Quotes of the Day:
"If you are able to state a problem, it can be solved."
- Edwin H. Land
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
- Thomas Szasz
"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
- Soren Kierkegaard
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 12 (PUTIN'S WAR)
2. Ukraine War Update - April 13, 2022 | SOF News
3. 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
4. Biden: Russia war a 'genocide,' trying to 'wipe out' Ukraine
5. Pentagon: ‘Roughly 8 to 10 Flights a Day’ Full of Aid for Ukraine Pouring into Europe
6. Pentagon leaders to meet Wednesday with top defense contractors about Ukraine
7. FDD | Senate Unanimously Approves Lend-Lease Act to Expedite Aid to Ukraine
8. FDD | Justice Department Disrupts Russian Malware With Help from Private Sector
9. As war rages in Ukraine, how much has the US learned from Vietnam?
10. FDD | Iran’s Centrifuge Manufacturing Goes Underground
11. Russia is not the only nation threatening its neighbors
12. FDD | Biden, like Obama, talks tough but does little about Putin’s war crimes
13. The Army has a program that lets you try out for Special Forces right off the street, but not all Green Berets are fans of it
14. Taiwan issues first war survival handbook amid China threat
15. Opinion | The Marine Corps' culture has to change
16. Putin is holding GPS hostage – Here’s how to get it back
17. INTO THE MILITARY METAVERSE: An empty buzzword or a virtual resource for the Pentagon?
18. A Ukrainian State of Mind
19. Opinion | What Do We Do if Putin Uses Chemical Weapons?
20. Pentagon looks to vastly expand weapons for Ukraine
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 12 (PUTIN'S WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 12 (putin's war)
Frederick W. Kagan, Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, and George Barros
April 12, 5:30pm ET
Russia continued offensive operations in eastern Ukraine on a limited basis as it worked to reconstitute forces withdrawn from the Battle of Kyiv and to establish necessary logistical bases for increased offensive operations in the Donbas area. Russian forces withdrawn from the Kyiv region have not yet been reintroduced into Ukraine to fight. The Russian military has continued to conduct small-scale limited offensive operations on the Izyum and Severodonetsk axes and has not yet gone over to a better-resourced or broader offensive campaign. The Battle of Mariupol continues even as Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of using chemical weapons on Mariupol’s defenders.
Key Takeaways
- The Russian military continues offensive operations in Donbas and is not in a pure reconstitution phase. It has not undertaken an across-the-board operational pause while waiting for reinforcements to arrive. In part, as a result, it has made limited gains while continuing to sustain significant losses.
- Mariupol has not yet fallen.
The Russian military continues efforts to reconstitute forces damaged in the failed attack on Kyiv in the Belgorod and Voronezh areas but has not yet sent those forces back into Ukraine to resume fighting. Ukrainian reports suggest that morale and will to fight remain low in some Russian units and areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on April 12 that elements of the Russian 41st Combined Arms Army and the 90th Tank Division are relocating to Belgorod and Voronezh Oblasts.[1]
The Ukrainian Defense Intelligence also claimed on April 12 that Russian troops continued to struggle with low morale and that promised financial incentives to participate in combat in Ukraine have not been delivered to some units as promised.[2] The report stated that servicemen of the 47th Guards Tank Division of the 1st Tank Army failed to receive promised additional payment for participating in operations in Ukraine and that military leadership ignored appeals for payments.[3] The Ukrainian GUR claims that Russian troops are refusing to participate in fighting due to the number of bodies returning to Russia from Ukraine and that the Russian military is shipping bodies in smaller batches to avoid causing panic in local communities.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
ISW has updated its assessment of the four primary efforts Russian forces are engaged in at this time:
- Main effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate supporting efforts);
- Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv and Izyum;
- Supporting effort 2—Southern axis;
- Supporting effort 3—Sumy and northeastern Ukraine.
Main effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate main effort—Mariupol (Russian objective: Capture Mariupol and reduce the Ukrainian defenders)
Ukrainian sources alleged that Russian troops used unspecified chemical weapons with suffocating effects on Ukrainian defenders and civilians in Mariupol on April 11.[4] ISW has not been able to independently verify these specific allegations but has repeatedly warned that Russian troops might use chemical weapons.[5] Mariupol is an optimal location in which Russian forces might use chemical weapons to demonstrate their willingness to escalate while reducing the risk that the international community could obtain incontrovertible proof of their violation of Russia’s international legal commitments to abstain from using such weapons. Russia’s encirclement of Mariupol allows Moscow to prevent outsiders from obtaining physical evidence or interviewing or examining survivors, and Russia’s control of the information coming out of Mariupol makes it difficult for survivors to show clear evidence of their symptoms to the world.
The Ukrainian defense of Mariupol continued on April 12 despite reports of dwindling Ukrainian resources and Ukrainian troops surrendering.[6] Due to the restricted information environment surrounding Mariupol, ISW cannot confirm conflicting statements made by Ukrainian officials and Russian sources regarding the state of Russian control of the Port of Mariupol.[7]
Subordinate main effort—Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces continued unsuccessful offensive operations in Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, and Popasna, primarily relying on artillery attacks, although they engaged in urban combat in Rubizhne on April 12.[8] The Ukrainian General Staff reported limited fighting in other parts of Donetsk on April 12.[9] Social media users geolocated footage released by Chechen forces on April 11 to Rubizhne, confirming the presence of Chechen Rosgvardia units in the northeastern neighborhood of the settlement.[10] The Chechen units are reportedly entrenching in the vicinity of Rubizhne, which suggests that they intend to go over to the defensive at least in some parts of the battlespace.[11] It is not yet clear why the Chechens would adopt a defensive posture at that place at this time.
Russian forces continue to deploy ad-hoc units to Donbas, with social media users observing the 2nd Cossack Battalion leaving Orenburg on April 7, but the Russian command has not yet committed new units or units previously withdrawn from other axes to the offensive.[12]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv and Izyum: (Russian objective: Advance southeast to support Russian operations in Luhansk Oblast, and fix Ukrainian forces around Kharkiv in place)
Russian forces continued to regroup in Kharkiv and reinforce their offensive operations on the Izyum axis on April 12. Unspecified units of the 1st Tank Army and the 20th Combined Arms Army deployed to the vicinity of Izyum to conduct offensive operations.[13] Russian forces continued efforts to fix Ukrainian forces in place around Kharkiv City.[14]
Supporting Effort #2—Southern axis: (Objective: Defend Kherson against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Russian forces did not make any significant territorial advances in Kherson Oblast but focused on improving defensive positions and conducting aerial reconnaissance on April 12.[15] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces showed signs of improving air defense in Melitopol on April 12.[16]
Supporting Effort #3—Sumy and Northeastern Ukraine: (Russian objective: Withdraw combat power in good order for redeployment to eastern Ukraine)
There has been no significant activity reported on this axis in the last 24 hours.
Immediate items to watch
- Russian forces will likely continue ongoing offensive operations in the Donbas region, feeding reinforcements into the fight as they become available rather than gathering reinforcements and replacements for a more coordinated and coherent offensive.
- Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol will not be able to hold out indefinitely, but it remains unclear how quickly Russia will be able to secure the city.
2. Ukraine War Update - April 13, 2022 | SOF News
Ukraine War Update - April 13, 2022 | SOF News
Curated news, analysis, and commentary about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tactical situation on the ground, Ukrainian defense, and NATO. Additional topics include refugees, internally displaced personnel, humanitarian efforts, cyber, and information operations.
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Big Picture of the Conflict
Ground Situation. The situation in Mariupol is grave – the defenders are running out of ammunition. The Russians managed to drive a wedge between defending forces – so now the Ukrainians are fighting from two different enclaves within the city and the entire city is encircled.
Fighting continues in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions in southern Ukraine. The intensity of fighting in Donbas (eastern Ukraine) will increase as more Russian reinforcements arrive. The world is focused on a very large Russian convoy located north of Izyum (60 klics away). The convoy contains C2 elements, enablers, and resupply vehicles as well as combatant vehicles (tanks and APCs). Currently, due to spring thaw, the vehicles are limited to hard-surfaced paved roads.
Once the ground dries up the Russian armor will be more maneuverable; especially in the wide, open spaces of eastern Ukraine. Russian ground forces are estimated to be at 80% strength of the initial invasion force of February 24th. However, reinforcements are on the way.
Fight for the Skies. As of Tuesday (Apr 12) the Russians have launched more than 1,540 missiles into Ukraine. Most Russian air strikes are now focused on Mariupol and the Joint Force operation area in eastern Ukraine and Donbas. The Ukrainians still have a majority of their air defense systems but they are pleading with the west for more advanced long-range air defense systems that have the ability to hit targets at higher altitudes.
Maritime Activities. The Russian navy has conducted at least one amphibious operation in the war – landing troops and equipment on the coast of Ukraine from the Sea of Azov in support of the attack on Mariupol. It has also conducted shelling and missile attacks from ships in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea. The Russian navy has imposed a blockade on all shipping in and out of Ukrainian ports. Another key role of the Russian navy is the resupply and replenishment of troops fighting in Ukraine, especially from the Sea of Azov. Read more on this in “Russian Navy Taking on Resupply Role Nearly 50 Days Into Ukrainian Invasion”, USNI News, April 11, 2022.
The United Kingdom may be providing Ukraine with anti-ship missiles; which will severely impact the ability of the Russian ships to operate off the shoreline of the Sea of Azov and Black Sea. Currently the Russians have less than a couple of dozen ships in the Black Sea. Most of them are surface combatants and there are some LSTs as well.
Tactical Situation
Kyiv. The Russians have withdrawn from the Kyiv area but some of these forces remain just across the border in Belarus and could possibly mount another attack on Kyiv. However, these units are most likely refitting for future use in eastern Ukraine in the Donbas area; or, they could remain in southern Belarus to ‘pose a threat’ which will tie down Ukrainian forces – preventing them from reinforcing the Donbas region.
Mariupol. The Azov Battalion, part of the Ukrainian National Guard, accused the Russians of using a drone to drop chemical elements on their positions. If true, this is an escalation on the part of the Russians. Governments and news agencies are scrambling to verify the claims. Some analysts believe that a riot control agent was likely dispersed by a drone over Ukrainian positions. The Russians and Syrians have been accused of using chemical weapons numerous times in the Syrian conflict. Both NATO and the U.S. have said in the past that the use of chemical weapons would merit a ‘response’. What that response would be is not known. The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is preparing for the possibility of chemical weapons use in Ukraine.
The city may fall to the Russians within the next few days. There are reports of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and Marines surrendering as they no longer have the means to fight – no ammunition and out of food. “Ukrainian Forces Still Hold Mariupol as Russians Close In”, USNI News, April 12, 2022.
General Information
Negotiations. Putin says the negotiations have reached a “dead end”. He said that the war would continue and that Russia would succeed. What ‘success’ for Russia means is still in question. Undoubtedly, Russia has not attained the war goals it desired – the capture of Kyiv and eastern Ukraine, replacement of the government with a ‘puppet’ regime, and a neutral Ukraine and weakened NATO. However, it will likely succeed in capturing the entire coastline of the Sea of Azov – providing a ‘land bridge’ from Donbas (and Russia) to Crimea.
Russia Accused of Genocide. For the first time an administration official has accused the Russians of genocide in Ukraine. This comes right from the top – out of Joe Biden’s month. We shall see if administration officials try to walk the President’s statement back or stick with it. It is difficult sometimes to figure out if things that Biden says are planned and intentional or if he is just ‘winging’ it.
“Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away.”
President Joe Biden.
Cyber and Information Operations
Russians in U.S. Find Contact with Relatives Tense. The hold that Putin’s regime has on the Russian media is affecting the relationships that Russians in the United States have with their families and friends in Russia. They are finding out just how effective Putin’s control of the press, radio, and television outlets is in as they engage in conversations with people living in the media-controlled environment. “Russians in Maine find relations strained with friends and family overseas”, Sun Journal, April 9, 2022.
Report – Social Media, Chemical Weapons, and OSINT. When a chemical event happens, information tends to appear in social media. A recently published report asks how a computational approach can enable rapid detection of chemical weapons incidents buried among millions of social media posts; how a blended computer-human approach can improve on a fully automated approach; and how to implement a social media analysis capability. A study was conducted on the use of chemical weapons in Syria between 2017 and 2018. The results of the study led to a recommendation that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) initiate three activities. Using Social Media to Extract Information About Chemical Weapons Incidents, RAND Corporation, April 2022, PDF, 108 pages.
World Response and Weapons Flow
EU Delegation. The European Union delegation to Ukraine has returned to Kyiv. Several other European embassies have also returned their staffs to Kyiv. After the February 24th invasion by Russia the Delegation of the European Union was temporarily re-located to the Polish city of Rzeszow.
Meeting in Kyiv. The presidents of Poland and the Baltic states are meeting with President Zelensky on Wednesday (Apr 13). This follows a highly publicized meeting between Boris Johnson (UK) and Zelensky a few days ago. No word from the U.S. administration on when President Biden will visit Ukraine.
France Sends Police. A team of forensics police officers has arrived in Kyiv to assist in war crimes investigations. France is the the first country to send forensics experts to Ukraine. There are unconfirmed reports that a few other European nations have small, specialized elements in Ukraine as well.
Israel Field Hospital. The Israelis have set up a mobile hospital in Lviv in western Ukraine. It is seeing at least 200 patients a day – most of them internally displaced persons (IDPs) from eastern Ukraine. The hospital is focused on chronic and pediatric illnesses – but is prepared to care for trauma patients as well. There are 100 Israelis staff in the hospital – with about 80 being doctors and nurses. (The Times of Israel, Mar 22, 2022).
More Advanced Weapons to Ukraine? There was speculation that the Pentagon is considering the transfer of Mi-17 helicopters to Ukraine. This was dismissed by defense officials. Some other weapons systems are being considered . . . to include howitzer cannons, drones, and chemical protective gear. As of Wednesday (Apr 12) a significant number of the 100 Switchblade armed drones are now in Ukraine. The Switchblade armed drones require between 24 and 48 hours of training.
More advanced systems will require longer training periods. There are estimates that between 8 to 10 flights are arriving each day from various countries with weapons and military equipment for Ukraine. These flights land in an adjacent country to Ukraine. The equipment and material are offloaded from the planes. It is then palletized and placed on trucks heading to Ukraine. “Pentagon looks to vastly expand weapons for Ukraine”, The Washington Post, April 12, 2022.
Slovakia and Its MiG-29 Fighters. Getting additional MiG-29s and other combat aircraft to Ukraine has been a hot topic in the press for weeks. The U.S. nixed the plan for Poland to transfer its MiG-29s to a U.S. airbase in Germany and then have the U.S. to transfer them to Ukraine. Now Slovakia is stepping up . . . but the U.S. says that they are not part of the plan and won’t be backfilling the MiGs that Slovakia sends. “Ukraine Situation Report: Slovakia Donating MiG-29 Fighters is Fine by the U.S.”, The War Zone, April 12, 2022.
Activity on the Finnish Border? There are news reports that the Russians are moving troops and equipment to the border of Finland. These nations have already fought at least two wars – both of them difficult endeavors for the Russians. So any Russian movement would just be for show – perhaps to ‘influence’ the Finns while they decide whether or not to join NATO.
Missile Defense – Popular Again in Europe? Western European countries have traditionally been skeptical of the idea of fielding missile defense systems. In the early 1980s some European countries maintained that the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) posed a risk of destabilizing the superpower strategic relationship. This argument carried on into the next few decades. Azriel Bermant, a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague, provides insight into the prospect of missile defense in Europe. “European missile defence: a Russian self-fulfilling prophecy”, The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, April 13, 2022.
Commentary
Long Term Global Effects of the Ukraine War. Ian Hill, a professor in the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University in New Zealand, analyzes the future effects of the war around the world. Russia will be making things difficult for the U.S. and the West in the diplomatic and economic arena; it will likely step up its military adventures in the Middle East and Africa. Some countries are reluctant to take sides in the conflict – many from Africa and the Indo-Pacific region due to their close military, economic, and political ties to Russia. China and Russia will be drawn closer. Europe is standing tall now, but as their economies contract how long will that last? “The global fallout from war in Ukraine”, The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, April 13, 2022.
Stavridis on Ukraine. The 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, Admiral James Stavridis (Ret.), explains what the U.S. can glean in lessons from the Ukraine conflict. He believes that the current Ukraine War is going to fundamentally change the way war is waged in the 21st century. The destruction of thousands of Russian tanks and armored vehicles by Ukrainian drones and soldiers wielding hand-held anti-armor weapons is one important consideration. “Cheap kill” mechanisms will certainly change tactics in armor and mechanized units – and tankers are undoubtedly taking notes. Close air support is another area where changes are coming – due to the number of shoulder-fired anti-air missiles on the battlefield and the effectiveness of these weapons against low-flying jet aircraft and helicopters. The use of small special forces elements armed with intelligence of Russian movements operating behind enemy lines also has highlighted new tactical approaches to warfare. Read more in “What the U.S. Military Needs to Learn from the Ukraine War”, Time.com, April 11, 2022.
India and Buying Weapons in the Future. One of the most populated countries in the world is straddling the fence on the Ukraine War. India has always had cordial relations with Russia and depends on the import of Russian weapons to maintain a strong defense against future possible aggression from China or Pakistan. The Ukraine War will weaken Russia’s defense manufacturing sector and cause problems in its ability to export weapons to other countries. India may well begin diversifying its weapons acquisitions and increase its domestic production of weapons systems. Read more about India’s strategic dilemma in “After Ukraine, Where Will India Buy Its Weapons?“, War on the Rocks, April 12, 2022.
SOF News welcomes the submission of articles for publication. If it is related to special operations, current conflicts, national security, defense, or the current conflict in Ukraine then we are interested.
Maps and Other Resources
UNCN. The Ukraine NGO Coordination Network is an organization that ties together U.S.-based 501c3 organizations and non-profit humanitarian organizations that are working to evacuate and support those in need affected by the Ukraine crisis. https://uncn.one
Maps of Ukraine
Ukraine Conflict Info. The Ukrainians have launched a new website that will provide information about the war. It is entitled Russia Invaded Ukraine and can be found at https://war.ukraine.ua/.
Ukrainian Think Tanks – Brussels. Consolidated information on how to help Ukraine from abroad and stay up to date on events.
Weapons of the Ukraine War.
3. 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
APRIL 12, 2022
The annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – the Human Rights Reports – cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements. The U.S. Department of State submits reports on all countries receiving assistance and all United Nations member states to the U.S. Congress in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974.
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Preface
For nearly five decades, the United States has issued the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which strive to provide a factual and objective record on the status of human rights worldwide – in 2021, covering 198 countries and territories. The information contained in these reports could not be more vital or urgent given ongoing human rights abuses and violations in many countries, continued democratic backsliding on several continents, and creeping authoritarianism that threatens both human rights and democracy – most notably, at present, with Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.
The Biden Administration has put human rights at the center of U.S. domestic and foreign policy. We have also recognized our nation has not always succeeded in protecting the dignity and rights of all Americans, despite the proclamations of freedom, equality, and justice in our founding documents. It is through the continued U.S. commitment to advance human rights, both domestically and internationally, that we best honor the generations of Americans who are Black, Brown, or other people of color, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, LGBTQI+ persons, immigrants, women and girls, and other historically marginalized groups whose advocacy for their rights and for others has pushed America toward a “more perfect union.”
President Biden has called the defense of democracy and human rights the defining challenge of our time. By convening the first Summit for Democracy in December 2021 – bringing together representatives from 100 governments as well as civil society and the private sector – he sparked global attention and vigor toward democratic renewal and respect for human rights. Participating governments made significant commitments to revitalize democracy at home and abroad at the first Summit on which we expect meaningful progress during the current Year of Action and before the time of a second Summit.
The reports paint a clear picture of where human rights and democracy are under threat. They highlight where governments have unjustly jailed, tortured, or even killed political opponents, activists, human rights defenders, or journalists, including in Russia, the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, and Syria. They document abuses of peaceful protestors demanding democracy and fundamental freedoms in countries such as Burma, Belarus, Cuba, Hong Kong, and Sudan. They highlight worrying cases of transnational repression – where governments reach across borders to harass, intimidate, or murder dissidents and their loved ones – as exemplified in the dangerous forced diversion by Belarus of an international commercial flight for the sole purpose of arresting a critical independent journalist.
But they also contain signs of progress and glimmers of hope, as the indomitable will to live freely can never be extinguished. In Iraq, people cast their votes to shape the future of their country in more credible and transparent parliamentary elections than in 2018. In Botswana, a court advanced the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons by upholding the decriminalization of same-sex relations. In Turkmenistan, all imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses conscientious objectors to military service were pardoned, a win for freedom of religion or belief. The stability, security, and health of any country depends on the ability of its people to freely exercise their human rights – to feel safe and included in their communities while expressing their views or gender, loving who they love, organizing with their coworkers, peacefully assembling, living by their conscience, and using their voices and reporting from independent media to hold governments accountable. There is much progress to be made, here in the United States and globally. But I know that by working together in the Year of Action and using resources like the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, we can come closer to building a world where respect for human rights is truly universal.
Country Reports
AFRICA (SUB-SAHARAN)
EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC
EUROPE AND EURASIA
NEAR EAST (MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA)
SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA
WESTERN HEMISPHERE
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4. Biden: Russia war a 'genocide,' trying to 'wipe out' Ukraine
Biden: Russia war a 'genocide,' trying to 'wipe out' Ukraine
AP · by WILL WEISSERT and ZEKE MILLER · April 13, 2022
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — President Joe Biden said Russia’s war in Ukraine amounted to “genocide,” accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to “wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.”
“Yes, I called it genocide,” he told reporters in Iowa on Tuesday shortly before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. “It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.”
At an earlier event in Menlo, Iowa, addressing spiking energy prices resulting from the war, Biden had implied that he thought Putin was carrying out genocide against Ukraine, but offered no details. Neither he nor his administration announced new consequences for Russia or assistance to Ukraine following Biden’s public assessment.
Biden’s comments drew praise from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had encouraged Western leaders to use the term to describe Russia’s invasion of his country.
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“True words of a true leader @POTUS,” he tweeted. “Calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil. We are grateful for US assistance provided so far and we urgently need more heavy weapons to prevent further Russian atrocities.”
A United Nations treaty, to which the U.S. is a party, defines genocide as actions taken with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
Past American leaders often have dodged formally declaring bloody campaigns such as Russia’s in Ukraine as genocide, hesitating to trigger an obligation that under international convention requires signing countries to intervene once genocide is formally identified. That obligation was seen as blocking President Bill Clinton from declaring Rwandan Hutus’ killing of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis in 1994 as genocide, for example.
Biden said it would be up to lawyers to decide if Russia’s conduct met the international standard for genocide, as Ukrainian officials have claimed, but said “it sure seems that way to me.”
“More evidence is coming out literally of the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine, and we’re only going to learn more and more about the devastation and let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies,” he said.
Just last week Biden said he did not believe Russia’s actions amounted to genocide, just that they constituted “war crimes.”
During a trip to Europe last month, Biden faced controversy for a nine-word statement seemingly supporting regime change in Moscow, which would have represented a dramatic shift toward direct confrontation with another nuclear-armed country. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said.
He clarified the comments days later, saying: “I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man. I wasn’t articulating a policy change.”
___
Miller reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.
AP · by WILL WEISSERT and ZEKE MILLER · April 13, 2022
5. Pentagon: ‘Roughly 8 to 10 Flights a Day’ Full of Aid for Ukraine Pouring into Europe
Pentagon: ‘Roughly 8 to 10 Flights a Day’ Full of Aid for Ukraine Pouring into Europe - Air Force Magazine
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Roughly eight to 10 flights full of supplies and equipment for Ukraine are landing in Eastern Europe every day, Pentagon press secretary John F. Kirby told reporters on April 12, as the U.S. and other nations race to get their aid packages into the hands of Ukrainians combatting Russia’s invasion.
“There’s more than 30 other nations contributing various amounts of material—some weapons, some not, some a mix, and we are helping coordinate the deliveries into Ukraine of all that material, not just ours, but of others at various trans-shipment sites in the region,” Kirby said during a briefing hosted by the State Department’s Brussels Media Hub. “And that flow continues.”
All told, more than two dozen countries ranging from Japan to Canada to North Macedonia have pledged to send billions of dollars worth of military equipment to Ukraine, presenting a daunting logistical challenge as those nations look to deliver that equipment at speed.
It’s an issue that U.S. Transportation Command boss Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost addressed several times at the end of March when appearing before Congress.
“We work very closely with European Command as they integrate with Ukraine and prioritize the needs of Ukraine, so that we are able to ship and get [material] close to Ukraine and onward-moved very quickly, as we manage not only the nodes or the airports and seaports to get stuff there, but the people that work there and the flow in,” Van Ovost said during a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing.
In a Senate hearing, Gen. Tod D. Wolters, head of U.S. European Command, praised TRANSCOM for delivering “miracles at the point of need” in the Ukraine-Russia war. Similarly, Kirby touted the Defense Department’s ability to track, ship, and deliver aid.
“There’s roughly eight to 10 flights a day coming in to these trans-shipment sites from all over the world. And that stuff is not sitting around in warehouses,” Kirby said. “We’re helping get it on pallets and helping it get on trucks and helping it get into Ukraine every single day.”
In mid-March, President Joe Biden authorized an $800 million package of defensive assistance for Ukraine, followed by another $100 million in early April. Kirby said on April 12 that the Pentagon expected those packages to be completed in a matter of days and delivered “by the middle of this month.”
Speaking during a Defense Writers Group event on April 12, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said there are packages of U.S. military aid to Ukraine soon to be announced that will include longer-ranged weapons than have been provided so far. She did not name the weapons.
“Those are presidential decisions,” Hicks said of the new aid packages, and “I don’t want to get in front of those.” However, the Pentagon is “moving quickly” on weapons that would “provide a little more range and distance” than what has been given to date, and “you’ll see more in the coming days,” she told defense reporters.
The new weapons would be in addition to Javelin man-portable anti-tank weapons and Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons, Hicks said. She said Stingers and Javelins, as well as artillery rounds and “other ammunition” are “incredibly important” to Ukraine, noting, “We’ve moved a lot of that, and that will continue,” she said.
When asked if the U.S. would provide weapons that Ukraine could launch into Russia, Hicks said the U.S. is in continuing talks with Britain and 30 other countries about how best to provide “capability that the Ukrainians request” that sends “a clear signal, in terms of the U.S./Russian dynamic.”
Ukraine has requested aircraft, or a NATO-established no-fly zone over the country, as well as other weapons.
The U.S. is reviewing “a wide range of systems,” for Ukraine, she said. In addition to weapons and cash aid, the U.S. has been providing intelligence assistance to Ukraine, “which I would call ‘high-end’ help,” Hicks said.
“We are mindful of the time,” Kirby acknowledged, noting the Pentagon has shortened the time it takes to actually get equipment into Ukrainian hands “down to between four to six days.”
Calling that speed “unprecedented” across his time in the Pentagon, Kirby did note that not all shipments have been that fast.
One of the most high-profile pieces of the U.S. defensive aid packages being sent is the batch of Switchblade drones—loitering munitions that are sometimes referred to as “kamikaze” drones. The Pentagon confirmed on April 6 that a small number of Ukrainian troops, already in the U.S. for professional military education, were being trained to operate the Switchblades, and on April 10, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III held a video call with those service members on the same day they were slated to return home.
“He … wanted to know [how] they felt the training went, and he was quite gratified to hear that they were pleased by what they were trained on, not just in terms of Switchblade, but other things,” Kirby said of Austin’s conversation with the Ukrainians. “So, we are continuing to try to get the Ukrainians the systems and the weapons that they need, that they’re using most effectively.”
6. Pentagon leaders to meet Wednesday with top defense contractors about Ukraine
If we have challenges with supporting Ukraine (and replenishing war stocks, what will happen if we have a major shooting war that involves US troops? What does this say about the defense industrial base?
Excerpts:
“We will discuss industry proposals to accelerate production of existing systems and develop new, modernized capabilities critical to the Department’s ongoing security assistance to Ukraine and long-term readiness of U.S. and ally/partner forces,” the official added.
Facing questions about how the U.S. military will replenish stocks of weapons it’s sending to Ukraine to fight Russia, Hicks said she was set to meet with Raytheon Technologies’ chief executive, Gregory Hayes, later on Tuesday to discuss the matter.
Pentagon leaders to meet Wednesday with top defense contractors about Ukraine
WASHINGTON — Top U.S. defense officials will meet with the chief executives of the eight largest U.S. defense contractors to discuss industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia continues for years.
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told reporters Tuesday she plans to participate in a classified roundtable with defense CEOs on Wednesday to discuss “what can we do to help them, what do they need to generate supply.”
A defense official told Defense News the Pentagon “will convene a meeting of our largest prime contractors, to enable a classified discussion of DoD requirements across broad portfolio areas.”
“We will discuss industry proposals to accelerate production of existing systems and develop new, modernized capabilities critical to the Department’s ongoing security assistance to Ukraine and long-term readiness of U.S. and ally/partner forces,” the official added.
Facing questions about how the U.S. military will replenish stocks of weapons it’s sending to Ukraine to fight Russia, Hicks said she was set to meet with Raytheon Technologies’ chief executive, Gregory Hayes, later on Tuesday to discuss the matter.
A Raytheon-Lockheed Martin joint venture makes Javelin anti-tank missiles, while Raytheon produces Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The Stingers are in low-rate production and are facing obsolescence, though Hicks did not mention them by name or detail potential hurdles.
“In some specific munitions areas, we know we have some obsolescence issues,” Hicks said. “But we have seen, very patriotically, members of industry lean forward and indicate their willingness to work together.”
Hicks said the Biden administration is in a “continuing dialogue” with Ukrainian officials over the types of weapons it plans to send, and that presidential decisions on the matter are pending.
“Yes, we will continue to look at the type of capabilities that the Ukrainians are asking for in terms of how to give them more range and distance,” Hicks said.
While Ukraine is a priority, Hicks said, the process could reveal broader supply chain vulnerabilities that must be remedied, primarily to maintain supplies for the U.S. military.
Joe Gould is senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry.
7. FDD | Senate Unanimously Approves Lend-Lease Act to Expedite Aid to Ukraine
Good news. I hope it will make a difference - and quickly.
FDD | Senate Unanimously Approves Lend-Lease Act to Expedite Aid to Ukraine
Ryan Brobst
Research Analyst
John Hardie
Research Manager and Research Analyst
fdd.org · by Ryan Brobst Research Analyst · April 12, 2022
After months of delay, the Senate last Wednesday unanimously passed legislation to accelerate the delivery of defense equipment to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. However, the House has yet to vote on a similar bipartisan bill, increasing the risk that Kyiv will run low on equipment as Moscow gears up for the next phase of its offensive.
The bipartisan Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, introduced in January, authorizes the president to lend or lease defense articles to Kyiv and other Eastern European countries affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The bill would temporarily exempt such aid from various legal hurdles and limitations, including a provision of the Arms Export Control Act requiring lessees to reimburse all costs incurred by the U.S. government, and a provision of the Foreign Assistance Act requiring that loans be repaid within five years.
With these exemptions, Washington could quickly deliver equipment that Kyiv or Eastern European allies could not otherwise afford. The bill would also require the president to create “expedited procedures” for the delivery of articles loaned or leased to Ukraine. However, by waiting almost three months to pass the Lend-Lease Act, the Senate itself became a cause of delay. Meanwhile, the House has yet to pass similar bipartisan legislation introduced in early March. Both chambers left for a two-week recess on Thursday, causing a further delay.
Ukraine has no time to spare. As one senior Ukrainian officer put it, “We are calculating time not in weeks or days — but in lives.” Although Ukraine has defeated Russian forces arrayed around Kyiv, the war’s next phase will likely see high rates of attrition on both sides, stretching Ukraine’s stocks of equipment and ammunition, particularly among its mechanized forces.
The West needs to expand and systematize its ad hoc defense aid efforts to keep pace with a protracted conventional conflict. While many initially expected the war’s conventional phase to last mere days, it now appears likely to last “many months” or “even years,” as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated last Wednesday.
In addition to drones, anti-tank weapons, and MANPADS, Ukraine will need plenty of artillery, tanks, and other heavy weaponry to defeat an impending Russian offensive in the Donbas, let alone to recapture territory. Ukraine cannot currently mass-produce these systems given that Russia has destroyed much of its defense industry, and getting captured Russian equipment back onto the battlefield can take time. Some allies have begun providing such systems or plan to do so, but the volume must increase, and deliveries will have to be sustained throughout the war and perhaps beyond.
While Washington can provide some of the needed equipment, most of it will have to come from Eastern European allies that operate Soviet-made systems that Ukraine can easily integrate into its military, like the T-72 tanks recently sent by the Czech Republic. Washington should continue encouraging allies to donate Soviet-made systems to Ukraine. For example, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia all possess various types of Soviet-made artillery.
The new Lend-Lease legislation would help expedite transfers of U.S. weapons to backfill Eastern European countries sending aid to Ukraine. Congress should move urgently to support Ukraine and should consider expanding Lend-Lease exemptions to apply to countries beyond Eastern Europe that donate aid to Ukraine and need a U.S. backfill.
As Russia continues its unprovoked war against Ukraine, “this legislation to speed up the process of moving military equipment to the frontlines couldn’t be more urgent,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), one of the bill’s cosponsors. She is right. Congress should act without delay and help America once again become the “arsenal of democracy.”
Ryan Brobst is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where John Hardie is research manager and a research analyst. Both contribute to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). For more analysis from the authors and CMPP, please subscribe HERE. Follow FDD on Twitter at @FDD and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Ryan Brobst Research Analyst · April 12, 2022
8. FDD | Justice Department Disrupts Russian Malware With Help from Private Sector
Conclusion:
Building on these successes as well as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s “Shields Up” initiative to consolidate U.S. government threat advisories and provide timely information to the private sector, the Biden administration has an opportunity to build momentum in public-private collaboration. DOJ’s operation embodied the hallmarks of what the U.S. government needs to enhance U.S. cybersecurity: carefully tailored law enforcement operations that leverage the strengths of foreign partners and the private sector to keep malicious actors from attacking American interests.
FDD | Justice Department Disrupts Russian Malware With Help from Private Sector
fdd.org · by Annie Fixler CCTI Deputy Director and Research Fellow · April 12, 2022
April 12, 2022 | Policy Brief
Graham Kennis
Intern
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced last Wednesday it had detected and preemptively disabled Russian-installed malware on thousands of network devices in the United States and around the world. The DOJ operation leveraged the U.S. government’s partnerships with both allies and the private sector to disable the malware before it caused any damage.
The DOJ attributed the attack infrastructure to “Sandworm,” an elite hacking group within the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU). Sandworm has grown in notoriety thanks to numerous attacks on Western governments, companies, and reporters as well as the International Olympic Committee. FBI Director Christopher Wray noted that this group “has a long history of outrageous, destructive attacks,” including the 2017 NotPetya attack, which caused $10 billion in damages worldwide. Sandworm’s latest operation sought to employ a botnet, or network of compromised computers that hackers exploit to conduct operations.
Over the past month, DOJ, acting through the FBI and working with private cybersecurity firm WatchGuard, received court orders to remove malware from what are known as “command-and-control” servers, or devices that each command a group of other devices. By removing the malware from these servers, the U.S. government cut off Sandworm’s control over thousands of compromised devices the hackers had conscripted into their bot army. The DOJ operation successfully disabled the botnet “before it could do any harm,” Wray confirmed, noting the importance of the U.S. government’s partnership with the private sector in this operation. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen similarly commended the collaboration between WatchGuard and government agencies in both the United States and United Kingdom.
This is not the first time the U.S. government has preemptively disabled malicious Russian cyber operations. In 2018, DOJ and the FBI disrupted another Russian botnet, also controlled by Sandworm. In 2020, U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) incapacitated the Trickbot botnet run by a Russia-based ransomware group known as Conti, a criminal enterprise. General Paul Nakasone, the commander of USCYBERCOM and director of the National Security Agency, also testified before Congress last week that American cyber forces worked with their Ukrainian counterparts to disrupt malicious Russian activity and harden Ukrainian networks during the lead-up to Russia’s invasion.
DOJ’s April 6 announcement regarding the Sandworm botnet came on the heels of numerous government advisories about Russian cyber threats and the White House’s warning that “evolving intelligence” indicated the Kremlin might launch cyberattacks to retaliate against Western sanctions. While not unprecedented, the DOJ operation demonstrated how public-private partnerships and collaboration with allies can thwart malicious cyber actors and help secure domestic networks against attacks by foreign adversaries. Last week, the Department of the Treasury similarly demonstrated the importance of collaboration with interagency partners and allies — in this instance, the German Federal Criminal Police — when it announced the shutdown of “the world’s largest and most prominent darknet market” used by Russian cyber criminals, along with the seizure of $25 million worth of bitcoin.
Building on these successes as well as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s “Shields Up” initiative to consolidate U.S. government threat advisories and provide timely information to the private sector, the Biden administration has an opportunity to build momentum in public-private collaboration. DOJ’s operation embodied the hallmarks of what the U.S. government needs to enhance U.S. cybersecurity: carefully tailored law enforcement operations that leverage the strengths of foreign partners and the private sector to keep malicious actors from attacking American interests.
Annie Fixler is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and deputy director of FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI). Graham Kennis is a CCTI intern, public policy master’s student at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Air Force officer. For more analysis from the authors and CCTI, please subscribe HERE. Follow Annie on Twitter @afixler. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CCTI. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
Issues:
fdd.org · by Annie Fixler CCTI Deputy Director and Research Fellow · April 12, 2022
9. As war rages in Ukraine, how much has the US learned from Vietnam?
Conclusion:
Overhanging this history, no one dares to predict the degree to which America’s nice-guy president, Joe Biden, will want to fight potential enemies — not just Russia, but also China. Like Donald Trump before him, Biden as a young man received multiple draft deferments. Now we can look back on the Paris Peace Accords and ask whether it was better to “bug out,” as the GIs used to say, or fight for “peace with honor,” as Nixon claimed he had achieved.
Neither of those terms provides real hope for “light at the end of the tunnel,” as U.S. officials persisted in saying they were seeing in Vietnam before the lights went out.
As war rages in Ukraine, how much has the US learned from Vietnam?
BY DONALD KIRK, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 04/10/22 2:00 PM ET
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT OF THE HILL
The denouement of the Vietnam War carries lessons that resonate in conflicts involving U.S. policymakers and military forces around the world. And that’s not just about winning hearts and minds and the right way to fight a limited war.
The realities of negotiating acceptable outcomes came through from a recent two-day conference on Vietnam that I attended, at which experts sharply criticized Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger for essentially caving in to the dictates from Hanoi in falling for a peace agreement with North Vietnam that was doomed to failure.
Stephen Young, an attorney who worked for three years on U.S. aid programs in South Vietnam at the height of the war, described Nguyen Van Thieu, the last president of the old Saigon regime, as going “ballistic” when he heard that Kissinger had negotiated a deal with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho. Thieu’s response, said Young, “bordered on hatred” for Kissinger.
“Why was Thieu so apoplectic?” Young asked at the conference, staged by the Vietnam Center of Texas Tech University and Chapman University in Anaheim, Calif. “He and his team realized by October 1972 the nationalists had defeated the communists,” meaning the National Liberation Front (NLF) or Viet Cong.
In fact, from what I saw in Vietnam, the NLF, the southern arm of the government in Hanoi, by then had ceased to be much of a factor. You could ride in a taxi from Saigon up Route 1 to Danang and Hue, or west to the Cambodian border, or down Route 4 to Mytho and Cantho in the Mekong Delta, with not much danger of being ambushed or caught in a firefight.
Young, who runs the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism in St. Paul, Minn., portrayed Nixon as having been “trapped by Henry Kissinger,” a former Harvard professor with no experience in diplomacy and no first-hand knowledge of Asia. Between them, they accepted the Paris Peace Accords, in which Kissinger and Le Duc Tho agreed that North Vietnamese troops could stay where they were in the South as long as his government released nearly 600 U.S. prisoners of war.
Memories of those days flooded back as I recalled the release at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon in February 1973, after the signing of the Paris peace agreement, of 27 prisoners held in Loc Ninh, a district town captured by the North Vietnamese at the outset of their 1972 Easter Offensive, and then the release in Hanoi in March 1973 of the last 67 prisoners, including pilots who had bailed out over the North as their planes were shot down in the “Christmas bombing” that brought Hanoi back to negotiations after dropping its demand for Thieu’s ouster. (Le Duc Tho could save that for later.)
In Hanoi on that final day, I saw soldiers in clean, new uniforms in the windows of trains crossing the Red River on the Long Bien Bridge. Kissinger, in talks with Le Duc Tho, had asked why 200 tanks were still on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In later years, he moaned that Tho had “broken his promises.”
No kidding; why didn’t Kissinger say so at the time? Now the question is how much the U.S. has learned from Vietnam. The obvious lesson is to not get involved in unwinnable wars. In Afghanistan, the decision was to let the Taliban take over, despite having equipped and nurtured a government and army. In Ukraine, fearful of going to war with Russia, the U.S. and NATO have declined to declare a “no-fly zone” against Russian planes. Better to pump in aid for heroic Ukrainian troops while Russian troops destroy towns and massacre civilians.
In Vietnam, the two American presidents who had to oversee that debacle set clear limits on the dimensions of the conflict. With the exception of the 60 days in which Nixon ordered U.S. troops into Cambodia in May and June 1970, the Americans confined ground operations within South Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson in 1968 decided not to run for the presidency again and opened talks with the North after the Viet Cong attacked Saigon, including the U.S. embassy and 36 of 44 provincial capitals, in the Tet Offensive.
John Negroponte, director for Vietnam on the National Security Council under Kissinger, noted at the Vietnam conference that the U.S. lacked “the political will” to carry out the war to a real compromise in which a residual force, supported by air power, might have been left behind. The Christmas bombing, he said, “was a one-off.” In vain, he said he advised Kissinger to talk to the South Vietnamese before striking a deal with Le Duc Tho. By the time the Watergate scandal exploded in 1973, there was no chance of reversing the tide. Nixon wanted to get out of Vietnam, then got out of the White House in August 1974, leaving Gerald Ford to watch the North Vietnamese storm to victory less than a year later.
Nixon, said Richard Filipink, a history professor from Western Illinois University, “did not believe the war was winnable” while pressuring Saigon to go along with the Paris peace deal and fostering an “impression” of maintaining the South Vietnamese government. As Hanoi violated the peace agreement with impunity, “Nixon was unconvinced of the need for immediate action,” said Navy Capt. Jack Taylor. “He made the decision not to bomb,” while Kissinger was “wishy washy,” Taylor said.
Overhanging this history, no one dares to predict the degree to which America’s nice-guy president, Joe Biden, will want to fight potential enemies — not just Russia, but also China. Like Donald Trump before him, Biden as a young man received multiple draft deferments. Now we can look back on the Paris Peace Accords and ask whether it was better to “bug out,” as the GIs used to say, or fight for “peace with honor,” as Nixon claimed he had achieved.
Neither of those terms provides real hope for “light at the end of the tunnel,” as U.S. officials persisted in saying they were seeing in Vietnam before the lights went out.
Donald Kirk has been a journalist for more than 60 years, focusing much of his career on conflict in Asia and the Middle East, including as a correspondent for the Washington Star and Chicago Tribune. He currently is a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea. He is the author of several books about Asian affairs.
10. FDD | Iran’s Centrifuge Manufacturing Goes Underground
Conclusion:
Instead of reviving a further weakened version of the JCPOA, Washington must reverse course and rebuild a multilateral pressure campaign against Iran in coordination with its European allies. Any nuclear deal with Iran must require that Tehran verifiably eliminate its uranium enrichment program and account for all clandestine nuclear work to date.
FDD | Iran’s Centrifuge Manufacturing Goes Underground
Andrea Stricker
Research Fellow
Anthony Ruggiero
Senior Fellow
fdd.org · by Andrea Stricker Research Fellow · April 12, 2022
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported last week that Iran is concentrating its centrifuge production equipment at two centrifuge manufacturing facilities — both likely located beneath mountains — that are highly fortified against sabotage or military strikes. Since the Islamic Republic has not permitted daily international monitoring of those underground sites for more than one year, the IAEA cannot ascertain whether the regime is diverting key nuclear equipment to quickly produce atomic weapons.
Iran previously built its fastest, most advanced centrifuges at the Iran Centrifuge Assembly Center (ICAC), an aboveground plant located at the Natanz nuclear complex. In July 2020, however, an internal explosion destroyed more than half of the ICAC, likely reducing Tehran’s advanced centrifuge production for several months. Iran blamed the incident on foreign sabotage.
In April 2021, Iran announced it would rebuild the ICAC facility underground. Ali Akbar Salehi, then-head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, stated at the time, “We are working 24/7 to move all our sensitive halls into the heart of the mountain near Natanz.” The location of the site is not publicly known, but it could be buried beneath one of the mountains south of the former ICAC building and the Natanz enrichment plants. In October 2020, the IAEA’s director general, Rafael Grossi, stated that he was aware of the new facility.
A second centrifuge plant, located near Karaj, was the target of an alleged drone strike in June 2021. Iran produced delicate centrifuge equipment at the site, such as rotor tubes, bellows, and rotor assemblies. Following the incident, Iran’s production of advanced centrifuges declined further but reportedly rebounded by November 2021 at the latest.
In January 2022, Tehran relocated the Karaj facility to a mountainous area near the Esfahan uranium conversion facility and complex. For more than one year, Tehran has not permitted the IAEA to review video of daily activities at nuclear sites, including the centrifuge production facilities, thus inhibiting the agency’s ability to ascertain whether Iran is diverting centrifuge equipment to clandestine locations. The IAEA reported last week that although it has visited both sites to install cameras and place seals on equipment, it cannot confirm whether Iran is producing new centrifuge components.
Iran claims it is continuing to collect video footage on IAEA cameras and will turn over the data once it receives sanctions relief. Yet between June 2021, when the alleged sabotage occurred at the Karaj facility, and December 2021, Tehran refused to permit the IAEA to re-install cameras, meaning that the agency is missing footage of six months of activities and can never reconstruct events at the site. It will rely instead on estimates of Iran’s centrifuge production to determine whether Tehran may have diverted any nuclear equipment.
Iran’s advanced centrifuge program requires intensive, continuous monitoring, since diverting just 650 of its most advanced machines to a clandestine facility would be enough to facilitate a breakout to nuclear weapons.
Since entering office, however, the Biden administration has failed at each quarterly IAEA Board of Governors meeting to recommend that the body censure Iran for its restrictions on IAEA monitoring, non-cooperation with a separate IAEA investigation into Tehran’s undeclared nuclear activities, and flagrant nuclear escalations — the majority of which have occurred on the Biden administration’s watch.
Instead, President Joe Biden is determined to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In less than two years, the accord would allow Iran to bolster its capability to dash to nuclear weapons while limiting the IAEA’s ability to detect covert atomic weapons work.
Instead of reviving a further weakened version of the JCPOA, Washington must reverse course and rebuild a multilateral pressure campaign against Iran in coordination with its European allies. Any nuclear deal with Iran must require that Tehran verifiably eliminate its uranium enrichment program and account for all clandestine nuclear work to date.
Andrea Stricker is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Anthony Ruggiero is a senior fellow. Anthony previously served in the U.S. government for more than 19 years, including as senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense (2019-2021) on the National Security Council. They both contribute to FDD’s Iran Program, International Organizations Program, and Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). For more analysis from the authors, the Iran Program, the International Organizations Program, and CMPP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Andrea and Anthony on Twitter @StrickerNonpro and @NatSecAnthony. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_Iran and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Andrea Stricker Research Fellow · April 12, 2022
11. Russia is not the only nation threatening its neighbors
Conclusion:
For more than 70 years, Israelis have had to fight wars and “wars between wars” to retain their independence, sovereignty and self-determination. Right now, Ukrainians are fighting for exactly the same thing.
That’s what nations with big, bad neighbors must do to survive. If we Americans understand that we will give those nations maximal support, recognizing that their enemies are our enemies too.
Russia is not the only nation threatening its neighbors
OPINION:
With oceans to our east and west, and weak neighbors to our north and south, we Americans sometimes have a hard time understanding the plight of nations threatened by big, bad neighbors.
Examples: China’s Communist Party insists it is entitled to rule the people of Taiwan. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is itching to subjugate South Koreans. And of course, we’ve known for years that Russian President Vladimir Putin had designs on Ukraine. Yet few of us expected him to launch a full-on, barbarian war of imperialist and colonialist conquest.
I was in Israel last week. That country’s predicament is a bit different. The rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran do not want Israelis to submit. They want them to perish. “Death to Israel!” is a slogan meant to be taken both literally and seriously.
Iran’s rulers are referring to Israeli Jews, but they also menace members of Israel’s minority communities who do not subscribe to the view that Palestine must be Jew-free from the river to the sea.
Israel has other enemies, more than a few. It isn’t clear which are responsible for a wave of terrorism that began in late March. In the first three attacks, 11 civilians were murdered. Among them: a rabbi, a Jewish teacher, a Druze police officer, two Israeli Arab police officers and two Ukrainian nationals.
On April 7, on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street, a lively boulevard chockablock with restaurants, bars and stores, a terrorist shot more than a dozen Israelis — three fatally.
Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah — terrorist organizations closely tied to Tehran — celebrated.
Within less than 24 hours, Israeli security forces tracked down the culprit and, in the exchange of gunfire that followed, killed him. Identified as Ra’ad Hazem, 28, he was from the West Bank town of Jenin and had been living in Israel illegally.
There are several theories for this sudden rise in terrorism. The one I find most compelling: It’s a response to the current, and historic, Arab-Israeli detente.
Israel-haters were chagrined last month when the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan and Egypt gathered on Israeli soil to work on expanding their relations.
Such a meeting would have been unthinkable prior to the Abraham Accords, the 2020 statements of peace, cooperation and normal relations signed by Israel, the UAE and Bahrain — an implicit acknowledgment that Jews and Arabs are ancient and kindred peoples of the Middle East who can and should peacefully coexist.
Of course, these Arab leaders also are acutely aware that the theocrats in Tehran threaten them at least as much as they do Israel.
Iran’s rulers already control Lebanon, now a failing state, through Hezbollah. They maintain troops in Syria where, with their assistance and that of Russia, dictator Bashar al Assad has killed more than a half-million of his subjects. They back the Houthi rebels who have drenched Yemen in blood. Militias loyal to them are attempting to undermine a fledgling democracy in Iraq. They fund, arm and instruct Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza. They have called Bahrain the 14th province of Iran.
Meanwhile, President Biden’s envoys continue to palaver with Tehran over its nuclear weapons program. Expect any agreement that results to be weaker — difficult as that is to imagine — than the deal former President Barack Obama concluded in 2015, and from which former President Donald Trump withdrew three years later.
What appears to be holding up the deal at the moment: Iran’s rulers insist that the U.S. remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” If Mr. Biden sees that as a bridge too far, kudos to him.
Are many Arab leaders more concerned about these issues than they are about the “plight” of the Palestinians? Perhaps, but they also recognize this reality: There are no Palestinian leaders willing to negotiate seriously with Israelis.
Such obvious but inconvenient truths are ignored by the antisemites at the U.N. and elsewhere. Most recently, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, lavishly funded nongovernmental organizations, have been accusing Israelis of apartheid.
It’s a ludicrous charge. Israel is the only nation in the Middle East where Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Druze and other peoples attend the same universities, work in the same hospitals (the lives of two victims of the Tel Aviv attacks were saved by an Arab-Israeli doctor), preside over the same courts of law, and have family picnics on the same beaches.
Israel is the only nation in the Middle East where Arabs and Muslims vote, run for office and are elected in free and fair elections. Israel’s current ruling coalition includes Mansour Abbas of the United Arab List party.
Though Mr. Abbas considers himself an Islamist, he acknowledges that the “State of Israel was born as a Jewish state, and it will remain one,” and that, whatever Israel’s flaws, an apartheid state it is not.
As for Gazan and West Bank Palestinians, they are governed by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority respectively. They vote in their own elections (albeit rarely but that can’t be blamed on Israelis). They don’t acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and refuse to take even baby steps to “normalize” relations.
For more than 70 years, Israelis have had to fight wars and “wars between wars” to retain their independence, sovereignty and self-determination. Right now, Ukrainians are fighting for exactly the same thing.
That’s what nations with big, bad neighbors must do to survive. If we Americans understand that we will give those nations maximal support, recognizing that their enemies are our enemies too.
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a columnist for the Washington Times.
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12. FDD | Biden, like Obama, talks tough but does little about Putin’s war crimes
The public diplomacy, communications, and influence professionals in the administration should take note of this and address it.
Excerpts:
Is “Putin is a war criminal” descriptive, prescriptive or aspirational? Will Biden do as his predecessor did, shedding crocodile tears while Syria smoldered? Or will the president leave no stone unturned until Putin, the war criminal, and his willing executioners face the earthly justice of a war crimes tribunal, as they deserve?
This is an honest question. President Biden is not Obama. His administration has done more for Ukraine than Obama’s ever did to rid Syria of Assad. The burdens the president carries and the risks he must confront as he antagonizes Russia are not diminished by the depravity of Russia’s crimes: Putin is not the tinpot dictator with a tinpot economy whom he defended in Syria.
But we need to know: Does “Never again” mean what the words suggest? Or do American presidents proclaim “Never again,” again and again, while they let Bucha and Mariupol become another Srebrenica, another Aleppo, another problem from hell they can care to lament but not afford to solve?
FDD | Biden, like Obama, talks tough but does little about Putin’s war crimes
fdd.org · by Emanuele Ottolenghi Senior Fellow · April 11, 2022
Will President Joe Biden’s cri de coeur “Putin is a war criminal” become former President Barack Obama’s “Assad must go?”
Lofty words; noble intentions, for sure. But Obama came and went. Bashar al-Assad is still the president of Syria. That is partly because the American president allowed his initial “Assad must go” to evolve from moral outrage to policy obstacle as he shied away from conflict. Will his successor do the same, uttering high-minded words but producing little action?
Obama declared in August 2011 that “the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” By April 2015, a Washington Post analysis noted that “Obama’s determination to topple Assad remains one of the main points of friction between the United States and Russia in Syria.” And “Avoid that friction” replaced “Assad must go.”
Obama permitted Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was already a war criminal back then, to preserve his equities in Syria “to avoid friction.” He let his secretary of state, John Kerry, turn a cruel Russian ruse — decommissioning Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpile as a substitute for an American-led punitive military campaign — into a pretext for inaction. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, offered Kerry a fig leaf to disguise a complete lack of balls (pardon my French). It was a farce, as fig leaves go, because Assad continued to murder civilians with chemical weapons long after Russia had brokered the deal to remove them.
Putin learned his lesson well. America spoke with a big stick but no longer carried one.
Obama proclaimed his own red line, very publicly, on Syria’s chemical-weapons use. Assad, with Russia’s cover, tested his mettle and found it wanting. Russia doubled down on its support for its beleaguered Syrian ally, eager not only to regain its lost sphere of influence in the region but to show the world that America’s strong words were empty threats. With Russia in the Syrian skies, its fleet in Tartus and its boots on the ground, every pledge to prevent the next mass atrocity became subordinate to the need to “avoid that friction.”
Now here we are, in 2022, and Russia has invaded Ukraine, unprovoked. Moscow dehumanized its victims to fan the flames of hatred, motivating Russian soldiers to loot and massacre and Russian citizens to cheer the massacre. Meanwhile, the Kremlin quickly shut down any nascent domestic dissent and closed any media platform that dared criticize, as it used the old, true and tested totalitarian playbook to mobilize society.
Russia planned to decapitate Ukraine’s political leadership, intelligentsia, civil society, political opposition. Its military indiscriminately unleashed its firepower on civilian targets. It bombed hospitals and humanitarian corridors it agreed to open. Its troops relied on mobile crematoriums in the martyred city of Mariupol, hastily buried murdered civilians in mass graves and burned victims’ bodies after summary executions to cover up their war crimes.
His declaration is correct. The evidence overwhelmingly supports it. But US policy is not following through to that statement’s logical conclusion. The question must be asked then: Is the president’s statement akin to what commentators and concerned citizens allow themselves from time to time, given that their abundance of moral outrage is unburdened by the responsibility of leadership? Is it the lament of decency offended by a moral obscenity? Or is it policy?
Is “Putin is a war criminal” descriptive, prescriptive or aspirational? Will Biden do as his predecessor did, shedding crocodile tears while Syria smoldered? Or will the president leave no stone unturned until Putin, the war criminal, and his willing executioners face the earthly justice of a war crimes tribunal, as they deserve?
This is an honest question. President Biden is not Obama. His administration has done more for Ukraine than Obama’s ever did to rid Syria of Assad. The burdens the president carries and the risks he must confront as he antagonizes Russia are not diminished by the depravity of Russia’s crimes: Putin is not the tinpot dictator with a tinpot economy whom he defended in Syria.
But we need to know: Does “Never again” mean what the words suggest? Or do American presidents proclaim “Never again,” again and again, while they let Bucha and Mariupol become another Srebrenica, another Aleppo, another problem from hell they can care to lament but not afford to solve?
Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Twitter: @eottolenghi. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Emanuele Ottolenghi Senior Fellow · April 11, 2022
13. The Army has a program that lets you try out for Special Forces right off the street, but not all Green Berets are fans of it
I have known and served with a lot of great "SF babies" over the years (prior to the 18X program). I support the 18X program as long as there is good personnel management for assignments to teams because with the right mentorship 18Xs will become outstanding SF NCOs. And at the 10 year mark an SF NCO who came in through the 18X program might have twice as much SF experience as someone who volunteered while already in the Army. And of course the tradeoff is the 18X will not have what can be very valuable conventional Army experience. So the answer is just like the one to most complex political military problems; "it depends."
Some interesting statistics.
Officers who follow the regular selection route for Army Special Forces, designated 18As, have the highest graduation rates, with close to a 90% success rate. To become a Green Beret officer, one must be in the military and have commanded a unit before applying. They know that they only get one shot, which may explain their high success rate.
18X candidates have a success rate of about 80%. Candidates from conventional Army units have a success rate of roughly 50%.
Although 18X candidates are extremely fit and motivated, they generally lack experience and, in some cases, maturity. The latter was one of the greatest concerns with the Army Special Forces community when the 18X program started.
Those attributes are especially important for Green Berets because they work in very small teams and are often deployed behind enemy lines. They need to have strong personalities to instill confidence in and lead the troops and guerrillas they train and sometimes fight alongside. They need to convince those partners that the US military is with them. In many ways, they represent America abroad.
"Maturity varies with X-Rays, because some are 20 years old, others are in their late 30s or 40s. What X-rays lack is general Army knowledge [but] that is acquired through experience," Black said.
The Army has a program that lets you try out for Special Forces right off the street, but not all Green Berets are fans of it
A 10th Special Forces Group soldier free falls over a drop zone in Germany, March 17, 2015.US Army/VIS Jason Johnston
- During the war on terror, US Army Special Forces revived its 18X program in order to expand recruitment.
- Known as a non-prior service Special Forces candidate contract, 18X allows enlistees to go right to Special Forces selection.
- The 18X program has a mixed reputation in the Army Special Forces community.
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Following the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon quickly realized that it would need more special operators.
But the sprawling campaigns against the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations demanded more commandos than the US military had on hand, so every special-operations unit started recruiting heavily.
The Army Special Forces Regiment — which had a central role in combating those groups and training partner forces to do so — revived an old program allowing civilians a chance to become a Green Beret.
18X
US Army Special Forces candidates carry a telephone pole during Assessment and Selection at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, March 12, 2020.US Army/K. Kassens
Established in 1952, the Green Berets are the US military's premier special-operations unit for unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense, which entails training and advising other militaries and armed groups.
A team of 12 Green Berets can deploy behind enemy lines with little to no outside support and turn local guerrillas into a small army. Green Berets help those partner forces maximize their combat effectiveness, enabling them to take on a larger enemy.
With a non-prior service Special Forces candidate contract, known as the 18X program, civilians can enlist in the Army and head directly to Special Forces selection. Usually, soldiers already in the Army would need to wait at least a few years before they could apply for selection.
In a sense, the 18X program skips the line. But if candidates fail at any point along the way, they are reassigned according to the needs of the Army.
The 18X program has a mixed reputation in the Army Special Force community. Some Green Berets believe that candidates who make it over the lower barrier to entry can the dilute their units, known as operational detachments, and decrease their combat effectiveness.
A West Virginia Army National Guard soldier during training for the Special Forces Selection and Assessment course, March 2013.US Army/Sgt. Sara Yoke
Others hold that 18X candidates have a lot of potential and can become great operators.
"I'm a fan of the X-ray program. There are plenty of civilians that with training can become very successful Green Berets. After being selected, 18x have a very high graduation rate that hovers in the 80 percentile," John Black, a retired Special Forces Warrant Officer, told Insider.
"This is in part for many reasons: All they know is training. They don't know how to quit. They are also in great physical shape because of the preparation leading up to selection," Black added.
Officers who follow the regular selection route for Army Special Forces, designated 18As, have the highest graduation rates, with close to a 90% success rate. To become a Green Beret officer, one must be in the military and have commanded a unit before applying. They know that they only get one shot, which may explain their high success rate.
18X candidates have a success rate of about 80%. Candidates from conventional Army units have a success rate of roughly 50%.
Although 18X candidates are extremely fit and motivated, they generally lack experience and, in some cases, maturity. The latter was one of the greatest concerns with the Army Special Forces community when the 18X program started.
Those attributes are especially important for Green Berets because they work in very small teams and are often deployed behind enemy lines. They need to have strong personalities to instill confidence in and lead the troops and guerrillas they train and sometimes fight alongside. They need to convince those partners that the US military is with them. In many ways, they represent America abroad.
"Maturity varies with X-Rays, because some are 20 years old, others are in their late 30s or 40s. What X-rays lack is general Army knowledge [but] that is acquired through experience," Black said.
A Special Forces candidate crawls under barbed wire during Assessment and Selection at Camp Mackall, January 20, 2021.US Army/K. Kassens
Retention is also an issue with the 18X program. Green Berets who come in through this route tend to stay for shorter periods than those who were already in the Army when they join.
"18 X-ray Green Berets tend to get out after one [enlistment] term," Black said, attributing the disparity to candidates from "Big Army" already being invested in the service "for some time before even accepting the challenge" of joining Special Forces.
With the withdrawal from Afghanistan and US operations in Iraq winding down, the prospect of seeing combat in the near-term is diminished, and there are now fewer candidates coming through the 18X pipeline.
"One issue that the Special Forces Regiment is currently having is that all the 9/11 guys that joined are ready for retirement," Black said.
With the US out of Afghanistan and only small forces left in Iraq and Syria, Black added, "it appears as though its wars are over, and we are getting less X-rays to volunteer."
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.
14. Taiwan issues first war survival handbook amid China threat
Excellent. Whole of society. Survival is the first step. Next up, resistance and fighting back.
Taiwan issues first war survival handbook amid China threat
TAIPEI, April 12 (Reuters) - Taiwan's military released a handbook on civil defence for the first time on Tuesday, giving citizens survival guidance in a war scenario as Russia's invasion of Ukraine focuses attention on how the island should respond to China's pressure.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and has stepped up military activities nearby in the past two years, to press it into accepting its sovereignty claims.
Taiwan's handbook details how to find bomb shelters via smartphone apps, water and food supplies, as well as tips for preparing emergency first aid kits.
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Planning for the handbook pre-dates Russia's attack on its neighbour, which has prompted debate on its implications for Taiwan and ways to boost preparedness, such as reforms to the training of reservists. read more
"(We) are providing information on how citizens should react in a military crisis and possible disasters to come," Liu Tai-yi, an official of the ministry's All-out Defence Mobilisation unit, told an online news conference.
That would enable safety preparedness and help people to survive, he added.
He said the handbook, which draws from similar guides issued by Sweden and Japan, would be further updated with localised information such as the sites of shelters, hospitals and shops for daily needs.
The handbook uses comic strips and pictures with tips to survive a military attack, such as how to distinguish air raid sirens and ways to shelter from missiles.
Taiwan has not reported any sign of an imminent invasion planned by China, but has raised its alert level since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special military operation".
President Tsai Ing-wen has vowed repeatedly to defend the island and is overseeing a broad modernisation programme to make its forces more mobile and harder to attack.
Besides the plans unveiled last year to reform training for reserve forces, the government is looking to extend compulsory military service beyond four months. read more
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Reporting by Yimou Lee; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
15. Opinion | The Marine Corps' culture has to change
Talent management. The words "for the good of the service" do not just apply with a negative connotation to forcing a military person into a less than desirable assignment. All leaders must look at talent management from the perspective of "for the good of the service."
Opinion | The Marine Corps' culture has to change
No supervisor wants to lose their best assets, but supervisors must adopt a selfless talent management mindset: could this Marine serve the Corps better elsewhere?
BY STEVEN ARANGO | PUBLISHED APR 12, 2022 3:16 PM
To keep its best and brightest, the Marine Corps must look itself in the mirror — its culture suffocates talent. Within this culture rages a never-ending fight between uniformity of career progression and diversity of thought and experience. Yet, uniformity generally wins: there is less risk in known commodities. No doubt, uniformity is a great tool for discipline, but professional uniformity stifles new ideas and drives away some of the Marine Corps’ best talent. The Marine Corps can leverage its professional diversity to improve its lethality, something it only recently realized. In late 2020, the Commandant of the Marine Corps published Talent Management 2030, a framework for redefining the way it will recruit and retain talent. But his concepts will take time to implement. In the meantime, Marines must focus on changing the culture behind our talent management; a singularly top-down approach will alienate some of our best Marines. To change this culture, we can start by giving credence to experience, fostering a culture of honesty, and creating an obligation to challenge the status quo.
1. Give credence to experience
Experience must count for something. In today’s Marine Corps, only military experience matters. Years of work in the private sector, advanced degrees and technical certifications, and experience living and working overseas are seen, at best, as an afterthought, and at worst, ignored altogether.
Imagine a 30-year-old intelligence officer who has worked as a civilian intelligence analyst, has experience in the public policy arena, spent time as a speechwriter, and has developed other soft skills new officers lack. But she gained all this experience and these skills prior to joining the Marine Corps. Despite joining the Marines with a resume of practical experience, her training, pay, and treatment will mirror that of someone joining straight out of college. Why? Because they have to gain fundamental skills. Maybe. Because they have to develop their leadership skills. Perhaps. But the 30-year-old already has most of those skills and will likely adapt much quicker than her 21-year-old counterpart who has known, up to this point, only the life of a professional Marine. Why would the Marine Corps not leverage that ability and these advanced skills? A hospital does not treat a resident physician the same as a surgeon with 10 years of experience. The same should hold true for positions in the Marine Corps.
Marines expect their military experience to translate into the civilian world when they retire. Their skills are unique, often battle-tested, and without comparison in the civilian world. This idea is not just embraced; it’s broadly espoused in career transition programs and roundly confirmed for our most talented Marines who enter the civilian world at levels that bypass the traditional ladder. So, if this is true, why doesn’t the reverse also hold?
The Marine Corps’ worst-kept secret is that these individuals are treated the same because that previous experience is not Marine Corps experience. To the Marine Corps, regardless of an entry-level individual’s background, they lack the leadership and cultural indoctrination to succeed. But this mindset is shortsighted. To be sure, there are certain leadership skills that the Marine Corps enhances, but it does not have a monopoly on those skills. And a lack of experience with Marine culture can easily be remedied by tactful individuals who learn quickly. In fact, initial training is where most cultural indoctrination occurs. Once Marines arrive at their first units, they must learn the unit identity. By that point, each Marine should have a firm grasp of organizational culture.
U.S. Marine drill instructors with 4th Recruit Training Battalion, Recruit Training Regiment, Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island (Cpl Aneshea S. Yee/U.S. Marine Corps)
Workforce culture shackles our talent to a bias toward uniformity. Experience outside the military is foreign to most senior military officers who have spent their entire professional careers in the U.S. military. And even if they understand this experience, if the information fails to be used, its existence is useless. This cookie-cutter approach — starting new service members in the same position regardless of experience — limits our ability to elevate talent and reward performance, past or present. These individuals with helpful outside experience do not make up a majority of the military. But as any great enterprise understands, one must strive to keep its most coveted assets and use them as quickly as it can.
To help the Marine Corps better leverage these assets, Marines must inform senior leaders of their Marines’ experience and contributions (e.g. an insightful article, a new degree, prior experience, or an in-office achievement). Talent management personnel only have so much bandwidth; supervisors provide another layer to ensure that Marines’ talents do not remain unknown. Until a thorough talent management can match skill sets to billets in place, the Marine Corps should also give talent managers the flexibility to offer mid-tour moves to fill gaps in critical billets. Supervisors can help provide insight to these talent managers on how to best leverage these assets. No supervisor wants to lose their best assets, but supervisors must adopt a selfless talent management mindset: could this Marine serve the Corps better elsewhere? If a Marine’s current role does not make use of their skills to the highest degree, this is a disservice as much to the Marine as it is to the Marine Corps. Just as star players are not placed on the bench during the championship game, our best talent should not be relegated to jobs that other newcomers can learn quickly and succeed in.
2. Foster a culture of honesty
U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard Simcock and Australian Brig. Mick Ryan salute Marines with 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Marine Rotational Force – Darwin, as they pass in review Oct. 5 at the end of a farewell ceremony hosted by 1st Brigade, Australian Army, at Robertson Barracks, Northern Territory, Australia. (Cpl. Angel Serna/U.S. Marine Corps)
The Marine Corps preaches integrity and honesty. Failure is tolerated, but lying ends careers. Ironically, however, the Marine Corps has created a culture where honesty about one’s own career could endanger that individual’s career. For example, if a service member tells their boss “You know, I’m considering leaving the military for personal and professional reasons. What do you think?” This could harm their career through the evaluation process. Those who want the highest evaluation possible are best served by voicing that they are careerists until they have filed for separation. The Marine Corps says it wants explorers, but rewards loyalists. That’s wrong. Marines should feel confident they can discuss their careers openly with their chain of command if, for no other reason, because leaders are encouraged to mentor their subordinates. This fear limits Marines’ ability to learn what the Marine Corps can offer and deprives the Marine Corps of the information needed to best retain their most valued personnel. Marines should feel comfortable living life with radical honesty. Openness to other life opportunities is not a sin; punishing Marines for this openness is, though.
Marines need ruthless honesty in return. The Marine Corps must explain why a Marine failed to receive a position or location they are qualified for. “Needs of the service” is not a helpful response to this request. Supervisors must ask talent managers why their Marine failed to receive the role they requested. Providing this level of granularity may be difficult, but it is something the Marine Corps must strive for. Armed with this information, Marines will know where they must improve and why they failed. While immediate supervisors are charged with giving their Marines feedback, their sight-picture is limited. Talent managers, those who are familiar with the broader population, can provide valuable insight immediate supervisors lack.
3. Create an obligation to challenge the status quo
Supervisors should create a culture where there is an obligation to challenge the status quo, not only a willingness. Why? Because Marines who think they are just another cog in the machine feel powerless — especially when underutilized or improperly used. Creating an outlet for this unspent energy is not only cathartic but useful. If Marines feel stuck in a talent management quagmire, the very least the Marine Corps can do is help them improve their immediate surroundings.
Here is one way to do so: Each quarter every Marine in a platoon should create a policy memo, no more than two pages, that describes a problem and offers a solution. All Marines, irrespective of rank, will write a policy memo. Once completed, the Platoon Commander will review these memos. For solutions that can be enacted through their authority, the memo will stop there. Memos with solutions that require higher authority will be forwarded to the right level. To be sure, some may argue that a Battalion Commander does not have time to read hundreds of policy memos written by junior Marines each quarter. If so, a review of the memos can be delegated, as any good commander understands well.
Maj. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, commanding general of 1st Marine Division, congratulates 1st Lt. Thuymi Dinh, communications officer, 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment on earning the Camp Pendleton female athlete of the year award at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. (U.S. Marine Corps)
This exercise provides several benefits. First, it will force Marines to think critically about their profession, and what issues cause problems for the unit. Secondly, the solutions will help senior leaders evaluate concerns they may not even know exist — no person has a monopoly on good ideas, and everyone has blind spots. As much as the ideas can help the organization, the exercise can help the individual — Marines will improve their writing skills, something that each Marine should constantly strive to do. And as writing improves, so will their communication. Lastly, and most importantly, this exercise has the power to create a culture of buy-in. There is no better way for Marines to feel part of their profession than by improving their profession.
There will be a natural inclination to censor some ideas. Resist it. Of course, these policy memos should be written respectfully and supported by facts. But if senior members in the office disagree with an approach or conclusion, they can attach their response to the policy memo and forward it to senior leaders. But censorship of an idea will cause this exercise to backfire. Even bad ideas can create positive change by merely raising an issue and allowing leaders to develop better, more appropriate responses.
Highly talented Marines want to feel their skill sets are challenged, not wasted. If they do feel as though their talent and abilities are being wasted, the second best option is helping those Marines feel they have a voice. And, possibly more importantly, the Marine Corps needs grassroots innovation to align with top level strategic objectives. No doubt, some ideas will be ignored completely. That is fine — propose a better idea. At some point though, one idea will attract attention and improve the Marine Corps.
4. Conclusion
Talent Management 2030 is bold, exciting, and refreshing. But this framework is simply a concept right now. And currently, the Marine Corps lacks a talent management culture. Instead, it has a personnel management culture — it manages Marines as inventory, ignoring their skill sets and talents. This culture fails to meet the Commandant’s intent behind this document. Changing this culture will be much more difficult than implementing Talent Management 2030 — but much more important. Marines cannot wait for new processes like Talent Management 2030 to become a reality. They must seek ways to implement its ideals and principles now. True innovation — of the sort the Commandant has directed — requires intellectual rebels; it requires those who are not afraid of risk. Some ideas will fail or just be ignored. Some higher-ups will respond that you do not have the authority to make changes. Yet you must still try — for the good of those who serve under you and the good of your service.
+++
Captain Steven Arango is a Judge Advocate in the Marine Corps and serves as a trial counsel at Marine Corps Base Quantico. He is also the co-founder and a board member of Law Clerks for Diversity, a 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on increasing diversity in federal clerkships. He has published commentary for the Wall Street Journal, SAIS Review for International Affairs, Marine Corps Gazette, and Fox News.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Marine Corps, Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
16. Putin is holding GPS hostage – Here’s how to get it back
Excerpts:
Putin’s November anti-satellite test added another consideration and constraint to America’s on-going geopolitical calculus.
Yet this is a conundrum of our own making; it is the result of failing to invest in resilient systems despite knowing the potential devastating results.
Establishing one or more widely available alternatives for GPS will help solve this issue, and in the words of a former Obama era official, “take the bullseye off of GPS.” It will eliminate a “single point of failure,” and make GPS safer by reducing its attractiveness as a target.
Government agencies have identified readily available technologies and services needed to make GPS, and thus America, more secure. The projected annual price tag is a small fraction of the $1.5B spent on GPS each year, and something that could easily be funded by the recently enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework.
America prides itself on being a nation of laws. The administration must follow the law, implement a GPS backup as soon as possible, and rescue our hostage GPS from Putin.
Putin is holding GPS hostage – Here’s how to get it back
c4isrnet.com · by Dana A. Goward and Rep. John Garamendi · April 12, 2022
“GPS is an enormous bargaining chip for Vladimir Putin” – George Beebe, former Chief Russia Analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency
On November 15, 2021 a missile streaked into space from Russia, destroying a retired Russian satellite. The remnant debris endangered other satellites and the International Space Station crew that included Russian cosmonauts.
Russia’s anti-satellite test was meant as a clear message to the U.S.; Russia can destroy American satellites. Two weeks later a Russian news media personality bragged that Russia could bring down all 32 GPS satellites, a move that would affect nearly every facet of American life. The demonstration and subsequent threat would become a prelude to Russia’s next major act.
As Russia shot down a satellite, they were also massing troops at their border with Ukraine. When they invaded in February, the threat to American satellites became a particularly ominous deterrent to U.S. support for Ukraine.
U.S. critical infrastructure relies on precise timing and navigation signals from GPS satellites. A member of the National Security Council acknowledged this at a December public meeting saying “GPS is still a single point of failure” for America.
If GPS signals suddenly disappeared, transportation systems would immediately suffer. Everything would slow down, carry less capacity and be more dangerous. Air travel would be less efficient and safe. Delivery services would be hamstrung. Uber and Lyft would be out of business.
Other critical systems would follow over subsequent days. Cellphone towers and internet switches would lose synchronization. Banks could not timestamp transactions. Control systems for electrical grids, sewer and water systems, and many industrial applications would fail or revert to inefficient manual operations.
Putin would not even need not go through the trouble of shooting down satellites and risking all-out war. He could do it with the flip of a switch.
Russia excels at cyber and electronic warfare. Its experts have boasted their abilities could “make aircraft carriers useless.” Russian forces regularly jam GPS and other satellite signals in various parts of the world. They also have perfected “spoofing,” a technique which sends false signals to make GPS users think they are someplace they are not.
Russian capabilities also reportedly extend into space with nuclear powered electronic warfare satellites. These could jam GPS signals across the face of the planet.
A cyber or jamming attack would have clear advantages over destroying satellites. Cyber-attacks are often difficult to attribute and would be less likely to prompt a shooting war. Putin also would have the flexibility to undo things if they started to get out of hand, or once he got what he wanted.
Just the threat of interfering with GPS can help Putin keep the U.S. at bay.
Unlike Russia, China, and some other countries, the U.S. does not have a terrestrial system to fall back on when essential timing and navigation signals from space are not available.
We had such a system, but instead of security and resiliency, bureaucrats saw unneeded duplication with GPS and it was shutdown. And notwithstanding promises in 2008 and 2015 to establish a land-based backup for GPS, and a 2018 law requiring one to be in operation by the end of 2020, nothing has been done.
GPS is an enormous bargaining chip for Putin, and enables him to impose his own crippling economic and political sanctions on the U.S. at any time.
A GPS outage would have immediate and severe impacts to our economy. Impacts that will grow with time and create huge domestic problems while hindering our ability to act against Russian aggression.
Even a couple hours’ disruption would severely undermine public confidence in the government. It will create long lasting political problems and weaken our nation’s position on the world stage for decades.
Putin’s November anti-satellite test added another consideration and constraint to America’s on-going geopolitical calculus.
Yet this is a conundrum of our own making; it is the result of failing to invest in resilient systems despite knowing the potential devastating results.
Establishing one or more widely available alternatives for GPS will help solve this issue, and in the words of a former Obama era official, “take the bullseye off of GPS.” It will eliminate a “single point of failure,” and make GPS safer by reducing its attractiveness as a target.
Government agencies have identified readily available technologies and services needed to make GPS, and thus America, more secure. The projected annual price tag is a small fraction of the $1.5B spent on GPS each year, and something that could easily be funded by the recently enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework.
America prides itself on being a nation of laws. The administration must follow the law, implement a GPS backup as soon as possible, and rescue our hostage GPS from Putin.
Hon. John Garamendi (D-CA) represents California’s 3rd Congressional District and chairs the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee.
Mr. Dana A. Goward is President of the non-profit Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation. He retired from the federal Senior Executive Service, is a retired U.S. Coast Guard Captain and serves on the President’s Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board.
17. INTO THE MILITARY METAVERSE: An empty buzzword or a virtual resource for the Pentagon?
INTO THE MILITARY METAVERSE: An empty buzzword or a virtual resource for the Pentagon? - Breaking Defense
“You think about, like, a picture's worth 1,000 words, the video clip’s worth a million words – well, how much is it worth to be able to literally experience it based on anywhere you are?”
Before the metaverse, IVAS goggles aim to give troops augmented reality information flows. (Graphic by Breaking Defense, original IVAS photo via DVIDS, original Chicago skyline by Rohan Gangopadhyay via Unsplash)
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN REALITY AND A VIRTUAL EXISTENCE: In December, a small office within the stoic Air Force bureaucracy hosted a meeting with some 250 people, gathered in a conference room with the usual whiteboards, sticky notes and yellow folders.
But the conference room didn’t exist, and the attendees were hundreds of miles apart, spread from the United States to Japan, all wearing Oculus headsets.
With that meeting, visitors entered into the beating heart of the explosive, if uncertain, hype-cycle of the metaverse, a concept that has percolated for decades but was brought fully into the mainstream last year when Facebook rebranded as Meta.
Now, the metaverse, essentially interconnected virtual worlds likely accessed through virtual or augmented reality, is gripping the consumer world and expanding. The NBA’s Brooklyn Nets have filed trademarks for “Netaverse” and plan to broadcast games in the virtual worlds of the metaverse. MLB’s reigning champion Atlanta Braves announced a metaverse version of its ballpark. Major consumer companies like Walmart and Nike have announced plans to cash in on the concept, whether the public wants it or not.
“It’s not clear that you’re even going to get really widespread adoption of this idea in the next year or two. Everyone’s talking about it, [but] I’d say right now the metaverse is a corporate fad, not a user fad,” said Palmer Luckey, founder of defense startup Anduril Industries and the creator of the Oculus, perhaps the most popular VR headset. Eventually, however, “the metaverse is definitely going to happen.”
A passionate chorus of opinions argues that the metaverse is a fundamental advancement that will be central to the future of the human race; those voices run into a similarly fervid choir of skeptics arguing that companies are just chasing a tech craze that has either already existed for decades without fancy branding or one that no consumer will actually want.
The problem is that neither side, nor any of the corporate firms cowing about their metaverse businesses, seems to have an actual definition of what the term means.
“It’s everything and anything, which means it’s nothing,” said Jennifer McArdle, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and head of research at Improbable U.S. Defense & National Security, a distributed simulation software company.
But the hype and hope of the metaverse isn’t restricted to the civilian world, and is slowly inching into the Pentagon among leaders both eager to show the military’s technology-forward stance and for those seriously studying the tech’s usefulness.
An Army one-star gave a detailed answer on the history of the term metaverse at a conference in December. Contractors boast about augmented and virtual reality technologies that will bring the metaverse to the military. Military simulated training investments are characterized as metaverse research. And that Air Force office dubbed its virtual reality meeting as an early foray into the metaverse — accompanied by NFTs.
To understand the future of the military and the metaverse, Breaking Defense spoke with key Pentagon officials, outside experts and representatives from industry. While there are varying levels of enthusiasm, there is a growing agreement that as long as the military enters the virtual world with clear (if augmented) eyes, it could greatly benefit American warfighters in ways ranging from immersive combat planning to hyper-realistic virtual training to truly experiencing weapons systems in ways that have never before been possible.
But as with technological leaps in the past, if the metaverse can’t avoid becoming an empty buzzword thrown at every problem by leaders who don’t fully grasp the concept, the Pentagon could end up wasting millions of dollars chasing a virtual dream.
“This really does force us to open the aperture of analysis when it comes to defense, not just in terms of how these virtual worlds could theoretically impact battlefield effectiveness, but also in terms of how the military provides for and supports its warfighters as a bureaucratic and social organization,” McArdle said.
Has The Military Already Been Playing In The Metaverse?
Years before the word “metaverse” existed, the Pentagon was experimenting with the broad concept of interconnected virtual worlds. In 1978, Air Force Capt. Jack Thorpe published a paper outlining a web of networked simulators for distributed mission planning. Years later, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency picked up the project, dubbed Simulator Networking (SIMNET), which later transitioned to the Army.
“If a metaverse is simply a series of interconnected virtual worlds, you could argue that there’s been very kind of clunky metaverses in the military since the 90s,” McArdle said.
The term “metaverse” stems from the 1992 novel “Snow Crash,” a dystopian science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson in which the main character straps on a VR headset and enters the “metaverse,” where his avatar lives, works, parties and engages in the occasional sword fight.
The military’s metaverse could include the experience of flying fighter jets, like these F-35s. (Graphic by Breaking Defense, original F-35 photo via DVIDS, original Chicago skyline by Rohan Gangopadhyay via Unsplash)
Today, discussion about the metaverse focuses on online gaming or virtual worlds that users can essentially “live” in, primarily used as a social arena. Fundamentally, as other technology-focused trade publications have written, the “metaverse” is a shared space that does not disappear when a user removes their VR headset.
But plenty of confusion exists with no clear-cut, resolute definition: What is a metaverse versus the metaverse? Fundamentally, can there be multiple metaverses?
Or for the military, if a soldier enters a single virtual training environment, is that considered the metaverse or is it simply training in virtual reality? What if that VR experience is connected to another virtual environment, then is it a metaverse? And if a soldier doesn’t persistently “live” in that environment, is it a (the?) metaverse at all? And on it goes.
“The reality is that almost nothing that anyone is calling the metaverse today is at all analogous to what people in the VR industry have been referring to the metaverse as for decades now,” Luckey told Breaking Defense, adding it’s “crazy” to call any digital space accessed by virtual reality the “metaverse.”
“Companies are calling their thing ‘this is our metaverse.’ That’s like saying ‘this is our internet.’ It’s like, no, that’s not how this works,” Luckey said. “The metaverse is an all-encompassing term. You don’t have a metaverse. And if you have a multiplayer game, that’s not a metaverse. That’s a game, like, we’ve had these for a very long time.”
The military, he said, has been more sober when it comes to the metaverse than commercial firms.
“In the military, I actually haven’t seen the same crazy nonsense I’ve seen in the corporate world. People in the military understand how VR can solve their problems they’ve been thinking about for 20, 30,40 years,” he said. “As the tech advances, they’re able to use it for more and more things.”
Luckey predicted that “real-life quality VR” is probably 10 to 15 years away, while the ability to accurately simulate the feeling of an activity such as surfing is probably 30 to 40 years out. But there are a number of efforts across the Defense Department attempting to build virtual environments for testing, training and experimentation, and have been for years.
In 2014, the Office of Naval Research and DoD-affiliated Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California showcased Project BlueShark, a virtual reality project that demonstrated a virtual world that allowed sailors to drive a ship with 3D situational awareness, repair ships while collaborating with the ship designer from far away, and command and control forces. Stories on the project note that users could transfer their view from the bridge of the ship to a UAV flying overhead, look in all different directions, as well as virtually host others, thousands of miles away, to discuss tactics and operations.
“That’s pretty metaverse-y by modern standards and they were working on it a long time ago before any of this,” said Luckey, who worked on virtual reality projects at USC’s ICT before Oculus.
Project BlueShark was mid-2010s experiment in the early metaverse. (U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released)
The “most perfect” concept of a military metaverse, as McArdle put it, would seamlessly stitch together the underpinnings of soldiers’ virtualized environments for training, education, experimentation and social life, with the final product being “this rich data that seamlessly moves between these virtual worlds that really kind of provides this holistic insight of the individual person,” though she added that “it’s going to be very hard to get there.”
Refining data exchanges between those “worlds” to where information could be passed between them could fundamentally change the relationship between war games, experiments such as Project Convergence, and training. Rather than one-off events, these could merge into something akin to a permanent training event that builds day after day.
“You could have data and information flow across each of these events so you’re iterating on it in a far more effective way,” McArdle said. “Now, if you could then take all that information that you’re iterating on as you’re developing new concepts of operation, or new tactics, techniques, and procedures — all that could then immediately be fed into a training environment, where you’re training your warfighters to use those new concepts of operation or those new TTPs immediately and there’s not a large gap between it.”
Beyond The Hype, Unexpected Future Uses?
For Air Force Materiel Command’s Digital Transformation Office (DTO), charged to drive innovative technology adoption inside the Air Force, the December meeting was about exploring what’s in the realm of possibility, with officials trying to prove the value that a fully immersive meeting could have to a military service with personnel spanning the globe.
“I will admit that our first meeting was very much more towards a VR meeting than, like, truly unleashing the power of the metaverse,” said Vince Pecoraro, lead program manager for the DTO, adding later that “so much stuff happens in the metaverse that the Air Force doesn’t have the ability to tap into because we don’t play in it that often.”
More than 250 individuals joined the online event, which leveraged the DTO Metaverse to engage participants in a virtual reality ecosystem designed to drive innovative thinking and digital-first thought strategies across the community. (Air Force Materiel Command/ DVIDS)
Take, for example, Non-Fungible Tokens, the oft-maligned blockchain-based digital asset that “represents” a real-world object, such as art. Well, the DTO is creating a challenge coin NFT, a digital asset users can cherish in their virtual space. And while the concept may make skeptics roll their eyes, the virtual worlds of the metaverse could theoretically provide nontraditional incentives to appeal to a different generation of warfighters.
“We could also, theoretically, be providing new recruitment incentives via the metaverse,” McArdle said. “So beyond bonuses or the GI Bill, you know, we’re seeing new forms of financial transactions and virtual goods like NFT’s emerging. And theoretically, the metaverse could provide opportunities for us to think about that from an incentive standpoint.”
This is a generation of gamers, after all, and video game companies have proven how far players will go (or how much they’ll pay) for even cosmetic virtual rewards.
Beyond NFTs, as metaverse technologies mature, experts said the military would benefit from the fully-immersive meetings the metaverse could provide, from battlefield operation centers to sustainment missions.
For example, mission planning, typically fraught with powerpoints and documents, could be updated so senior decision-makers could meet with planners in the metaverse and run through different courses of action, experts said. Operation centers could be lined with charts, data feeds, live video and a physical map or table showing a planned operation. Today, if a commander or high-level personnel drop into that physical meeting by phone or VTC, they may not be able to see all that information.
They “could start to see second- and third-order effects. And, again, they could start to fill in some of the nuances that get lost in the way those assets are transferred today,” a senior technology company executive who does business with the government told Breaking Defense on condition of anonymity.
But the overarching question still remains then: why run events in the murky technological waters of the virtual worlds instead of video teleconference? The answer depends on how it’s used.
Kyle Hurst, chief of the DTO, said he wouldn’t use their virtual meeting space for regularly scheduled staff meetings. And Luckey, asked what the benefits would be of doing the interview with Breaking Defense in virtual reality, responded “probably not all that much.”
“But if you’re talking about replicating the experience of going to another country, sitting down in a meeting room under fluorescent lights, and then talking to some people for a few hours, and then you shake their hands at the end… VR is going to absolutely dominate that world very, very quickly,” Luckey said. “The efficiencies are just so good.”
The metaverse is useful for meetings where hosts “need [attendees] to see and feel and touch the stuff that I’m talking about,” Pecoraro said.
The metaverse could combine assets from troops to air support in virtual training and combat simulations. (Graphic by Breaking Defense, original Blackhawk photo via DVIDS, original Chicago skyline by Rohan Gangopadhyay via Unsplash)
The immersive nature of the technology could allow military leaders dispersed across the world to come together to discuss the development of weapons systems or other platforms and experience them, similar to Project BlueShark. That could be useful for maintainers of military equipment, for example. Using the virtual collaboration space of the metaverse, maintainers could “phone a friend” for assistance if they need help.
“Say you need help with that task at hand, somebody else can then come in and aid you,” said Bob Kleinhample, vice president of immersive technologies in SAIC’s digital practice. “Now you have people collaborating in this virtual world as you’re working or maintaining a system.”
Or as the industry executive said, military officials could experience weapons systems in a unique way.
“You could feature that. You could see it, you could fly it, you could look at the performance of it,” the executive said. “Your ability to interact with it becomes much richer. You think about, like, a picture’s worth 1,000 words, the video clip’s worth a million words — well, how much is it worth to be able to literally experience it based on anywhere you are?”
Synthetic Training: A Metaverse Test Case
Perhaps the most obvious use case for interconnected virtual worlds in the military is synthetic training. With more soldiers dying in training year over year than in combat, it’s a tool that could save lives.
In Orlando, Fla., Army Brig. Gen. William Glaser, director of the service’s Synthetic Training Environment Cross-Functional Team, leads an office trying to build the Army’s Synthetic Training Environment (STE), a technology that, depending on the definition, could be considered a metaverse based on its existence as a virtual world that connects to others.
The STE is a virtual training environment to complement live training and simulate combat scenarios across Army formations from platoons and higher on any type of terrain soldiers may face, from urban combat to mountain fighting. According to the Army website it brings “together live, virtual, and constructive training environments into a single STE” and will provide training functions to “ground, dismounted and aerial platforms and command post at the points of need.”
The synthetic training environment is “essentially a metaverse that can be interconnected with the metaverse,” Glaser said — exactly the kind of phrase critics point to when arguing the metaverse is goofy, but also not wrong depending on, once again, how the metaverse is defined. (Glaser is no stranger to the metaverse itself, calling Snow Crash a “great, great book.”)
“If you’re simply falling back on that definition — that it is really a series of interconnected virtual worlds — well, then, theoretically, you could make the case that it is a metaverse,” McArdle said of Glaser’s program. “Now, a lot of people are gonna disagree with that because they’re gonna want to see a lot more in it.”
For Luckey, the STE is more like a multiplayer game than it is a metaverse, because “the metaverse is more like a city and games are more like games…drawing that line is pretty tough though.” The definition of the metaverse is murky enough that Luckey harkened back to the old Supreme Court ruling on obscenity: “I’ll know it when I see it.”
The Army’s had many iterations of virtual training environments, but the synthetic training environment aims to weave several training realities into one joint construct. The idea of having interconnected virtual worlds highlights the limitations of older synthetic training systems. Those are monolithic, built without the intent of integrating new models, and hard to update.
An airman trains with virtual reality, one potential use of the metaverse for the military. (Graphic by Breaking Defense, original soldier photo via DVIDS, original Chicago skyline by Rohan Gangopadhyay via Unsplash)
For example, if a service wants to integrate a new cyber or electronic warfare simulation into a current synthetic trainer, that new simulation has to be built to seamlessly interact with every other simulation or model already built into the environment, a time-consuming and tedious process.
“Fundamentally, they don’t change as the character of warfare changes. So, I mean, essentially, for synthetic training to get to the point where we have these like, you know, seamlessly interoperable virtual worlds, we’re gonna have to move towards building these environments in a way that are far more modular and composable,” McArdle said.
Mission rehearsal is a “capstone” of where the metaverse could enhance soldier training, Glaser said. Soldiers would be immersed in a digital environment of the desert, mountains or High Plains, each with different tactics, techniques and procedures, where soldiers can continuously rehearse missions. For example, virtual training simulating the terrain of Iraq or Afghanistan ahead of deployment could be more beneficial than training in the swampy wetlands of Ft. Stewart, Ga.
“This gives us the opportunity to immerse soldiers into an environment where they might actually be operating in, vice where they’re actually training,” Glaser said.
And while it seems unlikely that — right now — a soldier would have a persistent virtual presence that follows them around, it could provide for more accurate training. More data flow could allow soldiers to train against the performance characteristics of an enemy. Or, if the soldier’s virtual presence was uploaded with their matching physical profiles, it could provide for more realistic training that could highlight the physical limitations of a soldier and their squads.
“If it makes sense to have a persistent digital persona that, let’s say, matches your real-world physical characteristics so that in all the different simulations and training tools, you are at your correct level of performance relative to the other people you’re working with — if that’s the right way to solve the problem, I’m confident the military will do it,” Luckey said.
18. A Ukrainian State of Mind
For reflection.
Conclusion:
Samuel Huntington had it the wrong way around. It’s not a conflict of belief between cultures or “civilizations” that leads to war; it is war that refashions our ideas of self, community, and belief. In this way, Putin may find that now, even more than Lenin, his legacy will be of the man who helped make Ukraine.
A Ukrainian State of Mind - War on the Rocks
In On the Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin wrestled with the question of why people would ever be willing to risk themselves for strangers. Only in 1871, in The Descent of Man, did Darwin find an answer: Societies that include brave people in their population would have an advantage when faced with hopeless causes — situations in which the brave act without regard for personal survival in the event of success. In other words, particularly in existential conflicts when losses against a competing group could mean genetic or cultural extinction, moral commitments to group loyalty, sacrifice, and heroism are most consequential.
In his shifting justifications for war against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has rejected Ukraine’s right to nationhood, depicting Ukrainian national identity as a fiction resulting from errors made by his predecessors in the Kremlin, going back to Vladimir Lenin. This is not a new argument for Putin: During a NATO summit in Romania in April 2008, Putin argued, “Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine? A part of its territory is [in] Eastern Europe, but a[nother] part, a considerable one, was a gift from us!” Nor are these views rare among Russian elites. In April of 2016, Russia’s then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev declared that there was “no state” in Ukraine. In February, Vladislav Surkov, who served as an advisor to Putin for more than 20 years before falling from favor in 2020, argued
There is no Ukraine. There is Ukrainianism: a specific mental disorder…. A muddle instead of a state. There is borscht, Bandera, bandura. But there is no nation. There is a pamphlet called “Samostiyna Ukraine” [Independent or Sovereign Ukraine], but there is no Ukraine.
In a long polemic he published last year, Putin referred to Russians and Ukrainians as “one people,” arguing that it is the West that attempts to enforce a “change of identity” and wrest Ukraine away from its rightful place in Russia’s orbit.
With its invasion, Moscow put this view to the test. And it has failed in the crucible of war. Oxana Shevel suggests that one of Putin’s biggest mistakes has been his belief that Russian soldiers would be welcomed as liberators, and that the Zelensky government would quickly fall, with a pro-Russian quasi-independent Ukraine following suit. She explained:
For Ukrainians, it is an existential struggle for survival. It’s really nothing less than that. Ukrainians are very well aware that Putin’s end goal is the destruction of their sovereign nation as such. He denies Ukrainians a separate identity and Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign state.
So, instead of being greeted as liberators, Russian troops have been greeted with insults and Ukrainian flags, even in areas that were seen as the most Russia-friendly parts of the country before the war.
In launching his war on Ukraine, Putin overlooked the utility of violence and war in remaking identities. Identities are constructions of their times, and are subject to the specific categories of use in a particular historical period and the forces that animate them. . Human beings tend to draw more closely to whatever identity is currently under threat. Even a feature or category that we do not consider meaningful to our sense of self can take on great meaning if we believe we are being treated badly for it. In this way, identity (national, ethnic, tribal, or religious) can be an outcome of war rather than its cause, and it is normal for a “we” identity to emerge when “we” are being collectively threatened. As Harvard anthropologist John Comaroff noted, “It is … in situations of struggle and times of trouble that the content of ethnic self-consciousness is (re)fashioned.”
A March 18 study across all Ukrainian oblasts (excluding Russian-occupied Crimea and Donbas) by Rating Group Ukraine, an independent, non-governmental research organization, demonstrates that the war has already helped to reduce regional differences such that, “Russia and Belarus are considered hostile countries by the vast majority of Ukrainians, regardless of place of residence.” In other words, the vast majority of Ukrainians throughout the country, even in the historically more Russia-friendly east, now see Russia as an adversary.
It is true that Ukraine and Russia’s origins are intertwined, overlapping in the first Slavic state, Kievan Rus. However, Ukraine has its own history of changing religions, borders, and peoples that goes back more than a thousand years. Its capital, Kyiv, officially celebrates its founding year as 482 and was already a major city while Moscow was still a small village. Kyiv’s legendary and eponymous founder Kyi, along with his brothers Shchek and Khoryv, and sister, Lybid, are often depicted as arriving on a Viking-style longboat. But soon after Putin’s accusations of Lenin creating Ukraine, Ukrainian Facebook users shared photoshopped images of Lenin at the head of this legendary longboat. This satirical picture illustrates how the Ukrainian sense of nationhood, going back to at least the medieval period, is deeply at odds with Putin’s notions of a modern date of origin.
Of course, what is even more impactful is that they are at war. And war and violence can craft mutually constitutive identities among both sides of a conflict. The Euromaidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, and past Russian threats and aggressions have already done much to strengthen Ukrainian state identity. Olga Onuch, who has been part of several studies gauging Ukrainian identity and political attitudes, says that the data following Euromaidan demonstrated that already, “civic identity or state attachment was extremely strong amongst Ukrainians,” but adds that “[a]s the conflict escalated, so did support for the Ukrainian state.”
Back then, Ukrainians of diverse origins collectively stood against the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych, as they now resist Russia’s brutal efforts to reimpose direct influence over the nation. Onuch, along with colleagues Henry E. Hale and Gwendolyn Sasse note that there are signs that in Ukraine, “civic identity is gaining ground at the expense of ethno-nationalist identity.” So, although Ukrainians in the south and east largely favored pro-Russian presidential candidates from 2004 to 2014, that support evaporated by 2019. In 2015, 56 percent of Ukrainians considered the various nationalities of Ukraine as constituting a Ukrainian nation, compared to just 39 percent in 2007.
Any country, Ukraine included, that has been the target of aggression is likely to experience a “rally ‘round the flag” effect, a well-studied phenomenon that can help to fashion a larger civic and national identity. But this experience, it should be noted, can also come with a greater appetite for punitive violence. In this way, while the necessity to defend against foreign aggression can help build solidarity among local identities, it can also adversely affect chances for diplomatic solutions.
People generally are more willing to accept grievous losses during violence than in diplomacy. The case for militarism and violent solutions may be more effective at recruiting support because we need only appeal to the moral responsibility of fighting evil, whereas a persuasive case for diplomacy depends on establishing clear criteria of effectiveness as well as confidence that it can be accomplished. In this way, it can be “very hard to talk” to a vicious aggressor, as the defender feels morally obligated to retaliate against such violence with retributional force — even if that retaliation ultimately does more harm than good. People who believe they are fighting a defensive war against a brutal aggressor may find it harder to put down the gun and pick up the pen.
Such emotionality may have been adaptive in humanity’s distant past: early groups of humans who imagined an “us” through the observance of sacred principles that connected and bound them together would have had an advantage over those who did not. There is at least some anecdotal evidence this is so — religio is Latin for “re-connect”, after all. This idea of sacred connections would have particular importance for cultural survival, when the community of “us” was on the losing side of an existential conflict.
A recent study sheds more light on the wartime “rally ‘round the flag” effect. Political scientists analyzed implicit biases among 600 respondents that self-identified as either ethnic Russian or Ukrainian, across four Ukrainian cities. Implicit associations are valuable because they can be good predictors of behavior, often more than explicitly declared views. They found that a year after Russian hostilities began in 2014, on average, ethnic Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine were both implicitly and explicitly biased in favor of Ukraine. This suggests that ethnic minorities are not necessarily biased in favor of the country with which their ethnic identity is generally associated. Instead, their analysis suggests that where the state associated with their ethnic identity is the aggressor, a significant bias can form in favor of the home state. Thus, in a country that has been the victim of aggression, instead of fragmentation of its citizens among local ethnic identities, the formation of a “supraethnic” or a civic national identity may manifest. In this way, further aggression against Ukraine by Russia today is predicted to reinvigorate national identity among Ukrainian citizens.
Whatever Putin imagines Ukrainian national identity is — it is Russian aggression against Ukraine itself that can flesh out and bolster what it means to be Ukrainian. The experience of collective defense and sacrifice against Russia can itself work to instantiate and radicalize this new sense of Ukrainian national identity ever more widely.
For identity is the stuff of meaning; being with and belonging to others who share our sense of self is central to the meaning of identity. We can only be “us” when we are together, both now and also by feeling connected to others before us and after us, through our shared history — in this way, group identity makes us feel our sufferings and victories are honored and celebrated. It is the threat itself that, through prompting sacrifices, can help create and affirm bonds of affection, solidarity, and resilience.
What, then, of Russian identity? There has been much ink spilled on the idea of Russian resiliency. But it is worth noting that the Russians mustered their greatest successes in defense of their homeland against Napoleonic France and the Germans in WWII, not as an invading army. While on the offensive, they lost to the Japanese, they lost in Afghanistan, and they lost The First Chechen War.
But the sacrifices endured in defense of the city in the Battle of Stalingrad were a rallying cry during World War II. The sentiment persists even today, and the city is still a symbol of patriotic sacrifice and unity for Russians. It is ironic, then, that the Russians are making multiple Stalingrads in Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Chernihiv today.
This can readily be seen in the growing sense of Ukrainian nationalism, the use of yellow and blue Ukrainian colors, along with the “Saint Javelin” iconographies, combining Ukrainian nationalism, religious imagery, and violence. When we saw this fusion of religion, nationalism, and violence in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the question was “whether Islam was a violent religion?” After all, all these diverse places had only one thing in common, the argument went — religion. But of course, these places had something else in common — they were active zones of conflict. When people face an existential threat from a superior enemy, they draw on all aspects of their identity for meaning, motivation, and inspiration — religion included.
Samuel Huntington had it the wrong way around. It’s not a conflict of belief between cultures or “civilizations” that leads to war; it is war that refashions our ideas of self, community, and belief. In this way, Putin may find that now, even more than Lenin, his legacy will be of the man who helped make Ukraine.
Siamak Tundra Naficy is a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School’s department of Defense Analysis. An anthropologist with an interdisciplinary approach to social, biological, psychological, and cultural issues, his interests range from the anthropological approach to conflict theory to sacred values, cognitive science, and animal behavior. The views expressed are the author’s and do not reflect those of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, or the Naval Postgraduate School.
19. Opinion | What Do We Do if Putin Uses Chemical Weapons?
A $64,0000 question.
Opinion | What Do We Do if Putin Uses Chemical Weapons?
Bret Stephens
What Do We Do if Putin Uses Chemical Weapons?
April 12, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET
A poison hazard sign in Idlib Province in Syria.
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There are reports that Russia may be planning to use — or, according to unverified reports from local officials in Mariupol, might have already used — chemical weapons as part of its offensive in eastern Ukraine. The Biden administration has already set up a Tiger Team of national security officials to consider options in the event this happens; now is the time for these discussions to become more public.
We’ve traveled this road before, badly. In August 2012, Barack Obama publicly warned the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria against employing chemical weapons. “A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized,” he said. “That would change my calculus.”
It didn’t. The following year, reports emerged that al-Assad had begun using chemical weapons, culminating in a sarin gas attack in a suburb of Damascus. Obama hesitated, fearing a wider war. The British Parliament voted against taking military action in Syria. Congressional Republicans switched overnight from hawkish interventionists to skeptical isolationists. Vladimir Putin intervened with a face-saving offer to get al-Assad to voluntarily divest himself of his chemical arsenal.
The Obama administration crowed that it had achieved the best possible result. But it later came to light that al-Assad had not given up his full arsenal, and he continued to use chlorine gas against his adversaries without consequence. Putin consolidated his alliance with al-Assad, eventually leading to the introduction of Russian forces in Syria in 2015.
And it served as a predicate for Russia’s seizure of Crimea a few months later. Obama’s hesitance in Syria “was decisive,” former President François Hollande of France recently told my colleague Roger Cohen. “Decisive for American credibility, and that had consequences. After that, I believe, Mr. Putin considered Mr. Obama weak.”
This is not a scenario the Biden team can afford to repeat. What should the administration do?
Make only promises it intends to keep. Syria’s use of chemical weapons was a military, humanitarian and international-norms crisis. Obama’s red line turned it into a crisis of American credibility — one whose consequences were much farther-reaching than anything that happened in Syria.
The U.S. response should be asymmetric. President Biden issued a veiled threat to Putin when they met last June in Geneva, by mentioning the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline: “I looked at him. I said, ‘Well, how would you feel if ransomware took on the pipelines from your oil fields?’” That was fair warning.
Bring maximum diplomatic pressure to bear on Germany and other European states to end oil and gas imports from Russia. According to one estimate, those sales provide the Kremlin with $1 billion a day. Berlin remains the weakest link in the effort to create an effective sanctions regime against Russia. This position, craven now, will become morally untenable for Germany if Russia starts gassing Ukrainians. It should lead to the immediate removal of all Russian financial institutions from the SWIFT transaction system to make payments for oil and gas almost impossible.
Tear apart Russia’s supply chains. This is the project of Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, who has been looking at ways to disrupt the Kremlin’s military supply chains. It should move beyond this to every sector of the Russian economy, by automatically forbidding any company doing business in Russia to also do business in the United States and, hopefully, Europe.
Arm Ukraine with offensive weapons. “If Putin turns out to have used chemical weapons — a favorite M.O. of his, from poisoning political opponents to supporting their use in the Syrian battlefield — the West needs to respond aggressively,” the former NATO commander Adm. James Stavridis wrote me on Tuesday. “Assuming these weapons would be delivered by air, it raises the ante in giving the Ukrainians even more tools to run an effective no-fly zone, including MIG-29 fighters and possibly other platforms and drones with anti-air capability.”
Target Belarus. The Biden administration is leery of direct confrontation with Russia. It should be much less restrained in going after the Kremlin’s puppet regime. Turning off the lights in Minsk for a day would be a useful shot across the bow as the dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko ponders joining the Kremlin’s military effort.
Expect the worst. “He has no compunction against really horrific activity,” another former top American military commander told me about Aleksandr Dvornikov, Russia’s new theater commander. “That’s what he did in Aleppo.” One of the hallmarks of al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons is that he began to use them in discreet ways but grew bolder over time. The effect, the former officer warned, could be a “cumulative Srebrenica,” referring to the 1995 Serb massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Bosnia.
Plan for a long war. Make sure we can provision Ukraine with the weapons it needs for at least a year. Begin to train Ukrainian forces in advanced Western combat systems. Prepare to wall off Russia from the global economy for a decade.
We may not be able to stop Putin from using chemical weapons, but we can still avoid the fatal mistake we made a decade ago with al-Assad.
20. Pentagon looks to vastly expand weapons for Ukraine
Did we anticipate the needs or are we playing catch-up?
Pentagon looks to vastly expand weapons for Ukraine
Ukrainian officials also met recently with the maker of Reaper and Predator drones, a company official said
By Dan Lamothe and Karoun Demirjian
Yesterday at 5:59 p.m. EDT|Updated yesterday at 8:34 p.m. EDT
Update
An earlier version of this article reported that Mi-17 helicopters could be among the new arms transfers slated for Ukraine. After it was published, a U.S. defense official said that had been ruled out. The article has been updated.
The Biden administration is poised to dramatically expand the scope of weapons it is providing Ukraine, U.S. officials said Tuesday, with the Pentagon looking to transfer armored Humvees and a range of other sophisticated equipment.
The new aid package could be worth $750 million, these people said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because the transfer has not yet been finalized.
Preliminary plans circulating among government officials and lawmakers in Washington also included Mi-17 helicopters, howitzer cannons, coastal defense drones and protective suits to safeguard personnel in the event of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack, the officials said, though they cautioned that it was not immediately clear if all of those items would end up in the final aid package.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declined to comment. On Tuesday night, after this article was published, another U.S. defense official said the Russian-made helicopters would not be included.
The prospective new delivery, first reported by Reuters, comes on top of the more than $2.4 billion in U.S. security assistance provided to Ukraine since President Biden took office last year, including $1.7 billion in aid since Russia launched its invasion Feb. 24.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his administration have pleaded for more sophisticated weapons to counter the Russian military’s technological advantages. Ukraine’s military has defied initial expectations and mounted a ferocious resistance, having already staved off a bloody, weeks-long assault on the capital, Kyiv, that was aimed at toppling Zelensky’s administration. As a result, Russia has shifted its objectives, consolidating its assault on key cities in the south and in the east.
Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov spoke with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday, Kirby told reporters during a news briefing at the Pentagon. The discussion was part of a “constant dialogue and conversation” between the two officials and focused in part on the weapons and other assistance being provided to Ukraine. Additional details were not disclosed, but Reznikov wrote on Twitter earlier this week that Ukraine is seeking additional unmanned aircraft, air-defense systems, artillery, armored vehicles, combat aircraft and anti-ship missiles.
Some of the weapons expected in the next package are new to Ukrainian troops and would probably require training before they can be used in combat. A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, told reporters Tuesday that the Biden administration is open to doing so if it fills specific needs for Ukraine.
The United States and its allies have been rushing arms to Ukraine for weeks, with the United States alone sending eight to 10 flights of military assistance into neighboring countries every day, the senior U.S. defense official said. Those deliveries then are moved via ground convoy into Ukraine, which determines how and where the gear gets distributed.
As of Tuesday, the Pentagon was close to completing delivery of the last items in an $800 million security assistance package approved by Biden on March 16 and a $100 million set of shipments approved last week, the senior defense official said. The larger package included Switchblade drones that can be armed with explosives and flown into targets, Stinger antiaircraft missiles, and anti-armor weapons including Javelin missiles. The package approved last week included additional Javelins, after a request from Ukraine as it prepares for a renewed Russian offensive in the east.
“These items are not sitting around very long,” the senior defense official said. “Once they get into the transshipment sites, they are palletized and put on trucks, those trucks are picked up by Ukrainian armed forces and taken into Ukraine.”
Ukrainian officials also have begun to meet with U.S. defense firms to see how else they might be able to improve their defenses. In one recent example, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, met last week with representatives from General Atomics, the maker of Reaper and Predator drones, said C. Mark Brinkley, a company spokesman.
Brinkley said Tuesday the company is “currently exploring options” for supporting Ukraine, something that would require U.S. government approval.
“We have aircraft available now for immediate transfer,” Brinkley said. “With support from the U.S. government, those aircraft could be in the hands of Ukrainian military pilots in a matter of days.”
Such a transfer, Brinkley said, would expand Ukraine’s ability to conduct aerial surveillance of the battlefield and provide “highly lethal strike capabilities not afforded” by smaller unmanned aircraft. Ukrainian pilots already familiar with drone operations would not be “starting from scratch” in learning how to fly them, he said.
In a statement, Markarova acknowledged Tuesday night that she met with General Atomics representatives.
“Together with our team, we discussed with General Atomics the prospects of increasing the capacity of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the current situation in Ukraine,” she said.
When asked what hardware she requested of the company, Markarova’s spokeswoman declined to specify, saying Ukraine would prefer to “surprise Russia on the battlefield.”
General Atomics supplies the U.S. Air Force with the Reaper and the U.S. Army with the Gray Eagle, an upgraded version of the Predator that was used widely by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
John Hudson contributed to this report.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.