Quotes of the Day:

“The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.”

- Michel de Montaigne

“We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.” 

- Tom Waits

“Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.” 

- T.S. Eliot

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 20, 2023

2. At 80, beloved CT sportsman Larry Ciotti 'refuses letting the old man in'

3. The Occam’s Razor of Strategic Theory: The Relevance of Clausewitz for Political Conduct

4. Opinion | This is how the U.S. is treating Afghans who helped us

5. Japan Scrambles Jets Amid Russian and Chinese Naval Patrol in Pacific

6. Biden’s Success in North Asia . . .

7. Saudi forces killed hundreds of Ethiopians at Yemen border, report says

8. Beset by domestic economic woes, China’s Xi visits South Africa in just his second trip abroad this year

9. Logistics Interdiction for Taiwan Unification Campaigns

10. Should the United States Normalize Relations With the Taliban?

11. Global food security is at crossroads as rice shortages and surging prices hit the most vulnerable

12. Pentagon ill-prepared for bio warfare attacks from adversaries such as China, Russia

13. US, Japan and Australia plan joint navy drills in disputed South China Sea, Philippine officials say

14. Assessing the People’s Republic of China’s Current and Future Offensive Operations Against the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the Context of China’s International Ambitions

15. Why Russia’s War in Ukraine Could Run for Years

16. Troop Deaths and Injuries in Ukraine War Near 500,000, U.S. Officials Say

17. In pictures: When the U.S. left Afghanistan, two years ago

18. Opinion | Why is China so afraid of Taiwan’s vice president?

19. Four Ways Ukraine Can Win With F-16s – But Caveats Remain

20. The Battle For The Indian Ocean: How Submarine Cables Are Shaping US-China Rivalry – OpEd

21. China Intensifies Espionage Crackdown Targeting Alleged CIA Spies

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 20, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-20-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least two sectors of the front and advanced near Robotyne.
• Ukrainian strikes against Russian deep rear areas are generating discontent in the Russian information space and sparking criticism of the Russian military command, as Ukraine likely intends.
• Ukrainian strikes on Russian rear areas are demonstrably degrading the morale of Russian forces in Ukraine, which could threaten the stability of Russian defenses.
• The Netherlands and Denmark confirmed that they will transfer F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine but did not specify when.
• Russian officials have reportedly drafted a plan to conduct a decade-long ethnic cleansing campaign in occupied Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast.
• Wagner Group commanders accused two high-ranking Wagner representatives of betraying Wagner, possibly representing a growing fracture within the Wagner leadership and suggesting that the Kremlin’s and Russian MoD’s efforts to disband Wagner are partially succeeding.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Kupyansk, Kreminna, Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, and in western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast on August 20 and marginally advanced near Bakhmut.
• Wagner Group fighters continue to commit violent crimes after returning to Russia.
• Russian officials continue to forcibly transport mothers and children from occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia under the guise of medical retreats.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 20, 2023

Aug 20, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 20, 2023

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

August 20, 2023, 6:50pm 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 1:00pm ET on August 20. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the August 21 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least two sectors of the front and advanced near Robotyne. Geolocated footage published on August 19 and 20 shows that Ukrainian forces recently advanced east of Robotyne.[1] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) and Berdyansk directions (western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast area).[2] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces continue to face issues with counterbattery capabilities on all sectors of the front, but particularly in the Zaporizhia direction.[3] The milblogger also claimed that Russian units are facing officer shortages due to manpower losses and that privates command some Russian companies, which should have a junior officer in command.[4]

Ukrainian strikes against Russian deep rear areas are generating discontent in the Russian information space and sparking criticism of the Russian military command, as Ukraine likely intends. Some Russian milbloggers expressed anger at recent Ukrainian strikes on the Kerch Strait Bridge and called for Russian forces to target the families, homes, and other properties of Ukrainian decisionmakers to deter further Ukrainian strikes against Russian deep rear areas.[5] The milbloggers referenced prior Soviet and Russian retaliatory strategies in Lebanon and in the northern Caucasus, and one milblogger claimed that it is easy for Russian officials to disregard the need for retaliation because Ukrainian strikes do not directly impact their livelihoods. Former Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Ambassador to Russia Rodion Miroshnik claimed on August 20 that strikes against Moscow are becoming normalized following three consecutive days of alleged Ukrainian strikes against the city and called on Russian forces to make retaliatory strikes “personally painful” for decisionmakers who ordered the Moscow strikes.[6] A Russian insider source claimed that Russian air defenses did not activate to defend against an overnight strike against a Kursk City rail station on August 19 to 20, highlighting a frequent milblogger complaint that Russian forces fail to defend against strikes on Russian territory.[7] The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) assessed that the Russian leadership has likely been pressuring the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) command to improve Russian air defense coverage in western Russia, suggesting that both the higher Russian leadership and the ultranationalist information space are placing pressure on the Russian military command in response to the strikes.[8]

Ukrainian strikes on Russian rear areas are demonstrably degrading the morale of Russian forces in Ukraine, which could threaten the stability of Russian defenses on multiple critical areas of the front. Russian frontline units, particularly in southern Ukraine, have frequently struggled with degraded morale following Ukrainian strikes on rear areas.[9]  Morale issues can quickly intensify and spread among Russian frontline units if one unit under pressure breaks, which could spread panic and significantly reduce the combat effectiveness of other Russian forces. A broken Russian frontline unit would threaten the integrity of other frontline defenses, and such a break in the Russian frontline would provide a vulnerability that Ukrainian forces could exploit. Russian forces also likely lack the necessary reserves to rotate out or quickly replace a broken unit, as ISW has previously assessed, making the preservation of morale in frontline units imperative.[10] Morale issues pertaining to the Russian defense against Ukrainian counteroffensive operations are only relevant if Ukrainian forces can degrade Russian morale to the breaking point and take advantage of it; these morale issues will not matter if Russian forces do not break under this pressure. There is no way to predict if, when, or where a Russian unit might break under sustained pressure, but Ukrainian forces are setting conditions to increase the likelihood of such a development.

Russian milbloggers criticized the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) for not preventing an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on Soltsy airbase in Novgorod Oblast on August 19 and for downplaying the severity of the damage to aircraft based there. The Russian MoD claimed on August 19 that Russian forces shot down a Ukrainian drone using small arms and that a fire damaged one aircraft but that firefighters promptly put out the fire.[11] Images published on August 20 reportedly show a Tu-22M3 (NATO reporting name Backfire-C) long-range supersonic bomber on fire at the Soltsy airbase.[12] A Russian insider source claimed that witnesses said that fire damaged or completely destroyed two aircraft.[13] Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces used a small and relatively inexpensive quadcopter drone to conduct the attack and criticized the Russian MoD for not storing the aircraft in hangars, noting that even elementary protective structures and nets are reliable against quadcopters.[14] The damage or even destruction of two Tu-22M3 aircraft will not generate militarily significant effects in itself, but Russian milbloggers’ responses to the attack show the way in which such deep attacks support larger Ukrainian efforts to degrade Russian morale.

The Netherlands and Denmark confirmed that they will transfer F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine but did not specify when. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to the Netherlands on August 20 and met with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to discuss the transfer of the aircraft.[15] Zelensky stated that the Netherlands and Denmark will transfer 42 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, of which the Danish Ministry of Defense (MoD) specified that Denmark will provide 19.[16] Rutte stated that the transfers will occur when Ukraine meets certain conditions, which the Danish MoD announced includes US legal permission, the training of Ukrainian pilots, and the creation of support infrastructure in Ukraine.[17] US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated on August 18 that the US will grant the legal permission after Ukrainian pilots complete their training on the aircraft.[18] Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat stated on August 17 that Ukraine will not receive the fighter jets by the winter of 2023-2024.[19]

Ukrainian Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk nevertheless stated on August 20 that the provision of Western aircraft, such as the F-16, will allow Ukrainian forces to combat the main Russian aviation threat— the Su-35 fighter jet.[20] Oleshchuk assessed that if Russian forces lost between two and five percent of their current aircraft then Russian forces would temporarily stop flying combat missions to develop a response.[21] Oleshchuk argued that this temporary pause would give Ukraine temporary air superiority and therefore allow Ukrainian forces to significantly accelerate counteroffensive operations.[22] The impact of F-16 fighter jets on Ukrainian counteroffensive operations depends on numerous factors, and ISW offers no assessment of Oleshchuk’s argument at this time.

Russian officials have reportedly drafted a plan to conduct a decade-long ethnic cleansing campaign in occupied Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on August 20 that Ukrainian partisans gained access to a Russian occupation development document that stipulates a 300,000 increase in Mariupol’s overall population by 2035 through migration from Russia.[23] The Resistance Center reported that an existing preferential mortgage program for Russians who move to occupied Mariupol is a part of this resettlement effort.[24] Russian occupation officials have engaged in a series of efforts to attract Russian citizens to the occupied territories in Ukraine, although this alleged document is the most detailed account of the extent of the Kremlin’s long-term repopulation goals.[25] Mariupol had a pre-invasion population of over 400,000 people and roughly 120,000 residents remained in the occupied city as of May 2023.[26] The Russian siege of Mariupol during the first phases of the Russian full-scale invasion killed up to 25,000 Ukrainian civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands from the city.[27] Russian officials reportedly deported an additional 50,000 residents from the city to Russia and other occupied territories in the months following its capture.[28] The development document’s repopulation goals indicate that the Kremlin intends to remake Mariupol as a predominantly ethnic Russian city after engaging in a systematic and likely intentional effort to depopulate the city of ethnic Ukrainians. ISW continues to assess that the ongoing Russian efforts to deport Ukrainians and repopulate Ukrainian cities with imported Russian citizens likely amount to a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign in addition to being apparent violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[29]

Wagner Group commanders accused two high-ranking Wagner representatives of betraying Wagner for the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD)-affiliated Redut private military company (PMC).[30] Wagner commander Anton Yelizarov (known under the callsign “Lotos”) claimed that Andrey Troshev (known as “Sedoy”) left Wagner with another Wagner commander, who was later identified as Vadim V. (nicknamed “Khrustal”).[31] Yelizarov claimed that Troshev had never commanded Wagner units and was not a member of Wagner’s Council of Commanders. Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin had repeatedly introduced Troshev as his personal representative prior to Wagner’s rebellion on June 24 and as the director of Wagner-affiliated “League for the Protection of the Interests of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts.”[32] Troshev appeared to be Prigozhin’s close confidant and had reportedly established connections with Putin and the Russian MoD through his work with Wagner.[33] Troshev has previously appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin on behalf of Wagner, and Putin identified him as a Kremlin-affiliated Wagner commander on June 29.[34] The Wagner commander nicknamed Koldun claimed that “Khrustal,” who led Wagner’s personnel department, is now calling Wagner fighters to recruit them into a new PMC for operations in Africa.[35] A Wagner-affiliated milblogger and Wagner commanders criticized Troshev and “Khrustal” for cowardice and numerous personal and professional failures, and claimed that Wagner military commanders have not left Wagner.[36] Wagner sources also tried to downplay Troshev’s and Khrustal’s authority within Wagner.

Troshev’s and Khrustal’s betrayal of Wagner may represent a growing fracture within the Wagner leadership, indicating that the Kremlin’s and Russian MoD’s efforts to disband Wagner are partially succeeding. A Russian milblogger claimed that the Russian MoD continues to form new PMCs to immediately replace Wagner in Africa, despite the fact that such units reportedly need at least 12 to 18 months to train and to establish new relations with African countries.[37] The Kremlin and the Russian MoD are apparently using Troshev and “Khrustal” to recruit Wagner fighters and commanders under the promise of new missions in Africa while setting conditions to restrict Prigozhin’s contingent from continuing operations in Africa and the Middle East.[38] Wagner sources’ public denouncement of Troshev and “Khrustal” as cowards may indicate that Wagner commanders are attempting to deter other commanders and Wagner representatives from leaving Wagner.

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least two sectors of the front and advanced near Robotyne.
• Ukrainian strikes against Russian deep rear areas are generating discontent in the Russian information space and sparking criticism of the Russian military command, as Ukraine likely intends.
• Ukrainian strikes on Russian rear areas are demonstrably degrading the morale of Russian forces in Ukraine, which could threaten the stability of Russian defenses.
• The Netherlands and Denmark confirmed that they will transfer F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine but did not specify when.
• Russian officials have reportedly drafted a plan to conduct a decade-long ethnic cleansing campaign in occupied Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast.
• Wagner Group commanders accused two high-ranking Wagner representatives of betraying Wagner, possibly representing a growing fracture within the Wagner leadership and suggesting that the Kremlin’s and Russian MoD’s efforts to disband Wagner are partially succeeding.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Kupyansk, Kreminna, Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, and in western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast on August 20 and marginally advanced near Bakhmut.
• Wagner Group fighters continue to commit violent crimes after returning to Russia.
• Russian officials continue to forcibly transport mothers and children from occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia under the guise of medical retreats.

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

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push western 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 offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk on August 20 but made no confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Synkivka (9km northeast of Kupyansk).[39] Russian Western Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Yaroslav Yakimkin claimed that Russian forces continued offensive operations in the direction of Vilshana (14km northeast of Kupyansk) and captured unspecified Ukrainian positions.[40] Russian milbloggers claimed that elements of the Russian 1st Guards Tank Army (Western Military District) continued to advance near Synkivka but noted that claims about the Russian encirclement or capture of the settlement are premature.[41] Kharkiv Oblast occupation administration head Vitaly Ganchev claimed on August 19 that Russian forces captured five unspecified settlements in Kharkiv Oblast in the past week, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[42] Russian sources have claimed that Russian forces have been steadily advancing northeast of Kupyansk for the past several weeks, although corresponding visual confirmation corroborating these claims has yet to emerge.[43] Russian sources previously claimed extensive Russian advances southwest of Svatove that visual evidence has still yet to confirm, suggesting that Russian sources may be engaging in a wider pattern of exaggerating Russian advances along the Kupyansk-Svatove line.[44] Russian sources may be exaggerating Russian advances to portray localized Russian offensive operations as more threatening in order to support the Russian effort to draw Ukrainian forces away from more operationally significant sectors of the front.[45] A Russian milblogger did acknowledge that Russian forces are struggling to advance near Synkivka and Petropavlivka (6km east of Kupyansk) due to Ukrainian minefields.[46]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled six Ukrainian assaults near Vilshana, Synkivka, and Ivanivka (km east of Kupyansk) in Kharkiv Oblast and Novoselivske, Luhansk Oblast (15km northwest of Svatove).[47]

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations in the Kreminna area on August 20 and made marginal gains. Geolocated footage published on August 20 indicates that Russian forces advanced northwest of Kreminna.[48] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced near Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna).[49]

The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Torske (15km west of Kreminna), Bilohorivka, and the Serebryanske forest area south of Kreminna.[50]

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 limited counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area and may have advanced on August 20. Geolocated footage published on August 20 indicates that Ukrainian forces have reached positions further west and north of Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut), though it is unclear whether Ukrainian forces still hold these positions.[51] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces repelled recent Ukrainian attacks near Andriivka, but this footage indicates that Russian control north and west of the settlement has degraded regardless of the duration and extent of these Ukrainian advances.[52] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack near Mayorske (21km southwest of Bakhmut).[53] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also repelled Ukrainian attacks near Berkhivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut) on August 19.[54]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut area on August 20 and marginally advanced. Geolocated footage published on August 18 indicates that Russian forces made minor advances west of Yahidne (2km north of Bakhmut).[55] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions north of Bohdanivka (8km northwest of Bakhmut), north and south of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut), and near Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut).[56] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted an unsuccessful counterattack near Andriivka.[57] Russian sources posted footage on August 17 and 19 indicating that the Russian 98th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division continues to operate in the Bakhmut area.[58]

Ukrainian and Russian forces continued to skirmish on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on August 20. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continue to defend against Russian forces near Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka).[59] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Krasnohorivka (9km north of Avdiivka), Vesele (4km north of Avdiivka), Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka), and Staromykhailivka (19km southwest of Avdiivka).[60]

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

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area on August 20 but did not make any confirmed or claimed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the Berdyansk direction (eastern Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area).[61] A Russian news aggregator claimed on the evening of August 19 that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[62] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces have been repelling Ukrainian attacks in the direction of Staromlynivka (14km south of Velyka Novosilka) and northeast of Kermenchyk (16km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) since Russian forces withdrew from Urozhaine on August 16.[63] 

Russian forces conducted offensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area on August 20 but did not make any confirmed or claimed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to restore lost positions near Urozhaine.[64] A Russian milblogger claimed on the evening of August 19 that Russian forces counterattacked near Staromayorske.[65] Footage published on August 20 purportedly shows elements of the 60th Motorized Rifle Brigade (5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) operating south of Urozhaine.[66]

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on August 20 and recently advanced. Geolocated footage published on August 19 and 20 shows that Ukrainian forces recently advanced east of Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv).[67] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces captured unspecified Russian positions west of Verbove (18km southeast of Orikhiv) and continue to attack Russian positions along the Robotyne-Verbove line.[68] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces have partially succeeded in bypassing Robotyne and breaking through Russian defenses to Novoprokopivka (17km south of Orikhiv).[69] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the Melitopol direction (western Zaporizhia Oblast).[70] Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces are operating in the northern outskirts of Robotyne and that fighting is ongoing in the settlement itself.[71] A milblogger also claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked near Nesteryanka (10km southwest of Orikhiv) and Kopani (12km south of Orikhiv).[72]

Russian forces conducted offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on the evening of August 19 but did not make any confirmed or claimed advances. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces counterattacked near Robotyne on the evening of August 19.[73] Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov published footage on August 20 purportedly showing a drone unit of the Chechen “Yug-Akhmat” Battalion operating in the Orikhiv direction.[74]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continue to operate on the islands in the Dnipro River delta. A Russian milblogger claimed that fighting is ongoing on the islands in the Dnipro River and that Russian forces continue to shell Ukrainian positions near the Antonivsky Bridge.[75] Another milblogger claimed that intense Ukrainian shelling does not allow Russian infantry to engage with Ukrainian forces on islands in the Dnipro River delta.[76]

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

Wagner Group fighters continue to commit violent crimes after returning to Russia. A Russian insider source reportedly affiliated with security forces claimed that Wagner fighter Andrei Troyanov shot the driver of a minibus from his moving car because the driver did not let him pass on the highway to Moscow.[77] The insider source claimed that Troyanov recently returned from Belarus and is unlikely to face any criminal charges as Moscow Oblast police do not “want to deal with the [Wagner fighters].” A Russian opposition outlet reported that Wagner convict Aleksey Kostromin raped and beat a female victim on August 18 after recently returning to Russia.[78] Kostromin previously killed a female victim in December 2020 before joining Wagner. Wagner personnel continue to brag about the brutalities that they committed when fighting in Ukraine. The insider source amplified a video in which a Wagner convict Mikhail Antipov describes how he and other Wagner servicemen executed Ukrainian POWs.[79]

Russian officials continue to form new volunteer and irregular formations in Russia and occupied Ukraine. A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger published a recruitment ad seeking volunteers for the “Kerch” separate assault detachment.[80] The Republic of Bashkortostan is continuing to form the “Almaz Safin” volunteer battalion and a second special-purpose “Salavat Yulaev” battalion that will operate in Ukraine as part of Rosgvardia.

Russian forces are reportedly suffering from shortages of tires for Ural and Kamaz trucks.[81] A Russian milblogger claimed that the Russian Armed Forces are facing similar tire shortages that have previously been observed in Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) People’s militias. The milblogger noted that a lack of new tires may slow down supplies of ammunition to the frontlines and will stop the movement of trucks during muddy weather in the fall. The milblogger added that Russian forces face an acute shortages of auto parts for these trucks.

A Telegraph investigation found that Chinese firms are exporting dual-use helicopters, drones, optical sights, and crucial metals needed in the Russian defense industrial base (DIB).[82] The Telegraph noted that dual-use goods have civilian purposes, which allows China to bypass international sanctions against Russia. The Telegraph reported that Russian firms involved in the production of missile launchers, armored vehicles, and strategic bombers have received tens of thousands of shipments from China since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Two Chinese companies collectively transferred six helicopters to Russian Ural Helicopter since Russia invaded Ukraine, and this firm primarily supplies Rosgvardia. The Telegraph reported that China may have been supplying raw materials such as titanium to Russia through back channels, and that Russia and China reportedly held secret talks with Iran to supply ammonium perchlorate – a compound used to propel ballistic missiles.

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 officials continue to forcibly transport mothers and children from occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia under the guise of medical retreats. Former Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) Ambassador to Russia Rodion Miroshnik claimed that the Klyazma sanatorium of the Russian Federal Medical and Biological Agency near Moscow is accepting 150 children ages six to 12 and their mothers from frontline zones in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts. Miroshnik claimed that children and mothers will undergo medical treatment to recover from shelling and humanitarian problems.[83]

Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed 222 judges to serve in occupied Ukrainian territories.[84] The judges will reportedly serve a six-year term.

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 Belarussian 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. At 80, beloved CT sportsman Larry Ciotti 'refuses letting the old man in'

Something to reflect on as we begin the new week.

Yes this is personal but I hope it is inspirational to all us old men out there.  

This is an article about our beloved high school football coach who is still going strong. It was an honor to play on his first state championship football team (1976 in our senior year). Like me I am sure that every member of our football team had our character influenced by Coach Ciotti and I know I recall lessons learned to this day from four years on the football field with him. I joined the Army, and specifically Special Forces, because I wanted to continue to be part of a team like the ones led by Coach Ciotti. I felt the only place where I could continue to have the comradery like we had with Coach Ciotti was in the Army and SF.

On a side note, this is published in the New Haven Register which is the paper I delivered from age 8 through age 12.

Nostalgic and inspirational photos at the link.

GAMETIMECT

//

FOOTBALL

At 80, beloved CT sportsman Larry Ciotti 'refuses letting the old man in'

Mike Anthony

, 

Staff WriterAug. 18, 2023Updated: Aug. 18, 2023 12:47 p.m.

https://www.nhregister.com/gametimect/football/article/larry-ciotti-yale-hand-football-18277516.php?src=nhrhpsports&fbclid=IwAR2g4Blbj1CTK49lCQcnciwPFpFoOh4XBzxH2UtWFsF5Wzen0mp2l8momr8

MADISON — Larry Ciotti turned 80 years old on July 15, a Saturday. The surprise arranged by his wife, Barbara, was to have 50 friends and family members gather around the 18th green at Madison Country Club.

Ciotti noticed familiar faces and realized what was happening as he came up the final fairway of his round. His nervous pitch over a bunker was about perfect, the ball nestling a few feet from the flag, and he called over one of his granddaughters to tap in a par putt. He was showered in cheers. A beach cookout followed. It was a wonderful birthday.

Larry Ciotti

Hearst Connecticut Media/File photo

Yet of all the things in the world to discuss on this beautiful morning in Madison town center, where Ciotti is greeted with shouts across a coffee shop and kisses on the cheek, age and aging aren’t very stimulating topics for a man beating back the waves of passing time in this shoreline town. 

“It is despicable,” Ciotti says between sips of a piping hot latte, made to his liking, with no foam whatsoever, by a barista who serves him regularly. “It’s still 80, all right? I don’t like it.”

Ciotti is smiling, though. It is a knowing grin.

“Do you like country music?” he asks. “Toby Keith?”

Ciotti mentioned the song “Don’t Let The Old Man In,” which Keith was inspired to write a handful of years ago after a round of golf with Clint Eastwood, the forever-young Hollywood icon. It became part of the soundtrack to the 2018 film, “The Mule,” which Eastwood, 88 at the time, produced, directed and starred in.

“I subscribe to that,” Ciotti says. “I’m not letting the old man in.”

Many moons I have lived

My body's weathered and worn

Ask yourself how would you be

If you didn't know the day you were born

Larry Ciotti, center, plays defense during a basketball game at the Surf Club in Madison on August 8, 2023.Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media

Ciotti is a hall of fame high school football coach, having won five state championships in 19 seasons after he built the program from scratch at Hand High. After an administrative stint, he spent 21 years as running backs coach at Yale under Carm Cozza, Jack Siedlecki and Tony Reno. For his accomplishments and his interactions with people of several generations over the years in Madison and Greater New Haven, he doesn’t go many places in the area without running into someone he knows. 

There’s so much to look back on. 

And, still, so much to act on.

Larry Ciotti, who has been a fixture on the Yale sideline for 21 seasons, is stepping down from his role as the running backs coach.photo courtesy of yale athletics

Ciotti works part-time at Yale, as an advisor to Reno. He is the point man for two important program projects — an offseason football camp, and an annual bone marrow drive that is the largest in the nation. Some of Ciotti’s football-specific work heats up this month as Yale begins preseason practice. 

He’s always on the move, waking every day at 4:30 a.m. On this late-July morning, he had to scoot out of the coffee shop by a certain time for something or other in Branford, then head back to Madison, where already he and his buddies had put together a morning that is probably a day for many men half their age.

Ciotti, as usual, had affixed a speaker to a light pole at the Surf Club basketball courts around 8:30 a.m. He wore a blue Yale bucket hat and a white tank top, guns outs, with a tattoo marking Yale’s 1999 Ivy League championship showing prominently on his left shoulder. He still lifts weights twice a week and is quite chiseled.  

The warmup music was lively, a 1959 hit by The Coasters.

Fe fe, fi fi, fo fo, fum

I smell smoke in the auditorium

Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown

He's a clown, that Charlie Brown

“As you get older you come to find out that, well, physical health is important —but also mental health,” Ciotti said. “Socialization is important. You can’t be sitting home in a rocking chair. You need to be engaged. It’s keeping me alive.”

These guys, who range in age from their late 60s to early 80s, aren't just alive. They're livin', man.

Larry Ciotti moves the ball up the court during a basketball game at the Surf Club in Madison on August 8, 2023.Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media

They lace up and play full-court every Tuesday and Friday morning for at least an hour. Ciotti says it resembles basketball underwater but, really, it’s much more stylistically and metaphorically. They’re not dunking or making most of their shots or turning heads with their speed. Layups sometimes ricochet awkwardly off the backboard. But the players move around pretty well, some of them clearly high-level athletes throughout their lives.

That’s beside the point, though. The magic of sports isn't limited to ability or precise execution, or the big stage. Not all moments worth appreciating take place in front of 75,000 fans at the Final Four in Houston or 50,000 at Yale Bowl when Harvard is in town for The Game. They happen in the quiet corners, when all that cuts through a morning sea breeze are the squeaks of sneakers, the boing, boing, boing of a ball and, in this case, music of another era.

Hip-hop is the standard theme music for most summer basketball leagues, indoor and out, in gymnasiums and at parks, on hardwood and concrete, in cities and suburbs. 

Here, just a few hundred yards from crashing waves, there’s something different.

A 1957 Danny and the Juniors hit provided a fastbreak theme at one point.

You can rock it you can roll it

ou can stomp and even stroll it at the hop

When the record starts spinnin'

You calypso when you chicken at the hop

“I’m new to Madison, a little over four years,” said Lee Negip, one of nine players on hand for a recent set of 4-on-4 games. “But the thing is, everybody you see here has a phenomenal and rich history of living here most of their lives. And they’re all wonderful men. We all have different personalities, yet they all intersect. No arguing. No pettiness. It’s a very unique relationship we have, accepting each other.”

Larry Ciotti, right, plays defense during a basketball game at the Surf Club in Madison on August 8, 2023.Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media

Negip, 68, spent about 45 years in California, his career spent in sales and marketing for various record labels. A couple years after his family’s Napa home burned down in 2017 wildfires, he and his wife, who is originally from Connecticut, moved to Madison. Players call him Dead Eye or Dagger Lee, because he is a good shooter.

Most everyone gets a nickname.

When Brian Fischer, 69, a superior court judge in New Haven, makes a jump shot, the shouts are “All Rise.” Tony Raccio, a charismatic and funny guy originally from West Haven, is known as “Tony F---" for his colorful language. John Piurek, son of the legendary West Haven football coach John "Whitey" Piurek, is “John Stories” because he chats his way up and down the court.

“Larry is the glue,” said Raccio, who turns 70 this month. “We call him ‘The Commissioner.’ ”

Because these twice-a-week basketball games are Ciotti’s latest leadership pursuit. He spearheaded the efforts in 2020 to make sure he and friends got out, got together and got exercise during the pandemic. The group first walked the track at Hand — masks on, with one walker per lane, social distancing respected. When vaccines became available and restrictions were lifted, they decided to start playing basketball at Surf Club — even during the winter, shoveling the court together in puffy coats. This time of year, they show up in shorts and T-shirts or tank tops. One group of guys wears red pinnies to distinguish teams.

UConn football coach Jim Mora and legendary former Hand coach Larry Ciotti strike up a conversation at the Surf Club.

Dave Phillips / For Hearst Connecticut Media

The music blares.  

The Silhouettes were on the play list.

Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip

mum mum mum mum mum mum

Get a job

Sha na na na, sha na na na na

Ciotti grew up in Portsmouth, N.H., well before the city’s economy was so tied to tourism. In the 1940s and 50s, life there on the seacoast centered on the city’s Navy Yard, and the Navy Air Station in nearby Brunswick, Maine. The son of an iron worker and a homemaker, Ciotti was a standout athlete who enrolled at the University of New Hampshire and drove his father’s blue 1954 Chevrolet pickup truck to and from the Durham campus every day.

Seeking a different academic and athletic experience, Ciotti left UNH after one semester and enrolled at Southern Connecticut. He loved life in and around New Haven and met Barbara at SCSU, where he was the football team’s captain in 1965 before graduating in 1966. They have four children and 12 grandchildren. 

In 1970, after teaching stints at Bristol Eastern and North Haven, Ciotti was hired at Hand to develop football and wrestling programs. He has spent 50-plus years, and counting, in coaching or athletics administration. He worked as a full-time Yale assistant coach until 2015.

“Eighty hours a week, seven days a week, at age 71,” Ciotti said. “My last trip — we’d recruit all over the country — I went from Hartford to Cleveland, visited a family and a kid, got on a plane and went to Chicago that night, visited a family and a kid, stayed overnight, went to L.A. the next day, visited a kid and a family that day, took a red eye back home and had an 8 a.m. meeting that I had to be at. I was a basket case. After that I said, ‘I think I’m done.’”

Ciotti retired after the season.

That doesn’t mean he slowed down so much. He just reorganized, diversified. Reno asked Ciotti to remain on staff as an advisor. He scouts opponents, breaks down film, offers philosophical advice. And the bone marrow drive that Ciotti runs — in memory of Yale hockey player Mandi Schwartz — has added about 9,000 potential donors to the “Be The Match” registry and facilitated 93 live-saving transplants.

Longtime Villanova football coach Andy Talley, one of Ciotti's closest friends, in 1992 had started a campaign called “Get In The Game. Save A Life.” The program is now active at over 200 colleges and universities in the U.S., and five Yale teams (men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, field hockey, football) work directly on what has become the biggest annual drive in the country.

“Larry’s an interesting story,” said Tim Flood, who retired in 2004 after 32 years as a teacher in Durham. His morning-basketball nickname is Box Of Fruit because he sells fruit in the winter at an American Legion post in Guilford. Flood was sitting on a bench, his time for a few minutes' rest as the other eight in the rotation played, as he chatted.

“Summer of ‘63 I was stationed at West Point as an enlisted man,” Flood said. “But my last year in the Army, they sent me to Greenland, Thule Air Base. I was at an army missile site, Nike-Hercules. I had a wise guy for a sergeant. He said, ‘You’re going to like Greenland. There’s a girl behind every tree.’ There are no trees in Greenland, not a one. We had three months, and I never saw the sun. Temperatures were 40-below and they didn’t figure windchill.”

Meanwhile, The Andrews Sisters belted out their famous 1941 song.

He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B

Cab Calloway is on the play list. Duke Ellington, too. Even Frank Sinatra.

Fairy tales can come true. It can happen to you.

If you’re young at heart.

For it’s hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind

If you’re young at heart.

“It’s fine,” Fischer said. “I’m 10 years younger than Larry. I enjoy the music. It’s nice, but not necessarily my genre. But I’m more concerned about missing 5-foot jump shots. It’s not Frank Sinatra’s fault if I miss a turnaround jumper. This is sports, camaraderie, and you get a workout. It’s cardio. That’s what I love about basketball. I’m not a gym guy. And you need the teasing.”

Ciotti? Still a gym guy.  

“He sets a pick,” Fischer said, “and it’s like running into a cement block.”

The basketball is competitive. Some players move a little better than others. Players often gather over coffee afterwards, talking sports, politics, life in general.

“We’re all athletes, come from all different kinds of backgrounds,” Raccio said. “Our mental capacity is to keep moving and moving. We all have our issues, but the moving is a big deal for us at our age. I ran marathons back in the day. Now I’ve got bone on bone, both knees. I don’t want them to take a saw to my bones. It’s like a [bleeping] construction project.”

The Penguins were coming through the speaker now.  

Earth angel, Earth angel, will you be mine?

My darling dear, love you all the time

Buddy Holly followed.

'Cause that'll be the day

When I die

The sneakers kept squeaking. The ball kept bouncing.

“It’s fun,” Piurek said. “The last couple times I made stops at Yale New Haven for one thing or the other, they go, ‘You play basketball?’ I said yeah. I swim. Against my wife’s orders, I still surf in Rhode Island. My son asked me, ‘Are you still playing in that guy’s league?’ I said, 'It’s not a league, we just shoot around.' He said, ‘Well, I hope you’re not trash talking.’”

They all do. Just enough to make it slightly spicy. Then they sit in the shade during breaks on fold-up chairs, hydrating, laughing.

Ciotti on this recent day toweled off, wiped the sweat from his back, and drove shirtless in his Toyota Camry from the courts to the coffee shop. He put on a fresh shirt and went inside for his latte. The barista needed no instructions on how to prepare it.   

He has plenty of joy equity built up from all he’s done in 80 years. There’s that huge family, all those friends, so many former players he stays in touch with. He keeps creating memories, though. He keeps working. He keeps playing. He keeps moving.

He runs around the Yale campus with a megaphone during the blood drive every April. He runs up and down the court all summer in Madison. He runs around the Yale football offices in fall and winter. He plays a lot of golf in the spring and summer, still posting scores in the 80s. He’s here. He’s there. He goes to concerts. He goes to sporting events.

He is 80 but he won’t let the old man in.

Written By

Mike Anthony

Reach Mike on

Mike Anthony is a reporter with Hearst Connecticut Media Group, focusing on feature writing with a concentration on UConn and college sports. He joined Hearst in February 2021 after 21 years at The Hartford Courant, including three as the lead sports columnist. He has covered all three major UConn sports beats: men's basketball (2005-11), women's basketball (2017-18) and football (2016-18).

3. The Occam’s Razor of Strategic Theory: The Relevance of Clausewitz for Political Conduct

We can never read too much Clausewitz. This article is worth reading (again).

The Occam’s Razor of Strategic Theory: The Relevance of Clausewitz for Political Conduct

M.L.R. Smith - King’s College London

https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/the-occams-razor-of-strategic-theory-the-relevance-of-clausewitz-for-political-conduct/?utm

M.L.R. Smith is Research Associate in the Office of the Dean of Humanities, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa and Professor of Strategic Theory at King’s College London.

Having written some of the initial defences of the enduring legacy of Clausewitz, nearly twenty years ago, against what I considered some highly flawed critiques that emerged from the 1990s onward, [i] I am somewhat reluctant to enter the fray yet again. What I needed to say I said back then. Moreover, those studies that appeared subsequently have, undoubtedly, articulated the case more effectively than I could have done. Volumes by Antulio Echevarria, Hew Strahan, and Chris Coker, amongst others, have examined the contemporary significance of Clausewitz in depth,[ii] while shorter essays, often by younger and emergent scholars, have also offered commendably succinct justifications for his continuing relevance.[iii]

Many of these commentaries have done much to shore up Clausewitz’s reputation as the preeminent philosopher of war and I have no wish to embellish further the admirable points that they have made in his defence. At the same time, I would also acknowledge the strength of some of the more sophisticated criticisms of his work that have manifested in recent years. Two decades ago, I was responding to denunciations of Clausewitz by those like Martin van Creveld, John Keegan and Mary Kaldor, who alleged that his thinking was outmoded.[iv] I still think their interpretations are faulty, based on either partial or inaccurate readings of his work. Nevertheless, while superficial denigrations of Clausewitz still arise from time to time, it is the case that one can raise legitimate questions about the ultimate value of his writings in On War.

The Case Against Clausewitz’s Relevance

William J. Olson has, perhaps, offered one of the most trenchant broadsides against what he considered ‘the continuing irrelevance of Clausewitz’.[v] Olson claims that the incompleteness and abstract nature of his writings render his legacy elusive, giving later generations of analysts something to pointlessly cogitate over for the rest of recorded history. ‘[O]ne might be forgiven’, he maintained, ‘for concluding that Clausewitz did not really exist but is a figment of necessity, conjured up to prove any and all points currently in and out of fashion’. On War was merely a ‘smorgasbord’, and that ‘given this contradictory array that Clausewitz is irrelevant to any discussion of war and peace since any source that can lend aid and comfort to such a range of arguments really argues nothing worthwhile at all’.[vi]

These points against do have some force. It is valid to assert that On War does not constitute a proper theory of war in any philosophically recognisable way. It is true also that one chooses to be a believer or a non-believer in Clausewitz, and that ‘either position is justifiable in that there is no way to prove, beyond one’s own sense of satisfaction, the underlying contention’.[vii] It is, furthermore, undeniable that disputes over Clausewitz’s exact meaning can have a theological quality to them and that debates about what he did or did not miss out are both stale and meaningless.

Choosing the ‘Good’ Bits

It is also very much the case, as Olson discerns, that Clausewitz’s admirers invariably adopt a pick’n choose approach to his writings. We accentuate his ‘good’ bits – Book One along with a few nuggets scattered in the rest of On War – while discarding the rest.[viii] As a strategic theorist interested in exploring the means/ends dynamic in social action, rather than someone with an antiquarian interest in dissecting the minutiae of what Clausewitz may or may not have meant, I would argue that this approach is justifiable. One reads Clausewitz for his observations into the lasting essence of war, how it always seems to move on its own goal and at its own speed, uniquely conditioned by the interplay of passion, chance and reason.[ix] A modern analyst doesn’t read On War for its advice on fortifications, billeting or mountain warfare any more than one would read Thomas Schelling’s Strategy of Conflict for its abstruse mathematical equations.[x]

In other words, one engages with influential thinkers such as Clausewitz for some of their timeless insights on certain facets of human conduct, not because everything they ever said remains relevant or coherent. Few amongst us who have pondered military and strategic affairs will be lucky enough that our writings are read with sympathy in the future as having withstood the test of time, if indeed they are read at all. Thus, we read Clausewitz, in spite of a great deal of things of which he wrote, not because of everything he wrote.

To that extent, a case can certainly be made, as some have, that the bulk of On War has little utility as a way of thinking about contemporary warfare, and that it should not be taught in military colleges.[xi] In fact, I would suggest that it would be exceedingly foolish to hold out On War as some sort of guide for modern military operations. Much of the text of On War is linguistically difficult, often obscure, and full of arcane notes about early nineteenth century military management, clearly limiting its appeal and applicability in the current context. Contemporary military practitioners can, and should, be forgiven for being sceptical about the value of wading through such a dense tome.

On Politics

However, by way of offering a slightly new twist on an old theme, I wish to put forward the proposition that although Clausewitz may well have limited practical significance for the modern soldier and even a declining utility for thinking about military strategy per se, his thinking does have continuing, and arguably much greater relevance, for policy makers and politicians. If we abstract the ‘good’ bits of Clausewitz then these encompass his understanding of the fundamental relationship between political ends and military means.

When Clausewitz stated that war ‘is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to the given case’ he perceived that all wars are unique in their origins, shape, and practice.[xii] They are sculpted by their particular time and place. What governs any war, its causes, its conduct and its conclusion is going to reflect the contingent circumstances of each case.[xiii] For Clausewitz, the foremost influence in this regard was politics. When he described war as a continuation of politics by violent means, he meant not only that politics gives rise to war, but that it also exerts a continuous influence over the manner in which it is conducted.[xiv] Warfare is not, in other words, a self-contained set of technical practices, but an activity that must be shaped in accordance with the primary political purposes for which it is undertaken.

Politics and Proportionality

Effective strategy, and not just in times of war, must therefore always remain sensitive to the political context and essentially this means that the principle of proportionality should be observed. Proportionality is the vital element that keeps war within the realms of rational action: it is the assumption that in order for any effort to be instrumental it must align with a calculation that determines what price should be paid to achieve a particular end. Attempting to achieve goals with little or minimum effort risks not achieving them at all, while too higher exertion threatens to negate the pursuit of the goal itself: if you achieve your goal but fatally damage yourself in the process you are not acting with proportionality.

Clausewitz helps clarify the connections between ends and means, with the aim of keeping one’s strategy proportional to the goals being sought, and this is fundamentally a political calculation not a military one. The good bits of Clausewitz therefore provide a parsimonious understanding, and point of entry for considering issues of proportionality in political conduct, not just in war but in all goal orientated decision making.[xv] Clausewitz, for this reason, remains the Occam’s Razor of strategic theory.

To illustrate the continuing relevance of Clausewitz for understandings of political conduct, it is possible to highlight how the agendas embedded in some of the modern critiques of Clausewitz have served only to underline both the eternal verities to which his writings allude, and the problems that are created when they are ignored.

Bombing to Make the World a Better Place

Connoisseurs of dark political humour might be familiar with journalist Tucker Carlson’s on-air intellectual mauling of Max Boot, military writer and Senior Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, in July 2017.[xvi] Unimpressed by his credentials as an expert in foreign policy, Carlson derided Boot for exaggerating the threat to American national security from Russia, and calling out his advocacy for further United States military intervention in the Middle East, and the dire consequences that such policies have undoubtedly wrought.

In Ship of Fools (2018), Carlson expanded his uncompromising view of the American foreign policy establishment’s predisposition towards endless wars based on moral imperatives to remove ‘bad’ regimes across the globe: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, Syria and Iran have all at one time or another been on, or remain, candidates on the target list. For Carlson, the post-Cold War penchant for military interventions, aerial bombings, and latterly drone strikes, reflected a bizarre form of kinetic social engineering: bombing countries to ‘make the world a better place’.[xvii]

The force of Carlson’s polemic resided in the foreign policy establishment’s bewildering record of predictive ineptitude, with nations on the receiving end of US military attentions consistently failing to re-make themselves into stable democratic polities, and the phenomenal costs – both human and financial – inflicted upon both the US and the countries of concern themselves. Contrasting an earlier caution towards military involvement in foreign wars, especially on the part of the Democrat Party in the 1960s and 1970s, Carlson cited Senator Eugene McCarthy’s challenge to President Lyndon Johnson’s policies in South Vietnam: ‘I am concerned that the administration seems to have set no limits to the price that it is willing to pay for military victory’.[xviii]

Taking the Temperature of the Population

As Carlson noted, McCarthy’s position was ‘not that the war could not be won but that winning wasn’t worth it’.[xix] The price that a society is willing to pay to achieve any social goal lies at the heart of considerations about proportionality in strategic action. For Carlson the most ‘dangerous force of all’ is an activist establishment convinced of its own moral virtue, and the unremitting record of strategic failure and foreign policy disaster, both for the United States and its coalition allies, that this agenda has occasioned.[xx] It raises the question about how we have ended up here?

If we turn to Clausewitz for enlightenment, his stress on the moral factors in war is instructive. In order for any military operation to succeed the ‘temper of the population’ has to be behind the action.[xxi] ‘If policy is directed only toward minor operations’, he averred, ‘the emotions of the masses will have to be stirred’.[xxii] What we can detect in terms of Clausewitz’s contemporary resonance is that policy makers, especially in democratic nations, have to understand the ‘temper’ of the people and their capacity to have their passions engaged by any particular political cause, especially foreign military adventures.

Reason versus ‘Reasonableness’

If we examine some of the modern critiques of Clausewitz’s relevance we find that they alight on his thinking about the role of ‘reason’ as a factor in war. For Kaldor, her thesis was about so-called ‘new’ wars. These supposedly sprang up all of a sudden after the end of the Cold War and were motivated by identity politics. Identitarian concerns, in her view, were ‘forged through fear and hatred’.[xxiii] Such passions rendered war ‘rational’ only in the sense that war was instrumental and serviced the ends of malign agendas. Such wars, while they may be ‘reasoned’, Kaldor argued, ‘they are not reasonable’, according to ‘universally accepted norms that underpin national and international law’.[xxiv]

In effect, Kaldor sought to re-fashion Clausewitz’s observation that the course of any war is, amongst other things, influenced by the interplay of popular passions moulded by the reason of politics. Instead, she wanted to supercharge Clausewitz’s observation with an ethical assertion that ‘reasoned’ thinking about war in the contemporary era inheres in a morally righteous policy elite committed to abstract, cosmopolitan, ideas of justice that sees the virtue of intervening in foreign wars to ‘make the world a better place’. Kaldor was explicit on this point. The ‘primary task of the military in such situations’, she maintained, was to create ‘spaces’ that would facilitate ‘non-sectarian identities’, in order to ‘construct a politics based on reason and not fear’.[xxv]

The Follies of Substituting Utopianism for Politics

Given the failed attempts to re-mould the political geography of many areas of the globe founded on moral justifications to ‘construct’ a new reasoned form of politics, reveals how relying on a self-selecting foreign policy establishment that advocates armed intervention based on the claim of superior moral insight begins to endanger the principle of proportionality. Removing or discounting ideas of popular passion as anything but inspiring the forces of hatred, leads to the inability to discern the ‘temper of the population’ and its willingness to support military commitments abroad. If notions of upholding utopian ideals of virtue become the basis for war making, then we arrive at the hubris of neo-liberal interventionism that sees the ‘price’ to be paid for such adventures as endless external commitments at open-ended cost.

A rationale for political and military conduct conceived on such lines has little inclination to understand the ‘temper’ of the population because the motivation for action is one of perceived moral necessity, not popular support. Moreover, the abandonment of a key Clausewitzian tenet that facilitates the notion of proportionality, in favour of acting as the vanguard of cosmopolitan norms, unsurprisingly leads to interventions that are not only exorbitant in terms of injury to human and financial resources but, crucially, lack domestic endorsement, especially when such interventions go bad, as they invariably do.

Abandon Politics at Your Peril

Neglecting the intellectual checks on thinking that a careful reading of Clausewitz enables has led to a foreign policy establishment, in both the US and Europe, that is distinguished not only by its record of reckless advocacy and colossal analytical and policy failure, but one that is constantly surprised when the consequences of such failure help produce outcomes in the domestic sphere that it clearly finds repugnant. The 2016 vote by Britain to leave the European Union, the election of Donald Trump as President in the US, and the rise of ‘populist’ leaders elsewhere, appalled the policy elites. Yet their attenuated understanding of the politics of proportionality and the disastrous policies that arose as a result, were to a significant degree responsible for inducing the very popular backlash they so despised.

In effect, disconnecting the use of force from a proper understanding of politics, subordinating it to a belief in one’s own analytical and moral rectitude, western foreign policy elites conspired to misunderstand their own nations and the extent to which the national temperaments were willing to tolerate their hubris and the disproportionate costs inflicted on the rest of society as a result their failed advocacies.

If a policy influencing and policy making community cannot be bothered to understand the sentiments of their own populations, then they certainly cannot be trusted to deliver useful strategic advice. Absent a Clausewitzian sensibility that gives serious attention to the relationships between politics, popular sentiments and military operations, then it really can be said that foreign and defence policy is far too important to be left to the self-proclaimed experts.

Conclusion

In conclusion, then, this is why an understanding of Clausewitz remains important: because his thinking provides the point of entry for decision makers – and I would argue for other analysts or advocates of military, economic and all other social action more generally – to consider the necessity for a meaningful strategic dialogue based on a realistic set of political ends that are proportionate to the goals and the means employed to achieve them. For sure, these are matters that rely on the cultivation of ‘good judgement’, an indefinable quality at the best times. One cannot be taught ‘good judgement’ from reading On War, or any other text. A considered reading of Clausewitz, though, does pay off in terms of facilitating critical analysis. In that sense, while it can be claimed that his writings don’t have a great deal of utility for modern military practice, his lasting insights reside in the realm of political conduct. They prompt us not stray too far from his injunctions, lest our hubris and follies be exposed. Above all, his observations remind us of the timeless verities of politics that actions can only be truly effective if they are proportional to the outcome, and that understanding one’s own society is key to that aim, and thus to the construction of ‘good’ strategy.

References

[i] M.L.R. Smith, ‘Guerrillas in the Mist: Reassessing Strategy and Low Intensity Warfare’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 29, No. (2003), pp. 19-37; M.L.R. Smith, ‘Strategy in an Age of “Low Intensity” Warfare: Why Clausewitz is Still More Relevant Than His Critics’, in Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Jan Angstrom (eds.), Rethinking The Nature of War (London and New York: Frank Cass, 2005), pp. 28-64.

[ii] Antulio J. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Hew Strachan, Carl von Clausewitz’s On War: A Biography (London: Atlantic, 2011); Christopher Coker, Rebooting Clausewitz: On War in the Twenty-First Century (London: Hurst, 2017).

[iii] See Per Andersson, ‘Von Clausewitz: Still Relevant?’ Defence Viewpoints, 18 December 2008 ; Mareike Oldemeinen, ‘Is Clausewitzian Thought Really Timeless as Some Have Claimed?’, E-IR, 24 January 2012 ; E.A. de Landmeter, ‘The Relevance of On War to Today’s Conflicts’, Militaire Spectator, 21 July 2018 ; Timothy Van Der Venne, ‘Misreading Clausewitz: The Enduring Relevance of On War’, E-IR, 4 February 2020 .

[iv] Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press, 1991); John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Vintage, 1994); Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).

[v] William J. Olson, ‘The Continuing Irrelevance of Clausewitz’, Small Wars Journal, 27 July 2013.

[vi] Ibid..

[vii] Ibid..

[viii] Ibid..

[ix] Carl von Clausewitz, On War (trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 75 and 87-89.

[x] Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980).

[xi] Jamie Schwandt, ‘Why We Should Stop Teaching Clausewitz’, Task and Purpose, 27 February 2019 .

[xii] Clausewitz, On War, p. 89.

[xiii] Ibid., p. 89.

[xiv] Ibid., p. 87.

[xv] See for example, Willie Pietersen, ‘Von Clausewitz on War: Six Lessons for the Modern Strategist’, Ideas and Insights (Columbia Business School), 12 February 2016 .

[xvi] Tucker Carlson and Max Boot, 12 July 2017 .

[xvii] Tucker Carlson, Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution (New York: Free Press, 2018), p. 102.

[xviii] Press Conference of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, Senate Caucus Room, Washington, DC, 30 November 1967, 4President.org .

[xix] Carlson, Ship of Fools, p. 89.

[xx] Ibid.., p. 107.

[xxi] Clausewitz, On War, p. 184.

[xxii] Ibid., p. 88.

[xxiii] Mary Kaldor, ‘Inconclusive Wars: Is Clausewitz Still Relevant in these Global Times?’, Global Policy, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2010), p. 278.

[xxiv] Ibid., pp. 278-279.

[xxv] Ibid., p. 280.

4. Opinion | This is how the U.S. is treating Afghans who helped us

Please go to the link for proper formatting. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/afghanistan-allies-stuck-visas/?itid=sf_opinions_opinions%20-%20guest-opinions_article_list&utm

Opinion | This is how the U.S. is treating Afghans who helped us

The Washington Post · by Annie Yu KleimanAug. 14 at 6:45 a.m.

Annie Yu Kleiman is a senior technical analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and an 18-year Air Force reservist. She serves on the board of directors for No One Left Behind, an organization working to help evacuate, resettle and advocate for Afghan Special Immigrant Visa recipients.

My 9-year-old daughter still remembers August 2021 as a “horrible time.”

After the fall of Kabul that month, my husband and I, both Air Force officers who had served in Afghanistan, found ourselves pulled into a complex, unofficial operation to help evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan allies. There were endless sleepless nights spent frantically sending messages over Signal and compiling enormous spreadsheets of passenger manifests. We worked as if it were a matter of life and death — because it was.

Two years later, those long days are a memory for me. But for the hundreds of thousands of our allies still left behind, the horrors continue.

As of April 2023, about 152,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants remain trapped in Afghanistan. These people, who served side-by-side with U.S. forces during the long war, face years of danger, severe economic hardship and increasingly onerous restrictions — particularly on women and girls — while applying for their SIVs through a complicated, Kafkaesque process.

A daunting list of obstacles

To create a snapshot of the absurd gantlet our former friends and allies have to run, I gathered quotations from text messages and emails that they sent to my organization, No One Left Behind, seeking help. They have been edited for clarity, and names are being withheld for the writers’ safety.

Proof of employment. To start an SIV application, applicants must submit a slew of documents through the U.S. State Department’s website. This requires access to the internet — not a given when one is hiding from the Taliban. The required documents include proof of employment for the U.S. government for at least one year and a letter of recommendation from a former supervisor. But the companies often kept poor HR records, and former supervisors are difficult to reach — and may not even remember their former employees.

“I have all the recommendation letters from the teams [I worked for], but I cannot get the HR letter because the company does not answer our emails.”

“If the Taliban finds me, they will not ask me how many days I worked for the U.S. Army. If the Taliban finds me, they will kill me.”

“I served U.S. troops in my country. I am sorry I don’t have a contact. A long time has passed since then.”

Agonizing choices. Once the documents are submitted, applicants wait almost a year for “Chief of Mission approval” to proceed to the next step. During this time, they must come to terms with leaving behind members of their extended families, many of whom are also in danger for being related to a former U.S. employee. SIV applicants can take only their spouses and unmarried children younger than 21. And because the application process takes so long, many children age past 21 by the time the SIV is issued.

“The Taliban has killed my brother ... and my wife. They also shot my younger brother in the left leg. The Taliban told us that we are spies for the Americans, and that one by one they will kill all my family members.”

“Kindly note that our children who are over 21 now were all under 21 when I applied for SIV in 2016. Our children are single and they do not have close relatives. We hope they are included.”

Reaching a U.S. Embassy — outside Afghanistan. With chief of mission approval in hand, applicants will wait several more months for an interview at an American embassy. Since the United States no longer has a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, this puts applicants — who were relying on the SIV to help them escape Afghanistan — in the paradoxical position of having to get out of Afghanistan to get the SIV.

At this point, the applicant must wait for the United States to help them get to a third country, or self-fund their travel to a nearby country with a U.S. Embassy. The first option is fraught, as the United States’ ability to move candidates out of Afghanistan is extremely limited. Those who can afford the second option are faced with another daunting obstacle: Every single person traveling must have a passport. Many do not.

“I am living like a prisoner. After the fall of the regime, my husband and I lost our jobs. Please help me if you know any way to evacuate me. I don’t have enough money to transfer my case to a third country.”

“I was in a car accident and my leg is broken. If I don’t get evacuated, I’m sure they will kill me. I no longer have a job. I can’t afford my family’s food or medicine for my three girls. Also my Pakistan visa was rejected.”

“My wife, my three children and I applied for Pakistan visas. Two of my children received their visas, but my wife and I were rejected. The other newborn does not have a passport.”

Getting a passport in Afghanistan. Passports cost about $70 at government passport offices, which can be closed for months at a time. The waitlists are long, and rumors suggest that the Taliban are detaining applicants who worked for the United States. It can be faster and safer to use a passport broker, but this costs $1,700 to $2,200 per person and comes with the risk that the passport is fake.

“The passport department is either overcrowded or closed most of the time. It takes months to get an appointment, and it is risky because our biometrics are there.”

“My wife is pregnant with twins. The passport department is closed. It’s impossible. I am just confused about what to do.”

Finding a way to survive abroad. Once out of Afghanistan, SIV candidates must subsist in a foreign country with no income as they wait to be processed, sometimes for months. In Pakistan, local police forces are increasingly hostile to Afghans, arresting or deporting them with little provocation. Applicants will also need to pay for a medical exam, an often-overlooked SIV requirement.

“I have struggled to cover my family expenses in Kabul—the visas, medical checkups, transportation, and lots of other expenses. I have spent all my savings and cannot finance tickets to the U.S. Nor can I stay any longer in Pakistan.”

“Please help save me and my children. We are not safe and keep changing our locations.”

Obtaining a ticket to the United States. For the extremely lucky who overcome all the hurdles and get their SIVs, the primary way to the United States is through the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, which will buy them commercial airline tickets (as a “loan”) and assign them to a resettlement agency.

Getting a flight can take months, and in that time the third country visa, medical exam or the Special Immigrant Visa itself might expire, resulting in additional fees or months of delay.

It could all get worse. If everything goes perfectly, the process takes more than two years. But there are so many ways something can go wrong. The birth of a child requires updating the SIV application and obtaining a passport. A chance encounter with police abroad could end in arrest and detention, necessitating the payment of bribes and fines. Flights to third countries are sometimes suspended for months at a time. Applicants who are single women are often not allowed to travel, even with the proper documentation. Through all of this, applicants struggle to feed and shelter themselves and their families while fearing for their lives. Depression and suicide are common.

“My case hasn’t been updated since July 2021. Time for my kid’s passport is running out in the next couple months. I’m not able to provide basic needs for my family. How can I get passports for them?”

“One day my 6-year-old son went to our home in Kabul without informing the family. A man with a gun asked him about me. My son said I was not at home. This person whipped my son. Me and my family are being targeted. We have changed our location several times since August 2021. Our current location is no longer safe.”

“My innocent baby boy was killed by the Taliban. Now it is my turn to be killed.”

“Please save my life! I’m stuck in Afghanistan, the Taliban have killed 11 members of my family and detained three of them.”

A moral obligation for the United States

Despite many recommendations and bipartisan support for reforming the SIV program, only minor tweaks — eliminating one form, reducing the minimum length of service from two years to one — have been made.

Meanwhile, the dangerously slow SIV process has become practically a death sentence. No One Left Behind has documented hundreds of SIV applicants who were murdered while waiting for their visas; details will be released in a forthcoming report.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The U.S. government can make life immeasurably better for tens of thousands of Afghan allies and their families. It can grant categorical parole to SIV applicants who are ready for their interviews and fly them to the United States to finish the process in safety. It can dedicate more State Department resources to speeding up SIV applications. And it can establish a permanent SIV program to ensure this doesn’t happen to future allies.

The United States must do better.

The Washington Post · by Annie Yu KleimanAug. 14 at 6:45 a.m.

5. Japan Scrambles Jets Amid Russian and Chinese Naval Patrol in Pacific

Japan Scrambles Jets Amid Russian and Chinese Naval Patrol in Pacific

gcaptain.com · by Reuters · August 18, 2023

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A still image from a video, released by Russia's Defence Ministry, shows what it said to be Russian and Chinese navy ships jointly patrolling the Pacific Ocean and holding naval exercises in the East China Sea, in this image taken from footage released August 18, 2023. Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

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TOKYO, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Japan said on Friday it scrambled fighter jets after two Russian IL-38 information-gathering aircraft were spotted flying between the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea where Russia is holding a joint naval patrol and exercise with China.

Russian and Chinese navy ships have been jointly patrolling the Pacific Ocean and holding naval exercises in the East China Sea, the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

“In the East China Sea, an exercise was conducted to replenish ships with water and fuel supplies from support vessels,” the ministry said.

“A detachment of ships of the Russian Navy and the PLA Navy is currently operating in the waters of the East China Sea and has covered more than 6,400 nautical miles since the beginning of the patrol.”

Russia and China also conducted anti-submarine exercises, repelled a simulated enemy air raid, conducted rescue training at sea and practiced helicopter takeoffs and landings on the decks of warships, the ministry added.

The Russian air force activity came a day after Japan spotted Russian and Chinese naval ships crossing waters between the southern Japanese islands of Okinawa and Miyako.

(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama in Tokyo and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Writing by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Gareth Jones)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023.

6. Biden’s Success in North Asia . . .

Hmmm... more hard power.

Excerpt:

The weaknesses in the Biden strategy, and they’re considerable, involve military power and economic engagement. President Biden has refused to support the military buildup necessary to make its Asia-Pacific strategy more credible.

Maybe it is time to create (or recreate) a Far East Command or a Northeast Asia Combatant Command

Biden’s Success in North Asia . . .

The President’s diplomacy with Japan and South Korea needs more hard power and freer trade.

By The Editorial Board

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Aug. 20, 2023 2:52 pm ET

President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at Camp David in Frederick County, Md., Aug. 18. PHOTO: ADAM SCHULTZ/WHITE HOUSE/ZUMA PRESS

The White House is touting President Biden’s trilateral summit on Friday with the leaders of South Korea and Japan, and for once the spin is right. The meeting was a diplomatic success in symbolism and substance that may strengthen deterrence in East Asia against North Korea and Communist China​.

The symbolism includes the U.S. joining with two Northeast Asian allies who share a fraught 20th-century history that echoes today. Progressive identity politics lumps Asian-Americans into a single demographic group. But anyone who has spent time in Seoul knows that Koreans haven’t forgotten their 35-year subjugation by imperial Japan. Leaders in both countries have tried to put aside this enmity, but the domestic politics can be difficult.

China’s imperial intentions in Asia are responsible for pushing South Korea and Japan closer under the umbrella of U.S. military assistance. Beijing has designs on the Senkaku islands off Japan’s coast and on Taiwan near Japan’s southern most islands. China also empowers its client state in North Korea despite its military and nuclear threats against the South, Japan and the U.S.

The trilateral substance expands economic and military cooperation. This includes missile-defense enhancements and annual military exercises that will improve defensive readiness. What the parties are calling a new “early warning system” could protect against Chinese mercantilism that uses natural resources or supply-chain dominance as a weapon. There are other useful details, and an annual trilateral summit will help to formalize the cooperation and provide a framework for the future.

Some critics say the agreement should have included a NATO-style Article 5 vow of military help if one of the parties is attacked. But the U.S. has forward-deployed forces in Japan and South Korea, and no one thinks those troops will sit in their barracks if one country is attacked. As for extending NATO to Asia, the trans-Atlantic alliance has enough to handle in defending free Europe from Russia and its allies. One step at a time.

The Biden Administration has done well, at least diplomatically, in fortifying U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific. The Administration has built on the Trump Administration’s progress with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to improve cooperation with India, Australia and Japan. It has also struck a deal with the Philippines for four new bases on the archipelago, including on Luzon near Taiwan.

The Aukus nuclear submarine deal with Australia and the U.K. is a defense against Chinese aggression in the South Pacific. And after being caught flat-footed by Chinese military machinations in the Solomon Islands, the Administration has energetically expanded ties with other countries in the so-called second island chain and Papua New Guinea.

The weaknesses in the Biden strategy, and they’re considerable, involve military power and economic engagement. President Biden has refused to support the military buildup necessary to make its Asia-Pacific strategy more credible.

The U.S. needs more attack submarines for its own forces and Aukus. Only an average of some 31 of America’s current 49 attack subs are operationally ready, and the Navy says it needs 66 hulls. The U.S. isn’t close to having enough long-range missiles to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, even as the People’s Liberation Army practices naval landings and deploys military patrols around the island.

The White House has also failed to expand trade ties with the Pacific. This would make countries in the region less dependent on China and help to diversity U.S. supply chains. But Mr. Biden’s political team fears the domestic politics of trade, which means in practice that his Administration has been nearly as protectionist as Donald Trump’s.

Summits and trilateral diplomacy are important. But in a region where China is seeking military and economic dominance, there is no substitute for the influence that comes with hard U.S. military power and free trade.

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Appeared in the August 21, 2023, print edition as 'Biden’s Success in North Asia . . .'.

7. Saudi forces killed hundreds of Ethiopians at Yemen border, report says

Don't countries know that it is nearly impossible to keep these kinds of atrocities secret in the modern world? (assuming these serious allegations are true)

Saudi forces killed hundreds of Ethiopians at Yemen border, report says

By Sarah Dadouch

August 21, 2023 at 12:05 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Sarah Dadouch · August 21, 2023

Saudi security forces have killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the country’s border with Yemen, Human Rights Watch said, shooting people at close range and firing explosive weapons at groups in the mountains in what could amount to crimes against humanity.

In a report released Monday, the New-York based human rights organization detailed a pattern of killings it said was widespread and systematic, based on interviews with witnesses and an analysis of photos, videos and satellite imagery going back to 2021.

“If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings would be a crime against humanity,” Human Rights Watch said.

The report accuses Saudi forces — including border guards and possibly specialized units — of killing “hundreds, possibly thousands” of Ethiopians in recent years while subjecting survivors and detainees to torture, rape and other inhumane treatment. The Saudi Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Human Rights Watch also said it wrote to multiple Saudi institutions — including the Interior Ministry and Human Rights Commission — but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

The United States considers Saudi Arabia an important strategic partner — and U.S. service members and personnel have trained Saudi security forces, including the border guard, as part of a long-standing security assistance mission there.

The alleged abuses come as Yemen and Ethiopia are both mired in conflict, protracted crises that have stirred migration from the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. In 2020, violent conflict exploded in Ethiopia’s Tigray region between government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a paramilitary group whose political wing once ruled the country.

The fighting set off a wider humanitarian disaster, including an exodus, and in 2022, more than 24 million people affected by conflict, drought and hunger in Ethiopia received humanitarian assistance, the United Nations said.

Human Rights Watch now estimates that Ethiopians — fleeing war, hunger and persecution — make up more than 90 percent of migrants traveling to Saudi Arabia along the “Eastern Route.” It’s a perilous path that starts in the Horn of Africa, crosses the Gulf of Aden and snakes through war-torn Yemen to the jagged mountains of Saudi Arabia’s Jizan province.

About 750,000 Ethiopians live in Saudi Arabia, and most of them arrived through “irregular means,” according to the International Organization of Migration. Both Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi movement, which controls the northern Saada province near the Saudi border, are accused of holding migrants in poor conditions and exposing them to abuse, Human Rights Watch said.

But it was against this backdrop of broader instability that the rights group says it has documented the surge in violence against Ethiopians at the border, where interviewees told harrowing tales of rapacious smugglers, piles of corpses, and devastating mortar and rocket attacks that left migrants dismembered and dying on the trail.

“I saw people killed in a way I have never imagined. I saw 30 killed people on the spot,” the report quoted a 14-year-old girl, Hamdiya, as saying. She crossed the border in a group of 60 in February, Human Rights Watch said.

After the mass killing, she threw herself under a rock and slept. “I could feel people sleeping around me,” she said. “I realized what I thought were people sleeping around me were actually dead bodies.”

In another account, 20-year-old Munira describes scenes of horror and chaos after Saudi border guards released her and 19 others at the border with Yemen — only to fire mortars at them minutes later as they rested.

“They fired on us like rain,” said Munira, who is from Ethiopia’s Oromia region. “I saw a guy calling for help, he lost both his legs. He was screaming; he was saying, ‘Are you leaving me here? Please don’t leave me.’ We couldn’t help him because we were running for our lives.”

The report’s findings are drawn from similar interviews with 42 Ethiopians, either migrants or asylum seekers who attempted the journey themselves, or friends and relatives of those who tried to cross between March 2022 and June 2023. It also includes analyses of over 350 photos and videos taken between 2021 and July, as well as more than 100 square miles of satellite imagery captured between February 2022 and July 2023.

The material, Human Rights Watch said, helped corroborate the locations of border posts and detention camps, as well as the presence of corpses along the routes and a growing number of makeshift burial sites for migrants on either side of the border.

“Saudi officials are killing hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers in this remote border area out of view of the rest of the world,” Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Monday. But, she said, “Saudi border guards knew or should have known they were firing on unarmed civilians.”

The alleged crimes should be “independently and impartially investigated,” Human Rights Watch said, including by the United Nations.

“Saudi Arabia’s documented record of failing to address serious human rights abuses … casts doubt on its willingness to conduct any meaningful investigation, despite the seriousness of the alleged abuses,” the report said.

The Washington Post · by Sarah Dadouch · August 21, 2023

8. Beset by domestic economic woes, China’s Xi visits South Africa in just his second trip abroad this year

Beset by domestic economic woes, China’s Xi visits South Africa in just his second trip abroad this year

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/china/brics-summit-xi-jinping-south-africa-visit-intl-hnk/index.html?utm_

By Nectar Gan, CNN

Updated 3:38 AM EDT, Mon August 21, 2023

CNN — 

Chinese leader Xi Jinping heads to South Africa Monday on a trip intended to bolster Beijing’s influence among developing and emerging nations, as ties with the United States remain deeply strained and economic troubles bubble up at home.

The three-day state visit, which also includes a summit with leaders of the BRICS emerging economies, is only Xi’s second international trip this year – a sharp contrast to his globe-trotting days of diplomacy before the coronavirus pandemic.

The Chinese leader last left the country in March to meet his “dear friend” Vladimir Putin in Moscow, where the two authoritarian strongmen reaffirmed their strategic alignment against the US and touted their vision for a new world order no longer dominated by the West.

For Xi, the first in-person summit of the BRICS grouping since the pandemic presents another opportunity to advance that vision.

The bloc’s members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – account for more than 40% of the global population. They also share the desire for a more multipolar world and the demand for a greater say in global affairs.

“Xi Jinping is not trying to out-compete America in the existing liberal international order dominated by the US. His long-term goal is to change the world order into a Sino-centric one,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London.

To support that ambition, Tsang said, “it makes sense for China to engage with the Global South, (which is) much more numerous than Western democracies and mostly authoritarian in governance structure.”

Previewing Xi’s visit on Friday, China’s ambassador to South Africa Chen Xiaodong hailed BRICS as “an important platform for cooperation among emerging and developing nations” and “the backbone of international fairness and justice.”

Biden's call for 'new era of cooperation' with Japan and South Korea likely to ramp up tensions with Beijing

“The traditional global governance system appears to be out of order, incapacitated and absent. The international community is eagerly looking forward to the BRICS to…play a leading role,” Chen told reporters.

Xi’s trip to South Africa comes just days after US President Joe Biden met with the leaders of Japan and South Korea in a show of solidarity and force against rising threats from China.

The summit at Camp Davis saw the US and its two closest allies in Asia deepen military and economic cooperation – and criticize China’s “dangerous and aggressive behavior” in the South China Sea.

With China and the United States locked in an increasingly intense rivalry, the BRICS has taken on greater strategic relevance to Beijing, said Paul Nantulya, a research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

“Xi is going to be the center of the BRICS summit, given that Vladimir Putin is not attending in person,” he said.

Putin, who faces an international arrest warrant over alleged war crimes in Ukraine, will take part by video from Russia.

Nantulya described BRICS as “another multilateral platform through which China can exert influence around the world – especially in the Global South.”

Domestic woes

But the summit also comes at a difficult moment for Xi, who is grappling with a myriad of domestic challenges 10 months into his unprecedented third term.

China’s much-anticipated economic rebound from its rigid Covid lockdowns is faltering. Instead, the world’s second largest economy is beset by a confluence of problems – from a spiraling property crisis and mounting local government debt to worsening deflationary pressure.

The country’s youth unemployment rate – which hit consecutive record highs in recent months – is so bad that the Chinese government has suspended releasing it all together.

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Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Washington-based Stimson Center think tank, said the struggling economy is a key constraint for Xi’s diplomatic charm offensive, especially in the Global South.

“For Xi to visit developing countries, the norm is for China to deliver generous packages of aid, finance and cooperation deals. But given the current state of the Chinese economy, Beijing is no longer as well-equipped to do that,” she said.

“The economic performance (is) constraining his ability to play the great power leader he used to (be).”

China is also facing a public that has become much more skeptical about their government’s lavish spending abroad.

“On Chinese social media, there has been a lot of push back against, for instance, the Belt and Road Initiative,” Nantulya said, referring to Xi’s flagship global infrastructure program.

“Chinese citizens are asking what the rationale is to invest so much money overseas, yet domestically there’s so many problems China faces.”

In face of the slowing economy, the Chinese government has become much more selective in choosing what foreign projects to finance, according to Nantulya.

While its international funding has slowed, Beijing has stepped up political and military engagement in Africa, including increasing party to party engagement, setting up more Confucious Institutes, and training more African officers in military academies in China, Nantulya said.

“These are low-cost activities, but very high impact in terms of China’s ability to demonstrate that it still cares about Africa even if it has reduced funding for major infrastructure initiatives,” he said.

The visit is Xi’s first trip to Africa in five years.

His last journey to the continent – also for the BRICS summit in South Africa – in 2018 includes a whirlwind of visits to Senegal, Rwanda and Mauritius, spanning almost every corner of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This time around, Beijing has not announced any other stops for Xi.

Instead, the Chinese leader will co-chair the China-Africa Leaders’ Dialogue with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

A total of 69 countries have been invited to the summit, including all African states.

9. Logistics Interdiction for Taiwan Unification Campaigns

Excerpts:

Looking at the role of logistics interdiction in potential Chinese military operations has important implications for Taiwan’s defense. In the first two scenarios discussed here, the People’s Liberation Army would have difficulty sustaining operations should they turn into protracted campaigns. But they would face fewer logistics interdiction risks, making these options less risky overall. However, these campaign options are unlikely to achieve the sort of quick capitulation desired by Chinese political leadership and may significantly undermine China’s international standing. By contrast, the last campaign option is the least likely to result in a protracted campaign (thus avoiding sustainment problems), yet carries serious logistics interdiction risks.

In the first two campaign options, Taiwan should focus on delaying Chinese offensive operations and surviving long enough for inherent Chinese supply chain problems to emerge, and for its allies to organize a response to force a political settlement. If facing a joint island landing campaign, Taiwan should employ an active defense, rapidly and decisively exploiting Chinese logistics vulnerabilities. If this happens, and Taiwanese resistance does not crumble, the Chinese invasion could face acute supply difficulties, or even campaign failure, in a matter of weeks, if not days.

Logistics Interdiction for Taiwan Unification Campaigns - War on the Rocks

JACOB MAYWALD, BENJAMIN HAZEN, EDWARD SALO, AND MICHAEL HUGOS

warontherocks.com · by Jacob Maywald · August 21, 2023

If China attacks Taiwan, its ability to move the requisite levels of troops and supplies in a contested environment will be critical in determining its success. This makes logistics interdiction is an important, yet understudied, consideration. The good news for Western military planners is that whether the People’s Liberation Army launches a joint firepower strike campaign, a joint blockade campaign, or joint island landing campaign, its logistics capabilities would likely constitute a major weakness. This, at least, is the conclusion we drew from examining Chinese and Western military doctrine, studying similar historical campaigns, and conducting supply chain simulations.

Joint Firepower Strike Campaign

If Beijing launched a joint firepower strike campaign, its objective would be to apply stand-off, coercive pressure to force reunification. A strike campaign would employ conventional ground- and air-launched ballistic and cruise missiles ranging in intensity from limited strikes against symbolic targets to a broader approach aimed at paralyzing Taiwan’s political, military, and economic systems. A limited campaign might consist of employing People’s Liberation Army ballistic missile capabilities against a few salient objectives. A broader campaign would include a combination of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, artillery, and other stand-off ground strike capabilities. Targets would include air bases, command and control centers, energy infrastructure, air defense, and long-range strike capabilities.

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Chinese doctrinal texts highlight the importance of target selection and proper weapon employment to degrade the enemy’s will. Chinese strategists are likely aware of Western precedents like Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Linebacker in Vietnam and NATO’s successes in the Balkans. For a People’s Liberation Army joint firepower strike campaign to succeed, one of two things must happen: Either Taipei capitulates quickly or strikes are used for escalatory purposes, including softening resistance in preparation for a cross-strait invasion. In both scenarios, failure to achieve quick and decisive success risks providing Taiwan’s international allies with time to organize a military response, forcing the Chinese to fight on multiple fronts.

Because this campaign deploys combat capability primarily within the borders of mainland China, opportunities for logistics interdiction are sparse and unlikely to make a meaningful impact. Given China’s robust domestic transportation network, Taiwan’s best approach to exploiting the People’s Liberation Army’s logistics weaknesses is simply to withstand the initial assault and stretch the campaign’s timelines. Taiwanese cruise and ballistic missiles could be directed at logistics capabilities near the shoreline and aggregated masses of troops and material to degrade the People’s Liberation Army offensive capabilities. However, this would have negligible effect in disrupting supply lines from inland China to support prepositioned coastal forces.

While logistics interdiction in this option might have limited success, the Chinese army still faces considerable risk in sustaining its forces during a protracted campaign. Consider the vast difference in peacetime training and exercise flight hours between People’s Liberation Army Air Force pilots and comparable U.S. pilots. Chinese bomber pilots fly approximately 80 hours per year, with the rest of the training conducted in simulators. However, a joint firepower strike campaign calls for these pilots to fly approximately 60 hours every two weeks. The intensity of this campaign would result in a dramatic uptick in demand for aircraft spare parts, fuel, and munitions. The stochastic nature of part failures and difficulty of forecasting the behavior of breakages under combat conditions would result in a significant portion of the fleet being grounded for lack of parts. And munitions shortages would mirror those in other high-intensity conflicts should the campaign become protracted, making it reasonable to assume that expenditures would outpace resupply.

In sum, a joint firepower strike campaign consisting of independent strikes on key targets is simple to plan and results in minimal risk during execution. On the other hand, this strategy would almost certainly be less effective than a blockade or invasion in securing Beijing’s political goals. Taiwanese and allied nations’ logistics interdiction options are limited, yet a lengthy conflict creates Chinese risk, as spare parts and munitions production likely would not keep up with demand. The ability of Taiwan’s military and civil institutions to simply survive and prolong the campaign could expose these vulnerabilities.

Joint Blockade Campaign

The objective of a joint blockade campaign would be to undermine the will and warfighting potential of Taiwan. It would apply the maximum possible pressure short of a full island landing and provide many options to escalate or de-escalate the conflict. This allows Chinese political leadership to ramp up coercive pressure to enhance their negotiating position, then either transition to a full island invasion should Taipei continue to resist or discontinue the blockade should their position become untenable. After a military build-up, a blockade would begin with full-spectrum offensive strikes on political, military, command and control, and logistics targets to achieve air, sea, and information superiority. Secondary targets would include antisubmarine forces, surface combatants, mine-clearing ships, and submarines. Offensive operations would conclude with the Chinese navy establishing sea dominance around Taiwan and its outer islands. Then the blockade would enter a sustainment phase involving continuous lockdown of Taiwan’s air and sea lines of communication. In addition to the maritime blockade, Chinese land- and carrier-based aviation forces would provide fighter combat air coverage and the Chinese coast guard would lead in conducting maritime board, search, and seizure operations.

In assessing the logistics implications for a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, the U.S. blockade of Cuba in 1962 offers a useful point of comparison. A similar campaign would see the Chinese navy establish a blockade ring 50 miles from the Taiwanese shore and approximately 1,000 miles in length. Taiwan is geographically smaller than Cuba and Chinese military technology is far more advanced than that employed by the United States in 1962. However, the objective of total blockade would require a substantial Chinese fleet that would impose significant logistical demands. Still, as with the U.S. blockade of Cuba, China’s ability to mobilize and leverage its vast organic supply reserves, combined with access to the logistics resources of neighboring friendly nations (Russia, North Korea), would likely preclude any major short-term supply deficits.

This analysis presumes that Taiwan fails to mount a vigorous defense and allied navies remain uninvolved. However, if Taiwan perceives the blockade as an existential threat, the campaign would take on a kinetic nature resulting in significant attrition. While the food, fuel, munitions, and spare parts required to sustain blockade forces would still flow eastward with relative ease, Taiwanese targeting of Chinese seaports would disrupt ports of debarkation and limit the ability to refuel and repair ships. Taiwanese mining of critical sea routes, combined with strikes on inland strategic petroleum reserves, munitions depots, and maintenance facilities, would degrade the Chinese navy’s ability to sustain their forces in the medium-to-long term. However, Taiwan’s actions would have to be carefully calculated, as their strikes may have negligible effects in the short term and carry substantial escalatory risks.

Overall, a joint blockade campaign would apply a great amount of pressure on Taiwanese military and economic institutions. But compared to a protracted joint firepower strike campaign, it creates an even more significant risk should Taiwan fail to capitulate quickly. From a logistics point of view, the People’s Liberation Army would be forced to consider some of the same inherent risks, namely potential shortages of munitions, critical spare parts, and fuel.

Joint Island Landing Campaign

The joint island landing campaign is the riskiest, but the one that delivers the greatest coercive pressure. After several months of mobilization and prepositioning, initial operations would attempt to quickly achieve air, maritime, and information superiority by targeting air/maritime bases, command and communication nodes, and air defenses. Major seaports and airfields would be early targets for capture to facilitate follow-on reinforcements and supplies. If the People’s Liberation Army successfully gained a foothold on the island, it could present the United States and its allies with a difficult-to-reverse fait accompli. By seizing the initiative, China could limit potential options for foreign military intervention.

Despite some important distinctions, a useful comparison for China’s logistical challenges would be Operation Overlord. The Allies confronted an extended German army, fighting well outside their own territory and thinly spread along the French coastline. In contrast, Taiwan would be defending a much more concentrated territory, and its defenses would be more condensed, overlapping, and robust. There is no retreat for Taiwanese forces, only surrender, so they are likely to resist fiercely. Also, the Allies quickly secured complete air and sea superiority, which is far from guaranteed in a Taiwan conflict.

Movement of forces across the Taiwan Strait (mostly by sea) would incur high rates of attrition. Military maritime transportation capacity is heavily reliant on the mobilization of civilian resources during times of war, and China actively promotes the production of civilian roll-on/roll-off ships to support military-specific requirements. This would allow People’s Liberation Army planners the necessary maritime capacity to move an invasion army. However, not all ships are built to military specifications and their use would impact civilian activities, adversely affecting China’s economy and trade.

As most forces and logistics support will be shipborne, Chinese and Taiwanese ports represent potential bottlenecks. A cross-strait invasion would require significant buildup of forces and logistics, and Taiwanese intelligence would have ample time to build a stratified target list. Should an invasion appear imminent, heavy mining and deliberate sabotage of Taiwan’s own airport and seaport capabilities could worsen Beijing’s challenge, while Chinese ships waiting offshore to unload their cargo would be particularly vulnerable to Taiwanese fires.

Even if the People’s Liberation Army could establish and hold a beachhead, subsequent transportation of troops and supplies would be challenging. Rail networks are available but would be risky, as they are susceptible to sabotage and difficult to maintain and repair. The two main Taiwanese roadways run parallel to the coasts and are ideal for serving coastal cities, but not for the movement of forces across the island. Roadways across the island are consolidated into a small number of main arteries that are easily interdicted. If Taiwanese forces continues to field an organized military resistance, they would have numerous opportunities to disrupt People’s Liberation Army movement by exploiting natural bottlenecks such as bridges and mountain passes.

A joint island landing campaign is the most decisive approach to achieving Taiwanese reunification, but the complexity of such an operation, combined with the political, economic, and military implications of failure, make this an extremely risky gambit. Logistically, the People’s Liberation Army is not constrained by transportation capacity in moving troops and supplies across the strait. The success or failure of the campaign would also be apparent in a few weeks, thus removing many potential sustainment issues. Yet, it is in this campaign that the strongest risk of logistics interdiction exists. From air and seaports of debarkation in mainland China to difficult shore landings in Taiwan and congested or unpassable ground lines of communication on the island, there are an almost innumerable number of potential bottlenecks that could grind Chinese logistics support to a standstill. Campaign failure would be a national disgrace with possibly existential implications for the ruling party.

Conclusions

Looking at the role of logistics interdiction in potential Chinese military operations has important implications for Taiwan’s defense. In the first two scenarios discussed here, the People’s Liberation Army would have difficulty sustaining operations should they turn into protracted campaigns. But they would face fewer logistics interdiction risks, making these options less risky overall. However, these campaign options are unlikely to achieve the sort of quick capitulation desired by Chinese political leadership and may significantly undermine China’s international standing. By contrast, the last campaign option is the least likely to result in a protracted campaign (thus avoiding sustainment problems), yet carries serious logistics interdiction risks.

In the first two campaign options, Taiwan should focus on delaying Chinese offensive operations and surviving long enough for inherent Chinese supply chain problems to emerge, and for its allies to organize a response to force a political settlement. If facing a joint island landing campaign, Taiwan should employ an active defense, rapidly and decisively exploiting Chinese logistics vulnerabilities. If this happens, and Taiwanese resistance does not crumble, the Chinese invasion could face acute supply difficulties, or even campaign failure, in a matter of weeks, if not days.

Become a Member

Jacob Maywald Ph.D. is an assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management at the Air Force Institute of Technology. He is an active-duty Air Force logistics officer and has served in a variety of roles planning and executing Air Force and joint supply chain operations. He also instructs for the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Study of Air Mobility program, and this paper’s analysis was partly derived from student contributions.

Ben Hazen Ph.D. is a retired U.S. Air Force aircraft maintenance officer and currently serves as an assistant professor of operations and supply chain management at the University of Dayton. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the Air Force Institute of Technology where he teaches and researches strategic mobility and air transportation management.

Edward Salo Ph.D. is an associate professor of history at Arkansas State University. His work has been published by 1945, Inkstick, National Interest, Eunomia Journal, the Modern War Institute, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and he has presented at numerous conferences including the U.S. Military Academy Social Studies Department Security Seminar (2023).

Michael Hugos is the author of several books, including Essentials of Supply Chain Management. He is a cofounder of SCM Globe, which develops and deploys cloud-based supply chain modeling and simulation applications for use in education, business, and government.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Jacob Maywald · August 21, 2023

10. Should the United States Normalize Relations With the Taliban?

Some very diverse views. Please go to the link to view the chart.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ask-the-experts/should-united-states-normalize-relations-taliban-afghanistan

ASK THE EXPERTS

Should the United States Normalize Relations With the Taliban?

Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts

August 21, 2023

Foreign Affairs has recently published a number of articles on how the United States should engage with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, extremist forces within the regime, how the West can help ordinary Afghans, and the fate of the country’s women. To complement these essays, we asked a broad pool of experts for their take. As with previous surveys, we approached dozens of authorities with expertise relevant to the question at hand, along with leading generalists in the field. Participants were asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with a proposition and to rate their confidence level in their opinion. Their answers are below.

Abdulkader Sinno

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
• Associate Professor of Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University
• The United States would benefit from a working relationship with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. It could lead to the...
• Read More

Adela Raz

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Visiting Fellow at the Hudson Institute and Director of the Afghanistan Policy Lab at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
• For the United States, a country that leads the free world and upholds the principles of democracy and human rights,...
• Read More

Ahmad Nader Nadery

• DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
• Senior Fellow at the Wilson Center and Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University
• As a former peace negotiator who has studied and closely followed the Taliban’s attitude and position in relation to other...
• Read More

Anand Gopal

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 5
• Assistant Research Professor at Arizona State University
• The United States should build a foreign policy based on supporting democracy and egalitarianism. The Taliban regime is both undemocratic...
• Read More

Aparne Pande

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Director of the Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia at the Hudson Institute
• I strongly disagree with the notion that normalizing ties with an ideological organization (the Taliban) will somehow moderate their views...
• Read More

Ashley J. Tellis

• DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
• Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Normalization should be contingent on the Taliban agreeing to upholding certain standards of behavior—which to date has proven elusive....

Ashley Jackson

• NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Co-director at the Centre on Armed Groups
• This is the wrong question. The real question is, What are the United States’ foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan and...
• Read More

Barbara Elias

• DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
• Associate Professor at Bowdoin College and former Afghanistan Analyst at the National Security Archive
• Official recognition will not shift the Taliban’s policies toward women, aid, or al Qaeda. The Taliban are reliably obstinate and...
• Read More

Belquis Ahmadi

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Senior Program Officer at the United States Institute of Peace
• Normalizing relations with the Taliban will further empower the group and will be rewarding a terror group. Furthermore, it will...
• Read More

Bridget Coggins

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 5
• Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara
• As the United States considers its future relations with the Taliban, it should look to its history with North Korea....
• Read More

Bruce Hoffman

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
• They are a criminal, misogynistic, homophobic, religiously intolerant, terrorist organization that harbors terrorists inimical to the United States....

C. Christine Fair

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Professor at Georgetown University
• Absolutely nothing can be gained from working with the Taliban. I am rather bemused by the proposition. The vast experience...
• Read More

Carter Malkasian

• NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
• Chair of the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School
• There is little harm in normalizing relations and there is little benefit. All in all, communication and embassies reduce misunderstandings....
• Read More

Colin P. Clarke

• DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
• Director of Research at the Soufan Group
• The United States should not normalize relations with the Taliban government in Afghanistan. While it is clear that the Taliban...
• Read More

Corri Zoli

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 2
• Part Time Instructor at the College of Arts and Sciences’ Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute at Syracuse University
• Since the tragic 2021 U.S. withdrawal, the United States has precious little leverage over the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the...
• Read More

Daniel Byman

• NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 6
• Professor at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
• The question to me is under what conditions the United States should normalize relations. Normalization is something the Taliban seek,...
• Read More

Dipali Mukhopadhyay

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
• Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota
• A move toward normalization would be a mistake, as it would reward the Taliban regime without improving the likelihood of...
• Read More

Edward N. Luttwak

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• ENL Associates
• It is not hard to have relations with the Taliban chief. But it is useless....

Elliott Ackerman

• NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 5
• Contributing writer at The Atlantic
• The United States should normalize relations with the Taliban on a conditions-based framework by which the Taliban would commit to...
• Read More

Farah Pandith

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
• Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
• The Taliban regime is a terrorist organization. If the United States normalizes relations with this terrorist organization, it is putting...
• Read More

Fernando Travesí

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Executive Director of the International Center for Transitional Justice
• The Taliban came to power illegitimately and by force. They have committed and continue to commit systematic human rights violations....
• Read More

Fotini Christia

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
• Ford International Professor of the Social Sciences at MIT

Graeme Smith

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 6
• Senior Analyst at the International Crisis Group
• Forget the politicians from the old regime who are pushing the United States and its allies back to war in...
• Read More

Ian Bremmer

• DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 4
• President of the Eurasia Group

Jacqueline L. Hazelton

• STRONGLY AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Executive Editor of the International Security Journal at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center
• The only reason for the United States to continue to shun the Taliban government of Afghanistan is self-righteousness. Governments interact...
• Read More

James B. Cunningham

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council

Jason Lyall

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
• James Wright Chair of Transnational Studies at Dartmouth College
• Recognition of the Taliban government should be the ultimate goal, but normalization is a process, not a destination, and one...
• Read More

Javid Ahmad

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
• Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and Nonresident Scholar at the Middle East Institute
• Two years in, the Taliban have now firmly entrenched themselves and dictate Afghanistan’s fate. While the conscious choice to let...
• Read More

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili

• NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh
• President Joe Biden has shown disdain for Afghanistan, and his administration’s disastrous withdrawal damaged U.S. credibility. As a result, the...
• Read More

John R. Allen

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Retired General in the U.S. Marine Corps General, Former Commander of U.S. Forces – Afghanistan
• The United States should not normalize relations with the Taliban under any circumstances. Where possible, the U.S. government should work...
• Read More

John Waterbury

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 5
• Global Professor of Political Science in New York University Abu Dhabi and former President of the American University of Beirut
• Normalize needs to be defined.
• ...

Kate Bateman

• NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
• Senior Expert at the United States Institute of Peace
• The United States should not normalize relations now (if this means granting formal recognition), but it should expand its engagement...
• Read More

Kathy Gannon

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Author and journalist, Former Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan for the Associated Press
• By normalize I don’t mean full diplomatic relations, but I do think the United States should return to Kabul, open...
• Read More

Kenneth Roth

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch and Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
• Normalizing relations with the Taliban would tacitly endorse their banishment of women and girls from most aspects of public life...
• Read More

Manizha Wafeq

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Founder of the Afghan Women’s Trade Caravan
• If the Afghan people and EU countries know that the United States is not supportive of the Taliban, they will...
• Read More

Masuda Sultan

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
• Women’s rights activist and Co-Founder of Unfreeze Afghanistan
• Afghanistan is again ruled by the Taliban despite a 20-year war with the United States that unseated them in 2001....
• Read More

Max Boot

• AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 5
• Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

Nipa Banerjee

• STRONGLY AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Senior Fellow and Professional in Residence in the School of International Development at the University of Ottawa
• My answer is based on the assumption that “normalization of relations with the Taliban” does not imply immediate diplomatic recognition...
• Read More

P. Michael McKinley

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan
• My answer is predicated on current circumstances; should they begin to change, the question should be revisited....

Paula Dobriansky

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center
• The Taliban carry out acts of terror, have destroyed Afghan society, and continue to brutally suppress the fundamental rights of...
• Read More

Richard Fontaine

• DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• CEO of the Center for a New American Security
• The United States should engage with the Taliban when doing so might lead to better outcomes. But diplomatic normalization is...
• Read More

Robert D. Crews

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
• Professor of History at Stanford University
• Normalizing relations with the Taliban would bring no benefit to the United States or to Afghan society. Between President Donald...
• Read More

Sarah Chayes

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Former Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Afghanistan
• For the United States to normalize relations now would not help ordinary Afghan citizens. Instead, it would send an unmistakable...
• Read More

Seth Jones

• DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
• Senior Vice President at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
• The United States should not normalize relations with a government that remains a state sponsor of terrorist groups and has...
• Read More

Shaharzad Akbar

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
• Executive Director of Rawadari

Shivshankar Menon

• DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
• Visiting Professor at Ashoka University
• Nothing in our previous experience of talks, agreements, and concessions to the Taliban by the United States and allies suggests...
• Read More

Tess Bridgeman

• STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
• Co-Editor in Chief of Just Security and Senior Fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law
• Starting with first principles, the United States has no duty to normalize relations with the Taliban, who overthrew an elected...
• Read More

Thomas Barfield

• DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
• Professor of Anthropology at Boston University
• The Taliban have displayed a positive genius for finding ways to implement policies that alienate those who wish for better...
• Read More

Back to chart

11. Global food security is at crossroads as rice shortages and surging prices hit the most vulnerable

Global food security is at crossroads as rice shortages and surging prices hit the most vulnerable

BY ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL AND EVELYNE MUSAMBI

Updated 12:06 AM EDT, August 21, 2023

AP · by ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL · August 21, 2023

Francis Ndege isn’t sure if his customers in Africa’s largest slum can afford to keep buying rice from him.

Prices for rice grown in Kenya soared a while ago because of higher fertilizer prices and a yearslong drought in the Horn of Africa that has reduced production. Cheap rice imported from India had filled the gap, feeding many of the hundreds of thousands of residents in Nairobi’s Kibera slum who survive on less than $2 a day.

But that is changing. The price of a 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of rice has risen by a fifth since June. Wholesalers are yet to receive new stocks since India, the world’s largest exporter of rice by far, said last month that it would ban some rice shipments.

It’s an effort by the world’s most populous nation to control domestic prices ahead of a key election year — but it’s left a yawning gap of around 9.5 million metric tons (10.4 tons) of rice that people around the world need, roughly a fifth of global exports.

“I’m really hoping the imports keep coming,” said Ndege, 51, who’s sold rice for 30 years.

He isn’t the only one. Global food security is already under threat since Russia halted an agreement allowing Ukraine to export wheat and the El Nino weather phenomenon hampers rice production. Now, rice prices are soaring — Vietnam’s rice export prices, for instance, have reached a 15-year high — putting the most vulnerable people in some of the poorest nations at risk.

The world is at an “inflection point,” said Beau Damen, a natural resources officer with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization based in Bangkok.

Even before India’s restrictions, countries already were frantically buying rice in anticipation of scarcity later when the El Nino hit, creating a supply crunch and spiking prices.

What could make the situation worse is if India’s ban on non-basmati rice creates a domino effect, with other countries following suit. Already, the United Arab Emirates has suspended rice exports to maintain its domestic stocks. Another threat is if extreme weather damages rice crops in other countries.

An El Nino is a natural, temporary and occasional warming of part of the Pacific Ocean that shifts global weather patterns, and climate change is making them stronger. Scientists expect the one underway to expand to supersized levels, and, in the past, they have resulted in extreme weather ranging from drought to flooding.

The impact would be felt worldwide. Rice consumption in Africa has been growing steadily, and most countries are heavily dependent on imports. While nations with growing populations like Senegal have been trying to grow more of their own rice — many are struggling.

Amadou Khan, a 52-year-old unemployed father of five in Dakar, says his children eat rice with every meal except breakfast, which they often have to skip when he’s out of work.

“I am just getting by — sometimes, I’ve trouble taking care of my kids,” he said.

Imported rice — 70% of which comes from India — has become prohibitively expensive in Senegal, so he’s eating homegrown rice that costs two-thirds as much.

Senegal will turn to other trading partners like Thailand or Cambodia for imports, though the West African country is not “far from being self-sufficient” on rice, with over half of its demand grown locally, Agriculture Ministry spokesperson Mamadou Aïcha Ndiaye said.

Asian countries, where 90% of the world’s rice is grown and eaten, are struggling with production. The Philippines was carefully managing water in anticipation of less rain amid the El Nino when Typhoon Doksuri battered its northern rice-producing region, damaging $32 million worth of rice crops — an estimated 22% of its annual production.

The archipelago nation is the second-largest importer of rice after China, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has underscored the need to ensure adequate buffers.

India’s rice restrictions also were motivated by erratic weather: An uneven monsoon along with a looming El Nino meant that the partial ban was needed to stop food prices from rising, Indian food policy expert Devinder Sharma said.

The restrictions will take offline nearly half the country’s usual rice exports this year, said Ashok Gulati of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relation. Repeated restrictions make India an unreliable exporter, he added.

“That’s not good for the export business because it takes years to develop these markets,” Gulati said.

Vietnam, another major rice exporter, is hoping to capitalize. With rice export prices at a 15-year high and expectations that annual production to be marginally higher than last year, the Southeast Asian nation is trying to keep domestic prices stable while boosting exports.

The Agriculture Ministry says it’s working to increase how much land in the Mekong Delta is dedicated to growing rice by around 500 square kilometers — an area larger than 90,000 football fields.

Already the Philippines is in talks with Vietnam to try to get the grain at lower prices, while Vietnam also looks to target the United Kingdom, which receives much of its rice from India.

But exporters like Charoen Laothamatas in neighboring Thailand are wary. The Thai government expects to ship more rice than it did last year, with its exports in the first six months of the year 15% higher than the same period of 2022.

But the lack of clarity about what India will do next and concerns about the El Nino means Thai exporters are reluctant to take orders, mill operators are unwilling to sell and farmers have increased the prices of unmilled rice, said Laothamatas, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.

With prices fluctuating, exporters don’t know what prices to quote — because prices may spike again the next day.

“And no one wants to take the risk,” Laothamatas said.

___

Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam, and Musambi from Nairobi, Kenya. AP reporters Krutika Pathi in New Delhi; Zane Irwin in Dakar, Senegal; Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok; and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL

Aniruddha writes about science and people.

twittermailto

AP · by ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL · August 21, 2023

12. Pentagon ill-prepared for bio warfare attacks from adversaries such as China, Russia

Pentagon ill-prepared for bio warfare attacks from adversaries such as China, Russia

washingtontimes.com · by Bill Gertz

By - The Washington Times - Friday, August 18, 2023

The Pentagon needs to improve defenses and readiness against biological weapons attacks and is ill-prepared for germ warfare attacks from China or other adversaries, according to a biodefense posture report.

The report’s authors warn that foreign biological warfare threats are increasing as adversaries develop germ and toxin weapons. Some of the weapons are being developed in civilian research and will be difficult to identify and trace if converted to weapons of war.

The Pentagon and military are “at a pivotal moment in biodefense” and face “an unprecedented number of complex biological threats,” said the biological posture review report, made public recently in response to a request from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Pentagon efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic also highlighted weaknesses in biodefenses, including supply chain problems and shortcomings in mitigating the spread of disease, the report said. Some materials needed to defend against outbreaks, including face masks and hand sanitizer, had not been stockpiled.

The report said climate change would lead to more infectious diseases that could threaten military readiness, but it provided no evidence to support the claim.

The report recommends improving the military’s ability to “fight and win in the face of any future biothreat” and learning how to better operate if another infectious disease emerges.

The main goal of the biodefense review is to better defend the homeland from “the growing multi-domain threat posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” the report’s authors wrote. Other goals include deterring general strategic attacks and deterring aggression by China in the Indo-Pacific region and Russia in Europe.

The report identified problems in Pentagon biodefenses, including the lack of a unified approach to threats, poor intelligence, and shortfalls in readiness and preparedness to deal with biological weapons and natural dangers. The U.S. intelligence community has been unable to pinpoint the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic and lacks scientific expertise.

The review recommends increasing intelligence, making military forces more resilient to biological threats and improving strategic coordination and collaboration.

The Defense Department “must take the threat and risk from bio-incidents seriously and implement the significant reforms outlined in this review to lay the foundation for a resilient total force that deters the use of bioweapons, rapidly responds to natural outbreaks, and minimizes the global risk of laboratory accidents,” the report said.

The danger of laboratory accidents that can lead to pandemics may be growing with the number of facilities around the world engaging in high-risk research. The study does not directly address questions about the role of China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in the origins of COVID-19.

Regarding weapons, the report stated that “the use of biological weapons or their proliferation by state or non-state actors presents a significant challenge to our national security, our people, our agriculture and the environment.”

Several nations have clandestine biological arms programs, and terrorist groups have sought their acquisition, the report said.

“The PRC, Russia, North Korea, and Iran probably maintain the knowledge and capability to produce and employ traditional pathogens and toxins,” the report said. “These countries historically pursued, and at least one country (North Korea) continues to pursue, pathogens that cause highly infectious or contagious diseases, such as anthrax, plague, and toxins, including botulinum toxin.”

The states can employ the agents in warfare.

Adversaries can use ostensibly civilian technology for weapons development, including peptide synthesis technology and metabolic engineering.

“Advances in both synthetic biology and peptide synthesis could enable states to develop a wide range of novel toxins with both incapacitating and lethal effects that are not on a select agent list,” the report said.

Threats include animal toxins, marine toxins and plant toxins.

Thea D. Rozman Kendler, assistant commerce secretary for export control, told a House hearing last month that new controls have been placed on synthetic biology and genomic editing technology to prevent China from building toxin weapons.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that progress in synthetic biology and genomic editing “could enable the development of novel biological weapons that evade detection, attribution, and treatment,” she said.

Software for nucleic acid assembly and synthesis can be used to build genetic weapons from digital sequence data. “This data can then be manipulated to create novel pathogens or enhance existing ones,” Ms. Rozman Kendler said.

The Commerce Department also is considering controls on peptide synthesizers.

“These technologies make it quicker and easier to produce toxins and pathogens that can be exploited for biological weapons purposes,” Ms. Rozman Kendler said. “By adopting these controls, requiring a license to the PRC will help ensure that our biotechnology exports are not used for malign purposes.”

China and the treaty

The biodefense report cited the State Department compliance survey, which suggested that China is not complying with its obligations regarding germ weapons, based on work at Chinese military medical facilities.

China has disclosed plans to become a global leader in technologies such as genetic engineering, precision medicine and brain sciences. “These Chinese publications have called biology a new domain of war,” the report said.

China reacted by saying it was the United States that was actively seeking to develop new biological weapons.

“When it comes to biosecurity threats, the U.S. is the most active and suspected country in conducting bio-military activities,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters. He suggested that the United States is secretly building biological warfare capabilities in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention.

The Chinese accusation reflects the findings of the State Department’s annual arms control compliance report that said China continued to engage in biological activities with potential germ weapons applications that raise concerns about treaty violations.

The report, made public in April, said China has “reportedly weaponized ricin, botulinum toxins, and the causative agents of anthrax, cholera, plague, and tularemia.”

Chinese military medical institutions also are working on potent toxins with military applications. Beijing has failed to confirm that its offensive biological weapons programs operating at least until the 1980s were eliminated, as required by the convention.

U.S. intelligence agencies have gathered information indicating that the Chinese military is developing biological weapons designed to attack specific ethnic groups, The Washington Times reported in May 2020.

“We are looking at potential biological experiments on ethnic minorities,” one senior U.S. official with access to intelligence said at the time.

A Chinese general stated in a book published in 2017 that advances in biotechnology made “specific ethnic genetic attacks” more likely in a conflict.

Mr. Wang, the Chinese spokesman, said U.S. accusations of Chinese biowarfare efforts were pretexts for “containing or suppressing” Beijing.

“The U.S.’s false narratives and moves to stoke confrontation seriously jeopardize the biosecurity governance system with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) as the cornerstone and the global response to biosecurity risks and challenges,” Mr. Wang said.

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

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

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13. US, Japan and Australia plan joint navy drills in disputed South China Sea, Philippine officials say

US, Japan and Australia plan joint navy drills in disputed South China Sea, Philippine officials say

AP · by JIM GOMEZ · August 20, 2023

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MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The United States, Japan and Australia are planning a joint navy drill in the South China Sea off the western Philippines this week to underscore their commitment to the rule of law in the region after a recent show of Chinese aggression in the disputed waters, Filipino security officials said Sunday.

On Aug. 5, Chinese coast guard ships used water cannons against Philippine vessels in the contested waterway where disputes have long been regarded as a potential flashpoint and have become a fault line in the rivalry between the U.S. and China in the region.

The drill will include three aircraft and helicopter carriers sailing together in a show of force and undertaking joint drills. Their commanders are set to meet with Filipino counterparts in Manila after the offshore drills, two Philippine security officials told The Associated Press.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to publicly discuss details of the planned drills.

The U.S. plans to deploy an aircraft carrier, the USS America, while Japan would send one of its biggest warships, the helicopter carrier JS Izumo. The Royal Australian Navy would send its HMAS Canberra, which also carries helicopters, one of the two officials said, adding that the joint drill was planned a few months ago.

The Philippines would not be part of this week’s drills due to military logistical limitations but is open to becoming a participant in the future, the official said.

The United States, Japan and Australia were among several countries that immediately expressed support for the Philippines and concern over the Chinese action following the tense stand-off earlier this month.

Philippine officials said six Chinese coast guard ships and two militia vessels blocked two Philippine navy-chartered civilian boats taking supplies to the Philippine forces stationed at the Second Thomas Shoal. One supply boat was hit with a powerful water cannon by the Chinese coast guard while the other managed to deliver food, water, fuel and other supplies to the Filipino forces guarding the shoal, the Philippine military said.

The Chinese coast guard acknowledged its ships used water cannons against the Philippine vessels, which it said strayed without permission into the shoal, which Beijing calls Ren’ai Jiao.

“In order to avoid direct blocking and collisions when repeated warnings were ineffective, water cannons were used as a warning. The on-site operation was professional and restrained, which is beyond reproach,” the Chinese coast guard said. “China will continue to take necessary measures to firmly safeguard its territorial sovereignty.”

The Philippine military said on Saturday that it would again attempt to deliver basic supplies to its forces in the Second Thomas Shoal, but didn’t provide further details.

The mission “to the shoal is a clear demonstration of our resolve to stand up against threats and coercion and our commitment in upholding the rule of law,” the Armed Forces of the Philippines said in a statement.

Following the incident, Washington renewed a warning that it is obliged to defend its longtime treaty ally if Philippine public vessels and forces come under armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

AP · by JIM GOMEZ · August 20, 2023

14. Assessing the People’s Republic of China’s Current and Future Offensive Operations Against the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the Context of China’s International Ambitions

Excerpt:

Fundamentally, the United States’ options are limited. The PRC’s goal is clear, its efforts unified, and its power regionally great. The PRC has indicated that it will abolish Taiwanese independence. This unified effort is contrasted with the United States’ apparent goal of simply maintaining the status quo; the United States will not have the ability to rally national will for the purposes of defending this undefined, poorly understood, and operationally difficult position. Thus, the United States will either deter the PRC until future circumstances prevent the PRC’s actions to reunify, or it will align itself with Taiwan in such a way that the PRC’s reunification ambitions are quashed. However, such as during the Peloponnesian War, a goal-based, rising power has a near spiritual advantage when applying pressure against another great power whose goal is to mere defend the status quo.

Assessing the People’s Republic of China’s Current and Future Offensive Operations Against the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the Context of China’s International Ambitions

divergentoptions.org · by Divergent Options · August 21, 2023

Editor’s Note: This article is part of our 2023 Writing Contest called The Taiwan Offensive, which took place from March 1, 2023 to July 31, 2023. More information about the contest can be found by clicking here.

Elliot Pernula is a currently serving U.S. Army officer, assigned to the United States Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title: Assessing the People’s Republic of China’s Current and Future Offensive Operations Against the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the Context of China’s International Ambitions

Date Originally Written: July 31, 2023.

Date Originally Published: August 21, 2023.

Author and / or Article Point of View: The author believes that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) poses a significant threat to the current world order and that the PRC is currently engaged in a deliberate and focused multi-front offensive operation against Taiwan. This offensive will transition from measured and deliberate to dynamic and kinetic if/when the PRC assesses that an exploitable opportunity has developed.

Summary: The PRC is currently engaging in deliberate, strategically unified, and organizationally layered offensive operations against Taiwan. If left unchecked, the PRC’s deliberate goal-based actions, national initiative, and conceptually aligned efforts will result in the termination of Taiwan’s independence.

Text: The PRC’s current and future means and mode of conducting offensive operations against Taiwan may be viewed through the lens of the Chinese phrase: wei ji, or loosely translated, where danger lurks, opportunity awaits. It is under this concept that the PRC is preparing to boldly strike against Taiwan as soon as circumstances are favorable, while concurrently hedging its goals for Taiwan against its international ambitions.

The PRC’s desired international end state is to be a world power, capable of projecting its influence without external constrains[1]. Subservient and corollary to this is the PRC’s operational end state: the “reunification” of Taiwan through the termination of Taiwan’s ability to independently engage in international commerce, international negotiations, and internal political decision making[2]. While the PRC’s efforts to achieve control of Taiwan span the full spectrum of the instruments of national power (diplomatic, information, military and economic (DIME)), the PRC’s actions are premised on a fundamental informational precept: that any offensive operation taken against Taiwan must be projected to be a defensive operation taken to protect China’s own national sovereignty. In that, the PRC is currently engaged in offensive informational operations that emphasize that it seeks to “reunify” with Taiwan, under the essential premise that there is only one China.

The PRC’s mode of offensive operations center on the concurrent employment of all instruments of national power. To the PRC, a reunification achieved without ever engaging in military action through a de facto diplomatic blockade would be far superior to military operations; however, no instrument of national power exists in a vacuum. Thus, currently, the PRC has launched all instruments of national power against Taiwan with the goal of developing exploitable weaknesses. To the PRC, this full spectrum offensive operation is a gamble on all four elements of DIME; if the PRC presses to heavily in any one area before conditions are ripe, then they may face a backlash from the international community that could hamper its long-term goals. In essence, the PRC will seek to maintain a measured offensive of constant pressure across all instruments of power while watching for an exploitation point and concurrently remaining sensitive to the international community’s responses.

Having accepted the fact that the PRC views the future termination of Taiwan’s independence as a non-negotiable outcome, the critical assessment then must turn to when and how the PRC will act by applying overwhelming force under any one or all of its instruments of national power in its four front gamble. The PRC’s ability to employ maximum military capability will degrade eventually as the PRC’s population ages in the context of its failure to foster future population growth[3]. Essentially, the PRC’s population is aging and the military aged, combat capable population will decrease within the next decades. While this aging makes a near-term military option more attractive, the PRC is not able to independently defeat the Taiwanese military, engage in a global conflict against the United States and its potential responsive coalition members, and then meet its national goals of serving as a post-war superpower.

The projected destruction that would be wrought in a international armed conflict (IAC) between the PRC and the United States[4] makes a direct military offensive against Taiwan unlikely, unless the international environment experiences a circumstance-shift that would make this option feasible. Critically, there are multiple scenarios that would likely trigger the PRC’s rapid employment of direct military action against Taiwan. These scenarios include any United States’ military entanglement in another area of the world such that the PRC assesses that the United States is unable to muster the national will or resources needed to engage in a direct military confrontation with the PRC[5]. To that end, the PRC has employed a consistent emphasis on a one China perspective; this will serve to allow the PRC to characterize any future military conflict as a non-international armed conflict (NIAC) between the legitimate Chinese government and a secessionist faction. This NIAC characterization would likewise serve as the foundation to assert that any foreign direct involvement in support of Taiwan would place the PRC in a defensive status in a conflict that would have then transformed into a IAC. Likewise, there are multiple traplines that have been laid that may trigger an immediate, direct, and full spectrum offensive with the purpose of immediate “reunification,” such as any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan, direct foreign basing within Taiwan, offensive-capable military alignment with a foreign government, or dire economic internal PRC turmoil that would make internal societal unification against a common enemy (Taiwan) attractive.

The PRC will, therefore continue to engage in unified offensive operations across all of its instruments of national power while it waits for a exploitation point. Essentially, the PRC has one clear goal: to stand as an unencumbered world power; reunification with Taiwan is an essential brick in the road to achieve this goal. To that end, the PRC will develop redundant threat capabilities that will allow it to concurrently muster all instruments of national power against Taiwan with a goal of applying pressure and then exploiting any opportunity to achieve immediate reunification as well as to disincentivize intervention by the United States. Thus, the PRC seeks to apply the methodical principles of the game of Go against both Taiwan and the United States with the hopes of a bloodless offensive, while holding onto the willingness to launch unified offensive operations if the conditions so warrant. In Go, one may gain a critical advantage by securing exterior blocking positions before moving against near opponent positions. This strategy requires a player to both push far against an opponent while simultaneously strangling center and near opponent positions (i.e., securing positions in with a corner, side, then center order formula); yet, this strategy works when one spends the time to calculate an endgame scenario well in advance of striking against near-opponent pieces. An early assault may foreclose future opportunities. One must both block in the deep game, develop exploitation opportunities in the near game, and strike when one may win with power enough to take advantage incrementally developed initiative.

Fundamentally, the United States’ options are limited. The PRC’s goal is clear, its efforts unified, and its power regionally great. The PRC has indicated that it will abolish Taiwanese independence. This unified effort is contrasted with the United States’ apparent goal of simply maintaining the status quo; the United States will not have the ability to rally national will for the purposes of defending this undefined, poorly understood, and operationally difficult position. Thus, the United States will either deter the PRC until future circumstances prevent the PRC’s actions to reunify, or it will align itself with Taiwan in such a way that the PRC’s reunification ambitions are quashed. However, such as during the Peloponnesian War, a goal-based, rising power has a near spiritual advantage when applying pressure against another great power whose goal is to mere defend the status quo.

Endnotes:

[1] Buckley, C. (n.d.). China’s Leader Now Wields Formidable Power. Who Will Say No to Him? NY Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/23/world/asia/xi-jinping-china-loyalists.html

[2] Garcia, C., & Tian, Y. (n.d.). China’s Xi vows ‘reunification’ with Taiwan. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-xi-says-reunification-with-taiwan-must-will-be-realised-2021-10-09/

[3] Chan, M. (n.d.). Chinese military faces challenge from falling fertility rate. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3135342/chinese-military-faces-challenge-falling-fertility-rate

[4] Stauffer, B. (n.d.). Freaking Out About a Potential War With China. Politico. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/09/america-weapons-china-00100373

[5] Roush, T. (n.d.). Chinese Malware Could Cut Power To U.S. Military Bases, Businesses And Homes, Report Claims. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2023/07/29/chinese-malware-could-cut-power-to-us-military-bases-businesses-and-homes-report-claims

divergentoptions.org · by Divergent Options · August 21, 2023

15. Why Russia’s War in Ukraine Could Run for Years

“In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realize the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close.”

— Sun Tzu

Why Russia’s War in Ukraine Could Run for Years

From Moscow to Washington, a lack of clear and achievable strategic goals points to a long conflict

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/why-russias-war-in-ukraine-could-run-for-years-383f0bde?utm_source=pocket_saves

By Marcus WalkerFollow

Aug. 20, 2023 12:01 am ET

Russia’s war on Ukraine is in danger of becoming a protracted struggle that lasts several more years. The reason isn’t just that the front-line combat is a slow-moving slog, but also that none of the main actors have political goals that are both clear and attainable.

Ukraine’s central war aim—restoring its territorial integrity—is the clearest, but appears a distant prospect given the limits of Western support. The U.S. and key European allies such as Germany want to prevent Russia from winning, but fear the costs and risks of helping Ukraine to full victory. Some Western officials are sketching out grand bargains to end the war, but they fit neither Kyiv’s nor Moscow’s goals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declared aims are the most elastic, ranging from ambitious imperial schemes to more limited land grabs, and shifting with Russia’s military fortunes. His long-term objective of bringing Ukraine back under Moscow’s sway looks unrealistic now, but Ukrainians believe he would treat smaller gains as mere steppingstones, rendering treacherous any peace based on concessions.

A Ukrainian air-defense vehicle in the Donetsk region. PHOTO: SERHII KOROVAYNY FOR WALL STREET JOURNAL

Kyiv’s troops in eastern Ukraine have been pushing this summer to undo Russian gains. PHOTO: MANU BRABO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

President Biden has said the goal of U.S. aid is to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position for eventual peace negotiations, without saying under what conditions it should negotiate. Earlier this year, Washington, Berlin and others hoped a chance for talks would open up this fall, if Kyiv’s counteroffensive made significant progress against Russian occupation forces in Ukraine’s south and east.

But throughout the war, strengthening Ukraine with decisive firepower has clashed with another, overriding Western priority: to avoid uncontrolled escalation that leads to a direct war with Russia or to Putin using nuclear weapons.

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Ukraine’s push to retake territory has been slow, as its forces face a deadly problem: land mines. WSJ explains how Russia created one of the largest minefields in the world in the occupied regions, and their impact on Kyiv’s counteroffensive. Photo: Ignacio Marin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The speed limit on aid for Ukraine has been evident in the West’s monthslong debates over whether to supply tanks, planes and long-range missiles. Ukrainian troops’ limited weaponry, including air power and air defenses, has contributed to their heavy losses throughout the war, and to their painfully slow progress this summer against Russia’s fortified lines in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions. U.S. intelligence assessments are now pessimistic about whether Ukrainian forces can break through Russian defenses and reach the coast, a key strategic aim for Kyiv.

A drawback of the U.S.’s incremental approach to military aid: Without a battlefield breakthrough, Kyiv doesn’t want to negotiate peace—and Moscow doesn’t have to.

“By structuring our approach around the goal of no escalation, around what we don’t want to happen, the U.S. has set itself up for a drawn-out conflict,” said Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington. “You end up in a strange middle ground where you’re not necessarily able to accomplish that second goal of putting Ukraine in a position of strength that makes negotiations possible.”

President Biden is seeking to support Ukraine’s war effort without prompting a dangerous escalation. PHOTO: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

The muddle over Western aims was illustrated this past week when a senior official of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization spoke publicly about an idea that European diplomats have been debating: that Ukraine give up Russian-occupied territory in return for joining NATO to protect what’s left. The suggestion drew an angry dismissal from Ukraine, which says its borders aren’t for bartering. The NATO official apologized, reverting to the West’s public line that only Ukraine can define acceptable peace terms.

In private, many Western officials don’t think the U.S. and its allies can leave it to Kyiv alone to define the goal. Ukraine’s maximalist aims, they fear, guarantee an endless war. They would like to offer Ukraine carrots to accept the de facto loss of some territory, such as NATO or European Union membership or promises of long-term military and economic aid. 

The thinking stems from an eagerness to contain a conflict whose shock waves have been felt across the global economy, uncertainty about how long Western voters will support the current levels of aid for Kyiv and disbelief that Ukraine can fully expel Russian forces.

A Ukrainian tank crew near the Donetsk-region city of Chasiv Yar. PHOTO: MANU BRABO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz famously wrote that “war is a mere continuation of policy by other means,” stressing that military force is an instrument for attaining a political goal. Some unsuccessful wars have resulted less from lost battles than from the lack of an achievable political aim, so that campaigns came to be seen as draining and fruitless. Modern examples arguably include the Soviet and U.S. failures in Afghanistan and America’s defeat in Vietnam.

Now, Russia is finding itself in a costly quagmire whose point is unclear. Turning Clausewitz’s idea on its head, Putin’s policy has depended on where his soldiers were. The full-scale invasion launched in early 2022 aimed to install a pro-Moscow regime in Ukraine, buttressed by an ideology that said Russians and Ukrainians were one people. When fierce resistance forced Russia to retreat from Kyiv, the Kremlin shrank the objective to conquering all of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas area. After further military setbacks, Russia declared the annexation of four regions in Ukraine’s east and south, none of which it fully controls.

Areas under Russian control

Areas controlled by Russia before Feb. 2022

Kyiv

Kharkiv

Bakhmut

UKRAINE

Dnipro

Donetsk

Kryvyi Rih

MOL.

Mykolaiv

Mariupol

Melitopol

RUSSIA

Kherson

Odesa

Sea of Azov

CRIMEA

Black Sea

Sevastopol

100 miles

100 km

Source: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project

But Russia is also trying to advance in the Kharkiv region in the northeast, going beyond its territorial claims. Senior Kremlin officials continue to say they want to dismantle the Ukrainian state.

Putin sometimes speaks as if the war has largely fulfilled its aim. “The primordial Russian lands of Donbas and Novorossiya have returned home where they belong,” Putin said with satisfaction in early August, using a czarist-era term for southern Ukraine. Only in June, however, he mused about maybe raising more troops for another march on Kyiv. “Only I can answer that,” he said. “Depending on our goals, we must decide on mobilization,” he told Russian military correspondents, suggesting his goals remain fluid.

Russia had a plan A for a quick conquest of Ukraine but no plan B, said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “Now, declaring goals could be politically costly for Putin. Having unclear metrics allows you to say you’re working towards them,” Gabuev said.

Soviet-era weapons such as Grad rocket launchers remain a staple for Ukraine as it waits for more modern arms from Western allies. PHOTO: MANU BRABO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

A pillow bearing an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the home of a collector of war memorabilia in the Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad. PHOTO: EMANUELE SATOLLI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The Kremlin’s view of the timeline is clearer than the aims, Gabuev said: “They believe the cost of the war is manageable and the endurance of the Russian political system, people and economy can outlast the West.”

Recent events, from the revolt of the Wagner paramilitary group to the ruble’s sinking value, show how the war is straining Russia’s economy and military, but not yet to a breaking point. Some observers believe the state of war against Ukraine and its Western backers is becoming an end in itself, the raison d’être of a regime that can no longer offer economic growth and stability.

Russia hasn’t given up its maximal goal, pursued in many neighboring countries for years, Polyakova said: to reassert its old sphere of influence and stop countries such as Ukraine from moving further West—whether that means domination or turning them into failed states. The Kremlin’s lesser declared aims are tactical maneuvering, she said.

“Russia still has this big imperial vision that Putin has grown to believe in over his tenure,” she said. “Ukraine’s goals have not changed. The question is: What’s the Western strategic vision?”

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After going out of production in 2012, StarStreak missiles are being revived to help Ukraine’s air defense. WSJ examines how the British missile stands out among its peers and why its unique features allow it to see past Russian countermeasures. Photo illustration: Annie Zhao

Victoria Simanovskaya contributed to this article.

Write to Marcus Walker at Marcus.Walker@wsj.com

16. Troop Deaths and Injuries in Ukraine War Near 500,000, U.S. Officials Say

Stalin: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic."

But half a million are still a helluva statistic.

Troop Deaths and Injuries in Ukraine War Near 500,000, U.S. Officials Say

By Helene Cooper, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Eric Schmitt and Julian E. Barnes

Reporting from Washington and London

The New York Times · by Julian E. Barnes · August 18, 2023

Ukraine and Russia have lost a staggering number of troops as Kyiv’s counteroffensive drags on. A lack of medical care has added to the toll.

U.S. officials said Ukraine had suffered close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

Aug. 18, 2023, 10:15 a.m. ET

The total number of Ukrainian and Russian troops killed or wounded since the war in Ukraine began 18 months ago is nearing 500,000, U.S. officials said, a staggering toll as Russia assaults its next-door neighbor and tries to seize more territory.

The officials cautioned that casualty figures remained difficult to estimate because Moscow is believed to routinely undercount its war dead and injured, and Kyiv does not disclose official figures. But they said the slaughter intensified this year in eastern Ukraine and has continued at a steady clip as a nearly three-month-old counteroffensive drags on.

Russia’s military casualties, the officials said, are approaching 300,000. The number includes as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops. The Russian numbers dwarf the Ukrainian figures, which the officials put at close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded.

But Russians outnumber Ukrainians on the battlefield almost three to one, and Russia has a larger population from which to replenish its ranks.

Ukraine has around 500,000 troops, including active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops, according to analysts. By contrast, Russia has almost triple that number, with 1,330,000 active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops — most of the latter from the Wagner Group.

The Biden administration’s last public estimate of casualties came in November, when Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that more than 100,000 troops on each side had been killed or wounded since the war began in February 2022. At the time, officials said privately that the numbers were closer to 120,000 killed and wounded.

But that number soared in the winter and spring, as the two countries turned the eastern city of Bakhmut into a killing field. Hundreds of troops were killed or injured a day for many weeks, U.S. officials said. The Russians took heavy casualties, but so too did the Ukrainians as they tried to hold every inch of ground before losing the city in May.

The opening weeks of Kyiv’s counteroffensive this summer were particularly difficult for Ukraine. In the early phase, Western-trained Ukrainian troops struggled to employ “combined arms maneuvers” — a method of fighting in which infantry, armor and artillery are used together in synchronized attacks.

Ukrainian troops initially tried to break through dug-in Russian lines with mechanized combined arms formations. Equipped with advanced American weapons, the Ukrainians nonetheless became bogged down in dense Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships.

Russias military casualties, U.S. officials said, are approaching 300,000.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

In the first two weeks of the counteroffensive, as much as 20 percent of the weaponry Ukraine sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed, according to U.S. and European officials. The losses included some of the formidable Western fighting machines — tanks and armored personnel carriers — that the Ukrainians were counting on to beat back the Russians.

More significantly, thousands of troops were killed or wounded, officials said.

A senior U.S. official acknowledged the high number of Ukrainian casualties but said combined arms is “very, very hard.” He added that in recent days, Ukrainian troops have begun to punch through initial rings of Russian defenses.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has shifted its battlefield tactics, returning to its old ways of wearing down Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles instead of plunging into minefields under fire.

American officials are worried that Ukraine’s adjustments will race through precious ammunition supplies, which could benefit President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and disadvantage Ukraine in a war of attrition. But Ukrainian commanders decided the pivot reduced casualties and preserved their frontline fighting force.

American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty adverse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.

In just a year and a half, Ukraine’s military deaths have already surpassed the number of American troops who died during the nearly two decades U.S. units were in Vietnam (roughly 58,000) and about equal the number of Afghan security forces killed over the entire war in Afghanistan, from 2001 to 2021 (around 69,000).

The number of dead and wounded reflects the amount of lethal munitions being expended by both sides. Thousands of rounds of artillery are fired every week, tanks batter buildings, land mines are everywhere and drones hover overhead picking off troops below. When close combat does occur, it resembles the battles of World War I: brutal and often taking place in trenches.

The numbers also point to a lack of rapid medical care on the frontline. Wounded soldiers are increasingly hard to evacuate given how much artillery and gunfire bookend each engagement. Unlike the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where American forces strictly adhered to evacuating casualties within an hour to a well-stocked medical facility, there is no such capability in Ukraine.

Instead, injured troops are often thrown into any vehicle available or leave the front on foot. In some cases, the wounded and dead are left on the battlefield, because medics are unable to reach them. Hospitals and aid stations are often overwhelmed.

And across Ukraine, in big cities and rural villages, almost everyone knows a family that has lost someone in the fighting. Dry flowers from funerals litter quiet roads, and graveyards are filling up in every corner of the country.

The estimated figures for Ukraine and Russia are based on satellite imagery, communication intercepts, social media and news media dispatches from reporters in the country, as well as official reporting from both governments. Estimates vary, even within the U.S. government.

According to Pentagon documents leaked in the spring, Russia had suffered 189,500 to 223,000 casualties, including up to 43,000 killed in action. One document said that as of February, Ukraine had suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, with as many as 17,500 killed in action.

Wounded soldiers are increasingly hard to evacuate.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

While several U.S. officials and one former senior Ukrainian official said about 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died in the conflict so far, other American officials said the number could be lower.

The estimates vary so widely partly because of Ukraine’s reluctance to disclose its wartime losses even to the American government. U.S. intelligence analysts have also spent much more time focusing on Russian casualties than those of Ukraine, their ally.

Russia analysts say the loss of life is unlikely to deter Mr. Putin. He has no political opposition at home and has framed the war as the kind of struggle the country faced during World War II, when more than eight million Soviet troops died. U.S. officials have said they believe that Mr. Putin can sustain hundreds of thousands of casualties in Ukraine, although higher numbers could cut into his political support.

While Mr. Putin appears somewhat reluctant to initiate a widespread mobilization, he has raised the upper age limit for men eligible to be conscripted into the army. And should Russia decide to mobilize more people, its larger population could quickly overwhelm Ukrainian reserves of manpower.

The troop deaths could have a greater impact for Ukraine in a war that is far from over. And while combatants are dying in droves, the civilians caught between the guns have died in the thousands while millions have been displaced.

“These are people,” said Evelyn Farkas, a former top Pentagon official for Ukraine who is now the executive director of the McCain Institute.

“Ukraine is a democracy, so the loss of lives could have greater political impact,” Dr. Farkas said. “But even in an autocracy, Vladimir Putin knows that public sentiment can make a difference.”

Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent, and was part of the team awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for its coverage of the Ebola epidemic. More about Helene Cooper

Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a Ukraine correspondent and a former Marine infantryman. More about Thomas Gibbons-Neff

Eric Schmitt is a senior writer who has traveled the world covering terrorism and national security. He was also the Pentagon correspondent. A member of the Times staff since 1983, he has shared four Pulitzer Prizes. More about Eric Schmitt

Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. More about Julian E. Barnes

The New York Times · by Julian E. Barnes · August 18, 2023

17. In pictures: When the U.S. left Afghanistan, two years ago

Please go to this link to view the many heart wrenching photos. https://www.reuters.com/pictures/pictures-when-us-left-afghanistan-two-years-ago-2023-08-18/?utm

24 PhotosAugust 18, 202311:13 AM EDT

In pictures: When the U.S. left Afghanistan, two years ago

Scenes from the final days of America's two decades in Afghanistan.

18. Opinion | Why is China so afraid of Taiwan’s vice president?

Opinion | Why is China so afraid of Taiwan’s vice president?

The Washington Post · by Josh Rogin · August 20, 2023

According to Beijing authorities (and some Taipei opposition figures), the potential election of current Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te as president in January could spark the biggest crisis yet in cross-strait relations — and potentially lead to war. But Lai’s recent visit to the United States showed that these warnings are overblown. China is attacking Lai because he is reasonable, not because he’s a hothead. That makes him much harder for Beijing to undermine.

China’s foreign ministry complained loudly before Lai, who is also referred to as William Lai, visited New York City and San Francisco this month — visits referred to by the Americans and the Taiwanese as “transit” stops on his way to and from Peru. This diplomatic terminology is used because Washington and Taipei do not have formal diplomatic relations. But that didn’t stop Beijing from calling Lai an “independence separatist” and a “troublemaker” and threatening “forceful measures” in response. Chinese officials even told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Lai’s ascendance could harm U.S.-China relations.

Lai dispelled that notion at a luncheon with members of the Taiwanese-American community in New York that I attended last weekend. Outside the hotel, pro-Beijing protesters shouted insults about Lai’s Democratic People’s Party (DPP), similar to what happened in March when President Tsai Ing-wen was visiting. But inside the room, Lai’s speech was carefully crafted to send a firm but conventional message.

“The acts of support from across the world indicate that Taiwan is now a pivotal member of the international community; peace in the Taiwan Strait is a matter of global security,” he said. “When Taiwan is safe, the world is safe; when there is peace in the Taiwan Strait, there is peace in the world.”

He talked about Taiwan’s path from dictatorship to democracy, as well as the small island’s notable economic and technological accomplishments. He expressed solidarity with other democracies and gratitude for their assistance. He pledged to support other democracies under attack and pointed to Taiwan’s extensive assistance to Ukraine since last year’s Russian invasion. He called on all Taiwanese to come together.

“We aim to protect Taiwan, facilitate democracy, peace, and prosperity, and allow generations of Taiwanese people to breathe the air of freedom,” he said. “To reach our goals, we must stand in solidarity domestically and internationally.”

Lai did not mention China in his speech. When discussing cross-strait relations, he reiterated Tsai’s policies word for word. Lai is presenting himself to Taiwanese voters and the international community as a symbol of continuity, promising to maintain the status quo. In an interview with Bloomberg this past week, Lai stated clearly that he does not intend to seek formal independence if elected president.

“We must abide by the truth … which is Taiwan is already a sovereign, independent country called the Republic of China,” he said. “It is not part of the People’s Republic of China. The ROC and PRC are not subordinate to one another. It is not necessary to declare independence.”

Again, this is exactly the current president’s position. Lai took other steps to limit the things Beijing could complain about while he was in the United States. He didn’t meet with any Biden administration officials, other than those who represent the American Institute in Taiwan, Washington’s unofficial diplomatic outpost. He politely declined invitations for meetings with members of Congress. His public events were scant.

This hardly seems like a man whose election could, as one opposition politician claimed, “open the doors to hell.” Lai’s caution might be attributable in part to his relative inexperience in foreign policy. The former doctor came up through local politics and is learning diplomacy on the job.

Lai also surely understands that the Taiwanese people have a variety of views about how to engage China and none want to see tensions escalate. Although Lai is currently leading in the polls, opposition candidates who are much friendlier to Beijing might be able to amass a majority if the three top contenders chose one to rally around.

The Chinese government is already heavily interfering in Lai’s election, as it has been doing in every Taiwanese election for years through economic pressure, military intimidation, political corruption, disinformation and other methods. Beijing professes to want to solve the Taiwan issue through negotiation and dialogue, but has never once agreed to meet with Tsai during her nearly eight years as president. Beijing claims this is because Tsai won’t confirm what’s known as “the 1992 consensus,” which essentially asserts that Taiwan is part of China.

For Beijing, the problem is not really what Lai says or promises to do as president. The election of a third consecutive DPP administration would confirm that Beijing’s attempts to bring Taiwan under its closer control through coercion and intimidation are failing, former assistant defense secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs Randy Schriver told me.

“It’s part of a trend where Beijing’s constituency in Taiwan for any kind of reunification as ‘One China’ is gone — and they helped destroy it,” he said.

The narrative about Lai being dangerously pro-independence is also obsolete because, as Lai explained, the Taiwanese independence movement has evolved over decades. Taiwan’s de facto independence is something younger Taiwanese were born into and see no need to jettison.

Despite its lack of diplomatic recognition, Taiwan is a democratic country with its own identity, politics and culture. It was never ruled by the Chinese Communist Party and never wants to be. These are facts that will endure whether Lai wins or not — and that is what truly worries Beijing.

The Washington Post · by Josh Rogin · August 20, 2023

19. Four Ways Ukraine Can Win With F-16s – But Caveats Remain

Four Ways Ukraine Can Win With F-16s – But Caveats Remain

Sixty-one newly donated Danish and Dutch F-16s give Ukraine more defense, more offense, more support from allies and more momentum, but a few hurdles remain for F-16s to fully contribute to victory.

by Pete Shmigel, Christopher Stewart | August 21, 2023, 12:16 pm

kyivpost.com

F-16s mean increased air defense

The provision of 61 F-16 fighter jets over the next two years by the Netherlands and Denmark gives Ukraine greater air power to defend its populated areas, troop concentrations and military assets from Russian aerial attacks.

This is true in terms of both quantity and quality. The Ukrainian Air Force possessed approximately 130 fighter and attack aircraft when Russia started its full-scale invasion – not all of which were combat-capable. It is estimated to have lost around 40 percent of those planes, but some were replaced by the provision of Soviet-era MiGs from allies such as Poland and Slovakia.

Sixty more fighters – and possibly more from other allies now that the precedent is set – puts more Ukrainian planes in the sky for a wider array of missions (compared to the approximately 10 airstrikes per day currently being flown).

A key focus is likely to be protecting Ukraine’s skies and cities from: a) incoming Russian long-range missiles – some of which are designed to fly below radar and not within the reach of surface-to-air defense systems; b) from the launch platforms for such long-range missiles including “Tu” class Russian bombers, and; c) from the approximately 50 airstrikes being flown against Ukrainian settlements and troop positions by Russian MiGs and related fighters.

The F-16 Mid-Life Update (MLU) that Ukraine will get has been operated by several European air forces for the past 25 years. Among its upgrades is a data link that will enable Ukraine’s aircraft to combine with NATO’s other assets including airborne sensor aircraft (e.g., AWACS), other fighter aircraft and ground-based air-defense radars, such as the Patriot.

More on this topic

Top NATO Official: Downsized Ukraine in NATO?

A selection from what European papers are saying.

This will improve effectiveness against Russian cruise missiles and generally help defend Ukraine’s airspace better than its diminishing fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29s, Su-27s and Su-24s. Unlike those planes, the F-16 can carry the full suite of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles used by the US and its allies.

F-16s mean more offense

The F-16s massively improve the capacity of Ukraine’s newly trained mechanized infantry brigades to go forward in larger-scale combined arms movements, as opposed to their current tactic of smaller units undertaking probing assaults.

It’s why Ukraine has advocated so hard for a “Coalition of Jets” among its allies and why Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhny is known to have constantly asked for them.

He knows better than anyone else that an average of only some 10 combat sorties per day by the Ukrainian Air Force has clearly been a factor in the pace and tactics of Ukraine’s summer offensive against a well-entrenched and highly fortified enemy.

Indeed, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have advanced as far and as quickly as their current, almost exclusively ground-based military equipment has allowed. Analysts have called “unprecedented” Ukraine’s mechanized infantry assault – without air cover - against Russia’s so-called “Surovikin Line” (defensive positions set up under Russian General Sergey Surovikin late last year to defend their land bridge/supply route to occupied Crimea).

The new planes substantially change the power equation.

F-16s are a strategic shift by the West

Some analysts have long-criticized Western military aid to Ukraine as “enough to defend itself, but not enough to win.”

The Dutch and Danish decision to provide the F-16s, which needed to be approved by the US as its producer and was strongly lobbied for by the hawkish UK, isn’t only about planes. It’s about purpose.

Strategic debates about “not escalating” against Russian President Vladimir Putin and operational arguments about the practicalities of training Ukrainian personnel and the state of Ukraine’s aviation infrastructure (e.g., inadequate and short runways) have been overcome.

The F-16s potentially show a shift by the West from playing “not to lose” to playing for victory – and all that represents in the scale and depth of military aid to Ukraine.

F-16s build Ukraine’s momentum

Having 60 F-16s has immense significance in terms of Ukraine’s military momentum, which is a key characteristic of success.

It has a multiplier effect beyond its operational impact in terms of Ukrainian forces’ focus and purpose – from the foot soldier to the Commander-in-Chief – not to mention the civilian population suffering under nightly terroristic missile assaults.

Importantly, it ends a long period of frustration, distraction. and lack of clarity about whether the West would or wouldn’t provide Ukraine with more of the air power it has been requesting for nearly 18 months.

And now for the caveats

Officials of all three countries involved have said the earliest Ukraine can expect to have the first of the 61 fighters is “by the New Year.” That’s likely to be a group of six Danish planes – or half a squadron – which will obviously arrive in winter and after the current fighting season. The arrival of the rest of the planes is staggered over some two years beyond that.

Some 70 Ukrainian personnel have reportedly started their training on F-16s and related Western aircraft, particularly in Denmark. Training is likely to take at least four to six months and much longer for the mechanics necessary to make the planes’ maintenance sustainable and self-reliant.

Approximately 800 more personnel will need to be trained just to operate the currently known allocation of about 60 craft. Equally, Ukraine has sadly lost some of its best pilots since the beginning of the full-scale period so many of the trainees will have less experience.

While some of the arguments put up by opponents of Ukraine being given F-16s were exaggerated, the reality is that Ukraine’s aviation infrastructure is: a) being battered by the war; b) was under-resourced prior to the full-scale invasion; and; c) designed for Soviet-era operations rather than F-16s.

Additionally, Ukraine’s capacity to maintain or repair the F-16s is basically non-existent. All these aspects will need urgent upgrades to get the most possible from the new planes. In the case of maintenance, for now, it’s likely to take place in allied countries such as Romania and Poland, but that’s a logistical challenge.

Having said that, a bit of luck helps. Namely, one of the advantages of F-16s from Denmark and the Netherlands, as well as Norway, is that, unlike US F-16s, they are equipped with drag parachutes to make them able to land on short, prepared dual-use highway/runway airstrips. This overcomes some infrastructure challenges and will also be helpful in dispersing the aircraft to avoid being targeted by Russian missiles and drones.

The F-16s are now “new” planes by any stretch. While in a straight comparison, an F-16 is a technically superior plane to a Soviet-era MiG, the planes the Ukrainians will receive do not represent the latest technology. Most were being phased out by the Dutch and the Danes and likely do not feature the latest in terms of either radar systems, pilot controls or even engines.

Nevertheless, they’re not rust buckets. For example, Denmark’s 30 operational F-16s may be older airframes, but they have received significant modernization with the mid-life upgrade which redesignated them F-16 MLU. The modifications essentially made them F-16C/D (C is a single seat version; D is a two-seater) equivalent to current operational US Air Force F-16 “Vipers.”

kyivpost.com

20. The Battle For The Indian Ocean: How Submarine Cables Are Shaping US-China Rivalry – OpEd

The Battle For The Indian Ocean: How Submarine Cables Are Shaping US-China Rivalry – OpEd

eurasiareview.com · by Greg Pence · August 21, 2023

China and the US are vying for more power and influence in the world, and their rivalry is expanding to new areas. Among these measures are installing advanced communication systems and the establishment of an internet line utilizing submarine cables on the island of Diego Garcia.

This island, which is a British territory and was leased to the US military from 1966 for 70 years until 2036, serves as one of the most vital US military bases, accommodating approximately three thousand US soldiers and their families in this region. The island of Diego Garcia is strategically important for the United States as it is located only several thousand kilometers away from India, China, and the Persian Gulf. The US can closely monitor the security of huge oil tankers and the developments in the Middle East and East Asia from this island.

Diego Garcia, which works as an unsinkable fleet for the US Navy, played a crucial role in both wars against Saddam in Iraq (1991 and 2003), and the attack on the Taliban after 9/11 (2001). This island has a radar system, a radio station, and a hydro-acoustic system that controls and communicates with the US Air Force. The island can host long-range aircraft, aircraft carriers, and nuclear submarines, giving the US a strategic advantage in any conflict in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

The tensions between Beijing and Washington, particularly on the matter of Taiwan and its policy of containment have escalated. This renders the island of Diego Garcia more essential than ever. Recently, some documents have disclosed that the US is intending to change the internet connection of this island from satellite to submarine cables. This action can greatly increase the US military communication and readiness to address any potential threats from China or provide military assistance to Taiwan.

A top-secret operation, codenamed “Big Wave”, is underway on this island. The contractor for this operation is “SubCom”, a company that spied on Soviet submarines during the Cold War era. SubCom is one of the biggest companies that install optical fiber cables on the ocean floor for large data and telecommunication companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta, but it also works exclusively for the US Army.

SubCom’s dual role has conferred a significant advantage to this company and its employer. SubCom is an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, an investment firm based in New York that specializes in defense and national security sectors. The firm is headed by Stephen Feinberg, a billionaire and a close associate of Donald Trump. The firm secured a shipyard in a strategic area in the South China Sea by paying $300 million to the Philippine government and overcoming Chinese competitors last year.

Big Wave and SubCom are both militarily and economically vital for the United States. From a military perspective, Washington relies on SubCom to expand its naval submarine cable network for optimal coordination of military operations and increase surveillance of China’s burgeoning fleet of submarines and warships.

With regard to economic matters, the Biden administration aims to preserve its dominant position in the global Internet by ensuring that a greater number of submarine internet cables are operated and controlled by American companies. SubCom, a company that possesses six vessels for cable installation, is crucial for this objective. SubCom formerly conducted cable installation operations for Chinese telecom companies but ceased to do so after the US Congress enacted laws to prohibit that.

The Internet connection of Diego Garcia via cable lines dates back to 2020. In that year, SubCom declared that it had obtained a contract from a wealthy Australian technology magnate to install a $300 million Internet cable from Australia to Oman in the Middle East, which would cross the Indian Ocean. The project, named the Oman Australia Cable, was initiated by SUBCO, a company located in Brisbane that invested in submarine cables. However, many specialists in this field doubted the economic viability of this project from the beginning, since Australia and the Middle East were easily connected through cables that extended to Southeast Asia. Later, it was revealed that the covert objective of this project was to connect Diego Garcia with the Pentagon, which secretly financed one-third of the cable’s route.

China’s interest in islands near Diego Garcia, a key internet cable hub for the Middle East and Australia, worries the US and UK. They fear that Mauritius, an African island state, might give some of the nearby Chagos Islands to China to pay off its debt. These developments show a US-China rivalry in the Indian Ocean, with various geopolitical and technological aspects that could threaten the region and world peace.

eurasiareview.com · by Greg Pence · August 21, 2023

21. China Intensifies Espionage Crackdown Targeting Alleged CIA Spies

China Intensifies Espionage Crackdown Targeting Alleged CIA Spies

TIME · by Bloomberg News · August 21, 2023

China is intensifying a crackdown on alleged spies for the U.S., saying it found another case of an individual informing the Central Intelligence Agency, adding to a series of espionage accusations between the two nations.

The Chinese Ministry of State Security said Monday it is investigating a 39-year-old ministry official identified by his surname Hao for providing information to the CIA in exchange for money. This follows another case earlier this month involving an employee of a military industrial group.

The latest claims come weeks after CIA director William Burns said his agency has made progress in rebuilding its network in China following setbacks in the country. Tensions between China and the U.S. have risen after a series of incidents in recent months, including an alleged spy balloon and military encounters in the South China Sea.

China’s MSS provided rare details of how the people came to inform the CIA. The ministry said Hao was approached by a U.S. embassy staff known as Ted during his study in Japan. Ted introduced Hao to his colleague Li Jun, who worked for the CIA’s Tokyo office. Li asked Hao to work in a “core” unit upon his return to China, the ministry said in a statement.

Hao allegedly signed an espionage agreement with the U.S. and received training. When he returned to China, he worked for a Chinese ministry — the statement didn’t specify which one — and met with CIA personnel several times, providing intelligence and receiving money in return, the ministry said.

The other case involved a suspect with the surname Zeng, who developed a close relationship with Seth, an official of the U.S. embassy in Italy, according to MSS. Seth, who turned out to be working for the CIA in Rome, asked Zeng to provide sensitive military information and he agreed. Zeng provided a large amount of “core information” and received payment, MSS said.

China’s powerful spy agency is usually secretive about its work but has taken a more public profile recently. Beijing has ratcheted up efforts to crack down on spying and adopted a new counter-espionage law that came into effect last month. That legislation expands the list of activities that could be considered spying, intensifying the risks for foreign firms.

TIME · by Bloomberg News · August 21, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com