Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows."

– Sydney J. Harris

"At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that "news" is nothing that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he is no different – in the crunch his life depends on agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness."

– RObert A. Heinlein – Number of the Beast andThe Pursuit of the Pankera

"For to know a man's library is, in some measure, to know his mind."

Geraldine Brooks

1. U.S. Drone Strike Kills Iraq Militia Leader Behind Deadly Attack on American Base

2. Russian Intelligence Is Pushing False Claims of U.S. Biological Testing in Africa, U.S. Says

3. Front-line Ukrainian infantry units report acute shortage of soldiers

4. Why China Is Rooting for Trump

5. The Houthis’ Next Target May Be Underwater

6. Corps is searching for 5 Marines after helicopter found in California

7. Director’s Statement on the Budget and Economic Outlook for 2024 to 2034

8. Austin agrees to testify before Congress about his medical missteps

9. What we know about the search for five Marines after a helicopter went down in California mountains

10. 'Swarm of suicide drones' attacks US army base in Syria in retaliation for Baghdad airstrike

11. Reform the budget process to strengthen US global leadership: RAND

12. Kremlin confirms Putin gave interview to ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson

13. The Pentagon may need machines to help stop insider threats

14. U.S. Defense Requires Greater Civil Support to Counter China’s Cyber Aggression

15. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 7, 2024

16. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, February 7, 2024

17. Intel officials warned well before Tower 22 attack of increased risks from drones

18. Pacific Command legal office prepares military forces for future fight with China

19. Army watercraft company that saw action at Normandy and Vietnam reactivates in Japan

20. Close Down UNRWA

21. Tyrants and expendable migrants: Dictators play with people’s lives to gain leverage

22. Biden keeps killing Iran's militia pawns - but he's too scared to strike against the REAL enemy in Tehran.

23. Chinese hackers have lurked in some US infrastructure systems for ‘at least five years’

24. The US Learns China’s Lessons on Elitism

25. Communicate Your Staff Estimates in the Language of Risk

26. Mobilizing Intellectual Capacity for Ukraine’s Big Five Operational Challenges of 2024 by Mick Ryan

27. The Four Pillars of Tactical Innovation: A Path for Impactful Disruption

28. An Israeli Diplomatic Strategy to Undercut Hamas Propaganda

1. U.S. Drone Strike Kills Iraq Militia Leader Behind Deadly Attack on American Base

U.S. Drone Strike Kills Iraq Militia Leader Behind Deadly Attack on American Base

Strike kills senior commander of Iran-backed group Kataib Hezbollah

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-strike-kills-iraq-militia-leader-behind-deadly-drone-attack-on-american-base-d6971744?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Gordon Lubold

and Nancy A. Youssef

Updated Feb. 8, 2024 4:28 am ET

Russian Intelligence Is Pushing False Claims of U.S. Biological Testing in Africa, U.S. Says

Media disinformation operation with Wagner Group link takes aim at American influence on continent

https://www.wsj.com/world/africa/russian-intelligence-is-pushing-false-claims-of-u-s-biological-testing-in-africa-u-s-says-ea817592?mod=hp_lead_pos6

By Michael R. Gordon

, Gabriele Steinhauser

, Dustin Volz

and Ann M. Simmons

Feb. 8, 2024 6:00 am ET

Several African countries, including Kenya, are now introducing a British-made malaria vaccine. PHOTO: YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Russian intelligence agencies are trying to undermine U.S. influence in Africa by spreading disinformation that Africans have been the unwitting test subjects in Pentagon biological research programs and casting aspersions on Western public-health programs, U.S. officials said.

The effort is part of a Russian campaign to counter the U.S. in Africa and Latin America as Washington and Moscow battle for public opinion around the world.

At the heart of the Russian campaign is “African Initiative,” an online news service set up late last year that has used social media to promote criticism of Western public-health efforts in Africa and convened a conference in which participants disparaged Western pharmaceutical companies.

“Russian intelligence services are providing material support and guidance to the African Initiative,” said James Rubin, who oversees the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which seeks to expose covert disinformation efforts abroad. “They are casting doubt on medical work that’s being done by legitimate medical organizations and deterring Africans from trusting medical efforts that could save lives.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the allegations as anti-Russian propaganda. “These accusations have become customary for the West,” he wrote in an email. “None of them is backed by evidence.” The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Some of the staff of African Initiative listed on the website have been associated with the Wagner Group, the Russian paramilitary and business organization. Wagner has had extensive operations in Africa, including the deployment of mercenaries and the export of raw materials.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led Wagner until his death last year, supported Russian disinformation efforts, according to the U.S. Prigozhin was the subject of U.S. sanctions for his role in funding the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm that was part of what the U.S. says was a Russian disinformation campaign to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the private military contractor Wagner until his death last year, supported Russian disinformation efforts, the U.S. says. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

American intelligence officials, who say they expect the Kremlin to likely target the 2024 presidential election, have said that Russia’s disinformation tactics used in other parts of the world can offer insight into its future operations.

The State Department has moved on a number of fronts to try to counter what it says is Russia’s hidden role in shaping media abroad. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been trying to build a coalition in Europe that would set common policies to combat the Kremlin’s information campaign. In Latin America, the Global Engagement Center moved last fall to expose what it said were efforts by Russian intelligence services to spread anti-Western propaganda through local media. The disinformation, it said, included false reports that valuable Ukrainian relics from a Kyiv monastery were being given to the West.

Russia has a long history of spreading disinformation on medical issues. During the Cold War, the KGB, the Soviet intelligence organization, falsely claimed that the U.S. Army’s labs at Fort Detrick, Md., unleashed the AIDS epidemic. More recently, Russia mounted a campaign to undermine confidence in Covid vaccines produced by

Pfizer and other Western pharmaceutical companies.“This kind of misinformation on medical issues, particularly on infectious disease and the dangers of Western-sponsored health programs, goes back to Soviet times,” said Judy Twigg, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who is an expert on global health issues. Soviet and Russian officials have denied responsibility for this disinformation.

Moscow’s efforts to manipulate information have increased as it tries to frustrate Washington’s attempts to isolate Russia following its invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago.

Africa has become an increasingly important arena as Moscow and Washington vie for influence on the continent. President Vladimir Putin held a summit meeting with African leaders in St. Petersburg in July, and Blinken visited four African nations last month.

Much of Russia’s information war against Washington has been conducted openly. Russian Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who commands units tasked with protecting Russians troops against biological, chemical and nuclear attacks, alleged in a July briefing that the U.S. has been secretly testing biological agents on Africans.

“The stated goals of projects aimed at developing public health do not correspond to reality,” said Kirillov, referring to American projects in Nigeria to combat HIV infection.

U.S. officials say that African Initiative has been used to amplify this message through social media, the placement of articles in local and international publications, the recruitment of local journalists and bloggers, and the establishment of offices in Burkina Faso and Mali, two West African countries that in recent years have forged close ties with Russia.

The organization has plans to spread disinformation in coming months in the hope that it will be seen as the product of independent reporting and not the result of a Moscow-directed informational campaign, U.S. officials said. Washington is seeking to disrupt those plans by shining a spotlight on the Russian activities.

“Moscow also likely believes its disinformation narratives are more resonant among Global South audiences than among Western audiences,” said Shawn Eib, head of investigations at Alethea, a technology company focused on detecting social-media manipulation. “This also specifically serves to support their claims involving U.S. biolabs in Ukraine, one of the many justifications Moscow has given for their invasion of Ukraine.”

It is a crucial time for public-health initiatives in Africa, with several countries, including Burkina Faso, starting to roll out the world’s first malaria vaccine, developed by British pharmaceutical company

GSK. Other infectious diseases have spread after a drop in child vaccination rates during the coronavirus pandemic.African Initiative was one of the groups spreading health disinformation during a severe outbreak of dengue fever in Burkina Faso in late 2023, said Elodie Ho of the Africa Infodemic Response Alliance, a network that monitors health disinformation hosted by the World Health Organization.

“The pan-Africanist, anti-Western narrative has a large echo in Burkina and neighboring countries,” Ho said.

African Initiative’s English and French language channels on messaging app Telegram have more than 13,000 and 14,000 subscribers respectively. It has shared articles claiming that the U.S. military was setting up biological laboratories in African countries to conduct experiments on the local population and touting Russian government and military support during disease outbreaks.

The top editor of the African Initiative, Artem Kureev, who describes himself as a political scientist, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Deputy Editor Anna Zamaraeva formerly served as the spokeswoman for the Wagner Center, a range of startups funded by the Wagner Group, according to the African Initiative website.

Viktor Vasilyev, who said he is a special correspondent for African Initiative, also runs “Smile and Wave,” a Telegram channel that describes itself as “News from Africa, and more.” Among posts on the channel, Vasilyev has criticized Bill Gates and David Beckham for promoting mass vaccination campaigns that he says endanger Africans.

Vasilyev denied that he was involved in a Russian intelligence effort to influence African opinion.

“I cannot have anything to do with the Russian special services because I am the first one who suffered the most from them, including serving five years in a strict regime on a trumped-up case,” Vasilyev said, referring to a prison term for a conviction related to the beating death of a Swiss citizen.

“Healthcare is indeed one of the areas we cover,” Vasilyev said in a subsequent message. “However, we do not in any way seek to discredit projects aimed at actually helping African countries.”

Vasilyev said he worked for one of Prigozhin’s companies in the Central African Republic in 2019 but had never met the Wagner chief. At the company, which specializes in the extraction of gold and diamonds, Vasilyev said he was a political strategist with duties limited to humanitarian tasks. The company, Lobaye Invest, has been the target of U.S. and European Union sanctions.

African Initiative gave itself another public platform in December, hosting the International Conference for Health Care and Sovereignty in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Participants touted the use of traditional medicine, accused Western pharmaceutical companies of using their medications to introduce illnesses in African countries and demanded access to Russian pharmaceutical products, according to video footage from the event. The message was picked up by local media, including the state news agency in Burkina Faso.

Participants included officials from Burkina Faso and Mali, Russian academics and civil-society activists from other West African countries, according to local media reports.

In a report on the African Initiative website, Vasilyev noted that the meeting had addressed “the vicious practices of Western companies” that he said use vaccination programs as a way to carry out research on unsuspecting Africans and whose biological research in West Africa, he said, is “virtually uncontrolled.”

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com, Gabriele Steinhauser at Gabriele.Steinhauser@wsj.com, Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com and Ann M. Simmons at ann.simmons@wsj.com

3. Front-line Ukrainian infantry units report acute shortage of soldiers

Excerpts:

Especially in winter, when the weather conditions are hard, infantry should be rotated out after about three days. But because units lack troops, deployments get extended — or personnel intended for the rear get pressed into front-line duty despite being ill-prepared for it. Troops who are mentally and physically exhausted because of overwork sometimes can’t defend their posts, allowing Russia — with more manpower and ammunition — to advance.

“They need to be replaced by someone,” said Oleksandr, the battalion commander. “There is no one to replace them, so they sit there more, their morale drops, they get sick or suffer frostbite. They are running out. There is no one to replace them. The front is cracking. The front is crumbling. Why can’t we replace them? Because we don’t have people; nobody comes to the army. Why doesn’t anyone come to the army? Because the country didn’t tell people that they should go to the army. The state failed to explain to people that they should go to the army. Those who knew that they should go, they have already all run out.”

Serhiy, 41, a platoon commander fighting in Avdiivka, the site of Russia’s most intense assaults, said he and his men are rarely rotated out after just three days. More often five days go by — or even 10.

Dmitry, another deputy battalion commander in a different brigade, said his infantry typically get two days of rest after five to 10 days holding the line, and because most of his soldiers are over the age of 40, their lack of physical fitness compounds the problems.

“You can feel it; people are exhausted both morally and physically,” Serhiy said. “It’s very hard, the weather conditions, the constant shelling. They have a great impact on the human psyche.”

Front-line Ukrainian infantry units report acute shortage of soldiers

By Isabelle Khurshudyan and Anastacia Galouchka

February 8, 2024 at 1:00 a.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Isabelle Khurshudyan · February 8, 2024

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line, military personnel in the field said this week — a perilous new dynamic for Kyiv nearly two years into the grinding, bloody war with Russia.

In interviews across the front line in recent days, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told The Washington Post that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks.

One battalion commander in a mechanized brigade fighting in eastern Ukraine said that his unit currently has fewer than 40 infantry troops — the soldiers deployed in front-line trenches who hold off Russian assaults. A fully equipped battalion would have more than 200, the commander said.

Another commander in an infantry battalion of a different brigade said his unit is similarly depleted.

The soldiers interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly and could face retribution for their comments.

The reports of acute troop shortages come as President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to replace his military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, with one chief disagreement being over how many new soldiers Ukraine needs to mobilize.

The Ukrainian presidential office declined to comment, referring questions to the Defense Ministry, which in turn referred questions to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff. The General Staff did not respond to a request for comment.

Zaluzhny has told Zelensky that Ukraine needs nearly 500,000 new troops, according to two people familiar with the matter, but the president has pushed back on that figure privately and publicly. Zelensky has said he wants more justification from Ukraine’s military leadership about why so many conscripts are needed and has also expressed concern about how Kyiv would pay them.

Financial assistance from Western partners cannot be used to pay soldier salaries, and Ukraine’s budget is already under strain, with a $60 billion aid package proposed by President Biden stalled in Congress. The European Union last week approved roughly $54 billion in aid after it was delayed for weeks by opposition from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The debate in Kyiv about mobilization — and to what degree the country should ramp it up — has angered soldiers on the front line.

Oleksandr, a battalion commander, said the companies in his unit on average are staffed at about 35 percent of what they should be. A second battalion commander from an assault brigade said that is typical for units that carry out combat tasks.

Asked how many new soldiers he has received — not including those who have returned after injuries — Oleksandr said his battalion was sent five people over the past five months. He and other commanders said the new recruits tend to be poorly trained, creating a dilemma about whether to send someone immediately onto the battlefield because reinforcements are needed so badly, even though they are likely to get injured or killed because they lack the know-how.

“The basis of everything is the lack of people,” Oleksandr said.

“Where are we going? I don’t know,” he added. “There’s no positive outlook. Absolutely none. It’s going to end in a lot of death, a global failure. And most likely, I think, the front will collapse somewhere like it did for the enemy in 2022, in the Kharkiv region.”

In fall 2022, the Ukrainians took advantage of a weak spot in the Russian front line, where Moscow’s forces were undermanned, and managed to liberate most of the northeast region in a swift one-week September offensive. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the embarrassing defeat by announcing a mobilization in his country.

The Ukrainian parliament is in the process of revising a draft law on mobilization that will lower the minimum conscription age from to 25 from 27. But lawmakers working on the bill and soldiers alike have acknowledged that Kyiv has done a poor job explaining to the public why sending more people to the front is necessary.

Instead, the messaging has been confused, with Zelensky and Zaluzhny contradicting each other publicly and creating an appearance of infighting.

In August, Zelensky fired the heads of all of Ukraine’s regional military recruitment offices, citing concerns about corruption. But with some of those positions left vacant, mobilization came to a halt, a high-ranking military official said. Commanders in the field confirmed that they have had few new people arrive since the fall.

“We have direct trouble with personnel,” said Mykyta, a deputy infantry battalion commander. “Because this is war, and it’s infantry in defense that’s dying.”

“I’m talking with my friends, also officers in other units, and those in infantry; it’s almost the same situation everywhere,” Mykyta added.

Shortages of ammunition and weapons are also an issue. A commander whose unit was recently moved to a new part of the front in eastern Ukraine said he received 10 shells for two howitzers. Zelensky has acknowledged that artillery ammunition deliveries have slowed as Europe struggles to manufacture enough shells to meet Ukraine’s needs and as the aid package remains stalled in Washington.

The personnel shortages can have a domino effect, Ukrainian troops in the field said.

Especially in winter, when the weather conditions are hard, infantry should be rotated out after about three days. But because units lack troops, deployments get extended — or personnel intended for the rear get pressed into front-line duty despite being ill-prepared for it. Troops who are mentally and physically exhausted because of overwork sometimes can’t defend their posts, allowing Russia — with more manpower and ammunition — to advance.

“They need to be replaced by someone,” said Oleksandr, the battalion commander. “There is no one to replace them, so they sit there more, their morale drops, they get sick or suffer frostbite. They are running out. There is no one to replace them. The front is cracking. The front is crumbling. Why can’t we replace them? Because we don’t have people; nobody comes to the army. Why doesn’t anyone come to the army? Because the country didn’t tell people that they should go to the army. The state failed to explain to people that they should go to the army. Those who knew that they should go, they have already all run out.”

Serhiy, 41, a platoon commander fighting in Avdiivka, the site of Russia’s most intense assaults, said he and his men are rarely rotated out after just three days. More often five days go by — or even 10.

Dmitry, another deputy battalion commander in a different brigade, said his infantry typically get two days of rest after five to 10 days holding the line, and because most of his soldiers are over the age of 40, their lack of physical fitness compounds the problems.

“You can feel it; people are exhausted both morally and physically,” Serhiy said. “It’s very hard, the weather conditions, the constant shelling. They have a great impact on the human psyche.”

The lack of rotations is a problem across the Ukrainian military — not just for infantry on the line. Soldiers might get a few days off to go home and see their families, but rarely more. They say they are still motivated to fight the Russian invaders, but also that they need rest and more men beside them.

Zelensky has also asked the military and parliament to prepare a law to demobilize those who have been fighting for nearly two years. Members of parliament working on the bill have said they are discussing a plan to discharge, or “demobilize,” soldiers who have been on the front for 36 months. But that would require sending people in to replace them.

“Every soldier thinks about that guy that walks around in Dnipro or Lviv or Kyiv,” Mykyta said. “They think about them and they want to have a rest, too. Of course, in their heads appears the thought: Some guys are just strolling around there, but we’re here.”

The Washington Post · by Isabelle Khurshudyan · February 8, 2024

4. Why China Is Rooting for Trump

I am not sending this for any political partisan reason.

It is not that they want Trump. They want the divisions in the US. We need to recognize, understand, expose, and attack the Chinese strategy. If they think it is in their strategic interests to exploit our divisions then perhaps we should not allow ourselves to be so divided. Easier said and done and more than a bit naive I know. But we should always consider our adversaries objectives (short and long term) and figure out how to counter them. A return to first principles (our Constitution and compromise) might be useful.

Why China Is Rooting for Trump

Beijing’s long game would be much better served by the candidate’s policies and the divisions he would unleash.

An illustrated portrait of Agathe Demarais

Agathe Demarais

By Agathe Demarais, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a senior policy fellow on geoeconomics at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Foreign Policy · by Agathe Demarais

United States
China
Agathe Demarais

February 7, 2024, 11:45 AM

Remembering how the world looked before Donald Trump became the U.S. president in January 2017 paints a striking picture. At that time, the idea that Beijing poses a threat to global security was not a mainstream one in Washington. Imposing tariffs on European imports seemed inconceivable. And controls on technology exports—which had fallen into progressive disuse since the end of the Cold War—were the realm of a tiny niche of policy wonks.

For better or for worse, there is no denying that Trump changed the world, especially when it comes to relations between the United States and China.

Given Trump’s incendiary rhetoric about Beijing—including his promise to escalate the U.S.-China trade war—it is easy to believe that Chinese leaders would prefer incumbent U.S President Joe Biden over Trump, who will likely be the Republican Party candidate.

Yet this view is probably shortsighted, and it eclipses the broader picture. In all likelihood, China is rooting for Trump.

Beijing knows that there is no hope for an improvement in its ties with Washington, whether under Trump, Biden, or any other U.S. president. From the perspective of Beijing’s long game vis-à-vis the West, Trump’s return to the White House may well turn out to be in China’s favor, at least in the economic field. Here are five reasons why.

1. Trump would increase divisions between the United States and Europe.

“I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade.” (Trump in July 2018)

In December 2023, the Financial Times reported that China’s intelligence services had been using Frank Creyelman, a former Belgian senator, as an asset for years. His Chinese handler neatly summarized the relationship’s objective: “Our purpose is to divide the US-European relationship.”

Beijing’s reasoning is simple: Cementing distrust between the United States and the Europe is the best way to prevent the emergence of trans-Atlantic policies detrimental to Chinese interests, such as joint export controls. From that perspective, a second Trump presidency would play into China’s hand. “I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade,” Trump said in 2018, and there is no indication that he has changed his mind.

If elected, Trump would probably be unable to resist the urge to restart trade wars with Europe—for instance, by making good on his pledge to impose a 10 percent tariff across the board. A trade fight, in turn, would likely halt U.S.-EU cooperation on measures that could hurt Chinese interests. Of course, Trump’s recent promise to impose a minimum 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports would also be painful for Beijing. But in the grand scheme of things, Beijing may assume that paying such a price is worth it if the prize is a schism between the United States and the EU.

2. Trump could make a U-turn on sanctions against Russia.

“They have sanctions on Russia—let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia.” (January 2017)

For all the unpredictability of Trump’s foreign policy, one constant has been his clear inclination to cozy up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. This was most evident during a U.S.-Russia summit in Finland in 2018, when Trump suggested that he trusted Putin more than his own intelligence services. If his admiration for Putin remains intact, Trump could well decide to lift sanctions on Russia as soon as he enters office, much to the horror of European countries.

Such a situation would not only delight Moscow, but also play into Beijing’s favor. Despite declarations of an unlimited friendship between Russia and China, the reality is that Chinese firms have been cautious in their dealings with Russia. Although Chinese exports to Russia have jumped since 2022, this was from a low base, and there is little evidence so far that Chinese firms are in a rush to invest in Russia.

This is because of worries that Washington could impose secondary sanctions on Moscow, forcing companies around the world to choose between their U.S. and Russian customers. For most Chinese firms, sticking to the U.S. market would be a no-brainer in such a scenario. As a result, Chinese companies have little interest in developing relationships with Russian businesses that they might need to abandon soon. If Trump lifts sanctions on Moscow, this problem would be solved for Chinese firms.

China-military-readiness-war-us-taiwan-Doug-Chayka-illustration

How Primed for War Is China?

Risk signals for a conflict are flashing red.

Technicians wearing white protective suits conduct tests in a research laboratory in Ningbo, China.

The West Did Not Invent Decoupling—China Did

Beijing has long sought to gain a free hand by untangling its economy from the West.

People take photographs of the sunset over the Chinese city Xiamen amid anti-tank barricades from previous conflicts in Kinmen, Taiwan.

Does Ukraine Offer Lessons for Taiwan?

Two years in, IR experts are divided on whether the U.S. response to Russia’s war will deter a Chinese invasion.

3. Trump would give a boost to China’s push for alternative financial mechanisms.

“China wants to replace [the U.S. dollar] with the yuan, and it was unthinkable with us. Unthinkable. Would never have happened. Now people are thinking about it.” (August 2023)

China has long sought to vaccinate itself from U.S. sanctions, be it through de-dollarization, the creation of alternatives to the Western-controlled SWIFT global banking system, or plans for a digital yuan to settle cross-border payments. However, China can’t achieve this strategy on its own: For its financial structures to displace established Western ones, Beijing’s trading partners need to opt for the non-Western alternative as well. The path to get there will be steep; most firms and banks see no need to ditch SWIFT, which works perfectly well, to try a much smaller Chinese alternative.

A second Trump presidency could change this reasoning. The case of Russian aluminum producer Rusal in 2018 illustrates why: After slapping sanctions on the company without any warning, the Trump administration had to backtrack and lift the sanctions in a rush after realizing that the measures had massive global ripple effects.

The moral of the story was clear: Under Trump, anything can happen—and anyone can fall under sanctions without warning. As a result, many countries would seek to preemptively shield themselves from such measures if Trump were back in the White House. At this stage, the best way to do so is to switch to Beijing’s alternative financial mechanisms. That would be another win for China.

4. A Trump win would increase China’s domination for critical materials sourcing from emerging countries.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries coming here?” (January 2018)

A global battle for influence pits Western economies against China for securing access to the raw materials that will be crucial for the green energy transition, such as cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, and nickel. So far, this battle is mostly taking place in resource-rich emerging economies, such as Bolivia, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, and Indonesia. China is, by far, the uncontested leader in this race, controlling around 50 to 70 percent of the refining of the global lithium supply, for instance.

A second Trump presidency would not help to convince developing economies—which Trump once collectively disparaged as “shithole countries”—to partner with Washington for the supply of critical raw materials. Many mineral-rich states would fear that promises from Trump have little value, as his sudden withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal showed in 2018.

Besides, Trump’s disdain for developing economies, likely curbs on immigration, and incendiary rhetoric about Islam will not exactly break the ice with African, Southeast Asian, or South American leaders. China would rejoice and continue to advance its interests in emerging economies by portraying itself as the adult in the room—a reliable partner that does not mix business and politics.

5. China would benefit from U.S. export controls on clean tech.

“The concept of global warming was created by China in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” (November 2012)

Restrictions on exports are a key tool for Washington to implement its China-focused strategy of economic de-risking. These measures target technologies that have dual-use applications, such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum technology. So far, clean tech has been spared from U.S. export controls, but a Trump presidency would probably change this. Republicans have made it clear that they would adopt a more hawkish stance on China and seek to apply export controls to a broader range of sectors than the Biden administration did, probably including clean tech, such as renewable energy and battery technology.

Seen from China, U.S. export controls on green goods would be excellent news. In the short- to medium-term, such measures would have little impact on Chinese firms, since they are already world leaders in sectors such as solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles.

In the long term, Chinese businesses could even benefit from such controls. Deprived of the world’s largest markets, U.S. firms would have fewer revenues and be forced to slash research and development budgets. Helped by generous public subsidies, Chinese businesses would be able to double down on research, helping them surpass U.S. firms by developing the next generation of clean tech gear. In addition, a scenario of U.S. clean tech retrenchment would help China influence global standards for future clean tech goods, culminating in an all-around win for Beijing.

At a 2016 campaign rally, Trump boasted, “I love China.” Regardless of whether this is true or not, Beijing likely thinks better of a second Trump presidency than one could expect at first glance. In key economic areas, such as trade, sanctions, financial infrastructure, access to critical raw materials, and export controls, a Trump 2.0 scenario could well play into China’s long-term interests.

There are, of course, other areas to consider beyond economics. But Trump’s recent statement that he is not too keen to defend Taiwan—another crucial issue for China—will also please Beijing. Seen from China, a Trump win in November could very well look like a tempting opportunity to benefit from the chaos, the divisions, and the hit to U.S. prestige that it would unleash.

Foreign Policy · by Agathe Demarais

5. The Houthis’ Next Target May Be Underwater

Graphics at the link. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/07/houthi-red-sea-attacks-submarine-cables/?utm

The Houthis’ Next Target May Be Underwater

Cutting or damaging subsea cables could disrupt data and financial communications between Europe and Asia.

By Keith Johnson, a reporter at Foreign Policy covering geoeconomics and energy.

Foreign Policy · by Keith Johnson

February 7, 2024, 4:31 PM

In the midst of the 12-week campaign by Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen to disrupt the critical shipping corridor of the Red Sea, a new worry is creeping in: that the Houthis may target the bevy of subsea cables that carry nearly all the data and financial communications between Europe and Asia.

So far, most of the concern about the Houthi campaign has understandably focused on its disruptive impact on commercial shipping and energy flows through the key chokepoint between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. But this new concern underscores the way in which subsea infrastructure—and its potential vulnerability—is becoming a critical feature in the global security seascape.

In late December, an account linked to Houthi militants posted on Telegram what appeared to be threats against the dozen-odd fiber-optic cables that squeeze through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait west of Yemen. The nebulous threats were echoed and amplified by accounts linked to other Iran-backed militants, including Hezbollah, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

In recent years, key infrastructure on the seafloor has become part of the gray-zone battleground, with Russian “ghost ships” spooking neighbors in the Baltic and North seas. More than a year ago, the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany was mysteriously blown up (while Nord Stream 2 was damaged), and last fall, energy and data links in the eastern Baltic were also mysteriously damaged. Similar episodes have plagued data connections in the Mediterranean.

While the vague threats to submarine cables in the Red Sea have not so far led to any incidents, the centrality of their target is clear—there are few other ways to move the massive amounts of data and money between Europe and Asia than by relying on a bundle of fiber-optic cables that snake through the very area where the Houthis are most active.

“Well over 99 percent of intercontinental communications go over subsea cables—that’s not just internet, that’s financial transactions, interbank transfers. A lot of defense departments rely on cables as well,” said Timothy Stronge, vice president of research at TeleGeography, a telecoms market research company. “Pretty much anything you can imagine for international communications touches undersea cables. In terms of the Red Sea, it’s pretty critical for connecting Europe to Asia.”

Threats aside, the first big question is whether the Houthis actually have the capability to damage the submarine cables, which are usually well embedded in the seafloor; most of the Houthi attacks so far have come from firing missiles and launching drones at commercial vessels (and U.S. and U.K. naval ships) in the area.

“I can’t see any part of the Houthi arsenal actually being dangerous for the subsea cables,” said Bruce Jones of the Brookings Institution, who has written extensively about the importance of submarine cables. “If you actually want to damage these things, you’re going to have to get subsea.”

The Houthis, though, are backed and armed by Iran and used by Tehran as one of its regional proxies to attack Western and Gulf interests. Even if the Houthis themselves may lack the capability, Jones said, Iran might be a different story, especially as tensions between the United States and Iran escalate.

“The question becomes, do the Iranians have the capability, and would the Iranians take that step? I think that is the thing to watch for—if this escalates farther and we really get into a U.S.-Iran slogging match … then you could question whether the Iranians have that capability,” he said.

That said, there are potentially low-tech ways to damage some undersea cables, especially in locations where they are laid in shallower waters. About two-thirds of all incidents involving maritime cables involve human accident, Stronge said, usually from fishing trawlers or commercial vessels dragging their anchors on the seafloor. Experts said such an approach could conceivably give the Houthis the ability to partially damage at least some of the submarine cables.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a huge problem: The United States and most other nations keep cable-repair ships on retainer to patch any disruptions to the vital undersea data links. But due to the Houthis’ ongoing harassment campaign in the Red Sea itself, it simply wouldn’t be possible for repair ships to spend several days stationary trying to repair a damaged cable. In that sense, the submarine threat could dovetail with the surface disruption they are already causing.

Still, though, the big difference between undersea energy infrastructure, like the Nord Stream pipelines or the Baltic connectors, and the data links is that there are a lot more alternatives for moving virtual traffic than oil or gas.

Key Shipping Chokepoints in the Red Sea Region

A map shows major chokepoints in trade routes in the Red Sea area. The Suez Canal, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Strait of Hormuz are labeled. Yemen is shaded in darker color.

“Individually, a cable is extremely vulnerable, but collectively there’s a lot of resiliency built into the system,” Stronge said. “It would be extremely difficult to completely disconnect a well-connected country. It would require a very sophisticated and coordinated attack to take them out all at the same time.”

The bigger issue is the growing realization among defense planners and security analysts of the importance and vulnerability of the huge subsea infrastructure system around the world. Oil and gas pipelines have proliferated, and subsea data links have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years and are poised for even more spectacular growth this year and next to keep up with the exponential demand for digital transmission.

Weaponizing the seafloor is not entirely novel: The British cut German submarine telegraph cables at the very start of World War I to isolate Berlin from the world, and seabed sonar in the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. gap became a fixture in the Cold War. But the growing importance of subsea infrastructure to the global economy is forcing a rethink of the traditional naval mission of protecting sea lines of communication.

A young man walks past anti-U.S. graffiti outside the building that formerly hosted the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Merchant Shippers Fear Another Tanker War Is Coming

The Strait of Hormuz is getting ever more dangerous as Washington and Tehran square off.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel carry a banner featuring a portrait of U.S. President Joe Biden in a Guantánamo prisoner uniform next to Iranian flags during a military rally in Tehran.

Can the United States Deter—or Compel—Iran?

It’s unclear whether Washington’s threats will change Tehran’s calculus.

A wide shot shows a line of massive container ships moored at a port on the Red Sea in Yemen. Their cranes hang over the main platform of the port, and one is being used to lower a container into scaffolding above a truck.

Why the Red Sea Crisis Hasn’t Hit Energy—Yet

A month of attacks on commercial shipping has surprisingly left energy markets unmoved.

“The classic sea lines of communication still matter, but they’ve truly turned into a multidimensional, 720-degree problem,” said Sebastian Bruns, a naval expert at the Center for Maritime Strategy and Security and the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University in Germany. “That’s why an old-time convoy system for cargo ships, which I think a lot of people will still have as a visual when thinking about the problem, does not go far enough.”

NATO last year, in the wake of the Nord Stream attacks, set up a new cell to coordinate the protection of critical undersea infrastructure. Naval analysts see protecting those assets as an increasingly vital mission for navies, especially in Europe’s infrastructure-crowded waters.

The Hague Center for Strategic Studies just released a new report highlighting the growing importance for European navies of developing unmanned underwater vehicles specifically for undersea infrastructure monitoring and underscoring the need for European navies to prioritize the protection of critical “access” areas to Europe, including the Red Sea.

“The protection mission has markedly evolved,” the report noted, adding that “critical infrastructure protection has joined the game.”

While much of the focus on that new mission so far has been on the highly vulnerable energy pipelines, especially in the wake of Nord Stream and other incidents, the real sinews—and potential weak spot—of the undersea world are the data links, Jones said.

“For me, one thing that’s absolutely clear is that the undersea financial cables are globalization’s most important network, and they’re also its most vulnerable network.”

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Foreign Policy · by Keith Johnson

6. Corps is searching for 5 Marines after helicopter found in California

But where could the 5 Marines be if they were not with the downed helicopter? Are they trying to move to safety?

Corps is searching for 5 Marines after helicopter found in California

marinecorpstimes.com · by Irene Loewenson · February 7, 2024

After civil authorities in California on Wednesday located a Marine Corps helicopter that had gone missing the previous night, the Corps is searching for the five Marines who were aboard the aircraft.

The five crew members from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361 were conducting a routine training flight of a CH-53E Super Stallion when the helicopter was reported overdue Tuesday, meaning it hadn’t appeared by the expected time and contact couldn’t be made with it, according to a news release Wednesday from 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. The helicopter had been flying from Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California.

At 9:08 a.m. local time Wednesday, a multiagency search-and-rescue team that had begun work in the early hours of the morning discovered the aircraft in the San Diego County community of Pine Valley, California, according to the news release and previous Marine Corps Times reporting.

In response to a query from Marine Corps Times about whether any human remains had been found at the crash site, Marine spokeswoman Capt. Stephanie Leguizamon said the Corps couldn’t provide any further updates yet.

The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, of which Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361 is a part, is managing the efforts to find and rescue the five Marines, according to the release.

The aircraft wing is using “ground and aviation assets” and working with several federal, state and local agencies, the release said.

An aircraft matching the description of the downed Super Stallion was last recorded in the Pine Valley area at approximately 10:43 p.m., according to information on the aircraft tracking website ADS-B Exchange.

Jason Paladino, an investigator at the independent watchdog Project on Government Oversight and the associate producer of a 2018 documentary that explored problems with 53E helicopters, told Marine Corps Times on Wednesday that those coordinates on the website align with crash-site coordinates he heard on the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s radio feed.

A spokesman for that department referred Marine Corps Times to the Marine Corps.

Based on his observations of ADS-B Exchange, Paladino said, it appeared the helicopter was losing altitude quickly.

The San Diego area, where the incident occurred, was hit with a rainstorm Tuesday because of a weather phenomenon known as an atmospheric river.

The Marine Corps has used the Sikorksy-made Super Stallion, a heavy-lift helicopter, since 1981, according to the Naval Air Systems Command. But the Corps is replacing the aging Super Stallion with Sikorsky’s CH-53K King Stallion, which is now the military’s most powerful helicopter.

Between October 2012 and October 2023, the Super Stallion was involved in 16 Class A mishaps, the most serious kind, according to data provided to Marine Corps Times by the Naval Safety Command. In Class A mishaps, a person dies or sustains a permanent total disability, or at least $2.5 million of an aircraft is destroyed.

In April 2018, four Marines were killed when their Super Stallion crashed in Southern California. In January 2016, two Super Stallions crashed in a nighttime mission off Hawaii, killing all 12 Marines aboard the pair of aircraft.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available. It was last updated at 5:00 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday.

About Irene Loewenson

Irene Loewenson is a staff reporter for Marine Corps Times. She joined Military Times as an editorial fellow in August 2022. She is a graduate of Williams College, where she was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.

7. Director’s Statement on the Budget and Economic Outlook for 2024 to 2034

I am sure this will be criticized as political but I think the Director's statement is accurate in general. Immigrants contribute to the growth of GDP: We need immigration, or more specifically legal immigration.

In our projections, the deficit is also smaller than it was last year because economic output is greater, partly as a result of more people working. The labor force in 2033 is larger by 5.2 million people, mostly because of higher net immigration. As a result of those changes in the labor force, we estimate that, from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise. We are continuing to assess the implications of immigration for revenues and spending.

Director’s Statement on the Budget and Economic Outlook for 2024 to 2034

Posted by Phill Swagel on

February 7, 2024

cbo.gov

This afternoon, I will brief the press about the Congressional Budget Office’s new report, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2024 to 2034. I will deliver the following remarks with accompanying slides.

Thank you for joining me this afternoon. In this briefing, I’ll talk first about the federal budget, and then I’ll discuss the economy.

The Budget

In the projections we released today, the deficit grows from $1.6 trillion in 2024 to $2.6 trillion in 2034. Measured in relation to economic output, deficits during that period are about 50 percent larger than their historical average over the past 50 years.

Net interest costs are a major contributor to the deficit, and their growth is equal to about three-quarters of the increase in the deficit from 2024 to 2034. Initially, net interest costs are similar to the amounts of discretionary spending both for defense and for nondefense activities. By the end of the period, they are roughly one and a half times larger than each, at $1.6 trillion.

Also boosting deficits are two underlying trends: the aging of the population and growth in federal health care costs per beneficiary. Those trends put upward pressure on mandatory spending.

Measured in relation to economic output, federal debt held by the public rises from 99 percent in 2024 to 116 percent in 2034, surpassing its historical peak. Then it continues to rise, reaching 172 percent by 2054.

From 2024 to 2033, the deficit is about 7 percent smaller than we projected last year, primarily as a result of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and subsequent continuing resolutions. Together, those laws reduce the growth of discretionary spending. Including the effects on debt service, legislative changes reduce deficits by $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years.

In our projections, the deficit is also smaller than it was last year because economic output is greater, partly as a result of more people working. The labor force in 2033 is larger by 5.2 million people, mostly because of higher net immigration. As a result of those changes in the labor force, we estimate that, from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise. We are continuing to assess the implications of immigration for revenues and spending.

Two key factors partially offset that deficit reduction relative to last year’s projections. First, net interest costs rise as a result of higher interest rates. Second, the costs of energy-related tax provisions are much higher than the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation originally projected. Those costs reflect new emissions standards, market developments, and actions taken by the Administration to implement the tax provisions.

(The deficit and spending numbers in this statement have been adjusted to exclude the effects of shifts that occur in the timing of certain payments when October 1, the first day of the fiscal year, falls on a weekend. Without those adjustments, the deficit for 2024 would be $1.5 trillion.)

The Economy

Turning to our economic projections, the U.S. economy grew faster in 2023 than it did in 2022, even as inflation slowed. Economic growth is projected to slow in 2024 amid increased unemployment and lower inflation. CBO expects the Federal Reserve to respond by reducing interest rates, starting in the middle of the calendar year. In CBO’s projections, economic growth rebounds in 2025 and then moderates in later years.

Since February 2023, when CBO published its last full economic forecast, the agency has lowered its projections of economic growth and inflation (as measured by the PCE price index) for 2024. CBO also expects interest rates to be higher from 2024 to 2027 than it projected last year. After 2027, CBO’s current and previous economic forecasts for economic growth are generally similar.

Phillip L. Swagel is CBO’s Director.

cbo.gov

8. Austin agrees to testify before Congress about his medical missteps

Hasn't he been tried sufficiently in the court of public opinion? What will this testimony do for the nation?

Austin agrees to testify before Congress about his medical missteps

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · February 7, 2024

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will testify before lawmakers on Feb. 29 about the secrecy surrounding his cancer diagnosis and missteps made in informing senior administration officials about his emergency hospitalization in January, congressional sources said.

Officials from the House Armed Services Committee had initially planned to question Austin at a hearing on Feb. 14, but Austin was non-committal about appearing at that event when asked about it during a Feb. 1 press conference at the Pentagon.

Committee leaders confirmed the new date and Austin’s planned attendance on Tuesday. Politico first reported the news.

Austin, 70, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Jan. 1 after developing a urinary tract infection from complications related to prostate cancer surgery on Dec. 22.

Austin admits he wanted to keep his cancer diagnosis secret

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday that his "first instinct" was to keep his cancer diagnosis private.

Senior military leaders were not informed of his condition until several days later, and White House officials — including President Joe Biden — were not made aware the defense secretary was hospitalized until Jan. 5. They also were not informed of his cancer diagnosis until Jan. 9, nearly a month after the illness was discovered.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks assumed certain authorities of the defense secretary while Austin was in the hospital, but wasn’t informed of the reasons for that change.

Austin has acknowledged communication mistakes in his handling of the incident. During his Feb. 1 news conference, he said the decision was “more about privacy than secrecy,” but said that “I should have informed my boss” about the health situation.

White House officials have backed Austin, but also moved to ensure that future health issues with Cabinet secretaries are handled better.

Numerous members of Congress have called for Austin’s resignation as a result of the incident, suggesting his poor communication could have endangered national security.

The House Armed Services Committee hearing is scheduled one week before Biden’s scheduled State of the Union address, and eight days before Defense Department funding is scheduled to run out unless a budget extension is adopted by Congress.

About Leo Shane III

Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.

9. What we know about the search for five Marines after a helicopter went down in California mountains

So it seems that while they have located the helicopter they are not reporting whether they have actually had people reach the site which I assume must be why they are reporting the 5 Marines as missing.

What we know about the search for five Marines after a helicopter went down in California mountains

AP · February 8, 2024

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The military said search-and-rescue efforts were continuing for five U.S. Marines after their helicopter went down during stormy weather in the Southern California mountains. Here’s what we know so far:

WHAT HAPPENED

A CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter was returning from a training mission in Nevada when it disappeared Tuesday night. Civilian authorities searching on ground and by air located the aircraft just after 9 a.m. Wednesday near the mountain community of Pine Valley, about a 45-mile (72-kilometer) drive from San Diego. With rescuers having to battle through heavy snow, there was no word Wednesday night on whether they had reached the chopper or on the fate of the five people aboard.

The Marines were flying from Creech Air Force Base, northwest of Las Vegas, where they had been doing unit-level training and were returning home to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, defense officials said.

The last known contact with the helicopter was at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Mike Cornette of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection told CBS 8 news. That location was based on a “ping” reported to a Cal Fire dispatch center.

The helicopter, which was designed to fly in harsh conditions, went missing as an historic storm dumped heavy snow and record rain over California. More rain and snow hit the region Wednesday night, forecasters said.

WHO IS MISSING

The people aboard the aircraft haven’t been named but they were assigned to Miramar’s Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361, Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, the military said in a statement.

While it can carry dozens of people, the normal crew component for the Super Stallion is four: a pilot, copilot, crew chief, and mechanic/gunner, according to a U.S. Navy website.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the missing Marines, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who answered questions as the president flew to New York City for campaign fundraisers.

“We’re watching this closely and again our thoughts are for the best,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said.

THE RESCUE EFFORT

The military was working with federal, state and local agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Border Patrol, San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and the state Civil Air Patrol.

But weather and rugged terrain made the task difficult. Pine Valley is at about 3,700 feet (1,127 meters) in elevation in the Cuyamaca Mountains, an area which saw as much 8 inches (20 centimeters) of accumulating snow within hours Tuesday night and early Wednesday and saw more falling Wednesday night, according to forecasters.

The area includes San Diego County’s second highest mountain, Cuyamaca Peak, at 6,512 feet (1,985 meters), and is also near the Cleveland National Forest, which covers 720 square miles (1,860 square kilometers) with much of it steep, rocky and with limited trails.

THE HELICOPTER

The CH-53E Super Stallion is the largest helicopter in the military and the Marines have used it for heavy-lifting duties around the world for more than three decades. More than 130 are in operation.

Equipped with GPS, infrared radar and other equipment, the aircraft has performed “a full range of military combat operations in Beirut, Somalia, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya,” according to a U.S. Navy website.

About 99 feet (30 meters) long, the Super Stallion can move troops and equipment from ships to shore, ferry supplies and launch amphibious assaults.

Nicknamed the “hurricane maker” because of the downwash from its three engines, the Super Stallion has a 50-mile (80.5-kilometer) range. It was designed to carry up to 55 troops or about 16 tons (more than 13,000 kilograms) of cargo both inside and slung outside the cabin.

With an external load, the helicopter can weigh up to nearly 35 tons (31,638 kg).

Two CH-53E helicopters were used in the civil war-torn capital of Mogadishu, Somalia, in January 1990 to rescue American and foreign allies from the U.S. embassy.

The helicopter has been involved in several deadly accidents. In 2018, four Marines from Miramar died when their Super Stallion crashed near El Centro, near the California-Mexico border, during a training mission. The Marine Corps ruled out pilot error for the accident. The victims’ families later sued two companies they alleged provided a defective part that they blamed for the crash.

In 2005, a Super Stallion went down in a sandstorm in Iraq, killing 31 people on board. The accident, blamed on pilot error, was the single deadliest loss of U.S. troops during the war.

___

Baldor reported from Washington. Associated Press writer John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

AP · February 8, 2024

10. 'Swarm of suicide drones' attacks US army base in Syria in retaliation for Baghdad airstrike

The modern era of warfare. Perhaps we may need to change the definition of air superiority because apparently we do not have it.

'Swarm of suicide drones' attacks US army base in Syria in retaliation for Baghdad airstrike

The attack has been linked to the retaliatory US airstrikes against Iranian-aligned groups and their positions.

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-785735

By YUVAL BARNEA

FEBRUARY 8, 2024 00:05

Updated: FEBRUARY 8, 2024 08:22

US forces set up a new base in Manbij, Syria May 8, 2018

(photo credit: REUTERS/RODI SAID)

Explosions have been reported near a US army base in Syria, by the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese media network Al Mayadeen, on Wednesday.

The American base in the Al-Omar oil field in the Kurdish-controlled region of northeastern Syria, close to the city of Deir ez-Zor, American troops have been present here since at least 2017.

The base was attacked by a "swarm of suicide drones" according to Egypt-based Bayan-gate news and is the second attack of its kind this week against US bases in the region.

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k has been linked to the retaliatory US airstrikes against Iranian-aligned groups and their positions, by Arab media.

The American airstrikes were a response to the three American servicemembers killed at a base in Jordan, near the Syrian border earlier this week.

People carry the coffin of an Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah fighter, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Babil Province, during the funeral in Baghdad, Iraq, December 26, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/THAIER AL-SUDANI)

Retaliating to retaliation

Today's attack comes only a few hours after a suspected American assassination of a Kataib Hezbollah commander in Baghdad.

Kataib Hezbollah has been closely involved in the current round of escalation with multiple attacks against US positions in the Middle East, they are suspected to have been directly behind the deadly attack in Jordan.

Kataib Hezbollah renounced attacks on American bases after it was revealed they had killed three US servicemembers.

They have been accused of attacking US bases in coordination with other Iran-aligned forces such as Yemen's Houthis.

Kataib Hezbollah is one of several groups operating in coordination to support Iranian foreign policy goals in Iraq, they operate under the collective title of the "Islamic resistance in Iraq", with the collective group having launched multiple drone attacks on Israel as well as on American bases in Iraq and Syria.

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq has been closely linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which was targeted in American airstrikes.

11. Reform the budget process to strengthen US global leadership: RAND

Anyone who has had to work with PPBES likely would agree with the need for reform. But what is a system that will work?

Just as an aside, how many problems do we have that are a result of congress? PPBES is congressional mandated. We struggle with personnel management (or talent management) because of DOPMA and many laws from Congress. We continue to fund defense through continuing resolution acts (which would seem to completely undermine the PPBES). R&D is controlled by laws from Congress (as it should). Obviously we need laws and oversight. But what about a serious evaluation of the efficacy and impact of these laws and an analysis of whether Congress should change the laws particularly if we have good data on their effectiveness as well as lessons learned (some lessons we have observed for decades).

Reform the budget process to strengthen US global leadership: RAND - Breaking Defense

Budget dysfunction in DC can disrupt Pentagon programs and leave allies hanging. The US needs to reform its budgeting process to support its leadership role, two RAND scholars argue.

By STEPHANIE YOUNG and MEGAN MCKERNAN

on February 07, 2024 at 10:48 AM

breakingdefense.com · by Stephanie Young, Megan McKernan · February 7, 2024

Military personal and Capitol Hill Police department stage outside the US Capitol before U.S. President Joe Biden will address a joint session of Congress in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol April 28, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

With Ukraine running out of ammunition, it’s never been clearer that gridlock in Washington budget processes can injure American interests — and cost lives. In this op-ed from Stephanie Young and Megan McKernan, the two RAND budget experts argue the US needs to look to allies and even non-defense agencies like NASA and HHS for better ways to budget, both to ensure stability on long-term goals and adaptability in response to crisis.

As the US government confronts two near-peer challengers in China and Russia, along with mounting conflict in the Middle East, ensuring stability, predictability, and some measure of flexibility in the US defense budget is more important than ever. Yet the US budgeting system is in a state of disarray.

Gridlock has already led to several will-they-or-won’t-they government shutdowns, short-term stopgap continuing resolutions, and now in the New Year, looming across-the-board budget sequestration for the first time since fiscal 2021. This is bad news not just for the United States, but also for allies and partners, who play essential roles in US national security strategy worldwide and are exposed to serious downstream effects when the Pentagon’s budget house is not in order.

The US now faces a once-in-a generation opportunity to transform the budgeting processes required to make hard choices, align priorities, and execute on them. A congressionally mandated Commission on Planning-Programming-Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) reform was stood up in 2022 to evaluate these problems, and RAND analysis supporting the commission reveals the critical importance of working with allies and partners on the reforms and learning lessons from their successes.

We found international partnership on budgeting reform to be particularly critical in light of the governance and budgeting structures of near-peer challengers, China and Russia. The adversaries certainly have weaknesses— Russia’s corruption, industrial capacity, and supply chain problems are on full display in Ukraine — but they also benefit from centralized systems that lack political opposition, facilitate close alignment between political and military leaders, and allow for sustained investment in long-term planning to reach complex modernization goals in hypersonics and other areas.

So, what can we learn from allies and partners as the US pursues defense budget reform? A main lesson is the need to balance security and stability with a healthy dose of flexibility. Key allies including Australia, the UK, and Canada place a significant emphasis on stability and predictability. They rely on interdependent, co-development efforts — most famously the F-35 — and foreign military sales with the US to promote strategic convergence, interoperability, and the shared benefits of innovation. This means that unpredictability in US PPBE (or partners’ systems) can have downstream implications for the US and its partners.

These countries place a significant emphasis on stability and predictability. Yet for allies and partners, unpredictability can be the cost of doing business when dealing with the US For example, some allies guarantee payments for projects for years in advance, while the Congress must appropriate funding every year, raising risks of inefficiency or delays.

To create a more stable system, we can learn from allies. To be sure, it may be easier for them to inculcate stability in their budgeting systems because of their parliamentary governance structures, which allow the executive branch to control budgets and therefore reduce political friction over appropriations relative to the US, where divided government has become the norm. While the US is unlikely to change its basic government institutions, it can learn from ally approaches to maintain stability, including multiyear investments without an annual reevaluation. Such farsighted investments might strengthen the linkage between strategy and resources, reduce the chances for inefficiency, and minimize the risk of obstructed funding from year to year.

We also found that the allies’ budgeting systems seek to balance budgeting stability with some degree of agility. For example, allies have provisions for carrying over funds across fiscal years (avoiding potentially perverse use-it-or-lose-it incentives), moving funds more fluidly as priorities shift, and accessing supplemental funding for emerging needs. Australia, the UK, and Canada are also exploring options to enable innovation in the face of lengthy acquisition cycles, as is the US. This kind of agility is critical to keep up with adversaries, who can more easily flex to meet government demands because of their centralized structures.

To infuse more agility into DoD budgeting processes, we can also look to other US agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and Health & Human Services. Various mechanisms allow these agencies to meet dynamic mission needs (disaster response in the former case and COVID-19 in the latter case). Other authorities available to select non-DOD agencies include carrying over partial funding across fiscal years, repurposing expiring unobligated balances, and reallocating funds to capital investments.

Additional mechanisms — which can include two-year appropriations timelines, early requests for grant proposals, and ten-year entitlement budgets — help the agencies weather continuing resolutions and other sources of budget turbulence. Of course, there are meaningful differences between DoD and non-DoD agencies in the scale and complexity of mission, but it is still worth studying execution flexibilities at other agency missions to see how they could help DoD spur innovation; make funding more predictable across years; and find relief from pain points in the PPBE system, such as continuing resolutions and rigid appropriations categories.

To reform the US defense budgeting system for a competitive future, national leaders need to show that the US values purposeful and effective approaches to prioritizing investments, making choices, and committing national resources toward national ends. Allies and partners must be considered in defense budget reform because the US can’t meet its national security objectives without them. Consideration should be given to how US processes affect the way it and its closest partners bring capabilities to the fight, while figuring out ways to learn from each other.

Stephanie Young is a senior political scientist and Director of the Resource Management Program in RAND Project AIR FORCE. Megan McKernan is a senior defense researcher and Associate Director of the RAND National Security and Research Division’s Acquisition and Technology Policy (ATP) Program. Both are professors of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

breakingdefense.com · by Stephanie Young, Megan McKernan · February 7, 2024

12. Kremlin confirms Putin gave interview to ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson

I saw a meme that touts Clarson as a Kremlin employee of the month.

Can we say useful idiot?

Did he ask for the release of Evan Gershkovich? Did he press Putin about a free press?

Kremlin confirms Putin gave interview to ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson

https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-gave-tucker-carlson-an-interview-because-he-differs-one-sided-media-2024-02-07/?utm

By Guy Faulconbridge

February 7, 20243:17 PM ESTUpdated 16 hours ago

Summary

Putin gave interview to Carlson on TuesdayFirst Putin interview with U.S. media since 2021Kremlin says Western media has not been impartialCarlson says Americans have a right to know

MOSCOW, Feb 7 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin granted an interview to U.S. television host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday, the Kremlin said, his first to an American journalist since before Russia's invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had agreed to the Carlson interview because the approach of the former Fox News host differed from the "one-sided" reporting of the Ukraine conflict by many Western news outlets.

"When it comes to the countries of the collective West, the large network media, TV channels, (and) large newspapers can in no way boast of even trying to at least look impartial in terms of coverage," Peskov told a regular news briefing on Wednesday.

"These are all media outlets that take an exceptionally one-sided position. Of course, there is no desire to communicate with such media, and it hardly makes sense, and it is unlikely that it will be useful."

Asked directly why Carlson had landed an interview with Putin, Peskov said the American journalist's approach was "in no way pro-Russian, it is not pro-Ukrainian - it is pro-American".

The interview is likely to be aired on Thursday, Russia's TASS news agency said, citing reports by the Wall Street Journal

[1/2]U.S. media personality Tucker Carlson speaks about his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia in this still image from undated video released February 6, 2024. Tucker Carlson Network via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Putin, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 2022, was last formally interviewed by a U.S. media outlet in October 2021, when CNBC's Hadley Gamble spoke to him, though he has since spoken to Russian, Chinese and Kazakh media.

Many Western media organisations have left Moscow or shuttered their operations due to onerous media laws passed shortly after the war. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, an American citizen, was detained on spying charges in March 2023.

Carlson said in a post on X on Tuesday that the interview would enable Americans to understand Russia's view of the war.

"We are not here because we love Vladimir Putin....We are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview, but we are urging you to watch it. You should know as much as you can," he said.

Putin says he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine to safeguard Russia's national security against what he casts as a hostile West. Kyiv and its Western allies say it is an unprovoked war of aggression and imperial-style land grab.

Carlson, who has said much Western media coverage of the war is biased in Kyiv's favour, said he had also asked Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for an interview.

Reporting by Reuters Writing by Guy Faulconbridge Editing by Andrew Osborn and Gareth Jones

13. The Pentagon may need machines to help stop insider threats

The Pentagon may need machines to help stop insider threats

Humans can’t always pick up on the nuances of network behavior so there’s a need for secure, automated tools that can.

BY LAUREN C. WILLIAMS

SENIOR EDITOR

FEBRUARY 7, 2024 04:36 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

Preventing the next intelligence leak could be as simple as acting on a tip that a user is behaving abnormally. But sometimes those tips go unnoticed, a top defense tech official said.

“We all have some user activity monitoring tools. We have some behavior analytics already on. This is really about empowering and integrating the two together,” Gurpreet Bhatia, the Pentagon’s principal director for cybersecurity, said during an Intelligence and National Security Alliance event in Arlington, Va. on Wednesday. “If I have a tip that goes somewhere and it just sits there, and there's no action taken, it's kind of mindless.”

The Defense Department is on a 2027 deadline to complete its shift to zero trust, a cybersecurity practice that assumes a network has been compromised by bad actors and works to ensure that each user must prove his or her identity and authorization to access a given pool of information.

But how can you tell when a user is mishandling or improperly sharing the information? Foiling these kinds of insider threats largely depends on understanding whether a user is behaving abnormally.

Things become more complicated as workplace culture across the defense and intelligence communities shift to be more open to include remote work.

In January, the Pentagon updated its telework policy to be more liberal, advocating for broader use among eligible employees and pushing leaders to support flexible workplace environments.

“We're basically in a space where geographic boundaries are kind of not there anymore,” Bhatia said. “So a lot of this is really about knowing what is happening within your wire, and then being able to take some action to minimize the impact.”

John Sahlin, vice president for defense cyber solutions at General Dynamics Information Technology, said the company tested additional tools that target insider threat behavior during the recent Yama Sakura multinational military exercise in Japan.

Dealing with insider threats is a “very nuanced” concernbecause it’s akin to picking out a cherry-red needle in a “stack of millions of needles that range in color from Barbie pink to brick red,” Sahlin told Defense One. “Humans can't tell the nuanced differences nearly as well as an automated tool…to understand that tips that may look like normal activity, they're just a little bit off.”

GDIT has been testing out zero trust solutions for the Army on the battlefield and has begun laying the groundwork for more advanced insider threat detection.

“We didn't exercise it to a great extent. But we laid the groundwork so that we could start to collect user behavior, because the first step in understanding what those tips are, is monitoring the existing behavior patterns to establish what a normal pattern is,” Sahlin said.

The ultimate goal is for cyber operators to see tips in real time so they can act when needed. Experimenting with zero trust during military exercises like Yama Sakura could also help inform how the Defense Department uses zero trust on the enterprise level.

“It gives us an area to explore without having to look at just the huge volume of the entire enterprise that can be just daunting and overwhelming,” Sahlin said. “We can accelerate delivery…by executing a limited set of capability at a time and building on what infrastructure we currently have as a complement.”

The Pentagon’s chief information officer is tracking implementation progress of each component and agency and recently evaluated how they were meeting minimum capability goals, Bhatia said.

“We just went through the first round of looking at all of their integration plans that [talk] about how are they going to meet the first target level goal for FY27, which includes not just the technology bit, but also are they resourced,” he said.

DOD CIO John Sherman is working with the components to make sure they’re on track, Bhatia said.

“We're outlining the conditions of what does goodness look like,” Bhatia said. “We're making all the components come back together with a holistic approach, and really informing them of the threats.”

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

14. U.S. Defense Requires Greater Civil Support to Counter China’s Cyber Aggression

We need cyber civil defense. This is not like civil defense against nuclear attack in the Cold War. This is not theoretical or preparing for something that might happen one day in the future. We are being attacked every day. Every one of us provides access to a network that our adversaries can exploit. We have to practice good cyber hygiene and ensure we are practicing the right self defense measures to protect ourselves and the networks to which we belong. That said we have to realize we cannot defense everything and the principles of terrorism and airpower apply to cyber defense. In terrorism we have to defend against attack and be 100% to be successful. The terrorists only have to be right one time. And in airpower theory - "the bomber will always get through." In cyber some hacker will always get through, Therefore we must also focus on resilience - of our own personal cyber presence as well as our networks.

U.S. Defense Requires Greater Civil Support to Counter China’s Cyber Aggression - Defense Opinion

defenseopinion.com · by Bob Kolasky · February 7, 2024

While much of Washington was transfixed recently by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologizing at a Senate hearing to families who had lost loved ones to online harassment, the national security community’s attention was focused on another Capitol Hill gathering related to digital malfeasance.

The country’s four top cybersecurity officials—the newly appointed National Cyber Director and the heads of U.S. Cyber Command, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—delivered a dramatic message to a House panel: the country’s critical infrastructure is under cyberattack from the Chinese government.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) multi-pronged assault on the U.S. economic and national security was the defining threat of a generation.

What was especially interesting about the hearing to cybersecurity professionals was not that the message was new. The U.S. government has long experienced foreign governments, including the Chinese government, attempting to (and sometimes successfully) breach critical infrastructure systems. In 2018, for example, the then-Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, said: “The warning lights are blinking red on cyber attacks.” Similarly, protecting critical infrastructure has been the pillar of every national cyber strategy of the 21st Century.

What has changed is that the capability of the Chinese cyber actors has grown and that the last couple of years have taught us that countries with adversarial interests to the United States and our allies are willing to change their strategy and deploy aggressive actions.

Risk management approach front and center

To meet this potentially material change in China’s cyber posture toward the U.S. demands a renewed focus by the defense community, one that is better tied to the goals of critical infrastructure and supply chain security and resilience. It should be a risk management approach centered on the idea of prioritization and collaboration.

To do that, policymakers need greater precision to define what a cyber attack on critical infrastructure is (and isn’t). Thousands of companies assert that they are part of the critical infrastructure in the United States, and many of those companies see adversarial interest in causing cyber harm to their operations. For national defense purposes, we can’t afford to treat all of these as “attacks” on critical infrastructure if we are going to continue to define such attacks as off-limits and ones that require response. Doing so runs the risk of America’s efforts being seen as hollow or as hyperbolic.

Instead, from my perspective, an adversary attack on critical infrastructure needs to have one of two characteristics.

The first is when an adversary uses cyber means to attack the functioning of a critical system or cause physical or digital harm that has real-world impacts. We still have seen very few of those types of attacks in the United States, but they certainly have been rampant in the Russian war against Ukraine.

The second has been more common—when illegal and aggressive cyber tactics are used to introduce malware or exploit vulnerabilities, which has the effect of shutting down critical services even when those services were not necessarily the target. Examples include the 2021 Colonial Pipeline IT system attack, which caused the pipeline to cease operations as a spillover impact of losing the IT systems. Another was the 2017 NotPetya attack in Europe, which led to the shutdown of port operations in the Midwest. In both cases, adversary attacks caused critical infrastructure harm, which might not have been the original intent, but which was undeniable.

It is these two types of attacks that need to be articulated as off-limits to the Chinese government and, if they were to occur and be linked to Chinese actors, treated as escalations in conflict. It is also these types of attacks that should be the priority to defend against from a U.S. national cybersecurity posture.

Priorities should be on critical systems, supply chains

While it is important that businesses of all types are “shields up” in their cyber defenses and take cyber risk seriously, from a national perspective defense priorities need to be critical systems and supply chains that contribute to National Critical Functions (NCFs).

NCFs, as defined by CISA, are those “functions of the government and the private sector so vital to the United States that their disruption, corruption, or dysfunction would have a debilitating effect on national security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.”

One of the most important National Critical Functions is the provision of materiel and operational support to defense, and it is in this area that prioritizing the cyber risk from the Chinese government should be laser focused. In addition, other focuses must include critical functions such as electricity, communications, water supply, transportation and cloud computing and data management that enable defense operations and are crucially important for American strength. And there is evidence that the Chinese government would consider targeting them.

Civil support to national defense authorities

It is not the Defense Department that maintains many of these; nor is it the Defense Department that has primacy in defending the systems. Instead, these functions are largely delivered by the private sector and are dependent on a variety of information and communications and operational technologies as well as a diverse supply of materials and chemicals.

I’ve come to think of this as “civil support to defense authorities,” which depends on greater collaboration in planning and shared incentives—particularly around supply chains.

Cyber resilience flips the traditional approach to defense on its head, and it is crucial that there are structures, business agreements and analysis and information sharing to support collaborative planning and investment in defense and resilience by private companies as well as the U.S. government.

These can’t be one-time fixes, however. They need to be sustained and practiced. We are in an era where strategic competition is veering toward strategic conflict. The response to that demands focus and breaking down barriers to collaboration.

defenseopinion.com · by Bob Kolasky · February 7, 2024

15. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 7, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-7-2024

Key Takeaways:

Russian forces conducted the second largest combined drone and missile strike of 2024 on the morning of February 7. The February 7 strike package is emblematic of the constant air domain offense-defense innovation-adaptation race in which Russia and Ukraine are engaged.
Russia targeted Kyiv City during the February 7 strike for the third time thus far in 2024, notably coinciding with EU High Commissioner Josep Borrell’s visit to Kyiv.
Deputy Chairperson of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev continued his nuclear saber-rattling rhetoric likely aimed in part at deterring Western aid to Ukraine.
The Russian Federation Council approved a bill on February 7 that allows the Russian government to confiscate property from individuals convicted of spreading “fake” information about the Russian military, likely as part of ongoing censorship efforts to limit criticisms of Russia’s war effort ahead of the March 2024 Russian presidential election.
Yandex NV — the Dutch holding company of Russian internet technology company Yandex — announced that it will sell all of its Russian assets for 475 billion rubles (about $5.2 billion) to a purchasing consortium consisting of five Russian companies.
Russian forces made confirmed gains west of Horlivka and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area amid continued positional engagements along the entire frontline.
The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated on February 7 that Russia is mobilizing citizens from Syria who come to Russia under the guise of security guard jobs at oil refineries.
Russian occupation authorities continue to militarize Ukrainian children and youth in occupied Ukraine.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 7, 2024

Feb 7, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 7, 2024

Karolina Hird, Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, and Fredrick W. Kagan

February 7, 2024, 8:10pm ET

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

Click here to see ISW’s 3D control of terrain topographic map of Ukraine. Use of a computer (not a mobile device) is strongly recommended for using this data-heavy tool.

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 1:30pm ET on February 7. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the February 8 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Russian forces conducted the second largest combined drone and missile strike of 2024 on the morning of February 7. Ukrainian military sources stated that Russian forces launched 64 drones and missiles at Ukraine: 20 Shahed 136/131 drones; 29 Kh-101/555/55 cruise missiles; four Kh-22 cruise missiles; three Kalibr cruise missiles; three Iskander-M ballistic missiles; and five S-300 surface-to-air missiles.[1] Ukrainian air defenses destroyed 44 of 64 targets: 26 Kh-101/555/55 cruise missiles; three Kalibr cruise missiles; and 15 Shahed-131/131 drones.[2] The Kyiv City Administration reported that Russian forces launched at least two dozen of the Kh-101/555/55 cruise missiles at Kyiv City and damaged residential infrastructure in several neighborhoods.[3] Ukrainian sources additionally stated that Russian forces hit Kharkiv City with S-300 surface-to-air missiles and Kh-22 cruise missiles and confirmed that two missiles that struck Kharkiv City were North Korean-provided Kn-23 (Hwasong-11 Ga) missiles.[4] Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported that its sources in Ukrainian law enforcement suggested that Russian forces may have additionally launched 3M22 Zircon ship-launched hypersonic cruise missiles at Kyiv City but that they are still working to confirm this information.[5]

The February 7 strike package is emblematic of the constant air domain offense-defense innovation-adaptation race in which Russia and Ukraine are engaged. Ukrainian air defense managed to shoot down the majority of the Kh-101/555/55 cruise missiles and Shahed drones, which may suggest that Russian forces fired the Kh-101 series missiles and Shaheds in order to distract Ukrainian air defense. Ukrainian forces did not shoot down any of the Kh-22 cruise missiles, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, or S-300 surface-to-air missiles, by contrast. Russian forces may have specifically designed this strike package to distract Ukrainian air defense with the Kh-101s and Shahed combination with the intention of helping the other missiles make it through to their intended targets. The unconfirmed reports of 3M22 Zircon strikes are also noteworthy as Zircons are typically fired from naval vessels at other vessels or coastal targets, so Russian forces may have had to adapt the Zircon launchers to strike targets so far inland.[6] Russian forces additionally appear to have integrated North Korean missiles into their strike packages, which may have been harder for Ukrainian forces to detect and shoot down. ISW has previously assessed that Russia is experimenting with the strike packages it can launch at Ukraine to achieve the maximum desired effect, and that Ukraine in return continues efforts to adapt and respond to new Russian strike packages.[7]

Russia targeted Kyiv City during the February 7 strike for the third time thus far in 2024, notably coinciding with EU High Commissioner Josep Borrell’s visit to Kyiv.[8] Borrell arrived in Kyiv on February 6 to discuss EU military aid and continued support to Ukraine.[9] Russia has previously targeted Kyiv City during high-level foreign visits, such as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s visit in April 2022.[10] The US is also, of course, currently engaged in critical discussions over continued military aid to Ukraine, and Russia has frequently timed such massive missile strikes with international aid discussions to deter continued Western support for Ukraine.[11] Russia likely therefore purposefully conducted this strike series and targeted Kyiv City to achieve informational effects in the EU and the collective West apart from any objectives it was intended to achieve in Ukraine.

Deputy Chairperson of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev continued his nuclear saber-rattling rhetoric likely aimed in part at deterring Western aid to Ukraine. Medvedev claimed on February 7 that Russia has repeatedly “underscored” that it’s “plans” do not include any conflict “with NATO and EU member states.”[12] Kremlin officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, have recently and consistently rhetorically threatened NATO member states, and Kremlin-affiliated actors appear to be attempting to sow instability and set information conditions for possible future Russian aggressive actions against various European states.[13] Medvedev stated that NATO’s military budget and population are significantly larger than Russia’s, so that if a war were to break out between Russia and NATO, Russia would have to respond “asymmetrically” by using “ballistic and cruise missiles carrying special warheads” — referring to nuclear warheads — resulting in an “apocalypse.” Medvedev posted these claims on his English language X (formerly Twitter) channel and Russian language Telegram channel, suggesting that his statements are meant for both an international and domestic audience. Kremlin officials and pundits have consistently threatened to use nuclear weapons against NATO members, and ISW continues to assess that this nuclear rhetoric is aimed at deterring Western aid to Ukraine.[14] Medvedev‘s statements about NATO’s larger size and military budget relative to Russia are likely aimed at domestically promoting Kremlin narratives that NATO — and the West generally — poses an existential threat to Russia — a claim the Kremlin has used to try to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[15]

The Russian Federation Council approved a bill on February 7 that allows the Russian government to confiscate property from individuals convicted of spreading “fake” information about the Russian military, likely as part of ongoing censorship efforts to limit criticisms of Russia’s war effort ahead of the March 2024 Russian presidential election.[16] The bill also allows Russian authorities to confiscate property from individuals found guilty of calling for terrorist or extremist activities and advocating for sanctions against Russia.[17] ISW previously observed increasing complaints from the relatives of mobilized Russian servicemen concerning the Russian military’s mistreatment of mobilized personnel, and continues to assess that the Kremlin likely wants to silence concerned relatives to maintain appearances of wide support for the war ahead of the presidential election.[18]

Yandex NV — the Dutch holding company of Russian internet technology company Yandex — announced that it will sell all of its Russian assets for 475 billion rubles (about $5.2 billion) to a purchasing consortium consisting of five Russian companies. Yandex stated in a press release published on February 5 that the purchasing consortium will pay at least half of the considerations in cash using Chinese yuan.[19] Yandex NV will maintain no businesses in Russia but will continue to hold four international businesses. The New York Times (NYT) reported that Yandex NV made 95 percent of its revenues between January and September 2023 in Russia.[20] ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin is likely nationalizing Yandex in order to strengthen control over the Russian information space, especially in preparation for the March 2024 Russian presidential election.[21]

Key Takeaways:

Russian forces conducted the second largest combined drone and missile strike of 2024 on the morning of February 7. The February 7 strike package is emblematic of the constant air domain offense-defense innovation-adaptation race in which Russia and Ukraine are engaged.
Russia targeted Kyiv City during the February 7 strike for the third time thus far in 2024, notably coinciding with EU High Commissioner Josep Borrell’s visit to Kyiv.
Deputy Chairperson of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev continued his nuclear saber-rattling rhetoric likely aimed in part at deterring Western aid to Ukraine.
The Russian Federation Council approved a bill on February 7 that allows the Russian government to confiscate property from individuals convicted of spreading “fake” information about the Russian military, likely as part of ongoing censorship efforts to limit criticisms of Russia’s war effort ahead of the March 2024 Russian presidential election.
Yandex NV — the Dutch holding company of Russian internet technology company Yandex — announced that it will sell all of its Russian assets for 475 billion rubles (about $5.2 billion) to a purchasing consortium consisting of five Russian companies.
Russian forces made confirmed gains west of Horlivka and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area amid continued positional engagements along the entire frontline.
The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated on February 7 that Russia is mobilizing citizens from Syria who come to Russia under the guise of security guard jobs at oil refineries.
Russian occupation authorities continue to militarize Ukrainian children and youth in occupied Ukraine.

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Russian Technological Adaptations
Ukrainian Defense Industrial Base Efforts
Activities in Russian-Occupied Areas
Russian Information Operations and Narratives
Significant Activity in Belarus

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Select Rosgvardia elements have reportedly conducted an operational redeployment to Belgorod Oblast border areas. Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets stated on February 7 that elements of Rosgvardia’s 116th Special Purpose Brigade, namely its 900th and 902nd Regiments, redeployed to Belgorod Oblast from occupied Donetsk Oblast in the first week of February.[22] Mashovets noted that these regiments have a particularly powerful artillery complement, which is likely why they have been redeployed to the Belgorod Grouping of Forces. ISW previously observed that Rosgvardia’s 116th Special Purpose Brigade and its new constituent regiments deployed to occupied Donetsk Oblast in late December 2023 to serve law enforcement purposes in occupied Ukraine, so their rapid redeployment away from occupied Ukraine is noteworthy.[23] ISW also previously assessed that Russian forces may launch tactical diversionary cross-border raids into Kharkiv Oblast from Belgorod Oblast to distract and pin Ukrainian forces away from the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna axis, where Russian forces are currently pursuing offensive operations, and the deployment of at least two Rosgvardia regiments may be in support of such future diversionary activities.[24] Russian forces remain unlikely to be able to conduct large-scale offensive operations into Kharkiv Oblast from Belgorod Oblast, however.[25]

Positional engagements continued along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on February 7, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Russian and Ukrainian forces reported positional fighting northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka and Ivanivka; southeast of Kupyansk near Tabaivka; west of Kreminna near Terny and Torske; southwest of Kreminna near Hryhorivka; and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[26] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces reached tactical heights east of Terny and captured a position in the Bilohorivka industrial zone, but ISW has not observed visual evidence of these claimed gains.[27] A Russian milblogger reported that Russian forces intend to reach the Oskil River in the Kupyansk direction and capture the city of Lyman west of Kreminna.[28] Elements of the Russian 7th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] Army Corps) are reportedly operating near Bilohorivka.[29]

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

Limited positional engagements continued near Bakhmut on February 7, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Ukrainian and Russian sources reported positional fighting northwest of Bakhmut near Bohdanivka; west of Bakhmut near Ivanivske; and southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka.[30] Elements of the Russian 11th Separate Guards Air Assault (VDV) Brigade are reportedly operating west of Bakhmut, and elements of the 51st Guards VDV Regiment (106th VDV Division) are reportedly operating northeast of Bakhmut near Soledar.[31]

Geolocated footage posted on February 7 shows that Russian forces recently made a marginal advance northeast of Niu-York (west of Horlivka).[32] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks northwest of Horlivka near Shumy and Pivdenne.[33] Drone operators of the “Russkiye Yastreby” (Russian Hawks) detachment (33rd Motorized Rifle Regiment, 1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps] are reportedly operating near Horlivka.[34]

Russian forces reportedly continued advancing in northern Avdiivka, although there were no confirmed control of terrain changes in this area on February 7. Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced southward along Zaliznychnyi Lane in northwestern Avdiivka.[35] One Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the 114th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st DNR Army Corps) and the 30th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army [CAA], Central Military District [CMD]) penetrated the Ukrainian grouping on Zaliznychnyi Lane in a maneuver intended to cut off and isolate Ukrainian forces into two groupings at the point of penetration.[36] Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets stated that Russian forces have reached the northern part of a gardening partnership on Zaliznychnyi Lane.[37] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Russian forces advanced westward towards the Coke Plant in northwestern Avdiivka.[38] Mashovets stated that Russian forces are now focusing on interdicting Hrushevskoho Street, the remaining Ukrainian ground line of communication (GLOC) that runs west of the Coke Plant and into Avdiivka via the northwestern part of the settlement.[39] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces now control between 18 and 20 percent of Avdiivka.[40] Elements of the Russian 239th and 80th Tank Regiments (both of 90th Tank Division, 41st CAA, CMD); the 21st, 30th, and 15th Motorized Rifle Brigades (all of the 2nd CAA, CMD); and 9th and 114th Motorized Rifle Brigade (both of 1st DNR Army Corps) are reportedly operating in the Avdiivka direction.[41]

Russian forces recently made confirmed advances west and southwest of Donetsk City. Geolocated footage posted on February 7 shows that Russian forces advanced into the eastern outskirts of Heorhiivka (just west of Donetsk City), and several milbloggers claimed that Russian forces have gained a foothold in the settlement.[42] Additional geolocated footage posted on February 7 indicates that elements of the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) advanced into eastern Novomykhailivka along Lenin Street, which accords with several Russian milblogger claims that Russian forces entered eastern Novomykhailivka.[43] Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that positional engagements continued west of Donetsk City near Krasnohorivka and Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Pobieda and Novomykhailivka.[44]

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

Russian forces recently made confirmed advances in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area amid continued positional engagements in the area on February 7. Geolocated footage published on February 6 and NASA Fire Information for Resource Management (FIRMS) data from February 6 indicate that Russian forces advanced north of Mykilske (east of Vuhledar).[45] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced east of Vuhledar towards the Pivdennodonbaska Coal Mine.[46] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced south of Velyka Novosilka near Staromayorske, but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[47] Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued southeast of Velyka Novosilka near Zolota Nyva and southwest of Velyka Novosilka near Pryyutne.[48] Elements of the Russian 11th Air and Air Defense Forces Army (Eastern Military District [EMD]) are reportedly operating near Urozhaine (south of Velyka Novosilka); elements of the 218th Tank Regiment (127th Motorized Rifle Division, 5th Combined Arms Army [CAA], EMD) are reportedly operating north of Pryyutne; and elements of the 114th Motorized Rifle Regiment (127th Motorized Rifle Division, 5th CAA, EMD) are reportedly conducting strikes near Chervone (southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[49]

Positional engagements continued in western Zaporizhia Oblast on February 7, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued near Robotyne and Verbove (east of Robotyne).[50] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian drones are limiting Russian forces’ ability to use armored vehicles during the day and night in the Orikhiv direction and that Russian forces are suffering from an acute shortage of drones.[51] The milblogger claimed that Russian forces are currently concentrating on the Bakhmut and Donetsk directions but suggested that Russian forces resume offensive operations in the Zaporizhia direction to stretch Ukrainian reserves and pull them away from other critical axes. Elements of the Russian 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade (58th CAA, Southern Military District [SMD]) are reportedly operating in the Zaporizhia direction; elements of the Russian 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th CAA, SMD) are reportedly operating near Robotyne; elements of the BARS-10 (Russian Combat Army Reserve) are reportedly operating near Kamianske (northwest of Robotyne); and elements of the 503rd Motorized Rifle Regiment (19th Motorized Rifle Division, 58th CAA, SMD) are reportedly operating near Novoandriivka (northwest of Robotyne).[52]

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Rafael Grossi visited the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on February 7. Grossi met with Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko on February 6 and stated that the number of personnel at the ZNPP is about 2,000 to 3,000, whereas the previous staffing levels had been 12,000 personnel.[53] Grossi stated that the situation at the ZNPP is “so far...stable” but in a “very delicate equilibrium.” The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) posted footage on February 7 of Russian military personnel escorting Grossi and the IAEA delegation to the ZNPP.[54] The Russian MoD claimed that the delegation visited various parts of the ZNPP’s fourth power unit and that experts have been present at the ZNPP since September 2022.

Ukrainian and Russian forces made confirmed advances in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast amid continued positional engagements in the area on February 7. Geolocated footage published on February 7 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced in eastern Krynky.[55] Additional geolocated footage published on February 7 indicates that Russian forces advanced in southern Krynky.[56] Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued in Krynky.[57]

Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign (Russian Objective: Target Ukrainian military and civilian infrastructure in the rear and on the frontline)

See topline text.

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

The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated on February 7 that Russia is mobilizing citizens from Syria who come to Russia under the false promise of employment as security guards at oil refineries.[58] The GUR reported that Russia is using “tourist companies” to recruit civilians in Syria for jobs in the Sakha Republic. The GUR stated that about 1,000 Syrian mercenaries are currently undergoing training, especially in urban combat, in Syria before they go to the Sakha Republic. The GUR found that Russian authorities then “lure” the Syrians to “higher paying jobs” in Buryatia Republic, where Russian authorities issue them Russian passports and mobilize them into the military. The GUR noted that a group of Syrian mercenaries who received Russian passports are currently in Ulan-Ude and will join the Russian 5th Tank Brigade (36th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District).

Western sanctions are reportedly pushing Chinese banks to stop or restrict Russian transactions. Russian outlet Vedomosti stated on February 6 that the Chinese Zhejiang Chouzhou Commercial Bank, which is reportedly the main bank for Russian importers working with China, notified its clients that is suspending all transactions with Russian and Belarusian organizations.[59] Vedomosti reported that its sources stated that the bank initially stopped payments for certain goods that fall under Western sanctions in December 2023 but later completely stopped any transactions with Russia regardless of the product, the currency of payment, or the payment system used, out of fear of Western banks requesting reports on these transactions. Vedomosti stated that other unspecified Chinese banks are also restricting Russian transactions and are requiring confirmation that the buyer does not have contact with sanctioned people or companies, that the products will not be used in the Russian defense industrial base (DIB), and that the products will not go to occupied Crimea. At least two People’s Republic of China (PRC)-owned banks reportedly ordered reviews of international transactions with Russian clients in January after the US authorized secondary sanctions on financial institutions that facilitate Russian sanctions evasion and support the Russian war in Ukraine.[60] Turkish banks also reportedly started to close Russian companies’ accounts due to the threat of US secondary sanctions in early February.[61]

Russian state oil company Rosneft Head Igor Sechin is reportedly forming his own “Spetsnaz” (special purpose) force. A Russian insider source claimed that Sechin is forming a “Spetsnaz” force at his golf club in Krylyatskoye Raion, Moscow City.[62] The insider source claimed that Sechin intends to use his “Spetsnaz” force to guard Rosneft’s assets on “several continents,” including Africa. The insider source reported that Sechin’s “Spetsnaz” force is currently staffed by former Rosgvardia personnel and private security officers and that former Wagner Group and other veterans of the war in Ukraine are uninterested in joining due to low salaries. The source claimed that Sechin’s “Spetsnaz” force currently consists of two groups of up to 10 personnel each, but that Sechin will likely expand the group because the group formed at the end of 2023 and only began to receive funding in 2024. ISW cannot independently confirm any of the insider source’s claims. ISW previously observed that other Russian state-owned enterprises started their own similar “private military companies” (PMC) for security purposes, as was the case with Gazprom’s “Potok” battalion.[63]

Russian Technological Adaptations (Russian objective: Introduce technological innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine)

Russian state-owned defense corporation Rostec is testing the newly-developed “Prometheus” software and hardware complex that can turn an infantry fighting vehicle, armored personnel carrier, or tank into a remotely controlled robotic vehicle.[64] Kremlin newswire TASS reported on February 6 that a vehicle equipped with the Prometheus software and hardware complex can also move to a predetermined location without operator involvement while automatically determining the best route and avoiding obstacles.

Ukrainian Defense Industrial Efforts (Ukrainian objective: Develop its defense industrial base to become more self-sufficient in cooperation with US, European, and international partners)

Senior Ukrainian officials commented on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s announcement that Ukraine is forming a separate branch of unmanned systems forces within the Ukrainian military. Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov stated on February 7 that the branch will have a new command structure that will help solve problems relating to radio frequency planning, interaction with electronic warfare (EW) systems, and launching remote EW systems.[65] Fedorov also stated that the Ukrainian military has three attack drone companies that are ready for deployment and that the Ukrainian Army of Drones project currently consists of 67 different drone models.[66]

Fedorov also stated on February 7 that Ukrainian companies have developed an analog for the Russian Lancet loitering munition.[67] Fedorov stated that Ukrainian companies have already tested the drones in combat conditions and that these drones may appear on the frontline in about two months.

Ecuador will reportedly exchange Soviet-era military equipment for $200 million worth of US-made equipment, allowing the US to then provide the Soviet equipment to Ukraine.[68] Ecuador is reportedly transferring six Osa-AKM anti-aircraft missile systems, 18 BM-21 Grad Multiple Rocket Launch Systems (MLRS), five Mi-17 helicopters, 128 ZPU-1-2 anti-aircraft machine guns, and 34 ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft machine guns to the US, which the US will send directly to Ukraine for use on the battlefield.[69]

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

Russian occupation authorities continue to militarize Ukrainian children and youth in occupied Ukraine. The Russian Investigative Committee gave a lecture to schoolchildren in occupied Donetsk Oblast on “countering extremism and terrorism” in order to develop “moral standards and patriotism” in the children.[70] Russian opposition media investigations have previously found that the Russian Investigative Committee and its head, Alexander Bastrykin, are directly involved in facilitating the deportation of children from occupied Ukraine to Russia, and that Bastrykin himself has overseen the placement of deported Ukrainian children into Russian cadet courses.[71] Ukrainian government, military, and partisan sources additionally reported on February 7 that Russian occupation authorities continue to introduce Russian military-patriotic education and military indoctrination to schools in occupied Ukraine through the ”Lessons in Courage” education program and other similar courses.[72]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian officials continue to claim that the West is at fault for the deteriorating relationship between the West and Russia.[73] Russian government officials are likely trying to frame continued Western support for Ukraine as the impetus for the deteriorating Russian-Western relationship to discourage the continued provision of Western military aid to Ukraine, despite the fact that Russia initiated military conflict with Ukraine in 2014 and then again in 2022 and has routinely threatened the EU and NATO.[74]

Russian Ambassador to North Korea Alexander Matseroga stated that Russian-North Korean relations are currently “unprecedented” and that the two states have developed “very close mutually beneficial cooperation” over the past several years, contrasting developing Russo-North Korean relations with Russia’s relationship with the EU and NATO.[75]

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

The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on February 7 that the Belarusian Committee of State Security (KGB) has increasingly questioned and searched Ukrainian citizens in Belarus in the past month.[76] The Ukrainian Resistance Center stated that Belarusian special services are looking to recruit Ukrainian citizens to use as informants.

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.

16. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, February 7, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-february-7-2024

Key Takeaways:

Iraq: US Central Command (CENTCOM) killed a senior Kataib Hezbollah commander responsible for Syria on February 7 who planned and participated in attacks targeting US forces in the region. The strike also killed a Kataib Hezbollah field commander.
Iraqis demonstrated outside the US Embassy in Baghdad following Iranian-backed social media calls to storm the embassy on social media.
Iran: The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center reported that Iran accelerated its cyberattacks and influence operations after October 7 to support Hamas and weaken Israel and its allies and business partners.
Negotiations: Israel rejected a Hamas three-stage proposal for a ceasefire on February 7.
Hamas offered a three-stage ceasefire deal that would release all Israeli hostages over a four-month period in exchange for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and discussions on the end of the war.[32] Each phase would last 45 days.
Southern Gaza Strip: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on February 7 that the IDF would prepare to operate in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials told CNN that the IDF briefed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the upcoming expansion of Israeli ground operations and that Blinken raised concerns regarding the densely populated area, particularly related to the measures the IDF would take to mitigate harm to civilians.

IRAN UPDATE, FEBRUARY 7, 2024

Feb 7, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, February 7, 2024

Ashka Jhaveri, Alexandra Braverman, Johanna Moore, Amin Soltani, Peter Mills, Kathryn Tyson, and Brian Carter

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. For more on developments in Iran and the region, see our interactive map of Iran and the Middle East.

Note: CTP and ISW have refocused the update to cover the Israel-Hamas war. The new sections address developments in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as noteworthy activity from Iran’s Axis of Resistance. We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report. Click here to subscribe to the Iran Update.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) killed a senior Kataib Hezbollah commander on February 7 who planned and participated in attacks targeting US forces in the region.[1] CENTCOM said the strike was in response to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq’s drone attack on January 28 that killed three US servicemembers in Jordan.[2] Local Iraqi media reported that the US airstrike hit a vehicle and killed three of its occupants in Mashtal, eastern Baghdad.[3] Two Kataib Hezbollah commanders, Wissam Mohammed Saber al Saadi and Arkan Aleaoui, were in the vehicle.[4] The Associated Press cited ”two officials with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq” who claimed that Saadi oversaw KH operations in Syria.[5] An Iraqi journalist identified Aleaoui as a KH field commander.[6] Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba said on February 7 that it will retaliate for the US strike in Baghdad if the Iraqi government does not immediately remove US forces from Iraq.[7]

Iraqis demonstrated outside the US Embassy in Baghdad following Iranian-backed social media calls to storm the embassy on social media.[8] Pro-Iranian-backed Iraqi militia social media channels issued calls after the US drone strike for demonstrators to gather in Jadiriyah and march towards the embassy.[9]

Sudani said that the Iraqi Federal government has not had direct contact with the United States since the US airstrikes in Iraq on February 1.[10] Sudani also said that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will be involved in future bilateral negotiations on the status of US and International Coalition forces in Iraq. It is unclear what role the KRG will play in the bilateral negotiations.

The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center reported that Iran accelerated its cyberattacks and influence operations after October 7 to support Hamas and weaken Israel and its allies and business partners.[11] Microsoft assessed that Iran’s operations immediately after October 7 were “hasty and chaotic,” but that these efforts have “achieved growing success.”[12] Microsoft said that traffic to Iranian state media websites increased 42 percent between October 7 and October 14 and that the traffic “was still 28 percent above pre-war levels” in early November.[13] Microsoft said that the “hasty and chaotic” operations targeting Israel shifted to an “all hands on attack threat environment” in late October.[14] It reported that the cyberattacks were increasingly “destructive” and Iran began employing “networks of social media ‘sockpuppet’ accounts.”[15] Microsoft also said that Iran gradually expanded its operation to target countries other than Israel, including Albania, Bahrain, and the United States.[16] Iran also used artificial intelligence for the first time in a cyber or influence operation to replace ”streaming television services...with a fake news video featuring an apparently AI-generated news anchor.”[17] This AI-enabled operation targeted audiences in Canada, the UAE, and the United Kingdom.[18]

Israel rejected a Hamas three-stage proposal for a ceasefire on February 7.[19] Hamas’ proposed the February 7 deal after Egypt, the United States, and Israel proposed a separate three-stage agreement on January 31 after talks in Paris.[20] The January 31 Paris proposal did not include an end to the war.[21] Hamas offered a three-stage ceasefire deal that would release all Israeli hostages over a four-month period in exchange for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and discussions on the end of the war.[22] Each phase would last 45 days. The deal includes a “comprehensive reconstruction” of the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the Hamas counterproposal in a national address, but he did not rule out the possibility of further negotiations.[23]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on February 7 that the IDF would prepare to operate in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.[24] Israeli officials have said repeatedly that the IDF will clear Rafah.[25] Netanyahu’s announcement follows weeks of talks between Israel and Egypt discussing an Israeli operation into Rafah.[26] The Israel-Hamas war has displaced over 50 percent of the Gaza Strip’s two million residents to Rafah.[27] Egypt is concerned that an Israeli military operation in Rafah could force displaced Gazans to flee into the Sinai Peninsula.[28] Western media reported on February 6 that unspecified Egyptian officials said that Israel told Cairo in private that the IDF would allow people in Rafah to evacuate north before beginning operations in Rafah.[29]

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials on February 7 to discuss negotiations to reach a ceasefire that would release remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip and allow more aid to reach Palestinians.[30] Israeli officials told CNN that the IDF briefed Blinken on the upcoming expansion of Israeli ground operations and that Blinken raised concerns regarding the densely populated area, particularly related to the measures the IDF would take to mitigate harm to civilians.[31]

Key Takeaways:

Iraq: US Central Command (CENTCOM) killed a senior Kataib Hezbollah commander responsible for Syria on February 7 who planned and participated in attacks targeting US forces in the region. The strike also killed a Kataib Hezbollah field commander.
Iraqis demonstrated outside the US Embassy in Baghdad following Iranian-backed social media calls to storm the embassy on social media.
Iran: The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center reported that Iran accelerated its cyberattacks and influence operations after October 7 to support Hamas and weaken Israel and its allies and business partners.
Negotiations: Israel rejected a Hamas three-stage proposal for a ceasefire on February 7.
Hamas offered a three-stage ceasefire deal that would release all Israeli hostages over a four-month period in exchange for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and discussions on the end of the war.[32] Each phase would last 45 days.
Southern Gaza Strip: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on February 7 that the IDF would prepare to operate in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials told CNN that the IDF briefed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the upcoming expansion of Israeli ground operations and that Blinken raised concerns regarding the densely populated area, particularly related to the measures the IDF would take to mitigate harm to civilians.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to launch and sustain a major ground operation into the Gaza Strip
Degrade IDF material and morale around the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian fighters continued to infiltrate western Gaza City, where they are attacking Israeli forces. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi met with division commanders in the northern Gaza Strip on February 6.[33] Halevi said that Israeli forces in the northern Gaza Strip are killing Palestinian fighters, commanders, and destroying infrastructure. Palestinian militias claimed most of their attacks in the Gaza Strip on February 7 in western Gaza City.[34] The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) launched one-way attack drones targeting Israeli forces western Gaza City in one such attack.[35] A Palestinian activist reported clashes between Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces in several neighborhoods of western Gaza City, including al Shati Camp, Sheikh Ijlin, and Tal al Hawa.[36]

Israeli media reported on February 7 that Israeli forces located a large Hamas underground tunnel underneath a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) headquarters in Rimal neighborhood, Gaza City.[37]

The IDF 98th Division located two interconnected tunnel complexes in Khan Younis that Hamas used to hold hostages.[38] The IDF reported that senior Hamas officials used the complex before Hamas repurposed it to hold hostages. Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian fighters in the tunnels and found a cell for holding hostages. The tunnel system is under central Khan Younis City. The IDF estimates that Hamas invested millions of shekels into its construction.

Israeli forces continued to conduct clearing operations in Khan Younis on February 7. The 35th Paratroopers Brigade and the 89th Commando Brigade (both assigned to the 98th Division) clashed with Palestinian fighters in western Khan Younis and raided military infrastructure.[39] The IDF reported that the 646th Brigade (assigned to the 99th Division) redeployed to Khan Younis after the brigade conducted clearing operations in the central Gaza Strip.[40] Hamas and several Palestinian militias allied with Hamas attempted to disrupt Israeli operations in Khan Younis.[41] The militia fighters targeted Israeli forces with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades (RPG), thermobaric rockets, and unspecified explosive devices.[42]

Saudi Arabia told the United States that it will not normalize relations with Israel “unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized.”[43] The Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry called on permanent members of the UN Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state ”on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.“ US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on January 10 that normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is still possible.[44]

The IDF published details of a law that would increase the amount of time conscripts and reservists serve in the military.[45] The law will increase the age at which reservists become exempt from reserve duty. The IDF will also call upon reservists more frequently and increase regular service to three years. Israeli Army Radio reported on February 7 that due to ”the war and the large number of casualties...the number of combat forces in the IDF“ declined.[46] The IDF published on January 15 that 188 Israeli troops have died in the ground offensive and that 1,113 IDF soldiers have sustained injuries.[47]

Palestinian militias did not conduct indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel on February 7.

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

Draw IDF assets and resources toward the West Bank and fix them there

Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian fighters in 10 locations across the West Bank on February 7.[48] Israeli forces conducted raids in the Noor Shams and Jenin refugee camps.[49] The IDF detained 21 wanted individuals across the West Bank.[50]

This map is not an exhaustive depiction of clashes and demonstrations in the West Bank.

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

Draw IDF assets and resources toward northern Israel and fix them there
Set conditions for successive campaigns into northern Israel

Iranian-backed militias, including Lebanese Hezbollah, conducted four attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel on February 7.[51]

Recorded reports of attacks; CTP-ISW cannot independently verify impact.

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

Demonstrate the capability and willingness of Iran and the Axis of Resistance to escalate against the United States and Israel on multiple fronts
Set conditions to fight a regional war on multiple fronts

The Jordanian Armed Forces clashed with Iranian-backed drug smugglers on the Jordan-Syria border on February 7.[52] Western media reported that the Jordanian armed forces killed three of the smugglers.[53] Local Syrian media said that the smugglers belonged to Lebanese Hezbollah.[54]

This clash is part of increasing Jordanian operations against smuggling networks in southwestern Syria. Jordanian forces have clashed with Iranian-backed smugglers along the Jordan-Syria border three other times since December 2023, including once on February 5.[55] The Jordanian Royal Air Force has also struck Iranian-backed drug smugglers three times since December 2023. Western media reported in January that Western and Jordanian officials said that Lebanese Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups are driving the increase in drug smuggling into Jordan.[56] The Syrian regime, Lebanese Hezbollah, and other Iranian-backed militias mass produce Captagon in Syria and smuggle it through Jordan to the Gulf Arab states. This smuggling and distribution cartel generates billions of dollars in revenue for Iran and its Axis of Resistance.[57]

Raisi administration officials held several meetings with Sudanese Armed Forces-affiliated Foreign Affairs Minister Ali al Sadiq Ali to discuss Israel and bilateral relations. Ali claimed that Israel is driving the continuation of the Sudanese civil war in retaliation for Sudan’s support of the Palestinian people in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian.[58] Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that isolating Israel is one of Iran’s ”basic policies” and added that he supported the establishment of a strong government in Sudan.[59] Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian separately expressed his desire to resume full diplomatic relations between Sudan and Iran.[60] Iran and Sudan maintained a strong relationship from the 1980s until the mid-2010s, when Sudan began improving its relationship with Saudi Arabia.[61]

Iran likely seeks to increase economic investment in Sudan to generate revenue for the Iranian economy, including by selling Sudan combat drones. Western media reported on January 24 that Iran had supplied the Sudanese Armed Forces with combat drones.[62] French media previously reported on January 23, 2023 that Iran had likely supplied Sudan with Mohajer-6 drones as early as 2019.[63] The IRGC and regime-affiliated outlets have repeatedly encouraged increased investment in Africa to obtain gold payments that Iran can use to evade sanctions.[64] Iranian economic investment in Africa has increased during the Raisi administration.[65] CTP-ISW previously assessed in June 2023 that Iran’s increased economic investment in Africa is part of the Raisi’s effort to generate revenue through economic trade with non-Western countries.[66]

Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi discussed the Israel-Hamas war during a meeting with Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul Amir al Shammari on February 7.[67] Vahidi thanked the Iraqi government for supporting the Palestinian people. Vahidi said that Iraq ”took good positions” in the United Nations Security Council by condemning the February 2 US strikes that targeted Iranian-backed militia positions in Iraq and Syria.[68]

Iranian media reported that Iranian security forces arrested several unspecified individuals across Iran for espionage and terrorism “directed by a center in Azerbaijan.” Iranian media reported that the suspects were planning to conduct “sabotage operations” in Iran.[69] The Iranian Intelligence Ministry said on February 2 that it identified ”a significant number of [Israeli] spies and terrorists” working in Iran.[70] Iran frequently arrests individuals in Iran‘s East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan provinces that it accuses of spying for Israel.[71]

An Artesh-controlled social media account warned that Iran would respond to any “terrorist action” targeting IRGC spy ship Behshad in the Red Sea.[72] The Behshad assists Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by providing the Houthis with real time intelligence on ships operating in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.[73] The Behshad held a position near the Dahlak archipelago in the Red Sea prior to entering the Gulf of Aden on January 11.[74] An online shipping tracker reported that Houthi attacks targeting ships in the Gulf of Aden increased after January 11.[75] The Behshad is currently anchored off the coast of Djibouti City.[76] Iran claims that the Behshad is participating in a counterpiracy mission in the Red Sea.[77] AP noted that Iran has not publicly participated in any recent operations countering Somali piracy.[78]

17. Intel officials warned well before Tower 22 attack of increased risks from drones

These are logical assessments.

Excerpts:

Officials in the intelligence agencies and at the Pentagon issued those warnings both internally and in briefings on Capitol Hill starting in late October, when Israel invaded Gaza and Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria ramped up their attacks on American forces in response.

Those officials claimed that it was only a matter of time before one of the Iranian-made drones targeting American forces in the region got through U.S. air defense systems and caused fatalities, according to two officials familiar with the matter. Both were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive internal administration discussions.

Intelligence officials also raised alarms about the potential for attacks on U.S. personnel in Jordan from Iran-backed groups, one of the officials said. Those concerns were part of a broader assessment made by the intelligence community that American troops and diplomats in the region were particularly vulnerable after the Gaza invasion.

Intel officials warned well before Tower 22 attack of increased risks from drones

By LARA SELIGMAN and ERIN BANCO

02/07/2024 07:15 PM EST

Politico

The Pentagon reinforced the base’s defense, but an Iranian drone got through.

President Joe Biden stands as an Army carry team moves the transfer case containing the remains of Army Sgt. Kennedy Ladon Sanders at Dover Air Force Base, Del., on Feb. 2, 2024. Sanders was killed in a drone attack in Jordan on Jan. 28. | Matt Rourke/AP

02/07/2024 07:15 PM EST

Intelligence officials had warned for months of a rising risk that Iranian-made weapons would penetrate U.S. defenses in the Middle East and kill American forces — long before last week’s deadly drone strike against a U.S. outpost in Jordan.

Officials in the intelligence agencies and at the Pentagon issued those warnings both internally and in briefings on Capitol Hill starting in late October, when Israel invaded Gaza and Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria ramped up their attacks on American forces in response.

Those officials claimed that it was only a matter of time before one of the Iranian-made drones targeting American forces in the region got through U.S. air defense systems and caused fatalities, according to two officials familiar with the matter. Both were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive internal administration discussions.

Intelligence officials also raised alarms about the potential for attacks on U.S. personnel in Jordan from Iran-backed groups, one of the officials said. Those concerns were part of a broader assessment made by the intelligence community that American troops and diplomats in the region were particularly vulnerable after the Gaza invasion.

While U.S. officials have said for years that the country’s air defenses have vulnerabilities, the latest warnings grew more urgent as Iran-backed militias stepped up their attacks in October and November.

That raises questions about whether the Pentagon could have done more to increase protections for troops at the Jordan outpost and other bases in the region in the days and weeks following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Tower 22 — the outpost where three service members were killed on Jan. 28 — had already been threatened at least once by a drone from an Iran-backed militias, in October. In that case, its air defenses took out the enemy drone using electronic warfare.

“In theory, DOD has had a few months to rectify the lack of defense, and it didn’t,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow and the Director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute. “There is a precedent for an attack on the facility. And that should have rung alarm bells, that it was insufficiently defended.”

The U.S. has for years debated how to defend against increasingly available Iranian drones, which are difficult to detect due to their size, flight profile and small radar cross-section. The problem is that no one solution can provide 100 percent coverage, requiring many layers of capabilities that still fail to stop all of the threats.

The U.S. did take steps to reinforce defenses at Tower 22 after Israel’s October invasion. DOD reinforced Tower 22 with additional electronic warfare capability, increased protections for troops and conducted training rehearsals, said one DOD official with direct knowledge of the moves.

But Tower 22 may have had an additional vulnerability. Because the vast majority of attacks have been in Iraq and Syria, Tower 22 was not provided a “kinetic” counter-drone capability that many bases in those countries have, said the official and a second DOD official with direct knowledge of the discussions, confirming earlier reporting by the Washington Post. Instead, the base had “multiple” electronic warfare capabilities that enabled it to counter drones through jamming or disabling its systems.

Resources to Tower 22 were also limited because there are only so many air defense capabilities available for the region, the first DOD official said.

And it’s not clear that a kinetic capability would have thwarted the attack, particularly if the problem was that the drone was not even detected, said the first official.

Since the Jan. 28 attack, the Pentagon has beefed up the air defenses at the base, the officials said, declining to elaborate for operational security reasons.

Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. military is constantly short on the air defense systems it needs around the world.

“If you don’t have enough stuff to spread around, you’re not necessarily going to have [protection] everywhere,” Karako said, arguing that DOD needs to invest in improving training and strengthening bunkers in order to close the gap. “You’re never going to have enough stuff.”

The Pentagon is still investigating how the enemy drone evaded Tower 22’s air defenses. While a friendly drone did land at the same time, investigators now do not believe this was the reason the base’s air defenses missed the enemy drone, according to the first DOD official. It’s possible the drone was not detected due to its low flight path, the official said.

While no air defense system is perfect, the Pentagon has gotten significantly better at countering these drones in recent years, according to Defense Department officials and experts who have spent time in the region. Most bases in Iraq and Syria are now armed with kinetic capabilities that can shoot down incoming enemy drones, said Lister of the Middle East Institute.

There have been more than 160 Iran-backed attacks on U.S. troops in Syria, Iraq and Jordan since October, and U.S. air defenses have successfully taken out most of those threats, primarily drones and rockets, causing minimal damage to infrastructure or injuries to personnel.

“What happened at Tower 22, that was tragic, absolutely tragic,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters Tuesday. “But for the most part our air defenses have been able to catch or been able to destroy any impact or any incoming from — whether it be rockets or drones, at bases.

In addition to the three service members killed at Tower 22, the attacks have injured another 143 people — 11 of them with serious or very serious injuries, according to Maj. Pete Nguyen, Department of Defense spokesperson.

POLITICO

Politico

18. Pacific Command legal office prepares military forces for future fight with China

Who is responsible for orchestrating the effort to challenge Chinese military narratives? Who is synchronizing the national government's interagency and military efforts to counter Chinese narratives? (I know the military is part of the interagency but it has organic information capabilities)

Excerpts:

The objective has been for China to deny access to the sea that is used for an estimated $5 trillion annually in trade.

Col. Schiffman stated that “each passing day that [China’s] assertions are not answered makes them more customary, if not international law.”

Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell took issue with the law office’s assertion that one of its key pillars in countering Chinese lawfare is “publicizing behavior by adversaries that undermines the rule of law.”

“The reality is the command has refused to follow their own guidance to publicize the bad behavior of PRC, especially in the maritime domain,” said Capt. Fanell, a former intelligence director for the Pacific Fleet.

“If one reviews the Indo-Pacom J06 webpage, you will find a handful of insignificant and stale tactical aids that do not provide a consistent and transparent picture of the activities of the PLA that is daily threatening U.S. forces in the region, our allies like Japan, the Republic of the Philippines and, most importantly, Taiwan,” he said.

Capt. Fanell said public reporting by the military on questionable Chinese military activities was codified in law by Congress in 2019.

The law requires the Pentagon to immediately release information on new Chinese aggressions in the South China Sea.

“Now four years on, that law has largely been neglected,” Capt. Fanell said.

Pacific Command legal office prepares military forces for future fight with China

Military launches 'counter-lawfare' program to challenge Chinese military narratives

washingtontimes.com · by Bill Gertz

In this handout photo provided by the Philippine Coast Guard, a Chinese Coast Guard ship uses water cannons on Philippine navy-operated supply boat M/L Kalayaan as it approaches Second Thomas Shoal, locally known as Ayungin Shoal, in the disputed South … In this handout photo provided by … more >

By - The Washington Times - Tuesday, February 6, 2024

If the United States goes to war with China in the future, the Indo-Pacific Command legal office has prepared reports defining the legal basis for future American military action in places like the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.

The command’s staff judge advocate office, known as J06, is supplying what the office calls full-spectrum legal support for “integrated deterrence, legal force readiness and counter legal warfare” to Adm. John Aquilino, the current Indo-Pac commander and his theater campaign plan to keep the peace in the region, or to fight China if needed.

In May, the office launched a “counter-lawfare” program – information operations designed to prevent China from using its notion of law to achieve military objectives.

The command defines counter-lawfare activities as the use of law to enhance the legitimacy of Indo-Pacific Command operations. The activities also expose what the U.S. considers flawed Chinese legal narratives and false legal claims by Beijing. Those claims have been part of what military leaders call “gray zone” warfare operations by China’s People’s Liberation Army.

The J06 lawyers are on the front lines of the information war with Beijing, pressing for what the command calls the rules-based international order and working for a region free from Chinese military coercion.

To that end, the command is publishing numerous “tacaids,” short for tactical decision aids — documents designed to make clear to the Chinese the U.S. military’s red lines on issues that could set off a war.

The reports “contribute to deterrence by reinforcing the legitimacy of Indo-Pacom and [allies’ and partners’] objectives and exposing and opposing illegitimate activities,” states a presentation slide prepared by the legal office. The reports also are used to inform leaders and support planning and execution of military operations and activities under Adm. Aquilino’s theater campaign plan.

A command spokesman said the theater campaign plan outlines all military operations in the region but is not a public document. Legal office officials declined to be interviewed about the counter-lawfare program, the spokesman said.

Adm. Aquilino said the rules-based order allows free societies and nations to prosper, protect sovereignty and gain unfettered access to the global commons.

“Our strategic competitors seek to weaponize the law and use legal warfare as a revisionist tool to change the rules in a way that benefits them to the detriment of others,” he told The Washington Times.

The command’s counter-lawfare activities seek to bolster the rules-based order “by emphasizing truth and adherence to the rule of law while exposing and opposing the misuse of the law,” Adm. Aquilino said.

In addition to tactical aids, the office also lists six agreements between the command and the Japanese and Australian militaries on such topics as China’s maritime militia forces that act as surrogate military forces and high-altitude surveillance balloons.

Guam and Taiwan

A central issue for the command is Guam, a U.S. island that one legal report states is Adm. Aquilino’s most pressing defense priority and a key military logistics hub for both fuel and weapons for regional U.S. forces. The report called Guam critical to U.S. defense and power projection.

Guam faces “persistent and significant threats” from China’s missiles — the DF-26 and DF-21 ballistic missiles, DH-10 cruise missiles — and H-6 bombers, the report said.

“The People’s Liberation Army has recently simulated military strikes against Guam using H-6K Badger bombers,” the report said.

“PRC propaganda has implied Guam’s distance from the continental United States and proximity to China make it a viable target at which the PRC can strike if provoked.”

Thus Guam must be defended, the report said.

“Guam is a place where our combat power will aggregate and congregate and from which it will emanate. … From there we send a powerful strategic message to our allies and our adversaries that the United States has invested in this region,” Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Stephen Sklenka, the command’s deputy commander, says in the report.

The command’s legal report on the Taiwan Strait addresses what is likely the most serious friction point in U.S.-China ties.

The report contests a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement in June 2022 that the 100-mile-wide waterway is not international waters but Chinese internal waters and territorial sea under Beijing‘s control.

U.S. warships conduct near-monthly passages through the strait, often shadowed by Chinese warships that radio demands that the destroyers are violating Chinese sovereignty and must leave the area.

If China were to enforce the claim to owning the strait, a warship standoff could result in a naval shootout that could set off a larger conflict.

“If left unchallenged, the PRC’s rebuke of international waters and ambiguous claims of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘jurisdiction’ in the strait could serve as pretext for future actions that disrupt the status quo vis-a-vis Taiwan or otherwise limit the international community’s navigational rights/freedoms in the strait,” the command said.

The report also notes that the Chinese government avoided claiming sovereignty over the entire Taiwan Strait: “Like most PRC legal warfare, the [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] statement was carefully crafted and contains elements of truth,” the report said.

Gray zone tactics

China also rejects frequent U.S. assertions that the strait is an international waterway where warships of all countries should be free to travel.The report described the Chinese claim as a “gray-zone tactic to advance an alternative narrative that undermines the navigational rights and freedoms afforded to all nations under international law.”

Another legal issue for the command is increased Chinese military use of dangerous aerial intercepts against U.S. and allied surveillance aircraft. A separate legal reports states that airborne intercepts must be conducted safely with regard to the rights and freedoms of international airspace, something U.S. officials say China has ignored in recent years.

“Despite these obligations, reports indicate that PLA aircraft have executed exceptionally close approaches; engaged in reckless or aggressive maneuvers; and breached safety of flight protocols,” the report said.

The Pentagon in October accused China of conducting more than 180 provocative and dangerous aerial encounters.

If a Chinese pilot were to fire on one of the surveillance aircraft, military escalation would likely result.

So far, the Indo-Pacific Command has not sent jet fighter escorts to defend the surveillance aircraft, as some military analysts advocate.

Another contentious area for the U.S. and Chinese militaries is the sharply contested South China Sea, where nations around the region have clashing sovereignty claims. Both the U.S. and Chinese navies have been waging an information battle over disputed islands and shoals in the sea.

China claims more than 90% of the entire waterway as its maritime territory under a vaguely defined “Nine-Dash Line” — despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling in favor of Philippines that the Chinese demarcation is illegal.

The key flashpoint today is located near the disputed Spratly islands’ Second Thomas Shoal. The shoal is claimed by China and the Philippines and is the location of a grounded Philippines’ ship that Manila say is an active military base. Chinese maritime militia have fired water canon at resupply vessels sent by Manila and in one case a Chinese ship collided with a Philippines ship near the shoal.

The State Department has warned China that any confrontation with the Philippines over the shoal could trigger the U.S.-Philippines defense agreement.

The command’s legal office says all Chinese claims to Second Thomas Shoal are illegal. The reef is a “low tide elevation,” and therefore legally outside any claim to sovereignty, it states.

“If left unchecked, the PRC could be emboldened to take further coercive action against the Philippines and other countries in the region,” the report said, using the acronym for People’s Republic of China.

Deterrent effect

The legal effort by the command is an important contribution to deterrence, said James Kraska, chairman of the Naval War College’s Stockton Center for International Law.

“The Indo-Pacom effort to expose Chinese lawfare reinforces official U.S. statements and provides context and depth for allies and partner nations on Beijing’s assault on the regional and global legal order,” Mr. Kraska said.

But Army Lt. Col. Stephen R. Schiffman said even greater efforts are needed in the lawfare fight, noting that both China and Russia expertly integrate lawfare with their information operations

The U.S. government has substantial capacity to wage lawfare, he stated in a recent journal article, but “has no overarching lawfare strategy.” Col. Schiffman says China has thus been able to restrain adversaries and seize the political initiative by using innovative ways of interpreting law.

China has been waging lawfare for decades, as noted by the 1999 book by two PLA colonels titled “Unrestricted Warfare.” The book calls for “being adept at using international law as a weapon.”

The most visible Chinese lawfare operations have been in the South China Sea, where China has built up artificial islands and then placed missiles on them.

The objective has been for China to deny access to the sea that is used for an estimated $5 trillion annually in trade.

Col. Schiffman stated that “each passing day that [China’s] assertions are not answered makes them more customary, if not international law.”

Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell took issue with the law office’s assertion that one of its key pillars in countering Chinese lawfare is “publicizing behavior by adversaries that undermines the rule of law.”

“The reality is the command has refused to follow their own guidance to publicize the bad behavior of PRC, especially in the maritime domain,” said Capt. Fanell, a former intelligence director for the Pacific Fleet.

“If one reviews the Indo-Pacom J06 webpage, you will find a handful of insignificant and stale tactical aids that do not provide a consistent and transparent picture of the activities of the PLA that is daily threatening U.S. forces in the region, our allies like Japan, the Republic of the Philippines and, most importantly, Taiwan,” he said.

Capt. Fanell said public reporting by the military on questionable Chinese military activities was codified in law by Congress in 2019.

The law requires the Pentagon to immediately release information on new Chinese aggressions in the South China Sea.

“Now four years on, that law has largely been neglected,” Capt. Fanell said.

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

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washingtontimes.com · by Bill Gertz

19. Army watercraft company that saw action at Normandy and Vietnam reactivates in Japan

A unique, important, and too often overlooked Army capability.

Army watercraft company that saw action at Normandy and Vietnam reactivates in Japan

Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · February 8, 2024

Soldiers stand in formation aboard the USAV Calaboza, a landing craft utility vessel, during an activation ceremony for the 5th Transportation Company at Yokohama North Dock, Japan, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2023. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)

YOKOHAMA NORTH DOCK, Japan — A U.S. Army unit that will operate landing craft throughout the Indo-Pacific began work Thursday at this waterfront base south of Tokyo.

A bell rang out from the deck of the USAV Calaboza, a landing craft utility vessel, while about 40 soldiers stood in formation on shore, signaling the activation of the 5th Transportation Company, which had been inactive since 1997.

The unit “will strengthen maritime maneuver capabilities in contingencies, including disasters in the Indo-Pacific Region,” U.S. Army Japan said in a statement provided at the ceremony.

The company traces its lineage to Mechanical Repair Shop Unit 306, constituted in 1917 at Newport News, Va. It saw service in World War II, including at Normandy, and on the Saigon and Mekong rivers during the Vietnam War, according to the ceremony program.

Army Capt. Miata Schenaker commands the 5th Transportation Company, which was reactivated aboard the USAV Calaboza at Yokohama North Dock, Japan, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)

Army Warrant Officer 2 Jason McElrath gives a tour of the USAV Calaboza, a landing craft utility vessel, at Yokohama North Dock, Japan, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2024. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)

The unit, led by Capt. Miata Schenaker, is evidence that “the Army can fight on land, air and sea,” U.S. Army Japan commander Maj. Gen. David Womack told dignitaries gathered at the dock.

A crew of 13 noncommissioned officers can deliver equipment and supplies to beaches using vessels like the Calaboza, he said.

The Calaboza and another vessel like it, the USAV Fort McHenry, which is deployed to Cairns, Australia, are the only watercraft operated by the newly activated company so far, Col. Ned Holt, commander of the Okinawa-based 10th support Group, said after the ceremony.

LCUs move personnel, gear and supplies to shore. They are small but boast the same payload capacity as seven C-17 Globemaster III aircraft. One LCU can carry up to five M1 Abrams tanks, 24 double-stacked shipping containers or 400 combat-equipped troops.

“These boats are older than most of these soldiers,” Womack said of the 1970s- and ‘80s-era landing craft.

Soldiers on the Calaboza sleep four to a room, although Warrant Officer 2 Jason McElrath, the vessel master, gets his own cabin, he said during a post-ceremony tour of the landing craft.

It is equipped with a pair of .50-caliber machine guns, a bow engine that enables it to maneuver in tight spaces, and an aft anchor that can winch the watercraft away from a beach, he said.

McElrath took charge of the Calaboza in June. He said the vessel had been on temporary assignment in the region and moved cargo, vehicles and troops to Sasebo, Okinawa and the Philippines last year.

Watercraft are integral to the Army’s annual Pathways training deployments of U.S.-based units to the Indo-Pacific, Holt said.

The 280 soldiers assigned to the company will live at Camp Zama, headquarters for U.S. Army Japan, and Yokosuka Naval Base, home of the U.S. 7th Fleet, each about 45 minutes’ drive from North Dock, he said.

A composite watercraft company includes five landing craft utility vessels, two tugboats, four maneuver support vessels and a harbormaster operations detachment to provide maintenance, according to an Army news release May 24, 2021.

Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · February 8, 2024

20. Close Down UNRWA

Close Down UNRWA

Western nations must not continue to contribute to a UN agency that is effectively controlled by a terrorist organization.

Richard Goldberg

7 Feb 2024 · 12 min read

Quillette · February 7, 2024

Last week, Australian foreign minister Penny Wong indicated that Canberra may soon resume government funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), despite mounting evidence that the organization is a Hamas subsidizer, employer, and collaborator. The agency has long been a focus of criticism and controversy, but funding was at last suspended by Australia, the UK, the US, and other donor countries following allegations that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians last year.

However, if Australian funding of UNRWA is resumed, and if other donors follow suit, it would be a disaster—not just for Israel, but for Palestinians, too. Wong claims that only UNRWA is able to distribute humanitarian assistance to Palestinians living in Gaza, but there are many alternatives. If the Australian government wants to prevent another October 7 massacre and support the dignity of the Palestinian people, it will end its support of UNRWA for good and send money instead to the alphabet soup of agencies capable of replacing it.

Addressing the myriad challenges presented by UNRWA starts by recognizing what UNRWA is and what it is not. UNRWA is not a refugee agency. What began as a political weapon in the Arab world’s campaign to destroy the State of Israel after its founding has evolved into an internationally funded, locally staffed foreign-aid entitlement program that incites violence against Israel, subsidizes US-designated foreign terrorist organizations, denies Palestinians their basic human rights, and blocks the pathways to a sustainable peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Following Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948—authorized by the United Nations the previous year—Arab armies declared an eliminationist war on the new Jewish state, vowing to push the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. During the ensuing violence, an estimated 700,000 Arabs fled their homes. Some were fearful of the war, some did not want to live under an Israeli flag, and others were persuaded by Arab propaganda that they would be able to return as soon as the Jews were defeated. At the same time, Arab governments expelled roughly the same number of Jews as punishment for Israel’s establishment.

No agency exists to look after the Jews who fled Arab countries in 1948 because those refugees were absorbed by Israel and Western countries as quickly as possible. But Arab refugees produced by the Arab invasion of Israel were not so fortunate. While the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was established in 1949 to serve the world’s displaced persons and help them move to post-refugee status, Arab regimes sought to maintain a restive Arab refugee population in anticipation of Israel’s eventual destruction. To look after this displaced population in limbo, the UN established UNRWA in 1950. To this day, it is the only UN organization with a purported refugee mission separate from UNHCR.

Embed from Getty Images

Unlike the High Commissioner, however, UNRWA’s mandate was and remains quite different. By keeping people in refugee status indefinitely, the agency is raising generation after generation to be believe that their “manifest destiny” is to return to modern-day Israel. Becoming a citizen of another country like Jordan, or even the United States, does not remove the refugee label. Nor does living within jurisdictions where Palestinians have already declared a state. Refugeehood does not stop at children born in refugee camps—it has become an inherited right passed on indefinitely, growing an initial population of 700,000 to a supposed refugee pool today of 5.9 million, all of whom continue to insist on their “right of return.”

The population of Gaza is now 2.1 million, 1.7 million of whom UNRWA lists as refugees. But this absurd statistic is intended to advance a political agenda, not reflect reality. These people have lived in Gaza for generations, under Egyptian, Israeli, and then Hamas control, in what the media calls “urban refugee camps.” The term “refugee camp” evokes images of temporary tents and trailers, but these are just UN-subsidized neighborhoods in cities.

The goal is not to improve people’s lives; it is to keep them in a state of insecurity and instability for which they are encouraged to hold Israel responsible. This is the only reason UN officials and some Western political leaders falsely claim that no alternatives exist. There is no shortage of aid agencies in the world capable of triaging crisis on a moment’s notice. The United States, Australia, and many countries fund such efforts whenever the need arises. But UNRWA is the only agency with a mandate to preserve a phony narrative of Palestinian refugeehood that sustains political warfare against Israel.

Today, UNRWA raises children to internalize the genocidal slogans you see in street protests around the world—only they will be perpetrators of the genocide, not just its cheerleaders. In that respect, UNRWA is irreplaceable, and the October 7 massacre was the logical upshot of its mandate and indoctrination.

Corrupt and Unaccountable

UNRWA has no board of directors. Its donors cannot elect the agency’s commissioner general or vote to change its mandate and policies. Nor does UNRWA submit to independent audits outside the UN system, which means that donors are unable to verify basic information. Governments that run big entitlement programs regularly perform integrity audits to root out fraud and abuse. UNRWA does not. The US Congress once allocated $1 million to fund a private-sector audit, but UNRWA refused to cooperate. UNRWA claims to serve 5.9 million people, but there are good reasons to doubt the accuracy of that figure. The government of Lebanon, for example, has previously accused UNRWA of inflating its numbers, after a census found just 174,422 Palestinians out of a reported population of 450,000.

In 2019, reports emerged of “credible and corroborated” corruption allegations against senior UNRWA personnel. In an internal review that leaked to the press, UNRWA detailed “sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination, and other abuses of authority” among its top brass. UNRWA’s then commissioner-general Pierre Krahenbuhl resigned in the aftermath of an internal investigation. That Krahenbuhl was just appointed to lead the International Committee of the Red Cross indicates that there is no accountability for corruption.

UNRWA claims it will soon run out of money if countries continue a pause on their contributions. But the agency is the UN equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. The US—UNRWA’s largest donor at 25 percent of its budget—halted all contributions from 2018 to 2021, and the organization did not collapse. Yet after President Joe Biden resumed UNRWA funding with hundreds of millions of dollars per year, the agency continued to issue emergency appeals.

Indeed, UNRWA’s budget has exploded in recent years. From 1950 to 2018, the US contributed $6 billion. Since 2021, Washington has sent more than $1 billion. That is a massive expansion in budget and an unsustainable trajectory for any donor. From a simple taxpayer-accountability and good-government perspective, UNRWA is one of the most suspect spending programs in the world. If that were where criticism ended, it would be enough to demand a comprehensive overhaul and rethinking of aid. But this is only where the problems begin.

Structural Support for Terrorism

UNRWA has a terrorism problem underwritten by taxpayers from donor countries. In addition to the 12 UNRWA employees who reportedly participated in the October 7 massacre, ten percent of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza are members of a terrorist organization. Half of those employees have at least one terrorist family member.

UNRWA’s operations in the West Bank have also long been a hotbed of terrorism. The Israeli military routinely battles terror cells in UNRWA’s Jenin refugee camp, for example. And in Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh UNRWA camp—where there is no Israeli presence whatsoever—terrorist groups have been fighting each other for months, leaving at least 28 people dead and displacing families.

UNRWA’s enablement of terrorism is a feature of the agency, not a bug. Indeed, reports of UNRWA’s complicity in terror activity go back years. Media reports have exposed Hamas terror tunnels next to or under UNRWA facilities, and UNRWA schools have been used as rocket-launching platforms, with rockets even stored inside those schools.

News that UNRWA teachers kept Israeli hostages in their homes after October 7 comes as no surprise. In 2008, an UNRWA school headmaster was exposed moonlighting as an Islamic Jihad terrorist, but UNRWA didn’t fire him—he was eventually removed by an Israeli air strike. Indeed, reporters and UN watchdog groups have identified thousands of UNRWA employees supporting terrorism and antisemitism in their social media and chat groups.

"Uninvolved," they say, right? Well, read this story carefully. One of the abductees, held for nearly 50 days in an attic, reveals he was held by a UNRA teacher – a father of ten children. This teacher locked the victim away, barely provided food, and neglected medical needs. But…

— almog boker (@bokeralmog) November 29, 2023

Years ago, as a congressional aide conducting oversight of UNRWA on Capitol Hill, I asked UNRWA officials why they allow terrorists to establish bases of operations in their communities. They claimed security was a host government’s responsibility, which in the case of Gaza means Hamas. It’s the same excuse UNRWA provides when it is asked why its school textbooks teach incitement against Jews. Talk to the host government, they say as they demand more international dollars. For UNRWA, every problem is someone else’s responsibility, yet the requests for more money continue without any independent oversight.

UNRWA is structured to have a terror problem. The United Nations does not recognize Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as terrorist groups, even though each is designated a terror group by most Western countries. And since UNRWA is a UN-mandated agency, it does not recognize these groups as terrorist organizations, either.

To UNRWA, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are political groups and the agency says it doesn’t discriminate based on politics. Since UNRWA is not an international organization but a local welfare agency that employs 30,000 Palestinians and provides benefits to millions more, it is certain that UNRWA employs, contracts with, and gives money or services to members of designated foreign terrorist organizations and their families.

As a result, Hamas has significant influence over UNRWA’s policies and operations in Gaza. After the 2021 Israel-Hamas war, UNRWA recalled its Gaza director, Matthias Schmale, after he gave a media interview in which he credited the Israeli military for its precision targeting. Schmale knew a thing or two about Hamas tunneling operations around UNRWA facilities, too. A few months after his removal, he told NPR News, “Many people told me through my four years, there's tunnels everywhere and it’s a safe assumption.” Anyone who claims today that UNRWA was not aware of the Hamas terror infrastructure around its facilities is not telling the truth.

Aiding Terror: How Terrorists Exploit Humanitarian Organizations

Aid has become a lifeline for terrorist groups, enabling their deadly attacks.

QuilletteAri Heistein

The US Government Accountability Office told Congress more than 20 years ago that existing laws and policies were insufficient to prevent UNRWA funds from going to terrorism. Yet UNRWA is still not required to submit its staff, contractors, or beneficiaries for counterterrorism vetting. At this late date, no one should be shocked to learn that UNRWA is fully complicit in the Hamas terror infrastructure in Gaza, its war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This horror movie has been decades in the making, meticulously documented, and co-produced by Western taxpayers.

According to the Associated Press, from 2014–20, UN agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, including $600 million in 2020 alone. More than 80 percent of that funding was channeled through UNRWA. With roughly 30 percent of UNRWA’s client population in Gaza, and $1 billion provided to UNRWA by the United States alone since 2021, the US alone added another $300 million to Hamas’s subsidized budget over the last three years.

And what did we get for this investment? Miles of terror tunnels. Thousands of rockets. The October 7 massacre. Throwing more money at UNRWA is a recipe for more of the same.

What’s the Alternative?

Faced with the indisputable evidence of UNRWA’s collaboration with Hamas and complicity in the October 7 massacre, UN officials (and political leaders like Foreign Minister Wong) push back on the notion of cutting off funding for UNRWA by claiming there is no alternative mechanism to deliver aid to Palestinians in need. By ending aid to UNRWA, they claim, millions might die of hunger and disease.

But the world already has an agency dedicated to the distribution of food assistance in areas of crisis and war zones—the World Food Program, which is on the ground in Gaza. The World Health Organization is dedicated to the distribution of medical assistance in conflict zones. UNICEF is dedicated to helping children in need. And, of course, the UNHCR is a massive agency with international staff and decades of experience coordinating relief for internally displaced persons in war zones at a moment’s notice, with fewer staff than UNRWA around the globe to serve tens of millions more than UNRWA’s client population.

The idea that there is no alternative to UNRWA simply because UNRWA is the current provider of certain services and aid is as ludicrous as claiming there is no alternative to Hamas because Hamas runs the Gaza health ministry. Those calling UNRWA indispensable would never say the same about Hamas, at least not in public. So why have the leaders of all the UN agencies that constitute the alternatives to UNRWA signed a joint statement opposing any halt in funding to UNRWA? Their UN overlords have told them to do so because the Palestinian cause, including the refugee mythology, is deeply embedded in the UN bureaucracy.

Every year, the UN condemns Israel more than any other country, as if most of the world’s problem are Israel’s fault. There are several other Palestinian organizations authorized by the UN that serve no purpose other than waging political and economic warfare against Israel. The UN Human Rights Council is the tip of the spear for global antisemitism.

But the UN doesn’t get to dictate US security policy, nor should it ever be allowed to dictate where our donor money goes. On the contrary, the UN goes where its donors tell them to go—that’s how a donor-agency relationship is supposed to work. If Washington and its allies around the globe join forces to insist on a quick transition from UNRWA to the countless agencies available to handle aid distribution in Gaza, the UN will have little choice but to comply.

A Better Way Forward

Western nations must not set a precedent that condones contributions to a UN agency that is effectively controlled by a terrorist organization. Western donor countries would never tolerate a UN organization that collaborates with, employs, contracts with, and provide benefits to Al Qaeda or ISIS. Nor would they ever again fund an agency whose members actively took part in events like September 11. Why then should its leaders today justify the same for Hamas when a better way forward exists?

First, donors to UNRWA should make clear to the UN secretary general that they are prepared to redirect all UNRWA donations to alternative agencies capable of performing key functions needed in the short-term: delivering food and medicine, providing temporary shelter, and planning for the displaced population to return home after Hamas falls. If the UN refuses, the blame for any suffering that comes to the people of Gaza will fall on the secretary general, not on countries offering large sums to fund humanitarian aid.

Second, a counterterrorism vetting process should be established for replacement agencies to help screen would-be local contractors for Hamas or other terror affiliation. The US Agency for International Development long ago set up a vetting system like this for work in Palestinian areas. UN agencies should be using a similar process to ensure that funding is not diverted to US-designated terror groups, even if they are not recognized as terrorist organizations by the United Nations.

Third, because UNRWA also operates outside Gaza, plans must be implemented for transitioning the agency in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. A Gaza-like transition to UNHCR and other aid agencies may work in Lebanon and Syria. Anyone registered as a refugee who holds citizenship in another country or who resides within the territory of a self-declared Palestinian state should no longer be the ward of any UN refugee agency. If Jordan requires additional budget support to sustain services for UNRWA’s two million so-called refugees living there, increased bilateral assistance should be part of a broader conversation about Amman’s incitement against Israel and its refusal to extradite an FBI Most Wanted terrorist. A similar conversation will be needed in Ramallah, where no aid can flow while the Palestinian Authority pays people to commit terrorist attacks against Israel and incites its population to violence.

Finally, all aid—bilateral or multilateral—must be conditioned on the education system rooting out antisemitism and glorification of terrorism. Western donors should have the final say on textbooks and curriculum being funded with their dollars. Indeed, to stop the next generation from growing up to commit another October 7 massacre, reforming education may be among the highest priorities.

Australia’s foreign minister claims there is no alternative to UNRWA. The truth, however, is that in the wake of the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and the abundant evidence of UNRWA’s complicity, there is no alternative to ending UNRWA for good.

Quillette · February 7, 2024

21. Tyrants and expendable migrants: Dictators play with people’s lives to gain leverage

Tyrants and expendable migrants: Dictators play with people’s lives to gain leverage

washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

Dictators and immigration illustration by Linas Garsys / The Washington Times Dictators and immigration illustration by Linas … more >

By Emanuele Ottolenghi - - Tuesday, February 6, 2024

OPINION:

Illegal immigration through the U.S.-Mexican border is at an all-time high, straining public resources and fueling political tension in the United States.

Much of what moves migrants to undertake the perilous journey is known: economic hardship, conflict, organized crime and political repression. But what is missing from our debate is that America’s authoritarian adversaries, such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — themselves aligned with China, Iran and Russia — are seeking to turn immigrants against the United States.

Human suffering on the scale posed by mass migration shakes the conscience of free societies. Tyrants cynically exploit this opportunity: Fan the flames, then offer to help put them down in exchange for concessions. Play arsonist, then offer yourself as the indispensable fire department. For a fee, naturally.

Weaponizing migrants has a rich history of precedents. The late Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi used African migration to Europe as a tool to stay in power and extort political concessions from Europe.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, negotiated a deal with the European Union in 2016 when refugees escaping mayhem in Syria flooded Turkey on their way to Europe. In exchange for curbing the flow of illegal migrants into Greece from Turkey, Mr. Erdogan obtained 6 billion euros to pay the cost of keeping the refugees in Turkey, plus a visa-free regime to Europe for Turkish citizens.

In 2021, Belarus bused migrants to its borders with the European Union. More recently, Russia has been sending migrants to the Finnish border to create a humanitarian crisis.

This is not to say that were it not for tyrants’ cynical manipulations, there would be no crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border. But the enemies of the United States see it as a chance to inflame our politics by making things worse by design. Washington should push back.

Exhibit A is Venezuela’s response to the U.S. announcement on Jan. 29 that it would reimpose sanctions against the dictatorial regime of Nicolas Maduro if Venezuela did not reverse its Supreme Court’s decision to disqualify opposition presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado from running for office. For Mr. Maduro and the narco-kleptocracy he runs, Ms. Machado’s candidacy and free elections are a threat to their grip on power.

So are U.S. sanctions. Last October, the Maduro regime negotiated a deal with Venezuela’s opposition that would ensure free and fair elections in exchange for the U.S. reducing sanctions. The agreement presented Mr. Maduro with a dilemma: Letting the opposition compete in a fair election could mean the regime’s demise. Getting sanctions relief would benefit the regime and its domestic standing.

That’s where migrants come in. As part of the deal, Caracas also agreed to let direct flights repatriate thousands of Venezuelans, who had left their country’s economic misery and made their way to the U.S. Those flights offered Mr. Maduro new leverage: Caracas is now threatening to suspend repatriation flights if the U.S. reimposes sanctions.

Playing with people’s lives is what tyrants do, after all, and Mr. Maduro is not the only one playing this game. Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega is also exploiting immigration to pressure the U.S. By relaxing visa restrictions into his country, Mr. Ortega is letting migrants in search of an entry point to the U.S. go through Nicaragua.

Not only did Nicaragua its relax visa requirements, but it also authorized hundreds of chartered flights, many run by human smugglers’ networks, to land in Managua. These exorbitantly priced charter flights carrying Africans, Cubans, Haitians and Indians are part of a clandestine migration package offered by rackets and facilitated by Mr. Ortega, whose regime, like Venezuela’s, is under sanctions pressure from Washington. It’s a good deal for Mr. Ortega. Pressure on the U.S. and money in his coffers, given that Managua exacts a transit fee on each of them to cross into Honduras on their way to the U.S.

To Mr. Maduro and Mr. Ortega, migrants are expendable. The pressure their plight creates on U.S. domestic politics is a net benefit — a divided America is weaker in their eyes and therefore more likely to grant them concessions. Besides, by letting smuggling networks use their countries, airports, travel agencies and other businesses, they bring in revenue from human trafficking that must surely pay dues to conniving authorities. Organized crime benefits, too.

This, then, should guide the U.S. response. Our authoritarian adversaries are exploiting a crisis to our detriment and their benefit — their preservation of power and the advancement of their global anti-democratic agenda.

Washington should double down against those who are making the border crisis worse, not grant them sanctions relief or legitimacy. They are what many of the migrants are fleeing from. We should not lose sight of that.

• Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Follow him on X @eottolenghi.

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washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

22. Biden keeps killing Iran's militia pawns - but he's too scared to strike against the REAL enemy in Tehran.

Biden keeps killing Iran's militia pawns - but he's too scared to strike against the REAL enemy in Tehran. That's why American troops are STILL in the Ayatollah's crosshairs, say Mideast experts

By MARK DUBOWITZ AND DAVID ADESNIK FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 14:55 EST, 7 February 2024 | UPDATED: 16:59 EST, 7 February 2024

Daily Mail · by Mark Dubowitz And David Adesnik For Dailymail.Com · February 7, 2024

Mark Dubowitz is the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and David Adesnik is an FDD senior fellow and director of research.

Nearly 72 hours out from President Joe Biden's retaliatory strikes against Iranian-backed militias, who killed Americas and we're left asking: was that it?

The U.S. attacks have reportedly failed to stop Tehran from continuing to arm militants across the region – and Tuesday, Yemeni rebels unleashed a new barrage of rockets on cargos ships traversing vital shipping lanes in the Rea Sea.

'Have no doubt — we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing,' the President vowed.

That was over a week ago.

Iran may have stepped into the ring with the world's heavyweight – but Biden's America is too afraid to throw a straight counterpunch.

The airstrikes over the weekend may have seemed impressive — 85 different targets in Syria and Iraq, plus another 36 in Yemen.

But did the targets have any real value?

There's still have no word on that from the U.S. military – or anyone else.

Yes, it's too early to assess the full impact of the assault – and Biden and his Secretary of Defense say this is only the beginning of their response.

We hope so — because this initial round has been unnervingly lackluster. And this administration has a troubling record of speaking loudly and carrying a small stick.

Nearly 72 hours out from President Joe Biden 's retaliatory strikes against Iranian-backed militias, who killed Americas and we're left asking: was that it? (above) President Joe Biden attends the dignified transfer of the three American soldiers killed in Iranian-backed militia strikes

The airstrikes over the weekend may have seemed impressive — 85 different targets in Syria and Iraq , plus another 36 in Yemen. (above) Explosions at Iranian arms depot in Western Iraq

On Wednesday, there are reports of U.S. drone strikes on Kataeb Hezbollah militia operating in Baghdad.

It's just more of the same.

For months, this administration has retaliated against Iranian aggression by killing the Syrian, Iraqi, and Yemeni militiamen who take care of Tehran's dirty work but sparing the puppet masters.

Make no mistake, the militias deserve their punishment.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq launched the drone attack last week that killed three American soldiers and wounded more than forty. And Iranian proxies in Yemen have been regularly firing at the U.S. Navy and civilian ships in the Red Sea.

But these militias are expendable to Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

He's glad to replace any weapons or local command centers hit by American bombs. He's glad to recruit others to die for Iranian interests.

What he truly fears is the direct use of U.S. power against his men and his regime.

If you want to stop the killing of Americans, go after the boss who ordered the hit, not the foot soldiers who pulled the trigger.

Biden could learn a lesson from the Israelis.

Since December 25, they've eliminated 17 Syria-based officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – the branch of the Iranian armed forces that answers to the Ayatollah.

The Guard is now reportedly pulling senior commanders out of Syria.

The deceased include Brig. Gen. Sayyed Razi Mousavi, who oversaw shipments of weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group, and Brig. Gen. Sadegh Omidzadeh, an intelligence officer, whose deputy died as well.

The Israelis also have the good sense not to telegraph their punches – as America did announcing its intention to strike back days before the bombs fell.

The Israelis don't declare their chosen targets and they don't leak to reporters, giving Iranian officers a chance to escape.

On Wednesday, there were new U.S. drone strikes on Kataeb Hezbollah militia operating in Baghdad. (above) People inspect a vehicle targeted by airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq on February 07, 2024

For months, this administration has retaliated against Iranian aggression by killing the Syrian, Iraqi, and Yemeni militiamen who take care of Tehran's dirty work but sparing the puppet masters. (above) Houthi fighters stage a rally in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and against the U.S.-led airstrikes on Yemen, in Sanaa

Since December 25, they've eliminated 17 Syria-based officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (above, in parade) – the branch of the Iranian armed forces that answers to the Ayatollah.

Despite the damage from Israeli strikes, the Supreme Leader has not hit back at Israel directly. Iran has missiles it could launch at Tel Aviv or Haifa but is not using them.

The Ayatollah's malevolent strategy remains the same: Let Iraqis, Syrians, and Yemenis (and Lebanese and Palestinians, too) die for Iran.

President Biden could also learn from his predecessor.

Four years ago, President Donald Trump ordered an American drone to take out Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard officer who masterminded its terror operations.

Immediately, a great cry went up warning that America had just started World War III.

Iran threw a counterpunch or two but after threatening the United States their retaliatory strikes on bases housing U.S. troops did little lasting damage and, most importantly, resulted in no deaths or grave injuries.

There is only one true way to assess the effectiveness of last weekend's strikes: how many senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers did they kill?

The answer is: we just don't know.

These are the key operatives who arm, train, and fund terrorists across the Middle East – but all indications they continue to freely operate.

Biden's reluctance belies a deeper rot in this White House's policy toward Iran.

From Day One, he has attempted to pay the ayatollahs to behave more respectably.

The first gift was oil.

Iran has plenty of it but can't sell much if America imposes sanctions and — no less importantly — enforces them.

Trump's 'maximum pressure campaign' against Iran included tightly enforced sanctions that drove their oil exports from nearly 3 million barrels per day to less than 800,000 during the last 18 months of Trump's tenure.

Now they're back up to about 1.3 to 1.4 million barrels per day, a difference that has delivered tens of billions of additional dollars directly to the regime.

Biden also arranged a $6 billion payoff to Iran to release five American hostages and unfroze up to $10 billion of Iranian assets that U.S. sanctions locked up inside Iraq.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq launched the drone attack last week that killed three American soldiers and wounded more than forty. (above) Map showing location of U.S. military outpost, Tower 22, struck by Iranian-backed militia group

There is only one true way to assess the effectiveness of last weekend's strikes: how many senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers did they kill? (above) Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Under Biden, the Iranian economy has actually grown faster than America's.

Under Trump, Iran's currency reserves fell to just $4 billion.

Today, they've rebounded to $22 billion.

Short of writing a check to the Iranian proxies who keep attacking U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq, this is the most direct payment possible to ensure America's enemies keep shooting.

Most of all, these American payoffs give Iran what it needs to keep its nuclear program chugging along.

Biden has spent three years trying to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Sensing his desperation, Iran has pocketed his gifts and accelerated their centrifuges, expanding their illicit nuke program more after Biden's election than before it.

Yet Biden keeps paying.

The death of three American soldiers at the hands of Iran-backed militias should have been a final wakeup call for Joe Biden.

It's hardly the first.

But again, the president sleeps through the alarm.

Daily Mail · by Mark Dubowitz And David Adesnik For Dailymail.Com · February 7, 2024

23. Chinese hackers have lurked in some US infrastructure systems for ‘at least five years’

Please go to this link to download the CISA report: "PRC State-Sponsored Actors Compromise and Maintain Persistent Access to U.S. Critical Infrastructure" https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa24-038a?utm

Chinese hackers have lurked in some US infrastructure systems for ‘at least five years’ | CNN Politics

CNN · by Sean Lyngaas · February 7, 2024

dusanpetkovic/iStockphoto/Getty Images

CNN —

The Chinese hackers behind a campaign to infiltrate transportation hubs and other critical American infrastructure have had access to some of their targets’ computer networks for “at least five years,” according to a new report by US and allied security agencies obtained by CNN.

The campaign is part of a long-running effort by the hackers to position themselves for potentially crippling cyberattacks that could disrupt water and electricity, according to US officials.

US intelligence chiefs sounded the alarm about the threat to Congress last week, saying Beijing could use the hackers to disrupt a US response if China invades Taiwan. FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers last week that the hackers could “wreak havoc and cause real-world harm” to the US.

The nearly 50-page report comes as US-China tensions over Taiwan and other key issues remain high and shows how central cyber operations could be to Chinese efforts to hobble US infrastructure in the event of a conflict between the two superpowers, according to US officials. The report would be the most detailed disclosure yet by the US government of the hackers’ stealthy techniques, one aimed at helping private owners of critical infrastructure spot the Chinese hackers in their networks.

The hackers’ presence in critical US networks has sparked a monthslong effort by US national security officials to kick the hackers out.

The report, which US officials are set to release this week, makes clear that the Chinese hackers’ activity began much earlier than previously known, with the hackers scoping and accessing IT systems years ago. From there, they have spent months looking for ways to maneuver onto more sensitive industrial systems that help control power flow and water.

The Beijing-backed hackers have been probing systems that control heating, cooling and water, access that, if exploited, could allow them to manipulate those systems and cause “significant infrastructure failures,” the report says. The hackers have also broken into security cameras at unnamed critical facilities, according to the document.

There are no signs yet that China has decided to use the hackers’ presence to disrupt US infrastructure, according to US officials, but they are concerned that could change quickly in the event of a crisis.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, denied the US hacking allegations in a statement to CNN on Wednesday and accused Washington of conducting its own cyberattacks.

The new report also sheds new light on the sprawling nature of the hacking operation and on concerns from US allies over the activity.

US officials have confirmed the hackers have broken into computer networks at energy, transportation and water facilities in the “continental and non-continental” US and its overseas territories, including Guam, according to the report. In one case, after breaching the IT systems at an unnamed water facility, the hackers had access to a range of critical information on water treatment plants and water wells, according to the analysis.

The FBI, National Security Agency and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are among the US agencies that produced the report, along with cybersecurity agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. CNN obtained a non-public version of the report, and sources familiar with the report told CNN the agencies are preparing to publish a version of it this week.

Canada’s cybersecurity agency “assesses that the direct threat to Canada’s critical infrastructure” from the Chinese hackers “is likely lower” than that to US infrastructure, but that Canada would still likely still be affected by a disruption to US infrastructure due to “cross-border integration,” the document says. Australia and New Zealand, two key allies in the US quest to counter China in the Pacific, could be vulnerable to similar activity from Chinese government hackers, the report says.

This story has been updated with additional reaction.

CNN · by Sean Lyngaas · February 7, 2024

24. The US Learns China’s Lessons on Elitism

Conclusion:

As the global diversity of today’s examples of exclusionary elites shows, their negative practices will happen anywhere an elite is given an exclusive opportunity to govern. And it will because these elites all share the same fundamentally fatal flaw: a belief that they are smarter than any one of us, and that this in turn makes them smarter than all of us put together.

The US Learns China’s Lessons on Elitism - The American Spectator

spectator.org · by J.T. Young · February 7, 2024

The US Learns China’s Lessons on Elitism

All autocratic countries share the same pyramidal structure of rule by an apex that believes it has the sole ability and right to govern.

February 7, 2024, 12:20 AM

Andy.LIU/Shutterstock

China offers a cautionary lesson on what happens when an elite exclusively rules. The Celestial Empire has come crashing down to earth: the latest sign being a $6 trillion stock loss over the last three years. The world’s largest country, the world’s second largest economy, and America’s only superpower adversary is confronted and confounded by serious problems. What is more: These serious problems are ones its own elite created.

China was once the paragon of decisive action. Overpopulated and underdeveloped, backward and bullied, China’s elite perceived its problems and with absolute autonomy took aim. It was not bogged down by the inefficiencies of democracy and dissent. It ruled by fiat and issued forthwith its solutions. Ah, to be China, the rest of the world’s leaders, entangled in their democracies, sighed.

Now the full flowering of the Chinese elite’s imperiousness is blossoming in full view.

For its over-population problem, China’s elite prescribed a one-child policy that ran from 1979 to 2015. It was wildly successful in reducing China’s population by discouraging births and aborting babies (especially girls). Now its consequences have become clear: Today, China faces a demographic crisis of plummeting birthrates, an aging population, a skewed gender balance in the younger population, and a declining workforce, as there are insufficient workers to replace its retiring elderly. As the Committee to Unleash Prosperity points out, China’s population shrank by 2 million in 2023 — double 2022’s loss — and the average births to women of child-bearing age dropped to less than half (1.0) of the 2.10 required to simply maintain the population. One Chinese village is now offering rewards to matchmakers who can make a marriage.

For its backwardness, China’s elite prescribed a host of measures. Adopting a mercantilist mindset, it pursued growth at any cost. Internally, its one-child policy helped reduce the demand on resources. Externally, it aggressively exported and controlled imports. IP rights of foreign competitors were (and still are) ignored and limitations put on foreign investment in China.

China’s economic development has been extremely uneven. There is too little personal consumption (see: one-child policy), while too much investment has flowed into SOEs (state-owned enterprises) and speculative real-estate investment. The abridgement of foreign countries’ rights in trade has brought retaliation. Together, these have triggered decreases in much-needed foreign investment and sell-offs in China’s stock markets.

Of course, the elites were not only focused on economic development when it came to China’s perceived backwardness. There were also recalcitrant groups and individuals who stood in the way of dictated progress. China’s elite does not brook dissent. The treatment of ethnic minorities has been labeled genocide in the Uyghurs’ case, Tibet is a captive, Hong Kong’s promise of “One Country, Two Systems” was broken, individual rights are abridged, and there are political prisoners aplenty.

For being bullied, China’s elite prescribed an aggressive-to-the-point-of-belligerent foreign policy. As a result, China has alienated all around it — including those not in proximity to it. With its massive Belt and Road Initiative, it has made enemies even where it has made investments. The result has been that China is largely a global pariah with only other pariahs — Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran — as its only dependable friends.

China’s elite has made the country a global example of what happens in the absence of the checks supplied economically and politically by broader society. Of course, the economically and politically excluded Chinese people are the first and biggest victims of their elite’s unrestrained hubris. But they are hardly alone.

China’s elite has inflicted its policies’ fallout globally — and threatens to do so even more (ask Taiwan, India, or Japan about that). And then there is the question of culpability in COVID — a question not of “if,” only how much: Does it extend all the way back to the virus’s creation and a lab leak (which appears increasingly likely) or just to a coverup, foot-dragging, and lack of cooperation after the discovery?

But China is unique, you say? Hardly. Note well who China’s allies are. Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran are themselves exclusively ruled by their own elites. And each country is racked with its own elite-inflicted problems as bad or worse than China’s. All autocratic countries share the same pyramidal structure of rule by an apex that believes it has the sole ability and right to govern.

But it cannot happen here, you say? Just recount into how many blind alleys our comparatively democratically encumbered elite has already led us. They have given us DEI’s transparent racism; they have squandered federal resources on green energy projects that average Americans don’t want, while targeting home appliances that average Americans do use; they are at the forefront of the cancel culture mob mentality; they welcome and urge removing from ballots politicians they find objectionable and refuse to cover speeches made by them; and during the pandemic they favored draconian lockdowns and censoring dissent (even from credible sources with credible facts that later turned out to be right) if these ran counter to its views of what official practice should be.

As the global diversity of today’s examples of exclusionary elites shows, their negative practices will happen anywhere an elite is given an exclusive opportunity to govern. And it will because these elites all share the same fundamentally fatal flaw: a belief that they are smarter than any one of us, and that this in turn makes them smarter than all of us put together.

J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987–2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001–2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004–2023.

spectator.org · by J.T. Young · February 7, 2024

25. Communicate Your Staff Estimates in the Language of Risk

I missed this article last month. But it was flagged in the Harding Project's post today: CSA: February Recommended Articles https://www.hardingproject.com/p/csa-february-recommended-articles?utm

Communicate Your Staff Estimates in the Language of Risk - From the Green Notebook

fromthegreennotebook.com · by From the Green Notebook · January 5, 2024

by Tom Gaines and Micah Stedman

“Gentlemen, we have run out of money; now we have got to think.” – Winston Churchill

Somewhere out there is the perfect unit. The commander’s intent is perfectly understood by every member of this overstrength organization. Every piece of equipment is fully mission capable, and every slide in the command and staff is green. The only resourcing problem they have is too much money, so they use their excess funds to cover fellow units’ costs. One day we will find this place.

Until those orders show up in our inboxes, we need to get back to work. As staff members, our job is to gain and maintain options for the commander to run the organization and accomplish the mission. The fact that these staff positions are often likened to oarsmen chained in the galley of a Roman trireme does not diminish the absolute importance of the role staff officers play in the unit’s success. Commanders rely on staffs to be the subject matter experts within their warfighting functions and provide relevant, timely information and advice. But what is relevant? What do commanders care about, and how can you distill all the data into a way for them to make decisions?

New staff officers, especially at the field-grade level, often struggle with this question. Turning to doctrine, FM 5-0 gives the book answers of mission, commander’s intent, and staff running estimates informing the military decision-making process. Having sat through our fair share of operational planning sessions and command updates, the dearth of useful information presented by many members of the staff seems to indicate that the confusion remains.

To help alleviate this confusion, we offer a simple approach for officers and senior NCOs to frame their discussions with commanders around risk– the threats and hazards that can negatively impact the organization. What is it about the organization or operations that introduces risk to force, risk to mission, and risk to capability that the commander must understand and make decisions about? That approach looks like this:

Risk = Requirement – (Capability + Resources)

Essentially, the equation means this: the unit has a mission to perform, and to successfully complete that mission requires specific things. To meet these requirements, organizations have people and tools available to them along with a certain amount of monetary and material resources. Given fiscal realities, however, that is unlikely to cover everything. Any requirements that remain after units apply their assets represent risk which commanders must decide to accept, avoid, mitigate, or transfer. Although there are operations research systems analysts that could turn it into a quantifiable equation, this is more of a way to logically organize thoughts rather than to arrive at a mathematically precise measurement of risk. With that disclaimer, we turn our attention to each of the variables—requirement, capability, and resources—and describe how staff officers might use each to understand and describe their warfighting function to their boss.

Requirement

Guided by the commander’s mission statement, priorities, and intent, requirements are the organization’s specific needs for your staff section or warfighting function. To build an understanding of what your requirements are, start by analyzing the operational and environmental context. Next, what actions are required to accomplish the mission, and what is the effect you are looking to achieve? Given this context, what are the technical specifications for each requirement?

Starting to think about requirements broadly necessitates communication and greater situational understanding and facilitates better critical analysis of the mission and what the organization needs. Following this path prevents you from conflating a specific skill or tool (i.e. a capability) for a requirement. It also better prepares you to think creatively about alternative solutions in the event your initial plan doesn’t work.

During one of my deployments as an operations officer, my battle captain walked up to my commander and me, clearly exasperated. He had been on the phone with our higher headquarters requesting to use a predator drone currently on station near one of our areas of interest, but they denied his request. He wanted to get my commander involved to force the issue. After calming him down, we talked about what he was trying to accomplish. We had received reporting of activity around the site, and he wanted to get overhead imagery to confirm the reports. In this case, his requirement was for a single pass by a system that could take photos or video. By asking for the specific capability of the predator drone, he had unnecessarily limited his request, which they denied. Calling back our higher headquarters and articulating our requirement, they were able to reroute a different UAV that was transiting through the area and an hour later we had the imagery.

Since requirements are simply a list of things that your organization needs to be successful, they are also a list of reasons why the mission could fail. Put another way, unmet requirements are risks that you must address by applying capabilities and resources. Before moving on from outlining requirements, remember that the enemy always gets a vote. What are they likely to do, and how will that affect your mission?

Capability

Armed with a clear understanding of the requirement—what you need—it’s time to analyze what assets you have available. What skill sets and tools do you have to meet your requirements? Don’t unnecessarily constrain yourself at the beginning of this process by trying to fit capability exactly to requirement. If there is a system that is overkill or that is slightly under specification, make note of it. Depending on what else the organization is trying to accomplish, one of these other systems may end up being the best choice for a particular application as a way to free up the best choice system for use elsewhere or to quickly adapt to changing conditions. During planning for a recent deployment, the deploying team identified a network connectivity requirement for fifteen users. The best-fit capability available to them was a system that supported twenty users, but talking with the team, communications planners also highlighted the availability of a smaller package that could support five users and a larger one that could support fifty. When the size of the element unexpectedly tripled after a request from a unit already in theater, the team already knew that there was a larger system available, and switched to the fifty-user package to accommodate the change.

Start your capability allocation with organic assets you have readily available within your organization, but again, don’t limit yourself. What additional forces or systems could you request to have attached or realigned to you temporarily? What excess capability do your higher headquarters or adjacent units have, given their mission, that they can lend to you? If nothing is readily available, how much would a new system cost to procure and maintain, and do you have a mechanism to do that? Finally, what authorities do you need to employ a specific capability, and what is the lead time required to properly coordinate for its use? Moving towards a division-focused operating construct should consolidate many of these capabilities and authorities and streamline the process for task organizing them down to lower echelons, but you have to know what is available before you can ask for it.

During an after-action review of a recent training event, one of the maneuver elements talked about issues they had fitting all of the people and equipment into four vehicles and how it made it difficult to quickly move around the area at certain critical points in the operation. Had they identified that problem in their mission preparation or raised their concern when it became a challenge for them during execution, their higher headquarters would have had no problem giving them one of the four vehicles that sat unused throughout the entire event. Because the team didn’t realize what capabilities were available or reach out for assistance, they limited their ability to operate.

Organic capabilities and those that can be easily task organized to your organization should meet the majority of the requirements you need to be successful. The final step is to apply the monetary and material resources you have at your disposal to procure those things not immediately available.

(Financial) Resources

The final piece of the puzzle are the monetary and material resources the organization has at its disposal. There was a time in the not-too-distant past where units had most of the resources they needed to accomplish their mission. Congressionally allocated overseas contingency operations funding augmented budgets for deploying units throughout the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While this additional funding has been reduced, the demand for trained units to deploy in support of national policy objectives has not. The result is that units are being asked to continue to operate on less. As field-grade staff officers, understanding budget cycles and being proactively engaged in the budget process start to become critical for success. Resourcing execution often comes in bursts based on when funds become available, so being prepared with the necessary documentation at the right time can mean the difference between you getting what you need and your organization having to go without.

It is also important to understand the different funding streams the Army uses and when it is possible to tap into other sources of funding. Creativity and an understanding of different “pots” of money is required to maintain a trained and ready force. For instance, O&M (Operations and Maintenance) funds are day-to-day funds used to keep the organization moving. Depending on your commander’s priorities, there could also be special and unique funding available. For example, a military police or ordinance unit could get additional funding to support federal law enforcement or secret service missions. Additionally, when your unit is deploying forward there is often theater provided equipment you can request to augment what you have on hand. For example, units deploying to CENTCOM can get radio systems that provide additional capability and interoperability for their assigned mission. The more you understand what the commander deems important from a resourcing perspective and what is available organically, with an adjacent unit, or across the Army enterprise the more you can point towards your mission.

Even if you are able to find additional resources elsewhere, it is still critical to view the organization’s requirements holistically. Anywhere you can gain efficiencies within your warfighting function frees up resources the organization can direct towards the commander’s priorities. The art is finding the balance between the need to champion requirements within your lane with setting the organization up for success in its most critical areas. One of the best ways to develop these efficiencies is by being intentional about when and where you choose to employ the resources you have available to you given everything you must accomplish. When done well, you are able to cover more requirements with the same amount of resources, lowering risk for your commander in the process.

Use the Language of Risk

Breaking down each of these three elements in this way lets staff officers better understand the gaps that emerge between requirements, capabilities, and resources and helps them articulate those gaps as risk to their commander and fellow staff officers. “Our mission requires X. we can provide Y. the difference between X and Y introduce Z risk to the organization.” This clear articulation of risk should be closely followed with recommended decisions commanders can take based on their overall assessment of the situation. Reducing risk comes from either decreasing the requirements placed on the organization or in bringing additional capability or resources to bear.

Finally, if you use this framework as the basis for your running estimates, it will help you determine what your commander need to know and when you need to tell them. As the situation develops bringing changes to each element, the commander’s level of risk also changes. You can then flag these changes for discussion or decision based on their assessment.

Lieutenant Colonel Tom Gaines is currently assigned as the G6 for 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne). His writing on human creativity, decision making, and technology can be found in Harvard Business Review and West Point’s Modern Warfare Institute.

Major Micah Stedman is currently assigned as the Deputy G6 for Plans for 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne).

Photo by Dave Photoz on Unsplash

fromthegreennotebook.com · by From the Green Notebook · January 5, 2024

26. Mobilizing Intellectual Capacity for Ukraine’s Big Five Operational Challenges of 2024

Excerpts;

We should be assisting Ukraine with these challenges. But these operational problems are not solely a challenge for Ukraine now. In helping Ukraine, therefore, we are also helping ourselves in developing a more effective twenty-first-century version of military fighting power. To achieve this outcome, however, demands good leadership, testing and experimentation, new methods of effectiveness, better linkages between battlefield adaptation and industry, and the broadest embedding of the solutions to the big five operational problems into doctrine and both individual and collective training.

This year, Ukraine and its supporters must invest in this crucial intellectual task. While mobilizing more people and defense industry are critical to reconstituting Ukraine’s military, mobilizing intellectual capacity may prove to be even more vital still. As General Zaluzhnyi wrote recently, “We can in no way reject fully existing doctrines that describe the process of preparing and conducting operations. We just have to realize that they will be constantly changing and filled with new content.” Change and new content must underpin Ukraine’s resolution of these five operational problems. Because if Russia can solve these operational problems before Ukraine, it will probably win the Russo-Ukraine War—and those that are likely to follow in Europe in the years ahead.

Mobilizing Intellectual Capacity for Ukraine’s Big Five Operational Challenges of 2024 - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Mick Ryan · February 8, 2024

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Much of the current debate around the war in Ukraine is centred on what Clausewitz described as the physical and moral forces of warfighting capacity. In the physical realm, a stalemate over military assistance in the US Congress, the inability of the West to mobilize its defense industry quickly, and the lack of progress on the ground in Ukraine are dominant themes. In the moral arena, debate is currently raging around mobilizing more Ukrainians to fight against Russia, as well as a wider debate about the costs that democracies should bear to defend themselves, other democracies, and democratic values more broadly.

But there is a third element that needs to be considered. Generating battlefield and strategic advantage for Ukraine now, and for Western military institutions in the decades ahead, will require undertaking the mobilization of intellectual capacity.

After two years of destructive mass warfare in Ukraine and beyond, the war has largely bogged down. While there are many hypotheses about how this came about, it is apparent that both sides are fighting a twenty-first-century war with twentieth-century ideas. For Ukraine and its supporters, changing the trajectory of the war over the coming years will demand the synchronized mobilization of three components—a twenty-first-century mobilization trinity of people, industry, and new ideas.

The coming year is an opportunity to address the key intellectual challenges that may allow Ukraine to break out of the battlefield stalemate and generate strategic momentum. To be sure, key strategic debates must be had about defending Ukraine versus defeating Russia and moving beyond the escalation terror that appears to inhabit many political systems. But at the same time, there are multiple operational problems that must be resolved this year. An examination of those operational problems provides the necessary context within which to understand the specific ways that intellectual capacity must be mobilized.

Five Operational Challenges to Address in 2024

Despite two years of adaptation during the war in Ukraine the conflict has bogged down into a strategic and tactical slog-fest. Besides industrial and personnel shortages, a key reason is that the development of new warfighting ideas has not kept pace with the introduction of new technology. There has been a mobilization of people and industry, but many operational challenges remain. I propose five operational problems that should be the focus of a mobilization of intellectual capacity by Ukraine and its partners this year.

Challenge 1: Integrating old and new technology. The first challenge is the more effective and rapid integration of new technology (meshed civil-military sensor networks, drones, and democratized access to digital command systems) with old technology (tanks, helicopters, artillery). Great strides have been made in this endeavor in Israel and Ukraine. But progress is often unevenly distributed throughout a military force, and security of the linkages between different systems remains an ongoing challenge. New tactics for the emergent organizations also lag.

This challenge has tactical, operational, strategic, and institutional aspects, it is also reliant on better links between the military and industry, and faster sharing of battlefield lessons. The integration of the old and new must also be conducted at scale. As Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante recently stated, “If you don’t produce and field to warfighters at scale, the capability doesn’t really matter.” Finally, the problem of how to degrade the Russians’ ability to integrate new and old systems must also be dealt with.

Challenge 2: The massing vs. dispersion predicament. A new-era meshed civil-military sensor framework, developed over the course of the war, has produced an environment where all the signatures of military equipment, personnel, and collective forces can be detected more accurately and rapidly. When linked to an array of precision munitions, this closes the detection to destruction gap in military operations to just minutes. Massing military forces for ground combat operations, large-scale aerial attacks, or naval operations, therefore, becomes a high tactical and operational risk. Even if an array of hard and soft kill measures can protect massed forces, they are almost assured of detection, which makes achieving surprise difficult. This was the case with the Ukrainian 2023 counteroffensive. Modern military forces must be equally capable of operating in dispersed and massed forms, but they must be able to minimize their detection when they do mass in a way that provides an improved chance of surprise and landing a decisive blow against an adversary.

Challenge 3: Lowering the cost of defending against missiles and drones. While enormous investment has been made over the past couple of decades in the development of remotely controlled, autonomous, and semiautonomous uncrewed systems, the capabilities to counter them have lagged in investment. This has changed since the beginning of the Russo-Ukraine War, but there remains a massive gap between the capabilities of uncrewed systems and those that counter them. There is a also big disparity in the current costs of these systems. There remains a dearth of low-cost and distributed engagement solutions that enhance a layered defense concept, increase the magazine depth of interceptors, and increase the dilemmas for those employing attack drones and loitering munitions.

As such, attack drones and missiles represent an effective cost-imposition strategy for the Russians. The aim should be not only to reduce the cost of hard and soft kill systems, but to entirely flip the cost equation. Therefore, a key operating challenge to be solved in 2024 is to develop a variety of very low-cost hard and soft kill systems to be used against uncrewed vehicles and missiles, which also imposes cost on those who use drones, not on those who defend against them.

Challenge 4: The right balance of long-range strike and close combat. Ukraine’s investment in a wide array of aerial and maritime long-range strike systems is maturing and showing results against Russian airfields, defense factories, and oil and gas export infrastructure. This an important capability in Ukraine’s arsenal. But important as it is, long-range strike is not a silver bullet in modern war. The planning, conduct, assessment, and adaptation of long-range strike across the domains must be carefully balanced with investment in close combat capabilities. This forces adversaries to also make difficult choices about the array of military capabilities to develop and deploy, generating uncertainty. Balancing between the deep and close fights also provides redundancy in conventional systems.

In 2024, a key operational problem to solve for Ukraine, as well as for Western military institutions, is the appropriate balance in the deep battle and the close fight (with the appropriate support mechanisms for both). And not only must the balance of investment be at least mostly right, but there should also be an effective operational synchronicity between these two military endeavors.

Challenge 5: Closing with the enemy. Modern combat forces require new-era techniques that are quicker, lower signature, and more survivable at crossing the operational and tactical spaces between them and their objectives. The failings of current Western military doctrine were exemplified by Ukraine’s struggle in 2023 to penetrate Russian minefields and defensive belts in southern Ukraine. These were a combination of traditional (read old) obstacle zones, minefields, trenches, and pillboxes with meshed civil-military sensors, assessments, and fires. The technologies and techniques of combined arms breaches have barely changed in half a century but the defensive zone to be penetrated has changed drastically due to new technologies.

Ukrainian and Western military institutions need to develop new warfighting concepts not only to penetrate and fight their way through these defensive schemes, but to ensure they have sufficient combat power to exploit such breaches. Solving this problem is linked to the second challenge described above, solving the massing vs. dispersion predicament. Even before conducting such combined arms breaches, military forces must be able to mass, rehearse, and march to their respective lines of departure in a lower-signature manner. As Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhnyi notes in his recent treatise, “On the Modern Design of Military Operations in the Russo-Ukrainian War: In the Fight for the Initiative,” there is a need for new concepts that “increase[e] the mobility of own troops” and ensure the “safe access to certain lines.”

History Redux

Solving these problems—and identifying the specific ways intellectual capacity can be brought to bear to do so—can be facilitated by an examination of historical military transformations. Military institutions have always faced difficult problems, on the battlefield, during long campaigns, and in national efforts to build military power and fight wars. This has required formal and informal adaptation mechanisms, which sometimes produced transformative solutions to battlefield, operational, and strategic problems.

Until the First Industrial Revolution, military innovation generally moved at a slow pace. However, when the technologies developed during that period of rapid industrial advancement—such as railways, massed manufacturing, and the telegraph—were applied in military institutions, the pace accelerated. Theorists such as Ardant du Picq and Jan Gotlib Bloch examined how military organizations might adapt, and how military effectiveness might be improved, in the wake of the new technologies that emerged during the First Industrial Revolution and were beginning to emerge in the Second Industrial Revolution in the early 1900s.

The interwar period, between World Wars I and II, was also a productive era for exploring the application of new technologies like aircraft and tanks to avoid the stalemates and massed attrition of 1914 to 1918. Theorists sought to produce new warfighting concepts that integrated new technologies into existing organizations, or that produced new organizations such as tank divisions, air forces, and higher-level war colleges. New theories of war, and operational concepts for air, land, and sea, were also driven by new strategic tasks, such as the US Rainbow plans.

The concept of military revolutions was introduced by British historian Michael Roberts in 1955 to cover military innovation. This idea was further developed in the 1960s by the Soviet military to describe how new sensors, computers, and precision weapons were influencing late twentieth-century military thought. Described as a military technological revolution by Soviet military theorists, the concept soon evolved into one described as revolutions in military affairs.

In reviewing the literature on historical military innovation and adaptation, several fundamentals that are common to successful military transformations emerge. These are applicable to addressing contemporary operational challenges, such as those described above that Ukraine faces in 2024, as well as reinvigorating Western military intellectual capacity for other potential twenty-first-century conflicts.

Honest assessments of the enemy. A common thread in successful military innovation is honest assessment of one’s enemy. Without a robust and evidence-based appreciation of the enemy (or likely enemy), military innovation and adaptation is likely to fail. Basing organizational change on fragile knowledge about the enemy’s capabilities, technologies, intentions, and will is a sure way to fail. Early in the Russo-Ukraine War, there was a drastic reassessment of Russia’s military capability. This has led to an underappreciation of their adaptation over the past year. The Russian Army of 2024 is not the same one that existed in 2022; it has improved. This must be accepted (yet constantly reevaluated) as part of developing new warfighting methods.

Specificity. Institutions must have clear ideas of the operational problems to be solved. As Williamson Murray and Allan Millett note in Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, “A number of factors contributed to successful innovation. The one that occurred in virtually every case was the presence of specific military problems the solution of which offered significant advantages to furthering the achievement of national strategy.” The problems that emerged in World War I, such as shifting from attrition to a war of maneuver, were a focal point. Combined arms integration, air-land collaboration, and strategic bombing were the results. Penetrating dense Soviet-era air defense environments and stopping multi-echelon ground penetrations into Western Europe were the challenges of the 1970s and 1980s.

Testing and experimentation. Once an operational problem has been recognized, the nature of the challenge clarified, and the idea to solve it identified, solutions must be tested. This is important for several reasons. First, it ensures that expensive, time-consuming organizational change is not launched without some notion of whether the changes will work. Second, it provides transparency into new ideas allowing for more robust examination and critique. Finally, experimentation is an important part of building institutional buy-in for change. As Donn Starry wrote in his 1983 Military Review article on institutional reform, “Changes proposed must be subjected to trials. Their relevance must be convincingly demonstrated to a wide audience by experiment and experience, and necessary modifications must be made as a result of such trial outcomes.”

Different measures of effectiveness. An important aspect of successful adaptation is an institutional view of what makes that organization effective in the operational environment. In his book surveying successful military innovation, Winning the Next War, Stephen Rosen found that “wartime innovation . . . has been most effective when associated with a redefinition of the measures of strategic effectiveness employed by the military organization.” Large-scale intellectual reinvigoration of military institutions demands a rethinking of what makes a particular military force effective in modern (and future) war. For the Russo-Ukraine War, this will include notions of effectiveness for human-machine integrated operations, the integration of long-range strike and close combat, and the ability to survive and fight in a more transparent battlespace.

New ideas embedded in doctrine and training. Once operational problems have been specified and solutions identified, tested, and approved, these changes must be rapidly encoded in new military doctrine. New doctrine is crucial because this is the fundamental foundation for all individual and collective training that occurs within military institutions. This is the way that true institutional change occurs. And it ensures that new ideas are standardized across the entire military organization.

Tactical innovation linked to industrial output. Transformation occurs not just inside military institutions. New ideas—and the new organizations that accompany them—guide the adaptation of existing materiel and the development of new equipment. US Army reform in the 1970s and 1980s was accompanied by the development and production of the Big Five: the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, the M-1 Abrams tank, the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, the M-2 and M-3 Bradley fighting vehicles, and the Patriot air defense system. New ideas developed for Ukraine to address its operational challenges will also require changes in how current equipment is used. But it is highly likely that new kinds of equipment and munitions may be required. The process that links new ideas and new defense production must be streamlined, and potentially distributed among allies.

Leadership drive. A final, vital element of successful military innovation and adaptation over the past century has been leadership. The most senior military leaders in an institution, as well as political leaders, must not only advocate change but drive it to fruition. These leaders must develop and implement the vision for change that will solve operational problems, and as Andrew Krepinevich writes in The Origins of Victory, they require continuity or extended tenures in their appointments.

Returning to the Big Five Operational Problems

There exists a very useful body of knowledge about solving complex military problems when advances in technology outpace advances in tactics, operational thought, and organizational models. This knowledge provides the foundation for adapting current approaches to warfighting. The coming year offers Ukraine a potential respite from large-scale offensives that permits it to undertake large-scale innovation and intellectual reinvigoration. To break the current stalemate in the war, and return to successful offensives in 2025, this investment in mobilization of intellectual capacity and its application to major operational challenges is vital.

Beyond the five challenges described earlier in this article, there are likely to many others that will present themselves in the Russo-Ukraine War—challenges that will also demand attention in 2024. Some will be anticipated and others will to be surprises. But for military institutions, the big five operational problems described above will be foundational to Ukraine regenerating large-scale offensive capability over the coming year.

We should be assisting Ukraine with these challenges. But these operational problems are not solely a challenge for Ukraine now. In helping Ukraine, therefore, we are also helping ourselves in developing a more effective twenty-first-century version of military fighting power. To achieve this outcome, however, demands good leadership, testing and experimentation, new methods of effectiveness, better linkages between battlefield adaptation and industry, and the broadest embedding of the solutions to the big five operational problems into doctrine and both individual and collective training.

This year, Ukraine and its supporters must invest in this crucial intellectual task. While mobilizing more people and defense industry are critical to reconstituting Ukraine’s military, mobilizing intellectual capacity may prove to be even more vital still. As General Zaluzhnyi wrote recently, “We can in no way reject fully existing doctrines that describe the process of preparing and conducting operations. We just have to realize that they will be constantly changing and filled with new content.” Change and new content must underpin Ukraine’s resolution of these five operational problems. Because if Russia can solve these operational problems before Ukraine, it will probably win the Russo-Ukraine War—and those that are likely to follow in Europe in the years ahead.

Mick Ryan served for more than thirty years in the Australian Army and commanded at platoon, squadron, regiment, task force, and brigade level. In his last position before retiring, he commanded the Australian Defence College. He is the author of War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict and White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan. You can follow him on Twitter, @WarintheFuture, and on his Substack, Futura Doctrina.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Mil.gov.ua

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Mick Ryan · February 8, 2024

27. The Four Pillars of Tactical Innovation: A Path for Impactful Disruption

Conclusion:

Achieving powerful tactical innovation is not an insurmountable hurdle. It starts with empowering tactical-level units to develop and integrate new technologies with divergent tactical capabilities, creating new, novel concepts and propelling us into a future where innovation isn’t merely a buzzword but a celebrated catalyst for transformative and innovative change.

The Four Pillars of Tactical Innovation: A Path for Impactful Disruption - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Robert Leach · February 7, 2024

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Innovation is the lifeblood of progress, and in the context of the military, it is a crucial component of keeping pace with today’s rapid technological evolution. The multifaceted challenge of innovation—which requires understanding emerging threats, leveraging cutting-edge technology, and overturning established paradigms within tactical doctrine—is not merely pivotal; it is a strategic imperative. Tactical innovation, a subset of the broader military innovation ecosystem, must be driven by the on-the-ground practitioner and is based on four key pillars: ground-up ideation, rapid prototyping, deliberate fusion of technology and tactics, and the emergence of novel concepts.

Ground-up ideation, the first pillar, is problematic for most militaries—including the US joint force. Typically, military tactical organizations spend most of their training on doctrinal approaches, proficiency on mission essential task lists, and preparation for future deployments. This schedule is not necessarily conducive to an innovative mindset. Rather, it often hinders junior military members by limiting their ability to institute any meaningful change. While the need for the training and task proficiency is categorically correct, a parallel, integrated effort must be encouraged. Ground-level soldiers have the knowledge and intimate details of tactical applications that many at higher echelons no longer possess. Their understanding of the equipment, the application of its use in tactics, and the doctrinal templates used during training form the bedrock of tactical innovation. Upon this bedrock, creativity can solve contemporary challenges facing the tactical practitioner, igniting novel solutions that are impossible in an innovation pipeline driven from the top down.

Even when ground-up innovation exists, the missing component is often the ability to transform tactical ideas into functioning prototypes. Rapid prototyping, the second pillar, propels these nascent ideas from mere concepts to tangible realities. The traditional trajectory of prototyping, marked by bureaucratic processes and detachment from the original creator, is set aside in favor of a more hands-on approach. By enabling soldiers to actively participate in developing and refining concepts, a more nuanced and sought-after solution can be enabled, all the while steering clear of the pitfalls that bureaucratic, top-down processes often present. This dynamic process not only accelerates the timeline but ensures that innovations remain intimately connected to the tactical needs they aim to address.

The development and prototyping process is enabled by the creation of innovation hubs, partnered at the unit level, where prototyping expertise pairs directly with the idea sponsor. Innovation hubs such as Fort Campbell’s Eaglewerx or Fort Liberty’s Airborne Innovation Lab, supported by the Civil-Military Innovation Institute’s role in the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Pathfinder program, are great examples of how tactical innovation partnered at the unit level can achieve outsized results. This approach empowers tactical leaders to be intimately involved in the idea development process and, in turn, will encourage more soldiers to come forward with good ideas that would otherwise sit nascent and undeveloped. The ability to research and develop ideas into functioning prototypes is likewise an opportunity for the military to partner more closely with local academia and industry to develop capabilities rapidly and field new and creative solutions to tactical problems.

The progressive trajectory of soldier-driven, ground-up innovation, synergized with a rapid prototyping framework, inherently fosters the imaginative evolution of military tactics. By instilling a culture that encourages critical and creative thinking among military personnel regarding existing tactics, coupled with the ability to design and prototype components essential to their tactical framework, the military can adapt to the ever-shifting landscape of contemporary battlefields. This methodology not only amplifies flexibility and adaptability—crucial attributes in modern warfare—but also positions tactical-level units as catalysts for the development of novel capabilities. Empowered with the ability to challenge established methods ingrained in current doctrine, these units, driven by an instinct for innovation, spearhead a dynamic approach to military tactics. Through exploring emerging trends in contemporary conflicts and a contextualizing military training, tactical practitioners can delve into inventive and disruptive avenues, reshaping existing doctrine and facilitating the third pillar of tactical innovation—the seamless integration of cutting-edge technology with innovative tactical applications.

Finally, the fourth pillar manifests as the convergence of disruptive tactical concepts with emerging and novel technologies, giving rise to transformative operational constructs. This process involves evaluating the viability and effectiveness of new concepts grounded in the dual principles of operational comprehension and technological advancement. The significance of this cannot be overstated: it amounts to a paradigm shift wherein established norms are not merely challenged but transcended. In essence, the fourth pillar not only encapsulates the synthesis of disruptive concepts and emerging technologies but also underscores the significance of a systematic and forward-thinking approach in evaluating and incorporating these innovations. This process positions the military not merely as reactive responders but as proactive architects of the employment of military force, ensuring resilience and adaptability in the face of an ever-evolving global landscape.

The path to military innovation lies in these four pillars: ground-up ideation, rapid prototyping, creative applications of tactics, and the integration and development of novel concepts. Embracing these principles fosters a culture of innovation within the military, driving the ability to adapt to evolving threats and incorporate new, emergent technologies. In an era of constant change and strategic uncertainty, the military can maintain its operational edge by enabling tactical practitioners to pursue innovative concepts grounded in the nexus of current tactical realities, emerging technological advancement, rapid prototyping and development, and ground-level testing and evaluation.

Achieving powerful tactical innovation is not an insurmountable hurdle. It starts with empowering tactical-level units to develop and integrate new technologies with divergent tactical capabilities, creating new, novel concepts and propelling us into a future where innovation isn’t merely a buzzword but a celebrated catalyst for transformative and innovative change.

Robert Leach currently works for the Civil Military Innovation Institute as an innovation chief on the Army Research Lab’s Catalyst-Pathfinder program. He served twenty-one years in the United States Army, retiring as a master sergeant from 5th Special Forces Group in 2023, with three combat deployments and seven additional operational deployments throughout the Middle East.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Staff Sgt. Julius Harris, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Robert Leach · February 7, 2024

28. An Israeli Diplomatic Strategy to Undercut Hamas Propaganda

Excerpts:

A Better Approach

A gifted orator and political survivor, Netanyahu knows well the power of rhetoric, whether to muster the Israeli public, spar with friends and foes, or dispirit Palestinians.

Though Netanyahu sees himself as a modern Winston Churchill, he can only move Israel from the immediacy of “never, never, never give up” toward concessions that will provide longer-term security. The Jewish state will be safer with credible Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian voices willing to highlight Hamas’ perversion of Islam. Israel will be stronger by embracing technocratic Palestinians, whether from Gaza, the West Bank, or the diaspora, willing to disprove Hamas’ narrative that it alone can represent the Palestinian people. The Israeli government needs Palestinian partners with whom it can restart a meaningful peace process, and one that allies and moderate Arab countries are willing to support.

Rhetoric will remain an essential tool in Netanyahu’s arsenal, especially during ongoing Israeli military operations, efforts continue to rescue hostages, and the threat of new fronts in the war looms. But an Israeli leader concerned about the safety and welfare of the world’s only Jewish state would be wise to moderate his public comments about Israeli strategic objectives—and thereby avoid the trap set by Hamas and its allies—and start speaking of a path that doesn’t lead simply back to where this tragic saga began.

An Israeli Diplomatic Strategy to Undercut Hamas Propaganda - Foreign Policy Research Institute

fpri.org · by Ted Singer

Bottom Line

Benjamin Netanyahu’s vocal opposition to any role for Palestinians in the post-war period serves to amplify Hamas’ misleading propaganda that it alone represents the interests of all Palestinians, embraces the tenets of Islam, and that its armed struggle can reverse Israeli occupation.
Israel’s long-term security will benefit from credible Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim voices to undercut Hamas’ powerful propaganda.
Without some course correction in his rhetoric toward Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ultimately lead Israel back to the political situation that existed before the October 7 attacks, and Hamas’ insidious trap will succeed.
A staunch ally of Israel, the United States will increasingly find it difficult to ignore domestic and regional concerns about the humanitarian costs and implications of Israel’s military action. Unless Palestinians are offered political alternatives, Israel’s allies will face challenges in assisting post-war plans, any progress toward normalization between moderate Arab states and Israel will falter, friends of Israel will increasingly fret about a broadening of the conflict and terrorism, and Hamas and its “Axis of Resistance” allies will register a success.

Editor’s Note: This is the first of two articles that will be released this week regarding the War in Gaza for FPRI’s Center for the Study of Intelligence and Nontraditional Warfare. This article by an experienced, retired CIA Arabist, Ted Singer, discusses the vital role that propaganda plays in this war. In irregular warfare, words matter and can be as powerful as any weapon or even more powerful. The second article—to be released later this week—will discuss the Law of Armed Conflict and its application against forces who do not follow the Geneva Conventions while waging an irregular war in a dense, urban environment. We hope both are useful for a better understanding of this bitter and emotional struggle.

Hamas is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement and means “zeal” in Arabic. This wordplay foreshadowed the October 7 disaster, in which 1,200 people were killed.

In response to the October 7 attack, Israel launched Operation Iron Sword, a large-scale military campaign in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has articulated the following “prerequisites for peace”: destroy Hamas, demilitarize Gaza, and deradicalize Palestinian society. These goals are impossible to achieve, counterproductive to Israel’s long-term security, and risks setting Israel into a trap set by Hamas. Instead, Netanyahu should undercut the appeal of Hamas among Palestinians by engaging credible Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim voices to undercut Hamas’ powerful propaganda.

The Meaning of the “Islamic Resistance Movement”

Hamas founders in 1987 carefully curated their words to propagate an ideology that would endure beyond inevitable efforts to capture and kill individual adherents.

Islamic

Islamic, of course, means of or relating to Islam, which itself means peace or submission to God. Worldwide, there are some 1.8 billion Muslims. Among the estimated 14 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and diaspora, the vast majority are Sunni Muslim. Drawing on their Muslim Brotherhood roots and tapping into the ascendant, conservative Islam in Saudi Arabia and Iran, Hamas founders sought to broadly interlink the Palestinian cause to religion. Among Palestinians, Hamas aimed to starkly differentiate itself from its rival, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and other Palestinian militant groups, which has secular, if not Marxist, origins.

Resistance

Resistance is the refusal to accept or comply with something. Hamas’ political nemesis, the Palestine Liberation Organization, had its own acronym, Fatah, which read backwards stands for the “Palestinian National Liberation Movement” and alone means “conquering.” Hamas founders, mostly Gazans and denizens of Palestinian refugee camps, played on Palestinian and international perceptions that, despite its name, Fatah had achieved very little and its leaders appeared to be “limousine” liberators living comfortably abroad.

Movement

Movement stands for a group of people with the same beliefs, ideas, or aims. Adopting this word was also intentional for Hamas, as movements, unlike parties or organizations, ostensibly lack leadership and outside control. Again, Hamas founders sought to distinguish themselves from the hierarchical Palestine Liberation Organization, a rival that they considered corrupt and subject to foreign influence. Hamas founders also sought to convey that hostility to Israel would also be the duty of all Palestinian men, women, and children and their sympathizers, not just fighters.

Hamas founders’ word choice no doubt had an Israeli audience in mind, too. The Zealots, a Jewish resistance movement in the first century A.D., opposed any modus vivendi with occupying Romans and their Herodian collaborators in Judea. Their military wing, the Sicarii, waged guerrilla warfare, their army turned on fellow Jews who sought compromise, and the last of the Zealots famously held out at Masada for three years before committing mass suicide in the face of overwhelming Roman forces. “It’s better to die than be a slave to Rome,” the Zealots’ leader, Eleazar ben Ya’ir, said.

Netanyahu’s Rhetoric

Netanyahu’s military goals in the current war—destruction, demilitarization, and deradicalization—is aimed at many audiences, except Palestinians. The plan foretells a return to the cycle of reoccupation, deterrence, and retaliation in which zealots thrive. He spoke to Israel’s allies in the West: he will do what he must do. He assured his right-wing allies that his opposition to a two-state solution wouldn’t change as long as the conflict continued and he remained in power.

The prime minister gave a nod to Gulf Arab, Egyptian, and Jordanian leaders, who privately applaud the demise of Hamas but publicly decry the civilian death toll. Lastly, he warned “Axis of Resistance” allies of Hamas—Iran, Hizballah, Houthis, and terrorists in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere—that the Sword of Iron is not limited to Gaza.

In separate remarks, Netanyahu has stated that he expects Gulf Arab states “will support the rehabilitation of the [Gaza] Strip.” However, these states have linked potential assistance to progress on a two-state solution, which right-wing Israelis adamantly oppose. Additionally, Netanyahu has labeled Qatar as “problematic,” as it largely funded previous reconstruction efforts in Gaza. Netanyahu has articulated Israel’s opposition to a “Fatah-stan.” However, the United States and other allies have lobbied vocally for a revitalization of the Palestinian Authority and its return to Gaza. Netanyahu has indicated that Israel will maintain a security role “indefinitely” in Gaza, despite US and European Union diplomatic positions against reoccupation of Gaza by Israel.

Israel’s military operations will certainly succeed in physically destroying the current crop of Hamas and like-minded militants in Gaza and the West Bank. By extension, Israeli security forces are well on the way to demilitarizing Gaza for the moment. But, with each passing day, this operation and settler violence in the West Bank pushes the Palestinian people in the opposite direction of deradicalization, just as Hamas founders expected. Hopeless, civilian Gazans who survive the unprecedented bombardments will seek solace in their faith, Islam. Homeless, many will have no recourse but to resist reoccupation and right-wing Israeli calls for forced migration. Leaderless, many will be tempted to recreate or resuscitate an Islamic resistance movement to combat Israel and avenge their losses.

Netanyahu’s rhetoric will resonate divisively in the US election cycle and pose longer-term implications for US interests. Seventy-five years of US bipartisanship toward Israel may be challenged by Netanyahu’s disregard of the administration and allies’ counsel, budgetary realities, and a citizenry opposed to involvement in “yet another never-ending” conflict. The US intelligence community has no doubt already begun to focus on the prospects of a resurgence of terrorism inspired by the Gaza conflict, and the US defense community is once again navigating unpredictable shoals in the Middle East in lieu of competing in the great-powers arena.

A Better Approach

A gifted orator and political survivor, Netanyahu knows well the power of rhetoric, whether to muster the Israeli public, spar with friends and foes, or dispirit Palestinians.

Though Netanyahu sees himself as a modern Winston Churchill, he can only move Israel from the immediacy of “never, never, never give up” toward concessions that will provide longer-term security. The Jewish state will be safer with credible Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian voices willing to highlight Hamas’ perversion of Islam. Israel will be stronger by embracing technocratic Palestinians, whether from Gaza, the West Bank, or the diaspora, willing to disprove Hamas’ narrative that it alone can represent the Palestinian people. The Israeli government needs Palestinian partners with whom it can restart a meaningful peace process, and one that allies and moderate Arab countries are willing to support.

Rhetoric will remain an essential tool in Netanyahu’s arsenal, especially during ongoing Israeli military operations, efforts continue to rescue hostages, and the threat of new fronts in the war looms. But an Israeli leader concerned about the safety and welfare of the world’s only Jewish state would be wise to moderate his public comments about Israeli strategic objectives—and thereby avoid the trap set by Hamas and its allies—and start speaking of a path that doesn’t lead simply back to where this tragic saga began.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.

Image: Reuters

fpri.org · by Ted Singer

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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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U.S. Drone Strike Kills Iraq Militia Leader Behind Deadly Attack on American Base

Strike kills senior commander of Iran-backed group Kataib Hezbollah

Russian Intelligence Is Pushing False Claims of U.S. Biological Testing in Africa, U.S. Says

Media disinformation operation with Wagner Group link takes aim at American influence on continent

Front-line Ukrainian infantry units report acute shortage of soldiers

Why China Is Rooting for Trump

Beijing’s long game would be much better served by the candidate’s policies and the divisions he would unleash.

1. Trump would increase divisions between the United States and Europe.

2. Trump could make a U-turn on sanctions against Russia.

How Primed for War Is China?

The West Did Not Invent Decoupling—China Did

Does Ukraine Offer Lessons for Taiwan?

3. Trump would give a boost to China’s push for alternative financial mechanisms.

4. A Trump win would increase China’s domination for critical materials sourcing from emerging countries.

5. China would benefit from U.S. export controls on clean tech.

The Houthis’ Next Target May Be Underwater

Cutting or damaging subsea cables could disrupt data and financial communications between Europe and Asia.

Key Shipping Chokepoints in the Red Sea Region

Merchant Shippers Fear Another Tanker War Is Coming

Can the United States Deter—or Compel—Iran?

Why the Red Sea Crisis Hasn’t Hit Energy—Yet

Corps is searching for 5 Marines after helicopter found in California

Director’s Statement on the Budget and Economic Outlook for 2024 to 2034

The Budget

The Economy

Austin agrees to testify before Congress about his medical missteps

What we know about the search for five Marines after a helicopter went down in California mountains

WHAT HAPPENED

WHO IS MISSING

THE RESCUE EFFORT

THE HELICOPTER

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'Swarm of suicide drones' attacks US army base in Syria in retaliation for Baghdad airstrike

The attack has been linked to the retaliatory US airstrikes against Iranian-aligned groups and their positions.

Retaliating to retaliation

Reform the budget process to strengthen US global leadership: RAND - Breaking Defense

Budget dysfunction in DC can disrupt Pentagon programs and leave allies hanging. The US needs to reform its budgeting process to support its leadership role, two RAND scholars argue.

Kremlin confirms Putin gave interview to ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson

The Pentagon may need machines to help stop insider threats

Humans can’t always pick up on the nuances of network behavior so there’s a need for secure, automated tools that can.

U.S. Defense Requires Greater Civil Support to Counter China’s Cyber Aggression - Defense Opinion

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 7, 2024

IRAN UPDATE, FEBRUARY 7, 2024

Intel officials warned well before Tower 22 attack of increased risks from drones

Pacific Command legal office prepares military forces for future fight with China

Army watercraft company that saw action at Normandy and Vietnam reactivates in Japan

Close Down UNRWA

Tyrants and expendable migrants: Dictators play with people’s lives to gain leverage

Biden keeps killing Iran's militia pawns - but he's too scared to strike against the REAL enemy in Tehran. That's why American troops are STILL in the Ayatollah's crosshairs, say Mideast experts

By MARK DUBOWITZ AND DAVID ADESNIK FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 14:55 EST, 7 February 2024 | UPDATED: 16:59 EST, 7 February 2024

Chinese hackers have lurked in some US infrastructure systems for ‘at least five years’ | CNN Politics

The US Learns China’s Lessons on Elitism - The American Spectator

​ spectator.org · by J.T. Young · February 7, 2024

Communicate Your Staff Estimates in the Language of Risk - From the Green Notebook

Mobilizing Intellectual Capacity for Ukraine’s Big Five Operational Challenges of 2024 - Modern War Institute

The Four Pillars of Tactical Innovation: A Path for Impactful Disruption - Modern War Institute

An Israeli Diplomatic Strategy to Undercut Hamas Propaganda - Foreign Policy Research Institute

Bottom Line

The Meaning of the “Islamic Resistance Movement”

Netanyahu’s Rhetoric

A Better Approach

spectator.org · by J.T. Young · February 7, 2024