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"The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances." 

- Aristotle

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." 

- George Bernard Shaw

1. Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher P. Maier Addresses Crucial Role of Irregular Warfare at the Semi-Annual Irregular Warfare Forum

2. Irregular Warfare Implementation Guidance (SECDEF MEMO)

3. The War for Ukraine: Exploring the first 18 months of the war by Mick Ryan

4. FDD Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: December

5. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 5, 2023

6. Senate approves hundreds of military promotions after Republican senator ends blockade of nominees

7. The morality of ending war short of 'total victory'

8. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, December 5, 2023

9. Was Henry Kissinger Really a Realist?

10. War Has Changed, and the Army’s Conceptualization of Operational Art Must Follow Suit

11. You Can’t Win Without (More) Submarines

12. Corporations Are Juicy Targets for Foreign Disinformation

13. Why Xi Wants Trump to Win

14. Russia Rejects ‘Significant Proposal’ to Trade for WSJ’s Gershkovich, Whelan, U.S. Says

15. Learning from Real Wars: Gaza and Ukraine

16. Resolute Dragon: Reassurance, Deterrence, and a Call for Coordination

17. The American Way of Economic War

18. Israel’s Failed Bombing Campaign in Gaza

19. China’s paranoid purge

20. Flooding Hamas tunnels could harm Gaza’s freshwater for generations, warns academic

21. Is Gen Z turning against Western civilisation?

1. Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher P. Maier Addresses Crucial Role of Irregular Warfare at the Semi-Annual Irregular Warfare Forum

A very well attended event today (more than 200) with a very diverse audience from across the joint force, the interagency, academia, and industry/private sector. It is a very worthwhile and well run conference (plus I have been able to see a lot of old friends I have not seen in awhile).

Unfortunately it is being held under the Chatham House rule though because the ASD SO/LIC's comments are described below we can comment on them. Since I cannot report on what was said I will report on what was not said and I will share the questions that I asked.

First what was not said: Political Warfare. What the ASD SO/LIC describes below is Political Warfare as defined by George Kennan in 1948. Kennan outlined US government strategy and activities in the gray zone of strategic competition during the Cold War. Its information component helped win the ideological war and the economic competent helped with the economic war (though as many have noted it is likely that the USSR collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions). Political Warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz short of war to achieve US objectives. (Kennan's publically full Policy Planning Staff memo is pasted below. - If we are going to be serious about campaigning in the gray zone of strategic competition we should pay close attention to Kennan's memo to inform our thinking.)

As we wrestle with definitions and concepts and roles and missions let me offer this construct . Political warfare is conducted in the gray zone of strategic competition. Irregular warfare is the military contribution to political warfare. And rather than focus on "edn states" in our IW campaigns we should focus on achieving the acceptable durable political arrangement that will sustain, protect, and advance US strategic interests.

Let me share my questions the Secretary:

1. IW campaigning

The NDS recognizes the importance of strategic competition, integrated deterrence , enduring advantage, and Campaigning.

- Who is responsible for developing IW proficient campaign HQ? Or IW proficient Interagency joint task forces?

- What are those HQs?

- What IW campaign plans are currently being executed?

2. IW Champion or your IW Patron.

All major IW related advancements since WWII have been the result of leadership FDR/Donovan and the OSS/ McLure PSYWAR and SF; JFK Green Berets, SEALS and the Peace Corps; Raegan and the rebuilding of SOF; Nunn Cohen and USSOCOM, the late BG Frank Toney and the reestablishment of UW prior to 9-11. Who in the US government is the champion for IW ? Who can realize the intent of Nunn Cohen to have a coherent approach to what they called low intensity conflict1 which is today's IW?

Who is your patron for IW? Who in DOD, who in the USG, who in Congress?  

In my opinion unless we have IW proficient campaign HQ. we will not campaign well. And the only way to really advance IW thinking to ensure acceptance of IW and in DOD and the interagency is to have a high level patron.

Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher P. Maier Addresses Crucial Role of Irregular Warfare at the Semi-Annual Irregular Warfare Forum

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Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Christopher P. Maier, delivered a keynote address at the semi-annual Irregular Warfare (IW) Forum.

The event, co-hosted by the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and the National Defense University College of International Security Affairs, convened leaders from diverse sectors to discuss critical IW policy, doctrine, training, and education in the context of strategic competition.

In his remarks, Secretary Maier emphasized the pivotal role of IW in achieving national security objectives. He underscored how IW enables a whole-of-government approach during competition, supporting both campaigning and deterrence—core principles outlined in the National Defense Strategy.

Drawing from two decades of experience collaborating with interagency colleagues on counterterrorism and stabilization operations, Secretary Maier highlighted the importance of layering effects to maximize impact.

The forum provided a platform for leaders across the military, government, business, and academia to engage in robust discussions. Secretary Maier's insights aligned with the broader efforts led by the Joint Staff's Director for Joint Force Development, Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, to realign IW policy with the 2022 National Defense Strategy.

As part of a suite of DoD implementation guidance documents, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III published the Irregular Warfare Implementation Guidance, , now the cornerstone of this effort to integrate IW across the DoD's plans and capabilities. The guidance signifies a substantial reorientation of the department's direction and intent regarding IW.

This effort aligns with the department's focus on customizing deterrence and optimizing coordination both within and outside the department, as outlined in the National Defense Strategy. For Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, this involves ensuring that both conventional and special operations forces participate in IW planning and campaigning to achieve the strategic objectives set forth in the National Defense Strategy.

Read the Secretary of Defense's memo on the Irregular Warfare Implementation Guidance here.

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269. Policy Planning Staff Memorandum

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel/d269

The Problem

The inauguration of organized political warfare.

Analysis

1. Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine in time of peace. In broadest definition, political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures 

[Page 669]

(as ERP), and “white” propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of “friendly” foreign elements, “black” psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.

2. The creation, success, and survival of the British Empire has been due in part to the British understanding and application of the principles of political warfare. Lenin so synthesized the teachings of Marx and Clausewitz that the Kremlin’s conduct of political warfare has become the most refined and effective of any in history. We have been handicapped however by a popular attachment to the concept of a basic difference between peace and war, by a tendency to view war as a sort of sporting context outside of all political context, by a national tendency to seek for a political cure-all, and by a reluctance to recognize the realities of international relations—the perpetual rhythm of [struggle, in and out of war.]¹

3. This Government has, of course, in part consciously and in part unconsciously, been conducting political warfare. Aggressive Soviet political warfare has driven us overtly first to the Truman Doctrine, next to ERP, then to sponsorship of Western Union [1–1/2 lines of source text not declassified]. This was all political warfare and should be recognized as such.

4. Understanding the concept of political warfare, we should also recognize that there are two major types of political warfare—one overt and the other covert. Both, from their basic nature, should be directed and coordinated by the Department of State. Overt operations are, of course, the traditional policy activities of any foreign office enjoying positive leadership, whether or not they are recognized as political warfare. Covert operations are traditional in many European chancelleries but are relatively unfamiliar to this Government.

5. Having assumed greater international responsibilities than ever before in our history and having been engaged by the full might of the Kremlin’s political warfare, we cannot afford to leave unmobilized our resources for covert political warfare. We cannot afford in the future, in perhaps more serious political crises, to scramble into impromptu covert operations [1 line of source text not declassified].

6. It was with all of the foregoing in mind that the Policy Planning Staff began some three months ago² a consideration of specific projects in 

[Page 670]

the field of covert operations, where they should be fitted into the structure of this Government, and how the Department of State should exercise direction and coordination.

7. There are listed below projects which have been or are now being suggested by the Staff:

a. Liberation Committees.

Purpose: To encourage the formation of a public American organization which will sponsor selected political refugee committees so that they may (a) act as foci of national hope and revive a sense of purpose among political refugees from the Soviet World; (b) provide an inspiration for continuing popular resistance within the countries of the Soviet World; and (c) serve as a potential nucleus for all-out liberation movements in the event of war.

Description: This is primarily an overt operation which, however, should receive covert guidance and possibly assistance from the Government. It is proposed that trusted private American citizens be encouraged to establish a public committee which would give support and guidance in U.S. interests to national movements (many of them now in existence) publicly led by outstanding political refugees from the Soviet World, such as Mikolajczyk and Nagy. The American Committee should be so selected and organized as to cooperate closely with this Government. The functions of the American Committee should be limited to enabling selected refugee leaders [to keep alive as public figures with access to printing presses and microphones. It should not engage in underground activities.]³

What is proposed here is an operation in the traditional American form: organized public support of resistance to tyranny in foreign countries. Throughout our history, private American citizens have banded together to champion the cause of freedom for people suffering under oppression.(The Communists and Zionists have exploited this tradition to the extreme, to their own ends and to our national detriment, as witness the Abraham Lincoln brigade during the Spanish Civil War and the current illegal Zionist activities.) Our proposal is that this tradition be revived specifically to further American national interests in the present crisis.

[1 heading and 2 paragraphs (21–1/2 lines of source text) not declassified]

c. Support of Indigenous Anti-Communist Elements in Threatened Countries of the Free World.

Purpose: To strengthen indigenous forces combatting communism in countries where Soviet political warfare is a threat to our national security.

[Page 671]

Description: This is a covert operation again utilizing private intermediaries. To insure cover, the private American organizations conducting the operation should be separate from the organizations mentioned in previous projects. [3 lines of source text not declassified] This project is a matter of urgency because the communists are reported to be planning the disruption of ERP through labor disturbances in France. [2 lines of source text not declassified]

d. Preventive Direct Action in Free Countries.

Purpose: Only in cases of critical necessity, to resort to direct action to prevent vital installations, other material, or personnel from being (1) sabotaged or liquidated or (2) captured intact by Kremlin agents or agencies.

Description: This covert operation involves, for example, (1) control over anti-sabotage activities in the Venezuelan oil fields, (2) American sabotage of Near Eastern oil installations on the verge of Soviet capture, and (3) designation of key individuals threatened by the Kremlin who should be protected or removed elsewhere.

8. It would seem that the time is now fully ripe for the creation of a covert political warfare operations directorate within the Government. If we are to engage in such operations, they must be under unified direction. One man must be boss. And he must, as those responsible for the overt phases of political warfare, be answerable to the Secretary of State, who directs the whole in coordination.

9. [6–1/2 lines of source text not declassified]

10. The National Security Council Secretariat would seem to provide the best possible cover for such a directorate. Such cover would also permit a direct chain of command from the Secretary of State and be a natural meeting ground for close collaboration with the military establishment.

Recommendations

11. There should promptly be established, under the cover of the National Security Council Secretariat, a directorate of political warfare operations to be known as the Consultative (or Evaluation) Board of the National Security Council.

12. The Director should be designated by the Secretary of State and should be responsible to him.

13. The Director should have initially a staff of 4 officers designated by the Department of State and 4 officers designated by the Secretary of National Defense.

14. The Board should have complete authority over covert political warfare operations conducted by this Government. It should have the authority to initiate new operations and to bring under its control or abolish existing covert political warfare activities.

[Page 672]

15. Specifically, (a) the four projects mentioned in paragraph 7 above should be activated by the Board and (b) covert political warfare now under CIA and theater commanders abroad should be brought under the authority of the Board.

16. The coordination of the above covert operations with the overt conduct of foreign policy should, of course, be accomplished through the offices of the Secretary and Under Secretary of State.

1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, NSC 10/2. Top Secret. No drafting information appears on the source text. An earlier, similar version, April 30, is ibid., RG 59, Records of the Department of State, Policy Planning Staff Files 1944–47: Lot 64 D 563, Box 11. The Policy Planning Staff minutes for May 3 state: “There was a discussion of the Planning Staff Memorandum of April 30, 1948 on the inauguration of organized political warfare. This paper was generally approved and Mr. Kennan will present it tomorrow for discussion at a meeting of NSC consultants.” (Ibid., Box 32)↩
2. Although the following page of the source text indicates in an unidentified hand that 3 lines were missing from the bottom of the previous page, a comparison with the April 30 version of the memorandum cited in the source note above identified that only the 6 words in brackets were missing.↩
3. Although the following page of the source text indicates that 3 lines were missing from the bottom of the previous page, a comparison with the April 30 version of the memorandum cited in the source note above finds that no words were missing.↩
4. The words in brackets were taken from the April 30 version; see footnote 1 above.↩

2.  Irregular Warfare Implementation Guidance (SECDEF MEMO)

This was linked in the DOD press release today regarding the ASD SO/LIC's remarks at the IW Forum. I wish I had seen this memo before the Forum. The memo was signed 31 August but was cleared for release on 1 DEC 2023. 

It can be accessed in PDF at this link: https://media.defense.gov/2023/Dec/05/2003352079/-1/-1/0/24-P-0155-RESPONSE.PDF

Of course the important information is in the classified document.  So it looks to me like the SECDEF has pinned the half IW rose on ASD SO/LIC as the co-chair of the IW Executive Steering Committee. He pinned the other half of the rose on the Joint Staff Director for Joint Force development.\

In 2022 I was asked to conduct a review of the 3000.7 and other DOD that could have a relationship to IW. Below the memo I have pasted my recommendations.

The memo calls for an update to DODD 3000.7. Here is a chart I made from the original DODD 3000.7 in 2007/2008 to try to explain the relationship of UW and IW and the other "IW activities."  Since the graphic will not come through on all servers it can be downloaded at the link. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zN77GjhLRRz6r-_fUFo7-i5OtOJP2ahw/view?usp=sharing

CLEARED

For Open Publication SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

1000 DEFENSE PENTAGON

Dec 01, 2023     WASHINGTON. DC 20301-1000

Department of Defense

OFFICE OF PREPUBLICATION AND SECURITY REVIEW

MEMORANDUM FOR SENIOR PENTAGON LEADERSHIP

AUG 3 1 2023

COMMANDERS OF THE COMBAT ANT COMMANDS DEFENSE AGENCY AND DOD FIELD ACTIVITY DIRECTORS

SUBJECT: Irregular Warfare Implementation Guidance

Irregular Warfare (IW) is a critical tool for the Department of Defense to campaign across the spectrum of conflict, enhance interoperability and access, and disrupt competitor warfighting advantages while reinforcing our own. It is an essential piece of the Department's contribution to whole-of-government activities to deter, prepare for, and prevail during conflict. In this effort the Irregular Warfare Implementation Guidance (IWIG) is an important step towards better coordination of our efforts with those of our interagency stakeholders, allies, and partners.

The IWIG represents an evolution in how the Department conceptualizes and executes IW - refocusing our strategy and force design from the complexities of counterterrorism to the realities of an intricate and competitive security environment. The challenge of deterring two major nuclear powers adept at gray zone operations -    the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation - demands this transformational approach. Therefore, I hereby issue the attached IWIG in order to provide Department-wide direction for conceptualizing, institutionalizing, and operationalizing IW across the Joint Force.

The Irregular Warfare Executive Steering Committee (IW ESC) serves as the principal forum for coordinating and integrating IW matters. Co-chaired by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict and the Joint Staff Director for Joint Force Development, the IW ESC is hereby designated as a supporting tier governance forum in accordance with Department of Defense Directive 5105.79, "DoD Senior Governance Framework." I direct the co-chairs to establish a charter for the IW ESC.

Recommendations from the IW ESC, in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD(P)) and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will be periodically briefed to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and, as appropriate, be brought before the Deputy's Management Action Group for consideration.

The USD(P), in coordination with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of Administration and Management, and other appropriate Components, will update Department of Defense Directive 3000.07, "Irregular Warfare" to reflect the changes in the IWIG and my direction above.

Attachment: As stated

UNCLASSIFIED when separated from Attachment

24-P-0155

Irregular Warfare input to DOD instructions, etc.

Planning:

(3000.7 needs a more thorough description of Irregular Warfare campaign planning.)

Irregular warfare is executed through campaigning. An irregular warfare campaign shall generally consist of the following elements:

·     in support of predetermined United States policy and military objectives (outcome-based approach)

·     conducted by, with, and through regular forces, irregular forces, groups, and individuals (activities-based approach)

·     conducted by the joint force and other government agencies in strategic competition among state and non-state actors (functions-based approach)

·     short of traditional armed conflict with particular emphasis on operations in the information environment (OIE) across the spectrum of competition and conflict. (environment based)

An irregular warfare campaign should identify resources and authorities required. Any new authorities to conduct specified activities must be identified and requested through the campaign approval process.

Irregular warfare campaigns will consist of any combination of the following IW focused operations and activities: Unconventional Warfare (UW), Foreign Internal Defense (FID), Counterterrorism (CT), Counterinsurgency (COIN), Stability Operations (SO), Countering Threat Networks (CTN) which includes Counter Threat Finance (CTF) and Counter Transnational Organized Crime (CTOC), Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) to include Psychological Operations (PSYOP) and Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Civil Affairs Operations (CAO), and those military engagement activities (which include aspects of security cooperation, civil-military operations, and interorganizational cooperation) that support IW. IW campaigns rely on operations in the information environment, often as the main effort.

All irregular warfare activities may be conducted during large scale combat operations in support of the overall campaign plan.

3000.7 needs more detail on Resistance. Given the Ukraine situation (and eventually Taiwan and any country threated by the Belt and Road Initiative from the PRC, a resistance operating concept may be appropriate).

Two key interrelated concepts for IW in the 21^st century operating environment that are key to countering threats from revisionist and rogue powers and authoritarian regimes are the Resistance Operating Concept (ROC) and Unconventional Deterrence (UD). Theater Commanders will assess the requirement for and viability of employing these concepts to support national and military objectives. These concepts may form the basis of designated IW campaigns.

Resistance Operating Concept: actions that a sovereign state can take to broaden its national defense strategy and prepare to defend itself against a partial or full loss of national sovereignty.

Unconventional Deterrence: actions to harden populations and militaries of friends, partners, and allies to resist the malign influence of revisionist, rogue, and revolutionary powers, and violent extremist organizations and to deter authoritarian leaders from threatening sovereign nations due to the popular resistance that will arise.

3000.7

Irregular warfare Integration (PME and policy, plans, and strategy)

The Functional Center for Irregular Warfare Security Studies (per SEC.1299L of the 2021 NDAA) shall serve as the irregular warfare integrator for all PME institutions as well as conduct liaison with educational and training programs of other government agencies. It will ensure PME institutions have access to educational resources to ensure all services integrate irregular warfare education and training into their curriculum. The Center will execute the following tasks in support to the Department:

1. Research and Analysis: Assessments of the threat posed by state and non-state competitors and the adequacy of current U.S. efforts to compete, including an annual report provided to the Department of Defense. Both historical and potential future applications of irregular warfare will be studied to assess the myriad potential roles of U.S. government, civil society, and the private sector and how the United States might best leverage innovation and technology to secure and advance its interests.

1. Policy and Strategy: Provide recommendations to the Department of Defense and when directed to the National Security Council, Congress, and U.S. departments and agencies on needed concepts, policies, strategies, doctrine, and structures for success in irregular warfare.

1. Education: The Center will create, coordinate for, and provide instruction for practitioners of irregular warfare from within the U.S. government and for allied and partner nations.

1. Network: The Center will coordinate with the well-established community of interest, comprised of current and former practitioners, policymakers, analysts, academics, business leaders and other members of the private sector, and researchers engaged in supporting the Center’s core functions, advancing the study and practice of irregular warfare, and sharing lessons learned through networking engagements (domestic and with international partners), public events, and scholarly research. This community of interest would include a bipartisan network of fellows; formal and informal partnerships with civil society; formal and informal partnerships with the private sector given their myriad roles in irregular warfare (e.g., innovation, technology, cyber and information operations).

3000.7 Training and Readiness

IW training must be outcome based. Service and joint training centers, and physical and virtual training must incorporate outcome based IW training.

All services and combatant must incorporate irregular warfare into wargaming. Conventional wargames must include irregular warfare concepts. Services and combatant commands must conduct stand alone irregular warfare wargaming to support irregular warfare campaign plan development.

In order to ensure proficiency in Irregular warfare campaign planning and execution compulsory irregular warfare education is required for commanders and staffs responsible for planning, leading, and executing irregular warfare campaigns. USSOCOM will determine the compulsory education requirements for the Services and Combatant Commands. While all DOD organizations and operational units must maintain proficiency in irregular warfare, task forces that are organized, trained, and equipped for irregular warfare campaign planning and execution leaders and staff properly educated in the requisite compulsory IW education curriculum.

3000.7 IW readiness reporting.

Service and joint readiness reporting must include the follow areas for IW specific reporting.

           Assessment capabilities: units conducting irregular warfare must possess ability to assess conditions in specific countries from the tactical to the strategic and across the elements of national power to identity IW threats and the ability to counter them. Theater and Joint force commanders must have forces with the capability to conduct in depth and on-going assessments in designated countries. If a commander does not have an organic capability, they must request the capability.

Operational Design: forces responsible for conducting irregular warfare at the task force level and above must be proficient in operational design.

Operations in the Information environment: All units supporting irregular warfare campaigns must maintain proficiency in operations in the information environment.

Advisory skills: Unites conducting irregular warfare must possess organize advisory assistance expertise and the ability to work through with, and by indigenous forces and populations.

Language and culture. Organizations conducting irregular warfare must possess sufficient langue capability and culture expertise to support irregular warfare campaigns.

In coordination with the Services, ASD SO/LIC will determine the methodology to assess irregular warfare readiness.

DODD 5100.01

Services, USSOCOM, DSCA: Resourcing, Funding, and Logistics

Non-standard logistics and support to indigenous forces and populations. Identify gaps and eliminate obstacles and deficiencies in the Security Assistance process to enhance the speed of delivery of logistics support to indigenous forces and populations in support irregular warfare campaigns. Align actions and authorities under Title 10 and Title 22 to effectively support irregular warfare campaigns.

DODD 5100.01

Personnel Management

In coordination with the Services, USSOCOM will develop personnel policies to allow personnel with select IW capabilities to PCS to remote areas for long duration while remaining assigned to their parent organization to ensure operational continuity and long term professional development.

Force Management

In coordination with the Combatant Commands USSOCOM will seek opportunities to establish permanent SOF detachments with cross functional teams in overseas locations to optimize USSOCOM’s ability to plan and execute long term irregular warfare campaigns in support of the National Defense Strategy.

(e.g., historic examples: DET-A Berlin, 46^th Company Thailand, The Taiwan SF Resident Detachment, and the Korea Special Forces Detachment Korea (DET 39).)

DODD 5100.01 and 3000.7

USSOCOM: Lead DOD effort for operations in the information environment. Provide distance learning and in residence education to Combatant Commands, Services, Professional Military Institutions (PME), and other government agencies to develop service wide expertise in strategic influence through information advantage that allows the U.S. the conduct effective operations in the information in environment in support of strategic competition and operations across the spectrum of conflict. 

DODD 5100.01 and 3000.7

USSOCOM: Provide trained and ready joint force headquarters that are interagency capable, to plan, conduct, and lead irregular warfare campaigns. 

Services and Combatant Commands will provide via OPCON or attachment appropriate forces and provide the full spectrum of enabling support to USSOCOM led irregular warfare campaign plans.

ASD SO/LIC will coordinate with the Services and Agencies to ensure appropriate policies are established to support USSOCOM irregular warfare campaigns. These include personnel, force management, intelligence, and logistics support.

5100.01, 3000.7 and 3000.05 (Stabilization) USSOCOM will provide education and training on operations in the information environment to support the full range of military operations with an emphasis strategic influence through information advantage.

DODD 3000.6 needs to be rewritten IA the forthcoming JP 3-04 Information in Joint Operations. Terminology and concepts must be updated.

Recommended inclusions:

USSOCOM will provide appropriate information task forces to support strategic influence through information advantage to irregular warfare campaigns and large scale combat operations.

(Note insert into 3000.7 and 5100.01 as well)

USSOCOM: Lead DOD effort for education in operations in the information environment. Provide distance learning and in residence education to Combatant Commands, Services, Professional Military Institutions (PME), and other government agencies to develop service wide expertise in strategic influence through information advantage that allows the U.S. the conduct effective operations in the information in environment in support of strategic competition and operation operations across the spectrum of conflict. 

The following need major rewrites. These should all be nested under security cooperation and written to include contributing to irregular warfare campaigns.

 DOD DIRECTIVE 5205.82 DEFENSE INSTITUTION BUILDING (DIB)

DOD DIRECTIVE 5000.68 Security Force Assistance (SFA)

No IW specific recommendations for DODD 3000.03E DoD Executive Agent for Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW), and NLW Policy

There is no mention of Irregular warfare in DODD 5160.41E Defense Language, Regional Expertise, and Culture (LREC) Program.

It should include at least the following statement:

Language and cultural understanding and expertise are critical to support to irregular warfare campaigns. In addition to formal language training in DOD institutions, the Services, Combatant Commands, and USSOCOM shall seek opportunities for personnel with the identified aptitude to conduct long term immersion programs that will enhance language and cultural skills while simultaneously developing relationships that can support future irregular warfare campaigns. 

3. The War for Ukraine: Exploring the first 18 months of the war by Mick Ryan

Excerpts:

It is imperative that Western governments, military leaders and public officials learn the lessons from the war in Ukraine. Even though the end of the war remains hidden from us, we cannot afford to wait until then to begin the learning process. This book, hopefully, will contribute to the growing literature about the war and its lessons for contemporary leaders and strategists.

Once I have a confirmed publication date, I will ensure it is published here as well as on my various social media feeds. This book, based on research trips to Ukraine, interviews, many conversations and much research, will hopefully be useful to military and government officials, academics, think tankers and the public.

The war in Ukraine has led to several important transformations in the character of war. I hope the book might help us to better assist Ukraine to win the war, and to ensure Western military institutions are better prepared intellectually, morally, and physically for the challenges of the 21^st century.

The War for Ukraine

Exploring the first 18 months of the war

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-war-for-ukraine?utm

MICK RYAN

DEC 5, 2023

1

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Image: CNN

This is the story of part of a war. It is only part of a war because, at least when this manuscript was completed, the war in Ukraine that was the result of Russia’s invasion of February 2022 remained an active conflict. It is part of a war because, as with all wars, there are many things about it, even in this age of social media and greater battlefield transparency, that are yet to be revealed.

Mick Ryan, The War for Ukraine (2024)

Over the last few days, besides keeping up with events in Ukraine, Gaza and the Western Pacific (my daily strategic scan), I have been busy reviewing the copy edits for my next book. The subject of the book is the war in Ukraine. Tentatively, it will be called The War for Ukraine, and will be published in 2024 by US Naval Institute Press (who also published my 2022 book, War Transformed).

As my quote above notes, the book tells part of the story of a war that is still underway. In such circumstances, one has to decide which part of the war’s chronology to cover, and where the story must end (for the time being at least). Therefore, my forthcoming book explores the period from the beginning of the Russian large-scale invasion in February 2022 through to 2023 NATO Summit in Vilnius, during which the initial phase of the Ukrainian 2023 counteroffensive was being executed.

The central hypothesis of my forthcoming book is that like many wars, there is an array of factors that have impacted on the course of this war. But there are two factors that I propose have been of overriding importance. These two factors, which provide the framework for my exploration of the war, are strategy and adaptation. It is these two areas where the differences between the approach of the Ukrainians and Russians in this war have been most stark. And arguably, it is these two areas where Ukraine has at times developed an asymmetric advantage over Russia.

Strategy

Part One of my book is focused on strategy.

The word “strategy” entered the modern European lexicon in the 1770s. The source was the publication of a translation of the Byzantine emperor Leo VI’s Taktiká, by French officer Paul Gédéon Joly de Maizeroy. The translated work included descriptions of strategía. This word was translated as stratégie, and by the early 1800s, European military theorists were using the word “strategy.” Used to describe the higher arts of military planning in early 19^th century Europe, strategy has since then transformed in theory and practice.

Since the beginning of the 20^th century, the application and meaning of strategy has evolved. Originally applied to the preparation of military organizations for war, it is a word now associated with larger national pursuits, particularly in the wake of the total wars of the twentieth century. And it used across other endeavors not related to national security. Most businesses now have corporate strategies, and it is a word that is used very widely across many of human endeavors.

Sir Lawrence Freedman, an eminent scholar who literally wrote the book on strategy, observes in Strategy: A History that strategy “only really comes into play when elements of conflict are present.” Conflict was present in the lead-up to the war and in the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. And it has existed throughout the war in Ukraine.

There is an important reason that the first part of this book is about strategy. The war in Ukraine offers academics, politicians, military leaders, and civil servants many different observations on the development and execution of strategy from the perspectives of the Ukrainians, Russians, Americans, and others. There are a range of examples of effective strategy development and its implementation from the war in Ukraine since 2022. There are also examples of poor strategy, and terrible execution of strategy.

Russian strategy has been explored by a multitude of government analysts as well as experts in academia and think tanks throughout the Cold War, into the post–Cold War era, and now in what some have described as the post-post–Cold War era. There is a significant body of literature that explores Soviet and Russian strategy over the past seven decades, including nuclear strategy, conventional warfare, and its strategy for confrontation with the West.

Ukrainian strategy in this war has shallower roots. While it possesses a culture and history that extends back centuries, in the modern era it has been a sovereign nation only since 1991. It has only had three decades to develop its contemporary strategy culture and approach to strategy. Despite this, Ukraine has demonstrated an adroit capacity for strategic thinking and action since the Russian 2022 invasion.

The aim of this first part of the book is to explore the Russian and Ukrainian strategy as it has been used since February 2022. Across seven chapters, the Ukrainian and Russian development of strategy, and how their strategies have evolved, will be explored. Part of the exploration of strategy in my book will be the role of leadership. Strategy and leadership are intertwined. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of one without the other in modern war. The role of civil-military relations is also covered, although I think the examination of Ukrainian and Russian civ-mil relations during the war could be an entire book by itself.

The final chapter in the strategy part of my book provides observations for contemporary strategists. While not a checklist, these observations are a collection of issues that will be of import to current and future strategists. The issues raised in this chapter also provide the starting point for further examination of the strategic elements of this war, and how they might apply to future warfare.

Adaptation

The second part of The War for Ukraine explores the concept and practice of adaptation as it has occurred throughout the war since February 2022.

No government, military organization, or business institution is able to predict the future with any certainty. While trends can be utilized to prepare for “most likely” and “most dangerous” future scenarios, every human organization is surprised to some degree about how future events play out. This has unquestionably been the case for this war as well. Indeed, surprise is an important continuity in all wars, and this war has been no different. The Russians were surprised by the level of Ukrainian resistance and Western support for Ukraine. This necessitated Russian adaptation to their military campaign, where and how their forces fought, and their global narratives about the war.

Many have been surprised by the viciousness of the Russian onslaught—its destructiveness as well as the Russian human wave and Storm tactics, as well as the wide-scale use of Iranian drones against critical infrastructure. But the Ukrainians, facing an existential threat, have demonstrated a learning culture at different levels that not only blunted the Russian invasion in the early days of the war but has also seen them constantly adapt at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels over the course of the war.

This second part of my book examines how Ukrainian and Russian military reforms before the war provided a foundation for their respective adaptive stances during the war. Both nations had undertaken institutional level reforms of their military and national security enterprises in the decade leading up to this war. But because the emergent behavior of military forces after fighting begins cannot be fully predicted, these prewar reforms only form a start point for adaptation during the war.

After examining the intellectual and organisational foundations for Ukrainian and Russian adaptation, the remaining chapters in this part of my book are dedicated to exploring tactical, operational, and strategic Ukrainian and Russian adaptation. There are a myriad of case studies of innovation and change from this war. However, not all innovation results in battlefield success, and this is an important lesson from the war.

Wars are ultimately human endeavors. While machines and information are vital elements in human competition and war, it is humans who decide how these are used, where, when, and in what organizational constructs that ultimately decide victory and defeat. And even if humans now might have their decisions informed and improved by big data and artificial intelligence, humans remain the heart and soul of every government and military system. They drive how institutions learn and adapt.

The final chapter in the adaptation part of my book is a collection of insights and lessons for military and other organizations about institutional learning and adaptation. These are relevant as they can inform our views on the future of war and competition, and how military institutions might prepare for such conflicts.

The War for Ukraine

It is imperative that Western governments, military leaders and public officials learn the lessons from the war in Ukraine. Even though the end of the war remains hidden from us, we cannot afford to wait until then to begin the learning process. This book, hopefully, will contribute to the growing literature about the war and its lessons for contemporary leaders and strategists.

Once I have a confirmed publication date, I will ensure it is published here as well as on my various social media feeds. This book, based on research trips to Ukraine, interviews, many conversations and much research, will hopefully be useful to military and government officials, academics, think tankers and the public.

The war in Ukraine has led to several important transformations in the character of war. I hope the book might help us to better assist Ukraine to win the war, and to ensure Western military institutions are better prepared intellectually, morally, and physically for the challenges of the 21^st century.

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4. FDD Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: December

December 5, 2023 | FDD Tracker: November 2, 2023-December 5, 2023

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/12/05/biden-administration-foreign-policy-tracker-december-3/?utm

Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: December

John Hardie

Russia Program Deputy Director

Trend Overview

By John Hardie

Welcome back to the Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker. Once a month, we ask FDD’s experts and scholars to assess the administration’s foreign policy. They provide trendlines of very positive, positive, neutral, negative, or very negative for the areas they watch.

President Joe Biden initially offered emphatic support for Israel following the October 7 massacre. But, nearly two months into Israel’s war against Hamas, cracks in U.S. support have emerged. U.S. military assistance continues to flow to Israel, and administration officials say they are not pursuing conditions on that aid, despite calls from some Democrats. The administration is, however, publicly pressuring Jerusalem to curtail civilian casualties as Israeli forces shift their focus to southern Gaza. Israeli media say the Biden team is pushing Israel to bring the war to a close. Separately, the administration continues to provide sanctions relief to Iran and has not responded forcefully to ongoing attacks against U.S. forces by Tehran-backed militias.

On Ukraine, the administration continues to promise that the United States will support Kyiv “for as long as it takes.” But if Washington is to keep that promise, Congress must act. As lawmakers debate a potential Ukraine aid bill, the administration warned that it is “out of money—and nearly out of time.”

Biden met with China’s Xi Jinping when the latter attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. The administration, hoping to put a floor under deteriorating U.S.-China relations, came away with Chinese promises but few tangible commitments.

Check back next month to see how the administration deals with these and other challenges.

Trending Neutral

Trending Negative

Trending Very Negative

Cyber

Defense

Europe and Russia

Syria

China

Gulf

Indo-Pacific

Israel

Latin America

Sunni Jihadism

Turkey

International Organizations

Iran

Korea

Lebanon

Nonproliferation and Biodefense

CHINA

Craig Singleton

China Program Deputy Director and Senior Fellow

Trending Negative

Previous Trend:

Negative

After not speaking to one another for nearly a year, President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. Overall, the Biden administration conceded more than it gained during the engagement, with Xi signaling plans to maintain a confrontational, zero-sum approach toward Washington. Ominously, Xi warned reunification with Taiwan must “move towards resolution.” Xi’s remarks denote growing Chinese dissatisfaction with the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, which could augur Chinese plans to pursue ever-bolder actions to thwart perceived Taiwanese separatism.

Meanwhile, in a bid to secure China’s cooperation in curbing fentanyl flows into the United States, the Biden administration removed sanctions on the Chinese Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science, which has been implicated in alleged abuses against Uyghurs and other minority groups in China. The administration granted this concession even though China has not demonstrated any serious commitment to curtailing illicit drug shipments, potentially leading Beijing to believe it can secure other meaningful concessions from Washington at little to no cost.

The two countries also announced a resumption of some military-to-military channels, although history suggests China will not employ these exchanges to mitigate accident risks. Indeed, mere days after the summit concluded, Chinese military vessels aggressively confronted the USS Hopper near the Paracel Islands, which China erroneously claims as its own. This latest incident, which coincided with Chinese defense officials’ refusal to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Indonesia, suggests military tensions will escalate further in the lead-up to Taiwan’s presidential election in January 2024.

CYBER

RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery

CCTI Senior Director and Senior Fellow

Michael Sugden

Research Analyst

Trending Neutral

Previous Trend:

Positive

President Biden signed an executive order intended to ensure consumer safety regarding artificial intelligence (AI). The order requires that major AI developers share their algorithmic test results, prevent malicious uses of AI, bolster their cybersecurity, and ensure civil rights protection when using algorithms.

The Department of the Navy released its cyber strategy, a valuable contribution by outgoing Principal Cyber Advisor Chris Cleary. The strategy outlines the department’s defensive priorities and efforts to improve the Navy’s cyber capabilities. This strategy incorporates the core tenets of the Navy’s Information Superiority Vision and the Cyberspace Superiority Vision.

Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo established a consultative body to discuss cyber issues, namely combatting North Korea’s use of cybercrime to finance its weapons of mass destruction programs. This formation builds upon a trilateral agreement, signed in August, to enhance strategic cooperation.

Overshadowing these positive developments, Iranian-backed hackers breached a number of U.S. water utilities. While not directly related, this came after shortly after the Environmental Protection Agency was forced to rescind a memorandum requiring state agencies to conduct more stringent cybersecurity assessments of water utilities. The administration and Congress need to develop a more effective and sustainable cybersecurity framework that supports small and underfunded water facilities, which currently have no guidance and are vulnerable to cyberattacks like the Iranian hacks.

Washington also concluded the Counter Ransomware Initiative Summit. The summit participants focused on building partner capacity, and some members pledged not to pay extortion demands. However, the pledge grants many loopholes and exceptions, making it more rhetoric than hard policy.

DEFENSE

Bradley Bowman

CMPP Senior Director

Trending Neutral

Previous Trend:

Positive

In November, the Biden administration continued to provide Israel a range of weapons to support its efforts in Gaza to destroy Hamas, the terrorist organization that massacred approximately 1,200 Israelis on October 7. The United States has provided air defense interceptors, precision-guided munitions, and a wide range of ammunition, equipment, and vehicles to support ground combat in Gaza.

Some on the far left have called for the White House to curtail or condition security assistance to Israel and apply pressure to permanently halt combat operations in Gaza. Thus far, the administration has admirably resisted doing so. Ending the war in Gaza before Hamas is decimated would be a gift to Iran and invite future attacks.

Meanwhile, Iran and its proxies continued to target U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. The administration’s responses were few and weak. The White House sought to avoid a regional war, but the predictable effect was simply more attacks on U.S. troops. The Houthis, Iran’s terror proxy in Yemen, escalated attacks on Israel and on vessels in the Red Sea. Again, the administration was slow to respond, leaving the Houthis with little incentive to stop.

The Pentagon announced an additional security assistance package for Ukraine on November 20 valued at $100 million. The relatively modest package reflects the fact that the administration is running out of money for Ukraine due to congressional inaction. In hopes of building congressional support for additional Ukraine funding, the Pentagon released an infographic highlighting how U.S. support for Ukraine has benefited American industry across 37 states.

EUROPE AND RUSSIA

John Hardie

Russia Program Deputy Director

Trending Neutral

Previous Trend:

Positive

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin traveled to Ukraine on November 20, seeking to “reassure” Kyiv that Washington “will continue to support Ukraine.” U.S. officials delivered similar messages at a Ukraine Defense Contact Group session, during meetings with a Ukrainian delegation to Washington, and at the NATO foreign ministerial in Belgium. The administration also announced it will host a conference in early December focused on U.S.-Ukraine defense-industrial cooperation.

Currently, however, it is up to Congress, not the executive branch, to determine whether U.S. support will continue. The administration has repeatedly implored Congress to pass another Ukraine aid bill, noting that much of this funding actually supports U.S. warfighters and America’s defense industry. The administration will run out of money to fund assistance for Kyiv by the year’s end, a U.S. official warned on Monday. Already, U.S. aid has slowed to a trickle. In October, Washington committed just $250 million in materiel drawn from U.S. stocks to meet Ukraine’s immediate battlefield needs. That figure dropped to $225 million in November — the lowest monthly total since Russia’s full-scale war began.

Meanwhile, Treasury issued sanctions packages penalizing entities and vessels that used Western services while facilitating Russian oil exports sold above the Western-imposed price cap of $60 per barrel. The packages follow a similar enforcement action in October. While positive, these designations do not address the price cap regime’s fundamental problem: Russia is now exporting most of its crude without using Western services, allowing it to sell for well above the cap and at a narrower discount.

GULF

Hussain Abdul-Hussain

Research Fellow

Trending Negative

Previous Trend:

Positive

The Biden administration continued to show Qatar gratitude for its role in brokering an interim deal between Israel and Hamas. The deal saw a temporary ceasefire, coupled with Hamas’s release of dozens of hostages it had taken during its unprovoked attack on Israel on October 7, while Israel released Palestinian prisoners in return. Doha is not worthy of any praise.

President Biden declared Qatar a Major Non-NATO Ally in January 2022, but Doha has been playing a duplicitous role: On the one hand, it hosts America’s biggest airbase in the Gulf region at al-Udeid. On the other, Qatar has supported Hamas to the tune of $120 million to $480 million a year. Qatar also hosts Hamas’s two top leaders, Khaled Meshaal and Ismail Haniyeh. Qatar had denied endorsing Hamas and argued that Israel signed off on whatever money it has funneled to the Gaza Strip or to Hamas.

Through its Al-Jazeera media network and other soft power arms, Doha has waged an information campaign demonizing Israel and the West and promoting Islamist groups around the region. For example, the channel was the first to amplify Hamas’s claim that Israel had struck Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital, killing 500 Palestinian civilians — an allegation that was later debunked. Al-Jazeera has also reported, without verification, Hamas’s unsubstantiated claims of losses inflicted on the Israeli military. In late October, Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked top Qatari officials to tone down Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the war. But its coverage has continued unchanged.

INDO-PACIFIC

Craig Singleton

China Program Deputy Director and Senior Fellow

Trending Negative

Previous Trend:

Neutral

Amid escalating tensions, China issued warnings this month against “pro-independence” forces in Taiwan, even resorting to explicit threats of war should the ruling Democratic People’s Party prevail in January’s presidential election. Yet, in a supplemental funding request to Congress, the administration sought a mere $2 billion for Taiwan’s defense, raising concerns about the administration’s urgency and seriousness in addressing Taiwan’s security needs. This meager figure, if left unchanged, could leave Taiwan unprepared to deter looming threats from the mainland.

Meanwhile, the administration is struggling to advance the trade “pillar” of its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, aimed at curbing China’s economic clout. The administration had hoped to complete key chapters of the trade agreement ahead of November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. But the agreement reportedly unraveled when the Biden administration yielded to eleventh-hour pressure from influential politicians, including Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who reportedly expressed concern that a new trade deal could hurt their electoral prospects in the upcoming year. This ordeal provides China with ample ammunition to assert that American politics are dysfunctional and that the United States lacks a coherent economic agenda for the Indo-Pacific.

Lastly, an unsealed indictment alleged that an Indian intelligence official ordered the assassination of a Sikh separatist in New York City. The filing follows similar allegations made by Canadian authorities in September. While the Biden administration has sought closer ties with India to counterbalance China, these allegations raise serious concerns about India’s commitment to the rule of law and could strain bilateral relations.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Richard Goldberg

Senior Advisor

Trending Very Negative

Previous Trend:

Neutral

November 2023 was the most damning month for the Biden administration’s UN strategy since taking office. In 2021, reversing Trump-era policies, the administration restored U.S. funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) and rejoined the UN Human Rights Council without first demanding fundamental reforms to root out anti-Israel bias in each agency. More recently, the administration rejoined UNESCO without first stopping the agency’s delegitimization of Jewish ties to Israel. Since January 2021, the administration also ignored recommendations to prohibit aid to any UN agency that sponsors, supports, enables, or engages in acts of antisemitism. Declaring that “America is back” at the UN, the administration argued it could better effect positive change from the inside.

Yet this past month, the Biden administration did almost nothing in the face of the worst UN-sponsored antisemitism in history. The UN secretary-general refused to condemn Hamas sexual violence for seven weeks, and the UN Women agency still will not. UNRWA, the WHO and the International Committee of the Red Cross may have covered up Hamas’s use of the Al-Shifa hospital as a terror headquarters. An Israeli taken hostage by Hamas reported having been held prisoner inside an UNRWA employee’s home. All the while, the UN “Human Rights” apparatus accused Israel of genocide.

The results of nearly three years of a failed UN strategy are on display for every U.S. taxpayer who foots the bill.

IRAN

Behnam Ben Taleblu

Senior Fellow

Richard Goldberg

Senior Advisor

Trending Very Negative

Previous Trend:

Very Negative

Iran-directed militias have reportedly conducted 74 attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since October 17. The Tehran-backed Houthis shot down a U.S. drone on November 8, and an Iranian drone later harassed a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Arabian Gulf. Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran is increasing production of highly enriched uranium while decreasing cooperation with the agency.

Nevertheless, the Biden administration continues to provide sanctions relief to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas’s chief terror sponsor, in hopes of moderating the regime’s behavior. The State Department renewed a modified sanctions waiver that gives Iran access to over $10 billion in previously escrowed electricity payments. The waiver also allows the regime to convert Iraqi dinars to euros to subsidize Iranian imports. Although the administration later imposed sanctions on more than 20 people and entities tied to illicit Iranian revenue schemes, these designations provide little comfort given the broader sanctions relief policy.

After allowing the UN missile embargo to expire last month, the White House now fears Iran might transfer short-range ballistic missiles to Russia — a move that Tehran and Moscow could now claim as legitimate under UN Security Council Resolution 2231. The administration could work with the United Kingdom, France, or Germany to trigger the snapback of UN sanctions on Iran at any time. But the Biden team has declined to do so. Meanwhile, Iran continues to tighten military ties with Russia, claiming to have finalized a deal to buy Russian-made Su-35 fighter jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Yak-130 trainer aircraft.

ISRAEL

David May

Research Manager and Senior Research Analyst

Trending Negative

Previous Trend:

Positive

After nearly two months of steadfast support for Israel’s right to defend itself, the Biden administration has begun to signal the limits of its support for Israel’s war against Hamas. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered this disconcerting message to Israeli officials on November 30 during his third visit to Israel since Hamas’s October 7 massacre.

At a press conference, Blinken warned Jerusalem that “the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza” must “not be repeated in the south.” The secretary implored Israel to avoid actions at hospitals despite Hamas’s documented use of these facilities for warfighting purposes. He also reportedly warned that Israel has weeks, not months, to achieve its objectives. These restrictions will hamper Israel’s efforts as fighting resumes following Hamas’s violation of the ceasefire brokered in part by Washington. Israel secured the release of over 100 hostages during the pause.

Blinken’s warnings follow what seemed to be a presidential endorsement of a permanent ceasefire. On November 28, President Biden said, “To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek.” Such a ceasefire would allow Hamas to remain a threat. Meanwhile, some Democrats in Congress are pressuring the administration to attach conditions to U.S. aid for Israel. Biden initially appeared to express openness to the idea, but administration officials later said the White House is not currently pursuing such conditions.

KOREA

Anthony Ruggiero

Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program Senior Director and Senior Fellow

Trending Very Negative

Previous Trend:

Very Negative

North Korea successfully placed a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit after two unsuccessful prior attempts. According to South Korean intelligence, Pyongyang received Russian technical assistance as part of a deal struck during Kim Jong Un’s September visit to Russia. North Korea claimed that Kim reviewed satellite imagery of the White House, Pentagon, and U.S. aircraft carriers at the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia. After the launch, Seoul partially suspended implementation of a 2018 agreement designed to reduce tensions with North Korea and restored aerial surveillance along the border. Pyongyang retaliated by withdrawing from the agreement altogether.

The White House condemned the launch and urged Pyongyang to return to negotiations but did not mention Russia or sanctions. The U.S. representative to the United Nations exclaimed that North Korea had launched three space launch vehicles and 29 ballistic missiles in 2023, including four intercontinental ballistic missiles. The statement highlighted the administration’s flawed diplomatic and economic pressure strategies. The Biden administration has resorted to trying to shame China and Russia into action, but Beijing and Moscow are major, serial violators of UN sanctions and know there are no consequences for supporting the Kim regime.

In its first North Korea sanctions since late August, the U.S. Treasury Department targeted a virtual currency mixer used by Pyongyang and then designated overseas North Korean representatives. Still, enforcement of sanctions against North Korea remains lackluster — even after North Korea reportedly shipped over 1 million artillery munitions and other materiel to Russia, significantly aiding Putin’s war in Ukraine.

LATIN AMERICA

Carrie Filipetti

Emanuele Ottolenghi

Senior Fellow

Trending Negative

Previous Trend:

Neutral

Javier Milei, a libertarian outsider candidate in the Argentine presidential election, soundly defeated Peronist contender Sergio Massa. After his victory, Milei met with a number of senior Biden administration officials. Whereas Massa was seen as pro-China, Milei criticized Beijing on the campaign trail.

As the United States remains distracted by the wars in Europe and the Middle East, China has continued to expand its influence and operations in Latin America. While members of Congress have proposed bipartisan legislation to address Beijing’s growing malign influence, the White House has been slow to broaden American economic engagement. At the inaugural meeting of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, designed to increase U.S.-Latin American economic cooperation, the administration announced a new development platform and a joint accelerator for entrepreneurs in the region. But the summit did not result in any major trade deals.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration set November 30 as a soft deadline for the Maduro regime to allow leading opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado to run in Venezuela’s 2024 general election. The regime previously declared Machado ineligible, and the Biden administration rightly noted that blocking her candidacy would make the 2024 election unfree and unfair. The administration warned that if Machado is not allowed to run, it will re-impose sanctions lifted in October. Yet the November 30 deadline, like others before it, came and went with no sanctions snapback. On November 30, Venezuela’s government and opposition issued a joint statement saying barred opposition candidates may file appeals with the country’s top tribunal but must refrain from disrespecting the state.

LEBANON

David Daoud

Senior Fellow

Trending Very Negative

Previous Trend:

Very Negative

Since the October 7 massacre by Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist factions, Hezbollah and Lebanon-based franchises of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have launched over 1,000 rockets, anti-tank missiles, and drones into the Jewish state, killing almost a dozen Israeli soldiers and civilians. These attacks have emanated from southern Lebanon, which, per UN Security Council Resolution 1701, should be “free of any armed personnel, assets, and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL,” the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Yet Beirut has refrained from implementing the resolution’s terms and, in any case, has adopted an idiosyncratic interpretation that excludes Hezbollah from its scope, while UNIFIL has proven incapable of curtailing the group’s rearmament.

Amidst this flagrant violation of Israel’s sovereignty from Lebanese territory, the Biden administration has continued to allow Lebanon to avoid its responsibility to control its territory. President Biden has publicly warned Hezbollah against involvement in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, but the administration has not applied additional pressure on the group or Beirut following Hezbollah’s attacks. Rather, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has expressed concern that Israel’s actions in Lebanon — rather than Hezbollah’s — are exacerbating tensions. Credible reporting indicates the Biden administration pressured Israel to forgo a preemptive ground attack against Hezbollah. While the Biden administration’s energy security envoy traveled to Lebanon to ensure that the current war remains confined to the Israel-Gaza front, he did not press Beirut to live up to its obligations under Resolution 1701.

NONPROLIFERATION AND BIODEFENSE

Anthony Ruggiero

Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program Senior Director and Senior Fellow

Andrea Stricker

Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program Deputy Director and Research Fellow

Trending Very Negative

Previous Trend:

Very Negative

At a quarterly meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors, Washington and its Western allies did not censure Iran for ejecting one-third of the IAEA’s enrichment inspectors last September. Nor did they demand that Tehran halt its nuclear advances or come into compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran will continue to refuse cooperation with the IAEA while steadily degrading IAEA oversight of its nuclear program. The IAEA’s latest data indicate that Tehran can make enough weapons-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in as little as seven days.

Ukraine won a seat on the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), defeating Russia, which lost its seat for the first time in the OPCW’s 26-year history. Still, OPCW member states have not yet held Moscow accountable for its continued stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. They should do so immediately by suspending Russia’s voting rights and ability to hold office. Meanwhile, the IAEA reported that fighting around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant continues to cause periodic power cuts, which could risk the facility’s safety and security.

China is experiencing an increase in respiratory illness, including pneumonia, which is largely affecting children. The World Health Organization (WHO) urged calm and noted that Beijing has put the pathogen’s spread “under effective control.” The outbreak highlights the administration’s flawed 2021 decision to support a second term for the WHO director-general, who turned a blind eye to Beijing’s obstruction at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

SUNNI JIHADISM

Bill Roggio

Senior Fellow and Editor of FDD's Long War Journal

Trending Negative

Previous Trend:

Negative

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) continues to aggressively target the Islamic State’s network inside Iraq and Syria. During the months of September and October, CENTCOM executed 79 operations against the Islamic State, 53 of them in Iraq and the other 26 in Syria. They resulted in 13 ISIS operatives killed and 78 detained. Among those captured were “prominent ISIS leaders and members to include: fighters, facilitators, and members of attack and sleeper cells.”

Al-Qaeda’s general command renewed calls for attacks against Americans, Israelis, and their military bases, embassies, institutions, and interests. The terror group made this threat in the context of the Israeli military’s battle against Hamas at Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital. “The missiles that are burning our proud brothers in Gaza come from American and European military bases that are sitting on our chests … it does no good for the people of Islam if we do not invade [them] and expel the killers of our people in Gaza,” al-Qaeda stated.

Pakistan has begun to detain Afghan citizens who fled the country after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 and is deporting them back to Afghanistan. Some of those who fled Afghanistan are seeking resettlement in the United States, as they served as interpreters for the U.S. military or were members of the former Afghan security forces or government and are at risk of being killed by the Taliban. Meanwhile, the Taliban appointed an ambassador to China and sent a diplomatic delegation to Iran to strengthen ties.

SYRIA

David Adesnik

Senior Fellow and Director of Research

Trending Neutral

Previous Trend:

Neutral

Responding to dozens of attacks on U.S. troops by Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, President Biden ordered four rounds of airstrikes on militia targets during November. The strikes targeted scattered facilities and inflicted few casualties, and the attacks resumed after each round. With Iran and its proxies paying a minimal price for their aggression, it is likely to continue.

Meanwhile, the COP28 climate conference began in Dubai, with Syrian Prime Minister Hussein Arnous leading the Damascus delegation. The United Arab Emirates had extended an invitation to Bashar al-Assad to participate in the conference, with a COP28 spokesperson citing the need for “an inclusive COP process.” The UAE has been at the forefront of sustained efforts by some Arab governments to rehabilitate Assad despite his ongoing war crimes. The Biden administration had quietly encouraged Arab engagement with Assad while publicly distancing itself from that effort.

In mid-November, French judges issued a global arrest warrant for the Syrian dictator and three of his lieutenants, citing their use of chemical weapons. Activists from the Syrian diaspora, including a broad coalition of Syrian-American groups, have called on Paris to request Assad’s extradition should he visit Dubai for COP28.

On Capitol Hill, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the Illicit Trafficking of Captagon Suppression Act in a unanimous vote of 44-0. The act would mandate sanctions on key figures in Assad’s multibillion-dollar narco-trafficking empire. The bill follows a law passed last year requiring the administration to produce a strategy to disrupt Assad’s trafficking of Captagon, an amphetamine-like drug.

TURKEY

Sinan Ciddi

Non-Resident Senior Fellow

Trending Negative

Previous Trend:

Negative

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, at the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels, where he insisted that Ankara approve Sweden’s accession to the alliance “as soon as possible.” Fidan, however, remained noncommittal, saying the Turkish parliament could possibly ratify Sweden’s application before the end of 2023. To pass, the vote requires approval by a simple majority of the Turkish parliament, controlled by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party and its coalition allies. Before he instructs his party to approve Sweden’s bid, Erdogan wants assurances that the United States will approve the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey. Speaking to reporters in September, Erdogan said, “If they [the United States] keep their promises, our parliament will keep its own promise as well. Turkish parliament will have the final say on Sweden’s NATO membership.”

Earlier in November, Blinken visited Ankara in an attempt to secure humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza. Although Blinken was able to meet with Fidan, he was snubbed by Erdogan due to Washington’s ongoing support for Israel’s war to eliminate Hamas. Erdogan has called Israel a “terror state” and threatened to refer it to the International Criminal Court for allegedly perpetrating crimes against humanity. Turkey does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization, instead preferring to call it a group of “mujahadeen” freedom fighters.

Disclaimer

The analyses above do not necessarily represent the institutional views of FDD.

5. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 5, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-5-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted successful drone strikes against Russian military targets in occupied Crimea on the night of December 4 to 5.
• Russian forces conducted a series of missile and drone strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine on the night of December 4 and 5.
• The Russian State Duma will reportedly consider a proposed bill that would recognize the Sea of Azov as an internal Russian body of water, likely setting conditions to coerce recognition of Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied Crimea and Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Donetsk oblasts.
• Russian opposition party Yabloko founder Grigory Yavlinsky advocated for a ceasefire in Ukraine as part of his presidential bid likely in an attempt to distinguish himself from Russian President Vladimir Putin and give voice to Russians who support a ceasefire.
• The Kremlin may be strategically allowing Yavlinsky to criticize the Russian government in order to preserve its veneer of electoral legitimacy and to delegitimize possible support for a ceasefire among factions in the Kremlin.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized the benefits that migrants provide to the Russian economy, while promoting ongoing efforts to Russify migrants in Russia and citizens of post-Soviet countries.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia on December 6 and will host Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi in Russia on December 7— a bout of diplomatic outreach likely focused on strengthening Russia’s position with Gulf States while continuing to solidify the deepening Russian-Iranian security partnership.
• Armenia appears to be effectively abstaining from participation in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
• The Kremlin continues to intensify censorship efforts, targeting prominent Russian messaging and social media app Telegram.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, west and southwest of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not make any confirmed advances.
• Russian forces are reportedly quickly sending poorly trained convict recruits to reinforce assaults elements in Ukraine.
• Russian occupation authorities are reportedly intensifying their seizure of Ukrainian property in occupied Berdyansk, Donetsk Oblast.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, DECEMBER 5, 2023

Dec 5, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 5, 2023

Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, Riley Bailey, Angelica Evans, and Frederick W. Kagan

December 5, 2023, 6:45pm 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 see ISW’s 3D control of terrain topographic map of Ukraine. Use of a computer (not a mobile device) is strongly recommended for using this data-heavy tool.

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 cut-off for this product was 1:10pm ET on December 5. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the December 6 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted successful drone strikes against Russian military targets in occupied Crimea on the night of December 4 to 5. Ukrainian media reported on December 5, citing sources in the Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) and Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), that GUR and SBU elements struck a Russian military oil terminal in Feodosia, a Nebo-M radar system near Baherove (13km west of Kerch), and a helicopter landing pad, P-18 Terek radar system, and a Baikal-1M anti-aircraft missile control system in unspecified areas of Crimea.[1] Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), claimed that Russian air defenses, electronic warfare (EW) systems, and small-arms fire downed up to 35 Ukrainian drones near Baherove, Feodosia, Cape Chauda, and over the Sea of Azov but did not say that any Ukrainian drones struck their intended targets.[2] Another group of Russian sources, including Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo, claimed that Russian air defenses downed up to 41 Ukrainian drones over northern Crimea and the Sea of Azov and claimed that Ukrainian forces attempted to strike Russian air defense systems and fuel storage facilities.[3] Ukrainian forces have been conducting an interdiction campaign against Russian military infrastructure in occupied Crimea, primarily Black Sea Fleet assets, since June 2023 to degrade the Russian military’s ability to use Crimea as a staging and rear area for Russian operations in southern Ukraine.[4]

Russian forces conducted a series of missile and drone strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine on the night of December 4 and 5. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces launched 17 Shahed-136/-131 drones from Kursk Oblast and Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai, and six S-300 missiles at targets in Ukraine and that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 10 of the drones.[5] The Ukrainian Air Force reported that the Russian missiles targeted civilian objects in Donetsk and Kherson oblasts.[6] Ukrainian officials reported that Russian drones struck civilian residences and infrastructure in Lviv Oblast and Izyum and Chuhuiv raions, Kharkiv Oblast.[7]

The Russian State Duma will reportedly consider a proposed bill that would recognize the Sea of Azov as an internal Russian body of water, likely setting conditions to coerce recognition of Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied Crimea and Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Donetsk oblasts. Russian State Duma Deputy representing occupied Crimea Mikhail Sheremet stated on December 5 that the Duma will try to adopt a proposed bill that would formally designate the Sea of Azov as an internal water of Russia by the end of 2023.[8] Russia and Ukraine signed and ratified a treaty in 2003 and 2004 that included stipulations that the Sea of Azov is a historically internal water of both Russia and Ukraine and that vessels flying Ukrainian or Russian flags in the Sea of Azov enjoy freedom of navigation.[9] The Ukrainian Rada denounced the treaty in February 2023, stating that Russia had violated the stipulation that all issues concerning the Sea of Azov should be resolved by peaceful, bilateral means and that the treaty’s authorization of Russian warships to freely navigate the sea posed a threat to Ukrainian national security.[10] Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law in June 2023 that also denounced the treaty, claiming that Ukraine lost its status as a littoral state of the Sea of Azov when Russia (illegally) annexed Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts in 2022.[11] The proposed bill likely portends a series of corresponding Russian administrative measures that would require maritime traffic en route to or from ports on the Sea of Azov to formally recognize the sea as a Russian internal body of water and, therefore, to de facto recognize Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories.

Russian opposition party Yabloko founder Grigory Yavlinsky advocated for a ceasefire in Ukraine as part of his presidential bid on December 5 likely in an attempt to distinguish himself from Russian President Vladimir Putin and give voice to Russians who support a ceasefire. Yavlinsky stated in an interview with Russian state outlet RBK published on December 5 that he believes that it is in Russia’s interest to sign a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine as quickly as possible.[12] Yavlinsky expressed doubt that recent Russian surveys claiming to show that Russians support the war in Ukraine are true given the scale of Russian propaganda, which he believes has created a widespread sense of fear in Russia in the past year and a half.[13] Yavlinsky stated that he is currently collecting the signatures needed to run in the 2024 presidential election and explained that his sequential presidential platform includes signing a ceasefire and exchanging prisoners of war (POWs) with Ukraine first, releasing political prisoners in Russia second, and beginning to reform the Russian judicial system third.[14] Yavlinsky advocated against Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and the full-scale invasion in 2022 and called for Russia to withdraw from the war in Syria during his 2018 presidential campaign.[15] Yavlinksy likely believes that these anti-war positions and the call for a ceasefire are the most direct way to oppose Putin and to garner support from the public. Recent Russian opinion polls indicate that more Russians support a withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine than do not and that a majority of Russians believe that Russia should begin peace negotiations with Ukraine.[16]

The Kremlin may be strategically allowing Yavlinsky to criticize the Russian government in order to preserve its veneer of electoral legitimacy and to delegitimize possible support for a ceasefire among factions in the Kremlin. A Russian insider source claimed on December 4 that Yavlinsky made an agreement with the Russian Presidential Administration that if he were allowed to participate in the 2024 presidential elections, he would criticize the Ukrainian government, especially Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.[17] The insider source claimed that the Presidential Administration is not against “moderate” criticisms of Russia’s war in Ukraine as this can demonstrate that there is a “pluralism of opinions” in Russian presidential elections.[18] The insider source claimed that the Kremlin would allow Yavlinsky to garner no more than one to 1.5 percent of the vote in the election, which is consistent with Yavlinsky’s results in the 2018 presidential elections.[19] Yavlinsky stated in the RBK interview that Russian authorities have sentenced or are investigating other members of the Yabloko party but that this occurs only at the regional level and that he is unsure why the federal government has not shut down Yabloko.[20] The Kremlin is likely refraining from punishing Yavlinsky and Yabloko at the federal level so as to maintain its carefully crafted façade of opposition, democracy, and electoral legitimacy.[21] The Kremlin is also likely allowing Yavlinsky to widely promote the idea of a ceasefire in a state media outlet so as to associate the idea with the “opposition,” thereby likely deterring factions within the Kremlin that may want to freeze the frontline in Ukraine from publicly or privately voicing their opinions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized the benefits that migrants provide to the Russian economy, while promoting ongoing efforts to Russify migrants in Russia and citizens of post-Soviet countries at the Russian Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights meeting on December 4. Putin stated that Russian economic demands, including a labor shortage, largely shape policy regarding migrants and noted that Russia must maintain an “ethnocultural balance.”[22] Putin criticized migrants for creating “ethnic enclaves” in Russian cities and failing to register with the Russian military after they acquire Russian citizenship.[23] Putin also stressed that migrants must be linguistically and culturally prepared to work in Russia and must abide by Russian traditions and laws.[24] Putin claimed that 20 to 50 percent of children of migrants have a low level of Russian language proficiency or do not speak Russian at all and noted the Russian government is creating special programs and classes for these children to study the Russian language and integrate into the Russian educational system.[25] Putin also noted that Russia is working with Central Asian and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries to establish Russian schools and teach the Russian language in these countries.[26] The Russian government has continually promoted opening Russian and Russian-speaking schools and universities in post-Soviet countries and has criticized countries for promoting the use of their indigenous languages in educational institutions.[27] Russia likely uses these educational programs and institutions in Russia and abroad to promote Russian narratives and foster a Russian identity among youth.

Russian milblogger and Russian Human Rights Council member Alexander Kots criticized the Russian government for failing to help ethnic Russian citizens of Central Asian countries receive Russian citizenship while granting Russian citizenship to ethnically Central Asian citizens of Central Asian countries.[28] Kots praised the Russian government for granting citizenship to foreigners who served in the Russian military, however.[29] Kots further commended Russian State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein for successfully requesting that the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) grant Uzbek citizen Alexander Babkov temporary asylum in Russia with the future prospect of obtaining Russian citizenship.[30] Babkov, an ethnic Russian from Uzbekistan who allegedly fought in the Wagner Group near Bakhmut and Soledar, reportedly faced deportation to Uzbekistan in January 2024 and feared subsequent imprisonment.[31] An Uzbek court sentenced an Uzbek citizen to prison for fighting in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) military from 2014–2015, and a Kazakh court sentenced a Kazakh citizen who reportedly served in Wagner to prison on charges of mercenarism.[32] Khinshtein’s intervention on Babkov’s behalf may be a response to increasing calls for the Russian government to protect ethnic Russians abroad, particularly those who served in the Russian military.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia on December 6 and will host Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi in Russia on December 7 — a bout of diplomatic outreach likely focused on strengthening Russia’s position with Gulf States while continuing to solidify the deepening Russian–Iranian security partnership. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov stated on December 5 that Putin will exchange views on bilateral relations, international agendas, and regional agendas during his meetings with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.[33] Peskov responded to a question about Russian, Saudi, and Emirati oil cooperation and stated that discussions will occur within the OPEC+ framework.[34] OPEC+ members recently agreed on November 30 to cut oil output in early 2024 to stabilize oil prices.[35] Russian Presidential Assistant Yuri Ushakov stated that Putin intends to discuss the Palestinian–Israeli conflict; the war in Ukraine; and conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and Sudan during his meetings in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.[36] The Kremlin likely aims to use cooperation on oil output and diplomatic engagement on the Israel–Hamas war and other regional conflicts to strengthen engagement with Gulf States while balancing potential Saudi and Emirati concerns about Russia’s increasing reliance on its security partnership with Iran. Peskov and Ushakov stated that Putin will meet with Raisi on December 7, and the Iranian state-owned Islamic Republic News Agency stated that Putin and Raisi will also discuss the situation in Palestine.[37] Ushakov announced that Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) intend to sign a cooperation agreement by the end of 2023, likely to facilitate and expand Iran’s role in Russian sanctions evasion schemes and in the supply of weapons and critical components to Russia.[38]

Armenia appears to be effectively abstaining from participation in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The Spokesperson for the Armenian Parliament Chairman, Tsovinar Khachatryan, confirmed on December 5 that Armenia will not send a representative to the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Moscow on December 19.[39] The CSTO Parliamentary Assembly meeting represents the fourth consecutive high profile CSTO event or exercise that Armenia has abstained from amid the backdrop of deteriorating Russian–Armenian relations.[40] Armenia did not participate in the CSTO Collective Security Council session in Minsk, Belarus on November 23; the CSTO’s summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on October 13; or the CSTO “Indestructible Brotherhood-2023" exercises in Belarus in early October.[41] Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safaryan reiterated on November 23 that Armenia is not considering leaving the CSTO or discussing the withdrawal of Russia‘s 102nd Military Base in Gyumri, Armenia.[42] CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov stated on November 20 that Armenia asked the CSTO to remove provisions on assistance to Armenia from the agenda of the CSTO summit in Minsk.[43] Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated in October that Armenia is currently in the process of diversifying its security partnerships, and Armenia signed a military cooperation agreement with France on October 23.[44]

The Kremlin continues to intensify censorship efforts, targeting prominent Russian messaging and social media app Telegram. A Moscow court fined Russian communications company Telegram Messenger Inc. four million rubles ($44,300) on December 5 for refusing to remove prohibited information at the request of Russian federal censor Roskomnadzor.[45] Moscow’s Tagansky Court previously fined Telegram four million rubles for failing to remove false information about the Russian Armed Forces and information aimed at destabilizing Russia on November 21, 2023.[46] These fines are likely a mild punishment for Telegram rather than a concerted effort by Russian authorities to shut down the app.

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted successful drone strikes against Russian military targets in occupied Crimea on the night of December 4 to 5.
• Russian forces conducted a series of missile and drone strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine on the night of December 4 and 5.
• The Russian State Duma will reportedly consider a proposed bill that would recognize the Sea of Azov as an internal Russian body of water, likely setting conditions to coerce recognition of Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied Crimea and Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Donetsk oblasts.
• Russian opposition party Yabloko founder Grigory Yavlinsky advocated for a ceasefire in Ukraine as part of his presidential bid likely in an attempt to distinguish himself from Russian President Vladimir Putin and give voice to Russians who support a ceasefire.
• The Kremlin may be strategically allowing Yavlinsky to criticize the Russian government in order to preserve its veneer of electoral legitimacy and to delegitimize possible support for a ceasefire among factions in the Kremlin.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized the benefits that migrants provide to the Russian economy, while promoting ongoing efforts to Russify migrants in Russia and citizens of post-Soviet countries.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia on December 6 and will host Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi in Russia on December 7— a bout of diplomatic outreach likely focused on strengthening Russia’s position with Gulf States while continuing to solidify the deepening Russian-Iranian security partnership.
• Armenia appears to be effectively abstaining from participation in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
• The Kremlin continues to intensify censorship efforts, targeting prominent Russian messaging and social media app Telegram.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, west and southwest of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not make any confirmed advances.
• Russian forces are reportedly quickly sending poorly trained convict recruits to reinforce assaults elements in Ukraine.
• Russian occupation authorities are reportedly intensifying their seizure of Ukrainian property in occupied Berdyansk, Donetsk Oblast.

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 Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against 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
• Russian Technological Adaptations
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas
• Russian Information Operations and Narratives

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 forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on December 5 but did not make confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Synkivka (9km northeast of Kupyansk), Petropavlivka (7km east of Kupyansk), Novoselivske (14km northwest of Svatove), Terny (17km west of Kreminna), the Serebryanske forest area (10km south of Kreminna), Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna), Spirne (25km south of Kreminna), and Vesele (31km south of Kreminna).[47] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces captured the northern outskirts of Synkivka, advanced up to 1 kilometer near Torske (15km west of Kreminna), and made unspecified gains near Yampolivka (17km west of Kreminna).[48] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces attacked south and southwest of Lyman Pershyi (12km northeast of Kupyansk) and that fighting is ongoing near Serebryanka (12km southwest of Kreminna) and Hryhorivka (11km south of Kreminna).[49] Nadiya Zamryha, a spokesperson for a Ukrainian brigade operating in the Kupyansk direction, stated on December 5 that Russian forces in the Kupyansk direction have decreased the density of artillery fire in comparison to late summer 2023 and are using tanks more frequently than in October 2023.[50]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Synkivka and Ivanivka (20km southwest of Kupyansk).[51]

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 ground attacks near Bakhmut on December 5 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued assault actions south of Bakhmut.[52] A Ukrainian military observer stated that Ukrainian forces counterattacked near Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut) and captured two positions previously held by elements of the Russian 331st Airborne (VDV) Regiment (98th Guards VDV Division).[53] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that unspecified elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces repelled four Ukrainian assaults near Bohdanivka, Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut), and Toretsk (21km south of Bakhmut and 12km northwest of Horlivka).[54]

Russian forces continued localized offensive operations near Bakhmut on December 5 but did not make any confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled at least 11 assaults near Bohdanivka, Klishchiivka, and Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut).[55] A Ukrainian military observer claimed that elements of the Russian 331st VDV Regiment dislodged Ukrainian forces from a position east of Bohdanivka and that elements of the Russian 11th VDV Brigade dislodged Ukrainian forces from three positions east of Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut).[56] Russian milbloggers claimed on December 4 and 5 that Russian forces advanced on the western outskirts of Bakhmut and north of Klishchiivka.[57] Another Russian milblogger claimed on December 5 that Ukrainian forces withdrew from limited positions near Klishchiivka and in the direction of Ivanivske, providing Russian forces space to launch assaults.[58] A Ukrainian commander operating in the Bakhmut area stated that Ukrainian artillery units and drone operators near Bakhmut destroy roughly 80 percent of Russian equipment during Russian assaults.[59] The Ukrainian commander stated that Russian forces are focused on recapturing previously lost positions near Bakhmut and are using "Storm-Z" assault detachments for highly attritional frontal assaults while using more professional units, primarily VDV and Chechen elements, for searching for gaps in Ukrainian defenses.[60]

Russian forces continued offensive operations near Avdiivka on December 5 and made confirmed gains. Geolocated footage published on December 5 indicates that Russian forces advanced along a section of the railway line north of the Avdiivka Coke Plant in northwestern Avdiivka.[61] Additional geolocated footage published on December 4 indicates that Russian forces also advanced south of the Avdiivka waste heap.[62] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled at least 23 Russian assaults east of Novobakhmutivka (7km northwest of Avdiivka); northeast of Berdychi (4km north of Avdiivka); and near Stepove (3km north of Avdiivka), Avdiivka, Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka), and Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka).[63] Russian milbloggers claimed on December 4 and 5 that Russian forces advanced near Novokalynove (8km north of Avdiivka), Stepove, the Avdiivka Coke Plant, the Avdiivka waste heap, the industrial zone southeast of Avdiivka, Sieverne, and Pervomaiske.[64] Russian milbloggers claimed on December 4 and 5 that positional fighting is ongoing near Krasnohorivka (4km northeast of Avdiivka) and that Russian forces resumed assaults near Nevelske (14km southwest of Avdiivka).[65] The Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Press Service reported on December 5 that Russian forces resumed conducting air strikes with Su-25 attack aircraft and Ka-52 helicopters in the Avdiivka area after a period of less intense Russian aviation activity.[66]

Ukrainian forces counterattacked near Avdiivka on December 5 and recently made a confirmed advance. Geolocated footage published on December 4 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced east of a section of the railway line north of the Avdiivka Coke Plant.[67] A Ukrainian military observer claimed on December 5 that Ukrainian forces counterattacked north of the Avdiivka Coke Plant and forced Russian forces to withdraw from two forward positions.[68] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are counterattacking near Stepove and are pressuring Russian defenses from the direction of Novokalynove.[69]

Russian forces continued offensive operations west and southwest of Donetsk City on December 5 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled at least 13 Russian assaults near Marinka (immediately southwest of Donetsk City) and Novomykhailivka (11km southwest of Donetsk City).[70] The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) stated that Russian forces likely control most of Marinka with Ukrainian forces retaining control of positions on the western edge of the settlement.[71] A Russian milblogger acknowledged on December 4 that Russian forces have not yet captured all of Marinka.[72] A Ukrainian military observer claimed on December 5 that elements of the 33rd Motorized Rifle Regiment (20th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) and 39th Motorized Rifle Brigade (68th Army Corps, Eastern Military District) are operating near Marinka and Novomykhailivka.[73]

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

Russian forces conducted offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances on December 5. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked south of Zolota Nyva (11km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[74] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked southwest of Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[75]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances on December 5. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) direction.[76] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked in the Balka Uspenivka area (5km northeast of Robotyne).[77] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked west of Robotyne, near Novoprokopivka (2km south of Robotyne), and northwest of Verbove (9km east of Robotyne).[78]

Russian forces conducted offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not make any confirmed advances on December 5. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces captured several Ukrainian positions near Robotyne, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[79] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked south and west of Robotyne.[80]

Ukrainian forces continued ground operations on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast on December 5. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continue to maintain positions on the east bank of the Dnipro River.[81] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked in the forest area near Krynky (30km northeast of Kherson Oblast and 2km from the Dnipro River), with one of the milbloggers stating that the channel would no longer assess that the Kherson direction does not pose a threat to Russian forces.[82] A Russian source claimed that elements of the Russian 104th Airborne (VDV) Division gained a foothold on the outskirts of Krynky, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[83] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces conducted three airstrikes with 26 glide bombs in the direction of Krynky in the past day.[84]

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian air defenses near Snake Island downed a Russian Su-24 bomber attempting to strike Odesa Oblast.[85]

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

Russian forces are reportedly quickly sending poorly trained convict recruits to reinforce assaults elements in Ukraine. The spokesperson for a Ukrainian unit operating the Kupyansk direction stated on December 5 that Russian convict recruits, who signed contracts with Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) in October 2023, are already fighting and dying in the Kupyansk direction.[86] The spokesperson stated that convict recruits who were still in prison until October 20th began arriving on the front lines in this direction in November. Russian forces use assault detachments comprised of convict recruits throughout the front and there is no reason why the hasty commitment of convict recruits would be a phenomenon isolated to the Kupyansk direction.

Russian intermediaries are reportedly recruiting and trafficking Nepali citizens into service in the Russian army. The Nepali Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) announced on December 4 that six Nepali citizens were killed fighting alongside the Russian military in Ukraine.[87] The Nepali MFA stated that the Nepali government requested the Russian government not recruit Nepali citizens as soldiers, to immediately deport any Nepali citizens that the Russian MoD previously recruited, and to return the bodies of the deceased Nepali citizens. Nepali outlet Kathmandu Post reported on December 5 that the Nepali government does not allow its citizens to serve in foreign militaries other than in India and the United Kingdom.[88] Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal told Kathmandu Post that there are additional Nepali citizens serving in the Russian army and reports of Nepali citizens serving in the Ukrainian army. Nepali ambassador to Russia Milan Taj Tuladhar told Kathmandu Post that an estimated 150-200 Nepali citizens are serving in the Russian army as mercenaries. Tuladhar stated that Russian ”agents” lure Nepali citizens to Russia with promises of large sums of money and illegally transport them to Russia after charging a fee of up to one million rupees (approximately $12,000). Kathmandu Post reported that many Nepali citizens traveled to Russian on student and tourist visas before joining the Russian army.[89] Tuladhar stated that Nepali officials are working to return all their citizens to Nepal and to discourage citizens from joining foreign armies.

Relatives of mobilized Russian servicemen continue to petition the Russian government for demobilization and complain about the mistreatment of frontline troops.[90] Russian opposition outlet Vazhnye Istorii reported on December 5 that more than 100 relatives of mobilized Russian military personnel from military unit 95411 (Western Military District) wrote a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, requesting that Putin address the “deliberate extermination” of mobilized personnel in the Avdiivka direction.[91] The letter reportedly stated that mobilized Russian personnel have been living in trenches on the front line within 700 meters of Ukrainian positions near Avdiivka for more than 10 months and are constantly under Ukrainian artillery fire. Relatives told Vazhnye Istorii that the Russian military command issued several orders for any personnel from military unit 95411 with light to moderate injuries to join assault units and to be treated in the trenches and not at military hospitals. One relative stated that the servicemen of military unit 95411 are “walking over corpses” in the Avdiivka direction. Relatives told Vazhnye Istorii that the Russian military command are “in a hurry” to achieve any result ahead of the 2024 Russian presidential election and the New Year holiday.

Russian opposition outlet the Moscow Times reported that cases of desertion among Russian servicemen increased by 89 percent between summer and fall 2023. The Moscow Times reported on December 4 that “Go Through the Forest,” a Russian organization that helps Russian citizens avoid mobilization, observed an 89 percent increase in requests from Russian servicemen to help with desertion between fall 2023 and summer 2023.[92] Go Through the Forest received 305 requests for assistance with desertion from June-August 2023 and 577 such requests in September-November 2023. Go Through the Forest’s lawyers attributed the increase in requests to desperation among mobilized Russian servicemen, and Go Through the Forest Head Grigory Svedlin told the Moscow Times that most Russian servicemen decide to desert after spending time in Russian hospitals with severe wounds. The Moscow Times reported that Russian human rights group “Citizen.Army.Pravo.” also received more appeals to help with desertion cases in fall 2023.[93]

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin stated during a speech at a meeting of the Russian Armed Forces Coordination Council on December 5 that Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB) significantly increased its production of military equipment and weapons in 2023.[94] Mishustin stated that Russian DIB doubled its production of aviation equipment and drones and increased its production of communications technology, weapons, electronic warfare (EW), and reconnaissance systems by a factor of five in 2023.

Russian Technological Adaptations (Russian objective: Introduce technological innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine)

Sevastopol State University Vice Rector for Innovation Sergei Dudnikov told Kremlin newswire TASS on December 4 that Russian authorities will begin construction on a drone research and production center in Sevastopol in 2026.[95] Sevastopol State University scientists will finalize the designs and development procedures for the drones, including a drone modified to operate in coastal areas, in 2024 and 2025.

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

Russian occupation authorities are reportedly intensifying their seizure of Ukrainian property in occupied Berdyansk, Donetsk Oblast. Ukrainian Berdyansk City Head Viktoria Halitsyna stated on December 4 that representatives from the Russian Ministry of Property and Land Legal Relations created commissions to determine “ownerless property” through an arbitration court in Russia after which Russian occupation authorities can take control over, auction, or privately sell the property.[96] Halitsyna also reported that Russian occupation officials continue to demand that Berdyansk residents reregister their property with Russian occupation authorities.[97]

Russian occupation authorities continue forcibly deporting children in occupied Ukraine to Russia under the guise of educational programs. Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor reported on December 5 that Russian occupation authorities sent a group of children from occupied Luhansk Oblast to Moscow City to view an exhibition on the Russian economy.[98]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian President Vladimir Putin falsely claimed that Western countries and institutions are purposefully ignoring alleged Ukrainian human rights violations against civilians in Donbas for the past eight years.[99] Putin also reiterated claims at the Russian Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights meeting on December 4 that Russia is willing to work with foreign countries and international human rights organizations to ensure human rights “for all.”[100] Russia has occupied Donbas and Crimea since 2014, and the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has documented continued Russian war crimes and human rights violations against the civilian population in occupied Ukraine including torture, rape, and the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.[101]

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened “retaliatory” measures against Latvia on December 4, in response to the Latvian government requiring Russian citizens with Latvian residence permits to take a Latvian language proficiency exam.[102] Russian Duma Deputy Pyotr Tolstoy proposed on November 14 restricting migrants from jobs in several sectors of the Russian service industry if they are not citizens from a country that designates Russian as a state language.[103] The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) proposed a bill on November 28 that would require all foreigners entering Russia to sign a “loyalty agreement” banning them from discrediting Russian domestic and foreign policy, denying Russian family values, or “disrespecting the diversity of regional and ethnocultural ways of life” in Russia among other restrictions.[104]

Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed on December 5 that 120 Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip boarded a plane to Moscow.[105] Kadyrov also claimed that a special board of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations will assist the Gazan refugees in temporarily or permanently staying in Russia.[106] Advisor to the Russian Minister of Emergency Situations, Daniil Martynov, reportedly told Kadyrov that Russian authorities evacuated the refugees through the Rafah checkpoint.[107] ISW cannot independently verify Kadyrov's claims.

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

Nothing significant to report.

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.

6. Senate approves hundreds of military promotions after Republican senator ends blockade of nominees

Finally.

Senate approves hundreds of military promotions after Republican senator ends blockade of nominees

BY KEVIN FREKING

Updated 6:44 PM EST, December 5, 2023

AP · December 5, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate in a single stroke Tuesday approved about 425 military promotions after Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama ended a monthslong blockade of nominations over his opposition to a Pentagon abortion policy.

Tuberville had been under pressure from members of both sides of the political aisle to end his holds as senators complained about the toll it was taking on service members and their families, and on military readiness.

President Joe Biden called the Senate’s action long overdue and said the military confirmations should never have been held up.

“In the end, this was all pointless. Senator Tuberville, and the Republicans who stood with him, needlessly hurt hundreds of servicemembers and military families and threatened our national security — all to push a partisan agenda. I hope no one forgets what he did,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer teed up the military confirmations for a vote just a few hours after Tuberville emerged from a closed-door lunch with fellow GOP senators and told reporters he’s “not going to hold the promotions of these people any longer.” He said holds would continue, however, for about 11 of the highest-ranking military officers, those who would be promoted to what he described as the four-star level or above.

There were 451 military officers affected by the holds as of Nov. 27. It’s a stance that had left key national security positions unfilled and military families with an uncertain path forward.

Tuberville was blocking the nominations in opposition to Pentagon rules that allow travel reimbursement when a service member has to go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care. The Biden administration instituted the new rules after the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to an abortion, and some states have limited or banned the procedure.

“Well, certainly we’re encouraged by the news,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said at a briefing Tuesday. “We continue to stay engaged with Senator Tuberville in the Senate directly, to urge that all holds on all our general flag officer nominations be lifted.”

Critics said that Tuberville’s tactics were a mistake because he was blocking the promotions of people who had nothing to do with the policy he opposed.

“Why are we punishing American heroes who have nothing to with the dispute?” said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. “Remember, we are against the Biden abortion travel policy. But why are we punishing people who have nothing to do with the dispute and if they get confirmed can’t fix it? No one has had an answer for that question because there is no answer.”

For months, many of the military officers directly impacted by Tuberville’s holds declined to speak out, for fear any comments would be seen as political. But as the pressures on their lives and the lives of the officers serving under them increased, they began to speak about how the uncertainty surrounding their next move was impacting not only them, but their children and spouses.

They talked about how some of their most talented junior officers were going to get out of the military because of the instability they saw around them, and they talked about how having to perform multiple roles because of so many vacancies was putting enormous additional stress on an already overworked military community.

The issue came to a head when U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith suffered a heart attack in October, just two days after he’d talked about the stress of the holds at a military conference.

“We can’t continue to do this to these good families. Some of these groups that are all for these holds, they haven’t thought through the implication of the harm it’s doing to real American families,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

In response to the holds, Democrats had vowed to take up a resolution that would allow the Senate to confirm groups of military nominees at once during the remainder of the congressional term, but Republicans worried that the change could erode the powers of the minority in the Senate.

Tuberville emerged from his meeting with GOP colleagues, saying “all of us are against a rule change in the Senate.” He was adamant that “we did the right thing for the unborn and for our military” by fighting back against executive overreach. He expressed no regrets, but admitted “we didn’t get as much out of it as we wanted.”

“The only opportunity you got to get the people on the left up here to listen to you in the minority is to put a hold on something, and that’s what we did,” Tuberville said. “We didn’t get the win that we wanted. We’ve still got a bad policy.”

In the end, Schumer said Tuberville ended up failing to get anything he wanted and held it out as a warning to others who might attempt similar efforts in the future to undo policies they oppose.

“The senior senator from Alabama has nothing to show for his 10 months of delay. No law is changing in any way,” Schumer said.

Sen. Jack Reed, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after the vote that the first thing he wanted to do was to apologize to the hundreds of officers whose promotions were stalled.

“We have to recognize in the future, we can never do this again,” Reed said.

___

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Tara Copp contributed to this report.

AP · December 5, 2023

7. The morality of ending war short of 'total victory'

From the Quincy Institute.

Excerpt:

Clearly, Israel’s war in Gaza has entailed a profound shock to these sensibilities. It is this revulsion, not sympathy for Hamas, that explains world-wide public opposition to what Israel is doing.

From the beginning of the crisis, the Biden administration’s approach to the war ran closely in parallel with the course recommended by Mort and Walzer. Eliminate Hamas. Do so while sparing civilians as much as possible. Then be sweet to the Palestinians and give them an independent state.

Israel was happy to take the first part of this formula and to contemptuously reject the rest. Meanwhile, alongside these homilies to humane war, the United States has undertaken a vast effort to resupply Israel’s stock of bombs.

Confronting the escalating death toll, U.S. policymakers are dazed and confused. They’re still on autopilot in support of Israel’s war aim, while ineffectually shrieking in horror at the cost to Gaza’s civilians.

The truth is that there is no way to destroy Hamas without destroying Gaza. Contrary to Secretary Blinken’s words (and Walzer’s advice), Israel does not know how to destroy Hamas while minimizing harm to innocent civilians. Monumental harm to civilians follows from Israel’s war aim of destroying Hamas, which the Biden administration and Walzer continue to endorse. That war aim stands in urgent need of reconsideration.

The morality of ending war short of 'total victory'

responsiblestatecraft.org · by David C. Hendrickson · December 5, 2023

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'Just and Unjust Wars' author Michael Walzer seems to believe there is a humane way to destroy Hamas in Gaza. That's not true

1. regions middle east
2. gaza war

Dec 05, 2023

United States policy toward Israel’s war in Gaza was neatly summarized by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on November 30: “Israel has one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world. It is capable of neutralizing the threat posed by Hamas while minimizing harm to innocent civilians. And it has an obligation to do so.”

This posture — destroy Hamas but do so in observance of the laws of war — is not that of the administration alone. It has been widely embraced by official Washington.

A key defense of what would emerge as the hallmark of the Biden administration’s Gaza outlook came from Jo-Ann Mort and Michael Walzer in the New Republic on October 18. “A just war requires the defeat of Hamas,” they wrote. “It is a maxim of just war theory that the rules of war cannot make it impossible to fight a just war. There has to be a way to fight.”

In their view, the best way was “to fight with restraint, to reject indiscriminate bombing and shelling, to respect enemy civilians (many, many Gazans are opposed to Hamas), and take necessary risks to reduce their risks, and finally to maintain a clear goal: defeat for Hamas. Nothing more.”

Walzer is the author of Just and Unjust Wars, a hugely influential treatise on morality in war that has gone through successive editions since its publication in 1977. Walzer’s meditation on the just war was especially impressive for taking on a wide range of historical examples, but it was written under the shadow of the war in Vietnam. Walzer condemned that war not only as an unjustified intervention but also as one that was “carried on in so brutal a manner that even had it initially been defensible, it would have to be condemned, not in this or that aspect but generally.”

In his treatise, Walzer closely considered both jus ad bellum (the right of going to war) and jus in bello (the law governing its conduct). As Walzer noted, “considerations of jus ad bellum and jus in bello are logically independent, and the judgments we make in terms of one and the other are not necessarily the same.”

But in the case of Vietnam, he argued, they came together. “The war cannot be won, and it should not be won. It cannot be won, because the only available strategy involves a war against civilians; and it should not be won, because the degree of civilian support that rules out alternative strategies also makes the guerillas the legitimate rulers of the country.”

Do not these strictures apply to Israel’s war in Gaza? Hamas hides behind civilians, or is rather closely intermingled with them, as the Viet Cong once were. It has enjoyed an equal or greater amount of support from the local population. Its acts of assassination and terrorism fall far short, numerically, of those committed by the VC. Walzer was rightly shocked by the civilian toll in Vietnam, which saw a civilian-combatant fatality ratio of approximately two to one. In Gaza, the proportion of civilian-to-combatant deaths is at least five to one and probably much greater. Israeli leaders have made clear that their war is on the whole population. Their criteria for when to bomb, aided by AI, has blown past previous restraints.

Another case taken up by Walzer in Just and Unjust Wars was America’s atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The decision was justified at the time as the only way to avert the far larger casualties likely to ensue were the United States to have attempted an invasion of Japan. Walzer rejected this argument. “It does not have the form: if we don’t do x (bomb cities), they will do y (win the war, establish tyrannical rule, slaughter their opponents).”

Instead, the U.S. government in effect argued that “if we don’t do x, we will do y.” The real problem, Walzer argued, was the policy of unconditional surrender — that is, it had to do with U.S. war aims. Walzer approved the policy of unconditional surrender when applied to Germany — Hitler’s regime represented a “supreme emergency” — but not when applied to Japan.

“Japan’s rulers were engaged in a more ordinary sort of military expansion, and all that was morally required was that they be defeated, not that they be conquered and totally overthrown,” he wrote.

Walzer’s treatment of Vietnam and Hiroshima suggests that there are imperative reasons to stop short of total victory as a war aim, if the result of pursuing it is a moral enormity. If you have to commit wickedness on a titanic scale in order to achieve total victory, you should accept limited war and seek the containment of the enemy, not his obliteration.

This is especially so, one might add, if the enemy one aims to annihilate elicits widespread sympathies elsewhere, making probable some kind of over-the-top retribution in the future. There are 2.2 million Gazans. There are 1.8 billion Muslims. Germany and Japan were friendless in 1945.

It is obvious that Israel’s war in Gaza bears no relationship to the war that Mort and Walzer recommended on October 18. Israel has not fought with restraint, has not rejected indiscriminate bombing and shelling, has not respected enemy civilians. Operation Swords of Iron has been instead the most elaborate and twisted application yet of the Dahiya Doctrine, Israel’s longstanding war plan that makes a virtue out of wildly disproportionate retributions.

That Israel intended to do this was apparent from the outset — 6,000 bombs were dropped in the war’s first six days — but went strangely unnoticed by Mort and Walzer when their piece appeared. The authors stressed the need to get humanitarian aid into Gaza but didn’t mention the Israeli blockade on all things requisite to life, a radical policy totally opposed to laws of war and imposed by Israel on the war’s first day.

In a subsequent interview on October 30, Walzer conceded that there was no justification for Israel’s blockades of Gaza’s electricity, water, and food supply, but also questioned the idea that a humanitarian pause would be justified before Hamas was defeated.

“Acts that shock the moral conscience of mankind” was one of Walzer’s most resonant phrases in Just and Unjust Wars. He meant by that “old-fashioned phrase” not the solipsistic prevarications of political leaders, but “the moral convictions of ordinary men and women, acquired in the course of their everyday activities.”

Clearly, Israel’s war in Gaza has entailed a profound shock to these sensibilities. It is this revulsion, not sympathy for Hamas, that explains world-wide public opposition to what Israel is doing.

From the beginning of the crisis, the Biden administration’s approach to the war ran closely in parallel with the course recommended by Mort and Walzer. Eliminate Hamas. Do so while sparing civilians as much as possible. Then be sweet to the Palestinians and give them an independent state.

Israel was happy to take the first part of this formula and to contemptuously reject the rest. Meanwhile, alongside these homilies to humane war, the United States has undertaken a vast effort to resupply Israel’s stock of bombs.

Confronting the escalating death toll, U.S. policymakers are dazed and confused. They’re still on autopilot in support of Israel’s war aim, while ineffectually shrieking in horror at the cost to Gaza’s civilians.

The truth is that there is no way to destroy Hamas without destroying Gaza. Contrary to Secretary Blinken’s words (and Walzer’s advice), Israel does not know how to destroy Hamas while minimizing harm to innocent civilians. Monumental harm to civilians follows from Israel’s war aim of destroying Hamas, which the Biden administration and Walzer continue to endorse. That war aim stands in urgent need of reconsideration.

David C. Hendrickson

David C. Hendrickson is professor emeritus of political science at Colorado College and the President of the John Quincy Adams Society. He is the author of several books, including Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition.

8. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, December 5, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-december-5-2023

Key Takeaways:

1. Palestinian militia fighters continued to use more sophisticated tactics to target Israeli forces throughout the Gaza Strip.
2. Israeli forces moved eastward and secured the Salah al Din Road south of Deir al Balah on or before December 3.
3. Israeli forces entered urban areas in Khan Younis and Bani Suheila. Palestinian militia forces, including the al Qassem Brigades and the al Quds Brigades, are attempting to resist the Israeli advance into Khan Younis governorate.
4. Israeli forces continued their advance into Jabalia and Shujaiya.
5. Palestinian militias in the Gaza Strip conducted nine indirect fire attacks into Israel.
6. Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters clashed in nine towns across the West Bank.
7. Lebanese Hezbollah claimed 15 attacks into Israeli territory from Lebanon.
8. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps held a funeral ceremony in Tehran for two IRGC Quds Force general officers killed in Syria.
9. US CENTCOM reported that unspecified actors launched 15 122mm rockets from Iraq at the US forces at the Rumalyn Landing Zone in Syria on December 3.
10. Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed to cooperate toward undermining international sanctions.

IRAN UPDATE, DECEMBER 5, 2023

Dec 5, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, December 5, 2023

Brian Carter, Johanna Moore, Andie Parry, Amin Soltani, Annika Ganzeveld, Alexandra Braverman, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm EST

Contributor: Khaled Maalouf

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. For more on developments in Iran and the region, see our interactive map of Iran and the Middle East.

Note: CTP and ISW have refocused the update to cover the Israel-Hamas war. The new sections address developments in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as noteworthy activity from Iran’s Axis of Resistance. We do not report in detail on 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 utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Key Takeaways:

1. Palestinian militia fighters continued to use more sophisticated tactics to target Israeli forces throughout the Gaza Strip.
2. Israeli forces moved eastward and secured the Salah al Din Road south of Deir al Balah on or before December 3.
3. Israeli forces entered urban areas in Khan Younis and Bani Suheila. Palestinian militia forces, including the al Qassem Brigades and the al Quds Brigades, are attempting to resist the Israeli advance into Khan Younis governorate.
4. Israeli forces continued their advance into Jabalia and Shujaiya.
5. Palestinian militias in the Gaza Strip conducted nine indirect fire attacks into Israel.
6. Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters clashed in nine towns across the West Bank.
7. Lebanese Hezbollah claimed 15 attacks into Israeli territory from Lebanon.
8. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps held a funeral ceremony in Tehran for two IRGC Quds Force general officers killed in Syria.
9. US CENTCOM reported that unspecified actors launched 15 122mm rockets from Iraq at the US forces at the Rumalyn Landing Zone in Syria on December 3.
10. Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed to cooperate toward undermining international sanctions.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to launch and sustain a major ground operation into the Gaza Strip
• Degrade IDF material and morale around the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian militia fighters continued to use more sophisticated tactics to target Israeli forces throughout the Gaza Strip on December 5. This is consistent with the tactical shift CTP-ISW has observed since the end of the humanitarian pause.[1] The al Qassem Brigades—the militant wing of Hamas—claimed that its fighters detonated a house-borne improvised explosive device (HBIED) targeting Israeli forces east of Khan Younis on December 5.[2] The HBIED collapsed the building. The group claimed that it detonated multiple claymore-type, anti-personnel mines in an ambush east of Khan Younis on December 5.[3] The al Qassem Brigades also targeted an Israeli tank with an EFP north of Khan Younis on December 4.[4] Al Qassem Brigades fighters inside an Israeli cantonment filmed Israeli soldiers relaxing inside the position near Juhor ad Dik.[5] The group claimed that they filled a tunnel under the cantonment with explosives and detonated it "among 60 Israeli soldiers.”[6]

Israeli forces moved eastward and secured the Salah al Din Road south of Deir al Balah on or before December 3. Satellite imagery published by the New York Times shows Israeli armor that moved east to west across Salah al Din Road before establishing cantonments on the west side of the road.[7] Israeli forces fought Palestinian fighters south of this area near Khan Younis on December 3 and 4, according to local witnesses, Israeli sources, and Palestinian media.[8] The IDF Arabic-language spokesperson declared the Salah al Din Road between southern Deir al Balah and Khan Younis a combat zone on December 2, which is consistent with Palestinian reports that Israeli forces were moving along the Salah al Din Road on December 3 and 4.[9] These reports suggest that Israeli forces moved south along the road toward Khan Younis.

Israeli forces entered urban areas in Khan Younis and Bani Suheila on December 5. The commander of the IDF Southern Command said on December 5 that the IDF is operating in the “core” of Khan Younis.[10] A Palestinian journalist reported that Israeli vehicles reached Muhatta and Municipality Park in northern Khan Younis on December 5.[11] The same source added that Israeli forces also moved to Rabea Road in eastern Bani Suheila.[12]

Palestinian militia forces, including the al Qassem Brigades and the al Quds Brigades, are attempting to resist the Israeli advance into Khan Younis governorate. The al Qassem Brigades detonated an EFP targeting Israeli armor north of Khan Younis city on December 4.[13] The al Qassem Brigades and the al Quds Brigades also claimed at least eighteen other attacks targeting Israeli forces along the Israeli "line of advance” north and east of the city on December 4 and 5.[14]

Israeli forces continued their advance into Jabalia and Shujaiya on December 5. The commander of the IDF Southern Command said on December 5 that the IDF is operating in the “core” of Shujaiya and Jabalia—similarly to how he announced Israeli operations in the “core” of Khan Younis.[15] The IDF also reported that its forces are operating in the Jabalia neighborhood after they encircled the area.[16] This is consistent with Palestinian militia claims. The al Quds Brigades reported that its forces fired tandem rockets at IDF vehicles near the Sanafour Roundabout and on Mushtaha Street in Shujaiya neighborhood on December 5. Geolocated footage posted on December 5 also showed IDF armor moving south through northern Jabalia.[17] The al Quds Brigades also targeted Israeli forces moving through the al Fallujah area, west of Jabalia.[18]

Palestinian militia fighters continued attacks targeting Israeli forces behind the Israeli forward line of advance, which is consistent with the nature of clearing operations. A Gaza Strip-based news outlet reported fighting in Juhor ad Dik, Beit Hanoun, Shati Camp, Beit Lahia, Tal al Hawa, and Zaytoun on December 5.[19]

The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel is preparing a system of pumps to flood Hamas’ tunnel system with seawater.[20] The report said that Israel informed the United States in early November that it was considering the tactic and that Israel assembled at least five pumps north of Shati Camp in mid-November.[21] The Wall Street Journal said that US officials held "mixed” opinions regarding the plan, with some officials expressing concern over the plan and others supporting Israeli efforts to disable the tunnels. US officials told the outlet that they did not know when Israel would execute the plan but that Israel had not yet made a final decision to use the pumps.

USAID Administrator Samantha Power arrived in Egypt to meet with Egyptian officials and humanitarian organizations.[22] Power arrived alongside 36,000 pounds of US-provided food assistance and medical supplies. USAID said that Power will highlight the US commitment to protecting civilians and the “absolute necessity” for the levels of humanitarian assistance reaching the Gaza Strip to “continue at, and exceed, the levels reached during the humanitarian pause.”

Recorded reports of rocket attacks; CTP-ISW cannot independently verify impact.

Recorded reports of rocket attacks; CTP-ISW cannot independently verify impact.

Palestinian militias in the Gaza Strip conducted nine indirect fire attacks into Israel on December 5. The al Qassem Brigades conducted six rocket attacks targeting Israel, including one rocket salvo targeting Tel Aviv.[23] The al Quds Brigades conducted two rocket attacks targeting southern Israel.[24]

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward the West Bank and fix them there

Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters clashed in nine towns across the West Bank on December 5.[25] This level of violence is consistent with the daily average rate of clashes in the West Bank over the last seven days. Palestinian fighters clashed twice with Israeli forces conducting large-scale raids in Jenin.[26] Israel informed the Palestinian Authority that Israeli forces’ activity in Jenin would last up to 72 hours, according to a Palestinian journalist.[27] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades—the self-proclaimed militant wing of Fatah—conducted two IED attacks during the Jenin raids.[28] The group claimed four of the nine clashes on December 5.[29] The group also announced the death of one of its commanders in the clashes with Israeli forces. [30] Palestinian fighters conducted two IED attacks against Israeli forces in other areas of the West Bank as well.[31]

The IDF said that its forces arrested 21 wanted persons in the West Bank on December 5.[32] The Palestinian Prisoners’ and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs Authority, which is part of the Palestinian Authority, said Israel arrested 40 Palestinians.[33]

This map is not an exhaustive depiction of clashes and demonstrations in the West Bank.

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward northern Israel and fix them there
• Set conditions for successive campaigns into northern Israel

Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) claimed 15 attacks into Israeli territory from Lebanon on December 5.[34] This rate of attacks is consistent with the daily average. LH exclusively targeted Israeli military sites along the Lebanese border. The IDF reported that a “hostile aircraft” crossed into Israeli airspace and was recovered by the IDF near Margaliot.[35] Unidentified militants conducted two separate rocket attacks into Israel toward Zerait and Kiryat Shemona.[36]

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Demonstrate the capability and willingness of Iran and the Axis of Resistance to escalate against the United States and Israel on multiple fronts
• Set conditions to fight a regional war on multiple fronts

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) held a funeral ceremony in Tehran on December 5 for two IRGC Quds Force general officers killed in Syria.[37] Israel conducted airstrikes into southern Syria on December 2, killing two members of the IRGC Quds Force Unit 340.[38] This branch of the Quds Force is responsible for transferring technical military capabilities to members of the Axis of Resistance. Current and former high-ranking IRGC officials attended the funeral ceremony for the two general officers killed, including:

• IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami;
• Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani;
• Sarallah Operational Headquarters Commander Brigadier General Mohammad Hossein Nejat;
• Former Ambassador to Iraq and Quds Force officer Brigadier General Eraj Masjidi; and
• IRGC Commander Adviser and former IRGC Intelligence Organization Director Hossein Taeb.[39]

It is normal for IRGC leaders to attend the funeral ceremonies for IRGC officers killed in Syria. The IRGC confirmed on December 2 that Israel killed the two general officers.[40]

US CENTCOM reported that unspecified actors launched 15 122mm rockets from Iraq at the US forces at the Rumalyn Landing Zone in Syria on December 3.[41] The Islamic Resistance of Iraq nor has any other actor claimed responsibility for the attack at the time of writing. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq previously claimed that it launched two one-way drones toward US positions around Rumalyn on November 11.[42]

Kataib Sayyid al Shuhada Secretary General Abu Alaa al Walai condemned in a post on X (Twitter) on December 5 the US self-defense strike against Iranian-backed Iraqi militants on December 3.[43] US CENTCOM confirmed that the United States conducted a self-defense strike against five Iraqi militants planning a one-way drone attack on US forces near Kirkuk, Iraq, on December 3.[44] Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba (HHN) acknowledged that the killed individuals were members of the militia.[45] HHN Secretary General Akram al Kaabi threatened on December 4 to retaliate against US forces for the airstrike.[46]

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—circulated videos of the funeral ceremony for the five fighters on December 5.[47] The publication of these videos by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq is unsurprising given that HHN is one of its constituent militias. Several other members of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq broadcasted their presences at the funeral as well, showing solidarity with HHN. A large number of individuals at the ceremony carried the flags of Kataib Hezbollah (KH) and Kataib Seyyed ol Shohada. Asaib Ahl al Haq (AHH) flags were noticeably absent among the crowd, which is noteworthy given that KH has implicitly criticized the lack of AAH attacks on US positions since the Israel-Hamas war began.

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed to cooperate toward undermining international sanctions on December 5. The agreement is meant to promote cooperation between Iran and Russia to mitigate the negative economic effects of "unilateral coercive measures,” including sanctions, according to Iranian state media.[48] Abdollahian and Lavrov made the agreement during an annual meeting of the foreign ministers of the Caspian Sea littoral states in Moscow. The meeting comes two days ahead of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s scheduled trip to Moscow to meet with his Russian counterparts and discuss economic relations and the Israel-Hamas war. Abdollahian separately repeated the regime’s calls for a goods and energy embargo against Israel in the presence of the foreign ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan.

Artesh Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Erani traveled to Baku, Azerbaijan, on December 4 to discuss expanding defense and maritime cooperation with senior Azerbaijani defense and military officials.[49] Erani met with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Vice Admiral Subhan Bakirov, and Azerbaijani Defense Minister Colonel General Zakir Hasanov. Erani called for increasing combined training, exercises, and sea patrols between the Artesh and Azerbaijani navies.[50] Erani and Bakirov also emphasized the need for security in the Caspian Sea to increase trade and transit between the five Caspian littoral states. Erani visited several Azerbaijani Navy units and training centers. Tensions have flared between Tehran and Baku over several different issues in recent years, including Iranian leaders’ accusation that Azerbaijan allows Israeli intelligence agents to operate in its territory.[51] Some Iranian leaders have softened their criticisms toward Azerbaijan in recent weeks, however. Artesh Coordination Deputy Brigadier General Habibollah Sayyari claimed on November 30 that Israel has withdrawn its forces from the Caucasus amid the Israel-Hamas war.[52]

Houthi President Mehdi al Mashat stated that the Houthi movement will continue to target Israel until it stops its attacks into the Gaza Strip.[53] Mashat previously stated on November 29 that US military pressure against the Houthi movement would not change its policies toward the Israel-Hamas conflict.[54]

9. Was Henry Kissinger Really a Realist?

Conclusion:

There is one sense, however, in which Kissinger can be regarded as the poster child for post-World War II realism. In Scientific Man Versus Power Politics, the classical realist Morgenthau located the taproot of international conflict in what he called the animus dominandi, or the desire to dominate that he believed was hardwired into human nature. My students are sometimes skeptical when they read this argument, perhaps because most of them don’t see themselves as driven to dominate others in the way Morgenthau describes. But if Morgenthau had been looking for an example to illustrate this concept, he could hardly have done better than Kissinger. As I argued in my earlier piece on him, no one in American history ever worked harder or longer at acquiring and retaining influence and power than Kissinger did, and few people were more successful at it. Morgenthau might also have warned that so long as people like Kissinger can rise to power in powerful countries—and not just in the United States—everyone must be on their guard. I can’t think of a more enduring realist insight than that.

Was Henry Kissinger Really a Realist?

America’s most famous 20th century statesman wasn’t exactly what he claimed to be.

Walt-Steve-foreign-policy-columnist20

Stephen M. Walt

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

Foreign Policy · by Stephen M. Walt · December 18, 2023

December 5, 2023, 5:25 AM

Henry Kissinger’s death last week produced a predictable flood of commentary, ranging from steadfast admiration to passionate criticism. I published my own assessment of his career on the occasion of his 100th birthday a few months ago, and I stand by what I wrote back then. Here I address a narrower but still salient question: Was Kissinger really a realist?

The issue is not merely one of academic interest. If Kissinger’s world view, his actions in government, and his subsequent career as a pundit, sage, and well-paid consultant are regarded as synonymous with foreign policy realism, that judgment will influence how others regard the entire realist tradition. But if he was either not a true realist or a highly idiosyncratic one, then realism’s core insights can stand independent of however one might judge the man himself or the decades he spent in the public eye.

To be sure, it is not hard to see why the realist label seems to fit him well (and it was a characterization Kissinger did little to dispel). From the very start of his career, he was primarily concerned with relations among great powers and the challenge of constructing stable orders in the absence of a central authority and the inevitable clash of competing interests. He fully appreciated the tragic nature of politics and was wary of naïve idealism. As many critics have noted, he gave scant attention to humanitarian considerations and certainly did not think human rights, the need to preserve the lives of innocents, or the niceties of international or domestic law should stop a great power from pursuing its own selfish interests.

Kissinger was also a ruthless bureaucratic infighter and accomplished practitioner of the darker political arts. He had clearly read his Machiavelli, who taught that to preserve order a prince “must learn how not to be good.” Machiavelli also thought successful leaders “must have a mind disposed to adapt itself according to the wind,” and when necessary be “a great feigner and dissembler.” Such characteristics fit Kissinger to a T. It is easy to see, therefore, why so many people regarded him as the quintessential American embodiment of foreign policy realism.

Yet it is impossible to be sure if Kissinger was a true realist at his core. Although he wrote thousands of pages about international politics and foreign policy, none of his books present his own distinct theory of international politics in any detail. You can learn a lot about how states behave from Kissinger’s voluminous works, but you can’t find an explicit statement explaining why they compete for power, how much power they want, or which causal forces matter most in the calculations of political leaders.

Moreover, his views were often at odds with those of other most prominent realists. Most realists believed nuclear weapons were useful only for deterrence, for example, but Kissinger’s varied (and admittedly contradictory) writings on nuclear strategy sometimes portrayed them as usable tools for fighting a war. Prominent realists such as George Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, and Walter Lippmann opposed the U.S. war in Vietnam—and did so well before public opinion had shifted against the war—but Kissinger supported it before entering government and prolonged it while in office, even though he also recognized that the war could not be won.

After the Cold War, realists were among the loudest critics of NATO enlargement, a policy Kissinger supported despite its predictably negative impact on relations with Russia. And most realists recognized that going to war with Iraq in 2003 was not in the U.S. national interest, but Kissinger backed the war before it began and for several years afterward. As Edward Luce astutely observes in his own thoughtful reflection on Kissinger’s career, “He was a realist when he needed to be, and a neoconservative when the winds changed.”

What explains Kissinger’s singular position within the broader realist community? One can think of many possible reasons, but I think two interrelated elements of his worldview were central to his departures from realist orthodoxy. (For an alternative take on this question, see Paul Poast’s thread here.)

First, whereas most realists (and especially structural realists) emphasize the material elements of power (i.e., population, economic strength, resources, military power, etc.), Kissinger believed ideas were potentially just as powerful and could be especially dangerous. His official (and highly sympathetic) biographer Niall Ferguson goes too far in trying to repackage him as a neo-Kantian idealist, but his account recognizes Kissinger’s enduring belief that dangerous ideas could wreak vast havoc if they gained a following, because the strongest army might not be enough to prevent them from spreading. How else can we understand Kissinger’s exaggerated fear of Eurocommunism or his overwrought reaction to the election of a moderate socialist president (Salvador Allende) in Chile? Kissinger’s concerns about the destabilizing impact of ideas made him hypersensitive to the smallest perturbations in strategically marginal countries and inclined him to overreact to them in ways that other realists opposed.

Second, where most realists believe that states (and especially the major powers) are inclined to balance against powerful or threatening rivals, Kissinger often seemed to believe the opposite was true. Although he frequently invoked balance-of-power logic (and the opening to China was a perfect illustration of such behavior), deep down Kissinger believed that other states would “bandwagon” with America’s rivals at the drop of a hat. As he famously wrote in “The Vietnam Peace Negotiations” (published on the eve of his becoming Richard Nixon’s national security advisor): “nations can gear their actions to ours only if they can count on our steadiness.” And he didn’t just mean the relatively weak states of Southeast Asia. He was worried that withdrawing from Vietnam would raise doubts about U.S. power and credibility and lead U.S. allies to opt for neutrality (or even worse, to align with the Soviet Union). This fear explains why he thought the United States had to keep fighting a war he knew it could not win. Kissinger was not alone in that belief—indeed, an obsession with credibility is hardwired into the U.S. national security establishment—but it is at odds with a core tenet of the realist tradition.

With hindsight, it is also clear that Kissinger was dead wrong, and the other realists were right. America’s European allies welcomed the disengagement from Vietnam, in part because the war had diverted U.S. attention and resources from European affairs. It is no accident that NATO’s strength and cohesion improved once the U.S. withdrew from Indochina, rebuilt its war-torn army, and focused once again on the central axis of Cold War competition. Realists like Kennan, Waltz, and Morgenthau were also correct in saying that nationalism was a far more powerful ideology than Soviet communism, and that the marriage of convenience between Beijing, Moscow and Hanoi would break down once the U.S. presence in Vietnam no longer gave these states a reason to collaborate. Instead of dominos falling and forming a unified communist sphere, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia ended up at odds once the U.S. withdrew. Similarly, realist opposition to the war in Iraq and to open-ended NATO enlargement looks wiser today than Kissinger’s endorsement of both these initiatives.

There is one sense, however, in which Kissinger can be regarded as the poster child for post-World War II realism. In Scientific Man Versus Power Politics, the classical realist Morgenthau located the taproot of international conflict in what he called the animus dominandi, or the desire to dominate that he believed was hardwired into human nature. My students are sometimes skeptical when they read this argument, perhaps because most of them don’t see themselves as driven to dominate others in the way Morgenthau describes. But if Morgenthau had been looking for an example to illustrate this concept, he could hardly have done better than Kissinger. As I argued in my earlier piece on him, no one in American history ever worked harder or longer at acquiring and retaining influence and power than Kissinger did, and few people were more successful at it. Morgenthau might also have warned that so long as people like Kissinger can rise to power in powerful countries—and not just in the United States—everyone must be on their guard. I can’t think of a more enduring realist insight than that.

Foreign Policy · by Stephen M. Walt · December 18, 2023

10. War Has Changed, and the Army’s Conceptualization of Operational Art Must Follow Suit

This is a fascinating article. We all must read and ponder the author's arguments.

Excerpts:

By integrating the ideas from Unrestricted Warfare with insights from 2018 and 2020 RAND studies on the operational concepts of the People’s Liberation Army, one can better comprehend the perspective of Chinese military strategists on warfare. According to their perspective, the “combat space,” representing the realm of kinetic military conflict, is shrinking, while the “war space,” encompassing the broader realm of conflict, is expanding. This operational concept, within a broader conceptualization of warfare, remains grounded in systems theory and system confrontation. However, Chinese military strategists acknowledge the necessity of waging “comprehensive competition in all domains” to alter the relative power and capability of the confronting systems.

A useful way of encapsulating (a) the limitations of current US conception of operational art are no longer fit for its purpose and (b) the need the US to embrace all perspectives of warfare is by imagining a football team. The current US Army doctrinal construct for operational art generates a team focused exclusively on X’s and O’s. This focus visualizes success accruing to the readiest and most adaptable team system, combined with having the best trained and conditioned players. However, an overemphasis on readiness, on X’s and O’s, narrows the competition to the playing field, which is inadequate for modern conflicts.

Our adversaries see a larger competitive space, or battlefield, encompassing not just the field of play but the whole league, the stadium, the media, the players association, and more. The Joint Concept for Competing urges us to adopt a similar view, with a much larger understanding of “competitive space” and critical “sub-areas” of competition. Our adversaries are gaining relative advantage through various activities off the field and outside of game time. While we prepare players for next Sunday’s game, our adversaries are using cyber warfare to infiltrate local traffic systems to prevent fans from being able to attend the game and thus negating homefield advantage. They are embedding personnel within our medical staff to prevent player readiness or within the coaching staff to gain a cognitive advantage. They are using media warfare to plant or leak various stories about racial or other schisms prevalent within the organization that will deter future free agents from signing with the team. They are conducting legal warfare, lobbying the league to change on-field rules in ways that favor their team system. The list of examples is endless, but the analogy’s core idea is to encourage contemplation of what else the US Army should contribute within the broader realm of competition. This calls for a reimagining of how the US Army should define and apply operational art to effectively manage this expanding war space.

...

Change does not come easy to large institutions, but the US Army must adapt to the evolving nature of strategic competition by embracing irregular and nonlethal methods. Theater campaigns in the twenty-first century should utilize operational art’s system perspective to employ military forces in ways that alter the interaction of variables within the greater geopolitical system, ultimately supporting US strategic objectives. As strategic competition becomes a persistent and long-term struggle, one that defines the operating environment, the United States must reconceptualize its application of the military instrument of national power.

...

Operational art offers the Army a framework to organize and employ military forces below the threshold of armed conflict, supporting strategic objectives. In the twenty-first century, armed conflict against peer adversaries may become less common with the dominant context within which operational art is applied becoming strategic competition. Consequently, the United States will call upon its Army to help achieve its strategic objectives in constructs short of armed conflict. Therefore, operational art must evolve to prioritize creating changes to the international system and generating strategic relative advantage for the United States through campaigns within competition.

War Has Changed, and the Army’s Conceptualization of Operational Art Must Follow Suit - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by David C. Clouse · December 5, 2023

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The rapid evolution of war, or as Carl Von Clausewitz describes it, “politics by other means,” is reaching a point where “soldiers no longer have a monopoly on war,” as two People’s Liberation Army colonels wrote in the late 1990s. In their book Unrestricted Warfare, they predicted that the “boundaries lying between the two worlds of war and non-war, of military and non-military, will be totally destroyed” so that even the “rules of war may need to be rewritten.” Their notion of soldiers losing their monopoly on war emerged shortly after one of the US Army’s greatest triumphs, the defeat of Iraqi forces during Operation Desert Storm. In the decades since, our adversaries have covertly manipulated the boundaries between war and nonwar to shape the future battlefield. For much of that period, the US Army was largely preoccupied with counterterrorism and the post-9/11 wars. More recently, it has turned its focus to preparing for large-scale combat operations, but this focus avoids actually envisioning this battlefield. Instead, it envisions a one slightly altered from the battlefield experienced during Operation Desert Storm.

There have been a few, important voices calling for change. General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, seems to recognize the blurring of boundaries between war and nonwar and an evolving battlefield where the soldier is not the primary participant. In February, he signed the Joint Concept for Competing, which warns the joint force about the risks of relinquishing strategic influence, advantage, and leverage while preparing for a war that never occurs, as well as the potential to “lose without fighting.” In other words, the US Army risks losing its current contest by preparing to fight on the wrong battlefield, and even worse, failing contribute to the contest all together. To address this risk, the Army must reimagine how it understands war and the modern battlefield—which Milley describes as vast, amorphous, and an undefined competitive space. More specifically, it must redefine how it conceptualizes tactical actions and how it connects those actions to strategic objectives.

The primary concept for bridging tactical actions and strategy is known as operational art. Current US Army doctrine outlines two imperatives for operational art. The first is to actively create the most advantageous tactical conditions possible. And the second is to ensure that military operations align with and directly support strategy. In order to be prepared for the vast, amorphous new battlefield, the US Army must embrace the Joint Concept for Competition’s central idea and “expand its competitive mindset,” starting with its conceptualization, definition, and understanding of operational art. This cognitive evolution must proceed through three steps: (1) acknowledging the limitations of the historical conceptualization of operational art for today’s strategic environment; (2) embracing the multiplicity of warfare perspectives, specifically the different ways our adversaries understand warfare; and (3) redefining operational art and the application of the military instrument of national power across the competition continuum.

No Longer Fit for Purpose

A binary construct of war and peace limits the potential application of operational art. The Army’s current definition—“the pursuit of strategic objectives, in whole or in part, through the arrangement of tactical actions in time, space, and purpose”—traces back to the nineteenth century with Antoine Henri Jomini’s writings on strategy. Jomini’s description of strategy closely resembles how current doctrine defines operational art, which involves “making war on a map” and “mass[ing] an army, successfully, upon the decisive points of a theater of war.” Or in today’s terms, creating the most advantageous tactical conditions possible to bring about a decisive battle that ends the war and grants policymakers their desired political outcome.

However, the progression of weapons and tactics has transformed warfare, which Soviet military theorist Mikhail Tukhachevsky noted nearly a century ago had consequently rendered it “an impossible matter to destroy the enemy’s manpower by one blow in a one day battle.” Both the US Civil War and World War I served as demonstrations of this, revealing the futility of seeking a single decisive battle. Russian theorists recognized this shift and evolved the concept of operational art to tackle the challenges it posed. For the Russians, the “central challenge” of operational art transitioned “from enveloping linear maneuver to the deep frontal penetration.”

This shift in understanding reimagined enemy forces as systems and, according to retired Israel Defense Forces brigadier general and director of Israel’s Operational Theory Research Institute Shimon Naveh, demanded elaborate operations to disrupt the enemy’s functionality in terms of “depth, continuity, synergism, and wholeness.” Instead of adhering to Jomini’s strategy of “making war on a map,” operational artists shifted their focus to making war on the complex adaptive system of the enemy. To successfully conduct war on a complex adaptive system, it is necessary to target critical nodes and disrupt system functions, to create opportunities to defeat enemy militaries in detail. Systems theory, according to Naveh, became the new foundation for conceptualizing and understanding operational art. And it is systems theory that will prove critical to unlocking the future potential power of operational art for fulfilling the Army’s requirements within both the current and future strategic environments.

The current, but limited, US Army understanding of systems theory sees war as the confrontation between two open systems or militaries. According to Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations, systems warfare is about attacking critical components of the enemy system while protecting your own. In this construct operational art serves to harness the power of the system’s various means to link battles and operations as ways to achieve “the isolation or destruction of critical subsystems,” disrupt the effectiveness of the “opponent’s overall system,” and then “[exploit] the resulting freedom of action” to annihilate the operationally paralyzed enemy and achieve specified ends, which is the main idea of the new FM 3-0. Enemy systems exist across the five domains and three dimensions through a series of interdependent links and nodes. The links and nodes then must be disrupted through multidomain operations to create opportunities to exploit with ground maneuver. FM 3-0’s concept makes sense. It’s how the Army contributes to large-scale combat operations. But alone it is not sufficient to produce the expanded military mindset necessary or optimized for the current strategic environment and evolved battlefield. Operational art, as written, prepares for a war that may never occur, to create advantageous tactical conditions on a battlefield that isn’t being fought on.

What is required can be discerned by examining the evolved nature of warfare birthed by Desert Storm. The globalization of warfare and the interconnection of nation-states around the world have changed the battlefield from an area where two independent systems are in confrontation into a global ecosystem. The warring nations are two interdependent variables in competition for relative advantage. Consider the premise of Unrestricted Warfare, which saw in Desert Storm “a war which changed the world [and] ultimately changed war itself” and concluded that warfare “can no longer be carried out in the ways with which we are familiar.” However, the US Army seems to only want to envision warfare in ways with which it is familiar, seeing the application of the military instrument of national power focused on warfare between military systems in conflict and not as variables in competition to alter the greater system and to create relative advantage.

Embracing All Perspectives

To expand its military mindset, the Army, as an organization, must study the competing conceptions of warfare. Two post–World War II conflicts serve as indicators of the expanding context of warfare and, consequently, operational art: the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. These two conflicts demonstrate a widened application of military force that transcends force-on-force land engagements.

Both the Egyptians in 1973 and the Russians in 2014 employed their military forces not to secure a traditional victory in war but to induce changes within the international system. Despite the Egyptian military’s loss, it achieved many of its desired strategic outcomes, including increased diplomatic and economic partnerships with the United States and the eventual return of, and demilitarization of, the Sinai. On the other hand, in 2014, the Russians executed their seizure of Crimea without direct combat, successfully restoring Vladimir Putin’s position in the Russian political hierarchy and retaining the strategically important port of Sevastopol. These examples illustrate the ability to achieve political aims within the international system without achieving a decisive military defeat of an adversary on a traditional battlefield.

Similarly, Unrestricted Warfare, as mentioned earlier, provides us with insights into China’s war concepts. These concepts aim for, as the Joint Concept for Competing describes it, “conflict without combat” and seek ways to “alter the current international system.” Colonels Liang and Xiangsui extensively discuss nonmilitary war operations and nonwar military operations, including trade war, financial war, terror war, ecological war, psychological warfare, drug warfare, network warfare, technological warfare, fabrication warfare, cultural warfare, and international law warfare. In fact, the same concepts continue to be promoted in People’s Liberation Army (PLA) literature, including the 2020 version of “The Science of Military Strategy,” published by the China’s National Defense University, as highlighted by a Center for Strategic and International Studies 2023 report on Chinese political warfare.

By integrating the ideas from Unrestricted Warfare with insights from 2018 and 2020 RAND studies on the operational concepts of the People’s Liberation Army, one can better comprehend the perspective of Chinese military strategists on warfare. According to their perspective, the “combat space,” representing the realm of kinetic military conflict, is shrinking, while the “war space,” encompassing the broader realm of conflict, is expanding. This operational concept, within a broader conceptualization of warfare, remains grounded in systems theory and system confrontation. However, Chinese military strategists acknowledge the necessity of waging “comprehensive competition in all domains” to alter the relative power and capability of the confronting systems.

A useful way of encapsulating (a) the limitations of current US conception of operational art are no longer fit for its purpose and (b) the need the US to embrace all perspectives of warfare is by imagining a football team. The current US Army doctrinal construct for operational art generates a team focused exclusively on X’s and O’s. This focus visualizes success accruing to the readiest and most adaptable team system, combined with having the best trained and conditioned players. However, an overemphasis on readiness, on X’s and O’s, narrows the competition to the playing field, which is inadequate for modern conflicts.

Our adversaries see a larger competitive space, or battlefield, encompassing not just the field of play but the whole league, the stadium, the media, the players association, and more. The Joint Concept for Competing urges us to adopt a similar view, with a much larger understanding of “competitive space” and critical “sub-areas” of competition. Our adversaries are gaining relative advantage through various activities off the field and outside of game time. While we prepare players for next Sunday’s game, our adversaries are using cyber warfare to infiltrate local traffic systems to prevent fans from being able to attend the game and thus negating homefield advantage. They are embedding personnel within our medical staff to prevent player readiness or within the coaching staff to gain a cognitive advantage. They are using media warfare to plant or leak various stories about racial or other schisms prevalent within the organization that will deter future free agents from signing with the team. They are conducting legal warfare, lobbying the league to change on-field rules in ways that favor their team system. The list of examples is endless, but the analogy’s core idea is to encourage contemplation of what else the US Army should contribute within the broader realm of competition. This calls for a reimagining of how the US Army should define and apply operational art to effectively manage this expanding war space.

Toward a New Definition

The US Army must undertake the task of redefining, in doctrine, operational art and the application of the military instrument of national power across the competition continuum. This redefined foundation necessitates a rescaled understanding of systems theory, acknowledging the Army’s role as a variable within these complex systems. The redefined foundation must, as the esteemed international relations theorist Robert Jervis describes, recognize that any interaction with a system will have “chains of consequences [that] extend over time and many areas.” Therefore, Army operational art must prioritize adaptability.

John Boyd, a renowned military theorist, extensively explored this concept. His well-known OODA loop illustrates how individuals or systems “learn and adapt [their] mindset to an ever-changing environment amid unavoidable uncertainty.” For the military, the key lies in adapting to environmental changes faster and more effectively than adversaries. The same principle applies to the Army in the new strategic environment, where adaptability becomes paramount.

Sensemaking and feedback are critical components of operational art. Moreover, the objectives of interacting with a system are to alter the interrelationships between variables and the behavior of various components. A significant part of influencing behavior is rooted in psychology, narrative, and context. When identifying elements to focus on for generating system changes within the expanded war space or competition, both narrative and node-link interdependence emerge as crucial factors. Lastly, the joint elements of direct and indirect effects must be added to the Army’s elements of operational art to help drive broad coherent strategy supporting operations.

The future application of operational art will focus more broadly outside of armed conflict and more predominately within the expanded war space, or competition space. As such the Army institutionally must accept premise that Milley articulated in his foreword to the Joint Concept for Competing—that “remain[ing] fully prepared and poised for war,” on its own, “will be insufficient to secure [our] strategic objectives and protect [our] freedoms.” Redefining operational art and its elements is just one step of expanding the Army’s mindset, although it is a crucial one. The new definition must include focus on continuous interaction with the greater operational environment, condition shaping, sensemaking, exploitation, and interrelationship across myriad of interdependent variables. Having more skilled and trained football players won’t be sufficient to retain an advantage, and the football field is only one of many areas of competition.

Change does not come easy to large institutions, but the US Army must adapt to the evolving nature of strategic competition by embracing irregular and nonlethal methods. Theater campaigns in the twenty-first century should utilize operational art’s system perspective to employ military forces in ways that alter the interaction of variables within the greater geopolitical system, ultimately supporting US strategic objectives. As strategic competition becomes a persistent and long-term struggle, one that defines the operating environment, the United States must reconceptualize its application of the military instrument of national power.

Given this overarching imperative, the following proposed redefinition of operational art captures the specific requirements facing the US Army:

Operational art is the organization’s continuous interaction with its operational environment that is focused on shaping conditions (through strategies, campaigns, and operations) and adapting to changes (through sensemaking and feedback) to exploit opportunities (both tactical and strategic) more effectively than an adversary.

Operational art offers the Army a framework to organize and employ military forces below the threshold of armed conflict, supporting strategic objectives. In the twenty-first century, armed conflict against peer adversaries may become less common with the dominant context within which operational art is applied becoming strategic competition. Consequently, the United States will call upon its Army to help achieve its strategic objectives in constructs short of armed conflict. Therefore, operational art must evolve to prioritize creating changes to the international system and generating strategic relative advantage for the United States through campaigns within competition.

David C. Clouse, is a US Army information operations officer, is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), and has extensive operational planning experience from his tenure at the United States Army Pacific. His knowledge of Army operations in competition and systems theory is largely informed by his master’s degrees in military operations and project management, earned from SAMS and the University of Kansas, respectively.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Sgt. Timothy Hamlin, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by David C. Clouse · December 5, 2023

11. You Can’t Win Without (More) Submarines

A sober warning for us.

Excerpts:

For decades, hunting adversary submarines has been the primary focus of the U.S. submarine force. To prepare for this war, however, the submarine force must prioritize antisurface warfare. Top priorities should be antiship torpedo attacks in a shallow and congested environment, and long-range antiship missiles—potentially even ballistic ones—and better seekers and survivability than the Tomahawk antiship cruise missile.

“Undersea,” like “air” and “space,” is a place, not a mission. When the Navy created the concept of undersea warfare, it diluted the real warfare areas, notably ASW and ASuW. ASW proficiency was then further diluted when the Navy added mine warfare to Fleet Antisubmarine Warfare Command and transformed it into Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine Warfare Command despite the fact that mine warfare and ASW have little in common. Then, other warfare areas were added to create Undersea Warfare Development Command, later Undersea Warfare Development Center. Lost in all this was a necessary focus on the primary mission for U.S. attack submarines in the coming war: ASuW. The Navy must get back to core warfare areas, notably ASW and ASuW.

In this fight, ASW will be mostly defensive and at long range from Taiwan, areas where SSNs likely will not be deployed. Hence, defensive ASW needs to be its own discipline, using maritime patrol aircraft and MH-60R helicopters, not SSNs. The maritime patrol community should drop the “reconnaissance” mission it picked up during the global war on terrorism and revert to an ASW-centric construct.

The High-Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon Capability (HAAWC) torpedo program, which converts Mk 54 lightweight torpedoes for launch from P-8s at cruise altitudes, began in 2023. If the war begins in 2026, inventory will be nowhere near required levels without a significant increase in the production rate.9

Finally, the Navy must ruthlessly prioritize certain acquisition programs. The immediacy of this potential conflict demands that, of the three program tradeoff variables—cost, performance, and schedule—schedule must be given top priority for the programs that will make the most difference. Submarine production must be accelerated. Submarines currently in maintenance must be made whole as quickly as possible. And production of ASW and ASuW weapons and sonobuoys should be accelerated to the maximum rates possible. If the Navy does not adjust to this reality, it will lose many lives in this war.

You Can’t Win Without (More) Submarines

“If I had to give credit to the instruments and machines that won us the war in the Pacific, I would rank them in this order: submarines first, radar second, planes third, bulldozers fourth.”­—Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey, U.S. Navy

By Captain William Toti, U.S. Navy (Retired)

December 2023 Proceedings Vol. 149/12/1,450

usni.org · ​

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant.”

—Attributed to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Imperial Japanese Navy

Although Admiral Yamamoto never actually uttered those words, he should have.2 In the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, the version of Yamamoto portrayed by actor Sô Yamamura makes the statement to reflect his fear of U.S. industrial might. In the 1940s, that capacity was indeed vast.

No longer. In the decades prior to the 2026 scenario, the United States had eviscerated its naval shipyards. During World War II, the nation had more than 50 shipyards that could contribute to the war effort. By 2023, it had fewer than 20—all old. In fact, in the years leading up to the war, China had created significantly more shipbuilding capacity than the United States.3 So as the war began, on the matter of industrial might, China had the substantial advantage.

The Navy’s offensive mine capabilities include the Submarine Launched Mobile Mine—here, being loaded on the USS Annapolis (SSN-760). But these weapons work only in shallow water and can be delivered only by Improved Los Angeles–class submarines, which in the event of conflict will be in demand for other missions. U.S. Navy (Zachary Grooman)

The U.S. Navy prides itself on having the most capable ships in the world. Unfortunately, the battle coastline in this war is more than 5,000 miles long. Hence, numbers count. Regarding the numbers of ships and the ability to endure attrition, the advantage again went to China.

Before the war, only one of the two main belligerents had been incorporating lessons from the last great Pacific war. This battle is not a repeat of Midway. It is Okinawa in reverse, with the United States on the defending side and China attacking with ten times the size of the landing force that went ashore on Okinawa.4 So regarding the principle of mass, advantage: China.

This does not mean the war thus far has been easy for China—or that the continuation will be. Taiwan has half a million entrenched troops. Intangibles make this fight difficult to handicap, but the odds are not in the United States’—or Taiwan’s—favor.

On the brink of the crisis, U.S. political leaders considered the movement of large numbers of aircraft carriers and surface forces to be unacceptably “visible and provocative.” Combined with the sentiment in some circles that China was merely bluffing to put pressure on Taiwan, the preparatory deployment of most naval forces was withheld. This internal debate made the Chinese more inclined to initiate their attack before the U.S. military could be ready to react decisively.

But one U.S. force has been impactful: submarines. Not “undersea warfare” writ large. Not unmanned undersea vessels, not mine warfare, not distributed sensors, not seabed warfare or any of the other buzzwords that have taken hold of the undersea warfare discussion. In this war so far, none of that has mattered.

What has mattered is manned, armed, lethal, nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines (SSNs). Not only are submarines the only force that has been able to substantially interrupt the cross-strait invasion, but the surge of submarine forces was not visible, not provocative, and therefore was undertaken prior to the opening of hostilities.

And yet, because of the limited number of submarines available during the first month of combat, even that fight has not gone well.

Submarine Missions

Stemming the Chinese invasion of Taiwan demanded antisurface warfare (ASuW) operations, using submarines and aircraft, and antiair warfare (AAW) operations, using aircraft and Taiwan-based air-defense systems.

The main Chinese avenue of attack was along the southern Taiwan Strait shoal, taking advantage of the shallow waters that constricted U.S. and allied attack submarines. Because SSNs are the primary force capable of conducting ASuW in denied areas, ASuW has been their highest priority. The shallow water of the Taiwan Strait (averaging 150 to 300 feet but in some areas just 60 feet) made this a high-risk mission, but SSN operations have been effective. Once detected by Chinese forces, however, the SSNs have found it challenging to escape. To enhance stealth, torpedo attacks have been preferred over Harpoon missile attacks.

The next highest priority has been to protect the flanks and sink People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surface and submarine forces guarding the approaches to Taiwan. For this mission, joint and allied forces have relied primarily on aviation assets to provide both antisubmarine warfare (ASW) and ASuW coverage.

Submarines were one of the few forces that could penetrate denied areas inside the exclusion zone declared by China. Prior to hostilities, a request from Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, for U.S. submarines to lay mines in the Taiwan Strait was denied by the National Command Authority. With only four SSNs available in the joint operations area at the start of the war, ASuW torpedo attacks were deemed higher priority than mine-laying operations, so no mines were laid by the submarine force. (See “Mine Warfare Could Be Key,” pp. 46–51.)

PLAN submarines predominantly threaten U.S. and allied surface naval forces operating far from the Taiwan Strait, and organic U.S. and allied submarine ASW detection ranges are limited. Therefore, defensive ASW primarily has been a mission for maritime patrol aircraft, surveillance towed-array sensor system ships, SH-60R helicopters, and surface combatants equipped with towed-array and hull-mounted sonar systems.

Submarines armed with Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (TLAMs) are capable strike warfare platforms. Operating in denied areas, however, SSNs have abstained from this mission because launching TLAMs reveals their location. Hence, sub-launched TLAM strikes have been conducted only by guided-missile submarines (SSGNs) operating at a distance from Chinese threats.

In the 2026 scenario, Chinese ships transporting weapons, troops, and equipment across the Taiwan Strait have been primary targets for U.S. submarines. Here, soldiers from the PLA 73rd Group Army unload trucks from a roll-on/roll-off vessel. China Military (Lin Jiayu)

About a third of PLAN submarines have deployed out of area to threaten Japan, Guam, Hawaii, the U.S. mainland, and the Panama Canal. Hunting these submarines has been a job for Navy P-8 aircraft, destroyers, and cruisers with attached MH-60R helicopters, the Coast Guard (with little ASW capability), and pick-up missions by Army helicopters and bomb-laden Air National Guard fighters using radar and visual detection methods. Chile and Canada’s navies have been asked to assist.

Only Los Angeles–class submarines’ torpedo tubes are configured to fire Harpoon missiles, and every Harpoon loaded was one fewer torpedo that could be carried, which limited a boat’s close-in ASuW capability. The capability to launch Harpoons from Virginia–class boats’ torpedo tubes or from vertical-launch tubes in either Virginia– or Los Angeles–class submarines had not yet been developed.

The joint task force commander directed Navy and Air Force aircraft also to conduct cross-strait ASuW, creating a multidimensional threat to PLAN ships, giving them more to worry about than SSNs. Unfortunately, the ongoing battle for air superiority over Taiwan limited the degree to which aircraft could conduct these missions.

Before the war, two submarine operational approaches were considered to thwart the PLAN cross-strait invasion: a “rush-the-passer” approach, in which many SSNs would be surged to try to defeat the initial attack; and a “sustainment” approach, in which SSN deployments would be phased and thus could be sustained for a long-duration fight.

Under the “rush-the-passer” approach, a lengthy rearming and reset period would be required after the initial surge had expended its available weapons, leaving very few SSNs in theater. Under the “sustainment” approach, the small number of SSNs that could be maintained on station likely would not have a major impact on China’s initial landings. For these reasons, leaders selected a hybrid approach: a limited initial surge followed by a reduced sustainment.

Patrol Duration

In World War II, because of the vast search area, slow submarine transit speeds, and lack of target density, submarine patrols sometimes lasted as long as a month. In this war, the target density has been richer, submarine transit speeds faster, and weapons expended quickly, so on average SSNs have found themselves out of weapons within two weeks of arriving on station, at which point they have been directed to transit to reload sites. In all, this calls for a faster operational tempo than the submarine force sustained in World War II.

The operational employment of SSNs can be determined using either a requirements-based approach, or an inventory-based approach.6 With an insufficient number of SSNs to allow a requirements-based approach, the only option was one based on inventory. Nineteen operational SSNs in the Pacific (two were held in reserve, one each at Pearl Harbor and San Diego), with a cycle time of 25 percent, allowed just four to be maintained on station.

Some SSNs were rotated to the Pacific during month two, which brought the number of operational SSNs to 23. This yielded 5 to 6 boats on station at any one time.

Battle of the Taiwan Strait

In this scenario, lengthy transits to reload torpedoes have limited U.S. submarines to about 25 percent on-station time. Here, sailors assigned to the USS Columbia (SSN-771) load a Mk 48 AdCap torpedo. U.S. Navy (Michael Zingaro)

The PLAN deployed landing-force troop ships and other support ships out of nontraditional ports, and it mobilized other ships as feints to saturate detection systems. Because China declared an exclusion zone for the Taiwan Strait at the beginning of hostilities, any ships in the strait were presumed to be supporting the Chinese invasion and, thus, legitimate targets.

On the first day of hostilities, the U.S. Navy deployed four SSNs: two Virginia class from Pearl Harbor and two Los Angeles class from Guam in/around the Taiwan Strait, and one SSGN at standoff distance southeast of Taiwan.

Using the modified sustainment approach, Commander, SubPac, surged one additional Los Angeles from Guam (arrived week two), one additional Virginia from Pearl Harbor (arrived week three), one additional Seawolf from Bangor (arrived week three), one additional Virginia from San Diego (arrived week four), and one additional SSGN (the only other SSGN in inventory) from Bangor (arrived week three).

In addition, four submarines surged from the Atlantic: two Virginia class from Groton, Connecticut, to arrive week nine; and two Los Angeles class from Norfolk to arrive week ten.

The four SSNs on station at the commencement were out of weapons by the end of week two, reporting 53 enemy ships sunk, including two of the three PLAN aircraft carriers supporting air operations over Taiwan, and two of the four PLAN amphibious assault ships.

The on-station SSGN was out of weapons by the end of week one, having launched all 154 TLAMs, primarily at PLAN preinvasion targets.

A Los Angeles and a Virginia were directed to remain on station for surveillance pending arrival of the surge boats, while the two other SSNs returned to port for reload.

All reloads occurred at one of the two remote submarine tender sites. The transit distance to the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS-39) was approximately 1,100 nautical miles—a six-day round trip plus a day to reload per SSN and five days to reload per SSGN. The transit to the USS Frank Cable (AS-40) was an approximately 1,600-nautical-mile, eight-day round trip. The reloaded SSGN was back on station in week five. (Both tenders are now close to 50 years old and struggled to keep up with the pace of operations.)

Picket lines of PLAN Type 054 Jiangkai-class ASW frigates at the northern and southern entrances to the Taiwan Strait increased the transit time for boats that were not already on station when hostilities began. To the extent possible, submarines preserved torpedoes to interdict invasion shipping rather than PLAN ASW assets.

Substantial shallow-water reverberation made PLAN active sonar use in the Taiwan Strait ineffective—yielding many false targets, saturating the PLAN ASW response. Similarly, the high levels of background noise rendered passive acoustic detection of SSNs impossible. Hence, the PLAN’s most effective tactic was visual detection followed by prosecution using ASW helicopters or non-ASW aircraft dropping laser-guided and dumb bombs. A PLA aircraft stumbled on a Virginia-class submarine retrograding for reload. A helicopter from a Type 054 frigate sank it.

During week three, a Los Angeles–class boat was sunk while transiting from Guam to station, reducing the count of available SSNs to 13.

Mid-month, the Navy was directed to pull as many submarines out of maintenance as possible to return them to combat capability, using maintenance waivers as necessary. Naval Sea Systems Command began to review the quickest way to button up work for the 18 submarines in maintenance, prioritizing those without hull cuts. This yielded six additional submarines that could be restored to service, four of which were in the Atlantic. But the earliest any of those could be ready for operations was four months.

Late in week three, China severed the Pacific Light Cable Network underwater cable system (owned by U.S. company SUBCOM) running from Taiwan to the United States, substantially reducing communications with Taiwan. Communication cables owned/operated by Chinese companies were not affected. While SUBCOM had the capability to repair the cable, it elected not to do so during hostilities, which forced the routing of traffic onto cables controlled by Beijing.

Thus far in the war, unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) have not lived up to their promise because of insufficient inventory, limited range, and inappropriate payload. Submarine-launched UUVs have been used as sacrificial mine-detonation devices. So, rather than taking up weapons storage space in submarine torpedo rooms, most sub-launched UUVs have been left ashore. Other heavy, self-deploying, long-range UUVs have been somewhat effective for surveillance and intelligence gathering, but because of the distances involved, the fact that they were relatively easily detected and sunk, and the limited inventory at the start of the conflict, their contribution has been marginal.

Littoral combat ships (LCSs) have been of no value in the ASW/ASuW portion of this fight. Their limited range prevents them being used as escort ships, and they cannot protect themselves in high-risk areas. Although the mine-warfare module is quasi-operational, none of the LCSs could get close enough to active mine areas to use it.

Weapons Inventory

The U.S. inventory of submarine weapons is not publicly available information, but the expenditure rate of those weapons is metered by the number of submarines on-station.7

Torpedoes and Harpoons

Because submarine-launched Harpoon missile production only began in the late 2010s, the inventory was limited such that each Los Angeles–class SSN could initially receive only four. This left space in the torpedo room for 20 Mk 48 AdCap torpedoes per boat. The Virginia and Seawolf classes, which lack Harpoon capability, can carry 24 and 50 Mk 48 each, respectively.

With each SSN expending 20 to 50 torpedoes (and 4 Harpoons per Los Angeles) in a two-week rotation, consumption rates were 60 to 120 heavyweight torpedoes and 8–12 Harpoons per week. With more than 500 weapons available in the initial load, there were enough for one to two months of combat operations.

TLAMs

SSGNs could expend up to 154 TLAMs in the first and third week, with zero expenditures for three weeks until the first reloaded SSGN arrived back on station. With SSNs offloading 12 missiles each, 516 TLAMs were available for SSGN reloads. Each required 154 TLAMs per reload, hence SSGNs consumed the entire inventory of sub-launched TLAMs in only two cycles.

ASW

Similarly, the Navy’s inventory of P-8 sonobuoys was projected to be expended by the end of month four. Based on lessons from “chasing ghosts” during the Falklands War, the P-8 inventory of Mark 54 torpedoes would probably be expended even faster than the sonobuoys.

Presuming the Chinese understand the above, their strategy will involve extending combat operations until U.S. ASW weapons are expended, at least beyond month six.

In the antisubmarine warfare mission, the Navy’s large fleet of P-8A Poseidon aircraft were able to defend against the scenario’s Chinese submarines operating at a distance from Taiwan. U.S. Navy (Ryan Johnson)

What To Do Now

For decades, Navy munitions requirements analysis has confirmed that torpedo inventories are insufficient. While it will take years to grow the submarine inventory, the Navy can correct the weapons and sensor shortfall more quickly. It is a “feed and bleed” problem. Either have sufficient inventory on hand or ensure production can be increased quickly to support expected consumption rates. Yet, it has taken five years to restart heavyweight torpedo production, and only a few dozen weapons have since been produced, so this continues to be a major problem.8

Just as there has been an unofficial one-third, one-third, one-third Department of Defense funding split between the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, within the Department of Navy there has been an unofficial and artificial “fair share” restriction on investment divorced from combat requirements. Instead, investments must be prioritized for the capabilities that will do the most good for the highest priority conflict.

For decades, hunting adversary submarines has been the primary focus of the U.S. submarine force. To prepare for this war, however, the submarine force must prioritize antisurface warfare. Top priorities should be antiship torpedo attacks in a shallow and congested environment, and long-range antiship missiles—potentially even ballistic ones—and better seekers and survivability than the Tomahawk antiship cruise missile.

“Undersea,” like “air” and “space,” is a place, not a mission. When the Navy created the concept of undersea warfare, it diluted the real warfare areas, notably ASW and ASuW. ASW proficiency was then further diluted when the Navy added mine warfare to Fleet Antisubmarine Warfare Command and transformed it into Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine Warfare Command despite the fact that mine warfare and ASW have little in common. Then, other warfare areas were added to create Undersea Warfare Development Command, later Undersea Warfare Development Center. Lost in all this was a necessary focus on the primary mission for U.S. attack submarines in the coming war: ASuW. The Navy must get back to core warfare areas, notably ASW and ASuW.

In this fight, ASW will be mostly defensive and at long range from Taiwan, areas where SSNs likely will not be deployed. Hence, defensive ASW needs to be its own discipline, using maritime patrol aircraft and MH-60R helicopters, not SSNs. The maritime patrol community should drop the “reconnaissance” mission it picked up during the global war on terrorism and revert to an ASW-centric construct.

The High-Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon Capability (HAAWC) torpedo program, which converts Mk 54 lightweight torpedoes for launch from P-8s at cruise altitudes, began in 2023. If the war begins in 2026, inventory will be nowhere near required levels without a significant increase in the production rate.9

Finally, the Navy must ruthlessly prioritize certain acquisition programs. The immediacy of this potential conflict demands that, of the three program tradeoff variables—cost, performance, and schedule—schedule must be given top priority for the programs that will make the most difference. Submarine production must be accelerated. Submarines currently in maintenance must be made whole as quickly as possible. And production of ASW and ASuW weapons and sonobuoys should be accelerated to the maximum rates possible. If the Navy does not adjust to this reality, it will lose many lives in this war.

usni.org · 

12. Corporations Are Juicy Targets for Foreign Disinformation

Let's recognize the enemy's strategy. Understand it. EXPOSE it. And attack it with superior information.

Conclusion:

I’m not giving hostile states a blueprint for how to cheaply hurt Western economies: They’re already familiar with the secret juice. Western companies should realize that they’re in the firing line, not because they’re in themselves controversial, but because they’re an easy disinformation target. Communications teams should start reading obscure publications that lack author names and ownership details. Or as Bergman put it, “monitor the information environment smartly with good tech tools and people who understand where and how to look.”

Corporations Are Juicy Targets for Foreign Disinformation

Online slanders may become a new vector for economic warfare.

Braw-Elisabeth-foreign-policy-columnist3

Elisabeth Braw

By Elisabeth Braw, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a senior associate fellow at the European Leadership Network.

Foreign Policy · by Elisabeth Braw · December 27, 2023

December 5, 2023, 11:43 AM

We’re used to Russian disinformation targeting, say, Volodymyr Zelensky or U.S. presidential elections. But smear campaigns of uncertain provenance are increasingly targeting not just politics, but Western companies too. They’re not just a reputational nuisance, but a genuine economic threat, one that could be wielded by hostile states.

Nearly half of all Americans—47 percent—believe they see disinformation every day. So do 46 percent of Britons, 44 percent of Brazilians, 52 percent of Nigerians, 24 percent of Indians, and 20 percent of both Germans and Japanese, a 2022 report by the Poynter Institute shows. What matters most, though, is whether the public can identify the disinformation. The public mistaking facts for falsehoods and vice versa is fatal for a democracy. And there’s a dangerous mismatch here: Ninety percent of Americans, for example, believe they can spot disinformation, but three-fourths overestimate their skills, academics reported in a 2021 article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It is, in other words, easy to disseminate falsehoods, and artificial intelligence may make it even easier, or at least faster. It’s no surprise disinformation creators are refining their trade and picking potentially more profitable targets. Disinformation targeted at individual companies is growing fast.

Ninety-five percent of FTSE 100 companies (the London Stock Exchange’s top 100 firms) were frequently mentioned by noncredible publications in the first half of this year, communications firm Kekst finds in a new report. That’s 35 percent more than the year before. There were 348,000 social-media shares of these publications’ articles about FTSE 100 firms, which resulted in nearly 10 million impressions. Some of the articles are likely to have been prompted by companies’ competitors, while others were the result of poor-quality journalism, but it’s not yet clear that hostile states instrumentalize disinformation targeting Western businesses.

That’s likely coming, though. Disinformation today extends beyond mere bots on X, formerly known as Twitter. More than 100 noncredible publications (including a spiritualist magazine, publications known for spreading Russian propaganda, and American and Indian far-right magazines) regularly cover FTSE 100 companies, Kekst reports. What does a “noncredible” publication mean? By Kekst’s definition, it’s one that repeatedly publishes false content, doesn’t gather and present information responsibly, doesn’t correct or clarify errors, blends news and opinion content, uses deceptive headlines, doesn’t disclose ownership or financing, doesn’t label advertising, doesn’t reveal its ownership, and doesn’t name its writers.

But in an era of gullibility and infinite content, it’s easy for them to put out an article that looks legitimate on a quick glance, which then makes its way to interested social-media users, who enthusiastically share the findings because they have no idea how to identify disinformation. “We haven’t directly noticed this trend directly, but we are seeing the use of misinformation being used to force narratives that are malign and are being used to give others market advantage,” Simon Bergman, the chief executive officer of Saatchi World Services, told me. “This is particularly true when organizations have state backing or are operating outside the rules-based system and normal legal frameworks, and it has become more manifest post-covid and since the war in Ukraine.”

Juicy news spread more slowly in the 1980s, but the KGB and other Warsaw Pact intelligence agencies were still able to convince the world that AIDS had originated in a U.S. Army lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland: An article in a serious-looking publication was picked up by some news media, then more, and then the public got talking. The rumor about the U.S. Army creating AIDS remains in circulation to this day.

The time lapse between inaccuracies about a company are published in a dubious publication and the company gets wind of it is critical. And because most dubious publications aren’t found through traditional media monitoring, the targeted company is unlikely to detect the falsehoods straight away. That gives disinformation spreaders a crucial head start. When the company discovers the falsehoods, the stock market is likely to discover it, too, and because traders have to react quickly, a company targeted by disinformation faces a stock-price drop.

“Many organizations don’t realize they are victims of this activity until it is too late and they are on the back foot to react, normally poorly and with little understanding of the complexities and positives and negatives of rebuttal,” Bergman said. “A smart proactive approach to managing their own narrative and corporate messaging can go some way to protect them from this type of activity, but it depends what they are trying protect: share price, corporate reputation, stakeholder value, or critical audience perception.” In its report, Kekst notes that falsehoods about businesses’ adherence to climate targets rose during last year’s United Nations COP27 summit. They’re likely to do so again during this year’s COP28.

To be sure, disinformation directed against companies is nothing new. A few years ago, a forged Defense Department memo appeared to show that a leading semiconductor company’s planned acquisition of another company had prompted national security concerns. The stocks of both companies fell. Such defamation was usually the work of a commercial rival. In a 2021 report, PWC explained how easy and cheap it was to mount such a campaign: “$15-$45 to create a 1,000-character article; $65 to contact a media source directly to spread material; $100 for 10 comments to post on a given article or news story; $350-$550 per month for social media marketing; and $1,500 for search engine optimization services to promote social media posts and articles over a 10- to 15-day period.”

Given this extraordinary ease, it was only a matter of time before state-linked outfits discovered that targeting Western companies was an easy way of harming Western countries. “Russia can use a company as a convenient target,” said Janis Sarts, the director of NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Riga. “Of course, the company suffers, but it’s not the primary target.”

There’s not yet any forensic evidence that Russia or another hostile country is behind the rise in corporate disinformation campaigns, though a hostile state is known to have fueled the bogus findings linking 5G to the coronavirus, which caused fear among Western residents and delayed the 5G rollout in many countries. The rapid increase in disinformation campaigns against companies, though, suggests it’s no longer an activity just involving envious competitors.

A share-price dip based on disinformation won’t last long because the affected company will quickly alert the markets to the disinformation. But even a temporary dip is harmful. And consider the effect on a country’s financial standing if several major companies were to be simultaneously targeted by disinformation campaigns. The stock market would wobble and global markets would begin doubting the country’s financial stability.

I’m not giving hostile states a blueprint for how to cheaply hurt Western economies: They’re already familiar with the secret juice. Western companies should realize that they’re in the firing line, not because they’re in themselves controversial, but because they’re an easy disinformation target. Communications teams should start reading obscure publications that lack author names and ownership details. Or as Bergman put it, “monitor the information environment smartly with good tech tools and people who understand where and how to look.”

Foreign Policy · by Elisabeth Braw · 

13. Why Xi Wants Trump to Win

Excerpts:

Whoever wins the White House, Xi will pursue his agenda to roll back American power and create a China-centric world order. But he would likely push even harder to promote China as a world leader if Trump were in charge. By weakening U.S. standing abroad and democracy at home, Trump would offer Xi more opportunities than Biden to extend Chinese influence and win hearts and minds within the developing world.

Of course, one can’t assume that Trump would cut and paste his China policy from his first term. A newly reelected President Trump would face a geopolitical environment altered by the war in Ukraine and Xi’s intensified animosity toward the United States. He might change his China policy in light of these new realities. But he won’t change his personality. Trump is just as likely to fawn over Xi and other dictators as he is to stand his ground.

If Xi could vote in November, he would surely cast his ballot for Trump.

Why Xi Wants Trump to Win

A second Trump term would allow China to cement its grip on the developing world.

By Michael Schuman

The Atlantic · by Michael Schuman · December 5, 2023

After four years of Joe Biden, China’s leaders would likely be relieved to have Donald Trump back in the White House.

Compared with his predecessor, Biden has operated quietly. Trump launched a trade war; slapped tariffs on Chinese imports; and infuriated Beijing by referring to the coronavirus as “the Chinese Virus,” blaming the Chinese Communist Party for its spread, and even at times humoring theories that the party may have played a role in its creation.

But Biden has hit China harder than Trump ever did. Armed with a more determined foreign policy, he has inflicted acute damage on the country’s economy and geopolitical ambitions, from which China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has struggled to recover. “A Biden-led U.S., probably from the Chinese perspective, looks like a more formidable challenge,” Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., told me.

The most telling example is Biden’s technology policy. In 2022, his administration effectively barred the export to China of advanced semiconductors and the complex equipment required to manufacture them. The controls will likely set back China’s hopes of building a competitive chip industry for years and hamper its progress in other key tech sectors, such as artificial intelligence.

Read: Why Biden’s block on chips to China is a big deal

Biden has revitalized the American-led global alliance network that had atrophied under Trump, and has marshaled its power to counter China. The advanced democracies in the Group of Seven have displayed an unusual degree of coordination on Biden’s watch, agreeing in 2023 to a common approach to decrease their reliance on the Chinese economy. Biden has also fostered closer ties with new partners, especially India, to compete with Chinese influence in the developing world. Biden’s success has apparently alarmed a Chinese leadership fearful of becoming encircled and contained by a coalition of American allies.

By comparison, from Beijing’s point of view, haggling with Trump over tariffs or exchanging bombastic rhetoric was a mere nuisance. Trump’s withdrawal from American global leadership encouraged Xi to promote China as a more responsible world power. The chaos of the Trump presidency—the administration’s inept response to the pandemic, the violence of January 6—allowed Chinese propagandists to cast the United States as a superpower in decline. Biden’s diplomatic reengagement has made spreading that narrative harder. In response, Xi has become more hostile to Washington. He has routinely resisted dialogue with the Biden administration and become more determined to upset the U.S.-led world order. He has grown more desperate and isolated as a result. Opposed by most of the world’s major powers, Xi has thrown in his lot with the pariah states Russia and Iran in an attempt to build an anti-American coalition to challenge U.S. primacy.

Even if a second Trump presidency were to retain some aspects of Biden’s China policy—the technology controls, for instance, would almost certainly stay in place—Trump’s return would jeopardize the united front that Biden has forged among the major democracies. His “get tough” policy could fixate on one issue with China—trade, for instance—and waver on others of importance, such as human rights and policy toward Taiwan. By comparison, Biden has consistently pressed Beijing on a range of fronts, even straying beyond Washington’s traditionally ambiguous position on Taiwan to suggest that the United States would defend the island from a Chinese military assault. From Beijing’s standpoint, that makes Trump less threatening than Biden, and much more manageable.

From the December 2022 issue: Ben Rhodes on how Taiwan is preparing to be invaded

Whoever wins the White House, Xi will pursue his agenda to roll back American power and create a China-centric world order. But he would likely push even harder to promote China as a world leader if Trump were in charge. By weakening U.S. standing abroad and democracy at home, Trump would offer Xi more opportunities than Biden to extend Chinese influence and win hearts and minds within the developing world.

Of course, one can’t assume that Trump would cut and paste his China policy from his first term. A newly reelected President Trump would face a geopolitical environment altered by the war in Ukraine and Xi’s intensified animosity toward the United States. He might change his China policy in light of these new realities. But he won’t change his personality. Trump is just as likely to fawn over Xi and other dictators as he is to stand his ground.

If Xi could vote in November, he would surely cast his ballot for Trump.

This article appears in the January/February 2024 print edition with the headline “China Will Get Stronger.”

The Atlantic · by Michael Schuman · December 5, 2023

14. Russia Rejects ‘Significant Proposal’ to Trade for WSJ’s Gershkovich, Whelan, U.S. Says

Russia Rejects ‘Significant Proposal’ to Trade for WSJ’s Gershkovich, Whelan, U.S. Says

U.S. seeking to win freedom for Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, State Department spokesman says

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-rejects-significant-proposal-for-trade-for-wsjs-gershkovich-whelan-u-s-says-e6522179?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Louise Radnofsky

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 and William Mauldin

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Updated Dec. 5, 2023 9:57 pm ET

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According to the State Department, Washington made a “significant proposal” in recent weeks for the release of detained U.S. citizens Evan Gershkovich, a WSJ reporter, and Paul Whelan, which Russia rejected. Photo: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

WASHINGTON—U.S. negotiators made a fresh offer to Russia in recent weeks to secure the release of detained Americans Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, but Moscow rejected the American proposal, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.

The offer involved trading prisoners, people familiar with the matter said, but they didn’t offer further details.

“In recent weeks, we made a new and significant proposal to secure Paul and Evan’s release,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Tuesday. “That proposal was rejected by Russia.”

The U.S. hasn’t previously acknowledged making a concrete offer seeking to bring home both Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who has been imprisoned for more than 250 days in Russia, and Whelan, a former U.S. Marine and Michigan corporate security executive held in Russia since late 2018.

Moscow and a representative for the Russian Embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Journal in a statement Tuesday said: “We are disappointed with Russia’s response to the offer from the U.S. At the same time, we encourage the administration to continue to push strongly for Evan’s release.”

Both Gershkovich and Whelan are U.S. citizens and considered by Washington to have been wrongfully detained, on espionage charges that the men and the U.S. government deny. Whelan was convicted of espionage in 2020 and sentenced to serve 16 years in a penal colony.

Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive, has been held in Russia since 2018. PHOTO: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Moscow has said it is acting in accordance with its own laws.

Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. had made a significant proposal for Whelan, a 53-year-old former U.S. Marine who wasn’t included on two previous occasions when the U.S. was able to bring home the Americans Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner in prisoner exchanges that resulted in the release of Russians Konstantin Yaroshenko and Viktor Bout.

Since those deals were conducted, Russia hasn’t shown any signs of interest in the release of other Russian citizens in U.S. custody, prompting U.S. officials to eye Russian citizens held elsewhere in the world as possible elements in any exchange.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday the U.S. was “constantly discussing this issue with third countries who can assist.”

READ EVAN GERSHKOVICH’S WORK

On the Ground in Putin's Russia: Coverage of a Country at War

Miller was speaking at a press briefing hours after Gershkovich’s parents made remarks in a television interview about their son’s absence, and a week after Whelan’s family said he was assaulted by a fellow inmate after a conflict at his penal colony in Mordovia, southeast of Moscow. Miller declined to comment further on the offer.

“We had President Biden’s promise to do whatever it takes to bring Evan back. He also told us that he relates to us as a parent, he feels our pain, and his words are in my ears every single day,” Gershkovich’s mother, Ella Milman, said on Fox News on Tuesday. “But it’s been 250 days, and Evan is not here.”

Gershkovich, who recently spent his 32nd birthday in Russian detention, was accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist at the time of his arrest. He was detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service on March 29 while on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg. He is being held in pretrial detention on an allegation of espionage that the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny. Washington has said Gershkovich isn’t a spy and never worked for the government

A Russian court last month extended Gershkovich’s pretrial detention until at least Jan. 30.

Andrew Restuccia and Ann M. Simmons contributed to this article.

Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com and William Mauldin at william.mauldin@wsj.com

15. Learning from Real Wars: Gaza and Ukraine

Conclusion:

Real wars provide insights into the changing character of war that peacetime concepts and wargames can never fully reveal. The wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza show that the U.S. military should increase its preparations for large-scale urban conflict, expand the concept of air superiority to address the problem of drones in the newly contested air littoral, and work with the U.S. government to think through some of the thorny issues raised when private companies essentially become combatants. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine should be an urgent catalyst for the U.S. military to challenge some of its assumptions and accelerate its adaptation to the new ways in which wars are being fought.

Learning from Real Wars: Gaza and Ukraine - War on the Rocks

DAVID BARNO AND NORA BENSAHEL

warontherocks.com · by David Barno · December 6, 2023

The U.S. military spends untold time, energy, and effort preparing for its future wars. Yet periodically, real wars intrude to shatter hypothetical concepts and show how the ever-changing interaction of doctrine, technology, and leadership affects the character of war. The conflicts raging today in Ukraine and Gaza offer tragic examples of two markedly different kinds of modern wars — one largely a conventional battle between states raging across thousands of kilometers of disputed territory, and the other an unconventional clash between a terrorist group and a state battling in a cramped and densely populated urban area. Although it is still too early to declare any firm lessons from these ongoing conflicts, they can nevertheless illuminate some worrisome gaps in U.S. military thinking about its future conflicts.

Here are three emerging areas where the U.S. military may be significantly unprepared for the rapidly changing character of modern war. They involve the challenges of large-scale urban warfare, a new definition of air superiority, and the fact that some private companies have essentially become combatants.

The Challenges of Large-Scale Urban Warfare

Though U.S. military leaders continue to emphasize the likelihood of future urban operations, they have not done nearly enough to design and prepare their forces for these exceptionally difficult battles. In 2016, then-Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Mark Milley observed, “In the future, I can say with very high degrees of confidence, the American Army is going to be fighting in urban areas … [but] we’re not organized like that right now.” In 2023, little has changed.

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Despite some hard-won experience fighting insurgents in Iraq, the U.S. military has not fought a battle in a major urban center since the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Yet, increasing urbanization is one of the clearest global trends of this century. By 2050, the United Nations projects that 68 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. Today, 578 cities have more than one million residents, a number expected to rise to 662 cities by 2030. Today there are also 32 megacities of more than 10 million residents, and that number is expected to increase to 43 megacities by 2030.

Cities were major battlegrounds during the first year of the war in Ukraine. Though the Russian military would almost certainly have preferred to fight those early battles across large expanses of open terrain, it was inevitably drawn to fight in cities — largely because Russia needed to resupply its forces through the major rail and road networks in urban environments. The intense fighting and widespread devastation of cities like Mariupol, Bakhmut, Kharkiv, and Kherson invoked images of Stalingrad in World War II. In any future land conflict, fighting forces will inevitably face a gravitational pull into urban areas — and the most decisive battles of a future war may well occur there.

Though the war in Ukraine has involved substantial urban fighting, the magnitude of the Israel Defense Forces operation today in Gaza — one of the most densely populated areas of the world — dwarfs virtually all recent urban combat experience. In Gaza City, Israel faces a well-armed and deeply entrenched militant group nested inside a civilian population of 1.1 million, all under the intense glare of international media and the strictures of the laws of armed conflict. Israeli ground forces have employed infantry and armor teams to maneuver through heavily rubbled streets, drawing on techniques developed during its last large-scale Gaza incursion in 2014. It continues to clear buildings, secure terrain, fight through underground warrens, and battle Hamas fighters hidden among hundreds of thousands of terrified civilians. The Israeli Air Force has also conducted extensive airstrikes that have devastated substantial parts of northern Gaza.

When was the last time a U.S. infantry battalion cleared a hospital — or a skyscraper? The U.S. military would not be able to rely solely on standoff tactics and precision strikes during urban operations in a large city. It would have to resort to large-scale tank-infantry operations to gain control of the urban landscape, which would inevitably kill many combatants and civilians alike. This means that U.S. military ground forces (including the Army, Marine Corps, and special operations forces) should be better organized, trained, and equipped for intense urban fighting.

A New Definition of Air Superiority

The U.S. Air Force understands that in future major conflicts, it will only be able to achieve localized air superiority during specific windows of opportunity. But the current wars, particularly in Ukraine, show that it probably won’t be able to achieve true control of the air in any future conflict, because cheap and plentiful drones will saturate the skies.

Expensive legacy air forces are playing a limited role in Ukraine, as air defenses against manned aircraft have become more deadly (and both the United States and Russia seek to limit potential escalation). Drones, however, are an indispensable and omnipresent shadow above every Ukrainian battlefront — providing intelligence on enemy forces, identifying targets for artillery and rocket fires, and carrying lethal munitions that can destroy tanks, maim infantry, and blast logistics depots far from the front. They are also helping neutralize expensive Russian air defenses and target Russian electronic jamming equipment. And long-range drones, not manned bombers, have regularly delivered deep strikes on critical targets ranging from Moscow to Kyiv.

Above the Russian and Ukrainian front lines, drones are now dominating what has been called the “air littoral” — the space between the ground and the higher altitudes of manned air operations. Control of the airspace above armies locked in ground combat was once the sole domain of costly and sophisticated high-tech air forces, but today it is being achieved by armadas of cheap drones. This upheaval is rendering traditional concepts of air superiority incomplete, if not obsolete.

The war in Gaza also shows how drones are changing the meaning of air superiority. The Israeli Air Force is one of the best air forces in the world and flies some of the world’s most advanced manned aircraft, while Hamas irregulars function with effectively with no air force at all. But even the bloody Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 included multiple attacks by relatively cheap drones against air and naval targets, many of which were savagely effective despite Israel’s unchallenged conventional dominance of the air.

Both conflicts suggest that true air superiority can no longer be achieved solely by building a multi-billion-dollar, high-tech air force to defeat similar adversary capabilities. And there will be even more drones flying over future battlefields than there are today, since they are increasingly inexpensive and are now widely available to any state or group who wishes to buy them. Cheap drones, especially when employed en masse, will continue to dominate the air littoral and pummel forces on the ground, while highly advanced and expensive air forces seem virtually powerless to stop them. For troops on the ground, attacks from masses of $200 drones are just as deadly as bombs dropped from multi-million-dollar enemy fighters. The U.S. Air Force should figure out how to achieve superiority in this newly-contested airspace against swarms of unmanned drones — a mission for which its exquisitely costly jet fighters are entirely ill-suited.

Some Private Companies Are Essentially Combatants

Drones are not the only commercial technology to play a central role in both Ukraine and Gaza. Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network is probably the most famous example, which currently provides the entire internet backbone that Ukraine is relying upon to fight its war. But commercial products being adapted for wartime use are visible everywhere in both conflicts — including the profusion of cheap Chinese DJI Mavic drones and Hamas fighters using commercial internet in Gaza to enable their communications and to promote terrorist videos to a global audience.

This has enormous implications for future wars. Smaller states and non-state actors will be able to buy satellite images that are just as good as those from extremely expensive military satellites — and which will further increase the transparency of the battlefield. That means that a wide range of weaker states and non-state actors — like Houthi rebels, Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State fighters, and drug cartels in Latin America — can now access images that were once the exclusive provenance of the world’s major powers.

The use of commercial technology during military operations raises some extremely challenging issues. One involves the limited ability of the U.S. government to affect the actions of private companies. Let’s use Starlink as an example here. The U.S. government can prevent Musk from providing imagery to Russia, under the sanctions established after the invasion of Ukraine. But if Musk decided to terminate Ukrainian access to Starlink, as he has repeatedly threatened, there’s not a whole lot the U.S. government can do. It could nationalize Starlink as a critical strategic asset, but it is hard to imagine that drastic step being taken in anything short of a truly existential conflict for the United States. It could also try to name and shame Musk by holding congressional hearings or mobilizing public support. But ultimately the decision is entirely up to Musk, regardless of its enormous strategic implications. Shutting down Ukrainian access to Starlink would instantly make the Ukrainian military far less effective — and could even provide Russia with a decisive strategic advantage.

There are also many complex legal issues here. To continue with the Starlink example, does international law allow Russia to legally strike Starlink satellites, since Ukraine is clearly using them to enable military operations? If the answer is yes, to what extent does the U.S. government have any responsibility for either protecting those satellites or compensating Starlink for any losses? And if the answer is no, and Russia were to attack the satellites anyway, to what extent would it deter companies from supporting future military operations, and with what consequences? We are not lawyers, and we don’t claim to understand the intricacies of the laws that would be involved. But we nevertheless believe that the unprecedented integration of commercial technologies, and the companies that provide them, into military operations will raise novel practical and legal issues that will directly affect the U.S. military in its next conflict.

Conclusion

Real wars provide insights into the changing character of war that peacetime concepts and wargames can never fully reveal. The wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza show that the U.S. military should increase its preparations for large-scale urban conflict, expand the concept of air superiority to address the problem of drones in the newly contested air littoral, and work with the U.S. government to think through some of the thorny issues raised when private companies essentially become combatants. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine should be an urgent catalyst for the U.S. military to challenge some of its assumptions and accelerate its adaptation to the new ways in which wars are being fought.

Become a Member

Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, U.S. Army (ret.), and Dr. Nora Bensahel are Professors of the Practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and are also contributing editors at War on the Rocks, where their column appears periodically. Sign up for Barno and Bensahel’s Strategic Outpost newsletter to track their articles as well as their public events.

Special Series, Strategic Outpost

warontherocks.com · by David Barno · December 6, 2023

16. Resolute Dragon: Reassurance, Deterrence, and a Call for Coordination

Excerpts:

But fighting side by side with an ally is not enough. For the next step, the Marine Corps ought to expand and deepen its alliance coordination capabilities within the First Island Chain, as per former Assistant Secretary of Defense and retired Marine Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson’s recommendation to “make expanded use of forces and personnel already in Japan.” Simple, thoughtful investments aimed at reframing how the joint force prepares its personnel and how it participates in bilateral exercises and operations will be key to victory within the First Island Chain. The joint force should foster deeper alliance coordination expertise within every service, across the ranks and military specialties, to demonstrate its commitment to allies and partners across the Pacific.

...

Resolute Dragon 23.2 reaffirmed the Japanese-American alliance while revealing opportunities to further strengthen it. During the exercise’s final days, U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel visited troops in Hokkaido while Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith hosted Koji Tomita, the Japanese ambassador to Washington. These engagements highlight the importance of allies training side by side. As with Balikatan 2023, strategic messaging shows how diplomatic and military efforts complement one another.

The threat window for northeast Asia varies throughout the year due to weather and ocean conditions. For the joint force and its partners, well-timed bilateral exercises not only serve as a chance to strengthen military partnership but simultaneously deter Chinese aggression within a threat window. Operations, activities, and investments in the First Island Chain will continue drawing partners together and serve as a template for how the joint force will meet the needs of their partners in the face of any future threat.

Resolute Dragon: Reassurance, Deterrence, and a Call for Coordination - War on the Rocks

BILL MATORY AND BENJAMIN VAN HORRICK

warontherocks.com · by Bill Matory · December 6, 2023

The fall is an ideal time for a visit to Taipei — as the military planners for the People’s Republic of China plotting a cross-strait invasion know all too well. Weather and ocean states in October, much like in March through April, provide Beijing a favorable window to attempt an invasion of Taiwan. This October, American and Japanese forces conducted an operationally focused bilateral exercise, rehearsing missions that would have been unthinkable a few short years ago but that now prove vital when deterring Chinese aggression. Resolute Dragon 23.2 not only demonstrated each force’s lethality and interoperability but also strengthened their military partnership in defense of Japan.

As Japan and the United States continue to enhance their military readiness and lethality, the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force’s Western Army and III Marine Expeditionary Force deployed across Japan to demonstrate credible capabilities, strengthen deep partnerships at all levels, and stress-test the integration of nascent equipment. Ultimately, the combined deployment of personnel and equipment across Japan culminated with a live-fire exercise in Hokkaido, where forces welded together links of the bilateral kill chain. The successful execution of Resolute Dragon 23.2 is much more than just a message of assurance to the people of Japan and a warning to malign actors in the region — it is also a tangible demonstration to regional partners of what is possible when working together to stem the aggression of the People’s Republic of China.

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But fighting side by side with an ally is not enough. For the next step, the Marine Corps ought to expand and deepen its alliance coordination capabilities within the First Island Chain, as per former Assistant Secretary of Defense and retired Marine Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson’s recommendation to “make expanded use of forces and personnel already in Japan.” Simple, thoughtful investments aimed at reframing how the joint force prepares its personnel and how it participates in bilateral exercises and operations will be key to victory within the First Island Chain. The joint force should foster deeper alliance coordination expertise within every service, across the ranks and military specialties, to demonstrate its commitment to allies and partners across the Pacific.

Right Ally, Right Place, Right Time

Resolute Dragon 23.2 differed from its previous iterations in the scope and scale of the exercise as well as the number of bilateral participants. For example, Resolute Dragon 21 and 22 occurred in northern Japan, whereas this iteration placed forces on the Sakishima Island chain, the southernmost part of Japanese sovereign territory. In addition, elements of the Army Multi-Domain Task Force participated in operations on Ishigaki. III Marine Expeditionary Force and the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force placed coordination nodes across the Sakishima Islands. The bilateral forces occupied various installations from Hokkaido to the Sakishima Islands, far exceeding the number of installations employed during previous exercises. The robust staffing and proper equipping of a bilateral ground operations coordination center gave the Western Army and III Marine Expeditionary Force the ability to synchronize, coordinate, and deconflict missions. All told, 3,300 personnel from across the joint force and 5,000 members of the Japan Self-Defense Force participated in Resolute Dragon 23.2.

The geography of Resolute Dragon. Map by Maj. Chris Denzel based on an image from Google Maps.

During Resolute Dragon 23.2, the Japanese Western Army’s appetite for partnering extended to rehearsing realistic mission sets on key maritime terrain rather than just the static live-fire ranges and basic knowledge exchanges typical of security force training exercises. As a result, operations, activities, and investments today continue to build our partner force capacity but also tackle how to conduct alliance coordination between the joint force and regional partners, from collaborative planning to interoperable data and technology systems. As the goals and needs of the partners change, partnering adapts.

Coordination

The complexity of the mission to defend the Sakishima Islands requires the collocation and alignment of the warfighting functions of two three-star commands. During Resolute Dragon 23.2, III Marine Expeditionary Force personnel served as the nucleus of a regional bilateral ground operations coordination center, creating a vital alliance coordination center between the force and the Western Army. The nature of the American and Japanese parallel command structures requires a coordination center to bring to bear the full capabilities of each force. Access, basing, and overflight alone will not suffice during a crisis. The joint force requires a U.S.-Japanese alliance coordination capability able to see, understand, and affect the battlespace. In this case, the bilateral ground operations coordination center for Resolute Dragon 23.2 fits the bill, but there is still much room for improvement during real-world operations.

The Resolute Dragon 23.2 partnership served an example of how U.S. forces and regional partners will align effects during the deliberate, joint, combined, partnered deterrence campaign in the First Island Chain. The bilateral ground operations coordination center facilitated integrated planning that harnessed and accentuated each command’s capabilities. During conflict, this mechanism would prove invaluable. During the exercise, III Marine Expeditionary Force and the Western Army coordinated, synchronized, and deconflicted mission requirements. Each command demonstrated how they could coordinate across warfighting functions, building a single, accurate picture of the bilateral fight, mitigating the demands of conflict. The scale and scope of these combined exercise objectives were unthinkable a few short years ago. The present threat environment now makes this level of coordination essential.

Next Steps

With this in mind, the Marine Corps should explore the expansion of its allies’ and partners’ coordination cells within the First Island Chain. Developing a physical space is secondary to developing the personnel who will operate inside vital coordination centers throughout the Pacific. Building upon the momentum generated by operations, activities, and investments within the First Island Chain, the Marine Corps should further develop a cadre of officers and enlisted capable of strengthening partnerships within the Pacific. Heeding the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ direction for every Marine to increase their experience and expertise in the western Pacific, the service should explore the development of a program like the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands, with a specific operational focus tailored to supporting the mission requirements of the joint force and its regional allies in the Pacific. Such a program will facilitate information sharing and integrated planning, while posturing partners for close coordination in crisis response and ensuring operations, activities, and investments build upon one another.

Improving alliance capabilities in the Pacific is a joint concern, not just a focus for one service. All services should be prepared to respond to a crisis, and alliance coordination mechanisms will be critical for all involved in manning, training, and equipping the joint, multilateral force across the Pacific.

The degree of success of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command will depend on each service’s ability to assume alliance coordination roles and responsibilities. Depending on the threat environment, the character of competition and conflict may make one service component better suited than the others, and that character can change over time. Service components should prepare subordinate units to assume bilateral and multilateral mission sets on demand. Foreign area officers and defense attaches cannot and will not do it alone. Any member of the joint force should be capable of integrating with allies across warfighting functions, regardless of their rank and specialty, to advance joint and bilateral goals. Alliance coordination is not an advise-and-assist mission for specific echelons of command but rather an integration and accentuation of partner capabilities at every level from junior enlisted to flag officers.

Conclusion

Resolute Dragon 23.2 reaffirmed the Japanese-American alliance while revealing opportunities to further strengthen it. During the exercise’s final days, U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel visited troops in Hokkaido while Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith hosted Koji Tomita, the Japanese ambassador to Washington. These engagements highlight the importance of allies training side by side. As with Balikatan 2023, strategic messaging shows how diplomatic and military efforts complement one another.

The threat window for northeast Asia varies throughout the year due to weather and ocean conditions. For the joint force and its partners, well-timed bilateral exercises not only serve as a chance to strengthen military partnership but simultaneously deter Chinese aggression within a threat window. Operations, activities, and investments in the First Island Chain will continue drawing partners together and serve as a template for how the joint force will meet the needs of their partners in the face of any future threat.

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Col. Bill Matory serves as the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade operations officer.

Maj. Benjamin Van Horrick is the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade current logistics operations officer.

The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the U.S. Marine Corps and the Department of Defense.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Bill Matory · December 6, 2023

17. The American Way of Economic War

Excerpts:

Farrell and Newman do not propose policies that could mitigate these risks, other than suggesting that the underground empire deserves the same kind of sophisticated thinking once devoted to nuclear rivalries. Still, by highlighting how the nature of global power has changed, the book makes an enormous contribution to the way analysts think about influence. And policymakers and researchers should begin formulating plans for fixing these problems.

One possible resolution would be to create international rules for the exploitation of economic chokepoints, along the lines of the rules that have constrained tariffs and other protectionist measures since the creation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in 1947. As every trade economist knows, the GATT (and the World Trade Organization that grew out of it) does more than just protect nations from each other. It protects them from their own bad instincts.

It will be hard to do something similar with newer forms of economic power. But to keep the world safe, experts should try to come up with regulations that have the same moderating effect. The stakes are too high to let these challenges go unaddressed.

The American Way of Economic War

Is Washington Overusing Its Most Powerful Weapons?

By Paul Krugman

December 6, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Paul Krugman · December 6, 2023

Suppose that a company in Peru wants to do business with a company in Malaysia. It should not be hard for the firms to make a deal. Sending money across national borders is generally straightforward, and so is the international transfer of large quantities of data.

But there’s a catch: whether or not the companies realize it, their transactions of both financial information and data will almost certainly be indirect and will probably pass through the United States or institutions over which the U.S. government has substantial control. When they do, Washington will have the power to monitor the exchange and, if desired, stop it in its tracks—to stop, in other words, the Peruvian company and the Malaysian company from doing business with each other. In fact, the United States could prevent many Peruvian and Malaysian companies from trading goods in general, largely cutting the countries off from the international economy.

Part of what undergirds this power is well known: much of the world’s trade is conducted in dollars. The dollar is one of the few currencies that almost all major banks will accept, and certainly the most widely used one. As a result, the dollar is the currency that many companies must use if they want to do international business. There is no real market in which the Peruvian company could exchange Peruvian soles for Malaysian ringgit, so local banks facilitating that trade will normally use soles to buy U.S. dollars and then use dollars to buy ringgit. To do so, however, the banks must have access to the U.S. financial system and must follow rules laid out by Washington. But there is another, lesser-known reason why the United States commands overwhelming economic power. Most of the world’s fiber-optic cables, which carry data and messages around the planet, travel through the United States. And where these cables make U.S. landfall, Washington can and does monitor their traffic—basically making a record of every data packet that allows the National Security Agency to see the data. The United States can therefore easily spy on what almost every business, and every other country, is doing. It can determine when its competitors are threatening its interests and issue meaningful sanctions in response.

Washington’s spying and sanctioning is the subject of Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy, by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman. This revelatory book explains how Washington came to command such awesome power and the many ways it deploys this authority. Farrell and Newman detail how September 11 pushed the United States to begin using its empire and how its many constituent parts have come together to constrain both China and Russia. They show that although other states may not like Washington’s networks, escaping them is extremely difficult.

The authors also demonstrate how, in the name of security, the United States has created a system that is often abused. “To protect America, Washington has slowly but surely turned thriving economic networks into tools of domination,” Farrell and Newman write. And as their book makes clear, the United States’ efforts to dominate can cause tremendous damage. If Washington deploys its tools too often, it might prompt other countries to break up the current international order. The United States could push China to cut itself off from much of the world economy, slowing global growth. And Washington might use its authority to punish states and people that have done nothing wrong. Experts must therefore think about how to best constrain—if not quite contain—the United States’ empire.

DATA AND DOLLARS

The United States’ centrality in global finance and data transmission is not entirely unprecedented. The world’s leading power has always had outsize control over the world’s economy and communication networks. At the beginning of the twentieth century, for example, the British pound played a key role in many international transactions, and a plurality of all global submarine telegraph cables passed through London.

But 2023 is not 1901. Today’s era is defined by what some economists call “hyperglobalization.” The world is far more intertwined than it was a century ago. It is not just that global trade now makes up a larger share of economic activity than in the past; it is also that the complexity of international transactions is far greater than ever before. And the fact that so many of these transactions pass through banks and cables that the United States controls gives Washington powers that no government in history has possessed.

Many lay observers, and quite a few professional commentators, imagine that this dominance affords the United States great economic advantages. But economists who have done the math generally do not believe that the dollar’s special position makes more than a marginal contribution to the United States’ real income—the amount of money Americans make after adjusting for inflation. There do not appear to be any studies of the economic benefits that come from hosting fiber-optic cables, but those benefits, too, are likely to be small (especially because many of the profits that come from transporting data are probably booked in Ireland or other tax havens). But Farrell and Newman show that U.S. control of the world economy’s chokepoints does give Washington new ways to project political influence—and that it has seized on them.

The United States began capitalizing on these powers, the authors argue, after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Before, American officials had been inhibited in exercising U.S. economic might by fears of overreach. But officials quickly realized they could have been following Osama bin Laden’s financial transactions in a way that would have revealed the terrorist’s plans and that they could have used their financial influence to disrupt al Qaeda’s operations. And so, after the terrorist group struck, Washington put its concerns aside. It expanded both its financial surveillance and its use of sanctions.

John Lee

For policymakers, exercising these powers proved easy. The dollars used in international transactions are not bundles of cash but bank deposits, and almost every bank that keeps such deposits must have a foot in the U.S. financial system in case it needs access to the Federal Reserve. As a result, banks around the world try to stay in the good graces of U.S. officials, lest Washington decide to cut them off. The story of Carrie Lam, the China-appointed former chief executive of Hong Kong, provides a case in point. As Farrell and Newman write, after the United States sanctioned Lam for human rights violations, she was unable to get a bank account anywhere, even at a Chinese bank. Instead, she had to be paid in cash, keeping piles of money at her official residence.

A less picturesque—but far more consequential—example of U.S. power is the way Washington co-opted the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, better known as SWIFT. The organization serves as the messaging system through which major international financial transactions are made. Notably, it is based in Belgium, not the United States. But because so many of the institutions behind it rely on U.S. government goodwill, it began sharing much of its data with the United States after the 9/11 attacks, providing a Rosetta stone that Washington could use to track financial transactions worldwide. In 2012, the U.S. government was able to use SWIFT and its own financial power to effectively cut Iran out of the world financial system, and to brutal effect. After the sanctions, Iran’s economy stagnated, and inflation in the country reached roughly 40 percent. Eventually, Tehran agreed to cut back its nuclear programs in exchange for relief. (In 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump scuttled the deal, but that’s another story.)

That is the kind of power the United States gets from its control over financial chokepoints. But as Farrell and Newman show, what the United States can do with its control over data chokepoints is arguably more remarkable. At many, or perhaps all, of the places where fiber-optic cables enter American territory, the U.S. government has installed “splitters”: prisms that divide the beams of light carrying information into two streams. One stream goes on to the intended recipients, but the other goes to the National Security Administration, which then uses high-powered computation to analyze the data. As a result, the United States can monitor almost all international communication. Santa may not know whether you’ve been bad or good, but the NSA probably does.

Other countries, of course, can and do spy on the United States. China, in particular, works hard to intercept advanced American technology. But no one does spying better than Washington, and despite Beijing’s best efforts, China has not been able to steal enough secrets to match U.S. prowess. As Farrell and Newman point out, the United States still dominates crucial intellectual property—not so much the software that runs current semiconductor chips, but the software used to design complex new semiconductors, which is still an essential market. “U.S. intellectual property,” the authors declare, winds “through the entire semiconductor production chain, like a fisherman’s longline with barbed and baited hooks.”

ALL THAT POWER

There are many illustrative examples of Washington weaponizing its underground empire, including the sanctioning of both Lam and Iran. But the one that may best show how all three elements of the empire—control over dollars, control over information, and control of intellectual property—come together is the astonishingly successful takedown of the Chinese company Huawei.

Just a few years ago, American officials and foreign policy elites were in a panic about Huawei. The company, which has close ties to the Chinese government, seemed poised to supply 5G equipment to much of the planet, and U.S. officials worried this spread would effectively give China the power to eavesdrop on the rest of the world—just as the United States has done.

So Washington used its interlocking empire to cut Huawei off at the knees. First, according to Farrell and Newman, the United States learned that Huawei had been dealing surreptitiously with Iran—and therefore violating U.S. sanctions. Then, it was able to use its special access to information on international bank data to produce evidence that the company and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou (who also happened to be the founder’s daughter), had committed bank fraud by falsely telling the British financial services company HSBC that her company was not doing business with Iran. Canadian authorities, acting on a U.S. request, arrested her as she was traveling through Vancouver in December 2018. The U.S. Department of Justice charged both Huawei and Meng with wire fraud and a number of other crimes, and the United States used restrictions on the export of U.S. technology to pressure Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which supplies many crucial semiconductors, into cutting off Huawei’s access to the most advanced chips. Beijing, meanwhile, detained two Canadians in China and essentially held them hostage.

Santa may not know whether you’ve been bad or good, but the NSA probably does.

After spending almost three years under house arrest in Canada, Meng entered into an agreement in which she admitted to many of the charges and was allowed to return to China; the Chinese government then released the Canadians. But by that point, Huawei was a much-diminished force, and the prospects for Chinese dominance of 5G had vanished—at least in the near term. The United States had quietly waged a postmodern war on China, and won.

At first glance, this victory could seem like unambiguously good news. Washington, after all, limited the technological reach of a dictatorial regime without having to use force. The United States’ ability to cut North Korea off from much of the world financial system, or its successful sanctioning of Russia’s central bank, might also prompt rightful cheers. It is hard to be outraged by the United States’ use of hidden powers to block global terrorism, break up drug cartels, or hobble Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to subjugate Ukraine.

Yet there are clearly risks in the exercise of these powers. Farrell and Newman, for their part, are worried about the possibility of overreach. If the United States uses its economic power too freely, they write, it could undermine the basis of that power. For example, if the United States weaponizes the dollar against too many countries, they might successfully band together and adopt alternative methods of international payment. If countries become deeply worried about U.S. spying, they could lay fiber-optic cables that bypass the United States. And if Washington puts too many restrictions on American exports, foreign firms might turn away from U.S. technology. For example, Chinese designed software may not be a match for the United States’, but it is not too hard to imagine some regimes accepting inferior quality as the price for getting out from under Washington’s thumb.

So far, none of this has happened. Despite endless breathless commentary about the potential demise of the dollar, the currency reigns supreme. In fact, as Farrell and Newman write, the dollar endured despite the “vicious stupidity” of the Trump administration. Laying fiber-optic cables that bypass the United States might be easier to accomplish, and people who are not technologists do not really know how easily U.S. software can be replaced. Still, Washington’s hidden power seems remarkably durable.

Reflections off of a currency exchange board in Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 2019

Agustin Marcarian / Reuters

But that does not mean there are no limits to how far the United States can push. Farrell and Newman worry that China, which is an economic superpower in its own right, might decide to “defend itself by going dark”: cutting off international financial and information linkages to the wider world (which it already does to some extent). Such an action would have significant economic costs for everyone. It would degrade China’s role as the workshop of the world, which—in its own way—might be as hard to replace as the global role of the U.S. dollar.

There is also the obvious risk that countries that lose wars without gun smoke could lash out by waging wars with gun smoke. As Farrell and Newman write, the weaponization of trade is one of the factors that contributed to World War II: Germany and Japan both engaged in wars of conquest, in part, to secure access to raw materials they feared might be cut off by international sanctions. The nightmare scenario for today would be if China, fearful that it is being marginalized, were to strike back by invading Taiwan, which plays a key role in the global semiconductor industry.

But even if the United States does not overuse its underground empire or provoke hot conflict, there is still a major reason to worry about Washington’s dramatic economic and data power: the United States will not always be in the right. Washington has made plenty of unethical foreign policy decisions, and it could use its control over global chokepoints to harm people, companies, and states that should not come under fire. Trump, for example, slapped tariffs on Canada and Europe. It is not hard to imagine that if he were to win a second term, he would try to hobble the economies of European states critical of his foreign or even domestic policies. One does not have to see everything through the lens of the Iraq war or insist that the United States somehow forced Putin to invade Ukraine to be worried about the underground empire’s lack of accountability.

RULES OF THE ROAD

Farrell and Newman do not propose policies that could mitigate these risks, other than suggesting that the underground empire deserves the same kind of sophisticated thinking once devoted to nuclear rivalries. Still, by highlighting how the nature of global power has changed, the book makes an enormous contribution to the way analysts think about influence. And policymakers and researchers should begin formulating plans for fixing these problems.

One possible resolution would be to create international rules for the exploitation of economic chokepoints, along the lines of the rules that have constrained tariffs and other protectionist measures since the creation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in 1947. As every trade economist knows, the GATT (and the World Trade Organization that grew out of it) does more than just protect nations from each other. It protects them from their own bad instincts.

It will be hard to do something similar with newer forms of economic power. But to keep the world safe, experts should try to come up with regulations that have the same moderating effect. The stakes are too high to let these challenges go unaddressed.

• PAUL KRUGMAN, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Foreign Affairs · by Paul Krugman · December 6, 2023

18. Israel’s Failed Bombing Campaign in Gaza

Excerpts:

Indeed, in the long run, the only way to defeat Hamas is to drive a political wedge between it and the Palestinian people. Unilateral Israeli steps signaling a serious commitment to a new future would decidedly change the framework and dynamics in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and give Palestinians a genuine alternative to simply supporting Hamas and violence. Israelis, for their part, would be more secure, and the two parties would at long last be on a path toward peace.

Israel’s military operations are producing more terrorists than they are killing.

Of course, the current Israeli government shows no signs of pursuing this plan. That could change, however, especially if the United States decided to use its influence. For instance, the White House could apply more private pressure to Netanyahu’s government to curtail indiscriminate attacks in the air campaign.

But perhaps the most important step that Washington could take now would be to jump-start a major public debate of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, one that allowed alternative strategies to be considered in depth and that brought forth rich public information for Americans, Israelis, and people around the world to evaluate the consequences for themselves. The White House could release U.S. government assessments of the effect that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is having on Hamas and Palestinian civilians. Congress could hold hearings centered on a simple question: Is the campaign producing more terrorists than it’s killing?

The failure of Israel’s current approach is becoming clearer by the day. Sustained public discussion of that reality, combined with serious consideration of smart alternatives, offers the best chance for convincing Israel to do what is, after all, in its own national interest.

Israel’s Failed Bombing Campaign in Gaza

Collective Punishment Won’t Defeat Hamas

By Robert A. Pape

December 6, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Robert A. Pape · December 6, 2023

Since October 7, Israel has invaded northern Gaza with some 40,000 combat troops and pummeled the small area with one of the most intense bombing campaigns in history. Nearly two million people have fled their homes as a result. More than 15,000 civilians (including some 6,000 children and 5,000 women) have been killed in the attacks, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, and the U.S. State Department has suggested that the true toll may be even higher. Israel has bombed hospitals and ambulances and wrecked about half of northern Gaza’s buildings. It has cut off virtually all water, food deliveries, and electricity generation for Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants. By any definition, this campaign counts as a massive act of collective punishment against civilians.

Even now, as Israeli forces push deeper into southern Gaza, the exact purpose of Israel’s approach is far from clear. Although Israeli leaders claim to be targeting Hamas alone, the evident lack of discrimination raises real questions about what the government is actually up to. Is Israel’s eagerness to shatter Gaza a product of the same incompetence that led to the massive failure of the Israeli military to counter Hamas’s attack on October 7, the plans for which ended up in the hands of Israeli military and intelligence officials more than a year earlier? Is wrecking northern Gaza and now southern Gaza a prelude to sending the territory’s entire population to Egypt, as proposed in a “concept paper” produced by the Israeli Intelligence Ministry?

Whatever the ultimate goal, Israel’s collective devastation of Gaza raises deep moral problems. But even judged purely in strategic terms, Israel’s approach is doomed to failure—and indeed, it is already failing. Mass civilian punishment has not convinced Gaza’s residents to stop supporting Hamas. To the contrary, it has only heightened resentment among Palestinians. Nor has the campaign succeeded in dismantling the group ostensibly being targeted. Fifty-plus days of war show that while Israel can demolish Gaza, it cannot destroy Hamas. In fact, the group may be stronger now than it was before.

Israel is hardly the first country to err by placing excessive faith in the coercive magic of airpower. History shows that the large-scale bombing of civilian areas almost never achieves its objectives. Israel would have been better off had it heeded these lessons and responded to the October 7 attack with surgical strikes against Hamas’s leaders and fighters in lieu of the indiscriminate bombing campaign it has chosen. But it is not too late to shift course and adopt a viable alternative strategy for achieving lasting security, an approach that would drive a political wedge between Hamas and the Palestinians rather than bringing them closer together: take meaningful, unilateral steps toward a two-state solution.

LOSING HEARTS AND MINDS

Since the dawn of airpower, countries have sought to bomb enemies into submission and shatter civilian morale. Pushed to their breaking point, the theory goes, populations will rise up against their own governments and switch sides. This strategy of coercive punishment reached its apogee in World War II. History remembers the indiscriminate bombing of cities in that war simply by the place names of the targets: Hamburg (40,000 dead), Darmstadt (12,000), and Dresden (25,000).

Now Gaza can be added to this infamous list. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has himself likened the current campaign to the Allies’ fight in World War II. While denying that Israel was engaging in collective punishment today, he pointed out that a Royal Air Force strike targeting Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen killed scores of schoolchildren.

What Netanyahu left unmentioned was that none of the Allies’ efforts to punish civilians en masse actually succeeded. In Germany, the Allied bombing campaign, which took off beginning in 1942, wreaked havoc on civilians, destroying one urban area after another and ultimately a total of 58 German cities and towns by the end of the war. But it never sapped civilian morale or prompted an uprising against Adolf Hitler, despite the confident predictions of Allied officials. Indeed, the campaign only encouraged Germans to fight harder for fear of a draconian postwar peace.

A bombing campaign has never caused the targeted population to revolt against its own government.

That failure should not have been so surprising, given what happened when the Nazis tried the same tactic. The Blitz, their bombing of London and other British cities in 1940–41, killed more than 40,000 people, and yet British Prime Minister Winston Churchill refused to capitulate. Instead, he invoked the resulting civilian casualties to rally society to make the sacrifices necessary for victory. Rather than shattering morale, the Blitz motivated the British to organize a years-long effort—with their U.S. and Soviet allies—to counterattack and ultimately conquer the country that had bombed them.

In fact, never in history has a bombing campaign caused the targeted population to revolt against its own government. The United States has tried the tactic numerous times, to no avail. During the Korean War, it destroyed 90 percent of electricity generation in North Korea. In the Vietnam War, it knocked out nearly as much power in North Vietnam. And in the Gulf War, U.S. air attacks disrupted 90 percent of electricity generation in Iraq. But in none of these cases did the population rise up.

The war in Ukraine is the most recent case in point. For nearly two years, Russia has sought to coerce Ukraine through wave after wave of devasting air assaults on cities across the country, killing more than 10,000 civilians, destroying more than 1.5 million homes, and displacing some eight million Ukrainians. Russia is clearly shattering Ukraine. But far from crushing Ukraine’s fighting spirit, this massive civilian punishment has only convinced Ukrainians to fight Russia more intensely than ever.

A COUNTERPRODUCTIVE CAMPAIGN

This historical pattern is repeating itself in Gaza. Despite nearly two months of heavy military operations—virtually unrestrained by the United States and the rest of the world—Israel has achieved only marginal results. By any meaningful metric, the campaign has not led to Hamas’s even partial defeat. Israel’s air and ground operations have killed as many as 5,000 Hamas fighters (according to Israeli officials), out of a total of about 30,000. But these losses will not significantly reduce the threat to Israeli civilians, since, as the October 7 attacks proved, it takes only a few hundred Hamas fighters to wreak havoc on Israeli communities. Worse, Israeli officials also admit that the military campaign is killing twice as many civilians as Hamas fighters. In other words, Israel is almost certainly producing more terrorists than it is killing, since each dead civilian will have family and friends eager to join Hamas to exact revenge.

Hamas’s military infrastructure, such as it is, has not been meaningfully dismantled, even after the much-vaunted operations against the al-Shifa hospital, which the Israeli military alleged Hamas used as an operational base. As videos released by the Israeli Defense Forces show, Israel has captured and destroyed the entrances to many of Hamas’s tunnels, but these can eventually be repaired, just as they were built in the first place. More important, Hamas’s leaders and fighters appear to have abandoned the tunnels before Israeli forces entered them, meaning that the group’s most important infrastructure—its fighters—survived. Hamas has an advantage over Israeli forces: it can easily abandon a fight, blend into the civilian population, and live to fight again on more favorable terms. That is why a large-scale Israeli ground operation is also doomed to failure.

More broadly, Israel’s military campaign has not deeply weakened Hamas’s control over Gaza. Israel has rescued only one of the 240 or so hostages taken in the October 7 attack. The only other hostages freed have been released by Hamas, showing that the group remains in control of its fighters.

Despite large-scale power shortages and extensive destruction throughout Gaza, Hamas continues to churn out propaganda videos showing civilian atrocities committed by Israeli forces and intense battles between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops. The group’s propaganda is distributed widely on the messaging app Telegram, where its channel has more than 620,000 subscribers. By the count of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats (which I direct), Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, has disseminated nearly 200 videos and posters every week from October 11 to November 22 through that channel.

LAND FOR PEACE

The only way to deal a lasting defeat to Hamas is to attack its leaders and fighters while separating them from the surrounding population. That is easier said than done, however, especially since Hamas draws its ranks directly from the local population rather than from abroad.

Indeed, survey evidence shows the extent to which Israel’s military operations are now producing more terrorists than they are killing. In a November 14 poll of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development, 76 percent of respondents said they viewed Hamas positively. Compare that to the 27 percent of respondents in both territories who told different pollsters in September that Hamas was “the most deserving of representing the Palestinian people.” The implication is sobering: a vast portion of the more than 500,000 Palestinian men between the ages of 18 and 34 are now ripe recruits for Hamas or other Palestinian groups seeking to target Israel and its civilians.

This result also reinforces the lessons of history. Contrary to conventional wisdom, most terrorists do not choose their vocation owing to religion or ideology, although some certainly do. Rather, most people who become terrorists do so because their land is being taken away.

For decades, I’ve studied the most extreme terrorists—suicide terrorists—and my study of 462 people who killed themselves on missions to kill others in acts of terrorism from 1982 to 2003 remains the largest demographic study of these attackers. I found that there are hundreds of secular suicide terrorists. Indeed, the world’s leader in suicide terrorism during that period was the Tamil Tigers, an openly antireligious, Marxist group in Sri Lanka that carried out more suicide attacks than Hamas or Palestine Islamic Jihad—the two deadliest Palestinian terrorist groups—combined. What 95 percent of the suicide terrorists in my database had in common was that they were fighting back against a military occupation that was controlling territory they considered their homeland.

From 1994 to 2005, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups carried out more than 150 suicide attacks, killing about 1,000 Israelis. Only when Israel withdrew military forces from Gaza did these groups abandon the tactic almost entirely. Since then, the number of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has grown by 50 percent, making it even harder for Israel to control the territories in the long run. There is every reason to think that Israel’s renewed military occupation of Gaza—“for an indefinite period,” according to Netanyahu—will lead to a new, perhaps larger wave of suicide attacks against Israeli civilians.

THE SETTLER PROBLEM

Although there are many dimensions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one fact helps clarify the complex picture. Virtually every year since the early 1980s, the Jewish population in the Palestinian territories has grown, even during the years of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. The growth of settlements has meant the loss of land for the Palestinians and increasing concerns that Israel will confiscate more land to resettle more Jews in the Palestinian territories. Indeed, Yossi Dagan, a prominent settler and member of Netanyahu’s party, has urged the creation of settlements in Gaza, where the last settlements were removed in 2005.

The growth of the Jewish population in Palestinian territories is a central factor in fomenting conflict. In the years immediately after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the total number of Jews living in the West Bank and Gaza numbered only a few thousand. Israeli-Palestinian relations were mostly harmonious. No Palestinian suicide attacks and few attacks of any kind occurred during this period.

But things changed after the right-wing government led by the Likud Party came to power in 1977, promising a major expansion of settlements. The number of settlers increased—from about 4,000 in 1977 to 24,000 in 1983 and to 116,000 in 1993. By 2022, about 500,000 Jewish Israeli settlers lived in the Palestinian territories, excluding East Jerusalem, where an additional 230,000 Jews resided. As the settlements grew, the relative harmony between the Israelis and the Palestinians dissipated. First came the creation of Hamas in 1987, and then the first intifada of 1987–93, the second intifada of 2000–2005, and continuing rounds of conflict between Palestinians and Israelis ever since.

The near-continuous growth of the Jewish settlements is a core reason why the idea of a two-state solution has lost credibility since the 1990s. If there is to be a serious pathway to a Palestinian state in the future, that growth must come to an end. After all, why should Palestinians reject Hamas and support a supposed peace process if doing so means only more loss of their land?

A LASTING PEACE

Only a two-state solution will lead to lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians alike. That is the only viable approach that will truly undermine Hamas, and Israel can and should unilaterally press forward with a plan, taking steps on its own before negotiating with the Palestinians. The goal should be to revive a process that has been dormant since the last negotiations failed in 2008, 15 years ago. To be clear, Israel should couple this political approach with a military one, engaging in limited, sustained operations against the Hamas leaders and fighters responsible for the atrocities of October 7. But the country must adopt the political element of the strategy now, not later. Israel cannot wait until after some mythical time when Hamas is defeated by military might alone.

Those who doubt that a two-state solution can ever be reached are right that immediately resuming negotiations with the Palestinians would not reduce Hamas’s will to fight. For one thing, the group is an avowed proponent of eliminating Israel. For another, it would be one of the biggest losers in a two-state solution, since a peace deal would almost certainly involve the prohibition of armed Palestinian groups aside from Hamas’s main internal rival, the Palestinian Authority, which would likely enjoy renewed support and legitimacy if it secured an agreement that the majority of Palestinians supported. And even if a two-state solution is achieved, Israel will still need a strong defense capability, since no political solution can completely eliminate the threat of terrorism for years to come.

But that is why the goal now should not be to immediately put forward a final plan for a two-state solution—something that is simply not in the realm of political possibility at the moment. Instead, the immediate objective should be to create a pathway for an eventual Palestinian state. Although skeptics claim that such a pathway is impossible because Israel has no suitable Palestinian partners, in fact, Israel can take crucial steps on its own.

The only way to defeat Hamas is to drive a political wedge between it and the Palestinian people.

The Israeli government could publicly announce that it intends to achieve a state of affairs where the Palestinians live in a state chosen by Palestinians side by side with a Jewish state of Israel. It could announce that it intends to develop a process to achieve that goal by, say, 2030, and will lay out milestones for getting there in the coming months. It could announce that it will immediately freeze Jewish settlements in the West Bank and forgo such settlements in Gaza through 2030 as a down payment that demonstrated its commitment to a genuine two-state solution. And it could announce that it is willing and ready to work with all parties—all countries in the region and beyond, all international organizations, and all Palestinian parties—that are willing to accept these objectives.

Far from being irrelevant to Israel’s military efforts against Hamas, these political steps would augment a sustained, highly targeted campaign to reduce the near-term threat of attacks from the group. Effective counterterrorism benefits from intelligence from the local population, which is far more likely to be forthcoming if that population has hope of a genuine political alternative to the terrorist group.

Indeed, in the long run, the only way to defeat Hamas is to drive a political wedge between it and the Palestinian people. Unilateral Israeli steps signaling a serious commitment to a new future would decidedly change the framework and dynamics in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and give Palestinians a genuine alternative to simply supporting Hamas and violence. Israelis, for their part, would be more secure, and the two parties would at long last be on a path toward peace.

Israel’s military operations are producing more terrorists than they are killing.

Of course, the current Israeli government shows no signs of pursuing this plan. That could change, however, especially if the United States decided to use its influence. For instance, the White House could apply more private pressure to Netanyahu’s government to curtail indiscriminate attacks in the air campaign.

But perhaps the most important step that Washington could take now would be to jump-start a major public debate of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, one that allowed alternative strategies to be considered in depth and that brought forth rich public information for Americans, Israelis, and people around the world to evaluate the consequences for themselves. The White House could release U.S. government assessments of the effect that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is having on Hamas and Palestinian civilians. Congress could hold hearings centered on a simple question: Is the campaign producing more terrorists than it’s killing?

The failure of Israel’s current approach is becoming clearer by the day. Sustained public discussion of that reality, combined with serious consideration of smart alternatives, offers the best chance for convincing Israel to do what is, after all, in its own national interest.

• ROBERT A. PAPE is Professor of Political Science and Director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats.

Foreign Affairs · by Robert A. Pape · December 6, 2023

19. China’s paranoid purge

Excerpts:

Senior western intelligence officials declined to comment or discuss the matter when asked about the purges in China.

But the sensational nature of the claims themselves make clear the feverish paranoia permeating Beijing.

Whether by accident or design, that mood was exacerbated over the summer when Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Bill Burns said the CIA had “made progress” rebuilding its network within China and had a “strong human intelligence capability” in the country.

That paranoia extends into all parts of the bureaucracy and economy and seems to have tarnished anyone seen as too westernized or too close to “hostile western forces”.

One senior Chinese finance official who speaks fluent English and is a regular fixture on the international conference circuit told POLITICO by email that he could no longer attend an upcoming event outside China and was unable to speak on the phone.

He joins dozens of senior finance officials who have been removed in recent months, often after being accused of corruption.

An associate of this official said he was currently being investigated for being “too close to America” and “possibly a spy”.

This seems to be the inevitable fate of anyone who engages too eagerly with foreigners and should serve as a warning to those who still believe China is open for business with the West.

China’s paranoid purge

In a sign of instability in Beijing’s top ranks, foreign policy and defense officials are vanishing as Xi roots out perceived enemies.

Politico · by POLITICO · December 6, 2023

Press play to listen to this article

Voiced by artificial intelligence.

Something is rotten in the imperial court of Chairman Xi Jinping.

While the world is distracted by war in the Middle East and Ukraine, a Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China’s ultra-secretive political system, with profound implications for the global economy and even the prospects for peace in the region.

The signals emanating from Beijing are unmistakable, even as China’s security services have ramped up repression to totalitarian levels, making it almost impossible to know what is really happening inside the country.

The unexplained disappearance and removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers — both Xi loyalists who were handpicked and elevated mere months before they went missing earlier this year — are just two examples.

Other high-profile victims include the generals in charge of China’s nuclear weapons program and some of the most senior officials overseeing the Chinese financial sector. Several of these former Xi acolytes have apparently died in custody.

Another ominous sign is the untimely death of Li Keqiang, China’s recently retired prime minister — No. 2 in the Communist hierarchy — who supposedly died of a heart attack in a swimming pool in Shanghai in late October, despite enjoying some of the world’s best medical care. Following his death, Xi ordered public mourning for his former rival be heavily curtailed.

In the minds of many in China, “heart attack in a swimming pool” has the same connotation that “falling out of a window” does for Russian apparatchiks who anger or offend Vladimir Putin.

Since his reign began in 2012, Xi Jinping’s endless purges have removed millions of officials — from top-ranked Communist Party “tigers” down to lowly bureaucratic “flies,” to use Xi’s evocative terminology.

What’s different today is that the officials being neutralized are not members of hostile political factions but loyalists from the inner ring of Xi’s own clique, leading to serious questions over the regime’s stability.

With such a febrile atmosphere in the celestial capital of Beijing, there are fears that an isolated and paranoid Chairman Xi could miscalculate, provoke armed conflict with one of its weaker neighbors or even launch a full-scale invasion of democratic Taiwan in order to distract from his domestic troubles.

Enemies everywhere

The political earthquakes rippling out from the old imperial leadership compound of Zhongnanhai are exacerbating the already dire state of the Chinese economy.

“We see a China domestically that is challenged; an aging society, demography, a severe housing crisis, slowing down growth, unexpected unemployment because the young generation leaving university does not find adequate jobs in the private sector anymore,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who heads to Beijing this week with her European Council counterpart Charles Michel for the first face-to-face EU-China meeting in nearly five years, told POLITICO last week. “So quite some challenges domestically.”

Chinese financiers and businesspeople (quietly) complain they are required to spend countless hours studying “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” — a painfully turgid governing mantra that boils down to ideology-free totalitarian rule and the return of a personality cult to China.

In recent weeks, the country’s leading investment bank banned negative macroeconomic or market commentary, as well as any behavior that could suggest its bankers lead “hedonistic lifestyles.”

Not long after he ascended to chairmanship of the Communist Party in 2012, Xi began purging his real and perceived enemies in an “anti-corruption” campaign that never really ended.

Hundreds of senior officers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as well as thousands of top Party officials, have been arrested, disappeared or “suicided” (driven to commit suicide or killed in circumstances made to look like suicide).

The beneficiaries of this perennial purge have been provincial bureaucrats who worked with Xi earlier in his career and whose main qualification is unquestioning loyalty to the “people’s leader.”

Small town boys

These former small-town officials now make up the majority of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, which wields ultimate power in China.

One such loyal figure was Qin Gang, a former spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry whose career went stratospheric after he became China’s chief protocol officer, overseeing most of Chairman Xi’s interactions with foreign dignitaries between 2014 and 2018.

After a brief stint as a vice-Foreign Minister, Qin was named ambassador to Washington in July 2021 and foreign minister barely 18 months later — a uniquely rapid rise that Chinese officialdom attributed to his proximity and personal favor with the “core leader”.

On June 25 this year, barely six months after becoming Minister, Qin held meetings in Beijing with the Foreign Ministers of Sri Lanka and Vietnam, as well as Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko.

Then he vanished.

According to several people with access to high-level Chinese officials, Rudenko’s real mission in Beijing was to inform Xi that his Foreign Minister and several top officers in the PLA had been compromised by western intelligence agencies.

Following his disappearance, lurid tales emerged of Qin’s affair with a reporter for Chinese broadcaster Phoenix TV called Fu Xiaotian, with whom he allegedly fathered a son who is a US citizen. The stories circulated widely online with the apparent consent of Chinese cyber censors.

Fu attended Cambridge University, a traditional recruiting ground for Britain’s intelligence agencies, and first met Qin more than a decade ago when he was posted to the Chinese embassy in London.

In 2016, Churchill College, Fu’s alma mater at Cambridge, named a garden after her in gratitude for her “very rare … series of generous gifts,” reportedly adding up to at least ￡250,000, an enormous sum for most journalists.

Before the Foreign Minister disappeared, Fu all but named Qin as the father of her child on social media.

Then, in April, she flew back to Beijing on what appears to have been a government-chartered private jet and has not been heard from since.

China’s propaganda system is strongly hinting that the affair and illegitimate American child are the reasons for Qin’s purge.

Rocket men

According to several people with access to top officials, the real reason for his abrupt disappearance was Qin’s involvement in a much more serious scandal, involving the Defense Minister and the generals who commanded China’s “rocket force”, which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons program.

At almost the same time Qin went missing, the top Commander of the rocket force, Li Yuchao, along with his deputy Liu Guangbin and former deputy Zhang Zhenzhong, all also disappeared.

Several other senior serving and former officers from the force were likewise detained and at least one former deputy commander died of unspecified illness, according to state media reports.

The missing commanders were eventually formally fired and replaced by officers from the navy and airforce, a very rare development since top commanders of the rocket force have almost always been promoted from within the service.

Not long after the rocket force purge was officially acknowledged, Li Shangfu, the man Xi picked as China’s Defense Minister in March this year, also vanished. His formal dismissal was announced in late October.

Further adding to the intrigue was a terse state media report on the day before Qin was formally removed as Foreign Minister in July. It said Wang Shaojun, commander since 2015 of the Central Guard unit that protects China’s top leaders and oversees Chairman Xi’s personal bodyguard, had died three months earlier due to “ineffective medical treatment”.

China’s nuclear weapons program has massively expanded in recent years and, according to people with access to top Chinese officials, Russian deputy minister Rudenko’s message to Xi included allegations that Qin and relatives of top rocket force officers had helped pass Chinese nuclear secrets to western intelligence agencies.

Two of these people claim that Qin died, either from suicide or torture, in late July in the military hospital in Beijing that treats China’s top leaders.

Hostile forces

Given the opacity of the Chinese system, it is impossible to confirm these accounts definitively and the Chinese government does not comment on the inner workings of the Communist Party.

Senior western intelligence officials declined to comment or discuss the matter when asked about the purges in China.

But the sensational nature of the claims themselves make clear the feverish paranoia permeating Beijing.

Whether by accident or design, that mood was exacerbated over the summer when Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Bill Burns said the CIA had “made progress” rebuilding its network within China and had a “strong human intelligence capability” in the country.

That paranoia extends into all parts of the bureaucracy and economy and seems to have tarnished anyone seen as too westernized or too close to “hostile western forces”.

One senior Chinese finance official who speaks fluent English and is a regular fixture on the international conference circuit told POLITICO by email that he could no longer attend an upcoming event outside China and was unable to speak on the phone.

He joins dozens of senior finance officials who have been removed in recent months, often after being accused of corruption.

An associate of this official said he was currently being investigated for being “too close to America” and “possibly a spy”.

This seems to be the inevitable fate of anyone who engages too eagerly with foreigners and should serve as a warning to those who still believe China is open for business with the West.

Politico · by POLITICO · December 6, 2023

20. Flooding Hamas tunnels could harm Gaza’s freshwater for generations, warns academic

Flooding Hamas tunnels could harm Gaza’s freshwater for generations, warns academic

Experts call on defense establishment to carefully weigh environmental impacts of reported plan to flush terrorists out of vast underground network

https://www.timesofisrael.com/flooding-hamas-tunnels-could-harm-gazas-freshwater-for-generations-warns-academic/

By SUE SURKES 

5 December 2023, 10:35 pm   23

Soldiers guard the entrance to a Hamas tunnel in the Gaza Strip, in a handout photo published November 9, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)

Environmental experts called on the defense establishment Tuesday to carefully weigh the long-term environmental implications of reported plans to flood the immense network of tunnels in the Gaza Strip with seawater to flush the terrorists out.

Quoting US officials, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the Israeli army last month set up five large water pumps near the al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, which are capable of flooding the tunnels within weeks by pumping thousands of cubic meters of water per hour into them.

Under normal circumstances, rain falls to earth and percolates down into subterranean storage areas, or aquifers. This groundwater is pumped up into wells to supply drinking water.

Keep Watching

Gaza is home to more than two million people and is one of the most densely populated places on earth. The enclave’s only sweet-water supply comes from a shallow aquifer running parallel to the Mediterranean coast.

That has been so overpumped and the subterranean water levels have dropped so far that seawater has entered the aquifer and mixed with the little sweet-water that remains.

The aquifer’s water quality has been further eroded by sewage, and agricultural chemical runoff, to the extent that 97 percent of Gaza’s freshwater no longer meets World Health Organization (WHO) water quality standards.

Emeritus Prof. Eilon Adar of Ben-Gurion University. (Dani Machlis/BGU)

Even before the war, most Gazans relied on private water tankers and the yield of small desalination plants for drinking water.

Following Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and kidnapped 240 others, Israel turned off three pipelines carrying drinking water into the strip. Under US pressure, it subsequently reopened two of them, and during the recent pause in fighting to release hostages, allowed in more of the fuel needed to pump the water from the Israel-Gaza border into the enclave.

Still, Gazans are desperately short of clean water.

Prof. (Emer.) Eilon Adar of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in southern Israel, said that further potential ecological damage to Gaza’s aquifer by flooding the tunnels would depend on the quantity of water and the reach.

Stressing that he was neither an expert on the issue nor involved with the Defense Ministry’s reported plans, he said that the pumping of a relatively small amount of seawater affecting the area between the Mediterranean coastline and the point where sea- and sweet-water were mixing anyway would have minimal consequences.

That latter point lies anywhere from tens to several hundreds of meters inland from the Gazan shore.

But if several million cubic meters were pumped into the tunnels, and seeped into the aquifer, “the negative impact on groundwater quality would last for several generations, depending on the amount that infiltrates into the subsurface,” he said.

Israel would hardly feel the effect, he went on, because the coastal aquifer’s water flows from Israel to Gaza.

Nevertheless, Adar added, he would “hesitate about destroying a massive natural resource.”

“As a citizen, despite the disaster that we experienced on October 7, I still think that in the long run — and we have to think of the future — it would be politically and morally incorrect to have a thirsty neighbor,” he said.

Palestinians line up to refill water in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 14, 2023. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)

Another water expert, who asked not to be named, said tunnels, carved out of porous sand, would need to be flooded several times.

Some of them were built to bring terrorists into Israel, he added. If seawater entered those sections, it could salinate Israeli wells close to the Gaza border.

Prof. Hadas Mamane, who heads the Environmental Engineering Program at Tel Aviv University, said the environmental impacts of all options for destroying the tunnels had to be considered, and their effects on the air, water, soil, hydrology and ecology tested in advance.

Blowing up weaponry in the tunnels could also have environmental consequences, she added, if dangerous toxic materials and heavy metals seeped into the groundwater.

“You don’t look at what’s best but what’s the least worst solution,” she said.

Both the IDF and the Defense Ministry said they had no comment.

The officials cited by The Wall Street Journal said Israel had alerted the US about the plan last month, but had not yet decided on whether to implement it.

The report said opinions in the Biden administration about the idea were mixed.

It also noted it was unclear whether the IDF would move to flood the tunnels before all of the hostages that Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups abducted during the October 7 onslaught were freed, due to the apparent risk that would be posed to hostages being held underground.

​

21. Is Gen Z turning against Western civilisation?

Excerpts:

For years, so-called progressives have imagined that this uniformity works to their long-term advantage. After all, many young people support strident leftists like Bernie Sanders in the US or Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France, while nearly two thirds of young American adults told Pew Research in 2022 that they don’t view capitalism positively – the highest share of any age group.

But many young people are also turning to the right. This is true particularly for male, working-class voters, from the US to Europe and Latin America, as epitomised by the success of the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, France’s Marine Le Pen or Germany’s AfD. Even Donald Trump, who lost the youth vote overwhelmingly in 2020, has spied an opportunity in courting the young. He is running neck and neck with Joe Biden in current polls. White youngsters in particular may also be reacting to affirmative-action policies at companies and on campuses that seek to restrict their prospects, whatever their economic class.

Some liberal media outlets, like the Guardian, blame Biden’s stance on Israel-Palestine for his loss of the youth vote. But this can hardly be the main driver, given that Trump is far more pro-Israel than Biden. One doubts that many young Hamas sympathisers will flock to The Donald. The economy is far more likely to be the main driver.

It is now painfully clear that we are failing younger generations. We should not shy away from denouncing their craziness. But we must also focus on restoring economic mobility, entrepreneurial opportunity and, most of all, faith in the essential values and worth of our civilisation. If we fail in this, we will leave behind a world that is far darker and uglier than any of us have known.

Is Gen Z turning against Western civilisation?

Youngsters are losing faith in freedom and democracy.

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The younger generations seem increasingly crazed. A worrying proportion of the young sympathises with those who launch terror attacks against Israel, supports the immediate elimination of fossil fuels or demands the wiping out of gender distinctions. All these positions are troubling in themselves, but they also reflect a deeper malady – a mostly apolitical breakdown of social norms, personal interaction, literacy and logical thinking.

No single issue has catalysed Gen Z, as the Vietnam War did for the Baby Boomer generation. Boomers were angry but did not generally despair about their futures, which turned out reasonably well, buoyed by the creation of new jobs, rising property and stock prices. In contrast, most younger people dread almost everything that lies ahead. The majority of them, according to a Lancet study, see the entire planet as doomed by climate change.

This negative take on the future shows that the young are being poorly served in numerous ways, notably by the economy. Only 36 per cent of voters in a new Wall Street Journal / NORC survey say the American Dream still holds true, a feeling that is even more pronounced among younger people. Currently, less than half of millennials are doing better financially than their parents were at the same stage in life. This is the first time a generation has fallen behind its elders in recent history. About seven in 10 Americans think that young adults today have a harder time than their parents’ generation when it comes to saving for the future (72 per cent), paying for college (71 per cent) and buying a home (70 per cent), according to a 2021 report by the Pew Research Centre.

The decline in homeownership – which nearly three in five young people see as an essential part of the American Dream – is especially damaging. Homeownership roots people in their community, forces them to mature and is closely tied to the desire to start a family. According to US Census Bureau data, the rate of homeownership among young adults at ages 25 to 34 was 45 per cent for Generation X. This has dropped to 37 per cent for millennials, the generation that should now be starting to have families. In the UK, house prices hit a record high last year, while the rate of homeownership among people under 35 halved between 1997 and 2017.

The trends are similarly worrying in the world of work. Despite labour shortages that are likely to get worse, real wages have not surpassed costs for most people living in the US, the EU, Japan and the UK. In the US, men’s labour participation is now lower than in 1940, when unemployment was three times higher. Labour-participation rates for young men have suffered a particularly steep drop from over 80 per cent in the 1980s to barely 60 per cent now.

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These conditions demonstrate the erosion of ambition throughout the West and even in East Asia. Fewer millennials and Gen Zers seem to take work seriously. There is increasing evidence, according to recent Conference Board studies, that ‘work-life balance’ is more central to Gen Z than career advancement. Some even celebrate worklessness as ‘funemployment’. The overwhelming majority of American part-time workers have chosen to work part-time and are not seeking more hours.

Europe has the most ‘disengaged’ workforce in the high-income world. In the UK, employers fret about a diminishing millennial work ethic. Nearly 10 per cent of young Brits who are currently studying or out of work say they have no intention of ever starting work, while roughly a third doubt they will reach their career goals. This has gone hand in hand with young people delaying their transition to adulthood and having fewer children.

Similar phenomena can be seen in Japan. Even in China, a large portion of the young, including the well-educated, have taken to ‘lying flat’. They seek a way of living without commitment to a job, developing skills or achieving what were once considered the rites of adulthood – from owning a home to getting married or starting a family. Unsurprisingly, the birth rates in Europe, America and East Asia have dropped to record low levels.

Some see technology as the solution to youthful angst, but it seems to have made things worse. Although the digital revolution has made some Boomers and Gen Xers fabulously rich, it has mostly lessened the prospects for the next generation, a process that could be accelerated by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

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Techno-optimists like the Brookings Institution predict a huge productivity boom from AI. Much the same was said about the rise of the internet. But, over the past 15 years, as economist Robert J Gordon has demonstrated, the web seems to have had little overall effect on productivity, which continues to lag, or on economic growth.

AI clearly has the potential to provide improvements in education and medicine, but it seems unlikely to create many new opportunities for all but the best connected entrepreneurs. The playing field is largely already set. By last summer, six tech firms accounted for half the value of the Nasdaq-100. These same Big Tech companies also seem likely to dominate AI. In 2022, much of the $32 billion invested into AI came from Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The enormous cost of the processing power needed for AI will cut out smaller companies and start-ups. AI’s ‘primary value’, notes venture capitalist Martin Casado, is ‘to improve existing operations for incumbents that have the resources to invest at the required levels’.

Even more troubling may be the impact of AI on the future job market for the new generation. Over 80 per cent of millennials fear AI will reduce their incomes. According to McKinsey, at least 12million Americans will be forced to find new work by 2030.

Job prospects, in the short run at least, are especially bleak for the non-college educated, who make up roughly two in three young people in advanced countries. Young white-collar workers may not fare much better, either. Two thirds of business leaders, in a recent survey, suggest AI will lead to large white-collar layoffs in the next five years. One study predicts this could particularly affect office assistants, sales executives, HR managers and accountants. Even many creative-industry jobs – such as actors, writers and journalists – could be threatened. Actors and writers could find their identities and creations copied or simply used in derivative products, as AI relies on past work to develop its products.

Even the tech geeks may be vulnerable. Firms like Meta and Lyft have announced major layoffs this year, warning that some positions are unlikely ever to return. IBM has put its staff hiring on hold while assessing how many of its mid-level jobs can be replaced by AI. Similarly, recent studies show that within months of AI’s emergence, freelance work in software declined markedly, along with pay. On the other hand, those few gifted enough to write AI programmes will be highly compensated – until they too are replaced by machines.

The younger generation’s immersion in social media may prove even more damaging. Author Cathy O’Neil, in her chilling Weapons of Math Destruction, suggests that social-media algorithms use a ‘secret sauce’ that is perfectly designed to lure customers and keep them distracted. The ultimate effect of excessive social-media use is that it severely reduces genuine human interaction with people from different classes and backgrounds. The popularity of social media has also been closely tied to rises in personal anxiety, particularly among young women.

The emerging picture is dismal. A recent AEI survey found that Gen Zers are far lonelier and are less likely to have had strong romantic relationships or even just strong friendships than previous generations. An EU study showed that at least one in four young Europeans reports feeling anxious due to social media. Similar patterns can be seen in the UK, particularly for girls. So atrophied are young people’s in-person communication skills that some colleges now hold remedial classes to address this.

Sadly, the current education system, rather than helping young people to adjust to these challenges, seems likely to make matters worse. Youngsters know increasingly little about the world. American school children are remarkably ignorant of US history – only 13 per cent of eighth graders achieve proficiency in the subject. Whole centuries, notably the 19th century, seem to be vanishing from European classrooms in the drive to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum. Those raising banners for Hamas likely do not know much about the history of Israel, the Middle East or even the Holocaust.

In today’s educational environment, where woke ideology reigns, promoting basic literacy and cognitive skills is increasingly passé. According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, two thirds of American fourth graders lack basic proficiency in reading. A full 86 per cent of 15-year-olds are unable to tell the difference between opinion and fact. IQ and academic-test scores have all fallen in recent years.

This lack of education, made worse by the pandemic, not only makes these young people less capable – it also empowers propagandists of the extremes to twist history for ideological purposes.

Political pluralism has now been all but extinguished on many university campuses. Liberal-arts faculties at elite colleges are overwhelmingly left-leaning. Among professors, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 20 to one. In some fields, like sociology and English, this ratio is more than 40 to one. This is not just an American phenomenon. As David Goodhart notes in The Road to Somewhere, although half of British voters lean to the right, less than 12 per cent of academics do. Similar ratios are common across Europe and in Canada.

With their ideas facing little pushback in this environment, young people are increasingly Manichean and authoritarian in their worldview. Pollster Nate Silver has found that support for free speech is all but disappearing among the young, especially among those who identify as liberal or left-wing. Similarly, a major survey covering 160 countries from the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy found that support for democracy to be lowest among 18- to 34-year-olds.

For years, so-called progressives have imagined that this uniformity works to their long-term advantage. After all, many young people support strident leftists like Bernie Sanders in the US or Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France, while nearly two thirds of young American adults told Pew Research in 2022 that they don’t view capitalism positively – the highest share of any age group.

But many young people are also turning to the right. This is true particularly for male, working-class voters, from the US to Europe and Latin America, as epitomised by the success of the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, France’s Marine Le Pen or Germany’s AfD. Even Donald Trump, who lost the youth vote overwhelmingly in 2020, has spied an opportunity in courting the young. He is running neck and neck with Joe Biden in current polls. White youngsters in particular may also be reacting to affirmative-action policies at companies and on campuses that seek to restrict their prospects, whatever their economic class.

Some liberal media outlets, like the Guardian, blame Biden’s stance on Israel-Palestine for his loss of the youth vote. But this can hardly be the main driver, given that Trump is far more pro-Israel than Biden. One doubts that many young Hamas sympathisers will flock to The Donald. The economy is far more likely to be the main driver.

It is now painfully clear that we are failing younger generations. We should not shy away from denouncing their craziness. But we must also focus on restoring economic mobility, entrepreneurial opportunity and, most of all, faith in the essential values and worth of our civilisation. If we fail in this, we will leave behind a world that is far darker and uglier than any of us have known.

Joel Kotkin is a spiked columnist, the presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. His latest book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, is out now. Follow him on Twitter: @joelkotkin

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