Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”

- Aldous Huxley

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts’ but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

- Francis Bacon

“When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him."

- Jonathan Swift

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 21 (Putin's War)

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (21.10.22) CDS comments on key events

3. Xi Jinping Expands His Power, Elevating Loyalists, Forcing Out Moderates

4. Former Chinese president Hu Jintao unexpectedly led out of party congress

5. China reaffirms Xi's dominance, removes No. 2 Li Keqiang

6. EXPLAINER: What would retreat from Kherson mean for Russia?

7. Zelenskiy calls on West to warn Russia not to blow up dam

8. "You’ve told us why the Voice, but you haven’t told us what it is"

9. The secret history of America’s tactical nukes

10. Frantic Putin Flexes New War Tactic That Is Mostly Useless

11. Russians in Ukraine preparing to help overthrow Putin—opposition leader

12. IntelBrief: The Evolution of the Online Violent Extremist Landscape

13. China has opened up secret police stations in these countries

14. National cyber strategy possibly 'months' away, Inglis says

15. Heartbreaking details revealed in SEAL team commander's fatal fall from helicopter

16. Xi’s Third Term Is a Gift in Disguise

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 21 (Putin's War)

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-21

Key Takeaways

The Russian withdrawal from western Kherson Oblast has begun. Russian forces likely intend to continue that withdrawal over the next several weeks but may struggle to withdraw in good order if Ukrainian forces choose to attack.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is demonstrably setting conditions for Russia to continue a protracted war in Ukraine, not for a negotiated settlement or offramp.
Russian forces will likely attempt to blow up the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) to cover their withdrawal from Kherson City and to prevent Ukrainian forces from pursuing Russian forces deeper into Kherson Oblast.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on October 21 creating a Russian government “coordination council” to improve wartime federal coordination.
Russian and Ukrainian sources reported fighting northeast of Kharkiv City along the international border, on the Svatove-Kreminna frontline, and west of Lysychansk.
Ukrainian military officials offered a limited overview of the situation on the frontline.
Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command emphasized that Russian forces are using Ukrainian civilians as human shields when transporting military equipment across the Dnipro River, while Russian sources released footage showing a line of civilians awaiting the ferry from Kherson City.
Russian forces continued ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast and routine fire west of Hulyaipole and in Mykolaiv Oblast.
Russian authorities are attempting to maintain the façade of sustainable and strong logistics in southern Ukraine while accelerating measures to compensate for the Kerch Strait Bridge attack.
Fissures between regional Russian officials, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and military commissariats, and the Russian civilian population from which mobilization draws will likely intensify in the coming months.
Russian authorities are preventing Ukrainians in Russia from leaving Russia with complex residency and permit requirements to cross international borders.
Russian occupation authorities continued the mass forced removal of civilians from the west bank of the Dnipro River under the guise of civilian “evacuations.”

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 21

Oct 21, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Katherine Lawlor, Grace Mappes, Kateryna Stepanenko, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

October 21, 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.

The Russian withdrawal from western Kherson Oblast has begun. Russian forces likely intend to continue that withdrawal over the next several weeks but may struggle to withdraw in good order if Ukrainian forces choose to attack. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command stated on October 21 that Russian forces are “quite actively” transferring ammunition, military equipment, and some unspecified units from the Dnipro River’s west bank to the east bank via ferries.[1] The Southern Operational Command added that Russian forces deployed 2,000 mobilized men to hold the frontlines and are continuing to shell Ukrainian positions, likely in an effort to cover their withdrawal.[2] Ukrainian military officials reported that the Russian occupation administration is preparing the evacuation of imported Russian specialists, Ukrainian collaborators, and Kherson’s banking system.[3] Russian occupation administration in Beryslav and humanitarian facilities in Kherson City also reportedly ceased operations.[4]

The Russian withdrawal from western Kherson requires that a Russian detachment left in contact hold the line against Ukrainian attack, covering other Russian forces as they withdraw. Such a detachment must be well-trained, professional, and prepared to die for its compatriots to effectively perform that duty. The deputy chief of the Main Operational Department of the Ukrainian General Staff, Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov, assessed on October 20 that Russian military leadership may withdraw “the most combat-capable units” from the left-bank part of the region to the right bank of the Dnipro river and leave mobilized soldiers in contact to cover the withdrawal.[5] Russian milbloggers seized on Hromov’s assessment on October 21 and claimed that Ukrainian officials falsely said that elite units like the VDV and marines are being replaced by untrained mobilized men in Kherson.[6] If Hromov’s assessment is correct, then Russian forces would be setting conditions for a Russian withdrawal to become a rout. Russia’s poorly trained, newly mobilized reservists are very unlikely to stand and resist a Ukrainian counterattack if Ukrainian forces chose to attack them and chase the withdrawing forces. The collapse of a mobilized reservist detachment left in contact would likely lead to a Ukrainian rout of Russian forces on the same scale as Ukraine’s rout of Russian forces in Kharkiv.

Russian officials have remained cagey about whether or not Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a withdrawal from Kherson and are likely continuing to prepare the information space for such a collapse, as ISW has previously assessed.[7] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dodged a direct question from reporters addressing the likely withdrawal and directed reporters to the Ministry of Defense on October 21.[8] One Russian milblogger noted on October 21 that Russian forces “will receive bad news from Kherson Oblast” in the coming week and that “November will be very, very hard.”[9] A Russian war correspondent told Russian state-controlled television on October 19 that Ukrainian forces outnumber Russian forces by four to one and that "there will be no good news in the next two months, that’s for sure … severe territorial losses are likely in these two months, but defeat in one battle does not mean losing the war.”[10]

Russian forces will likely attempt to blow up the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) to cover their withdrawal and to prevent Ukrainian forces from pursuing Russian forces deeper into Kherson Oblast. Russian forces will almost certainly blame Ukraine for the dam attack, as ISW has previously assessed.[11] Ukraine has no material interest in blowing the dam, which could flood 80 Ukrainian cities and displace hundreds of thousands of people while damaging Ukraine’s already-tenuous electricity supply. Russia, however, has every reason to attempt to provide cover to its retreating forces and to widen the Dnipro River, which Ukrainian forces would need to cross to continue their counteroffensive. Any claims that Russian forces would not blow the dam due to concerns for the water supply to Crimea are absurd. Crimea survived without access to the canal flowing from the Dnipro since Russia illegally invaded and annexed it in 2014 through the restoration of access following Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Russian officials have demonstrated their ability to indefinitely supply Crimea with water without access to the canal. Russian forces will try to hold eastern Kherson Oblast not for the water, but rather to provide a buffer zone that enables the defense of Crimea and prevents Ukrainian forces from getting into artillery range of the peninsula. Russian decisionmakers may believe that blowing the dam will enable them to retain that buffer zone. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on October 21 that blowing the dam could cut water supplies to much of southern Ukraine and would pose a serious risk to the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), which lies upstream of the dam.[12] The ZNPP relies on water from the Kakhovka reservoir to cool its facilities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is setting conditions for Russia to continue a protracted high-intensity conventional war in Ukraine, not a negotiated settlement or off-ramp. The information conditions that the Kremlin has set to enable the Kherson withdrawal, the preparations to blow the dam, and the preparations for additional mobilization and conscription all demonstrate that Putin is not seeking offramps in the near term. Instead, he is setting conditions for improved Russian combat capability over the winter and well into 2023. Putin signed a decree on October 21 creating a Russian government “coordination council” to "strengthen coordination of federal executive branch organs and the federal subjects’ executive branch organs” during the war in Ukraine.[13] The council’s responsibilities include coordinating federal and regional authorities to meet the needs of the Russian military; resolving military supply issues, forming plans to supply the military; defining the volume and direction of the Russian state budget to support the military; and creating working groups on select issues, among other things.[14] Putin’s creation of the coordination council is a continuation of Putin’s October 19 declaration of martial law readiness standards, which the Kremlin seeks to use to expand Russian government authorities as way of further transiting Russia to a wartime footing.[15] A prominent Russian milblogger stated that the creation of this council is overdue and that its creation in spring 2022 would have prevented Russia’s logistics and supply problems from becoming so acute.[16] This milblogger stated that Putin’s creation of the council was a “step in the right direction” nonetheless.[17] It is a step that Putin need not take if he were seeking to wrap the war up soon or were looking for some sort of off-ramp or pause that he expected to end major combat operations. The creation of this new coordinating body instead sets conditions for a high level of mobilization of the Russian state, economy, and society for continued high-intensity conventional military operations for the foreseeable future. Putin continues to show his willingness to pay a high price in domestic discontent to pursue a military resolution of the war he initiated on his terms, showing through his actions a marked disinterest in any serious concessions or ceasefire negotiations that could lead to sustainable peace.

Key Takeaways

The Russian withdrawal from western Kherson Oblast has begun. Russian forces likely intend to continue that withdrawal over the next several weeks but may struggle to withdraw in good order if Ukrainian forces choose to attack.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is demonstrably setting conditions for Russia to continue a protracted war in Ukraine, not for a negotiated settlement or offramp.
Russian forces will likely attempt to blow up the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) to cover their withdrawal from Kherson City and to prevent Ukrainian forces from pursuing Russian forces deeper into Kherson Oblast.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on October 21 creating a Russian government “coordination council” to improve wartime federal coordination.
Russian and Ukrainian sources reported fighting northeast of Kharkiv City along the international border, on the Svatove-Kreminna frontline, and west of Lysychansk.
Ukrainian military officials offered a limited overview of the situation on the frontline.
Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command emphasized that Russian forces are using Ukrainian civilians as human shields when transporting military equipment across the Dnipro River, while Russian sources released footage showing a line of civilians awaiting the ferry from Kherson City.
Russian forces continued ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast and routine fire west of Hulyaipole and in Mykolaiv Oblast.
Russian authorities are attempting to maintain the façade of sustainable and strong logistics in southern Ukraine while accelerating measures to compensate for the Kerch Strait Bridge attack.
Fissures between regional Russian officials, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and military commissariats, and the Russian civilian population from which mobilization draws will likely intensify in the coming months.
Russian authorities are preventing Ukrainians in Russia from leaving Russia with complex residency and permit requirements to cross international borders.
Russian occupation authorities continued the mass forced removal of civilians from the west bank of the Dnipro River under the guise of civilian “evacuations.”

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.

Ukrainian Counteroffensives—Southern and Eastern Ukraine
Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
Russian Supporting Effort—Southern Axis
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Ukrainian Counteroffensives (Ukrainian efforts to liberate Russian-occupied territories)

Eastern Ukraine: (Oskil River-Kreminna Line)

Russian forces attempted an unsuccessful assault northeast of Kharkiv City along the international border and continued to shell settlements along the Oskil River on October 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian assault on Ternova, approximately 40km northeast of Kharkiv City.[18] Ukrainian officials and Russian sources reported that Russian forces conducted a missile strike on industrial infrastructure in Kyivsky Raion in Kharkiv City.[19] Russian forces continued to shell and launch airstrikes on Kupyansk and settlements in its vicinity.[20]

Russian and Ukrainian forces continued to fight on the Svatove-Kreminna frontline on October 21. Luhansk Oblast Administration Head Serhiy Haidai stated that the territory near Svatove remained the most active frontline as Russian forces continued to try to regain their lost positions around Svatove.[21] Haidai added that Russian forces concentrated most of their military equipment near Svatove and Troitske (about 55km northeast of Svatove).[22] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian assault on Lyman.[23] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attempted to attack in the vicinity of Terny (about 16km northeast of Lyman) and tried to reach the R66 Kreminna-Svatove highway.[24] The Russian Ministry of Defense also claimed that Russian artillery fire prevented Ukrainian forces from crossing the Zherebets River near Novovodyane (about 18km southwest of Svatove) and Torske (approximately 13km east of Lyman).[25]

Russian forces reportedly conducted several unsuccessful assaults west of Lysychansk on October 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces suppressed Russian attacks on Bilohorivka and Zolotarivka, both just over 10km west of Lysychansk.[26] Russian sources also claimed that Russian forces staged an assault in the vicinity of Bilohorivka to regain positions on the southern bank of the Siverskyi Donets River in the area.[27]

Southern Ukraine: (Kherson Oblast)

Russian forces began their withdrawal from western Kherson Oblast—see topline text.

Ukrainian military officials offered a limited overview of the situation on the frontline on October 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces struck Novovoskresenske, Nova Kamianka, and Mala Seideminukha in northern Kherson Oblast.[28] Russian sources in turn claimed that Ukrainian forces withdrew from Nova Kamianka to Ukrainka to reinforce their units, and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) claimed that Russian forces struck a Ukrainian hangar in the settlement.[29] Geolocated footage showed the aftermath of Russian artillery strikes supposedly on Ukrainian efforts to advance south of Nova Kamianka, and some Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces attempted to advance in the Beryslav direction.[30] The Russian MoD also claimed that Russian forces prevented Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Davydiv Brid-Sukhyi Stavok area near the Inhulets River.[31] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to shell settlements northwest of Kherson City.[32]

Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command emphasized that Russian forces are using Ukrainian civilians as human shields when transporting military equipment across the Dnipro River, while Russian sources released footage showing a line of civilians awaiting the ferry from Kherson City.[33] Russian forces may be transporting withdrawing military personnel alongside civilians to limit Ukrainian strikes. The use of human shields is a war crime. Ukrainian forces continued their interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast by striking the Antonivsky Bridge on October 20. Russian sources accused Ukrainian forces of killing four civilians who were reportedly crossing the bridge.[34] Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk confirmed that Ukrainian forces struck the Antonivsky Bridge in the middle of the night and claimed that the presence of civilians on the bridge is not possible due to a Russian-imposed curfew in Kherson Oblast.[35] The Ukrainian General Staff also confirmed that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian pontoon crossing under the Antonivsky Bridge on October 19.[36] Ukrainian forces otherwise continued to strike Russian positions and ammunition depots in northern and central Kherson Oblast.[37]

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast on October 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground attacks near Bakhmut, northeast of Bakhmut near Soledar, and south of Bakhmut near Ozaryanivka, Optyne, and Odradivka.[38] A Russian source claimed that Wagner Group fighters advanced from positions on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut to the center of Bakhmut and that Wagner Group personnel gained fire control over a railway that Ukrainian forces use to supply the Bakhmut area.[39] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces, likely referring to Wagner Group or proxy Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) forces, seized the last fortified Ukrainian position before reaching Optyne south of Bakhmut.[40] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground attacks east of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske and southwest of Donetsk City near Mariinka and Pobieda.[41] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces conducted ground attacks near Marinka and southwest of Avdiivka towards Nevelske.[42] The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian small-group attempts to attack Russian positions near the Vremivka bulge in western Donetsk Oblast.[43]

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

Russian forces continued routine fire west of Hulyaipole and in Mykolaiv Oblast on October 21. Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces struck Zaporizhia City, Mykolaiv City, and Kutsurub Hromada in Mykolaiv Oblast.[44] Ukrainian Dnipropetrovsk regional authorities reported that Russian forces did not fire on areas in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast overnight or during the day on October 21, which would be consistent with reports of a withdrawal of Russian combat forces from Enerhodar.[45] Dnipropetrovsk Oblast head Valentyn Reznichenko stated that the night of October 20-21 was the first night without sirens and attacks on the region in three and a half months.[46] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command acknowledged an anomalous temporary lull in Russian shelling and attacks in southern Ukraine on October 21.[47] Ukrainian sources reported that Ukrainian forces struck Russian military positions in Melitopol, injuring at least 30 and killing at least 30.[48] Ukrainian Nikopol Head Yevhen Yevtushenko stated that the strike injured 40 “bearded men,” likely referring to Chechen forces.[49]

Russian authorities are attempting to maintain the façade of sustainable and strong logistics in southern Ukraine while accelerating measures to compensate for the damage to the Kerch Strait Bridge. Crimean occupation Head Sergey Aksyonov claimed that over 1,000 trucks have traveled to southern Ukraine across alternate land routes and that ferries transported over 720 vehicles across the Kerch Strait on October 19-20, likely to downplay the impact of the Kerch Strait Bridge attack on Russian logistical capabilities.[50] Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky reported that Russian authorities have begun efforts to restore the Melitopol-Dzhankoy highway that were originally supposed to begin in 2023.[51]

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

Fissures between regional Russian officials, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and military commissariats, and the Russian civilian population from which mobilized forces are drawn will likely intensify in the coming months.[52] A prominent Russian milblogger attacked the notion that Russian authorities outside of the MoD’s chain of command have any legal authority over mobilization practices and criticized Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin’s October 17 statement that the mobilization in Moscow City ended because the city reached its mobilization quota.[53] The milblogger stated that regional heads have some liberty to make mobilization decisions pertaining to the implementation of mobilization but have no legal authority to unilaterally announce the start or end of mobilization periods.[54] The milblogger stated that partial mobilization is incomplete, that covert mobilization will continue, and that Russian citizens must accept the uncomfortable fact that military mobilization is necessary to win the war in Ukraine.[55] A Moscow-based lawyer stated that a military enlistment officer beat him up when he presented deferral documents for mobilized men that cited Sobyanin’s statement that mobilization ended on October 17.[56] Moscow officials are likely to continue mobilizing Muscovites despite local officials framing mobilization in Moscow as complete, as ISW previously assessed.[57]

Belarusian officials may be assisting the Kremlin in detaining Russian men fleeing mobilization in Belarus. A Russian Telegram channel reported that Belarusian authorities began preventing Russian men from leaving Belarus starting on October 20 and that Belarusian authorities have detained 10 Russian men who attempted to board international flights departing Belarus as of October 21.[58]

Mobilized Russian prisoners continue their poor battlefield performance. A captured Wagner soldier who was recruited from a Ryazan penal colony stated that three-fourths of his unit died in combat near Bakhmut, and that Russian forces shot his comrades who refused to fight, instructed them to commit suicide rather than face capture, did not pay them, and treated them like cannon fodder.[59] Another mobilized prisoner stated that Russian mobilization officials forced Russian prisoners to mobilize, did not provide Russian prisoners any training, and provided enough food for soldiers to eat only one meal a day.[60]

The Russian military is continuing to struggle to supply Russian forces in Ukraine. A group of mobilized Russian soldiers from Krasnodar Krai operating in an unspecified part of Ukraine released a recorded appeal to Russian authorities on October 21, stating that they have run out of food, water, medicine, and ammunition.[61] Russian-backed Zaporizhia Oblast occupation administration official Vladimir Rogov called for donations to buy communications equipment for Russian forces fighting in Zaporizhia on October 21.[62]

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

Russian authorities are preventing Ukrainians in Russia from leaving Russia by introducing complex residency and permit requirements to cross international borders. Independent Russian outlet Dozhd (Rain) reported that Russian officials issued notices to Ukrainians that crossing the border into Belarus by rail is “a violation of the rules for crossing the border of the Russian Federation.”[63] The notice stated that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) border service will physically remove Ukrainians from trains bound for Belarus, and Dozhd reported that Ukrainians received similar notices when traveling by bus.[64] Russian outlet RBK quoted a claim by state rail company Russian Railways that these notices are a reminder that only Belarusian-Russian dual citizens, those with residency permits in the arrival country, or those with a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) state certificate of return can cross the Russian border into Belarus.[65]

Russian occupation authorities continue mass forced removals of civilians from the west bank of the Dnipro River under the guise of civilian “evacuations.” Kherson Oblast deputy occupation head Kirill Stremousov stated on October 21 that Russian authorities relocated 46 Ukrainian orphans from Kherson City to occupied Crimea as part of “evacuations.”[66] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast are asking Ukrainian “evacuees” for their last place of residence to compile a list of empty houses to use for unspecified purposes, but likely to support Russian military efforts to conduct a controlled withdrawal from Kherson Oblast.[67] A Russian source claimed that Russian authorities “evacuated” over 1,000 civilians from the west bank to the east bank of the Dnipro River just on the morning of October 21.[68] ISW has previously reported that such mass, forced deportations likely constitute a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign in a manner that may violate the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[69]

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

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I60ddXcd370&ab_channel=ВійськоветелебаченняУкраїни

[13] https://www.vedomosti dot ru/politics/news/2022/10/21/946755-putin-utverdil-sozdanie-koordinatsionnogo-soveta-po-obespecheniyu-nuzhd-vs-rf; https://www.dp dot ru/a/2022/10/21/Putin_podpisal_ukaz_o_soz; https://t.me/mod_russia/21076; http://publication.pravo.gov dot ru/Document/View/0001202210210003; https://www.rbc dot ru/politics/21/10/2022/635296b09a7947ec3dbbe6a9

[14] http://publication.pravo.gov dot ru/Document/View/0001202210210003?index=5&rangeSize=1

[56] https://holod dot media/2022/10/21/v-moskovskom-voenkomate-izbili-advokata-konstantina-erohina-kotoryj-prishel-prosit-dlya-doveritelya-otsrochku-ot-mobilizaczii/

[63] https://meduza dot io/news/2022/10/21/ukraintsam-nachali-vruchat-uvedomleniya-chto-im-nelzya-peresekat-granitsu-rossii-s-belarusyu

[64] https://meduza dot io/news/2022/10/21/ukraintsam-nachali-vruchat-uvedomleniya-chto-im-nelzya-peresekat-granitsu-rossii-s-belarusyu

[65] https://www.rbc dot ru/society/21/10/2022/6352b8019a7947fbd70d4a6c

[67] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/10/21/rosiyany-planuyut-vykorystovuvaty-zhytlo-evakujovanyh-u-vlasnyh-czilyah/

understandingwar.org

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (21.10.22) CDS comments on key events

CDS Daily brief (21.10.22) CDS comments on key events

As of October 18, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded 15,956 civilian casualties: 6,322 dead and 9,634 wounded.

From October 10 to 20, Russian shelling damaged more than 400 objects in 16 regions of Ukraine, including dozens of energy facilities, Prime Minister Denysh Shmyhal said. Also, according to the Prime Minister, Ukrainian energy facilities are under constant cyber attacks. He stressed that Russia has made Ukrainian energy-producing infrastructure its key target. “Although the energy infrastructure has been under attack for more than a week, the situation remains difficult but under control,” Shmyhal said.

Minister of Community and Territorial Development Oleksiy Chernyshov said that 580 boiler houses and heating stations have been damaged since February 24, and 253 of them have already been restored.

6 people were injured as a result of Russia’s morning attacks on the city of Kharkiv, Oleh Synehubov, the head of Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration said. The first attack took place at about 8 a.m. and the second around 10 a.m. Industrial infrastructure was also destroyed in the Kyivsky district of the city.

At 08:38, the head of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration Oleksandr Starukh said that the Russian military was attacking the regional center with S-300 missiles. A residential building and infrastructure facilities were destroyed. According to preliminary information, there are no casualties. Three people were wounded.

At around 10 p.m. on October 21 Kryvy Rih mayor Oleksandr Vilkul warned the city residents that missiles were launched at the city from the Caspian Sea and several swarms of drones from the south. The air alert signal sounded simultaneously in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Sumy, and Kharkiv Oblasts.

Gas supply has been partially restored in Donetsk Oblast. Centralized heating will be provided in 15 communities in the Oblast. Critical infrastructure facilities will be heated in 10 communities, and heating points will be installed, the head of Donetsk OMA, Pavlo Kyrylenko said. He stressed that this is an almost impossible accomplishment.

From October 24 to 28, all educational institutions of Kyiv Oblast will work remotely to ensure the security of the students, the Kyiv Oblast Military Administration said.

Since the beginning of 2022, language ombudsman Taras Kremin has received 2,177 complaints about violations of the language law in the sphere of advertising. Although the provision of the law, which obliges to place advertisements exclusively in Ukrainian, came into effect on January

16, 2020, complaints [about ads printed in Russian] are received even in the 8th month of a full- scale war.

Occupied territories:

The Russia-appointed deputy head of Kherson Oblast occupying administration Kirill Stremousov said that 46 orphans were "evacuated" from the Oblast orphanage to Crimea.

According to Mykhailo Svarychevskyi, the branch manager of Suspilne Kherson, the minivan that was hit on the Antonovskiy bridge today, belonged to the Suspilne Kherson TV channel. The car and equipment were part of the loot Russian propagandists tried to take out of occupied Kherson.

According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian MOD, the detonation of the Kakhovka EPP dam was planned in advance. Most of the mining was carried out back in April. During the current week, additional mines were planted at the equipment of the Kakhovka HPP. The Ukrainian intelligence reported that 2 military tarpaulin-covered "Kamaz" trucks without drivers are placed on the dam. Both of them are fully loaded with boxes of explosives.

Operational situation

(please note that this part of the report is mainly on the previous day's (October 20) developments)

It is the 240th day of the strategic air-ground offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces against Ukraine (in the official terminology of the Russian Federation – "operation to defend Donbas"). The enemy tries to maintain control over the temporarily captured territories. It concentrates its efforts on disrupting the counteroffensive actions of the Ukrainian troops, and at the same time does not give up attempts to conduct the offensive in the Bakhmut and Avdiivka directions.

Over the past day, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled Russian attacks in the areas of Bilohorivka of Luhansk Oblast; Opytne, Bakhmut, Pobyeda, and Maryinka of Donetsk Oblast.

The Russian military shells the positions of the Ukrainian troops along the entire contact line and conducts aerial reconnaissance. In violation of the norms of international humanitarian law, the laws, and customs of war, it continues to strike critical infrastructure. Over the past day, the Russian forces have launched 3 missile and 24 air strikes and fired over 30 MLRS rounds.

Areas around more than 15 towns and villages were hit by Russian attacks, including the city of Mykolaiv, Nova Kamianka, and Mala Seidemynukha in Kherson Oblast and Hatyshche in Kharkiv Oblast. The Russian forces used cruise and guided anti-aircraft missiles for their strikes. In addition, the Russian military launched more than 20 "Shahed-136" UAVs.

Near the state border, tanks, mortars, and barrel artillery were fired in the areas around Starytsa, Krasne, and Khatnie of Kharkiv Oblast.

The aviation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces made 5 strikes over the past day. Impacts on 3 strongholds and areas of enemy weapons and military equipment concentration and 2 Russian anti-aircraft missile system positions are confirmed. Ukrainian air defense units shot down 15 unmanned aerial vehicles.

Over the past day, Ukraine's missile forces and artillery hit 4 enemy command and control posts, 7 areas of manpower, weapons and equipment concentration, an ammunition depot, a piece of air defense equipment, a bridge, and a Russian pontoon bridge crossing.

The morale and psychological state of the personnel of the invasion forces remain low. Kharkiv direction

• Zolochiv-Balakleya section: approximate length of combat line - 147 km, number of BTGs of the

RF Armed Forces - 10-12, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 13.3 km;

• Deployed enemy BTGs: 26th, 153rd, and 197th tank regiments, 245th motorized rifle regiment of the 47th tank division, 6th and 239th tank regiments, 228th motorized rifle regiment of the 90th tank division, 1st motorized rifle regiment, 1st tank regiment of the 2nd motorized rifle division, 25th and 138th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 6th Combined Arms Army, 27th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Tank Army, 275th and 280th motorized rifle regiments, 11th tank regiment of the 18th motorized rifle division of the 11 Army Corps, 7th motorized rifle regiment of the 11th Army Corps, 80th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 14th Army Corps, 2nd and 45th separate SOF brigades of the Airborne Forces, 1st Army Corps of so-called DPR, PMCs.

There is no change in the operational situation.

Kramatorsk direction

● Balakleya - Siversk section: approximate length of the combat line - 184 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17-20, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.6 km;

● 252nd and 752nd motorized rifle regiments of the 3rd motorized rifle division, 1st, 13th, and 12th tank regiments, 423rd motorized rifle regiment of the 4th tank division, 201st military base, 15th, 21st, 30th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Combined Arms Army, 35th, 55th and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 3rd and 14th separate SOF brigades, 2nd and 4th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Army Corps, 7th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Army Corps, PMCs.

The Russian military shelled Ukrainian positions in the areas around Berestove, Zarichne, Nove, Pershotravneve, Stelmakhivka, Terny, and Yampolivka with barrel and jet artillery.

Donetsk direction

● Siversk - Maryinka section: approximate length of the combat line - 235 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 13-15, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 17 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 68th and 163rd tank regiments, 102nd and 103rd motorized rifle regiments of the 150 motorized rifle division, 80th tank regiment of the 90th tank division, 35th, 55th, and 74th

separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 31st separate airborne assault brigade, 61st separate marines brigade of the Joint Strategic Command "Northern Fleet," 336th separate marines brigade, 24th separate SOF brigade, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 15th, and 100th separate motorized rifle brigades, 9th and 11th separate motorized rifle regiment of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, 6th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.

The Russian military shelled the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the areas of Andriivka, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Bilohorivka, Zelenopillia, Spirne, Ivanhrad, Yakovlivka, Vodyane, Mar'inka, Novomykhailivka, Pervomaiske and Semenivka with tanks and artillery.

The 5th and 7th assault detachments of the "Liga" PMC attacked in the direction of Zaitseve - Ivanhrad, Zaitseve - Klishchiivka, Vesela Dolyna – Bakhmut. They suffered losses and retreated.

Up to 2 reinforced platoons of the 6th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd Army Corps, with support from the "Wagner" PMC, attacked in the direction of Bakhmutske to Pokrovske to the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut. They had no success.

The 2nd platoons of the 4th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 2nd Army Corps unsuccessfully tried to storm the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces near Spirne from Mykolaivka and Berestove.

During the past two days, the 2634th rifle battalion of the mobilization reserve was moved to the Nova Kamianka district, and the 1135th rifle battalion of the mobilization reserve was moved to the Oleksandrivka district (Maryine-Kurakhove direction). Both units are only partially manned because they previously participated in battles in the Novopavlivsk direction.

The Russian military has concentrated a sufficiently powerful tactical grouping south of Bakhmut and in the area of Toretsk. It consists of up to eight BTGs (mostly from the troops of the 1st 2nd Army Corps, "Wagner" PMC, separate units from the 150th motorized rifle division, 336th separate marines brigade. Part of the grouping’s units is armed only with light and heavy infantry weapons and has up to 40 tanks, 175 armored combat vehicles, and 7-8 divisions of barrel and rocket artillery (up to 70 guns of various types and up to 40 MLRS). The grouping is probably preparing for a breakthrough from the southeast to the Kramatorsk-Slovyansk agglomerations through Bakhmut and Kostiantynivka and the return of control over Lyman through a breakthrough from Kreminna. The plan bears signs of revenge for the defeats at Izyum and Lyman.

Zaporizhzhia direction

● Maryinka – Vasylivka section: approximate length of the line of combat - 200 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 11.7 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 36th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 29th Combined Arms Army, 38th and 64th separate motorized rifle brigades, 69th separate cover brigade of the 35th Combined Arms Army, 5th separate tank brigade, 37 separate motorized rifle brigade of the 36th Combined Arms Army, 135th, 429th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments of the 19th motorized rifle

division of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 70th, 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 136th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 58 Combined Arms Army, 46th and 49th machine gun artillery regiments of the 18th machine gun artillery division of the 68th Army Corps, 39th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 68th Army Corps, 83th separate airborne assault brigade, 40th and 155th separate marines brigades, 22nd separate SOF brigade, 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, and 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.

The Russian forces carried out shelling in the areas of Vremivka, Vuhledar, Dorozhnyanka, Neskuchne, Novodanylivka, and Stepove.

More than 30 wounded Russian personnel were simultaneously taken to the Melitopol hospital after the fire damage caused by the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

Tavriysk direction

- Vasylivka – Stanislav section: approximate length of the battle line – 296 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 42, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 7 km;

- Deployed BTGs: 114th, 143rd, and 394th motorized rifle regiments, 218th tank regiment of the 127th motorized rifle division, 57th and 60th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 5th Combined Arms Army, 37th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 36th Combined Arms Army, 429th motorized rifle regiment of the 19th motorized rifle division, 33rd and 255th motorized rifle regiments of the 20th motorized rifle division, 34th and 205th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 49th Combined Arms Army, 70th, 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division, 10th, 16th, 346th separate SOF brigades, 239th air assault regiment of the 76th Air assault division, 217th and 331st parachute airborne regiments of the 98th airborne division, 108 air assault regiment, 171st separate airborne assault battalion of the 7th Air assault division, 11th and 83rd separate airborne assault brigade, 4th military base of the 58 Combined Arms Army, 7 military base 49 Combined Arms Army, 224th, 237th and 126th separate coastal defence brigades, 127th separate ranger brigade, 1st and 3rd Army Corps, PMCs.

Areas of up to 20 towns and villages along the contact line were damaged by artillery fire. To conduct aerial reconnaissance, the Russian forces made more than 20 sorties by UAVs of various types.

Up to 2,000 mobilized Russian personnel have arrived in Kherson Oblast to replenish losses and strengthen units on the contact line. At the same time, the occupying authorities issued an order to prepare evacuation for the so-called "banking institutions", and compiled evacuation lists of the medical workers and teachers brought from Russia. Social services facilities in Kherson stop working.

Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area:

The forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet continue to project force on the coast and the continental part of Ukraine and control the northwestern part of the Black Sea. The ultimate goal is to deprive Ukraine of access to the Black Sea and to maintain control over the captured territories.

In the open sea, the Russian naval group is comprised of 7 ships and boats located along the southwestern coast of Crimea. Among them is 1 cruise missile carrier (a corvette of project 21631) carrying a total of 8 “Kalibr” missiles.

Russian aviation continues to fly from the Crimean airfields of Belbek and Hvardiyske over the northwestern part of the Black Sea. Over the past day, 16 Su-27, Su-30, and Su-24 aircraft from Belbek and Saki airfields were involved.

"The Grain initiative". There are no obstacles to the continuation of the agreement on the "grain corridors". As of October 20, 8 million tons of grain and other food products were exported as part of the Black Sea grain initiative, the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told journalists after he visited Azerbaijan. "There are no obstacles to extending the delivery contract. I was convinced of this again during the conversation with Zelensky yesterday evening (19.10 - ed.) and at the meeting with Putin. But in the meantime, if there is any obstacle, we have no impediments to overcome it," Erdogan said. According to him, 8 million tons of grain and other food products have already been delivered to world markets by 363 vessels.

"62% of cargo from Ukrainian ports went to Europe, 19.5% to Asia, 13% to Africa, and 5.3% to the countries of the Middle East. 454,626 tons of wheat were shipped to the least developed countries; this number comprises only 5.7%," Erdogan said.

On the evening of October 21, President Zelensky called the situation surrounding the grain initiative tense. "Russia is deliberately inciting the food crisis so that it becomes as acute as it was in the first half of this year," he said. According to the president, as of today, more than 150 vessels are in the queue to fulfill contractual obligations for the supply of Ukrainian agricultural products. "This is an artificial queue. It arose only because Russia deliberately delays the passage of ships. Each day that ships with food are in the queue leads to an increase in social and political tension in the countries that consume our agricultural products. Here are just some of the countries to which food exports are delayed because of Russia: Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Iraq, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia. Our partners - the UN, Turkey, and others are fully informed about this situation," the president emphasized. During the operation of the grain initiative, due to the inhibition of the aggressor country, Ukraine under-exported about three million tons of food - this is the annual amount of consumption for 10 million people.

Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 20.10

Personnel - almost 66,750 people (+100);

Tanks 2,573 (+6);

Armored combat vehicles – 5,258 (+3);

Artillery systems – 1,648 (+2);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 372 (0); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 189 (0); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 4,006 (+1); Aircraft - 269 (0);

Helicopters – 243 (0);

UAV operational and tactical level – 1,325 (+14); Intercepted cruise missiles - 329 (+0);

Boats / ships - 16 (0).

Ukraine, general news

Ukraine's losses from the full-scale war have reached more than 127 billion dollars. During the summer, Russia caused more than 31 billion dollars in losses, KSE Institute said in its "Russia will pay" report. The largest number of damages comes from the housing stock, namely 39.7% or

50.5 billion dollars. Compared to the beginning of June, this amount increased by 11.2 billion dollars. According to the latest data, a total of 135,800 private and apartment buildings were damaged and destroyed. Compared to June, the number of damaged houses increased by 15,000.

International diplomatic aspect

In 2023 the EU will provide Ukraine with €19 billion (1.5 billion a month) to help the government to run its business amid the war. However, Kyiv estimated its monthly needs at €3-4 billion euros "for the basics." Facing the Russian energy terror (targeting energy and critical infrastructure) that might cause another refugee outflow to the EU, the block "step up its humanitarian response, particularly for winter preparedness." Though dealing with the dividing issue of handling the arrival of unauthorized migrants without authorization (which caused the biggest crisis in 2016), many CEE countries voiced their readiness to host large numbers of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine.

John Kirby, a National Security Council official, said that errors in operating Iran-made drones by the Russian troops were the reason for several Iranian military and technical personnel deployments to the illegally annexed occupied Crimea. According to US intelligence, the Iranians weren't involved in a military operation targeting Ukrainians. However, Iran still lies about non- involvement in sending kamikaze drones to Russia in phone talks between the Foreign minister and the EU's top diplomat. Iran "wants an end to the war and an end to the displacement of people," said the Iranian Foreign Minister.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has been heavily criticized for its passive role in carrying out its mission on Russia's occupied territories. None of the hundred Ukrainian POWs freed in a swap with Russia met with representatives of the ICRC. Meeting in Geneva, Russian Ambassador Gennady Gatilov said that "practical arrangements" were holding up the ICRC trip to the prison in Olenivka, where at least 53 Ukrainian POWs had been murdered. He noted that it was unreasonable to think Red Cross teams could visit all of the more than 6,000 Ukrainian POWs.

The ICRC spokesman declined to specify the number of POWs or places of internment the organization's staff had visited. He claimed it to be a part of a "confidential, bilateral dialogue" with the sides in the conflict.

For the first time in a while, the US Secretary of Defense held a telephone conversation with the Russian Defence Minister. Lloyd Austin emphasized the importance of maintaining communication lines amid the Ukraine war. The call was likely due to the reckless belligerent nuclear rhetoric of the Kremlin and its propaganda outlets. Though the situation with Russia threatening a nuclear strike on Ukraine is entirely different from the one the US and the USSR were having sixty years ago, it's crucial to communicate to Moscow about catastrophic consequences should Russians decide to use the ultimate weapon.

Russia, relevant news

The number of Russian citizens called up for the military as part of partial mobilization has reached 260 thousand people, Nina Ostanina, head of the State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children Affairs, said following a meeting with Russian Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov.

St. Petersburg State University fired associate professor Denis Skopin for participating in a rally against mobilization, Kommersant reports.

The US authorities did not issue visas to representatives of Rosatom and Rostekhnadzor, who planned to participate in the IAEA conference. A representative of the state corporation will speak at the event with a video message, Rosatom State Corporation said in a statement.

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3. Xi Jinping Expands His Power, Elevating Loyalists, Forcing Out Moderates

As they say, "analyze this."

Xi Jinping Expands His Power, Elevating Loyalists, Forcing Out Moderates

A new lineup of the Communist Party elite will limit potential resistance to Mr. Xi’s agenda of bolstering security and expanding state sway over the economy.

nytimes.com · by Keith Bradsher · October 22, 2022

Xi Jinping with Premier Li Keqiang, center, and Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Yang during the closing ceremony of the party congress. Both Mr. Li and Mr. Wang stepped down from the Central Committee, indicating that both are set to retire.Credit...Noel Celis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Poised to take a groundbreaking third term in power, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has advanced a contingent of Communist Party loyalists ready to defend him, expand state influence over the economy and bolster national security.

Mr. Xi opened the new phase of his authoritarian rule with a clutch of victories at the end of a party congress on Saturday. He hurried into retirement two top officials from a more moderate political mold. He positioned allies to dominate the new leadership. He kept officials who have promoted his muscular approach in diplomacy and the military. And Mr. Xi gave no hint of preparing for eventual retirement by anointing a likely successor.

“China has entered a new era of maximum Xi,” said Neil Thomas, an analyst of Chinese politics for the Eurasia Group. The outcome, Mr. Thomas added, “means more support for Xi’s policies, which means a stronger focus on political control, economic statism, and assertive diplomacy.”

Since taking over as party leader in late 2012, Mr. Xi has transformed China, purging potential rivals, crushing dissent and reasserting the central role of the Communist Party in Chinese society. Mr. Xi’s progress toward his new term has been hampered this year by China’s painful economic slowdown, spreading public frustration over the country’s strict Covid rules, and rumors of internal opposition.

Mr. Xi’s keynote speech at the opening of the congress last Sunday signaled that he would press on with fortifying China against a plethora of perceived dangers. That includes stepping up efforts to turn China into a leading technology power, reducing reliance on Western know-how. He also said that China would continue upgrading its already formidable national security apparatus.

Mr. Xi also bolstered his status when the congress approved amendments to the party charter — its foundational rules — to elevate his authority. A statement from the meeting said that Mr. Xi’s leadership was essential to “eradicating grave hazards were present inside the party, state and military,” apparently referring to corruption and disloyalty.

He is likely to face even less potential pushback to his policies after the congress approved the new membership list for the Central Committee, the elite body from which China’s top leaders are drawn.

Several senior figures stepped down, all but ensuring that more of Mr. Xi’s favored officials will rise into the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body. Mr. Xi’s enhanced control suggests China will maintain its tough stance toward Washington, and expand the party’s intervention in the economy, technology and the internet.

“There’s not a single sign of any fundamental revisions of policy,” said Richard McGregor, an expert on Chinese politics at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. “It’s all shoulders to the wheel.”

Mr. Xi’s new term and his leadership team will not be officially confirmed until Sunday, when the new Central Committee meets and holds a carefully controlled vote. But the scale of Mr. Xi’s victory was already clear from the Central Committee makeup, experts said.

The party congress is usually a choreographed affair, but the unexpected departure of the former leader, Hu Jintao, caused a brief stir. Mr. Hu, 79, had been seated next to Mr. Xi in the front row on the stage when, possibly unwell, he was helped to his feet by an aide and escorted out of the cavernous hall, without explanation. As he was led off the stage, Mr. Hu appeared to speak to Mr. Xi and to pat Li Keqiang, the premier, on his shoulder.

Mr. Li and two other top officials who had risen under Mr. Hu stepped down from the Central Committee, indicating that all three are set to retire. Mr. Li has served for the past decade as China’s premier, the second most powerful post in China, but Mr. Xi has overshadowed Mr. Li for years.

“There’s been a lot about the premier-as-savior talk — that these officials could stay around and push back against Xi, but obviously that’s not going to happen,” said Christopher K. Johnson, the president of the China Strategies Group and a former C.I.A. analyst of Chinese politics. “Proximity to Xi is all that really matters now.”

Hu Chunhua, currently a vice premier, still has a chance of entering the new Politburo Standing Committee, despite his lack of robust ties to Mr. Xi.

“If Hu Chunhua is promoted, he will be expected to be a loyal Xi acolyte like everybody else,” Mr. McGregor said. “There are no alternative centers of power centers left in the Standing Committee, if there ever were, even symbolically.”

Aside from Mr. Li, several others set to retire were senior leaders with a record of favoring market-oriented policies and a somewhat less confrontational stance toward the West. They included Wang Yang, a current Politburo Standing Committee member, as well as three top officials in finance: Liu He, Guo Shuqing and Yi Gang.

“The generation of financial technocrats with both professional training and deep connections with the global financial community is passing from the scene,” said Victor Shih, a specialist in China’s politics and finance at the University of California in San Diego. He said they were being “replaced by career provincial bankers who have a track record of executing the party’s policies.”

Cheng Li, a specialist in Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution, had a similar take. “Xi Jinping has further consolidated near-absolute power by promoting his protégés to the top leadership,” he said.

The shake-up of China’s leadership reflected a partial break with an informal rule of the past two decades: that senior officials 68 and older retired at party congresses, while those 67 or younger stayed on. Mr. Li, 67, and Mr. Wang, the same age, were both out. But Wang Huning, who recently turned 67, stayed on the Central Committee and is likely to remain a key political lieutenant to Mr. Xi, who is 69.

Officials seen as possible additions to the next Politburo Standing Committee include Li Qiang, the party chief of Shanghai, who oversaw its bruising Covid lockdown earlier this year. He was essentially Mr. Xi’s chief of staff when both worked in Zhejiang Province 15 years ago. Ding Xuexiang, currently a senior aide to Mr. Xi, is also a strong contender for elevation into the next top lineup.

The makeup of the new Central Committee suggested that Mr. Xi was generally happy with the handling of China’s diplomacy, military affairs and domestic security, several analysts said.

China’s ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, was promoted to full membership in the Central Committee. He had worked closely with Mr. Xi as the foreign ministry’s head of protocol soon after Mr. Xi became China’s top leader, and now has a rank in the party that leaves him well positioned to play an even larger role in China’s foreign policy.

Mr. Xi kept on board Zhang Youxia, a military commander who, at age 72, had been widely expected to retire. General Zhang has been at the forefront of modernizing the People’s Liberation Army, and has combat experience in China’s border conflict with Vietnam from 1979.

“By pushing moderates and potential rivals out of the leadership, Xi conveys his overall priorities for sociopolitical stability, national security and policy continuity now and in the years to come,” said Mr. Li, the Brookings expert.

nytimes.com · by Keith Bradsher · October 22, 2022

4. Former Chinese president Hu Jintao unexpectedly led out of party congress

So "Who's on first?"

Was Hu sitting in the wrong seat? Was he showing some kind of resistance? Was this an orchestrated show by Xi? What is the message?

Former Chinese president Hu Jintao unexpectedly led out of party congress

A frail-looking Hu seemed reluctant to leave the front row in Beijing’s Great Hall, with no explanation given for his departure

Xi tightens grip on power as Communist party elevates his status

The Guardian · October 22, 2022

Former Chinese president Hu Jintao was unexpectedly led out of Saturday’s closing ceremony of the Communist party congress, AFP journalists on the scene witnessed.

The frail-looking Hu, 79, initially seemed reluctant to leave the front row of politburo standing committee members in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, where he was sitting next to President Xi Jinping.

He had brief exchanges with Xi and the premier, Li Keqiang, after stewards spoke with him. A steward, holding Hu’s arm, led the former president out.

Xi Jinping tightens grip on power as China’s Communist party elevates his status

Hu patted Li’s shoulder as he left. His departure was not explained.

Hu, who retired in 2013, appeared at last Sunday’s congress opening with his hair completely grey.

Xi, 69, is widely expected to be reaffirmed this weekend as the party’s general secretary, paving the way for him to gain a norm-breaking third term as Chinese president next March.

The new central committee of about 200 senior party officials was elected shortly after 11am on Saturday, state media agency Xinhua reported, without disclosing a full list of members.

The Guardian · October 22, 2022

5. China reaffirms Xi's dominance, removes No. 2 Li Keqiang

China reaffirms Xi's dominance, removes No. 2 Li Keqiang

AP · by KEN MORITSUGU · October 22, 2022

BEIJING (AP) — China’s ruling Communist Party reaffirmed President Xi Jinping’s continued dominance in running the nation Saturday, one day ahead of giving him a widely expected third five-year term as leader.

A party congress effectively removed Premier Li Keqiang from senior leadership. Li, the nation’s No. 2 official, is a proponent of market-oriented reforms, which are in contrast to Xi’s moves to expand state control over the economy.

The weeklong meeting, as it wrapped up Saturday, also wrote Xi’s major policy initiatives on the economy and the military into the party’s constitution, as well as his push to rebuild and strengthen the party’s position by declaring it absolutely central to China’s development and future.

Analysts were watching for signs of any weakening of or challenge to Xi’s position, but none was apparent. The removal of Li, while not unexpected, signaled Xi’s continuing tight hold on power in the world’s second-largest economy.

“The congress calls on all party members to acquire a deep understanding of the decisive significance of establishing comrade Xi Jinping’s core position on the party Central Committee and in the party as a whole and establishing the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought,” said a resolution on the constitution approved at Saturday’s closing session.

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“Xi Jinping Thought” refers to his ideology, which was enshrined in the party charter at the previous congress in 2017.

In brief closing remarks, Xi said the revision to the constitution “sets out clear requirements for upholding and strengthening the party’s overall leadership.”

Li was among four of the seven members of the party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee who were missing from its new 205-member Central Committee, which was formally elected at the closing session.

That means they won’t be reappointed to the Standing Committee in a leadership shuffle that will be unveiled Sunday. Xi is widely expected to retain the top spot, getting a third term as general secretary.

The three others who were dropped were Shanghai party chief Han Zheng, party advisory body head Wang Yang, and Li Zhanshu, a longtime Xi ally and the head of the largely ceremonial legislature.

Li Keqiang will remain as premier for about six more months until a new slate of government ministers is named.

If he had stayed on the Standing Committee, it would have indicated some possible pushback within the leadership against Xi, particularly on economic policy. Li had already been largely sidelined, though, as Xi has taken control of most aspects of government.

The more than 2,300 delegates to the party congress — wearing blue surgical masks under China’s strict “zero-COVID” policy — met in the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.

Most media, including all foreign journalists, were not allowed into the first part of the meeting when the voting took place.

Former Chinese President Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor as party leader, was helped off the stage a little more than two hours into the 3.5-hour meeting without explanation, sparking speculation about his health.

Hu, 79, spoke briefly with Xi, whom he had been sitting next to in the front row, before walking off with an assistant holding him by the arm. Jiang Zemin, 96, who was president before Hu, did not appear at this congress.

Only 11 women were among the 205 people named to the Central Committee, or about 5% of the total. Members of minority groups made up 4%. Those percentages were roughly the same as in the last Central Committee.

At least one committee member, Wang Junzheng, the Communist Party leader in Tibet, has been sanctioned by the U.S. for human rights abuses.

Police were stationed along major roads, with bright-red-clad neighborhood watch workers at regular intervals in between, to keep an eye out for any potential disruptions.

An individual caught authorities by surprise last week by unfurling banners from an overpass in Beijing that called for Xi’s removal and attacked his government’s tough pandemic restrictions.

A report read by Xi at the opening session of the congress a week ago showed a determination to stay on the current path in the face of domestic and international challenges.

Xi has emerged during his first decade in power as one of China’s most powerful leaders in modern times, rivaling Mao Zedong, who founded the communist state in 1949 and led the country for a quarter-century.

A third five-year term as party leader would break an unofficial two-term limit that was instituted to try to prevent the excesses of Mao’s one-person rule, notably the tumultuous 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, under which Xi suffered as a youth.

Xi has put loyalists in key positions and taken personal charge of policy working groups. In contrast, factions within the party discussed ideas internally under Hu and Jiang, his two immediate predecessors, said Ho-fung Hung, a professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins University.

“Right now, you don’t really see a lot of internal party debates about these different policies and there is only one voice there,” he said.

Xi has emphasized the central role of the Communist Party, expanding state control over society as well as the economy. In his remarks, he said the party, which marked its 100th anniversary last year, is still in its prime.

“The Communist Party of China is once again embarking on a new journey on which it will face new tests,” he said.

The congress concluded by playing the communist anthem, “The Internationale.”

___

Associated Press writer Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

AP · by KEN MORITSUGU · October 22, 2022

6. EXPLAINER: What would retreat from Kherson mean for Russia?

Excerpts:

Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta Center independent think tank, noted that capturing all the Kherson region and other southern areas would be a prize for Russia and their loss would have painful consequences for Putin at home and abroad.

“If the Russians leave Kherson, the Kremlin will face another wave of fierce criticism of the military command and the authorities in general from ultra-patriotic circles,” Fesenko said, adding that the fall of the city would further demoralize the armed forces and possibly fuel opposition to the mobilization effort.

He also said China and India. which are carefully watching Russia’s action in Ukraine, will see the fall of Kherson as a sign of Kremlin weakness.

“Putin will face reputational losses not only inside the country, but also in the eyes of China, and that could be particularly dangerous for the Kremlin,” Fesenko said.

EXPLAINER: What would retreat from Kherson mean for Russia?

AP · by The Associated Press · October 22, 2022

Ukrainian forces pressing an offensive in the south have zeroed in on Kherson, a provincial capital that has been under Russian control since the early days of the invasion.

The possible fall of the city would deal another humiliation to Moscow after a string of battlefield defeats and other setbacks, further cornering Russian President Vladimir Putin and setting the stage for a potential escalation of the nearly 8-month-old war.

A look at the military and political importance of Kherson:

WHY IS THE CITY SUCH A PRIZE?

Kherson, which had a prewar population of 280,000, is the only regional capital to be captured by Russian forces. The city and surrounding areas fell into Moscow’s hands in the opening days of the conflict as Russian troops quickly pushed their attack north from Crimea — the region illegally annexed by the Kremlin in 2014.

Its loss was a major blow to Ukraine because of its location on the Dnieper River, near the mouth of the Black Sea, and its role as a major industrial center. Ukrainian resistance fighters have challenged Russian troops for control of the city ever since, with acts of sabotage and assassinations of Moscow-appointed officials.

Kherson also sits at a point where Ukraine can cut off fresh water from the Dnieper to Crimea. Kyiv blocked those vital supplies after the Crimean Peninsula’s annexation, and Putin mentioned the need to restore them as one reason behind his decision to invade.

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Lights go out in Ukraine as Russia launches "massive" strike

During the summer, Ukrainian troops launched relentless attacks to reclaim parts of the province, also called Kherson and one of four regions that Russia illegally annexed after sham referendums last month. Ukraine has used U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers to repeatedly hit a key bridge on the Dnieper in Kherson and a large dam upstream also used as a crossing point. The strikes have forced Russia to rely on pontoons and ferries, also targeted by Ukraine.

This disrupts supply links to Kherson and the group of Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnieper and makes them vulnerable to encirclement. The shortages were exacerbated after an Oct. 8 truck bomb blew up part of the strategic Kerch Bridge linking Russia’s mainland to Crimea, which has served as a major supply hub for the Russian forces in the south.

WHAT HAS BEEN RUSSIA’S RESPONSE?

Putin blamed the Kerch Bridge attack on Ukraine’s military intelligence and responded by ordering a bombardment of energy infrastructure across Ukraine.

He also declared martial law in Kherson and the three other annexed regions in a bid to cement Moscow’s grip.

But as Ukrainian forces stubbornly pressed its offensive to the southwest alongside the Dnieper, Russian troops have found it increasingly difficult to stem their advance.

Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the newly appointed Russian commander in Ukraine, appeared to set the stage for a possible withdrawal from Kherson, acknowledging the situation in the region was “quite difficult” for Moscow and noting that the combat situation there was still evolving.

Russian authorities, who initially dismissed talk of evacuating the city, sharply changed course this week, warning that Kherson could come under massive Ukrainian shelling and encouraging residents to leave — but only to Russian-held areas. Officials said 15,000 of an expected 60,000 had been relocated by Thursday. Officials of the Moscow-appointed regional administration also pulled back, along with other civil servants.

Moscow has warned that Ukraine might try to attack the dam at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant about 50 kilometers (30 miles) upstream and flood broad areas, including the city of Kherson. Ukraine denies that and, in turn, accused Russia of planning to blow it up to cause catastrophic flooding before its retreat.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged the dam already was mined by Russia and urged world leaders to make clear to the Kremlin that blowing it up would “mean exactly the same as the use of weapons of mass destruction.”

WHAT WOULD LOSING KHERSON MEAN FOR RUSSIA?

A retreat from Kherson and other areas on the Dnieper’s west bank would shatter Russian hopes to press an offensive west to Mykolaiv and Odesa to cut off Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. Such a move would deal a devastating blow to its economy. It would also allow Moscow to build a land corridor to the separatist Transnistria region of Moldova, home to a major Russian military base.

“The loss of Kherson will turn all those southern dreams by the Kremlin into dust,” said Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov. “Kherson is a key to the entire southern region, which would allow Ukraine to target key supply routes for the Russian forces. Russians will try to retain control of it using all means.”

For Ukraine, capturing Kherson would set the stage for reclaiming the Russia-held part of the Zaporizhzhia region and other areas in the south, and eventually pushing back into Crimea.

“Ukraine just needs to wait until Kherson falls into its hands like a ripe apple, because the situation with supplies for the Russian group of forces keeps exacerbating by the day,” Zhdanov said.

Ukraine hopes to quickly double the number of U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers that could strike targets 80 kilometers (50 miles) away with a deadly precision, he said.

Reclaiming control of Kherson would also mean Kyiv could again cut off water to Crimea.

“After the deoccupation of Kherson, the Russians will again have problems with fresh water in Crimea,” Zhdanov added.

He said Putin could up the ante if faced with losing Kherson.

“The Russians would be ready to wipe Kherson off the face of the Earth rather than give it to Ukraine,” Zhdanov said.

Destroying the dam to cause massive flooding in the mostly flat area would be one way for Moscow to do that.

“The Russians want to show that a Ukrainian counteroffensive will face a tough response by the Kremlin that declared the region as part of Russia, and it’s scary to even think what that response could be,” Zhdanov added.

Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta Center independent think tank, noted that capturing all the Kherson region and other southern areas would be a prize for Russia and their loss would have painful consequences for Putin at home and abroad.

“If the Russians leave Kherson, the Kremlin will face another wave of fierce criticism of the military command and the authorities in general from ultra-patriotic circles,” Fesenko said, adding that the fall of the city would further demoralize the armed forces and possibly fuel opposition to the mobilization effort.

He also said China and India. which are carefully watching Russia’s action in Ukraine, will see the fall of Kherson as a sign of Kremlin weakness.

“Putin will face reputational losses not only inside the country, but also in the eyes of China, and that could be particularly dangerous for the Kremlin,” Fesenko said.

___

Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

AP · by The Associated Press · October 22, 2022

7. Zelenskiy calls on West to warn Russia not to blow up dam

Zelenskiy calls on West to warn Russia not to blow up dam

Reuters · by Jonathan Landay

Summary
Companies
Large area in southern Ukraine could be flooded -Zelenskiy
Ukrainian forces advancing near dam on west bank of Dnipro
Western powers call for probe into Iran drone accusations
U.S., Russian defence chiefs speak in first call since May

FRONTLINE NORTH OF KHERSON, Ukraine, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the West to warn Russia not to blow up a dam that would flood a large area of southern Ukraine, as his forces prepared to push Moscow's troops from the occupied city of Kherson.

In a television address, Zelenskiy said Russian forces had planted explosives inside the huge Nova Kakhovka dam, which holds back an enormous reservoir, and were planning to blow it up.

"Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster," he said.

Russia has accused Kyiv of rocketing the dam and planning to destroy it in what Ukrainian officials called a sign that Moscow might blow it up and blame Kyiv. Neither side produced evidence to back up their allegations.

The vast Dnipro bisects Ukraine and is several kilometres wide in places. Bursting the dam could send a wall of water flooding settlements below it, towards Kherson, which Ukrainian forces hope to recapture in a major advance.

It would also wreck the canal system that irrigates much of southern Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.

The alarm has echoes of a World War Two disaster at another huge dam further upriver, which Ukrainian historians said was dynamited by Soviet sappers as their troops retreated, causing floods that swept away villages and killed thousands of people.

Zelenskiy called on world leaders to make clear that blowing up the dam would be treated "exactly the same as the use of weapons of mass destruction", with similar consequences to those threatened if Russia uses nuclear or chemical weapons.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke for the first time since May and a top Russian diplomat said the call was needed to eliminate misunderstandings, TASS news agency reported. The Pentagon declined to offer specifics beyond saying that Austin, who initiated the conversation, emphasized a need for lines of communication amid the war in Ukraine.

'DIFFICULT DECISIONS'

One of the most important battles of the eight-month-old war is coming to a head near the dam as Ukrainian forces advance along the river's west bank, aiming to recapture Kherson and encircle thousands of Russian troops.

Ukraine has imposed an information blackout from the Kherson front, but Russian commander General Sergei Surovikin said this week the situation in Kherson was "already difficult" and Russia was "not ruling out difficult decisions" there.

Ukrainian troops manning a section of the front north of Kherson on Friday said there had been a noticeable reduction in recent weeks in shellfire from Russian positions in a tree line that sweeps across an expanse of fields, some 4 km away.

The drop off in shooting and an absence of Russian armour movement in the sector, they said, indicated the Russians were short of ammunition and equipment. The only sign of fighting was the occasional crump of an exploding shell in the distance.

"They've been shooting less starting about three weeks ago," said Myhailo, 42, who like other soldiers deployed with him withheld his last name. "And their drones are less active."

1/6

Satellite image shows the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River near Nova Kakhovka in Ukraine, October 18, 2022. Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS

"It's probably been about a month there's been less shelling," agreed Sasha, 19. "This has to finish at some point. Their ammunition can't last forever."

DRONES, MISSILES

The Kremlin on Friday sidestepped a question about whether or not President Vladimir Putin had given an order for Russian forces to withdraw from Kherson.

Ukraine's armed forces general staff said up to 2,000 newly-mobilised Russians had arrived in the region "to replenish losses and strengthen units on the contact line".

Russian-installed occupation officials have begun what they say is the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians across the river from towns on the west bank. They accused Kyiv of shelling a ferry overnight, killing at least four civilians. Ukraine said it had fired at a barge but only after a curfew when no civilians should have been out.

Several buses with evacuees from Kherson arrived on Friday in the north Crimean town of Dzhankoi. One man, who declined to give his name, said the city was under massive shelling.

"They are bombing bridges, everything," he said.

As Russian forces have faced setbacks on the battlefield since September, Putin has intensified the war. Last month he ordered the call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists, announced the annexation of Russian-occupied territory and repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia.

This month, he began a campaign of attacks using cruise missiles and drones to knock out Ukraine's power supply ahead of winter - strikes that Ukraine's energy minister said had hit at least half of the country's thermal generation capacity.

Kyiv and the West say that amounts to deliberate targeting of civil infrastructure and a war crime.

Moscow has acknowledged targeting energy infrastructure but denies targeting civilians, saying the aim of its "special military operation" is to degrade Ukraine's military.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press conference that Washington had seen no evidence that Russia is interested in ending its aggression toward Ukraine, and instead was "doubling and tripling down."

Since Thursday, Ukrainians have experienced countrywide calls to reduce electricity consumption and some blackouts, which the authorities say are necessary to fix power stations damaged in the attacks.

Britain, France and Germany on Friday called for a United Nations investigation of accusations Russia has used Iranian-origin drones in attacks, allegedly violating a U.N. Security Council Resolution.

A day earlier, the United States said Iranian troops were in Crimea and had helped fly the drones.

Iran has denied supplying the drones although many have been shot down and recovered making their provenance clear.

Reporting by Reuters bureaux Writing by Peter Graff, Andrew Heavens, and Michael Martina Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Angus MacSwan and Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Jonathan Landay

8. "You’ve told us why the Voice, but you haven’t told us what it is"

As always, an important historical perspective from Matt Amrstrong, among the only real authorities on these issues.

It does take the "last three feet" to close the [information and influence] deal.

Conclusion:

The role of VOA was clear, and its mission of broadcasting, while distinct, was complementary to the other information programs that disseminated information abroad. It was just as clear that there was no domestic prohibition on accessing any of the information disseminated abroad as authorized by the Smith-Mundt Act.

Edward R. Murrow would later describe broadcasting to reach target audiences abroad as relatively easy. Murrow said the hard part was that the other information programs operated in the “last three feet,” the in-person, face-to-face with foreign audiences.

"You’ve told us why the Voice, but you haven’t told us what it is"

An unintended and unintentionally long rebuke of two law review articles on Smith-Mundt

Matt Armstrong

20 hr ago

mountainrunner.substack.com · by Matt Armstrong

As I have been and continue to be busy with another writing project that is, to be honest, more important than this newsletter, I’ve been a bit lax in writing here. As both a distraction and to help me focus on that effort, this note revisits a post on my MountainRunner.us blog from December 2015. What follows amounts to a really long preface to that post, which is at the bottom and substantially shorter than the “preface.” If you are remotely interested in the Smith-Mundt Act, you’re likely to dig in. However, if you’re not, in all honesty, you may want to save time and stop reading now.

The context of the 2015 post was the persistent and hardy mythology that continues to be propagated that the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 intended from the start to prevent the information programs it authorized from being seen or heard by Americans. Pick a law review article – I’ll pick two offenders I hear most often, “Apple Pie Propaganda” by Weston Sager from 2015 with its loaded title or “The Smith-Mundt Act’s Ban on Domestic Propaganda” by Allen Palmer and Edward Carter from 2006 or any number of other articles – and you’ll find logical fallacies, projections, and false assumptions. A key point, but not the only point, which I’ll spend a “moment” on before revisiting the December 2015 post, is the arguments around the “domestic dissemination ban.”

It continues to surprise me that law review articles discussing Smith-Mundt fail to carefully parse words and their meanings, which seems an important point when examining statutes, intentions, and trajectories. I’ll leave aside the use of “propaganda” in these articles, a word these authors do not define nor explain why they knowingly used this inherently loaded term, the use of which could be described as an act of propaganda.

To start, Carter and Palmer, whom Sager cites, state, “There is evidence that legislators did not intend the original Smith-Mundt Act to prohibit domestic dissemination or of propaganda.” Carter and Palmer are nearly correct in their statement above. Nearly.

In their analysis of a 1972 debate, Carter and Palmer do note the US Attorney General (then Acting, his confirmation would come a few months later) differentiated between dissemination and availability. The authors themselves fail to acknowledge the difference, as did Sager. Carter and Palmer then implicitly adopt the narrative that the absence of a domestic ban was an oversight fixed in 1972. This leaves aside Senator Fulbright’s years-long campaign to shutdown USIA, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty.

It should be noted – and I have failed to find this quote in the many Fulbright hagiographies – that on February 17, 1972, just ten days after Fulbright successfully amended the Smith-Mundt Act to end USIA (more on that below) and just weeks before Fulbright sought to prevent a fellow Senator (James Buckley, brother of William F. Buckley) from showing a USIA film on New York television stations, that Fulbright had this to say about the RFE, RL, and VOA: “Mr. President, I submit that these radios should be given an opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of cold-war relics.” Fulbright’s attacks on USIA, which came out in full view in a 1967 hearing where he argued that any access to USIA materials potentially made USIA an arbiter of the truth (as part of an argument he conflates the activities of RFE with that of USIA and VOA).

The lack of context in these reviews is problematic, in my opinion, as intent seems to be a key element of understanding legislative purposes and trajectories. Along with Fulbright’s amendment to the Smith-Mundt Act (see Public Law 92-352 of July 13, 1972), which Carter and Palmer anonymize as merely an action by “Congress,” removing Fulbright’s role as the chief protagonist, Fulbright led the charge to amend the Smith-Mundt Act to prohibit any funding for any of its programs “unless previously authorized by legislation enacted by the Congress after the date of enactment of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1971” (see Public Law 92-226, February 7, 1972, amending Section 701 of the original Smith-Mundt Act). Anyone working in or near the government will recognize this threat to USIA: the agency’s authorization was effectively terminated at the end of the fiscal year, just a few months away. This was passed ten days before the Buckley debate. This, too, does not appear in the Fulbright biographies as far as I could find. While Carter and Palmer did occasionally explore intent in their analysis, as did Sager, they often ignored intent, and equally important context, when convenient, or from a lack of research. I am not suggesting malicious intent by the authors, but these works, like many others, by failing to apply equal parsing and analysis to the various elements appear like they are trying to fit their narrative within the accepted ~~wisdom~~ mythology around the Smith-Mundt Act.

It would also seem worthy of at least a footnote in discussions about the 1972 amendment – or perhaps just for your information – that in March 1972, a 21-member panel headed by Frank Stanton of the US Advisory Commission on Information and formerly of RAND Corporation and former the head of CBS, and supported by Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, recommended shuttering USIA and making VOA a private entity. I would not expect the law review authors to discuss, or even reference, fifteen years of reports that questioned USIA’s viability and effectiveness, but this 1972 recommendation came out essentially at the same time as Fulbright’s objected to Buckely’s use of a USIA film and would seem to be a relevant point left out of these analyses as if Fulbright was a neutral arbiter. A lot happened in a few short weeks.

Back Carter and Palmer being “nearly correct” about the 80th Congress in 1947-1948 prohibiting domestic dissemination of the information produced under the Smith-Mundt Act. Neither the State Department nor Congress intended to share the authorized programs with Americans. It just was not an issue. I’ll leave aside the relevance that much of Carter and Palmer’s and Sager’s historical citations and arguments focus not on the massive non-broadcast information programs authorized by the Act but on the relatively small radio broadcast operation, a relevant distinction they fail to acknowledge if they know about it all. They are “nearly correct” except for the difference between dissemination and access, which is not insignificant and, more importantly, not an oversight by the 80th Congress.

Kleindienst raised the difference in his reply to Fulbright regarding the Buckley matter, which Carter and Palmer share in their paper: “Kleindienst reasoned that the Smith-Mundt Act’s provision making U.S. propaganda [emphasis mine] materials available to news media representatives and members of Congress demonstrated legislative intent [as Kleindienst wrote in his reply to Fulbright] ‘to make USIA materials available to the American public, through the press and Members of Congress.’” The reasoning accurately reflected the intent of the 80th Congress who sought greater oversight over Smith-Mundt materials (remember that USIA was not established until 1953). Further, Stanton’s basic argument in 1967 against Fulbright’s then attempt to isolate USIA from oversight, and thus awareness and support, was that in light of the then-recently passed Freedom of Information Act, Americans should know what is said and done in their name abroad. This idea was turned on its head not just by Fulbright with his 1972 amendment but by Senator Zorinsky in 1985, who sought to close the “loophole” in Fulbright’s amendment, leading a federal court to rule USIA was exempt from FOIA requests. In a completely unrelated move, Congress later amended the Foreign Agent Registration Act to change “political propaganda” to “informational materials.” There’s that word propaganda.

There is a difference between dissemination and access. The Smith-Mundt Act was passed to authorize the State Department to disseminate information globally. The “dissemination abroad” wording of Section 501 of the original Act was an explicit authority requested by the State Department to provide clarity in the face of multiple statutory authorities that seemed to limit where and what State could operate. The text was not a restriction imposed by Congress.

It should be noted, and the law reviews fail to distinguish this with any clarity suggesting a failure to understand the underlying – and overlying – aspects, the context of Fulbright’s amendment limiting Congressional and public access. The same Section 501 provided for “Any such press release or radio script, on request, shall be available in the English language at the Department of State…for examination by representatives of United States press associations, newspapers, magazines, radio systems, and stations, and, on request, shall be made available to Members of Congress.”

Now, if the law reviewers were really parsing and getting into the details, they would note that Section 501 authorized the “preparation, and dissemination abroad, of information about the United States, its people, and its policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, and other information media, and through information centers and instructors abroad.” They would also note the difference between what was authorized to disseminate (like “motion pictures”) and what was available for review (“press release or radio script”), but they fail to get into that detail. Perhaps that’s because there was no intent to limit knowing what motion pictures (or film strips, or posters, or books, or speakers, or…) were sent abroad or seeing the details. Carter and Palmer and Segar, for example, could have noted that Buckley’s film was explicitly outside the apparent scope, but that level of parsing and analysis is absent in this genre. To be fair, the separation was not intended by the 80th Congress. Both Congress and State wanted the additional oversight. For State, greater visibility meant greater support and resources (contrast that with “public diplomacy” today, a sentiment fundamentally based on the Fulbright-Zorinsky narratives plus State’s institutional aversion to public diplomacy reinforced by USIA alumni after 1999). The “on request” was inserted, also at the State Department’s request, to block blanket requests for materials, which Congress concurred would happen. Why block the blanket requests? Because much of the materials were not in English – note the “available in the English language” was another nod to oversight – and would require translators, not to mention filing clerks and paper and, to the point, a greater appropriation.

So the materials were to be available on request. It should be noted there was no prohibition on the press associations et al. from re-using (read: disseminating) the materials, just as there was no prohibition on Congress from re-using (read: disseminating) the materials, which was affirmed by Fulbright’s 1972 amendment that aimed to prevent access, not re-use. It should also be noted that the Smith-Mundt Act required the government to “reduce such Government information activities whenever corresponding private information dissemination is found to be adequate” (Section 502), and one could argue that if you’re focused on State’s domestic dissemination, you should consider the private agencies in the US. In other words, domestic dissemination by the State Department, and subsequently by USIA, of these materials was already blocked.

It should also be noted the Smith-Mundt Act required the government to “utilize, to the maximum extent practicable, the services and facilities of private agencies, including existing American press, publishing, radio, motion picture, and other agencies, through contractual arrangements or otherwise It is the intent of Congress [to] encourage participation in carrying out the purposes of this At by the maximum number of different private agencies…consistent with the present or potential market for their services in each country” (Section 1005). Again, arguably there are adequate private agencies with adequate market share in the US. By the way, both Section 502 and Section 1005 (now 22 USC 1462 and 22 USC 1437, respectively) are specifically highlighted in the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012. Sager ignores or does not recognize these sections in his analysis. I know the two sections are there and why because I helped write the amendment and recommended they appear to specifically counter arguments such as Sager’s. That Sager is flat wrong in his statement the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act “repealed” the domestic dissemination ban should be evident in the discussion above.

This turned into a bit of the correction I’ve long wanted to write, and sometimes started, to address the problems with the legal review papers on the Smith-Mundt Act, none of which have I found to be accurate in this history or analysis. However, I’ll note that Carter and Palmer’s final recommendations are an argument to revert the Act back to its original intent and strip away the Fulbright-Zorinsky amendments and resulting narratives, but they did not realize that.

Now to the December 2015 post, which I edited it slightly for clarity. Its relevance to the above discussion should be readily apparent.

In August 1949, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs George V. Allen wrote an article for the Washington Star newspaper. It was a response to a frequent question of the time: why were Voice of America programs not conveniently heard inside the United States? In his role as assistant secretary, Allen was in charge of a vast collection of organizations and operations, far broader than what is typically under the “public diplomacy” umbrella today and broader than what the Director of the US Information Agency ever “owned” and managed. He wrote, in part,

The Voice of America, quite understandably, seems to have captured the greatest American interest among the many activities of our international information and educational program.

A newspaper reporter from my home State of North Carolina said to me the other day, “I’ve heard a lot about the Voice of America, but I’ve never really understood it. Please explain who or what is the Voice? Do you do the broadcasting yourself? If so, the Voice of America sure has a good North Carolina accent.”

Some time ago, I made a speech in Detroit on the subject of the Voice of America, and at the end the chairman of the meeting said: “You’ve told us why the Voice, but you haven’t told us what it is.”

Allen’s title was still new, barely five years old. He was the first Foreign Service Officer to occupy the job and perhaps the only FSO to be formally in charge of all of the U.S. public diplomacy programs (notwithstanding the portfolio shrank with the creation of USIA in 1953 and again with the establishment of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in 1999). Archibald MacLeish and William Benton preceded Allen in the post as the inaugural and second office holders. Allen was in charge of an extensive international information service that included “documentary motion picture films, posters, pamphlets, photographs, and various other means to give foreigners correct information about the United States.” The broadcasting element was a relatively small add-on and not a core function.

In addition to the information side, Allen’s office managed and coordinated broad technical, educational, and cultural “interchanges” with countries abroad. This included sending US government experts abroad without necessarily a corresponding or equal number from the country abroad sent to the US. (At the time, international educational affairs, such as exchanges, were considered cultural affairs.) The portfolio, as noted, was rather broad. As Allen explained, “we give a small but significant support to American schools in Latin America, and we maintain most of the American libraries established abroad [by the Office of War Information] during the war.”

Through the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, these programs were authorized to disseminate information worldwide (i.e., “abroad”). Without the “dissemination abroad” text in the legislation, the State Department’s informational authorities would be limited to the Western Hemisphere, though maybe the Philippines and possibly Liberia were included (the existing authorities were a bit of a mess), once the temporary expanded authorization of global engagement ended with the expiration of the War Powers Act. The focus of the information programs subject to the “dissemination abroad” language in the Act were the libraries, films, books, and speakers programs as it was the intent of the State Department that the radio operation would be privatized before, or very soon after, the Act was signed into law. In fact, at the end of the 79th Congress in 1946, the privatization of the Voice of America was a higher priority than the broader information and exchange authorization.

Voice of America was only one-fourth of the total budget, and much of this was the enormous cost of the infrastructure. The network of domestic and foreign transmitters was tremendously expensive. This effort was of interest to Americans. While some could hear VOA on their radio sets, many could not.

To answer “Why can’t we in the United States hear the Voice of America broadcasts?” Allen wrote,

There are two principal reasons. First, the broadcasts are beamed on short-wave directional antennae toward particular areas overseas from transmitters near New York, Boston, Cleveland, and San Francisco. While it is difficult, it is not impossible to pick up the program on a short-wave receiver in the United States. [The second reason is] 85 percent of our programs are in foreign languages, by announcers speaking Polish, Russian, Czech, Chinese, Persian, etc., so if you happen to get the program, the chances are that you would not recognize it. The Department is glad to furnish full schedules and wave lengths on request. As noted [at the start of the article], scripts of all our programs, in English translation, are publicly available.

This is in stark contrast to the common modern interpretation of the limits of the law, an interpretation based almost entirely on Senator J. William Fulbright’s efforts to censor and eliminate USIA. These interpretations are based on limited reading from the 1960s, like the need for Congress to authorize the showing of a USIA film in the US (an action that refers back to language stating such material would be available “on request”) and ignore non-compete elements of the Act.

Allen was pragmatic about the role of the information programs, including the radio broadcast operation, and estimating their effectiveness. Measuring impact was challenging then, more so than today. Here is how he answered the question of effectiveness.

As to the companion inquiry of how effective this activity is behind the so-called iron curtain, my best answer at the moment is that the Soviet Government is now devoting approximately four times the capital equipment in transmitters, monitoring stations and so forth, and 10 times the manpower to jam our programs in their effort to block them off from reception in critical areas. They would hardly go to this trouble if the programs were not effective.

… Another frequent inquiry is: “Do you think you will succeed?” For those who ask the question in the sense of, “Will you solve the world crisis?” or even, “Can the Voice alone bring about a lasting peace?” the answer is, “Very probably not” The Voice and our other overseas information and educational activities are merely a part, and by no means the major part, of the total effort of the United States to achieve a stable and lasting world order. But they are an important part of this effort, and they may be a decisive one.

The role of VOA was clear, and its mission of broadcasting, while distinct, was complementary to the other information programs that disseminated information abroad. It was just as clear that there was no domestic prohibition on accessing any of the information disseminated abroad as authorized by the Smith-Mundt Act.

Edward R. Murrow would later describe broadcasting to reach target audiences abroad as relatively easy. Murrow said the hard part was that the other information programs operated in the “last three feet,” the in-person, face-to-face with foreign audiences.

mountainrunner.substack.com · by Matt Armstrong

9. The secret history of America’s tactical nukes

I will ask the nuclear experts to comment on this history.

They do not mention the Special Forces favorite - the SADM - special atomic demolition munition.

Photos at the lnk: https://www.vox.com/world/23409451/secret-history-of-americas-tactical-nukes

Excerpts:

With Putin’s threats against Ukraine comes a new calculus for how the small guild of nuclear experts sees a possible resolution. Samore’s concern is that Putin would use tactical nuclear weapons not as a military instrument but as a coercive measure — “In other words, to say to Kyiv, ‘Unless you surrender or accept our terms for a ceasefire, we’re going to keep using nuclear weapons in an escalating way.’”

The precedent for that is, worryingly, the US’s own use of nuclear coercion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only times that nukes have been used in war.

For Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers and is now 91, Putin is already doing that, “using” his nuclear arsenal through his threats. The United States “used those threats in the past repeatedly, in maintaining our sphere of influence around the world, right up to the borders of the old Soviet Union or of China,” Ellsberg told an interviewer in April. “The Russians have gone back to Eisenhower’s old New Look doctrine, massive retaliation doctrine, or reliance on nuclear threats, to compensate for the shortcomings of their conventional forces.”

As Ellsberg put it, “They’re doing what we did in the fifties and the sixties.”

The secret history of America’s tactical nukes

Would Russia launch a small nuke? Look to the US’s own troubled nuclear history.

By Jonathan Guyer @mideastXmidwest jonathan.guyer@vox.com Oct 21, 2022, 7:00am EDT

Vox · by Jonathan Guyer · October 21, 2022

Preparing a Lance Missile for firing from a self-propelled launcher, White Sands Missile Range, July 1, 1964.

Bettmann/Contributor

Russia has about 2,000 small nuclear weapons, known as tactical nukes. But most of the world probably hadn’t been thinking about them until Vladimir Putin reached new desperate lows in the invasion of Ukraine. “This is not a bluff,” he said upon the mass mobilization of Russian troops last month. “And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them.”

The Russian president has issued veiled threats from the early moments of the war, but his more overt recent threats led US President Joe Biden to say that the risk of nuclear “armageddon” is the most acute since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Now the question that permeates all discussions of Russia’s war: Would Putin break with international norms to strike Ukraine or its partners with a tactical nuclear weapon? The US would likely respond with a conventional weapon, directly attacking Russia, and the conflict would almost surely escalate. But what has largely been a proxy war between the two countries could turn into something altogether more dangerous.

Since the onset of Putin’s invasion, the US media has at times painted him as a madman and an irrational actor, in large part because of that threatening language suggesting he might use nukes.

But the history of tactical nuclear weapons during the Cold War offers a more complex story that is important to contextualizing the current crisis. After World War II, it was the United States, in fact, that first developed an arsenal of small-yield nuclear arms for the battlefield, not to destroy a whole country and win a war, but to win a specific tactical advantage or battle. As recently as the Vietnam War, generals urged the president to grant them authority to deploy tactical nukes in combat. In 2002, George W. Bush’s leaked nuclear strategy held out the preemptive use of weapons of mass destruction in seven countries. It remains shocking that Bush’s team reportedly sought “greater flexibility” in the threshold for using nukes, “in the event of surprising military developments” or “against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack.”

Though the likelihood of nuclear weapons being used in Europe today remains low, the tenor of threats has reached an intensity that recalls an era when the possibility of nuclear war was much more present.

How the US thought about tactical nukes in the Cold War

The US never launched tactical nukes into the battlefield. No country has. But moments in which their use was seriously considered are worth revisiting.

There were two broad categories where officials considered them early in the Cold War. One was should the US come into direct conflict with the world’s other superpower. Initially, the US saw itself as facing a Soviet threat that had superior conventional capabilities. Tactical nuclear weapons were a way to adjust the military balance in Europe to NATO’s favor in the ’50s and ’60s, to compensate for NATO’s vulnerability.

The nukes were designed to target Soviet tank regiments. In an era when weapons were not as precise as today’s missiles, the nuclear yield compensated for inaccuracy.

“The US invented and deployed an amazing array of nuclear weapons that were intended for battlefield use,” Gary Samore, the senior White House official for countering nuclear proliferation in the administrations of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, told me. “The situation now in Russia is very much the reverse, but the logic is the same. The Russians find themselves losing the war conventionally. And because of that, they could consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons as a way to compensate for their conventional weakness.”

A US Army officer adjusts the height of the Davy Crockett portable atomic warhead system, attached to a jeep, as three soldiers look on, 1950s.

US Army/Getty Images

A protest against the neutron bomb on August 6, 1977, in front of the US Embassy in Germany.

Klaus Rose/picture alliance via Getty Images

The smallest of them was the Davy Crockett, which could be moved on a portable launcher and whose missile contained a small nuclear warhead that could be fired a short distance, about 2 miles. Compared to the 15,000 tons of TNT yield of Little Boy, the bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, the Davy Crockett’s yield was indeed small, similar to 20 tons of TNT.

“The dark humor was that the blast radius was bigger than the range,” Stephen J. Flanagan, a RAND political scientist who worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations on nuclear strategy, told me. “It sounds kind of bizarre now, or if you’re a fan of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, but there was this enormous fear at the time that there was this gross imbalance, and that the only way that the United States could counter the extensive, massive conventional military capabilities of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact allies was through reliance on nuclear weapons.”

But that evolved into thinking about the collective strength of a nuclear arsenal, and was less focused on deploying a singular bomb on a hypothetical battlefield in Eastern Europe. President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration created the doctrine of massive retaliation, using nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the Soviet Union, and in the process popularized the slogan “more bang for the buck.”

The second set of circumstances was the proxy wars America fought around the world. The US considered dropping nukes on the battlefield during the Korean War, in 1950. When China joined North Korean troops and drove US forces south from the Yalu River, separating Korea and northeast China, Gen. Douglas MacArthur requested permission from President Harry Truman to launch nuclear weapons against Chinese military targets. “Truman rejected that because Korea was seen as a limited war,” Samore, who is now a professor at Brandeis, told me.

In 1958, the US again came close to using nuclear weapons. As Chinese communist forces sought to take over Taiwan, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and senior military leaders drafted plans to strike them with a nuclear weapon. Ultimately, President Eisenhower decided against it.

Questions endure about whether, four years earlier, Dulles offered a French counterpart two atomic bombs as their forces were getting clobbered by Ho Chi Minh’s forces in southern Vietnam.

As the Vietnam War deepened, there was further consideration of nuclear first use. In 1968, when the US was struggling in battles against Vietnamese insurgents, Gen. William Westmoreland sought to have nuclear capability. “Should the situation in the DMZ area change dramatically, we should be prepared to introduce weapons of greater effectiveness against massed forces,” he wrote in a cable.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff also considered “employing atomic weapons, whenever advantageous,” in the case that China intervened in the war, according to a memo that Eisenhower signed off on and that later surfaced in the Pentagon Papers.

It was part of a debate emerging as to whether US commanders in the field in Vietnam should have the power to use tactical nukes, and military leaders like Gen. Curtis LeMay and Adm. Harry Felt argued in favor.

President Lyndon B. Johnson repeatedly dismissed the nuclear option. “The president and I were shocked by the almost cavalier way in which the chiefs and their associates, on this and other occasions, referred to, and accepted the risk of, possible use of nuclear weapons,” wrote former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in his memoir In Retrospect. He called using nukes against China, itself a nuclear power, “almost surely an act of suicide.”

Yet McNamara was at times willing to make a nuclear bluff, as Brown University scholar Nina Tannenwald has noted. “We’d use whatever weapons we felt necessary to achieve our objective,” McNamara said in an April 1965 background briefing to reporters about Vietnam.

That captures the slowly developing shifts in the US’s thinking about nuclear weapons in that decade. Tannenwald argues in her 2007 book The Nuclear Taboo that “political and normative considerations” made tactical nukes “less usable than ever.” Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, who ran for the presidency in 1964, advocated for their use — and it may have contributed to him losing the race. “The stakes are too high,” said the voiceover of LBJ’s famous 1964 daisy-plucking campaign ad that depicted the extreme dangers of Goldwater’s nuclear saber-rattling. Yet if Goldwater had won, he very well may have approved the use of tactical nukes in Vietnam.

In the meantime, a young professor named Henry Kissinger came to prominence with his bestselling 1957 book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, which picked apart Eisenhower’s doctrine of massive retaliation and argued that a “limited nuclear war” could be won. Kissinger, when in the Nixon administration and after, recanted that preference. Last month, he told the Council on Foreign Relations, “we cannot permit nuclear weapons to become conventional weapons.”

Much of Washington’s brazen attitude to using nuclear weapons in the earlier part of the Cold War relates to a different way that many policymakers then thought about the weapons. James Acton, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explained that the distinction between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons didn’t emerge until the ’70s amid the arms control negotiations with Russia.

“This division between strategic and non-strategic crystallizes pretty late,” Acton told me. “The US military genuinely planned to use nuclear weapons in the Cold War as if they were some form of super artillery” — very large conventional weapons that could be deployed in the same way as conventional weapons.

“There is nobody in the US military or civilian defense sectors who really thinks about nuclear weapons as being super artillery anymore,” he told me. “I don’t think Russian political leadership — I mean Putin, personally — thinks about nuclear weapons as being super artillery.”

Apocalypse Now?

The US had 7,000 tactical nukes in Europe at one point, but “the United States largely pulled out of the tactical nuclear weapons business after the end of the Cold War,” says Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. “There was some fanciful dream about the utility of nuclear weapons in the early phases. And later, they became much more cautious about it. It sort of became a taboo.”

Today, the US has a small arsenal of tactical nukes dispersed among five bases across Europe and Turkey.

A file photo taken on January 10, 2001, shows US Air Force F-16 warplanes lining to take off from the Incirlik Air Base. According to the Federation of American Scientists, the US has about 20 tactical nuclear weapons there.

Tarik Tinazay/AFP via Getty Images

At the end of the Cold War, in 1991, President H.W. Bush withdrew most of the US’s tactical nuclear weapons from Europe. But for various reasons, tactical nukes were never a part of major START arms control treaties between the US and Russia. Experts told me that tactical nukes, because they are small and often can be delivered on conventional warheads, are tough to monitor and verify. For Moscow, tactical nukes were seen as closer to being a conventional weapon, and these major treaties were concerned with long-range capabilities. “We did try to include tactical nuclear weapons, and the Russians rejected it,” Samore said.

But there still have been moments before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that harked back to the dangers of the Cold War. In 2002, as part of a nuclear posture review, the George W. Bush administration drafted plans for the use of nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya, and Syria — not just in the case of one of those countries using a nuke, but “in the event of surprising military developments.” In Le Monde Diplomatique at the time, French author Pascal Boniface called it the Strangelove doctrine, writing, “never, until now, has the US proposed to pull the nuclear trigger not just first, but without prior provocation.”

President Trump, for his part, withdrew from the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, the only pact governing tactical nuclear arsenals with Russia. During the Trump administration, the US military once again began saying that it was necessary to have some low-yield and tactical nuclear weapons to play that tactical nuclear weapons game with the Russians. “That was a step back from what US policy had been,” Kristensen said.

With Putin’s threats against Ukraine comes a new calculus for how the small guild of nuclear experts sees a possible resolution. Samore’s concern is that Putin would use tactical nuclear weapons not as a military instrument but as a coercive measure — “In other words, to say to Kyiv, ‘Unless you surrender or accept our terms for a ceasefire, we’re going to keep using nuclear weapons in an escalating way.’”

The precedent for that is, worryingly, the US’s own use of nuclear coercion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only times that nukes have been used in war.

For Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers and is now 91, Putin is already doing that, “using” his nuclear arsenal through his threats. The United States “used those threats in the past repeatedly, in maintaining our sphere of influence around the world, right up to the borders of the old Soviet Union or of China,” Ellsberg told an interviewer in April. “The Russians have gone back to Eisenhower’s old New Look doctrine, massive retaliation doctrine, or reliance on nuclear threats, to compensate for the shortcomings of their conventional forces.”

As Ellsberg put it, “They’re doing what we did in the fifties and the sixties.”

Vox · by Jonathan Guyer · October 21, 2022

10. Frantic Putin Flexes New War Tactic That Is Mostly Useless

Excerpts:

“Even if the person is for [the war], they nonetheless say it was all organized badly and the president is to blame–he let down all the officials and the soldiers,” the source said.

If Putin was hoping to bounce back with his latest maneuver, it would seem he had poor timing. Even as the Russian leader sat down to declare unchecked security powers over Ukrainian territories, Russian-backed officials put in charge of some of those territories were openly fleeing an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Vladimir Saldo, the Kremlin-appointed leader of Kherson, said Wednesday that local Russian-backed authorities were evacuating their offices in anticipation of Ukrainian troops breaking through, and his deputy, Kirill Stremousov, urged people to “evacuate as fast as you possibly can.”

Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, laughed off what they described as overacting by the Kremlin.

“The Russians are trying to scare the people of Kherson with fake newsletters about the shelling of the city by our army, and also arrange a propaganda show with evacuation,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, wrote on Telegram.

Frantic Putin Flexes New War Tactic That Is Mostly Useless

FLAILING

The Kremlin, seeking to bounce back from an “anti-Putin trend” among the public, is trying out another party trick that will only drag millions more Russians into the war.

Allison Quinn

News Editor

Updated Oct. 19, 2022 4:23PM ET / Published Oct. 19, 2022 2:00PM ET

The Daily Beast · October 19, 2022

Getty

Russia’s Vladimir Putin pulled a new trick out of his bag Wednesday as he tried, for the umpteenth time, to turn the tide of his war against Ukraine while it drags into its eighth month with lots of lost lives and little else to show for it.

But just as with his “partial mobilization” order that sparked fury and street fights last month, the Russian president’s latest Hail Mary—the declaration of “martial law” in Ukrainian territories Moscow doesn’t even have full control of and sweeping new security measures for one-third of Russia—only seems to drag his own citizens deeper into the war and change little on the battlefield.

The decree signed by Putin after he gathered his minions to make the solemn announcement of martial law—seven months after reassuring his own citizens that things would never go that far—effectively imposes war-time restrictions on the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions in Ukraine which Moscow claims to control.

The decree, which takes full effect Thursday, also grants “additional authority” to the puppet leaders Russia appointed to head those regions, and allows for unspecified “other measures,” including “limitations on rights and freedoms” and “general or partial mobilization.” Six Russian regions on the border with Ukraine will also switch to a heightened-security regime that allows local authorities to restrict movement in and out of the area or move residents out if they deem it necessary.

Putin also announced the creation of a special council designed to “meet any needs” of the Russian military as the war drags on. The council, to comprised members of the security services, lawmakers, and members of the presidential administration, will be headed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

The move was quickly applauded by pro-Kremlin pundits and some of Putin’s most hard-line sycophants, like Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who gushed on Telegram that the president’s decree means newly occupied territories are now officially protected by Russia and Ukrainian cities will be wiped “off the face of the earth” if “even one bullet flies towards Russia.”

But human rights groups and legal experts noted that orders signed by Putin on Wednesday also leave the door open for authorities to confiscate ordinary people’s belongings to fulfill “the needs of the army,” enlist citizens to perform tasks “for defense purposes,” wiretap citizens’ phones, restrict entry and exit, and even detain or jail any people who hold citizenship of another country seen as an “enemy” to Russia.

The “martial law” order also comes amid plunging morale for Russia’s military as the full fallout of Putin’s mobilization order becomes clearer each day, with more and more fed-up family members of drafted troops blasting defense officials for sending men with no training or equipment to die on the battlefield.

Putin’s new decree was seen by some as a desperate way to widen the net in search of fresh meat.

“Evacuate as fast as you possibly can.”

“Not even mobilization and energy terror allowed the bunker terrorist to hold on to stolen territories, stop the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or deprive Ukraine of support from the entire civilized world,” Anton Herashchenko, an aide to Ukraine’s interior minister, wrote Wednesday.

He said the decree will now “make it possible to forcibly conscript male citizens of Ukraine and send them to the trenches to die, as was previously done with the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk.”

The Kremlin, apparently keenly aware of the blowback over the mobilization, was quick to make assurances Wednesday that Russian borders would not be shut down in light of the “martial law” order. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, likewise, promised Russians in the capital that the “normal rhythm of life” in the city would not be disrupted.

A day earlier, Kremlin sources interviewed by Meduza said Putin and his top defense officials were still feeling the sting of public anger over the bungled mobilization, which was declared over in Moscow after authorities realized residents had become “frustrated.”

But the damage is still done. And the presidential administration reportedly set up focus groups in major cities to determine just how much—only to find what one source quoted by Meduza called an “anti-Putin trend” even among ordinary citizens who generally support the so-called “special military operation” against Ukraine.

“Even if the person is for [the war], they nonetheless say it was all organized badly and the president is to blame–he let down all the officials and the soldiers,” the source said.

If Putin was hoping to bounce back with his latest maneuver, it would seem he had poor timing. Even as the Russian leader sat down to declare unchecked security powers over Ukrainian territories, Russian-backed officials put in charge of some of those territories were openly fleeing an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Vladimir Saldo, the Kremlin-appointed leader of Kherson, said Wednesday that local Russian-backed authorities were evacuating their offices in anticipation of Ukrainian troops breaking through, and his deputy, Kirill Stremousov, urged people to “evacuate as fast as you possibly can.”

Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, laughed off what they described as overacting by the Kremlin.

“The Russians are trying to scare the people of Kherson with fake newsletters about the shelling of the city by our army, and also arrange a propaganda show with evacuation,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, wrote on Telegram.

The Daily Beast · October 19, 2022

11. Russians in Ukraine preparing to help overthrow Putin—opposition leader

Excerpts:

Further defeats in Ukraine—like the reported impending Russian flight from Kherson—may accelerate the process. "It's like the frog which is being boiled. The temperature is rising constantly but gradually."

"Territorial losses would be very impactful," he added. "The retreat from the Kharkiv region had its effect on the society, and that actually was the reason for mobilization...The loss of Kherson would have an even larger impact."

Ponomarev said he hopes for a democratic system to replace Putin's revanchist kleptocracy, abolishing the position of president and relying on "collective leadership." Ponomarev's stated goal is to help usher in the new system and then step back to make way for untainted successors.

Current elites surrounding Putin, he said, must not be allowed to be a part of the new Russia. "The majority of them don't want to change anything," Ponomarev said. "They still want just to bail themselves out...they're not questioning the origins of the system, and we should not allow them to preserve the system."

Ponomarev warned that the total collapse of Russia would be "dangerous and counterproductive for everyone," though added that republics like Chechnya may make plays for independence.

"We need to recreate Russia," he said. "We need to genuinely reset Russia, rebuild it from scratch."

Russians in Ukraine preparing to help overthrow Putin—opposition leader

Newsweek · by David Brennan · October 20, 2022

Volunteer Russian fighters battling their compatriots in Ukraine can be a vanguard in a future revolution to topple Vladimir Putin, a prominent opposition leader has said.

Ilya Ponomarev—a member of the Russian parliament from 2007 to 2016 and the only one to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014—told Newsweek Putin has set the stage for a "new Russian revolution" with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"In our situation, I think it's a must that we will face a violent protest and an armed protest, I think it would not happen without armed resistance," Ponomarev said.

An image posted by Freedom of Russia on Telegram. The group said it showed its fighters before a combat exit near Bakhmut, Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in October 2022. "For Russia! For freedom!" the caption said. Freedom of Russia/Telegram

"I think there is no chance that may happen. That's why we are preparing for this and that's why we're preparing military elements with Russians right now in Ukraine, which are fighting alongside the Ukrainian army on the frontlines...they're ready to go to Russia at the decisive moment."

Ponomarev—author of Does Putin Have to Die?: The Story of How Russia Becomes a Democracy after Losing to Ukraine—lives in Ukraine and served in a unit defending the country during the invasion's early days.

He said there are some 4,000 Russian nationals serving in the Ukrainian armed forces, several hundred members of dedicated Russian volunteer regiments.

"I am not just in touch with them, I am very actively integrated," Ponomarev said. "Right now on the front lines, there are several hundred. But in the preparation pipeline we are talking about thousands."

Soldiers of the Russian Legion "Freedom of Russia" walk down the streets after signing a declaration on cooperation and coordination of actions between volunteer units that are fighting against the Russian army in town of Irpin, near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on August 31, 2022. SERGEI CHUZAVKOV/AFP via Getty Images

Ponomarev made headlines earlier this year by publicizing the previously unknown anti-government National Republican Army guerrilla group, which claimed responsibility for the car bomb assassination of Darya Dugina, the daughter of influential far-right ideologue Aleksandr Dugin.

The NRA—of which there has been no independent verification—are not the only guerrilla group operating in Russia, Ponomarev said.

"We see every day several attacks happening in Russia; arson against military posts, acts of sabotage on railroads, a new wave that just started with the NRA was a series of hacking attacks on the most critical portions of government data," he said. "It's all happening."

This file photo shows Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of the Russian parliament and a long-time critic of President Vladimir Putin. Ponomarev told Newsweek that revolution in Russia will happen in the coming year. Ilya Ponomarev

The NRA, he said, "are not the only ones we are working with, I am very actively talking with others. There is a group called Black Bridge, there is a group called the Militant Organization of Anarcho-Communists, there are right-wing groups in Russia and we are in contact with many of them."

"It's all grassroots," he said. "It's like franchises. There are certain principles and people are coming to them to be part of something, but many people do their attacks just on their own without any coordination. I would say that 50 percent of the attacks in Russia are being done without any coordination."

Such nascent campaigns inside Russia need manpower, Ponomarev said; hence his support for the European Union ban on tourist visas for Russians. "We need people to stay in Russia and fight," he said.

Russia is not yet on the brink of revolution, Ponomarev said, but is not far off. "I think it will happen next year," he said. "He's radicalized society very much, and that's why I made the prediction in March that this birthday he just had on October 7...this birthday would be his last," Ponomarev said of Putin. "I stand by this."

Putin's fall, when it comes, will be remembered as self-inflicted, the politician added. "I was thinking we had another 10 years, since Putin has secured his re-election, his reappointments through the amendments to the constitution. Financially, the Russia regime was well off. There were no significant threats to him within the society."

"I didn't think that he would invade Ukraine and put himself in such mortal danger. As soon as it started on February 24 I said that the final countdown has started."

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a Security Council meeting via a video link at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on October 19, 2022. SERGEI ILYIN/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images

Further defeats in Ukraine—like the reported impending Russian flight from Kherson—may accelerate the process. "It's like the frog which is being boiled. The temperature is rising constantly but gradually."

"Territorial losses would be very impactful," he added. "The retreat from the Kharkiv region had its effect on the society, and that actually was the reason for mobilization...The loss of Kherson would have an even larger impact."

Ponomarev said he hopes for a democratic system to replace Putin's revanchist kleptocracy, abolishing the position of president and relying on "collective leadership." Ponomarev's stated goal is to help usher in the new system and then step back to make way for untainted successors.

Current elites surrounding Putin, he said, must not be allowed to be a part of the new Russia. "The majority of them don't want to change anything," Ponomarev said. "They still want just to bail themselves out...they're not questioning the origins of the system, and we should not allow them to preserve the system."

Ponomarev warned that the total collapse of Russia would be "dangerous and counterproductive for everyone," though added that republics like Chechnya may make plays for independence.

"We need to recreate Russia," he said. "We need to genuinely reset Russia, rebuild it from scratch."

Newsweek · by David Brennan · October 20, 2022

12. IntelBrief: The Evolution of the Online Violent Extremist Landscape

IntelBrief: The Evolution of the Online Violent Extremist Landscape - The Soufan Center

thesoufancenter.org · by Mohamed · October 20, 2022

October 20, 2022

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Bottom Line Up Front

Terrorist and violent extremist use of the Internet continues to evolve, especially as new technologies afford nefarious actors more opportunities to radicalize, recruit, and raise funds.
Terrorist groups have relied on the internet for the diffusion of tradecraft, taking advantage of do-it-yourself “DIY” chatrooms to improve technical know-how related to artificial intelligence, 3-D printing, and drones.
Online forums can serve as incubators of extremist rhetoric, while algorithms can prioritize extremist content and in some cases contribute to an accelerated radicalization process.
It will be crucial to enlist the private sector in countering terrorism and extremism online, to forge effective public-private partnerships that can operationalize well-intended but vague and under-resourced policy prescriptions.

Terrorist and violent extremist use of the Internet continues to evolve, especially as new technologies afford nefarious actors more opportunities to radicalize, recruit, and raise funds. The online extremist landscape has matured significantly from the days when the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), or “Zapatistas,” in Mexico were using the Internet in the 1990s to disseminate information and white supremacists in the United States were using static websites and message boards to spread propaganda. In 2022, there are almost no terrorist or violent extremist groups without at least some kind of online presence. Over time, non-state actors have proven highly adaptive and skilled in the virtual space, able to rebound from counterterrorism actions while attempting to stay one step ahead of law enforcement authorities and intelligence agencies. In a world where extremists connect online, political boundaries, geography, and proximity are less determinative. However, it is crucial not to downplay the importance of real-world interactions, as radicalization is rarely a result of solely online behaviors.

Terrorists and violent extremists continue to seek to exploit the Internet to finance their activities and organizations. Cryptocurrencies have captured the attention of groups like the Islamic State and Hamas, while far-right extremists have also dabbled in the myriad of crowdsourcing platforms to raise money. Islamic State’s “virtual plotter” model, where operatives coordinate attacks online with support around the globe, highlights the importance of the internet for networking and coordination within and among terrorist networks, echoing the increased use of the internet for licit purposes such as work, community organization and socializing, particularly in an era shaped by Covid lockdown experiences. Enabled by end-to-end encryption, this approach revolutionized attack planning for jihadist organizations. The Internet has also been a force multiplier for recruitment and radicalization, particularly as extremist narratives and ideas can be shared widely, spread quickly, and then mainstreamed into public discourse. Terrorist and extremist groups also rely on the internet for the diffusion of tradecraft, taking advantage of do-it-yourself “DIY” chatrooms to improve technical know-how related to artificial intelligence, 3-D printing, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) or drones. Moreover, there is a mobilization to action or incitement aspect, wherein jihadists, far-right accelerationists, and others actively call for their followers to engage in real-world acts of violence and terrorism.

Terrorists continue to find new and innovative ways to leverage the Internet, as it remains an effective tool for radicalization. Online echo chambers reinforce pernicious narratives, perpetuate violent conspiracy theories, and spread mis-, dis-, and mal-information (MDM), without risk of dilution from moderate positions and critical discourse. Online interactions reinforce an ‘us versus them’, in-group/out-group dynamic that rewards those who adopt the most extreme positions. These narratives, often xenophobic or radically ethno-centric, are actively promulgated and spread by political and community leaders who seek to capitalize on extremist rhetoric for political gamesmanship or electoral success, mainstreaming such narratives in the process. Online forums serve as incubators of extremist rhetoric, while malicious algorithms prioritize extremist content and, in some cases, contribute to an accelerated radicalization process. The proliferation of online manifestos, particularly among far-right attackers, is a new twist to an old tactic, supplanting jihadi martyrdom tapes that were used to both inspire future attacks and sow fear and terror among civilian populations (and to blackmail any would-be attackers who might get cold feet). These manifestos live forever online and are aimed not just at radicalizing would-be supporters but also as an eternal repository to learn and refine tradecraft, weapons maintenance, and other tactics, techniques, and procedures.

Disrupting terrorist and extremist networks online has proven challenging. The past decade has witnessed the ascendance of charismatic figures who worked to effectively used online tools to promote violent ideologies - Anwar al-Awlaki, for example - who influenced and, in some cases, had direct contact with dozens of individuals who committed attacks or were part of disrupted plots. He also used his online popularity to transcend the divide between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, a feat few have been able to accomplish. Silicon Valley and social media companies have taken important actions with respect to content moderation, however begrudgingly. Initiatives like the Christchurch Call, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) and Tech Against Terrorism, for example, have provided important platforms for research, learning, and international cooperation. However, one of the key tools to address terrorist and extremist content online, de-platforming, has been far from the panacea some had hoped for, as extremists migrated from mainstream tech platforms like Facebook and Twitter to more fringe sites, including 4chan, 8chan, Gab, and Telegram, to name just a few.

Moreover, tailored counternarratives and strategic communications campaigns aimed at preventing and countering violent extremism have been inconsistent at best and amateurish at worst, leading many to be pessimistic about future efforts in this space. There are also fundamental differences among some key stakeholders; some of the legislation relating to terrorist use of the internet would not be possible to replicate in the United States, for example, in view of the Constitutional protections of free speech. As such, it becomes difficult for international actors to take action against individuals or groups that base their online operations in the U.S. With the advent of the Metaverse and other emerging technologies and platforms, it will be crucial to enlist the private sector in countering terrorism and extremism online. Forging effective public-private partnerships – ones where government, private sector organizations, communities, and civil society organizations can cooperate and collaborate on tailored solutions - that can operationalize well-intended but vague and under-resourced policy prescriptions, will be imperative to create actionable solutions that mitigate and prevent the proliferation of extremist content online.

thesoufancenter.org · by Mohamed · October 20, 2022

13. China has opened up secret police stations in these countries

Of course the Chinese might counter with all the "FBI offices" the US has overseas (legal attaches) or perhaps the presence of NY City's overseas police presence for counter-terrorism. I am not defending China or trying to use "whataboutism" but the PRC might use this type of US overseas presence as a justification for their actions.

China has opened up secret police stations in these countries

Newsweek · by John Feng · October 19, 2022

Beijing's law enforcement tactics beyond its borders are under scrutiny after a report revealed dozens of cities—including New York—were hosting Chinese overseas police stations.

A pilot program run by the public security bureaus of Fuzhou and Qingtian counties—of coastal Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, respectively—had established 54 "overseas police service centers" across five continents, 25 cities and 21 countries as of June 21, according to Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders.

The overseas service stations were created in the name of combating transnational crime, especially telecommunications fraud, which has already seen the arrest of a large number of Chinese nationals living abroad. Their stated tasks also include the provision of administrative services, such as the renewal of Chinese driver's licenses, the report said.

Safeguard Defenders said China's policing tactics were problematic as they targeted suspects without firmly establishing links to crime or adhering to due process in host countries, chiefly by coercing the family members of alleged fugitives as a means to "persuade" them to return on their own.

Between April 2021 and July 2022, Chinese authorities arrested 230,000 suspects this way, the majority from Southeast Asia, the NGO said.

A policeman stands by a Chinese Communist Party flag at the Site of the First National Congress of the CCP, on July 1, 2022, in Shanghai, China. House Republicans have written to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Attorney General Merrick Garland about a Chinese overseas police service center in New York City. Hugo Hu/Getty Images

In the United States, the report's open-source data indicated one such service center in New York City. In Canada, three were established in Toronto.

In South America, there was one each in Quito and Guayaquil, Ecuador; Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Viña del Mar, Chile.

Most of the Chinese overseas police stations were located in Europe, including nine in Spain, the most of any country on the list: three in Madrid, three in Barcelona, two in Valencia and one in Santiago de Compostela.

Italy was hosting the second-most stations in Europe with four: Rome, Milan, Florence and Prato.

In France, three service centers were operating out of Paris. Portugal also hosted one each in Porto, Lisbon and Madeira. In United Kingdom, the report found two in London and one in Glasgow.

The Netherlands was hosting two such centers in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, respectively, while the Czech Republic had two in Prague. Budapest, Hungary, also had two, one for each of the Fuzhou and Qingtian police bureaus—a common phenomenon across Europe.

European countries each hosting only one Chinese police station included Dublin, Ireland; Bratislava, Slovakia; Frankfurt, Germany; Athens, Greece; Stockholm, Sweden; Vienna, Austria; Odessa, Ukraine; and Belgrade, Serbia.

In Africa, Benin City, Nigeria; Maseru, Lesotho; and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, each hosted one.

In Asia, at least one police center was operating out of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Sirdaryo, Uzbekistan; Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei; Tokyo, Japan; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Safeguard Defenders' September report, 110 Overseas, said the open-source figures represented a partial list of activities linked only to the two police bureaus, and that there were likely many more associated with the police of other major Chinese cities.

The overseas stations are often embedded in overseas Chinese community associations, the report said. The number 110 dials the police in China.

A policeman with protective mask stands by a police car in front of a luxury car store on July 1, 2022, in Shanghai, China. House Republicans have written to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Attorney General Merrick Garland about a Chinese overseas police service center in New York City. Hugo Hu/Getty Images

A more concerning factor of Chinese police operations on foreign soil, however, is Beijing's targeting of political dissenters and others likely to be subject to persecution once "persuaded" to return home, said the NGO.

"Persuasion to return" allows the authorities to skip juridical protocol such as protecting the target's right to a fair trial, it said.

"These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate the international rule of law, and may violate the territorial integrity of third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods," the report said.

"Abandoning any pretext of due process or the consideration of suspects' innocence until proven guilty, targeting suspects' children and relatives in China as 'guilty by association' or 'collateral damage,' and using threats and intimidation to target suspects abroad, is now itself becoming an endemic problem," it said.

"Whether the targets are dissidents, corrupt officials or low-level criminals, the problem remains the same: The use of irregular methods—often combining carrots with sticks—against the targeted individual or their family members in China undermines any due process and the most basic rights of suspects," Safeguard Defenders concluded.

Earlier in October, Spanish newspaper El Correo corroborated some of the NGO's concerns when it quoted an unnamed Chinese diplomat as saying: "The bilateral treaties are very cumbersome and Europe is reluctant to extradite to China. I don't see what is wrong with pressuring criminals to face justice..."

In January, in response to another Safeguard Defenders report, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: "China's judicial and law enforcement authorities strictly abide by international rules, fully respect the judicial sovereignty of other countries."

A spokesperson said the NGO's findings were "rife with speculation and lies."

A group of House Republicans expressed their "grave concern" over the report in a letter dated October 7 and addressed it to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

"It is deeply troubling that the Chinese government could use these service stations as its long arm policing abroad," they said.

The service centers "coerce purported Chinese fugitives abroad to return to China to face legal proceedings," the letter read. "By doing so, China avoids scrutiny on its human rights record in relation to repatriating alleged fugitives overseas by eschewing formal international cooperation mechanisms."

On the New York City branch in particular, the congressmen requested response to questions including whether the departments of State or Justice had approved the police presence.

"There should be no room for the Chinese government to exercise extraterritorial law enforcement unilaterally on U.S. soil," they said.

The State Department and the office of New York City Mayor Eric Adams didn't return Newsweek's request for comment before publication.

Newsweek · by John Feng · October 19, 2022

14. National cyber strategy possibly 'months' away, Inglis says

National cyber strategy possibly 'months' away, Inglis says

therecord.media · October 19, 2022

National cyber strategy possibly ‘months’ away, Inglis says

The release of the Biden administration’s national cybersecurity strategy is still potentially months away, National Cyber Director Chris Inglis said Wednesday.

“It’ll probably come out in the next month or two or three, given the processes that exist in Washington,” Inglis said at Mandiant’s mWISE conference in Washington, D.C.

The strategy, which Inglis’ office was tasked earlier this year to develop, was reportedly expected to be published in September. However, last month Inglis signaled that it had been delayed, in part because of a flood of feedback from the federal government and the private sector.

Inglis said the strategy will address regulation and market forces, the international dimension of digital security, as well as the assigning of roles and responsibilities and how to “actually get critical infrastructure into the right place.”

“So all of those things will be in that package, and hopefully in a way that it’s readable,” he joked.

Inglis noted that two-thirds of the 300 engagements his office has had with stakeholders about the strategy have been with the private sector, “so that we can actually make sure it’s a strategy that works for all of us, mobilizes all of us and gives all of us an opportunity to not just influence the strategy, but to ultimately take a role and participate in what that strategy will drive.”

Last week, the White House released its national security strategy, which included a section on cybersecurity. The 48-page document skimped on details, however, instead rehashing previous administration statements about its cyberspace policies.

Martin is a senior cybersecurity reporter for The Record. He spent the last five years at Politico, where he covered Congress, the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community and was a driving force behind the publication's cybersecurity newsletter.

therecord.media · October 19, 2022

15. Heartbreaking details revealed in SEAL team commander's fatal fall from helicopter

Damn. This is tragic.

Excerpt:

Special operations officials revealed the incident was caused by helicopter communication issues, an early release of the Bourgeois’ rope, and “a lack of adequate communication between the aircrew and the partner ground force,” officials said, according to Navy Times.

Heartbreaking details revealed in SEAL team commander's fatal fall from helicopter

americanmilitarynews.com · by Justin Cooper · October 21, 2022

New details were revealed on Thursday about the death of Navy SEAL Team 8 Cmdr. Brian Bourgeois, who died after he fell from a helicopter during a December 2021 training exercise.

Bourgeois, 43, died three days after he fell 40 feet from an Army Black Hawk helicopter during a fast-roping exercise in Virginia Beach, Virginia, according to Navy Times. Fast-roping is when troops descend a rope to deploy from a helicopter that hasn’t touched down.

Special operations officials revealed the incident was caused by helicopter communication issues, an early release of the Bourgeois’ rope, and “a lack of adequate communication between the aircrew and the partner ground force,” officials said, according to Navy Times.

The details were made public by U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), which led the investigation because the Black Hawk belonged to its 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, according to Navy Times.

The investigation was completed in May but is undergoing final review, Navy Times reported. But its findings have led to changes to keep similar incidents from happening, a USASOC spokesman told Navy Times.

“USASOC has taken several steps to prevent future events of this nature, including rewriting multiple procedures to ensure both aircrew and partner ground force take appropriate steps to ensure communication is clear and safety remains an utmost concern for all,” the spokesman, Lt. Col. Michael Burns, said.

Bourgeois was commissioned as a Navy officer in 2001, made commander in 2017 and joined SEAL Team 8 in November 2020, according to Navy Times. His decorations include the Bronze Star Medal with the Combat “V” device and the combat action ribbon.

He was posthumously promoted to the rank of captain by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, Navy Times reported.

“His promotion to captain is an absolute testament to his character, competence, and leadership,” stated Rear Adm. Keith Davids, commanding officer at Naval Special Warfare Command. “Brian was one of our very best leaders, who possessed all the attributes that make our force effective.”

Flip

americanmilitarynews.com · by Justin Cooper · October 21, 2022

16. Xi’s Third Term Is a Gift in Disguise

Excerpts:

But whereas Xi and his predecessors previously benefited from an initial post-transition honeymoon, during which they quietly formulated their ambitious agendas, China need not enjoy any such grace period this time around. That is, unless Western capitals continue to spin their wheels on the China challenge.

To be fair, the United States and its allies faced difficulties coming to terms with the Soviet threat, particularly in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The current debate around China—crystallized in the Biden administration’s recently released National Security Strategy—risks an unnecessary repeat. Western leaders and policymakers mistake competition with Beijing for an end, not a means, eschewing the hard work of defining the West’s desired end-states vis-à-vis China. Moreover, Washington’s current approach clings to a fast-fading unipolar period rather than the likelihood of a coming multipolar moment and all of the burden-sharing opportunities that kind of order will bring. Even worse, the White House’s not-so-subtle strategy of pitting countries against one another along democratic or autocratic lines risks alienating like-minded partners that might not be impeccable democracies but that share Washington’s concerns about China’s belligerence and have a vested interest in modernizing—not toppling—the creaking rules-based order.

Policymakers of all political stripes have also spent altogether too much time responding to each and every Chinese provocation rather than prioritizing those issues that matter most to core Western interests. If left unchecked, the West will continue wasting its limited resources on a range of illusory Chinese threats. And, lastly, even on issues such as trade, in which the West has agency to promote a prosperity agenda capable of rivaling China’s geoeconomic clout, too many countries, including the United States, lean instead on protectionism.

Which gets to the other gift that could come with Xi’s third term and the certainty of China’s policy stance: simply that Xi’s unbridled boldness could finally force Western countries to get out of the habit of endlessly studying the China problem and get on with the much harder work of confronting it.

Xi’s Third Term Is a Gift in Disguise

Foreign Policy · by Craig Singleton · October 21, 2022

Analysis

With China’s leader, what you see is what you get. That’s good news for Western policymakers.

By Craig Singleton, a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during the opening session of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on Oct. 16.

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during the opening session of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on Oct. 16. NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images

To exactly no one’s surprise, Xi Jinping will secure a third term atop the Chinese Communist Party at this week’s 20th Party Congress. Xi’s political triumph—which has been months, if not years, in the making—overturns decades of party precedent that used to limit Chinese leaders to two consecutive five-year terms. But in breaking the rules, Xi has done the United States and its allies a favor by taking the guesswork out of China’s path forward.

The formal extension of Xi’s tenure locks in China’s current policy orientation—one that is unabashedly hostile to political pluralism and free market forces. Indeed, for the last few years, Xi has outlined, often in excruciating detail, his desire not only to deepen the party-state’s influence over China’s economy and 1.4 billion citizens but also to extend that influence far beyond China’s borders. Rarely has a geopolitical rival so unambiguously telegraphed his plans. Yet the Western world remains woefully unprepared for the coming “decisive decade” in its rivalry with China, as U.S. President Joe Biden described it last week.

Policymakers may not realize it yet, but the relative certainty that comes with Xi staying in power is actually a gift in disguise. With his takeover complete, what you see with Xi is what you get, including his proclivity to recycle his own talking points and rehash his familiar vision of China’s future. Indeed, today’s great-power irony is that while Xi appears to have no new ideas to cope with a changing geopolitical landscape and clings to policy prescriptions formulated during the pre-pandemic era, the West appears awash in a whole range of competing ideas to effectively counter China.

That’s why this period of seemingly endless China policy inertia in the West—and the lack of a unifying framework with clearly defined end-states—needs to end and soon.

With the Cold War’s demise, Kremlinology, or the study of Moscow’s inner political workings, largely went out of style. (It has since come back into vogue following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.) For China watchers, however, this sort of divining of hidden meanings has always been a mainstay, especially following a leadership shake-up. While top-level turnover in the Soviet Union often occurred after a leader’s passing, Chinese transitions have functioned like clockwork for more than a quarter century. What invariably followed each reshuffle were years spent by Western scholars parsing public speeches and essays in party journals in an attempt to uncover each new generation’s governing philosophy—and with it, China’s likely trajectory.

What makes Xi’s coronation a gift is that he has effectively laid nearly all of his cards on the table, with the single ace still up his sleeve being his Taiwan “reunification” timetable.

Time spent by Western governments studying each new leadership cohort’s intentions often came at the expense of formulating, revising, and executing their respective China policies. Meanwhile, Chinese leaders made the most of the West’s mystification and used that time to codify their policy agendas, first in private among the party elite and then later and only selectively with outsiders. More importantly, however, Chinese leaders capitalized on these nebulous interludes to take steps aimed at shaping, and in some cases neutralizing, actions by the West and other competitors that could undermine China’s position or revisionist aims.

One need look no further than the last Chinese leadership transition to understand how Western uncertainty about a new leader has benefited Beijing. Back in 2011, during former Chinese leader Hu Jintao’s final months in power, China overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. China’s rapid rise raised serious questions in Western capitals about how Beijing profited from its connectivity to world markets despite stacking the deck against foreign firms seeking to tap into China’s lucrative market. Responsibility for allaying Western concerns (and buying much-needed time) fell to Xi at the start of his first term. That’s why, in a 2013 speech during the party’s Third Plenum, Xi hinted at a significant number of “decisive” economic reforms, including enhancing the role of the market—not the state—in determining the allocation of resources and capital. Xi’s liberalization language was directed at least in part at the outside world, and it went a long way in mollifying the West.

The international response to Xi’s overture, particularly from financial markets still reeling from the global economic crisis, was overwhelmingly positive. Observers hailed Xi as “bold,” with some calling him the second coming of Chinese reformer Deng Xiaoping. The Obama administration went on to champion cooperation with Beijing on “shared regional and global challenges” such as “economic growth” while eschewing serious measures to rein in China’s market abuses. Western companies and capital rushed into China, leading various stakeholders to pressure their governments to avoid confrontation with Beijing. Yet Xi spent the next decade thoroughly and systematically dismantling any hint of liberal economic governance. Instead, he deepened the party’s organizational integration throughout the commercial sector, wielding industry regulation and political control as both a sword and a shield.

The culmination of Xi’s efforts, articulated during this week’s Party Congress, is nothing short of a new ideology-infused economic order, in which the party-state’s ostensible ability to steer economic development and technological modernization is seen as maintaining a distinct systematic advantage over freer markets.

As Xi has consolidated his control over the party and rooted out potential competitors, he has employed this same approach on a range of other issues—but always in ways that benefit Beijing. For instance, Xi’s evolving interest in global governance and standard-setting was initially predicated on China’s ostensible desire to contribute to a “more just and fair” world order. Similarly, Xi’s recently unveiled Global Security Initiative purports that China’s security model represents the world’s best hope to avoid wars and ensure international peace. Such messaging is consistent with Xi’s rhetoric at the Party Congress that the Chinese way offers a “new choice” for humanity.

But unlike in the past, when China’s ambitions appeared at least outwardly ambiguous, it is now abundantly clear that China’s interest in setting and shaping global narratives, values, and norms is not for mankind’s betterment. Rather, Beijing’s growing discourse strategy blatantly seeks to bolster China’s composite national strength and, more importantly, to legitimize the party-state’s power at home and abroad.

What makes Xi’s coronation a gift, then, and what distinguishes this moment from other transitions is that Xi has effectively laid nearly all of his cards on the table, with the single ace still up his sleeve being his Taiwan “reunification” timetable. Regardless of whether Xi assumes the title of party chairman—not used since the Mao Zedong era—this year’s Party Congress makes clear that Xi already has this power in all but name. An ever more entrenched Xi will not risk burning down what he has spent the last 10 years constructing by embracing political liberalization and market reform or even softening China’s general hostility toward the United States. Instead, like most autocrats, Xi intends to double down, with China’s economy and people set to suffer the most from his self-destructive policies.

But whereas Xi and his predecessors previously benefited from an initial post-transition honeymoon, during which they quietly formulated their ambitious agendas, China need not enjoy any such grace period this time around. That is, unless Western capitals continue to spin their wheels on the China challenge.

To be fair, the United States and its allies faced difficulties coming to terms with the Soviet threat, particularly in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The current debate around China—crystallized in the Biden administration’s recently released National Security Strategy—risks an unnecessary repeat. Western leaders and policymakers mistake competition with Beijing for an end, not a means, eschewing the hard work of defining the West’s desired end-states vis-à-vis China. Moreover, Washington’s current approach clings to a fast-fading unipolar period rather than the likelihood of a coming multipolar moment and all of the burden-sharing opportunities that kind of order will bring. Even worse, the White House’s not-so-subtle strategy of pitting countries against one another along democratic or autocratic lines risks alienating like-minded partners that might not be impeccable democracies but that share Washington’s concerns about China’s belligerence and have a vested interest in modernizing—not toppling—the creaking rules-based order.

Policymakers of all political stripes have also spent altogether too much time responding to each and every Chinese provocation rather than prioritizing those issues that matter most to core Western interests. If left unchecked, the West will continue wasting its limited resources on a range of illusory Chinese threats. And, lastly, even on issues such as trade, in which the West has agency to promote a prosperity agenda capable of rivaling China’s geoeconomic clout, too many countries, including the United States, lean instead on protectionism.

Which gets to the other gift that could come with Xi’s third term and the certainty of China’s policy stance: simply that Xi’s unbridled boldness could finally force Western countries to get out of the habit of endlessly studying the China problem and get on with the much harder work of confronting it.

Craig Singleton is a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former U.S. diplomat. Twitter: @CraigMSingleton

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

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

V/R

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Phone: 202-573-8647

Personal Email: d avid.maxwell161@gmail.com

Web Site: www.fdd.org

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Subscribe to FDD’s new podcast, Foreign Podicy

FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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