Quotes of the Day:

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to encourage my own abhorrence." 

- Frederick Douglass

"I was ashamed of myself, when I realized life was a costume party; and I attended with my real face." 

- Franz, Kafka

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."  

- Marcus Aurelius

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 24, 2023

2. Putin Is Running Out of Options in Ukraine

3. The Case for a Hard Break With China

4. The Illusion of Great-Power Competition

5. China Replaces Foreign Minister Missing From Public View Since June

6. Ex-US Marine accused of training Chinese military pilots fights extradition to the US

7. A World of Blocs?

8. US Dismisses China's Rejection of UN Accusations of Arms Transfers to Myanmar

9. Exclusive—China influence reaches "red zone to our homeland": U.S. general

10. China’s Foreign Minister Replaced After Unexplained Absence

11. U.S. Allies in Asia Snub Natural Gas From Alaska Project

12. New Airlifters Of All Sizes May Be Needed For Future China Fight

13. Opinion | The U.S. military integrated 75 years ago. Apologies are still in order.

14. Beyond The Beret. Ep. 6 | Diversity, Beyond The Beret. Ep. 6 | Diversity, OLG, SWTG, 1st Group, 3rd Group, Leadership | Part. 2

15. Navy SEAL's Long-Awaited 'Dry' Mini-Submarine Capability Has Finally Arrived

16. Retired admirals, Project Overmatch will figure in Navy’s upcoming giant exercise

17. Why the U.S. still needs ground forces in Europe

18. Mark Milley’s bureaucratic proposals could lose us the next war

19. Senator Tommy Tuberville’s Dangerous Military Promotion Ploy

20. Outspoken Chinese foreign minister purged by Xi Jinping

21. Greensburg WWII veteran braved armed foes, harsh jungle conditions with Merrill's Marauders

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 24, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-24-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Likely Ukrainian forces conducted a drone strike near the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) building in Moscow on July 24.
• Likely Ukrainian forces targeted Russian military assets in occupied Crimea, temporarily disrupting Russian logistics through Crimea on July 24.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an article published on July 24 likely intended to mitigate damage to Russia’s position in Africa and his own reputation resulting from Russia’s withdrawal from the Ukraine-Russia grain deal, Russian attacks on Ukrainian grain and port facilities, and Putin’s inability to attend the upcoming BRICS summit due to the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued for him.
• Russia conducted another drone strike on Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast overnight on July 23-24.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along at least three sectors of the front on July 24 and have reportedly advanced in certain areas.
• The Kremlin continues to codify domestic repression into Russian law, generating minimal opposition from select Russian lawmakers.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, in the Bakhmut area, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and made marginal gains south of Kreminna.
• Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, and in the Bakhmut area and reportedly advanced in the Bakhmut area.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast and did not make any confirmed or claimed gains.
• Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and reportedly advanced in the Orikhiv area.
• Russian officials continue to highlight the claimed successes of the Russian defense industrial base (DIB).
• Ukrainian officials continue to reveal the involvement of Belarusian entities in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 24, 2023

Jul 24, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 24, 2023

Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, Christina Harward, and Frederick W. Kagan

July 24, 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 access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 1pm ET on July 24. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 25 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Likely Ukrainian forces conducted a drone strike near the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) building in Moscow on July 24. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) claimed that Russian electronic warfare (EW) suppressed two Ukrainian UAVs that detonated, damaging two non-residential buildings.[1] One drone detonated on Komsomolsky Prospekt within 500 meters of the MoD building and within 200 meters of a reported secret Russian General Staff Main Directorate (GRU) building.[2] Russian sources reported that the second drone hit a business center on Likhachev Prospekt.[3] CNN reported that an unspecified Ukrainian intelligence official confirmed that Ukrainian forces conducted the attack.[4] Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov stated that unspecified UAVs attacked the capital and warned that more UAV attacks against Russia will occur.[5] Russian opposition source The Insider reported that Russian authorities banned Russian television channels from covering the drone strikes, citing sources in Russian state media channels.[6] Russian milbloggers had a muted reaction to these strikes; some criticized the Russian air defenses for allowing the drones to penetrate that far into Moscow, while others argued that the informational victory of such attacks is minimal and short-lived.[7]

Likely Ukrainian forces targeted Russian military assets in occupied Crimea, temporarily disrupting Russian logistics through Crimea on July 24. The Russian MFA accused Ukrainian forces of attacking occupied Crimea with 17 UAVs, and the MFA claimed that Russian EW suppressed 14 UAVs while air defenses shot down three UAVs.[8] Crimean occupation head Sergey Aksyonov claimed that one UAV hit an ammunition depot in Dzhankoy Raion.[9] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces also launched three Storm Shadow missiles at an ammunition depot in Vilne (19km southwest of Dzhankoy) and a repair base in Novostepne (immediately south of Dzhankoy).[10] Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andyushchenko reported that strikes injured three Russian personnel at the Vesele military airfield (10km southwest of Dzhankoy) and reported additional explosions near Krasnohvardiiske (20km southwest of Dzhankoy).[11] Aksyonov temporarily suspended road traffic on the Dzhankoy-Simferopol highway as well as rail traffic through Dzhankoy Raion.[12] Aksyonov also announced the evacuation of all civilians within a five-kilometer radius of the strike area in Dzhankoy Raion.[13] Crimean occupation advisor Oleg Kryuchkov stated that occupation authorities will strictly monitor social media posts that could help Ukrainian forces identify targets in Crimea.[14]

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an article published on July 24 likely intended to mitigate damage to Russia’s position in Africa and his own reputation resulting from Russia’s withdrawal from the Ukraine-Russia grain deal, Russian attacks on Ukrainian grain and port facilities, and Putin’s inability to attend the upcoming BRICS summit due to the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued for him. Putin outlined Russia’s goals for establishing partner relationships with Africa and called for the continuation of “traditionally close cooperation on the world stage.”[15] Putin also emphasized Russia’s trade with African economic partners and the importance of “uninterrupted food supply” for the “maintenance of the political stability of African states,” accusing the collective West of exploiting the grain deal for its own benefit at the expense of Russia and countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia.[16] Putin’s article follows Russia’s withdrawal from the grain deal and attacks that have destroyed tens of thousands of tons of Ukrainian grain and Ukrainian facilities essential to transporting the grain to areas of Africa that rely heavily on Ukrainian grain. Putin is also likely attempting to mitigate the opportunity cost and embarrassment of his inability to personally attend the BRICS Summit in South Africa due to the ICC arrest warrant.[17]

Russia conducted another drone strike on Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast overnight on July 23-24. Ukrainian military sources reported that Russian forces launched Iranian-made Shahed drones at port infrastructure in Reni, along the Danube River in far western Odesa Oblast, within a few kilometers of the Romanian border.[18] Odesa Oblast Head Oleh Kiper also stated that the drone strikes damaged 25 architectural monuments in Odesa Oblast, including the Transfiguration Orthodox Cathedral in Odesa City.[19] Russian sources claimed that Ukraine used the port infrastructure in Reni for the export of weapons, equipment, and grain.[20]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along at least three sectors of the front on July 24 and have reportedly advanced in certain areas. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that over the past week, Ukrainian forces have advanced gradually on the southern flank of Bakhmut and in the Berdyansk (western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area) and Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) directions.[21] Malyar also noted that these counteroffensive actions are taking place against the backdrop of continued Russian offensive operations in the Kupyansk, Lyman, Avdiivka, and Marinka directions.[22] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast south of Velyka Novosilka and advanced south of Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[23] The Ukrainian General Staff indicated that Ukrainian troops are continuing offensive actions in the Berdyansk and Melitopol directions but did not specify locations or outcomes.[24]

The Kremlin continues to codify domestic repression into Russian law, generating minimal opposition from select Russian lawmakers. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed laws on July 24 allowing the Russian Ministry of Justice to conduct unscheduled inspections of those classified as “foreign agents” under new Russian laws and requiring Russian citizens, government officials, and organizations to comply with restrictions on foreign agents.[25] Putin also signed a law that would fine citizens up to 50,000 rubles (about $550), officials up to 100,000 rubles (about $1,100), and organizations up to 300,000 (about $3,300) rubles for violating the law on foreign agents.[26] Russian opposition news outlet Vazhnye Istorii reported on July 24 that the Russian Federation Council proposed a bill that would allow Russian authorities to deprive natural born Russian citizens of citizenship due to certain “political crimes” and “desertion.”[27] Vashnye Istorii also noted, however, three senators Olga Bas (representing the Luhansk People’s Republic), Ekaterina Altabayeva, and Sergei Kolbin (both representing Sevastopol in occupied Crimea) withdrew their authorship of the bill, potentially due to nuances and intricacies within the ever-expanding new body of Russian law pertaining to citizenship in occupied areas.[28] Federation Council Constitutional Legislation and State Building Committee Head Andrey Klishas criticized the bill and claimed that it would violate the Russian Constitution, likely referencing Article 6 which states that a Russian citizen may not be deprived of their citizenship or of the right to change citizenship status.[29] Vazhnye Istorii reported that Russia has already adopted a law that would allow Russian authorities to revoke Russian citizenship from an individual who did not acquire Russian citizenship by birth for posing what the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) deems a “security threat.”[30] ISW has previously reported on measures taken by Russian authorities to intensify domestic repression and encourage self-censorship through various amendments to and manipulations of domestic law.[31]

Key Takeaways:

• Likely Ukrainian forces conducted a drone strike near the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) building in Moscow on July 24.
• Likely Ukrainian forces targeted Russian military assets in occupied Crimea, temporarily disrupting Russian logistics through Crimea on July 24.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an article published on July 24 likely intended to mitigate damage to Russia’s position in Africa and his own reputation resulting from Russia’s withdrawal from the Ukraine-Russia grain deal, Russian attacks on Ukrainian grain and port facilities, and Putin’s inability to attend the upcoming BRICS summit due to the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued for him.
• Russia conducted another drone strike on Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast overnight on July 23-24.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along at least three sectors of the front on July 24 and have reportedly advanced in certain areas.
• The Kremlin continues to codify domestic repression into Russian law, generating minimal opposition from select Russian lawmakers.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, in the Bakhmut area, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and made marginal gains south of Kreminna.
• Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, and in the Bakhmut area and reportedly advanced in the Bakhmut area.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast and did not make any confirmed or claimed gains.
• Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and reportedly advanced in the Orikhiv area.
• Russian officials continue to highlight the claimed successes of the Russian defense industrial base (DIB).
• Ukrainian officials continue to reveal the involvement of Belarusian entities in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian and Ukrainian forces reportedly continued limited fighting northeast of Kupyansk, where Russian forces reportedly advanced on July 24. A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian counterattacks west of Lyman Pershyi and near the Movchanove rail station (both 10-11km northeast of Kupyansk).[32]

Russian sources claimed that Russian forces advanced during offensive operations in the Svatove area on July 24. Some Russian milbloggers claimed on July 23 that Russian forces captured Novoyehorivka (15km southwest of Svatove), but other Russian milbloggers claimed on July 24 that Russian advances in the area were limited or unconfirmed.[33] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces, including unspecified Airborne (VDV), 20th Combined Arms Army (Western Military District), and Central Military District (CMD) elements, expanded their foothold on the west (right) bank of the Zherebets River southwest of Svatove and advanced up to five kilometers deep into Ukrainian lines.[34] Russian milbloggers claimed that elements of unspecified Russian motorized rifle brigades also captured at least one Ukrainian fortified position near Karmazynivka (12km southwest of Svatove).[35] ISW has not yet observed any visual confirmation of Russian advances in this area, and these Russian claims may be part of a broader effort to exaggerate claimed gains in the area.[36] One Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also conducted a failed ground attack against Nadiya (15km southwest of Svatove).[37]

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted limited counterattacks in the Svatove area and did not advance. on July 24. A Russian source claimed that the Russian 21st Guards Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) repelled Ukrainian counterattacks west of Karmazynivka.[38]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Kreminna area and made marginal advances on July 24. Geolocated footage published on July 24 shows that Russian forces made marginal advances south of Kreminna.[39] A Russian milblogger claimed on July 23 that Chechen “Akhmat” forces, unspecified VDV elements, and unspecified 228th Motorized Rifle Regiment (90th Guards Tank Division, Central Military District) elements captured Ukrainian positions in the Kreminna forest area.[40] Russian milbloggers claimed on July 24 that Russian forces advanced in the Kreminna forest area and continued attacks south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka and the Serebrianske forest area (both 10-11km south).[41] The Ukrainian General Staff and one Russian milblogger reported that Russian forces conducted a failed ground attack west of Kreminna near Torske (15km west of Kreminna).[42]

Ukrainian forces reportedly continued limited offensive operations near Kreminna and did not advance on July 24. A Russian source claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks in the Serebrianske forest area.[43]

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

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks around Bakhmut and did not advance on July 24. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks northwest of Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut), near Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), south of Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), and west of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[44] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces unsuccessfully conducted a ground attack near Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut).[45] Footage published on July 24 purportedly shows elements of the “Sever-Z” Brigade (the 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade, 14th Army Corps, Northern Fleet) assaulting Ukrainian positions near Bakhmut.[46]

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations north and south of Bakhmut and reportedly advanced as of July 24. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Ukrainian forces have liberated four square kilometers in the Bakhmut direction in the past week and that Ukrainian forces continue to advance slowly but confidently.[47] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on July 23 that Ukrainian forces advanced in the Orikhovo-Vasylivka direction, entered the outskirts of Klishchiivka, and advanced close to Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut), and another Russian milblogger claimed on July 24 that Ukrainian forces took positions on the heights near Klishchiivka.[48] Russian sources claimed that intense fighting is ongoing near Klishchiivka, while the Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Klishchiivka.[49] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are having significant difficulty defending positions on the southern flank of Bakhmut due to a lack of rotations and effective Ukrainian electronic warfare.[50]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and did not advance on July 24. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Avdiivka, Nevelske (13km southwest of Avdiivka), Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka), Marinka (on the western outskirts of Donetsk City), Krasnohorivka (directly west of Donetsk City), and Novomykhailivka (36km southwest of Avdiivka).[51] Malyar stated that Russian forces continue to focus offensive operations on establishing control over Avdiivka and Marinka.[52]

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

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast on July 24 but did not make any confirmed gains. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Ukrainian troops have had success in unspecified sectors along the Novodarivka—Pryyutne and Novosilka—Staromayorske lines south of Velyka Novosilka.[53] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks near Staromayorske and Urozhaine, both about 9km south of Velyka Novosilka.[54]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks to regain lost positions in western Donetsk Oblast on July 24 but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops repelled Russian attacks near Rivnopil (10km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) and Pryyutne (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[55] Russian sources amplified various reports that elements of the 36th Combined Arms Army (Eastern Military District) and 14th Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade (Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces [GRU]) are among the Russian formations fighting in this area.[56]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 24 and reportedly advanced in the Orikhiv area. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced 1.7km towards the northeastern outskirts of Robotyne (15km south of Orikhiv).[57] Other Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces are regrouping near Robotyne following an attempted attack on July 23.[58] Geolocated footage posted on July 23 shows elements of the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade (Black Sea Fleet) and 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) repelling Ukrainian attacks northeast of Robotyne.[59] Malyar also reported that Ukrainian forces conducted successful offensive operations southeast of Orikhiv along the Novodanylivka—Verbove and Mala Tokmachka — Verbove lines and south of Orikhiv along the Novodanylivka—Robotyne line.[60] Russian sources claimed that the situation remains unchanged near Pyatykhatky (about 25km southwest of Orikhiv).[61]

Russian forces did not conduct any claimed or confirmed ground attacks in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 24.

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued attempts to land on islands in the Dnipro River delta and establish additional positions on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast on July 24. A prominent milblogger claimed that Ukrainian troops tried to land three small boats near the Antonivsky Bridge and that Russian artillery strikes repelled the attempt.[62] Other milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are constantly destroying small Ukrainian groups that are fighting for control of islands in the Dnipro River delta and on the east bank.[63] Russian forces continued artillery strikes against the west bank of Kherson Oblast.[64]

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

Russian officials continue to highlight the claimed successes of the Russian defense industrial base (DIB). Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade and Industry Denis Manturov claimed on July 24 that DIB current monthly production of “means of destruction” (likely meaning weapons systems) exceeds the entire annual production of 2022.[65] A Russian milblogger emphasized that these high production levels are critical for a Russian victory in Ukraine and are already clearly visible on the battlefield.[66]

An investigation by Politico published on July 24 reported that China is sending nonlethal but militarily useful aid to Russia via Russian shell companies that are importing dual-use equipment.[67] Politico reported that Russia has imported more than $100 million worth of drones from China so far in 2023, which is 30 times more than Ukraine has imported from China.[68] Politico also reported that Chinese exports of ceramics – which are used in body armor – to Russia have increased 69% whereas Chinese exports of the same item to Ukraine have decreased by 61%.[69]

Russian President Vladimir Putin formally signed amendments increasing the retirement age limits of reservists into law on July 24.[70] The age limitations for all reservists were increased by five years: personnel with “first class” ranks increased from 35 to 40 years, “second class” ranks from 45 to 50 years, “third class” ranks from 50 to 55 years, junior officers from 55 to 60, and senior officers from 60 to 65.[71] Russian opposition media outlet SOTA offered the observation that these new laws create conditions for additional avenues for mobilization, noting that Russian citizens with foreign passports or foreign residence permits are no longer excluded from the reserves and that reservists can now be mobilized up to 50 years old (previously 45 years old).[72]

NOTE: ISW previously incorrectly reported on July 14 that the “second class” age bracket would increase from 40 to 45 years of age as opposed to 45 to 50 years of age. ISW sincerely apologizes for this mistake.

Russian sources reported that the Russian State Duma is planning to change the penalties for draft dodging.[73] Amendments were made on July 20 that increased the fine for failing to appear before the draft board from 3,000 rubles ($33) up to 50,000 ($553), but the Duma is allegedly going to set the fine at 30,000 rubles ($331) instead.[74] Russian legislation surrounding force generation processes remains chaotic and disorganized.

Russian military authorities continue efforts to recruit ethnic minorities to fight in Ukraine. Russian opposition media outlet SOTA claimed that posters aimed at recruiting Uzbeks to sign contracts with the Russian MoD appeared in bus stations in Volgograd in July.[75] The posters, written in both Uzbek and Russian, offered monetary rewards and guaranteed Russian citizenship for those who signed MoD contracts.[76] SOTA claimed that Russian authorities told journalists that these posters were specifically targeting foreign citizens who frequent these bus routes and that there are plans to launch similar advertisements in other languages such as Tajik and Kazakh in the future.[77]

Russian authorities are reportedly exploiting student labor to increase the production of Iranian Shahed drones in Alabuga, Republic of Tatarstan. An investigation by Russian opposition outlet Protokol found that the Alabuga Polytechnic College in Tatarstan, Russia is forcing students to assemble Shahed drones.[78] Protokol previously reported that the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Republic of Tatarstan is the site of a factory where Shahed components supplied by Iran are assembled in Russia.[79]

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

Ukrainian officials continue to reveal the involvement of Belarusian entities in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin reported on July 23 that the Belarusian Red Cross participated in the forced deportation of children from occupied Ukraine to Belarus.[80] ISW has previously reported that Belarusian officials, including Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, are working with Russian officials to facilitate the deportation of Ukrainian children to Belarus.[81]

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).

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

The Wagner Group continues to establish a permanent presence in Belarus. Independent Belarusian monitoring group The Hajun Project reported on July 24 that about 3,450 to 3,650 Wagner personnel are at the Wagner field camp in Tsel, Asipovichy, Mogilev Oblast. The Hajun Project also reported that 10 Wagner convoys consisting of 670 to 700 vehicles in total have arrived in Tsel since July 11 and that the most recent convoy arrived on July 23.[82] Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) representative Vadym Skibitskyi reported on July 24 that the GUR continues to monitor Wagner activities and assesses that there is no direct threat to Ukraine from Belarus, which is consistent with ISW’s assessments that Wagner forces in Belarus currently pose no military threat to Ukraine or NATO countries.[83]

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

2. Putin Is Running Out of Options in Ukraine

Excerpts:

The main questions facing NATO surround the prospect of a change of U.S. administration—and what shift in Ukraine policy that might entail—and concerns that Ukraine does not have the capacity to make any major military breakthroughs. The first question will not be answered until November 2024; the second will be answered in the coming weeks and months.

Even if progress is slower than hoped, Ukraine will have no interest in a cease-fire so long as Russia holds so much of its land and immiserates those living under its occupation. Kyiv assumes that Moscow would use any truce to reconstitute its forces for the next round of fighting. Recovery and reconstruction in postwar Ukraine will pose daunting challenges and raise awkward questions about the assessments and decisions made before and during the fighting. But contrary to the hindsight in Russia, there is no doubt in Ukraine that this is a war that had to be fought and could be lost.

Putin can simply try to hang on but given the mounting pressures he needs a strategy to show that Russia still has a path to victory. What Putin does should in turn shape Ukrainian actions. Kyiv can add to the anxieties in Moscow, demonstrating that no part of Russia is secure, punishing Russian forces at the front, and opportunistically liberating territory even if it is not quite what military planners intended. This has become a war of endurance. Just as Putin must hope that Ukraine and its Western supporters will tire before Russia does, Ukraine and its backers must show that they can cope with the war’s demands for as long as necessary.

Putin Is Running Out of Options in Ukraine

Russia Edges Closer to a Reckoning

By Lawrence Freedman

July 25, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Lawrence Freedman · July 25, 2023

Governments start wars in pursuit of various objectives, from conquering territory to changing the regime of a hostile state to supporting a beleaguered ally. Once a war begins, the stakes are immediately raised. It is one of the paradoxes of war that even as its original objectives drift out of reach or are cast aside, the necessity of not being seen as the loser only grows in importance—such importance, in fact, that even if winning is no longer possible, governments will still persevere to show that they have not been beaten.

The problem with losing goes beyond the failure to achieve objectives or even having to explain the expenditures of blood and treasure for little gain: loss casts doubt on the wisdom and competence of the government. Failure in war can cause a government to fall. That is often why governments keep on fighting wars: an admission of defeat could make it harder to hold on to power.

All of these dynamics are evident in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin set as his objectives the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine. By the first, he presumably meant regime change, in which case the war has clearly been a failure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s position is as strong as ever. As for demilitarization, Ukraine is on its way to becoming the most militarized country in Europe. Many of the Russian speakers in Ukraine on whose behalf Putin claimed to be acting now prefer to speak Ukrainian, while the Russian-speaking areas of the Donbas have been battered, deindustrialized, and depopulated because of this ruinous war.

Russian forces have failed to take complete control of any of the four oblasts, or administrative regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—that Putin claimed for Russia in September 2022. Much of the ground initially seized after the full-scale invasion has been relinquished, and more is being lost, albeit slowly, during the current Ukrainian offensive. Before February 2022, Russia could be confident that Ukraine would not be able to challenge the illegal annexation of Crimea, but now even Russia's hold of the peninsula is no longer certain. Ukraine still hopes that its war aims—the liberation of all occupied land and the restoration of the borders created in 1991—can be achieved. Even if Ukraine’s current offensive falters, Russia lacks for now the combat power to seize the advantage and take more territory.

Putin is not close to achieving any of his war aims while the price of his gambit grows ever steeper. He may, of course, believe that at least some of his original objectives are still possible, or take some comfort from those analysts in the West who are convinced that the best Ukraine can hope for is a military stalemate. But the Russian leader has never shown himself to be satisfied with a stalemate. He wants a resolution in which he can be shown to be the clear victor. When asked about negotiation, including by sympathetic interlocutors, for example from Africa, he still demands that Ukraine recognize the annexations of the four oblasts, which would require Kyiv to hand over more territory to Moscow. That is clearly not going to happen.

Were Putin to accept a cease-fire based on current positions, it would ease the threat to Crimea and allow the Russian occupation of what is still a sizable chunk of Ukrainian territory. It would, however, confirm that none of Putin’s goals have been met. This would become even more obvious if discussions around a cease-fire led to pressure for Russian forces to abandon some of the land they have taken. Being stuck with bits and pieces of Ukrainian territory with hostile populations, massive reconstruction bills, and long frontlines with an undefeated Ukraine, would not look like a big win—especially when set against the many casualties incurred by Russian forces, the degradation of the Russian army, the sputtering Russian economy, and the knock to Russia’s standing as a great and influential power. As soon as the fighting stopped and troops started to come home, there would be a national reckoning, and it would not reflect well on Putin.

But now, Putin must face an even more disturbing possibility: suppose the reckoning cannot be postponed and comes before a definitive end to the fighting, not afterward. All trends—military, economic, diplomatic—continue to point in the wrong direction, and Putin has no convincing explanation for how the situation can be salvaged. The Russian president finds himself boxed in with no good options. He may indeed already be aware that the reckoning has begun.

NECESSARY FICTIONS

Russian elites know full well that the war was a terrible blunder and is going badly. They have not been inclined to do much about it because they fear Putin and a chaotic world without him. They are sufficiently patriotic to believe that despite all the additional stress, the system can somehow be made to work and that the country will pull through. It is on the frontlines that the extent of the blunder has become inescapable and where there is the most evidence of dissent. The brief mutiny of the Wagner mercenary group had much to do with the desire of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to protect his business model from the Defense Ministry. But Prigozhin also tapped into a wider dissatisfaction with Russia’s high command and its unimaginative strategy, wasteful tactics, and corrupt practices.

Prigozhin lost the immediate power struggle, his armaments, and his businesses, if not, as yet, his life or freedom. In dealing with his former confidant, Putin showed more vulnerability than weakness. The outcome made it much harder to demote his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, or top commander, Valery Gerasimov, despite their demonstrated incompetence and loss of support among the officer class. But loyalty comes first. It is the military officials closely associated with Prigozhin who have been sidelined.

Meanwhile, Gerasimov apparently fired General Ivan Popov, commander of the 58th Combined Arms Air Defense Army, after he complained bitterly about the conditions imposed on his troops, who were in his words being “stabbed in the back.” The complaints to which Popov gave voice are widely shared and are not going to disappear, especially if Ukraine continues to disrupt Russian logistics, and it is not clear what Russian commanders can do to address them. The Russian response to the advances of Ukrainian forces has been to throw everything into counterattacks. This has led to some intense engagements and occasional successes, but Ukraine’s army has adapted after early disappointments and continues to hold the initiative and the greater momentum.

Putin finds himself boxed in with no good options.

As these developments eat away at the morale of frontline forces, they also erode the confidence of the elite, and even Putin’s position. Past Russian setbacks, or at least those of a scale that could not be hidden, prompted major shifts in Russian strategy. After the failure of the early battle for Kyiv, there was a renewed focus on the Donbas. After Ukraine’s breakthrough in Kharkiv in September 2022, Moscow decided to raise the stakes with more ambitious war aims, mass mobilization, and a bombing campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. So far, the most substantial response has been punitive: ending the arrangement that allowed Ukraine to export grain and then striking the Ukrainian port of Odesa.

Should there be another big win for Ukraine (and nothing is guaranteed here), it is not clear what options would be available to provide Moscow with a more effective strategy. The choice would be unpalatable for Putin: he must either confirm that Russia is losing an unnecessary war or persist in waging an unwinnable war.

One way out of such a dilemma might be for Putin to get his propagandists to concoct a story to explain why, despite the appearance of loss, Russia has in fact won. The simplest story he can tell is that Russia’s war is not with Ukraine, but with NATO. The Kremlin has already told this story to explain Russian setbacks and show how Ukraine is acting as an agent of the West. The narrative could be turned into a heroic one about how, against all odds, Russia survived the wrath of world’s mightiest alliance. But this story is also, from a Russian perspective, suboptimal because if Russia were truly at war with NATO, it would have no chance of victory. As it is, every new initiative by NATO countries in support of Ukraine is followed by dire warnings from Moscow, usually from the broken record that is former president Dmitri Medvedev, of the terrible, unspecified retribution to follow. Such invocations of doom have yet to deter Ukraine’s allies.

Moscow made a more plausible argument last year, claiming that a combination of Europe’s energy crunch and concern about costs would lead the West to wind down its support for Ukraine. Perhaps Putin now hopes to achieve the same effect with food shortages, even though this will harm otherwise sympathetic countries. He may be disappointed: similar actions have yet to dent Western support for Ukraine. Over the last six months, more and better weapons have been delivered to Kyiv. In certain respects, NATO countries are subject to the same pressures Russia is; not losing is also a vital interest of the West.

THE RECKONING

Obviously, this is Ukraine’s war to win or lose, not NATO’s, but after becoming so committed to the Ukrainian cause, the alliance dare not back away now, especially when it has invested so much in equipping the country to fight and prevail. Finding the resources to support Ukraine can be challenging, but this is a genuinely collective effort, with most U.S. allies making a substantial financial and material contribution. Ukraine is united and effective in its fighting. Furthermore, a Russian victory would be a geopolitical catastrophe for NATO, posing the far greater risk of an all-out war between the alliance and Russia. Better that Russia is pushed back by Ukraine, with its army degraded in the process.

The main questions facing NATO surround the prospect of a change of U.S. administration—and what shift in Ukraine policy that might entail—and concerns that Ukraine does not have the capacity to make any major military breakthroughs. The first question will not be answered until November 2024; the second will be answered in the coming weeks and months.

Even if progress is slower than hoped, Ukraine will have no interest in a cease-fire so long as Russia holds so much of its land and immiserates those living under its occupation. Kyiv assumes that Moscow would use any truce to reconstitute its forces for the next round of fighting. Recovery and reconstruction in postwar Ukraine will pose daunting challenges and raise awkward questions about the assessments and decisions made before and during the fighting. But contrary to the hindsight in Russia, there is no doubt in Ukraine that this is a war that had to be fought and could be lost.

Putin can simply try to hang on but given the mounting pressures he needs a strategy to show that Russia still has a path to victory. What Putin does should in turn shape Ukrainian actions. Kyiv can add to the anxieties in Moscow, demonstrating that no part of Russia is secure, punishing Russian forces at the front, and opportunistically liberating territory even if it is not quite what military planners intended. This has become a war of endurance. Just as Putin must hope that Ukraine and its Western supporters will tire before Russia does, Ukraine and its backers must show that they can cope with the war’s demands for as long as necessary.

• LAWRENCE FREEDMAN is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London and the author of Command: The Politics of Military Operations From Korea to Ukraine.

Foreign Affairs · by Lawrence Freedman · July 25, 2023

3. The Case for a Hard Break With China

Excerpts:

Ideally, other developed economies would break from China, as well. But collective action is not necessary and a hard break remains the best course for the United States, regardless. For Washington, preserving democratic capitalism must be the nonnegotiable starting point; other policy priorities are secondary to that imperative. A commitment to free markets has meaning only if it is matched with the actions necessary to ensure that the U.S. market remains free. That objective can still be achieved by going it alone and is preferable to not going at all.

The United States should build a broader partnership of allied countries willing to make similar commitments in their own supply chains and on issues including technology transfer and research funding. Participants in such a trading bloc should have preferential access to the U.S. market. Nations declining to join should face worse terms of trade, and nations committing fully to the Chinese sphere should face the same treatment as China.

For policymakers and analysts committed to globalization and conditioned to fear any inefficient overstepping in the market, a hard break from China may seem implausible. But only last year, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States revoked Russia’s “most favored nation” status and imposed aggressive sanctions designed to separate Russia from the international economic system. This was the hardest of breaks and was supported most strongly by those who are most vocally enthusiastic about global engagement and a rules-based international order. Whether the United States should take action on a similar scale against China is not a question of legality or capacity but of values and will.

The Case for a Hard Break With China

Why Economic De-Risking Is Not Enough

By Oren Cass and Gabriela Rodriguez

July 25, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Oren Cass and Gabriela Rodriguez · July 25, 2023

Never in human history have nations with such radically different economic and political systems as the United States and China attempted economic integration. Before the modern era, neither the markets nor the technology existed to facilitate such a project. During the Cold War, facing similar differences, Washington and Moscow stayed economically far apart. PepsiCo’s opening of a Soviet bottling plant was front-page news in 1972, and because rubles were not convertible to dollars, the Soviets paid for the bottling equipment with vodka. No wonder that globalization gained steam only after the Berlin Wall fell.

In the early post–Cold War years, U.S. theorists and policymakers ignored the potential risks of integration with an authoritarian peer. Globalization was predicated on liberal economic standards, democratic values, and U.S. cultural norms, all of which were taken for granted by economists and the foreign policy establishment. The United States set the rules for international institutions and multinational corporations, most of which were either American or heavily reliant upon access to U.S. technology and markets. Under these conditions, economic entanglements were regarded as opportunities for Washington to exert leverage and impose its rules. Incursions in, and distortions of, one market by another were Washington’s strategy, not its problem.

When welcomed into the international community in the late 1990s, China was still a developing nation. Its GDP was roughly one-tenth of the United States’ GDP, and in 1999, it was still one of the world’s poorest countries per capita, ranked between Sri Lanka and Guyana. U.S. leaders across the political spectrum were confident that by encouraging China’s integration into the global economy, they could ensure that the country would become a constructive participant in a U.S.-led world order. U.S. President Bill Clinton spoke for many when he declared that China’s accession to the World Trade Organization was about “more than our economic interests; it is clearly in our larger national interest.”

It has not turned out that way. Instead, China has rapidly become—by some measures— the world’s largest economy and a powerful counterweight to U.S. influence. Its state-controlled economy and increasingly authoritarian leadership have subverted U.S. investment, supply chains, and institutions. Beijing’s efforts to use global integration to enhance Chinese power and harm U.S. interests have proliferated. The Chinese government has leveraged market access to force technology transfers from U.S. firms including Westinghouse, General Electric, and Microsoft. It has dominated global markets by flooding them with subsidized goods, including solar panels, and it has forced the National Basketball Association and its players into humiliating silence on Chinese human rights abuses.

The fundamental problem is that the United States’ free-market economy is incompatible with a Chinese state-controlled one. U.S. liberty and democracy are antithetical to the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party. The United States must break from China or else become irrevocably corrupted by it.

TIME TO WALK

Presumably, had U.S. policymakers known in 2000 what they know now about China’s trajectory, they would not have conducted the reckless experiment of tightly coupling the U.S. economy to a larger one controlled by a communist, authoritarian dictatorship. But rather than admit their error, many in Washington seem determined to stay the course under the illusion that they can constructively influence Chinese policy through continual efforts at conciliation, even though Beijing has shown no desire to reciprocate.

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said as much in April, envisioning “a growing China that plays by the rules” and fosters “rising demand for U.S. products and services and more dynamic U.S. industries.” In June, she told the House Financial Services Committee that “we gain and China gains from trade and investment that is as open as possible.” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan made a similar argument in an economic policy speech in April, describing the Biden administration’s strategy as “de-risking and diversifying, not decoupling.” Sullivan says that he wants only a “small yard and high fence” to safeguard a narrow set of critical U.S. military technologies. Commerce, otherwise, should continue to flourish.

This posture misunderstands the challenge posed by the integration of the U.S. and Chinese markets, which is not only, or even primarily, one of national security. Although that challenge is immense, even if China were to disarm tomorrow, credibly forswearing any aspirations beyond its borders, its economic influence would remain deeply corrosive to the U.S.-led system of democratic capitalism. That system relies upon the assumption that economic actors in a free market pursuing their self-interest—namely, profit—will also advance the public interest. If everyone plays by the same rules, government constrains unproductive behavior, and maintains a strong social fabric that supports workers and their families, this kind of market can generate unparalleled prosperity. But if the free market comes into contact with a powerful state-controlled one, in which foreign policymakers have made serving their nation in word and deed the path to greatest profit, too many companies and investors will do just that.

Asking U.S. firms and workers to compete with their China-based counterparts and operate in the Chinese market grants the Chinese Communist Party the power to shape American capital allocations and labor-market conditions from the far side of the Pacific. If U.S. firms seek to maximize their profits, and the greatest profit can be had by kowtowing to the CCP, that is what U.S. business leaders will do. Distortions that Beijing introduces in the Chinese market become distortions in the U.S. market. Washington is left with little choice but to counter with interference of its own. Free trade ceases to be a logical extension of the free market and instead undermines it.

Rather than seek out so-called market failures and craft tailored interventions that might enhance economic efficiency, Washington must turn to the blunt and the bold. The goal should not be to make an integrated Chinese-U.S. market work better but to obstruct and discourage the operation of such a market altogether. Trade in goods can still occur at arm’s length and subject to tariffs that protect U.S. interests. But investment should not flow in either direction. Joint ventures and research partnerships should end. Perhaps someday China will liberalize and a strong economic relationship can develop. But U.S. policymakers should be under no illusion that such reform is coming soon or that further cajoling or tinkering with the U.S.-Chinese relationship will help. Washington must stop trying to repair this marriage and, citing irreconcilable differences, move toward a prompt divorce.

DANGEROUS ENTANGLEMENTS

Both the United States and China have large-scale investments in each other’s economies, which has created serious problems for protecting U.S. interests. U.S. citizens and firms channel capital and technology into China, seeking to advance their financial profits—generally, without consideration of whether it helps or harms the United States. In fact, by doing so, U.S. investors are furthering the goals of an authoritarian government that has shown no compunction manipulating foreign investors and leveraging market access to advance its national interests. The most recent instance of this came in July when, at Beijing’s behest, Tesla signed a letter pledging to curtail its competition on price with rival Chinese manufacturers and enhance “core socialist values” in China.

In the other direction, Chinese investments in the United States are almost always implicitly or explicitly controlled by the CCP. “Part of China’s economic strategy relies on acquiring foreign companies and their technology and data through government-supported acquisitions,” warned Ambassador Robert Lighthizer in his congressional testimony in May. “As a result, when Chinese firms acquire American assets, they frequently are not making profit-motivated business decisions. Instead, they are acting to advance China’s national interest.” Yet Washington has done little to constrain how that foreign control is used. On its own, the U.S. model of private actors choosing freely has clear advantages. In contact with the Chinese model, however, it is deeply vulnerable.

U.S. law is not designed to address the problems caused by economic integration with a state-controlled market. Only specified entities, technologies, and transactions are addressed, otherwise leaving commerce free and investment unconstrained. This is the Biden administration’s “small yard and high fence,” which facilitates further entanglement of financial flows and ownership and thus further subversion of the American market. Even with respect to national security, limiting interference to narrow exceptions does not address China’s “Military-Civil Fusion” strategy, which, as the U.S. State Department described it in 2020, aims at “acquiring the intellectual property, key research, and technological advancements of the world’s citizens, researchers, scholars, and private industry in order to advance military aims.”

U.S. law must, then, address the challenge of preventing CCP control over U.S. investors in China and investments in the United States. Washington should prohibit capital flows, technologies transfers, and economic partnerships between the United States and China by default.

To prevent inbound investment, U.S. law should define a class of “Disqualified Foreign Investors.” These should include Chinese nationals who are not permanent U.S. residents, China-based entities, and any other entities that are affiliates of the CCP or subject to CCP control. These investors should be prohibited from conducting transactions, forming corporations or partnerships, participating as limited partners in U.S.-based investment funds, and acquiring real estate. Addressing outbound U.S. investment, the new law should prohibit U.S. citizens and entities from pursuing transactions that entail the acquisition of equity, debt, or real estate in China. Joint ventures between U.S. and China-based entities should be prohibited, preventing them from conducting business in any jurisdiction and transferring advanced technology to the Chinese. Washington should also ensure that the Defense, Treasury, and Commerce Departments harmonize their various export and investment restrictions. China-based firms should be denied access to U.S. capital markets and stock exchanges.

NEITHER FREE NOR FAIR

In principle, trade in manufactured goods could be the least concerning element of the U.S.-Chinese economic relationship: the United States puts things on boats, China puts things on boats, the boats pass one another somewhere in the Pacific and get unloaded on the far side. But that form of trade bears little relationship to the imbalanced and distorted exchange occurring between the two countries today. In 2022, the United States imported $537 billion in goods from China and exported $154 billion.

For Beijing, this trade imbalance is part of a deliberate strategy; the Chinese government mostly refuses to open its country’s markets to U.S. exports and instead trades its own exports for U.S. assets while implementing an aggressive industrial policy to dominate critical supply chains. Demand from U.S. consumers is met from offshore, hollowing out U.S. industry with no commensurate foreign demand emerging for American products.

The existing U.S.-Chinese trade relationship must be changed to end this situation and Washington should invest heavily in creating domestic capacity. A sharp reduction in imports from China will have real costs, especially in the short term as the United States redevelops its own industrial muscles, but those costs tend to be wildly overstated. Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on broad categories of Chinese goods caused dramatic declines in U.S. imports from China in those categories but had little to no perceptible effect on domestic prices. U.S. manufacturing may have a lot of catching up to do, but production moving out of China can go many places—indeed, the break from China presents the United States with a significant opportunity to support the economic development of Asian and Latin American allies.

Currently, China enjoys “most favored nation” status and therefore receives the same trade terms that the United States offers to all World Trade Organization members. Revoking this status would impose high tariffs on nearly all categories of Chinese imports. Washington should then identify situations where Chinese imports dominate a market and impose rising tariffs on those products until market share of Chinese imports falls to an acceptable level.

Domestically, the United States must embrace a robust industrial policy. In their own pursuit of profit, private investors and multinational corporations give little consideration to the health of the U.S. manufacturing base and industry—a reality vital to the CCP’s strategy. The federal government must step in to alter this equation. Washington will need new institutions, including a cabinet-level National Development Council and a development bank that can cooperate to reshore manufacturing and strengthen the defense industrial base with financial and technical assistance. U.S. law should then stimulate demand for domestic production by requiring goods sold in the United States to contain a certain proportion of U.S.-produced components manufactured by U.S. workers. The free market should determine how best to fulfill that demand through investment and innovation.

CALLING OUT BEIJING’S ABETTORS

Action must also be taken to safeguard institutions vital to U.S. democracy—not only formal centers of learning and discourse but also the broader public square. The U.S. culture of free speech and inquiry is built upon an assumption that no one in the system will possess the power to coerce or manipulate individual citizens, and the one that does, the government, will be constrained by law and custom from doing so. China alters that calculus. An open society cannot tolerate the imposition of authoritarian incentives and penalties from afar and must be insulated from them.

China has long targeted U.S. universities, think tanks, and research institutes to extract economic gain and advance its own ideological agenda. These organizations, whether operated by government, within academia, or as tax-exempt nonprofits, rely to some degree on public funding and are expected to operate in the public interest. That means they must accept processes and controls designed to ensure the integrity and security of their work. U.S. law should be changed to prohibit these institutions from entering into any partnerships with China-based and affiliated entities. Any funding flowing from one nation’s institutions to the other’s must be stopped. U.S. universities should be prohibited from collecting more in tuition and fees from any Chinese national than the average amount collected from American citizens and permanent residents enrolled in the same program of study.

China also uses the powerful incentive of market access to force American investors into promoting its propaganda. The United States cannot outbid these incentives, nor should it. What Washington can do is lower the economic stakes by foreclosing profits in China. U.S. law should impose cultural export controls that prevent U.S. firms from making profits on the sale of films, musical recordings, broadcasts of sporting events, personalized footwear and apparel lines, and live performances in China. If making money in China is as difficult while complimenting the CCP as while criticizing it, the incentive to curry favor with the Chinese government will vanish.

A hard break remains the best course for the United States.

Washington should also seek to raise the reputational stakes for public figures by calling them as witnesses before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party to testify about their experiences with the CCP and their operations in China. The CEO of the Walt Disney Company and the commissioner of the National Basketball Association, for instance, would both make excellent witnesses. The financier Stephen Schwarzman has surely learned much that he can share from his experience attempting to launch the “Schwarzman Scholars” program at Tsinghua University. The same is true of former New York mayor and financier Michael Bloomberg, who hosted the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing.

Ideally, other developed economies would break from China, as well. But collective action is not necessary and a hard break remains the best course for the United States, regardless. For Washington, preserving democratic capitalism must be the nonnegotiable starting point; other policy priorities are secondary to that imperative. A commitment to free markets has meaning only if it is matched with the actions necessary to ensure that the U.S. market remains free. That objective can still be achieved by going it alone and is preferable to not going at all.

The United States should build a broader partnership of allied countries willing to make similar commitments in their own supply chains and on issues including technology transfer and research funding. Participants in such a trading bloc should have preferential access to the U.S. market. Nations declining to join should face worse terms of trade, and nations committing fully to the Chinese sphere should face the same treatment as China.

For policymakers and analysts committed to globalization and conditioned to fear any inefficient overstepping in the market, a hard break from China may seem implausible. But only last year, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States revoked Russia’s “most favored nation” status and imposed aggressive sanctions designed to separate Russia from the international economic system. This was the hardest of breaks and was supported most strongly by those who are most vocally enthusiastic about global engagement and a rules-based international order. Whether the United States should take action on a similar scale against China is not a question of legality or capacity but of values and will.

• OREN CASS is Executive Director of American Compass and the author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America.
• GABRIELA RODRIGUEZ is a Policy Adviser at American Compass.

Foreign Affairs · by Oren Cass and Gabriela Rodriguez · July 25, 2023

4. The Illusion of Great-Power Competition

Excerpt:

Although close relations with the United States remain a priority for most countries in the region, most also see significant material benefit in cooperation with Beijing. If China’s economy continues to slump, this picture may look different a decade from now. But for now, this is a reality the United States cannot avoid. Washington will thus need to incentivize participation in the coalitions that it leads, with positive inducements that advance the national interests of U.S. partners. In this area, U.S. policy has fallen short lately: although many countries in the region appreciate the renewed U.S. security focus on the Indo-Pacific—including strengthening alliances with Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea—the absence of a compelling regional economic agenda undermines U.S. influence. The U.S.-initiated Indo-Pacific Economic Framework is a poor competitor for the extensive investment and trade links that China offers. The promise of increased access to the U.S. market, through legally binding trade agreements, continues to be the most persuasive tool that Washington has at its disposal to incentivize cooperation and encourage partners to make decisions at home that they would otherwise avoid. A key element of U.S. strategy must include renewed commitments to the multilateral trading system and a willingness to negotiate meaningful market-access agreements. Of course, in the near term, this approach faces stiff domestic political headwinds, but the United States cannot make the case for its partners to sacrifice economic and commercial opportunities in China without offering tangible incentives of its own.

The Illusion of Great-Power Competition

Why Middle Powers—and Small Countries—Are Vital to U.S. Strategy

By Jude Blanchette and Christopher Johnstone

July 24, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Jude Blanchette and Christopher Johnstone · July 24, 2023

It may be a confusing and unpredictable moment in global politics, but there is no shortage of frames and narratives that purport to explain or at least characterize the major developments. For many observers, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s increasingly aggressive saber rattling across the Indo-Pacific have divided the world into blocs, dragging the United States and its allies into a “new Cold War” pitting Washington against Beijing and Moscow. Others see this as an era of competition among great powers, in which the United States and China are the central protagonists in a global struggle. The latest U.S. National Security Strategy reflects this view, concluding that “a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.”

But these frames are oversimplified and outdated: they overemphasize the unilateral power of the United States and China, underappreciate both countries’ own dependencies, and overlook the vital importance of middle and small powers, as well as commercial entities and other nonstate actors. Although some aspects of the Cold War hold true today, such as the geopolitical rivalry between two powerful countries with dramatically different political systems and ideologies, the integration and interdependence that characterize the international system in this century places today’s policymakers on a vastly different landscape than the one their twentieth-century predecessors navigated.

The competition that confronts the United States is not simply a bilateral contest with another great power. Nor is it one that pits cleanly demarcated authoritarian and democratic blocs against one another. It is instead an ever-shifting competition of coalitions and of informal and often ad hoc groupings of partners that come together to address a specific issue or set of issues. As Hal Brands and Zack Cooper noted in 2020, these coalitions differ depending on the issue at hand; the partners involved in the geopolitical balancing of China’s growing military power in the western Pacific may be different from those that partner to safeguard and promote advanced technologies. Some groupings form naturally, consisting of willing and like-minded partners. Others bring together reluctant partners in relationships formed out of necessity or convenience.

In this world of ad hoc groupings and coalitions, Washington sometimes needs to work with actors who do not support—or are even outright hostile to—some U.S. interests or values. Occasionally, the United States will need to use inducements and even outright pressure to bring actors into alignment with U.S. goals. But if these coalitions, groupings, and individual relationships are managed adeptly and with a clear objective in mind, the United States can advance its own interests while helping to build a resilient and stable international order that sustains prosperity for its allies and partners.

These new realities require a shift in U.S. tactics and strategy—and, perhaps most important, a new long-term mindset. For starters, an effective Indo-Pacific strategy will require Washington to pay increasing attention to medium and small powers—in Europe, in Southeast Asia, and across the African continent—which will play a crucial role in responding to Beijing’s advancing capabilities. More broadly, to prosecute a grand strategy in a world of not just close partners and allies, but also expedient bilateral relationships and unstable ad hoc coalitions, the United States will need to be comfortable operating in the murky middle between interdependence and autonomy, between multipolarity and division into blocs, and with partners whose willingness to join Washington will shift from issue to issue.

A coalition-centered approach does not mean simply appealing to the lowest common denominator, but rather focusing on coordination and calibration with key partners to sustain a robust network of aligned actors focused on a set of clear objectives. The Biden administration has generally been an effective practitioner of this approach, but it is contested in today’s Washington, where some voices advocate for a more unilateralist, zero-sum competition with China that demands U.S. partners choose sides. That posture, however, would provide room for Beijing to navigate between and around U.S. partners, thus leaving the United States more isolated and ultimately less secure.

AROUND THE WORLD

Nowhere is this need for a new mindset clearer than in Taiwan. To be able to better deter and ultimately defend the island from a possible Chinese assault, the U.S. military must look beyond Japan and South Korea, where U.S. bases lie uncomfortably within range of Chinese missiles. With the exception of Australia, where the U.S. military presence is expanding and defense cooperation deepening, the only other places where Washington can seek new opportunities are in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Over the last decade, Singapore, a city-state with a population of five million, has quietly become an important partner in this regard. Although not a formal U.S. ally, today it anchors the U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia, supporting rotational deployments of littoral combat ships, surveillance aircraft—and perhaps soon, drones. Singapore also serves as a logistics and refueling hub. Recent agreements to expand access, exercises, and training with the Philippines, and to deepen defense cooperation with Papua New Guinea, also reflect the necessary U.S. effort to diversify.

Economically, the complex supply chains and innovation ecosystems that underpin the development and production of advanced technologies are driving unprecedented cross-border integration, with small economies often playing critical roles in key industries. To develop more secure supply chains in the semiconductor industry, Washington is seeking deeper coordination with the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. And to reduce reliance on China for critical minerals, Australia and Indonesia—along with other potential U.S. partners in South America and Africa—are positioning themselves as key alternative sources of supply. Indeed, one of the reasons Beijing is working so hard to court Europe and the global South is that China understands how vital actors in this region are in shaping the larger strategic competition.

None of this diminishes the significant advantages and power that the United States still possesses. But the role of the small looms large in this twenty-first century competition of coalitions. Consider the case of the Netherlands, which, with a population of less than 20 million, is home to a single firm, ASML, that is vital to global semiconductor production. ASML is the sole global provider of the latest generation of photolithography scanner equipment, critical to the manufacture of cutting-edge logic chips. That is why alignment with the Netherlands—along with Japan, another key supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment—was critical to the success of the sweeping export controls that the Biden administration imposed in October 2022, which limit the materials and technology available to China’s semiconductor industry. Washington’s pathbreaking effort to restrain China’s capabilities in a critical technology thus depended on support from the eighteenth-largest economy in the world and the compliance of a single private company.

Beijing, like Washington, is stuck in a world of tradeoffs.

Of course, long-standing treaty allies and the world’s major economies will continue to be a key pillar for U.S. strategy. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the G-7 forum has undergone a dramatic revitalization, and today it serves as the primary venue for coordinating policy on confronting Moscow and assisting Ukraine. On many issues related to strategic competition with China, coordination with the G-7 will continue to be a starting point for the United States; for example, when it comes to considering limits on investing in high-tech sectors in China. Such measures will be effective, and avoid losses for U.S. firms, only if other countries impose similar measures in the same sectors—and the coalition-building will start with the G-7. In defense, NATO and U.S. treaty alliances in Asia, which provide a solid legal framework for U.S. military presence and activities, will continue to be the foundation for U.S. strategy.

But the larger dynamic, in which the United States depends on states and commercial partners of all sizes and compositions to forge an effective and sustainable China policy and Indo-Pacific strategy, will play out again and again across the globe and across all critical domains of strategic competition. Whether the United States is trying to build influence in standard-setting bodies or ensuring an effective defense posture that deters Chinese aggression, success will depend on Washington’s ability to partner and align with a varied range of actors, including small and medium-sized players.

But a successful coalition building strategy will require navigating the functional and structural realities these partners face, and doing so with nuance and patience. Perhaps most important, members of any given coalition or grouping will likely also have deep economic and diplomatic ties with China, with little interest in joining an explicitly anti-China bloc—and little ability to do so, given domestic political realities. This is true of countries both large and small; even Japan, arguably the country in Asia most concerned about China’s growing power, is deeply dependent China’s economy for its own prosperity. The same goes for the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, all of which have deep and growing economic links with China. Thus, in addition to its own interdependencies with China, the United States will be influenced and constrained in how far it can push against China by the interdependencies of its coalition partners. Though many countries in the region harbor deep concerns about China’s ambitions, none are willing to explicitly align against it, and most are even cautious about the extent to which they can directly inveigh against Beijing; these partners will continue to pursue hedging strategies that seek to balance engagement among external powers. A recent survey found that a majority of people across Asia believe that the consequences of U.S.-Chinese strategic competition will be negative; more than 60 percent think their country’s national security will be placed at risk. And for countries close to China, the prospect of conflict is existential. As the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a recent interview about U.S.-Chinese tensions over Taiwan: “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.”

For its part, China also faces a similarly complex geopolitical terrain. Even with all its economic and military heft, Beijing depends on key bilateral and commercial relationships to power its economy and modernize its military. China is a net energy importer, requires continued access to a U.S.-controlled global financial system, and is far behind Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, and key European states in the design and manufacture of advanced semiconductors. For all of Beijing’s bravado about the superiority of its political system and its talk about self-sufficiency, the Chinese Communist Party faces critical dependences that will not disappear for the foreseeable future. That helps explain China’s awkward pursuit of good relations with European countries (which are some of its largest trade and technology partners) and Moscow (a key security and energy partner), despite the fact that its relationship with the latter threatens its relationship with the former. Beijing, like Washington, is stuck in a world of tradeoffs.

GET REAL

As the United States wrestles with a fluid international system, it should follow a few key principles. First, in a world in which few countries are willing to explicitly align against China, the United States will need to be careful when presenting partners with zero-sum choices, limiting those moments to cases where explicit alignment against China is absolutely necessary to protect vital U.S. interests. It must define narrowly those elements of the strategic competition with China that most require cooperation from others, and in those instances, it must bring the full weight of U.S. diplomacy and persuasion to bear. But otherwise, Washington must give partner governments the space to define their relationships with China in ways that comport with their interests and local realities. Here, the Biden administration’s stated approach to the technology competition—building a “high fence” around a “small yard” of advanced technologies with military applications—makes sense if vigorously applied. But Washington must resist pressure at home to ceaselessly expand the list of controlled technologies and other measures designed to impede China’s advance, for the simple reason that the higher the fence, the harder it will be to build and sustain a coalition. In some key technologies, such as semiconductors, it is worth putting significant pressure on partner countries and commercial actors to follow the U.S. lead, but there will be other technologies and actions—such as outbound investment screening—where Washington may prudently need to calibrate its approach to sustain the integrity and effectiveness of the larger coalition and avoid damaging the interests of U.S. commercial actors.

Similar care must be taken on issues related to Taiwan. Although countries are increasingly willing to speak out in support of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait (as illustrated by the joint statement issued by Marcos and U.S. President Joe Biden in May), political or material support for Taiwan itself is another matter—even for a country like Japan, which given its geographic proximity would be heavily impacted by a cross-strait conflict. Washington needs to continue to lead on this issue and bolster support for Taiwan in pushing back against Chinese coercion, expanding Taiwan’s international space, and increasing economic integration and resilience. But to expand the coalition of actors supportive of Taiwan’s prosperity and security, the United States must balance the need for resolute action in the face of Beijing’s belligerence with the understandable reluctance of many middle and small powers to be drawn into a conflict between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan. If Washington truly wants to deter Beijing, it will require a large, coherent, and credible coalition of partners who can—in their own way—signal to Beijing the significant diplomatic, economic, and military costs it would pay for carrying out a military assault in the Taiwan Strait. And, crucially, the more steady-handed and predictable Washington is in its approach to cross-Strait issues, the more it will give current and would-be coalition members the confidence and political space to align with U.S. efforts.

Although close relations with the United States remain a priority for most countries in the region, most also see significant material benefit in cooperation with Beijing. If China’s economy continues to slump, this picture may look different a decade from now. But for now, this is a reality the United States cannot avoid. Washington will thus need to incentivize participation in the coalitions that it leads, with positive inducements that advance the national interests of U.S. partners. In this area, U.S. policy has fallen short lately: although many countries in the region appreciate the renewed U.S. security focus on the Indo-Pacific—including strengthening alliances with Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea—the absence of a compelling regional economic agenda undermines U.S. influence. The U.S.-initiated Indo-Pacific Economic Framework is a poor competitor for the extensive investment and trade links that China offers. The promise of increased access to the U.S. market, through legally binding trade agreements, continues to be the most persuasive tool that Washington has at its disposal to incentivize cooperation and encourage partners to make decisions at home that they would otherwise avoid. A key element of U.S. strategy must include renewed commitments to the multilateral trading system and a willingness to negotiate meaningful market-access agreements. Of course, in the near term, this approach faces stiff domestic political headwinds, but the United States cannot make the case for its partners to sacrifice economic and commercial opportunities in China without offering tangible incentives of its own.

Washington also needs to show more awareness of the domestic political situations its partners face. The fact that some coalitions and individual partners say one thing in private and another in public is often less a demonstration of cowardice and more a reflection of political and economic realities constraining overtly anti-China actions. Privately, officials across the Indo-Pacific express deep anxiety over China’s intentions and its behavior and welcome efforts by the United States to counter Beijing’s malign effect on the regional order. But public expressions of these concerns invite political, diplomatic, and economic blowback from Beijing. Although the United States, an economic and military superpower, can withstand almost any type of pressure China can muster, most other countries can ill afford to act with such confidence. The United States must help build the resilience of coalition members who face Beijing’s economic coercion. But until such a toolkit is forged, it must remain sensitive to practical risks smaller economies face.

Washington can help aid the leaders of current and would-be coalition members by calibrating its own rhetoric and actions to reflect the domestic realities of its partners. Couching U.S. actions in the Indo-Pacific solely in terms of a strategic competition with China will make it harder, not easier, to build momentum in the region. A recent joint statement issued by the leaders of the countries that make up the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—Australia, India, Japan, and the United States—represents an effective manifestation of this more calibrated approach. The text of around 3,000 words describes the Quad countries’ plans to deepen cooperation in the Indo-Pacific—and China is never mentioned. In a world where Washington must nimbly construct many different coalitions to push back on Chinese revisionism and support a free and open order, it will often be wise to not say the quiet part out loud.

• JUDE BLANCHETTE is Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is the author of China’s New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong.
• CHRISTOPHER JOHNSTONE is Senior Adviser and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. At the National Security Council, he served as Director for East Asia from 2021 to 2022 and Director for Japan and Oceanian Affairs from 2014 to 2016.

Foreign Affairs · by Jude Blanchette and Christopher Johnstone · July 24, 2023

5.  China Replaces Foreign Minister Missing From Public View Since June

China Replaces Foreign Minister Missing From Public View Since June

By Chris Buckley and David Pierson

July 25, 2023

Updated 8:50 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by David Pierson · July 25, 2023

Qin Gang was removed from office on Tuesday by China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, capping weeks of speculation.

Qin Gang during a news conference in Beijing in March.

July 25, 2023Updated 8:50 a.m. ET

Only five weeks ago, China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, was at the center of a critical reset in U.S.-China relations: He shook hands with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Beijing, and accepted an invitation to visit the United States.

But in a sign of the unpredictability of China’s elite politics, Mr. Qin was abruptly removed as foreign minister on Tuesday after having disappeared from public view for 30 days. The turnabout ended the career of a diplomat who leaped to the top as one of President Xi Jinping’s most trusted rising stars.

“The suddenness and opacity surrounding Qin’s dismissal demonstrates the volatility that has now become a feature of China’s political system under Xi,” said Jude Blanchette, the holder of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The official decision that Mr. Qin had been replaced — and his spot taken by the former foreign minister, Wang Yi — capped weeks of speculation about his fate. As speculation grew, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that Mr. Qin had health problems. But the brief announcement by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee on Tuesday, a council of China’s legislature that formally appoints senior officials, did not mention health or any other reasons.

The lack of clarity appears sure to fan speculation among Chinese commentators and seasoned observers about the circumstances behind one of the most dramatic falls of a high-flying Chinese official in recent times. One widespread theory is that his problems may be related to personal transgressions, possibly an affair with a Chinese television personality while he was an ambassador in the United States.

Whatever the veracity of those theories, Mr. Qin’s downfall is an awkward moment for Mr. Xi, who catapulted Mr. Qin into his powerful role as minister ahead of other older, longer-serving diplomats.

“If people wanted displayed on a wide screen the opacity of the Chinese system, and how that can — even if just temporarily — hobble the execution of policy, then they’ve got a prime example of it here,” Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney who studies Chinese foreign policy, said in a telephone interview. Still, he added, Mr. Xi was too powerful to suffer much damage from Mr. Qin’s fall.

“It’s not a make a make-or-break episode for Mr. Xi, but his critics will get a thrill out of it, although they would not dare say so in public,” Mr. McGregor said. “If there’s any substance to the rumors, it’s a reminder that in the party system, your private life can be as much subject to regulation as your public duties. Though, in this case, the conduct of an ambassador has national security implications.”

Mr. Qin’s successor, Mr. Wang, appears to be a safe pair of hands after the drama of the past month. Mr. Wang, 69, is a senior diplomat who is also the director of the Chinese Communist Party's Foreign Affairs Commission Office, making him a primary policy adviser of Mr. Xi.

Mr. Qin, 57, was appointed China’s ambassador to Washington in July 2021, and 17 months later was promoted to foreign minister, singling him out as a trusted protégé of Mr. Xi.

Earlier, Mr. Qin had served as a foreign ministry spokesman, a diplomat in London and as a protocol officer, a job that brought him close to Mr. Xi during foreign visits. Mr. Qin graduated from the University of International Relations, a school in Beijing linked to China’s security service, and worked as an assistant in the Beijing bureau of United Press International before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1992.

As a protocol officer for Mr. Xi, Mr. Qin was exhaustively punctilious, said Pavel Slunkin, who was a Belarusian diplomat involved in arranging a visit by Mr. Xi to Belarus in 2015. During the visit, Mr. Slunkin said, Mr. Qin called at around 2 a.m. and asked to immediately go to a museum that Mr. Xi was scheduled to visit, so Mr. Qin could recheck every detail of the plans, including exactly when music would strike up as Mr. Xi walked up some stairs.

“His subordinates and the embassy’s staff were afraid to approach him. So the communication with him was strictly hierarchical,” Mr. Slunkin, now a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said of Mr. Qin in emailed answers to questions. Mr. Qin, he said, “obviously enjoyed his special position being close to the body — to Xi.”

As foreign minister since late 2022, Mr. Qin was at the forefront of efforts to pull China out of Covid-era diplomatic isolation, and to try to ease tensions with the United States and other Western countries. But he was also a combative exponent of Mr. Xi’s vision of China as a confident world power, impatient with criticisms from other governments, and rarely missed an opportunity to exalt Mr. Xi.

“The human race once again stands at the crossroads of history,” Mr. Qin told a news conference in Beijing in March. “President Xi Jinping has pointed out the right path for global governance from the high ground of the world, history and humankind.”

Chris Buckley is The Times’s chief correspondent in China, where he has lived for most of the past 30 years after growing up in Sydney, Australia. Before joining The Times in 2012, he was a correspondent in Beijing for Reuters. More about Chris Buckley

David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. More about David Pierson

The New York Times · by David Pierson · July 25, 2023

By Chris Buckley and David Pierson

July 25, 2023

Updated 8:50 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by David Pierson · July 25, 2023

Qin Gang was removed from office on Tuesday by China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, capping weeks of speculation.

Qin Gang during a news conference in Beijing in March.

By Chris Buckley and

July 25, 2023Updated 8:50 a.m. ET

Only five weeks ago, China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, was at the center of a critical reset in U.S.-China relations: He shook hands with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Beijing, and accepted an invitation to visit the United States.

But in a sign of the unpredictability of China’s elite politics, Mr. Qin was abruptly removed as foreign minister on Tuesday after having disappeared from public view for 30 days. The turnabout ended the career of a diplomat who leaped to the top as one of President Xi Jinping’s most trusted rising stars.

“The suddenness and opacity surrounding Qin’s dismissal demonstrates the volatility that has now become a feature of China’s political system under Xi,” said Jude Blanchette, the holder of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The official decision that Mr. Qin had been replaced — and his spot taken by the former foreign minister, Wang Yi — capped weeks of speculation about his fate. As speculation grew, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that Mr. Qin had health problems. But the brief announcement by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee on Tuesday, a council of China’s legislature that formally appoints senior officials, did not mention health or any other reasons.

The lack of clarity appears sure to fan speculation among Chinese commentators and seasoned observers about the circumstances behind one of the most dramatic falls of a high-flying Chinese official in recent times. One widespread theory is that his problems may be related to personal transgressions, possibly an affair with a Chinese television personality while he was an ambassador in the United States.

Whatever the veracity of those theories, Mr. Qin’s downfall is an awkward moment for Mr. Xi, who catapulted Mr. Qin into his powerful role as minister ahead of other older, longer-serving diplomats.

“If people wanted displayed on a wide screen the opacity of the Chinese system, and how that can — even if just temporarily — hobble the execution of policy, then they’ve got a prime example of it here,” Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney who studies Chinese foreign policy, said in a telephone interview. Still, he added, Mr. Xi was too powerful to suffer much damage from Mr. Qin’s fall.

“It’s not a make a make-or-break episode for Mr. Xi, but his critics will get a thrill out of it, although they would not dare say so in public,” Mr. McGregor said. “If there’s any substance to the rumors, it’s a reminder that in the party system, your private life can be as much subject to regulation as your public duties. Though, in this case, the conduct of an ambassador has national security implications.”

Mr. Qin’s successor, Mr. Wang, appears to be a safe pair of hands after the drama of the past month. Mr. Wang, 69, is a senior diplomat who is also the director of the Chinese Communist Party's Foreign Affairs Commission Office, making him a primary policy adviser of Mr. Xi.

Mr. Qin, 57, was appointed China’s ambassador to Washington in July 2021, and 17 months later was promoted to foreign minister, singling him out as a trusted protégé of Mr. Xi.

Earlier, Mr. Qin had served as a foreign ministry spokesman, a diplomat in London and as a protocol officer, a job that brought him close to Mr. Xi during foreign visits. Mr. Qin graduated from the University of International Relations, a school in Beijing linked to China’s security service, and worked as an assistant in the Beijing bureau of United Press International before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1992.

As a protocol officer for Mr. Xi, Mr. Qin was exhaustively punctilious, said Pavel Slunkin, who was a Belarusian diplomat involved in arranging a visit by Mr. Xi to Belarus in 2015. During the visit, Mr. Slunkin said, Mr. Qin called at around 2 a.m. and asked to immediately go to a museum that Mr. Xi was scheduled to visit, so Mr. Qin could recheck every detail of the plans, including exactly when music would strike up as Mr. Xi walked up some stairs.

“His subordinates and the embassy’s staff were afraid to approach him. So the communication with him was strictly hierarchical,” Mr. Slunkin, now a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said of Mr. Qin in emailed answers to questions. Mr. Qin, he said, “obviously enjoyed his special position being close to the body — to Xi.”

As foreign minister since late 2022, Mr. Qin was at the forefront of efforts to pull China out of Covid-era diplomatic isolation, and to try to ease tensions with the United States and other Western countries. But he was also a combative exponent of Mr. Xi’s vision of China as a confident world power, impatient with criticisms from other governments, and rarely missed an opportunity to exalt Mr. Xi.

“The human race once again stands at the crossroads of history,” Mr. Qin told a news conference in Beijing in March. “President Xi Jinping has pointed out the right path for global governance from the high ground of the world, history and humankind.”

Chris Buckley is The Times’s chief correspondent in China, where he has lived for most of the past 30 years after growing up in Sydney, Australia. Before joining The Times in 2012, he was a correspondent in Beijing for Reuters. More about Chris Buckley

David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. More about David Pierson

The New York Times · by David Pierson · July 25, 2023

6. Ex-US Marine accused of training Chinese military pilots fights extradition to the US

Ex-US Marine accused of training Chinese military pilots fights extradition to the US | CNN

CNN · by Hilary Whiteman,Angus Watson,Paul Devitt · July 25, 2023

Brisbane, Australia CNN —

Former Marine Daniel Duggan once flew Harrier jets for the United States, taking off and landing on Navy carriers during international missions as part of Marine Attack Squadron 214, based in Yuma, Arizona.

That was over 20 years ago, but his activity since leaving the service is now the subject of a US indictment that alleges he used his specialist skills to teach Chinese pilots how to land planes on aircraft carriers, claims he denies.

Since last October, Duggan, 54, has been held in a maximum-security prison in regional Australia as his lawyers fight an extradition order, approved by Australia’s attorney general, to return him to the US to face trial on charges including money laundering and conspiracy to export US defense services.

On Tuesday, Duggan’s lawyers argued for a stay of extradition while Australia’s Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) investigates claims of improper action by Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), including that Duggan was “lured” from China, where he was living, to Australia, where the US had legal reach to arrest him.

The case comes as the US and its allies seek to unite against China in the Indo-Pacific, where Beijing has been fortifying islands with military installations that they fear may one day be used in a regional conflict.

From Lithgow Correctional Centre, where he’s being held, Duggan told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that he was “living a nightmare.” “I strenuously reject the indictment in its entirety,” he said.

Duggan’s wife Saffrine wants Australian officials to block his extradition, and on Tuesday she and some of their six children stood outside court, holding signs calling for him to be freed.

“We’re horrified that something like this could happen, not only to us, but to anyone,” Saffrine Duggan told her supporters.

“I would never have thought this could ever happen in Australia, let alone to our family. My family is brave and strong and so are our friends, and so is my husband, but we are all terribly torn apart.”

Saffrine Duggan speaks to supporters outside a Sydney court on Tuesday, July 25, as lawyers argue her husband's case.

Paul Devitt/CNN

The allegations

After completing his final mission as a Major with the US Marines, Duggan moved to Australia in 2002. He met Saffrine in 2011, and a year later he became an Australian citizen, renounced his US citizenship, and the family moved to China.

Saffrine and the children moved back to Australia in 2018, and Duggan joined them in September 2022, after receiving Australian security clearance for an aviation licence, his supporters say.

But within weeks, that clearance was revoked and he was taken into custody.

The charges relate to a period between November 2009 and November 2012, when Duggan – then a US citizen – was alleged to have trained Chinese military pilots in China, according to a 2017 indictment that was unsealed last December.

The indictment said that “as early as 2008,” Duggan received an email from the US State Department telling him he was required to register with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls and apply for permission to train a foreign air force.

Instead, it claims he conspired with others – including the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA) – to export defense services in violation of an arms embargo on China.

An undated image of former US fighter pilot Daniel Duggan with his wife Saffrine in Tasmania.

Courtesy Saffrine Duggan

In a statement to CNN, TFASA said it complies with the laws of every jurisdiction in which it operates.

The statement said Duggan undertook one test pilot contract for the company in South Africa between November and December 2012, and “never worked for TFASA on any of its training mandates in China.”

The indictment alleges Duggan negotiated directly with a Chinese firm to provide other defense services for a fee, including “the evaluation of pilot trainees, testing of naval aviation related equipment, instruction on tactics, techniques, and procedures for launching planes from, and landing on, a naval aircraft carrier.”

Duggan told the ABC that none of the training involved the disclosure of secret or proprietary information. “It’s all public domain, open-source information that anybody, if they’re interested in, could Google it or look it up on Wikipedia,” he said.

The training offered by TFASA allegedly involved the use of a T-2 Buckeye, a twin-engine, straight-wing airplane, purchased in the US and exported to South Africa, without authorization from the US.

In its statement to CNN, TFASA said it only leased the plane from a business associate in South Africa, and never attempted to purchase it. Duggan flew the T-2, among other planes, during his contract, but the company ceased using the aircraft when approached by officials from the US Embassy in South Africa, TFASA added.

Former US fighter pilot Daniel Duggan is in custody in Australia pending extradition to the US on charges including that he trained Chinese military pilots.

Courtesy Saffrine Duggan

Training Chinese pilots

Duggan doesn’t deny training Chinese pilots, but he maintains they were civilians – plane enthusiasts seeking to improve their skills or prospective members of China’s then rapidly expanding aviation industry.

Glenn Kolomeitz, a former member of the Australian Defence Force and lawyer, who is advocating for the family, told CNN that it is “very, very common for people to leave the military and go work overseas.”

“Dan was just an instructor, just a pilot trainer. That’s it,” he told CNN.

“He wasn’t a part of the company (TFASA), he wasn’t in any way involved in any of the administration, the management, and how could he possibly have thought, or have even considered that there would be any illegality in this, when there are so many people, including high levels from the RAF, the British air force, involved in this training.”

On October 18, three days before Duggan was arrested in Australia, the UK Defence Ministry issued a statement warning that it was taking “decisive steps to stop Chinese recruitment schemes attempting to headhunt serving and former UK Armed Forces pilots.”

The next day, Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles said he had asked his department to investigate reports that former Australian military pilots had also been recruited by TFASA to work in China. And a spokesperson for New Zealand’s Defence Force confirmed to Reuters that four of its former military pilots had been recruited by the company.

Two days after that, Duggan was taken into custody near his home in rural New South Wales, and only learned of the allegations against him 62 days later, Saffrine said. He faces up to 65 years in prison if found guilty.

“It has been devastating. The kids and I distraught. It’s just a struggle. It’s a daily struggle. The kids have lots of questions. Constant tears. I mean, it’s horrific,” she told CNN.

Daniel Duggan's children joined protesters on Sunday July 23, 2023 to call for their father's release.

Paul Devitt/CNN

Since Duggan’s arrest, the UK and Australia have moved to tighten laws for former service members who train foreign forces.

“The new legislation being developed will remove any doubts about the application of these laws to the full breadth of our defence secrets,” said a spokesperson for Marles.

In a speech in February, Mike Burgess, Australia’s director-general of security and the head of ASIO, said a “small but concerning” number of Australian veterans were willing to put “cash before country.”

“These individuals are lackeys, more ‘top tools’ than ‘top guns.’ Selling our warfighting skills is no different to selling our secrets – especially when the training and tactics are being transferred to countries that will use them to close capability gaps, and could use them against us or our allies at some time in the future,” he said.

The T-2 Buckeye

News of Duggan’s arrest has spread through the ranks of former US Marines, says Ben Hancock, a retired colonel who served a rank above Duggan in the late ’90s when he was forward deployed on missions that took him to the Persian Gulf and around Asia, with a final stop in Townsville, Australia.

“He was what we called a weapons and tactics instructor, which is the highest instructor qualification you can get in the Marine Corps,” he said.

“It’s a very expensive course, you have to be hand-picked to be sent to it. And then once you return, you become the training guru for everybody else in the squadron,” he said. “He was top-notch. I trusted him with my life.”

Hancock said Duggan left the service as an “honorable Marine,” and while he hadn’t spoken to him since his arrest, they had kept in touch by email sporadically over the years.

Hancock said the T-2 Buckeye was used for many generations by US Navy and Marine Corps pilots to learn maneuvers on a ship – how to catapult off and trap aircraft as well as make arrested landings.

Aircraft from Training Squadron 86 mark the last training flight of the T-2 Buckeye, the Navy's longest-serving jet trainer, Pensacola, Fla., Aug. 8, 2008.

US Department of Defense

He said it was “unusual” to see a T-2 Buckeye at a civilian flight school, because most of them had been “mothballed,” but described it as a great introductory aircraft for military training.

“It’s great aerobatic airplane if you want to teach a guy to fly a twin-engine jet, how to handle jets, the speed of jet over propeller airplanes, and then do aerobatics and stall series … It’s a great airplane to train anybody in extreme flying environments that allow you to recover the airplane safely,” he said.

He said he hasn’t seen the evidence against Duggan, but questions why no one else has been charged and says the vast majority of Duggan’s experience was piloting Harriers that take off and land vertically, which requires a different approach.

“As Harrier pilots, all our time at sea, we did short takeoffs using the Harrier’s capability, not a catapult. We’d pick up under own power and then we did every landing was a vertical landing. And the Chinese don’t have in those kinds of jets,” he said. “So Dan didn’t have the expertise, in my opinion, to be training guys for that. It’s the wrong type of approach and landing.”

In its statement to CNN, TFASA denied teaching aircraft carrier approach and landing techniques to Chinese military pilots.

“TFASA provides training to test pilots, flight test engineers, and basic operational instructor pilots under closely controlled security conditions. All training aspects and material are strictly unclassified, and provided either from open source or the clients themselves. No training involves classified tactics or other information, nor any frontline activities,” the statement said.

Duggan’s supporters believe he’s been caught up in a hardened approach by Western allies towards China under leader Xi Jinping, who in recent years has expanded the military and expressed his intention to “reunify” the democratic island of Taiwan with the mainland, despite never having controlled it.

US Vice President Joe Biden with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping before talks at a hotel in Beijing on August 19, 2011.

Ng Han Guan/AFP/Getty Images/File

At the time Duggan was alleged to have been training Chinese military pilots, Xi was stepping out onto the international stage, visiting the US to meet then Vice President Joe Biden and proposing to strengthen their cooperation.

Several years later, under former President Donald Trump, relations deteriorated as both countries engaged in a trade war and ties remain deeply strained to this day.

Duggan’s arrest in 2022 came as the US, UK and Australia formed a stronger security bond under AUKUS, the deal they signed in 2021 to join forces in the Pacific to counter an increasingly assertive China.

Kolomeitz, the family’s supporter, says Duggan is being used to send a message to Beijing to back off from hiring its former military personnel.

“Don’t be recruiting Western former military people – that’s what it’s all about. Right?” he said. “It’s sending a message to China, and it’s helping to push through the legislative agendas of these agencies.”

The court is hearing arguments Tuesday, and will return its ruling at a later date on whether a stay will be granted.

CNN · by Hilary Whiteman,Angus Watson,Paul Devitt · July 25, 2023

7. A World of Blocs?

Excerpts:

Well before the current crisis, China’s increasing strength and its growing belligerence had begun to produce a stepped-up counterbalancing response on the part of its wealthiest and most capable neighbors. In the past half-decade Japan, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, and India have all undertaken major increases in defense spending. Concerns over China’s growing capabilities and opaque intentions have also led to intensified consultation and cooperation, both bilaterally with the United States and in various multilateral regional groupings.

Events in Ukraine have given an additional impetus to all these efforts. The shocking reality of a high-intensity war in the heart of Europe has heightened fears of a similar disaster in Asia, while Putin’s unexpected and arguably irrational decision to use force to absorb another polity has highlighted the danger that unchecked dictators may be prone to disastrous mistakes. At the same time, the demonstrated effectiveness of precision munitions, information operations, and flexible tactics have bolstered hope that, with proper preparations, a war in the Indo-Pacific can be deterred and, if necessary, won.

While the need is now clear, the ability of the United States to lead its Asian allies in a major, sustained peacetime military buildup could still face significant fiscal limitations. Barring a total collapse of Russian power, the U.S. Department of Defense will have to allocate more resources to the European theater for some time to come. This will require either a reduction in spending planned for Asia or a permanent increase in the overall size of the defense budget. With outlays still running well below Cold War levels as a share of GDP, the latter option is economically feasible, but it could prove politically difficult in the face of mounting congressional pressure for major cuts in federal spending.

A World of Blocs? - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Aaron Friedberg · July 25, 2023

President Vladimir Putin’s second war of aggression against Ukraine has accelerated the division of the world into opposing geopolitical, economic, and ideological blocs.

Russia’s unprovoked brutality has further deepened its isolation from the advanced industrial democracies and its disastrous military incompetence has driven Moscow into ever-deepening dependence on Beijing. The shock of invasion has expanded NATO’s ranks and galvanized unprecedented transatlantic security cooperation. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping’s refusal to condemn the actions of his “best and bosom friend” has fueled suspicions about Beijing’s intentions in European capitals, raising the perceived probability of war in the Indo-Pacific and creating new possibilities for enhanced strategic cooperation among the United States and its democratic allies in both regions. Finally, even as they sharpen divisions between East and West, recent events have accelerated their burgeoning rivalry in the global south.

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A tightening authoritarian axis, a resurgent democratic coalition, and an intensifying contest in the developing world. Of these three tendencies, the greatest uncertainties surround the second. Pooling their resources and working together more closely would better enable the democracies to defend their common interests and shared values, but the fact that such coordination is necessary does not make it inevitable.

An “Axis of Authoritarians”

Since early in the post–Cold War period, both the Russian and Chinese governments have believed that they face an arrogant and overbearing American hegemon determined to block their revisionist ambitions and deny them a sphere of influence commensurate with their power. As sought more openly to push back against what they regard as U.S.-led containment, Xi and Putin have helped to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Ukraine war has given added momentum to this cycle, stiffening democratic resistance, thereby further heightening the authoritarians’ perceptions of threat and tightening ties between them. Moscow is now desperate for Chinese markets, capital, and technology, while Beijing needs Russia more than ever to divide the attention of its enemies and provide it with more food and energy via secure overland routes.

Although the material interests they share are strong, it would be a mistake to understate the commonality of values and outlook that also binds the authoritarian powers together. Putin and Xi share an intense animosity to the ideals and governing principles being propounded by the liberal democracies. What the Chinese Communist Party refers to as the West’s “so-called universal values” are inimical to the precepts on which both the current Russian and Chinese regimes are founded. To counter this threat to their legitimacy, the two governments have crafted alternative ideational programs that contain varying blends of authoritarianism, statism, and nationalism as well as appeals to history and “traditional values.” These platforms are not identical, but they are far more similar to one another than either is to liberalism, their common enemy.

Thanks to his bungled war of aggression and the emergence of internal threats to his continued rule, Vladimir Putin has no choice but to cling as tightly as possible to his partner and patron. Given his dark assessment of Western intentions, Xi’s options with respect to Russia are also quite limited. Permitting Putin to be isolated, defeated, humiliated, and perhaps overthrown would set a very dangerous precedent, and it could also remove Russia as a useful counterweight to the West. Xi will therefore continue to provide diplomatic cover, economic support, and “dual-use” technology in hopes of keeping Putin in power and in the fight. But he will take the further escalatory step of openly arming Russia only if he fears that it is on the verge of outright defeat.

A Coalition of Democracies

As was true during much of the Cold War, the world’s major democracies can be thought of as comprising a triangle, with the United States at the apex, flanked to the east and west by its partners in Asia and Europe. Thanks in part to the war in Ukraine, the three vertices of this triangle have all grown stronger and more cohesive and, albeit to varying degrees, so too have the ties between each of them. Whether these trends will prove enduring remains to be seen. Despite the strong forces driving the democracies together, differing perceptions of interest, budget constraints, and the vagaries of domestic politics could still slow their convergence and hold them apart.

The United States and Asia

Well before the current crisis, China’s increasing strength and its growing belligerence had begun to produce a stepped-up counterbalancing response on the part of its wealthiest and most capable neighbors. In the past half-decade Japan, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, and India have all undertaken major increases in defense spending. Concerns over China’s growing capabilities and opaque intentions have also led to intensified consultation and cooperation, both bilaterally with the United States and in various multilateral regional groupings.

Events in Ukraine have given an additional impetus to all these efforts. The shocking reality of a high-intensity war in the heart of Europe has heightened fears of a similar disaster in Asia, while Putin’s unexpected and arguably irrational decision to use force to absorb another polity has highlighted the danger that unchecked dictators may be prone to disastrous mistakes. At the same time, the demonstrated effectiveness of precision munitions, information operations, and flexible tactics have bolstered hope that, with proper preparations, a war in the Indo-Pacific can be deterred and, if necessary, won.

While the need is now clear, the ability of the United States to lead its Asian allies in a major, sustained peacetime military buildup could still face significant fiscal limitations. Barring a total collapse of Russian power, the U.S. Department of Defense will have to allocate more resources to the European theater for some time to come. This will require either a reduction in spending planned for Asia or a permanent increase in the overall size of the defense budget. With outlays still running well below Cold War levels as a share of GDP, the latter option is economically feasible, but it could prove politically difficult in the face of mounting congressional pressure for major cuts in federal spending.

The United States and Europe

Not surprisingly, the war in Ukraine has had an especially dramatic impact on key countries in Europe. Heightened concerns for their own security have driven both Sweden and Finland to seek formal affiliation with other European democracies by joining NATO. In order to wage an effective proxy war against Russia, the United States and its European allies have been compelled to engage in unprecedented levels of consultation and policy coordination. Russia’s invasion of their neighbor to the east has also induced many European countries to commit to major long-term increases in defense spending. If these promises are actually fulfilled, it could remove a perennial source of friction with Washington. Finally, although French President Emmanuel Macron continues to mouth the words, any hope that Europe can achieve genuine “strategic autonomy” has been deferred into the indefinite future.

Proclamations of unity notwithstanding, the war has also revealed significant differences in outlook among the democracies. The German and French governments want to see Putin’s aggression fail, but they also hope that Russia can somehow be reengaged economically and brought back into what German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has described as the “peace order” that supposedly existed in the past. By contrast, former members of the old Soviet empire harbor deep and enduring suspicions about the Russian government’s intentions and many are determined to see it decisively defeated and isolated from the rest of the continent, at least for as long as Putin remains in power. For now the United States is closer to “new Europe” in this regard, setting the stage for possible future disagreements with Germany and France. While trans-Atlantic ties appear sturdy at the moment, they may yet be tested by the mounting costs of a protracted conflict or by renewed fears of nuclear escalation.

Despite its recent role in leading opposition to Russian aggression and pressing for closer trans-Atlantic cooperation, there is also uncertainty about the permanence of the U.S. commitment to Europe. Alongside a desire to limit government spending and a belief that China poses the greatest threat to U.S. security, there is an underlying suspicion and resentment of Europe in the minds of some Republicans. Such sentiments may fade as more familiar attitudes on the right reassert themselves, but there is now a clear division between those who favor cutting aid to Ukraine and pulling back from Europe and those who support the dominant Cold War–era Republican position of backing fellow democracies against authoritarian aggression. The election of Donald Trump in 2024 could tip the balance in favor of the former group, setting the stage for a potentially terminal crisis in trans-Atlantic relations.

Europe and Asia

As in the past, the links between Europe and Asia remain the least developed leg of the democratic strategic triangle. Even the most capable countries in both regions have limited capacity to project military power to the other side of the globe, and the greatest threat in each theater clearly derives from the closer of the two authoritarian powers. Despite these enduring realities, there appears to be a growing recognition that the democracies of the “rimlands” face a common danger emanating from Eurasia’s “heartland” core, and that they must work together in order to meet it. In the words of NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg, “What happens in Europe matters to the Indo-Pacific. And what happens … in Asia matters to NATO.”

Reflecting this perception, in 2022 the NATO meeting in Madrid was attended for the first time by observers from America’s most important Asian allies and, in another first, the strategic concept adopted at the summit explicitly identified China as a source of “systemic challenges … to Euro-Atlantic security.” European officials have expressed growing concern about the threat China presents to freedom of navigation throughout the Indo-Pacific and, more specifically, to the security of Taiwan.While they might prefer to remain aloof, European leaders are increasingly aware that a war over the island would have devastating consequences for the prosperity and security of their countries. Hoping to signal their commitment, preserve a favorable balance of power and deter aggression, a number of European and Asian states have recently entered into strategic cooperation agreements of varying configuration and covering everything from consultation and information exchanges to joint exercises and future technology development. European government officials remain reluctant to discuss publicly the possible use of economic sanctions against Beijing, but some have gone so far as to warn that if China invades Taiwan, the E.U. “will impose similar or even greater measures than those we have now taken against Russia.”

The United States, Asia, and Europe

Outside the realm of military cooperation, the democracies have also converged to a degree in their views of the values gap that separates them from Russia and China and, albeit tentatively, in their economic policies for dealing with those powers. Like their American counterparts, some policymakers in both Europe and Asia have begun to attribute the aggressive behavior of the authoritarian great powers to the repressive nature of their domestic regimes and their rejection of the liberal principles that were supposed to underpin the post–Cold War international system. In the words of NATO’s new strategic concept “authoritarian actors challenge our interests values and democratic way of life.” As one Japanese cabinet minister recently cautioned, the authoritarians have “amassed tremendous power” and are now using it to threaten “a world order based on fundamental values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

Europe’s paralyzing reliance on Russian energy has driven home the dangers of economic dependence on potentially hostile regimes. The current crisis has also helped fuel doubts about the wisdom of relying on China for a wide range of manufactured goods, chemicals, and natural resources, including everything from semiconductors to rare-earth minerals. In response, the United States and its major trading partners have announced the intention to “de-risk” their economic relations with China. The precise ways in which the parties operationalize this concept will vary, but they will presumably involve some mix of efforts to constrict exports of critical technologies, boost subsidies for domestic producers of essential goods, and build out networks of friendly, reliable suppliers.

How far the United States and its allies will ultimately be willing to go in insulating themselves from China, and the extent to which they can harmonize their trade and technology policies, remains to be determined. Germany, France, and the European Union as a whole have been reluctant to upend relations with a country that they still regard as an indispensable future trading partner. Some allies are also wary of what they regard as a self-interested, nationalistic turn in U.S. economic policy. To forestall further policy coordination, Beijing has targeted threats and inducements on Europe, which it sees as the weakest link in a tightening democratic chain.

The Struggle for the Global South

Even as it tends to solidify opposing liberal and authoritarian blocs in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine has ushered in a new era of intensifying competition between them for influence in the global south. With its arsenal depleted and its reputation for military prowess tarnished, Moscow will find it much harder to exert influence in the developing world. By contrast, Chinese strategists have for some time seen this vast domain as central to their plans for pushing back against U.S. and Western hegemony and catapulting their own country into a position of global leadership.

As most developed countries experience population decline and as China’s relations with the advanced democracies worsen, Beijing will need to find new outlets for the products of its vast manufacturing base. Its planners evidently hope that Africa and South Asia could someday become important new sources of demand for China’s exports and drivers of its continuing economic vitality. Economics aside, Beijing clearly sees the developing world as a source of backing in its escalating “systemic rivalry” with the West and it has sought support from poorer countries to advance its own distinctive interpretation of concepts such as human rights and internet freedom. Having abandoned its previous objections to overseas bases, Beijing also now appears intent on building a network of facilities that could extend from the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa, to the Atlantic coast of Africa, and perhaps into the Western Hemisphere.

The downward spiral in relations with the United States and the wider West has sharpened Beijing’s southward focus, encouraging it to launch new and as yet ill-defined global security and development initiatives. All of this, in turn, has begun to draw the attention and heighten the anxieties of the democracies, causing them to begin to respond, albeit belatedly and in a still unfocused and reflexive fashion.

In addition to their other pressing tasks, the democracies are now scrambling to develop a coherent, collective approach for dealing with the developing world. Rather than scattering their resources, the U.S. and its partners must set priorities, focusing first on helping to bolster democratic practices and institutions where these have already taken root, as well as countering China’s influence in countries that sit adjacent to major maritime chokepoints or contain large reserves of critical resources. The democracies should mobilize more capital for sound investments that benefit entire societies rather than select elites, open their own educational systems and markets more widely to people and goods from the global south, and work to counter more effectively Beijing’s claims in its “discursive struggle” with the West. Notwithstanding its allegations of imperialism and ceaseless rhetoric about “win-win cooperation,” it is China that today seeks to penetrate and gain leverage over smaller and weaker states, establishing relationships of dependence and exploiting them for its benefit.

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Aaron L. Friedberg is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. An earlier version of this essay was published in April 2023 as part of the CSIS Marshall Papers series. https://www.csis.org/analysis/world-blocs

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Aaron Friedberg · July 25, 2023

8. US Dismisses China's Rejection of UN Accusations of Arms Transfers to Myanmar

Comments from Dr. Bruce Becehtol and me on China and Burma/Myanmar.

US Dismisses China's Rejection of UN Accusations of Arms Transfers to Myanmar

July 24, 2023 10:08 PM

• Christy Lee

voanews.com · July 24, 2023

WASHINGTON —

The U.S. is supporting a report by the special rapporteur of human rights in Myanmar, despite China's objection to findings that Beijing has been exporting arms to Myanmar's military which has used them to forcibly suppress resistance groups since its 2021 coup.

"The United States strongly supports the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and his work illuminating the human rights situation in Myanmar," a State Department spokesperson told VOA's Korean Service on Friday.

The remarks came in response to China's opposition to a United Nations report by Tom Andrews, the special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, that was issued in May. In the report, Andrews said Myanmar's military imported weapons and related material worth at least $1 billion from China and Russia since the military junta's deadly coup in 2021.

The report came up during the regular daily press briefing by China's Foreign Ministry on July 18 when Sky TV asked about China's investment in Myanmar and arms sales to the junta.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said, in part, "The Special Rapporteur actually overstepped his mandate."

She continued, "The report contained smears against normal arms trade between sovereign countries and misrepresentation of facts. China firmly opposes it. We have asked the Special Rapporteur to stay objective and fair and strictly follow his mandate and stop serving any political agenda."

The U.N. report, titled "The Billion Dollar Death Trade: The International Arms Networks that Enable Human Rights Violations in Myanmar," says that out of some $1 billion, the Myanmar military imported more than $267 million worth of weapons and materials from entities in China, including state-owned entities.

The report states, "Numerous private and state-owned companies registered in China, including Hong Kong, continued to supply the Myanmar military with an extensive array of arms, equipment, and raw material between October 2021 and December 2022."

The report said the shipments of arms included jets, attack aircrafts and upgrades to tanks and fighter jets, as well as raw materials, such as aluminum, cooper, steel, rubber and lubricants essential for manufacturing weapons.

China seeks 'friendly country,' says expert

David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, said China has been exporting arms to the Myanmar military because it wants "a friendly country on its southern border" to "access the Bay of Bengal to the Indian Ocean to the East of India."

Map of Myanmar

He said that Beijing has "no concern for the human rights of the people in Burma" as it "seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate the region."

To achieve this goal, Maxwell said China also seeks to "coopt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions."

Bruce Bechtol, a former intelligence officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency who is now a professor at Angelo State University in Texas, said Myanmar is going to be viewed as "a pariah to the international community" and its "only real friend is going to be China."

He added that China might consider that to be an "advantage" because Beijing wants to prevent a democratic country emerging at its border.

'Indiscriminate use of artillery'

Myanmar's military has been using deadly weapons to suppress oppositions groups that have resisted its rule since the overthrow of the democratically elected government led by de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a violent coup in 2021.

Human Rights Watch pointed out in its 2023 World Report that the Myanmar military makes "indiscriminate use of artillery and airstrikes," which has killed and injured civilians and destroyed civilian properties.

The U.N. report by Andrews said that since the coup, the military killed at least 3,500 civilians, detained as much as 22,000 political prisoners, and forcibly displaced more than 1.5 million people.

On Friday, two villagers said the Myanmar military killed 14 people in the village of Sone Chaung in the Sagaing region during a raid to search for the leaders of a resistance group known as the People's Defense Force, according to The Guardian citing AFP.

In June, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Myanmar's Defense Ministry and two state-run banks used by the military to purchase weapons.

Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank allowed state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise to access international markets to generate revenues used to import weapons and material, according to the Treasury.

Lwin Nyein Chan Kyaw of the Burmese service contributed to this report.

voanews.com · July 24, 2023

9. Exclusive—China influence reaches "red zone to our homeland": U.S. general

From the CINCSOUTH commander.

Exclusive—China influence reaches "red zone to our homeland": U.S. general

BY NAVEED JAMALI AND TOM O'CONNOR ON 7/25/23 AT 5:00 AM EDT

Newsweek · by Naveed Jamali · July 25, 2023

In an exclusive interview, U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) chief Army General Laura Richardson has told Newsweek that China has entered the Western Hemisphere with an ambitious multifaceted campaign to establish a regional footprint for the People's Republic.

And while much international attention is being paid to mounting U.S.-China competition in the Asia-Pacific region, where Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) is tasked with shoring up defenses utilizing an island strategy developed during the Cold War, Richardson warned that Beijing's efforts have accelerated much closer to U.S. shores "right under our nose."

"They're on the 20-yard line, in the red zone to our homeland," Richardson said. "Or I could say they're on the first island chain, like they are in INDOPACOM, with what looks to be the instruments of national power that the People's Republic of China brings to bear—diplomatic, informational, military and economic."

She took particular note of Chinese President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an intercontinental network of infrastructure projects to which more than half of the 31 nations in the SOUTHCOM area of operations have signed on. Given the extent of the BRI, she said the U.S. was competing with a flood of Chinese state-sponsored bids to invest in sorely needed infrastructure such as telecommunications, deep-water ports and even metro systems across the region.

Now, Richardson, who became only the second woman history to be promoted to the rank of Army general in October 2021 and the third to lead a combatant command, said her mission was to demonstrate to the region what "Team USA" has to offer.

"We're part of this hemisphere, we're part of the Americas. It's absolutely important to all of us," Richardson said. "Team USA has a lot to offer. We just need to showcase all the instruments of national power, bring it together to showcase that. We need to do a better job at that."

"Our partners want to partner with us before they want to partner with anybody else," she added. "We've got to be there at the right time and the right place."

A photo illustration shows Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 23, 2022 and the site of the East Coast Rail Link, a major infrastructure project under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Kelantan, Malaysia, April 26. The BRI extends to nearly 150 nations across the globe, including a number of countries in Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Photo-illustration by Newsweek; Source photos by Getty

SOUTHCOM seized upon such an opportunity this month with the 2023 installation of UNITAS, the longest-running multinational maritime exercise in the world. Having wrapped up Friday, the latest round of drills involved some 20 partner nations, including 26 warships and vessels, three submarines, 25 aircraft and some 7,000 personnel.

But there was more than military activity at play during UNITAS. Richardson traveled alongside Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to Panama last week to boost cooperation on the production of semiconductors, a mission in line with President Joe Biden's larger effort to shore up the supply chain as a so-called "chip war" with China heats up across the globe.

Telecommunications is another front on which the U.S. is looking to counter Chinese advances, where China has secured international partnerships to provide 5G networks through companies such as Huawei. But the U.S. has long raised alarms about the security of China-affiliated networks, alleging the existence of backdoors that could provide sensitive information to the Chinese government and the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Richardson said the rise of such 5G deals in the SOUTHCOM region could prove a major challenge for partnerships that serve as the backbone of U.S. staying power south of its borders.

"If you already have a 3G or 4G network, then, of course, the PRC is going to offer a discount or almost free upgrade to 5G, and then certainly they want to take over the government network," Richardson said. "But then we're not going to be able to partner in terms of sharing information and some of the operations that are done digitally and electronically."

"So, we've got to have better options, Western options, absolutely," she added. "Because we want our partners to have options other than the communist country offering almost dirt-cheap upgrades for the infrastructure for 5G."

"If you're picking a company that's under a communist government that doesn't honor the human rights of their own people," she said, "they're certainly not going to honor the ones of your people."

"And the backdoors into government networks," Richardson added, "that becomes a challenge."

The commander of the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), General Laura Richardson, poses with other military leaders for the official picture of the South American Defense Conference (SOUTHDEC) 2022, in Quito, Ecuador, on September 14, 2022. RODRIGO BUENDIA/AFP/Getty Images

Reached for comment, Chinese Embassy to the United States spokesperson Liu Pengyu defended Beijing's approach in the region.

"China-Latin America cooperation, premised on mutual respect, guided by the principle of mutual benefit and win-win, characterized by openness and inclusiveness and aimed at common development, has delivered tangible benefits to people in the region," Liu told Newsweek.

"China has no geopolitical agenda in Latin America, does not seek to build a sphere of influence, and does not participate in the so-called strategic game," he added. "China-Latin America cooperation meets the needs of both sides and is neither targeted at nor influenced by any third party."

He reaffirmed that "all Latin American countries are sovereign and independent countries" and that Chinese officials "are happy to see Latin American countries develop relations with other countries and respect the close ties formed in the history of this region."

Liu took exception to the characterization offered by Richardson and a growing number of U.S. officials and lawmakers who view Chinese inroads in the Western Hemisphere as an inherent threat, linking it to a 200-year-old policy of establishing a U.S. sphere of influence across the Americas.

"Some people in the U.S. should take off their colored glasses, abandon the outdated Monroe Doctrine and Cold War mentality, stop spreading disinformation about China, stop coercing Latin American countries to choose sides and stop sowing discord between China and Latin America," he said.

Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen attends an economic, commercial, and business seminar in the framework of the first round of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement with Honduras in Tegucigalpa on July 7. In March, Honduras became the latest country to break relations with Taiwan to forge new ties with China, which claims the disputed island as its own. ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images

Beijing and Washington are competing in the military realm as well, though the most recognizable flashpoint remains thousands of miles away from U.S. shores around the disputed island of Taiwan, which also happens to be the world leader in semiconductor production. Chinese officials have also long voiced concern over the efforts of the U.S. to maintain and expand security partnerships and alliances across the INDOPACOM area of concern, which extends to China's own borders.

In recent interviews with Newsweek, senior Air Force commanders hailed the unique capability of the U.S. to overcome what they commonly refer to as "the tyranny of distance" in supporting operations so far from the U.S. mainland.

Now, however, Richardson argues that China has managed to establish its own solution to project global power through its push for new partnerships, while the People's Liberation Army is simultaneously pursuing a historic expansion and modernization effort.

"With the largest military buildup in mainland China of conventional and nuclear forces in the last couple of decades," Richardson said, "you have to ask yourself, 'Why such the investment in critical infrastructure across the globe?'"

"What I worry about is the dual use flipping to the military application if needed," she added. "They've already got their hooks in the critical infrastructure and that's my biggest concern as a military commander and as SOUTHCOM commander."

Echoing what Air Mobility Command chief General Mike Minihan recently told Newsweek, Richardson described China as "our number one pacing challenge in the Department of Defense." And in the SOUTHCOM region, she added, "proximity matters."

"They're in the Caribbean, they're in Central America, in South America," Richardson said. "But all of these countries, other than Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, they want to partner with the United States. We are the partner of choice, but we're not always there at the right time."

In order to win this bout of influence playing out much closer to home than the U.S. is accustomed to competing on such a scale, Richardson said SOUTHCOM is rallying partners in the region to join "Team USA" as to "push forward the democratic agenda for a free, secure, prosperous Western Hemisphere."

"This is what it's all about," she said "We're trying to get after it as fast as we can and bring this economic investment to the beachhead."

Newsweek · by Naveed Jamali · July 25, 2023

10. China’s Foreign Minister Replaced After Unexplained Absence

China’s Foreign Minister Replaced After Unexplained Absence

Qin Gang is removed months after Xi Jinping promoted him to head the Foreign Ministry

By Chun Han Wong

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Updated July 25, 2023 10:15 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-foreign-minister-qin-gang-replaced-63660fad

China’s Foreign Minister Replaced After Unexplained Absence

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Beijing reappointed top diplomat Wang Yi to replace Qin Gang as foreign minister during an emergency session on Tuesday, without addressing Qin’s mysterious absence. Photo: Florence Lo/Pool Reuters/Associated Press

SINGAPORE—Chinese leader Xi Jinping removed his handpicked foreign minister after less than seven months on the job, a surprise move that leaves more questions than answers around China’s black-box political system.

Qin Gang’s removal comes after his mysterious absence from the public stage over the past month, a disappearance that has sparked speculation about his fate and cast a global spotlight on the Communist Party’s opaque governance of the world’s second-largest economy.

At a hastily convened session Tuesday, the Chinese legislature’s standing committee decided that Wang Yi, the former foreign minister and currently China’s top diplomat, would retake his old post, which he had relinquished late last year.

The lawmakers didn’t provide a reason for their decision to remove the 57-year-old Qin, who had succeeded Wang after enjoying an unusually rapid rise through the foreign-service ranks in recent years. Qin’s absence from major diplomatic engagements since late June had fueled rumors inside and outside China about what happened to him.

China’s Foreign Ministry previously cited health reasons for Qin’s absence from a regional diplomatic meeting in Indonesia earlier this month.

Wang Yi ’s return as foreign minister appears to be an interim appointment, analysts say. PHOTO: BERNADETT SZABO/REUTERS

Wang, a 69-year-old member of the Communist Party’s elite 24-member Politburo, served as foreign minister from early 2013 until December last year. He became China’s top diplomat when he joined the Politburo in October as its leading foreign-affairs specialist.

In China’s political system, the foreign minister isn’t necessarily the country’s highest-ranking diplomat. That role resides with the most senior foreign-policy official by party rank, who is currently Wang, the director of the office of the party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission.

State media reports didn’t mention any change to Wang’s party roles, suggesting he would occupy his Politburo and Foreign Ministry positions concurrently—an arrangement that, after the 1990s, has only taken place during a transition period between officeholders.

Political analysts say Wang’s return as foreign minister appears to be an interim appointment to buy time while Xi and other senior officials figure out longer-term arrangements.

Qin Gang working in Cairo earlier this year. PHOTO: AMR NABIL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“Qin’s removal shouldn’t be interpreted as a diminishment of Xi Jinping’s power, which extends far wider and deeper than any one single appointment,” said Jude Blanchette, a China analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And the fact that, for now, Qin keeps some of his party and government positions indicates that there are some unresolved internal issues.”

State media readouts from Tuesday’s session of the National People’s Congress standing committee didn’t mention any change to Qin’s role as state councilor, a senior government rank in the State Council, China’s cabinet. The State Council’s website continued to list Qin as a state councilor as of Tuesday evening.

Party authorities haven’t announced any change to Qin’s status as one of 205 full members of the party’s Central Committee, which he joined in October while he was China’s ambassador to the U.S.

Tuesday’s legislative session was arranged just one day in advance, an unusually short notice, and outside the typical two-month cycle for regular standing committee sessions. This extraordinary session came right after a Politburo meeting on Monday, chaired by Xi.

“Overall foreign policy won’t likely change in the wake of Qin’s removal, as his role was simply to implement key decisions made by Xi Jinping,” said Blanchette.

The mystery around Qin has prompted new questions about China’s governance under Xi, whose Communist Party has doubled down on its penchant for secrecy and frustrated outsiders’ efforts to access information about developments in a leading economic powerhouse.

Considered a trusted aide to Xi, Qin had enjoyed an unusually rapid rise within China’s foreign service in recent years after serving as protocol chief for the Chinese leader. Qin was appointed Beijing’s ambassador to Washington in 2021 despite having no formal background directly handling U.S. relations, before joining the Central Committee and winning promotion to foreign minister late last year—bucking precedent in a system that traditionally has valued experience in addition to political connections.

Political analysts say Qin’s close association with Xi has made his absence particularly intriguing. A dearth of information about Qin’s whereabouts has fueled speculation on social media, including around the possibility of an extramarital affair.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry first addressed Qin’s disappearance on July 11, when it said at a regular news briefing that he wouldn’t attend an international gathering of foreign ministers in Jakarta because of health reasons, without giving any details. Since then, the ministry’s spokespeople have generally sidestepped questions about Qin.

In China’s opaque political system, health issues are often cited as the reason for a senior official’s absence. While the explanation is often genuine, party insiders say, it can sometimes serve as cover for political problems.

When Wang Lijun, the former police chief in the inland megacity of Chongqing, went missing in February 2012, municipal authorities said he was taking “vacation-style treatment” for stress and overwork, though in reality he had fled to the U.S. consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu to seek asylum.

Beijing’s move to replace Qin as foreign minister won’t quell speculation around his fate, since it leaves many questions about what caused his prolonged absence, said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.

At Tuesday’s legislative session, lawmakers also named Pan Gongsheng as governor of the People’s Bank of China. The move had been expected after the 60-year-old Pan, who had been deputy governor since 2012, was appointed as the central bank’s top party official earlier this month.

The veteran economist and banker had been getting ready to retire in the weeks before Xi picked him to lead the central bank at a time when the Chinese yuan has been on a downward slide, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com

11. U.S. Allies in Asia Snub Natural Gas From Alaska Project

U.S. Allies in Asia Snub Natural Gas From Alaska Project

Potential buyers from Japan, South Korea are concerned about timeline of $44 billion energy pipeline

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-allies-in-asia-snub-natural-gas-from-alaska-project-e54f754a?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

By River DavisFollow

 and Sylvan LebrunFollow

July 25, 2023 8:00 am ET

TOKYO—Japan and South Korea have rebuffed U.S. overtures about joining a proposed $44 billion Alaska natural-gas project that would be one of the biggest energy investments in American history.

The snubs have put a roadblock in front of a liquefied natural gas project that has made strides recently. Washington says exporting gas from Alaska would strengthen global security by giving Asian nations an alternative to Russian gas. 

The plan, called Alaska LNG, features an 807-mile pipeline that would carry natural gas from fields north of the Arctic Circle to the southern part of the state, from which it would be shipped primarily to Japan, South Korea and other countries in Asia.

Beaufort Sea

Prudhoe Bay

Gas treatment plant

RUSSIA

Proposed gas line

CANADA

Fairbanks

ALASKA

Trans-Alaska Pipeline

Anchorage

Liquefaction facility

Nikiski

Juneau

Bering Sea

Nikiski

200 miles

Pacific Ocean

200 km

Source: Alaska Gasline Development Corporation

Jake Steinberg/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The project won a green light from the Energy Department in April and aims to begin operating by around 2030. Under federal law, it is eligible for more than $30 billion in loan guarantees. 

After more than a decade of planning, the project is closer than ever to launching, said Sen. Dan Sullivan (R., Alaska). The next step, he said, is lining up buyers in Asia. 

“That private sector component is really important and that is happening as we speak,” he said.

But people familiar with the plans of several top prospective buyers in Japan and South Korea said the companies expressed they weren’t interested in investing in the project or signing contracts to purchase its gas, and energy officials also have given Alaska the cold shoulder.

Potential buyers aren’t confident in the project’s timeline, according to officials at companies and in the Japanese government. They believe that Asian countries will have other sources of stable natural-gas supplies by 2030, although the gas market is volatile and competing projects also carry risks. 

The Asian buyers also are concerned about the lack of major investment commitments by big U.S. energy companies to the Alaska project, these officials said. Exxon Mobil handed over the project to the state of Alaska in 2016. It has remained involved in other ways, such as advising on how the project could be made more competitive. 

A gas-fired power plant in Japan’s Chiba prefecture. PHOTO: AKIO KON/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Over the past year, officials from Alaska Gasline Development, the company behind Alaska LNG, and other advocates have pitched the project to Japanese and Korean government leaders and potential buyers at meetings in Tokyo, Seoul and Washington, D.C. 

The community of Nikiski on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage would serve as the endpoint of the gas pipeline, which in parts follows the route of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, for oil. At a facility in Nikiski, the gas would be chilled to liquid form at minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit and loaded onto tankers.

Japan and South Korea, both U.S. allies, are two of the world’s biggest importers of liquefied natural gas. Both still rely on Russian LNG in part to keep the lights on and businesses running.  

Alaska’s U.S. senators, both Republicans, and U.S. ambassadors in Japan and South Korea representing the Biden administration say the project would link the U.S. and allies more closely while sidelining Russia. 

“It is imperative that our allies in Asia, Korea and Japan, get off of Russian oil and gas,” said Sullivan, the Alaska senator. “The most obvious choice with which to do that is a fully permitted West Coast of America project.”

Japan purchases about 10% of its LNG supply from Russia’s Sakhalin-2 project. With current contracts due to expire by around the end of this decade, it is in the market for new suppliers.

For Japan, buying from Alaska “means long-term energy reliability from the number-one reliable ally,” said the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo, Rahm Emanuel.

Shipping LNG to Japan from the Middle East or from the U.S. Gulf Coast via the Panama Canal typically takes several weeks. From Alaska, LNG can be shipped to Japan in seven days and to South Korea in eight, with “zero strategic choke points,” said Emanuel. 

Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, which includes Kenai Lake—as seen in 2021—would be the southern terminus of the gas pipeline. PHOTO: ANGELA OWENS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

However, LNG consumers in Asia say they are looking for supply contracts that could provide gas in the next three to four years, when supply conditions are predicted to remain particularly tight. Other projects in places such as Canada and the Gulf Coast promise to deliver on a quicker timeline, they say. 

Japanese officials said the farther out a project’s timeline extends, the greater the worry that it would bump up against the country’s commitment to have zero net carbon emissions by 2050. 

“People are so unsure about the future of LNG. As of now they see huge demand, but what will happen 10 years or 15 years from now remains a question mark,” said Tatsuya Terazawa, head of the government-affiliated Institute of Energy Economics Japan.

After starting major permitting efforts in 2014, the Alaska LNG project struggled for years to make progress. At the time, other U.S. export projects were fueling a boom in global natural-gas supply. In 2019, Alaska Gasline Development said it was scaling back operations while evaluating the project’s viability.

Last year, natural-gas prices surged after Russia cut off gas supplies to Europe, and buyers have been looking to secure new supplies. Still, officials in Japan said the Alaska project compared unfavorably with others.   

“The most important thing for buyers is evaluating how feasible an LNG project is, and with Alaska LNG, we’ve seen too little progress for too long,” said an official in charge of LNG projects at one of Japan’s top importers.

People at Alaska Gasline Development said a number of potential participants in Japan and South Korea are closely examining the project. Frank Richards, president of Alaska Gasline Development, said he has shown potential Asian participants around Alaska’s northern gas fields to demonstrate the project “really is ready, viable and doable.”

Richards said “there are tremendous amounts of capital ready to be deployed” and Alaska Gasline Development aimed to finish raising capital this year. He said it hoped to reach a final investment decision during the first quarter of 2025.

Dasl Yoon in Seoul contributed to this article.

Write to River Davis at river.davis@wsj.com and Sylvan Lebrun at sylvan.lebrun@wsj.com

12. New Airlifters Of All Sizes May Be Needed For Future China Fight

Time and distance. Two laws of physics that we have not been able to figure out how to break.

New Airlifters Of All Sizes May Be Needed For Future China Fight

The specter of conflict in the Pacific is making Air Mobility Command rethink its future fleet, possibly including the addition of drones.

BY

THOMAS NEWDICK

|

PUBLISHED JUL 24, 2023 5:56 PM EDT

thedrive.com · by Thomas Newdick · July 24, 2023

The U.S. Air Force’s plans for its next-generation airlift capabilities are starting to take shape, with Air Mobility Command (AMC) saying it favors a series of aircraft, rather than one single solution. With this, we may be one step closer to answering the question of how the service will go about replacing its fleet of modernized but Cold War-vintage C-5 Galaxy and more recent, but also out-of-production C-17 Globemaster III airlifters — and potentially other transport types, as well.

“I think there’s an absolute, mandatory need to look at the problem in terms of a system as opposed to just one thing that has to do everything,” Gen. Mike Minihan, the boss of AMC, told Aviation Week in a recent interview. Minihan’s vision of a future airlift fleet will not just focus on replacing the vital C-5 and C-17, and ultimately also the C-130 Hercules, which remains in production. It is also about fulfilling a wider spectrum of aerial transport requirements, including using smaller aircraft.

Airmen load an Army helicopter training simulator onto a C-5 Galaxy. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. James Wilkinson

Gen. Minihan also said that AMC is looking at future solutions that go well beyond the conventional fixed-wing crewed transport aircraft operated by the command today. Both crewed and uncrewed platforms are under consideration, but so are more radical solutions, such as vertical takeoff and landing capable aircraft, Ekranoplan-Like designs, and airships.

The idea of an uncrewed transport is something that has gotten more leverage of late. In March last year, Pacific Air Forces commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach suggested that an uncrewed airlifter, smaller than the C-130 and closer in size to the World War II-era C-47 Skytrain, could play an important role in the Pacific theater.

Japan Ground Self-Defense Force paratroopers board a C-130J assigned to the 36th Airlift Squadron out of Yokota Air Base, Japan, at Hyakuri Air Base, Japan, July 9, 2020. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Gabrielle Spalding

“There were … thousands, maybe, of C-47s, and they were all over the Pacific,” Wilsback remarked. “They weren’t fast, but they can carry a lot, and they tackled the logistics problem of the Pacific by having a lot of tails to … move equipment.” Although “it got there at 120, maybe 150 knots … it worked. We could have something like that for ACE, where you don’t have to have it going 500 knots,” but the logistics effort wouldn’t “eat a lot of tail numbers to be able to get the small bits of equipment and pieces to the various spots that we intend to deploy from.”

More generally, the ability to deal with contingencies in the Pacific theater is something that the AMC is now concentrating on, including in the two-week Mobility Guardian exercise that concluded last Friday. You can read more about those maneuvers here. Some of the particular elements put to the test included extended-duration tanker missions, with these aircraft serving as “forward nodes” for the distribution of fuel but also data; emergency dispersal of aircraft by “flushing” airfields; and dealing with “aircraft battle damage capability.”

Another key question, Gen. Minihan told Aviation Week, is “‘Can I get cargo forward into a high-threat environment?’ but also: ‘Can I get cargo forward to a maneuvering unit that doesn’t have a runway from which I can operate?’”

He continued: “Does it have to be manned? Can it be unmanned? Does it have to be 10,000 pounds or 5,000 pounds [payload capacity-wise]? Can I do vertical lift? Can I do it on an airship [or] a slow-moving low-altitude blimp? There’s a lot of opportunity when it comes to how you approach that.”

As far as the payload capacity of existing AMC transports, the C-130J can lift 42,000 pounds, the C-17A 170,900 pounds, and the C-5M 281,001 pounds. This, as well as Minihan's comments on the C-47, suggests that the kind of transport suitable for more limited airlift missions in higher-threat environments that he has in mind would be significantly smaller than the C-130J. Often times, just a single part that keeps another aircraft grounded or weapon or communication system from working is all that is needed. Using smaller aircraft, even unmanned ones, could make sense for fulfilling those on-demand logistics requirements.

It just so happens that China has developed just such an unmanned aircraft, the Scorpion D. You can read about it here. It also has short-takeoff and landing capabilities, a range of multiple thousands of miles, and appears to be exactly what the General is describing.

Even the Navy has said in the past that when ships encounter problems as a result of logistics-related issues that leave them partially mission capable or non-mission capable, 90 percent of the time this can be resolved by the delivery of a component weighing 50 pounds or less.

The unmanned option is also interesting as AMC is already exploring single pilot operations for some of its tankers, even just to use in contingencies. Sustained conflict in the Pacific could certainly necessitate such operations, including for airlifters, as well. Going unmanned, even for the lowliest of small cargo duties, solves some of this problem.

A varied fleet of next-generation airlifters is still some way off in the future, especially with the Air Force currently prioritizing the Next-Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS). This will field new aerial refueling aircraft from the 2030s, following on from the in-production KC-46s and finally replacing the veteran KC-135 Stratotanker fleet.

A model of a Lockheed Martin blended wing-body aerial refueling aircraft the company has shown in the past, possibly to meet future Air Force tanker requirements. Lockheed Martin

In fact, the program to field new airlift capabilities is at such an early stage that it’s unclear if it will be pursued under the Next-Generation Airlift (NGAL) name, or if it will be reconfigured under the name Next-Generation Airlift System, to better represent that fact that it will involve a family of different platforms and capabilities. The Air Force is taking the family of systems approach to both its future Long-Range Strike (LRS) and Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) portfolios, so it wouldn't be surprising if airlift follows this trend.

Gen. Minihan indicated this, saying that Next-Generation Airlift or Next-Generation Airlift System will draw upon technologies from the B-21 Raider stealth bomber as well as Next Generation Air Dominance, the Air Force’s sixth-generation air superiority initiative, which also involves a ‘system of systems’ approach.

“I want to develop a headquarters that thinks about the next generation of systems, not just when the current generation is failing,” Gen. Minihan said of the future airlift program. “We need to create a muscle memory and a capability that survives the actual acquisition of the airplane.”

In the meantime, the Air Force is conducting an analysis of alternatives, to better understand the requirements and how they could be met.

Gen. Mike Minihan, commander of Air Mobility Command. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Zachary Boyer

In its favor is the fact that already the Air Force and industry are studying a range of different airlift concepts and technologies, some of which Gen. Minihan confirmed that AMC is examining with a view to harnessing them to meet future aerial transport requirements.

Among those programs named by Gen. Minihan are the blended wing-body (BWB) demonstrator being run by the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), and the Speed and Runway Independent Technologies (SPRINT) and Liberty Lifter demonstrators from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Of these, the SPRINT focuses on an aerial platform that can cruise at over 400 knots, hovering into and out of austere areas that lack runways. Liberty Lifter, meanwhile, “aims to design, build, float, and fly an affordable, innovative, and disruptive seaplane that operates efficiently in ground effect,” according to DARPA.

Interestingly, the DIU is known to have put out a request for information last year looking for companies that might be able to provide “digital concepts of design” for an advanced BWB aircraft “that provides at least 30 percent more aerodynamic efficiency than the Boeing 767 and Airbus A330 families of commercial and military aircraft.” The announcement also noted a desire to potentially have a flying demonstrator ready by 2026.

Further to that, earlier this month the DIU confirmed it is considering two bids for a full-scale BWB multi-role demonstrator for evaluation as a potential future U.S. Air Force tanker and airlifter. One of those bidders is known to be the California-based startup JetZero, working with Northrop Grumman on an all-new BWB concept.

The JetZero Z-5 concept for a large-scale advanced tanker-transport demonstrator. JetZero

The AMC boss also said that the command is in talks with the Air Force Research Laboratory about various other designs that have not yet been publicly disclosed.

BWB designs have seen increasing interest in recent years, specifically where cargo aircraft are concerned. Earlier this year, for example, Boeing unveiled a concept for a stealthy tactical cargo aircraft with a blended wing-body design.

A model of Boeing’s stealth BWB design concept unveiled earlier this year. Boeing

As we have highlighted in the past, BWB designs incorporate flying-wing-like planforms and often evoke the general look of very stealthy designs, but their general configuration is not necessarily low-observable. Still, the design concept makes lends itself to these qualities and makes integrating some degree of low observability easier.

The Boeing BWB concept unveiled earlier this year does have additional stealthy design features, including a fuselage with at least some chined edges and a more beak-like nose, as well as a pair of fully internal jet engines. Its splayed tail is also a notable feature that almost certainly has low-observable benefits, including top-mounted exhausts that help with both IR and radar signatures. These are just notional though and should be taken as such.

A rear view of a smaller model of Boeing’s recent stealthy BWB design concept, showing the engine exhaust arrangement. Boeing

Beyond any stealth technology discussions, BWB designs offer several main benefits that would be of considerable interest to AMC, including enhanced aerodynamic efficiency, leading to increased fuel economy and overall range. Expanded internal volume and lifting might is also a plus.

Even more radical than BWB designs is a proposal mentioned by the Wall Street Journal this week, referring to “space rockets to blast cargo anywhere in the world within minutes.” While unclear to what degree this is built into current thinking on next-generation airlift, there is little doubt that the idea has generated interest in the Pentagon in the past. This is something that The War Zone has looked at previously.

While there are still many unknowns about the kinds of capabilities and platforms that the future airlift program may address, one thing that seems to be central, at least at this stage, is the requirement for a much greater degree of survivability compared to legacy airlift platforms.

On more than one occasion, the Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall has highlighted the need for more survivable airlifters and aerial refueling tankers, which the Air Force says will be critical in future high-end conflicts against near-peer adversaries, especially China.

Secretary of the U.S. Air Force Frank Kendall. U.S. Air Force/Eric Dietrich

As regards future transport aircraft specifically, speaking last September, the Air Force Secretary explained: “These future mobility concepts may be very different than our traditional ones. We need capabilities that can survive the threat of long-range air-to-air missiles. You must be able to bring mobility assets into a contested environment.”

This kind of thinking is something that has become increasingly important not only to the development of new fighters and bombers, which are expected to operate in contested environments, but also to future support assets — including tankers and transports. These aircraft will increasingly be at risk from both long-range ground-based air defenses but also from air-launched missiles with steadily greater range and capabilities.

While the exact levels of survivability that will be required from the different elements of the future airlift fleet are not yet clear, Gen. Minihan did provide an interesting survivability concept for the future tanker fleet.

According to the AMC chief, the first tier of survivability, for tankers, will cover operations in very permissive environments, including refueling aircraft in peacetime, for daily operations in the United States, for example, or during exercises. For these kinds of missions, aircraft like the legacy KC-135 and KC-46 would be suitable.

The second tier covers tankers that would be required to operate on the margins of combat operations in the Pacific theater. Here, aerial refuelers would require a greater degree of survivability as well as enhanced situational awareness and connectivity to communicate with the combat assets that would also be on hand to protect them.

Such a level of survivability could be achieved through upgrades of legacy types. It might well include, for example, loyal wingman-type drones that could escort the tankers and launch air-to-air missiles, as well as technologies such as the podded Real-Time Information in the Cockpit (RTIC) initiative, which allows the KC-135 to serve as a communications node for other platforms. It’s also now being adapted for transports, too, including the C-130 and C-17. Laser-based defenses and electronic warfare pods could also help defend these lumbering aircraft so close to the fighting.

The first KC-135 in the Air Force inventory received Link 16 as part of its RTIC upgrade in July 2020. Master Sgt. John Winn/151st Air Refueling Wing

Finally, the third tier of tanker survivability calls for refueling assets that are survivable enough to operate in or very close to the same high-end combat environments as fighters. For these, more exotic solutions would be required, including low-observable or stealth technologies.

“That can be a small fleet of very capable aircraft that can be a bucket brigade — that can be the exquisite gas that needs to be [sent] forward so the kinetic team can be successful,” Gen. Minihan outlined. He also pointed to the example of the Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray carrier-based refueling drone as the kind of platform that could fulfill such missions, provided it was able to not only dispense fuel but also receive it.

An MQ-25 during refueling tests with an F/A-18F Super Hornet. U.S. Navy

It’s not inconceivable that a future airlift fleet could be tiered in a similar way, with different platforms incorporating different levels of survivability based on their operational requirements. Certainly, the Air Force is mindful that at least some of its future aerial transport platforms will be expected to deliver cargoes and even troops into environments that would simply be too hazardous for aircraft like today’s C-130 and C-17. And using very low-level flying may buy back some survivability in certain scenarios, but it does not provide the level of protection it once did.

As well as the aforementioned Boeing BWB transport study with low-observable features, the same company previously also ran the stealthy Speed Agile program, which was focused on developing a concept for a “next-generation tactical mobility aircraft” for the Air Force. Speed Agile was conceived more than a decade ago and was not a fully BWB design, but such concepts clearly still have relevance for current thinking about future airlift options.

A wind tunnel model of a large blend wing-body aircraft concept from Boeing that was tested as part of an Air Force-led project called Speed Agile in the early 2010s. NASA

The idea of stealthy tactical transports is also something that the U.S. special operations community, in particular, has been looking at for some time now. This has produced some novel concepts, which you can read more about in this past two-part War Zone feature.

Concept artwork for the Lockheed Special Operations Forces Transport (SOFA), dating from the 1980s. Lockheed via eBay

Another major requirement for the future airlift fleet involves the aforementioned improved connectivity. This should give these platforms the situational awareness they require to better survive as well as ensure seamless, real-time communication with other platforms, including fighters and command and control assets. As well as the aforementioned RTIC initiative, the Air Force is also exploring other networking tools for transports and tankers. These include the Airlift and Tanker Open Missions System, from Sierra Nevada Corp., which provides aircraft with multiple datalinks and other secure communications, via a fairly straightforward modification.

There’s also the Tanker Intelligent Gateway (TIG) system, also being tested on the KC-135, which provides capabilities similar to those in the E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node, or BACN. It also provides the fusion and rebroadcasting of multiple datalink waveforms, allowing data to be sent and received across platforms with disparate data link architectures. In doing do, it creates an 'active net' over the battlefield and can maintain connectivity even with lower-flying platforms in high terrain, at least in some circumstances.

Ultimately, it’s envisaged that TIG could take on some of the roles now provided by airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft. This suggests that future transport aircraft could also have a command-and-control function, something that would fit broadly with the Air Force’s aspiration to have AEW&C capabilities, in the future, handled by a more resilient network of distributed systems, including in space.

Future airlifters are also likely to make use of developments in the realm of cutting-edge positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) and artificial intelligence. The MagNav system, for example, which was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Lab, derives navigational cues from the Earth’s magnetic field, with AI being used to remove the effects of the C-17’s interference. In a contested environment, where enemy forces would be expected to disable or at least downgrade GPS signals, a system like MagNav could ensure a transport got to its destination.

MagNav equipment is loaded on the back of a C-17A, ready for the first real-time demonstration on a U.S. military aircraft, during Exercise Golden Phoenix, May 11-15, 2023. U.S. Air Force

Performance-wise, it seems highly likely that at least some of the Air Force’s future transport aircraft will need to operate over much greater ranges, with payload, compared to current airlifters.

With the U.S. military gearing up for a potential major fight with the Chinese military across the broad expanses of the Pacific region, the requirement for increased range, for all types of aircraft that would be involved in such a scenario, becomes paramount. The problem is exacerbated by the limited basing options for American forces in the Pacific, coupled with the fact that available airbases could well be very vulnerable to enemy stand-off strikes.

At this point, it’s far from clear when AMC might start to introduce new airlifters, let alone what kinds of novel technologies they might embody. As regards to the Boeing BWB concept from earlier this year, the company said a vehicle of this type “could be developed in the next 10 to 15 years as a subsonic transport, with a focus on military transport.” All this will also cost money — a lot of money. Where those funds will come from to build an entire new family of airlift assets remains to be disclosed.

What is clear is that there is a growing realization that the next generation of airlift assets that will be needed to replace the C-5 and C-17, and potentially other types, will have to be more survivable and that they will otherwise need to cater to a diverse set of requirements, driven to a significant degree by the potential for a conflict with China in the Pacific theater.

Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com

thedrive.com · by Thomas Newdick · July 24, 2023

​13. Opinion | The U.S. military integrated 75 years ago. Apologies are still in order.

Opinion | The U.S. military integrated 75 years ago. Apologies are still in order.

The Washington Post · by Michele L. Norris · July 25, 2023

The 75th anniversary of the desegregation of the military this week will be a proud and solemn moment. But to me, the commemoration will be incomplete if it does not also include a formal apology to all those servicemen and women of color who served their country under onerous segregation codes in World War I, World War II and Korea.

We are not talking about a small number of people. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, more than 1 million Black servicemen and women were among the 16 million Americans who joined the military.

My father was one of them. He joined the Navy in 1943 as a teenager and was immediately sent from his hometown of Birmingham, Ala., to Camp Robert Smalls, at the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois. Many of Camp Smalls enlistees, like my father, were immediately designated to serve as cooks and stewards. Instead of guns and helmets, they served their country by wearing aprons and wielding spatulas.

My father was part of a generation of Black, Brown, Asian and Native Americans fighting a war on multiple fronts — facing not only our enemies overseas but also racism at home and in their ranks. Though in uniform, they were marginalized and stripped of their dignity in a military that was still segregated by race. A formal apology by the Defense Department and even the president would go a long way toward restoring honor that was taken from them, while also admitting to the oppressive segregation codes that kept the U.S. armed forces from being all they could be.

During the era of strict segregation in the armed forces, many if not most Black enlistees were assigned to noncombat roles, digging ditches, driving trucks, building bridges or working the docks. Even those fortunate enough to be promoted to gunner’s mate or mechanic didn’t receive equal pay or equal treatment. As I researched my father’s military history 15 years ago when I wrote my family memoir, “The Grace of Silence,” I learned that historians routinely concluded that service members of color were the “collective backbone” of the WWII war effort.

And yet Black vets faced bias and extreme violence in the United States. Throughout 1946 after the war, Black vets were beaten, burned, castrated and lynched — often when trying to register to vote. My own father was shot in the leg by a Birmingham police officer in February 1946 when he tried to enter a Black-owned building where returning veterans were studying the Constitution so they could pass poll tests designed to keep Black Americans from casting votes. In South Carolina, a Black serviceman was pulled off a bus while wearing his uniform and beaten so badly that he was blinded in both eyes. The blinding of Isaac Woodard was the case that swayed President Harry S. Truman to step up efforts to end segregation in the military and federal government.

Meanwhile, a small number of military commanders were looking ahead, concerned that discrimination against people of color in the military could hobble U.S. readiness in future conflicts. The Navy issued a document in 1945 called the Guide to Command of Negro Naval Personnel. It’s a cringeworthy document by today’s standards. There are sections titled “Negroes eager to Learn” and “Handicaps Are Being Overcome.” Nonetheless, there is a passage that still resonates under the heading “Racial Theories Waste Manpower.” Here it is:

“In modern total warfare any avoidable waste of manpower can only be viewed as material aid to the enemy. Restriction, because of racial theories, of the contribution of any individual to the war effort is a serious waste of human resources.”

In the end, it took six years to desegregate the military, and Truman had to pressure top military leaders to fully follow his orders. Truman’s action did nothing, by the way, to correct the way the 1944 GI Bill — formally called the “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act” — had been structured by Southern lawmakers to lock out 1.2 million Black Americans who served during WWII but were largely unable to take advantage of the low-cost loans, college tuition and job training promised in the measure. For example, in Mississippi, where half the population was Black, only two of the more than 3,000 home loans guaranteed by the agency known then Veterans Administration went to Black borrowers

So, apologies are in order and the United States is overdue in making them. In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a formal apology last summer for the anti-Black racism a segregated construction unit faced during and after the First World War.

I know full well that some will say that the military should not be in the business of issuing apologies. But I see it another way. Only the truly strong can look squarely at their history and acknowledge the triumphs and the missteps. And while the U.S. military is a model of equal opportunity with diversity throughout the ranks, the top leadership is still largely White and male.

The WWI veterans are gone now; so are the vast majority of WWII and Korean vets. My own father died more than 30 years ago and barely talked about his military service, though he kept his medals in his top dresser drawer, which was lined with burgundy felt. They were stacked up neatly along with the rows of the “I voted” stickers he got when he cast a ballot.

I wish he had lived long enough to witness Lloyd Austin, the first Black secretary of defense, leading a military that was once so deeply segregated. As we commemorate the end of formal segregation in the ranks, I hope the government will find a way to honor and apologize to the service members who fought against the evils of tyranny in the war effort but could not escape the evils of inequality back home.

The Washington Post · by Michele L. Norris · July 25, 2023

14. Beyond The Beret. Ep. 6 | Diversity, Beyond The Beret. Ep. 6 | Diversity, OLG, SWTG, 1st Group, 3rd Group, Leadership | Part. 2

Spend an hour (or two with both parts) with two retired SF NCOs. It will make you feel like you are in a team room. They cover a lot of ground. Check out Mike's diversity analogy (A husband/father with a wife and two daughters!) I am proud to have served with Mike Clark in 2-1 and 1-1 SFG.

Part 2 really covers 1st SFG as well as diversity toward the end (which is worth listening to)

Beyond The Beret. Ep. 6 | Diversity, Beyond The Beret. Ep. 6 | Diversity, OLG, SWTG, 1st Group, 3rd Group, Leadership | Part. 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZoBrZwvDh4

Beyond The Beret. Ep. 06 | Ft.Devens, 42A, SFAS, Q-Course,18E, 18Z, 1st Group, 3rd Group | Part.1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPLdSxnH384

15. Navy SEAL's Long-Awaited 'Dry' Mini-Submarine Capability Has Finally Arrived

Navy SEAL's Long-Awaited 'Dry' Mini-Submarine Capability Has Finally Arrived

For decades the Navy has been trying to realize a small submarine to transport SEALs inside a pressurized cabin, and now its operational.

BY

JOSEPH TREVITHICK

|

PUBLISHED JUL 24, 2023 3:53 PM EDT

thedrive.com · by Joseph Trevithick · July 24, 2023

The U.S. Navy's newest special operations mini-submarine has now officially entered service. Unlike earlier SEAL Delivery Vehicles, the new Dry Combat Submersible allows the occupants to travel to and from their destination submerged, but without being immersed in often frigid water the whole time. This is a capability the Navy has been working to acquire for decades now.

The Dry Combat Submersible (DCS) reached initial operational capability (IOC) with the Navy sometime in May, its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, announced earlier today. Back in May, John Conway, the program manager for Undersea Systems within U.S. Special Operations Command's (SOCOM) Program Executive Office-Maritime (PEO-M), had said the initial DCSs would be operational by the end of that month. To date, Lockheed Martin has delivered two DCSs to the Navy and is finishing work on a third example.

A picture of one of the Navy's Dry Combat Submersibles (DCS) out of the water. DOD DOD

"The Lockheed Martin team is proud of the work that has gone into the development and delivery of DCS and supporting USSOCOM to this IOC milestone," Jason Crawford, senior program manager for Manned Combat Submersibles, said in a statement in the press release. "We look forward to delivering the third DCS and supporting DCS into Full Operating Capacity."

The DCS is derived from a mini-submarine design called the S351 Nemesis from MSubs in the United Kingdom. MSubs has been part of the Lockheed Martin-led team designing and building the DCS since the American defense giant began work on the project in 2016.

An S351 Nemesis. MSubs

Though details about the DCS's dimensions and capabilities are limited, the 30-ton displacement and 39-foot-long S351 has an all-electric propulsion system that gives it a maximum range of 66 nautical miles when traveling at a speed of around five knots, according to MSubs. It can dive to depths of around 330 feet (100 meters). Nemesis required a crew of two to operate and has space for up to eight other individuals or suitably sized cargo weight up to approximately one metric ton.

By comparison, from what has been reported in the past, the Navy's newest SEAL Delivery Vehicle (SDV), the Mk 11, is just under 22 and a half feet long and can carry only six passengers along with its crew of two. Also known as the Shallow Water Combat Submersible (SWCS), it is unpressurized and therefore is not as capable in terms of its maximum depth as the DCS.

More importantly, for the Navy and its elite SEALs, who will be the primary users of the DCS, it has a self-contained lock-in/lock-out chamber on top of the hull. As seen in the video below, the service's existing SDVs are so-called "wet" submersibles where their occupants ride fully exposed to the water around them on the way to their destination. This can make for a very cold ride, even in regions where average temperatures might trend on the warmer side. This, in turn, increases operator fatigue and can present potentially serious health risks.

Lockheed Martin's press release also highlights how current SDVs do not allow their occupants to hydrate, since they have to wear wet suits and scuba gear the entire time. This is another potentially significant issue for longer transits.

"The Dry Combat Submersible has the potential to transform undersea warfare for special operators,” Gregg Bauer, C6ISR vice president and general manager at Lockheed Martin, said in a statement today. “DCS provides safe, clandestine delivery for occupants over long distances in a completely dry environment and features a lock-in and lock-out chamber. Occupants arrive at the mission warm, rested, hydrated and ready."

This also means operators can return to their recovery point in the same way after a mission, which may have been conducted entirely underwater. The SEALs, in particular, are trained to conduct a variety of missions below the waves, including sabotage and demolition. DCSs could also be used to help insert SEALs and other special operations forces ashore or extract them.

The Navy has been publicly trying to acquire a DCS-like capability for decades now. The service had begun to lay out requirements for what became known as the Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) in the 1980s. ASDS was canceled in 2009 after the prototype – a design roughly twice the size of the DSC – was destroyed in a fire the year before. Technical issues had already led to significant cost growth. A follow-on Joint Multi-Mission Submersible program was also axed in 2010.

The prototype Advanced SEAL Delivery System submersible seen here on top of the rear deck of the Los Angeles class attack submarine USS Greenville. USN

DCS has seen its own delays, as well. In June 2020, SOCOM said it expected the mini-submarine to reach IOC within about a year.

The DCS does have limitations, largely due to its size. Unlike the Navy's SDVs, the new mini-submarine is too big to be launched from submerged submarines via currently available Dry Deck Shelters (DDS), as well as larger DDSs the service is working to acquire now. The Navy's Virginia class attack submarines and Ohio class guided missile submarines are also the only ones that can be configured to carry DDSs at present.

A briefing slide SOCOM released last year with details about work on an improved DDS design. SOCOM

Currently, the DCS will have to be deployed via a mothership on the surface, such as an amphibious warfare vessel. The Navy has also been looking at ways to more rapidly deploy the first-generation DCSs using U.S. Air Force C-17A Globemaster III cargo aircraft to deliver them first to forward locations.

With this in mind, the Navy is already eyeing a follow-on DCS Next and wants that improved design to be deployable from a Virginia class attack submarine. Concept art that has been released so far shows what appears to be a mini-submarine with the ability to dock externally on the hull of its mothership submarine. This is how the Navy had expected to employ the abortive ASDS. It's not clear whether the service plans to subsequently modify its initial DCSs to that future configuration, or how feasible that might be.

An artist's conception of the follow-on DCS Next. SOCOM

Regardless, after the better part of a decade of work on DCS, and decades more before that on designs intended to provide similar capabilities, the Navy now has a way to transport SEALs and other special operations forces to and from their destinations in an all-new level of comfort.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

thedrive.com · by Joseph Trevithick · July 24, 2023

16. Retired admirals, Project Overmatch will figure in Navy’s upcoming giant exercise

Retired admirals, Project Overmatch will figure in Navy’s upcoming giant exercise

The second annual edition of the Large Scale Exercise will feature multiple crises erupting around the world.

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

Retired admirals will join this year’s version of the U.S. Navy’s globe-spanning Large Scale Exercise, which will aim—among other things—to simulate the dynamics of fleet-to-COCOM communications.

“So one of the big differences is we weren't as robust in ’21 on the fleet commander-to-combatant commander relationship that we think is going to be crucial in a fight of a peer competitor,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, the commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, told reporters Monday. Low-density, high-demand assets—ships, subs, etc.—“are going to have to be balanced across the globe, that allocate those forces and capabilities at the right capacity, at the right timing and tempo.”

Large Scale Exercise 23, which will run from Aug. 9 to 18, will sprawl around the globe, involving more than 25,000 sailors and Marines across 22 time zones and six geographical combatant commands. Run from the Navy Warfare Development Center at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, this second edition of the naval exercise will require more than a thousand people just to run it.

Among them will be more than a dozen active and retired senior officers, who will advise the scenario runners portraying defense leaders and command staffers and help simulate the stressful dynamics of senior decision-making. One is James Foggo, former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Africa; another is Scott Swift, former U.S. Pacific Fleet commander.

This year’s Large Scale Exercise will aim to continue rehearsing and developing various relatively new naval operating concepts: distributed maritime operations, or DMO; littoral operations in a contested environment, or LOCE; and expeditionary advanced base operations, or EABO.

Marines based in Cherry Point, North Carolina, will run the Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar and serve at the tactical level for those concepts, according to Marine Lt. Col. Robert Shuford, a spokesman with Marine Forces Command.

“With DMO, we need to be able to one, distribute our forces—we need to be able to dynamically maneuver them while they're operating. At the same time, they all have to remain integrated with one another. So that's a challenge. So, we need to work toward that and that's one of the main pieces of this exercise,” Navy Capt. Chris Narducci, LSE 23’s lead planner, said Monday.

The exercise will again be interlinked through the Navy’s live-virtual-constructive training environment, allowing participants to join from wherever they are around the globe and be positioned virtually wherever the exercise needs.

LSE23 will involve nine maritime operations centers, six carrier strike groups, three amphibious readiness groups, and 25 live ships and submarines—plus more than 50 “virtual ships,” according to a presentation about the exercise.

While the officials would not discuss the exact scenario for the exercise, Caudle said it will involve “a very aggressive, percolating event” that eventually leads to conflict. When war erupts, other enemies will attempt to take advantage. These multiple events around the world will ensure that the various participating commands “are fairly challenged in this. And that’s what tensions the resources that we have and making sure we’re getting the allocation correct,” he said.

Caudle said the exercise incorporates lessons from Ukraine, including how to best posture forces for deterrence or offensive missions based on indications and warnings from intelligence.

“So it's the relationship…between the intelligence communities, our ability to process that at our maritime operations centers, our ability to work with our component commanders and combat commander relationships, to posture forces most effectively,” he said. “So, I think the Ukraine conflict with Russia illustrates the need to be able to do that efficiently.”

U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Marine Forces Europe will be able to incorporate their recent real-world experiences into the exercise, said Lt. Gen. Brian Cavanaugh, the commander of Marine Forces Command.

The exercise will test communications technologies deployed to ships under the Navy’s Project Overmatch, said Caudle, who declined to go into detail. LSE23 participants that have been testing Overmatch capabilities include the Carl Vinson carrier strike group.

“And the fact that we're bringing that to bear in this live, virtual, constructed manner allows us to try to test some Overmatch capabilities that we maybe couldn't do in real world just because the situation wouldn't necessarily lend itself to that during an actual deployment,” he said.

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

17. Why the U.S. still needs ground forces in Europe

Why the U.S. still needs ground forces in Europe

Moscow’s setbacks notwithstanding, refocusing on China would be a mistake.

By ANDREW RADIN and GIAN GENTILE

JULY 23, 2023

defenseone.com · by Andrew Radin

Russia has faced several setbacks since its February 2022 attack on Ukraine: an estimated hundred thousand military casualties, including to some of its best units; the recent mutiny by Prighozin’s Wagner troops; and the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive, which is slowly gaining ground. With these losses, the threat of a Russian attack against the NATO alliance has decreased, which has led some to argue that the U.S. should draw down its forces in Europe and focus on China’s more formidable threat. We'll promote it on social media and give it a push in tomorrow morning's newsletters.

But the bulked-up U.S. presence will remain necessary for at least three to five years, for at least three reasons: to preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty, to sustain U.S. commitments to NATO, and to encourage the development of partner nation capabilities that will eventually enable greater burden-sharing among allies.

A decade ago, the U.S. presence in Europe had shrunk to about 60,000 troops, a fraction of the Cold War posture that stationed 285,000 U.S. military personnel in Germany alone. But after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, the United States and its NATO allies positioned more forces on NATO’s eastern front. Among other units, the U.S. Army deployed a rotational armored brigade combat team to Poland, along with a division headquarters, and part of a combat aviation brigade.

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. dispatched another 20,000 personnel to Europe, including two more rotational brigade combat teams and another division headquarters. Gen. Chris Cavoli, commander of U.S. European Command, recently justified this troop increase by focusing on the need to deter further Russian aggression, noting that “Russian ground forces from the Western Military District retain a size advantage over regional military and NATO forces on the eastern flank.”

While these additional forces may help deter Russia from attacking NATO, they have critical roles beyond that.

The first is facilitating U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, including training Ukrainian personnel. The start of Ukraine’s counteroffensive might seem like an opportunity to reduce U.S. support to Kyiv, especially given Moscow’s weaknesses, as demonstrated by Prigozin’s mutiny. Yet the war may continue for months, or even years. To avoid compromising Ukraine’s military prospects, any decision to reduce U.S. forces focused on enabling the supply and training of the Ukrainians should follow, rather than precede, Ukrainian military success.

A second role for U.S. forces in Europe, and throughout the world, is crisis response. The 173rd Airborne Brigade, one of the two permanently stationed brigade combat teams in Europe, has the explicit mission to serve as a crisis-response force for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Shrinking the force could compromise missions such as non-combatant evacuations, which require the rapid deployment of troops.

A third continuing mission of the U.S. Army in Europe is to provide forces to frontline countries. Last year, NATO decided to send new forces to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia after Russia’s renewed aggression. The alliance is also exploring making these brigade, rather than battalion-size formations—as Germany has already done in Lithuania. Even if Russian forces are weaker, the ongoing war creates uncertainties, as the errant missile strike in Poland already demonstrated. Given the emphasis on allies and partners in the U.S. National Defense Strategy, the U.S. skimping on its commitments could weaken these countries own willingness to commit their troops to collective NATO missions. Whether or not other NATO countries are supplying some of those forces, U.S. Army troops are critical to meet NATO’s forward-position commitment, particularly given the limited readiness of European forces.

Which raises a fourth critical role that U.S. military presence contributes: the overall strengthening of European forces. U.S. presence directly facilitates the buildup of the strength of European forces, as in the case of the Abrams Tank Training Academy in Poland, as well as the participation of U.S. units in multinational exercises. NATO. If the goal is to increase burden sharing by European allies, reducing U.S. forces that are responsible for strengthening those forces will not help that goal.

The presence of U.S. forces draws additional critical, albeit more abstract, benefits. The scale of U.S. forces on the continent is a key ingredient to U.S. influence in NATO institutions. Without the glue of U.S. strategic thinking to anchor the alliance, NATO would probably struggle to develop coherent military policies and plans. If the U.S. were to diminish its own contributions, it would also undermine the message the U.S. is currently giving to its allies that greater military investments are needed to maintain security in Europe.

To be sure, there is good reason to be concerned that an increased U.S. presence encourages more free-riding from other NATO countries. The more U.S. forces present, the argument goes, the less European countries invest in their own defense. But it is unclear what European countries would do if U.S. forces were to leave entirely, and the risk of finding out could be high. What is clear is that many European countries simply cannot substitute their own forces for U.S. ones in the next three to five years, and that a premature U.S. departure could heavily undercut the development of European forces.

The cost of keeping U.S. forces in Europe must also be matched against the benefits that the United States might recoup from reducing its troop count. Even advocates of reduction agree that the concrete costs of the U.S.’s European presence are small—on the order of hundreds of millions, not billions—relative to the overall defense budget. Further, that the primarily light infantry and armored formations present in Europe would probably not add as much value in the primarily naval and air contingencies imagined in a conflict with China. Advocates of troop reduction argue instead that the long-term focus on Europe distorts incentives to procure weaponry relevant to China. While the value of weapon systems to different theaters is a complex issue, such critiques do not directly challenge the short-term value of keeping forces in Europe.

Any suggestion to reduce U.S. presence in the near term should be clear about specifically what activity should be cut: support to Ukraine, crisis response, U.S. commitments to frontline states, or training and exercising with NATO allies. None of these cuts are likely to be desirable, or easy, for policy makers. All will likely result in backlash from allied countries. It may ultimately, in fact, prove to be more cost efficient to maintain forces in Europe for contingencies around the world, rather than eventually bring those forces home. But so long as there is an active war in Ukraine and other urgent tasks, maintaining the current U.S. presence in Europe is, for now, critical—and will remain critical for at least the next three to five years.

Andrew Radin is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

Gian Gentile is deputy director of the RAND Army Research Division.

defenseone.com · by Andrew Radin

18.  Mark Milley’s bureaucratic proposals could lose us the next war

Mark Milley’s bureaucratic proposals could lose us the next war

BY SETH CROPSEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 07/24/23 7:00 AM ET

The Hill · · July 24, 2023

General Mark Milley, the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is about to retire after a four-year term and a 43-year career of military service. It is therefore telling that a man with such a long career would, to cement his legacy, recommend establishing a “Leader of a Joint Futures Organization” — that is, a sort of “future jointness czar.”

Milley’s argument, in the just-published issue of Joint Force Quarterly, demonstrates the U.S. military’s direction — one that undermines the power of the services and centralizes strategic, operational and technological development within a pseudo general staff. This will create a military organization incapable of adapting to future conflict and reacting to unexpected technological change.

Milley’s proposals, in short, will lose the U.S. its next war.

Few positions in the American state have as much cultural power as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. That is to say, the position has immense influence on the thinking, structure, processes and direction of an immense organization — in this case, the U.S. security system — in shifting it toward a new objective. Milley’s views must therefore be read carefully.

The U.S. security system is in need of a refresh. It faces two concurrent challenges: first, the intensification of Eurasian strategic competition, and second, a shift in the character of war.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged strategic contestation into the open. No longer can the Western policy class claim that conflict is largely restrained to subversion, manipulation and so-called “salami-slicing” and hybrid warfare. Monarchies may largely be dead, but their final argument remains. The Eurasian revisionist powers — Russia, China and Iran — all seek to transform the Eurasian security system, eject the U.S. from the landmass and thereby impose their will on the world. This end involves war, or more likely, multiple wars.

General Milley makes a similar observation, although without explicitly identifying the probability of conflict. Yet the general framing is similar enough to demonstrate strategic rationality, that is, a grasp of the obvious: Great power war is increasingly probable, and therefore must again dominate the strategic attention of American defense policy.

Milley’s second point is that a shift in the character of war is underway, driven by a variety of technologies such as artificial intelligence, unmanned systems and precision fire. These necessitate a new intellectual approach to the conduct of war.

He is correct in the main on this count. But his argument is curious: He identifies a mish-mash of technologies without making any effort to prioritize them, then immediately turns to harmonization between the services as his solution to the new combat environment.

Milley’s case for inter-service harmonization is, more specifically, a case for a wholly joint approach to doctrinal, technological and strategic development. It rests not upon new technology, but on technology that came into being during the Cold War. Milley’s point of departure is AirLand Battle, the doctrine that assisted the flowering of operational theory in U.S. military practice. Milley’s criticism of AirLand Battle is that it was insufficiently joint — it never included a naval role, nor did it delineate properly between aerial and ground responsibility for long-range fires.

This criticism is telling in that Milley’s argument does not actually rest upon the new technologies he mentions. Rather, it rests on the assumption that the greatest change in modern warfare in the last century is the development of jointness itself, embodied in an empowered chairman and the centralization of force design and doctrinal development in the Joint Staff.

Alongside the empowered chairman stands an empowered Office of the Secretary of Defense — one that seeks to deprive the services of the ability to guide their own force structures, and which tightly controls doctrinal developments alongside the Joint Staff. Recall how, in 2020, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper closed down the Navy’s effort to discuss the future role of aircraft carriers.

In pursuit of centralizing force design and doctrine, Milley’s key proposal, and his parting advice for the Armed Forces, is to establish a lead for joint force transformation, a position that will lead the military’s technological transition and, implicitly, completely swallow joint warfighting development.

Such an approach to military affairs rests on a premise for which General Milley provides neither evidence nor a persuasive argument. If an organization can accurately forecast the developments in military technology and invest with near-perfect anticipation, then one can control an enormous institution such as the U.S. military from the top down. Each service can be remade in the pursuit of a truly joint vision, with seamless integration between air, sea, land, space and cyber capabilities. In effect, this would create a Unified Armed Forces, with no need for organizational distinctions between the services.

The danger is that military technology is not obvious enough to be predictable, and predictions are not accurate enough to justify a comprehensive, systematic force structure dedicated to a single threat.

The U.S., after all, faces several threats. They are linked at the grand strategic level through the framing of the Eurasian landmass, but they are distinct in their different political and geographic contexts. This points to a need for different force structures. Unmanned systems and autonomy have unmistakable centrality to future combat, for example, but these two factors will change depending upon the enemy, and in turn upon different warfighting domains.

Warfare is the most complex of human activities. The combination of violence and the passions that violence entails, the essential elements of chance stemming from friction, the fog of war, and other chaotic elements, and the overriding objectives of policy — always in fluid dialogue with the military balance — make warfare supremely difficult to understand. The lessons of the World Wars are still debated today, despite a wealth of data about 20th-century combat. With even less data today, accurate prediction becomes far more difficult.

It is not only mistaken but also dangerous to assume that any centralized, specific analytical function within the U.S. military can predict the future of warfare accurately enough to transform the joint force.

There are several debates to which the Ukraine War has contributed but which nevertheless remain unsettled: the role of mass on the modern battlefield, the relative power of the offense and defense in an age of persistent reconnaissance, the way electromagnetic effects must be sequenced and related to ground operations, just to name a few. The conclusions one might draw in these debates, moreover, have unclear relevance to maritime operations. Humility is in order, not centralization.

The more prudent choice would be to empower the services, and the service departments, to think creatively within the domains they understand best. Every field grade and flag officer serves in a variety of joint capacities. But their career paths naturally make them specialists. Combat is complicated, and it is crucial to ensure that each officer knows well the demands of his share of the task.

Of course, there must also be an overall force design in mind, developed from and articulated by the chairman, the joint staff, and the secretary of Defense. But this design must incorporate insights from the services in their own analytical assessments. The services must be free to experiment independently in a manner essentially impossible since the late 1980s.

More minds investigating smaller slices of an extraordinarily complex problem will have a far better shot at finding useful insight than a much smaller set of investigators whose dedication to “harmonization” exceeds an experienced knowledge of their service’s abilities. The joint staff and Secretary of Defense should sift the insights of the Services, not control the Services and impose rigid structures upon them,

The rigid, centralized model has been tried before — France implemented it throughout the interwar period. The French general staff dominated all doctrinal and force structure development, applying the seemingly sacrosanct insight of the First World War that massed firepower was insurmountable.

The French approach was less wrong than incomplete. Germany understood that maneuver was possible if forces were decentralized and air, armor, and artillery combined. The result was the Fall of France.

Equally, Germany’s approach was ultimately incomplete. The Soviets realized that maneuver alone was insufficient, absent a systematic operational design behind it with properly organized echelons. Soviet victory, of course, came at the price of nearly 9 million military (and more than twice as many civilian) deaths. Even with the proper intellectual insight, adaptation took time.

Great job, Mr. President! Time to retire. Reaganomics versus Bidenomics

Centralizing force design through a “future jointness czar” is not strategic wisdom — it is hubristic, bureaucratic policymaking. The danger is that the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the next Secretary of Defense, are too blinded by their conviction in the arc of technological change that they commit the U.S. military to the wrong transformational program.

Jointness is useful in creating a military force whose cooperation in training multiplies effectiveness in combat. But as the author of force design and doctrine for all the military services, it would be a disaster to trade experience for “harmonization.”

Seth Cropsey is founder and president of Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy Undersecretary of the Navy and is the author of Mayday: The Decline of American Naval Supremacy and Seablindness: How Political Neglect is Choking American Seapower and What to Do about it.

The Hill · by Emily Brooks · July 24, 2023

19. Senator Tommy Tuberville’s Dangerous Military Promotion Ploy

Conclusion:

In sum, the lives and careers of military officers are not a bargaining chip to achieve a desired social outcome. Tuberville’s dangerous ploy harms civil-military relations, undermines military readiness, and damages military retention. He should withdraw his halt on promotions and allow these talented military officers—and their families—to continue on with their careers and their lives.

Senator Tommy Tuberville’s Dangerous Military Promotion Ploy - Just Security

justsecurity.org · by Mark Nevitt · July 25, 2023

July 25, 2023

For many U.S. military officers selected for promotion, 2023 is turning out to be the summer of discontent. With no shortage of threats facing the nation, a military promotion blockade in the Senate has emerged as a full-blown national security crisis. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is exercising his authority under Senate rules to halt the promotion of 270 senior military promotions. This number is poised to explode to 650 by the year’s end. With just 852 general and flag officers in the U.S. military, 76% of the nation’s most senior officers are on pace to not be Senate-confirmed by the end of the year. Why the delay? Tuberville disagrees with the Pentagon’s reproductive health care access policy that was issued following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.

As retired NATO commander Admiral James Stavridis lamented, this is “immensely distracting to national security.” The Pentagon is already suffering from a historic recruiting and retention crisis due to myriad factors largely outside the federal government’s control. Tuberville’s actions amount to a self-inflicted wound that will do nothing to alleviate those challenges. Injecting a partisan social issue into senior military promotions is inconsistent with civil-military norms, runs contrary to historic practice, and harms military families. It also undermines due process and basic principles of fairness owed to service members and their families who have selflessly served the nation for decades.

To be clear, the Senate has an important role in the officer promotion process. The Constitution’s Appointments Clause makes clear that the President nominates “officers of the United States,” but this nomination is subject to the Advice and Consent of the Senate. And Congress has an important role in ensuring civilian control of the military more generally. As I have argued before, this is a role that should be reinvigorated, particularly in the war powers context.

For officers serving in “positions of importance and responsibility” these promotions and Senate confirmation are inextricably linked to the position in which they are appointed. Under current law, officers serving in the rank of three and four stars hold that paygrade only while serving in these positions of importance and responsibility. Failure to be quickly promoted to another Senate confirmed position after being relieved could jeopardize the officers’ paygrade and career, adding considerable stress and anxiety.

What’s more, non-Senate-confirmed officers can hold these positions, but only in an Acting capacity. Acting officers do have legal authority to make changes, but are unlikely to take bold initiatives. As the DOJ wrote in 1982, an Acting officer’s “stature as a practical matter is . . . somewhat inferior. He is frequently considered merely a caretaker without a mandate to take far reaching measures.”

Outside Civil-Military Norms

What is driving this Pentagon upheaval? Tuberville objects to the Pentagon’s policy on access to reproductive health care. Signed in October 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s memo directs DOD to take the following actions:

Establish travel and transportation allowances for Service members and their dependents, as appropriate and consistent with applicable federal law and operational requirements, and as necessary amend any applicable travel regulations, to facilitate official travel to access noncovered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of a Service member’s permanent duty station. (emphasis added)

Consistent with longstanding federal travel regulations, the policy allows military service members and their dependents to travel outside their permanent duty station (PDS) for reproductive health care that is not available locally. The issue of reproductive health access is particularly important for troops and their families serving in one of the growing number of states that have outlawed abortions and related access to reproductive health care. Since the Dobbs decision, two out of the three states with the largest military bases (Fort Cavazos in Texas and Fort Campbell in Kentucky) have banned abortion.

Tuberville argues that the Pentagon policy violates the Hyde Amendment, a 1977 legislative amendment that limits federal abortion funding. The Hyde Amendment states that DOD and other federal agencies can use funds to perform abortions only in limited circumstances, such as when the life of a mother is at risk or in cases of rape or incest. It expressly prohibits military medical facilities from performing such operations.

But what about funding to travel to health facilities—does the new DOD policy violate the Hyde Amendment, as some have argued? The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) says no. The OLC wrote in October 2022 that “the DoD may lawfully expend funds to pay for service members and their dependents to travel to obtain abortions that DoD cannot itself perform due to statutory restrictions.”

Not surprisingly, Tuberville disagrees with the OLC opinion, but he has not exercised his legislative authority to change Austin’s policy. Indeed, there have been 862 Senate-sponsored amendments to the 2024 defense spending bill, but Tuberville has not introduced a single one. Nor has he asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to issue a separate opinion on the fiscal law issues surrounding the Austin memo. The GAO has shown a willingness to do this in other contentious national security issues. For example, in 2014 the GAO opined that DOD violated the Anti-Deficiency Act when it expended federal funds to transfer individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay.

Couldn’t the Senate vote on each nominee individually, as Tuberville suggested? That’s not impossible, but this would likely tie up the Senate for months based on existing Senate rules and the legislative calendar.

One can agree or disagree with the wisdom of the post-Dobbs travel and leave policy or even critique the underlying OLC opinion. But halting promotions to make a point about a contentious social issue is far outside the bounds of civil-military relations. Never before in American history has one person held up so many senior promotions for so long. It leaves, by one estimate, the Department of Defense with more “temporary occupants than at any point in its history.”

Harming Military Families

It is difficult to overstate the debilitating impacts Tuberville’s promotion blockade has on officer morale, military readiness, and family security. Indeed, this has ripple effects for personnel awaiting follow-on assignments. Everything comes to a standstill. Military families suffer the most. When and where will they be able to move? Can they enroll their children in school? Should they buy or rent a new home? Should a spouse look for or start a new job?

In an exhaustive study, the Army found that the effects of Army life on families and their spouses were the most important reasons why people left the military. Tuberville’s actions exacerbate these underlying realities. Military service is hard enough on families without the anxiety and uncertainty that these delays inflict on officers and their families—a point reinforced by seven former Secretaries of Defense and by Army War College Professor Carrie Lee.

Immediate National Security Impacts: Personnel as Policy

Having the best qualified people in leadership positions is absolutely essential for warfighting and meeting the enormous national security challenges facing the nation. Particularly at the highest levels, personnel is policy—outstanding personnel choices equate to sound national security decision-making. These senatorial hijinks could not come at a worse time for the U.S. military—the Ukraine counteroffensive is stalled, China continues with illegal annexations in the Indo-Pacific, and the Persian Gulf has witnessed an uptick in Iranian aggression. What’s more, the highest military officer—the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—is slated for turnover this summer. This promotion logjam is poised to be a highway pileup with the nominations of the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force scheduled to come before the Senate in the coming months. It also blocks the historic promotion of Admiral Lisa Franchetti to head the U.S. Navy. She is on the cusp of being the first female Chief of Naval Operations in the Navy’s nearly 250 year history.

The personnel collateral damage has already impacted the U.S. Marine Corps, which is without a Senate-approved Commandant for the first time in 100 years. General David Berger recently retired as the Commandant of the Marine Corps in a “relinquishment of office” ceremony – not a change of office where the office’s full responsibilities and authorities are handed to a new Commandant. Practically, Senate confirmation provides job security and freedom to issue strategic guidance without the fear of ruffling any one Senator’s feathers. For example, is the current Acting Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Eric Smith, going to follow his predecessor’s lead and issue bold strategic guidance prior to confirmation? This is exceedingly unlikely.

Undermining Due Process and Contrary to DOD Guidance

Outside the Senate Rules, the existing Pentagon instruction provides meticulous detail and guidance on when an officer’s promotion can be “removed” from promotion officer lists, “withheld” from nomination, or “delayed” from final appointment and promotion. While this does not bind the Senate, it highlights the stakes behind any promotion delay and broad principles of fairness and due process owed to each service member. Critically, the Pentagon recognizes that taking any promotion action must be tied to outstanding questions concerning underlying officer conduct. For example, an officer’s promotion can be delayed if the officer is facing criminal charges, or if “there is cause to believe the officer is mentally, physically, morally, or professionally unqualified to perform the duties of the grade to which they have been selected.”

DOD personnel laws provide sound due process rights of notice and comment and require each service to establish “fair and equitable procedures” to protect the rights of the affected officer. For example, if an officer’s promotion is delayed, they must be provided with written notice of the underlying cause of the delay and given a reasonable opportunity to submit a written statement. The existing personnel promotion system features an impressive underlying fairness and seeks to balance due process rights of the affected officer with ensuring the best qualified officer is promoted. It is fair, equitable, transparent, and conscious of the human dimension behind each promotion.

To be sure, there have been instances when the Senate has held up multiple promotions—this occurred in the early 1990s during the Tailhook scandal and, most recently, during the Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA) scandal. These promotion actions, however, related to questions of the officers’ underlying conduct, not a larger social issue over which the officer has no control.

Under Tuberville’s application of the Senate Rules, there is simply no due process provided to affected officers, whose careers are on hold, perhaps forever.

Harming Military Retention—Particularly for Women Service Members

Secretary Austin has made clear that restrictions on reproductive health will interfere with the military’s “ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force.” The United States already has a recruitment crisis in the military; just 23% of 17-24 year old’s are qualified for military service. The All-Volunteer Force (AVF) has served the nation well, but make no mistake: the military is in competition to retain top talent. This partisan brinkmanship may be the final straw for top junior officers to stay in uniform—a point recently made by Air Force General C.Q. Brown. He stated that Tuberville’s action reflects a growing politicization of the military that will cause the military to “lose talent.” This is particularly pronounced for female service members who are already 28 percent more likely to leave military service than men.

In sum, the lives and careers of military officers are not a bargaining chip to achieve a desired social outcome. Tuberville’s dangerous ploy harms civil-military relations, undermines military readiness, and damages military retention. He should withdraw his halt on promotions and allow these talented military officers—and their families—to continue on with their careers and their lives.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this piece misstated the date the DOD policy was signed.

IMAGE: Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) speaks to reporters in the Senate subway at the U.S. Capitol July 10, 2023 in Washington, DC. Tuberville was asked about his decision to block hundreds of promotions for high-ranking generals and officials in the U.S. military due to his opposition to a Pentagon policy ensuring abortion access for service members. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

justsecurity.org · by Mark Nevitt · July 25, 2023

20. Outspoken Chinese foreign minister purged by Xi Jinping

Outspoken Chinese foreign minister purged by Xi Jinping

Qin Gang not seen in public since June Blinken meeting

washingtontimes.com · by Bill Gertz

By - The Washington Times - Tuesday, July 25, 2023

China’s government dismissed Foreign Minister Qin Gang from his post on Tuesday with no explanation after the minister’s mysterious disappearance from public view last month, state media reported.

Officials and analysts said the unusual firing is a sign of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s unchecked power and the fleeting nature of promotions among senior officials in Beijing’s communist system.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Mr. Qin, a former high-profile ambassador to Washington, was removed from the position after just seven months for unspecified reasons after an unusual meeting of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, the Chinese Communist Party-controlled legislature.

Wang Yi, director of the Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission, who had been filling in for Mr. Qin during the mysterious absence, was appointed foreign minister. Mr. Wang held the post from 2013 until December. The NPC’s decision to remove Mr. Qin was based on a presidential order signed by Mr. Xi, Xinhua said.

The removal of Mr. Qin is a stunning reversal for the Chinese official, who until recently enjoyed a meteoric rise through the Beijing hierarchy and was reportedly personally close to Mr. Xi.

On Capitol Hill, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, Texas Republican, said the ouster of the foreign minister is a sign of the unchecked power of Mr. Xi, who is serving an unprecedented third five-year term as president and head of the ruling Communist Party.

“Qin Gang’s disappearance and eventual replacement demonstrates the full scope of Chairman Xi’s power and the ruthlessness of the [Chinese] bureaucracy – anyone can go, at any point, for any reason,” Mr. McCaul told The Washington Times.

He said it was troubling that the Biden administration was touting its good relations with Mr. Qin, who met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken for six hours last month on what was widely billed as a fence-mending trip.

“I warned the Biden administration against placing too much hope in engagement with [Chinese Communist Party] officials, for this shows that they can change the next day,” Mr. McCaul said. After Mr. Blinken’s trip, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and top White House climate adviser John Kerry visited Beijing.

Taken by surprise

A senior Biden administration official said Mr. Qin’s disappearance was a surprise because he appeared to be close to Mr. Xi. At 57, Mr. Qin was young for a senior party and government official. During two stints as Foreign Ministry spokesman, he earned a reputation as a leading Chinese “wolf warrior” diplomat unafraid to defend Beijing’s nationalist policies and reject Western criticism of China.

Mr. Qin’s meeting with Mr. Blinken on June 18 was supposed to be the first step in the administration’s diplomatic charm offensive to improve communications with China. A week after the meeting, Mr. Qin disappeared from public view and missed several diplomatic events, fueling speculation that he ran afoul of senior leaders because of a political error that led to a purging.

“He’s very much disliked by the Foreign Ministry,” the senior official said. “He rocketed up because of his personal relationship with Xi.”

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy had no immediate comment.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry website started “updating” a page devoted to the foreign minister. The statement announcing the personnel shift still referred to Mr. Qin as a Cabinet-level state councilor, despite the loss of his top diplomatic post.

Former State Department official Miles Yu said Mr. Qin’s ouster highlights the byzantine nature of power struggles within the ruling Communist Party.

“No one is safe from the precarious whims of the supreme leader and the paranoid ethos of the deadly machinations in the inner core of the regime,” said Mr. Yu, now director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute.

The official news agency said Mr. Qin was fired along with Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China. It is not known whether the two dismissals were related.

Also during the session, a draft amendment to a criminal law was reviewed. The amendment seeks to better implement CCP “principles and policies regarding the fight against corruption and the protection of private enterprises in accordance with the law,” the news agency said. The amendment related to bribery and corruption among business people.

The senior U.S. administration official said Mr. Qin’s wife once made mooncakes, a Chinese seasonal dessert, and the couple presented them to Mr. Xi. The action appeared to be the starting point for Mr. Qin’s rapid rise to prominence.

Mr. Qin, 57, was then promoted from a kind of press aide and personal assistant for Mr. Xi to ambassador to the U.S. and then to his appointment in December succeeding Mr. Wang as foreign minister.

From 2014 to 2018, Mr. Qin helped bolster Mr. Xi’s image by adopting new red uniforms for presidential guards and adding trumpets during ceremonies involving the president.

“[Qin] helped build and buttress Xi’s personal brand and leadership, and together with others designed all the accouterments of power,” the senior official said.

Paranoia

David Stilwell, an assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the Trump administration, said the Qin ouster is a sign that the level of paranoia in Beijing is reaching levels not seen since the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s.

“Qin Gang was touted as a close associate of Xi Jinping when he got to D.C., but even close friends don’t seem to be above suspicion,” Mr. Stilwell said.

Mr. Stilwell said Lin Biao, a close aide to Mao Zedong, and Wang Lijun, a senior CCP official in Chongqing, were powerful officials who fell out of favor and were eliminated.

“All of Xi Jinping’s efforts to show his socialism with Chinese characteristics model as a better form of governance are falling apart,” he said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry first explained that the minister was absent from public view because he had contracted COVID-19. That theory was dismissed after the normal period for recovery passed.

Later reports said his absence resulted from the discovery of an affair with a female reporter, Fu Xiaotian, of Phoenix Television, a state-controlled network. Chinese censors took down Ms. Fu’s social media posts showing images with Mr. Qin.

Ms. Fu hosts Phoenix’s program called “Talk With World Leaders.” A YouTube post showed her interviewing Mr. Qin in Washington when he was Chinese ambassador.

The online newsletter SpyTalk said Mr. Qin may have fathered a child out of wedlock with the reporter.

Former State Department official John J. Tkacik said Mr. Qin, unlike most other diplomats, did not graduate from the China Foreign Affairs University. Instead, he was educated at the University of International Relations, which is linked to the Chinese intelligence services.

Mr. Qin was an outspoken critic of the United States and sharply condemned the U.S. downing of a suspected surveillance balloon earlier this year. He called the military response an overreaction to an errant weather balloon.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said last week that the U.S. government had no information on Mr. Qin’s whereabouts.

Dennis Wilder, a former CIA analyst and China specialist, said Mr. Wang’s appointment as foreign minister was “the safest choice possible” for the Chinese communist system.

“Well-known around the world, he will project continuity in Chinese foreign policy,” Mr. Wilder said on Twitter. “Xi needs to reassure the globe that there is no deep problem in the Chinese leadership, that Qin Gang’s problems are personal, not national.”

• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.

Copyright © 2023 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

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washingtontimes.com · by Bill Gertz

21. Greensburg WWII veteran braved armed foes, harsh jungle conditions with Merrill's Marauders

Remember those who came before us and blazed the trail.

Greensburg WWII veteran braved armed foes, harsh jungle conditions with Merrill's Marauders

americanmilitarynews.com · by Jeff Himler - Tribune Review · July 24, 2023

Walter Krautz

Greensburg

1919-1986

Walter Krautz survived the jungle, but the sacrifices he made during a World War II mission behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia didn’t end once he was back home in Greensburg.

“When he came back, he had malaria,” said his daughter, Linda West of Hempfield. “He was so sick.”

During his extended time engaged in jungle warfare in 1944, Krautz suffered from malnutrition, losing his teeth as a result, his daughter said.

He also contended with post-traumatic stress disorder, including recurring nightmares.

“That was really hard on him,” West said. “He would wake up in the middle of the night screaming from terrible dreams.”

Krautz was one of nearly 3,000 soldiers who volunteered for the hazardous mission in Japanese-held Burma with a special unit. Formally designated as the 5307th Composite Unit, they became better known as Merrill’s Marauders, after their commander, Brig. Gen. Frank D. Merrill.

“They were the original Army Rangers back in the day,” said West’s husband, David.

Operating in the country now known as Myanmar, the unit completed a grueling 1,000-mile trek on foot, packing supplies on mules. It captured an airfield in the northern part of the country and disorganized Japanese supply lines and communications, clearing the way for advancing Chinese allies.

But those achievements came at a high price, as the Marauders suffered more than 80% casualties, chiefly from disease.

A sergeant in charge of other troops, Krautz rescued a wounded fellow soldier from New Jersey.

“The guy got shot in the leg, and my dad pulled him to safety,” Linda West said.

Krautz escaped injury at the hands of the enemy, but he shared in the miserable conditions his unit experienced in the wilderness.

“Being in the swamp, it was just unbelievable,” said West. “They used to use cigarettes to burn off the leeches.”

Her father’s helmet was useful for preparing makeshift meals as well as for protection. Melted chocolate and rice were some of the items on his limited menu, she said.

Though he didn’t talk much about his wartime experiences until later in life, Krautz was proud of his military service.

He displayed a tattoo of the Marauders emblem on his shoulder and often recalled that he was “rough and tough in the Army,” his daughter said.

As he’d done during his nearly four years in the service, Krautz persevered as a civilian in Greensburg. Born in 1919 in Derry Township, the son of a Ukrainian immigrant, he worked as a miner and later drove cement and gravel trucks for a Greensburg company.

He became known as a skilled handyman and jack-of-all-trades among family and friends.

“He built his home from scratch, and he would help other people build their houses,” West said. “He was crazy about cement. He did our driveway, the sidewalk and all around our pool.”

Krautz and his wife, Mary, who died in 2013, had three children, one of whom died shortly after birth.

He often took the family to Ocean City, Md., West said, where he swam in the Atlantic — reliving ocean dips he’d enjoyed while in the Army.

In addition to hunting and fishing, Krautz looked forward to golf outings with West’s son, Brian, who now is 47.

“When my son was born, he said, ‘Now I’ve got a golfing buddy,'” West said.

Krautz died at age 66, just four years after retiring.

West keeps his legacy alive by wearing a T-shirt designed for “proud descendants” of Marauders members. Her husband arranged to have Krautz’s name and image included on one of the Hometown Hero banners displayed along downtown Greensburg streets.

Krautz’s military honors include a Bronze Star Medal awarded for exemplary service against an armed enemy and a Presidential Unit Citation.

___

(c) 2023 Tribune-Review

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

americanmilitarynews.com · by Jeff Himler - Tribune Review · July 24, 2023

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