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Quotes of the Day:


“The best way to strengthen U.S. special operations posture is a subjective matter. Options are profuse, and often complex. Some are susceptible to unilateral implementation by the Executive Branch. Congress must legislate others. 

Options below are illustrative starting points for improvement. US leaders probably should consider alternatives carefully, before they approve proposals that overlook standards described.

Steps to strengthen U.S. special operations high command/control structure seem advisable at three levels: national staff, OSD/JCS staff, and a military SOF command.

A small staff, perhaps appended or reporting to the National Security Council (NSC), could ensure close and continuous special operations coordination between the Executive Branch and Congress, between top-level special operations elements in the Executive Branch, and between country teams and U.S. allies. Its director might be vested with the authority to:

--Act as the president's representative dealing with Congress on interdepartmental, interagency, and international special operations matters.
 
 --Issue interdepartmental slash interagency special operations planning and programming guidance, then ensure compliance. 
 
--Set interdepartmental and interagency standards coordinate, and supervise resultant policies, plans, programs, and activities worldwide.” 

-John M. Collins, United States and Soviet Special Operations, p.66-67 (1987)

“All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed.  Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” 
- Arthur Schopenhauer

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” 
- George Bernard Shaw



1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 7 (Putin's War)

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (07.11.22) CDS comments on key events

3. More Than a Dozen States Have Activated the National Guard to Secure Midterm Elections

4. Advance work in Ukraine blunted Russian cyber advantage, US says

5. Pentagon Unveils New U.S. Command and More Ukraine Aid

6. Biden Calls for a Free Iran

7. Now Is Not the Time to Negotiate with Putin

8. Norway bulks up artillery with new K9 howitzer agreement, tank contract set for year end (From South Korea)

9. The Obvious Climate Strategy Nobody Will Talk About

10. Russia's Prigozhin admits interfering in U.S. elections

11. Russia has nearly 120 Iskander missiles left in stock - intelligence

12.Taiwan Prepares to Be Invaded

13. Don’t Panic About Putin

14. Putin’s Stalin Phase

15. Wargaming Climate Change: Who Plays for the Red Team?

16. The Problematic Symptom of Donald J. Trump

17. Ukraine doubles down on tough stance on talks with Russia

18. 3 Takeaways From International Fleet Review 2022 in Japan

19. Big Mismatch Between the Biden Administration’s New Defense Plan and an Underfunded U.S. Navy 

20. Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv Lauds Arrival Of NASAMS, Aspide Air Defense Systems

21. Ukraine’s Zelensky Sets Conditions for ‘Genuine’ Peace Talks With Russia




1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 7 (Putin's War)





​Maps/graphics: ​https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-7


Key Takeaways

  • The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) issued a rare statement on November 7 in response to extensive Russian milblogger outcry about reported extensive losses and poor command within the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Pacific Fleet.
  • The Russian pro-war siloviki faction (including Yevgeny Prigozhin and Ramzan Kadyrov) is increasing its influence in part to advance personal interests in Russia and occupied Ukraine, not strictly to win the war.
  • Russian forces have greatly depleted their arsenal of high-precision weapons systems and have suffered significant aviation losses and will likely struggle to maintain the current pace of the Russian military’s coordinated campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure.
  • Russian occupation authorities likely began a new phase of evacuations from Kherson Oblast.
  • Russian troops continued efforts to fix Ukrainian troops against the international border in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast.
  • Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian troops continued counteroffensive operations in the Svatove direction.
  • Russian sources claimed that Russian troops conducted limited counterattacks to regain lost positions west of Kreminna.
  • Russian sources widely claimed that proxy and Wagner Group troops entered the outskirts of Bilohorivka.
  • Russian sources reported that Ukrainian troops are massing in the Kherson Oblast direction.
  • Russian troops continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
  • Ukrainian forces conducted limited interdiction efforts against Russian concentration areas in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to make public statements and signed additional decrees to portray himself as taking steps to fix fundamental problems with partial mobilization in Russia.
  • Russian and occupation officials continue to abduct Ukrainian children, intimidate civilians, and escalate filtration measures.



RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 7

Nov 7, 2022 - Press ISW


understandingwar.org

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 7

Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, Madison Williams, and Mason Clark

November 7, 8pm ET

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

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) issued a rare statement on November 7 in response to extensive Russian milblogger outcry on November 6 about reported extensive losses and poor command within the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Pacific Fleet. Russian milbloggers published and circulated a letter that claimed Russian military leadership “threw” the brigade into an “incomprehensible offensive” near Pavlivka, Donetsk Oblast, where it suffered losses amounting to over 300 killed, wounded, and missing and lost half of its equipment, all within four days. The letter explicitly blamed Eastern Military District Commander Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, 155th Naval Infantry Brigade Commander Colonel Zurab Akhmedov, and Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov for the brigade’s losses and called on Primorsky Krai Governor Oleg Kozhemyako to conduct an independent review of the actions of the officers involved in planning and conducting the recent Russian offensive push in western Donetsk Oblast.[1] The tone of many Russian milblogger responses to the letter resembles the response following the destruction of a Russian motorized rifle brigade crossing the SIverskyi Donets River on May 11, after which many pro-war milbloggers increased their direct criticism of the Russian military.[2]

The Russian MoD issued a rare response on November 7 to the outcry on and claimed that less than one percent of the brigade was killed and less than seven percent was wounded within the past 10 days, and that Ukrainian forces suffered high losses instead.[3] Kozhemyako also sought to address the outcry and claimed that the brigade’s losses are greatly exaggerated and (without providing evidence) speculated that the letter was a product of Ukrainian special services.[4] Kozhemyako stated that he contacted the brigade’s command and referred the case to the Russian military prosecutor.[5] Some Russian milbloggers agreed, claiming that Russian losses could not be as high as the brigade claimed, even calling the brigade’s letter exaggerated or fake.[6] The Russian MoD has remained remarkably tight-lipped about milblogger critiques of Russian failures throughout the war in Ukraine — unlike the Kremlin, which will occasionally indirectly address milblogger narratives. The MoD’s public response to milblogger outcry indicates that some Russian milbloggers have considerable leverage to shape MoD interactions in the information space and additionally suggests that the situation in Pavlivka is dire enough to warrant a response.

Discourse regarding the widespread failures of the Russian military establishment has pervaded beyond the milblogger information space and is increasingly coloring social dynamics. Russian milbloggers stated that women, presumably relatives of Russian military and mobilized personnel, have been calling attention to the failing state of the war by reaching out to milbloggers and local government officials.[7] ISW has observed multiple instances of Russian military personnel’s wives and mothers advocating for their relatives serving in the military by reaching out to local officials and prominent Russian milbloggers since the beginning of partial mobilization in late September.[8] The Russian MoD’s failure to properly address these systemic issues and their root causes will likely exacerbate these societal tensions throughout the war.

The Russian pro-war siloviki faction is increasing its influence in part to advance personal interests in Russia and occupied Ukraine, not strictly to win the war. Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin confirmed on November 6 that Wagner is opening training and management centers for people’s militias in Kursk and Belgorod oblasts that will function outside of the Russian Armed Forces.[9] ISW previously assessed that Prigozhin is undertaking efforts to strengthen his independent power base following his reported meeting with Kursk Oblast businessmen on the creation of regional people’s militia that symbolically occurred on Russia’s Unity Day (November 4).[10] Prigozhin emphasized that Russian officials must assign regional businesses the responsibility to supply the militia rather than relying on the Kremlin. Prigozhin’s Unity Day media appearances also captured the same notion of cooperation between the Russian government and business, which likely indicates that he is attempting to grow his Wagner-focused power base in Russia while undercutting unified Russian operations in Ukraine. Prigozhin also started construction of an independent fortification dubbed the “Wagner Line” in Belgorod Oblast in late October.[11] Prigozhin consistently defames St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov, and the recent grand opening of the Wagner Center in St. Petersburg on Unity Day may suggest that Prigozhin is attempting to infiltrate the city’s business sphere.[12]

Another member of the siloviki party, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, is also reportedly attempting to secure business opportunities on the back of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Resistance Center noted that Kadyrov and his field commanders are growing business networks in the occupied territories, and Ukrainian officials previously claimed that Kadyrov’s men received loot from Mariupol for their participation in the seizure of the city in March­–April.[13] ISW cannot independently verify the validity of these Ukrainian statements, but Kadyrov is behaving in line with Prigozhin by advertising enlistment into his forces and undermining the formal Russian Armed Forces.[14] Kadyrov, for example, advertised his provision of military equipment to a proxy unit in occupied Donetsk Oblast on November 7; and Prigozhin similarly provided equipment to a Russian unit prior.[15]

Both Prigozhin and Kadyrov remain independent figures within Russia due to Putin’s dependency on their forces in Ukraine. Russian journalists often ask Prigozhin about his ambitions for the Kremlin, which despite his repeated denials, show that he has created a public perception of his possibly entering a position of power.[16] Such discussions deviate from Putin’s decades-long positioning of himself as the only viable leader for Russia. Prigozhin also likely maintains his access to key Kremlin officials, and the Ukrainian Resistance Center even reported that he had an unofficial meeting with Putin’s administration head Anton Vaino.[17] Prigozhin and Vaino allegedly discussed Putin’s negative influence over the Russian military campaign and distaste for Russian higher military command. The existence of this meeting is impossible to confirm in open sources, but Western officials previously confirmed that Prigozhin directly addressed Putin regarding military failures in Ukraine in October.[18]

Prigozhin is continuing to pose himself as a Russian strongman within foreign affairs by promoting his own engagement in election interference. Prigozhin sarcastically acknowledged Bloomberg reports regarding his involvement in the US 2022 midterm elections, telling US government–funded outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: “Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere.”[19] Prigozhin’s admission to a US publication a day prior to US elections on November 8 likely intends both to undermine public perception of the validity of election results and promote Prigozhin to a Russian audience as a capable actor — in line with Prigozhin’s previous public admittance that he finances the Wagner Group, which he previously denied for years.

Russian forces have greatly depleted their arsenal of high-precision weapons systems and have suffered significant aviation losses and will likely struggle to maintain the current pace of the Russian military’s coordinated campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure. Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Valeryi Zaluzhnyi stated on November 3 that Ukrainian forces have destroyed 278 aircraft compared to the Soviet Union’s loss of 119 aircraft during 10 years of war in Afghanistan.[20] The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on November 7 that Russian forces are unlikely to replace these aviation losses in the next few months because they likely significantly outstrip Russian capacity to manufacture new airframes.[21] Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) representative Vadym Skitbitsky stated in a comment to the Economist on November 7 that Russian forces have used more than eighty percent of their modern missiles in the coordinated campaign to strike Ukrainian infrastructure and that Russian forces only have 120 Iskander missiles left.[22] ISW previously assessed that Russia has depleted its arsenal of high-precision weapon systems in its campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure, which is intended to degrade Ukrainian popular will (but is highly unlikely to succeed).[23] Ukrainian sources reported on November 7 that Ukrainian officials and engineers could restore power supplies to normal levels in a few weeks if the pace of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure dramatically slowed.[24] Skitbitsky also reported that Russian officials have reached an agreement with Iranian officials to purchase Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar ballistic missile systems.[25] ISW has previously assessed that Russian forces are increasingly reliant on Iranian-made weapon systems to support its coordinated strike campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure.[26]

Russian occupation authorities are likely beginning a new phase of evacuations from Kherson Oblast. Kherson occupation deputy Kirill Stremousov stated that November 7 will be the last day of organized evacuations from the west bank of the Dnipro River.[27] A Russian milblogger similarly noted that November 7 is the end of centralized evacuations in Kherson Oblast and that private evacuates will continue from November 8.[28] Russian sources reported that the last boat transporting civilians from Kherson City to the east bank of the Dnipro departed on November 8 due to concerns of “increased threats to the civilian population.”[29] The purported shift from centralized to privatized evacuation efforts suggests that Russian occupation officials have completed evacuation under formal guidelines and will increasingly continue evacuations from areas in Kherson Oblast on a more ad hoc and case-by-case basis. Russian officials may also be setting further information conditions to accuse Ukrainian forces of endangering civilian life by framing the end of centralized, administration-led evacuations as necessary to protect civilians.

Key Takeaways

  • The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) issued a rare statement on November 7 in response to extensive Russian milblogger outcry about reported extensive losses and poor command within the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Pacific Fleet.
  • The Russian pro-war siloviki faction (including Yevgeny Prigozhin and Ramzan Kadyrov) is increasing its influence in part to advance personal interests in Russia and occupied Ukraine, not strictly to win the war.
  • Russian forces have greatly depleted their arsenal of high-precision weapons systems and have suffered significant aviation losses and will likely struggle to maintain the current pace of the Russian military’s coordinated campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure.
  • Russian occupation authorities likely began a new phase of evacuations from Kherson Oblast.
  • Russian troops continued efforts to fix Ukrainian troops against the international border in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast.
  • Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian troops continued counteroffensive operations in the Svatove direction.
  • Russian sources claimed that Russian troops conducted limited counterattacks to regain lost positions west of Kreminna.
  • Russian sources widely claimed that proxy and Wagner Group troops entered the outskirts of Bilohorivka.
  • Russian sources reported that Ukrainian troops are massing in the Kherson Oblast direction.
  • Russian troops continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
  • Ukrainian forces conducted limited interdiction efforts against Russian concentration areas in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to make public statements and signed additional decrees to portray himself as taking steps to fix fundamental problems with partial mobilization in Russia.
  • Russian and occupation officials continue to abduct Ukrainian children, intimidate civilians, and escalate filtration measures.


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

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

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

Eastern Ukraine: (Eastern Kharkiv Oblast-Western Luhansk Oblast)

Russian forces likely continued efforts to fix Ukrainian troops on the international border in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast by conducting minor cross-border attacks on November 6. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 6 that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian attack on Zybyne, a settlement in northern Kharkiv Oblast about 3km south of the Russian border.[30] Geolocated footage posted to social media on November 6 additionally depicts Russian troops digging trenches near the international border in Belgorod Oblast.[31] As ISW has previously reported, such actions are likely intended to fix Ukrainian troops against the northern international border but do not presage a major Russian offensive (that Russian forces do not have the capacity to conduct), preventing some Ukrainian troops needed to screen the border from pursuing offensive operations elsewhere in Ukraine.[32]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian troops continued counteroffensive operations in the Svatove direction on November 6 and 7. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed on November 7 that Ukrainian forces attacked Nizhnya Duvanka, about 15km north of Svatove along the R66 Svatove-Kreminna highway.[33] Russian sources, including the Russian MoD, additionally reported that Ukrainian troops attempted to advance towards Novoselivske, 14km northwest of Svatove, on November 6 and 7.[34] A Russian milblogger noted on November 7 that fighting in the area northwest of Svatove has taken on a “positional nature” characterized by episodic and unsuccessful attempts by both Ukrainian and Russian troops to break through the frontline.[35] Another Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the Russian 1st Guards Tank Army are holding defensive positions around Svatove.[36] A Russian source posted footage of Russian forces firing a TOS-1 thermobaric multiple rocket launch system at Ukrainian positions around Svatove.[37] The use of such a military-district-level asset in this area may suggest either that Russian forces are increasingly prioritizing the defense of the Svatove-Kreminna line, or that Russian troops have largely exhausted munitions that would be more appropriate for the type of close-quarters artillery exchanges that are common in this area.

Russia forces conducted limited counterattacks to regain lost positions west of Kreminna on November 6 and 7. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops repelled Russian assaults in the direction of Yampolivka (17km west of Kreminna) on November 6 and in the direction of Yampil (18km southwest of Kreminna) on November 7.[38] Russian sources also reported that Russian troops launched limited counterattacks west of Kreminna towards Yampolivka and Makiivka on November 7.[39] The Russian MoD and Russian milbloggers claimed on both November 6 and 7 that Ukrainian troops continued counteroffensive attacks northwest of Kreminna and unsuccessfully attempted to advance on Ploshchanka and Chervonopopivka, 10km and 5km northwest of Kreminna, respectively.[40]

Russian sources widely claimed that proxy and Wagner Group troops entered Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna) on November 7. Several Russian milbloggers claimed the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) 6th Cossack Regiment and Wagner Group forces entered Bilohorivka after months of heavy fighting along the Donetsk-Luhansk Oblast border and that fighting is continuing in residential areas of the settlement.[41] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops attacked Bilohorivka on November 6 but did not confirm Russian claims that Russian forces have entered the settlement.[42] The Ukrainian General Staff also noted that a Ukrainian strike damaged a unit of the Chechen Akhmat battalion in Lysychansk, about 10km east of Bilohorivka, on November 7.[43] Russian forces likely seek to regain lost positions along the Donetsk-Luhansk Oblast border to push Ukrainian troops further away from the critical Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area.


Southern Ukraine: (Kherson Oblast)

Russian forces continued defensive preparations in Kherson Oblast on November 6 and 7. Ukrainian military sources reported that Russian troops are attempting to hold occupied lines in the Kherson direction.[44] Russian and Ukrainian sources continued to claim that Russian troops are facilitating the evacuation of civilians from the west bank of the Dnipro River, indicating continued concern over Ukrainian advances.[45] Geolocated satellite imagery from October 29, November 3, and November 4 shows Russian defensive lines in Kakhovka (70km east of Kherson City), Hola Prystan (8km southwest of Kherson City), and Ivanivka (60km southwest of Kherson City) — all of which lie on the east bank of the Dnipro River.[46]

Russian sources widely claimed on November 6 and 7 that Ukrainian forces are amassing in the Kherson direction. Kherson Occupation deputy Kirill Stremousov and Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces are pulling troops to the Kherson Oblast border in preparation for the next stage of their counteroffensive.[47] The Russian MoD and other Russian sources additionally claimed that Ukrainian troops attacked Russian positions along the current frontline in northern Kherson Oblast and in western Kherson Oblast near the Kherson-Mykolaiv Oblast border on November 6 and 7.[48] Russian sources additionally claimed that Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups blew up three power lines along the Beryslav-Kakhovka road and cut electricity supply to the Beryslav area.[49]

Ukrainian forces continued their interdiction campaign against Russian concentration areas throughout Kherson Oblast on November 6 and 7. Geolocated footage posted on November 6 shows the aftermath of a Ukrainian strike on the “Golden Pheasant” hotel in Radensk (about 23km southeast of Kherson City), where Russian troops reportedly resided.[50] Ukrainian military sources confirmed that Ukrainian strikes successfully targeted a large Russian concentration area in Radensk, as well as in the Beryslav Raion and Hola Prystan.[51] Residents of Nova Kakhovka (60km east of Kherson City) and Oleshky (8km south of Kherson City) posted imagery of smoke following reported Ukrainian strikes on November 7.[52]


Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued offensive operation around Bakhmut on November 6 and 7. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults within a 26km radius northeast of Bakhmut near Bakhmutske, Berestove, and Yakovlivka and within a 20km radius south of Bakhmut near Andriivka, Mayorsk, Ozarianivka, and Opytne on November 6 and 7.[53] Geolocated footage posted on November 6 shows Russian forces operating south of Bakhmut in Ivanhrad.[54] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces took full control of Ivanhrad on November 6 and are continuing to conduct offensive operations south of Bakhmut to take Opytne as of November 7.[55] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Deputy Interior Minister Vitaly Kiselev claimed that Wagner Group units broke through Ukrainian forces’ first lines of defense in Bakhmut on November 6.[56] A Russian milblogger claimed on November 6 that Wagner PMC elements are attacking in the direction of Bakhmut from three directions: near Klishchiivka south of Bakhmut, near Ivanhrad southeast of Bakhmut, and on the eastern city limits of Bakhmut.[57] Another Russian milblogger claimed on November 7 that the actions of Wagner Group units in the Bakhmut area have caused Ukrainian forces to suffer substantial losses, although ISW cannot independently verify this claim.[58]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area on November 6 and 7. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults within a 27km radius south of Avdiivka near Makiivka, Marinka, and Krasnohorivka on November 6 and 7.[59] Donetsk People’s Republic People’s (DNR) Militia claimed on November 6 that the DNR Sparta Battalion and other Russian military units captured former Ukrainian positions in the vicinity of the Donetsk City Airport.[60] The commander of the Sparta Battalion, Artyom Joga, claimed on November 7 that his units completed a complete clean-up of the Donetsk City airport and pushed Ukrainian forces past the E-50 highway in the area.[61] A Russian milblogger claimed on November 6 that Russian forces also conducted an assault northeast of Avdiivka on Kamianka to control a section of the N-20 highway.[62] DNR First Deputy Information Minister Danil Bezsonov claimed on November 7 that Russian forces are making steady progress southwest of Avdiivka near Opytne (4km southwest of Avdiivka) and Vodyane.[63] A BARS-13 (Russian combat reserves) source claimed on November 7 that Russian forces are also continuing offensive operations southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske.[64]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast on November 6 and 7. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Pavlivka and Novomyhailivka, Donetsk Oblast on November 6 and 7.[65] Russian sources widely described Russian offensive operations near Pavlivka as slow moving or as not going well, with one Russian milblogger stating that everything in Pavlivka “is objectively bad.”[66] One Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces have not made significant progress near Pavlivka nor Novomykhailivka, and that fighting in these areas are increasingly becoming positional battles.[67] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces are experiencing a dilemma in the Pavlivka area in which they must withdraw exhausted units but do not have available fresh units to replace them.[68] Another Russian milblogger claimed on November 6 that Russian forces launched assaults on Novomykhailivka as well as Kostyantinivka to increase pressure on the Ukrainian garrison in Marinka.[69] Bezsonov claimed on November 7 that weather and mud in the Vuhledar direction is making it difficult for Russian forces to advance through fields and establish logistics.[70] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued routine indirect fire along the line of contact in Donetsk Oblast and eastern Zaporizhia Oblast on November 6 and 7.[71]


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

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Shcherbaky, Zaporizhia Oblast (45km southeast of Zaporizhzhia City) on November 7.[72] Russian forces continued routine air, missile, and artillery strikes west of Hulyaipole and in Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv oblasts on November 6 and 7.[73] Ukrainian military sources reported that Russian forces struck Nikopol and other settlements along the contact line in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and Zaporizhia Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, and on the Black Sea coast between November 5 and 7.[74] Russian sources reported that Russian forces destroyed two Ukrainian ammunition depots in the Orikhiv area west of Hulyaipole on November 7.[75] Ukrainian military sources reported on November 6 that the situation in Zaporizhia Oblast and surrounding areas has not significantly changed because Russian forces continue to focus on maintaining current occupation borders in the region.[76] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command notably reported that Russian forces used at least three loitering munitions to attack areas in Mykolaiv Oblast on November 6 and noted that Ukrainian air defenses shot down one drone in Mykolaiv Oblast.[77] The Zaporizhia Oblast Military Administration also reported that Russian forces launched S-300 anti-aircraft missiles at Hulyaipole between November 5 and 6.[78]

Ukrainian forces conducted limited interdiction efforts against Russian concentration areas in Zaporizhia Oblast on November 6.[79] Zaporizhia Oblast Military Administration confirmed on November 6 that Ukrainian forces struck Russian concentration areas south of Hulyaipole near Basan, Polohy, and Marfopil and destroyed up to 30 units of Russian military equipment and wounded around 120 Russian servicemen.[80] Zaporizhia Oblast occupation deputy Vladimir Rogov reported that Russian forces are constructing fortified positions north of Russian-occupied Zaporizhia Oblast and are expecting an attack before November 8.[81]

Russian authorities consolidated control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) amid continued Ukrainian raids in the area on November 6.[82] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on November 6 that Russian occupation authorities at the ZNPP tried to blackmail Ukrainian ZNPP employees into signing Russian contracts, which require accepting Russian Federation citizenship, by the end of November.[83] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that these Russian contracts will require Ukrainian ZNPP employees to disperse to nuclear power plants throughout the territory of the Russian Federation.[84] This suggests that Russian authorities seek to transfer ZNPP over to Russia completely by replacing Ukrainian employees with Russian employees, as ISW has previously assessed.[85] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also reported on November 5 that power to ZNPP is fully restored after shelling damaged power to ZNPP on November 3.[86] Meanwhile, footage from November 5 showed Ukrainian Special Forces conducting operations north of Enerhodar, crossing the Dnipro River.[87] Ukrainian troops have likely continued limited raids across the Kakhovka Reservoir towards Enerhodar.

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

Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to make public statements and signed additional decrees to portray himself as fixing fundamental problems with partial mobilization in Russia. Putin signed a decree on November 7 increasing the staffing of the Russian prosecutor’s office by 3,000 prosecutors, of which 400 are military prosecutors.[88] Russian outlets reported that the increase in staffing relates to the annexation of four Ukrainian territories, but the decree is also likely associated with Putin’s previous prosecutor staffing increases to punish military commissariats for poor execution of the partial mobilization rollout.[89] Putin additionally promised to directly meet with people to discuss concerns over providing support to the mobilized.[90] Putin has also signed a law that allows for the termination of employee contracts with limited liability companies (LLC) in case of the mobilization of the owner of the company. ISW previously reported on instances of mobilization of business owners, and Russian officials may continue to use this clause to seize or close down unfavorable private businesses.[91] Putin has also noted that up to 80,000 mobilized personnel have entered the combat zone as of November 7, with 50,000 operating within combat units.[92]

Russian forces are continuing to subject newly mobilized men to poor living conditions that are leaving many men demoralized or sick or both. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Russian units in Belarus are mostly composed of newly mobilized men who live in field tents without proper sanitary conditions. The GUR noted that many mobilized men in Belarus are suffering from respiratory illnesses as a result of such unsuitable living conditions.[93] Belarusian doctors are reportedly overwhelmed with the number of ill mobilized servicemen, prompting Russian forces to deploy additional medical units to the Belarusian training grounds. The GUR added that regular Russian servicemen live in normal conditions and noted that there is an increasing number of ethnically charged conflicts between Belarusian and Russian servicemen. Social media footage also showed a serviceman with a Caucasian accent humiliating a Russian serviceman who was apologizing for offending his religion, indicating that Russian forces continue to face religious conflicts despite the Kremlin’s rhetoric of supporting Russia’s diversity.[94] There are also reported instances of harassment against mobilized men who return from the frontlines.[95]

Russian forces continue to face challenges preventing desertion and disciplining mobilized men. Russian opposition outlets reported that families of 21 detained mobilized men from Primorsky Krai appealed to Russian authorities regarding their wrongful mobilization and their poor living conditions within a detention center in occupied Donetsk Oblast.[96] The relatives claimed that Russian commanders even threatened to kill the mobilized men if they continued to refuse to fight.[97] A pro-war Russian milblogger also noted that the relatives still cannot contact mobilized servicemen operating on the Kreminna-Svatove line due to the irresponsibility of Russian higher military command.[98] Russian police also failed to control 350 drunk mobilized men who arrived in Belgorod Oblast by rail.[99] Russian opposition outlets reported that Russian officials once again closed the Perevalsk detention center in occupied Luhansk Oblast due to increased public awareness and transferred detained mobilized personnel to an unspecified location.[100]

Russian forces are also experiencing high casualty rates among mobilized men on the frontlines. One mobilized man who had survived on the Kreminna-Svatove frontline reported that over 500 mobilized personnel from Voronezh Oblast died as a result of Ukrainian shelling on their positions in Makiivka, Luhansk Oblast. The man noted that Russian commanders concentrated a large number of personnel in one area and forced them to dig trenches, resulting in only 41 individuals surviving Ukrainian artillery fire.[101] Local state outlet Ria Voronezh at first discredited the account as a “fake,” only to remove this statement on November 7 from its website.[102] Russian milbloggers questioned the authenticity of the report but still called on Russian commanders to address problems within their units so that more men do not spread damaging rumors regarding the Russian Armed Forces.[103] Russian volunteer battalions are also continuing to suffer losses, with Republic of Sakha’s volunteer unit “Bootur” reportedly returning to Russia with 13 of 105 volunteers.[104]

Russian mobilized servicemen and their families continued to protest in select Russian regions. Social media footage showed Russian mobilized men rioting in Kazan, and some mobilized men engaged in a skirmish with Major General Kirill Kulakov due to poor living conditions and being provided 50-year-old guns.[105] Russian officials also published a video reportedly from two organizers of riots among mobilized men in Chuvash Republic thanking Russian officials for resolving the issues with promised financial compensation, but the video appears staged.[106] Russian men also continue to share their accounts of local government officials failing to provide promised payments on different Russian Telegram channels.[107] Relatives of mobilized personnel in Yemanzhelisk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, protested for the return of their loved ones who were mobilized without any training.[108] Local outlets reported that a man in Transbaikal attacked a military recruitment official when the official informed him about the death of a mobilized relative.[109] An elderly woman in Angarsk, Irkutsk Oblast, additionally attempted to set fire to a military recruitment center.[110]

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

Russian and occupation officials continue abduct Ukrainian children as of November 7. Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner head Olena Vikhor reported on November that Russian occupation officials have sent 6,032 Ukrainian children to Russian-occupied territories and the Russian Federation.[111] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian occupation officials have moved over 300 children from Luhansk Oblast in the first week of November alone.[112] The Resistance Center reported that Russian and occupation officials sent 100 Ukrainian children to St. Petersburg for “rehabilitation”; another 92 to Novosibirsk, Leningrad, and Tyumen oblasts to be adopted out to Russian families; and over 100 Ukrainian children from Bryanka to Bryansk for “educational” purposes.[113] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 7 that Russian occupation officials relocated about 100 children with disabilities from a psychoneurological boarding house in Dniproany, Kherson Oblast.[114] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian occupation officials are planning to relocate children from the Oleshkiv Children’s Boarding Home in Kherson Oblast to Moscow Oblast.[115] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) head Leonid Pasechnik claimed on November 6 that children from Severodonetsk, Stakhanov, Troitsk, Lysychansk, and Kreminna went with their families to Sochi, Krasnodar Krai under an ongoing “vacation” scheme.[116] ISW has previously assessed that the deportation and forced adoption of Ukrainian children likely amount to a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign, in addition to an apparent violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[117]

Russian occupation officials continued to intimidate civilians into evacuating from the west bank of the Dnipro River as of November 7. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 6 that residents on the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast have been receiving SMS messages warning them of future massive Ukrainian shelling and urging them to evacuate to the east bank.[118] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported on November 7 that Russian propagandists are planning to film in Kherson City to show the Ukrainian forces’ alleged destruction of the civilian population, which will likely be used as part of an information operation to support ongoing forcible evacuation measures in Kherson Oblast.[119] Ukrainian sources reported that Russian occupation officials continue to use the threat of the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station to urge residents to evacuate from Beryslav, Kherson Oblast by November 10.[120] Russian occupation officials will continue to intimidate residents to participate in forcible evacuation measures as the Ukrainian southern counteroffensive progresses.

Russian occupation officials increased filtration and law enforcement measures in occupied territories on November 7. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on November 7 that Russian occupation officials and forces are significantly increasing filtration measures and intensifying raids against the local population in Kherson Oblast in search of Ukrainian partisans.[121] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 7 that Russian forces are specifically increasing the search for subversive groups and Ukrainian forward observers in Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast.[122] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are transporting detainees from Kakhovka to Hornostaivka, where Russian forces use torture and beatings to elicit confessions.[123] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces in Borivske and Shchedryshcheve in Luhansk Oblast are conducting mass searches, seizing mobile phones, and detaining and relocating residents to unknown locations.[124] Russian forces and occupation officials will likely increase filtration and law enforcement measures as Ukrainian counteroffensives progress.

Russian forces continued to engage in mass looting in Kherson Oblast on November 6 and 7. A Ukrainian source reported on November 6 that Russian forces looted the Kherson Oblast administrative building in Kherson City.[125] The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on November 7 that Russian forces are engaging in massive looting of settlements on the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.[126] The GUR reported that Russian forces massively loot household appliances throughout the west bank of the Dnipro River and methodically loot private homes, shops, warehouses, and vehicles in Beryslav Raion.[127] The GUR also reported that Russian forces stripped the Beryslav substation of machinery, equipment, devices, and repair materials.[128] Russian forces will likely continue to massively loot Kherson Oblast, as Russian forces continue to withdraw more units from the west bank of the Dnipro River.

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.

[3] https://ria dot ru/20221107/poteri-1829659143.html

[8] https://t.me/CITeam/2840; https://t.me/polevskoy_trubach/4096; https://meduza dot io/news/2022/10/28/idet-val-obrascheniy-ot-zhen-i-materey-deputat-gosdumy-poprosil-shoygu-vernut-s-fronta-mobilizovannyh-kotorye-ne-proshli-voennoy-podgotovki; https://t.me/newsv1/37489 ; https://t.me/newsv1/37472 ; https://tayga dot info/179571 ; https://t.me/horizontal_russia/16335; https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/... https://t.me/dva_majors/3669

[13] https://tsn dot ua/en/ato/the-occupying-power-of-mariupol-plans-to-give-the-city-to-the-kadyrov-s-people-andryushchenko-2064232.html; https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/11/07/shojgu-proty-prygozhyna-u-rf-narostaye-konflikt-sered-vijskovogo-kerivnycztva/

[17] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/11/07/shojgu-proty-prygozhyna-u-rf-narostaye-konflikt-sered-vijskovogo-kerivnycztva/

[22] gov.ua/content/u-rosii-zalyshylosia-lyshe-120-iskanderiv.html ; https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/11/06/western-air-defence-systems-...

[25] gov.ua/content/u-rosii-zalyshylosia-lyshe-120-iskanderiv.html ; https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/11/06/western-air-defence-systems-...

[47]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1589273101933563904 ; https://t.co/...

[82] https://sprotyv dot mod dot gov.ua/2022/11/06/rosiyany-shantazhuyut-praczivnykiv-zaes/ ; https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1589028286147203072 ; https://... ; https://twitter.com/PaulJawin/status/1588960046213627904

[83] https://sprotyv dot mod dot gov.ua/2022/11/06/rosiyany-shantazhuyut-praczivnykiv-zaes/

[84] https://sprotyv dot mod dot gov.ua/2022/11/06/rosiyany-shantazhuyut-praczivnykiv-zaes/

[88] publication.pravo dot gov.ru/Document/View/0001202211070003; https://rg dot ru/2022/11/07/putin-uvelichil-shtat-prokuratury-rossii-pochti-na-3000-chelovek.html

[90] https://meduza dot io/news/2022/11/07/putin-poobeschal-vstretitsya-s-lyudmi-chtoby-obsudit-mery-podderzhki-mobilizovannyh

[92] https://russian.rt dot com/ussr/news/1071087-putin-mobilizovannye-svo

[93] https://gur dot gov dot ua/content/sered-rosiiskykh-chastkovo-mobilizovanykh-u-bilorusi-spalakh-zakhvoriuvan-cherez-nedotrymannia-sanitarnykh-umov.html

[102] https://meduza dot io/news/2022/11/07/s-sayta-voronezhskogo-gossmi-udalili-zametku-o-tom-chto-soobscheniya-o-gibeli-soten-mobilizovannyh-iz-voronezhskoy-oblasti-v-ukraine-byli-feykom

[108] https://74 dot ru/text/world/2022/11/04/71789159/; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-nov-4-5

[109] https://www.chita dot ru/text/society/2022/11/03/71786258/; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-nov-4-5

[126] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/okupanty-v-khersonskii-oblasti-hotuiut-provokatyvni-obstrily-naselenykh-punktiv-ta-vyvoziat-nahrabovane-maino.html

[127] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/okupanty-v-khersonskii-oblasti-hotuiut-provokatyvni-obstrily-naselenykh-punktiv-ta-vyvoziat-nahrabovane-maino.html

[128] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/okupanty-v-khersonskii-oblasti-hotuiut-provokatyvni-obstrily-naselenykh-punktiv-ta-vyvoziat-nahrabovane-maino.html

understandingwar.org


2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (07.11.22) CDS comments on key events



CDS Daily brief (07.11.22) CDS comments on key events

 

Humanitarian aspect:

Over the past day, November 6, as a result of Russian armed aggression against Ukraine, three civilians were killed, and seven more were injured, according to data from Oblasts' military administrations, published by the deputy head of the Office of the President, Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

 

As of 9 a.m. this morning, Oblast Military Administrations reported that the Russian army struck nine Oblasts of Ukraine over one day.

      On November 6, the enemy shelled the Kupyansk, Chuguyiv and Kharkiv districts of Kharkiv Oblast. In the Kupyansk district, a Russian anti-tank projectile hit a civilian car moving on the road between populated areas. The 45-year-old car driver was hospitalized with injuries.

      Starting 7:00 a.m., the Russians shelled Kuschove village of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The culture center, warehouse farm premises and private houses came under fire. During the past day, the enemy shelled the Zaporizhzhia, Vasylivka and Polohy districts of the Oblast. 16 reports were received about the destruction of houses (apartments) and infrastructure facilities.

      In Donetsk Oblast, on November 6, 1 civilian died in Bakhmut due to enemy shelling. 5 more were wounded.

      In Mykolaiv Oblast, at night, the Russian military shelled between the villages of the Shirokiv community of the Bashtan district. Preliminary, no victims or destruction were reported.

      At night, the Russians shelled the Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. No victims were reported. The extent of the destruction is being established.

In the Berislav district of the Kherson Oblast, the Russian invaders destroyed a nursery school with fire from the Grad rocket launcher, the Kherson Oblast Prosecutor's Office reported. Before the full-scale invasion, this nursery-kindergarten provided care and education for 60 children.

 

Power outages and critical infrastructure:

The executive director of DTEK energy company said that emergency power cuts in Ukraine would continue for the next two weeks. There is an electricity shortage in the northern and central parts of Ukraine. If there is no new shelling and damage, the repair work will take 2 weeks.

 

Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Center for Energy Research, said during a briefing that the Ukrainian energy system is strong enough to prevent the capital [of Ukraine] from being cut off from the power supply [entirely]. "The endurance of the Ukrainian energy system is sufficient to prevent the disconnection of Kyiv. I don't see any technical prerequisites for this situation," the expert noted. Kharchenko emphasized that the outages are controlled so far, while the blackout, which is talked about in the media, is a process of uncontrolled outages in the power system. At the same time, according to him, Ukrainians should be ready for new Russian attacks on the energy system.


Meanwhile, Yuriy Ignat, the Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesman, also said at the briefing that Russia will continue to strike Ukraine's critical infrastructure, energy facilities, and hydro-technical facilities in the autumn-winter period. "They need to achieve the goal they set. This is a blow to the entire critical infrastructure. This is not only about the [electricity] energy industry because the enemy has already struck the hydro-technical facilities of Ukraine," Ignat said. He noted that the enemy is not succeeding at the front, but instead has problems with equipment and human resources. "In the autumn-winter period, they want to attack energy facilities first because many people's livelihood depend on them. And this aerial terrorism will continue by all available means".

 

In Zhytomyr, it is currently impossible to restore the operation of some damaged substations after missile strikes on the energy facility, said the mayor of Zhytomyr, Serhiy Sukhomlyn. According to him, some of the city's industrial enterprises, which consume a lot of electricity, have switched to working at night and on weekends. In addition, in various districts of Zhytomyr, the lights are turned off according to the schedule for several hours. Schools and kindergartens in the city will work as heating points in an emergency. In Zhytomyr, it is planned to equip 36 such points, each of which will be provided with a generator.

 

The National Enterprise "Energoatom" press service reported that Energoatom is analyzing the impact of a possible explosion by the Russians of the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station on the safety of the operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant [taking into account the information about the mining of the dam of the Kakhovka reservoir, locks and supports of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station and the high threat of the explosion]. It is noted that the destruction of the dam may lead to an irreversible drop in the water level in the Kakhov reservoir, which supplies cooling water for the ZNPP.

 

Occupied territories:

Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, considers the formation of regional branches of the "Junarmy" (Youth Army) by the Russian invaders in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to be a manifestation of genocide. By establishing these units in occupied territories, the Russian occupation forces are "turning Ukrainian children against Ukraine and preparing for the entry of volunteer battalions," he noted. "With such actions, Russia is "instilling" in minors hatred for their native country and a desire to take revenge for the war, but not against the Russians, but against Ukraine. There were such military-patriotic movements even after the occupation of Crimea; now everything is being repeated in the newly occupied territories," Lubinets added. According to him, the militarized education format has harmful pressure on the minds of children who suffered due to Russian armed aggression. The invaders aim to deprive children of the opportunity to express their Ukrainian identity. "We can also say that such actions are a manifestation of genocide and one of the forms of coercion for further service in the armed forces of the Russian Federation, which indicates another war crime by the Russians and a violation of the norms of the Convention on the Rights of the Child," the ombudsman emphasized.


[Legally elected Ukrainian] mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov said that the houses of residents of Melitopol and nearby villages are occupied by invaders from the Russian Federation, while all the residents were displaced from some villages. "More than half of the residents of Melitopol were evacuated to the territory under the control of Ukraine or abroad. Up to 60,000 Melitopol residents remained in the city. Instead, the city and the district were massively populated by invaders from Russia - Russians, Chechens, Ossetians, etc.," Fedorov noted.

 

Almost 80% of the residents left Kherson, temporarily occupied by Russian troops, reports Ukrinform with reference to the coordinator of the "Kherson Hub" headquarters, Roman Golovnia. About 60,000-70,000 people live in the city now; before the full-scale war, about 320,000 lived there," the message says. It is noted that the humanitarian situation in occupied Kherson is very difficult. It is impossible to bring medicines or products from the territory of Ukraine, Russian troops have blocked all supplies.


Operational situation

(Operational situation

(please note that this section of the Brief is mainly on the previous day's (November 6) developments).

 

It is the 257th day of the strategic air-ground offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces against Ukraine (in the official terminology of the Russian Federation – "operation to defend Donbas"). The enemy tries to maintain control over the temporarily captured territories, concentrates its efforts on restraining the actions of the Defense Forces, and conducts offensive operations in the Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Novopavlivka directions.

 

Over the past 24 hours, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces have repelled enemy attacks in the areas of Yampil, Andriivka, Krasnohorivka, Maryinka, Pavlivka, Vodyane, Novomykhailivka in the Donetsk Oblast and Bilogorivka in the Luhansk Oblast. Over the past 24 hours, the enemy has launched 4 missile and 24 air strikes, carried out more than 55 attacks from anti-aircraft missiles. Areas of 30 towns and villages in Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Kherson Oblasts were hit by enemy attacks. Near the state border, the enemy shelled Hai in Chernihiv Oblast, Stukalivka, Popivka, Vorozhba in Sumy Oblast, and Novoselivske, Myasozharivka, Vovchansk, Stelmakhivka, Berestove, Ohirtseve, and Strilecha of Kharkiv Oblast.

 

The Ukrainian Defense Forces' aviation struck the enemy 22 times the past day. As a result, 20 areas of concentration of enemy personnel, weapons and military equipment, 2 positions of enemy air defense equipment were affected. In addition, Ukrainian air defense units shot down 5 enemy unmanned aerial vehicles.

 

Over the past day, the Ukrainian missile forces and artillery hit 2 enemy control points, 8 areas of concentration of manpower, weapons and military equipment, an ammunition depot, an electronic warfare station and other important military targets.


In the border areas of the Bryansk and Kursk regions of the Russian Federation, the enemy command deployed two tactical groupings of troops: the "Kursk" grouping (Command and control post - in the area of Starodub) and the "Bryansk" grouping (C2 post - in the area of Rylsk).

 

The "Bryansk" grouping of troops consists of:

      a combined battalion of the 2nd motorized rifle division (MRD) of the 1st Tank army (TA) (made up of separate units of the 1st motorized rifle regiment and the 1st tank regiment of the division), concentrated near Sevsk village;

      BTG of the 15th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd MRD of the 1st TA, concentrated in the area of Suziemka village;

      BTG of the 423rd motorized rifle regiment of the 4th tank division of the 1st TA, concentrated near Kister village;

      the consolidated battalion of the 51st parachute airborne regiment of the 106th airborne division, concentrated in the Starodub area;

      the reinforced motorized rifle company of the 254th motorized rifle regiment of the 144th MRD of the 20th Army took positions near Sluchovsk village, covering the road to the town of Pohar and further to Pochep - Bryansk.

It should be expected that within the next two weeks, units of the 6th Army will replace units of the 2nd MRD in the "Bryansk" grouping of troops due to the redeployment of the 2nd MRD to the territory of the Republic of Belarus for the deployment of the "joint Russian-Belarusian grouping of troops."

 

The basis of the "Kursk" grouping of troops is the regiment of the so-called "Territorial troops", reinforced by the Russian Airborne Forces units. They consist of:

      two battalions of the 1244th motorized rifle regiment of the territorial troops; concentrated in the area of Alekseevka;

      the combined battalion of the 76th Air assault division, concentrated near the town of Rylsk;

      the consolidated battalion of the 98th airborne division, concentrated near Glushkovo village;

      BTG of the 488th motorized rifle regiment of the 144th MRD of the 20th Army, concentrated near Suja village.

 

Both groupings are sufficiently active and aggressive when performing tasks to prevent the regrouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from these directions to more active areas of the front. In particular, the enemy opens fire with mortars and artillery on the border regions of Ukraine from time to time, conducts active aerial reconnaissance using UAVs, and conducts forward presence actions. Thus, during the past week, a unit of the 51st parachute airborne regiment of the 106th airborne division was actively setting up false positions in the south of Starodub, in particular, setting up mock-ups of military equipment.

 

Also, the formation of the "Belgorod" grouping of troops (up to four BTG and a separate CTG) was noted. They continue to conduct active combat operations along the state border - shelling the territory of Ukraine with mortars, artillery, tanks, and even from time to time with airstrikes.


Thus, in the Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod regions of RF, the command of the enemy's troops keeps up to ten BTGs deployed.

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

Topoli - Siversk section: approximate length of combat line - 154 km, number of BTGs of the RF

Armed Forces - 27-32, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 4.8 km;

 Deployed enemy BTGs: 26th, 153rd, and 197th tank regiments (TR), 245th motorized rifle regiment (MRR) of the 47th tank division (TD), 6th and 239th TRs, 228th MRR of the 90th TD, 1st MRR, 1st TR of the 2nd motorized rifle division (MRD), 25th and 138th separate motorized rifle brigades (SMRBr) of the 6th Combined Arms (CA) Army, 27th SMRBr of the 1st Tank Army, 252nd and 752nd MRRs of the 3rd MRD, 1st, 13th, and 12th TRs, 423rd MRR of the 4th TD, 201st military base, 15th, 21st, 30th SMRBrs of the 2nd CA Army, 35th, 55th and 74th SMRBrs of the 41st CA Army, 275th and 280th MRRs, 11th TR of the 18th MRD of the 11 Army Corps (AC), 7th MRR of the 11th AC, 80th SMRBr of the 14th AC, 2nd and 45th separate SOF brigades of the Airborne Forces, 3rd and 14th separate SOF brigades, 1st AC of so-called DPR, 2nd and 4th SMRBrs of the 2nd AC.

 

The enemy shelled the positions of the Defense Forces in the areas of Serebryanka, Nevske, Makiivka, Bilohorivka, Ploshanka, Spirne and Verkhnyokamianske.

 

In Borivske and Shchedryshcheve of the Luhansk Oblast, the Russian occupiers are conducting mass searches of civilians, confiscating their mobile phones, and kidnapping people in an unknown direction.

 

In Lysychansk, the enemy "Akhmat" battalion suffered losses. The occupiers lost more than 30 KIA and up to 15 WIA. The enemy carefully conceals the real number of killed.

 

Donetsk direction

Siversk - Maryinka section: approximate length of the combat line - 144 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 13-15, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.6 km;

Deployed BTGs: 68th and 163rd tank regiments (TR), 102nd and 103rd motorized rifle regiments of the 150 motorized rifle division, 80th TR of the 90th tank division, 35th, 55th, and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 51st and 137th parachute airborne regiment of the 106 airborne division, 31st separate airborne assault brigade, 61st separate marines brigade of the Joint Strategic Command "Northern Fleet," 336th separate marines brigade, 24th separate SOF brigade, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 15th, and 100th separate motorized rifle brigades, 9th and 11th separate motorized rifle regiment of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, 6th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.

 

The enemy shelled from tanks and artillery the areas of Andriivka, Soledar, Yakovlivka, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Opytne, Mayorsk, Chasiv Yar, Klishchiivka, Zelenopillya, Avdiivka, Pervomaiske, Nevelske, Maryinka, Novomykhailivka, Vuhledar and Opytne.


In Horlivka, an attack was made on the enemy's equipment concentration area. As a result, 5 combat vehicles were destroyed, and 4 more were damaged. In the area of Mayorsk, the enemy's daily losses are up to 30 people killed and more than 120 wounded of various degrees of severity.

 

Zaporizhzhia direction

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

Deployed BTGs: 36th separate motorized rifle brigade (SMRBr) of the 29th Combined Arms (CA) Army, 38th and 64th SMRBrs, 69th separate cover brigade of the 35th CA Army, 5th separate tank brigade, 37th of the 36th CA Army, 135th, 429th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments (MRR) of the 19th motorized rifle division (MRD) of the 58th CA Army, 70th, 71st and 291st MRRs of the 42nd MRD of the 58th CA Army, 136th SMRB of the 58 CA Army, 46th and 49th machine gun artillery regiments of the 18th machine gun artillery division of the 68th Army Corps (AC), 39th SMRB of the 68th AC, 83th separate airborne assault brigade, 40th and 155th separate marines brigades, 22nd separate SOF brigade, 1st AC of the so-called DPR, and 2nd AC of the so- called LPR, PMCs.

 

The enemy shelled the Defence Forces' positions in the areas of Hulyaipole, Hulyaipilske, Olhivske, Dorozhnianka, Novopil, Shcherbaky, Novodanylivka, Vremivka and Pavlivka.

 

The enemy's command began to increase their efforts in the Vuhledar direction, seeking to strengthen the combat capabilities of their advanced units, which are now trying to break through Pavlika to Vuhledar and simultaneously attacking from the Mykilske direction.

 

Two days ago, the enemy brought into battle the forces of the 40th separate marines brigade (at least two reinforced companies), which unsuccessfully attacked the positions of the Ukrainian Joint Forces in the direction of Novomayorske - Prychystivka and Shevchenko - Prychystivka.

 

In the area of Novomykhailivka, the enemy only managed to take several Ukrainian platoon strongholds southeast of the village, but they never made it to the village itself. In the Pavlika area, the enemy managed to take the southeastern part of the village, after which the average daily pace of the offensive dropped sharply, and then the offensive stopped.

 

The enemy operates here with forces of approximately 4-5 BTGs, assembled and distributed into 2nd tactical groups (conditionally – in Vuhledarsk and Novomykhailivska directions). They consist of the forces and means of:

      the 29th Army (one BTG from the 36th separate motorized rifle brigade),

      the 68th Army Corps (one consolidated BTG from the 18th machinegun-artillery division and 39th separate motorized rifle brigade)

      and several "company-battalion" level units from the composition of the 1st Army Corps (3rd and 5th separate motorized rifle brigades, 11th motorized rifle regiment, two rifle battalions of the mobilization reserve, part of the forces of the "Kalmius" artillery brigade).


In addition, units of the 810th separate marines brigade are acting as separate tactical assault groups trying to capture Pavlivka.

 

The enemy's reserves concentrated in this direction consist of:

      up to three combined BTGs from the 136th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 58th Army and the 103rd motorized rifle regiment of the 150th motorized rifle division - between Olhinka and Slavny,

      the consolidated battalion of the 37th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 36th Army is restoring combat capability in the operational rear behind the right flank of the 58th Army at a four hours distance to the Pavlovka area.

 

Tavriysk direction

-   Vasylivka – Stanislav section: approximate length of the battle line – 296 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 39, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 7,5 km;

-  Deployed BTGs of: the 8th and 49th Combined Arms (CA) Armies; 11th, 103rd, 109th, and 127th rifle regiments of the mobilization reserve of the 1st Army Corps (AC) of the Southern Military District; 35th and 36th CA Armies of the Eastern Military District; 3rd AC of the Western Military District; 90th tank division of the Central Military District; the 22nd AC of the Coastal Forces; the 810th separate marines brigade of the Black Sea Fleet; the 7th and 76th Air assault divisions, the 98th airborne division, and the 11th separate airborne assault brigade of the Airborne Forces.

 

Blahodatne, Davydiv Brid, Dudchany, Myrne, Nova Kamianka and Pravdyne areas suffered fire damage. In addition, the enemy continued to conduct aerial reconnaissance, actively using UAVs; made more than 20 sorties.

 

The Russian occupying forces continue to grossly violate the laws and customs of war against the civilian population. They continue to search for subversive groups and fire adjusters in Kakhovka. The detainees are taken to Gornostaevka and forced to testify under torture.

 

In Kherson, disguised in civilian clothes, the Russian military occupied civilians' houses and set positions inside to conduct street battles. At the same time, Russian propagandist journalists are planning to shoot videos in the city of the alleged destruction of the civilian population by the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

 

Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area:

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

 

Due to worsening weather conditions, the enemy keeps only 7 ships at sea. They are located along the southwestern coast of Crimea. There are no Kalibr cruise missile carriers, but a rapid build-up of surface and underwater Kalibr missile carriers to the sea launch areas is possible (about 3-4 hours).


There are 2 enemy patrol ships and boats in the waters of the Sea of Azov on the approaches to the Mariupol and Berdyansk seaports to block the Azov coast.

 

Enemy aviation continues to fly from Crimean airfields Belbek and Gvardiyske over the northwestern part of the Black Sea. Over the past day, 12 warplanes from Belbek and Saki airfields were deployed.

 

On November 6, the stormy sea in Odesa brought a sea mine to the coast, which detonated. The danger of a mine threat in the northwestern part of the Black Sea remains. From the end of February 2022, more than 30 sea anchor mines were detected on this area's sea surface or coast. There is an assumption that a significant number of these mines had deactivation mechanisms deliberately deactivated by the Russian military in the event of the mine detaching from the minrep (fixing cable to the anchor) and floating to the surface.

 

The missile cruiser of the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Federation "Varyag" (011), the large anti- submarine ship "Admiral Tributs" (564) passed the Singapore Strait yesterday, November 6, 2022, on the way to the Vladivostok base from the Mediterranean Sea (they stayed there since February 2, 2022, preparing to go to the Black Sea to attack the Ukrainian shores).

 

"Grain Initiative" returns to its usual mode after the Russian Federation suspended participation in the initiative. Thanks to this step of the Russian Federation, Turkish inspectors significantly shortened the queue of ships that accumulated in the Sea of Marmara heading for the Bosphorus Strait. First of all, the inspectors inspected ships that had been waiting for 20 days (!!!) or more. Probably, the same characteristics are examined as during the "organized" passage of ships to Ukrainian ports through the Kerch Strait. There are 7 vessels of the "grain fleet" in the Black Sea bound for Ukrainian ports, including 4 dry cargo vessels and 2 tankers: 2 vessels in Odesa port, 2

-   in Pivdenny port, and 3 in Chornomorsk. The number of ships (7) corresponds to the average daily figure in October 2022. After the normalization of weather conditions, the ports will continue loading ships with agricultural products.

 

Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 07.11

Personnel - almost 76,460 people (+530);

Tanks - 2,771 (+6)

Armored combat vehicles – 5,630 (+19);

Artillery systems – 1,782 (+1);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 391 (0); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 202 (0); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 4,199 (+8); Aircraft - 277 (0);

Helicopters – 260 (0);

UAV operational and tactical level – 1,472 (+7); Intercepted cruise missiles - 399 (0);

Boats / ships - 16 (0).



 

Ukraine, general news

Ukraine returned 50% of the territories occupied by Russia after a full-scale invasion on February

24. This is 37% of the territory occupied since 2014. The map was published by OSINT analyst Def Mon.

 

The Secretary of the National Security Council, Oleksiy Danilov, announced at a briefing that the assets of strategic enterprises "Motor Sich", "Zaporizhtransformator", "AvtoKrAZ", "Ukrnafta" and "Ukrtatnafta" were transferred to the Ministry of Defense. He stated that this was done "In fulfillment of the decision of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and due to military necessity". He added that after martial law ends, assets may be returned to their owners, or their value may be reimbursed accordingly. These enterprises are associated with several Ukrainian oligarchs. "Motor Sich" President Vyacheslav Boguslaev is on trial for high treason within the framework of criminal proceedings regarding the illegal supply by Motor Sich of military goods for Russian attack aircraft.

 

The number of vacancies in Ukraine is increasing, and the number of unemployed is significantly decreasing compared to the time at the beginning of the war. Currently, there are officially 250,000 unemployed people in Ukraine. Due to the occupation, a forced change of residence, the destruction of enterprises, or simply due to downsizing, a large part of Ukrainians remained without work. In Kyiv, the most significant employers' market demand is currently for teachers, educators, pharmacists, music managers, practical psychologists, doctors, engineers, as well as for representatives of vocational jobs, informed Ukrinform with reference to the Kyiv City Employment Center. Social workers, food vendors, cooks, sales consultants, and security guards are in demand among trade and service workers. Among the equipment maintenance workers are drivers of motor vehicles, tractor drivers, turners, pump machine operators, milling machines, and operators of machine tools with software control.

 

Ukraine and Moldova resumed the movement of passenger trains on the Kyiv-Chisinau route after a 24-year break.

 

International diplomatic aspect

"What strikes me – that's why I use the word 'tormented' for Ukraine – is the cruelty, which is not of the Russian people, perhaps... because the Russian people are a great people. It is of the mercenaries, of the soldiers who go off to war as an adventure, mercenaries... I prefer to think of it this way because I have high esteem for the Russian people for Russian humanism. Just think of Dostoevsky, who to this day inspires us, inspires Christians to think of Christianity," Pope Francis explained his "great affection" for the Russian people and the Ukrainian people.

 

The Pontiff, indeed, isn't following the [Russian] social networks with calls for genocide of the Ukrainian people, neither he watches the Russian television where an idea of nuclear Armageddon is just an episode between plans to wipe out Ukrainian cities and start the war against the archenemy – the West. The latest Levada Centre polls. As of November 1, Putin's


approval is as high as 79%, slightly less (-4%) than a month before, while only 19% disapprove his policies. The war is supported by 73%, while opposed by merely one-fifth.

 

Most likely, Pope Francis hasn't watched "Could humans really do this?": Stories of civilians killed in Bucha" by 60 minutes, "The Atrocities Uncovered in the Liberated Regions of Ukraine" by ABC News, or read "How Russian Soldiers Ran a "Cleansing" Operation in Bucha" by the Associated Press, FRONTLINE, and SITU Research. More than 1,500 new graves have been dug at a mass burial site near Mariupol, which will likely raise the death toll to 30,000. In addition, at least 6,032 Ukrainian children were forcefully deported to Russian territory. This is enough to counter the "Russian humanism" thesis, let alone what Russians have done in Syria, Chechnya, Mali, and a dozen other places across the globe.

 

"NASAMS and Aspide air defense systems arrived in Ukraine!" twitted Ukraine's Minister of Defense.

 

The German government is looking into the possible involvement of oil and gas producer Wintershall Dea in business that supports Russia's war over Ukraine. Spiegel and ZDF published their investigation that the company supplies its gas condensate that is likely, used as jet fuel for the Russian military.

 

Russia, relevant news:

In October, sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in Russia fell by 62.8% compared to October 2021, reports Kommersant with reference to data from the Association of European Business (AEB). According to the association, 502,500 cars were sold since the beginning of the year.

 

The sales of cars of the following brands fell the most in October compared to last year: Volkswagen (-100%),

Volvo (-99%),

Lexus (-99%),

Land Rover (-98%),

Toyota (-98%),

Mitsubishi (-98%),

Porsche (-96%).

 

 

 


 

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3. More Than a Dozen States Have Activated the National Guard to Secure Midterm Elections


Excerpts:

“What you notice is 54 states and territories—not everybody's doing it, and those that are have invested in cyber talent and cyber missions for years,” said Brig. Gen. Gent Welsh, the assistant adjutant general and commander of the Washington Air National Guard.
“So if you don't have a cyber unit in your state, chances are you're not in a good position to help out that state for some of the elections, security issues that we've got.”
Welsh added that private and state entities are often up against “military-grade adversaries,” but don’t have the structures in place to combat them.
IT security professionals in private companies and state governments aren’t necessarily trained “to do this kind of work,” he said.




More Than a Dozen States Have Activated the National Guard to Secure Midterm Elections

Other states can request help, but some leaders say more capacity is needed.

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

At least 14 states have spun up their National Guard units to ward off cyber attacks on the national election that concludes tomorrow, but others have not.

North Carolina is one of the states that has.

“This year, we're in place to ensure that if there's any assistance that's needed, we're working proactively with our state board of elections, not just on the day of elections, but really prior to to do security analysis checks and look into the network to make sure it's as secure as possible,” Maj. Gen. Marvin Hunt, adjutant general for North Carolina’s National Guard, told reporters Friday. “We're really that third party that comes in—it's just assisting them—to give them a different look. So that on election day, we can all have confidence in our election systems.”

Hunt said his cyber team is always working, but will “surge during the election to ensure that we have 24-hour coverage throughout this whole process.”

North Carolina’s units have helped state entities shore up their cyber hygiene and have provided training to most of its 100 counties, he said.

The National Guard has been stepping up its election and cyber support in recent years. More than 2,200 Army and Air National Guard personnel serve across 38 cyber operations units with another 2,240 service members providing cyber and IT mission assurance, network assessments, protection, and risk mitigation.

States that lack their own Guard units for such things can request help from states that do. But Maj. Gen. Rich Neely, the adjutant general and commander of the Illinois National Guard, said few states have enough cyber capability, and “we're seeing a continued growth in this area and the need for additional security capability within the National Guard.”

And many of the states and territories with cyber units are not using them for election support.

“What you notice is 54 states and territories—not everybody's doing it, and those that are have invested in cyber talent and cyber missions for years,” said Brig. Gen. Gent Welsh, the assistant adjutant general and commander of the Washington Air National Guard.

“So if you don't have a cyber unit in your state, chances are you're not in a good position to help out that state for some of the elections, security issues that we've got.”

Welsh added that private and state entities are often up against “military-grade adversaries,” but don’t have the structures in place to combat them.

IT security professionals in private companies and state governments aren’t necessarily trained “to do this kind of work,” he said.

“Most of the IT security is built around making sure maybe the walls are higher and the lights are blinking. But one of the unique things here is you have the National Guard whose mission it is…to do cyber missions against other military structures.”

The Guard teams with U.S. Cyber Command, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the lead federal agency on election security, as well as federal and local law enforcement agencies that watch closely for specific threats.

Guard leaders wouldn’t provide specifics on observed threats or particular vulnerabilities state systems were showing during this election cycle, but the expectation is that Election Day will be a regular day on the internet.

Earlier this year, the National Guard completed support for 10 states—Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington, and West Virginia—spanning various agencies, such as Arizona’s Department of Homeland Security, secretaries of state and their respective departments, and boards of elections.

Fourteen states have ongoing cyber and election security support: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and West Virginia.

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams



4. Advance work in Ukraine blunted Russian cyber advantage, US says


Anticipation is one key to good defense.


Excerpts:


CISA and its Ukrainian analogue, the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, deepened its relationship this year, promising to exchange best practices, study critical infrastructure protection and establish joint cybersecurity projects and exercises.
“We need to ensure that we are prepared for threats, for incursions against our critical infrastructure, whether it’s state supported actors, criminally aligned ransomware groups, or even the cascading attacks, with attacks in Ukraine that could bleed over to Russia or could bleed over to the U.S., as we saw NotPetya in 2017,” Easterly said.
NotPetya malware incapacitated critical systems the world over, resulting in enormous financial loses. Russia was blamed for the devastation, which initially unfolded in Ukraine.


Advance work in Ukraine blunted Russian cyber advantage, US says

c4isrnet.com · by Colin Demarest · November 7, 2022

WASHINGTON — At the Aspen Security Forum this summer, a top Biden administration official said there are “any number of theories for what we saw and what, frankly, we didn’t see” regarding Russian employment of cyberattacks tied to its war against Ukraine.

“Some argue for the deterrence the U.S. has put in place,” Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said at the time, pointing to President Joe Biden’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin following the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. “Some argue that it was the result of the extensive cybersecurity preparations Ukraine did, supported by allies and partners.”

“And,” she added, “some argue that we don’t quite know.”

Three months later, in late October, Gen. Paul Nakasone, the chief of both the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, proffered his own opinion, in harmony with Neuberger’s second point: Among the many moving parts and influences, overseas preparations made by the U.S. military helped blunt Russia’s effectiveness in the digital domain.

“First lesson learned? Presence matters. We learned that again,” Nakasone said Oct. 12 at a Council on Foreign Relations event. “While I would certainly not say that’s the key reason, I think it’s a contributing factor.”

Headed east

The U.S. dispatched a group of cyber experts to Ukraine at the end of 2021, amid rising international tensions and predictions of virtual destruction.

The so-called hunt-forward operation — a defensive and cooperative measure, undertaken at the invitation of a foreign government — was designed to root out malicious actors, identify network weaknesses and gain a better understanding of the tools hackers use.


U.S. Cyber Command head Gen. Paul Nakasone arrives for a Senate Armed Services hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/AP Photo)

“We sent a team on Dec. 2, led by a Marine Corps major, and her guidance was this: Go help them, and make sure they’re ready, in terms of anything that may occur,” Nakasone said. “She called back within the first two weeks and said, ‘Instead of coming home for the holidays, we’re going to be here for awhile.’”

Having the right people in the right room at the right time, the four-star general said, is invaluable. And “being able to understand the tradecraft of an adversary? Presence matters. Real presence matters.”

Hunt-forward endeavors are part of CYBERCOM’s persistent engagement strategy, a means of being in constant contact with adversaries and ensuring proactive, not reactive, moves are made. The command, tasked with guarding Department of Defense information networks and coordinating cyberspace operations, has conducted dozens of such missions across a range of countries in recent years.

Cyber specialists were previously sent to Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Montenegro and North Macedonia. While some deployments were tied to the 2018 midterm elections in the U.S., efforts in Lithuania, specifically, were connected to the Russian onslaught.

The work in Lithuania lasted three months, beginning before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, and concluded in May. It was the first shared operation between Lithuania’s cyber forces and U.S. experts in the country. Lithuania’s vice minister of national defense, Margiris Abukevicius, in a statement at the time applauded the endeavor for generating a “wealth of intelligence and skills.”

In Croatia, U.S. personnel worked hand-in-glove with the Croatian Security and Intelligence Agency’s Cyber Security Centre experts. Together, they hunted on “networks of national significance,” according to CYBERCOM.

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The Enterprise Application Migration and Modernization arrangement, or EAMM, is expected to kick off in the second or third quarter of fiscal 2023.

“Since 2018, we have done 37 operations, 20 nations, on 55 different networks,” Nakasone said in October. “This is an opportunity for us to help our partners. It’s also a way that we think about, ‘How do we secure the United States?’”

The Pentagon sought $11.2 billion for cyber in fiscal 2023, $800 million, or nearly 8%, over the Biden administration’s previous ask.

Months of anticipation

Nakasone in April told lawmakers the Russian war machine was leveraging “a range of cyber capabilities,” including “espionage, influence and attack units,” to buttress its invasion and shape worldwide sentiment.

His testimony, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, came on the heels of a warning from Biden that Russia may unleash cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure, such as the energy and medical sectors, and private businesses.

But such large-scale, stateside attacks have yet to materialize, according to Rep. Jim Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat and cofounder of the congressional cybersecurity caucus.

“What we haven’t seen is the massive cyberattacks that, perhaps, we had expected, or the blowback here against the United States that could have happened because of our involvement and support of Ukraine and the work we’ve done, that President Biden has done, to really rally the international community behind Ukraine,” Langevin said Oct. 19 during a Washington Post Live appearance.

Smaller attacks, like those that paralyze and vandalize websites, hamper command and control, or cripple internet access, have unfolded. Ukraine’s government has logged more than 1,100 cyberattacks since the onset of the war.


Ukrainian gunmen fire a U.S.-made M777 howitzer from their position on the front line in the Kharkiv region on Aug. 1, 2022. (Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images)

“Russia has significant cyber capabilities and could use them against us or our allies,” Langevin said. “We haven’t seen, as I said earlier, that level of cyber action or cyberattacks that we had expected. But we’re not out of the woods.”

CISA this year issued a rolling “Shields Up” notice, a cybersecurity bulletin that was quickly circulated throughout the defense industry, a prime target for hackers. CISA, NSA and the FBI earlier this year said they observed regular targeting of defense contractors from January 2020 through February 2022, with Russian state-sponsored hackers absconding with information that grants “significant insight” into weapons development, communications infrastructure and information technologies.

Moscow has historically denied such claims.

The Shields Up advisory instructed organizations to prepare for disruptions, intrusions and irregularities stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war. CISA further suggested Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could head west along virtual avenues.

“We are not at a place where we should be putting our shields down,” CISA Director Jen Easterly said Oct. 12, sharing the stage with Nakasone. “The environment is very difficult. The Russians are very unpredictable, their back is against the wall. We’ve seen these horrific kinetic attacks against civilian infrastructure, and we may be seeing a lot worse coming.”

A prolonged conflict may make Russia more cyber aggressive, according to Neal Higgins, the deputy national cyber director for national cybersecurity. The CyberPeace Institute, a Switzerland-based nongovernmental organization, has cataloged more than 50 discrete cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and civilian systems this year alone.

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CISA and its Ukrainian analogue, the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, deepened its relationship this year, promising to exchange best practices, study critical infrastructure protection and establish joint cybersecurity projects and exercises.

“We need to ensure that we are prepared for threats, for incursions against our critical infrastructure, whether it’s state supported actors, criminally aligned ransomware groups, or even the cascading attacks, with attacks in Ukraine that could bleed over to Russia or could bleed over to the U.S., as we saw NotPetya in 2017,” Easterly said.

NotPetya malware incapacitated critical systems the world over, resulting in enormous financial loses. Russia was blamed for the devastation, which initially unfolded in Ukraine.

About Colin Demarest

Colin Demarest is a reporter at C4ISRNET, where he covers military networks, cyber and IT. Colin previously covered the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration — namely Cold War cleanup and nuclear weapons development — for a daily newspaper in South Carolina. Colin is also an award-winning photographer.



5. Pentagon Unveils New U.S. Command and More Ukraine Aid





Pentagon Unveils New U.S. Command and More Ukraine Aid

(The New York Times, Nov. 4, Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper)

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/11/04/world/ukraine-war-news-russia-updates


The Defense Department is setting up a new command to oversee how the United States and its allies train and equip the Ukrainian military, the Pentagon announced on Friday along with a new package of $400 million in security assistance.


The Pentagon’s commitment to supplying Ukraine with weaponry and the new command are clear signals that the United States expects the threat from Russia to Ukraine and its neighbors to persist for many years, current and former senior U.S. officials said.


The command will “ensure we are postured to continue supporting Ukraine over the long term,” Sabrina Singh, deputy Pentagon press secretary, told reporters at a news briefing. “We remain committed to Ukraine for as long as it takes.”


In the military, a command is a focused organization dedicated to a particular geographical or strategic area. The new command, called the Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, or SAG-U, will based in Germany and within the structure of the Pentagon’s European Command. With a staff of about 300 people, it will be focused on one mission: to help train and equip Ukraine’s military.


The new command will streamline a training and assistance system that was created on the fly after the Russian invasion in February. The Times reported in September that the new structure was in the works.


The revamped assistance program will be led by a high-ranking general who will replace Lt. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, the head of the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, who has coordinated much of the U.S. military assistance to Ukraine from behind the scenes over the past several months.


A leading candidate to take over the new position is Lt. Gen. Antonio A. Aguto, Jr., the head of the First U.S. Army headquarters, located at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, military officials said.


The additional $400 million in security assistance includes, for the first time, funding to refurbish 45 tanks from the Czech Republic, which will start arriving in Ukraine by the end of December, Ms. Singh said. The funding also will go to contracts for 1,100 Phoenix Ghost drones and an additional 40 riverine boats. 

 

The latest announcement brings to $18.9 billion the amount in military assistance that the United States has committed to Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24. The funds comprise a combination of immediate shipments from stockpiles as well as contracts for weapons to be delivered over the next three years.


Over the past several months, General Donahue, who commanded the American evacuation from Afghanistan in August 2021, has helped oversee training in Ukraine, talking to Ukrainian generals about their battlefield needs and drawing on his Special Operations background to advise his Ukrainian counterparts.


General Donahue and his staff have been deployed to Poland and Germany since the early days of the war. His staff recently returned to its main headquarters at Fort Bragg, N.C., where they were greeted this week by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III. General Donahue will remain in Germany until his successor arrives, Pentagon officials said.


The new command, which will report to Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the top American officer in Europe, will carry out the decisions made by the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a coalition of 40 countries that the Defense Department created after the Russian invasion to address Ukraine’s needs and requests. Senior military officials from the member nations met in Brussels this week.


The changes, which aim to give a formal structure to what has been improvised since the war’s onset, are roughly modeled on U.S. train-and-assist efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades.




6. Biden Calls for a Free Iran





Biden Calls for a Free Iran

fdd.org · November 7, 2022

Latest Developments

“We’re gonna free Iran,” said President Joe Biden on Thursday. “They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon.” A White House spokesperson appeared to back-pedal the statement the next day, saying that Biden was merely “expressing, again, our solidarity” with Iranian protestors rather than articulating a new U.S. policy. Still, the president’s declaration constitutes an apparent endorsement of regime change in Iran, implicitly repudiating his current policy, which centers on engaging the regime in hopes of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.

Expert Analysis

“President Biden has belatedly yet rightly affirmed the imperative of regime change in Iran, but he must go further. The White House should explicitly revoke its offer of sanctions relief to Iran. Washington must not provide an economic lifeline to a regime that continues to massacre its own people. – Tzvi Kahn, FDD Research Fellow and Senior Editor

Protests Continue

Protests continue to consume Iran as casualties mount, with more than 300 reported deaths, including 41 children and 24 women, since the unrest began in September. Tehran has arrested as many as 14,000 people, according to Javaid Rehman, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and indicted approximately 1,000 of them. Many face the death penalty.

Growing International Solidarity with the Iranian People

America and its allies have issued increasingly robust statements criticizing Iran’s human rights abuses while downplaying their previous emphasis on reviving the 2015 nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). On Friday, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States issued a joint statement expressing “support for the fundamental aspiration of the people of Iran for a future where human security and their universal human rights are respected and protected.” On October 17, the European Union sanctioned 11 individuals and four entities for human rights abuses, noting that Iran’s violent crackdown on peaceful protesters is “unjustifiable and unacceptable.”

Canada has passed four rounds of sanctions targeting dozens of Iranian officials and entities complicit in human rights abuses. In an October 29 speech, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alluded to the desirability of regime change, saying, “Even years from now, when perhaps there will be a change of regime and things will be better in Iran, those people responsible now will never be forgotten.”

A Dying Nuclear Deal

The White House increasingly appears to recognize that Tehran lacks any interest in reaching a nuclear deal consistent with Western interests. U.S. envoy for Iran Robert Malley said on October 31 that the Biden administration would not “waste time” trying to resuscitate the JCPOA. However, it remains unclear whether the White House would advocate pursuing the deal if protests faded. To eliminate such ambiguity, President Biden should reject further talks and adopt a policy of maximum pressure on Iran.

Related Analysis

Iran’s Hard-Liners Are Starting to Crack,” by Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh

Maximum Support for the Iranian People: A New Strategy,” by Saeed Ghasseminejad, Richard Goldberg, Tzvi Kahn, and Behnam Ben Taleblu

fdd.org · November 7, 2022


7. Now Is Not the Time to Negotiate with Putin


Excerpts:

Now is the time to redouble American and European support for Ukraine and provide the weapons and assistance that country needs, including financial assistance to stave off an economic collapse. Our European allies have fallen woefully short in providing desperately needed financial and economic assistance to Ukraine, which is hemorrhaging between $5 and $7 billion a month. Europe this year has sent far more money to Russia for energy imports than it has provided Ukraine in assistance.
Now is not the time to show weakness or fear, nor to demoralize the brave Ukrainians who are fighting for their freedom—and, for that matter, ours. There may well come a time for negotiations, but no reasonable observer thinks we are anywhere near that point yet.
For the moment, Ukraine’s battle is our battle, and the stakes could hardly be greater.



Now Is Not the Time to Negotiate with Putin

Pushing for negotiations could undermine the morale of the Ukrainians fighting in the field.

by ERIC EDELMAN AND DAVID J. KRAMER  NOVEMBER 7, 2022 5:30 AM

thebulwark.com · by Eric Edelman and David J. Kramer · November 7, 2022

Aiding Ukraine is not only the morally right thing to do—it also serves U.S. national security interests. By helping Ukraine defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces, we not only staunch the dangerous spread of Putinism beyond Russia’s borders, but we send a signal to Putin, as well as China’s Xi and other authoritarian leaders, that we will stand by democratic allies in their struggle for freedom. Thanks to the heroism of its fighters and citizens, Ukraine has imposed enormous costs on Russian forces and is regaining previously occupied territory. President Biden has said the United States will continue its support “for as long as it takes.” That is the right stance. Much to the surprise of many officials and analysts, it looks increasingly possible that Ukraine could win this war. It is in U.S. national interests to help them do so.

The United States has provided more than $20 billion in vital military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s first invasion in 2014, with most of it coming after Putin launched the latest phase of the war in February. U.S. support has made a massive difference on the battlefield, enabling Ukraine to regain the initiative, inflict heavy losses of personnel and equipment and push back invading and occupying Russian forces.

It’s not enough to help Ukraine merely defend the territory it currently controls; we must help Ukraine win this war and defeat Russian forces. If negotiations prove to be the path Ukraine seeks to pursue, we should help them start from the strongest position possible so that any talks are carried out on Kyiv’s terms, not Moscow’s. Any negotiated outcome must ensure a lasting peace, not simply a respite for Russian forces to reconstitute themselves and invade another day.


Podcast · November 07 2022

Will Saletan: Only One God-King at a Time

DeSantis flew too close to the sun, Kellyanne tried out her take on denialism, and…

Support for Ukraine has been bipartisan and popular among the American people. Congress has voted several times this year, by wide margins, for significant assistance packages. Only a small minority of Republicans in both the Senate and House have voted against providing aid.

But recent comments and statements by members of Congress have raised questions about the sustainability of that congressional support. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy predicted that a new Republican-controlled House after the midterms would no longer provide a “blank check” to Ukraine. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene went even further, telling a rally in Iowa that “under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine.” McCarthy hasn’t retracted his remarks nor contradicted Greene, though Republican Rep. Michael Waltz, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, pushed back, arguing that the majority of the Republican caucus supports assistance to Ukraine.

Days after McCarthy’s comments, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged the White House and other allies to “be quicker and more proactive to get Ukraine the aid they need.” And Sen. James E. Risch, who would chair the Foreign Relations Committee if the Republicans retake the Senate, told the Washington Post, “Ukrainians alone must decide the future of Ukraine. I support their fight for freedom, which they are winning on the battlefield. Any efforts to appease Putin are dangerous, irresponsible and will only encourage Russia’s aggression.”

From the other side of the aisle, the House Progressive Caucus released an open letter to President Biden signed by 30 Democratic House members urging him to pursue a “proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire” in the war.

Following an immediate avalanche of criticism, including from some Democrats listed as signers, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Progressive Caucus, took the unusual step of retracting the letter, blaming staff for releasing it “without vetting.”

During a recent visit to Croatia, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to reassure nervous Ukrainians and other Europeans in stressing that “support for Ukraine is bipartisan, bicameral, that means in the House and in the Senate, and it starts in the White House with our president.”

Still, damage has been done. Much like McCarthy’s remarks, the letter from House Democrats was ill-conceived, ill-timed, and deeply demoralizing to Ukraine. Ukrainians are the ones fighting and dying in defense of their country and freedom. They rely on our assistance to beat back Russian forces. The last thing they need is to worry whether America’s support will wane.

Not helping are calls from the think tank community pushing for negotiations just when the Ukrainians are on the march. In Foreign Affairs, the Rand Corporation’s Samuel Charap and Miranda Priebe seemed to bemoan the withdrawal of the progressives’ ill-timed and ill-advised letter after a “predictable outcry.” Doubling down on the thrust of that letter, they expressed support for “openness to an eventual negotiated end to the war” and dismissed the “optimistic scenario” that Ukraine could actually defeat Russia in this war. Such calls undermine Ukrainians’ confidence in American support.

Of course, the call to pursue negotiations is not new, and Charap and others have been suggesting it since the beginning of the conflict. They claimed that the only possible outcome was a negotiated peace and that the best the United States could do was push for negotiations as soon as possible. They even argued that U.S. military assistance was futile since it couldn’t change the “lopsided” military balance favoring Russia and would only prolong the agony before the inevitable negotiated settlement ratifying Russia’s superior military position.

The Stimson Center’s Emma Ashford argues that the question is “not whether negotiations are needed to end the war, but when and how they should unfold.” In a suggestion unlikely to go over well in Ukraine, Ashford contemplates “some face-saving deal in which de facto realities, such as Russian legal control of Crimea, could be recognized, and which the Kremlin could portray to the Russian public as genuine concessions by the West.” Incredibly, she even considers other territorial concessions Ukraine could offer Putin, including Crimea and “some of the Donbas.” Meanwhile, Ashford urges Ukraine to “tone down triumphalist talk” and proposes that the Biden administration “embrace flexibility, particularly in working out which sanctions against Russia can be lifted without strengthening Putin’s regime,” without specifying which ones.

Charles Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations also enters the fray in the New York Times, arguing, “Sooner rather than later, the West needs to move Ukraine and Russia from the battlefield to the negotiating table, brokering a diplomatic effort to shut the war down and arrive at a territorial settlement.” As part of a “hypothetical deal,” Kupchan proposes taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table and having Ukraine make territorial concessions, which the Ukrainian population strongly opposes.

Calls for negotiations now or “preparing” for negotiations now are sneaky ways of seeking the same thing. The point isn’t to be pro- or anti-negotiation. The point is to set the conditions for negotiations, should they come about, that lead to a real settlement that reflects U.S. interests in maintaining a sovereign, independent, sustainable Ukraine and a Russia that foregoes waging war against its neighbors on behalf of imperial ambitions to recreate, more or less, the Soviet empire.

There may not be a negotiation as long as Putin remains in power. That means we have to play for the long haul. Pushing for negotiations without regard to the balance of forces on the ground could well undermine the morale of the Ukrainians fighting in the field today. The central question of the war now is whether Russian forces’ combat effectiveness and morale crack before Ukraine faces economic and social exhaustion. Undermining our own side now is the height of folly.

The United States should not pressure Ukraine into negotiations with Putin when the Russian leader has never demonstrated any serious interest in ending the war. Given his responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Ukraine, there is little support inside Ukraine for sitting down with Moscow and trading territory for a ceasefire. Any hope for serious negotiations actually rests on setting the conditions that would enable both sides to come to the table. Putin started this war, but Ukraine is on the march. If Putin wants to negotiate, it’s up to him to ask—and not in a way that seeks to buy time for the Russian side.

Not every war has a diplomatic solution. Sometimes, the solution comes from military victory, and Ukrainians are confident, despite the tremendous losses they are suffering, that they will prevail. Victory for Ukraine means the expulsion of all Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, and the Ukrainians have made significant progress in this direction. Concerns that an “uncontrolled” escalatory spiral will end in World War III are vastly exaggerated. The recent climbdowns by Russia with regard to the Black Sea grain deal and the Putin/Foreign Ministry statements denying any intention to use nuclear weapons are the latest evidence indicating that the West’s ability to support Ukraine is greater than many have generally understood.

More than 80,000 Russians fighters have been killed or wounded in the fighting, an absolutely staggering toll. Running short of men, Putin resorted in September to ordering the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of new recruits, a very unpopular move that he had hoped to avoid. In response to that order, hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled the country. Those unable to escape have found themselves without uniforms, weapons, food, or shelter in increasingly inhospitable conditions on the battlefield.

While Ukraine continues to pay a steep price in lives lost and infrastructure damaged, it has turned the tide. Putin’s largely indirect hints that Russia might resort to using weapons of mass destruction, including his defense minister’s latest absurd claims that Ukraine intends to deploy a “dirty bomb,” are designed to discourage us from continuing our critical support to Ukraine. We should not fall for such tricks.

Putin is expected to attend the G-20 meeting in Indonesia in mid-November. Inviting him to attend—or even participate remotely—as he bears responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Ukraine makes a travesty of the G-20. While never a gathering of democracies (given the participation of China and Saudi Arabia, along with Russia), the leaders of such major economic powers should be isolating Putin and applying pressure on him in every way possible, not including him in glitzy summits.

Do any leaders want their photo taken with their Russian counterpart? Biden should resist any temptation to meet with Putin, whether to discuss the possible release of Americans unfairly held prisoner in Russia or to avoid “jeopardizing cooperation between Washington and Moscow on issues of global importance, such as arms control,” as Charap naively argues.

Now is the time to redouble American and European support for Ukraine and provide the weapons and assistance that country needs, including financial assistance to stave off an economic collapse. Our European allies have fallen woefully short in providing desperately needed financial and economic assistance to Ukraine, which is hemorrhaging between $5 and $7 billion a month. Europe this year has sent far more money to Russia for energy imports than it has provided Ukraine in assistance.

Now is not the time to show weakness or fear, nor to demoralize the brave Ukrainians who are fighting for their freedom—and, for that matter, ours. There may well come a time for negotiations, but no reasonable observer thinks we are anywhere near that point yet.

For the moment, Ukraine’s battle is our battle, and the stakes could hardly be greater.

thebulwark.com · by Eric Edelman and David J. Kramer · November 7, 2022


8. Norway bulks up artillery with new K9 howitzer agreement, tank contract set for year end (From South Korea)





Norway bulks up artillery with new K9 howitzer agreement, tank contract set for year end - Breaking Defense

Norway's investment in additional artillery systems fits in with a much larger land capability plan that will soon see the award of a production contract for new main battle tanks.

breakingdefense.com · by Tim Martin · November 7, 2022

The K9 self-propelled howitzer primarily uses 155mm ammunition and offers a range of 460Km (Photo: Finnish Army)

DUBLIN — The Norwegian Defense Material Agency (NDMA) signed off today an option with partner Hanwha Defense of South Korea for delivery of an additional four K9 Thunder 155mm self-propelled howitzers and eight more K10 ammunition resupply vehicles.

The option being exercised falls within an original 1.8 billion kroner ($180 million) contract struck between the two parties in 2017 and increases Oslo’s full K9 order to 28 systems. Similarly, procurement of K10, the supporting automated robotic unit of the K9, will rise to a total of 14 vehicles.

All deliveries are expected to take place within the next two years, according to a NDMA public affairs spokesperson.

Oslo’s decision follows Poland and Hanwha agreeing on a $2.4 billion K9 deal in August — the largest export contract for the artillery system that has also been ordered by Hanwha’s home country of South Korea as well as Turkey, India, Finland, Estonia, Australia and Egypt.

The strengthening of Norway’s artillery firepower arrives in advance of a key decision expected before the end of 2022 for acquisition of a new Main Battle Tank (MBT), a contract competition between Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, offering the Leopard 2A7, and South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem pitching the K2 Black Panther.

“Both manufacturers have delivered offers with the vehicles involved in cold winter tests in Norway last year,” the NDMA spokesperson said of the MBT competition. “It has been a thorough process so far.”

He also estimated the new MBT contract to be worth around $1-2 billion, with the Norwegian Army requirement set at 72 vehicles. Entry to service has been planned for 2025, coinciding with Leopard L2A4 retirement.

Norway plans on further increasing land capabilities through the acquisition of additional Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV) ahead of the army standing up a fourth mechanized battalion, though it’s unclear exactly what type of vehicle that will be.

“Rather than simply ordering more CV-90 IFVs [already operated by Norway] the government will conduct groundwork to assess whether other options are best or buy additional CV-90s,” said the NDMA spokesperson.

The government is expected to make a recommendation on “how to move forward” with the IFV program before the end of the year, with a procurement phase potentially starting at the end of 2024, confirmed the spokesperson.

“A [request for information] was developed before the summer, with an internal evaluation being developed now,” he added.

Much interest also surrounds investment in a long range precision fires program, but procurement approval by Oslo will only be reached once NDMA carries out key activities such as market research and cost analysis.

“At that point, it will then be up to the government to make a prioritization decision or we could see an invitation to tender occur late 2023 or 2024,” added the NDMA spokesperson.

Norway’s latest future defense acquisitions document, published in April 2022, states that introduction of a new long range precision fire system is planned for 2029.

In an Oct. 11 interview with Breaking Defense, both Maj. Gen. Lars Lervik, the top Norwegian Army officer, and his Swedish counterpart Maj. Gen. Karl Engelbrektson, were unequivocal about investment in long-range fires. Lervik stated, “It’s about having range and precision, but it’s also about having volume. So that’s the trade off, at least we are looking at, you need to have some systems that can reach out, but we also need to have the volume to stay in the close fight.”

Norway’s progress with land based acquisitions is looked upon as critical to deterring or countering Russian aggression, especially within the context of the two countries sharing a 198Km border in the Arctic.


9. The Obvious Climate Strategy Nobody Will Talk About


Excerpts:

A society’s resilience to climate extremes is closely coupled, of course, with economic development. That includes access to plentiful energy, better technology, improved agriculture, and the ability to pay for better houses and infrastructure. Even a cursory look at the data makes abundantly clear that development has saved millions of lives over the past century. The average resident of Earth today is more than 90 percent less likely to die from floods, droughts, storms, or other extreme climate events today than the 1920s—and that’s almost entirely the result of a phenomenal decline in the number of people living in poverty without access to such things as safe housing, functioning infrastructure, and good institutions.
Economic growth and technological innovation have saved tens of millions of lives from climate extremes over the last century.
Economic growth and technological innovation have saved tens of millions of lives from climate extremes over the last century. Even as global warming heats the planet, we already know that continuing economic development and rising living standards will save countless more lives over the coming decades, especially in the global south.
Yet there will be little acknowledgement of these facts in Egypt. When negotiations turn to adaptation and resilience, the conversation will once again ignore the actual record of climate adaptation, insisting, contrary to the facts, that global vulnerability to climate extremes has radically increased in recent years.
Doing so serves the interests of rich-world governments, whose talk of a climate emergency appeases powerful domestic environmental constituencies that demand limits on further fossil fuel development in poor countries. Poor countries, in turn, marshal claims that climate change is responsible for present-day catastrophes to demand financial resources from rich countries.
But the confusion and disinformation about adaptation that will be on full display in Egypt have also set back efforts to improve climate resilience. That’s because they shift the focus away from proven development pathways, transforming a wildly successful global development project into a zero-sum conflict that pits climate mitigation against adaptation and rich countries against poor.



The Obvious Climate Strategy Nobody Will Talk About

Economic development is the only proven path to climate resilience.

Foreign Policy · by Ted Nordhaus, Vijaya Ramachandran, Patrick Brown · November 6, 2022

Global leaders will convene this week at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh for another round of haggling over the global response to climate change. While the venues are different, the script remains the same: World leaders will outdo one another with dire warnings of catastrophe, agree that the “climate crisis” demands greater ambition to cut emissions, and reiterate their commitment to nonbinding targets the world is unlikely to meet.

Then, if the past is any guide, the climate conference will founder over the same intractable conflicts as always. Poor countries will demand that rich countries cut emissions first and fastest—and support programs to help the global south adapt to a warming climate. Rich countries will demand that poor countries leapfrog fossil fuels and power their development with wind and solar energy. Poor countries will agree, in principle, to do so if rich countries foot the bill and compensate the nations of the global south for damage from climate change they are not responsible for. Rich countries will commit, in principle, to do so but will fail to deliver the promised support.

This has been the basic template for global climate negotiations since they began in earnest in the mid-1990s. The yawning gap between the performative spectacle taking place in Egypt and the world as it actually operates will be all the more pronounced this year. Rich countries have embarked on a mad scramble to secure oil and gas supplies in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Poor countries face deep energy and food shortages as wealthy nations bid up the price of fossil fuels, food, and fertilizer while simultaneously cutting off aid to poor countries to develop their own fossil fuel supplies and infrastructure in the name of avoiding climate disaster.

But while politicians, United Nations functionaries, climate activists, jet-setting celebrities, and a compliant media will find creative ways to escalate the narrative of cascading catastrophes, filled with anecdotes of raging waters, oppressive heat, parched soil, and killer storms, the data tells a different and far more promising story. The world hasn’t, in recent decades, made much progress on cutting overall emissions. But it has become much more resilient to all kinds of climate extremes.

Climate adaptation—the actions that societies take to protect their populations from extreme weather, such as storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, and cold snaps—works. It includes all the things people in rich countries take for granted: well-constructed buildings that withstand disasters, dikes and dams that protect from floods, air conditioning and cold storage for food and medicines, early warning systems, well-equipped first responders, and evacuation routes along well-paved roads.

A society’s resilience to climate extremes is closely coupled, of course, with economic development. That includes access to plentiful energy, better technology, improved agriculture, and the ability to pay for better houses and infrastructure. Even a cursory look at the data makes abundantly clear that development has saved millions of lives over the past century. The average resident of Earth today is more than 90 percent less likely to die from floods, droughts, storms, or other extreme climate events today than the 1920s—and that’s almost entirely the result of a phenomenal decline in the number of people living in poverty without access to such things as safe housing, functioning infrastructure, and good institutions.

Economic growth and technological innovation have saved tens of millions of lives from climate extremes over the last century.

Economic growth and technological innovation have saved tens of millions of lives from climate extremes over the last century. Even as global warming heats the planet, we already know that continuing economic development and rising living standards will save countless more lives over the coming decades, especially in the global south.

Yet there will be little acknowledgement of these facts in Egypt. When negotiations turn to adaptation and resilience, the conversation will once again ignore the actual record of climate adaptation, insisting, contrary to the facts, that global vulnerability to climate extremes has radically increased in recent years.

Doing so serves the interests of rich-world governments, whose talk of a climate emergency appeases powerful domestic environmental constituencies that demand limits on further fossil fuel development in poor countries. Poor countries, in turn, marshal claims that climate change is responsible for present-day catastrophes to demand financial resources from rich countries.

But the confusion and disinformation about adaptation that will be on full display in Egypt have also set back efforts to improve climate resilience. That’s because they shift the focus away from proven development pathways, transforming a wildly successful global development project into a zero-sum conflict that pits climate mitigation against adaptation and rich countries against poor.

Security guards watch people walk across a small dam of sandbags to escape flooding

Security guards watch people walk across a small dam of sandbags to escape flooding in Tianjin, China, on July 20, 2016. Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Why adaptation works

Climate adaptation is one of the great and underappreciated success stories of the last 100 years. The number of deaths associated with extreme weather and climate-related natural disasters has fallen by a factor of 10 over the past century. Adjusted for today’s much larger global population, this mortality has fallen even faster: by a factor of 25.

Well into the 20th century, annual death tolls from climate-related natural disasters numbering in the hundreds of thousands or even millions were routine. In China, the 1887 Yellow River flood killed as many as 2 million people and the 1931 Yangtze-Huai River floods as many as 4 million. Tropical cyclones in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh killed some 61,000 in 1942, 47,000 in 1965, 500,000 in 1970, 50,000 in 1977, and 140,000 in 1991. Famine across India and China regularly killed millions.

Today, deaths in China from flooding number fewer than 500 each year. Cyclones across the Indian subcontinent rarely cause even 1,000 deaths. Neither China nor India has suffered a famine in decades.

These trends long predate knowledge or concern about climate change. But even in the more recent past, for which the data is more reliable and when the effects of global warming had become clearer, the trend shows no sign of stopping. Since the 1980s, the global death rate from these hazards has dropped by 85 percent, including by 52 percent for general floods, 55 percent for heat waves, and 87 percent for storms.

Increased resilience to natural disasters of all sorts is strongly correlated with growing global wealth and improvements in infrastructure, technology, governance, and social services. As those stupendous death tolls from pre-development China and India make clear, the primary beneficiaries have been the globe’s poorest. That is especially true of recent decades, as falling poverty rates, rapid urbanization, and better communications technologies have radically improved the disaster resilience of most populations around the world.

The migration of large populations from rural regions to cities brings with it a shift from unpaved roads and houses often made of mud, which don’t hold up well to storms and flooding, to much more durable infrastructure and housing. Improved sanitation and clean drinking water reduce illness and disease in the aftermath of such events. Better irrigation and crop breeding have reduced the frequency of crop failures resulting from droughts. Refrigeration keeps food from spoiling on its way to markets, and air conditioning helps people keep cool during heat waves.

It is true that climate change can make some aspects of climate extremes worse. A flood, a heat wave, or a hurricane might be intensified by climate change. But in almost all cases, an extreme climate event would still be an extreme event without climate change—it just wouldn’t be quite as extreme. For instance, global warming likely made the high-profile heat wave that struck India in the spring of 2022 about 1 degree Celsius hotter than it would have been otherwise. Warming boosted rainfall from Hurricane Katrina by 4 to 9 percent and from Hurricane Ian by about 10 percent.

Moreover, the human and economic costs of a natural disaster are almost never determined primarily by the intensity of the climate extreme. Rather, those costs are largely determined by how many people are in harm’s way and how well adapted to the hazard those populations are. A Category 1 hurricane making landfall over Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, for instance, would almost certainly result in far greater loss of life than a much more powerful Category 5 hurricane striking Miami. Economic losses, on the other hand, would be greater in Miami, simply because Miami is so much wealthier. But the consequences of those economic losses in terms of livelihoods and human well-being would be much more serious in Port-Au-Prince.

In short, most of the costs associated with present-day climate disasters are due to natural climate variability, not climate change, and are determined by economic development and societal resilience, not the intensity of the climate hazard. For these reasons, the basic formula for adapting to climate change is the same as the formula that has allowed the world to radically reduce the human costs of climate-related disasters over the last century: more wealth, infrastructure, and technology.

People selling from the market walk in the flooded street in the neighborhood

People walk in a flooded street in the neighborhood of Pétion-Ville, Haiti, on Aug. 23, 2020, during Tropical Storm Laura.ESTAILOVE ST-VAL/AFP via Getty Images

How adaptation became a dirty word

Despite overwhelming evidence that humankind has become vastly more resilient to climate extremes—and knows how to further increase its resilience—international efforts to address climate change have largely ignored these facts. Instead of focusing on economic and infrastructure development to raise resilience, policymakers, experts, and activists have focused only on a much smaller set of adaptation measures that would not conflict with their single-minded effort to mitigate carbon emissions.

Al Gore, in his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, dismissed adaptation as a “kind of laziness, an arrogant faith in our ability to react in time to save our skins.” Over much of the two decades that followed, many climate activists considered “adaptation” to be a dirty word: a form of climate denial that distracted from efforts to cut emissions and ban fossil fuels. Echoes of those claims remain today. For many environmentalists, too much talk of adapting to climate change raises the specter of moral hazard—the concern that focusing on adaptation will draw resources and attention away from efforts to cut emissions.

In 1992, when world leaders adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, they recognized the importance of climate adaptation—but only insofar as it was necessary to address climate impacts attributable to anthropogenic greenhouse emissions, ignoring the far greater risks associated with natural extremes. Defining adaptation so narrowly allowed climate advocates to conflate all kinds of natural climate extremes with anthropogenic warming in the climate discourse, exclude economic development processes from the adaptation picture, and obscure the very real trade-offs between emissions mitigation and climate adaptation—especially for poor countries.

Most advocates today can acknowledge that adaptation is a critical global priority but ignore the elephant in the room: Economic development is the pathway to climate resilience.

As a result, most advocates today can acknowledge that adaptation is a critical global priority without acknowledging the elephant in the room, which is that economic development is the pathway to climate resilience and that many of the most critical development processes still require fossil fuels. Instead, climate advocates focus on a narrow set of measures to adapt to climate change that largely sidestep the issue. These include abandoning low-lying coastal regions and flood plains rather than protecting them with infrastructure; so-called natural solutions such as restoring wetlands and forests; and limited technological remedies such as early-warning systems and drought-tolerant crop varieties. The common denominator is that this narrow set of projects does not conflict in any way with the climate movement’s priority of cutting emissions.

Without question, some of these measures have merit. But they entirely ignore the proven mechanisms that have so radically improved global resilience to climate extremes. The reason for this is obvious: Development and resilience require energy—and lots of it.

Not only are most of the mechanisms that make societies resilient to climate change energy-intensive, but they also tend to be poorly suited to current low-carbon technologies, particularly renewable energy. Drought-tolerant crops are important. But so are synthetic fertilizers, which are essential to raising agricultural yields and improving food security across Africa and other low-income regions. So, too, is large-scale irrigation. But unlike seeds, synthetic fertilizer is manufactured with natural gas, and irrigation requires a continuous supply of electricity that renewable energy is ill-suited to provide.

Food security does not end on the farm. In Nigeria, 45 percent of fresh produce rots due to the lack of refrigeration. Globally, 1.3 billion tons of perishable food goes to waste each year because of lack of proper post-harvest storage, almost all of it in poor countries. Cold storage and reliable transportation are central to robust food supply chains that are resilient to drought and variations in temperature. But like irrigation and fertilizer production, cold storage is energy-intensive and therefore the preserve of rich and middle-income countries. The United States, for example, uses 50 times as much energy per capita for cold storage as Africa.

To better cope with storms and floods, poor countries need to pave roads, construct dikes, and build resilient homes, schools, and hospitals. This, too, takes plentiful energy. Resilient structures require concrete and steel, which use large amounts of energy in their manufacture. These processes require very high temperatures that can only be attained with fossil fuels. Roads require large amounts of asphalt—a product of petroleum refining.

Paved roads, furthermore, don’t do much good without vehicles. But the world is still decades away from cost-effective electric vehicles and charging infrastructure that could plausibly meet critical transportation needs in places such as sub-Saharan Africa.

Read More

Electricity workers in a boat check solar panels at a photovoltaic power station built in a fishpond in Haian, China, on July 19, 2021.

Electricity workers in a boat check solar panels at a photovoltaic power station built in a fishpond in Haian, China, on July 19, 2021.

Russia’s War Is the End of Climate Policy as We Know It

Ironically, geopolitical strife and energy scarcity will do more for the climate than decades of ardent policies.

People walk in the illuminated streets in a village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where electricity is a rarity, on July 17, 2016.

People walk in the illuminated streets in a village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where electricity is a rarity, on July 17, 2016.

Rich Countries’ Climate Policies Are Colonialism in Green

At COP26, developed-world governments are working to keep the global south poor.

In these and so many other ways, efforts to improve global resilience to climate extremes and natural disasters depend on the availability of many kinds of critical infrastructure and adaptive capabilities. Almost all of these require fossil energy. They are either difficult to electrify—such as industrial processes and transportation—which makes them poor candidates to power with renewable energy, or they require continuous power that variable energy sources such as wind and solar cannot currently provide in a cost-effective manner.

The contrast between energy-intensive, society-wide adaptation that demonstrably makes countries more resilient to climate change and the narrow set of adaptation projects that feature at U.N. climate negotiations reveals just how unserious international adaptation efforts actually are. By ignoring proven adaptation processes, climate advocates have been able to shoehorn into a narrow and limited set of adaptation measures not requiring fossil energy capacious demands for climate mitigation while simultaneously insisting that adaptation is a fool’s errand without rapid and deep emissions cuts.

The practical result has been to deemphasize adaptation, pit it against mitigation, and, unconscionably, obstruct the single most important dimension along which the world has made progress to address the problem. Today, the European Union, the Biden administration, and environmental groups based in and financed by the West advocate for blanket bans on international finance for all fossil fuel infrastructure in the name of climate mitigation. This creates no ostensible conflict with international climate adaptation commitments only because all the critical adaptation processes requiring fossil fuels-based development have literally been defined out of the international framework.

All of this, ironically, has been done in the name of saving the global poor from climate catastrophes, even as it has put countless lives at risk by not only ignoring processes that increase resilience but actively obstructing them.

Chinese and Ivorians technicians work on the construction site

Chinese and Ivorian technicians work on the construction site of a new container terminal at the port of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on March 27, 2019.ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images

What poor and developing countries should do now

Why, then, have most poor nations signed onto the international framework for climate action, even though they know that poverty and lack of economic development represent a far greater threat to the health and well-being of their populations than climate change?

The answer should be obvious. The U.N. climate framework was predicated on a grand bargain: In exchange for a global commitment to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures, rich nations would cut emissions deeply, underwrite the cost of a clean energy transition in poor countries, and finance adaptation and development to ensure that poor countries would be resilient to the impacts of warming that couldn’t be avoided.

Poor countries bought into this plan in hopes that it would lead to more development support—and out of fear that, without a seat at the table, development aid and access to Western technology and markets would be cut off. But in the 30 years since that framework was adopted, none of these promises have materialized. In Egypt, poor countries would therefore be well advised to reconsider whether continued obeisance to the current climate policy framework serves their needs and interests.

The siren song of recompense for climate damage and unrequited requests for adaptation funding haven’t gotten roads paved, houses built, or modern irrigation, water, and sewage systems installed. Instead, poor countries have inadvertently legitimized catastrophic, wildly exaggerated claims about future climate impacts and their relationship to emissions. These claims, in turn, have justified Western efforts to restrict poor countries’ development of energy resources and infrastructure—the prerequisite for climate resilience.

Over the last decade, international negotiations to address climate change have made a partial and welcome shift. Instead of attempts to negotiate a legally binding treaty to limit warming, climate summits have shifted toward voluntary and bottom-up commitments by national governments to shift their economies away from fossil fuels in ways consistent with other critical priorities, not least economic development.

Poor countries have inadvertently legitimized catastrophic, wildly exaggerated claims about future climate impacts and their relationship to emissions.

But these negotiations remain saddled with arbitrary and nonbinding commitments to emissions targets and temperature thresholds, which have become the basis for restrictions by Western governments and multilateral organizations on development finance. All this is happening despite only weak evidence, at best, of a relationship between any specific temperature threshold and catastrophic climate impacts on human societies.

A complete shift of international efforts to address climate change toward a shared global effort to accelerate economic development, build resilient infrastructure, and accelerate low-carbon innovation and deployment is long overdue. Poor countries, which are directly affected, should lead the push.

There are many good reasons to attempt to limit global warming. But precisely how much the Earth warms will not be the main determinant of how climate change will impact human societies. Nor will focusing on wealth, development, infrastructure, and technology preclude a shift away from greenhouse emissions, as many activists would have us believe. To the contrary, there is very good reason to believe that economic growth and development over the rest of this century will be much less carbon-intensive than it was over the last century.

Emissions have already peaked in most rich nations and are now declining, even after one accounts for the outsourcing of carbon-intensive industries to less developed regions. Wind, solar, and even battery technologies have become much more viable technologically and economically, offering real alternatives to fossil fuels in many contexts. Europe has largely reversed its opposition to nuclear energy, dozens of new nuclear plants are under construction across Asia, and a new generation of advanced, safe, small-scale nuclear technologies finally promises to make clean nuclear energy cheaper and more accessible for poor countries, too.

These developments promise to mitigate—but won’t eliminate—global dependence on fossil fuels. Too many uses of fossil fuels remain critical, especially for developing economies. But even here, there is much promise: Africa, where the majority of the world’s population growth will occur over the rest of this century, has abundant natural gas and hydroelectric resources. That could allow Africa to leapfrog coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, even while it uses oil and gas in key sectors of its economy.

Stopping global warming will require the world to cease burning fossil fuels entirely at some point. But a wealthier, more resilient, and more equitable world will have both more time and more resources to do so. The remarkable and largely untold story of adaptation to climate extremes by development shows how.

Putting these lessons into practice, however, will require poor countries to stand up to the easy moralizing and hypocrisy of Western governments and climate advocates—and loudly reject the false constraints that international climate diplomacy has attempted to impose on their development over the last 30 years. Sharm el-Sheikh, an eco-fantasia built by the Egyptian government to cater to European tourists, would be a fitting place to do so—because, just like Sharm el-Sheikh, the U.N. climate framework was constructed to serve rich-world governments and Western environmentalists. This month, developing-world leaders couldn’t ask for a better and more symbolic place to abandon it.

Foreign Policy · by Ted Nordhaus, Vijaya Ramachandran, Patrick Brown · November 6, 2022


10.  Russia's Prigozhin admits interfering in U.S. elections


Say it ain't so.


Excerpts:

In July, the U.S. State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on Prigozhin in connection with "engagement in U.S. election interference". He has been hit by U.S., British and European Union sanctions.
Prigozhin kept a low public profile until recently but has become more outspoken in the course of the Ukraine war, including by criticising the performance of Russia's generals.
In September he admitted to founding the Kremlin-aligned Wagner Group mercenary group, which is active in Syria, Africa and Ukraine. Last Friday it opened a defence technology centre in St Petersburg, a further step by Prigozhin to highlight his military credentials.



Russia's Prigozhin admits interfering in U.S. elections

Reuters · by Reuters

LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Monday he had interfered in U.S. elections and would continue doing so in future, the first such admission from a figure who has been formally implicated by Washington in efforts to influence American politics.

In comments posted by the press service of his Concord catering firm on Russia's Facebook equivalent VKontakte, Prigozhin said: "We have interfered (in U.S. elections), we are interfering and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do."

The remark was posted on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections in response to a request for comment from a Russian news site.

"During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once," Prigozhin said. He did not elaborate on the cryptic comment.

Prigozhin, who is often referred to as "Putin's chef" because his catering company operates Kremlin contracts, has been formally accused of sponsoring Russia-based "troll farms" that seek to influence U.S. politics.

In July, the U.S. State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on Prigozhin in connection with "engagement in U.S. election interference". He has been hit by U.S., British and European Union sanctions.

Prigozhin kept a low public profile until recently but has become more outspoken in the course of the Ukraine war, including by criticising the performance of Russia's generals.

In September he admitted to founding the Kremlin-aligned Wagner Group mercenary group, which is active in Syria, Africa and Ukraine. Last Friday it opened a defence technology centre in St Petersburg, a further step by Prigozhin to highlight his military credentials.

Reporting by Reuters, Editing by Angus MacSwan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters



11. Russia has nearly 120 Iskander missiles left in stock - intelligence



Russia has nearly 120 Iskander missiles left in stock - intelligence

ukrinform.net

This was stated by a spokesman for the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, Vadym Skibitskyi, in a comment to The Economist, reports Ukrinform.

According to Skibitskyi, Ukraine still has no effective defense against ballistic missiles. In particular, in October, air defense forces shot down three out of 25 Iskander ballistic missiles launched by Russia, while about 80% of cruise missiles and drones were shot down during the latest massive attack on critical infrastructure facilities on October 31.

Skibitskyi says the only thing that limits Russia in the use of ballistic missiles is their actual shortage.

For his part, the spokesman for the Air Force Command Yuriy Ihnat emphasized that Ukraine now needs advanced Western missile defense systems capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, such as the U.S.-made Patriot systems. In addition, longer-range missiles such as ATACMS are required.



ukrinform.net


12. Taiwan Prepares to Be Invaded


Conclusion:

In the end, Tsai’s agenda is born of necessity. “When we’re strong, resilient, trustworthy, and a good partner,” Tsai said, “people will see our values. That makes us worthy of support.”
The last question I asked President Tsai was whether she had ever wished to govern a normal country with normal problems. She appeared to consider the notion, but allowed herself to betray no emotion. “We may be unfortunate to have a big neighbor next door,” she said. “But that makes us stronger.”



Taiwan Prepares to Be Invaded

If China wants to do something drastic, President Tsai Ing-wen told me, “Xi has to weigh the costs. He has to think twice.”

By Ben Rhodes

Illustrations by Cristiana Couceiro

The Atlantic · by Ben Rhodes · November 7, 2022

Taiwan’s presidential offices are located in a sprawling, stately complex built by the Japanese colonial administration in the early 20th century—a reminder that, for all the belligerent rhetoric coming from the Chinese Communist Party, Taiwan has not been firmly under Beijing’s control for well over 100 years. When I arrived at the offices in September for an interview with President Tsai Ing-wen, it occurred to me that the large tower rising above the entrance might become a target in the event of an invasion.

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Now in her sixth year in power, Tsai is Taiwan’s first female president. We met in a cavernous room decorated with orchids and a grandfather clock. When she entered, she was trailed by a retinue of aides—mostly men. Tsai was brisk, friendly, and businesslike. There was little small talk as we sat across from each other in armchairs. Tsai projected a reserved assurance. I told her that I wanted to know what it was like to face a mounting threat, particularly after the brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin—Chinese President Xi Jinping’s self-proclaimed “best friend” on the world stage. Tsai or some future Taiwanese leader could soon have the dubious distinction of playing the role of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to Xi’s Putin.

“It’s real that this thing could happen to us,” Tsai said. “So we need to get ourselves ready.” At another point, she emphasized: “There is a genuine threat out there. It’s not hype.”

Fate has placed Taiwan and Ukraine in similar positions. Both have giant neighbors who once ruled them as imperial possessions. Both have undergone democratic transformations and have thus become an ideological danger to the autocrats who covet their territory. Just as Putin has made the erasure of Ukraine’s sovereignty central to his political project, Xi has vowed to unify China and Taiwan, by force if necessary. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned in October that China may be working on a “much faster timeline” for dealing—somehow—with Taiwan. U.S. military and intelligence leaders have pointed to 2027 as a potential time frame for an invasion, believing that China’s military modernization will have advanced sufficiently by then.

The situation requires Tsai to perform a careful balancing act: preparing for war while seeking to avoid it.

Tsai is the youngest of 11 children born to the owner of an auto-repair store. She speaks English with a faint trace of a British accent—she did postgraduate work at the London School of Economics. Tsai chooses her words carefully and appears at peace with the role that history has assigned her. She is well aware of the stakes. Taiwan’s 24 million people have developed their own distinctive and open culture, their own democratic institutions. Her position toward China and the People’s Liberation Army is defiant: She made clear to me that the Taiwanese will not be bullied, and that Beijing should not misjudge their resolve. “If the PLA wants to do something drastic, Xi has to weigh the costs,” Tsai said. “He has to think twice.”

Read: How China wants to replace the U.S. order

Of course, a war with China would be enormously lopsided. Tsai noted that the Taiwan legislature recently passed a double-digit increase in the defense budget; Taiwan is now on pace to spend more than $19 billion on defense in 2023. But China spends more than $200 billion a year. This has prompted calls for a shift in Taiwan’s defense priorities. Instead of building large, conventional hardware (airplanes, tanks, submarines), military experts have urged Taiwan to focus on so-called asymmetric capabilities (anti-ship weapons, surface-to-air missiles, stockpiles of small arms and ammunition), which have served Ukraine well in repelling a larger invader. That, combined with a bigger force of civilian reserves, could make the cost of an invasion too high for China. This approach has earned a nickname in global defense circles: “the porcupine strategy.”

From Tsai’s perspective, it is important to remain low-key and unrattled, but also to build up the capacity for Taiwan to defend itself. During China’s particularly aggressive military exercises in August—mounted in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island—Tsai maintained what appeared to be a normal schedule, attending a cultural festival but also visiting with troops. She described to me a resilient calm among younger people. They want to get trained, she said. “They’re not trying to escape.”

If war comes, a thriving democracy could be extinguished. The United States could be drawn into its first direct military conflict with a nuclear-armed superpower.

China’s threatening behavior, meanwhile, has only escalated. Chinese officials have repeatedly expressed the view that the entirety of the Taiwan Strait already belongs to China. Chinese warplanes regularly violate Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone. During the military exercises conducted after Pelosi’s visit, China shot missiles over Taiwan and encircled it with warships in a maneuver that hinted at a future blockade—no small concern for an island that imports nearly all of its energy.

War is never inevitable, but if it comes, it would have world-changing consequences. A thriving democracy could be extinguished. The Chinese Communist Party could be either emboldened or destabilized. Given Taiwan’s dominance of the semiconductor industry and the disruption of U.S.-China trade, the global economy could suffer a shock far greater than the one caused by the war in Ukraine. And the United States could be drawn into its first direct military conflict with a nuclear-armed superpower.

Taiwan’s formal status has been unresolved for decades. Neither independent nor part of the People’s Republic of China, the citizens of Taiwan have lived within a tenuous status quo constructed by diplomats. Essentially, the arrangement has worked like this: Taiwan doesn’t declare independence, China doesn’t invade, and the U.S. doesn’t say definitively whether it would enter a conflict should one occur.

The type of support that Taiwan now needs—to deter a conflict or to defend itself if conflict comes—is a subject of growing debate in Taipei and Washington. The last time there was a military crisis in the Taiwan Strait was in 1995, ahead of Taiwan’s first democratic presidential election. China test-fired ballistic missiles and conducted rehearsals for an amphibious invasion. The U.S. countered by sending an aircraft-carrier group and other naval assets to the region, demonstrating its overwhelming military advantage. Things have changed since then. China now has the world’s largest navy, with more than 350 ships and submarines. Its rocket force maintains the world’s largest arsenal of land-based missiles, which would feature in any war with Taiwan.

Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, who was chief of Taiwan’s General Staff from 2017 to 2019, has championed the shift to asymmetric capabilities and has emerged as a Cassandra-like figure in his warnings that Taiwan is not preparing fast enough. His rigid military manner is animated by a blunt sense of urgency. Like officials I spoke with who are still in government, Lee saw the Chinese response to the Pelosi visit as another step in Beijing’s pursuit of a “new normal.” On more than one occasion China has pushed beyond the median line in the waters between Taiwan and China. Its flights into Taiwan’s air-defense zone have escalated. China is eating away at Taiwan’s sovereignty, de facto claiming its airspace and waters. Several analysts have used the phrase boiling the frog to describe Beijing’s Taiwan strategy.

Read: China’s mistakes can be America’s gain

This new normal presents challenges to both Taiwan and the United States. China’s conventional firepower could overwhelm Taiwan’s air and naval defenses—its capacity to keep the enemy at a distance. China could also move quickly to deny the U.S. access to the island, cutting it off from the outside world by sea and air. Politically, Lee said, the message from China to the U.S. and Taiwan is simple: “I can do whatever I want in Taiwan, and there’s nothing the U.S. can do about it.” This message came across unequivocally in a white paper that Beijing released in August. The Cliffs Notes version of this lengthy document can be surmised from the first three section headings: “I. Taiwan Is Part of China—This Is an Indisputable Fact,” “II. Resolute Efforts of the CPC to Realize China’s Complete Reunification,” and “III. China’s Complete Reunification Is a Process That Cannot Be Halted.”

Lee points to two possible scenarios. The first is a coercive approach in which China encircles and pressures Taiwan—perhaps even seizing outlying islands and engaging in missile strikes. The second is a full-scale invasion. Given that China would likely suffer the same international consequences for conducting a war of attrition as it would for mounting an outright invasion, Lee worries that Beijing might decide the invasion scenario makes more sense. Lee has grown frustrated by Taiwan’s continued procurement of large weapons systems, such as airplanes and ships. He argues that it is not worth trying to keep up with China’s conventional superiority. To take just one example: In the event of a war, Chinese missiles could destroy Taiwan’s runways, rendering expensive fighter jets useless.

“The purpose is to make China believe that if you want to invade Taiwan, you will suffer huge losses,” said Admiral Lee Hsi-ming. “And if you still invade Taiwan, you will not be able to succeed.”

You may not be able to stop an invasion, Lee says, but you can stop China from subjugating Taiwan. This entails denying China the ability to control the battle space. The Chinese haven’t fought a war in several decades, and Taiwan has geographic advantages—including ample mountains and few beaches suitable for amphibious operations. Anti-ship missiles, anti-tank weapons, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, drones, long-range artillery, and small arms could wreak havoc on an invading force, and disrupt the supply chains necessary to sustain an occupation. Lee also argues that Taiwan’s civilian population should be organized into a trained Territorial Defense Force, so that any attempted occupation would be met by the broadest possible resistance. “As long as China fails, Taiwan wins the war,” Lee explained.

Ben Rhodes: We have reached a hinge of history

The utility of this approach has become clearer after Russia’s calamitous “special military operation” in Ukraine. “The purpose is to make China believe that if you want to invade Taiwan, you will suffer huge losses,” Lee said. “And if you still invade Taiwan, you will not be able to succeed.” This will require a continued shift in Taiwan’s own defense doctrine. That shift has been encouraged by the Biden administration and was evident in September’s $1.1 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, which included a substantial number of anti-ship Harpoon missiles and Sidewinder surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles. But as Lee sees it, the pace must quicken. “Taiwan needs a strategic paradigm shift,” he told me.

In her own deliberate and incremental fashion, Tsai has directed some defense spending in this direction and expressed support for training civilians in nonmilitary skills such as “community defense, first aid, and information awareness.” Given that Taiwan’s largest destination for trade and investment is China, Tsai is also working to diversify Taiwan’s economy to make it less reliant on that market, launching new trade talks with the United States and pursuing trade and investment in Southeast Asia. She has created a Ministry of Digital Affairs and bolstered cyberdefenses to respond to constant Chinese hacking and disinformation campaigns. As a pointed reminder, she speaks openly about the island’s dominance in advanced semiconductors—Taiwan manufactures 90 percent of them—which she calls a “silicon shield.” A war that curbed supply could prove highly disruptive for Beijing—perhaps too disruptive. Tsai’s foreign policy has also courted other democracies, seeking friends with similar values.

How did we get to this point? The origin story of Taiwan most familiar to Americans begins in 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces, locked for years in a civil war with Mao Zedong’s Communists, were defeated. Along with much of his remaining army, Chiang fled to Taiwan and set up a government-in-exile called the Republic of China. That government was recognized by the United States. But within a few years of Richard Nixon’s 1972 Cold War opening to Beijing, the U.S. formally switched diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic. Ever since, Taiwan’s status has been cloaked in ambiguity. The U.S. acknowledges Beijing’s claim to Taiwan without recognizing its sovereignty over the island. To help deter a Chinese effort to seize Taiwan by force, the U.S. has pledged to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

From the January 1980 issue: Taiwan, an unmarried country

That origin story explains Taiwan’s curious geopolitical status, but it leaves a lot out. When Chiang fled to Taiwan—with roughly 2 million Chinese from the mainland—there were some 6 million people already living on an island that was just emerging from 50 years of Japanese rule. Most of the people living on the island when Chiang arrived could claim roots in Taiwan going back hundreds of years. They had their own languages and culture. So too did the island’s many Indigenous groups, such as the Amis, the Atayal, and the Paiwan. To subjugate the island, Chiang killed and imprisoned tens of thousands over decades—a period known as the White Terror. He set up a military dictatorship under the leadership of his Chinese nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) and, from this offshore platform, vowed to reclaim mainland China.

Illustration by Cristiana Couceiro. Sources: Keystone-France / Getty; Datawrapper.

Taiwan is different now. With its broad boulevards, glass towers, military monuments, narrow side streets, night markets, and ample signs in English, Taipei today presents an ambience of blended cultures: Chinese, Japanese, Western, and distinctly Taiwanese. Bubble tea, a Taiwanese invention, is everywhere. But consider what it was like to grow up in the shadow of Taiwan’s postwar history, and you can better understand the profound ways in which younger generations have been remaking the island’s politics and identity.

Emily Y. Wu is a professional podcaster who blends a focus on youth culture with an urgent concern for Taiwan’s political present. (One of her shows is called Metalhead Politics.) She is among dozens of Taiwanese I spoke with during the past year, first on Zoom, then in person in Taipei. Wu was born under KMT martial law in 1984. Her family did not come over with Chiang; they had lived in Taiwan for generations. “Chiang Kai-shek brought China over,” she told me. “I grew up always knowing that there was this alternate history: It was Taiwanese history, which was not taught in school.” Students were taught Chinese history and geography under the presumption that the KMT would one day govern China again. Mandarin was spoken in class, and speaking Taiwanese was discouraged. Wu recalled Lesson 9 of her childhood textbook: “ ‘Hello teachers, hello students, we are Chinese!’ ”

But a movement for democracy was building. “We grew up hearing these names, knowing that there was a group of activists, scholars, lawyers that tried to imagine a free Taiwan,” Wu explained. Many of those people were members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which currently governs Taiwan. In 1987, the KMT lifted nearly 40 years of martial law. Wu’s political consciousness was shaped by the protests, marches, and hunger strikes that led to Taiwan’s first true presidential election, in 1996.

By the beginning of the 21st century, Taiwan was becoming ever more democratic—and ever more Taiwanese. The school curriculum changed: Taiwan’s distinct history was taught, as were Taiwanese languages. Taiwan also began to celebrate its Indigenous population. After the election of President Ma Ying-jeou, in 2008, links of trade, investment, and travel helped reduce tensions with China. Ma was from the KMT, and the party’s Chinese heritage and its ties to Taiwan’s business elite eased the way to détente with Beijing. But many Taiwanese, particularly the young, feared that forging too close a connection could ultimately give Beijing leverage over Taiwan. In 2014, in what became known as “the Sunflower Movement,” named for the flower that served as a symbol of hope, students occupied the Taiwan legislature to oppose a free-trade agreement with China. After a tense standoff, they succeeded in stopping the deal. They also helped propel a political wave that in 2016 brought the election of the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen as president.

As Taiwan was becoming more democratic, China was becoming more autocratic. And as Taiwan was becoming more Taiwanese, China was becoming more fervently nationalist. After the ascent of Xi Jinping to the head of the Communist Party, in 2012, Beijing shifted from incentives to coercion. Xi’s government proved adept at bullying companies and entire countries to stop doing business in Taiwan and to recognize China’s narrative of sovereignty. Xi also began escalating crackdowns on China’s periphery—in Xinjiang province and in Hong Kong.

Ben Rhodes: The path to autocracy

When Xi first took power, Emily Wu was living in Beijing. “I felt the tightening of the space that Taiwan was allowed to navigate,” she recalled. “It was all around me—every move that Xi Jinping was making. You’re sitting in China and I’m like, How can I sit here while looking at what is happening and not being able to do anything about it? ” Wu moved back to Taiwan and started a company named Ghost Island Media, picking up on a bit of local black humor that captures Taiwan’s ambiguous status. Through podcasts in Mandarin and English, Ghost Island offers a window into the perilous irony of Taiwan’s existence: The more successful the Taiwanese are in building their own democracy, the more endangered they are by a China that feels this ghost island eluding its grasp.

During one of our conversations, I used the term status quo, and Wu asked me what I thought it meant. “You are not independent, but China has not invaded your country,” I replied. Wu paused for a moment, and then said, “I always thought the idea of status quo is really interesting, because in the American context that is what it means. But the idea of it here is: There is no need to declare independence, because we are already independent. This country functions like an independent nation, but someone else says it is not.” Recent polling suggests that fewer than 5 percent of people in Taiwan identify as “only Chinese.”

For decades, China and Taiwan have conducted intermittent negotiations. From China’s perspective, the starting point for any dialogue must be the so-called 1992 Consensus. This refers to the outcome of meetings between Chinese and KMT officials 30 years ago, an outcome that represents anything but consensus. To the Chinese Communist Party, the consensus is that there is one China, and the government in Beijing is the sole legitimate authority. To the KMT, the consensus is that there is one China, but the Republic of China in Taiwan is the legitimate government. To the DPP, there is no consensus, only a fraught political reality to be managed. Past Chinese leaders tolerated differing interpretations, but that changed with Xi. Any negotiations, Xi insists, can only address the terms under which Taiwan submits to the sovereignty of the People’s Republic. Tsai has not been willing to enter negotiations on those terms.

China proposes a “one country, two systems” regime, in which Taiwan becomes a formal part of China but maintains an autonomous political system. There is one big problem with this proposal: Hong Kong. In 1997, in accordance with a formal agreement between the United Kingdom and China, Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty under a similar one-country-two-systems formula. The agreement stipulated that Hong Kong would be able to maintain its own distinct political, economic, and legal framework for 50 years. The deal seemed to work at first. But as China became more powerful and prosperous, it encroached upon life in Hong Kong. Media outlets started to be bought up by Chinese tycoons. Economic advancement became contingent on not crossing political lines. Large numbers of Mandarin speakers from the mainland started moving into Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong. The school curriculum shifted in the direction of the Communist Party’s point of view. It was precisely the kind of outcome that the Sunflower Movement had resisted in Taiwan.

In 2019, Hong Kong authorities sought to appease Beijing by introducing a law that allowed residents of Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China—removing a guardrail around the city’s legal status. Protests exploded and continued for months. Then, in 2020, several “national-security laws” were passed giving the authorities broad powers to crush dissent. Activists were rounded up. Independent media were shut down. One country, two systems was dead. The fate of Hong Kong has had a profound impact on Taiwan. “When China moves in, the freedom is gone,” President Tsai told me. “People in Taiwan got a very strong message.”

Min-yen Chiang certainly got the message. As a high-school student in Taiwan, he joined the Sunflower Movement. When he went to Hong Kong for university, he embraced the 2014 “Umbrella Movement,” whose members occupied Hong Kong’s central business district for 79 days, demanding free and fair elections. In 2019, after graduation, Chiang joined the protests in Hong Kong. He learned firsthand what happened next.

I met with Chiang at the Taipei office of Flow HK, a magazine that focuses on Hong Kong’s movement for democracy. It was a hot day, soupy with humidity, but Chiang switched on a small air conditioner only after we were settled in a spartan conference room. On one wall was a poster that read, in Chinese characters, “Protect Taiwan, Resist China, Support Hong Kong.” Chiang spoke softly but with assurance as he described his efforts to change Taiwan’s laws in order to better protect refugees. “When we are supporting Hong Kong,” he said, “we are thinking about how to resist China.”

Read: The lessons Taiwan is learning from Ukraine

In swallowing Hong Kong, Xi may have made it impossible to repeat the same playbook with Taiwan. But the fate of Ukraine has shown that a bullying neighbor has more extreme options. At the beginning of Russia’s war, Chiang organized a press conference with the small Ukrainian population in Taipei. “They always tell me that we have prepared for this war for at least eight years, since 2014,” he said, referring to the initial Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. “I don’t think Taiwanese young people can confidently say that.” But more and more leaders in civic organizations and the press are learning how to speak English so they can communicate better with the outside world. “Ukraine inspired the Taiwanese society a lot, including how Zelensky told their story,” Chiang said. He was almost matter-of-fact when he told me, “I would say war between China and Taiwan will definitely happen. We want to win.”

The best outcome for Taiwan would be avoiding a war and maintaining the ambiguous status quo. That requires immense discipline, both in presidential statements and in ordinary interactions with the wider world.

When I landed in Taipei, people in spacesuit-style medical uniforms directed bleary-eyed travelers to a series of stations that had to be navigated before entering the country. Early in the pandemic, Chinese propaganda constantly attacked Tsai’s response. Mocking the island’s reliance on America, Chinese memes suggested that the U.S. was vaccinating pets before offering shots to Taiwan. I scanned a QR code to access my preflight forms and was notified that I needed a Taiwanese phone so the police could ensure I maintained three days of quarantine. At a series of tables, young health workers explained the process of inserting SIM cards into phones. An American next to me became frustrated. But the Taiwanese woman behind the counter was patient and kind, explaining—again and again—how it was done.

This was a snapshot of Taiwan’s self-control. To permit widespread COVID infections would validate Beijing’s brutal information war against Taiwan—despite the fact that Beijing’s stubborn “zero COVID” policy has backfired on its own economy and society. To be anything less than unfailingly polite to visitors could undermine the relationships that Taiwan is relentlessly trying to build. I was reminded of a comment that Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s representative in Washington, made to me: “We have to be the perfect student in the class to protect ourselves from bullying and help us make friends.”

President Tsai plays that part well. She was born to humble circumstances, and her family has deep roots in Taiwan. Indeed, her paternal grandmother is descended from one of the island’s Indigenous tribes, the Paiwan. Tsai earned a law degree and was a law-school professor for a time. Entering public life, she served in a variety of government posts on trade and relations with China before joining the DPP in 2004. She steadied the party after corruption scandals and led it to victory following a narrow loss in the 2012 presidential election. Her campaigns have featured her two cats, Think Think and Ah Tsai.

Tsai met with me after receiving yet another U.S. congressional delegation—Taiwan is becoming a must-stop for members of both parties trying to assert their national-security bona fides. A DPP administration makes for an enigmatic interlocutor. In some ways, the party is more comfortable with Republican China hawks than with Democrats wary of projecting American power. Yet the party is also progressive. Tsai formally apologized to Indigenous groups for centuries of mistreatment; she pledged to have their languages taught in schools and to honor Indigenous cultures. Tsai’s government was the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. Announcing her support for marriage equality, Tsai said, “Let everyone be able to freely love and pursue happiness.” Whether American visitors represent the right or left, every delegation gets presidential attention.

In our conversation, Tsai talked about what she had learned from Ukraine. One lesson is simply the need for international support—to defend itself or, better, to avoid a war in the first place. “The Western countries, particularly the U.S., are helping Ukraine. What we see from the Ukraine war is Western countries get together and help Ukraine to fight.” Because Taiwan is an island, it will be difficult to resupply in the event of hostilities; Taiwan needs support now. Even though the U.S. didn’t enter the war after Russia’s invasion, it did offer Ukraine essential weapons, supplies, and budgetary assistance. “These people do help others,” Tsai said, referring to the West as if speaking to her own citizens.

Illustration by Cristiana Couceiro. Sources: Travel Wild / Alamy; PeterHermesFurian / Getty.

Another lesson of Ukraine is the importance of national character. Outside support, Tsai emphasized, depends on qualities only Taiwan can provide. “You need to have good leadership,” she said, “but more important is the people’s determination to defend themselves, and the Ukrainian people showed that.”

Such determination is essential to the kind of paradigm shift Admiral Lee has advocated. It is a daunting prospect. The more you plan to resist an invasion, the more you risk panicking the population and the more challenges you realize you’ll have to face. Small- and mobile-weapons systems have to be secured against attack by Chinese missiles. Plans must be put in place to ensure that the government can communicate with its people if standard forms of communication are disrupted. The government must also prioritize crucial infrastructure, defend against cyberattacks, stockpile food and water, and decentralize the electricity grid. Instead of creating a Territorial Defense Force, thus far the Tsai administration has opted to bolster its reserve forces; the military has issued a survival handbook on civil defense in case of war.

From the September 2019 issue: Ben Rhodes on Aung San Suu Kyi and the future of Myanmar

Taiwan has term limits, preventing President Tsai from running again. Taiwan’s voters will have an important decision to make in 2024. The opposition KMT party is staking out its position with care. The party’s representative to the United States, an amiable academic and veteran diplomat named Alex Huang, told me that the KMT was more oriented to the U.S. relationship than it had been at times in the past, but it still supports dialogue with China. Instead of the ambitious trade agreements of the Ma Ying-jeou years, Huang said engagement should focus on threat reduction and crisis management. Implicit in his argument was the notion that inflaming China by severing ties and fully embracing the United States could put Taiwan’s very existence at risk—extinguishing both the DPP’s vision of a de facto independent Taiwan and the KMT’s hope for some future conciliation with a changed China. For their part, members of the DPP—and many young Taiwanese—worry that the KMT might turn Taiwan into a second Hong Kong.

Hanging over all of this is the role of the United States. As one Taiwanese expert pointedly asked me: “We can make ourselves a porcupine, but what are you going to do?”

On four separate occasions, President Joe Biden has said that the U.S. would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Each time, the White House put out a follow-up statement saying that U.S. policy had not in fact changed.

This U.S. policy is known as “strategic ambiguity.” The U.S. has no mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, as it does with NATO allies and countries like Japan and South Korea. For decades, there has been bipartisan consensus that declaring a commitment to defend Taiwan could make a war more likely: Taiwan could trigger a conflict by declaring independence, or China could feel compelled to enforce its “One China” red line. By remaining inscrutable, Washington forces China to consider the likelihood of the U.S. coming to Taiwan’s defense, even as Washington accepts the current status quo. Biden’s statements, however, have not been ambiguous and stand in contrast to his statements before the Russian invasion of Ukraine that the U.S. would not intervene directly.

The Biden administration has been more cautious in practice than in rhetoric. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently advanced the bipartisan Taiwan Policy Act, which goes beyond authorizing arms sales to financing arms sales with money from American taxpayers. But the administration quietly lobbied to remove provisions that would have been seen by Beijing as moving in the direction of diplomatic recognition—such as making the position of the senior American diplomat in Taipei a job that requires Senate confirmation, as ambassadorships do. The administration has also resisted the Taiwan Policy Act’s call to ramp up training and joint military exercises.

Like President Tsai, the Biden administration is trying to walk a line, better preparing Taiwan while not unnecessarily provoking China. That requires some guesswork about what lessons China may have drawn from Ukraine. Will Xi see Ukraine’s military success as a warning against invading a neighbor that is building up asymmetric capabilities? Or will he decide he has to invade before Taiwan is sufficiently armed and trained?

American politics has its own anti-China momentum. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech earlier this year in Taipei arguing that the U.S. should formally recognize Taiwan as a nation-state. But performative rhetoric and symbolic gestures that play well to domestic political constituencies suggest a clarity that does not exist. Would the U.S. risk the biggest naval battle since World War II to break a Chinese blockade? Would the U.S. attack an invading Chinese force knowing that U.S. military personnel in Japan, Guam, and possibly Hawaii are within range of Chinese rockets? Would the American people really support a war with the world’s most populous country in order to defend Taiwan?

Perhaps for this reason, everyone I spoke with in Taiwan focused more on how the U.S. can help prepare Taiwan than on what the U.S. would do in a conflict. As war has grown more likely, Taiwanese attitudes have shifted too. A poll taken after the invasion of Ukraine showed that the number of people in Taiwan who expect the U.S. to send troops in the event of war fell from 57 to 40 percent, while 73 percent said they would fight to defend themselves. Seeing the difference that eight years of training made for Ukraine, many believe that increased training should be quietly pursued. Given that the U.S. does have a formal agreement to help prepare Taiwan to defend itself, training the Taiwanese would be a logical response and consistent with existing U.S. commitments. In contrast, joint military exercises would suggest a role for the U.S. military that extends beyond preparing Taiwan to defend itself.

The U.S. can also take nonmilitary steps. It should make every effort to deepen and regularize diplomatic openings with China on Taiwan—to avoid an incident that could escalate, and to manage tensions. The U.S. can also expand its trade relationship with Taiwan to make it less vulnerable to Chinese coercion and more embedded in secure supply chains. As the U.S. fosters its own semiconductor industry, it can partner with Taipei to avoid undercutting Taiwan’s. The U.S. can work diplomatically to increase Taiwan’s cooperation with other democracies, including on practical issues where Taiwan has expertise—public health, cybersecurity, and combatting disinformation. The U.S. and other democracies can also specify to China the far-reaching economic consequences—including sanctions—that would be triggered by any effort to take Taiwan by force.

“What I want to achieve is to make Taiwan more resilient in economic and military terms,” President Tsai told me.

Much of this is already on the agenda for Biden and the Tsai administration. Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, in particular, has articulated the need for Taiwan to counter its diplomatic isolation by emphasizing democracy. He has made inroads in Europe, where some countries have shown a willingness to step up engagement with Taiwan. “This is especially so for Central and Eastern European countries,” he told me. “They were ruled by Communists and understand the difficulties of the threat from an authoritarian country.” Lithuania, for instance, weathered a furious Chinese response after it allowed Taiwan to open an office in its capital, Vilnius. This may seem like a small step, but it boosts morale in Taiwan. As Hsiao Bi-khim told me, “If you tell people on the streets of Taiwan that you are Lithuanian, you will be treated with great admiration.”

Still, these small victories only point up the scale of the challenge. Wu himself has used the term cognitive warfare to describe the comprehensive nature of China’s pressure on Taiwan. “They use missiles, air, ships, disinformation, cyberattacks, and economic coercion,” he told me. As a warning sign, China has banned hundreds of exported products from Taiwan. “They claimed that our mangoes tested positive for COVID,” Wu said. “I don’t think you can give a mango a PCR.” Thanks to Chinese pressure, the number of countries that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan has fallen to a new low of 14. In the 2019 trailer for Top Gun: Maverick, the Taiwanese flag that was on Tom Cruise’s flight jacket in the first film was removed to suit Chinese tastes. (It was later restored; the movie was never released in China.)

I asked Wu, who was educated at Ohio State, how he would make the case to a bunch of college-football fans at a tailgate for why they should care about Taiwan. After declaring himself a Buckeye, he paused, sensing the import of the exercise. First, he noted, “if there’s a Chinese invasion, the economic impact is going to be more serious than Ukraine.”

More existential, though, is what could happen after a Chinese invasion. If China takes Taiwan, Wu suggested that the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions could extend to the East China Sea, threatening Japan; to the South China Sea, where China has built militarized islands and claims an entire body of water bordering several nations; to the Indian Ocean, where China is expanding influence and could establish military bases; and to the Pacific Ocean, where China is working to establish security pacts with island nations. In a world with nationalist-strongman politics ascendant on nearly every continent, Wu’s presentation was at once a dire and plausible picture of the stakes for geopolitics as well as human freedom. “If we allow China to continue to expand,” Wu told me, “then democracies will be in danger.”

On one of my last nights in Taipei, I met with a woman in her early 30s named Billion Lee who helps run Cofacts, an organization that fact-checks disinformation and promotes digital literacy. Relying on a crowdsourced network of more than 2,000 volunteers, Cofacts has done nearly 90,000 fact-checks, mostly on the ubiquitous Taiwanese social-media platform Line. I asked her about Beijing-driven narratives that accompanied the invasion of Ukraine, and they sounded conspicuously similar to those emanating from Moscow. As bombs began falling on Ukraine, the people of Taiwan were bombarded by Chinese-fueled disinformation campaignsThe U.S. was developing biological weapons in Ukraine. Taiwan will be next if they keep buying weapons from America. These overlapped with narratives I’d heard about from other Taiwanese: Afghanistan showed that Americans don’t keep their promises. The Americans won’t send troops to defend white people in Ukraine, so they will never send them to defend you. Lee noted that her generation had developed antibodies to such campaigns, but China was focusing on younger demographics as well—teenagers and preteens—through Chinese apps like TikTok.

After a quick dinner of soba noodles, we walked a short distance to a small alley off a bustling main boulevard and met Johnson Liang, a young man with shoulder-length hair and round glasses that made him look like a Taiwanese John Lennon. Liang took out a large metal key to open the door to a shared workspace. We removed our shoes and walked into a back conference room. Lee passed out moon cakes and Liang connected his laptop to a projector that showed his screen on a bare wall.

The two of them explained that they were developing a tool that could enable fact-checkers to compare shared images and transcripts with similar content online, thus making it easier to do the painstaking work of sorting fact from falsehood. As they went about their work, I scrolled through the latest fact-checks. One involved a lengthy speech that was alleged to have been transcribed from a private recording of French President Emmanuel Macron speaking with diplomats in Paris and blaming the U.S. for all of the trouble in the world. “We must admit that China and Russia have achieved great success over the years under different leadership styles,” Macron supposedly said. (The speech was labeled a falsehood.) Another post, also flagged as false, talked about how the U.S. has been trying to turn “blue” (the KMT) and “green” (the DPP) against each other: “The ultimate goal is to ask Taiwan to die to the last man.”

I sat there reading message after message, all posted in closed chat rooms, meant to bend Taiwanese minds to Beijing’s worldview. The meanings of buzzwords like cognitive warfare and resilience came into sharper focus. Facing the seemingly bottomless resources of a massive totalitarian state, here were two young people working for free on a Wednesday night, quietly insisting on the notion that there is indeed such a thing as objective reality.

I walked out into Taipei streets filled with people and a pulsing array of advertising. Commuters who’d worked late streamed onto the elevated metro. Packs of teenagers laughed on street corners. All totally ordinary. And yet, to preserve this, Taiwan has to find some mix of the approaches that I’d heard about: preparing for a war while avoiding it; talking to China without being coerced by it; drawing closer to the U.S. without being reduced to a chess piece on the board of a great game; tending to a young democracy without letting divisions weaken it; asserting a unique identity without becoming an independent country.

When I got back to my hotel, I had to descend four levels into the parking garage to enter—the remnant of a COVID protocol—and was reminded of something that Emily Wu had told me. Taiwan conducts annual air-raid drills. They were suspended for the past few years, owing to the pandemic, but resumed this summer. And now, Wu said, people take them more seriously. Underground parking garages were seen as ideal places to take shelter. I looked at the largely deserted expanse of parking spaces around me, a familiar sight now cast in a different light.

“What I want to achieve is to make Taiwan more resilient in economic and military terms,” Tsai had told me. It’s possible to look at this kind of gradual marshaling of society with trepidation. Coupled with the lack of a diplomatic opening to China, there’s a momentum that risks pulling in the direction of conflict. But in Tsai’s attitude, I sensed that resilience serves many purposes. A society that embeds digital literacy and emergency preparedness among its citizens is stronger, just as an economy that isn’t overly reliant on the giant market next door will grow on a broader foundation. Even the effort to build a more progressive democracy comes into play, both in terms of investing domestic constituencies in the government and in forging friendships with democracies abroad.

In the end, Tsai’s agenda is born of necessity. “When we’re strong, resilient, trustworthy, and a good partner,” Tsai said, “people will see our values. That makes us worthy of support.”

The last question I asked President Tsai was whether she had ever wished to govern a normal country with normal problems. She appeared to consider the notion, but allowed herself to betray no emotion. “We may be unfortunate to have a big neighbor next door,” she said. “But that makes us stronger.”

This article appears in the December 2022 print edition with the headline “Taiwan Prepares to Be Invaded.”

The Atlantic · by Ben Rhodes · November 7, 2022



13. Don’t Panic About Putin



Plan for the worst and hope for the best?


Excerpts:

Given these significant barriers to drastic escalation on Putin’s part, the West can afford to turn down the panic meter a bit. Just as fears of Saddam’s possible desperate actions rightly did not dissuade us from liberating Kuwait in 1991, fears of Putin’s desperation should not stop us from supporting Ukraine. Western leaders should continue their current course of action, which is to provide a steady supply of military aid to Ukraine, seek ways to isolate Russian diplomatically and economically, and keep NATO troops out of combat, knowing that this course allows Ukraine to fight, survive, and make headway without creating significant risks that the West’s worst fears might come true. Just as the United States should be careful not to needlessly provoke or provide a pretext for Russian escalation, there is also no need to seek peace at any price.
That said, finding a way out of the war, and its escalating human costs, has become increasingly urgent. The conflict continues to inflict enormous suffering on the Ukrainian people, and economic damage on much of the rest of the world through disruption of the energy and food markets. And Putin can and may resort to tactics that could make this suffering and damage worse, even without pulling the nuclear trigger. Finding a way out means having a real conversation about what the terms of peace should be. Especially given Ukraine’s military successes this fall, Ukrainian recognition of the Russian annexation of Crimea, as recently suggested by Elon Musk, is likely off the table. But in exchange for at least Russian withdrawal of all troops from Ukraine and a verbal commitment to no longer support rebel groups inside of the country, Ukraine could agree to stay out of NATO, especially since Ukrainian NATO membership is unlikely to get through the U.S. Senate, and even without membership, NATO could continue to supply Ukraine with training and weapons. Ukraine could also agree to restore the flow of water to Crimea, something it could do without recognizing Russian conquest of Ukraine.
The United States should not let exaggerated fears of desperate action dissuade it from advancing national interests. The West’s enemies sometimes wish to feign desperation or madness to frighten it into inaction. Let us not accommodate them.


Don’t Panic About Putin

Even Desperate Leaders Tend to Avoid Catastrophe

By Dan Reiter

November 7, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Dan Reiter · November 7, 2022

National leaders who are losing wars sometimes resort to desperate gambles. Defeat or even lack of victory might threaten their hold on power, and they are sometimes willing to take daring or outside-the-box moves to try to turn things around. This is the great fear about the war in Ukraine: if Russian President Vladimir Putin judges that his back is up against the wall, he may decide to take catastrophic action.

If he does so, he certainly has some nasty tools he could use. In the weeks since Ukraine’s dramatic September offensive, Putin has already demonstrated his willingness to order conventional air and missile strikes against civilian targets, including population centers and power-grid infrastructure in many parts of Ukraine. Russian forces could renew attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, risking the release of nuclear radiation. More darkly, one cannot rule out the possibility that he might deploy chemical or biological weapons against Ukrainian targets, as his Soviet predecessors did in their war in Afghanistan. Given the moral backlash that would ensue, some might assume that Moscow would be deterred from such action. But it is also possible that Putin might be encouraged by the relatively lackluster U.S. responses to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war and Russia’s use of a nerve agent against Russian defectors living in Britain in 2018.

Even more concerning to many observers is Putin’s repeated mention of nuclear weapons. As a nuclear-armed state, Russia could conceivably use a tactical nuclear bomb in an all-out effort to shift the course of the war. Although the reprisals for such an attack would likely be devastating, observers may wonder if Putin could decide he has nothing to lose. On October 27, Putin declared, “There is no point in [using nuclear weapons], neither political nor military,” but his previous comments have been none too reassuring. Will he stay away from the nuclear option even if he gets more desperate?

The good news is that history suggests that Putin is unlikely to fulfill the West’s worst fears. Some leaders in losing wars have taken dramatic actions to stave off defeat. But often they have decided against the most drastic options, either for political or strategic reasons. Putin, like other leaders before him, will take into account whether his actions might actually help him win, and he may be reluctant to contemplate moves that could expose Russia to even greater losses or, worse, undermine his rule at home. Of course, there are still reasons to worry about a desperate Putin. But by examining how leaders tend to behave in these situations, the United States and its partners and allies can arrive at a more considered assessment of Putin’s threats and frame their own policies accordingly.

DESPERATE, NOT FOOLHARDY

The situation that Putin now finds himself in is hardly new. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, many leaders fighting losing wars have attempted to somehow snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Occasionally these risky moves succeed, such as the United States’ wild gamble during the Korean War to undertake the Inchon amphibious landing, in which, after weeks of North Korean advances, General Douglas MacArthur launched a surprise attack on a fortified site behind enemy lines, achieving a decisive victory. Often, however, these moves fail: consider Germany’s decision to begin unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic in January 1917, which ended up drawing the United States into World War I and ensuring Germany’s ultimate defeat.


Two things are clear about these military gambles. First, they are usually built upon a theory of victory. States will engage in such a move only if there is a logic by which it might actually turn the war around. In ordering Germany’s last-gasp offensive in the Ardennes region of Belgium in December 1944, Adolf Hitler hoped to shatter the American line and force U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt to consider peace talks. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s SCUD missile attacks on Israeli cities during the 1990–1991 Gulf War were intended to split off Arab states from the UN coalition. Neither of these leaders, of course, obtained their desired objective, but in both cases, there was at least a larger plan in play.

Second, just because a war is going badly does not mean that everything is on the table. Despite being backed into a corner, leaders may rule out some options. They may be wary of a move that might incur outsized strategic costs, even if it might turn the tide on the battlefield. In the Korean War, for example, China’s November 1950 intervention posed grave risks to the U.S. military position there. Yet the Truman administration ruled out direct attacks on Chinese territory because the risks of escalation with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union were too high.

In other cases, a leader may dismiss some options for fear of political backlash. Even a ruthless autocrat may recognize the diplomatic costs of some military measures. This does not mean that leaders stay away from all nasty behavior, but there are some places they are unwilling to go, even in desperate times. Take nuclear weapons. Since 1945, there have been a number of cases in which nuclear-armed belligerents have found themselves in losing or stalled conventional wars against nonnuclear adversaries. Yet they have invariably elected to keep their nuclear weapons holstered. The United States in Vietnam and Afghanistan, France in its insurgency war in Algeria, China in its wars with Vietnam in the late 1970s and 1980s, and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s: all failed to accomplish their military goals with conventional means, yet none of them resorted to nuclear weapons.

Even heinous regimes are sometimes constrained by moral considerations. Consider Imperial Japan during World War II, one of history’s most genocidal regimes. In 1945, as defeat appeared inevitable, the Japanese considered launching an extraordinary biological weapons attack against San Diego, dispersing fleas infected with bubonic plague and other diseases from seaplanes. The operation was eventually called off by the Japanese chief of general staff—in part, he said, because though Japan had used biological weapons against China earlier in the war, by using them against the United States, “Japan will earn the derision of the world.”

PUTIN’S PREDICAMENT

Given this general pattern of restraint, what factors might shape Putin’s thinking should Russian military setbacks continue to pile up? The Russian leader’s calculations are framed by the fact that he has staked so much on the war. It is clear that he fears the absence of victory, meaning, the absence of significant concessions by the Ukrainian government. He has gone all in, describing the “special operation” as essential to protect Russia from NATO and neutralize the “Nazi” threat posed by Ukraine, as well as for Russia to realize its true Novorossiya identity and borders. And like most dictators, he has also made concerted efforts to solidify his grip on power even as the war has unfolded.

Despite these steps, however, the Russian war effort is floundering, and the Russian population has begun to question the war. Some have publicly expressed outrage over the mismanagement of the war, including pro-Russian bloggers, the head of the defense committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, local political leaders within Russia, and members of the Russian media. Within Russian society, discontent seems to be growing, as shown by the decision of nearly 300,000 Russian men to flee the country to evade the recent expanded draft. Antiwar protests continue to occur, including from the difficult-to-silence families of dead Russian soldiers, despite widespread arrests and crackdowns. And the internet is flooded with stories of new conscripts being sent into battle without proper training or equipment.

Putin in Red Square, Moscow, November 2022

Mikhail Metzel / Sputnik / Pool / Reuters


If Russia fails in Ukraine, it could pose a real threat to Putin’s hold on power. A 1917-style mass revolution is unlikely, as is a violent military coup. But it is plausible to imagine a more bloodless removal from power, in the mode of Nikita Khrushchev’s ouster in 1964 or that of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. In this situation, elites would privately approach Putin and tell him it is time for him to go, without public protest or his arrest—although Putin’s narcissism and megalomania might cause him to view even this kind of managed exit to be unacceptable. With the future of his own power at stake, Putin might have added incentives to pursue greater pain and destruction in Ukraine. For example, by escalating the level of civilian suffering, as Russia has done in recent weeks, Putin may hope to push Kyiv to make concessions. Nevertheless, a desperate Putin, much like his counterparts in earlier losing wars, is unlikely to pursue the most drastic options.

The darkest nightmare of Ukraine and its Western allies, of course, is a Russian decision to launch nuclear attacks. But consider the factors that Putin would need to weigh in making this choice. First, it is crucial to note how completely out-of-bounds such a move would be. Since 1945, states have engaged in an array of horrifying tactics, using chemical and biological weapons, massacring civilians, and engaging in mass sexual assault. Yet they have never used nuclear weapons. U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO allies have repeatedly stated that this is a bright-red line that Moscow must not cross.

Putin’s growing isolation and hardening autocracy do not mean that he views using nuclear weapons as acceptable. It is true that in recent years, Putin has taken large steps to sever his ties with the West and has loudly declared his indifference to Western disapproval of his tightening grip on Russian society, his backing of the Assad government in Syria, his meddling in Western elections, his invasion of Ukraine, and everything else. But nuclear first use would be an action of a different order. It is the one thing that might cause the entire world, including important Russian allies such as Saudi Arabia and China, to back away from Russia and withdraw support for Moscow. There would likely be backlash within Russia, too, especially if Russian nuclear first use occurred without direct NATO involvement in the war. One June poll by the independent Levada Center in Moscow found that 38 percent of Russians are “very frightened” over Russia’s possible use of nuclear weapons.

Disapproval aside, using a nuclear weapon could open doors that Putin would prefer to leave closed. NATO troops or airpower might become directly involved in Ukraine. And of course there is the possibility that NATO could respond in kind, something Russia does not want, especially given the United States’ superior arsenal. Furthermore, nuclear weapons are not particular useful as tools of warfare, in that they are ill suited for conquering territory. They would either destroy or irradiate any assets that Russia hopes to conquer. And using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, of course, runs the risk of causing radioactive fallout to drift into Russia itself. Notably, the 1986 nuclear plant accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine, which released a far smaller amount of radiation than a nuclear weapon blast, produced radioactive fallout that drifted over Russia and likely caused some of the same health affects in the Russian population—such as increased rate of thyroid cancer—that it did among Ukrainians.

Retired Russian generals have noted that nuclear weapons have little utility.

Moreover, Ukraine does not have obvious military targets for nuclear attacks, such as nuclear weapons or aircraft carriers. The country’s military strength is built on tens of thousands of brave fighters distributed across hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of territory, often deployed in close proximity to Russian troops. Limited nuclear attacks against Ukrainian troops would not heavily damage Ukrainian military strength. Retired Russian generals have pointed out that nuclear weapons have little utility, especially since conventional weapons can now accomplish many of Russia’s largest military aims, such as damaging Ukrainian infrastructure. In October, the Ukrainian government expressed concern that Russia might destroy the gigantic Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, but with conventional explosives.

There is, of course, the possibility that Putin could use nuclear weapons against Ukrainian population centers in an attempt to break the Ukrainian will to resist. Such attacks might seem to make more strategic sense, even though history shows that bombing civilians almost never causes the target country to make significant concessions. And using nuclear weapons simply to kill a very large number of people rather than to achieve some kind of military objective would incur overwhelming global wrath.

Along with a nuclear strike, the other desperate move the West fears most is a direct Russian attack—even nonnuclear—on NATO member states. Given the current situation and Biden’s statements, it would be very difficult for the United States to avoid entering the war directly after such a Russian move. But this kind of attack is even less likely than a nuclear attack, because of its lack of strategic logic. Russian troops are already being defeated by the Ukrainian military; the Kremlin must surely fear the potential for humiliation at the hands of NATO forces.

The Strength of Reason

Given these significant barriers to drastic escalation on Putin’s part, the West can afford to turn down the panic meter a bit. Just as fears of Saddam’s possible desperate actions rightly did not dissuade us from liberating Kuwait in 1991, fears of Putin’s desperation should not stop us from supporting Ukraine. Western leaders should continue their current course of action, which is to provide a steady supply of military aid to Ukraine, seek ways to isolate Russian diplomatically and economically, and keep NATO troops out of combat, knowing that this course allows Ukraine to fight, survive, and make headway without creating significant risks that the West’s worst fears might come true. Just as the United States should be careful not to needlessly provoke or provide a pretext for Russian escalation, there is also no need to seek peace at any price.


That said, finding a way out of the war, and its escalating human costs, has become increasingly urgent. The conflict continues to inflict enormous suffering on the Ukrainian people, and economic damage on much of the rest of the world through disruption of the energy and food markets. And Putin can and may resort to tactics that could make this suffering and damage worse, even without pulling the nuclear trigger. Finding a way out means having a real conversation about what the terms of peace should be. Especially given Ukraine’s military successes this fall, Ukrainian recognition of the Russian annexation of Crimea, as recently suggested by Elon Musk, is likely off the table. But in exchange for at least Russian withdrawal of all troops from Ukraine and a verbal commitment to no longer support rebel groups inside of the country, Ukraine could agree to stay out of NATO, especially since Ukrainian NATO membership is unlikely to get through the U.S. Senate, and even without membership, NATO could continue to supply Ukraine with training and weapons. Ukraine could also agree to restore the flow of water to Crimea, something it could do without recognizing Russian conquest of Ukraine.

The United States should not let exaggerated fears of desperate action dissuade it from advancing national interests. The West’s enemies sometimes wish to feign desperation or madness to frighten it into inaction. Let us not accommodate them.

  • DAN REITER is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Political Science at Emory University and author of How Wars End.


Foreign Affairs · by Dan Reiter · November 7, 2022




​14. Putin’s Stalin Phase




Excerpts:

In the absence of democracy, Putin has failed to create a mechanism for the transfer of power since, like Stalin, he has no intention of giving up that power. As a result, Russian history is trapped in a vicious circle. But it is unclear whether Russia can expect a repeat of the events of March 1953, when Stalin lay dying and his closest associates competed to undo his legacy.
As with the Soviet Union under Stalin, one gets the impression that Russia today has no alternative to Putin. This means that there is no alternate path to anything he says or does: it seems that it is useless to oppose him. Russia’s elites must act according to this logic. Like elites under Stalin, they will simply have to wait for the tyrant to meet his end, hoping that he will somehow disappear before he has time to fire or imprison them. This is why Putin’s constituents take such an interest in his health. In Stalin’s era, the health status of the dictator was less known, but those associates and apparatchiks who were close to him in his final years understood that he was unwell. This became apparent to the public at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party in October 1952, at which Stalin seemed aged and frail. He tested his comrades in arms by suggesting that he should replace himself with a younger leader, and at the same time, he actually introduced relatively young careerists into the governing bodies; this, of course, greatly stressed the old guard.
Putin could follow a similar path, and in part he already has, especially at the regional level, where he has given governorships to ardent young loyalists. But although he is approaching the age of Stalin at his death, Putin appears healthier and seems to have more time than Stalin did in the early 1950s. Nonetheless, there is a crucial lesson here for Putin: hatred for and fear of Stalin during his last years were so strong that, when he suffered his final stroke, in the hours when he possibly could still be saved, his closest associates did not come to his aid: and in his agony, he died practically alone. Putin looks stronger than ever today. But at the same time, it is unclear who might save him if ever he lost that strength. Like Stalin in his later years.




Putin’s Stalin Phase

Foreign Affairs · by Andrei Kolesnikov · November 8, 2022

The harsher and more repressive the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin becomes, the more successful the reign of Joseph Stalin appears to ordinary Russians. In the five years leading up to 2021, the number of Russians who agreed that “Stalin was a great leader” doubled from 28 to 56 percent, according to polls carried out by the independent Levada Center; over the same period, the number of those who disagreed with that statement fell from 23 to 14 percent. Since 2015, Stalin has been lionized on national holidays, and discussion of his repression has largely been stifled. Such is the interest in the Soviet dictator that it sometimes seems as if he is competing with Putin. More likely, however, he is simply serving as a helping hand from the distant past, reassuring his modern-day acolyte that he is on the right path.

It is not just that Stalin’s iron rule has become a model for today’s Kremlin. Increasingly, Putin himself has come to resemble Stalin in his final years, when the Soviet leader was at his most paranoid and severe. At the end of World War II, Stalin had been in power for more than 20 years, and from that time until his death in 1953, he took his regime to new autocratic extremes: heightened intolerance of other people’s opinions; constant suspicion of his close associates; ostentatious, truly shameless brutality; and deluded, obsessive ideas. Like Stalin in his late period, Putin has also spent more than 20 years in power (including his interlude as prime minister from 2008 to 2012), and in his current presidential term, which began in 2018, he has also shown many of the same qualities. During this time, he has amended the Russian constitution to reset the clock on his presidential terms, orchestrated the poisoning and arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and started a war with devastating consequences for the entire world.

Now, in 2022, Russia has turned into a full-fledged, personal autocracy. In his embrace of imperial and nationalist ideology, his ruthless crackdown on civil society and any form of dissent, and his call to arms of almost the entire country, Putin has reabsorbed nearly all the classical elements of Stalinist totalitarianism, from the cult of personality to the cult of heroic death.

Into the Twilight Zone

The similarities between late Putin and late Stalin begin with their style and model of leadership. For Putin, as it was for Stalin, the decision-making process comes down to just one person. Associates and advisers have almost no ability to influence the tyrant or to propose alternative actions. Not only does that bear little resemblance to the way policy is made in democratic systems or even in semiauthoritarian regimes; it is also a far cry from the collective leadership of other periods of Soviet history, such as the Leonid Brezhnev era. In some ways, Putin has even surpassed his idol in personalizing his rule. Stalin, for example, was fond of talking in the first-person plural: “We will shoot you.” Putin also likes to talk in the name of the country or the elites, but in October, when asked whether he regretted anything about the “special operation” in Ukraine, he acknowledged that the war was his own personal project. “My actions were the right ones at the right time,” he replied.

Putin has also learned from the Soviet dictator how to deal with his own regime. At the end of his life, Stalin was increasingly suspicious of his inner circle. He frequently unleashed his rage at close associates such as Vyacheslav Molotov, his foreign minister and longtime deputy. In the fall of 1945, returning to Moscow after an absence, Stalin berated the men who had once seemed to be his most loyal lieutenants—Lavrenty Beria, the chief of the secret police, Georgy Malenkov, the influential Politburo member, Anastas Mikoyan, his trade minister, and Molotov—by allowing Pravda from publishing excerpts of a speech by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Molotov took responsibility for the publication, only to come under fire yet again for loosening the censorship rules for foreign correspondents. In a telegram to Beria, Malenkov, and Mikoyan, Stalin complained that “Molotov does not appear to value the interests of the state or the prestige of our government.” After this episode, the Soviet Union’s second most prominent figure was no longer viewed as a successor to the dictator. Nor was Molotov alone in his disgrace: during this period, other members of Stalin’s inner circle also found themselves falling out of favor for one reason or another—or often, for no reason at all.


Short of death, there was nothing and no one that could stop Stalin.

Like Stalin in his late years, Putin has gained complete control over Russia’s elites, leaving them paralyzed with fear and secretly hating their ruler. Under Stalin, the extent of this hatred was never more evident than in the run-up and immediate aftermath of his death, when Nikita Khrushchev, Beria, and Malenkov, fighting to succeed him, competed to liberalize the regime as fast as they could. Today’s elites fear Putin, but they fear one another even more, just as their predecessors did under Stalin. Like the Soviet potentate, Putin prefers to stay bunkered away in his many residences, where he has isolated himself on both a political and a human level. Take Putin’s residence in Sochi, where he spends more and more time. It is reminiscent of the much more modest but just as carefully guarded dacha in Abkhazia to which Stalin retreated in October 1945 after he suffered either a stroke or a heart attack. It is noteworthy that the two dictators’ retreats are not much more than 30 miles away from each other, in the comfortable subtropical zone of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus.

Also like Stalin, Putin has not taken any drastic steps against members of his inner circle. But his irritation at their words and actions evokes Stalin’s. Recall, for example, the infamous, televised meeting Putin held with his top national security advisers on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sitting alone at a desk in a large columned hall, with his advisers relegated to a far corner of the room, Putin gave his foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, a dressing down after he failed to do his homework and confused Russia’s recognition of the separatist republics of eastern Ukraine with their becoming part of Russia. (That part of the plan would come later.)

At the same meeting, Putin had a muddled and irate conversation with Dmitry Kozak, a longtime associate who had been responsible for negotiations with Ukraine on implementing the Minsk agreements. Following the meeting, Kozak disappeared entirely from public view. In September, several people close to the Kremlin revealed to Reuters that before the special operation, Kozak had apparently negotiated a promise from Ukraine that it would not join NATO, which would have allayed one of the key concerns driving Russia’s invasion. But Putin was not interested: he was already set on war.

Putin in Winter

Using military force to solve problems—something that seems almost anachronistic in the twenty-first century—is another tactic that Putin inherited from Stalin. Consider the Winter War of 1939. Just before the outbreak of World War II, Stalin failed to extract from Finland the territorial concessions he wanted, so he launched an invasion. As with Putin in Ukraine, Stalin wanted to seize parts of territory that he thought would be strategically important as a buffer zone in the event of an attack on his own country. And as with Putin’s “defensive” actions in Ukraine, Stalin sought a pretext and simulated a provocation on the border, allowing Moscow’s forces to “legitimately” start a war.

In both cases, the dictators talked about a buildup of enemy troops that did not in fact exist. And both drastically underestimated the determination of the people whose country they were invading to resist: just as Stalin expected the Finnish proletariat to practically shower their working-class comrades with bouquets of flowers, Putin assumed Ukrainians would greet Russian soldiers as liberators. Both autocrats were proved woefully wrong. Even Putin’s use of pro-Russian separatists was a Stalinist innovation. When Putin made a pact with the artificially created governments of Donetsk and Luhansk, he was following in the footsteps of Stalin, who established an alternative Finnish leadership controlled by the Kremlin and then entered into an agreement with the puppet regime.

Putin’s claim that the Ukrainian government was a mere front for warmongering Western powers was also an echo of Stalin’s spin about the Winter War. In his memoirs, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, the Finnish envoy in Moscow who later became Finland’s president, wrote that “in the opinion of the Russians, this war was apparently a war waged by England and France against Soviet Russia.” During the Winter War, the fake Finnish government Stalin had set up asked the Soviet Union for support in implementing what it called the “age-old aspiration of the Finnish people to unite the people of Karelia [living on Soviet territory] into a unified and independent Finnish state.” In Putin’s war in Ukraine, the “reunification of fraternal peoples” has become a mantra. Justifying the need to annex Ukrainian territory, Putin repeated nearly word for word Molotov’s note to the Polish ambassador in September 1939, which stated that “the Soviet government cannot remain indifferent while kindred Ukrainians and Belarusians living on the territory of Poland are left to the mercy of fate, without any protection.”


But there is another of Stalin’s wars that Putin’s adventure in Ukraine may resemble to some extent: the Korean War. After all, it was Stalin who approved the start of North Korea’s attack on the south on June 25, 1950. And according to some historians, much like Putin in Ukraine, Stalin assumed that South Korea would be conquered in a matter of weeks. And much as it did with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year, the United Nations condemned the North Korean attack. (In the latter case, U.S. troops entered the conflict under the UN flag.) As a proxy war between the Soviet Union and the United States, the Korean War involved fighter jets from both powers taking to the skies, although Soviet pilots were ordered not to enter South Korea’s airspace. When it became clear that the war was going to drag on, Stalin was in no hurry to end it and instructed the North Korean government to prolong the peace talks. Only when Stalin died did it become possible to end the conflict, as was the case with so many of his other personal initiatives. Short of death, there was nothing and no one that could stop Stalin in his twilight years—much like Putin today.

Ivan the Autocrat

But Putin’s affinity for the Soviet leader goes beyond Stalin’s ruthless methods to include his actual worldview. Like Stalin, Putin thinks of the world as divided into spheres of influence and assumes he can mark the territories he thinks belong to him with sweeping strokes on a map. Putin likewise believes that Russia can flourish in political isolation and under a policy of economic autarky. He also shares Stalin’s imperial nationalism. It is worth recalling that for all his Soviet orthodoxy, Stalin was prepared to jettison Marxism-Leninism when it suited him and skillfully play the nationalist card, appealing to the feelings of the dominant ethnic group. This was especially true during World War II. In his first address to the Soviet people at the outbreak of the war, Stalin began not with “Comrades!” but with “Brothers and sisters!” At the end of the war, he made his famous May 24, 1945, toast not to the Soviets but to the Russian people: “Thank the Russian nation for the trust!” In these and other cases, Stalin appealed above all to Russian history and Russian pride. Such a strategy is a cornerstone of late Putinism, or what used to be called “great-power chauvinism.”

Even more apparent is Putin’s recourse to Stalin’s legitimating narrative about Russia’s victory in World War II. Almost immediately, Stalin sought to transform a tragedy in which some 20 million Russians were killed into a story of triumphant heroism. At the same time, the dictator quickly reined in any generals whose popularity among the masses might make them a threat: many were arrested and killed; even Georgy Zhukov, the central military commander and architect of the Soviet victory, was sidelined. Stalin was concerned about the growing popularity of the military commanders and tried his best to make the details of the war be quickly forgotten. Putin has built his own legitimacy around the idea that he is now the heir to the Great Patriotic War—as World War II is officially known in Russia, in an echo of the Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon.

Simultaneously, Putin has hijacked the Immortal Regiment, an annual civic remembrance in which huge numbers of Russians march with photographs of relatives who took part in World War II, and turned it into an official mass parade led by himself. He has also turned the Soviet cult of victory into a cult of war. Having prepared the way with this rewriting of history, Putin declared the invasion of Ukraine as a war against “Nazism” and the West and nothing less than a continuation of the unfinished Great Patriotic War. This is a falsification of history on a huge scale and the manipulation of the collective consciousness of an entire country.

Talk of Ivan the Terrible’s brutal reign has returned under Putin.

For Putin, history has become a key instrument for sustaining his own rule and controlling the country—just as it had for Stalin. Above all are the examples of Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, providing the twin pillars of cruelty and imperialism. Stalin sought to connect his regime to Ivan the Terrible by commissioning the film director Sergei Eisenstein to create a movie about the historic ruler and his fearsome regime in two parts. (The response of one literary figure at the time, Leonid Sobolev, says it all: “We must learn to love the oprichnina,” Ivan’s infamous guards.) Small wonder, then, that talk of Ivan’s brutal reign has returned under Putin. During a rally marking the annexation of the four Ukrainian regions, Ivan Okhlobystin, a Russian actor and Putin loyalist, took to the stage and shouted “Goida!”—the battle cry that was the watchword of Ivan the Terrible’s oprichniki. And just as Stalin resurrected a new Russia nationalism in the World War II years, Putin has compared his war in Ukraine to Peter the Great’s campaign against the Swedish empire.

As with Stalin in the early years of the Cold War, Putin has cut off relations with the West and has begun to portray everything foreign as incompatible with Russian ideology and values. The people Stalin called “rootless cosmopolitans,” who were hounded from their jobs and persecuted, have been succeeded in Putin’s Russia by those labeled “foreign agents,” exiles in their own country. Under Stalin, ties with foreigners could land a person in jail. In October 2022, Putin’s Russia began to apply a new law—entirely Stalinist in its spirit and vague formulation—“on confidential cooperation with a foreign state.” Putin completed his rehabilitation of Stalin in December 2021, just in time for the war, when he allowed his own oprichniki—in this case, prosecutors and other members of the so-called justice system—to destroy Memorial, a research organization that had existed precisely to keep alive the memory of Stalin-era repression. Among other things, Memorial was one of the few independent organizations in Russia that was able to preserve Russia’s actual history rather than its Stalinist version.

By using such tactics, Putin has paved the way—both symbolically and in practical terms—for war and for elements of totalitarianism in his own political system. In fact, the process has been unfolding for years: he has indoctrinated Russians with his version of history, attacking their consciousness with his articles and speeches; and his work has been amplified by pro-Stalinist historical propaganda, including from the pro-Kremlin Russian Historical Society and the Russian Military Historical Society. Thus, by early 2022, Putin could find ready popular support for his onslaught against history and for his war, as well as the descent into Stalinist paranoia it has required, in which people denounce their neighbors, and teachers and students denounce one another.

By His Power Alone

In the absence of democracy, Putin has failed to create a mechanism for the transfer of power since, like Stalin, he has no intention of giving up that power. As a result, Russian history is trapped in a vicious circle. But it is unclear whether Russia can expect a repeat of the events of March 1953, when Stalin lay dying and his closest associates competed to undo his legacy.


As with the Soviet Union under Stalin, one gets the impression that Russia today has no alternative to Putin. This means that there is no alternate path to anything he says or does: it seems that it is useless to oppose him. Russia’s elites must act according to this logic. Like elites under Stalin, they will simply have to wait for the tyrant to meet his end, hoping that he will somehow disappear before he has time to fire or imprison them. This is why Putin’s constituents take such an interest in his health. In Stalin’s era, the health status of the dictator was less known, but those associates and apparatchiks who were close to him in his final years understood that he was unwell. This became apparent to the public at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party in October 1952, at which Stalin seemed aged and frail. He tested his comrades in arms by suggesting that he should replace himself with a younger leader, and at the same time, he actually introduced relatively young careerists into the governing bodies; this, of course, greatly stressed the old guard.

Putin could follow a similar path, and in part he already has, especially at the regional level, where he has given governorships to ardent young loyalists. But although he is approaching the age of Stalin at his death, Putin appears healthier and seems to have more time than Stalin did in the early 1950s. Nonetheless, there is a crucial lesson here for Putin: hatred for and fear of Stalin during his last years were so strong that, when he suffered his final stroke, in the hours when he possibly could still be saved, his closest associates did not come to his aid: and in his agony, he died practically alone. Putin looks stronger than ever today. But at the same time, it is unclear who might save him if ever he lost that strength. Like Stalin in his later years.

​ 


Foreign Affairs · by Andrei Kolesnikov · November 8, 2022



15. Wargaming Climate Change: Who Plays for the Red Team?


Mother Nature? (apologies)


Excerpts;

Climate-to-conflict pathways also call for extensive and rigorous analysis. Here, blue team/red team wargaming could bring out a series of rational choices along a pathway that potentially heightens tensions. This can be used to look at a range of instability scenarios including water, food, or energy shortages as well as mass migration. It would have been prudent, for example, to game out the potential consequences of a mass casualty disaster and displacement in a nuclear-armed state before the recent catastrophe in Pakistan or options for dealing with energy blackmail from Russia or other major oil and gas producers during the energy transition.
Another approach is to forecast a known climate hazard into an out-year and ask: If this event is going to happen in the future, what would you do to prepare now? This approach can help policymakers understand how to prevent or prepare for international instability or how to prioritize investments in installation resilience, including infrastructure such as overseas ports. Wargames can also analyze non-climate-related foreign policy action and see how it holds up against climate change, such as relationships with allies and partners. Finally, wargames can look at the effects of a key tipping point — either climate-related or social — on a country or organization. For example, melting ice in the Arctic and elsewhere may be slowing down ocean currents or spawning polar vortices. These changes, in turn, can lead to more severe winters in Europe. Consider that, with regard to the upcoming winter, this will likely intensify the humanitarian and strategic effects of Russia war in Ukraine.
The Department of Defense should address these questions as it engages in climate-focused wargaming and incorporates climate change into other wargames. At the same time, many of the most important questions about climate change — such as how to promote the transition to carbon-free economic development — are not the responsibility of the armed forces. Ideally, military climate gaming can nonetheless play a leading role in improving interagency cooperation. While wargaming or scenario exercises are not as common at the State Department or U.S. Agency for International Development, civilian agencies and civil society could also benefit from them. Any organization grappling with climate change decisions should consider using this analytical tool to inform its decision-making.


Wargaming Climate Change: Who Plays for the Red Team? - War on the Rocks

SHARON BURKE AND ANDREA H. CAMERON

warontherocks.com · by Sharon Burke · November 8, 2022

The U.S. Department of Defense spends many millions of dollars on wargaming every year. For anyone who has participated in such games, the recent news about Taiwan might provoke an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. The sequence of events — a visit by a prominent American politician, aggressive People’s Liberation Army posturing, and a U.S. freedom of navigation exercise in the Taiwan Strait — are ones we’ve played out before. And the next move is usually nothing good.

Yet the real-life scenario has already gone off script in some unexpected ways. For one thing, the Chinese government has been dealing with domestic crises that are rarely part of military games — the pandemic, but also record heat and drought, which killed hundreds of people and caused rolling brownouts from desiccated dams. Seasonal rains promised some relief, but also caused flooding, though nothing like the catastrophic situation in neighboring Pakistan.

These are significant events shaping China’s choices, but to date, the Pentagon has not really incorporated how climate change may affect strategic competition into wargaming. That may be about to change, however. Since October 2021, when the Secretary of Defense directed all defense components to include climate change in strategy and plans, the U.S. Department of Defense has conducted three climate change-focused scenario exercises. According to the Joint Staff’s Principal Director for Logistics, U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Central Command, U.S. Europe Command, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and the Joint Staff Logistics Directorate are all planning for more.

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These games can play a valuable role in helping national security actors anticipate strategic surprise and understand a changing threat landscape. To date, climate change governance in the United States has been wholly inadequate, in part because of how difficult it is to imagine future conditions in a way that can credibly inform decisions, investments, and difficult tradeoffs in the present. Scenario exercises can give both civilian and defense organizations a way to close that imagination gap and better prepare for the way climate change will shape a discontinuous future security environment.

To get the most out of climate change wargames, planners should heed some lessons from the Pentagon’s initial forays into this field. First, climate change is the ultimate systems-level challenge, so it is easy to overreach. Games that try to be about everything can end up being about nothing. Too many sponsors or stakeholders with different agendas can make for incoherent outcomes. Second, it is tempting to focus these games on disasters — the most obvious consequences of climate change — but that tends to produce insights about disaster response rather than climate change. For example, climate change dramatically worsened the scale and scope of Pakistan’s floods in ways that are strategically significant, both in terms of the stability of a nuclear-armed state and of China’s very public show of support for the erstwhile U.S. ally. But if a game focused on how to help Pakistan manage the emergency humanitarian response or disaster recovery, the findings would have more to do with relief and recovery missions than the way climate change may be raising strategic risks. Third, more can be done to build overlapping expertise between wargaming experts and climate experts with an eye toward bettering red-teaming climate change. Finally, climate games to date have focused more broadly on creating familiarity with the security angle to this geophysical phenomenon. It is time to move on to games that answer specific policy, planning, strategy, or budgetary questions. These could include exploring how climate change might shape strategic competition with China or modelling investments in resilience for bases that directly support military operations.

Initial Steps

The Department of Defense describes climate change as a “shaping threat,” one that affects the geostrategic, operational, and tactical environments, with significant implications for U.S. national security and defense. That broad scope of security risk can boil down to three key, gameable questions for military organizations: How will climate change affect global stability within and across national borders? How will climate change directly shape military missions? How will a changing operating environment affect military readiness?

Although there are many high-quality, reliable climate science models, there is insufficient actionable analysis to answer these three basic questions. Wargaming or scenario exercises offer a rigorous methodology for characterizing impacts, testing ideas about preparation and response, developing institutional capacity, and prioritizing investments, all without minimizing the uncertainties and complexity inherent in climate change. Such exercises can also help clarify what information organizations need in order to better budget, program, and plan.

To date, most climate change scenario exercises have been informational and educational in nature, with a core goal of increasing familiarity in target audiences. The Center for a New American Security held one of the first major climate wargames in 2008, which centered around climate security and international negotiations. Soon after that, the Center for Naval Analysis, a federally funded research and development center, built similar games more oriented toward food security for a group of non-governmental organizations. The United Nations Climate Security Mechanism sponsored a participatory, seminar-style climate security scenario exercise in September 2021 designed to educate attendees on the relevance of climate change to their work across United Nations programs. Two other international think tanks held climate security games in 2021 and 2022: Berlin-based adelphi and the Hague Center for Strategic Studies, both explicitly for the purpose of raising awareness.

While the first climate change wargame at the Department of Defense, Elliptic Thunder, was also aimed at generating climate literacy, it had a more targeted purpose. It was held in March 2021 and led by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and U.S. Africa Command in cooperation with designers on the Joint Staff. The intent of this game appears to have been to highlight for an internal audience how climate change constitutes a national security concern with relevance to the defense mission. Although the details are classified, the multi-move tabletop exercise used a future scenario in East Africa, projecting how climate change may affect state stability, violent extremist organizations, mass migration, and other security factors. Precipitous Storm, a second tabletop exercise in 2022, followed a similar design, with the U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command exploring a scenario in Central America and the Caribbean. Based on the authors’ conversations with participants, the games produced several key take-aways: Engaging in climate adaptation measures today is essential to being prepared in the future; the Department of Defense needs to consider the relevance and possible primacy of other civilian governmental agencies; malign actors may use climate disorder as a way to gain influence; and the Department of Defense needs to refine its processes, budget, and planning to address climate change. The games also clarified that climate change is a context in which events are happening (a “shaping threat”) rather than a competitor with agency (a “pacing threat”).

In June 2022, the Department of the Navy, under the leadership of Assistant Secretary for Energy, Installations, and Environment Meredith Berger, conducted a similar game, designed by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. During the half-day, unclassified seminar-style tabletop exercise, in which both authors participated, players from external organizations, along with Marine Corps and Navy senior mentors, broke into three cells to consider how to react to a future scenario that revolved around a typhoon. The main goal of the exercise was to raise awareness about the scope and scale of the security impacts of climate change, but it also incorporated the geopolitical context. To do this, the scenario had one fictional country using Washington’s reaction to the typhoon as a source of disinformation in order to cultivate local support.

Lessons Learned

Despite their value, these exercises have illuminated a number of challenges for successfully wargaming climate change. First, climate change is a sprawling, complex topic, and there is considerable ambiguity in how it will impact national security. This can be a significant design problem when it comes to isolating suitable questions for inquiry. As a result, games have sometimes been a bit muddy or overly general. This lack of clarity has been compounded by the fact that climate change is an inherently interdisciplinary subject that combines the difficulty of understanding both geophysical phenomenon and human systems as they interact with each other. As a result, some of the games played to date have suffered from a diversity of sponsors or players with various and competing queries or priorities.

On the other hand, efforts to isolate a key question can also backfire. Designers tend to gravitate toward natural disasters, such as droughts or hurricanes. The Department of Defense has been doing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercises for more than 20 years and has well-established authorities, doctrine, funding lines, and training, as well as relationships with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. For those leading Department of Defense disaster relief missions, it is largely irrelevant whether a natural disaster is climate change-related or not. While climate change may shift the frequency of such missions, this can get lost in the focus on a specific disaster scenario. Climate wargames are a great opportunity to intentionally open the aperture for the broader set of climate questions beyond disaster response.

Then there is the problem of expertise. Wargaming experts are not always familiar with climate change and climate change experts aren’t always familiar with wargaming. Improving climate literacy will help all involved maximize the potential for analysis from climate wargaming. Some venerable wargaming professionals may suggest that wargaming is not an appropriate tool because you cannot “red team” climate change. However, climate change wargames have already shown a variety of ways to integrate climate change considerations in wargaming, with or without red teams. A scenario can involve two actors whose interactions are shaped by climate, for example having climate-related instability pull both the United States and China further into a given region. Alternatively, climate change itself can be the red team. In this approach, the decisions that the blue team makes will have probabilistic outcomes that can be gamed to inform the next move, such as having a drought worsen after U.S. forces have intervened in a country. Climate change can also act as a forcing function that increases or decreases demand on a particular capability or skill or stresses the operating environment in a way that causes the blue team to reconsider options. While climate change may not be a red team decision-making actor, the wargaming community should start exploring the variety of ways climate can be incorporated.

Key Questions to Game

As military organizations consider how to institutionalize climate security questions into their operations, plans, strategies, and programs, wargames can help by concentrating on the gaps that climate change creates in these areas. Game sponsors should focus on direct ties between climate impact and organizations, such as insufficient authorities and resources, policy gaps, seam issues, requirements determination, bureaucratic hurdles, required interagency connections, operational adaptation, and missing capabilities.

Climate change wargaming can also help address other questions. For example, wargamers can analyze how climate change will affect strategic competition, including between the United States and China, and how in turn that competition may play a role in climate change response. That leads to a range of gameable questions: How can state competitors exploit a climate-related vulnerability? How might nations compete for influence through infrastructure development, foreign aid, humanitarian assistance, or access to critical minerals and renewable energy? How might competitors exploit the gray zone or use hybrid warfare tactics in conjunction with climate vulnerabilities? And how might climate change shape partnerships and alliances, whether by leaving some partners more vulnerable or forcing organizations like NATO to curtail their use of fossil fuels? Wargames can also examine the consequences of specific strategies for climate change mitigation or adaptation. For example, the U.S. Army Climate Strategy sets a goal to “achieve 50 percent reduction in Army net greenhouse gas pollution by 2030.” Wargames can analyze the operational impacts of various approaches to meeting this goal.

Climate-to-conflict pathways also call for extensive and rigorous analysis. Here, blue team/red team wargaming could bring out a series of rational choices along a pathway that potentially heightens tensions. This can be used to look at a range of instability scenarios including water, food, or energy shortages as well as mass migration. It would have been prudent, for example, to game out the potential consequences of a mass casualty disaster and displacement in a nuclear-armed state before the recent catastrophe in Pakistan or options for dealing with energy blackmail from Russia or other major oil and gas producers during the energy transition.

Another approach is to forecast a known climate hazard into an out-year and ask: If this event is going to happen in the future, what would you do to prepare now? This approach can help policymakers understand how to prevent or prepare for international instability or how to prioritize investments in installation resilience, including infrastructure such as overseas ports. Wargames can also analyze non-climate-related foreign policy action and see how it holds up against climate change, such as relationships with allies and partners. Finally, wargames can look at the effects of a key tipping point — either climate-related or social — on a country or organization. For example, melting ice in the Arctic and elsewhere may be slowing down ocean currents or spawning polar vortices. These changes, in turn, can lead to more severe winters in Europe. Consider that, with regard to the upcoming winter, this will likely intensify the humanitarian and strategic effects of Russia war in Ukraine.

The Department of Defense should address these questions as it engages in climate-focused wargaming and incorporates climate change into other wargames. At the same time, many of the most important questions about climate change — such as how to promote the transition to carbon-free economic development — are not the responsibility of the armed forces. Ideally, military climate gaming can nonetheless play a leading role in improving interagency cooperation. While wargaming or scenario exercises are not as common at the State Department or U.S. Agency for International Development, civilian agencies and civil society could also benefit from them. Any organization grappling with climate change decisions should consider using this analytical tool to inform its decision-making.

Become a Member

Authors: Sharon Burke is the president of Ecospherics. She is a former assistant secretary of defense. CDR Andrea H. Cameron, Ph.D., is a professor at the Naval War College. This article is adapted from the report of the Climate Wargaming Working Group, chaired by Sharon Burke, at Connections, the annual wargaming conference held in Alexandria, Virginia, in July 2022.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Sharon Burke · November 8, 2022




16. The Problematic Symptom of Donald J. Trump




The Problematic Symptom of Donald J. Trump | Small Wars Journal

Mon, 11/07/2022 - 9:59am

Small Wars Journal

(Editor’s note: This is not a partisan political piece. An objective read will reveal important analysis that bears reflection. The thoughts, concepts, and products included in this paper are the author’s own, developed in over 30 years as a Special Forces qualified officer both in uniform and during the past 11 years as a civilian strategist at USSOCOM.)

The Problematic Symptom of Donald J. Trump

By Robert Jones

Blaming people like Donald Trump for instability is easy – but it is wrong as well. Trump is far more symptom than causation. He is a symptom of a deep and growing sense of outrage and abandonment felt across a vast and diverse segment of our nation. To ignore that grievance and fixate on symptoms places the stability of our nation at risk. It places our democracy at risk. As a retired Green Beret Colonel, and as a special operations strategist I have spent a lifetime studying and participating in the drivers of political instability. If I could offer one insight it is simply this: the old playbook is obsolete.

The modern information age has served to shift the relative balance of power to populations everywhere from those who seek to govern or control them. Old mantras of “effective government,” and “control of populations” are no longer adequate to serve the rapidly evolving expectations of people who are connected, empowered, informed - and misinformed – in unprecedented ways. “Facts” as measured by governments are interesting, but it is how distinct demographics feel about the governance affecting their lives that matters most.

Assessing such grievance demands the empathy to see governance through the lens of those who one hopes to understand. Sadly, this is not a trait encouraged in the natural selection of government. Politicians shift blame as easily as they breathe; bureaucrats cling to the status quo; diplomats believe others wish to be a lesser version of us; and the military sees only threats to deter or defeat. All of this enhances the friction of the modern era. This is the old playbook at work. A new playbook realizes it is the influence one can foster, rather than the control they can exert, that best advances interests and facilitates stability in this revolutionary age.

Which brings us back to Mr. Trump. Problematic symptom? Sure. Catalyst of the events of January 6th? Absolutely. Yet just a symptom all the same. The large and diverse demographic he resonates with needs someone to champion their cause. Understand it or not, like it or not, he is the one who stepped into that role in a way neither Democrat nor Republican politicians recognized the need to address, nor possessed the moral courage to attempt. Instead, we have resistance by any means by the former, and sad collaboration by the later. Neither approach addresses the growing problem within our society.

Mao Zedong famously said of his own rise to power in China, “I saw a parade, and leapt in front.” Such was the rise of Donald J. Trump, as he cleared the field of the best both parties could offer. This does not mean he is the leader we need; but leaders must acknowledge there is indeed a need that must be addressed. To paraphrase President Obama, he “didn’t build that, (government did).” True, but it is an energy he has captured and directed for destabilizing purpose.

One could make a parallel argument with bin Laden for recognizing and leveraging the rising grievances within Sunni populations grown increasingly frustrated with autocratic governance possessing an impunity enhanced by excessive Western influence. The primary causal source of political instability is invariably governance failing to meet the evolving needs and expectations of empowered populations. The historic tendency of governments, however, is to shift blame to the populations in question; to the leaders who emerge to exploit the conditions created by others; or to the narratives they employ to energize and direct that grievance for purpose. When done legally, such movements are democracy in action. When done illegally, this is revolution – an exercise in illegal democracy. When grievance of this nature is left unaddressed; or when legal mechanisms are denied or become distrusted; or if those who dare to complain are simply suppressed by a greater application of state power? That is when violent tactics are apt to emerge.

When one misdiagnoses these situations and attempts to “defeat” a problematic symptom at all costs, it invariably makes root problems worse for the effort. President Biden is correct, America is indeed “at an inflection point in history,” both in our polices abroad and our governance at home. But to get to better answers we must first ask better questions. The question to ask is not, “How do I stop the leader of this parade.” The question to ask is, “Why is there a parade to begin with”?

There is a simple genius in the mechanisms created by our founders for preventing such parades from forming, and for giving them the legal mechanisms to march. Let this inform our pursuit of a new playbook to guide this inflection. From the Constitution to Washington’s farewell address, the guides for success in this tumultuous era are there. Now is not the time to rewrite or mute their meanings; now is the time to restore and refresh them for modern purposes.

Robert Jones is a retired Army Special Forces Colonel who has served for the past eleven years as a senior strategist at United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). His has been a focus on understanding the nature of the strategic environment, the impact on the character of conflict, and the implications for our Special Operations Forces. A Cold War and Gulf War vet, he stepped away for a bit to gain experiences as both an emergency manager and a deputy district attorney prior to returning to the Special Operations community post-9/11 to serve from Zamboanga to Kandahar, and places in between.

Small Wars Journal



17. Ukraine doubles down on tough stance on talks with Russia



Ukraine doubles down on tough stance on talks with Russia

Reuters · by Tom Balmforth

  • Summary
  • Ukraine demands restoration of territory, compensation
  • Moscow blames Kyiv for failure of talks
  • U.S. national security adviser has held talks with Russians
  • Washington says it will support Ukraine, whoever wins U.S. vote

KYIV, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Ukraine doubled down on its tough stance on negotiations with Russia on Tuesday, saying talks could only resume once the Kremlin relinquishes all Ukrainian territory and that Kyiv would fight on even if it is "stabbed in the back" by its allies.

The remarks come days after a U.S. media report that Washington had encouraged Kyiv to signal willingness for talks, and seemed aimed at rebuffing such pressure, at a time when U.S. mid-term elections could test Western support for Ukraine.

In an overnight address before he was due to address world leaders at a climate summit, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia must be pushed into "genuine" negotiations.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine had repeatedly proposed such talks, but "we always received insane Russian responses with new terrorist attacks, shelling or blackmail".

"Once again - restoration of territorial integrity, respect for the U.N. Charter, compensation for all damages caused by the war, punishment of every war criminal and guarantees that this will not happen again. These are completely understandable conditions."

Since Russia announced the annexation of Ukrainian territory at the end of September, Zelenskiy has decreed that Kyiv would never negotiate with Moscow as long as Vladimir Putin remains Russian president. Kyiv officials have repeated that position in recent days, while saying that Kyiv would be willing to negotiate with Putin's future successor.

"Negotiating with Putin would mean giving up, and we would never give him this gift," Zelenskiy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with Italy's La Repubblica newspaper published on Tuesday.

Dialogue would be possible only once Russian forces leave Ukrainian territory, Podolyak said.

"We have no choice. Russia has invaded us with mobile crematoria and half a million body bags. If we stop defending ourselves, we will cease to exist. Literally. Physically. We will continue to fight even if we are stabbed in the back," he said.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's Security Council, also tweeted that restoration of Ukraine's borders was a pre-condition for talks, and that Kyiv needed the "guarantee" of modern air defences, aircraft, tanks and long-range missiles.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated Moscow's position that it is open to talks but that Kyiv was refusing them. Moscow has repeatedly said it will not negotiate over territory it claims to have annexed from Ukraine.

OFFENSIVE

Ukrainian forces have been on the offensive in recent months, while Russia is regrouping to defend areas of Ukraine it still occupies, having called up hundreds of thousands of reservists over the past month.

[1/10] Smoke rises behind vessels on the Dnipro River during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the Russia-controlled city of Kherson, Ukraine July 24, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

Russia has been evacuating civilians from occupied areas, especially from southern Ukraine's Kherson region, in an operation that Kyiv says includes forced deportations, a war crime. Moscow says it is taking people to safety.

The next big battle is expected to be over a Russian-controlled pocket of land on the west bank of the Dnipro River, which includes Kherson city, the only regional capital Russia has captured since its invasion in February.

Britain's Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday Russia was preparing new fortified lines of defence inside territory it controls "to forestall any rapid Ukrainian advances in the event of breakthroughs".

This includes installing concrete barriers known as "dragon's teeth" to stop tanks. It said these were being put in place around Russian-occupied Mariupol in the south to help safeguard Russia's "land bridge" to occupied Crimea, a strategic objective, even if Moscow loses other territory.

On Monday, a source confirmed that White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had held talks with Russian officials to avert escalation of the conflict, first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The Kremlin has declined to comment.

The White House did not deny the talks but says it will not make diplomatic moves about Ukraine without Kyiv's involvement.

"We reserve the right to speak directly at senior levels about issues of concern to the United States. That has happened over the course of the past few months. Our conversations have focused only on ... risk reduction and the U.S.-Russia relationship," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said.

The United States is holding mid-term elections for Congress on Tuesday. Although most candidates from both parties support Ukraine, some right-wing Republican candidates have criticised the cost of U.S. military aid.

White House spokesperson Jean-Pierre said U.S. support for Ukraine would be "unflinching and unwavering" regardless of the outcome of Tuesday's vote.

Oleksandr Merezhko, the head of Ukraine's parliamentary foreign policy committee, said a Republican victory "will not in any way impact on support for Ukraine".

"We highly value the fact that we have bipartisan support," he said. "Whoever wins these elections, this will not have any negative influence. On the contrary, we expect that support for Ukraine will increase."

On Monday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Putin ally who heads the Wagner private military company fighting in Ukraine, acknowledged for the first time that Russia had intervened in U.S. elections in the past, and said it would do so again.

"We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere," he said on Facebook.

U.S. prosecutors accuse Prigozhin of leading a Russian internet "troll farm" that helped back former president Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Trump denies his campaign coordinated with the Russians.

Reporting by Reuters bureaux Writing by Peter Graff Editing by Gareth Jones

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Tom Balmforth



18.  3 Takeaways From International Fleet Review 2022 in Japan



Participation of Like-minded Pacific Countries

Lack of Presence of European Countries

Strong Presence of the US Aircraft Carrier Ronald Reagan

3 Takeaways From International Fleet Review 2022 in Japan

From strong representation among Asian navies to a “coincidence” involving a U.S. aircraft carrier.

thediplomat.com · by Takahashi Kosuke · November 8, 2022

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The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) hosted the International Fleet Review (IFR) for the first time in 20 years to mark the 70th anniversary of its founding. Twenty MSDF ships and submarines as well as 18 vessels from the United States, Australia, India, and nine other countries took part in the review in Sagami Bay, south of Tokyo, on November 6. Prime Minister Kishida Fumio reviewed JMSDF vessels and those from other countries sailing in formation from the deck of JS Izumo (DDH 183), one of four Japanese helicopter carriers, which I had also boarded to cover the multinational fleet review.

Here are three take-aways from the major naval event.

Participation of Like-minded Pacific Countries

At the international fleet review, there was a strong presence by Western-style democracies that share the same values with Japan. Australia was the most notable among those like-minded nations. The Southern Hemisphere nation accounted for four of the 18 ships that participated from overseas. This represents the deepening of the bilateral relationship as a “quasi-alliance” in the face of China’s increased assertiveness in the East and South China Seas as well as the Indo-Pacific theater. On October 22, Kishida and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a new joint security declaration, the first since 2007.


Canada, another Pacific nation, also dispatched two ships to Japan. India also sent two ships. South Korea, which regards the JMSDF’s use of the Flag of the Rising Sun as a thorny symbol of Japan’s colonialism, eventually sent one logistics support ship, the Soyang, to Japan for national security purposes in the wake of North Korea firing off ballistic missiles at an unprecedented pace.

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On the other hand, the JMSDF did not invite Russia, which is still actively occupying territory in Ukraine. Meanwhile, China decided not to participate despite Japan’s invitation.

What was interesting is that Pakistan also brought in two ships. The South Asian nation, which has a strong sense of rivalry with India, is believed to have intentionally sent the same number of vessels to Japan that India did.

Lack of Presence of European Countries

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The second takeaway is the lack of presence by European naval forces, which should have sent some ships. A Royal British Navy vessel was scheduled to participate, but it was canceled at the last minute due to a tropical cyclone that lashed the Philippines. Curiously, many Southeast Asian countries – such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Brunei – managed to participate in the IFR, while the U.K. vessel was stuck on the way to Japan.

France, which has territories in the South Pacific, including Polynesia and New Caledonia, has declared itself to be an Indo-Pacific nation. However, France only dispatched a Falcon 200 maritime surveillance aircraft to the IFR and did not send any naval vessels. Moreover, this patrol plane was initially sent to take part in regular surveillance missions to enforce U.N. sanctions against North Korea, rather than participating in the IFR. Germany also did not send any ships or aircraft. No other Europeans, such as the Netherlands, participated. Therefore, it can be said that the participation of Europeans is practically zero.

Admiral Pierre Vandier, chief of staff of the French Navy, is currently visiting Tokyo to attend the 18th Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS) being conducted on November 7 and 8 in conjunction with the IFR. Vandier held a press conference in Tokyo on November 7. Asked why the French navy did not send any vessels to Japan, he said the timing of the deployment was not right.

“The reason France did not dispatch a naval vessel this time is that although there are two bases in New Caledonia and Polynesia [in this region], but both bases have only two patrol boats and one frigate, so we have very limited assets,” the top officer in the French navy said.

“Dispatches from mainland France are scheduled to be deployed in the region, usually from November to June, except for emergencies, so the timing of the fleet review was a little early,” he added.

Strong Presence of the US Aircraft Carrier Ronald Reagan

Right after attending the IFR in Sagami Bay on November 6, Kishida flew by helicopter to board the USS Ronald Reagan, which was sailing nearby. During the IFR, Ronald Reagan was sailing side by side with JS Izumo for long periods of time by maintaining a certain distance, or cruising from afar. Although the JMSDF’s official position was that the US aircraft carrier “was just passing by chance” and the close sailing was “just a coincidence,” the Ronald Reagan practically participated in the IFR.

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In fact, former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo also stepped aboard the Ronald Reagan during a naval review in 2015. Kishida must have wanted to follow in the footsteps of Abe and demonstrate the strength of the Japan-U.S. alliance by boarding the U.S. aircraft carrier.

However, one of the main purposes of the international fleet review is to deepen broad-ranging international goodwill with many other countries. In order not to overemphasize the Japan-U.S. military alliance, it seems the Japanese government is pretending the Ronald Reagan’s appearance was a “coincidence,” but this required giving labored explanations to the media and the Japanese public as the presence of the U.S. carrier was very strong.

The major purpose of hosting the IFR should be to deepen the Japanese people’s understanding and trust in the SDF. The government and the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo, which make political decisions, should explain this matter to the Japanese people sincerely and honestly.

Takahashi Kosuke

Takahashi Kosuke is Tokyo Correspondent for Janes Defence Weekly.

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thediplomat.com · by Takahashi Kosuke · November 8, 2022


19. Big Mismatch Between the Biden Administration’s New Defense Plan and an Underfunded U.S. Navy 





Big Mismatch Between the Biden Administration’s New Defense Plan and an Underfunded U.S. Navy - Defense Opinion

defenseopinion.com · by Steven Wills · November 7, 2022

The global campaigning plan envisioned by the new National Defense Strategy (NDS) recently released by the Biden administration will need to rely to a great extent on a shrinking Navy to accomplish its goals, especially in the more remote areas of interest including the Indo-Pacific and the Arctic.

The Chief of Naval Operations’ current goal of 355 manned and 150-plus unmanned ships charts a path to grow the fleet for global competition with China, Russia and other states. But some of the NDS requirements, especially in global campaigning, require additional attention by Congress and much more funding. The conventional manned fleet, the combat logistics force and the developing unmanned side of the Navy all need additional support to meet the NDS’s campaigning requirements.

Naval forces are ideal for campaigning

Campaigning as defined by the NDS is, “the conduct and sequencing of logically-linked military activities to achieve strategy-aligned objectives over time.” Campaigning is a fundamental element of the operational level of conflict, as it is the tool used to secure the objectives needed to achieve strategic results. It is a global activity and needs U.S. force assets that can act at short notice over wide distances.

Naval forces are ideal for the campaigning effort — unlike land forces or land-based aircraft, they do not need status of forces agreements or overflight allowances to transit to the desired global location and act decisively in support of campaign objectives.

The Navy however has been worn down over the last two decades of support to the Global War on Terror and in deterrence missions against Iran and North Korea. The sea service needs an influx of capability in traditional warships, specialized ones and in the emerging unmanned environment to support the global campaigning requirement.

The naval forces that are in short supply

While it would be easy to say that the Navy needs more of everything, a first request should focus on those platforms most suited to the campaigning mission.

The service needs a larger number of smaller but still capable ships such as the FFG-62 class that can be built in larger numbers and lower cost than traditional guided missile destroyers (DDG’s) but still possess sufficient lethality and survivability to support combat as well as campaigning.

Amphibious warfare vessels that can serve as regional station ships as demonstrated for years in the Africa Partnership Station program, could also serve in campaigning roles, yet a large number of these vessels are aging and need replacement. The Navy’s vital command ships (LCC’s) may be the only platforms capable of hosting requisite battle staffs in campaigning activities in the event that they can’t be based on shore,, as was demonstrated in the 2011 Odyssey Dawn operation against Libya. The Navy is however proposing to retire the USS Mount Whitney by 2026 without a replacement, presumably due to cost issues, despite a service life extension designed to take the ship into the 2030’s.

Bases ashore are vulnerable as the U.S. found out in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq. U.S. forces need the ability to base both afloat and ashore and the retirement of the only suitable afloat headquarters ships does not support the kind of global campaigning the NDS demands.

The global campaigning effort also is going to require a larger combat logistics force whose operational approach must be more than the “hub and spoke, just in time” delivery system of the last 30 years. The distributed joint force envisioned by the new NDS will demand a much larger logistics component than the current 82 ship logistics fleet planned in the CNO’s Force Design 2045, especially in wide Indo-Pacific and remote Arctic seas.

Distributive operations cannot take place without effective, distributive logistics and the Navy needs more logistics vessels; manned and unmanned, as well as merchant marine vessels in order to meet global joint force needs.

The unmanned naval force can provide wide area surveillance of remote areas of the Pacific and the Arctic freeing manned ships for other missions. This concept has seen initial successes in the Persian Gulf-based 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59 experiments. Naval Sea System Command’s Program Executive Office continues to develop multiple unmanned systems that can support this mission.

A concerned Congress

Congress is understandably concerned in the wake of past Navy ship program challenges as the service seeks to create the entirely new unmanned program. The latest Rim of the Pacific exercise showcased the capabilities of a number of new systems. The Navy needs support to develop Task Force 59-like organizations in all its fleets to better develop and mature unmanned systems to support the information gathering needed for successful campaigning.

The U.S. Navy has been doing elements of campaigning since the nation’s founding when a nascent sea service conducted global operations against the Barbary pirates in the early 19th century, to operations countering the German U-boat menace before the U.S. entered World War II, to more recent global campaigns against the Cold War Soviet Union and terrorist elements into the 21st century.

The new campaigning strategy inherent in the 2022 National Defense Strategy is a perfect fit for naval forces and Congress and the Biden administration should act to incorporate the Navy more fully into the global campaigning mission.

defenseopinion.com · by Steven Wills · November 7, 2022


20.  Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv Lauds Arrival Of NASAMS, Aspide Air Defense Systems





Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv Lauds Arrival Of NASAMS, Aspide Air Defense Systems

The new air defense systems arrive as Ukrainian authorities are trying to cope with massive Russian attacks on their electrical power systems.

BY

HOWARD ALTMAN

|

PUBLISHED NOV 7, 2022 7:59 PM

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · November 8, 2022

The first tranche of National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missiles Systems, or NASAMS, as well as Aspide air defense systems, are confirmed to have arrived in Ukrainian hands, its Defense Minister announced Monday.

“Look who’s here!” Oleksii Reznikov said in a Tweet Monday.

“NASAMS and Aspide air defense systems arrived in Ukraine! These weapons will significantly strengthen #UAarmy and will make our skies safer. We will continue to shoot down the enemy targets attacking us. Thank you to our partners: Norway, Spain and the US.”

Reznikov’s announcement comes after months of speculation about when the U.S-supplied NASAMS would arrive or even if they already had.

Greg Hayes, chief executive of NASAMS manufacturer Raytheon, announced during an Oct. 25 appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street that the NASAMS batteries were handed over to the U.S. government weeks prior and at the time were in Ukraine.

“We did just deliver two NASAMS systems,” Hayes said. “We delivered two of them to the government a couple of weeks ago. They’re being installed in Ukraine today.”


But a day later, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told The War Zone that Ukrainian troops were still training on the air-defense systems and the NASAMS would transfer to their custody once the training is complete.

"As soon as the training program has been completed, which we anticipate will be soon, the two initial NASAMS that are ready for delivery will be passed to the government of Ukraine," Ryder said, deferring specifics of when to the Ukrainians.

The Pentagon has promised Kyiv eight NASAMS systems and an unspecified amount of ammunition.

The first tranche of National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missiles Systems or NASAMS have arrived in Ukraine. (Raytheon/Kongsberg Defense)

Its primary armament is the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-To-Air Missile (AMRAAM), the same munition used by U.S. and allied NATO fighter aircraft. That means there is a potential steady supply of rounds for Ukraine’s NASAMS systems to fire. That is a critical advantage, especially with Ukraine facing concerns about shortages of other air defense munitions to try and fend off waves of missile and drone strikes, not to mention keeping Russia’s piloted fixed and rotary wing aviation assets at bay. You can read our full report on how the AIM-120-NASAMS pairing is a boon to Ukraine here.

The AMRAAM is the most proven beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile on Earth and the most developmentally evolved — nearly 5,000 have been tested in live-fire trials and drills. When used in the ground-launched NASAMS application, it is capable of engaging targets from relatively close ranges to up to roughly 20 miles away and from around 1,000 feet to 50,000 feet. These targets include everything from cruise missiles — which it is very good at engaging — to manned aircraft, and yes, drones.

The War Zone delved into the potential advantages NASAMS could provide Ukraine in this piece.

Spain, which promised Ukraine four Aspide systems, has been training 19 Ukrainian troops on them since early October. Aspide is an Italian surface-to-air missile system first produced in the 1970s by what was then known as Alenia Aeronautica and is now Selenia, which is a part of Leonardo under the MBDA European missile consortium.

Ukraine has also received the Aspide air defense system. (MBDA Missile Systems)

Reminiscent of the U.S.-made AIM-7 Sparrow, the Aspide missile comes in four different variants, Mk.1, Mk.2, 2000, and Citedef. While it is unclear which model will be sent to Ukraine, Spain in the past has purchased the Aspide 2000 variant that can be launched from the export versions of the Skyguard air-defense system designed by Oerlikon Contraves now known as Rheinmetall Air Defense and the Spada 2000 air defense system built by Selenia. The Aspide 2000 missile system features a semi-active radar-homing seeker and can effectively engage targets at a range of up to 15 miles (25 km) while flying at speeds of Mach 4. It’s equipped with a 77-pound (35-kg) high-lethality fragmentation warhead and a high-thrust single-stage rocket motor.

You can read more about that here.

Ukrainian officials have been long been seeking more air-defense systems, especially since Russia launched a wave of missile and drone strikes targeting cities and power generation facilities in early October. Those concerns have only grown in recent days as officials in Kyiv are considering the possibility of evacuating its population of three million should continued Russian strikes against that city’s power grid cause a catastrophic failure.

“We understand that if Russia continues such attacks, we may lose our entire electricity system,” Roman Tkachuk, the director of security for the Kyiv municipal government, told The New York Times.

Officials in the capital have been told that they would be likely to have at least 12 hours’ notice that the grid was on the verge of failure. If it reaches that point, Mr. Tkachuk said, “we will start informing people and requesting them to leave.”

On Monday, the rolling blackouts in Kyiv called to conserve energy in the wake of these attacks continued.

Ukrainian officials have been touting the ability of its air defense systems while at the same time expressing concern about the ongoing Russian strikes. In an Oct. 30 interview with The War Zone, the head of Ukraine's Defense Intelligence directorate (GUR) claimed that Ukrainian air defense had managed to down about 70% of some 300 Iranian Shahed-136 drones launched by Russia using "all available air defense systems that we have currently and also by electronic warfare."

But despite those successes, Budanov said Ukraine needs more such systems and the munitions that go with them "because the systems that we have, taken together with the systems that are incoming, are still not enough to counter the numbers of air targets that we have to count."

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed concerns about being able to defend against Russian plans to continue attacking the power grid with Iranian drones, and, very likely soon, Iranian short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM).

“The occupiers used Iranian attack drones again,” Zelensky said Sunday on his Telegram channel. “There are downed ones. But, unfortunately, there are also hits. We also understand that the terrorist state is concentrating forces and means for a possible repetition of mass attacks on our infrastructure. First of all, energy. In particular, for this, Russia needs Iranian missiles. We are preparing to respond.”

In its latest report, issued Monday, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank concurred that Ukraine is in desperate need of additional air defense systems and munitions to protect its power supply infrastructure.

"Ukraine urgently requires deliveries of large numbers of additional [man-portable air defense systems] MANPADS for mobile and static air defense teams, and many modern [self-propelled anti-aircraft guns or SPAAGs] such as the GepardLvKv 90 or Skyranger as possible. It also requires additional supplies of night-vision goggles to enable MANPADS teams to operate effectively at night."

"Additional ammunition and more launchers for the highly effective IRIS-T SLM and NASAMS systems are also critical to enable the Ukrainian Air Force to defend remaining electricity infrastructure and protect repair work from higher-end cruise missile attacks," the report stated. "With rolling blackouts already affecting much of the country and the weather already getting cold, the urgency of these requirements is hard to overstate. Neither MANPADS or SPAAGs should be considered politically sensitive as they are fundamentally defensive weapons needed to protect civilian infrastructure."

But new air defense systems weren't the only foreign-donated weapons Ukrainian officials announced receiving Monday. They acknowledged receiving six Panzerhaubitze 2000 155 mm self-propelled howitzers and two M270 multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) from Italy, with more on the way.

Before we head into more of the latest news from Ukraine, The War Zone readers can get caught up with our previous rolling coverage of the war here.

The Latest

On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are continuing their push toward Kherson City, where the intentions of Russian defenders are unclear at the moment. Ukraine continues to believe Russia is digging in for a long fight, but there are also indications that Russia is working toward at least a partial withdrawal and build-up of defenses on the West Bank of the Dnipro River.

Here are some key takeaways from the latest assessment by the Institute for the Study of War.

  • Russian forces continued establishing defensive positions on the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast. Ukrainian forces continued their interdiction campaign against Russian logistics in Kherson Oblast.
  • Russian milbloggers amplified reports that the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade sustained severe losses during the recent offensive push towards Pavlivka, Donetsk Oblast.
  • Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the direction of Svatove and Kreminna.
  • Russian opposition sources reported that Ukrainian shelling near Makiivka, Luhansk Oblast may have killed up to 500 Russian mobilized personnel in one day.
  • Russian forces conducted ground attacks near Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Vuhledar. Russian sources claimed that Russian forces broke through Ukrainian defenses near Bakhmut, made marginal gains south of Avdiivka, and remained impaled near Pavliivka in western Donetsk Oblast.
  • Ukrainian personnel repaired two external power lines to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on November 5, resuming the supply of electricity to the ZNPP after shelling de-energized the facility on Nov. 3.
  • Russian occupation officials continued to cite the threat of a Ukrainian strike on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station to justify the continued forced relocation of civilians in Kherson Oblast.
  • Russian occupation officials continued to forcibly transfer Ukrainian children from occupied Ukraine to Russia under the guise of “vacation” schemes.
  • Russian forces continued to struggle with domestic resistance to and poor provisioning of ongoing mobilization efforts.

There are clearly some mixed messages coming from the Russians in Kherson.

Russian-installed Kherson official Kirill Stremousov said Monday on his Telegram channel that "today is the last day of organized evacuation from the right-bank part of the Kherson region. Most of the residents who did not leave Kherson, only now began to realize the seriousness of the situation and my warnings."

One Russian talked with relatives about the possibility of retreating from Kherson to Crimea, according to an call the GUR claims it recently intercepted.

In another intercepted call, a pro-Russian separatist fighter wondered why the Russians are blowing up ammunition if they plan on recapturing Kherson.

In other cases, like those of radio and television broadcasts, the messages weren't mixed, they were non-existent. A spokesman from the Ukrainian Operational Command South on Monday said that Russian TV channels have disappeared in Kherson while Ukrainian radio stations have returned.

The fighting in Luhansk is also fierce, with Ukrainian officials saying Russians and their allies like the Akhmat battalion of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov are taking a beating.

The Luhansk Oblast, in eastern Ukraine. (Google Earth image).

Russia's newly mobilized troops are also being hit hard, and, like these soldiers in the Luhansk city of Svatove, reportedly surrendered.

There have even been reports that their commander abandoned them.

Luhansk is littered with the remains of Russian armor and other vehicles obliterated by Ukrainian forces.

There is also continued fighting in Kupiansk in the Kharkiv Oblast.

And in Donetsk, the Russian 155th Marine Brigade of the Russian Pacific Fleet was apparently not too pleased about being decimated as it tried to attack Ukrainian forces through Pavlivka. So much so that one of its members wrote a scathing letter to the governor of Primorsky Krai complaining that the brigade lost 300 troops and half its vehicles in just four days.

The Russian Defense Ministry, however, pushed back on that Monday, saying the losses expressed were "greatly exaggerated."

Regardless, the Russian offensive around Pavlivka may have been heavier than previously thought.

Elsewhere in Donetsk, the regional railway administration building was apparently attacked by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine's railroad officials, meanwhile, are considering alternatives to electric and even Diesel engines, out of concerns about Ukraine's energy situation.

In Mykolaiv Oblast, Ukrainians have set up special crews to hunt and shoot down drones.

Many of the drones Ukraine has to contend with come from Iran. More information is emerging about how they get from there to Russia. While we previously reported that Iran would fly the weapons from Iran to Russia as well as ship them across the Caspian Sea, a new report by the Ukrainian government offers more details about the Iranian airlines flying the weapons as well as the shipping companies involved.

Though Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets and power infrastructure continue, it is running low on precision-guided munitions like the Iskander-M SRBM. Vadym Skibitskyi, a Ukrainian Defense Ministry (MOD) official, told The Economist that Russia has only 120 Iskanders left.

Skibitkyi's figures follow those cited by Budanov last month in an interview with Ukrainian Pravda.

“About 13 percent remains for Iskanders, about 43 percent for Kalibr-PL, Kalibr-NK missiles, and about 45 percent for Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles,” Budanov told the Ukrainian newspaper. “It is generally very dangerous to fall below 30 percent because it already goes [in]to 'NZ' [reserve stocks].

Despite repeated Russian claims to the contrary, Ukraine on the other hand has lost none of the 20 M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS provided by the U.S., the Ukrainian MOD says.

Reports are emerging about efforts by the Antonov company to build a new version of the world's largest cargo jet, the An-225 known as Mriya, which was destroyed in the opening days of the war. The new plane will contain both new parts and parts salvaged from the original aircraft the German news outlet Bild reported Monday.

"The plane is already 30% done, with the total cost estimated at around $500 million," Bild reported. "Leipzig/Halle Airport, where Antonov's aircraft are temporarily based, will help raise funds for the project."

Antonov plans to "sell merchandise at Leipzig/Halle Airport, such as models of the AN-225 and pictures, in order to bring in additional money and win sponsors," says Antonov General Director Eugene Gavrylov.

“The work on the machine is going on in a secret place," Gavrylov told Bild. "Parts of the bombed machine and new parts will be added to the never-completed second AN-225."

Whether the company can actually raise the funds remains to be seen. Past estimates to build a new AN-225 were much higher and even at $500M, that's a tremendous amount of money. There is the remaining unused fuselage that could be leveraged, but even then, all the systems would have to be updated. You can read our interview with Miya's first pilot here.

Former senior advisor to the Georgian National Security Council, Girogi Revishvili, shared a video apparently showing an RM-70 Vampire MLRS being used by Ukrainian forces.

Russia won't be able to count on reinforcements to its Black Sea fleet to come through the Bosphorus Strait. Turkey has denied Russia permission to enter the Black Sea from that narrow waterway connecting the Black and Mediterranean seas. So the ships are reportedly returning to their home ports in Vladivostok.

But Russia says it plans to restore the Kerch Bridge, severely damaged in an attack last month, in December.

Ukrainian Pravda reported that on Dec. 5, traffic is expected to resume on one of the lanes of the right side of the bridge while the second lane will open Dec. 20. Previous media reports said that the bridge would be repaired by July 1, 2023 at the latest. We will have to wait and see if these reports prove accurate and it still isn't clear when rail traffic will resume.

Elsewhere in Crimea, it appears the Russians have learned some lessons from the attack on the August attack on the Saki Air Base. Brady Africk, who does media relations for the American Enterprise Institute, said research of satellite imagery apparently shows the Russians have moved ammunition storage away from the aircraft there.

Russian tanks operating in the open continue to be targets.

But Russia continues to cause extensive damage with its Lancet drones.

The mobilization of Russian reservists continues to be a bizarre operation.

Moscow Orthodox priest Mikhail Vasiliev, who was known for blessing Russian strategic nuclear forces, was killed on the front in Ukraine, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Ukraine has mobile DNA labs taking samples from residents in an ongoing search for more evidence of Russian atrocities.

Tomorrow is Election Day in the U.S., with control of the Senate and House of Representatives at stake. That fact is apparently not lost on Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin's billionaire ally and founder of the Wagner Group mercenary organization, whose fighters are taking part in some of the fiercest battles in Ukraine.

It appears Prigozhin is up to his old tricks again.

Prigozhin was placed under sanction by the U.S. Treasury Department for his role in meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, using a company he owned, then called the Internet Research Agency, to spread misinformation and sow discord, especially on social media platforms.

Asked by Russian media about new interference in the midterm elections, Prigozhin replied: “Gentlemen, we interfered. We are interfering and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.”

During a press briefing Monday, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. was aware of Wagner's interference efforts.

We will update this story until we state otherwise.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · November 8, 2022




21. Ukraine’s Zelensky Sets Conditions for ‘Genuine’ Peace Talks With Russia



Ukraine’s Zelensky Sets Conditions for ‘Genuine’ Peace Talks With Russia

President says he is open to negotiations that guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-zelensky-sets-conditions-for-genuine-peace-talks-with-russia-11667907501?mod=hp_lead_pos5


By Matthew LuxmooreFollow

 and Marcus WalkerFollow

Updated Nov. 8, 2022 8:29 am ET


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was open to negotiations with Russia if they are focused on safeguarding Ukraine’s territorial integrity, compensating Kyiv and bringing to justice perpetrators of war crimes.

Speaking ahead of his address to a global climate summit in Egypt on Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky said late Monday: “Anyone who treats seriously the climate agenda should just as seriously treat the necessity of immediately stopping Russian aggression, resuming our territorial integrity and forcing Russia into genuine peace talks.”

Mr. Zelensky’s statement comes after the U.S., Ukraine’s key backer in its defense against Russia’s invasion, has urged Kyiv to publicly signal that it is open to talks with Moscow, to avoid alienating international opinion.

“One more time: restoration of territorial integrity, respect for the U.N. charter, compensation for all material losses caused by the war, punishment for every war criminal and guarantees that this does not happen again,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Those are completely understandable conditions.”

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U.S. officials have said it is up to Ukraine to define the terms of any acceptable settlement. Many Western officials are skeptical that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be open soon to a settlement that involves Russian withdrawal from occupied regions of Ukraine—a key demand for Kyiv.


A building damaged by shelling in Shchurove, eastern Ukraine.

PHOTO: ANDRIY ANDRIYENKO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Since Mr. Putin said in late September that swaths of Ukraine’s east and south belonged to Russia, Kyiv has said it wouldn’t negotiate with Moscow until there is a different leader in the Kremlin. Mr. Putin’s insistence that Russia’s territorial demands are nonnegotiable, meanwhile, appears to leave little scope for talks at present.

“We’ve always made clear our readiness for such talks,” Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, said Tuesday in comments carried by state news agency RIA. “From our side there are no preliminary conditions whatsoever, except the main condition—for Ukraine to show goodwill.”

Buoyed by recent battlefield successes, Ukraine has demanded that all occupied areas are returned to its control as a condition for any peace deal—including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas area that Russia seized in 2014.

Military realities will dictate how much of its internationally recognized borders Ukraine is able to restore, officials in Kyiv and Western capitals say.

Ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February, many Western governments have been skeptical about how much of its territory Ukraine can take back through fighting. Kyiv has sought to erase such doubts with offensives in eastern and southern Ukraine since late summer, which have made inroads, especially in the Kharkiv region.

Continued Western military and financial support is vital for Ukraine’s ability to advance, however. Many in Kyiv fear that a reduction in aid could scuttle Ukraine’s hopes of retaking occupied regions, forcing it into negotiations with a weak hand.

Ukraine also fears any cease-fire would allow Russian forces to regroup and that Mr. Putin would use talks to consolidate Russian control of occupied areas.

Kyiv officials continue to warn the West of the dangers of premature talks.

“What do you mean by the word ‘negotiations’? Russian ultimatums are well-known: ‘we came with tanks, admit defeat and territories loss.’ This is unacceptable. So what to talk about? Or you just hide the word ‘surrender’ behind the word ‘settlement’?,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Tuesday in a tweet.

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Widespread evidence of alleged Russian war crimes in places such as Bucha and Izyum, which Moscow has denied, has hardened Ukraine’s insistence of a full Russian withdrawal from its territory.

However, the global economic toll of the war and signs of fraying political consensus in Western nations are raising uncertainty about how long the U.S. and Europe will continue to back Kyiv’s position.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan has in recent months engaged in confidential conversations with top aides to Mr. Putin in an effort to reduce the risk of the war widening, while warning Moscow against using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, U.S. and allied officials said Monday.

The aim has been to guard against the risk of escalation and keep communications channels open, and not discuss a settlement of the war in Ukraine, the officials said.

Ukraine has continued to call for further arms deliveries from the West to protect its cities against Russian missile-and-drone attacks and help it recapture occupied territories.


A firefighter works at the scene of a damaged residential building in Lyman, eastern Ukraine.

PHOTO: ANDRIY ANDRIYENKO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mr. Zelensky, in his comments late Monday, hailed the provision this week of the U.S.-Norwegian National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or Nasams, and of Spanish-supplied Aspide air-defense systems, after weeks of Russian attacks that have caused substantial damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and caused numerous blackouts in Ukrainian cities.

“The defense of Ukraine’s sky is obviously not complete, but gradually we are moving toward our goal,” Mr. Zelensky said. He added that Russia had hit 50 towns and cities across Ukraine with missile attacks on Monday, the latest barrage aimed at sapping Ukrainian morale as winter sets in.

Ukraine’s military offensive against Russian occupation forces in the south has slowed as both sides tire after weeks of fighting and as muddy ground in some areas makes advancing difficult for armored vehicles.

In the southern Kherson region, Russian-installed officials say they have almost completed a mass-evacuation campaign aimed at clearing the regional capital of residents in advance of their planned defense against advancing Ukrainian forces. Some elite Russian forces have left the city, Ukrainian officials say, and in their place Moscow has brought in newly mobilized soldiers tasked with holding the line if Kyiv’s forces reach the city.


A market in downtown Kyiv.

PHOTO: BERNAT ARMANGUE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Western officials said Tuesday that Russia has begun constructing defensive structures near occupied Mariupol, a city deep behind the front lines in the country’s southeast that was captured by Russia in May after months of intense fighting that reduced much of it to rubble.

Russian occupation authorities in Mariupol are producing concrete antitank structures known as dragon’s teeth as part of efforts to reinforce the area, the U.K.’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday. Dragon’s teeth have also been sent to the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which Russia partly controls and now claims as part of its territory, the ministry said.

The reported construction of fortification lines far from areas of active fighting is evidence of a Russian campaign to shore up occupied areas as fortunes on the battlefield shift in Kyiv’s favor, Western officials say.

“This activity suggests Russia is making a significant effort to prepare defenses in depth behind their current front line, likely to forestall any rapid Ukrainian advances in the event of breakthroughs,” the U.K. Defense Ministry said.


People line up for soup, bread and hot food at a stand in Kyiv.

PHOTO: ED RAM/GETTY IMAGES

Write to Matthew Luxmoore at Matthew.Luxmoore@wsj.com and Marcus Walker at marcus.walker@wsj.com



22.










De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com


V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcastForeign Podicy
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

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

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

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