Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, killing more than 2,300 Americans. The U.S.S. Arizona was completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized.

Quotes of the Day:

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt on the morning after the Pearl Harbor attack

“Before we’re through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell.”

– Vice Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey, spoken from his flagship Enterprise upon returning to Pearl Harbor and seeing the wreckage that included his scout aircraft.

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

– attributed to Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

1. Analysis | Clandestine online operations now require sign-off by senior officials

2. China’s Hackers Are Expanding Their Strategic Objectives

3. Pentagon grounds all Ospreys, one week after deadly crash

4. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 6, 2023

5. 23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users

6. As it planned for Oct. 7, Hamas lulled Israel into a false sense of calm

7. RTX to continue USSOCOM Silent Knight Radar production

8. Strategic Disruption by Special Operations Forces | SOF News

9. Italy to terminate China belt and road agreement, ending G7 involvement

10. Putin seeks to humiliate Biden by showing him that attempts to isolate Russia have failed

11. Biden team wary of retaliating against Houthi attacks at sea

12. First female active-duty soldier graduates from sniper school

13. China’s debt problems will take years to resolve: analysts

14. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, December 6, 2023

15. China's Xi doubles down on favorite weapon against US allies

16. Philippines stands out in Asean over embrace of US’ Indo-Pacific strategy

17. In Taiwan, China is covertly preparing for battle

18. The U.S. Can Afford a Bigger Military. We Just Can’t Build It.

19. Putin’s Repressions Radicalizing Predominantly Ethnic Russian Regions And Leading Some To Think About Pursuing Independence

20.The 2023 War on the Rocks Holiday Reading List

1. Analysis | Clandestine online operations now require sign-off by senior officials

Analysis | Clandestine online operations now require sign-off by senior officials

Analysis by Ellen Nakashima

with research by David DiMolfetta

December 5, 2023 at 7:13 a.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Ellen Nakashima · December 5, 2023

Good morning! I’m Ellen Nakashima, a national security reporter at The Post who covers national security and intelligence issues. You can follow me on Bluesky, Mastodon or X.

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Below: The U.K. denies a report on nuclear site hacking, and U.S. agencies fall behind on meeting federal cybersecurity requirements. First:

Clandestine online operations now require sign-off by senior officials

Following a controversy over the Pentagon’s use of clandestine information operations, the U.S. military has eliminated dozens of false online personas it created in recent years and has curtailed the use of such operations overseas, according to senior defense officials.

Clandestine online operations now require sign-off by senior Pentagon officials, the CIA and the State Department, according to the officials, who spoke Monday on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

The new policy follows a review and pause initiated last year by the undersecretary of defense for policy, Colin Kahl, who stepped down in July. His review, first reported by The Washington Post, was prompted by an outcry following the publication of an August 2022 report by internet researchers Graphika and Stanford Internet Observatory. The researchers revealed takedowns by platforms including Facebook and Twitter — now called X — of more than 150 bogus personas and media sites, and suggested that the accounts might have been created by the U.S. military.

In the wake of the review, “new levels of oversight — to include coordination within the interagency — is now being applied to the department’s MISO activities,” said a Pentagon spokesperson, Lisa Lawrence, referring to military information support operations, the Pentagon’s term for psychological or information operations.

The Post confirmed with U.S. officials last year that many of the accounts examined by the researchers were indeed used by the U.S. military, and in particular U.S. Central Command (Centcom), whose area of operations includes the Middle East, North Africa, and Central and South Asia.

Some of the accounts taken down included a made-up Persian-language media site that shared content reposted from the U.S.-funded Voice of America Farsi and Radio Free Europe. One fake account posted an inflammatory tweet claiming that relatives of deceased Afghan refugees had reported bodies being returned from Iran with missing organs. The tweet linked to a video that was part of an article posted on a U.S.-military affiliated website.

If such accounts are unmasked as being the work of the U.S. government seeking to impersonate grass-roots activists, it could erode — or further erode — the United States’ credibility abroad with target audiences in the developing world, U.S. officials said.

Combatant commands continue to undertake information operations online using identifiable U.S. military accounts. But the practice of deploying sham accounts to attempt to influence overseas audiences has been dramatically reduced, senior Pentagon officials said. “It’s nowhere near the volume it was previously now that there’s oversight and greater scrutiny given to all of them,” said one official.

The operations by Centcom, which had taken place within the past several years, did not gain much traction, according to Graphika and Stanford Internet Observatory. The campaigns involved posts, for instance, that advanced anti-Russia narratives and cited the Kremlin’s “imperialist” war in Ukraine and warning of the conflict’s direct impact on Central Asian countries.

The researchers concluded that the military’s overt accounts actually attracted more followers. Such overt, attributed activity forms the bulk of MISO.

Indeed, said the Pentagon officials, military psychological operations “should not go away but we just need to make sure it’s being done judiciously and lawfully.”

In July, the Defense Department issued an updated information operations strategy, which did not address clandestine activity. In general, it said that “a coherent” information operations strategy “requires a clear understanding of the drivers that shape” audiences’ perceptions and that the intelligence community must “gain a better grasp on the motivations that drive behaviors.” Only once that is done can “informational power … be effectively applied.”

Analysis | Clandestine online operations now require sign-off by senior officials

The Washington Post · by Ellen Nakashima · December 5, 2023

Good morning! I’m Ellen Nakashima, a national security reporter at The Post who covers national security and intelligence issues. You can follow me on Bluesky, Mastodon or X.

Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here.

Below: The U.K. denies a report on nuclear site hacking, and U.S. agencies fall behind on meeting federal cybersecurity requirements. First:

Clandestine online operations now require sign-off by senior officials

The researchers concluded that the military’s overt accounts actually attracted more followers. Such overt, attributed activity forms the bulk of MISO.

Indeed, said the Pentagon officials, military psychological operations “should not go away but we just need to make sure it’s being done judiciously and lawfully.”

2. China’s Hackers Are Expanding Their Strategic Objectives

Is this right out of Unrestricted Warfare?

Is this "cyber reconnaissance" preparing the cyber battlefield for future operation at the time of the PLA's choosing?

I bet the Chinese do not have the same oversight restrictions as the US.

Excerpts:

Furthermore, the Defense Department’s October report warned of a different facet of China’s information efforts. The report described China’s focus on developing information operations that could be deployed for advantage in the event of a conflict. China is increasingly incorporating these operations into its military exercises, the department wrote. China views “cyberspace, electronic, space, and psychological warfare” as “integral to achieving information superiority early in a conflict as an effective means to counter a stronger foe.”

The Defense Department’s analysis highlights that, while the cyber threat posed by China has at least three distinctive strands—disinformation, espionage, and hacking critical infrastructure—these tactics are also strategically intertwined. For example, the department’s 2023 Cyber Strategy alluded to the multilevel strategic approach that China could take if it were to come into direct conflict with the United States. It predicts “destructive” cyberattacks with multiple goals: “hinder military mobilization, sow chaos, and divert attention and resources.”

Each element of China’s cyber threat requires its own strategy: To address the new disinformation threat posed by China, the U.S. can work with its tech companies to step up in the face of new tactics enabled by advanced technologies. Countering economic espionage means an evolving combination of positive and negative incentives, continuing the effort first attempted by the Obama administration. Protecting U.S. military and critical infrastructure from attacks intended to lay the groundwork for follow-on operations in the event of a U.S.-China conflict is a vital challenge for protecting U.S. interests, even if the prospect of a direct conflict does not appear imminent. Securing this infrastructure, which is in both private and public hands, calls for continued investment in defense.

Cyberspace can be viewed as the latest front in renewed great power competition such that the U.S. should bring together all digital and nondigital tools to deter China’s hackers. The 2023 Cyber Strategy described China as “the pacing challenge” for U.S. cybersecurity. While the cyber threat posed by China may not be as urgent as other geopolitical crises, it is vital for the U.S. to prioritize the long-term strategic challenges that will become only more pronounced over time as the two powers compete in the digital domain.

China’s Hackers Are Expanding Their Strategic Objectives

Alyza Sebenius

Tuesday, December 5, 2023, 10:02 AM

China-based hackers are accessing U.S. infrastructure and developing methods to disrupt it in the event of conflict.

lawfaremedia.org · by Alyza Sebenius

On Nov. 15, President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in California on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in an effort to stabilize ties between the U.S. and China and to discuss issues ranging from fentanyl to artificial intelligence safety. The meeting took place against the backdrop of a shifting landscape in cyberspace, in which U.S. officials see China expanding its strategy and focusing on critical infrastructure. This threat was not addressed in the readouts or press accounts of the meeting. Nevertheless, while the leaders did not appear to discuss cybersecurity or the possibility of setting norms in the digital domain, the question of how the two powers will interact in the cyberspace looms large.

In October, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Executive Director Brandon Wales described China as “the number one geostrategic challenge for the United States, both broadly and then absolutely within the cyber realm.” This may come as a surprise to some readers given the pressing national security concerns in Ukraine and the Middle East, each with their own set of hacking operations by Russia and Iran to deter. But while these digital threats may be most urgent, recent analyses by U.S. government officials suggest that China may be the most important cyber threat at the moment.

In its October report to Congress reviewing China’s military and security activity over the course of 2022, the Department of Defense warned that hackers in China—who have targeted U.S. government systems, including within the department—are stealing “sensitive information from the critical defense infrastructure and research institutes.” The report identified three possible motives, describing the attacks as designed for “economic and military advantage and possibly for cyberattack preparations.” In the event of a conflict, China-based hackers have developed tools to attack U.S. critical infrastructure, including the “disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks,” the department assessed.

The report underscores recent warnings by U.S. officials about the nature of China’s threat to the United States. China appears to be expanding its ambitions in cyberspace, and developing the workforce to achieve them. “The scale of the Chinese cyber threat is unparalleled—they’ve got a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in April, speaking before a House Appropriations subcommittee. “If each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intel analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, Chinese hackers would still outnumber FBI Cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1,” he said. While, in past decades, China’s hackers have been infamous for massive economic espionage and intelligence gathering operations, U.S. experts have increasingly noticed China’s hackers targeting critical infrastructure to maintain disruptive capabilities.

China’s New Ambitions: Critical Infrastructure

In his recent comments, delivered at an October Washington Post event, Wales cited a recent example of China’s current focus in cyberspace: “a series of intrusions that China has executed directly targeting U.S. critical infrastructure, compromising that infrastructure to preposition for future disruptive or destructive operations.” Wales described these hacks as evidence of a trend in which China is expanding its focus from hacking for espionage to targeting entities with the intention of developing damaging cyber capabilities that can be deployed against those targets in a conflict. He added that, in recent years, the United States has uncovered examples of China-linked hackers compromising critical infrastructure as early as 2012, but it wasn’t until more recently that the intelligence community developed an understanding of China’s underlying strategy. “If you had asked me 10 years ago, the answer would have been China is primarily focused on economic and political espionage, looking to advance their economy, looking to steal secrets or plans for fighter jets, but that threat is absolutely evolving. I think it is far more serious today,” he said. “If we want to enjoy the freedom of action on the geopolitical stage and we want the ability to ensure that we can defend our friends and allies around the world, we cannot let hostile nations like China into our critical infrastructure and hold it at risk.”

A series of recent reports from the U.S. defense and intelligence community underscore Wales’s analysis. For example, the Defense Department’s October report to Congress assessed that China “seeks to create disruptive and destructive effects … to shape decision making and disrupt military operations beginning in the initial stages and throughout a conflict.” It added that China “believes these capabilities are even more effective against militarily superior adversaries that depend on information technologies.” Similarly, the 2023 Annual Threat Assessment, released in February by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), stated that, if the geopolitical landscape were to shift such that a U.S.-China conflict appeared near, Beijing would likely consider hacking U.S. military targets across the globe as well as U.S. critical infrastructure—and it would be well positioned to do so. “China almost certainly is capable of launching cyber attacks that could disrupt critical infrastructure services within the United States,” the report said.

This year, the United States has issued a series of warnings about China-based hacking incidents. In May, cyber agencies from each of the Five Eyes countries—the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand—issued a joint warning about a group of Chinese state-sponsored hackers, known as Volt Typhoon, that targeted “networks across U.S. critical infrastructure sectors.” Cyber agencies from the five countries warned that Volt Typhoon “could apply the same techniques against these and other sectors worldwide” and issued two dozen pages of technical detail about the group’s tactics. According to Microsoft, which initially detected the activity, Volt Typhoon had engaged in a multi-year campaign, beginning in mid-2021, aimed at hacking into critical infrastructure, including “communications, manufacturing, utility, transportation, construction, maritime, government, information technology, and education sectors.” This cyber operation—which is likely the activity to which Wales referred in his recent remarks—was aimed at the United States and Guam, a territory where the U.S. has strategic military bases.

In late September, the United States and Japan released an advisory about new activity by a China-linked hacking group known as BlackTech. According to the alert, the group targeted “government, industrial, technology, media, electronics, and telecommunication sectors, including entities that support the militaries of the U.S. and Japan.” The advisory—which was issued by the U.S. National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and CISA as well as the Japan National Police Agency and the Japan National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity—did not identify the purpose of the attacks. It did, however, assess that the BlackTech hackers used sophisticated cyber tools to target routers to move “from international subsidiaries to headquarters in Japan and the U.S.—the primary targets.” BlackTech has operated since 2010, targeting public- and private-sector networks in the United States and East Asia and consistently modifying its cyber tools so that they are not flagged by security software, according to the alert. The United States and Japan urged network providers to take steps to “protect devices from the backdoors the BlackTech actors are leaving behind.”

The recent warnings of China’s hacking activity, particularly those issued in conjunction with Five Eyes countries and Japan, serve as a reminder that U.S. cybersecurity depends in part on the security of its partners’ key networks. An August Washington Post report alleged that China’s hackers penetrated classified Japanese military networks in 2020, creating alarm in Washington about the sensitive information that China could access on the networks of a U.S. intelligence partner. Notably, the United States’ resolve to work with allies to address hacking incidents is part of a broader trend in its approach to cybersecurity, which transcends the China threat. For example, in 2022 and 2023, CISA released eight alerts in conjunction with allies—frequently other members of the Five Eyes—to warn of new hacking activity by Russia, Iran, and China.

A “Traditional” Threat: Economic Espionage

Even as China has increasingly focused on targeting critical infrastructure, its hackers have simultaneously continued to pursue their traditional espionage goals. “China probably currently represents the broadest, most active, and persistent cyber espionage threat to U.S. Government and private-sector networks,” according to the ODNI.

The United States has identified a wide range of targets of China’s cyber espionage program. In its 2023 Cyber Strategy, the Defense Department wrote that China has “engaged in prolonged campaigns of espionage, theft, and compromise against key defense networks and broader U.S. critical infrastructure, especially the Defense Industrial Base.” It also described “intrusion and surveillance efforts against individuals living beyond its borders, including U.S. citizens, whom it considers enemies of the state.” The Defense Department report identified U.S. allies and partners as targets of China’s cyber espionage efforts as well. Furthermore, at a recent meeting with Five Eyes chiefs, Ken McCallum—who serves as the director general of the U.K.’s MI5—described “a sharp rise in aggressive attempts by other states to steal competitive advantage” across the five countries, but he did not specify China as the culprit. At the meeting, the FBI’s Christopher Wray reportedly shared that his agency currently has more than 2,000 open investigations related to Chinese espionage, which is conducted using both cyber and nondigital techniques.

This year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo confirmed that, as she prepared for her trip to China in August, hackers broke into her email account. Other Commerce and State officials also had their email accounts infiltrated by Chinese hackers in the course of the incident, which has reportedly resulted in the theft of 60,000 emails from senior State Department officials. What’s more, last year, U.S. national security agencies released an advisory detailing a series of security flaws that China’s state-backed hackers have exploited since 2020. According to the alert, China’s hackers “continue to exploit known vulnerabilities to actively target U.S. and allied networks as well as software and hardware companies[.]” These hacks are an effort “to steal intellectual property and develop access into sensitive networks,” the advisory said.

The espionage efforts of China-based hackers extend beyond targeting the United States and its allies. For example, last month, the cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks documented China-based intrusions into approximately two dozen “government organizations across a key range of industries” in Cambodia. “This activity is believed to be part of a long-term espionage campaign,” the company wrote in a report. It added that the hacking “aligns with geopolitical goals of the Chinese government as it seeks to leverage their strong relations with Cambodia to project their power and expand their naval operations in the region.”

Influence Operations: Artificial Intelligence and Disinformation

In addition to its recent hacking operations, China has also developed sophisticated capabilities for spreading disinformation on social media. In the past—including during the lead-up to the 2020 U.S. elections—social media companies documented rudimentary disinformation campaigns spreading Chinese propaganda. But China has recently developed new tools for digital information operations, according to a report published by Microsoft in September. The company described China’s use of artificial intelligence to create realistic images that could spread on social media: “In the past year, China has honed a new capability to automatically generate images it can use for influence operations meant to mimic U.S. voters across the political spectrum and create controversy along racial, economic, and ideological lines.” Separately, Microsoft added that China’s “state-affiliated multilingual social media influencer initiative” has reached 103 million accounts in 40 languages, while “China-aligned” accounts have both impersonated American voters and connected with real users about political matters.

Furthermore, the Defense Department’s October report warned of a different facet of China’s information efforts. The report described China’s focus on developing information operations that could be deployed for advantage in the event of a conflict. China is increasingly incorporating these operations into its military exercises, the department wrote. China views “cyberspace, electronic, space, and psychological warfare” as “integral to achieving information superiority early in a conflict as an effective means to counter a stronger foe.”

The Defense Department’s analysis highlights that, while the cyber threat posed by China has at least three distinctive strands—disinformation, espionage, and hacking critical infrastructure—these tactics are also strategically intertwined. For example, the department’s 2023 Cyber Strategy alluded to the multilevel strategic approach that China could take if it were to come into direct conflict with the United States. It predicts “destructive” cyberattacks with multiple goals: “hinder military mobilization, sow chaos, and divert attention and resources.”

Each element of China’s cyber threat requires its own strategy: To address the new disinformation threat posed by China, the U.S. can work with its tech companies to step up in the face of new tactics enabled by advanced technologies. Countering economic espionage means an evolving combination of positive and negative incentives, continuing the effort first attempted by the Obama administration. Protecting U.S. military and critical infrastructure from attacks intended to lay the groundwork for follow-on operations in the event of a U.S.-China conflict is a vital challenge for protecting U.S. interests, even if the prospect of a direct conflict does not appear imminent. Securing this infrastructure, which is in both private and public hands, calls for continued investment in defense.

Cyberspace can be viewed as the latest front in renewed great power competition such that the U.S. should bring together all digital and nondigital tools to deter China’s hackers. The 2023 Cyber Strategy described China as “the pacing challenge” for U.S. cybersecurity. While the cyber threat posed by China may not be as urgent as other geopolitical crises, it is vital for the U.S. to prioritize the long-term strategic challenges that will become only more pronounced over time as the two powers compete in the digital domain.

lawfaremedia.org · by Alyza Sebenius

3. Pentagon grounds all Ospreys, one week after deadly crash

Material failure?

Pentagon grounds all Ospreys, one week after deadly crash

defenseone.com · by Audrey Decker

A CV-22 Osprey assigned to the 21st Special Operations Squadron takes off at Yokota Air Base, Japan, on Jan. 8, 2021. Yasuo Osakabe/USAF

Investigators suspect a “potential materiel failure” may have caused the Nov. 29 mishap off Japan.

December 6, 2023 07:39 PM ET

By Audrey Decker

Staff Writer

December 6, 2023 07:39 PM ET

The U.S. military has grounded its entire fleet of V-22 aircraft a week after eight airmen were killed in the crash of a U.S. Air Force CV-22 off Japan.

“Preliminary investigation information indicates a potential materiel failure caused the mishap, but the underlying cause of the failure is unknown at this time. The stand down will provide time and space for a thorough investigation to determine causal factors and recommendations to ensure the Air Force CV-22 fleet returns to flight operations,” Air Force Special Operations Command said in a Dec. 6 press release.

A “materiel failure” suggests that the crash was caused by something wrong in the aircraft, instead of a mistake by the airmen on board.

The Navy has also grounded its fleet of Ospreys, including the Marine Corps variant, according to a separate release from Naval Air Systems Command.

“The Joint Program Office continues to communicate and collaborate with all V-22 stakeholders and customers, including allied partners,” NAVAIR said.

Airmen of the 353rd Special Operations Wing were performing a “routine training mission” on Nov. 29 when the Osprey crashed off the shore of Yakushima, Japan. The remains of six airmen on board have been recovered, while two are still unaccounted for.

Japan grounded its own Ospreys after the crash and voiced concern about the aircraft’s safety.

The recent crash has raised fresh concerns about the aircraft, which has had numerous fatal crashes over the years. Air Force Special Operations Command grounded its Ospreys last year for two weeks because of “an increased number of safety incidents” involving hard clutch engagements. The Marine Corps did not ground its Ospreys at that time.

4. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 6, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-6-2023

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov credited Western security assistance for empowering Ukrainian forces to liberate half of the territory that Russia occupied since February 24, 2022.
Russian forces conducted a notably large series of drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of December 5 to 6.
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia to meet with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman in a series of bilateral meetings on December 6.
Russian oil revenues continue to increase due to a concerted Russian effort to skirt the G7 price cap on Russian crude oil and petroleum products.
Russian society appears interested in discussing the outcome of the war in Ukraine despite the Kremlin’s increasing aversion to more in-depth public discussions of the war.
Unspecified actors killed former pro-Russian Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada deputy Ilya Kiva in Moscow Oblast on December 6.
Moscow’s 2nd Western Military District Court convicted two Russian air defense officers for negligence for failing to prevent a Ukrainian strike on Russian territory in April 2022, likely to set an example to improve discipline across the Russian military.
Russian officials are reportedly attempting to funnel migrants who have ended up in Russia due to Russia’s failed hybrid war tactics on the Russian-Finnish border into ongoing force generation efforts.
Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, west and southwest of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced near Avdiivka.
The Russian State Duma will reportedly consider a bill allowing Russian conscripts to serve in the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Border Service.
Ukrainian partisans may have conducted an attack in occupied Luhansk City on December 6 that killed Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) People’s Council Deputy Oleg Popov.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, DECEMBER 6, 2023

Dec 6, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 6, 2023

Riley Bailey, Angelica Evans, Nicole Wolkov, Karolina Hird, and Frederick W. Kagan

December 6, 2023, 6:50pm 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 1pm ET on December 6. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the December 7 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov credited Western security assistance for empowering Ukrainian forces to liberate half of the territory that Russia occupied since February 24, 2022.[1] Umerov credited Western security assistance for previous Ukrainian counteroffensive success during an interview with Fox News on December 5 and stated that the Ukrainian forces have a plan for 2024.[2] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on November 8 that the Ukrainian forces have planned for several paths of future advance in 2024 to liberate more of the occupied territories.[3] ISW continues to assess that Ukraine must liberate strategically vital areas still under Russian occupation to ensure Ukraine’s long-term security and economic viability.[4] Umerov also stated that Ukraine plans to conduct all calculations for procurement, acquisition, planning, and operations according to NATO standards and that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s (MoD) first priority is Ukraine’s accession to NATO.[5] The adoption of NATO standards throughout the Ukrainian military and defense establishment will facilitate NATO oversight of current and future Western security assistance to Ukraine.

Russian forces conducted a notably large series of drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of December 5 to 6. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces launched 50 Shahed-131/136 from Kursk Oblast and Cape Chauda in occupied Crimea and that Ukrainian air defenses downed 41 Shaheds.[6] Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian air defenses shot down Russian drones in Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, and Zhytomyr oblasts.[7]

Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia to meet with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman in a series of bilateral meetings on December 6. Putin and Al Nahyan discussed Russia’s role in OPEC+, the construction of a Russian school in the UAE, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, and other bilateral issues during a meeting in the UAE.[8] Putin stated during his meeting with Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia that Russian-Saudi relations reached a new level over the past seven years under the guidance of Mohammed bin Salman and his father.[9] Putin noted the “very good” political and economic relations between the two countries and the need to “exchange information and assessments” about what is happening in the region, likely referring to the Israel-Hamas War. Kremlin newswire TASS reported that Putin and Mohammed bin Salman met for three hours and paid particular attention to the North-South transport corridor and energy issues.[10] Putin’s meetings in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and upcoming meeting with Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi on December 7 are likely focused on strengthening Russia’s position with the Gulf States while continuing to solidify the deepening Russian-Iranian security partnership.

Russian oil revenues continue to increase due to a concerted Russian effort to skirt the G7 price cap on Russian crude oil and petroleum products. Bloomberg reported on December 6 that Russia made $11.3 billion in revenue from the sale of crude oil and petroleum products in October 2023, the highest level of Russian oil and petroleum revenue since May 2022 and above the monthly Russian oil and petroleum revenues in the year before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.[11] The October 2023 oil and petroleum revenues reportedly represented 31 percent of revenues in the Russian federal budget for the month.[12] The G7 and the EU introduced a $60 price cap on Russian crude oil and price caps for other Russian petroleum products in December 2022, and the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air reported on December 5, 2023, that this cap immediately led to a 45 percent decrease in Russian oil and petroleum revenues in January 2023.[13] Russian officials undid the impacts of the G7 price cap in 2023 by increasingly relying on aging oil tankers with obscure ownership and insurance from unknown or non-Western sources in order to build a “shadow fleet” to transfer and sell crude oil and petroleum products above the price cap.[14] Bloomberg reported that Russia’s domestic oil tanker fleet and “shadow fleet” transferred over 70 percent of Russian oil cargoes in the first nine months of 2023, allowing Russian officials to exert more control over oil exports and progressively increase prices.[15] The Kremlin likely hopes that engagement with OPEC+ on agreed upon output cuts can allow Russian officials to further increase oil prices and continue to buoy federal budget revenues in an effort to manage the increasing Russian federal deficit associated with the war in Ukraine.[16]

Bloomberg added that ships with Greek ownership have transferred roughly 20 percent of Russian oil shipments in 2023, but did so under the G7 price cap.[17] Greek officials reportedly lobbied the EU to water down measures that would have resulted in more stringent restrictions on shipping companies' ability to trade with Russia.[18] Three major Greek shipping firms stopped transporting Russian oil in November 2023 following the initial imposition of US sanctions on third party shipping firms helping Russia to skirt the G7 price cap in October 2023.[19]

Russian society appears interested in discussing the outcome of the war in Ukraine despite the Kremlin’s increasing aversion to more in-depth public discussions of the war. Independent Russian polling organization Levada Center released a poll on December 5 detailing the questions Russians want to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin during the upcoming “Direct Line” forum on December 14. The Levada Center found that 21 percent of all questions in the open-ended poll pertained to the end and outcome of the war in Ukraine.[20] Levada Center reported that questions in this category included questions about the timeframe for an end to the war, the end of mobilization, and the possibility of peace or a Russian victory.[21] Levada Center noted that the second and third most frequent questions asked, accounting for 8 percent of responses each, pertained to pensions and social programs.[22] The poll indicates that the Russian public continues to have questions about the end and outcome of the war despite the Russian government’s attempts to silence anti-war rhetoric and protests to mobilization. The Russian public’s continued questions about the timeline for an end to the war and mobilization and the prospects for peace are consistent with recent independent Russian polling indicating that Russians increasingly support a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and showing that over half of Russian respondents believe that Russia should begin peace negotiations with Ukraine.[23] Putin will reportedly center his presidential campaign on Russia’s alleged domestic stability and increased criticism of the West instead of focusing on the war, so it is unclear if Putin intends to address questions about the war during the “Direct Line” event, which will likely serve as the launch of Putin’s 2024 presidential campaign.[24] The Kremlin also appears to be increasingly implementing measures to ensure that Putin’s actual electoral success does not depend on battlefield successes and domestic force generation efforts.[25]

Unspecified actors killed former pro-Russian Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada deputy Ilya Kiva in Moscow Oblast on December 6. The Russian Main Investigative Directorate for Moscow Oblast stated on December 6 that unspecified actors killed Kiva in Suponevo, Odintsovo urban raion, Moscow Oblast.[26] Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported on December 6 that its sources in Ukrainian law enforcement agencies stated that the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) conducted the operation that killed Kiva.[27] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Andriy Yusov confirmed Kiva’s death and stated that “a similar fate will befall other traitors to Ukraine and henchmen of the Putin regime.”[28] Kiva, who defected to Russia at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, likely aided a Kremlin-backed COVID-19 disinformation campaign in Ukraine in 2020.[29] A Russian milblogger criticized Russian intelligence services for not preventing alleged SBU personnel from assassinating someone in Russia.[30]

Moscow’s 2nd Western Military District Court convicted two Russian air defense officers for negligence for failing to prevent a Ukrainian strike on Russian territory in April 2022, likely to set an example to improve discipline across the Russian military. Russian outlet Kommersant reported on December 5 that the court sentenced Russian Lieutenant Colonel Anatoly Bondarev and Major Dmitry Dmitrakov to four years in prison for violating article 340 of the Russian Criminal Code (violation of the rules of combat duty to repel a surprise attack on the territory of the Russian Federation).[31] Violations of the Russian rules of combat duty include unauthorized abandonment of a combat post or transfer of such post to anyone; performing combat duties without the permission of the commander on duty; reducing the readiness of military equipment and weapons; and consuming alcohol on duty.[32] The court tried the servicemen in connection with a Ukrainian Tochka-U strike against a Russian ammunition depot in Belgorod Oblast in April 2022, a relatively obscure strike that the Russian command may have chosen to litigate to avoid recalling attention to more high-profile Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets in occupied Ukraine and Russia.[33] Ukrainian forces conducted several drone strikes on Moscow City in July and August 2023, which likely resulted in the detention of the commander of the 1st Special Purpose Air and Missile Defense Army on corruption and bribery charges instead of dereliction of duty charges.[34] Kommersant, citing unspecified sources, reported that Russian authorities are conducting large-scale investigations into every successful Ukrainian strike on Russian territory since 2014 and any negligence on the part of the Russian servicemen involved in defending against these strikes.[35] The Russian military command likely intends for the case to set a precedent across the Russian military, and not just for Russian air defenders, to improve discipline among the Russian forces in Ukraine.

Russian officials are reportedly attempting to funnel migrants who have ended up in Russia due to Russia’s failed hybrid war tactics on the Russian-Finnish border into ongoing force generation efforts. BBC Russia Service reported on December 6 that Russian military officials are attempting to recruit migrants from the Middle East and Africa whom Russian authorities detained en masse along the Russian-Finnish border in mid-November following the closure of Russian-Finnish border crossings.[36] Russian officials are reportedly offering to stay deportations for these migrants if the migrants fight in Ukraine.[37] One migrant reportedly stated that Russian officials immediately transferred migrants who signed military contracts to the Russian-Ukrainian border.[38] Russia artificially created a migrant crisis on the Finnish border as a hybrid warfare tactic meant to destabilize NATO and the EU, but the Finnish response quickly caused the effort to fail.[39] Russian officials appear to be trying to salvage some benefit from the failed effort by recruiting migrants as a part of the widespread crypto-mobilization effort targeting migrants in Russia.[40]

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov credited Western security assistance for empowering Ukrainian forces to liberate half of the territory that Russia occupied since February 24, 2022.
Russian forces conducted a notably large series of drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of December 5 to 6.
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia to meet with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman in a series of bilateral meetings on December 6.
Russian oil revenues continue to increase due to a concerted Russian effort to skirt the G7 price cap on Russian crude oil and petroleum products.
Russian society appears interested in discussing the outcome of the war in Ukraine despite the Kremlin’s increasing aversion to more in-depth public discussions of the war.
Unspecified actors killed former pro-Russian Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada deputy Ilya Kiva in Moscow Oblast on December 6.
Moscow’s 2nd Western Military District Court convicted two Russian air defense officers for negligence for failing to prevent a Ukrainian strike on Russian territory in April 2022, likely to set an example to improve discipline across the Russian military.
Russian officials are reportedly attempting to funnel migrants who have ended up in Russia due to Russia’s failed hybrid war tactics on the Russian-Finnish border into ongoing force generation efforts.
Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, west and southwest of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced near Avdiivka.
The Russian State Duma will reportedly consider a bill allowing Russian conscripts to serve in the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Border Service.
Ukrainian partisans may have conducted an attack in occupied Luhansk City on December 6 that killed Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) People’s Council Deputy Oleg Popov.

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 Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Russian Technological Adaptations
Activities in Russian-occupied areas
Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on December 6 but did not make any confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled at least eight Russian attacks in the Kupyansk direction near Synkivka (9km northeast of Kupyansk) and Novoselivske (14km northwest of Svatove), and at least 26 Russian attacks in the Lyman direction near Terny (17km west of Kreminna), the Serebryanske forest area (10km south of Kreminna), Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna), Spirne (25km south of Kreminna), Vesele (31km south of Kreminna), and Rozdolivka (30km south of Kreminna).[41] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced near Synkivka and controlled up to half of the settlement, although ISW has not observed visual evidence to confirm that Russian forces control half of Synkivka.[42] Russian milbloggers claimed that there was fighting near Petropavlivka (7km east of Kupyansk).[43] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced towards Terny and Yampolivka (17km west of Kreminna) after repelling several Ukrainian counterattacks.[44] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced up to two kilometers in an unspecified area of the Bilohorivka-Spirne-Berestove-Yakovlivka line (12km to 35km south of Kreminna).[45] Russian milbloggers claimed on December 5 that Russian forces advanced in forest areas near Kreminna and Torske (15km west of Kreminna).[46] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces intensified assault operations north of Soledar (38km southwest of Kreminna) and advanced along the railway line east of Vesele (31km south of Kreminna).[47] Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov posted footage claiming to show the “Aida” detachment of Chechen “Akhmat” Spetsnaz operating in the Kreminna direction.[48]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful counterattacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on December 6. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks in the Kupyansk direction near Synkivka, Ivanivka (20km southwest of Kupyansk), and Lake Lyman (northwest of Synkivka), and in the Lyman direction near Bilohorivka, Luhansk Oblast and Hryhorivka (11km south of Kreminna), Donetsk Oblast.[49] Russian milbloggers claimed on December 5 that Ukranian forces counterattacked near Kreminna and Torske.[50]

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

Russian forces continued ground attacks near Bakhmut on December 6 but did not make any confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled at least 10 Russian attacks near Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut), and Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut).[51] Russian milbloggers claimed on December 5 and 6 that Russian forces made unspecified gains near Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut), advanced up to 400 meters on the southwestern outskirts of Bakhmut, and advanced up to 500 meters near Klishchiivka, capturing an unspecified tactical height.[52] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces attacked near the Berkhivka Reservoir (2km northwest of Bakhmut) and between Bohdanivka and Hryhorivka (9km northwest of Bakhmut). [53]

The Russian MoD and a prominent Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces in the Bakhmut area repelled Ukrainian attacks near Bohdanivka, Klishchiivka, and Toretsk (21km south of Bakhmut and 12km northwest of Horlivka) on December 6.[54]

Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Avdiivka on December 6 and made a confirmed advance. Geolocated footage published on December 6 shows that Russian forces marginally advanced in the industrial zone southeast of Avdiivka.[55] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled at least 25 attacks east of Novobakhmutivka (7km northwest of Avdiivka), northeast of Berdychi (4km north of Avdiivka), and near Avdiivka, Stepove (3km north of Avdiivka), Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka), Tonenke (5km west of Avdiivka), and Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka).[56] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced south of the Avdiivka waste heap (just northeast of Avdiivka), near the Avdiivka Coke Plant (northwest of Avdiivka), near Pervomaiske, and east of Avdiivka, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims.[57] Footage published on December 5 purportedly shows elements of the Russian 87th and 1487th Regiments (1st Donetsk People’s Republic Army Corps), 10th Tank Regiment (3rd Army Corps, Western Military District), and “Veterans” Sabotage and Assault Brigade operating in the industrial zone southeast of Avdiivka.[58]

Ukrainian forces counterattacked near Avdiivka on December 6 and recently made a confirmed advance. Geolocated footage published on December 5 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced in Stepove.[59] A Russian milblogger claimed on December 6 that Ukrainian forces maintain positions in the center of Stepove despite Russian attacks.[60]

Russian forces conducted ground attacks west and southwest of Donetsk City on December 6 but did not make confirmed or claimed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Krasnohorivka and Marinka (directly west of Donetsk City), Pobieda (5km southwest of Donetsk City), and Novomykhailivka (11km southwest of Donetsk City).[61] Lieutenant Colonel Yaroslav Cherepurnyi, a spokesperson for a Ukrainian brigade operating in the Marinka direction, stated that Russian forces control most of Marinka but that Ukrainian forces control a small part of the settlement.[62]

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

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on December 6 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Novodonetske (15km southeast of Velyka Novosilka) and south of Zolota Nyva (11km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[63] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also attacked near Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) but did not specify an outcome.[64]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on December 6 but did not make any confirmed advances. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian assaults west of Robotyne and north of Verbove (9km east of Robotyne) on December 5 and 6.[65] A Russian milblogger claimed that meeting engagements occurred west of Novofedorivka (14km northeast of Robotyne) on December 6.[66]

Russian forces continued counterattacks in western Zaporizhia Oblast on December 6 and reportedly recently advanced. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced up to a kilometer in depth near Verbove on December 5.[67] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled at least five Russian assaults west of Verbove and Robotyne on December 6.[68] A Russian milblogger claimed on December 5 that muddy conditions in the Robotyne area are constraining Russian and Ukrainian movement.[69]

Ukrainian forces continued ground operations on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast on December 6 but did not make any confirmed gains. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian assault groups attempted to advance several times south of Krynky (30km northeast of Kherson City and 2km from the Dnipro River) and fortified a foothold southeast of the settlement.[70] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces continue to strengthen their grouping within Krynky itself.[71] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces maintain positions near the Antonivsky roadway bridge and near Kozachi Laheri (25km northeast of Kherson City and 3km from the Dnipro River) and effectively control forest areas, islands, and the coastline along the Konka River.[72] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces launched more than 100 glide bombs at Ukrainian targets in the direction of Krynky in the past 24 hours.[73]

Geolocated footage published on December 5 confirms that Russian forces maintain positions on islands in the Dnipro River south of Veletenske, Kherson Oblast (15km southwest of Kherson City).[74] This footage does not suggest that Russian forces recently advanced in the area, however, and they have likely held these positions for some time.

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

The Russian State Duma will reportedly consider a bill allowing Russian conscripts to serve in the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Border Service. Kremlin newswire TASS reported on December 6 that the Russian State Duma will consider a bill allowing Russian conscripts to fulfill their military service in unspecified positions in the FSB on December 7.[75] The bill excludes conscripts if they have foreign citizenship or a residency permit in another country, are recognized by the Russian Ministry of Justice as foreign agents, use recreational drugs and other substances, or have a criminal record, even an expunged record. Russian outlet RBK reported that Russian State Duma deputies Vasily Piskarev and Alexander Khinshtein stated that the bill is aimed at allowing conscripts to serve in the FSB’s Border Service.[76] TASS reported that the Russian State Duma Security and Anti-Corruption Committee supports the bill and that the Russian State Duma could pass the bill as early as next week. A prominent Russian milblogger claimed on October 28 that he personally overheard Russian President Vladimir Putin express his decision to send Russian conscripts to service in the FSB's Border Service.[77] ISW has previously observed Russian milbloggers complaining about how poorly equipped Russian border guard units are and criticizing the Russian military command for relying on inexperienced conscripts for border production.[78]

A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are struggling to evacuate large numbers of deceased Russian servicemen from the battlefield in an unspecified sector of the front, negatively affecting Russian morale and offensive capabilities.[79] The milblogger claimed on December 6 that decomposing Russian bodies “weigh” on the minds of Russian servicemen and sometimes obstruct Russian combat positions and assaults.[80] The milblogger claimed that the Russian forces do not have the means to evacuate bodies.[81] The milblogger implied on December 3 that the Russian military command is to blame for the Russian military’s failure to evacuate the bodies.[82] ISW reported on December 5 that a relative of a mobilized Russian servicemen told Russian opposition outlet Vazhnye Istorii that servicemen of military unit 95411 (Western Military District) are “walking over corpses” in the Avdiivka direction.[83] It is not always possible to retrieve bodies from the battlefield under challenging battlefield conditions, of course, but reports that there are enough unrecovered Russian corpses to interfere with Russian offensive operations give color to the kinds of massed infantry attacks Russian forces are reportedly using in this area. Ukrainian officials routinely report that Russian forces are conducting “meat assaults” (colloquial jargon for attritional infantry-led frontal assaults) in the Avdiivka direction, assaults that could result in the level of casualties that Russian sources are detailing in these complaints.[84]

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

Kremlin newswire TASS reported on November 23 that Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin opened the Shared Use Center of the Federal Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the Rudnevo industrial park, which will design, manufacture, assemble Russian drone parts.[85] Russian milbloggers claimed on December 5 and 6 that Russia unveiled its new “Termite” unmanned attack helicopter during Medvedev’s visit.[86] The milbloggers claimed that this helicopter can use artificial intelligence to search and strike targets independently in “free hunt” mode.[87] The milbloggers claimed that Russian authorities equipped the helicopter with three precision-guided laser-targeted S-8L missiles.[88] The S-8L missile features a semi-active homing warhead with a fragmentation-explosive payload and a range of up to six kilometers, allowing the operator to designate and track targets with a laser.[89]

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)

Likely Ukrainian partisans may have conducted an attack in occupied Luhansk City on December 6 that killed Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) People’s Council Deputy Oleg Popov. Russian sources claimed that Popov’s car exploded near the Avanhrad stadium in Luhansk Oblast, killing Popov.[90] The LNR Investigation Department of the Russian Investigative Committee announced that it opened a criminal case under the article of a “terrorist act” in connection to the explosion that killed Popov.[91]

Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets stated on December 6 that eight Ukrainian children whom Russian authorities deported to Russia or removed further into Russian-occupied territories returned to Ukrainian-held territory.[92] Lubinets stated that Ukrainian officials negotiated the return of the children through joint work with Qatar.[93]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on December 6 that Russian security officials are preparing to use foreign journalists with experience working in Russia to promote a disinformation campaign discrediting Ukrainian leadership in English-language foreign media.[94] The GUR reported that the ultimate goal of the disinformation campaign is to divide Ukrainian society.[95] This disinformation campaign is consistent with a pattern of pro-Kremlin actors increasingly amplifying reports of Ukrainian social and governmental division to discredit Ukrainian leadership and weaken Western support for Ukraine.[96]

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 Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that the joint Russian-Belarusian “Youth for the Union State” Media Forum aimed at strengthening cooperation youth patriotic education, science, sports, and art occurred in Minsk and Moscow on December 6.[97]

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

5. 23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users

When China has all our DNA data they will be able to more effectively implement their security protocols and draconian population and resources control measures.

“The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

― Vladimir Ilich Lenin

Xi is probably thinking a similar quote - the Americans will willingly give us their DNA in return for learning their ancestry (which may or may be able to be proved as true). And they will pay us to do so.

23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users | TechCrunch

TechCrunch · by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai · December 4, 2023

On Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers accessed the personal data of 0.1% of customers, or about 14,000 individuals. The company also said that by accessing those accounts, hackers were also able to access “a significant number of files containing profile information about other users’ ancestry.” But 23andMe would not say how many “other users” were impacted by the breach that the company initially disclosed in early October.

As it turns out, there were a lot of “other users” who were victims of this data breach: 6.9 million affected individuals in total.

In an email sent to TechCrunch late on Saturday, 23andMe spokesperson Katie Watson confirmed that hackers accessed the personal information of about 5.5 million people who opted-in to 23andMe’s DNA Relatives feature, which allows customers to automatically share some of their data with others. The stolen data included the person’s name, birth year, relationship labels, the percentage of DNA shared with relatives, ancestry reports and self-reported location.

23andMe also confirmed that another group of about 1.4 million people who opted-in to DNA Relatives also “had their Family Tree profile information accessed,” which includes display names, relationship labels, birth year, self-reported location and whether the user decided to share their information, the spokesperson said. (23andMe declared part of its email as “on background,” which requires that both parties agree to the terms in advance. TechCrunch is printing the reply as we were given no opportunity to reject the terms.)

It is also not known why 23andMe did not share these numbers in its disclosure on Friday.

Considering the new numbers, in reality, the data breach is known to affect roughly half of 23andMe’s total reported 14 million customers.

In early October, a hacker claimed to have stolen the DNA information of 23andMe users in a post on a well-known hacking forum. As proof of the breach, the hacker published the alleged data of one million users of Jewish Ashkenazi descent and 100,000 Chinese users, asking would-be buyers for $1 to $10 for the data per individual account. Two weeks later, the same hacker advertised the alleged records of another four million people on the same hacking forum.

TechCrunch found that another hacker on a separate hacking forum had already advertised a batch of allegedly stolen 23andMe customer data two months before the widely reported advertisement.

Do you have more information about the 23andMe incident? We’d love to hear from you. You can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram, Keybase and Wire @lorenzofb, or email lorenzo@techcrunch.com. You also can contact TechCrunch via SecureDrop.

When we analyzed the months-old leaked data, TechCrunch found that some records matched genetic data published online by hobbyists and genealogists. The two sets of information were formatted differently, but contained some of the same unique user and generic data, suggesting the data leaked by the hacker was at least in part authentic 23andMe customer data.

In disclosing the incident in October, 23andMe said the data breach was caused by customers reusing passwords, which allowed hackers to brute-force the victims’ accounts by using publicly known passwords released in other companies’ data breaches.

Because of the way that the DNA Relatives feature matches users with their relatives, by hacking into one individual account, the hackers were able to see the personal data of both the account holder as well as their relatives, which magnified the total number of 23andMe victims.

As it planned for Oct. 7, Hamas lulled Israel into a false sense of calm

By Shira Rubin

December 6, 2023 at 11:17 a.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Shira Rubin · December 6, 2023

TEL AVIV — Hamas spent more than a year planning its historic assault on Israel, following battle plans built on open-source materials and high-level intelligence, Israeli intelligence officers told a small group of journalists this week.

The sophistication of the attack, and the growing evidence of long-term, strategic planning by Hamas, sheds new light on the reach of the group’s intelligence apparatus and the complacency of Israel’s vaunted security state.

Even the location of Monday’s briefing was telling: the headquarters of Amshat, a previously defunct intelligence unit within the Israel Defense Forces charged with gathering documents and other technical materials relevant to war.

Amshat was disbanded five years ago, according to the IDF. “Israel, essentially, had decided it was done with war,” said a person familiar with the unit, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters. It was revived after Oct. 7 — the bloodiest day in the country’s history, when 1,200 people were killed.

The assault stunned Israelis, who, for years, had been assured by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military leaders that Hamas had been deterred, its fighters safely fenced off inside Gaza. But across the Israeli army, analysts had warned for months than a multipronged attack was in the works: an unprecedented infiltration of Israel by land, air and sea.

Many of the 3,000 combatants who stormed Israel’s billion-dollar border fence with Gaza as dawn broke on Oct. 7 carried battle plans with specific instructions, the Israeli intelligence officers said. Some involved plans to hit military bases as far north as Rehovot and as far east as Beersheva, as well as two spots — code named points 103 and 106 — deep in the Mediterranean Sea.

Israel has increased offshore natural gas production in recent years, although it is unclear whether energy installations were the target.

“We don’t know what they wanted there,” said an IDF officer at Amshat headquarters, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with military protocol. His team has spent the past two months sifting through computers, notebooks, pamphlets and communications equipment.

The fighters came into Israel with detailed battle plans that included maps of the internal structures of military bases and civilian towns, extensive lists of weaponry and equipment used by each of its units, and checklists for killing and capturing men, women and children. They were instructed to kill hostages if they proved too much trouble. One document included a list of phrases transliterated from Arabic to Hebrew: “take your pants off,” “we will kill the hostages,” “how do you use the weapon?”

Another pamphlet included a quote: “your enemy is a disease which has no cure other than to cut out their livers and their hearts.”

Many of the papers and notebooks were handwritten and riddled with code words, complicating the effort to digitize and organize them. Some were uploaded to computers gathered from battle zones in southern Israel; others have been recovered during Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza.

The IDF officers used disposable latex gloves to handle the evidence, some of which was found with traces of human remains.

The battle plans confirm what individual soldiers in separate units across the Israeli military had been warning about for months, in some cases for more than a year — that militants were not simply carrying out drills across the border in Gaza, as many IDF leaders had claimed, but were actively preparing their largest-ever military operation.

An IDF intelligence document — code named “Jericho Wall,” — numbering more than 30 pages, was presented in May 2022 to Aharon Haliva, the head of IDF intelligence, and Eliezer Toledano, the head of the IDF’s southern command, the Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported last week.

The PowerPoint presentation did not specify a date for the attack. But intelligence officers understood that Hamas was planning to launch its forces on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, or on a Jewish holiday, when fewer soldiers would be guarding the border.

Other details were chillingly prescient: The assault would involve an initial barrage of rockets to serve as cover for the storming of Israeli communities and military bases, and drones and snipers would be used to disable surveillance cameras, according to Ayala Hasson, a Kan journalist.

Neither Haliva nor Toledano have commented on the “Jericho Wall” document, whose existence was later reported on by the New York Times.

A security officer confirmed to The Washington Post that IDF intelligence had gathered evidence of plans for a large-scale Hamas attack more than a year ago. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

In April, he said, the military issued an internal alert about Hamas infiltration targeting the kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip, citing concrete evidence that the operation was likely to involve hundreds of militants.

In August, weeks before the attack, new intelligence pointed to an imminent attack, the security officer said.

“The IDF increased its readiness and believed they stopped it,” he said. “They now see it was part of Hamas’s deception.”

Warnings were again dismissed. Communities on the Israeli side of the border were never notified.

Israeli security authorities issued permits for the Nova music festival to take place a few miles from the Gaza border; 364 people were killed at the festival and dozens of others taken hostage on Oct. 7.

“To think that there was information and we were not told is more than an oversight; it is a betrayal,” said Rami Samuel, one of the event’s organizers. “An oversight can’t cost the life of 1,200 people.”

For years, in public statements and private diplomacy, Hamas had claimed that it was more interested in building Gaza economically than in renewing a conflict with Israel.

Haliva said in September 2022 that although Hamas was involved in military activities, “we see that the processes being undertaken vis-à-vis Israel to stabilize the economy and to allow entry to laborers have potential for bringing years of quiet.”

Hamas had largely refrained from firing rockets at Israel after 2021. In May, it remained on the sidelines as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group in Gaza, engaged in a short-lived conflict with Israel.

Hamas officials even provided Israel with intelligence on PIJ to reinforce the impression that they were interested in collaboration, an Israeli security official told The Post on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the news media.

There were plans to discuss the issue again after Oct. 7, the holiday of Simchat Torah, according to the Kan report.

Also in recent months, large demonstrations were staged at the fence in Gaza to get the IDF used to the sight of crowds at the border, and, more broadly, “to lull Israel into complacency,” said Miri Eisin, a former senior IDF intelligence officer.

Eisin said that Israel’s security apparatus, and many of Israel’s allies, were more concerned with Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group to the north that in 2018 declared plans to conquer the Galilee region.

“There were plans being taken very seriously — they were up north, with Hezbollah,” she said.

Netanyahu has sought to distance himself from the intelligence failure. His office has not commented on whether the prime minister was aware of the Hamas battle plan outlined in “Jericho Wall.”

Some of the soldiers who tried to sound the alarm were among the first deployed on the morning of the attack.

Col. Asaf Hamami, 41, commander of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade was killed battling militants at Kibbutz Nirim. On Saturday, the IDF changed his status from “missing” to “slain during combat” and notified his family that his body was being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

His mother, Clara, said her son’s attempts to warn the military about what was coming were dismissed repeatedly.

“You warned, you alerted, you told them, you saw what was about to happen, that we should not be complacent,” his mother said as she eulogized him at a military cemetery in Tel Aviv on Monday. “There were those who said to you, ‘You only saw the worst.’ Then the worst came, on that black Saturday, on Oct. 7.”

Steve Hendrix and Judith Sudilovsky in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Shira Rubin · December 6, 2023

7. RTX to continue USSOCOM Silent Knight Radar production

RTX to continue USSOCOM Silent Knight Radar production

army-technology.com · by Richard Thomas · December 6, 2023

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An MH-47G Chinook helicopter from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment approaches a beach from off shore during training near Hurlburt Field in 2020. Credit: US Special Operation Aviation Regiment

US-based RTX has been awarded a $321.2m firm-fixed-price contract for the continued production and delivery of Silent Knight Radar systems and components for US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).

Work is expected to be undertaken at two sites in the US, with a forecast completion date of 31 December 2028, according to a US Department of Defense (DoD) contract notice. In addition, $27m in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) “will be used”, although no further details were provided as to which country was also involved with the programme.

In USSOCOM service, the AN/APQ-187 Silent Knight Radar can be equipped to a number of aircraft, including the MH-47G Chinook helicopters, a special forces version of the conventional CH-47 airframe. In March this year, aircraft manufacturer Boeing was awarded another support contract worth $18.7m to help sustain USSOCOM’s M-47Gs.

The MH-47G incorporates a monolithic, machine-framed fuselage integrating long-range fuel tanks, and an extendable refuelling probe to receive fuel mid-air from fixed-wing tankers. The platform also possesses improved cargo-handling capabilities.

Installation of an AN/APQ-187 Silent Knight Radar on a USSOCOM MH-47G Chinook.

According to GlobalData, the US Army operates a fleet of 73 MH-47G Chinooks, acquired between 2004-2011. Other Silent Knight Radar-capable aircraft is USSOCOM service include the MH-60M Black Hawk, CV-22 tiltrotor, and MC-130H tactical transporter.

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Unclassified documents on the AN/APQ-187 programme presented to industry indicate a production run of 211 radars, broken down into 69 MH-47G, 72 MH-60M, 50 CV-22, and 20 MC-130H.

The Silent Knight Radar provides safe low-level flight in adverse environments, including navigation support weather information to air crews. Specifications indicate an ability to operates at heights from 100-1000ft above ground level in straight and turning flight at speeds between 5-300kt, with rain up to 10mm/per hour.

The system is replacing the in existing AN/APQ-174, AN/APQ-186, and AN/APQ-170(Ku) systems. Initial operating capability of the AN/APQ-187 was achieved in Q3 2015.

Is the Slight Knight FMS UK-related?

Although the export of USSOCOM-operated MH-47G Chinook variant is unlikely, the UK is seeking to acquire 14 CH-47 Extended Range (ER) Chinooks from the US, in a deal worth around £1.4bn ($1.7bn) at the time of the 2021 order signing with Boeing.

The CH-47ER appears to include elements of the USSCOMOM MH-47G Block II, including the integration of additional fuel tanks to provide increased endurance. The 14 UK CH-47ERs are expected to be dedicated special forces aircraft, indicating a possible similarly in use case and equipment set up at the M-47G Block II.

However, delays to the programme have pushed the delivery of the UK aircraft to the right, with initial aspirations for the first platforms to arrive in 2026. However, this could well move into 2027, although the UK Government has repeatedly declined to provide an updated timeline.

In February this year, senior officials from the UK Ministry of Defence told the UK Defence Committee on that the revised timescale was a result of issues on the US Government’s side, which is managing the export through its FMS programme.

Initial operating capability for the UK-CH-47ERs is likely due to be achieved sometime in the 2028 timeframe.

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army-technology.com · by Richard Thomas · December 6, 2023

8. Strategic Disruption by Special Operations Forces | SOF News

I have not read the 109 page report yet but it looks very interesting. Without reading it but based on the summary, I would ask is this something that can be applied against One Belt One Road?

I wish I had taken the opportunity to read this in detail before the Irregular Forum this week.

Excerpt:

It involves proactive campaigns to delay, degrade, or deny an adversary’s ability to achieve core interests through its preferred strategies.

Strategic Disruption by Special Operations Forces

A Concept for Proactive Campaigning Short of Traditional War

by Eric Robinson, Timothy R. Heath, Gabrielle Tarini, Daniel Egel, Mace Moesner IV, Christian Curriden, Derek Grossman, Sale Lilly

Strategic Disruption by Special Operations Forces | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · December 6, 2023

The RAND Corporation has published an interesting report entitled Strategic Disruption by Special Operations Forces. This report answers two questions:

What are the mechanisims through which disruption campaigns by military forces can enable friendly strategic outcomes short of war?
What is the role for special operations forces in such campaigns?

The authors of the report have developed a new concept for strategic disruption by special operations forces. It involves proactive campaigns to delay, degrade, or deny an adversary’s ability to achieve core interests through its preferred strategies. The report outlines five unique pillars that can create the time, space, and opportunities needed for the U.S. to achieve strategic objectives. It uses historical cases to buttress the report’s findings.

Table of Contents:

Chapter One. Introducing Strategic Disruption
Chapter Two. Defining Strategic Disruption
Chapter Three. The Value Proposition of SOF in Strategic Disruption
Chapter Four. The Resist Pillar of Strategic Disruption
Chapter Five. The Support Pillar of Strategic Disruption
Chapter Six. The Influence Pillar of Strategic Disruption
Chapter Seven. The Understand Pillar of Strategic Disruption
Chapter Eight. The Target Pillar of Strategic Disruption
Chapter Nine. Future Strategic Disruption in Cyberspace
Chapter Ten. Findings and Implications for Future SOF
Appendix A. List of Historical Strategic Disruption Campaigns

****

Strategic Disruption by Special Operations Forces, RAND Corporation, November 2023, PDF, 109 pages. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1794-1.html

Photo by Sgt. Patrik Orcutt, DoD.

sof.news · by SOF News · December 6, 2023

9. Italy to terminate China belt and road agreement, ending G7 involvement

Excerpts:

Von der Leyen, in particular, has been a staunch belt-and-road critic, and has spearheaded the launch of Global Gateway, pitched in Brussels as a European alternative. In a now-famous speech on China in March, the German used the initiative as an example of Beijing’s global ambitions.

“The Chinese Communist Party’s clear goal is a systemic change of the international order with China at its centre … we have seen it with the Belt and Road Initiative, new international banks or other China-led institutions set up to rival the current international system,” she said.

Chinese diplomats, however, have frequently floated the idea of collaborative projects between the two programmes. The EU’s official response is that Global Gateway is open to any partner who can meet standards on metrics such as transparency, human rights, and sustainability.

“I don’t see much space for cooperation between Belt and Road and Global Gateway. I don’t think that’s the intention,” said a senior EU official ahead of the summit.

“I don’t see any overlap in terms of what the largest Global Gateway is doing – partially because we have a very different mindset about these projects, about transparency, about not bringing countries into a debt trap,” the official said.

Italy to terminate China belt and road agreement, ending G7 involvement

Finbarr Bermingham

in Brussels

+ FOLLOWPublished: 12:21am, 7 Dec, 2023

South China Morning Post · December 7, 2023

Italy has formally told the Chinese government that it has decided to end its membership of the Belt and Road Initiative, leaving China’s flagship infrastructure drive without any G7 members.

A diplomatic note was delivered to Beijing three days ago on behalf of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, explaining that Rome would not renew a memorandum of participation.

The 2019 memorandum authorising Italy’s belt-and-road participation expires in March 2024, and if Rome did not give written warning of a decision to pull out three months ahead of time, it would have automatically renewed for a further five years.

03:48

Security tight in Chinese capital as foreign leaders arrive for Belt and Road Forum in Beijing

First reported on by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, with multiple Western news outlets subsequently relaying the news, the note also said that Italy wanted to “maintain a strategic friendship with China”.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani appeared to confirm the news at an event in Rome on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported. Tajani said Italy’s participation “has not produced the desired effects” and is no longer “a priority”, adding that non-participants have had “better results” than Italy.

The exit has been the subject of great speculation in recent months. Far-right leader Meloni vowed to leave the initiative when campaigning for office, describing the decision to sign up as “a mistake”, but has attempted to handle the departure delicately lest Beijing retaliate.

Italy was one of 148 countries to have signed a memorandum of understanding that it would participate in the infrastructure programme, which has been one of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature initiatives.

4 lost years: how the EU fumbled its response to China’s belt and road

However, it was the only one from the Group of 7 economically advanced nations to sign on, and Rome’s participation has long been a bone of contention with Western allies, particularly the United States.

More than half of the EU’s members are still part of the Belt and Road Initiative: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Interest has waned in recent years as EU-China ties became strained. Viktor Orban was the only sitting head of state from an EU member to attend the recent Belt and Road forum in Beijing this year, although some other members sent lower-level delegations.

News of Italy’s exit comes on the eve of a high-stakes summit in Beijing. European Council and Commission Presidents Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, along with the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell, will meet with Xi and Premier Li Qiang on Thursday for talks on thorny issues ranging from trade grievances to China’s relationship with Russia.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (right) and the European Parliament president, Roberta Metsola, during a meeting in Rome on Wednesday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Von der Leyen, in particular, has been a staunch belt-and-road critic, and has spearheaded the launch of Global Gateway, pitched in Brussels as a European alternative. In a now-famous speech on China in March, the German used the initiative as an example of Beijing’s global ambitions.

“The Chinese Communist Party’s clear goal is a systemic change of the international order with China at its centre … we have seen it with the Belt and Road Initiative, new international banks or other China-led institutions set up to rival the current international system,” she said.

Chinese diplomats, however, have frequently floated the idea of collaborative projects between the two programmes. The EU’s official response is that Global Gateway is open to any partner who can meet standards on metrics such as transparency, human rights, and sustainability.

“I don’t see much space for cooperation between Belt and Road and Global Gateway. I don’t think that’s the intention,” said a senior EU official ahead of the summit.

“I don’t see any overlap in terms of what the largest Global Gateway is doing – partially because we have a very different mindset about these projects, about transparency, about not bringing countries into a debt trap,” the official said.

South China Morning Post · December 7, 2023

10. Putin seeks to humiliate Biden by showing him that attempts to isolate Russia have failed

I wonder who will be cheering on Putin?

Putin seeks to humiliate Biden by showing him that attempts to isolate Russia have failed

Business Insider · by Tom Porter

US President Joe Biden (R) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) at the 'Villa la Grange' in Geneva on June 16, 2021.DENIS BALIBOUSE

Russian President Vladimir Putin is making a rare trip to the Middle East.
He'll visit the UAE and Saudi Arabia, traditionally US allies.
Putin is seeking to show attempts to isolate him over Ukraine have failed.

Only months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin's grip on power appeared to be loosening.

The Russian president faced a coup from the Wagner mercenary force in Ukraine. At the same time, he was battling spiraling domestic economic woes caused by sanctions imposed in punishment for the Ukraine invasion and was the subject of an international arrest warrant over alleged war crimes committed by his forces.

It appeared that President Joe Biden's bid to weaken Putin and make him a global pariah over the Ukraine war was beginning to work.

But the Russian president is clawing back the initiative. He is making a rare trip to the Middle East today as he seeks to embarrass Biden by showing him that attempts to isolate Russia have failed.

Putin is visiting the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, traditionally two of the US' closest allies in the Middle East.

It's among the first trips Putin has made abroad since the International Criminal Court issued the arrest warrant in March, with neither of the Gulf states signatories of the Rome convention.

Analysts told Business Insider that he will use the visit to try and drive a wedge between Washington and the Arab states, and expose the limits of US power.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attend the G20 Leaders' Summit in Buenos Aires, on November 30, 2018.LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images

Putin exploits Arab rage over US support for Israel

Near the top of the agenda will likely be the Israel-Hamas war, where Putin has sought to exploit rage in the Arab world over Biden's support for Israel's bombing of Gaza in response to Hamas' terrorist attacks.

Hamas' attacks on October 7th killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. Gazan health authorities say Israel's subsequent strikes killed more than 16,000 people.

Putin has said the West's support for Israel exposes its hypocrisy, with the US having sought to rally global support for isolating Russia by citing the Russian massacre of civilians in Ukraine.

He has even sought to compare Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to the Palestinian fight against Israel's US-backed government, as part of a battle against broader US global dominance.

"Putin's government has reacted to the carnage in Gaza in ways that serve to boost Russia's soft power influence in the wider Arab-Islamic world, while also taking advantage of an opportunity to have international attention shift away from the Russian invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine," explained Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Washington, DC, consultancy Gulf State Analytics.

Putin will also be seeking to expose how Western attempts to isolate Russia economically have failed.

Despite Western attempts to cut off Russia's oil exports, Russia is recording record oil profits, as nations including India and Brazil — which have refused to take part in the Western embargo of Russia — buy up cheap Siberian oil.

The Kremlin has worked closely with Gulf states to control oil production and keep prices competitive. The Saudis even got into a diplomatic spat with the White House last year when they rejected demands to increase production and instead sided with the Kremlin to reduce it.

Arab states defy the US

The wealthy Gulf states, and much of the so-called "global south" of poorer developing nations, have largely rejected US appeals for them to isolate Russia.

Instead, the UAE and Saudis have sought to use the conflict to assert their independence on the global stage. By hosting the West's arch-enemy Putin in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, they are sending a very clear message.

"They are not taking orders from the United States, and the UAE and Saudi Arabia working very closely with Russia sends a message to Washington about the ways in which Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are conducting foreign policy in a less West-centric and much more multipolar world," said Cafiero.

But they are treading a fine line. While keen to assert their independence, they're wary of aggravating the US, whose military and economic might they depend on.

"Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE will maintain opportunistic relations with Russia but will be careful that their economic ties with Moscow don't cross US sanctions, given how important their ties with Washington remain," said Graeme Thompson, an analyst with the Eurasia Group.

Saudi Arabia's ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, has also sought to act as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia, securing prisoner exchange deals, and even hosting peace talks last year which Russia did not attend.

It's an issue the crown prince will likely raise with Putin during the visit, as he seeks to burnish his reputation as a champion of nations with little interest in either US or Russian views of Ukraine.

"Most countries in the 'global south' are more interested in a peaceful resolution to the war, given its negative effects on food and energy prices, than on buying a particular narrative – either from Russia or the West," said Thompson.

Business Insider · by Tom Porter

11. Biden team wary of retaliating against Houthi attacks at sea

Unless we hit them hard and shut this down it is going to get a lot worse for us on a number of levels.

Biden team wary of retaliating against Houthi attacks at sea

By LARA SELIGMAN and ALEXANDER WARD

12/06/2023 11:36 AM EST

Politico

Some current and former officials are frustrated with U.S. statements that they believe are downplaying the threat.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney transits the Suez Canal on Nov. 26, 2023. | Aaron Lau/U.S. Navy

12/06/2023 11:36 AM EST

Senior Biden administration officials agree that striking Houthis in Yemen is the wrong course of action for now, per three U.S. officials, even though some military officers have proposed more forceful responses to the militants’ attacks in the Red Sea.

There’s high-level consensus within the administration that it does not make sense for the U.S. military to respond directly to the Houthis, the officials said. Although the missile and drone attacks on three civilian vessels on Sunday drew a U.S. Navy warship into an hours-long firefight, U.S. intelligence officials have not determined that the warship was the target.

Separately on Wednesday morning, the destroyer USS Mason shot down another Houthi-launched drone in the Red Sea, according to a U.S. military official. There was no damage or injury to U.S. equipment or personnel.

Military officers charged with U.S. operations in the Middle East have drafted options to hit back against the militants, though they are not actively pushing them at this time, according to one of the officials and a fourth American official.

The military’s job is to present a variety of options to senior commanders, but the ultimate decision is up to the president and the administration’s political appointees. In multiple high-level meetings this week, the Pentagon has neither briefed President Joe Biden on options to strike Houthi targets nor recommended that he do so, two of the officials said. All were granted anonymity to detail sensitive internal deliberations.

Some current and former military officials were frustrated by the administration’s initial response to the Houthis’ Sunday attacks on the ships. The Houthis launched four drone and missile attacks on three ships; the destroyer USS Carney, responding to the distress calls, shot down three drones in its vicinity. Those current and former officials say the Iran-backed group’s increasingly aggressive behavior poses a significant risk to American forces in the region, and took issue with the administration’s public statements on Monday, which they say downplayed that threat.

But while top Biden administration officials acknowledge the threat to U.S. troops, they are not convinced the U.S. needs to respond militarily. They believe the Houthis were attempting to target assets with ties to Israel — either owned by Israeli companies or crewed by Israelis — not U.S. warships. But Houthi missiles aren’t overly precise.

And as the White House and senior Pentagon leaders seek to contain the violence in Israel and Gaza, they are concerned that Iran, which backs the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, could escalate the conflict.

Senior officials across the government are also worried that a major strike on Houthi positions could derail progress on another Middle East conflict: U.S. and U.N.-led efforts to broker another cease-fire between Saudi forces and the militants in Yemen, according to a fifth U.S. official and a lawmaker.

The U.S. envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, is in the Middle East to protect global shipping and “end the Yemen conflict,” per a State Department release. Talks between the Saudis and Houthis have been ongoing for months, with many sticking points to be hammered out, including the exit of foreign troops from Yemen.

“In light of the recent targeting of civilians by the Houthis and its piracy in international waters, we have begun a review of potential sanctions,” said a State Department spokesperson. “We will be considering other options together with our allies and partners, as well.”

Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. partner in the region that recently resumed ties with Israel, is also urging the U.S. to show restraint, according to reports.

“What we don’t want to see is the conflict in Israel widen to a regional war. As of today, it has not,” said Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh on Monday.

On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder declined to discuss specific future strikes. However, he noted that the U.S. was discussing setting up an international maritime task force to counter the Houthi attacks, within the framework of the existing Combined Maritime Forces, a 38-nation partnership based in Bahrain focused on combating terrorism and piracy.

“We are definitely looking to take action as it relates to working with partners and allies throughout the region. Oh, by the way, it’s something that we’ve been doing for years,” Ryder said.

Still, some officials at Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. military forces across the Middle East, have discussed options to strike Houthi-held positions in Yemen that launched the attacks in the Red Sea, according to the fourth U.S. official and one of the former DOD officials.

Officials are also concerned that DOD has not done enough to respond to Iran-backed groups’ continued attacks on U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Syria, said another person outside the government who was briefed on the discussions.

“Current actions aren’t resetting deterrence,” the person said. There’s a “strong belief that Iran needs to be ‘shocked’ out of this cycle.”

Biden administration officials have been worried about lighting a powder keg in the Middle East since the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel on Oct. 7. The officials have worked furiously to contain the Israel-Gaza conflict within the enclave’s borders and insist that they have succeeded.

Within DOD, however, many believe the conflict has already escalated — and U.S. on land and at sea in the Middle East — are increasingly at risk.

“It’s time for us to start shooting back,” said retired Vice Adm. John Miller, a former commander of naval forces in the Middle East.

POLITICO

Politico

12. First female active-duty soldier graduates from sniper school

Hooah, Sgt, Hay.

Another glass ceiling breaks

First female active-duty soldier graduates from sniper school

Sgt. Maciel Hay, a cavalry scout with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, completed the course at Fort Moore, Georgia in November.

BY PATTY NIEBERG | PUBLISHED DEC 4, 2023 2:09 PM EST

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg · December 4, 2023

An NCO whose high school friends called her “sniper” made good on that nickname last month when she became the first woman on active duty to graduate from the Army’s sniper course.

Sgt. Maciel Hay, a cavalry scout with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy, completed the 5-week course at Fort Moore, Georgia last month. She is currently deployed with the brigade in Germany as part of the Army’s rapid response force to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

“My nickname growing up was ‘Sniper,’” Hay said in an Army release. “I grew up shooting, mostly rifles and handguns, on my family’s ranches in Rocklin, California and Medford, Oregon. But the nickname came from the fact that I could find things really fast, similar to how a sniper does target detection,” she said.

According to the Army, Hay is the first woman on active duty to complete the course and at least the second woman. In November 2021, a Montana National Guard soldier became the first woman to complete the U.S. Army Sniper Course at Fort Moore, then Fort Benning. In the Air Force, then-Senior Airman Jennifer Weitekamp was the first woman to complete the Air National Guard’s Counter Sniper School in 2001.

Hay said her uncle Cy taught her the basics of shooting, but it wasn’t until she went to nearby Sierra College that she set her sights on becoming a sniper. A close friend told Hay she’d never make it in the Army or become a sniper.

“Needless to say, that person is no longer part of my life. But now that I look back at it, I really do appreciate the motivation,” she said in a release.

To prepare for sniper school, Hay had to make her own ghillie suit, the full-body camouflage suit that snipers rely on to stay invisible while stalking a target. Snipers often spend dozens of hours constructing a suit, attaching grass and leaves that match the specific vegetation of a region.

Building her suit was a group effort, Hay said, that took multiple people and many hours of sewing, she said.

Students in the Army sniper course are taught to make ghillie suits using a base layer and adding artificial or natural elements to “break up the silhouette of our human signature,” said Sfc. Timothy Moore, marksmanship team chief. “No two ghillie suits are going to be the same.”

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Sniper school is widely viewed as one of the toughest courses in the Army, and is open only to soldiers who are already in the infantry, Special Forces or are Cavalry Scouts like Hay. Soldiers must also “shoot expert” on their Army marksmanship test, hitting at least 36 out of 40 targets.

The 29-day course has a notorious attrition rate. According to a 2017 Army report that followed a class of 46 students through the course, only 4 graduated.

In the last year, the course went from seven weeks to five weeks after officials integrated some classes into lessons taught throughout the course.

Major skills of the school include stalking and concealment, observation and intelligence gathering, survival skills, land navigation, and urban sniper operations. Through the course, students study advanced camouflage techniques with the use of hides, terrain utilization, concealed movement, range estimation and determination, target detection and elimination of target indicators.

According to Moore, there’s not one part of the course that every student struggles. Much depends, he said, on the training that soldiers receive before they get there.

“Being a sniper is a very particular thing and the training we do has to be very hands-on, very methodical, very thorough,” Moore said. When students do struggle during the course, Moore said, usually their nerves get the best of them.

“Being a sniper, you have to be very calm, collected and very level headed,” he said.

During the marksmanship part of training, students train in proper body positioning, application of the direct fire engagement process, use of a ballistic calculator, as well as target practice for known and unknown distances, stationary and moving targets, and limited visibility conditions.

Hay said she found the rapid target engagement and intelligence reporting to be the toughest parts of the course. She also said they had to engage long distance targets while sitting on rucksacks which proved difficult.

Her next duty station will be in Anchorage, Alaska, with the 40th Cavalry Regiment in the 11th Airborne Division. Hay’s next goal is to become a jumpmaster, with many people encouraging her to eventually go to Ranger school.

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taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg · December 4, 2023

13. China’s debt problems will take years to resolve: analysts

Unfortunately so will ours.

China’s debt problems will take years to resolve: analysts | FinanceAsia

financeasia.com · by Han Shih Toh

There are serious challenges in China’s property market and local government debt, but the Chinese government is capable of solving them, according to expert analysts.

However, it will take years to resolve these deepseated problems, which will meanwhile hurt other sectors of the Chinese economy, they said. And this week on December 5, rating agency Moody's downgraded the outlook of China's credit ratings to negative from stable citing structural concerns in the economy inlcuding local governmenr debt, slower growth and the downsizing in the property sector.

Debt for the central government is a small issue, but for some local governments, it may take five years or more to resolve their debt problems, an analyst with a US investment advisory told FinanceAsia.

“Local governments depend on too much of their income coming from land sales revenue. In extreme cases, land sales revenue could account for two thirds of yearly fiscal budget. But local governments have a lot of state-owned assets, which are ignored by most watchers. Therefore, if Beijing can jumpstart a bull market of Chinese stocks, that will in turn lead to a revaluation of such state-owned assets. Local governments can sell just a fraction of these assets to reduce their debt levels,” said the analyst who declined to be named.

“It is not easy to solve the debt problem, and I believe will take years or even decades to fully solve all of them. I believe it would take at least two to three years to calm down the market, but the effect of the liquidated assets may take a much longer time for the market to absorb,” an executive of a Hong Kong property advisory firm told FA.

The problems in China’s property market have spread not just to the banking sector, but to many other industries such as the financial industry, construction industry and materials’ suppliers, said the executive who declined to be named.

“The Chinese government is aware of the problems, and they are taking steps to resolve them, but I think they need to put out more policies or even capital to help the private sector, otherwise the existing policies may not be powerful enough,” the executive added.

China’s economy is underperforming its full potential, said Weijian Shan, executive chairman and co-founder of PAG, an Asia-focused investment firm.

“China is not without its economic challenges. There are good reasons for business and consumer sentiment to be weak and confidence low at the moment. It will take a couple of years of policy stability and concrete policy support for the private sector to fully regain confidence,” Shan said at PAG’s conference in Hong Kong on November 8.

Beijing is avoiding a central government solution to its property crisis and is leaving the majority of the debt adjustment in the hands of local governments, wrote Andrew Collier in a report of Global Sources Partners, a US macroeconomic and geopolitical research firm, on November 10. Beijing only steps in when things get bad enough to cause protests or a collapse of a large bank or developer, wrote Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research, a Hong Kong economic research firm.

“This is going to result in a drawn-out process. Some provinces will resort to a “fortress” mentality, protecting their state sector and whatever jobs are left. Others, lacking the resources to help state firms, will force the adjustment onto private entrepreneurs, who will struggle to obtain capital to stay in business,” Collier predicted.

“The main point is there will be many workout types. Only over several years will we know what the main patterns are,” Collier added.

The Chinese government is trying ot balance the turmoil while also supporting growth.

A Moody’s report on November 14 said, “China’s policymakers face substantial challenges in their approach to the property market downturn as they have to manage a smooth and gradual deleveraging and ensure financial systemic risk is contained while supporting economic growth. Authorities have become more selective in their willingness to provide support to the sector compared with previous periods of aggressive stimulus, such as in 2015.”

In China, lower policy support means developers and property buyers are more uncertain about the future for property sales and prices respectively, said the Moody’s report. “This increases the risk that the property downturn may be more protracted than the authorities expect.”

China’s total local government debt is close to Rmb100 trillion ($13.8 trillion), Willy Lam, a senior fellow of the Jamestown Foundation, a US think tank, told FA. “No government can handle this monster.”

China's Xi Jinping can only hope to restructure the loans and task state-owned banks and state-owned enterprises to share the debt load for 20 or so years, Lam said.

The government is also struggling to raise new funds and to attract more investment.

“Where does the money come from? From January to September, China only absorbed $125.75 billion of foreign direct investment (FDI), a fall of 8.4% over same time in 2022. The last quarter saw the first quarter since Deng’s reform when the country registered negative FDI,” Lam added.

One example of this trend is Vanguard, a US mutual fund company which manages $7.8 trillion of assets, is exiting from China, a Vanguard spokesman confirmed to FA. Vanguard will support its joint venture in Shanghai through December and close its Shanghai office thereafter, the Vanguard spokesman said. Vanguard has not ruled out other business opportunities in China in future, the spokesman clarified.

Property problems

In China, property developers’ contract sales worsened in October, said a Nomura report on October 31. According to the China Real Estate Information Corporation (CRIC), growth in contract sales volume for the top 100 developers in China fell by 35.7% year-on-year in October, which was a greater decline than from 34.1% contraction in September.

In China, property sales are below their 2021 peak, said an S&P Global report on October 23. The S&P report gave a 20% probability that, assuming a decline of 20 to 25% in property sales in 2024, China’s GDP growth will fall to 2.9% next year. The Chinese government is targeting a GDP growth of 5% this year.

On a more positive note, in November, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently unpdated China’s growth forecast for 2023 to 5.4% from 5%. Growth could slow to 4.6% in 2024, but this was an upgrade from a 4.2% expectation in October.

The Chinese government plans to issue Rmb1 trillion of central government bonds this quarter, but the impact of this bond issue may be quite small, said a Nomura report on November 13. It stated: “We still hold the belief that growth stabilisation is not solid as the property and export sectors continue to contract. We believe Beijing needs to be bolder in rescuing the property sector and cleaning up local government debt to secure a more sustainable recovery.”

Glimmer of hope

“Will the slump in the housing sector lead to a financial crisis as it did in the US and Europe in 2008? Many pundits have rung the alarm by calling the troubles facing the distressed property developer Evergrande, “China’s Lehman moment” – referring to the demise of the once venerated American bank which triggered the 2008 Financial Crisis. But the answer is no,” said Shan at the PAG conference.

The average loan to value ratio of mortgages in China’s major cities is about 40%, which means housing prices will have to fall more than half to produce negative equity for homeowners, Shan explained. “That is not even remotely likely to happen.”

China’s balance sheet shows positive financial net worth, whereas other countries such as the US, Japan and Germany are deeply in negative territory, Shan pointed out. Assuming the highest debt-to-GDP ratio of 110% for China’s overall government debt, it still compares favourably with that of the US federal government which is about 140% of GDP and with Japan’s central government debt of about 260% of GDP, Shan explained. Furthermore, the financial assets owned by the Chinese government exceed its total financial liabilities, Shan said.

“China’s economic fundamentals are sound; its government has ample policy space to tackle its current economic slowdown; and its industrial development has positioned it well for the future. All of this is to say that China’s growth, despite the naysayers, will likely continue for the foreseeable future,” said Shan.

And in another positive sign this week, on December 5, the closely watched Chinese services sector expanded ahead of analyst expectations at 51.5, the highest in three months and signalling firming demand in the economy.

financeasia.com · by Han Shih Toh

14. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, December 6, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-december-6-2023

Key Takeaways:

Israeli forces are operating in Khan Younis as part of the Israel Defense Force (IDF)’s effort to target senior Hamas commanders. Palestinian militias claimed several attacks along Israeli lines of advance in Khan Younis.
Israeli forces continued clearing operations in Jabalia and the Shujaiya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City.
Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters engaged in 15 clashes across the West Bank.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel is pursuing diplomacy to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which bans Lebanese Hezbollah from positioning military forces south of the Litani River.
Lebanese Hezbollah claimed 10 attacks into Israeli territory from Lebanon.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed responsibility for three attacks targeting US positions in Iraq on December 5 and 6.
The Houthi movement said that it launched several ballistic missiles targeting Eilat in southern Israel on December 6.

IRAN UPDATE, DECEMBER 6, 2023

Dec 6, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, December 6, 2023

Ashka Jhaveri, Andie Parry, Kathryn Tyson, Annika Ganzeveld, Peter Mills, Amin Soltani, and Brian Carter

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm EST

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.

Key Takeaways:

Israeli forces are operating in Khan Younis as part of the Israel Defense Force (IDF)’s effort to target senior Hamas commanders. Palestinian militias claimed several attacks along Israeli lines of advance in Khan Younis.
Israeli forces continued clearing operations in Jabalia and the Shujaiya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City.
Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters engaged in 15 clashes across the West Bank.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel is pursuing diplomacy to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which bans Lebanese Hezbollah from positioning military forces south of the Litani River.
Lebanese Hezbollah claimed 10 attacks into Israeli territory from Lebanon.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed responsibility for three attacks targeting US positions in Iraq on December 5 and 6.
The Houthi movement said that it launched several ballistic missiles targeting Eilat in southern Israel on December 6.

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.

Israeli forces are operating in Khan Younis as part of the Israel Defense Force (IDF)’s effort to target senior Hamas commanders. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on December 6 that the Israeli military had encircled Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar’s house in Khan Younis.[1] Residents in the area told Reuters that Israeli tanks neared his home.[2] IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that Sinwar is likely underground in Hamas’ extensive tunnel network.[3] Israel has claimed repeatedly that senior political and military Hamas leadership, including Sinwar and Hamas’ military chief Mohammed Deif, are hiding in Khan Younis.[4]

The IDF 98th Paratrooper Division led the attack on Khan Younis to target Hamas’ ”centers of gravity,” which is presumably a reference to Hamas’ critical command node in the city.[5] The IDF said that its forces encircled the city after it broke through Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade’s defenses. The IDF reported that it began conducting targeted raids within the city.[6] The IDF issued urgent warnings to residents in the Khan Younis area against traveling on the Salah al Din Road as Israeli forces are operating on parts of the road.[7] The Israeli Air Force attacked 250 targets across the Gaza Strip on December 6, targeting weapons, tunnels, IEDs, and other military infrastructure.[8] Hagari stated that the four IDF divisions operating across the Gaza Strip are fighting with a high intensity as they break down defensive lines.[9]

Palestinian militias claimed several attacks along Israeli lines of advance in Khan Younis. The al Qassem Brigades—the militant wing of Hamas—claimed that its fighters detonated a house-borne improvised device (HBIED) targeting Israeli forces east of Khan Younis on December 6.[10] The use of more sophisticated tactics, such as rigging a house to explode, is consistent with Hamas’ shift from less sophisticated to more sophisticated tactics after the end of the humanitarian pause.[11] The al Qassem Brigades claimed several other indirect and direct fire attacks using anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), small arms, and mortars.[12] Other Palestinian militias allied with Hamas also attacked the IDF near Khan Younis. The al Quds Brigades—the militant wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)—claimed that it used a high-explosive fragmentation grenade and mortars to attack Israeli forces, east of Khan Younis.[13] Bani Suheila residents reported on December 6 that Israeli forces reached Bani Suheila.[14] The al Nasser Salah al Din Brigades—the militant wing of the Popular Resistance Committees —claimed that its fighters fought Israeli forces advancing in Khan Younis.[15] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade—a self-affiliated militant wing of Fatah—claimed that its fighters targeted an Israeli tank with an anti-tank munition east of Khan Younis.[16]

Israeli forces continued clearing operations in Jabalia on December 6. The IDF stated its Nahal Brigade fought Palestinian fighters in Jabalia on December 6.[17] The IDF announced it had “encircled” the neighborhood and was operating at its “core” on December 5.[18] Geolocated footage posted on December 5 shows armed clashes between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops that occurred near Kamal Idwan Hospital on the northern border of Jabalia.[19] The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported Israeli tanks fired at the hospital’s main generator on December 5, indicating Israeli forces advanced into Jabalia.[20] The IDF said its fighters operating in Jabalia recovered one of the largest stockpiles of weapons in the Gaza Strip, consisting of hundreds of missiles and launchers, long-range rockets, RPGs, drones, and explosively formed penetrators.[21]

The al Qassem Brigades attacked Israeli military vehicles along the Israeli line of advance in the Beit Lahia Project area, just north of Jabalia.[22] The al Nasser Salah al Din Brigades said that its fighters fought field coordination with the al Qassem Brigades and the al Quds Brigades in neighborhoods near Jabalia camp including Tal al Zaatar, Kamal Adwan, and al Fallujah.[23] The al Nasser Salah al Din Brigades is a loose group of local militias and the third largest armed group in the Gaza Strip.[24]

The IDF also continued clearing operations in the Shujaiya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City. The IDF said on December 5 that it was in the “core” of Shujaiya on December 5.[25] The al Quds Brigades attacked Israeli forces on the lines of advance into Shujaiya with IEDs, RPGs, and anti-armor shells.[26] The al Quds Brigades also fired anti-tank rockets at Israeli forces advancing into Shujaiya from the al Tuffah neighborhood, northwest of Shujaiya.[27] The al Qassem Brigades posted a video of its fighters attacking Israeli military vehicles with anti-tank rockets in the Shujaiya neighborhood on December 5.[28] The video included a burning Israeli Merkava tank in Shujaiya.[29]

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

Palestinian militias in the Gaza Strip conducted seven indirect fire attacks into Israel on December 6. The al Qassem Brigades conducted six rocket attacks targeting southern Israel.[30] The al Quds Brigades conducted one rocket attack.[31]

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters engaged in 15 clashes across the West Bank on December 6. This level of violence is consistent with the daily average rate of clashes in the West Bank over the last seven days. Palestinian fighters, including al Qassem Brigades fighters, engaged Israeli forces in two small arms clashes and detonated at least two IEDs targeting Israeli vehicles as Israeli units conducted raids in Jenin.[32] Palestinian fighters also detonated five other IEDs targeting Israeli forces and engaged Israeli forces in seven other small arms clashes elsewhere in the West Bank.[33] Palestinians demonstrated against Israeli operations in Gaza in Ramallah and Tulkarm on December 6.[34]

The IDF said that its forces arrested 16 wanted persons, three of whom were affiliated with Hamas, in the West Bank on December 6.[35]

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

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel is pursuing diplomacy to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which bans Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) from positioning military forces south of the Litani River.[36] Gallant met with mayors and local council heads in Nahariya, northern Israel, on December 6.[37] Israel evacuated thousands of northern Israelis from their homes after the October 7 attacks.[38] Gallant “promised” that northern Israelis will not return to their homes before Lebanese Hezbollah military forces are north of the Litani River. Gallant said that the “best option” is for a diplomatic agreement in which unspecified actors would enforce UN Security Resolution 1701. The resolution, which ended the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War, created a demilitarized zone between the Blue Line and the Litani.[39] Gallant said that if diplomatic measures fail Israel will use its military to force LH north of the river, according to the Times of Israel.

Lebanese Hezbollah claimed 10 attacks into Israeli territory from Lebanon on December 6.[40] This rate of attacks is consistent with the daily average. Unspecified fighters conducted three additional attacks into northern Israel, including a 16-rocket salvo targeting Matat, northern Israel.[41]

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 Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed responsibility for three attacks targeting US positions in Iraq on December 5 and 6. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq resumed its attacks on US forces on December 3, two days after the humanitarian pause in the Gaza Strip ended on December 1. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq and its affiliated groups have claimed 81 attacks against US forces in the Middle East since October 18.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed two separate one-way drone attacks targeting US forces at Ain al Asad Airbase in Anbar province, Iraq, on December 5 and 6.[42] The group has claimed 24 attacks on Ain Asad Airbase since October 18.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed a drone attack targeting US forces at al Harir Airbase in Erbil province, Iraq, on December 6.[43] The group last claimed an attack on al Harir Airbase on November 22.[44]

The Houthi movement said that it launched several ballistic missiles targeting Eilat in southern Israel on December 6.[45] The IDF reported that it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile over the Red Sea and said that the missile did not cross into Israeli territory.[46] The Houthi military spokesperson said that the Houthis will continue to target Israel until the end of the Israel-Hamas War.[47]

The USS Carney shot down a likely Houthi drone over the southern Red Sea on December 6.[48] An unspecified US official told the Navy Times that the drone originated from Houthi-controlled territory. There were no injuries to US personnel or damage to the ship and it was not clear what the drone was targeting. The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency also reported a drone incident west of the Houthi-controlled Hudaydah port in the southern Red Sea on December 6.[49] It is not clear if these are the same incidents.

Two unspecified sources “familiar with Saudi thinking” told Reuters that Saudi Arabia urged the United States to show restraint amid Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.[50] The sources said that Saudi Arabia is “pleased” with the United States’ handling of the situation and wishes to avoid further escalation. Saudi Arabia is negotiating a bilateral peace agreement with the Houthis that seeks to secure Saudi Arabia’s exit from the war in Yemen.[51] Saudi efforts to encourage US restraint vis-a-vis the Houthis aim to protect this truce. The Houthis view the United States and Saudi Arabia as belligerents in the war against the Houthis.[52] The Houthis would likely therefore view a US retaliation against the Houthis as a violation of the Saudi-Houthi informal truce that began in April 2022.[53]

An unspecified “Iran-aligned” source based in Tehran told Reuters that Houthi representatives discussed their attacks with Iranian officials in November, demonstrating continuing Houthi-Iranian coordination.[54] The source may have been referencing a meeting between the Houthi Ambassador to Iran Ibrahim al Daylami and Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Tehran on November 30.[55] The source said that the Houthi and Iranian representatives agreed that the Houthis would carry out attacks in a “controlled” way that would help force the end to the Israel-Hamas war. Another "Iran-aligned” source told Reuters that Iran does not want to become directly involved in an “all-out war in the region.”

Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Rear Admiral Ali Akbar Ahmadian discussed the Israel-Hamas war with Chinese Communist Party International Liaison Department head Liu Jianchao on December 6 in Tehran.[56] The two officials emphasized further cooperation between their countries to end the war.

Iranian First Vice President Mohammed Mokhber discussed the Israel-Hamas war with Omani Trade, Industry, and Development Minister Qais bin Mohammad al Youssef on December 6.[57] Mokhber thanked al Youssef for Oman’s stance against Israeli “crimes” and criticized international institutions for not taking “serious” action to halt Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip.

15. China's Xi doubles down on favorite weapon against US allies

China's Xi doubles down on favorite weapon against US allies

Newsweek · by Aadil Brar · December 5, 2023

Chinese President Xi Jinping this month demanded his country's coast guard assertively enforce maritime law, doubling down on his preference for the powerful, non-military force that has caused policy dilemmas for the United States and its allies in the region.

During a recent visit to Shanghai, Xi emphasized the need to "resolutely defend China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests," according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. His speech on December 1 was made to the People's Armed Police Force, the domestic security paramilitary agency that governs the China Coast Guard.

Xi's directive comes amid escalating maritime tensions between Beijing and its neighbors in the East and South China seas. In recent months, Chinese maritime law enforcement and maritime militia vessels have travelled hundreds of miles from the country's coast to engage in standoffs with the Phillippines, a U.S. treaty ally.

China's president listened to a work report by the coast guard's regional command for the East China Sea and inspected the the service's ship formations, CCTV said.

Japan, another long-time American ally in Asia, has faced mounting pressure from Chinese coast guard intrusions around the disputed Senkaku Islands, controlled by Tokyo but challenged by Beijing and, to a lesser extent, Taipei.

China, which calls the uninhabited island group Diaoyu, has probed Japanese defenses around the islets with near-daily coast guard patrols within the territorial or adjacent waters of the Senkakus in a pattern that has increased dramatically in the past decade, according to Japan's Foreign Ministry.

Tokyo has responded by redeploying some of its largest Japan Coast Guard vessels to the East China Sea. However, as in the South China Sea, Beijing's choice of non-military ships, which it has in abundance, has become something of a headache for governments in the region.

This photo, taken on September 20, 2023, shows a Philippine fisherman aboard his wooden boat sailing past a Chinese coast guard ship near the Chinese-controlled Scarborough Shoal in disputed waters of the South China Sea. Xi told the China Coast Guard to defend the country's territorial integrity in the maritime space during a speech on December 1 in Shanghai. Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty

This week in the Spratly Islands archipelago, the Philippines said it was watching more than 100 Chinese paramilitary boats that had anchored at an unoccupied reef within its exclusive fishing waters. For the second time in three years, China's government said the vessels were legally sheltering from inclement weather—in Chinese waters.

The U.S. is treaty-bound to defend both Japan and the Philippines against attacks in the East and South China seas, respectively, but China's deliberate use of so-called "gray zone" tactics—coercive actions that fall short of war—means decision makers in Washington also must devise non-military solutions.

Xi's call for more assertiveness at sea may be illustrative of the Chinese leadership's assessment of the strategy's effectiveness, if not success. Regional governments are likely to watch for any robust actions by the China Coast Guard in light of the orders, particularly ahead of a potential clash with a civilian-led "Christmas convoy" dispatched by the Philippines next week.

Chinese President Xi Jinping reviews a guard of honour with the Uruguayan president during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 22, 2023. Xi told the China Coast Guard to defend the country's territorial integrity in the maritime space during a speech on December 1 in Shanghai. Florence Lo/AFP

Beijing's more forceful maritime patrols were accompanied by a new amended to China's Coast Guard Law, which came into effect on February 1, 2021.

The legislation worried neighbors after it appeared to authorize China's maritime law enforcement personnel to use lethal force on foreign ships operating in ill-defined Chinese waters, a mandate that extends to disputed waters in the East and South China seas as well as presumably in the Taiwan Strait.

The China Coast Guard "shall conduct law enforcement operations in the waters under the jurisdiction of China and in the airspace above the waters under the jurisdiction of China and apply this law," Article 3 of the law now reads.

The amendment also allows the government to call upon private fishing vessels to enforce maritime rights, pointing to more frequent use of China's maritime militia, whose existence is not officially acknowledged by Beijing. It says the boats belong to concerned citizens.

Aadil Brar is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers international security, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian ... read more

Newsweek · by Aadil Brar · December 5, 2023

16. Philippines stands out in Asean over embrace of US’ Indo-Pacific strategy

Excerpts:

Grossman was referring to America’s top diplomat saying China “cannot lawfully assert a maritime claim – including any exclusive economic zone (EEZ) claims derived from Scarborough Reef and the Spratly Islands – vis-à-vis the Philippines in areas that the Tribunal found to be in the Philippines’ EEZ or on its continental shelf”.

According to a CNN report, Pompeo had also rejected China’s claims to Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal – “both of which fall fully under the Philippines’ sovereign rights and jurisdiction”. China also “has no lawful territorial or maritime claim to (or derived from) James Shoal, an entirely submerged feature only 50 nautical miles from Malaysia and some 1,000 nautical miles from China’s coast” and the US “rejects any PRC maritime claim in the waters surrounding Vanguard Bank (off Vietnam), Luconia Shoals (off Malaysia), waters in Brunei’s EEZ, and Natuna Besar (off Indonesia).”

Dr Yan sounded a reminder to conference participants: “One thing we need to remember is that we will be neighbours for the next thousands of years. So most urgently for us to do now is to establish a crisis management and incident prevention regime or mechanism bilaterally or multilaterally.

“I don’t want to see any armed conflict in the region. So now let’s guarantee peace and stability in the region.”

Philippines stands out in Asean over embrace of US’ Indo-Pacific strategy

By Raissa Robles South China Morning Post5 min

December 6, 2023

View Original

Supartono stressed that unlike other claimant states in the South China Sea such as China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Brunei, non-claimant Indonesia was mainly concerned with preventing an open war and maintaining peace. However, Jakarta did not recognise Beijing’s nine-dash line that claims almost all the South China Sea, he warned.

At a bookshop in Beijing, a new China map shows the South China Sea with nine-dash line claims under Chinese territory and a new line next to Taiwan. Photo: AP

Supartono pointed out that other Asean non-claimant states such as Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar were all “dependent on China and [therefore] have no interest in the issue”.

Meanwhile, despite being a claimant state, “ Malaysia has been slow to get on board” with US strategy and has instead opted for “a more neutral stand”, according to Mohd Hazmi Rusli, an associate professor at the Faculty of Syariah and Law at the Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, and a former Australian National University research fellow.

Hazmi emphasised at the conference that Malaysia “does not acknowledge the nine-dash line” and “we do not see China as our immediate neighbour”.

“But other than that, we are very good [friends] with China … just like [with] the United States. We are friendly with everyone except North Korea.”

What’s China’s ‘nine-dash line’ and why has it created so much tension in the South China Sea?

As for Vietnam, RAND Corporation’s senior defence analyst Derek Grossman noted that the country “has been coy” in voicing its support for the Indo-Pacific strategy, “but it is clear in Hanoi’s actions that it sees benefits to strengthening ties with Washington”.

This was evidenced by US President Joe Biden’s visit to Vietnam in September, he said, to elevate relations to a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” despite Vietnam’s “Four Nos defence policy” that excluded the forging of military alliances and siding with one country against another.

The highlight of the conference was the lively exchange between Grossman and Dr Yan Yan, director of the Research Centre for Oceans Law in Xiamen University, and policy director of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Hainan.

Yan began by saying, “if you look at maritime cooperation, China and the US did cooperate very well in the past”. She gave as examples the cooperation between the two nation’s coastguards in combating illegal and unregulated fishing in the North Pacific in 1994, as well as the rules of conduct both parties agreed on during a close encounter of their ships and aeroplanes.

From left: Dr Yan Yan, Derek Grossman and Dr Supartono receive plaques of appreciation from the Asia Collective and the International Development and Security Cooperation. Photo: Raissa Robles

“And I can’t see frankly anything coming out of the Biden-Xi summit that gave me hope that that particular issue could be addressed.”

He argued: “Let’s not also kid ourselves. There has been a direct phone line from the Pentagon to the Chinese Ministry of Defence for many years now … The infrastructure is there. But the problem is, when there’s an incident, and the US tries to call to sort it out, nobody picks up the phone.”

Grossman added: “China is still using fishing militia to set [up] a de facto operating presence throughout the disputed region. That is something China still says doesn’t exist. There is no fishing militia. But we have said on many occasions, notably in our latest China Military Report to Congress – it came out in October – that it is a part of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army).”

He described the militia as fishermen first and foremost who are given surveillance equipment and sometimes activated to conduct activities “to support the coastguard and Navy”.

Filipino sailors look after a Chinese coast guard ship with bow number 5203 bumps their supply boat as they approach Second Thomas Shoal in the disputed South China Sea on October 22. Photo: AP

Yan, however, pointed out that Vietnamese fishermen had been involved, too, in incidents with Malaysia and Indonesia. “It’s just that people don’t care about what other countries are doing like China, so Chinese activities in the South China Sea have been enlarged so much.”

She said when Chinese coastguards used water cannons they were still not targeting Philippine ships but directing the spray 10 metres away.

Yan also criticised US commitment to the Philippines under the Mutual Defence Treaty. She recalled that Articles 24 and 25 of the treaty only applied to mainland Philippines, “but it does not say specifically whether … Second Thomas Shoal [where the Philippine navy had beached a vessel to serve as an outpost] is within the scope of the MDT”.

“The US so far has not given any specific promise to the Philippines,” Yan said. “My question actually is whether the US wants China to trigger the MDT.

“Do you really want to go to war with China for helping the Philippines in Second Thomas Shoal or the Scarborough Shoal?” Yan challenged Grossman, who said it was “outrageous” to think the US was intentionally trying to trigger the MDT, “as if we don’t have enough going on in the world”.

“We’re supporting Ukraine resistance on Russia, we’re supporting Israel in their military campaign against Hamas, and possibly against Hezbollah. We have a lot of other things going on that I don’t think we want to add fighting over Second Thomas Shoal as one of them,” he added.

“But I do think, Dr Yan, you are right that the Mutual Defense Treaty is pretty clear about mainland Philippines … maintaining the territorial integrity and sovereignty of mainland Philippines. US policy has never taken a decision on the disputed territorial features within the region.”

However, he recalled, in 2020 then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the US recognised EEZs “which was roundly applauded by everybody in the region except China”.

Indonesia’s South China Sea remarks show a ‘level up’ of support for claimants

Grossman was referring to America’s top diplomat saying China “cannot lawfully assert a maritime claim – including any exclusive economic zone (EEZ) claims derived from Scarborough Reef and the Spratly Islands – vis-à-vis the Philippines in areas that the Tribunal found to be in the Philippines’ EEZ or on its continental shelf”.

According to a CNN report, Pompeo had also rejected China’s claims to Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal – “both of which fall fully under the Philippines’ sovereign rights and jurisdiction”. China also “has no lawful territorial or maritime claim to (or derived from) James Shoal, an entirely submerged feature only 50 nautical miles from Malaysia and some 1,000 nautical miles from China’s coast” and the US “rejects any PRC maritime claim in the waters surrounding Vanguard Bank (off Vietnam), Luconia Shoals (off Malaysia), waters in Brunei’s EEZ, and Natuna Besar (off Indonesia).”

Dr Yan sounded a reminder to conference participants: “One thing we need to remember is that we will be neighbours for the next thousands of years. So most urgently for us to do now is to establish a crisis management and incident prevention regime or mechanism bilaterally or multilaterally.

“I don’t want to see any armed conflict in the region. So now let’s guarantee peace and stability in the region.”

17. In Taiwan, China is covertly preparing for battle

Excerpts:

Taiwan’s fiercely competitive elections underscore the island’s commitment to democratic ideals and self determination—even as it resists grey-zone aggression from its anti-democratic neighbour. But, as Chiu emphasises, “What do you do in the face of a bully, when he keeps pushing you? You don’t beg him to stop. You stay calm and confident, and you make yourself so strong that he can’t touch you any more.”

Revanchist autocracies such as Russia and China seek to rewrite the rules-based international order through grey-zone warfare. To withstand it, values and institutions must be bolstered—and not just in Taiwan. This island’s battle to preserve its democratic system is part of a broader battle for liberal democracy and against authoritarianism everywhere. If it is to be won, allied governments should learn from Taiwan the best practices for neutralising grey-zone tactics, and share knowledge and technologies to assist its cause. Only with unambiguous, multilateral support from international allies, can Taiwan’s future be secured.

The writer has used a pseudonym to protect their identity

In Taiwan, China is covertly preparing for battle

Ahead of Taiwan’s elections, Beijing is amping up its campaign of intimidation, disinformation and cyber attacks. Such tactics fall short of outright war—but only just

By Elizabeth Green

December 6, 2023

Prospect Magazine · by Elizabeth Green

Preparations for Taiwan’s presidential elections on 13th January are in full swing. The eight-year tenure of Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai Ing-wen, is ending. Buildings and billboards are plastered with the beaming faces of the remaining presidential candidates. In the coming weeks, they will stage grand campaign rallies, complete with elaborate performances and laser shows.

The festival-like atmosphere jars with the purported stakes of the competition: for Taiwan’s political heavyweights, the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT), the vote is a choice between autocracy and democracy, or war and peace.

Taiwan is a flashpoint for great power conflict. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) regards Taiwan as an inalienable part of its sovereign territory, and “reunification” as an “inevitable requirement for realising the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. Beijing would prefer a peaceful reunification with Taiwanese “compatriots”, but if Taiwan crosses the PRC’s “red lines” and moves towards formal independence, Chinese law enshrines the right of the Communist Party (CCP) to respond with violence.

Despite growing geopolitical isolation and aggression from the island’s expansionist, communist neighbour, Tsai has nurtured Taiwan’s hard-won democracy with cool determination. For Beijing, the rule of her pro-sovereignty, independence-leaning DPP has become ever more of an affront. Accordingly, the CCP’s increasingly bellicose rhetoric about unification has been accompanied by the rapid modernisation and development of their armed wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This includes advanced missile systems, capabilities in cyber warfare and in blocking adversarial forces from entering a theatre of war, and the further expansion of what is already the world’s largest navy. Shortly before stepping down, former Chinese premier Li Keqiang announced a military budget of 1.55 trillion yuan (roughly $224.8bn) for 2023, explicitly calling for heightened “preparations for war”.

Hives of analysts spend their days gauging how these threats could escalate, and for good reason: a potential invasion could start World War Three. The US, though not legally bound to defend Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion, has implicit defence commitments to the island encapsulated by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act—though these commitments are intentionally left vague. This shroud of “strategic ambiguity” allows the US manoeuvrability and dissuades both unprovoked attack by China and unilateral declarations of independence by Taiwan. Still, Taiwan sits at the heart of the security architecture and trade routes of the Asia-Pacific region. To abandon it would be to unravel US influence in the western Pacific. The US has sold arms to the Taiwanese military for decades and Joe Biden has, on multiple occasions, let it slip that America would support Taiwan with its own military against coercive force. For Beijing, gambling on US intentions could be fatal.

The possibility of clashing with a US-led coalition, along with the logistical obstacles of deploying forces by sea, serves as a strong deterrent for the PRC. The Taiwan Strait is 110 miles wide and whips up 20ft tidal surges. Chinese troops who managed the tricky amphibious landing would encounter miles of bogs, mountainous terrain and Taiwan’s potent asymmetric defence networks, which use unconventional tactics and technologies in an attempt to counter a military that is roughly 14 times the size of its own. Success would be far from guaranteed; any failed attempt would be catastrophic. Diplomatically, a violent annexation would risk international isolation for Beijing, inviting sweeping sanctions and lasting diplomatic rifts. Economically, an invasion would further weaken China’s faltering economy and jeopardise its standing in the global market. Consequently, a forceful “unification” likely poses too great a threat for both the stability of the CCP and its grander strategic ambitions—that is, for now. Analysts and senior US figures, including CIA director William Burns, US secretary of state Antony Blinken and the former commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Philip Davidson, have predicted that the PLA will be war-ready by the centenary of their founding, in 2027. In the meantime, Beijing is covertly preparing the battlefield.

Russia, Iran and China do not perceive war and peace in binary terms, instead operating fluidly in the “grey zone”. Labelled variously as political warfare, sub-crisis manoeuvring and hybrid warfare, grey-zone activities are coercive statecraft actions below the threshold of armed conflict. This nebulous realm exists between peaceful diplomatic engagement and outright warfare, allowing revisionist states to shift the status quo through a subtle blend of political, informational, technological and economic tactics. These methods often deviate from internationally accepted norms and are calibrated to advance these states’ interests little by little—without triggering armed combat or providing a casus belli. The emphases are on ambiguity and gradualism, allowing room for plausible deniability. For example, the Kremlin’s actions before its annexations in Georgia (2008) and Crimea (2014) exemplified the grey-zone approach: in Georgia, it backed separatists and staged military exercises, and in Ukraine, it deployed unmarked troops— “little green men”—to seize the Crimean parliament, thereby achieving strategic gains while denying involvement.

The PLA have similarly mastered the grey zone. Chinese military thinkers drew pivotal lessons from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, noting the transformative impact of precision munitions, real-time intelligence and surveillance systems, and electronic warfare in the US-led coalition’s victory. From this, they predicted the centrality of information in modern warfare, an idea that transformed traditional conceptions. Now, the battlefield is everywhere, and encompasses all economic, financial, technical and informational domains. A new warfare paradigm emerged, with PLA colonels advocating the use of every means at a nation’s disposal to “compel the enemy to accept one’s interests”.

President Tsai, whose term ends in January, has overseen the cultivation of a vibrant civil society, pioneered same-sex marriage in Asia, and led an impressive Covid-19 response. Image: Chris Stowers/Panos Pictures

In 2003, China incorporated the “Three Warfares” (三戰, sanzhan) into its PLA Political Work Regulations, formalising this shift. This strategy comprises public opinion warfare (輿論戰, yülunzhan), aimed at aligning global and domestic narratives with Beijing’s interests; psychological warfare (心理戰, xinlizhan), intended to sap the morale of enemy forces and exploit internal divisions; and legal warfare (法律戰, falüzhan), the manipulation of legal frameworks to serve China’s geopolitical aims.

These offensive operations function in concert as what’s known as the peacetime employment of force, tilting the geopolitical balance in line with China’s interests while undermining the political, ideological, psychological and legal domains of its adversaries. It constitutes a continuous, long-term reconfiguration of the battlefield that falls under the threshold of overt conflict, and lays the groundwork for swift victory. The ideal is to win without fighting (不戰而勝, buzhanersheng).

During the Covid-19 lockdowns, China deployed tools of public opinion warfare in the west through multilingual media, social media platforms, government officials and online networks, deflecting pandemic blame and spreading narratives insinuating the US created the virus as a bioweapon. In Xinjiang, psychological warfare is given the form of random arrests, frequent inspections, forced labour, digital tracing and mass internment, terrorising the ethnic Uyghur minority under the pretext of combating extremism. The 2020 National Security Law imposed on Hong Kong, characterised by its vague criminalisation of various acts and extraterritorial reach, exemplifies the PLA’s legal warfare, providing Beijing a veneer of legal legitimacy with which it can suppress dissent globally and project power beyond its borders while claiming to uphold “national security”.

Taiwan is effectively on the front line of Beijing’s grey-zone warfare tactics. It is what Georgia and Ukraine were to Russia: a real-world testing ground, an “R&D laboratory” for sustained and multi-pronged covert and overt influence, espionage and interference campaigns. These tactics, perfected in Hong Kong and Taiwan, are then deployed against other democracies. In the UK, for example, the Intelligence and Security Commission (ISC) has sounded the alarm about Beijing’s penetration into every sector of the British economy and academic institutions, noting it now exerts undue political influence, suppresses criticism of the CCP and uses UK intellectual property to enhance its military capabilities. These tactics have set the UK on track for what the ISC has called a “nightmare scenario” of losing control over its sovereign interests.

In Taiwan, Beijing aims to convince Taiwanese people that unification is inevitable and irresistible, balancing its deployment of coercive measures to constrain decision-makers with incentive-driven approaches to “win Taiwanese hearts and minds”.

In mid-October 2023, crowds flooded Taipei’s central boulevard to demand peace across the Taiwan Strait, frantically waving flags emblazoned with the “blue sky, white sun, and wholly red earth” of Taiwan. A gruesome video had mobilised them: a soldier massacring scores of civilians and consigning them to a mass grave (ostensibly taken from the war in Gaza, though according to Eve Chiu of Taiwan FactCheck Foundation it actually originated from Syria’s civil war in 2013). Its Chinese caption read: “This is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not a movie! This is war. People have nowhere to escape, families are destroyed.” Sinisterly, the footage had been repurposed to propel the narrative of a pro-unification rally—that peace must be preserved at all costs—denouncing the DPP as warmongers and demanding an end to their rule in 2024.

Taiwan’s information ecosystem swims with this type of disinformation, compounding deep-seated ideological divisions about the country’s relationship with China. This rift manifests in a political spectrum polarised between “blue” pro-engagement parties under the KMT and the DPP-led “green” China-sceptics. Each side discredits the other using propaganda, creating fertile ground in which disinformation injected and amplified by PRC agents flourishes.

According to an analyst from Doublethink Lab, a Taiwanese NGO investigating PRC global influence and information operations, the PRC exploits vulnerabilities in Taiwan’s open, free and relatively unregulated media ecosystem, intensifying longstanding debates and muddying the truth. Previously, fake or deliberately misleading journalism created in Chinese “content farms” was relatively simple to identify, because of its clumsy phrasing and lack of originality. However, since 2018, the PRC’s tactics have shifted significantly, and are now underpinned by extensive data collection and advanced artificial intelligence technologies. This has resulted in the amplification of comparatively convincing content that appears to originate from sources within Taiwan. Tailored, misleading messages and unverified rumours are spread widely through bots and trolls, flooding social media and the popular messaging app LINE, where they are further circulated by unsuspecting Taiwanese users. The aim is to “Lebanonise” Taiwanese society, intensifying existing societal divisions by fostering confusion and fear. Beijing’s revised approach enables it to better elude detection by Taiwan’s vigilant civil society.

Additionally, in line with a Mao-era policy known as “using civil actors to promote political ends”, Beijing targets and co-opts individuals with economic, cultural or political influence—often social media influencers and artists—to disseminate narratives that spread discord in Taiwan’s media environment. The DPP is portrayed as inherently corrupt and responsible for Taiwan’s societal challenges, such as wage stagnation and rising youth unemployment. Parallel narratives question the Taiwanese military’s competence, undermining trust in its defence capabilities. The “American scepticism narrative” (疑美論, yimeilun) paints the US as an opportunistic ally who will abandon Taiwan. This narrative is especially pernicious given the island’s geopolitical isolation, ambiguous status in international law and its vulnerability—acknowledging the CCP as the only legitimate Chinese government and de-recognising Taiwan is sine qua non for establishing diplomatic relations with mainland China. Taiwan’s diplomatic allies have therefore been whittled down to just 13 governments, and it is barred from participation in multilateral organisations such as the UN and WHO, where it could otherwise defend its interests. All roads lead to Rome, and the “master narrative” is that Chinese and Taiwanese are one family and should be united—vote for blue, or “Taiwan will be the next Ukraine”.

The ‘master narrative’ is that Chinese and Taiwanese are one family and should be united

Beijing’s pollution of Taiwan’s media environment is accompanied by another form of psychological warfare: constant military intimidation, including daily incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ)—a buffer between international and Taiwanese airspace—and naval drills in the Taiwan Strait. Following former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, the PRC launched a 10-day military exercise, Operation Joint-Fire Strike, where 11 ballistic missiles were launched near the island. Similarly, following a visit to New York by William Lai, Taiwan’s vice president and the DPP’s 2024 presidential candidate, whom Beijing has menacingly branded a “troublemaker” separatist, China initiated air and naval patrols around Taiwan.

Military demonstrations overtly display China’s power and resolve, but the PRC’s covert use of civilian vessels allows for a more subtle, yet persistent, form of pressure while furthering its military objectives. Fishing fleets and research vessels loom in the contested waters of the South China Sea and around Taiwan, conducting maritime militia operations, surveillance and data collection. This grey-zone strategy of combining direct military aggression with disguised maritime presence asserts China’s territorial claims and complicates international responses by blurring the lines between civilian and military engagement. These threats serve dual purposes: they not only degrade Taiwan’s military equipment and deplete its resources but also aim to instil a perpetual sense of crisis.

This article is from the January/February 2024 issue

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If this were not enough, Taiwan endures around 20m cyber-attacks every day, predominantly from China. The establishment of the Strategic Support Force (SSF) within the PLA, consolidating space, cyber and electronic warfare capabilities, underscores Beijing’s emphasis on information control in any conflict scenario. In the event of invasion, the primary goal of the SSF would be to disrupt, paralyse or destroy Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, intelligence networks and military command systems, thereby gaining information superiority. During the 2019 Hong Kong protests, the PLA were unable to roll in tanks as they might have wished due to high levels of connectivity and, hence, visibility. In Taiwan, the emphasis is clear: in areas yet to be “liberated”, China plans a communications blackout, which could plunge the country into darkness and sever it from the outside world.

You would be forgiven for wondering how Beijing intends to win over Taiwanese hearts with threats, aggression and manipulative interference in its internal affairs. Has Beijing reached its Machiavellian moment in its operations against Taiwan, and realised that peaceful unification is a pipe dream? Bizarrely, no. As Tsunghan Wu from Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research explains, under Xi Jinping, the approach has evolved. China is now applying more intense pressure, and offering more enticements—in other words, harder sticks and juicier carrots. This strategy is manifested in economic statecraft, and is particularly evident in the “31 Incentives’’ of 2018, boosted by 26 additional measures in 2019, designed to beguile young Taiwanese entrepreneurs and professionals and foster closer integration of Taiwan’s economy with China’s. Additional seats for Taiwanese students are reserved at China’s prestigious Peking and Tsinghua universities, and handsome awards and funding are offered for Taiwanese scholars. But young Taiwanese must weigh the advantages of these lucrative offers and their career prospects in China’s vast market against potential compromises in their quality of life and freedoms.

Presidential candidate William Lai has softened his former pro-independence stance. Image: Daniel Piris/EPA/EFE/Shutterstock

Meanwhile, the PRC’s harsh takeover in Hong Kong and oppression of minority groups have alienated younger Taiwanese, fuelling a generational shift in favour of Taiwan having a distinct, autonomous identity. Greater support for progressive values and more connections with other liberal democracies have intensified Taiwan’s ideological divide from China. Recent polls indicate that less than 6 per cent of Taiwanese favour unification, while more than 88 per cent support the current status of de-facto independence.

The positions of the 2024 electoral candidates reflect this. The DPP’s William Lai, leading in polls at the time of writing and seen as the “continuity candidate”, has softened his former pro-independence stance and made assurances that he would not alter the status quo. In the blue faction, the KMT’s Hou You-yi, former police commissioner of New Taipei City, proposes a “three Ds” strategy for stability in the Taiwan Strait (deterrence, dialogue and de-escalation), indicating cautious optimism towards the mainland while also upholding the status quo. Independent candidate Terry Gou, founder of the iPhone assembling giant Foxconn, promised Taiwan economic and technological prosperity and a defence policy involving 80,000 robots (he’s since dropped out). For a while it looked as though the Taiwan People’s Party, led by former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, might break the longstanding KMT-DPP duopoly. Ko advocates pragmatic solutions to domestic issues and appeals to anti-establishment voters tired of the blue-green divide. These may be too few in number, but his judgement that Taiwan’s 24m residents do not want to think about the “China question” every day could still work in his favour—most people want higher wages and affordable housing.

Given the PRC’s acrimonious stance towards the DPP and their candidate William Lai (Zhu Fenglian, spokeswoman for the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office, has equated a vote for William Lai with “bringing war to Taiwan”), might we expect an escalation in China’s grey-zone tactics if it looks like they will win another term? Will Taiwanese people be scared into voting for the party most accommodating to Beijing? I asked Marco Ho of Taiwanese Civilian Defence organisation Kuma Academy. “No. The foundation of China’s current legitimacy in governance is expansional nationalism… Any military ventures or escalation of conflict depends entirely on the legitimacy crisis faced by the ruling authority. The stances of current candidates merely serve as pretexts for future Chinese actions rather than actual reasons.” The real indicator to watch, then, is how secure the CCP leadership feels in face of legitimacy challenges as it manages rising debt, plateauing economic growth and demographic decline—not the rhetoric of election candidates in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s fiercely competitive elections underscore the island’s commitment to democratic ideals and self determination—even as it resists grey-zone aggression from its anti-democratic neighbour. But, as Chiu emphasises, “What do you do in the face of a bully, when he keeps pushing you? You don’t beg him to stop. You stay calm and confident, and you make yourself so strong that he can’t touch you any more.”

Revanchist autocracies such as Russia and China seek to rewrite the rules-based international order through grey-zone warfare. To withstand it, values and institutions must be bolstered—and not just in Taiwan. This island’s battle to preserve its democratic system is part of a broader battle for liberal democracy and against authoritarianism everywhere. If it is to be won, allied governments should learn from Taiwan the best practices for neutralising grey-zone tactics, and share knowledge and technologies to assist its cause. Only with unambiguous, multilateral support from international allies, can Taiwan’s future be secured.

The writer has used a pseudonym to protect their identity

Prospect Magazine · by Elizabeth Green

18. The U.S. Can Afford a Bigger Military. We Just Can’t Build It.

The U.S. Can Afford a Bigger Military. We Just Can’t Build It.

America’s industrial base struggles to ramp up defense production while China’s churns out ever more weapons

https://www.wsj.com/economy/the-u-s-can-afford-a-bigger-military-we-just-cant-build-it-7edd0e74

By Greg Ip

Updated Dec. 6, 2023 12:59 pm ET

The U.S. only builds about 1.5 nuclear submarines a year. PHOTO: U.S. NAVY/ZUMA PRESS

When the Center for Strategic and International Studies simulated a war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, the wargame ended with Taiwan still free, at grievous cost. The U.S. loses two aircraft carriers and up to 20 destroyers and cruisers; China sees more than 50 major surface warships sunk.

What looks like a draw, though, becomes a Chinese victory before long. As Eric Labs, a navy analyst for the Congressional Budget Office explains, China can replace lost ships far more quickly. In the past two years, its navy has grown by 17 cruisers and destroyers; it would take the U.S. six years to build the same number under current conditions, he said.

“In terms of industrial competition and shipbuilding, China is where the U.S. was in the early stages of World War II,” Labs said. In the U.S. now, “we just don’t have the industrial capacity to build warships…in large numbers very fast.”

In 2022, President Biden and Lockheed Martin promised to double production of Javelin antitank missiles by 2024, but that target has been pushed back to 2026. PHOTO: ANDI RICE/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Intensifying security challenges from the western Pacific to Ukraine to the Middle East have fueled debate over whether the U.S. can afford a bigger military. In fact, the more pressing question is whether it can build one—when its principal adversary possesses vast industrial capacity.

U.S. military spending was 3.1% of gross domestic product in the last fiscal year, near the lowest since World War II. Add the $106 billion President Biden has requested in aid primarily for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and the total would still be less than the 4.6% spent at the peak of Iraq and Afghanistan operations in 2010, never mind the 8.9% in 1968, during the Vietnam War. Healthcare, pensions and interest on the debt really do menace the nation’s finances; military outlays don’t.

How the U.S. Is Racing to Build a Drone Fleet to Compete With China

Putin’s Repressions Radicalizing Predominantly Ethnic Russian Regions And Leading Some To Think About Pursuing Independence – OpEd

eurasiareview.com · by Paul Goble

Many in the Kremlin and many of its Russian opponents act on the assumption that predominantly ethnic Russian regions are solidly in Putin’s corner and that as they form such a large part of the area and population of today’s Russian Federation, the possibility of the country’s disintegration is vanishingly small, Vadim Shtepa says.

But a recent conference in Riga devoted to the possibilities of a Free Ingria that would include within its borders seven million people in the area around St. Petersburg not only shattered that assumption, the editor of the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal says, but highlighted something else as well (region.expert/free-ingria/).

And that is this: While activists in most predominantly ethnic Russian regions until very recently have limited their demands to greater autonomy especially in the economic and fiscal sectors, Putin’s increasingly repressive approach since the start of the mass invasion of Ukraine has radicalized opinion of many and led some to talk about independence as a goal.

It is often pointed out, the regionalist expert says, that “the Russian neo-imperial model was in fact constructed by people from St. Petersburg, Putin and his entourage. But it is not as often recognized that with the growing neo-imperialist tendencies in the Kremlin, the regionalist movement has become ever more popular in St. Petersburg itself.”

“Petersburg and more broadly Ingermanland regionalists appeal to the European traditions of their city and region,” traditions that are at odds with the Russian imperial state Putin is seeking to build, Shtepa continues. And that has to worry the Kremlin leader because it strikes at the center of his conception of what his country is like.

The specialist on regions cites the words of the author of these lines more than six years ago that “the greatest fear of Mr. Putin is the appearance of another country where the basic language will be Russian. He cannot admit to himself that such a thing would be possible,” and so he is doing what he can to prevent it (apostrophe.ua/article/politics/2017-07-23/putin-ne-budet-pravit-vechno-ukraine-doljnyi-pomoch-vernut-kryim-i-donbass—politolog-iz-ssha/13526).

And Shtepa also cites my speech to the Riga conference in which I suggested that the Ingria movement is something likely to have a major impact on the prospects for the de-imperialization of the territory currently within the borders of the Russian Federation (region.expert/precedent/).

In the Tallinn-based regionalist’s opinion, “the organizers of the Free Ingria Conference proceeded in a very wise fashion: they did not proclaim independence but rather opened a broad social discussion on themes tat will certainly attract the attention of many Petersburgers both in the emigration and those who remain in the motherland.”

Shtepa praises the meeting for its approach but acknowledges that the sessions in Riga left undiscussed “the key problem” of how to achieve in practice regionalist goals in Ingria. It may be, he concedes, that it may be too early to do that but argues that when elections do return, the Free Ingria Party will certainly occupy a leading position in the St. Petersburg parliament.

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at paul.goble@gmail.com .

eurasiareview.com · by Paul Goble

20. The 2023 War on the Rocks Holiday Reading List

My two recommendations:

George Kennan For Our Time, Lee Congdon.

The Sister: North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, The Most Dangerous Woman in the World, Sung-Yoon Lee.

The 2023 War on the Rocks Holiday Reading List - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by WOTR Staff · December 7, 2023

Kerry Anderson

Unwavering: The Wives Who Fought to Ensure No Man Is Left Behind, Taylor Baldwin Kiland and Judy Silverstein Gray. A deeply researched, personal, and fascinating look into the stories of wives of POWs and MIAs during the Vietnam War who tirelessly advocated to bring home their husbands — and the long-term impact they had on the U.S. military and society. One author is a former Navy officer and the other a retired Coast Guard officer, both with experience writing on military topics, while Taylor has personal connections with some of the families highlighted in the book.

Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World, Zahra Hankir, ed. This anthology offers vividly written, personal accounts by a diverse group of women with experience reporting from Arab countries. These insightful essays offer unique perspectives on war and violence, as well as sharing the authors’ personal aspirations, experiences, and relationships with family, colleagues, and sources.

Tim Ball

Chip War, Chris Miller. Miller provides an excellent overview of the history of microchips and how they’ve developed into an indispensable part of our everyday lives. As the United States continues to eye China as its primary competitor on the international stage, this book is a helpful explainer on the role of semiconductors in America’s national defense industry, and why Taiwan has emerged as key terrain.

By All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations, and Strategy, Michael Vickers. During a career that spanned five decades, Vickers served as an Army Special Forces noncommissioned officer and officer, a CIA officer, and eventually as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. This memoir provides an insider’s perspective on consequential events across the globe, including Vicker’s role as the program officer for the CIA’s operation to arm and finance the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s.

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Mike Benitez

Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat, Robin Higham and Stephen Harris. This book analyzes 13 different failures of various air forces spanning World War I to the Falkland Islands. The historical insights are well-researched, even for obscure failures that most airpower disciples have never heard of, and the lessons are applicable now more than ever.

Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction, Antulio Echevarria II. This book can be read in an hour or two, but don’t let its diminutive size fool you. The simple way it explains and compares various military strategies makes it a very helpful addition to the toolbox.

Nora Bensahel

Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman. After I returned from an epic Arctic cruise this summer, a friend lent me this gem of a book to help keep the spirit of my vacation alive. Gaiman turns the sometimes impenetrable prose of these ancient myths into simple and concise stories that beautifully transport you to the land of the gods, trolls, and giants. Don’t rely on the Marvel Cinematic Universe to tell you all about Thor and his adventures; stretch your imagination by reading the original stories for yourself! You may already know how Thor got his hammer, but you’ll also learn why Odin is called the father of the gods, why Loki is such a trickster, where poetry comes from, and how to tell when the end times are upon us.

The Armor of the Light, Ken Follett. Obsessive followers of WOTR reading lists may recall that, in 2018, I mentioned that The Pillars of the Earth was one of my favorite books, and that I recommended the third book in what became known as the Kingsbridge series. Then, in 2020, I recommended the fourth book in the series (which is actually a prequel). I am pleased to report that this latest installment is just as good as the ones that came before it. It jumps ahead to the late 1700s, when the livelihoods of the good people of Kingsbridge are threatened by new weaving technologies, as well as the revolution and Napoleonic Wars that rage in France. This is a perfect tale to enjoy with a mug of hot chocolate on those cold holiday nights.

Claude Berube

Mao’s Army Goes to Sea: The Island Campaigns and the Founding of China’s Navy, Toshi Yoshihara. This book discusses the founding of the Chinese Navy in 1949 and the manpower, institutional, and resource challenges faced by the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership. It also informs the reader on an operational level of the off-shore campaigns waged by the People’s Liberation Army to seize islands. Yoshihara’s mastery of the material and ability to analyze them make this a must-read.

The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History, Tonio Andrade. Although this work has been out for several years, it’s worth an initial or secondary read. Andrade’s scope and explanation dispel many myths about the evolution of weapons and defenses in both the East and West. Andrade captures the reader’s attention from the first chapter and doesn’t let go until the last. The scope of this book is monumental and the discerning reader should have a pen or pencil handy to underline and take notes on the relevance of innovation and technological evolution to contemporary militaries.

Brad Carson

The Coming Wave, Mustafa Suleyman. Generative AI, synthetic biology, and their regulation (or not) are the most pressing issues of the day, and Suleyman, the founder of DeepMind, gives both a survey of these fields and helpful recommendations for their governance.

Number Go Up, Zeke Faux. When it comes to the history of FTX, SBF, and crypto more broadly, this book delivers in a less-ballyhooed but more interesting way than Michael Lewis’ similar book about the same characters.

Nick Danforth

The Oyster Wars of Chesapeake Bay, John Wennersten. With chapters like “Hell on the Half-Shell,” this book gives the impression that the entire history of the United States could be more dramatically told through the harvesting and marketing of the oyster. A perfect gift for anyone interested in seafood, social banditry, or the Mid-Atlantic region.

How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr. Whether you agree with the thesis, disagree with the thesis, or have been putting off finishing your own more convoluted take on it for months now, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more engaging or wide-ranging example of what popular history should be.

Ryan Evans

Planning for Protraction: A Historically Informed Approach to Great-power War and Sino-US Competition,Iskander Rehman. In his new (and first) book, Iskander Rehman adds some much needed historical sensibility to an important debate, demonstrating his eloquent erudition across different periods, subject matters, and specialties.

Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability, Michael Kimmage. I haven’t read it yet, but this is the book on the Russo-Ukrainian war that I am most looking forward to. I am confident Michael Kimmage will deliver an essential, original, and elegant analysis when this book is out in March of next year.

Richard Fontaine

The Ibis Trilogy, Amitav Ghosh. Three novels — Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire — are set in the years before the First Opium War. The stories connect events in Calcutta, Mauritius, Canton, Hong Kong, and across the Indian Ocean. They are also a linguistic excavation of mixing cultures and people. Good stuff.

Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen. This is a revelatory history of the Vietnam War from Hanoi’s perspective using North Vietnamese archival sources. If you thought Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap were calling the shots, be prepared to be surprised.

Ulrike Franke

Babel, R.F. Kuang. The book starts out as a fantastical story set in the magical Oxford of the British empire. It then develops into a brilliant discussion of colonialization, staging a revolution, and more. A book that will enchant you and make you think at the same time.

Embers, Sándor Márai. I’ve rarely read such an intense book. It is a one-sided discussion of two friends, coming together again after 41 years apart. I recommend reading it without even reading the blurb to avoid spoilers.

Francis Gavin

Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century, Geoffrey Parker. This book was published over a decade ago. In stunning detail, the renowned historian of early modern Europe explores the interconnected global disasters of war, revolution, plague, and famine that wreaked havoc on the 17th-century world, leading to a significant decrease in the human population. Parker convincingly argues that these disparate catastrophes were related to climate change — a global cooling — and the erratic and counterproductive responses by governments around the world that made the situation worse.

Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises, Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman. Blake and Gilman confront the similar crises of our own time — led by global warming but compounded by other potentially catastrophic and interconnected planetary challenges — and explain why our contemporary institutional and governing practices are woefully ill-suited to the moment. They lay out a bold but plausible conceptual and political agenda to reform and reinvent governance to avoid planetary ruin.

T.X. Hammes

Mastering the Art of Command, Trent Hone. This is a brilliant history of how Adm. Nimitz took the Pacific Fleet from a shattered force that lacked confidence to a confident, flexible organization that learned on the fly. In the midst of the biggest naval campaigns in history, Nimitz had to reorganize not just the combat forces but also support, training, and intelligence organization. It describes his deft handling of personnel assignments as well as dealing with two truly difficult figures — Adm. King and Gen. MacArthur.

The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs, Marc David Baer. Baer provides deep insights into the enormous, but largely overlooked in the West, impact the Ottomans had on world history. It covers from the 13th century until the early 20th century and filled a critical gap in my knowledge of this remarkable lineage.

Bruce Hoffman

A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914–1922, David Fromkin. What accounts for the seemingly endless waves of violence, instability, wars, and conflicts that have plagued the Middle East and especially Israel and Palestine for decades? This book explains how the victorious Western Allies (i.e., Britain and France) carved the region up into spheres of influence and created new boundaries and countries from the Ottoman Empire’s former provinces.

The Plot Against America, Philip Roth. Like last year’s selection, The Oppermans, this novel tells the story of a democracy turned authoritarian: in this case after a charismatic, populist, all-American hero turned fascist is elected president. Although the HBO series derived from it has a far less uplifting and optimistic ending, the book is still worth reading for its depiction of how easily a country can be totally transformed — and antisemitism so readily accepted and legitimized.

Frank Hoffman

Planning for Protraction: A Historically Informed Approach to Great-Power War and Sino–US Competition, Iskander Rehman. Rehman is no stranger to these pages and he has recently penned a short book that is extremely relevant to today’s security context. In Planning for Protraction, he offers a historically framed understanding of great-power war, its often extended character, its core drivers and characteristics, and an overview of the factors that have often determined a competitor’s strategic effectiveness over the long term. The author, now at John’s Hopkins University, evidences a broad grasp of history drawing back to the classics. Rehman persuasively concludes that victory in such protracted contests depends upon a combination of three core attributes: a state’s military effectiveness and adaptability, its socioeconomic power and resiliency, and its agile alliance management and grand strategy. For those looking for a sophisticated analysis and general policy proposals to mitigate today’s most serious contemporary challenge, the ongoing Sino–U.S. competition, this is it.

In The Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty-First Century, Dr. Jack Watling. Watling, of the London-based Royal United Services Institute, has authored a concise but rich examination of future warfare trends. He offers some trenchant observations on the future operating environment in the opening section, and then uses that context to evaluate and design tactical formations to be more effective given changes in the character of conflict. This bottom-up-driven force design is very granular but well-presented and meticulously researched. The proposals are also supported by numerous personal observations from experiments, exercises, and field research in Ukraine, where Watling has distinguished himself with numerous short reports. His comments on urban warfare and armor debates are detailed and surely provocative, standing between the proposed reforms of the late David Johnson and the evolutionary arguments of Dr. Stephen Biddle. This book will appeal to civilian policy leaders questioning land warfare requirements and military combat developers struggling to understand what to keep and what to mold.

Burak Kadercan

How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy, John Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato. “States as rational, unitary actors” is one of the most debated themes in international relations theory. In How States Think, the founding father of so-called offensive realism, John Mearsheimer, and his former student, Sebastian Rosato, tackle the question head-on, making a case for the salience of the “rationality assumption” in terms of foreign policy choices. Their arguments may or may not fully convince spectators, but they most certainly deserve their place in the overall discussions about decision-making processes in foreign policy.

Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders, Ayse Zarakol. Modern international relations theory was born as a Western discipline, produced and consumed mostly in the Western world. The specific Eurocentric origins of the discipline, for decades, has ossified an understanding in which many international relations scholars argued that in order to understand “the international,” we have to study the Western experiences, almost ad nauseum. Building on her previous work, Ayse Zarakol offers a powerful corrective to the aforementioned tendency: To understand “the truly international,” students and spectators of world politics should expand their analytical and empirical attention to non-Western cases, which were hardly “footnotes” in terms of the emergence of the present-day global political order.

Dara Massicot

Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov. This book toggles seamlessly from Pontius Pilate’s ancient Jerusalem to Stalin’s Moscow. I return to it to understand the darkness in Moscow that emerges periodically.

Memory Makers, Dr. Jade McGlynn. This book discusses how memory and history are manipulated in Russia. Some experiences, like World War II, are a wound that Russian authorities will not allow to heal, and so the manipulated memories fester.

David Maxwell

George Kennan For Our Time, Lee Congdon. George Kennan remains relevant. We should continue to study his life and his lessons, and appreciate his literary skills as he is an exemplar for all national security practitioners. He was not always right but he was a passionate patriot who sought to do what is right for America by helping us to understand our adversaries, most importantly the Soviet Union. We need his critical thinking for today’s national security challenges.

The Sister: North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, The Most Dangerous Woman in the World, Sung-Yoon Lee. Is the title hyperbole? No, it is not if you understand that what happens on the Korean peninsula will have global effects. As we try to read the tea leaves about regime succession it is imperative that we understand the influence of Kim Yo Jong on the regime. She wields more power than anyone in the north save for her brother. And she is dangerous.

Bryan McGrath

Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties, Paul Johnson. I had heard of this much talked-about book for decades, but only recently took the time to read it. My goodness, such sweep and depth! The origins of Leninism, Fascism, Nazi-ism; the rise of the United States and the fall of the British Empire; it is all here in what can only be described as beautiful writing.

Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq, Melvyn P. Leffler. Hard to read this book and cling to the notion that “Bush lied.” Easy to read this book and cling to the notion that the team bungled the implementation, badly.

Erin O’Brien

The Age of the Strongman, Gideon Rachman. This book, released in 2022, feels like an important reflection on our current political moment. Rachman reviews, in easily digestible chapters, the roster of “strongman” leaders that have come to dominate global politics – learning about them in a collective is extremely helpful in understanding the links between their ideologies.

1984, George Orwell. After reading Rachmann’s book, I decided to re-read Orwell’s dystopian 1984. I certainly found it had more resonance now than when I first read it in middle school. I recommend a re-read for those who may have forgotten it. I found myself underlining quite a lot. It felt very relevant in our current moment.

A Very Easy Death, Simone de Beauvoir. This short – but impeccably written – account of de Beauvoir’s mother’s death is a quick but heart-wrenching one. I found it a very important reflection on family and love – could make good reading around the holidays.

Stacie Pettyjohn

Feeding Victory, Jobie Turner. This book highlights an underappreciated aspect of warfare logistics that has risen to the headlines because of the war in Ukraine. The five case studies span from the French and Indian War to Vietnam, and trace the evolution of transportation technologies across domains. Turner’s well-written narrative demonstrates that the combatant that had secure supply lines and could transition between modes of transportation while under attack tended to prevail. As Chris Dougherty highlighted in his CNAS report, Buying Time: Logistics for a New American Way of War, this is an area where the Pentagon needs to make considerable improvements. It could learn from Turner’s historical analysis about how to support distributed operations across the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean.

Elvis’s Army: Cold War GIs and the Atomic Battlefield, Brian McAllister Linn. This book is less about Elvis Presley and more about the brief period in which the U.S. Army embraced nuclear warfighting. Due to the Army’s lackluster performance in the Korean War and Eisenhower’s New Look strategy, the service’s prestige and resources declined precipitously in the 1950s. In a misguided attempt to be relevant, Chief of Staff Gen. Maxwell Taylor undertook a wholesale reform and made nuclear weapons central to how the Army organized, trained, and planned to fight. Yet the Pentomic Division was a disaster because operational concepts were based on a faulty understanding of nuclear weapons’ effects and many of the tactical nuclear weapons were not reliable or practical. The Army’s nuclear transformation exacerbated recruitment and readiness challenges, leaving the service smaller and less capable than before. A service’s desire for relevance and a central warfighting role against the priority threat has echoes in the discussions today about the Army’s role in the Indo-Pacific. It also highlights the risks of overly focusing on emerging technologies as the key determinant of combat capability.

Mike Pietrucha

Starships’ Mage, Glynn Stewart. A unique blend of science fiction and fantasy where starships exist, but need magic, and thus mages, to go faster than light.

Fire With Fire, Dr. Charles Gannon. Straight, hard sci-fi with a brilliantly conceived future galaxy, full of twists and very, very difficult to put down. For when you catch some winter respiratory disease that puts you in bed for a couple of days.

Christopher Preble

Dying by the Sword: The Militarization of US Foreign Policy, Monica Duffy Toft and Sidita Kushi. With a nearly $1 trillion Pentagon budget, it is easy to see how and why U.S. foreign policy is overmilitarized: Spending drives policy. But the reverse is also true. And our fragile and fractured political system could not sustain such enormous spending if many Americans didn’t actually believe that a massive and active military advances U.S. interests. Toft and Kushi document how we got here and close with a warning of what could happen if we don’t change course.

Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman. You might think that all that Pentagon spending creates a military that is the most important tool in the U.S. policy arsenal. Reading Farrell and Newman’s book might change your mind. Alas, the fast-paced narrative might also convince you that that thing which is actually the foundation of US power — a $23 trillion economy — isn’t effectively wielded by anyone, and that attempts to weaponize it could backfire in countless ways.

Iskander Rehman

JFK: Coming of an Age in the American Century, 1917–1959, Fredrik Logevall. One of the finest biographical studies I have ever come across. An epic, eminently readable, and often surprisingly moving examination not only of JFK’s early years, but also of multiple generations of Kennedy strivers and hustlers. The late Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie once quipped that historians all too often fell into two broad categories: They were “either truffle hunters, their noses buried in the details, or parachutists, hanging high in the air and looking for general patterns in the countryside far below them.” In this riveting first tome, Logevall somehow manages to fuse both approaches, and to masterly effect. His granular deep-dive into the Kennedy clan thus serves as a narrative prism through which the reader is catapulted into the dramatic events and roiling passions surrounding the United States’ meteoric rise over the turbulent first half of the 20th century. In short, this is not just the story of a preternaturally talented young Irish-American coming of age, it’s also the tale of an adolescent superpower coming to terms with its raw strength and newfound preponderance in the international system. Like many, I await the forthcoming sequel with bated breath.

Understanding Greek Warfare, Matthew A. Sears. A perfect introduction to Ancient Greek warfare and strategy. Comprehensive, elegantly framed, and clearly written — in an ideal world this book would be assigned reading in any Introduction to Strategic Studies course.

Emma Salisbury

Command: How the Allies Learned to Win the Second World War, Al Murray. Although best known in the United Kingdom for his comedy, Murray shows with this book that he is also a talented historian. Structured around the careers of 10 British and American commanders across multiple theaters — from the famous to the less well-known — Command explores the characters and challenges that each man faced in the crucible of war. Murray achieves this without falling victim to the “great man” theory of history, unusually for books focusing on military leaders, resulting in an engaging and novel approach to a period that still has a lot to teach us.

The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia, Mark Galeotti. It is impossible to understand modern Russia without appreciating the impact of organized crime, and there is no better place to start than here. Galeotti’s expertise shines through his ever-excellent writing in this history of the Russian version of the mafia, the vory v zakone. Piercing through the commonly overblown legends of vory rituals and blood oaths, Galeotti explores how the blurred lines between crime, law enforcement, and politics that weave throughout their story help us to understand the kleptocracy ruling Russia today.

Jeremy Shapiro

The Wizard of the Kremlin, Guiliano da Empoli. This novel from an Italian writer, originally written in French, tells the story of the rise and corruption of the Vladimir Putin regime. The protagonist, Vadim Baranov, is a thinly veiled fictionalization of Vladislav Surkov, a leading “political technocrat” in the Kremlin through much of Putin’s reign. It is fiction (I think), but it rings eerily true.

Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology, Anu Bradford. The next cold war seems likely to be fought in drab seminar rooms in Switzerland between warring bureaucrats seeking to use regulation to seize national advantages in the technologies and industries of the future. Bradford explains how the United States, China, and the European Union are each advancing a competing vision for the digital economy, while attempting to use regulatory methods to expand their sphere of influence in the digital world.

John Spencer

Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, Serhii Plokhy. A detailed history of Ukraine, from Ancient to modern times, to include the development of Russia. The book should be required reading for all decision-makers, academics, or analysts studying the current Russia–Ukraine War.

Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices, Moses Hassan Yousef. A unique first-hand account of the development of the Hamas terrorist organization. The author is the son of one of the cofounders of Hamas who turned Israeli informant. He gives a unique view into Hamas as an organization in Gaza, a gang in Israeli prisons, and a military branch controlled by political groups outside Gaza and Israel.

Kori Schake

The Cutting-Off Way: Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500–1800, Wayne E. Lee. The absence of studies of the wars against Native populations is a huge chasm in American strategic thought. Yet, the U.S. military fought 943 military actions against Native American tribes between 1768 and 1889, and those wars provided the genesis of much of American military culture. Wayne Lee understands the Native American side of the equation better than any of us and provides an essential window into why they fought the way they did, making clear their strategies and how those married their circumstances.

The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles. Hard to imagine Towles improving on the exquisite A Gentlemen in Moscow, but he does with this beautiful novel of Americana, a fresh and exciting contender for the Great American Novel. This hero is unassuming and worthy, his villains vivid and unique, the action propelling and unpredictable.

Daybreak, Matt Gallagher. We are living through such a renaissance of veteran’s writing, and Matt Gallagher is one of the very best. Daybreak is set in the Russia–Ukraine war, exploring the motivations and fates of Americans who go to fight with Ukraine. It’s an unsparing but empathetic character study — but it’s so much more than that. Reading it brought to mind the masterful work of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Aaron Stein

Radar Man, Edward Lovick Jr. This is a wonderful — if slightly disjointed — account of the development of stealth from an engineering perspective. It walks someone like me — a laymen — through the development of the technologies to reduce an aircraft’s radar cross section.

The Big Show: The Classical Account of World War II Aerial Combat, Pierre Clostermann. This book is a classic. It is a wonderful walk through history. And a fun read about World War II aerial combat over Europe, from early Scud hunts to dogfights with the Luftwaffe.

Becca Wasser

The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have been Won and Lost, Cathal J. Nolan. This book cuts through the fawning greatness of military genius and the romanticism of decisive battle to highlight the grim realities of long wars and their grinding attritional nature.

DS Maeve Kerrigan Series, Jane Casey. When I’m not reading about war, I like to read about murder. Jane Casey’s DS Maeve Kerrigan Series is the perfect mix: compelling characters, slowly unfolding and complex mysteries, strong writing, and British charm.

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Lists and Contests

warontherocks.com · by WOTR Staff · December 7, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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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