Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“We have come to the end of an unusual experiment. This experiment was to determine whether a group of Americans constituting a cross-section of racial origins, of abilities, temperaments and talents, could risk an encounter with the long-established and well-trained enemy organizations.”

~ General William “Wild Bill” Donovan, September 1945

"If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else."

- Toni Morrison, American novelist and social critic (1931-2019)

"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

- Carlos Castaneda

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 23, 2023

2. 'Prigozhin BETTER be alive': Wagner fighters threaten to march on Moscow

3. Putin, Prigozhin and Western Illusions

4. The CIA's director predicted last month that Putin would seek revenge on Yevgeny Prigozhin after his failed coup

5. White House tells Ukraine, allies that Congress will back more war aid

6. Statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III on Ukraine's Independence Day

7. Inside the Marine Corps' Fight with Fox News over a False Gold Star Family Story

8. 458. Engaging Generations Z and Alpha: Communicating Effectively with Digital Natives | Mad Scientist Laboratory

9. Report to Congress on U.S. Special Operations Forces

10. US approves new $500M arms sale to Taiwan as aggression from China intensifies

11. Without Prigozhin, expect some changes around the edges on Russian influence operations

12. U.S., Ukraine Clash Over Counteroffensive Strategy

13. Ukrainian Special Ops Raid Occupied Crimea on Independence Day

14. Commoditized Weapons in Ukraine: Are the Allies Getting the Procurement Right?

15. Reimagining Contested Communications

16. Women in special operations say bias, double standards are daily realities

17. Has Xi Jinping bankrupted China? It is finally possible to imagine a post-Communist regime

18. Xi’s Age of Stagnation – The Great Walling-Off of China

19. Why Putin Wanted Prigozhin Dead – A Conversation With Tatiana Stanovaya

20. Australia is becoming America’s military launch-pad into Asia

21. Planning Ethical Influence Operations

22. A ‘lethal threat’: why the far right sees more scrutiny than the left

23. Pentagon watchdog finds lax oversight and screening of military recruits with extremist ties

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 23, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-23-2023

Key Takeaways:

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and founder Dmitry Utkin reportedly died after Russian forces shot down an aircraft transporting senior Wagner commanders over Tver Oblast.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Kremlin have been destroying the Wagner private military company (PMC) and weakening Prigozhin’s authority since the rebellion – and the assassination of Wagner’s top leadership was likely the final step to eliminate Wagner as an independent organization.
Prigozhin was likely attempting to counter the Russian MoD’s and the Kremlin’s destruction of Wagner and Wagner’s future remains uncertain.
Putin almost certainly ordered the Russian military command to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane.
Putin's almost certain order for the Russian MoD to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane is likely a public attempt to reassert his dominance and exact vengeance for the humiliation that the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion on June 24 caused Putin and the Russian MoD.
Specific individuals who may have planned to oppose Putin, the Kremlin, or the MoD have likely taken note of Prigozhin’s ultimate fate and other recent measures to reassert the Kremlin’s backing for the senior Russian military leadership.
The Kremlin appears to be setting conditions to deflect overt responsibility for Prigozhin’s assassination away from Putin and the Russian military.
Further tactically significant Ukrainian gains in and around Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast are widening the Ukrainian breach of Russian defensive lines in the area and threatening Russian secondary lines of defense.
Ukrainian forces likely struck a Russian S-400 air defense system in Crimea on August 23.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, in the Bakhmut area, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on August 23 and did not make any confirmed advances.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 23, 2023

Aug 23, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 23, 2023

Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, Grace Mappes, and Frederick W. Kagan

August 23, 2023, 9:20pm ET

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 3:30pm ET on August 23. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the August 24 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and founder Dmitry Utkin reportedly died after Russian forces shot down an aircraft transporting senior Wagner commanders over Tver Oblast. The Russian Federal Aviation Agency (Rosaviatsiya) reported on August 23 that all the passengers – Yevgeny Prigozhin, Dmitry Utkin, Sergei Propustin, Yevgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, Valery Chekalov, Nikolai Matyuseev – died in the crash along with all three crew members.[1] Russian opposition outlet Dossier reported that Chekalov, who is under US sanctions for transferring munitions to Russia and has acted on behalf of Prigozhin, oversaw Wagner transport logistics and “civilian” projects abroad.[2] A Russian insider source claimed that Chekalov also served as head of Wagner’s security services, though another source refuted this claim.[3] Dossier also reported that several other passengers joined Wagner between 2015 and 2017 and fought in Syria, although their current positions are unclear.[4] Russian sources amplified footage apparently showing a Russian missile striking an aircraft carrying Prigozhin, Utkin, and other Wagner commanders and the wreckage of the aircraft.[5] An insider source claimed that two S-300 missiles shot down the aircraft.[6] Flight tracking data for an Embraer Legacy 600 jet (registration number RA-02795) registered to the Wagner Group stopped after 6:11pm Moscow time while over Tver Oblast.[7] Russian sources claimed that a second Wagner Group-owned Embraer jet (registration number RA-02748) departed Moscow but turned around and landed at Ostafyevo airport in Moscow around the time of the strike.[8] Flight tracking data showed that this second aircraft arrived in St Petersburg at 6:27pm and flew back to Moscow 20 minutes later arriving at 8:02pm, however.[9]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Kremlin have been destroying the Wagner private military company (PMC) and weakening Prigozhin’s authority since the rebellion – and the assassination of Wagner’s top leadership was likely the final step to eliminate Wagner as an independent organization. Wagner and Russian insider sources reported that the Russian MoD recently began forming new PMCs to replace Wagner in Africa and the Middle East and started recruiting Wagner personnel.[10] Wagner commanders indicated that two high-ranking Wagner officials joined the Russian MoD, and insider sources claimed that some Wagner personnel began to leave Belarus after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko refused to finance Wagner when he discovered that Russia would not pay Wagner’s costs.[11] Prigozhin’s online persona has been largely silenced since the rebellion – possibly as part of the deal between Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Prigozhin – which may have negatively impacted Wagner’s ability to recruit new personnel amidst the Kremlin’s defamation campaign against Prigozhin. The Russian MoD and the Kremlin had effectively created conditions in which Prigozhin could no longer adequately support the Wagner contingent unless he was able to secure new funding and missions for Wagner personnel in the immediate term. Such conditions could have eventually led Wagner to slowly lose fighters and cause Prigozhin to lose his relevancy and influence.

Prigozhin was likely attempting to counter the Russian MoD’s and the Kremlin’s destruction of Wagner. A Russian insider source with reported ties to Russian security services claimed that Prigozhin’s “hasty” departure to and from Africa was in response to the Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff’s (GRU) plans and measures to undermine Wagner’s presence in Africa.[12] The source claimed that GRU Deputy Head (Head of the Special Activities Service) Colonel General Andrei Averyanov led the effort to completely block Wagner from operating in Africa and that there were plans to create and train an army corps of more than 20,000 people as Wagner replacements. The source added that Prigozhin was deeply opposed to these efforts and “made every effort to prevent them.” ISW observed that Prigozhin and Wagner’s representatives intensified their efforts to reestablish Wagner in Africa and the Middle East in mid-August, and Prigozhin even published a video of himself in an unspecified African country on August 21 – one of the few published videos of Prigozhin since the rebellion.[13] This video appeared to have heavy recruitment undertones, and it is possible that Prigozhin had traveled to Africa in hopes of securing further missions for Wagner personnel independent of the Russian MoD and the Kremlin.[14] Averyanov has reportedly participated in other high-profile assassination attempts such as the poisoning of Sergei and Yuliya Skripal, and it is possible that Russian officials capitalized on Prigozhin’s panic and impulsivity to eliminate Wagner's top-most leadership.

Wagner PMC’s future without a leader remains uncertain. A Russian news aggregator claimed that the Wagner council of commanders is currently meeting at the time of this publication to prepare a joint statement and announce what will happen to Wagner in the near future.[15] The aggregator, citing an unnamed source, also claimed that Wagner had long developed a mechanism to mitigate the aftermath of Prigozhin’s and Utkin’s deaths.[16] The source, however, refused to disclose what such mitigations entail but noted that “in any scenario, [these mitigations] will be bad news.”[17] Wagner-affiliated channels urged Russian media to refrain from speculations about Prigozhin, Wagner’s fate, and the council of commanders.[18] A prominent Russian milblogger with reported connections to the Russian State Duma claimed that Wagner personnel are still “at their posts” in Belarus and Africa and denied the claims that Wagner personnel are being evacuated.[19] Prigozhin and Utkin were undeniably the faces of Wagner, and their assassinations will have dramatic impacts on Wagner’s command structure and the Wagner brand. Wagner commanders and fighters may begin to fear for their lives or become demoralized. The Russian MoD’s and Kremlin’s inroads into Wagner’s operations and the absence of Prigozhin – who would fight for new opportunities for Wagner personnel – may further lead to the degradation of the Wagner grouping.

Putin almost certainly ordered the Russian military command to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane. Elements of the Russian military, especially Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov, would be extremely unlikely to execute Prigozhin without Putin’s order. The entirety of the Russian political and security sphere likely viewed Prigozhin’s continued survival following Wagner’s rebellion as at Putin’s discretion. ISW will make further assessments based on the assumption that Putin ordered Prigozhin’s assassination unless evidence to the contrary emerges. ISW’s previous standing assessment that Putin was unlikely to kill Prigozhin for fear of angering Wagner personnel has thus been invalidated.[20]

Putin may have concluded that he had sufficiently separated Prigozhin from Wagner and could kill him without turning Prigozhin into a martyr for the remaining Wagner personnel. Some Wagner commanders recently appeared to betray Wagner for the Russian MoD-affiliated Redut PMC, suggesting that the Kremlin’s and Russian MoD’s efforts to separate Wagner elements from those loyal to Prigozhin were partially succeeding.[21] Increasing reports of Wagner’s financial issues and corresponding reports of Wagner personnel leaving the group due to decreased payments and opportunities to deploy may have resulted in Prigozhin losing favor among the Wagner rank-in-file.[22] The Russian MoD has been setting conditions to replace the Wagner Group with MoD-affiliated PMCs, and Russian sources have claimed that these PMCs are attempting to recruit current and former Wagner personnel.[23] Putin may have decided that Wagner personnel had reached a point where they were sufficiently more interested in payments and deployments with these new PMCS than their continued loyalty to Prigozhin and that he could safely kill Prigozhin.

Alternatively, Putin may have decided that Prigozhin had crossed a pre-established redline with his efforts to retain Wagner’s access to operations in Africa. Putin, Prigozhin, and Lukashenko may have included an agreement in the deal that ended Wagner’s rebellion that required Prigozhin to limit his and Wagner's media presence and/or curtail Wagner's operations in Africa. Prigozhin’s August 21 video claiming that Wagner is expanding its presence in Africa and subsequent uptick in Wagner recruitment advertisements may have crossed a pre-established redline if Prigozhin had agreed to silence himself.[24] Prigozhin’s alleged repeated attempts to prevent the Russian MoD from completely replacing the Wagner contingent in Africa may have also crossed a pre-established redline restricting Wagner’s African operations. Putin may have decided that Prigozhin had violated enough aspects or all of the pre-established deal.

It is possible that Putin has intended to execute Prigozhin for some time and that the downing of Prigozhin’s plane on August 23 was coincidental timing, although this is unlikely. Kremlin newswire RIA Novosti reported on August 23 that Putin formally dismissed Wagner-affiliated Army General Sergei Surovikin as commander of Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) and replaced him with Colonel General Viktor Afzalov.[25] The official confirmation of Surovikin’s dismissal in Russian state media on the same day as Prigozhin’s assassination is likely no coincidence. The Kremlin likely intends for both publicized punishments to send a clear message that those who were involved in the June 24 rebellion have been dealt with and that Wagner’s challenge to the Russian leadership is a settled affair.

Putin’s almost certain order for the Russian MoD to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane is likely a public attempt to reassert his dominance and exact vengeance for the humiliation that the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion on June 24 caused Putin and the Russian MoD. Putin notably attended a publicly televised concert in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk around the time that Russian air defenses downed Prigozhin’s plane. Putin’s attendance at the televised concert echoed the memory of Soviet state television showing Swan Lake on television in August 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed.[26] Russian sources noted that it has been exactly two months since the beginning of Wagner’s armed rebellion during which Wagner forces shot down several Russian helicopters and killed at least 13 Russian servicemen.[27] The decision to have Russian air defenses be the method for Prigozhin’s assassination allowed the Russian MoD to directly avenge what was one the deadliest days for Russian aviation since the start of the full-scale invasion. Putin had suffered significant humiliation for failing to stop Wagner’s rebellion, relying on Lukashenko to stop Prigozhin’s march, and failing to punish Wagner servicemen who were responsible for shooting down Russian aircraft on June 24.[28] Putin’s behavior during the rebellion reportedly concerned his inner circle about his ability to sustain his regime, and CIA Director William Burns reiterated similar observations about Putin’s judgments and detachment from events.[29] Burns also noted that “Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback,” and it is likely that Putin was waiting to set proper conditions to finally avenge himself on Prigozhin without appearing impulsive or overreacting.[30] Putin needed to exact ostentatious revenge against Prigozhin not only to prove that he is not a weak leader, but also to support his military – which in the eyes of many Russians did not see justice carried out for the events of June 24.

Specific individuals who may have planned to oppose Putin, the Kremlin, or the MoD have likely taken note of Prigozhin’s ultimate fate and other recent measures to reassert the Kremlin’s backing for the senior Russian military leadership. Putin notably sidelined Tula Oblast Governor Alexey Dyumin at the recent Army-2023 forum, publicly posturing him as subordinate to Shoigu following suggestions that Dyumin might replace Shoigu.[31] Putin and Gerasimov visited the Southern Military District (SMD) headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, which Wagner forces occupied during the rebellion, likely to publicly demonstrate the Kremlin’s backing of Gerasimov.[32] Prigozhin’s fate is also likely meant to serve as a deterrent to elements of the Russian military who may try to follow an existing precedent of insubordination that Prigozhin helped establish.[33] Lukashenko notably embarrassed Putin by directly negotiating with Prigozhin to end the rebellion, and Prigozhin’s assassination may signal to Lukashenko both a dramatic reduction of his negotiating space with the Kremlin and an implicit threat against his continued attempts to resist Union State integration efforts.[34]

The Kremlin appears to be setting conditions to deflect overt responsibility for Prigozhin’s assassination away from Putin and the Russian military. Rosaviatsiya created a special commission to investigate the technical condition of the crashed aircraft, the meteorological conditions on the flight route, and the dispatch services and ground radio equipment.[35] The Russian Investigative Committee has initiated a criminal case on the charge of violating the rules of traffic safety and operation of air transport.[36] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger noted that the Investigative Committee may choose the “erroneous” launch of air defense systems as the main version of the event given the claimed Ukrainian drone strikes on Moscow.[37] A Russian insider source claimed that the crash will likely be framed as a terrorist act that occurred onboard, and Russian State Duma Deputy Yevgeniy Popov already echoed this narrative in the Russian information space.[38] A Wagner-affiliated channel criticized Russian state TV channels for failing to mention the crash during the evening news cycle.[39]

The wider Russian information space refrained from commenting on the reasons behind the crash, with only a few sources tying the incident to the Kremlin and/or the Russian MoD. Many sources observed that the crash occurred exactly two months after the start of Prigozhin’s rebellion.[40] Several insider sources claimed that the incident indicated that Putin “has something to be afraid of” and speculated that Putin’s system (likely referring to his regime) is undergoing a new wave of changes.[41] Some milbloggers claimed that Prigozhin’s assassination will have “catastrophic consequences” and that this incident is a lesson that one must always continue going until the end – implying that Prigozhin should have continued his march on Moscow.[42] Most milbloggers refused to comment on Prigozhin’s death, citing a lack of available official information.[43] ISW will resume its coverage of milblogger reactions on August 24.

Russian milbloggers will likely focus most of their coverage in the coming days on Prigozhin’s assassination and may report less on the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Russian milbloggers similarly shifted much of their reporting to cover Wagner’s rebellion on June 24 to developments within Russia and it took several days for them to return to their normal reporting on the frontlines in Ukraine.[44] The Kremlin may have decided to ostentatiously kill Prigozhin at this time in part to shift focus in the Russian information space away from the frontlines in Ukraine amidst notable Ukrainian advances. ISW’s coverage of kinetic activity on the frontlines in the coming days may be constrained if Russian reporting is limited.

Further tactically significant Ukrainian gains in and around Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast are widening the Ukrainian breach of Russian defensive lines in the area and threatening Russian secondary lines of defense. Geolocated footage published on August 22 and 23 indicates that Ukrainian forces have advanced further in Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) and control most of the settlement and have made further gains west of Verbove (18km southeast of Orikhiv).[45] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces achieved unspecified success in the direction of Novopokropivka (13km south of Orikhiv) and Novodanylivka (5km south of Orikhiv).[46] Russian forces had likely hoped to use their positions in and around Robotyne as a launching point for counterattacks against the western flank of the Ukrainian advance east of the settlement, where Ukrainian forces appear to be widening their penetration through Russian first lines of defense. The Ukrainian advance through Robotyne itself and the potential liberation of the settlement will deprive Russian forces of positions near the western flank of the Ukrainian breach and therefore give Ukrainian forces more maneuver space to launch offensive operations against the Russian secondary line of defense that runs south of Robotyne to the western outskirts of Verbove. A successful deep penetration of Russian defensive lines likely requires a widening of the initial penetration to prevent Russian forces from cutting off a too-narrow thrust.

Ukrainian advances have now brought Ukrainian forces within roughly two kilometers of the secondary lines of Russian defense, a relatively more continuous set of field fortifications consisting of anti-tank ditches and dragon's teeth anti-tank obstacles. The extent of minefields in the area is unclear, although areas in front of these secondary lines of defense may be less heavily mined to give Russian forces north of the lines the ability to retreat. ISW previously assessed that these secondary lines of defense may be relatively weaker than the first Russian defensive lines in the area due to a lack of uncommitted Russian forces in the area and further lateral deployments from other sectors of the front.[47]

Ukrainian forces likely struck a Russian S-400 air defense system in Crimea on August 23. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) announced and posted footage of a strike on a Russian S-400 long and medium-range anti-aircraft missile system near Olenivka, Crimea (116km northwest of Sevastopol and about 140km south of Kherson City).[48] GUR reported that the strike destroyed an air defense installation, an unspecified number of missiles, and killed nearby Russian military personnel, though the footage only shows part of the installation exploding.[49] A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger suggested that Ukrainian forces likely used a Harpoon, Neptune, or Brimstone II missile to strike the air defense system.[50] Russian milbloggers expressed concern that Ukrainian forces were able to operate a drone and record footage of the strike roughly 120km behind the current frontline.[51] A Ukrainian strike on a Russian air defense installation deep within the Russian rear indicates a number of Russian tactical failures, particularly that Russian forces were seemingly unprepared to intercept the missiles with the air defense system or operate electronic warfare jamming to prevent Ukrainian forces from operating a drone in the area. These tactical failures, though surprising and serious, may not be indicative of wider systemic issues within Russian air defenses, however.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Pentagon Spokesperson General Patrick Ryder notably pushed back on an alleged US intelligence assessment that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will fail to meet its objectives. Sullivan stated on August 22 that the United States does not assess that the war in Ukraine “is a stalemate.”[52] Sullivan stated that the United States continues to support Ukraine in its counteroffensive efforts and noted that Ukrainian forces continue to take territory.[53] Sullivan noted that the United States will continue to support Ukrainian forces as they operate according to their tactics and timetable and proceed according to the strategic and operational decisions of their commanders and leadership.[54] Ryder stated on August 23 that it is “inappropriate” to draw any conclusions about the Ukrainian counteroffensive while fighting continues across the frontline and that Ukrainian forces continue to advance.[55] Sullivan’s and Ryder’s statements are a notable response to the Washington Post’s August 18 report that the US intelligence community has assessed that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will fail to reach Melitopol in western Zaporizhia Oblast and will not achieve its principal objective of severing the Russian land bridge to Crimea.[56]

Russian forces conducted a series of drone and missile strikes across Ukraine on the night of August 22 to 23 and destroyed grain infrastructure at the port in Izmail, Odesa Oblast. Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces launched nine missiles and up to 20 Shahed-131/136 drones and that Ukrainian forces destroyed 11 drones, including nine over Odesa Oblast.[57] Ukrainian Minister for Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Development Oleksandr Kubrakov reported on August 23 that the Russian drone strike on the port of Izmail destroyed over 13,000 tons of grain intended for Egypt and Romania.[58] Kubrakov reported that Russian strikes have destroyed 270,000 tons of grain since Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative on July 17.[59] The Russian destruction of additional Ukrainian grain infrastructure comes less than a day after Putin attempted to mitigate dissatisfaction from African countries at Russia’s withdrawal from the grain deal during the BRICS Business Forum in South Africa.[60]

Key Takeaways:

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and founder Dmitry Utkin reportedly died after Russian forces shot down an aircraft transporting senior Wagner commanders over Tver Oblast.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Kremlin have been destroying the Wagner private military company (PMC) and weakening Prigozhin’s authority since the rebellion – and the assassination of Wagner’s top leadership was likely the final step to eliminate Wagner as an independent organization.
Prigozhin was likely attempting to counter the Russian MoD’s and the Kremlin’s destruction of Wagner and Wagner’s future remains uncertain.
Putin almost certainly ordered the Russian military command to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane.
Putin's almost certain order for the Russian MoD to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane is likely a public attempt to reassert his dominance and exact vengeance for the humiliation that the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion on June 24 caused Putin and the Russian MoD.
Specific individuals who may have planned to oppose Putin, the Kremlin, or the MoD have likely taken note of Prigozhin’s ultimate fate and other recent measures to reassert the Kremlin’s backing for the senior Russian military leadership.
The Kremlin appears to be setting conditions to deflect overt responsibility for Prigozhin’s assassination away from Putin and the Russian military.
Further tactically significant Ukrainian gains in and around Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast are widening the Ukrainian breach of Russian defensive lines in the area and threatening Russian secondary lines of defense.
Ukrainian forces likely struck a Russian S-400 air defense system in Crimea on August 23.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, in the Bakhmut area, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on August 23 and did not make any confirmed advances.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on August 23 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Novoyehorivka (16km southwest of Svatove).[61] Russian Western Grouping of Forces Press Officer Yaroslav Yakimkin claimed that Russian forces continued offensive operations near Vilshana (13km northeast of Kupyansk) and captured a Ukrainian stronghold and two Ukrainian observation posts.[62] A Russian milblogger claimed that unspecified Russian volunteer battalions are conducting assaults near Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna) and are semi-encircling Ukrainian forces in the settlement, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of Russian positions in the area consistent with a threat of encirclement.[63]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on August 23. The Russian MoD and Yakimkin claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Synkivka (9km northeast of Kupyansk), Petropavlivka (6km east of Kupyansk), Vilshana, Novoyehorivka, and Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove).[64] The Russian MoD and the Russian Central Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Alexander Savchuk stated that elements of the Russian Central Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Yampolivka (17km west of Kreminna), Torske (15km west of Kreminna), Dibrova (6km southwest of Kreminna), and the Serebryanske forest area south of Kreminna.[65]

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

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut area on August 23, but did not advance. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations south of Bakhmut.[66] The Russian MoD claimed that elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut) and Mayorske (21km southwest of Bakhmut).[67] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces with armored vehicle support attacked near Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut).[68] The milblogger claimed that Russian and Ukrainian forces skirmished in the southern part of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[69]

Russian forces continued ground attacks in the Bakhmut area on August 23 but did not advance. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Vesele (20km northeast of Bakhmut) and Klishchiivka.[70] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces counterattacked near Klishchiivka but did not specify an outcome.[71] The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) People’s Militia posted footage claiming to show elements of the Russian 85th Brigade (LNR 2nd Army Corps) striking Ukrainian positions in the Bakhmut direction.[72]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on August 23, but did not advance. The Russian MoD claimed that elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces repelled a Ukrainian attack near Nevelske (directly west of Donetsk City).[73]

Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on August 23, but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continue to defend against Russian attacks near Avdiivka and Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City).[74] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Novomykhailivka (36km southwest of Avdiivka), in Marinka, and on the southern approaches to Avdiivka.[75] Russian milbloggers amplified footage claiming to show elements of the Russian 68th Army Corps (Eastern Military District) operating near Novomykhailivka.[76]

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

Ukrainian forces reportedly continued limited offensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and did not make any confirmed or claimed advances on August 23. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks near Pryyutne (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) and Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[77] The Russian “Vostok” Battalion which is operating in the area claimed that Ukrainian forces attempted to find a gap in Russian defensive lines near Novodonetske (12km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[78]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations and made tactically significant gains in the western Zaporizhia Oblast area on August 23. Geolocated footage published on August 22 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced southeast of Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) and northwest Verbove (18km southeast of Orikhiv).[79] Geolocated footage published on August 23 by Ukrainian sources, including Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhnyi, shows that Ukrainian forces erected a flag in southern Robotyne, indicating that Russian forces likely have limited remaining positions in the village.[80] The Ukrainian General Staff reported unspecified Ukrainian successes in the directions of Novodanylivka (5km south of Orikhiv) and Novopokropivka (13km southeast of Orikhiv).[81] Russian milbloggers largely claimed that fighting is ongoing for control of the Robotyne and that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks in and near the settlement.[82] Some milbloggers claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces from central to northern Robotyne and that Russian forces maintain control over southern Robotyne.[83]

Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continue efforts to cross the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast. One milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces continue attempts to gain a foothold near Oleshky but that the Russian 81st Separate Spetsnaz Brigade (a likely volunteer formation that is subordinate to the “Dniepr” Group of Forces and has recently recruited and received aid from occupied Crimea) are defending in the area.[84] Another milblogger complained that Russian forces do not react quickly enough to Ukrainian personnel transports across the river.[85]

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

A Russian opposition outlet reported that Russian authorities pardoned numerous Wagner Group fighters previously convicted of violent crimes and who later committed more crimes after returning to Russia from the frontlines.[86] The outlet reported that pardoned Wagner fighters are suspected of killing at least 12 people and raping four since returning from Ukraine.[87]

Reuters reported that Russian customs records show that Russia continues to purchase Western-made aircraft parts through intermediary countries and is actively circumventing Western sanctions.[88] Russian Ural Airlines reportedly imported over 20 US-made aircraft parts since February 2022, and Reuters analysis of the customs records shows that Russian airlines obtained at least $1.2 billion worth of Western parts between May 2023 and June 2023. Russian customs data indicated that Russia avoids sanctions by importing parts from Tajikistan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China, and Kyrgyzstan.

The Russian MoD claimed that Russia is constructing new military hospitals in Russia’s western border regions likely to address servicemen’s complaints about lack of adequate medical support. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov reportedly visited the construction sites of military hospitals in Bryansk, Belgorod, and Kursk oblasts.[89] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian authorities will commission six hospitals as early as November 2023 and claimed that the Russian MoD is additionally building new medical facilities in the Republic of Dagestan, Ryazan Oblast, and occupied Sevastopol. ISW previously observed numerous complaints from Russian servicemen about the Russian military command failing to provide adequate medical assistance and reports about Russian forces using civilian hospitals in occupied areas to treat wounded personnel.[90]

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

Russian occupation officials met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 23 to discuss strengthening the integration of Russian-occupied Ukraine into Russia. Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Head Leonid Pasechnik informed Putin that LNR authorities completed restructuring its executive bodies in accordance with Russian federal legislation.[91] Putin and Pasechnik also discussed the upcoming September 10 regional elections, Russian federal government infrastructure assistance, and Russian regional patronage programs.[92] Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky presented Putin with a 10-year program for increasing industrial production and investment in occupied Zaporizhia.[93]

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

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

2. 'Prigozhin BETTER be alive': Wagner fighters threaten to march on Moscow

As a friend who flagged this for me said, people could have a field day with this making memes from the Monty Python skit "He's not dead yet." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBxMPqxJGqI

'Prigozhin BETTER be alive': Wagner fighters threaten to march on Moscow after Russia claimed mercenary was on-board doomed plane 'brought down by bombs smuggled in wine crate - as rumours spread he 'faked his death' and fled in a SECOND plane

By ELIZABETH HAIGH and MARK NICOL, DEFENCE EDITOR

UPDATED: 04:18 EDT, 24 August 2023

Daily Mail · by Elizabeth Haigh · August 23, 2023

Wagner mercenaries have threatened to march on Moscow after it was claimed warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin was among the dead in a plane crash near the Russian capital.

Telegram channels with links to Prigozhin announced his death on Friday night shortly after news of the crash, and claimed it was caused by 'traitors' within Russia.

Russian officials also claimed Prigozhin was on the plane, which crashed in a field, killing all ten onboard, just two months after his failed coup attempt against Putin's regime.

The Federal Air Transport Agency published a list of those it believed were on the flight, including Prigozhin and his deputy Dmitry Utkin.

However, Keir Giles, from the London-based think tank Chatham House, warned: 'It's been announced that a passenger by the name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board - but it is also known that multiple individuals have changed their name to Yevgeny Prigozhin, as part of his efforts to obfuscate his travels. Let’s not be surprised if he pops up shortly in a new video from Africa.'

Meanwhile, as the news broke, Wagner supporters laid tributes to its commander outside the former Wagner Centre in St Petersburg. Putin is yet to comment but last night attended a concert.

Although the cause of the crash is unclear, Russian social media channels is awash with speculation that a case of fine wine onboard may in fact have been a bomb in disguise.

Prigozhin, formerly known as Putin's chef and with longstanding links to the Kremlin dictator, is believed to have been on a 'kill list' after his uprising failed and he was exiled to Belarus.

As more claims of Prigozhin's death spread, Wagner fighters posted a chilling video on social media vowing retribution if their leader is confirmed dead.

Yet, frenzied speculation also suggests Prigozhin may have faked his own death after a second aircraft, with links to Wagner, was seen on flight radar zigzagging over the same Tzer region, 60 miles north of the capital.

This would not be the first time he had succeeded in disappearing: he was officially declared dead in Africa in 2019, before re-emerging before Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine.

It was initially unknown if Wagner chief Prigozhin (pictured in a video reportedly filmed in Africa which was released on Monday) - known as the Wagner chief and with longstanding links to the Kremlin dictator - was on board

Masked men, claiming to be Wagner fighters warned Putin to 'get ready' as the group prepares for a possible reaction to their leader's reported death

The plane, which had Prigozhin named as a passenger on its flight list, was later reported to be engulfed in fire, as images on social media claimed to show the wreckage

Flightradar data appeared to show a second plane circling over St Petersburg

The Wagner headquarters in St Petersburg appeared to be lit up in the shape of a cross

A man lights a candle at an informal memorial next to the former Wagner Centre in St Petersburg, which has been scattered with dozens of flowers

People pay tribute to Yevgeny Prigozhin at the makeshift memorial in St Petersburg

Witnesses to the crash heard a loud bang before they saw the jet 'fall from the sky' - locals on social media are sharing these images of the aftermath, although it is unconfirmed at this stage if this is the plane

The Russian Investigative Committee released a photo of the alleged crash site on Wednesday after the blaze had been extinguished

Wagner deputy and co-founder Dmitry Utkin is also claimed to have been killed in the crash

Ten bodies have been retrieved from the wreckage, local emergency services have said, but MailOnline is unable to independently verify whether Prigozhin was one of them.

A Wagner address last night, reported by the Sun, stated: 'We directly say that we suspect the Kremline officials led by Putin of an attempt to kill him!'.

'If the information about Prigozhin's death is confirmed, we will organise a second March of Justice on Moscow!'

Meanwhile armed men claiming to be from the unit warned Putin in a video shared online: 'There's a lot of talk right now about what the Wagner Group will do. We can tell you one thing.

'We are getting started, get ready for us.'

Both state media and Telegram accounts affiliated to Wagner have reported Prigozhin's and Utkin's deaths.

While the fate of his bitter rival remained unknown, the Russian President enjoyed a WW2 memorial concert and handed out military honours in Kursk, Russia.

Video footage purportedly shows the aircraft falling out of the sky in the Bologovsky district in the Tver region, 60 miles north of Moscow on Friday. A burning wreckage, which appears to be of a plane, was later seen in a field, with unconfirmed images showing it completely ablaze.

Prigozhin, 62, has been increasingly careful since he led a coup against Putin's regime exactly two months ago.

After its failure, he had been warned that his life was in danger. He was known to take huge care over his security and is rumoured to have not been onboard the fateful plane, despite state TV asserting otherwise.

Sources close to him said that while the aircraft belonged to him, he usually flew on another aircraft.

Another plane, also supposedly with links to Prigozhin, was detected 'zig-zagging' over Moscow in the aftermath of the crash, fuelling speculation that the Wagner boss may not have been onboard after all.

Tracking data available for the crashed plane appears to show it rise to around 29,000ft, before suddenly disappearing and dropping to 0ft.

A channel linked to Wagner said the plane had been shot down by air defences, but this has not yet been confirmed.

A Telegram channel thought to be linked to Prigozhin said their leader had died, saying he had been 'killed as a result of actions by traitors of Russia'.

A post described him as a 'hero of Russia, a true patriot of his Motherland'.

Wagner deputy and co-founder Dmitry Utkin, widely reported to be a neo-Nazi, is also claimed to have been killed in the crash.

One of the other passengers said to have died, Valeriy Chekalov, has previously been sanctioned by the US due to his links to the Wagner group.

Russian State TV Rossiya24 was the first to announce warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin's death, stating: 'A private jet flying from Moscow to St Petersburg crashed.

'Ten people were killed. Yevgeny Prigozhin was among the passengers.'

Outside the Wagner Centre in St Petersburg, some Russians were pictured laying flowers and candles after the unit leader's possible death.

Ultranationalist pro-war TV channel Tsargrad said the bodies of Yevgeny Prigozhin and fellow military warlord Dmitry Utkin had been identified at the crash site. A genetic analysis was still to be carried out, and authorities have started an investigation, state media reports.

Last night, UK security officials pointed the finger at Putin, accusing the Russian president of assassinating his most dangerous political rival.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source said: 'There is no surprise about what has happened. There are no accidents after an individual challenges Putin's authority.

'He has eliminated his rivals and those who have spoken out against him before and, it appears, he has done so again.

'The question is, what happens now to the Wagner Group. Will it become Putin's private army operating around the world?'

Security sources said they expect the Kremlin to attribute the crash to a bomb placed on board the aircraft by Ukrainian special agents. It is considered far more likely that Prigozhin's jet was targeted by the Russian government using a surface-to-air missile.

Washington confirmed on Wednesday evening that President Biden has been briefed, and the UK government confirmed it was 'monitoring the situation closely'.

Wagner group badges were among the items left at an informal memorial outside the former Wagner Centre on Friday night

Men hang a Wagner flag at a memorial after Russian officials claimed Prigozhin was on the plane that crashed last night

Russians lay banners, flags, candles and bunches of flowers outside the unit's former HQ

Two young Russians stand and look at the makeshift memorial outside the former Wagner Centre

A Telegram channel with links to Wagner announced Prigozhin's death on Friday evening

Images shared online purported to show the jet, believed to be carrying the Russian chief, falling to the ground as it crashed in the Tver region in Russia

It was claimed a video showed the plane flying in the Tver region before crashing towards the ground (right)

Plumes of smoke from the blaze, said to be of the plane, could be seen for miles around, video on social media shows

Firefighters rush to the scene of the blaze, believed to be Prigozhin's plane

Ten bodies have been recovered from the wreckage, said to be pictured above, Russian officials have said

A report from Rosaviatsiya - the Russian aviation agency - said Prigozhin was among the passengers

Prigozhin has had long-established links to the Kremlin and until recently led the Wagner mercenary unit

Witnesses to the crash heard a loud bang before they saw the jet 'fall from the sky'.

Images shared on social media purport to show the burning wreckage of the plane in a field in the Tver region, and plumes of black smoke can be seen from miles away.

The numbers 795 can just about be made out on the edge of the scrap pile, which matches the plane linked to the ex-military leader.

Roads leading to the crash site have since been blocked off by Russian police vehicles, images show.

US national security spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the possible death of Prigozhin would not be a surprise given his history with Putin.

'We have seen the reports' of the crash and if confirmed, 'no-one should be surprised,' she said.

President Joe Biden told reporters: 'I don't know for a fact what happened, but I'm not surprised.'

But news agency Readovka - linked to Prigozhin - said it was 'premature' to say he had died. He regularly 'confused everyone' by changing his travel plans at the last minute, the agency said.

A source claimed: 'The infrastructure [of the plane] was not damaged, the tail fell off in one settlement, everything else in another.

'The wing also fell off, we don't know yet what and where. Three people, the pilots, are torn to pieces, to pieces.

'The rest are in the tail section. Four bodies were picked open, and then it is still not clear. The plane burned out completely.

'Only the front part, windows and a piece of hardware remained, and a piece of the engine is lying on one wing. Everything else burned out.'

Russian officials said of ten bodies found, one of them had its head separated from its shoulders.

Police officers block a road near the site of crash of a private jet linked to Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in the Tver region on Friday night

It comes as Russian authorities begin a criminal investigation into the crash near the village of Kuzhenkino

Prigozhin pictured during his failed coup attempt against Putin in June this year

A video shared widely on social media claimed to show the aircraft ablaze

One local woman said she saw parts of the plane fall off as it plunged from the sky.

A second plane belonging to Prigozhin, the same aircraft said to be flying zigzags close to Moscow, was later reported to have landed in the capital.

Prigozhin had been warned not to go into high buildings for fear of accidents after leading a coup aimed at ousting especially defence minister Sergei Shoigu and army chief Gen Valery Gerasimov.

He is known to have used body doubles as part of his elaborate security measures.

Commenting on the crash, military analyst Sean Bell told Sky News: 'After that abortive coup, I don't think any of us expected Prigozhin's life expectancy to be more than I think we predicted three months. It looks like it's two months.'

He later said the incident could even be a stunt by Prigozhin himself in order to allow him to disappear into a peaceful exile.

At the time of the crash, a smirking Putin - who rarely travels to the Russian regions - was in Kursk, close to Ukraine, marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk in WW2.

At the event, Putin gave awards to the military, including the top honour - Hero of Russia.

Prigozhin, whose private military force Wagner fought alongside Russia's regular army in Ukraine, mounted a short-lived armed mutiny against Russia's military leadership in late June.

Wagner chief Prigozhin (pictured in March this year) became one of the most feared men in Russia during his military career

A local woman said she saw parts of the plane, said to be pictured above, fall off as it plunged from the sky

The jet linked to the Wagner chief has previously flown members of his team around Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Kursk

Russian President Putin was last night pictured at a concert in Kursk

The grand event in Kursk saw Putin hand out military offers, as his biggest rival's fate remained unknown

His paramilitary unit had been associated with some of the worst atrocities of the conflict in Ukraine, but Prigozhin's relationship with the Kremlin broke down over high mortality rates, lack of equipment and lack of wages.

The Russian warlord had previously threatened to withdraw troops from frontline positions if he was not given the supplies he demanded from Putin.

The Wagner Group saw some of the worst fighting in the months leading up to June, with numbers so depleted that Prigozhin recruited thousands of dangerous convicted criminals straight out of prison to join his forces.

In late June, Prigozhin launched an unprecedented verbal attack on President Putin and his allies before marching 25,000 troops towards Moscow.

Having taken the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the army marched north for several hours, forcing the capital into lockdown, before an agreement between him and the government was reached.

The mutiny was ended by negotiations and an apparent Kremlin deal which saw Prigozhin agree to relocate to neighbouring Belarus. But he had appeared to move freely inside Russia after the deal nonetheless.

Shortly after that, Wagner fighters set up camp in Belarus, but Prigozhin's plane, according to media reports, was flying back and forth between Belarus and Russia.

This week Prigozhin posted his first recruitment video since the mutiny, saying that Wagner is conducting reconnaissance and search activities, and 'making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free'.

Prigozhin, who had sought to topple Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, had posted the video address just this Monday - but the date of the shoot is unknown.

Daily Mail · by Elizabeth Haigh · August 23, 2023

3. Putin, Prigozhin and Western Illusions

Is his demise for sure?

Excerpts:

Prigozhin’s demise reveals the brutal politics that now controls Russia. Too many in the West, including on the American left and right, imagine that Mr. Putin can be shamed or appeased into backing away from his ambitions to reconstitute a Greater Russian empire.

This underestimates his motivating ideology and ruthlessness. He will kill anyone who stands in his way at home, and he’ll do the same abroad—in Ukraine, Poland, or anywhere else, if he believes he can get away with it.

Putin, Prigozhin and Western Illusions

The Wagner Group leader was Vladimir Putin’s most dangerous rival.

By The Editorial Board

Aug. 23, 2023 6:40 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/yevgeny-prigozhin-plane-crash-vladimir-putin-russia-wagner-group-415ea0d4?mod=hp_opin_pos_2#cxrecs_s

Yevgeny Prigozhin PHOTO: CST/ZUMA PRESS

Vladimir Putin’s foes have been turning up dead for years, and the latest is mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was reported to have died Wednesday in a plane crash outside Moscow. This is no coincidence, comrade, as the Soviets used to say.

Russia’s civil aviation authority confirmed Prigozhin was on the flight, while social-media channels said the Embraer jet was shot down by a missile. President Biden told reporters that “I don’t know for a fact what happened but I’m not surprised,” adding that “there’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”

Prigozhin’s fate was probably sealed after his failed June mutiny against Mr. Putin. Prigozhin’s Wagner Group gained control of the Russian city of Rostov, marched toward Moscow and shot down Russian planes. The mercenary leader claimed that “we did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime.” But he demanded the resignation of Russia’s top defense officials “who, through their unprofessional actions, made a huge number of mistakes” in Ukraine.

That was a politically explosive accusation—and true. Mr. Putin has used his own people as cannon fodder, and the U.K.’s Defense Ministry estimates that Russians suffered as many as 200,000 casualties, including 60,000 killed, in the first year of the war.

Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, a Putin ally, brokered an unlikely truce to end Prigozhin’s mutiny. But the rebellion was the most significant challenge in his 23-year rule. If Prigozhin’s death was an assassination, it was intended as a message to other potential coup plotters. You can bet that is how Russians will read it.

Prigozhin’s demise reveals the brutal politics that now controls Russia. Too many in the West, including on the American left and right, imagine that Mr. Putin can be shamed or appeased into backing away from his ambitions to reconstitute a Greater Russian empire.

This underestimates his motivating ideology and ruthlessness. He will kill anyone who stands in his way at home, and he’ll do the same abroad—in Ukraine, Poland, or anywhere else, if he believes he can get away with it.

The CIA's director predicted last month that Putin would seek revenge on Yevgeny Prigozhin after his failed coup

Business Insider · by Rebecca Cohen, Chris Panella

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images; Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

CIA director William Burns predicted last month that Putin might not be done with Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Prigozhin led a short-lived coup against Russian military leaders exactly two months ago.
On Wednesday, Russian media outlet TASS reported that Prigozhin was a passenger on a crashed plane.

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CIA Director Bill Burns predicted last month that Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin probably hadn't seen the last of Vladimir Putin's wrath after the warlord staged a failed coup against the Kremlin.

"Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold," Burns said at an annual security forum in Aspen. "In my experience, Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback so I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution for this."

Russian state media outlet TASS reported on Wednesday that Prigozhin was a passenger on a plane that crashed in the Tver region right outside of Moscow. All ten people on board the flight are reportedly dead.

Prigozhin — who once earned the nickname "Putin's Chef" after the Russian President began eating at his restaurants and giving his catering business government contracts — had publicly criticized the Kremlin and Russian military leadership for their botched war plans in Ukraine, including apparent misuse of Wager mercenaries.

The feud between Prigozhin and Russian higher-ups came to blows in late June, when Wagner launched a failed mutiny against Russia's military leadership in late June, with Prigozhin marching his mercenary troops toward Moscow.

But the coup was short-lived when Prigozhin appeared to make a sudden reversal, ordering his troops to turn back and stand down. A deal was then brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, which involved Prigozhin being exiled to Belarus while his troops could either join him, quit, or join Russian military ranks.

Since then, Prigozhin's whereabouts and standings with both Russian military leadership and Putin himself have been all over the place. He attended an in-person meeting with Putin and other Wagner commanders five days after the mutiny and then was spotted in Russia while he was supposed to be in Belarus. He attended a critical summit with African leaders in late July and then announced plans for the future of Wagner in a video likely from his Belarus camp days later. Then, the Belarusian government moved to have exiled Wagner mercenaries train Belarusian soldiers, a role previously fulfilled by Russia's military.

Just earlier this week, Prigozhin resurfaced in a video purportedly filmed from somewhere in Africa, where Wagner has long had a presence as a mercenary organization for African leaders and governments. They've reportedly committed a variety of atrocities, including killing hundreds of civilians.

If Prigozhin is dead, it's now unclear what the future of Wagner looks like and what — if any — of their operations will continue.

Business Insider · by Rebecca Cohen, Chris Panella

5. White House tells Ukraine, allies that Congress will back more war aid

Beware of making promises you may not be able to keep. But I hope the NSA is right.

21 hours ago - Politics & Policy

White House tells Ukraine, allies that Congress will back more war aid

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/23/white-house-ukraine-war-aid-congress-support?utm

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan gives a briefing at the White House in July. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The Biden administration has told Ukraine and other European allies that despite "dissonant voices" in the Republican Party, there is bipartisan support in Congress for continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says.

Why it matters: There are growing concerns in Kyiv and among U.S. allies in Europe that more and more Republicans on Capitol Hill will oppose aid to Ukraine as the 2024 election draws closer — potentially jeopardizing efforts to repel Russia's invasion there.

What they're saying: Sullivan said in a briefing Tuesday there are "strong" Republican voices in the House and the Senate "in key leadership positions" who support continuing U.S. aid to Ukraine.

"We believe that the support will be there and will be sustained," Sullivan said, despite some "dissonant voices" among Republicans.
"Our view is that (Ukraine and U.S. allies in Europe) have confidence that the U.S. will continue to be there, as we have committed to be."

Behind the scenes: An ambassador of one European country confirmed to Axios that his government has received assurances in recent days from senior U.S. officials that the Biden administration is confident it will get the support it needs in Congress to continue aid to Ukraine.

The European ambassador said his government had determined that a majority in Congress favor continuing U.S. aid to Ukraine.

The other side: A House GOP leadership aide told Axios that there may be enough votes from both parties to pass a resolution about aid to Ukraine in a "hypothetical scenario," but opposition within the party is likely too widespread for Republican leadership to allow it to go to a vote.

"I just don't see that support in the House [Republican] conference right now … We are well beyond just the Freedom Caucus talking about this," said the GOP aide, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about internal conference dynamics.
Reports of increasingly grim prospects for an all-out Ukrainian victory have been met with a tonal shift among Republicans at a time when several GOP contenders for president — including former President Trump — are calling for the U.S. to stop military aid to Ukraine.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is "not winning. It's a stalemate now," Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), a co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, told Politico last week.
"It's not a small group of people that are concerned about this," the leadership aide said. "A lot of the rank-and-file members were pretty clear: We've done what we can do, we need to focus on some of our own internal problems now."

Yes, but: Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a staunch Ukraine supporter, noted that about 70% of House Republicans backed Ukraine aid in recent votes, telling Axios, "I do think there's broad support."

Those votes were to kill right-wing measures to prohibit further security assistance to Ukraine and block $300 million in aid tucked into a defense bill — a relatively paltry sum compared to the $24 billion the Biden administration is seeking.
Bacon stressed that he differs with the administration on not sending a long-range ballistic missile system known as ATACMS to Ukraine. "These weapons have roughly 300 [kilometers] range and are accurate. Let's give weapons that can defeat Russia in Ukraine," he said.
Asked whether he thinks Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's leadership team will bring Ukraine aid to a vote, however, Bacon said: "I can't speak for them."
McCarthy — who leads a narrow GOP majority in the House and has been under constant pressure from far-right conservatives to cut federal spending — seems headed toward another budget standoff with Biden over Ukraine aid.

6. Statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III on Ukraine's Independence Day

Conclusion:

Today, as Ukraine commemorates another year of independence, the United States remains steadfast in our commitment to ensure that it can celebrate many more. We will support Ukraine for as long as it takes in its fight for its security and freedom.

Statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III on Ukraine's Independence Day

defense.gov

Release

Immediate Release

Aug. 24, 2023 |×

The United States stands in solidarity with Ukraine as it celebrates the 32nd anniversary of its independence. The Ukrainian people have inspired the world with their courage and resolve to defend their right to live in a sovereign, democratic, and free country.

For the past 18 months, Russia has waged a full-scale, unprovoked, and indefensible war against Ukraine. The Kremlin's war of choice has killed thousands of innocent Ukrainians, displaced millions more, and deliberately inflicted terror and trauma on Ukraine's men, women, and children.

Yet the Ukrainian people remain indomitable, and Ukraine is fighting back valiantly to regain its sovereign territory and protect its citizens.

The United States is proud to stand with Ukraine, and we will continue to ensure that it has what it needs to fight for its freedom. Under President Biden's leadership, we have built a strong global coalition in support of Ukraine and committed more than $43 billion in security assistance that has been critical to helping Ukraine since Russia launched its reckless and lawless invasion. We have provided air defense to protect Ukraine's skies, as well as artillery, tanks, armored vehicles and associated munitions, anti-armor weapons, and more to help Ukraine's defenders counter Russian aggression. To support Ukraine's current counteroffensive, our latest assistance package included key capabilities, such as additional mine-clearing equipment, armored vehicles, and artillery rounds.

Nations of goodwill from around the globe have also stepped up to condemn Russia's assault on the international system of rules and rights and rushed urgently needed assistance to Ukraine. Some 50 countries of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group that I convene have rallied to commit more than $32 billion in security assistance to support Ukraine's defense.

Today, as Ukraine commemorates another year of independence, the United States remains steadfast in our commitment to ensure that it can celebrate many more. We will support Ukraine for as long as it takes in its fight for its security and freedom.

ukraine response Defense Secretary Austin

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7. Inside the Marine Corps' Fight with Fox News over a False Gold Star Family Story

Sigh...

Excerpts:

Christy Shamblin, Gee's mother-in-law, told Military.com Tuesday that she only wanted to bring attention to a frustrating 47-page policy when she spoke to Mills' staff during the meeting with Abbey Gate victims, and to make it easier for other Gold Star families to navigate the bureaucratic and tragic process of transporting remains.

Now, she wants to help clear any "muddy" waters in the wake of the story. Shamblin blames herself for the tumult it caused, and has been mostly alone in publicly taking responsibility.

When told about the Marine Corps' efforts behind the scenes to correct the record -- something Shamblin said she tried to do herself by contacting Fox News -- she said that "it falls in line" with her beliefs about the service.

"They are truthful, they're honest and they're dependable," Shamblin said.

Inside the Marine Corps' Fight with Fox News over a False Gold Star Family Story

military.com · by Drew F. Lawrence · August 23, 2023

The Marine Corps worked behind the scenes last month in an attempt to convince Fox News to retract its false story claiming a Gold Star family was forced to pay $60,000 to ship the remains of a Marine killed in Afghanistan, according to emails obtained by Military.com.

A service spokesman notified the news network that it was pushing an incorrect story and accused it of using the grief of fallen Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee's family to draw in readers, the email exchanges, released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request, show. Fox News eventually deleted the story with no correction, and it never reached out to the Gee family with an apology as the Marine Corps requested, the family said.

The Fox News story came from Republican Rep. Cory Mills, a freshman congressman from Florida, who claimed Gee's next of kin were strapped with the $60,000 charge after a meeting with the families of Abbey Gate bombing victims, a suicide attack where 13 service members were killed outside of the Kabul airport in 2021.

Gee's family never paid a dollar to transport her remains, and the Marine Corps let Fox News know -- in no uncertain terms -- that the July 25 story was false in a series of emails over the following days.

"This headline correction is still misleading and your story is still false," Maj. James Stenger, the lead spokesperson for the Marine Corps, wrote to Fox News in an email after the publication changed the headline and body of the story in an attempt to soften the accusation.

"Using the grief of a family member of a fallen Marine to score cheap clickbait points is disgusting," Stenger wrote. The spokesman was one of several military officials frustrated with the story, according to the documents.

The email from the Marine Corps came a day after the service requested a full retraction of the story, an apology to the family from Fox News, and a public explanation for any corrections, according to the emails provided by the service through the FOIA process.

Jay Wallace, president and executive editor of Fox News Media, at least one other executive and other Fox News staff members were included in the emails.

Fox News spokesperson Ali Coscia declined to answer Military.com's questions sent Monday to staff. The network also did not answer inquiries last month when the story was taken down.

The article appeared to have been wiped from the Fox News website. According to Gee's family, the outlet never contacted them with an explanation or apology after quietly deleting the piece.

Military.com reached out to Mills' office Tuesday about the story. A spokesperson from Mills' office said that neither the Marine Corps nor the Pentagon contacted the Republican's office "with any request" about the piece.

Mills also removed the story from his official website after the Fox News link became inactive, according to the spokesperson.

The email exchanges between the Marine Corps and Fox News suggest the service felt the false story crossed a sensitive line -- propagating a narrative that accused the service of not taking care of its fallen.

The original headline of the Fox News piece was: "Family forced to pay to ship body of Marine killed after Pentagon policy change: 'Egregious injustice.'"

As the week dragged on and the story spread, the Fox News article was changed. The word "forced" was removed from the headline and lead paragraph. Parts of the story body were changed, too, and reflected information added after publication.

The new headline indicated that the family "shouldered" the burden to transport Gee's remains -- also not true -- and attribution to Mills became more prominent.

Before publishing Mills' account of the meeting, Fox News did not obtain comment from Gee's family or the Marine Corps, though a statement was added after publication. The end of the original piece said that Fox contacted the Pentagon, which did not "immediately" comment.

"To be clear: It's not enough that you went back and added our statement after the original story was on your website for several hours," Stenger wrote to Fox News. "The story should be removed entirely and a new story should replace it."

Mills also appeared to walk back his original claim, saying instead that the family was "in their time of grief, confused" about the military transportation policy. Mills' spokesperson said the congressman stands by that statement and "looks forward to working with his colleagues in Congress to ensure this is never a concern for a Gold Star family."

Comments from Gee's family, the Pentagon and the nonprofit that actually stepped in to pay for the flight before the Defense Department became involved, worked their way into the piece before it was taken down.

None of the changes was marked with an update or correction, a common media practice that offers transparency when outlets make a mistake or change a story.

By the following Friday, the article was removed completely without explanation by Fox News, even as outrage over the alleged injustice continued to spread online.

Mills' post on X -- the site formerly known as Twitter -- sharing the false story with a now-defunct Fox News web link, as well as posts by other conservative lawmakers similarly spreading the narrative, were still available at the time of this reporting.

Meanwhile, the original claims in the story -- though incorrect -- included a kernel of truth.

The policy at the center of the story launched in the summer of 2021 and requires family members of fallen service members to front money for funeral transportation to a second location. Under the policy, they would then be reimbursed by the Pentagon later.

However, the nonprofit Honoring Our Fallen, through an anonymous donation from a veteran, paid to fly Gee's remains on private transportation to Arlington National Cemetery, according to the Marine Corps. No money was required from the family and the nonprofit stepped in before any reimbursement process was even started, let alone one with a $60,000 price tag.

Military.com cannot confirm how much was paid by the nonprofit to secure a private flight.

Christy Shamblin, Gee's mother-in-law, told Military.com Tuesday that she only wanted to bring attention to a frustrating 47-page policy when she spoke to Mills' staff during the meeting with Abbey Gate victims, and to make it easier for other Gold Star families to navigate the bureaucratic and tragic process of transporting remains.

Now, she wants to help clear any "muddy" waters in the wake of the story. Shamblin blames herself for the tumult it caused, and has been mostly alone in publicly taking responsibility.

When told about the Marine Corps' efforts behind the scenes to correct the record -- something Shamblin said she tried to do herself by contacting Fox News -- she said that "it falls in line" with her beliefs about the service.

"They are truthful, they're honest and they're dependable," Shamblin said.

-- Drew F. Lawrence can be reached at drew.lawrence@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @df_lawrence.

military.com · by Drew F. Lawrence · August 23, 2023

8. 458. Engaging Generations Z and Alpha: Communicating Effectively with Digital Natives | Mad Scientist Laboratory

The EXSUM...well... summarizes what we need to understand.

I would argue that leaders who fail to understand these concepts will fail to lead the coming generations. And this applies to more than just operating the intelligence processes.

Excerpts:

Due to the democratization of smart phones and technology advances, it is very likely (80-95%) that Gen-Z and Gen-A will continue to prefer quick, immersive, and visually-aided technologies that provide them information and knowledge of how to accomplish a task with expediency through 2040. Despite the technological comfort and proficiency that Gen-Z and Gen-A, it will remain crucial for older generations to understand how and why these digital natives prefer to communicate in social and professional environments. This will provide a better exchange for collaboration between generations throughout the Intelligence Process in 2035-2040.

...

Gen-A is currently the youngest generation, born completely in the 21st century between 2010-2024. This young generation will almost certainly grow up as true 100% digital natives, immersed in technology, smartphones, and social media that was created before their birth. Gen-A and society are actively discovering and learning about their personal preferences and responses to a technological environmental habitat. The current data suggests that Gen-A embraces multiple forms of technology from smart phones, computer gaming, and computer-based visual/experiential-driven education. In particular, Gen-A has shown a proclivity for educational and game playing experiences that requirecreativity, teamwork, and collaboration. A unique research finding in the post-COVID environment suggest that Gen-A is embracing the post-pandemic lockdown and showing an increasing interest for in-person activities such as physical play time with friends and attending cinema in person vice watching online. This data suggests that while Gen-A does have access to digital communication platforms, they are showing an increased interest in personalized face-to-face communication in the post-COVID environment.

Gen-Z, born between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, prefers concise communication that is visual, interactive, personalized, and relatable to their beliefs-values. These digital natives have evolved and mastered the ability of multitasking technology applications across multiple platforms, but frequently prefer the use of their smart phones. Growing up as digital natives, Gen-Z is accustomed to the availability and immediacy of information and will continue to expect this immediacy and flow into the future. Gen-Z shows a proclivity for visuals and images in their personal communication environment,especially short burst text and short form videos. Research and marketing results show that Gen-Z spends up to five hours a day on varying social media and entertainment platforms absorbing visual and video media.

458. Engaging Generations Z and Alpha: Communicating Effectively with Digital Natives | Mad Scientist Laboratory

madsciblog.tradoc.army.mil · by user · August 24, 2023

[Editor’s Note: The Army’s Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to feature today’s post by the United States Army War College (USAWC) Team Future Nerds, excerpted from their final report entitled The Rise of the Digital Native: How the Next Generation of Analysts and Technology are Changing the Intelligence Landscape. This report was a group research project for Team Future Nerds’ Master of Strategic Studies degree. This research project occurred for approximately four months, from January 2023 through April 2023, and answered the following questions posed by LTG Laura A. Potter, Deputy Chief of Staff G2, Headquarters, Department of the Army:

How do 18-22-year-old intelligence analysts likely consume, synthesize, and communicate information today?

How is information consumption likely to evolve in ways that will change end-user information consumption habits between now and 2040?

Team Future Nerds consisted of the following diverse and well-rounded military professionals from the United States Army: COL Derek Baird (Field Artillery), COL Nora Flott (Military Intelligence), LTC(P) Tyler Standish (Military Intelligence), LTC(P) Brandon VanOrden (Military Intelligence), and LTC James Esquivel (Civil Affairs).

Today’s post excerpts LTC Esquivel’s informative primer addressing how Generations Z and Alpha (Gen-Z and Gen-A, respectively) — digital natives — consume and share information. As the U.S. Army wrestles with how best to solve its ongoing Accessions Crisis, LTC Esquivel’s piece is essential in understanding how to effectively package, share, and most importantly, communicate the Army Story so that it resonates with our Nation’s youth and encourages them to sign up for National Service. Of equal importance is integrating these findings intoour Professional Military Education, tailoring how our Schools and Centers of Excellence educate and train our incoming cohorts of Soldiers, build future Leaders into effective collaborators, and maximize the Army Team’s potential — Read on!]

Executive Summary

Due to the democratization of smart phones and technology advances, it is very likely (80-95%) that Gen-Z and Gen-A will continue to prefer quick, immersive, and visually-aided technologies that provide them information and knowledge of how to accomplish a task with expediency through 2040. Despite the technological comfort and proficiency that Gen-Z and Gen-Aexercise, it will remain crucial for older generations to understand how and why these digital nativesprefer to communicate in social and professional environments. This will provide a better exchange for collaboration between generations throughout the Intelligence Process in 2035-2040.

Discussion

Gen-A is currently the youngest generation, born completely in the 21st century between 2010-2024. This young generation will almost certainly grow up as true 100% digital natives, immersed in technology, smartphones, and social media that was created before their birth. Gen-A and society are actively discovering and learning about their personal preferences and responses to a technological environmental habitat. The current data suggests that Gen-A embraces multiple forms of technology from smart phones, computer gaming, and computer-based visual/experiential-driven education. In particular, Gen-A has shown a proclivity for educational and game playing experiences that requirecreativity, teamwork, and collaboration. A unique research finding in the post-COVID environment suggest that Gen-A is embracing the post-pandemic lockdown and showing an increasing interest for in-person activities such as physical play time with friends and attending cinema in person vice watching online. This data suggests that while Gen-A does have access to digital communication platforms, they are showing an increased interest in personalized face-to-face communication in the post-COVID environment.

Gen-Z, born between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, prefers concise communication that is visual, interactive, personalized, and relatable to their beliefs-values. These digital natives have evolved and mastered the ability of multitasking technology applications across multiple platforms, but frequently prefer the use of their smart phones. Growing up as digital natives, Gen-Z is accustomed to the availability and immediacy of information and will continue to expect this immediacy and flow into the future. Gen-Z shows a proclivity for visuals and images in their personal communication environment,especially short burst text and short form videos. Research and marketing results show that Gen-Z spends up to five hours a day on varying social media and entertainment platforms absorbing visual and video media.

In regard to Gen-Z’s communication habits, texting is the preferred method of communication amongst friends and social groups which facilitates rapid, short text exchanges. One-on-one communication in the workplace is the preferred and more effective way to communicate with this generation. Gen-Z wants to be taken seriously and expects a personal interaction with their bosses and superiors when conducting work related matters. They prefer to communicate through SMS,email, and social media when working on routine matters or activities, but expect their superiors to communicate directly when working on important or personal issues.

The use of technology is beneficial when communicating with Gen-Z , but it is also important to provide a personal touch in communication with Gen Z. Varying the ways in which feedback is given can also be effective, as Gen Z values feedback from others and wants leaders who listen to their ideas and show they value their opinions. Gen-Z uses informal communication methods such as chat and videos to quickly exchange ideas and contribute toconversations in order to establish appreciation for their intuitive mode of communication. Finally, it is important to prioritize and value face-to-face communication with Gen-Z as they value honesty, authenticity, and transparency.

Regarding current technological commonality between Gen-A and Gen-Z is the ubiquitous use of the social media application known as TikTok. This application is a video-sharing social media platform that is gaining massive popularity across Gen-A and Gen-Z age ranges. TikTok’s technological effectiveness is found in the form of short-video formats that capture the user’s attention at a personal preference level, relying on visually attractive-short form video footage ranging from 5-60 seconds. The app is convenient to use, and anyone with a smartphone can easily create and post content. TikTok utilizes a recommendation algorithm that is not reliant upon the building an individual’s network of shared recommendations.This recommendation algorithm is proving to be highly effective and addictive, as witnessed by the continuous increase in the app’s use and popularity. Despite current concerns over national security and pending Federal legislation to ban TikTok, it is very likely (80-95%) that young people will continue using the platform to send political messages, coordinate social actions, and hang out in an online space largely free of older generations. Current research indicates that Gen-Z spends more than five hours per day on this platform.

Google Sr VP Prabhakar Raghavan spoke at the 2022 Fortune Brainstorm Tech with Brian O’Keefe, Fortune Magazine, on July 12, 2022 / Still image via Fortune On Demand

Prabhakar Raghavan, a Senior Vice President at Google, indicated in a Fortune Magazine online interview that approximately 40% of Gen-Z prefer to use platforms other than Google Search to discover information. The internal Google review indicates that the younger population, e.g., Gen-A and Gen-Z, favors platforms such as TikTok or Instagram to meet their information search requirements.

In a July 2022 NBC News interview, young Gen-Zs indicated that they prefer a visual platform that is easily accessible and provides a quick and informative associated video to their search query. One of the responses that was predominant in the interviews was, “It’s one thing to read about what to do in this area or how this product works, but it’s another thing to see it.”

A key finding in the interview with Prabhakar Raghavan reveals that today’s generations have more technical ability than ever before and prefer quick, immersive, and visually-aided technologies that provide them with timely informationon how to accomplish tasks at hand. It is very likely (80-95%) that these findings hold true and are consistent in the years 2035-2040.

Analytic Confidence

The analytic confidence for this estimate is moderate. Sources were generally reliable and tended to corroborate one another but were mostly non-scientific in nature and methodology. Artificial Intelligence platforms were encouraged and utilized in the creation and research for this project, as an example, Perplexity, Bard, and Chat GPT. There were competing academic requirements for time, and the analyst worked alone and did not use a structured method. Furthermore, given the lengthy time frame of the estimate, this report is sensitive to change due to new information.

If you enjoyed this post, check out Team Future Nerds‘ complete The Rise of the Digital Native: How the Next Generation of Analysts and Technology are Changing the Intelligence Landscape final report.

… then review the following related Mad Scientist content:

Recruiting the All-Volunteer Force of the Future and The Inexorable Role of Demographics, by proclaimed Mad Scientist Caroline Duckworth

U.S. Demographics, 2020-2028: Serving Generations and Service Propensity

Old Human vs. New Human

The Future of Talent and Soldiers and associated podcast, with MAJ Delaney Brown, CPT Jay Long, and 1LT Richard Kuzma

Synchronizing Modernization across the Army and associated podcast, with GEN Gary M. Brito

The Secret Sauce of America’s Army and associated podcast, with GEN Paul E. Funk II (USA-Ret.)

Setting the Army for the Future (Parts II and III)

New Skills Required to Compete & Win in the Future Operational Environment

The Future of Learning: Personalized, Continuous, and Accelerated

TRADOC 2028

Future Jobs and Skillsets

The Future of Talent and Soldiers and associated with MAJ Delaney Brown, CPT Jay Long, and 1LT Richard Kuzma

>>>>REMINDER: AFGFR Vignette Writing Contest — Our Sister Service partners in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) are proud to present the Air Force Global Futures Report: Joint Functions in 2040, published by Headquarters Air Force A5/7 (aka Air Force Futures). This report is the USAF’s analogue to the U.S. Army Futures Command’s AFC Pamphlet 525-2, Future Operational Environment: Forging the Future in an Uncertain World 2035-2050.

The AFGFR highlights four future operating environments and major implications for the future force. To bring these operating environments to life, Army Mad Scientist is partnering with the Air Force Futures’ Foresight Team to conduct the AFGFR Vignette Writing Contest — based on the report’s four futures and the exploration of the Joint Functions. We are seeking vignettes with characters that make the future operating environments and associatedJoint Functions within come to life!

The AFGFR Vignette Writing Contest is open to all — anyone can submit an entry. Entries should be between 1500-2500 words in length, and are due NLT 01 September 2023 — next Friday!!! To learn more about the contest and how to submit your entry(ies), click >>>> here <<<< and read the contest flyer!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

1 The Oxford English Dictionary defines digital native as a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and therefore familiar with computers and the internet from an early age

2 Depending on the source, the age bracket year of birth for Gen-A will vary from 2010 to 2012 and end from 2024-2025

3 Per the Oxford English Dictionary – a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and therefore familiar with computers and the internet from an early age

madsciblog.tradoc.army.mil · by user · August 24, 2023

9. Report to Congress on U.S. Special Operations Forces

Download the 12 page report here: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23924537/us-special-operations-forces-sof-background-and-considerations-for-congress-aug-16-2023.pdf

A continuing reporting that provides an authoritative overview of US Special Operations Forces.

The two key issues for Congressional oversight.

Oversight questions

Congress could consider include the following:

Army Special Forces Recruiting and Possible Force Structure Reductions

The nexus of not meeting Army Special Forces recruiting goals, fewer candidates making it through Special Forces selection, and possible Special Forces force structure cuts could have national security implications that Congress might examine. Having fewer Special Forces units and fewer Special Forces soldiers might result in not being able to support Combatant Commander requirements. Furthermore, unless there is a corresponding reduction in requirements for Army Special Forces support, operational tempo (OPTEMPO) for Army Special Forces could become unacceptably high, possibly resulting in quality of life, health, family, and retention issues. If requirements for Army Special Forces remain high and cannot be met, other Service’s special operations forces might be required to step in, which could result in similar OPTEMPO concerns for units covering for Army Special Forces shortfalls.

Air Force Special Operations Power Projection Wings and Planned Future Unit Relocations

But a key issue is whether other SOF can step in for Special Forces? We have to get past the idea that SOF is fungible. They are not one size fits all. All SOF cannot perform all SOF missions. And we should not be comparing OPTEMPO among different forces because they have different capabilities to meet different demands.

Not listed for consideration of Congressional Oversight issues is whether ASD SO/LIC can meet its authorities and responsibilities. The reports mentions command and control issues but does not cal for this as an issue for Congress (even though it is questionable whether ASD SO/LIC is meeting congressional intent. And I would argue that SOF has never realized the true intent of Nunn-Cohen Amendment of the Goldwater Nichols Defense Reorganization Act. This is an issue for Congress.

And while the ASD SO/LIC advises the USD(P) on special operations and irregular warfare policy issues (and thus is arguably the senior most DOD official charged with IW policy) does the ASD SO/LIC have the responsibility and authority to synchronize and orchestrate IO policy across the entire DOD enterprise?

Excerpt:

Command Structures and Components

In 1986, Congress, concerned about the status of SOF within overall U.S. defense planning, passed legislation (P.L. 99-661) to strengthen special operations’ position within the defense community and to improve interoperability among the branches of U.S. SOF. These actions included the establishment of USSOCOM as a new unified command. As stipulated by U.S. Code (U.S.C.) Title X, Section 167, the commander of USSOCOM is a four-star officer who may be from any military service. U.S. Army General P. Bryan Fenton is the current USSOCOM Commander. The USSOCOM Commander reports directly to the Secretary of Defense. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD (SOLIC)) is the principal civilian advisor to the Secretary of Defense on special operations and low-intensity conflict matters. The current ASD (SOLIC) is the Honorable Christopher Maier.1

In this role, the ASD (SOLIC)

exercises authority, direction, and control of all special operations-peculiar issues relating to the organization, training, and equipping of SOF;
is the Principal Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Official within the senior management of the Department of Defense (DOD);
sits in the chain-of-command above USSOCOM for special operations-peculiar administrative matters and provides civilian oversight of the SOF enterprise; and
advises, assists, and supports the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD- P) on special operations and irregular warfare policy matters.2

Report to Congress on U.S. Special Operations Forces - USNI News

news.usni.org · by U.S. Naval Institute Staff · August 23, 2023

The following is the Aug. 16, 2023, Congressional Research Service report, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress.

From the report

Special Operations Forces (SOF) play a significant role in U.S. military operations. In 1986, Congress, concerned about the status of SOF within overall U.S. defense planning, passed legislation (P.L. 99-661) to strengthen special operations’ position within the defense community and to improve interoperability among the branches of U.S. SOF. These actions included the establishment of USSOCOM as a new unified command.

As of 2023, USSOCOM consisted of approximately 70,000 Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard, and civilian personnel assigned to its headquarters, its four components, and sub-unified commands. USSOCOM’s components are the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), the Naval Special Warfare Command (NSWC), the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), and the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC). The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is a USSOCOM sub-unified command.

USSOCOM also comprises seven Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs). TSOCs are sub-unified commands under their respective Geographic Combatant Commanders (GCCs). TSOCs are special operational headquarters elements designed to support a GCC’s special operations logistics, planning, and operational command and control requirements

Considerations for Congress include Army Special Forces recruiting and possible force structure reductions and Air Force Special Operations Power Projection Wings and future unit relocations.

Overview

Special operations are military operations requiring unique modes of employment, tactical techniques, equipment, and training. These operations are often conducted in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments and are characterized by one or more of the following elements: time sensitive, clandestine, low visibility, conducted with and/or through indigenous forces, requiring regional expertise, and/or a high degree of risk. Special Operations Forces (SOF) are those Active and Reserve Component forces of the services designated by the Secretary of Defense and specifically organized, trained, and equipped to conduct and support special operations. The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL, is a functional combatant command responsible for training, doctrine, and equipping for U.S. SOF units.

Command Structures and Components

In 1986, Congress, concerned about the status of SOF within overall U.S. defense planning, passed legislation (P.L. 99-661) to strengthen special operations’ position within the defense community and to improve interoperability among the branches of U.S. SOF. These actions included the establishment of USSOCOM as a new unified command. As stipulated by U.S. Code (U.S.C.) Title X, Section 167, the commander of USSOCOM is a four-star officer who may be from any military service. U.S. Army General P. Bryan Fenton is the current USSOCOM Commander. The USSOCOM Commander reports directly to the Secretary of Defense. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD (SOLIC)) is the principal civilian advisor to the Secretary of Defense on special operations and low-intensity conflict matters. The current ASD (SOLIC) is the Honorable Christopher Maier.1

In this role, the ASD (SOLIC)

exercises authority, direction, and control of all special operations-peculiar issues relating to the organization, training, and equipping of SOF;
is the Principal Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Official within the senior management of the Department of Defense (DOD);
sits in the chain-of-command above USSOCOM for special operations-peculiar administrative matters and provides civilian oversight of the SOF enterprise; and
advises, assists, and supports the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD- P) on special operations and irregular warfare policy matters.2

As of 2023, USSOCOM consisted of approximately 70,000 Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard, and civilian personnel assigned to its headquarters, its four components, and sub-unified commands.3 USSOCOM’s components are the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC); the Naval Special Warfare Command (NSWC); the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC); and the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC). The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is a USSOCOM sub-unified command.

Download the document here.

news.usni.org · by U.S. Naval Institute Staff · August 23, 2023

10. US approves new $500M arms sale to Taiwan as aggression from China intensifies

US approves new $500M arms sale to Taiwan as aggression from China intensifies

AP · August 23, 2023

Politics

FILE - A Taiwanese soldier holds a Taiwan national flag near a group of soldiers with red markings on their helmets to play the role of an enemy during the annual Han Kuang military exercises simulating an attack on an airfield at Taoyuan International Airport in Taoyuan, Northern Taiwan, July 26, 2023. The Biden administration has approved a new $500 million arms sale to Taiwan as it ramps up military assistance to the island despite fervent objections from China. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has approved a $500 million arms sale to Taiwan as it ramps up military assistance to the island despite fervent objections from China.

The State Department said Wednesday it had signed off on the sale of infrared search tracking systems along with related equipment for advanced F-16 fighter jets. The sale includes the infrared systems as well as test support and equipment, computer software and spare parts, it said.

Although the deal is modest in comparison to previous weapons sales, the move is likely to draw fierce criticism from Beijing, which regards self-governing Taiwan as a renegade province and refuses to rule out the use of force to reunify it with the mainland.

“This proposed sale serves U.S. national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” the State Department said in a statement.

“The proposed sale will improve the recipient’s capability to meet current and future threats by contributing to the recipient’s abilities to defend its airspace, provide regional security, and increase interoperability with the United States through its F-16 program,” it said.

The announcement came just hours after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen renewed a pledge to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense as she visited a war memorial from the last time Taiwan and China battled. Tsai, visited the outlying islands of Kinmen where the conflict was fought 65 years ago, commemorated those who died.

Wednesday’s State Department announcement also follows an angry Chinese reaction to the transit through the United States of Taiwanese Vice President William Lai on his way to and from an official visit in Paraguay last week.

In recent years, China has stepped up its military activity in the waters and skies around Taiwan, sending fighter jets and navy vessels near the island or to encircle it.

AP · August 23, 2023

11. Without Prigozhin, expect some changes around the edges on Russian influence operations

THE CYBERSECURITY 202

Without Prigozhin, expect some changes around the edges on Russian influence operations

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/24/without-prigozhin-expect-some-changes-around-edges-russian-influence-operations/?utm

Analysis by Tim Starks

with research by David DiMolfetta

August 24, 2023 at 7:28 a.m. EDT

Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! We’re about to go on a little more than a week-long break. We’ll be back Sept. 5. Bye for a minute!

Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here.

Below: The Tornado Cash founders are charged, and the United Nations forges ahead on a new cybercrime framework. First:

Without Prigozhin, expect some changes around the edges on Russian influence operations

Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin at a funeral outside St. Petersburg last year. (AP) (AP)

Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who ran Russia’s Internet Research Agency and had an important role in developing the nation’s modern digital influence operations — most notably, interference in the 2016 U.S. elections — was reportedly on board a deadly plane crash Wednesday.

(Follow the latest on the questions surrounding his fate here.)

A failed mutiny diminished Prigozhin’s status in Moscow after once being known as “Putin’s chef” for his catering business and closeness with the Russian president, and the Internet Research Agency had declared that it was shutting down. So it’s possible he wouldn’t have had a major impact on Russian disinformation and misinformation campaigns going forward if he was/is alive.

Nevertheless, the Wagner Group boss was a formative figure, and his Internet Research Agency serves as a model for autocratic regimes for a quasi-state-connected-entity without leaving definitive fingerprints, an expert on Russian information warfare told me.

But successors within Russia could exhibit diminished effectiveness, said the expert, Gavin Wilde, who served on the National Security Council as director for Russia, Baltic and Caucasus affairs.

“Prigozhin was for Russian information operations kind of what Kurt Cobain was for grunge music,” said Wilde, now a senior fellow in the technology and international affairs program for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. “The guy ushers in a certain era and perfects a certain craft, but now that he’s gone, what’s likely to follow is a saturated market of copycats, and that will probably end up falling far short of the kind of heyday or the prominence of what it once was.”

That said, nobody should expect Russian information warfare to go away.

Prigozhin’s possible death "while maybe a temporary setback for the Wagner Group, doesn’t preclude the GRU and other entities in Russian intelligence and security services from continuing operations all over the globe,” David Salvo, senior fellow and managing director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund, told me. “With Russia likely setting sights on the 2024 election here, there’s plenty of time to get their ducks in a row.”

(I conditioned my questions to Wilde and Salvo on the presumption that Prigozhin is actually dead, but as my colleagues write this morning: “Russian officials and the Wagner Group have yet to officially confirm" his fate. What we know is that his name was on the passenger list for a plane traveling Wednesday from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport to St. Petersburg that crashed, killing all 10 on board, according to Russia’s civil aviation agency.)

Origins and accomplishments

In blustering fashion, Prigozhin has claimed credit for all of the Internet Research Agency, after once denying any connection.

“I’ve never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time,” he said this year. “It was founded to protect the Russian information space from boorish aggressive propaganda of anti-Russian narrative from the West.”

The first known signs of the Internet Research Agency emerged in 2013, when it registered with the Russian government as a 2018 indictment of Prigozhin and affiliated figures by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III showed. My colleague Philip Bump had a fully detailed timeline following that indictment, and in it, Prigozhin is intertwined from the beginning.

Efforts to influence the 2016 election began not long after then-candidate Donald Trump entered the race, according to the indictment.

A 2017 intelligence community analysis outlined the overall influence effort in the 2016 presidential campaign, of which the Internet Research Agency was but one part. Furthermore, the interference included hack-and-leak operations, not just disinformation, misinformation and attempts to manipulate social media.

“Russia’s state-run propaganda machine — composed of its domestic media apparatus, outlets targeting global audiences such as RT and Sputnik, and a network of quasi-government trolls — contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences,” that analysis reads.

While the 2016 influence operation drew major attention in the West, the United States is far from the first alleged target of Russian disinformation and wasn’t the last of the Internet Research Agency’s either. Ukraine had been a point of focus as of late.

U.S. hostilities

As might be expected, the activity of the Internet Research Agency and Prigozhin drew the enmity of the U.S. government, and not just with the 2018 indictment.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control detailed the offenses of the troll factory, Prigozhin and affiliates when issuing sanctions against them, also in 2018.

“The Internet Research Agency LLC (IRA) tampered with, altered, or caused a misappropriation of information with the purpose or effect of interfering with or undermining election processes and institutions,” the statement reads. “The IRA created and managed a vast number of fake online personas that posed as legitimate U.S. persons to include grassroots organizations, interest groups, and a state political party on social media. Through this activity, the IRA posted thousands of ads that reached millions of people online.”

Later in 2018, U.S. Cyber Command blocked internet access for Prigozhin’s shop, per this story by my colleague Ellen Nakashima.

“They basically took the IRA offline,” according to one individual familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified information in the story. “They shut them down.” Trump later acknowledged the cyberattack on the Internet Research Agency during an interview with Post columnist Marc A. Thiessen.

It’s possible all of that and other responses had an impact on the Internet Research Agency’s effectiveness. If Prigozhin has indeed died, there might be other comparisons to fallen rock stars, per Wilde.

“His own legacy, as far as the information operations game, is probably cemented now that he’s dead in a way that would have probably only diminished had he stayed alive because … particularly in the West, I think governments and NGOs and platforms are wise to the gig in a way,” Wilde said. “I just don’t know that he ever would have been able to recapture what he had done in previous years or improve upon it.”

Both Wilde and Salvo also said they could see the Kremlin wanting to exert more control over quasi-governmental operations but that they’re still important tools for Russia.

12. U.S., Ukraine Clash Over Counteroffensive Strategy

Excerpts:

Yet deep divisions over the strategy linger. The U.S. for the past several weeks has urged the Ukrainians to mass their forces and concentrate in an area north of Tokmak in the south to push through the first line of Russian defenses, generally acknowledged as the toughest line to break.

While there are differing views within the U.S. government, one official said that Washington has conveyed “serious frustration” with Ukraine’s strategy, particularly President Volodymyr Zelensky’s focus on Bakhmut, which some Ukrainian officers see as useful to build morale and create a buffer zone in the east.

After U.S. officials cautioned against dissipating their efforts, the Ukrainians adjusted their strategy and went on the defensive in the eastern part of Zaporizhzhia. That change has enabled the Ukrainians to conserve their forces for the main attack elsewhere and limit their expenditure of artillery.

But U.S. officials say the Ukrainians are still spread too thin for a concentrated push south with numerous brigades deployed in the east and are still not combining the use of artillery, mechanized units and mine-clearing efforts.

Holding casualties to a minimum is needed to preserve their longer-term fighting potential, the Ukrainians say. But U.S. officials say the Ukrainians’ small-unit attacks on narrow fronts slow the offensive and give the Russians more opportunity to respond, including with mines that are dispensed through artillery strikes and units armed with rocket-propelled grenades.

The current state of play has sparked worries that Ukraine’s fight against Russia might be entering a stalemate, a contention President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has denied.

“No, we do not assess that the conflict is a stalemate,” Sullivan told reporters Tuesday. The battlefield, he said, is changing every day.

At the heart of the debate between Washington and Kyiv is the U.S.-provided combined arms training the Ukrainians have received in recent months that was intended to prepare them for their offensive in the south.

U.S., Ukraine Clash Over Counteroffensive Strategy

Kyiv’s forces can still break through Russia defenses, but time is running out, Washington officials say

By Michael R. GordonFollow, Gordon LuboldFollow, James MarsonFollow and Vivian SalamaFollow

Aug. 24, 2023 7:41 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/u-s-ukraine-clash-over-counteroffensive-strategy-cb5e4324?mod=hp_listb_pos1

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have been engaged in an intense behind-the-scenes debate for weeks over the strategy and tactics for reviving Kyiv’s slow-moving counteroffensive.

American military officials have been urging the Ukrainians to return to the combined arms training they received at allied bases in Europe by concentrating their forces to try to bust through Russia defenses and push to the Sea of Azov.

Kyiv has made some adjustments in recent weeks, but the two sides are still at odds about how to turn the tables on the Russians in the limited time they have before winter sets in.

“You don’t understand the nature of this conflict,” Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, the Ukrainian commander, responded in one interaction with the Americans, a U.S. official recounted. “This is not counterinsurgency. This is Kursk,” the commander added, referring to the major World War II battle between Germany and the Soviet Union.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian commander didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ukrainian servicemen firing launch rocket systems toward Russian troops near a front line in the Zaporizhzhia region. PHOTO: VIACHESLAV RATYNSKYI/REUTERS

The American advice is based on the calculation that the surge of equipment the U.S. has funneled to Ukraine—more than $43 billion in weaponry has been committed over the years—is enough for this offensive and is unlikely to be repeated at anywhere near the same level in 2024.

“We built up this mountain of steel for the counteroffensive. We can’t do that again,” one former U.S. official said. “It doesn’t exist.”

It isn’t too late for Ukraine to make gains, according to U.S. officials.

Ukrainian commanders also say that time hasn’t yet run out on their counteroffensive, and Zaluzhny has told U.S. officials his forces are on the cusp of a breakthrough.

Yet deep divisions over the strategy linger. The U.S. for the past several weeks has urged the Ukrainians to mass their forces and concentrate in an area north of Tokmak in the south to push through the first line of Russian defenses, generally acknowledged as the toughest line to break.

While there are differing views within the U.S. government, one official said that Washington has conveyed “serious frustration” with Ukraine’s strategy, particularly President Volodymyr Zelensky’s focus on Bakhmut, which some Ukrainian officers see as useful to build morale and create a buffer zone in the east.

After U.S. officials cautioned against dissipating their efforts, the Ukrainians adjusted their strategy and went on the defensive in the eastern part of Zaporizhzhia. That change has enabled the Ukrainians to conserve their forces for the main attack elsewhere and limit their expenditure of artillery.

But U.S. officials say the Ukrainians are still spread too thin for a concentrated push south with numerous brigades deployed in the east and are still not combining the use of artillery, mechanized units and mine-clearing efforts.

Holding casualties to a minimum is needed to preserve their longer-term fighting potential, the Ukrainians say. But U.S. officials say the Ukrainians’ small-unit attacks on narrow fronts slow the offensive and give the Russians more opportunity to respond, including with mines that are dispensed through artillery strikes and units armed with rocket-propelled grenades.

The current state of play has sparked worries that Ukraine’s fight against Russia might be entering a stalemate, a contention President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has denied.

“No, we do not assess that the conflict is a stalemate,” Sullivan told reporters Tuesday. The battlefield, he said, is changing every day.

At the heart of the debate between Washington and Kyiv is the U.S.-provided combined arms training the Ukrainians have received in recent months that was intended to prepare them for their offensive in the south.

Ukrainian Special Ops Raid Occupied Crimea on Independence Day

Ukrainian military intelligence claims that a raid conducted in the Russian-occupied Crimea with boats and aviation was successful. No Ukrainian casualties were reported.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/20887

by Kyiv Post | August 24, 2023, 2:17 pm

Photo:gur.gov.ua

A battle took place in Russian-occupied Crimea involving watercraft and aviation in the early morning of Aug. 24, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) reported.

In a comment to the Hromadske media outlet, HUR spokesman Andrii Yusov confirmed that the Ukrainian military made a landing as part of a special operation.

“All tasks have been completed,” Yusov said.

Yusov did not specify what exactly the tasks were. He only added that “there are losses among the enemy personnel and equipment,” and the Ukrainian side did not suffer any losses.

Media outlet Krym.Realii reported that around 5 a.m., explosions were heard near the Mayak settlement on Cape Tarkhankut. Meanwhile, Russian propaganda Telegram channels claimed that in Crimea, unknown people in rubber outboard boats allegedly fired from the shore at a camping site with tourists in Olenivka.

In a commentary by the RBC-Ukraine media, Yusov said that the Ukrainian military had already returned after the special operation, having completed the tasks and that the operation itself “had the character of a raid.”

Less than 24 hours earlier, a series of explosions, also on Cape Tarkhankut, were reported on several Ukrainian Telegram channels claiming that a critical Russian air defense system in occupied Crimea had been destroyed.Less than 24 hours earlier, a series of explosions, also on Cape Tarkhankut, were reported on several Ukrainian Telegram channels claiming that a critical Russian air defense system in occupied Crimea had been destroyed.

14. Commoditized Weapons in Ukraine: Are the Allies Getting the Procurement Right?

Excerpts:

Rather than recreate multiple arsenals of democracy for every weapon type, Europe and the United States should not only recognize the commoditization of many weapons used in Ukraine, but should also encourage it. NATO, and the Ukrainian military, lament the lack of standardization. Rather than directly subsidizing production, the first step is for Europe to financially reward firms that provide a munition that meets a clear standard. Firms rather than defense budgets profit from product differentiation, according to an industry source quoted in Reuters, “Companies are making money out of the fact that ammunitions are not interchangeable, that they can dominate their national markets with their munitions.” Second, procurement organizations must anticipate and manage the bust that always follows the boom, to maintain enough capacity for an emergency at the right price. Multi-year purchases can bring some stability, but robust commodities markets require futures contracts. Strategic reserves of commodities are a unique form of economic art — defense acquisitions has much to learn from the petroleum and agricultural sectors. Finally, allies should identify more potential commodities, weapons where the technology is not so precious that it outweighs efficient production in bulk. More countries and more firms should probably build Stingers and Javelins for the “value arms market.”

Europe should buy more munitions. But rather than engaging in extensive industrial planning, the overwhelming goal of Ukraine’s supporters should be to deliver the most shells at the best price in the least amount of time. When left alone, commodities markets tend to do this effectively.

While Defense News correctly noted that this is “new territory” for the European Union as an arms buyer, the hope that the current approach will be a “catalyst for rapid growth in the defense industry” remains to be seen — more to the point, it would be a missed opportunity if the commodity-oriented part of the industry grows at the expense of high-tech weaponry. In short, if Europe’s goal is to arm Ukraine it is buying in the wrong way, and if its goal is to develop a robust and efficient defense industry, it is focusing on the wrong product. The European Union is right to insist on the crucial importance of bolstering the continent’s security at this historic juncture, but it should adopt sound procurement policies in order to make that a reality.

Commoditized Weapons in Ukraine: Are the Allies Getting the Procurement Right? - War on the Rocks

JONATHAN CAVERLEY AND ETHAN KAPSTEIN

warontherocks.com · by Jonathan Caverley · August 24, 2023

Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian government has scrambled for the weaponry its military desperately needs. Despite bold announcements from Western nations about arms deliveries, these shipments have often been delayed. Thus, from mysteriously sourced North Korean rockets to decommissioned Italian howitzers, the Ukrainian armed forces have no choice but to fight with whatever they can get their hands on.

The Biden administration’s stop-gap measure to send 155 mm howitzer shells loaded with cluster munitions to Ukraine stems directly from a Western inability to provide sufficient numbers of less controversial versions of this ammunition. Ukraine currently consumes roughly 90,000 rounds a month according to one U.S. official, but Ukraine’s defense minister places the monthly demand at 250,000, quadruple American and European pre-war production capacity. To increase supply, Ukraine’s supporters are necessarily spending massive sums of money.

Ukraine sorely needs these munitions quickly, but the European Union’s new acquisition and regulatory policy is unlikely to accomplish this efficiently. Just as importantly, Europe’s effort will do little for the long-term health of its defense industrial base. This is because the munitions used by Ukraine, while vital to its defense, are essentially commodities: basic manufactured goods that are largely substitutable, produced in bulk, and made by multiple suppliers worldwide.

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European nations, and to a lesser extent the United States, are conflating the strategic importance of these items with the industrial organization of their production. The European Union should take a page from current American procurement policy and buy more commoditized weapons from cheaper producers in emerging markets. Indeed, in the interest of efficiency, the Department of Defense should purchase even more types of munitions from such sources as it supplies Ukraine and backfills the inventories of itself and its allies.

The Russo-Ukrainian war provides Ukraine’s supporters with a compelling moment to re-examine defense acquisition policy. The conflict has reminded every government that wars involving great powers are likely to transform into wars of attrition and that once engaged in fighting, armed forces will burn through munitions at an alarming rate.

But the wrong lesson to draw from this experience would be that everyone should produce everything — and dump money into these industries to bolster duplicative production capacity. Instead, the United States and its European and Asian allies should focus their scarce resources on producing (and exporting where prudent) advanced technology, while relying on global suppliers to manufacture commoditized defense items like artillery shells. The large, combined purchases of munitions by the United States and European Union could make this an oligopsonistic market, where a small number of market-making buyers have power over a multitude of suppliers. This power could incentivize increased standardization, ensure continued access to munitions, and avoid wasting taxpayer money by domestically sourcing every unit of low-technology items that many other states will compete to produce more cheaply.

Everything is a Toaster

A commodity is defined by its fungibility: Products are bought in bulk and a competitive market will treat various versions of the good as near-equivalents. While commodities are often equated with natural resources and agricultural staples, many mass-produced products including industrial chemicals and computer memory chips also work this way. Over time, most products become increasingly commoditized because, as Columbia Business School’s Bruce Greenwald memorably quipped, “In the long run, everything is a toaster.”

Artillery rounds, cheap drones, and even shoulder-launched missiles are simple to make, generally interchangeable, and relatively low cost. Ammunition specifications are standardized; any 155 mm shell is largely compatible with many different artillery barrels. While some drones are sophisticated, the vast majority used by both sides are expendable and can be bought from any number of commercial suppliers. One observer described Turkey’s TB-2 as the “Kalashnikov of the 21st century,” epitomizing both the weapon’s ubiquity and its commoditization.

Just as there are advances in toasters, quality differences certainly exist between drones and even shells. Smart 155 mm munitions such as Excalibur, BONUS, and SMArt, provide significant increases in range and precision, at 20 to 100 times the price. Variations in “dumb” shells have caused gun barrels to wear out more quickly. The unpredictability of mortar round weights have forced Ukrainian commanders on the front line to recalculate ballistics using an industrial scale and an Excel spreadsheet.

But these differences are small in the face of massive demand. There have been only 12,000 SMArt rounds produced in its 25-year production history. The United States has supplied Ukraine with over 2 million ordinary 155 mm rounds compared to 7,000 precision-guided rounds. Ukraine is apparently firing captured North Korean rockets, even though they are “very unreliable and do crazy things sometime,” because according to a Ukrainian BM-21 Grad operator, “We need every rocket we can get.”

The closer a weapon comes to a commodity in its economic characteristics, the more the purchasing government’s procurement approach needs to adapt. Any business school professor or management consultant will argue that commoditization is usually great for consumers and tough for firms. Profit margins are slim, and producers compete on price through speed, scale, and cost reduction. The production cycle is boom-and-bust: Demand soars and then craters when militaries transitioning to peacetime short-change ammunition purchases to fund longer-term investments in costly platforms like planes and ships.

Investing in commodities production does not create high-quality jobs or provide a base for high-technology development. The defense firm BAE proudly announced that its £280 million contract with the United Kingdom for 155 mm shells will employ an additional 200 people — $1.8 million per job — low even by the desultory standards of the defense industry. There are good economic reasons that the United States and Europe generally outsource manufacture of commodities like cement and textiles to the “Global South.”

Purchasing Faster and For Less Money

An effort to purchase military commodities quickly and cheaply should take these products’ industrial organization into account. While the United States and Europe have both committed to increasing their supply of munitions, they differ drastically on acquisition and regulatory strategy. The chief executive officer of munitions manufacturer Nammo, which supplies both, predicts “a longer route in Europe” because the United States is both “less protectionist” and has “more of a long-term view on the market,” key virtues in a commodities market.

The United States intends to ramp up yearly artillery shell production to over a million 155 mm shells by 2028. Congress recently appropriated $1.5 billion for the fiscal year ($8 billion over 15 years) to modernize the Army’s organic industrial base, which specializes in such munitions. European states are supporting their defense firms’ plans to exceed 1.5 million shells annually by that year. On top of national efforts (Germany recently contracted with Rheinmetall for $4.5 billion in tank ammunition), the European Union has committed over $2 billion to send a million 155 mm shells to Ukraine this year, as well as to invest in increased production capacity over the longer term. NATO has another billion-dollar plan to jointly procure munitions. Sorting out where national budgets end and multinational ones begin is tough, but these figures are enough to buy a lot of ammunition. But beyond the order and budget sizes, similarities between American and European industrial efforts largely end.

While Department of Defense decision-making may be “informed and pressurized” by the Ukraine war, it is notable that only about 15 percent of the $36 billion in the Department of Defense’s Fiscal Year 2024 munitions budget will go towards conventional ammunition of any sort rather than strategic and tactical missile rounds. Overall, the Department of Defense focuses its procurement on items where it enjoys enormous market power, and thus global political influence, which are not necessarily the items that “are key to the Ukraine fight.” On the other hand, nearly a third of the E.U. Peace Facility’s spending for Ukraine will go towards buying artillery rounds and subsidizing the building of increased manufacturing capability for these munitions.

For artillery purchases, the United States appears comfortable approaching other countries — Australia, South Korea, Japan, Egypt, and even European Union countries like Bulgaria — for needed supplies. Conversely, Peace Facility funds can only go to shells made by E.U. member states and Norway. At the end of 2022, Congress specifically directed $1.3 billion, roughly what the Peace Facility will spend in total this year, towards purchasing foreign-produced munitions.

Finally, Congress has also waived significant pieces of regulation to facilitate more rapid purchases. The European Union’s regulatory responsibilities and authorization to purchase have yet to be settled. Europe’s defense firms appreciate the money, but are expressing nervousness about regulations and the complexity of managing competing orders by the European Union and its member states.

Give in to Commoditization

There is a far greater need to rationalize European markets for the common production of weapons platforms such as fighters and advanced missiles, with their large economies of scale and enormous development costs. For 155 mm shells, Europe has 15 producers capable of manufacturing a largely identical product, not to mention the many external manufacturers of the same kit. That is a sector where the market should sort things out quickly with little management required, producing a cheap and reliable product for a market-making bidder as large as the European Union.

On the other hand, five European prime contractors are largely responsible for building and maintaining 29 different types of frigates and destroyers. Since the European Union undoubtedly wants to be competitive in the production of higher-end weapons platforms rather than in military commodities, it is here where it should focus its reform efforts.

Ironically, E.U. policies for supplying Ukraine are actually making its technologically sophisticated weapons manufacturers less competitive. For example, in compensation for the Warsaw Pact-era weapons it has sent to Ukraine, Poland will receive over a billion dollars in Peace Facility funds to purchase American and South Korean howitzers, tanks, rocket launchers, and combat aircraft as replacements. This further entrenches American dominance in the top end of the global arms industry, while Europe competes against emerging market economies that are producing shells for export.

Rather than recreate multiple arsenals of democracy for every weapon type, Europe and the United States should not only recognize the commoditization of many weapons used in Ukraine, but should also encourage it. NATO, and the Ukrainian military, lament the lack of standardization. Rather than directly subsidizing production, the first step is for Europe to financially reward firms that provide a munition that meets a clear standard. Firms rather than defense budgets profit from product differentiation, according to an industry source quoted in Reuters, “Companies are making money out of the fact that ammunitions are not interchangeable, that they can dominate their national markets with their munitions.” Second, procurement organizations must anticipate and manage the bust that always follows the boom, to maintain enough capacity for an emergency at the right price. Multi-year purchases can bring some stability, but robust commodities markets require futures contracts. Strategic reserves of commodities are a unique form of economic art — defense acquisitions has much to learn from the petroleum and agricultural sectors. Finally, allies should identify more potential commodities, weapons where the technology is not so precious that it outweighs efficient production in bulk. More countries and more firms should probably build Stingers and Javelins for the “value arms market.”

Europe should buy more munitions. But rather than engaging in extensive industrial planning, the overwhelming goal of Ukraine’s supporters should be to deliver the most shells at the best price in the least amount of time. When left alone, commodities markets tend to do this effectively.

While Defense News correctly noted that this is “new territory” for the European Union as an arms buyer, the hope that the current approach will be a “catalyst for rapid growth in the defense industry” remains to be seen — more to the point, it would be a missed opportunity if the commodity-oriented part of the industry grows at the expense of high-tech weaponry. In short, if Europe’s goal is to arm Ukraine it is buying in the wrong way, and if its goal is to develop a robust and efficient defense industry, it is focusing on the wrong product. The European Union is right to insist on the crucial importance of bolstering the continent’s security at this historic juncture, but it should adopt sound procurement policies in order to make that a reality.

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Jonathan D. Caverley is professor of strategy in the Strategic and Operational Research Department of the Naval War College’s Center for Naval Warfare Studies and a research affiliate in the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ethan B. Kapstein is executive director of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, Princeton University.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Jonathan Caverley · August 24, 2023

15. Reimagining Contested Communications

And after reimagining we need to prepare for communications to be contested.

More than technological:

The final change to our approach to contested communications is a recognition that it is not solely, or perhaps even primarily, a technological challenge. Technology absolutely plays a critical role, but we must invest the time in reevaluating existing policies for how and when technological solutions should be employed and refine our tactics, techniques, and procedures. These changes will not be easy, and they will not come overnight. But this realignment must happen if we are to actually prepare the force for the fight ahead.

Reimagining Contested Communications - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Tom Gaines, Alex Suh · August 23, 2023

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The exercise control group has spoken. All communications are down. The adversary is actively jamming every system in the joint task force’s inventory across the entire area of operations. Signal planners were seemingly well prepared for this operation, but their PACE plan—which outlined their organization’s primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency pathways—is immediately brought crashing down. What begins to unfold in the wake of the pronouncement in operations centers looks more like people working through the stages of grief than coordinated staffs fighting through the situation to maintain command and control of their forces. There is a mixture of denial, anger, and acceptance as each warfighting function struggles under the isolation. For some, there is a sense of business as usual. This is not their first exercise and not the first time they have encountered these sorts of full-scale cyber injects, so they simply carry on and wait for this part of the scenario to be over.

There are a myriad of training events and exercises held across the joint force that unfold just like this. Although the intent is to train commanders and their staffs to deal with a loss of communications, the way the scenarios are scripted often leads to unrealistic practices and significant degradation in the training value of these events. As the joint force continues to prepare for large-scale combat operations, there is a keen awareness that we will not maintain the same level of technological dominance we had during the two decades of the post-9/11 wars. The idea of a “contested communications environment” reflects the recognition by the communications community that the electromagnetic spectrum and cyber domain represent key terrain on the modern battlefield, and that both sides will employ offensive and defensive capabilities to dominate this space. Unfortunately, when exercises empower notional adversaries with omnipotent and omnipresent capabilities, we potentially train our commanders and staffs to be risk averse for fear of detection and retaliation. To counter this, we have been pouring resources into new systems and technologies that promise to deliver solutions we commonly refer to low probability of interception (LPI) and low probability of detection (LPD). While there is absolutely a need for technical solutions to these technical problems, it is only one part of the equation. Despite all fears to the contrary, the lessons we are learning from the conflict in Ukraine point to a much different version of contested communications that we should be using to frame our discussion on how to build resilient communications options that provide survivable and responsive command and control for commanders.

The first thing that we must do to improve our preparation for this contest is to change the way we talk about the problem. As with anything else in the military, we have an acronym to describe the challenge: DDIL. In contested communications, we anticipate that at some point our communications will be subject to denial, disconnection, intermittency, or limitations. Unfortunately, we have thrown the term DDIL around to the point where it fails to capture important nuances and tends to be thought of as binary in nature. We are either in a DDIL environment and cannot communicate at all or we are not in DDIL and business continues as usual. But the reality is that DDIL represents four unique challenges that can have a wide range of disruptive effects on operations. Improving the precision with which we speak about the effects we see is the first step toward improving our collective understanding about the specific problem at hand.

Next, we must improve our understanding of our equipment, how to deploy it to maximize its LPI/LPD capabilities, and when not to use it. There is a common fear that if adversary forces are not reducing our ability to communicate, that may be because they are more interested in using our electromagnetic signature. This assumes the enemy is capable of instantly locating any signal that is not jammed or deciphering it into actionable intelligence. While it might be true that the capability to do so exists in adversary forces’ inventory, that does not mean they are actually in a position to use that capability effectively. Using the same precision of language required when discussing maneuver and effects in the land domain, we need to increase the specificity with which we talk about force composition, disposition, and strength with respect to ourselves, our adversaries, and our partners in the cyber domain and electromagnetic spectrum. This is not to say that we should underestimate our adversaries, but rather that we should invest the time to better understand these systems and the effects they can actually have on the battlefield.

Armed with a refined common operational picture of friendly and adversarial actors and effects along the electromagnetic spectrum, the signal community will be better postured to help the commander understand, visualize, and describe the risk associated with employing a communications system. Similar to operations in other domains, it is helpful to categorize this risk into four categories: risk to force, mission, capability, and strategy. How would using or not using this system impact the survivability of the force? What is the probability of detection or interception, and how significant would the impact be on the success of the mission? Does using a capability for a specific mission expose it to our adversaries, and potentially remove it from future employment? Finally, how might it affect the commander’s plan for employing the unit’s other capabilities and resources across time and space? Talking about technological capability is the signal corps’s comfort zone, but it is this risk discussion that ends up being the most important. Given the nature of competition in the electromagnetic environment that we have seen play out in Ukraine and other recent conflicts, the question is less of a matter of whether a unit can communicate and more a question of whether it should, and that is a decision that lies firmly with the commander.

Where do we go from here? How do we turn these ideas into actionable tasks to understand and solve this problem? The first thing we should do is to widen the conversation and integrate other key stakeholders on staffs. Most critically this includes the electronic warfare, intelligence, and operations directorates, who all have a small piece in the operational picture that we must put together to form a common understanding of the fight in this contested communications environment. There will also be a strong educational component of this effort to arm commanders and their staffs with the knowledge required to understand what is happening in the electromagnetic spectrum and how it affects all of the warfighting functions. Part of this education will bleed over into a change in how we train as warfighting headquarters. Contested communications should absolutely continue to be a part of these training exercises, but it should be done deliberately and with specificity: Limit bandwidth allocations to make staffs learn to prioritize their traffic. Increase the potential for maneuver element communication detection to assess how commanders change how they control their formations. Deny certain frequency ranges and make the communication teams practice their PACE plans and fight through the scenario instead of simply removing every option they have. There are times when units should experience the enemy’s most dangerous courses of action—including a complete blackout—but there is a limit to the utility of these extremes.

The final change to our approach to contested communications is a recognition that it is not solely, or perhaps even primarily, a technological challenge. Technology absolutely plays a critical role, but we must invest the time in reevaluating existing policies for how and when technological solutions should be employed and refine our tactics, techniques, and procedures. These changes will not be easy, and they will not come overnight. But this realignment must happen if we are to actually prepare the force for the fight ahead.

Lieutenant Colonel Tom Gaines is currently assigned as the ACoS G6 at 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), Fort Liberty, North Carolina.

Captain Alex Suh is the communications OIC for the Special Operations Joint Task Force, Fort Liberty, North Carolina.

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

Image credit: Maj. Brian Sutherland, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Tom Gaines, Alex Suh · August 23, 2023

16. Women in special operations say bias, double standards are daily realities

Will the media continue to report on these issues more than just sporadically or when a report is released?

Women in special operations say bias, double standards are daily realities

Women in special operations say they miss promotions, wear ill-fitting gear, endure harassment and even face double standards on what to wear to PT.

BY MATT WHITE | PUBLISHED AUG 22, 2023 5:44 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Matt White · August 22, 2023

Women in Army special operations units believe they are kept off missions because of “benevolent sexism” and rejected from leadership positions because “men get ‘dibs’ on jobs,’” according to a survey U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) released Monday. And while the reported rates of sexual harassment and assault were lower than in the larger Army, harassment remains a “ubiquitous concern” in those units, with “nearly every” woman of junior rank reporting “some degree of sexual harassment” to Army researchers.

Those findings were lowlights of an eight-month study released on Monday that tracks the progress women have made and the challenges they face in special operations units.

Even activities as mundane as morning PT formations, the study found, can be rife with double standards. Across every special operations unit surveyed, women said that wearing “yoga pants” or leggings led to “countless” reprimands from male superiors for “showing off their body” and “revealing too much” — even as the men who chastise them wear “Ranger panties” to PT and even in the office as a “duty uniform.”

The report’s conclusion on PT dress complaints echoed a sentiment found across most of the topics in the report’s 106 pages: “Most women do not have a problem with ranger panties, they simply loathe the double standard.”

The report covered surveys and interviews carried out from February to August 2021. Hard data came from written surveys from about 1,000 women in special operations units and in-person focus groups that interviewed close to 200 women across 13 major special operations units. The resulting report, “Women in Army Special Operations Forces (WiA) Study,” was made public Monday as the Army released an updated version, “Breaking Barriers: Women in Special Operations”

In a media roundtable on Monday, Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, the commander of the Army Special Operations Command, said the report had uncovered issues that leaders may not have been aware of.

“This is the largest study we’ve ever done to see for ourselves the barriers and challenges that women face,” Braga said. “This journey took us down so many different holes we didn’t realize, everything from healthcare to barracks and standards of living.”

Ill-fitting body armor is a common complaint for women in special ops. (Cpl. Emily Knitter/U.S. Army).

Though women continue to report major hurdles in nearly every area of their professional lives in Army special operations, the news is not all bad.

The study found that 72% of women in the survey said they would support their daughter’s decision to join an Army special operations unit (64% of men said the same), compared to a 2020 survey of families across the wider military in which only 39% of respondents said they would support their daughter serving in a military branch (51% said they would support a son in that survey).

“The majority of women genuinely desire to continue serving in USASOC formations,” the study found.

The report covers every unit in USASOC. Researchers held focus groups with women assigned to six Special Forces groups, the 75th Ranger Regiment and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, along with the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and several psychological warfare and intelligence units.

Women continue to fill in the ranks of special operations, though slowly. About 2,300 women serve in USASOC, about 7% of the force, the report said.

However, their placement in those ranks is uneven.

In media comments, Braga said just six women are assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, none as Ranger infantry soldiers.

“We would love to see some of that matriculate through [to the Rangers] now that that barrier has been broken in the regular army and regular infantry. We would love to attract that talent,” Braga said.

Though roughly 4,000 soldiers serve in the Ranger Regiment, researchers held just one focus group at the Regiment and spoke with just two women (one enlisted, one officer). In contrast, researchers held more than 20 focus groups at Special Forces groups involving over 100 women.

Braga also noted that only a handful of women — “less than 10, more than 1,” he said — have successfully completed Special Forces training to earn a green beret and serve on an operational A-team.

At the core of the report are findings that women in special operations units deal with ill-fitting gear, double standards and constant doubts about their abilities, and gender biases that range from misplaced paternalism to outright hostility.

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The report found that 40% of women in special operations said gender bias in the workplace is a current challenge.

Many said they had been denied assignments or promotions for reasons they traced to gender bias. One woman said she had been one of four women to apply for a leadership job over support troops enabling a Special Forces team when the team’s Green Berets did not want to be in charge of non-operators. However, commanders tapped a soldier from the team for the job, who then failed as a leader, she said, because “he didn’t want to be there.”

“Protective leaders are emplacing invisible barriers,” the report said, as male leaders make decisions with an eye toward “protecting female Soldiers.”

Another woman said she had been denied the ability to contribute to a mission in an austere environment. “With a frustrated tone [she] stated, ‘I had a she-wee, I can wipe my own ass, and I went to SERE school where I slept right next to all the guys.’”

Though the report found most gender bias was unconscious, institutional, or perhaps ill-placed paternalism, deeply held anti-woman sentiment was not hard to find, particularly among senior Special Forces soldiers. Responses from senior male NCOs included:

“I dread the day a woman arrives on a Team and I hope I am retired by the time that happens.”
“I have decided to retire so I don’t have to lead a Team containing a female.”
“Ask all of the support women that ASK to go to SOF units. Do you think they are pursuing career opportunities? Please. Be honest with yourselves. They are looking for a husband, boyfriend or attention. And they get it. Because the men that choose to lay down their lives and do missions that only great men can do are warriors. Warriors do warrior shit. Women like warriors. These are the facts. Play pretend in your circus all you want, this is truth.”
From a male civilian: “Women should never command [Special Forces or Rangers]. The day you put a transgender in my chain-of-command is the day I drop my retirement papers. I hope you then reap all of the ramifications of such moral depravity, enabling of psychosis and political cowardice.”

Beyond daily examples of bias, the report cites several other areas where women said special operations units are falling flat: equipment, childcare, social support (such as mentoring), sexual harassment, pregnancy, and soldier morale.

When originally issued in 2021, the report made 42 recommendations for improving the experience and integration of women into special operations units. The updated report released this week says USASOC has instituted about half and is working on the remainder.

The recommendations include:

Review and redesign body armor and helmets, including fielding the Modular Scalable Vest system in sizes appropriate for women and new straps for the Army’s Advanced Combat Helmet.
New sizing for the MOLLE rucksack, although many women told the study researchers they have turned to older ALICE packs for their field gear. ALICE packs were largely phased out of the Army soon after 9/11 though they are still in circulation in many units, often used by radio operators and for distance rucking. The ALICE, women told the study, uses a smaller rigid frame that fits smaller torsos more readily than the MOLLE pack. Many younger respondents, the survey noted, were unfamiliar with the ALICE ruck.
Improvements in child care, including a SOF-wide emphasis on child care plans and funding for a $1.6 million center at Camp Bull Simons on Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, home of the 7th Special Forces Group.
An awareness and focus on health during pregnancy and recovery afterward.
A focus on issues around pregnancy, including postpartum care, post-miscarriage support, appropriate return to physical fitness standards, and access to breastfeeding.
Establishing and improving mentorship programs.

“We still got a lot of work to do,” Braga said. “A change of culture takes time. It’s not just one briefing, we talk to the force, we talk to one person. But I think we are well along the way on the right azimuth. We must be better.”

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taskandpurpose.com · by Matt White · August 22, 2023

17. Has Xi Jinping bankrupted China? It is finally possible to imagine a post-Communist regime

So yesterday I had a long discussion with an expat from China. He expressed the same opinion as Dr. Luttwak and went on to describe all the weaknesses of the CCP and the speculated that it might not be possible for the CCP to recover.

He postulated this outcome: the dissolution of the CCP and thus the PRC into various provinces as independent power centers along the lines of the end of the Qing dynasty and then the eventual return of the Republic of China. So who is the next Sun Yatsen?

The collapse of the Qing dynasty represented the end of over 2,000 years of dynastic history in China, and several specific historical factors contributed to their decline and fall. The Qing dynasty collapsed after nearly a century of foreign interventions that weakened China, devastating natural disasters, and a series of revolts and rebellions the culminated in the 1911 Revolution

The Qing dynasty ended in 1911 with the Xinhai Revolution. The founder of the Republic of China, Sun-Yatsen, was a visionary leader who worked both within and outside of China to gain support for the cause.

The speculation of the return of the ROC reminded me of this meme about West Taiwan. (If you cannot see the image please go to the link below)

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FTWFreedom89%2Fphotos%2Fa.2126934044256094%2F2989975401285283%2F%3Ftype%3D3&psig=AOvVaw2-u_u9M48xa3hM9D0EKroz&ust=1692968027266000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CA8QjRxqFwoTCJjn-cCr9YADFQAAAAAdAAAAABAh

But there are many dangers as Dr. Luttwak describes:

With China in deep trouble, and finding himself in the cross hairs of any party boss who dreams of evading his “anti-corruption” goons long enough to oust him, might Xi be tempted to invade Taiwan to divert attention? The belief that leaders start wars to divert attention is common among cotton-wool-between-the-ears intellectuals, and in Hollywood it is gospel, but the real thing is very rare. Even the theory that General Leopoldo Galtieri invaded the Falklands in 1982 to divert attention from Argentina’s perpetually bad economy and the Junta’s torture chambers is rather shaky. For one thing, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington resigned to take responsibility for mixed messages that might have encouraged the Argentines instead of deterring them.

In any case, Xi’s talk of war — which is all about the “rejuvenation” of Chinese manhood, and the impellent necessity to redeem a very long history of defeats (the last in Vietnam in 1979) by winning a war, any war — started when China’s economy was still in splendid shape. If anything, it is the conflict in Ukraine that might encourage Xi to invade Taiwan, because it proves that wars can be fought without a nuclear Armageddon, and with many other limits too (a Russian will soon ascend to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral). Not even the collapse of Putin’s quick-victory plan might dissuade Xi, who will rely on treason within Taiwan’s astonishingly lackadaisical armed forces to win quickly. Last year, Taiwan reacted to sharply risen tensions by increasing military service to a measly one year from an absurd four months — and then delayed the start to 2024…

In the meantime, the entire world will pay a price for China’s economic downturn because it accounts for such a big slice of the world economic pie, though with a very welcome consolation prize: for the first time since 1949, it is possible to imagine a post-Communist China.

When, in November 2022, hundreds of Foxconn factory workers ignored police orders as they spilled out of the giant plant in Zhengzhou because they did not want to be trapped by a Covid lockdown, and then actually attacked the policemen who tried to stop them, Xi did not order machine-gun fire. Instead, he capitulated unconditionally, abruptly stopping all Covid restrictions everywhere — leaving the Party’s authority in tatters. China has been in a state of post-traumatic stress ever since, now with rising bitterness for the lost jobs of youth and the lost savings of the old. Xi has created a world defined by interesting times, in which it is possible to imagine both a Taiwan war and a post-Communist China.

Has Xi Jinping bankrupted China?

It is finally possible to imagine a post-Communist regime

BY EDWARD LUTTWAK

unherd.com · by Edward Luttwak · August 23, 2023

It is hard to tell when a crisis in a dictatorial regime, such as the sudden breakdown of China’s economic model, is not about this or that, but about the regime itself. My own experience in this regard is very discouraging. In 1984, my book Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union contained many pages about nationalities I claimed were heading towards independence — not just the well-known if still very obedient Baltics, Armenians and Georgians, but others occupying vastly larger territories, the then barely known Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Turkmen (I readily confess that it never occurred to me that Ukrainians might join them).

The response of every established Western Sovietologist was that I had foolishly confused folkloric categories with actual living and breathing nations — they were just “Soviets” who occasionally wore funny hats, and it was pure and utter fantasy that they might ever want to be independent. That was just seven years before the final and official collapse of the Soviet Union.

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It is axiomatic that nations endure while regimes must collapse, but none of the easy Soviet analogies works when it comes to China. Yes, Beijing recognises 55 minority populations, but they account for no more than 9% or so of the total, and some of the nationalities really are only folkloric, unlike the Uyghur, Kazakhs and Tibetans whom the Chinese must actively repress.

As to the economy, it only broke the morale of the Soviet Communist Party after two decades of increasingly demoralising stagnation that had become obvious by 1980 even to casual visitors, who noticed a very distinctive no-hope “Soviet” look on most people’s faces. The Chinese Communist Party, by contrast, emerged from a visibly malnourished and downright dirty state — when I lived there in 1976, human waste was carted through its streets — with tentative growth from the early Eighties accelerating from the Nineties, gloriously enriching China until very recently.

Even today’s bad economic news reveals no terminal, necessarily regime-destroying diseases, as was true of the Soviet Union, which had to import wheat every few years even as it built more tractors for its farmers than the US. In China, in fact, the only wealth-destroying disease has been the very thing that every tourist and even some experts have admired immensely: the proliferation of a hugely impressive, mostly well-designed and well-built infrastructure, from high-speed trains that now reach even into Laos while connecting some 550 cities in 33 provinces, to the motorways that link every part of China, some all the way up mountains and into deserts, to the roughly 250 full-service airports (in 1976 only eight had enough runway for our small Trident jet), to the immense ports which imported 95 million metric tons of soya beans alone in 2021, when the Port of London handled 50 million tons of everything.

How do wonderful infrastructures destroy wealth? One example is sufficient. In 2018, on a drive along the North Korea border, I encountered a vast and beautiful white six-lane highway suspension bridge across the Yalu river. It was built to connect the Chinese city of Dandong with North Korea, to service the trade boom Xi expected with the promised opening of the North’s economy. Naturally, it would require a customs house, duly built as a very impressive high-rise, warehouses and more than 10 blocks of commercial offices. Yet when I visited, the bridge ended in a North Korean potato field, traffic was exactly zero, the customs house was empty and so were the office blocks and warehouses, some paid for by private border merchants who were bankrupt when I met them in Dandong (they openly cursed Xi for going along with the US-sponsored Security Council Embargo).

Savings that could have enriched many Chinese citizens, including the 180 million officially counted as “very poor” and the further 300 million or so still trapped in poverty, were instead wasted on the Yalu bridge complex, with uncountably greater waste on infrastructure all across China. The list starts with a least 100 grossly under-utilised airports and the many highways that are mostly empty of traffic even in crowded China, including the wonderful multi-lane G-214 that runs all the way from the near-tropical tourist town of Dali in Yunnan up the ever-rising landscape to Tibet.

The immediate issue now is not what might have been, had the capital been used to reduce poverty, but the way the money was found in the first place. Some was collected from taxes, but much more was found by adding to the immense debt mountain that now paralyses the investments of the private building firms that built skyscrapers and gigantic apartment blocks all over China, as well as the uniquely Chinese semi-private municipal and provincial joint ventures that built factories and infrastructural projects. The latter’s money came from the loans of the local branches of state banks, whose managers could not just say no to local party bosses, who could choose to invite them to sumptuous dinners in pretty company or to lock them up for corruption investigations as they saw fit. Back in Beijing, senior managers at Bank of China headquarters — whose role models are neither Mao, Lenin nor even Xi Jinping, but rather their Bank of England and Federal Reserve counterparts with whom many have studied in the US and England — kept trying to discipline the flood of bank loans to the chronically overambitious joint-venture companies. But they had no power at all to scare off the party bosses.

Pan Gongsheng, the current Bank chief, is certainly the most independent official surviving in Xi’s intensely autocratic China, just as the head of the Russian central bank, Elvira Näbiullina, is the most independent official in Moscow. Yet Pan knows he cannot stop the infrastructure projects that are daily adding to China’s debt mountain, without immediately replacing a debt crisis with a mass unemployment crisis — any more than Näbiullina can stop the Ukraine war, whose dead and wounded are much less of a threat for her than the ultimate horror of war-spending inflation (which in Russia can quickly starve 44 million pensioners).

The sudden economic crisis that has stalled China’s economy after decades of growth is very obviously not just “cyclical”. Xi Jinping cannot afford to just sit it out: the immense debt mountain must be reduced to resume profitable investments. In the US, the cure for the 2007-2009 debt crisis that stalled Europe’s economy as well, was the 2008 bankruptcy of literally high-flying Lehman Brothers (its 20-somethings in different offices in the same Manhattan building sent notes to each other by Federal Express via Memphis, Tennessee), and of hundreds of other high-fliers large and small. As for the millions of US homeowners with unpayable mortgages, they just walked out, becoming instantly homeless but also debt-free. Yet very few remained homeless because the US economy picked up very quickly once it was drastically purged of non-repayable loans. (Japan’s housing collapse, on the other hand, stopped the economy for a decade because home loans were personal and could not just be abandoned)

In China, the problem is the opposite: uncounted millions have all or much of their savings in apartments that stand empty, generating tax and other costs instead of income, and they cannot just walk out of them. They need renters, who in practice must be mostly young couples setting up families, especially today, when many young and not-so young single Chinese are stuck living with their parents. It is at this exact point that an economic problem becomes a political one, which can be lethal to any regime, even Xi Jinping’s constantly self-praising and seemingly formidable autocracy.

The first political blip did not originate in ancient China nor even in post-1949 Communist China — it only dates back to July 2023. It was then that the authorities stopped publishing the 16-to-24 unemployment statistic that reached 21.3% in June, a number both very high and also a gross underestimate by all accounts. What makes this unemployment potentially explosive is not the fact that June unemployment was actually much higher than 21.3% (expert estimates start at 30%), nor even the fact that the July percentage was not published because it was even higher, but rather Xi Jinping’s very personal responsibility for much of it.

It was Xi alone, in an expressly personal decision in the name of social equality, who abruptly shut down China’s vast private tutoring industry in July 2021, depriving new university graduates of desirable starter jobs; the seven largest teaching companies alone had to fire 250,000 graduates. Enterprising graduates tried to teach privately, but in October 2021 online tutoring was halted, while those who gathered a few pupils for lessons in parks of cafes were told to stop or face arrest when spotted by police.

Also very much Xi Jinping’s personal responsibility was the abrupt collapse in the demand for new graduates in the entire high-tech sector, which followed the disappearance of China’s most dynamic entrepreneur Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma. Dictators are well known for their jealousy. And the spectacle of Ma being serenaded by more than 25,000 utterly ecstatic Alibaba employees on his birthday (he himself was singing and playing the guitar) was just too much for Xi, who only receives a dutiful clapping from his corralled party underlings.

In November 2020, Ma was summoned to a Party office for having dared to question a lesser official’s remarks. A few days later, the record-breaking $34 billion stock-market listing of his new Ant Group, which was set to hire tens of thousands, was abruptly stopped, as was Ma himself, who disappeared for three months until he was trotted back out in humiliating circumstances. Then, instead of hiring 20,000 new graduates as it did in 2020, Alibaba had to fire 20,000 in 2021, while many other jobs were suppressed by other Chinese high-tech companies whose chiefs cancelled new projects to avoid attention.

Many in China also know that Xi is personally responsible for the spread of anti-Chinese attitudes around the world, which, in turn, has greatly reduced investment, affected employment, and made Chinese tourists and students feel unwelcome in many countries. And the educated know that it was Xi personally who promoted the “wolf warrior” diplomats who openly upbraided and even insulted the governments to which they were accredited, earning headlines in China and the contempt of the locals for all things Chinese. And it is widely understood that Xi has gone out of his way to encourage Chinese soldiers, sailors and pilots to act aggressively, causing incidents with India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as US ships and aircraft. (Xi made Colonel Qi Fabao, who was filmed inciting the 2020 Galwan incident that killed 30 Indian and four Chinese troops, a delegate to the Party Congress, China’s equivalent to the House of Lords.)

With China in deep trouble, and finding himself in the cross hairs of any party boss who dreams of evading his “anti-corruption” goons long enough to oust him, might Xi be tempted to invade Taiwan to divert attention? The belief that leaders start wars to divert attention is common among cotton-wool-between-the-ears intellectuals, and in Hollywood it is gospel, but the real thing is very rare. Even the theory that General Leopoldo Galtieri invaded the Falklands in 1982 to divert attention from Argentina’s perpetually bad economy and the Junta’s torture chambers is rather shaky. For one thing, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington resigned to take responsibility for mixed messages that might have encouraged the Argentines instead of deterring them.

In any case, Xi’s talk of war — which is all about the “rejuvenation” of Chinese manhood, and the impellent necessity to redeem a very long history of defeats (the last in Vietnam in 1979) by winning a war, any war — started when China’s economy was still in splendid shape. If anything, it is the conflict in Ukraine that might encourage Xi to invade Taiwan, because it proves that wars can be fought without a nuclear Armageddon, and with many other limits too (a Russian will soon ascend to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral). Not even the collapse of Putin’s quick-victory plan might dissuade Xi, who will rely on treason within Taiwan’s astonishingly lackadaisical armed forces to win quickly. Last year, Taiwan reacted to sharply risen tensions by increasing military service to a measly one year from an absurd four months — and then delayed the start to 2024…

In the meantime, the entire world will pay a price for China’s economic downturn because it accounts for such a big slice of the world economic pie, though with a very welcome consolation prize: for the first time since 1949, it is possible to imagine a post-Communist China.

When, in November 2022, hundreds of Foxconn factory workers ignored police orders as they spilled out of the giant plant in Zhengzhou because they did not want to be trapped by a Covid lockdown, and then actually attacked the policemen who tried to stop them, Xi did not order machine-gun fire. Instead, he capitulated unconditionally, abruptly stopping all Covid restrictions everywhere — leaving the Party’s authority in tatters. China has been in a state of post-traumatic stress ever since, now with rising bitterness for the lost jobs of youth and the lost savings of the old. Xi has created a world defined by interesting times, in which it is possible to imagine both a Taiwan war and a post-Communist China.

unherd.com · by Edward Luttwak · August 23, 2023

18. Xi’s Age of Stagnation – The Great Walling-Off of China

Hail the resistance:

The party can control and weaponize information, but dissenters are also surprisingly well entrenched. Aided by digital technology, they are also far more nimble than their Soviet-era counterparts. Among China’s educated elite, many persist in opposing the regime’s version of reality. Even though they are banned, virtual private networks, which allow users to bypass Internet controls, are now widespread. Underground filmmakers are still working on new documentaries, and samizdat magazine publishers are still producing works distributed by basic digital tools such as PDFs, email, and thumb drives. These efforts are a far cry from the street protests and other forms of public opposition that attract media attention, but they are crucial in establishing and maintaining the person-to-person networks that pose a long-term challenge to the regime.

In May, I visited the editor of an underground magazine in a relatively remote part of south Beijing. He publishes a fortnightly journal featuring contributions by academics across China, who often use pen names to protect their identities. Their articles challenge the party’s account of key crises in its history, filling in events that have been whitewashed. Some of the editing work is now done by Chinese graduate students working abroad. This model of underground digital publishing was adopted last year by protesters, who used VPNs to upload videos to Twitter, YouTube, and other banned sites. Such online platforms function as storehouses, allowing Chinese people to download information that the state is trying to suppress.

In this case, the editor commissions the articles, edits them, and sends them abroad for safekeeping in case the authorities raid his office. The journal’s layout is also created abroad, and volunteers inside and outside China email each issue to thousands of public intellectuals across China. The magazine is part of a growing community that has been systematically documenting the party’s misrule, from past famines to the COVID pandemic. Although his journal and similar efforts may ordinarily reach only tens of thousands of people in China, the articles can have a much larger impact when the government errs. During the COVID crisis, for example, the magazine’s editor and his colleagues noticed a spike in readership, and others found that their essays were even going viral. In good times, this pursuit of the truth might have seemed quixotic; now, for many of the Chinese, it is beginning to seem vital. As they spread, these anonymous informal networks have opened a new front in the party’s battle against opposition, the control of which now requires far more than simply throwing dissidents in jail.

I sat with the editor in his garden for a couple of hours, under trellises of grapes he uses to make wine. The skies were deep blue, and the sun was strong. The cicadas of a Beijing summer day drowned out the background noise. For a while, it felt as if we could be anywhere, maybe even in France, a place that the editor has enjoyed visiting. He has published the journal for more than a decade and has now handed off most of the work to younger colleagues in China and abroad. He was relaxed and confident.

“You can’t do anything publicly in China,” he said. “But we still work and wait. We have time. They do not.”

Xi’s Age of Stagnation

The Great Walling-Off of China

By Ian Johnson

September/October 2023

Published on August 22, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future · August 22, 2023

In the early months of 2023, some Chinese thinkers were expecting that Chinese President Xi Jinping would be forced to pause or even abandon significant parts of his decadelong march toward centralization. Over the previous year, they had watched the government lurch from crisis to crisis. First, the Chinese Communist Party had stubbornly stuck to its “zero COVID’’ strategy with vast lockdowns of some of China’s biggest cities, even as most other countries had long since ended ineffective hard controls in favor of cutting-edge vaccines. The government’s inflexibility eventually triggered a backlash: in November 2022, antigovernment protests broke out in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing, an astounding development in Xi’s China. Then, in early December, the government suddenly abandoned zero COVID without vaccinating more of the elderly or stockpiling medicine. Within a few weeks, the virus had run rampant through the population, and although the government has not provided reliable data, many independent experts have concluded that it caused more than one million deaths. Meanwhile, the country had lost much of the dynamic growth that for decades has sustained the party’s hold on power.

Given the multiplying pressures, many Chinese intellectuals assumed that Xi would be forced to loosen his iron grip over the economy and society. Even though he had recently won an unprecedented third term as party general secretary and president and seemed set to rule for life, public mistrust was higher than at any previous point in his decade in power. China’s dominant twentieth-century leaders, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, had adjusted their approach when they encountered setbacks; surely Xi and his closest advisers would, too. “I was thinking that they would have to change course,” the editor of one of China’s most influential business journals told me in Beijing in May. “Not just the COVID policy but a lot of things, like the policy against private enterprise and [the] harsh treatment of social groups.”

But none of that happened. Although the zero-COVID measures are gone, Beijing has clung to a strategy of accelerating government intervention in Chinese life. Dozens of the young people who protested last fall have been detained and given lengthy prison sentences. Speech is more restricted than ever. Community activities and social groups are strictly regulated and monitored by the authorities. And for foreigners, the arbitrary detention of businesspeople and raids on foreign consulting firms have—for the first time in decades—added a sense of risk to doing business in the country.

For more than a year, economists have argued that China is embarking on a period of slowing economic growth. To account for this, they have cited demographic changes, government debt, and lower gains in productivity, as well as a lack of market-oriented reforms. Some have talked of “peak China,” arguing that the country’s economic trajectory has already or will soon reach its apex and may never significantly overtake that of the United States. The implication is often that if only Beijing would tweak its economic management, it could mitigate the worst outcomes and avoid a more dangerous decline.

What this analysis overlooks is the extent to which these economic problems are part of a broader process of political ossification and ideological hardening. For anyone who has observed the country closely over the past few decades, it is difficult to miss the signs of a new national stasis, or what Chinese people call neijuan. Often translated as “involution,” it refers to life twisting inward without real progress. The government has created its own universe of mobile phone apps and software, an impressive feat but one that is aimed at insulating Chinese people from the outside world rather than connecting them to it. Religious groups that once enjoyed relative autonomy—even those favored by the state—must now contend with onerous restrictions. Universities and research centers, including many with global ambitions, are increasingly cut off from their international counterparts. And China’s small but once flourishing communities of independent writers, thinkers, artists, and critics have been driven completely underground, much like their twentieth-century Soviet counterparts.

The deeper effects of this walling-off are unlikely to be felt overnight. Chinese society is still filled with creative, well-educated, and dynamic people, and the Chinese government is still run by a highly competent bureaucracy. Since Xi came to power in 2012, it has pulled off some impressive feats, among them completing a nationwide high-speed rail network, developing a commanding lead in renewable energy technologies, and building one of the world’s most advanced militaries. Yet neijuan now permeates all aspects of life in Xi’s China, leaving the country more isolated and stagnant than during any extended period since Deng launched the reform era in the late 1970s.

In the months since Beijing ended its COVID restrictions, foreign journalists, policy experts, and scholars have begun to return to the country to assess the future of China’s government, economy, and foreign relations. Many have tended to focus on elites in the capital and have related China’s isolation and economic slowdown to frictions between Washington and Beijing or to the effects of the pandemic. Speaking to people from different regions and classes, however, offers a different view. Over several weeks in China this spring, I spoke to a few big-picture thinkers, such as the business journal editor. But I decided to spend most of my time with a much broader cross section of Chinese people—doctors, business owners, bus drivers, carpenters, nuns, and students—whom I have known for years. Their experiences, along with broader trends in civil society and government, suggest that China’s leaders have begun to sacrifice technocratic progress and even popular support in their pursuit of stability. Beijing’s bet seems to be that in order to withstand the pressures of an uncertain world, it must turn inward and succeed on its own. In doing so, however, it may instead be repeating the mistakes of its Eastern bloc predecessors in the middle decades of the Cold War.

MOVING MOUNTAINS, BUILDING FORTRESSES

The Xi administration’s obsession with control might seem to be something that mainly hurts intellectuals or urban professionals. And it is true that ever more pervasive restrictions on civil society have shuttered magazines, driven artists out of the country, and caused hundreds of thousands of middle-class people to emigrate. Yet the tightening is having a deep impact on ordinary Chinese people as well. Consider the experience of participants in an annual folk religion pilgrimage to a holy mountain near Beijing. Mao’s zealots destroyed many of the original temples in the 1960s, but in the late 1980s, the mountain’s mainly working-class visitors raised money to rebuild them, and for more than 30 years, the annual 15-day event was largely self-managed and self-financed. Over the past two decades, authorities encouraged this traditional communal activity, which drew on Han Chinese folk practices, as a useful counterweight to religions such as Christianity, which they view as foreign and subject to outside influence. Officials showered the pilgrimage with positive media coverage, allowing it to grow rapidly into one of the country’s largest religious festivals, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors.

But state sponsorship has now brought state supervision. Over the past decade, the government has imposed rules on religious sites across China, closing down unauthorized places of worship, forbidding minors from attending religious services, and even insisting that religious sites fly the national flag. In the case of the holy mountain near Beijing, the government transferred management of the site’s temple complex to a state-owned company, which has deployed private security guards and uniformed police to patrol the shrines and has cluttered the mountain with party propaganda. Near the top, next to a shrine to the Buddhist goddess of mercy, managers from the state enterprise erected a giant billboard emblazoned with hammers and sickles. One panel displays the oath of allegiance that new members must take when they join the party. Another panel announces in huge characters: “The Party is in my heart. Eternally follow the Party line.”

As a result of this overt politicization, the number of visitors is down, and on some days this spring, no pilgrims came at all. Many people who attend the temple or work there are intensely patriotic and support the party line on many issues. Bring up the United States, the war in Ukraine, or a possible invasion of Taiwan, and they will passionately argue that the Americans seek to contain China, that Washington is to blame for Russia’s assault on Ukraine, and that Taiwan must reunite with China or face invasion. But they are also dismayed by the slowing economy, the government’s handling of the pandemic, and political “study sessions” at work—even bus drivers must now listen to lectures on “Xi Jinping Thought” and download mobile phone apps that instruct users on party ideology. Observing a squad of police officers march past, one manager who has worked on the mountain since the 1990s expressed disappointment at how much the pilgrimage has changed. “In China today,” he said, “you can’t do anything without taking care of one thing first: national security.”

Still more consequential may be the state’s now ubiquitous presence in Chinese intellectual life. Chinese leaders have always viewed universities somewhat suspiciously, installing party secretaries to oversee them and surrounding them with walls. Still, for decades, universities were also home to freethinking academics, and their gates were rarely shut to visitors. Since Xi came to power, however, these freedoms have gradually been eliminated. In 2012, the government began to impose bans on teaching subjects such as media freedom, judicial independence, promoting civil society, and independent historical inquiry. Then, with the onset of the pandemic, the government expanded surveillance and added new security measures that have since become permanent, transforming universities into fortresses.

Today in China, even bus drivers must listen to lectures on “Xi Jinping Thought.”

One day in May, I arranged to meet a professor and four of his graduate students at Minzu University of China, a leafy campus on the western side of Beijing founded to train new leaders among the country’s 55 recognized non-Han ethnic minorities, such as Tibetans, Uighurs, and Mongolians. Before the pandemic, I usually met him at a university canteen or café. Now, visitors entering the campus must present their faces to a camera at a turnstile so that the authorities know precisely who is entering. The professor suggested that we convene off campus at a Mongolian restaurant, and we used a private room to avoid eavesdroppers. “Maybe it’s better that they don’t know we’re meeting,” he said.

The professor was hardly a dissident. He strongly supports unification with Taiwan and has researched the shared cultural roots of mainland Chinese and Taiwanese society. With the help of local officials, he rebuilt a traditional meeting place for members of a clan in his hometown in southeastern China. In earlier years, he also traveled widely and held fellowships abroad, and he is now working on a book about a religious movement that took hold in China in the 1920s.

Over the past decade, however, the government has incrementally stymied much of his research. He now needs approval to attend conferences abroad and must submit his writing for vetting before publishing it. His new book cannot be published in China because discussions of religious life, even that of a century ago, are considered sensitive. And state authorities have so thoroughly obstructed the anthropology journal he has been editing that he has resigned his post. Over the past three years, the journal has prepared 12 issues, but only one has made it past the censors.

Outside universities, the boundaries of what can be published have similarly narrowed, even affecting analysis of initiatives and ideas that Xi supports. In the first decade of this century, for example, one public intellectual I know wrote several groundbreaking books on old Beijing. Although Xi is widely seen as a champion of the capital’s old city, the writer now avoids the issue, and publishers will not reprint his earlier works because they discuss the endemic corruption that underlies the destruction of historic areas. Instead, he has reverted to seemingly distant and apolitical subjects in order to obliquely criticize the present situation. His new focus: Beijing’s thirteenth-century history under Genghis Khan, which he portrays as an open, multicultural time—in implicit contrast to today. “It’s easier to write about the Mongolians,” he said. “Most censors don’t see the parallels.”

WHAT MISTAKES?

Ordinary Chinese workers have a different set of concerns, mostly relating to the economy and the pandemic. During the first quarter of 2023, China’s slowing economy barely reached the government growth target of five percent, and it achieved that level only with heavy state spending. The youth unemployment rate is over 20 percent, and many people wonder how their children will be able to get married if they cannot afford to buy an apartment. Figures for the second quarter were slightly better, but only compared with the second quarter of last year, when the economy was nearly brought to a standstill by COVID lockdowns. A variety of indicators show growing vulnerabilities in a range of sectors, and many Chinese feel they are in a recession. A group of textile manufacturers from Wenzhou in coastal Zhejiang Province told me that sales across China are down 20 percent this year, forcing them to lay off staff. They believe the economy will recover, but they also think that the go-go years are gone. “We’re in a cloudier era,” one of them said.

Many business owners point to the sharp decline in foreign visitors. The plunge is partly due to COVID travel restrictions, which have been relaxed only recently, but it is also a reflection of how difficult it has become to move around the country. To visit China today is to enter a parallel universe of apps and websites that control access to daily life. For outsiders, ordering a cab, buying a train ticket, and purchasing almost any goods requires a Chinese mobile phone, Chinese apps, and often a Chinese credit card. (Some apps now accommodate foreign credit cards, but not all vendors accept them.) Even a simple visit to a tourist site now requires scanning a QR code on a Chinese app and filling out a Chinese-language form. On one level, these hindrances are trivial, but they are also symptomatic of a government that seems almost unaware of the extent to which its ever more expansive centralization is closing the country off from the outside world.

The whiplash course of the pandemic in China—from months-long closures to the uncontrolled spread when the harsh measures ended—has also left lasting scars. Although much of the international coverage focused on the lockdowns in big cosmopolitan cities such as Shanghai, rural areas were hit particularly hard by the subsequent wave of infections. Outside urban centers, medical services are often rudimentary, and when the authorities suddenly began ignoring the disease, many people succumbed to it. One doctor who works in an emergency ward in a rural district near Beijing said he was stunned by the number of elderly people who died in the weeks after the controls were lifted. “We were told that it was normal that old people died,” he said. “But aren’t we supposed to be a civilization that is especially respectful of the elderly? I was so angry. I guess I still am.”

Firefighters under surveillance cameras in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, March 2022

Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters

In elite circles closer to the government, it is common to hear such concerns downplayed or brushed off. In May, the editors of the Beijing Cultural Review, a mainstream media publication, told me that the government’s handling of the pandemic may have been a bit heavy-handed and that officials underestimated the economic damage caused by zero COVID. But now that they had reversed course, they said, the economy would soon bounce back. “Maybe it’ll take three years,” an editor told me. “But it will recover, and people will move on.”

That’s not necessarily a Pollyannish view. Over its nearly 75 years in power, the government has withstood a series of major crises: the Great Famine of 1958–61 and the Cultural Revolution of 1966–76, which together led to tens of millions of deaths; the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, in which the government unleashed the military on peaceful student demonstrators with the world watching; the Falun Gong crackdown of 1999–2001, in which the authorities killed more than 100 protesters and sent thousands to labor camps; and the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, in which more than 60,000 people died—in significant measure because of faulty government construction, especially of public schools. These incidents riveted the country and led some to wonder whether China’s leaders could escape repercussions.

Especially over the past forty years, the party’s control of the media and its ability to maintain fast-paced growth allowed it to quickly tamp down grievances. After the Falun Gong protests, for example, the government’s portrayal of the group as a cult became part of the historical narrative; at the same time, the authorities loosened control over folk religious groups as long as they avoided politics. In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization, and under a technocratic leadership that encouraged international investment and private enterprise, the country enjoyed double-digit economic growth.

It is possible that such techniques can still work. As the Chinese astrophysicist and dissident Fang Lizhi observed in 1990, “About once each decade, the true face of history is thoroughly erased from the memory of Chinese society.” Likewise, if faster growth returns, the current crises could quickly be forgotten, making the immediate post-COVID era just another blip in the party’s relatively stable control of China over the past nearly half century. At least that may be the government’s assessment, helping explain why it has not changed course despite the recent upheavals.

China’s leadership shuns debate and feels no compulsion to explain itself.

But such comforting assumptions ignore a key lesson of the past: that the party also survived by adapting and experimenting. After Mao died, for example, party elders around Deng realized that the party confronted a crisis of legitimacy. They introduced market reforms and relaxed the party’s grip on society. Likewise, after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Deng and his immediate successors came to believe that a lack of economic progress underpinned both events and pushed through wide-ranging reforms that transformed China into an emerging economic superpower.

This adaptive authoritarianism can be attributed in part to a generation of leaders who saw the People’s Republic as a work in progress that could be continually improved rather than as a fixed political system that had to be preserved at all costs. Leaders such as Deng had helped found the new country in 1949, but they knew that it was prone to large-scale crises that needed correction. In the aftermath of the Mao years, they also realized that their rule was precarious. Relinquishing political control was off the table, but most other things were open for discussion. Today it’s almost shocking to read government policy documents from the Deng era. For example, the 1982 party directive Document 19 explicitly allowed religious practices that are now increasingly banned, such as home-based preaching and baptism. Underground religious movements were to be treated gently because the state had “used violent measures against religion that forced religious movements underground,” the document said.

There are few signs today of such self-critical reflection. Although it is difficult for outside observers to know the inner workings of the current leadership, the about-face by fiat on zero COVID is in keeping with Xi’s overall approach. In decades past, if accidents or disasters occurred that reflected poorly on the party, leaders such as former president Hu Jintao and former prime minister Wen Jiabao visited the locales in question to show they cared, drawing on much the same playbook as their Western counterparts in such situations. Xi also travels often around China, but rarely to express condolences, let alone to take implicit government responsibility for failures. Instead, he mostly visits local communities to exhort them to comply with party doctrine and government policy. This feeds into the impression among many Chinese people of an increasingly remote leadership that allows few dissenting viewpoints, shuns internal debate, and feels no compulsion to explain itself to the public.

THE BERLIN TRAP

For many who live in this era of neijuan, the question is how long it will last. Although the Chinese Communist Party of today differs from its historical counterparts in other countries, some Chinese thinkers see broad parallels between China’s inward turn and the stifling atmosphere of Eastern bloc countries during the height of the Cold War. One striking analogy that some mention is the Berlin Wall. When it was first erected in 1961, this symbol of communist oppression consisted of rolls of barbed wire strung down the middle of the street; it only gradually acquired its final form as an all but impermeable series of concrete barriers buttressed by a network of watchtowers and searchlights. From the start, it seemed to demonstrate the inherent failure of the East German state to build a desirable place to live, and many saw it as an anachronistic effort to lock people in their own country. Yet it was also remarkably successful, allowing the regime to stabilize itself and survive for another three decades. The wall couldn’t save the German Democratic Republic, but it bought the leadership time.

Now, China’s rulers seem to be building and perfecting their own twenty-first-century version of the Berlin Wall. Although tens of thousands of Chinese citizens languish in prisons or house arrest for their views, the barrier is not primarily physical. Instead, state power is exercised through an increasingly complete system of censorship of speech and thought, whether on the Internet or television or in textbooks, movies, exhibitions, or even video games, to create a widely accepted historical narrative that makes the party seem essential for China’s survival. It also now includes the idea that China should build all key technologies on its own, rejecting the principles of comparative advantage that have been the bedrock of globalization. These efforts amount to a more subtle form of control, giving people the illusion of freedom while guiding them away from anything that would challenge the regime.

But like its East German counterpart, China’s wall is intended to forestall an existential challenge. Just as East Germany faced collapse from uncontrolled emigration in the 1950s, China was facing its own crisis in the two decades before Xi took the helm as new technologies such as the Internet helped foster the first nationwide movement against the party. The source of dissent was not an organization with members and bylaws but a loose alliance of critical intellectuals, victims of party abuse, and ordinary citizens unhappy with local conditions. Condemnation of one-party rule began appearing in the media, online, and in underground magazines and documentary films. Leaders such as Hu and Wen had to respond.

At first, they did so by allowing a public discussion of national crises and sometimes by undertaking reforms in response. In 2003, for example, after the death of a student who had been beaten by police caused a national outcry, Wen announced an immediate modification of police custody laws. But fearful that too much citizen oversight could challenge the party’s authority, leaders soon resorted to new social controls. A turning point came in late 2008, after the Beijing Summer Olympics had ended and the world’s spotlight was off China. The government arrested the dissident writer and future Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo and soon implemented greater surveillance of social media. Xi ramped up this trend and systematized it. To cap it off, he oversaw the rewriting of the party’s official history in 2021, downplaying past debacles such as the Cultural Revolution and glorifying his own policies. Using the tools of the digital age, Xi transformed China’s wall from an ad hoc assembly of rules and regulations into a sleek, powerful apparatus.

As in East Germany, this tactic has been successful—at least up to now. Many people have internalized the party’s version of history: in that telling, its leaders saved China from foreign domination and made China strong and powerful, and therefore only the party, even if it has a few flaws, can lead the people into the future. This belief system, however, relies on the party’s efficient management of China’s many challenges. That was relatively easy over 45 years of remarkably durable economic growth, which allowed people to set aside their objections to the long arm of the party-state; as in most countries, it is difficult to organize against a regime that is bringing rapid gains in standards of living. In the communist states of Eastern Europe, the general prosperity of the immediate post–World War II era had diminished by the 1970s, causing many to look to dissidents and critics for explanations of their new reality. Could this happen in a China entering a similar long-term stagnation?

THE WAITING GAME

The differences between Xi’s China today and the Eastern bloc of the 1960s and 1970s are many. In those years, the countries in the Soviet sphere experienced a shortage economy, with lines for bread and years-long waits to buy automobiles. There are no signs of such privation in China today. Nonetheless, the government’s pursuit of total control has set the country on a path of slower growth and created multiplying pockets of dissatisfaction. Critics of the regime point out that Beijing’s restrictions on information very likely created the conditions that led to the COVID-19 crisis: in late 2019, local officials hushed up early warnings of the virus because they feared that bad news would reflect poorly on them. That silence allowed the virus to gain a foothold and spread around the world. Although censorship keeps these and other government-induced problems out of the public eye, it also cuts off some of the smartest citizens from global trends and the latest research. Such knowledge barriers, as they become self-reinforcing, can only hurt China. If even the United States is dependent on other lands, such as the Netherlands and Taiwan, for advanced chips and other technologies, one wonders whether China can really go it alone, as its leaders now seem to imagine.

The party can control and weaponize information, but dissenters are also surprisingly well entrenched. Aided by digital technology, they are also far more nimble than their Soviet-era counterparts. Among China’s educated elite, many persist in opposing the regime’s version of reality. Even though they are banned, virtual private networks, which allow users to bypass Internet controls, are now widespread. Underground filmmakers are still working on new documentaries, and samizdat magazine publishers are still producing works distributed by basic digital tools such as PDFs, email, and thumb drives. These efforts are a far cry from the street protests and other forms of public opposition that attract media attention, but they are crucial in establishing and maintaining the person-to-person networks that pose a long-term challenge to the regime.

In May, I visited the editor of an underground magazine in a relatively remote part of south Beijing. He publishes a fortnightly journal featuring contributions by academics across China, who often use pen names to protect their identities. Their articles challenge the party’s account of key crises in its history, filling in events that have been whitewashed. Some of the editing work is now done by Chinese graduate students working abroad. This model of underground digital publishing was adopted last year by protesters, who used VPNs to upload videos to Twitter, YouTube, and other banned sites. Such online platforms function as storehouses, allowing Chinese people to download information that the state is trying to suppress.

People protesting COVID-19 restrictions, Hong Kong, November 2022

Tyrone Siu / Reuters

In this case, the editor commissions the articles, edits them, and sends them abroad for safekeeping in case the authorities raid his office. The journal’s layout is also created abroad, and volunteers inside and outside China email each issue to thousands of public intellectuals across China. The magazine is part of a growing community that has been systematically documenting the party’s misrule, from past famines to the COVID pandemic. Although his journal and similar efforts may ordinarily reach only tens of thousands of people in China, the articles can have a much larger impact when the government errs. During the COVID crisis, for example, the magazine’s editor and his colleagues noticed a spike in readership, and others found that their essays were even going viral. In good times, this pursuit of the truth might have seemed quixotic; now, for many of the Chinese, it is beginning to seem vital. As they spread, these anonymous informal networks have opened a new front in the party’s battle against opposition, the control of which now requires far more than simply throwing dissidents in jail.

I sat with the editor in his garden for a couple of hours, under trellises of grapes he uses to make wine. The skies were deep blue, and the sun was strong. The cicadas of a Beijing summer day drowned out the background noise. For a while, it felt as if we could be anywhere, maybe even in France, a place that the editor has enjoyed visiting. He has published the journal for more than a decade and has now handed off most of the work to younger colleagues in China and abroad. He was relaxed and confident.

“You can’t do anything publicly in China,” he said. “But we still work and wait. We have time. They do not.”

IAN JOHNSON is Stephen A. Schwarzman Senior Fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the forthcoming book Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future. A Beijing-based correspondent for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications for 20 years, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on China in 2001.

Foreign Affairs · by Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future · August 22, 2023

19. Why Putin Wanted Prigozhin Dead – A Conversation With Tatiana Stanovaya

Excerpts:

What will you be looking out for in the coming days as the dust settles?

I would watch how Russian TV covers the situation. The tone they use to talk about Prigozhin and his legacy will indicate the ways in which the Kremlin is trying to shape public opinion. What history will it preserve and what history will it rewrite regarding the role that Wagner and Prigozhin played in the war? I would also look at how the official investigation develops—whether it tries to present some palatable version of events or downplays the importance of what happened.

I would also follow how the patriotic conservative camp reacts to what happened on Telegram channels. Those who criticize the Ministry of Defense: how will they react? Will we see some level of emotional indignation about what happened? Will they be angry with Putin? Will they feel lost? It will be interesting to see what sentiments they have and how the Kremlin deals with them. We can also follow the posts of ordinary Russians—whether they consider what happened to be an important event and how they relate to it. And, of course, we will have to watch closely what happens to Wagner in Belarus.

Why Putin Wanted Prigozhin Dead

A Conversation With Tatiana Stanovaya

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/why-putin-wanted-prigozhin-dead

August 23, 2023

A fighter of Wagner private mercenary group lights a candle at a makeshift memorial with portraits of Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner group commander Dmitry Utkin outside the local office of the Wagner private mercenary group in Novosibirsk, Russia August 24, 2023.

Stringer / Reuters

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In a Foreign Affairs article released earlier this month, Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, tallied the mounting stressors on Vladimir Putin’s regime—particularly the short-lived mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company. The rebellion was “the product of Putin’s inaction,” she wrote, and the leniency afforded to Prigozhin afterward made the Russian president look “less powerful.” On Wednesday, Putin may have gotten his payback after all: Prigozhin was listed among the fatalities of a private jet that crashed outside Moscow. Executive Editor Stuart Reid spoke with Stanovaya the same day. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Knowing what we know, how likely is it that the crash was intentional?

We have good reason to believe that Putin is interested in such a crash. But even if it really was an accident, Russian elites and senior officials will see it as an act of retaliation. The Kremlin and Putin personally will be interested in fueling such suspicions. Putin had called Prigozhin a “traitor,” so a lot of conservatives in Russia’s political class were shocked at how soft Putin was toward him after the mutiny. Prigozhin circulated freely between Belarus and Russia. Putin met him in the Kremlin. He allowed him to live his life like nothing had happened. Today, those who were shocked can say, “Now we see Putin’s logic.” Putin doesn’t seem weak. He seems like he’s retaking control.

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Talk about the fate Putin has promised those who challenge him.

On several occasions in previous years, Putin said that traitors must die. He said their death must be cruel and they must suffer. But Prigozhin is not a classic traitor. Yes, Putin said after the mutiny that this was someone who dared challenge the state at a time when it was facing external aggression. But Putin also said that people lose their minds during war. His approach toward Prigozhin was a bit softer than what it would be for someone who deliberately betrayed the motherland.

Tatiana Stanovaya

But in the end, I didn’t really see what value Prigozhin had to Putin after the mutiny. Some people suggested that Prigozhin had kompromat on Putin and that was why Putin didn’t dare get rid of him. I was skeptical of that. So what was the sense in keeping him around? The only reason Putin would tolerate Prigozhin is that he had some military merit in Ukraine and Syria. But was that really enough to forgive him? Before what happened to Prigozhin, I was pretty sure that Putin would find a way to get rid of him. Maybe not physically: I wasn’t sure Putin would be okay with that. Rather, I thought the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the GRU, the FSB—whoever—would, with time, find a way to take away everything Prigozhin had. But then, physically, we see what we see.

Who benefits from Prigozhin’s removal from the scene?

Many people. For those who consider Prigozhin a threat to the state, his death represents justice. For the military staff, the general staff, the siloviki, the security services, conservatives, hawks—for all of those who believed that Prigozhin went too far—this is what should have happened. So I don’t think Putin and the Kremlin will make much of an effort to convince the public otherwise.

Where does the Wagner group go from here?

On Russian Telegram, some people have suggested that if Prigozhin’s killing was not accidental, it was a rather risky move by the state. It could spark discontent, irritation, and a negative reaction from Prigozhin’s supporters. In my opinion, we won’t see any significant reaction. Those who sympathized with Prigozhin before the mutiny were disappointed when he decided to challenge the state. They believed that one should not rock the boat during such hard times. We could see it in polls: before the mutiny, Prigozhin had gained a lot of sympathy, but after the mutiny, it collapsed. Many Russians turned their backs on Prigozhin because they decided, “You can fight against corruption in the Defense Ministry, you can criticize the military on your Telegram channel, but you can’t rise up against the state.” So I don’t really expect a serious upheaval against the Kremlin or something pro-Prigozhin, pro-Wagner. There might be some minor episodes, but nothing big.

Prigozhin was an angry man who was not easy to deal with.

Will his supporters view him as a martyr?

I don’t think so. Prigozhin was an angry man who was not easy to deal with. I don’t think he has fans who will follow in his footsteps and try to carry on his activities. Even those who believed in Prigozhin will view what happened to him as a warning to anyone who tries to repeat what he did. People will be scared, especially those who stayed by Prigozhin’s side until now. Just imagine: they must think they’re next.

What does Prigozhin’s death mean for the Wagner forces who had been in Ukraine?

Wagner is now settled in Belarus, and its forces can continue some activities in Africa and Syria. But the doors to Ukraine are closed. Some commanders in Wagner hoped that in a couple of months, Putin would call them back and say, “Sorry, I was wrong about you. We need you. Please come back.” That was wishful thinking.

What will you be looking out for in the coming days as the dust settles?

I would watch how Russian TV covers the situation. The tone they use to talk about Prigozhin and his legacy will indicate the ways in which the Kremlin is trying to shape public opinion. What history will it preserve and what history will it rewrite regarding the role that Wagner and Prigozhin played in the war? I would also look at how the official investigation develops—whether it tries to present some palatable version of events or downplays the importance of what happened.

I would also follow how the patriotic conservative camp reacts to what happened on Telegram channels. Those who criticize the Ministry of Defense: how will they react? Will we see some level of emotional indignation about what happened? Will they be angry with Putin? Will they feel lost? It will be interesting to see what sentiments they have and how the Kremlin deals with them. We can also follow the posts of ordinary Russians—whether they consider what happened to be an important event and how they relate to it. And, of course, we will have to watch closely what happens to Wagner in Belarus.

20. Australia is becoming America’s military launch-pad into Asia

Excerpts:

For Hugh White of Australian National University, Australia would do better to defend waters closer to home with cheaper diesel-electric submarines. Efforts to preserve America’s primacy are doomed to fail, he says: America cannot win a conventional war close to China’s shore and may ultimately pull back from Asia.

Champions of aukus retort that losing Taiwan would mean the “Finlandisation” of much of Asia, ie, its subjugation to China even if countries remain sovereign. Moreover, adds Michael Green of the University of Sydney, China’s economic woes suggest its dominance is not preordained.

For America, the relationship showcases its effort to rally allies against China without suggesting it is rushing to war. Australia must balance a fear of abandonment against a reasonable fear of entanglement. Critics of aukus cite a comment attributed to Kurt Campbell, Mr Biden’s Asia “tsar”, who reputedly said of Australia: “We have them locked in now for the next 40 years.” Equally, though, Australia may have America locked in for the same duration.

Australia is becoming America’s military launch-pad into Asia

Are Australian voters ready for the costs of great-power rivalry in the Indo-Pacific?

Aug 23rd 2023 | BRISBANE, CANBERRA AND SYDNEY

https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/08/23/australia-is-becoming-americas-military-launch-pad-into-asia

When imperial Japan’s troops were sweeping all before them in 1941, the Australian prime minister, John Curtin, made a desperate turn. Cutting the last bonds of colonial fealty, he issued this plea: “Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.”

These days, Australia and America are keenly looking to each other again, to confront China. Their “mateship” is undergoing its greatest overhaul since General Douglas MacArthur led allied troops from Brisbane. Australia is upgrading its military bases to host more American forces and arming itself with weapons that can threaten China. It is also helping America weave a wider “latticework” of ad hoc security pacts across the Indo-Pacific region.

“We have no greater friend, no greater partner, no greater ally than Australia,” declared Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, during a recent visit. And he meant it. If America ever goes to war with China, American officials say the Aussies would be the likeliest allies to be fighting with them. Yet the risks and cost of their more aggressive security posture are causing some disquiet in Australia.

It is, for now, less conspicuous than recent progress in the bilateral relationship. Much pomp attended the American warship USS Canberra, when she entered Sydney harbour to be commissioned on July 22nd. Escorted by her Australian namesake, HMAS Canberra, she was the first American warship commissioned in a foreign country. The two vessels, named after an Australian cruiser sunk in 1942, are symbols of burgeoning ties. This week HMAS Canberra conducted war games with the Philippines with American marines and their mv-22b tilt-rotor aircraft aboard.

With a population of just 26m, on an island-continent spanning three time-zones, Australia has capable but only modest armed forces. Its 58,000 personnel are very roughly a third the size of America’s Marine Corps or Britain’s armed forces. But Australia plays an outsize role because it has things America needs: trustworthiness, a shared perception of the Chinese threat and a valuable geography.

As a member of the “Five Eyes”, Australia and America have long shared intelligence, along with Britain, Canada and New Zealand. Australia has also taken part in American wars that others shunned, such as in Vietnam. A “fear of abandonment”, as some see it, underlies Australia’s readiness to pay a blood price for the relationship. Naturally, officials on both sides prefer to see this as an enduring strength.

Highlighting the threat of China, Australia’s Defence Strategic Review, issued in April, stated that: “The United States is no longer the unipolar leader of the Indo-Pacific”. Partly as a result, Australia no longer has a decade of “warning time” of possible war. In the missile age, it is also no longer far from the world’s troubles. The answer, Australian strategists concluded, is for Australia to cling all the more tightly to America, “contribute more to regional stability” and develop weapons “to hold an adversary at risk further from our shores”.

Australia’s geographical advantage is that it lies in what strategists call a Goldilocks zone: well-placed to help America to project power into Asia, but beyond the range of most of China’s weapons. It is also large, which helps America scatter its forces to avoid giving China easy targets.

The most ambitious leap for the alliance is the aukus defence-industrial agreement, which some liken to a marriage. The centrepiece is a long-term effort to arm Australia with nuclear-powered (but not nuclear-armed) submarines. The boats are planned to be British-designed with American nuclear propulsion, and to emerge in the 2040s. That could be a problem. The geopolitical risk may be sharpest this decade, as China seeks the capacity to invade Taiwan by 2027.

American Virginia-class attack submarines will therefore call more often at HMAS Stirling, a base on the western coast, as the USS North Carolina did earlier this month. From 2027 America will rotate four subs through the base (Britain will send another). In the 2030s Australia aims to buy three, and perhaps five, of its own Virginia boats. Plans are afoot for a second submarine base on the east coast.

The second “pillar” of aukus ranges from co-operation on artificial intelligence to quantum computing and hypersonic missiles. The three partners hope it will start to deliver deployable technology within months. America also promises to help Australia make, repair and maintain munitions, including missiles for the himars system, now busy in Ukraine, which Australia is buying. This would help ease the West’s munitions bottlenecks. On August 21st Australia announced plans to buy 200 Tomahawk ship-borne cruise missiles, with a range of about 1,500km.

Not quite so fast…

Joint weapons development will work best if America grants aukus partners waivers from rules that guard American know-how. Some talk of a “free-trade agreement in defence”. The Pentagon is supportive. Whether the State Department and Congress will agree is unclear. A more immediate possible sticking-point is a Republican reluctance to give Australia precious Virginia-class boats at a time when America does not have enough of its own.

The politics of aukus are even harder in Australia, despite bipartisan support for the deal. It was signed in 2021 by the conservative government of Scott Morrison, and later endorsed by his Labor successor, Anthony Albanese, a left-winger who did not want to be considered weak on defence. Stalwarts on the Labor right have long been critical. Bob Carr, a former foreign minister, criticises the “grandiosity” of aukus, based on a reasonable fear that it risks hollowing out the rest of the armed forces. He also worries that Australia is making itself a target for nuclear attack. On August 18th, at Labor’s annual conference, loud dissent emerged from the Labor left, too. The Greens, on whom Labor relies for support in the Senate, are also hostile.

The opposition is relatively small for now. Mr Albanese won the support of the Labor conference, albeit with a promise that all aukus boats would be built locally and that Australia could not “be directed” by others on their use. Not for Labor the forthright view of Peter Dutton, the Morrison-era defence minister, who declared in 2021 that “it would be inconceivable that we wouldn’t support the US in an action”. Even so, aukus almost inevitably makes such Australian participation more likely.

The public is also broadly on board. A survey by the Lowy Institute, published in June, found 82% of Australians considered the alliance “important” or “very important”. A majority favoured establishing American bases on Australian soil. Two-thirds supported acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, though many recoiled when told the likely price: A$268-368bn ($173bn-238bn) over three decades. In case of a war over Taiwan, a majority would send the navy to prevent a Chinese blockade. Most opposed sending troops.

But if most Australians view China as a threat rather than an economic partner, the government recognises that Mr Morrison’s hawkishness contributed to his electoral defeat, especially among Australia’s many China-born voters. Hence Mr Albanese’s greater stress on regional diplomacy and stabilising relations with China. He is due to visit Manila, Washington and, perhaps, Beijing, in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Australian exports to China are booming, reaching a record A$103bn in the first half of this year, partly on the back of growing sales of lithium concentrate. China has ended unofficial bans on Australia’s timber and coal, and recently lifted tariffs on its barley.

Mr Albanese stresses the job-creating potential of AUkus. But its financial cost may end up mattering more. Experts doubt that the new weaponry can be paid for under Australia’s current plans. The core defence budget is set to shrink in the next two years. Thereafter, total defence spending will rise only gradually, from the current 2% of gdp to about 2.3% in 2033.

For Hugh White of Australian National University, Australia would do better to defend waters closer to home with cheaper diesel-electric submarines. Efforts to preserve America’s primacy are doomed to fail, he says: America cannot win a conventional war close to China’s shore and may ultimately pull back from Asia.

Champions of aukus retort that losing Taiwan would mean the “Finlandisation” of much of Asia, ie, its subjugation to China even if countries remain sovereign. Moreover, adds Michael Green of the University of Sydney, China’s economic woes suggest its dominance is not preordained.

For America, the relationship showcases its effort to rally allies against China without suggesting it is rushing to war. Australia must balance a fear of abandonment against a reasonable fear of entanglement. Critics of aukus cite a comment attributed to Kurt Campbell, Mr Biden’s Asia “tsar”, who reputedly said of Australia: “We have them locked in now for the next 40 years.” Equally, though, Australia may have America locked in for the same duration. ■

The Economist

21. Planning Ethical Influence Operations

Download the 58 page report here: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA1900/RRA1969-1/RAND_RRA1969-1.pdf

I am going to have to delve into this.

Planning Ethical Influence Operations

A Framework for Defense Information Professionals

by Christopher Paul, William Marcellino, Michael Skerker, Jeremy Davis, Bradley J. Strawser

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Decisionmaking,
Information Operations,
Military Doctrine,
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Psychological Warfare
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Research Questions

How do the ethics of influence operations differ from the ethics of force in military operations?
What factors, conditions, or considerations affect the rightness of such actions?
Does the target, the location, the content, or the veracity of the communication make a difference?
How should DoD ethically plan and conduct influence operations?

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) efforts to plan and conduct influence operations in an ethical manner face several challenges, including concerns regarding the appropriateness of any influence activity, a lack of explicit consideration of ethics in the influence-planning process, and decoupling the ethics of force from the ethics of influence in military operations. Currently, DoD lacks a framework to explicitly consider the ethics of an influence activity outside legal review.

Ethics scholarship reveals that the principal ethical objection to influence is its threat to autonomy. Although influence is a threat to autonomy and is thus morally fraught, this scholarship points to several situations in which influence activities might be justified.

This report includes (1) clear ethical principles that should govern the planning and conduct of influence operations; (2) clear procedures for assessing ethics and the ethical risk associated with a proposed influence operation; and (3) guidelines for creating a justification statement for a proposed influence operation based on a preliminary ethical determination so that reviewers and approvers are presented with a consistent, coherent, and nonarbitrary ethical evaluation with which they can engage and agree or disagree.

The authors offer a principles-based framework for military practitioners to determine whether a proposed influence effort is ethically permissible and guidance for preparing a justification statement that allows approvers to follow the ethical logic behind a proposed influence effort.

Key Findings

Influence operations should be necessary, effective, and proportional.
Military influence efforts should (1) seek legitimate military outcomes, (2) be necessary to attain those outcomes, (3) employ means that are not harmful (or harm only those liable to harm), (4) have a high likelihood of success, and (5) should not generate second-order effects beyond what is intended. Efforts that do not wholly satisfy all criteria might still be justified, but only if the expected benefit substantially outweighs the likely harm.
The framework structuring the application of these principles should unfold in three phases: an initial screening, followed by a full ethical risk assessment (if necessary) and the preparation of a justification statement.

Recommendations

Joint and service doctrine that are relevant to influence operations should include the consideration of ethical concerns.
Planners and practitioners should adhere to ethical principles and should follow a logical process to make ethical determinations, either using the process detailed in this report or another that bears similar results.
An ethical review process like the one described in this report should be formally added to the review and approval process for influence operations to provide greater clarity to planners and reviewers and increase process discipline.

Chapter One
Introduction
Chapter Two
Current State of Thinking and Practice Regarding the Ethics of Influence
Chapter Three
Ethical Principles for Influence and Their Application
Appendix
Full-Page Versions of the Initial Screening Worksheet and the Full Ethical Risk Assessment

22. A ‘lethal threat’: why the far right sees more scrutiny than the left

A ‘lethal threat’: why the far right sees more scrutiny than the left

militarytimes.com · by Nikki Wentling · August 24, 2023

Editor’s Note: We dug into why government, think tanks, and media coverage may focus more on right-wing extremists than left-wing groups, in part because of reader queries. This is part of our ongoing mission together with Military Veterans in Journalism to look at the nexus between extremism, disinformation and the U.S. military.

Fifty years ago, far-left movements posed the biggest domestic terrorism threat to the United States, with some environmental, communist and animal rights groups taking credit for bombings, arson and vandalism at businesses and federal buildings across the country.

But terrorism carried out by right-wing actors eclipsed that of leftist movements in the 1990s, and then, the country’s focus shifted to foreign terrorist organizations for more than a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Now, government agencies and scholars across the political spectrum agree that far-right movements have caused most of the political violence in the U.S. over the past few years – and present the most dangerous threat today. Data shows that the involvement of veterans and service members in some of these groups is helping to further the violence.

“It used to be far-left terrorism, then for a while the biggest threats were Islamist and international forms of terrorism,” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, who runs the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University. “Now, the official government assessment, universally, is that anti-government and supremacist forms of extremism are the biggest threat and the most lethal and pressing threat to the homeland.”

The idea that far-right extremism poses a threat to the country has been contested by political pundits and some Republican lawmakers, who have attempted to minimize far-right violence and argued that far-left ideologies should receive more focus from law enforcement. But to even compare far-right and far-left movements in the U.S. today is a false equivalency because of the rate at which far-right violence outpaces the far left, said Miller-Idriss – analysis seconded by Liz Yates, a researcher at the immigration advocacy organization Human Rights First.

Thomas Spoehr, a scholar with the conservative Heritage Foundation who’s argued against “wokeness” in the military, agreed that right-wing extremism is more prevalent than other ideologies, though he believes the issue of extremism overall is taking up too many government resources.

Since 1990, 26 people with military backgrounds committed crimes in the name of their far-left beliefs, while 333 were driven by their far-right ideologies to do the same.

— University of Maryland National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)

The numbers are hard to argue with. Right-wing ideologies were behind a majority of the nearly 600 domestic terror attacks that occurred from 2010 through 2021, according to data shared with Military Times by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. During that period, right-wing extremists were charged with 353 plots or attacks that caused 147 deaths, the data show. In the same time frame, far-left extremists carried out 126 plots or attacks, killing 23 people. The rest of the political violence during those years was committed by jihadist groups and ethnonationalists, which included antisemitic and Jewish extremists and Cuban exiles, among others.

The think tank’s data supports findings from the Department of Homeland Security, which also determined that white supremacy was behind more domestic terrorist attacks and plots than any other ideology from 2010 through 2021.

Neither left nor right, just violent

While DHS acknowledged white supremacy was behind much of the violence of the last several years, the agency – and the rest of the executive branch – is attempting to stay out of the feud about whether extremism is a far-left or far-right issue. Rather than label instances of domestic terrorism as motivated by the “right” or “left,” the FBI and DHS created four categories for extremism: racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism, anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism, animal rights or environmental violent extremism and abortion-related violent extremism.

A senior official in President Joe Biden’s administration, speaking on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the White House, said the categories showed that the government is focusing its efforts where there’s violence, rather than targeting one ideology over another.

“So much has become politicized that it was really important to us to make clear that this work is public safety, it’s democracy protection and it does not have political angles to it,” the official said. “What’s fundamentally unacceptable is taking your grievance or your view on the political or ideological spectrum and turning violent with it. That is the thing that’s unacceptable, whatever the underlying view might be, whether it’s left, right or center.”

Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism is the “single greatest terrorism-related concern we have in the homeland right now,” said a senior DHS official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to describe the sensitive policy. Within that population, the people of most concern are those driven by their beliefs about the superiority of the white race, the official said. According to a DHS assessment of terrorism released in June, white supremacists pose the “most consistent threat” of violence against religious, cultural and government targets.

What’s fundamentally unacceptable is taking your grievance or your view... and turning violent with it. That is the thing that’s unacceptable, whatever the underlying view might be, whether it’s left, right or center.”

— Senior official in President Joe Biden's administration

Others who fall into the category of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism include those motivated by perceptions of racial injustice in America, such as groups advocating for a separate Black homeland – a motivation that doesn’t fit neatly into the left or right political paradigm. And while Black separatist groups make threats of violence against the government, they carried out “minimal observed acts of violence” last year, the DHS assessment states.

Left or right labels simply don’t apply to violent actors like incels, and they’re not helpful in describing the Boogaloo movement, which draws anti-government extremists of all political stripes, a senior DHS official said. And no matter what the violent ideology or lack thereof, the government’s prevention efforts are the same, the official said.

“Our desire is to treat it in an agnostic way is not just because of the politics – because the politics are very difficult in this space – but also because most of the preventative work that you want to do looks the same regardless of what ideology or motivating factors are driving an individual to carry out these attacks,” the DHS official said.

President Joe Biden said white supremacy was the “most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland” while speaking during Howard University's graduation ceremony in Washington on Saturday, May 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Military-veteran nexus

Data shows the most violent groups are those on the right, especially those with members who’ve had military training.

Veterans’ and service members’ participation in right-wing violence is made clear in data from the U.S. for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, known as START. DHS officials told Military Times that START has compiled the “best open-source data in the country” regarding the involvement of military personnel in domestic terrorism.

According to the data, 26 veterans and service members since 1990 were driven by their far-left beliefs to commit both violent and nonviolent crimes, while 333 veterans and service members were driven by their far-right beliefs to do the same. Among the violent crimes, 71% were committed by people aligned with far-right movements, while 6% were aligned with the far-left. The rest didn’t fall squarely into either ideology.

Among veterans and service members, far-right actors have been responsible for more than 12 times the number of violent crimes than far-left actors since 1990.

— University of Maryland National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)

Those cases don’t include veterans and service members charged with crimes tied to their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when myths about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election drove supporters of former President Donald Trump to try to stop Congress from certifying the results. According to George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, 131 people charged in the riot that day had served in the military.

“These are small, small numbers compared to the size of our military, but there is an increase at the moment, which is concerning,” a senior DHS official said of veterans and service members involved in ideological extremism. “Racially- and ethnically- motivated violent extremism is the most frequent bias in this community, followed by anti-government extremism. That’s a really dangerous cocktail for active-duty military, veterans and reservists. It’s horrible for good order and discipline and horrible for combat effectiveness, given how diverse our military actually is – and scary if anti-government extremism is among the top of those categories.”

Extremism experts and government officials agree that only a small number of service members and veterans participate in extremist activities. However, data shows that when they do get involved, it’s often as part of far-right movements – and they tend to wield outsized influence. Veterans and service members were responsible for 25% of all extremist-driven mass fatality plots and attacks from 1990 through 2022, a START analysis found.

The Prosecution Project, a research organization that’s fiscally sponsored by the Peace and Justice Studies Association at Georgetown University, issued similar findings to START’s. In data shared with Military Times, the organization found 300 cases of extremist-driven crimes committed by veterans and service members since 1990. Of those, 66% were committed by far-right actors, while 2% were carried out in the name of far-left ideologies. Many of the crimes driven by right-wing actors were designed to injure, kill or intimidate a particular group of people, said Michael Loadenthal, the founder and executive director of the Prosecution Project.

“Generally speaking, and as informed by the analysis of the Prosecution Project’s data covering thousands of cases, leftist violence is exceedingly rare in the past several decades and very rarely involves veterans or active duty military,” Loadenthal said.

One reason for the discrepancy is the far right’s efforts to recruit veterans and service members to their cause, said Josh Lipowsky, a researcher with the Counter Extremism Project who authored a report last year about far-left extremism. Lipowsky determined that today’s far-left groups lack the organizational structure used by the far right.

The Patriot Front, a white nationalist and neo-fascist hate group, takes applications from prospective members, many of whom claim to have ties to the military. Far-left movements tend to comprise more broad ideological positions rather than forming into specific groups with such bureaucratic entrance procedures, Lipowsky said.

“There isn’t much overt recruitment of military personnel, whereas on the far right, we see several of these violent groups specifically going after military personnel for their experience and weapons know-how,” Lipowsky said. “There are individual Antifa groups, but they’re not openly plastering or flyering like we see from the Patriot Front and other groups.”

While small numbers of veterans and service members are involved in domestic terrorism, DHS is encouraging others in the military community to be part of the solution. DHS’ prevention plan includes enlisting veterans to intervene with their peers to turn away from violence. Veterans have “an incredible reservoir of all the right stuff we can be using... to help the country address these issues,” a senior DHS official said.

“Veterans contribute to civil society at a higher rate than most Americans. They run for office, they participate in local school boards,” the official said. “We need to build on those strengths in order to crowd out vulnerabilities to these kinds of threats on the margin.”

People listen as President Donald Trump speaks during a rally Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Violence on the left

Despite the far right causing much of the political violence over the past several years, experts aren’t disregarding the left – and they shouldn’t be, Yates said.

The Prosecution Project, which tracks felony-level criminal cases of domestic terrorism, maintains a database of crimes that occurred during police brutality protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020. Among the overall population, more than 300 people were charged with federal crimes as a result of the protests. Thirty-five people were charged with assaulting police officers, and the majority of charges were related to arson, civil disorder and destruction of property – a theme that Loadenthal, Lipowsky and Miller-Idriss said differentiates far-left extremism from the radical right.

Leftist movements have focused in recent years on symbolic property damage to get their messages across, Loadenthal said. Lipowsky and Miller-Idriss agreed, contending that far-right groups more often target people, rather than property.

“We are seeing spikes in far-left violence, but not to the magnitude that we’re seeing on the far right, and not anywhere near the lethality that we’re seeing on the far right,” Miller-Idriss said. “It’s mostly property damage. I think it’s important to acknowledge that arson and property damage matters, but it’s not the same thing as a terrorist attack on a synagogue or on a Black community in terms of the fear and death caused.”

While not as lethal, Miller-Idriss warned against ignoring far-left movements. The government didn’t pay enough attention to the threat of far-right terrorism before 2017, resulting in far-right groups carrying out some of their violent plots successfully, she contended. Miller-Idriss is predicting a rise in violence among environmental activists. While environmental groups aren’t targeting people with violence at this point in time, violent fringe groups are likely to develop as the effects of climate change become more volatile, she said.

“We are seeing spikes in far-left violence, but not to the magnitude that we’re seeing on the far right, and not anywhere near the lethality that we’re seeing on the far right .... It’s mostly property damage.”

— Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab, American University

There are a host of other political issues that could inspire far-left actors to commit violence, said Tom O’Connor, a retired FBI special agent who investigated domestic and international extremism for more than 20 years. One group O’Connor is watching is Jane’s Revenge, a militant pro-abortion rights group that emerged in 2022 following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the constitutional right to abortion. The group was linked to multiple instances of vandalism at crisis pregnancy centers, which are established by anti-abortion groups to discourage pregnant women from having abortions. Jane’s Revenge claimed credit last year for setting fire to one such center in Madison, Wisc. The building was empty at the time.

Since retiring from the FBI in 2019, O’Connor has continued to track instances of political violence across the country. The source of domestic terrorism in the U.S. has shifted from one ideology to the next over the past 50 years, and it’s likely to change again, he said.

“I’m always looking for left-wing violent actions that are legitimately acts of violence for political means. It hasn’t really been happening,” O’Connor said. “I think there’s a reason for that. It does not mean the groups that caused violence in 2020 have gone away. I honestly think they’re just letting the right do their work for them. That’s generally the yin and yang of how things have worked over the past several decades.”

Protesters stand outside the Oregon State Capitol building Saturday, Nov 7, 2020, in Salem, Ore. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

GOP pushback

Lawmakers don’t agree about the magnitude of domestic terrorism threats in the United States. Shortly after a white supremacist killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket in 2022, Senate Republicans voted down a bill that would’ve ordered DHS, the FBI and the Department of Justice to set up offices inside their agencies focused specifically on the issue. The offices would’ve been tasked with issuing a report every six months about threats by white supremacists and neo-Nazis, including any instances of these ideologies infiltrating law enforcement agencies and the military. Republicans argued that the measure unfairly maligned police and service members.

The issue of extremism in the military has been fiercely fought on Capitol Hill and is shaping up to be a point of contention during the 2024 presidential race. In July, the House passed the annual defense authorization bill, which contained measures authored by Republicans that took a hard-right tack on numerous hot-button, culture-war issues, including one to eliminate a working group established to counter extremism in the ranks. Both chambers approved their versions of the defense policy bill this summer, and a conference committee is expected to convene to reconcile the differences.

Some Republicans have voiced outrage that focusing on extremism in the armed forces serves only to tarnish the military’s reputation – a belief shared by Spoehr, who leads the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense and is a retired Army lieutenant general. Spoehr pointed to a recent survey by Rand Corporation that found no evidence that veterans harbor more extreme beliefs than the rest of the American public. Though the survey’s authors have acknowledged its constraints – including that results were limited by how many people were willing to be honest in answering the questionnaire about their extremist stances – the findings have been upheld by Republicans as justification to end the Pentagon’s extremism prevention efforts.

Spoehr also noted a Pentagon finding that only about 100 service members had participated in prohibited extremist activity in 2021, a small fraction of the overall force.

“I think there has been too much concern, too many resources and too much time spent on this given what we have found out about the incidents of extremism in the military,” Spoehr said.

Spoehr also contends that when extremism prevention training does happen, the Pentagon should place some emphasis on far-left ideologies, such as the anti-fascist movement Antifa. In anti-extremism training materials made public by the Defense Department in 2021, the agency highlights white supremacist, neo-Nazi and anti-government sentiments as examples of extremist ideologies but doesn’t cite any radical left ideologies by name.

O’Connor argued that the government doesn’t go after one ideology over another, but rather focuses its attention on the sources of violence.

“The FBI doesn’t look at ideologies. It’s not, ‘Hey, let’s look at Antifa, or let’s look at the Proud Boys,’ because it’s not illegal to be a follower of any of those groups,” O’Connor said. “It’s the violence – the violence dictates where the investigation goes. If there’s no violence or no criminal activity, there’s no investigation. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the violence over the last four years has been the most serious from the right-wing.”

There’s one factor the far right has now that the far left lacks – a lot of people with large followings who are “fueling the fires” for potential violence, O’Connor said. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican and Navy veteran, has used violent imagery so far in his 2024 presidential campaign. DeSantis said earlier this month that if elected, he’d “start slitting throats” of federal workers who he deemed part of the “deep state,” which he alleges is a group of government workers trying to prevent the implementation of right-wing initiatives.

Yates, who joined Human Rights First last year after researching extremism in the military at START, agreed that far-right ideologies are being espoused by public figures more often than far-left ideas.

“The far right is more integrated into political institutions,” Yates said. “There was an attempted coup on our democracy, and there have been various anti-democratic appeals and continuing disinformation campaigns coming from the far right. If we aren’t acknowledging that and challenging it, then we’re putting our democracy at risk.”

This story was produced in partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism. Please send tips to MVJ-Tips@militarytimes.com.

About Nikki Wentling

Nikki Wentling covers disinformation and extremism for Military Times. She's reported on veterans and military communities for eight years and has also covered technology, politics, health care and crime. Her work has earned multiple honors from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors and others.

23. Pentagon watchdog finds lax oversight and screening of military recruits with extremist ties

Pentagon watchdog finds lax oversight and screening of military recruits with extremist ties - The Boston Globe

By Hanna Krueger Globe Staff,Updated August 16, 2023, 5:54 a.m.

The Boston Globe · by Hanna Krueger

US military recruiters consistently fail to ask enlistees about potential extremist or gang ties, regularly bungle applications, and routinely turn a blind eye to red flags that could root out troubling recruits, according to a Pentagon report released last week.

The lax oversight has likely allowed avowed extremists and gang members to enlist in the military without scrutiny. And some may currently serve within the armed forces with access to firearms and classified intelligence, which increases “the potential for future security risks and disruptions to good order, morale, and discipline,” the Defense Department’s inspector general found.

The audit — which analyzed 224 applications out of 193,702 from July 2021 to January 2022 — discovered instances where screening mechanisms, including interviews, questionnaires, tattoo reviews, fingerprint checks, and background investigations, were performed haphazardly, or not at all.

In 41 percent of those cases, recruiters didn’t report asking the recruit about potential extremist affiliations, according to the report, which was published on the Pentagon’s website.

“Honestly I’m shocked by this. If you told me the rate was 10 percent, it still wouldn’t be acceptable but you could justify it given the sheer number of recruits the department sees each year,” said Bishop Garrison, an Army veteran and former Biden official once charged with combating extremism in the military. “But we’re talking almost half of recruits [who] don’t get asked this basic question.”

These screening lapses can have dire consequences. A recent Globe investigation revealed that at least 82 current and former military service members with far-right, antigovernment, or neo-Nazi views were arrested in the last five years. Perhaps the most well known among them is 21-year-old National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, of Dighton, charged with leaking troves of classified information to an online chatroom. The actual number is undoubtedly much higher since this analysis draws only from what has been made public in court documents and media reports.

An artist's sketch of Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira in US District Court in April.Margaret Small/Associated Press

Even if the percentage of extremist service members is relatively minuscule, they can still have an outsized and disastrous effect, experts warn.

Amid mounting criticism in recent years, the Pentagon has proclaimed a commitment to eradicating extremism within the department. About 14 percent of the rioters charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection were veterans or service members, according to George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. In the wake of that attack, the Defense Department instituted a series of recruiting safeguards. But experts told the Globe that the audit still suggests there is an environment of apathy across the department when it comes to actually addressing the issue.

“I’ve always used recruitment as a barometer for how serious the military is about the [extremism] issue. And the reality is there can be greater awareness and discussions at the top level, but if there isn’t a cultural shift then the effects will be minimal,” said Pete Simi, a sociology and extremism professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.

As a result of the audit, the inspector general’s office called on the Pentagon to issue a new memo to recruiters, reiterating the importance of screening for ties to extremist groups and gangs. “The Department of Defense takes extremist activity seriously and continues to make progress toward implementing the actions approved by the secretary in December 2021,” wrote a Pentagon official in response to questions from the Globe.

The Defense Department created in 2021 a standard screening questionnaire meant to solicit information from recruits about their current or former affiliations with extremist ideologies. For example, an Army recruit should be asked: “Have you ever had, or currently have, any association with an extremist/hate organization or gang?” The recruit would then have to answer yes or no. The audit found that recruiters did not report asking the question in 41 percent of interviews.

The finding, in some ways, feels like déjà vu. In another internal Defense Department report from 2005, auditors investigated screening mechanisms for recruits and summarized that “effectively the military has a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy pertaining to extremism.”

Even today, a recruit is not immediately ineligible for service if they hold membership in an extremist organization or criminal gang, according to Pentagon protocol. Rather, that application is supposed to move on to a more senior official who reviews the file and decides whether the applicant is eligible for a waiver.

However, the audit revealed that 20 separate Air Force recruiters from across the nation mistakenly checked the box denoting extremist ties in about a third of all applications. The report did not make clear why the mistake was repeatedly made, just that it was widespread and not localized to any particular recruitment center. The faulty applications exposed an even more troubling issue with the Air Force recruitment system. Each was allowed to continue onward in the recruitment process without further review. There was no automated mechanism in the Air Force system to halt, flag, and evaluate such applications with noted extremist ties.

The report does not address whether anyone investigated if any other Air Force applicants who actually answered “yes” to the extremism question were allowed into service. The Pentagon declined to comment.

A Globe analysis of court documents, publicly leaked chat logs, and media reports has identified several cases where avowed white supremacists joined various branches of the United States military in the last decade, despite being deeply — and sometimes publicly — entwined with far-right extremist groups.

For example, in 2015, 18-year-old Brandon Russell founded the Atomwaffen Division, a self-proclaimed terrorist organization with an emphasis on military tactics. He had conceived the idea on the public Iron March forum, an incubator of far-right, neo-fascist, and neo-Nazi views. Russell spoke openly of Atomwaffen’s violent goals in its chats. A year later, in 2016, Russell was allowed to enlist in the Florida National Guard.

Atomwaffen metastasized in the years to come and was later linked by authorities to numerous terror plots and at least five murders, including the stabbing of a gay Jewish student. Another member, David Cole Tarkington, joined the Navy without issue in July 2019. He was revered by Atomwaffen leadership for his recruitment ability, according to leaked Iron March chat logs.

Tarkington’s links to Atomwaffen were only made public after news outlet Gizmodo combed through chat logs and identified the airman apprentice in 2020. The Navy opened an investigation, and Tarkington was discharged a month later.

In another case, Ethan Melzer discovered the Order of Nine Angles group while perusing the internet as a 15-year-old budding fascist in Louisville, Ky. The Satanic, neo-Nazi group instructs its followers to infiltrate various organizations, including the military, to gain training and experience in violent tactics. Melzer enlisted in the Army in 2018 and prepared for a jihadist attack on his unit. The plan was thwarted by the FBI and Melzer was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

“Because we do so little on the front end we really have no idea how many Melzers are running around in the ranks,” said Simi, who was an expert witness on the Melzer case. “Even if it is a very small number, they can still do a lot of damage.”

The Defense Department’s screening process largely relies on self-reporting and it is not clear if the new protocols would have exposed Russell’s, Tarkington’s, and Melzer’s extremist ties. But experts say there are also simple steps that rely on tangible evidence, such as screening for extremist tattoos or running fingerprints to check for possible criminal histories.

The audit found that military recruiters didn’t complete the mandated tattoo screenings or fingerprint checks for 9 percent of applicants. In 1 percent of cases, recruiters didn’t initiate a background investigation.

“If recruiters aren’t doing basic things like checking tattoos . . . then we know they aren’t taking more intensive measures,” said Simi.

If the rates persisted across all applications from July 2021 to January 2022, it would mean 17,433 applicants to the military weren’t screened for extremist tattoos and nearly 2,000 did not undergo background checks.

“Given the IG’s report, I would imagine the leadership and department are rightfully as concerned as anyone outside of the Department of Defense would be reviewing the information that the report holds,” said Garrison, the former Biden official who currently serves as a fellow with the National Security Institute at George Mason Law. “I hope the department will move swiftly to understand more about how this has taken place.”

Hanna Krueger can be reached at hanna.krueger@globe.com. Follow her @hannaskrueger.

The Boston Globe · by Hanna Krueger

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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