Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

(note: I will be traveling to Korea for the week (flight departs at 0500) so my news and commentary will be off schedule)

Quotes of the Day:

"What man does not understand, he fears; and what he fears, he tends to destroy."

- William Yeats

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

- Rudyard Kipling

“It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honors that we are fighting, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with his life.”

- The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, DECEMBER 11

2. Griner ‘compassionate, humble’ after release from Russia

3. U.S. policy makes Ukraine fight by rules Russia doesn't follow

4. CIA Comrades Honor Mike Spann By Rescuing Afghan Allies

5. Retired senior military officers should not engage in partisan politics

6. Air-gapped PCs vulnerable to data theft via power supply radiation

7. China's stunning reversal on lockdowns showed that mass protests can influence policy change in the country — but experts say it still doesn't threaten Xi's regime

8. Philippines Mulls A Visiting Forces Agreement With Japan – Analysis

9. Pentagon warns China on Asia-Pacific: US will keep war-fighting edge

10. For a Quicker End to the Russia War, Step Up Aid to Ukraine

11. Gratitude to Ukraine

12. Zelenskyy is stuck selling democracy to American leaders who no longer want it

13. Johnny Johnson, the Last World War II ‘Dambuster,’ Dies at 101

14. How Chinese netizens breached the great firewall

15. An Assessment of U.S. Military Thinking on Cislunar Space Based on Current Doctrine

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, DECEMBER 11

Maps/graphics: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-11

Key inflections in ongoing military operations on December 11:

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) denied rumors on December 11 that General Valery Gerasimov resigned or was removed from his position as Chief of the General Staff.[38]
Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that fighting continues along the Svatove-Kreminna line and near Lyman amidst poor weather conditions.[39]
A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces transferred over 200 pieces of equipment from the Kherson direction to the Kupyansk direction, and geolocated footage shows Russian T-90 tanks in Luhansk Oblast headed west.[40] A Ukrainian official stated that a larger Russian force grouping does not currently pose a threat.[41]
Russian forces made marginal territorial gains around Bakhmut as Russian and Ukrainian sources reported continued fighting in the area.[42] A Ukrainian Armed Forces Eastern Group spokesperson stated that Russian forces changed tactics from using battalion tactical groups (BTGs) to smaller assault groups for offensive actions.[43]
Russian and Ukrainian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces struck Skadovsk, Hola Prystan, Oleshky, and Nova Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast, all along major Russian logistics lines.[44]
Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian military base in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast.[45] One source claimed that the strike killed up to 200 Russian military personnel.[46]
Ukrainian officials reported that Russian occupation authorities intensified forced mobilization measures in occupied Ukraine.[47] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces face shortages of blood for wounded military personnel and are running donor drives in occupied Crimea.[48]
A Ukrainian partisan group claimed responsibility for setting fire to a Russian military barracks in Sovietske, Crimea.[49] Ukrainian and Russian officials reported that Russian authorities continued filtration and law enforcement crackdowns in occupied Ukraine.[50]

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, DECEMBER 11

Dec 11, 2022 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

understandingwar.org

Riley Bailey, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Frederick W. Kagan

December 11, 9 pm 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.

ISW is publishing an abbreviated campaign update today, December 11. This report discusses how the Belarusian regime’s support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as Russian pressure on Belarus to become more involved further constrains Belarusian readiness and willingness to enter the war in Ukraine.

Russian officials consistently conduct information operations suggesting that Belarusian conventional ground forces might join Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Belarusian leaders including Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko sometimes play along with these information operations. The purpose of these efforts is to pin Ukrainian forces at the Belarusian border to prevent them from reinforcing Ukrainian operations elsewhere in the theater. Belarus is extraordinarily unlikely to invade Ukraine in the foreseeable future whatever the course of these information operations. A Belarusian intervention in Ukraine, moreover, would not be able to do more than draw Ukrainian ground forces away from other parts of the theater temporarily given the extremely limited effective combat power at Minsk’s disposal.

The Kremlin’s efforts to pressure Belarus to support the Russian offensive campaign in Ukraine are a part of a long-term effort to cement further control over Belarus. ISW previously assessed that the Kremlin intensified pressure on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to formalize Belarus’ integration into the Union State following the Belarusian 2020 and 2021 protests.[1] Russia particularly sought to establish permanent military basing in Belarus and direct control of the Belarusian military.[2] Russia has routinely tried to leverage its influence over Belarusian security and military affairs to place pressure on Belarus to support its invasion of Ukraine.[3] ISW assessed that Russian Minister of Defense Army General Sergei Shoigu meet with Lukashenko on December 3 to further strengthen bilateral security ties - likely in the context of the Russian-Belarusian Union State - and increase Russian pressure on Belarus to further support the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[4]

The Belarusian regime’s support for the Russian invasion has made Belarus a cobelligerent in the war in Ukraine. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko offered Belarusian territory to Russian forces for the initial staging of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.[5] Belarusian territory offered critical ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to the Russian Armed Forces in their failed drive on Kyiv and their subsequent withdrawal from northern Ukraine.[6] ISW has previously assessed that Belarus materially supports Russian offensives in Ukraine and provides Russian forces with secure territory and airspace from which to attack Ukraine with high-precision weapons.[7]

Belarusian support for Russia’s war in Ukraine is likely degrading the Belarusian military’s material capacity to conduct conventional military operations of its own. The Belarusian open-source Hajun Project reported on November 14 that the Belarusian military transferred 122 T-72A tanks to Russian forces, likely under the guise of sending them for modernization work in the Russian Federation.[8]The Hajun Project reported on November 17 that Belarus transferred 211 pieces of military equipment to Russian Armed Forces, including 98 T-72A tanks and 60 BMP-2s.[9] The confirmed transfer of 98 T-72 tanks represents roughly 18 percent of the Belarusian inventory of active main battle tanks, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ 2021 Military Balance report.[10] It is unclear if the 98 transferred tanks are part of the 122 tanks designated for modernization or if they are a separate collection of equipment. Neither is it clear that the tanks sent to Russia were part of the active Belarusian tank park or vehicles held in storage or reserve. Belarus lacks capabilities to produce its own armored fighting vehicles making the transfer of this equipment to Russian forces both a current and a likely long-term constraint on Belarusian material capacities commit mechanized forces to the fighting in Ukraine.[11]

Belarus is also likely drawing down its inventory of artillery munitions through munitions transfers to the Russian military. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on December 3 that Belarus has been transferring 122mm and 152mm artillery ammunition to Russian Armed Forces throughout October and November.[12] The GUR reported on November 17 that Belarusian authorities are interested in establishing a closed cycle of production for these artillery shells and that Belarusian officials planned to meet with Iranian officials to discuss such closed production cycles of artillery munitions.[13] The GUR also reported on October 11 that a train with 492 tons of ammunition from the Belarusian 43rd Missile and Ammunition Storage Arsenal in Gomel arrived at the Kirovske Railway Station in Crimea on an unspecified date.[14]

Belarusian officials are likely trying to conceal the amount of military equipment they are sending to Russia to support its invasion of Ukraine. The Hajun Project reported on November 5 that the Belarusian State Security Committee, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Belarusian Special Forces have instituted enhanced protection and surveillance of rail infrastructure and have banned trains carrying military equipment from passing through Belarusian cities.[15] Belarusian authorities likely are trying to prevent Western and Ukrainian intelligence agencies from fully assessing that extent of the Belarusian military equipment transfers to Russia. Belarus may be sending more extensive amounts of military equipment to Russian forces. Belarusian authorities may also be attempting to hide the extent of the transfers in order to mitigate the possible backlash against Lukashenko‘s degradation of the country’s military capacity and subservience to Moscow.

The Belarusian military is likely facing constraints on its capacity to train current and new personnel due to its supporting role in Russian force generation efforts. The Belarusian military is continuing to train Russian mobilized military personnel at the 230th Combined Arms Obuz-Lesnovsky Training Ground in Brest, Belarus and at other training facilities near Mozyr, Gomel, and Mogilev in Belarus as part of the Union States’s Regional Grouping of Forces (RGV).[16] The Belarusian Ministry of Defense reportedly drafted 10,000 conscripts into the Belarusian Armed forces as a part of its autumn conscription campaign, a similar number to those drafted in the autumn cycle in 2021.[17] The Belarusian training of these mobilized Russian servicemembers coincides with the start of the Belarusian military’s academic year.[18] The GUR reported on September 29 that Belarus was preparing to accommodate up to 20,000 mobilized Russian servicemembers.[19] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on November 25 that 12,000 Russian personnel were stationed in Belarus.[20] ISW previously assessed that Russian forces deployed the mobilized men for training in Belarus as part of the RGV due to Russia‘s degraded training capacity.[21]

The Belarusian military likely has a relatively limited capacity to train existing and new personnel. The Belarusian military has only six maneuver brigades and is comprised of roughly 45,000 active personnel split into two command headquarters.[22] The small Belarusian military likely has limited training capacity and infrastructure to support its own force generation efforts. Belarusian military officials are now responsible for training at least two times as many servicemembers as the Belarusian military normally trains. Belarusian support for Russian force generation efforts would likely also constrain it from being able to train more Belarusian military personnel if Lukashenko wished to increase the number of drafted conscripts in the next conscription cycle to prepare for possible losses in combat following a putative Belarusian invasion of Ukraine.

The degradation of the Russian military through devastating losses in Ukraine would also hinder the deployment of Belarusian mechanized forces to fight alongside Russian troops. Belarusian forces should theoretically be able to operate in combined units with Russian mechanized forces. ISW previously assessed that Russia pursued efforts to integrate the Belarusian military into Russian-led structures in joint military exercises and permanent joint combined combat training centers before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[23] The Belarusian military coordinated with the Russian military in the Zapad-2021 joint exercises in September of 2021 in which Russian and Belarusian units formed joint ”mobile tactical groups” that operated as single military units at the battalion level.[24] These combined units require a high degree of coordination and military training, and therefore Russian and Belarusian forces used elite units in such efforts. Russian units that took part in the joint exercises with Belarusian forces included elements of the 1st Guards Tank Army, the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, the 20th Combined Arms Army, the 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade, and the 106th Guards Airborne Division, all elite units that ISW has assessed have been severely degraded in Ukraine.[25] These Russian units now likely lack the capability to operate in combined formations with Belarusian forces and likely are unable to operate effectively in combined operations. Belarusian forces would likely have to operate together with poorly trained mobilized Russian personnel if they entered the war in Ukraine.[26] The outcome of efforts to form and use such combined units in combat is likely to be poor.

Lukashenko’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and Russian pressure on Belarus to join the fighting are likely causing friction within the Belarusian military. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on December 7 that soldiers of the Belarusian border service and the Belarusian Armed Forces are increasingly dissatisfied with the activities of the Belarusian military-political leadership due to the threat of Belarus entering the war in Ukraine.[27] Ukrainian sources reported on November 13 that social tensions between Belarusians and Russian forces in Brest Oblast intensified as Russian forces strained local hospitals due to unsanitary conditions at the 230th Combined Arms Obuz-Lesnovsky Training Ground.[28] The GUR reported on November 6 that internal memos from senior Belarusian military officers show numerous complaints from rank-and-file Belarusian servicemen about tensions with Russian mobilized personnel, particularly in relation to derogatory ethnic statements.[29]

Belarusian personnel are certainly aware of the significant losses that Russian forces suffered in Ukraine and likely do not wish to experience the same result. An October 25 CNN report detailed how the Belarusian military and hospitals treated many Russian casualties as the Russian military offensive to capture Kyiv failed.[30] Belarusian units that trained with elite Russian units that have since suffered heavy losses fighting in Ukraine are also likely aware of the extent of the casualties that the Russian army has faced in Ukraine. These Belarusian units likely know that their units and the Belarusian military as a whole would not fare better than Russian units that were far more capable and well-trained.

Elements within the Belarusian military have shown resistance to the idea of entering the war in Ukraine. A Belarusian lieutenant colonel posted a viral video on February 27 in which he called upon Belarusian military personnel to refuse orders if instructed to enter the war in Ukraine.[31] It is likely that some elements of the Belarusian Armed Forces would express reluctance or outright refusal if Lukashenko decided to invade Ukraine.

Lukashenko’s setting of information conditions likely further constrains Belarusian willingness to enter the war. Lukashenko continues to set informational conditions to resist Russian pressure to enter the war in Ukraine by claiming that NATO is preparing to attack Belarus.[32] Lukashenko would likely struggle to set information conditions justifying the Belarusian military’s involvement to the south in Ukraine that did not obviously contradict the supposed threat of NATO forces to the west that he has framed to the Belarusian public. Belarusian officials’ repeated invocations of the threat of NATO may have also instilled a misguided belief among some Belarusian government and military officials that a defensive posture in western Belarus is essential.

Belarus is already unlikely to invade Ukraine due to internal dynamics within the country. ISW has previously assessed that Lukashenko does not intend to enter the war in Ukraine due to the possibility of renewed domestic unrest if his security apparatus weakened through participation in a costly war in Ukraine.[33] Lukashenko relied upon elements of the Belarusian Armed Forces in addition to Belarusian security services to quell popular protests against his rule in 2020 and 2021.[34] Committing a substantial amount of that security apparatus to the war in Ukraine would likely leave Lukashenko open to renewed unrest and resistance. Lukashenko is also likely aware that invading Ukraine would undermine his credibility as the leader of a sovereign country as it would be evident that Russia’s effort to secure full control of Belarus had succeeded.

Belarusian entry in the war would at worst force Ukraine to temporarily divert manpower and equipment from current front lines. Ukrainian General Staff Deputy Chief Oleksiy Hromov stated on November 24 that 15,000 Belarusian military personnel, in addition to the 9,000 Russian personnel stationed in Belarus, could theoretically participate in the war with Ukraine.[35] Even if Lukashenko committed a substantially larger number of his forces to an offensive into Ukraine, the Belarusian military would still be a small force that would be unable to achieve any substantial operational success. ISW has previously assessed that a Russian or Belarusian offensive from Belarus would not be able to cut Ukrainian logistical lines to the West without projecting deeper into Ukraine than Russian forces did during the Battle of Kyiv, when Russian forces were at their strongest.[36] A Belarusian invasion could not make such a drive, nor it could it seriously threaten Kyiv. Belarus’ entry into the war would at worst divert Ukranian forces away from current front lines in eastern Ukraine.

Belarus will continue to help Russia fight its war in Ukraine even though Lukashenko is highly unlikely to send his army to join the fighting. Belarus can offer material to Russia that Russia cannot otherwise source due to international sanctions regimes against the Russian Federation that do not impact Belarus.[37] Belarusian provision of territory and airspace allows Russian forces to support their offensive operations in Ukraine and conduct their strikes on Ukrainian civilian targets from a safe haven.

Russian officials will continue to conduct information operations aimed at suggesting that Belarusian forces might invade Ukraine in order to pin Ukrainian forces at the Belarusian border. These information operations are extraordinarily unlikely to herald actual Belarusian intervention in the foreseeable future.

Key inflections in ongoing military operations on December 11:

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) denied rumors on December 11 that General Valery Gerasimov resigned or was removed from his position as Chief of the General Staff.[38]
Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that fighting continues along the Svatove-Kreminna line and near Lyman amidst poor weather conditions.[39]
A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces transferred over 200 pieces of equipment from the Kherson direction to the Kupyansk direction, and geolocated footage shows Russian T-90 tanks in Luhansk Oblast headed west.[40] A Ukrainian official stated that a larger Russian force grouping does not currently pose a threat.[41]
Russian forces made marginal territorial gains around Bakhmut as Russian and Ukrainian sources reported continued fighting in the area.[42] A Ukrainian Armed Forces Eastern Group spokesperson stated that Russian forces changed tactics from using battalion tactical groups (BTGs) to smaller assault groups for offensive actions.[43]
Russian and Ukrainian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces struck Skadovsk, Hola Prystan, Oleshky, and Nova Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast, all along major Russian logistics lines.[44]
Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian military base in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast.[45] One source claimed that the strike killed up to 200 Russian military personnel.[46]
Ukrainian officials reported that Russian occupation authorities intensified forced mobilization measures in occupied Ukraine.[47] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces face shortages of blood for wounded military personnel and are running donor drives in occupied Crimea.[48]
A Ukrainian partisan group claimed responsibility for setting fire to a Russian military barracks in Sovietske, Crimea.[49] Ukrainian and Russian officials reported that Russian authorities continued filtration and law enforcement crackdowns in occupied Ukraine.[50]

[10] International Institute for Strategic Studies 2021 The Military Balance, 183-184 ( https://hostnezt.com/cssfiles/currentaffairs/The%20Military%20Balance%20...)

[11] International Institute for Strategic Studies 2021 The Military Balance, 183-184 ( https://hostnezt.com/cssfiles/currentaffairs/The%20Military%20Balance%20...)

[12] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/za-deiakymy-vydamy-ozbroiennia-rosiia-vzhe-vykorystovuie-stratehichnyi-zapas.html

[13] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/v-bilorusi-planuiut-nalahodyty-vyrobnytstvo-snariadiv-dlia-stvolnoi-artylerii-ta-rszv.html

[14] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/okupanty-prodovzhuiut-perekydaty-na-terytoriiu-bilorusi-dronykamikadze-shahed136.html

[17] https://t.me/Hajun_BY/5597 ; https://motolko.help/ru-news/komplektovanie-srochnikami-vs-rb-kakim-roda... ; https://primepress dot by/news/ekonomika/otpravka_v_voyska_prizyvnikov_osennego_prizyva_nachalas_v_belarusi-39008/

[19] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/v-bilorusi-hotuiutsia-pryiniaty-20-tysiach-mobilizovanykh-z-rf.html

[20] https://sprotyv.mod dot gov.ua/2022/11/25/rosiyany-prodovzhuyut-rozgortaty-vijska-v-bilorusi/

[22] International Institute for Strategic Studies 2021 The Military Balance, 183-184 ( https://hostnezt.com/cssfiles/currentaffairs/The%20Military%20Balance%20... )

[23] Russia’s Zapad-2021 Exercise | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org) ; Russia in Review: Russia Opens Permanent Training Center in Belarus and Sets Conditions for Permanent Military Basing | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org)

[24] Russia’s Zapad-2021 Exercise | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org)

[29] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/sered-rosiiskykh-chastkovo-mobilizovanykh-u-bilorusi-spalakh-zakhvoriuvan-cherez-nedotrymannia-sanitarnykh-umov.html

https://twitter.com/PaulJawin/status/1601688657316175873

[43] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/12/11/na-bahmutskomu-napryamku-okupanty-zminyly-taktyku-vedennya-bojovyh-dij-sergij-cherevatyj/

[44] https://t.me/readovkanews/48700; https://t.me/readovkanews/48663; https://suspilne dot media/336006-pivtora-miljona-ludej-na-odesini-bez-svitla-es-pogodivsa-nadati-18-milardiv-ukraini-291-den-vijni-onlajn/; https://t.me/hueviyherson/30748

[47]https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02BaPRkC1tPp53SEWzh7...; https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/12/11/rosiyany-aktyvizuyut-mobilizacziyu-na-tot/; https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/7366; https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/7367

understandingwar.org

2. Griner ‘compassionate, humble’ after release from Russia

Former Special Forces officer Roger Carstens has a very tough job as the US hostage coordinator.

Griner ‘compassionate, humble’ after release from Russia

‘We talked about everything under the sun,’ says the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs

By Amy B Wang

December 11, 2022 at 3:14 p.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Amy B Wang · December 11, 2022

When WNBA star Brittney Griner finally boarded the plane last week that would take her back to the United States — after being detained in Russia since February on charges of marijuana possession — the U.S. officials with her thought she would want some peace and quiet in light of her ordeal.

“Brittney, you must have been through a lot over the last 10 months,” Roger Carstens, special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, told her, he said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“Here’s your seat,” he added. “Please feel free to decompress. We will give you your space.”

But to his surprise, Griner told him she just wanted to talk.

“Oh, no, I have been in prison for 10 months now listening to Russian,” he recalled her saying.

Carstens said Griner then moved past him and approached every crew member on the flight, “looked them in the eyes, shook their hands and asked about them, got their names, making a personal connection with them.”

He said they ended up talking for about 12 hours out of the 18-hour flight from the United Arab Emirates, where she was exchanged for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

“We talked about everything under the sun,” Carstens said. “I was left with the impression that this is an intelligent, passionate, compassionate, humble, interesting person, a patriotic person, but, above all, authentic.”

Carstens’s account included some new details about Griner’s journey back to the United States after she was released from Russian captivity. Griner was detained at a Moscow airport in February, just days before Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to invade Ukraine.

She was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison on drug-smuggling charges for bringing in vape cartridges containing a small amount of cannabis oil, which is illegal in Russia. Her lawyers said it was prescribed to treat chronic pain and other conditions.

Her sentence was close to the maximum for the offense under Russian law, and immediately slammed by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as “a miscarriage of justice.” In early July, Griner wrote a letter to President Biden to implore him to continue working for her and others’ release.

“As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner wrote in an excerpt of the letter shared by the talent agency representing the Phoenix Mercury center. “I realize you are dealing with so much, but please don’t forget about me and the other American Detainees.”

Maria Blagovolina, one of Griner’s Russian lawyers, told ESPN last week that the 6-foot-9 Griner spent most of her work hours in a Russian prison moving around bolts of fabric rather than sewing uniforms, as most of the other female prisoners did, because she was too tall for the sewing tables. She also was recovering from the flu. Griner recently cut off most of her hair, since washing it in the winter left her cold, Blagovolina said.

Griner landed in San Antonio on Friday and has been undergoing evaluations of her physical and mental health at a medical center on the Fort Sam Houston military base.

“Initial reports are she’s in very good spirits and in good health,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Griner’s return has prompted celebrations and praise, as well as criticism of Biden and his administration over the swap.

“I think people of good faith can, in good faith, ask questions and be concerned about it, even when we’re very, very happy that Brittney Griner is back in the U.S.,” Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Bharara, a Democrat, was the prosecutor who oversaw the prosecution and conviction of Bout.

Bout is “someone who was convicted at trial by unanimous jury of conspiracy to kill Americans,” Bharara said. “He was convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.”

But Bharara said he was giving the Biden administration the benefit of the doubt on the decision to exchange Bout. “He was a dangerous man then. I don’t know how dangerous he is now,” he said.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said he is “thrilled” Griner was home but was concerned the trade would serve as an incentive to “other despots to essentially grab an American and use them as a bargaining chip.” He also worried how Putin may leverage future detentions of U.S. citizens.

“He gets an arms dealer back. He also knows he can just roil the American body politic by picking one [American prisoner] to send back to the United States and leaving others in custody in Russia,” Schiff said.

Griner’s release also raised frustrations over the fact that Paul Whelan, a former Marine who was sentenced to 16 years in a Russian prison in 2020 after being convicted of spying, was not included in the prisoner swap.

In July, the United States made a “substantial proposal” to Russia to secure the release of both Griner and Whelan together, but no agreement was reached then. The White House has said last week’s deal was not a question of “which American” to bring home, but rather one of whether to free Griner or no American at all.

Carstens said Sunday that the United States remains focused on bringing Whelan home. He said that he spoke to the former Marine on Friday, telling him: “Keep the faith. We’re coming to get you.” Carstens declined to speak in detail about the ongoing negotiations with Russia for Whelan’s release.

“Even as we’re welcoming someone home, we still have work to do,” Carstens said. “So, as I’m shaking Brittney’s hands and we’re taking to the aircraft and having this great conversation, my brain is already thinking about Paul Whelan. What can we do to get him back? What’s our next move? What’s the strategy? How can we adapt?”

On Thursday, former national security adviser John Bolton told CBS News that the Trump administration, in which he served, had the opportunity to swap Bout for Whelan but was not interested. Bolton slammed the Griner-Bout exchange as “not a swap” but a “surrender.”

“Terrorists and rogue states all around the world will take note of this, and it endangers other Americans in the future who can be grabbed and used as bargaining chips by people who don’t have the same morals and scruples that we do,” Bolton said then.

Fiona Hill, the former Russia specialist for the National Security Council who worked in the Trump administration, confirmed that there were multiple efforts by Russia to secure Bout’s release in exchange for Whelan’s.

“President Trump wasn’t especially interested in engaging in that swap,” Hill said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “He was not particularly interested in Paul’s case in the way that one would have thought he would be.”

Mary Ilyushina, Tim Starks and Lauren Kaori Gurley contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Amy B Wang · December 11, 2022

3. U.S. policy makes Ukraine fight by rules Russia doesn't follow

Does anyone think we should support any friend, partner, or ally who fights like the Russians? Or to ask the question another way, should we support a friend, partner, or ally who does not uphold the law of land warfare?

That said, we should help Ukraine to be able to conduct all necessary and lawful operations to defend itself.

U.S. policy makes Ukraine fight by rules Russia doesn't follow

msn.com · by Doyle McManus 5 hrs ago

Last week, Ukraine pulled off an audacious military feat: three drone strikes deep inside Russia, one against a target less than 150 miles from Moscow.

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The drones attacked bases from which Russia has launched airstrikes against Ukraine’s cities, electricity grid and other infrastructure.

It’s not clear that they caused major damage; at least two airplanes were struck, and a fuel storage tank was set ablaze. But they revealed a surprising weakness in Russia’s air defenses.

Equally striking was Russia’s low-key response. There were no high-decibel denunciations or threats of retaliation, perhaps out of embarrassment or a desire to avoid rattling Russian civilians.

The Biden administration’s response was curious too. Nobody congratulated the plucky Ukrainians for the mission’s success. Instead, officials quickly made clear that the United States had nothing to do with it.

“We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters.

Other officials added that the United States has not supplied Ukraine with weapons that could reach as far as the drones flew.

It’s time to change that.

The administration’s dour reaction to the drone attacks was in keeping with the self-imposed limits Biden’s team has observed as it has pumped billions of dollars in weaponry and economic aid to the embattled Kyiv government: No U.S. or other NATO troops in Ukraine; no NATO aircraft in Ukrainian airspace; no NATO-supplied weapons that can strike deep inside Russia.

The goal is to avoid crossing any boundaries Russian President Vladimir Putin might consider “red lines” — actions that might provoke him to retaliate against the West.

“We’re trying to avoid World War III,” President Biden has said repeatedly.

The result has been a tacit set of rules under which Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have shown a measure of restraint toward each other. NATO has poured military supplies into Ukraine; Russia has largely spared the supply convoys from direct attack, at least in areas near Ukraine’s border with Poland and other NATO countries.

In that sense, the policy has succeeded. Last month, when two missiles fell near a Polish village, U.S. officials quickly determined that they were Ukrainian rockets that had gone astray — a crisis averted.

But the unintended result of U.S. policy has been a war in which Ukraine and Russia fight under unequal rules.

The restraint Russia has shown toward NATO contrasts sharply with the apparent lack of limits on its bombardment of Ukrainian cities: Russia has struck residential neighborhoods, hospitals and schools, as well as legitimate military targets.

By contrast, until last week, Ukraine largely avoided firing on Russian territory, except for on a handful of ammunition dumps and fuel depots close to the frontier — all military targets.

One more curiosity: Nobody’s quite sure where Putin’s red lines are.

“They have been careful not to spell out red lines that they’ve been clear they’ll enforce,” Alexander R. Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, told me. “They’ve gotten us to self-deter.”

Ukraine has tested the purported lines several times, with no apparent penalty. Moscow protested after Ukraine shelled military installations near Belgorod, about 25 miles inside Russian territory, but Kyiv was not deterred.

The United States has been more cautious. The administration has refused Ukraine’s repeated pleas for the Army Tactical Missile System, an advanced ground-to-ground missile with a range of almost 200 miles, for fear that Ukrainian units might fire across the border.

Providing ATACMS, as the missiles are known, would risk “heading down the road toward a Third World War,” Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, explained in July.

But Ukraine has continued to ask for the missiles, and a growing number of critics, including members of Congress from both parties, have urged the administration to relax the prohibition.

“The administration has tended to err on the side of caution,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who favors supplying Ukraine with ATACMS.

Pifer has proposed a sensible compromise: The United States could provide Ukraine with the long-range missiles but prohibit Kyiv from firing them into Russia.

“ATACMS would be very effective inside Ukraine; they would make it far more difficult for the Russians to conduct the war,” he said. “ATACMS would force them to pull their artillery and their ammunition way back from the front lines.”

The prohibition against firing the missiles into Russia would be self-enforcing, he added.

“The Ukrainians would know that their access [to ATACMS] would end if they violated the rule.”

Providing those long-range missiles to Ukraine, even under restrictions, would have far greater military effect than last week’s drone strikes, which one expert dismissed as “boutique attacks.”

Russia is waging a war of attrition, trying to wear down Ukraine’s armed forces, demoralize its people and discourage its allies.

“Time is an important factor here,” Pifer warned. “The West’s economic sanctions against Russia haven’t had their full effect yet.

“Here’s the key question,” he added. “Will economic sanctions erode Russia’s will to fight before the damage to Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure erodes theirs?”

Ukraine still needs all the help it can get, beginning with economic aid and antiaircraft missiles — and including those ATACMS.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

msn.com · by Doyle McManus 5 hrs ago

4. CIA Comrades Honor Mike Spann By Rescuing Afghan Allies

CIA Comrades Honor Mike Spann By Rescuing Afghan Allies

COMMENTARY

By Toby Harnden

December 10, 2022

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/12/10/cia_comrades_honor_mike_spann_by_rescuing_afghan_allies_148592.html

A quiet descended on the approximately 150 people gathered inside a sleek, open-plan office to enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres high in the skyscraper known to New Yorkers as the Freedom Tower. On three sides were breathtaking twilight views from the site that, twenty years earlier, had been Ground Zero, a smoldering pile of rubble and human remains left by the al-Qaida attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center. This was no ordinary Friday evening crowd and the conversations had been neither the usual Wall Street boasts nor inconsequential Manhattan chatter. The event had been organized by the Third Option Foundation, a charity with a mission to “help, heal, and honor” members of the CIA’s Special Operations community.

Among those on the 83rd floor were members of Team Alpha and other CIA officers who had been the first to fight in Afghanistan in 2001. The Kabul station chief who had identified Osama bin Laden’s body after the al-Qaida leader was killed by Navy SEALs in 2011 was there. So too were members of New York’s police and fire departments who had been the first responders on 9/11, along with veterans of Delta Force, the SEALs, and the Green Berets. Senior intelligence officials were in attendance, but no politicians.

Once the noise had subsided, Brian, chief of the CIA’s Special Activities Center, stepped forward to speak, shunning the offer of a microphone. Brian had served as a Marine Corps officer alongside Mike Spann and had joined the CIA with him in 1999. He had attended the same Farm course as Mike and Shannon; on the eve of the uprising at Qala-i Jangi, he had spoken to Mike by radio from the battlefield east of Kunduz. Looking at those around him, Brian quoted the poet William Butler Yeats: “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.” The CIA, he said, had “carried a grudge” for the 20 years since 9/11 and had been honored to “bring some wrath from the World Trade Center to Afghanistan” in the weeks after the al-Qaida attack on America.

Enveloping the evening was a sense of mourning tinged with anger that a two-decade war in Afghanistan had ended in defeat and humiliation for the United States. A month earlier, the American-backed government had collapsed as the Taliban seized control of the capital, leading to a haphazard and bloody evacuation from Kabul that recalled the fall of Saigon in 1975. Just as with the British march on Kabul of 1839 and the Soviet invasion of 1979, for the United States, entry into Afghanistan had proved much easier than exit.

The Taliban, learning from their experience in 2001, had fought a war of attrition in Uzbek and Tajik areas from 2020, ensuring that the north would not be a redoubt of resistance. Mazar-i Sharif fell on Aug. 14, 2021, when the Afghan Army, controlled by President Ashraf Ghani’s government in Kabul, surrendered without a fight. Forces commanded by Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Mohammad Noor realized they faced a choice between death and retreat. The following day, Ghani, anxious to avoid the fate of Najibullah in 1996, secretly fled the country, and, stunningly, Kabul itself succumbed to the Taliban. The Biden administration, which had believed any Taliban victory was many months away, was caught flat-footed. Some 6,000 American troops were sent in to augment the 600 who had been left behind – a force insufficient to hold Bagram, which the United States abandoned in early July without even informing the Afghan Army.

Amid chaotic scenes, the Americans struggled to conduct an evacuation as tens of thousands of Afghans besieged Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, desperate to avoid the prospect of slaughter at the hands of the Taliban. Although 124,000 were eventually evacuated, hundreds of American citizens and many thousands of Afghan allies were left behind. The last American casualties of the war included 11 Marines, who were among 13 U.S. troops and an estimated 170 Afghans killed by a suicide bomber outside the airport on Aug. 27. Although the Taliban had guaranteed security, a terrorist from ISIS-K, the Afghan branch of the Islamic State group, had been able to slip through.

Two days later, the last American missile of the war had been fired by a Reaper drone at a suspected car bomber in Kabul. It was described by the Pentagon as a “righteous strike” but later turned out to be a mistake, killing 10 innocents, seven of them children.

At the Freedom Tower event, the head of the CIA’s Ground Branch, in which Mike Spann had served, spoke of how the author Karl Marlantes, a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, had written about making meaning from loss. The meaning for the CIA, he said, lay in the fact that the Afghan commandos it had trained had conducted a fighting withdrawal to Kabul even after the Afghan Army had collapsed; the commandos had been the decisive factor in seizing the airport and holding its perimeter. Whereas the overall evacuation conducted by the U.S. government had been calamitous, the CIA had been able to get every one of these commandos, along with their families, out of Afghanistan.

As President Joe Biden’s deadline of Aug. 31 – brought forward from the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 – for the U.S. withdrawal approached, the CIA had used its Eagle Base, a former brick factory north of Kabul, to ferry people to the airport in Mi-17 helicopters, evading Taliban checkpoints. Once the evacuation was complete, Eagle Base had been destroyed by a series of controlled explosions. One CIA source estimated that the troops and their families numbered 30,000. The Ground Branch chief said that the CIA could be proud that all the commandos and their families had been resettled in the United States, where they would become loyal Americans. He choked up as he added, “Their grandchildren will someday be able to say, ‘I’m an American because my granddaddy fought with CIA.’”

Dostum managed to get to Ankara, where he remained in exile in 2022, while Atta sought refuge in the United Arab Emirates. Some commanders and their fighters escaped across the Friendship Bridge into Uzbekistan. Others took humanitarian flights to Qatar, Albania, Spain, or Germany before being given refugee visas for the United States. By 2022, three commanders and their large, extended families had arrived in America, with another 20 or so in Uzbekistan, Turkey, and Pakistan. Among the three was Commander Faqir, the Arab-Uzbek loyalist to Dostum who had been with David in the mountains when the CIA man had first killed al-Qaida fighters. Faqir had later led Northern Alliance forces inside Qala-i Jangi. Now, he was learning to speak English and trying to build a new life in New Jersey.

Other CIA allies, however, had not managed to escape. Even as the Freedom Tower event took place, David Tyson, Shannon Spann, and Justin Sapp were part of a group helping commanders from 2001 flee northern Afghanistan. The group was later formalized as Badger Six – the name drawn from the callsign used by Mike, Justin, and Mark Rausenberger during their mission to Bamiyan in October 2001.

One commander – with a Taliban arrest warrant issued for him – and his family remained in hiding in northern Afghanistan, trapped along with some relatives of those already evacuated. The son of a commander killed in 2001 was brutally beaten, his back flayed. None of these families had ever planned or expected to leave Afghanistan or abandon the cause of fighting the Taliban. Although the new Taliban government, anxious to secure international recognition and aid, avoided carrying out large-scale atrocities in the public glare, reprisals were systematic and bloody. Hazaras faced renewed persecution, and there were reports of gang rapes in Mazar-i Sharif. A former commander visiting Dostum in Ankara survived being targeted by an assassination squad apparently tasked by the Taliban.

Among those who had returned to government in the new Taliban regime was Mullah Mohammed Fazl, who oversaw the massacre of Hazaras before 9/11 and orchestrated the Trojan Horse surrender that led to Mike Spann’s death and the Battle of Qala-i Jangi. He had resumed his role as deputy defense minister. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting minister of the interior, was leader of the Haqqani network, which had close ties to al-Qaida. With the last of the resistance in the Panjshir Valley snuffed out, the Taliban’s grip on power was more complete than it had been even in 2001. Al-Qaida, though much degraded, had never left Afghanistan and now faced a challenge from ISIS-K. The Biden administration placed a $10 million bounty on the head of its leader, but there was little indication the United States, without an embassy or CIA station in Kabul, could take any meaningful action in Afghanistan.

A United Nations report concluded there had been no attempt by the Taliban to crack down on ISIS-K or any other organizations with the intent and potential capability of launching attacks on American targets. “On the contrary, terrorist groups enjoy greater freedom [in Afghanistan] than at any time in recent history,” it stated.

In May 2022, Dostum, Atta, and Mohammed Mohaqeq – the Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara warlords who had joined with the CIA and Green Berets to capture Mazar-i Sharif in 2001 – were among 40 Afghan leaders who met in Ankara to announce the creation of a High Council of National Resistance against the Taliban. This time, however, there was no indication that the United States or any regional powers would provide them with the arms and cash they needed. Sporadic fighting by the National Resistance Front (NRF), led by Ahmad Massoud, son of “Lion of the Panjshir” Ahmad Shah Massoud, in the Panjshir Valley appeared futile.

To mark the 20th anniversary of Mike Spann’s death, a group of his CIA comrades and their families and friends visited Arlington National Cemetery. Five members of Team Alpha stood amid the fall leaves, their heads bowed, before grave 2359 in Section 34. Each one spoke of his memories of Mike. “He wanted to see the enemy, he wanted to know the enemy, and to understand the enemy,” said David Tyson. “That’s what led him to be with me at the fort on November 25, 2001. It was his will to be there, and the rest is history.”

Present at the graveside that day was one Afghan whom Team Alpha members had helped evacuate from Mazar-i Sharif to Doha and eventually to Fort Dix, New Jersey, the start of a new life in America. But there were many more Afghans to assist and for now the recriminations and shame of the end of America’s war in Afghanistan had been put to one side. Instead, just as they had two decades earlier, David Tyson and others were focused on an improvised plan that required flexibility and almost constant adaptation. This time, the mission was to get Afghans out of the country rather than U.S. forces in. America had been united in 2001. Now, it was bitterly divided. Rescuing the Afghans, however, was something almost every American could support. Once again, it was the likes of Team Alpha who took it upon themselves to get the job done.

Adapted from the paperback edition of First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11 by Toby Harnden, published by Little, Brown.

A regular broadcaster, Toby Harnden has appeared on CNN, PBS, Fox, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC, Sky, GMTV, Channel 4 News, and the Radio 4 Today program as well as outlets in the Republic of Ireland, Canada, and Australia. You can follow him on Twitter here.

5. Retired senior military officers should not engage in partisan politics

Excerpt:

Restraining senior military leaders from political partisanship would constitute a critical step toward restoring the great confidence that Americans have had in their military leaders over the past several decades. The need to do so is especially urgent, because America once again faces major security challenges from states that would undermine its leadership and seek to do irreparable and lasting harm.

Retired senior military officers should not engage in partisan politics

BY DOV S. ZAKHEIM, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 12/09/22 10:00 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3766851-retired-senior-military-officers-should-not-engage-in-partisan-politics/

In his emotionally charged, highly personal and oftentimes bitter retrospective on America’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan, and his reflections on the two decades of war in that country and in Iraq, the novelist and retired Marine and CIA officer Elliot Ackerman notes: “In 2020 … Americans … got to hear from the military’s retired leadership, as a bevy of flag officers — both on the right and on the left — weighed in on domestic political matters in unprecedented ways. They spoke on television, wrote editorials that denounced one party or the other, and signed their names to letters on everything from the provenance of a suspicious laptop connected to the Democratic nominee’s son to the integrity of the presidential election itself.”

Ackerman goes on to observe, “For now, the military remains one of the most trusted institutions in the United States and one of the few that the public sees as having no overt political bias.” Yet, he continues, “as partisanship taints every facet of American life, it would seem only a matter of time before that infection spreads to the U.S. military.” And, he adds, “From Caesar’s Rome to Napoleon’s France, history shows that when a republic couples a large standing military with dysfunctional domestic politics, democracy doesn’t last long. The United States today meets both conditions.”

Ackerman published these words in August 2022. Barely four months later, the Ronald Reagan National Defense Forum’s annual survey confirmed them. In the five years that the Ronald Reagan Institute has sponsored the survey, the percentage of Americans who had “a great deal of trust” in the American military declined from 70 percent to 48 percent. No other American institution has witnessed such a sharp decline.

Actually, the 48 percent figure marked a modest increase from last year’s 45 percent. Nevertheless, it indicated that Americans no longer admire the military anywhere nearly as much as they did prior to 2016.

Moreover, much as Ackerman anticipated, the most widely cited cause for the sharp downward turn in Americans’ appreciation for the military was due to its perceived politicization. Indeed, no fewer than 62 percent of respondents cited politicization of the military as the reason for their loss of respect for that institution. That 59 percent indicated their lack of faith in “presidential performance and competence” motivated their declining respect for the military nevertheless does not absolve the military from the consequences of its own behavior. And it is the behavior of the senior retired military that arguably is primarily responsible for the declining respect in the institution they long served and led.

Among the reasons for this decline are precisely those Ackerman identified. Only 35 percent of respondents believe that the military always acts in a professional or non-political manner. Thirty-four percent believe the military is becoming overly politicized. Conservatives blame “wokeness”-related policies; progressives point to the presence of extremist groups in the military.

A closer look at the poll’s findings indicates that declining confidence in the military is shared by members of both parties. Most Republicans continue to evince confidence in the armed forces, but that majority is just a slim 51 percent. On the other hand, 47 percent of Democrats and 42 percent of independents — the country’s largest political grouping — do so. Similar percentages apply to whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and all groups under age 65.

Regardless of the reason, it is critical that every effort be made to restore confidence in America’s armed forces. A good first step would be to ban retired flag and general officers from speaking to political conventions, as has been the case in the recent past, as well as leading political rallies with battle cries demeaning candidates from the opposing political party. Senior retired military personnel also should be prohibited from signing letters in support of political parties or candidates, from organizing others to do so, and from partisan appearances in traditional and social media.

Some may argue that such policies violate the freedoms of those who no longer wear a uniform, but the fact is that the government already places some limitations on the activities of retired military personnel, notably with regard to employment. One reason for doing so is that certain types of employment — for example, supporting the activities of particular foreign governments — could compromise retirees who are called back to active duty. While such recalls are rare, they do take place. For example, in 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recalled retired Gen. Peter Schoomaker to serve as Army chief of staff.

The same rationale should apply to retired senior officers. Drawing upon one’s military achievements for partisan purposes — as opposed to seeking political office, as

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have military officers from the earliest days of the republic — should therefore be banned.

Restraining senior military leaders from political partisanship would constitute a critical step toward restoring the great confidence that Americans have had in their military leaders over the past several decades. The need to do so is especially urgent, because America once again faces major security challenges from states that would undermine its leadership and seek to do irreparable and lasting harm.

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was under secretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy under secretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.

6. Air-gapped PCs vulnerable to data theft via power supply radiation

Air-gapped PCs vulnerable to data theft via power supply radiation

BleepingComputer · by Bill Toulas · December 10, 2022

A new attack method named COVID-bit uses electromagnetic waves to transmit data from air-gapped systems, which are isolated from the internet, over a distance of at least two meters (6.5 ft), where it's captured by a receiver.

The information emanating from the isolated device could be picked up by a nearby smartphone or laptop, even if a wall separates the two.

The COVID-bit attack was developed by Ben-Gurion University researcher Mordechai Guri, who has designed multiple methods to steal sensitive data from air-gapped systems stealthily. Prior work includes the “ETHERLED” and “SATAn” attacks.

Initial compromise

Physically air-gapped systems are computers typically found in high-risk environments such as energy infrastructure, government, and weapon control units, so they are isolated from the public internet and other networks for security reasons.

For a successful attack on such systems, a rogue insider or an opportunist intruder must first plant custom-made malware on the target computers through physical access to the air-gapped device or network.

As impractical or even far-fetched this may sound, such attacks have happened, some examples being the Stuxnet worm in Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, the Agent.BTZ that infected a U.S. military base, and the Remsec modular backdoor that collected information from air-gapped government networks for over five years.

To transmit the data in the COVID-bit attack, the researchers created a malware program that regulates CPU load and core frequency in a particular manner to make the power supplies on air-gapped computers emanate electromagnetic radiation on a low-frequency band (0 – 48 kHz).

“The primary source of electromagnetic radiation in SMPS is because of their internal design and switching characteristics,” Mordechai Guri explains in the technical paper.

“In the conversion from AC-DC and DC-DC, the MOSFET switching components turning on or off at specific frequencies create a square wave,” the researcher details.

The electromagnetic wave can carry a payload of raw data, following a strain of eight bits that signify the beginning of the transmission.

CPU frequency changes and payload spectrograms (arxiv.org)

The receiver can be a laptop or smartphone using a small loop antenna connected to the 3.5mm audio jack, which can be easily spoofed in the form of headphones/earphones.

The smartphone can capture the transmission, apply a noise reduction filter, demodulate the raw data, and eventually decode the secret.

Attacker in a less secure area receiving secret data (arxiv.org)

The results

Guri tested three desktop PCs, a laptop, and a single-board computer (Raspberry Pi 3) for various bit rates, maintaining zero bit error rate for up to 200 bps on PCs and the Raspberry Pi and up to 100 bps for the laptop.

Devices used for testing COVID-bit (arxiv.org)

Laptops perform worse because their energy-saving profiles and more energy-efficient CPU cores result in their PSUs not generating strong enough signals.

The desktop PCs could reach a 500bps transmission rate for a bit error rate between 0.01% and 0.8% and 1,000 bps for a still acceptable bit error rate of up to 1.78%.

The distance from the machine was limited for the Raspberry Pi due to its weak power supply, while the signal-to-noise ratio was also worse for the laptop as the testing probes moved further away.

Measured signal-to-noise ratio (arxiv.org)

At the maximum tested transmission rate (1,000 bps), a 10KB file would be transmitted in 80 seconds, a 4096-bit RSA encryption key could be transmitted in as little as 4 seconds or as much as ten minutes, and the raw data from one hour of keylogging would be sent to the receiver in 20 seconds.

Live keylogging would work in real-time, even for transmission rates as low as five bits per second.

Time (in seconds) needed for payload transmission (arxiv.org)

The researcher also experimented with virtual machines, finding that interruptions in VM-exit traps to the hypervisor handler cause a signal degradation between 2 dB and 8 dB.

Protecting against COVID-bit

The most effective defense against the COVID-bit attack would be to tightly restrict access to air-gapped devices to prevent the installation of the required malware. However, this does not protect you from insider threats.

For this attack, the researchers recommend monitoring CPU core usage and detecting suspicious loading patterns that don’t match the computer’s expected behavior.

However, this countermeasure comes with the caveat of having many false positives and adds a data processing overhead that reduces performance and increases energy consumption.

Another countermeasure would be to lock the CPU core frequency at a specific number, making the generation of the data-carrying signal harder, even if not stopping it entirely.

This method has the drawback of reduced processor performance or high energy waste, depending on the selected lock frequency.

BleepingComputer · by Bill Toulas · December 10, 2022

7. China's stunning reversal on lockdowns showed that mass protests can influence policy change in the country — but experts say it still doesn't threaten Xi's regime

Perhaps Xi believes that if he acquiesces on the COVID lockdown issue he will give the appearance of being a leader who is responsive to the people and this will somehow engender some kind of international goodwill.

China's stunning reversal on lockdowns showed that mass protests can influence policy change in the country — but experts say it still doesn't threaten Xi's regime

Business Insider · by Matthew Loh

Standing Committee member and General Secretary and Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen at a press event with members of the new Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and Chinese and Foreign journalists at The Great Hall of People on October 23, 2022 in Beijing, China.

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

China finally relaxed its zero-COVID measures after rare protests raged across the country.
But experts on China say it's unlikely the protests will embolden future political movements.
Xi's grip on power — and social media — makes it too difficult for widespread unrest to bubble up, they said.

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On Wednesday, China finally gave its residents a breather.

In a national memo, the central government announced it would be rolling out 10 immediate changes to the draconian COVID policies that have disgruntled millions of residents with snap lockdowns and repeated mass testing.

The changes come after protests against COVID measures erupted all across China — rare for a country where dissent is snuffed out quickly. Students rallied on campus to decry the lockdowns. Frustrated residents gathered on Beijing's streets, yelling, "No to COVID tests, yes to freedom."

And after three years of pledging to stick by its zero-case strategy, China's leaders relented in a stunning reversal, telling authorities to stop using temporary blockades and allowing the use of antigen kits instead of mass swab tests.

But the chances of this winter's protests inspiring any eventual, larger movement against the Chinese government — or any unsanctioned political movement — are slim to none, experts on China told Insider.

The protests show mass anger can influence government policy, but not regime change

Alicia García-Herrero, the Hong Kong-based chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, said the best way for the Chinese government to avoid further protests was to stimulate its economy — which it's done by relaxing COVID measures.

"I think a lot will depend on how successful the opening up from zero-COVID might be," she told Insider.

"There is of course a risk that Chinese people will read the government's immediate turnaround as protests being effective, increasing the chance of new protests," she said.

Dylan Loh, an assistant professor of public policy and global affairs at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, said it's still unclear how exactly the protests impacted the government's decisions.

The economy had also been floundering under zero-COVID, and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this year announced adjustments to coronavirus measures to make life easier for residents.

"By and large, the protests were directed against the COVID restrictions rather than illustrating any sort of mass discontent with Xi or the regime," said Loh.

Baogang He, the chair of international relations at Deakin University in Australia, agreed that the protests show how mass anger can influence government policy, but not regime change.

"Chinese protestors are realists," he told Insider.

The central government, he said, has become particularly adept at managing dissent.

Nothing close to an Arab Spring yet

Xi has long been vigilant about the possibility of China experiencing its own version of the Arab Spring — when social media fueled uprisings and armed rebellions in the Arab world. China's wildly popular social media platforms, the Twitter-like Weibo and superapp WeChat, are heavily moderated to ban anti-government messages.

Still, residents frustrated with the COVID measures found ways to break through robust censorship by holding up blank sheets of paper or sarcastically spamming the Mandarin word for "good" on social media posts.

"More than anything else, I think the protests probably demonstrate that the state's surveillance mechanisms can be overcome. However, that may require a very significant nationwide issue," said Chong Ja Ian, a professor at the National University of Singapore's political science department. "Whether the protests are effective is another issue."

The demonstrations don't amount to anything like the Arab Spring just yet, Chong said, noting that although the protestors echoed similar sympathies throughout China, there weren't any signs of organization or strategy.

Lu Xi, an assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said any real challenge to Xi's power would likely also need strong support from opposition parties.

"No one is strong enough to exploit or dare to use these protests to mount a challenge to Xi Jinping," Xi, the professor, told Insider.

The Chinese president showed the true, uncontested extent of his power on October 28, when the party leadership announced who would hold the top seven positions in China over the next five years. All seven were Xi's close allies or confidants, confirming signals that other party factions, like the one which included past leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, had lost almost all of their influence.

"The Communist Party has completed a centralized reform of its political structure," Xi, the professor, said. "The old factions have died out."

Chong said that although Xi holds extensive power in China, the protests and subsequent rollback both underscore how he can make major mistakes, too. After all, Xi attached zero-COVID to his personal legacy, he said.

"The bigger, longer term risk for the CCP may be internal," Chong said.

"When Xi gets older and less energetic, and he is about 70, he and his successors may come under more pressure for past slip-ups," he added.

Business Insider · by Matthew Loh

8. Philippines Mulls A Visiting Forces Agreement With Japan – Analysis

The web of US alliances continues to strengthen.

Philippines Mulls A Visiting Forces Agreement With Japan – Analysis

eurasiareview.com · by Geopolitical Monitor · December 11, 2022

By Mark Soo

Filipino senators have been voicing support for the possibility of signing a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with Japan, a country that once occupied the Philippines during World War II. If such an agreement is signed, it would represent the third deal to be signed by the Philippines, following similar VFAs with the United States and Australia. What makes this time different is the significance of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), which is known for its regional presence and, in particular, its active involvement in overseas disaster relief operations.

Such an agreement would be beneficial for the Philippines and Japan as a whole, as it would better enable both countries to do their part in maintaining regional security in the Indo-Pacific. The Philippines benefits via training alongside the JSDF and learning from their experience in disaster relief preparations and disaster risk reduction, while also engaging in joint training on defense-related operations.

The possibility of a Philippines-Japan VFA was first reported in 2015 during the administration of former president Benigno Aquino III, when former Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin remarked that there was increasing convergence on shared security concerns, mostly centered on China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. He also mentioned that a VFA would allow for more opportunities for cooperation between the two countries. However, there is still a legal hurdle that the Philippines must clear in that the Philippines Constitution does not allow for the presence of foreign troops unless treaties are in place.

Steps have been taken by Manila and Tokyo to make an agreement an actual possibility in the near future. For example, Manila and Tokyo signed a Memorandum on Defense Cooperation and Exchanges in 2015. A defense agreement was also reached on February 29, 2016 to legally allow for Japanese military equipment to be transferred to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces (JGSDF) have also signed agreements with the Philippine Army (PA) and the Philippine Marine Corp (PMC) aimed at enhancing defense cooperation during the 6th PA-PMC-JGSDF Staff Talks in Tokyo in September 2022; this agreement was signed just a few months after the Terms of Reference (TOR) in the 6th iteration of the PA-PMC-JGSDF “Strategic Guidance on Cooperation,” which was held on July 27, 2022. Finally, during the 2022 Yama Sakura Exercises held in Japan between the US Army and the JGSDF, the PA will send representatives to observe the exercises with plans to participate in Orient Shield in the future.

Having a Filipino-Japanese VFA signed would be beneficial to both countries in the realm of strategic partnership. The Philippines and Japan have similar security concerns in the Indo-Pacific, framed by China’s military build-up and its encroachment into the South China and East China Seas. Any signing of the agreement is also an indicator that Japan is serious about engaging its allies in Southeast Asia as a regional security player, with the Philippines using these ties as an opportunity to modernize its military and to build defense ties with other friendly countries.

The views expressed in this article belong to the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com

eurasiareview.com · by Geopolitical Monitor · December 11, 2022

9. Pentagon warns China on Asia-Pacific: US will keep war-fighting edge

Pentagon warns China on Asia-Pacific: US will keep war-fighting edge

americanmilitarynews.com · by Tony Capaccio - Bloomberg News · December 11, 2022

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the U.S. is building a more lethal force posture in the Indo-Pacific as part of efforts to make sure China doesn’t dominate the region the way it intends to.

China is “the only country with the will and, increasingly, the power to reshape its region and the international order to suit its authoritarian preferences,” Austin told the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday. “So let me be clear — we’re not going to let that happen.”

Austin said the U.S. would “sustain and sharpen our war-fighting advantages” and bolster its force presence “to build a more lethal, mobile and distributed force posture.”

He cited the B21 stealth bomber, unveiled on Friday, as a key element of its deterrence strategy, and said the U.S. is charting the best way forward for Australia to get a nuclear-powered submarine as soon as possible — a deal announced early in the Biden administration.

The speech amounts to a new warning shot to President Xi Jinping even as the U.S. looks to establish what it calls guardrails and keep tension with China from spiraling out of control.

In its latest report on China’s military strength, released late last month, the U.S. government said China is still intent on gaining the capability to invade by 2027 and become the world’s most powerful military by 2049.

As it looks to counter that push, Austin outlined other measures, saying the Pentagon had sharpened its focus on the Indo-Pacific as the primary theater of operations, including by pushing to be able to mobilize troops more quickly and investing in military construction and logistics.

___

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Flip

americanmilitarynews.com · by Tony Capaccio - Bloomberg News · December 11, 2022

10. For a Quicker End to the Russia War, Step Up Aid to Ukraine

For a Quicker End to the Russia War, Step Up Aid to Ukraine

No negotiated settlement is possible, and the longer the conflict goes on, the costlier it becomes.

By Boris Johnson

Updated Dec. 9, 2022 5:15 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-a-quick-end-to-the-war-step-up-aid-to-ukraine-weapons-aerial-vehicles-february-boundaries-missiles-11670591008?utm_source=pocket_saves

I don’t care how often I have to say it: The war in Ukraine can end only with Vladimir Putin’s defeat. Russian forces must be pushed back to the de facto boundary of Feb. 24. There is no way Volodymyr Zelensky or the Ukrainian people could conceivably accept another outcome, not after the savagery they have endured. There is no land-for-peace deal to be done, even if Mr. Putin were offering it and even if he were to be trusted, which he is not.

Since the war can end only one way, the question is how fast we get to the inevitable conclusion. It’s in everyone’s interest, including Russia’s, that the curtain come down as soon as possible on Mr. Putin’s misadventure. Not in 2025, not in 2024, but in 2023.

The world can’t continue to watch as the Ukrainians are terrorized with missiles and drones. It is a moral abomination that millions are being left night after night without heating or light or water—to say nothing of the continuing and indiscriminate murder of civilians. And the longer Mr. Putin continues with his senseless attacks, the longer the global economic hemorrhage will continue as well.

There is a serious danger of complacency about the consequences of delay. For all who rely on supplies of Russian gas, this winter will be very tough, though thanks to prodigious organizational efforts to store gas supplies we will get through it. The bigger problem is next winter—2023-24—when those stocks will have been run down and become harder to replenish. Newly commissioned liquid natural gas terminals won’t yet be online. Some European countries are rushing to build more offshore wind capacity, but that won’t be ready either; and we certainly won’t have any more civilian nuclear reactors. Are we really going to wait and let this thing drift until Mr. Putin has regained some of his leverage?

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It is time to look urgently at what more the West can do to help the Ukrainians achieve their military objectives, or at least to kick the Russians out of all the territories invaded this year. That’s the only plausible basis on which a conversation about the future could begin. The Ukrainians have the valor necessary to succeed. They have shown it. They just need the equipment.

The American contribution has already been prodigious—at least $17 billion in military aid. The U.K. has committed about £2.3 billion. Other countries have been stepping up. I know these expenditures are painful at a time of fiscal restraint, but time is money, and the longer this goes on the more we will all end up paying in military support.

So let’s share the burden and accelerate the denouement. First let’s give the Ukrainians the help they need against aerial attacks. Kyiv needs unmanned aerial vehicles to detect the launch sites of drones and missiles, as well as antiaircraft missiles to take them out. The drones have the same engines as Vespa scooters, so planes to shoot them down don’t have to be fast. As one Ukrainian put it to me, “Spitfires would do.” We don’t make Spitfires in the U.K. anymore, but plenty of countries have planes that would do the job.

Mr. Putin has reportedly taken to attaching conventional warheads to nuclear cruise missiles, which may indicate that he is running low on drones and missiles. This is just a guess, but we can’t afford to wait to find out. As former U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster recently told me, the Ukrainians need to be able to take out the arrows, and they need to be able to take out the archer as well. They need the longer-range systems, such as ATACMS, that would enable them to target launch sites, and they need armored cars and tanks to retake ground quickly.

I know the wearying counterargument that stepping up supplies to Ukraine risks escalation. We dare not risk “poking the Russian bear.” Surely to goodness, after almost a year of this hideous conflict, we can see what total nonsense this is.

Mr. Putin knows he can’t use nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. He knows the consequences. The truth is that he’s the one who fears escalation. It wasn’t a threat from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that “provoked” him to invade. It was decades of Western lassitude and irresolution about Ukraine’s status that enticed the bully to make his mistake. The West has atoned for this failure with a stunning display of coherence and unity since February. We must be stronger and bolder.

This thing is only going one way. For the sake of the world, let’s help those brave Ukrainians finish the job, and the quicker the better.

Mr. Johnson served as British prime minister, 2019-22.

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WSJ Opinion: Putin’s Culture War Against Ukraine’s National Identity

Gratitude to Ukraine

Security, Freedom, Democracy, Courage, Pluralism, Perseverance, Generosity

snyder.substack.com · by Timothy Snyder

Debts are awkward, especially debts of gratitude. When we owe others too much, we can find it hard to express our appreciation. If we are not reflective, we might minimize our debt, or simply forget it. If we think highly of ourselves, we might ignore a debt to someone we regard as less important. In the worst case, we can resent the people who have helped us, and portray them in a negative light, just to avoid the feeling that we, too, are vulnerable people who sometimes need a helping hand.

Americans (and many others) owe Ukrainians a huge debt of gratitude for their resistance to Russian aggression. For some mixture of reasons, we have difficulty acknowledging this. To do so, we have to find the words. Seven that might help are: security, freedom, democracy, courage, pluralism, perseverance, and generosity.

Perhaps the most important and the most unacknowledged debt is security. Ukrainian resistance to Russia has vastly reduced the chances of major armed conflict elsewhere, and thus significantly reduced the chances of a nuclear war.

Before this war began, one scenario for a major conventional conflict with nuclear risk was a Russian invasion of a NATO country. Ukrainian resistance has revealed the weaknesses of the Russian armed forces, and destroyed much of Russia's fighting capacity. Thanks to Ukraine, this scenario is far less likely than it was a year ago, and will remain unlikely for years to come.

The major scenario for global conflict in the twenty-first century was thought to be a Chinese-American confrontation over Taiwan. As a result of Ukrainian resistance, Beijing sees the difficulties it would face in an offensive in Taiwan. The flashpoint of what most analysts regarded as the most likely (or even inevitable) scenario for major war has essentially been removed.

This debt is all but impossible for Americans to register. In daily press coverage, we are drawn to the headlines that make us feel threatened, or suggest that the war is somehow about us. This can prevent us from seeing the overall picture.

For American policymakers and security analysts, it is literally dumbfounding that another country can do so much for our own security, using methods that we ourselves could not have employed. Ukraine has reduced the risk of war with Russia from a posture of simple delf-defense. Ukraine has reduced the threat of a war with China without confronting China, and indeed while pursuing good relations with China. None of that was available to Americans. And yet the consequence is greater security for Americans.

For me personally, the greatest debt concerns freedom. This is a word that we Americans use quite a lot, but we sometimes lose track of what it really means. For the past thirty years or so, we have fallen into a very bad habit of believing that freedom is something that is delivered to us by larger forces, for example by capitalism. This is simply not true, and believing it has made us less free. "The whole history of the progress of human liberty," Frederick Douglass said, "shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle." It will always be the case that freedom depends upon some kind of risky effort made against the larger forces. Freedom, in other words, will always depend upon an ethical commitment to a different and better world, and will always suffer when we believe that the world itself will do the work for us.

By choosing to resist invasion in the name of freedom, Ukrainians have reminded us of this. And in doing so, they have offered us many interesting thoughts about what freedom might be. Volodymyr Zelens'kyi, for example, makes the interesting point that freedom and security tend to work together. Throughout this war, speaking to Ukrainians, I have been struck that they define freedom as a positive project, as a way of being in the world, a richness of the future. Freedom doesn't just mean overcoming the Russians; it means creating better and more interesting lives and a better and more interesting country.

It is hard to overlook what Ukrainians have done to defend the idea of democracy. In a basic sense, this is what the war is about. Vladimir Putin represents the twenty-first century practice of managed or fake democracy, in which an oligarchy preserves some appearances and rhetoric of democracy, because it has no alternative to propose, while hoarding wealth and power and making any meaningful political participation impossible. The Russian system relies on a televisual spectacle that assures Russians that everyone else is just as corrupt, and so they should love their own Russian corruption because it is Russian.

But what if everyone is not equally corrupt? What if there were a neighboring state, Ukraine, where elections are actually free, and where unexpected people can come to power? This is what has to be made unthinkable, by hate speech directed at Ukrainians, and by war since 2014, including the full-scale Russian invasion of this year. Its goal, precisely, was to physically eliminate the legitimate Ukrainian government as well as the leaders of Ukrainian civil society, and thereby make of Ukraine a kind of Russian hinterland.

The elemental resistance of so many Ukrainians to this, which Russian political and media elites cannot understand, is grounded in the simple notion that Ukrainians citizens should choose their leaders. Ukrainian democracy has many problems, and during the war has been altered by the necessities of combat. But Ukrainians are defending the basic concept of self-rule, and at huge cost to themselves. They are doing so at a moment when it seemed that authoritarianism was getting the upper hand around the world. For anyone who cares about democracy, this is a huge debt.

In all of this, Ukrainians have set an unmistakable example of courage. In the Republic, Plato has Socrates name courage as one of the virtues of the city. I can't help but think of this when I recall Zelens'kyi's choice to remain in Kyiv, even as almost everyone beyond Ukraine expected him to flee. The security of some (us) sometimes depends on the courage of others (Ukrainians). Freedom will always requires courage: as Pericles said, "freedom is the sure possession alone of those who have the courage to defend it." And the same holds for democracy. It is an inherently courageous endeavor, since the larger forces of oligarchy will always be in opposition, and our less noble inner voices will always urge us to submit and conform. His courage, as he himself puts it, was "representative": he knew what his people expected him to do, and he did it.

Who were these people? Zelens'kyi, who represents a national minority in Ukraine (he's Jewish), was elected by 73% of the population. This suggests the pluralism that is essential to Ukraine, and to Ukrainian resistance. Apologists for dictators (and there are many such people in the United States), tend to claim that only uniformity will bring effectiveness, especially is times of war. This is certainly the approach that Russia brought to the war: uniformity of command, uniformity of ideology, and the bloody and criminal attempt to homogenize Ukrainian territories under occupation which amounts to genocide.

Ukrainians, meanwhile, have resisted in a very different way. When the government speaks of liberating Crimea, it emphasizes the rights of its indigenous people, the Crimean Tatars. Much of Ukrainians' success on the battlefield depends upon a heterogenous and self-confident civil society, capable of supporting soldiers and performing services in areas where the central state is weak. The Ukrainian armed forces allow local commanders a great deal of discretion. Those armed forces function in two languages, Ukrainian and Russian, and represent diversity of gender (and sexual orientation. The Ukrainian armed forces, unlike the Russian (and many others), also represent diversity of social class. Interestingly, the research tends to show that diversity in groups tends to lead to better decision-making. Russian propagandists see all of these manifestations of diversity as deviance. But the lesson seems to be that respecting dignity leads to better results, including on the battlefield.

It is easy for me to write of these debts. It takes but a moment. But they have been accumulated over time. Ukrainians have demonstrated extraordinary perseverance. The decision to resist at the beginning, crucial thought it was, has to be followed by that same decision, over and over, hour after hour, day after say, shelling after shelling, bombing after bombing, missile attack after missile attack, drone strike after drone strike. Ukraine is a country where most of the population has had to leave their homes, where whole cities have been destroyed, where millions of people right now are denied access to electricity and water. Winter is coming, and the Ukrainians persevere.

Everything that the rest of us gain from Ukrainian resistance -- in terms of security, freedom, democracy, courage, pluralism -- depend upon this capacity to persevere. Given the way we Americans process information and emotion, rapidly and with a hunger for the next thing, this element of our debt to Ukrainians might be among the hardest to appreciate. The Russian poet Mayakovsky, in his anti-imperialist poem "Debt to Ukraine," asks "Do you know the Ukrainian night?" And answers: "No, you do not know the Ukrainian night. Here the sky goes black from smoke." We do not know the Ukrainian night. But this perseverance is a powerful debt to Ukraine.

Ukrainians tend to confound our ability to appreciate all of these debts with their own generosity. I have been to Ukraine and back since the war began, and it is a long trip, even when made in the best of circumstances. When Ukrainian colleagues make that journey in the other direction, they seem always to remember to bring gifts for the Americans they will see (especially for their children). There is a simple dignity in this: despite war, courtesies will be preserved. But in that effort to carry a meaningful object on a difficult two-day journey from a war-torn country, I tend to feel a deeper awkwardness: we Americans lack even the custom of bringing gifts to hosts, let alone the habit of appreciating them -- can I possibly be sufficiently grateful?

Carnegie Hall, 4 December 2022

I thought of this a week ago, in Carnegie Hall, listening to an American Christmas song, "The Carol of the Bells." Every year since childhood I have been struck by how this song stands out from all the other season melodies, as the only one of captivating beauty. There is a reason why it seems different: it is actually Ukrainian, an arrangement by a Ukrainian composer (Mykola Leontovych) of an ancient polyphonic folk song.

The song was taken over by our culture, with new English words about bells, which are lovely enough in their own way, and which preserve the spirit of good cheer in the original. The Ukrainian song, though, is not about Christmas at all; it cannot be, since it refers to pre-Christian traditions. It is about about spring, about the favorable signs brought by animals, about present love and coming prosperity. It is a song of affirmation and encouragement. Its very name, "Shchedryk," suggests generosity and abundance.

"Shchedryk" was performed in Carnegie Hall in October 1921 by Ukrainian musicians seeking support for a threatened Ukrainian republic. Its Ukrainian composer, Leontovych, had been murdered by the Bolshevik secret police earlier that year. Most of what is now Ukraine would soon thereafter be incorporated into the Soviet Union. The song was Americanized in 1936, not long after the great famine in Soviet Ukraine, just at the beginning of Stalin's great terror. Its origins were forgotten, as was Ukraine in general.

The Ukrainian children's choir that travelled to New York this month to perform the song came bearing a gift, their presence and their performance, one that gently echoed back to us our appropriation of a song, but without resentment, only with generosity. When it was performed as an encore, with the Ukrainian and American lyrics in alternation, Ukrainians and Americans in the concert hall were crying, for good reasons, if for different ones, but together.

11 December 2022

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PS The concert was a fundraiser to help rebuild Ukrainian cities.

snyder.substack.com · by Timothy Snyder

12. Zelenskyy is stuck selling democracy to American leaders who no longer want it

Zelenskyy is stuck selling democracy to American leaders who no longer want it

Ukraine's president is now contending with the fact that protecting was never high on the Trumpist agenda.

msnbc.com · by Nayyera Haq, MSNBC Opinion Columnist · December 11, 2022

Shortly after drone strikes hit military sites deep in Russia for the first time, it was announced that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been chosen as Time Person of the Year. Along with “the spirit of Ukraine,” the magazine awarded Zelenskyy “for proving that courage can be as contagious as fear” and “for reminding the world of the fragility of democracy.”

Zelenskyy’s charisma and storytelling genius has allowed American leaders and civilians alike to participate in the existential survival of democracy.

This narrative — that Ukraine is bearing the cost of defending democracy for the rest of us — is essential to Ukraine’s mission of maintaining popular support. Zelenskyy’s charisma and storytelling genius has allowed American leaders and civilians alike to participate in the existential survival of democracy. Zelenskyy allows the United States to reap the benefits of battling Russia without ever putting a U.S. soldier in harm’s way.

So far, it’s been successful. The Zelenskyy spirit inspired a full-throated American and European defense after the Russian army invaded Ukraine in late February 2022. A joint session of Congress quickly followed, along with U.S. military support worth $68 billion (and counting). Early intelligence assessments and Russian propaganda had the world expecting the invading army would swiftly topple Zelenskyy's government in Kyiv, leaving Russian President Vladimir Putin to install a puppet regime that would answer directly to him while maintaining the fiction of democracy. Since the 2014 invasion of Crimea resulted in minor sanctions and the world continued on its way, Putin had reason to believe the 2022 invasion would be equally easy.

Ukrainian president named Time’s Person of the Year

Dec. 8, 202203:45

Now the war enters its 10th month. Putin may have been a victim of his own spin, only this week admitting his war with Ukraine could be a “lengthy process.” The Russian army never had morale on its side, nor does it have the equipment and training to match the allied might of NATO and Ukrainians hell-bent on defending their homeland. A dozen Russian generals, forced to take the field, have lost their lives. For the first time in decades, Russian men were conscripted off the street under the guise of patriotism. Combined with sanctions that nearly shut down the Russian central bank and restrictions on Russia’s oil economy, the full cost of Putin’s imperial ambition hits home for everyday Russians.

But until something shifts in Putin’s psyche — until he decides he is done — all sides in this war will escalate their actions in order to gain the upper hand. After sending U.S. military trainers to Poland, shipping 1,400 anti-aircraft Stinger missiles to the front, and providing more than one million rounds of artillery, a bipartisan group of American legislators now wants to send more advanced drones to expand Ukrainian abilities. The drones would give Ukraine the “potential to drive the strategic course of the war” in its favor. Since Russia uses drones gifted by Iran against civilians, the Ukrainians want American drones capable of hitting warships in the Black Sea and flying 30 hours into Russian territory.

With Republicans poised to take over the House next month, support for Ukraine dropped by 30%.

But this unequivocal American support for Ukraine may change next month. Republican legislators are already circulating language to audit the Pentagon’s spending for Ukraine, which will slow down U.S. military support at a pivotal moment in the war. The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, warned, “The era of writing blank checks is over.”

At the start of the war, 80% of Republicans supported Ukraine; with Republicans poised to take over the House next month, support for Ukraine dropped by 30%. This should not be a surprise; protecting democracy as we know it and preserving the post-World War II liberal world order were never high on the Trumpist agenda. The previous president escalated his own attacks on democracy just this week, calling for the suspension of the U.S. Constitution.

The next Congress may no longer use taxpayer dollars in the defense of democracy, whether at home or abroad. The official committee investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection will come to an end; any new committee discussion of that day could focus on casting rioters as victims of law enforcement overreach. House Republicans also plan to pivot to investigating “Hunter Biden’s laptop,” the same conspiracy Donald Trump used to try to coerce Zelenskyy into meddling in U.S. election politics.

Three years ago, Zelenskyy found himself on a similar Time magazine cover, portrayed as “The Man in the Middle … Caught Between Putin and Trump.” Back then, his staff said, “Zelenskyy will never get mixed up in the internal politics of the United States of America.” This was before Russia deployed its largest force since the Cold War into his country, leveling cities and cutting Ukrainians off from the world. Zelenskyy has no choice but to continue his campaign of convincing Americans — and their politicians — that fighting Russia by proxy is worth the price.

Zelenskyy is now stuck in the unenviable position of selling democracy to American leaders who no longer want it.

msnbc.com · by Nayyera Haq, MSNBC Opinion Columnist · December 11, 2022

13. Johnny Johnson, the Last World War II ‘Dambuster,’ Dies at 101

Soon there will be no heroes left from WWII.

Johnny Johnson, the Last World War II ‘Dambuster,’ Dies at 101

nytimes.com · by Richard Goldstein · December 8, 2022

With the Royal Air Force, he took part in a morale-boosting strike on Nazi Germany’s industrial heartland, breaching dams and unleashing devastating floods.

George Johnson, who was known as Johnny, in 2018 during an event in Coningsby, England, marking the 75th anniversary of what became known as the Dambuster raids.Credit...Leon Neal/Getty Images

In the hours before dawn on May 17, 1943, airmen from Britain and its commonwealth carried out an audacious low-level raid on Germany’s industrial heartland, the Ruhr region. They dropped specially designed bombs that breached two major dams and damaged another, creating massive floods in a dramatic strike against the Nazi war machine. The torrent destroyed war plants, power stations, bridges, railroads and roads; devastated farmland; and washed away towns.

The 133 men aboard the raid’s 19 Lancaster heavy bombers were members of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron. But they would soon be known as the Dambusters, for a mission that became a storied chapter of British air power in World War II.

The devastation from the floodwaters forced Germany to divert thousands of troops to the repair efforts over the months that followed and provided a huge boost to British morale. But it also brought the deaths of an estimated 1,200 to 1,600 people trapped by the flooding, a majority of them slave laborers and prisoners of war unable to escape their confinement.

Eight of the bombers were either shot down or lost in accidents, resulting in the deaths of 53 crewmen and the capture of three others.

When George Johnson, an Englishman known as Johnny, died on Wednesday night in a care home in the Bristol area of southwest England, he was remembered as the last surviving airman of the Dambuster raid. He was 101.

His death, announced by his family on Facebook, came five years after Queen Elizabeth II conveyed the title Member of the Order of the British Empire on Mr. Johnson in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

The honor was bestowed after thousands had signed a petition asking that Mr. Johnson, a bomb-aimer during the war (the equivalent of an American bombardier), be accorded recognition in his final years as a collective tribute to the Dambusters.

George Leonard Johnson was born on Nov. 25, 1921, in the East Midlands village of Hameringham, the youngest of six children of Charles and Mary Ellen (Henfrey) Johnson. His father was a farmer; his mother died when George was 3.

He entered an agricultural school at age 11, graduated in 1939 and joined the Royal Air Force in 1940.

After flying some 50 missions over Europe, Mr. Johnson, a sergeant, was assigned to the 617 Squadron, a secret unit created only two months before the Dambuster raid.

Braving antiaircraft fire, the squadron, based at Scampton, north of London, breached Germany’s Eder and Möhne dams and damaged the Sorpe Dam in what was formally known as Operation Chastise.

Since the dams were considered too narrow to be pinpointed from the air, especially at night, the planes carried innovative “bouncing bombs” — essentially underwater mines — designed for the raid by a British engineer named Barnes Wallis.

In the attacks on the Möhne and Eder dams, from a height of about 60 feet, the bombs were dropped into reservoirs several hundred yards from the dams, then bounced along the water’s surface to avoid anti-submarine nets. Upon reaching the walls, they descended underwater to a prescribed depth. Set off by a timer, they blew huge holes in the dams, allowing billions of tons of water to tear through them.

The crew of Sergeant Johnson’s plane — flown by the lone American on the raid, Flight Lt. Joe McCarthy, a native of Long Island who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force — had an even tougher task

Its target, the Sorpe Dam, was an embankment lined with soil and rocks that was expected to absorb much of a bomb’s explosive power, in contrast to the two more vulnerable masonry dams.

“It was misty on the way out, but we did find the Sorpe,” Mr. Johnson recalled in his memoir, “The Last British Dambuster” (2014). “In the totally clear moonlight, it was an incredible sight.”

Lieutenant McCarthy had to clear the steeple of a church, then dip to a level of 30 feet and fly parallel and extraordinarily close to the wall for his plane’s bomb to make a significant impact when it exploded underwater. He made repeated runs along the dam before Sergeant Johnson was satisfied that he could drop his bomb at the center point, where it could do the most damage.

“I found out very quickly how to be the most unpopular member of the crew,” Mr. Johnson recalled in a 2013 interview with the University of Huddersfield in England, explaining that his patience had increased the chances of his plane being spotted by the Germans.

At one point, he said, his rear gunner pleaded, “Will somebody just get that bomb out of here?”

“After nine dummy runs, we were satisfied we were on the right track,” Mr. Johnson wrote in his memoir. “I pushed the button and called, ‘Bomb gone!’ From the rear of the plane was heard ‘Thank Christ for that!’ The explosion threw up a fountain of water up to about 1,000 feet.”

The bomb, which detonated at a water depth of 25 to 30 feet, damaged the dam but did not breach it. Seconds later, Lieutenant McCarthy had to pull up in order to avoid crashing into a hill. One other Lancaster hit the dam, but its bomb caused only minor damage as well.

Two days after the raid, Prime Minister Winston Churchill hailed it in a speech to a joint session of Congress. King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), visited the airmen at their base in late May to offer congratulations.

The squadron leader, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, who would be killed in action later in the war, received the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for valor. Sergeant Johnson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal.

The raid was recounted in the 1955 British film “The Dam Busters,” starring Richard Todd as Commander Gibson and Michael Redgrave as Mr. Wallis. It was based in part on Paul Brickhill’s 1951 book of the same title.

Mr. Johnson retired from the Royal Air Force in 1962 and became a teacher. He spoke to schoolchildren in his later years about the Dambusters’ exploits.

His wife, Gwyn (Morgan) Johnson, died in 2005. Information on his survivors was not immediately available.

For all the harrowing missions he took part in, Mr. Johnson said, he felt confident that he would survive.

“I didn’t feel afraid,” he told James Holland for his book “Dam Busters” (2012), in recalling his combat service between 1942 and 1944. “I was sure I was going to come back every time.”

nytimes.com · by Richard Goldstein · December 8, 2022

14. How Chinese netizens breached the great firewall

How Chinese netizens breached the great firewall

And what the government is doing to keep it from happening again

The Economist

In April a young Chinese painter in Italy began using Twitter to publish content forwarded by censor-wary netizens in China. For much of the previous year, he had done the same on Weibo, a Chinese social-media platform. But he moved to Twitter after Chinese authorities closed his Weibo accounts. For the first few months, his posts were not widely read. Twitter is blocked in China. And he tweets in Chinese, limiting his foreign audience.

Yet his account, “Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher”, became a critical conduit for information about the protests against covid-19 restrictions that erupted across China last month (one is pictured). Participants and spectators sent him loads of images and eyewitness accounts by direct message. By reposting many, he played an important role in conveying the scale of the unrest to others, in China and abroad. He also gained almost 600,000 new followers and 387m visits to his Twitter profile in November alone.

Teacher Li’s account was just one manifestation of the biggest breach in China’s internet controls since they began in the late 1990s. Public anger has flared online before, but never coalesced into widespread physical protests. Now cyber administrators are scrambling to plug holes in the “great firewall”, lest a new surge of covid leads to more digital dissent.

One reason for last month’s breach was the sheer volume of people involved. The great firewall automatically blocks politically sensitive terms and many foreign sites, including news outlets, search engines and social media. China also mandates domestic technology firms to employ armies of censors who screen user-generated content using frequently updated lists of restricted words and images.

But the deluge of information posted in late November—featuring different activities and slogans—appears to have overwhelmed both algorithms and human censors. Many people in China learned of the protests from local messaging apps, where images and comments were often copied or downloaded before censors could delete them, and then reposted multiple times.

Eric Liu, a former Weibo censor, says that China’s bureaucracy is so centralised that when unfamiliar threats arise, sensitive information can spread widely while censors await official orders. “With this level of protest every bureaucrat is afraid to make a decision for himself,” he says.

Other industry insiders suggest that some Chinese tech companies’ spending on in-house censorship has been constrained by financial difficulties since a crackdown on the sector began in 2020. Chinese authorities have now ordered them to boost their censor cohorts and pay closer attention to protest-related content, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Chinese netizens are becoming more inventive, too, posting political messages on dating sites or in the comments section of otherwise uncontroversial content. Artificial intelligence does not spot sarcasm easily, so under official posts on social media, many left messages simply repeating the Chinese word for “good”. Others posted images of blank white sheets of paper.

Then there are foreign social-media accounts like Teacher Li’s, which aggregate and amplify information sent from China. While Chinese authorities and their proxies cite that as evidence of “foreign forces” fomenting unrest, researchers suggest it is driven more by Chinese nationals abroad, especially students, and people within China who use virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent the great firewall.

China lets businesses use licensed domestic VPNs. But many Chinese have illicit ones and, though numbers are hard to measure, researchers cite a recent uptick in demand (not least from students studying at home). Xiao Qiang of the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that 10m people are using VPNs daily in China, up from about 2m at the pandemic’s outset.

There are also signs of more Chinese joining Twitter (using VPNs) but communicating only via direct message. Twitter does not share the number of users in China, but Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld of the University of California, Los Angeles, estimates it rose by around 10% in early 2020 as people sought covid news. He also noted an increase in Twitter downloads during the protests. “If I had to bet, I would say more people are using Twitter now than two months ago, but they are being very cautious with their behaviour,” he says.

Chinese authorities appear alarmed, particularly by what they call the “backflow” of information from abroad. On November 28th the government’s internet watchdog declared a “Level 1 Internet Emergency Response”, requiring the highest level of content management. It ordered Chinese e-commerce sites to curb sales of censorship-circumvention tools, including VPNs and foreign Apple accounts (which enable downloads of apps forbidden in China). It also instructed Chinese tech firms to scrub user-generated advice on “jumping” the great firewall.

At the same time, Chinese authorities are using more intrusive methods that span the digital and physical worlds. Police have searched handsets for banned apps or protest-related images and contacted protesters identified via mobile-phone location data. Teacher Li says police have visited his parents in China several times, presenting them with a list of his tweets as “criminal evidence” and threatening to block them from sending him money. “The psychological pressure is great,” he says. “But this account isn’t just about our family. It’s about the well-being of countless Chinese people. So I won’t stop.” ■

Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world.

The Economist

15. An Assessment of U.S. Military Thinking on Cislunar Space Based on Current Doctrine

An Assessment of U.S. Military Thinking on Cislunar Space Based on Current Doctrine

divergentoptions.org · by Divergent Options · December 12, 2022

Louis Melancon, PhD made his own green-to-blue leap from the U.S. Army to the U.S. Space Force where he currently serves in Space Systems Command. 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: An Assessment of U.S. Military Thinking on Cislunar Space Based on Current Doctrine

Date Originally Written: December 4, 2022.

Date Originally Published: December 12, 2022.

Author and / or Article Point of View: The author believes that doctrine shapes the mindsets and the eventual culture of military organizations. Current U.S. military space doctrine is insufficient to create the mindsets and culture to face the emerging challenges of cislunar operations.

Summary: The U.S. military mindset for space myopically focues on orbital regimes, similar to a green water navy staying in littoral waters. If this mindset continues, the U.S. military cannot compete in cislunar space (the area of space between the earth and the moon or the moon’s orbit) in the same way in which a blue water navy competes in the open ocean. The maritime theory of Sir Julian Corbett is useful as a lens to understand the current mindset constraints and shortfalls.

Text: The race for cislunar space is underway. The recent the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Artemis mission heralding an impending return of manned space flight beyond orbital regimes is an inspiring early leg. At least six nations are currently pursing efforts beyond geocentrism and its orbital regimes, pursuing moon missions and other activities at positions in space where objects sent there tend to stay put, known as LaGrange Points[1]. The ability to operate reliably in cislunar space is not just a matter of national pride, it is a demonstration of and mechanism by which to grow multiple aspects of national power. There are clear reasons for this: cislunar space offers a new frontier for economic development and if mankind permanently lives beyond the Earth, it will be in cislunar space.

Elements of the U.S. government are fully ready enter into this race. The recent National Cislunar Science and Technology Strategy is a bold call for action. This document recognizes the importance of scientific and commercial development of cislunar space and the importance this will play for the future of U.S. national power[2]. It is with some, but not much, hyperbole that this strategy seems like a homage to Sir Julian Corbett, perhaps not the most well known, but in the author’s opinion the most thoughtful theorist on naval and maritime power.

For the purposes of this article, there are a handful of applicable insights from Corbett’s seminal work, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy that are useful to assess the importance of the U.S. military being involved in cislunar space. Corbett proposes that a naval force alone rarely wins a war. Rather than the decisive fleet action of Alfred Thayer Mahan, Corbett sees a larger maritime picture[3]. It is not just a naval force but the economy through trade, communications, and naval capability of a state altogether traversing that common of the world’s oceans. Preserving and growing this strength requires command of the sea, and that is what Corbett suggests non-continental, maritime states leverage to be successful in conflict rather than simply relying on a powerful fleet. Command of the sea is not a constant condition. It is fleeting, pursued at positively at times, denied to adversaries at times, wholly up for grabs between adversaries at other times. But you do have to be there to compete. This brings us to the another insight, about the necessity of a fleet.

Corbett also believes it is necessary to have a fleet in being to establish command of the sea. This is a different definition than the modern parlance which describes ships in a defended port. Here it is more about the fleet existing and operating somewhere, creating the potential for command of the sea by, at a minimum, denying an adversary the ability to feel they have a fully secured command of the sea[4]. The only type of force that can provide this is, using modern terms, a “blue water navy,” a force that can operate across the isolation of the wide, open oceans. In the space domain cislunar is the wide, open ocean.

The problem is that the doctrinal space heuristic in the U.S. military doesn’t account for this Corbettian concept of command of the sea. There is a mismatch between the orbital regime heuristic and cislunar space as an area of competition. Whether one is looking at the unclassified summary of the Defense Space Strategy[5], Joint Publication 3-14 Space Operations[6], or the U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) Spacepower[7], the geocentric/orbital regime is the dominant, truthfully sole, heuristic. This single view results in mindsets and concepts that create a “green water navy” — a force that only operates within its littoral and neighboring waters, i.e. the orbital regimes near Earth, not a blue water navy that can establish and challenge command of the sea in cislunar space.

Don’t misunderstand: it is absolutely critical that the USSF operate and dominate in the littoral waters of the orbital regimes. As the USSF Chief of Space Operations has publicly stated, all the other military services require space to fulfill their missions[8]. It is not an exaggeration that space is the glue binding how the U.S. joint force prefers to fight its wars. USSF must then operate effectively in the orbital regimes, enabling the rest of the military. This orbital regime mindset too aligns beautifully with Corbett, but Corbett pointed out that this is not sufficient[9]. Yes, different forms of equipment are needed between a green water and blue water force, but placing equipment differences aside, a blue water force can accomplish the functions of a green water force. The inverse doesn’t hold. Each breeds different mindsets, doctrines, and thus heuristics. A blue water force must cultivate and rely on a mission command, an independent mindset, that is not a requirement for a littoral focused force.

The doctrinal documents mentioned don’t preclude cislunar operations. Spacepower mentions cislunar three times. But it does so in relation to orbital regimes, not a distinct area for operational and conceptual development. The argument that cislunar space isn’t precluded in the doctrine is weak, because cislunar presents a wholly different challenge, thus demanding new thinking patterns. The previous mental construct simply is an ill fit. Heuristics provide easy button when encountering roughly similar problems, but that’s also their danger. Not realizing the problems aren’t similar means a failed fit and tends to crowd out new ideas. This is where U.S. military space doctrine currently finds itself, potentially applying a way of thinking with which they are comfortable to a new problem that doesn’t suit that solution.

Navies have and can evolved from green to blue water. But that takes time, lots of time. Other players in the U.S. government, other nations, and some commercial actors are not taking that time. There are bold efforts to create new heuristics for this space. The question becomes if the U.S. military feels it should slowly evolve or have a revolutionary leap, challenging its newest military service with jumping rather than crawling from green water force tethered to Earth through orbital regimes or a blue water force independently operating in cislunar space. If it is the latter, these efforts will be stymied due to current heuristics and doctrine with limited cislunar vision.

Endnotes:

[1] Duffy, L., & Lake, J., (2021). Cislunar Spacepower the New Frontier.Space Force Journal. Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://spaceforcejournal.org/3859-2/.

[2] Cislunar Technology Strategy Interagency Working Group (2022). National Cislunar Science and Technology Strategy. National Science and Technology Council.

[3] Corbett, J. S. (2004). Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. Courier Corporation.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Esper, M. (2020). Defense Space Strategy Summary. Office of the Secretary of Defense.

[6] Joint Staff (2020). Joint Publication 3-14 Space Operations. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

[7] Raymond, J. (2020). Spacepower: Doctrine for Space Forces. US Space Force.

[8] Pope, C. (2022, Nov 2). “Saltzman formally elevated to Space Force’s highest position – Chief of Space Operations.” https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3207813/saltzman-formally-elevated-to-space-forces-highest-position-chief-of-space-oper/

[9] Corbett. Principles.

divergentoptions.org · by Divergent Options · December 12, 2022

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