Quotes of the Day:

“The first and most imperative necessity in war is money, for money means everything else – men, guns, ammunition.” 

– Ida Tarbell

“If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.” 

– George Washington

“The history of irregular media operations is complex and fractured; generalizations are difficult. Yet it is possible to isolate three large and overlapping historical phases: First, throughout the nineteenth century, irregular forces saw the state's telecommunications facilities as a target that could be physically attacked to weaken the armies and the authority of states and empires. Second, for most of the twentieth century after the world wars, irregulars slowly but successfully began using the mass media as a weapon. Telecommunications, and more specifically the press, were used to attack the moral support and cohesion of opposing political entities. Then, in the early part of the twenty-first century, a third phases began: irregular movements started using commoditized information technologies as an extended operating platform. The form and trajectory of the overarching information revolution, from the Industrial Revolution until today, historically benefited the nation-state and increased the power of regular armies. But this trend was reversed in the year 2000 when the New Economy's Dot-com bubble burst, an event that changed the face of the Web. What came thereafter, a second generation Internet, or "Web 2.0," does not favor the state, large firms, and big armies any more; instead the new Web, in an abstract but highly relevant way, resembles - and inadvertently mimics - the principles of subversion and irregular war. The unintended consequence for armed conflicts is that non-state insurgents benefit far more from the new media than do governments and counterinsurgents, a trend that is set to continue in the future.”

― Marc Hecker, War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age

1. Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Meeting With People's Republic of China (PRC) Minister of National Defense General Wei Fenghe

2. Ukraine, Irregular-War Changes Are Reshaping Pentagon’s Info-Ops Strategy

3. The Army piece of a growing U.S. footprint in Philippines, Indonesia

4. 'It's the reflex': Veteran helped disarm gunman at gay club

5. Army Veteran Went Into ‘Combat Mode’ to Disarm the Club Q Gunman

6. How Ukraine can win a war of attrition against Russia

7. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 21 (Putin's War)

8. Here’s the Air Force’s plan to train armed overwatch pilots

9. Opinion | Biden just won a significant diplomatic victory with China

10. Iran Caught Again Trying to Kill Israeli Civilians Abroad

11. The Afghan National Resistance Front Outlines Its Strategy: Implications For US Foreign Policy – Analysis

12. Security Assistance Group - Ukraine (SAG-U) | SOF News

13. “Reunification” with Taiwan through Force Would Be a Pyrrhic Victory for China

14. Ukrainians brace for bleak winter as Russian strikes cripple power capacity

15. Could the Ukraine War Turn Russia Into North Korea?

16. Indonesia quake kills at least 268 people, many of them children at school

17. CIA, Spec Ops roles in Kabul’s collapse belie official versions

18. The U.S. and China Are Now In An Economic War

19. How China Spies

20. Taiwan Party That Wants Stronger Ties With China Has a New Star

21. Taiwan officials have rare run-in with Xi Jinping at Asia talks

22.  A New Theory of American Power

23. Ukraine and the Future of Offensive Maneuver

24. Ukraine confronts tougher fight in push to extend battlefield wins

25. Xi Jinping and the Paradox of Power

26.  Fighting While Female (Ukraine)

1. Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Meeting With People's Republic of China (PRC) Minister of National Defense General Wei Fenghe

Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Meeting With People's Republic of China (PRC) Minister of National Defense General Wei Fenghe

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Immediate Release

Nov. 22, 2022 |×

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Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder provided the following readout:

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met today with General Wei Fenghe, Minister of National Defense of the People's Republic of China (PRC), on the margins of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Secretary Austin and General Wei discussed U.S.-PRC defense relations and regional and global security issues. Secretary Austin emphasized the need to responsibly manage competition and maintain open lines of communication.

The Secretary also discussed the importance of substantive dialogue on reducing strategic risk, improving crisis communications, and enhancing operational safety. He raised concerns about the increasingly dangerous behavior demonstrated by PLA aircraft in the Indo-Pacific region that increases the risk of an accident. The Secretary also affirmed that the United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.

Secretary Austin discussed Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine and underscored how both the United States and the PRC oppose the use of nuclear weapons or threats to use them. Secretary Austin also expressed concerns about recent provocations from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and called on the PRC to fully enforce existing U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding the DPRK's unlawful weapons programs.

The Secretary reiterated that the United States remains committed to our longstanding one China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three U.S.-China Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances. The Secretary reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability across the Strait. He underscored his opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo and called on the PRC to refrain from further destabilizing actions toward Taiwan.

China Defense Secretary Austin Indo-Pacific

defense.gov

2. Ukraine, Irregular-War Changes Are Reshaping Pentagon’s Info-Ops Strategy

IS DOD really serious about Irregular Warfare? The phrase is used twice in the new NDS and neither times in context of the US conducting irregular warfare. I believe people like Richard Tilley are serious but is the bureaucracy serious or will the bureaucracy crush it and those who think it is important as it has done in the past with such concepts as the human domain (which is actually described below though no one can use that terminology)?

Excerpts:

The strategy also comes as the Defense Department works to improve its overall irregular warfare doctrine.

Richard Tilley, DOD’s director of irregular warfare and competition, said IW has typically focused on terrorism and counterinsurgency.

“So everything that we built over the last 20 years looks at trying to dissuade that local population, from the local actors that we don't align with or that have interests that differ from ours. And we're kind of past that,” Tilley said. “Proxy warfare is not going anywhere. And whether it's Europe or whether it's the Pacific it's going to be back and we need to have a better understanding of how our partners and allies are going to fight.”

...

“This cognitive domain of understanding will someone fight or will they not is qualitative analysis. But I think the private sector is pretty good at it,” Tilley said.

“Look at marketing. That is qualitative analysis. What makes people drink Coke, what makes people drink Pepsi? And how do you market to those individuals? I think the private sector has used the information domain through marketing to the Nth degree because that's how you make money. That's how you're profitable. And I think we as a department and in the national security enterprise, need to be able to pull some of those lessons.”

Ukraine, Irregular-War Changes Are Reshaping Pentagon’s Info-Ops Strategy

Civilians reporting military movements and a return to proxy war will inform the first IO update in seven years.

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

Lessons from Ukraine and changes in irregular warfare will be reflected in the upcoming revision of the Pentagon’s information-operations strategy, defense policy leaders said.

“Everyone has a cell phone; that’s what we’re seeing in the Ukraine. Not just soldiers having cell phones and watching the Javelin strike. Civilians are reporting the movement of Russian forces,” said Maj. Gen. Matthew Easley, a top information-ops advisor to the assistant defense secretary for special operations.

Among other things, Easley said, this means special operators need to be thinking about public narratives—how they might change and how U.S. forces can shape them—long before fighting erupts. And that means ensuring that troops have the right digital skills, including data analysis and messaging.

“Our information operators and forces must engage throughout the spectrum of operational planning and execution, and cannot wait until a crisis begins to start setting the theater for messaging,” the general said Friday at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict Symposium in Washington, D.C. “We must reinforce campaign planning to start with objectives in the cognitive domain. Understand what narratives are needed to reinforce those objectives, and then develop plans for physical action that show commitment to that narrative.”

The new strategy, required by the 2020 defense policy act and slated for publication in March, will update the 2016 version, Easley said. A joint info-ops doctrine was published in 2018.

It builds on several sweeping tech policy efforts the Pentagon is working through, including cyber, data, and digital modernization strategies. It will have four lines of effort with an emphasis on personnel training needs and force design. That also means doing a better job integrating information operations, he said, noting the U.S. Marine Corps’ Information Groups as an example.

Other lines of effort include building programs that enhance information operations, such as cloud-based infrastructure and data analytics; creating effective policies and governance; and maintaining partnerships. In a 2021 report, the Government Accountability Office found that DOD was deficient in its leadership and integration for information operations.

The strategy also comes as the Defense Department works to improve its overall irregular warfare doctrine.

Richard Tilley, DOD’s director of irregular warfare and competition, said IW has typically focused on terrorism and counterinsurgency.

“So everything that we built over the last 20 years looks at trying to dissuade that local population, from the local actors that we don't align with or that have interests that differ from ours. And we're kind of past that,” Tilley said. “Proxy warfare is not going anywhere. And whether it's Europe or whether it's the Pacific it's going to be back and we need to have a better understanding of how our partners and allies are going to fight.”

The war in Ukraine has provided a “crash course” on the current state of irregular warfare and how the information space is used. But defense and intelligence communities have struggled to identify the “will to resist” in proxy, surrogate, and allied populations, Tilley said. And that has to change should similar conflicts arise in the future.

“We don't have a good track record of trying to identify this will to resist in these proxy and surrogate and allied populations,” he said.

“This cognitive domain of understanding will someone fight or will they not is qualitative analysis. But I think the private sector is pretty good at it,” Tilley said.

“Look at marketing. That is qualitative analysis. What makes people drink Coke, what makes people drink Pepsi? And how do you market to those individuals? I think the private sector has used the information domain through marketing to the Nth degree because that's how you make money. That's how you're profitable. And I think we as a department and in the national security enterprise, need to be able to pull some of those lessons.”

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

3. The Army piece of a growing U.S. footprint in Philippines, Indonesia

The Army piece of a growing U.S. footprint in Philippines, Indonesia

armytimes.com · by Todd South · November 21, 2022

MANILA, Philippines- A Green Beret with the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) and Philippine Marines discuss security placement after securing a building during a simulated raid April 7, 2022. (Sgt. 1st Class Ryan Hohman/Army) (This photo was altered for security purposes)

The United States wants a bigger military footprint in the Philippines and Indonesia which could mean more Army rotations with the key Indo-Pacific partner in the coming years.

The United States seeks to expand its military presence in the Philippines under a 2014 defense pact, one of the initiatives Vice President Kamala Harris launched Monday during her visit to America’s oldest treaty ally in Asia. The same day, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin met with his Indonesian counterpart in Jakarta, Indonesia to push stronger defense ties.

Harris also reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to defend the Philippines under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty in talks with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the presidential palace in Manila.

The high-level assurance from the vice president came a day after China’s coast guard forcibly seized Chinese rocket debris that Filipino navy personnel found and were towing to a Philippines-occupied island in the disputed South China Sea. China, the Philippines and four other governments are locked in increasingly tense territorial disputes in the strategic waterway.

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And that's not all.

“An armed attack on the Philippines armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. Mutual Defense commitments,” Harris told Marcos Jr. “And that is an unwavering commitment that we have to the Philippines.”

Austin looked at the partnership with Indonesia to counter China in the shadow of the current Russian war in Ukraine.

“We are meeting as the world is grappling with assaults on the rules-based international order, especially Russia’s unprovoked invasion against Ukraine,” Austin said, “And it’s especially vital now that more like-minded countries come together to uphold our shared principles, including the rule of law.”

In recent years, the Army has increased the number and duration of unit rotations to the Pacific, primarily through its Pacific Pathways partnership with multiple Asian nations and dedicated U.S.-Philippines exercises such as Balikatan. The most recent iteration of which concluded in April.

Army officials, and current and past Pacific-based commanders have previously told Army Times that they want to increase the number and size of unit rotations to the Pacific, especially to partner nations for training in the region.

The Army established its fifth and final Security Force Assistance Brigade in 2020. That INDOPACOM-focused unit has ongoing training partnerships with the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Mongolia, Thailand and Malaysia, Army Times previously reported.

The 5th SFAB was in the Philippines in March to provide medical advisors for training with their Filipino counterparts.

Medical advisors with the 6th Battalion, 5th SFAB created a hybrid Medical Advisor Team during the annual “Salaknib ‘22″ bilateral exercise, according to an April Army statement.

Marcos Jr. said that given the upheavals in the region and beyond, “this partnership becomes even more important.”

On Tuesday, Harris is scheduled to fly to the western Philippine Island province of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea, to showcase the level of concern America has for keeping the busy waterway open for commerce and navigation and to assure allies like the Philippines.

China’s increasingly aggressive actions to fortify its claims to most of the busy waterway have alarmed smaller claimant nations. The U.S. has been helping strengthen the Philippine coast guard, which said it would welcome Harris aboard one of its biggest patrol ships moored in Palawan.

A former American colony, the Philippines formerly hosted one of the largest U.S. Navy and Air Force bases outside the American mainland. The bases were shut down in the early 1990s after the Philippine Senate rejected an extension, but American forces returned for large-scale combat exercises with Filipino troops under a 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement.

In 2014, the allies signed the Enhance Defense Cooperation Agreement, which allows larger numbers of American forces to stay in rotating batches within Philippine military camps, where they can build warehouses, living quarters, joint training facilities and store combat equipment, except nuclear arms. The Philippines could take over those buildings and facilities when the Americans leave.

After the agreement was signed, the Americans launched construction projects in five Philippine camps and areas, including in the country’s south, where U.S counterterrorism forces have helped train and provide intelligence to their Filipino counterparts for years. Many of the projects were delayed by legal issues and other problems, Philippine defense officials said.

Large numbers of American forces stayed in local camps in southern Zamboanga city and outlying provinces at the height of threats posed by Muslim militants, which have eased in recent years. More than 100 U.S. military personnel currently remain in Zamboanga and three southern provinces, a Philippine military official told The Associated Press.

China and four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have overlapping claims to the South China Sea, home to vital shipping lanes, plentiful fish stocks and undersea mineral resources. China and ASEAN have made little headway in finalizing a code of conduct to avoid conflicts in the area. These disputes concern Indonesian interests as well.

The Army participated in an expanded version of the annual Garuda Shield military exercise, hosted by Indonesia this summer. The “Super Garuda Shield” included 14 nations that conducted a series of first for many of the partner nations. The more than 4,000 combined personnel across participating nations saw Australia, Singapore and Japan send troops for the first time, according to an Army statement.

In March, U.S. Army Pacific soldiers worked alongside members of the Philippine Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team at Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija during the annual, bilateral “Salaknib” that focuses on “strategic readiness,” according to an Army statement.

From early to late March an estimated 2,200 Philippine and U.S. soldiers rank High-Mobility Rocket System live fires, team to company-level live fires, engineering projects and artillery and fire support mission training.

The March exercise validated a Jungle Operations Training Course, taught by U.S. soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division out of Hawaii.

Soldiers also conducted the first INDOPACOM use of Army Prepositioned Stock 3 during Philippine training in May. The prepositioned equipment was used by the 3rd IBCT, 25th ID during both Salaknib 22 and a separate exercise known as Balikatan 22.

“The employment of APS Afloat during Salaknib and Balikatan exercised the Army’s strategic readiness capabilities and demonstrates its ability to rapidly project power in the Indo-Pacific Theater during competition as well as during crisis and conflict,” said Col. Erik Johnson, commander of the 402nd Army Field Support Brigade. “Maintaining and repairing equipment forward in theater increases flexibility and ensures APS Afloat is ready and postured to respond quickly in support of combatant commanders’ requirements.”

At the time, Maj. Gen. Joseph Ryan, commander of the 25th Infantry Division, reaffirmed U.S. commitment to the Philippines in countering China and other threats.

“Most importantly, we built readiness and committed ourselves to this enduring treaty-bound partnership that guarantees when it comes to peace or war, that the United States stands with the Army of the Philippines side by side, ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Ryan. “No one, anywhere, should doubt that commitment. It is ironclad.”

More recently, U.S. officials told reporters that new areas have been identified to be developed to expand joint security cooperation and training. He did not provide details, including the type of military facilities, locations and the number of American military personnel to be deployed in those sites, saying the projects would have to be finalized with the Philippines.

Philippine military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro said last week that the U.S. wanted to construct military facilities in five more areas in the northern Philippines.

Two of the new areas proposed by the Americans were in the northern Cagayan province, Bacarro said. Cagayan is across a strait from Taiwan and could serve as a crucial outpost in case tensions worsen between China and the self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own.

The other proposed sites included the provinces of Palawan and Zambales, he said. They both face the South China Sea and would allow an American military presence nearer the disputed waters to support Filipino forces.

The Philippine Constitution prohibits the presence of foreign troops in the country except when they are covered by treaties or agreements. Foreign forces are also banned from engaging in local combat.

Editor’s Note: The Associated Press contributed to this report.

About Todd South

Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

4. 'It's the reflex': Veteran helped disarm gunman at gay club

Excerpts:

Looking up from the floor, Fierro saw the shooter’s body armor and the crowd that had fled to the club’s patio. Moving toward the attacker, Fierro grasped the body armor, yanked the shooter down while yelling at another patron, Thomas James, to move the rifle out of reach.

As the shooter was pinned under a barrage of punches from Fierro and kicks to the head from James, he tried to reach for his pistol. Fierro grabbed it and used it as a bludgeon.

“I tried to finish him,” he said.

When a performer who was there for the drag show ran by, Fierro told them to kick the gunman. The performer stuffed a high-heeled shoe in the attacker’s face, Fierro said.

“I love them,” Fierro said of the city’s LGBTQ community. “I have nothing but love.”

Fierro served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and said he’s dealt with violence. That’s what he signed up for. “Nobody in that club asked to do this,” he said, but everyone “is going to have to live with it now.”

'It's the reflex': Veteran helped disarm gunman at gay club

AP · by JESSE BEDAYN and SAM METZ · November 22, 2022

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — When army veteran Rich Fierro realized a gunman was spraying bullets inside the club where he had gathered with friends and family, instincts from his military training immediately kicked in.

First he ducked to avoid any potential incoming fire, then moved to try to disarm the shooter.

“It’s the reflex. Go! Go to the fire. Stop the action. Stop the activity. Don’t let no one get hurt. I tried to bring everybody back,” he said Monday outside his home.

Fierro is one of two people police are crediting with saving lives by subduing a 22-year-old man armed with multiple firearms, including an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, who went on a shooting rampage Saturday night at Club Q, a well-known gathering place for the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs. Five people were killed and at least 17 wounded.

Fierro was there with his daughter Kassy, her boyfriend and several other friends to see a drag show and celebrate a birthday. He said it was one of the group’s most enjoyable nights. That suddenly changed when the shots rang out and Kassy’s boyfriend, Raymond Green Vance, was fatally shot.

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Speaking to reporters at his home Monday, Fierro teared up as he recalled Raymond smiling and dancing before the shots rang out.

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Fierro could smell the cordite from the ammunition, saw the flashes and dove, pushing his friend down before falling backwards.

Looking up from the floor, Fierro saw the shooter’s body armor and the crowd that had fled to the club’s patio. Moving toward the attacker, Fierro grasped the body armor, yanked the shooter down while yelling at another patron, Thomas James, to move the rifle out of reach.

As the shooter was pinned under a barrage of punches from Fierro and kicks to the head from James, he tried to reach for his pistol. Fierro grabbed it and used it as a bludgeon.

“I tried to finish him,” he said.

When a performer who was there for the drag show ran by, Fierro told them to kick the gunman. The performer stuffed a high-heeled shoe in the attacker’s face, Fierro said.

“I love them,” Fierro said of the city’s LGBTQ community. “I have nothing but love.”

Fierro served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and said he’s dealt with violence. That’s what he signed up for. “Nobody in that club asked to do this,” he said, but everyone “is going to have to live with it now.”

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Fierro and James, about whom little was known as of Monday evening, pinned the shooter down until officers arrived minutes later. Fierro was briefly handcuffed and sat in a police car as law enforcement tried to calm the chaos.

Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said Monday that Fierro acted courageously.

“I have never encountered a person who had engaged in such heroic actions who was so humble about it,” Vasquez said. “He simply said to me, ‘I was trying to protect my family.’”

When asked about being hailed a hero, Fierro demurred. “I’m just some dude from San Diego,” he said, standing outside his home and alternating between English and a smattering of Spanish words.

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The suspect, who was said to be carrying multiple guns and additional ammunition magazines, faces murder and hate crime charges.

Fierro’s wife, Jess, said via Facebook that her husband had bruised his right side and injured his hands, knees and ankle. “He was covered in blood,” she wrote on the page of their brewery, Atrevida Beer Co.

Though his actions saved lives, Fierro said the deaths — including his daughter’s boyfriend, Vance — were a tragedy both personal and for the broader community.

“There are five people that I could not help. And one of which was family to me,” he said, as his brother put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

Fierro said he doesn’t remember if the gunman responded as he yelled and struggled to subdue him, but he has thought about their next interaction.

“I’m gonna see that guy in court,” Fierro said. “And that guy’s gonna see who did him.”

__

Metz reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press reporter Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed.

AP · by JESSE BEDAYN and SAM METZ · November 22, 2022

5. Army Veteran Went Into ‘Combat Mode’ to Disarm the Club Q Gunman

Video of Richard Fierro, the veteran, at the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/us/colorado-springs-shooting-club-q-hero.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=US%20News&utm_source=pocket_saves

Army Veteran Went Into ‘Combat Mode’ to Disarm the Club Q Gunman

Richard M. Fierro, who served for 15 years in the military, was at the nightclub in Colorado Springs with his family when the gunman opened fire. “I just knew I had to take him down,” he said.

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Richard M. Fierro was watching a drag show with his family and friends when the gunman opened fire. “I saw him, and I went and got him,” said Mr. Fierro, whose daughter’s boyfriend was one of the five people killed.CreditCredit...Daniel Brenner for The New York Times

By Dave Philipps

• Published Nov. 21, 2022
• Updated Nov. 22, 2022, 12:51 a.m. ET

COLORADO SPRINGS — Richard M. Fierro was at a table in Club Q with his wife, daughter and friends on Saturday, watching a drag show, when the sudden flash of gunfire ripped across the nightclub and instincts forged during four combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan instantly kicked in. Fight back, he told himself, protect your people.

In an interview at his house on Monday, where his wife and daughter were still recovering from injuries, Mr. Fierro, 45, who spent 15 years as an Army officer and left as a major in 2013, according to military records, described charging through the chaos at the club, tackling the gunman and beating him bloody with the gunman’s own gun.

“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Mr. Fierro said, shaking his head as he stood in his driveway, an American flag hanging limp in the freezing air. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”

The authorities are holding Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, on charges of killing five people, and say that 18 more people were injured in a rampage at the club that lasted only a few minutes. The death toll could have been much higher, officials said on Sunday, if patrons of the bar had not stopped the gunman.

“He saved a lot of lives,” Mayor John Suthers said of Mr. Fierro. The mayor said he had spoken to Mr. Fierro and was struck by his humility. “I have never encountered a person who engaged in such heroic actions and was so humble about it.”

It was supposed to be a chill family night out — the combat veteran and his wife, Jess, joined their daughter, Kassandra, her longtime boyfriend Raymond Green Vance, and two family friends to watch one of his daughter’s friends perform a drag act.

It was Mr. Fierro’s first time at a drag show, and he was digging it. He had spent 15 years in the Army, and now relished his role as a civilian and a father, watching one of his daughter’s old high-school friends perform.

“These kids want to live that way, want to have a good time, have at it,” he said as he described the night. “I’m happy about it because that is what I fought for, so they can do whatever they hell they want.”

Mr. Fierro was trying to get better at going out. In Iraq and Afghanistan he’d been shot at, seen roadside bombs shred trucks in his platoon, and lost friends. He was twice awarded the Bronze Star.

The wars were both past and still present. There were things he would never forget. For a long time after coming home, crowds put him on edge. He couldn’t help to be vigilant. In restaurants he sat against the wall, facing the door. No matter how much he tried to relax, part of him was always ready for an attack, like an itch that could not be scratched.

He was too often distrustful, quick to anger. It had been hell on his wife and daughter. He was working on it. There was medication and sessions with a psychologist. He got rid of all the guns in the house. He grew his hair out long and grew a long, white goatee to distance himself from his days in uniform.

He and his wife ran a successful local brewery called Atrevida Beer Co. and he had a warm relationship with his daughter and her longtime boyfriend. But he also accepted that war would always be with him.

But that night at Club Q, he was not thinking of war at all. The women were dancing. He was joking with his friends. Then the shooting started.

It was a staccato of flashes by the front door, the familiar sound of small-arms fire. Mr. Fierro knew it too well. Without thinking, he hit the floor, pulling his friend down with him. Bullets sprayed across the bar, smashing bottles and glasses. People screamed. Mr. Fierro looked up and saw a figure as big as a bear, easily more than 300 pounds, wearing body armor and carrying a rifle a lot like the one he had carried in Iraq. The shooter was moving through the bar toward a door leading to a patio where dozens of people had fled.

The long-suppressed instincts of a platoon leader surged back to life. He raced across the room, grabbed the gunman by a handle on the back of his body armor, pulled him to the floor and jumped on top of him.

“Was he shooting at the time? Was he about to shoot? I don’t know,” Mr. Fierro said. “I just knew I had to take him down.

The two crashed to the floor. The gunman’s military-style rifle clattered just out of reach. Mr. Fierro started to go for it, but then saw the gunman come up with a pistol in his other hand.

“I grabbed the gun out of his hand and just started hitting him in the head, over and over,” Mr. Fierro said.

As he held the man down and slammed the pistol down on his skull, Mr. Fierro started barking orders. He yelled for another club patron, using a string of expletives, to grab the rifle then told the patron to start kicking the gunman in the face. A drag dancer was passing by, and Mr. Fierro said he ordered her to stomp the attacker with her high heels. The whole time, Mr. Fierro said, he kept pummeling the shooter with the pistol while screaming obscenities.

What allowed him to throw aside all fear and act? He said he has no idea. Probably those old instincts of war, that had burdened him for so long at home, suddenly had a place now that something like war had come to his hometown.

“In combat, most of the time nothing happens, but it’s that mad minute, that mad minute, and you are tested in that minute. It becomes habit,” he said. “I don’t know how I got the weapon away from that guy, no idea. I’m just a dude, I’m a fat old vet, but I knew I had to do something.”

When police arrived a few minutes later, the gunman was no longer struggling, Mr. Fierro said. Mr. Fierro said he feared that he had killed him.

Mr. Fierro was covered in blood. He got up and frantically lurched around in the dark, looking for his family. He spotted his friends on the floor. One had been shot several times in the chest and arm. Another had been shot in the leg.

As more police filed in, Mr. Fiero said he started yelling like he was back in combat. Casualties. Casualties. I need a medic here now. He yelled to the police that the scene was clear, the shooter was down, but people needed help. He said he took tourniquets from a young police officer and put them on his bleeding friends. He said he tried to speak calmly to them as he worked, telling them they would be OK.

He spied his wife and daughter on the edge of the room, and was about to go to them when he was tackled.

Officers rushing into the chaotic scene had spotted a blood-spattered man with a handgun, not knowing if he was a threat. They put him in handcuffs and locked him in the back of a police car for what seemed like more than an hour. He said he screamed and pleaded to be let go so that he could see his family.

Eventually, he was freed. He went to the hospital with his wife and daughter, who had only minor injuries. His friends were there, and are still there, in much more serious condition. They were all alive. But his daughter’s boyfriend was nowhere to be found. In the chaos they had lost him. They drove back to the club, searching for him, they circled familiar streets, hoping they would find him walking home. But there was nothing.

The family got a call late Sunday from his mother. He had died in the shooting.

When Mr. Fierro heard, he said, he held his daughter and cried.

In part he cried because he knew what lay ahead. The families of the dead, the people who were shot, had now been in war, like he had. They would struggle like he and so many of his combat buddies had. They would ache with misplaced vigilance, they would lash out in anger, never be able to scratch the itch of fear, be torn by the longing to forget and the urge to always remember.

“My little girl, she screamed and I was crying with her,” he said. “Driving home from the hospital I told them, ‘Look, I’ve gone through this before, and down range, when this happens, you just get out on the next patrol. You need to get it out of your mind.’ That is how you cured it. You cured it by doing more. Eventually you get home safe. But here I worry there is no next patrol. It is harder to cure. You are already home.”

Dave Philipps is a national correspondent covering the military and has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice, most recently in 2022. His latest book is “Alpha, Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy SEALs.” @David_Philipps • Facebook

6. How Ukraine can win a war of attrition against Russia

Excerpts:

Because Ukraine has mobilized its entire population for war, Ukrainian troops have been better trained and equipped than the replacement forces that Russia has sent to the front lines, said Karolina Hird, a Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War think tank in Washington, D.C.

“This is how we’re seeing this war of attrition play out,” Hird told Task & Purpose. “Russian forces are pinned on small settlements — especially in the Donbas around Bakhmut — pinned on smaller, operationally insignificant settlements, taking high losses in operations to capture these settlements, and then plugging gaps in the forces here with hastily mobilized, poorly trained recruits, which of course is going to lead to higher losses.”

The Ukrainian military has also benefited from NATO training, and it has produced higher quality officers than the Russians, Hird said. Meanwhile, the Russian military has also lost a high number of officers during the conflict, depriving its forces of its best trained leaders, “and that transfers down to the lowest level of service recruits,” she said.

“Comparatively, Ukraine seems much more able to absorb and push through combat losses than Russian troops,” Hird said. “The fact that Russia is taking such high combat losses and is unable to sustain operationally significant gains will be to its continued detriment.”

With continued training and weaponry from its Western partners, Ukraine can keep fighting in the years to come, she said.

How Ukraine can win a war of attrition against Russia

Ukraine has proven to be better at mobilizing its population for war than Russia.

BY JEFF SCHOGOL | PUBLISHED NOV 21, 2022 3:37 PM

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · November 21, 2022

Ukraine and Russia are locked into a grinding war of attrition in which the first side to become exhausted will lose.

On paper, Russia went into this conflict with a tremendous advantage in manpower over Ukraine. Russia has a population of roughly 142 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, although several hundred thousand Russian men fled the country this year to avoid being drafted. Ukraine has a much smaller population of about 43.5 million, according to Census Bureau data.

Even though Russia has a much larger pool of military-aged people to draw upon than Ukraine, Russia’s efforts to replace its combat losses have bordered on acts of desperation. Russia has been forced to mobilize old men, and the Wagner Group private military company has reportedly recruited Russian prisoners, including those convicted for sex crimes, to fight in Ukraine. Earlier this month, video emerged of a 51-year-old Russian man who had joined Wagner being executed with a sledgehammer for allegedly defecting to the Ukrainian side.

It is important to remember that a country with a large population may have difficulties producing a large fighting force, said retired Marine Col. Michael Samarov, who managed a team for planning Russia, Europe, and NATO strategy and policy that advised the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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“Ukraine mobilized its society completely, initially,” Samarov told Task & Purpose. “Russia, for various reasons, has not and is struggling to do so. Part of this is the inherent advantage of being on the strategic defensive. When your country is invaded and your very existence is under threat, the justification is self-evident. Whereas it’s pretty clear that in spite of the Putin regime’s best efforts, the justification is not self-evident inside Russia.”

Ukrainian army tank unit drives towards Kherson’s frontline on the way to Kherson on November 18, 2022. (Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images)

Although many Ukrainians and Russians have left their countries since the conflict began, Ukraine has been able to retain a large portion of its population that can serve in combat, while many Russians fit for military service have fled to avoid conscription, he said.

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky must maintain his popular support while Russian President Vladimir Putin does not have to worry about being voted out of office, Samarov said. Zelensky also needs to make sure that the United States and other NATO allies continue to provide his country with military assistance.

As long as Ukraine continues to receive Western military assistance, it will hold a crucial advantage over the Russians, even though the fight ahead will not be easy, said retired Marine Col. J.D. Williams, a defense policy researcher with the RAND Corporation.

“I think the big question is ‘could they retake Crimea?’” Williams told Task & Purpose. “I think Russia would view that differently. That, I think, would be kind of the big litmus test. But I could see Ukraine continuing to have the advantage and make gains everywhere else in the country.”

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 unleashed the biggest conflict on European soil since the end of World War II. Casualties on both sides have been enormous.

It is unclear which side has suffered greater combat losses so far. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said that “well over” 100,000 Russian troops have been killed and wounded since February. Milley also estimated that Ukraine “probably” has lost a comparable number of troops.

An armed serviceman stands guards in central Kherson liberated from Russian invaders, southern Ukraine. (Nina Liashonok/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

However, Ukraine has intentionally been “very, very opaque” about its military losses, said retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an expert on Russia and Ukraine.

When Vindman visited Ukraine in August, he learned that a significant number of Ukrainian troops had been killed and wounded, but Russia’s combat losses were much higher. Moreover, Vindman said his initial concerns about whether Ukraine could mount effective combat operations after losing so many field-grade officers were allayed by the Ukrainian military’s recent offensive, which has retaken Kharkiv, Kherson, and other parts of the country.

“The winter is going to be particularly hard on the Russians,” said Vindman, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute of The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. “They’re underequipped. Whereas the Ukrainians are well equipped — you can see it in some of the footage that’s coming across.”

Because Ukraine has mobilized its entire population for war, Ukrainian troops have been better trained and equipped than the replacement forces that Russia has sent to the front lines, said Karolina Hird, a Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War think tank in Washington, D.C.

“This is how we’re seeing this war of attrition play out,” Hird told Task & Purpose. “Russian forces are pinned on small settlements — especially in the Donbas around Bakhmut — pinned on smaller, operationally insignificant settlements, taking high losses in operations to capture these settlements, and then plugging gaps in the forces here with hastily mobilized, poorly trained recruits, which of course is going to lead to higher losses.”

The Ukrainian military has also benefited from NATO training, and it has produced higher quality officers than the Russians, Hird said. Meanwhile, the Russian military has also lost a high number of officers during the conflict, depriving its forces of its best trained leaders, “and that transfers down to the lowest level of service recruits,” she said.

“Comparatively, Ukraine seems much more able to absorb and push through combat losses than Russian troops,” Hird said. “The fact that Russia is taking such high combat losses and is unable to sustain operationally significant gains will be to its continued detriment.”

With continued training and weaponry from its Western partners, Ukraine can keep fighting in the years to come, she said.

The latest on Task & Purpose

• Why the Air Force sometimes uses explosives to get B-52 bomber engines running
• Navy SEAL convicted for death of Green Beret Logan Melgar has 10-year sentence ‘set aside’
• Navy test squadron commander relieved for DUI after just 8 months on the job
• Russian-made missile strikes NATO member Poland
• The US is sending Avenger air defense systems to Ukraine to keep the skies free of Russian aircraft

Want to write for Task & Purpose? Click here. Or check out the latest stories on our homepage.

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · November 21, 2022

7. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 21 (Putin's War)

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

Key Takeaways

• Two days of shelling caused widespread damage to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
• The Russian government is continuing to escalate control over the Russian information space.
• Ukrainian intelligence reported that Russian special services are planning false flag attacks on Belarusian critical infrastructure in an attempt that would likely fail to pressure the Belarusian military to enter the war in Ukraine. ISW continues to assess that it is unlikely Belarusian forces will enter the war.
• A Ukrainian official acknowledged that Ukrainian forces are conducting a military operation on the Kinburn Spit, Mykolaiv Oblast.
• The November 18 video of a Russian soldier opening fire on a group of Ukrainian servicemen while Russian troops were surrendering has served as a catalyst for further division between the Kremlin and prominent voices in the Russian information space.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in eastern Ukraine amid worsening weather conditions.
• Russian forces continued ground assaults near Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
• Russian forces continued conducting defensive measures and establishing fortifications in Kherson Oblast south of the Dnipro River as Ukrainian forces continued striking Russian force accumulations in southern Ukraine.
• Russian mobilized personnel continue to protest and desert as their relatives continue to publicly advocate against mobilization issues.
• Russian occupation authorities intensified filtration measures and the incorporation of occupied territory into Russia.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 21

Nov 21, 2022 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

understandingwar.org

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 21

Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, Layne Philipson, Yekaterina Klepanchuk, Madison Williams, and Frederick W. Kagan

November 21, 7:45pm 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.

Two days of shelling caused widespread damage to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on November 20 and 21. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated on November 21 that there are no immediate nuclear safety and security concerns and that the integrity of all six nuclear reactors and the spent and fresh fuel storage facilities remain uncompromised despite the intense shelling.[1] Russia and Ukraine both accused the other of conducting the artillery strikes on the ZNPP on November 20 and 21.[2] One Russian milblogger referenced a video of the shelling taken by Chechen forces and stated that it appeared the shelling came from positions in Russian-controlled territory south of the ZNPP, not Ukrainian-controlled territory north of the ZNPP.[3] Russian nuclear operator Rosatom Head Alexey Likhachev warned of a nuclear disaster at the ZNPP, and Russian milbloggers largely amplified his statements and called for the transfer of all Ukrainian nuclear power plants to Russian operation.[4] ISW has previously assessed that Russian forces have staged false flag attacks against the ZNPP and previously reported on Russian forces’ unlawful militarization of the ZNPP.[5] Artillery strikes themselves are unlikely to penetrate the containment units protecting each nuclear reactor and instead pose a greater threat to the spent nuclear fuel storage facilities, which could leak radioactive material and cause a radiological (as opposed to nuclear) disaster if compromised. The continued conflation of radiological and nuclear accidents and the constant discussion of the threat of disaster at the ZNPP is likely part of a wider Russian information operation meant to undermine Western support for Ukraine and frame Russian control of the plant as essential to avoid nuclear catastrophe in order to consolidate further operational and administrative control of Ukrainian nuclear assets and compel elements of the international community to recognize Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory at least obliquely.

The Russian government is continuing to increase its control of the Russian information space as a Russian milblogger noted that Russian efforts to shape the information space “look like a kitten against a rhinoceros” compared with foreign “think tanks,” non-profit organizations, and “independent media.”[6] Russian news outlet Kommersant reported on November 21 that the Russian State Duma may consider a bill before the end of 2022 on the regulation of online “recommender” algorithms that would ultimately allow the government to turn off specific algorithms.[7] The bill is reportedly being developed by Duma Deputy on Information Policy Anton Gorelkin and will include the regulation of social media networks, online cinemas, search engines, and internet marketplaces.[8] Kommersant noted that this bill will require the owners of all sites and platforms to ensure the government’s ability to fully or partially block the participation of specific users and that these provisions appeared before the beginning of the war in October 2021 to specifically target Western outlets such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube due to the risk of “social conflict.”[9] Certain Russian milbloggers responded to the speculation regarding the bill and noted that such recommender algorithms make it harder for nations to disperse propaganda due to the prevalence of accessible and personally tailored information available on the internet.[10]The Duma is likely considering this bill in an attempt to address a consistent point of neuralgia in the Kremlin’s ability to present and defend the war to domestic audiences and to establish a direct means of countering both internal and external sources of online dissent.

The Russian Federal State Security Service (FSB) additionally took steps to codify control over the information space and signed a decree on November 4 that approved a list of military and military-technical activities, which if received by foreign sources, can be used against the security of the Russian Federation.[11] The decree essentially codifies types of information relating to Russian military operations that the FSB regards as threats to Russian security that are not technically classified as official state secrets and includes a broad list of provisions relating to informational coverage of the war such as “information on the assessment and forecasts of the development of the military-political, strategic (operational) situation,” and “information about the observance of rule of law and the moral and psychological climate” of Russian troops.[12] This decree represents an extended effort on the part of the FSB to broadly ban a wide range of information on the Russian military, which would ostensibly place tighter controls on discourse among Russian milbloggers and other such sources who frequently discuss and criticize tactical, operational, and strategic dimensions of the war in Ukraine.

Both the proposed Duma bill and the FSB decree indicate that the Russian government is scrambling to take control of the information space as it is increasingly inundated by criticisms of the Russian military that are levied both internally and externally. Russian officials likely seek to consolidate censorship measures to crack down on the prevalence of foreign voices and domestic critiques by applying legislative pressure to fundamental algorithms and presenting a wide range of activities that can be considered detrimental to Russian state security.

Ukrainian intelligence reported that Russian special services are planning false flag attacks on Belarusian critical infrastructure in an attempt that would likely fail to pressure the Belarusian military to enter the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on November 20 that Russian special services are planning to conduct several false flag terrorist attacks on Belarusian critical infrastructure facilities, particularly on the “Ostrovets” Belarusian nuclear power plant.[13] GUR also reported that Russian special services will blame the attacks on Ukrainian and NATO member states to accelerate the Belarusian military’s involvement in Russia‘s war in Ukraine.[14] ISW has previously assessed that Belarus’ entry into the war remains highly unlikely due to the heavy domestic risk that involvement would pose to the survival of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime and that Russian and Belarusian highlight their bilateral defense cooperation to perpetuate an ongoing information operation that the Belarusian military will enter the war.[15] Potential false flag attacks remain unlikely to change the domestic factors that ISW continues to assess constrain Lukashenko’s willingness to enter the war on Russia’s behalf.

A Ukrainian official acknowledged on November 21 that Ukrainian forces are conducting a military operation on the Kinburn Spit, a location which would allow Ukrainian forces to better conduct potential operations on the left (east) bank in Kherson Oblast. Ukrainian Southern Defense Forces spokesperson Natalia Humenyuk stated on November 21 that Ukrainian forces are conducting a military operation on the Kinburn Spit and called for operational silence to be respected.[16] Humenyuk emphasized that the Kinburn Spit is the last piece of territory that Russian forces occupy in Mykolaiv Oblast.[17] The Kinburn Spit is only 4km across the strait from Ochakiv and allows for control of the entrance to the Dnipro and Southern Bug rivers as well as the Mykolaiv and Kherson city ports. Russian forces used positions on the Kinburn Spit to conduct routine missile and artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions in Ochakiv, southern Mykolaiv Oblast, and other areas along the Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea Coast.[18] The Kinburn Spit is also out of the 25km range of 152mm artillery that Russian forces have accumulated on the left (east) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast. Control of the Kinburn Spit would allow Ukrainian forces to relieve Russian strikes on the Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea coast, increase naval activity in the area, and conduct potential operations to cross to the left (east) bank in Kherson Oblast under significantly less Russian artillery fire compared to a crossing of the Dnipro River.

The November 18 video of a Russian soldier opening fire on a group of Ukrainian servicemen while Russian troops were surrendering has served as a catalyst for further division between the Kremlin and prominent voices in the Russian information space. As ISW reported on November 18, a video widely circulated on social media shows a Russian soldier fire on Ukrainian troops as Ukrainian soldiers were taking prisoners in Makiivka, Luhansk Oblast, resulting in the deaths of the Russian prisoners. Open-source analysts and later a New York Times independent investigation confirmed that the Russian serviceman was the first to open fire but did not offer conclusions about how the Russian prisoners died.[19] While Russian officials responded to the video by adamantly accusing Ukraine of war crimes and calling for an investigation into the identities of the Ukrainian soldiers, several Russian milbloggers capitalized on the content of the video to criticize the Russian military and mobilization practices. One milblogger noted that the Makiivka shooting video is a clear example of how mobilized recruits lack the basic morale and discipline to properly fight for their beliefs and claimed that it is ridiculous that so many Russian soldiers even surrendered to Ukrainian troops in the first place.[20] The divide between milbloggers criticizing the Makiivka shooting is emblematic of Russian military failures, and the Kremlin’s using it to further an information operation against the Ukrainian military may further fragment the information space.

Key Takeaways

• Two days of shelling caused widespread damage to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
• The Russian government is continuing to escalate control over the Russian information space.
• Ukrainian intelligence reported that Russian special services are planning false flag attacks on Belarusian critical infrastructure in an attempt that would likely fail to pressure the Belarusian military to enter the war in Ukraine. ISW continues to assess that it is unlikely Belarusian forces will enter the war.
• A Ukrainian official acknowledged that Ukrainian forces are conducting a military operation on the Kinburn Spit, Mykolaiv Oblast.
• The November 18 video of a Russian soldier opening fire on a group of Ukrainian servicemen while Russian troops were surrendering has served as a catalyst for further division between the Kremlin and prominent voices in the Russian information space.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in eastern Ukraine amid worsening weather conditions.
• Russian forces continued ground assaults near Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
• Russian forces continued conducting defensive measures and establishing fortifications in Kherson Oblast south of the Dnipro River as Ukrainian forces continued striking Russian force accumulations in southern Ukraine.
• Russian mobilized personnel continue to protest and desert as their relatives continue to publicly advocate against mobilization issues.
• Russian occupation authorities intensified filtration measures and the incorporation of occupied territory into Russia.

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)

Weather slowed fighting along offensive lines in eastern Ukraine as Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on November 20 and 21. Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that heavy rain and muddy conditions in eastern Ukraine have nearly stopped Russian ground attacks, slowed but not stopped Ukrainian advances, and led to increased artillery fire on November 20 and 21.[21] The Russian MoD notably reported that Russian forces did not conduct any ground operations in the Kupyansk direction northwest of Svatove on November 20, likely due to Russian forces’ inability to handle deteriorating weather conditions.[22] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks in the Lyman and Kreminna-Lysychansk directions and destroyed Russian equipment near Syrotyne (about 25km southeast of Kreminna) on November 20 and 21.[23] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) officials claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted missile attacks near Kreminna and in Alchevsk, Luhansk Oblast (about 75km southeast of Kreminna) on November 20 and 21.[24] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces destroyed Ukrainian command posts in Lyman and Shevchenkove (35km west of Kupyansk) and thwarted Ukrainian ground attacks near Kuzemivka (about 13km northwest of Svatove), Kreminna, and Kupyansk causing loss in Ukrainian manpower and equipment on November 21.[25] The Russian MoD also reported that Russian forces used artillery fire to push back Ukrainian forces in the Kolomyichykha direction and destroyed Ukrainian manpower and equipment in the Lyman direction on November 19, 20, and 21.[26] The Russian MoD notably did not report any significant operational gains on November 20 or 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued to shell settlements along the frontline from Kupyansk to south of Kreminna on November 20 and 21.[27]

Russian forces continued to defend their positions along offensive lines and reinforce rear areas in Luhansk Oblast with demoralized troops from the Kherson withdrawal on November 20 and 21. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported that Russian forces continued to prioritize constructing defensive positions in eastern Ukraine.[28] Russian official sources claimed that Russian forces are “steadfastly holding the defense” along the Svatove-Kreminna line on November 20 and 21.[29] Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that Russian forces also fortified defenses by building dragon’s teeth along the frontline in the Svatove direction and near Popasna, Luhansk (about 47km south of Kreminna).[30] UK MoD and Ukrainian official sources reported that Russian forces continued to reinforce rear areas in Luhansk Oblast with demoralized, ill-trained mobilized reservists who likely came from the Kherson withdrawal.[31] UK MoD also reported that the Russian offensive line in eastern Ukraine is likely a vulnerable operational flank for Russian forces.[32] LNR official Rodion Miroshnik reported on November 21 that the defense situation for Russian forces in Luhansk Oblast has “clearly deteriorated” over the past week.[33] The reports support ISW’s previous assessments that the Russian military is attempting to improve its defensive and offensive capabilities in eastern Ukraine by injecting mobilized troops from Kherson, but that the Russian military has failed to achieve any significant operational progress due low morale and lack of skilled personnel.[34]

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut on November 20 and 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults on Bakhmut itself; within 30km northeast of Bakhmut near Spirne, Bilohorivka, Bakhmutske, Yakovlika, and Pidhorodne; and within 14km southwest of Bakhmut near Opytne, Klishchiivka, and Kurdiumivka on November 20 and 21.[35] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) representative Andrei Marochko claimed on November 21 that Ukrainian forces had to switch to defensive operations after suffering significant losses in the Soledar and Bakhmut areas.[36] A Russian milblogger claimed on November 21 that Wagner Group units attacked Klishchiivka intending to cut the road southwest of Bakhmut and conducted an assault from the direction of Ivanhrad (4km south of Bakhmut).[37] The Russian milblogger claimed that there is fierce fighting on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut itself.[38] Another Russian milblogger posted a video on November 21 purporting to show Russian forces firing incendiary munitions at Ukrainian forces near Berstove, Donetsk Oblast.[39] Protocol III of the Geneva Convention prohibits the use of air-delivered incendiary munitions against military targets within a concentration of civilians.[40]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Avdiivka–Donetsk City area on November 20 and 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults within 36km southwest of Avdiivka near Marinka, Pervomaiske, and Novomykhailivka.[41] A Russian milblogger claimed on November 20 that Russian forces attacked Novomykhailivka and conducted other offensive operations in the direction of Pervomaiske, Vodyane, and Avdiivka.[42] Geolocated footage posted on November 20 shows tank battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces northeast of Novomykhailivka.[43] A Russian milblogger claimed on November 21 that Russian forces also entered the Marinka city center.[44] Russian milbloggers posted footage on November 21 showing the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) People’s Militia 11th Regiment dislodging Ukrainian forces from their positions in a sector of the M-30 highway between Vodyane and Pisky (9km southwest of Avdiivka).[45]

Russian forces conducted defensive operations in western Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhia on November 20 and 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russia forces are on the defensive in the Zaporizhia and western Donetsk directions.[46] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces thwarted attempted Ukrainian counterattacks within 77km southwest of Donetsk City near Rivnopol, Slavne, Pavlivka, Vremivka, Novodarivka, and Volodymirivka on November 20 and 21.[47] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued routine indirect fire along the line of contact in eastern Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts on November 20 and 21.[48]

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

Note: ISW will report on activities in Kherson Oblast as part of the Southern Axis in this and subsequent updates. Ukraine’s counteroffensive in right-bank Kherson Oblast has accomplished its stated objectives, so ISW will not present a Southern Ukraine counteroffensive section until Ukrainian forces resume counteroffensives in southern Ukraine.

Russian forces continued conducting defensive measures and establishing fortifications in Kherson Oblast south of the Dnipro River on November 20 and 21. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk reported on November 20 that Russian forces are not completely withdrawing from the west bank of the Dnipro River but instead conducting a dynamic maneuver to pull back from Ukrainian artillery range while maintaining their own capability to strike the right bank of the Dnipro River.[49] Humenyuk noted that Russian forces maintain a significant manpower and equipment concentration in eastern Kherson Oblast.[50] Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Military Advisor Serhiy Khlan stated on November 21 that Russian forces are building second and third lines of defense and storing military equipment in densely populated areas.[51] Khlan stated that Russian forces transferred mobilized personnel closer to the east (left) bank of the river and pulled back their combat-ready units, likely referring to Russian Airborne elements, further east.[52] The Ukrainian General Staff stated on November 20 and 21 that Russian forces conducted positional defensive measures in this area, continued equipping fortifications, and established an echeloned defense system.[53] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed on November 21 that Russian forces prevented a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group from crossing the Dnipro River near Dniprovske, 10km southwest of Kherson City.[54] ISW is unable to confirm the veracity of the Russian MoD’s claim. Russian and Ukrainian sources stated that Russian forces continued to shell areas on the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River, including Kherson City, Antonivka, and Chornobaivka on November 20 and 21.[55] Khlan stated on November 19 that Russian forces struck a humanitarian distribution point in Bilozerka, 10km west of Kherson City.[56]

Ukrainian forces continued to target Russian force and equipment concentrations in southern Ukraine on November 20–21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 20 that Ukrainian forces struck Russian manpower concentrations near Polohy, Kamianka, Mykhailivka, and Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, wounding over 100 Russian soldiers and destroying 20 pieces of military equipment and two ammunition depots.[57] Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov stated that three explosions occurred at a Russian base on the northwestern outskirts of Melitopol in Vesele and implied that Ukrainian forces struck the base.[58] Ukrainian sources reported that there were explosions, possibly from Ukrainian strikes, in Skadovsk, Novotroitske, Chaplynka, Askaniia-Nova, Rubinavka, Mala Lepetykha, Kakovkha, and Hornostaivka — all in eastern Kherson Oblast.[59] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces in unspecified areas continue to suffer losses and transported 100 wounded soldiers to a hospital in Skadovsk.[60]

Russian forces continued routine shelling west of Hulyaipole and in Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts on November 20–21.[61] The Ukrainian Zaporizhia Oblast Military Administration stated that Russian forces struck Zaporizhzhia City with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, and the Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces struck the Motor Sich Plant in the city on November 20.[62] Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces shelled Nikopol and Marhanets, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[63] Russian sources, including Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladimir Rogov and mainstream media outlets like TASS and RT, expressed or amplified concerns of a continued Ukrainian military buildup near Orikhiv, Zaporizhia Oblast for a possible offensive.[64]

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

Russian officials continue efforts to crack down on protests and desertions of mobilized personnel. Ukrainian and Russian sources reported video footage on November 20 of Russian military police arresting two mobilized men before their peers in Belgorod Oblast for refusing to comply with orders to leave for the combat zone.[65] A Russian source reported that mobilized personnel from Yaroslavl, Yaroslavl Oblast, refused to attend trainings due to dissatisfaction with their command.[66] A Russian source reported that Russian forces detained a member of the 138th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade of the 6th Combined Arms Army of the Western Military District after reports emerged of inadequate training and poor conditions within the brigade.[67] The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) released an audio intercept on November 20 in which a recently mobilized Russian soldier of the 1st Army Corps (forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic) related that members of his unit refused to return to the frontline after military leadership kept the unit at frontline positions for more than two weeks.[68] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are setting up additional checkpoints to identify and detain deserters in the Luhansk Oblast.[69] Independent Russian media outlet ASTRA related the story of a mobilized man whom Russian authorities held in a basement in Donetsk Oblast and threatened with execution for refusing to fight.[70] ISW has previously reported on multiple holding cells scattered throughout the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts for Russian deserters.[71] Multiple Russian sources expressed a hardened attitude toward reports of detained mobilized personnel, stating that similar consequences must follow all who protest — across all ranks.[72]

Relatives of mobilized personnel and activists continue to present issues regarding the partial mobilization to Russian officials, with mixed results. Independent Russian media outlet SOTA reported that relatives of mobilized personnel from Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, met with Syktyvkar authorities to discuss poor conditions at the front and that authorities responded to the families by asking them to stop asking “muddy questions” about which Western media may report.[73] Multiple sources reported that relatives of mobilized personnel aged 50 and older recorded an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking for their return home, since mobilization for those over 50 applies to senior officers only.[74] A Russian source reported that relatives of mobilized personnel from Tatarstan complained that regional soldiers deployed to the front lines without proper training.[75] SOTA reported that the Council of Mothers and Wives of Military Personnel in Moscow held a press conference demanding normal training conditions for mobilized personnel and asked authorities to address supply and command issues.[76] Independent Latvia-based Russian-language media outlet Meduza reported that authorities detained Yabloko Party activist Maria Volokh at an anti-war rally in Moscow on November 21.[77] She likely faces more fines for discrediting the Russian forces.

Russian officials continue mobilization efforts across occupied territory in Ukraine and the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 21 that Russian officials are enacting covert mobilization measures in Russian-occupied Crimea to address non-fulfillment of mobilization goals.[78] Chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis Refat Chubaro reported that Russian forces are distributing conscription notices to Crimean Tatar men of military age; and that based on conscription lists, Russian forces are carrying out a total cleansing of Crimean Tatar men born between 1995–2004.[79] Notably, Russia has historically heavily marginalized the Crimean Tatar community and is therefore likely to face stiff resistance in mobilizing Tatar men. [80] Russian sources reported that Vladimir Putin signed a decree on November 21 giving volunteers wounded while serving in Ukraine the status of “combat invalid.”[81] Russian sources also reported that Arkhangelsk, Arkhangelsk Oblast, authorities are handing out mobilization orders and that men are mobilizing in Omsk, Omsk Oblast.[82] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) occupation officials posted video footage on November 21 urging eligible residents to join the LNR 2nd Army Corps.[83] Russian sources reported that Alexander Sapozhnikov, Mayor of Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, resigned his position and announced his decision to go to the combat zone in Ukraine as a paratrooper.[84]

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

Russian occupation officials and forces continued to intensify filtration measures in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine on November 20 and 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 21 that Russian occupation officials are forcibly relocating residents of Bilovodsk, Luhansk Oblast, to Luhansk City.[85] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on NOV 20 that Russian forces transported 500 occupation officials and their families from occupied settlements in Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts to Russian-held Sevastopol, Crimea.[86] The Ukrainian Resistance Center also stated on November 20 that Russian forces transported 50 Russian citizens serving in the occupation administrations to Skadovsk, Kherson Oblast.[87]

Russian officials continue efforts to deport children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) head Leonid Pasechnik claimed on November 20 that occupation officials sent Ukrainian children from Kirovsk, Pervomaisk, and Alchevsk, Luhansk Oblast, to Sochi, Krasnodar Krai.[88] Pasechnik also stated on November 20 that his administration continues to send the families of deceased Russian servicemen under the guise of “rest and rehabilitation” to unspecified areas in the Russian Federation.[89] ISW has previously assessed that the deportation and forced adoption of Ukrainian children likely amounts to a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign, in addition to an apparent violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[90]

Russian forces and occupation officials continued to endanger residents in occupied territories and subject them to coercive measures on November 20-21. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on November 21 that Ukrainian partisans are reporting that Russian forces are seizing private residences in occupied territories under the pretext of nationalization and noted that Russian occupation officials are forming “notarial districts” in temporarily-occupied territories for registering and de-registering Ukrainian property, notably to legalize the theft of Ukrainian property.[91] The Ukrainian Resistance reported on November 20–21 that Russian forces continued to house military equipment in hospitals, residential buildings, and the backyards of private homes and educational facilities.[92]

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.

[7] https://www.kommersant dot ru/amp/5679541

[8] https://www.kommersant dot ru/amp/5679541

[9] https://www.kommersant dot ru/amp/5679541

[11] https://rg dot ru/documents/2022/11/18/fsb-prikaz547-site-dok.html

[13] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/rosiiski-spetssluzhby-planuiut-provokatsii-na-biloruskykh-obiektakh-krytychnoi-infrastruktury-zokrema-na-biloruskii-aes.html; https://t.me/energoatom_ua/10758

[14] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/rosiiski-spetssluzhby-planuiut-provokatsii-na-biloruskykh-obiektakh-krytychnoi-infrastruktury-zokrema-na-biloruskii-aes.html; https://t.me/energoatom_ua/10758

[21] https://t.me/mod_russia/21888; https://t.me/miroshnik_r/9642; https://... media/321128-rosiani-zmensili-ataki-cerez-negodu-ale-kilkist-obstriliv-velika-zelenskij/; https://t.me/vysokygovorit/10014

[49] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/20/na-pivdni-krayiny-vorog-pereformatovuye-svoyi-syly/

[50] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/20/na-pivdni-krayiny-vorog-pereformatovuye-svoyi-syly/

[51] https://lb dot ua/society/2022/11/21/536603_rosiyani_peretvoryuyut_uzberezhzhya.html

[52] https://lb dot ua/society/2022/11/21/536603_rosiyani_peretvoryuyut_uzberezhzhya.html

[68] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/ia-emu-hovoriu-ia-na-ui-vozvrashchatsia-ne-budu-poshyol-ty-na-ui-e-at-komandyru-ponial.html

[70] https://t.me/astrapress/16135; https ://telegra.ph/Pervoe-intervyu-osvobozhdyonnogo-iz-podvala-DNR-mobilizovannogo-rossiyanina-otkazavshegosya-voevat-11-20; https ://telegra.ph/My-rasstrelyaem-vas-i-skinem-v-odnu-yamu-a-rodstvennikam-soobshchim-chto-vy-bez-vesti-propali-11-09; http s://telegra.ph/Otkazavshihsya-voevat-rossiyan-uderzhivayut-v-podvalah-LDNR-11-09; https://t.me/astrapress/14986; https://t.me/astrapress/14563; https://...

[77] https://meduza dot io/news/2022/11/21/politsiya-zaderzhala-aktivistku-mariyu-voloh-za-antivoennuyu-aktsiyu-u-minoborony-rf

[81] https://t.me/kommunist/13446; http://publication dot pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202211210035?index=0&rangeSize=1

[84] https://t.me/a_sapozhnikov_chita/3219; https://meduza dot io/news/2022/11/21/glava-administratsii-chity-ushel-v-otstavku-chtoby-poehat-na-voynu; https://t.me/stranaua/76321 ; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/70896

[86] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/11/20/okupanty-vyvezly-500-kolaborantiv-z-hersonshhyny-ta-zaporizhzhya-do-krymu/

[87] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/11/20/okupanty-vyvezly-500-kolaborantiv-z-hersonshhyny-ta-zaporizhzhya-do-krymu/

[91] https://sprotyv dot mod dot gov.ua/2022/11/21/rosiyany-peretvoryuyut-gotelni-kompleksy-na-tot-u-vijskovi-czili/

[92] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/11/20/na-zaporizhzhi-rosiyany-hovayut-svoyu-tehniku-v-likarnyah-ta-sered-zhylyh-budynkiv/ ; https://sprotyv dot mod dot gov.ua/2022/11/20/na-zaporizhzhi-rosiyany-hovayut-svoyu-tehniku-v-likarnyah-ta-sered-zhylyh-budynkiv/

understandingwar.org

8. Here’s the Air Force’s plan to train armed overwatch pilots

Tail dragger? I never gave such a concept a thought. But I guess airmen must.

Here’s the Air Force’s plan to train armed overwatch pilots

airforcetimes.com · by Rachel Cohen · November 21, 2022

Four months after military officials picked a modified crop duster as America’s newest counterterror plane, Air Force Special Operations Command is working to answer a crucial question: How do you fly it?

“We’re going to have to pay a lot of attention to training on this,” AFSOC boss Lt. Gen. Jim Slife told reporters in September. “We haven’t operated, at scale, a tail-dragger aircraft in quite some time.”

The Air Force and its special operations counterparts have sought a light attack and reconnaissance plane since 2009 but faltered at multiple points along the way. Their latest push began as an Air Force experiment in 2016 and morphed into a smaller procurement program overseen by SOCOM.

U.S. Special Operations Command chose the AT-802U Sky Warden, pitched by L3Harris and Air Tractor, to fill the role in August. The military plans to buy as many as 75 of the propeller-driven, fixed-wing aircraft under a contract worth up to $3 billion.

The newly designated OA-1K will replace other special operations platforms as the go-to plane for close air support, precision strike, and armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in counterterror missions.

Aircraft like the Sky Warden, known as “tail-wheel” planes, differ from other airframes during the most crucial phases of flight: taxi, takeoff and landing.

The OA-1K’s nose is angled up during ground operations, limiting what a pilot can see in front of the aircraft, AFSOC spokesperson Lt. Col. Becky Heyse said in an email Wednesday. Its center of gravity also falls behind, not in front of, the main landing gear.

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“What this means is that during taxi, takeoff and landing operations, pilots need to be more cognizant of aircraft alignment and crosswinds,” Heyse said. “Tail-wheel aircraft are more prone to rotational forces around their center of gravity, due to [their] location in relation to [the] main gear.”

Still, Slife said he’s comfortable with the plane’s built-in safety features.

“SOCOM picked a platform that I think we’ll make good use of,” he said. “But I am paying a lot of attention to what that training pipeline looks like, to make sure that we don’t put people in over their heads with a type of airplane they’re not used to flying.”

Air Education and Training Command, AFSOC and L3Harris are working on a syllabus that will guide airmen through the intricacies of tail-wheel flight. That syllabus will determine the length of each armed overwatch training class, Heyse said.

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By Valerie Insinna

The Air Force expects to run tests on the airframe until summer 2024, and have its instructors trained to teach students by fall 2025. AFSOC is considering training test pilots and instructors on commercial tail-wheel aircraft before they progress to the OA-1K itself.

It plans to bring in nearly 200 pilots to staff the fleet.

“The formal training unit plans to start training new OA-1K crews in the fall of 2025,” Heyse said. “Safety is our top priority, and we are dedicated to ensuring our crews receive the right training.”

The Air Force hasn’t decided where to base the OA-1K schoolhouse, though one option may be to pair it with other aviation training at Hurlburt. Hosting armed overwatch courses in the Florida Panhandle would give airmen access to the vast test and training range that stretches over the Gulf of Mexico.

RELATED

Can the Air Force train new pilots without planes?

Goodbye, T-1 Jayhawk. Hello, simulators.

“Training will require munitions, appropriate munitions storage areas, munitions airmen for support and range airspace that supports live fire for the OA-1K, " Heyse said. “Also, with every squadron planned to receive a simulator, there will also need to be facilities to support the simulators.”

Armed overwatch planes are set to partially replace other pieces of the Air Force’s special operations intelligence fleet.

As of March 2021, the Oklahoma Air National Guard owned 13 MC-12W Liberty planes, while 28 active duty U-28A Draco planes operate out of Hurlburt Field, Florida, and Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico.

“Our U-28 and MC-12 units are transitioning into the armed overwatch platform over the next half-dozen years or so,” Slife said. “It will largely be internal unit transitions.”

SOCOM plans to keep U-28s around to provide airborne intelligence in situations like search-and-rescue and humanitarian relief missions.

RELATED

US Air Force’s plan to launch light-attack aircraft competition is now deferred indefinitely

The Air Force believes it needs to conduct further experiments, its undersecretary has revealed.

By Valerie Insinna

SOCOM boss Gen. Richard Clarke has suggested that four operational squadrons of 15 planes, plus one training squadron, would be enough to meet combat needs while giving each unit enough rest.

The OA-1K fleet is slated to be fully operational in 2029.

“AFSOC is expecting it will be easy for crews to transition to this expanded mission set,” Heyse said. “The challenge will be in learning the intricacies of flying tail-wheel aircraft, which our teams are prepared to do.”

About Rachel S. Cohen

Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.

9. Opinion | Biden just won a significant diplomatic victory with China

​Excerpts:

​Fear of being attacked for “losing” South Vietnam, as President Harry S. Truman supposedly “lost” China, led John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to ramp up the United States’ ill-fated intervention in Vietnam. That should serve as a warning about the dangers of anti-Communist paranoia run amok.

We have legitimate reasons to abhor China’s regime and to fear its ambitions to dominate East Asia, but we can also work with it. It was significant, for example, that, during their meeting in Bali, Biden and Xi “underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.” China also joined in the G-20 summit statement that noted “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine.” Those are major diplomatic victories that further isolate Russia. Of course, on most other issues, Biden and Xi did not see eye to eye — but that’s an argument for more diplomacy, not less.

“It is as myopic today to assume that a more hawkish approach to China will cause China to accommodate to our preferences as it was in the past to assume that deeper trade would hasten China’s democratic transformation,” Ryan Hass, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, told me. “If the United States cannot bend Cuba to its will, it shouldn’t expect to be able to impose its will on China. There is no substitute for hard-nosed, clear-eyed diplomacy to manage the relationship.”

That’s what Biden was doing in Bali. He deserves praise for seeking to limit the danger from the growing U.S.-China confrontation rather than being criticized, in the words of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), for a “policy of appeasement.”

Opinion | Biden just won a significant diplomatic victory with China

The Washington Post · by Max Boot · November 21, 2022

“I absolutely believe there need not be a new Cold War,” President Biden said last week after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. I’m afraid it’s too late: For all intents and purposes, the Cold War is already here.

Both the United States and China — the top two military and economic powers in the world — already view each other as the main threat to their own security. Tensions are rising over flash points such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. Disputes over China’s unfair trade practices, human rights abuses and pandemic response have exacerbated animosities.

Just a decade ago, slightly more Americans had a favorable rather than a unfavorable view of China. Today, according to the Pew Research Center, 82 percent have an unfavorable view while only 16 percent have a favorable view. Meanwhile, about 60 percent of Chinese respondents expressed a negative view of the United States in a poll by the Central European Institute of Asia Studies.

Long gone are the hopes that attended China joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 — an event that President Bill Clinton hailed as “the most significant opportunity that we have had to create positive change in China since the 1970s.” Today, with Xi having consolidated more power than any Chinese ruler since Mao Zedong, such talk seems hopelessly naive. Biden now speaks of “extreme competition” with China, and fears are rising of a U.S.-China war.

Follow Max Boot's opinionsFollow

But while the Cold War might be here, it need not lead to a hot war. We are not doomed to a “Thucydides trap,” a term popularized by Harvard University’s Graham Allison after the famous observation by the ancient Greek writer that “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Allison found that in the past 500 years there were “sixteen cases in which a major nation’s rise has disrupted the position of a dominant state,” and that “twelve of these rivalries ended in war.”

But it is significant that four of them did not lead to war, including the only one to occur in the nuclear age: the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Our goal today should be to manage the new Cold War as we managed the old Cold War by striving for detente and seeking to avoid high-risk confrontations such as the Cuban missile crisis. Biden’s own national security strategy is clear-eyed about the imperative to both compete with China and cooperate on areas of shared concern, such as global warming and covid-19.

But that’s easier said than done when anti-China passions are surging in the United States and the two parties are competing on who can be tougher on China. Among MAGA Republicans, China-bashing often turns racist. Last week, for example, Daniel McCarthy, a former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, pointed to the fact that Treasurer Kimberly Yee, a Chinese American, was the only winning GOP candidate for statewide office as evidence that “China controls our elections.” It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Yee is not an election denier, could it?

Unfortunately, former president Donald Trump — who called covid-19 “kung flu” and mocked his own transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, in racist terms — mainstreams these vile prejudices. The pending House Republican investigation of Hunter Biden will cater to such sentiments by trying to portray the Bidens as dupes of Beijing, just as in the 1940s and 1950s many Republicans tried to portray Democratic officeholders as dupes of the Kremlin. (Richard M. Nixon called Secretary of State Dean Acheson the “Red Dean of the College of Cowardly Containment.”)

Fear of being attacked for “losing” South Vietnam, as President Harry S. Truman supposedly “lost” China, led John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to ramp up the United States’ ill-fated intervention in Vietnam. That should serve as a warning about the dangers of anti-Communist paranoia run amok.

We have legitimate reasons to abhor China’s regime and to fear its ambitions to dominate East Asia, but we can also work with it. It was significant, for example, that, during their meeting in Bali, Biden and Xi “underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.” China also joined in the G-20 summit statement that noted “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine.” Those are major diplomatic victories that further isolate Russia. Of course, on most other issues, Biden and Xi did not see eye to eye — but that’s an argument for more diplomacy, not less.

“It is as myopic today to assume that a more hawkish approach to China will cause China to accommodate to our preferences as it was in the past to assume that deeper trade would hasten China’s democratic transformation,” Ryan Hass, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, told me. “If the United States cannot bend Cuba to its will, it shouldn’t expect to be able to impose its will on China. There is no substitute for hard-nosed, clear-eyed diplomacy to manage the relationship.”

That’s what Biden was doing in Bali. He deserves praise for seeking to limit the danger from the growing U.S.-China confrontation rather than being criticized, in the words of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), for a “policy of appeasement.”

The Washington Post · by Max Boot · November 21, 2022

10. Iran Caught Again Trying to Kill Israeli Civilians Abroad

Iran Caught Again Trying to Kill Israeli Civilians Abroad

fdd.org · November 21, 2022

Latest Developments

Georgia’s state security announced last Tuesday the arrest of a Pakistani national affiliated with al-Qaeda and of two Iranian nationals who attempted to murder a prominent Israeli in the capital of Tbilisi. An Israeli media report, citing an unnamed Israeli security official, said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force orchestrated the assassination attempt, which sought to target Israeli-Georgian businessman Itzik Moshe. Georgian security alleged the would-be attacker received weapons from Iranian citizens living in the country via drop-offs and hideouts.

Expert Analysis

“The arrest of operatives in Tbilisi acting under the guidance of the Quds Force demonstrates Iran has not abandoned its attempts to murder Israelis abroad. The use of an al-Qaeda affiliate shouldn’t come as a surprise due to Iran’s extensive history of training, funding, and providing other material support to al-Qaeda and its partners.”

– Joe Truzman, Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal

A History of Iranian Plots Against Israelis Abroad

Operatives acting under Iranian guidance have attempted to murder Israelis in multiple countries. On October 4, 2021, Israel accused Iran of orchestrating a plot to murder Israelis in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia. Local authorities reportedly conducted surveillance on a 38-year-old Azeri national using a Russian passport for several weeks before they arrested him. They found a pistol and a silencer in his rental car.

The following month, Quds Force operatives conspired against Israelis visiting Ghana, Senegal, and Tanzania. Under the guise of studying religion, five suspects arrested by local authorities reportedly trained in Lebanon, where the Iranian proxy Hezbollah constitutes the dominant political force. Among the targets whom the suspects scouted were Israelis on a safari in Tanzania.

In June 2022, Turkish intelligence in cooperation with Israel’s Mossad thwarted an Iranian plot to kidnap Israeli tourists, including former Israeli Consul General in Istanbul Yossi Levi-Sfari and his partner. Local police and Turkish intelligence arrested 10 suspects consisting of Iranian intelligence assets and IRGC operatives who posed as students and tourists.

Iran’s Relationship with al-Qaeda

Despite sectarian differences, al-Qaeda and Iran have a history of cooperation when mutual interests intersect. The IRGC and Lebanese Hezbollah have provided al-Qaeda operatives with weapons, including explosives training. In August 2022, a photograph surfaced of al-Qaeda leaders, including Saif al-Adel, a possible successor to former emir Ayman al-Zawahiri, in the capital of Tehran.

Related Analysis

“Rare photo surfaces of top Al Qaeda leaders inside Iran,” by Bill Roggio

“Iran Targets Salman Rushdie,” FDD Flash Brief

fdd.org · November 21, 2022

11. The Afghan National Resistance Front Outlines Its Strategy: Implications For US Foreign Policy – Analysis

Conclusion:

The anti-Taliban resistance is still in a nascent state and its survival is not assured. However, if it survives and succeeds, the strategy as pursued by its largest and most organized force, the NRF, can have definite consequences for a host of US interests from counterterrorism to regional stability. After all, the first Taliban regime only survived for five years from 1996–2001. Therefore, the goals of those who intend to replace it should be closely analyzed and understood as the United States decides what its next moves will be regarding Afghanistan.  

The Afghan National Resistance Front Outlines Its Strategy: Implications For US Foreign Policy – Analysis

eurasiareview.com · by Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute · November 22, 2022

By Philip Wasielewski*

(FPRI) — On November 15, 2022, the Foreign Policy Research Institute conducted an in-person and Zoom event titled, “The Future of Resistance in Afghanistan,” with Ali M. Nazary, the head of foreign relations for the National Resistance Front (NRF). Nazary, an articulate spokesman for the NRF and the anti-Taliban cause in Afghanistan, presented one of the most comprehensive briefings to a general American audience to date of the NRF’s goals and strategy. This short essay will provide a brief description of those goals and strategy and assess what this may mean for U.S. foreign policy.

The event with Nazary was the third Afghan-centric event or publication produced by FPRI in the past three months as part of its efforts to showcase the wide range of challenges to American foreign policy beyond current headlines. All three concentrated on the two main issues for US foreign policy towards Afghanistan since the Taliban’s seizure of power: the presence in Afghanistan of multiple international and regional terrorist groups, the presence of a resistance movement to Taliban rule, and how to deal with both.

According to Nazary, the NRF is fighting for a democratic, decentralized Afghanistan with equal rights for all citizens, including gender equality. To achieve this goal, NRF guerrilla forces are conducting a classic Maoist insurgency that is in the first stage of gathering strength in the countryside while exhausting its enemy. The NRF hopes to move soon to the next stage of the insurgency by liberating select regions of the country, which would allow them to gain the resources for the final stage of fighting large-scale battles to overthrow Taliban rule.

Nazary characterized the Taliban as being riven by factionalism based on conflicts over resources and tribal differences. Most interesting were his comments on the relationship between the Taliban and the Islamic State. According to him, the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) terrorist group in Afghanistan has itself splintered into several smaller groups, some of whom have established good relations with the Haqqani Network. Islamic State members who have fled Syria and Iraq for Afghanistan do not have the same animosity towards the Taliban as some ISKP groups. Reportedly, the Taliban used some Islamic State emigres to conduct targeted killings of rival Taliban members and suppress the Hazara rebellion in Sar-e Pul Province in August. (However, other reporting indicates that a bloody internecine war between the Taliban and ISKP continues, especially in eastern Afghanistan). Characterizing the NRF as still fighting the Global War on Terror by opposing the Taliban and their terrorist allies, Nazary presented the NRF as the only democratic force that can be relied on as a counterterrorism ally in Afghanistan. He alluded that the United States may wish to use the NRF to fight terrorist groups in Afghanistan as it used Kurdish forces to fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Nazary’s comments on the NRF’s vision for the political future of Afghanistan unambiguously emphasized the need for a decentralized governmental system that devolved power to the provinces and districts. According to him, Afghanistan’s cycle of violence for over five decades has been the result of the centralization of power in Kabul and in one man, be that man a monarch, communist general secretary, or president. When asked how exactly decentralization could be implemented, he suggested that this would be left up to the people via a referendum. Upon further questioning, Nazary denied that decentralization was a step towards partitioning Afghanistan between the ethnic minority groups in the north and the Pashtun tribes in the south, saying that Afghanistan had not reached that stage “yet” and should not pursue that option until other options such as federation (a union of partially self-governing states where the central government has ultimate authority), or confederation (a union of fully self-governing states where the central government has only the authority they allow it), are tried.

However, the NRF goal of a decentralized Afghan state will likely lead to either a confederation that maintains Afghanistan’s current territorial integrity or a partition that will end it. Decentralization is antithetical to a strong federal system where the provinces and districts can be subordinate to decisions from Kabul. Therefore, under the logic of decentralization, a confederation is the best option for maintaining a united Afghanistan with the ethnic minorities, who make up approximately 40 percent of Afghanistan’s population, controlling their areas and the majority Pashtuns controlling the rest of the country. The best scenario for the NRF would be a parallel Pashtun uprising that replaces the Taliban and joins them in confederation, possibly with regional capitals in Mazar-e Sharif and Qandahar, and with a weak central government in Kabul to conduct foreign relations while the two halves of the country establish their own political, social, and security systems.

However, a confederated Afghanistan is unlikely because the Taliban would never agree to it voluntarily and it would take a complete victory over the Taliban, as happened in November–December 2001, to impose such a system on the Taliban. Even in the fall of 2001, Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance units never advanced far into predominantly Pashtun areas. The defeat of the Taliban in these areas was achieved through a combination of anti-Taliban Pashtun tribal forces supported by American advisors on the ground and copious amounts of air support. The NRF likely realizes that such a combination is unlikely to reoccur and that they alone cannot defeat the Taliban throughout Afghanistan without a parallel anti-Taliban Pashtun insurgency. Therefore, the strong emphasis on decentralization by an official NRF spokesman seems to indicate that the NRF aims to only defeat the Taliban in majority-Tajik and other ethnic minority areas of northern Afghanistan. With the Taliban maintaining control in southern and eastern Afghanistan and little hope of political compromise between the two parties, this makes partition the most likely end result of a successful military campaign by the NRF and other anti-Taliban forces in northern Afghanistan.

What does this mean for US foreign policy?

The partition of Afghanistan goes against a general principle of opposing separatism. Since many of the world’s states are multiethnic, separatism writ large can create a slippery slope of undermining the territorial integrity of states and therefore the international order. However, the results of separatism have been accepted as de jure by the United States and the international community numerous times in the past several decades with the fall of the Soviet Union, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the velvet divorce of Czechoslovakia, and the separation of South Sudan from Sudan and East Timor from Indonesia. It is currently recognized de facto in Libya and Somalia, which are divided into two or even three separate independently functioning regions or ministates.

If the NRF or a broader resistance organization defeats the Taliban in the predominantly minority areas of northern Afghanistan and forms a functioning civil government accepted by the various ethnic groups there, would the United States be willing to recognize a partitioned Afghanistan? One argument is that this would be bad for the principle of the territorial integrity of states but good for US counterterrorism objectives. An Afghanistan partitioned along generally north-south lines would deny international and regional terrorist groups access to the borders of the Central Asian states, which those governments would welcome because it would severely decrease the threat of terrorism and internal unrest. It would provide the United States with greater opportunities to develop the intelligence and infrastructure to disrupt terrorist operations in the Taliban portion of Afghanistan. A pluralistic northern Afghanistan could also serve as an alternate example for those Taliban-controlled areas and a refuge for those fleeing Taliban misrule, further undermining the Taliban regime.

Any future decentralization of Afghanistan is one possible future scenario for the country, and it is highly dependent on the success or failure of armed resistance against the Taliban. Afghanistan’s political future will reflect the military correlation of forces between the two sides. However, should fortune favor the NRF and others opposing the Taliban, the possibility of a partitioned Afghanistan is one that US policy may have to deal with.

If partition is not a desired end state and neither is recognition of a Taliban regime, then the United States should engage with and support the various anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan to have any influence on the parties deciding a post-Taliban future for the country. This would include engagement and support for any Pashtun anti-Taliban forces that arise in eastern and southern Afghanistan as was done twenty years ago. At a minimum, the United States, beyond its counterterrorism objectives, should support attempts by all those inside Afghanistan to save the positive social changes of the past two decades regarding democracy and human rights in an area of the world often devoid of them. Positive changes in Afghanistan could reverberate in the region, especially when one considers the current protests in Iran.

The anti-Taliban resistance is still in a nascent state and its survival is not assured. However, if it survives and succeeds, the strategy as pursued by its largest and most organized force, the NRF, can have definite consequences for a host of US interests from counterterrorism to regional stability. After all, the first Taliban regime only survived for five years from 1996–2001. Therefore, the goals of those who intend to replace it should be closely analyzed and understood as the United States decides what its next moves will be regarding Afghanistan.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.

*About the author: Philip Wasielewski is a 2022 Templeton Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is a former Paramilitary Case Officer who had a 31-year career in the Directorate of Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Source: This article was published by FPRI

eurasiareview.com · by Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute · November 22, 2022

12. Security Assistance Group - Ukraine (SAG-U) | SOF News

Excerpts:

A three-star general will likely be nominated (and confirmed) for the new command. The unit is supposed to be up and running by early 2023. In the meantime, the U.S. European Command is filling the gap between the departure of the element from 18th Airborne Corps and the full-time operational status of SAG-U. Lieutenant General Antonio A. Aguto, Jr. is considered a top candidate for the position. He currently is the commander of the First U.S. Army hqs at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois.

The current U.S. troop level in Europe is around 100,000; an increase of 20,000 from the pre-war level a year ago. The troop level is likely to remain the same for several months, with continued rotations to provide security assurance for front-line NATO nations like Estonia, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania – as well as providing training for Ukrainian troops in Poland, Germany, and elsewhere.

Security Assistance Group - Ukraine (SAG-U) | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · November 22, 2022

The United States has established Security Assistance Group – Ukraine or SAG-U, a three-star command to oversee support to Ukraine. The new joint forces command will be stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany to handle weapons shipments, personnel training, and other related tasks for the Ukraine conflict.

The joint service command will be manned by personnel from across the military services. The members of this organization will be pulled from units and organizations in the United States from all of the military branches – Army, Marine, Navy, and Air Force. SAG-U will coordinate closely with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group – a coalition of 40 countries that the DoD created to assist Ukraine.

It will also be monitoring the use , disposition, and accountability of the more advanced weapons being provided to Ukraine – ensuring they don’t fall into Russian hands or get diverted from their intended purpose. This monitoring function could be performed, in part, by a small team located with the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv; most likely personnel from, attached to, or working in coordination with the Office of the Defense Attaché.

“The United States remains committed to supporting Ukraine’s near-term needs on the battlefield and its long term requirements to deter and defend against future Russian aggression. To maintain the historic level of our ongoing security assistance support for Ukraine, I’m pleased to announce that the department will establish the Security Assistance Group – Ukraine, what we will call SAG-U, which is a dedicated headquarters element in Wiesbaden, Germany and under U.S. European Command to coordinate our efforts.”

Sabrina Singh, Pentagon deputy press secretary, November 4, 2022

Prior to the establishment of SAG-U, the 18th Airborne Corps, as well as other organizations, had been coordinating the training and equipping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The 18th Airborne Corps had deployed 300 personnel to Europe in February 2022. The use of the 18th Airborne Corps headquarters, under the command of Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, was a temporary solution and returned to Fort Bragg in late October. The SAG-U command offers a more enduring capability. Donahue remains in Europe, continuing his work until relieved by the new commander of the SAG-U.

A three-star general will likely be nominated (and confirmed) for the new command. The unit is supposed to be up and running by early 2023. In the meantime, the U.S. European Command is filling the gap between the departure of the element from 18th Airborne Corps and the full-time operational status of SAG-U. Lieutenant General Antonio A. Aguto, Jr. is considered a top candidate for the position. He currently is the commander of the First U.S. Army hqs at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois.

The current U.S. troop level in Europe is around 100,000; an increase of 20,000 from the pre-war level a year ago. The troop level is likely to remain the same for several months, with continued rotations to provide security assurance for front-line NATO nations like Estonia, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania – as well as providing training for Ukrainian troops in Poland, Germany, and elsewhere.

**********

Photo:

U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Chase Smith, right, 8th Airlift Squadron loadmaster, marshals a K-loader toward a C-17 Globemaster III, assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, at Travis Air Force Base, California, Feb. 14, 2022. U.S. Airmen with the 60th Aerial Port Squadron and 8th Airlift Squadron load K-loaders onto the C-17. K-loaders are used to transport cargo into and out of aircraft. Under the direction of U.S. Transportation Command, the 60th Air Mobility Wing supported the 621st Contingency Response Wing during the movement of security assistance cargo to Ukraine via commercial cargo aircraft. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency coordinated the effort. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Karla Parra)

References:

“US Department of Defense establishes Security Assistance Group – Ukraine in Wiesbaden”, U.S. Army Europe and Africa, November 16, 2022.

“US quietly announces new Ukraine command with 3-star general”, by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, Responsible Statecraft, November 14, 2022.

U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine, Congressional Research Service (CRS), October 21, 2022.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040

sof.news · by SOF News · November 22, 2022

13. “Reunification” with Taiwan through Force Would Be a Pyrrhic Victory for China

The 10 page report can be downloaded here: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/221121_Blanchette_Taiwan_PyrrhicVictoryChina.pdf?6Pj.m7QKpd5CGitg2WL.CJd.RGZz7xRV

“Reunification” with Taiwan through Force Would Be a Pyrrhic Victory for China

csis.org · by Freeman Chair in China Studies · December 5, 2022

WRITTEN BY

Jude Blanchette

Freeman Chair in China Studies

Twitter

Gerard DiPippo

Senior Fellow, Economics Program

November 22, 2022

Download the CSIS Brief

The Issue

Many commentators and officials speculate about Beijing’s plans to compel “reunification” with Taiwan. Much of the existing commentary focuses on how or when a Chinese attack on Taiwan could occur, but there is little discussion of the nonmilitary consequences of such a scenario for China and the world. This brief explores the implications of a Chinese attack on Taiwan based on reasonable, albeit speculative, assumptions.

When considered more holistically, the implications of an attack on Taiwan would be grim for Beijing, even if Chinese forces “successfully” capture the island. China would probably be diplomatically and economically isolated from key advanced economies, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping would have to tread a narrow path to avoid dire consequences for China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a whole. This analysis helps clarify what could be at stake for the world and reaffirms the importance of deterring Beijing from contemplating such an attack on Taiwan.

Speculation has increased over the past several years that Beijing is accelerating plans for an invasion of Taiwan. While there is little doubt that Beijing seeks to fully annex Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China (PRC) one day, questions remain about the timing and methods that China might use to achieve this goal.1

There are several reasons Beijing might undertake a military campaign against Taiwan:

1. Long-standing territorial and national identity aspirations

2. Xi’s own personal ambitions and sense of legacy

3. Addressing a perceived threat to its own security stemming from deepening U.S.-Taiwan defense cooperation

4. Responding to perceived provocations from Taiwan, specifically a formal declaration of de jure and permanent independence from the PRC

While a great deal of commentary and analysis has explored how the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might undertake a military campaign to annex Taiwan, a critical—yet underemphasized—question remains regarding the types and magnitudes of costs Beijing would pay for such actions. Nearly all discussions of China’s potential invasion of Taiwan ignore the economic and diplomatic costs of such a move, make unrealistic assumptions about what China could achieve (including technological and economic gains), or otherwise minimize the challenges that China would face if an invasion of Taiwan were successful.

The below analysis is an initial exploration into some of these potential nonmilitary consequences for China. It does not seek to prove or disprove Beijing’s true intentions and timelines toward Taiwan, nor does it claim to know how Chinese leader Xi Jinping is assessing the risks and rewards of an invasion. Rather, it highlights costs that Beijing would likely face if it successfully invaded Taiwan, based on plausible assumptions of how China, Taiwan, the United States, the international community, and global investors would react.

Specifically, this brief looks at three distinct phases of a possible Chinese attack:

1. The period leading up to an attack

2. The period between the initial phase of an attack and the end of major conflict

3. The period following a successful PLA invasion

To keep the analysis focused on how a successful invasion by the PLA would impact China’s economic, diplomatic, and political circumstances, this brief intentionally remains nonspecific about the type of attack or invasion it might launch. At a minimum, this analysis assumes that it would include the direct use of lethal force by the PLA’s air, land, and sea capabilities to defeat and subdue Taiwan’s military and to depose the civilian political leadership on the island. It also assumes that the U.S. military would intervene, but its actions would be limited and ultimately unsuccessful in halting the Chinese invasion. And it further assumes that no nuclear weapons would be used. Such assumptions are not predictions of actual outcomes, but rather necessary simplifications adopted so this brief can focus on the issue of costs associated with a relatively smooth path to military victory for Beijing.

Any conflict in and around Taiwan would entail major economic, financial, diplomatic, and reputational costs for Beijing, both directly and indirectly. Even if China “won” in the military domain and thus accrued additional regional military benefits, its economic and diplomatic position would likely be substantially worse off. Simply put, China would have gained Taiwan but sacrificed its larger ambition of becoming a global and comprehensive superpower. This is the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory:

• Even absent U.S. intervention, any conflict initiated by the PRC would have immediate and dramatically negative effects on China’s ability to import and export goods, on its domestic financial markets, on business sentiment, and on the exchange rate of its currency.
• China’s costs would significantly increase if the U.S. military intervenes meaningfully, even if delayed by several days or even weeks. The blunt geographic truth for China is that conflict in the Taiwan Strait would occur directly off the shore of its most economically important and populated provinces.
• Even supposing Chinese troops could overcome Taiwan’s defenses, they would then occupy an island inhabited by a hostile population with a shattered local economy, including its semiconductor sector, while China itself would face severe economic and diplomatic repercussions.

This exercise is necessarily speculative and requires many assumptions. Perhaps the most important ones are that Taiwan offers at least some resistance and that U.S. leadership can effectively organize some semblance of an anti-China coalition among advanced economies. In addition, forecasting the effects of major discontinuities requires considerations for societies’ potential reactions under stress rather than under normal conditions. History suggests that major crises can trigger or inspire rapid shifts in consensuses based on reevaluations of national, political, or cultural priorities that can supersede economic logic.

The United States has compelling strategic reasons for deterring China from attacking Taiwan. This exercise is not intended to suggest that losing Taiwan to the PRC would be a positive outcome for Washington. Rather, the key point is that even in this dire scenario, China would still likely be the country that most suffers diplomatically and economically.

Estimating the effects of such a conflict with any precision is extremely difficult, in part because there is no analogous historical case upon which to draw. The world’s two largest economies might be at war with each other. Global supply chains are far more integrated now than before World War II—or even World War I, which ended the first era of globalization.2 The disruptions from the Russia-Ukraine war are not a good proxy because Russia’s economy is far smaller than China’s, the conflict and Western response have not stopped key Russian exports, and Western powers are not directly engaged in combat.

Nonetheless, this brief concludes that the implications of a PRC attack on Taiwan would be cataclysmic for China, the United States, and the world. Simply put, any attempt to achieve “reunification” through force is likely to fracture global geopolitics and economies far beyond today’s “partial decoupling” trends and preclude any long-term “national rejuvenation” for China’s economy.

Phase One: Pending Chinese Attack on Taiwan

Beijing’s preparation for an attack on Taiwan would likely alert foreign governments and investors to the impending conflict, but the signals would not be entirely clear. These actions would include measures to mobilize its forces, insulate its economy and financial system, ready its population, and prepare the diplomatic space for a conflict that Chinese leaders might assume will entail enormous costs for the Chinese Communist Party. While Beijing would strive to obscure its intentions in some scenarios, the required military, economic, and political preparations would be at least partially detectable to the international community. Such observable signals might include stockpiling of munitions, a freeze on military demobilizations, and an intensification of bellicose propaganda.

• The United States would warn of China’s military intentions, hoping to rally allies and deter Beijing. The effectiveness of such warnings would depend on the strength of U.S. leadership, the state of Washington’s diplomatic relations with third countries, and the credibility of U.S. intelligence. Beijing would likely proceed toward an attack in a manner that clouds or frustrates U.S. efforts to assign blame to China, such as by claiming that Taiwan provoked Beijing by crossing red lines or even that Taiwan’s military attacked Chinese territory or a Chinese asset.
• Some U.S. allies and partners would join Washington in warning of Beijing’s intentions. U.S. allies—most likely including Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom—would coordinate planning for steps that could deter China. However, even among allies, the bar for assuming an attack on Taiwan is imminent would be high. The intensity of allied responses would thus largely depend on the credibility of U.S. intelligence, the strength of U.S. government statements and actions, and Taiwan’s own demonstrations that it took the threat seriously. This would include military preparations and the threat—or perhaps use of—economic sanctions on China to deter military action. On the other hand, the United States and its allies would be wary of acting too drastically, which might escalate the crisis, including by triggering responses from Beijing, precluding off-ramps for China, or damaging the global economy.
• Other governments would be slow to respond. Some might believe Beijing’s actions are mere saber rattling, as some Western governments did ahead of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine despite clear warnings from Washington. Some leaders would hesitate because they want to avoid taking disruptive emergency measures not yet seen as justified by their uncertain or oblivious polities. Other leaders would try to avoid committing themselves to either side in a conflict. Behind the scenes, Beijing would likely be using all its diplomatic channels to pressure third countries to remain on the sidelines.

International firms and investors would need to make important early decisions in an environment of extreme uncertainty. Financial markets would be the first to respond, with strong downward pressure on Chinese assets and the renminbi’s exchange rate. Many foreign investors would assume the crisis will harm business sentiment in China and, even if resolved, at least incrementally slow the economy. Direct investors would be slower to respond than portfolio investors.

• Because Beijing’s true intentions, including the scope and scale of a possible attack, would not yet be entirely clear, many firms operating in China, Taiwan, or the broader region would adopt a “wait and see” approach. Global headquarters would be looking to in-country staff for information and updates—though even staff in China and Taiwan would be struggling to interpret events. Because the costs of shifting supply chains or divesting from China could be substantial, many companies would delay making drastic decisions in the hope that a crisis never materializes.

Phase Two: Period of Conflict

A conflict over Taiwan would devastate the global economy, but the costs would be especially high for China. The negative economic impact would be felt as soon as hostilities begin. Commercial shipping through the war zone and nearby ports would collapse, supply chains for many goods would seize up, and financial markets would panic—potentially even more so than during the 2008 global financial crisis. Beijing would likely impose emergency economic measures such as even stronger capital controls, selling Chinese assets abroad, stockpiling emergency supplies, suspending critical exports, rationing key imported goods, or restricting foreign travel.3 Early resistance by Taiwan’s military would compel China to take economically disruptive measures to protect its military assets in its eastern provinces and population centers from air or missile attacks from Taiwan or U.S. forces. Even a minimal level of U.S. military involvement would significantly disrupt this vital region.

• The two most important determinants of the war’s intensity and duration—and thus economic impact—would be the degree to which Taiwan resists and whether the United States is engaged militarily. Neither condition is certain, but both are probable. To assume Taiwan would not resist, one must have a bleak view of Taiwan’s civil society. To assume the United States would not engage militarily, one needs to at least assume that Beijing’s military operations would be extremely effective and quick while also not targeting U.S. forces in the region. Beijing would have an official pretense for any military action, but unless Taiwan took reckless actions, such as declaring independence, it is unlikely that leaders in Washington and other Western capitals would find them convincing. In the early days of the conflict, global firms and investors would assume that U.S. military intervention and general escalation pose high risks, absent extremely unlikely statements by Washington that explicitly disavow Taiwan.
• A 2016 study by the RAND Corporation estimated that a year-long war between the United States and China would reduce China’s GDP by 25–35 percent and U.S. GDP by 5–10 percent. However, the study did not examine the implications for global supply chains or estimate effects from sanctions, infrastructure damage, or cyberattacks.4 Given China’s subsequent economic growth, the economic damage ratios now are probably somewhat more in China’s favor, but the overall costs (considering all factors) could be considerably higher. A war would have an immediate impact on the three Chinese provinces nearest to Taiwan—Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang—which together account for 22 percent of China’s GDP and 17 percent of its population. Damage would not be limited to coastal provinces, however, because interior provinces are part of an intricate network of domestic supply chains.
• Most maritime trade and air freight within range of the war zone would be disrupted. International shipping and logistics firms would try to reroute traffic around the conflict zone and would avoid entering ports in or near Taiwan. Shipping insurance premiums would surge. Chinese ports accounted for roughly 40 percent of shipping volume among the world’s 100 largest ports in 2020; six of China’s largest ports are near Taiwan and would likely be directly impacted by a Chinese attack. Nearly half of the global container fleet and five-sixths of the largest ships transit through the Taiwan Strait, most of which would be rerouted.5 A complete disruption of China’s trade would reduce global trade in added value by $2.6 trillion, or 3 percent of world GDP—and this figure, based on peacetime valuations of global supply chains, only captures the first-order effect on trade.6 In the short term, however, existing inventories of goods or supplies would mitigate the effect on global firms and consumers.
• Even in the early stages of a conflict, multinational corporations (MNCs) would face significant pressure to begin unwinding operations in China. Managers’ foremost consideration in the hours and days after a Chinese attack would be employee safety, and many foreign MNCs would seek to exfiltrate foreign passport holders. Companies operating near the eastern coastline would likely halt operations even if they encounter no supply chain disruptions. MNCs exporting from or sourcing parts from China might try to shift production or inputs to other locations, although this would be expensive, and there would be competition from other firms doing the same thing with limited alternative capacity. MNCs operating in China for access to its domestic market would be the least likely to try to pull out because direct investments, such as factories and retail locations, are difficult to liquidate in a crisis. Such firms might conclude that even in dire scenarios, the Chinese market would still be enormous—at least after the conflict. However, they would fear the appropriation of their assets by Chinese authorities and the reputational costs in other markets if they remain in a China hostile to the West.
• China would face significant capital-flight pressures and a massive selloff of Chinese assets. Chinese citizens, companies, and investors—as well as foreign firms—would seek to jump the queue and avoid having their international capital ensnared by Western sanctions. While China already maintains stringent capital controls, the central bank would likely issue additional unofficial “window guidance” to China’s major state banks, directing them to halt outgoing transfers. Unofficial and illicit channels exist for motivated parties, but they are relatively narrow owing to regulators’ efforts to diminish their effectiveness. In addition to selling off onshore Chinese stocks, many investors would also dump their holdings of Chinese stocks listed on overseas exchanges. The exchange rate of the onshore and offshore renminbi would plunge, necessitating heavy interventions by the central bank to arrest the slide. As during other periods of heightened risk, global investors would flee to assets perceived as safe, especially U.S. Treasury securities and U.S. bank deposits.

The United States would impose at least some economic sanctions on China in any scenario. But if U.S. forces were engaged, the sanctions would be severe, and Washington would probably coordinate with—or even compel—major allies to join such sanctions. U.S. politicians and the public would likely not tolerate continued direct trade or investment with China if U.S. forces suffer even a low number of casualties fighting Chinese forces, although indirect economic linkages would remain. Financial sanctions on major Chinese banks would have a devastating economic impact, including for U.S. firms and consumers. The expected costs of such actions suggest they would only be used in full once a conflict breaks out and the United States becomes militarily involved. If U.S. personnel start dying and the public sees bloody images of China’s attack on Taiwan, Western sentiment would likely turn swiftly and decidedly against China. A Western sanctions coalition could coalesce quickly, as happened after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in part because of lessons learned and coordination mechanisms established in response to the sanctions against Russia.

• Major U.S. allies, even if not engaged militarily, would likely support Washington’s efforts to punish China economically. While China’s market and supply chains are critical for many international firms, overall, the United States is even more important as a consumer market, investment destination, and financial market. The European Union’s—even just Germany’s—economic and financial ties to the United States are far deeper than those with China. Perhaps more importantly, Europe’s political, cultural, and security ties with the United States would present European leaders with a binary choice they might otherwise hope to avoid. Washington would exert significant pressure on its allies to join its sanctions efforts; if the United States were engaged militarily, those requests might become ultimatums, which Western leaders would need to weigh against the expectation that China’s economic growth and liberalization has peaked.

Taiwan’s economy would be shattered and cut off from most trade, losing the ability to export the majority of the world’s semiconductors and microchips. Much of its infrastructure would be damaged during combat or from sabotage by local actors, and Taiwan’s ports would be well within the combat zone. This would halt Taiwan’s microchip exports, of which roughly 60 percent go to China as inputs into electronics that are then exported to the rest of the world.7

• Global supply chains for consumer electronics would be particularly damaged. China’s exports of consumer electronics, such as smartphones and laptops, have accounted for nearly 40 percent of the global total since 2014.8 Because of shipping disruptions and possible suspensions of trade with advanced economies, China’s domestically produced microchips would also probably not be exported.

Phase Three: The World After

Even if the PLA were successful in seizing and holding Taiwan, Beijing would still face enormous economic, diplomatic, and political challenges. The only plausible pathway to mitigating these challenges would be for China’s military operations in Taiwan to be quick (to shorten the window Washington has to respond) and clean (to minimize fighting and damage, including civilian casualties in Taiwan), as well as avoid triggering an international backlash, particularly from advanced economies. More realistically, an attack on Taiwan—even a successful one—would result in some level of U.S. military involvement, a direct response from Taiwan’s military and people, and international outrage.

Taiwanese military personnel drove a CM-25 armored vehicle across the street during the Han Kuang military exercise, which simulated China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) invading the island on July 27, 2022, in New Taipei City, Taiwan.

Photo: Annabelle Chih/Stringer/GettyImages

• China would occupy a new but significantly damaged and isolated “special administrative region,” which would face a severe economic contraction and be expensive to subdue, police, and rebuild. Chinese military and security forces would contend with a restive population, even assuming local resistance is not prolonged. Reconstruction costs would be high and absorb much of Taiwan’s remaining fiscal capacity. The public on the mainland might object to spending Chinese resources to occupy and rebuild Taiwan, given that the island is nominally more developed than most of the mainland and its people are considered hostile. Chinese leaders probably would have planned for the post-war environment based on optimistic assumptions, in part because experts and planners would have been reluctant to suggest that Taiwan’s population is sincerely opposed to “reunification.”
• Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, including the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC), would be severely damaged and unable to resume production of cutting-edge microchips. Assuming TSMC is not affected during combat or destroyed by saboteurs, its seizure by Chinese forces would only give China a snapshot of its technology in an otherwise fast-moving global industry. Beijing would also need to coopt or compel TSMC’s employees to continue working for the firm. Furthermore, TSMC relies on foreign inputs, including for chip designs and chip-manufacturing equipment. The governments of key advanced economies would likely impose export controls on those inputs, even if this means losing access to leading-edge fabrication capabilities. Foreign firms reliant on TSMC for production would no longer consider its Taiwan facilities reliable even after reconstruction. However, TSMC’s overseas assets might continue operating, assisted by TSMC staff who escape Taiwan and perhaps after being acquired by other firms.
• China’s economic and diplomatic relations with advanced economies would significantly deteriorate. Western sanctions and export controls on China would probably persist for months or perhaps years after a conflict, even if U.S. military forces are defeated. In Washington, Tokyo, and some European capitals, there would be little to no political appetite to resume normal economic relations with a belligerent China. Both sides would suffer, but China would suffer more. In 2021, the Group of Seven (G7) economies—a reasonable proxy for the U.S. alliance network—had a collective GDP 65 percent larger than China’s, even at purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates favorable to China, and directly absorbed 41 percent of China’s exports.9 China has little prospect of eliminating its key external economic dependences—technology, commodities, and the U.S. dollar—in the medium term. After a conflict, China would largely maintain access to commodities from emerging markets and developing countries. However, China would struggle to overcome technology export controls and sanctions based on the global dollar network, upon which its remaining trading partners would also remain reliant.
• China’s periphery would become increasingly hostile. Any Chinese attack on Taiwan would provoke significant anxiety among China’s neighbors. If the United States were perceived to have intervened aggressively, even if ultimately unsuccessfully, U.S. credibility as a security partner would largely remain intact, if somewhat bruised. On the other hand, if U.S. intervention were seen as halfhearted, countries might put less stock in Washington as a security guarantor, and some might develop their own capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to deter China. Either way, China’s aggression would likely galvanize a surge in military spending and pronounced bandwagoning against Beijing by Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India, but also Vietnam and the Philippines. Most other emerging markets or developing countries, however, would probably try to remain neutral.
• Annexing Taiwan would likely give Xi Jinping an initial bump in public approval, but the mounting costs of “state-building” would erode overall domestic confidence in the CCP. Propaganda organs would seek to contain criticisms of the invasion, but the proximity of the conflict would make it difficult to obscure the likely military casualties. Such efforts would be further undermined by the vast network of overseas Chinese nationals with unfettered access to information on the invasion’s course and consequences. Beijing would probably feel forced to use terror and repression to subdue pockets of resistance (real or imagined) in Taiwan, and reports of such atrocities would inevitably filter through to the mainland population. An invasion of Taiwan and the associated occupation phase would also distract Beijing from addressing China’s pressing domestic agenda and economic headwinds. To take control of the narrative and tamp down on any domestic unrest (again, real or imagined), the CCP would feel compelled to flex all its coercive muscles, and thus China would enter a new and more protracted phase of its police state.
• China’s economy would be on a wartime footing, and its hope of achieving high-income status would be severely diminished. Beijing would struggle with China’s overburdened fiscal system and state-sector debts amid capital outflows—and could face a systemic financial crisis. MNCs would expect Western sanctions and export controls to persist, while also forecasting far less potential from the Chinese market, and thus would generally maintain lower exposure to China. Foreign MNCs operating in China would fear asset nationalization, and even MNCs who want to remain or reinvest in China would face a Chinese government that scrutinizes companies representing “hostile” Western countries. China’s outbound investments and lending would be constrained. Amid draconian capital controls and a loss of foreign investor confidence in China’s trajectory and reforms, the renminbi would not substantially internationalize.

Conclusion

The purpose of this initial exercise is to sketch out some of the likely responses to a Chinese attack on Taiwan and the associated political, economic, diplomatic, and strategic consequences Beijing would face. The conclusion reached is stark: China would court disaster if it launched an invasion across the Taiwan Strait. Even under optimistic assumptions about the combat performance of the PLA and the relatively muted or constrained military responses by Taiwan and the United States, there is a precariously narrow path Xi Jinping would need to follow to emerge from the gambit unscathed. Once more realistic assumptions begin to be layered in, the picture becomes dire for the CCP and China as a whole. Equally as significant, any Chinese attack on Taiwan would also have an extraordinary impact on the global economy, especially for U.S. partners and allies in the region.

The key strategic challenge for the United States remains to ensure Beijing never actively contemplates an attack on Taiwan. While it is likely Beijing broadly understands the costs associated with such an action, the increasing isolation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the concomitant rise in groupthink in Beijing’s policymaking circles means that one cannot assume Chinese leaders will continue to conduct a sound cost-benefit analysis. It thus remains critical to find direct and clear ways to communicate to Xi Jinping the costs he would face for undertaking any attack on Taiwan.

Jude Blanchette holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C. Gerard DiPippo is a senior fellow with the Economics Program at CSIS.

This brief is made possible by general support to CSIS. No direct sponsorship contributed to this brief.

CSIS Briefs are produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

© 2022 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

Please consult the PDF for references.

csis.org · by Freeman Chair in China Studies · December 5, 2022

14. Ukrainians brace for bleak winter as Russian strikes cripple power capacity

Excerpts:

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the blackouts and Russia's strikes on energy infrastructure were the consequences of Kyiv being unwilling to negotiate, the state TASS news agency reported late last week.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Russia was bombarding Kherson from across the Dnipro River, now that its troops had fled.

"There is no military logic: they just want to take revenge on the locals," he tweeted late on Monday.

Ukrainians brace for bleak winter as Russian strikes cripple power capacity

Reuters · by Pavel Polityuk

• Summary
• Ukrainians brace for winter with little or no heating
• Temperatures in several areas already below freezing
• Kherson residents can express interest in moving elsewhere
• Ukraine security service raids famous Kyiv monastery

KYIV, Nov 22 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to Ukrainians to conserve energy amid relentless Russian strikes that have already halved the country's power capacity, as the United Nations' health body warned of a humanitarian disaster in Ukraine this winter.

Authorities said millions of Ukrainians, including in the capital Kyiv, could face power cuts at least until the end of March due to the strikes. Citizens in the recently liberated southern city of Kherson may apply to be relocated to areas where heating and security problems are less acute, they said.

Temperatures have been unseasonably mild this autumn, but are starting to dip below zero and are expected to drop to -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) or even lower in some areas during the winter months.

Russia has been targeting Ukrainian power facilities with rocket strikes after a series of battlefield setbacks that have included withdrawing its forces from Kherson city to the east bank of the mighty Dnipro River that bisects the country.

"The systematic damage to our energy system from strikes by the Russian terrorists is so considerable that all our people and businesses should be mindful and redistribute their consumption throughout the day," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

"Try to limit your personal consumption of electricity."

The World Health Organization (WHO) said hundreds of hospitals and healthcare facilities lacked fuel, water and electricity to meet people's basic needs.

"Ukraine's health system is facing its darkest days in the war so far. Having endured more than 700 attacks, it is now also a victim of the energy crisis," Hans Kluge, WHO's regional director for Europe, said in a statement after visiting Ukraine.

BLANKETS

Workers were racing to repair damaged power infrastructure, Sergey Kovalenko, the head of YASNO, which provides energy for Kyiv, said on Monday.

"Stock up on warm clothes, blankets, think about options that will help you get through a long outage," Kovalenko said. "It's better to do it now than to be miserable."

In a Telegram message for Kherson residents - especially the elderly, women with children and those who are ill or disabled - Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk posted a number of ways residents can express interest in leaving.

"You can be evacuated for the winter period to safer regions of the country," she wrote, citing both security and infrastructure problems.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the blackouts and Russia's strikes on energy infrastructure were the consequences of Kyiv being unwilling to negotiate, the state TASS news agency reported late last week.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Russia was bombarding Kherson from across the Dnipro River, now that its troops had fled.

"There is no military logic: they just want to take revenge on the locals," he tweeted late on Monday.

[1/5] A woman walks past a statue in the central sqaure after Russia's military retreat from Kherson, Ukraine November 21, 2022. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Ukraine's Suspilne news agency reported fresh explosions in Kherson city on Tuesday morning.

Moscow denies intentionally targeting civilians in what it calls a "special military operation" to rid Ukraine of nationalists and protect Russian-speaking communities.

Kyiv and the West describe Russia's actions as an unprovoked war of aggression.

The nine-month war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted millions and pummelled the global economy, driving up food and energy prices. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Tuesday the world's worst energy crisis since the 1970s would trigger a sharp slowdown, with Europe hit hardest.

RAID ON MONASTERY

Ukraine's SBU security service and police raided a 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian monastery in Kyiv early on Tuesday as part of operations to counter suspected "subversive activities by Russian special services", the SBU said.

The sprawling Kyiv Pechersk Lavra complex - or Monastery of the Caves - is a Ukrainian cultural treasure and the headquarters of the Russian-backed wing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that falls under the Moscow Patriarchate.

Russia's Orthodox Church condemned the raid as an "act of intimidation".

Battles continued to rage in the east, where Russia has sent some of the forces it moved from around Kherson in the south, pressing an offensive of its own along a stretch of frontline west of the city of Donetsk held by its proxies since 2014.

"The enemy does not stop shelling the positions of our troops and settlements near the contact line (in the Donetsk region)," the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Tuesday.

"Attacks continue to damage critical infrastructure and civilian homes."

Four people were killed and four others wounded in Ukraine-controlled areas of Donetsk region over the past 24 hours, regional governor Pavlo Kyryleno said on Telegram messaging app.

Russian shelling also hit a humanitarian aid distribution centre in the town of Orihiv in southeastern Ukraine on Tuesday, killing a volunteer and wounding two women, the regional governor said.

Orihiv is about 110 km (70 miles) east of the Zaporizhizhia nuclear power station which has been shelled again in the past few days, with Russia and Ukraine trading blame for the blasts.

Experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) toured the site on Monday. The agency, which has repeatedly called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the area to avoid a major disaster, said the experts found widespread damage but nothing that compromised the plant's essential systems.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that no substantive progress had been made towards creating a security zone around the nuclear plant, Europe's largest.

Reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar and Maria Starkova in Kyiv, Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Ronald Popeski in Winnipeg; Writing by Shri Navaratnam and Gareth Jones; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Alex Richardson

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Pavel Polityuk

15. Could the Ukraine War Turn Russia Into North Korea?

Excerpts:

Simply put – again in cold, geopolitical terms – the war is destroying Russia so that it really can’t be described as a “near-peer” adversary, apart from its nuclear capabilities.

Russia is isolated, broke, and relying on antiquated equipment. This war has destroyed the Kremlin in a way that even President Ronald Reagan’s spending in the 1980s failed to beat down the Soviet Union. At best, Moscow will be the capital of another Hermit Kingdom – one that was created due to a failed effort to restore former glory.

It is just too bad that Ukraine’s people had to pay to ensure that America won’t need to fear the Russian bear for at least another generation.

Could the Ukraine War Turn Russia Into North Korea?

19fortyfive.com · by Peter Suciu · November 21, 2022

Russia: The New North Korea? As of last week, the Kremlin has reportedly lost more than 18,000 units of equipment – including tanks, armored personnel carriers, military vessels, combat aircraft, and large artillery – since it launched its unprovoked and ill-fated invasion in February. The losses are the greatest a military power has seen destroyed or captured since the Second World War.

Russian forces are believed to have seen more than 420 troops killed in the past week, while six tanks and seven APCs were destroyed. In total, nearly 2,900 Russian tanks have been destroyed or captured, along with more than 5,800 APCs.

Earlier this month, the Kremlin also lost 24 tanks and 800 men in a single day as its defense of Kherson crumbled. During the week-long fighting for the city, Russian forces saw 2,600 soldiers killed. The Russian death toll since the start of the full-scale invasion is believed to have surpassed 83,000.

By contrast, Moscow had lost around 15,000 soldiers during its nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, and even greater than the 58,220 U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam.

The Financial Cost of the Ukraine War

It isn’t just the human toll that is so shockingly high. In August, it was reported that the war was costing Moscow around $1 billion a day, and that figure has likely only increased.

On Monday, it was reported that Russia had borrowed £11.4 billion ($13.4 billion) in its largest-ever debt issuance in a single day. Moscow raised the money by issuing new debt bonds over the weekend to help fund the ongoing conflict and to raise as much cash as possible before the conditions worsen and the costs go up.

Russia’s military budget is expected to be about 40 percent higher than forecast for next year. Replacing the massive losses isn’t going to come cheap.

At the same time, Russia’s economy officially entered recession last week, shrinking by 4.1 percent in the second quarter of this year, followed by a four percent decline in the third quarter. Even as the sale of oil and gasoline – after prices shot up after the war broke out – have kept the country afloat, Russia is now facing an embargo by the U.S. and EU, and revenues are expected to shrink in 2023.

Russia’s economy is expected to fall by 4.6 percent over the course of the year. This will be Moscow’s second recession in three years. Though not as bad as the recession Moscow faced during the Covid-19 pandemic, it isn’t as clear how Russia will come out of it – especially as the likelihood of Russia quickly restoring global trading relationships even after the war is ended is remote at best.

The U.S. Cost of the War

Even as some U.S. lawmakers have sought to reduce the amount of money sent to aid Ukraine, the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) has described the costs to defeat Russia as “peanuts” for the United States and its allies.

As the report noted, the Biden administration has to date, received Congressional approval for $40bn in aid for Ukraine for 2022, while it has requested an additional $37.7bn for 2022.

More than half of that aid has been earmarked for defense. 

Su-34 fighter. Image Credit: Russian Government.

“These sums pale into insignificance when set against a total US defense budget of $715bn for 2022,” CEPA stated. “The assistance represents 5.6% of total US defense spending. But Russia is a primary adversary of the US, a top tier rival not too far behind China, its number one strategic challenger. In cold, geopolitical terms, this war provides a prime opportunity for the US to erode and degrade Russia’s conventional defense capability, with no boots on the ground and little risk to US lives.”

Simply put – again in cold, geopolitical terms – the war is destroying Russia so that it really can’t be described as a “near-peer” adversary, apart from its nuclear capabilities.

Russia is isolated, broke, and relying on antiquated equipment. This war has destroyed the Kremlin in a way that even President Ronald Reagan’s spending in the 1980s failed to beat down the Soviet Union. At best, Moscow will be the capital of another Hermit Kingdom – one that was created due to a failed effort to restore former glory.

A Russian tank under attack by a drone from Ukraine. Image Credit: YouTube/Ukrainian military.

It is just too bad that Ukraine’s people had to pay to ensure that America won’t need to fear the Russian bear for at least another generation.

A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,000 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.

19fortyfive.com · by Peter Suciu · November 21, 2022

16. Indonesia quake kills at least 268 people, many of them children at school

Disaster season in South/Southeast Asia.

Another terrible tragedy.

Indonesia quake kills at least 268 people, many of them children at school

Reuters · by Johan Purnomo

• Summary
• Death toll from 5.6-magnitude earthquake expect to rise
• Dozens trapped in the rubble - officials
• Some areas cut off by landslide

CIANJUR, Indonesia, Nov 22 (Reuters) - An earthquake that struck Indonesia's West Java killed at least 268 people, many of them children, with 151 still missing, disaster relief officials said on Tuesday, as rescuers searched the rubble of destroyed buildings for survivors.

The shallow 5.6-magnitude quake struck in Indonesia's most populous province on Monday afternoon, causing significant damage to the town of Cianjur, about 75 km (45 miles) southeast of the capital, Jakarta, and burying at least one village under a landslide.

Disaster agency chief Suharyanto told reporters that more than 1,000 people had been injured, 58,000 displaced and 22,000 houses damaged.

Landslides and rough terrain hampered rescue efforts on Tuesday, said Henri Alfiandi, head of National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas).

"The challenge is the affected area is spread out... On top of that, the roads in these villages are damaged," Alfiandi told reporters.

Many of the victims were children who had been at school at the time the quake hit, he said.

While strong earthquakes of magnitude 6 or 7 are relatively common in Indonesia, often off-shore where fault lines run, Monday's quake of a lower magnitude had such deadly consequences because it struck on land at a relatively shallow depth.

Officials said many of the dead were killed when poorly constructed buildings collapsed, with the president calling for reconstruction efforts to include earthquake-proof housing.

President Joko Widodo travelled to Cianjur on Tuesday to encourage rescuers.

"My instruction is to prioritise evacuating victims that are still trapped under rubble," he said.

Survivors had gathered overnight in a Cianjur hospital parking lot. Some of the injured were treated in tents, others were hooked up to intravenous drips on the pavement as medical workers stitched up patients under torch light.

"Everything collapsed beneath me and I was crushed beneath this child," Cucu, a 48-year-old resident, told Reuters.

[1/10] Indonesia rescue members evacuate people from the site of a landslide caused by the earthquake in Cugenang, Cianjur, West Java province, Indonesia, November 22, 2022. REUTERS/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana

"Two of my kids survived, I dug them up ... Two others I brought here, and one is still missing," she said through tears.

"Many bodies are lying in the hospital grounds, it's very crowded," said her relative, Hesti.

In one area, some victims held cardboard signs asking for food and shelter, with emergency supplies seemingly yet to reach them.

'SWEPT AWAY'

Disaster officials said they would focus their efforts on one of the worst hit areas of Cugenang, an area that was struck by a landslide triggered by the quake.

Television news channels showed footage of people digging brown earth by hand using hoes, sticks, crowbars and other tools.

"At least six of my relatives are still unaccounted for, three adults and three children," said Zainuddin, a resident of Cugenang, told Reuters.

"If it was just an earthquake, only the houses would collapse, but this is worse because of the landslide. In this residential area there were eight houses, all of the which were buried and swept away."

National police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo said more than 1,000 police had been deployed to assist in the recovery.

Rescue efforts were complicated by electricity outages in some areas and 145 aftershocks, with officials warning more landslides could follow in coming weeks.

"It's the rainy season in West Java, the peak is in December," Dwikorita Karnawati, head of the weather and geophysics agency, told reporters. "So we must anticipate any disaster that might follow, such as landslides."

Straddling the so-called Ring of Fire, a highly seismically active zone where different plates on the earth's crust meet, Indonesia has a history of devastating earthquakes.

In 2004, a 9.1 magnitude quake off Sumatra island in northern Indonesia triggered a tsunami that struck 14 countries, killing 226,000 people.

Additional reporting by Tommy Adriansyah and Ajeng Dinar Ulfina in Cianjur; and Gayatri Suroyo, Ananda Teresia, Fransiska Nangoy and Bernadette Christina Munthe in Jakarta; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing by Ed Davies, Stephen Coates and Nick Macfie

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Johan Purnomo

17. CIA, Spec Ops roles in Kabul’s collapse belie official versions

CIA, Spec Ops roles in Kabul’s collapse belie official versions

https://www.spytalk.co/p/cia-spec-ops-roles-in-kabuls-collapse?r=9ses7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

Secrets of the Afghan evacuation to get harsh GOP review in new congress

C. Tatum

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America’s longest war, Afghanistan, has been called “the forgotten war,” which, for those who fought in it and are still suffering from it, is an insult added to its horrible end only a little over a year ago. Many questions, meanwhile, remain about its open-ended mission, such as why we stayed on a decade after killing the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks and dismantling his lethal networks. But it’s the chaotic ending of the conflict last year that’s about to get renewed attention at the hands of House Republicans, who, having won a narrow majority in the midterms, have declared their intent to launch a new investigation of President Biden’s botched evacuation and raise it to a boil by the 2024 election season. They will have plenty to work with.

C-17 photo from unattributed video at The Aviationist

Such an inquiry will be sticky for the GOP, however, since President Trump’s 2020 Doha Agreement with the Taliban to end the U.S.-led war, which excluded the democratic government in Kabul from all negotiations and teed up the disaster of August 2021. Republicans will also struggle to escape the fact that Trump’s anti-immigrant policies the previous year also meant that less than 2,000 Special Immigrant Visas—a quarter of the annual allotment—were approved for Afghans, leaving a backlog of 18,000 applications of interpreters and other contractors by the time the Taliban took Kabul, thus creating the urgent need for the “largest U.S. military airlift in history.”

If they desire a credible inquiry, House investigators should also consider scrutinizing the role the U.S. intelligence community played in the final outcome of the war—the good, the bad and the ugly—when their efforts cost some lives while saving others. 

They might begin with the untold story behind the defining image of the ignominious ending, the sight of that behemoth U.S. Air Force cargo plane taking off from Hamid Karzai International Airport with desperate Afghans plummeting from its massive fuselage and wheel coverings onto the runway and through Kabul rooftops. (Human remains were found in the wheel wells when the C-17 landed in Qatar.) The world watched, aghast, as the viral video spread across Twitter and TV. 

Secrets of the C-17

Why the C-17 Globemaster III took off with so many civilians clinging to it remains officially unanswered. An Air Force spokesperson at the time said an investigation had been initiated but also offered spin: “Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible.” 

But the real reason, according to a new book on the chaotic August 2021 evacuation, was that the plane held an MH-47G Special Operations helicopter stocked with sensitive and classified systems for flying clandestine, low-altitude night sorties for special mission units like the Army’s Delta Force. According to accounts gathered together by retired Green Beret Lt. Col. Scott Mann for his book Operation Pineapple Express, the top U.S. military commander at the airport, a Navy SEAL admiral, feared the twin-rotary chopper, a modified version of the venerable Chinook and flown by the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, would fall into the hands of the marauding Taliban. So off they went.

The horrifying sight of bodies falling from the C-17 was just one of several incidents in which U.S. clandestine services’ priorities during the hasty Noncombatant Evacuation Operation, or NEO, were often placed above all else—particularly human life. President Joe Biden had promised Americans that the Kabul evacuation would not have a “Saigon moment,” like the one captured in the indelible photograph of Americans scrambling aboard a helicopter from a rooftop as communist troops descended on the South Vietnamese capital in 1975.

There was “zero” comparison between Afghanistan teetering on the edge, Biden assured nervous Americans, and Saigon’s shocking collapse, in which thousands of Vietnamese who had worked with U.S. forces, including the CIA, were abandoned. 

“There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a [sic] embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable,” Biden told a press conference on July 7, 2021. 

But it was. 

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In mid-August the entire U.S. diplomatic and security contingent at the embassy in the Kabul Green Zone was hastily evacuated by helicopters—not from the embassy’s rooftop, to be sure, but from an adjacent soccer field. Some 1,800 Americans were flown two miles away to HKIA by the morning of August 16. Diplomatic Security agents involved in the embassy evacuation and NEO were recently decorated for heroism.

How similar was it to Saigon? The answer is a “walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction,” as Kris Kristofferson might say. Whatever, the end was a rout, recorded in countless hours of deeply shocking and saddening photos and videos that are certain to be resurrected come the 2024 presidential election season, shredding Biden’s boasts about evacuating an astonishing 124,000 people the last two weeks of August. 

Fact: The C-17 Globemaster III was on an intelligence mission to ferry a highly advanced special operations chopper for use in last-minute clandestine rescue missions in Afghanistan. But it landed on a concrete sea of chaos. The huge runway was being overrun by 10,000 or more civilians who soon forced all air ops to halt. Rather than unload the sensitive cargo, the crisis forced the top commander at the airfield, U.S. Navy SEAL Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, to order the C-17 back in the air, even as other planes remained parked. Why? It was to protect the chopper in its belly from capture or its classified systems from being pilfered by the Taliban or the crowds, according to author Scott Mann. 

The decision was confirmed in the transcript of an interview Vasely later gave to U.S. Central Command investigators: “Late morning [August] 16th, the mass of civilians on HKIA slowly began moving north across the runway, overwhelming the U.S. security forces aligned to attempt to contain the crowd. I ordered the one C-17 and two C-130s to leave.” 

Unsaid was whether Vasely knew that civilians had piled onto the retractable wheel covers (called humps) of the massive cargo plane as it taxied to take off on the single runway. Apache AH-64 attack helicopters were hovering low over the asphalt using their rotor wash to blow civilians out of the plane’s path. He likely did not know about the civilians until the plane was long gone.

And yet the killing of innocent civilians around the airfield didn’t stop there. It was more deliberate and committed more often by “friendlies” than Taliban, who were busy outside beating those clustered around the airport with rubber batons and rifle butts. 

During the mad scramble by the U.S. to exit Afghanistan after the stunningly rapid collapse of the U.S.-supported government, U.S. military senior commanders and diplomats made deals with numerous devils to exit without further calamities. The airport was the only place left to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan green card holders, legal permanent residents and “special interest” persons after the controversial decision to close Bagram Airfield north of the capital and desert it overnight on July 2. 

Another consequential decision by American commanders inside HKIA was to accept a CIA offer on August 16, as revealed in Operation Pineapple Express, to clear up to 10,000 civilians from the runway and ramps by using the spy agency’s large Afghan paramilitary “surrogate” force, hardline fighters who had carried out the Agency’s capture/kill ops. The airport crowds had forced air ops to cease after the infamous C-17 was wheels up that sunny Monday morning.

That group of seasoned Afghan militiamen were known as National Strike Units (NSU), a notorious outfit that had to change its name from “Counter-Terrorist Pursuit Teams” after years of human rights abuses came to light. The price demanded for clearing HKIA of the civilian crowds was a guarantee that the U.S. military would airlift the CIA’s surrogate forces and their families out of Kabul.

Almost immediately it became clear that the price paid was much higher.

Bridge Too Far

The 82nd Airborne Division failed at its fundamental mission of securing the airfield, insiders note, because they could not get enough paratroopers on the ground when the crowds flooding the runway forced a stop to air operations the day after Kabul fell. But the CIA’s NSU paramilitaries—ironically, all clad in retro Vietnam tiger stripe camouflage fatigues—quickly cleared the airfield of the civilians with help from the Army’s Delta Force, a smattering of 82nd Airborne paratroopers, and Taliban teams, with U.S. Marines creating a buffer between the once warring parties. “Within two hours, [they] had 400 [Afghan paramilitary] guards protecting the south side,” one U.S. official told CENTCOM’s investigators. 

How they achieved this was ghastly, as several U.S. Marine Corps officers on the airfield explained in a terrific recent HBO documentary, Escape From Kabul.

“The Afghan unit that was there, the way they got people off [the airfield], to the point, was just running everyone over and shooting them,” Marine Lt. Col. Chris Richardella, a battalion commander, said in the film. 

“They killed them,” another Marine officer bluntly told the filmmakers. A third Marine officer in the documentary said he witnessed “people being executed on the airfield.” 

Richardella said it was after dark and he observed civilians dying in the headlights of the NSU paramilitaries’ trucks as they plowed into the crowds—but, he added, the brutal tactics succeeded. By 10:30 that night, the airfield was once again secured and planes were landing and taking off again just after midnight.

The brutality of the four NSU teams, known as units 01, 02, 03 and 04, didn’t end there. Their violence was often directed at Afghan Special Operations soldiers on the run from the Taliban. Call it a violent twist on the “crabs-in-a-barrel” cultural phenomenon—the CIA surrogate forces were now inside HKIA and a nearby CIA base, and the Afghan government forces simply were not.

The NSU teams pulled security at several gates where Afghans and foreign nationals were allowed to enter HKIA in an unorganized trickle. No one in the U.S. diplomatic mission in Kabul or at the White House had adequately planned for a NEO of that size despite months of warning signs that Ghani’s government would fall after the U.S. withdrew from the country in July 2021. (More on that below.) 

At North, East and Abbey Gates, CIA’s tiger-striped paramilitaries were often more violent toward their countrymen than the Taliban outside the coils of concertina wire, who were trying to control the teeming masses of civilians and partner forces, such as Commandos, Special Forces and others, attempting to flee the country. This is evidenced in photos, video and by eyewitnesses beaten by the surrogate forces or who witnessed them kill fellow Afghans in cold blood.

“When I stood outside North Gate, one CIA paramilitary came and beat me on my back with his AK-47 stock, striking on my shoulder. He hurt me really badly,” Zahir, a former interpreter for U.S. special operations who remains in hiding in Kabul, told SpyTalk. 

Others I’ve spoken to witnessed NSU men firing into the crowds or suffered themselves from Kalashnikov butt strokes, like Zahir. This brutality by NSU fighters is on display in the opening scenes of another forthcoming documentary, NatGeo's Retrograde.

Once Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, a former Delta operator and the 82nd Airborne’s commanding general, arrived at HKIA on August 18, he began to have daily face-to-face meetings in the South Terminal with the commander of the Taliban’s Red Unit to discuss securing HKIA from ISIS attacks and facilitate the exodus of Americans and Afghan allies, according to soldiers from his paratroop division and the CENTCOM report.  

To that end, Biden even did something extraordinary, as CENTCOM’s report explained. “POTUS directed … the sharing of intelligence for force protection threats with the Taliban (en extremis),” which were on paper handed to the Red Unit commander. “This intelligence sharing built trust and opened critical lines of communication with the Taliban commander,” the CENTCOM report added.

Few trusted the Taliban to allow evacuees to pass unharmed.

CIA operatives did many good things, too. They acted swiftly to help secure the airfield, even bribing individual Taliban commanders securing the enormous perimeter as the race was on to evacuate at-risk Afghans and Americans, according to one officer there at the time. CIA officers also helped some Afghan special operators gain access to the base and guided American citizens and “special-interest Afghans” into HKIA using a secret entrance named Liberty Gate on the north side of the airfield.

Top military and Biden administration officials have boasted of evacuating 124,000 people during the NEO airlift, but have skillfully avoided questions about how those evacuees navigated the world’s most dangerous airport commute in order to get on a plane, or who helped get them safely to the entry control points.

In reality, it was not the United States government. Most got inside HKIA with their own perseverance and luck or with the help of ad hoc veterans groups located in the U.S. who used encrypted app group chats, such as Operation Dunkirk, Task Force Pineapple, Allied Airlift and others, to communicate with their Afghan brothers.

When an AP story revealed that special operations forces had choppered 169 Americans to HKIA from the Baron Hotel on August 21—a compound that overlooks the airport’s Abbey Gate—CNN quoted Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby as confirming that the mission was approved by the ground commander. “He executed a mission that he believed was in the best interest of helping these Americans, and he did,” Kirby said. 

But, few if any among those 169 people were Americans. They were British, and the mission was flown by the 82nd Airborne’s pilots, not special ops, at the request of Her Majesty’s armed forces, senior military sources have told me. 

That incident and other rumors of SAS “rescue missions” of British nationals perpetuated a myth during the evacuation that American special operators were also rounding up U.S. citizens and at-risk Afghan allies throughout Kabul or even outside the capital. 

Nothing could have been further from the truth. 

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On Their Own

Those wishing to leave had to get to the last U.S. outpost on their own, with the exception of 3,000 U.S. embassy Afghan staff and their families who were brought into HKIA aboard chartered buses.

Delta Force operators were only permitted by senior U.S. military and political leaders to execute a few rescue missions outside the wire of HKIA or from the CIA’s nearby Eagle Base, retrieving only a few dozen at-risk people—a statistical drop in the bucket, as thousands of frightened U.S. citizens and partner forces in Afghanistan desperately tried to find a way out. The SAS rumors, incidentally, were also untrue.

Why weren’t special mission units allowed to rescue more people? It was Washington’s chronic aversion to risk, senior officers have told me, citing fears of a disastrous “Blackhawk Down”-style urban street fight with the Taliban.

As a result, planeloads of U.S. citizens were left behind in Kabul, along with tens of thousands of Afghan Special Operations soldiers, while the CIA evacuated almost all of its surrogate forces. At least 600 Americans made it out months later on Qatar-organized flights with the aid of volunteer groups such as Project Dynamo.

But in the utter chaos of August 2021, Americans waving blue passports were beaten by Taliban outside HKIA— even while Pentagon spokesman John Kirby was shrugging off such reports in his daily televised briefings. 

America and all its military might could not help its own citizens.

Abandoned en masse among Afghan forces were two groups most at risk of Taliban retribution after America had cut its losses and retreated from the war. Most of the 18,000 Afghans—mostly former interpreters—who were awaiting processing of their special immigrant visas were not evacuated, as well as most of the 18,000 Afghan Special Operations soldiers who had fought side-by-side with American Green Berets, SEALs, Marine Raiders and Rangers for two decades. 

(NatGeo's Retrograde takes you inside a 10th Special Forces Group team room at Fort Carson, Colorado, where Green Berets discuss the Taliban's sudden victory over Kabul and how to leverage the volunteer groups to get their Afghan brothers stateside. The active-duty soldiers used those non-government resources successfully, and avoided the Afghans' capture and Taliban interrogation about those Germany-based Green Berets who had been training Ukrainians for years ahead of the Russian invasion.)

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the likely new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee come January, issued his own report in August deploring the abandonment of partner forces.

"As the Taliban's advance on Kabul progressed, there was no organized effort to prioritize the evacuation of critical Afghan military personnel who possessed unique knowledge of the U.S. military’s tactics, techniques, and procedures and could thereby pose a security risk to America if they could be forced to divulge their knowledge to a U.S. adversary,” he said. 

Their American friends, mostly active-duty and retired Green Berets, have received countless photos and videos in the 15 months since the U.S. exit of Afghan commandos, Special Forces and National Mine Removal Group operatives murdered by the Talibs now in power, who had publicly promised all was forgiven.

Amid the chaos, thousands of NSU surrogate fighters with their families were transported from Eagle Base (which CIA operatives burned to the ground on August 26) to HKIA for evacuation from Kabul. That effort contributed to the over-crowding of the airport that day and was among the reasons U.S. commanders stopped most entries of Afghans into the airport in the hours leading up to the ISIS suicide blast at Abbey Gate that night, according to sources who were there. The other reason for the long gate closure was ISIS threat reporting, which was constant for several days. 

Approximately 200 civilians and 13 American service members were killed in the ISIS suicide bombing just after 5:30 PM local time, which effectively ended the NEO.

Some have called what happened an intelligence failure, but that’s not quite right. No intelligence assessments anticipated the fall of Ghani’s government would come within six weeks of the U.S. withdrawal from Bagram Airfield. But sources also say there were no classified assessments that gave Afghanistan’s elected, albeit corrupt, government any chance of survival once the U.S completely left, sources told SpyTalk. Various assessments predicted that the collapse would occur in October or December 2021, or, most optimistically, by February of this year. 

And yet throughout 2021, senior leaders receiving these intelligence assessments had publicly denied the collapse of Afghanistan’s democracy was a foregone conclusion. The CIA, of course, knew differently: It was already planning how to evacuate its people and assets. One Saigon was enough for the spies. For the rest left behind, only suffering and tragedy awaited.

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C. Tatum is the pen name of a writer who observed efforts to evacuate Americans and Afghans from Kabul.```

18. The U.S. and China Are Now In An Economic War

Unrestricted Warfare.

​Excerpts:

Finally, Beijing does not develop its policy in isolation. The PRC ramped up its support for industry in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which was seen as discrediting the US economic model. Today Chinese leaders continue to play off Washington’s economic policies, which they see, correctly, as increasingly designed to restrain if not halt the PRC’s rise. Admittedly, mutual distrust might be too great to achieve mutual restraint. Nevertheless, succumbing to an expensive, bad policy without first exploring diplomatic alternatives to forge a subsidy ceasefire is foolish.

China poses a serious challenge to America, but all-out economic war is likely to be more damaging than the problem. Like real wars, economic conflicts often turn out unexpectedly and badly, and in this one Washington could find itself fighting without allies. Attempting to punish Beijing will damage US producers as well. Despite possessing a stronger, more advanced economy Americans ultimately are likely to pay a high price if Washington political apparatchiks end up controlling the chip industry’s future.

​

The U.S. and China Are Now In An Economic War

19fortyfive.com · by Doug Bandow · November 21, 2022

The US is at economic war with China. No formal congressional declaration was necessary. However, the Biden administration has imposed draconian restrictions on Chinese access to semiconductor chips, while Congress has approved significant subsidies for the chip industry.

Unfortunately, this sort of “industrial policy,” a favorite of ambitious politicians worldwide, is unlikely to turn out well. Government-directed “investment” failed to spur Japan past the US decades ago. So far government-backed enterprises have not delivered chip superiority to China. Expanding US outlays for the industry is unlikely to achieve better results.

A half century ago the People’s Republic of China was isolated and impoverished, a threat to few people other than its own. Today the PRC has dramatically imposed itself on the world. Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions have expanded accordingly.

China poses a unique challenge to America, unlike that from Japan or other aspirants to global influence. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is Leninist if not Marxist, determined to rule everyone and everything in the PRC. An increasingly totalitarian state sits atop a large economy, able to conscript nominally private enterprises and wealth for aggressive purposes.

Beijing has used means fair and foul to acquire Western technology. Unsurprisingly, despite its move to the market, China has long maintained a heavy state hand on the economy. Examples include high-employment government enterprises backed by state banks and other preferential policies. The PRC’s trading partners have generally pressed Beijing to cut such support and move closer to the market, though even nominally liberal states in the West also employ politically determined industry subsidies.

China is spending heavily to gain control of leading technologies. With burgeoning talk of “decoupling,” an increasing number of governments are responding with their own industrial policies. Even economically open nations sometimes attempt to promote “winners” to surpass competitors. PRC critics are increasingly pressing nominally liberal governments to mimic Beijing’s approach and subsidize critical industries.

Traditionally, industrial policy has been an instrument of national, not allied, policy. Forty years ago, some Americans feared Japan would overtake the US economically. That would have been embarrassing for Washington, not catastrophic. (In 1991 a book appeared predicting conflict with Tokyo, but the volume was an outlier.) However, Japan’s economy soon stalled, dissipating those concerns. A number of US friends in East Asia currently employ elements of industrial policy with little reaction from Washington.

Still, over the years the US offered various degrees of support for the industry. A decade ago, the Obama administration created a program to mimic German industrial support. The initiative survives, but without much emphasis or achievement, it seems.

As the process of innovation continues, there are essential industries using pathbreaking technologies which all countries would like to dominate. The economic benefits of doing so are obvious. In a liberal market order, lagging behind may be inconvenient and costly—but it is not geopolitically crippling. Every nation cannot be number one. Nor is there any reason to believe that more government economic intervention, simultaneously pervasive and counterproductive around the world, would produce better overall economic results.

Of course, since World War II, at least, and perhaps earlier, the US has expected to be in the lead. It won the technological race with the Soviet Union. And it was far ahead of China as the latter entered the global marketplace. Americans could comfort themselves that even as the PRC grew it was better at imitation than innovation. But no longer.

Moreover, in contrast to Japan, China challenges not just individual countries but the overall liberal order. Its Leninist state can promote and take advantage of technological “victories.” Beijing would have little compunction about using any edge, however procured, to its geopolitical advantage. While the worst case might not occur, with talk of conflict now scorching the Sino-American relationship, economic and technological developments could become weapons of war.

Receiving much attention these days have been artificial intelligence, broadband cellular networks (now the fifth generation), robotics, and semiconductor chips. All are important and backed by subsidy advocates, especially members of the relevant industries. The US Congress recently passed the CHIPS Act of 2022, which provided $52 billion for chip production and more than $200 billion for research in several critical areas. Widely lauded as a bipartisan victory, the measure was sharply criticized as a special interest payoff by market advocates.

Other relatively liberal countries also are attempting to attract chip manufacturers; for instance, the United Kingdom imagines matching Taiwan and its next generation of chips. (Even friends squabble when they are competing vigorously for the same market: Europeans, South Koreans, and others have sharply criticized new US subsidies for electric cars. Some foreign officials have even called the measure a “betrayal.”)

Whether the CHIPS Act is a one-off measure, an element of an informal industrial policy, or the start of something larger and more systematic is unclear, but the presumed China menace yielded a bipartisan vote in an otherwise sharply divided Congress. And supporters want this to be just the beginning. Brian Deese, Director of President Joe Biden’s National Economic Council, told the New York Times that “The question really needs to move from why do we pursue an industrial strategy to how do we pursue one.” He added: “This will allow us to really shape the rules of where the most cutting-edge innovation happens.”

Even classical liberals recognize that the exigencies of national security sometimes require abandoning, or at least bending, market principles. Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, allowed for Great Britain’s need to maintain a shipping industry. However, these market advocates also warn that national security all too often is used as an excuse for mercantilist economic policies. Indeed, semiconductors, though a critically important input for consumer and military goods alike, demonstrate this phenomenon, as well as the failure of politicized economic decision-making. The broader the government involvement, the poorer the likely results.

For instance, trade hawk Clyde Prestowitz lauded Japan’s much-dated Ministry of International Trade and Industry for that nation’s early success in chip production: “MITI sent written instructions to Japan’s major chip users telling them to buy Japanese. Japan’s banks were directed by MITI to make cheap capital available for investment in semiconductors. Japan’s Ministry of Finance intervened in international currency markets to maintain a weak yen versus the dollar, reducing the price of Japanese exports and vice versa.” Yet MITI’s record was much inflated. Moreover, Tokyo long ago lost its early lead, and is not an important factor in today’s calculations.

Moreover, the PRC has gotten little for the cash tsunami that it has poured into semiconductors. Beijing’s program is ambitious, both wide-ranging and well-funded. China spends more on industrial policy than any other nation and even more than it devotes to (military) defense. In fact, some observers believe the subsidies primarily reflect an attempt to bolster faltering productivity. A review of city industrial policy found that “financial favors disproportionately target loss-making, larger, older, and less productive firms.”

Despite making semiconductor chips a major priority, China lags behind the US by two generations and accounts for only a marginal share of chips by value. That nation’s chief advances have come with lower-end chips. Many firms, some heavily subsidized, have closed. Moreover, program leaders are being investigated for corruption. The latter issue is particularly embarrassing, since it has occurred in the midst of Beijing’s larger anti-corruption campaign. Even the PRC’s zero-COVID policy has emerged as a barrier to China’s hope to overtake the US in this area. (This is not to say that Chinese firms have had no success, but that costs appear to dramatically outstrip benefits.)

Could the right mix of abundant yuan and ideological lectures, perhaps mixed with threats of prison, turn around China’s program? No doubt, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping will do his best, but he is reconstituting ideological controls over the economy. That is likely to turn out even worse than the Biden administration’s exactions. Lincicome doubts that enhancing the authority of party apparatchiks will promote innovation: “Industrial policy likely shoulders much of the blame for the current state of the Chinese semiconductor industry, which features rampant misallocation of resources, ineffective implementation, corruption, and a significant shortage of human capital, as well as heavy reliance on well‐funded but uncompetitive state‐owned enterprises (SOEs).”

With a much more market-oriented approach, the US has remained well ahead of the PRC. And without massive subsidies from governments of all stripes the chip shortages of 2020 turned into the chip surpluses of 2022. But what now? Biden administration officials plan to follow politics in implementing the CHIPS Act. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo intoned: “There are a lot of strings attached and a lot of taxpayer protections.” Political strings do not bode well for economic productivity.

Indeed, the Commerce Department already has set forth conditions unrelated to the bill’s purpose of ensuring swift development of high quality chips: “The Department expects to give preference to projects that include state and local incentive packages that maximize local competitiveness, invest in the surrounding community, and prioritize broad economic gains” and those in which applicants “provide evidence of significant worker and community investments, including commitments from educational institutions for worker training, with specific commitments to disadvantaged groups.” However otherwise laudable these objectives may be, they are more likely to hinder than spur US chip production.

Finally, Beijing does not develop its policy in isolation. The PRC ramped up its support for industry in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which was seen as discrediting the US economic model. Today Chinese leaders continue to play off Washington’s economic policies, which they see, correctly, as increasingly designed to restrain if not halt the PRC’s rise. Admittedly, mutual distrust might be too great to achieve mutual restraint. Nevertheless, succumbing to an expensive, bad policy without first exploring diplomatic alternatives to forge a subsidy ceasefire is foolish.

China poses a serious challenge to America, but all-out economic war is likely to be more damaging than the problem. Like real wars, economic conflicts often turn out unexpectedly and badly, and in this one Washington could find itself fighting without allies. Attempting to punish Beijing will damage US producers as well. Despite possessing a stronger, more advanced economy Americans ultimately are likely to pay a high price if Washington political apparatchiks end up controlling the chip industry’s future.

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire. Bandow is also a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor.

19fortyfive.com · by Doug Bandow · November 21, 2022

19. How China Spies

The referenced monograph is from 2020 and is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Espionage-Operations-Nicholas-Eftimiades/dp/0997618817

​Excerpts:

Like many other national security professionals on LinkedIn, I receive weekly requests from self-identified independent consultants asking me to write on this or that topic. Sometimes it is for an “anonymous firm” that “values its privacy.” Most recently, it was a commission for a “private assessment” of a potential China-Taiwan conflict.

I always say no.

​...​

The monograph has natural limitations: Intelligence is by its nature a sub rosa endeavor. As such, the only evidence available to the author involves cases where the perpetrators got caught, and these are the most likely to have used poor tradecraft. That could skew documentary evidence to make PRC intelligence appear less capable and proficient than it actually is.

To its favor, the monograph is straight and to the point. There is no fluff, and there are no errant ideas to be found. It is tight and concise, and it represents 10 years of work on a topic that many in the free world overlook.

It is not often that a quasi-academic work warrants the widest possible readership, but Chinese Espionage: Operations and Tactics unreservedly does. There is simply no area of modern economic and military life that PRC intelligence is not trying to infiltrate and exploit. Anyone involved in modern business, the foreign and national security policy enterprise, free trade, and a rules-based international order should see what they are up against.​

How China Spies

19fortyfive.com · by Anthony W. Holmes · November 21, 2022

Last year, I received an unsolicited request on LinkedIn from a man I will call Dr. Lee. I had just left government service as the special advisor for North Korea and senior advisor for Korea policy in the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense. I was not then the established columnist and think tank contributor that I am now.

Dr. Lee offered me more than the standard commission to write for his “emerging academic journal of Asian studies” about U.S. views of potential conflict on the Korean Peninsula. I had never heard of the journal. As a longtime Asia hand, and a former intelligence officer with a decade of being professionally paranoid, this made me suspicious. I reached out to several friends in my field. None of them had heard of it, either. The purported website of this “emerging journal” did not look like it had been updated in ages.

He stressed that he needed the article very soon. I responded that I would write an article for his journal. Still, I could not agree to his timeline because of my obligations as a former national security official to get a prepublication review.

After obliquely implying that he could offer me more money if I skipped security review, Mr. Lee moved on to asking me to write an “anonymous article” or conduct a “phone interview” with his associate, who would then write the article for me. I, of course, declined.

Like many other national security professionals on LinkedIn, I receive weekly requests from self-identified independent consultants asking me to write on this or that topic. Sometimes it is for an “anonymous firm” that “values its privacy.” Most recently, it was a commission for a “private assessment” of a potential China-Taiwan conflict.

I always say no.

China’s Espionage: Methods and Goals

My experiences prompted me to read Chinese Espionage: Operations and Tactics by the pioneering Nicholas Eftimiades. The author does yeoman’s work and offers the free world an important service by painstakingly combing through publicly available information on how the PRC operates its vast foreign intelligence apparatus. He creates a monograph that every U.S. business professional and member of Congress should read – as should any person concerned about free markets and fair competition. I read it in one evening. It is only 56 pages, but that is more than enough. Eftimiades is trying to sound an alarm, not win a Man Booker Prize.

Analyzing 595 cases over a 10-year period, and using disparate data including U.S. Department of Justice filings, asset control briefs, import/export applications, and foreign government information, Eftimiades presents a compelling narrative of just how pervasive PRC intelligence is, what are its global goals, and how it has already co-opted private industry to advance its agenda.

We should all intuitively expect well-known organizations such as the PRC Ministry of State Security (MSS), Central Military Commission Joint Staff Intelligence Bureau, and United Front Work Department engage in espionage. But Eftimiades shares more alarming revelations.

For example, the author makes a compelling case that ostensibly private industry in China – not just state-owned enterprises – can task PRC intelligence to collect foreign trade secrets, to advance both the company’s bottom line and the greater economic glory of China. One can see why, because any sensitive or proprietary information collected by the state would also be made available to other industries.

The implications are staggering. The United States and many other advanced republics do not protect private networks, nor do they make intelligence assets available to private corporations. The U.S. government does make specific network security safeguards a condition of working on a sensitive project, but it does not act as an operational arm of those businesses’ bottom line. In the PRC, Eftimiades shows, clandestine state power is made available to businesses for use against private companies and individuals.

Compare this to the well-documented cases of U.S. businesses such as Google not wanting to assist the U.S. military, while at the same time enabling Chinese censorship.

Eftimiades’ research shows that there is a near equal distribution of identified espionage cases between the “four clusters” of PRC espionage: MSS (16%), state-owned enterprises (20%), the PLA (19%), and private corporations (23%). Topic-wise, dual-use and military technology make up around 40% of the targets. The rest are related in some way to intellectual property theft.

Eftimiades goes further by exploring PRC intelligence tradecraft. Unsurprisingly, PRC intelligence appeals to the Chinese diaspora globally, harnessing classic ethnonationalism and greed to get what it wants. The author also demonstrates that the PRC uses what are essentially private intelligence mercenaries. If true, this would be the outsourcing of intelligence in the field. It goes even further than Russia or the former Soviet Union would go via the illegal resident program so thoroughly exposed in the Mitrokhin Archive.

PRC Spies in Every Aspect of Life

The vignette with which I opened this article demonstrates my own run-ins with suspicious activity. In the cases the author studied, PRC intelligence operatives often posed as academics and journalists. Based on the studies, Chinese intelligence has adopted LinkedIn as its approach vector of choice. Why wouldn’t it? We all have our resumes and bios. It’s easy to see who has sensitive experience. In my case, it was easy to see that I was looking for work post-government employment.

The monograph has natural limitations: Intelligence is by its nature a sub rosa endeavor. As such, the only evidence available to the author involves cases where the perpetrators got caught, and these are the most likely to have used poor tradecraft. That could skew documentary evidence to make PRC intelligence appear less capable and proficient than it actually is.

To its favor, the monograph is straight and to the point. There is no fluff, and there are no errant ideas to be found. It is tight and concise, and it represents 10 years of work on a topic that many in the free world overlook.

It is not often that a quasi-academic work warrants the widest possible readership, but Chinese Espionage: Operations and Tactics unreservedly does. There is simply no area of modern economic and military life that PRC intelligence is not trying to infiltrate and exploit. Anyone involved in modern business, the foreign and national security policy enterprise, free trade, and a rules-based international order should see what they are up against.

Anthony W. Holmes received a review copy of It is available now.

A 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, Anthony W. Holmes is a Florida-based senior non-resident fellow at Project 2049 and was special advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs from 2017-2021. You can connect with him on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @anthonywholmes.

19fortyfive.com · by Anthony W. Holmes · November 21, 2022

20. Taiwan Party That Wants Stronger Ties With China Has a New Star

Taiwan Party That Wants Stronger Ties With China Has a New Star

• Chiang Kai-shek’s great-grandson runs for Taipei mayor
• Victory could help restore the Kuomintang’s fading clout

ByCindy Wang

November 21, 2022 at 4:00 PM EST

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-21/taiwan-election-2022-kmt-backs-chiang-wan-an-in-race-for-taipei-mayor?sref=hhjZtX76

Chiang Wan-an was a teenager when his father sat him down to tell him about his heritage: he’s the great-grandson of Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese Nationalist leader who fought Mao Zedong’s Communists forces before fleeing to Taiwan and ruled it with an iron fist.

Now the younger Chiang, who was a corporate lawyer in the US before entering Taiwan politics several years ago, is running for Taipei mayor in an election that could help restore the popularity of his famous ancestor’s political party, the Kuomintang. The once-dominant party, whose charter still calls for unification with China, has seen support wither.

Invigorated by Chiang’s youthful image and moderate approach on China, a KMT victory in the election Saturday could help the party’s chances at a comeback in national elections. That could also sway cross-strait relations, meaning it’s being watched closely by Xi Jinping, who secured his third term as leader last month.

“If Chiang wins, he could potentially revitalize the KMT by helping the party regain control of Taipei city and giving the party a prominent new political face,” said Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Washington-based Global Taiwan Institute. “The results could produce cascading effects that would have important implications for the 2024 presidential election, and in turn, the situation across the Taiwan Strait.”

The election is being held after a spike in tensions between Taiwan and China this year, with the People’s Liberation Army conducting a barrage of drills around the island. In October, China’s Communist Party enshrined its rejection of Taiwan’s independence into its constitution and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that Beijing was trying to speed up its seizure of the island. 

A meeting by US President Joe Biden and Xi on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit this month appeared to ease escalation, but it’s unclear how long this will last. Biden has said the US would come to the island’s defense should it be attacked -- something previous leaders have avoided expressing explicitly for fear of provoking China.

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Many voters, particularly older generations with an affinity for the KMT, see Chiang, 43, as the safe choice in these uncertain times. While he may lack the political experience of his main opponent Chen Shih-chung, the 68-year-old former Health Minister and candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Chiang has gained a steady, if unremarkable, reputation as a lawmaker since winning a seat in 2016. 

Although issues in the upcoming ballot are mostly local, voters and political analysts say security concerns are at the top of people’s minds. 

“All I care about now is that I don’t want to see war happening in my life,” said Kathy Wang, a retired 70-year-old. She comes from what many Taiwan people describe as a “blue” family of KMT supporters, with connections to China. 

Chen Shih-chungPhotographer: I-Hwa Cheng/Bloomberg

“I think the ruling party should help us seek peace with China, not war. There is no prosperity without peace,” she said. 

While polls have shown a majority of Taiwanese people are happy to maintain the status quo rather than seek unification or independence, her support for the KMT puts her in the minority. President Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP came to power in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020 as her vow to protect Taiwan’s autonomy proved popular amid a crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. 

The KMT, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party, once ruled China by reunifying a country fragmented by the collapse of its monarchy and battling Japanese invaders. Since moving to Taiwan as Mao’s forces advanced, the party has said it aims to retake the mainland and reunite China’s people, a goal now seen by many as out of date. 

More voters now see themselves as Taiwanese first and foremost, and fewer stand by the dual, Taiwanese-Chinese identity that was more common a few decades ago, viewing Beijing and the prospect of peaceful unification with skepticism. 

“I fear war, but I fear unification even more,” said Sabrina Hong, a 40-year-old local bank worker. “If KMT runs Taiwan’s government, maybe cross-strait ties will be less tense. But it’s concerning that Taiwan may eventually become part of China.”

While many feel that a stronger KMT could help avoid military conflict with China, others believe that the DPP government’s stance of keeping China at arm’s length, combined with support from Western allies, is the best way to extend the status quo.

Tsai hosted US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a visit in August, prompting China to cut off military and climate talks with the US and fire ballistic missiles over the island. While some saw the trip as provocation, many believe that bolstering Taiwan’s ties with the US and others such as Japan is key to preventing a takeover. 

Nancy Pelosi, left, with Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei, on Aug. 3.Source: Chien Chih-Hung/Office of The President/Getty Images

Chiang showed he was well aware of such concerns during a two-hour debate in early November, emphasizing Taiwan’s democratic values and brushing off suggestions, including from Elon Musk, that Taiwan become a special administrative zone of China.

“There’s no need to even think about such a proposal. I’ll definitely oppose it to the end, and uphold the dignity of the Republic of China,” Chiang said, using the formal name of Taiwan. 

Chiang, whose campaign promises to address the capital’s aging infrastructure and declining population, is also helped by criticism over Chen’s tenure as health minister. Taiwan’s early success at reining in the spread of Covid-19 has been overshadowed by a late spike in cases and criticism over vaccine shortages. 

“He is more moderate and willing to listen,” said Dane Wang, a 43-year-old owner of a tech startup, adding that Chiang’s family background doesn’t matter to him. “What we care about more is what he can bring to the city and his personality.” 

The KMT has the advantage in Taipei, which has a significant presence of “blue” voters. The party is traditionally favored by the island’s establishment and older voters, while the DPP has been more popular among farmers and working-class Taiwanese. 

Complicated Legacy

Chiang’s looks appear to be helping offset some concerns that he can sound scripted and less spontaneous than his more seasoned rivals. Chiang -- a father of two with another on the way -- is often mobbed on the campaign trail by smartphone-wielding female voters demanding selfies. 

The most obvious asset may be his name. But Chiang, who declined to comment for this story, has also been careful about brandishing it. The legacy is slightly complicated: his father John Chiang, former vice premier and foreign minister, was an unrecognized son of Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chiang Kai-shek. 

Wan-an changed his surname from Chang to Chiang in 2005, when he was 27 and around a decade after his father first told him about his great-grandfather. Chiang has explained the delay as respect for Chiang Ching-Kuo’s widow, who died in 2004. Ching-kuo never publicly acknowledged John and his twin brother as his own. 

Chiang hadn’t always pursued the role of heir to a political dynasty, and focused on venture capital as a lawyer. In a book, he said he turned to politics after seeing a struggling KMT, determined to “commemorate ancestors and show devotion to the country.” He won a seat in legislature in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020. 

He’s likely aware that his name isn’t viewed favorably by all. The KMT’s single-party rule, including leadership by Chiang Kai-shek and his son, is remembered by many as a time of repression. 

While the KMT government shifted toward democratization in the 1990s, its early days of rule in Taiwan were marked by the killing of opponents and attacks on civilians considered sympathetic toward communists. 

Chiang Wan-an at an election campaign in New Taipei City on Nov. 5.Photographer: Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images

Chen made an oblique reference to this during the televised debate. “I won’t ask him to be responsible for what Chiang family did, simply because he is Chiang’s descendant,” he said. 

Huang Shan-shan, Taipei’s former deputy mayor and independent candidate, also took a dig at Chiang, saying she was running on her own merits rather than family connections.

For the DPP, a poor outcome on Saturday could serve as a blow to Tsai, whose term ends in 18 months. She may be forced to resign as party chair, giving her less influence over the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

A win by Chiang could bolster the KMT’s fortunes. KMT Chairman Eric Chu, who lost to Tsai in 2016, is widely seen as the party’s candidate for the next presidential race, but many say success as mayor could lead to Chiang’s nomination in the future. 

Kharis Templeman, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, said the relatively young Chiang was KMT’s best bet at a comeback, but added that the party still had more work to do to prove its relevance.

“It needs to find ways to reassure Taiwanese voters that it would take security and sovereignty equally as serious as the DPP,” he said. 

— With assistance by Spe Chen

21. Taiwan officials have rare run-in with Xi Jinping at Asia talks

Interesting exchange. Taiwan holds the moral high ground? We can read what Chang said but I wonder what was Xi's response?

Excerpts:

"Certainly, the presidential office had said to me if there was an opportunity there was no need to avoid a meeting or a greeting. That was the only instruction," Chang said.

He added that he had congratulated Xi on his re-election at the Chinese Communist Party's 20th Congress, which cemented his authority.

Taiwan officials have rare run-in with Xi Jinping at Asia talks

foxnews.com · by Ryan T. Anderson | Fox News

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Taiwanese officials had a rare face-to-face run-in with Chinese President Xi Jinping while attending an Asian economic forum last week.

Morris Chang, Taiwan's envoy to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, said he had a "pleasant" interaction with the Chinese leader. Chang, the founder of Taiwanese chip giant TSMC, opened up about the Friday meeting upon his return to Taipei on Monday, Reuters reported.

"Certainly, the presidential office had said to me if there was an opportunity there was no need to avoid a meeting or a greeting. That was the only instruction," Chang said.

He added that he had congratulated Xi on his re-election at the Chinese Communist Party's 20th Congress, which cemented his authority.

CHINA HAS STOLEN MORE US DATA THAN ALL OTHER COUNTRIES COMBINED, FBI CHIEF SAYS

China's President Xi Jinping looks on as he attends a session during the G-20 Summit in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Nov. 16, 2022. (WILLY KURNIAWAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

China cut off formal interactions with Taiwan following the election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016, but the annual APEC forum has remained one of the few instances where the two governments interact, even if only briefly, according to Reuters.

Taiwan split from mainland China in 1949 after democratic forces lost a civil war to the Chinese Communist Party and fled to the island. China has long pushed for reunification, and has threatened to do so by force. Beijing's government views Tsai as a separatist who seeks Taiwanese independence.

The brief interaction at APEC comes after China held weeks of military operations surrounding Taiwan in an apparent simulation of an invasion.

G7 TAKES AIM AT CHIEF ADVERSARIES AND URGES PEACE FROM UN LEADERS RUSSIA, CHINA

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), center left, poses for photographs after receiving the Order of Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon, Taiwan’s highest civilian honor, from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, center right, at the president's office. (Chien Chih-Hung/Office of The President via Getty Images)

China's escalation came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island in early August. Her trip was among a flurry of visits to the island by U.S. lawmakers, outraging China.

Beijing argues the trips infringe on the American One China policy, which states that the U.S. acknowledges Beijing as the sole government of China and will not hold formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, fighter jets of the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army conduct a joint combat training exercises around the Taiwan Island on Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. China said Monday it was extending threatening military exercises surrounding Taiwan that have disrupted shipping and air traffic and substantially raised concerns about the potential for conflict in a region crucial to global trade. (Gong Yulong/Xinhua via AP)

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The U.S. has adopted a policy of "strategic ambiguity" regarding Taiwan. President Biden has stated four times as president that the U.S. would intervene if China invaded the island, but White House officials have walked back the statement each time.

Biden emphasized that there had been no change in U.S. policy in his face-to-face meeting with Xi last week.

Ryan T. Anderson is the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the author of several books, including "What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense."

foxnews.com · by Ryan T. Anderson | Fox News

22. A New Theory of American Power

Excerpts;

In the age of Putin, Xi, and Trump, liberalism and nationalism seem to be mortally opposed. The first is universal (“globalist,” in the derisive phrase of nationalists), the second particular; the first ennobles the individual, the second exalts the community. But in a healthy society, liberalism and nationalism coexist; in fact, they’re inextricable. Without shared identity and strong social bonds, liberty atomizes citizens into consumers, spectators, gamers—easy targets for a demagogue. But national solidarity can’t endure if it’s coerced. A people kept compliant with lies of national greatness, shopping, and police roundups will turn on one another in the face of crisis.

When I asked Ukrainians what the war was about, they inevitably gave two answers in a single phrase: survival and freedom. “Patriot war and democratic war—you cannot distinguish,” Denys Surkov, a crew-cut, scowling doctor, told me. “It’s the same war.” Ukraine is fighting for its existence as an independent nation, and for the right of Ukrainians to choose their own way of life, their own form of government—which is democracy. These two causes are inseparable and reinforce each other. Without a sense of nationhood, Ukrainians wouldn’t have the unity and collective will to resist at such a steep price. Without liberal values and a democratic government, Ukraine would likely divide into ethnic and regional factions.

Something similar is true here in the U.S. Our national identity has always been rooted in democracy. Nothing else, not blood and soil, shared ethnicity or faith, common memories or moneyed pursuits, has ever really held Americans together—only what Walt Whitman called “the fervid and tremendous idea.” It’s as fragile as it is compelling, and when it fails, we dissolve into hateful little tribes, and autocrats here and abroad smile and rub their hands. Don’t imagine that America can bring the light of freedom to the world, but don’t think the world will be better off if we just stop trying.

A New Theory of American Power

The United States can—and must—wield its power for good.

By George Packer

The Atlantic · by George Packer · November 21, 2022

A national mood disorder afflicts America, causing wild swings between mania and despair, superhuman exertion and bruised withdrawal. We overdo our foreign crusades, and then we overdo our retrenchments, never pausing in between, where an ordinary country would try to reach a fine balance. American exceptionalism has two faces, equally transfixed with a sense of specialness—one radiant with the nation’s unique beneficence, the other sunk in its unrivaled malignity. These extremes, confounding friends as well as enemies, are unrealistic and unsustainable.

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Until the early hours of February 24, when Russian tank columns crossed the Ukrainian border and airborne troops targeted Kyiv, the United States was a chastened and declining superpower. The Biden administration seemed to have picked up where the Trump administration left off, accepting the harsh diagnosis of critics: After 20 years of failed wars, the age of intervention was over. Any thought of using force to transform other countries met the definition of insanity. A wave of recent books—Spencer Ackerman’s Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, Andrew Bacevich’s After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed, Samuel Moyn’s Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, Luke Mogelson’s The Storm Is Here: An American Crucible—portrays a country so warped by endless war, white supremacy, and violence that its very nature now drives it to dominate and destroy. Ackerman concludes that it is “increasingly difficult to see America as anything more than its War on Terror.”

The best that such a country can do for the world is as little as possible. After the fall of Afghanistan, Moyn, a law and history professor at Yale, told Vox: “The most remarkable fact about liberals today is that, aside from a few, they’ve all learned their lesson.” What lesson? That “humanitarian intervention” is a contradiction, and war itself almost always wrong; that the U.S. cannot change other countries and does a lot of harm trying; that Americans are willing to accept far too much violence in the name of “security” and “democracy”; that the period of American global hegemony was a disaster best consigned to history.

In the past half decade, this deep skepticism has led to an odd convergence of views. From opposed starting points, the pacifist, anti-imperialist left and the nationalist, “America First” right have arrived at a common position: restraint. They have been joined by geopolitical “realists” from the center—mostly academic experts—who view international relations in terms of national interests and security, holding that the goal of foreign policy should be stability among great powers, not the spread of democracy and human rights.

The old labels have lost their predictability. Progressives now call for a return to “spheres of influence,” and conservatives denounce the U.S. military; The Intercept and Fox News sometimes sound alike; Noam Chomsky recently praised the statesmanship of Donald Trump. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (named for John Quincy Adams, who warned the young American republic not to go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy”) emerged in 2019 as a stronghold of restrainers from across the spectrum. It draws experts from the staff of former Vice President Dick Cheney, the Nation Institute, the oil industry, and the CIA; they’ve been paid by both George Soros and Charles Koch.

Beneath the restrainers’ views lies a shared hostility to what they often call “liberal elites”—the policy makers and plugged-in experts and pundits who never listened, and whom they despise for continuing to see America as a benevolent power. How could anyone still believe that fairy tale? For restrainers on the right, liberal zeal threatens national sovereignty and traditional values around the world and at home. For those on the left, democracy is the pretty lie that hides the brutality of capitalism and imperialism. These views are at bottom antithetical: The right wants more national power without international rules, and the left wants the nation-state to disappear. But the two sides have made a temporary marriage at what they see as liberalism’s sickbed.

From the March 2022 issue: George Packer on the betrayal of Afghanistan

With the withdrawal last year of the final troops from Kabul, restraint appeared to have won an uncontested victory. It lasted six months.

In February, as more than 130,000 Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border, restrainers refused to believe the Biden administration’s warning that Vladimir Putin was about to invade. A war would upend their fixed views of international politics: that states pursue rational interests, not mad dreams of ancient glory; that U.S. leaders manufacture intelligence for their own ends; that imperialism is a uniquely American sin. Therefore, a war wasn’t possible. When it came anyway, restrainers found ways to place the blame on the U.S.:

“Emulation of the American way of being in the world is largely complete with Putin’s shock and awe assault.”

“The neocons on the right ... they’re power drunk, they are bloodthirsty, and they cannot be trusted ... Joe Biden is sleepwalking us towards war.”

“At first Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had at least the morally instructive quality of showing what a humanitarian intervention looks like from the other side.”

“It’s very important to understand that we invented this story that Putin is highly aggressive and he’s principally responsible for this crisis in Ukraine.”

These statements could all have come from the left, right, or center. As it happens, in order they’re from Pankaj Mishra, a left-wing anti-imperialist; Joe Kent, a pro-Trump Republican candidate for Congress in Washington State; Thomas Meaney, whose career has spanned the Claremont Institute and the New Left Review; and John Mearsheimer, a realist international-relations scholar. They give neither Russia nor Ukraine any agency—only the U.S. drives history. The war is not about Putin’s fantasy of a restored empire, or Ukraine’s determination to remain an independent democracy. It’s simply one move of a long game in which America is the aggressive player, Russia a threatened opponent capable of being restored to reason, and Ukraine a hapless pawn. Putin was only reacting to NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders.

From the October 2022 issue: Ukrainians are defending the values Americans claim to hold

None of this analysis held up. The NATO alliance has always remained a defensive one, posing no military threat to the Russian Federation, never seriously considering Ukrainian membership, and guilty of no historic betrayal, either, as the Johns Hopkins historian M. E. Sarotte shows in Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post–Cold War Stalemate. The book argues that both superpowers squandered the chance for cooperation after the Cold War, but it refutes the Russian claim that expansion broke an explicit American promise to advance NATO “not one inch eastward.” In any case, Putin had offered an entirely different justification on the eve of the invasion: Ukraine was part of Russia. Ukraine didn’t exist.

In the months following February 24, a few restrainers quietly changed their minds on Ukraine; others fell silent about one of the most important geopolitical events of the century. Most persisted with the conviction that American arms would achieve nothing, that a doomed Ukraine should find the quickest way out of pointless bloodshed by negotiating away territory and human beings for neutrality and peace. When I went to Ukraine this past spring, Oleksandr Sushko, the executive director of a prodemocracy foundation in Kyiv, told me that some progressive American colleagues recoiled when Ukrainians like him spoke of fighting for liberal values. “Don’t say the word freedom,” Sushko was warned, “because ‘freedom’ was used to intervene somewhere in the world.” In an essay, Samuel Moyn advised the West to follow the example of countries in the “global south” and criticize the invasion without doing a thing to stop it—which would have left Ukraine a Russian-occupied wasteland and encouraged future aggressors around the world.

With the withdrawal last year of the final troops from Kabul, restraint appeared to have won an uncontested victory. It lasted six months.

This restraint is not a hard-won prudence in the face of tragic facts. It’s a doctrinaire refusal, by people living in the safety and comfort of the West, to believe in liberal values that depend on American support. The restrainers can’t accept that politics leaves no one clean, and that the most probable alternative to U.S. hegemony is not international peace and justice but worse hegemons. They can’t face the reality that force never disappears from the world; it simply changes hands.

Meanwhile, the war has reduced their position to rubble. U.S. intelligence turned out to be accurate. Putin has rejected any serious negotiations, both before invading and since. His purpose is not to neutralize or “liberate” Ukraine, but to annihilate it for the dream of Greater Russia. Occupying troops have committed atrocities on an unimagined scale. NATO weapons have allowed Ukrainians to defend themselves and eventually regain lost territory in a conflict they understand to be a fight for survival. European support has not disintegrated under Russian blackmail. American leadership has proved decisive in holding the West together in defense of collective security and democratic values. The war is about freedom. Russia is likely to lose.

But we should pause before closing the book on the post-9/11 years and never listening to the restrainers again. The war has kindled hope, at times bordering on triumphalism, for a renewal of liberal democracy, not just as a guide to foreign policy but as a mission at home. In September, the political philosopher Francis Fukuyama told The Washington Post, “If Ukraine is able to defeat Russia, the demonstration effect is going to be really tremendous. It’s going to have domestic political consequences inside every democracy that’s threatened by one of these populist parties … I do think that we could recover a little bit of the spirit of 1989. Ukraine could trigger something like that in the United States and Europe.”

Imagining that a Ukrainian victory would have a decisive effect on the internal politics of Western democracies is unwarranted exuberance. Illiberal populism continues to thrive in countries whose governments support Ukraine—Poland, the U.K., France, Italy, Sweden. The major non-Western democracies—India, Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa—have stayed more or less neutral on the war; India began to criticize only when Russia began to lose. In the U.S., arming Ukraine still has bipartisan backing in Congress and from the public, but a Republican win in the midterm elections could allow the party’s Trumpist wing to block military aid; and if Trump is reelected in 2024, the U.S. might well switch sides. In that case, American politics would transform Ukraine, not the other way around.

From the January/February 2022 issue: George Packer on how to fend off Trump’s next coup

In 1989 it was possible to believe that Europe would lead the way toward a more integrated, cosmopolitan world under an American security umbrella; it was easy to discount the force of nationalism. That ceased to be true a long time ago, as Fukuyama knows: It’s the subject of his latest book, Liberalism and Its Discontents. He argues persuasively that liberalism—individual freedom, equal rights, rule of law, consent of the governed, open markets, scientific rationalism—is in retreat around the world, not because of “a fundamental weakness in the doctrine,” but because of “the way that liberalism has evolved over the last couple of generations.” The causes of its decline run deep: globalization, rapid technological change, inequality, mass migration, institutional sclerosis, failures of leadership. In the past few decades, an exaggerated emphasis on freedom has driven polarization in democracies, including ours: radical egalitarianism on the left, reactionary authoritarianism on the right. Both forms of illiberalism seek to forge group identities—exclusive, intolerant ones, steeped in resentment—to replace the national identities that have become corroded in an era of globalization.

Fukuyama believes that liberalism can recover and thrive again through “a sense of moderation,” by toning down its individualistic extremes—sensible advice, but not exactly an antidote to a global crisis that has reached even Sweden. When writers like Fukuyama and Robert Kagan—in his 2018 book, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World—call for liberalism’s renewal, they often assume its self-evident appeal. They downplay the erosion of American legitimacy and will, and they gloss over a question that doesn’t interest the restrainers but that has returned in full force with a new European war: Can America still lead? And if not, can the liberal order survive?

The institutions and rules of the postwar era, which enabled a historic expansion of freedom and prosperity around the world, depended on not just U.S. power but the American example. It doesn’t seem possible for liberal democracy to remain healthy abroad but not at home, and vice versa. Its decay in the U.S. has coincided with the rise of authoritarianism globally. The likely successor is not, as the left wishes, world government and international law under the aegis of the United Nations, but rival nationalisms, including Trump’s “America First,” with “might makes right” in every neighborhood.

The Biden administration, while disavowing the term cold war, is already waging one—invoking a global contest between democracy and autocracy, using industrial policy to gain strategic advantage over China in areas such as microchip production. In The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us About Great-Power Rivalry Today, Hal Brands, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, revisits the U.S.-Soviet contest for its now-forgotten lessons on how to conduct “high-stakes, long-term competitions.” But a new twilight struggle would be far murkier than the Cold War’s stark ideological contest between two systems across the globe. China, a totalitarian state that delivers the goods, is the obvious peer adversary today, but Brands also includes Russia, though he was writing before Putin and Xi Jinping announced a friendship with “no limits” between their two countries on February 4 at the Beijing Olympics. Their statement featured the terms multipolarity, polycentric world order, and civilizational diversity , but its real message for the U.S. and the West was blunt: You had your turn—now butt out. Three weeks later, Putin gave the world a look at the multipolar future.

American policy in the original Cold War was to contain Soviet communism until it finally altered its character or collapsed. This time around there’s no universal ideology to combat, only brutal, cynical dictatorships. Illiberalism today is entirely negative. In place of utopia, it offers resentment—of American power, Western elites, decadent globalists. Putin gives the Russian people nothing they’re willing to die for. When he declares a national emergency, they flock to the airports and borders rather than risk their skins in defense of the motherland.

Brands is concerned with “winning a long-term rivalry,” but what this would mean today isn’t clear. Maintaining military and technological supremacy? The fall of authoritarian regimes? Limitless expansion of the free world? Or something more modest, like improved behavior from Moscow and Beijing? Brands is well aware of flaws in the Cold War analogy, but he doesn’t reckon with the most important difference. When the last twilight struggle began, the U.S. had just emerged from the ruins of World War II energized and unified by victory, the world’s dominant country by far. Today we can’t hold an election without fear of civil war. Any thought of winning a new cold war has to start from this dismal fact.

Rather than relearning the lessons of the Cold War, or overlearning those of the post-9/11 years, we have to escape the old pattern of wild swings by facing what is new. We’re left to resolve two hard and conflicting truths: Autocratic regimes will exploit American restraint to enlarge their power at the expense of their own people, their neighbors, and the international order. But American action will stoke illiberal reactions when it brings domination, not freedom.

One way out of this dilemma was proposed by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in 1821, when, after warning against going abroad to destroy monsters, he added: America “is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.” The best thing we can do for the world’s disrepair is to fix our own collapsing house. That sentiment is becoming more and more common today, expressing a prudent sense of limits. Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote that “democracy promotion at home rather than abroad should be the focus of U.S. attention,” because there’s more at stake here and a better chance of success.

But separating these projects is a lot harder to do in the postwar, post–Cold War world than it was two centuries ago. Striving to be an exemplary bystander, for all the urgency of our own problems, is too narrow an approach, either abroad or at home. The American-led order lasted three-quarters of a century, and people struggling for democracy in other countries are less eager to see it end than the Quincy Institute is. Even when they resent our interference, they also want our support. And in this country, invocations of “national interest” and strategies for “long-term rivalry” absorb experts more than they move ordinary people. As American history shows, we’re loath to sacrifice for an international cause that has nothing to do with freedom.

Russia’s war has demonstrated that a decent world isn’t possible without liberalism, and liberalism can’t thrive without U.S. engagement. Ukraine shows one way for America to use its power on behalf of freedom: Instead of sending troops to fight and die for democratic illusions in inhospitable countries, send arms to help an actual democracy repel a foreign invader. No U.S. troops, no meddling in civil wars, no nation building, no going it alone. Collaborate closely with allies and take measures to avoid catastrophe. Call it the Biden doctrine—it’s been remarkably successful.

In the age of Putin, Xi, and Trump, liberalism and nationalism seem to be mortally opposed. In a healthy society, they’re inextricable.

Do its principles extend beyond this war? For example, what can the U.S. do to support Iran’s democratic protests that wouldn’t ultimately undermine the cause and, eventually, bipartisan backing at home? Broader sanctions would further the destruction of Iran’s middle class. Withdrawing from nuclear talks during this brutal crackdown, though the right thing to do, would not affect the regime’s behavior. The Biden administration—unlike the Obama administration during an earlier surge of protest in 2009—has chosen to give Iran’s brave young demonstrators strong rhetorical support and practical help in the form of access to satellite communications as a way around the regime’s internet blackout. Any deeper U.S. involvement in an internal struggle as dramatic and enduring as Iran’s—for example, arming insurgents or trying to manipulate regime change—would be destructive, and it would stir up the kind of domestic battle that precludes steady, reliable support for democracy abroad.

This recognition of limits would make a foreign policy founded on liberal values more persuasive abroad and more sustainable with the American electorate, holding off the next oscillation toward grandiosity or gloom. Where democracy exists, strengthen it and defend it against foreign subversion, if necessary with arms. Where it doesn’t, take care to understand particular movements for change, and offer only support that preserves their legitimacy. Align U.S. policy with the universal desire for freedom, but maintain a keen sense of unintended consequences and no illusions of easy success.

Liberalism suffers from inherent weaknesses that Putin and other autocrats shrewdly exploit. Championing borderless values such as freedom and equality, it falls prey to a kind of imperialist zeal (in his September speech announcing the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions, Putin held up Russia as a bulwark against Western colonialism). Declining to affirm any transcendent moral order, liberalism loses its attractive power when it offers a flat world with a smartphone in every pocket and nothing meaningful to live for. And it triggers bitter reaction when it fails to grasp the abiding appeal of nationalism.

In the age of Putin, Xi, and Trump, liberalism and nationalism seem to be mortally opposed. The first is universal (“globalist,” in the derisive phrase of nationalists), the second particular; the first ennobles the individual, the second exalts the community. But in a healthy society, liberalism and nationalism coexist; in fact, they’re inextricable. Without shared identity and strong social bonds, liberty atomizes citizens into consumers, spectators, gamers—easy targets for a demagogue. But national solidarity can’t endure if it’s coerced. A people kept compliant with lies of national greatness, shopping, and police roundups will turn on one another in the face of crisis.

When I asked Ukrainians what the war was about, they inevitably gave two answers in a single phrase: survival and freedom. “Patriot war and democratic war—you cannot distinguish,” Denys Surkov, a crew-cut, scowling doctor, told me. “It’s the same war.” Ukraine is fighting for its existence as an independent nation, and for the right of Ukrainians to choose their own way of life, their own form of government—which is democracy. These two causes are inseparable and reinforce each other. Without a sense of nationhood, Ukrainians wouldn’t have the unity and collective will to resist at such a steep price. Without liberal values and a democratic government, Ukraine would likely divide into ethnic and regional factions.

Something similar is true here in the U.S. Our national identity has always been rooted in democracy. Nothing else, not blood and soil, shared ethnicity or faith, common memories or moneyed pursuits, has ever really held Americans together—only what Walt Whitman called “the fervid and tremendous idea.” It’s as fragile as it is compelling, and when it fails, we dissolve into hateful little tribes, and autocrats here and abroad smile and rub their hands. Don’t imagine that America can bring the light of freedom to the world, but don’t think the world will be better off if we just stop trying.

This article appears in the December 2022 print edition with the headline “America Can Still Lead.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

The Atlantic · by George Packer · November 21, 2022

23. Ukraine and the Future of Offensive Maneuver

Conclusion:

What, then, does this mean for the U.S. military looking forward? Part II of this series considers this in more detail, but several broad, tentative lessons are worth highlighting first.

First, offensive maneuver is apparently far from dead. Even in the face of modern weapons, breakthrough is still possible, and especially so when astute offensive operations on interior lines pose dilemmas for thinly stretched defenses like those of the Russians in Kherson and Kharkiv since mid-summer. Those offensives would have been even more successful with improved Ukrainian training and equipment, but Ukraine’s ability to succeed with what they have is a powerful demonstration that offensive maneuver has not been rendered impossible by new technology.

But second, while offensive breakthrough is still possible under the right conditions, it remains very hard to accomplish against deep, prepared defenses with adequate supplies and operational reserves behind them. This is not a novel feature of new technology — it is an enduring consequence of the post-1900 lethality of ever-evolving weapons that has been observed repeatedly over more than a century of combat experience. Exposed defenders are increasingly vulnerable to long-range weapons and sensors, but covered and concealed positions remain highly resistant to precision engagement. Shallow, forward defenses can be ruptured with well-organized combined arms attacks, but deep defenses with meaningful reserves behind them still pose much harder problems for attackers. Overextended positions without secure supply lines can be overwhelmed, but consolidated positions with viable logistical support are still much harder and more costly to overcome.

Third, neither shallow, vulnerable defenses nor deep, robust ones are universal features of modern war. Both have occurred regularly since 1900, and both have occurred, at various times and places, in Ukraine since February.

And this in turn casts doubt on the advisability of redesigning modern militaries around an assumption that new technology has made effective offensive maneuver either impossible or available on demand. Successful offense has long been very difficult, and it has normally required both demanding preparations and a permissive defender. But it offers decisive outcomes when conditions allow it, and such conditions recur with enough frequency to suggest that its demands are worth meeting.

Ukraine and the Future of Offensive Maneuver - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Stephen Biddle · November 22, 2022

Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a two-part series on the contemporary challenges to offensive maneuver based on observations from the war in Ukraine, and the implications for the U.S. Army.

For months, commentary on Ukraine focused on stalemate and the prospect that changing technology augured a looming age of defense dominance in warfare. Russia’s assault on Kyiv had failed. Its assault on Odessa had ground to a halt well short of the city. Its offensive in eastern Ukraine had stalled. Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive in the south had made limited early progress, and Ukraine’s defense minister had said that Ukraine lacked the materiel to take ground on any large scale. A spring and summer of intense combat had produced almost no meaningful change in territorial control.

Many saw this pattern as a harbinger of profound change in warfare. In this view, tanks, piloted aircraft, surface warships, and massed infantry formations were now just large, slow targets for small, cheap, precision weapons. As weapons have grown more accurate and lethal, the argument holds, concentrated formations operating in the open had become unable to survive long enough to overrun enemy positions. Surprise had become impossible in the face of long-range surveillance by drones and airborne radar. Breakthrough had thus become unachievable, and exploitation would be impossible even if breakthrough were not. In the 21st century, the kinds of sweeping, decisive offensive maneuver seen in the German conquest of France in 1940, or the Six Day War of 1967, or Operation Desert Storm in 1991 were thus a thing of the past, many claimed.

This analysis now seems premature. Ukraine’s September counteroffensive in Kharkiv recaptured more than 6,000 square kilometers of Russian-held ground in less than two weeks. Kharkiv was followed by substantial Ukrainian advances in northern Kherson in early October and the recapture of the rest of the oblast west of the Dnipro in mid-November. Tanks and other armored vehicles played a major role in both offensives, and further gains look likely. This sudden change in battlefield fortunes has pushed Russian President Vladimir Putin into a politically risky partial mobilization. Recent events certainly seem inconsistent with an expectation of epochal change to a technologically determined era of defense dominance.

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What, then, actually is happening in Ukraine and what does the pattern of outcomes mean for the future, and for defense planning in the United States and elsewhere? Humility is in order, of course. Both the stalemate of the summer and the breakthroughs of the fall surprised many, and there may be more surprises in store. Many new technologies are in use, and both sides are learning and adapting rapidly. So conclusions drawn now, in the midst of the fighting, must always be tentative and preliminary.

But perceptions take root early all the same, so it is important for analysts to shape these as accurately as possible even while events unfold. And for now, the best understanding is that offensive maneuver is far from dead. In fact, the patterns visible so far actually look a lot more like the past than like any new model of revolutionary transformation. And the policy prescriptions that follow from the transformation interpretation look correspondingly premature: calls for retiring tanks in favor of drones, or reframing military doctrine to avoid offensive action, are a poor fit to the actual pattern of combat observable to date in Ukraine.

Variations in Force Employment

This pattern has involved both successful offense and successful defense from the beginning of the war. Russia’s initial invasion was poorly executed in many ways, yet it gained over 110,000 square kilometers of ground in less than a month. Ukraine’s Kyiv counteroffensive retook over 50,000 square kilometers in March and early April. Battle lines then mostly stabilized in spite of heavy Russian offensive pressure in late spring and summer before Ukraine’s fall counteroffensives. But whereas the September Kharkiv counteroffensive broke through quickly and drove the Russians from large parts of the eastern theater in days, Ukraine’s Kherson counteroffensive made only limited progress for over a month in spite of major efforts and heavy Ukrainian casualties.

These variations are hard to square with any technologically determined epoch. All of this – both the breakthroughs and the stalemates – has occurred in the face of small, cheap, precise 21st century weapons. Tanks played prominent roles in both the breakthroughs and the stalemates.

The real difference appears to have been major variation in force employment at the tactical and operational level, coupled with a mass mobilization of Ukrainian reservists, few of whom have been armed with precision weapons. Defenses that were initially undermanned (on Ukraine’s northern front) and shallow and unprepared (on Ukraine’s southern front), enabled rapid advances. Russians who initially sacrificed security for speed in these advances moved in unsupported road-bound columns that outran their logistics and suffered heavy losses that then left them vulnerable to counterattack against their overextended positions.

Conversely, defenses that were deep and well-prepared, such as Ukraine’s positions in the east, were much less vulnerable and could be pushed back only by attackers who advanced cautiously with heavy fire support. As Ukrainian mobilization produced an army large enough to fill gaps and constitute a meaningful reserve, an undersized Russian invasion force was compelled to adopt defensive postures in Kherson and Kharkiv and to make choices in the allocation of inadequate forces. They chose to defend deep, prepared positions in Kherson with their better units and to accept risk in Kharkiv with thinner, unsupported defenses manned by lower-quality units while continuing their slow-moving attrition offensive toward Bakhmut.

This produced slow progress for the Russians at Bakhmut and in the initial Ukrainian offensive at Kherson, but breakthrough and rapid advance by the Ukrainians at Kharkiv. Russian logistical vulnerability on the west side of the Dnipro in Kherson contributed to Ukrainian progress there in early October and the fall of Kherson city in November. But throughout, it has been difficult for either side to make rapid headway or produce clean breakthroughs against deep, prepared, well-motivated defenses supported by meaningful reserves and viable supply lines. By contrast, both sides have been able to make much faster progress against shallow defenses without significant reserves behind them, and especially so when the defenders lacked commitment to the cause for which they fought and when supply lines could not be maintained.

Repeating Lessons From the History of Land Warfare

This should not be surprising. In fact, it encapsulates the modern history of land warfare. Since at least 1917 it has been very hard to break through properly supplied defenses that are disposed in depth, supported by operational reserves, and prepared with forward positions that are covered and concealed (and especially so without air superiority). This combination enforced the great trench stalemate on the Western Front in World War I.

But this pattern has persisted long after that. In the popular imagination, World War II replaced trench stalemate with a war of maneuver. But mid- and late-war offensives against properly prepared defenses commonly produced results that looked less like blitzkrieg and more like the slow, costly, grinding advance of the Hundred Days offensives of 1918. Concentrated, armor-heavy attackers at the Mareth Line in 1943, Kursk in 1943, Operations Epsom, Goodwood, or Market Garden in 1944, the Siegfried Line in 1944, or the Gothic Line in 1944-45 all failed to produce quick breakthroughs and devolved into slow, methodical slogs at best, and “death rides of the armored divisions” (as historian Alexander McKee characterized Goodwood) at worst.

Nor did this pattern end in 1945. Iraqi armored offensives bogged down against even moderately deep Iranian defenses at Khorramshahr and Abadan in 1980-81, and Iranian offensives failed to penetrate prepared Iraqi defenses in depth at Basra in 1987. More recently, the 1999 battle of Tsorona between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon in 2006, and Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia in 2008 all showed a similar pattern wherein mechanized offensives made slow progress when they encountered deep, prepared defenses.

Of course there have also been dramatic offensive successes since 1917. The German invasion of France in 1940 knocked the French out of World War II in a month. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 destroyed over 100 Soviet divisions and advanced to the gates of Moscow in a season. Operation Cobra in 1944 broke through German lines and retook most of metropolitan France in a month. The Israeli invasion of the Sinai in 1967 triumphed in just six days. The American counteroffensive in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 evicted the Iraqis from Kuwait in 100 hours of ground fighting. The 2020 Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh drove the Armenians from the Aras River Valley in less than two months.

Force Employment and Combat Outcomes

But this pattern does not suggest any epochal transition from defense dominance in World War I to offense dominance in World War II and after to some new era of defense now dawning in the 21st century. Instead, as I argue in my book, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, the reality of war since at least 1917 has been a consistently powerful relationship between force employment — the tactics and operational methods adopted by the combatants — and combat outcomes in the face of progressively more lethal firepower. Where defenses have been deep, supported by operational reserves and well-prepared at the front, quick blitzkrieg success has been all but impossible over more than a century of changing technology. Well-trained, astutely employed attackers with numerical superiority can take ground against such defenses, but slowly and at great cost. Clean breakthroughs followed by exploitation and the decisive conquest of large theaters has long required a permissive opponent — that is, a defender who lacks depth, who has failed to withhold a meaningful reserve, who has failed to ensure cover and concealment at the front, and, often, whose troops lack the motivation to fight hard in the defense of those positions.

Defenders and attackers have varied widely over the last century in their ability to implement these methods. Deep elastic defenses are complex and difficult to manage. And the kinds of combined arms techniques needed to make even slow headway against them are at least as hard to execute in the field, especially where air and ground forces must cooperate closely. Often, the best single predictor of outcomes in real warfare has thus been the balance of skill and motivation on the two sides. Where both sides can handle the complexity of modern warfare and use their materiel to full potential, the result has often been slow, grinding battles of attrition that look more like 1918 than 1940 or 1967. But where defenders, in particular, lack the skills or the motivation to master complex modern warfare and present shallow, forward, ill-prepared or poorly motivated defenses, then astutely-led, well-trained attackers have been able to exploit defenders’ failings and produce lightning victories — whether in 1940 or in 1967 or in 1991.

The contours of combat so far in Ukraine give little reason to expect some coming transformation of this pattern. Rapid early ground gains against shallow, forward defenses followed by successful counterattacks against overextended attackers are far more similar to the past than different from it — nor is subsequent offensive frustration against deeper, better prepared defenses a radical break from historical experience. Of course there is a range of new equipment in Ukraine, from drones to anti-tank guided missiles to long-range surface-to-air missiles and more. But every war brings new equipment. And most wars bring claims that this new equipment is revolutionizing warfare to radically favor attackers or defenders — certainly this was a major feature of the debates following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, or the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. For Ukraine so far, neither the fighting nor the debate over the fighting has posed any radical departure from these tendencies.

Long Live Offensive Maneuver

What, then, does this mean for the U.S. military looking forward? Part II of this series considers this in more detail, but several broad, tentative lessons are worth highlighting first.

First, offensive maneuver is apparently far from dead. Even in the face of modern weapons, breakthrough is still possible, and especially so when astute offensive operations on interior lines pose dilemmas for thinly stretched defenses like those of the Russians in Kherson and Kharkiv since mid-summer. Those offensives would have been even more successful with improved Ukrainian training and equipment, but Ukraine’s ability to succeed with what they have is a powerful demonstration that offensive maneuver has not been rendered impossible by new technology.

But second, while offensive breakthrough is still possible under the right conditions, it remains very hard to accomplish against deep, prepared defenses with adequate supplies and operational reserves behind them. This is not a novel feature of new technology — it is an enduring consequence of the post-1900 lethality of ever-evolving weapons that has been observed repeatedly over more than a century of combat experience. Exposed defenders are increasingly vulnerable to long-range weapons and sensors, but covered and concealed positions remain highly resistant to precision engagement. Shallow, forward defenses can be ruptured with well-organized combined arms attacks, but deep defenses with meaningful reserves behind them still pose much harder problems for attackers. Overextended positions without secure supply lines can be overwhelmed, but consolidated positions with viable logistical support are still much harder and more costly to overcome.

Third, neither shallow, vulnerable defenses nor deep, robust ones are universal features of modern war. Both have occurred regularly since 1900, and both have occurred, at various times and places, in Ukraine since February.

And this in turn casts doubt on the advisability of redesigning modern militaries around an assumption that new technology has made effective offensive maneuver either impossible or available on demand. Successful offense has long been very difficult, and it has normally required both demanding preparations and a permissive defender. But it offers decisive outcomes when conditions allow it, and such conditions recur with enough frequency to suggest that its demands are worth meeting.

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Stephen Biddle is Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Image: Ukrainian Ministry of Defense

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Stephen Biddle · November 22, 2022

24. Ukraine confronts tougher fight in push to extend battlefield wins

Excerpts;

The United States and its European allies, meanwhile, are scrambling to keep Ukraine supplied with sufficient weapons and ammunition, which enabled Ukraine’s battlefield successes in recent months.

“The West has got into a challenging situation,” the NATO country official said. “A lot has already been given. Western nations need to dig deeper into their stocks. The efforts needed now are more long-term and more strategic.”

Despite the calls for negotiations, Kyiv and Moscow are taking steps to prepare for continued warfare.

“We are at a stage where both sides are tired, both sides are exhausted,” said Dara Massicot, a Russian military analyst at the Rand Corp. “But they are not ready to stop fighting.”

Ukraine confronts tougher fight in push to extend battlefield wins

By Isabelle Khurshudyan, Paul Sonne, Liz Sly and Kamila Hrabchuk 

The Washington Post · by Isabelle Khurshudyan · November 20, 2022

KIVSHARIVKA, Ukraine — Not far from this village on the east bank of the Oskil River, Ukrainian forces have hit a wall of Russian resistance as they try to extend a counteroffensive that just two months ago was sweeping across nearby lands at a stunning clip.

Andriy, a soldier with Ukraine’s 92nd Mechanized Brigade, was not sure what to say on a recent day, when a group of Ukrainian intelligence officers showed up and asked about his unit’s push toward Svatove, a small city in the Luhansk region occupied since March.

“How honest should I be?” Andriy said, declining to give his surname or rank because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

A long pause followed.

“It has been very hard,” he admitted.

After a string of autumn victories for Kyiv, the war in Ukraine is grinding down to another inflection point.

Over 2½ months, Ukrainian forces have impressed the world with their offensive mettle, first by recapturing the northeastern Kharkiv region in a stunning rout and later in the south by methodically tightening the vise on a precarious slice of occupied land west of the Dnieper River — forcing Russia’s embarrassing retreat from the city of Kherson.

The victories have put Kyiv on the front foot, boosting morale and expectations of further success. Ukraine has every incentive to press on with its counteroffensive and retake as much occupied land as possible while Russia is still reeling from personnel shortages and command woes. The Pentagon has vowed to continue arming Kyiv alongside European allies for “as long as it takes.”

But the Ukrainian force now faces obstacles that threaten to slow the advance, with each side gearing up to continue the fight well into next year — and neither side close to what it envisions as victory.

Russian positions on the redrawn front in many cases are more dug in, forcing the Ukrainians to try to penetrate multiple lines of defense. Muddy conditions make maneuver warfare particularly difficult until the ground freezes in midwinter. The Ukrainians, like the Russians, are contending with strained ammunition supplies and exhausted soldiers. Russia also managed to withdraw its best fighting units from Kherson, meaning they probably will appear as worthy foes elsewhere.

The tough fight ahead is apparent outside Svatove, where Andriy said his unit recently tried to take a Russian position in a village but found itself ambushed. Mixed in among newly mobilized Russian troops are special forces groups, Andriy said. Those elite soldiers not only have better experience but are also supported by reconnaissance drones that target Ukrainian troops attempting to advance.

Russia may be too weak to seize the offensive, but Moscow has managed to bolster its defenses to some degree while also unleashing a relentless bombing campaign on critical Ukrainian infrastructure.

“It turns out they have three lines of defense now,” Andriy said. “But they’re just sitting there in a deep defense. They’re not trying to move forward.”

The situation has led to suggestions, most notably from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, that the time could be ripe for Ukraine to negotiate a political solution to the conflict with Russia — which almost certainly would require surrendering some territory.

In a news conference, Milley said front lines from Kharkiv down to Kherson are “beginning to stabilize” and suggested that in the longer term it is unrealistic to think Ukraine could recapture the remaining 20 percent of its land held by Moscow — “unless,” he said, “the Russian army completely collapses, which is unlikely.”

“The Russian military is really hurting bad,” Milley told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday. “You want to negotiate at a time when you’re at your strength and your opponent is at weakness. And it’s possible, maybe, that there will be a political solution. All I’m saying is there is a possibility for it — that’s all I’m saying.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the same time promised to continue helping Ukraine protect its population and achieve its aims on the battlefield, which Ukraine’s commander in chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny, has identified as retaking all Ukrainian territory held by Russia, including Crimea, which was illegally annexed in 2014.

Austin said he didn’t want to presuppose what was possible for the Ukrainian force, noting that it is up to Kyiv to decide on a good time to negotiate. Officials in Ukraine and elsewhere have warned against any peace talks that would give Moscow breathing room at this juncture.

Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force, said Ukraine does not trust that Russia would abide by any agreement to enter into negotiations and would use any pause in fighting to rebuild its stocks of ammunition and missiles, train its newly mobilized troops, and refit and replace damaged equipment.

“Russia needs a truce until spring, and then they will strike with everything they have,” Ignat said. “Plus they will make new missiles, strike us with renewed vigor and destroy us completely. That is Russia’s foreign policy and their plan for peace.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in recent days has accused Ukraine of refusing to negotiate and has said that the city of Kherson remains Russian territory, insisting that the illegal annexation would be accomplished despite the retreat of Russian troops. “The Ukrainian side does not want any negotiations,” Peskov told reporters Thursday. “The special military operation continues, and its goals must be achieved.” He also insisted that Russia’s bombing of Ukrainian infrastructure was for military purposes.

In the immediate future, Ukraine is likely to continue offensive operations but at a reduced scale, analysts said. Another sprawling Ukrainian counteroffensive — such as an attempt to push south from the city of Zaporizhzhia to sever Russian supply lines — could be difficult to execute quickly on the heels of recent gains and in the current weather.

Kyiv may not be able to carry out another large-scale offensive until January or February, said Mason Clark, a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, but is likely to mount smaller operations to reclaim territory by the end of the year.

Russian forces are digging new trenches along the border of Crimea and near the Siversky-Donets River in eastern Ukraine that are up to 60 kilometers behind the existing front line, indicating that they are bracing for further Ukrainian advances, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Friday.

“The Ukrainians are definitely on a roll,” said Konrad Muzyka, director of the Poland-based Rochan Consulting. “Morale is incredibly high. Western equipment provides the Ukrainians with an edge.”

But the Russians are now well dug into their defensive positions, and it is going to be harder to dislodge them than it was in Kharkiv and on the approach to Kherson, he said. There are no obvious weak spots along the Russian lines that could readily be exploited, as was the case earlier this fall, he said.

“Now it’s going to be very challenging for the Ukrainians to create conditions that would ultimately result in a maneuver that would lead to a large-scale defeat of Russian forces,” Muzyka said. “Russian forces are poorly equipped, poorly trained, but their advantage is mass. It is not looking at the quality of its forces — but to hold the line.”

Fighting is likely to continue despite the adverse winter conditions, as Ukraine looks to press its advantage before even more mobilized Russian soldiers show up to bolster Moscow’s defenses.

Russia had 90,000 troops on the front lines when the conscription drive began — and has since added as many as 100,000, according to an official from a European NATO country, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.

As many as 200,000 more Russian forces are being trained and will arrive in the coming months, probably in at least slightly better shape than the underequipped and ill-prepared men who have arrived so far, the official said. This could help reconstitute Russian fighting power heading into the spring.

“It’s a lot of men,” the NATO country official said. “We all know their quality is poor. They lack equipment. They lack training. Yet there is also a certain degree of quality in quantity — and speed” of getting them to the front.

On a recent day in the Kherson region, Capt. Andriy Pidlisnyy, whose unit was among those advancing down to the Dnieper River during the recent counteroffensive, said it was difficult to fathom how to continue pushing the Russians back now that the front line has settled along the river.

“If it were easy, then Russia wouldn’t have crossed over to the other bank,” Pidlisnyy said. “It is precisely because of the logistical difficulties and heavy personnel losses that they had to retreat.” He added: “To do some smaller-force operations across the river is possible, but a full-scale big offensive is difficult.”

At its narrowest point, the Dnieper is still about a third of a mile wide. That means the Ukrainians would need a pontoon bridge to move across it. “Those bridges take a while to put in place and then are very quickly destroyed,” Pidlisnyy said.

“I think there will be some attempts,” he said. “But it’s much more rational to try to move through the Zaporizhzhia region and advance by land.” Pidlisnyy said he doesn’t expect the Russians to attempt another assault on Kherson city anytime soon.

“They’ve already moved their best units,” he said. “There’s only a small part of Russian paratroopers left in the area.”

As the conflict settles into a war of attrition, each side is attempting to bolster its forces, equipment and ammunition.

The NATO country official warned that while Russia has lost a significant number of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, it still has thousands of vehicles in storage. The official also noted that Russian manufacturing plants for artillery shells are working double and triple shifts to sustain the immense amount of firepower that Moscow is expending.

The United States and its European allies, meanwhile, are scrambling to keep Ukraine supplied with sufficient weapons and ammunition, which enabled Ukraine’s battlefield successes in recent months.

“The West has got into a challenging situation,” the NATO country official said. “A lot has already been given. Western nations need to dig deeper into their stocks. The efforts needed now are more long-term and more strategic.”

Despite the calls for negotiations, Kyiv and Moscow are taking steps to prepare for continued warfare.

“We are at a stage where both sides are tired, both sides are exhausted,” said Dara Massicot, a Russian military analyst at the Rand Corp. “But they are not ready to stop fighting.”

Khurshudyan and Hrabchuk reported from Kivsharivka and Kherson. Sonne reported from Washington. Sly reported from Kyiv.

The Washington Post · by Isabelle Khurshudyan · November 20, 2022

25. Xi Jinping and the Paradox of Power

Excerpts:

Strongmen who cannot deliver impressive results must be particularly attentive to factions and succession struggles. Mao failed to prevent both. His inability to hold his coalition together after 1969 derailed his succession plans, and he died without a real successor in place. Deng could not claim an unblemished record in managing succession either, but he did much better than Mao. After purging two liberal leaders in the 1980s, he managed to salvage his legacy by picking two cautious technocrats—first Jiang Zemin and then Hu Jintao—for the party’s top job. They continued Deng’s “reform and opening” project, albeit at an uneven pace, for two decades, until Xi came to power. Deng’s ability to translate his power into economic success also helped preserve his legacy, much of which remains intact despite the policy reversals Xi has made in the last decade.

As a keen student of history, Xi must be aware of Mao’s failures after achieving dominance in 1969 and Deng’s success despite having to share power with fellow revolutionary luminaries in the 1980s. It is impossible to know what lessons Xi may draw from these two contrasting examples. But he should consider the possibility that political supremacy may be a curse disguised as blessing. Far from allowing him to lead his party and his country through treacherous times, unchecked power could breed internecine strife and hinder effective governance.

So, for Xi, winning a decisive battle at the 20th Party Congress in no way guarantees his future victories. He should take a look at Mao’s setbacks in his later years to ensure that he does not resemble Mao in more ways than one.

Xi Jinping and the Paradox of Power

What Mao’s Failures Reveal About Centralizing Control

By Minxin Pei

November 21, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Minxin Pei · November 21, 2022

Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), scored a total victory at the 20th Party Congress in mid-October. He not only secured an unprecedented, though widely expected, third five-year term, but he also managed to fill the Politburo and its Standing Committee with loyalists. In a display of raw political power, he forced into retirement two of his leading rivals, Premier Li Keqiang and Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Yang, though both were under the informal retirement age of 68. A younger rising star, Hu Chunhua, an incumbent Politburo member and a protégé of former party chief Hu Jintao, was unceremoniously dumped from the body at the very last minute.

However, far from guaranteeing another decade of success as China’s dominant leader, Xi’s triumph is likely to usher in a period of political rivalry among his own loyalists who are eager to seek his favor and gain an edge in the inevitable struggle for succession. Nor will Xi’s political dominance guarantee the success of policies urgently needed to meet the needs of the population and Sino-U.S. strategic competition. Xi has amassed coercive power that may make him all but invulnerable inside the regime, but this power is of limited use when seeking to reinvigorate economic growth, promote technological self-sufficiency, and address the looming demographic catastrophe.

In some important and intriguing ways, the outcome of the 20th Party Congress recalls that of the 9th Party Congress in April 1969. There, Mao Zedong, the domineering leader of the CCP, reached the pinnacle of his power. Just as Xi would do five decades later, Mao used the Party Congress to fill the Politburo and its Standing Committee with loyalists. But Mao’s dominance made the party less stable, not more: in the absence of a succession plan, a brutal rivalry emerged among his followers, who formed dueling factions. The eventual result was a disaster: a devastated party, a traumatized country, and an impoverished society. Within three years of Mao’s death in 1976, his legacy lay in ruins, a former rival of his was running the party, and the CCP had embraced market-based reforms that would have been anathema to Mao. Xi would do well to note the outcome of Mao’s attempt to centralize power and control.

KNIVES OUT

Things began to fall apart for Mao soon after the 1969 congress. Within a year, the two groups that had helped Mao to launch the Cultural Revolution in 1966—the military, led by Defense Minister Lin Biao, and the Gang of Four, a group of party propagandists headed by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing—were embroiled in a vicious power struggle to succeed the aging dictator. Although Mao anointed Lin as his successor, he grew increasingly paranoid about his power and decided to side with the Gang of Four to cut Lin’s faction down to size.

Mao’s political maneuvering backfired spectacularly in September 1971, when the plane carrying Lin and his family, who allegedly were trying to flee to the Soviet Union after a failed assassination attempt against Mao, crashed and burned in Mongolia. According to Mao’s personal physician, the 77-year-old dictator’s health deteriorated rapidly. Politically, Mao never recovered as he could neither explain to the party how he picked as successor a man so wicked as to attempt to assassinate him, nor find another plausible candidate to succeed him. In 1974, he had to bring back Deng Xiaoping, whom he had derided as a “capitalist roader” and purged from the party in 1966, to run the government, paving the way for Deng to engineer his political comeback—and demolish much of Mao’s legacy—three years later.

Similar perils may await Xi. Over the last decade, he has systematically promoted close associates who worked with him when he served in high-level regional party posts in Fujian, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, as well as officials from his ancestral province, Shaanxi, where he spent more than four years working the land as a “sent-down youth” during the Cultural Revolution. Of the six other members of the Politburo Standing Committee, Li Qiang (the second-ranking leader and premier designate) was Xi’s chief of staff in Zhejiang for three years (2004–7). Cai Qi, the fifth-ranked member, worked under Xi in both Fujian and Zhejiang. Ding Xuexiang, slated to be the executive vice premier, briefly worked under Xi in Shanghai in 2007 and has been Xi’s chief of staff for the past decade. Zhao Leji (the third-ranked member and incoming head of the National People’s Congress) and Li Xi (the Party’s anticorruption czar) both hail from Shaanxi.

From Xi’s perspective, it makes perfect sense not to have a succession plan now. Naming a successor at the 20th Congress would almost certainly make him a lame-duck leader. But what works in the short term could cost Xi—and the party—dearly. A number of factors will make the absence of a succession plan all the more risky. Although Xi’s loyalists owe their positions to him, they do not appear to have deep personal connections with each other, as their career paths did not intersect. In the Hobbesian world of elite politics in China, it is practically impossible for senior leaders to develop deep interpersonal relationships if they have not worked together for an extended period. The fact that Xi prefers to promote his former junior colleagues is testimony to the critical importance of trust cultivated through direct personal interactions. The lack of personal trust among these loyalists may cause disunity and spark rivalries.

Within three years of Mao’s death, his legacy lay in ruins.

Moreover, Xi’s acolytes will be able to form factions of their own. With the exception of Wang Huning, the former academic who has served as the party’s chief ideological theorist for almost three decades, nearly all of Xi’s loyalists on the Standing Committee have their own networks of supporters built over years as local party bosses. They must continue to advance the careers of their supporters to expand their own power base. Their success in bolstering their networks critically depends on Xi’s support. In the struggle for his favor, they will almost certainly compete, if not come into conflict, with each other. Meanwhile, delegating authority will not be easy because the decision-making process under Xi has become highly centralized. Delegation may be confused with favoritism. Giving more authority to one faction might stir jealousy and resentment among its rivals.

To be sure, such factional competition can work in Xi’s favor because he can pit groups against one another. Xi benefits from tensions among his followers because rivalry makes them dependent on him for security. Open conflict between factions, however, would force Xi to pick sides. This could lead to even worse consequences. Factional warfare in Mao’s last years in power led to debilitating political dysfunction at the top and eventually culminated in a life-or-death contest, settled only by a military-backed coup. At this point, it seems that Xi’s critical test in the medium term will be holding his new coalition together and avoiding a vicious succession struggle among his loyalists.

Xi’s power will create other problems. Like all strongmen, he will soon have a taste of what the psychologist Dacher Keltner termed “the power paradox.” One manifestation of this paradox is the inverse relationship between the amount of power amassed by a strongman and his sense of security: the more power he gets, the less secure he feels. In autocratic regimes, the strongman typically gains power by destroying rivals, which inevitably creates mortal foes. The strongman has no institutional protection: autocratic rulers tend to be removed from power by regime insiders, not through regular political procedures.

Even though there is no sign that rival elites are conspiring against Xi, it is unlikely that his immense power will allay his fear of scheming foes, real or imagined. Such insecurity could brew vicious conflict at the top of the party. In his later years, an incurably paranoid Mao purged Lin and Deng and launched a campaign to discredit Zhou Enlai, perhaps Mao’s most subservient follower; Mao apparently feared that Zhou was gaining too much power after Lin’s downfall.

NOT-SO-STRONGMAN?

A strongman’s power is always limited. In an oligarchical autocracy, his power rarely extends beyond the inner circle of the top elites. In the Chinese case, that probably means the members of the Central Committee (205 full members and 171 alternates). To motivate and inspire those beyond this circle, Xi will have to rely on other tools, such as ideological appeal and personal charisma (Mao possessed both in abundance) or delegation of authority to capable subordinates (Deng’s specialty).

But despite the party’s huge investments in reviving orthodox Communist ideology in recent years, such thinking has lost its appeal. And although Xi may be popular among ordinary Chinese citizens, he is not nearly as charismatic a leader as Mao was. The only alternative Xi has found to ideology and charisma is nationalism. But the track record of Chinese nationalism as a motivating tool is not promising. In recent years, it seems to have accomplished little beyond fueling xenophobia.

Xi will increasingly feel the limited utility of his power. For the most part, the kind of power he acquired at the 20th Congress may be critical to deciding the make-up of the elites at the top and to deterring challenges to his authority. But such power is of little use in implementing the policies dear to his heart, such as an egalitarian “common prosperity” project, technological self-sufficiency, greater economic security, and sustained growth. Accomplishing these objectives requires the cooperation of the party’s vast bureaucracy and, even more critically, hundreds of millions of workers, entrepreneurs, and professionals who are largely motivated by self-interest, not loyalty to the man at the top. In practical terms, this manifestation of the power paradox will likely frustrate Xi’s ambitious security-oriented agenda. He may find that his policy consistently falls short of expectations despite his unassailable personal authority.

Strongmen who cannot deliver impressive results must be particularly attentive to factions and succession struggles. Mao failed to prevent both. His inability to hold his coalition together after 1969 derailed his succession plans, and he died without a real successor in place. Deng could not claim an unblemished record in managing succession either, but he did much better than Mao. After purging two liberal leaders in the 1980s, he managed to salvage his legacy by picking two cautious technocrats—first Jiang Zemin and then Hu Jintao—for the party’s top job. They continued Deng’s “reform and opening” project, albeit at an uneven pace, for two decades, until Xi came to power. Deng’s ability to translate his power into economic success also helped preserve his legacy, much of which remains intact despite the policy reversals Xi has made in the last decade.

As a keen student of history, Xi must be aware of Mao’s failures after achieving dominance in 1969 and Deng’s success despite having to share power with fellow revolutionary luminaries in the 1980s. It is impossible to know what lessons Xi may draw from these two contrasting examples. But he should consider the possibility that political supremacy may be a curse disguised as blessing. Far from allowing him to lead his party and his country through treacherous times, unchecked power could breed internecine strife and hinder effective governance.

So, for Xi, winning a decisive battle at the 20th Party Congress in no way guarantees his future victories. He should take a look at Mao’s setbacks in his later years to ensure that he does not resemble Mao in more ways than one.

• MINXIN PEI is Tom and Margot Pritzker ’72 Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College.

Foreign Affairs · by Minxin Pei · November 21, 2022

26. Fighting While Female (Ukraine)

Excerpts:

That said, public opinion polls show that Ukrainians as a whole have become more welcoming of both women and LGBTQ people in uniform over the past four years. Indeed, some soldiers wear a patch created by and for LGBTQ soldiers to proclaim their identity. Others, however, have told journalists that they remain closeted in their units, and some transgender people say that they have been unable to join the army because it does not recognize their gender.

Although Kyiv’s narrative on gender equality is a sign of progress, it is disappointing that Ukrainian officials have simultaneously exaggerated women’s role in the military and demonstrated a lack of responsiveness to the needs of female soldiers. If Ukraine fails to make its armed forces truly welcoming to women and LGBTQ Ukrainians, it will miss out on their talents, subject the soldiers who are serving to harassment and abuse, and undermine some of the international goodwill it has garnered with its more feminist approach. To succeed, the Ukrainian military must address the problems faced by soldiers of all genders, from inadequate gear to sexual assault to posttraumatic stress disorder to depression.

To be sure, Western militaries face many of the same challenges and debates. Ukraine, moreover, is in the midst of a war for its survival. But to build a truly modern army, Ukraine needs not just the newest weaponry but also state-of-the art approaches to recruiting and retaining the best personnel. A sensitive approach to gender is not merely the right thing to do; it is crucial to the country’s future. The Ukrainian women who, in and out of uniform, form a cornerstone of Ukraine’s resistance today will be at the center of the effort to rebuild tomorrow. If Kyiv matches its rhetoric with action, its military can reflect its society, give back to its heroes, and serve as a shining model for the world.

Fighting While Female

How Gender Dynamics Are Shaping the War in Ukraine

By Olga Oliker

November 21, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Olga Oliker · November 21, 2022

If there is a feminist way to wage war, Ukraine wants everyone to know that this is how it is fighting its battle against Russia. Officials proudly proclaim that up to one-fifth of Ukraine’s armed forces are women. President Volodymyr Zelensky and other senior officials take pains to thank both male and female defenders of the country. Photographs and videos on social media show male soldiers cooking, women fighting, and everyone snuggling kittens and puppies. Prominent Ukrainian feminists have traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby for weapons.

From the perspective of both gender equality and combat effectiveness, this is heartening. In order to prevail in a conflict in which its very sovereignty is at stake, Ukraine must attract its best and brightest to serve, irrespective of gender. Ukraine’s feminist military narrative also positions the country to stand in sharp contrast to Russia, whose leadership seems to have embraced toxic masculinity as a core value. Even before reports emerged that Russian soldiers had raped and sexually assaulted Ukrainian men, women, and children, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s branding of his country (and often himself) was rooted in what he called tradition but others might define as patriarchy.

But as I have learned over several months of conversations with roughly a dozen Ukrainian and Western officials and analysts, all of whom wished to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, the Ukrainian military’s claims of being a champion of gender equity fall short of reality. For one thing, women almost certainly make up just nine or ten percent of the armed forces—half of the government’s official tally. That discrepancy is indicative of a larger issue: Ukraine, like many societies, struggles to reconcile the strength and capacity of its women with antiquated attitudes about gender roles. Women were front and center in the Maidan protests in 2013–14, which led to the downfall of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who wanted to scrap a deal with the EU in favor of closer ties with Moscow. But both press coverage and activist messaging during the protests often hewed to traditional gender stereotypes, and women on the frontlines were heralded at least as much for their beauty as their strength. The same dynamic can be discerned today with respect to female soldiers: before the February invasion, the military held a series of beauty pageants for female enlistees and proposed having female cadets march in heels in a military parade.

In the face of full-scale war, Ukrainian society is changing more rapidly than ever. With more men fighting, a growing number of women now serve as the heads of households. Women are also assuming leading roles in supporting the troops and humanitarian efforts. When the fighting stops, these women may take on new leadership positions in politics and business. Ukraine, in other words, is poised for a fundamental rethink of gender roles, which could allow it to empower more of its citizens and serve as a model for other countries. But for that to happen, it will have to do better at practicing what it preaches.

MYTH, MEET REALITY

Gender has loomed large in Russia’s war. In justifying his invasion of Ukraine, Putin employed sexist clichés. On February 7, two weeks before dispatching troops to take over Russia’s western neighbor, he indicated at a press conference that Kyiv—and Zelensky specifically—should yield to Russian demands by offering what was at best a sexist children’s rhyme and at worst a rape joke: “Like it or not, take it, my beauty.”

Russia’s military, perhaps not incidentally, has grown more male in recent years. In 2008, when Russia’s armed forces marched into Georgia, about nine percent of the force was female. Now, women account for a mere four percent of soldiers. In 2014 and 2015, the Russian press lauded female volunteers who joined the fight in the Donbas. Today, the only women visible in the ranks there are the missile-targeting programmers identified in October by the investigative news outlet Bellingcat. With the possible exception of serving as military pilots, Russian women are prevented from taking frontline combat roles.

Ukraine, in contrast, has opened all military specialties to women. But the government has been fuzzy about just what proportion of its armed forces they constitute. A former deputy defense minister has offered an estimate of 25 percent, Zelensky has put the figure at 22 percent, and Ukraine’s defense ministry has claimed 15 percent. Such estimates may have been accurate before February. Back in December 2021, roughly 33,000 women wore military uniforms in a force of nearly 200,000—about 17 percent—the product of a steady increase in female participation after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. But the share has almost certainly fallen sharply in the last nine months. According to data that I obtained from well-connected Ukrainian experts, as of July, the number of women in Ukraine’s uniformed military services—including the regular army, territorial defense forces, border guards, and intelligence and transport troops—stood at just under 50,000. But because the number of men in the armed forces has risen faster than the number of women has, the women’s share in the armed forces has dropped. Zelensky and his team have claimed that 750,000 people now serve in the Ukrainian military. But even if the true figure for the total force is smaller—and many specialists, taking into account the rates at which Ukrainians are joining the armed forces, consider 600,000 to be a better estimate—then the proportion of women in the armed forces is around eight percent.

Moreover, of the women in uniform, only some 5,000 are in combat roles, although many civilian staff, such as medics and cooks, are close enough to the frontlines to consistently face mortal danger. The proportion of women in Ukraine’s national guard, whose members are excluded from the official count of armed forces but who also often serve on the frontlines, has fallen by nearly half since Russia invaded. The share has dropped from just over 12 percent in January to just under seven percent in July, according to figures from Ukraine’s ministry of internal affairs.

Many Ukrainian women who are currently not serving in the military could be called up, notably those working in the medical field and in other useful professions such as telecommunications and catering. So far, registration for mobilization has been voluntary for women. The government has delayed mandatory registration for women by a year, until October 2023. Men, however, have been registered all along, meaning that mobilization affects eligible men and women very differently. In principle, all Ukrainians who are subject to mobilization are forbidden to leave the country. In practice, Ukrainian officials have permitted women to cross freely but have forbidden most men from doing the same.

As a result, of the roughly eight million refugees who have fled Ukraine, the vast majority are women. Men who have left legally (because, for instance, they have three or more children), are often subject to sexist ridicule. Fellow Ukrainians, male and female, regularly accuse them of being women or womanly in social media posts and to their faces. Men displaced within Ukraine often have trouble renting housing and getting work, as landlords and employers may not trust their military exemptions. Transgender women, especially those whose legal documents do not reflect their gender, have also faced difficulty when trying to leave Ukraine. And although stories of Russian forces committing gender-based violence against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war are legion and often corroborated, stories of similar crimes by Ukrainian forces against Russian prisoners of war, although few in number and generally unproven, also circulate. Notably, however, the Ukrainian armed forces take pains to promise humane treatment for all who surrender. They pledge strict adherence to the Geneva Conventions, allowing legal aid from international organizations and contact with families.

THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE

While promoting the presence of women in the Ukrainian armed forces, officials and media outlets seem particularly keen to disseminate images that emphasize female soldiers’ femininity. The soldiers they showcase often wear their long hair in braids, sport makeup, and strike glamorous poses, even if they are holding an antitank weapon. Meanwhile, female soldiers complain of shortages of gear in appropriate sizes and lack of access to military education and training programs.

There is also long-standing evidence of sexual assault and harassment in Ukraine’s armed forces. So far, according to Tamara Martsenyuk, a scholar working with the Invisible Battalion advocacy project, an organization that documents female participation in the Ukrainian military, there have been just two cases of survivors pursuing justice for military sexual assault through Ukraine’s legal system, a reflection of the difficulty of getting both the military and the judicial system to take such complaints seriously.

Prior to the February invasion, activists including Invisible Battalion and some of Ukraine’s foreign partners had convinced Ukrainian military officials to establish a network of over 400 advisers on gender-related issues. Now, however, according to one of those advisers, who spoke with me on the condition of anonymity, these individuals have been removed or sidelined.

The female soldiers Ukraine showcases often sport makeup and strike glamorous poses.

That said, public opinion polls show that Ukrainians as a whole have become more welcoming of both women and LGBTQ people in uniform over the past four years. Indeed, some soldiers wear a patch created by and for LGBTQ soldiers to proclaim their identity. Others, however, have told journalists that they remain closeted in their units, and some transgender people say that they have been unable to join the army because it does not recognize their gender.

Although Kyiv’s narrative on gender equality is a sign of progress, it is disappointing that Ukrainian officials have simultaneously exaggerated women’s role in the military and demonstrated a lack of responsiveness to the needs of female soldiers. If Ukraine fails to make its armed forces truly welcoming to women and LGBTQ Ukrainians, it will miss out on their talents, subject the soldiers who are serving to harassment and abuse, and undermine some of the international goodwill it has garnered with its more feminist approach. To succeed, the Ukrainian military must address the problems faced by soldiers of all genders, from inadequate gear to sexual assault to posttraumatic stress disorder to depression.

To be sure, Western militaries face many of the same challenges and debates. Ukraine, moreover, is in the midst of a war for its survival. But to build a truly modern army, Ukraine needs not just the newest weaponry but also state-of-the art approaches to recruiting and retaining the best personnel. A sensitive approach to gender is not merely the right thing to do; it is crucial to the country’s future. The Ukrainian women who, in and out of uniform, form a cornerstone of Ukraine’s resistance today will be at the center of the effort to rebuild tomorrow. If Kyiv matches its rhetoric with action, its military can reflect its society, give back to its heroes, and serve as a shining model for the world.

• OLGA OLIKER is Program Director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group.

Foreign Affairs · by Olga Oliker · November 21, 2022

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