Quotes of the Day:

“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”

– Joseph Conrad

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, became a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up. And it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.” 

– Nora Ephron

“Do all the good you can, 

by all means you can, 

in all the ways you can,

in all the places you can, 

at all the times you can, 

to all the people you can, 

as long as ever you can.” 

– John Wesley, (1703–1791)

1. The battlegrounds that could decide a US-China war over Taiwan

2. New 9/11 Evidence Points to Deep Saudi Complicity

3. US ally detains Chinese ship crew

4. The Latest | France and Belgium support request for arrest warrants of Israel and Hamas leaders

5. F.B.I. Shed Informants Linked to Russian Influence Operations

6. Opinion: A military expert on why the US view on Israel’s fight against Hamas is a turning point for the world

7. What has China learned from Russia and Iran’s use of proxies?

8. China Is Winning the Minerals War

9. Exclusive: Ukraine's Zelenskiy pushes allies to step up aid and involvement in war

10. Blinken to testify to US Congress under shadow of Israel policy divides

11. ‘They’ve grown back’: How Russia surprised the West and rebuilt its force

12. US has no plan to send military trainers into Ukraine, top general says

13. The Urgent Need for Security Clearance Reform

14. US Army exports multinational combat training center to Philippines

15. House defense policy draft: A good first step, but some missed opportunities

16. Americans in alleged Congo coup plot formed an unlikely band

17. PAC-3 MSE launched from virtual Aegis ship hits cruise missile target

18. Opinion | The Death of Iran’s President Does Not Bode Well

19. Opinion | America Hits the Global Snooze Button

20. How China Will Squeeze, Not Seize, Taiwan

21. A Theory of Victory for Ukraine

22. Four Years of Growth and Impact: The Irregular Warfare Initiative

23. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 20, 2024

24. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, May 20, 2024

1. The battlegrounds that could decide a US-China war over Taiwan

This is really an excellent interactive graphic at the Financial Times.

It is a fascinating presentation.

This is not behind a paywall so it is a nice public service by the Financial Times

https://ig.ft.com/taiwan-battlegrounds/

Visual story

The battlegrounds that could decide a US-China war over Taiwan

Five key military contests are likely to determine the outcome of a conflict

Kathrin Hille in Taipei, Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and the Visual Storytelling Team in London and New York YESTERDAY

2. New 9/11 Evidence Points to Deep Saudi Complicity

Excerpts:

What would we have done differently if our intelligence and law-enforcement agencies had learned shortly after the 9/11 attacks that officials of our close friend Saudi Arabia had given regular, reliable, and essential support to terrorists seeking to kill Americans in large numbers?

We would, at a minimum, have immediately compelled Riyadh to dismantle the jihadi infrastructure within its institutions and to liquidate what was left of it on our soil and in countries around the world. We likely would still have toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan and tried to destroy what was left of al-Qaeda there. But if we had understood that the attacks of 9/11 had depended on state support—and if we had eliminated that state support—we might well have had the confidence to leave Afghanistan quickly, instead of lingering for 20 years. As additional attacks failed to materialize, we would also have been more prepared to rely on strong border controls and intelligence to keep us safe. Of course, the discovery of Saudi involvement in 9/11 would have thrown a massive roadblock in front of the George W. Bush administration’s rush to topple Saddam Hussein, although perhaps nothing could have restrained a heedless president from that course of action. But perhaps we would have felt secure enough to close the detention camp at Guantánamo, which has been a permanent demonstration of our disregard for the rule of law. And perhaps as well, we would not have subordinated almost all our other foreign-policy goals to our counterterrorism efforts—a practice that undermined American efforts to support democracy and human rights abroad.

Today, for most Americans, the global War on Terror has become a hazy memory from the time before Donald Trump. In Washington, policy makers avoid discussing the subject. Yet it bears remembering: It cost us $6 trillion, and that number is expected to go higher because of the long-term health-care costs for veterans. It turned the Middle East upside down, increasing the regional influence of Iran. More than 7,000 American servicemen and women died in action; 30,000 more, an extraordinary number, died by suicide. In all, more than 800,000 Iraqis, Afghans, and others, most of them civilians, perished in the war.

The War on Terror and its origins in 9/11 are seen in retrospect as farce and tragedy. But the emerging picture of the preparations for 9/11 make recognizing the sheer scale of the blunder inescapable.

New 9/11 Evidence Points to Deep Saudi Complicity

Two decades of U.S. policy appear to be rooted in a mistaken understanding of what happened that day.

By Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon

The Atlantic · by Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon · May 20, 2024

For more than two decades, through two wars and domestic upheaval, the idea that al-Qaeda acted alone on 9/11 has been the basis of U.S. policy. A blue-ribbon commission concluded that Osama bin Laden had pioneered a new kind of terrorist group—combining superior technological know-how, extensive resources, and a worldwide network so well coordinated that it could carry out operations of unprecedented magnitude. This vanguard of jihad, it seemed, was the first nonstate actor that rivaled nation-states in the damage it could wreak.

That assessment now appears wrong. And if our understanding of what transpired on 9/11 turns out to have been flawed, then the costly policies that the United States has pursued for the past quarter century have been rooted in a false premise.

The global War on Terror was based on a mistake.

A new filing in a lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims against the government of Saudi Arabia alleges that al-Qaeda had significant, indeed decisive, state support for its attacks. Officials of the Saudi government, the plaintiffs’ attorneys contend, formed and operated a network inside the United States that provided crucial assistance to the first cohort of 9/11 hijackers to enter the country.

The 71-page document, released in redacted form earlier this month, summarizes what the plaintiffs say they’ve learned through the evidence obtained in discovery and recently declassified materials. They allege that Saudi officials—most notably Fahad al-Thumairy, an imam at a Los Angeles mosque and an accredited diplomat at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in that city, and Omar al-Bayoumi, who masqueraded as a graduate student but was identified by the FBI as an intelligence operative—were not rogue operators but rather the front end of a conspiracy that included the Saudi embassy in Washington and senior government officials in Riyadh.

The plaintiffs argue that Thumairy and Bayoumi organized safe reception, transportation, and housing for hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, beginning upon their arrival in California on January 15, 2000. (Both Thumairy and Bayoumi have denied aiding the plot. Bayoumi, along with Saudi Arabia, has also denied that he had any involvement with its intelligence operations.) The filing further argues that Thumairy and Bayoumi introduced the pair to local sympathizers in Los Angeles and San Diego who catered to their day-to-day needs, including help with immigration matters, digital and phone communications, and receiving funds from al-Qaeda by wire transfer. Saudi officials also helped the two al-Qaeda operatives—both Saudi nationals with little education or command of English, whose experience abroad consisted mostly of training and fighting for jihadist causes—to procure a car as well as driver’s licenses. This support network was crucial.

Garrett M. Graff: After 9/11, the U.S. got almost everything wrong

The filing, responding to a Saudi motion to dismiss the case, which is currently before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, makes extensive reference to FBI investigative reports, memos, communications records, and contemporaneous evidentiary materials that are still under seal but are likely to be made public in the coming weeks. One of us—Steven Simon—has been a plaintiffs’ expert in the case, enlisted to review and provide an independent assessment of the evidence. Some of the claims in the filing appear to be corroborated by a document, prepared by the FBI in July 2021 and titled “Connections to the Attacks of September 11, 2001,” as well as by other documents declassified under President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14040. The materials produced thus far in the case deal mainly with Saudi support provided to these two California-based al-Qaeda operatives, and their fellow hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon. Assuming that the case—now seven years old—goes forward, the presiding judge could order a further, broader discovery phase probing possible Saudi support for the other hijackers, most of whom came to the East Coast beginning in mid-2000.

The materials that have already surfaced, however, document the extent of the complicity of Saudi officials. The 9/11 Commission Report recounted numerous contacts between Bayoumi and Thumairy, but described only “circumstantial evidence” of Thumairy as a contact for the two hijackers and stated that it didn’t know whether Bayoumi’s first encounter with the operatives occurred “by chance or design.” But the evidence assembled in the ongoing lawsuit suggests that the actions Thumairy and Bayoumi took to support the hijackers were actually deliberate, sustained, and carefully coordinated with other Saudi officials.

In addition to the documents showing financial and logistical support, the evidence includes several videotapes seized by the U.K. during raids of Bayoumi’s properties there when he was arrested in Birmingham in September 2001. One video—a more complete version of a tape reviewed by the 9/11 Commission—shows Mihdhar and Hazmi at a welcome party arranged by Bayoumi after they moved to San Diego. The full video, the filing claims, shows that the party was organized by Bayoumi and Thumairy “to introduce the hijackers to a carefully curated group of likeminded community members and religious leaders.” The U.K. police also found, according to the filing, a notepad on which Bayoumi had sketched “a drawing of a plane, alongside a calculation used to discern the distance at which a target on the ground will be visible from a certain altitude.”

Another seized video contains footage of Bayoumi in Washington, D.C., where he met with Saudi religious officials posted as diplomats at the embassy and visited the U.S. Capitol. In the video, according to the filing, Bayoumi “carefully films and notes the Capitol’s structural features, entrances, and security posts,” addressing his narration to his “esteemed brothers.” The Capitol was the likely fourth target of the 9/11 attacks, the one that was spared when passengers aboard United Flight 93 wrestled with the hijackers and the plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

If Thumairy and Bayoumi were the front end of the support network for the hijackers, their control officers in the U.S. would have been in Washington at the Saudi embassy. In the pre-9/11 years, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs had a sizable presence in the embassy, as well as at the consulate in Los Angeles. The ministry’s representatives oversaw the many Saudi imams like Thumairy in Saudi-supported mosques in the U.S., and posted Saudi “propagators” to Muslim communities in the United States. The Islamic Affairs offices and personnel appeared to operate according to different procedures than the other units within the embassy. And the support network for the hijackers had powerful backing in the Saudi capital. The FBI found evidence that when the Saudi consul general in Los Angeles sought to fire a member of the support network, who had been storing jihadist literature at the consulate, Thumairy was able to use his influence to save his job. As the new filing also documents, there was extensive phone traffic between Thumairy, Bayoumi and the embassy during crucial moments when the hijackers needed and received support.

The plaintiffs’ claims are contested by lawyers representing Saudi Arabia on a range of technical, jurisdictional, and factual grounds. They deny that Saudi officials directed support to the hijackers or were otherwise complicit in the attacks. Thumairy “did not assist the hijackers at all,” the lawyers have said, and his alleged actions would not have fallen within the scope of his official responsibilities. Bayoumi’s assistance was “minimal” and unrelated to terrorist activity, the lawyers argue, and neither he nor Thumairy belonged to a jihadist network. Some of the disputes are less about facts than about interpretation. The Capitol video, in the Saudi view, is nothing more than a typical home movie by an enthusiastic tourist; the San Diego video of Bayoumi’s party in the hijackers’ apartment is said to depict a gathering of mosque-goers for some purpose unrelated to the presence of two newly arrived al-Qaeda terrorists. If the court denies the Saudi motion to dismiss in the coming months, we will know whose view of the evidence has been the more persuasive.

After 9/11, President George W. Bush and his team argued that a nonstate actor like al-Qaeda could not have pulled off the attacks alone, and that some country must have been behind it all. That state, they insisted, was Iraq—and the United States invaded Iraq. In a savage irony, they may have been right after all about state support, but flat wrong about the state. Should we now invade Saudi Arabia?

The answer is no. The Saudi Arabia of 2001 no longer exists. The country is still capable of criminal action; witness the case of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, victim in 2018 of a team of Saudi murderers in Istanbul. But the Islamic extremism that coursed through central institutions of the Saudi state appears to have been largely exorcised. Few countries in the world have been so consistently misunderstood by the U.S. as Saudi Arabia, though, so that judgment is necessarily a provisional one.

To understand why, a little history is necessary. At the time al-Qaeda emerged as full-fledged terrorist organization, in the 1990s, the country’s religious establishment wielded tremendous power, controlling the judiciary; the Ministry of Islamic Affairs; an array of large institutions such as the al-Haramain Foundation, the Muslim World League (MWL) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY); and other well-funded NGOs. The power of the religious establishment was rooted in the compact at the heart of the Saudi state: The legitimacy of the ruling family has been bound up with the Wahhabi clergy since Muhammad ibn Saud, the patriarch of the royal family, and the religious reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab joined in an alliance in 1744 that would conquer the Arabian Peninsula.

From the April 2022 issue: Absolute power

The MWL, WAMY, and other religious charities were established for the purpose of dawa, or spreading the faith. The Wahhabi clerical establishment had strict notions of how Saudi society should be regulated and believed that it would be best for Muslims worldwide to be subject to Wahhabi rules, but they were not predisposed to declare war to propagate Wahhabism. The pact the Wahhabi clerics formed relegated matters of statecraft to the house of Saud. It was a system that worked, until it didn’t.

Change came because of the counterinsurgency that the Egyptian government waged against the radical Islamists who had assassinated President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. That campaign augmented an existing effort to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood, which continues today. Many who escaped the wrath of the Egyptian government fled to Saudi Arabia, flooding into the religious universities and teaching positions, or obtaining jobs in the religious bureaucracy. The result was a new ideological framework that meshed Wahhabi doctrine together with Muslim Brotherhood activism. The hunger for jihad among young Saudis was stoked by the thrilling stories of the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets told by fathers and uncles returning from their “jihad jollies,” as Western officials referred to these expeditions—which mostly took place far behind the front lines of that conflict.

As a concession to the clergy’s demands and the realities of the new environment, the monarchy authorized the creation of a religious-affairs ministry. But the youthful radicals soon had access to both the ministry’s gigantic budget, which mixed public and private money in a helter-skelter way, and an apparatus that could deploy ministry personnel abroad under diplomatic cover, including to the United States.

Thus, from the mid-1990s, the ministry was staffed and run by a growing number of people who shared with Osama bin Laden the view that the world was gripped by a cosmic struggle between believers and infidels. In short, they saw the United States as the leader of “world infidelity,” and believed that true Muslims had a duty to fight the infidels. Complementing those beliefs was the distinctive additional bit of jihadist dogma—of which bin Laden became the greatest proponent—holding that restoring the realm of Islam to its historic greatness required striking the United States on its own territory. Only through violence could the U.S. be forced to end its support for the apostate regimes that plagued the Muslim world. And only once the props were kicked out from under those regimes—Egypt, Syria, and Iraq—could truly Islamic governments take charge. That was the idea behind 9/11 and the campaign that was supposed to follow.

The United States, in the 1990s and after, was aware of some activities of the Saudi religious establishment, especially, for example, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bosnia, where fighters—including the future hijackers Mihdhar and Hazmi, to name just two— were supported through Saudi charities. The picture became more ominous as the decade progressed as such charities, including al-Haramain, were implicated in the East Africa embassy bombings, which killed 224 people, injured nearly 5,000, and destroyed U.S. diplomatic posts in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. As staff members working on counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff, we watched a succession of our colleagues from the White House and the State Department visit Riyadh to ask for better policing of these “charities.” Routinely, they came back with nothing to show for their efforts, while other weighty issues on the U.S.-Saudi bilateral agenda—containing Iran, achieving Middle East peace, lowering energy prices—ensured that Riyadh never felt any serious pressure.

Why there wasn’t much more of a response from the monarchy won’t be fully understood until the royal archives are opened, assuming that internal discussions were even recorded. But it does seem, in general, that the house of Saud ruled but did not govern; governance was typically for commoners. Without inquiring closely into the day-to-day operations of the religious and foreign-affairs ministries, the royals could not have had a clear idea of what was being done in their name, including the deployment of Saudis with diplomatic visas for the purpose of attacking the kingdom’s strongest, most reliable transactional partner.

Astonishingly, the attacks of 9/11 had little effect on the Saudi approach to religious extremism, as diplomats and intelligence officials have attested. What finally changed royal minds was the experience of suffering an attack on Saudi soil. In May 2003, gunmen and suicide bombers struck three residential compounds in Riyadh, killing 39 people. The authorities attributed the attacks to al-Qaeda, and cooperation with the U.S. improved quickly and dramatically. Mohammed bin Nayef, son of one of the country’s most powerful princes and its interior minister, emerged as the national counterterrorism chief and later interior minister. MBN, as he is known, transformed Saudi intelligence into America’s most valuable foreign partner in the fight against terrorism, providing tips that led to later plots being thwarted. MBN himself became a friend to a succession of CIA directors.

When King Abdullah died, in 2015, his half brother Salman bin Abdulaziz succeeded him, and MBN was made crown prince. Two years later, however, Salman removed MBN, stripped him of his ministry and other offices, and installed his own son Mohammed bin Salman. MBN was soon detained and subjected to execrable conditions, and disappeared from public view.

Mohammed bin Salman (widely known as MBS), now the country’s de facto ruler, may have seen MBN as a rival, but he certainly shared his opposition to extremism. During his time in power, the influence of the Wahhabi establishment appears to have been drastically curtailed. The country’s notorious religious police have largely disappeared from sight, and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs has been reformed, along with the massive Islamic organizations. In 2018, Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, the new head of the Muslim World League, visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum—a development that for his predecessors would have been utterly unthinkable.

There will be plenty of tension and recriminations if the exhibits in the New York case become public and the case progresses. Should the plaintiffs overcome the Saudi motion to dismiss, an extended period of merits discovery and a potential trial on liability for 9/11 will exacerbate matters. But many years after the attacks, it seems likely that judicial determination—not military action—is the most viable means by which to close the books on 9/11.

Revelations from the legal case are also likely to set off another round of self-flagellation over the failures of America’s law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. The 9/11 Commission Report and other accounts—including our own—showed the FBI to be shamefully asleep at the switch before the attacks. Indeed, some 9/11 Commission investigators thought the report went soft on the FBI to prevent morale from collapsing entirely. In light of the new revelations, we can expect renewed criticism. How could the bureau have been so ignorant of what the staff of a foreign embassy were doing under its nose? Counterintelligence, after all, is a core bureau responsibility. And the FBI’s conduct on this case is inexplicable. Curiously, agents continued investigating until at least 2021 and, to judge by the 2021 document, knew about the Saudis’ indispensable support for the hijackers. But their work was shut down by the Justice Department. There will be lots of questions to answer.

Ben Rhodes: The 9/11 era is over

If the criticism over these missteps is sharp, it will pale—or at least it should—next to how we reevaluate the global War on Terror, which defined American life and international affairs for some 20 years. The spectacle of 9/11 suggested that there was a new breed of super-terrorists, and the coordination, tradecraft, and sophistication behind the attack on the Twin Towers made that contention persuasive. It would have been foolhardy after that enormity not to expect more catastrophic attacks, and no one could say with any certainty how large al-Qaeda was or how capable it might be. Bin Laden had sought to galvanize the angry masses of the Muslim world in support of his movement. Approving reactions to 9/11, indicating that many Muslims around the world thought the U.S. had finally gotten what it deserved, led policy makers to believe that there was a reservoir of individuals who might be radicalized and line up behind al-Qaeda.

And there were. But the question was whether these Muslims in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America could be marshaled into a force capable of inflicting grievous harm on the U.S. homeland. In the aftermath of the attacks, U.S. law enforcement at all levels turned to deal with the newly revealed terrorist threat. The FBI and local authorities showed up at Saudi-backed mosques around the country, hundreds of Muslim men were detained for immigration violations or under material-witness laws, and the Saudi support network went to ground. Washington secured the country’s borders following the attacks and, building on already-existing no-fly lists, made travel to the U.S. by would-be terrorists exceedingly difficult.

The next big attack never materialized. Indeed, al-Qaeda’s record after 2001 was a fizzle—a fact that has puzzled experts. Most years brought no more terrorist deaths in the U.S. than the pre-2001 period had, and some saw fewer. Al-Qaeda managed to organize no attacks against the American homeland for 18 years after 9/11. The deadly Islamist attacks of this period—including the Boston Marathon attack in 2013, the San Bernardino shootings in 2015, and the Pulse club massacre in Orlando in 2016—were the work of Muslims inspired by the jihadist terrorists but who had no notable contact with bin Laden’s organization. In December 2019, a Saudi air cadet killed three people in a shooting at the Navy’s Pensacola Air Station, an attack that was the first—and to date only—since 9/11 in which investigators traced a line back to al-Qaeda.

Abroad, terrorist strikes in Bali, Madrid, Paris, and London killed in the double and low triple digits—attacks on a scale the world was largely accustomed to, even if several of the attacks came tightly bunched. But there was nothing remotely like 9/11. In the U.S., the near-miss of the “underwear bomber,” a young man who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit in December 2009 with a bomb in his briefs, prompted the Washington bureaucracy to further tighten screening procedures. American and foreign intelligence and law-enforcement agencies disrupted terrorist cells around the world. After the obliviousness that preceded 9/11, America demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to act decisively and effectively.

But above all else, without a support network in the U.S. that could provide cash and documents, facilitate travel, and secure lodging, large-scale terrorist attacks by foreign groups became nearly impossible.

Al-Qaeda did not exactly shrivel and die, but as many of its most capable operatives, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an architect of 9/11, were captured, the group became much less dangerous, and jihad against the U.S. lost some of its appeal. The eventual consequence was what became known as the “relocalization of jihad,” a return to settling scores against leaders and governments principally in Muslim parts of the world. In North Africa, al-Qaeda affiliates kidnapped foreigners and killed government forces. In places as diverse as Yemen and Southeast Asia, like-minded groups fought the local regimes and murdered civilians. Former imperial powers of Europe, situated close to the Middle East and North Africa, also faced, by virtue of their colonial histories, a continued threat of radicalization embedded within their own society.

From the March 2015 issue: What ISIS really wants

The most dramatic instance of this relocalization occurred in Iraq, where America’s removal of Saddam Hussein lifted the lid on the antipathies among the Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish communities. As the U.S. dismantled the Iraqi army and much of the Iraqi state, these sectarian and ethnic groups turned against one another in pursuit of an elusive security. War is the great incubator of extremism, and out of the civil conflict that the U.S. triggered emerged a jihadist entity that dwarfed al-Qaeda in its geographic and ideological reach. The Islamic State was the brainchild of extremists who understood that Sunni fury at the loss of their privileges in the new Shia-dominated Iraq could burn far hotter than the implausible global jihad of Osama bin Laden. Indeed, just as al-Qaeda seemed to be collapsing in 2014, ISIS conquered nearly half of Iraq. The turmoil of civil war in neighboring Syria gave ISIS a haven that grew to cover a third of that country as well. The Islamic State’s achievement in holding territory—something al-Qaeda never managed—attracted recruits from throughout the Arab world and Europe who yearned to create their vision of a truly Islamic polity. ISIS, an unwanted child of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, came closest to achieving the mass mobilization that U.S. policy makers feared after 9/11. But in the end, the group’s threat to the region’s states and its external terrorist operations galvanized a broad coalition of countries that crushed it. The U.S. contributed a great deal militarily to the effort, but at home, the only hint of a threat came from fearmongering in the media.

What would we have done differently if our intelligence and law-enforcement agencies had learned shortly after the 9/11 attacks that officials of our close friend Saudi Arabia had given regular, reliable, and essential support to terrorists seeking to kill Americans in large numbers?

We would, at a minimum, have immediately compelled Riyadh to dismantle the jihadi infrastructure within its institutions and to liquidate what was left of it on our soil and in countries around the world. We likely would still have toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan and tried to destroy what was left of al-Qaeda there. But if we had understood that the attacks of 9/11 had depended on state support—and if we had eliminated that state support—we might well have had the confidence to leave Afghanistan quickly, instead of lingering for 20 years. As additional attacks failed to materialize, we would also have been more prepared to rely on strong border controls and intelligence to keep us safe. Of course, the discovery of Saudi involvement in 9/11 would have thrown a massive roadblock in front of the George W. Bush administration’s rush to topple Saddam Hussein, although perhaps nothing could have restrained a heedless president from that course of action. But perhaps we would have felt secure enough to close the detention camp at Guantánamo, which has been a permanent demonstration of our disregard for the rule of law. And perhaps as well, we would not have subordinated almost all our other foreign-policy goals to our counterterrorism efforts—a practice that undermined American efforts to support democracy and human rights abroad.

Today, for most Americans, the global War on Terror has become a hazy memory from the time before Donald Trump. In Washington, policy makers avoid discussing the subject. Yet it bears remembering: It cost us $6 trillion, and that number is expected to go higher because of the long-term health-care costs for veterans. It turned the Middle East upside down, increasing the regional influence of Iran. More than 7,000 American servicemen and women died in action; 30,000 more, an extraordinary number, died by suicide. In all, more than 800,000 Iraqis, Afghans, and others, most of them civilians, perished in the war.

The War on Terror and its origins in 9/11 are seen in retrospect as farce and tragedy. But the emerging picture of the preparations for 9/11 make recognizing the sheer scale of the blunder inescapable.

The Atlantic · by Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon · May 20, 2024

3. US ally detains Chinese ship crew

Excerpt:

China asserts sovereignty over most of the energy-rich waterway, through which an estimated one-fifth of global trade is estimated to pass. These claims overlap with the internationally recognized exclusive economic zones of the Philippines and several other Chinese neighbors in the region.

US ally detains Chinese ship crew

Newsweek · by Micah McCartney · May 20, 2024

Published May 20, 2024 at 5:37 AM EDTByChina News Reporter

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The Philippine Coast Guard detained at least seven Chinese crew members of a foreign-flagged ship on Thursday after it was found to have entered the Southeast Asian country's waters illegally.

The Coast Guard sent personnel to investigate after being notified that a tanker, identified as the Sierra-Leone-registered MT Hyperline 988, was flying the Philippine flag in waters off the town of San Felipe in Zambales province, local media cited the agency as saying.

The crew had switched off the vessel's automatic identification system, which ships use to broadcast their position to each other, and ignored the Coast Guard's radioed instructions.

During the inspection, the seven Chinese nationals onboard, including the captain, "failed to present original and printed versions of relevant documents, including the crew list, passports, and seaman's books," Euphraim Jayson Diciano, chief of Zambales' Coast Guard outpost, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Philippine Coast Guard personnel in Manila on May 20. On May 16, the Philippine Coast Guard detained several Chinese crew members at San Felipe, Zambales province, after they failed to present documentation during an inspection.... Philippine Coast Guard personnel in Manila on May 20. On May 16, the Philippine Coast Guard detained several Chinese crew members at San Felipe, Zambales province, after they failed to present documentation during an inspection. Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images

The Coast Guard said the ship had departed Hong Kong on May 11. The crew reported that they had set a course for San Felipe before reaching their alleged final destination, the Philippine capital Manila, due to the cheaper docking fees, although San Felipe does not operate a port and thus does not charge a docking fee.

The agency noted that the ship had a record of eight prior offenses related to pollution and safety. As of Saturday, the Hyperline 988 was being held in waters off San Felipe, Diciano said.

The Philippine Coast Guard and Chinese embassy in Manila didn't immediately respond to written requests for comment.

The detainment comes amid heightened tensions in the South China Sea between Chinese maritime forces and the U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty ally.

China asserts sovereignty over most of the energy-rich waterway, through which an estimated one-fifth of global trade is estimated to pass. These claims overlap with the internationally recognized exclusive economic zones of the Philippines and several other Chinese neighbors in the region.

Since coming to power in 2022, the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been pushing back more assertively against Chinese Coast Guard and paramilitary activities within the Philippine EEZ.

China has responded increasingly forcefully, including with direct water cannon fire and up-close maneuvers, as it seeks to block Philippine government missions from undertaking operations in disputed areas.

The issue has roused nationalistic sentiment within the Philippines.

Last week, a civilian flotilla comprising around 100 boats sailed to waters near the contested Scarborough Shoal, which China wrested from the Philippines 12 years ago after a territorial standoff.

The volunteers managed to distribute fuel and food packs to local fishermen operating there, although a large blockading force of Chinese ships kept them from sailing as close to the shoal as they had hoped.

About the writer

Micah McCartney

Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian security issues, and cross-strait ties between China and Taiwan. Send tips or suggestions to Micah at m.mccartney@newsweek.com.

4. The Latest | France and Belgium support request for arrest warrants of Israel and Hamas leaders

The Latest | France and Belgium support request for arrest warrants of Israel and Hamas leaders

AP · May 21, 2024

France and Belgium released statements supporting the world’s top war crimes court and its chief prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants for leaders of Israel and Hamas, after Israel and the United States both harshly condemned the effort.

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel. While Netanyahu and Gallant do not face imminent arrest, the announcement Monday was a symbolic blow that deepened Israel’s isolation over the war in Gaza.

Israeli forces raided a militant stronghold Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, killing at least seven and wounding several, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The raid into Jenin is part of months of surging violence in the Palestinian territory.

Israel launched its offensive after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed about 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

At least 35,000 Palestinians have died in the war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. Around 80% of the population of 2.3 million Palestinians has been displaced within the territory, often multiple times.

Currently:

— Iran’s president and foreign minister die in a helicopter crash.

— ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrant for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu.

— These photos show Palestinians’ quick exodus from Rafah after Israel issued evacuation orders.

— Israeli forces kill at least seven Palestinians in a West Bank raid.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

AP · May 21, 2024

5. F.B.I. Shed Informants Linked to Russian Influence Operations

Excerpts:

Even in an age of high-tech intelligence gathering and surveillance, human sources continue to play an important role in law enforcement and national security, giving agents the chance to gather insights and perspective that cannot always be gleaned from communications intercepts, for example.

The New York Times has independently confirmed, but is not disclosing, the identities of several of the F.B.I. informants who provided information about Russia and Ukraine and who were cut off around the time of the review by the bureau’s counterintelligence division, including one informant that predated the review.

Johnathan C. Buma, an F.B.I. agent who oversaw at least four of the informants who were dropped, suggested in a written statement provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year that law enforcement should embrace the murkiness that comes with operating in the shadows.

“Typical disinformation operations are based on partial truths, and the only way to determine the veracity of the allegations is to conduct an independent investigation to attempt corroboration,” Mr. Buma wrote in explaining his opposition to the terminations.

F.B.I. Shed Informants Linked to Russian Influence Operations - The New York Times

nytimes.com · by Mattathias Schwartz · May 20, 2024

After a secret review several years ago, the bureau cut off confidential sources thought to be connected to Russian disinformation.

Russian soldiers during a military parade in Moscow this month. The F.B.I. tries to maintain a difficult balance in spy operations: The more access informants have to valuable intelligence, the higher the risk that they could be compromised.Credit…Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

By Kenneth P. Vogel, Adam Goldman and Mattathias Schwartz

May 20, 2024

The F.B.I. cut ties to at least a handful of informants and issued warnings about dozens of others after an internal review prompted by concerns that they were linked to Russian disinformation, current and former U.S. officials said.

The review was carried out in 2020 and 2021 by a small group within the bureau’s counterintelligence division, with the findings then passed along to field offices, which handle informants.

It led to the severing of sources — some of whom had offered information about Russia-aligned oligarchs, political leaders and other influential figures — at a moment when the bureau was asking agents to produce more information from and about those same networks. The review was conducted during and after the 2020 election, when concerns about Russian meddling were running high, and at a time when the United States was closely monitoring whether Russia would invade Ukraine.

The episode highlighted a tricky balance: The more access informants have to valuable intelligence, the higher the risk that they could knowingly or unknowingly be used to channel disinformation. This is particularly true with regard to post-Soviet countries, where shifting alliances among oligarchs, politicians and intelligence services have far-reaching consequences that can be difficult for Western governments to discern.

Even in an age of high-tech intelligence gathering and surveillance, human sources continue to play an important role in law enforcement and national security, giving agents the chance to gather insights and perspective that cannot always be gleaned from communications intercepts, for example.

The New York Times has independently confirmed, but is not disclosing, the identities of several of the F.B.I. informants who provided information about Russia and Ukraine and who were cut off around the time of the review by the bureau’s counterintelligence division, including one informant that predated the review.

The F.B.I. had been aware of Russian disinformation efforts and eventually became concerned that the campaign extended to informants being used by the F.B.I.Credit…Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times

Johnathan C. Buma, an F.B.I. agent who oversaw at least four of the informants who were dropped, suggested in a written statement provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year that law enforcement should embrace the murkiness that comes with operating in the shadows.

“Typical disinformation operations are based on partial truths, and the only way to determine the veracity of the allegations is to conduct an independent investigation to attempt corroboration,” Mr. Buma wrote in explaining his opposition to the terminations.

His statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is led by Democrats, as well as a statement Mr. Buma submitted earlier to a special subcommittee of the Republican-controlled House, came after he filed a whistle-blower complaint accusing the F.B.I. of suppressing intelligence from his sources and retaliating against him.

The F.B.I. is investigating Mr. Buma’s dealings with an informant he worked with after the bureau cut off those identified in the counterintelligence review, a person familiar with the matter said.

The F.B.I. had been aware of Russian disinformation efforts for years, and eventually became concerned that the campaign extended to its own informants.

In particular, the F.B.I. watched as informants across the bureau’s different divisions began peddling new information that was politically explosive. It included reports regarding President Biden’s family and former President Donald J. Trump, as well as other inflammatory topics, according to former and current U.S. officials and an ex-informant for the counterintelligence division.

The types of concerns that prompted the review spilled into public view in February, when prosecutors indicted a longtime informant on Russia and Ukraine matters, Alexander Smirnov, for lying to the F.B.I.

Prosecutors accused him of fabricating claims about bribes paid to the Bidens by a Ukrainian energy company whose board included the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Prosecutors said Mr. Smirnov had passed along information about Hunter Biden — though they did not provide specifics — from Russian intelligence.

Mr. Smirnov was flagged as part of the F.B.I. review but he was not shut down, because information he was providing was being used in other investigations, the former and current U.S. officials said.

Alexander Smirnov, center, left a courthouse in Las Vegas in February.Credit…Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal, via Associated Press

Around the time of the review, the F.B.I. circulated internal memos to agents hinting at competing imperatives. On the one hand, agents were instructed to gather more intelligence from informants about Russian efforts to meddle in U.S. politics, and to retaliate against the United States for its support of Ukraine.

On the other, they were urged to be on the lookout for disinformation, misinformation or influence operations from foreign governments that took aim at American politics, according to the memos, which were obtained by The Times.

The memos, each of which was labeled “collection priorities message,” listed the identification numbers and handling agents of informants who could be of assistance on such matters. The memos do not mention the terminations, or any concerns about specific informants.

A former official said that dozens of F.B.I. agents in field offices were warned to handle their informants, known as confidential human sources, with extra care because the Russians might have been aware of their contact with the United States. Under bureau policy, the decision to end relationships with informants rests with the F.B.I. field offices and not headquarters.

A U.S. official described this effort as an “awareness campaign” inside the F.B.I.

The bureau’s sources are often encouraged to maintain associations with criminal figures or foreign intelligence services. The idea is for them to report back on those associates; in the process, though, they can become conduits used by those associates to inject false information — intentionally or unknowingly — into the realms of U.S. law enforcement or intelligence.

Some terminations in early 2022 were classified as precautionary and not for cause, according to Mr. Buma’s statement and one of his former informants. That suggests there was no specific evidence that those informants had willfully tried to channel Russian disinformation into federal law enforcement, but rather that there was concern that they might have done so unwittingly, or merely been associated with people believed to be pushing disinformation, or politically motivated information.

Information provided by one of Mr. Buma’s terminated informants, an American businessman with deep connections overseas, was used by the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to Mr. Buma’s statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Other information from the businessman was used to revoke the U.S. visa of a Ukrainian-Russian oligarch and to support the decision to impose sanctions on a Ukrainian oligarch who had been a key backer of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, according to Mr. Buma’s statement. And it was used to identify two corrupt federal law enforcement agents.

Among the associations that appear to have raised red flags within the F.B.I. was the businessman’s recruitment of two Ukrainians who would themselves become F.B.I. informants. One of the Ukrainians was a former K.G.B. agent who had become a Ukrainian intelligence operative, who developed high-level Ukrainian government contacts through his leadership of a foundation dedicated to tracking kleptocracy, according to Mr. Buma’s statement. It identified the other as a researcher for the foundation who had a background in economics.

In January 2019, according to interviews and Mr. Buma’s statement, the two Ukrainians traveled to the Los Angeles area for meetings during which they provided information to representatives from the F.B.I. and other agencies about oligarchs, money laundering and Ukrainian and American political figures.

Among their claims was one that Hunter Biden had failed to disclose lobbying he did for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and had failed to pay taxes on income from the company. Mr. Biden was not charged with lobbying violations. He was charged last year with failure to file tax returns covering millions of dollars in income from Burisma and other foreign businesses. It is not clear whether information from the two Ukrainian informants played any role in the investigation.

Hunter Biden was charged last year with failure to file tax returns covering millions of dollars in income from Burisma.Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times

The F.B.I. first pressed to cut off the businessman after he and the two Ukrainians attended a conservative gala in May 2019. At the event, the Ukrainians presented a thumb drive containing allegations about Mr. Biden and other Democrats to an aide traveling with Mike Pompeo, then the secretary of state, according to internal F.B.I. reports and an article published in Business Insider.

Mr. Buma successfully resisted efforts to terminate the American businessman.

Mr. Buma argued that the informant was granting the F.B.I. a critical view into a murky world that was increasingly important to U.S. national security as Russia built up its efforts to influence American politics and exert control over Ukraine, according to interviews and the statement Mr. Buma provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Buma had been trained by the bureau to speak Russian. Part of his job was identifying and recruiting informants with access to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, politicians and their networks.

The American businessman became “one of the F.B.I.’s top C.H.S.s whose reporting had been extensively corroborated through predicated investigations, with numerous well-documented high-impact successes related to countering foreign influence and public corruption on both sides of the political spectrum,” Mr. Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate, referring to confidential human sources.

Yet, in the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the bureau again expressed concerns about the businessman and other sources connected to him.

In a meeting in February 2022, an official with the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force told Mr. Buma that he was “not the only field agent whom they were asking to close their sources related to Russia/Ukraine matters just as the war erupted,” Mr. Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate. “When I questioned the wisdom of their request, the supervising analyst claimed their recommendation relied on highly classified information from the National Security Agency.”

The informants were closed out, as were others linked to the businessman, including, Mr. Buma recalled in his statement, “many other productive sources in that category who took years for me to develop.”

An apartment building destroyed by bombs in Kharkiv, Ukraine, last month. In the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the F.B.I.’s foreign influence task force renewed its effort to close out several sources.Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Mr. Buma suggested in his statement that the closures were an effort to shut down investigations that might implicate Trump allies, including Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Buma had collected information from the businessman about Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to damage the Bidens by highlighting their work in Ukraine.

The F.B.I. declined to comment on Mr. Buma’s claims.

Mr. Buma privately discussed his allegations last summer with Republican staff members for the House subcommittee and with aides to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

There is no evidence that either congressional committee is investigating his claims. A spokesman for the House subcommittee declined to comment, while representatives for the Senate Judiciary Committee and Mr. Whitehouse did not respond.

Months later, Mr. Buma’s home was searched for classified information by the F.B.I. Mr. Buma has been suspended from the bureau, but he has not been criminally charged.

Scott Horton, a lawyer for Mr. Buma, cast the investigation as “revenge” against his client for having suggested that the F.B.I.’s handling of confidential sources was affected by political bias against the Bidens and in favor of Mr. Trump’s allies.

Mr. Horton said he had met with Hunter Biden’s lawyers to discuss how Mr. Buma’s story might be of assistance. Another lawyer for Mr. Buma, Mark Geragos, is also representing Mr. Biden.

is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence.

Kenneth P. Vogel is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence. More about Kenneth P. Vogel

Adam Goldman writes about the F.B.I. and national security. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about Adam Goldman

nytimes.com · by Mattathias Schwartz · May 20, 2024

6. Opinion: A military expert on why the US view on Israel’s fight against Hamas is a turning point for the world

Excerpt:

The US pressure on Israel has come to a head in Rafah, the southern Gaza city believed to be Hamas’ last major stronghold and a key point for weapons smuggling across the Egyptian border. But the US is withholding some types of arms that it fears could be used by Israel in Rafah as part of a bid to prevent a major IDF offensive there, even as it is reportedly readying a significant sale of other weapons. The US is warning that a large-scale ground incursion is sure to cause more death and suffering among Gaza civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom have been taking refuge in the city.

Spencer argues that, by taking this approach, the US is inadvertently paving the way for a Hamas victory. “War is hell,” Spencer affirms. But, he notes, war is also deeply engrained in human nature. When democracies are attacked, as they inevitably will be, they must conduct wars in ways that quickly bring victory in order to achieve lasting peace.

Opinion: A military expert on why the US view on Israel’s fight against Hamas is a turning point for the world | CNN

CNN · by Hilary Krieger · May 17, 2024

Smoke billows during Israeli strikes in eastern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 13, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

AFP/Getty Images/File

CNN —

Since Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, military expert John Spencer has been carefully observing the Israel Defense Forces’ war against the terror organization, including on two trips he made to the Gaza Strip as an embed with the IDF over the winter.

Spencer tells CNN Opinion that he sees a military with the capability to rapidly eviscerate Hamas’ army being held back by the international community. He feels that the US bears some of the responsibility for the devastation in Gaza because of how it’s slowed down and limited Israel’s ability to win the war. It’s a restraint that he says the US hasn’t imposed on its own military campaigns, and it has the effect of increasing Palestinian casualties and suffering by dragging out the fighting.

John Spencer

Courtesy John Spencer

Spencer makes these assessments after 25 years of service as an infantry soldier, including two combat tours in Iraq. He’s now the chair of urban warfare studies with the Modern War Institute at West Point, and his personal experience and research has been key to his perspective on Israel’s campaign and how it compares to American military operations.

The US pressure on Israel has come to a head in Rafah, the southern Gaza city believed to be Hamas’ last major stronghold and a key point for weapons smuggling across the Egyptian border. But the US is withholding some types of arms that it fears could be used by Israel in Rafah as part of a bid to prevent a major IDF offensive there, even as it is reportedly readying a significant sale of other weapons. The US is warning that a large-scale ground incursion is sure to cause more death and suffering among Gaza civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom have been taking refuge in the city.

Spencer argues that, by taking this approach, the US is inadvertently paving the way for a Hamas victory. “War is hell,” Spencer affirms. But, he notes, war is also deeply engrained in human nature. When democracies are attacked, as they inevitably will be, they must conduct wars in ways that quickly bring victory in order to achieve lasting peace.

The views in this commentary are Spencer’s, and they have been edited and condensed for clarity.

CNN: Do you think that Israel can defeat Hamas without conducting a ground invasion in Rafah?

Spencer: From October 8 on, there have been senior US officials signaling that a ground invasion wouldn’t achieve the goals of destroying Hamas, bringing the hostages home and securing the border. As a scholar of urban combat, I strongly disagree with that. The fact is that Rafah’s where the hostages and remaining Hamas military power and leadership are believed to be, their rockets and weapons production and other capabilities, everything. The IDF would have to go in on the ground because these things are deeply buried underground in the tunnels Hamas has built.

An Israeli soldier is pictured inside a tunnel that the Israeli military claimed is a "Hamas command tunnel" under a compound of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza City.

JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images/File

If Hamas survives in Rafah, they win. It doesn’t matter if they’ve been pushed into the smallest corner of Gaza. If the Hamas leadership survives, they’ve won the war, because they can say they attacked Israel and survived, and then they can rebuild, continue to fight off any other future governing force that would come in to Gaza and launch future attacks against Israel. Iran and its proxies would also have validated their strategy to attack Israel, weaken Israel’s position with its allies and then repeat.

CNN: The US previously endorsed the mission of defeating Hamas. Are you saying that the US is now conceding that Hamas can stay in Gaza — win the war, per your terms — because the cost, in terms of death and destruction to Palestinian civilians, is too high?

Spencer: They may not be saying that directly, but their actions don’t provide for a feasible alternative other than accepting that Hamas stays in power for now. This is a really big turning point in our history, I think in the history of who we are, Western societies that follow the rule of law, if we’re really saying Hamas can use human shields to survive because the costs are too much to achieve victory. The most likely way to continue the violence and the lack of peace in Israel and Palestine is to leave Hamas in power.

Of course, it’s difficult to see the path to peace from here, but I can tell you with strong certainty that the surest way to continue the violence in the Middle East is to let Hamas survive this war.

CNN: But even in parts of Gaza where Israel has gone in on the ground and cleared out Hamas, for instance in northern Gaza, you have seen that Hamas has regrouped and continued fighting. So doesn’t that raise some question marks about whether Israel can be successful against Hamas regardless of constraints the US places on it?

Palestinian children stand in a camp for displaced people in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in April.

AFP/Getty Images

Related article Opinion: How the suffering in Gaza is different from other conflicts

Spencer: No, for me, it doesn’t. If you’re going to measure whether Israel has had any success in its approach, you measure it against what Hamas was on October 7, not what it is now. The IDF’s approach, in my opinion, has been very effective at destroying Hamas as a military organization by every definition: the number of enemy formations broken and not able to reconstitute themselves as effective units to do their assigned mission like attack or defend, the amount of ground the enemy is controlling, the lower number of hostages they’re holding. The IDF does not need to kill every one of the 40,000-plus card-carrying Hamas members to succeed. It has to break its organized military formations, remove its capabilities and destroy its leadership.

The fact that there are still fractured Hamas entities in Northern Gaza is a clear warning that the day after is going to be very difficult because there’s still going to be a lot of fires left in the environment. I was part of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Once we destroyed enough of Iraq’s military capability, much of the military took off their uniforms and walked away before the US disbanded it. Later, they became part of the insurgency when things didn’t go well, of course, but it didn’t mean that we weren’t effective at taking the ruling power out or the military itself out.

CNN: Couldn’t Israel’s offensive still have the effect of creating more militants who are going to join Hamas and fight against Israel? Couldn’t it be counterproductive?

Spencer: It could. Absolutely. And this is where I agree with Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus says you could be creating more terrorists 10 or 20 years later. In the now, of course, you have to destroy Hamas. But what you do the day after absolutely matters. The lack of success in Afghanistan wasn’t because of the war to remove the Taliban, but because the strategy that came after destroying the terrorists and their government structure didn’t provide a better outcome for Afghans. What Israel does the day after could ultimately mean that it loses a very long game against an ideology.

Wars create people who aren’t happy if their side loses, and that can actually radicalize them. But in the present when you face an existential threat or a world war, it isn’t a consideration. You have to destroy the other military who’s currently trying to hurt you in real time. Because this really gets into, I should just let that enemy force on my border keep attacking me because its population won’t agree with me destroying it.

U.S. Democratic House Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) visits the student protest encampment as protests continue at Columbia University, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in New York City, U.S., April 25, 2024. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs

Caitlin Ochs/Reuters/File

Related article Opinion: The antisemitic lie at the heart of too many campus protests

A good comparison is Nazism. The US couldn’t worry about further radicalizing Germans during World War II. It had to prioritize defeating them. Afterward it could work to deradicalize them. Of course, the ideology of Nazism still lives on, because ideologies can’t be eradicated. But it has been defanged. That was only possible because first there was a military victory over the Nazi regime.

CNN: So you think this is a winnable war for the IDF?

Spencer: One hundred percent. But it’s also a very winnable war for Hamas at this point because wars are not determined just by military capability. They’re a battle of wills. And if Hamas can survive, it achieves its war strategy and has more political power than it did on October 7. Hamas will be viewed as the great actor who figured out a way to conduct a massive, brutal attack on Israel, survive and still achieve political victories, including weakening Israel’s alliances in the Western World, especially with the United States. Hamas would then use this added power to rebuild and attack as it tries to achieve its stated grand strategy — the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jewish people.

CNN: You’ve said elsewhere that the IDF has been successful at moving large numbers of Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way. But civilians have been killed trying to get away and they say they have nowhere safe to go. So how is it correct to say that Israel can be effective at moving civilians out of Rafah?

Spencer: Civilians have been put in harm’s way while evacuating because of Hamas. There has been combat near designated safe areas because of Hamas. The Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone was chosen because it was on the coastline away from the defenses Hamas has built in tunnels and urban areas, but Hamas still fired rockets from there and other humanitarian areas. So then people say there’s nowhere safe to go. This is the complexity of the challenge.

That the civilians don’t have somewhere completely safe to go, this is the history of war. And the fact is, Egypt said, I’m paraphrasing here, not on my watch will refugees from Gaza cross the border. It’s complicated, of course, why Egypt doesn’t want to let Palestinians even enter a humanitarian camp in the Sinai, and it includes its own history with Islamist terrorist groups, costs to the society and economy, and being seen as supportive of Israel’s objectives in the war in Gaza.

The Shiva Hospital, pictured here, was raided by the Israeli army, after number of mass graves found in the hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on May 11, 2024.

Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu/Getty Images/File

You can judge Israel for not allowing them to cross into southern Israel, but that’s a unique challenge because they are part of the enemy polity that just razed southern Israel and displaced the Israeli population there. If the enemy is conducting operations in the safe zone, like they do in hospitals and schools, and I hope we get to talk about that, the best you can do is to create as safe an area as possible for the civilians in the given context.

CNN: You said you wanted to talk about Hamas using hospitals and schools?

Spencer: Yes. It is a great example of good intentions leading to bad outcomes. It is of course the right thing to do to tell warring parties that hospitals should not be used in war, that they need to be protected. But that has driven combatants who do not follow the laws of war into every protected facility. Hamas took every law of war and reverse-engineered it to build an environment in which Hamas has occupied facilities because of their legal protections. So fighting an enemy that’s an avowed terror organization puts a conventional military at a big disadvantage, especially if the world is watching.

Hamas is the first combatant I’ve seen do this at an industrial level. The US military bombed complete hospitals to the ground because of battles against ISIS in hospitals. But what Hamas has done is engineered every protected site as a military facility because they knew not only would Israel have to restrict its use of force against those sites, but the world would condemn Israel for even thinking about going to those places. Of course, Israel doesn’t want to be considered on a par with Hamas by the international community, so predictably Hamas is trying to take advantage of that.

I used to say that Hamas built their tunnels underneath every school, UN facility and hospital, but what we’re finding out is that no, they also built their tunnels and then built the schools on top of them. It is literally a byproduct of our pursuit to protect that has put more people at risk.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a conference in Jerusalem, on February 18.

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters/File

Related article Opinion: How an ICC arrest of Netanyahu could play out

CNN: How do you know that about Hamas’ construction under hospitals and the schools? There have been a lot of questions about the information the IDF has put out there and the numbers they use. So how can you be confidant about this information?

Spencer: I go into this trusting the IDF’s information more than I do Hamas’, but I have also been on the ground in Gaza during this war near mosques and schools with tunnels. I was with the IDF as they uncovered a tunnel running out of a mosque, for instance, and it’s been documented that Hamas uses mosques for storing weapons and other military purposes. So I’m relying on personal research as well as a belief in a law-abiding and very moral society and military.

CNN: You mentioned your participation in the Iraq war. How would you compare Israel’s conduct — whether it’s been upholding international law or committing war crimes — to the US fighting, say, al-Qaida in Afghanistan or ISIS in Mosul, Iraq?

Spencer: If you want to talk about the tactics to prevent civilian harm in war, the US military uses speed, force and overwhelming power. That’s what we did in Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, you name the war where we want to take out the power and destroy its military; we do it quickly so it doesn’t prolong the war. The problem is that the international community pushed Israel into this framework of going slower, going methodically, evacuating every area beforehand.

I can say with very strong confidence that Israel has done everything the US military has ever done in the history of urban combat and things that we’ve never done, implementing every civilian harm mitigation technique that has been developed in the last 30 years despite Hamas’ tactics.

CNN: There are people who say that, even if Israel is generally upholding the same standards for protecting civilians as the US, what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan were horrors and the US didn’t succeed in protecting civilians there. And so using that as the standard is giving Israel a pass for perpetrating its own horrors.

Spencer: War is hell, so I agree. People say, look at what’s being done. How can that be legal? And even if it is legal, it should stop. I’m saying, as a scholar of war in history, that war is hell. And that if you don’t move forward and finish the mission, you actually lead to much more human suffering than is the product of the war. This gets to almost a philosophy of war, that there should never be war, right? There should never be war, but that’s not the history of mankind.

Members of the Al-Rabaya family break their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan outside their destroyed home by the Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

Fatima Shbair/AP

Related article Opinion: What Biden needs to know about Rafah

I strongly want the laws of war upheld as a warrior. I want war contained. I do not want civilians targeted. There is no evidence that the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan ever targeted civilians, period, but have we done it in the past? Absolutely. Firebombing Tokyo, for instance. Our calculations about collateral damage are much different now, and we shouldn’t go back.

So I want the laws upheld, but the problem is that this is the really dangerous part of the accusations and perceptions and the byproduct of Israel’s war against Gaza: what it means to the future of democracies like the United States if in the next war — and God forbid if it’s a war of survival against some great power that has risen — we’re going to say there should be no civilian suffering. Had there been social media during World War II, we might not be living in the world we currently live in. The Japanese and Germans might have won if their democratic adversaries believed the cost of resisting them was too high to be worth it.

I think this is where people aren’t seeing the ramifications of what they’re saying about Israel. You have the camp saying, they’re not following the law, which is just not proven. Then you have the camp saying, I don’t care if they’re following the law or not, the human suffering is too much, they need to stop. I think what that means is, the cost is too much so you have to let Hamas win. And I’m saying that your very good intentions are going to lead to greater suffering. You are actually advocating for more war by trying to stop this war.

CNN: In a similar scenario, what do you think the United States would have done?

Spencer: I believe strongly it would’ve been an overwhelming, immediate response to end the war as quickly as possible, and to achieve those goals of bringing our people home, making the rockets stop and making sure it never happened again. The history of the United States, and the history of war shows that we would’ve responded overwhelmingly.

It would’ve caused an immense amount of destruction, and there would’ve been calculations on what is the value to protecting our nation. But I’m arguing that the approach the US has demanded for Israel’s war has prolonged and caused more destruction then if they had gone in with more overwhelming force and speed. And that is a risk with the more limited operation that the US might push Israel to conduct instead of a ground invasion of Rafah.

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By going slowly, I can argue through history and through metrics, it gives your enemy more time to defend, more time to prevent your plans, more time to prevent you from achieving surprise. We, as in the world, are also responsible for some of the destruction that’s happened in Gaza.

CNN: How’s that?

Spencer: Because the world said to Israel at the beginning of the ground invasion, that what you’re doing, I don’t care if it’s legal or not, cannot continue. You got to find another way. The United States with its influence said, look, I know what you’re doing is achieving results, but you have to find a different way.

So the IDF shifted their tactics, they reduced the number of forces, they reduced the number of strikes on military targets, and they went more methodically and slowed down. They did more tactical pauses, they avoided more areas if they had any civilian population in them, and it became a very house-to-house, block-by-block, tunnel-by-tunnel fight, which has prolonged the war.

That has increased the humanitarian suffering and the strain on humanitarian supplies in Gaza. It has increased the duration of the violence and the continued existence of Hamas. So we are at fault for some of the destruction in Gaza because of that. We own some of the responsibility.

CNN · by Hilary Krieger · May 17, 2024

7. What has China learned from Russia and Iran’s use of proxies?

Excerpts:

The fact that current PRC private military and security contractors must be principally state-owned illustrates Beijing’s fears of creating entities that could one day go rogue. At least in the near term, the CCP is unlikely to develop, support, and deploy an autonomous non-state actor like Wagner PMC.

However, there are aspects of the Iranian model that could appear attractive to Beijing—namely, embedding military advisors with non-state actors in a manner similar to how the IRGC-QF operates and seeking political influence in the country of operations.

There is also the example of Russia’s “little green men” who helped Moscow take control of Crimea. The initial confusion over who these troops were meant that the U.S. and its NATO allies were delayed in formulating a response. By the time Washington, London, and Brussels figured out what was happening, it was too late. This type of fait accompli action could be something the Chinese consider in a potential scenario involving Taiwan.

The United States needs to gain a greater understanding of how China views proxies and PMCs and how Beijing may attempt to use them in the future, or it risks being unprepared. The U.S. was caught flat-footed before responding to the Wagner Group. When it comes to China, the stakes are even higher.

What has China learned from Russia and Iran’s use of proxies?

The answer may help U.S. planners anticipate and spot Beijing's next moves.

By MOLLIE SALTSKOG and COLIN P. CLARKE

MAY 18, 2024

defenseone.com · by Mollie Saltskog

Published in coordination with the 2024 Global Security Forum, of which Defense One is a media partner.

China has surely been watching as Russia and Iran have used non-state actors to pursue their strategic objectives in Ukraine, Gaza, and elsewhere. What lessons might Beijing have drawn, and how might we see them applied?

The Kremlin has cultivated a range of non-state actors to do its bidding. In Ukraine, Russia unleashed the Wagner Group, a private military company that was involved in some of the war’s bloodiest battles; the group, since rebranded as Africa Corps, has also been deployed to help “coup-proof” military juntas throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In the online world, the Kremlin has used troll farms such as the Internet Research Agency to sway elections and undermine foreign support for Kyiv.

Tehran, meanwhile, has used its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force to develop, support, and fund a broad network of militias and political factions across the Middle East—a so-called “Axis of Resistance” that includes Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthi movement in Yemen, and various Shia militias in Iraq and Syria. Iran supplies these proxy outfits with sophisticated weaponry and provides hands-on training in how to employ drones, missiles, and other cutting-edge technologies. In return, Hezbollah’s rocket attacks have kept the Israel Defense Forces from being able to concentrate solely on fighting in Gaza, while the Houthis’ relentless attacks on commercial shipping have slowed regional economies and threaten to cause global effects.

Russia and Iran’s use of non-state actors has reduced international blowback as they pursue their geopolitical goals, but there are risks to the proxy model, too. Last June, an attempted mutiny by Wagner’s longtime leader Yevgeny Prigozhin saw mercenaries threaten the Kremlin directly. And in late January, an attack by the Shia militia group Kataib Hezbollah killed three U.S. troops in Jordan and injured dozens more—an attack that nearly precipitated a broader regional conflagration before Iran intervened to pressure its proxy groups to stand down.

One lesson that China has likely drawn is that it can be dangerous to allow private military contractors and proxies to grow too powerful or autonomous.

Since the 2010s, China has encouraged a growing industry of private military contractors, to protect burgeoning Chinese interests overseas, especially growing Belt and Road Initiative projects. Chinese PMCs differ from their Russian and Iranian counterparts: by law, they must have a majority government ownership, and most are unarmed. These contractors have been used for capacity building, security consulting, intelligence, and providing equipment to local security partners. They also protect and, in some cases, rescue Chinese nationals from conflict zones.

There is a recognized need for additional security to protect BRI infrastructure and personnel—a need that peacekeeping forces likely cannot fill. In March, seven Chinese nationals were killed in a terrorist attack in Pakistan. At the same time, Beijing is image-conscious and wants to avoid being labeled a “new colonial power,” thus making it unlikely that conventional Chinese military forces would be stationed in a foreign country to provide security. PMCs could play that role, but Chinese leader Xi Jinping and members of the CCP politburo are likely aware of the risks and benefits.

The fact that current PRC private military and security contractors must be principally state-owned illustrates Beijing’s fears of creating entities that could one day go rogue. At least in the near term, the CCP is unlikely to develop, support, and deploy an autonomous non-state actor like Wagner PMC.

However, there are aspects of the Iranian model that could appear attractive to Beijing—namely, embedding military advisors with non-state actors in a manner similar to how the IRGC-QF operates and seeking political influence in the country of operations.

There is also the example of Russia’s “little green men” who helped Moscow take control of Crimea. The initial confusion over who these troops were meant that the U.S. and its NATO allies were delayed in formulating a response. By the time Washington, London, and Brussels figured out what was happening, it was too late. This type of fait accompli action could be something the Chinese consider in a potential scenario involving Taiwan.

The United States needs to gain a greater understanding of how China views proxies and PMCs and how Beijing may attempt to use them in the future, or it risks being unprepared. The U.S. was caught flat-footed before responding to the Wagner Group. When it comes to China, the stakes are even higher.

Mollie Saltskog is a research fellow at The Soufan Center.

Colin P. Clarke, Ph.D., is the director of research at The Soufan Group and a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center.

defenseone.com · by Mollie Saltskog

8. China Is Winning the Minerals War

​The may be the real "strategic" of strategic competition. And it is a competition we cannot afford to lose.

China Is Winning the Minerals War

Western efforts to make a dent are languishing; ‘China is not just standing still waiting for us to catch up’

https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/china-dominant-mineral-mining-global-supply-chain-e2b7840e?mod=latest_headlines

By Jon Emont

Follow

May 20, 2024 11:00 pm ET

Chinese processing plants in Indonesia pump out vast quantities of nickel. PHOTO: BANNU MAZANDRA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

SINGAPORE—For the past few years, the West has been trying to break China’s grip on minerals that are critical for defense and green technologies. Despite their efforts, Chinese companies are becoming more dominant, not less.

They are expanding operations, supercharging supply and causing prices to drop. Their challengers can’t compete.

“China is not just standing still waiting for us to catch up,” said Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines. “They are making investments on top of their already massive investments in all aspects of the critical-minerals supply chain.”

Take nickel, which is needed for electric-vehicle batteries. Chinese processing plants that dot the Indonesian archipelago are pumping out vast quantities of the mineral from new and expanding facilities, jolting the market.

Meanwhile, Switzerland-based mining giant Glencore is suspending operations at its nickel plant in New Caledonia, a French territory, concluding it can’t survive despite offers of financial help from Paris. The U.K.’s Horizonte Minerals, whose new Brazilian mine was expected to become a major Western source, said last month that investors had bailed, citing oversupply in the market.

At least four nickel mines in Western Australia are winding down.

Lithium projects in the U.S. and Australia have been postponed or suspended after a surge in Chinese production at home and in sub-Saharan Africa. 

The only dedicated cobalt mine in the U.S. also suspended operations last year, five months after local dignitaries attended its opening ceremony. Its owners say they are struggling against a flood of Chinese-produced cobalt from Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Last year, non-Chinese production of refined cobalt declined to its lowest level in 15 years, according to Darton Commodities. The share of lithium mining done within China or by Chinese companies abroad has grown from 14% in 2018 to 35% this year, according to Fastmarkets, a commodities information provider. Over the same time, lithium processing done within China has risen from 63% in 2018 to 70%, according to Fastmarkets.

The breakneck expansion has assailed Western producers, who say China’s domestic economy can’t always absorb the flood of minerals its firms bring to market. Slower-than-expected electric-car sales growth in China last year meant there were fewer takers for China’s mineral surge, contributing to the crash in global prices. 

What’s more worrying for Western producers is that there is little sign of a letup.

“It’s just the way China does things. They have tended to build more capacity whether it’s in aluminum, or cement, or nickel,” said William Adams, head of base metals research for Fastmarkets. Chinese companies “all gun for market share, and the consequence for that is you get oversupply.”

Western officials, too, are sounding the alarm. In response to a question last month about China’s dominance in nickel, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the market had been flooded, making businesses in free-market democracies uneconomic. 

“It is our belief that that behavior can be intentional, can be happening with the purpose of driving companies in our country, in those of our allies, out of business,” she said. Freeland didn’t provide further details or any evidence for the claim. 

China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

‘The big bad wolf’

Chinese companies are continuing to ramp up, thanks to years of aggressive acquisitions. Zijin Mining, a Chinese state-backed company, said it would increase lithium production by around 85 times this year from a low base, and by a further five times next year. 

The projected growth stems from its 2022 purchase of a Western asset—a premium untapped mine in Argentina—that is scheduled to begin pumping out lithium this year. 

The mine was discovered in 2015 when Waldo Perez, an Argentinian-born geologist, took samples at a remote lake 13,000 feet above sea level in the Andes, which turned out to be part of a massive lithium deposit. He formed a Canadian company called Neo Lithium with partners, secured the mineral rights, listed it on the Toronto Stock Exchange and stepped up exploration.

By 2021, they decided to sell.

There has been a surge in Chinese production of lithium, a key battery ingredient. PHOTO: CFOTO/DDP/ZUMA PRESS

Constantine Karayannopoulos, Neo Lithium’s chairman at the time, said he courted potential suitors—miners and makers of EV batteries alike—from Japan, Germany, the U.S., South Korea and Australia, but there was little interest. With lithium prices rising at the time, he said they were wary of joining the “feeding frenzy” and shelling out a lot of money for the mine in case it turned out to be a bust.

The three best offers the company received were from Chinese companies, including the winning $750 million bid from Zijin, whose largest shareholder is a Chinese state-owned firm.

The sale passed a Canadian government review but perturbed conservative lawmakers in the country and in the U.S.

Karayannopoulos said he was protecting shareholder interests and there was little to be done about “some very far removed non-stakeholders complaining that we shouldn’t be selling this to the big bad wolf.”

“The Chinese were true believers but the Westerners were not,” said Perez, the geologist who discovered the deposit and was Neo Lithium’s chief executive at the time of the sale. 

‘Single-member OPEC’

China has many advantages in the race to lock up minerals. Its miners are deep-pocketed and aggressive, making bets in resource-rich countries that Western companies have long viewed as corrupt or unstable, such as Indonesia, Mali, Bolivia and Zimbabwe. State banks provide financing for power plants and industrial parks abroad, paving the way for further private Chinese investment.

China’s rapid industrial development also means its companies have spent decades fine-tuning the art of turning raw ore into metals. They can set up new facilities quickly and cheaply. A paper published in February by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies pegs the costs of building a lithium refinery outside China as three to four times higher than building one within the country.

The Tenke Fungurume mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. PHOTO: EMMET LIVINGSTONE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

In eastern Indonesia, Chinese companies have built a fleet of highly efficient nickel and cobalt plants over the past few years after mastering a technology Western miners long considered glitchy and expensive. The plants run on coal power, some of it new, at a time when the world is looking to phase out dirty energy.

“It’s just a simple, straightforward engineering capability that the Chinese have that has been lost in the rest of the world,” said Jim Lennon, managing director for commodities strategy at Macquarie, an Australian bank. “The Chinese have this overwhelming competitive advantage now that can’t really be addressed.”

Talon Metals is trying to compete. The company, headquartered in Toronto, controls a rich underground nickel reserve in central Minnesota—a mine the White House says is part of its plan for breaking U.S. mineral dependence on China. The Energy Department has earmarked more than $100 million for Talon to build a refinery in North Dakota to process ore from Minnesota and elsewhere in North America.

Tesla agreed to buy the nickel for car batteries.

“U.S. policymakers on both sides of the aisle realize we cannot allow China to become a ‘single-member OPEC’ for critical minerals like nickel,” Sean Werger, Talon’s president, said last month, referring to the oil cartel formed by many of the world’s top producers to coordinate supply.

But some investors have soured on Talon, whose share price on the Toronto Stock Exchange has dropped around two-thirds over the past two years amid a flood of Chinese nickel from Indonesia. Many analysts say projects outside Indonesia will struggle to take off unless nickel prices rise significantly. Talon says its high-quality ore gives it an edge, that it is using innovative technologies to boost revenue, and that there is still demand for U.S.-mined minerals.

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A U.S.-backed railway connecting Angola to the Democratic Republic of Congo is part of a pushback against China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Africa. The $1.7 billion Lobito Corridor project aims to secure vital mineral supply chains. Photo illustration: Kevin Gong

Like other Western miners, Talon says it isn’t a fair fight. Chinese nickel companies receive cheap state financing as part of a “strategic imperative to gain control over pricing,” said Todd Malan, Talon’s director of external affairs. “All the Western projects have to meet market-based economic criteria.”

Australia’s Queensland Pacific Metals is developing a nickel-processing plant in Australia to refine imported ore from New Caledonia and sell it to General Motors. But last month Queensland Pacific said it would limit further expenditure on the nickel project and instead focus on drilling for gas, citing low nickel prices and challenging market conditions. 

The mineral industry is a national priority for Beijing. Metals and mining investments under its Belt and Road Initiative hit record levels last year, according to a report by Australia’s Griffith Asia Institute. Chinese official lending for minerals projects in developing countries typically offers lower rates than commercial loans, according to AidData, a university research lab at William & Mary in Virginia.

Meanwhile, Western companies struggle to get loans. Amos Hochstein, a top White House energy adviser, said this month that Western banks are reluctant to finance projects in risky mineral-rich countries and that China is often the only player.

U.S. legislation passed in 2022 offers electric-vehicle manufacturers incentives to buy minerals domestically or from countries with whom the U.S. has free-trade agreements. Starting next year, batteries could be disqualified for subsidies if they contain minerals that are mined or processed by Chinese companies. 

Last Tuesday the White House announced new tariffs on China, including on critical minerals such as natural graphite that Beijing dominates.

Western miners are hopeful that these provisions will eventually drive demand for their minerals, though some are concerned carmakers could find workarounds. They also hope Chinese companies will dial down production. 

“At today’s prices, the economics for new greenfield projects, particularly in the West are not supported,” Kent Masters, chief executive of Albemarle, the largest U.S. lithium producer, said this year. Unless prices rise, Masters has said he doesn’t think there is a “business case” for a complete Western lithium supply chain. 

Write to Jon Emont at jonathan.emont@wsj.com

9. Exclusive: Ukraine's Zelenskiy pushes allies to step up aid and involvement in war

Exclusive: Ukraine's Zelenskiy pushes allies to step up aid and involvement in war

By Mike Collett-White, Dan Peleschuk and Sergiy Karazy

May 20, 20248:09 PM EDTUpdated 11 hours ago

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/western-aid-ukraine-too-slow-risks-us-election-limited-zelenskiy-2024-05-20/?utm

0 seconds of 30 secondsVolume 0%

Ukraine's Zelenskiy pushes allies to step up aid

Summary

• Zelenskiy speaks on fifth anniversary of inaugurationUkrainian leader chastises West for slow military aidHe also pushes them to get more directly involved in warLeader concedes that war is "difficult" amid Russian advancesHe urges China to join peace summit in Switzerland in June

KYIV, May 20 (Reuters) - Western allies are taking too long to make key decisions on military support for Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Reuters in an exclusive interview, opens new tab in Kyiv on Monday.

He also said he was pushing partners to get more directly involved, opens new tab in the war by helping to intercept Russian missiles over Ukraine and allowing Kyiv to use Western weapons against enemy military equipment amassing near the border.

The call to accelerate aid and push so-called "red lines" of engagement in the conflict reflect the growing pressure Zelenskiy's forces are under along more than 1,000 km of front lines in the northeast, east and south of the country.

An impassioned Zelenskiy, dressed in his familiar khaki T-shirt and trousers, said the situation on the battlefield was "one of the most difficult" he had known since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

In recent weeks Moscow's troops have made incursions into northeastern Ukraine, further testing Kyiv's already stretched defences. At the same time, Russia has taken territory in the eastern Donbas region in sometimes fierce battles.

"A very powerful wave (of fighting) is going on in Donbas ... No-one even notices that there are actually more battles in the east of the country, specifically in the Donbas direction: Kurakhove, Pokrovsk, Chasiv Yar."

He added, however, that the situation north of Kharkiv was now "under control".

The 46-year-old was speaking on the fifth anniversary of his inauguration as president. He has not contested elections because of martial law imposed due to the invasion.

Zelenskiy called again for faster military aid from the United States and other partners. Weapons and ammunition from a recently passed U.S. package is now arriving in Ukraine, but it was delayed for months by internal political wrangling.

"Every decision to which we, then later everyone together, comes to is late by around one year," said Zelenskiy.

"But it is what it is: one big step forward, but before that two steps back. So we need to change the paradigm a little bit."

RISK OF ESCALATION?

Zelenskiy said he wanted his partners to be more directly involved in the war, but understood they were wary of antagonising Russia.

"It's a question of will," he said. "But everyone says a word that sounds the same in every language: everyone is scared of escalation. Everyone has gotten used to the fact that Ukrainians are dying – that's not escalation for people."

He proposed that the armed forces of neighbouring NATO countries could intercept incoming Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory to help Kyiv protect itself.

Russia has fired thousands of missiles and drones at Ukraine since the start of the wider conflict, and air defences are a priority for Kyiv.

"Russians are using 300 planes on the territory of Ukraine. We need at least 120, 130 planes to resist in the sky," he said. Ukraine is waiting for the delivery of U.S.-designed F-16s which have yet to be used in anger.

He said that if countries could not supply the planes straight away, they could still fly them from neighbouring NATO states and shoot down Russian missiles.

Item 1 of 3 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during an interview with Reuters, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

[1/3]Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during an interview with Reuters, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

The Ukrainian leader also said Kyiv was negotiating with international partners to use their weapons to strike Russian military hardware at the border and further inside Russian territory.

"So far, there is nothing positive," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin would likely view such developments as escalatory.

He casts the war as part of an existential battle with a declining and decadent West which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence, including Ukraine.

Ukraine and the West reject such an interpretation, calling the invasion an unprovoked land grab.

Zelenskiy reiterated that he had not broken agreements with allies not to use their weapons inside Russia.

"We can't put the whole volume of weapons at risk."

INTERNATIONAL STAGE

Ukraine is gearing up for international talks in Switzerland next month that will exclude Russia and are aimed at trying to unify and harden opinion against Moscow.

Putin has said he believes the talks may convert Ukrainian demands for a Russian withdrawal into an ultimatum for Russia, a strategy he said would fail.

Zelenskiy said it was crucial to get as many countries around the table as possible.

"And then Russia will have to answer to the majority of the world, not Ukraine. ... No-one says that tomorrow Russia will agree, but it is important that we have the initiative."

Beijing has yet to say whether it will participate, although Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin met last week in China and pledged a "new era" of partnership between the two most powerful rivals of the United States.

"It is very important that they (China) are there," said Zelenskiy. "Because in principle, after this summit, it becomes clear who wants to end the war, and who wants to remain in strong relations with the Russian Federation."

On U.S. politics, he sought to dampen concerns that any win for Republican candidate Donald Trump in November elections could spell trouble for Ukraine. Trump is a Ukraine aid sceptic who has stressed "America First" policies.

"I don't believe that Republicans are against support for Ukraine, but some messages that are coming from their side raise concerns."

Zelenskiy, a former comedian, said he would let others judge his performance as leader of a country at war, but he expressed his gratitude to the Ukrainian people for their stoicism in the face of adversity.

He also insisted that Ukraine could still win the war, despite setbacks in recent months.

"I think we need to walk this path to the end, preferably a victorious one," he said. "Even though today people look somewhat sceptically at the word 'victory' - I understand it is difficult, because it is long."

Coming soon: Get the latest news and expert analysis about the state of the global economy with Reuters Econ World. Sign up here.

Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Dan Peleschuk and Sergiy Karazy; Additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa in Gdansk; Editing by Tom Balmforth and Hugh Lawson

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Mike Collett-White

Thomson Reuters

Michael helps regional editors oversee initiative coverage from Africa, Middle East and South Asia, and temporarily stepping into a similar role for the Ukraine war. A senior editor he was working on Asia Top News, and lead EMEA Top News with an emphasis on in-depth stories. During his nearly 30 years at Reuters, he held postings in Moscow, Central Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He also covered conflicts in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, uprisings in Egypt and the annexation of Crimea, as well as World Cups, Olympic Games and the arts and entertainment sector as senior correspondent, EMEA. He won Reuters editor of the year for 2015 Afghan coverage.

10. Blinken to testify to US Congress under shadow of Israel policy divides

Only $64 billion for a foreign affairs budget?

This reminds me of the quote from former SECDEF Mattis: 

“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it’s a cost-benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department’s diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene."

Blinken to testify to US Congress under shadow of Israel policy divides

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/blinken-testify-us-congress-under-shadow-israel-policy-divides-2024-05-21/?utm

By Patricia Zengerle

May 21, 20246:04 AM EDTUpdated an hour ago

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the State Department in Washington, U.S., May 17, 2024. REUTERS/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to make his case for President Joe Biden's $64 billion foreign affairs budget request in four congressional hearings this week, amid deep divides with Republicans over spending priorities and Israel policy.

Blinken testifies on Tuesday in the Democratic-controlled Senate to the Foreign Relations Committee and to the appropriations subcommittee that oversees diplomatic and foreign aid spending.

He returns to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for two more rounds of testimony at hearings of the Republican-led House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and a House appropriations subcommittee.

The hearings are expected to focus on Israel policy, after Biden earlier this month said he would delay a shipment of bombs to Israel and consider withholding others if Israeli forces launched a major invasion of Rafah, a refugee-packed city in southern Gaza.

The developments prompted angry denunciations from Republicans, some of whom have accused Biden of abandoning Israel, despite the billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance that remains in the pipeline for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

But Biden has also faced criticism from many of his fellow Democrats, who want him to do more - including putting conditions on arms exports - to push Netanyahu's government to protect Palestinian civilians. Israel is fighting to wipe out Hamas militants who attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Palestinian authorities say more than 35,000 people have been killed during Israel's campaign in Gaza, many of them women and children. Malnutrition is widespread and much of the population of the coastal enclave has been left homeless, with much of the enclave's infrastructure destroyed.

PROTESTS

When Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified in the Senate on Oct. 31 about Biden's request for security assistance for Ukraine and Israel, they were repeatedly interrupted by protesters who denounced the officials for backing what they called "genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza.

Protests over Gaza have intensified across the United States since then, including on college campuses where there have been dozens of arrests.

The sweeping foreign aid package for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and humanitarian needs, finally passed Congress in April, after being stalled for months by Republicans unhappy about the billions of dollars in assistance Washington has sent Kyiv as it battles Russian invaders.

The package only passed the House because a majority of Democrats supported it, and the parties remain divided over how much more help Washington should provide to Ukraine.

Republicans also expressed outrage on Monday when the International Criminal Court in the Hague requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense chief, and for three Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Senator Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the appropriations subcommittee where Blinken is testifying on Tuesday, called the ICC's actions "outrageous" and promised to act.

"I will feverishly work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle in both chambers to levy damning sanctions against the ICC," Graham said in a statement.

Democrats also criticized the ICC's action, with Biden calling it "outrageous." Blinken raised questions over the court's jurisdiction as well as its process in making the request. He added that it could jeopardize negotiations to achieve a hostage deal and a ceasefire.

Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here.

Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Patricia Zengerle

Thomson Reuters

Patricia Zengerle has reported from more than 20 countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China. An award-winning Washington-based national security and foreign policy reporter who also has worked as an editor, Patricia has appeared on NPR, C-Span and other programs, spoken at the National Press Club and attended the Hoover Institution Media Roundtable. She is a recipient of the Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence.

11. ‘They’ve grown back’: How Russia surprised the West and rebuilt its force

Putin gets by with a little help from his friends.

‘They’ve grown back’: How Russia surprised the West and rebuilt its force

Defense News · by Noah Robertson · May 21, 2024

The Pentagon in March put a price tag on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking in the officer’s club at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin read a list of costs the Kremlin had tallied over two years: More than 315,000 troops killed or wounded. Over $211 billion spent. Some 20 medium or large ships damaged or sunk in the Black Sea.

“Russia has paid a staggering cost for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s imperial dreams,” Austin said, speaking before a meeting of countries that gather each month in support of Ukraine.

By April, though, Austin’s tone had changed.

At a news conference, Austin and Gen. CQ Brown, America’s top military officer, again detailed Russia’s losses. But they added another trend: Russia’s recovery.

“Russia has ramped up its production,” Austin said. “All of their defense industry really answers directly to the state, so it’s easier for them to do that a bit quicker.”

Brown put it more simply: “Russia has aggressively reconstituted its military force.”

Coming a month apart, the two sets of comments show a distinct change in how the U.S. views Russia’s military. While American officials have long detailed the costs of Moscow’s invasion for its armed forces and its economy, in the last two months they’ve started to acknowledge Russia is recovering faster than the U.S. expected.

The pace matters for Ukraine and those supporting it — in particular the U.S. government, which approved $48 billion more in Ukraine-related security aid this April. American officials say they expect that bill to sustain Kyiv for another year. But if Moscow’s recovery is a moving target, that could change.

Indeed, if the Kremlin keeps rebuilding its forces faster than expected, it could present a longer-term and perhaps costlier problem for the NATO alliance. The U.S. government’s National Defense Strategy calls Russia an “acute threat,” second to the “pacing challenge” of China.

But Moscow’s own capacity may change that.

“They are doing better than we would have thought,” a senior U.S. defense official told Defense News on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive intelligence.

Three ways to rebuild

When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, things quickly fell apart. Enduring images of the first two months illustrated Russian frailty by showing rotting tires on armored vehicles and a convoy just outside of Kyiv that became a traffic jam.

A satellite image shows the northern end of a convoy containing resupply vehicles southeast of Ivankiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 28, 2022. (Maxar Technologies)

This prompted self-reflection in the West: If Russia’s military wasn’t as powerful as defense planners had thought before the war, how quickly could it recover?

Even scientific methods to measure an opposing military are inexact, partly because those easiest to measure, such as personnel and equipment, might not be the most important given factors like corruption and morale. But estimates for how long Russia would take to reconstitute mostly fell into the five- to 10-year range, depending on how Western sanctions worked and the Kremlin’s own goals.

“There’s no question — and I think [there’s] unanimity in the intelligence community — it will take years for the Russians to build back up their ground forces,” Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said in March 2023.

Her comments came amid the annual churn of officials visiting Capitol Hill from winter to early spring. Around the same time this year, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, America’s top military officer in Europe, had a second opinion.

“The overall message I would give you is they’ve grown back to what they were before,” Cavoli said. “They’ve got some gaps that have been produced by this war, but their overall capacity is very significant still. And they intend to make it go higher.”

To some extent, the officials were discussing different elements of Russia’s force. When Haines testified last year, she was joined by the chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, who said Russia was five to 10 years away from reconstituting. By that, Berrier meant it would take Russia up to a decade to rebuild the high-end equipment lost earlier in the war.

Cavoli, on the other hand, was discussing the overall size of Russia’s military.

Still, European and American defense officials, along with experts on the Russian military, told Defense News the Kremlin’s force is reconstituting faster than expected. They gave three main reasons why.

The first is the resilience of Moscow’s defense industry.

During the war, Russia has almost tripled its defense budget, according to Richard Connolly, an expert on the country’s economy at the London-based Royal United Services Institute think tank. Russia is set to spend somewhere between $130 billion and $140 billion on defense in 2024, which is about 6% of gross domestic product and a third of the government’s overall budget, Connolly approximated.

But because costs and wages are lower in Russia than in high-income countries, like many in NATO, the Kremlin’s defense fund buys much more than it would in the United States. When that conversion is taken into account, Russia’s 2024 defense budget falls between $360 billion to $390 billion, Connolly estimated.

The spending trend itself has raised salaries. Working in the defense industry was once a middling career in Russia; it’s now lucrative and attracting more workers. Based on official Russian figures, which Connolly noted may be inflated, the number of people working in the defense industry rose 20% during the war, from 2.5 million to about 3 million now.

The funds have also gone toward procuring military hardware. Connolly estimates this share of the defense budget probably doubled during the war, helping Russia replace lost equipment.

Connolly said he doubts the state of Russia’s economy will factor into how the war ends. Moscow has a cadre of policy wonks guiding its country through sanctions, he noted, and they have lots of practice doing so. In fact, Putin recently replaced a general at the helm of the Defence Ministry with an economist.

Employees of a military vehicles repair factory renovate and repair T-34 tanks handed over by Laos to Russia in the latter's village of Strelna on Feb. 25, 2020. (Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images)

The second reason is Russia’s ability to dodge financial penalties.

In 2022, the Biden administration and European partners passed a raft of sanctions meant to sink the Russian economy. These ranged from banning the sale of high-tech materials, such as microchips, to a price cap on Russian oil sales.

These haven’t worked, multiple analysts told Defense News. That’s in large part because Moscow has been able to reroute its supply lines through friendly countries.

Chief among those partners is China. From 2022 to 2023, trade between Russia and China grew more than 26%, hitting an all-time high of $240 billion, according to a report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Beijing largely avoided sending weapons directly. Instead, Chinese companies became a vital supplier of the items Russia needed to build weapons itself — such as microchips and small electronics.

This leads to the third point: Russia’s reconstitution has relied on surprising levels of support from other U.S. adversaries, who, unlike China, have directly provided military aid to Russia.

Since October, North Korea has sent Russia about 10,000 shipping containers, which could include up to 3 million artillery rounds, according to U.S. government figures. Russia has fired dozens of North Korean ballistic missiles since last fall, an American diplomat told the U.N. in March.

Iran has also provided materiel. Specifically, it’s sent a somewhat plodding attack drone known in Tehran as the Shahed-136 and in Moscow as the Geran-2. Russia has deployed swarms of these to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses, firing more than 3,700 Shahed drones, of which there are several variants, during the war as of December, according to the Ukrainian government.

When Cavoli visited Capitol Hill in April, he came with his own list of numbers: Russia’s GDP grew 3% in 2023, despite predictions it would shrink. It can add 1,200 tanks and build at least 3 million artillery rounds or rockets each year. And through a deal with Iran, Russia plans to locally build 6,000 drones by next summer.

A February report by the RUSI think tank, cited by the unnamed senior U.S. defense official, who declined to offer a full set of American figures, said Russia can produce 3,000 armored vehicles per year and had surged its inventory of precision missiles.

Its force inside Ukraine has also grown.

Last year, Russia increased the age limit for the draft from 27 to 30, which the U.S. estimates will add a pool of 2 million eligible conscripts.

And the Kremlin set a goal to recruit more than 400,000 troops — part of a larger target to grow the military to 1.5 million service members by 2026. To do so, Russia offered lavish signing bonuses and salaries, which in some areas are more than five times the average paycheck, according to an Estonian intelligence report.

It’s unclear whether Moscow already met this goal. But Cavoli said in April that Russia was recruiting about 30,000 new soldiers per month and had surged its front-line end strength to 470,000, larger than the Russian army before the war.

Is the military growth sustainable?

In early May, Adm. Tony Radakin, the professional head of the U.K. armed forces, sat down with reporters in the British Embassy in Washington. Speaking over cookies and tea, he discussed Russia’s recent advances.

The Russian military was making marginal progress, but still relying on Soviet-era inventories to restock and struggling to train its newest recruits, Radakin said. The force was on pace to suffer 500,000 casualties by the end of June, he estimated.

“That is an astonishing loss of life and Russian nationhood that has been wasted for such modest gains,” he said.

But a day after he spoke, Russia began a new offensive near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

Ukrainian servicemen fire a BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher toward Russian positions in the Kharkiv region on May 15, 2024. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)

Such attacks raise another question: How long can Russia sustain its operations?

Aside from drones, much of its wartime output has relied on vast warehouses of Soviet-era weapons. To reconstitute materiel lost in battle, Russia is emptying these, repairing the equipment and then sending it all to the front lines — one reason the estimates of Russia’s industrial capacity vary so widely.

“A lot of people are reading some headline figures and then assuming that it’s all new production,” Connolly said.

As an example, he pointed to main battle tanks. Before the war, he said, Russia was delivering about 150 to 250 a year. But of those, he assessed, about 20 to 30 would have been new, while the rest were heavily refurbished.

So while Cavoli’s written testimony in April said Russia could make up to 1,200 tanks per year, Connolly estimated that, at a maximum, 400 of those are new or heavily refurbished. Everything else, he said, is pulled from storage, lightly repaired and then deployed.

The RUSI report from February estimated about 80% of Russia’s wartime production was actually refurbished, aging materiel.

“Of course inventory becomes very important: What was that number to begin with, and what was the state of it?” Connolly said. “Truth is, nobody knows.”

European and American defense officials made the same point. Russia has vast stocks, but they’re not unlimited, which could be why it relies on partners like Iran, Belarus and North Korea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center right, visit the Vostochny Cosmodrome spaceport in Russia's region of Amur on Sept. 13, 2023. (Mikhail Metzel/AFP via Getty Images)

“When you are doing the reform and you are trying to enlarge your military, you are probably losing the quality,” a defense official from a NATO member state told Defense News, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic.

That said, the war in Ukraine has been more about attrition than precision, the official said. In other words, it may not matter much whether Russian soldiers are using a 50-year-old T-72 tank or a new one.

The same questions of sustainability also apply to Ukraine, which has a smaller defense industry, an unreliable source of support in America, and less eligible soldiers. Earlier this year, Kyiv lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 to regenerate its armed forces.

Sitting in the British Embassy, Radakin said it would probably take about a decade for Russia to seriously threaten NATO again. Despite Russia’s refreshed troop levels, its invasion of Ukraine will eventually collapse, though he would not guess at that timeline.

“I don’t think it is sustainable,” he said. “But I don’t know at which point it becomes unsustainable.”

About Noah Robertson

Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.

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Defense News · by Noah Robertson · May 21, 2024

12. US has no plan to send military trainers into Ukraine, top general says

Because the US foreign policy and national security "prime directive" is do not do anything that might cause escalation. It pains me to read these reports when it is obvious how a handful of advisors could provide important support (as well as provide us with a better situational understanding about what is actually happening on the ground).

US has no plan to send military trainers into Ukraine, top general says

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-has-no-plan-send-military-trainers-into-ukraine-top-general-says-2024-05-20/?utm

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

May 20, 20243:17 PM EDTUpdated 16 hours ago

U.S. General Charles Q. Brown Junior looks on during a media statement with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (not pictured) following a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the American military's Ramstein Air Base, near Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany, March 19, 2024. REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen/ File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. is not planning to send military trainers into Ukraine and would likely do so only when the war there with Russia is over, the top U.S. general said on Monday, after France opened the door to sending troops to train Kyiv's forces.

More than two years into the war, Russian are slowly advancing in eastern Ukraine, exploiting Ukrainian shortages of manpower and months of delays in arms supplies from the West.

That has raised questions about what more the United States and its allies can do, beyond funneling billions of dollars in weaponry and providing intelligence and training to Ukrainian military forces from outside of the country.

"Right now, there are no plans to bring U.S. trainers into Ukraine," General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

"Once this conflict is over and we're in a better place, then I would suspect we would be able to bring trainers back in," Brown added.

The United States had about 150 military trainers inside Ukraine until Russia invaded the country in February 2022.

French President Emmanuel Macron in February opened the door to European nations sending troops to Ukraine.

Since then, other European leaders have publicly opposed the idea and Macron's foreign minister sought to clarify the comments, saying that Paris could send troops to Ukraine for specific needs, but not to fight in the war against Russia.

French diplomats said Macron's idea was to stoke debate on the issue, but there were no concrete plans in that direction.

Brown spoke alongside U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after a meeting of Ukraine's military backers. Both he and Austin stressed the need to support Kyiv as it faces growing pressure from Russian forces in Kharkiv.

The Pentagon dismissed a suggestion from former top State Department official Victoria Nuland to ABC News that President Joe Biden should drop his prohibition on Ukraine using U.S. weaponry to strike targets inside Russia, which the White House has feared could lead to a direct conflict with Moscow.

Brown said that he believed Ukraine had not used U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems inside Russian territory.

Coming soon: Get the latest news and expert analysis about the state of the global economy with Reuters Econ World. Sign up here.

Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Phil Stewart

Thomson Reuters

Phil Stewart has reported from more than 60 countries, including Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and South Sudan. An award-winning Washington-based national security reporter, Phil has appeared on NPR, PBS NewsHour, Fox News and other programs and moderated national security events, including at the Reagan National Defense Forum and the German Marshall Fund. He is a recipient of the Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence and the Joe Galloway Award.

Idrees Ali

Thomson Reuters

National security correspondent focusing on the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Reports on U.S. military activity and operations throughout the world and the impact that they have. Has reported from over two dozen countries to include Iraq, Afghanistan, and much of the Middle East, Asia and Europe. From Karachi, Pakistan.

13. The Urgent Need for Security Clearance Reform

The Urgent Need for Security Clearance Reform

By Evan Loomis

May 21, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/05/21/the_urgent_need_for_security_clearance_reform_1032849.html?mc_cid=a671da3e1d&mc_eid=70bf478f36

"I wish you had a security clearance so I could tell you what's really going on." It's what those of us working on cutting-edge defense and intelligence technologies hear regularly, and it captures the problem of America's outdated security clearance system.

Born out of the post-World War II era, the U.S. security clearance system was designed for a different time — one of monolithic, slow-moving threats and a government monopoly on foundational research. However, in today's world of rapid technological change, this once-effective system has become a major roadblock. It hinders the creative potential of our brightest minds and leaves investors in the dark, unable to direct resources towards critical national challenges.

The contemporary clearance system has four main levels: Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI), Top Secret (TS), Secret (S), and Confidential (C). Each level grants access to increasingly sensitive information, with TS/SCI being the highest. Obtaining a clearance involves a lengthy background investigation process that can take months or even years.

The problem? Modern technological advancements often occur in weeks, even days. Today's entrepreneurs succeed by rapidly testing product ideas with users, iterating until they achieve product-market fit. But product-market fit is unattainable when the core customer is prohibited from articulating their true needs.

Because of the slow-moving clearance process, tech entrepreneurs and investors are often shut out of substantive discussions with defense and intelligence leaders. They are forced to make crucial product decisions without access to specific, timely insights into the government's actual problems and pain points.

The outdated security clearance process compels public servants to communicate in frustratingly vague terms to the uncleared. "I can’t read you in” becomes a conversation stopper. Government officials, too, find themselves constrained by this setup, unable to effectively signal where private sector innovations could be most impactful. As a former senior CIA executive confided to me, the clearance quagmire suffocates collaboration between government agencies and commercial enterprises, leaving even top leaders hamstrung.

The system also creates a bias towards established incumbents with existing clearances. The large prime contractors with security credentials effectively have a monopoly on defense and intelligence innovation.

The problem is compounded when working with allies. Since classification systems differ across countries, we cannot easily share requirements with even our closest partners for joint technology development. This hampers our ability to collaborate effectively with key partners like Japan and the U.K. on critical national security innovations.

Some targeted disclosure mechanisms — like ad hoc "executive briefings" — do exist. In these settings, officials can verbally share classified details with company leaders in secure rooms. But these mechanisms are underutilized and insufficient for aligning mission needs with external innovation.

The Pentagon claims to desire the private sector's agility and innovation, yet it maintains internal systems that stifle the very communication required to tap into that dynamism. The result is diffuse investment, solution-starved agencies, and a failure to run faster than our adversaries. The situation is untenable, and if unresolved, will harm America’s national security.

It's time for a fresh approach. The White House and Congress should overhaul the clearance system for the 21st century. Establish expedited paths for pre-vetted entrepreneurs and investors to gain access to specific, less sensitive problem sets. Enable cleared founders to swiftly test product concepts with warfighters and intelligence officers. Create agile feedback loops to guide private-sector innovation.

Through targeted transparency, we can ignite a free exchange of ideas between our most innovative minds and our most important missions. Founders can achieve genuine product-market fit, delivering immense value. Empowered investors can channel more capital to startups addressing government needs. And our nation can leverage its greatest strength: the creativity of free citizens driven to safeguard our future.

Evan Loomis is a co-founder of ICON Technology and an early-stage venture investor at Overmatch, with a focus on critical technology, space, and defense.

14. US Army exports multinational combat training center to Philippines

US Army exports multinational combat training center to Philippines

Defense News · by Jen Judson · May 20, 2024

MANILA and HONOLULU – The U.S. Army is exporting its Joint Pacific Multinational Combat Training Center to the Philippines as the Southeast Asia country seeks to enhance and modernize its defense strategy.

The Philippines’ “concept of operations is shifting into one of more territorial defense operations and they’re beginning to train with that,” Gen. Charles Flynn, U.S. Army Pacific commander, told Defense News in an interview at the Association of the U.S. Army’s LANPAC conference in Honolulu.

The U.S. Army is bringing its JPMRC Exportable to Fort Magsaysay located in central Luzon where jungle training and even special operations training takes place and can accommodate a larger scale collective training event. Even so, the Philippines Armed Forces lack a training center at the scale of the JPMRC.

The center set up is nearly complete and the JPMRC rotation will begin this month, according to leaders in charge of the effort.

U.S. joint forces and the Philippines Armed Forces recently completed major exercises together – the first phase of Salaknib as well as Balikatan. Balikatan wrapped up on May 9 and a second phase of Salaknib is beginning with JPMRC X as a focus.

During Balikatan, “we executed long-range air assaults off the northern portion of Luzon with our 3rd Brigade Combat Team, and across the joint force projecting force into the islands in the Luzon Strait,” Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans, U.S. Army commander of the 25th Infantry Division based in Hawaii, told Defense News at LANPAC.

“What that provided us is an opportunity to work with the joint force, work with the Philippines Army and our experience with their 5th Infantry Division and 7th Infantry Division over the course of these last three months has really been exceptional. We will culminate this at the end of May, beginning of June with a Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotation forward in the Philippines, which will be the first one west of the International Date Line,” Evans said.

Herculean effort

The 25th ID, which runs the JPMRC rotations in Hawaii, will have the full complement of instrumentation which allows the Army to collect data and “allows us to see ourselves and our Philippine army teammates and grow from lessons learned that we’re experiencing in a jungle environment,” he said.

The U.S. Army took an exportable version of JPMRC “to a lesser degree” out to Australia for Talisman Sabre in 2023 as well as in Indonesia for Super Garuda Shield, Evans said.

“What is different about this year is that we are going to take our full suite of instrumentation capabilities,” Evans explained.

“As an example, we’re going to be able to monitor our forces as well as the Philippines Armed Forces as they are executing operations that simulate a combat environment,” he said. “We will be able to assess indirect fires employment, we will be able to assess how quickly they are able to treat their casualties, how quickly they are able to move and sustain the force, what their water consumption is, what their power generation capability is, how effective they are with using their mission command.”

The Army has spent the last 45 days at Fort Magsaysay to prepare the center for the training, Evans said. “I personally flew and … went through the terrain, went with our aviation brigade looking at different helicopter landing zones,” he noted.

Because there is not an infrastructure for such training in the Philippines, Evans said, the Army is bringing in towers with sensors and other technology from Hawaii, flying it to the Philippines and using helicopters to set them on top of a mountain to be able to emit signals and collect training data. “It’s a Herculean effort,” he said.

Over a period of about two weeks, observer controllers will be able to provide after action reviews using real-time data collected through instrumentation and technology and fed into a model to help understand how to act, learn and adapt, according to Evans.

The Army’s 25th Infantry Division headquarters, through Balikatan, is already integrated and combined with the Philippines 7th ID headquarters, Brig. Gen. David Zinn, told Defense News at the division’s camp at Fort Magsaysay earlier this month.

“That may lend itself to introduce some of those capabilities” during the JPMRC X event, he said. “There is a variety of expertise that we learned from our [Filipino] partners.

“One, they understand the environment and they certainly understand the human terrain very will in the country. They conduct civil affairs operations very well, integrated into their operations as part of their planning,” Zinn said. “They modify the load plans and travel light and they’re able to move pretty quickly, tactically, in the terrain in the environment.”

The JPMRC X will continue to participate in exercises down the road in the Pacific.

“I think there is opportunities across Operation Pathways that we could look forward to in the future,” Evans said. Operation Pathways is a series of exercises conducted throughout the year between the U.S. Army and its partners and allies throughout the Indo-Pacific theater.

But first, the 25th ID will have its own annual JPMRC rotation which will occur on Oahu and also in Palau, according to Evans.

The Army is likely to take JPMRC to Thailand for the Cobra Gold exercise next year and also back to the Philippines during next year’s Balikatan and Salaknib, Flynn said.

“We’re getting to the point where it’s being asked for so much that we have to moderate and kind of do proper scheduling because of the requests for that capability,” he added.

About Jen Judson

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

​15. House defense policy draft: A good first step, but some missed opportunities

No mention of Special Operations related legaition such as the 10 U.S. Code § 322 - Special operations forces: training with friendly foreign forces. These issues rarely make anyone's radar screen.

House defense policy draft: A good first step, but some missed opportunities - Breaking Defense

breakingdefense.com · by Elaine McCusker, John Ferrari · May 20, 2024

The Virginia-class attack submarine Minnesota (SSN 783) is under construction at Huntington Ingalls Newport News Shipbuilding. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Newport News Shipbuilding/Released)

On May 13, the House Armed Services Committee released the chairman’s mark for the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. This week, the HASC will sit in full committee and hash out the details before a final vote. Ahead of that event — and it is often an “event,” one which can last into the early hours of the next day — Elaine McCusker and John Ferrari of the American Enterprise Institute lay out what they see as the good, the fine, and the missed chances of the chairman’s mark.

Given the limited number of remaining joint legislative days before the end of the fiscal year and the inevitable distraction accompanying a presidential election, aggressive action on must-pass bills, like the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is even more important than usual — particularly if it also prompts movement of the annual defense funding bill that could support an enhanced continuing resolution when time runs out this fall.

To that end, the released drafts for the bill House Armed Services Committee’s version of the annual defense authorization bill is moving in the right direction — although the scope and size of the bill mean there will always be plenty of debate along the way.

Some positives in the bill include a push for better pay for junior service members, addition of a second Virginia-class submarine, and an emphasis on drones.

Not content to wait for comprehensive compensation proposals from the Pentagon, the House authorizers have set a high bar in fixing military pay by proposing an increase of nearly 15 percent for the junior enlisted part of the force, on top of the 4.5 percent pay raise all military personnel would get. The bill would also increase housing stipends and broaden eligibility for the benefit that provides additional cash for service members with dependents. These changes are good for the force, but would cost the Pentagon billions that, without an increase in the top line, will have to come from somewhere else in the defense budget.

In providing authority to use incremental funding for construction of an additional Virginia-class submarine, the committee correctly notes the negative impact on the industrial base and supply chain that stems from the year-on-year unpredictability of the Navy’s shipbuilding plans. It further points out a foundational element of the AUKUS trilateral security partnership was the commitment to two SSNs plus one Columbia submarine per year, on which the Navy’s budget request falls short.

Not surprisingly, various policy, procurement, manufacturing, integration and management elements of unmanned systems and drones is a theme that runs through many of the subcommittee drafts. Most notably, the committee would create an Army drone corps, elevating the use of unmanned systems. Employing a tool that is often overused by authorizers — more on this in a moment — but that can also call attention to important subjects, the NDAA also directs a series of studies and reports on related things like drone-agnostic droppable munitions, plans to fill tactical unmanned aerial systems gaps, fielding counter-unmanned aircraft systems capabilities to brigade combat teams, passive multi-static radar technology for mobile counter unmanned aircraft systems, and expanded testing of commercially available autonomous systems.

The bill also needs some improvement, particularly when it comes to questions of resourcing and the budget process itself, where authorizers have shown leadership in the past.

The committee missed a major opportunity by not setting the marker for the defense budget America needs for the most important task the Constitution assigns to the Congress: providing for the common defense. While authorizers do not appropriate funding, their expertise and influence has an impact in framing the defense spending debate. Not calling for money over the budget caps, and explaining to the public why that is needed, is a huge, missed opportunity.

In addition, rather than taking action on legislation proposed by the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution reform commission to increase responsiveness and adaptability the house draft marks direct cross-functional teams to review the commission report. Though the commission recommended DoD establish an implementation team to oversee internal changes, this is not the action needed from Congress for positive, timely improvements.

There are also several areas where the draft legislation could be improved as it moves ahead — specifically by not weighing down the department with additional bureaucracy, not accepting a force that is too small, and reducing rather than adding to the number of studies, reviews, reports and briefings required.

As we are learning in Ukraine and in other wars, the size of the force matters. Yet, the administration has requested, and the committees have so far accepted, a force that is smaller than what we have today. Instead, the House should assume that their proposed enhancements to pay and other quality of life benefits will succeed and authorize the force the nation needs.

While increasing the fighting force, the committee should avoid adding more layers of Pentagon bureaucracy, such as the proposed new Chief Talent Officer. While the DoD needs to do a better job at managing talent, adding more people in the Pentagon is historically not a productive approach to solving such problems.

Finally, as has become increasingly customary in the huge defense policy bills, the subcommittees have loaded the Department with new studies, reports, and briefings, a practice that typically compounds as the authorization bill moves through Congress. A new practice should be followed where each increased requirement is accompanied by the removal of three legacy mandates.

Taken all together, the committees should be commended for producing this complex legislation so quickly after the late release of the budget request. As the House moves the legislation through the full committee and then to the floor for a vote, they should also embrace opportunities to improve it and focus it more squarely on military capabilities.

Elaine McCusker is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) think tank. She previously served as the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary of defense (comptroller). Retired US Army Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at AEI. Ferrari previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.

breakingdefense.com · by Elaine McCusker, John Ferrari · May 20, 2024

​16. Americans in alleged Congo coup plot formed an unlikely band

Everyone wants to be a "revolutionary." It probably sounded like a good idea at the time (right after one of the three probably said, "hold my beer.")

Americans in alleged Congo coup plot formed an unlikely band

https://apnews.com/article/congo-coup-attempt-death-toll-malanga-tshisekedi-968b2726546f90a8bfbd5d222d513708?utm

FILE - Congolese security forces secure the streets after Congo’s army said it has “foiled a coup” and arrested the perpetrators, following a shootout, in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Sunday May 19, 2024. Six people were killed during brazen attacks in Congo’s capital Kinshasa on Sunday. Two guards of a close ally of Congo’s president and four of the perpetrators of the attacks, including their leader, were killed, Congolese army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Sylvain Ekenge told The Associated Press on Monday, May 20, 2024 (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi, File)

BY  JESSICA DONATI, BRADY MCCOMBS, MICHAEL BIESECKER AND HANNAH SCHOENBAUM

Updated 9:30 PM EDT, May 20, 2024

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Three Americans involved in a brazen weekend attack on Congo’s presidential palace formed an unlikely band under the leadership of eccentric opposition figure Christian Malanga, who dabbled in gold mining and used cars before persuading his Utah-born son to join in the foiled coup, according to officials’ description of events.

Six people, including Malanga, were dead and dozens arrested, including the three Americans, following that attack and another on the residence of a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi, the Congolese army spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Sylvain Ekenge, said.

Ekenge said Malanga was killed in a shootout early Sunday with presidential guards. The situation “is under control,” he said.

Authorities said they were still trying to untangle how Malanga’s 21-year-old son, Marcel, went from playing high school football to allegedly trying to unseat the leader of one of Africa’s largest countries.

“My son is innocent,” his mother, Brittney Sawyer, wrote in an email to The Associated Press, declining to elaborate.

Sawyer had regularly posted proud family photos on social media, including one in December showing Marcel, a young sister and a toddler hugging in matching Christmas pajamas. In 2020, she posted photos of Marcel lifting weights and dancing during COVID lockdown.

In a Facebook post early Monday, Sawyer angrily wrote that her son had followed his father. “This was an innocent boy following his father. I’m so tired of all the videos being posted all over and being sent to me. God will take care of you people!”

One video that circulated on social media showed her son alongside a bloodied white man, whose identity was unclear, both covered in dust and surrounded by Congolese soldiers. Marcel has his hands raised and a frightened look on his face.

It was far from the persona that Marcel appeared to have been building in videos recently posted on Facebook and TikTok showing him posing with stacks of dollar bills and talking about women.

His father, Malanga, had described himself on his website as a refugee who thrived after settling in the U.S. with his family in the 1990s. He said he became a leader of a Congolese opposition political party and met high-level officials in Washington and the Vatican. He also described himself as a devoted husband and father of eight.

Court records and interviews paint another picture.

In 2001, the year he turned 18, Malanga was convicted in Utah in incidents including assault with a firearm that resulted in a 30-day jail sentence and three years of probation. That same year, he was charged with domestic violence assault in one incident and battery and disturbing the peace in another, but he pleaded not guilty and all counts in both cases were dismissed.

In 2004, he was charged with domestic violence with threat of using a dangerous weapon, but he pleaded not guilty and the charges were dismissed. Since 2004, records show several cases related to a custody dispute and a child support dispute. It is unclear if the disputes involved Sawyer.

Malanga’s relatives gathered Monday afternoon at the West Jordan home of his mother, Chantal Malanga, to mourn. A steady flow of friends dropped by with plates of food and to offer condolences.

Sydney, a cousin of Christian Malanga’s who answered the door, told AP the family was feeling “heartbroken” and “so raw” after learning of his death. They were discussing plans for a possible funeral in Utah, she said, without giving further details.

Malanga described himself as the organizer of the United Congolese Party, a movement aimed at organizing emigres like him against the “current Congolese dictatorship government regime.” He also described himself as president of the “New Zaire” government in exile and published a manifesto that detailed plans including creating business opportunities and reforming Congo’s security services.

Photos on Facebook and his website show him meeting then-senior U.S. political figures, including former Utah Rep. Rob Bishop and New York Rep. Peter King.

Bishop told AP he did not recall the meeting and couldn’t tell when the photo was taken. King could not be reached for comment.

Dino Mahtani, an independent researcher into African issues, said he first heard of Malanga in 2018 while serving as a political adviser to the United Nations in Congo. He said Congolese authorities voiced suspicions that Malanga was involved in a purported plot to kill then-President Joseph Kabila.

In an interview, Mahtani said he had never met Malanga in person but thinks Malanga was obsessed with capturing some form of power in Congo.

He also speculated Malanga had been set up or betrayed in the weekend attack, given the implausible way it was carried out.

“Somebody put him up to this. It could be external plotters, but given his previous close relationship with at least one of Tshiskedi’s current military commanders, there’s some chance the plot was known about internally and this allowed them to move quickly,” Mahtani said.

The alleged coup attempt began at the Kinshasa residence of Vital Kamerhe, a federal legislator and a candidate for speaker of the National Assembly of Congo. His guards killed the attackers, officials said.

Malanga, meanwhile, was live-streaming video from the presidential palace in which he is seen surrounded by several people in military uniforms wandering around in the middle of the night. He was later killed while resisting arrest, Congolese authorities said.

Congo officials have not commented on how the attackers were able to get inside.

“Its really difficult to imagine how 20, 30 guys thought that by storming the presidential palace when nobody is around at 4 a.m. in the morning could somehow take over the Congolese state,” Mahtani said.

A second American allegedly involved was identified as Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, according to images of a U.S. passport circulated by Congolese media. He graduated from the University of Colorado and attended business administration classes at Georgetown University, court records indicate. He later started a commodity trading business and worked as a courier and Uber driver, the records show.

His connection to Malanga appeared to be through a gold mining company that was set up in Mozambique in 2022, according to an official journal published by Mozambique’s government, and a report by Africa Intelligence newsletter.

Zalman-Polun pleaded guilty in 2014 to drug trafficking charges in the U.S., admitting that he conspired with a friend to ship at least 20 kilograms of marijuana from a home base in Lake Tahoe, California, to customers across the United States. Prosecutors requested leniency, citing the “substantial assistance” they said he provided in their investigation.

His attorney in that case did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

No information was released on the third American.

The U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa said it was aware “U.S. citizens might have been involved in Sunday’s events,” adding in a statement that it would cooperate with authorities “as they investigate these violent criminal acts.”

___

This story has been corrected to show that Zalman-Polun pleaded guilty in 2015.

___

McCombs reported from Salt Lake City, Utah; Schoenbaum from West Jordan, Utah; and Biesecker from Washington. Associated Press writers Christina Malkia in Kinshasa, Congo; Michelle Price in New York; and Eric Tucker in Washington, contributed to this report.

MICHAEL BIESECKER

Biesecker is a global investigative reporter for The Associated Press, based in Washington. He reports on a wide range of topics, including human conflict, climate change and political corruption.

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HANNAH SCHOENBAUM

Schoenbaum is a government and politics reporter based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She also covers general news in the Rockies and LGBTQ+ rights policies in U.S. statehouses.

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17. PAC-3 MSE launched from virtual Aegis ship hits cruise missile target

PAC-3 MSE launched from virtual Aegis ship hits cruise missile target

Defense News · by Jen Judson · May 20, 2024

A Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement missile launched from a virtual Aegis Weapon System hit a live target in a recent Lockheed Martin test executed in partnership with multiple U.S. military services.

The PAC-3 MSE was fired from an MK-70 containerized launch platform using Lockheed’s Virtualized Aegis Weapon System to intercept the target simulating a cruise missile, the company said in a statement May 20.

The test is the culmination of Lockheed’s effort, begun in 2017, to pursue an upgraded missile capability for the U.S. Navy that would allow it to avoid a typically lengthy and costly missile development schedule.

“The U.S. Navy has capability and capacity gaps against advanced threats at sea,” Tom Copeman, vice president of naval systems within Lockheed’s missiles and fire control business, told Defense News in an interview earlier this year. The Patriot missile is “a combat-proven weapon against advanced threats, against hypersonic [weapons],” he said.

The capability is “definitely complementary to what [the Navy has] today,” Shireen Melvin, director of integrated combat management within the company’s rotary and mission systems business, said in the same interview.

By the end of the year, Lockheed will have spent roughly $100 million on the PAC-3 MSE integration effort so far, Copeman noted.

The PAC-3 MSE, as the upgraded missile is known, already has a hot production line in Camden, Arkansas, that is currently ramping up to produce 550 missiles a year. The missile is typically fired from the U.S. Army’s Patriot air-and-missile defense system. Lockheed has plans to increase its production numbers as it replenishes the stockpile of missiles sent to Ukraine since Russia invaded over two years ago.

The Missile Defense Agency provided Lockheed with a small amount of funding early on to integrate PAC-3 MSE into its Aegis Ashore baseline capability. Aegis Ashore provides missile defense capability from a deckhouse on land. There is one operational Aegis Ashore in Romania and another in Poland that is expected to reach full operational capability soon.

That effort did not include a live-fire test, but rather a hardware-in-the-loop test in the fall of 2022 using Army launchers instead of Navy platforms at the Pacific Missile Range Facility.

Lockheed then invested internally to integrate PAC-3 MSE to be fired from Aegis ships.

In summer 2023, Lockheed proved it could integrate PAC-3 MSE missiles with the Aegis SPY-1 radar, an integrated air-and-missile defense sensor, aboard Aegis capable ships. There are nearly 100 SPY-1 radars aboard Aegis cruisers and destroyers.

The live-fire test now, “showcases Lockheed Martin’s commitment to developing mission-focused, integrated technology to keep those who serve ahead of evolving threats,” Copeman, said in the statement. “These systems could deliver a proven, Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) capability with growing capacity to the U.S. to help defend against advanced, maneuverable threats.”

The hope is the Navy or Defense Department will now choose to conduct further tests that could lead to an initial operational capability on a ship, Copeman said earlier this year.

“As of yet, that has not been funded by the DOD,” he said.

About Jen Judson

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

18. Opinion | The Death of Iran’s President Does Not Bode Well

Excerpts:

The larger issue of Mr. Khamenei’s succession, of course, also still hangs over the republic. It is often suggested that his son Mojtaba might assume his father’s mantle. The Islamic Republic may have dispensed with charismatic authority and theological erudition as preconditions for that post, but it does not favor dynastic succession, which is still seen by revolutionary leaders as an indulgence of Persian monarchs and Arab presidents. The younger Khamenei may continue to have an outsized role in the background, but his formal promotion would be difficult for Iran’s leaders to justify. That means another hard-line cleric of some stature and close ties to the security services will likely be considered, such as Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts tasked with selecting the next supreme leader.

All this augurs poorly for the Iranian people and the international community alike. The generation on the cusp of taking power sees domestic oppression and foreign aggression as indispensable to the success of the revolution. They are even more resentful of the public’s widely held democratic aspirations than Mr. Raisi’s generation, equating all forms of dissent with sedition against the republic and the faith. Mr. Raisi’s death may give these younger men an opportunity to finally have their day.

Opinion | The Death of Iran’s President Does Not Bode Well

By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh

Mr. Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The New York Times · by Ray Takeyh · May 20, 2024

Guest Essay

​May 20, 2024

By Reuel Marc Gerecht and

Mr. Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has not always seen eye to eye with his country’s presidents. Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani nudged the Islamic Republic too close to the West for the supreme leader’s liking. Mohammad Khatami rattled the conservative elite with subversive talk of how faith and freedom could coexist. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was too insubordinate and too populist, while Hassan Rouhani’s flirtation with the Americans and his disappointing arms-control agreement drove him out of the inner circle.

President Ebrahim Raisi, on the other hand, was Mr. Khamenei’s ideal partner. A lackluster manager with dispiriting rhetoric and a vicious streak, he was steadfastly loyal to Mr. Khamenei, who is 85 years old, and an integral part of his plan to ensure a smooth succession. Mr. Raisi’s sudden death in a helicopter crash on Sunday has thrown that plan into disarray, scrambled Iran’s backroom politics and could further empower a younger, more radical generation of politicians that would bring further repression at home and aggression overseas.

Mr. Raisi was a revolutionary with an ideologue’s integrity. Early on he was appointed to various prosecutorial roles, where he regularly sought — and secured — the execution of regime opponents. In 1988, he firmed up that reputation by serving on the so-called death commissions that executed upward of 5,000 political prisoners. He then spent much of his career in the regime’s darker corners, becoming the head of the judiciary before being elevated to the presidency.

Despite this deep experience and loyalty, it wasn’t clear that Mr. Raisi would be a suitable successor to Mr. Khamenei, a development many observers and Iranians feared. The challenge of managing a government at odds with much of its population and the international community requires an unusual mixture of cunning, intelligence and cruelty. Mr. Raisi only possessed the last. But even if his ascension was uncertain, Mr. Khamenei still relied upon the cleric to help manage the coming transition: Mr. Raisi was reportedly part of a three-man committee vested with the responsibility to choose the next supreme leader.

Mr. Khamenei will now need to find someone else as reliable to execute, as ruthlessly as required, his vision, and arrange another contrived election to install him. This will not be easy: Iran’s political system has been so relentlessly purged of those present at the creation of the republic that little of the old establishment is left.

The new political landscape is largely dominated by younger men who openly lament the older generation’s corruption, lack of revolutionary zeal and unwillingness to take on more forcefully a fading American imperium. And because Mr. Khamenei must rely on this new group to sustain the revolution’s values and keep the theocracy intact, he will have to take their sensibilities into account as he considers both the next president and who should succeed him as supreme leader.

This new cohort has been toughened by battling various popular insurrections. Many have served in the security services and the Revolutionary Guards. They have a strong showing in the hard-line Paydari Party, which now holds the majority in parliament. Among its most vocal members are Morteza Aqa-Tehrani, one of the party’s leaders, and Mehrdad Bazrpash, the minister of roads and urban development in Mr. Raisi’s government. They favor presidential contenders like Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, who has demonstrated contempt for international norms and democratic accountability.

Mr. Raisi had little to say about matters beyond Iran’s borders. Foreign affairs really wasn’t his domain, though he did support the regime’s imperial adventures and recent clash with Israel. But Mr. Khamenei’s more youthful disciples have come of age as America has been retrenching in the Middle East, enjoying the talk in Washington of getting out of America’s so-called forever wars. Unlike many of their “neither East nor West” elders, they’ve welcomed the Chinese and Russian alliance with Iran and see the international arena, unlike the home front, as a domain where they can succeed.

The rising influence of this younger generation in the wake of Mr. Raisi’s death may also have a significant effect on Iran’s nuclear calculations. What appeared to be Mr. Khamenei’s cautious approach to constructing and testing a nuclear device may give way to voices eager to get on with it. The effort, on the other hand, of marshaling multinational proxy forces to do Iran’s bidding in the region will almost certainly persist unaltered, as its success is hard to question.

The larger issue of Mr. Khamenei’s succession, of course, also still hangs over the republic. It is often suggested that his son Mojtaba might assume his father’s mantle. The Islamic Republic may have dispensed with charismatic authority and theological erudition as preconditions for that post, but it does not favor dynastic succession, which is still seen by revolutionary leaders as an indulgence of Persian monarchs and Arab presidents. The younger Khamenei may continue to have an outsized role in the background, but his formal promotion would be difficult for Iran’s leaders to justify. That means another hard-line cleric of some stature and close ties to the security services will likely be considered, such as Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts tasked with selecting the next supreme leader.

All this augurs poorly for the Iranian people and the international community alike. The generation on the cusp of taking power sees domestic oppression and foreign aggression as indispensable to the success of the revolution. They are even more resentful of the public’s widely held democratic aspirations than Mr. Raisi’s generation, equating all forms of dissent with sedition against the republic and the faith. Mr. Raisi’s death may give these younger men an opportunity to finally have their day.

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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The New York Times · by Ray Takeyh · May 20, 2024

19. Opinion | America Hits the Global Snooze Button

And not one mention of Korea. Yes we really are asleep (and yes I am showing my bias).

Excerpts:

The goal is to trap America between two losing choices. We can focus all our efforts and energies on one theater—China, Ukraine or the Middle East—or we can attempt to stop everything everywhere. Neither approach solves our problems. If we ignore Ukraine and the Middle East to focus on China, then Russia and Iran can undermine our alliances and shift the geopolitical balance in their favor. If we focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine, then China and Iran can advance their own regional plans.

To avoid this, some argue that the U.S. should simultaneously confront our adversaries across all three theaters. But we lack the military resources for such a strategy. Even if we had the necessary capabilities, American public opinion isn’t yet united or focused enough for an effort as serious and consuming as the Cold War. Count on the revisionists to use everything in their propaganda tool kit to postpone America’s awakening—and extend their hour of opportunity.

Security analysts generally believe that relatively modest defense increases by Washington could stabilize the military balance. That, plus a mix of more forceful American diplomacy and deeper cooperation with key allies, might halt the slide to war.

Team Biden, unfortunately, would rather starve the military and embrace the diplomacy of retreat. There is an off-ramp for every provocation, a search for a “diplomatic solution” to every military attack.

This can’t last. Our adversaries have ambitious goals. We face an increasingly successful and ambitious assault on the U.S.’s international position. Either we and our allies recover our military might and political will, or our foes will fatally undermine the edifice of American power and the international order that depends on it.

The Wall Street Journal

Following

Opinion | America Hits the Global Snooze Button

Opinion by Walter Russell Mead • May 20, 2024 • 3 min read

https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-hits-the-global-snooze-button-but-cannot-afford-to-rest-national-security-9980a911?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Opinion | America Hits the Global Snooze Button© Provided by The Wall Street Journal

“This is 1938,” historian Timothy Snyder said at a weekend conference in Estonia. He warned that a Ukrainian defeat would shift the calendar to 1939.

Many Americans still don’t fully grasp how serious the international situation has become. Iran has set the Middle East ablaze, Russia is advancing in Ukraine, and China is pursuing pressure campaigns against Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.

Even more challenging times lie ahead. While Washington and its allies try to calm things and return the world to something like normalcy, the revisionists are strengthening their cooperation and mobilizing their societies and economies for war.

Iran’s sputtering economy has powered its war machine for years. Neither U.S. sanctions nor the costs of supporting proxy militias across the Mideast have prevented Tehran from developing a nuclear program and a massive drone industry. Russia and China are moving in the same direction.

The war in Ukraine was a wake-up call for Russia. Once Kremlin hopes of an early victory disappeared, Moscow put Russia’s society and economy on a war footing for the long term. Dissent is quashed, antiwar protesters are mercilessly pursued, and schools teach hatred of the West. Meanwhile, Mr. Putin appointed the man behind Russia’s recent gains in drones and microelectronics, Andrei Belousov, to modernize the military industrial base.

China’s war preparations are much more advanced than most Americans understand. A recent report by Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute estimates that measured by purchasing power parity China is nearly matching America’s global defense spending. Although its civilian economy is suffering, Beijing is doubling down on the greatest military buildup in history.

That isn’t all. China is stockpiling key commodities to prevent interruptions in trade that would accompany a war. It is driving for self-sufficiency in energy and food. Under proposed legislation, high-school and college students would face the prospect of compulsory military training.

The revisionists have either developed or stumbled onto a coherent and, so far, successful strategy. The economic and potentially the military might of America and its allies far surpasses what the revisionists can bring to the table. Yet the U.S. and its allies are politically and militarily unprepared for war in the short to medium term. The revisionists therefore want to escalate crises around the globe without triggering an overwhelming response as, for example, Japan did by bombing Pearl Harbor in 1941. Against this pressure, they reason, the disorganized allies will retreat, conciliate and appease.

So far, that bet has paid off. Russia is winning its uneven contest with the West. Iran, despite the sudden death of President Ebrahim Raisi, is on a roll in the Middle East. China’s relentless campaign of small-scale menacing acts, known as “gray-zone aggression,” is eroding America’s power in the Far East.

The goal is to trap America between two losing choices. We can focus all our efforts and energies on one theater—China, Ukraine or the Middle East—or we can attempt to stop everything everywhere. Neither approach solves our problems. If we ignore Ukraine and the Middle East to focus on China, then Russia and Iran can undermine our alliances and shift the geopolitical balance in their favor. If we focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine, then China and Iran can advance their own regional plans.

To avoid this, some argue that the U.S. should simultaneously confront our adversaries across all three theaters. But we lack the military resources for such a strategy. Even if we had the necessary capabilities, American public opinion isn’t yet united or focused enough for an effort as serious and consuming as the Cold War. Count on the revisionists to use everything in their propaganda tool kit to postpone America’s awakening—and extend their hour of opportunity.

Security analysts generally believe that relatively modest defense increases by Washington could stabilize the military balance. That, plus a mix of more forceful American diplomacy and deeper cooperation with key allies, might halt the slide to war.

Team Biden, unfortunately, would rather starve the military and embrace the diplomacy of retreat. There is an off-ramp for every provocation, a search for a “diplomatic solution” to every military attack.

This can’t last. Our adversaries have ambitious goals. We face an increasingly successful and ambitious assault on the U.S.’s international position. Either we and our allies recover our military might and political will, or our foes will fatally undermine the edifice of American power and the international order that depends on it.

20. How China Will Squeeze, Not Seize, Taiwan

The Chinese may not fight the war for which we are preparing. It will take a political warfare strategy (built on the foundation of a strong defense) to defeat Unrestricted Warfare. 

Conclusion:

If the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, the United States and Taiwan should be as focused on developing strategies to prevent Taiwan’s slow subjugation as they are on forestalling outright invasion. If Washington cannot alter its single-minded outlook, it could end up as a bystander as Taiwan slips under creeping Chinese control in a silent fait accompli.

How China Will Squeeze, Not Seize, Taiwan

A Slow Strangulation Could Be Just as Bad as a War

By Isaac Kardon and Jennifer Kavanagh

May 21, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Isaac Kardon and Jennifer Kavanagh · May 21, 2024

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2021, Admiral Philip Davidson, the retiring commander of U.S. military joint forces in the Indo-Pacific, expressed concern that China was accelerating its timeline to unify with Taiwan by amphibious invasion. “I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact in the next six years,” he warned. This assessment that the United States is up against an urgent deadline to head off a Chinese attack on Taiwan—dubbed the “Davidson Window”—has since become a driving force in U.S. defense strategy and policy in Asia.

Indeed, the Defense Department has defined a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan as the “pacing scenario” around which U.S. military capabilities are benchmarked, major investments are made, and joint forces are trained and deployed. Taipei has been somewhat less fixated on this particular threat. But over the last decade, as the cross-strait military balance has tilted in Beijing’s favor, Taiwan’s leaders have ramped up their military spending and training expressly to deter and deny such an attack.

The threat of an amphibious invasion, however, is the wrong focal point for the United States’ efforts to protect Taiwan. China’s patient, long-term Taiwan policy, which treats unification as a “historical inevitability,” together with its modest record of military action abroad, suggests that Beijing’s more probable plan is to gradually intensify the policy it is already pursuing: a creeping encroachment into Taiwan’s airspace, maritime space, and information space. The world should expect to see more of what have come to be known as “gray-zone operations”—coercive activities in the military and economic domains that fall short of war.

This ongoing gray-zone influence campaign will not itself force Taiwan’s formal unification with the mainland. But over the course of many years, the expansion of China’s military, paramilitary, and civilian operations into Taiwan’s recognized spaces could reach certain intermediate objectives—most important, preventing the island from achieving formal independence—while preserving Beijing’s options to use force down the road. Left unchallenged, Beijing’s gray-zone campaign could also demonstrate the limits of the United States’ power in Asia. The United States and its allies are unlikely, for instance, to use the advanced missile systems they have built up in the region if China never provides a clear casus belli in the form of a brazen invasion. Instead, U.S. leaders may find themselves mired in debates over whether China has crossed a redline. With Washington hamstrung by uncertainty over how far China intends to push its gray-zone tactics, much of the responsibility for countering China’s campaign of encroachment will fall to Taiwan.

Although Taiwan’s leaders frequently draw attention to China’s coercive activities in and around the Taiwan Strait, most of the major military investments they have made in recent years—including fighter aircraft, tanks, and an indigenously produced submarine—are not well aligned with the insidious nature of the gray-zone threat. Going forward, Taipei should concentrate its efforts on building buffer zones across all domains, hardening its communications infrastructure, and accelerating its foreign direct investment to build economic links that are more resilient against Chinese disruption.

The United States must also break its fixation on the prospect of an invasion and become more alert to the dangers posed by a slow strangulation of Taiwan. Washington should bolster Taipei’s efforts by augmenting Taiwan’s surveillance capabilities, expanding the role of the U.S. Coast Guard across the South China and East China Seas and around Taiwan’s maritime approaches, and coordinating with commercial actors who may feel pressure to comply with Beijing’s restrictions. If current trends persist, it is likely that the Davidson Window will come and go with no war—but with Taiwan’s autonomy and the United States’ credibility greatly diminished.

DARKENING CLOUDS

Over the past decade, China has asserted itself with increasing potency in East Asian airspace, waters, and information sphere. Its coast guard and other maritime law enforcement vessels have used nonlethal methods to gain varied levels of control over waters disputed by Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam. In the early months of 2024 alone, Chinese coast guard vessels have undertaken dangerous maneuvers and fired water cannon to prevent the Philippines from resupplying a military outpost, Chinese diplomats have ignored the international Law of the Sea with new claims in the Gulf of Tonkin, and Chinese vessels have warned off Japanese aircraft operating in Japan’s territorial airspace around the Diaoyu Islands (known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands).

These measures reflect a fundamental intent to impose Chinese domestic law over disputed territories. Although Hong Kong is more directly under Chinese control than are the contested waters in the South China and East China Seas, Beijing’s steady suffocation of the city’s autonomy resembles its strategy toward claimed maritime spaces. China has implemented legal actions that expand its effective control over critical aspects of Hong Kong’s governance, all without resorting to military force.

Taiwan has increasingly become the target of coercive activities that resemble China’s gray-zone repertoire in the South China and East China Seas. The Chinese air force has conducted nearly three times as many incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (the area in which aircraft are required to identify themselves to Taiwanese authorities) since January 2022 as it did between 2018 and 2021, according to reports released daily by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. Beijing has also routinely sent ships and aircraft across the median line running through the Taiwan Strait, effacing a de facto boundary that was defined in 1955. The Chinese military has increased the frequency, intensity, and duration of live-fire drills that temporarily establish sea and air control in the waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan, effectively encircling the island. China’s formidable capabilities in information warfare also figure prominently into its gray-zone concept of operations. Beijing saturates Taiwanese media with disinformation and is suspected of cutting submarine Internet cables to outlying islands under Taiwan’s control.

Since 2022, Beijing has pursued less risky measures to slowly squeeze Taiwan.

China’s gray-zone activities in the Taiwan Strait should not be viewed as a mere prelude to an amphibious invasion. Rather, Beijing’s persistent use of similar tactics in nearby waters suggests such actions are the primary methods in a patient, long-term strategy aimed at subjugating Taiwan without resorting to an invasion. With this approach, China is attempting to choke off the island’s control of surrounding waters and airspace and limit its ability to make autonomous military, diplomatic, and economic decisions. Actions along these lines would fall well short of the outright occupation that a successful amphibious invasion might offer. Yet this more ambiguous campaign may yield similar outcomes, leaving Beijing in control of Taiwan in most ways that matter without the necessity of any formal capitulation.

Russia’s failure to rapidly seize Kyiv after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine vividly reinforces the appeal of this strategy. Since 2022, Beijing has shown increased interest in cheaper and less risky measures to slowly squeeze the island, likely a reflection of its recognition, following Moscow’s military struggles, that a swift military victory over Taiwan will be difficult to achieve. China could keep tightening the noose by rolling out more special coast guard patrols that cover ever-greater swaths of the Taiwan Strait or by imposing customs or quarantine measures to curtail commercial flows. These possible operations would not stray far from activities Beijing has already undertaken around Kinmen Island, for example. Such actions do not amount to a blockade in operational or legal terms, but they achieve similar objectives and preserve the option to conduct a more comprehensive and lethal campaign in the future.

LOW RISK, MORE REWARD

Because Davidson was the most senior U.S. military officer in the Indo-Pacific and thanks to rising concern across the U.S. national security community about the pace of China’s military modernization, the Davidson Window was quickly accepted as dogma by U.S. policymakers and military leaders. But a number of factors make an outright Chinese military invasion less likely than a low-intensity encroachment campaign, both before 2027 and well into the future. The Chinese Communist Party has linked unification with Taiwan to the wider goal of “national rejuvenation” by 2049, but Chinese leader Xi Jinping himself has remained vague about what such unification means in practice. China can afford to push its timeline well beyond the Davidson Window without departing from its long-term policy toward Taiwan.

China is also limited by a lack of recent combat experience and low confidence in its capability to conduct joint operations. As long as Beijing’s coercive measures are expanding its effective control over Taiwan, China is likely to keep traveling down this well-worn path—one that can give it much of what it desires at a tiny fraction of the cost of an amphibious invasion. The tepid response to China’s coercion strategy thus far from the United States and its allies has done little to discourage leaders in Beijing. Building and militarizing outposts on the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, evicting the Philippines from Scarborough Shoal, and undermining Vietnam’s efforts to develop offshore oil and gas fields by blocking Hanoi’s physical access to the sites are among a litany of small successes that expand China’s control and build confidence in its capacity to scale up those efforts.

Pursuing such a gray-zone strategy entails some risks. China must carefully calibrate the timing and extent of its coercive activities to avoid counterproductive reactions from Washington and regional allies. Chinese actions to restrict or sever critical flows of food, fuel, or information to Taiwan, in particular, risk inviting symmetric responses from the United States. But the gray-zone approach also offers distinct advantages. Beijing can rely heavily on law enforcement and civilian assets in its activities against Taiwan, but the United States lacks the nonmilitary maritime forces required to respond in kind. Washington may turn toward economic or diplomatic measures, but these cannot directly reverse China’s physical and operational gains and are unlikely to impose costs sufficient to force China to change course.

The United States has struggled to coordinate effectively with allies and partners to prevent China’s progressively more coercive gray-zone actions. As long as Beijing does not directly impede the flow of commercial traffic through the Taiwan Strait, most countries are likely to remain on the sidelines. Some foreign actors, including China’s regional neighbors and commercial entities such as shipping firms, would likely accommodate many types of new restrictions Beijing might place on Taiwan. Multinational firms have already set a worrisome precedent of deferring to Beijing: Japanese and South Korean firms, for example, have for years deferred to Beijing’s notification rules (as opposed to those set by Taipei) for commercial flights traveling over the Taiwan Strait.

KEY CHANGE

If the United States and Taiwan remain narrowly focused on the Davidson Window, they will make decisions that are poorly matched to China’s more probable strategic choices. Investments in precision munitions and the forward deployment of large numbers of U.S. warships and aircraft in Asia are mismatched against Chinese actions calibrated to stay just beneath the threshold that would make these assets useful. Similarly, Taiwan’s pursuit of high-end military hardware such as submarines and fighter jets and upgraded military training focused on repelling Chinese invaders will do little to impede China’s creeping exercise of coercive control through law enforcement and other nonlethal tactics.

Instead, Taiwan should take the lead in proactively pushing back on China’s encroachment by creating buffer zones that protect its airspace, waters, and economy. Calling attention to Chinese gray-zone operations will not be sufficient on its own. Taiwan would benefit from focusing its defense investments on domain-awareness capabilities—for instance, acquiring more advanced ground- and sea-based sensors to better detect and monitor the presence of Chinese aircraft and ships in nearby airspace and waters. It should also build a large fleet of inexpensive air and sea drones that could support surveillance operations in Taiwan’s outlying areas and respond to the staggering scale of Chinese incursions at reasonable cost. Taiwan must also expand its coast guard to more assertively push back against the activities of China’s coast guard and maritime militia. Taipei has made some modest steps in these directions but is moving far too slowly to meet the challenges posed by China’s intensifying campaign. Taiwan will need to quickly increase its spending on the development of indigenous capabilities and focus any foreign military financing from the United States on these types of systems.

In the information domain, Taiwan should harden its communication systems and train a more sophisticated cyberdefense workforce. Even more important, Taiwan must accelerate its efforts to expand and diversify its satellite communications services and infrastructure to defend against Chinese attacks on its information networks and submarine Internet cables. Already, Taiwan has signed a contract with Eutelsat OneWeb—an analog to the Starlink system that has proved so vital in Ukraine—but it should take further steps to augment satellite bandwidth in the near term.

If Washington remains narrowly focused on the prospect of an invasion of Taiwan, it will make mistakes.

Washington will also be crucial to Taiwan’s buffer zone strategy. In April, Congress earmarked $2 billion for defense aid to the Indo-Pacific, but how this money will be allocated remains unclear. The United States should use a portion of available funds to bolster Taiwan’s aerial and maritime surveillance and intelligence capabilities and its fleets of air, sea, and subsurface drones. Washington should also consider an expanded role for the U.S. Coast Guard in and around the Taiwan Strait. Currently, U.S. Coast Guard forces patrol the exclusive economic zones of U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines, uphold the international Law of the Sea, and engage in exercises with regional partners. Extending the Coast Guard’s mandate in waters near Taiwan to include, for example, patrolling nearby fisheries with the aim of ensuring access and supporting resource conservation could push back against China’s efforts to control these areas while matching Beijing’s use of law enforcement vessels. Using Coast Guard vessels is less likely to provoke escalation than employing the U.S. navy and better suits a policy aimed at preserving the fragile status quo.

Finally, the United States ought to coordinate with corporations to support Taiwan’s economic buffer, especially those that ship goods to the island via sea and air. An interagency group from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and State should establish channels to assess emerging risks and share early warning indicators with the leaders of large multinational trading firms, shippers, and insurers. This exercise should be conducted in a private setting to facilitate contingency planning and provide governmental and military support for these corporations to undertake physical and financial preparations that will ensure Taiwan’s access to global markets.

If the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, the United States and Taiwan should be as focused on developing strategies to prevent Taiwan’s slow subjugation as they are on forestalling outright invasion. If Washington cannot alter its single-minded outlook, it could end up as a bystander as Taiwan slips under creeping Chinese control in a silent fait accompli.

• ISAAC KARDON is Senior Fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
• JENNIFER KAVANAGH is Senior Fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Foreign Affairs · by Isaac Kardon and Jennifer Kavanagh · May 21, 2024

21. A Theory of Victory for Ukraine

That dreaded phrase: "fearing nuclear escalation."

Excerpts:

Some Western analysts, fearing nuclear escalation, may be scared of this kind of Ukrainian victory. Putin has certainly tried to encourage such fears over the past two years, hinting that he might use nuclear weapons when the West has considered providing tanks, missiles, and jets. But Putin has never acted on his belligerent rhetoric, even as the West invariably crossed each of those redlines. Instead, Ukraine has incurred the costs of U.S. and European dithering; in the summer of 2022, while its partners debated what assistance to offer, Kyiv lost critical opportunities to capitalize on its first successful counterattacks by continuing with a swift destruction of Putin’s forces. The reality is that a Russian nuclear attack would provoke such a fierce Western response, particularly from the United States, that Putin is highly unlikely to take the risk. He is especially unlikely to go nuclear given that Putin’s friends in Beijing are also dead set against such strikes.

The West’s general fear of instability is grounded in fact: a decisive defeat may indeed spell the end of Putinism, leaving Russia in a state of political uncertainty. But it is not the task of the West to save a criminal regime from collapsing. Russia today is a state that routinely commits mass murder, torture, and rape; it conducts sabotage operations and killings on NATO soil; and it carries out disinformation and political interference campaigns. It has pledged unremitting hostility to the West not because of what the West has done but because of what it is. Putin’s regime, in other words, long ago left the community of civilized nations. The only chance Russia has to return to normalcy is through defeat, which will crush Putin’s imperial ambitions and allow the country to soberly reevaluate its path and eventually rejoin the society of civilized nations. This does not mean that the West’s strategy should openly aim for regime change. But it does mean Ukraine and its partners should not fear the self-destruction of Putin and his apparatus of control.

In this war, resources, funds, and technology all overwhelmingly favor the West. If they are channeled to Ukraine in sufficient amounts, including to the country’s defense industry, Kyiv can win. Russia simply lacks the military power to defeat a Western-backed Ukraine, and so its only hope lies in manipulating Western concerns. It is therefore well past time for NATO governments to stop falling into Putin’s trap. For the West to achieve a victory, it must stop fearing it. In doing so, it can attain security for itself and Ukraine—which has sacrificed so much both for its own cause and for the larger cause of freedom.

A Theory of Victory for Ukraine

With the Right Support and Approach, Kyiv Can Still Win

By Andriy Zagorodnyuk and Eliot A. Cohen

May 21, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Andriy Zagorodnyuk and Eliot A. Cohen · May 21, 2024

The U.S. government decided to provide more assistance to Ukraine just in the nick of time. By the end of April, right before the aid package passed, the war-torn country was emptying its last reserves of ammunition and rationing artillery rounds and shells—and Ukrainian forces began to lose ground in part as a result. The $60 billion now flowing into Ukraine will help correct these disparities, providing Kyiv an opportunity to stop Russia’s offensive. The aid package also serves as a massive psychological boost, giving Ukrainians newfound confidence that they will not be abandoned by their most important partner.

But the aid package alone cannot answer the central question facing Ukraine: how to win the war. Neither can contributions from Europe and beyond, necessary as they are to keeping Kyiv afloat as the conflict drags on. What Ukraine needs is not just more assistance but also a theory of victory—something that some of its partners have studiously avoided discussing. The United States has never planned out its support for Kyiv beyond a few months at a time, even as Congress mandated the provision of a long-term U.S. strategy for its support of Ukraine as a part of the aid bill. It has focused on short-term maneuvers, such as the much-anticipated 2023 counteroffensive, rather than viable long-term strategies or aims—including a potential triumph over Russia. Until end of last year, U.S. officials refrained from even using the term “victory” in public. Similarly, the United States has generally avoided describing its goal in Ukraine as a Russian defeat. Washington’s only real long-term statement—that it will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”—is, by itself, meaningless.

To this point, Ukraine has been clear about its objectives. They include the liberation of all territory within its internationally recognized borders; the return of prisoners of war, deported citizens, and kidnapped children; justice through war crimes prosecution and compensation; and the establishment of long-term security arrangements. But Kyiv and its partners are not yet on the same page regarding how these might be achieved. No one, it seems, has come up with a theory for how Kyiv can win.

It is time for that to change. The West must explicitly state that its goal is a decisive Ukrainian victory and Russian defeat, and it must commit to supplying Kyiv with direct military aid and to supporting the country’s burgeoning defense industry. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, must work to advance until they can expel Russian forces from all occupied territory, including Crimea. As Ukraine makes progress toward this goal, it will eventually become clear to Russian citizens that they will continue to lose not only ground in Ukraine but also vast human and economic resources—and their future prospects for prosperity and stability. At that point, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime could come under substantial pressure, from both within and without, to end the war on terms favorable to Ukraine.

Threatening Russia’s control of Crimea—and inflicting grave damage to its economy and society—will, of course, be difficult. But it is a more realistic strategy than the proposed alternative: a negotiated settlement while Putin is in office. Putin has never agreed to respect Ukrainian sovereignty—and never will. If anything, Russia’s rhetoric about the war has become more annihilationist, invoking the Russian Orthodox Church and suggesting that the conflict is something like a holy war, with existential consequences. Any negotiation in the current circumstances would at best leave Ukraine crippled, partitioned, and at the mercy of a second Russian invasion. At worst, it would eliminate the country altogether. No sustainable, long-term peace can emerge from negotiations with an aggressor that has genocidal intent. Ukraine and the West must either win or face devastating consequences.

As Americans and Europeans ponder whether to help Kyiv avoid this horrible fate, U.S. officials should remember that if the West falters, it will invite further Russian invasions. Senior military leaders and intelligence officials in European countries are sounding the alarm on this prospect. Russia is already menacing its other neighbors, including NATO states, and it may make a move if it can subjugate Ukraine first. A Russian victory would also fuel China’s territorial ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, as it would reveal the limits of the West’s commitment to safeguarding its partners’ sovereignty. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is not taking place in a vacuum. An adverse outcome would be felt around the globe.

ENDGAME FIRST

The fact that Ukraine and its partners lack a strategy for victory, three years into the war, is a serious problem. Without an end in mind, leaders in Kyiv, Washington, and Brussels are making key decisions on an incremental and ultimately incoherent basis. Ukraine may achieve local successes, but not a comprehensive defeat of the enemy; for their part, Kyiv’s Western partners tend to think only about the next tranche of supplies. And without a strategic picture, it will be difficult to sustain morale and the will to fight in Ukraine and beyond.

Coming up with a theory of victory will be much harder today than it would have been in 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Since then, Russia has militarized its economy, prepared for a long war, managed to recruit hordes of soldiers, and produced large stockpiles of equipment. But despite these successes, Moscow’s land-war doctrine is still unsophisticated. It centers on using small infantry groups with the support of a few armored vehicles to attack various spots on a frontline that stretches for over 1,000 miles. These tactics have allowed Moscow to make limited territorial gains—but only after losing enormous amounts of troops and weapons. Russia’s losses, including as many as a thousand or more casualties a day, roughly match its intake of new troops, which are of a much lower quality than those of 2022. Despite its massive investments, Moscow’s capabilities are not infinite. Each month, for instance, Russia is losing as many vehicles as its manufacturers produce, and it is burning through its stockpiles of older armored vehicles at an unsustainable rate. And, importantly, Russia is facing both a labor shortage and resources shortage, the latter partially thanks to a combination of Western sanctions, export control measures, and a Ukrainian bombardment campaign that is limiting Russia’s capacity to refine and then sell oil.

Moscow is no invincible juggernaut. Russia’s small gains were made possible only by its overwhelming advantage in firepower—which occurred only as a result of the disruption of Western aid. The country’s artillery systems are based on old models and lack precision and long-range capabilities, and its multiple-launch rocket systems, tanks, and aviation equipment are no match for Western models. If Ukraine can increase precision strikes by long-range artillery, it can turn the war’s arithmetic against Russia and impose an unacceptable rate of attrition on Moscow. Eventually, Russia will be unable to replace its manpower and materiel fast enough. The country’s economy simply will not be able to sustain this war in the face of constant losses.

If Ukraine has enough supplies, it will be able to keep Russian artillery at bay. Enhanced air defenses, including F-16 fighter jets equipped with long-range air-to-air missiles, would reduce Russian attacks on critical infrastructure inside Ukraine as well as on units stationed near the front. With Russia’s forces increasingly paralyzed, Ukraine would soon be able to use its Western long-range systems—such as its Army Tactical Missile Systems (better known as ATACMS)—to take down Russian command-and-control centers and air-defense assets.

The West must explicitly state that its goal is a decisive Ukrainian victory and Russian defeat.

Kyiv must also use drones in much larger numbers to fulfill all these tasks. Ukraine has already demonstrated that it can wield unmanned vehicles with devastating effects; it is thanks to drone attacks, for instance, that Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been disabled. Drones have also helped to prevent large-scale Russian maneuvers on the ground. And they are making it possible for Ukraine to strike deep into Russia, hitting Russian oil facilities, military bases, and weapons factories. To counter that threat, Moscow may need to station most of its air defense systems at home. Russia is simply too large for its defenses to simultaneously shield the homeland and the battlefront. It will become even more vulnerable if the United States allows Ukraine to strike legitimate targets within Russia using U.S.-donated weapons.

The process of softening Russian positions and weakening Russian resolve will likely take about a year, after which Ukraine should reclaim the initiative. Kyiv should again launch limited counteroffensives, which will allow it to retake key terrain. If this assault is successful, Putin’s regime could face a crisis bred of heavy losses and battlefield failures. The Russian political system, after all, is already showing cracks. The mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed 2023 mutiny, the demotion or arrest of senior militaryofficials including General Sergei Surovikin, and the shocking success of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists at striking inside Moscow in March all reflect the regime’s mounting vulnerability. If Ukraine advances to a point where Russia can no longer hold on to gains, Putin will find himself in deep trouble. His 2014 seizure of Crimea is critical to his domestic popularity; to see Russia’s control of the peninsula threatened would be a major symbolic defeat.

Ukraine’s success on land, air, and sea must be coupled with extensive pressure on the economic and information fronts. The United States and Europe should introduce a much more aggressive sanctions campaign that includes secondary sanctions on any company operating in Russia. Russians must see their national wealth dissipating, and their economy headed for permanent stunting, for the consequences of Putin’s invasion to hit home. The West must also mount an aggressive information campaign—comparable to that waged against Nazi Germany in World War II or the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War—to intensify the divisions over perception of the war within and outside Russia. Russians have accepted the war passively: they need to be reminded, through an array of techniques that include both overt and covert propaganda, of its intolerable human and societal costs. Putin has too much at stake to end the war himself, but the same is not true of those around him who do not wish to see Russia reduced to indefinite impoverishment; drained of physical resources, youth, and talent; and subjugated to a state of permanent vassalage to China. Putin and his leadership are the center of gravity of the Russian war effort; any effort to end the war must begin with undermining his regime and its appearance of success and infallibility.

Ukraine’s military strategy must be integrated with its political agenda. Russian history shows that disastrous Russian wars lead to political change. Russia’s defeat at the hands of Ottoman and European forces in the 1853–56 Crimean War barred Russia from deploying a navy in the Black Sea and trimmed its expansionist goals for years, and the bloody losses of the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese war led to a major break in the absolute autocracy of Tsarist rule. A military humiliation today could prompt similar political upheaval. The Putin regime may not seem weak on the surface, but its stability is a mirage produced by the repression it exerts.

TO ACHIEVE VICTORY, STOP FEARING IT

Ukraine is already stepping up to meet the challenge. Kyiv is increasing its ability to tap into its manpower reserves by lowering the conscription age and rolling back exemptions from military service. This step is painful but necessary and brings to mind the drafts instituted by many Western nations throughout both world wars. The West, led by the United States, is continuing to provide training and advice, especially for commanders. And the West should continue to deliver large quantities of materiel—particularly having seen how delays in aid can give Russia the upper hand on the battlefield. Such assistance is essential to Kyiv’s success.

But there is another major contribution the West can make: direct collaboration with Ukraine’s defense industry. The sector has grown exponentially over the last two years; the drone industry, for instance, went from producing a handful of drones in 2022 to manufacturing tens of thousands of them today. Ukrainian-made systems have also grown more sophisticated, managing to strike targets deep in Russia in ways that would have been unthinkable in 2022.

The country’s success should not have come as a surprise. Ukraine was at the core of the Soviet Union’s aerospace industry, and today it has plenty of skilled engineers and an entrepreneurial spirit. But it needs Western technologies, components, production equipment, vendor financing, and partnerships to reach its full potential. If the West can deliver these resources, Ukraine’s manufacturing capacity will skyrocket, bolstering the country’s battlefield success. With Western help, for example, Kyiv would be able to increase drone production by an order of magnitude and get them onto the battlefield even faster. A joint Western-Ukrainian industrial strategy is as critical as a military one.

If the West can help Ukraine’s defense industry get fully up to speed, Russia’s positions will grow untenable. The country’s strategy depends on mass, its ability to allocate and concentrate forces, and some elements of technical sophistication, such as electronic warfare. But Russia is tactically poor, which makes it vulnerable to a sustained and large-scale drone-based campaign. A Ukrainian air offensive that dismantles Russian logistics, puts increasing pressure on Russia’s economy and military infrastructure, and destroys (rather than neutralizes) the country’s Black Sea fleet would produce shocks at home that would likely endanger Putin’s regime.

Moscow is no invincible juggernaut.

At the moment, Putin’s subordinates believe that the war is winnable. Only by breaking that belief through Russian defeats can Ukraine and the West open the door to Putin’s withdrawal or eventual overthrow. Under such conditions, Putin will likely choose self-preservation over victory. And if for some reason he does not, others may make that choice for him. In any event, Ukraine should press on with its campaign to retake territory. A different kind of land offensive—one that comes after Kyiv has achieved air superiority with its drone campaign—could isolate and liberate Crimea.

Some Western analysts, fearing nuclear escalation, may be scared of this kind of Ukrainian victory. Putin has certainly tried to encourage such fears over the past two years, hinting that he might use nuclear weapons when the West has considered providing tanks, missiles, and jets. But Putin has never acted on his belligerent rhetoric, even as the West invariably crossed each of those redlines. Instead, Ukraine has incurred the costs of U.S. and European dithering; in the summer of 2022, while its partners debated what assistance to offer, Kyiv lost critical opportunities to capitalize on its first successful counterattacks by continuing with a swift destruction of Putin’s forces. The reality is that a Russian nuclear attack would provoke such a fierce Western response, particularly from the United States, that Putin is highly unlikely to take the risk. He is especially unlikely to go nuclear given that Putin’s friends in Beijing are also dead set against such strikes.

The West’s general fear of instability is grounded in fact: a decisive defeat may indeed spell the end of Putinism, leaving Russia in a state of political uncertainty. But it is not the task of the West to save a criminal regime from collapsing. Russia today is a state that routinely commits mass murder, torture, and rape; it conducts sabotage operations and killings on NATO soil; and it carries out disinformation and political interference campaigns. It has pledged unremitting hostility to the West not because of what the West has done but because of what it is. Putin’s regime, in other words, long ago left the community of civilized nations. The only chance Russia has to return to normalcy is through defeat, which will crush Putin’s imperial ambitions and allow the country to soberly reevaluate its path and eventually rejoin the society of civilized nations. This does not mean that the West’s strategy should openly aim for regime change. But it does mean Ukraine and its partners should not fear the self-destruction of Putin and his apparatus of control.

In this war, resources, funds, and technology all overwhelmingly favor the West. If they are channeled to Ukraine in sufficient amounts, including to the country’s defense industry, Kyiv can win. Russia simply lacks the military power to defeat a Western-backed Ukraine, and so its only hope lies in manipulating Western concerns. It is therefore well past time for NATO governments to stop falling into Putin’s trap. For the West to achieve a victory, it must stop fearing it. In doing so, it can attain security for itself and Ukraine—which has sacrificed so much both for its own cause and for the larger cause of freedom.

• ANDRIY P. ZAGORODNYUK is Chair of the Centre for Defence Strategies. From 2019 to 2020, he was Minister of Defense of Ukraine. He is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.
• ELIOT A. COHEN is Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Foreign Affairs · by Andriy Zagorodnyuk and Eliot A. Cohen · May 21, 2024

22. Four Years of Growth and Impact: The Irregular Warfare Initiative

The Irregular Warfare Initiative has been ...well... a great initiative.

They are doing excellent work.

Four Years of Growth and Impact: The Irregular Warfare Initiative - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by Tobias Bernard Switzer · May 21, 2024

Editor’s Note: Today marks four years since the launch of the Irregular Warfare Podcast. What started as a small project by three military graduate students has grown into the Irregular Warfare Initiative, an influential platform for scholars and practitioners to share ideas on topics ranging from information warfare and counterterrorism to security assistance and cyber operations. While conventional and nuclear threats from China and Russia dominate attention, the initiative highlights the continued relevance of irregular warfare globally. Our team’s history remains largely unknown despite its success in bringing together scholars and practitioners. This article tells the story of the Irregular Warfare Initiative and its impact.

The Idea

I wish I had known this when I was downrange.

During a break from their “International Policy Responses to State Fragility” graduate class at Princeton in the Fall of 2019, Kyle Atwell and Nick Lopez picked back up a conversation they’d had all semester. As US Army Special Forces officers at the university’s School of Public and International Affairs, Kyle and Nick found themselves repeating the same thing over and over to each other, “I wish I had known this when I was downrange.”

For Nick and Kyle, downrange meant training and advising foreign military forces in countries with weak governance, conducting intelligence and counter-terrorism operations, and engaging in other activities known as irregular warfare. Blown away by their Princeton courses, Nick and Kyle found many ideas and models that would have helped them during their deployments to Latin America, Africa, and Afghanistan.

Determined to find a way to bring these lessons to other soldiers, one of them—neither can remember who—suggested a podcast. This seemed like an odd choice; neither listened to podcasts much then. “We landed on a podcast because I like having a beer and talking to people, so I thought maybe we can do that,” Nick recalled, “But we didn’t want to be the center of attention, so it had to be focused on the guests.”

Even if they had listened to podcasts regularly, there were no examples of what they wanted to do. Podcasts by former special operators discussed selection into the teams, tactical gear, and workouts. University and think-tank podcasts sometimes covered irregular warfare topics but only as dry recordings of lectures and discussions. However, Kyle and Nick found no podcasts that turned relevant social science research into engaging conversations for irregular warfare practitioners to digest during their commute or a run. Undeterred, their idea for the Irregular Warfare Podcast began to take root in their minds.

They met for months, huddling around whiteboards in Princeton classrooms, figuring out “how do we get this impenetrable academic research to the practitioner?” Kyle explained. Gallons of coffee and dozens of dry-erase markers later, they finally came up with the podcast’s slogan: “Bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners,” which has stuck ever since.

The Convert

I was skeptical at first. I had never even listened to a podcast.

While Nick and Kyle worked on the podcast’s format and began to line up guests, they realized they needed more help. In April 2020, one of their faculty advisors, Jake Shapiro, the director of Princeton’s Empirical Studies of Conflict program, introduced them to Shawna Sinnott, a US Marine Corps officer, who was set to begin her graduate studies at Stanford later that year. Shawna’s background as a human intelligence officer with special operations units would round out the team.

As it turns out, Nick and Kyle weren’t the only ones new to podcasts. “I was skeptical at first. I had never even listened to a podcast,” she said. With a newborn baby, a working spouse, and an upcoming coast-to-coast move, Shawna had all the extra-curricular activities she could handle. When asked why she joined the project, Shawna replied, “Kyle is very engaging and persuasive, and he convinced me. The idea of giving back to our military peers the academic insights we were gaining through our unique graduate school opportunity was very appealing.”

In hindsight, their inexperience with podcasts turned out to be an advantage. If they had known each episode would take 30-60 hours to produce, they might have quit before starting. Admittedly, their inexperience and the bare-bones editing tools available in 2020 were partly to blame for the long hours.

Most of their time went into culling “umms” and “errs,” editing out rambling answers, and rearranging parts of the recording to make the conversation flow logically. They knew how their audience would want the podcast—no off-topic tangents and no witty banter—because they were their audience. “We were critical of each other in a healthy way. We would rip each other apart with editing. I knew they wouldn’t let me put garbage out, and I wasn’t going to let them put trash out either,” Shawna said.

Even with their meticulous approach, they had no idea how people would react to the podcast. Kyle was uneasy. “This is baseline personality stuff, things you can’t control, right? It turns out I need approval. I do. We were nervous about the podcast’s success. We were nervous about the fact that we were supposed to be quiet professionals and how the community would look at us. And we were just nervous about, ‘Is this adding any value?’ which is probably the only thing we should have been nervous about.”

The Leap

I remember calling Kyle and saying, ‘Hey man, I’m sorry. I let you down,’ and I talked to Jake and said, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that this thing sucks.’

The Irregular Warfare Podcast’s first episode, titled What Are Small Wars?, was released on May 21, 2020, and featured their mentor Jake Shapiro, the Princeton scholar, and Pat Howell, the Army practitioner. Centering around Jake’s book, Small Wars, Big Data, and his quantitative approach to studying irregular wars, the episode opened with a somber instrumental by electronic music artist Ketsa, quotes from each guest, and a brief introduction by the co-hosts, Nick and Kyle, who then take turns pitching scripted questions like softballs. The thirty-minute episode ends with another downtempo song from Ketsa and a few announcements.

Afterward, Nick thought they had failed spectacularly. “I remember calling Kyle and saying, ‘Hey man, I’m sorry. I let you down,’ and I talked to Jake and said, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that this thing sucks.”

Nick was wrong, but then again, who could have guessed that the Irregular Warfare Podcast would encounter a strong tailwind by launching at the beginning of the pandemic? People were stuck at home with extra time on their hands, and podcast listening reached an all-time high. “Within the first couple of months, we were getting over 4,000 downloads, which was crazy,” Kyle said.

Comments started trickling and then streaming in and from different audiences. “As we moved into the fall, we started hearing from within the Pentagon that people were listening, and the podcast was influencing some of the ways they were looking at irregular warfare and the Irregular Warfare Annex to the US National Defense Strategy,” Shawna remarked. All three expressed the same idea; the metrics were interesting, but the messages from listeners meant more. According to Kyle, “When you hear from some random dude saying ‘I don’t know how you have the balls to call General Petraeus “David” but the podcast is awesome,’ it makes a bigger difference.”

In addition to well-known military officers like James Stavridis and Stanley McChrystal, the team recruited leading figures in politics, media, and academia, which helped grow the platform’s audience. Guests included policymakers Michele Flournoy and Mike Vickers, journalists Wesley Morgan and Jessica Donati, and professors Taylor Fravel and Eli Berman. The podcast also featured international guests from the Philippines, Colombia, France, Australia, and the UK.

Remarkably, the podcast today retains its distinct format, which has changed very little over the years. More than one hundred episodes into the project, the podcast pairs two guests, a scholar and a practitioner, and focuses the discussion on a book or an academic article, opening and closing with the same Ketsa music.

“You have to come up with a consistent structure and stick with it because your audience will punish you if you mix it up on them,” Kyle remarked. “We’ve had good ideas over the years, but my response has always been let’s start a second podcast.” However, the one thing that has changed over the years is who hosts the podcast. None of the original three still produce the Irregular Warfare Podcast.

In the beginning, listeners could recognize the consistent voices of Kyle, Shawna, and Nick. Since then, more than a dozen people have facilitated the conversation and produced the podcast. The interviewers have become indistinguishable by design, Kyle noted, and it’s a strength of the podcast.

“It’s not the Kyle Atwell show,” he insists, “It’s the Irregular Warfare Podcast. We can provide something valuable to the community if we make ourselves as anonymous as humanly possible. To the point where our guests would often mention our backgrounds in episodes, ‘Oh, you know, you’re Special Forces.’ We edit that out.” Shawna agreed, adding, “Our role was to guide the conversation rather than be the center of attention. Listeners are coming to hear what the guests have to say, not us.”

The Call

Everyone who’s joined has a lot of initiative; otherwise, they wouldn’t have volunteered. It’s not a hangout club; it’s a do-stuff club.

Nick, Kyle, and Shawna realized that the podcast’s growing popularity meant two things: it had momentum that wouldn’t die down on its own, and they needed more help. In late 2020, they put out a call for co-hosts, hoping to add two more teammates. When over 70 people volunteered, Kyle realized they had something much bigger than they originally imagined.

“Before we knew the podcast would work out, we were talking about building a community. That was always the goal. We knew we wanted to build an organization. Before we could do that, we needed the validation that the podcast worked,” he remarked. The wave of volunteers from all corners of national security was the sign they were looking for.

Pressing their advantage, the team rebranded itself as the Irregular Warfare Initiative and, in March 2021, expanded to publish online commentary and analysis on irregular warfare topics. Submissions and volunteers flowed in immediately. When they announced a year-long fellowship for twenty scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in 2022, over 200 people applied. “We were reaching people, and it was not just that they wanted to listen, they wanted to get involved. I thought, why don’t we just put them to work?” Kyle said.

According to Kyle, tapping into this energy has been one of the biggest reasons for the Irregular Warfare Initiative’s success. “What really brings people together is not the abstractness of irregular warfare; it’s a product that gives us a reason to have meetings. It gives introverts like me a reason to make a phone call and meet people.”

Rather than become a vague online community of interest, the core group of Kyle, Nick, and Shawna has grown to sixty active members who produce podcasts, write and edit articles, host events, and run the fellowship program in their spare time. They also manage social media, finances, human resources, and fundraising. “Everyone who’s joined has a lot of initiative; otherwise, they wouldn’t have volunteered. It’s not a hangout club; it’s a do-stuff club,” Shawna remarked. Today, the organization has more than 100 alumni and a 30-deep waitlist to volunteer.

The Impact

There are not a lot of organizations focusing on this form of conflict. We’re ringing the cowbell that irregular warfare happens, and it doesn’t involve submarines or F-35s.

Today, the Irregular Warfare Initiative has 30,000 social media followers and 4,000 newsletter subscribers who’ve read the team’s 166 published articles and attended its 20 live and virtual events. Each month, listeners download its podcast episodes over 40,000 times, putting it in the top 1% of the most popular podcasts, according to Ben Jebb, the current podcast director. Forty percent of the audience is international, coming from 123 different countries. In total, the podcast’s 105 episodes have been downloaded 1.2 million times. What has surprised the team most, though, is not the numbers but who engages with the content.

Although the team envisioned the podcast and the Irregular Warfare Initiative as a bridge from the classroom to the team room—a one-way street—they discovered that the traffic flowed in several directions. It wasn’t just the military, but think-tank and university researchers, as well as policymakers and their staffs, that found their efforts valuable. “It’s much more multi-dimensional now in a way that I don’t think we fully grasped at the time,” Shawna reflected.

That the Irregular Warfare Initiative was attractive to researchers was no surprise to Jake Shapiro, who noted, “You need to be able to put the data into context to understand what was actually happening on the ground. Unless you get out and talk with people who did the planning and were involved in military and policy decisions, you can’t correctly interpret the data.” The Irregular Warfare Initiative helps connect security and defense leaders back to the academic world.

Policymakers benefit too, added John Nagl, former president of the Center for a New American Security and counterinsurgency expert at the US Army War College. Layers of bureaucracy—”antibodies,” John calls them—at the Pentagon, State Department, Congress, and federal government filter out unwelcome ideas and information. “The Irregular Warfare Initiative has the ability to tell truth to power in a way that would be more difficult if all the folks were inside the Pentagon,” he said.

Providing that outside voice is all the more necessary as the idea of strategic competition takes hold in US national security thinking. At its most extreme, proponents of strategic competition argue that the US should narrow its focus to deterring Russian and Chinese conventional and nuclear forces, viewing irregular warfare as a diversion or distraction. While conventional and nuclear war is undeniably more dangerous, irregular war is far more likely.

David Ucko, a professor at National Defense University, thinks the Irregular Warfare Initiative can balance out the conversation. “It hasn’t shied away from discussing the lessons from Afghanistan, like partnering with local forces and establishing winning narratives. These issues remain crucial in the era of strategic competition, yet we are discouraged from speaking about what irregular warfare really is—this ‘struggle for legitimacy.’ That’s why I’m a little bit defensive. I have a bit of a siege mentality. And I want to make sure that we don’t lose this moment because it is so important.”

Perhaps the most critical gap the Irregular Warfare Initiative can help bridge is the chasm between past mistakes in irregular conflicts and future wars. Will the US learn from its failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and avoid repeating them? John Nagl speculated, “The Irregular Warfare Initiative may help prevent the US from repeating the mistakes made after Vietnam when we literally burned the books on counterinsurgency and irregular warfare. Keeping these ideas alive and fermenting and passing the knowledge on to the next generation means we don’t have to start from scratch when facing irregular warfare challenges, which are happening right now.”

As the Irregular Warfare Initiative continues to evolve, its mission remains more important than ever. The US is still engaged in irregular conflicts, from supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and countering Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific to combating Iranian-supported proxies in the Middle East and containing the spread of jihadist groups in the African Sahel. The initiative provides valuable insights into these security challenges. Although still committed to bridging the scholar-practitioner gap, Kyle worries that the US national security bureaucracy is sleepwalking into this type of warfare. “There are not a lot of organizations focusing on this form of conflict. We’re ringing the cowbell that irregular warfare happens, and it doesn’t involve submarines or F-35s.”

Thanks to the dedication of its volunteers and the support of a growing community of experts, the Irregular Warfare Initiative maintains a focus on irregular warfare in an era of strategic competition—a message that policymakers and practitioners cannot afford to ignore and one that the initiative will continue to champion in the years to come.

Tobias Bernard Switzer is the Editorial Director at the Irregular Warfare Initiative and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Ethan Wilmot contributed research and fact-checking to this article.

Views expressed in this article solely reflect those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, the Center for a New American Security, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.

Main Image: The U.S. Army and Romanian Armed Forces coordinate to cross the Danube River on June 20, 2019 in Bordusani, Romania. (Samantha Hall via DVIDS)

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

23. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 20, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-20-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian sources indicated that Russian forces are concentrating limited, understaffed, and incohesive forces in the Sumy direction, but even such a Russian grouping of forces will be able to achieve the likely desired effect of drawing and fixing Ukrainian forces in the international border area.
• Kremlin officials expressed their condolences to senior Iranian officials following the announcement of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's and Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian's deaths on May 20.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin fired Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Yury Sadovenko on May 20, replacing him with former Deputy Economic Minister and current Federation Council Accounts Chamber Auditor Oleg Savelyev.
• Putin also dismissed Presidential Advisor Alexandra Levitskaya on May 20, but the reason for Levitskaya’s dismissal is unclear.
• US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated the White House's unwillingness to approve Ukraine's use of US-provided weapons in strikes against military targets in Russia following a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (also known as the Ramstein format) on May 20.
• Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas stated that some unspecified countries, presumably NATO member states, have already sent personnel to train Ukrainian soldiers "on the ground."
• Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev amplified a known Russian information operation aimed at directly undermining Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's legitimacy as president.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Vovchansk, Chasiv Yar, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and the Dnipro River Delta.
• Russian opposition outlet Vazhnye Istorii (iStories) reported that Russian military authorities and Kazakh law enforcement acting on Russian orders detained at least two more servicemen in Kazakhstan who had deserted from the Russian military.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 20, 2024

May 20, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 20, 2024

Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, and Frederick W. Kagan

May 20, 2024, 8:15pm ET 

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

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 1:30pm ET on May 20. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the May 21 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian sources indicated that Russian forces are concentrating limited, understaffed, and incohesive forces in the Sumy direction, but even such a Russian grouping of forces will be able to achieve the likely desired effect of drawing and fixing Ukrainian forces in the international border area. The deputy commander of a Ukrainian brigade operating in northern Kharkiv Oblast reported on May 20 that Russian forces, including Chechen forces, are accumulating in the Sumy direction but that the limited number of Russian personnel suggests that the Russian objective is to draw and fix Ukrainian forces to the international border area.[1] Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets stated on May 20 that the Russian grouping in Kursk Oblast consists of 9,000–10,000 personnel.[2] Mashovets stated that this grouping consists of up to three under-strength motorized rifle regiments (each lacking one to two battalions); eight motorized rifle, tank, and infantry battalions; and one airborne (VDV) battalion all redeployed from various units, formations, and military districts; and at least two assault detachments at the echelon of a reinforced company or an under-strength battalion.[3] Mashovets also reported on May 5 that an unspecified VDV battalion is part of the Russian grouping in Kursk Oblast, and a Russian milblogger (who has an avowed bias against the VDV and "Dnepr" Grouping of Forces Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky) claimed that the Russian 3rd VDV Battalion of the 104th VDV Regiment (76th VDV Division) is in Kursk Oblast.[4] ISW continues to assess that even limited Russian activity in other areas of the international border below the threshold of Russian offensive operations could have the effect of stretching Ukrainian forces along a wider front and that Russian forces will be able to draw and fix Ukrainian forces to this area as long as Russia threatens penetrations of other border areas beyond northern Kharkiv Oblast.[5]

Kremlin officials expressed their condolences to senior Iranian officials following the announcement of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's and Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian's deaths on May 20. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a condolence letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in which he called Raisi a "true friend of Russia."[6] Putin had a telephone call with Iranian Interim President Mohammad Mokhber on May 20 and expressed condolences to Mokhber, Khamenei, and the Iranian people.[7] The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) stated that Putin and Mokhber discussed their desire to further strengthen Russo-Iranian relations.[8] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Raisi and Abdollahian "true friends" who were "invaluable" in strengthening Russo–Iranian cooperation.[9] Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu stated that Russia is ready to help investigate the cause of the helicopter crash.[10] Putin instructed Head of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenkov on May 19 to send specialists and equipment to assist in search and rescue operations in Iran.[11]

Russian President Vladimir Putin fired Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Yury Sadovenko on May 20, replacing him with former Deputy Economic Minister and current Federation Council Accounts Chamber Auditor Oleg Savelyev.[12] Sadovenko had held his position in the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) since January 2013, and a Russian insider source speculated that Sadovenko may become a defendant in a criminal case for violating anti-corruption laws.[13] The insider source added that some additional Russian deputy defense ministers who worked closely with former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu may soon resign. Russian milbloggers observed that Savelyev’s appointment is consistent with the Kremlin’s effort to improve the wartime economy, given that Savelyev has an extensive background in economics and experience in overseeing the audits of defense, national security, and law enforcement activities.[14] The milblogger added that recently appointed Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov is beginning to form his own team within the Russian MoD.[15] Putin likely replaced Sadovenko with Savelyev in an effort to remove Shoigu’s allies from the Russian MoD and appoint economic advisors to the agency to improve the wartime economy.

Putin also dismissed Presidential Advisor Alexandra Levitskaya on May 20, but the reason for Levitskaya’s dismissal is unclear.[16] Putin appointed Levitskaya as a presidential advisor in August 2013. Levitskaya previously served as the deputy minister of health and social development from 2007 to 2012, and the Russian Government’s first deputy chief of staff in 2012.[17] Putin transferred several presidential assistants to the presidential advisor rank on May 14 as part of changes to the presidential administration leadership.[18]

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated the White House's unwillingness to approve Ukraine's use of US-provided weapons in strikes against military targets in Russia following a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (also known as the Ramstein format) on May 20. Austin stated that the US expects that Ukraine will "continue to use the weapons that [the US] provided on targets inside of Ukraine."[19] Austin vaguely noted that "the aerial dynamic is a little bit different," but stated that he would not speculate further. ISW continues to assess that US and other Western limitations on Ukraine's ability to strike military targets in Russia have created a sanctuary in Russia's border areas from which Russian aircraft can conduct glide bomb and missile strikes against Ukrainian positions and settlements and where Russian forces and equipment can freely assemble before entering combat.[20] These US and Western policies are severely compromising Ukraine's ability to defend itself against current Russian offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast or any area along the international border where Russian forces may choose to conduct offensive operations in the future.[21] UK Foreign Minister David Cameron recently announced that Ukrainian forces may use UK-provided weapons to strike targets in Russian territory, and other European countries may be considering lifting similar restrictions.[22] French National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee Chairperson Jean-Louis Bourlanges stated on May 19 that France should allow Ukrainian forces to use French-provided weapons to strike military targets inside of Russia and noted that "the right to self-defense excludes the right to protect the territory of the aggressor."[23] Bourlanges stated that lifting the current restriction is not a question of Western intervention in the theater of operations but would "lift an unjustifiable taboo."

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas stated that some unspecified countries, presumably NATO member states, have already sent personnel to train Ukrainian soldiers "on the ground."[24] Kallas stated to the Financial Times (FT) on May 19 that some countries have assumed the risk of sending personnel to train Ukrainian soldiers "in a risk zone" during the war and stated that NATO states should not fear the risk of escalation from such deployments.[25] Kallas' statement is the latest in a series of back-and-forth comments between senior Estonian officials about whether Estonia is planning to send its own personnel to perform non-combat support roles in deep rear areas in Ukraine.[26]

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev amplified a known Russian information operation aimed at directly undermining Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's legitimacy as president. Medvedev gave a long interview to Kremlin newswire TASS on May 20 in which Medvedev doubled down on the Russian information operation falsely portraying Zelensky as an illegitimate president and deepened the information operation by tying it to other Kremlin rhetorical lines.[27] Other Russian officials and ultranationalist milbloggers either made or amplified similar statements on May 20 accusing Zelensky of now "illegally" holding office.[28] Medvedev likely timed his statements to reinject the narrative into the Russian information space on May 20, when Zelensky's current presidential term would have ended had Ukraine held presidential elections in March 2024. The Ukrainian constitution permits postponing elections and allows a sitting president to serve after the designated end of his term under martial law, and Zelensky's decision not to hold elections during its existential defensive war is fully in accord with Ukraine's constitution.[29]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian sources indicated that Russian forces are concentrating limited, understaffed, and incohesive forces in the Sumy direction, but even such a Russian grouping of forces will be able to achieve the likely desired effect of drawing and fixing Ukrainian forces in the international border area.
• Kremlin officials expressed their condolences to senior Iranian officials following the announcement of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's and Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian's deaths on May 20.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin fired Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Yury Sadovenko on May 20, replacing him with former Deputy Economic Minister and current Federation Council Accounts Chamber Auditor Oleg Savelyev.
• Putin also dismissed Presidential Advisor Alexandra Levitskaya on May 20, but the reason for Levitskaya’s dismissal is unclear.
• US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated the White House's unwillingness to approve Ukraine's use of US-provided weapons in strikes against military targets in Russia following a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (also known as the Ramstein format) on May 20.
• Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas stated that some unspecified countries, presumably NATO member states, have already sent personnel to train Ukrainian soldiers "on the ground."
• Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev amplified a known Russian information operation aimed at directly undermining Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's legitimacy as president.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Vovchansk, Chasiv Yar, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and the Dnipro River Delta.
• Russian opposition outlet Vazhnye Istorii (iStories) reported that Russian military authorities and Kazakh law enforcement acting on Russian orders detained at least two more servicemen in Kazakhstan who had deserted from the Russian military.

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

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of three subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Push Ukrainian forces back from the international border with Belgorod Oblast and approach to within tube artillery range of Kharkiv City
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #3 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Russian Technological Adaptations
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas
• Ukrainian Defense Industrial Base Efforts
• Russian Information Operations and Narratives
• Significant Activity in Belarus

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Kharkiv Oblast (Russian objective: Push Ukrainian forces back from the international border with Belgorod Oblast and approach to within tube artillery range of Kharkiv City)

Russian forces continued offensive operations near Lyptsi (northeast of Kharkiv City) on May 20, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced 200 to 400 meters near Lyptsi and seized the dacha area north of Lyptsi.[30] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces also advanced near Zelene (east of Lyptsi).[31] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims, however. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued offensive operations near Lyptsi and Zelene.[32] Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets stated that elements of the Russian 18th Motorized Rifle Division and 7th Motorized Rifle Regiment (both of the 11th Army Corps [AC], Leningrad Military District [LMD]), and the Russian Ministry of Defense's (MoD) Africa Corps attacked from Lukyantsi (northeast of Lyptsi) towards Lyptsi and along the Murom River towards Zelene.[33]

Russian forces recently made a confirmed advance in Vovchansk (northeast of Kharkiv City) amid continued Russian offensive operations in the area on May 20. Geolocated footage published on May 18 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced in central Vovchansk north of the Vovcha River.[34] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced 150 to 600 meters in the Vovchansk direction.[35] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued offensive operations near Vovchansk and Starytsya (southwest of Vovchansk).[36] A Russian milblogger claimed that there are positional battles near Starytsya and Buhruvatka (southwest of Vovchansk).[37] Russian sources claimed that Russian military personnel operating in the Vovchansk direction complained about how the area's open terrain does not allow for Russian ammunition supplies to arrive quickly at the frontline, likely referring to the fact Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) across open terrain are vulnerable to Ukrainian interdiction strikes.[38] Mashovets stated that unspecified elements of the 1st Guards Tank Army ([GTA], Moscow Military District [MMD]) - either elements of the 1st Tank Regiment and 1st Motorized Rifle Regiment (both of the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division) or elements of the 47th Tank Division - are operating in the forest area between Ohirtseve (northwest of Vovchansk) and Buhruvatka north of Siverskyi Donets River.[39] Mashovets stated that elements of the 138th and 25th motorized rifle brigades (6th Combined Arms Army, LMD) are operating within Vovchansk. Elements of the Chechen "Zapad-Akhmat" Battalion, 272nd Motorized Rifle Regiment (47th Tank Division, 1st GTA, MMD) and Rosgvardia are reportedly operating near Vovchansk.[40]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Russian forces reportedly recently advanced near Kreminna amid continued ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on May 20. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces seized Bilohorivka (south of Kreminna), but Russian milbloggers criticized the MoD's claim as premature or otherwise untrue.[41] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced northeast of Berestove (northwest of Svatove) and west of Dibrova (south of Kreminna).[42] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims, however. Russian forces also continued ground assaults northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka; northwest of Svatove near Berestove, Ivanivka, and Stelmakhivka; and southwest of Svatove near Novoyehorivka.[43] Reconnaissance elements of the Russian 15th Motorized Rifle Regiment (2nd Motorized Rifle Division, 1st Guards Tank Army [GTA], Moscow Military District [MMD]) reportedly continue operating in the Kupyansk direction.[44]

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a strike against the suburbs of occupied Luhansk City on May 20. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces struck Katerynivka - a settlement formerly known as Yuvileyne on the western outskirts of Luhansk City - with either Storm Shadow or SCALP-EG missiles.[45] Russian and Ukrainian sources speculated that Ukrainian forces struck the Luhansk Academy of Internal Affairs, which Russian forces had previously used to house military personnel.[46]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #3 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Russian forces continued ground assaults in the Siversk direction (northeast of Bakhmut) on May 20, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced north of Vesele (south of Siversk), although ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[47] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces attacked east of Siversk near Verkhnokamyanske, south of Siversk near Rozdolivka, and southeast of Siversk near Ivano-Darivka and Vyimka.[48] Elements of the Russian 106th Airborne (VDV) Division reportedly continue operating in the Siversk direction.[49]

Russian forces recently advanced near Chasiv Yar amid continued Russian offensive operations in the area on May 20. Geolocated footage published on May 18 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced during mechanized assaults on May 17 and May 18 in the southern part of the Kanal Microraion (easternmost Chasiv Yar).[50] Geolocated footage published on May 19 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced in southern Klishchiivka (southeast of Chasiv Yar).[51] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces completely seized Klishchiivka, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[52] Russian sources also claimed that elements of the Russian 98th VDV Division advanced in the Novyi Microraion (eastern Chasiv Yar) and that Russian forces advanced near Bohdanivka (northeast of Chasiv Yar).[53] Russian forces also continued attacking north of Chasiv Yar near Kalynivka, east of Chasiv Yar near Ivanivske, and southeast of Chasiv Yar near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.[54] Elements of the Russian 6th Motorized Rifle Division (3rd Army Corps [AC]) reportedly continue operating near Klishchiivka.[55] A Russian milblogger, who previously served as a Storm-Z instructor, claimed that Russian forces "critically" lack drone operators and anti-drone protection on armored vehicles in the Chasiv Yar area.[56]

Russian forces recently advanced west of Avdiivka amid continued Russian offensive operations in the area on May 20. Geolocated footage published on May 18 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced in western Netaylove (west of Avdiivka).[57] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced northeast of Novokalynove (north of Avdiivka) in an area 2.92 kilometers wide and up to 1.34 kilometers deep toward the H-20 (Donetsk City-Kostyantynivka) highway and northwest of Semenivka (northwest of Avdiivka).[58] Fighting also continued northwest of Avdiivka near Novooleksandriivka, Lozuvatske, Arkhanhelske, Yevhenivka, Sokil, Novopokrovske, and Novoselivka Persha and west of Avdiivka near Sieverne, Umanske, and Yasnobrodivka.[59] Elements of the Russian 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army [CAA], Central Military District [CMD]) are reportedly operating near Ocheretyne (northwest of Avdiivka).[60]

Russian forces recently advanced west of Donetsk City amid continued Russian offensive operations in the area on May 20. Geolocated footage published on May 20 indicates that Russian forces advanced southeast of Krasnohorivka (west of Donetsk City).[61] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced east, southeast, and south of Paraskoviivka (southwest of Donetsk City) and seized more than half of the settlement.[62] Fighting also continued west of Donetsk City near Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City Novomykhailivka and Vodyane.[63] Elements of the Russian 238th Artillery Brigade (8th CAA, Southern Military District [SMD]) are reportedly operating near Paraskoviivka.[64]

Russian forces continued ground assaults in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on May 20, including south of Velyka Novosilka near Urozhaine and Staromayorske.[65]

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

A Russian occupation official denied Russian claims from May 19 that Russian forces advanced nearly two kilometers towards Hulyaipole. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation senator Dmitry Rogozin stated that he could not confirm Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladmir Rogov’s claim that Russian forces advanced up to 1.5 kilometers towards Hulyaipole.[66] A Russian milblogger similarly expressed doubt about the accuracy of Rogov’s claim, while another milblogger implied that elements of the Russian 247th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Regiment (7th VDV Division) may be operating in the Hulyaipole direction.[67]

Russian forces recently marginally advanced in northern Robotyne and have likely seized the settlement.[68] Geolocated footage published on May 18 showed a Russian soldier surrendering in northeastern Robotyne, and geolocated footage published on May 20 showed Ukrainian forces striking Russian forces also in northwestern Robotyne.[69] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced up to 3.45 kilometers wide and 1.16 kilometers deep southeast of Robotyne and secured positions along a section of the Robotyne-Verbove (east of Robotyne) road to a depth of 620 meters.[70] Positional engagements continued near Robotyne and northwest of Verbove.[71] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces use artillery more intensely than Ukrainian forces, but that Ukrainian forces use first-person view (FPV) drones more intensely than Russian forces in the Zaporizhia direction.[72] Elements of the Russian 70th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) reportedly make munitions for FPV drones in the Zaporizhia direction.[73]

Russian forces recently marginally advanced on Velykyi Potemkin Island in the Dnipro River Delta. Geolocated footage published on May 19 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced to the southern part of the Velykyi Potemkin Island.[74] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces attempted to gain a foothold on Nestryha Island in the Dnipro River Delta on May 18 and 19.[75]

Russian milbloggers confirmed previous claims that elements of the Russian 76th VDV Division redeployed from western Zaporizhia Oblast to the Krynky area in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast.[76] Russian milbloggers claimed that elements of the Russian 76th VDV Division pushed Ukrainian forces out of Krynky and seized the settlement.[77] A Russian milblogger noted that Russian forces did not reestablish full control over Krynky despite some Russian sources claiming that Russian forces are clearing the village.[78] Positional engagements continued near Krynky , and the Ukrainian General Staff observed that the intensity of Russian attacks in the Dnipro direction (also known as the Kherson direction) somewhat decreased.[79] ISW previously observed unconfirmed reports that the Russian military is redeploying elements of the 76th and 7th VDV divisions from Zaporizhia Oblast to various new directions, including eastern Ukraine and Kherson Oblast, and numerous milblogger claims suggest that at least some elements of the 76th VDV Division redeployed to Kherson Oblast.[80]

Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces struck the Russian Tsyklon Karakhut-class small missile ship in Sevastopol Bay on May 19 with three US-provided ATACMS missiles, but ISW cannot independently confirm these reports at this time. Ukraine's Southern Operational Command and Navy Spokesperson Captain Third Rank Dmytro Pletenchuk stated on May 20 that there is a possibility that Ukrainian forces struck the Tsyklon, which is reportedly the only remaining cruise missile carrier in occupied Crimea.[81] Pletenchuk stated that there is no official confirmation of the strike, and ISW did not observe any visual evidence. Unnamed sources in the Crimean occupation emergency services told Russian opposition outlet Astra that three ATACMS missiles struck the Tsyklon, and Astra reported that the ship sank.[82]

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

Russian forces continued drone and missile strikes against Ukraine overnight on May 19 to 20 and during the day on May 20. Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces launched 29 Shahed-136/131 drones from Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai and Kursk Oblast overnight and that Ukrainian forces shot down all 29 drones over Odesa, Mykolaiv, Poltava, and Lviv oblasts.[83] The Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor General's Office stated that Russian forces also conducted an Iskander ballistic missile strike against the House of Culture in Izyum, Kharkiv Oblast just after midnight on May 20, but Russian sources claimed that Russian forces struck a Ukrainian military target in Izyum.[84] Ukraine's Eastern Air Command reported that Ukrainian forces downed a Russian Kh-59/69 cruise missile over Kryvyi Rih Raion, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast during the day on May 20.[85]

Russia and its allies continue to circumvent international sanctions to produce weapons to use against Ukraine. The director of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Foreign Examinations, Oleksandr Ruvin, stated on May 20 that it the institute found over 290 foreign-produced microelectronics components in a North Korean missile that Russian forces launched at Ukraine.[86] Ruvin stated that microelectronics components produced by over 25 companies in the United States, Germany, Hapan, the Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, and Taiwan were in the missile and that some of these components specifically contributed to the missile's navigation system.[87]

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

Russian opposition outlet Vazhnye Istorii (iStories) reported that Russian military authorities and Kazakh law enforcement acting on Russian wanted orders detained at least two more servicemen in Kazakhstan who had deserted from the Russian military. The head of the Russian 496th Military Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee reportedly attempted to contact one deserter in Kazakhstan. Another deserter claimed that Kazakh plainclothes officers detained him after receiving a wanted order from Russia.[88] The BBC News Russian Service reported on May 18 that Russian military authorities in Astana, Kazakhstan, detained a Russian contract servicemember (kontraktnik) for desertion on April 23.[89]

Wives and mothers of mobilized Russian servicemembers continue to complain about the poor treatment Russian troops fighting in Ukraine. Wives and mothers of mobilized servicemembers of the Russian 5th Combined Arms Army (Eastern Military District) complained that the Russian military command is forcefully holding around 90 wounded and ill mobilized personnel in barracks to make them continue fighting in Ukraine.[90] A Russian opposition outlet also reported that a group of wives and other relatives of mobilized men applied to hold a rally in Novosibirsk on June 1 and that this rally will focus on how mobilization deprived children of their fathers.[91]

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

Ukraine's Western partners continue to provide additional military support to Ukraine. The Danish Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on May 16 a military aid package for Ukraine worth 5.6 billion kroner (about $815 million).[92] The Danish MoD stated that the package will include 2.4 billion kroner (about $349 million) for air defense and funding for artillery systems and shells, anti-tank mines, and donations of F-16 aircraft. The Danish MoD stated that part of the funds will also go to maintaining Danish-provided weapons and equipment and direct investments in the Ukrainian defense industrial base (DIB). Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles announced on May 20 that Spain will provide a new military aid package to Ukraine, which includes Leopard tanks, that Ukraine should receive at the end of June.[93] The Lithuanian MoD announced on May 17 that Lithuania delivered 5.56x45mm artillery ammunition, drones, and anti-drone equipment to Ukraine.[94] German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated on May 17 that Lithuania will provide six Amber-1800 radars to Ukraine as part of the German-created Immediate Action on Air Defense initiative.[95] UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps stated on May 20 that the UK has delivered 80 air defense missiles, over 20 mine clearing systems, long-range surveillance and reconnaissance drones, over one million rounds of ammunition, and 20 Viking Amphibious Armored All-Terrain Vehicles to Ukraine in the past three weeks.[96] Shapps said that the UK will deliver a total of 100 air defense missiles by the end of May. The Austrian Foreign Ministry announced on May 16 that the Austrian Ministry of Finance and Austrian export credit agency Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG (OeKB) are creating a credit fund totaling 500 million euros (about $542 million) over the next five years to support Austrian exports to Ukraine and the reconstruction of Ukraine.[97]

German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall continues efforts to open facilities to help the Ukranian defense industrial base (DIB) both in Ukraine and neighboring states. Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger stated on May 15 that Rheinmetall plans to create another enterprise in Ukraine to produce air defense systems and that production will likely begin in one to two years.[98] Rheinmetall also announced on May 17 that it opened a Rheinmetall Automecanica SRL plant in Medias, Romania that will support Ukrainian military vehicles.[99]

Ukraine continues efforts to develop its DIB and technological innovations. The founder of Ukrainian drone company Vyriy Drone, Oleksiy Babenko, stated on May 16 that Ukraine has begun serial production of self-guided first-person view (FPV) drones that use a thermal imaging camera to identify targets.[100] Babenko stated that Vyriy Drone will deliver several thousand of these drones to the Ukrainian government in May 2024.[101] The Ukrainian Army of Drones project reported on May 17 that Ukraine developed a new Ukropchik quadcopter drone that can carry a payload of 1.5 kilograms, fly for 29 minutes without cargo, and has optional GPS.[102] The Army of Drones project reported on May 20 that Ukraine developed the Ratel-S ground-based strike robot to attack Russian armored vehicles. The Ratel S can drive up to 24 kilometers per hour, has a maximum range of six kilometers, and can drive for two hours on a single charge.[103] Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov stated on May 15 that Ukrainian forces destroy the majority of Russian armored vehicles they kill with Ukrainian-produced drones.[104] The Ukrainian MoD reported on May 16 that it approved 18 samples of domestically-produced weapons for the Ukrainian military since May 9 and will have approved a total of 80 samples from January through May 2024.[105]

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

ISW is not publishing coverage of activities in Russian-occupied areas today.

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian actors continue efforts to discredit the new Ukrainian mobilization law designed to help Ukraine reconstitute its forces to maintain its defense against the Russian invasion. Russian ultranationalist milbloggers continued to amplify provisions of the new law and claimed that Ukrainian forces are engaged in illegal activities.[106] Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo amplified rhetoric aimed at dividing the Ukrainian people and government.[107]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and People's Republic of China (PRC) Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Astana on May 20 and emphasized boilerplate rhetoric about Russia-Chinese strategic partnership and friendship.[108]

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

Union State Secretary Dmitry Mezentsev stated on May 19 that the Union State of Russia and Belarus is implementing seven programs in the field of space, microelectronics, electronics, and the automotive industry.[109] Mezentsev also stated that the Union State is implementing the “Biomembrane” medical program and discussed issues relating to improving the quality of professional education as part of the unified industrial policy.

Belarus continues to expand its relations with Russian federal subjects. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met with Magadan Oblast Governor Sergei Nosov on May 20 and discussed increasing trade and economic relations, especially related to the development of non-ferrous metals in Magadan Oblast.[110]

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.

24. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, May 20, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-may-20-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in northwestern Iran. His death upends Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s multi-year project grooming Raisi to become the next supreme leader.
• Israel: The Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court submitted an application to the court to obtain arrest warrants for several Hamas and Israeli officials.
• Gaza Strip: Israeli forces have continued to expand the extent of their clearing operation in eastern Rafah.
• Syria: Israel was likely responsible for two airstrikes targeting pro-Syrian regime targets in Syria in recent days.
• Yemen: The Houthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile into the Gulf of Aden.

IRAN UPDATE, MAY 20, 2024

May 20, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, May 20, 2024

Annika Ganzeveld, Andie Parry, Kathryn Tyson, Kelly Campa, Kitaneh Fitzpatrick, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00pm ET

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

CTP-ISW defines the “Axis of Resistance” as the unconventional alliance that Iran has cultivated in the Middle East since the Islamic Republic came to power in 1979. This transnational coalition is comprised of state, semi-state, and non-state actors that cooperate to secure their collective interests. Tehran considers itself to be both part of the alliance and its leader. Iran furnishes these groups with varying levels of financial, military, and political support in exchange for some degree of influence or control over their actions. Some are traditional proxies that are highly responsive to Iranian direction, while others are partners over which Iran exerts more limited influence. Members of the Axis of Resistance are united by their grand strategic objectives, which include eroding and eventually expelling American influence from the Middle East, destroying the Israeli state, or both. Pursuing these objectives and supporting the Axis of Resistance to those ends have become cornerstones of Iranian regional strategy.

We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in northwestern Iran on May 19.[1] His death upends Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s multi-year project of grooming Raisi to become the next supreme leader. Khamenei has invested tremendous energy and time in preparing Raisi in recent years, appointing him to key positions and engineering the presidential election in 2021 to ensure that he won.[2] Raisi’s death is a shock to both the day-to-day management of the Iranian government as well as to Khamenei’s long-term vision for the regime.

There is no obvious top contender to become the next supreme leader since Raisi died. One of Khamenei’s sons, Mojtaba Khamenei, is widely considered a leading candidate. Mojtaba has significant influence in the regime, especially in the internal security apparatus. Though Mojtaba certainly could replace his father, it is premature to say that he is the most likely option. Khamenei and other powerful factions that have supported Raisi for years must now reconsider who they would like to become the next supreme leader. They will not necessarily support Mojtaba. A member of the Assembly of Experts stated in February 2024 that Khamenei opposes hereditary succession, in fact.[3]

The regime must fill several key positions in the coming days and weeks, which could provide insight into how Khamenei and other factions are considering succession since Raisi died. The Assembly of Experts, which is the regime body responsible for monitoring and selecting the supreme leader, is scheduled to elect its leadership board on May 21.[4] That board includes the chairman and deputy chairman, which are both currently vacant. Raisi was the previous deputy chairman. Parliament is similarly scheduled to elect a new speaker on May 27.[5] Iran will also hold a presidential election on June 28.[6]

Khamenei will need to decide whether to interfere in any of these elections’ outcomes to prepare for succession. Any prominent cleric in one of these positions would become a natural contender for supreme leadership even though there is no legal requirement for the supreme leader to hold such offices beforehand. Khamenei could, on the other hand, refrain from making an immediate decision on who he would like to succeed him.

An indicator that Khamenei is positioning an individual to succeed him would be Khamenei allowing a cleric to become the next president or parliament speaker. This indicator would be especially strong if that cleric is in their 60s or 70s. Khamenei would probably avoid supporting a cleric much older, given that they would have a higher risk of dying and triggering another succession crisis sooner.

Iranian Interim President Mohammad Mokhber appointed Ali Bagheri Kani as head of the administration's Foreign Relations Council, making Bagheri Kani the de-facto acting foreign affairs minister, on May 20.[7] Bagheri Kani replaces Hossein Amir Abdollahian, who died alongside Ebrahim Raisi in the helicopter crash in northwestern Iran on May 19.[8] Bagheri Kani will serve in his new position until the next Iranian president enters office. Bagheri Kani has held several key roles in the Iranian regime. He had been most recently the deputy foreign affairs minister for policy and lead negotiator in the nuclear talks since 2021.[9] Bagheri Kani also served as the deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) from 2008 to 2013.[10] The SNSC is comprised of senior military and political officials and responsible for advising the supreme leader on foreign policy and national security.

The Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, submitted an application to the court to obtain arrest warrants for Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar, Hamas military wing commander Mohammed Deif, and Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh on May 20 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity involving extermination, murder, torture, and sexual violence.[11]

The Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court submitted an application to the court to obtain arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on May 20 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity involving the starvation of civilians.[12]

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in northwestern Iran. His death upends Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s multi-year project grooming Raisi to become the next supreme leader.
• Israel: The Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court submitted an application to the court to obtain arrest warrants for several Hamas and Israeli officials.
• Gaza Strip: Israeli forces have continued to expand the extent of their clearing operation in eastern Rafah.
• Syria: Israel was likely responsible for two airstrikes targeting pro-Syrian regime targets in Syria in recent days.
• Yemen: The Houthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile into the Gulf of Aden.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance objectives:

• Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to sustain clearing operations in the Gaza Strip
• Reestablish Hamas as the governing authority in the Gaza Strip

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) 98th Division continued to conduct clearing operations in Jabalia on May 20. The IDF 7th, 36th, and 460th brigades engaged Palestinian fighters, raided militia sites, and located weapons in a UNRWA compound in Jabalia.[13] The brigades directed strikes on Palestinian cells that were approaching Israeli forces in Jabalia with rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and anti-tank munitions.[14] Israeli forces have killed over 200 fighters in Jabalia since beginning operations there on May 14.[15] A local Palestinian journalist reported that Israeli snipers were operating in several buildings in Beit Lahia, north of Jabalia refugee camp.[16] Several Palestinian militias defended against Israeli advances into Jabalia using RPGs, small arms fire, rockets, and mortars.[17]

An Israeli miliary correspondent publicized further details of the recent recovery of four Israeli hostages’ remains in Jabalia refugee camp.[18] The IDF 202nd Paratrooper Battalion found the remains in a Hamas command–and–control center located in tunnel complex under Jabalia refugee camp on May 17. Hamas had brought command and communications equipment to the complex from other destroyed Hamas centers. The correspondent said that the IDF had not previously cleared this area in Jabalia refugee camp, which is consistent with CTP-ISW’s assessed clearing extent. Hamas planted an explosively formed penetrator inside the tunnel where the hostages' bodies were found. The 202nd Paratrooper Battalion led the operation and sustained six casualties, one of which was a company commander.

The IDF 679th Brigade began an operation to clear militia infrastructure, such as tunnels, in Sabra just north of the Netzarim corridor.[19] The IDF 99th Division continued operations along the Netzarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip on May 20.[20] Two IDF brigades are defending the Netzarim corridor and the US-built humanitarian aid pier in the central Gaza Strip while conducting targeted raids on militia infrastructure.[21] The IDF 679th Brigade shelled Palestinian fighters and weapons caches in the central Gaza Strip.[22] Palestinian militias did not claim attacks targeting Israeli forces in the central Gaza Strip on May 20.

The IDF Air Force has struck and killed two key Hamas police officials in the central Gaza Strip in recent days. The IDF cooperated with Shin Bet to target Zahar Khouli, who was a senior member of the Hamas police in the central refugee camps, on May 19.[23] The IDF said that Khouli maintained contacts with other militia members and supported attacks against Israel. The IDF and Shin Bet targeted Rami Khalil Faki, who was a prominent Hamas police official responsible for Nuseirat, on May 18.[24] The strike on Faki killed his deputy and four other Hamas fighters as well.[25] The IDF said that Faki commanded a Hamas squad that attacked Israeli forces.[26] The IDF Air Force has struck over the past day 80 targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including weapon depots, rocket launchers, Palestinian fighters, and buildings used to attack Israeli forces.[27]

The IDF 162nd Division announced that it “deepened” its clearing operation into eastern Rafah on May 20.[28] Israeli forces located dozens of tunnel shafts, raided militias sites, and engaged Palestinian fighters in eastern Rafah.[29] An IDF Maglan drone team directed a strike on a Palestinian fighter exiting a tunnel shaft to target Israeli forces in eastern Rafah.[30] Israeli forces have killed over 130 Palestinian fighters in eastern Rafah since beginning operations there.[31] The IDF Air Force struck and killed a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) field commander and three other PIJ fighters in Rafah.[32] Three Palestinian militias targeted Israeli forces in Rafah on May 20.[33]

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met separately with the three members of the Israeli War Cabinet to discuss Israeli operations in Rafah and other items on May 19 and 20.[34] Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Sullivan that Israel is “committed” to expanding a ground operation into Rafah.[35] Several Israeli military correspondents reported that the IDF estimates 950,000 Palestinians have left Rafah in “only two weeks” and that 60 to 70 percent of Rafah is totally evacuated.[36] The remaining 300,000 to 400,000 civilians remain in Tel Sultan, western Rafah.

Israeli War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz told Likud Knesset members on May 20 that he opposes extended Israeli military control of the Gaza Strip.[37] Gallant estimated that an occupation of the Gaza Strip would require Israel to extend mandatory military service from 32 months to 48 months.[38] He clarified that he is “against a Palestinian state, neither Hamas nor Israel” should rule the Gaza Strip.[39] Gantz’s statement echoes his May 18 ultimatum to Netanyahu to approve a new strategy for the war in the Gaza Strip by June 8.[40] An Israeli government document obtained by Israeli media assessed that an Israeli military occupation of the Gaza Strip would need a dramatic increase in the number of reserve soldiers and cost roughly 5 billion dollars.[41]

Palestinian militias conducted at least one indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel on May 20. PIJ and the Ansar Brigades launched a barrage of rockets at unspecified Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip.[42] Israeli red alerts indicate that the militias targeted Mefalsim near Sderot.[43]

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

West Bank

Axis of Resistance objectives:

• Establish the West Bank as a viable front against Israel

Israeli forces have engaged Palestinian fighters in at least two locations in the West Bank since CTP-ISW's data cut off on May 19.[44] PIJ's al Quds Brigades fired small arms targeting an IDF checkpoint near Jenin.[45] The al Quds Brigades separately fired small arms targeting an Israeli settlement across the Israel-West Bank border.[46]

The IDF detained 14 wanted individuals and confiscated cash and weapons during operations in the West Bank on May 20.[47]

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

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance objectives:

• Deter Israel from conducting a ground operation into Lebanon
• Prepare for an expanded and protracted conflict with Israel in the near term
• Expel the United States from Syria

Lebanese Hezbollah has conducted at least 12 attacks into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on May 19.[48]

The IDF conducted airstrikes in southern Lebanon, killing at least two Hezbollah fighters, on May 20.[49] The IDF said that it targeted a weapons depot in al Naqoura.[50] An Israeli Army Radio correspondent said that the strikes killed four Hezbollah fighters.[51] Hezbollah, however, mourned the deaths of only two of its fighters in al Naqoura on May 20.[52]

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

Iran and Axis of Resistance

The IDF Air Force was likely responsible for an airstrike targeting a vehicle near Lebanon-Syria border on May 18.[53] Syrian media reported that the attack took place near a Syrian Arab Army (SAA) 4th Division checkpoint around the al Masnaa border crossing.[54] There were no reported casualties.[55]

The IDF Air Force was likely responsible for airstrikes targeting two pro-Syrian regime positions outside Homs City, Homs Province, on May 20.[56] Syrian media reported that one of the targets was a Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated truck in Qusayr near the Lebanon-Syria border.[57] Local sources reported that another target was an unspecified site outside Homs City.[58] Israeli and Syrian media reported that there were four casualties, one of which was an SAA soldier.[59] CTP-ISW cannot verify the local reporting.

The IDF Air Force has previously targeted vehicles suspected of transporting Hezbollah military cargo in Qusayr.[60] A Syria analyst noted that Hezbollah maintains a heavy presence in the area.[61] The IDF has increased its strikes into Syria since December 2023 to disrupt the IRGC Quds Force and Hezbollah’s efforts to bring personnel and weapons into Lebanon from Syria.[62]

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed a drone attack targeting Eilat, Israel, on May 19.[63] Israeli officials and media have not commented on the claimed attack at the time of this writing.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported that the Houthis launched an anti-ship ballistic missile from Yemen into the Gulf of Aden on May 18.[64] No damage or injuries were reported.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com