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Quotes of the Day:
“We are ready to dies for an opinion bit not for a fact: it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.”
- Eric Hoffer
“The time is always right to do what is right.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.”
- John Locke
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 19, 2023
2. Germany’s strategic timidity
3. The U.S. Lets Ambassador Posts Sit Empty for Years. China Doesn’t.
4. Don’t Fear Putin’s Demise
5. A drone cure for Russia’s artillery-killing ‘Penicillin’
6. Russia’s Irrational War in Ukraine Should Be a Warning for Predicting China’s Behavior
7. New twist in China’s 5G war with the West
8. Japan’s three-in-one missile trained on China
9. Samantha Power, head of USAID, announces new development fund at Davos 2023
10. Panama has canceled registry to 136 Iran-linked vessels
11. Israeli X-Wing-Looking Loitering Munition To Be Tested By U.S. Special Ops
12. China in Our Backyard – A Wakeup Call
13. Giving Ukraine Modern NATO Weapons Is No Game Changer
14. Palantir CEO to those who don't support U.S. military work: 'Don't work here'
15. CIA director holds secret meeting with Zelensky on Russia’s next steps
16. Calls to Designate IRGC as Terrorist Organization Grow in the UK
17. Opinion | Xi’s course correction reveals an agile autocrat under pressure
18. Who Would Win a War Over Taiwan?
19. 3 Active-Duty Marines Who Work in Intelligence Arrested for Alleged Participation in Jan. 6 Riot
20. Fort Bragg will get a new name by the end of the year
21. Taiwan premier, cabinet submit resignations ahead of reshuffle
22. Learning to Train: What Washington and Taipei Can Learn from Security
23. U.S. cable: Russian paramilitary group set to get cash infusion from expanded African mine
24. Competition Campaigning: What It Looks Like and Implications for US Special Operations Command
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 19, 2023
Quotes of the Day: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-19-2023
Key Takeaways
- Senior Kremlin officials continue holding high-level meetings with Belarusian national leadership – an activity that could set conditions for a Russian attack against Ukraine from Belarus, although not necessarily and not in the coming weeks.
- A new Russian attack against Ukraine from Belarus in early 2023 seems less likely given current Russian military activity in Belarus, although an attack from Belarus in late 2023 seems more plausible.
- Ultranationalist Russian milbloggers continue to criticize the idea of Russian forces attacking Ukraine from Belarus.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attacked the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), underscoring the infeasibility of the Kremlin supporting a third Minsk-type agreement.
- Lukashenko continues to balance against the Kremlin by framing Belarus as a sovereign state within the Russian-dominated Union State.
- The Kremlin continues to falsely promote a narrative that the war will escalate if Ukraine receives weapons with the capability to strike Russian forces in occupied Crimea.
- An extremist Kremlin ally reintroduced nuclear escalation rhetoric aimed at scaring Western policymakers away from providing additional military aid to Ukraine.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly siding with the enemies of Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, likely in an ongoing effort to reduce Prigozhin’s influence in Russia.
- Prigozhin’s continued use of the Wagner Group’s claimed tactical success to elevate his position is likely deepening a conflict with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) for influence in the Russian information space.
- Russian Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov may have officially declared that the Wagner Group does not belong in the structure of the Russian Armed Forces and that the Russian military does not collaborate with Wagner despite ample evidence to the contrary.
- Ukrainian forces reportedly continued counteroffensive operations near Svatove, and Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks near Kreminna.
- Russian sources claimed that Russian forces captured Klishchiivka amidst ongoing Russian offensive operations around Soledar, Bakhmut, and Avdiivka.
- Russian sources claimed that Russian forces conducted localized offensive operations in Zaporizhia Oblast.
- Russian officials are reportedly continuing to prepare for a second wave of mobilization.
- Ukrainian partisans may have conducted an IED attack in Zaporizhia Oblast.
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 19, 2023
understandingwar.org
George Barros, Riley Bailey, Kateryna Stepanenko, Madison Williams, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan
January 19, 8:30 pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Senior Kremlin officials continue holding high-level meetings with Belarusian national leadership – activity that could be setting conditions for a Russian attack against Ukraine from Belarus, although not necessarily and not in the coming weeks. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin discussed unspecified bilateral military cooperation, the implementation of unspecified strategic deterrence measures, and “progress in preparing” the joint Russian-Belarusian Regional Grouping of Troops (RGV) in a January 19 phone call.[1] Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk and discussed an unspecified Russo-Belarusian “shared vision” for Russia’s war in Ukraine on January 19.[2] Lavrov and Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergey Aleinik discussed how Russia and Belarus can defeat an ongoing Western hybrid war against the states and signed an unspecified memorandum of cooperation on “ensuring biological security.”[3] This memorandum could be a leading indicator of the intensification of an existing Russian information operation falsely accusing Ukraine of developing chemical and biochemical weapons in alleged US-funded biolabs in Ukraine that was part of the Kremlin‘s pretext for the February 2022 invasion.[4]
The most dangerous course of action (MDCOA) of a new Russian attack against Ukraine from Belarus in early 2023 seems less likely given current Russian military activity in Belarus. A new MDCOA of an attack from Belarus in late 2023 seems more likely. Russian forces currently deployed in Belarus are undergoing training rotations and redeploying to fight in eastern Ukraine.[5] There are no observed indicators that Russian forces in Belarus have the command and control structures necessary for the winter or spring 2023 attack against Ukraine about which Ukrainian issued warnings in late 2022.[6] It seems more likely that Russian forces may be setting conditions for a new MDCOA of attacking Ukraine from Belarus in late 2023 given recent Ukrainian intelligence reports that Russia and Belarus plan to conduct major exercises (Zapad 2023 and Union Shield 2023), likely in September 2023.[7] ISW is thus adjusting its forecast; the current assessed MDCOA is a Russian attack against Ukraine from Belarusian territory in late 2023. This is not simply a deferment of the timeframe for the previous MDCOA. It is an entirely new MDCOA given that it would occur in different circumstances. Russia will have completed the Autumn 2022 annual conscription cycle and be well into the Spring 2023 cycle, on the one hand, and may well have completed one or more additional reserve call-ups by Autumn 2023. A delayed timeline for this COA could allow Russia’s military industry to gear up sufficiently to provide a greater proportion of the necessary materiel for a renewed invasion from Belarus than Russia can provide this winter. ISW continues to assess that a Russian attack against Belarus remains a highly unlikely scenario in the forecast cone this winter and unlikely but more plausible in Autumn 2023.
Russia’s nationalist military bloggers continue to criticize the idea of Russian forces attacking Ukraine from Belarus. Russian milbloggers continue to react negatively every time the idea of Russian forces attacking Ukraine from Belarus resurfaces. One milblogger stated that it is a bad idea for Russia to significantly expand the front from Belarus because Russian forces’ battlefield performance improved after compressing the front following Russia’s withdrawal from upper Kherson.[8] This milblogger stated that Russian forces do not have the capability to project deep into Ukraine along multiple axes of advance as Russia attempted to do in early 2022 and advocated that Russia prioritize re-establishing a strong conventional military capable of fighting NATO.[9]
Lavrov attacked the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), underscoring the infeasibility of the Kremlin supporting a third Minsk-type agreement. Lavrov accused NATO and the European Union of using the OSCE against Russia and falsely claimed that the OSCE agreed to the Minsk agreements (the failed ceasefire accords that the Kremlin coerced Ukraine into accepting in 2014-2015, which stipulated major political concessions undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty) only to buy time to prepare for a war against Russia.[10] Lavrov accused unspecified OSCE Special Monitoring Mission staff in Ukraine of aiding Ukraine in conducting military operations against civilians in Donbas.[11]
The OSCE was a key neutral party in implementing the first two Minsk agreements in 2014 and 2015. Lavrov’s attack against the OSCE indicates Moscow’s unwillingness to engage in the future serious cooperation with the OSCE that would be necessary for another Minsk Accords-style ceasefire.[12] Lavrov’s attack may also be an attempt to justify Russian forces’ reported illegal commandeering of OSCE off-road vehicles to support Russian combat operations in Luhansk Oblast.[13]
Lukashenko continues to balance against the Kremlin by framing Belarus as a sovereign state within the Russia-dominated Union State. Lukashenko’s readout of his meeting with Lavrov stated that he and Lavrov identified unspecified areas of cooperation to “preserve the sovereignty of the two countries in all respects.”[14] This rhetoric is consistent with Lukashenko's longstanding efforts to avoid ceding Belarusian sovereignty to the Kremlin-dominated Union State structure.[15]
The Kremlin is intensifying its information operation to promote a false narrative that the war will escalate if Ukraine receives weapons capable of striking Russian forces in occupied Crimea. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded on January 19 to a New York Times report that US officials are considering providing Kyiv with weapons capable of striking Russian military infrastructure in occupied Crimea and southern Ukraine.[16] Peskov stated that Western provisions of long-range weapons to Ukraine that can threaten Russian forces in Crimea will bring ”the conflict to a new qualitative level, which will not go well for global and pan-European security.”[17] Peskov added that even the discussion of providing such weapons is ”potentially extremely dangerous,” but then noted that Ukraine already has weapons that it uses to strike occupied territories in Ukraine. Crimea is legally Ukrainian territory and Ukraine is within its rights under the laws and norms of armed conflict to strike Russian military targets in Crimea. It would be within its rights under international law and norms to attack targets in Russia as well, as the invading country retains no right to sanctuary for military targets within its own territory.
Peskov’s threats are part of a Russian information operation designed to discourage Western support to Ukraine and do not correspond to Russia’s actual capabilities to escalate against the West. Kremlin officials have made similar threats regarding select Western security assistance in the past and will likely continue to do so in the future. Russian forces, however, do not have the capacity to escalate their conventional war effort in Ukraine and certainly are not capable of conducting successful conventional military operations against the West and NATO in their current state. Russia has severely weakened its military posture against NATO by deploying military units and equipment – including air defense systems – away from NATO and to Ukraine and suffering horrific losses in men and materiel.[18] The Kremlin never assessed that it could defeat NATO in a conventional war, moreover, an assessment that was at the heart of its hybrid warfare doctrine.[19] The Kremlin seeks to minimize Western military aid to Ukraine by stoking fears of an escalation Russia cannot execute. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s theory of victory likely depends on Putin’s will to force his people to fight to outlast the West’s willingness to support Ukraine over time.[20]
The Kremlin is also very unlikely to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and extraordinarily unlikely to use them against the West despite consistently leaning on tired nuclear escalation threats. Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, in response to NATO Command’s planned January 20 meeting in Germany, stated on January 19 that Western officials do not understand that the “loss of a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war.”[21] Medvedev argued that ”nuclear powers [like the Russian Federation] have not lost major conflicts on which their fate depends.”[22] Medvedev routinely makes hyperbolic and inflammatory comments, including threats of nuclear escalation, in support of Russian information operations that aim to weaken Western support for Ukraine and that are out of touch with actual Kremlin positions regarding the war in Ukraine.[23] Medvedev’s consistently inflammatory rhetoric may suggest that the Kremlin has encouraged him to promote extremist rhetoric that aims to frighten and deter the West from giving further military aid to Ukraine over fears of escalation with Russia or that he is simply continuing a pattern of extremist rhetorical freelancing. ISW continues to assess that Russian officials have no intention of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine or elsewhere, and certainly not in response to the provision of individual weapons systems.[24]
Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly siding with the adversaries of Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, likely in an ongoing effort to degrade Prigozhin’s influence in Russia. Putin met on January 18, 2023, with St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov – one of Prigozhin's overt enemies – for the first time since early March 2022 to discuss St. Petersburg’s role in the Russian war effort.[25] Beglov stated that his administration formed three volunteer battalions that support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine under the Russian Western Military District (WMD). ISW previously reported that Prigozhin had launched an intensive campaign petitioning Russian State Duma officials to remove Beglov from his office and had even called on the Russian Prosecutor General’s office to investigate Beglov for treason for failing to adequately support the Russian war effort.[26] Prigozhin-affiliated outlets also published exposés on Beglov over the summer of 2022, claiming that Beglov deliberately impeded the advertising efforts for recruitment into the three local volunteer battalions.[27] Prigozhin had also suggested that he assisted Beglov in campaigning for the governor role – claiming that he had made Beglov’s career and made several proposals to improve his administration.
Putin’s demonstrative meeting with Beglov and their specific discussion of Beglov’s contribution to the war effort directly challenges Prigozhin’s ongoing effort to assert his own authority over Beglov and St. Petersburg. Putin had also recently reappointed Colonel General Aleksandr Lapin, former commander of the Central Military District (CMD) as the Chief of Staff of the Russian Ground Forces despite Lapin receiving significant criticism from the siloviki faction of which Prigozhin is a prominent member.[28] Putin had also doubled down on the official rhetoric that only Russian forces contributed to the capture of Soledar, Donetsk Oblast, rejecting Prigozhin’s claims that Wagner forces had accomplished the tactical victory.[29] Putin is likely attempting to reduce Prigozhin’s prominence in favor of the re-emerging professional Russian military and Russian government officials.
Prigozhin nevertheless continues to use claims about the Wagner Group’s tactical success to elevate his position, likely deepening a conflict with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) for influence in the Russian information space. Prigozhin claimed on January 19 that Wagner Group elements captured Klishchiivka, Donetsk Oblast, and emphasized that Wagner Group forces were exclusively responsible for the tactical advances south of Bakhmut.[30] This statement is the first time Prigozhin has personally broken the news of a purported Russian tactical success and likely supports Prigozhin‘s effort to promote himself as an independently successful wartime leader.[31] Russian sources largely responded to Prigozhin’s claim as if it were an official confirmation that Russian forces took the settlement.[32]
Prigozhin’s announcement generated widespread conversation among Russian milbloggers about the operational significance of the Russian capture of the settlement.[33] The Russian MoD’s announcement concerning the capture of Sil, Donetsk Oblast near Soledar on January 18 generated far less conversation and excitement amongst Russian milbloggers.[34] The Russian Ministry of Defense previously tried to downplay the Wagner Group’s involvement in the capture of neighboring Sil by referring to Wagner Group fighters as ”volunteers of assault detachments” on January 18.[35] The Russian MoD has started to use more specific language for Russian units in its reporting on Russian operations likely in order to claim more responsibility for tactical advances and minimize Prigozhin’s ability to claim that Wagner Group forces are the only Russian forces that are able to secure tactical advances in Ukraine.[36] The Kremlin is likely aware that Prigozhin‘s recent use of the Wagner Group’s tactical success has had a greater effect in the Russian information space than its own efforts to portray the Russian military as an effective fighting force.
Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov reportedly declared that the Wagner Group does not belong in the structure of the Russian Armed Forces. Gerasimov allegedly responded to Moscow City Duma parliamentarian Yevgeny Stupin’s inquiry on the status of the Wagner Group and its “operational interaction” with the Russian Armed Forces in an official letter, dated December 29, 2022, that Stupin shared on his Telegram on January 19.[37] Stupin stated that he had received numerous complaints from his constituents who have relatives serving in Wagner detachments that they are unable to contact officials that would connect them with their family members on the frontlines. Gerasimov stated in the letter that “the organization [Stupin] referred to as PMC Wagner does not belong to the structure of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation” and that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is not responsible for Wagner servicemen[38].” Stupin asserted that the letter is real, although ISW has no independent verification of his claim.
Clear evidence indicates that Wagner Group has operated under the direction of the Russian chain of command[39]. A Bellingcat investigation found that Wagner founder Dmitry Utkin reported to current Western Military District Commander Lieutenant General Evgeny [40] – among other Russian military intelligence officials – when Nikiforov was the Chief of Staff of the Russian 58th Combined Arms Army in 2015. The Russian Ministry of Defense recently claimed on January 13 that Russian forces worked with the Wagner Group to capture [41]. ISW assesses that Gerasimov’s apparent letter is, at the very least, another pointed effort by the Russian government to undermine Prigozhin’s influence. Its release at this time is noteworthy in this respect. Gerasimov was appointed overall commander of the Russian war effort in Ukraine on January 11, for one thing, and Stupin’s publication of the nearly month-old correspondence comes in the midst of a concerted Kremlin campaign to clip Prigozhin’s wings, on the other.[42]
Key Takeaways
- Senior Kremlin officials continue holding high-level meetings with Belarusian national leadership – an activity that could set conditions for a Russian attack against Ukraine from Belarus, although not necessarily and not in the coming weeks.
- A new Russian attack against Ukraine from Belarus in early 2023 seems less likely given current Russian military activity in Belarus, although an attack from Belarus in late 2023 seems more plausible.
- Ultranationalist Russian milbloggers continue to criticize the idea of Russian forces attacking Ukraine from Belarus.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attacked the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), underscoring the infeasibility of the Kremlin supporting a third Minsk-type agreement.
- Lukashenko continues to balance against the Kremlin by framing Belarus as a sovereign state within the Russian-dominated Union State.
- The Kremlin continues to falsely promote a narrative that the war will escalate if Ukraine receives weapons with the capability to strike Russian forces in occupied Crimea.
- An extremist Kremlin ally reintroduced nuclear escalation rhetoric aimed at scaring Western policymakers away from providing additional military aid to Ukraine.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly siding with the enemies of Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, likely in an ongoing effort to reduce Prigozhin’s influence in Russia.
- Prigozhin’s continued use of the Wagner Group’s claimed tactical success to elevate his position is likely deepening a conflict with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) for influence in the Russian information space.
- Russian Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov may have officially declared that the Wagner Group does not belong in the structure of the Russian Armed Forces and that the Russian military does not collaborate with Wagner despite ample evidence to the contrary.
- Ukrainian forces reportedly continued counteroffensive operations near Svatove, and Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks near Kreminna.
- Russian sources claimed that Russian forces captured Klishchiivka amidst ongoing Russian offensive operations around Soledar, Bakhmut, and Avdiivka.
- Russian sources claimed that Russian forces conducted localized offensive operations in Zaporizhia Oblast.
- Russian officials are reportedly continuing to prepare for a second wave of mobilization.
- Ukrainian partisans may have conducted an IED attack in Zaporizhia Oblast.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Ukrainian Counteroffensives—Eastern Ukraine
- Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and one supporting effort);
- Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
- Russian Supporting Effort—Southern Axis
- Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Ukrainian Counteroffensives (Ukrainian efforts to liberate Russian-occupied territories)
Eastern Ukraine: (Eastern Kharkiv Oblast-Western Luhansk Oblast)
Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Svatove on January 19. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a counteroffensive to capture Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove) and advanced to the railway station in the eastern part of the settlement.[43] A milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are waiting for reinforcements to continue the counteroffensive to liberate Kuzemivka (15km northwest of Svatove), which they claimed is not under Ukrainian or Russian control.[44] ISW does not make assessments about specific future Ukrainian operations, however. The milblogger also claimed that Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups are operating along the frontline from Kolomyychikha (10km west of Svatove) to Kamianka (63km northwest of Svatove) to assist in target designation for Russian artillery units.[45] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated that elements of the Western Military District (WMD) are operating in the northern sector of the Svatove-Kreminna line.[46]
Russian forces continued limited counterattacks to regain lost positions near Kreminna on January 19. Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai reported that there is heavy fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of Kreminna and near Dibrova (5km southwest of Kreminna).[47] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Terny, Donetsk Oblast (17km west of Kreminna) and Bilohorivka, Luhansk Oblast (12km south of Kreminna).[48]
Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces continued offensive operations around Soledar on January 19. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Soledar itself, Verkhnokamianske (20km northeast of Soledar) and Sil (3km northwest of Soledar).[49] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces conducted assaults towards Ukrainian fortified positions along the Krasnopolivka-Rozdolivka-Vesele line (within 7km north of Soledar) and in the direction of Blahodatne (2km west of Soledar).[50] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian and Ukrainian forces engaged in combat near Paraskoviivka (5km southwest of Soledar).[51] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces also repelled a Russian assault near Krasna Hora (5km southwest of Soledar).[52]
Russian sources claimed that Russian forces captured Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut) amid ongoing offensive operations around Bakhmut on January 19. Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Wagner Group fighters exclusively captured Klishchiivka and that fighting is ongoing around the settlement, although ISW cannot independently confirm that Russian forces have captured the settlement.[53] Russian sources asserted that the capture of Klishchiivka would allow Russian forces to cut off the Kostiantynivka- Bakhmut highway (T0504 highway) and threaten Ukrainian forces in Chasiv Yar (13km west of Bakhmut).[54] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Bakhmut itself and near Klishchiivka, Oleksandro-Shultyne (17km southwest of Bakhmut), and Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut).[55] Geolocated footage published on January 18 indicates that Russian forces have likely made marginal advances in the northeastern outskirts of Bakhmut.[56] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces made marginal advances in the eastern and southern outskirts of Bakhmut.[57]
Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Donetsk City-Avdiivka area on January 19. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults within 32km southwest of Avdiivka near Vodyane, Marinka, Pobieda, and Paraskoviivka.[58] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces attacked near Nevelske (15km southwest of Avdiivka) and broke through Ukrainian defenses near Pobieda (32km southwest of Avdiivka), reaching a local railway station, although ISW cannot independently verify that Russian forces did so.[59] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated that elements of the Southern Military District (SMD) are operating on the western outskirts of Donetsk City and that elements of the Eastern Military District (EMD) are operating in western Donetsk Oblast.[60] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued routine indirect fire along the line of contact in Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhia oblasts.[61]
Supporting Effort—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)
Russian sources claimed that Russian forces continued localized offensive operations in Zaporizhia Oblast on January 19. Zaporizhia Oblast Occupation Deputy Vladimir Rogov claimed that Russian forces captured four unspecified settlements near Orikhiv, a Ukrainian-controlled settlement about 56km southeast of Zaporizhzhia City.[62] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted a localized offensive operation around Orikhiv and that Russian reconnaissance and sabotage groups are conducting reconnaissance-in-force operations near Mali Shcherbaky (18km west of Orikhiv), Stepove (21km west of Orikhiv), Mala Tokmachka (10km southeast of Orikhiv), and Nesteryanka (12km southwest of Orikhiv).[63] The Russian milblogger added that Ukrainian formations are spreading information that they lost control of these four settlements, and Rogov may have been referring to these settlements in his original announcement. The Ukrainian General Staff responded to these Russian claims by asserting that Ukrainian artillery defeated elements of the Russian 58th Combined Arms Army that attempted this attack.[64] The Ukrainian General Staff published geolocated footage that showed Ukrainian artillery striking Russian forces south of Stepove and reported that Ukrainian forces eliminated three Russian tanks and about 30 servicemembers.[65]
Russian forces continued routine fire along the contact line in Kherson, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolaiv oblasts on January 19.[66] One Ukrainian official reported that Russian forces continue to use incendiary munitions against civilian infrastructure in occupied territories.[67]
Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
A Russian source continued to indicate that Russian authorities are likely preparing for a second wave of mobilization. A Russian milblogger reported on January 19 that a Russian citizen went to a military enlistment office in Krasnodar to sign up as a volunteer but officials there told him to “wait for the next mobilization or go to Grozny [in the Chechen Republic].”[68] The report stated that the military enlistment officials told the man that the reasons for prohibiting him from signing up as a volunteer are “secret.”[69] This report may indicate that Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov is continuing efforts to build up his parallel military structure. ISW assesses that the officials’ mention of Grozny, Chechen Republic implies some sort of connection between the Russian state and Kadyrov’s parallel military recruitment efforts in Chechnya. ISW previously reported on Kadyrov’s routine promotion of his efforts to create Chechen-based parallel military structures to garner favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin, counteract Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s growing influence, and expand Kadyrov’s own political and military influence.[70]
The Russian State Duma is moving forward with a project to confiscate the property of Russians who fled Russia. Russian sources reported on January 18 that several unspecified State Duma deputies are working on implementing the confiscation (nationalization) of the property of Russians who fled the country.[71] ISW previously reported that Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin proposed on January 12 that Russia amend its criminal code to legalize the confiscation of private property of Russians who fled the country.[72] Not all Russian officials support this approach, however. ISW also reported that Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov opposed Volodin’s proposal, instead argued for creating incentives for Russians to return home, and stated that Russian citizens who left the country “are all our citizens, all equally, and could have different reasons for leaving.”[73] The senior Russian leadership continues to distance itself from these discussions and could be pushing Volodin as the face of such an unpopular order to make the official Kremlin line appear more reasonable in comparison. The Russian State Duma and its officials consistently support Kremlin directives and are not independent of the Russian executive branch, indicating that Volodin’s proposal may have come from -- or at least has the private support of -- the Kremlin. ISW has previously reported that both Putin and Prigozhin have set conditions for nationalization of Russian private property.[74]
The Russian Armed Forces continue to struggle with desertion and low morale among servicemembers. The BBC’s Russian service shared a special report on January 19 that Russian courts have received over 900 criminal cases under the Russian Criminal Code – most being under the article on “unauthorized abandonment of a unit” since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[75] Meduza previously reported that the Russian government made amendments to the Criminal Code on September 24 that increased punishments for ”crimes against military service“ such as desertion, insubordination, and disobedience just five days after Putin declared mobilization.[76] The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) shared intercepted audio on January 18 of a demoralized Russian servicemember complaining about the high death rates in his unit and their dwindling supply of military equipment.[77]
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of and annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)
Ukrainian partisans may have conducted an IED attack in Kyrylivka, Melitopol Raion, Zaporizhia Oblast. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on January 19 that Ukrainian partisans used an IED to attack a house holding a group of Russian servicemembers.[78] Russian sources did not report on any partisan activity in Zaporizhia Oblast on January 19.
Russian occupation authorities are continuing efforts to deter and detain Ukrainian civilians and partisans in occupied territories. The Kherson Oblast Occupation Ministry of Internal Affairs claimed on January 19 that Kherson Oblast occupation authorities detained two Ukrainian citizens in Henichesk and near Skadovsk, Kherson Oblast, on allegations that they provided Ukrainian forces with information on Russian military personnel movements, equipment, and checkpoint locations.[79] The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Internal Ministry announced on January 19 that LNR law enforcement will not penalize Luhansk Oblast residents who voluntarily surrender weapons and ammunition following an incident in which LNR law enforcement arrested an individual reportedly carrying explosives in Kadiivka, Luhansk Oblast.[80] Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Military Administration Advisor Serhiy Khlan stated on January 19 that Russian occupation authorities are raiding homes and looting private farms when searching for possible Ukrainian collaborators in occupied Kherson Oblast.[81]
Russian occupation officials claimed that they are not enforcing passportization measures for Ukrainian “evacuees.” Kherson Occupation Administration Head Vladimir Saldo claimed on January 19 that Russian officials continue to provide housing to evacuated residents from occupied Kherson Oblast but no longer require that Ukrainian citizens obtain Russian passports prior to applying for housing certificates under Russian law.[82]
Russian occupation authorities are continuing to target Ukrainian children to consolidate societal control in occupied territories. Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai stated on January 19 that Russian occupation authorities threaten to deprive Ukrainian parents of their rights should they not send their children to Russian schools in Luhansk Oblast.[83] Video footage posted to social media on January 18 shows Ukrainian children dressed in Russian uniforms shouting “I am Russian” in Mariupol.[84]
Russian occupation officials are continuing to restrict movement of civilians in occupied Ukrainian territories. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on January 19 that Russian forces are blocking all civilian movement into and out of Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast to use civilians as human shields -likely in connection with their recent start of offensive operations in Zaporizhia Oblast.[85] The Ukrainian Resistance Center added that Russian forces have trapped 10,000 to 15,000 civilians in Enerhodar and that Russian forces shelter military equipment and personnel among civilians.[86] Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov stated at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Russian forces and occupation authorities torture residents who attempt to leave Melitopol and other occupied settlements.[87] Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai stated on January 19 that Russian occupation authorities are blocking residents from entering and leaving Rubizhne, Lysychansk, and Severodonetsk, Luhansk Oblast, to search for possible Russian deserters.[88]
Russian occupation authorities continue to face administrative issues in maintaining a sufficient pro-Russia workforce in occupied territories. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on January 19 that Russian occupation authorities are offering doctors in Russia 4,500 – 18,000 rubles ($65-$260) from the Russian pension fund to work in occupied territories as Ukrainian doctors are continuing to refuse to sign contracts with Russian officials.[89] The Ukrainian Resistance Center noted on January 19 that Ukrainian doctors in occupied territories are informally treating locals.[90]
ISW will continue to report daily observed indicators consistent with the current assessed most dangerous course of action (MDCOA): a renewed invasion of northern Ukraine possibly aimed at Kyiv.
ISW’s MDCOA warning forecast about a potential Russian offensive against northern Ukraine in fall 2023 remains a worst-case scenario within the forecast cone. ISW currently assesses the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine from Belarus as low, but possible, and the risk of Belarusian direct involvement as very low. This new section in the daily update is not in itself a forecast or assessment. It lays out the daily observed indicators we are using to refine our assessments and forecasts, which we expect to update regularly. Our assessment that the MDCOA remains unlikely has not changed. We will update this header if the assessment changes.
Observed indicators for the MDCOA in the past 24 hours:
Observed ambiguous indicators for MDCOA in the past 24 hours:
- The Belarusian Ministry of Defense reported that Russian and Belarusian pilots continued conducting the second stage joint combat training tasks as part of the joint Russian-Belarusian Regional Grouping of Forces (RGV) on January 19.[91] The Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced that these exercises are occurring at the Machulishchi, Baranovichi and Lida airfields.[92]
- Belarusian elements continue conducting exercises in Belarus. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced that artillery elements of the Belarusian 6th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade conducted unspecified tasks in an unspecified location as part of a combat readiness check on January 19.[93]
- Social media users observed Belarusian military trucks loaded on a train at the Brest-Yuzhny railroad station in Belarus on January 19.[94]
Observed counter-indicators for the MDCOA in the past 24 hours:
- The Ukrainian General Staff reiterated that it has not observed Russian forces in Belarus forming a strike group as of January 19 and reported that Russian and Belarusian air forces continue conducting exercises.[95]
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.
[2] https://president.gov dot by/ru/events/vstrecha-s-ministrom-inostrannyh-del-rossii-sergeem-lavrovym-1674115910; https://eng.belta dot by/politics/view/lavrov-shares-details-of-his-meeting-with-lukashenko-156092-2023/
[3] https://eng.belta dot by/politics/view/belarus-russia-determined-to-persevere-in-face-of-hybrid-war-156111-2023/; https://www.sb dot by/articles/aleynik-i-lavrov-podpisali-memorandum-o-vzaimoponimanii-po-voprosam-obespecheniya-biologicheskoy-bez.html
[10] https://eng.belta dot by/politics/view/lavrov-shares-details-of-his-meeting-with-lukashenko-156092-2023/; https://www.belta dot by/politics/view/glavy-mid-rossii-i-belarusi-ediny-vo-mnenii-pro-obse-degradiruet-i-prevratilas-v-pole-brani-545424-2023/
[11] https://www.belta dot by/politics/view/glavy-mid-rossii-i-belarusi-ediny-vo-mnenii-pro-obse-degradiruet-i-prevratilas-v-pole-brani-545424-2023/
[12] https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-says-zelenskiys-no-minsk-3-comment... ua/en/news/mi-ne-mozhemo-piti-na-minsk-3-bo-ce-kvitok-na-vidkladenu-vij-75469
[14] https://president.gov dot by/ru/events/vstrecha-s-ministrom-inostrannyh-del-rossii-sergeem-lavrovym-1674115910
[25] http://en.kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/67882/print; http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/70369
[32]
[62] https://tass dot com/politics/1564701
[71] https://t.me/tvrain/61871; https://ria dot ru/20230118/imuschestvo-1845718003.html
[73] https://tass dot ru/politika/16795105 ; https://life dot ru/p/1551631; https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-ass...
[75] https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-64318477 ; https://meduza dot io/cards/itak-v-ugolovnom-kodekse-rf-vot-vot-poyavyatsya-slova-mobilizatsiya-voennoe-polozhenie-i-voennoe-vremya-komu-i-chem-eto-grozit; https://meduza dot io/feature/2023/01/19/voennosluzhaschiy-dolzhen-v-lyubyh-nechelovecheskih-usloviyah-prodolzhat-sluzhbu
[76] https://meduza dot io/cards/itak-v-ugolovnom-kodekse-rf-vot-vot-poyavyatsya-slova-mobilizatsiya-voennoe-polozhenie-i-voennoe-vremya-komu-i-chem-eto-grozit
[78] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/19/v-kyrylivczi-partyzany-likviduvaly-grupu-rosijskyh-vijskovyh/; https://www.pravda.com dot ua/news/2023/01/19/7385567/
[85] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/19/okupanty-prodovzhuyut-blokadu-energodaru/
[86] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/19/okupanty-prodovzhuyut-blokadu-energodaru/
[89] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/19/rosiyany-zbilshuyut-vyplaty-likaryam-shhob-zaczikavyty-yih-yihaty-do-ukrayiny/
[90] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/19/rosiyany-zbilshuyut-vyplaty-likaryam-shhob-zaczikavyty-yih-yihaty-do-ukrayiny/
understandingwar.org
2. Germany’s strategic timidity
Excerpts:
Joe Biden, eager to reverse the diplomatic damage inflicted during the Trump years, reversed course and has gone out of his way to show his appreciation for all things German.
Biden’s decision to court the Germans instead of castigating them for failing to meet their commitments taught Berlin that it merely needs to wait out crises in the transatlantic relationship and the problems will fix themselves. Under pressure from Trump to buy American liquefied natural gas, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in 2018 to support the construction of the necessary infrastructure. After Trump, those plans were put on ice, only to revive them amid the current energy crisis.
By virtue of its size and geographical position at the center of Europe, Germany will always be important for the U.S., if not as a true ally, at least as an erstwhile partner and staging ground for the American military.
Who cares that the Bundeswehr has become a punchline or that Germany remains years away from meeting its NATO spending targets?
In Washington’s view, Germany might be a bad ally, but at least it’s America’s bad ally.
And no one understands the benefits of that status better than the Germans themselves.
Germany’s strategic timidity
Politico · by Matthew Karnitschnig · January 19, 2023
BY MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG
JANUARY 19, 2023 1:54 PM CET
6 MINUTES READ
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Voiced by artificial intelligence.
BERLIN — News this month that the number of German soldiers declaring themselves conscientious objectors rose fivefold in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine created little more than a ripple in Germany.
For many Germans it’s perfectly natural for members of the Bundeswehr, the army, to renege on the pledge they made to defend their country; if Germans themselves don’t want to fight, why should their troops?
Indeed, in Germany, a soldier isn’t a soldier but a “citizen in uniform.” It’s an apposite euphemism for a populace that has lived comfortably under the U.S. security umbrella for more than seven decades and goes a long way toward explaining how Germany became NATO’s problem child since the war in Ukraine began, delaying and frustrating the Western effort to get Ukraine the weaponry it needs to defend itself against an unprovoked Russian onslaught.
The latest installment in this saga (it began just hours after the February invasion when Germany’s finance minister told Ukraine’s ambassador there was no point in sending aid because his country would only survive for a few hours anyway) concerns the question of delivering main battle tanks to Ukraine. Germany, one of the largest producers of such tanks alongside the U.S., has steadfastly refused to do so for months, arguing that providing Ukraine with Western tanks could trigger a broader war.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also tried to hide behind the U.S., noting that Washington has also not sent any tanks. (Scholz has conveniently ignored the detail that the U.S. has provided Ukraine with $25 billion in military aid so far, more than 10 times what Germany has.)
Germany’s allies, including Washington, often ascribe German recalcitrance to a knee-jerk pacifism born of the lessons learned from its “dark past.”
In other words, the German strategy — do nothing, blame the Nazis — is working.
Of course, Germany’s conscience doesn’t really drive its foreign policy, its corporations do. While it hangs back from supporting Ukraine in a fight to defend its democracy from invasion by a tyrant, it has no qualms about selling to authoritarian regimes, like those in the Middle East, where it does brisk business selling weapons to countries such as Egypt and Qatar.
Despite everything that’s happened over the past year, Berlin is still holding out hope that Ukraine can somehow patch things up with Russia so that Germany can resume business as usual and switch the gas back on. Even if Germany ends up sending tanks to Ukraine — as many now anticipate — it will deliver as few as it can get away with and only after exhausting every possible option to delay.
Much attention in recent years has focused on Nord Stream 2, the ill-fated Russo-German natural gas project. Yet tensions between the U.S. and Germany over the latter’s entanglement with Russian energy interests date back to the late 1950s, when it first began supplying the Soviet Union with large-diameter piping.
Throughout the Cold War, Germany’s involvement with NATO was driven by a strategy to take advantage of the protection the alliance afforded, delivering no more than the absolute minimum, while also expanding commercial relations with the Soviets.
In 1955, the weekly Die Zeit described what it called the “fireside fantasy of West German industry” to normalize trade relations with the Soviet Union. Within years, that dream became a reality, driven in large measure by Chancellor Willy Brandt’s détente policies, known as Ostpolitik.
Joe Biden, eager to reverse the diplomatic damage inflicted during the Trump years, reversed course and has gone out of his way to show his appreciation for all things German | Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
That’s one reason the Germans so feared U.S. President Ronald Reagan and his hard line against the Soviets. Far from welcoming his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” demand, both the German public and industry were terrified by it, worried that Reagan would upset the apple cart and destroy their business in the east.
By the time the Berlin Wall fell a couple of years later, West German exports to the Soviet Union had reached nearly 12 billion deutsche mark, a record.
That’s why Germany’s handling of Ukraine isn’t a departure from the norm; it is the norm.
Germany’s dithering over aid to Ukraine is a logical extension of a strategy that has served its economy well from the Cold War to the decision to block Ukraine’s NATO accession in 2008 to Nord Stream.
Just last week, as the Russians were raining terror on Dnipro, the minister president of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, called for the repair of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was blown up by unknown saboteurs last year, so that Germany “keeps the option” to purchase Russian gas after war ends.
One can’t blame him for trying. If one accepts that German policy is driven by economic logic rather than moral imperative, the fickleness of its political leaders makes complete sense — all the more so considering how well it has worked.
The money Germany has saved on defense has enabled it to finance one of the world’s most generous welfare states. When Germany was under pressure from allies a few years ago to finally meet NATO’s 2 percent of GDP spending target, then-Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel called the goal “absurd.” And from a German perspective, he was right; why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
Of course, the Germans have had a lot of help milking, especially from the U.S.
American presidents have been chastising Germany over its lackluster contribution to the Western alliance going as far back as Dwight D. Eisenhower, only to do nothing about it.
The exception that proves the rule is Donald Trump, whose plan to withdraw most U.S. troops from Germany was thwarted by his election loss.
Joe Biden, eager to reverse the diplomatic damage inflicted during the Trump years, reversed course and has gone out of his way to show his appreciation for all things German.
Biden’s decision to court the Germans instead of castigating them for failing to meet their commitments taught Berlin that it merely needs to wait out crises in the transatlantic relationship and the problems will fix themselves. Under pressure from Trump to buy American liquefied natural gas, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in 2018 to support the construction of the necessary infrastructure. After Trump, those plans were put on ice, only to revive them amid the current energy crisis.
By virtue of its size and geographical position at the center of Europe, Germany will always be important for the U.S., if not as a true ally, at least as an erstwhile partner and staging ground for the American military.
Who cares that the Bundeswehr has become a punchline or that Germany remains years away from meeting its NATO spending targets?
In Washington’s view, Germany might be a bad ally, but at least it’s America’s bad ally.
And no one understands the benefits of that status better than the Germans themselves.
Politico · by Matthew Karnitschnig · January 19, 2023
3. The U.S. Lets Ambassador Posts Sit Empty for Years. China Doesn’t.
The U.S. Lets Ambassador Posts Sit Empty for Years. China Doesn’t.
Crucial posts remain unfilled due to good old-fashioned Washington dysfunction.
By Robbie Gramer, a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy, and Jack Detsch, a Pentagon and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. You have opted out of receiving all news alerts. To begin receiving alerts and manage your settings, click here.
Foreign Policy · by Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch · January 19, 2023
Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Today, we have a veritable font of news, starting with this: The State Department is phasing out Times New Roman and replacing it with Calibri.
As our friend (and FP alumnus) John Hudson over at the Washington Post reported: “The Times (New Roman) are a-Changing.” Time to start drafting up your dissent cables, folks.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: U.S. ambassador posts sit empty for years, Western allies gear up to send tanks to Ukraine, and Turkey pushes Biden for F-16 deal.
Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Today, we have a veritable font of news, starting with this: The State Department is phasing out Times New Roman and replacing it with Calibri.
As our friend (and FP alumnus) John Hudson over at the Washington Post reported: “The Times (New Roman) are a-Changing.” Time to start drafting up your dissent cables, folks.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: U.S. ambassador posts sit empty for years, Western allies gear up to send tanks to Ukraine, and Turkey pushes Biden for F-16 deal.
If you would like to receive Situation Report in your inbox every Thursday, please sign up here.
If Showing Up Is Half the Battle…
In the summer of 2018, James Melville, a senior career diplomat, resigned from his post as U.S. ambassador to Estonia in protest to former President Donald Trump’s tirades against European allies.
Next week, career U.S. diplomat George Kent (whom you may remember as a witness from Trump’s first impeachment trial) is scheduled to be sworn in as the next U.S. ambassador to Estonia, officials tell SitRep.
But for the time in between—four and a half years—that ambassador post has sat empty, despite Estonia’s outsized role in the West’s response to Russia’s war in Ukraine and its role as an important U.S. NATO ally.
That four-and-a-half-year gap is part of a trend that represents what veteran national security officials and experts call a grave and unjustified own-goal in U.S. foreign policy, as we report with our colleague Christina Lu.
Missing in action. Around the world, dozens of U.S. ambassador posts have sat empty for months or even years on end, the result of an increasingly broken and politicized confirmation process.
Countries that haven’t had a U.S. ambassador in place for a year or longer include: India, one of the United States’ most important partners in its strategy to counter China; Ethiopia, a country wracked by a deadly conflict and one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises; Italy, a major NATO ally; Colombia, one of Washington’s most important Latin American allies and a major player in the Western response to Venezuela’s ongoing humanitarian and political crisis; and Saudi Arabia, the Gulf ally under increasing scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers over its dismal human rights records.
All those posts are filled in acting capacities by lower-ranking diplomats, but they don’t have the same clout within the embassy or host government as an ambassador picked by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They are also often overstretched to make up for the absence of an ambassador.
Washington just can’t quit dysfunction. U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to restore the State Department after the Trump era, but this problem hasn’t gone away.
Biden’s ambassador pick to India, former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, is still stuck in the Senate, mired in controversy, more than a year and a half after he was nominated. “When you try for nearly two years and you can’t get him through a Senate controlled by your own party, then maybe you say this isn’t happening, and moreover we really need an ambassador to India,” one senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told SitRep. And Biden has yet to even name a nominee to be ambassador to Italy, two years into his presidency. “Behind the scenes, the Italians are really pissed,” a second State Department official said.
The White House told us in response to our latest story on this that it is continuing to seek “the swift confirmation of many crucial, highly-qualified nominees.” On Garcetti, a White House spokesperson said that “we continue to believe he is an experienced candidate with bipartisan support who deserves swift confirmation to a post of crucial importance to our national security.”
But even beyond that, the Senate confirmation process is becoming more drawn out and increasingly politicized, sometimes with career ambassador nominees caught in the crossfire, being held up for months or even years as points of leverage for a senator to extract a concession out of the White House that has nothing to do with the qualifications of the nominee in question—or simply because the Senate schedule is jampacked and processing ambassador nominees gets sidelined for other legislation.
It ain’t like the good ole days. Back in the halcyon days of the post-Cold War era, when the United States was the undisputed global leader, perhaps it could afford to let ambassador posts sit empty for years. That’s all changing with China emerging as a rival global superpower, leaving Washington scrambling to play catch-up in a game of geopolitical influence and clout across the world (just look at the case of the Solomon Islands as one example).
China now has more embassies and consulates around the world than the United States, and unlike Washington, Beijing doesn’t let its ambassador posts sit empty for years on end. “There’s a perception within the foreign-policy establishment that we still run the world and the rest of the world just has to tolerate our peculiarities and annoying characteristics,” the first senior State Department official said. “But that’s a big mistake, and it’s certainly one that China is not making.”
Foreign Policy · by Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch · January 19, 2023
4. Don’t Fear Putin’s Demise
Conclusion:
This is a make-or-break moment for Ukraine. Biden can turn the tide in Kyiv’s favor by backing up his declarations of support with the delivery of tanks and long-range weaponry. He can also hasten the demise of Putin’s regime, opening up the possibility of a democratic future for Russia and demonstrating to the world the folly of military aggression. The United States cannot let its fears stand in the way of Ukraine’s hopes.
Don’t Fear Putin’s Demise
Victory for Ukraine, Democracy for Russia
January 20, 2023
Foreign Affairs · by Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky · January 20, 2023
The regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin is living on borrowed time. The tide of history is turning, and everything from Ukraine’s advances on the battlefield to the West’s enduring unity and resolve in the face of Putin’s aggression points to 2023 being a decisive year. If the West holds firm, Putin’s regime will likely collapse in the near future.
Yet some of Ukraine’s key partners continue to resist supplying Kyiv with the weapons it needs to deliver the knockout punch. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden in particular seems afraid of the chaos that could accompany a decisive Kremlin defeat. It has declined to send the tanks, long-range missile systems, and drones that would allow Ukrainian forces to take the fight to their attackers, reclaim their territory, and end the war. The end of Putin’s tyrannical rule will indeed radically change Russia (and the rest of the world)—but not in the way the White House thinks. Rather than destabilizing Russia and its neighbors, a Ukrainian victory would eliminate a powerful revanchist force and boost the cause of democracy worldwide.
Pro-democracy Russians who reject the totalitarian Putin regime—a group to which the authors belong—are doing what we can to help Ukraine liberate all occupied territories and restore its territorial integrity in accordance with the internationally recognized borders of 1991. We are also planning for the day after Putin. The Russian Action Committee, a coalition of opposition groups in exile that we co-founded in May 2022, aims to ensure that Ukraine is justly compensated for the damage caused by Putin’s aggression, that all war criminals are held accountable, and that Russia is transformed from a rogue dictatorship into a parliamentary federal republic. The looming end of Putin’s reign need not be feared, in other words; it should be welcomed with open arms.
UNFOUNDED FEARS
Putin’s effort to restore Russia’s lost empire is destined to fail. The moment is therefore ripe for a transition to democracy and a devolution of power to the regional levels. But for such a political transformation to take place, Putin must be defeated militarily in Ukraine. A decisive loss on the battlefield would pierce Putin’s aura of invincibility and expose him as the architect of a failing state, making his regime vulnerable to challenge from within.
The West, and above all the United States, is capable of providing the military and financial support to hasten the inevitable and propel Ukraine to a speedy victory. But the Biden administration still hasn’t coalesced around a clear endgame for the war, and some U.S. officials have suggested that Kyiv should consider giving up part of its territory in pursuit of peace—suggestions that are not reassuring. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made it clear that the Ukrainian people will never accept such a deal. Any territorial concessions made to Putin will inevitably lead to another war down the road.
At the root of Washington’s unwillingness to supply the necessary weapons lies a fear of the potential consequences of decisively defeating Russia in Ukraine. Many in the Biden administration believe that Putin’s downfall could trigger the collapse of Russia, plunging the nuclear-armed state into chaos and potentially strengthening China.
Putin’s aggression has exposed the inherent instability of his model of government.
But such fears are overstated. The risk of a Russian collapse is of course real. But it is greater with Putin in office—pushing the country in an ever more centralized and militarized direction—than it would be under a democratic, federal regime. The longer the current regime remains in power, the greater the risk of an unpredictable rupture. Putin’s aggression has exposed the inherent instability of his model of government, which is built on the need to confront foreign enemies. The Kremlin Mafia, having turned Russia into a staging ground for its military plans, has already threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. It is not the collapse of Putin’s regime that Washington should fear, therefore, but its continued survival.
For nearly two decades, some Western pundits have claimed that the Russian people will never accept democracy and that Russia is doomed to revanchism. Indeed, Putin’s propaganda has managed to instill in a sizable segment of Russian society the view that Western values are entirely alien to Russia. But economic integration with the West has enabled other countries to overcome a fascist heritage. And deeper integration with Europe, coupled with the conditional easing of Western sanctions, could help Russia do the same.
In the aftermath of Putin’s military defeat, Russia would have to choose: either become a vassal of China or begin reintegrating with Europe (having first justly compensated Ukraine for the damage inflicted during the war and punished those guilty of war crimes). For the majority of Russians, the choice in favor of peace, freedom, and flourishing would be obvious—and made even more so by the rapid reconstruction of Ukraine.
HOPE OVER FEAR
Putin’s military defeat would help catalyze a political transformation in Russia, making it possible for those seeking a brighter future to dismantle the old regime and forge a new political reality. The Russian Action Committee has laid out a blueprint for this transformation, aiming to reestablish the Russian state “on the principles of the rule of law, federalism, parliamentarism, a clear separation of powers and prioritizing human rights and freedoms over abstract ‘state interests.’ ” Our vision is for Russia to become a parliamentary republic and a federal state with only limited centralized powers (those necessary to conduct foreign and defense policy and protect citizens’ rights) and much stronger regional governments.
Getting there will take time. Within two years of the dissolution of Putin’s regime, Russians would elect a constituent assembly to adopt a new constitution and determine a new system of regional bodies. But in the short term, before that assembly could be seated, a transitional state council with legislative powers would be needed to oversee a temporary technocratic government. Its nucleus would be composed of Russians committed to the rule of law, those who have publicly disavowed Putin’s war and his illegitimate regime. Most have been forced into exile, where we have been free to organize and create a virtual civil society in absentia. Such preparations will enable us to act swiftly and work with the Western powers whose cooperation the new Russian government will need to stabilize the economy.
Immediately after assuming power, the state council would conclude a peace agreement with Ukraine, recognizing the country’s 1991 borders and justly compensating it for the damage caused by Putin’s war. The state council would also formally reject the imperial policies of the Putin regime, both within Russia and abroad, including by ceasing all formal and informal support for pro-Russian entities in the countries of the former Soviet Union. And it would end Russia’s long-running confrontation with the West, transitioning instead to a foreign policy based on peace, partnership, and integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions.
The United States cannot let its fears stand in the way of Ukraine’s hopes.
On the home front, the state council would begin to demilitarize Russia, reducing the size of the armed forces and by extension the cost of their maintenance. It would also dissolve the organs of Putin’s police state, including the repressive Federal Security Service and Center for Combating Extremism, and repeal all repressive laws adopted during Putin’s rule. All political prisoners would be released and fully rehabilitated, and a broader amnesty program would be adopted to reduce the overall number of prisoners in Russia.
At the federal level, the state council would pursue lustration, conducting open and thorough investigations of former officials to disqualify those responsible for the prior regime’s abuses. In addition, it would liquidate all political parties and public organizations that supported the invasion of Ukraine, so that they cannot interfere with the construction of a new Russia. At the same time, the council would liberalize electoral laws, simplify the process for registering political parties, and scrap Putin-era restrictions on rallies, strikes, and demonstrations.
The state council would also begin the process of decentralizing the country, transferring broad powers to the regions, including in the budgetary sphere. Such reforms would weaken Russia’s all-powerful imperial center: if the federal government does not have total control over state finances, then it won’t have the means to wage military adventures.
Finally, the council would ensure that war criminals and senior officials from Putin’s regime were held accountable. Those responsible for the worst war crimes would be tried in an international tribunal, and Russia itself would try the rest. To do so, it would need to draw a clear line between war criminals and former regime operatives—offering various forms of compromise with the latter to better assure a peaceful transition.
This is a make-or-break moment for Ukraine. Biden can turn the tide in Kyiv’s favor by backing up his declarations of support with the delivery of tanks and long-range weaponry. He can also hasten the demise of Putin’s regime, opening up the possibility of a democratic future for Russia and demonstrating to the world the folly of military aggression. The United States cannot let its fears stand in the way of Ukraine’s hopes.
- GARRY KASPAROV is Chair of the Human Rights Foundation, Co-Founder of the Russian Action Committee, and a former world chess champion.
- MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY is Co-Founder of the Russian Action Committee and a former political prisoner in Russia.
-
MORE BY GARRY KASPAROVMORE BY MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY
Foreign Affairs · by Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky · January 20, 2023
5. A drone cure for Russia’s artillery-killing ‘Penicillin’
Excerpts:
SENTRI needs to be tried out on drones to confirm it will work. The company believes that it can easily be tweaked for artillery detection, but testing is needed to confirm it will retain accuracy on a moving drone platform.
A drone equipped with a system such as SENTRI could relay information, or it could actually attack identified targets if the drone came equipped with rockets such as the Turkish Roketsan MAM-L smart micro munition or weapons including the US Hellfire or the Israeli Spike missiles.
An acoustic sensor drone could also be paired with day and night cameras, which means its capabilities could be combined with visual and flash detection.
Unlike ground-based systems such as counter-battery radars or passive systems such as HALO and Penicillin, a drone-based solution that can also operate autonomously with a passive array of sensors could prove a game changer in the war in Ukraine. Better than Penicillin.
A drone cure for Russia’s artillery-killing ‘Penicillin’
Drone system armed with acoustic sensors could counter Russia’s ground-based Penicillin and be a game changer in Ukraine war
asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · January 19, 2023
Military drones have evolved mightily from the cameras hung on model airplanes that were introduced in the early 1980s. They are now used for battlefield intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR), early warning, troop support including search and rescue, and attacking enemy assets.
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds on, drones could soon be deployed for another use. A new generation of drone-based acoustic sensors may provide an important response to what appears to be a significant upgrade in Russia’s passive sensor system for locating Ukrainian artillery far from the immediate battlefield and thus hard to destroy.
Called “Penicillin,” the new Russian system combines acoustic sensors, thermal imaging and seismic detectors. It replaces an older passive sensor system (AZK-7M/1B33M), of which the Ukrainians have a derivative (RAZK).
Russian sources claim Penicillin is having a devastating effect by letting Russian forces accurately target Ukrainian long-range artillery from great distances. Ukraine’s artillery, say the Russians, is being steadily eroded while its airpower is being diminished. This is backed up by Ukraine’s continued requests to the West for more long-range artillery.
In the meantime, Russia seems capable of protecting its own artillery far from the front line. Air defenses coupled with jamming and electronic warfare capabilities are poised against the US-supplied counter-battery radars that are used to locate and target Russian artillery.
A US anti-battery radar system. Image: Lockheed Martin
Just this week, Russia said it had destroyed two US counter-battery radars – one a tactical system and the other a longer-range system. Counter-battery radars can easily be detected when they are turned on; passive systems cannot be easily located, nor can they be jammed.
Like the Russians, the US and its allies and friends have passive acoustic sensors – those are not new. They were first proposed before World War I, and the first patent on a system was filed by German Army Captain Leo Lowenstein in 1913. They were used during both world wars and in Sarajevo, Iraq and elsewhere before Ukraine.
Acoustic systems are not accurate at long distances. The British-developed HALO (Hostile Artillery Locating) system has a claimed accuracy of only 50 to 100 meters under ideal conditions, meaning that hitting an enemy artillery piece far away is a matter of some luck.
Sound waves, especially in low frequency, can be devilishly difficult to locate. Terrain, climate and weather conditions often need to be measured and ancillary sensors brought in, especially when the attempt is to locate long-range radar.
Even then, accuracy is elusive. Where multiple guns are firing in close proximity, it becomes even harder to sort out artillery locations.
Drones with acoustic sensors might be the answer to Penicillin with its passive sensors and large ground footprint. The drone system would identify the location of the enemy artillery. It would not deal with the Penicillin system.
It would be far cheaper than the very costly Penicillin or the costly counter-battery radars used to detect the location of incoming artillery firing. A small drone costs around US$25,000 to $50,000 (not counting the sensors, which would perhaps cost $5,000 to $10,000 including communications interfaces).
Furthermore, the loss of a drone is not a major problem whereas the loss of a multimillion-dollar counter-battery radar or a Penicillin system has far more impact. Moreover, the chance of hitting the target is better with the drone.
Safety Dynamics, a small American company in Arizona, has miniaturized acoustic sensors to the point where the sensors and electronics can be integrated into a soldier’s helmet. At that size, they could fit into drones.
The Safety Dynamics sensor system, known as SENTRI, has not yet been tested on drones, but there is no technical barrier to doing so. It has been tested by the US Army on moving vehicles and achieved almost perfect accuracy.
Indeed, SENTRI performed better than other systems tested by the Army on moving vehicles.
How the proliferation of sensors, integrated via the internet of battlefield things (IoBT), can transform warfare. Image: Army Mad Scientist Laboratory
SENTRI needs to be tried out on drones to confirm it will work. The company believes that it can easily be tweaked for artillery detection, but testing is needed to confirm it will retain accuracy on a moving drone platform.
A drone equipped with a system such as SENTRI could relay information, or it could actually attack identified targets if the drone came equipped with rockets such as the Turkish Roketsan MAM-L smart micro munition or weapons including the US Hellfire or the Israeli Spike missiles.
An acoustic sensor drone could also be paired with day and night cameras, which means its capabilities could be combined with visual and flash detection.
Unlike ground-based systems such as counter-battery radars or passive systems such as HALO and Penicillin, a drone-based solution that can also operate autonomously with a passive array of sensors could prove a game changer in the war in Ukraine. Better than Penicillin.
Follow Stephen Bryen on Twitter at @stevebryen
asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · January 19, 2023
6. Russia’s Irrational War in Ukraine Should Be a Warning for Predicting China’s Behavior
Putin's War. Does Xi want "Xi's war?"
Excerpts:
An increasing concentration of power within the hands of one individual decreases the quality of decision-making. When no one is there to challenge and reverse poor decisions, the consequences could be tragic. Two extreme examples of this are the brutal eras of Stalin and Mao. Unlike Mao, Xi maintains a well-educated and qualified bureaucratic apparatus and still appears to listen to moderate voices. However, the anti-corruption campaign and ongoing purges of cadres have reinforced fear among elites and reduced the likelihood of critical feedback. Plus, as the pandemic revealed, Xi already tends to react impulsively.
A growing unrest within the CCP related to his continuously tightening grip may increase Xi’s paranoia and trigger a purge of educated officials, which would be the first step toward a disaster. It is uncertain how much credible information still reaches Xi. However, even if he has an accurate picture of reality, with the growing concentration of power in his hands, it will be increasingly difficult for him to decide rationally when fulfilling his visions.
And as with Putin, Xi’s appetite to achieve “historical” goals such as the conquest of the claimed territories may grow together with his age.
Russia’s Irrational War in Ukraine Should Be a Warning for Predicting China’s Behavior
Many of the factors that led to Putin’s disastrous decision are also present in China’s authoritarian system.
thediplomat.com · by Jan Švec · January 19, 2023
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China’s current ambivalent approach to the war in Ukraine may fit into an impression of strategic and rational behavior. While Beijing claims to respect Russia’s interests and trumpets President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda, it refuses to provide material support for the war and attempts to maintain relations with the European Union and the United States. However, there is a fairly strong likelihood that the Chinese leadership will become more and more irrational in the years ahead.
Several of the factor that led Putin to invade Ukraine are increasingly present in China. Putin believes that after the Cold War, the West brought Russia to its knees. By invading Ukraine, he is “correcting injustices” and returning Russia to its “rightful” position. The decisive factor here is the leader’s subjective perception, not the objective state of affairs.
As history has repeatedly revealed, a country’s feeling of being disrespected by other countries can lead to an urge to re-establish its position through conflict. An analysis conducted by the political scientist Richard Ned Lebow showed that of almost 100 international conflicts involving great or aspiring rising powers since 1648, international standing served as a primary or secondary motive for two-thirds of the wars, a much higher percentage than security and material interests.
China’s leaders have repeatedly made it clear that they feel the current international order is dominated by the United States, and that China’s international position does not reflect its actual power. Chinese propaganda builds on grievances toward the “foreign powers” (primarily the U.S. and Europe) that date back to the Opium Wars and the “century of humiliation.”
Under Xi’s leadership, increasing attention has been paid to national pride and China’s international standing in the official discourse. Since he came to power, Xi has been promoting a plan of “national rejuvenation,” which includes “unification” with Taiwan. During his speech to the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, Xi repeated his aim to accomplish unification by 2049.
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Since the use of force against Taiwan is a red line for the United States, Xi may decide to cross it to prove that the “foreign powers” are not in a position to “dictate” anything to China anymore. As Lebow wrote in “A Cultural Theory of International Relations,” a leader who believes that his or her country is treated unfairly may perceive compliance as weakness that invites new demands, making a confrontational response more attractive – even if it is risky or costly.
Similar to Russian propaganda, Chinese propaganda has encouraged nationalist moods, which motivate demands for a more aggressive approach. Radical Chinese commentators already criticized Xi for not shooting down the plane of the then-speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, during her visit to Taiwan in August 2022, and they have increasingly called for a large-scale invasion of the island.
The urge to enhance international standing is closely related to the search for alternative sources of internal legitimacy. During his long leadership, Putin was not successful in implementing reforms that would increase economic productivity, forcing him to seek other rationales for his continued rule. Putin’s very election as president stemmed from the popular support he gained during Russia’s military invasion of Chechnya. Fourteen years later, when Putin decided to invade Crimea, it was shortly after large-scale political protests following his return to the presidency for a third term.
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For several decades, China has been successful in increasing the living standard for the majority of its citizens and thus ensuring the government’s performance-based legitimacy. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is increasingly facing new challenges. The real estate market is an inflated bubble that will inevitably burst one day. To strengthen CCP control, Xi Jinping has been stifling major private firms, including the important IT sector.
In addition, China’s long-term zero COVID policy has significantly weakened the domestic economy and international trade. The government’s obsessive insistence on zero COVID led to a number of absurd situations, including a lockdown preventing Chengdu citizens from leaving their homes during an earthquake and extreme food shortages, which supposedly led to several deaths of hunger.
After the seemingly endless zero COVID measures led to widespread popular protests, China’s leadership pivoted and suddenly abandoned the policy. While the official statistics are downplaying the reality, numbers of COVID-19 cases and related deaths have skyrocketed since then. China’s people now face low vaccination rates of vulnerable groups, the uncertain effectiveness of domestic vaccines, overcrowded hospitals, and a lack of safe medicines – all amid a dearth of credible information. The ongoing crisis may deepen distrust in institutions and delay the Chinese economy’s recovery.
To support businesses, the administration has already pledged to give a larger space to the private sector and encouraged foreign investments. However, it is likely that Xi’s emphasis on centralization of power will eventually prevail, and that this will suppress free enterprise and innovation again. The absence of effective solutions could potentially urge the leadership to seek alternative sources of legitimacy, including through military means.
An increasing concentration of power within the hands of one individual decreases the quality of decision-making. When no one is there to challenge and reverse poor decisions, the consequences could be tragic. Two extreme examples of this are the brutal eras of Stalin and Mao. Unlike Mao, Xi maintains a well-educated and qualified bureaucratic apparatus and still appears to listen to moderate voices. However, the anti-corruption campaign and ongoing purges of cadres have reinforced fear among elites and reduced the likelihood of critical feedback. Plus, as the pandemic revealed, Xi already tends to react impulsively.
A growing unrest within the CCP related to his continuously tightening grip may increase Xi’s paranoia and trigger a purge of educated officials, which would be the first step toward a disaster. It is uncertain how much credible information still reaches Xi. However, even if he has an accurate picture of reality, with the growing concentration of power in his hands, it will be increasingly difficult for him to decide rationally when fulfilling his visions.
And as with Putin, Xi’s appetite to achieve “historical” goals such as the conquest of the claimed territories may grow together with his age.
Jan Švec
Jan Švec is a researcher in the Asia-Pacific Unit at the Institute of International Relations Prague. At the Prague University of Economics and Business, he earned a Ph.D. focused on the impact of information and communication technologies on authoritarianism. He teaches at Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies at the Czech Technical University in Prague.
thediplomat.com · by Jan Švec · January 19, 2023
7. New twist in China’s 5G war with the West
A national security issue.
Excerpts:
But what could this case mean for 5G rollout? In this specific example, Huawei is likely to fight an uphill battle to persuade a tribunal that Sweden’s decision is inconsistent with the China-Sweden treaty, for three reasons.
First, any potential threat to the security of 5G networks constitutes a national security risk because it means a country’s communications could be brought down by espionage, sabotage or system failure.
Second, 5G networks are so complex that it is virtually impossible to find and eliminate every significant vulnerability. This means attempts by Huawei to argue for screening and control of software, for example, may not defuse national security concerns.
And third, tribunals usually defer to a host country’s national security decisions.
Of course, tribunal decisions can go the other way. For example, several tribunals found against the Argentinian government that the country’s financial crisis in the 2000s was severe enough to qualify as a national security issue. But generally, these tribunals tend to decide that governments are best placed to make such judgments.
Huawei has not brought a case against the UK yet, but western countries generally should think about how to maintain and improve technology infrastructure – even if innovation comes from regions with which tensions are strained. Failure to do so could significantly impact consumer costs and access to cutting-edge technology.
New twist in China’s 5G war with the West
Huawei seeks legal recourse citing bilateral investment treaties against Western national security decisions that block 5G rollout
asiatimes.com · by Ming Du · January 19, 2023
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently declared that the “golden era” of UK-China relations is over. The next day, the government removed China General Nuclear Power Group, a Chinese state-owned company, from the construction of the UK’s Sizewell C nuclear power station.
Other countries have made similar moves in recent years. In 2020, for example, then-US president Donald Trump attempted to ban social media platform TikTok in the US. The move was subsequently stopped by two US judges following a lawsuit by TikTok, and eventually dropped by current President Joe Biden.
But such government decisions based on national security concerns could affect the future international growth of Chinese business. This is particularly important given that China’s international investment and trade have increased in recent years, enabling it to emerge as a powerful challenger to the global economic order.
Indeed, Chinese companies and investors often refuse to take such national security changes lying down. With varying degrees of success, firms have mounted a range of formal and informal challenges in recent years.
As would be expected, their approaches include lobbying, media campaigns and diplomatic assistance or support from business associations, as well as contesting national security decisions in domestic courts.
A relatively new strategy for China, however, is to challenge national security decisions before international tribunals using a method called investor-state dispute settlement. A tribunal normally is set up to handle a specific dispute, with arbitrators appointed and paid for by one or both of the parties involved.
The suits tend to claim that national security decisions have breached host countries’ obligations to Chinese investors under bilateral investment treaties (BITs). These treaties grant foreign investors certain standards of treatment and allow them to sue host states for alleged violations.
Most recently, Chinese tech giant Huawei made an investment treaty claim against the Swedish government over its exclusion from the rollout of the country’s 5G network. And my research shows that Huawei’s legal challenge to Sweden’s ban might be only the tip of the iceberg since Huawei equipment is also currently banned in other countries that have signed BITs with China.
In this file photo taken on May 25, 2020, a Huawei shop features a red sticker reading 5G in Beijing. Photo: AFP / Nicolas Asfouri
In the UK, for example, the government has committed to exclude Huawei’s technology from the country’s 5G public networks by the end of 2027.
The outcome of Huawei’s dispute with Sweden could affect public interest there and in other countries like the UK. If the tribunal finds in Sweden’s favor, preventing the use of Huawei equipment could delay 5G rollout by years and inflate prices for mobile phone users.
It’s also worth noting a 2019 tribunal decision that ordered Pakistan to pay US$6 billion in compensation to an injured foreign investor, mining company Tethyan Copper. If Huawei wins this or any other similar legal challenge, financial liabilities could be passed on to taxpayers.
Defining ‘national security’
Huawei’s challenge of Sweden’s national security decision shows how brewing tensions and increasing distrust between China and Western countries are affecting international trade and business.
Indeed, when countries adopt an expansive concept of “national security” in domestic law, companies might see it as a pretext for protectionism or a tool of geopolitical rivalry.
Certainly, there is no conclusive evidence that Huawei products, for example, are inherently unsafe versus similar products from other companies, or that Huawei poses a national security threat.
To complicate matters further, some early Chinese BITs – between China and Sweden, and China and the UK for example – do not explicitly allow host states to prohibit foreign investment based on national security concerns. And so Huawei’s recent legal challenge should help determine:
- when and why a host country can stop a foreign investment based on national security concerns, and
- how international arbitral tribunals are likely to review national security decisions in the future.
Challenging national security decisions
But what could this case mean for 5G rollout? In this specific example, Huawei is likely to fight an uphill battle to persuade a tribunal that Sweden’s decision is inconsistent with the China-Sweden treaty, for three reasons.
First, any potential threat to the security of 5G networks constitutes a national security risk because it means a country’s communications could be brought down by espionage, sabotage or system failure.
Second, 5G networks are so complex that it is virtually impossible to find and eliminate every significant vulnerability. This means attempts by Huawei to argue for screening and control of software, for example, may not defuse national security concerns.
And third, tribunals usually defer to a host country’s national security decisions.
Of course, tribunal decisions can go the other way. For example, several tribunals found against the Argentinian government that the country’s financial crisis in the 2000s was severe enough to qualify as a national security issue. But generally, these tribunals tend to decide that governments are best placed to make such judgments.
Huawei has not brought a case against the UK yet, but western countries generally should think about how to maintain and improve technology infrastructure – even if innovation comes from regions with which tensions are strained. Failure to do so could significantly impact consumer costs and access to cutting-edge technology.
Ming Du is a professor in Chinese law at Durham University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
asiatimes.com · by Ming Du · January 19, 2023
8. Japan’s three-in-one missile trained on China
Excerpts:
The same report notes that the new missiles are intended to destroy enemy vessels passing through the Nansei Islands spanning Kyushu and Okinawa Prefecture.
It also says that the new missiles are expected to be used against enemy missile launch sites, giving Japan counterstrike capability in line with its 2022 National Security Strategy.
Asia Times has reported on Japan’s plans to deploy 1,000 upgraded cruise missiles by 2026 to improve its counterstrike capabilities against China. Japan will deploy these missiles from ships, fighters and mobile launchers on its Southwest Islands and Kyushu.
Japan’s Self-Defense Forces with the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile defense unit at a US Air Force on the outskirts of Tokyo in 2017. Photo: Agencies
These developments are likely driven by the limitations of Japan’s airpower against China’s recent advancements. Tokyo may also be seeking to broaden the capabilities of its planned missile arsenal to make up for its fighter fleet’s deficiencies.
Japan’s three-in-one missile trained on China
Tokyo to use interchangeable warheads as part of wider plan to deploy 1,000 upgraded cruise missiles to deter China
asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · January 20, 2023
Japan aims to enhance its missile arsenal with interchangeable warheads, a likely asymmetric response to China’s growing fighter fleet and Japan’s current airpower limitations.
This week, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Japan is developing a cruise missile that can be equipped with interchangeable reconnaissance, electronic warfare (EW) and conventional warheads.
The report claims that launching different types of missiles in one attack can improve accuracy, thereby increasing deterrence.
Yomiuri Shimbun mentions Japan could launch a reconnaissance warhead with a high-performance camera to determine the enemy’s position, followed by an EW missile to disable enemy radar and other sensors, after which a conventionally-armed missile would deliver the lethal strike.
The same report notes that the new missiles are intended to destroy enemy vessels passing through the Nansei Islands spanning Kyushu and Okinawa Prefecture.
It also says that the new missiles are expected to be used against enemy missile launch sites, giving Japan counterstrike capability in line with its 2022 National Security Strategy.
Asia Times has reported on Japan’s plans to deploy 1,000 upgraded cruise missiles by 2026 to improve its counterstrike capabilities against China. Japan will deploy these missiles from ships, fighters and mobile launchers on its Southwest Islands and Kyushu.
Japan’s Self-Defense Forces with the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile defense unit at a US Air Force on the outskirts of Tokyo in 2017. Photo: Agencies
These developments are likely driven by the limitations of Japan’s airpower against China’s recent advancements. Tokyo may also be seeking to broaden the capabilities of its planned missile arsenal to make up for its fighter fleet’s deficiencies.
In a 2019 Foreign Policy article, David Deptula argues that Japan must focus on military investments in airpower that would give it an asymmetric advantage vis-a-vis China. In that view, long-range missiles can substitute combat aircraft in terms of power projection and precision strikes.
However, at the same time, missiles have limited operational flexibility while fighter aircraft have superior situational awareness, as their pilots can adapt on the fly to fast-changing combat situations.
Also, commanders could order fighter aircraft to reconnoiter enemy territory, attack ground targets, perform combat air patrols and return to base for more sorties. Such mission flexibility is not possible with mere missiles.
Furthermore, Deptula notes that replacing Japan’s aging 4th generation F-2 and F-15s with new-build units is not a feasible option, as China can field more advanced aircraft such as the J-20 and FC-31 5th generation fighters.
Moreover, Deptula and other writers note in a March 2020 article in Air and Space Forces Magazine that Japan’s partnership with European firms might not deliver the next-generation aircraft it wants within its projected timeframe and price point, as Europe does not currently have assembly lines for 5th and 6th generation aircraft.
China may also have the upper hand regarding the quantity and production of combat aircraft. As noted by the November 2022 US Department of Defense China Military Power Report, China’s air force and naval aviation is the largest aviation force in Asia and the third largest in the world with 2,800 aircraft, of which 2,250 are combat aircraft.
Of China’s combat aircraft, Insider notes in a December 2021 article that the country has 1,800 fighters, including 800 4th generation planes. Against China’s fighter force, Japan can field 244 fighters, as noted by a 2023 report by Flight International.
In addition, China has ramped up the production of its top-of-the-line fighters. In November 2022, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that China is using pulsed production lines to speed up the manufacturing of its J-20 fighter aircraft.
China had an estimated 140 J-20 units at the time of the report and had at least 200 jets to counter increasing US deployments of F-35s in Asia.
In contrast to China’s increasing J-20 fighter strength, the US stopped F-22 production in 2011, with just 186 fighters delivered. At the same time, Anthony Capaccio notes in an August 2022 article for Bloomberg that Lockheed Martin has delivered more than 800 F-35 jets out of a potential global fleet of 3,500 units.
China’s J-20 fighters fly in formation at an air show. Image: China Daily
Air and Space Forces Magazine noted in a September 2021 article that F-35 production is set to peak at 156 units per year in 2023 and remain at that level throughout the aircraft’s production life.
Of that number, Japan Times notes in a March 2022 article that Tokyo plans to acquire 147 F-35s, with 105 being the F-35A air force variant. It will reportedly deploy 42 F-35B short/vertical take-off units for its Izumo-class light carriers.
However, F-35 production costs may keep rising, affecting the number of units Japan can purchase. In a November 2022 article for Defense News, Stephen Losey notes that fewer orders, increasing upgrades and the need to recover profits lost to the Covid-19 pandemic may push F-35 costs even higher, starting at US$78 million per F-35A unit.
But the F-35 may lose qualitatively even against older Chinese combat aircraft. Asia Times has previously noted that 2015 tests showed that the F-35 is sluggish compared to older aircraft such as the F-16 and thus may be at a disadvantage against newer Chinese fighters.
(It should be noted that the F-35 involved in the 2015 test was flying with software restrictions, reducing its combat potential.)
Asia Times has reported on China’s aerial attrition strategy vis-a-vis Japan, which plays against the latter’s limited number of fighters. Takahashi Kosuke notes in an October 2022 article in The Diplomat that Japan scrambled fighter aircraft 446 times in the first half of the fiscal year 2022 in response to Chinese and Russian combat aircraft approaching its airspace.
Asia Times has also previously reported on Japan’s intercept of China’s WZ-7 high-altitude drone using F-15J fighters. However, these intercepts may be unsustainably costly when comparing the maintenance and operation costs of China’s WZ-7 drones to Japan’s F-15Js.
Such a high operations tempo aims to inflict aircraft losses via wear and tear, ground crew miscalculation and pilot fatigue, all factors that could potentially ignite a wider escalation.
Given Japan’s limited number of fighters, it may opt to use multi-role missiles to perform long-range strikes traditionally conducted by manned aircraft. These missiles would preserve its limited number of aircraft to attack only the most critical targets and preserve its fighter numbers for air defense.
asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · January 20, 2023
9. Samantha Power, head of USAID, announces new development fund at Davos 2023
DAVOS 2023
Samantha Power, head of USAID, announces new development fund at Davos 2023
Jan 19, 2023
Spencer Feingold
Digital Editor, World Economic Forum
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/samantha-power-head-of-usaid-announces-new-development-fund-at-davos-2023/
- The need for humanitarian aid has increased significantly around the world.
- At the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2023, the US Agency for International Development announced a new $50 million development fund.
- The fund is designed to facilitate private sector involvement in global development.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching a new development fund aimed at boosting the private sector's contribution to global development. Samantha Power, the USAID Administrator, announced the fund while speaking at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2023 in Davos, Switzerland.
“We want to get the word out that this new fund exists,” Power said. “We hope that companies will take the opportunity to act in partnership with us.”
The fund — titled the Enterprises for Development, Growth, and Empowerment (EDGE) Fund — is designed to create new private sector partnerships that advance development objectives. The fund is being established with an initial $50 million from the US government.
The EDGE fund is being launched as the need for humanitarian aid is increasing significantly worldwide. Last month, the United Nations appealed for a record $51.5 billion in aid for 230 million people in nearly 70 countries for 2023. The appeal constitutes a 25% increase from the ask in 2022.
“The needs are going up because we’ve been by smitten by the war in Ukraine, by COVID-19, by climate,” Martin Griffiths, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said in a statement. “I fear that 2023 is going to be an acceleration of all those trends.”
Unlocking private sector contributions has long been a challenge for development agencies and non-government organizations. One of the main issues, experts say, is the perceived risk of investing in distressed regions of the world.
“The problem is not financial resources, the problem is where we house them and how we invest in them," Vera Songwe, the Chair of the Board of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility, said during the Annual Meeting. “On the [African] continent we have quite a number of countries that have the right policy environment and need liquidity.”
Private businesses whose commercial operations positively contribute to development needs are invited to apply to receive support from the EDGE fund. Several organizations are already set to receive support from the EDGE, USAID announced.
In Barbados, for example, the Blue-Green Bank in Barbados is slated to receive EDGE funding — along with co-funding from other sources — to support climate mitigation efforts such as resilient housing and water conservation. Meanwhile, the EDGE fund is set to support the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, which facilitates trade in burgeoning democracies like Zambia, Malawi and the Dominican Republic.
“The idea is that these resources exist,” Power stated, adding that the fund can help show business executives that “the barrier to entry is lower than you otherwise might have seen it.”
10. Panama has canceled registry to 136 Iran-linked vessels
A good start.
Now how about ships owned by north Korean companies?
Panama has canceled registry to 136 Iran-linked vessels
Reuters · by Elida Moreno
PANAMA CITY, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Panama's vessel registry, the world's largest, has withdrawn its flag from 136 ships linked to Iran's state oil company in the last four years, the country's maritime authority said this week, pushing back against claims by an anti-nuclear group.
Shipments of Iranian crude hit all-time highs in the last two months of 2022 and had a strong start this year, according to flow tracking firms. Those gains come despite U.S. sanctions on companies it accuses of helping Iran export oil, mainly to China and Venezuela.
On Monday, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush called on Washington to pressure Panama to stop "helping" Iran to evade sanctions. Bush is a member of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which seeks to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed regional superpower.
"The Panamanian registry canceled 136 ships in which their direct link with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) was proven," Panama's Maritime Authority (AMP), which runs the vessel registry, said in a statement late on Tuesday.
The owners of several ships accused of belonging to Iran's network are registered in Panama, independent organizations have said.
One-fifth of the 678 ships for which AMP withdrew flags for various reasons since 2019 were Iran-linked, an AMP spokesperson said. "Panamanian authorities maintain a close relationship with the secretary of the Treasury and other authorities of the United States," a spokesperson said.
Panama has the world's largest vessel registry, providing its flag to some 8,650 ships, according to official data.
AMP is in the process of canceling the registration of tanker Glory Harvest after a probe finished without having received the information required by authorities, it said.
"This administration has complied fully with the obligations and procedures at all times ... and we have always started the investigation of the facts as soon as we received the information of alleged violations, respecting due process and constitutional guarantees," AMP said.
UANI's chief executive, Mark Wallace, called for more. "One country and one country alone's flag registry appears again and again associated with vessels shipping Iranian oil. That must stop," said Wallace.
Reporting by Elida Moreno in Panama City; writing by Diego Ore; additional reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston; Editing by Leslie Adler
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Reuters · by Elida Moreno
11. Israeli X-Wing-Looking Loitering Munition To Be Tested By U.S. Special Ops
Excerpts:
Point Blank will only add to the list of drone-like attack and surveillance capabilities coming out of Israel. Locally based companies like IAI and Elbit Systems, for instance, have been pumping systems like this out as of late, most with a focus on supporting smaller ground units with situational awareness and attack capabilities. As a recent example, Elbit last November introduced what the company is calling LANIUS, a fist-sized search-and-attack loitering munition based on racing drones and designed for urban warfare.
While similar systems have been around for many years now, and the utility of soldier-launched loitering munitions has only been highlighted by the war in Ukraine, where this system differentiates itself is in its ease of launch and recovery paired with higher performance. Beyond that, the system stands as another reminder that aerial surveillance and precision bombardment continue to be 'democratized' down to the squad and even the individual soldier level with increasing ease of use and expanding capabilities.
Israeli X-Wing-Looking Loitering Munition To Be Tested By U.S. Special Ops
Dubbed Point Blank, Israel Aerospace Industries will develop and deliver the deadly drones to the U.S. military for evaluation.
BY
EMMA HELFRICH
|
PUBLISHED JAN 19, 2023 9:23 PM
thedrive.com · by Emma Helfrich · January 20, 2023
Israel will be developing and delivering new hand-launched and recoverable loitering munitions to the U.S. Department of Defense under a multi-million dollar, multi-year contract announced today. The state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries will be designing the vertical take-off and landing drone with missile-like capabilities that the company has named Point Blank.
And yes, it looks a lot like a little X-wing.
An Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) press release explains that the company will produce and provide prototype versions of Point Blank designated as ‘ROC-X’ to the United States. ROC-X will be tailored to meet Defense Department (DOD) requirements. The contract was awarded to IAI by the Pentagon’s Irregular Warfare Technical Support Directorate (IWTSD), which is responsible for exploring new capabilities with a particular focus on special operations forces missions.
The contract announcement also acts as IAI’s official unveiling of Point Blank, which the company is touting as a recoverable and reusable “electro-optically guided missile that can be carried in a soldier’s backpack.” However, it’s worth noting that the Point Blank system seems far more reminiscent of a loitering munition, sometimes referred to as an optionally reusable ‘kamikaze’ drone, than it does a missile.
“Point Blank joins Israel Aerospace Industries’ family of missiles, to provide ground-based tactical forces with more precise capabilities to undertake offensive operations, especially against short-lived targets,” Guy Bar Lev, executive vice president for IAI’s Systems, Missiles & Space Group, was quoted as saying in the press release. “We wish to thank the IWTSD for its support and cooperation in the field of precision munitions, confirming, yet again, the importance of tactical missiles to the modern army.”
Because of its relatively smaller size, the hand-launched Point Blank can be operated by one soldier alone. IAI says the munition weighs about 15 pounds and measures around 3 feet in length. Additionally, it will be able to fly at altitudes over 1,500 feet for up to 18 minutes and reach maximum speeds of approximately 178 mph. Point Blank will be designed with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capability, as well.
Concept art for Point Blank. Credit: IAI
As loitering munitions do, IAI says that when launched, Point Blank will be able to hover in the air above a target while the operator best determines its position and how to engage. The drone will also come with what an IAI brochure is calling an ‘abort option’ for automatic return and landing, which means in addition to being able to launch directly from the operator’s hand, Point Blank can also be called back to land right in the same grip if needed.
The company brochure also states that Point Blank’s Circular Error Probability, which uses the radius of a circle to determine the average distance between the target and the end of the munition’s flight path, is less than one meter, supporting IAI’s claims that the system will offer high levels of accuracy. This applies to both stationary and moving targets, according to IAI.
A graphic depicting how Circular Error Probability is determined. Credit: Francis Flinch/Wikimedia Commons
The literature goes on to say that due to the munition’s low acoustic and thermal signature, Point Blank will even be capable of ‘stealth operations’ as well.
Point Blank will come equipped with a hybrid electro-optical (EO) and GPS guidance system, allowing the munition “to validate and collect surveillance information in real-time” as IAI describes it. In terms of how it will transmit data back to the unit, IAI’s website page for Point Blank explains that the munition’s Ground Data Link Terminal will be able to integrate into any existing mobile network data link.
Both manual and fully automatic flight modes are available for Point Blank, which would include the EO-based operator-in-the-loop control concept that Israeli defense firms have been leaders in. This would allow for fine-tuned course correction right up until the point of impact and is something that most loitering munitions are designed with to increase accuracy and provide a margin of safety. Hitting known, fixed targets autonomously would also be a given.
Point Blank was conceptualized specifically to provide both smaller ground-based tactical teams and larger battalions with a transportable and highly precise capability that can be used to engage various targets. This includes those in the naval domains.
The company also states that Point Blank is “being developed to be equipped” with a 2 kg warhead that leverages an impact/proximity fuze, which provides target proximity detection and point-detonation capabilities. This would comprise Point Blank’s ‘attack mode’ as described by IAI, while the munition’s reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) mode will utilize only its cameras.
A screengrab from Point Blank's promotional video showing the munition striking a target. Credit: IAI YouTube video
A screengrab from Point Blank's promotional video showing the munition's enemy detection capability in its RSTA mode. Credit: IAI YouTube video
Which configuration the DOD will be receiving from IAI — be it modified for RSTA, attack, or both — was confirmed to The War Zone by the IWTSD today.
“As the [press release] states,” said IWTSD staff, “ROC-X is the version of Point Blank that Israel IAI is developing for IWTSD. Israel IAI will develop the initial ROC-X platform for [RSTA]. IWTSD should receive 10 Point Blank ROC-X versions this summer for operational test and evaluation by [Special Operations Forces]. However, a lethal variant of ROC-X has to be Americanized, which means integrating the lethal package and conducting safety testing in the U.S. This phase of the project should begin later this year.”
IAI says that it will be providing associated training for operators along with the delivery of the 10 RSTA-configured ROC-X Point Blank prototypes this upcoming Fiscal Year 2023.
Point Blank will only add to the list of drone-like attack and surveillance capabilities coming out of Israel. Locally based companies like IAI and Elbit Systems, for instance, have been pumping systems like this out as of late, most with a focus on supporting smaller ground units with situational awareness and attack capabilities. As a recent example, Elbit last November introduced what the company is calling LANIUS, a fist-sized search-and-attack loitering munition based on racing drones and designed for urban warfare.
While similar systems have been around for many years now, and the utility of soldier-launched loitering munitions has only been highlighted by the war in Ukraine, where this system differentiates itself is in its ease of launch and recovery paired with higher performance. Beyond that, the system stands as another reminder that aerial surveillance and precision bombardment continue to be 'democratized' down to the squad and even the individual soldier level with increasing ease of use and expanding capabilities.
Contact the author: Emma@thewarzone.com
thedrive.com · by Emma Helfrich · January 20, 2023
12. China in Our Backyard – A Wakeup Call
Excerpts:
The U.S. and our allies have a clear, mutual interest in maintaining rule of law in places buffeted by winds of transnational crime, rising narcotics-related corruption, and other challenges. In many of these locations, the common thread is concern for critical raw materials and energy, expanded markets or increased political and security alliances; in some cases, the common interest is in simply maintaining strong institutions of order and self-determination. That said, not engaging in cooperative efforts will only assure that responses to future problems are reactive, crisis-type responses, rather than preventive outlays to keep unwanted situations from taking root and spreading out.
Broadly, maintaining interagency ties and diplomatic goodwill across the region should be a top priority for U.S. policy makers, and could be facilitated by more concerted efforts at State and in other parts of the U.S. interagency. With transnational organized crime continuing to pose the most fundamental, real-time and impactful threat to U.S. allies in the USSOUTHCOM AOR, there is a real need for the USG to not only approach this problem with a significant degree of attention, but to direct efforts and resources in a way that gives South and Central American partners a better option than one being pitched by other global actors with ulterior designs or more self-centered motives. Responding to partner nation needs – on a case-by-case basis – in alignment with U.S. objectives for each specific nation may be more important once again, not just to tackle the mutual threat of drugs and crime, but to shore up wider strategic interests in our own backyard.
China in Our Backyard – A Wakeup Call
By Miguel Alejandro Laborde
January 20, 2023
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/01/20/china_in_our_backyard__a_wakeup_call_876675.html?mc_cid=c53e2892d0&mc_eid=70bf478f36
A man wearing a shirt with a Cuban flag looks at the recently arrived Chinese Navy ships while a Chinese sailor walks next him, in the port of Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015. The People's Liberation Army Navy is the naval warfare branch of the People's Liberation Army, the national armed forces of the People's Republic of China. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
In her official written testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in March of 2022, USSOUTHCOM Commander General Richardson provided, in illuminating and stark detail, a number of concerns and threats both resident and growing in the Southern Command Area of Responsibility (AOR). The list of vexing challenges included everything from human exploitation and smuggling to the surging problem of narcotics production and trafficking. Additionally, she highlighted the growing role of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the Western Hemisphere, stating that:
“Over the past year the PRC and its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) continued to target, recruit, and bribe officials at all levels in the AOR to expand their economic, political, and military influence throughout the region. PRC activities include investments in strategic infrastructure, systematic technology and intellectual property theft, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and malicious cyber activity – all with the goal of expanding long term access and influence in this hemisphere.”
Of course, it is no secret that China has been working every angle and opportunity to challenge the U.S. and our allies in nearly every corner of the world – from greater Asia, to Europe, to Africa, and even to the Arctic. And, with a combination of interests resident in the Western Hemisphere desirous to China – from more market access, to new trade relationships, to access to energy and raw materials – the fact that the PRC is inserting itself into our hemisphere should be of no surprise.
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What is more, they’re using a variety of openings, opportunities, and diplomatic means – and frankly, exploiting certain gaps the U.S. is not addressing – to ingratiate themselves with regional leadership and cement a deeper presence in the region. The PRC has been using this approach in multiple countries for several decades now – particularly in Africa, where the Chinese have accessed what they want by providing African governments with everything from no-strings-attached loans to medical aid and military hardware. And while the world has perhaps taken a more concerned view of China’s global expansion and motives in the wake of the pandemic, it hasn’t completely prevented the PRC from making links and building bridges across continents.
Closer to home, China has not only leveraged humanitarian aid and financial support to pursue its geopolitical agenda throughout South America, but is using the arms trade to secure what it wants and needs. In fact, China is one of the biggest defense exporters operating in Latin America, having “reportedly sold more than $615 million worth of weapons to Venezuela from 2009 to 2019,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations. CFR has also indicated that, “Bolivia and Ecuador have also purchased millions of dollars’ worth of Chinese military aircraft, ground vehicles, air defense radars, and assault rifles,” and that, “Cuba has sought to strengthen military ties with China, hosting the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for several port visits.”
With China clearly setting its sights on our hemisphere, we need to seriously consider how we can effectively and swiftly move to shore up our own interests, access, and influence with our neighbors in our own backyard. It is often said that nature abhors a vacuum – and if the U.S. is not making a more concerted effort to prevent vital relationships in South and Central America from sliding, China can only be expected to fill that gap. In fact, China is already moving in and establishing tight links with some of America’s longest-standing allies, such as Colombia, in the region.
In all of this, it is important to highlight the need for engagement with our most critical partners in the region – as well as the key role that certain forms of security assistance play in keeping those relationships alive and preventing other global actors with malign or problematic intent from getting a deeper foothold so close to home. And in this regard, the importance of counter-narcotics and related security assistances looms very large in the Western Hemisphere.
With the threat of narcotics production and trafficking, wider transnational crime – and the record-level misery it is causing for both the U.S. and our regional neighbors – this is one policy area that merits a revisit and potentially increased action. The drug trade fuels instability and corruption, thwarts development, destroys public trust in institutions, and contributes to an arc of death, suffering and social erosion in countries that produce, transit and consume drugs. And because of the way drugs, corruption, violence and organized crime sully a nation, the combined threat also challenges economic growth, advancement and development in vulnerable countries. And in these nations, drugs and transnational crime are existentially threatening – which is why assistance and support in combatting these problems is a policy area of common and routine priority for South and Central American countries.
At the same time, U.S. efforts to build the counter-drug capacity and capability of these nations shows a degree of commitment and dedication, which in turn can help to dissuade or prevent backsliding toward other powers like China, or Russia seeking to exploit these very same conditions for their own priorities. Working to bolster the capacities of emerging partners throughout the hemisphere, not only helps to prepare allies defensively, but also allows the U.S. to maintain more direct visibility into a wider region and its particular concerns.
On the diplomatic side, the strong body of work performed by the State Dept. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) in checking the power of global crime, strengthening the rule of law, and giving partner nations hope for the future, serves as an example of what we can do more of to ensure our connectivity to vital partners in the Western Hemisphere remains robust. INL’s forward leaning approach to addressing transnational threats in vulnerable regions is precisely the type of anticipatory approach that is needed now – and one that should probably be enhanced in order to maintain healthy diplomatic, trade, and security cooperation connectivity between the U.S. and our friends in the hemisphere.
The U.S. and our allies have a clear, mutual interest in maintaining rule of law in places buffeted by winds of transnational crime, rising narcotics-related corruption, and other challenges. In many of these locations, the common thread is concern for critical raw materials and energy, expanded markets or increased political and security alliances; in some cases, the common interest is in simply maintaining strong institutions of order and self-determination. That said, not engaging in cooperative efforts will only assure that responses to future problems are reactive, crisis-type responses, rather than preventive outlays to keep unwanted situations from taking root and spreading out.
Broadly, maintaining interagency ties and diplomatic goodwill across the region should be a top priority for U.S. policy makers, and could be facilitated by more concerted efforts at State and in other parts of the U.S. interagency. With transnational organized crime continuing to pose the most fundamental, real-time and impactful threat to U.S. allies in the USSOUTHCOM AOR, there is a real need for the USG to not only approach this problem with a significant degree of attention, but to direct efforts and resources in a way that gives South and Central American partners a better option than one being pitched by other global actors with ulterior designs or more self-centered motives. Responding to partner nation needs – on a case-by-case basis – in alignment with U.S. objectives for each specific nation may be more important once again, not just to tackle the mutual threat of drugs and crime, but to shore up wider strategic interests in our own backyard.
Miguel Alejandro Laborde is a former NCO in the 160th SOAR (A), and a subject matter expert on defense aviation programs, capabilities and platforms, with decades’ worth of experience in the aerospace industry supporting the joint force.
13. Giving Ukraine Modern NATO Weapons Is No Game Changer
From one of the loudest voices critical of US foreign policy and particularly of US support to Ukraine.
Excerpts:
In all of these units I participated in or led every operation necessary to conduct combat operations, from the individual training (to be proficient on my personal weapons), crew training (on my combat vehicle), unit training (at the platoon, company, and squadron level), and responsible to ensure the delivery and sustainment of the logistics, maintenance, and supply necessary to conduct combat operations over time. Without exception, every aspect of fighting in an armored unit I experienced is fuly applicable to the situation facing the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) today.
Zelensky and his senior military leaders have been pleading for heavy armor almost from the outset of the war. They contend that if sufficient numbers of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, and air defense systems can be provided by the West, they will be able to drive Russia from their land. But there is far more to creating combat power than merely possessing a given type and quantity of modern armored vehicles. I cannot stress enough how difficult it will be for Ukraine to produce mechanized forces of sufficient strength to expel Russian forces under current conditions.
Giving Ukraine Modern NATO Weapons Is No Game Changer
19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Davis · January 19, 2023
Modern NATO Gear May Not be Enough to Produce Successful Ukrainian Offensive – Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will host the latest iteration of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Airbase in Germany on Friday, where Western defense leaders are expected to announce yet more deliveries of tanks and armored personnel carriers to Ukraine. As increasing types of modern NATO weapons are promised to Ukraine, many are confident that the tide of battle will soon turn in Kyiv’s favor.
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Modern NATO Weapons for Ukraine: A Game Changer or Not?
A closer examination of what is being offered and a deeper understanding of how modern armored combat works, however, should temper expectations.
The situation is not as good as many believe. This will be the first of a series of articles examining the military fundamentals necessary to enable Ukraine to build a viable offensive capacity and will examine the challenges and opportunities to achieve that goal.
The hope is understandable among both Western and Ukrainian audiences. Knowing Zelensky’s troops have resisted Putin’s forces for nearly a year using old Soviet gear, it seems intuitive to believe that if the West provides Kyiv the same modern weapon systems NATO uses, then Zelensky’s forces will reverse the losses and drive Russia back to their country. Unfortunately, there’s a lot more to creating combat power than introducing even genuinely good and modern weapons.
There are remarkably few people in the U.S. today who have any combat experience, and only a very small percentage of those who have fought or trained in tank-on-tank battles. Subconscious or not, the truth is some equate the “reality” depicted in the video game Call of Duty with how things work in real combat. In the video game, one simply “gets” military gear or vehicles and then possesses the full combat capacity of that kit. So once a player gets an armored vehicle, they get the benefit of vehicle in full with its possession. Real combat is nothing like that.
Tanks, infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), howitzers, air defense systems, fighter jets, and the like, provide peak capacity only if the users are fully trained and experienced. Further, even with qualified operators and crews, the vehicles must be supplied with sufficient fuel and ammunition, maintained properly and routinely, and expertly employed at the crew, platoon, company, and battalion levels. A breakdown in any of these areas and even the best of equipment becomes of marginal utility – or a burning hulk in war. Throughout my 21-year Army career, I observed these truths first-hand in training, operations, and direct combat.
My U.S. Army Expertise On This Issue
I have served in armored and mechanized units in combat, in operational environments, and in training units. As a fresh Army second lieutenant I served in 1990 as a fire support officer in an armored M981 Fire Support Vehicle in support of Eagle Troop, 2nd Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (2nd ACR). With Eagle Troop I fought in 1991 in the largest American tank battle since World War II, the Battle of 73 Easting, during Operation Desert Storm.
I also served with Eagle Troop though the Combat Maneuver Training Center (CMTC) in Germany (where combat operations are replicated in every way except exchanging “laser-tag bullets” for live rounds), and during the Cold War, served with the 2nd ACR on patrol missions, armed with live ammunition, over a section of the East-West German border, defending against a possible incursion of the massive armies of the Warsaw Pact. In the mid-2000s, I served as the second-in-command of the divisional cavalry squadron (1-1 Cavalry) in support of the 1st Armored Division in Germany.
In all of these units I participated in or led every operation necessary to conduct combat operations, from the individual training (to be proficient on my personal weapons), crew training (on my combat vehicle), unit training (at the platoon, company, and squadron level), and responsible to ensure the delivery and sustainment of the logistics, maintenance, and supply necessary to conduct combat operations over time. Without exception, every aspect of fighting in an armored unit I experienced is fuly applicable to the situation facing the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) today.
Zelensky and his senior military leaders have been pleading for heavy armor almost from the outset of the war. They contend that if sufficient numbers of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, and air defense systems can be provided by the West, they will be able to drive Russia from their land. But there is far more to creating combat power than merely possessing a given type and quantity of modern armored vehicles. I cannot stress enough how difficult it will be for Ukraine to produce mechanized forces of sufficient strength to expel Russian forces under current conditions.
What Happens Next?
At the moment, Ukraine is rolling toward the one-year mark in its bloody war with Russia. Zelensky’s troops have likely suffered hundreds of thousands of killed and wounded in the many fierce battles they have fought. The UAF is presently locked in a major battle with Russia in the Donbas that is considered a “meat grinder.” The number of casualties suffered are applied perhaps equally to both sides, but for the purpose of this analysis, I will deal with the implications for the Ukrainian side, particularly as it relates to acquiring modern NATO tanks and IFVs for the purpose of building the combat power necessary to drive Russia out of Ukraine.
The next edition of this series will examine the building blocks necessary to build combat power in a modern field army. The next part will address the centrality of individual and collective combat training and explain why it is vitally important. Since much media focus has lately focused on the Bradley Fighting Vehicles the U.S. will soon deliver to Ukraine, I will explain how a U.S. military unit trains for war (as a means of highlighting what the Ukrainian Armed Forces will have to do).
The last in the series will tie it all together and illustrate the challenges that will have to be overcome by the UAF to accomplish Zelensky’s goal of recapturing all Ukrainian territory. War is such a dynamic, brutal, and cruel endeavor and literally nothing is ever guaranteed. But American policymakers, lawmakers, and citizens need to be aware of the steep climb Ukraine will have to make to convert these modern war machines into sufficient combat power to win its war.
As this series will show – and my many years of experience in armored units confirms – the chances of success are far lower than commonly believed.
A 1945 Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” Follow him @DanielLDavis.
19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Davis · January 19, 2023
14. Palantir CEO to those who don't support U.S. military work: 'Don't work here'
Palantir CEO to those who don't support U.S. military work: 'Don't work here'
defensescoop.com · by Billy Mitchell · January 18, 2023
Palantir CEO Alex Karp reaffirmed his commitment to supporting the values of the West via his company’s algorithmic intelligence software on Wednesday, telling any current or prospective employees who don’t support that mission: “Don’t work here.”
Asked by David Rubenstein, co-chairman of private equity firm the Carlyle Group, during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, about the tension many major tech companies face from “left-leaning” employees when working with the U.S. military and others, Karp stood firmly by Palantir’s mission to support the West from adversaries, whether that’s terrorist cells or developed nations like Russia and China who threaten democracy.
“We are not everyone’s cup of tea. We may not be your cup of tea,” Karp said. “To make society work, there are basic functions that have to work, one of which is the reduction of terrorism, pushing back on, in my view, human rights abuses largely done by adversaries to the West. You may not agree with that, and bless you. Don’t work here.”
Many large American tech companies, like Microsoft, Google and others, have faced public backlash from employees for their willingness to use tech to support the Department of Defense’s use of lethal force. Palantir, on the other hand, has been bullish about expanding its work with the DOD, vying to compete with behemoth traditional prime contractors like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and others.
Karp claims that his company’s algorithmic intelligence software powers the clandestine operations of most Western nations — “whether they tell you that or not,” he said — including the U.S. Department of Defense, which he credits in a large way for giving Palantir its start through a small In-Q-Tel contract.
“Interestingly, it was that part of the DOD that got us off the ground because they were struggling with finding out where terrorists were putting improvised explosives, and we figured that out in our product,” Karp said.
Looking at Silicon Valley, Karp estimates maybe two-thirds of the innovation hub’s software developers don’t agree with Palantir’s pledge to work with the military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
“However, one-third only wants to work for your company,” he said.
“We’ve been very critical of the Valley. And that also helps,” Karp said. “Bless your soul if you want to distribute carcinogens with your great intellect in the form of consumer internet. That’s your decision… We want people who want to be on the side of the West, making the West a better society, more able to defend themselves, better data protection, and that’s not for everyone.”
During the interview, Karp also wasn’t shy in crediting Palantir for its role in helping to secure the norms of democratic nations in the West, pointing particularly to the support the company has “philanthropically” given to Ukraine in its war with Russia. He touted Palantir’s MetaConstellation, claiming it gave Ukraine “targeting with like a factor of 20 better” than what it had prior, which played a major role in changing the course of the war, he said.
Karp described MetaConstellation as software that “allows you to use algorithms on large data sets to hone in on adversaries over, say, a whole country … [with] the infusion of data from satellites, telephones, other sources, classified sources, and then the disambiguation of that so people only see what they are allowed to see on the battlefield,” adding that it was “something that took us 15 years to build in various forms.”
Asked if the U.S. government has the same capabilities, Karp said vaguely: “The U.S. government has our software … and uses it very aggressively.”
Continuing on the support Ukraine has received, he said: “I mean, look, the role of the U.S. government and the British government, others is somewhat sensitive … but it would be remiss not to mention that these governments have played an enormous effect and crucial role, not just with our software — but also with our software.”
Karp said the U.S. also has a major opportunity to learn from what’s going on and what has actually worked in Ukraine. “I’m very in favor of a robust posture in America … we should look, what percentage of our budget is spent on things that actually turn the tide? We need to invest where the West has an advantage.”
And though Palantir has seen growth in the commercial side of its business, Karp reasoned that his “fundamental view of what Palantir should be is … a technical, digital software instrument — which again is what I think we are the best at in America — that strengthens institutions both commercial and economic and political in Western countries.”
defensescoop.com · by Billy Mitchell · January 18, 2023
15. CIA director holds secret meeting with Zelensky on Russia’s next steps
CIA director holds secret meeting with Zelensky on Russia’s next steps
High-level visit by Burns comes at critical juncture in war and as government in Kyiv airs concern about durability of U.S. support
By John Hudson
January 19, 2023 at 5:06 p.m. EST
The Washington Post · by John Hudson · January 19, 2023
CIA Director William J. Burns traveled in secret to Ukraine’s capital at the end of last week to brief President Volodymyr Zelensky on his expectations for what Russia is planning militarily in the coming weeks and months, said a U.S. official and other people familiar with the visit.
Burns’s travel comes at a critical juncture in the 11-month war. Russian forces are mounting a massive assault near the eastern city of Bakhmut that is causing many casualties on both sides and forcing Ukraine to weigh its resources there as it prepares a major counteroffensive elsewhere in the country.
Top of mind for Zelensky and his senior intelligence officials during the meeting was how long Ukraine could expect U.S. and Western assistance to continue following Republicans’ takeover of the House and a drop-off in support of Ukraine aid among parts of the U.S. electorate, said people familiar with the meeting. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private high-level engagement.
Burns emphasized the urgency of the moment on the battlefield and acknowledged that at some point assistance would be harder to come by, the people said.
Zelensky and his aides came away from last week’s meeting with the impression that the Biden administration’s support for Kyiv remains strong and the $45 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine passed by Congress in December would last at least through July or August, those familiar with the discussion said. Kyiv is less certain about the prospects of Congress passing another multibillion-dollar supplemental assistance package as it did last spring, they said.
While hawkish Republicans in Congress continue to favor arming Ukraine, other conservatives have said they want to slash U.S. spending, in particular, the billions of dollars going to the war effort.
“Director Burns traveled to Kyiv where he met with Ukrainian intelligence counterparts as well as President Zelensky and reinforced our continued support for Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression,” a U.S. official said.
Burns is a respected figure among Zelensky’s inner circle because of his accurate warning in January 2022 that Russian forces would seek to capture Ukraine’s Antonov Airport in the opening stages of the Feb. 24 invasion. His message, delivered in person, was based on a U.S. intelligence assessment and is credited with helping Ukraine prepare to defend the airport and deny Russia a foothold needed to capture Kyiv.
Burns’s skeptical view of Russia’s willingness to negotiate also has endeared him to Zelensky’s aides, who have bristled at suggestions Ukraine should consider talking to the Russians to end the conflict.
“Most conflicts end in negotiations, but that requires a seriousness on the part of the Russians in this instance that I don’t think we see,” Burns told PBS last month. “At least, it’s not our assessment that the Russians are serious at this point about a real negotiation.”
A CIA spokesperson declined to characterize what Burns relayed to Zelensky on Russia’s military planning. Any insights he might offer would be highly valued in Kyiv.
At the moment, Ukrainian and Russian forces are locked in an intense war of attrition in eastern Ukraine around Bakhmut. The city has relatively little strategic value but it has taken on symbolic importance for both sides, in particular, Russia, which hasn’t captured a major Ukrainian city since last summer.
Military analysts expect that an uptick in fighting this spring could determine the war’s trajectory.
The United States and Western countries are rushing armored vehicles, artillery and missiles to Ukraine in an effort to bolster its military’s firepower, hopeful the additional equipment will enable Zelensky’s army to break through Russian-controlled areas such as Zaporizhzhia in an offensive expected to begin in the coming months.
Russia, meanwhile, is looking to launch its own offensive in the spring, stoking expectations that it will draft more troops following last September’s mobilization of 300,000 men. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu unveiled a proposal in December to increase the country’s military personnel to 1.5 million by 2026, up from 1.1 million now.
Moscow, which has recruited convicted felons in the war effort, has shown a willingness to endure heavy casualties. Last year, many of the recruits were highly inexperienced, given only two weeks of training before being sent to the front lines. But in recent months, Russia has improved its training, according to Western intelligence officials.
Burns, a former ambassador to Russia and senior State Department official, is one of the U.S. government’s foremost experts on Russia. He has thought extensively about the place Ukraine takes in the Russian psyche.
During the George W. Bush administration, when the topic of NATO membership for Ukraine was discussed, Burns underscored the depth of Russian opposition to the idea in a memo to Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state.
“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just [Vladimir] Putin),” he wrote. “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
More recently, Burns has linked the Russian president’s decision to invade Ukraine as a key step in his goal of returning Moscow to its former glory.
“He is convinced that his destiny as Russia’s leader is to restore Russia as a great power,” he told an audience at a security forum in Aspen in July. “He believes the key to doing that is to re-create a sphere of influence in Russia’s neighborhood and he does not believe you can do that without controlling Ukraine and its choices. And so that’s what produced, I think, this horrible war.”
Burns also visited Ukraine in November. The trips offer the spy chief an opportunity to build trust with his intelligence counterparts and form a better understanding of the conflict, said people familiar with his travels.
Burns’s latest trip came ahead of a busy week of engagements on Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with his Ukrainian counterpart in Poland for their first face-to-face interaction since the start of the war.
On Wednesday, Zelensky urged Ukraine’s supporters to send tanks and air defense missiles, and criticized Germany for refusing to supply its modern Leopard tanks unless the United States sends the more advanced Abrams tanks.
“There are times where we shouldn’t hesitate,” Zelensky told an audience in Davos, Switzerland, via video feed.
That same day, NATO defense ministers began a two-day meeting in Brussels where the topic of Leopard tanks divided allies, with Poland threatening to send 14 tanks regardless of whether Germany approves. Technically, Germany’s approval is required because it is the manufacturer of the Leopard 2.
“Either we will obtain this consent, or we will do the right thing ourselves,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a local broadcaster.
The Washington Post · by John Hudson · January 19, 2023
16. Calls to Designate IRGC as Terrorist Organization Grow in the UK
Calls to Designate IRGC as Terrorist Organization Grow in the UK
fdd.org · · January 19, 2023
Latest Developments
Calls to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization grew in the United Kingdom this week after Iran executed a prominent dual British-Iranian citizen on Saturday morning. According to Iranian news sources, Iran hanged former deputy defense minister, Alireza Akbari, 61, after accusing him of spying for the UK’s MI6 — the British equivalent to the CIA. According to the BBC, Akbari’s execution came after he was tortured and forced to confess on camera, though he later recanted. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressed outrage over the execution, while the UK Foreign Office “summoned” Iran’s chargé d’affaires in London — a formality that entails a meeting with host nation officials to hear complaints.
Expert Analysis
“British intelligence confirms that Iran threatened to kidnap or kill British citizens and residents on UK soil. It’s indefensible at this point to oppose proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Fecklessly summoning Iranian diplomats isn’t making British citizens any safer. The government should instead summon the courage to do what’s necessary and justified to protect the UK’s national security.” — Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor
British Intelligence Warns of IRGC Threats on British Soil
In response to Akbari’s execution, the UK imposed a travel ban on and froze the assets of Iranian prosecutor general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, whom the British Foreign Office described as “one of the most powerful figures in Iran’s judicial system.” The UK summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires, and Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the British ambassador to Iran, Stephen Shercliff, to complain about what the Islamic Republic sees as interference in their affairs.
In his annual update in November, Ken McCallum, head of UK’s domestic security agency MI5, said that there have been at least 10 potential threats by Iran to kidnap or kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as being enemies of the regime. Earlier that month, police warned two journalists in London that there were credible and imminent death threats against them by IRGC agents. In 2015, police discovered an Iranian-backed bomb factory in London.
Concerns Over Diplomatic Relations
The UK had been considering designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization prior to Akbari’s execution but was concerned that the designation would close the door on the stalled nuclear talks with Iran and lead to retaliation. Yet Tom Tugendhat, UK’s security minister, has long supported proscribing the IRGC.
“The state’s murder of another citizen shows the cruelty of the Iranian regime,” he tweeted on Saturday. “The Iranian regime threatens other British citizens even in the UK, as [the] MI5 head reported recently. We will defend our security.”
Broad Support in UK, Europe for Proscribing IRGC
On January 12, the UK House of Commons unanimously voted in favor of a motion urging the government to proscribe the IRGC. Six days later, the European Parliament voted in favor of recommending the IRGC be designated a terrorist organization by the European Union. The United States designated the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 2019.
Related Analysis
“UK Preparing to Designate IRGC as a Terrorist Organization,” FDD Flash Brief
“Iran Caught Again Trying to Kill Israeli Civilians Abroad,” FDD Flash Brief
“Iran’s Long, Bloody History of Terror and Espionage in Europe,” by Toby Dershowitz and Benjamin Weinthal
fdd.org · · January 19, 2023
17. Opinion | Xi’s course correction reveals an agile autocrat under pressure
Excerpts:
What are the lessons for the Biden administration? First, it is clearer than ever that Xi is an agile autocrat; his sense of self-preservation kicked in last month as he was nearing a precipice. Second, even in Xi’s police state, the Chinese can still exercise “people power” when they dare to use it.
Finally, the past two months were a reminder that Xi is ruthlessly unpredictable — a leader who will turn on a dime to get what he wants.
Is Xi’s new economic-reform tilt permanent, or simply a tactical shift? Has he learned anything from his covid mistakes? As always with Xi, the best answer is to test him. The Chinese leader is a master of going in two directions at once.
Opinion | Xi’s course correction reveals an agile autocrat under pressure
The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · January 19, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping likes to cultivate an aura of careful, well-planned policy. He claims that’s the advantage of autocracy. But the past few months have looked more like an impulsive, zigzag journey along the edge of a cliff.
Xi in December announced a stunning reversal of major covid-19, economic and technology policies. This turnabout came just two months after an arrogant display at the Communist Party’s 20th Congress, during which Xi had seemed to be doubling down on failing strategies.
Xi didn’t explain or apologize in December. He just changed course. That illustrates his tactical agility, and also his shamelessness about rewriting party doctrine. It also shows how erratic Xi can be, and how important it is for the United States and China to establish guardrails so that misunderstandings on security issues don’t turn into disasters. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will try to deepen this U.S.-China dialogue when he visits Beijing next month.
An examination of Xi’s recent U-turns was compiled by the Asia Society Policy Institute, headed by Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister and a China expert. In a paper released this week, the Society’s Center for China Analysis catalogued the policy changes, many of them announced during a meeting in December of the party’s Central Economic Work Conference. Their account matches recent reporting by Pamir Consulting, a leading advisory firm based in Vienna, Va.
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The most dramatic change was the party’s “backflip,” as the Asia Society paper calls it, on its “zero covid” policy. In his October speech to the congress, Xi had described his lockdown strategy as “an all-out people’s war to stop the spread of the virus.” But at that time, U.S. officials believe, Xi probably knew that the omicron variant had spread so widely that it couldn’t be contained. Rather than admit error — and prepare to treat a spread of disease that could lead to 1.7 million covid deaths in his country by April, according to the British analytics firm Airfinity — Xi just waited.
Public anxiety mounted and, by late November, protesters were in the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, holding blank pieces of paper because they feared the consequences of sending an explicit message of criticism. “The party appears to have been caught by surprise” by the protests, the Asia Society writes. “There followed a fortnight of political indecision … about the degree of suppression that would be tolerated to bring protesters back under control.”
Without any official explanation, Xi reversed course on Dec. 8. China’s National Health Commission announced an end to automatic lockdowns, mandatory testing, and strict travel and quarantine rules. Evidently, Xi realized that the lockdowns — while failing to halt the virus — were freezing the country’s economy and jeopardizing his legitimacy as leader. A Pamir report explained: “China’s economic slowdown depleted financial resources for Chinese local governments and made Zero Covid unsustainable.”
Xi next moved to reverse the neo-Maoist economic policies that had demoralized Chinese entrepreneurs and enfeebled the country’s tech and real estate sectors. The Asia Society notes a series of changes in the December Work Conference report from the previous year’s version. The new edition was “less ideological,” more supportive of “market vitality and creativity” and more enthusiastic about consumer spending. Previous references to “common prosperity,” a buzz phrase that Xi had used to undermine successful business leaders, were dropped.
The conference report’s language “could indicate a relaxing of heavy-handed measures that have punished the Chinese tech sector,” according to a Pamir report this week. The financial markets certainly think so. Shares of Chinese technology companies have risen sharply recently.
Xi’s December turnabout was sensible enough; many of his left-wing policies should never have been adopted in the first place. What was so Orwellian was that the changes were announced without any admission that Xi was altering direction. Since 2017, he had been gradually “advancing the state while restricting the private sector,” the Asia Society notes, with costs that economists could have predicted. In December — poof! — Xi reversed course.
Rudd’s explanation for this change is that “the party panicked” in late November and early December as protests spread, covid surged and the economy plummeted. Xi’s about-face might have averted disaster, but Rudd argues in an email accompanying the Asia Society report that his “political standing will take a medium-to-long term hit from such a dramatic policy U-turn and so little preparation for it.” Xi retains total control of the party, but more mistakes like last year’s could encourage opposition.
What are the lessons for the Biden administration? First, it is clearer than ever that Xi is an agile autocrat; his sense of self-preservation kicked in last month as he was nearing a precipice. Second, even in Xi’s police state, the Chinese can still exercise “people power” when they dare to use it.
Finally, the past two months were a reminder that Xi is ruthlessly unpredictable — a leader who will turn on a dime to get what he wants.
Is Xi’s new economic-reform tilt permanent, or simply a tactical shift? Has he learned anything from his covid mistakes? As always with Xi, the best answer is to test him. The Chinese leader is a master of going in two directions at once.
The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · January 19, 2023
18. Who Would Win a War Over Taiwan?
War games are very important. But we need to be wary of drawing definite conclusions from the results. Despite very sophisticated computer technology there are still too many warfighting intangibles that cannot be mathematically predicted, especially when it comes to the will to fight.
But I do agree with one result, it is very likely that a war over Taiwan will be a very bloody fight that will result in high casualties on all sides.
Who Would Win a War Over Taiwan?
A war-game exercise reveals holes in U.S. deterrence strategy.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-would-win-a-war-over-taiwan-war-game-exercise-center-for-strategic-and-international-studies-china-u-s-11673981972?mod=hp_opin_pos_1
By The Editorial BoardFollow
Jan. 19, 2023 6:50 pm ET
Good news: The Chinese military can’t easily seize Taiwan by force. That’s the gist of the headlines about a recent war game from a Washington think-tank. But that’s not the full story, and the details in the 160-page report show that even a victorious fight for Taiwan would be a ruinous affair, and the U.S. is still showing little sense of urgency in deterring it.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies set out to test what would happen if China attempted an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. Analysts played the war game 24 times, and in most instances U.S. intervention beat back the invasion. Taiwan remained an autonomous democracy, albeit as a ravaged island without basic services like electricity.
War games are a product of choices and assumptions, but there were four preconditions to defeating an invasion, none of them guaranteed. First the Taiwanese have to fight. The island is ramping up its spending on defense but its conscription and readiness are underwhelming. Condition two: Arms need to be pre-positioned; the U.S. can’t pour in weapons over friendly borders after the fight starts a la Ukraine. American weapons deliveries to Taiwan now lag years behind orders.
Three: The U.S. must be able to rely on its bases in Japan. American fighter jets lack the range to commute to the war without Japan’s outer islands, one more reason Tokyo is America’s most important Pacific ally. The fourth condition? The U.S. “must be able to strike the Chinese fleet rapidly and en masse” with long-range weapons.
The cost in blood of U.S. sailors and airmen would be enormous. “In three weeks,” the report notes, the U.S. would suffer “about half as many casualties as it did in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Commanders would have to “move forward despite a high level of casualties not seen in living memory.”
The American public has no experience since World War II of enduring dozens of lost ships, including two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers (crew: 5,000) badly damaged or lost in most scenarios. The casualties and equipment losses compound the longer the U.S. waits to intervene, a warning about the costs of political indecision in a crisis. It’s also worth asking if a U.S. President in his 80s would have the stamina and concentration to manage the flood of difficult decisions coming at him.
The weapons that can help win faster are available, yet the U.S. is making little progress in acquiring them in sufficient numbers. In the war game, American attack submarines “wreaked havoc” on the Chinese fleet. The U.S. Navy now has a fleet of about 50 attack subs and a goal of 66, but the shipbuilding plan doesn’t hit 60 boats until 2045. Congress wants to buy three hulls a year but the U.S. industrial base delivers about 1.2.
Another war-winner: Long-range anti-ship weapons, known as LRASMs. Bombers could fire these weapons without having to enter contested airspace, which significantly reduces U.S. casualties. One problem: “The United States expended its global LRASM inventory within the first few days in all scenarios.” The Pentagon should run a public campaign to buy a LRASM to save American pilots, and procure them in the thousands.
***
One known unknown is how well the Chinese military would perform, a warning to the Communist Party. A contested amphibious assault, across about 100 miles of ocean, is a varsity operation, much harder than rolling over a land border as Vladimir Putin did in Ukraine. The last time a Chinese combat plane shot down a manned aircraft was 1967.
Missile defenses may work well in peacetime testing but fail at higher rates in combat. One question Chinese President Xi Jinping might ask himself, after watching Mr. Putin’s travails in Europe, is whether the reports he’s receiving on his military’s prowess are accurate.
Some readers may conclude the answer to all this is to let Taiwan fall, but that would end America’s status as a credible global power. U.S. allies would recalibrate their alliances, and rogues would take more risks. All the more reason to spend the money and energy on demonstrating to China that it will lose a Taiwan war. CSIS has done a service in putting out an unclassified document that can educate the public on what is required.
19. 3 Active-Duty Marines Who Work in Intelligence Arrested for Alleged Participation in Jan. 6 Riot
Excerpts:
The three Marines now join the other nine service members -- active, reserve and National Guard -- who have been arrested for alleged crimes stemming from Jan. 6. Two other men were booted from basic training as their investigations unfolded.
According to the George Washington University's Project on Extremism, out of the 940 defendants charged with crimes stemming from Jan. 6, 118, or 12%, have some form of military background.
3 Active-Duty Marines Who Work in Intelligence Arrested for Alleged Participation in Jan. 6 Riot
military.com · by Konstantin Toropin · January 19, 2023
Three Marines were arrested Wednesday for their participation in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.
Micah Coomer, Joshua Abate, and Dodge Dale Hellonen -- three men identified by investigators as active-duty Marines -- were arrested on four charges each stemming from their participation in the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election.
The three men are the first active-duty military members to be arrested in connection with the siege since Marine Maj. Christopher Warnagiris, who was taken into custody in May 2021 on nine charges. All three Marines, who were arrested more than two years after the attack, work in jobs connected to the intelligence community.
A Marine Corps spokesman confirmed that the service is "aware of an investigation and the allegations" and added that service "is fully cooperating with appropriate authorities in support of the investigation."
According to the complaint filed by federal prosecutors, investigators first learned of the three men when they found photos from inside the Capitol that Coomer had posted on Instagram including "the caption 'Glad to be apart [sic] of history.'" A search warrant was issued for his social media accounts in August 2021.
After officials identified Coomer, they used video and images from inside the building that day to identify Abate and Hellonen as well, according to court documents.
Later, investigators explained that all three men's identities were confirmed by comparing their images in the videos to their driver's licenses, as well as their military identification card photos.
According to court documents, the trio spent just under an hour milling about the Capitol, including the Rotunda, where they put "a red MAGA hat on one of the statues to take photos with it."
In a chat with another Instagram user in the weeks after the siege, the court records say Coomer told an unidentified person "that everything in this country is corrupt. We honestly need a fresh restart. I'm waiting for the boogaloo." When the other person asked what a "boogaloo" was, Coomer said "Civil war 2."
The Boogaloo movement is broadly anti-government in nature but favors violence with the use of the term "boogaloo" typically slang for a future race war. However, some experts, like the Anti-Defamation League, have noted that "most boogalooers are not white supremacists, though one can find white supremacists within the movement."
According to records provided to Military.com by the Marine Corps, all three men have been enlisted in the Marines for more than four years, with Hellonen, who enlisted in August 2017, being the most senior. On paper, the three Marines hold demanding jobs tied to the intelligence community, are stationed at major commands, and have personal commendations and awards to their name. At least one held a significant security clearance. All three had been awarded good conduct medals.
Abate, a sergeant, is assigned to the Marine Corps' Cryptologic Support Battalion at Fort
Meade, Maryland -- also home to the National Security Agency headquarters -- as a signals intelligence operator and analyst. Records provided by the Marine Corps show that among his awards was a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, an unusual and prestigious medal for a junior Marine.
Court documents say that Abate admitted to being in the Capitol in a June 2022 interview that was part of his security clearance process.
"During the interview, Abate discussed entering the U.S. Capitol Building on January
6, 2021 with two 'buddies,'" the documents say, before adding that they "walked around and tried not to get hit with tear gas."
"Abate also admitted he heard how the event was being portrayed negatively and decided that he should not tell anybody about going into the U.S. Capitol Building," the court document said.
Hellonen, a sergeant, is assigned to the 3rd Marine Raider Support Battalion -- a unit that supports Marine Corps Special Operations Command -- also as a signals intelligence operator and analyst. He is stationed at Camp Lejeune, and his warrant shows he was arrested in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
Earlier in his career in the Marine Corps, Hellonen was highlighted by the Air Force as a "student of the month" while attending a joint school on an Air Force base.
Coomer, a corporal and the man whose social media posting was credited by investigators as leading them to the trio, is assigned to 1st Radio Battalion, I Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, at Camp Pendleton as a system engineer for intelligence and reconnaissance systems. His arrest warrant shows he was arrested in nearby Oceanside, California.
The careers of the three men stand in contrast to the other enlisted service members who were arrested for allegedly taking part in the riot. Most were lower ranking than the three Marines, and some were struggling to find success in the military. For example, Pfc. Abram Markofski, a Wisconsin National Guardsman who pleaded guilty to charges related to his role in the assault on the Capitol, was removed from Special Forces Selection for failing the Army's physical fitness test.
However, the men are not the only members of the intelligence community to be arrested for their alleged part in the siege. In the summer of 2022, federal authorities arrested Petty Officer 1st Class Hatchet Speed, a sailor assigned to the Naval Warfare Space Field Activity at the National Reconnaissance Office, an agency that says it is responsible for developing, launching and operating America's spy satellites.
The three Marines now join the other nine service members -- active, reserve and National Guard -- who have been arrested for alleged crimes stemming from Jan. 6. Two other men were booted from basic training as their investigations unfolded.
According to the George Washington University's Project on Extremism, out of the 940 defendants charged with crimes stemming from Jan. 6, 118, or 12%, have some form of military background.
-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin.
military.com · by Konstantin Toropin · January 19, 2023
20. Fort Bragg will get a new name by the end of the year
Fort Bragg will get a new name by the end of the year
armytimes.com · by Rachael Riley · January 19, 2023
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Fort Bragg could be referred to as Fort Liberty by the summer, while Army leaders received marching orders earlier this month to have the change in place by the end of the year.
Col. John Wilcox, Fort Bragg’s garrison commander, told local Fayetteville radio host Goldy on Wednesday that he expects the name change to happen in June.
“It’s official,” Wilcox said. “It’s happening this year. In fact, it’s going to happen in the month of June. We’re going to nail down exactly what day in June here pretty soon.”
William A. LaPlante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, directed all Department of Defense organizations on Jan. 5, to begin full implementation of the national Renaming Commission’s recommendations.
RELATED
Renaming 9 Confederate-honoring Army posts will cost $21M
The name changes should be completed by early 2024.
The commission was mandated by the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act to identify assets, including Army installations, that commemorate the Confederacy.
Fort Bragg is currently named after Gen. Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general associated with being a slave owner and losing battles during the Civil War.
The local post is among nine Army installations identified for a name change.
In May, the commission announced that after community stakeholder meetings, it was recommending renaming Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty.
According to the Naming Commission’s report, the Army was founded “to achieve the ideal of liberty. "
The word liberty, the report states, is featured in the 82nd Airborne Division’s song and is part of the Army Special Forces’ motto.
Fort Bragg is home to airborne and special operations forces, with about 49,000 military personnel.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin announced in October that he agreed with the Commission’s recommendation.
According to this month’s DOD news release “each responsible DoD organization has submitted a comprehensive plan of action and milestones to implement the Commission’s recommendations by its Jan. 1, 2024 deadline.”
Details of those plans have not yet been made public.
In an email statement, an Army spokesperson said that the removal of names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America will be implemented no later than Jan. 1, 2024.
“We established a planning team that will work closely with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the other military services, and our commands to implement the Naming Commission’s recommendations,” the spokesperson said. “We recognize these changes will take time to implement and we look forward to honoring the courage, sacrifice, and diversity of the Army’s men and women. There will be official renaming ceremonies over the course of 2023.”
Renaming roads
In January 2022, Fort Bragg officials revealed that Longstreet Road had reverted back to its original historic name of Long Street.
A news release stated the condensed name has been incorrectly affiliated with Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet.
Based on an evaluation of the area by the National Register of Historic Places conducted by Carl Steen in 2008, the condensed name from Long Street to Longstreet was likely part of U.S. Geological Survey map simplification efforts after 1918, officials said.
The news release stated that Fort Bragg’s Directorate of Public Works, Cultural Resources verified in historical documents that the original name of the road was Long Street.
More than 480 street names on Fort Bragg were evaluated in preparation for the national renaming commission, said Linda Carnes-McNaughton, Fort Bragg’s curator and archeologist, during a September 2021 joint meeting with the city of Fayetteville about the Fort Bragg renaming process.
Carnes-McNaughton said other Fort Bragg streets identified for name changes include: Alexander, Armistead, Donelson, Jackson, Mosby, Pelham and Reilly.
It is not clear whether other Confederate assets like roads and buildings on Fort Bragg will be renamed before the main installation takes on the Fort Liberty name.
Costs to Fayetteville and Cumberland County?
The cost to rename Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty will be about $6.37 million, according to a report released by the national Renaming Commission.
Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder did not have an updated estimate during a Jan. 5 press briefing.
“Each of the (military) services has clear instructions in terms of what it is that they need to focus on … the Secretary is confident that the services are and will continue to take that seriously,” Ryder said.
In their report, the Renaming Commission also recommended that Congress support non-Department of Defense federal, state and local communities near the Army posts that will be renamed “by providing financial means for the renaming of their assets.”
Local government entities have not yet released an estimate of the cost associated with renaming assets outside of Fort Bragg in Cumberland County and Fayetteville.
“Currently the city is looking at how the renaming will impact the city, and what may be needed to best address any needs for our community,” city spokesperson, Loren Bymer, said.
Brian Haney, a spokesperson for Cumberland County, said county leadership has been engaged in stakeholder discussions about the renaming process.
“The County does not maintain roads and we believe that any impacts or costs to the County from the name change would be negligible, mainly around making sure the name is updated on documents going forward,” Haney said. “Once the name changes, County departments will begin using the new name.”
Andrew Barksdale, a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, previously estimated that changing “Fort Bragg next exit” signs along Interstates 95 and 295 would “easily exceed $1 million.”
On Wednesday, Drew Cox, an NCDOT division engineer for Cumberland County, said that initial estimates were preliminary and that a more intensive inventory list would be assessed once timelines are in place.
Cox said the number of letters in the new name will impact things like the size and design of new signs, and right know exact costs are unknown without having a manufacturer estimate or knowing whether DOT employes or contractors will change the signs.
“We’re wanting to wait until being notified with an official timeline before we start taking inventory,” Cox said.
Cox said DOT has had a “longstanding relationship with Fort Bragg,” through a memorandum of understanding for highway maintenance.
“We want to be supportive of them because what they are for our country,” he said.
The Renaming Commission has also recommended that commanders be allowed to work with local historical societies, museums, and veteran associations to donate Department of Defense assets that will be removed as part of the renaming process.
*Editor’s Note: This article was published as part of a content-sharing agreement between Army Times and The Fayetteville Observer.
21. Taiwan premier, cabinet submit resignations ahead of reshuffle
Taiwan premier, cabinet submit resignations ahead of reshuffle
Reuters · by Reuters
TAIPEI, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang submitted his resignation along with that of his cabinet to President Tsai Ing-wen on Thursday ahead of a widely expected government reshuffle, but there was no immediate word about his successor.
Su's move follows the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) trouncing at local polls in November, and comes as Taiwan gears up for presidential and parliamentary elections in early 2024.
In a Facebook post, Su said he had asked Tsai to appoint a new cabinet so she could bring in new people.
Cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng said in a separate statement that Su and his cabinet would formally step down once Tsai had confirmed their replacements.
The presidential office said the process of choosing a new cabinet will take place during the 10-day Lunar New Year holiday beginning on Friday so the new team will be ready once the break is over.
Su, 75, had originally submitted his resignation after the November poll losses, but Tsai asked him to stay on.
Taiwan media has swirled with speculation about who will replace him.
Su, who has served as premier since 2019, is known for his pithy remarks and slick, often humorous, social media presence. He has also been repeatedly critical of China, calling the country an "evil neighbour" last August as Beijing carried out war games near the island.
Su is one of the original founders of the DPP, established in 1986 when Taiwan was still under martial law.
Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Meg Shen; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Toby Chopra, Alex Richardson and Tomasz Janowski
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Reuters · by Reuters
22. Learning to Train: What Washington and Taipei Can Learn from Security
Conclusion
Time is running out for Taiwan’s military to adapt to the not-so-new threat environment. Of course, no one knows if war is imminent, because no one knows what is going on inside of Xi’s mind. But as long as Xi keeps the use of force on the table, Taipei and Washington should do everything in their power to convince him that the costs of making that choice will vastly exceed the benefits.
The decision to extend conscription can go a long way toward reshaping Xi’s calculus, especially if it is paired with a dramatic improvement in training quality. But it takes time to change an army. Even the Ukrainian military’s rapid modernization, which remains a work in progress, took seven years — the equivalent of a blink of an eye in bureaucratic terms. The road ahead could be even longer for Taiwan’s military in light of the constraints that it must navigate.
Thankfully, Washington can help to expedite the process. Our experience assisting Ukraine and the Baltic states offers a combat-tested model showing how.
Learning to Train: What Washington and Taipei Can Learn from Security Cooperation in Ukraine and the Baltic States - War on the Rocks
JERAD I. HARPER AND MICHAEL A. HUNZEKER
JANUARY 20, 2023
warontherocks.com · by Jerad I. Harper · January 20, 2023
From Russia’s brutal re-invasion of Ukraine to China’s outraged response to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, 2022 had a profound impact on Taiwan’s national security. It was thus only fitting that the year would end with a consequential shift in the country’s defense policy. In a nationally televised address on Dec. 27, President Tsai Ing-wen increased mandatory military service for all Taiwanese men from four months to one year, and directed her defense officials to copy the training methods used by the United States.
It was a welcome decision. American experts and officials — as well as Taiwanese legislators and even Taiwan’s current minister of national defense — have long considered the four-month scheme inadequate in light of Taiwan’s deteriorating security environment. Taiwanese voters also support the move. A poll conducted by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation in March shows that 76 percent favored lengthened conscription. Broad public support notwithstanding, Tsai should still be applauded for making the call so soon after her party’s drubbing in November’s 9-in-1 elections. She could have easily kicked the can down the road, and there were indications that she might.
Politics aside, conscription extension was also a militarily necessity. For years, Taiwan’s all-volunteer force has struggled to recruit enough young men and women. Year-long conscription, which takes effect in 2024, will help Taiwan to increase the size of its active military force by at least 60,000 within the next three years.
Now the real work begins. As much as extending conscription is a military necessity, Taiwan needs to overhaul how it trains its troops — conscript and regular alike. Training, especially in Taiwan’s army, is notoriously inadequate and unrealistic. Soldiers spend too much time sitting in classrooms and too little time practicing individual and small-unit combat skills. Exercises are heavily scripted. Junior leaders are expected to follow orders, not make decisions.
Become a Member
Thankfully, Tsai has acknowledged the problem and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has already publicly committed the American military to helping Taiwan to defend itself. American “boots” are already “on the ground” (as they have been for decades — one of us helped train Taiwanese Marines in the early 2000s). And the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act creates a clear framework and basis for helping Taiwan’s military. The real question is how the U.S. military can best “scale up” these existing efforts as quickly as possible, especially because many in Washington think that time is running out before China launches a cross-strait invasion.
We think the U.S. military’s efforts training military forces in Ukraine and the Baltic states can serve as a blueprint for helping Taiwan. The two most important takeaways from these experiences? First, that rapid transformation demands a holistic approach — one combining a bottom-up, battle-focused training methodology emphasizing tactics, techniques, and procedures with a top-down emphasis on institutional, legal, and political reform. And second, that “rapid” is a relative term when it comes to military reform. Even the Ukrainian military’s dramatic transformation took seven years to get to this point — and remains a work in progress.
Below, we identify seven key lessons learned from security cooperation efforts in eastern and central Europe. We contextualize these lessons to the unique challenges facing Taiwan before concluding with four recommendations for American policymakers.
Lessons Learned from Teaching Lessons
There is no shortage of analysis about applying lessons-learned from the conflict in Ukraine to the defense of Taiwan. In any case, most of this existing work focuses on what the war should teach Taiwan about the nature of contemporary high-intensity warfare, the need for an asymmetric defense posture, whether Russia’s attack on Ukraine will or will not make a war over Taiwan more likely, or what Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his generals might be learning from the ongoing war.
Our focus is different. We believe the lessons from how the United States, along with its NATO allies, helped Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine to transform their militaries in a matter of years are the best model for training the Taiwanese military. For the Baltic states, these changes began with the lead-up to their admission into NATO in 2004. For Ukraine, the process began after Russia’s two-pronged invasion in 2014 sent shockwaves through the Ukrainian military, which then-Chief of the General Staff Viktor Muzhenko described as “an army literally in ruins.”
Seven lessons stand out.
Small-Unit Training Focused on Concrete Warfighting Skills
A central characteristic of U.S. and European security assistance efforts in Ukraine was their emphasis on rigorous and realistic combat training. Following the debacle of 2014, NATO members surged training missions into Ukraine that were much different to previous efforts and provided a variety of battle-focused training assistance expanding the capabilities of Ukrainian tactical formations, both in their “home-station” garrisons as well as in a maneuver training center. Mobile training teams from the United Kingdom (Operation Orbital), Canada (Operation Unifier), and Lithuania helped Ukrainian conventional units to improve individual and small-unit skills on a host of tasks, including infantry, airborne, sniper, and medical operations.
Meanwhile, the United States established the Joint Multinational Training Group Ukraine in Ukraine’s Yavoriv Training Center under the U.S. Army’s 7th Army Training Command in Germany. There, rotational units from the U.S. Army and Army National Guard organized challenging combined arms training for Ukrainian brigades, while simultaneously mentoring Ukrainian observer/controllers to take the lead in training their own units. NATO special operations forces from multiple countries also organized mobile training teams and combat training center assistance for their Ukrainian counterparts.
Our conversations with U.S. security cooperation personnel and Ukrainian armed forces officers suggest that these efforts were critical to developing the small-unit capabilities that gave Ukrainian forces a tactical edge over Russian units.
Joint and Multinational Exercises Facilitated Learning Among Senior Leaders and Staffs
Of course, the most effective small-unit tactics in the world are useless without a commensurate ability to control higher formations, combine arms, and integrate joint forces in large-scale combat operations. Developing these sorts of senior officer and staff skills is often much harder and takes longer to accomplish than improving tactical skills, something both of us have experienced personally. After all, in peacetime junior officers often have the luxury of focusing on training with their units. In contrast, staff and senior officers spend the vast majority of their time consumed with administrative and bureaucratic matters — tasks that are radically different from those they must master to succeed in combat. Moreover, getting senior officers and their staffs to embrace a new training system or doctrine requires teaching them techniques, skills, and practices that are often radically different from those that got them promoted to those senior levels in the first place.
Interestingly, according to an interview with a retired U.S. Army special operations officer who had worked closely with the Baltic states, this issue was less of a challenge when working with the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian armed forces because all of their senior leaders were new — former Soviet field-grade and above officers were prevented from joining the post-Soviet military. In contrast, other security cooperation officials observed that the Ukrainian military had no such prohibition, and its military was still adhering to a Soviet-style system as late as 2015. Transitioning to Western military practices proved hardest for those officers who were most familiar with the “old way” of doing business — and who also, not coincidentally, held the most power and authority.
In both cases, senior officers benefited from multinational exercises that allowed their commanders and staffs from tactical to strategic level to practice their wartime command and control tasks while simultaneously exposing them to the techniques and best practices of partnered American and NATO forces. For the Baltic states, annual NATO exercises tested the rapid deployment of U.S. and other NATO ground and air forces to reinforce the region and then conduct high-intensity combined training with both Baltic and NATO forces. The NATO-facilitated multinational enhanced forward presence battlegroups established in all three Baltic states (along with Poland) have also proven helpful in this regard. For Ukraine, the Rapid Trident series of annual Ukraine-NATO exercises brought a brigade-sized force together for joint training. The Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian Brigade, a military brigade-level organization under Polish command, brought battalion staffs from these countries together for annual battle staff training, battalion staff courses, and multinational exercises at Joint Multinational Training Group Ukraine.
Eventually, new Ukrainian senior leadership acquiesced and more large-scale Ukrainian exercises benefited from NATO mentors. Just prior to the invasion, the summer 2021 Joint Endeavor exercise brought embedded NATO observers for the first time into Ukrainian commands above the brigade level — both their operational commands and Joint Force Headquarters. A security cooperation official interviewed saw this as a major change in the Ukrainian armed forces’ approach to transformation and as indicative of their increased trajectory towards the goal of NATO interoperability.
The State Partnership Program Built Relationships … When It Had Time to Take Root
The U.S. Army National Guard’s State Partnership Program relationships reinforced these lines of effort by building long-term partnerships between Ukraine and the Baltic states and U.S. Army National Guard units from California (Ukraine), Pennsylvania (Lithuania), Michigan (Latvia), and Maryland (Estonia). The program helps to create a pool of American subject-matter experts who can rotate forward to provide valuable training as needed by their partners, or host them for training in the United States. It is an effective, if lower-profile, program. Most National Guard personnel stay within the same state as they are promoted up the ranks. This consistency allows for stable relationship-building, as the same individuals are continuing to interact as they advance from lieutenant to colonel, and sergeant to sergeant major. Such long-term relationships help to build a level of trust that is otherwise impossible.
Pennsylvania Army National Guard officers we interviewed described how their close partner relationship led to a Lithuanian mechanized company deploying to the U.S. Army’s National Training Center in 2018 embedded within a Pennsylvania National Guard battalion. Conversely, Pennsylvanian officers have served on the staffs of Lithuanian units during multiple NATO exercises in their own country, as have officers from active-duty security force assistance brigades.
Crucially, the State Partnership Program works best when it has time to take root. As a result, the reinvigorated partnership between Californian units and Ukraine really only had time to focus on individual tactical skills. The longer-running pairings with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania however, have allowed American and partnered military officers to work on everything from developing non-commissioned officer corps, rehearsing combat air controller techniques, to improving command and control techniques at the battalion and brigade levels.
Defense Institution Building Was Essential
The discussion thus far has focused on tactical training efforts at the brigade level and lower. Yet bottom-up transformation also required top-down change. To make lower-level changes permanent required organizational and ministry-level reform. Legislative approval was also essential to ensure that the military has both the necessary legal authorization and financial resources to undertake doctrinal change.
The Ukrainian experience is especially instructive in this respect. The U.S. embassy put a concerted effort into pushing for high-level bureaucratic and legal reform within the government. Their efforts appear to have paid large dividends. U.S. security cooperation personnel and a small number of embedded U.S. and other NATO advisors in the Ministry of Defense provided sustained engagement, supported by key engagements by the ambassadors and other State Department personnel. A Multinational Joint Committee of NATO general officers travelled to Kyiv every six months, providing yet another opportunity for key leaders to remain engaged on both sides of the relationship. Together, these helped to produce the hard but necessary systemic changes necessary for defense transformation.
Warzone Learning Labs
Both Ukraine and the Baltic states benefited from deploying and fighting. First-hand combat experience gave their leaders and soldiers alike a chance to hone their warfighting skills in a real-world combat environment. For the Baltic states, this experience came in the form of deployments to Afghanistan (largely, but not exclusively, undertaken by special operations forces). Fighting alongside other NATO forces also gave these units an unparalleled opportunity to practice coordination and combined operations in combat environment.
For Ukraine, seven years of fighting in the Donbas provided combat experience for thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and officers. U.S. security cooperation officials observed that the static but violent fighting gave some Ukrainian brigades the chance to employ recently acquired Western tactics, techniques, and procedures. Overall, however, the static nature of most of this combat did not lend itself to furthering greater use of the mission command concept and the greater reliance on empowering non-commissioned officers being pushed by NATO partners.
Professional Military Education
The Baltic states made attendance at professional military education programs in the United States and other NATO countries a key element in the development of their officer corps, according to a former U.S. special operations officer who works closely with these militaries. Professional military education, particularly for the more senior ranks, provides the opportunity for extended exposure to NATO standard practices and a network of Western military peers. Most of the senior leadership ranks of Baltic state militaries are filled with graduates of U.S. senior service colleges, demonstrating a significant return on investment from America’s International Military Education and Training Program.
Although this program’s funding has also paid for the education of Ukrainian officers at U.S. senior service colleges, these graduates to date have not been selected for senior leadership positions. Former U.S. security assistance personnel have indicated the need for conditionality in future assistance to Ukraine requiring that senior service college graduates be placed in designated positions in the Ukrainian military to justify the cost of their schooling. This is important, as we contend that it is the utilization of these personnel in positions where their militaries can best take advantage of their education that is most important, not simply sending officers to these schools.
Rapid Change Demanded a Comprehensive Approach
Our conversations with security cooperation officials suggest that before February 2022, Ukrainian command and control above the brigade level was significantly improving, but still a work in progress. Defense transformation takes time. Many officials describe how it took time to develop momentum for change within the Ukrainian armed forces as all of these factors — particularly defense institution building and opening higher-level exercises to NATO advisors — gradually took hold.
Importantly, there is a synergistic effect, and each line of effort amplified the effect of the others. For example, units that had received training from NATO militaries (or whose commanders had been educated in U.S. or NATO staff colleges) were more receptive and open to further engagement and mentoring during subsequent Ukrainian training exercises, while others were still reluctant to allow NATO mentors access. Similarly, doctrine changes had to be authorized by the Ukrainian parliament before they could be implemented large-scale across the Ukrainian armed forces.
Are These Lessons Relevant for Taiwan?
It goes without saying that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Nor is it Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. The differences are important, especially as American and Taiwanese decision-makers consider which aspects of previous security cooperation efforts to emulate, and which to discard. Thankfully, some of the most obvious differences offset one another, which is why we consider lessons learned from both Ukraine and the Baltic states. For example, the Baltic states enjoy a formal defense commitment from the United States. Taiwan does not. But neither does Ukraine. Ukraine has strategic depth, which Taiwan — like the Baltic states — lacks. Both Ukraine and the Baltic states share a land border with NATO, while Taiwan is hundreds of miles away from its closest potential military partner.
More relevant to the question of training reform is the fact that all five of these militaries faced — or, in Taiwan’s case, continue to face — the same basic organizational challenge: To cope with an increasingly real security threat, each needed to transform from hierarchical, hollow organizations overly reliant on outdated weapons into far more decentralized and combat-credible fighting forces. All five needed an external “shock” to overcome institutional inertia and jump-start the reform process. For Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the fear of Russian revanchism and the hope of NATO membership provided the necessary impetus from the moment they gained independence. For Ukraine, the shock came from Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and destabilization of the Donbas. For Taiwan, Russia’s renewed attack on Ukraine in 2022 seems to have finally set the necessary alarm bells off.
At the same time, any future security cooperation effort in Taiwan should deal with three important differences between the challenges facing Kyiv, Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius and those facing Taipei.
First and foremost, Taiwanese forces should be trained and ready to “fight tonight” to a far greater degree. Ukraine’s strategic depth and shared border with NATO make it relatively easy for the two to work together, even as the fighting rages. Although Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are far smaller than Ukraine (or Taiwan), even in the face of a (highly unlikely) overwhelming Russian onslaught their forces could conceivably fall back on allied territory to regroup, refit, and retrain. Unfortunately, hundreds of miles of water separate Taiwan from its closest potential security partner, and 7,000 miles of water separate it from the continental United States. It stands to reason that Beijing will do everything it can to isolate Taiwan before invading it, thereby eliminating meaningful opportunities for training once hostilities begin.
Second, Ukrainian forces had the chance to learn from fighting in the Donbas between 2014 and 2022. Seven years of war created combat-experienced units and leaders, generating critical lessons. Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian soldiers had the opportunity to serve in Afghanistan, and of course have a front-row view of the fighting in Ukraine. It seems safe to say that Beijing is unlikely to give Taiwan a similar opportunity. If Chinese war planners have their way, the Taiwanese military’s baptism by fire will also be its funeral.
Finally, Chinese red lines complicate the provision of military training to a much greater degree than has been the case for Ukraine and the Baltic states. To be sure, U.S. and NATO policymakers had to engineer around Russian paranoia and the NATO-Russia Founding Act when designing training programs for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Moscow’s mistrust toward Ukraine’s westward tilt placed similar limitations on Western efforts in that country after 2014. But those constraints pale in comparison to the ones facing prospective security training efforts in Taiwan. Specifically, it has been long understood that Beijing considers the presence of foreign troops on Taiwan to be a justification for war. This concern is a key reason why Washington has long gone out of its way to minimize or otherwise maintain plausible deniability over the servicemen and women it has routinely sent to Taiwan over the past four decades. Thus, sending large numbers of small-unit trainers to, or organizing large-scale exercises on, Taiwan are likely non-starters as options.
Recommendations for Washington and Taipei
How, then, should Washington proceed? We offer three recommendations.
Training, Not Arms Sales, Should Be the New Priority
Arms sales dominate the Taiwan debate in Washington. But having the best weapons in the world will not matter if Taiwanese troops lack the training — and the realistic doctrinal concepts — to use them. Furthermore, many of the most high-profile weapons will not make it to Taiwan for years. For example, the 100 AIM-9X Block II Sidewinders approved for sale in September 2022 will make it to Taiwan in 2030. And even if the United States finds a way to expedite the delivery of already-sold weapons, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense will struggle to absorb such an influx. It admitted as much when Washington began exploring ways to speed up the delivery of 66 F-16s — authorized for sale in 2019 — last January.
History is littered with failed militaries (Iraq and Afghanistan serve as recent examples) that proved unable to make effective use of the high-tech weaponry given or sold to them by the United States. We, like most American defense commentators and Taiwan’s former Chief of the General Staff, hope that Taiwan’s military will embrace asymmetric doctrinal concepts as part of this process. But regardless of how the Ministry of National Defense plans on countering a Chinese invasion force, as long as Washington leaves open the possibility that it will come to Taiwan’s aid, it should do what it can to make Taiwanese units as effective as possible.
Authorize and Fund a Comprehensive, Bottom-Up Security Cooperation Program
The Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian examples illustrate that transformation requires change from the bottom up. Congress should therefore authorize and appropriate funding to enact a holistic security cooperation program with Taiwan. Existing efforts, such as the recently approved State Partnership Program, the decision to let Taiwan participate in the International Military Education and Training program, and the authority to maintain an enduring rotational training presence on Taiwan as stipulated in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, are all good starts. So too is the push to incorporate Taiwanese observers into large, high-profile multinational exercises like the Rim of the Pacific (better known as RIMPAC).
Washington can build on this foundation in three ways. First, although concerns over how Beijing might react to the presence of foreign troops will likely keep the American footprint on Taiwan relatively small, there are ways to maximize the impact of even a small presence. In particular, the Biden administration should push Taipei to embed American advisors in Taiwanese training commands and units and can encourage allies to do the same. Ukraine’s 2021 Joint Endeavor exercise shows how this was finally starting to occur and bear fruit at senior levels in the Ukrainian military. Although Washington may be inclined to leverage private military contractors to keep its profile low, the track record of such efforts has a checkered history. Any contracted advisory support needs to be embedded within U.S. military organizations rather than in place of them.
Second, the Department of Defense should integrate Taiwanese officers and staffs into joint U.S. exercises. Transformation efforts in Ukraine and the Baltic states suggest that such efforts pay tremendous dividends in terms of training senior staffs and officers in partner militaries, and in terms of improving coordination and familiarity on both sides of the relationship. Although the priority is to put Taiwanese observers and liaison officers on U.S. staffs, the eventual goal should be to also integrate American officers into Taiwanese staffs during exercises. Washington’s ability to coordinate with Taiwanese forces in a war could turn on these sorts of efforts.
Finally, Congress should let the Department of Defense train Taiwanese units in the United States. The fact is that while the National Defense Authorization Act lets the department maintain an enduring, rotational training presence in Taiwan, wholesale, bottom-up transformation of how Taiwan’s military trains demands an approach far larger in scale. One option is to rotate Taiwanese companies and eventually battalions through training cycles at U.S. facilities, particularly combat training centers. The U.S. Army’s new Joint Pacific Multinational Training Center in Hawaii is a logical destination. But the U.S. Army’s National and Joint Readiness Training Centers in Fort Irwin, California and Fort Polk, Louisiana, as well as the Air Force’s Red Flag exercises at Nellis Air Force Base, make sense as well.
Reinforce Bottom-Up Change with a Concerted Push for Top-Down Reform
Reform efforts in Ukraine and the Baltic states make it clear that changing how an army trains at the bottom requires changing the way it does business at the top. It is no secret that Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has long resisted change. Tsai has struggled to overcome opposition from her senior generals and officers, at least in part because she lacks an effective bureaucratic mechanism for maintaining civilian oversight, supervision, and control. Specifically, she has no equivalent to the Office of the Secretary of Defense to which she can turn when implementing an unpopular decision.
Creating something similar to the Office of the Secretary of Defense within the Ministry of National Defense is obviously a monumental undertaking and something that Taiwan must decide to do for itself. However, Washington can help Taipei to lay the groundwork. Biden administration officials — particularly those working within the Office of the Secretary of Defense — can provide their Taiwanese counterparts with a blueprint and roadmap. The Department of Defense can ensure that every mid-career and senior Taiwanese officer sent to the United States for professional military education spends time in the Office of the Secretary of Defense to see how it works. Congress also has a role to play. It can create and fund tailored programs to educate young politicians from across the Taiwanese political spectrum on the finer points of civilian oversight of the military, to include meetings with senior American defense officials, conversations with staff from the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, and opportunities to meet and work alongside defense analysts at D.C. think tanks. Congressional members traveling to Taiwan can ensure that this issue is one of their main talking points when meeting with Taiwanese officials and legislators behind closed doors. Most important, Congress should consider adding conditions and strings to the billions of dollars in Foreign Military Financing grants authorized by the most recent National Defense Act.
Conclusion
Time is running out for Taiwan’s military to adapt to the not-so-new threat environment. Of course, no one knows if war is imminent, because no one knows what is going on inside of Xi’s mind. But as long as Xi keeps the use of force on the table, Taipei and Washington should do everything in their power to convince him that the costs of making that choice will vastly exceed the benefits.
The decision to extend conscription can go a long way toward reshaping Xi’s calculus, especially if it is paired with a dramatic improvement in training quality. But it takes time to change an army. Even the Ukrainian military’s rapid modernization, which remains a work in progress, took seven years — the equivalent of a blink of an eye in bureaucratic terms. The road ahead could be even longer for Taiwan’s military in light of the constraints that it must navigate.
Thankfully, Washington can help to expedite the process. Our experience assisting Ukraine and the Baltic states offers a combat-tested model showing how.
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Jerad I. Harper, Ph.D., is an active-duty U.S. Army colonel and an assistant professor at the U.S. Army War College. These views are his own and do not represent those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Michael A. Hunzeker (@MichaelHunzeker) is an associate professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, where he is also associate director of the Center for Security Policy Studies. He served in the Marine Corps from 2000 to 2006.
Commentary
warontherocks.com · by Jerad I. Harper · January 20, 2023
23. U.S. cable: Russian paramilitary group set to get cash infusion from expanded African mine
Excerpts:
The group, owned by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, engages in paramilitary activities across the globe, including in Africa and the Middle East, and has become increasingly active on the frontlines in Ukraine. The Kremlin denies any official link to Wagner.
U.S. officials have for years warned that Wagner has been using mining profits to help prop up the Russian state amid Western sanctions. The details about the projects in CAR show that Wagner’s mining efforts are becoming increasingly lucrative for the organization and creating a pipeline of funding for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Wagner set up shop in CAR in 2018, creating a cultural center and striking several deals to help secure mining sites, including at the Ndassima gold mine located near the town of Bambari in the middle of the country. Since then, Wagner has turned the once-artisanal mine into a massive complex, according to the cable.
Today, the mine spans eight production zones in various stages of development — the largest estimated to be approximately over 200 feet deep, according to the cable. The U.S. has assessed that the group is helping construct the site for long-term exploitation and has fortified the mine, constructing bridges at river crossings and with truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns at key locations.
U.S. cable: Russian paramilitary group set to get cash infusion from expanded African mine
Politico
The Wagner Group's mining efforts are becoming increasingly lucrative for the organization.
The Wagner Group could see mining profits soar to almost $1 billion. That funding will likely be used by the group to acquire new weapons and fighters. | Marc Hofer/AP Photo
By ERIN BANCO
01/19/2023 01:44 PM EST
01/19/2023 01:44 PM EST
The Wagner Group, a paramilitary organization linked to Russia, is expanding its mining projects in Africa to bring in millions to prop up its military operations in Ukraine, according to a Western official and a U.S. cable obtained by POLITICO.
Over the past year, Wagner has significantly expanded its work in one country — the Central African Republic — where it could see mining profits soar to almost $1 billion, according to the official and the diplomatic cable. That funding will likely be used by the group to acquire new weapons and fighters, the official said.
The group, owned by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, engages in paramilitary activities across the globe, including in Africa and the Middle East, and has become increasingly active on the frontlines in Ukraine. The Kremlin denies any official link to Wagner.
U.S. officials have for years warned that Wagner has been using mining profits to help prop up the Russian state amid Western sanctions. The details about the projects in CAR show that Wagner’s mining efforts are becoming increasingly lucrative for the organization and creating a pipeline of funding for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Wagner set up shop in CAR in 2018, creating a cultural center and striking several deals to help secure mining sites, including at the Ndassima gold mine located near the town of Bambari in the middle of the country. Since then, Wagner has turned the once-artisanal mine into a massive complex, according to the cable.
Today, the mine spans eight production zones in various stages of development — the largest estimated to be approximately over 200 feet deep, according to the cable. The U.S. has assessed that the group is helping construct the site for long-term exploitation and has fortified the mine, constructing bridges at river crossings and with truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns at key locations.
“These new developments that they’re taking indicate long-term plans for the mine,” said Catrina Doxsee, associate director and associate fellow for the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a D.C.-based think tank. “The fact that they are establishing an expanded mining operation, that they’re establishing these long-term plans, I think really points to how integrated they’ve become with the local military and the level of dependency that the CAR government has on them.”
The National Security Council declined to comment. The State Department said in an emailed statement that the U.S. is pursuing “multiple avenues to counter the Wagner group’s illicit transnational activities.” That has included sanctions on Prigozhin and Wagner’s network.
In December, the Commerce Department implemented export controls to try and block the group’s ability to acquire new weapons. Officials in the U.S. are in the process preparing additional measures to punish the group, another person familiar with the matter said, who requested to remain anonymous to discuss potential forthcoming government announcements.
The Central African Republic is now refusing to grant overflight clearances of the mine of unmanned aerial vehicles to U.N. peacekeepers in the country, according to the cable. Several of them have taken fire from the CAR army. U.S. officials believe this is a sign that Wagner is gaining political control in the country, the cable said.
Wagner has a history of using force to push through its mining interests in Africa. In 2020, it sent fighters to the Ndassima mine to secure the area. In 2021, the group was accused of summarily executing rebels and other people living in the area to push them out from their homes in order to develop the mine. Since then, Wagner has operated under the cover of a Madagascar-registered company, according to the cable.
POLITICO
Politico
24. Competition Campaigning: What It Looks Like and Implications for US Special Operations Command
A lot to unpack in this.
An interesting discussion of campaigning (for today and tomorrow) and future force design
Dr. Schroden correctly recognizes that SOF is so much more than a CT force.
Not addressed is whether ASD SO/LIC will ever meet the still unmet intent of Nunn-Cohen which was to be responsible for all low intensity conflict activities for the nation (today's irregular warfare).
More specifically, I recommend that the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict should direct USSOCOM to center the next iteration of its Campaign Plan for Global Special Operations on this framework. The Office of the Secretary of Defense should also use it as the organizing framework for the next Guidance for the Employment of the Force and the Joint Staff should use it similarly in the next iterations of its global campaign plans for specific adversaries. Finally, the pertinent congressional committees should employ it as a framework for thinking about authorities, resources, and oversight of DoD’s competition activities.
In addition to addressing the translation of policy to action, this campaign framework makes clear that USSOCOM and its forces have a unique advantage within DoD when it comes to being the force of choice for competition, because of its unique blend of operational and service-like authorities. To fully realize that advantage and position itself within DoD accordingly, however, USSOCOM will need to quickly rebalance to reinvigorate the institutional aspects of competition that are necessary to effectively compete for the future. If it can do that, USSOCOM will enable SOF to claim their rightful place as DoD’s premier force for competition for decades to come. If it fails to do so, SOF will likely face a diminished future as a force holding the line against terrorist groups and facing sustained reductions in size and stature. USSOCOM has the authorities to shape its own future and that of the global competitive landscape as well. Whether it has the vision and wherewithal to use those authorities to that end remains an open question.
Competition Campaigning: What It Looks Like and Implications for US Special Operations Command - Modern War Institute
mwi.usma.edu · by Jonathan Schroden · January 20, 2023
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In March 2022, the Pentagon released a new National Defense Strategy (NDS) that identified China as the “most consequential strategic competitor” of the United States. The NDS also described two concepts—integrated deterrence and campaigning—as primary means by which the Department of Defense will seek to address the challenge posed by China, as well as lesser challenges posed by other actors. Ten months later, however, DoD has still not issued specific guidance on how to conduct effective campaigning in support of integrated deterrence.
As part of a broader study that I recently led for a DoD sponsor, I identified the critical components of campaigns—in other words, the specific types of military activities—that would enable the United States to compete with state adversaries, in line with the concepts described in the NDS. The resulting framework has the potential to help US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) position itself as the force of choice for competition campaigning and avoid further reductions in its budget and force structure. It can also help the Pentagon sharpen its existing campaign plans and assist the relevant congressional committees as they think about oversight of the Pentagon’s approach to strategic competition.
Competition Campaign Design
The central concept of the 2022 NDS is integrated deterrence, which seeks to combine deterrent effects across warfighting domains, geographic regions, the spectrum of conflict, elements of US national power, and US allies and partners. But the NDS also focuses on the idea of campaigning, which it says DoD must conduct to “strengthen deterrence and enable us to gain advantages against the full range of competitors’ coercive actions” and “to undermine acute forms of competitor coercion, complicate competitors’ military preparations, and develop our own warfighting capabilities together with Allies and partners.” While the US military routinely conducts campaigns—defined as “the conduct and sequencing of logically-linked military activities,” day after day, “to achieve strategy-aligned objectives over time”—in wartime, the NDS’s emphasis on campaigning is focused on improving the military’s ability to do so in preconflict, competitive settings. In this regard, the focus on campaigning in the 2022 NDS is, to a large extent, an extension of the emphasis in the 2018 NDS on strategic competition.
These ideas have helped orient the US military in distinctly different ways than the wars of the past twenty years, but they leave significant questions unanswered. For example, what does a competition campaign in support of integrated deterrence look like in practice? Is it just the same as the global campaign plans focused on specific adversaries? Does it simply comprise the collection of theater campaign plans advanced by the geographic combatant commands? Or is a strategic competition campaign somehow different from these extant plans? The NDS does not specifically address these questions, but the answers to them are “no,” “no,” and “yes,” respectively.
To identify the specific activities that the US military should pursue as part of competition campaigning, I examined a variety of US government documents that are specific to competition—including Joint Doctrine Note 1-19, the Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning, and the draft Joint Concept for Competing (which has subsequently been folded into the Joint Warfighting Concept). I also reviewed scholarly articles on competition from CNA, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the RAND Corporation, and the Center for a New American Security, as well as independent publications by various scholars. In each document, I looked for and cataloged the specific military activities and capabilities the authors described as being necessary for competition. Drawing a cut line at those items called for by at least one government and multiple scholarly sources resulted in the list of campaign components shown below.
Features of the Campaign Design
In looking at the fifteen components of campaigning in competition that I identified, some will be familiar to those who have been involved with US military campaigns against terrorist groups: intelligence operations, information and intelligence sharing, security cooperation, messaging, the use of proxies, interagency coordination, and building networks have been key elements of the wars of the past two decades. The specific ways in which these activities get applied to competition with state adversaries, however, may look significantly different in practice from their use against terrorist threats. For example, while terrorist groups like the Islamic State have some ability to detect and disrupt US intelligence operations, conducting such activities against the likes of China or Russia—which have vastly more advanced counterintelligence capabilities—would look qualitatively distinct. Other components of competition campaigns, however, may surprise some readers. Strategic planning, force design and development, posturing, exercises, and strategic assessment are elements that were not often highlighted as part and parcel of efforts to counter terrorist groups. As a result, the skills and capabilities required to conduct these activities have atrophied across much of DoD.
Interestingly, the fifteen components of competition campaigns break out nearly evenly between two categories. The first (in green) are operational activities, largely conducted to compete for advantage today. The second (in blue) are largely institutional activities, conducted to compete for advantage in the future. As both the temporal and operational/institutional distinctions might suggest, these two sets of elements can be—and often are—in tension with each other. For example, the geographic combatant commands—which primarily conduct the activities in green—focus largely (via their theater campaign plans) on competing with our adversaries today and over the next two to three years. The military services—which conduct many of the activities in blue—are increasingly focusing on designing and generating forces that will have the capabilities and readiness to face challenges in the 2030–2040 timeframe. Debates often arise when tensions flare between these two categories: for example, when the services make decisions to divest themselves of capabilities that might be useful for current competitive activities in favor of investing resources to develop capabilities that might not come online for a decade or more. Because of the way DoD and the US government is structured, the only authorities who can effectively resolve these debates are the secretary of defense or the US Congress.
Implications for USSOCOM
While the tensions just described play out at a macro level within the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, they also play out within the special operations enterprise, as a result of the unique nature of USSOCOM. Because Congress endowed USSOCOM with both combatant command (via Title 10, US Code, Section 164) and service-like authorities (via Section 167), the USSOCOM commander is the only entity in DoD aside from the secretary of defense that sits atop both operational and service components. The former, in the form of the seven theater special operations commands, center on supporting their geographic combatant commands’ priorities to compete for today. The latter, in the form of the four special operations service components—Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps—are increasingly focusing on designing and developing special operations forces (SOF) for the future.
This arrangement creates challenges for USSOCOM, which must adjudicate tensions that arise between the theater special operations commands and its service components when it comes to the design, allocation, and employment of SOF. But it also creates opportunities for USSOCOM to organically manage that tension by identifying and providing guidance for how to integrate and synchronize activities to compete for today with those designed to create future competitive advantages. In short, USSOCOM should be able to turn the crank of force design, force development, and force employment faster than any other part of DoD, which should lend it an inherent advantage when it comes to generating innovative capabilities and force packages designed for competition today and in the future.
Unfortunately, USSOCOM is not currently positioned to fully seize this advantage. Over the past two decades, SOF have enjoyed unparalleled intelligence and operational advantages over their nonstate adversaries. One result of this is that an emphasis on operations—and procurement to support current operations—has dominated the focus of USSOCOM for years. The command’s ability to effectively conduct some of the institutional elements of competition campaigns—most notably, strategic planning, force design and development, and posturing—have atrophied. Anyone familiar with USSOCOM headquarters can, for example, appreciate the dominant size and stature that the operations directorate (J3) has over the plans directorate (J5). For USSOCOM to reap the advantages of its unique blend of authorities for integrating the yin and the yang of competition campaigns, it will need to reinvigorate and invest in the people, processes, and priority of its J5 relative to other staff sections.
Assuming for the moment that USSOCOM rebalances itself accordingly, the command will still face three key issues when it comes to synchronizing the two halves of competition campaigning. First, it will need to identify the key problems that it—and only it—can solve for the joint force of the future. Potential examples might include finding ways to serve as a key set of sensors for the Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, conducting operational preparation of the environment and information operations, ensuring cross-domain and transregional integration, or imposing costs in other theaters as part of “horizontal escalation” in the context of a localized conflagration with the likes of China or Russia. USSOCOM will also need to come to terms with the idea of playing a supporting role to the joint force, as opposed to being the supported entity as it was consistently for the past two decades. This will necessarily entail spending some of its own Major Force Program-11 funding on capabilities that are inherently designed to support the joint force, as opposed to using that funding exclusively for its own needs. These ideas represent major cultural shifts for USSOCOM and its constituent forces.
Second, USSOCOM will need to identify the proper balance between the operational and institutional aspects of campaigning for the SOF enterprise. Only recently has the command backed away from an overriding emphasis on deploying as many of its forces forward as possible, in part because of issues identified by its comprehensive cultural review. Going forward, USSOCOM will have to continuously strike a balance of current operations to disrupt terrorist groups and generate competitive advantages today and activities designed to identify, generate, and field forces that can maintain advantages against state adversaries for what could easily be several decades’ worth of competition and low-intensity conflict.
Third, the USSOCOM commander will need to decide to what extent he wants to serve as a director of future SOF design versus being an integrator of his components’ efforts. The latter would currently be an easier role for USSOCOM headquarters to play, both because of the atrophy of its force design and development capabilities and because its service components are all at least two to three years ahead of it in this regard (its Navy and Air Force components, for example, have already undertaken major force optimization and reorganization efforts to better align themselves with the NDS and their service priorities). Given USSOCOM’s institutional preferences, however, it will probably want to serve a more directive role. Being more than a force integrator will require USSOCOM to immediately rebalance its headquarters, quickly develop a substantive vision for integrated SOF of the future, and engage in a virtuous cycle of force design, analysis, and experimentation that can leapfrog its own components’ efforts to date.
In some ways, the current environment surrounding the notion of competition campaigning is reminiscent of the immediate aftermath of 9/11. At that time, there was a strong impetus to get after the problem of terrorism, but with minimal strategic guidance. The net result was some overarching principles and a lot of good ideas generated at the tactical level, with little in the way of concrete translation of principles to action. It took well over a decade of sustained counterterrorism operations before the messy middle between policy and action was cemented in the form of systemic operations orders and associated authorities. Today, the special operations enterprise—and DoD more broadly—is lacking the translation of ideas like strategic competition and campaigning to tactical actions via a clear framework of activities and associated authorities, policies, permissions, and oversight. The competition campaign framework described here should help considerably in making that connection.
More specifically, I recommend that the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict should direct USSOCOM to center the next iteration of its Campaign Plan for Global Special Operations on this framework. The Office of the Secretary of Defense should also use it as the organizing framework for the next Guidance for the Employment of the Force and the Joint Staff should use it similarly in the next iterations of its global campaign plans for specific adversaries. Finally, the pertinent congressional committees should employ it as a framework for thinking about authorities, resources, and oversight of DoD’s competition activities.
In addition to addressing the translation of policy to action, this campaign framework makes clear that USSOCOM and its forces have a unique advantage within DoD when it comes to being the force of choice for competition, because of its unique blend of operational and service-like authorities. To fully realize that advantage and position itself within DoD accordingly, however, USSOCOM will need to quickly rebalance to reinvigorate the institutional aspects of competition that are necessary to effectively compete for the future. If it can do that, USSOCOM will enable SOF to claim their rightful place as DoD’s premier force for competition for decades to come. If it fails to do so, SOF will likely face a diminished future as a force holding the line against terrorist groups and facing sustained reductions in size and stature. USSOCOM has the authorities to shape its own future and that of the global competitive landscape as well. Whether it has the vision and wherewithal to use those authorities to that end remains an open question.
Dr. Jonathan Schroden directs the Special Operations Program at the CNA Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and analysis organization based in Arlington, Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @jjschroden.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or any organization the author is affiliated with, including CNA.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Marcus Fichtl, US Army
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mwi.usma.edu · by Jonathan Schroden · January 20, 2023
25.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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