Quotes of the Day:
“The blizzard doesn’t last forever; it just seems so.”
- Ray Bradbury
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.”
- Mark Twain
“Freedom lies in being bold.”
- Robert Frost
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 14 (Putin's War)
2. We Will Kill Them Again': As Russia Advances, Ukrainians Dig In
3. Ukrainian Resistance
4. With Few Able and Fewer Willing, U.S. Military Can’t Find Recruits
5. Fewer Military Families Would Recommend Uniformed Service, Survey Finds.
6. A retired US general says Russia's 'weakness' prevents it from advancing to make 'meaningful progress' in Ukraine
7. Are Western Special Operations Forces in Ukraine?
8. Solomon Islands PM rules out China military base and says Australia is ‘security partner of choice’
9. Beijing’s 'list diplomacy' bedevils U.S.-China relations
10. Critical minerals could become a geopolitical weapon
11. Could ISIS Make A Comeback?
12. Biden Is Fighting the Wrong Battle Against China
13. Great-Power Competition Is Bad for Democracy
14. The BA.5 Wave Is What COVID Normal Looks Like
15. Initial transfer of US Special Forces to rural base in Germany in the works
16. The US in the Pacific: delivering on commitments or déjà vu?
17. Biden needs to share intel, get out of the way and let Israel end Iran nuclear threat
18. Troops’ use of TikTok may be national security threat, FCC commissioner says
19. Is imperialism negotiable?
20. House passes defense authorization with new arms transfers restrictions
21. Pentagon: Hill added $58 billion to current defense budget
22. Gaps in Arms Supplies to Ukraine Point to Countries’ Divergent Strategies
23. The Uvalde shooting video: A 30-year law enforcement officer provides a minute-by-minute breakdown of what happened
24. Ukraine destroys second Russian ammo dump with U.S.-supplied HIMARS missile
25. Ukraine's new US rockets are causing fresh problems for Russia
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 14 (Putin's War)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 14
Kateryna Stepanenko, Layne Philipson, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan
July 14, 8:00 pm ET
Click here to see ISW's interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Russia’s operational pause largely continued, with limited Russian ground assaults along the Slovyansk-Siversk-Bakhmut salient. Russian forces continued heavy shelling, missile attacks, and airstrikes all along the front line. The Russians will likely launch a larger-scale and more determined offensive along the Slovyansk-Siversk-Bakhmut line soon, but there are no indications yet of how soon that attack will begin or exactly where it will focus.
The Russian missile strike on Vinnytsia on July 14 was part of a systematic Russian campaign of attacks on residential areas of cities in Ukraine.[1] Ukrainian President’s Office Deputy Head Kyrylo Tymoshenko reported that Russian forces launched Kalibr missiles from a submarine at the Vinnytsia city center.[2] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that the strike resulted in at least 22 civilian deaths, about 100 injured, and 39 missing people.[3] Russian forces also launched missiles at a hotel, educational facilities, a shopping center, and transport infrastructure in Mykolaiv city.[4]
Key Takeaways
- Russia continued its campaign of systematic attacks on residential areas in Ukrainian cities with strikes on Vinnytsia, Kharkiv City, and Mykolaiv City.
- Russian forces continued efforts to advance on Siversk but their progress is unclear.
- Russian troops conducted limited ground assaults around Bakhmut and Slovyansk but made no gains.
- Chechen Leader Ramazan Kadyrov claimed that one of the four new battalions he has been forming deployed to Ukraine.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and three supporting efforts)
- Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian Troops in the Cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
- Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City
- Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis
- Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to improve tactical positions northwest of Slovyansk on July 14. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched an unsuccessful assault on Kurulka (approximately 27 km northwest of Slovyansk).[5] Russian forces continued to shell settlements southwest and southeast of Izyum and launched an airstrike on Mayaky, approximately 10 km northeast of Slovyansk.[6]
Russian forces continued offensive operations west of the Lysychansk area in an effort to advance to Siversk. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched an attack on Verkhnokamyanske (approximately 8 km east of Siversk), but Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults in the area.[7] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Assistant to the Interior Minister Vitaly Kiselyov amplified Russian war correspondents’ claims that Russian forces established operational control of Siversk on July 14 after seizing Verkhnokamyanske on July 13.[8] Pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar claimed that Russian forces are still fighting on the outskirts of Verkhnokamyanske.[9] ISW cannot independently verify Kiselyov or Rybar’s claims. The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces continued to shell Siversk, Kramatorsk, and settlements in their vicinity throughout July 14.[10]
Russian forces continued to attack settlements southeast of Bakhmut on July 14. The Ukrainian General Staff noted that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian assault on the Vuhlehirska Thermal Power Plant, Kodema, and Vershyna within a 20 km distance southeast of Bakhmut.[11] Donetsk Oblast Administration Head Pavlo Kyrylenko reported that Russian forces fired at Bakhmut with multiple-launch-rocket systems (MLRS) and shelled Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut), likely in an effort to disrupt Ukrainian logistics along the Bakhmut-Kramatorsk-Slovyansk line.[12]
Russian forces resumed offensive operations northeast of Avdiivka, likely in an effort to bypass Ukrainian fortifications in the area. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces stopped Russian advances in Kamianka, approximately 6 km northeast of Avdiivka, after Russian forces had been partially successful in the area earlier in the day.[13] The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Territorial Defense claimed that Russian forces captured Kamianka on July 14 but did not provide any evidence confirming the claim.[14] Social media users claimed that Ukrainian forces regained control over Yehorivka, east of the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast administrative border.[15]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum and prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border)
Russian forces focused on maintaining previously occupied lines and positions in the Kharkiv City direction.[16] Russian forces continued to carry out air, artillery, and missile strikes on Kharkiv City and surrounding settlements.[17] Pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar claimed that Ukrainian forces launched unsuccessful offensives to reclaim Dementiivka, but other Russian war correspondents claimed that the settlement is still contested.[18] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted aerial reconnaissance in Vasylenkove and Shevchenko, which may indicate that Russian forces have not retained control over some areas on the eastern side of the Pechenihy Reservoir, but Ukrainian forces have not liberated those settlements either.[19]
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Russian forces continued to undertake defensive measures to prevent Ukrainian counteroffensives along the Southern Axis.[20] The Ukrainian Main Military Directorate (GUR) reported that Russian forces established an ammunition depot at the Kherson City Drama Theater between July 11 and July 12.[21] Russian forces are likely continuing to move ammunition depots to historic landmarks in an attempt to defend equipment and manpower from Ukrainian strikes. Satellite imagery also showed that Russian forces deployed at least six Su-25 aircraft to the Dzankoi air base in northern Crimea as of July 11, also possibly in preparation for launching airstrikes at Ukrainian units.[22] Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov also reported that Russian forces began hiding military equipment in residential buildings and confirmed that Ukrainian forces destroyed two ammunition depots in Melitopol in two weeks.[23] The Kherson Oblast Administration confirmed that Ukrainian forces struck two Russian command posts and one helipad in Nova Kakhovka on July 13, and social media footage showed massive explosions in the area.[24] The GUR said it observed Russian forces transporting approximately 40 wounded servicemen to Kherson City mobile hospital but did not specify if the servicemen were wounded during Ukrainian strikes on Russian ammunition depots in the city.[25]
Russian forces continued to shell Ukrainian positions along the Kherson-Mykolaiv and Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast borders and settlements on the Zaporizhia Oblast frontline.[26] Russian forces also continued to launch missiles at Mykolaiv City, reportedly with S-300 air-defense systems.[27]
Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
Russian regional authorities continued to form and deploy new volunteer battalions to participate in the Russian war in Ukraine on July 14. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that another unspecified volunteer group deployed to Ukraine.[28] The volunteer group is likely part of one of the four Akhmat volunteer battalions that Kadyrov announced on June 26.[29]
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
Russian occupation authorities continue to face personnel and workforce shortages in occupied Ukrainian territories. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian occupation officials brought electricians from Crimea and Russia to Mariupol to restore electricity, likely due to a lack of skilled personnel in the city.[30] The Ukrainian Resistance Center also found that Russian forces posted a job listing for the position of Melitopol’s Information Security Department Head.[31] The GUR reported that Russian occupation authorities are expecting the arrival of political personnel to organize referendum proceedings in Kherson City.[32] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that Russian officials began replacing collaborators within occupation administrative structures in Kherson City.[33]
Russian occupation officials continued “passportization” efforts in occupied settlements of southern Ukraine. Russian occupation authorities also opened a pension fund in Melitopol, likely to financially incentivize more pensioners in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast settlements to accept Russian citizenships and use rubles.[34]
DNR Head Denis Pushilin announced that the DNR will use Mariupol’s port to export coal, metal, and grain as well as import Russian construction materials and products.[35] Russian occupation forces will likely continue to use the Mariupol port to transport stolen Ukrainian grain and materials to Russia.
[33] ttps://armyinform.com dot ua/2022/07/14/rosiyany-pochaly-pozbavlyatysya-zradnykiv-na-okupovanyh-terytoriyah-minoborony/
2. 'We Will Kill Them Again': As Russia Advances, Ukrainians Dig In
In depth reporting from Kim Dozier. Has America lost interest? Do we know what is really going on?
Excerpts:
This was supposed to be a good news story. At the start of the war, I’d heard how Ukraine had overhauled its military, chastened after Moscow’s near-bloodless seizure of Crimea in 2014. Aided and advised mainly by the U.S., UK, Canada, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia, the Ukrainians made changes that meant their troops in 2022 were better led, provisioned, and fed than their Russian counterparts. Or so the common wisdom went, as Russian forces turned tail and exited western Ukraine in mid-May.
Among the changes I was told they made, by senior U.S., European, Baltic, and Ukrainian officials: they retired most Soviet-trained, old-school-style generals, who did not play well, or share information well, with others. They created a non-commissioned officer corps, sergeants who actually take care of the troops, instead of bullying and beating them, as per traditional Russian, and past Ukrainian practice. They mostly fixed their broken logistics delivery system. Better, but not totally fixed, a Kyiv-based military official explains.
...
“We have shown that…even people with basic training are able to achieve success because they are fighting for their land” counters Defense spokesman Sak. “But if you are under a barrage of phosphorus bombs, cluster munitions, and if you’re being shot at incessantly by Russian heavy artillery,” what you need is a way to stop that deadly rain.
European officials are worried that Americans don’t know how bad it’s going, or how bad it will likely get. “The Russians…they are just going to keep coming,” one tells me, making angry waves in her cappuccino with her spoon. “And the West is going to start asking Ukraine, ‘we gave you so many weapons…Why aren’t you doing better?’”
And we’re just going to stand by blame the victim and watch a bloody marathon that is measured in years, not days or months, she says. And Putin knows that, biding his time until the Western alliance gets restive, divided, and eventually turns away.
This time, we’re prepared, counters scientist-turned-volunteer Zakletsky, who insists the Russians won’t pass easily through Chernobyl to Kyiv a second time, because now the locals, renowned hunters, are prepared. He visited what he calls the “werewolf” tribe for a wedding. At night’s end, the wedding guests started baying at the moon like wolves marking their territory. To his surprise, an actual wolf pack answered back, acknowledging the villagers’ claim. Should the Russians come back, he says the villagers, and the whole country, will fight like a wolf pack.
Den puts it more simply. “We killed them the last time.” If they come back, he says, “we’ll kill them again.”
'We Will Kill Them Again': As Russia Advances, Ukrainians Dig In
The war has entered a terrible new phase, Russia’s war machine marches on, and the Ukrainian forces are overmatched and begging the West and Biden for more support, but on the ground the people vow to fight like a “wolf pack”
KYIV—Leaning back from the picnic table, Den drowns his cigarette in a murky cup of water cut from the bottom of a plastic bottle and grimaces as I press him on what he and his fellow volunteers did with suspected Russian soldiers they captured during the opening days of the war.
How did you spot them? He shrugs and lights another cigarette. He says he doesn’t want the Russians to know what to fix.
Then he does offer one tale: a Russian who came to a hospital he and his fellow volunteers were guarding, who didn’t want to take his shirt off. They removed it for him, revealing that the man’s shoulders were bruised in the shape of a flak jacket, something no one would take off voluntarily in a city being rocked by explosions and gunfire — unless it revealed something incriminating, like Russian military insignia.
What happened then? Den laughs uncomfortably and looks down. He mumbles something in Ukrainian, and my fixer, a volunteer battlefield medic who has known Den for years, says the Russians were handed over to Ukrainian special forces. And then what? Another shrug.
“Den” is not his real name. The Kyiv native is on a three-day furlough from his Territorial Defense Force duties to visit his family. Blondish, medium height, with the creased face of fatherhood and middle age, he’s recounting how he volunteered to defend Kyiv on the first day of the Russian invasion, together with his grown sons.
He’s still at it, pulling security in the Kyiv suburb of Hostomel, near the war-shattered airport. He hadn’t wanted to be interviewed, saying he’s no hero. He just picked up a gun and volunteered to fight, as did tens of thousands in the capital alone — a sight, he says, that brought tears to his eyes, as men and some women, young and old, poured into Kyiv’s main sports stadium in the hours after Russia invaded, asking for a gun to defend their home.
Den wants to remain anonymous, because he believes the Russians will be back, and he will have to fight them again. Most Ukrainians I spoke to agree with him, gut-punched by the recent loss of Luhansk, half of the eastern territory Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly set his sights on. They once thought Putin would never dare invade. Now, they believe he will never stop. And while they are thankful for foreign military aid, I heard time and again that it’s just enough to keep them going, but not enough to drive Moscow out. War is the past, present, and future for the Ukrainians, and a resigned fatalism has swept across the nation. They don’t want to sound ungrateful, or weak. They vacillate, just like their president, Zelensky, from bravado to panicked warnings to stoic forbearance.
So, the brutal battle grinds on. U.S. officials mutter that Ukraine is asking for too much aid, or enough to threaten Russia itself, which the Biden Administration fears could enable Ukraine to attack Russia proper, and trigger Putin to go nuclear. The Ukrainian lawmakers laugh openly when I ask them if they would use those weapons to seize Russian territory. We just want our land back, they say, describing Biden as forcing them to fight with hands tied behind their back.
Ukrainians bristle at what they consider not-so-veiled accusations of asking for handouts in anonymous quotes that they read in U.S. and European media, with their Defense Ministry trumpeting that it intends to amass a million-strong army to retake its lost territory. But the Ukrainian people also know that most of their troops fighting Russia are barely trained volunteers, with some basic marksmanship and first aid schooling, if they are lucky. Not that training matters when Russia is still firing a fusillade of artillery, 10 times as much as the Ukrainians, and dozens are being killed, and hundreds wounded daily. Yuriy Sak, advisor to Ukraine’s defense minister, says the Russians are firing an average of 50,000 rounds of artillery a day. “And we are able to respond with five to six thousand,” he says.
And it’s working. Witness the fall of the eastern cities of Severodonetsk and then Lysychansk, with Ukraine in retreat, though Sak gamely insists that was all part of the plan. Though “outnumbered and outgunned…we have been able to wear down Russians around Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which means that they are kind of running low,” on both manpower and resources, and now need to pause to resupply. Sak, a former crisis comms executive who used to be in business with now-Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, is a prime example of that evolving Ukrainian psyche. He tells me in one call that he is worried that the West isn’t providing Ukraine enough, then tries to reassure me in the next call that losing key territory is part of some cunning plan to exhaust Russia and eventually take all the land back. It doesn’t wash. It makes me wonder if he is trying to convince me, or himself.
Children play at a playground near a residential area destroyed by the Russian army shelling in the city of Borodyanka, northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on July 7th, 2022.
Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
Still, it’s easy to pretend otherwise on this late spring day, sitting with Den at a lakeside picnic table in the forests of Holosiivskyi Park, on Kyiv Day, when whole families don their Sunday best to promenade down the capital’s wide picture-perfect wide avenues past Victorian icing-topped buildings, and snap selfies at the Dnipro River overlook.
War looks like an afterthought here, in the occasional pile of sandbags still blocking a government building’s windows, or the rusted iron tank traps that multiply in number as you get closer to President Vladimir Zelensky’s offices, as if some gargantuan kids got distracted and ran off, leaving their game of jacks half-played.
And there’s the raging popularity of camouflage, worn as patterned tights, or a Chanel-like handbag, or even resembling a military uniform, if only the patterns matched, a new wartime chic at the city’s numerous cafés and shisha pubs.
Air raid sirens still go off daily, but despite deadly impacts, few heed them. I saw only one couple leave their table to seek shelter, returning a few minutes later, lest their Georgian wine warm or their melted-cheese-and-egg bread congeal. It’s partly the government’s fault, as it discourages reporting where Russian projectiles land, lest that sharpen Moscow’s aim. But chosen ignorance is also bliss, a psychological survival tool, when any moment could end you.
The war has also fallen out of the top headlines, even as Finland and Sweden join NATO, and President Joe Biden promises to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes”. The media is doing what it does with wars, moving to the next horror: a Texas school shooting; overturning of Roe versus Wade; and a gunman opening fire on a July 4th parade.
Moscow shows no such distraction, its brutal war machine stumbling into high gear. Billions in sanctions may be denting its high-tech weapons supply. But you don’t need those if you don’t care what you hit. Moscow has plenty of the old “Kill ‘em all” Soviet-era gear.
And the killing has been plague-strength. Ukrainian former special operator turned military advisor Oleksandr Biletskyi tells me up to 200 troops are killed a day, and sometimes double that are wounded, averaging roughly 1,000 a week taken out of the fight. Ukraine is trying to offset those losses, thanks to volunteers like Den, who have swelled the ranks from 250,000 up to a million, if the government’s recent claims are to be believed. But Ukraine’s pre-war population was 44 million, millions of those now displaced. Russia’s is 144 million or so. All Russian President Vladimir Putin has to do is mobilize his whole country by declaring a war. Many who say he can’t or won’t also predicted he’d never invade.
“The Russians tried to eat the whole elephant,” a stressed-out senior Ukrainian security advisor tells me between medicating shots of pepper vodka. “Now they’re just eating it piece by piece.” In 8 to 10 months, they’ll be back, he says, knocking at Kyiv’s gates again.
Listen to the man himself. Putin warned on July 7th that “we haven’t even yet started anything in earnest” in Ukraine, adding a dare to anyone who hopes to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield. “Let them try.” And Putin has compared his Ukraine invasion to Peter the Great’s conquest of Sweden, saying it’s his “destiny” to recapture the land seized by the 18th Century emperor. He even mentions the now-Estonian city Narva, sending that small Baltic country into a tizzy.
“I think Putin’s aim is 1) to render Ukraine non-viable — crippled, uninvestable, in political social and economic torment, and 2) to show that the West doesn’t have the willpower to resist him,” says Edward Lucas, of the Center for European Policy Analysis. He and I had just pulsed Baltic opinion at Estonia’s Lennart Meri security conference, where most attendees seem to believe Estonia and its neighbor Lithuania would be next on the menu, if Putin isn’t stopped in Ukraine. “We have/had a choice of confronting Putin with a functioning 40-million-strong country on our side or waiting until Ukraine is defeated and doing it later in the Baltic,” Lucas says.
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines agrees that Moscow still wants to swallow Ukraine; she just doesn’t think Moscow can, calling it a “disconnect” between Putin’s ambitions and his military’s abilities.
Ukrainian officials appreciate that vote of confidence, and the nearly $55 billion in promised U.S. aid, including more than $7 billion in security assistance the U.S. has partly delivered since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24th. Despite the latest infusions of aid, Sak tells me, “I’m grateful but we need more.” And faster. “Why not start training Ukrainian pilots how to fly advanced jets right now,” because within a few months, the West is finally going to realize Ukraine needs them to survive, he asks.
Ukrainian officials also gripe privately that the West, the Pentagon especially, takes a “Father knows best” attitude to Ukraine’s requests, as in “we know better than you what you need to win this war.” For instance, giving them a dozen long-range artillery systems, called HIMARS for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, when they say they could use at least twice that or more to turn the battle.
It’s a question that makes U.S. officials uncomfortable, because as one senior U.S. official tells me, the slow-rolling has come from a Biden White House still concerned that Kyiv might antagonize Moscow if it does too well on the battlefield. “Not getting enough to turn the tide is accurate, and a big debate within the Administration,” and with U.S. allies, the official says. The Pentagon is also concerned it will so drain its stocks feeding the Ukraine war effort, that it might be less well prepared to defend U.S. territory. “But we are moving in a better direction,” the official insists.
A State Department spokesman, speaking anonymously, would only offer a banal “We have moved quickly to send Ukraine a significant amount of weaponry and ammunition so it can fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”
In Kyiv, what they see as their western allies’ delayed absorption of the battlefield realities is measured in lives of people they know lost forever, and territory lost that will be even harder to win back, as the defender almost always has the advantage.
And Ukraine can’t train enough people fast enough to keep up with Russia’s onslaught. Officials welcome a new British initiative to train up to 10,000 soldiers every four months, which Sak tells me is already underway. But that’s 4,000 short of the numbers they are losing every four months, by Biletskyi’s count. And the Ukrainian military’s own training remains slapdash and uneven, multiple officials and military trainers tell me, in part because commanders need troops as fast as they can get them for the front.
And despite Zelensky’s early attempts at rooting out Ukraine’s infamous corruption, it’s still a “telephone society” i.e., you only get things done if you know the right person. Or if you get the right piece of paper, to say, leave the country if you’re a male of “conscription age” between the ages of 18 to 60.
At least two men were removed from my train by Ukrainian border guards before we crossed into Poland – a student in his twenties, and a fortyish guy in a wheelchair with visibly wasted legs – apparently for not having the right piece of paper proving they’d been released from military service. They were left at an empty station platform just inside Ukraine. That the border guards felt they couldn’t allow at least the guy in the wheelchair to pass spoke volumes, to either their commitment to bureaucracy, or their belief that they need every last man to survive the Russian assault. The border guard agency did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
This was supposed to be a good news story. At the start of the war, I’d heard how Ukraine had overhauled its military, chastened after Moscow’s near-bloodless seizure of Crimea in 2014. Aided and advised mainly by the U.S., UK, Canada, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia, the Ukrainians made changes that meant their troops in 2022 were better led, provisioned, and fed than their Russian counterparts. Or so the common wisdom went, as Russian forces turned tail and exited western Ukraine in mid-May.
Among the changes I was told they made, by senior U.S., European, Baltic, and Ukrainian officials: they retired most Soviet-trained, old-school-style generals, who did not play well, or share information well, with others. They created a non-commissioned officer corps, sergeants who actually take care of the troops, instead of bullying and beating them, as per traditional Russian, and past Ukrainian practice. They mostly fixed their broken logistics delivery system. Better, but not totally fixed, a Kyiv-based military official explains.
Perhaps most important of all, Ukraine’s special operations troops learned to fight less like U.S. Army Rangers assault troops, punching through enemy lines in a battle charge, and more like Green Berets, who practice the dark art of unconventional warfare, usually behind enemy lines. Ukrainian special operators worked with volunteers like Den, organizing semi-trained locals into lethal squads to secure neighborhoods, gather intelligence, and sometimes protect elite units, as Den’s crew did for a drone reconnaissance team. Den would saunter into the nearest town to get supplies for the drone operators, passing Russian troops who were none the wiser.
Special operators working with locals that trapped and decimated infamous 40-mile Russian convoy headed for Kyiv back in March. One group worked to open dams, turning fields into a muddy quagmire that Russian tanks dare not enter. Armed drones struck the flood-trapped convoy, while commandos hit with tank-killing rockets, usually under cover of dark, leaving the ribbon of surviving Russian troops trapped between smoking wrecks, breathing in the stench of their immolated comrades.
It’s called an asymmetric attack – using inferior numbers with superior local knowledge to harass, kill, maim, and psych out one’s opponent. Such devastating trickery was turned high art by CIA-precursor, the World-War-II-era Office of Strategic Services. The OSS’s special operations branch parachuted “Jedburgh” teams into France in 1944, to work with the French resistance and prepare the way for the Normandy landings.
Ukraine’s special operations forces have been at work the same way, current and former officials inside Ukraine tell me. They point to the near killing of a senior city official who’d been cooperating with the Russians in occupied Melitopol by a mysterious explosion. “Maybe he just lit a cigarette too close to the stove gas,” a lawmaker smirks at me, refusing to confirm or deny the operation. Even the Pentagon, normally reluctant to comment on actions behind Russian lines, confirms “growing indications of resistance against the Russian occupation,” including “assassinations of local Russian officials,” a senior U.S. defense official said.
A Ukrainian soldier is in position during heavy fighting on the front line in Severodonetsk, the Luhansk region, Ukraine, on June 8th, 2022.
Oleksandr Ratushniak/AP
Ukraine is defending itself as it has for centuries, beret-wearing environmental scientist Alex Zakletsky tells me, over a sadly dwindling supply of Crimean tea while sitting outside at Cheburek.UA, one of the few restaurants to stay open throughout the conflict, winning a loyal military, and volunteer, following. “We knew we’d have to save Ukraine ourselves,” because the army is too small to defeat the Russians, and the government is too corrupt, with many senior officials in Russia’s pocket, he says, his beret atop his mismatched camouflage “uniform” striking a revolutionary note.
So, when a fellow scientist offered Zakletsky a detailed topographical map of then-Russian-occupied Chernobyl, he didn’t give it to just anyone. He reached out to a friend’s spouse, high up in the security services – the only person he could think of to trust with such sensitive information, gleaned from tracking wolf packs that thrive in Chernobyl’s irradiated forests. He was led to believe it was very useful in taking back Chernobyl, but he refuses to provide more details, as the troops might have to use whatever they found in those maps to fight Russia on the same ground.
Ukrainians are willing, but winning also takes skill. At least some skill. “I just got asked to train 1,500 guys to go behind enemy lines, in roughly a week,” retired U.S. special operations Marine Col. Andrew Milburn tells me, over omelets at the ironically named Bimbo Café. That’s the kind of skill the U.S. would take months if not years to impart.
White haired and occasionally limping from an old rugby injury, Milburn has his black Retriever-like Ukrainian rescue dog in tow, interjecting excited barks as Milburn relates how he is regularly asked to do what he considers impossible: turn out highly skilled troops in the time it would normally take to teach how to simply load and fire a weapon safely. And his funding, from international donations, is due to run out in September, and he can’t seem to convince the Ukrainian government that he can help. Or that they need it.
A senior European-based special operator who has advised the Ukrainians for years insists they do have their own training programs, but they’re not always well organized or well attended. And the soldiers-turned-trainers hate staying in the rear, away from the fight. It makes them feel like cowards.
“We still have too many heroes,” former Ukrainian special operator Biletskyi tells me. He’s seen how NATO troops work, and he says the disorganized training, for volunteers and regular troops, is just one of the many military systems that’s being exposed as sub-par as the war stretches on.
And when Ukrainians see things going wrong, they step up to fix it, hence what Biletskyi, Milburn and the senior special operations official all call the “hero” syndrome: individuals feel they must step up and save the day.
“We have shown that…even people with basic training are able to achieve success because they are fighting for their land” counters Defense spokesman Sak. “But if you are under a barrage of phosphorus bombs, cluster munitions, and if you’re being shot at incessantly by Russian heavy artillery,” what you need is a way to stop that deadly rain.
European officials are worried that Americans don’t know how bad it’s going, or how bad it will likely get. “The Russians…they are just going to keep coming,” one tells me, making angry waves in her cappuccino with her spoon. “And the West is going to start asking Ukraine, ‘we gave you so many weapons…Why aren’t you doing better?’”
And we’re just going to stand by blame the victim and watch a bloody marathon that is measured in years, not days or months, she says. And Putin knows that, biding his time until the Western alliance gets restive, divided, and eventually turns away.
This time, we’re prepared, counters scientist-turned-volunteer Zakletsky, who insists the Russians won’t pass easily through Chernobyl to Kyiv a second time, because now the locals, renowned hunters, are prepared. He visited what he calls the “werewolf” tribe for a wedding. At night’s end, the wedding guests started baying at the moon like wolves marking their territory. To his surprise, an actual wolf pack answered back, acknowledging the villagers’ claim. Should the Russians come back, he says the villagers, and the whole country, will fight like a wolf pack.
Den puts it more simply. “We killed them the last time.” If they come back, he says, “we’ll kill them again.”
Ukrainian photojournalist Olena Maksymenko contributed to this report.
3. Ukrainian Resistance
From the Australian Army Research Centre assessing the Resistance Operating Concept;
Andy Maher explores the strategy of resistance, Ukraine’s employment of this strategy, and the issues that emerge as lessons for national security professionals.
Ukrainian Resistance
15 July 2022
An incomplete understanding of the nature of the conflict in Ukraine still plagues Australian strategic discourse. In what has been termed, the ‘first TikTok war,’ Ukraine’s strategy of resistance indicates an intent to democratise warfare. In this context, the purpose of this Post is to explore the strategy of resistance, Ukraine’s employment of this strategy, and the issues that emerge as lessons for national security professionals.
Using the ASPI Strategist as an indicator of the breadth of the Australian debate, in the first six months of this year, 103 articles have engaged with the topic of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, of which 19 were written prior to the 24 February 2022 escalation. Of these contributions to our understanding of this conflict, a quarter engaged with the implications for Australia’s region. Deterrence was addressed by around 12 percent of contributions, yet only one mentioned the important context of the ‘stability-instability paradox’. This Cold War-era concept argues that the costly risk of vertical escalation into major combat operations or even nuclear war will encourage competitors to engage in sub-threshold actions, such as support to insurgency. In other words, this example aside, Australian discourse has generally failed to frame discussion of deterrence in Ukraine in the appropriate context of an ongoing proxy war in the Donbas region and, more recently, the potential for proxy expansion into Moldova.
A key failure of the Australian conversation is that lessons-learnt discussions have been dominated by the over-simplified arguments for and against the ongoing utility of the tank. By focussing on tactical tank engagements, Australian treatment of the events unfolding in Ukraine has overlooked the structural vulnerabilities inherent in Russia’s logistics system that might render such tanks useless and amplifies the effect of physical attrition against supply chains. Russian military logistics are very fragile and come close to culmination when approaching an advance of approximately 90 miles (150 kilometres, or the road distance from the Belarus border to Kyiv). As lessons are derived from the Russia-Ukraine conflict (22 percent of the ASPI Strategist dataset), it is important that Australia pivots its analytical focus away from tanks and towards the strategy adopted by Ukraine from the outset; a strategy based on resistance.
The word ‘resistance,’ used frequently by NATO and European commentators, was only present in three ASPI Strategist articles (by Dibb, Saikal, and Townshend and Lonergan), none of which elaborated upon what a resistance strategy actually entails. Indeed, the only mention in Australian discussion appears to have been made by Mick Ryan regarding Ukrainian operations behind Russian lines. This limited breadth of analysis stands in sharp contrast to NATO’s multi-year support effort in implementing a civilian resistance strategy in the Baltic States and Ukraine.
‘a nation’s organised, whole-of-society effort, encompassing the full range of activities from nonviolent to violent, led by a legally established government (potentially exiled/displaced or shadow) to re-establish independence and autonomy within its sovereign territory that has been wholly or partially occupied by a foreign power.’
Seen in this light, resistance is more than heroic defence from uniformed armed services; it is more than guerrilla warfare against Russian supply lines; it is more than cyber trolling of Russian strategic objectives; and it is more than old ladies sharing sunflower seeds that might flourish from Russian corpses. It’s all these things coordinated through deliberate organisation of effort to impose physical, psychological, temporal, financial, and reputational costs upon an aggressor.
The utility of resistance as a strategy of warfare has been repeatedly demonstrated throughout the Ukraine-Russian conflict. It is evident in the self-mobilising nature of the Molotov cocktail-throwing volunteers. It is evident in the non-violent ‘frictions’ such as removing street signs. It is evident in the intelligence support rendered in pursuit of truth by volunteers to Anonymous, or Bellingcat, or Ukraine’s own Cyber Army, that help the resistance to locate and then target Russian armed forces. It is the combination of these whole-of-society factors that has generated significant attrition against Russia’s tanks in particular, and its armed forces and offensive capabilities in general.
The strategy adopted by Ukraine in response to Russian aggression was neither unique nor home-grown. The Resistance Operating Concept (ROC), developed by US Special Operations Command – Europe and NATO partners, advances a doctrinal basis for Ukraine’s strategy. It is particularly relevant because there is evidence that US Special Operations Command had been developing and educating the Ukrainian military in this doctrine, alongside its NATO allies, over a number of years.
When it was first published in 2020, the ROC sent a clear signal of NATO’s support to the Swedish and Baltic states to help them to implement such a strategy. Combined with the Joint Special Operations University’s 2020 document ‘support to resistance,’ allied doctrine materially enhanced Ukraine’s capacity and capability to resist Russian aggression. Ukrainian Special Forces have in turn ‘advised and assisted’ their own population with instructions as to how they can contribute to resistance.
Ukraine is not the only European country to have developed national concepts of resistance in the face of Russian brinksmanship. In Estonia, Sweden, Finland, and elsewhere, a known capability for resistance is the strategy of the ‘indigestible hedgehog’. In short, this concept provides that the costs of occupation will prove to be so high that an aggressor would have little to gain through aggression. The utility of the strategy is that it might theoretically deter through denial. That an adversary knows that their invasion and occupation intentions will prove untenable is also a persistent deterrent to aggression.[1]
In Ukraine, deterrence was unsuccessful in preventing Russia’s escalation of hostilities on 24 February. This was despite significant Ukrainian efforts to rapidly declassify information in order to make it available in the public domain. The purpose of such declassification was to signal to Russia that the United States and NATO understood that Russia was preparing for hostilities in a manner that conforms to the nascent idea of deterrence by detection. Actions by Ukraine and the international community to impose physical, financial, temporal and reputational costs is seemingly achieving deterrence by punishment, retaining the threat to impose further costs should Russia choose to further escalate the conflict.
Unlike the US and some of its European counterparts, Australia has no specific military doctrine that deals with resistance as an operating concept. In the absence of such doctrine in support of national strategy, the risk exists that Australia has made commitments to provide resources in support of Ukraine within a doctrinal vacuum, or perhaps for political reasons. Furthermore, this risk has existed for years; Prime Minister Abbott publicly indicated that Australia would send military trainers and advisers to Ukraine and transport weapons to Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq in September 2014, yet no doctrinal development in this area has been undertaken in the intervening period
Events seem to have confirmed that a resistance strategy was also a prudent Ukrainian decision. In 2013, a measure of national power, the Composite Index of National Capability (CINC), generated a balance of power ratio markedly in Russia’s favour: 4.96:1.[2] Soon afterward, in 2014, Russia demonstrated its ability to execute fait accompli strategies that ‘escalate to deescalate’ to militarily secure limited objectives. I make note of this context, as Australia and likeminded Asian neighbours will undoubtedly face more powerful competitors into the future.
Reviewed in light of NATO’s experience in support of Ukrainian defence capability from 2014 into 2022, an interesting model emerges for how Australia might support its northern neighbours to resist aggression as a form of asymmetric strategy – a ‘Plan B’ that might complement other forms of national power. In this context, Australian strategic discourse would clearly benefit from a broader appreciation of the basis and potential relevance of support to resistance as a component of national strategy.
[1] The ‘Spanish Ulcer’ of 1807-1814, the Russian resistance of 1812, and the Finnish resistance of 1939-40, are exemplars in this regard.
[2] The Composite Index of National Capability is an accepted measure of national power curated by the Correlates of War Dataset (https://correlatesofwar.org/data-sets). This measure of national power includes military expenditure, military personnel, energy consumption, iron and steel production, urban population, and total population.
The views expressed in this article and subsequent comments are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Australian Army, the Department of Defence or the Australian Government.
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4. With Few Able and Fewer Willing, U.S. Military Can’t Find Recruits
With Few Able and Fewer Willing, U.S. Military Can’t Find Recruits
Fighting headwinds from the pandemic, the tight labor market and demographic shifts, the armed forces may fall further short of enlistment quotas this year than they have in decades.
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Army recruiters speaking to shoppers in a Walmart in Colorado Springs. Military recruiters visit shopping centers to look for young people who might consider enlisting. Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times
By
July 14, 2022Updated 4:22 p.m. ET
FOUNTAIN, Colo. — The local Army recruiting station was empty. The normally reliable recruiting grounds at the nearby Walmart were a bust. With the Army still thousands of soldiers short of its recruiting goal, the station commander, Sgt. First Class James Pulliam, dressed head to toe in camouflage, scanned a strip-mall parking lot for targets.
He spotted a young woman getting out of a car, and put on his best salesman smile.
“Hey, how’d you know I was going to be here today!” the sergeant said with an affable Carolina drawl, as if greeting an old friend. “I’m going to help put you in the Army!”
These are tough times for military recruiting. Almost across the board, the armed forces are experiencing large shortfalls in enlistments this year — a deficit of thousands of entry-level troops that is on pace to be worse than any since just after the Vietnam War. It threatens to throw a wrench into the military’s machinery, leaving critical jobs unfilled and some platoons with too few people to function.
Covid-19 is part of the problem. Lockdowns during the pandemic have limited recruiters’ ability to forge bonds face to face with prospects. And the military’s vaccine mandate has kept some would-be troops away.
The current white-hot labor market, with many more jobs available than people to fill them, is also a factor, as rising civilian wages and benefits make military service less enticing.
Juniper Cristan, left, and Melody Orman were working at a Jersey Mike’s sandwich shop when recruiters spoke to them about opportunities in the Army.Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times
Shawn Leuteman, 19, whose parents are veterans, said he decided to join the Army to get a head start on life. He stretched on the pull-up bar at the Armed Forces Career Center in Fountain, Colo., before starting Army basic training in early July. Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times
But longer-term demographic trends are also taking a toll. Less than a quarter of young American adults are physically fit to enlist and have no disqualifying criminal record, a proportion that has shrunk steadily in recent years. And shifting attitudes toward military service mean that now only about one in 10 young people say they would even consider it.
To try to counter those forces, the military has pushed enlistment bonuses as high as $50,000, and is offering “quick ship” cash of up to $35,000 for certain recruits who can leave for basic training in 30 days. To broaden the recruiting pool, the service branches have loosened their restrictions on neck tattoos and other standards. In June, the Army even briefly dropped its requirement for a high school diploma, before deciding that was a bad move and rescinding the change.
The Army is the largest of the armed forces, and the recruiting shortfall is hitting it the hardest. As of late June, it had recruited only about 40 percent of the roughly 57,000 new soldiers it wants to put in boots by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
So Sergeant Pulliam, 41, a helicopter mechanic who turned to recruiting five years ago, was hunting for anyone who might want to join, even if they did not know it yet.
Like many soldiers who make recruiting their career, he believed in what he was selling because he knew what Army service had done for him. Before he enlisted in 2012, he was a 31-year-old warehouse worker in North Carolina, working extra shifts to support his three children. A year later, he was working on AH-64 Apaches, with his housing and education paid for by the Army.
“It changed my entire life,” he said. “And that’s the gift I have to give to other people. You just have to find the people that need it.” He chuckled and added, “That ain’t always easy.”
When Kailee Alvarado, right, turned out to be ineligible to enlist, Sgt. First Class James Pulliam tried cold-calling a friend of hers.Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times
Sergeant Pulliam leads exercise sessions in a local park for prospective recruits. The share of young adults who are fit enough to enlist in the armed forces has been shrinking steadily.Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times
The young woman in the strip-mall parking lot was on her way to get a pizza, and looked confused when the tall man in green began pitching her on the benefits of serving her country. She eventually apologized politely and said she could not join up, gesturing to an insulin pump clipped to her shorts.
The sergeant made a mental note: diabetic, not fit to serve. But he did not give up.
“OK, well, just give me a name — one number I can call, right now,” he pressed. “You’ve got to know someone who might want to join. One number, and I’ll leave you alone.”
Seconds later, he was on the phone with one of the woman’s friends. “She says you want to join the Army,” the sergeant said, as if he were announcing the winning Powerball numbers. “Where you work? I can meet you when you get done.”
The sergeant paused, turned and said, “Dude just hung up on me!”
Moments later, the friend was calling the woman’s cellphone. Sergeant Pulliam smiled and leaned toward her conspiratorially. “Wouldn’t it be weird if I answered?” he said. “It’d be like I was a Jedi recruiter. Let me take this one.”
The woman giggled as the sergeant held her phone up and announced that he was ready to give the friend a second chance. The friend hung up again.
The other branches are not having any easier of a time. The Navy and Marine Corps do not release recruiting figures before the end of the fiscal year, a spokesman said, but both have acknowledged that it will be hard for them to meet quotas this year.
Even the Air Force, which has rarely had trouble attracting talent in the past, is about 4,000 recruits short of the level it typically reaches by midsummer.
Sergeant Pulliam, who commands the recruiting center in Fountain, held a meeting with recruiters before they went out into the community searching for prospects. Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times
Collin Albert, 27, and Jennie Lara, 24, answered last-minute questions from Sergeant Pulliam before shipping out for processing as new recruits. Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times
“Bottom line, up front, we are in a week-to-week dogfight,” said Maj. Gen. Edward Thomas Jr., commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service. “We are growing hopeful that we may be able to barely make this year’s mission, but it’s uncertain.”
General Thomas said the short-term problem of Covid-19 kept recruiters away from county fairs, street festivals and their most productive hunting grounds, high schools. The relationships that recruiters were not able to cultivate face to face during the pandemic’s early stages, he said, mean there is now a drought of graduates signing on the dotted line.
A modest recruiting bump from snappy ads the service ran before screenings of “Top Gun: Maverick” helped a bit, he said. But the general pointed to larger, longer-term concerns about the shrinking pool of young Americans who are both able and willing to serve. In recent years, the Pentagon has found that about 76 percent of adults ages 17 to 24 are either too obese to qualify or have other medical issues or criminal histories that would make them ineligible to serve without a waiver.
And what the military calls propensity — the share of young adults who would consider serving — has fallen steadily for several years. It stood at 13 percent before the pandemic began, General Thomas said, but is now 9 percent.
“There are just lower levels of trust with the U.S. government and the military,” he said.
Of course, maintaining one of the world’s largest militaries entirely with volunteers has never been easy, and this is not the first time in the 49 years since the United States ended the draft that recruitment has fallen short.
When civilian jobs are plentiful, as they are now, the military tries to compete using two tactics: Sweetening the deal with signing bonuses, better pay and other enticements, and lowering standards a bit to enlist people who might not otherwise qualify.
The Army’s Future Soldier Training program allows recruits to enlist in the Army and test for different occupations before starting basic training.Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times
Training for recruits in the Future Soldiers program includes exercises and warm-up runs.Credit...Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times
The military has also adapted by downsizing. The number of active-duty service members is now about half of what it was in the 1980s, and is projected to keep decreasing.
That makes for smaller, easier-to-meet quotas, recruiters say, but it also diminishes the military’s most reliable advertising tool: its people. Research has repeatedly shown that young adults who know someone who has served — a parent, a coach, a teacher — are more likely to enlist than those who do not.
That pattern has made the armed forces something of a family business, and led to some communities, many of them in the Southeast, supplying a disproportionate share of recruits. But even in those kinds of communities, recruiting has been tough this year.
The city of Fountain, a few miles from Fort Carson, is a patchwork of working-class neighborhoods with strong military ties. But the recruiting station here has not met its goals for three months.
On a recent evening, Sergeant Pulliam met with six prospective recruits at a park for a weekly workout of push-ups and situps. In the group were three recent high school graduates who had been planning for years to join; a young woman trying to get away from a home life she did not want to talk about; and a 26-year-old man named Francisco Borja, whose father had been in the Army.
Mr. Borja had tried to join up before but was rejected because of poor eyesight. He was hoping the Army would take him this time around.
“I want to do it for my family, my kids,” he said. “To better our lives.”
5. Fewer Military Families Would Recommend Uniformed Service, Survey Finds.
The end of the line for many "family businesses?" I wonder how many current military personnel are "legacies?" If current military families would not recommend the military to their children how can we expect to recruit enough new recruits?
Fewer Military Families Would Recommend Uniformed Service, Survey Finds.
The Military Family Advisory Network poll may have warning signs for recruiters.
Fewer military families would recommend military life to those interested in serving, saying the hardships outweigh the pay and benefits, according to a report released Thursday.
“When we're going through this report and seeing some of the findings and the reality that a lot of families are having a hard time making ends meet, it's not all that startling to see that there will be a decline here,” said Shannon Razsadin, president and executive director of the Military Family Advisory Network, an organization that provides resources and conducts research on issues affecting military families. “But what I was really surprised by was, you know, that it was as big of a decline as it is.”
Civilians were also asked about whether they would recommend serving in the military, with 46.1 percent saying they would and 53.9 percent saying they would not—about the same as in 2019.
The report includes some of the reasons families gave for recommending military service—or not.
Responses from those who said they would not recommend military life centered around five major themes: that it is not family-friendly; the pay is low compared to the stress of the work; bad leadership; benefits like healthcare are not worth the struggles of military life; and the frequent moves and deployments.
“It is a difficult job and life, and the ‘benefits’ simply are not worth it. Especially since said benefits just keep dwindling and decreasing in quality the longer we are in,” one spouse of an active-duty sailor told the group.
Half a dozen themes were seen in responses from people who said they would recommend a military career: job security and financial stability; benefits, especially for retirement; healthcare and housing; travel and living abroad; public service and having a meaningful job; and the friendships and camaraderie.
Military families’ changing attitudes toward service may hinder future recruiting. According to Army Recruiting Command, 79 percent of recruits have a family member who served.
“We say internally the military is a family business. And so seeing this drop is, like I said, it is very concerning. And we need to look at how the whole family is supported,” Razsadin said.
A 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that three-fifths of veterans under the age of 40 had an immediate family member who served, compared to 39 percent of all adults in that age bracket. Veterans were also twice as likely than the public to say they have a child who served, according to the survey.
The military is already struggling to find enough recruits. Just 23 percent of 17- to 24-year-old Americans are eligible to enlist without a waiver of some kind, down from 29 percent in recent years, an Army spokesman said in an email to Defense One. Only 9 percent of those are willing to join the military, the lowest share in 15 years. The Army recently tried to recruit more people without a high school diploma but quickly reversed their decision.
“It's not a good story when we're looking at the recruitment numbers and we know anecdotally that the future of the all-volunteer force lies in military children,” Razsadin said about the decline in families recommending service. “So if you have military families who are less inclined to recommend service, I mean, that should get everyone's attention.”
More than 8,600 people participated in the MFAN survey from October 4 to December 15, 2021, hailing from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, two U.S. territories and 22 countries, according to the report. Most respondents were spouses of active-duty troops, between the ages of 25 and 39, and lived in a home with four people. Most were also enlisted families, with the largest portion coming from the Army, then the Air Force and Navy.
The survey has a new “family health scale” to measure respondents’ answers to questions about healthcare, family relationships, financial readiness, housing, food insecurity, and recommending military life. More than half of families, or 58.7 percent, reported “moderate” or “poor” health in these areas and more than 41 percent reported “excellent” health. Issues cited include access to health care appointments, ability to save money, housing costs, and experiencing hunger.
“Families at lower ranks and families in marginalized racial and ethnic groups are statistically less likely to indicate excellent family health,” according to the report.
Officer families experienced “excellent” family wellbeing at a rate that was more than double that of enlisted families, Razsadin said. While MFAN plans to study this disparity further, she believes this is due to pay and compensation.
The report has five recommendations, including “increase the availability of health care and mental health appointments,” improving the calculations for the housing allowance to help families amid rising costs, and more available child care services.
6. A retired US general says Russia's 'weakness' prevents it from advancing to make 'meaningful progress' in Ukraine
Excerpts:
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of the US Army in Europe, told Insider that Russia lacks the resources and capabilities to make significant advancements in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region — where the 20-week-long war has turned into a grinding campaign.
A retired US general says Russia's 'weakness' prevents it from advancing to make 'meaningful progress' in Ukraine
A Donetsk People's Republic militia's multiple rocket launcher fires from its position not far from Panteleimonivka, in territory under the government of the Donetsk People's Republic, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, May 28, 2022.AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov, file
- Russian forces are struggling on the battlefield, hamstringing any meaningful progress in Ukraine.
- A retired US general told Insider that Russian artillery is the only advantage Putin's forces have.
- The retired general said Russia lacks the resources to make significant advancements in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
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Russia's "weakness" on the battlefield has prevented it from making any "meaningful progress" in Ukraine, a retired US general said on Thursday.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of the US Army in Europe, told Insider that Russia lacks the resources and capabilities to make significant advancements in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region — where the 20-week-long war has turned into a grinding campaign.
A key to Ukrainian success will be to neutralize these weapons, he said. Without them, Russian victories will be hard to come by.
"It's all about firepower," Hodges said. "The ability to destroy or disrupt Russian firepower advantage is what's going to make the difference."
"Even with the huge advantage that the Russians have in terms of firepower, they've not been able to make meaningful progress over the past several weeks." Hodges said, adding that Russia has also failed to demonstrate "the ability to integrate air operations with ground operations."
Another issue Russia faces is a lack of military personnel. According to recent UK intelligence, this issue may force the Kremlin to recruit prisoners to fight on its behalf.
Hodges said, "the overall weakness of the Russians" can be told through their inability to break through the frontlines in eastern Ukraine and advance west toward major cities like Odesa, Mykolaiv, or Kyiv — the capital city that Putin's troops failed to capture in the early weeks of the war.
Since Russian forces retreated from Kyiv — a much sought-after conquest that Putin and Western intelligence predicted would fall in a matter of days after the February 24 invasion — the conflict has turned into a bloody and slow-moving affair in the Donbas region, with shifting frontlines and constant artillery exchanges.
"Russian forces are likely maintaining military pressure on Ukrainian forces whilst regrouping and reconstituting for further offensives in the near future," UK intelligence said on Monday.
Ukraine, however, has enjoyed the new arrival of Western-supplied long-range rocket systems — weapons that it asked for from the US and allies for weeks.
7. Are Western Special Operations Forces in Ukraine?
Are Western Special Operations Forces in Ukraine?
By LEIGH N in ARMY, BRITISH ARMY, CANADA, CONFLICT, FRANCE, FRENCH ARMY, INTELLIGENCE, NATO, NEWS, SPECIAL FORCES, TRAINING, UK, UKRAINE, USA July 13, 2022
Special Forces from Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania inside Ukraine
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In a 25 June article the New York Times, the newspaper reported the presence of Western special operations forces in Ukraine. The account was corroborated by three senior US officials according to NYT.
The NYT claims “…a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine.” The article also mentions CIA personnel on the ground in Ukraine. This would tally with so far unconfirmed reports of the loss of a CIA contractor earlier this year inside Ukraine (two further anonymous stars have been added to the Agency’s Memorial Wall this year).
The US Army’s 10th Special Forces Group who, along with UKSF, had been shouldering the majority of the training of Ukrainian forces (along with a number of US Army National Guard units) prior to the invasion, were withdrawn immediately before the Russian offensive to continue their training activities in Germany and Poland. According to the NYT article, 10th Special Forces Group are now heading up a fusion intelligence cell to manage both deliveries of Western military aid and disseminate NATO and US intelligence to the Ukrainians.
Ukrainian SOF during joint training 2021 (DVIDS)
Army Secretary Christine E. Wormuth is quoted as noting:
“As the Ukrainians try to move that around and evade the Russians potentially trying to target convoys, you know, we are trying to be able to help coordinate moving all of those different sort of shipments… another thing I think we can help with is intelligence about where the threats to those convoys may be.”
The SOF effort on-the-ground inside Ukraine is claimed to include elements from UKSF, Canada, France and Lithuania. Lieutenant General Jonathan P. Braga, the commander of US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) was quoted in April confirming cooperation between Western SOF units: “what is an untold story is the international partnership with the special operations forces of a multitude of different countries…”
Following the successful model employed in Iraq and Syria, it would also be unlikely that operators from Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) are not already embedded with Ukrainian headquarters elements within the country. Certainly, there will be JSOC (and SOCOM) representatives now stationed at the recently reopened US Embassy in Kyiv.
A journalist at Le Figaro reported in April that both UK Special Air Service (SAS) and American Delta Force operators had been deployed inside Ukraine since the start of the war according to an unnamed French intelligence source quoted by the paper.
Again, if true, these operators will not be conducting operations directly against Russian forces but will be embedded within Ukrainian headquarters in SOF liaison cells to provide real-time intelligence and assist with targeting and electronic warfare in a similar fashion to their efforts during the Battles for Mosul and for Marawi.
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8. Solomon Islands PM rules out China military base and says Australia is ‘security partner of choice’
Would only call China if there was a gap Australia could not fill? I think there is a lot of diplomacy required for the region. A lot of work to be done.
Excerpts:
“If there is any gap, we will not allow our country to go down the drain. If there is a gap, we will call on support from China. But we’ve made it very clear to the Australians, and many times when we have this conversation with them, that they are a partner of choice … when it comes to security issues in the region, we will call on them first.”
However, the assurances seem at odds with comments made by Sogavare last week, in which he praised China as a “worthy partner”, while saying relationships with some countries “at times can sour”, in an apparent reference to Australia. He also said he wanted China to play a permanent role in training police in his country and welcomed donations of police vehicles and drones from Beijing.
Solomon Islands PM rules out China military base and says Australia is ‘security partner of choice’
Exclusive: In his first interview since the security deal with Beijing, Manasseh Sogavare says he would only call on China if there was a ‘gap’ that Australia could not fill
The prime minister of Solomon Islands has guaranteed there will never be a Chinese military base in his country, saying that any such deal with Beijing would undermine regional security, make Solomon Islands an “enemy” and “put our country and our people as targets for potential military strikes”.
He has also said that Australia remains the “security partner of choice” for Solomon Islands and he would only call on China to send security personnel to the country if there was a “gap” that Australia could not meet.
Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, RNZ and SIBC in his first media interview since signing the controversial security deal with China earlier this year, Manasseh Sogavare said it was time for the world to “trust us”.
“Let me assure you all again, there is no military base, nor any other military facility, or institutions in the agreement. And I think that’s a very important point that we continue to reiterate to the family in the region,” he said.
News of the deal with China sparked huge concern among western countries, particularly language in the text saying China would be permitted to “make ship visits”. But Sogavare pushed back against claims it would lead to a military base in the country, which lies less than 2,000km from Australia’s east coast.
“I have said it before and I will say it again, that is not in someone’s interest, nor the interest of the region for any military base, to be established in any Pacific island country, let alone Solomon Islands,” Sogavare said.
“I think the reason is simple; the reason is regionalism, the moment we establish a foreign military base, we immediately become an enemy. And we also put our country and our people as targets for potential military strikes.”
Sogavare also said that Chinese security personnel would only be invited to Solomon Islands by Solomon Islands government if Australia could not meet the requests for security assistance from the government.
“If there is any gap, we will not allow our country to go down the drain. If there is a gap, we will call on support from China. But we’ve made it very clear to the Australians, and many times when we have this conversation with them, that they are a partner of choice … when it comes to security issues in the region, we will call on them first.”
However, the assurances seem at odds with comments made by Sogavare last week, in which he praised China as a “worthy partner”, while saying relationships with some countries “at times can sour”, in an apparent reference to Australia. He also said he wanted China to play a permanent role in training police in his country and welcomed donations of police vehicles and drones from Beijing.
Manasseh Sogavare, right, with visiting Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in May. Photograph: Anonymous/AP
Sogavare has spent much of his time at the 51st Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Fiji this week allaying fears that his country would host China’s first military presence in the Pacific. He said: “We will not do anything that will put any member of our Pacific family at risk.”
“What I’ve been saying all along with the signing of the agreement between countries [is that it is a] sovereign issue of countries involved. However, we also appreciate that Solomon Islands is part of the Pacific family. So we have ensured the agreement does not in any way undermine the security of the region.”
Until now, Sogavare has not answered questions from media about the security deal, which was leaked in late March. Yet on Thursday he condemned journalists for contributing to misinformation, saying: “Our office is always open. Officials are there and I’m also accessible.”
He accused the media of “contributing to misinformation and then blow[ing] things out of proportion and said he hoped the interview would “give us the opportunity to clear the air”.
Sogavare’s reassurances come as other Pacific leaders have raised concerns about China’s attempts to divide the region, and fears that China would attempt to reintroduce a sweeping economic and security deal to the region.
The deal, which was proposed to 10 leaders during Wang Yi’s marathon tour of the region in June, was rejected, but China has indicated it will bring the deal back at a later date.
“I assumed they would never stop trying, right?” said Surangel Whipps Jr, the president of Palau, speaking on the sidelines of PIF. “I mean, if they wanted it, they’re going to keep pushing.”
Palau, which has diplomatic relations with Taiwan and not with China, was not one of the 10 countries to whom the deal was proposed, and Whipps said that by excluding some Pacific Island countries, it “weakens the agreement”.
“I think it’s an attempt to divide the Pacific again. We’ve just gotten back together, let’s stay together,” he said. “If we are truly brothers in the Pacific, let’s make sure that it doesn’t affect our peace and security and our prosperity in the future. You know, we respect people’s sovereignty, but also collectively let’s look at how this affects all of us.
Daniel Panuelo, the president of the Federated States of Micronesia, raised serious concerns about the proposed regional deal with Pacific leaders in a scathing letter that warned such a security pact could lead Pacific countries to be the “centre of future confrontation between these major powers”.
Forum partner countries like the US, China and Japan are usually invited to attend a post-forum dialogue meeting, at which they can give presentations, but this year the partner dialogue will not be held during the week of the summit. China has been asked not to participate in this year’s PIF by the forum chair Frank Bainimarama, the prime minister of Fiji.
Panuelo confirmed this was to give Pacific leaders some breathing room from the intense geopolitical tension.
“That’s absolutely the sense of our membership,” he said.
Panuelo said the regional deal had not yet been brought back to Pacific countries by China and would not be discussed by leaders at Thursday’s retreat.
“It will not be discussed. Our topics are what is in the best interest of our Pacific community, things that influence that 2050 strategy, climate change, the Suva agreement [that resolves the fracture in the PIF with Micronesian countries].”
But Panuelo anticipated it would be brought back to Pacific countries when the next partners dialogue forum would be held, which might be in September, at the sidelines of the Pacific Island Conference of Leaders.
9. Beijing’s 'list diplomacy' bedevils U.S.-China relations
Hmmm.... I was not familiar with "list diplomacy" but I guess this explains it:
They included the “List of U.S. Wrongdoings that Must Stop,” the “List of Key Individual Cases that China Has Concerns With," the “List of Key China-related Legal Cases that China Has Concerns With” and the “List of China-U.S. Cooperation in Eight Areas.”
It’s not the most sophisticated approach to 21st-century superpower diplomacy by a country that routinely urges the U.S. to view the bilateral relationship “in an objective and rational manner.”
Beijing’s 'list diplomacy' bedevils U.S.-China relations
Politico · by Phelim Kine · July 14, 2022
Hi, China Watchers. After an epic road trip that included Brooklyn, Bennington and Ottawa, it’s great to be back. And huge thanks to guest writers Yun Sun, Tara Joseph and Robin Shepherd who so ably helmed China Watcher in my absence. This week, we probe the results of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s meeting last week with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, unpack the Biden administration’s Pacific Islands charm offensive and examine the U.N.’s grilling of Hong Kong’s human rights record. And to mark Friday’s 35th anniversary of Taiwan ending four decades of martial law, we look at the political and literary legacy of that period.
Let’s get to it. — Phelim
Chinese Foreign Minister WANG YI sent Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN home from their bilat on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Bali with four lists of demands for U.S. action to resolve what Wang called unspecified “outstanding problems” in the relationship.
They included the “List of U.S. Wrongdoings that Must Stop,” the “List of Key Individual Cases that China Has Concerns With," the “List of Key China-related Legal Cases that China Has Concerns With” and the “List of China-U.S. Cooperation in Eight Areas.”
It’s not the most sophisticated approach to 21st-century superpower diplomacy by a country that routinely urges the U.S. to view the bilateral relationship “in an objective and rational manner.”
The list titles would be comical if they didn’t reflect the Chinese government’s stubborn adherence to a transactional foreign policy approach hinged to U.S. concessions on issues of Chinese concern in exchange for progress in other areas of the relationship.
But the balance of power is shifting.
“Both countries continue to see the other as what they wish it to be, not as what they actually are: whereas Wang’s readout firmly positions China as the dominant power, summoning the U.S. to align with Beijing’s preferences with lists of demands that are supposed to force a change of behavior from Washington, Blinken’s readout reflects a ‘business as usual’ posture that is stuck in 2008,” said NADÈGE ROLLAND, senior fellow for political and security affairs at the National Bureau of Asian Research. “This doesn’t signal the start of a corner turn towards improvement. Both countries are talking past each other. Beijing’s demands won’t be met. More tensions will occur.”
Blinken has not publicly commented on the lists or his assessment of how they might complicate an already fraught U.S. China relationship. Both the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. and the State Department declined to comment for this report.
But Beijing has wasted no time in messaging that a timely Biden administration response to its demands is essential to a more stable relationship. “We hope the US side can take China’s lists seriously,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson WANG WENBIN said Monday. “The lists once again demonstrate China’s serious position that the US must stop exercising containment and suppression, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and stop undermining China’s sovereignty, security and development interests.”
The U.S. isn’t the first country that China has targeted with diplomatic grievance lists. Australia received a 14-point list in 2020 that included complaints of “incessant wanton interference in China’s Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan affairs.” Wang Yi refreshed that list on Friday by presenting Australian Foreign Minister PENNY WONGfour demands that Beijing sees as essential to improve relations.
Beijing’s Biden-focused list diplomacy began in earnest in July 2021 when Vice Premier XIE FENG presented U.S. Deputy Secretary of State WENDY SHERMAN with her very own “List of U.S. Wrongdoings that Must Stop” and a “List of Key Individual Cases that China Has Concerns With.” To ensure that the State Department got the message, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson HUA CHUNYING followed up two months later by demanding that the U.S. “attach high importance and take concrete actions to empty the two lists.”
The only known resolution of an issue that China raised in those two lists was Canada’s release of detained Huawei executive MENG WANZHOU in September as part of a deal that also freed wrongfully detained Canadian citizens MICHAEL KOVRIG and MICHAEL SPAVOR, who Chinese authorities jailed in an apparent reprisal for Meng’s detention. Hua described Meng’s release as “positive,” but warned that “other thorns that vary in length still remain in China-US relations.”
National security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN pushed back against China’s transactional diplomacy in an October meeting with China’s top diplomat, YANG JIECHI. Blinken implicitly referenced China’s list diplomacy in his China strategy speech in May. “No country should withhold progress on existential transnational issues because of bilateral differences,” Blinken said.
But Beijing has ignored those overtures and continued to tie cooperation to U.S. willingness to trade diplomatic favors. “There have been instances where unfortunately, China has indicated that it refuses to cooperate on one set of issues because of something that's happening in another area … and that's just not how we operate,” a senior State Department official told China Watcher.
Blinken made clear to Wang that the U.S. will continue to confront China on hot button issues of principle, including Beijing’s “alignment with Russia” over the Ukraine invasion, “genocide in Xinjiang” and ongoing Chinese military intimidation of Taiwan. But Blinken’s readout of his meeting with Wang indicated that he believes that the bilateral relationship had shed the overt hostility that blighted the first meeting with Wang in Anchorage in March 2021.
“Despite the complexities of our relationship, I can say with some confidence that our delegations found today’s discussions useful and constructive,” Blinken said over the weekend. “We discussed where more cooperation between our countries should be possible, including on the climate crisis, food security, global health, counternarcotics.”
That’s a nice little list, but also likely wishful thinking.
In the aftermath of Biden and Xi’s Nov. 15 virtual meeting, administration officials revealed several new cooperation initiatives. They included an agreement on lifting restrictions on work visas for U.S. and Chinese journalists, closer collaboration on counternarcotics activities and bilateral talks regarding U.S. concerns about the rapid growth in China’s nuclear arsenal.
Eight months later, bilateral distrust has stalled those goals. Blinken’s warning Tuesday that the U.S. military would respond to any Chinese “armed attack” on Philippine vessels in a disputed region of the South China Sea will only add to Beijing’s arsenal of diplomatic grievances.
Wang threaded the readout of his Blinken meeting with skepticism about the health of a bilateral relationship that he said was hobbled by U.S. “Chinaphobia.”
“At present, bilateral ties are still stuck in the predicament created by the previous U.S. administration and are even encountering more and more challenges,” Wang said.
That language reflects public posturing that doesn’t necessarily mirror the tone or substance of actual bilateral engagement. Perhaps there’s some progress simply in that Blinken and Wang can now have multi-hour meetings without any eruptions of mutual acrimony, as occurred in Alaska
“You can’t read too much about what happened in five hours of discussions from these readouts, which are both aimed at respective domestic audiences and … are meant to show that their side didn’t give an inch and remains upset, but that they recognize larger practicalities requiring constructive diplomatic discourse,” said SUSAN THORNTON, former acting assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
“I view this as an incremental move toward the normalization of meetings, which we haven’t had for almost seven years, and which is crucial for managing this very important and complex relationship. Cooperating and competing simultaneously with one’s competitors is a normal state of affairs, and we need to condition people in both countries to this complexity,” Thornton added.
10. Critical minerals could become a geopolitical weapon
Excerpt:
While Wray did not specifically call out critical mineral supplies as a potential geopolitical weapon in China’s arsenal, Granholm’s comments this week show the topic’s certainly on the Biden administration’s mind.
Critical minerals could become a geopolitical weapon
protocol.com · by Lisa Martine Jenkins,Brian Kahn · July 14, 2022
Happy Thursday. Your Protocol Climate team is once again whole and here to bring you the news. (Yes, Brian’s vacation was nice, thank you for asking.) Today, we’re diving into the continuing critical mineral crisis and Microsoft’s big carbon dioxide removal push.
The looming critical mineral confrontation
Renewable energy developers have had more than their fair share of supply chain chaos over the past year. And now, they may have one more woe to add to the list: Critical minerals could become a pawn in geopolitical conflict, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said this week.
The critical mineral supply could be manipulated — or even weaponized. Granholm issued her warning about the minerals crucial for the clean energy transition at the Sydney Energy Forum. The reason for concern? China controls the vast majority of the supply.
- "I think it's healthy and from a national security perspective for both of our nations to diversify supply chains and make sure that these minerals are available to get to the ultimate goal of net zero," Granholm told the Australian audience. She added that the U.S. has the resources to support miners that could help diversify the supply chain.
- If U.S. relations with China worsen, any conflict — hot or cold — could restrict the flow of all manner of goods, including minerals like lithium, cobalt and rare earths.
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of how escalating tensions could play out. The country has used natural gas as a weapon, including cutting off the flow of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria earlier this year.
Granholm spoke directly to major mining companies, including Rio Tinto. Others in attendance included Lynas Rare Earths, Iluka Resources, Syrah Resources and Arafura Resources.
-
Lynas Rare Earths has already been the subject of a disinformation campaign seeking to upend its plans to build a Department of Defense-supported processing site in Texas. That campaign has been linked to pro-Chinese interests.
- “Any kind of effort by the West to develop their own capabilities comes at a great cost to China's leverage,” said John Hultquist, vice president of cyber threat intelligence for Mandiant, which uncovered the campaign. “So they're going to do whatever they can to impede this.”
- Clearly Granholm also got the memo based on her comments this week.
China, meanwhile, is making moves of its own. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, executives are increasingly spooked about the possibility of China invading Taiwan. Beijing is considering how to shield the country from sanctions like those used against Russia in the wake of its initial assault of Ukraine in the event of a possible invasion of Taiwan, FBI Director Christopher Wray said last week.
- China is looking to “cushion themselves from harm if they do anything to draw the ire of the international community,” Wray said. The country’s attempts to insulate its economy preemptively could hold a “clue,” Wray said, to its plans for a potential invasion.
- If China invades Taiwan, that could put the world’s energy transition in jeopardy.
While Wray did not specifically call out critical mineral supplies as a potential geopolitical weapon in China’s arsenal, Granholm’s comments this week show the topic’s certainly on the Biden administration’s mind.
11. Could ISIS Make A Comeback?
Excerpts:
While the resurgence of ISIS activity in Iraq and Syria is widely circulated in mainstream media, many of the terror group’s attacks launched in Africa fly under the radar. In 2020, the U.S. State Department published its report on terrorism, which outlined how ISIS affiliate groups outside of the Middle East contributed to more fatalities than any other year. Over the last few years, the terror group has launched dozens of attacks throughout the continent, including in Somalia and Uganda. While ISIS controls only less than one percent of territory in Africa today, the group has indicated the continent will serve as its new frontier, perhaps replacing Syria and Iraq.
The recent assassination of al-Agal precedes President Biden’s planned visit to the Middle East, where he is set to meet with a range of leaders in the region. In light of recent provocations carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran throughout the region, President Biden is expected to demonstrate a unified front against Tehran’s malign behavior. Following the killing of a critical ISIS leader, the terror group and its preservation in the region could also be a topic of discussion during Biden’s visit.
Could ISIS Make A Comeback?
On Tuesday, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced ISIS leader Maher al-Agal was killed in a drone strike in Syria. Responsible for overseeing the functioning of the terror organization abroad, al-Agal was a critical target for anti-ISIS forces. In the strike, another ISIS official was gravely injured.
So far in 2022, the U.S. captured senior ISIS leader Hani Ahmed al-Kurdi in February and located the terror group’s head Aby Ibrahim al-Hasimi al-Quraishi in a raid that resulted in his death in June. The latest strike, which took out al-Agal, represents a significant blow to the ISIS movement, which has already taken several hits throughout this year. While ISIS has lost swaths of territory and perceived power since its peak between 2014-2017, the terror organization remains a series threat in the region.
According to a press release by CENTCOM, assassinated ISIS leader al-Agal was responsible for expanding the terror group’s regional enterprise. “This strike reaffirms CENTCOM’s steadfast commitment to the region and the enduring defeat of ISIS,” said Col. Joe Buccino, a CENTCOM spokesperson. “The removal of these ISIS leaders will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and carry out global attacks. ISIS continues to represent a threat to the U.S. and partners in the region, CENTCOM maintains a sufficient and sustainable presence in the region and will continue to counter threats against regional security.”
The Rise of ISIS
At its peak of power, ISIS controlled almost a third of Syria and a little less than half of Iraq. The group emerged as an offshoot of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) around 2003 by a Jordanian who would ultimately lead AQI, named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In a similar fashion to many other terror groups, ISIS exploited the power vacuums and instability that plagued Syria and Iraq. By 2013, the group officially became the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. One year later, its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi debuted the formation of a caliphate that would encompass Syria and Iraq.
Following the announcement of the proclaimed Caliphate, the U.S. announced the formation of an international coalition to counter the ISIS threat. The terror group consistently committed brutal atrocities and pledged to continue its acts of violence, sexual violence, persecution, and kidnappings to achieve its mission.
To best prevent ISIS from functioning, the U.S.-led coalition strived to help cease the group’s funding, provided military support to its partners, and impeded the flow of foreign fighters. By the summer of 2014, the coalition began carrying out airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, which it expanded to Syria shortly after. According to the Wilson Center, the U.S. would conduct more than 8,000 airstrikes targeting ISIS over the next year. The campaign, dubbed “Operation Inherent Resolve,” would set the stage for the Islamic State’s eventual loss of substantial territory.
Efforts to Take ISIS Down
Years of fighting ultimately led to the killing of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi in 2019, following the group’s territorial defeat in the region. While the group suffered from physical losses and personnel losses, dedicated members of the terror organization remained.
According to Reuters, following the death of al-Baghdadi, an estimated “14,000 – 18,000 members remained, including 3,000 foreigners.” Some ISIS fighters were able to move freely in small cells, escaping capture by hiding in mountainous terrain. ISIS has remained active in Iraq’s central and northern provinces, as detailed by the Wilson Center. Since the collapse of the caliphate in 2019, the terror group has launched hundreds of attacks.
ISIS Activity
In 2021, dual suicide bombings killed over thirty people in a crowded marketplace in Baghdad. This incident marked ISIS’ first large-scale attack in the country in two years. Months later, an ISIS attack killed ten people in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. In February, ISIS militants carried out a brazen attack to free imprisoned terrorists from Syria’s al-Hasakah prison.
While the resurgence of ISIS activity in Iraq and Syria is widely circulated in mainstream media, many of the terror group’s attacks launched in Africa fly under the radar. In 2020, the U.S. State Department published its report on terrorism, which outlined how ISIS affiliate groups outside of the Middle East contributed to more fatalities than any other year. Over the last few years, the terror group has launched dozens of attacks throughout the continent, including in Somalia and Uganda. While ISIS controls only less than one percent of territory in Africa today, the group has indicated the continent will serve as its new frontier, perhaps replacing Syria and Iraq.
The recent assassination of al-Agal precedes President Biden’s planned visit to the Middle East, where he is set to meet with a range of leaders in the region. In light of recent provocations carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran throughout the region, President Biden is expected to demonstrate a unified front against Tehran’s malign behavior. Following the killing of a critical ISIS leader, the terror group and its preservation in the region could also be a topic of discussion during Biden’s visit.
Maya Carlin is a Middle East Defense Editor with 19FortyFive. She is also an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel.
12. Biden Is Fighting the Wrong Battle Against China
Excerpts:
Finally, and most dangerously, Biden’s framing ignores the mortal threat to US democracy at home. As revealed by the recent hearings held by the Jan. 6 committee, a defeated Trump came perilously close to overturning the outcome of a legitimate presidential election. Today, the risk that US democracy may unravel has, if anything, grown due to extreme political polarization and Trump’s dominance of the Republican Party. If the US fails to defend democracy at home, its call to vanquish dictatorship in China can’t help but sound hollow.
How should the US approach this critical struggle instead? It may be enough to justify China policy on grounds of fundamental national interests. Biden can make clear to Americans, allies and China that the US is looking solely to advance its own security and economic interests. Compromise and cooperation with China are possible so long as its conduct does not harm such interests.
While this pragmatic and honest framing may sound less lofty than Biden’s — and less suited to the kind of sweeping appeal that politicians like to think inspires Americans — it will likely deliver better long-term outcomes. Ironically, it accurately describes the substance of Biden’s China policy to date. When he talks to Xi, Biden should make sure his rhetoric more closely matches his actions.
Biden Is Fighting the Wrong Battle Against China
Casting the rivalry as a struggle between democracy and autocracy risks undermining all the good that the administration’s actual policies are doing.
July 14, 2022 at 6:00 AM EDT
Typically, the most effective foreign policy pairs smart tactical substance to an overarching strategic theme. Framing a foreign policy correctly can sustain domestic political support, attract allies and provide the intellectual guidance for action. Conversely, flawed framing can undercut any good that specific policies may otherwise be doing. When it comes to China, US President Joe Biden’s administration risks falling into the latter trap.
In most respects, the White House’s China policy is delivering excellent outcomes. Unlike his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump, Biden has assiduously cultivated friends and allies in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. The United States is well on its way to building a broad-based coalition that could help sustain an open-ended rivalry with China.
Biden has also kept pressure on China by retaining tariffs on Chinese imports (although he may remove some to fight inflation) and imposing additional sanctions on Chinese technology firms. At the same time, Biden has opened lines of communication with Chinese leaders to avoid dangerous escalations. His key national security advisers now meet with their Chinese counterparts regularly. Biden himself has held three phone calls and a virtual summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He is expected to speak with Xi again in the coming weeks.
These tactical successes, however, are being undermined by Biden’s framing of the China challenge. In his first news conference in March last year, Biden called the US-China rivalry “a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.” Last December he convened a virtual “summit of democracies” to underscore the same theme.
Casting the competition with China as part of a grand battle against autocracy is at best foolish and at worst self-destructive. At a minimum, this narrative sounds hypocritical to US partners. Few of the existing or potential allies Washington needs to confront China are model democracies. Vietnam is a communist dictatorship, Thailand is effectively ruled by a military junta, and democracy in the Philippines and India has been deteriorating at alarming speed. Biden’s own visit to Saudi Arabia this week underscores the necessity of working with non-democracies.
Moreover, it’s simply not true that the U.S.-China competition is part of a global contest between democracy and dictatorship. Countries backing the U.S. such as Japan, Vietnam, Australia and India are doing so mostly because of the threat China poses to their national security. Japan is hardly known as a tireless champion of democracy promotion. India’s continued cozy ties with Russia are testimony to its pragmatism, not its ideological commitment to democracy.
To many third countries, the US approach to China also seems more about power than ideology. These countries suspect — probably correctly — that the US is largely motivated by fears of losing its global primacy; casting the rivalry with China solely in ideological terms thus invites accusations of intellectual dishonesty. Indeed, Graham Allison’s book, “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?” has become a bestseller because its central argument — that competition for power, not ideology, is driving the U.S. and China toward conflict — resonates around the world.
Biden’s crusade for democracy may also paint the U.S. into a corner because it implies regime change in China is the only acceptable outcome of this competition. Logically, the U.S. wins the competition by defeating China’s autocracy. This zero-sum endgame raises questions about whether the two great powers can co-exist peacefully.
Finally, and most dangerously, Biden’s framing ignores the mortal threat to US democracy at home. As revealed by the recent hearings held by the Jan. 6 committee, a defeated Trump came perilously close to overturning the outcome of a legitimate presidential election. Today, the risk that US democracy may unravel has, if anything, grown due to extreme political polarization and Trump’s dominance of the Republican Party. If the US fails to defend democracy at home, its call to vanquish dictatorship in China can’t help but sound hollow.
How should the US approach this critical struggle instead? It may be enough to justify China policy on grounds of fundamental national interests. Biden can make clear to Americans, allies and China that the US is looking solely to advance its own security and economic interests. Compromise and cooperation with China are possible so long as its conduct does not harm such interests.
While this pragmatic and honest framing may sound less lofty than Biden’s — and less suited to the kind of sweeping appeal that politicians like to think inspires Americans — it will likely deliver better long-term outcomes. Ironically, it accurately describes the substance of Biden’s China policy to date. When he talks to Xi, Biden should make sure his rhetoric more closely matches his actions.
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13. Great-Power Competition Is Bad for Democracy
Well it is a good thing we abandoned great power competition and now we focus on strategic competition.
This conclusion baffles me. It is all America's fault because we have a "national security bureaucracy primed for perpetual conflict." If we would just stop being so hostile, China and Russia would not be "militarizing." All America has to do is turn inward and everything will be okay.
If left as the sole basis for American grand strategy, great-power rivalry will become circular, validating Russia’s and China’s militarist paths and justifying a superpowered U.S. national security bureaucracy primed for perpetual conflict. It will fail to rectify the sources of democratic weakness, which are rooted in economic precariousness, political corruption, and racism. It will lead to the election of autocratic leaders, who decry the United States’ domestic failures and link them to a supposedly weak foreign policy.
Given the public’s lingering desire to see the United States invest more at home, the time is right to shift course. Americans are looking for U.S. foreign policy to align with democratic expectations and public opinion. A truly great power would do its utmost to tackle the unresolved issues heightened by the pandemic: racial and economic inequality, a public health crisis, and runaway environmental degradation. Geopolitical rivalry will do none of that.
Great-Power Competition Is Bad for Democracy
Rivalry With China and Russia Reinforces the Real Causes of American Decline
July 14, 2022
Democrats and Republicans alike have greeted the prospect of a long-term rivalry with China as a challenge that will bring out the best of the United States. For years, Washington has touted China as the U.S. military’s only worthy adversary and the kind of threat that could mobilize the national will and cure what’s ailing American democracy.
Russia’s catastrophic invasion of Ukraine has only hardened this conventional wisdom. Even though its origins have nothing to do with China, the war has encouraged Washington to see these two great powers as being of a kind. Just as competition with China is supposed to be the path to American renewal, so, too, is the ongoing struggle against Russia considered a “good war” that can salvage the Cold War–era faith in waging winnable battles against autocrats. Ukraine reminds the world of the inherent virtues of democracy and of the possibility of the bipartisanship that supposedly governed world affairs after the Cold War. As the scholar Francis Fukuyama wrote in March, “The spirit of 1989 went to sleep, and now it’s being reawakened.”
But reconfiguring Western foreign policy for great-power conflict will not help restore democracy in the United States or anywhere else. There is little evidence that great-power competition strengthens civic bonds, equal rights, or economic security and much to suggest it could turn democracy further against itself. In fact, if the United States wants a well-functioning polity with a civil society at peace, the last thing it should seek is great-power rivalry. Many of the most pressing threats to democracy cannot be solved through a competitive framework: climate change, white nationalism and xenophobia, pandemics, and economic inequality. Instead of betting that conflict with China and Russia will invigorate the West, the United States and its partners should promote institutions of regional and global governance to mitigate the damage to democracy that great-power competition will invariably inflict.
ROMANTICIZING THE COLD WAR
The preoccupation with great-power competition is problematic not only because it is not a strategy but also because it substitutes a slogan—or more specifically a zero-sum competitive impulse—for a strategic purpose. It elides even the possibility for a more democratic grand strategy, one that can empower all citizens, reflect majoritarian consensus, and project democratic aspirations at home and abroad. The United States needs a foreign policy that works for all Americans, not just one for corporations or even the middle class.
The Washington establishment’s view that great-power conflict is a net good for the United States derives from a tortured reading of Cold War history. In this view, Soviet rivalry provoked the passage of civil rights legislation, the space race led to innovations in technology and computerization, and the Cold War economy created affluence and enabled homeownership for many Americans. This historical interpretation of the Cold War lies behind recent legislation, including the 2021 Strategic Competition Act and the 2022 America COMPETES Act, both of which seek to marshal federal resources to spur economic development and job creation, all in an effort to compete with China.
But the Cold War’s influence is much more complicated—and grimmer—than policymakers’ standard telling of it. It is true that the Cold War created tremendous economic growth and prosperity, but it did so with deleterious effects on free speech, racial and economic equality, and democratic pluralism. Rivalry with the Soviet Union stoked the Red Scare in the 1950s, during which people merely accused of insufficient loyalty to the U.S. government lost their jobs and were blacklisted in Washington and in Hollywood. It inhibited the most ambitious parts of the civil rights agenda, sacrificing job creation and infrastructure investment for Black American communities in order to pay for the Vietnam War. It delayed needed reforms on gender by pressing women into domestic familial support roles and suppressing the feminist movement until it found a voice alongside other struggles for justice during the Vietnam War era. And by attacking programs for full employment, national health care, and labor unionism as “socialist” or “communist,” it embrittled the New Deal economic order established under U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.
Great-power rivalry with the Soviets exacerbated class inequalities that paved the way for the ascendance of austerity politics in the 1980s. Then, neoliberal prescriptions for managing the economy included a weak welfare state, corporate deregulation, and the privatization of public goods and services—all of which yielded growing disparities in wages, incomes, and job prospects between working-class and wealthy Americans. A political economy dependent upon military spending created jobs in the engineering and tech sectors, but that primarily benefited the highly educated and the upper middle class. The rise of the postindustrial economy in the 1970s and 1980s meant that Americans outside the fields of technology, academia, and engineering (fields subsidized by Cold War defense spending), and without advanced degrees, had to look for jobs in the service industry, which provides perpetually insecure, low-wage work without much opportunity for social mobility. The Cold War was not a struggle that benefited the working class.
Many of the most pressing threats to democracy cannot be solved through a competitive framework.
The Cold War also set a precedent regarding federal spending by which guns necessarily came at the expense of butter. Whereas Pentagon spending averaged 7.6 of GDP, education spending took up only three percent between 1946 and 1960. At their height in 1982, Social Security benefits comprised close to 5 percent of GDP. In the forty years prior, benefits averaged less than 3 percent of GDP. (Only healthcare expenditures rivaled national defense as a percentage of GDP during the Cold War). The balance of U.S. defense and social priorities have been mismatched since World War II.
Making matters worse, Cold War liberals conditioned domestic investments on great-power rivalry. This meant decoupling the rationale for public goods from a positive vision for society on its own terms and instead tying it to what would most hurt the Soviets. This made it possible to oppose domestic spending with the contorted logic that it was harmful to competition with the Soviets. Even Democrats started adopting this view of the welfare state by the 1970s, effectively abandoning the labor base of the Democratic party in favor of a white-collar, technologically literate constituency that it saw as more capable of outperforming the United States’ geopolitical foe. This bargain, which has left the Democratic party of the 2020s searching for its political soul, worked out far better for right-wing, nationalist politicians who consistently argued that money spent on poverty reduction—at home and abroad—would be better spent on intercontinental ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear warheads, missile defense programs, and a more muscular foreign policy overall. This tendency helped rationalize the shadow of nuclear terror the world is still forced to live under today, but it did little to, say, shore up American democracy or prepare the United States for a global pandemic—to say nothing of lifting up America’s poor.
Fighting a monolithic communist enemy abroad also boomeranged in the form of racism and xenophobia against immigrants at home. The 1950 Internal Security Act, which required Communist Party members to register with the federal government, allowed U.S. authorities to deport naturalized immigrants suspected of “disloyalty.” After the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, Chinese immigrants during the Cold War were compelled to “confess” their illegal immigration status—even if they had broken no laws when they came to the United States—to earn their citizenship rights. Such policies reflected the anticommunist hysteria of McCarthyism that lasted well into the 1960s. Even when Democrats finally took up the cause of civil rights, as the historian Mary Dudziak has explained, it was in a stunted, narrow way that had been delayed decades by the earlier destruction of a previously unified Progressive movement that was the first organized champion for political and economic equality in America. That coalition was undone by anticommunist liberals—including Democrats and Republicans—whose visions for change were shortened by defining their politics against an enemy rather than for their own theory of democracy.
The failure to see the Cold War for what it was has left the United States unprepared to manage the risks that great-power competition poses to democratic society today. The Biden administration thinks this rivalry will benefit the American middle class and the world, yet it is already poisoning U.S. politics, aiding Chinese President Xi Jinping, and accumulating avoidable strategic risks along the way.
RIVALRY AND RACISM
Just as racism and ethnically motivated violence was part of the Cold War experience, so too has it become the most visible and immediate price of today’s showdown with China and Russia. In the past few months alone, xenophobic attacks against Russians and Chinese immigrants have escalated in the United States. Incidents of hate crimes toward Asian Americans have increased 339 percent since 2021, including a mass shooting in Atlanta in March 2021 that killed six Asian American women. Following the Ukraine invasion, Russian businesses in the United States have been boycotted, and Disney paused its new film releases in Russia. Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell even went so far as to recommend “kicking every Russian student out of the United States.” This is a disturbing echo of Cold War exclusionism.
U.S. President Joe Biden has rightly denounced acts of overt racism and xenophobia against Russian and Chinese immigrants. But an antiracist, antixenophobic policy is not one that merely denounces racial slurs or bigoted civilizational reasoning; it must also make it harder, not easier, to traffic in racialized sentiment. And on this count, the Biden administration is failing. Every gesture toward “outcompeting China” unintentionally buoys ethnonationalism at home and abroad. U.S. policymakers need to understand that Xi draws strength from rivalry, as do American far-right extremists, conspiracy theorists, and the demagogic Washington politicians who pander to them.
Republican senators such as Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley straddle the interests of Washington polite society and the far right. How? By invoking hateful rhetoric and promoting policies of racial exclusion that appeal to white supremacists and conspiracy theorists while maintaining a veneer of legitimacy by claiming that they target the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or “China” writ large—a vague menacing “other” that ensnares the larger community of Asian Americans. Months into the 2020 pandemic, Cruz defended the use of racially coded epithets aimed at China, including “kung flu” and “Chinese virus.” Cotton personally trafficked in these yellow-peril dog whistles, and co-sponsored legislation that year to ban Chinese students from securing visas to study science, technology, engineering, or math in the United States. And Hawley earned a Vanity Fair headline that read “Josh Hawley Proudly Declares Himself Pro Hate Crimes” after casting the sole vote against the uncontroversial COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. Hawley also campaigned for reelection on ads that included depictions of Chinese businessmen taking over American farms, creating a racial stigma around who should be allowed to own the most important tangible asset in the U.S. economy.
A vigil in Philadelphia, March 2021
Rachel Wisniewski / Reuters
Stoking this rivalry has also allowed conservatives to avoid political accountability, politicizing Chinese villainy rather than answering at the polls for their conduct in office. Shortly after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, for instance, the BBC asked outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo how the event affected America’s global image, to which he responded, “I actually think that question is basically Chinese propaganda.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee, similarly, instructed conservatives running for office in 2020 to tell voters, “Coronavirus was a Chinese hit-and-run followed by a cover-up that cost thousands of lives” and Democrats are “soft on China” and to “push for sanctions on China for its role in spreading the pandemic.” Their explicit aim was to avoid a referendum on Trump-era conservative policies and his mishandling of the U.S. pandemic response.
Expedient hate-mongering is not confined to the political right. Rather than condemn Republicans’ race-baiting and diversionary politics, many Democrats flirt with that same premise. Tim Ryan, a Democrat running for Senate in Ohio, has been unapologetic in his willingness to blame the economic plight of blue-collar workers on a China bogeyman—“China is winning and workers are losing” and “It’s us versus China,” he said in one ad. Democrats have been complicit in creating the economy that has put millions of Americans in a precarious financial position, so small wonder that they, too, would rather blame China for the state of things than reflect on their culpability.
Democrats have also bet that they can win support on infrastructure investment by framing it in terms of strengthening the United States for long-term competition with China. But perversely, Republicans and conservative Democrats have instead countered that competing with China may mean not investing in the United States’ long-term future. Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, for instance, rationalized voting against Build Back Better legislation last year on the grounds that the United States needed the money for military contingencies against China and Russia. Earlier this year, Manchin joined Cotton in diverting $4 billion from a climate fund to Pentagon research and development, citing concerns about China.
Whatever the merits of military spending, it is literally coming at the expense of funding for projects that would directly benefit the American people—just like it did during the Cold War. And that means Democrats using foreign competition as the key to domestic rejuvenation are making a bad bet that misapprehends the realities of American politics.
MAKING STRONGMEN STRONGER
In China, rivalrous geopolitics is having similar consequences. China’s political economy, and by extension Xi’s rule, depends on oligarchs who exploit a weak labor rights regime and extreme worker precariousness, then move their profits offshore into often risky state-directed investments. This process is how China funds the Belt and Road Initiative, which Washington sees as a sign of Beijing’s hegemonic ambitions. In other words, China’s economic influence abroad is built on inequality and repression at home.
Rivalry perpetuates this dynamic. Economic growth, the great legitimizer of authoritarian politics, cannot forever proceed in a straight upward line. When growth rates fall, which in relative terms they are now, the ruling regime needs an alternative source of legitimacy. For Xi, that alternative is ethnonationalism—the glue that holds together political order in a deeply exploitative economic system.
Like its American cousin, Chinese ethnonationalism is a problem because it begets belligerence. The CCP’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy—the aggressive style of diplomacy adopted under Xi’s administration—is less a sign of insecurity than it is a symptom of nationalism being stoked for deliberately political ends. And ethnonationalism rationalizes the expansive modernization projects of the People’s Liberation Army, just as the same jingoistic, racially tinged sentiments in the United States are used to justify massive Pentagon budgets. Reactionaries in Washington and Beijing are mirror-imaging each other, and benefiting politically from the negative synergy of rivalry.
The Cold War’s influence is much more complicated—and grimmer—than policymakers’ standard telling of it.
Recent history has also made it evident that great-power rivalry does not help efforts to weaken autocrats, and may end up doing the opposite. Great-power competition did not produce leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, or Viktor Orban of Hungary, but neither can it manage the forces that propelled them to power: ethnonationalism, economic inequality, and democratic backsliding. Rivalry between countries is not a viable framework for democratic improvement within them. Instead, geopolitical competition compels the United States to make undemocratic moral compromises in the name of democracy. In a rush to convince everyone that “America is back” as leader of the “free world,” the Biden administration has drawn hypocrisy-riddled distinctions between dictatorship and democracy as an ideological basis for great-power rivalry. But it is self-defeating—and logically contradictory—to enlist foreign governments in an anti-China, anti-Russia foreign policy agenda when the same mindset justifies U.S. backing of despotic, demagogic leaders from Turkey to Saudi Arabia to the Philippines and beyond. The United States’ limited political influence could be much better spent.
If left as the sole basis for American grand strategy, great-power rivalry will become circular, validating Russia’s and China’s militarist paths and justifying a superpowered U.S. national security bureaucracy primed for perpetual conflict. It will fail to rectify the sources of democratic weakness, which are rooted in economic precariousness, political corruption, and racism. It will lead to the election of autocratic leaders, who decry the United States’ domestic failures and link them to a supposedly weak foreign policy.
Given the public’s lingering desire to see the United States invest more at home, the time is right to shift course. Americans are looking for U.S. foreign policy to align with democratic expectations and public opinion. A truly great power would do its utmost to tackle the unresolved issues heightened by the pandemic: racial and economic inequality, a public health crisis, and runaway environmental degradation. Geopolitical rivalry will do none of that.
14. The BA.5 Wave Is What COVID Normal Looks Like
Excerpts:
The global situation has, to be fair, immensely improved. Vaccines and treatments have slashed the proportion of people who are ending up seriously sick and dead, even when case rates climb. And the virus’s pummel should continue to soften, Hill told me, as global immunity grows. Chu, of the University of Washington, is also optimistic that SARS-CoV-2 will eventually, like flu and other coronaviruses, adhere to some seasonality, becoming a threat that can be managed with an annually updated shot.
But the degree to which the COVID situation improves, and when those ease-ups might unfold, are not guaranteed—and the current burden of infection remains unsustainably heavy. Long COVID still looms; “mild” sicknesses can still leave people bedridden for days, and take them away from school, family, and work. And with reinfections now occurring more frequently, individuals are each “more often rolling the die” that could make them chronically or seriously ill, Hodcroft, of the University of Bern, told me. In the Northern Hemisphere, that’s all happening against the backdrop of summer. The winter ahead will likely be even worse.
And with transmission rates this high, the next variant may arrive all the sooner—and could, by chance, end up more severe. “How much do we want to restrict our own freedoms in exchange for the injury that may be caused?” Hodcroft said. “That’s something that hard science can’t answer.”
The BA.5 Wave Is What COVID Normal Looks Like
The endless churn of variants may not stop anytime soon, unless we do something about it.
After two-plus years of erupting into distinguishable peaks, the American coronavirus-case curve has a new topography: a long, never-ending plateau. Waves are now so frequent that they’re colliding and uplifting like tectonic plates, the valleys between them filling with virological rubble.
With cases quite high and still drastically undercounted, and hospitalizations lilting up, this lofty mesa is a disconcerting place to be. The subvariants keep coming. Immunity is solid against severe disease, but porous to infection and the resulting chaos. Some people are getting the virus for the first time, others for the second, third, or more, occasionally just weeks apart. And we could remain at this elevation for some time.
Coronavirus test-positivity trends, for instance, look quite bad. A rate below 5 percent might have once indicated a not-too-bad level of infection, but “I wake up every morning and look … and it’s 20 percent again,” says Pavitra Roychoudhury, a viral genomicist at the University of Washington who’s tracking SARS-CoV-2 cases in her community. “The last time we were below 10 percent was the first week of April.” It’s not clear, Roychoudhury told me, when the next downturn might be.
Part of this relentless churn is about the speed of the virus. SARS-CoV-2, repped by the Omicron clan, is now spewing out globe-sweeping subvariants at a blistering clip. In the United States, the fall of BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 have overlapped so tightly with the rise of BA.5 that the peaks of their surges have blended into one. And a new, ominous cousin, BA.2.75, is currently popping in several parts of the world.
At the same time, our countermoves are sluggish at best. Pathogens don’t spread or transform without first inhabiting hosts. But with masks, distancing, travel restrictions, and other protective measures almost entirely vanished, “we’ve given the virus every opportunity to keep doing this,” says David Martinez, a viral immunologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
More variants mean more infections; more infections mean more variants. It’s true that, compared with earlier in the pandemic, hospitalization and death rates remain relatively low. But a high rate of infections is keeping us in the vicious viral-evolution cycle. “The main thing is really this unchecked transmission,” says Helen Chu, an epidemiologist and vaccine expert at the University of Washington. We might be ready to get back to normal and forget the virus exists. But without doing something about infection, we can’t slow the COVID treadmill we’ve found ourselves on.
The speed at which a virus shape-shifts hinges on two main factors: the microbe’s inherent capacity for change, and the frequency with which it interacts with hospitable hosts.
Nothing yet suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has juiced up its ability to mutate. But subvariants are slamming us faster because, from the virus’s perspective, “there’s more immune pressure now,” says Katia Koelle, an evolutionary virologist at Emory University. Early on in the pandemic, the virus’s primary need was speed: To find success, a variant “just had to get to somebody first,” says Verity Hill, a viral genomicist at Yale. Alpha was such a revision, quicker than the OG at invading our airways, better at latching onto cells. Delta was more fleet-footed still. But a virus can only up its transmissibility so much, says Emma Hodcroft, a viral phylogeneticist at the University of Bern. To keep infecting people beyond that, SARS-CoV-2 needed to get stealthier.
That same modus operandi sustains flu viruses, norovirus, and other coronaviruses, which repeatedly reinfect individuals, Koelle told me. It has also defined the Omicron oligarchy. And “the longer the Omicron dominance continues,” Hill told me, the more difficult it will be for another variant to usurp its throne. It’s unclear why this particular variant has managed a monopoly. It may have to do with the bendability of the Omicron morphs, which seem particularly adept at sidestepping antibodies without compromising their ability to force their way inside our cells. Scientists also suspect that at least one Omicron reservoir—a highly infected community, a chronically infected individual, or a coronavirus-vulnerable animal—may be repeatedly slingshotting out new subvariants, fueling a rush of tsunami-caliber waves.
Whatever its secret, Team Omicron has clearly spread far and wide. Trevor Bedford, who studies viral evolution at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, estimates that roughly 50 percent of the U.S. may have been infected by early members of the BA gang in the span of just a few months; each encounter has offered the virus countless opportunities to mutate further. And if there’s a limit to the virus’s ability to rejigger its genome and elude our antibodies again, “we haven’t detected it yet,” Martinez, of UNC Chapel Hill, told me. Such malleability has precedent: Versions of the H3N2 flu virus that have been bopping around since the ’60s are still finding new ways to reinvade us. With SARS-CoV-2, the virus-immunity arms race could also go on “very, very long,” Koelle told me. To circumvent immunity, she said, “a virus only has to be different than it was previously.”
Three things, Koelle told me, could slow SARS-CoV-2’s roll. First, the virus’s genome could get “a little more brittle, and less accepting of mutations,” she said. Maybe, for instance, the microbe’s ability to switch up its surface will hit some sort of ceiling. But Koelle thinks it’s unwise to count on that.
Instead, we, the virus’s hosts, could give it fewer places to reproduce, by bolstering immunity and curbing infections. On the immunity front, the world’s nowhere yet near saturated; infections will continue, and make the average person on Earth a crummier place to land. Better yet, vaccinations will shore up our defenses. Billions of people have now received at least one dose of a COVID-19 shot—but there are still large pockets of individuals, especially in low-income countries, who have no shots at all. Even among the vaccinated, far too few people have had the three, four, or even five injections necessary to stave off the worst damage of Omicron and its offshoots. Simply getting people up to date would increase protection, as could variant-specific updates to vaccine recipes, likely due soon in the U.S. and European Union.
But the appetite for additional shots has definitely ebbed, especially in the U.S. Retooled recipes also won’t see equitable distribution around the globe. They may even end up as a stopgap, offering only temporary protection until the virus gets “pushed to a new point” on its evolutionary map and circumvents us again, Hill said.
Which leaves us with coordinated behavioral change—a strategy that exactly no one feels optimistic about. Precautionary policies are gone; several governments are focused on counting hospitalizations and deaths, allowing infections to skyrocket as long as the health-care system stays intact. “Everyone just wants some sense of normalcy,” UW’s Roychoudhury said. Even many people who consider themselves quite COVID-conscious have picked up old social habits again. “The floodgates just opened this year,” Martinez said. He, too, has eased up a bit in recent months, wearing a mask less often at small gatherings with friends, and more often bowing to peer pressure to take the face covering off. Ajay Sethi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, still works at home, and avoids eating with strangers indoors. He masks in crowded places, but at home, as contractors remodel his bathrooms, he has decided not to—a pivot from last year. His chances of suffering from the virus haven’t changed much; what has is “probably more my own fatigue,” he told me, “and my willingness to accept more risk than before.”
The global situation has, to be fair, immensely improved. Vaccines and treatments have slashed the proportion of people who are ending up seriously sick and dead, even when case rates climb. And the virus’s pummel should continue to soften, Hill told me, as global immunity grows. Chu, of the University of Washington, is also optimistic that SARS-CoV-2 will eventually, like flu and other coronaviruses, adhere to some seasonality, becoming a threat that can be managed with an annually updated shot.
But the degree to which the COVID situation improves, and when those ease-ups might unfold, are not guaranteed—and the current burden of infection remains unsustainably heavy. Long COVID still looms; “mild” sicknesses can still leave people bedridden for days, and take them away from school, family, and work. And with reinfections now occurring more frequently, individuals are each “more often rolling the die” that could make them chronically or seriously ill, Hodcroft, of the University of Bern, told me. In the Northern Hemisphere, that’s all happening against the backdrop of summer. The winter ahead will likely be even worse.
And with transmission rates this high, the next variant may arrive all the sooner—and could, by chance, end up more severe. “How much do we want to restrict our own freedoms in exchange for the injury that may be caused?” Hodcroft said. “That’s something that hard science can’t answer.”
15. Initial transfer of US Special Forces to rural base in Germany in the works
I am sure there are many who wish for a return to bad Tolz for 10th SFG,.
Initial transfer of US Special Forces to rural base in Germany in the works
After capturing a "terrorist," special operations forces speed away from the scene during an exercise hosted by the U.S. Special Operations Command Europe at Baumholder, Germany, in 2014. Groundwork is being laid to turn Baumholder into a hub for U.S. special operations forces in Europe. (Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes)
STUTTGART, Germany — A contingent of 500 special operations troops could be repositioned from Stuttgart to the Army’s Baumholder installation as early as this summer, paving the way for a larger force to follow, officials said this week.
Renovations are now underway at Baumholder to prepare for the influx.
For now, the initial push will involve about 500 rotational troops currently supporting the Stuttgart-based U.S. Special Operations Command Europe, the Army said. Green Berets and Navy SEALs are among the forces likely to be moved in the future.
“The move is important to relieve the overcrowding in Stuttgart,” Steve Schluth, Europe program manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, said in a statement Thursday. “Our work will provide ... the space needed for training and increased capacity and capabilities.”
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers workers continue renovations at Smith Barracks in Baumholder, Germany May 17, 2022. The Army is planning to send hundreds of special operations troops to Baumholder soon, with more to follow. (Christopher Gardner/U.S. Army)
For years, Army and special operations leaders have talked about shifting troops to the rural Baumholder area, which would allow for more intensive training opportunities, given its remote location and access to ranges.
SOCEUR’s headquarters, positioned next to U.S. European Command, will remain in Stuttgart.
One Army Corps of Engineers project underway will modernize administrative buildings and barracks as Baumholder prepares for growth in the years ahead, the Army said. Others include an indoor small-arms range and a “shoothouse” for live-fire exercises.
Lt. Col. Jerrauld Ma, a SOCEUR engineer, said relocating personnel to Baumholder not only addresses space constraints in Stuttgart but also ensures that troops remain engaged and ready.
For years, the garrison in Baumholder was in limbo as the Army weighed whether to keep or close the installation as part of a broader post-Cold War drawdown. As a result, there was little investment in infrastructure at the base.
But after the Army announced in 2015 that Baumholder would be an “enduring” garrison, money gradually began to flow back.
16. The US in the Pacific: delivering on commitments or déjà vu?
Excerpts:
Indeed, Campbell’s comment at CSIS that the US ‘can’t really get away with saying we’re part of the Pacific, but we kind of are’ reveals a blind spot in the American strategic imagination. While Hawaii is a US state and Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands are US territories, the ‘freely associated states’ of Micronesia, Palau and Marshall Islands are ‘managed’ by the US Department of the Interior. Overlooking US relationships with these Pacific territories and states might stem in part from the fact that the US hasn’t yet come to terms with its history in the region. The scars of US colonialism, militarism and nuclear testing remain visible—as do the long-term health, environmental, economic and social effects.
While Harris’s speech was warmly received by several forum leaders, Pacific buy-in to the US’s efforts and the PBP initiative cannot be taken for granted. Pacific island states have long demonstrated their agency in dealing with more powerful partners and are well aware of the challenges they face and the best ways to tackle them. Unless they are equal partners in any negotiations related to how the US and its partners conduct their activities in the region, the island states are unlikely to support these overtures—and China’s presence means that they have other options.
The US will therefore need to ensure that its enhanced engagement with the Pacific islands is framed as being driven by genuine and sustained interest in the region. The new emphasis on building an American presence—diplomats, aid workers and the Peace Corps—is overdue. But the US will quickly learn that presence doesn’t necessarily equate to partnership—let alone influence. Instead, building relationships and trust takes time, patience and, yes, humility.
The US in the Pacific: delivering on commitments or déjà vu? | The Strategist
On 13 July, US Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the 51st Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting by video link. Harris’s speech was unexpected and unprecedented, since the US is a forum dialogue partner rather than a member. Pacific leaders had opted this year not to hold the traditional post-forum partners’ dialogue, at which partner states (including the US and China) meet with forum leaders after their leaders’ meeting. Pacific leaders wanted to ensure that there was ‘space’ to resolve issues and determine priorities without having to manage the demands and expectations of external partners.
The decision not to hold the post-forum dialogue was in part due to Pacific leaders’ frustration about strategic competition overshadowing and undermining Pacific priorities and agendas. Last month it emerged that China had invited the 10 Pacific island states it has diplomatic relations with to a virtual meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi on 14 July, coinciding with the leaders’ retreat.
By having Harris deliver her speech at the forum, the US disturbed the equilibrium that Pacific leaders had achieved on geopolitical matters. But for at least some Pacific leaders, that disturbance was convenient: it sent a pointed message both to China and to those Pacific countries that have recently moved closer to it.
During her speech, Harris declared: ‘We recognise that in recent years, the Pacific islands may not have received the diplomatic attention and support that you deserve. So today I am here to tell you directly: we are going to change that.’ She announced seven commitments to ‘strengthen the US partnership with the Pacific islands’ including two ‘firsts’—the appointment of a US envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum and the adoption of a US national strategy on the Pacific islands nested under its Indo-Pacific strategy.
Several of the US initiatives are bound in caveats. The US$600 million over 10 years for economic development and ocean governance is dependent on annual congressional approval, and the opening of embassies in Kiribati and Tonga and the USAID hub in Fiji are dependent on congressional notification. The return of the Peace Corps to the Pacific is not a new initiative.
The declared commitments follow a speech by Kurt Campbell, the US National Security Council’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on 23 June. In that speech, Campbell emphasised the need for American ‘humility’ and repeated the mantra, ‘nothing in the Pacific without the Pacific’.
On 24 June, the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP) initiative, involving the Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the UK and the US, was launched. This informal mechanism is intended to ‘support prosperity, resilience, and security in the Pacific’ with the aims of delivering results more effectively and efficiently, bolstering ‘Pacific regionalism’ and expanding opportunities for cooperation between the Pacific and the rest of the world.
But there are questions about what is driving America’s renewed attention to the Pacific islands and the ways it is seeking to engage. The islands have undergone significant change over the past two decades. As a ‘great power’, the US has much to learn about how to engage much smaller Pacific states and to navigate Pacific statecraft.
Harris’s emphasis on ‘partnership, friendship and respect’ and Campbell’s calls for the US to be ‘humble’ were well intentioned and appealing to Pacific audiences, and they were well received. Following the vice president’s speech, Bainimarama declared that the US was to ‘become a Pacific partner like never before’ and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna said the US announcement showed the ‘deep substance’ underpinning its commitment to the region.
But will the US be able to deliver? The gaps between announcements of US initiatives and their actual implementation are notorious in the Pacific, with many prior funding announcements failing to get through Congress. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended the forum in 2012, she also made a raft of promises—many of which were not delivered.
This highlights the pattern of inconsistency in US policy towards the Pacific islands since the Cold War and raises the question of whether the region can rely on the renewed US focus lasting beyond a change of government (potentially in two years’ time). The window to embed policies that bring about long-term engagement could be narrow.
If American engagement in the Pacific does ramp up significantly, how many island states and territories will have the capacity to absorb the new expenditure and programs? Most Pacific bureaucracies are small, and even hosting the increasing number of government officials visiting from the US and other partner countries imposes a serious burden. There’s a risk that ineffective engagement will squander resources and relationships.
Coordinating the new US programs and activities with other partners will be key. While the PBP initiative includes this as a priority, past form suggests that even the closest allies, such as the US and Australia, can have difficulty moving beyond bilateralism. While the PBP initiative may expand, it is also notable that France was not included in the initial list of participants, despite possessing several territories in the region and being a treaty ally, or partner, of the US and other members.
Pacific leaders have long called for improved donor coordination. The Cairns Compact that Pacific Islands Forum leaders adopted in 2009 seeks to do just that. The US, Australia and other partners (although notably not China) signed up to the compact, but the PBP makes no reference to it. This raises the questions of how the PBP initiative will align with the existing regional architecture and whether new mechanisms are needed when existing Pacific-created ones are underutilised.
Concerns have already been expressed that the PBP initiative co-opts the language of the ‘Blue Pacific’, which forum leaders use to describe the interconnectedness and collaborative approach of the region. But beyond rhetorical emphasis on forum centrality and Pacific priorities, the PBP initiative appears to sideline the forum in practical terms. Indeed, the US intends to convene the PBP partners’ foreign ministers at the end of the year to review ‘our progress’. Why are forum members not being asked to measure the effectiveness of the PBP, or at least to participate in that meeting?
This contains echoes of a longstanding dynamic of US engagement in the Pacific islands: asking Australians and New Zealanders to speak for the Pacific in Washington. Indeed, Campbell stressed that the US would listen to Australia and New Zealand, its two partners with the most significant engagement in the Pacific islands. Allies and partners can make important soft-power and practical contributions to alliance burdens beyond military power but, while Australia and New Zealand have much expertise and experience to offer, their advice should always be secondary to what Pacific states are themselves saying.
Deep knowledge and understanding of the Pacific, built on enduring relationships with Pacific leaders, officials and civil society, is critical to ensuring that US initiatives are appropriately designed and targeted.
It’s promising that Harris and Campbell emphasised listening to Pacific leaders about their priorities. But that will require some logistical investments. Proximity matters in Washington, and few Pacific island states can afford to maintain a diplomatic presence both in Washington and at the United Nations in New York. Most favour the latter. Facilitating their travel to Washington for regular consultations would be a big help.
And Pacific knowledge in Washington is scant. There are hubs of Pacific experts in Hawaii and Guam, as well as a large Pacific diaspora in the US, yet they appear to be given few opportunities to inform US government policy. There’s an opportunity for Washington-based think tanks to deepen their networks by drawing on Pacific experts and scholars beyond the beltway.
Indeed, Campbell’s comment at CSIS that the US ‘can’t really get away with saying we’re part of the Pacific, but we kind of are’ reveals a blind spot in the American strategic imagination. While Hawaii is a US state and Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands are US territories, the ‘freely associated states’ of Micronesia, Palau and Marshall Islands are ‘managed’ by the US Department of the Interior. Overlooking US relationships with these Pacific territories and states might stem in part from the fact that the US hasn’t yet come to terms with its history in the region. The scars of US colonialism, militarism and nuclear testing remain visible—as do the long-term health, environmental, economic and social effects.
While Harris’s speech was warmly received by several forum leaders, Pacific buy-in to the US’s efforts and the PBP initiative cannot be taken for granted. Pacific island states have long demonstrated their agency in dealing with more powerful partners and are well aware of the challenges they face and the best ways to tackle them. Unless they are equal partners in any negotiations related to how the US and its partners conduct their activities in the region, the island states are unlikely to support these overtures—and China’s presence means that they have other options.
The US will therefore need to ensure that its enhanced engagement with the Pacific islands is framed as being driven by genuine and sustained interest in the region. The new emphasis on building an American presence—diplomats, aid workers and the Peace Corps—is overdue. But the US will quickly learn that presence doesn’t necessarily equate to partnership—let alone influence. Instead, building relationships and trust takes time, patience and, yes, humility.
17. Biden needs to share intel, get out of the way and let Israel end Iran nuclear threat
Excerpts:
That leaves Israel as the world’s last line of defense. Over the past weeks, Jerusalem has widened its covert campaign against Iran — conducting clandestine strikes, cyber-attacks and assassinations deep inside the Islamic Republic. At a minimum, Biden should commit to his counterpart that the US will not get in Israel’s way. Better though would be an offer of US support through a combination of intelligence coordination, expedited defense transfers, and covert action — while simultaneously ratcheting up economic and diplomatic pressure to further weaken the regime, even as the president insists publicly his goal is a return to a nuclear deal.
Biden doesn’t want to make the difficult decisions necessary to stop Iran’s drive to nuclear weapons. Hopefully he’s willing to let Israel save America from years of Middle East quagmires.
Biden needs to share intel, get out of the way and let Israel end Iran nuclear threat
President Biden’s private meeting Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid will likely become one of the most consequential conversations of his presidency. After 18 months of failed diplomacy that allowed Iran to advance its nuclear program to the brink, Washington and Jerusalem face the increasing likelihood that the Iranian threat can only be solved by military means. The president should use his time in Israel to chart a coordinated course to destroy or severely degrade Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Tehran revealed this week it is for the first time producing highly enriched uranium using advanced centrifuges at a nuclear site buried deep within a mountain. Last month, the UN’s top nuclear watchdog warned his agency would be unable to fully verify Iran’s nuclear activities by mid-July.
No one will ever know what would have happened had Biden picked up where his predecessor left off, strangling the mullahs’ access to cash, pressuring the regime in every diplomatic arena and demonstrating a willingness to use the US military to remove threats as they appear. But Biden instead pursued a strategy of accommodation and deference, believing maximum pressure made a diplomatic solution less likely and Iranian nuclear brinkmanship more so.
Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid meeting this week could be one of the most important of Biden’s presidency.Getty Images
That Iran’s leap forward in nuclear threats occurred under Biden and not Trump should be instructive. Tehran exploits weakness but retreats in the face of military strength. That was true in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan ordered the Navy to fire on Iranian oil platforms in the Gulf. It was true in the wake of the US killing of Iran’s Quds Force commander Qassim Soleimani followed soon after by the Israeli assassination of Iran’s nuclear weapons architect Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. And it’s still true today.
see also
Flaws of nuclear deal
It is the credible threat of force that allows economic and diplomatic pressure to advance with success. And it is the lack of such a threat that gives way to deeply flawed agreements that provide Iran pathways to nuclear weapons.
Biden yesterday reaffirmed his commitment to returning to the 2015 nuclear deal — an agreement that offers more policy challenges than solutions.
Under the deal, Iran gets a financial package worth up to $275 billion in the first year and as much as $800 billion over the next five. With a trillion dollars available by 2030 for Iran’s missile program, sponsorship of terrorism and Revolutionary Guard, the agreement enables Tehran to set a dozen more fires around the Middle East that force a US response to defend American citizens, embassies and allies. And in the end, without demanding a full accounting of Iran’s nuclear activities or destroying a single centrifuge, the deal’s expiration dates all but guarantee Iran will still cross the nuclear threshold at a future time of its choosing.
To be sure, Russia and China would like nothing more than to see an America bogged down by never-ending Iranian nuclear extortion and escalation. That is why they are the strongest proponents of a nuclear deal with Iran. They know that the more money Iran has available for terrorism, missiles and nuclear expansion in the Middle East, the more American time and resources will consistently be diverted from Asia and Europe to mitigate the latest Iran-sponsored crisis. That, unfortunately, is a strategic reality supporters of an Iran nuclear deal fail to grasp.
Facing reporters in Israel, Biden reluctantly stated he would consider military action against Iran as a last resort. But given his commitment to the Iran deal and aversion to combat operations in the Middle East, it is more likely Iran acquires nuclear weapons than Biden orders a military strike.
Recently, top members of the EU went to Tehran to discuss reviving the Iran nuclear deal.AFP via Getty Images
Plan of action?
That leaves Israel as the world’s last line of defense. Over the past weeks, Jerusalem has widened its covert campaign against Iran — conducting clandestine strikes, cyber-attacks and assassinations deep inside the Islamic Republic. At a minimum, Biden should commit to his counterpart that the US will not get in Israel’s way. Better though would be an offer of US support through a combination of intelligence coordination, expedited defense transfers, and covert action — while simultaneously ratcheting up economic and diplomatic pressure to further weaken the regime, even as the president insists publicly his goal is a return to a nuclear deal.
Biden doesn’t want to make the difficult decisions necessary to stop Iran’s drive to nuclear weapons. Hopefully he’s willing to let Israel save America from years of Middle East quagmires.
Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, served as a National Security Council official, deputy chief of staff to former US Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and US Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer. He was sanctioned by Iran in 2020.
18. Troops’ use of TikTok may be national security threat, FCC commissioner says
I fear Tik Tok is an addiction for the young troops and such warnings will not change their habits.
Troops’ use of TikTok may be national security threat, FCC commissioner says
Troops and family members could be jeopardizing national security with their use of the TikTok video-sharing app, a U.S. regulator told lawmakers.
While the military services have banned the use of TikTok from government devices, troops and family members do use the app on personal devices.
TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance, said Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission. And he’s concerned about the amount of non-public sensitive data Americans upload that could be flowing into the hands of the Chinese government.
TikTok has grown in popularity in the military community. For example, troops often upload videos of barracks, military equipment and maneuvers, Carr said in testimony Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee’s panel on national security.
“With TikTok, this is a device right in your pocket. It’s going inside the military installation, looking at location data, which can give people information on troop movements,” Carr said. “There’s a range of ways that that sensitive data going back to Beijing with their sophisticated [artificial intelligence] can ultimately be used to harm U.S. national security.”
The hearing was held to explore financial fraud targeting service members and veterans. The threats to active duty and veterans come from a variety of sources, according to Carr, and many of the frauds seen on other online platforms are also perpetrated on TikTok. But there are unique national security concerns when it comes to this video-sharing app.
“TikTok has engaged in a pattern of misrepresentation regarding both the amount and extent of data it’s collected as well as how much has been accessed from inside China,” Carr said.
“The flow of this non-public sensitive data into China is particularly troubling given the [People’s Republic of China’s] track record of engaging in espionage and other nefarious acts,” Carr said.
“At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of sensitive data from search and browsing history, keystroke patterns, location data, and biometrics including face prints and voice prints,” Carr added. “All of the concerns with TikTok are heightened in the military context.”
Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc., proposed that the military should be proactively urging troops to not use the app.
“Should the military be doing more to tell our members to stay off of TikTok?” he asked.
The federal government should be doing more, Carr said. The government “should address the continued use of TikTok on military installations, as well as any use that depicts U.S. military operations,” he added.
Ongoing national security reviews of TikTok, currently being conducted by officials in the Treasure and Commerce departments, should be finished soon, according to Carr.
Leaders of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and vice chairman Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fl., called on the Federal Trade Commission in a July 5 letter to initiate an investigation of TikTok.
In light of reports about the Chinese government’s access to the data, they wrote, the FTC should immediately launch an investigation “on the basis of apparent deception by TikTok, and coordinate this work with any national security or counter-intelligence investigation that may be initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Carr has also called on Google and Apple to remove TikTok from their app stores. In a July 5 blog, a TikTok official addressed the company’s approach to keeping U.S. data secure.
“The security of the data our community entrusts us with is a top priority at TikTok, despite recent reports questioning that commitment,” wrote Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas.
TikTok recently stood up a new U.S. data security division “to bring heightened focus and governance to our ongoing efforts to strengthen our data protection policies and protocols, further protect our users, and build confidence in our systems and controls in the United States,” he stated.
The creation of that division was an important milestone in the goals they previously laid out, he said: “minimizing access to U.S. user data and minimizing data transfers across regions – including to China.”
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
19. Is imperialism negotiable?
Excerpts:
Russia’s incursion presents to the world a troubling question that it must answer collectively: Is imperialism negotiable? Outside Ukraine, appeasement is an easy option because it creates the mirage of reconciliation while demanding nothing from those conjuring the illusion. On the other hand, generating the political will to explore new frameworks of burden sharing in support of Ukraine’s fight is much harder, but it is the only solution that clearly answers the question of how much imperialism Europe will tolerate this century.
If the answer is anything more than zero, then Moscow is at liberty to continue exploiting that ambiguity with its imperial interests. Public officials from Washington to Canberra must consider the long-term effects of Russia experiencing anything less than abject failure in Ukraine.
One calls to mind the 1805 “Plumb-pudding in danger” cartoon in which Napoleon Bonaparte and British Prime Minister William Pitt are depicted at a dinner table carving up the globe. A rising tide of authoritarianism over the last decade means the situation in Ukraine might determine who now gets a seat at that table. The United States and its allies spend billions each year persuading foreign partners that the West can help deter, and, if need be, stop modern Napoleons. Now is the time to prove it.
Is imperialism negotiable?
BY MICHAEL P. FERGUSON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 07/14/22 2:00 PM ET
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
Despite modest gains in east Ukraine, June was not a good month for Russia. Within a single week, European Union leaders offered Kyiv candidacy for membership, NATO reached an agreement to bring Sweden and Finland into the alliance and Great Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, called for a 20 percent hike to his budget.
These historic developments are sure to rile Kremlin officials, but the future of Western support to Ukraine’s fight remains uncertain. As public interest in the war continues to dwindle, appeasing Russia’s extortionate demands could become more desirable. Such concessions would do more than disfigure Ukraine and impose devastating new realities on Western security institutions — they would declare to the world that imperialism is negotiable.
The debate over policy toward Ukraine has split experts into two camps. One side believes this war will end only when Russia is humiliated and exhausted militarily by a stream of Western arms packages. Until now, the Biden administration has pursued a strategy along these lines.
Among them are the terms “diplomacy,” “negotiations” and “realist international relations theory.” Veteran diplomat Henry Kissinger, scholars John Mearsheimer and Barry Posen and the New York Times editorial board have all argued for solutions in line with such euphemisms. Admittedly, as the war wears down the pocketbooks and attention spans of Western governments, even some Russia hawks have crept slowly into the appeasement camp. French President Emmanuel Macron, who only months ago reminded Putin slyly that France too was a nuclear power, has since said that Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine.
These arguments have merit, but they miss the underlying question that appeasement poses to the world: If Ukraine is not worth saving from an overestimated and supposedly crumbling power, who is?
Such inquiries give shape to the type of global power competition described in U.S. strategic documents of the last two presidential administrations. The question is essential not only to resolving the war in Ukraine, but also to enabling the Biden administration’s integrated deterrence concept aimed at competing with powers such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — each of which jockey for leverage over the West.
For them, this jockeying process involves convincing observers that the U.S.-led security infrastructure established after the Cold War is in a twilight and can no longer sustain the existing international order. Fear plays a role in driving the point home.
Bringing Finland and Sweden into NATO might strengthen the alliance, but their desire to join after seven decades of neutrality is proof that nations external to NATO feel remarkably vulnerable. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s political party won a super majority in Japan shortly after his July 8 assassination. He was perhaps most famous for his role as architect of the informal Quad alliance, what some consider the early phase of an Indo-Pacific NATO.
Aside from its paternalistic nature, appeasement fails to see the bigger picture. The idea of the free world as a conglomerate of nations that share liberal democratic values has animated political campaigns and national security policies for generations. This concept is rooted in the assumption that a rules-based international order prevents tyrants from doing exactly what Putin is doing. If the existing order cannot serve this purpose, it will suffer a severe blow to its credibility, especially in places where diplomats and military advisers such as myself work to assure foreign partners of our commitment to those principles.
Condoning Russia’s extortion further undermines the diplomatic process because it corrodes the legitimacy of existing treaties upon which many countries rely for materiel and political support. Clearly, Moscow has thrown out the Russo-Ukrainian Treaty of 1997. But the 1994 Budapest Memorandum – bearing the signatures of the United States, Russia and United Kingdom – offered Western-backed security guarantees in exchange for Kyiv relinquishing its nuclear arsenal. If that parlay ultimately contributes to Ukraine’s disintegration, the West could face a credibility crisis in future diplomatic exchanges. Putin’s statements amplify this erosion of trust and nest it conveniently within the twilight narrative.
Realists want the West to shake off the war in Ukraine and focus on China, even as Belarusian president and Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko uses terms like “moral cleansing” to describe his vision of Europe’s future. But if Moscow can leverage its atrocities in Ukraine to bludgeon the free world into conciliation, it will signify a terrifying new beginning, not the end of a war.
Russia’s incursion presents to the world a troubling question that it must answer collectively: Is imperialism negotiable? Outside Ukraine, appeasement is an easy option because it creates the mirage of reconciliation while demanding nothing from those conjuring the illusion. On the other hand, generating the political will to explore new frameworks of burden sharing in support of Ukraine’s fight is much harder, but it is the only solution that clearly answers the question of how much imperialism Europe will tolerate this century.
If the answer is anything more than zero, then Moscow is at liberty to continue exploiting that ambiguity with its imperial interests. Public officials from Washington to Canberra must consider the long-term effects of Russia experiencing anything less than abject failure in Ukraine.
One calls to mind the 1805 “Plumb-pudding in danger” cartoon in which Napoleon Bonaparte and British Prime Minister William Pitt are depicted at a dinner table carving up the globe. A rising tide of authoritarianism over the last decade means the situation in Ukraine might determine who now gets a seat at that table. The United States and its allies spend billions each year persuading foreign partners that the West can help deter, and, if need be, stop modern Napoleons. Now is the time to prove it.
Capt. Michael P. Ferguson is an officer in the U.S. Army with decades of experience working alongside foreign partners throughout Europe, Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. He contributes defense and national security analysis for various publications.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect policies of the U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Defense, or U.S. government.
The Hill · by Amie Parnes · July 14, 2022
20. House passes defense authorization with new arms transfers restrictions
Something to keep in mind for all reporting on the NDAA and amendments:
Nonetheless, it remains unclear how many of these provisions will become law in the final defense authorization. The Senate does not plan to vote on its version of the authorization legislation until September at the earliest, and both chambers will have to reconcile their competing bills in conference as lawmakers campaign to keep their seats in an especially high-stakes midterm election year.
House passes defense authorization with new arms transfers restrictions
The legislation includes an approximately 7% increase over this year’s spending levels as well as a pair of amendments that curtail U.S. support and weapons transfers to states and militias implicated in human rights atrocities. And specific restrictions in the bill could complicate future U.S. arms sales and transfers to various U.S. allies and security partners, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
House Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern, D-Mass., added an amendment that would ban arms sales and transfers to any government that has committed genocide or violations of international humanitarian law.
And Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., successfully included an amendment that would prohibit U.S. funding and support for irregular forces under Section 1202 authorities if those groups have committed gross human rights violations.
First established in 2018 in response to Moscow’s support for Ukrainian separatists, Section 1202 authorities allow special operations units to arm irregular forces in gray zone conflict areas with the goal of deterring near-peer competitors such as Russia and China. The House defense authorization would codify these authorities into law with an eye on arming irregular forces in Asia and increase the Section 1202 budget for fiscal 2023 to $25 million, up from $15 million in FY22.
“There are a lot of 1202 programs that are in Europe, but very few in Indo-[Pacific Command],” Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who oversees the House’s special operations panel, told Defense News last month. “The 1202 program could be a force multiplier that is really important to create deterrence, and that’s why we put it in there to make sure we have opportunities to expand.”
The amendment, introduced by Reps. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Chris Pappas, D-N.H., would require President Joe Biden to submit “a detailed description of concrete steps” to ensure that Turkey does not use the F-16s to violate Greek airspace before proceeding with the sale. Biden voiced support for the sale at the NATO summit in Madrid last month after Ankara dropped its opposition to Swedish and Finnish accession to the alliance.
President Joe Biden, center, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, right, behind him, speaks during a meeting with South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during the NATO summit in Madrid, Wednesday, June 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The president is on a separate trip this week to the Middle East, where he is scheduled to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. While there are no expected weapons announcements, a separate amendment to the House defense authorization bill from Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., would limit future offensive arms sales to Saudi Arabia until Riyadh stops targeting dissidents at home and abroad.
Another amendment attached to the bill by Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., would prevent the transfer of two Oliver Hazard Perry Class guided-missile frigates to Egypt unless Biden certifies Cairo is in compliance with a 2017 Russia sanctions law and is not wrongfully detaining U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
The amendments restricting arms transfers represent only a tiny fraction of the record 650 amendments the House considered on the floor for the defense authorization legislation, which Congress has passed every year since 1961.
Though the House passed the vast majority of those 650 amendments, it voted down 78-350 an amendment from Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., to trim $100 billion from the defense budget. Lee also lost a vote 151-277 on another proposed amendment to undo the authorization’s $37 billion topline increase over the Biden administration’s defense budget proposal.
Virginia’s Robb Wittman, the top Republican on the House’s sea power panel, successfully added his own amendment requiring the Navy to transfer any retired littoral combat ships to a U.S. ally or security partner. Taiwan has expressed interest in purchasing the littoral combat ships the Navy plans to retire.
An amendment added by Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, would authorize an additional $354 million for the Navy to purchase three more F-35C fighter jets.
The bill also authorizes the purchase of eight new battle force ships (including two Virginia-class submarines and three guided-missile destroyers), provides full funding for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine and the B-21A bomber program, grants money for 44 Abrams tank upgrades and 102 Stryker Vehicle upgrades, and funds the purchase of 61 F-35A, B & C Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.
The House adopted another amendment from Smith that would create a revolving critical munitions acquisition fund for Ukraine of up to $500 million per fiscal year.
Nonetheless, it remains unclear how many of these provisions will become law in the final defense authorization. The Senate does not plan to vote on its version of the authorization legislation until September at the earliest, and both chambers will have to reconcile their competing bills in conference as lawmakers campaign to keep their seats in an especially high-stakes midterm election year.
Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered the intersection of U.S. foreign policy and national security in Washington since 2014. He previously wrote for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.
21. Pentagon: Hill added $58 billion to current defense budget
Pentagon: Hill added $58 billion to current defense budget - Roll Call
rollcall.com · by John M. DonnellyPosted July 14, 2022 at 2:22pm · July 14, 2022
Defense Department appropriations legislation for the current fiscal year funded more than $58 billion worth of military projects that the administration did not request, according to a first-of-its-kind Pentagon report.
Lawmakers’ additions to the fiscal 2022 budget above the president's request included money to respond to disasters and the war in Ukraine and other national priorities, but the extra money also bankrolled billions of dollars in weapons the military did not seek, such as more than $4 billion worth of unrequested warships, many of them built by the constituents of senior appropriators.
The June report, which has received no press coverage, has been posted on the Defense Department comptrollers’ website. The report was required by a provision in the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, written by Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. Now a new assessment of congressional funding hikes for fiscal 2023 would be mandated in the NDAA that the House plans to pass Thursday.
The funding boosts detailed in the report are part of publicly available congressional reports, and many have been covered in the press. But the report is unique in that it provides an official Defense Department record of how much Congress added in total — and where the money went.
Whether the $58.55 billion in congressionally inserted spending is justified is largely in the eye of the beholder. Few would argue with the need for spending some of it. Yet a substantial portion of the money goes for programs of arguable utility to the U.S. military, critics say.
“Certainly Congress has the power of the purse, but considering the Pentagon got more than $750 billion that year, lawmakers could work within that generous budget to reflect their priorities,” Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government spending watchdog group, said via email. “Instead they dumped more than $50 billion across accounts for what appear to be in some cases very parochial interests.”
Costly ships and planes
The Pentagon budget request did not include any of the $58.55 billion in programs. And in many cases, the additions were not even on the so-called unfunded priorities lists that top officers and department officials send to Congress each year to cover items that did not make the budget but that the services and some defense agency heads say are nonetheless important. Some refer to these documents as “wish lists.”
Of particular note are at least a half dozen ships worth in excess of $4 billion that Congress bankrolled in fiscal 2022 — vessels that were not even on the unfunded priority lists, let alone the official budget request. In some cases the ships are in the Navy’s future plans, but Congress insisted the service buy them sooner.
Many of these vessels are built in or near the states and districts of top appropriators, such as Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican appropriator in the Senate.
The fiscal 2022 omnibus spending law provided:
- $1.8 billion to begin buying a third destroyer that appropriators said was required under contract and parts for future destroyers.
- $776 million for a fleet oiler refueling tanker ship.
- $590 million for an expeditionary fast transport ship, which is a high-speed cargo ship.
- $577 million for an expeditionary sea base, a logistics platform.
- $250 million to start buying parts for a new amphibious transport dock ship.
- $235 million for three smaller vessels called ship-to-shore connectors that are designed to ferry troops ashore.
Besides the ships, the report identifies other hefty plus-ups, as such increases are known in defense circles. None of this money either was sought in the budget, and the vast majority of it was not even requested on the services’ wish lists.
The Air National Guard, for example, received $1.8 billion to buy 16 C-130J transport planes.
Appropriators provided $900 million for a dozen Super Hornet fighter jets for the Navy and several hundred million more for other types of aircraft in all the services, plus $460 million for Air Force development of advanced jet engines.
And another $2 billion-plus was appropriated for classified programs above the level the Pentagon formally sought.
Money matters
The $58.55 billion for unrequested defense projects in fiscal 2022 is the sum of individual additions totaling $20 million or more apiece. Because many spending hikes are reckoned in single-digit millions of dollars, the actual grand total of congressional additions is certainly higher.
The $58.55 billion total amounts to nearly 8 percent of the Defense Department’s fiscal 2022 base budget appropriation of $742.3 billion.
That pot of Pentagon money includes a more than $25 billion increase for the department that was agreed to by Congress earlier this year and signed into law in March by President Joe Biden.
On top of the $742.3 billion for the Defense Department’s base budget in fiscal 2022, appropriations laws contained $14.3 billion more for responding to emergencies, including the U.S. military pullout from Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine and a massive leak of Navy jet fuel into drinking water in Hawaii.
Disasters aside, the Pentagon’s base budget has grown 48 percent from fiscal 2017 until this year, far exceeding the rate of inflation.
This week's debate
The NDAA now being debated on the House floor would add $37 billion to the amount the president requested for all national defense programs, mainly, but not exclusively, at the Pentagon.
On Wednesday, the House rejected an amendment by California Democrat Barbara Lee to subtract that $37 billion. And the House soundly defeated another Lee proposal to take away $100 billion from the authorized level.
The Pentagon budget “is running amok," Lee said during the floor debate.
Rep. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat who is a member of the Armed Services Committee, called ever-increasing defense budgets “security theater and contractor profiteering.”
The House also rejected an amendment by Washington Democrat Pramila Jayapal to make the unfunded priorities lists optional, not mandatory.
Mike D. Rogers of Alabama, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, argued that Congress needs the lists to know what the military really needs, as opposed to what the administration chooses to afford.
“The fact is: The president proposes budgets, we write budgets,” Rogers said on the floor Wednesday.
But the lists have become a de facto part of the defense budget, expanding it each year in a way most other departments and agencies do not.
The congressional increases to the defense budget are “a product of the self-licking ice cream cone that is the services’ Unfunded Priorities Lists, a veritable menu of spending not included in the budget request that lawmakers can point to and say the Pentagon wants it,” said Ellis.
The new Defense Department report shows how Congress frequently adds money not just for programs on the wish lists but also for many that are not even requested there.
Plusses and minuses
Many billions of the dollars Congress added in fiscal 2022 are for programs that few observers would contest.
These include, for example, money to help Ukraine fight Russia and just over $1 billion for the Red Hill fuel storage facility in Hawaii, much of which was allotted to deal with fuel leaks into local drinking water supplies last year.
Another nearly $1.5 billion appears to have been spent to meet rising fuel costs. And several hundred million dollars went to medical research into cancer and other diseases.
The new Pentagon report does not say which programs were subtracted to make room for the nearly net $30 billion or so in congressional priorities that were not paid for by the $25 billion-plus addition to the topline. Appropriators pointed out in March that they were able to save billions of dollars due to the halt in funding Afghan security forces and billions more as the result of making cuts, known as rescissions, in programs funded in prior years.
rollcall.com · by John M. DonnellyPosted July 14, 2022 at 2:22pm · July 14, 2022
22. Gaps in Arms Supplies to Ukraine Point to Countries’ Divergent Strategies
We are "self-deterring" because of our fears. Nuclear weapons and Putin's midneset scare us and therefore the west will not go all in to support Ukraine despite the fact the nation's and the Ukrainian people's survival.
Excerpts:
Because there is “an equal fear” of escalation, he said, if “Russia feels pushed against a wall, cornered and humiliated.” Washington shares that fear, but it is stronger in Paris and Berlin, because they are closer. “So it’s threat perception and a calculation about the scenarios they fear.”
Still, however difficult the domestic situation now, Western Europe is weaning itself from its dependency on Russian coal, oil and gas, and it will not go back, both for economic and security reasons.
So Mr. Putin’s efforts to wait out and divide NATO and the European Union will ultimately fail, said Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy’s International Affairs Institute. “The Russian invasion is so extreme and obscene it will keep consensus,” she said, “because we don’t have an alternative.”
Gaps in Arms Supplies to Ukraine Point to Countries’ Divergent Strategies
Beyond logistical issues, the uneven flow of arms to Ukraine hints at differences among allies about whether Russia should be punished or eventually accommodated.
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Ukrainian troops fired a a U.S.-supplied M777 howitzer at Russian positions last month in the Donetsk region.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
By
July 15, 2022, 12:01 a.m. ET
BRUSSELS — There is the war on the ground in Ukraine and the war over weapons supplies, on which the first war depends.
In the weapons war, there is a significant disparity between the flood of arms supplied by Britain, Poland and the United States, and what the rest of Europe is providing, which has raised the persistent question of whether some countries are slow-walking supplies to bring about a shorter war and quicker negotiations.
If anything, the suspicions have intensified, as the economic pain of the war is felt more deeply in the West, the conflict enters a new phase of attrition and concerns ebb that the fighting will spill into Western Europe — unless, perhaps, Russia feels cornered and humiliated.
Taken as a whole, the West is providing Ukraine “just enough” weaponry “to survive, not enough to regain territory,” said Ulrich Speck, a German foreign-policy analyst. “The idea seems to be that Russia should not win, but also not lose.
“What countries send and how slowly they send it tells us a lot about the war aims of Western countries,” he added. “And it becomes even more important now because Ukraine is more dependent on Western arms.”
Empty containers of German anti-tank weapons at a military base in Kyiv, Ukraine, in March.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Western European nations blame logistics and a reluctance to deplete national stockpiles for their slow contributions. Beyond that, there are also broad divisions in European strategic thinking about whether Russia should be punished, isolated or, eventually, accommodated.
New data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which has been regularly tracking bilateral contributions of money, weapons and aid from all countries to Ukraine, show that the major shortfall between promises and deliveries of weapons comes from the countries of Western Europe, especially Germany.
The figures are current through July 1 and given in euros, but roughly the same in dollars since the currencies are at parity. They are not perfect, given that some countries, like France, which is shown to have promised and delivered only 160 million euros’ worth of equipment, prefer to keep most of the details of their deliveries secret.
Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine War
They also show the United States has announced considerably more military aid — 6.37 billion euros — than has been delivered so far. But even so, the amount Washington has delivered — 2.4 billion euros — is more than any other country.
By contrast, Germany, which has faced sharp criticism for slow deliveries, has delivered only 290 million euros of equipment while promising 620 million.
It lags even Poland, which has promised and delivered 1.8 billion euros; and certainly Britain, which has delivered 1 billion euros’ worth of its promised 1.12 billion.
Much of the weaponry delivered by Poland and other countries formerly under Soviet occupation came from Soviet-era stockpiles.
The arrival of the M777s in the spring buoyed Ukraine’s hopes of achieving artillery superiority at least in some frontline areas.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
West European officials argue that they are reluctant to deplete their own arsenals, given the requirement of self-defense. (Germany, for instance, has only some 250 working tanks right now, down from the thousands West Germany had during the Cold War.)
But not all are convinced.
“The Kiel numbers are quite shocking, to be honest,” said Guntram Wolff, an economist and the new director of the German Council on Foreign Relations. European support levels are below 0.2 or 0.3 percent of gross domestic product, he said. “On the one hand, it’s a lot of money, but it’s also quite small given what’s at stake” — given Russia’s effort “to take over another country in Europe.”
The numbers underscore that Germany and France, in particular, have a different strategic aim than Washington, believing that a nuclear-armed Russia is too big and dangerous to be defeated in any significant way, and that its president, Vladimir V. Putin, should not be cornered.
In a controversial French television documentary showing some behind-the-scenes footage of President Emmanuel Macron and his advisers dealing with the outbreak of the war, their shock and bewilderment are clear after Mr. Putin lies to them, four days before the invasion, about being open to another round of diplomacy.
Mr. Macron has said twice that “Russia must not be humiliated,” upsetting the Ukrainians. But the footage shows him repeating that thought on a train leaving the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, even after he and the German, Italian and Romanian leaders visited President Volodymyr Zelensky in mid-June.
At the end of the film, “A President, Europe and the War,” Mr. Macron says he worries about “a growing tone, more Anglo-Saxon, saying that we must annihilate Russia, weaken it permanently.”
A woman holding a sign that read “Weapons for Ukraine” participated in a demonstration in Paris in March.
But that is not Europe’s aim, he said. “We are here to help Ukraine win, to protect its territory and its independence. We are not here to fight against Russia, even less to annihilate it.”
His words infuriated the Ukrainians as well as the Central Europeans, who want Russia weakened and Mr. Putin humiliated.
For Pierre Vimont, a former French ambassador to Washington and former senior E.U. official, European countries are divided into three rough camps.
There are those like Britain, Poland and the Baltics looking to isolate Mr. Putin and the Russians, too, for being complicit in the war; those like Belgium, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands revisiting the idea of Cold War containment, talking of constraints; and those countries, like France, Germany, Hungary and Italy, “who hope at some point for an opportunity to launch a new dialogue with Russia, not immediately, but to be ready.”
The divisions will remain, Mr. Vimont said. “There is not much appetite for a Russian strategy.”
If there is to be one, Washington must lead it, but seems as confused as everyone else. “No one has a real idea of how to handle this situation now,” Mr. Speck said. Unlike in 2014, when Germany organized the Minsk process to stop the war then, he said, “there is no one driving a diplomatic process.”
As the war settles into a protracted artillery battle with little terrain won or lost, the threat that Russia will attack Western European countries is rapidly fading, said Claudia Major, a defense expert with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
That is leading to a certain complacency, coupled with the growing economic impact of sanctions on higher inflation and lower growth.
Visitors outside the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War inspected parts of destroyed Russian military aircraft in May in Kyiv.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times
Comparing estimates for European growth and inflation last autumn with those issued on Thursday, projected growth is down roughly 4 percent to only 2.7 percent this year and 1.5 percent for 2023. Projected inflation is up to 8.3 percent this year and 4.6 percent for 2023. There are worries about recession.
When Russia invaded, there was popular shock and fear, and the German swing toward more military spending, its “Zeitenwende,” was more about self-defense than about helping Ukraine, which was not expected to put up such a good fight, Ms. Major said. “It was 100 billion euros for us, not for Ukraine,” she said.
There was more optimism in the second phase, when Ukrainian forces beat back the Russians from Kyiv and Western weapons shipments transitioned from anti-tank missiles, so useful then, to tanks and artillery.
But now, she said, there is the “attrition phase, and we in Western Europe are more optimistic that the war won’t arrive in Germany but will stay in Ukraine.”
Those countries closest to the battle have emptied their stocks to give to Ukraine, she said, “and we, in Germany and France, who can do more, are reluctant to do so.”
For Mr. Speck, Germany and France are trying to manage two risks. First, that Russia wins, feels more emboldened and then moves on Moldova, Kazakhstan and perhaps even the Baltics. So there is a recognition that the West must help Ukraine, but within limits.
Military volunteers received weapons in Fastiv, Ukraine, in February.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Because there is “an equal fear” of escalation, he said, if “Russia feels pushed against a wall, cornered and humiliated.” Washington shares that fear, but it is stronger in Paris and Berlin, because they are closer. “So it’s threat perception and a calculation about the scenarios they fear.”
Still, however difficult the domestic situation now, Western Europe is weaning itself from its dependency on Russian coal, oil and gas, and it will not go back, both for economic and security reasons.
So Mr. Putin’s efforts to wait out and divide NATO and the European Union will ultimately fail, said Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy’s International Affairs Institute. “The Russian invasion is so extreme and obscene it will keep consensus,” she said, “because we don’t have an alternative.”
23. The Uvalde shooting video: A 30-year law enforcement officer provides a minute-by-minute breakdown of what happened
Conclusion:
From what I’ve read, that they did empty the school and they did prevent him from leaving that space, they confined him in those two classrooms. That’s good tactically. But you’ve got to get him out of those classrooms, or you’ve got to go in and get him. I think most people would agree that this was not a good law enforcement response to a horrific situation.
The Uvalde shooting video: A 30-year law enforcement officer provides a minute-by-minute breakdown of what happened
“It almost had the feel to me, looking at the video, that people didn’t understand that this was real.”
Domestic Policy Reporter
July 14, 2022
A video released this week by the Austin American-Statesman gives an unsettling look into the police response to the May mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The footage — from security cameras inside the school — shows an apparently disorganized group of police idling down the hall from the part of the building the shooter was in for nearly an hour after he opened fire inside the school, while children and teachers were dying in nearby classrooms without medical care. Some of the officers appear to be holding ballistic shields capable of blocking the shooter’s gunfire.
Hear more from Maggie Severns about this story:
The police actions in the video run counter to standard active shooter training that officers across the country — including the Uvalde police force — receive today, said Frank G. Straub, director of the Center for Targeted Violence Prevention at the National Policing Institute, a nonpartisan research nonprofit. And it was a departure from law enforcement response to other recent mass shootings.
They should’ve made an effort to enter the classroom where they heard gunfire.
Frank G. Straub, Ph.D.
“The sad reality that we have learned over the years since Columbine is that we can’t wait,” said Straub, who has reviewed many videos of mass shootings as part of his work. “The first officers on scene have to go in, have to respond to hearing gun shots, and they have to neutralize the shooter or shooters as quickly as possible. And they do that recognizing that there is great risk to themselves of serious injury or death.”
Several mass shootings in recent years, including those at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and in San Bernardino, California, saw rapid police intervention, Straub said, and the carnage in those cases could have been significantly worse if police didn’t work to quickly stop the shooting and get medical care to victims, he said.
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Straub agreed to watch the new footage from inside Robb Elementary School and share his minute-by-minute analysis with Grid. Prior to becoming a researcher, Straub spent three decades in law enforcement in roles that included police chief in Spokane, Washington, and public safety commissioner in White Plains, New York. He holds a Ph.D. in criminal justice and has led studies of several mass shootings.
“It almost had the feel to me, looking at the video, that people didn’t understand that this was real,” Straub told Grid. “It was almost like something you would see during an active shooter drill or a training exercise, more than what you would see when you knew that active shots had been fired and there were people in those classrooms.”
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Grid: The first part of the video shows the gunman crashing his car outside the school and firing a gun at two men who approach the crash. We hear a teacher call 911, and we see the gunman enter the school and go to a classroom. He fires an AR-15 in two classrooms for two-and-a-half minutes. Three minutes after the gunman walked in, police officers enter the school. From a police officer’s perspective, what is going on and what needs to be done at this point?
Frank G. Staub: The officers theoretically know that they got a 911 call from a teacher saying there’s been shots fired and kids are running. I believe 911 calls went out after he crashed the car, so the police are going into this situation knowing there have been shots fired inside and outside of this school when they’re arriving. That’s an important piece of context to this. They probably have no idea how many shots have been fired in the school, but clearly you can see the arriving officers know there’s shooting going on.
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I think they do the right thing: The first group of officers who get there immediately advance down the hallway. From what I can see, one of them had a rifle, the other three look like they had handguns. Nobody has vests other than their duty vests, and duty vests typically don’t stop rifle rounds.
Then we see, at four minutes [after the shooter entered the school], there’s gunfire directed at the officers in the hallway. What I don’t know is, what provoked that? Did the shooter hear noises in the hallway and fire out the door? It looks like one of the officers took some type of shrapnel in the face, and they retreat.
What I don’t know is, when they first went down there, did they just stand outside the classroom, or did they try to enter the classroom? We can’t tell. They should’ve made an effort to enter the classroom where they heard gunfire. Why they didn’t, I don’t know. But in theory, they should’ve tried to enter the room. They know the person is in there, they know he’s shooting, so their job is to stop that individual from firing additional shots.
G: How might this situation have looked to those officers?
FGS: They were in a lose-lose situation. The gunman had an advantage because he was inside the room. They had to breach the door to get in there, and he could position himself to see them, they couldn’t necessarily see him. So they’re going into that classroom blind, with the hope they could find him and neutralize him quickly.
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They’ve got to be figuring out, we’re not really in the best position now to try to go through that door. Again, the rules would suggest you try to breach that door and draw the gunman out of the classroom to you where you would have the tactical advantage. It doesn’t look like that happened.
G: Fifteen minutes later — 19 minutes after the gunman entered the school — other officers show up on the scene.
FGS: What you see is an officer show up with a ballistic shield, a ballistic helmet, a vest and a rifle. So now in theory, they have cover. They have this ballistic shield — albeit it’s not the best — but it should stop the 223 rounds [from the gunman’s rifle]. Those are high-capacity rounds that would typically penetrate Sheetrock walls, wooden doors or most officers’ duty body armor. So it’s a very powerful round. It causes significant, body-damaging trauma.
At this point, you have additional officers on scene, and you have equipment on scene. I don’t understand why they didn’t try to breach the classroom at this point.
G: What are possible explanations for why they didn’t try to breach the classroom?
FGS: I can only tell you from what I’ve read in the media: that someone may have thought they could negotiate with the person to come out. Maybe that’s what was going on — they were trying to negotiate with them. I don’t know. It would be hard to argue at this point that they didn’t breach because they were afraid additional people inside the classroom or classrooms would be injured. I think they needed to go.
Again — it’s a difficult situation where the gunman has the advantage, but at least now you have protection. Maybe you throw rocks at the window or something in order to cause a distraction while you breach the classroom. But at that point, you need to breach.
Then we get to 31 minutes [after the gunman entered]. You’re seeing even more shields, more rifles on-scene, more ballistic helmets and vests. You’ve got protection at that point — it’s not going to get any better. It just doesn’t make sense that they’re not trying to breach the classroom doors. There’s been some speculation that they didn’t have a Halligan tool or a sledgehammer or other breaching tools. I don’t know if the fire department was dispatched, but those are standard pieces of equipment on a fire apparatus. They should’ve been able to get breaching tools.
And then, you’re at 48 minutes later. There are more shots — so now you’re again hearing that people are still being shot or killed. You hear shots fired. And again, that should be another call to action that you’ve got to go. It should cause a reaction from the police. At this point, it’s pretty inconceivable to me that they don’t have breaching equipment — at least minimal equipment that they could easily get from a fire vehicle.
G: Fifty-seven minutes after the gunman entered the building, police finally advance down the hallway toward the classroom. How do their actions look to you?
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FGS: It seemed to be somewhat haphazard. You see officers going down the hallway, and the ballistic shields are behind them. The whole idea is to put the shields up front and have the officers proceeding down the hallway behind those shields. That’s your protection.
Even from a tactical standpoint, the movement down the hall isn’t going very well. It doesn’t seem like anyone other than the people who were doing the breach knew what was happening. It seems to suggest that maybe there wasn’t an overall plan. You see an officer at one point using hand sanitizer.
It almost had the feel to me, looking at the video, that people didn’t understand that this was real. It was almost like something you would see during an active shooter drill or a training exercise, more than what you would see when you knew that active shots had been fired and there were people in those classrooms.
Maybe they were just totally overwhelmed by the situation. I don’t know.
G: What should it have looked like when police went to breach the classroom door and confront the shooter?
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FGS: It has to be very disciplined, very methodical. There’s a process. We practice formations that we’re going to use.
Somebody needed to take control and say, “Here’s the entry team, here’s the team in the hall at the second point of entry behind them. There’s going to be an arrest team that we’re going to hand him out to, and a rescue team that’s poised to go in immediately after the subject’s been neutralized to engage in rescue operations.”
There’s a whole rescue methodology that’s been practiced in terms of room entries, and it’s part of an active shooter drill for officers. A lot of it isn’t necessarily different from how you would clear a room if you’re executing a search warrant and you believe firearms were present.
I give them credit that they tried to control the [additional] officers from running down the hallway. Because if the gunman came out, you have all these people in the hallway without protection.
G: Watching the video, I noticed people in different clothes and uniforms were part of the response. Who were the people gathered in the hallway?
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FGS: It looked like there could’ve been investigative personnel there, there could’ve been administrative personnel or officers who came in off-duty when they heard something was going on. You had other people that appeared to have tactical-type uniforms on and other officers who looked like they had duty uniforms on.
So it looks like there were various departments represented, which then means somebody has to take control, right? Somebody has to say, “I’m the incident commander, and this is what we’re doing, and this is how we’re doing it.” And I’m not sure that ever happened — or it didn’t happen for quite a while.
G: Overall, how does the police response that you observed in the video compare to other mass shootings that you’ve reviewed?
FGS: This was tough to watch as both a parent, and as somebody who studies this stuff and has written in numerous reports about it, and as somebody who has spent 30 years in law enforcement. It just didn’t look like it should’ve looked. And like I said — and I’m sure people were trying to figure out what to do, and how to do it, and how to save lives. And it just never came together.
Maybe they didn’t have a sense of the level of violence that had been perpetrated. But I also have to think that they were there for a long time, and I’d hope they were interviewing teachers, and custodians, and whoever else was in that school to try to get a sense of where this [gunman] might be, how big of a space they were in, how many teachers and students might be in there, what the entry points were. They should’ve been gathering intelligence for whoever the incident commander was. But there were a lot of people standing around for a very long time, not doing anything.
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From what I’ve read, that they did empty the school and they did prevent him from leaving that space, they confined him in those two classrooms. That’s good tactically. But you’ve got to get him out of those classrooms, or you’ve got to go in and get him. I think most people would agree that this was not a good law enforcement response to a horrific situation.
Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.
24. Ukraine destroys second Russian ammo dump with U.S.-supplied HIMARS missile
Keep up the fire.
Ukraine destroys second Russian ammo dump with U.S.-supplied HIMARS missile
Newsweek · by Joseph Golder, Zenger News · July 14, 2022
Ukrainian forces said Thursday they have destroyed a second Russian ammunition warehouse in the city of Nova Kakhovka using American-made HIMARS multiple rocket launcher vehicles.
The footage, filmed at night, shows one explosion after another as the target, which Ukrainian forces said was an ammunition warehouse, goes up in flames. The images were obtained Thursday from the Office of Strategic Communications (StratCom) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Nova Kakhovka is a city in the Kherson Region, in southern Ukraine. The Russian military has occupied much of the Kherson Region since March 2, when the regional capital city Kherson fell to the invading forces.
Ukrainian forces said Thursday, July 14, 2022, they have destroyed a second Russian ammunition warehouse in the city of Nova Kakhovka using American-made HIMARS multiple rocket launcher vehicles. @AFUStratCom/Zenger
The move comes after the first building was destroyed by Ukrainian forces in Nova Kakhovka, while the Ukrainians are saying it was also an ammunition warehouse. Russia, meanwhile, denied this, claiming instead that homes and warehouses were hit, leaving seven people dead and about 80 injured.
The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) is a truck-mounted light multiple rocket launcher developed in the late 1990s for the U.S. Army. Missiles fired from HIMARS batteries have a range of as much as 190 miles.
Zenger News contacted the StratCom of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for further comment, as well as the Russian Ministry of Defense, but had not received a reply at the time of writing.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what the Kremlin is calling a "special military operation." Thursday marks the 141st day of the invasion.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that between February 24 and July 14, Russia had lost about 37,870 personnel, 1,667 tanks, 3,852 armored combat vehicles, 840 artillery units, 247 multiple launch rocket systems, 109 air defense systems, 219 warplanes, 188 helicopters, 681 drones, 155 cruise missiles, 15 warships, 2,720 motor vehicles and fuel tankers, and 67 units of special equipment.
Other developments in the Russia-Ukraine war:
A traffic jam made up of more than 130 cargo ships that are loaded with Ukrainian grain is waiting in the Black Sea to pass into the Danube River.
Grain shipments via the River Danube have increased, with a canal being reopened. An increased number of foreign ships are now able to reach Ukrainian ports to help export grain.
Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has ruled out giving any territory to Russia as part of any ceasefire deal.
The British Ministry of Defense has said that "the urban areas of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk likely remain the principal objectives" of the Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.
In a reversal of policy, Lithuania's foreign ministry has said that it will allow sanctioned Russian goods to transit through its territory on their way to Russia's Kaliningrad exclave.
Newsweek · by Joseph Golder, Zenger News · July 14, 2022
25. Ukraine's new US rockets are causing fresh problems for Russia
Create as many dilemmas as possible for the Russians and Putin.
Ukraine's new US rockets are causing fresh problems for Russia
CNN · by Tim Lister and Oren Liebermann, CNN
(CNN)There's a new and potentially very significant factor in the Ukrainian conflict: the Ukrainians' ability to use recently supplied Western systems to hit Russian command posts, logistical hubs and ammunition dumps a long way beyond the front lines.
In the past week, there have been enormous explosions in several occupied areas in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. The available evidence, from satellite imagery and Western analysts, is that the targeting has been highly effective.
For months the Ukrainian military pleaded for long-range precision artillery and rocket systems from Western partners. Now they have them and are deploying them to considerable effect in both the south and east of the country.
The Ukrainian military is not giving away many specifics but Vadim Denysenko, a senior official at the Interior Ministry, said Wednesday that in the past two weeks, "above all things thanks to the weapons that Ukraine received, we were able to destroy approximately two dozen warehouses with weapons and stocks of fuel and lubricants. This will certainly affect the intensity of fire" the Russians can muster, he said.
A Ukrainian commander shows off the rockets on a HIMARS vehicle on July 1.
Best-in-class is the US-supplied HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, but the Ukrainians have also received M777 howitzers from both the US and Canada, and Caesar long-range howitzers from France.
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In addition, the UK has committed to providing M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), which are more powerful than HIMARS, but it's unclear when Ukraine will complete training on the system and deploy it.
The HIMARS' versatility is in its name: the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Its mobility makes it harder to target and it can be crewed by just eight soldiers. The rockets supplied to Ukraine have a range of 70 to 80 kilometers (about 50 miles). And their GPS guidance systems make them extremely accurate.
As Mick Ryan, a military analyst and former Australian major-general, puts it: "It is used to destroy critical communications nodes, command posts, airfields, and important logistics facilities."
Senior Russian officers are therefore especially vulnerable. HIMARS' accuracy also means the Ukrainians can worry less about civilian casualties. The guided rockets are accurate to within two to three meters, two defense officials told CNN, allowing the Ukrainians to use far fewer rounds to hit targets precisely at distance.
The HIMARS appears to have been used in a massive strike against a warehouse in the town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region on Monday night. The strike set off secondary explosions and caused widespread damage, according to satellite imagery reviewed by CNN. The imagery showed how precise the attack had been, leaving just one small crater.
This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows the aftermath of a Ukrainian strike on what it said was a Russian ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka.
Local pro-Russian officials said parts of one HIMARS rockets were recovered; the serial numbers matched the weapon.
There were also large explosions in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, setting off multiple detonations. The same happened at Shakhtarsk in Donetsk and in the Kherson region at the weekend, as well as near Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia last week.
Altogether, it appears that about a dozen targets deep behind Russian lines have been hit in July, most of them at least 40 kilometers behind the front -- a distance at which accuracy with old Tochka-U missiles would be difficult.
The Ukrainians have also been firing HIMARS at night, making it more difficult for the Russians to spot and strike the launchers. Russian forces have struggled to fight at night since the beginning of the conflict, and the Ukrainians are still using this to their advantage.
Changing the battlefield
Targeting may also have been made easier by the way the Russian military stores and moves its weapons.
Phillips O'Brien, professor strategic studies at St Andrews University, says the Nova Kakhovka strike is revealing "about the state of the logistics war and the real problems the Russians face."
The target was adjacent to a rail hub, vital to the Russian logistics effort to sustain their offensive, and so was an obvious target.
"The Russians left a ludicrously easy to locate, major supply depot exactly where someone would expect to find it. Either the Russians are unable to react because of command failure or they can't actually move the depots because they lack the road movement," O'Brien tweeted.
One Ukrainian official hinted that targeting the warehouse had been easy. Serhiy Khlan, a member of Kherson regional council, said on Facebook: "In Nova Kakhovka minus one Russian ammo depot. They brought, brought, stockpiled, stockpiled and now have fireworks at night."
Ben Hodges, the former commander of the US Army in Europe, tweeted after the Kherson attack at the weekend: "Least favorite job in the Russian Army? Ammunition handler."
In a briefing last week, a senior US Defense Department official said that "the focus on higher capability, precision, further-range weapons" for Ukraine was front and center.
On Friday, the Pentagon announced a shipment to Ukraine of 1,000 rounds of 155mm artillery shells -- but a newer munition with greater accuracy, according to the official. The Ukrainians have been expending 155mm munitions at a rate of 3,000 a day. Like HIMARS, the more accurate rounds should mean fewer are needed.
The official contended that HIMARS was changing the battlefield. "What we've seen is the ability of the Ukrainians to use these HIMAR systems to significantly disrupt the ability of the Russians to move forward."
"If the Russians think they can outlast the Ukrainians, they need to rethink that," the official added.
Ukrainian servicemen ride on a military vehicle as they tow an M777 towed 155 mm howitzer near the front line, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the Donbas region.
Ukrainian service members fire towards Russian positions with a CAESAR self-propelled howitzer, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in the Donetsk region, on June 8.
A Russian military reporter, Yuri Kotenok, said this week that the HIMARS represents "a serious threat. The liberated areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the DPR and the LPR, as well as the territory of Russia, fall under the possible fire of HIMARS."
Kotenok, who has nearly 300,000 followers on Telegram, said Russian air defenses need to be improved -- as does the targeting of HIMARS, whether in transit or deployed. He said that "If this continues, it is necessary to hit the decision-making centers. Our limitations in retaliatory strikes against the enemy are to some extent incomprehensible to me."
Another Russian reporter, Roman Sapenkov, said he witnessed the strike at the weekend on the Russian base at Kherson's airport.
"I was struck by the fact that the whole packet, five or six rockets, landed practically on a penny. Usually MLRS lands in a wide area, and at maximum range they scatter like a fan," he wrote, referring to multiple launch rocket systems that are less advanced than HIMARS or the M777.
"It is clear this is just the beginning ... They will cover all the command posts and military facilities; the data for this has been collected for the last 4 months."
The importance of pallets
One problem for the Russians may be the way they transport munitions, which is where the humble pallet comes into play.
Few Russian military trucks include a crane to lift heavy munitions, which are rarely carried on pallets but loaded and unloaded by hand. Plenty of ageing Soviet ZIL trucks have been seen in Ukraine.
Moving weapons and ammunition this way is cumbersome, time-consuming and potentially gives enemy surveillance a greater opportunity to detect such shipments. By contrast, the UK and US militaries palletize much of their ammunition or carry it in containers.
The Russian way of war -- as witnessed over the last three months in eastern Ukraine -- relies on huge artillery barrages to pulverize targets before moving forward. Russian military doctrine has always emphasized a massive use of artillery, MLRS and mortars. That demands constant resupply: Some analysts calculate that Russia is using at least 7,000 shells and rockets a day in Donbas, and often many more.
Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military administration, said Wednesday: "The Russian army does not stop shelling. However, most likely, it saves the existing stocks of shells, because their supply has been interrupted by the work of our new long-range weapons."
Ukrainian officials claim that the Russians are being thrown off-balance by their growing capability for long-range precision attacks.
In and around Melitopol, for example, the Russians have imposed restrictions on civilian movements in recent days. The area has seen at least two major strikes this month against Russian bases.
But for the Ukrainians to sustain this rate of strikes requires an unimpeded conduit of munitions from the West. The Ukrainian military is transitioning from an organization largely reliant on Soviet-era artillery and rocket systems -- with inadequate ammunition -- to using precision Western weapons with enough ammunition in a matter of months.
Also unknown is whether any of the handful of HIMARS so far shipped have been taken out by Russian fire. The Ukrainian military and defense ministries avoid providing details about their deployment.
Ryan cautions that while the HIMARS "has provided the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a new 'Long Hand' to attack the Russian invaders, there is no such thing as a silver bullet solution in war."
But US officials are confident that the accuracy of the weapon -- as well as other accurate long-range systems -- will progressively change the battlefield.
Uliana Pavlova, Barbara Starr and Josh Pennington contributed to this report.
CNN · by Tim Lister and Oren Liebermann, CNN
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
