps people scrolling so persistently that it supercharges advertising revenue? "Interactions between individuals, the family photos, the influencers, things like that," he said.

Meta can turn the knobs up or down for certain kinds of content, Stamos said. For instance, Threads could de-emphasize posts that include a link to a news organization. "They'll be trying to strike the right balance between their desire to stay relevant counterbalanced with their desire to not be pulled into controversies," Stamos said.

But saying Threads is not interested in courting political drama is not going to stop it, especially with such an influx of users coming over from Twitter, which is, as Stamos put it, "effectively an intellectual gladiator coliseum. People are there to see blood on the floor."

Many of those departing Twitter because of Musk's changes to the platform are left-leaning critics of Musk who tweet obsessively about news and politics. So if Threads does not encourage discourse about politics, it might leave them without a real replacement social media app.

But can Meta really avoid the combative tenor of Twitter? It is an open question, Stamos argues, but he said Threads is kidding itself by saying it can be something of an online town square without fierce political debates.

"Whatever they're saying publicly, they clearly want to displace Twitter. And in order to do that they have to become a very important platform for political speech," Stamos said.

Meta has de-emphasized news before

In some ways, Meta's growing distance from the news industry is nothing new.

In 2016, Facebook made major changes to its algorithm to favor posts from friends and family over news articles. That decision eviscerated the traffic publishers once received from the social network.

On Instagram, major news organizations promote stories that can garner impressive engagement, but it is usually drowned out by much lighter content showing off vacations, weddings and lifestyle trends.

Then there is the Russia controversy that former Facebook employees say the company is still smarting from.

After the 2016 presidential election, American intelligence agencies found that Russian-linked disinformation campaigns created posts around divisive, hot-button topics that reached many millions in an attempt to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

In 2020, Russia-backed groups attempted to meddle again in a presidential election by pushing conspiracy theories on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but the efforts reached a far smaller audience.

Taken together, Meta executives want Threads to be a platform that makes the maximum amount of money, while steering clear of the kind of scrutiny that was heaped upon the company in the wake of the 2016 election.

But Brian Ott, a social media scholar who teaches at Missouri State University, said online platforms like Threads have a responsibility to encourage, not discourage, political debate and discussions that can influence how people engage in their communities and vote.

Ott said Meta is attempting to position Threads as an anti-Twitter Twitter, when in fact it is essentially a clone service.

"What Meta is engaged in right now is a marketing effort to try to tell people, 'hey this isn't going to be what happened last time,' well, in fact, it is going to be what happened last time," Ott said. "It's going to be exactly what happened last time. Because the fundamental technology hasn't changed."

NPR · by Bobby Allyn · July 12, 2023

14. Gen. George, nominee for Army chief of staff, plans to promote value of service as fix for recruiting crisis

My gut tells me this is right. I think we must attract soldiers for service and not use gimmicks (though I of course fully support the GI Bill and bonus and I do not think of them as gimmicks). But given today's culture. demographics, etc. we have to be prepared to not necessarily meet our recruiting goals. However, if we take a long term approach and hold to our values I think the pendulum will swing in a positive recruiting direction. Any short term compromise of our focus on values just to meet immediate recruiting goals will likely have even worse long term effects. Of course I cannot prove that. It is only my gut that says so (or maybe my bias toward service). I am sure I will get counseled by the recruiting experts.

I will never forget attending the pre-Command Course at Leavenworth in 1999 and listening to General Shinseki's response to future commanders and Command Sergeants Major who asked why the Army cannot recruit using a similar message as the Marines. His response was that the Marine Corps is small enough so they can meet their recruiting goals with those types of messages. But the Army needs a substantially higher number of recruits and it will never achieve its goals relying only on those types of messages. The Army needs messages that will have broader appeal than those who just seek service.

I hope we can all support General Goerge's effort.

I also think we have to get over this wokism stuff. It is apparent that is not the problem with recruiting (if statistics in surveys are accurate) and the continued emphasis on it by certain factions is going to do more harm than good even though many also think with their gut and their gut tells them it is a problem. My response is that if we are afraid of wokism we are not focusing on the right enemy and we are wasting time, resources, and people with a phony wokism culture war.  This has become too politicized and most focusing on this are doing so for political reasons and not that they are truly thinking about the good of the services and national defense.

Excerpts:

“[It’s] part of building a cohesive team and bringing everybody together,” George said in defense of the training. “We absolutely have to do that.”

Republicans have placed some of the blame for the military’s recruiting crisis on what they say is a preoccupation with race, gender and other “woke” issues that marginalize potential recruits with conservative beliefs. But the Army poll indicated only 5% of respondents cited “wokeism” as a reason they did not want to serve.

George said he wanted to focus on the Army’s marketing efforts, which aim to appeal to a broad array of prospective applicants but must also include messaging tailored to individual communities.

“We’re [all] different,” he said. “We want to come from across society.”

The potential recruiting pool will be limited, nonetheless. Most young people, about 77%, are not qualified to serve due to physical or academic deficiencies.

Gen. George, nominee for Army chief of staff, plans to promote value of service as fix for recruiting crisis

Stars and Stripes · by Svetlana Shkolnikova · July 12, 2023

Army Gen. Randy George answers questions Wednesday, July 12, 2023, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to consider his nomination to be the service’s next chief of staff. (Carlos Bongioanni/Stars and Stripes)

Buy Photo

WASHINGTON — Gen. Randy George, the Army vice chief of staff who is slated to become the service’s top officer, said Wednesday that he will promote the value of serving as the Army faces another recruiting shortfall.

The service is expected to miss its recruitment goal by 30% this year, continuing a worrying trend that George told the Senate Armed Services Committee he would strive to reverse if confirmed to the Army’s highest-ranking post.

“We have to get after perception,” George said. “The Army is a great place to serve, I know that, I believe that with all of my heart, and we’ve got to get that out there.”

George said he joined the Army out of high school as a junior enlisted soldier to earn money for college but stayed “because of the mission and people.” In 1988, he commissioned from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., as an infantry officer.

A Korean War veteran helped inspire George’s military career, and the general said such influence was needed for the next generation of soldiers. He said teachers and coaches need to emphasize to young people that the Army is a “life accelerator.”

An Army survey released in February showed the top reason Americans declined to enlist is the fear that they would be putting their life on hold. About 13% cited a belief that women and racial and ethnic minorities are discriminated against in the service.

George said that perception necessitates the diversity and inclusion training that many Republican lawmakers deride as unnecessary liberal initiatives that weaken the force.

“[It’s] part of building a cohesive team and bringing everybody together,” George said in defense of the training. “We absolutely have to do that.”

Republicans have placed some of the blame for the military’s recruiting crisis on what they say is a preoccupation with race, gender and other “woke” issues that marginalize potential recruits with conservative beliefs. But the Army poll indicated only 5% of respondents cited “wokeism” as a reason they did not want to serve.

George said he wanted to focus on the Army’s marketing efforts, which aim to appeal to a broad array of prospective applicants but must also include messaging tailored to individual communities.

“We’re [all] different,” he said. “We want to come from across society.”

The potential recruiting pool will be limited, nonetheless. Most young people, about 77%, are not qualified to serve due to physical or academic deficiencies.

George said that number is dropping, however, partly due to the success of the Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course. The program helps potential recruits become fitter and improve their test scores to meet Army requirements.

“We want people to meet our standard and we want them to know we’re willing to help them meet that standard,” George told senators.

The Army’s ongoing struggle to fill its ranks is one of several challenges that George will have to contend with as Army chief of staff. He also would be charged with overseeing the service’s modernization to better counter threats posed by China and Russia.

George has served in his current job since August and previously worked as the senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. He has extensive combat experience, including service in the Gulf War, Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan.

He led a brigade of 4th Infantry Division soldiers in Afghanistan in 2009 and returned in 2017 to command the entire 4th Infantry Division. As a brigadier general in 2015, George helped spearhead the Army’s response to Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine by leading a new mission command overseeing soldiers on NATO’s eastern flank.

George is set to replace outgoing Gen. James McConville, who will retire in August as the Army chief of staff after a four-year term.

“Gen. George is the right man for this job,” said Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, who represents George’s home state of Iowa.

George's promotion likely will face delays as Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., continues to obstruct the confirmation of about 250 military officer nominees, including the commandant of the Marine Corps. Tuberville began his blanket hold on military promotions in the spring as protest over the Pentagon's reproductive health policies.

Stars and Stripes · by Svetlana Shkolnikova · July 12, 2023

15. Should America Push Ukraine to Negotiate With Russia?

All three respondents take a hard line against negotiations.

The original author, Samual Charap concludes:

If and when talks are held, they will probably be exceptionally difficult at best—and they might well fail. Stent accurately recites Russia’s litany of broken agreements, lies, and overall perfidy and asks, “How can one assume that this time Russia’s behavior would be any different?” One cannot and should not make that assumption, and I certainly do not. The United States should enter any consultations or negotiations with no illusions about the trustworthiness of Russia and its leaders. But in international politics, one does not get to choose one’s interlocutors. And there is no plausible path to ending the war that does not entail engaging Moscow. So eventually, Washington, Kyiv, Berlin, and others will have to try. This would not be the first time the United States talked to a nefarious regime with a history of deceit in order to stop a war. The U.S. military officers who negotiated the Korean armistice sat across the table from the leaders of the enemy forces that had killed tens of thousands of Americans.

All three critiques of my article dispute the applicability of one or another of the historical comparisons I made to past cases of U.S. conflict diplomacy, be it the Korean armistice, U.S.-Israeli security arrangements, or the Bosnia Contact Group. The circumstances of the Russia-Ukraine war are unique; no historical analogy is perfect. But these examples teach important lessons and demonstrate that U.S. diplomacy has helped bring bloody conflicts to negotiated ends in the past, even as fighting still raged and even when it seemed as if there would be no way to stop it.

Should America Push Ukraine to Negotiate With Russia?

The Debate Over How to End the War

By Dmytro Natalukha; Alina Polyakova and Daniel Fried; Angela Stent; Samuel Charap

July 13, 2023

Foreign Affairs · July 13, 2023

 In response to An Unwinnable War

By Samuel Charap

There Can Be No Negotiations With Putin

By Dmytro Natalukha

Ukraine Should Aim for Victory, Not Compromise

By Alina Polyakova and Daniel Fried

Russia Can Be Stopped Only on the Battlefield

By Angela Stent

Charap Replies

There Can Be No Negotiations With Putin

Dmytro Natalukha

In "An Unwinabble War" (July/August 2023) Samuel Charap makes the case that Washington should “start facilitating an endgame” for the war in Ukraine. His argument rests on his assumption that a definitive outcome is out of reach. Russia cannot conquer Ukraine, in his view, but neither can Ukraine expel Russian troops from its 1991 borders. Yet there is a reason that Ukraine defines victory as liberating every inch of its territory. Any territorial concession to Russia, even a small one, would invite further aggression. The pretext might be different, but the objective would be the same: subduing Ukraine. As long as it avoids outright defeat, Russia will use any disputed territory as a launching pad for its next round of expansion, as it did after the Minsk agreements that were supposed to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s paramount objective is to avoid a crushing defeat on the battlefield. Nothing less than the survival of his regime is at stake, as the humiliating mutiny led by the Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin demonstrated last month. Therefore, Russia needs to create at least the illusion of military achievement. Doing so will allow the Kremlin’s propaganda machine to spin a narrative of revanchism and stoke popular demands for further aggression against Ukraine. This was the playbook Russia followed in Chechnya in the first decade of the millennium, when Putin leveraged claims of success in the fight against “terrorism” to concentrate power, weaken democratic institutions, sideline local authorities, and pacify a rebellious region.

But even as Putin fights for his political life, many in the West are still considering short-term solutions that would help keep in him power. Sixteen months of war in Europe have not forged an unconditional anti-Putin coalition. Yet a unified Western policy on Putin, or rather on the need for his removal, is essential for marshaling the material support Ukraine needs to win a decisive victory on the battlefield. The sooner Western governments reach a consensus on Putin—as they did on Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Bashar al-Assad in Syria—the sooner Ukraine will be able to destroy Russia’s invading forces and bring the war to an end.

Throughout the course of the conflict, Ukraine has shown that with timely and consistent help, it can prevail on the battlefield even when its troops are outnumbered. Just as American and British handheld Javelin and NLAW missile systems helped Ukraine halt the advance of Russian tanks around Kyiv in the early stages of the invasion, American high-mobility artillery rocket systems known as HIMARs have since changed the face of the conflict and helped Ukraine liberate a significant amount of territory previously occupied by the Russians. Such aid, when promptly and consistently supplied, dramatically improves the odds of a decisive Ukrainian victory over Russia.

Moreover, advances on the Ukrainian battlefield can catalyze advantageous political developments in Russia, as Prigozhin’s brief rebellion showed. A popular Russian military leader who is stymied on the battlefield could end up toppling Putin in a coup. The argument, voiced by some Western analysts, that Russia will continue to threaten Ukraine no matter how much territory it reclaims fails to consider this possibility. As long as Russia is led by Putin, who has stated publicly that he believes “the whole military, economic, and information machines of the West” are turned on Russia, Moscow will remain a permanent threat not just to Ukraine but to the broader transatlantic community. A post-Putin Russia need not see everyone as a threat—and it could cease being a threat to itself.

This is why a unified Western policy on Putin is crucial. If the goal is to prevent Russia from threatening democracies around the world, allowing it to reach an armistice with Ukraine won’t do much good. Ukraine and its allies must aim to make Russia less anti-Western. Regardless of what happens at the negotiating table, therefore, Putin cannot remain in power.

A post-Putin Russia need not see everyone as a threat.

Some Western officials worry that such a policy would invite dangerous uncertainty. Who would succeed Putin and how he or she would behave are unknowable in advance, and some analysts have warned that the collapse of Putin’s regime following a military defeat could trigger the dissolution of Russia as the world knows it today. Such fears have prevented Western governments from supplying arms to Kyiv in quantities sufficient to win the war. The effect has been to prolong the conflict and make it more costly for Ukraine and the world.

To break this vicious circle, Ukraine must finally secure the weapons it needs to prevail on the battlefield and an assurance from its Western partners that the leaders of a post-Putin Russia will have the consent of Ukraine. Just as many Western governments support the exiled Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya as a potential political leader of Belarus, and Kyiv supports the members of the Kastus Kalinouski Regiment (a Belarusian volunteer unit fighting for Ukraine) in their ambition to participate in the political life of a liberated Belarus, Ukraine and its partners should support an alternative to Putin in Russia. Opposition politicians such as Vladimir Kara-Murza and members of Russian military units fighting against Moscow—such as the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion—should be endorsed by democratic countries and aided in their quest to return Russia to the pantheon of civilized nations. Such efforts to transform Russia’s political landscape are essential because the conflict can be resolved permanently only when Ukraine and its neighbors feel safe from further Russian encroachment.

This is why an armistice like the one that ended hostilities in Korea in 1953 cannot work for Ukraine. That agreement left intact a hostile authoritarian regime in North Korea that since 2006 has threatened not just South Korea but the entire world with nuclear weapons. The peaceful reunification of Germany in 1990 has been offered as another potential model for Ukraine, but it was made possible by regime changes in Hungary, Austria, and Germany itself. The end of communist rule in Hungary in 1989 set the stage for the so-called Pan-European Picnic, a massive demonstration during which Hungary and Austria opened their borders and allowed several hundred East German citizens to pass through their territory on their way to West Germany. Demonstrations on both sides ensued, the Berlin Wall came down, and the rest is history. But the bottom line is that the political regime in East Germany had to fall before the country could be reunified.

Russia must make a similarly fundamental change to both its domestic and foreign policies before returning to the community of responsible nations. First and foremost, the leaders of a post-Putin Russia would have to demilitarize the country, directing funds away from the army and toward desperately needed social services. In addition, they would have to curtail Russia’s state propaganda machine, which breeds hatred and hostility. As long as the Kremlin opposes the Western, transatlantic community to which Ukraine belongs, a lasting peace will remain impossible. For these reasons, the war will continue until Russia is defeated and Putin’s regime falls. The only question is: How long will that be?

Ukraine seeks as much military assistance as possible not just because it has the clearest interest in swiftly ending the war but also because it knows that only victory over—and not just peace with—Russia can guarantee freedom, democracy, and prosperity for Ukraine and the West. And Putin has already revealed how ugly the alternative might be.

DMYTRO NATALUKHA is Chair of the Committee for Economic Affairs of the Parliament of Ukraine and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Ukraine Should Aim for Victory, Not Compromise

Alina Polyakova and Daniel Fried

The problems in Samuel Charap’s essay start with its title, “An Unwinnable War.” Charap assumes that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia and, moreover, that it doesn’t even matter whether Ukraine pushes back Russian forces and liberates more of its land. Russia, Charap argues, will pursue its attempt to subjugate Ukraine no matter what. Therefore, the United States must immediately begin crafting a diplomatic settlement that freezes the status quo and leaves Ukraine with promises of assistance when Russia resumes aggression but no firm security guarantees akin to NATO’s Article 5. This argument profoundly misunderstands the Russian-Ukrainian war and leads to dangerous conclusions that, if acted on, would leave Washington and its allies in a far more vulnerable position vis-à-vis not only Russia but China, too.

Charap overestimates Russia’s strength and underestimates Ukraine’s resolve. At the outbreak of Russia’s invasion last year, many Western experts and most Western governments mistakenly assumed that Kyiv would fall in a matter of days, that Ukrainians would not fight, and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would flee or capitulate. The Kremlin made similar assumptions. The war’s course to date has disproven all these predictions. Ukraine stopped Russian forces from taking Kyiv, defeated them in Kharkiv, and drove them back across the Dnieper River, liberating Kherson. Putin’s Bahkmut offensive has deepened his costly mess.

Recent estimates put Russian casualties since the beginning of the full-scale invasion at up to 250,000. Russia has proved unable to guard its border from Ukrainian raids. Ukraine’s counteroffensive may not succeed in fully liberating all its currently occupied territories, but it could make significant progress in taking back land in the Donbas and breaking through Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, thus undermining Russia’s use of Crimea as a staging ground. If Ukrainian forces do manage to put Crimea itself within artillery range as the offensive proceeds over the next several months, Russia may be forced into an untenable position.

Charap nevertheless asserts that “fifteen months of fighting has made clear that neither side has the capacity—even with external help—to achieve a decisive military victory over the other.” He still assumes that Ukraine cannot force anything better than a military stalemate. Even before the Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin mutinied against Putin, this was a questionable assumption. And Ukraine is not even operating at full force yet. It has not received the complete repertoire of Western systems, including American F-16s: the Biden administration just recently agreed to allow allies to transfer them to Ukraine. Nor has Ukraine received enough long-range missiles, even though the United Kingdom delivered Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles in May.

Because the Ukrainians are only partially equipped, Kyiv’s full warfighting capabilities are still unknown. But the pattern over the last 15 months is clear. Ukrainians, despite losses, have shown capacities—to adapt, learn quickly, and rapidly deploy new systems in the theater—that far exceed Russia’s. If anything, the problem has been the lag, for political and logistical reasons, in the delivery of Western equipment. There is no telling what the Ukrainians will be able to achieve once all the promised systems are on the battlefield.

Kyiv’s full warfighting capabilities are still unknown.

Charap also wrongly assumes that Putin has infinite resolve to continue prosecuting this war—that time is on his side. But Putin did not expect a drawn-out war, which would have required far more planning, training, and investment in military production than the Kremlin undertook. Russia’s war effort has stumbled from one failure to the next: infighting among the military command, ammunition shortages, a sudden and disorganized mobilization of reluctant conscripts, confused and contradictory propaganda, and a lack of drone capabilities. (In desperation, Russia has had to source drones from Iran.) It is also worth noting that Russia has lost plenty of wars: the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, and the Afghan war. Each defeat provoked domestic stress and upheaval.

Events that have unfolded since the publication of Charap’s article only further confirm his overestimation of Russian resolve and stability. Although Prigozhin’s uprising was not a coup, an armed military group took over a Russian city—Russia’s operational hub for the war in Ukraine—and marched to within 125 miles of Moscow. A deal supposedly brokered by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko saw Prigozhin relocate to Belarus. Others will learn the lesson that rather than lashing out when cornered, Putin negotiates.

But evidence of stress in the Russian ruling circles was abundantly visible even before Prigozhin’s rebellion. For months, Russian military bloggers revealed bitter infighting between the intelligence services and within the Russian military command. In private, Russian elites have confessed their disapproval of the war to exiled Russian journalists, apparently to try to keep their reputations clean in anticipation of a Russian loss.

Charap argues for an armistice modeled on the one that ended the Korean War, imperfect but justified by the relative peace it delivered and the prosperity South Korea subsequently enjoyed. But he fails to acknowledge that the relative peace on the Korean Peninsula has for 70 years been secured by a large U.S. military presence. Almost 30,000 U.S. troops still protect the peace there. Charap’s plan includes no U.S. forces for Ukraine’s defense, nor does he advocate NATO membership for Ukraine.

Charap also offers the U.S.-Israeli security arrangement as a model for the kind of relationship Ukraine should have with the United States. In practice, that would mean leaving Ukraine with a lot of U.S. military assistance but no firm guarantees. That arrangement works for Israel only because Israel is far stronger than all its potential adversaries combined. Ukraine is not in that position.

Ukrainians would rather live in a free Ukraine with no water and no electricity than under Russia’s thumb.

Charap dismisses the significance of Ukraine’s having even partially pushed back the Russian occupation. But Ukraine’s liberation of Russian-occupied land makes a huge difference to the liberated. As the world witnessed during the joyful celebrations after the Russians retreated from the outskirts of Kyiv and, later, from Kherson, Ukrainians under Russian occupation live in fear and face terrible atrocities. Ukrainians have made clear that they would rather live in a free Ukraine with no water and no electricity than under Russia’s thumb.

A military stalemate is indeed possible. And at some point, negotiations with Russia will be needed to end this war. But Ukraine should start negotiating only when it is in the strongest possible position; it should not be rushed into talks when Russia shows no interest in any settlement terms other than Ukraine’s surrender. Starting negotiations now would mean accepting Putin’s maximalist terms. If Russia suffers further setbacks on the battlefield, however, talks could proceed from a better starting place. The most important point, which Ukraine’s allies agree on, is that Ukraine must define the right moment for negotiations. That may or may not be when all of Ukraine’s territory is liberated. The key is for Ukraine to maintain flexibility in its decisions about its territory and the path toward a just peace.

If and when negotiations take place, they must be accompanied by security arrangements for Ukraine that would prevent Russia from regrouping and launching another attack. NATO membership for Ukraine would do the trick; anything less than an unambiguous commitment to Ukraine joining NATO with a clearly delineated path forward would only set up another round of Russian aggression and would also signal to China that aggression can pay. Since Ukraine’s accession to NATO will take time, in the interim enhanced security arrangements between key NATO members and Ukraine need to be agreed upon and implemented. Experience shows that equivocation about Ukraine’s place in Europe invites Russian aggression rather than deters it. And many examples over the past century indicate that appeasement never leads to durable peace.

Charap’s argument rests on the premise that, in the foreseeable future, Ukraine cannot win a sustainable victory that includes recapturing all its territory. Essentially, he concludes that ambiguity about its place in Europe will be Ukraine’s fate. But he is far too pessimistic. Kyiv’s friends should not assume that Russia holds all the cards.

ALINA POLYAKOVA is President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis and Adjunct Professor of European Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

DANIEL FRIED is a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council. He was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer from 1977 to 2017, holding positions such as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and U.S. Ambassador to Poland.

Russia Can Be Stopped Only on the Battlefield

Angela Stent

The death, destruction, and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is enormous. That a brutal large-scale war could take place on the European continent seemed almost unimaginable two years ago. The accumulating costs—plus the uncertainties of what will happen both on the battlefield and in the 2024 U.S. election—provide reason to seek some way to stop the violence. And Samuel Charap has laid out a reasonable case for negotiation.

But there is a huge problem in trying to negotiate with President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and that is Russia itself. Moscow has broken every security-related agreement it has signed with Ukraine in the past 30 years. These include the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, whereby Ukraine renounced its nuclear arsenal—at the time, the third largest in the world—in return for a pledge by Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to respect its independence, sovereignty, and existing borders. That was followed by the 1997 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation in which both sides agreed to work toward a strategic partnership. At the time, Boris Yeltsin, on his first official visit to Kyiv as Russian president, said, “We respect and honor the territorial integrity of Ukraine.” Yet his handpicked successor, Vladimir Putin, repeatedly made it clear that he had no intention of accepting these agreements. In 2008, he told U.S. President George W. Bush that “Ukraine is not a real country.” Three years later, he told former U.S. President Bill Clinton that he did not feel bound to honor any agreements on Ukraine signed by Yeltsin. And in 2021, Putin published a 5,000-word essay called “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” in which he argued that there was no such thing as Ukrainian nationality. How can one assume that this time Russia’s behavior would be any different?

As Ukraine’s counteroffensive unfolds, it is premature to write that “neither side” can “achieve a decisive military victory” or claim that “regardless of how much territory Ukrainian forces can liberate,” Russia will “pose a permanent threat to Ukraine.” The fighting is intense, and this counteroffensive is the first in what will be a series of offensives playing out over the coming months. Ukraine appears to be making incremental hard-fought territorial gains, but Russia is claiming that it is repulsing them. If Ukraine can secure more and better Western weapons, then it could make more gains. Its soldiers’ morale remains high as they fight a battle for national survival. Russian troop morale is dwindling, and the armed forces continue to perform below par. And since Charap published his article, more evidence of Russian weakness has emerged. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, staged a mutiny, calling into question Putin’s grip on Russia. And even before his rebellion, Prigozhin admitted that Ukraine was building one of the strongest armies in the world.

NO ONE TO TALK TO

Putin’s war aims are not limited. His original objectives were to conquer all of Ukraine, overthrow its government, and ensure Russia’s perpetual domination of the country while simultaneously eradicating Ukrainian statehood and nationhood. Although Putin failed to take Kyiv in three days, there is no evidence that he has abandoned those goals. From his perspective, they may just take longer to accomplish. As long as he remains in power, or if his successor shares his imperial mind-set, Russia’s aspirations in Ukraine will not change. At this point, he has repeatedly said that the minimum conditions for negotiating with Kyiv would be the Ukrainian acceptance of the loss of the four territories that Moscow claims to have annexed, even though Russia does not fully control any of them. How can Ukraine survive as a viable state—and indeed maintain national unity—with the loss of the Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia?

Charap acknowledges that “the two countries will be enemies long after the hot war ends” but then goes on to suggest that an armistice involving a form of a frozen conflict or some territorial concessions by Ukraine is probably the best way forward. Given Russia’s past and present behavior, it is clear that an armistice would be a temporary solution while Russia regroups and plans its next attack or formulates new ways of undermining Ukraine. The Korean solution, which Charap considers the most likely way the war will end, would also be most disadvantageous for Ukraine. He notes that 70 years after the Korean War ended, South Korea has done well economically despite the fact that the two Koreas never signed a peace treaty, but he neglects the differences in the two situations. North Korea does not occupy South Korean territory. Who would invest in a Ukraine that had signed an armistice with Russia involving territorial concessions when the chance remains that Russia could resume its aggression at any point?

Charap also raises the “porcupine” strategy, the idea that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia on the premise that the West will continue to arm Ukraine after the conflict is over to ensure that it could deter any future attack by Russia. The U.S.-Israel model is the basis for this, an alternative to NATO membership. But Israel has nuclear weapons to reinforce its deterrence capabilities, and few are suggesting that Ukraine should restart its nuclear program as a solution to fend off the next Russian attack.

Finally, Charap cites the lack of diplomacy with Russia and proposes the appointment of a special presidential envoy to facilitate regular communication with U.S. allies and Ukraine as well as with Russia. The reason that diplomacy between the West and Russia is almost nonexistent is that European and U.S. representatives have been consistently lied to by Russian officials both in the run-up to the war and since it began. When Western diplomats responded to the fanciful “treaties” presented by Russia to the United States and NATO in December 2021, they met with Russian prevarication, including outright denials that Moscow had any plans to invade Ukraine. The leaders of France and Germany have occasionally talked with Putin since February 2022 but to no avail. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also had several unproductive conversations with Sergey Lavrov, his Russian counterpart. So with whom would this U.S. envoy talk in Russia? Moscow has shown no sign of interest in having serious conversations with Ukraine or the West.

Charap cites as a model the Contact Group for the Balkans, a group of representatives from key countries and international institutions that met regularly in the 1990s and 2000s to bring peace and stability to the war-torn region. But the Contact Group operated in a different time. During the Balkan wars, despite disagreements, the Yeltsin administration was willing to cooperate with the West and did not see it as the enemy. Russia has since changed. Russian officials in the past few months have amplified their criticism of the West for starting and prolonging the war and have even blamed the West for Prigozhin’s ill-fated mutiny. Russian forces have doubled down on bombing civilian targets in Ukraine and risk catastrophe in repeated attacks and fighting around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. And the attempts by the Chinese government, African leaders, and the pope to mediate the conflict have so far failed to moderate Russian actions. Putin continues to believe that he can outlast the West and win on the battlefield. The United States and its allies have learned from their past mistakes to take Putin’s words seriously when he repeats his commitment to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine as well reverse what he calls the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century,” the breakup of the Soviet Union. Putin will continue until Russia’s aggression is stopped on the battlefield, not the negotiating table.

ANGELA STENT is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Professor Emerita at Georgetown University. She has served in the Department of State’s Office of Policy Planning and as National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia. She is the author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest.

Charap Replies

I welcome these responses to my article and Foreign Affairs’ initiative to further the debate on the important issues at stake. My argument begins with an analysis of the likely trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine war based on the evidence available after 15 months of fighting. It is now clear that neither side is capable of a decisive military victory, whether in the form of regime change or demilitarization of the enemy. Both countries will likely retain significant capabilities after the hot phase of the war ends—capabilities that will allow each to pose a threat to the other indefinitely. Further, neither Moscow nor Kyiv is likely to fully achieve its stated territorial goals and therefore will not recognize the line of contact at the time of cessation of hostilities as an agreed border. As a result, they will be locked in a tense confrontation for the long term.

These fundamental drivers—the mutual ability to impose significant military costs and the persistence of unbridgeable political divides—could produce a years-long conflict that causes immense human suffering, economic hardship, and international instability. But even a long war will not change those fundamentals. Therefore, the United States and its allies should begin to try to steer the conflict toward an endgame. Since talks will be needed but a peace treaty is out of the question, the most plausible ending is an armistice agreement. An armistice—essentially a durable cease-fire agreement that does not address political disputes—would not end the conflict, but it would stop the bloodshed.

The article proposes several measures—such as security commitments to Ukraine and cease-fire support mechanisms—to ensure that any armistice agreement does not become an operational pause. And it suggests steps the United States can take now—appointing an envoy, opening discussions with allies and Ukraine on the endgame, and establishing active channels with Moscow—to facilitate this outcome over the medium term, without sacrificing the existing planks of its policy, including military support to Kyiv.

It is notable that only one of the three critiques offers a coherent alternative endgame to the one that I argue is most likely. Dmytro Natalukha demands that the West adopt an explicit policy of regime change in Russia and undertake active measures to oust Russian President Vladimir Putin and install a liberal opposition figure in the Kremlin, including by providing support for the Ukraine-based Russian paramilitary groups that have conducted cross-border raids in recent months. Even if such a policy were to succeed in destabilizing the regime, there is no reason to assume that the next Kremlin leader would agree, as Natalukha insists, to operate with “the consent of Ukraine” and to “demilitarize” Russia. Indeed, the Prigozhin revolt is a stark reminder that alternatives to Putin might be equally if not more problematic for Ukraine and the West. Natalukha’s regime-change endgame qualifies as an alternative to an armistice, but it is more of a dream than a strategy—and maybe a nightmare.

Angela Stent offers well-founded skepticism about negotiating with Russia but says little about how she sees the war ending. She calls for Russia’s aggression to be “stopped on the battlefield, not the negotiating table”—implying, presumably, the destruction of the Russian military. But she offers no suggestions about how this outcome can be achieved. And although Alina Polyakova and Daniel Fried argue that I “overestimate Russia’s strength and underestimate Ukraine’s resolve,” they do not make the case that Kyiv can eliminate the threat posed by the Russian military. And they seem to agree with my fundamental point that, as they write, “negotiations with Russia will be needed to end this war.” But they think that now is not the time because Ukraine can retake more land before the guns fall silent.

I agree that further Ukrainian gains are possible—and, as I wrote, “certainly desirable,” particularly for liberated Ukrainians. But Polyakova and Fried merely assert that the location of the line of control is the central determinant of Ukraine’s future without weighing it against other factors, such as the length of the conflict, the stability of an eventual cease-fire, or the prosperity and security of the areas the Ukrainian government controls.

TIME TO TALK

My critics seems to see diplomacy as a synonym for surrender rather than as an important tool of statecraft. This is an odd and ahistorical view. Starting talks does not require stopping the fight. Conducting negotiations is not the opposite of applying coercive pressure. In fact, negotiations are the means by which states can turn that pressure into leverage to accomplish their goals. As Thomas Schelling wrote in his classic Arms and Influence, “The power to hurt is bargaining power. To exploit it is diplomacy—vicious diplomacy, but diplomacy.” Talks are an instrument for a warring state to further the same objectives it seeks on the battlefield. Historically, they have often taken place during periods of intense fighting. Nowhere in my article do I suggest that Ukraine would have to stop fighting—or that the West would have to cease supporting that fight—in order to start talks.

Further, starting negotiations does not require, as Polyakova and Fried state explicitly and Stent strongly implies, “accepting Putin’s maximalist terms.” Accepting the other side’s maximalist terms is capitulation, not negotiation. A party enters a negotiation in order to move the other side closer to its position. Suggesting otherwise only serves to delegitimize diplomacy.

Stent claims that there is “no evidence” that Putin has abandoned his original, maximalist goal of regime change in Ukraine. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that Putin has been forced by his own failures to ratchet down his objectives. Less than a week after the full-scale invasion began (when it was already clear this was not the cakewalk Moscow had expected), he sent a delegation to talk to representatives of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government about a possible deal. A little over a month later, Putin withdrew Russian forces from the areas around Kyiv and several northern cities when it became obvious that the Russian military could not take the capital, let alone the country. It is certainly possible, as Stent suggests, that these were merely tactical retreats that do not reflect a shift in strategy. But neither she nor I can read Putin’s mind. And that is precisely why having active channels of communication is so important: to operate on direct knowledge, not assumptions, about the other side’s bargaining position and its evolution over time.

In the absence of negotiations, Putin has no incentive to make preemptive concessions or publicly express anything other than maximalist demands. It is always important to take what he says seriously, as Stent rightly advises, but it is equally important to understand the context in which he is speaking. At a moment when neither Ukraine nor its Western partners are demonstrating a readiness to talk, it would be premature to draw conclusions about Putin’s willingness to bargain based on his public statements. What is clear is that Russia does not have the military capabilities to achieve its maximalist goals. So if Putin insists on them when talks do begin, those talks will not last long.

NO ILLUSIONS

If and when talks are held, they will probably be exceptionally difficult at best—and they might well fail. Stent accurately recites Russia’s litany of broken agreements, lies, and overall perfidy and asks, “How can one assume that this time Russia’s behavior would be any different?” One cannot and should not make that assumption, and I certainly do not. The United States should enter any consultations or negotiations with no illusions about the trustworthiness of Russia and its leaders. But in international politics, one does not get to choose one’s interlocutors. And there is no plausible path to ending the war that does not entail engaging Moscow. So eventually, Washington, Kyiv, Berlin, and others will have to try. This would not be the first time the United States talked to a nefarious regime with a history of deceit in order to stop a war. The U.S. military officers who negotiated the Korean armistice sat across the table from the leaders of the enemy forces that had killed tens of thousands of Americans.

All three critiques of my article dispute the applicability of one or another of the historical comparisons I made to past cases of U.S. conflict diplomacy, be it the Korean armistice, U.S.-Israeli security arrangements, or the Bosnia Contact Group. The circumstances of the Russia-Ukraine war are unique; no historical analogy is perfect. But these examples teach important lessons and demonstrate that U.S. diplomacy has helped bring bloody conflicts to negotiated ends in the past, even as fighting still raged and even when it seemed as if there would be no way to stop it.

Foreign Affairs · July 13, 2023

16. Russia Detained Several Senior Military Officers in Wake of Wagner Mutiny

Russia Detained Several Senior Military Officers in Wake of Wagner Mutiny

Gen. Sergei Surovikin is being held and interrogated in Moscow; others were detained, suspended or fired

By Thomas Grove

Follow

July 13, 2023 5:35 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-detained-several-senior-military-officers-in-wake-of-wagner-mutiny-35a696e4?mod=hp_lead_pos2&utm

Gen. Sergei Surovikin is known as General Armageddon for bombing campaigns he waged in Syria. PHOTO: RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Hours after Russian paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin began a short-lived march on Moscow, the country’s domestic security service detained several high-ranking military officers, including Gen. Sergei Surovikin, head of aerospace forces, people familiar with the situation said.

Surovikin, known as General Armageddon for bombing campaigns he waged in Syria, is being held and interrogated in Moscow, the people said. He hasn’t been charged with a crime. One said Surovikin knew about plans for the insurrection but that the general wasn’t involved in the mutiny.

The Kremlin’s effort to weed out officers suspected of disloyalty is broader than publicly known, according to the people, who said at least 13 senior officers were detained for questioning, with some later released, and around 15 suspended from duty or fired.

“The detentions are about cleaning the ranks of those who are believed can’t be trusted anymore,” one said.

Neither the Kremlin nor Russia’s Defense Ministry responded to requests for comment. Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, said in a video circulating on Russian social media this week that Surovikin was resting and “not available right now.”

Surovikin’s deputy, Col. Gen. Andrey Yudin, and the deputy head of military intelligence, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alexeyev, also were detained but later released. They have been suspended from duty, their movements have been restricted and they are under observation, one of the people said.

Among other figures detained is former Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, who previously served as deputy defense minister and joined Prigozhin’s Wagner Group private military company in late April.

Surovikin was last seen in a video released June 23, looking distressed and clutching a weapon with his right hand as he pleaded with Prigozhin and his fighters to call off the proposed revolt.

Surovikin’s detention was earlier reported by the Financial Times.

Since the late June rebellion, the Kremlin has set about dismantling Wagner, an important fighting force for the Russians in Ukraine, responsible for the recent capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, and an instrument of Russian power projection in the Middle East and Africa.

Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev speaking in Moscow in 2018. PHOTO: SERGEI KARPUKHIN/REUTERS

On Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had taken possession of hundreds of tanks, rocket launchers and artillery pieces from Wagner as well as 20,000 assault rifles and other small arms and 2,500 tons of ammunition.

If true, that would likely leave any remaining Wagner units in Russia or Ukraine largely without weaponry.

Prigozhin’s mutiny, although called off before he and an armed column reached Moscow, represented the biggest threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his 23 years in power and has unsettled Russia’s elite as well as the ranks of the armed forces.

While Wagner soldiers were fighting on the front line in Bakhmut, Prigozhin repeatedly accused Moscow’s military leaders of denying them the ammunition they needed. But he consistently championed Surovikin, who was named commander of Russian forces in Ukraine in October.

In that role, Surovikin introduced a new tactic aimed at degrading Ukraine’s power grid and other critical infrastructure with missile strikes. In January, he was replaced by the chief of the general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, one of Prigozhin’s main rivals.

Surovikin wasn’t being held in a detention center, but was undergoing repeated interrogations as investigators probed what role, if any, he played in the uprising, the people familiar with the situation said.

They said Surovikin could be released once Putin decides how to handle the fallout from the mutiny.

The Kremlin’s position has been increasingly complicated by indications that Prigozhin has remained inside Russia despite public assurances that he would leave for Belarus along with his fighters, according to an agreement reached between Putin and Prigozhin.

The Kremlin last week said Putin met with Prigozhin and Wagner commanders for about three hours in late June in what Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called a show of loyalty to Putin.

Late last month, when asked whether Putin still trusted Surovikin, Peskov said only that the supreme commander was working with the minister of defense and the chief of the general staff.

Russia Says Putin Met With Wagner Chief Prigozhin After Aborted Revolt

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

Russia Says Putin Met With Wagner Chief Prigozhin After Aborted Revolt

Play video: Russia Says Putin Met With Wagner Chief Prigozhin After Aborted Revolt

A Kremlin spokesman said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and his commanders just five days after the group’s aborted mutiny in June. Photo: Russian Pool/Concord Press Service

At that time, Surovikin’s daughter told local media that her father hadn’t been arrested and was working as usual. His wife, however, said Wednesday night that he hadn’t returned from work, according to a person who is in touch with her.

Surovikin was just one of a number of officers detained who had ties with Wagner.

Alexeyev had longtime links with Wagner but had posted a video in the early stages of its insurrection calling on them to turn back.

Mizintsev gained the moniker the Butcher of Mariupol as he oversaw Russia’s assault on the city with heavy bombing raids on civilian quarters to force the city to surrender.

Mizintsev had been removed from his position of deputy minister in charge of logistics, Russian military correspondents reported earlier this year, and had joined Wagner months prior to the mutiny, appearing on Russian social media in a Wagner uniform.

Write to Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com

17. Special Operations Forces Institution-Building: From Strategic Approach to Security Force

Some of the sources of confusion and friction lies within the definitions and how we understand and interpret those definitions. And just to be clear, while FID has long been associated with Special Operations (it is a Title 10 SOF activity) it has never been exclusively a SOF mission.  

Excerpt:

SOFIB is nested within the overall U.S. SC and SFA framework but differs from SC and SFA generic activities with its concentration on SOF as well as its advising focus at the national and institutional levels. SOFIB also differs from foreign internal defense (FID) because of its stronger accent on peacetime engagement at the institutional level to prepare for both internal and external threats. SC is a broad range of programs and activities that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) executes on behalf of the U.S. Department of State as well as “all [DOD] interactions, programs, and activities with foreign security forces (FSF) and their institutions.” It could thus be any advisory program or mission between the United States and another country. The United States pursues SC for a number of reasons, with one being to support the institutional development of foreign security organizations. This last motive is actually SFA, defined as “the set of DOD activities that contribute to unified action by the [U.S. Government] to support the development of capacity and capabilities of FSF and their supporting institutions.” In contrast, FID, defined as the “participation by civilian agencies and military forces of a government or international organizations in any of the programs and activities undertaken by a host nation government to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to its security,” is traditionally a SOF mission with a strong focus on internal threats. SOFIB falls more readily within the SFA space rather than that of FID, given its stronger emphasis on peacetime engagement at the institutional level to prepare for both internal and external threats.

Special Operations Forces Institution-Building: From Strategic Approach to Security Force

ndupress.ndu.edu

Download PDF

Colonel Kevin D. Stringer, USA (Ret.), Ph.D., is the Chair of Education for the U.S. Irregular Warfare Center. He is an affiliated Faculty Member at the General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania, in Vilnius.

Green Berets with 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Specialists with 25th Infantry Division conduct clearing procedures while evacuating simulated casualty during Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotation 23-01 training exercise on Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, November 7, 2022 (U.S. Army/Ryan Hohman)

The Ukrainian Special Operations Command (UKRSOCOM) and its subordinate tactical units have emerged as significant contributors to the defense of Ukraine in the face of ongoing Russian aggression. Conducting a full range of both conventional and special operations missions—including mobile defense, guerrilla operations, direct action, and support to resistance in occupied areas—UKRSOCOM displays the qualities of a rapidly maturing special operations organization currently being tested in the crucible of combat. A contributing element to the development of UKRSOCOM as an institution was an experimental U.S. Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) advisory approach, based on an earlier initiative with Belgium, that aimed to establish a framework for developing and sustaining special operations forces (SOF)’s institutional capabilities at the national level.

As background, U.S. SOF invested years in advising and assisting European partners to build and deploy special operations tactical units of excellence to campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, as well as counterterrorism actions globally. Unfortunately, while U.S. SOF concentrated on advising at the tactical level, they ignored the institutional level. Gradually, many European states realized they possessed an insufficient strategic SOF institutional framework for sustaining forces and organizing national and coalition operations in an emerging near-peer threat environment. This situation reconfirmed a recurring problem within broader U.S. security force assistance (SFA)—a tendency to build a force without first establishing the necessary institutional framework. Maintaining SOF capability requires establishing the defense institutional systems that can contribute to SOF development. By 2014, certain European policymakers recognized the requirement for strategic-level SOF structures to address a deteriorating European security environment and to better manage and employ scarce SOF human and material resources. Beginning in 2016, SOCEUR, in collaboration with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Special Operations Headquarters (NSHQ), pioneered a SOF institution-building (SOFIB) advisory approach, nested within the broader U.S. security cooperation (SC) concept, to support specific NATO Allies and select partners in their development of special operations command (SOCOM)-like structures intended to unify various national units while providing SOF-specific institutional functions for a more effective and sustainable force. Given the inherent joint nature of SOF, these SOFIB insights offer the joint forces recommendations on SFA activities in the future.

This article highlights the SOFIB approach and its nesting within the U.S. SC and SFA framework. It then shows how SOFIB reconceptualizes SFA from its heavy tactical application, as seen in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria, and shifts efforts to national- and institutional-level defense assistance for capable European allies and partners. It then illustrates the application of SOFIB through the representative but differing cases of Belgium and Ukraine, while providing an overview of the supporting SOCEUR and, in the case of Ukraine, NSHQ strategic advisory efforts, using SOFIB objectives as a framework of analysis. The article then provides overall joint lessons learned concerning SOF transformation at the national level that can inform SFA best practices for the future.

Belgian special forces sniper team identifies targets 2,000 meters away, September 11, 2018, during International Special Training Centre High-Angle/Urban Course, at Hochfilzen Training Area, Austria (U.S. Army/Benjamin Haulenbeek)

SC, SFA, Foreign Internal Defense, and SOFIB

SOFIB is nested within the overall U.S. SC and SFA framework but differs from SC and SFA generic activities with its concentration on SOF as well as its advising focus at the national and institutional levels. SOFIB also differs from foreign internal defense (FID) because of its stronger accent on peacetime engagement at the institutional level to prepare for both internal and external threats. SC is a broad range of programs and activities that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) executes on behalf of the U.S. Department of State as well as “all [DOD] interactions, programs, and activities with foreign security forces (FSF) and their institutions.” It could thus be any advisory program or mission between the United States and another country. The United States pursues SC for a number of reasons, with one being to support the institutional development of foreign security organizations. This last motive is actually SFA, defined as “the set of DOD activities that contribute to unified action by the [U.S. Government] to support the development of capacity and capabilities of FSF and their supporting institutions.” In contrast, FID, defined as the “participation by civilian agencies and military forces of a government or international organizations in any of the programs and activities undertaken by a host nation government to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to its security,” is traditionally a SOF mission with a strong focus on internal threats. SOFIB falls more readily within the SFA space rather than that of FID, given its stronger emphasis on peacetime engagement at the institutional level to prepare for both internal and external threats.

Traditional SFA has not been without problems. Most approaches seem to concentrate too much on the tactical level, to include training and equipping, as opposed to more valuable SFA programs, which address “higher-order questions of mission, organizational structure, and personnel.” Major SFA failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to serious questions about its efficacy as an instrument of U.S. national security policy. In these two countries, the United States invested billions of dollars as well as the human resources to support two decades of training and advising the security forces—only to watch them collapse in the face of so-called Islamic State or Taliban offensives. On a spectrum of partner development, traditional SFA seems to best describe U.S. activities with weak states such as Afghanistan and Somalia, whereas security “defense cooperation” better characterizes advising capable allies and partners to improve their combined operations.

One example of this delineation can be found in Ukraine. Although Russian actions are dangerous for Ukraine in the current war, Ukraine is not a weak state, and its military has capabilities; hence, U.S. assistance aims to improve national warfighting competencies often “through . . . ideational assistance.” This latter emphasis characterizes the SOFIB methodology for peer or proficient SOF partners. The SOFIB approach aligns with the view that at the strategic level, U.S. advising objectives may achieve the greatest returns by emphasizing the development of more sophisticated headquarters functions and staff efficiencies, which enable upper-tier partner interoperability. Furthermore, with capable allies and partners, the accent is on liaison, consulting, and advisory activities as opposed to training, exercises, and support. The result of such a strategic- and national-level advisory effort is the aspirational pinnacle of security force effectiveness—combined, joint, and interagency integration and effectiveness.

SOFIB Requests for Support and SOFIB Objectives

In 2016, SOCEUR received requests from several European countries for assistance with establishing SOF command structures and organizations at the national level appropriate for their state security missions and military cultures. Both the changing European security environment and NATO pressure contributed to the need for SOF transformation and reform. For the environment, the rise of Russia as an adversary and Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe catalyzed national military discussions about the role and organization of SOF. Additionally, NATO encouraged member states to make structural reforms to their SOF beginning in 2013. The primary aim was to address SOF shortfalls, particularly in SOF command and control capabilities.

In creating these strategic organizations, the European SOF counterparts aimed to achieve a mix of four general SOFIB objectives:

• SOF autonomy, defined as the national SOF institutions’ achievement of a greater degree of independence from the respective military services. This goal endeavored to elevate an integrated SOF organization within a national defense hierarchy to increase SOF independence and reduce subordination to the conventional land, sea, and air services. The generic issue is that without a unique SOF command or proponent, conventional military services are often uninterested in SOF as a joint entity, with the resultant underemployment or misuse of SOF capabilities.
• Joint and interagency SOF integration, defined as the establishment of unity of command for joint SOF elements as well as the creation of greater connections to other relevant national agencies. This aspiration intended to consolidate often distributed SOF joint functions under one command while structurally enhancing interagency collaboration through the elevation of permanent SOF representation and expertise to the general or joint staff level.
• SOF operational command and control (C2) capabilities, defined as the creation of a SOF national-level headquarters element with a core SOF organization and staff. The goal was to establish a C2 capability for NATO, regional, or coalition constructs while taking control and oversight of SOF readiness, capability development, and operational employment.
• SOF service-like competencies, defined as man, train, and equip functions, in order to better manage SOF recruitment, improve retention, own budget resources, and control SOF-specific procurement.

Given the above objectives, and the fact that this type of strategic advisory effort was neither a standard SOCEUR nor a standard U.S. Special Operations Command mission, SOCEUR reorganized an existing staff division in 2016 to support a group of prioritized countries on their journeys to establish national SOCOM-like entities. Belgium and Ukraine serve as illustrative vignettes of the SOFIB application. To note, the respective U.S. country team senior defense officer (SDO) and office of defense cooperation (ODC) facilitated the SOFIB requests from both Belgium and Ukraine but were not directly involved in the advisory process.

Belgian special forces sniper teams fire on long-range targets from elevated shooting range during International Special Training Centre High-Angle/Urban Course, at Hochfilzen Training Area, Austria, September 30, 2020 (U.S. Army/Patrik Orcutt)

Belgian Special Operations Command Initiative

In 2016, the Belgian Ministry of Defense published its Strategic Vision for Defence through 2030. This national security document led to the creation of the Belgian SOCOM and initiated the start of a larger SOF change project. Prior to the publication of this strategic guidance, Belgian SOF capabilities were centered on a single tactical formation that was increasingly underresourced for an expanding joint and interagency mission set. Key considerations for this transformation included the increasing relevance of irregular warfare, the use of Belgian SOF for homeland security and counterterrorism operations, the requirement to protect Belgian citizens abroad, and the rise of Russian aggression on the Eastern European periphery. The Strategic Vision mandated a transformation of Belgian SOF to include:

• establishment of a SOF command to better manage special operations
• investments in a Tier 1 special forces group to include a personnel expansion of its core elements
• conversion of the two airborne para-commando battalions into Ranger-like units with specialized enablers—air assets, counter–improvised explosive device experts, and military working dog teams
• acquisition of several short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft specific to SOF
• participation of Belgian SOF in a composite special operations component command (C-SOCC), together with the Netherlands and Denmark, to meet NATO SOF operational C2 requirements.

A critical element of this change was the creation of a to-be-defined SOCOM to oversee the command and development of Belgian SOF. This step would also provide a national-level mechanism for better connecting to Belgian intelligence, law enforcement, and diplomatic agencies.

The Belgian SOF project team requested SOCEUR advisory support to discuss the overall SOF transformation and the specifics of the Belgian Special Operations Command (BELSOCOM) requirement. The U.S. national interest in supporting this initiative was the opportunity to greatly enhance the SOF capabilities of an important NATO Ally for future combined, coalition, or Alliance operations, as well as potential SOF burden-sharing in regions of mutual importance. A unique aspect of this and other SOFIB advisory efforts was its strategic and iterative, rather than instructional and tactical, nature, given the peer-to-peer SOF relationship. Belgian SOF possess high levels of expertise and capability; hence the advising relationship could be likened to that of collaborative partners in a consulting or executive coaching arrangement. The initial workshop focused on the topics of project setup and management, to include governance. An early recommendation was the need to structure the steering committee with general officer–level sponsorship and appropriate interagency representation to ensure a successful outcome. Through the exchange, both teams agreed that a Belgian-specific doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership (and education), personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF) framework would serve as a good structure for this complex transformation.

After analysis and acknowledgment of potential Belgian organizational and political resistance, key U.S. design recommendations were to establish a unified joint SOF command and staff on par with the land and air component commands, directed by a one- or two-star general officer. Interestingly, this U.S. proposal mirrored that of a Belgian think tank brief, which advocated the creation of a flag officer–led SOCOM, light enough to lead national special operations activities yet robust enough for the C-SOCC contribution. If this step was too great, the U.S.-recommended interim stage was the stand-up of a SOF directorate, subordinated to the chief of defense, to facilitate the transition. A secondary U.S. recommendation was for the definition of what a Belgian para-commando unit should accomplish for SOF tasks, and the identification of the capability gaps within its existing mission sets, organization, training, and equipment. The U.S. advisors cautioned against simply copying either the U.S. Ranger Regiment or the British Special Forces Support Group model, considering them inappropriate for Belgian needs. Additionally, both the Belgian and U.S. teams agreed to conduct further analysis on the integration of SOF air assets into the new structure. For the latter point, the Belgian Strategic Vision authorized a specialized SOF aviation capability consisting of four small STOL aircraft, primarily for SOF insertions and extractions in austere environments. Given that these assets were totally new in the force structure, would require some level of joint integration with the conventional air force, and would introduce greater joint complexity for even a very capable peer, the SOCEUR team recommended a separate and more detailed follow-up meeting with a U.S. SOF air advisory team.

Belgian Special Operations Command Outcomes

Ultimately, Belgian defense leadership accepted the majority of the Belgian project team’s transformation recommendations, and the outcomes of this case provided instructive SOFIB lessons for U.S. SOF. The selected Belgian generic model of SOF organization comprises a SOCOM integrated in the general staff, with the SOF tactical units placed under a regimental (brigade)-level headquarters and maintained under service jurisdiction for readiness purposes.

BELSOCOM emerged as a small, embedded special operations directorate within the general staff, led by a colonel (foreseen to be a brigadier general). BELSOCOM is the SOF advisor for the chief of defense and the larger defense staff. It serves as the central hub for all SOF matters and is responsible for aligning the national SOF structure to defense requirements. BELSOCOM is the primary point of contact for all joint, combined, and interagency cooperation. BELSOCOM also conducts strategic foresight activities and contributes to the planning and direction of all special operations. Explicitly, BELSOCOM is “designed to facilitate cross ministry cooperation and ensures Ministry of Defense and General Staff policies, programs, budgets, strategies, and regulations account for, and enable the development, sustainment, and employment of, Belgian Special Operation Forces.” BELSOCOM assists the newly created Special Operations Regiment in fields such as the strategic planning of SOF capacity (included in the NATO defense-planning process), planning the future employment of SOF, and the procurement of SOF-specific items. The then Belgian minister of defense, Steven Vandeput, reiterated that BELSOCOM is the crucial integrating element in the new SOF regiment’s environment. He stated:

Together with the creation process of the Special Operations Regiment, a Special Operations Command . . . was set up in mid-2017. Although the SO units don’t directly come under the SOCOM, the latter can be considered as the Belgian center for expertise for special operations. Because of its place in the defense structure, SOCOM is the point of contact for international and interdepartmental cooperation concerning special operations. SOCOM is also in charge of drafting the Composite Special Operations Component Command project where Belgium, with the Netherlands and Denmark, is developing a deployable SOF HQ that can be made available to NATO.

At the tactical and operational levels, the SOF organization remained under the auspices of the Belgian Land Component Command. The existing conventional Light Brigade, under the leadership of a colonel, was rebranded and converted to the Special Operations Regiment, composed of the Special Forces Group, the 2nd Commando Battalion, the 3rd Parachute Battalion, the battalion-level 6th Communication and Information Systems Group, and related training centers. Much more than just a name change, this alteration initiated a series of changes in multiple dimensions. The Special Operations Regiment now commands all special operations land forces and is entrusted with their permanent training, instruction, and personnel management.

For NATO purposes, BELSOCOM led the creation of the C-SOCC with its Dutch and Danish counterparts. The genesis for the C-SOCC concept occurred in the fall of 2013, when during a NATO SOF commanders’ conference in Norway, the delegates of four nations were invited to a sidebar meeting with an NSHQ representative. At the time, NSHQ was looking for ways to increase NATO SOF C2 capacities. The idea was to generate more special operations component commands (SOCCs) to support NATO’s operations. A SOCC is a headquarters formation of 70 to 150 personnel who provide an organic, rapidly deployable C2 node for NATO contingencies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presents state medals to Ukrainian Special Operations Forces during ceremony, July 29, 2022, in Odesa, Ukraine (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office)

The initial objective was to prepare a C-SOCC for a NATO Response Force (NRF) commitment. To succeed, it needed high-level ministry of defense support, and in 2017, the defense ministries of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark signed a letter of intent, formalized in 2018 with a memorandum of understanding, that facilitated the endeavor. According to the Special Operations Regiment’s commander:

The project team had to overcome many obstacles to include the identification of common procedures, establishment of ways to share classified information, and the creation of multi-year training schedule to build the capacity. . . . With regard to staffing, positions had to be distributed in a balanced manner between the three nations, with the key positions rotating according [to] a fixed schedule.

The new BELSOCOM construct was instrumental in allowing the Belgian defense ministry to successfully execute this initiative. Eventually, after having conducted multiple exercises under the scrutiny of NSHQ, the C-SOCC was declared fully operational in 2020; it became the NRF SOCC in 2021. Thereafter, it remains a core SOF C2 node for future Alliance or coalition requirements.

In light of the SOFIB objectives, the BELSOCOM case demonstrates the challenges of SOF organizational transformation. For SOF autonomy, Belgian SOF (BELSOF) did not become their own service but gained a higher degree of self-sufficiency under the Belgian Land Component. For integration, the creation of BELSOCOM as a special operations directorate offered a central node for interagency interactions. This decision follows best practice in that SOF perform exceptionally well when supporting a comprehensive interagency effort. BELSOCOM also provides the project core for SOF operational C2 capabilities in the form of the trinational C-SOCC.

BELSOCOM’s placement within the general staff serves as an initial step to its development of service-like functions. This important implementation step created a double challenge. On the one hand, the SOCOM had to find its place within the general staff, and on the other hand, the relationship between the SOCOM and the services had to be clearly and iteratively defined. In essence, although not all SOFIB objectives were fully met, the interim result produced a more strategic and capable SOF construct for Belgian national security, as well as enhanced interoperability and collaboration with its U.S., European Union, and NATO partners.

In this case study, U.S. SOFIB, as a more refined and strategic form of SFA, contributed to this outcome with U.S. advisors serving as “sparring partners” and “consultants” for a peer ally. With this enterprise effort, the overall BELSOF capability is poised to provide policymakers with an expanded range of scalable, immediately available, and increasingly sophisticated joint options that can be employed as an initial response to a variety of crises or as a complement to other national, international, or interdepartmental capabilities. BELSOF is committed to continually challenging and reinventing itself to remain effective and relevant—especially in the new security environment, seemingly subjected once again to Great Power competition.

Belgian paratrooper assigned to Special Forces Group, Special Operations Regiment, performs freefall jump under supervision of jumpmasters assigned to CE Para training center, on Chièvres Air Base, Belgium, April 19, 2022 (U.S. Army/Pierre-Etienne Courtejoie)

Ukrainian Special Operations Command Endeavor

In contrast to Belgian SOF’s long-standing membership and efficacy within NATO and its high level of interoperability with Allies, particularly the United States, Ukrainian SOF had a very different starting point for its institution-building endeavors. As an offspring of the Soviet Union’s special forces (Spetsnaz), Ukrainian SOF inherited a Soviet-style hierarchy and a culture and mindset that were not conducive to integration with Western special forces units. With U.S. assistance, Ukraine undertook efforts to modernize its SOF in the early 2000s, but by 2009 the project was halted due to a lack of Ukrainian political support. As early as 2008, the Ukrainian general staff and ministry of defense had attempted to develop a consolidated and independent SOF service within the Ukrainian armed forces, but the government rejected this initiative. From 2008 to 2015, a special operations directorate operated within the general staff as a coordination and advising element, with special forces dispersed across different services and branches of the Ukrainian armed forces and mostly misused as “elite” infantry.

Catalyzed by Russian aggression in Crimea and the Donbas in 2014, Ukrainian political leadership initiated several NATO-supported defense and security reforms, which included specific mandates to transform its SOF. In 2015, the general staff and ministry of defense developed and signed a concept for the formation and development of the SOF and simultaneously established UKRSOCOM. Two enduring institution-specific challenges during this period were the dispersion of SOF capabilities and responsibilities across a number of military, intelligence, and internal security organizations, and the residue of the earlier Soviet-style culture.

In 2016, Ukraine’s parliament passed a law creating the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (UKRSOF) as a separate and independent service within the armed forces, with the appropriate consolidation of existing special forces units under one command. This decision allowed the genesis of a U.S. SOFIB advisory initiative tasked with assisting with the development of UKRSOCOM and the transformation of its subordinate units into NATO-compatible forces. Because this transformation is ongoing as of this article’s publication, as well as affected by the continuing war with Russia, the next sections cover only the 2017–2019 period.

In 2017, upon mutual agreement, UKRSOCOM requested an initial SOCEUR advisory team to conduct a SOFIB scoping workshop. This initiative aligned with U.S. national interests to support Ukraine as a developing European partner as well as to counter Russian aggression on Ukraine’s eastern front. Although the valuable SOFIB experiences from Belgium and another NATO country aided preparation for this initial engagement, there were a number of issues that emerged in hindsight. In general, this advisory mission was much more complex than the BELSOCOM collaboration because of both the Ukrainian starting point and the U.S. and Ukrainian shortcomings in the advisory relationship. Additionally, there were notable differences between working with a longtime, interoperable NATO Ally versus an emerging, non-Alliance partner. U.S. mission analysis determined that the initial advising stage would concentrate heavily on UKRSOF force design, force generation, and SC requirements. Unknown to the well-meaning U.S. advisors, Lithuanian SOF had already been in place since 2014 in an institutional advisory role and were dual-hatted to represent the NSHQ in Ukraine in 2015. Lithuania had assisted UKRSOCOM with the development of a SOF development plan circa 2015–2016, but this proposal was totally overlooked in the U.S. SOFIB effort. Aspects of the Lithuanian proposal eventually seeped into the overall plan, but this oversight cost valuable time and understanding.

For force design, the collaborative session, conducted with Lithuanian SOF participation, produced a high-level concept of five components. First, it proposed new staff configurations and education at the UKRSOCOM level. Second, it recommended restructured units and staffs at the three primary subordinate SOF regiments—the 3rd, 8th, and 73rd. Third, it articulated a process to link special forces qualification at the Ukrainian 142nd Training Center to regimental manning. Fourth, it urged that force generation through a revised qualification course become an essential element in staffing the regiments and UKRSOCOM with SOF-qualified personnel. Finally, the SOFIB sessions identified the necessity for a heavy SC component, in both education and equipment, for transforming UKRSOCOM. This SC element was significant for the SOFIB effort for both political and interoperability reasons. Geopolitically, the provision of U.S. SOF equipment and training was intended to wean UKRSOCOM from its Russian legacy, while simultaneously increasing interoperability with both U.S. and NATO forces.

For the American advisors, knowledge in special forces organizational design within a NATO context, special forces qualification program management, and SC became essential to providing the right guidance and advice in this initial SOFIB phase. Unfortunately, on the first point, SOCEUR advisors were often unfamiliar with NATO doctrine and standards, resulting in Ukrainian SOF’s receiving force design inputs that were compatible to, but not fully in line with, NATO doctrine and standards. This gap required adjustments in later years to meet NATO certification standards.

For the Ukrainian special forces qualification course, the SOFIB design did not consider several critical elements. Most significantly, the personnel intake, output, and retention calculations were off, resulting in a manning plan that did not fully achieve its objectives. Additionally, a 6-month qualification course, followed by additional advanced skills training, proved unsustainable when juxtaposed with Ukrainian SOF deployment requirements against the Russian-supported separatist regions. Finally, the program did not include an instructor qualification component. Thus, when trainers attrited, the United States was left with the responsibility of training the next set of instructors.

Finally, security assistance was based on U.S.-generated tables of organization and equipment, which were inaccurate. Equipment deliveries for Ukrainian SOF units were not timed to coincide with development priorities, nor was the United States aware of the Ukrainian requirement to certify equipment for use. As a result of this requirement, SOF equipment (such as boats) sat idle for extended periods of time (over a year) while awaiting certification.

The main partner challenges were threefold. First, UKRSOCOM’s lack of English-language skills at the senior level made the use of qualified interpreters essential to overcome the communication barrier. This condition introduced a cumbersome element in all interactions; it expanded the time required for discussions and placed emphasis on interpreter quality, given the institutional level of the discussions. Second, the UKRSOCOM point of departure for transformation created a much longer time horizon for institutional change. Unlike Belgium, with its highly proficient and established NATO SOF force, Ukraine was just at the beginning of its SOF institutional journey. This situation meant that SOCEUR SOFIB efforts would require strategic patience through several U.S. command cycles and over consecutive fiscal years. Third, UKRSOCOM lacked “jointness.” A SOF air component did not exist, and the maritime component had been decimated by the Crimean invasion with the loss of its basing, equipment, and personnel. These circumstances would necessitate a multiyear SC package for reviving, equipping, and training these joint elements. On the U.S. advisory side, one main cultural SFA bias needed to be overcome. The Afghan and Iraqi SFA experiences had reinforced the tendency to provide U.S. solutions and models that were wholly inappropriate for partner forces. This troubling trend leads to suboptimal outcomes, especially at the institutional level, where a partner does not have the culture, staff capacity, or resource capabilities to sustain a U.S.-inspired force model. As U.S. SOFIB advisors rotated on the UKRSOCOM initiative, this cultural issue was closely monitored.

As the discussions progressed, a further significant issue to address was the need to nest SOCEUR SOFIB efforts within a broader NATO framework and context to avoid duplication of effort. In response to Russian aggression, NATO had reinvigorated its support to Ukrainian defense and security reforms, which the Alliance defined practically through the partnership planning and review process (PARP) and more recently established comprehensive assistance package (CAP) for Ukraine. Operating within the frameworks of the PARP and CAP, NSHQ rendered advice and assistance to Ukrainian SOF development, guided by Ukraine’s initially stated aim of achieving full NATO interoperability by 2020. Alongside NSHQ’s organizational contributions, several Allies—Poland, Lithuania, the United Kingdom, and Estonia, to name a few—were also engaging Ukrainian SOF through various bilateral and multilateral formats. SOCEUR, in discussions with NSHQ, recognized that without coordination of these efforts, duplication and inefficiencies would impede Ukrainian SOF development.

Recognizing the risk of redundancy, SOF representatives from eight nations, including the United States, convened at NSHQ in November 2017 to design a unified approach to supporting Ukrainian SOF development. The group began by simply sharing engagement schedules. As the meeting progressed, participants reprogrammed conflicting events and realigned activities to achieve greater synergy. NSHQ did not have a mandate to compel nations to continue this sort of collaboration, nor did the attendees have the authority to subordinate their national efforts to a collective cause.

Yet the benefit of this cooperative approach was clear to all. The group thus devised the term multinational SOF advisory team (MSAT) and unofficially declared that all Allies engaged in supporting Ukrainian SOF development would coordinate via the MSAT mechanism. The MSAT would meet quarterly, along with its Ukrainian SOF counterparts, to analyze progress, synchronize activity, and update the development plan. For its part, NSHQ maintains the mutually agreed SOF development plan and ensures that the plan is linked to the PARP and CAP. Though imperfect and still evolving, the MSAT approach helps ensure that allied support, including U.S. SOFIB, to Ukrainian SOF development, tactical through institutional, is coherently accounted for and executed.

Within the SOFIB framework of autonomy, joint and interagency integration, operational C2 capabilities, and service-like competencies, the UKRSOCOM transformation highlights the challenges of SOF institutional change. Overall and while still ongoing, the UKRSOCOM transformation shows moderate progress toward the generic SOFIB objectives, albeit over a longer time horizon and with the commensurately longer commitment of U.S. and NATO resources.

For SOF autonomy, despite the naturally occurring organizational friction and inertia, the Ukraine parliamentary decision in 2016 provided the necessary political impetus and authority to allow the creation of a true SOF service component, commanded by a general officer. For joint SOF integration, the rebuilding of the 73rd Maritime Special Purpose Center and the development of a SOF air component are multiyear projects, and the construction of joint cooperation and a joint culture is expected to proceed slowly over the years.

In terms of SOF operational C2 capabilities, UKRSOCOM is at a nascent stage, but it has made progress with the NATO certification of a Ukrainian special operations land task group for a future NATO NRF-SOCC under a designated lead nation. This Polish and Lithuanian SOF-supported achievement is significant for NATO SOF interoperability; the November 2002 NATO Summit in Prague established the NRF to replace the Allied Command Europe Mobile Force. The NRF includes land, maritime, air, and special operations components ready for immediate evacuation or crisis response operations around the globe. Ukraine’s achievement, as part of its SOFIB process, allows it to contribute to NATO missions within the NRF framework.

Finally, UKRSOCOM develops its SOF service competencies steadily through the implementation and application of SOFIB partner advice and the accompanying SC packages in the areas of personnel, training, and equipment. A good example of the latter is the SOCEUR SOFIB advisor recommendation to UKRSOCOM to provide temperature-controlled, weather-resistant U.S. Alaska tents, mounted on concrete pads, to ensure the health and well-being of UKRSOF candidates attempting the SOF qualification course. Although weapons may seem more important, the procurement of the tents via SC monies increased the pass rate of Ukrainian special forces operators, which enhanced the overall combat readiness of the organization. For a formation of approximately 6,500 personnel, with fewer than 2,000 operators, force generation plays a significant role for strategic success. Yet the provision of these tents raises broader questions about this type of U.S. security force assistance: Is SOFIB using a systems approach for facilities and other DOTMLPF themes? Are the tents merely a one-off transaction or an interim step toward an enduring facilities solution, alongside specific range requirements, roads within the training areas, firebreaks, and other needed infrastructure requirements? Is multiyear funding secured for these developments? Such questions emphasize the need for a long-term and deliberate perspective for SOFIB and more generic U.S. SFA efforts.

Belgian special forces advise Nigerien soldiers during class on ground movement and attacking an objective, at Camp Po, Burkina Faso, on February 20, 2019, during Flintlock 19 (U.S. Army/Richard Bumgardner)

Lessons Learned on SOF Transformation and Implications for Future SFA

The Belgian and Ukrainian SOF institutional transformation cases are representative of a larger SOFIB group of countries and demonstrate five lessons learned for potential future U.S. SFA activities.

There Must Be a Focus on National-Level Organizational Transformation. Political willpower and legal foundations are needed for such change. A parliamentary decision in the case of Ukraine and a policy-level mandate for Belgium created the necessary legal and policy parameters for SOFIB. The effort is not solely a military activity; hence, it requires a broad range of U.S. advisors—officers, noncommissioned officers, and government civilians—who are both innovative and politically astute. The development of SOCOM-like structures with allies and partners occurs in a dynamic national political-military environment, and U.S. advisors must be cognizant of the political dimensions of such SFA initiatives.

General Officer–Level Sponsorship and Involvement Are Necessary. If flag officer representation is not available, the existing bureaucracy will tend toward inertia and not implement the necessary changes. In both case countries, defense leadership designated an appropriate leader—a major general in Belgium, a lieutenant general in Ukraine—to catalyze the effort. For the United States, this requirement implies a reciprocal general officer focus and commitment over multiple command cycles. The current 2-year rotational command cycle for U.S. general officers is not conducive to such long-term and deliberate SFA initiatives. If changing this rigid U.S. personnel policy in unrealistic, then the general officer transitions need to be better managed to provide continuity for these long-term SFA initiatives.

There Must Be Highly Qualified Joint Staff Officers From All Partner Countries. Selected officers from the partner country serve as the primary interface with U.S. joint advisory teams. Fortunately, both Belgium and Ukraine selected the best of their joint SOF talent pool to lead their respective efforts. This prerequisite applies equally to the U.S. advisor profile, which needs further refinement. Foremost, U.S. officers who conduct such SFA operations require joint expertise and experience because SOF by nature is a joint force in both the U.S. and foreign contexts. Although the maritime and air SOF components of many allies and partners are underdeveloped, they must be considered in an institutional construct, which requires that the advisors understand how a joint force should function. This situation means that advisors must come to the engagement already fully joint professional military education II–qualified—a condition regularly not met on geographic combatant command and component staffs.

Equally, cross-cultural interpersonal skills and experience are critical for successful advisory communication and relationship development because SOFIB in Europe is often more iterative and collaborative rather than instructional. This observation reinforces the lessons of earlier U.S. advisory experience in the Middle East, which confirmed that cross-cultural competence is crucial for success. This view also aligns with the DOD description: “An advisor’s primary purpose is to create professional relationships that will inspire and influence their counterparts, and their counterparts’ organization, to become more effective and accomplish their missions, while putting in place sustainable processes that will endure beyond their tour as an advisor.”

Finally, SC knowledge and project management skills round out the advisory profile. In fact, these latter knowledge areas are often the most challenging to develop. This reflection implies potentially incorporating these themes in core joint professional military education. Another possibility would be to increase the role of the country team SDO or ODC in providing this knowledge. The main concern with this option is the limited bandwidth of the SDO and ODC for engagements. Particularly in the Ukraine case, the military element of the country team was already managing a large portfolio of programs and activities, and while well informed on the SOFIB activities, its members were not participatory in the process due to other commitments.

There Must Be Design Tailoring. A national SOF institution requires a pattern based on a unique state context and its political-military characteristics; foreign and U.S. models may be useful for the iterative discussion but should not necessarily be replicated.

Due Diligence/Information on Earlier or Parallel Efforts Is Required. As demonstrated by the UKRSOCOM case study, the United States needs to discover, acknowledge, and align with earlier, existing, or potential Allied or coalition efforts ongoing within an SFA initiative to avoid duplication, repetition, or the crowding out of other SFA providers. Rather than taking a unilateral approach, U.S. efforts may work better within a collaborative construct or may not even be needed. In the end, U.S. SFA and the narrower SOFIB are about effective outcomes, not solely actions. This objective requires host nation cooperation and, importantly, U.S. strategic patience.

SOFIB takes on significant importance for the future because as irregular and hybrid warfare becomes more prevalent, the relevance of SOF increases. Allied and partner nation SOF can be sustainable and operationally effective in a near-peer environment only if they exist within a proper institutional framework. U.S. SOFIB advisory efforts are essential to this objective. SOFIB is also about innovation, which encompasses an alteration of core organizational tasks and is a product of interrelated reforms in personnel management, professional military education, training, doctrine, and modernization. For such change to have impact, it must be embedded and incentivized in the organization’s way of doing business. Both these aspects also inform changing the broader U.S. SFA approach from a tactical to institutional focus with the provision of well-qualified advisors, who enable a partner or ally to transform to a more effective military organization. JFQ

Notes

1 Jahara Matisek and William Reno, “Getting American Security Force Assistance Right: Political Context Matters,” Joint Force Quarterly 92 (1st Quarter 2019), 66, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-92/jfq-92_65-73_Matisek-Reno.pdf.

2 Anne Tjepkema, “A Dutch SOCOM: The Way Ahead to Addressing National and International SOF Shortfalls,” Atlantisch Perspectief 42, no. 4 (2018), 19–22.

3 Joint Publication (JP) 3-20, Security Cooperation (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, May 23, 2017), v, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_20_20172305.pdf.

4 Security Force Assistance Planner’s Guide (Washington, DC: Joint Center for Security Force Assistance, January 1, 2016), 1-1, https://afghanwarnews.info/documents/JCISFA-SFA-Planners-Guide15Jan2016-CDR-1543.pdf.

5 JP 3-20, II-7.

6 DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, s.v. “Foreign Internal Defense” (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, November 2021), 87.

7 Jahara Matisek and Michael W. Fowler, “The Paradox of Security Force Assistance After the Rise and Fall of the Islamic State in Syria–Iraq,” Special Operations Journal 6, no. 2 (2020), 118–138.

8 Mara Karlin, “Why Military Assistance Programs Disappoint: Minor Tools Can’t Solve Major Problems,” Foreign Affairs (November/December 2017), 111, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-military-assistance-programs-disappoint.

9 See Stephen Biddle, Julia Macdonald, and Ryan Baker, “Small Footprint, Small Payoff: The Military Effectiveness of Security Force Assistance,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 1–2 (February 2018), 89–142; Matisek and Fowler, “The Paradox of Security Force Assistance.”

10 Renanah Joyce, Max Margulies, and Tucker Chase, “The Future of U.S. Security Force Assistance,” Modern War Institute, November 23, 2021, https://mwi.usma.edu/the-future-of-us-security-force-assistance.

11 Matisek and Fowler, “The Paradox of Security Force Assistance,” 128.

12 Ibid., 126.

13 Jahara Matisek and Austin Commons, “Thinking Outside of the Sandbox: Succeeding at Security Force Assistance Beyond the Middle East,” Military Review 101, no. 2 (March–April 2021), 37.

14 Jerad Harper, “A Tug of War for Effectiveness: U.S. Efforts to Build the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (1955–1973)” (Ph.D. diss., George Mason University, 2021), 27.

15 Tjepkema, “A Dutch SOCOM,” 19–22.

16 The author formulated these special operation forces (SOF) institution-building objectives as part of the iterative advisory process with the Belgian SOF project team.

17 The Strategic Vision for Defence, ed. Renaud Flamant and Pieter-Jan Parrein (Brussels: Ministry of Defence, 2016), 23–35, https://cyberwar.ro/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/strategic-vision-belgian-defense-en.pdf.

18 Ibid., 50–51.

19 Alexander Mattelaer, Why Belgium Needs a Special Operations Command, Security Policy Brief No. 70 (Brussels: Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, April 2016), 5.

20 The Strategic Vision for Defence, 122–123; Nathan Gain, “A Belgian Special Operations Command,” Forces Operations (blog), July 25, 2016.

21 Tom Bilo, “SOF in Great Power Competition: The Belgian Perspective,” June 30, 2020, The Politics of Special Forces podcast, produced by Christian Breede and Kevin D. Stringer.

22 “Belgium SOF Directorate Legal Proposal,” undated.

23 “The Belgian Army Inaugurated Its Special Operations Regiment,” Army Recognition, July 4, 2018, https://www.armyrecognition.com/july_2018_global_defense_security_army_news_industry/the_belgian_army_inaugurated_its_special_operations_regiment.html.

24 Tom Bilo, “Strategic Vision 2030: Development of a BEL Special Operations Command” (presentation, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, November 4, 2016); “The Belgian Army Inaugurated Its Special Operations Regiment.”

25 Tom Bilo (director, Belgian Special Operations Command), discussion with the author, June 2021.

26 Tom Bilo, “BELSOF: Quo Vadis?” The Kingston Consortium on International Security Insights 1, no. 6 (July 2021), https://www.thekcis.org/publications/insights/insight-16.

27 Bilo, “SOF in Great Power Competition.”

28 Christopher Lamb, “Global SOF and Interagency Collaboration,” Journal of Strategic Security 7, no. 2 (Summer 2014), 8–20.

29 Bilo, “SOF in Great Power Competition.”

30 Andrii Biletskyi, “Today’s Ukrainian Special Operations Forces” (presentation, Ukrainian Special Operations Forces Command, 2020).

31 Ibid.

32 “Ukraine’s Parliament passes law ‘On amendments to some laws of Ukraine on Special Operations Forces of Armed Forces of Ukraine,’” Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, July 7, 2016; Illia Ponomarenko, “Combat Hardened Special Forces Officer Vows to Reform UkrOboronProm, Kyiv Post, April 17, 2019, https://www.kyivpost.com/post/8744.

33 Byron Harper (deputy director for partnership, NATO Special Operations Headquarters), in discussion with the author, December 2021.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 “Ukrainian SOF Joins International SOF Family,” Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, June 27, 2019.

37 “Prague Summit Declaration,” NATO Press Release 127, November 18, 2002, https://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2002/p02-127e.htm.

38 “SOF Training Center Received the Most Modern Tent Camp,” Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, February 24, 2020; Kirk Smith (commanding general, U.S. Special Operations Command Europe), remarks, U.S. Embassy Kyiv, February 24, 2020, https://ua.usembassy.gov/remarks-by-major-general-kirk-smith-commander-of-u-s-special-operations-command-europe.

39 U.S. Special Operations Command Europe Public Affairs Office, e-mail response to New York Times query, October 21, 2019.

40 Implied in Matisek and Reno, “Getting American Security Force Assistance Right,” 71–72.

41 Edward Ballanco, “Security Force Assistance Needs the Stillwell Combination,” War Room, May 24, 2019, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/security-force-assistance-stilwell-combination.

42 Paul Szostak and Juan Pizarro, “Strategic Expeditionary Advising: Exploring Options Beyond Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands and Ministry of Defense Advisors,” Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs 2, no. 4 (Winter 2019), 4, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/JIPA/journals/Volume-02_Issue-4/Szostak.pdf.

43 Center for Army Lessons Learned Handbook No. 19-06, Advising at the Senior Level: Lessons and Best Practices (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Lessons Learned, January 2019), 6, https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/publications/19-06.pdf.

44 Mark Davis, “Defense Institutional Building in Post-1999 NATO Nations: Lost Opportunity in SOF Development” (unpublished white paper, 2015).

45 Mattelaer, Why Belgium Needs a Special Operations Command, 4.

46 Suzanne Christine Nielsen, “Preparing for War: The Dynamics of Peacetime Military Reform” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2003).

ndupress.ndu.edu

18. Put Educational Wargaming in the Hands of the Warfighter

Excerpts:

When do enlisted leaders and officers truly exercise their tactical and operational decision-making? Beyond actual battlefield deployments, such opportunities are exceedingly rare. Training exercises, such as Resolute Dragon, are designed to be technological demonstrations, skill-based training, and collaboration venues. They are scripted and managed — as they should be. However, for most participants, these training exercises are not meaningful opportunities for intellectual improvement. Educational wargaming, however, provides leaders with the opportunity to exercise their intellectual muscles — to wrestle with an active adversary, to adapt to unexpected challenges, and to explore new avenues of thinking.

The principal value of educational wargaming is not found in hyper-realistic adjudication or eye-catching visualization, but in repeatedly facing — and even failing — decision-making challenges. In The Logic of Failure, Dietrich Dörner argues, “Geniuses are geniuses by birth, whereas the wise gain their wisdom through experience. And it seems to me that the ability to deal with problems in the most appropriate way is the hallmark of wisdom rather than genius.” In a wargame, failure is not final, but merely an opportunity to learn a new method of success. The first time a tactical leader exercises their independent decision-making under stress should not be on the battlefield. If the joint force truly wants experienced decision-makers across echelons, it should embrace intellectual exercise as a constant and continuous endeavor. Just as physical muscles are strained, stretched, and strengthened through physical training, the joint force should aim to leverage educational wargames as practice arenas for decision-making — providing mental reps and sets for a better-prepared force.

...

To avoid the historical boom-bust pattern, the joint force should provide the necessary tools and support to build and maintain a diverse ecosystem of educational wargaming at the tactical unit level. Yet directives without funding are destined for failure. Without new and sustained support, current educational wargaming initiatives will stagnate and become artifacts of the past. The success of educational wargaming in preparing the next generation of tactical leaders may determine whether the next conflict tilts toward victory or defeat.

Put Educational Wargaming in the Hands of the Warfighter - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Sebastian J. Bae · July 13, 2023

Plenty of wargaming articles quote famous testimonies by Adm. Chester Nimitz or 19th-century Prussian general Karl von Muffling on the critical role wargames play in military success. But it’s often forgotten that the celebrated wargames of Nimitz’s and von Muffling’s eras were designed to be educational, accessible, iterative, and played at the unit of action. Wargaming today, by contrast, risks becoming the exclusive domain of select officers and leadership within the Beltway. And when wargaming is concentrated in a handful of select institutions, it increasingly becomes susceptible to the historical boom and bust cycle where benefits and experience can be quickly lost.

To truly harness the potential of wargaming and prepare for future challenges, the defense community needs to revitalize and expand educational wargaming at the tactical echelons. Wargaming should reclaim its historical position as a critical educational tool for the entire force. As a professional wargame designer and instructor, I have an interest in the growth and success of wargaming. But this article does not argue for a singular wargame or technology, and certainly not just my own. Instead, I believe that for joint educational wargaming to succeed, the Department of Defense should establish a dedicated educational wargaming fund, foster a diverse wargaming ecosystem, and embrace new technologies.

Wargaming as Intellectual Exercise

When do enlisted leaders and officers truly exercise their tactical and operational decision-making? Beyond actual battlefield deployments, such opportunities are exceedingly rare. Training exercises, such as Resolute Dragon, are designed to be technological demonstrations, skill-based training, and collaboration venues. They are scripted and managed — as they should be. However, for most participants, these training exercises are not meaningful opportunities for intellectual improvement. Educational wargaming, however, provides leaders with the opportunity to exercise their intellectual muscles — to wrestle with an active adversary, to adapt to unexpected challenges, and to explore new avenues of thinking.

The principal value of educational wargaming is not found in hyper-realistic adjudication or eye-catching visualization, but in repeatedly facing — and even failing — decision-making challenges. In The Logic of Failure, Dietrich Dörner argues, “Geniuses are geniuses by birth, whereas the wise gain their wisdom through experience. And it seems to me that the ability to deal with problems in the most appropriate way is the hallmark of wisdom rather than genius.” In a wargame, failure is not final, but merely an opportunity to learn a new method of success. The first time a tactical leader exercises their independent decision-making under stress should not be on the battlefield. If the joint force truly wants experienced decision-makers across echelons, it should embrace intellectual exercise as a constant and continuous endeavor. Just as physical muscles are strained, stretched, and strengthened through physical training, the joint force should aim to leverage educational wargames as practice arenas for decision-making — providing mental reps and sets for a better-prepared force.

Indeed, the value of iterative, experiential learning through educational wargaming has been repeatedly demonstrated throughout its history. In World War II, the Western Tactical Approaches Unit leveraged educational wargaming to teach tactics and disseminate lessons learned to convoy commanders during the Battle of the Atlantic. Similarly, the famous interwar games at the U.S. Naval War College contributed to preparing a generation of naval officers for the challenges of World War II. During the Cold War, the U.S. Army used the Dunn-Kempf wargame to teach small-unit tactical decision-making and adversary weaponry. In the U.S. Navy, Harpoon, a commercial miniatures wargame, and SEATAG, a wargame designed by the U.S. Naval War College, both garnered grassroot followings in the 1980s with their detailed naval engagements.

Likewise, from the 1980s to the 1990s, the U.S. Marine Corps institutionalized a family of educational wargames collectively referred to as TACWAR. It consisted of four distinct wargames: a company-level wargame called TACWAR; a battalion and Marine amphibious unit staff-level game called STEELTHRUST; a game aimed at regimental and Marine amphibious brigade staffs called LANDING FORCE; and a strategic-level wargame for Marine amphibious force and amphibious brigade staffs called WARFARE. The TACWAR family of wargames was disseminated to tactical units across the Marine Corps, paired with the support staff, facilities, and funding to support grassroots wargaming.

History has also shown that educational wargaming works best when it is part of a robust system of professional military education. The tremendous impact of the Naval War College interwar wargames stemmed from a convergence of course work, repeated wargames, and experience drawn from fleet exercises. Peter Perla, the author of The Art of Wargaming, describes this process as the “cycle of learning,” where multimodal learning methods harmonize and amplify each other. Educational wargaming will not predict the future. Rather, educational wargames provide an intellectual sandbox to explore possible answers to wicked battlefield challenges — without the finality of combat.

Boom and Bust

If the successes of educational wargaming are evident in history, so are the perpetual cycles of rediscovery. Educational wargaming, like wargaming as a wider discipline, has historically suffered from a boom-and-bust pattern. At present, wargaming is a popular buzzword in defense circles, as demonstrated by proposals for everything from AI-enabled wargaming to experimental wargaming. Spurred by the Joint Chiefs of Staff 2020 guidance on professional military education, educational wargaming is experiencing a belated renaissance as professional military education institutions increasingly integrate wargaming into their curriculum. Select institutions like the Army War College and Marine Corps University have aggressively leaned into experiential learning methods and wargaming. Their successes, such as the Marine Corps University’s cloud-based wargaming, have been buoyed by increased funding and dedicated wargaming staff. However, the growth of wargaming in educational institutions — although admirable and necessary — only serves a minority of officers.

In stark contrast, educational wargaming in tactical units remains an accidental product of individual initiative aligning with institutional tolerance. I have seen countless units struggle and succeed in building a wargaming capability within their organizations — only to see it wither and steadily disappear with every change of command. This is a tragically common occurrence.

From 1982 through the 1990s, the Basic School and Marine Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy employed TACWAR for instructional wargaming, and it became widely used within units across the Marine Corps. Yet in the late 1990s, TACWAR became bloated with several rule expansions and modules while the supporting infrastructure gradually disappeared. Eventually, the wargame became too onerous to play. The pursuit of a singular wargaming solution destroyed a once-promising family of educational wargames. Whether or not the infrastructure and diversity surrounding the current generation of educational wargames grows or staggers remains to be seen.

Building an Educational Wargaming Ecosystem

What can be done to break the boom-and-bust cycle and bring educational wargaming to every echelon? There is no single, perfect wargame for every educational need. A tactical air squadron and a logistics planning staff will have their own specific learning objectives. This means the joint force should aim to develop, expand, and maintain a diverse ecosystem of educational wargames.

The easiest and most expedient option is to provide off-the-shelf commercial wargames to tactical units. This is a tried-and-true method of educational wargaming. For example, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College employs a wide variety of commercial titles for its classes, such as Race to the Rhine, Friedrich, Battle for Moscow, and Root. Moreover, commercial wargames are increasingly prevalent within units. Both Shores of Tripoli and Memoir 44 have been used as introductory wargames within tactical units. Commercial wargames provide opportunities to tackle moments in military history as dynamic case studies. However, their utility can be constrained by their inherent desire to appeal to a broad, civilian audience. Commercial titles may also struggle to represent the nuances and specific decision-space required for unit-based wargaming. For instance, Twilight Struggle, Flashpoint: South China Sea, and Divided Europe are all excellent wargames about influence but may not fit the specific need of a civil affairs unit.

Tailor-made educational wargames will always be more precisely applicable, but they require significant lead times and are more limited in production and distribution. In 2022, Marine Air Group 24 sponsored a group of my Georgetown University graduate students to design a custom educational wargame to explore strategic lift in an Indo-Pacific conflict. The resulting wargame, Fight to the Fight, required five months of research and design before being handed off to Marine Air Group 24 for further development. Similarly, Thor’s Hammer, a logistics wargame, was sponsored by the Command and General Staff College for its curriculum and then distributed to a select few Army units. The Naval War College also designed War at Sea, a customizable wargame system exploring operational planning from World War II to the modern era. In the Air Force, Kingfish ACE, a wargame designed by Lt. Col. Troy Pierce, explores the complexities of planning and mobilizing multicapable airmen in agile combat employment operations.

Bespoke educational wargames provide units the opportunity to align their specific learning objectives with a game’s design. The level of complexity, decision space of the players, and topical focus can all be customized for a specific learning objective. However, the distribution of these bespoke games can be constrained, as they are often handmade and limited in quantity.

Flexible, off-the-shelf educational wargames designed specifically for military audiences occupy the successful sweet spot between the extremes of commercial and tailor-made educational games. The Operational Wargame System, designed by Col. (Ret.) Tim Barrick, is the quintessential example. It provides an operational wargame rule book with various modules featuring several regions and orders of battle, enabling the wargame to be adaptable. The wargame has been employed by units and commands across the joint force, as well as allies and partners, to foster operational art and planning. Likewise, my own Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific wargame (previously called Fleet Marine Force) explores tactical engagements in hypothetical conflicts in the region, focusing on Force Design 2030 and the Marine littoral regiment. Littoral Commander has been employed at Marine Corps Expeditionary Warfare School and continues to be used in the Career School and the Advanced Course at the College of Enlisted Military Education. More importantly, tactical units across the Marine Corps are making significant use of Littoral Commander.

These off-the-shelf military educational wargames combine the accessibility of commercial wargames and the specificity of bespoke wargames. This expands the pool of players critically engaging with wargaming from small groups of resident professional military education students to the wider joint force. An Army captain playing Operational Wargame System and an enlisted Marine playing Littoral Commander within their units can help foster broader wargaming literacy. However, off-the-shelf military educational wargames are also incredibly labor-intensive and difficult to design. For example, Littoral Commander required three years of design, development, and playtesting before its commercial release.

Avoiding Past Mistakes

The concept of developing a diverse educational wargaming ecosystem is not entirely new. The TACWAR wargames were designed to be a family of wargames, each tailored for its principal educational audience. Similarly, the notion of a wargaming list for education has been considered since the early 1990s. But in both cases, the efforts were not sustained, and the learning environment was allowed to fade away. To avoid repeating history, the joint force should consider several further steps.

First, establish an annual educational wargaming fund to support wargaming in tactical units — particularly for designing bespoke wargames for tailored learning objectives. Admittedly, the current Wargaming Incentive Fund has increasingly supported educational wargaming. However, analytical and educational wargames competing for scarce resources are a recipe for the status quo.

Second, identify and adapt successful professional military education wargames for distribution across the joint force. There are several wargames — like War at Sea, the matrix-style games at Army War College, or Kingfish ACE — that could be further developed and modified for widespread use in tactical units. A wide range of accessible educational wargames will better address the varying needs of a diverse joint force.

Third, build wargaming infrastructure —in terms of funding, personnel, and physical space – to support wargaming within tactical units. Wargaming experts and facilitators, who are not subject to the constant churn of their uniformed counterparts, will reduce the burden of establishing and maintaining wargaming in units and foster institutional memory. This was a critical element to the success of TACWAR.

Fourth, integrate wargaming literacy and skills into the enlisted educational pipeline. This does not mean creating an enlisted force focused on designing wargames. Instead, enlisted leaders should be equipped with the experience, tools, and skills to leverage and teach wargames at the small unit level. The recent successes of wargaming at the College of Enlisted Military Education reflect the untapped potential of enlisted-led wargaming. Sustaining wargaming will require widening access to the broader joint force.

Finally, embrace various media for educational wargaming, blending established methods with new technologies. An excellent example is the Marine Corps University’s cloud-based wargaming initiative, which combines commercially available tabletop wargames with the accessibility of cloud-based computing. Open source AI, augmented reality, and other technologies also offer interesting possibilities.

To avoid the historical boom-bust pattern, the joint force should provide the necessary tools and support to build and maintain a diverse ecosystem of educational wargaming at the tactical unit level. Yet directives without funding are destined for failure. Without new and sustained support, current educational wargaming initiatives will stagnate and become artifacts of the past. The success of educational wargaming in preparing the next generation of tactical leaders may determine whether the next conflict tilts toward victory or defeat.

Become a Member

Sebastian J. Bae, a research analyst and game designer at the Center for Naval Analyses, works in wargaming, emerging technologies, and the future of warfare. He also serves as an adjunct assistant professor at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. He is also the faculty advisor to the Georgetown University Wargaming Society, the co-chair of the Military Operations Research Society Wargaming Community of Practice, and a former Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity. Previously, he served six years in the Marine Corps infantry, leaving as a sergeant. He deployed to Iraq in 2009.

Littoral Commander is not a U.S. government product and not owned or funded by the U.S. Marine Corps or any other government entity. This work represents the views of the designer alone and does not reflect or represent the opinions of the U.S. government, U.S. Marine Corps, the Center for Naval Analyses, or any other affiliated organization.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Sebastian J. Bae · July 13, 2023

​19. US Army Guard Special Forces Practice Counterinsurgency in West Virginia

​I thought we were getting rid of COIN?( note my sarcasm - but the headline editor for this piece did not read the memo irregular warfare is simply just not synonymous with COIN though for many it is).

US Army Guard Special Forces Practice Counterinsurgency in West Virginia

thedefensepost.com · by Rojoef Manuel · July 10, 2023

The US Army National Guard conducted a Special Forces exercise in West Virginia to upskill in counterinsurgency operations, irregular warfare, and interoperability with foreign forces.

Participants included over 420 soldiers, mainly from the Utah-based 19th Special Forces Group (SFG), and warfighters from 16 partner countries.

“Irregular warfare is actually a difficult term to describe because there’s no doctrinal [definition] for irregular warfare,” a 19th SFG operations sergeant major explained.

“It’s designed to be very broad because it includes hybrid threats, it includes security force assistance and doing not only counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare, but also doing foreign internal defense.”

Realistic Special Operations Exercise

Mission sets and outcomes throughout the exercise were interconnected.

Soldiers operated as simulated “nation” groups and completed missions alongside actual local government officials, law enforcement, and emergency services personnel.

Lessons consisted of economic and political scenarios in each “nation” through preplanned media engagements and newscasts, for which groups were required to respond and conduct procedures possible for actual deployments.

Information from these situations was used as the basis of the entire training, such as in countering a simulated invasion by opposing forces (OPFOR) from neighboring “nations.”

Members of multiple US special operations units and allied partners during counterinsurgency training in West Virginia. Photo: Staff Sgt. Jake SeaWolf/West Virginia National Guard

“The change in the scenario replicates what our forces would experience if they were in a friendly country about to be invaded by a hostile force,” the sergeant major explained.

“What the OPFOR brings to the exercise is kind of a realistic aspect to it,” a 19th SFG staff sergeant on an opposing team said.

“We’re able to do our own planning against what we know or think that the partner force of the ODA (operational detachment alpha) is doing. And so, it’s more realistic of how an enemy would react to those situations.”

‘Full-Spectrum Warfare’ Training

Additional lessons tied into more significant, service-wide shifts between the US Army and the Army National Guard to prepare for counterinsurgency operations against near-peer threats and potential large-scale deployments.

“This is full-spectrum warfare. It’s preparing for invasion or preparing the territories that we would operate in, in order to facilitate conventional battle lines,” the sergeant major stated.

“Irregular warfare is our way to do that through more low visibility operations and our ability to work around the civilian populace and provide that support to the conventional military.”

“You have to get very resourceful and kind of adapt to the changing environment and realize that you don’t have the freedom of movement that we did in other places. It’s no longer about having air supremacy. It’s no longer about having open comms with higher [headquarters].”

thedefensepost.com · by Rojoef Manuel · July 10, 2023

20. Ridge Runner Builds Readiness for NG Special Forces | SOF News

Always listen to your Sergeant Major. Notice how he talks about supporting the warfighter - SOF is a team player (though I know there are those who think differently).

All that said, there are a wide array of irregular warfare missions that take place in the gray zone space of strategic competition in support of national objectives that do not support a conventional warfighter because if those SOF operations are successful there will be no requirement for the introduction of conventional military force. Not every activity or campaign that takes place in support of strategic competition will lead to large scale combat operations.

What the Sergeant Major is outlining below is just one lein of effort that SOF may conduct in support of large scale combat operations. But I would say that 90% of SOF operations take place well below the threshold of large scale combat operations. But when they do, SOF will be prepared to fully support them.

Excerpts;

“You’re getting away from what for the last 20 years has been the main effort [counterinsurgency operations] and you’re now supporting the warfighter in different capacities,” said the sergeant major. “During the Global War on Terror, special operations, we were doing direct action. We were doing FID [foreign internal defense], we were doing counterinsurgency and going after specific terrorist cells.”

Some tasks and mission sets may be similar in future operations, but their large-scale application has changed.

“This is different,” said the sergeant major. “This is full-spectrum warfare. It’s preparing for invasion or preparing the territories that we would operate in, in order to facilitate conventional battle lines.” Training and ensuring high readiness for that shift is key, he said. “Irregular warfare is our way to do that through more low visibility operations and our ability to work around the civilian populace and provide that support to the conventional military.”

Ridge Runner, and similar exercises, help teams refine those skills.

Ridge Runner Builds Readiness for NG Special Forces | SOF News

sof.news · by Guest · July 13, 2023

By Jon Soucy.

The wind danced through the trees as pewter-colored clouds hinted at heavy rain. Soldiers went about their duties at a rocket launcher site on a hillside clearing in an otherwise thickly forested area. Aside from the trees, all was quiet. But as the wind gusted again, Soldiers with the 19th Special Forces Group suddenly appeared from the woods in a coordinated assault to seize control of the site.

Located deep in the West Virginia hills, the launcher site and the attack were part of the culminating exercise for one training lane in exercise Ridge Runner, a two-week special operations training exercise hosted by the West Virginia National Guard and the Irregular Warfare Center.

The exercise included more than 420 troops, primarily with the 19th Special Forces Group headquartered in the Utah Army National Guard, and allies and partners from 16 nations. Training scenarios focused on core Special Forces mission sets, including working with foreign forces, counterinsurgency operations and irregular warfare.

“Irregular warfare is actually a difficult term to describe because there’s no doctrinal [definition] for irregular warfare,” said an operations sergeant major with the 19th SFG who oversaw one of the exercise’s training lanes. “It’s designed to be very broad because it includes hybrid threats, it includes security force assistance and doing not only counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare, but also doing foreign internal defense.”

Many of those mission sets were tied together throughout the training scenario. Exercise participants — mostly made up of Special Forces ODAs, or operational detachment alpha teams, the basic SF tactical element — assimilated into West Virginia communities in two simulated nations and met with actual local government officials, law enforcement and emergency services personnel.

They monitored simulated economic and political situations in each “nation” through simulated newscasts and media engagements, and mirrored responses to them with procedures and operations that would be used during actual deployments.

Information from those engagements drove the training and resulting missions, eventually countering a simulated invasion by hostile forces from neighboring nations.

“The change in the scenario replicates what our forces would experience if they were in a friendly country about to be invaded by a hostile force,” said the sergeant major. Teams acting as the opposing forces, or OPFOR, also had to shift in line with those scenario changes — and their actions often caused other shifts by the ODAs.

“What the OPFOR brings to the exercise is kind of a realistic aspect to it,” said a staff sergeant with the 19th SFG on an OPFOR team. “We’re able to do our own planning against what we know or think that the partner force of the ODA is doing. And so, it’s more realistic of how an enemy would react to those situations.”

The exercise also tied into larger service-wide shifts as the Army and Army National Guard move from counterinsurgency operations to preparing for near-peer threats and potential large-scale operations.

“You’re getting away from what for the last 20 years has been the main effort [counterinsurgency operations] and you’re now supporting the warfighter in different capacities,” said the sergeant major. “During the Global War on Terror, special operations, we were doing direct action. We were doing FID [foreign internal defense], we were doing counterinsurgency and going after specific terrorist cells.”

Some tasks and mission sets may be similar in future operations, but their large-scale application has changed.

“This is different,” said the sergeant major. “This is full-spectrum warfare. It’s preparing for invasion or preparing the territories that we would operate in, in order to facilitate conventional battle lines.” Training and ensuring high readiness for that shift is key, he said. “Irregular warfare is our way to do that through more low visibility operations and our ability to work around the civilian populace and provide that support to the conventional military.”

Ridge Runner, and similar exercises, help teams refine those skills.

“It allows you to be very creative,” said the sergeant major. “You have to get very resourceful and kind of adapt to the changing environment and realize that you don’t have the freedom of movement that we did in other places. It’s no longer about having air supremacy. It’s no longer about having open comms with higher [headquarters].”

And the exercise also helped teams focus on basic tactical elements.

“We’re able to work on some of our small unit tactics that we’re doing together as this six-man contingent as well,” said the staff sergeant. “We’ve been able to have those discussions, work on basic patrolling as well and all those things that are in the Ranger handbook and are the fundamentals of success for an ODA.”

That’s critical, as the 19th and 20th SFGs — the two Army Guard Special Forces groups — are integrated into special operations missions worldwide.

“The 19th and 20th Group guys get to do that just as much as their active-duty counterparts,” said the sergeant major. “They deploy to the same areas, they go to the same schools, they work with the same partners.”

And for the sergeant major, that capability is part of the uniqueness of Army Guard Special Forces units. “[It’s] an opportunity to serve in a special operations capacity, wearing a Green Beret and operating in some of the highest missions,” he said.

*********

This story by Sgt. 1st Class Jon Soucy was first published by the National Guard Bureau on July 7, 2023. DoD content is in the public domain.

Photo: A Soldier with the 19th Special Forces Group, headquartered in the Utah Army National Guard, leads his team, which includes Latvian special operations elements, in an assault on a simulated emplaced missile launcher site while taking part in exercise Ridge Runner near Jolo, West Virginia, June 15, 2023. The two-week exercise brought together Soldiers with the 19th SFG and special operations troops from Latvia, Poland, and other allied and partner nations and focused on interoperability in unconventional warfare tasks. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jon Soucy)

sof.news · by Guest · July 13, 2023

21. Overlooked No More: Hannie Schaft, Resistance Fighter During World War II

Excerpt:

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.

Overlooked No More: Hannie Schaft, Resistance Fighter During World War II

The New York Times · by Claire Moses · July 7, 2023

She killed Nazis in the Netherlands and was known as “the girl with the red hair” on their most-wanted list. Then she was executed.

Hannie Schaft was one of few women to take up arms during the resistance. She was a student when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands.Credit...Wikimedia Commons

By

Claire Moses reported this story from Amsterdam and The Hague, using documents from the 1940s at the Dutch National Archives.

July 7, 2023

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.

It’s April 17, 1945. Two Nazi officers are making a 24-year-old woman walk ahead of them toward the sandy dunes along the Dutch coast. She’s wearing a blue skirt and a red and blue sweater.

She is the Dutch resistance fighter Hannie Schaft, but one might not have recognized her immediately: Her signature red hair has been dyed black.

As she walks, one of the officers fires his gun at the back of her head. The bullet ricochets off her skull and doesn’t kill her. The other officer then shoots her, also in the back of the head, this time at closer range.

That is how Hannie Schaft died, just a few weeks before the end of World War II in Europe. She had been arrested and sent to a prison in Amsterdam about a month earlier, during a random check in Haarlem, her hometown in the Netherlands, when she was found carrying a gun, as well as illegal newspapers and pamphlets from the resistance movement, in her bicycle bag. Initially it wasn’t obvious to the Nazis whom they had arrested, but it soon became evident that it was the woman they had been looking for, the woman known as the “girl with the red hair,” who had shot and killed multiple Nazis and collaborators.

She was born Jannetje Johanna Schaft on Sept. 16, 1920, in a left-wing, middle-class household, to Aafje Talea (Vrijer) Schaft, a homemaker with a progressive streak, and Pieter Schaft, a teacher. Hannie, a name she adopted when she became a resistance fighter, had an older sister, Annie, who had died of diphtheria. As a result, she had a protective childhood, said Liesbeth van der Horst, the director of the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam, which has a display about Schaft that includes her glasses, a version of the gun she carried, and a photo of her and a fellow resistance fighter.

“She was a serious, principled girl,” van der Horst said in an interview. “She was a bookworm.”

She added that despite being shy, Schaft “was proud of her red hair” and how it helped her stand out.

After high school in Haarlem, Schaft studied law at the University of Amsterdam, in the hopes of becoming a human rights lawyer. She was a student when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, plunging the country into war and targeting Jewish citizens. Though Schaft was not Jewish, the occupation set her on a path to political activism.

“As the Nazi regime’s policies got harsher against Jews, her own sense of moral outrage grew stronger,” said Buzzy Jackson, the author of “To Die Beautiful” (2023), a novel about Schaft’s life. “She started to want to do more.”

She began volunteering for the Red Cross, rolling bandages and making first aid kits for soldiers and helping German refugees. When the Nazi regime required all students in the Netherlands to pledge their loyalty to the occupiers, Schaft, like many others, refused to do so and was forced to drop out.

After the Nazis arrested Schaft, she admitted her resistance activities. She was 24 when they executed her.Credit...Wikimedia Commons

She maintained the friendships she had formed with two Jewish girls at the university, helping them obtain fake IDs to evade Nazi checkpoints and hiding them as the Nazis continued stripping Jewish citizens of their basic rights.

By the end of the war, more than 100,000 people — nearly 75 percent of all Dutch Jews, the highest percentage of any Western European country — would be deported to concentration camps and murdered.

The resistance, van der Horst said, was not one organized movement but rather a tangle of overlapping networks.

Schaft joined the Resistance Council, a communist group, where she met two sisters, Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, who became her close friends and would survive the war. (In March, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation announced that it had found two letters written by Truus Oversteegen to a friend, in which she mentioned Schaft.)

The armed resistance was an extremely dangerous undertaking, with many fighters arrested and executed. It’s unclear how many attacks can be attributed to Schaft, but researchers say there were at least six.

In June 1944, Schaft and a fellow resistance fighter, Jan Bonekamp (with whom she was rumored to have had a romantic relationship), targeted a high-ranking police officer for assassination. As the officer was getting on his bicycle to go to work, Schaft shot him in the back, causing him to fall off the bike. Bonekamp finished the killing but was injured doing so. He died shortly after. Schaft managed to escape on her own bike, which was how she got around doing her resistance work.

Schaft was also involved in killing or wounding a baker who was known for betraying people, a hairdresser who worked for the Nazis’ intelligence agency, and another Nazi police officer.

Before confronting her targets, Schaft put on makeup — including lipstick and mascara — and styled her hair, Jackson said. In one of the few direct quotations that have been attributed to Schaft, she explained her reasoning to Truus Oversteegen: “I’ll die clean and beautiful.”

Dawn Skorczewski, a lecturer at Amsterdam University College, said Schaft’s involvement in the resistance was particularly extraordinary because few women in the movement took up arms.

“It’s unusual that a woman of her age would start killing Nazis in alleyways,” she said in a video call.

Once the Nazis started looking for “the girl with the red hair,” as she was described on their most-wanted list, Schaft disguised herself by dying her hair black and wearing wire-frame glasses.

The Nazis raided Schaft’s parents’ house and arrested them, hoping that she would turn herself in, but they were released nine months later, according to the Resistance Museum.

After Schaft was caught, she admitted her resistance activities. But there is no evidence that she gave the Nazis information about any of her fellow resistance fighters.

After the liberation of the Netherlands on May 5, 1945, Schaft’s body was dug up from a mass grave with hundreds of other people the Nazis had executed. She was the only woman among them.

Later that year, she was buried at the Honorary Cemetery in the seaside town of Bloemendaal, alongside hundreds of other resistance fighters. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands attended the service, according to documents in the Dutch National Archives.

Schaft’s name is well known in the Netherlands. There are streets and schools named after her, and in 1981 she was the subject of a scripted movie called “The Girl With the Red Hair.” (Janet Maslin panned the film in The New York Times, writing that Schaft’s story “was undoubtedly more exciting in reality than it is on the screen.”) An Amsterdam-based postproduction company is planning to polish the original film and rerelease it for the Netherlands Film Festival in September.

Her story is still being uncovered by researchers — a challenging task because resistance fighters worked undercover and often left little evidence behind.

As Jackson, the author of “To Die Beautiful,” noted, “The reason we know about Anne Frank is because she left a diary.”

Schaft, on the other hand, made it a point not to put anything in writing. “That’s true for most people in the resistance,” Jackson said. “There are not a lot of records to look at.”

Claire Moses is a reporter for the Express desk in London. More about Claire Moses

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Overlooked No More: Hannie Schaft, Resistance Fighter During World War II

96

The New York Times · by Claire Moses · July 7, 2023

22. Why inflation is losing its punch — and why things could get even better

Why inflation is losing its punch — and why things could get even better

NPR · by Scott Horsley · July 12, 2023

A person pumps gas at a BP gas station in Brooklyn, New York, on June 12, 2023. Annual inflation eased to 3% in June, the lowest in over two years, and there's hope that it could go lower. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Inflation has been bruising Americans for more than two years — and it's finally losing some of its punch.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that the consumer prices in June were up just 3% from a year ago — the smallest annual increase since March 2021. What's more, forecasters say inflation could fall further in the months to come.

But two years of high inflation has left its scars, and people are adjusting their habits, potentially in permanent ways.

Loading...

Here are five things to know about the state of inflation today.

Inflation has fallen sharply from its peak last year

It was a totally different picture this time last year. Back then, inflation had topped 9%, fueled in part by record-high gasoline prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Since then, gasoline prices have tumbled more than 26%. And that's having a big impact on the day-to-day lives of many Americans, especially commuters like Kate Blacker from Jersey City, N.J., who travels about an hour each day to her job at a community college.

"I'm a lot less worried now than I was six months ago, eight months ago, when the prices were rising so rapidly and I didn't know when that was going to cool down," says Blacker.

Grocery prices also leveled off last month, in a welcome relief to consumers' budgets.

And in another positive development in the midst of the summer, the price of airline tickets and hotel rooms fell in June, despite strong demand for travel.

Inflation likely has further to fall

Here's more good news: Even lower inflation rates are in the pipeline. Rent was a big driver of inflation in June, but people signing new apartment leases this summer are seeing smaller rent increases than they did a year ago.

That takes time to show up in the government's inflation tally, but the writing is on the wall.

Loading...

Likewise, the wholesale price of used cars has been falling for several months, so those savings should continue to produce lower prices on dealers' lots.

Omair Sharif, who heads the forecasting firm Inflation Insights, believes the next several months will be marked by mild cost-of-living increases, much like June was.

"This is kind of the leading edge of the summer of disinflation," Sharif says.

Companies may no longer be able to pad their profits

Economist Lael Brainard says some companies added to their profit margins during the last two years of strong inflation — a trend that could soon be reversed.

Brainard served as Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve board before moving to the White House in February to direct the National Economic Council. She points to what she calls a "price-price" spiral, when companies see their costs go up, then raise their own prices even more.

"It will be important for corporations to continue to bring their markups down after having raised them to unusually elevated levels over the past two years," Brainard told the Economic Club of New York Wednesday.

Brainard says those higher markups "should unwind if consumers are more price-sensitive and firms have to compete more intensely."

Many people are becoming more careful shoppers

Two years of high inflation has left a mark on the way people spend money, and some of those changes may be lasting.

Blacker, for example, postponed a trip to Los Angeles this summer, hoping to find cheaper plane tickets in the fall. She also canceled her gym membership, and says she and her partner are more thoughtful now about their food purchases than they used to be.

"We didn't really look so much at the grocery prices before," Blacker says. "It was more like, 'Oh, let's look up a recipe and just get whatever it is that we need.'"

With restaurant prices still climbing, she's also eating out less often.

"It's something we have to be much more conscious about, in terms our budgeting for that," Blacker says.

The Federal Reserve is not ready to declare victory just yet

The data showing easing inflation on Wednesday will likely be greeted as welcome news to the country's inflation fighters, but the battle is probably not over.

The Fed has raised interest rates aggressively over the last 16 months in an effort to curb demand and bring prices under control.

Although the central bank opted to hold rates steady at its last meeting in June, forecasters expect at least one additional, quarter-point rate hike when Fed policymakers meet in two weeks.

If inflation continues to trend down, however, that may just be the last increase in this cycle.

NPR · by Scott Horsley · July 12, 2023

23. Do Not Let China Attack America from America

Do Not Let China Attack America from America

by Gordon G. Chang

July 12, 2023 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19799/china-attack-america-within?utm

• It is way past time to end the ability of the Chinese regime to conduct political warfare against the United States from American soil. America's defense begins with closing down the America ChangLe Association.
• American presidents for decades have known that China's diplomats and agents were violating American sovereignty and did either nothing or virtually nothing to stop these activities. Therefore, China's Communists naturally thought they could get away with even more blatant conduct.
• Americans may think they are at peace, but the Communist Party believes it is locked in an existential struggle with America. People's Daily, speaking for the Party, declared a "people's war" on the United States in May 2019. The Chinese regime has been conducting "unrestricted warfare" against America for decades.
• "While it is fair to say that the CCP prefers to win this war without fighting, it is more accurate to say that the CCP intends to win without us fighting back. Through political warfare, the CCP disarms us intellectually and psychologically as it co-opts, corrupts, and ultimately controls key American elites, particularly political and foreign policy decision makers." — Kerry Gershaneck, NATO fellow for Hybrid Threats, to Gatestone Institute, July 11, 2023.
• Beijing has almost certainly purchased most of the Biden family. In March, a spokesperson for Hunter Biden's legal team admitted that Hunter had received "good faith seed funds" from an energy company in China. That was essentially an admission of bribery... no Chinese business in these circumstances would pay seed money.
• In addition to the Bidens, China has purchased hundreds — if not thousands — of politicians, academics, businesspeople and law enforcement officials at the federal, state, and municipal levels.
• How do we know this?
• "The Chinese Communist Party uses three color-coded 'political-interference tactics' to gain influence over American citizens at home as well as those who naively travel to China. Blue refers to sophisticated cyberattacks on target computers, smartphones, and hotel rooms for possible blackmail. Gold refers to bribes, while yellow means 'honey pots,' sexual seduction." — Charles Burton, of the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute, to Gatestone Institute, July 10, 2023.
• China's agents work out of, among other places, Beijing's four consulates and large Washington, D.C. embassy as well as nine or so police stations, many state banks and enterprises, Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms, and organizations such as the Chinese Students and Scholars Association. China's regime, over the course of decades, has penetrated just about every organization of influence in the United States.
• The United States faces a challenge it is now seriously underestimating.
• What should the United States do in the face of such challenge? The regime uses every point of contact to destroy America, so America needs to sever every point of contact with the regime.
• Americans cannot afford to leave any Communist Party member or any Chinese saboteur, agent, official, banker, or corporate officer in America. There should be no Chinese consulates in the U.S., and the embassy staff of hundreds should be cut down to the ambassador, his personal staff, and family.
• Extreme? By no means. Why should we ever allow China to attack America from America?

It is way past time to end the ability of the Chinese regime to conduct political warfare against the United States from American soil. (Image source: iStock)

The America ChangLe Association in Manhattan's Chinatown, which closed down after an FBI raid last year, has just reopened with a grand ceremony celebrating... July 4! This is China's new form of political warfare, brazen in the extreme.

It is way past time to end the ability of the Chinese regime to conduct political warfare against the United States from American soil. America's defense begins with closing down the America ChangLe Association.

On April 17, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrests that day of two individuals for "conspiring to act as agents" of the People's Republic of China and obstructing justice. The pair — "Harry" Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping — had "worked together to establish the first overseas police station in the United States" for the Fuzhou branch of China's Ministry of Public Security.

The branch was a "clandestine police station" operated under the cover of the America ChangLe Association in Manhattan's Chinatown. The facility that closed last fall, after an FBI raid, had been operated by the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China.

China's actions were outrageous — but Americans should be asking why did the Chinese regime think it could, without permission, establish a police station on American soil?

The answer is: American presidents for decades have known that China's diplomats and agents were violating American sovereignty and did either nothing or virtually nothing to stop these activities. Therefore, China's Communists naturally thought they could get away with even more blatant conduct.

It is good that the FBI closed down the Chinatown police station, but as Radio Free Asia reports, that station was "a mere sliver of Beijing's U.S. harassment push."

For one thing, the United Front Work Department, one of the regime's "magic weapons" — operates "Overseas Chinese Service Centers" in other cities. The Daily Caller News Foundation reports that these OCSCs, as they are known, are located in San Francisco, Houston, Omaha, St. Paul, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, and Charlotte. The New York Post believes there are other Chinese police stations in New York and Los Angeles.

The United Front Work Department, the Party's organ to interface with foreign organizations and individuals, often functions as an intelligence service, especially when it operates with the intelligence operations of the People's Liberation Army, another Party organ, and the Chinese central government. The closed New York police station was used as a base targeting those legally in the United States.

Americans may think they are at peace, but the Communist Party believes it is locked in an existential struggle with America. People's Daily, speaking for the Party, declared a "people's war" on the United States in May 2019. The Chinese regime has been conducting "unrestricted warfare" against America for decades.

"Communist China's primary means of defeating America is political warfare," Kerry Gershaneck, a NATO fellow for Hybrid Threats, told Gatestone. "While it is fair to say that the CCP prefers to win this war without fighting, it is more accurate to say that the CCP intends to win without us fighting back. Through political warfare, the CCP disarms us intellectually and psychologically as it co-opts, corrupts, and ultimately controls key American elites, particularly political and foreign policy decision makers."

The Communist Party's political warfare campaign is comprehensive and effective. Beijing has almost certainly purchased most of the Biden family. In March, a spokesperson for Hunter Biden's legal team admitted that Hunter had received "good faith seed funds" from an energy company in China. That was essentially an admission of bribery because, in the absence of corruption, no Chinese business in these circumstances would pay seed money.

The Chinese certainly think Biden has been purchased. In November 2020, Renmin University's Di Dongsheng gave a lecture publicized widely inside China. Di claimed that China, with Biden in the Oval Office, would control outcomes at the highest levels in Washington. He argued that China could make offers that could not be refused and that every American could be bought with cash.

Di got his biggest laugh when he mentioned two words: "Hunter Biden."

In addition to the Bidens, China has purchased hundreds — if not thousands — of politicians, academics, businesspeople and law enforcement officials at the federal, state, and municipal levels.

How do we know this? China's Ministry of State Security first contacted Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Ca.) not when he was serving on the House Intelligence Committee — where he would be of great value to Beijing — but when he was on the city council of Dublin City, California. Swalwell could not have been the only aspiring politician that Beijing had been grooming then.

Swalwell was enticed by the sweet Christine Fang, now known to be a Ministry of State Security agent. "The Chinese Communist Party uses three color-coded 'political-interference tactics' to gain influence over American citizens at home as well as those who naively travel to China," Charles Burton of the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute tells this publication. "Blue refers to sophisticated cyberattacks on target computers, smartphones, and hotel rooms for possible blackmail. Gold refers to bribes, while yellow means 'honey pots,' sexual seduction."

As Burton, a former Canadian diplomat in Beijing, points out, these color-coded tactics "are part of a sophisticated engagement coordinated by the agents of the Communist Party's massive United Front Work Department working under diplomatic cover at China's embassies and consulates."

China's agents work out of, among other places, Beijing's four consulates and large Washington, D.C. embassy as well as nine or so police stations, many state banks and enterprises, Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms, and organizations such as the Chinese Students and Scholars Association. China's regime, over the course of decades, has penetrated just about every organization of influence in the United States.

The United States faces a challenge it is now underestimating. As Gershaneck, also author of Political Warfare: Strategies for Combating China's Plan to 'Win Without Fighting, warns, "Today, with its modern technology and massive political, military, and economic power, the political warfare of the People's Republic of China presents a totalitarian challenge unprecedented in human history."

What should the United States do in the face of such challenge? The regime uses every point of contact to destroy America, so America needs to sever every point of contact with the regime.

Americans cannot afford to leave any Communist Party member or any Chinese saboteur, agent, official, banker, or corporate officer in America. There should be no Chinese consulates in the U.S., and the embassy staff of hundreds should be cut down to the ambassador, his personal staff, and family.

Extreme? By no means. Why should we ever allow China to attack America from America?

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.

• Follow Gordon G. Chang on Twitter

24. Inside the secret cyberwar against Putin’s regime

Inside the secret cyberwar against Putin’s regime

By James Titcomb, Ben Marlow, Matthew Field, Russ Mould, Gareth Corfield, Eir Nolsøe, Daniel Woolfson The Telegraph5 min

July 12, 2023

View Original

Russian citizens were shocked last month when a broadcast of Vladimir Putin appeared to show the president declaring martial law and announcing that Ukrainian troops had invaded the country. 

“Ukrainian troops armed to the teeth by NATO and with Washington’s consent and support have invaded Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk,” the president appeared to say in an address broadcast on a number of radio stations and TV channels.

Yet the announcement was a hoax powered by AI deepfake technology.

Hackers used computer algorithms to create Putin’s likeness and even synchronised his lips and voice to broadcast the false message.

Once upon a time, infiltrating Russia’s strictly censored state media to broadcast fake news using Putin’s image would have been unthinkable.

Russians were alarmed in June when an broadcast featuring a deepfake Vladimir Putin announced a general mobilisation

Yet cyber-attacks on Russia’s infrastructure have become increasingly common over the last 18 months.

Last week, Russian Railways said hackers had infiltrated its ticketing systems in a “massive” attack, the RIA Novosti newswire reported.

The state rail operator’s website and mobile app went offline, which the company blamed on “multiple attacks with a constantly changing vector and tools” originating from “around the world”.

This was not the only large-scale cyber incident to hit Russia in recent months. The nation’s interbank payments system went down briefly in June, disrupting flows of money between its financial institutions.

A group of Ukraine-affiliated hackers claimed the credit for knocking the Bank of Russia’s telecoms provider offline, preventing the central bank from digitally communicating with the outside world.

In April, another attack disabled IT systems at the Federal Customs Service, forcing inspectors to fall back to pen and paper.

While they may appear small on their own, these attacks contribute to Russia’s ongoing economic meltdown.

Estimates from the OECD say Putin’s war economy will shrink by 2.5pc in the worst-case scenario this year, wiping about $56bn (£43bn) from its gross domestic product.

Alan Woodward, a security expert from the University of Surrey, points to the riotous community of Russian Telegram bloggers who chronicle every IT outage as proof of Western-backed attempts to use Russia as a proving ground for cyber attack techniques.

“Russia is slightly hampered because it is one of the two parties in the war so is almost a ‘legitimate target’ provided the attacker is not probably a Western country,” he says.

This semi-official cyber war against Russia is starting to bite, with even Putin’s ministers being forced to admit the situation is getting worse for them.

Deputy digital minister Aleksandr Shoitov said a fortnight ago: “The attacks are really getting harder. They also masquerade as [distributed denial of service] attacks. Hackers use rather difficult vulnerabilities.”

In a vain attempt to reassure ordinary Russians he added: “But the country is holding out, we are working effectively, we are raising the front of our security.”

Those reassurances may fall on deaf ears, however. Local news reports described the customs service as having been “partially paralysed” in April.

A spokesman for freight business Delko said that in the days after the attacks, just 44 vehicles instead of the usual 200 were able to pass through customs checkpoints as officials struggled to cope with normal traffic volumes.

Suspicion for these disruptions inevitably falls on Ukraine, but in recent weeks Russia has begun pointing fingers at Volodymyr Zelensky’s Western allies.

US intelligence services were blamed by Russia in June for a major cybersecurity breach affecting Apple iPhones in the country.

The FSB spy agency, itself no stranger to hacking the West, said the US was behind an “intelligence action” that saw diplomats’ phones compromised.

Addressing the claims, Apple said: “We have never worked with any government to insert a backdoor into any Apple product and never will”.

Russia-headquartered antivirus company Kaspersky’s founder described the “extremely technologically sophisticated spyware” that engineers found on the phones of “senior and top management”. 

“We believe that the main reason for this incident is the proprietary nature of iOS,” said Eugene Kaspersky in June, referring to the Apple software that powers all iPhones.

“Detecting and analysing such threats is made all the more difficult by Apple’s monopoly of research tools.”

A company spokesman stopped short of pointing fingers at the West, however.

“We cannot speculate on the connection between any specific individuals or groups and the cyber attacks that have taken place,” the spokesman said. “As a cybersecurity vendor, our job is to do technical attribution and to analyse attacks.”

Identifying the culprits behind such cyber attacks is difficult, made more so by the inherently murky world of online disruptions.

Dr Lukasz Olejnik, an independent geopolitical researcher, voices what some Western cyber industry sources will only hint at when it comes to cyberattacks targeting Russian companies: “We cannot rule out involvement of Western state cyber operators, or Ukrainian services – none of this would be disclosed during this war, though.

“Western states are guaranteed to be active,” he adds, “but they would rather focus on efficient uses of such activities, not flashy defacements or data leaks… Some of [that] is surely done by ‘amateur’ hackers.”

Rafe Pilling, director of cyber security company Secureworks’ counter threat unit, says that verifying claims of who hacked what in a country like Russia is fraught with problems.

“You can check if someone claimed to be taking something down in advance or you can check if it was unavailable [beforehand] but even that can be somewhat difficult,” he says.

“In the same way that for a period of time where any IT outage in the West was a Russian cyber attack, I imagine there’s a similar climate either existing or developing inside Russia, in relation to these groups,” Pilling adds. 

Ransomware is the main threat to Russian companies, according to Kaspersky – a finding that mirrors the trend seen in the UK and US, where the main threat comes from Russian-speaking cyber gangs wielding the malicious software to scramble their targets’ computer systems.

Customer requests to unscramble files encrypted by ransomware in January 2023 alone reached fever pitch, “exceeding half of the requests from the entire last [three months] of 2022,” the company said.

Whoever is behind the ongoing digital assaults on Russia, one thing is plain: while the country may have once been seen as a cyber aggressor, the last year has shown it is just as vulnerable as the West.

​

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com