Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria,"

- Frank Herbert

"Only a fool fights by the ground rules that his enemy has laid down for him,"

- Malcolm X

"It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere."

- Voltaire

1. China’s Global Mega-Projects Are Falling Apart

2. Jim Webb on Echoes of Vietnam, 50 Years Later

3. The Biden “A-Team” after 24 months: A significant uptick in year two departures

4. Letter requesting journalists to cover Ukrainian troops at U.S. base

5. Poland Emerges as Europe’s Leader Against Russia’s War in Ukraine

6. Bring On the Debate About the U.S. Fight for Ukraine

7. Opinion | A Brutal New Phase of the War in Ukraine

8. In Taiwan, ex-conscripts say they feel unprepared for potential China conflict

9. How Bulgaria secretly armed Ukraine

10. One of the Most Influential Ambassadors in Washington Isn’t One

11. A Look at Iran’s Protest Movement Four Months On

12. A font feud brews after State Dept. picks Calibri over Times New Roman

13. Opinion | Other fonts I hope the State Department considered

14. Ukraine’s Winter Could Turn Against Russian Troops

15. One Saturday in Dnipro, When a Russian Missile Shattered Lives

16. Pair of Shootings Rocks Special Forces Community at Fort Bragg

17. Washington must label Russian private army Wagner Group as the terrorist group it is

18. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 21, 2023

19. Mishandling of classified documents happens more than you might think

1. China’s Global Mega-Projects Are Falling Apart

Perhaps as Bonaparte wisely counseled, "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

Photos at the link.

China’s Global Mega-Projects Are Falling Apart

Many of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure projects are plagued with construction flaws, including a giant hydropower plant in Ecuador, adding more costs to a program criticized for leading countries deeper into debt

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-global-mega-projects-infrastructure-falling-apart-11674166180

By Ryan Dube and Gabriele Steinhauser | Photographs by Isadora Romero for The Wall Street Journal

Jan. 20, 2023 9:45 am ET

SAN LUIS, Ecuador—Built near a spewing volcano, it was the biggest infrastructure project ever in this country, a concrete colossus bankrolled by Chinese cash and so important to Beijing that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, spoke at the 2016 inauguration.

Today, thousands of cracks have emerged in the $2.7 billion Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant, government engineers said, raising concerns that Ecuador’s biggest source of power could break down. At the same time, the Coca River’s mountainous slopes are eroding, threatening to damage the dam.

“We could lose everything,” said Fabricio Yépez, an engineer at the University of San Francisco in Quito who has closely tracked the project’s problems. “And we don’t know if it could be tomorrow or in six months.”

It is one of many Chinese-financed projects around the world plagued with construction flaws.

During the past decade, China handed out a trillion dollars in international loans as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, intended to develop economic trade and expand China’s influence across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Those loans made Beijing the largest government lender to the developing world by far, with its loans totaling nearly as much as those of all other governments combined, according to the World Bank.

Yet China’s lending practices have been criticized by foreign leaders, economists and others, who say the program has contributed to debt crises in places like Sri Lanka and Zambia, and that many countries have limited ways to repay the loans. Some projects have also been called mismatches for a country’s infrastructure needs or damaging to the environment.

Now, low-quality construction on some of the projects risks crippling key infrastructure and saddling nations with even more costs for years to come as they try to remedy problems.

“We are suffering today because of the bad quality of equipment and parts” in Chinese-built projects, said René Ortiz, Ecuador’s former energy minister and ex-secretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Government engineers said there are thousands of cracks in the hydroelectric plant, built by Chinese company Sinohydro.

PHOTO: CRISTINA VEGA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

China’s Embassy in Ecuador didn’t respond to requests for comment on the hydroelectric project. In a recent letter published on the embassy’s Twitter account in response to a report by the Foundation for Citizenship and Development, the local chapter of anticorruption watchdog Transparency International, on China’s lending practices in Ecuador, the embassy said Chinese loans and projects provided “tangible benefits” to Ecuador at a time when the country was in urgent need of financing.

Chinese money has been used to build everything from a port in Pakistan to roads in Ethiopia and a transmission line in Brazil.

Chinese construction companies often bid for government projects or directly approach local officials with projects with a promise that they can easily arrange financing packages from Chinese banks and insurers.

That, developing-country officials say, has given Chinese companies a leg up, because it means governments eager to build a new dam or road don’t have to drum up their own funding. In Africa, more than 60% of the revenue major international contractors collected in 2019 went to Chinese companies, according to a 2021 paper by the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University.

Critics say the relatively easy availability of Chinese loans for Chinese construction can lead to inflated project costs because there is less pressure on governments to minimize expenses.

Construction defects

Flaws in some of the Chinese-built projects have come to light.

In Pakistan, officials shut down the Neelum-Jhelum hydroelectric plant last year after detecting cracks in a tunnel that transports water through a mountain to drive a turbine.

The head of the country’s electricity regulator, Tauseef Farooqui, told Pakistan’s senate in November that he was concerned the tunnel could collapse just four years after the 969-megawatt plant became operational. That would be disastrous for a nation that has been battered by rising energy prices, said Mr. Farooqui. The closure of the plant has already cost Pakistan about $44 million a month in higher power costs since July, according to the regulator.

Hydropower plants can have operating lives of up to 100 years, according to the World Bank.

The Chinese-built Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in Nosari, Pakistan, shown in 2017, has been shut down because officials said they detected cracks.

PHOTO: SAJJAD QAYYUM/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Uganda identified defects in the Chinese-built Isimba Hydro Power Plant, shown under construction in 2017.

PHOTO: ZHANG GAIPING/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS

Uganda’s power generation company said it has identified more than 500 construction defects in a Chinese-built 183-megawatt hydropower plant on the Nile river that has suffered frequent breakdowns since it went into operation in 2019. China International Water & Electric Corp., which led construction of the Isimba Hydro Power Plant, failed to build a floating boom to protect the dam from water weeds and other debris, which has led to clogged turbines and power outages, according to the Uganda Electricity Generation Co., or UEGC. There have also been leaks in the roof of the plant’s power house, where the generators and turbines are located, UEGC said. The plant cost $567.7 million to build and was financed mostly through a $480 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.

Completion of another Chinese-built hydropower plant further down the Nile, the 600-megawatt Karuma Hydro Power Project, is three years behind schedule, a delay that Ugandan officials have blamed on various construction defects, including cracked walls. UEGC also said the Chinese contractor, Sinohydro Corp., installed faulty cables, switches and a fire extinguishing system that need to be replaced. Earlier this year, the government had to start paying back the $1.44 billion it borrowed from the Export-Import Bank of China to finance the project, even as the plant remains inoperational.

Sinohydro and China International Water didn’t respond to requests for comment on the Ugandan projects.

In Angola, 10 years after the first tenants moved into Kilamba Kiaxi, a vast social housing project outside the capital of Luanda, many locals are complaining about cracked walls, moldy ceilings and poor construction.

The project, built by China’s CITIC Group, was initially funded through a $2.5 billion, oil-backed credit line from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China that was later refinanced by the China Development Bank, according to William & Mary’s Aid Data Research Lab.

“Our building has a lot of cracks,” said Aida Francisco, who lives in a four-bedroom apartment in Kilamba with her husband and three sons. Like many other middle-class families in Kilamba, she is purchasing the apartment through a rent-to-buy program. Humidity collects in the apartment’s walls, causing mold, Ms. Francisco said, and a lot of the building materials, including doors and railings, are of poor quality.

When she first moved to Kilamba in 2016, Ms. Francisco said, Chinese contractors still came to fix problems. But in recent years many buildings, including hers, have fallen into disrepair, especially as many tenants, who are responsible for the upkeep, lost their jobs amid Angola’s economic crisis.

“If you see these buildings, they won’t last long,” said Ms. Francisco. “They’re falling apart bit by bit.”

A spokeswoman for CITIC said humidity issues in a small number of units in Kilamba were due to tenants making improper renovations and that the company had completed required maintenance.

The Chinese government didn’t respond to requests for comment on criticism of Chinese-built infrastructure in Africa and Asia. A spokesman for Angola’s ministry for Construction and Public Works didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Many Chinese projects fulfill real development needs, especially in countries that struggle to get other financing to build necessary infrastructure. In Argentina’s poor, northern province of Jujuy, PowerChina built the Cauchari solar park, South America’s biggest solar project. At more than 13,000 feet above sea level, it is able to power some 160,000 homes, according to Argentina’s government. In Brazil, China’s State Grid built one of the world’s longest transmission lines, connecting the Belo Monte dam in the northeast to southern cities some 1,550 miles away.

Erosion along Ecuador’s Coca River, which some geologists blame on the Coca Codo Sinclair plant, has destroyed stretches of a highway, an oil pipeline and part of a nearby town.

Surge in Ecuador spending

In Latin America, Ecuador was at the forefront of Beijing’s push into the region, with Quito accessing more in loans than any country except two much bigger nations, Venezuela and Brazil, according to the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank.

After a 2008 sovereign-debt default, then-president Rafael Correa, a leftist who during his tenure from 2007 to 2017 often clashed with the U.S. and railed against multilateral lenders, turned to China to finance a surge in public spending. In total, Chinese banks lent Ecuador $18 billion during Mr. Correa’s term.

Ecuadorean lawmakers, former government ministers and anticorruption activists say the loans lacked transparency, with contracts given to companies without public bids, resulting in shoddy construction, high costs and graft.

In the recent letter published on the Chinese Embassy in Ecuador’s Twitter account, it said the financing was agreed on during friendly negotiations with Ecuador and fully complies with laws and regulations in both countries.

Current government officials and Ecuadorean economists said some projects made little sense, including the expropriation of thousands of acres of farmland in an Andean valley to build a new metropolis called Yachay City that was supposed to turn Ecuador into a regional tech power. The Export-Import Bank of China provided a $200 million loan for early infrastructure works. Today, the project has been abandoned, with a $6.3 million supercomputer that was supposed to be used by researchers sitting out of doors and unused.

In 2019, the comptroller general’s office reviewed the construction of 200 Chinese-built schools, reporting that some of the buildings had problems with their foundations and others had classrooms with sloping floors and exposed cables. Fifty-seven of the schools were finished behind schedule, the comptroller general’s office said.

“Correa spent on many projects that were not adequate,” said Vicente Albornoz, an economist at the University of Las Americas in Quito. “And China was funding Correa’s spending [on the projects].”

Mr. Correa said in an interview the money boosted Ecuador’s development with new highways, hospitals and schools. Four Chinese-built hydroelectric projects provided clean power and reduced reliance on imported fossil fuels. The Chinese projects also improved a once unreliable power grid that led to regular blackouts in Quito. Today, 90% of Ecuador’s electricity comes from hydro, compared with 55% in 2007, according to the state utility.

“China’s relationship with Ecuador was an example in Latin America,” said Mr. Correa. “We did things that changed the history of the country.”

Sinohydro did the construction and flew in hundreds of Chinese workers to build the Coca Codo Sinclair plant. Detail of a book in Chinese and Spanish with information and photographs about the project.

The former president, who was convicted in 2020 of corruption charges in a case involving payments to his party in exchange for public contracts, is in exile in Belgium. He denies wrongdoing.

China’s most ambitious project in Ecuador was Coca Codo Sinclair, which Ecuadorean engineers first studied for the Coca River in the 1970s. Back then, they considered it a risky venture due to its steep cost and location near an active volcano.

But Ecuador wanted the dam to improve an electrical grid that regularly suffered blackouts and relied on costly energy imports. Today, it supplies about a third of Ecuador’s electricity.

During Mr. Correa’s term, the China Development Bank agreed to finance 85% of Coca Codo Sinclair’s initial cost, with a 6.9% interest rate. Sinohydro did the construction and flew in hundreds of Chinese workers to build the power plant between 2010 and 2016.

The China Development Bank and Sinohydro didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In September, prosecutors searched the office of Sinohydro over allegations it paid bribes to people close to Mr. Correa’s vice president, Lenin Moreno, when the contract was awarded to the Chinese firm. No one has been charged in that ongoing investigation. Mr. Moreno, who later served as president from 2017 to 2021, has publicly denied wrongdoing.

Larger capacity

Some engineers questioned the project early on, saying that the environmental studies were out of date. The plant’s 1,500-megawatt capacity was much larger than the originally envisioned capacity of about 1,000 megawatts, adding to costs and creating more capacity than the river could power, according to former energy officials and congressional investigators. In 2014, 13 Chinese and Ecuadorean employees were crushed to death in a construction accident.

Since the 2016 opening, officials from the state electricity utility have found more than 17,000 cracks in the power plant’s eight turbines, according to the state utility. It blames the fissures on faulty steel imported from China. In 2021, the utility took Sinohydro to international arbitration in Chile, which is ongoing, over demands to repair the damage.

“No crack is acceptable,” the utility said in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal. “They could result in the equipment losing its structural integrity, causing it to collapse.”

President Guillermo Lasso’s government has refused to officially take over management of the plant from Sinohydro, as was planned at the completion of construction, until the cracks are repaired. Numerous attempts to fix the cracks have failed, utility officials said.

“Over my dead body will I accept this poorly built plant,” Energy Minister Fernando Santos told local media in November.

In San Luis, locals like Adriana Carranza got jobs with Sinohydro, which hired her to cook for Chinese workers. The 14-hour days were long, and her Chinese boss didn’t speak Spanish. But the job allowed her to save enough to build a house for her family, she said. At home, she still cooks sweet-and-sour chicken and other Chinese dishes.

But in 2020, the Coca River’s slopes began collapsing, creating thunderous crashes and rattling the ground like an earthquake. The erosion destroyed Ecuador’s biggest waterfall. It took out a stretch of a key road and oil pipeline. The Pink House, a brothel in San Luis that locals say was popular with both Chinese and Ecuadorean workers, tumbled into the river. Ms. Carranza said a neighbor’s home went over the cliff.

Adriana Carranza, shown with her daughter, Darina Zambrano, and their dog, had to flee San Luis last year because of dangerous erosion along the Coca River.

Fearing for her family’s safety in her own home, Ms. Carranza fled San Luis in March, salvaging anything she could from her house, taking windows, doors and even the roof. “I became deeply depressed, I couldn’t get out of bed,” Ms. Carranza said. “We’ve lost everything.”

Ecuador’s state utility said the erosion is a natural phenomenon in an area prone to natural disasters. Some geologists agree, but others blamed Coca Codo Sinclair, saying that its concrete structures so disrupted the river’s natural flow and accumulation of sediments that the fast-moving water began to cut into the river banks as it descends from the Andes on its way to the Amazon rainforest.

“The erosion is a process that would normally occur over thousands or millions of years, but the dam has accelerated it in a matter of just five years,” said Carolina Bernal, a geologist at the National Polytechnic School, a public university in Quito.

Ecuador has unsuccessfully tried to stop the erosion as the river nears Coca Codo Sinclair, including by placing shipping containers in the water to slow the current. They were quickly washed away.

Ms. Bernal said the government will likely need to relocate a key part of the plant—the project’s water intake—which would cost millions of dollars, before that structure is destroyed by the erosion.

Nancy Chicaiza, a San Luis resident, has little hope for the survival of her town, which once bustled with Chinese workers who bought drinks and snacks at her bodega. She now expects the erosion will eventually wipe out all of San Luis.

“Coca Codo was initially seen as really good,” said Ms. Chicaiza. “Nobody thought we’d be facing these consequences.”

Nancy Chicaiza and others stood on the edge of an eroded area that they blame on faulty construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair plant.

Nicholas Bariyo contributed to this article.

Write to Ryan Dube at ryan.dube@dowjones.com and Gabriele Steinhauser at gabriele.steinhauser@wsj.com

2. Jim Webb on Echoes of Vietnam, 50 Years Later

Excellent food for thought and worth reflecting on.

Excerpts:

Was the war worth fighting? Mr. Webb thinks on balance it was. He recalls a meeting with Lee Kuan Yew, founder of modern Singapore. "I asked him a similar question," Mr. Webb says, "and in his view, America won—only in a different way. We stopped communism, which didn't advance in Indochina any further than it reached in 1975. We enabled other countries in the region to develop market economies and governmental systems that were basically functional and responsive to their people. That model has stayed, and I like to think it will advance, even in Vietnam."

...

"In 1972"—here he becomes animated—"the South Vietnamese military was really starting to grow and become a lethal fighting force." In the Easter Offensive, the North Vietnamese "hit the South with everything they had."

He picks up some nearby papers and reads figures: "14 divisions, 26 independent regiments and several hundred Soviet tanks hit South Vietnam. The Americans—we were nearly all gone by then. South Vietnam lost 39,000 soldiers; the communists admitted in their own records that they lost 100,000. They tried to take the South, and the South beat them. And then, at Paris, we cut them out."

Soon afterward, Richard Nixon resigned, Congress cut off funding, and Saigon fell.

"Then, of course," Mr. Webb goes on, the communists "did the Stalinist thing—they put hundreds of thousands of the South Vietnamese finest into re-education camps. Two hundred forty thousand stayed there longer than four years. I have a good friend who was in a re-education camp for 13 years."

Recalling a visit to Vietnam in 1991, Mr. Webb describes a night when hundreds of South Vietnamese Army veterans who had spent years in re-education camps gathered in a park near Saigon's old railway station. "My Vietnamese friend told me many of these guys had been high-ranking officers. We could see some of them shooting heroin through their thighs. I thought to myself, 'Wait a second—these were our people.' " Mr. Webb pauses for a moment, then recovers.

What have we learned from Vietnam? Not much, if the Afghanistan pullout is anything to go by. "The way they left was horrible, disgusting," he says. "People said it looked like the fall of Saigon. No, it did not." As a military procedure, "the evacuation from Saigon was brilliant. In 1975, we had refugee camps all over the place ready to take people in—Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania, Camp Pendleton in California, Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, Operation New Life in Guam. These places were ready to go before the fall. We got 140,000 people out of there. What this administration did was a disgrace. There was no excuse for it."

Jim Webb on Echoes of Vietnam, 50 Years Later

From Saigon to Kabul: The ambiguous legacy of commitment and then withdrawal lives on today in American views of war.

By Barton Swaim Follow

Jan. 20, 2023 3:28 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jim-webb-on-what-the-us-lost-in-vietnam-anniversary-war-media-military-divorce-afghanistan-refugees-hollywood-legacy-11674228058

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ILLUSTRATION: KEN FALLIN

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When I was a teenager in the 1980s, popular culture had basically one message on the Vietnam War: that it was conceived in American arrogance, was perpetrated by American savages, and accomplished little but psychological devastation and national disgrace. Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" (1979), Oliver Stone's "Platoon" (1986) and "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" (1987), Brian De Palma's "Casualties of War" (1989)—these and a thousand other productions, documentaries and articles told my generation that the war had been a gigantic fiasco that turned those who fought it into war criminals and frowning, guilt-ridden drug addicts.

The war ended officially on Jan. 27, 1973, with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. That's 50 years ago next Friday—an anniversary that will likely occasion a round of retrospective think pieces and cable-TV segments on the war's legacy. More will follow in 2025 to mark the final American pullout from Saigon in 1975.

The country has moved on since the '80s. The Vietnam War no longer elicits the sort of ostentatious regret it did a generation ago. To confine the discussion to Hollywood, "We Were Soldiers" (2002) was one of the first major films to portray the average American soldier in Vietnam as decent and valorous; more recently "The Last Full Measure" (2018), though indulging in the usual antiwar pieties, acknowledges the bravery and decency of American soldiers. We've moved on in politics, too. The great scourge of supposed American war crimes in Vietnam, John Kerry—the man who averred in 1971 that American soldiers serving in Vietnam perpetrated war crimes "in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan"—was the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 2004. He felt obliged to refashion himself as a war hero, and he lost.

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The Vietnam War doesn't lend itself to unambiguous interpretations in the way many wars do. But with media-generated myths no longer dominant, and with the pain of losing 58,220 servicemen subsiding, are Americans ready to think about the whole thing anew? "Maybe," Jim Webb answers after a thoughtful pause. Mr. Webb, 76, who served as President Reagan's Navy secretary (1987-88) and a Democratic U.S. senator from Virginia from (2007-13), commanded a Marine rifle platoon in the Vietnam bush in 1969-70. "Maybe," he says again, looking unconvinced.

The biggest myth, to my mind, holds that the ordinary Vietnam combat veteran was so scarred by the experience that he couldn't get his life together back home. Think of Travis Bickle, the lonesome, deranged vet of Martin Scorsese's 1976 film "Taxi Driver."

Is there any truth to the stereotype? Mr. Webb recalls an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1986 claiming to find that Vietnam veterans were 86% more likely than everyone else to commit suicide. "I read it," he recalls, "I broke down all the authors' numbers and figured out how they came to this conclusion, and it was total bulls—." The paper considered only men born during 1950, 1951 and 1952, and only those who died in Pennsylvania and California between 1974 and 1983. That didn't stop the press from touting the study, "in essence claiming if you served in Vietnam, you're probably going to kill yourself."

In 1979 Congress hired the Harris polling firm to survey Americans on what they thought about the war and its veterans. At the time Mr. Webb was counsel to the House Veterans Affairs Committee. "Of Vietnam veterans," he recalls, "91% said they were glad they served in the military, and 74% said at some level they enjoyed their time in the military. And 2 out of 3 said they would do it again."

Was the war worth fighting? Mr. Webb thinks on balance it was. He recalls a meeting with Lee Kuan Yew, founder of modern Singapore. "I asked him a similar question," Mr. Webb says, "and in his view, America won—only in a different way. We stopped communism, which didn't advance in Indochina any further than it reached in 1975. We enabled other countries in the region to develop market economies and governmental systems that were basically functional and responsive to their people. That model has stayed, and I like to think it will advance, even in Vietnam."

But clearly a lot did go wrong between 1963 and 1975. In his autobiography, "I Heard My Country Calling" (2014), Mr. Webb writes of "the arrogance and incompetence of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his much-ballyhooed bunch of civilian Whiz Kids whose data-based 'systems analysis' approach to fighting our wars had diminished the historic role of military leadership." He repeats the same criticism of the war's civilian leadership, and he insists the military tacticians in the field—American and South Vietnamese—did their jobs superbly.

Mr. Webb describes two problems the U.S. military was largely powerless to solve. First, the North Vietnamese government's policy of sending assassination squads into the South. "Bernard Fall, a great French journalist, writes about this in 'The Two Vietnams,' " a book published in 1963, Mr. Webb says. "It had been happening since at least 1958. The Vietminh started sending these squads back into the South, particularly central Vietnam. They were extremely smart and ruthless about it. These guys would go in and execute anyone with ties to any part of the South Vietnamese government—government officials, teachers, social workers, anyone." Over time, these murders sapped the population's loyalty to the government in Saigon, and there was very little the U.S. military could do about it.

The Biden “A-Team” after 24 months: A significant uptick in year two departures

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Friday, January 20, 2023

The Brookings Institution · by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas and Ph.D · January 20, 2023

Editor's Note: This piece looks specifically at high-level personnel turnover in the first two years of the Biden administration. To keep up with current levels of turnover within the president’s “A-Team,” please see Brookings's regularly updated tracker.

After a highly stable first year in office, the Biden administration experienced a substantial increase in senior staff turnover. The significant uptick in “A-Team” departures moved from five individuals departing in year one to 21 in year two. Though the increase itself is not surprising — all administrations but one since 1981 experienced an uptick in second year “A-Team” departures — the magnitude of the increase is noteworthy.[1] The second-year turnover in the Biden “A-Team” was the second highest (32%) behind Ronald Reagan at 40%. Combining year one and year two, the Biden turnover rate (40%) is the third highest behind Presidents Trump (66%) and Reagan (57%).

The year, 2022, was challenge-filled for the Biden administration: rising inflation, continued struggles with COVID-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a preternaturally slow confirmation process and fears of a “red wave” rolling over the midterm elections. At the same time, the administration lay claim to important legislative victories on gun safety, semi-conductor manufacturing (CHIPS), prescription drug costs, climate change, and the historic swearing-in of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. In addition, the Biden administration’s coalition-building efforts in support of Ukraine have remained robust so far despite the Russian onslaught. None of Biden’s successes could have occurred without the efforts of presidential appointees. This study focuses primarily on turnover in the president’s “A-Team,” defined as 66 senior executive office positions within the Executive Office of the President (EOP). These individuals occupy highly influential positions and do so at the pleasure of the president. Examining the comings and goings of these staff members teaches us something about the functioning of the presidency.

Thinking about Senior Staff Turnover

Counting staff departures is a tricky, painstaking endeavor. For the purposes of my research, turnover refers to vacancies created through promotion, resignation, or firing. Any of these movements cause disruption and reduce efficiency since they require White House resources (e.g., hiring, vetting, training, on-boarding). In addition, there is the added burden on staff members who remain, but often take on additional work when staff members depart. High-level staff departures may also have ripple effects and result in lower-level departures within a single office. Junior staff members may depart because they were specifically brought in by their departing boss, or the successor may wish to “clean house” and start with a favored set of individuals. Organizational fallout, in short, may extend well beyond a single departed individual. Those who serve on the “A-Team” are, by definition, critical participants in the working of the presidency, such that any departure affects presidential operations.

Perhaps more importantly, “A-Team” members possess important relations across the government, among key constituents, interest groups, the media, party organizations and others. Broadly speaking, the central role of the modern White House is promotion and coordination, illustrating the importance of external professional relationships. These relationships are simply invaluable. Any successor will need to devote time to re-establish these critical relationships — essentially reinventing the wheel and ultimately reducing the efficiency of White House operations.

Methodology

Initially, I relied on a single source to determine who among the many White House staff members are most influential: “Decision Maker” editions of the National Journal. From 1981-2009, the National Journal published a special edition at the start of each new administration titled “Decision Makers”. They assigned a group of reporters to identify the most influential staff members in the new administration. Once published, the volume included formal titles, short biographies, and headshots of most of these staff members. The five editions published over the course of 28 years included an average of 60 staff members from the Executive Office of the President (“EOP”), and identified individuals working in the White House Office, the National Security Council, Office of Management and Budget, Council of Economic Advisers, members of the vice president’s office and the U.S. Trade Representative Office, among other entities. Of course, there is variation across administrations in terms of positions selected, but most were recurring. Using this data set of high-ranking presidential staff, I then relied on a variety of web resources, personal interviews, and journalistic accounts to track tenure.

The National Journal stopped publishing this special edition after the Obama administration, at which point I partnered with Bloomberg journalist Madison Alder. In 2017, we collaborated to identify “A-Team” members in the new Trump administration. We systematically compiled every job title in the five editions, noted the frequency with which it was included, and then analyzed the Trump appointments based on the criteria (noted above). It is also important to note that the National Journal’s successive editions included new positions (19 on average), so we added 19 unique positions among the Trump presidential staff. Such a development is not surprising since new presidents like to put their own imprint on the institution or respond to a new crisis or issue by establishing a new office or senior adviser position.[2] I utilized the same approach to create a list of “Decision Makers” for the Biden administration in 2021: matching staff positions to those identified by the National Journal and identifying significant new positions.

A look at the data

Looking at the cumulative turnover after 24 months in office, turnover among the Biden advisers (40%) ranks a distant third behind Ronald Reagan at 57% and Donald Trump at 66%. In sharp contrast, the Obama team had a 24% turnover rate after the first two years in office, and President George H.W. Bush had a 25% turnover rate.

Analyzing turnover from a different vantage point by focusing solely on year two, turnover among the Biden presidential advisers was 32% (or 21 individuals) and ranks second highest behind Ronald Reagan with 40%. Close behind President Biden was President Trump’s second year turnover at 31%, a four percent drop from year one’s record-shattering 35% turnover. Of the 21 individuals contributing to the turnover figure, 17 resigned for a variety of reasons, three were promoted and one resigned under pressure (Office of Science and Technology Director, Eric Lander). This forced resignation may have been the most dramatic of the lot since he resigned, apologizing for verbal abuse of subordinates. His forced resignation was the second of this type under Biden.[3]

A closer look at the 21 Biden “A-Team” departures revealed big names like White House Counsel, Dana Remus; Counselor to the President and Coordinator of the COVID-19 Response, Jeff Zients; Press Secretary, Jen Psaki; and National Climate Advisor, Gina McCarthy. Other critical departures included Assistant to the President and Director of Management and Administration, Anne Filipic. This role has been described as the “administrative backbone” of the White House, and despite the non-policy nature of this position, strong leadership in this office is critical to an administration’s success.

While most of the departures were spread throughout the White House and in key offices of the EOP, there was a significant exodus of senior lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office. Though key departures began in January of 2022 with the departure of Jonathan Cedarbaum, Deputy Counsel to the President and Legal Advisor to the National Security Council, the subsequent departure of White House Counsel, Dana Remus, may have precipitated the departure of two of the three remaining Deputy White House Counsels (Jonathan Su and Danielle Conley). The Remus resignation allowed for the promotion of remaining Deputy White House Counsel, Stuart Delery, to become White House Counsel. Though news accounts did not provide a specific reason for the White House Counsel’s departure after 17 months, her role during the presidential campaign, the contested election battle after the 2020 election, and almost a year and a half in the White House likely took their toll.

Explaining the uptick

Recall that first year turnover among Biden’s key advisers was one of the lowest, which may have indeed laid the groundwork for a larger uptick than normal during the second year. The reasons for departures are varied (e.g., burnout, more lucrative opportunities in the private sector, a need to move back to one’s home state or a promotion within the executive branch among other reasons), but departures are often the result of cumulative exhaustion (e.g., a hard-fought campaign, a contested election battle, a truncated transition and a challenging first year).

With the better-than-expected midterm election results in the rearview mirror, the new White House preoccupation will be the president’s quest for reelection. No doubt, this quest will be front and center in the mind of the president and many senior advisers, as it has been for prior presidents.[4] Every presidential movement and word will be evaluated with an eye toward its impact on the reelection campaign. In addition, 2022 news stories about the potential departures of three high-level advisers — Ron Klain (Chief of Staff), Cecilia Rouse (Chair, Council of Economic Advisers) and Brian Deese (Director of the National Economic Council) — suggest that the level of turnover will be on the rise. The intensified focus on politics at the cost of policy may encourage some policy-oriented staff members to move on. At the same time, those focused on political outreach (think Office of Public Engagement and Political Strategy and Outreach) often move to the reelection campaign where their political skills can serve the president well (e.g., the 2018 departures of Political Director Bill Stepien and Public Liaison Director Justin Clark, the 2011 departures of Senior Advisor to the President David Axelrod, and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs). The bottom-line is that with cumulative staff turnover at 40%, there is a good chance that by the end of year three, over 50% of the “A-Team” will have moved on. Time will tell and speculating is always risky, but given the experience of the six prior presidents, the White House Presidential Personnel Office may want to begin vetting so they can fill some high-level vacancies.

Footnotes

The one exception was President Trump whose first-year turnover rate was an outlier (35%), and while there was a decline in the second year, it was only down four points (31%). ()
For example, a new addition at the start of the Biden administration was the emergence of a “Covid-19 Response Team” to oversee vaccine implementation, federal prevention efforts and other pandemic-related tasks designed to develop a comprehensive government response. ()
The other resignation under pressure was Deputy Press Secretary, TJ Ducklo, in February 2021. ()
See Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, Presidents as Candidates: Inside the White House for the President’s Campaign, NY: Routledge, 2003 (paperback). ()

The Brookings Institution · by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas and Ph.D · January 20, 2023

4. Letter requesting journalists to cover Ukrainian troops at U.S. base

Letter requesting journalists to cover Ukrainian troops at U.S. base

militaryreporters.org · by Site Administrator · January 20, 2023

Jan. 20, 2023

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin

1000 Defense Pentagon

Washington, DC 20301-1000

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan

Old Executive Office Building

Washington, DC 20504

Dear Secretary Austin and National Security Adviser Sullivan,

The Military Reporters & Editors Association joins the Pentagon Press Association’s recent call for the U.S. government to allow media coverage of Ukrainian troops training on how to operate a Patriot missile system at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

For more than 10 years, successive presidential administrations have limited press access to U.S. service members and their allies. As a result, the American public has become far less aware of the work of U.S. troops at home and abroad in training and combat operations.

Since the start of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine last year, administration officials have refused media requests to embed with U.S. troops deployed to Europe and denied media access to American military bases overseas.

Now that Ukrainian troops are on American soil, there are no operational security reasons to preclude journalists from covering U.S. service members teaching Ukrainian forces at Fort Sill on the Patriot air defense system.

A core tenet of the Defense Department’s Principles of Information is: “A free flow of general and military information shall be made available, without censorship or propaganda, to the men and women of the Armed Forces and their dependents.”

We are willing to work with you to resolve any issues you may have in order to allow journalists to inform the American people how their sons and daughters in uniform at Fort Sill are training Ukrainian forces to protect their country from Russian missile attacks.

Sincerely,

The Military Reporters & Editors Association board of directors

Jeff Schogol

Howard Altman

Jennifer Judson

Caitlin Kenney

Kristina Wong

Susan Katz-Keating

Joseph Hammond

Alex Hollings

Greg Mathieson, Sr.

militaryreporters.org · by Site Administrator · January 20, 2023

5. Poland Emerges as Europe’s Leader Against Russia’s War in Ukraine

Poland Emerges as Europe’s Leader Against Russia’s War in Ukraine

Warsaw takes on Germany, Austria and Hungary, whose support for Kyiv is more equivocal.

By William Nattrass

Jan. 20, 2023 5:46 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/poland-emerges-as-europes-leader-against-russias-war-in-ukraine-invasion-support-weapons-tanks-germany-11674248580?st=o2fou1oxdkb4s30

Cracks are beginning to show in the European Union’s support for Ukraine, with Germany coming under heavy international criticism for dragging its heels over proposed tank deliveries. Poland is leading attempts to pressure Berlin to consent to the delivery of the German-made tanks, but in its efforts to keep EU support for Ukraine alive, Warsaw is looking increasingly lonely.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Wednesday that while Berlin’s permission is technically required for the delivery of the tanks, “consent is a secondary issue,” and Warsaw will “either get this agreement quickly,” or “do the right thing ourselves.” Mr. Morawiecki described Germany as “the least proactive country out of the group” involved in the proposal to send tanks to Ukraine. With Berlin having suggested it will not give the green light to the plan until Washington agrees to send its own tanks too, a meeting of defense ministers in Germany Friday failed to yield a breakthrough.

While the spat with Chancellor Olaf Scholz is another demonstration of Poland’s wish to help Ukraine, the conflict is also a political opportunity for Warsaw. Mr. Morawiecki’s conservative Law and Justice Party has made acrimony toward Germany a key part of its identity ahead of Polish general elections this fall. Party leader Jarosław Kaczyński has warned of a “German-Russian plan to rule over Europe,” and Berlin’s apparent reluctance on tank deliveries fans the flames of this resentment.

Warsaw’s anti-German strategy is crude but cunning. A drawn-out legal dispute with the EU is costing Poland billions of euros, and portraying Germany—which arguably wields more influence on EU policy than any other country—as morally bankrupt subtly discredits alleged interference in the Polish judicial system by EU leaders who cite concerns over the rule of law.

What’s more, Warsaw’s international moral leadership casts the Law and Justice Party’s own policies in a new light ahead of general elections. The party espouses a Christian conservative agenda that, for supporters, represents old-fashioned morality in an era of relativism and progressive ideological pressure.

This all helps the Polish government, but it isn’t only Germany that Poland has to fight to ensure continued EU support for Ukraine. As the dispute over tank deliveries escalated on Thursday, President Andrzej Duda also lashed out at Austria’s Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, a former chancellor, for appearing to call for a softened stance on Russia.

Mr. Schallenberg had claimed Europe’s “security architecture will have to take Russia into account in future,” and he criticized Poland for blocking the attendance of his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Mr. Schallenberg said Mr. Lavrov’s presence would have provided a rare chance for Western politicians to communicate their criticisms directly to the Kremlin.

Mr. Duda described the remarks as “breaking up European unity” and lamented that “there are people who are ready to do business with no regard for the blood being spilt” by Russia. The response seemed based on a particularly harsh interpretation of Mr. Schallenberg’s words; perhaps an indication of the political expediency that Poland finds in being Ukraine’s strongest supporter.

And in yet another argument with a fellow EU country over Ukraine, Poland harshly criticized longtime conservative ally Hungary for attempts to water down sanctions on Russia last Wednesday. After Budapest asked for the removal of nine names from the EU’s sanctions list, Poland submitted a formal protest together with the Baltic states.

Such examples of EU division in the past week have reinforced perceptions of Poland as the leader of pro-Ukraine sentiment in the bloc. And as Warsaw invests in an expansion of its armed forces, the country is providing impetus for smaller eastern European allies, such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Baltic states, to take an uncompromising stance against Russian aggression.

But at the same time, the strength and consistency of pro-Ukraine sentiment in Poland is now the exception within Europe, rather than the rule. No mainstream political forces in the country express skepticism about the justification for supporting Ukraine, but the same cannot be said even in the neighboring Czech Republic, which, despite a staunchly pro-Ukraine government, is now riven by deep social and political divisions on the war.

Differences in public perception between Poland and other EU countries are even more pronounced. A recent poll surveying nine EU countries found that 48% of respondents want a quick end to the war even if it means sacrificing some of Ukraine’s territory. Sixty-four percent of Austrians and 60% of Germans would support such a policy, compared with only 28% of Poles. And on the specific issue of battle tank deliveries for Ukraine, another survey found that about 50% of the German public is opposed, with only 38% in favor.

Amid growing public calls for peace, there is a danger that EU support for Ukraine will start to waver. Countries such as Hungary, Austria and Germany, which have built entire economic systems on cooperation with Moscow, seem content for Europe to move into a back-seat role as the war grinds on in the Donbas. Luckily for Ukraine, Poland isn’t about to let that happen.

Mr. Nattrass is a British journalist and commentator based in Prague.

6. Bring On the Debate About the U.S. Fight for Ukraine

Excerpt:

But let’s have a debate. As always, the first temptation will be to waste time on unavailable options. Only two alternatives seem realistic to me. The best by far is the strategy the U.S. is pursuing, to support Ukraine to repulse a Russian invasion.

Bring On the Debate About the U.S. Fight for Ukraine

Washington found its role only after Russia proved its weakness and Kyiv proved its strength.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bring-on-the-debate-about-the-u-s-fight-for-ukraine-russia-invasion-aid-support-putin-zelensky-11674248260?mod=hp_trending_now_opn_pos5

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

Jan. 20, 2023 5:31 pm ET

Though the risks to U.S. policy can be exaggerated, with a GOP takeover of the House we’re going to have the debate we haven’t yet had on Ukraine policy. Reportedly Central Intelligence Agency chief William Burns delivered just such a warning to Ukraine’s president in a secret visit a week ago. The risk can be exaggerated because even if a majority of the Republicans don’t favor continued aid, a majority of the House—Democrats plus Republicans—will.

But let’s have a debate. As always, the first temptation will be to waste time on unavailable options. Only two alternatives seem realistic to me. The best by far is the strategy the U.S. is pursuing, to support Ukraine to repulse a Russian invasion.

Would standing back and not supporting Ukraine also be a realistic alternative? Maybe, but it’s not so simple. The Ukrainians would still resist; the front-line states such as the Baltics and Poland would likely still support that resistance to hogtie Russia and defend their own security. Ukraine would still become a quagmire, just a different quagmire. The Kremlin can’t really put forward enough force to subdue and control western Ukraine, where anti-Russian sentiment is strongest. An unstable, militarized front line would likely emerge; a guerrilla struggle would likely rage across it.

Mr. Putin’s miscalculations would have created a situation no less destabilizing of Russia and no less destabilizing of East-West relations. The U.S., in choosing to sit out, would likely compound these problems by destabilizing not only U.S.-Europe relations, but also relations within Europe between the appeasers and the confronters. Americans might think this sounded fine until they realized how the unraveling played back into their livelihoods and living standards.

The non-participation option might soon feel like no option at all. If the 20th century teaches anything, the U.S. always ends up involved. The Truman administration’s ardent determination to wash its hands of the Koreas, leaving them to the U.N., didn’t last long. Work it through and perhaps the only sustainable strategy is the one we’ve embarked on without quite articulating it—bluntly, to help Ukraine shove Russia’s invasion back down its throat until the regime in Moscow cracks.

Realism, rightly understood, suggests a couple of other things: Drawing a firm line against North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership for Ukraine would not have been enough; the U.S. would have had to join Russia in opposing the aspirations of Ukraine’s people, which constitute the real threat to the current Vladimir Putin regime.

Much quoted is Mr. Burns, while U.S. ambassador to Moscow in 2008, reporting that NATO membership was the Russian leadership’s “brightest of all redlines”—which may be true but does not mean a war was avoidable. Suppressing the hopes of 40 million Ukrainians to make sure a corrupt Moscow dictatorship felt secure was unlikely ever to be a practical endeavor for Washington, inconsistent with too many other priorities and long-term interests.

A war exactly like today’s might not have been inevitable, but conflict was. A solution was beyond our means. We do not know how to coax into existence a new kind of Russia, one that would be open to a France-Germany style relationship, or even that wouldn’t view Ukraine’s commitment to democracy as a threat to the Kremlin’s commitment to kleptocracy and militarism. To believe we could have reinvented Russia is to echo the campus left of the 1970s, which saw the U.S. as all-powerful and therefore responsible for all outcomes.

We are where we are. Not only does current U.S. strategy recommend itself for all the above reasons. It recommends itself precisely because it wasn’t the strategy the Biden administration started with. It was the strategy that opened up for us once it was revealed that the Russians were 5 feet tall, the Ukrainians were fighters, the Europeans would rally, and that the energy card in Moscow’s hand was the five of clubs instead of the ace of spades.

Things can still go wrong. There are no guarantees. The demands of justice and the demands of wisdom don’t always overlap. The attritional fight now under way is costly and horrifying to behold, and yet no strategic goal seems to offer itself that can redeem the war from Russia’s perspective. The contest is fought only to stave off the vengeance that Vladimir Putin knows is coming from the criminal underworld he dominates. Russia has to break a nation, which it can’t do. Ukraine, with its NATO allies, only has to break an aging clique whose competence and judgment are none too impressive of late.

WSJ Opinion: Putin’s Culture War Against Ukraine’s National Identity

Opinion | A Brutal New Phase of the War in Ukraine

The New York Times · by The Editorial Board · January 21, 2023

The Editorial Board

A Brutal New Phase of the War in Ukraine

Jan. 21, 2023, 9:00 a.m. ET

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The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

The war in Ukraine has entered a new, more deadly and fateful phase, and the one man who can stop it, Vladimir Putin, has shown no signs that he will do so.

After 11 months during which Ukraine has won repeated and decisive victories against Russian forces, clawed back some of its lands and cities and withstood lethal assaults on its infrastructure, the war is at a stalemate.

Still, the fighting rages on, including a ferocious battle for the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region. Cruel, seemingly random Russian missile strikes at civilian targets have become a regular horror: On Jan. 14, a Russian missile struck an apartment building in Dnipro, in central Ukraine. Among the at least 40 dead were small children, a pregnant woman and a 15-year-old dancer.

Both sides are now said to be bracing for a fierce new round of offensives in the late winter or spring. Russia has mobilized 300,000 new men to throw into the fray, and some arms factories are working around the clock. Ukraine’s Western arms suppliers, at the same time, are bolstering Kyiv’s arsenal with armor and air defense systems that until recently they were reluctant to deploy against Russia for fear of escalating this conflict into an all-in East-West war.

Over the past two months, the United States has pledged billions in new arms and equipment, including a roughly $2.5 billion package announced this week that, for the first time, includes Stryker armored combat vehicles. Other American weapons on their way to Ukraine include the Patriot, the most advanced American ground-based air defense system; Bradley fighting vehicles; armored personnel carriers; and artillery systems. NATO allies have thrown more weapons into the mix, including the first heavy tank pledged to Ukraine, the Challenger 2 heavy tank from Britain. Germany, historically reluctant to have its tanks used against Russia, is under heavy pressure to allow its allies to export its first-rate Leopard tank to Ukraine.

Germany did not make a decision at a meeting with Ukraine’s allies on Friday, in which countries reiterated their support for sending more advanced arms to Ukraine. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who led the gathering, noted that this was “not a moment to slow down” but to “dig deeper.”

That means the broad, muddy fields of Ukraine will soon again witness full-scale tank-and-trench warfare, this time pitting Western arms against a desperate Russia. This was never supposed to happen again in Europe after the last world war.

Ukraine and its backers hope that the Western arms will be decisive, giving Ukraine a better chance to blunt a Russian offensive and drive the Russians back. How far back is another question. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine talks of chasing Russia out of Ukraine altogether, including the territory seized by Russia in 2014 in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. The United States and its allies may prefer a less ambitious outcome, although U.S. officials are reportedly considering it as a possibility. But so long as Mr. Putin shows no readiness to talk, the question is moot. The job at hand is to persuade Russia that a negotiated peace is the only option.

This is why the coming fight is critical. But as Mr. Putin digs himself ever deeper into pursuing his delusions, it is also critical that the Russian people be aware of what is being done in their name, and how it is destroying their own future.

How much of this do Russians know or question? It is difficult to ascertain what Russians are privately saying or thinking, given how dangerous any open criticism of the “limited military operation” has become. Independent media have been stifled, thousands of protesters have been arrested, and many foreign correspondents, including those of The Times, were compelled to leave when it became illegal to dispute the official line about the war.

Still, at the very least, most Russians should be asking when and how this war will end. That is why this editorial is addressed in part to the Russian people: It is in their name that their president is waging this terrible and useless war; their sons, fathers and husbands are being killed, maimed or brutalized into committing atrocities; their lives are being mortgaged for generations to come in a state distrusted and disliked in many parts of the world.

The Kremlin’s propaganda machinery has been working full time churning out false narratives about a heroic Russian struggle against forces of fascism and debauchery, in which the Western arms are but more proof that Ukraine is a proxy war by the West to strip Russia of its destiny and greatness. Mr. Putin has concocted an elaborate mythology in which Ukraine is an indelible part of a “Russkiy mir,” a greater Russian world.

Isolated from anyone who would dare to speak truth to his power, Mr. Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine last year, convinced that the Ukrainians would promptly shed their “fascist” government. The start of the war stunned Russians, but Mr. Putin seemed convinced that a West wasted by decadence and decline would squawk but take no action. He and his commanders were apparently unprepared for the extraordinary resistance they met in Ukraine, or for the speed with which the United States and its allies, horrified by the crude violation of the postwar order, came together in Ukraine’s defense.

Mr. Putin’s response has been to throw ever more lives, resources and cruelty at Ukraine. And with the deplorable support of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, the president has elevated what he insists on calling his “limited military offensive” into an existential struggle between a spiritually ordained Great Russia and a corrupt and debauched West.

But Russians are aware that Ukraine was not widely perceived as an enemy, much less a mortal enemy, until Mr. Putin seized Crimea and stirred up a secessionist conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Until then, Russians and Ukrainians traveled freely across their long border, and many of them had family, acquaintances or friends on the other side.

And after all the poverty, repression and isolation under Soviet rule, Russians need to remember that until Mr. Putin began trying to change Ukraine’s borders by force in 2014, they were finally enjoying what those in other industrialized countries had long considered normal — the opportunity to earn decent salaries, buy consumer goods and enjoy vastly expanded freedoms to travel abroad and speak their mind.

The West they visited was not the caricature of depravity presented by Mr. Putin or Patriarch Kirill. And their Russia was hardly a pure and spiritual model, with the alcoholism, corruption, drug abuse, homophobia and other sins so familiar to all Russians.

In the end, the question is whether any of Mr. Putin’s lectures on history really provide a justification for the death and destruction he has ordained. Russians know the horrors of all-out war; they must know that nothing Mr. Putin has concocted remotely validates the leveling of towns and cities, the murder, rape and pillaging, or the deliberate strikes against power and water supplies across Ukraine. Like the last great European war, this one is mostly one man’s madness.

If Ukraine was not an enemy before, Mr. Putin has ensured it is one now. Battling an invader is among the most potent methods of forging a national identity, and for Ukraine, Russia as its enemy and the West as its future have become indelible elements. And if the West was indeed divided and indecisive on how to deal with Russia or Ukraine before, Moscow’s invasion has unified the United States and much of Europe in relegating Russia to a threat and an outcast, and raising a heroic Ukraine to a friend and ally.

Claiming to champion Russian greatness, Mr. Putin has turned Russia into a pariah state in many parts of the world. He claims Russia has everything it needs to withstand the cost of the war and sanctions. But according to a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank, Russia faces decades of economic stagnation and regression even if the war ends soon. Industrial production, even military, is likely to continue falling because of its reliance on high-tech goods from the West that it can no longer get. Many Western companies have left, trade with the West has dwindled, and financing the war is draining the budget. Numerous foreign airlines have ceased service to Russia. Add to that the millions of Russia’s best and brightest who have fled, and the future is bleak.

The true scope of Russia’s casualties is also being kept from its people. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November that Moscow’s casualties were “well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded.” About 300,000 men have been pressed into cannon-fodder duty in the army and many more may follow.

It is possible that Mr. Putin might eventually seek a negotiated settlement, though that becomes ever more remote as the Ukrainians suffer ever greater destruction and loss, and as their determination not to cede an inch of their country deepens. For now, Mr. Putin seems to still believe he can bring Ukraine to its knees and dictate its fate, cost be damned.

In his public appearances, Mr. Putin still cultivates the image of a self-confident strongman. Where there are failures, it is the fault of underlings who do not obey his will. He played out that scene on Jan. 11, in his first televised meeting with government ministers in the new year, when he tore into Denis Manturov, deputy prime minister, over aircraft production figures Mr. Putin insisted were wrong and Mr. Manturov defended. Mr. Putin finally exploded, “What are you doing, really, playing the fool?” “Yest’,” Mr. Manturov finally said, the Russian equivalent of “Yes, sir.”

Russians have seen this act before in the Kremlin. They might do well to ponder whether, in this version, Mr. Putin is the omniscient czar and Mr. Manturov the bumbling functionary — the intended lesson — or whether they are being played for fools by Mr. Putin’s vanity, delusions and spitefulness.

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

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The New York Times · by The Editorial Board · January 21, 2023

8. In Taiwan, ex-conscripts say they feel unprepared for potential China conflict

A lot of work to be done in Taiwan but they have to do it themselves and demonstrate the will and the ability to fight.

In Taiwan, ex-conscripts say they feel unprepared for potential China conflict

amp.cnn.com · by Eric Cheung, CNN Updated 8:36 PM EST, Fri January 20, 2023

Taipei, Taiwan(CNN) Rising concerns over increasingly aggressive military maneuvers by China have prompted Taiwan to extend the mandatory military service period most of its young men must serve. But former conscripts interviewed by CNN say Taipei will need to do far more than that if it is to make the training effective.

Outdated, boring and impractical. That was the verdict of six young men who spoke to CNN about their recent experiences of mandatory service in Taiwan's military.

They describe a process that was designed decades ago with a heavy emphasis on bayonet training, but lacking instruction in urban warfare strategies or modern weapons like drones. Some say there were too few rifles to go around, or that the weapons they trained with were too old to be of use. Others recount "specializing" in cannon, grenade and mortar units, but never receiving any ammunition to train with.

Their criticisms come at a crucial time for Taiwan's military. President Tsai Ing-wen announced recently that the period of mandatory service for men born in or after 2005 will be extended from four months to a year, saying that the present system "no longer suits the needs" of the island's defense. The military says the rethink follows comparisons to the militaries of other democratic jurisdictions that have longer conscription periods -- such as South Korea (18-21 months), Singapore (24 months) and Israel (24-30 months).

Strengthening the island's military has become a key concern for Tsai, who has spoken of the need to highlight Taiwan's determination to defend itself amid increasingly aggressive noises from Beijing. The ruling Chinese Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy of 23.5 million people as part of its territory, despite never having controlled it, and has sent record numbers of air and sea patrols to harass it since former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited in August. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of force to "reunify" the island with mainland China.

"No one wants war," Tsai said in announcing the lengthening of mandatory service periods in December. "This is true of Taiwan's government and people, and the global community, but peace does not come from the sky, and Taiwan is at the front lines of the expansion of authoritarianism."

A military exercise in Taiwan simulates an invasion by China on Jan. 6, 2022.

'I only shot 40 rounds'

But former conscripts are skeptical, telling CNN the problems with mandatory military service go beyond the short time frame and will only be fixed by a more thorough revamp.

Tsai herself has acknowledged that many citizens feel serving in the military is "just a waste of time."

"In our company, we had more than 100 assault rifles, but only slightly more than a dozen could be used for shooting practices," said Frank Liu, a 26-year-old auditor from the central Changhua county who served in 2021. He said about 140 conscripts received training in his company.

"A lot of those assault rifles were made many decades ago, and many were too worn out to be used in training. The weapons had to be rotated among ourselves."

Paul Lee, a factory manager from Taipei who served in 2018, had a similar experience.

"We didn't fire many rounds during the military training," Lee said. "I was practicing with the T65 assault rifle, and I only shot about 40 rounds during the entire training period.

"I'm concerned that many people who underwent the training with me won't even be able to operate a rifle with confidence."

Reservists take part in military training at a base in Taoyuan, Taiwan, on March 12, 2022.

Under the current rules, the four-month service period is normally divided into two parts: five weeks of basic training, and 11 weeks of ground training at a military base.

During the ground training period, conscripts are often assigned specialties -- but even then some say they receive only the most cursory of insights.

Dennis, a 25-year-old engineer from Taichung city who served last year, said while he was assigned to specialize in cannons, he never learned how to fire them because trainers were worried the recruits might get hurt. He asked only to be identified by his first name because he remains a reservist.

"We were assigned simple tasks, and we spent most of the time helping with cleaning and washing the cannon carts," he said. "If war breaks out today and I am told to work as an artilleryman, I think I will just become cannon fodder."

War game suggests Chinese invasion of Taiwan would fail at a huge cost to US, Chinese and Taiwanese militaries

Adam Yu, a 27-year-old designer from the northern Keelung city who served in 2018 and specialized in mortars and grenade launchers, said while he had been shown how to prepare the weapons, he had never been given any ammunition or practiced firing them.

"I'm not sure if I can even operate those weapons," said Yu, adding, "I still don't know how those weapons are supposed to be used in the battlefield."

That sentiment was echoed by another former conscript surnamed Liu. The 28-year-old salesman specialized in data processing with the air force and received training in the southern Pingtung county in 2015. He too asked for his first name to be withheld, saying he may still be called upon for additional reservist training.

"Our commanders barely taught anything during our ground training, because they felt we would only be here for a few months and it wouldn't make much of a difference for them," he said.

New recruits practice with bayonets at a military training center in Hsinchu County, northern Taiwan on April 22, 2013.

Bayonets?

Taiwan has a professional volunteer military force that as of last year was made up of 162,000 full-time troops, according to a report by the Legislative Yuan. On top of this, an estimated 70,000 men complete a period of mandatory military service every year.

Conscripts must undergo a period of physical training and are taught to shoot rifles and use bayonets.

Several of those who spoke to CNN questioned the amount of time spent on bayonet training, arguing it was outdated, although some militaries continue to teach it in recruitment training programs.

"I think bayonet training was just a waste of time, because I really couldn't think how we could put that into practice," Frank Liu said.

"Just look at the Russia-Ukraine war, there are so many types of weapons used. When does a soldier ever have to resort to a bayonet to attack their enemy? I think that was really outdated."

Yu, from Keelung, said his commanders had put huge emphasis on bayonet training because it made up part of the end-of-term examination.

"We were ordered to memorize a series of slogans," he said. "When we were practicing bayonet, we were required to follow the instructions of the squad leader with a specific chant for each movement, and we had to repeat it in the exam."

Lesson learned?

Some of these criticisms were acknowledged, tacitly or otherwise, when Tsai announced the lengthening of the conscription period and in the subsequent news briefing by the Defense Ministry in early January.

The ministry said that when the new policy begins in 2024, all conscripts will shoot at least 800 rounds during their service, and they will be trained with new weapons such as anti-tank missiles and drones. Bayonet training will be modified to include other forms of close combat training, it added, and conscripts may also participate in joint military drills with professional soldiers. Meanwhile, basic training will rise from five to eight weeks.

Su Tzu-yun, a director of Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, which is funded by the government, said he is confident the reform will boost the island's combat capabilities.

He also thinks there is value in keeping bayonet training in the curriculum.

"It helps boost a soldier's courage and aggressiveness," he said. "If soldiers engage in a mission that is not suitable for firing weapons, they may also use bayonet as an alternative option."

A CH-147F Chinook takes part in drills to show combat readiness ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays at a military base in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on January 11.

Su added that while modern weapons will be included in the new training curriculum, it would be impractical for every soldier to practice firing them because this would simply be too costly.

"In the US, the training of Javelin [anti-tank missiles] is conducted through simulation, because each missile costs $70,000 and it is not possible for everyone to fire them," he said. "Usually, the whole unit finishes the simulation, then the commander will pick a few soldiers to practice firing it."

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said in a statement to CNN that it has invited experts to numerous academic seminars on reforming the conscription system, and that it accepted many of their suggestions to boost training intensity.

Doubts remain

Even so, not everyone's convinced.

"I don't think the lengthening of service alone will lead to better national defense," said Lin Ying-yu, an assistant professor at Tamkang University's Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.

He said the "more important questions" involved clarifying in detail the type of training new conscripts would receive.

And on this point, the former conscripts who spoke to CNN remain skeptical.

"When I saw they wanted to add drones to the training, my question was -- are we going to have one drone per person and multiple chances to practice flying it?" Yu said.

"If they stick to their old way of teaching, they will just tell us to follow their instructions and memorize its weight and flight distance, and we will not be able to operate it."

Taiwan to allow women into military reserve force training as China fears grow

The fear for conscripts is that the new form of mandatory service might end up looking pretty much like the old form, only longer.

"During my service, most of the time we were just asked to perform tedious tasks like moving weapons around to show our commanders, and we spent a lot of time waiting," said Dennis, the engineer.

It remains to be seen if conscripts' time will be spent more fruitfully when the new rules come in next year, but all sides agree the stakes are high.

"Active citizens are the foundation and the bedrock of our will to resist," said Enoch Wu, founder of the civil defense think tank Forward Alliance and a member of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

"If the public decides our home is not worth fighting for -- or that we don't stand a chance -- then you can have the most professional military and it will still be too little too late."

View on CNN

amp.cnn.com · by Eric Cheung, CNN Updated 8:36 PM EST, Fri January 20, 2023

9. How Bulgaria secretly armed Ukraine

How Bulgaria secretly armed Ukraine – DW – 01/21/2023

Alexander Andreev

17 hours ago17 hours ago

Bulgaria's former government quietly supplied Ukraine with weapons soon after Russia invaded last year, according to an investigation by the German daily Die Welt.

Did Bulgaria "secretly save Ukraine"? That's what conservative German daily Die Welt claimed in an article from January 18. After Russia invaded the country on February 24, 2022, the government in Sofia began a "secret strategy" as soon as four days later, when then pro-Western Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov visited the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

By the time he made the trip, the Bulgarian government had already initiated a procedure for comprehensive military aid to Ukraine, according to Die Welt.

"To avoid official arms deliveries, ammunition and armaments entered Ukraine indirectly. That's how Bulgaria intermittently covered a third of the Ukrainian army's needs," reported journalist Philip Volkmann-Schluck, who also published an adapted version of the piece in Die Welt's English-language sister publication Politico, both of which are owned by German publisher Axel Springer.

Bulgaria also supplied diesel to Ukraine unnoticed, meeting up to 40% of the Ukrainian army's needs for tanks and vehicles between April and August, the article added.

Petkov was heading a four-party coalition at the time, and his Deputy Prime Minister Korneliya Ninova, who also leads the traditionally pro-Russian Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), was strictly against arms deliveries to Ukraine, as was President Rumen Radev.

While some members of the Bulgarian coalition had sided with Russia, Petkov decided to "be on the right side of history and help us defend ourselves against a much stronger enemy," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the paper.

German Southeaster Europe expert Johanna DeimelImage: privat

Goal: Independence from Russia

Johanna Deimel, a regional expert who sits on the board of the Southeast Europe Association (SOG), underscores the complexity of Bulgaria's decision at a time when there are strong pro-Russian forces in the country. "Both the Socialists and the president are seen as Russia-friendly, though for both I would say their star is obviously sinking. To me, it's the same as what has Petkov said — that we have shown that a world is possible without dependence on Russia."

Martin Kothé, head of the Southeast and Eastern Europe regional office for Germany's liberal Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Sofia, also praised Petkov's decisions. "Tiny Bulgaria has chosen the right side of history and took major risks. I think that is exemplary. Germany, under its new defense minister, should take a page out of that book in the future."

Aid via third-party countries

Bulgaria has not officially provided aid to Ukraine, but through arms sales via other NATO countries. This was confirmed by former Prime Minister Petkov on January 18 in Sofia.

Instead, partners from Poland, Romania, the US and England bought the weapons from Bulgarian industry, he said.

Asen Vasilev, Bulgaria's Finance Minister at the time of the weapons deliveriesImage: BGNES

Petkov's finance minister at the time, Asen Vasilev, has also confirmed this. The relevant decision by the Bulgarian parliament not to supply arms to Ukraine was adhered to, he said. This decision had been taken under pressure from the public and the Socialists, which had otherwise threatened to leave the coalition.

‘It was clear to everyone'

Deputy Prime Minister and BSP leader Korneliya Ninova likely knew about the "secret strategy." That's because as Minister of Economy and Industry she was responsible for the arms trade. In response to a parliamentary question, Ninova even confirmed that arms exports from March 1 to June 30, 2022, had grown threefold compared to the previous year.

"Bulgaria has not supplied any weapons directly to Ukraine. Anyone who claims that is a liar. Bulgaria has not delivered a single cartridge to Ukraine," she told Die Welt.

Korneliya Ninova, head of Bulgaria's traditionally pro-Russian Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP)Image: BGNES

This is true, said Vessela Tcherneva,deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Relations and Petkov's foreign policy adviser at the time. "Ukraine was not mentioned as a buyer," she told DW. "From my point of view, however, it was clear to everyone that these Soviet-designed munitions were ultimately intended for Ukraine."

Fear of Russia's response

Observers now fear retaliation by Moscow. Martin Kothé of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation sees a growing danger that Bulgarian democracy could be infiltrated by systematic Russian disinformation.

Johanna Deimel cited the possibility of more concrete action: "There is still a danger of Russian Federation sabotage against the country, including against the military and defense industries," she said.

Bulgaria has already experienced several cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.

"This may even go further to instigating political unrest and targeted destabilization by Moscow and its supporters in Bulgaria," Deimel said. This is supported by the fact that the Interior Ministry in Moscow is searching for Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who reports on Russian security for Bellingcat. He is accused of organizing the hijacking of Russian warplanes together with the Ukrainian secret service SBU.

Bulgarian investigative reporter Christo GrozevImage: Julien de Rosa/AFP/Getty Images

A clear choice at the polls

The news about the secret weapons supplies could influence the upcoming elections and put an end to the political stalemate in Bulgaria. Petkov's government was toppled by a vote of no confidence in the summer of 2022 and has not been replaced. Early parliamentary elections are likely to be held in late March or early April. Petkov and Vasilev's centrist, anti-corruption party, "We Continue the Change," and its partners "Democratic Bulgaria," a liberal conservative alliance made up of three parties, now have good chances of taking the helm in the EU member state again.

Johanna Deimel said that Bulgarians are "tired of political crises and corruption scandals surrounding Boiko Borissov," the long-term prime minister from the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party who inspired the vote of no confidence against Petrov.

Bulgarian voters will face a clear choice at the next ballot, Martin Kothé said. "Do they want to vote for freedom and the opportunities for personal development and prosperity that come with it? Or do they want to fall for the tricks of a brutal aggressor who oppresses and burns his own people to satisfy his imperial appetites?"

This article originally appeared in German.

10. One of the Most Influential Ambassadors in Washington Isn’t One

One of the Most Influential Ambassadors in Washington Isn’t One

The New York Times · by Michael Crowley · January 21, 2023

Taiwan’s representative, Bi-khim Hsiao, calls herself a “cat warrior” walking a delicate diplomatic line. China calls her a troublemaker who could trigger a war.

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Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s senior diplomat to the United States, is known as the Taipei economic and cultural representative.Credit...Valerie Plesch for The New York Times

Jan. 21, 2023

WASHINGTON — She is among the most influential foreign ambassadors in Washington, but she’s technically not an ambassador. She works from a grand estate, but cannot live there. Simply flying her flag could cause a diplomatic incident.

This is life in the gray zone for Taiwan’s senior diplomat in the United States, Bi-khim Hsiao, who enjoys powerful insider access but endures a peculiar outsider status.

She speaks almost daily with senior Biden administration officials and is wired into leaders of both parties in Congress. “Taiwan has one of the most effective diplomatic representations in Washington of any country,” said John R. Bolton, a former national security adviser in the Trump White House.

And yet because the United States does not officially recognize Taiwan as an independent country, Ms. Hsiao does not work under the graceful title of ambassador. Instead, she is the Taipei economic and cultural representative. Instead of an embassy, her office is known as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, or TECRO.

Those unwieldy phrases are an outgrowth of America’s 1979 “one China policy,” under which the United States agreed to shift its recognition from Taipei to Beijing as the legitimate government of China and promised not to formally recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation. China considers Taiwan an illegal breakaway province.

The result is one of official Washington’s more contorted diplomatic customs, and one that increasingly amounts to a fiction as Beijing’s growing threats of forcibly reclaiming Taiwan drive Washington and Taipei closer politically, economically and militarily.

Chinese officials watch closely for any deviations from the policy, studying the nature and location of interactions between U.S. and Taiwanese officials to see whether America might be treating Taiwan more like an independent country.

In an interview at Taiwan’s Twin Oaks estate, a sumptuous compound in the heart of Washington, Ms. Hsiao acknowledged her difficult balancing act. In a play on the “wolf warrior” label for China’s new breed of aggressive diplomats, she called herself a “cat warrior.”

“Cats can tread on tight ropes and, you know, balance themselves in very nimble and flexible ways,” she said.

Ms. Hsiao has a quiet, reserved manner, but Beijing sees her as a dangerous agitator. When Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a high-profile trip to Taipei in August, China accused Ms. Hsiao of engineering the visit, which prompted Chinese military exercises and pushed U.S.-China tensions to dangerous new extremes.

A Chinese government spokesman condemned her as “a pawn of the foreign anti-China forces” who was “pushing Taiwan compatriots into a dangerous abyss,” according to Beijing’s China Daily newspaper.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in August 2022, increasing tensions between the United States and China.Credit...Ann Wang/Reuters

Even as it draws closer to Taiwan, the United States treats its relationship with Taiwan’s representatives carefully. The State Department issues special red-and-blue license plates to diplomats in Washington, but the ones Ms. Hsiao and her colleagues are granted carry slightly different markings, omitting the word “diplomat.” When Taiwanese officials visit Washington, Biden administration officials meet them not at the White House or State Department, but at the Rosslyn, Va., offices of something called the American Institute in Taiwan — an organization created, funded and staffed by the U.S. government to serve as a middleman. Official letters between the two governments are also passed through the institute.

The U.S. government also prevents Ms. Hsiao from living at Twin Oaks, the 18-acre Washington estate that served as the Taiwanese ambassador’s official residence until the United States, following President Richard Nixon’s historic outreach to Beijing, ended official ties with Taipei. Now it, too, operates under a murky status, with Ms. Hsiao hosting formal events usually devoid of official national symbols. When a predecessor raised Taiwan’s flag there in 2015, a State Department spokeswoman publicly rebuked the act.

Such concerns might seem to pale in comparison with the major arms sales the Biden administration has approved for Taiwan. In December, President Biden signed a defense-spending bill that authorized up to $10 billion in military aid for Taiwan over the next five years. But earlier last year, the White House pressed Congress to drop Senate-approved language modifying TECRO’s name to the Taiwan Representative Office. The difference was enough to prompt a formal protest from China’s Embassy in Washington.

At the center of it all is Ms. Hsiao, 51. Raised in Taiwan by an American mother and a Taiwanese father who was a Presbyterian minister, Ms. Hsiao moved to Montclair, N.J., in her teens and attended Oberlin College before earning a master’s degree in political science from Columbia University.

The U.S. government prevents Ms. Hsiao from living at Twin Oaks, the 18-acre Washington estate that once served as the Taiwanese ambassador’s official residence.Credit...Valerie Plesch for The New York Times

She draws much of her influence from her close relationship with Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, who represents Taiwan’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, and for whom she once serves as spokeswoman. In addition, Ms. Hsiao counts Mr. Bolton and Mr. Biden’s top National Security Council official for Asia, Kurt Campbell, as decades-long friends.

For years, U.S. officials prohibited Ms. Hsiao’s predecessors from visiting the White House and the State Department. Such guidelines have relaxed over time, and she now pays regular, if discreet, visits to the West Wing and Foggy Bottom.

She is an undisguised regular on Capitol Hill, as when she sat next to Kevin McCarthy, then the House Republican leader, last summer for a livestreamed discussion by his caucus’s China Task Force. “She really does have the confidence of people here in Washington,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert with the German Marshall Fund who has also known Ms. Hsiao for many years.

Seated in an elegant reception hall at Twin Oaks, with a grand piano and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a rolling lawn, Ms. Hsiao described her position as “legally unofficial.”

For that, she blames Beijing. “The Taiwanese resent not only being bullied, but we resent being told that we cannot have any friends,” she said.

It helps, Ms. Hsiao said, that appreciation in Washington has grown “for Taiwan as a democracy, as a force for good, and as a true partner of the United States.” At the same time, she said, the threat from a Chinese government that talks of absorbing Taiwan weighs heavily.

“For me, it’s more than a job,” Ms. Hsiao said. “It’s about survival. It’s about survival for Taiwan.”

Officially, Ms. Hsiao is based in TECRO’s drab office building, across the street from a McDonald’s in suburban Washington. But she conducts much of her official business at Twin Oaks.

Ms. Hsiao regularly hosts key members of Congress and former U.S. officials. Credit...Valerie Plesch for The New York Times

The property has a story of its own. Its neo-Georgian mansion was built in 1888 as a summer home for Gardiner Greene Hubbard, founder of the National Geographic Society. In the late 1930s, it became the Chinese ambassador’s official residence.

When China’s nationalist leaders fled to Taiwan after China’s 1949 Communist revolution, they kept control of the property. Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the glamorous wife of Taiwan’s founder, stayed there during her visits to Washington to build support for the fledgling nation, which the anti-Communist United States recognized as China’s only legitimate government.

Then Nixon took his famous trip to China in a Cold War gambit to split Beijing from Moscow. China’s price for normal relations with the United States came with a condition: No more recognition of Taiwan. By 1979, the Carter administration had enshrined the “one China” policy, choosing Beijing over Taipei.

To many Taiwanese, it was a betrayal.

“We didn’t think it would end this way,” Taiwan’s last official ambassador to the United States, James C.H. Shen, told a New York Times reporter in the mansion's reception hall before his final trip home in December 1978, as embassy aides wept.

To keep Twin Oaks from the communists, Taiwanese officials sold the property for a token price to a conservative foundation co-founded by Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. After Congress passed legal protections to ensure that China could not seize the estate, the foundation returned it to Taiwan.

But the State Department imposed conditions to make clear to Beijing that Taiwan was not re-establishing its diplomatic presence. The estate could not be used as a residence, and Taiwan’s flag could not fly over its grounds. A sign at the gate reads only “Twin Oaks,” with no mention of Taiwan.

Today, Twin Oaks is a D.C. power scene. Ms. Hsiao regularly hosts key members of Congress and former U.S. officials. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has dropped by, as has Mr. Bolton. In September she threw a “Delaware Night,” featuring politicians from Mr. Biden’s adopted home state.

Her main annual event is Taiwan’s national day, which hundreds of guests attended last year on Oct. 10, eating, drinking and taking selfies next to an ice sculpture of Taipei 101, the tallest building in Taiwan. They included members of Congress, foreign dignitaries and several former U.S. officials, among them the Trump administration’s top State Department official for arms sales.

Ms. Hsiao’s main annual event is Taiwan’s national day, which hundreds of guests attended last year.Credit...Valerie Plesch for The New York Times

Notably absent was anyone from the Biden administration. For years, executive branch officials were prohibited from visiting Twin Oaks under State Department guidelines that Mr. Biden relaxed. But senior officials are discouraged from attending events, like Taiwan’s national day, with any whiff of sovereignty.

Many other informal restrictions have fallen away. U.S. officials used to meet with Taiwanese counterparts in neutral locations like hotels or the American Institute in Taiwan’s Washington-area offices, across the Potomac River in Virginia.

Mr. Bolton recalls meeting with a visiting official from Taipei during the Trump years — not in his West Wing office but in a White House annex. The Chinese Embassy complained anyway. “I’m accommodating enough not to meet with him in my own office,” Mr. Bolton said. “The Chinese wanted me to go to Lafayette Park,” outside the White House.

But Ms. Glaser of the German Marshall Fund warns that symbolic victories may not be worth the cost of provoking China. “I support the administration’s approach, which is to really focus on doing things that meaningfully strengthen Taiwan’s security,” she said.

Others say it’s time to stop letting China dictate such details.

“People say, don’t put symbolism over substance. But the bottom line is, this is a fight over symbolism,” said Dan Blumenthal, a China expert with the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “The Chinese are trying to wipe the idea that there is a government of Taiwan off the map, and they are doing that by going after the symbols of Taiwan’s existence and legitimacy.”

Ms. Hsiao admits being frustrated over the continued tiptoeing around her formal title and who can attend what meeting in which place. But she says she understands the U.S. position.

“We don’t at all blame the United States,” she added. “We blame the bully that’s threatening everyone, that is creating such conditions.”

Eric Lipton contributed reporting from Simi Valley, Calif., and Ana Swanson and Edward Wong from Washington, D.C.

The New York Times · by Michael Crowley · January 21, 2023

11. A Look at Iran’s Protest Movement Four Months On

Excerpts:

Women in Tehran and other cities have reported in recent weeks that they are no longer being stopped when they go out in public without a headscarf. Perhaps that will change under Iran's new police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan, who was appointed to his position by Khamenei in early January. Like his predecessor, he is the subject of international sanctions for his role in the deadly repression of protests, but he is also considered a hardliner when it comes to the dress code. During his time as Tehran's police chief, Radan ordered the arrest in 2007 of young men with "unusual" hairstyles and cracked down on women who didn't comply rigorously enough with the veiling requirement.

But there are calls from elements within the regime, including from circles close to the Revolutionary Guard, for the relaxing of the dress code. Perhaps the headscarf, that symbolic gesture of submission, will ultimately be sacrificed by the regime in order to maintain real submission. The Sepah-e Pasdaran is already the decisive power factor in the Iranian structure, the leaders of which are primarily interested in maintaining their power and profits. Philosopher Nikfar suspects that in the medium term, a Pasdaran-led military dictatorship could emerge that might then push the mullahs aside in order to secure its legitimacy. That would be, in Nikfar's words, "reform and oppression at the same time."

For the time being, the mullahs and the Pasdaran still appear to be moving in lockstep. But at some point in the not too distant future, an event will occur that could disrupt that unity: the death of Revolutionary Leader Ali Khamenei, 83. There is currently no undisputed successor. Ultimately, the succession debate could break open the conflict between those who rely on an iron grip and those who want to regain legitimacy.

Then the cards would indeed be reshuffled.

A Look at Iran’s Protest Movement Four Months On

Spiegel · by Christoph Reuter, Monika Bolliger, DER SPIEGEL

A man kneels at a grave surrounded by mourners. Someone hands him a photo, which he holds up in the air, kissing it with a pained look on his face. The small crowd around him shouts lamentations as a man plucks the strings of a lute. The video is said to show the grieving father of Mohammad Mahdi Karami, a 22-year-old karate master who was hanged by the regime on January 7.

DER SPIEGEL 4/2023

The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 4/2023 (January 21st, 2023) of DER SPIEGEL.

SPIEGEL International

The Iranian regime has responded mercilessly to the protests that have flared up across the country since last autumn. Tehran has thus far executed four people in connection with the revolt, and at least 23 more prisoners are facing death, according to Amnesty International. A search for information about those on death row leads to the biographies of talented young people who, if they lived somewhere else, would have a world of opportunity in front of them.

Iran’s Leaders Exposed

The death sentence against physician Hamid Ghareh-Hassanlou, on the other hand, was overturned on January 7 – allegedly because of procedural errors. According to witness accounts, Hassanlou had been traveling in a car and had stopped to help an injured militant with the regime’s Basij militia. He was then later sentenced to death for the murder of that same man.

All of the death sentences against demonstrators have been handed down without even a hint of due process, with some resting on confessions extracted under torture. Some verdicts have been changed just as arbitrarily. Iran's regime-loyal judiciary grants both death and resurrection. Their motto seems to be: Be afraid and you may hope.

Trials where the rule of law doesn’t apply: Mohammad Mahdi Karami in court before he was hanged.

Foto: Amir Abbas Ghasemi / dpa

The death of the young Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini ignited the protest movement in mid-September. But the regime is striking back and killing a growing number of people. Prisoners are being executed and more than 500 people are reported to have died in the protests. But four months after the beginning of the protest movement, all these deaths have not thus far lead to the entire country rising up against the regime.

Even before the recent executions of those sentenced to death for "corruption on earth" and other grotesque charges, fewer and fewer people had been openly opposing the regime's escalating brutality.

Footage of demonstrators continues to come out of the Sistan and Beluchistan province in the southeast to this day. But in Tehran and elsewhere in the country's heartland, the regime has, it seems, regained control of the streets.

Has Fear Prevailed?

There can be no talk of a victory for the regime, says Mohammad Reza Nikfar. The dissident, who once earned his doctorate in Cologne with a thesis on the philosopher Martin Heidegger and is now the editor-in-chief of the Amsterdam-based exile radio station Zamaneh, believes "a stalemate" has ensued. He says both sides – the regime and the protesters – have achieved something, but neither has won.

"The regime has maintained its cohesion."

Mohammad Reza Nikfar, philosopher and dissident

It’s a sober view of reality, a stocktaking after four months of street protests, hopes and the regime's increasingly brutal violence. "What has the regime achieved? It has maintained control over Iran and quashed the mass protests for the time being," Nikfar says. "It locked up the people who could have been leaders in the insurgency early on. This was so coordinated that the lists probably existed beforehand. Also: The regime has maintained its cohesion. We still don't see a split."

On the other hand, Nikfar says, the protesters have also achieved a number of decisive victories that will prevent a return to the status quo. "They have exposed the rulers for what they are, liars and murderers, in front of the whole world. They have shown unity that didn't exist before, they have shaped an entirely new image of women, and they have formed a partnership with the minorities in Kurdistan and Baluchistan. And they know what they want: A secular state, not more reformers within the clerical system. Moreover, they have created symbols, slogans and songs that give strength to the movement even beyond the current phase of fear."

Loyalists Shouldn’t Be Underestimated

That may be less than demonstrators had initially hoped for, he says, but it is still quite significant. The editorial staff at Radio Zamaneh receives a continuous flow of information from their contacts in Iran. An investigative team checks the authenticity of the images and vets statements from several different sources about the same events. Nikfar says they have a pretty detailed overview of what's going on.

In foreign coverage of the uprising, loyalists to the system have mostly remained under-reported. But they still exist, otherwise the Islamic Republic probably wouldn't still be around. The Revolutionary Guards and their plainclothes Basij henchmen continue to shoot people; the torturers, intelligence lackeys, militiamen and police continue to arrest and maltreat real or perceived opponents. There are reports of individual security personnel refusing to fire on civilians, but thus far, there have been no reports of entire units laying down their arms, refusing to obey orders or defecting.

Nikfar warns that the regime loyalists shouldn't be underestimated – neither their number nor their perseverance. "They enjoy their status, and they also consider themselves to be God's servants," he says.

Added to this is the unique constitution of Iran: After coming to power in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini not only abolished the institutions of the old state – he also created a parallel apparatus of his own armed forces, a judiciary whose chief is appointed by the revolutionary leader and councils that can arbitrarily exclude people from all elected offices. Above all, the Sepah-e Pasdaran, or Revolutionary Guards, are both a complete military in their own right – with an air force, navy and intelligence service – and a gigantic economic empire. Its personnel, military and civilian, have important reasons to remain loyal.

An Unforgiving Tone

Even after coups, state apparatuses aren't generally abolished. The successors, after all, want to continue governing. But the Pasdaran and other organizations are Khomeini's creations, entities established for the sole purpose of maintaining the dictatorship's power. If they were to fall, more than a few generals would have to fear for their jobs and their lives. The Pasadaran could be disbanded entirely and corporate holdings of its officers expropriated. That creates loyalty.

Especially given that the Pasdaran acted as a murdering, torturing spearhead in defense of the regime and are now even more hated by the opposition.

The opposition rapper Toomaj Salehi, who has become a voice of the protest movement, prophesied in one of his last music videos before his arrest: "I saw a cage in the coffee cup of the government." He further rapped: "I saw a queue, Revolutionary Guards and mullahs, people in suits and ties who embezzled funds or profited from rents, lobbyists abroad, journalists and reporters, the government artist, all of whom were on trial."

Salehi, too, is now facing the death penalty. With his desire to bring everyone to trial, even those who themselves have no blood on their hands, he is speaking from the heart of many. The anger against the regime is too great, and the suffering of the victims has gone on for too long. Indeed, the calls aren't just limited to legal action, angry discussions among the opposition sometimes include demands to "line them up against the wall." But not everyone is comfortable with such calls. "All they want is to dance on the corpses of their oppressors," criticizes a woman from Tehran who rejects the regime but is also skeptical of the protest movement.

The unforgiving tone, the anger of the protesters is understandable, says Iranian sociology professor Mohammad Ali Kadivar, who teaches at Boston College and recently published a book on democracy movements and upheavals. "But it's not promising. The protest movement is up against a very powerful opponent," he says. The opposition, he says, needs allies within the power apparatus. He says there are many opportunists in the regime who only participate to enrich themselves. They could also change sides depending on which way the wind is blowing, he says. But: "If you only threaten them, they will stick with the regime all the more."

Too Poor to Strike

The Iranian sociologist Hamidreza Jalaipour estimates that only around 15 percent of the population were among the committed demonstrators, with around the same share supporting the regime. He says that a silent majority opposes the regime but doesn't dare take to the streets. Even the general strikes that have been announced on several occasions have not spread nationwide as the protesters had hoped. This has less to do with political positions than the financial situations in which many people find themselves. "Too poor to strike," a headline in Britain’s Economist read in December. The percentage of Iranians who are forced to get by on the equivalent of less than three euros a day has doubled in recent years to 31 percent. Many simply cannot afford to go on strike. It's a vicious circle: The economic crisis caused by the regime is, for the moment, also preserving the system.

"The protest movement has become a disruptive factor. But to succeed, it will have to bring the economy to a halt."

Mohammad Ali Kadivar, sociologist

The problem could be softened if the movement were better organized, with collections of money for striking workers, for example. Suggestions of this kind are now circulating, as are demands that the financially secure diaspora could help raise money. That idea, though, is complicated by foreign sanctions that exclude Iranian banks from the international financial system.

Sociologist Kadivar notes: "The protest movement has become a disruptive factor. But to succeed, it will have to bring the economy to a halt while presenting a viable alternative to the regime." To win over the people, he says, the opposition would have to organize itself better and also lay out clear plans for the future. Many people are dissatisfied, says Kadivar, but they are also uncertain about the alternative.

Backing from abroad: a demonstration in support of the opposition in France

Foto: JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK / AFP

There have been attempts at organization, but they are in their infancy and not very visible because of the mass repression. The German-Iranian political scientist Ali Fathollah-Nejad believes that organization and networking is taking place within Iranian professional associations. He points to the fact that in early December, 30 youth groups joined together to form the umbrella organization United Youth of Iran. In a manifesto, they called for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and the formation of a secular and inclusive democratic government. But they too, don't seem to have escaped repression. On Tuesday, a news agency close to the regime reported that a leader of the youth organization had been arrested.

Dissidents Close Ranks

On New Year's Eve, leading members of the Iranian diaspora came together for the first time, at the request of this youth organization, to form a coalition. Several well-known dissidents announced that with "organization and solidarity, 2023 will be the year of victory for the Iranian people." They include Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, women's rights activist Masih Alinejad and former Crown Prince Reza Pahlevi, who fled into exile after his father was overthrown in 1979, which is why he is not completely uncontroversial. Nevertheless, he does enjoy some popularity.

With the exception of the Kurdish politician Abdullah Mohtadi, none of the coalition members has an established party behind them. But the merger could at least mark the beginning of a coordinated opposition in exile.

Even if millions do not take to the streets in Iran for the time being, the root causes of the protests remain. The chasm between the regime and the population is huge, and the rulers’ ideology has been exposed as hypocrisy. Parts of Iran's middle class have slipped into poverty, while the children of the powerful reside in mansions and take luxury vacations abroad.

The "Islamic Revolution" as the foundation of the regime has eroded. Even Khomeini's dogma of supporting the oppressed, of standing by persecuted Muslims, rings hollow in the face of his successor's policies. Iran's leaders today supply drones for Russia's war of conquest against Ukraine and remain silent about China's oppression of Muslim Uighurs. At the same time, the Iranian population has become more secular, and the number of theology students has shrunk.

Will Regime Sacrifice Headscarves to Maintain Submission?

The headscarf has until now been the symbol of the regime's ideology. Today, discarding it is a powerful act of disobedience. Just by refusing to wear headscarves, women are putting their rejection of the Islamic Republic on display. They are demonstrating every day that the emperor has no clothes.

A symbol of revolt: women without headscarves in Tehran

Foto: Vahid Salemi / dpa

Women in Tehran and other cities have reported in recent weeks that they are no longer being stopped when they go out in public without a headscarf. Perhaps that will change under Iran's new police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan, who was appointed to his position by Khamenei in early January. Like his predecessor, he is the subject of international sanctions for his role in the deadly repression of protests, but he is also considered a hardliner when it comes to the dress code. During his time as Tehran's police chief, Radan ordered the arrest in 2007 of young men with "unusual" hairstyles and cracked down on women who didn't comply rigorously enough with the veiling requirement.

But there are calls from elements within the regime, including from circles close to the Revolutionary Guard, for the relaxing of the dress code. Perhaps the headscarf, that symbolic gesture of submission, will ultimately be sacrificed by the regime in order to maintain real submission. The Sepah-e Pasdaran is already the decisive power factor in the Iranian structure, the leaders of which are primarily interested in maintaining their power and profits. Philosopher Nikfar suspects that in the medium term, a Pasdaran-led military dictatorship could emerge that might then push the mullahs aside in order to secure its legitimacy. That would be, in Nikfar's words, "reform and oppression at the same time."

For the time being, the mullahs and the Pasdaran still appear to be moving in lockstep. But at some point in the not too distant future, an event will occur that could disrupt that unity: the death of Revolutionary Leader Ali Khamenei, 83. There is currently no undisputed successor. Ultimately, the succession debate could break open the conflict between those who rely on an iron grip and those who want to regain legitimacy.

Then the cards would indeed be reshuffled.

Spiegel · by Christoph Reuter, Monika Bolliger, DER SPIEGEL

12. A font feud brews after State Dept. picks Calibri over Times New Roman

:-)

An important national security issue? Message readability is important.

I am reaching into the deep recesses of my memory but I think when I was in CGSC in 1994 someone won an award for showing how much printer ink and paper would be saved by using Times New Roman versus Arial. I suppose someone must have done a similar study for Times New Roman versus Caibri.

A font feud brews after State Dept. picks Calibri over Times New Roman

The Washington Post · by John Hudson · January 18, 2023

The U.S. State Department is going sans serif: It has directed staff at home and overseas to phase out the Times New Roman font and adopt Calibri in official communications and memos, in a bid to help employees who are visually impaired or have other difficulties reading.

In a cable sent Tuesday and obtained by The Washington Post, Secretary of State Antony Blinken directed the department to use a larger sans-serif font in high-level internal documents, and gave the department’s domestic and overseas offices until Feb. 6 to “adopt Calibri as the standard font for all requested papers.”

“The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin,” read the subject line.

Blinken’s cable said the shift to Calibri will make it easier for people with disabilities who use certain assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to read department communication. The change was recommended by the secretary’s office of diversity and inclusion, but the decision has already ruffled feathers among aesthetic-conscious employees who have been typing in Times New Roman for years in cables and memos from far-flung embassies and consulates around the world.

“A colleague of mine called it sacrilege,” said a Foreign Service officer in Asia, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy changes. “I don’t mind the decision because I hate serifs, but I don’t love Calibri.”

At institutions like the Pentagon, the bureaucratic currency is fighter jets, tanks and missiles. But at the State Department, words are the coin of the realm, and how they are used matters.

“I’m anticipating an internal revolt,” said a second Foreign Service officer.

Another said the water-cooler talk ranged from strong approval to mild grumbling. “It definitely took up, like, half the day,” said the official.

The department has used Times New Roman as its standard typeface for memos sent to the secretary since 2004.

In recent years, the decorative “wings” and “feet” of serif fonts have gone out of fashion in design circles and consumer brands have opted for cleaner sans-serif fonts in their logos such as Helvetica. “Millennials Have Killed the Serif,” hailed a New York magazine headline in 2018.

The Washington Post uses the serif-friendly typeface Miller Daily in print and Georgia in digital versions.

The secretary’s decision was motivated by accessibility issues and not aesthetics, said a senior State Department official familiar with the change. It is the latest big copy edit shake-up under Blinken in just a few weeks. Earlier this month, the State Department announced it would start spelling Turkey as “Türkiye” in diplomatic and formal settings at the request of the Turkish embassy.

Many experts agree that serif typefaces — categories of fonts with added strokes — are more difficult to read on computer screens. (The difference is lessened when it comes to printed materials.)

Size is important too: The best practice, according to the University of Edinburgh’s Disability and Inclusive Learning Service, is to use 14-point font and avoid writing in block letters or italicizing or underlining text. “Good practice would be the use of a sans serif font,” the service said in an accessibility guide. “Fonts such as Times New Roman are much less accessible.”

But there is no one-size-fits-all accessibility solution, says Jack Llewellyn, a London-based designer who specializes in typography, and a change in font that could help some readers may actually make reading more difficult for others.

In its cable, the State Department said it was choosing to shift to 14-point Calibri font because serif fonts like Times New Roman “can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers. It can also cause visual recognition issues for individuals with learning disabilities,” it said.

While Calibri may improve the experience of readers who use screen readers or OCR — technology that can convert the image of text into editable text — it could make reading more difficult for others, Llewellyn said.

Other design factors, including the alignment of the text, the spacing between lines and the contrast in color between the text and the background can make a bigger difference in accessibility than font type or size, says Ian Hosking, a senior research associate at the Engineering Design Center at the University of Cambridge.

Hosking says those seeking to make text accessible to the largest number of people should allow personalization. “Pick a good default font, go to one-and-a-half line spacing, consider a baseline off-white background with black text, and then guide” readers to increase or decrease the contrast or font size based on what feels most comfortable to them, he says.

This approach comes with trade-offs, Hosking points out: Increasing the line spacing, for example, makes a document longer. For institutions like the State Department that prize succinct and standardized memos, that could be a problem.

Overall, designing a functional, usable and readable document is a “complicated” and “individual” process with no “simple solution,” he says.

The debate over fonts and design is long-running. In its memo, the State Department cited Microsoft’s use of Calibri as a default font as a reason for its shift. But in 2021, Microsoft announced it would phase out Calibri as a default font in favor of one of five new custom sans-serif fonts.

“Calibri has been the default font for all things Microsoft since 2007, when it stepped in to replace Times New Roman across Microsoft Office,” the company said in a memo. “It has served us all well, but we believe it’s time to evolve.”

Still, the fact that the State Department, with its tens of thousands of Foreign Service officers, civil servants and local staff, and more than 270 diplomatic missions around the world, would seek to make its documents more accessible is a “good thing,” said Llewellyn, who argues a broader debate is overdue. “Why wouldn’t they be recognizing that there’s an important issue to address there?”

The Washington Post · by John Hudson · January 18, 2023

13. Opinion | Other fonts I hope the State Department considered

An important national security issue? Message readability is important.

You do have to appreciate the conclusion.

Opinion | Other fonts I hope the State Department considered

The Washington Post · by Alexandra Petri · January 21, 2023

Opinion Other fonts I hope the State Department considered

Columnist |

January 21, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EST

Well, the State Department’s recent decision to change its standard communique typeface from Times New Roman has caused quite a meltdown — or, as I like to call it, a font-do.

However, I’m sure the State Department carefully considered many options before making the switch. Calibri won on the grounds of accessibility, with the hope that a sans serif typeface would be more broadly legible. Here are some of the other fonts — and the messages their selection would have sent — that I hope the department considered.

Wingdings: Wingdings is great if you want to take a lot of very controversial foreign policy steps without anyone noticing what you are doing. You can literally declare war on another country and they will be like, “Aw, the State Department sent me a series of urgent-looking smiley faces for no reason.” Think of how much embarrassment we would have saved ourselves had all communication to Denmark regarding purchasing Greenland been entirely illegible!

Papyrus: A great way to make all your diplomatic announcements feel as though they are centering exercises at a wellness retreat where there are a lot of little pots of bamboo and salt lamps. How could you not assent to a treaty in such a zen setting? Also useful if we ever get into some kind of diplomatic scrape with the “Avatar” franchise planet of Pandora.

Comic Sans: Lots of people have rightly pointed out that Comic Sans is unjustly maligned. It is a perfectly good font for some occasions! I cannot think of any better one for a Christmas letter of unexpected length, or a self-published collection of children’s verse, or a clown’s business card. Not all fonts are for all purposes! But one purpose Comic Sans would definitely be bad for is diplomatic communiques: “Will you be our trading partner? Y/N Circle one :)”

Follow Alexandra Petri's opinionsFollow

Impact: This is not a message from the United States. This is a message from an angry homemade T-shirt, or an anonymous note stuffed in your mailbox warning that your dog barks too much at night. Yes, if the United States ever wants to go to war with a dad holding a fish whose grainy image has been printed on a white crew neck, this is the typeface for that.

COPPERPLATE GOTHIC: WHEN YOU WANT TO BE YELLING ALL THE TIME EVEN WHEN YOU’RE NOT YELLING. Teddy “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick” Roosevelt would have hated this font.

Edwardian Script: This would suffuse all U.S. diplomatic communiques with a sense of longing and repression: “I await your white paper most ardently. A paper white as your spotless gloves, whose touch I still recollect, when, in the rain, my finger brushed yours for one forbidden moment. I cannot now think of rain without recalling you to mind.” Really, its filigree is so exquisite you almost feel you don’t need to read the communications at all! All well and good until you actually get a magnifying glass and discover you have started World War I because someone has insulted your uncle the Kaiser, and your alliances got too complicated because you were so excited about sending beautifully calligraphed notes to all the European capitals that you got a little carried away.

Jokerman: A bonus feature of this font is that it feels like an invitation to an arts-and-crafts party! Instead of a long communique exhaustively explaining the geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea, what about a sip-and-paint watercolor evoking them?

Courier New: It was good enough for the Zimmerman Telegram, wasn’t it?

Hypothetical Triple-Serif Font: If sans serif fonts exist, mustn’t all those serifs go somewhere? Each letter burdened with dozens of castoff serifs, this font is almost entirely unreadable, looking as though the message has fought its way through a thick mass of brambles to arrive. Excellent for sensitive communications, so long as the recipient has the appropriate cipher to de-serif.

Calibri: Is it the case that someone put a lot of effort into finding this font, a typeface so accessible and legible that it merited a change to State Department policy? Or did someone put in the minimum effort possible and send a communique in the default font suggested by Microsoft Word, and that person is now trying to cover their tracks? Y/N Circle one :)

The Washington Post · by Alexandra Petri · January 21, 2023

14. Ukraine’s Winter Could Turn Against Russian Troops

Winter wars and winter fighting are the worst.

Photos at the link.

Ukraine’s Winter Could Turn Against Russian Troops

With Western-supplied uniforms and ‘trench candles,’ Ukrainian soldiers seek a cold-weather advantage

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-winter-could-turn-against-russian-troops-11674294354?utm_source=pocket_saves

By Alistair MacDonaldFollow

and Oksana Pyrozhok

Jan. 21, 2023 8:00 am ET

BAKHMUT, Ukraine—In the battle to keep warm, Ukrainian infantryman Kyrylo Molchanov has turned to “trench candles”—empty food cans packed with cardboard—to heat his front-line dugout.

With Russia and Ukraine fighting through the winter, keeping Ukrainian soldiers warm could become a competitive advantage for Kyiv.

For armies, winter weather affects everything from maneuverability to battery power. But the cold and wet can have a crushing effect on soldiers’ morale and ability to fight, while creating potential medical problems.

The U.S. and its allies have sent hundreds of thousands of pieces of winter clothing. Ukraine has supplemented those supplies from elsewhere, and the various items in Lt. Molchanov’s uniform come from several countries.

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Some Russian soldiers seem to be arriving for battle less well kitted out, hindered in part by a hasty mobilization drive in the fall.

Ukraine’s armed forces are adapting, cutting wood from local forests, sourcing smaller barracks and using the trench candles, which volunteers and family send packed tight with rolls of cardboard.

“If you light it an hour or two before going to bed, it heats up more than you would expect,” Lt. Molchanov said from Ukraine’s southern front line.

A Ukrainian serviceman held a metal can used as a makeshift heater—also known as a ‘trench candle.’

PHOTO: ANATOLII STEPANOV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Ukraine’s winter has so far been mild, but temperatures can frequently drop to below minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mild or not, winter affects fighting in many ways. As leaves fall, it is harder to conceal equipment. Fog, rain and snow make identifying targets more difficult. Cold degrades battery life faster, affecting drones and radios. Mud makes movement problematic, but when the ground freezes, digging trenches and minefields is harder. Soldiers burn more calories in the cold, so need more food.

But one of the biggest problems is that wet and cold weather can affect morale and performance.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What steps can the West take to support Ukrainian forces through the colder months? Join the conversation below.

“When you are really, really cold, you stop thinking about anything except how cold you are,” said Ben Hodges, a former commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe, who says Western-supplied clothing and better leadership to help troops keep warm gives Ukraine the advantage.

Having the right uniforms, sleeping bags and clothing such as socks is essential to any winter fight, said Ed Arnold, from the Royal United Services Institute, a London defense-and-security think tank.

The former British infantry officer witnessed the negative effects of cold weather on his troops in winter training.

“Soldiers can degrade in a couple of days if they are not in the right mind-set and haven’t got the right kit,” he said.

What Attacks on Russian Air Bases Tell Us About Moscow’s Vulnerabilities

One Saturday in Dnipro, When a Russian Missile Shattered Lives

The New York Times · by Michael Schwirtz · January 21, 2023

A missile with a 2,000-pound warhead hit a large residential building last weekend in Dnipro, Ukraine.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

Despite the ever-present danger of war, life in Ukraine proceeds almost normally at times. Then, suddenly, it all changes, as it did in Dnipro after a missile struck an apartment complex.

A missile with a 2,000-pound warhead hit a large residential building last weekend in Dnipro, Ukraine.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

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Jan. 21, 2023

DNIPRO, Ukraine — A Russian missile as long as a city bus was nearing the end of a roughly 300-mile flight, its 2,000-pound warhead armed to detonate on impact.

As it was descending through a gray sky last Saturday, traveling at supersonic speed, Rostyslav Yaroshenko, 12, was watching TikTok videos in his kitchen on the third floor at 118 Victory Embankment, a sprawling apartment complex in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Six floors up, Yevgeniy Botvynov had just curled up with his wife, Olha, under a blanket, trying to keep warm during yet another power outage.

On the other side of the building, two couples had gathered in their kitchens on the fourth floor, one of them warming a late lunch, the other doting on their 1-year-old son.

It was what passes for an ordinary Saturday for ordinary Ukrainian people these days, in a place far from the front lines of the war with Russia, but never fully at peace. All day, air-raid warnings were sounding, forcing people to make calculations that have become habitual: Go to a shelter or stay home? Take the elevator or the stairs?

Most of the time, life appears to be normal. And then, suddenly, it does not.

Around 3:40 p.m. on the 325th day of Russia’s full-fledged war in Ukraine, an ordinary Saturday turned extraordinary when the Russian Kh-22 missile slammed into 118 Victory Embankment.

A woman reacting to the missile strike last weekend in Dnipro.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

A resident gathered her belongings from her apartment the day after the attack.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

More than 30 apartments were instantly incinerated, with nothing left but a column of swirling ash. Along the singed periphery, some units were sliced apart with almost surgical precision, exposing the contents of people’s living rooms, bathrooms and kitchens to the open air. A bowl of fruit sat unscathed on the table in one kitchen that had been opened up like a dollhouse; in another unit, a painting of a dog hung crookedly on a kitchen wall — though the kitchen was no longer there.

On Thursday, the authorities raised the death toll to 46, including six children; 80 were wounded. It was one of the deadliest single attacks against civilians since the early weeks of the war.

The apartment building, an enormous Soviet-era edifice, forms a large inverted J that curls around an internal courtyard, with the largest section facing the Dnipro River. An estimated 1,700 people called it home.

The missile hit just above the joint where the building began to curve away from the embankment. For those at the center of the impact, death came instantly: The explosion simply vaporized some residents, according to the authorities.

The State of the War

Military Aid: Western defense officials meeting in Germany failed to reach an agreement for sending battle tanks to Ukraine. It was a setback to Kyiv’s hopes to quickly receive weapons that President Volodymyr Zelensky has called crucial to the next phase of the war.
Helicopter Crash: A helicopter crashed in a fireball in a Kyiv suburb, killing a member of Mr. Zelensky’s cabinet and more than a dozen other people, and dealing a blow to Ukraine’s wartime leadership.
Dnipro: A Russian strike on an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city was one of the deadliest for civilians away from the front line since the war began. The attack prompted renewed calls for Moscow to be charged with war crimes.

Olha Usova, a 36-year-old dentist, happened to be walking by on her way to a newly opened gym when the missile struck. A single piece of shrapnel pierced her heart, her husband, Eduard, said, killing her instantly. He said he felt that with normal attacks, you had a decent chance of surviving just by remaining indoors. This one was different.

“In this case,” he said, “such a rocket left no chance for survival.”

Many did manage to survive, but that often depended on where in their homes they were at the moment of impact. Many found themselves trapped, the missile’s force having sheared off the stairwells on two sides of the building.

The bodies of five people who were killed in the strike. In some cases, survival depended on where residents were in their apartments.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

Oleh Valovyi, 50, was recovering at a hospital on Wednesday after suffering serious injuries in the missile attack.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Mr. Botvynov, who had been cuddling with his wife under a blanket, first had to pull himself free from the twisted remains of a balcony that had crashed through his living room. Then he grabbed his heavily bleeding wife and rushed to the front door. When he opened it, there was nothing but a nine-story drop into the smoking rubble below.

Across the void, he saw a woman curled in fetal position, partly buried in debris from her destroyed apartment.

“I thought that it was a corpse,” said Mr. Botvynov, 48. “And then I see her waving her hand.”

It is impossible to say whether the apartment complex in Dnipro was hit intentionally. The Kh-22 is a 1960s-era anti-ship missile launched by Russian bombers that is designed to attack warships at sea, and it may have more limited abilities to accurately attack targets on land.

A power station directly across the river from the complex could have been an intended target, part of Russia’s strategy of starving Ukrainians of electricity, though it was roughly two miles away. The Kremlin has denied that a Russian missile was involved, blaming an errant Ukrainian air-defense missile. Military experts have dismissed this claim as yet another Russian fabrication, pointing to the colossal damage.

The day of the attack was a holiday in Ukraine, when many celebrate what is known as Old New Year, based on the Orthodox Church’s pre-modern calendar. That made Olha Afanasieva, 49, anxious. After 11 months of war, Ukrainians believe that the Kremlin takes a twisted pleasure in attacking on holidays.

Rescuers at the apartment complex last Saturday night. The strike shattered the calm of a Saturday afternoon.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

Residents watched rescuers searching for missing people after the strike last weekend.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

“For me, it was such an anxious day,” she said, adding that she had insisted that her husband not go fishing as planned. “I felt like something was about to happen.”

Ms. Afanasieva’s husband, Oleh Valovyi, took things in stride, though. Rockets had rained down on a number of cities that day, and the entire country was under an alert for hours.

“There are not that many bomb shelters,” Mr. Valovyi said, “and you get tired of running there because the air-raid alarms sound practically every day, several times a day.”

The couple were seated at their kitchen table when the missile hit, she with her left side facing a window, he directly in front of it. The blast blew out the window, and glass and debris shredded half of Ms. Afanasieva’s face. But her husband bore the brunt of it.

“He was just all black and bloody,” she said. “His face started to turn black under the eyes, and all that, my God.”

Finding their apartment door jammed, she went to the window screaming and waving a towel and a bathrobe, trying to catch the attention of firefighters who had started assembling below.

At the same time, Mr. Botvynov, facing the nine-story drop with no stairs, was frantically signaling with his cellphone’s flashlight, worried that his wife, who was bleeding profusely from her head, would lose consciousness.

On the fourth floor, Kateryna Zelenska, who is 27 and deaf, was trapped under the rubble, unable to signal emergency workers. Her husband, Oleksii Zelensky, 28, and their 1-year-old son, Mykyta, were somewhere nearby, but she did not know their conditions. Slabs of concrete had collapsed onto their apartment from the floors above. Somehow, Ms. Zelenska managed to make a brief call to her mother, apparently to say goodbye.

“She said, ‘Mom, I love you, I love you,’ and that’s it, it broke off,” her mother, Oksana Kulak, said through tears.

A volunteer smoked a cigarette while watching the rescue efforts the day after the strike. Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

An injured resident at the site of the missile strike last weekend in Dnipro.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

Over the next 24 hours, rescuers using cranes and ladders saved dozens of people trapped on upper floors. It took about three hours to reach Mr. Botvynov and his wife. Ms. Afanasieva got out first, but said she regretted leaving her husband to manage by himself. He passed out on the balcony as firefighters were trying to guide him onto a platform atop a ladder.

Later at the hospital, he was in surprisingly good spirits for someone whose body had been pierced by glass head to toe. But he expressed confusion over Russia’s choice of target.

“I work at a company that deals with agriculture, selling parts for the tractors, a completely peaceful profession,” he said. “Surely, my death would not have any military significance.”

How rescuers noticed Ms. Zelenska, the deaf woman, is unclear, but by Sunday morning, firefighters attached to safety lines and standing on a platform suspended by a crane were working furiously at the spot where her apartment had been. They cut away debris for hours. Finally, she appeared covered in dust, alive but visibly distressed.

For the next 48 hours, firefighters continued to hack at the concrete slabs that had pancaked onto Ms. Zelenska’s apartment, searching for her husband and son.

By Tuesday morning, the couple’s families had gathered at the site in what was a mostly silent vigil, until, as the sun came up, Ms. Zelenska’s father, Mykola Kulak, vented his anger.

“The Russians, let them all perish, these devils,” he screamed, holding up his phone to show a video of his grandson. “This child is still lying under the rubble! I am cursing them, and I wish that every Russian family has two or three, just like this, lying there like our child.”

Shortly afterward, rescuers brought down the bodies — first Mykyta, then Oleksii — using a special crane. They were placed on the ground in black body bags as their family waited to carry out the wrenching task of identifying them.

Emergency workers paused to watch as the body of Mykyta Zelensky, 1, was lowered to the ground on Tuesday.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

The parents of Oleksii Zelensky, Mykyta’s father, with their son’s body on Tuesday.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Oleksii’s parents knelt in front of their son’s body, unzipped the bag and for several interminable minutes caressed him, sobbing.

Ms. Zelenska’s parents had rushed off earlier to join their daughter, who had been hospitalized since being rescued two days earlier. She had found out on the internet that the bodies of her husband and son had been recovered, the first confirmation she had that they were dead.

On Tuesday afternoon, the authorities declared an end to the search, but by evening, firefighters had returned to 118 Victory Embankment for an unexpected rescue mission. One that came at the behest of Rostyslav, the boy who had been watching TikTok videos before the missile hit.

He had managed to escape his mangled apartment by climbing out a window and scrambling down the building’s facade with the help of bystanders. But in the confusion, he had been unable to locate his white cat, Belyash.

“I was more frightened for my cat,” he said.

And so firefighters once again climbed into the building as Rostyslav, his mother, Nadiia, and a small crowd of onlookers gathered in the darkness below. After about 20 minutes, a firefighter emerged from the kitchen window, a red and white cat carrier in hand. Inside, was a dirty and frightened Belyash.

“We’re going home,” said Rostyslav, peering into the carrier when at last he and his pet were reunited. “Not this home, of course, but everything will be OK.”

Rostyslav Yaroshenko, 12, holding his cat, Belyash, at a friend’s apartment after Belyash was rescued by emergency workers on Tuesday.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Natalia Yermak and Andriy Dubchak contributed reporting from Dnipro, and John Ismay from Washington.

The New York Times · by Michael Schwirtz · January 21, 2023

16. Pair of Shootings Rocks Special Forces Community at Fort Bragg

Pair of Shootings Rocks Special Forces Community at Fort Bragg

military.com · by Steve Beynon · January 20, 2023

An Army noncommissioned officer assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was killed in a shooting this week, service officials announced Friday.

In what appeared to be an unrelated incident, another soldier serving in the Army's Special Operations Command, also at the same base, was arrested on attempted murder charges tied to the shooting of his fiancee.

The pair of shootings comes during a turbulent stretch for the Army, occurring days after more than a dozen soldiers serving in Fort Bragg Special Forces units became the subject of a probe into a potential drug trafficking ring.

Staff Sgt. Jimmy Lee Smith III was pronounced dead at the scene Wednesday in Raeford, North Carolina. It is unclear what led to the shooting. A spokesperson with the Hoke County Sheriff's Office did not return a request for comment ahead of this story's publication.

"Jimmy was more than just an NCO, he was a mentor, a shoulder to cry on, a comedian at times, but most of all a great friend," said Spc. Roenice Todd, a soldier who served with Smith, said in a statement. "It was truly an honor to be able to learn from him."

Smith, an Army cook, enlisted in 2016 and previously served in the 2nd Infantry Division and 82nd Airborne Division before being assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group's support battalion. He deployed to Jordan in 2020. His awards include the Army Commendation Medal with four oak leaf clusters and the Army Achievement Medal with one oak leaf cluster.

The same day that Smith was killed, Staff Sgt. Brandon Amos-Dixon allegedly shot his fiancee at a grocery store while she was in her car with her child in a parking lot in Spring Lake, North Carolina, just outside Fort Bragg. Chelsea Ling Chung was shot in the shoulder, and her child suffered minor injuries, according to reporting from WRAL.

Amos-Dixon was arrested in Bland County, Virginia, on Thursday, more than 200 miles from Fort Bragg. The arrest followed a five-hour search that included a high-speed chase that ended when Amos-Dixon slammed into a police car and proceeded to flee on foot, according to reporting from ABC 11. That chase prompted local schools to go into lockdown.

Amos-Dixon faces two counts of attempted murder, 10 counts of shooting into an occupied car, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and charges related to eluding police and reckless driving.

-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.

military.com · by Steve Beynon · January 20, 2023

17. Washington must label Russian private army Wagner Group as the terrorist group it is

Criminal or terrorist?

Excerpt:

Wagner’s pattern of behavior fulfills the definitional, organization, and recency criteria necessary for the Biden administration to designate the group as a terrorist entity. While there may be pragmatic reasons to avoid using a terrorist designation against Wagner, from a legal perspective its designability is unambiguous even if the group doesn’t fit the typical pattern of a terrorist organization. Wagner’s weaponization of fear is terrorism at its most basic level, and thus Wagner meets the legal criteria for designation as a terrorist entity.

Washington must label Russian private army Wagner Group as the terrorist group it is

NY Daily News

Recent media reports show that the Biden administration is considering designating the infamous Wagner Group, a Russian private military company, as a terrorist entity. While such a move may seem counterintuitive — mercenaries are not the typical image that comes to mind when we discuss terrorism — our extensive research into the U.S.’s architecture of terrorism designations convinces us that this is a legal and viable tool.

The administration’s discussion of potentially designating the Wagner Group comes at a time when there is increased international focus on using antiterrorism tools to counter various aggressive actions by Russia. The European Parliament passed a resolution in November declaring Russia to be a state sponsor of terrorism — a move that is less significant than it may appear at first glance, as the European Union currently has no legal mechanism for designating state sponsors of terrorism.

While President Biden has said that such designation of Russia is off the table for the U.S., designation of the Wagner Group may be more palatable for his administration.

PMC Wagner Centre, associated with the founder of the Wagner private military group (PMC) Yevgeny Prigozhin, during the official opening of the office block on the National Unity Day, in Saint Petersburg, on November 4, 2022. (OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP via Getty Images)

To be sure, Wagner’s status as a private military company makes it substantially different from the majority of U.S.-designated terrorist entities, most of which are ideologically-motivated extremist groups. Despite these differences, the Wagner Group legally qualifies as a terrorist entity and could be designated as such.

A foreign entity that conducts terrorist violence can be deemed a foreign terrorist organization or a specially designated global terrorist. Though these two designation mechanisms differ slightly in how they define terrorism and punish designated entities, their fundamental conception of terrorism and terrorist groups are the same. Terrorist groups use violence as part of a psychological campaign to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or to “compel” action. There are also two criteria for designation that are not obvious from available definitions but important to the U.S. government: terrorist entities must be coherent organizations and must have engaged in recent terrorist acts.

Establishing that an organization maintains command and control over its members is important for proving culpability for their actions. In Wagner’s case, its internal hierarchy is self-evident. Wagner is not a “leaderless” private military company where anyone can claim membership. Wagner also demonstrates a consistent methodology across a variety of countries: the group establishes bases of operation, integrates with government forces, and leverages its shadowy legal status to conduct horrific acts of violence without repercussions.

While its violence is often described as “indiscriminate,” Wagner’s acts are neither random nor the product of rogue units. They are part of an intentional campaign to project power and influence through fear. A consistent pattern of violence across multiple theaters shows that Wagner’s violence has at least tacit support from leadership, but far more likely direct approval.

In the Central African Republic (CAR), for example, Wagner arrived to train government forces and protect Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mining investments in 2018 as part of an agreement between Russia and CAR. While there, the group committed numerous human rights abuses that targeted civilians.

One particularly notorious episode that prompted a United Nations investigation offers a glimpse into Wagner’s strategy. A year ago, on Jan. 16-17, Wagner invaded the mining town of Aïgbando, set homes ablaze, forced hundreds to flee, and killed several dozen civilians. Victims further reported kidnappings and sexual assaults. Nicolas de Rivière, the French ambassador to the UN, deemed these actions to be “part of a method which aims to provoke terror in order to control certain territories and derive profits from them.” Elsewhere in CAR, Wagner attacked miners, summarily executed men, and conducted unprovoked attacks on civilians taking refuge in a local mosque.

Wagner has replicated its pattern of summary execution, destruction of towns, and indiscriminate fire in other countries, including Mali, Ukraine, and Sudan — all just in the past year. The repetition of this practice over time and space indicates that Wagner leadership continues to greenlight these tactics.

Wagner’s pattern of behavior fulfills the definitional, organization, and recency criteria necessary for the Biden administration to designate the group as a terrorist entity. While there may be pragmatic reasons to avoid using a terrorist designation against Wagner, from a legal perspective its designability is unambiguous even if the group doesn’t fit the typical pattern of a terrorist organization. Wagner’s weaponization of fear is terrorism at its most basic level, and thus Wagner meets the legal criteria for designation as a terrorist entity.

Gartenstein-Ross is the founder and CEO of Valens Global and leads a project on domestic extremism for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Urban is an analyst at Valens Global and supports FDD’s project on domestic extremism.

NY Daily News

18. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 21, 2023

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-21-2023

Key Takeaways

The Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut is likely a strategically sound effort despite its costs for Ukraine.
Milblogger discourse surrounding the reported replacement of Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky with Lieutenant General Oleg Makarevich as commander of the Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) has further emphasized the fracture between two main groups within the Russian MoD—the pro-Gerasimov camp, comprised of those who represent the conventional MoD establishment, and milblogger favorites who are less aligned with the MoD institution. The milblogger discourse on this issue additionally offers insight into internal Russian MoD dynamics that may have led to Teplinsky’s removal.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin has launched a series of information operations aimed at portraying himself as a sacrificial hero of Russia in a crusade against petty and corrupt Russian authorities.
The Sun reported that US intelligence estimates total Russian military casualties in Ukraine as 188,000 as of January 20, suggesting a possible 47,000 Russians killed in action in less than a year of fighting.
Russian forces conducted a small ground reconnaissance into northeastern Sumy Oblast.
Russian forces continued limited ground attacks to regain lost positions along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued to conduct ground attacks around Bakhmut and west of Donetsk City. Russian forces are likely making incremental gains around Bakhmut.
Available open-source evidence as of January 21 indicates that Zaporizhia Oblast Russian occupation official Vladimir Rogov’s January 20 claims of a major territorial capture are likely part of a Russian information operation.
Complaints from Russian milbloggers indicate that Russian forces continue to rely on cell phones and non-secure civilian technologies for core military functions – serious breaches of operational security (OPSEC).

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 21, 2023

Jan 21, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

understandingwar.org

Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Angela Howard, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

January 21, 7:45 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.

The Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut is likely a strategically sound effort despite its costs for Ukraine. While the costs associated with Ukraine’s continued defense of Bakhmut are significant and likely include opportunity costs related to potential Ukrainian counter-offensive operations elsewhere, Ukraine would also have paid a significant price for allowing Russian troops to take Bakhmut easily. Bakhmut itself is not operationally or strategically significant but had Russian troops taken it relatively rapidly and cheaply they could have hoped to expand operations in ways that could have forced Ukraine to construct hasty defensive positions in less favorable terrain. One must also not dismiss the seemingly “political” calculus of committing to the defense of Bakhmut lightly—Russian forces occupy more than 100,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory including multiple Ukrainian cities and are inflicting atrocities on Ukrainian civilians in occupied areas. It is not unreasonable for political and military leaders to weigh these factors in determining whether to hold or cede particular population concentrations. Americans have not had to make such choices since 1865 and should not be quick to scorn considerations that would be very real to them were American cities facing such threats.

Ukrainian forces have previously employed a similar gradual attrition model to compel Russian operations in certain areas to culminate after months of suffering high personnel and equipment losses in pursuit of marginal tactical gains. Russian troops spent months attempting to grind through effective Ukrainian defenses in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in the early summer of 2022 and captured Lysychansk only after a controlled Ukrainian withdrawal from the area.[1] The capture of Lysychansk and the Luhansk Oblast administrative border, however, quickly proved to be operationally insignificant for Russian forces, and the ultimate result of the Ukrainian defense of the area was the forced culmination of the Russian offensive in Luhansk Oblast, leading to the overall stagnation of Russian offensive operations in Donbas in the summer and fall of 2022. Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut will likely contribute to a similar result—Russian forces have been funneling manpower and equipment into the area since May 2022 and have yet to achieve any operationally significant advances that seriously threaten the Ukrainian defense of the area. ISW continues to re-evaluate its assessment that the Russian offensive on Bakhmut may be culminating but continues to assess that Ukrainian forces are effectively pinning Russian troops, equipment, and overall operational focus on Bakhmut, thus inhibiting Russia’s ability to pursue offensives elsewhere in the theater.

The West has contributed to Ukraine’s inability to take advantage of having pinned Russian forces in Bakhmut by slow-rolling or withholding weapons systems and supplies essential for large-scale counteroffensive operations.

Milblogger discourse surrounding the reported replacement of Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky with Lieutenant General Oleg Makarevich as commander of the Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) has further emphasized the fracture between two main groups within the Russian MoD—the pro-Gerasimov camp, comprised of those who represent the conventional MoD establishment, and milblogger favorites who are less aligned with the MoD institution. A prominent milblogger announced Teplinsky’s replacement on January 20, triggering a wave of discontent among other milbloggers who voiced their confusion and concern over the situation.[2] Several milbloggers questioned why the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) would replace a well-respected career VDV commander with an “academic” with no combat experience.[3] One milblogger remarked that the Russian MoD has now “removed” two of the “key” commanders of Russian operations in Ukraine—Teplinsky and former theater commander Army General Sergey Surovikin (although Surovikin was merely demoted to a lower command position rather than removed from office).[4] Several milbloggers claimed that Teplinsky was dismissed following a disagreement with the Russian General Staff, most likely meaning the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, regarding the use of Russian paratroopers for planned offensive operations.[5] The staunch milblogger criticism of a move that was likely orchestrated by Gerasimov suggests that the Russian information space is increasingly viewing changes made within the Russian MoD in a binary with the pro-Gerasimov camp on one hand and those perceived as milblogger favorites on the other.

The milblogger discourse on this issue additionally offers insight into internal Russian MoD dynamics that may have led to Teplinsky’s removal. The suggestion that Teplinsky was removed following an argument with the General Staff over the use of paratroopers in offensive operations suggests that Teplinsky may have resisted Gerasimov’s desires to use VDV forces to support operations in the Bakhmut area, where Russian offensive operations are largely focused. ISW previously observed that VDV forces took high losses in the early phases of the war and were likely held in reserve following the Russian withdrawal from the right (west) bank of Kherson Oblast in the fall of 2022. Teplinsky could have resisted committing VDV units to highly attritional offensive efforts in Donetsk Oblast that have been largely led by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group on the grounds that traditional motorized rifle or tank units would have been more appropriate or for more purely parochial reasons.[6] He may have resigned or been fired over the disagreement. Gerasimov likely seeks to weaken the significant airborne mafia that has long protected the airborne troops (which are a separate service from the ground forces in Russia) from policies and reforms that applied to the ground forces by replacing Teplinsky with Makarevich, a ground forces officer with no VDV experience.[7] Milblogger discussion of this reported interaction suggests that Gerasimov is increasingly seeking to commit conventional Russian elements, including VDV elements, to operations in Ukraine, and the resulting pushback from the Russian information space indicates that his campaign to do so will not be well received.

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin has launched a series of information operations aimed at portraying himself as a sacrificial hero of Russia in a crusade against petty and corrupt Russian authorities. Prigozhin’s personal press service on January 21 amplified a letter from the family of a deceased Wagner PMC soldier that contrasted “indifferent” local officials, who did not help with the funeral of their son, with Prigozhin, who listens to their appeals.[8] The letter referred to Prigozhin as “the only Person [sic] who is not indifferent to the fate of the Defender of Russia and his family.”[9] Prigozhin also responded to reports that the Mayoral Office of Kamyshlovsky Raion, Sverdlovsk Oblast denied a Wagner Group fighter a funeral with honors with the claim that “we,” likely showing solidarity with “the common man,” will “deal with this scum” and “pull their children by the nostrils” to participate in the war in Ukraine.[10] These statements set Prigozhin at odds with unpopular Russian officials who operate under a different set of rules from the majority of Russians and increase his appeal as a “hero” of the voiceless. They also support Prigozhin’s ongoing campaign to gain legal recognition – primarily in the forms of recognition and funerary honors for Wagner PMC soldiers – for Wagner PMC, as private military companies remain illegal in Russia.[11] Prigozhin is falsely portraying himself and Wagner Group as moral entities that will continue their moral acts despite prosecution. Prigozhin claimed on January 20 that he would not mind if someone brought a criminal case against him because he would be able to participate in Wagner PMC from prison and that international fighters seek out Wagner due to the “call of their conscience.”[12]

Prigozhin is simultaneously building his domestic power base and reputation as a significant international actor in an effort that is both fueled by and further fuels his information operations against the Russian government. Wagner-affiliated news outlet RIAFAN published staged footage of Wagner forces placing the bodies of supposed Ukrainian soldiers into coffins to send back to Ukraine, and Prigozhin claimed that he advocated sending 20 truckloads of bodies to Ukraine in a likely attempt to humanize Wagner Group and portray Wagner fighters as honorable while portraying Wagner Group as willing and able to act in place of the Russian state to return war dead to the opposing side.[13] Some Russian milbloggers notably amplified this narrative of human and honorable Wagner fighters, while another accused Wagner of staging the whole scene.[14] Prigozhin’s press service challenged US Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council John Kirby to name the war crimes Wagner Group has committed in response to the US Treasury designation of Wagner as a transnational criminal organization.[15] Prigozhin even claimed that the US designation of Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization “finally” indicates that the US and Wagner Group are “colleagues,” implying that the US is also a transnational criminal organization.[16] Wagner Group continues to operate militia training centers in Kursk and Belgorod oblasts in a likely effort to provide military support for regions that the Russian MoD supposedly neglects to defend, although neither faces any risk against which Wagner Group could defend.[17]

The Sun reported that US intelligence estimates total Russian military casualties in Ukraine as 188,000 as of January 20, suggesting a possible 47,000 Russians killed in action in less than a year of fighting.[18] The historical ratio of wounded to killed in war is 3:1, suggesting that Russian casualties in Ukraine thus far are close to the total US deaths in the Vietnam War.[19] The US National Archives estimates that the total US battle deaths in Vietnam is roughly 58,000 across eight years of fighting.[20] Soviet forces suffered 15,000 deaths across nine years of war in Afghanistan, a threshold that the UK Ministry of Defense assessed Russian casualties surpassed in May 2022 after just three months of hostilities.[21]

Key Takeaways

The Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut is likely a strategically sound effort despite its costs for Ukraine.
Milblogger discourse surrounding the reported replacement of Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky with Lieutenant General Oleg Makarevich as commander of the Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) has further emphasized the fracture between two main groups within the Russian MoD—the pro-Gerasimov camp, comprised of those who represent the conventional MoD establishment, and milblogger favorites who are less aligned with the MoD institution. The milblogger discourse on this issue additionally offers insight into internal Russian MoD dynamics that may have led to Teplinsky’s removal.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin has launched a series of information operations aimed at portraying himself as a sacrificial hero of Russia in a crusade against petty and corrupt Russian authorities.
The Sun reported that US intelligence estimates total Russian military casualties in Ukraine as 188,000 as of January 20, suggesting a possible 47,000 Russians killed in action in less than a year of fighting.
Russian forces conducted a small ground reconnaissance into northeastern Sumy Oblast.
Russian forces continued limited ground attacks to regain lost positions along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued to conduct ground attacks around Bakhmut and west of Donetsk City. Russian forces are likely making incremental gains around Bakhmut.
Available open-source evidence as of January 21 indicates that Zaporizhia Oblast Russian occupation official Vladimir Rogov’s January 20 claims of a major territorial capture are likely part of a Russian information operation.
Complaints from Russian milbloggers indicate that Russian forces continue to rely on cell phones and non-secure civilian technologies for core military functions – serious breaches of operational security (OPSEC).

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 forces conducted a small ground reconnaissance into northeastern Sumy Oblast on January 20. Sumy Oblast Head Dmytro Zhivytsky reported that a 6-person Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group (DRG) attempted to move from Russia to the Yunakiv hromada of northeastern Sumy Oblast.[22] Ukrainian troops reportedly repelled the effort.[23]

Russian forces continued limited ground attacks to regain lost positions along the Svatove-Kreminna line on January 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops repelled a Russian attack near Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove).[24] A Russian soldier deployed near Svatove reported a Ukrainian artillery strike on a command post in the area on January 20.[25] Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai additionally reported heavy fighting near Kreminna and that Russian forces are pulling reserves to the area to compensate for continued losses.[26] The Ukrainian General Staff reported Russian attacks in the Kreminna area near Ploshchanka (15km northwest of Kreminna) and Chervonopopivka (5km north of Kreminna).[27] Geolocated footage posted by the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) People’s Militia shows Russian forces fighting near Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna).[28] The video claims that fighting is ongoing on both banks of the Siverskyi Donets River, which runs through the area.[29]

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 ground attacks around Bakhmut and likely continued making incremental gains on January 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops repelled Russian attacks on Bakhmut itself; north of Bakhmut near Bilohorivka (20km northeast), Rozdolivka (17km northeast), Yasyukivka (15km north), Krasna Hora (5km north), and Yahidne (4km north); and west of Bakhmut near Predtechyne (18km southwest).[30] The Ukrainian General Staff report suggests that Russian forces may have advanced into the western part of Sil (northeast of Bakhmut) to attack toward Yasyukivka and that Russian forces may have also advanced southwest of Bakhmut in the Klishchiivka-Kurdiumivka area to launch attacks on Predtechyne. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) additionally claimed that Russian troops took control of Dvorichchia (8km northeast of Bakhmut), and Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner Group fighters captured Krasnopolivka (12km northeast of Bakhmut).[31] Geolocated footage shows that Russian forces have made incremental advances in southern Klishchiivka (about 8km southwest of Bakhmut) and on the southeastern outskirts of Bakhmut itself.[32] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are trying to move from Dyliivka to Bila Hora (about 20km southwest of Bakhmut), likely in an effort to cut the T0504 Kostyantynivka-Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut highway.[33]

Russian forces continued ground attacks on the western outskirts of Donetsk City on January 21. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Ukrainian troops repelled Russian attacks near Vodiane (on the northwestern outskirts of Donetsk City) and Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City).[34] Geolocated footage posted on January 20 shows Ukrainian troops firing on Russian positions under the Pervomaiske bridge on the northwestern outskirts of Donetsk City.[35] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces continue to fight for the western part of Marinka.[36] A Russian milblogger reported that Russian forces conducted a ground attack near Novosilka, but this attack is not confirmed.[37] Russian forces continued routine indirect fire along the Avdiivka-Donesk City line of contact and in western Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhia oblasts.[38]

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

Available open-source evidence as of January 21 indicates that Zaporizhia Oblast Russian occupation official Vladimir Rogov’s January 20 claims of a major territorial capture are likely part of a Russian information operation. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) did not claim that Russian forces seized new territory in Zaporizhia Oblast on January 21, instead claiming that unspecified elements of the Russian Eastern Military District (EMD) gained unspecified positions along more “advantageous lines” in Zaporizhia Oblast, which undermines claims of significant territorial gains as the MoD would have likely echoed Rogov’s claims if the MoD considered his claims plausible.[39] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that the Orikhiv area is calm with some Russian reconnaissance group activity on January 21 and indicated that Stepove, Novoandriivka, Novodanylivka, Mala Tokmachka, and Bilohirya remain contested, not Russian-controlled as Rogov claimed on January 20.[40] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces attacked Stepne and Mala Tokmachka and shelled areas including Bilohirya on January 21.[41] Ukrainian official sources reported on January 21 that Russian forces shelled near Maly Shcherbaky, Shcherbaky, Novoandriivka, Novodanylivka, Mala Tokmachka, and Bilohirya, all six settlements that Rogov claimed Russian forces seized on January 20.[42] Rogov also claimed that Russian Pacific Fleet Naval Infantry units are intensifying unspecified offensive operations in the Hulyaipole area, but ISW has observed no evidence supporting Rogov’s claim.[43] Rogov is likely running his own information operation to artificially inflate Russian battlefield successes in Zaporizhia Oblast, contrary to the Russian MoD’s own informational goals for the axis, for some reason.

Russian forces continued routine fire against areas in west (right) bank Kherson Oblast and Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts on January 21.[44] Russian sources reported that Russian tanks continue to fire against areas in the Dnipro River Delta.[45] Ukrainian forces continued striking Russian forces in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast, including Oleshky, Hola Prystan, Kozachi Laheri, Nova Zburivka, Tavriisk, and Kakhovka.[46]

Russian occupation authorities may be struggling to assert administrative control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on January 21 that Russian occupation authorities are unable to start or operate any of the ZNPP’s reactors because Ukrainian staff refuse to cooperate with occupation authorities.[47] Russian nuclear energy operator Rosenergoatom Advisor Renat Karchaa claimed that Ukrainian authorities are attempting to recruit or coerce ZNPP personnel into acting on behalf of Ukrainian interests, similar to Ukrainian reports of Russian occupation authorities’ tactics to coerce Ukrainian ZNPP personnel into cooperation.[48] Karchaa’s claim may be an attempt to explain the lack of Russian progress to restart the ZNPP and connect it to the Russian power grid. There is currently no indication that Russian occupation authorities are struggling to maintain physical control over the ZNPP and the surrounding area. The Ukrainian Resistance Center also reported that Russian forces continue to militarize the ZNPP by erecting fortifications and other military structures on ZNPP grounds.[49]

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

Complaints from Russian milbloggers indicate that Russian forces continue to rely on cell phones and non-secure civilian technologies for core military functions—serious breaches of operational security (OPSEC).[50] Several milbloggers criticized the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) for attempting to restrict the use of cell phones and Telegram and accused military leadership of being out of touch with the value of technology in modern warfare.[51] Fundamental OPSEC practices prohibit soldiers‘ use of insecure personal devices for military functions. However, the inability of the Russian MoD to provide, integrate, or generate support for secure, effective military alternatives indicates the inadequacy of the Russian military industry and the Russian MoD. Milblogger critiques of fundamental OPSEC practices indicate significant discipline issues and a disconnect between Russian commanders, Russian MoD policy, and the common soldier. Separate milblogger criticism of MoD efforts to place responsibility for military failures - such as the January 1 Ukrainian strike against a Russian Base in Makiivka - on poorly disciplined troops who use personal devices has likely further decreased the legitimacy of the Russian MoD’s OPSEC policies among many Russian soldiers to the detriment of Russian forces OPSEC and overall effectiveness.[52] Ongoing discussions within the Russian nationalist community suggest that Russian officials are losing credibility among line soldiers and failing to dispel even basic OPSEC myths.[53] The Russian military’s reliance on a scrambled blend of hastily-trained mobilized forces, convicts, volunteers, and militia groups with inconsistent command structures is likely contributing to the decline in professionalism in the Russian military.

Russian milbloggers continue to call attention to Russian command and control failures due to the appointment of newly mobilized civilians to leadership roles.[54] A milblogger claimed on January 21 that such “completely incompetent” officers command platoons exclusively of mobilized soldiers.[55] The milblogger questioned why Russian forces would even bother creating new units of mobilized men at all while existent conventional units remain understaffed and suffer continued losses.[56] The milblogger claimed that Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) forces attempted to create units comprised entirely of mobilized soldiers months before Russian forces did so and that these units’ poor performance demonstrated the failure of such an idea.[57] Russian milbloggers correctly assessed that Russian reliance on poorly trained, newly-mobilized recruits for command positions, as opposed to drawing commanders from Russia’s diminished officer cadre or promoting experienced soldiers and NCOs to NCO and command positions, severely hinders the effectiveness of mobilized forces. The inexperience of mobilized soldiers serving in command positions likely contributed to the poor decisions that enabled a highly destructive Ukrainian strike on a Russian base in Makiivka on January 1, as ISW has previously reported.[58]

Russian authorities continue efforts to revitalize Russia’s weak defense industrial base (DIB). A mainstream Russian news agency reported on January 21 that Omsk Oblast is launching a six-month training program for defense enterprise specialists to expedite the traditional two-year college process.[59] Labor shortages, lack of planning, and endemic corruption will likely continue to hobble efforts to reinvigorate Russia’s DIB, as ISW has previously reported.[60]

Some Russian minority communities continue limited resistance to official mobilization efforts. A Russian Telegram channel posted on January 21 a video of a Tuvan woman requesting that Russian authorities spare the men of Tuva Republic from mobilization due to the already small size of the Tuvan ethnic group.[61]

Russian forces may be mobilizing emergency service employees in occupied territories to replenish manpower losses. The Ukrainian Resistance Center and Head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration Serhiy Haidai reported on January 21 that Russian forces mobilized employees of the Luhansk People’s Republic Ministry of Emergency Situations in occupied Alchevsk, Luhansk Oblast.[62]

Russian authorities continue attempts to streamline mobilization procedures for a likely second wave of mobilization and to address bureaucratic challenges to mobilization efforts.[63] A Russian opposition news source reported on January 20 that the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka Ministry of Emergency Situations held exercises on January 12 to streamline procedures for processing mobilized soldiers.[64] A Krasnoyarsk Krai news source claimed on January 20 that Russian authorities responded to public outcry and officially dismissed mobilized soldiers that authorities had deemed unfit for service but continued to pay and hold in readiness for three months.[65] Russian officials continue to spread confusion with contradictory responses to debates over mobilization exemptions for fathers of three or more children, fathers of children with disabilities, and only children of retired parents.[66]

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)

Russian forces continue to commandeer healthcare resources and increase strain on military and civilian medical systems in occupied regions of Ukraine.[67] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on January 21 that Russian forces placed over 300 wounded soldiers in the Starobilsk City Hospital in Luhansk Oblast.[68] Ukrainian officials noted that Russian forces continue to deprioritize the treatment of civilians while exacerbating medical shortages by replacing Ukrainian doctors.[69] Russian-led forces are attempting to recruit to make good deficiencies in medical personnel. A Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel posted a special recruitment link for those interested in medical specialties on January 21.[70]

Russian occupation authorities continue legal and financial efforts to legitimize their regimes and Russian governance. Head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration Serhiy Haidai stated on January 21 that Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) officials held two pseudo-votes to adopt a law on referendums and form an “election commission.” A Russian news source reported that Russian majority state-owned bank Sberbank placed ATMs in Sevastopol, Simferopol, Yalta, and Opolzneve, Crimea on January 21.[71]

Russian occupation authorities continue to use coercive measures to strengthen control over civilians in occupied areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on January 21 that Russian occupation authorities are creating a database of civilian residences and weaponizing electricity cuts.[72] Ukrainian Zaporizhia Oblast Head Oleksandr Starukh stated on January 21 that Russian forces have faked the “deportation” (likely referring to propaganda “evacuations”) of civilians and are instead detaining them in basements.[73]

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus.

ISW’s most dangerous course of action warning forecast about a potential major Russian offensive against northern Ukraine from Belarus appears increasingly unlikely. ISW currently assesses the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine from Belarus as very low. ISW will continue reporting observed indicators we are using to refine our assessments and forecasts, which we expect to update regularly.

Observed significant military activities in Belarus in the past 24 hours that indicate an attack from Belarus is more likely:

Nothing significant to report.

Observed significant military activity in Belarus in the past 24 hours that is ambiguous:

The Ukrainian General Staff reported on January 21 that the Belarusian Ministry of Defense extended the Belarusian military’s ongoing comprehensive readiness checks to January 30.[74] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces are deploying unspecified territorial defense forces to Belarus, likely for training.[75]
The Belarusian Ministry of Defense reported that Russian and Belarusian pilots continued conducting joint tactical flight exercises, likely as part of the joint Russian-Belarusian Regional Grouping of Forces (RGV) on January 21.[76] The Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced that these exercises are occurring at all Belarusian airfields.[77]
Belarusian elements continue conducting exercises in Belarus. Elements of a mechanized battalion of the Belarusian 120th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade conducted exercises at a training ground near Barysaw on January 21.[78]

Observed significant military activity in Belarus in the past 24 hours that indicates that an attack from Belarus remains unlikely:

The Ukrainian General Staff reiterated that it has not observed Russian forces in Belarus forming a strike group as of January 21.[79] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian units continue training in Belarus.[80]

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://t.me/kremlin_sekret/9681; https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/16... com/wall-200391_308291?w=wall-200391_308291; https://t.me/readovkanews/50613

[13] https://riafan dot ru/23857321-voenkor_simonov_pokazal_protsess_otpravki_na_rodinu_tel_soldat_vsu_pogibshih_v_boyah_za_soledar

[31] https://t.me/mod_russia/23636; https://t.me/readovkanews/51137; https:... ru/armiya-i-opk/16853595 https://t.me/mod_russia/23636

[47] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/21/rosiyany-ne-mozhut-zapustyty-v-robotu-zhodnogo-energobloku-tymchasovo-okupovanoyi-zaes/

[49] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/21/rosiyany-ne-mozhut-zapustyty-v-robotu-zhodnogo-energobloku-tymchasovo-okupovanoyi-zaes/

[62] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/01/21/okupanty-mobilizuyut-praczivnykiv-dsns-na-tot/; https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/8091

[65] https://ngs24 dot ru/text/health/2023/01/20/71990033/; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-jan-19-20; https://understandingw...

[66] https://twitter.com/CITeam_ru/status/1616546320776396800; https://www.k... ru/doc/5774925; https://www.rbc dot ru/politics/20/01/2023/63ca67ba9a7947f9370ad1c1?from=from_main_3; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-jan-19-20; https://t.me/bbbreakin...

understandingwar.org

19. Mishandling of classified documents happens more than you might think

If I were advising the President I would recommend seizing the moral high ground and saying, "I made a mistake." Say, I mishandled classified documents." Say, "I accept responsibility for my mistakes." Say, "the buck stops here." There is no defense. There are no excuses.

Mishandling of classified documents happens more than you might think

NPR · by A Martínez · January 19, 2023

The U.S. government creates millions of classified records each year. How does it keep track of them all?

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

The U.S. government generates millions of classified documents each year.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And we've been learning just how difficult it can be to keep track of all that sensitive material, even at the White House.

MARTÍNEZ: To find out how the wider government handles these records, we've called on NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre. Greg, President Biden and former President Trump are both under investigation for the way they've handled classified material. Are the rules at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue different than other parts of the government?

GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Well, generally they're the same, but they do differ in one significant way. When presidents leave office, they have to turn over all government records, including the classified material, to the National Archives. And this isn't the case for other government agencies. They keep those records at their offices so they can continue to use them. So a classified document at the CIA can be kept in the same filing cabinet for years. But at the White House, it has to be packed up and moved when an administration changes. And so this could make it vulnerable to some sort of mishandling.

MARTÍNEZ: And the cases involving the current and former president are focused on paper documents. Greg, it's the 21st century. I mean, why aren't classified documents digital?

MYRE: Well, most are now electronic, but some are still printed. Let's just consider one important document, the president's daily brief. It's been printed and put between a leather-bound covers for decades, and it still is. Now, President Obama was the first and only president to take it on an iPad, but other presidents still prefer to get a physical version accompanied by an actual briefer. And as a rule, paper documents are easier to mishandle, even by national security professionals. I spoke about this with retired CIA officer Larry Pfeiffer. He also served at the White House, where he ran the Situation Room when Barack Obama was president and Joe Biden was vice president.

LARRY PFEIFFER: There's this level of human frailty here that just plays into this situation. And I've known several people who have retired, and after they retire, they're going through their box, and it's like, whoa, how did that get in here? And they - you know, they call back to the building. Some security officer comes out, picks it up. Everybody's fine with it.

MARTÍNEZ: So it sounds like there's more classified material out there. No one - and no one knows about it.

MYRE: Yeah, that's undoubtedly true. And here's the irony. If you're a junior staffer, the likelihood of mishandling classified records is pretty low. To see that kind of information, you'd go into a secure room at your agency. You'd walk in empty-handed. You get briefed and read some classified documents. Then you walk out empty-handed. You really can't accidentally walk off with documents. But it's easier to make that mistake at the top levels of government. Here's Glenn Gerstell, former legal counsel at the National Security Agency.

GLENN GERSTELL: An official, usually a more senior official who has both unclassified and classified documents in their workspace on their desk. I know of one case where someone had a three-ring binder, and the first 30 or 40 pages were all unclassified, and they didn't realize that in the back was an appendix that had a classified document.

MARTÍNEZ: Always got to go all the way to the back. We've been talking about accidents, Greg. What about cases where government officials are intentionally trying to pass on sensitive stuff?

MYRE: Well, for starters, it would be a crime if someone in the government hands over classified material to, say, a foreign government. And if a person doesn't want to get caught, they'd probably share that material verbally, not passing on a physical document or an electronic record. That creates a trail. We've seen increased prosecutions in recent years. The key reason is technology, which means better forensics.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Greg Myre. Greg, thanks.

MYRE: My pleasure.

NPR · by A Martínez · January 19, 2023

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

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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