Quotes of the Day:

"Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you're already in heaven now." 

~ Jack Kerouac

"Hate, in the long run, is about as nourishing as cyanide." 

~ Kurt Vonnegut

"If you understand each other you will be kind to each other." 

~ John Steinbeck

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 27, 2023

2. July has been so blistering hot, scientists already calculate that it's the warmest month on record

3. Hong Kong court rejects government-requested ban on protest song 'Glory to Hong Kong'

4. Ukrainian Resistance Adapts to Key Role in Counteroffensive

5. Afghanistan shows the U.S. needs a doctrine not just for fighting wars, but also leaving them

6. Hollywood Runs—and Ruins—U.S. Foreign Policy

7. Three ways a technological revolution will impact the intel community

8. 'Will end in a stalemate': Some experts say offensive won't win Ukraine war.

9. How to Win with Data: The US SOF-Cyber Partnership Supporting Ukraine

10. Negotiating an End to the Ukraine War

11. What Does Qin Gang’s Removal Mean for China’s Foreign Policy?

12. What Russia’s Wagner Group Can Teach NATO

13. Stealth Superpowers And The New World Order

14. Beijing’s Wagner Wariness

15. Renowned Geopolitical Analyst Predicts China's Imminent Collapse

16. Niger Coup Leader Joins Long Line of U.S.-Trained Mutineers

17. The Mighty Dollar Is Rhetorically Endangered But Safe, For Now – Analysis

18. 'Sound of Freedom' misleads audiences about the horrible reality of human trafficking

19. 27th SOW Participates in Talisman Sabre 2023 | SOF​ NEWS

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 27, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-27-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 27 and made gains in some areas, although Ukrainian forces appear not to have continued significant mechanized assaults south of Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• A US official expressed caution about assessing that the July 26 uptick in Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast is part of the Ukrainian main effort, tempering July 26 statements to the contrary.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin used the Russia–Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in St. Petersburg on July 27 to continue efforts to posture Russia as a more attractive ally to African partner states than the collective West.
• Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin was also present in St. Petersburg on July 27 and took the opportunity to informally meet with an unknown number of African leaders, suggesting that the Wagner Group intends to remain a significant player in Africa.
• Prigozhin additionally used the backdrop of the Russia-Africa summit to position Wagner as a viable anti-Western partner for post-coup Niger.
• The Kremlin reportedly distributed a manual to Russian state media on framing the anniversary of the Baptism of Rus on July 28, likely as part of continued information operations and propaganda narratives to advance Russian military objectives.
• Russia conducted another strike on Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast and rear areas of Ukraine overnight on July 26–27.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, in Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on July 27 and did not make any confirmed advances.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 27 and have advanced south of Bakhmut, in the Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• The Russian State Duma approved measures on July 27 aimed at clarifying confusion surrounding the recently updated laws regarding conscripts and reservists.
• Russian authorities are discriminating against Ukrainian refugees in Belgorod Oblast, Russia.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT JULY 27, 2023

Jul 27, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 27, 2023

Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Angelica Evans, Christina Harward, and Frederick W. Kagan

July 27, 2023, 7:30pm ET 

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

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

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 1pm ET on July 27. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 28 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 27 and made gains in some areas, although Ukrainian forces appear not to have continued significant mechanized assaults south of Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted footage on July 27 showing that Ukrainian forces liberated Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) in western Donetsk Oblast following heavy fighting in the area.[1] Geolocated footage published on July 26 indicates that Ukrainian forces also made marginal advances north of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[2] Geolocated footage published on July 26 suggests that Ukrainian forces made additional advances east of Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) during offensive operations on July 26.[3] Ukrainian Director of the Department of Application Planning at the Main Command of the National Guard Mykola Urshalovych stated on July 27 that Ukrainian forces achieved tactical victories in the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) direction.[4] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued assaults at a lower tempo and with far less manpower near Robotyne on July 27 after Ukrainian forces launched an intense mechanized frontal assault that broke through Russian defensive positions northeast of the settlement on July 26.[5] Geolocated footage published on July 27 suggests that Ukrainian forces may be operating in areas well forward of where ISW assesses Ukrainian advances to be as a result of ISW’s intentionally conservative assessments about control of terrain (covered in more detail in Southern Axis text).[6]

The Kremlin and the wider Russian information space are intensifying efforts to portray the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failed effort. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated to a reporter on July 27 that in recent days Russian forces destroyed 39 armored vehicles out of 50 that Ukrainian forces committed to intensified assaults in the Zaporizhia direction.[7] Putin claimed that Russian forces also killed 60 percent of the Ukrainian personnel that conducted these assaults as well as 40 percent of Ukrainian combat aviation pilots in the area.[8] Putin has previously claimed that Russian forces have destroyed an implausible amount of Ukrainian equipment during Ukrainian counteroffensive operations, although his figures concerning Ukrainian assaults in recent days indicate an inflection in his exaggeration of likely Ukrainian losses.[9] Russian milbloggers similarly claimed that Russian forces destroyed dozens of Ukrainian armored vehicles and celebrated the alleged losses as proof that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is stalling.[10] The Kremlin’s and the Russian information space’s framing of the Ukrainian counteroffensive notably violates a reported Kremlin manual instructing Russian media not to downplay the potential for successful Ukrainian counteroffensive operations.[11] The intensifying portrayal of the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failed effort suggests that the Kremlin’s policy on the coverage of the war is to bolster efforts to promote itself as an effective manager of the war effort.

A US official expressed caution about assessing that the July 26 uptick in Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast is part of the Ukrainian main effort, tempering July 26 statements to the contrary.[12] The Washington Post cited an unspecified US official as saying that Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in the Zaporizhia direction may be shaping operations for a later counteroffensive effort, but that US officials do not assess that these operations are part of Ukraine’s main effort.[13] CNN cited two US officials as saying that Ukrainian forces have deployed the “main bulk” of their reserve forces to southern Ukraine to capitalize on recent Ukrainian gains.[14] UK Minister for the State of the Armed Forces James Heappey stated that Ukrainian forces are being “appropriately cautious” and are meeting current expectations.[15]

Russian President Vladimir Putin used the Russia–Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in St. Petersburg on July 27 to continue efforts to posture Russia as a more attractive ally to African partner states than the collective West. Putin met with several African leaders at the forum, including Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Dambuzo Mnangagwa, President of the Republic of Burundi Evariste Ndayishimiye, President of Mozambique Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, and President of Comoros Azali Assoumani.[16] During his speech at the plenary session of the forum, Putin emphasized the importance of expanding Russian–African cooperation and Russia’s investment in the development of African nations, notably accusing Ukraine and the West of interfering with Russia’s supply of grain and fertilizers to the African continent and claiming that Russia will provide between 25 and 50 thousand tons of grain free of charge to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somali, Central African Republic, and Eritrea over the coming months.[17] Putin announced that Russia is helping to develop over 30 energy infrastructure projects in 16 African states and called for an expansion of cultural and social integration between Russia and the African continent, stating that Russia plans to open branches of Russian universities in Africa and increase enrollment of African students in Russian educational institutions.[18]

Beyond the typical diplomatic platitudes and promises of continued cooperation and development, Putin’s rhetoric during the Russia-Africa forum does not represent a major inflection in the Kremlin’s policy toward the African continent. Putin previously signed an article published on July 24 to posture Russia’s commitment to African development and mitigate damage done to Russia’s position in Africa and his personal reputation with African leaders.[19] Putin’s and the Russian government’s reputations likely suffered due to a number of recent factors: Russia’s recent withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and strikes on Ukrainian port infrastructure (both of which were critical for grain exports to various African countries) and his inability to attend the upcoming BRICS summit because of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against him.

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin was also present in St. Petersburg on July 27 and took the opportunity to informally meet with an unknown number of African leaders, suggesting that the Wagner Group intends to remain a significant player in Africa. Russian milbloggers amplified photos of Prigozhin shaking hands with a Central African Republic official and the “director of Afrique media.”[20] A Russian insider source claimed that Prigozhin held private, informal meetings with representatives of an unknown number of African governments in a hotel close to the Russia–Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum but did not attend the summit itself.[21] Prigozhin's continued efforts to meet with and message to African leaders are likely part of Wagner's efforts to maintain its profitable military and mining contracts in Africa. An unnamed Wagner commander who recently returned from CAR claimed on July 26 that Wagner is working on increasing its operations in Africa to fund its presence in Belarus.[22]Prigozhin additionally used the backdrop of the Russia-Africa summit to position Wagner as a viable anti-Western partner for post-coup Niger. Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels began circulating an audio recording reportedly of Prigozhin on July 27 wherein Prigozhin praised the Nigerien military’s removal of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum and lauded it as an act of “gaining independence,” while accusing Western nations of deliberately destabilizing the situation in Africa and supporting terrorist organizations.[23] Prigozhin suggested that a “thousand fighters” from Wagner would be able to restore order, presumably in post-coup Niger.[24] Several Russian milbloggers responded to Prigozhin’s purported audio recording and suggested that Niger will need “help” from Wagner similar to what Mali needed following its coup in May 2021.[25] Prigozhin is posturing Wagner as a viable security partner for Niger, which is largely consistent with ISW’s and the Critical Threats Project’s (CTP) previous assessment that Wagner is likely to maintain and even expand its presence in the African continent following its July 24 armed rebellion.[26]

The Kremlin reportedly distributed a manual to Russian state media on framing the anniversary of the Baptism of Rus on July 28, likely as part of continued information operations and propaganda narratives to advance Russian military objectives. Russian opposition news outlet Meduza reported on July 27 that it obtained the manual but did not publish the manual itself, which reportedly directs Russian state media to frame the Baptism of Rus as “a key turning point in Russian history” and “the point of formation of statehood.”[27] The manual reportedly emphasized that a “common faith” allowed the “East Slavic tribes” to unify as “one people.”[28] The manual reportedly instructs state media to paint Russian President Vladimir Putin as the one who “brought the mission of defending the Orthodox faith back to Russia” and reportedly labels the Ukrainian government an “apostate regime” and a “satanic regime” that is trying to “destroy” Orthodoxy in Ukraine and “the spiritual ties of the fraternal peoples.”[29] These Kremlin-dictated religion-based narratives come as Russia is itself committing systematic religious repressions and persecutions throughout Ukraine, including against Orthodox Christians, in an effort to destroy Ukrainian cultural and national identity.[30] The Kremlin reportedly issued a similar manual to state media in May aimed at controlling the narratives about a potential upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive, and the distribution of these manuals demonstrates the Kremlin’s use of various information operations to spread propaganda messages and discredit Ukraine in the international arena.[31]

Russia conducted another strike on Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast and rear areas of Ukraine overnight on July 26–27. Ukrainian military sources reported that Russian forces launched two Kalibr cruise missiles that damaged port infrastructure in Odesa City.[32] Ukrainian military sources also reported that Russian forces launched eight Shahed drones and that Ukrainian air defenses shot down all eight.[33]

US President Joe Biden has reportedly ordered the US government in recent days to share evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.[34] This will be the first time the US will share evidence with the ICC as part of a criminal investigation into a country that is not a part of the ICC.[35]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 27 and made gains in some areas, although Ukrainian forces appear not to have continued significant mechanized assaults south of Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• A US official expressed caution about assessing that the July 26 uptick in Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast is part of the Ukrainian main effort, tempering July 26 statements to the contrary.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin used the Russia–Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in St. Petersburg on July 27 to continue efforts to posture Russia as a more attractive ally to African partner states than the collective West.
• Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin was also present in St. Petersburg on July 27 and took the opportunity to informally meet with an unknown number of African leaders, suggesting that the Wagner Group intends to remain a significant player in Africa.
• Prigozhin additionally used the backdrop of the Russia-Africa summit to position Wagner as a viable anti-Western partner for post-coup Niger.
• The Kremlin reportedly distributed a manual to Russian state media on framing the anniversary of the Baptism of Rus on July 28, likely as part of continued information operations and propaganda narratives to advance Russian military objectives.
• Russia conducted another strike on Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast and rear areas of Ukraine overnight on July 26–27.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, in Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on July 27 and did not make any confirmed advances.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 27 and have advanced south of Bakhmut, in the Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• The Russian State Duma approved measures on July 27 aimed at clarifying confusion surrounding the recently updated laws regarding conscripts and reservists.
• Russian authorities are discriminating against Ukrainian refugees in Belgorod Oblast, Russia.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations west of Svatove and made claimed gains on July 27. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Nadiya (14km southwest of Svatove) and south of Novoselivske (16km northwest of Svatove).[36] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that elements of the 7th Motorized Rifle Regiment (11th Army Corps, Baltic Fleet) captured unspecified advantageous positions west of Kuzemivka (13km northwest of Svatove).[37] The Russian MoD also claimed that elements of the Russian Central Grouping of Forces advanced 12km along the front and penetrated 3km deep into Ukrainian defensive lines near Serhiivka (12km southwest of Svatove).[38] One Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces continue to advance west of Svatove towards the Oskil River at a pace of 1km a day.[39] ISW has not yet observed visual confirmation to suggest that Russian forces are advancing at a pace near 1km a day on the Svatove sector. ISW has not observed visual confirmation of recent Russian claims of extensive advances southwest of Svatove, and the Russian MoD may be exaggerating claims of advances to draw attention away from Ukrainian counteroffensives elsewhere along the front.[40]

Russian forces continued offensive operations west of Kreminna and made claimed gains on July 27. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked in the area south of Dibrova (5km southwest of Kreminna).[41] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian troops also continued fighting in the Serebryanske forest area southwest of Kreminna and broke through Ukrainian defensive lines in an unspecified part of the forest area.[42]

The Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted an unsuccessful limited attack west of Kreminna on July 27.[43]

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

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area on July 27 and have made recent marginal advances in the area. Geolocated footage published on July 26 indicates that Ukrainian forces made marginal advances north of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[44] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations north and south of Bakhmut.[45] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted assaults near Zaliznyanske (12km north of Bakhmut), Berkhivka (4km north of Bakhmut), Klishchiivka, Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut), and Pivnichne (20km southwest of Bakhmut).[46] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces completely control Klishchiivka as of the morning of July 27 and that Ukrainian forces failed to hold positions in the settlement.[47] Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces maintain a presence in the southern part of Klishchiivka and continue attempts to liberate the settlement.[48] ISW has observed recent geolocated footage indicating that Ukrainian forces have recently made tactically significant gains south of Klishchiivka and maintain a presence in the southwestern part of the settlement.[49]

Russian forces counterattacked around Bakhmut on July 27 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults north of Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut), north and south of Klishchiivka, and east of Druzhba (19km southwest of Bakhmut).[50] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces also counterattacked near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut) and Kurdyumivka (12km southwest of Bakhmut).[51]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front on July 27 without advancing. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian elements of the Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Avdiivka and Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka).[52] Russian milbloggers amplified footage on July 27 purporting to show elements of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) 110th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st Army Corps) repelling a Ukrainian assault near Nevelske (13km southwest of Avdiivka).[53]

Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka–Donetsk City front on July 27 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka and Marinka.[54] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated on July 26 that Russian forces continue attempts to encircle Avdiivka and that fighting in the Avdiivka area is as intense as combat engagements in the Bakhmut direction.[55] A Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the DNR “Pyatnashka” International Brigade can now fully interdict remaining Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOC) in the Avdiivka area.[56] Russian milbloggers routinely claimed in the winter and spring of 2023 that Russian forces had fire control over Ukrainian GLOCs around Bakhmut long before they likely did, and there are no indications that Russian forces are interdicting all Ukrainian GLOCs in the Avdiivka area.[57]

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

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations along the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border and advanced on July 27. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted footage on July 27 showing that Ukrainian forces liberated Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) following heavy fighting in the area.[58] The Ukrainian General Staff also acknowledged unspecified Ukrainian advances near Staromayorske earlier on July 27.[59] Russian milbloggers claimed overnight on July 26 and on the morning of July 27 that Ukrainian forces retained positions on the northern outskirts of Staromayorske and continued pushing into the village itself from the north and northwest.[60] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian ground attack near Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[61] Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Pryyutne (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) on July 26 and Novodonetske (12km southeast of Velyka Novosilka) on July 27.[62] Some Russian sources, including the commander of the “Vostok” battalion defending in the area, Alexander Khodakovsky, expressed continued concern about Russia’s ability to hold Urozhaine.[63]

Russian forces conducted limited offensive operations in the Donetsk–Zaporizhia Oblast border area and did not advance on July 27. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks to recapture lost positions near Staromayorske.[64]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 27 on a smaller scale than their July 26 operations and likely advanced in the area. Geolocated footage published on July 26 suggests that Ukrainian forces made additional advances east of Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) during offensive operations on July 26.[65] The Ukrainian National Guard Main Command Department of Application Planning’s Acting Director Mykola Urshalovych stated that Ukrainian forces made unspecified significant advances in the Melitopol direction on July 27.[66] The Russian MoD and some prominent Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces of up to three battalion tactical groups (BTGs) conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Robotyne overnight on July 26 and did not attack further in the morning.[67] Other Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continued multiple waves of ground attacks overnight on July 26 and during the day on July 27, sustaining heavy equipment and personnel losses.[68] Some milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced towards Robotyne while others claimed that Russian forces repelled all the attacks.[69] One Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced to within 800-1,000 meters of Robotyne overnight before Russian forces stopped the Ukrainian advance.[70] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces also attacked Zherebyanky (26km southwest of Orikhiv) overnight.[71]

Ukrainian forces have likely advanced further in western Zaporizhia Oblast than ISW has been able to visually confirm so far. Geolocated footage published on July 27 shows that a single Ukrainian armored vehicle reached Russian anti-tank positions northwest of Verbove (17km southeast of Orikhiv), roughly 3.5 kilometers beyond ISW’s currently assessed frontline.[72] It is unclear why a lone Ukrainian armored vehicle approached Russian defensive positions without additional forces in support. The fact that this lone Ukrainian vehicle advanced so far towards Russian defensive lines apparently without suffering Russian fire suggests that Ukrainian forces may have made advances in the surrounding area southeast of Orikhiv of which ISW has not yet observed visual confirmation.

Russian and occupation authorities continue to struggle with flowing logistics into occupied southern Ukraine through Crimea. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on July 27 that it is suspending civilian entry to the Arabat Spit as of 2000 local time on July 31 for an indeterminate period of time to “localize security issues.”[73] The FSB stated that only emergency responders and defense workers can enter the Arabat Spit under the order. Russian and occupation authorities may be attempting to limit civilian entry to the Arabat Spit to allow for broader efforts to restore the road connecting the spit to occupied Kherson Oblast and Crimea as a reliable ground line of communication (GLOC) to support Russian forces in southern Ukraine. Russian occupation authorities temporarily suspended civilian traffic across the Kerch Strait Bridge from Kerch, occupied Ukraine to Russia overnight on July 26–27, the latest in a wave of suspensions that may indicate continued trouble with security or traffic across the bridge as Russian authorities work to restore it.[74]

Russian authorities continue efforts to posture militarily in the Black Sea to possibly set conditions for a blockade or some lesser maritime interdiction campaign against Ukraine.[75] The FSB claimed on July 27 that it arrested a Russian sailor for allegedly working with Ukrainian intelligence to conduct a “terrorist attack” on an unspecified Russian vessel carrying high-precision missiles.[76] The FSB claimed that it identified explosives on another unspecified vessel headed from Turkey towards Rostov-on-Don on July 26.[77] Russian authorities are likely attempting to portray Ukraine as willing to use sabotage and civilian cargo ships to attack Russian naval and other military assets.

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

The Russian State Duma approved measures on July 27 aimed at clarifying confusion surrounding recently updated laws regarding conscription and mobilization. The Duma approved a new form that will be used for mobilization summonses and will be distinct from the conscription summons form.[78] This change is likely aimed at distinguishing between conscription and mobilization efforts, especially given recent speculation in the Russian information space that legal changes related to Russian military force generation efforts suggest that the Kremlin will launch a second wave of mobilization in the fall of 2023.[79]

The leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) will restrict the movement of Russian State Duma deputies in Ukraine. Russian sources claimed that the Russian MoD is prohibiting Duma deputies from visiting military units actively fighting on the front in Ukraine without permission from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu or Russian Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov.

Russian forces are possibly using ammunition made in Myanmar on the battlefield in Ukraine. Photographs published on July 26 suggest that Russian forces in Ukraine may be using 120 mm mortar rounds made in Myanmar and are purportedly attempting to remove evidence of the rounds’ origin before use.[80]

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

Russian authorities are discriminating against Ukrainian refugees in Belgorod Oblast, Russia. Russian opposition media outlet Verstka reported that thousands of Ukrainian citizens are currently in Belgorod Oblast, Russia.[81] Verstka found that Ukrainian refugees in Belgorod Oblast face discrimination when trying to apply for social benefits and housing, but those who receive Russian passports do not encounter such difficulties.[82]

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

The Wagner Group has begun training Belarus’ internal troops. Belarusian Deputy Commander of the Internal Troops Sergei Grebennikov announced on July 25 that Wagner fighters and Belarusian internal troops began joint training.[83] Belarusian Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Commander of the Internal Troops Major General Nikolai Karpenkov announced in a video on July 26 that Wagner has access to artillery and ammunition for training purposes.[84] A Wagner-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed on July 27 that Karpenkov stated that Wagner instructors are training Belarusian internal troops in small group combat exercises similar to the conditions in Ukraine as well as in drone and artillery use, mine clearing and laying, engineering reconnaissance, electronic intelligence and warfare, and communication between units.[85] The milblogger also claimed that Wagner personnel are conducting leadership training for Belarusian commanders.[86] An unnamed, masked fighter, presumably a Wagner trainer, stated in the video that Belarus’ troops are “very adequately” trained in basic skills and that Wagner trainers will share “specific experience” with the Belarusians.[87] Any references to Wagner’s prior experience in Ukraine and the superb basic training of Belarusian troops are likely part of a messaging campaign and are intended to justify Wagner’s presence in Belarus and deflect any suggestions that the Belarusian military is incapable of training its troops without assistance. Karpenkov also claimed that he met with Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin in Belarus following Wagner’s armed rebellion on June 24.[88] Wagner still currently does not pose a significant threat to Ukraine or NATO.

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on July 27 that the Belarusian 6th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade servicemen trained on preparation and fire control in a defensive battle.[89] The Belarusian MoD reported that the Belarusian 6th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade also trained practical skills such as organization, combat operations, and close interaction between combined arms units.[90]

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

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

2. July has been so blistering hot, scientists already calculate that it's the warmest month on record

Is this heat a national security issue? Is this kind of heat here to stay (in future summers) and if so what are the near and long term implications? Or should this be dismissed and rationalized as somehow natural heat patterns that are to be expected?

July has been so blistering hot, scientists already calculate that it's the warmest month on record

AP · by SETH BORENSTEIN · July 27, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — July has been so hot thus far that scientists calculate that this month will be the hottest globally on record and likely the warmest human civilization has seen, even though there are several days left to sweat through.

The World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service on Thursday proclaimed July’s heat is beyond record-smashing. They said Earth’s temperature has been temporarily passing over a key warming threshold: the internationally accepted goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

Temperatures were 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times for a record 16 days this month, but the Paris climate accord aims to keep the 20- or 30-year global temperature average to 1.5 degrees. A few days of temporarily beating that threshold have happened before, but never in July.

July has been so off-the-charts hot with heat waves blistering three continents – North America, Europe and Asia – that researchers said a record was inevitable. The U.S. Southwest’s all-month heat wave is showing no signs of stopping while also pushing into most of the Midwest and East with more than 128 million Americans under some kind of heat advisory Thursday.

“Unless an ice age were to appear all of sudden out of nothing, it is basically virtually certain we will break the record for the warmest July on record and the warmest month on record,” Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo told The Associated Press.

Scientists say that such shattering of heat records is a harbinger for future climate-altering changes as the planet warms. Those changes go beyond just prolonged heat waves and include more flooding, longer-burning wildfires and extreme weather events that put many people at risk.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pointed to the calculations and urged world leaders, in particular of rich nations, to do more to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases. Despite years of international climate negotiations and lofty pledges from many countries and companies, greenhouse gas emissions continue to go up.

“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” Guterres told reporters in a New York briefing. “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”

Buontempo and other scientists said the records are from human-caused climate change augmented by a natural El Nino warming of parts of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide. But Buontempo said ocean warming in the Atlantic also has been so high — though far away from the El Nino — that’s there’s even more at play. While scientists long predicted the world would continue to warm and have bouts of extreme weather, he said he was surprised by the spike in ocean temperatures and record-shattering loss of sea ice in Antarctica.

“The climate seems to be going crazy at times,” Buontempo said.

A woman from Niger carries her baby and a bottle of water on her head, July 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul, File)

Copernicus calculated that through the first 23 days of July, Earth’s temperature averaged 16.95 degrees Celsius ( 62.5 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s nearly one-third of a degree Celsius (almost 0.6 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than the previous record for the hottest month, July 2019.

Normally records are broken by hundredths of a degree Celsius, maybe a tenth at most, said Russell Vose, climate analysis group director for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Usually records aren’t calculated until a week or longer after a month’s end. But Vose, who wasn’t part of the research, his NASA record-keeping counterpart Gavin Schmidt and six other outside scientists said the Copernicus calculations make sense.

Buontempo’s team found that 21 of the first 23 days of July were hotter than any previous days in the database.

“The last few weeks have been rather remarkable and unprecedented in our record” based on data that goes back to the 1940s, Buontempo said.

The City of Phoenix Heat Response Program team volunteers Natalie Boyd, left, and David Coughenour, right, prepare heat relief kits for the public in need July 20, 2023, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

Both the WMO-Copernicus team and an independent German scientist who released his data at the same time came to these conclusions by analyzing forecasts, live observations, past records and computer simulations.

Separate from Copernicus, Karsten Haustein at Leipzig University did his own calculations, using forecasts that show at best the warming may weaken a tad at the end of month, and came to the conclusion that July 2023 will pass the old record by 0.2 degrees Celsius (.36 degrees Fahrenheit).

“It’s way beyond everything we see,” Haustein said in his own press briefing. “We are in absolutely new record territory.”

Haustein said even though records only go back to the middle of the 19th century, using tree rings, ice cores and other proxies he calculates that this month is the hottest in about 120,000 years, which Buontempo said makes sense. Other scientists have made similar calculations.

“The reason that setting new temperature records is a big deal is that we are now being challenged to find ways to survive through temperatures hotter than any of us have ever experienced before,” University of Wisconsin-Madison climate scientist Andrea Dutton said in an email. “Soaring temperatures place ever increasing strains not just on power grids and infrastructure, but on human bodies that are not equipped to survive some of the extreme heat we are already experiencing.”

A man stands in a fountain in Bucharest, Romania, on a hot afternoon, July 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

It’s no accident that the hottest July on record has brought deadly heat waves in the U.S. and Mexico, China and southern Europe, smoke-causing wildfires and heavy floods worldwide, said Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto.

The average temperature being measured is like “the fever temperature that we measure for our planet,” Otto said.

“We are in uncharted territory as far as humans on this planet are concerned, so our records are falling with increasing frequency and that’s exactly what we expect to — and what we’ve been predicting would — happen,” said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.

In the middle of some of the worst heat, where Phoenix is now at a record 27 straight days and counting of 110 degrees or higher temperatures, University of Arizona climate scientist Katharine Jacobs said the records are giving humanity a message about reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

“Events like this are signposts along a highway we don’t want to travel,” Jacobs said in an email. “It is time to stop playing political games and get serious in order to protect ourselves and future generations.

___

Jamey Keaten contributed from Geneva and Edith Lederer from the United Nations.

___

Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

___

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

AP · by SETH BORENSTEIN · July 27, 2023

3. Hong Kong court rejects government-requested ban on protest song 'Glory to Hong Kong'

Music can be an important tool for propaganda, influence, politics, and resistance. And governments fear it because it can inspire people.

But it is interesting that the court rejected the government ban request? How long will the rule of law last before the government bans it anyway?

Hong Kong court rejects government-requested ban on protest song 'Glory to Hong Kong'

AP · July 28, 2023

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HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong court rejected a government-requested ban on broadcasting or distributing the protest song “Glory to Hong Kong,” in a landmark decision that rejected a challenge to freedom of expression in the city.

The song was written during mass protests against the government in the Chinese territory in 2019 and its lyrics call for democracy and liberty. The song has since been mistakenly played at several international sporting events instead of China’s national anthem, “March of the Volunteers.”

Judge Anthony Chan on Friday refused to grant the ban, which would have targeted anyone who uses the song to advocate for the separation of Hong Kong from China. In seeking the court order, the government also sought to ban actions that use the song to incite others to commit secession and to insult the national anthem, including such acts carried out online.

Critics had said a ban would have a far-reaching impact on the city’s freedoms of expression and information, which have become increasingly threadbare under Beijing’s crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 and was promised it could keep its Western-style civil liberties intact for 50 years after the handover. But a Beijing-imposed National Security Law and other changes since the 2019 protests have shrunk the openness and freedoms that were once hallmarks of the city.

Chan said the court considered whether an injunction would provide any greater deterrence than existing criminal law, and its potential chilling effect.

“I am unable to see a solid basis for believing that the invocation of the civil jurisdiction can assist in the enforcement of the law in question,” Chan said in the ruling.

The city’s secretary for justice sought the injunction last month after the song was mistakenly played as the city’s anthem at international events. And a mix-up in an ice hockey competition in February resulted in the city’s top sports body reprimanding the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association, which appealed for forgiveness for what it called an “independent and unfortunate” event.

The Hong Kong government has tried to push Google to display China’s national anthem as the top result in searches for the city’s anthem instead of the song but to no avail.

Google told the government to present a court order proving the song violated local laws before it could be removed, according to Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong. The government therefore decided to deal with the matter by legal means, he said in an interview with a local broadcaster.

Google did not reply to a request for comment on its earlier exchanges with officials.

The government said the lyrics contain a slogan that could constitute a call for secession. The song was already banned at schools.

The government said it respected freedoms protected by the city’s constitution “but freedom of speech is not absolute.”

“The application pursues the legitimate aim of safeguarding national security and is necessary, reasonable, legitimate, and consistent with the Bill of Rights,” it said in a statement last month.

The 2019 protests were sparked by a proposed extradition law which would have allowed Hong Kong criminal suspects to be sent to the mainland for trial. The government withdrew the bill, but the protesters widened their demands to include direct elections for the city’s leaders and police accountability.

AP · July 28, 2023

4. Ukrainian Resistance Adapts to Key Role in Counteroffensive

Excerpts:

All these actions create uncomfortable conditions for Russian occupants, damaging their morale and creating problems for Russian logistics in supplying troops on the ground. And as Ukrainian forces move deeper into the occupied regions, the Kremlin can expect even more challenges. According to Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzemilev, around 1,000 members of the resistance stand ready to take up arms in occupied Crimea as soon as the Ukrainian army arrives (Ukrainianworldcongress.org, July 25). Thus, the biggest battles for the Ukrainian resistance still lie ahead.

My favorite song remains: Kyiv Calling (we live for resistance)​: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWQUkRKqp2E

Ukrainian Resistance Adapts to Key Role in Counteroffensive

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 20 Issue: 119

By: Yuri Lapaiev

July 25, 2023 05:51 PM Age: 3 days

jamestown.org · by Yuri Lapaiev · July 25, 2023

On July 19, the Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted a strike on a Russian ammunition depot in Crimea. Later, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Defense Intelligence Unit of Ukraine, confirmed the strike, calling it a “successful operation.” In his comments, he also thanked the “Ukrainian patriots” in Crimea for the additional intelligence and confirmation videos that were critical to the operation (T.me/kirilbudanov, July 19). Previously, Ukrainian intelligence and other branches of the armed forces had repeatedly urged those Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories to help in liberating these regions by providing information on enemy forces via specifically designated Telegram channels (Ukrinform, June 14; T.me/operativnoZSU, June 29).

Beyond providing intelligence to the army, some partisans have engaged in more active operations. For example, on June 25, Russian police killed Tigran Ogannisyan and Mykyta Khanganov, two teenagers living in the city of Berdyansk in occupied Zaporizhzhia region. Before their death, they claimed that they had killed two Russian law enforcement officers (Ukrainska Pravda, June 25). Later, Russian media stated that both had been pro-Ukrainian partisans who had already been arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) for alleged railway sabotage back in 2022. The boys’ parents remain adamant that the investigation and charges were fabricated and politically motivated. According to locals, one of their former teachers, Oleg Dryanev, reported the teenagers due to their position on the war (Ukrainska Pravda, June 27).

This episode demonstrates the variety of threats that the Ukrainian resistance encounters in the occupied territories: FSB operatives, pro-Russian neighbors, constant security checks, counterintelligence measures and a sprawling system of repression. The Russian authorities often report on arrests of pro-Ukrainian activists, immediately blaming them for acts of espionage or sabotage—though, at times, these arrests are politically motivated and used to prosecute Ukrainians or stage videos for psychological effects that are then amplified by pro-Russian media and bloggers (T.me/vrogov, June 18).

This new reality has forced the Ukrainian resistance to become less active and more cautious, opting for mostly non-violent actions. According to an analytical study conducted by the National Resistance Center of Ukraine, Russian occupation forces have established a well-developed network of local law enforcement agencies, including police officers, public prosecutors and FSB agents, to ensure full control and repression of any suspicious activity (Sprotyv.mod.gov.ua, July 13). Most of the leaders of these local organizations have come from Russia, as most local citizens have refused to work for the occupation administrations or have been replaced.

Some of those who did choose to collaborate with the Russian authorities have been killed or injured by partisan attacks. Yevhen Kuzmin, a former Ukrainian police officer who agreed to work for the Russians, was blown up in his car in February 2023 (Lb.ua, February 3). Alexander Mischenko, who collaborated with occupation law enforcement, was killed after an explosion near his house in Melitopol (Ukrinform, April 27). And Vladimir Epifanov, an advisor to the so-called “deputy prime minister” of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, died after his car was blown up in Simferopol, Crimea (Ukrinform, June 19). Such actions came as a surprise for the Kremlin, especially in Crimea, as many in Moscow had been convinced that the local population was largely pro-Russian.

Meanwhile, the Crimean Tatar guerilla group, “Atesh” (“Fire”), has remained quite active since the beginning of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. It has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks, including blowing up two Russian military fuel trucks (T.me/atesh_ua, July 18) and several military checkpoints and barracks. The group has also conducted a series of “assassinations” on high-level occupation authorities and continue to provide Ukrainian forces with critical intelligence (see EDM, May 16).

While acts of sabotage have decreased to some extent due to the strengthening control of the Russian occupation administrations, Ukraine’s new long-range high-precision weapons, such as British Storm Shadows and French SCALPs, have also led to a change in strategy, as these munitions allow Ukrainian forces to strike targets far behind the frontlines without having to rely on partisan sabotage groups. In this, Ukrainian partisans have become critical sources of information in providing target coordinates before strikes are launched on enemy positions and then assessing the damage following these operations. The Russian occupation authorities are beginning to take notice of the Ukrainian resistance’s role here, and they are trying to cut off communication lines for these partisans. For example, after the recent missile strikes in Luhansk, the Russian authorities switched off the Internet in an attempt to prevent any transmission of data (Interfax, May 13).

Indeed, Ukrainian partisans are adjusting to a more repressive environment on the ground by assisting through more non-violent methods. This comes in many different forms, such as marking territory with graffiti or ribbons, as the “Yellow Ribbon” movement does (T.me/yellowribbon_ua, July 16). They also disseminate leaflets to counter Russian propaganda products and collect such publications, burning them along with Russian newspapers or flags (T.me/yellowribbon_ua, July 17). Atesh, and organizations like it, continue to recruit more partisans, teaching them how to report intelligence in the most secure and inconspicuous ways (T.me/atesh_ua, July 11). Perhaps more dangerous for the Kremlin, partisan activity also seeks to conduct sabotage at industrial facilities in the occupied territories.

All these actions create uncomfortable conditions for Russian occupants, damaging their morale and creating problems for Russian logistics in supplying troops on the ground. And as Ukrainian forces move deeper into the occupied regions, the Kremlin can expect even more challenges. According to Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzemilev, around 1,000 members of the resistance stand ready to take up arms in occupied Crimea as soon as the Ukrainian army arrives (Ukrainianworldcongress.org, July 25). Thus, the biggest battles for the Ukrainian resistance still lie ahead.

jamestown.org · by Yuri Lapaiev · July 25, 2023

5. Afghanistan shows the U.S. needs a doctrine not just for fighting wars, but also leaving them

I feel old. I remember when Seth was a young Captain coming to PERSCOM and I recall his excellent research at NPS.

Excerpts:

Seth Krummrich, a retired Army colonel, told lawmakers that the Biden administration made a huge mistake by ignoring Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and others who warned them not to allow the number of U.S. forces in the country to fall beneath 2,500 unless key provisions of the Doha agreement had been met.

“The administration made that determination based on intelligence that overestimated the Afghan government's capabilities and wished away the Taliban capabilities,” Krummrich told lawmakers. “There was very little Intel evidence to suggest that the Biden administration's plan would work in a mountain range of evidence to suggest the plan would fail. Gen. Milley, Gen. [Austin] Miller and Gen. [Kenneth] McKenzie all recommended not withdrawing until the Doha agreement conditions were met. These seasoned experts were ignored and the best case scenario plan to withdraw immediately started the domino effect to catastrophe.”

Afghanistan shows the U.S. needs a doctrine not just for fighting wars, but also leaving them

And other lessons from Thursday’s hearing on the 2021 evacuation.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

There are fresh lessons to be learned from the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, witnesses told lawmakers in a Thursday hearing that—unlike earlier ones intended to make sense of what happened or affix political blame—produced some helpful recommendations for avoiding future catastrophes.

Closing Bagram Air Field and evacuating out of Hamid Karzai International Airport was a massive mistake, Command Sgt. Maj. Jacob Smith of the 10th Mountain Division told the House foreign affairs committee.

In the leadup to the August 2021 evacuation, Smith testified, he told superiors that “Bagram held the logistical capability to meet the requirements of 103,000 people. Bagram had over 35,000 bed spaces and could create more using cots within the airfield hangars if necessary. Bagram had four dining facilities and food together...had tens of thousands of gallons of potable water and on-site water for purification capabilities…the greatest life-saving capability of any hospital remaining in Afghanistan.”

He was overruled, he said, because the State Department believed the airport would be more comfortable.

The U.S. Army made its own mistakes, Smith said, by initially assigning just a single rifle company to provide security for the evacuation.

“For approximately six weeks before things began to unravel in mid-August, an area that [had been] protected by hundreds of soldiers and contractors was not protected by 113 American soldiers and two companies of our Turkish department forces,” he said.

That number should have been closer to a battalion, he said.

Seth Krummrich, a retired Army colonel, told lawmakers that the Biden administration made a huge mistake by ignoring Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and others who warned them not to allow the number of U.S. forces in the country to fall beneath 2,500 unless key provisions of the Doha agreement had been met.

“The administration made that determination based on intelligence that overestimated the Afghan government's capabilities and wished away the Taliban capabilities,” Krummrich told lawmakers. “There was very little Intel evidence to suggest that the Biden administration's plan would work in a mountain range of evidence to suggest the plan would fail. Gen. Milley, Gen. [Austin] Miller and Gen. [Kenneth] McKenzie all recommended not withdrawing until the Doha agreement conditions were met. These seasoned experts were ignored and the best case scenario plan to withdraw immediately started the domino effect to catastrophe.”

Moreover, he said, the Biden administration’s obsession with the September 11 withdrawal date forced the evacuation too quickly.

But recognizing these mistakes won’t necessarily keep a future administration from making them again. Christopher Kolenda, a retired Army colonel and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told lawmakers that future administrations should begin to plan now specifically for how to exit an Afghanistan-like conflict.

The United States, he said, should develop a doctrine for ending a war.

“The military doesn't have one. The State Department doesn't have one. State Department's got no expert body of knowledge on how to conduct wartime negotiations in which the United States is the active participant and it has not worked out well every single time,” Kolenda said. “So that expert body of knowledge is not difficult to create and something that you know could be done fairly rapidly.”

Instead, the Trump administration relied on Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to flesh out the parameters of the Doha Agreement, leaving the Biden administration to live by what had been previously agreed to or draft a new deal but little room to enforce the Taliban to adhere to what it had agreed.

Kolenda also said that the United States should establish a central point of authority not just for the military but also civilian agencies in war, a sort of new Goldwater-Nichols Act to give “the President the capability to appoint a senior civilian or military official to be in charge of all U.S. efforts on the ground and everybody reporting to you know, to that individual. That person is then held accountable by the President for achieving U.S. aims, and can also appear before Congress for proper oversight and accountability. We're missing that today.”

The objective would be to “actually put somebody in charge on the ground of our wars. So instead of right now, with all the silos… he lowest-ranking person that anybody on the ground reports to is senior leaders on the ground. The lowest-ranking person they all report to is the President of the United States. I mean, you can't run a business that way,” he said.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

6. Hollywood Runs—and Ruins—U.S. Foreign Policy

An interesting thesis. Not sure I buy all of it. Or maybe I too am a sucker for Hollywood entertainment.

Conclusion:

The broader lesson is that while the morality plays dished out by Hollywood are abundantly entertaining—as I said, I’m a sucker for them—they are a highly unreliable guide to the real world of politics. So the next time you’re munching your popcorn, hearing the soundtrack swell into a triumphant crescendo and watching the hero(es) vanquish their adversaries, remind yourself of the sage words from the ad campaign for Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left (1972): “It’s only a movie.”

Hollywood Runs—and Ruins—U.S. Foreign Policy

U.S. films entertain the world—and distort policy at home.

Walt-Steve-foreign-policy-columnist20

Stephen M. Walt

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

Foreign Policy · by Stephen M. Walt · July 27, 2023

]The United States is exceptional in many ways—size, wealth, openness, isolation from other major powers—and one of them is a cultural predilection for the “Hollywood ending.” You know what I’m talking about: the climactic moment in a movie when the outnumbered and outgunned heroes turn the tables on their wicked foes and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The good guys win, the bad guys lose (ideally in a humiliating and painful fashion), and all is right with the world. Oppenheimer notwithstanding, this is the kind of plotline that American audiences lap up like cold beer on a hot afternoon.

Examples of this trope are too numerous to count, and I’ll freely confess that I’m a sucker for them. I want to see Frodo destroy the One Ring and watch the Tower of Sauron come crashing down. I beam when Harry and his fellow wizards kill Lord Voldemort, when Indiana Jones outwits the Nazis, and when the Rebel Alliance blows up the newest version of the Death Star that the latest edition of the Empire chooses to deploy. I’ll choke up when Rocky rises from the canvas in the 15th round, when Inigo Montoya avenges his father’s death at the hands of cruel Count Rugen, or when the Guardians of the Galaxy or the Avengers thwart some world-destroying foe, and I’ll chuckle as the Men in Black agents somehow save Earth at the last minute (again!). And who doesn’t cheer when Andy Dufresne escapes from Shawshank Penitentiary and the evil warden and thuggish prison guard who have tormented him get what they deserve? When I watch a rom-com, I count on the star-crossed lovers to overcome every mishap and misunderstanding in the script and end up blissfully entangled at the closing credits. Rick doesn’t get Ilsa back in Casablanca, but Maj. Strasser gets a bullet and the movie closes on “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

As the name implies, the Hollywood ending is a predominantly American invention, although William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen were on to it long before movies were invented, and one can find similar endings in other cinematic traditions. As a rule, however, I’d argue that films made outside the United States tend to be darker, more ambivalent in their portrayals of right and wrong, less triumphant in tone, and more willing to end on a note of ambiguity. To be sure, there are American films with these features (e.g., The Searchers, Chinatown, The Graduate, No Way Out, Million Dollar Baby), but they are exceptions rather than the box office rule.

America’s fondness for the happy ending isn’t that surprising when you consider the remarkably fortunate course of U.S. history and the way it is typically recounted. In our collective memory, the plucky rebels defeat the British Empire at Yorktown (see under: The Patriot) and then go on to establish a new nation based on lofty ideals. The ever-expanding republic decimates and subdues the Indigenous population, whose resistance to Manifest Destiny is typically portrayed in Hollywood as both cruel and unjustified. The virtuous North defeats the slaveholding South in the Civil War, supposedly ending a deep stain in the fabric of the country. Then the United States rides off to save the world in both world wars, helping defeat imperial Germany in the first conflict and compelling Nazi Germany and Japan to surrender unconditionally in the second. Small wonder that we love to look back on these “good wars” and assume that this sort of outcome is the norm rather than the exception.

Hollywood endings have been in rather short supply since 1945, however. The Korean War ended in a draw, and the Vietnam War was a defeat, as movies such as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and The Killing Fields make clear. The Cold War ended favorably for the United States and its allies, but the Soviet Union’s slow death-from-exhaustion wasn’t the kind of stirring victory that Hollywood likes. The Gulf War was a triumph, but the war on terror and the costly failures in Afghanistan and Iraq were not. Director Clint Eastwood tried to turn the invasion of Grenada into a rousing war film (Heartbreak Ridge), but even he couldn’t turn the outmatched Cuban and Grenadian forces into a sufficiently daunting foe. Ditto the war in Kosovo, which took longer and cost more than expected and didn’t yield an especially satisfying outcome. The less said about our ill-fated meddling in Libya or Venezuela the better.

Yet despite these repeated reminders that real-world politics is rarely black and white and that conflicts often end not in a triumph of good over evil but in a muddled and messy compromise, our culture keeps telling us something different. If your mental universe has been too heavily influenced by what you’ve seen on screen, you’ll be ill-equipped to deal with the complicated morality of many international situations and the impossibility of achieving a Hollywood ending in most of them.

You can see this tendency in America’s typical response to authoritarians with whom we find ourselves at odds. After first convincing itself that they are the embodiment of evil and a mortal danger, Washington issues a set of non-negotiable demands, imposes sanctions, and reminds everyone that “all options are on the table.” If the target does not comply fully with our ultimatum—they almost never do—we ratchet up the pressure in the hope that they will cave. Our goal is their complete capitulation—a Hollywood ending—one that we can portray as an undiluted diplomatic achievement and a further demonstration of our own virtue. In some cases, such as the embargo on Cuba, we’ll stick with this approach for five decades despite a conspicuous lack of success.

This same tendency is apparent whenever U.S. diplomats achieve a highly favorable outcome that somehow falls short of the celebratory triumph that Hollywood has conditioned us to expect. The 2015 nuclear deal with Iran was a major achievement for the United States and its European allies and gave us most of what we wanted. But like most negotiations, it did require a degree of compromise, because Iran was never going to accept a deal that offered it no benefits whatsoever. Denied Tehran’s unconditional surrender, many Americans felt cheated and wrongly concluded that diplomacy had failed.

I fear the same impulse is going to hamstring U.S. efforts to help Ukraine survive the current war. We might all like to see this conflict end in proper Hollywood fashion—Russia withdrawing, Russian President Vladimir Putin getting discredited (or worse), and Ukraine rebuilding rapidly—but what if that outcome simply cannot be achieved at an acceptable level of cost and risk? What if this otherwise desirable result is just not in the script? If the best possible outcome for Ukraine is a messy compromise that keeps the country from being destroyed but is unsatisfactory on many other levels, then clinging to the hope of a Hollywood ending is just going to get a lot more Ukrainians killed and even more of the country destroyed. I take no pleasure in pointing this out, but refusing to acknowledge this possibility is irresponsible and may well not be in Ukraine’s long-term interest.

The broader lesson is that while the morality plays dished out by Hollywood are abundantly entertaining—as I said, I’m a sucker for them—they are a highly unreliable guide to the real world of politics. So the next time you’re munching your popcorn, hearing the soundtrack swell into a triumphant crescendo and watching the hero(es) vanquish their adversaries, remind yourself of the sage words from the ad campaign for Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left (1972): “It’s only a movie.”​

Foreign Policy · by Stephen M. Walt · July 27, 2023

7. Three ways a technological revolution will impact the intel community

Excerpts:

This technological revolution hits the intelligence community hard, and in three earth-shaking ways.

First, primacy in innovation has shifted from the intelligence community to industry

...

Second, the rapid pace of innovation means the intelligence community must work extremely hard to avert strategic surprise. 

...

The latter combination of technologies in particular will make spy work more difficult than it has ever been, at a time when understanding our adversaries is even more vital. This is the third big impact on the intelligence community: Gathering information clandestinely is becoming nearly impossible in heavily surveilled environments.

Three ways a technological revolution will impact the intel community

Defense News · by Emily Harding · July 26, 2023

In his thoughtful and significant speech titled “A World Transformed and the Role of Intelligence,” CIA Director Bill Burns laid out his case for how intelligence plays a pivotal role at this “plastic moment” in history. He led his Ditchley Annual Lecture with the challenge of Russia and China, but his most revealing point was his discussion of how intense disruption by new technologies may be the most important and wide-ranging shock to the system we face today. He called this moment “a revolution in technology more profound than the industrial revolution or the dawn of the nuclear age.”

He is, of course, correct. Rapid technological change is reshaping the way we live, work and fight. The U.S. and China are competing to be first in space tech, biotech, quantum tech and a whole host of other techs that will create everything from life-saving medicine and climate solutions to life-ending bioweapons and artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous weapons systems.

This technological revolution hits the intelligence community hard, and in three earth-shaking ways.

First, primacy in innovation has shifted from the intelligence community to industry. Until recently, the intelligence community had long been on the bleeding edge of technological advancement, and as a result it knew what was on the horizon before anyone else. In his speech, Burns recalled the CIA’s innovation successes of past decades, but he also gave a nod to the uncomfortable truth that the vast majority of innovation happens outside government.

That is by no means a bad thing; having an in-house production capacity for an infinite number of potential needs is both expensive and foolish. Instead, the ideal arrangement is a lean, agile intelligence community with a wide industrial base to lean on for the perfect bespoke widget at the perfect time. But the intelligence community, being in the business of secrecy, has always struggled with the right balance of protection of secrets and sharing with the private sector. The risk calculus too often defaults to “nope,” which is a recipe for stasis and dangerous blind spots.

Second, the rapid pace of innovation means the intelligence community must work extremely hard to avert strategic surprise. Analysts and operators must interpret small signs to identify potential threats in competitors’ advancements. For example, a subset of financial technology — the suite of tools that allow for online money exchange — could disrupt one of the United States’ most often-used weapons: financial sanctions. Biotech could revolutionize medicine — or drive an efficient, terrible genocide — but these types of programs will be tightly held in the Chinese or Russian system.

The intelligence community is adapting to respond, albeit slowly. Burns said the CIA is “transforming our approach to emerging technology issues,” in part by creating a mission center focused solely on technology and transnational challenges. One of its mandates is to increase the CIA’s exchange with the private sector: a much-needed conduit to bring outside talent and treasure into what can be a miserable maze of security bureaucracy. But there is much more to be done.

The CIA and the wider intelligence community must reimagine how it takes new technologies from concept to creation to implementation at scale. (Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images)

Chasing the emerging-technology mission will be resource-intensive and will require thinking about the craft of intelligence in new ways. In our recent paper, “Move over JARVIS, meet OSCAR,” we argued that the combination of open-source intelligence, cloud computing technology and AI would revolutionize the business of intelligence, but only if the intelligence community is bold enough to try it. We nicknamed this new capability “OSCAR,” and we gave a set of recommendations describing how to get from here to there, looking at culture, security, policy, people and bold steps to take if progress stalls.

In a separate paper, “Seven Critical Technologies for Winning the Next War,” we made the case that seven technologies will make the difference in every aspect of strategic competition, and perhaps the most frightening of them is bioengineering. Burns also highlighted biotechnology as a development that is progressing on a “hockey stick” trend line: “Nowhere is that more evident than in biotechnology and biomanufacturing — which can unlock extraordinary climate and health solutions and boost our economies, but whose abuse and misuse could lead to catastrophe.”

The combinations of these technologies are far more impactful than the sum of their parts. Biology plus robotics could lead to self-healing or morphic robots, useful for long-term espionage in otherwise unreachable places. Facial recognition, AI, biosensors and high-performance computing can hand a state the ability to track a person through cities, airports, doctors’ offices, pharmacies, schools and toll roads — over multiple years, on multiple continents.

The latter combination of technologies in particular will make spy work more difficult than it has ever been, at a time when understanding our adversaries is even more vital. This is the third big impact on the intelligence community: Gathering information clandestinely is becoming nearly impossible in heavily surveilled environments.

Burns acknowledged this, describing the CIA as “in the midst of the most profound transformation of espionage tradecraft since the Cold War.” The challenge of ubiquitous technical surveillance will make human operations difficult and dangerous. Operators will need to go beyond living their cover; they will need to appear to exist in two places at the same time, or no places at all.

To meet these challenges and succeed in the competition with China, the intelligence community needs to reimagine how it takes new technologies from concept to creation to implementation at scale. Burns laid out the why, but not the how, of this transformation. We created a website called Tech Recs to help the U.S. government find a list of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ recommendations for how to create smart tech policy for intelligence and defense. Implementing these recommendations will give the U.S. the best possible shot at getting to the vision of a modern, capable, cutting-edge technology ecosystem that Director Burns described.

Director Burns correctly identified this revolutionary moment. The intelligence community can talk about it and watch it pass by, or it can rise to the occasion, recognize the urgency and cast aside defunct practices. We need the audacity to dream big and the humility to let industry help.

Emily Harding is the deputy director and a senior fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

8. 'Will end in a stalemate': Some experts say offensive won't win Ukraine war.

Excerpts

Sean McFate, a professor at Syracuse University and senior fellow at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council think tank, says Zelenskyy is "in a box. He can’t win but can’t afford to lose either." For more than a year he demanded increasingly sophisticated weapons and billions of dollars from NATO and promised to push Russia out in a spring offensive. That offensive "has been floundering," McFate says.

"NATO is experiencing donor fatigue and disappointment with Zelenskyy’s bluster," McFate said. "He’s losing credibility, Ukraine's main asset."

'Will end in a stalemate': Some experts say offensive won't win Ukraine war. Live updates.

John Bacon

Jorge L. Ortiz

USA TODAY

USA Today · by John Bacon

USA TODAY

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Russian coup attempt raises questions about Ukraine war. What we know.

Here's what rebellion by Wagner group mercenaries means for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

The Ukraine military's intensified push to regain territory seized by Russia could jump-start Kyiv's slow-developing counteroffensive, but some experts say this war won't be won on the battlefield anyway.

Western officials said a surge in troops and firepower was underway in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia province, and a Kremlin-installed bureaucrat in the occupied area remarked on social media that "the second wave of the counteroffensive has begun." National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, asked this week about the progress Ukraine has made, stressed that "it's not a stalemate. They're not just frozen. The Ukrainians are moving."

Some experts, however, say a stalemate is the most likely scenario.

Steven Myers, an Air Force veteran who served on the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy under two secretaries of State, told USA TODAY that one of the West’s narratives is that Russian leader Vladimir Putin planned to conquer Ukraine and continue west if not confronted and stopped. But Myers argues that Russia's military tactics have been "completely inconsistent with conquest." The agenda was, is and will always be to keep Ukraine out of NATO at all cost, he said.

"Strategically this war was lost by both sides before it started. It will end in stalemate, which I now think was Putin’s intent from the get-go," Myers said. "President Biden, NATO and Zelenskyy have trapped themselves in a Catch 22 of their own making, unable to deliver on unrealistic expectations they created."

Sean McFate, a professor at Syracuse University and senior fellow at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council think tank, says Zelenskyy is "in a box. He can’t win but can’t afford to lose either." For more than a year he demanded increasingly sophisticated weapons and billions of dollars from NATO and promised to push Russia out in a spring offensive. That offensive "has been floundering," McFate says.

"NATO is experiencing donor fatigue and disappointment with Zelenskyy’s bluster," McFate said. "He’s losing credibility, Ukraine's main asset."

Providing Ukraine with more weapons and expecting the nation to win the war is "the definition of strategic insanity," McFate said. This war won't be won on a battlefield because no wars are won that way anymore, he said.

"The U.S. has been winning battles and losing wars for 50 years now," he said.

Jeff Levine, a former U.S. ambassador to anxious Russian neighbor Estonia, thinks Zelenskyy is doing fine and Ukrainians should feel good about what they are accomplishing. Levine says the Ukrainian leader's government has exceeded expectations on the battlefield while maintaining services and information-flow to the civilian population amid a devastating war.

Zelenskyy also has made a "desperately needed" effort to combat corruption and appears to be doing a good job managing international aid and crucial bilateral relationships, Levine said.

"How the conflict will end remains the million-dollar question, but I doubt it will be on Putin's terms," Levine said. " I think Putin is suffering far more from weakened political and public support than Zelenskyy."

Developments:

∎ The Russian-aligned Wagner Group mercenaries training in Belarus are recruiting soldiers from Belarusian military ranks − and one of the conditions of the contract is willingess to fight in Poland and Lithuania if required, Ukraine's National Resistance Center reported.

∎ A Russian missile attack on Kivsharivka, a town of 18,000 near Kharkiv, killed a 74-year-old woman and wounded four people, local official Oleh Syniehubov said.

'Second wave has begun': 'Second wave has begun': Ukraine makes push for southern province: Live updates

The foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania released a joint statement expressing “deep concern” over the International Olympic Committee’s plan to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at the Summer Olympics in Paris next year. Estonian, Latvia, and Lithuania have been among Ukraine's strongest supporters in the war with Russia and say they don't want those athletes competing under a neutral flag. Russia has always used sports as a "tool of politics" to legitimize its politics. Many Ukrainian athletes have been unable to participate in sports because of the war, and some have been killed or injured, the statement said. Additionally, Ukrainian sports facilities have been destroyed by the targeted attacks of Russia on civilian infrastructure.

"The desire to change borders by force, as well as the scale of war crimes and crimes against humanity constitute a gross violation of the United Nations Charter, and undermine the core principles of the Olympic movement," the statement said.

USA Today · by John Bacon

9. How to Win with Data: The US SOF-Cyber Partnership Supporting Ukraine

Fascinating. SOF of the future.  

Excerpt:

However, access to data is only one step in a data science effort. As the data began to accumulate, another key task became determining if we had the right data. Acquiring a big data set is useless if it is the wrong data, and while both cyber and SOF elements were acquiring large amounts of data, neither had the resources (or, at times, the authorities) to acquire all the data related to the information dimension surrounding the Ukraine conflict. In essence, each command was sampling a comparatively small amount of data from a very large data fire hose. For any researcher in DoD, it is important to know if ongoing data acquisition efforts support current and projected operational requirements. To ensure that they do, data sampling methodology needs to be evaluated and reevaluated regularly. In the case of the SOF-cyber partnership, we determined that the sampling for both cyber and SOF data acquisition methods required adjustments to support contingency operations in Europe. Ultimately, a large portion of the SOF-cyber coordination efforts focused on synchronizing and, in some cases unifying, our approach to aggregating, storing, and analyzing data in the information dimension.

How to Win with Data: The US SOF-Cyber Partnership Supporting Ukraine - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by David Beskow, Daniel Hawthorne, Tommy Daniel · July 27, 2023

Winning the information war has been a strategic enabler for Ukraine since the Russian offensive began on February 24, 2022. Shortly after the invasion, various entities in Ukraine began systematically flooding Western news and social media with highlights of Ukrainian national resistance and tactical successes. These stories were sometimes false and often debunked, like the one about the “Ghost of Kiev,” a mythical Ukrainian fighter pilot who ruled the skies over the capital city. True or false, the stories knit together a tale of resistance, leadership, and early military successes that galvanized Western support and aid. Today, many Western countries, including the United States, are leveraging all elements of national power (diplomatic, information, military, and economic) to help Ukraine repel Russian assaults. However, the massive outpouring of foreign aid and support may not have materialized if Ukraine had failed to win the information war in the West.

The war in Ukraine highlights information’s important role in modern conflict; military and civilian leaders must understand the tactical, operational, and strategic implications of the information dimension in combat. For many reasons, the information dimension presents several complex problems that are difficult to answer. For example, which narratives will stick or go viral? How do narratives affect different audiences? How do adversaries adjust their narratives accordingly? What are the second- and third-order effects of releasing classified information? Adding to that complexity is the fact that most information operations are played out over several social and traditional media outlets and are largely dependent on the data that underlies those platforms – namely the commercial data, or data that is proprietary and commercialized by a company. Without access to commercial data research and analysis on the role of information in war is difficult and largely incomplete. To better understand how the information dimension can be leveraged successfully in modern warfare, the Department of Defense (DoD) should invest in data-centric lines of effort that exploit advances in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computational social science to have an impact on the conventional and irregular battlefields and beyond.

Why Data Is Critical

Many pundits have referred to data as “the new oil.” Data’s importance to DoD was most recently highlighted in the National Defense Strategy and in official comments from senior leaders. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth identified data-centric operations as a top objective for the US Army because the information dimension is vast and warfare is becoming increasingly data-driven. Modern warfare, therefore, demands that any assessment of the information dimension start with a data-driven approach to understanding it, supported with theory and applications from cyber, systems engineering, social sciences, marketing, psychology, and other disciplines. In recent years, social media and other data platforms have become the terrain through which nation-states and their proxies compete to control narratives. Whether an actor is launching a narrative (employing information “fires”) or manipulating a network (conducting information “maneuver”), third-party information technologies and cyber platforms record every action in exacting detail.

Data, whether within a social media post (text, image, or video), or a traditional website or blog, is created and stored in information technology systems external to the Department of Defense Information Network and typically commercially owned and operated. Analysis and assessment of information campaigns requires access to commercial data, and this access can occur through any of the following methods:

1. Browser-based access, where the data remains on the originating social media company servers.
2. Third-party tool access, where data is acquired by a third-party company and retained on its servers.
3. Government-acquired access to data, i.e., when data retention and analysis are conducted on government servers.

To assess the full breadth and scope of the information dimension, the third option is the most attractive to government analysts. When analysis is conducted on government servers, analysts do not reveal their priority information requirements to third parties, and the government can merge open-source data with other data sources. Additionally, government-acquired access to data is the only option that will enable government data-science experts to process and assess the data at speed and scale. Importantly, DoD data-science talent, including graduates of the Army’s Artificial Intelligence Scholars Program, are unable to leverage their skillsets for information advantage if they do not have access to relevant datasets residing on government systems. Data science, by its very nature, requires data.

Data Powers SOF-Cyber Partnership

As Russia invaded Ukraine, US Army cyber mission forces and special operations forces (SOF) pooled talent and resources to assess the information dimension surrounding the conflict. The SOF-cyber partnership proved valuable, because it brought together the two largest formations in the Army operating in the information dimension: the information operations (IO) force structure largely found within Army Cyber Command; and the psychological operations (PSYOP) force structure belonging to 1st Special Forces Command. Additionally, the pairing combined the technical systems and talent of Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) with the irregular warfare mission and mindset of 1st Special Forces Command. It was a match made in heaven. While the characteristics of the IO-PSYOP partnership have evolved over the course of the Ukraine conflict, the United States has continued to make progress toward better data integration and employment across formations and communities. Ultimately, the SOF-cyber partnership has demonstrated the value of the larger “Space, Cyber, and SOF Triad” that is now under development and designed to enhance integrated deterrence of adversary malign activity during competition.

Together we (the three authors) led the SOF-Cyber data efforts in February 2022 – including the data science, data engineering, and cloud infrastructure portions of the project – and the following analysis relays our experience as practitioners on the project. As part of the SOF-cyber data efforts, we identified similar but disconnected efforts to acquire the same sorts of commercial data from the information dimension. There were even instances where SOF and cyber formations had separate contracts with a single vendor for the same data. The partnership helped to build efficiencies across the organization and to synchronize data acquisition and analysis efforts. Importantly, synchronization efforts created a single repository for all government-acquired data, allowing the data to be acquired once and then made available to the various commands as needed. For example, in one instance, we facilitated merging the, data into ARCYBER’s Big Data Platform where access was then provided to other DoD elements with an information advantage mission and authorities.

However, access to data is only one step in a data science effort. As the data began to accumulate, another key task became determining if we had the right data. Acquiring a big data set is useless if it is the wrong data, and while both cyber and SOF elements were acquiring large amounts of data, neither had the resources (or, at times, the authorities) to acquire all the data related to the information dimension surrounding the Ukraine conflict. In essence, each command was sampling a comparatively small amount of data from a very large data fire hose. For any researcher in DoD, it is important to know if ongoing data acquisition efforts support current and projected operational requirements. To ensure that they do, data sampling methodology needs to be evaluated and reevaluated regularly. In the case of the SOF-cyber partnership, we determined that the sampling for both cyber and SOF data acquisition methods required adjustments to support contingency operations in Europe. Ultimately, a large portion of the SOF-cyber coordination efforts focused on synchronizing and, in some cases unifying, our approach to aggregating, storing, and analyzing data in the information dimension.

Creating an Agile Data-Science Environment

In late 2021, ARCYBER developed an agile cyber data-science environment within their Big Data Platform ecosystem. The new environment is a containerized JupyterHub environment that provides data scientists with a scalable computing platform, loaded with their favorite tools, and enables access to all the varied data stores supported in Big Data Platform’s environment. At first, the new cyber data-science environment was used to support defensive cyber operations (including support for the Army response to the Solar Winds and Log4J compromises). Still, the emerging crisis in Europe provided its first large-scale use in support of information advantage assessment in an operational environment.

Many of the questions that senior Army and DoD leaders were asking about the conflict in Ukraine were not entirely answerable in the Big Data Platform’s preexisting third-party tools and dashboards. The new cyber data-science environment provided analysts with an agile platform that could pivot quickly to the right data and answer senior leader questions. Incredibly, our team assessed that 90% of the analysis and analytic products produced by the SOF-cyber information advantage team came from using the new cyber data-science environment. Thus, in a short period, the new environment proved critical to providing decision-makers with the information needed to better understand the Ukraine conflict, which could only be had from a data-science environment and not just a data dashboard.

Data Science Talent

The cyber data-science environment (and the agile DevSecOps process behind it) allowed the authors to fully leverage the data-science talent resident in the cyber and SOF formations. The environment was used by a wide variety of personnel, including those with civil affairs, military intelligence, psychological operations, special forces, and cyber backgrounds. But, behind the scenes, two career fields proved critical. The data science was largely conducted by Army Cyber Capabilities Development officers, or junior officers from the 17D career field, with some oversight and input from Operations Research and System Analysis officers, or field-grade officers from the functional area 49 career field. While most of the 17Ds support other cyber workflows, a few have distinguished themselves in cloud infrastructure and data science and have been consolidated at the enterprise level. These officers primarily acquired their machine learning and artificial intelligence expertise during their undergraduate education, while others have graduate school experience (both masters and PhD experiences are supported through scholarship and Army Civil Schooling programs). Access to relevant data and availability of the data-science environment allowed US forces to rapidly iterate on senior leader questions and provide relevant information at speed and scale.

Why Data Matters

Within three weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the combined SOF-cyber team developed seven new analytic approaches (including two new deep learning models and three new network science models) to support the unique requirements of the information dimension in Eastern Europe. In addition to the seven models, the team also relied upon existing models that the team had already developed and deployed, including machine learning, network science, natural language processing, and image-analysis models and visualizations. These models were deployed into production in custom machine-learning pipelines and atop the unified SOF-cyber data to feed a daily product automatically produced and distributed to relevant Army, Joint, and SOF commands in Europe.

Having the right data in the right environment enabled the daily delivery of relevant information to senior leaders and helped generate a big win for the Big Data Platform concept. Because the information dimension continues to be a critical aspect of Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine, DoD needs to continue to build out its data-science capabilities to ensure we are ready to fight effectively and efficiently in future conflicts. Understanding the information dimension of conflict is more critical than ever and developing senior leaders’ understanding should begin with a data-centric approach. Meaningful operational questions can be answered, and operational insights gleaned when we have the right data, in the right environment, and in the hands of the right talent. If any of these ingredients are missing, the value proposition tends to fall apart. The SOF-cyber data partnership that began with Ukraine should continue and evolve to encompass new areas of research and data acquisition to develop new operational efficiencies and expand upon current successes.

Lt. Col. David Beskow, Ph.D. is an academy professor in the Department of Systems Engineering at West Point. He served as the Chief Data Scientist for Army Cyber Command’s Technical Warfare Center from 2020-2022.

Maj. Daniel Hawthorne, Ph.D. is the lead for the Army Cyber Command agile data science environment and has led the ARCYBER Technical Warfare Center infrastructure team since February 2021.

Capt. Tommy Daniel is the data team lead for Task Force 40-25, 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne). His most recent assignments were with the 1st Special Forces Command’s data office and as a cross-functional team leader and Special Operations Liaison Element to Moldova.

Main Image: Staff Sgt. Gregory Fretz, a cyber operations specialist with the 178th Cyber Protection Team, Mississippi Army National Guard, monitors cyber activity during Exercise Southern Strike at Camp Shelby, Miss., April 21, 2023. Southern Strike 2023 was a large-scale, joint multinational combat exercise hosted by the Mississippi National Guard that provided tactical level training for the full spectrum of conflict. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Renee Seruntine)

10. Negotiating an End to the Ukraine War

Conclusion:

In Ukraine, the bargaining gap that must be bridged is between Ukraine’s disinclination to formally cede any of its territory and Putin’s need to show some gain from his costly military misadventure. Some political issues probably will have to be in effect punted, with their eventual outcome uncertain, if any peace agreement is to be reached, despite the future risk of misunderstandings and festering grievances. Mechanisms such as referenda that leave some future outcomes to chance may be part of a formula for ending this war.

Negotiating an End to the Ukraine War

The ending of the war in Ukraine will almost certainly entail some form of bargaining between Ukraine and Russia, and will leave a situation that represents a compromise between the interests of the two nations.

The National Interest · by Paul R. Pillar · July 27, 2023

More than forty years ago, I wrote a book titled Negotiating Peace that analyzed the diplomatic and military dynamics of bringing a war to an end. It drew material from the endings of wars through nearly two centuries, as well as a closer examination of a few major cases that had extended periods of simultaneous combat and negotiations. It also drew on theoretical work, chiefly by economists, about bargaining. Parts of the book got rather technical—it included differential equations—but it also had a more digestible prescriptive side. An appendix titled “Lessons for the Statesman at War” included forty-four pieces of advice for how best to employ diplomatic and military instruments to achieve a peace that will maximize the interests of one’s own nation.

Much of this advice is at least potentially applicable to the current war in Ukraine—from the standpoint not only of decisionmakers in Kyiv and Moscow but also of policymakers in Washington, in terms of what they should expect or hope to promote. The actual applicability of some of my apothegms will depend on events yet to unfold, but the following outlines a few of the major lessons.

The ending of the war in Ukraine will almost certainly entail some form of bargaining between Ukraine and Russia, and will leave a situation that represents a compromise between the interests of the two nations. It is rare in interstate conflicts for one belligerent to eradicate the other so that it has no need for any bargaining or compromise. It is not so rare in intrastate warfare, in which an insurgency might eliminate and replace an incumbent regime or the regime might crush the insurgency solely through military means (such as Sri Lanka’s final eradication of the Tamil Tiger insurgency in 2009).

But the eradication of a nation-state is a different matter and a less feasible outcome. Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein managed to do that temporarily when he used armed force to swallow Kuwait in 1990, but a U.S.-led intervention reversed that outcome the following year. The objective of Russian president Vladimir Putin in launching the current war in February 2022 may have been to eliminate Ukraine as an independent country, either through formal incorporation into Russia or by installing a puppet regime in Kyiv. It now is clear that Russian military force is insufficient to achieve any such outcome. And obviously, Ukraine cannot eliminate the Russian state.

Even a war that is said to end in a surrender does not involve totally imposing the will of one side on the other and involves a negotiated compromise. No surrender is unconditional if the side surrendering still has some ability to fight. The surrender of Japan in 1945 was a deal in which Japan agreed to stop fighting and thus spared the Allies what would have been an extremely costly military conquest of the main islands of Japan.

Another possible ending of an interstate war is for one or both belligerents simply to withdraw from the battle (as occurred with the border war between China and India in 1962), leaving a frozen conflict with or without occupation of the disputed territory. Such an outcome is possible in Ukraine, but an explicit war-ending agreement has multiple advantages for all concerned. It provides a framework that facilitates prisoner exchanges, peacekeeping protocols, and other useful measures. It provides a degree of certainty that reduces the risk of misinterpretations of the other side’s actions leading to renewed warfare.

In any event, bargaining, possibly tacit, is still taking place even without a formal written agreement. The withdrawal from battle leaves a state of affairs that affects the interests of each belligerent in both positive and negative ways, and which each side must compare with the “no agreement” situation of continued warfare to decide whether to accept the bargain that this state of affairs represents.

An implication of the foregoing is that to speak of the termination of the war in Ukraine in terms of “winning” or “losing” the war is not helpful in understanding likely scenarios for termination and in preparing for those scenarios.

The end of the war is likely to be preceded by a period of bargaining—perhaps in formal negotiations—accompanied by continued combat, rather than a military outcome being fully established before work begins on constructing a political outcome. Traditionally there tended to be a temporal separation between military operations and peace diplomacy—such as with the end of World War I, when the guns were silenced by an armistice at Compiègne in November 1918 and a peace treaty was negotiated at Versailles the following year. But that sequence was mainly a legacy of the limitations of pre-modern communications, when day-to-day coordination of military operations and diplomacy was difficult (except for someone like Napoleon Bonaparte, who combined military field command and ultimate political authority in his own person). That difficulty no longer exists, and belligerents have an incentive to continue using their military instrument in ways that they hope will add heft to their diplomacy.

Regardless, silencing the guns—and ending the suffering of Ukrainians from a continued war, and with it the threat of escalation into a wider war—ought to be considered the most important component of terminating this war. Moreover, even an agreement that is labeled as merely an armistice and not a full resolution of political issues may be the only peace agreement that a conflict ever gets. That has been true, for seventy years and counting, of the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War. This is one of the reasons that the Korean War—which was one of the major cases I studied in researching the book—has been mentioned by some other observers as a model for terminating the war in Ukraine.

Belligerents will become willing to negotiate a peace agreement when they both have demonstrated, to themselves and to the enemy, the limits of what they are able and willing to do militarily, and there is little or no prospect for either side to change the situation on the battlefield appreciably with one more offensive effort. Another analyst, I. William Zartman, has called such a situation a “hurting stalemate.”

A war that has not reached a stalemate and is going either too badly or too well for a belligerent is likely to lead that belligerent to resist peace negotiations for the time being, for different reasons. Too badly, and the impulse is to keep fighting to shore up the situation on the battlefield, in the hope of looking and being stronger in whatever negotiations eventually take place. Too well, and the tendency is to expand one’s war objectives and to hope to accomplish them without the need for negotiation and compromise. The first year of the Korean War illustrated each of these tendencies, as the front line moved up and down the peninsula with the initial North Korean invasion, the U.S.-led intervention under the United Nations flag, the later Chinese intervention, and another UN push that finally brought the line to what became a stalemate near the 38th parallel.

An implication of this pattern for the war in Ukraine is that it is a mistake to talk about hoped-for breakthroughs by the Ukrainian counteroffensive, with Russian forces thrown backward, as being a precursor, and maybe even a necessary precursor, for peace negotiations. Given Putin’s stake in the conflict, his reaction might be just like the U.S. reaction to the two major communist offensives that threw friendly forces backward in Korea: to see this as making it all the more necessary to assume increased military costs and risks to improve the battlefield map before sitting down to talk peace.

One other lesson, regarding the substance of any possible peace agreement, is already worth mentioning. Notwithstanding the value of a written peace agreement in lending precision and certainty to the postwar situation, sometimes some uncertainty can have value in helping the parties come to any agreement at all. This was true regarding the uncertain future of the South Vietnamese government in the years following the peace agreement between the United States and North Vietnam in 1973. Although the concept of a “decent interval” involved a domestic political motive for President Richard Nixon, leaving the fate of the Saigon regime somewhat to chance was a way to reconcile the United States’ refusal to explicitly abandon that regime with Hanoi’s objective to rule all of Vietnam.

In Ukraine, the bargaining gap that must be bridged is between Ukraine’s disinclination to formally cede any of its territory and Putin’s need to show some gain from his costly military misadventure. Some political issues probably will have to be in effect punted, with their eventual outcome uncertain, if any peace agreement is to be reached, despite the future risk of misunderstandings and festering grievances. Mechanisms such as referenda that leave some future outcomes to chance may be part of a formula for ending this war.

Paul Pillar retired in 2005 from a twenty-eight-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was as a National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. Professor Pillar also served in the National Intelligence Council as one of the original members of its Analytic Group. He is also a contributing editor for this publication.

11. What Does Qin Gang’s Removal Mean for China’s Foreign Policy?

Excerpt:

One personnel management strategy adopted by both Xi and his predecessors, notably Mao, is to promote people who owe their advancement entirely to the top leader — individuals who have weak or non-existent factional networks. Qin appears to be such an individual. A dictator can literally pluck a junior official out of obscurity and promote this person knowing that their loyalty is almost guaranteed because the individual knows full well their selection was made solely because they were anointed by the man at the top. Another key factor in selection criteria is an individual’s perceived weaknesses or flaws, which makes that person even more beholden to the top leader. This blemish could be an embarrassing episode in their past or current picadillo, such as corruption or sexual promiscuity, that if made public would mean the end of their career. Qin is rumored to have had an extramarital affair while he was stationed in Washington as China’s ambassador to the United States.

What Does Qin Gang’s Removal Mean for China’s Foreign Policy?

The mysterious disappearance of Beijing’s foreign minister demonstrates how opaque China’s political system is — and how much Xi Jinping dominates it.

Thursday, July 27, 2023 / BY: Rosie Levine; Andrew Scobell, Ph.D.; Adam Gallagher

usip.org

USIP’s Rosie Levine, Andrew Scobell and Adam Gallagher discuss the implications for China’s foreign policy, what this incident reveals about China’s political system and lessons for U.S. policymakers.

What are the implications for China’s foreign policy?

Levine: China has its work cut out for itself to manage the bad the optics of Qin Gang’s sudden removal. Chinese foreign policy rhetoric has spent years trying to position itself as a responsible and stabilizing fixture on the world stage. In much of China’s foreign policy outreach, it fashions itself as a trusted partner who can be relied upon for its predictability and long-time horizons — in contrast to the United States, which is cast as unstable and easily swayed by domestic politics.

Qin’s mysterious disappearance, followed by his removal and a complete scrub of all mentions of his activities on the Foreign Ministry website, points to a political purge. This episode is a stark reminder that China’s opaque political system remains determined by the whims of an apparatus we largely do not understand. Countries seeking to engage with China’s foreign policy system will look to this as a reminder of the ways that policymaking in China can be erratic and ultimately driven by domestic politics, despite the rhetoric to the contrary.

The next important implication for foreign policy stems from the differences in how Qin and Wang conduct diplomacy. Wang’s return as foreign minister may signal a further shift away from China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy. Before serving as one of China’s youngest foreign ministers, Qin was selected for a number of high visibility positions within the Chinese foreign ministry including Chinese ambassador to the United States, Foreign Ministry spokesman and chief protocol officer (directly involved with Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s engagements and meetings).

As spokesman he is seen as a pioneer of China’s assertive “wolf warrior” style of diplomacy, which aggressively defends China’s foreign policy agenda on the global stage. Wang, by contrast, is seen as a more traditional bureaucrat who held the post of foreign minister for almost a decade, before being elevated to the role of director of the Communist Party’s Foreign Affairs Commission Office last year. Wang has built strong relationships with key foreign policy counterparts around the globe and is seen as a steadying force Chinese foreign policy.

Qin’s quick rise through the ranks was widely interpreted as a reward, granted directly by Xi, for his assertive style of diplomacy. His unceremonious removal may indicate that his style of diplomacy is losing favor. In recent years, other “wolf warriors” have been reassigned to lower-visibility roles. Wang’s return as foreign minister could signal a further shift in Chinese foreign policy tone away from “wolf warrior” rhetoric and assertive foreign policy claims, in favor of more traditional Chinese foreign policy approaches. Some analysts have also called Wang a “wolf warrior,” but over the years he has demonstrated more adaptive approaches to foreign policy often presenting different modes depending on the audiences and policy objectives. This has ranged from aggressive language, to constructive approaches and some awkward misses.

Ultimately, we should not expect a dramatic shift in China’s foreign policy, but stylistic and personality changes could make a difference — particularly in U.S.-China relations where substantive engagements have been limited to high-level meetings, which rely upon the personalities and approaches of those top leaders themselves.

What does this demonstrate about China’s political system?

Scobell: The month-long disappearance of Qin Gang and abrupt removal from his post as foreign minister underscores two core features of politics in contemporary China.

First, China’s entire political system is opaque and orbits around one man: Xi Jinping. Since taking office a decade ago, Xi has consolidated his personal hold on power tighter than any top leader since Mao Zedong (1949-1976). Xi now exercises centralized control over all major bureaucratic systems, to include the Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army, and state — People’s Republic of China — ministries, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Xi also spearheads all key policy initiatives. No dimension of the political system is more important and less transparent than personnel management: the selection, promotion and dismissal of leaders in each of these bureaucracies. This is especially true when it comes to the matter of China’s most consequential and enduring foreign policy challenge: the United States.

Second, China’s strongman selects, promotes and removes officials primarily on the basis of loyalty, specifically according to an individual’s perceived personal fealty to Xi. While competence is not unimportant, loyalty is paramount. Loyalty is the key criterion for personnel selection because leaders like Xi are never sure about who they can trust (China is a low trust society and its communist rulers are ultra paranoid about conspiracies and betrayal).

One personnel management strategy adopted by both Xi and his predecessors, notably Mao, is to promote people who owe their advancement entirely to the top leader — individuals who have weak or non-existent factional networks. Qin appears to be such an individual. A dictator can literally pluck a junior official out of obscurity and promote this person knowing that their loyalty is almost guaranteed because the individual knows full well their selection was made solely because they were anointed by the man at the top. Another key factor in selection criteria is an individual’s perceived weaknesses or flaws, which makes that person even more beholden to the top leader. This blemish could be an embarrassing episode in their past or current picadillo, such as corruption or sexual promiscuity, that if made public would mean the end of their career. Qin is rumored to have had an extramarital affair while he was stationed in Washington as China’s ambassador to the United States.

What does this mean for the efforts to improve U.S.-China relations? Are there lessons for U.S. policymakers?

Gallagher: Qin Gang’s mysterious disappearance and subsequent replacement as China’s foreign minister coincides with a much-needed thaw in U.S.-China relations. Secretaries Blinken and Yellen and Special Envoy John Kerry have all been in Beijing in recent weeks and Blinken met with Wang Yi at last week’s ASEAN summit in Indonesia. While speculation is rampant about the reason for Qin’s removal, one reason may be his poor handling of tense relations with Washington — particularly Qin’s failure to mount an effective response to President Biden calling Xi a “dictator” after Blinken’s visit to Beijing — at an important moment in the bilateral relationship.

Wang’s reappointment does suggest that Xi wants to continue relatively positive trends in engagement and build a more stable relationship with Washington ahead of a potential tête-à-tête with Biden at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting in San Francisco this November. Although Wang has often harangued U.S. officials and harshly criticized U.S. policy, he is a known commodity in Washington. Now he sits at the head of both the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Communist Party’s Foreign Affairs Commission. He’s also a member of the CCP’s ruling Politburo and one of Xi’s most trusted aides. So, U.S. diplomats can be confident that Wang’s public and private pronouncements align with the upper echelons of the Chinese government and Communist Party.

This whole affair reinforces that Xi is the ultimate arbiter of Beijing’s policy and posture toward Washington — and everything else for that matter. Xi appointed Qin as foreign minister over other more seasoned Chinese officials and he very clearly made the call to remove Qin. Thus, it is unlikely that Wang’s reappointment will lead to any real change in China’s U.S. policy unless it is at Xi’s behest. Personnel shuffling does not address the structural challenges in U.S.-China relations.

Whatever the reason for Qin’s removal, it demonstrates a troubling lack of transparency that should stay in the back of minds of U.S. policymakers and diplomats in their dealing with Beijing. Diplomacy is often a painstaking and iterative trust-building process. If China cannot be forthright about the status of its leading officials, why should the United States or any other government trust China in sensitive diplomatic discussions? This episode is not only embarrassing for Xi but could lead to understandable reticence among U.S. policymakers and diplomats in their engagement with Chinese officials.

usip.org

12. What Russia’s Wagner Group Can Teach NATO

Provocative headline and some provocative ideas.

Excerpts:

But as Ukraine is degraded by an open-ended conflict – and as its future as a thriving nation grows ever murkier with every new day of combat – Ukrainians may start wondering why they have to make all the sacrifices for the common good and sustain all the irreparable losses.

...

Not only could NATO lose a valuable ally strategically located in the center of Europe, but Ukraine may find other allies and supporters in a world where new economic and military actors are emerging and are positioning themselves as rivals to the U.S.-led Western alliance. China, in particular, comes to mind.

...

NATO should borrow a page from Putin’s book. Several NATO members – e.g., the United States, the UK, Canada and Poland – should band together and set up a “private” army, something like the Sibelius Group, to honor Finland, the new member of the alliance.

What Russia’s Wagner Group Can Teach NATO - The Globalist

theglobalist.com · by Markus Heinrich · July 26, 2023

The Russian government always denied that it had anything to do with the Wagner Group. Putin’s propaganda machine claimed that the colonial wars conducted in Africa (and even efforts to keep Syria’s Bashar al-Assad in power) were nothing but private enterprise.

But then, when Wagner took part in Russia’s war in Ukraine, it was openly getting arms and ammunition from the Russian Ministry of Defense. And, following Wagner’s attempted coup in June, Putin finally acknowledged that his government financed this “private” army.

NATO remains wary of entering the war

In view of the recent wave of attacks on civilian targets in Odessa, the question of how to stop the nation that has collectively become a war criminal becomes more pressing.

With Belarus dictator Lukashenko effectively threatening Poland by saying that Wagner “wants to visit Warsaw and Rzeszow,” it would be great to respond to these threats by forming a “Western Wagner.”

Taking stock

The war in Ukraine has gone on for nearly a year and a half, and the impact on the country has been devastating.

An unknown number of Ukrainians – certainly running into many tens of thousands – have been killed or maimed. Nearly a quarter of the population are refugees abroad. Industry and agriculture have been severely damaged.

While NATO remains wary of entering the war in Ukraine directly, the Wagner Group offers an excellent model on how to defeat Russia quickly – and without legally engaging the Western Alliance.

How much longer?

As the war drags on indefinitely the situation will become catastrophic. Many more Ukrainian young men and women will die at the front. Numerous refugee families will find new homes, start assimilating and will decide not to return to their ruined country.

And the Ukrainian economy and infrastructure will reel from barbaric Russian acts of the kind that destroyed the Kakhovka dam.

On the right side of history, but…

Ukrainians know that they are fighting to uphold the basic values of civilization, democracy and freedom and are defending the rest of the world (Eastern Europe in particular) from Russian aggression.

Many people in the West agree – and this is why Kyiv has been getting massive military and economic assistance from some fifty countries and international institutions.

But as Ukraine is degraded by an open-ended conflict – and as its future as a thriving nation grows ever murkier with every new day of combat – Ukrainians may start wondering why they have to make all the sacrifices for the common good and sustain all the irreparable losses.

Sapping Ukraine’s vitality

If things go on the way they have, Ukraine’s strength will be inevitably sapped. Ukrainians may eventually turn against the West because the contrast between the devastation of their own country and peace and prosperity in the rest of Europe will be stark.

Not only could NATO lose a valuable ally strategically located in the center of Europe, but Ukraine may find other allies and supporters in a world where new economic and military actors are emerging and are positioning themselves as rivals to the U.S.-led Western alliance. China, in particular, comes to mind.

NATO: No direct confrontation with Russia

Naturally, NATO has no stomach for a direct confrontation with Russia. No one wants to risk a nuclear war, which has been a legitimate reason why all Western nations, including strongest supporters of Ukraine, have said that they are not going to engage Russian troops directly.

Yet, there has always been a way to go around this self-imposed taboo and to end the war in Ukraine promptly. And it is Vladimir Putin himself who showed NATO how to do it.

Borrow a page from Putin’s book

NATO should borrow a page from Putin’s book. Several NATO members – e.g., the United States, the UK, Canada and Poland – should band together and set up a “private” army, something like the Sibelius Group, to honor Finland, the new member of the alliance.

Unlike Wagner, which fought a land war and stormed Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut, the Western “private” army will not need any infantry units on the ground. It will only need squadrons of pilots flying advanced U.S. aircraft and artillery units operating long range rocket launchers and air defense systems. Legally these units will not be connected either to NATO or to any individual nation.

This stratagem – entirely borrowed from Putin – would show Ukrainians that the West is willing to stand with them on the battlefield, not just in press conferences. It would also convince frontline states on NATO’s eastern frontier that the alliance will come to their defense in all circumstances – something that some people in Eastern Europe are still doubting.

Kick Russia out of Ukraine in a matter of months

Most importantly, it is a way to kick Russia out of Ukraine in a matter of months (not years) to minimize Ukrainian military and civilian casualties and reduce the damage to the country’s economy and social structure.

The NATO summit in Vilnius was hailed as a triumph as the expanded 32-member alliance demonstrated unprecedented unity and strength. Yet, a high point all too often becomes a turning point, marking the start of a decline. Without a quick Ukrainian victory, this may prove to be NATO’s future as well.

Going after the Black Sea fleet, the pride of Russia’s admirals, and the strategic bomber location will do much to neuter Russia.

Takeaways

In view of the recent wave of attacks on civilian targets in Odessa, the question of how to stop Russia – the nation that has collectively become a war criminal – becomes more pressing.

While NATO remains wary of entering the war in Ukraine directly, the Wagner Group offers an excellent model on how to defeat Russia quickly – and without legally engaging the Western Alliance.

Ukraine is degraded by an open-ended conflict. Its future as a thriving nation grows ever murkier with every new day of combat.

It is no surprise that Ukrainians are wondering why they have to make all the sacrifices for the sake of European security and sustain all the irreparable losses.

Belarus dictator Lukashenko is effectively threatening Poland by saying that Wagner “wants to visit Warsaw and Rzeszow.” It would be great to respond to these threats by forming a “Western Wagner.“

Kicking Russia out of Ukraine in a matter of months (not years) would minimize Ukrainian military and civilian casualties and reduce the damage to the country’s economy and social structure.

Going after the Black Sea fleet, the pride of Russia’s admirals, and the strategic bomber location will do much to neuter Russia.

NATORussiaUkraineWagner Group

Takeaways

In view of the recent wave of attacks on civilian targets in Odessa, the question of how to stop Russia – the nation that has collectively become a war criminal – becomes more pressing.

While NATO remains wary of entering the war in Ukraine directly, the Wagner Group offers an excellent model on how to defeat Russia quickly – and without legally engaging the Western Alliance.

Ukraine is degraded by an open-ended conflict. Its future as a thriving nation grows ever murkier with every new day of combat.

It is no surprise that Ukrainians are wondering why they have to make all the sacrifices for the sake of European security and sustain all the irreparable losses.

Belarus dictator Lukashenko is effectively threatening Poland by saying that Wagner “wants to visit Warsaw and Rzeszow.” It would be great to respond to these threats by forming a “Western Wagner.“

Kicking Russia out of Ukraine in a matter of months (not years) would minimize Ukrainian military and civilian casualties and reduce the damage to the country’s economy and social structure.

Going after the Black Sea fleet, the pride of Russia’s admirals, and the strategic bomber location will do much to neuter Russia.

theglobalist.com · by Markus Heinrich · July 26, 2023

13.  Stealth Superpowers And The New World Order

The five titans. GAFAM:  Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft

Excerpts:

With this power comes an ability to shape public discourse, their persuasive hands reaching into policy, tipping the scales between democratic principles and corporate influence.

So, what should governments do? It’s a subject that is heavily discussed in Europe, but one that’s relevant beyond the continent.

First, don’t count on confrontation.

...

Second, forget closing the borders.

...

Third, give up the idea of creating local champions in direct competition with the GAFAMs.

...

Instead, nation-states need to negotiate shrewdly with these new giants.

Stealth Superpowers And The New World Order

Forbes · by Sylvain Duranton · July 27, 2023

... [+]AFP via Getty Images

In the new digital world order, five titans – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft – walk the world stage with a weighty sway, their collective market capitalization eclipsing the gross domestic product of many global economies.

Apple's market capitalization alone stands at $3 trillion, higher than France's GDP, and the quintet’s combined market capitalization is close to $9 trillion, comparable to the combined annual GDPs of Germany and Japan.

The colossal investment capabilities of these tech giants often outstrip those of individual countries. For instance, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a €500 million ($556 million) plan to create global AI clusters, compared to Meta's and Alphabet's investment plans of over $30 billion each. Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced a $10 billion investment in OpenAI.

These companies’ control of generative artificial intelligence, which no nation state has yet matched, makes them even more formidable.

With this power comes an ability to shape public discourse, their persuasive hands reaching into policy, tipping the scales between democratic principles and corporate influence.

So, what should governments do? It’s a subject that is heavily discussed in Europe, but one that’s relevant beyond the continent.

First, don’t count on confrontation. Dismantling them is unlikely. While judicial pressure is mounting, these companies and their armies of lawyers have managed to persevere; Microsoft has been under fire since the start of the century, and more recently, GAFAM has spent tens of millions of dollars pushing back on the proposed American Innovation and Choice Online Act.

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The cultural backbone of the U.S. is etched with a long history of antitrust laws, a legacy that birthed legislation such as the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, resulting in the fragmentation of monoliths like Standard Oil in 1911 and AT&T in 1984. Yet today, given the legal bulwarks of GAFAM and the seeming absence of political will, a similar course of action appears less likely.

Second, forget closing the borders. This is the path taken by China to nurture its own giants like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. But this option is unrealistic for the West without a geostrategic break between Europe and the United States and both sides abandoning liberal democracy and free trade.

Third, give up the idea of creating local champions in direct competition with the GAFAMs. This route is illusory as the example of France’s failed search engine, Qwant, shows.

Instead, nation-states need to negotiate shrewdly with these new giants. The best strategy towards GAFAM may be one of collaboration. Governments need to employ diplomacy just as they do with other countries. These negotiations can lead to fruitful agreements like Digital India in 2020, where Google pledged to invest $10 billion to create products to speed up the digital transition of local companies.

This requires rigorous regulatory framework. Europe is well-positioned on this topic; the EU AI Act will serve as a reference in other countries.

International collaboration is also a way to balance GAFAMs power, allowing nation-states to share information, coordinate regulatory initiatives, and oversee the activities of these giants on a global scale. Governments should harmonize their collective efforts, crafting international agreements and frameworks that ensure a cohesive approach, countering GAFAM to orchestrate a fair and balanced digital ecosystem.

Forbes · by Sylvain Duranton · July 27, 2023

14. Beijing’s Wagner Wariness

Conclusion:

Overall, the Wagner mutiny has put China in a more cautious and defensive posture. Chinese foreign policy wonks see less appetite in Beijing for a war in the foreseeable future. This may not immediately translate into less provocative military behaviors in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea, as Beijing still believes it has room to push the envelope without major escalation. But Beijing’s openness to risk-neutral or even risk-seeking adventurism may be tempered by a firmer conviction that China cannot afford a war at the moment.

Beijing’s Wagner Wariness - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Yun Sun · July 28, 2023

When the Wagner mutiny first happened in late June, it shocked most strategists and observers in China. To them, it added a whole new layer of uncertainty to their understanding of Russian domestic politics, the Russian-Ukrainian War, and China’s overall external security environment. With Russian President Vladimir Putin now appearing to put the mutiny behind him, China’s policy toward Russia is unlikely to change dramatically. However, the mutiny’s impact on China’s assessment of its future external strategy should not be ignored.

The mutiny offered a rare but clear example of vulnerability and instability within the Russian system. This raises more questions for Beijing about the future of its alignment with Moscow, as a weak and divided Russia will not be as useful in countering Washington. And if Russia descends into chaos, it will significantly alter China’s external security environment, forcing Beijing to refocus at least some attention back to its the northern border. The mutiny also illustrates the fragility of an authoritarian system under stress, potentially making Chinese leaders more cautious about any military adventurism on China’s periphery. Although the mutiny appears over and its political repercussions minimized, Chinese strategists continue to wonder if it has raised the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Beijing is unlikely to abandon Russia even if that happens, but remains worried about the diplomatic consequences.

The View from Beijing

Since the start of Russia’s invasion, the possibility of ensuing instability has loomed large in the minds of Chinese Russia experts. After Russia failed to achieve a quick and decisive victory, these experts have warned in private conversations and track II dialogues that, as in the past, military setbacks could lead to regime collapse. Feng Yujun, for example, spelled out the pattern in a recent article: the 1856 Crimean War led to the demise of Tsar Nicholas I and the Emancipation Reform of 1861; the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War led to the 1905 revolution; the loss in World War I led to the 1917 revolution, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the collapse of the Russian empire; and the failure in the 1979 Afghanistan war is seen by China as a key factor in the eventual disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Become a Member

By late 2022, there were discussions about Putin’s political enemies launching a coup. But such speculation was dismissed on the grounds that Putin’s opponents had been jailed, and there was no identifiable threat from within the Russian military. What’s more, Beijing had regarded the Wagner Group as Putin’s personal private army and a core pillar of the Russia military operation in Ukraine. In China, Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin was nicknamed Putin’s “chef” and seen as his protégé, a man whose betrayal of Putin was not imaginable.

Against this backdrop, Prigozhin’s mutiny came as a major surprise to government and nongovernment observers in China. Chinese analysts saw the Wagner mutiny as an internal split within the Putin establishment, especially a disagreement between the Ministry of Defense and the Wagner troops over the strategy and costs of the war.

For the few days after the mutiny, the priority of Chinese policy wonks and analysts was focused on discussing Prigozhin’s goals and his future. Hu Xijin shared the assessment of many of his colleagues in concluding that Prigozhin did not aim to overthrow Putin. Instead, he was targeting the Defense Ministry establishment that had “exploited” Putin’s military operation and the Wagner Group’s strength and achievements to benefit themselves. This echoed the Russian idea of the good tsars and bad boyars, in which Putin’s efforts were undermined by functionaries lower down the bureaucratic ladder pursuing narrowly selfish goals.

Beijing’s Calculated Reactions

Throughout the mutiny, China has followed its traditional approach toward countries undergoing internal turmoil or military coups — treating it as the country’s “internal affairs” and expressing support for “peace and stability.” It was clear from the beginning that Beijing was not going to step in or take an explicit position. China usually waits for the dust to settle before picking a side rather than rush in and pick the wrong one. Beijing has done this many times with Pakistan, Myanmar, and African states such as Sudan. In private discussions, Chinese experts saw Beijing’s decision to host Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko a clear sign of its pro-Putin position and a judgment that the mutiny would not succeed.

Moving forward, prominent Chinese Russia experts such as Feng Yujun are not at all convinced that General Secretary Xi Jinping will abandon Putin as the result of the munity or that China will abandon its strategic alignment with Russia in the foreseeable future. According to what one expert told me “Even if Russia has a different leader, the political conservatism and ultra-nationalism determine that the new leader will neither be pro-West nor embraced by the West.” The implication is that China and Russia will still share fundamental and similar positions on their relationship with the West, especially the United States. And those similarities will anchor their continued strategic alignment and coordination in world affairs, even beyond Putin.

Having said that, among the Chinese experts, the impact of the Wagner mutiny is recognized as far-reaching and significant. First, Putin is weakened, and this weakens China’s strategic posture. The mutiny reflects the domestic political struggle in Russia — not only the escalation of conflicts among different camps, but also Putin’s inability to rein them in. Even if the mutiny is settled for now, those deeply rooted conflicts are far from being resolved. They will continue to bring major uncertainty and distraction to Russia’s domestic politics.

Chinese observers now see a civil war or regional conflict in Russia as a real possibility for the first time. This means Beijing has to divert some of its attention and resources to a potential contingency in Russia and the instability it could bring to Central Asia and the Sino-Russian border. As Wang Yiwei, a professor at Renmin University said, “Many people worry that Putin’s political standing isn’t stable, and that the political turmoil in Russia could affect China.” The fear is not necessarily that a Russia without Putin would be hostile, but that the transition itself could be destabilizing.

Second, a weaker Putin and a weaker Russia are much less helpful in China’s competition with the United States. Distracted with domestic political struggles, Putin’s ability to effectively back China’s position on regional and global affairs will come under severe constraints. Given the increased unpredictability and uncertainty of Russian politics, Moscow could possibly be a bigger strategic liability for Beijing than it has been so far. This would be particularly true if Putin risked using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

While no one expects the Wagner mutiny to have an immediate impact on the battlefield, Beijing may conclude that Putin will now be motivated to end the war sooner rather than later. Chinese observers are regularly reminded by their Russian counterparts that this could mean the use of tactical nuclear weapons. According to my conversations with a retired senior Chinese military officer, Beijing would condemn this but would take no additional steps to change its fundamental position on Russia. Europe and more broadly the international community will demand Chinese actions against Russia in the event of nuclear use. Refusing to do so will incur significant diplomatic and political repercussions, undermining the goal of retaining some European sympathy and improving relations with the United States. In this context, it is telling that China’s ambassador to the European Union, Fu Cong, restates China’s opposition to the use of nuclear weapons whenever he is asked.

Last but not least, the consensus in China is that Xi does not face a similar risk — for now. Private security forces are so marginalized in China’s security apparatus that they hardly constitute a credible threat. But the Wagner mutiny demonstrates how positions, priorities, and interests within the defense establishment can diverge when a major external military operation fails. If the system begins to crack under the pressure, leaders do not always have the degree of control they thought. The invasion of Ukraine has already offered many lessons to China’s military regarding Taiwan. This risk of an internal split adds one more to the list.

Conclusion

Overall, the Wagner mutiny has put China in a more cautious and defensive posture. Chinese foreign policy wonks see less appetite in Beijing for a war in the foreseeable future. This may not immediately translate into less provocative military behaviors in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea, as Beijing still believes it has room to push the envelope without major escalation. But Beijing’s openness to risk-neutral or even risk-seeking adventurism may be tempered by a firmer conviction that China cannot afford a war at the moment.

Become a Member

Yun Sun is the director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Yun Sun · July 28, 2023

15. Renowned Geopolitical Analyst Predicts China's Imminent Collapse

​Excerpts:

The country’s exports also saw a 9.9% drop from the previous year. Trade plays a significant role in China’s economy, with exports accounting for around 20% of its gross domestic product in 2021. But this reliance on international trade makes China susceptible to global economic fluctuations and trade policy shifts, as demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic when demand for Chinese products declined.

China is now attempting to pivot toward domestic consumption to drive growth, with electric car manufacturers showing promise in leading the way. Nevertheless, a comprehensive shift will necessitate significant changes in China’s economic structure and policies.

While the International Monetary Fund predicts China’s economy will grow 5.2% (an increase from its previous 4.4% forecast), the economic headwinds and demographic challenges facing the nation could have significant implications on a global scale. Any slowdown in the Chinese economy may trigger price pressures in the U.S. and impact the demand for American products.

Renowned Geopolitical Analyst Predicts China's Imminent Collapse - Zenger News

Peter Zeihan warns of population misrepresentation and economic challenges ahead.

Jeannine Mancini

July 27, 2023  3 min read

zenger.news · by Jeannine Mancini · July 27, 2023

Renowned geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan recently made a startling prediction during an interview with commentator Joe Rogan.

”Xinfu 108” off mooring into the Yangtze River towing operation, July 25, 2023, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. This is also the sixth of the six world’s largest container ships built by the company, the ship integrates the latest research and development achievements of Chinese shipbuilding enterprises in the field of container ships and intelligent means, with safety, energy saving, environmental protection, and high degree of intelligence advantages, is the world’s top container ship. Xinfu 108 is 399.9 meters long, 61.3 meters wide, 33.5 meters deep and 49.07 meters high above the water surface. It can load 24,000 TEU standard containers at a time. (COSTFOTO/GETTY IMAGES)

Zeihan believes that China’s collapse is imminent, with only 10 years remaining before potential disaster. The crux of his prediction lies in his assertion that China has misrepresented its population numbers, leading him to estimate that the country’s actual population is lower by 100 million than what the government has officially reported.

“This is their last decade,” said Zeihan about China. When Rogan clarified by asking, So, you’re saying that China has 10 years to go?” His response was, “At most.”

Some argue that China’s massive military, control over its people and economic power are safeguards against its demise, but others point to concerning signs that hint at potential challenges ahead.

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China’s economy is showing signs of strain from various angles. Civil unrest erupted as a result of its strict zero-COVID policy, leading to lock-downs, reduced industrial output and restrained consumer spending.

Last year, economic growth experienced a significant decline, reaching one of its lowest levels in the past 50 years. The fourth quarter, in particular, was severely impacted by strict economic policies and political decisions that were deemed unwise.

With China’s population aging rapidly, there are fewer working-age people to support retirees. The one-child policy, which lasted for more than three decades before ending in 2016, worsened the situation and threatens long-term economic prospects. While China has attempted to address this by allowing couples to have up to three children, the extent of its impact on the workforce remains uncertain.

The Chinese real estate market has been grappling with a prolonged slump. In 2022, the country saw another major drop in home prices, marking the steepest annual drop since 2015. The downturn has reverberated through various sectors of the economy, including construction, steel and cement, causing a decline in demand and leading to job losses and an overall slowdown in economic growth.

The ongoing real estate slump has become a major cause for concern for the Chinese government. To counter the decline and stabilize the market, the government has implemented a range of measures, including tax breaks and subsidies for homebuyers. Despite these efforts, the decline in home prices has persisted, posing a significant challenge for policymakers seeking effective solutions.

The country’s exports also saw a 9.9% drop from the previous year. Trade plays a significant role in China’s economy, with exports accounting for around 20% of its gross domestic product in 2021. But this reliance on international trade makes China susceptible to global economic fluctuations and trade policy shifts, as demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic when demand for Chinese products declined.

China is now attempting to pivot toward domestic consumption to drive growth, with electric car manufacturers showing promise in leading the way. Nevertheless, a comprehensive shift will necessitate significant changes in China’s economic structure and policies.

While the International Monetary Fund predicts China’s economy will grow 5.2% (an increase from its previous 4.4% forecast), the economic headwinds and demographic challenges facing the nation could have significant implications on a global scale. Any slowdown in the Chinese economy may trigger price pressures in the U.S. and impact the demand for American products.

Produced in association with Benzinga

zenger.news · by Jeannine Mancini · July 27, 2023

16. Niger Coup Leader Joins Long Line of U.S.-Trained Mutineers

Are we to blame? Did we train them in conducting coups? I wonder how many coups were prevented due to our training? Oh that is right. We cannot prove a negative.

Niger Coup Leader Joins Long Line of U.S.-Trained Mutineers

Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, who trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, helped oust Niger’s democratically elected president.

Nick Turse

July 27 2023, 6:27 p.m.

The Intercept · by Nick Turse · July 27, 2023

brig. gen. Moussa salaou barmou, the chief of Niger’s Special Operations Forces and one of the leaders of the unfolding coup in Niger, was trained by the U.S. military, The Intercept has confirmed. U.S.-trained military officers have taken part in 11 coups in West Africa since 2008.

“We have had a very long relationship with the United States,” Barmou said in 2021. “Being able to work together in this capacity is very good for Niger.” Just last month, Barmou met with Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, the head of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, at Air Base 201, a drone base in the Nigerian city of Agadez that serves as the lynchpin of an archipelago of U.S. outposts in West Africa.

On Wednesday, Barmou, who trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, and the National Defense University in Washington, joined a junta that ousted Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s democratically elected president, according to Nigerien sources and a U.S. government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Barmou did not return phone calls and text messages from The Intercept.

A U.S. official tracking the coup, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed Barmou’s relationship with the U.S. military and said he was probably not alone. “I’m sure we will find out that others have been partners, have been involved in U.S. engagements,” he said of other members of the junta, noting that U.S. government agencies were looking into the matter.

U.S.-trained officers have conducted in at least six coups in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali since 2012. They have also been involved in recent takeovers in Gambia (2014), Guinea (2021), Mauritania (2008), and Niger (2023).

“We train to standards — the laws of war and democratic standards,” said the U.S. official. “These are foreign military personnel. We can’t control what they do. We have no way to stop them.”

Members of Niger’s Presidential Guard surrounded the president’s palace in Niamey on Wednesday and took Bazoum hostage. Bazoum and his family were “doing well,” the Nigerien presidency said on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Later, the account repeated what Bazoum had posted on his personal page: “The hard-won achievements will be safeguarded. All Nigeriens who love democracy and freedom will see to it.” Neither account has posted anything further in the last 12 hours.

Calling themselves the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, Barmou and eight other high-ranking officers delivered a statement on Nigerien state television shortly after detaining Bazoum. The “defense and security forces” had “decided to put an end to the regime … due to the deteriorating security situation and bad governance,” according to their spokesperson.

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Since 2012, U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $500 million in Niger, making it one of the largest security assistance programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Across the continent, the State Department counted just nine terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2003, compared with 2,737 last year in Burkina Faso, Mali, and western Niger alone, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a U.S. Defense Department research institution.

U.S. troops train, advise, and assist their Nigerien counterparts and have fought and even died there. Over the last decade, the number of U.S. military personnel deployed to Niger has jumped from just 100 to 1,016. Niger has also seen a proliferation of U.S. outposts.

Barmou and Braga met last month to “discuss anti-terrorism policy and tactics throughout the region,” according to a military news release. The Pentagon says that the U.S. partnership with Niger’s army, especially its commandos, is key to countering militants.

Defense Department agencies partner with the Nigerien Army and Special Operators to fight violent extremism throughout Northwest Africa, but experts say the overwhelming focus on counterterrorism is part of the problem.

“The major issues fueling conflict in Niger and the Sahel are not military in nature — they stem from people’s frustration with poverty, the legacy of colonialism, elite corruption, and political and ethnic tensions and injustices. Yet rather than address these issues, the U.S. government has prioritized sending weapons and funding and training the region’s militaries to wage their own wars on terror,” said Stephanie Savell, co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, and an expert on U.S. military efforts in West Africa. “One of the hugely negative consequences has been to empower the region’s security forces at the expense of other government institutions, and this is surely one factor in the slate of coups we’ve seen in Niger, Burkina Faso, and elsewhere in recent years.”

The Nigerien Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. The U.S. State Department also did not reply to The Intercept’s requests for information prior to publication.

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The Intercept · by Nick Turse · July 27, 2023

17. The Mighty Dollar Is Rhetorically Endangered But Safe, For Now – Analysis

Excerpts:

Though South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa assured Lula that a BRICS currency would be discussed at next month’s summit, Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s BRICS sherpa, said it wouldn’t. He told Daily Maverick in May: ‘What we have is an interbank agreement to trade in local currency. That’s a framework agreement that we haven’t activated. So now there is serious talk about activating it.’

BRICS countries have already started moving in that direction. The BRICS New Development Bank has begun lending in local currencies and aims to reach 30% of lending in local currencies in five years. The bank was also exploring borrowing in local currencies, and individual BRICS countries were starting to trade in each other’s currencies, Sooklal said.

That’s a long way to a BRICS currency, though. Pressure from Russia, looking to escape sanctions, and perhaps China looking for a larger global role, not to mention Brazil’s Lula, could drive a push for a BRICS currency. But it’s too soon to put the greenback on the endangered list.

The Mighty Dollar Is Rhetorically Endangered But Safe, For Now – Analysis

eurasiareview.com · by ISS · July 28, 2023

Russia’s isolation, China’s assertiveness and a surge of interest in joining BRICS have pushed calls for a BRICS currency.

By Peter Fabricius

Brazilian President Lula da Silva attacked the global economic order at last month’s international financing summit in Paris, criticising the dominance of the United States (US) dollar as the currency for international trade. He earlier proposed a euro-like BRICS currency as an alternative, and suggested this be discussed at next month’s BRICS summit in South Africa.

Russia seems to be the BRICS member most in favour, not surprisingly, since it has largely been cut off from dealing in the dollar by US sanctions imposed on it because of its invasion of Ukraine. But is a BRICS currency realistic?

Aly-Khan Satchu, Rich Management Chief Executive Officer, thinks so. ‘The catalyst for the move to find an alternative to the dollar was the sanction of Russia’s dollar forex reserves. This kneejerk response by the US signalled worldwide that dollar reserves are held at the whim and diktat of US authorities.’

He sees a need to wrestle sovereignty away from the dollar and the US towards BRICS. ‘We have already seen increased settlements in local currencies like [India’s] rupee, the Chinese yuan, and the United Arab Emirates dinar. We are seeing shifts away from the petrodollar architecture. Russia and India are now pricing oil via the Dubai benchmark.’

China doesn’t meet most of the technical requirements to make the yuan a reserve currency

But is it feasible to create a common currency across five nations spread around the globe?

Satchu believes so. ‘I think the proposal is that the currency will be valued on a basket of physical commodities which is sounder than the current dollar regime where the printer is controlled by the US. I foresee the currency beginning as a currency for trade exchange, allowing local BRICS countries to retain their own currencies for purposes of monetary policy management.’

Satchu doesn’t think the major disparities among the BRICS economies and currencies would make it impossible to create a common currency. ‘Unlike the euro, I don’t foresee one size fitting all, but the BRICS currency being used as a means of exchange outside the dollar system.’

Not everyone agrees. Iraj Abedian, Pan-African Investment and Research Services Chief Executive, sees the push for a BRICS currency as a largely political move by China to assert itself in the world, believing such a currency would primarily be based on China’s yuan. But China doesn’t meet most of the technical requirements to make the yuan a reserve currency, he notes. Its banking system and financial markets aren’t stable, well-regulated, transparent or credible enough globally.

Abedian also believes the BRICS economies lack the diversity needed to sustain a joint currency. ‘There isn’t sufficient bilateral flow. Russia will sell oil and gas to China and nothing else.’ Three BRICS members – Russia, Brazil and South Africa – are all basically commodity exporters with little potential for intra-bloc trade.

Currency swapping in BRICS requires the economies of each side to be roughly balanced

Donald MacKay, Head of XA Global Trade Advisers, believes the ‘endless chatter around a BRICS currency is nothing more than a fever dream.’ He says in 2013, China and India signed a currency swap agreement, allowing them to exchange yuan for rupees and vice versa.

‘In 2015, China exported US$1 billion worth of goods to India, but then refused to take the yuan as payment, instead wanting to keep the money in India, to help finance Chinese investments in India. If this couldn’t work, there’s no reason to think it could work on a larger scale.’

He believes the 2013 deal exposed the limitations of currency swapping in BRICS, which requires the economies of each side to be roughly balanced. If not, a larger, more universal currency is needed to provide liquidity so the participating economies don’t have to be perfectly balanced.

Jim O’Neill provides a useful perspective. He was a Goldman Sachs analyst in 2001 when he coined the acronym ‘BRICs’ (with a small s, then including Brazil, Russia, India and China; South Africa joined later). In April he addressed the ‘renewed chatter’ about threats to the global primacy of the US dollar.

O’Neill believes if the US stops being the world’s largest economy, the dollar’s dominance would be questioned – as the British pound was during the first half of the 20th century. This would not necessarily be bad for the US, given all the added responsibilities of issuing the world’s main reserve currency.

The BRICS New Development Bank aims to reach 30% of lending in local currencies in five years

However he concedes it’s ‘not optimal’ for everyone else’s currencies, monetary policies and trade patterns to be so dependent on the American monetary system and the Federal Reserve’s domestically driven priorities.

But a ‘US-excluding group of emerging powers [with] higher aspirations for itself does not necessarily mean anything for the US-centred financial system. Crucially, the group’s most important economies are China and India, bitter adversaries that rarely cooperate on anything.’ Until that changes, O’Neill thinks it’s fanciful to believe that BRICS, or an expanded grouping, ‘could mount any serious challenge to the dollar.’

‘[M]ost importantly, for any BRICS (or BRICS-Plus) member to pose a strategic challenge to the dollar, it would have to permit – indeed encourage – foreign and domestic savers and investors to decide for themselves when to buy or sell assets denominated in its currency. That means no capital controls of the kind that China has routinely deployed. Until the BRICS and potential BRICS-Plus countries can find a credible alternative to the dollar for their own savings, the greenback’s dominance will not really be in doubt.’

Jakkie Cilliers, Head of African Futures and Innovation at the Institute for Security Studies, believes China’s capacity to play this global role has been diminished by President Xi Jinping’s centralisation of power. ‘So the future is a steady decline in the importance of the dollar in favour of a more complex and less unipolar system, with a rise in the euro (the European Union economy is larger than the US economy) and the yuan, among others, but no single replacement of the dollar.’

Though South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa assured Lula that a BRICS currency would be discussed at next month’s summit, Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s BRICS sherpa, said it wouldn’t. He told Daily Maverick in May: ‘What we have is an interbank agreement to trade in local currency. That’s a framework agreement that we haven’t activated. So now there is serious talk about activating it.’

BRICS countries have already started moving in that direction. The BRICS New Development Bank has begun lending in local currencies and aims to reach 30% of lending in local currencies in five years. The bank was also exploring borrowing in local currencies, and individual BRICS countries were starting to trade in each other’s currencies, Sooklal said.

That’s a long way to a BRICS currency, though. Pressure from Russia, looking to escape sanctions, and perhaps China looking for a larger global role, not to mention Brazil’s Lula, could drive a push for a BRICS currency. But it’s too soon to put the greenback on the endangered list.

About the author: Peter Fabricius, Consultant, ISS Pretoria

Source: This article was published by ISS Today

eurasiareview.com · by ISS · July 28, 2023

​18. 'Sound of Freedom' misleads audiences about the horrible reality of human trafficking

Excerpts:

Instead of buying into false narratives of child trafficking or promoting outdated responses, Congress has the unique ability to help create a safer world for all kids.

This means leading a global coalition of governments that commits to sharing information and increasing funding for survivor protection, prevention and perpetrator prosecution – real solutions that the McCain Institute is focused on advancing.

It also means adopting new protections for children in the child welfare system, partnering with those who have lived experience (the real-life heroes of the anti-trafficking movement) in policymaking and investing in technology to detect all forms of exploitation.

While that kind of work won't make for a box office hit, it will mean fewer children are victimized by human traffickers, a goal we can all get behind.

'Sound of Freedom' misleads audiences about the horrible reality of human trafficking

Contrary to what is shown in Jim Caviezel's movie, most child trafficking victims know and trust their traffickers.

USA Today · by Kristen Abrams | Opinion contributor

Contrary to what is shown in Jim Caviezel's movie, most child trafficking victims know and trust their traffickers.

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'Sound of Freedom' gains buzz, becomes summer box office hit

"Sound of Freedom," based on the true story of Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard, is becoming a box office hit. Here's why there's buzz around it.

Entertain This!, USA TODAY

One of the most coveted screening spots for any film is in the U.S. Capitol with some of the world's most powerful people filling the audience. Important films such as "Harriet" (the biopic about Harriet Tubman) and "Lincoln"(the film chronicling the last few months of President Abraham Lincoln's life, including the passage of the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery) have secured this prized location.

On Tuesday, the film"Sound of Freedom" was shown in the Capitol Visitor Center as part of an event hosted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. "Sound of Freedom," a new feature-length thriller starring Jim Caviezel, tells the story of a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent who works to rescue children from sex trafficking in Colombia.

Like "Harriet" and "Lincoln," "Sound of Freedom" has the opportunity to draw audiences in and help them better understand significant moments in time and crises in American history.

Since its release on July 4, the film has injected into many Americans' summer-time conversations the important topic of human trafficking, and child sex trafficking in particular.

Filmmakers took 'creative liberties' with story about trafficking

Unfortunately, what many don't realize is that although "Sound of Freedom" is advertised as a “true story," that story is highly fictionalized, with even Angel Studios, the film's distributor, acknowledging that it took "creative liberties."

In the film, Tim Ballard, the main character played by Caviezel, embarks on a mission through the Colombian jungle to rescue two siblings from a well-organized, machine gun-firing cartel.

No one should question the importance of raising awareness of human trafficking or of working creatively and diligently to keep kids safe from the horror of sexual exploitation. What all moviegoers – especially our nation's top lawmakers – must know, however, is that the depictions of child trafficking and the rescue tactics celebrated in this film are highly sensationalized, misleading and do more harm than good.

Know this before going to the movies: Our nuclear weapons are much more powerful than Oppenheimer's atomic bomb

Contrary to what is shown in this film, most child trafficking victims know and trust their traffickers. They are not kidnapped by shadowy strangers off street corners. A Baylor University study found that less than 10% of child trafficking cases involved kidnapping.

By highlighting false narratives and reinforcing inaccurate stereotypes, we condition ourselves to be on high alert for things like windowless vans, failing to notice actual signs of exploitation. In doing so, we may miss the economically and socially vulnerable young person lured into trafficking by offers of meals, gifts, shelter or simple companionship.

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Moreover, while movies like this heighten our anxiety about perceived threats to children in public spaces, we may unwittingly ignore the online dangers young people face.

In addition to problematic depictions of child trafficking, it is also troubling how "Sound of Freedom" glorifies rescue missions, disregarding decades of research and experience showing that international sting operations are dangerous, sometimes illegal, often unethical, and fail to dismantle or discourage human trafficking. While rescues and raids make for an action-packed movie, they are far from the preferred response to any kind of human trafficking.

Congress has power to help real-life child trafficking victims

Instead of buying into false narratives of child trafficking or promoting outdated responses, Congress has the unique ability to help create a safer world for all kids.

This means leading a global coalition of governments that commits to sharing information and increasing funding for survivor protection, prevention and perpetrator prosecution – real solutions that the McCain Institute is focused on advancing.

It also means adopting new protections for children in the child welfare system, partnering with those who have lived experience (the real-life heroes of the anti-trafficking movement) in policymaking and investing in technology to detect all forms of exploitation.

While that kind of work won't make for a box office hit, it will mean fewer children are victimized by human traffickers, a goal we can all get behind.

Kristen Abrams is senior director for Combatting Human Trafficking at the McCain Institute.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

USA Today · by Kristen Abrams | Opinion contributor

19. 27th SOW Participates in Talisman Sabre 2023 | SOF​ NEWS

27th SOW Participates in Talisman Sabre 2023 | SOF​ NEWS

sof.news · by DVIDS · July 28, 2023

By Hannah Canales.

The 27th Special Operations Wing will be supporting the tenth and largest iteration of the biennial Australian-led exercise, Talisman Sabre 2023, running from mid-July to early August.

Talisman Sabre is the largest bilateral military exercise between Australia and the United States, and provides an opportunity to strengthen relationships and interoperability amongst the key allies. The exercise is a demonstration of the strong alliance that is underpinned by deep levels of cooperation and trust built over decades of operating, training, and exercising together. Training together enhances the U.S. and Australia’s collective capability to support a free and open Indo-Pacific.

From the 27th Special Operations Wing, AC-130J Ghostrider gunships with the 17th Special Operations Squadron, an MC-130J Commando II with the 9th Special Operations Squadron, and the Mission Sustainment Team with the 27th Special Operations Support Squadron will participate in Exercise Talisman Sabre. Additionally, MC-130J Commandos with the 1st Special Operations Squadron at Kadena Air Base, Japan, will participate.

The 17th SOS AC-130Js are already in the Indo-Pacific theater supporting exercise Teak Action, another Australian-U.S. bilateral exercise. Their presence in Australia marks the first time AC-130s have ever flown to Australia and operated there, highlighting one of our most critical alliances in the region.

Several other units from across the Wing, to include members of the 27th Special Operations Maintenance Group and the 27th Special Operations Mission Support Group, will be providing the munitions, maintenance, and logistics necessary for effective deployment to the region.

“The 27th Special Operations Wing’s support to Talisman Sabre is historic. It reaffirms Air Force Special Operations Command’s commitment to the region and our partnerships to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Jeremy Bergin, 27th Special Operations Wing commander. “The ability to rapidly project power into the region from Cannon AFB not only builds trust with our allies and enhances our collective capabilities, but it intentionally prepares Cannon’s Air Commandos to respond to our nation’s call…any time, any place, anywhere.”

The 27th SOW’s participation in the upcoming iteration of Exercise Talisman Sabre is a testament to AFSOC’s shift to align with National Defense priorities.

While Talisman Sabre is jointly sponsored by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and Australian Defence Force Headquarters Joint Operations Command, other nations participating are: Canada, Fiji, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and United Kingdom.

**********

This story by 1st lt. Hannah Canales was first published on July 22, 2023 by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. DVIDS content is in the public domain.

Photo: Two RAAF PC-21 aircraft conduct sorties over the Newcastle region with the US Air Force AC-130J Ghostrider from 17th Special Operations Squadron. Photo by Leading Aircraftman Samuel Miller, July 16, 2023.

sof.news · by DVIDS · July 28, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com