Quotes of the Day:

“When a writer tries to explain too much, he’s out of time before he begins.” 

– Isaac Bashevis Singer

"The lesson of history is that no one learns."

– Steven Erikson

"Real listening ... requires being truly present and mindful when you are engaged with the other person – offering the gift of your whole self, undistracted by other matters or, God forbid, your devices."

– Arthur C. Brooks

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 14, 2024

2. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, June 14, 2024

3. The Army's Recruiting Problem Is Male

4. Voice of America Ignored For 3 Days House Foreign Affairs Committee Report Alleging ‘Culture of Corruption’ Allowed by Senior USAGM Executives

5. Rare criticism of Hamas emerges from within Gaza amid ceasefire talks

6. Gen Z Palestinians See Door Slamming Shut on Coexistence With Israel

7. Can the Constitution Reconcile America?

8. Presidential election a prime target for foreign disinformation, intelligence officials say

9. The Matthew Miller deepfake has the attributes of Russia’s information warfare

10. From USSR Propaganda to Modern Russian Information Warfare: Racial Issues Now and Then

11. Faking an honest woman: Why Russia, China and Big Tech all use faux females to get clicks

12. 2024 U.S. Federal Elections: The Insider Threat 

13. ‘Shoot and Scoot’ – War in Ukraine Overturns Another Conventional Tenet of War

14. A Reimagined G7

15.  Force Design 2030: Operational Incompetence

16. Merlin cuts co-pilot from flying C-130J with new AI tool

17. For Hamas, Everything Is Going According to Plan

18.  On writing strategies. by Sir Lawrence Freedman

19. The U.S. Invasion of Iraq: Strategic Analysis and Consequences

20. How the Sino-American rivalry is reshaping the world order

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 14, 2024

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 14, 2024

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-14-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined his uncompromising demands for Ukraine’s capitulation as a prerequisite for "peace" negotiations in Ukraine, including the recognition of Russia’s illegal annexation of occupied and Ukrainian-controlled territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, in an attempt to undermine the June 15-16 Global Peace Summit in Switzerland.
• Putin proposed to establish an alternative Eurasian and world security system with support from People's Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping, likely to undermine NATO.
• The Kremlin has frequently timed the intensification of its information operations, including negotiations, to coincide with major policy debates in the West in order to influence Western decision-making.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev continued to rail against Western colonialism while ignoring Russia's imperial history and contemporary Russian imperialist aspirations to dominate Russia’s neighbors in eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
• Medvedev also promoted Kremlin information operations that aim to exploit Moldovan identity politics in order to disrupt Moldova's European Union (EU) accession by destabilizing Moldovan society.
• Medvedev also threatened Armenia on the eve of Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan's attendance at the June 15-16 Global Peace Summit in Switzerland.
• An unnamed senior US Department of Defense official reportedly said that the Biden Administration has no imminent plans to lift restrictions prohibiting Ukrainian forces from striking military targets in Russia’s operational and deep rear areas in Russian territory with US-provided weapons.
• Ukrainian forces conducted a large series of drone strikes against Russia on the night of June 13 to 14.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and Donetsk City.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on June 14 that there are currently almost 700,000 Russian personnel in the "special military operation zone," which includes both occupied Ukraine and areas within Russia bordering Ukraine, during the meeting with participants of the "Time of Heroes" program.

2. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, June 14, 2024

Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, June 14, 2024

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-june-14-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Gaza Strip: The IDF 162nd Division continued to operate in Rafah on June 14. The Nahal Brigade identified openings between buildings in Rafah that Hamas fighters use to traverse quickly through dense neighborhoods.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Israeli officials are continuing to discuss an offensive into Lebanon amid a heightened rate of Hezbollah attacks into northern Israel. Lebanese Hezbollah conducted at least 22 attacks into northern Israel.
• Iran: Iranian hardline candidate Saeed Jalili launched his 2024 presidential campaign by defining his political platform as a continuation of former President Ebrahim Raisi’s policies.
• Iran: Reformist presidential candidate Masoud Pezeshkian is adopting an increasingly reformist political agenda likely to bolster endorsements from high-profile reformist individuals.
• Yemen: US CENTCOM destroyed several Houthi systems, including an air defense sensor, drone, and two patrol boats.

3. The Army's Recruiting Problem Is Male

Is the problem our military or is the problem our society and the new unmotivated military age male ("amotivational syndrome") and the "crisis of masculinity?" There does not seem to be a problem with the military age female volunteering to serve their country.

Some very interesting analysis here. Can the military solve what appears to be a societal problem?

Or are we just going to argue about wokeness?

The Army's Recruiting Problem Is Male | Military.com

Military.com | By Steve Beynon and Kelsey Baker

Published June 14, 2024 at 11:46am ET

military.com · by Steve Beynon

The issue is convincing men to put on the uniform.

A decade of declining recruitment numbers for the Army is almost entirely attributable to a significant drop in male recruiting as female enlistments have remained relatively flat, internal service data reviewed by Military.com shows.

Since 2013, male enlistments have dropped 35%, going from 58,000 men enlisting in 2013 to 37,700 in 2023, according to the service data. Meanwhile, female recruitment has hovered around 10,000 recruits each year.

The stark numbers paint a clear picture of a significant source of the military's recruiting struggles, with the Army making up the lion's share of the entire force and thus needing the greatest volume of new enlistments every year. Those shortfalls have contributed to the service overworking its force, something its senior leadership has conceded is a significant problem.

The Army came up 10,000 soldiers short of its goal of bringing in 65,000 new active-duty troops last year. In 2022, it missed a goal of 60,000 soldiers by 15,000. Those shortfalls were consistent with the decline in recruiting among men. This year, the service reduced its goal -- seeking 55,000 new recruits.

The demographic data traces the military's recruiting struggles with the decline spanning the leadership of presidents from both major parties with vastly different public stances on military culture.

Critics have argued that the problem is tied to changes in military policy, including nonspecific claims that the military has become "woke." But experts described broader issues with men becoming less engaged in American society and less likely to enroll and graduate from college, more likely to die by suicide or drug overdose, and slowly disappearing from the general workforce.

The sharp drop in the mid-2010s of men's participation in the workforce, education and military service is part of what some experts call a national "crisis of masculinity" with complex causes.

"[This] goes way beyond military recruitment," Ronald Levant, professor of psychology at the University of Akron and former president of the American Psychological Association, told Military.com. "It really has to do with social change. I think there is an amotivational syndrome that seems to permeate a lot of young men today. They're just not motivated to do very much."

The Army started missing recruiting goals in 2015, coming off the heels of some internal restructuring after the most intense years of the Afghanistan war during the so-called "Obama Surge." That year also saw the rise of the #MeToo movement and former President Donald Trump's successful presidential campaign -- two significant cultural events in which gendered politics and grievances were a center of gravity.

For the Army's recruiting woes, the decline is spread across America's regions.

The Northeast saw the worst dip, losing 40% of male recruits between 2012 and 2022. That area, how Army data categorizes it, covers much of the East Coast from Virginia north through New England. The Midwest and West each saw a 39% drop.

The Southwest saw the smallest drop of 29%. That region covers Texas and north through Nebraska, as well as Arizona and New Mexico.

And finally, the South saw a 31% dip. While the southern recruiting pool has historically been among the most fruitful for the Army, those recruits make up half of all basic training injuries, far outpacing their general representation in the service. Some of that has been attributed to the obesity epidemic being especially prevalent in the South. Researchers have also attributed it to large swaths of the South having comparatively low household incomes and limited access to health care and healthy food.

The Army is juggling enormous missions across two hemispheres: bolstering NATO's front lines amid Vladimir Putin's warpath in Ukraine, and establishing a foothold in the Pacific to rein in China's expansionist goals. It's also deployed across Africa and the Middle East on legacy missions that are the remains of two decades of conflict against terrorist groups. Meanwhile at home, units are routinely sent out on prolonged training missions.

A smaller Army is away from home now more than it was during the peak of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That taxing pace of deployments and training is burning out the rank and file, which has been reflected in mental health issues and deaths by suicide in the force.

Meanwhile, undergraduate college enrollment started to dwindle from a high in 2011, plummeting in 2015, with male enrollment in undergraduate studies dropping at nearly twice the rate of women. Between then and 2021, the total undergraduate population of men dropped by 1 million students and women fell by 600,000, according to federal data.

Women are more likely to finish all levels of college, with men earning around 40% of bachelor's and master's degrees, according to data from the Department of Education -- effectively a total reversal of the education gender gap from before the 1980s and which accelerated at the turn of the millenia.

Men's falling engagement in major institutions has been referred to as the "male drift" by Richard Reeves, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and author of the landmark book "Of Boys and Men," which chronicles the issue.

"It feels like it's the women who are advancing, and the men to some extent retreating," he said in an interview.

Reeves, who is also the founder of the American Institute for Boys and Men, said that two major trends are occurring at once, one positive and one negative: Women are starting to overcome systemic sexism, but there are also serious concerns about men and boys' development and retreat from society.

"It's not so much that they're acting out or acting terribly or anti-socially and so on. ... Like, violent crime, with the exception of a few blips, has gone down quite significantly," he said. "But what you're seeing among young men is not 'acting out', so much as 'checking out.'"

Some conservatives have been regularly devaluing military service, often saying without evidence that the services have become "woke," a shorthand to suggest acquiescence to progressive ideals. Most of those cultural grievances are being spurred as the services have become more welcoming to women, the LGBTQ community and other historically marginalized groups.

Nearly one-third of Gen Z adults in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ, almost twice that of Millennials, signaling that negative attitudes toward non-heteronormative sexuality are quickly evaporating with each generation.

Those culture war rallying cries, often used to gin up the Republican base, are similar to tactics wielded against higher education, and are moves that may be more effective with men -- with some data suggesting men are skewing more conservative as women are increasingly becoming more liberal.

"The Biden Pentagon looking for the causes of the recruiting crisis is kind of like O.J. Simpson looking for the real killer," Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said during a Fox News interview in 2022. "The way to turn it around is to focus on its core mission, not using the right pronouns or worrying about things like gender ideology. We want men and women to join the military to defend this country, not go to social justice training seminars."

Since Biden took office, some conservatives have latched onto the idea the military has reduced combat training in favor cultural sensitivity training and turned that unfounded critique into a boogeyman. The trainings, which deal with equal opportunity or harassment, take only a couple of hours and are similar to those in civilian workplaces. They also predate the Biden administration.

Instead of cultural grievances, the recruiting issue appears to be more closely tied to qualifying for service, much of it inflamed by the ongoing obesity crisis and poor performance on the military's academic entrance exams. In the civilian world, girls have been increasingly outperforming boys in grade school and score higher on college admissions tests. Childhood obesity also impacts boys at a higher rate than girls, with those health ailments, and lagging academic performance, even more prevalent among Americans belonging to racial minority groups.

In 2022, the Army started the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, for applicants to get in line with the service's academic and physical standards. After a significant expansion, the Army can put 23,500 applicants into basic training annually who otherwise would not have been allowed to enlist -- effectively setting the service up to recoup its entire recruiting deficit.

The applicants for those courses are more than 70% male, with recruits from racial minority groups being overrepresented, according to Army data. For example, Black applicants are the largest cohort, making up nearly 34% of the course's students -- with white recruits being 33% of attendees. Meanwhile, 24% of 2022 recruits for the Army as a whole were Black, and 44% of recruits were white.

It's unclear whether the service is eyeing bringing more women into the force to make up for the significant drop in men. Defense officials have expressed confidence in hitting recruiting goals this year, much of that attributed to changes like establishing the Future Soldier Prep Course.

"There's never certainty when it comes to recruiting," Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in response to a question from Military.com at a press event in May. "All [services] projected they're going to meet their year-end goal, I feel really good about it." He went on to say that meeting those goals ultimately hinges on precise marketing and talented recruiters.

The Army's marketing rarely spotlights women in a significant way. A Military.com review of the service's recent marketing campaigns found men were two-to-three times more represented, particularly in speaking roles in commercials.

Other trends are making it more difficult for the Army to find recruits. Typical sedentary activities, which are often isolating, have ballooned in recent years, including playing video games and viewing pornography, both activities that are enjoyed predominantly by men and, while not inherently destructive, can be abused.

The alarming trends for men's economic role and health have also been weaponized in dark, misogynistic corners of the internet -- sometimes referred to as the "manosphere," which commonly overlaps with far-right communities.

Those communities lament that men have fallen from their traditional place in society and that there is no quarter for masculinity in modern western culture. That culture includes podcasts, influencers and brands that range from earnest male-oriented self help but more commonly involve anti-feminist and misogynist content. Some of it is very overtly connected to military culture, such as groups charging exorbitant amounts of money to attend so-called "man camps" that mimic Navy SEAL training.

"The reality is that military service is a major commitment that tests true strength -- physical, mental, morals," said Katherine Kuzminski, who studies the military and society at the Center for New American Security. "There is evidence of a trend toward signaling [a] counterfeit show of strength -- commentaries lamenting a decline in American masculinity -- rather than individuals risking a real test that comes from military service."

The so-called crisis in masculinity is further complicated by conflicting events. Men are pulling out of the workforce, and traditional masculine roles are disappearing as gender norms are reassessed. But those men are not seeking military service -- the last bastion of traditional and surface-level masculinity.

"You could argue quite strongly that the military could have a really important role to play in helping these young men," Reeves said. "But you see fewer young men turning to the military or being able to join the military."

military.com · by Steve Beynon

4. Voice of America Ignored For 3 Days House Foreign Affairs Committee Report Alleging ‘Culture of Corruption’ Allowed by Senior USAGM Executives

This article is built around the whistleblower investigation by Rep Michael McFaul and is the result the House Foreign Affairs Committee's 73 page report here: https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/6.12.24-USAGM-ReportFinal.pdf

It is about the firing of a Persian service journalist who apparently was fired for cause at the end of the previous administration and then immediately rehired when the current administration came into office.

It is unfortunate that this incident taints all the great work that VOA does for our nation. I am happy to report that there is no mention of the Korea Service, which is where I encounter the most professional journalists with whom I spend a lot of time. I closely monitor all their reporting and all the journalists I know are committed to the VOA Charter. See the Mission, Firewall, and Charter at this link: https://www.insidevoa.com/p/5831.html

VOA Charter

The Charter was signed into law by President Gerald R. Ford on July 12, 1976. The Charter protects the editorial independence and integrity of VOA programming.

The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio. To be effective, the Voice of America must win the attention and respect of listeners. These principles will therefore govern Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts:

1. VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective, and comprehensive.

2. VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.

3. VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies.

Is USAGM the right organization to oversee VOA and RFA, RFE/RL etc." Were things better during the time of the Broadcasting Board of Governors?

Voice of America Ignored For 3 Days House Foreign Affairs Committee Report Alleging ‘Culture of Corruption’ Allowed by Senior USAGM Executives

https://www.usagmwatch.com/voice-of-america-ignored-house-foreign-affairs-committee-report-alleging-culture-of-corruption-allowed-by-senior-usagm-executives/

 by USAGMW  June 14, 2024 

USAGM Watch Commentary

Several former former Voice of America (VOA) senior reporters and managers observed that, as of 5:00 PM / 2100 UTC on 13 June, VOA was still not seen to have posted any story on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) report on U.S. Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM) failure to adequately investigate serious abuses of power by senior USAGM executives and false credentials of employees within USAGM. 

[UPDATE] Voice of America Newsroom reporters alerted USAGM Watch that an order may have been issued to a VOA reporter to write a VOA news story on the HFAC report on corruption within USAGM’s and VOA’s senior management, but as of 6:50 PM Friday, 14 June, no story about the scandal appears on the VOA English News website. The story broke shortly after midnight on Wednesday, June 12 and was almost immediately reported by the Washington Times and National Review. VOA finally posted a news report June 14, 2024 at 7:30 PM EDT, “McCaul raises concerns over USAGM ability to vet staff.”]

The report is highly critical of USAGM CEO and former VOA Director Amanda Bennett and her key aide Kelu Chao.

At midnight on Wednesday, 12 June, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) issued a report, accusing senior USAGM executives of having allowed a culture of corruption at the $1-billion federal agency in charge of U.S. government-funded media outreach abroad. Chairman McCaul said that the committee’s findings confirm “longstanding security concerns about the agency.”

In recent years, USAGM has hired several former propagandists of Russian state media under Vladimir Putin to work for VOA’s Russian Service. A Spanish-Russian VOA freelance reporter was expelled from Ukraine and arrested in Poland in February 2022 on suspicion of spying for Russia and spying on Russian dissident journalists working in the West – charges the VOA freelancer denies through his lawyer who also represented Edward Snowden, an American spy hiding in Russia. VOA executives, editors, and reporters were not aware that their freelancer’s legal defender worked as a lawyer for Edward Snowden.

The latest allegations against USAGM managers was reported by the Washington Times, National Review, and other U.S. media on the conservative side but not by the Voice of America, USAGM’s flagship broadcaster, the Washington Post or the New York Times. As reported by the Washington Times, USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett Ms. Bennett accused the authors of the committee report of “callous attempts to malign hardworking civil servants.” 

VOA English newsroom editors are often praised by Bennett and her deputy as defenders of press freedom and may be afraid to upset their bosses

House committee finds ‘corruption’ kept Persian news chief on job at Voice of America

The federal agency in charge of nearly $1 billion in funding for government broadcasting sought to cover up improper activities by a fired Voice of America manager who was rehired under the Biden administration, according to a three-year investigation by a House oversight panel.

House Committee Alleges ‘Credible Evidence of Corruption’ at U.S. Agency for Global Media | National Review

A House GOP chairman claims that the office improperly protected a Voice of America manager accused of misusing taxpayer funds.

An earlier report by National Review correspondent Jimmy Quinn described a GOP attempt to limit funding for USAGM to force its senior management to address corruption issues.

House GOP Bill Seeks Targeted Cuts to Voice of America over Mismanagement Allegations | National Review

The proposal comes amid a continued House Republican investigation into the latest controversy, surrounding the rehiring of VOA official Setareh Sieg.

As reported by former senior VOA reporters and managers, the Voice of America English news website had no mention of Chairman McCaul’s report on “culture of corruption at USAGM” before Friday, June 14, 2024, 7:30 PM EDT.

VOA did post a story, ironically quoting Rep. McCaul, about something completely unrelated to the HFAC report. It’s a sad irony that the quote of Rep. McCaul in that story talks about how “U.S. companies should not censor content. . .” VOA as of the time of this update, had withheld from its own audiences/users, including those in China where USAGM/VOA claim(s) to have growing traction, any VOA story on the HFAC report.  

An embarrassment for USAGM, which refers to itself as a “networked global media agency” and which the agency CEO has begun referring to as a “public service” media company, has chosen not to perform a public service for its audiences in this case. The agency did include the HFAC statement in its Media Clips internal email distribution — again, internal consumption only!  VOA’s global audiences are not in the need-to-know category.

Under the watch of the current USAGM and VOA leadership, Voice of America journalists posted anti-Israel content to Facebook and posted images on their personal Facebook pages calling for a violent destruction of Israel.

Voice of America Whitewashes Terror Backgrounds of Gazan Journalists | Honest Reporting

USAGM Watch Commentary on “Voice of America Whitewashes Terror” Article by Honest Reporting HonestReporting, a media monitoring nonprofit organization, which has uncovered multiple examples of false and biased journalism but also faced criticism of being pro-Israel, has accused the U.S. government-funded Voice of America (VOA) overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) – a scandal-ridden federal entity – of whitewashing links between Hamas and Palestinian journalists in Gaza. In a recent article by Chaim Lax, titled “Voice of America Whitewashes Terror Backgrounds of Gazan Journalists,” HonestReporting cites numerous cases of VOA’s bias and non-reporting of critical information showing […]

Chairman McCaul Releases Report on Culture of Corruption at USAGM

5. Rare criticism of Hamas emerges from within Gaza amid ceasefire talks

More reporting should be done on this. Especially on college campuses. What is the international media waiting for?

Excerpts:

Some Gazans, who have lived under Hamas's rule since 2007, blame the Iran-backed group for the widespread destruction caused by the war. “Hamas has made a mockery of us, our pain, and the destruction of our lives,” said Abu Eyad, 55, from north Gaza.

He criticized Hamas leaders hosted by Qatar, including Ismail Haniyeh, for living comfortably while Gazans suffer. “Have you ever tried to actually live our lives today?” he asked. “Did you know that many times we don’t find any food at all?”

...

Gazans, desperate for peace, are calling for an end to the conflict. Umm Shadi, 50, urged Hamas to “end the war immediately without seeking to control and rule Gaza.” She asked, “What have we gained from this war except killing, destruction, extermination, and starvation?”

“Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?”

Rare criticism of Hamas emerges from within Gaza amid ceasefire talks - I24NEWS

“Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?”

i24NEWS

4 min read

June 13, 2024 at 03:14 PM

i24news.tv · by i24NEWS

In a rare and candid reproach from within Gaza, some Palestinians are voicing criticism against Hamas for failing to bring an end to the war with Israel, which has devastated their lives since the conflict erupted on October 7.

Hamas has “led the Palestinian people into a war of annihilation,” said Umm Ala, 67, who has been displaced twice during more than eight months of war between Hamas and Israel. “

If the Hamas leaders were interested in ending this war and ending the suffering of the Palestinian people, they would have agreed [to a deal],” added Umm Ala, now seeking refuge in Khan Younis, the main city in the southern Gaza Strip.

Apart from a one-week truce in November, during which over 105 civilian hostages were released from captivity in Gaza and 240 Palestinian security prisoners were freed from Israeli jails, several attempts at forging a new ceasefire have failed. Mediators from the United States, Egypt, and Qatar are currently engaged in negotiations with Israel and Hamas to finalize a hostage release and ceasefire deal.

Some Gazans, who have lived under Hamas's rule since 2007, blame the Iran-backed group for the widespread destruction caused by the war. “Hamas has made a mockery of us, our pain, and the destruction of our lives,” said Abu Eyad, 55, from north Gaza.

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike where displaced people were staying in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 27, 2024.AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi

He criticized Hamas leaders hosted by Qatar, including Ismail Haniyeh, for living comfortably while Gazans suffer. “Have you ever tried to actually live our lives today?” he asked. “Did you know that many times we don’t find any food at all?”

Washington is currently pushing for a new deal, outlined by President Joe Biden on May 31, but an agreement has yet to be reached. Hamas responded to the latest proposal on Wednesday, seeking to advance a full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza into the initial stages of a phased implementation, along with a clear end to the war, a condition Jerusalem has repeatedly rejected.

Palestinians leave their homes in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 8, 2024Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90

“We are tired, we are dead, we are destroyed, and our tragedies are countless,” said Abu Shaker, 35. “What are you waiting for?” he asked, addressing Hamas. “What do you want? The war must end at any cost. We cannot bear it any longer.”

Gazans, desperate for peace, are calling for an end to the conflict. Umm Shadi, 50, urged Hamas to “end the war immediately without seeking to control and rule Gaza.” She asked, “What have we gained from this war except killing, destruction, extermination, and starvation?”

“Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?”

i24news.tv · by i24NEWS

6. Gen Z Palestinians See Door Slamming Shut on Coexistence With Israel

Please go to the link to view the interactive graphics and photos.

Gen Z Palestinians See Door Slamming Shut on Coexistence With Israel

Young Palestinians, scarred by conflict, are losing faith in prospects for peace: ‘I have lived through things no one ever should’

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gen-z-palestinians-israel-relationship-c627cea1?mod=hp_lead_pos9

By Omar Abdel-BaquiFollow | Photographs and videos by Tanya Habjouqa/Noor Images for The Wall Street Journal

Updated June 15, 2024 12:07 am ET

NABLUS, West Bank—Mahmoud Kilani first tasted life in Israel when he sneaked through a hole in the wall confining Palestinians in the West Bank so he could meet a young woman he encountered online. 

Soon, the 22-year-old Palestinian skateboarding enthusiast had an Israeli work permit and spent months in the Mediterranean city of Haifa, working in bars and restaurants, learning Hebrew and making Israeli friends.

Before then, the only Israelis he ever encountered were soldiers or settlers in tense interactions around his home city of Nablus. “The concept of having Israeli friends—there was none of that in Nablus,” he said.

Mahmoud Kilani, 22, has been mostly confined to his hometown of Nablus, as Israeli military activity and movement restrictions on Palestinians prevent him from traveling freely around the West Bank—including to skate parks.

Then, Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. Israel responded with a massive military campaign in Gaza and swiftly expelled Palestinian workers. The holes in the wall were sealed. Tight Israeli military control of West Bank roads has kept Kilani effectively confined to his crammed hometown.

Gen Z Palestinians have always grown up with little hope for the future, coming of age after a Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada resulted in Israel’s erecting a barrier across much of the military-occupied West Bank. In the Gaza Strip, the rise of Hamas, the Islamist group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., led Israel and Egypt to impose a blockade on the enclave in 2007.

Though their parents recall an era of hope amid the 1990s Oslo Accords, the last breakthrough agreement between the two sides, Palestinians under the age of 25—who comprise most of the population—say the door to coexistence with Israelis always felt barely ajar. 

It has been slammed shut since Oct. 7.

Kilani now falls asleep to the din of gunfire during routine Israeli military incursions in his hometown, some of which have killed his loved ones and inspired some of his friends to become militants.

“I try to talk them out of it, but I can’t,” Kilani said. “They say that they see no other way—that regardless, people where they live will be killed, so they might as well make it harder for the Israeli army.”

As the U.S. and some Arab nations try to persuade Israel to work toward resolving its conflicts with Palestinians for good, young Palestinians increasingly say they don’t see an independent state as viable given Israel’s deep footprint in the West Bank and Gaza. Their pessimism, coupled with a flatlining peace process, makes it less likely a two-state solution will be achieved. It could also force Palestinian, Israeli and international leaders to return to the drawing board. 

Mahmoud Kilani skateboards down a hill near his home in the West Bank.

Palestinians under 25 are less optimistic about the future than their elders, according to polling from the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. They are also more supportive of using violence to fight for democratic rights than their parents and grandparents, a symptom of the past’s failed diplomacy, said Khalil Shikaki, the center’s director.

“The youth see their struggle as akin to that of people who lived under apartheid in South Africa,” Shikaki said. “They feel they have to force Israel’s hand to dismantle its system of occupation.”

Distrust on both sides

Israelis have also grown more skeptical of the chances for peaceful coexistence. That skepticism grew during the Second Intifada, when Palestinian militants launched suicide bombings across Israel, and deepened after Oct. 7, leading many Israelis to conclude they could never trust Palestinians. 

About 79% of Jewish Israelis said in a May survey that they don’t support the establishment of a Palestinian state, according to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an Israeli think tank. Before Oct. 7, 69% of the survey’s respondents said they didn’t support a Palestinian state.

The West Bank barrier

LEBANON

SYRIA

Haifa

Jenin

Med. Sea

GAZA

STRIP

WEST

BANK

ISRAEL

JORDAN

Nablus

As-Sawiya

WEST BANK

Ramallah

Jericho

Jerusalem

Constructed barrier

Projected barrier

Bethlehem

Dead Sea

Hebron

Note: Barrier as of 2022

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

For young Palestinians, the latest Israel-Hamas war is at least the fourth period of intense, sustained conflict they have endured, including two other major air campaigns that Israel says targeted Hamas in 2008 and 2014 in addition to the Second Intifada.

Young Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have never known life without restrictions on their movement, which include not only walls but also military checkpoints and a complicated permit regime that determines where Palestinians can go. Many young Palestinians have never left their home territory.

Some say that they or their friends and relatives have been humiliated, beaten or killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Israeli authorities have said they seek to discipline soldiers who violate military policy, as well as settlers who attack Palestinians, and that military operations in the West Bank and Gaza and restrictions on Palestinian movement are needed to address threats to its security. 

Lost childhoods

Many young Palestinians have had to confront life-or-death responsibilities from a young age, hardening their views.

Layan says the scenes of the wars she has lived through haunt her daily. ‘I was robbed of my youth,’ she says. 

In the Gaza Strip, 15-year-old Layan Harouda had to tend to her younger siblings when airstrikes pounded her hometown of Gaza City late last year. She helped pitch the tent that became their temporary home after her family was displaced, trying hard to keep her siblings’ spirits up. 

“I joked with them that the tent was built so well, they should give it an 8/10 review on a travel site,” she said. 

But staying hopeful was hard. “I have lived through things no one ever should,” she said. 

When Layan’s mother, a journalist, received word late last year that the family could leave the besieged enclave through her work connections, her mother wanted to stay to document the war. Layan persuaded her to evacuate the family.

After leaving Gaza in November, Layan lives in Qatar. She says she is filled with shame having access to clean water, a bed and education, while her friends in Gaza live in tents, under drones and airstrikes. She longs to return to Gaza, but with her home obliterated, she questions the viability of that aim. 

“I wonder: Will I ever see my friends again? Will I ever see Gaza again?” she said. “You can try to run away from reality, but you never can.” 

Layan sits as her two younger brothers, whom she helped care for during the war in Gaza, jump on the bed.

Elusive peace 

Many Israelis and Palestinians viewed the 1990s as a period of progress toward lasting peace. The leaders of the two sides reached across the aisle, crafting the Oslo Accords, which, among other things, allowed Palestinians to establish the semiautonomous Palestinian Authority and hold their own elections—widely viewed as steps toward Palestinian statehood. 

“At the time, Palestinians wanted to believe that Israel wanted to end the occupation, and if not, that the West would pressure Israel to allow for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” said Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, an independent research center based in Qatar. “Part of the disappointment and dissolution that followed is a function of the exaggerated hopes that initially existed.”

Elements of the accords quickly fell apart, and the Second Intifada erupted from 2000 to 2005. The peace process has stalled since. 

Most Palestinians now believe that the two-state solution, which the Biden administration says it is committed to, is no longer feasible because of Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, recent polling from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows. 

Israeli settlers now number about 700,000 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, making it difficult to administer a future Palestinian state. Violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, which has increased since Oct. 7, is a top concern among Palestinians in the West Bank.

Violence intensifies

Mohammed Saleh witnessed his father’s death last year after he was shot by an Israeli settler.

Mohammed Saleh, a 14-year-old boy from As-Sawiya, a village south of Nablus, has seen attacks against Palestinians intensify as the settlements grow.

On Oct. 28, armed settlers approached Mohammed’s father, Bilal, as he picked olives in their family’s grove. An Israeli opened fire, striking Bilal, in what Mohammed’s family believes was a revenge attack against Palestinians for Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault. The father bled out as he was transported on the wooden ladder he had just used to reach olive branches. He died in front of his son. 

“I am just a boy, but now I am the man of the house,” Mohammed said. 

The Israeli military said it opened an investigation and took the alleged shooter, an off-duty soldier, into custody for questioning. The military didn’t respond to questions about whether the alleged shooter was charged or remained in custody.

“Naturally, it is not possible to give details about an ongoing investigation,” the military said in a statement.

Mohammed said he now anxiously keeps watch for armed settlers. Still, he plans to root himself in the village, maintaining the traditions of his father.

“I will think of him every time I smell sage or pick olives,” Mohammed said. “And I will study law so I can defend our people with the strongest weapon: education.”

Mohammed and his grandmother warm up by a fire. ‘I am just a boy, but now I am the man of the house,’ he says.

Threats at home—and abroad 

Life sometimes feels normal for Marian Awartani, a Palestinian-American dual national living in Ramallah, the West Bank’s de facto Palestinian capital. Her tightknit group of teenage friends sing loudly as they drive with the windows open. They gossip about boys in both Palestinian Arabic and American English. 

But it doesn’t take much to remind Marian, 17, that life is far from normal. During a recent picnic in one of the few available green spaces around the city, a drone swooped down from around a nearby watchtower, blaring an alarm and demanding in Hebrew for the group to leave. The drone hovered above Marian, her friends and two Wall Street Journal journalists as they hurried toward their cars and drove off.

Marian Awartani, 17, tries on her gown days before her high-school graduation in Ramallah. The gown belonged to her older brother, Hisham, a Brown University student who was shot in Vermont in November in what the family believes was spurred by anti-Palestinian sentiment. 

“Even in a place I have been going to since I was a small child, one day an Israeli drone can tell me that I am not allowed there, and that’s that,” Marian said.

In November, her brother, a Brown University student, was shot while walking near their grandmother’s house in Vermont. The family believes he and two friends accompanying him were targeted in a hate crime because two were wearing traditional Palestinian scarves. The accused shooter pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted second-degree murder; the court case is ongoing.

“It further solidified that we don’t belong anywhere,” Marian said. 

Marian says she is seeking ways to humanize Palestinians, including to Israelis on the other side of the West Bank wall. More dialogue could get people to understand each other more, Marian said. 

“But how can we communicate with the other side, when there is a wall between us, and our people are getting killed daily?”

Though their parents recall an era of hope, Palestinians under the age of 25—who have lived in an era marked by walls and large military campaigns—are less optimistic about the future.

Write to Omar Abdel-Baqui at omar.abdel-baqui@wsj.com

7. Can the Constitution Reconcile America?

A thoughtful OpEd.

I have been seeing a lot of reports lately saying we are not a democracy but a republic.

The fact is we are a federal democratic republic.  

We have the direct election of our Congress.

We have the indirect election of the President. (Electoral College)

Our Justices are appointed for life by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Democracy elects our representatives. Our three branches of government provide the separation of powers and checks and balances of a republic. 

Can the Constitution Reconcile America?

The country’s founding charter was meant to keep us in a state of constant negotiation and dialogue. It should appeal to the left and right.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-the-constitution-reconcile-us-history-politics-book-ad244e1e?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

By Barton Swaim

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June 14, 2024 3:44 pm ET

Yuval Levin. ILLUSTRATION: KEN FALLIN

Washington

I don’t know how many books I’ve read over the past 15 years whose purpose was to propose remedies for the acrimony and polarization afflicting American politics. Most of them, to put it kindly, don’t inspire. Some assure us that one party or the other must be so severely punished by the voters that it ceases to menace the nation. Others fault social-media “silos” and cable-news rancor. Still others suggest that everything went awry at some point in the past—the rise of Newt Gingrich in the 1990s is a common target—and that nothing good will happen until the injustices of that cataclysm are reversed.

None of this describes four books written over the last decade by Yuval Levin. In “The Great Debate” (2013), he traced the thought of American conservatives and progressives from the 18th century to the present and suggested ways of mutual understanding. “Fractured Republic” (2016) explained the virtues of subsidiarity—the idea that problems are best solved by the people nearest to them, not by faraway authorities—and reproached both left and right for indulging in “competing nostalgias” for a midcentury America that is impossible to re-create. In “A Time to Build” (2020), Mr. Levin suggested that among the chief hindrances to national cohesion in the 21st century is American political and media elites’ pathological habit of using the institutions that employ them as platforms from which to project their brands and personalities.

Mr. Levin has a gift for drawing readers’ attention to realities that should have been obvious but weren’t. He does that in his latest book, “American Covenant,” which was published on Tuesday. The argument could be put this way: The U.S. Constitution was written to bring together a fractious and disunited nation, so if we’re looking for ways to bring together a fractious and disunited nation, maybe we should consider the U.S. Constitution.

The snide antimetabole is mine, not Mr. Levin’s. He writes in an irenic tone, as if he believes reasonable debate and persuasion are still possible. “The breakdown of political culture in our day,” he observes in the book, “is not a function of our having forgotten how to agree with each other but of our having forgotten how to disagree constructively.” The framers of the Constitution, he argues, were aware of the dangers both of centralized power and of democracy: They had fought an imperious king a decade before, and in the intervening years they had lived through a democracy so disunited that it fell apart. What they fashioned in 1787 was neither a monarchy nor a libertarian compact but a system whose stability and cohesion arose precisely from the guarantee that its citizens would be forced to deal with each other constantly—always negotiating, competing and forming coalitions.

Maybe the best way to encapsulate Mr. Levin’s contention is to compare American democracy with parliamentary systems like the one from which ours departed. In Britain, when one party wins an election, it can do more or less what it wants until the next election, with the opposition there mainly to criticize it. By contrast, even if an American party wins big, it may not win both chambers of Congress and the presidency, and even when it does, the minority retains enough power to force the majority to negotiate.

The intended consequence: Both parties are compelled to consider the interests of the other. The framers, particularly Madison, understood that the U.S. was far too large, culturally disparate and attitudinally centrifugal to be governed by a parliamentary system.

Last week I dropped by Mr. Levin’s office at the American Enterprise Institute, where he is a senior fellow, with a galley copy of his book, its margins rife with scribbled notes and queries.

My first query: Conservatives like me are entirely comfortable with the idea that adherence to the 1787 Constitution, as amended, would afford all sorts of benefits to the republic. Progressives aren’t and never have been. What good is an argument for cohesion and solidarity if only one side can hear it?

“Looking at the Constitution in its own terms doesn’t really happen in a lot of the left’s engagement with it,” Mr. Levin acknowledges. “The striking thing about many of the books on the Constitution by progressive law professors is that they tend to start in the Progressive era. They don’t really talk about the framers’ purpose and reject it.” That’s too bad, he thinks, because one of the framers’ chief concerns was that democracy can menace minorities—numerically small groups or factions that can find themselves abused or treated unjustly by majorities. “That concern should resonate with a lot of progressives,” Mr. Levin says. “Somehow it doesn’t, because there’s an assumption at the root of modern progressivism that it speaks for the majority and that the majority is somehow silenced by the Constitution.”

The progressive left over the past 25 years has developed an unlovely contempt for the Constitution’s countermajoritarian institutions; hence the periodic talk of abolishing the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, eliminating the Senate filibuster or even the Senate itself, and adding blue states to the union. All these ideas assume that progressives hold a clear majority and that the Constitution stops them from exercising their rightful prerogative.

But if anything ought to be clear from the last quarter-century in American politics, it is that neither side holds a consistent majority. “Simple majoritarianism,” Mr. Levin observes in his book, “is of no use when there aren’t simple majorities.”

“Throughout most of American history,” he says, “there’s a majority party holding a really complicated coalition together. And there’s a minority party trying to build a coalition. They’re both involved in coalition building.” There was a period of about 18 years at the end of the 19th century when the country was split 50/50, Mr. Levin explains, but this time we’ve been at more or less 50/50 for longer than that already.

“Since about the 1990s we’ve had two minority parties, and they don’t actually do a lot of coalition building,” he says. “Mainly they try to get their people out, as if they hold a big majority already and only need turnout. They don’t do much thinking about how they might bring new people to their side. They don’t ask: What can we offer them? What can we do that would bring them in?”

There’s an assumption among progressives “that if we had a real democracy, we would go left all the time. I don’t know what country they’re living in, but that’s not true. Now, it’s not true that we’d go right all the time, either. But the protection of minorities is entirely overlooked—on the one hand because of the tendency to think about the founding era through the lens of slavery, which is not crazy, but is not sufficient; and on the other hand, because no one now thinks of themselves as a minority.”

That would explain why, in 2021, when the Democrats won the presidency and paper-thin majorities in the House and Senate, they proceeded as though the year were 1933 and they’d been given a mandate to remake the U.S. economy.

Is it even possible for one party to win big, as in 1932 or even 1980? “I think the idea that you could win big is no longer plausible to most people in our system,” Mr. Levin says, “but I think you could still do it. There is room now for either party to win 55% of the vote in a presidential election, which would be a big win at this point. But it would require one side to think about how to appeal to the other. Our constitutional system is intended to force us to think that way. The only way to win is to build a big coalition. That’s how we’re different from the parliamentary systems, but somehow we’re not letting that signal reach us.”

Among the least appreciated of the Constitution’s provisions is the aforementioned Electoral College. “It’s so misunderstood,” Mr. Levin says. Critics think of it as some bizarre ancient convention whose usefulness, if it ever had any, expired long ago. “Our way of electing chief executives is actually more democratic, not less so, than the parliamentary systems of Europe,” Mr. Levin argues. “The British have had three prime ministers since the last election. Who chose those people? A majority of the majority party in Parliament, like 250 people who all have the same political interest and who all went to the same two universities. That’s not better than the Electoral College.”

Hard as it may be to imagine, Mr. Levin contends, our presidential elections would be more acrimonious and polarized without the Electoral College. “It forces us to fight our political battles in the middle,” he says. Without it, “the Democrats would just focus on California, because there are a lot of people in California, the Republicans would just focus on the South. They would talk only to their own voters. They would not have to talk to each other and they would not have to appeal to the same voters.”

The Electoral College, in other words, “means you can run up your numbers as much as you want in California and the South. If you didn’t win states in the middle—Michigan, say—you didn’t win the election. To win Michigan, you have to speak to the middle of the country. You have to speak about the issues that you are uncomfortable with as a Republican or a Democrat.”

I was reminded by “American Covenant” that although we now tend to talk about “liberal democracy”—the word liberal signifying free markets, the rule of law, individual rights, representative government and so on—the founders spoke mainly of “republican” principles and “republican” government. (As I’ve mentioned before in these pages, Benjamin Franklin, asked what the Constitutional Convention had produced, didn’t reply, “A democracy—if you can keep it.”) Republicanism, an inheritance of Greek, Roman and Renaissance thought, emphasized the citizen’s obligation to improve the polity and strengthen its institutions: in short, to seek the common good.

Republicanism is “a concept that’s become extremely hard to define because it’s fallen out of use in our vocabulary,” Mr. Levin says. “It was hard to define in the 18th century for the opposite reason, because it was so universally used. Everybody wanted to claim republicanism for themselves. I think what’s important for us is that republicanism is about taking responsibility for your common fate, about taking ownership of the future of your society.”

In a healthy republic, he continues, “you’re not just standing around waiting for somebody else to fix your problems. You don’t only think about what other people owe you, but also about what you owe them. These are the habits that we’ve tended to lose, I think in part because we’ve come to understand our system in liberal terms. Liberalism is a good thing, too, but liberalism describes rights and privileges. It’s less concerned with duties and responsibilities.”

Almost as an aside, Mr. Levin remarks that “a lot of the problems attributed by some on the American right to an excess of liberalism would be better thought of as a deficiency in republicanism.” Criticism of “liberalism” or “classical liberalism” has become an idée fixe among conservatives of a communitarian bent, but the whole debate is half-baked: Liberalism was never a coherent idea but a loose collection of Western conventions these conservatives don’t actually want to get rid of. Rather than thundering at “liberalism,” if I understand Mr. Levin right, they’d do better to reacquaint themselves with the Federalist Papers.

That’s far truer of the left’s cultural elites, the journalists, politicos and intellectuals who set the agenda in our corporate life. They lament the bitterness of our elections and the polarization of our electorate, but they mostly disdain and ignore the document that could show us the way out of the rancorous vortex that American politics has become. The Constitution’s first sentence, Mr. Levin points out, announces its aim to “form a more perfect union.” Its first word is “We.”

Mr. Swaim is a Journal editorial page writer.

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Main Street: With Joe Biden’s black support slipping, and news that Byron Donalds is on the short list to be Donald Trump's running mate, the Democratic Party machine quickly twisted observations the black Republican made about family life before LBJ’s 'Great Society.' Image: Bing Guan/Bloomberg News

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Appeared in the June 15, 2024, print edition as 'Can the Constitution Reconcile America?'.

8. Presidential election a prime target for foreign disinformation, intelligence officials say

You would think that external attacks by foreign adversaries on our election would unify the American public. We can fight it out at the ballot box as Americans but we should be united against external threats that are trying to divide us and undermine our federal democratic republic and who want to see the American experiment fail.

I am going to keep sending this from the 2017 NSS (signed by former President Trump). If we do not embrace this then we are not worthy of living in our city on the hill.

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

Access NSS HERE

Presidential election a prime target for foreign disinformation, intelligence officials say

BY DAVID KLEPPER

Updated 4:53 AM EDT, June 13, 2024

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AP · June 12, 2024

AP · June 12, 2024

9. The Matthew Miller deepfake has the attributes of Russia’s information warfare

Both sides of the political aisle should be united in opposition to this and no political faction should try to exploit this for partisan purposes..  Please go to the link to view the video. https://www.polygraph.info/a/7654403.html

The Matthew Miller deepfake has the attributes of Russia’s information warfare

polygraph.info · June 13, 2024

“As far as we know, there are no civilians left in Washington, New York, Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw, not to mention Kyiv. There are only military targets there,” Dmitry Rogozin, the Kremlin’s senator for Russia-occupied Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, told news site News.ru on May 31.

Rogozin was responding to a video that showed the U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller purportedly telling reporters that it was OK for the Ukrainian military to attack the Russian border city of Belgorod because all civilians left it, and only military targets remained in there.

The ex-director general of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos and ex-deputy prime minister, discharged reportedly for spectacularly failing at both posts, Rogozin nevertheless remains on the vanguard of the Kremlin’s hybrid war against Ukraine.

Just like Rogozin’s appointment as a senator in the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of the parliament, “representing” Ukrainians living under Russian occupation, the video he responded to is fake.

Estonian fact-checking site Provereno.Media assessed that the video creators combined footage from two different U.S. State Department press briefings: a May 9 and a May 28.

Forensic analysis aside, the video has obvious red flags of digital manipulation. For one, in mere seconds between taking a question and answering it, Miller’s shirt changes color from white to blue, while his tie changes from blue to purple. His lips move independently from his words, signaling a lack of synchronization between articulation and speech.

DELFI, a prominent Baltic media portal, used TGStat tool that helps to monitor and catalog the channels and posts on the Russian messenger Telegram, to estimate that around 300 posts with the Miller deepfake video surfaced on the platform between May 30 and June 3, garnering more than 2 million views in the first four days.

A news site associated with Russian military intelligence, Krasnaya Vesna, was among the first to publish the deepfake video on its Telegram channel.

Simultaneously, numerous Russian-language accounts pushed the deepfake video across Russian state-owned social media and video streaming platforms VKontakte and Rutube, as well as YouTube and X.

Such mass distribution suggests a Russian information warfare tactic called “informatsionny vbros” -- information dump in English.

With the help of Sprinter Family, an X account with more than half-a-million followers and exposed as frequent distributer of disinformation and false content, the deepfake video made to the English language segment of X on May 31, instantly becoming viral.

Among those who shared the video on X with a chilling anti-U.S. comment was the Russian embassy in South Africa, which deleted the post the next day offering no apology or correction note to its followers.

At first, the Russian news agencies and papers largely ignored the video, picking up the “breaking news” only after the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adviser and Chairman of Russia’s Human Rights Council Valery Fadeyev shared the deepfake on his Telegram channel, calling Miller “the cynic from the State Department.”

Fadeyev later deleted the post, saying, “regrettably, it was fake” which didn’t change anything because the video “accurately reflected the U.S.’ true position.”

"This video is a fake that does not represent statements made by the Department’s Spokesperson nor U.S. policy," the U.S. State Department official told Polygraph.info in an email.

Neither Rogozin, nor Fadeyev apologized for sharing an apparent deepfake or using it to attack the United States. Neither did the Russian news media.

Top outlets like the Russian government official newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, state-owned news agency TASS, the Kremlin’s main foreign propaganda outlet RT, formerly Russia Today, the mega popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, and others reported the story as if the Miller deepfake was an authentic U.S. State Department video.

None of them corrected their reports or added editor’s notes to indicate the falsified context. More than ten days after the deepfake’s exposure, those reports are still up and unapologetically shared by Russian content-boosting services like Yandex Dzen and others.

Several Russian language media outlets in exile fact-checked the video establishing that it is a deep fake: The Insider, a Latvia-based Russian independent online media; Provereno.Media, an Estonian fact-checking site. So did the U.S. and European outlets including the Lead Stories, a Colorado-based fact-checking website, and AFP Fact Check, a department within Agence France-Presse.

On June 5, Matthew Miller addressed the doctored video, remarking that the Russian government has previously created similar videos and used disinformation to mislead both its own citizens and people from other countries.

The Russian state-affiliated actors use generative Artificial Intelligence for mass production of deepfake videos and spoofed media content in English, French, and German targeting specific events, like the U.S. presidential elections and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center reported on June 2.

Russian influence operations units Storm-1679 and Storm-1099 produce and distribute deepfakes leveraging bot networks on social media platforms like Telegram, X, and others to disparage the International Olympic Committee and incite fear of violence at the Paris Games, the report said.

NewsGuard, a U.S.-based website that tracks and analyzes disinformation and AI-generated deepfakes, reported on June 7 that Russia uses a fugitive former Florida deputy sheriff John Mark Dougan as a key figure in the production and dissemination of the Kremlin’s disinformation.

Since 2016, Dougan has been operating from Moscow a network of 167 websites across the United States that pose as local news sources. Those websites promote Kremlin’s propaganda narratives on such topics as Russia’s war in Ukraine, and U.S. domestic and foreign politics, reaching millions of Americans and eroding trust in reliable information sources.

Among the examples of the real-life effect of this propaganda network on U.S. politics, NewsGuard stated how at least two American senators cited Dougan-created fake news about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy buying a villa in England to influence the debates on Ukraine aid.

polygraph.info · June 13, 2024

10. From USSR Propaganda to Modern Russian Information Warfare: Racial Issues Now and Then

Shouldn't this help us unite to overcome our racial divides since our enemies are trying to stoke them?  

I am going to keep beating the horse:

From the 2017 NSS (signed by former President Trump). If we do not embrace this then we are not worthy of living in our city on the hill.

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

Access NSS HERE

From USSR Propaganda to Modern Russian Information Warfare: Racial Issues Now and Then

https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2024/06/10/from-ussr-propaganda-to-modern-russian-information-warfare-racial-issues-now-and-then/

Image Source: Magic Media, via Canva

In the 1930s, the Soviet Union promoted the concept of “Southern Autonomous State,” an independent state in the South of the United States. As part of this effort, the Soviet Regime invited influential Black figures like Claude McKay and Lovett Fort-Whiteman to visit Moscow to experience “racial harmony” and convince them to join the communist movement. Albeit short-lived, Soviet influence led to the American Communist Party receiving an increase in African American membership in the 1930s.

While the “Southern Autonomous State” campaign was confined to the 1930s, modern-day Russia has revived aspects of this disinformation playbook by exploiting U.S. racial divisions. Most notably, during the 2016 U.S. election interference campaign, Moscow leveraged Black Lives Matter protests to amplify division in U.S. society, sow discord, and discredit American moral superiority using “whataboutism” rhetoric. By exploiting racial tensions and vulnerabilities in U.S. society, both the Soviet Union and Russia have sought to undermine U.S. democratic values.

Racial Issues in Soviet Propaganda

Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union highlighted racial injustice in the United States, seeking to undermine U.S. moral authority on the global stage, illustrate the prevalence of communism over capitalism, and discredit democratic values. For example, in the “Southern Autonomous State” campaign, Russia used posters and cartoons to advocate for the establishment of a “Southern Autonomous State” to save “innocent young negroes” from the “American bourgeoisie.”

Further, Soviet propaganda tended to use specific incidents of racial injustice and translated them into propaganda in the form of posters, movies, and political statements. Take the Scottsboro Boys case. In 1931, nine Black teenagers, aged 13 to 19, were traveling on a freight train when a racially charged fight broke out. The altercation purportedly began when a young white man inadvertently stepped on the hand of one of the Scottsboro Boys. The boys were initially arrested for minor charges, but police then questioned two White women who accused the Black teenagers of sexual assault. Despite the lack of evidence, the Alabama Circuit Court, primarily based on racial prejudice, found the Scottsboro Boys guilty and sentenced them to death. The American Communist Party and the Soviet Regime capitalized on this incident to portray communism as a racial utopia and a protector of civil rights. In that period, posters and cartoons depicting “Freedom to the Prisoners of Scottsboro” became widespread in the Soviet Union. 

Russia’s Tactics in the 2016 U.S. Elections Interference Campaign

Fast forward to 2020, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference campaigns in the 2016 US elections revealed that social media content published by Russian information operatives working for the Internet Research Agency (IRA) overwhelmingly focused on race.

On Facebook, over 66% of IRA-created advertisements contained race-related terms, specifically targeting African Americans in key metropolitan areas. The IRA-run Facebook page “Blacktivist” achieved 11.2 million user engagements. Five of the top ten IRA-run Instagram accounts centered on African-American issues and audiences. IRA Twitter activities focused on contentious issues with racial undertones, such as the NFL kneeling protests. On YouTube, 96% of IRA content, which included approximately 1,063 videos, addressed racial issues in the United States and police brutality. Even the IRA-affiliated channels on YouTube had names like “Black Matters,” “BlackToLive,” “Cop Block US,” “Don’t Shoot,” and “PoliceState.”

These findings suggest the IRA ran coordinated campaigns across multiple social media platforms, mimicked genuine activism, and engaged millions of users online. The extensive reach and precise racial targeting of IRA campaigns showed Russia’s ability to infiltrate domestic discourse and manipulate public opinion. As one former IRA troll put it: “When there were Black people rioting in the United States, we had to write that U.S. policy on the Black community had failed, Obama’s administration couldn’t cope with the problem, the situation is getting tenser…” Amplification of racial injustice aimed to increase tensions between African Americans and police further, as well as give Russia grounds to deflect American criticism when required. 

Russia’s Strategy: Diversion and Whataboutism

Tactically, Russian information warfare targeting racial issues seeks to amplify already existing divisions and tensions inside the country. Racial tensions persist in the United States, fueled by historical legacies, policy debates, and changing demographics. America’s longstanding struggle with racial inequality and social injustice has offered Russia a receptive audience and ground for exploitation.

While messaging highlights contemporary problems within the United States, the strategic goal is much broader than stirring a pot. By undermining the cohesion of American society, weakening its unity, and eroding confidence in government and media, Russia can distract the United States from expanding its geopolitical interests and reshaping narratives to be more favorable to Moscow.

Beyond covert information operations, Russian President Vladimir Putin has directly highlighted racial injustice in the United States using “whataboutism” rhetoric. Moscow has been publically accused of election interference, poisoning Skripals, and supporting the Syrian government, and in response, Putin’s government has deployed “whataboutism” as a rebuttal mechanism for the “accusations.” Whataboutism is employed to deflect criticism or shift focus from certain issues. Putin uses this rhetoric to devalue democratic governments and affirm that “others” are engaging in the same activities as Russia. Moscow has particularly used this mechanism to exploit racial issues in the United States. 

In 2021, after Biden called Putin a “Killer,” Putin responded with a speech on the American legacy of slavery and the country’s treatment of Native Americans. Putin said that America’s perception of Russia is embedded in domestic problems: “In the history of every people, every state, there are a lot of hard, dramatic and bloody events. But when we evaluate other people or even other governments, we always look in the mirror.”

Same Goal, Different Times

The 2016 Russian interference in the U.S. elections demonstrated Moscow’s interest in exploiting vulnerabilities in American society. By amplifying racial injustice in the United States through the use of trolls and bots, the IRA sought to divide society, undermine democratic values, and discredit American criticism of Russian wrongdoings. The Soviet regime deployed the same tactics to achieve the same goal.

PUBLISHED BY TAMAR CHKHARTISHVILI

View all posts by Tamar Chkhartishvili

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Tamar Chkhartishvili

Posted in Race & Security

11. Faking an honest woman: Why Russia, China and Big Tech all use faux females to get clicks

Faking an honest woman: Why Russia, China and Big Tech all use faux females to get clicks​

BY  DAVID KLEPPER

Updated 6:24 AM EDT, June 12, 2024

AP · June 12, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — When disinformation researcher Wen-Ping Liu looked into China’s efforts to influence Taiwan’s recent election using fake social media accounts, something unusual stood out about the most successful profiles.

They were female, or at least that’s what they appeared to be. Fake profiles that claimed to be women got more engagement, more eyeballs and more influence than supposedly male accounts.

“Pretending to be a female is the easiest way to get credibility,” said Liu, an investigator with Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice.

Whether it’s Chinese or Russian propaganda agencies, online scammers or AI chatbots, it pays to be female — proving that while technology may grow more and more sophisticated, the human brain remains surprisingly easy to hack thanks in part to age-old gender stereotypes that have migrated from the real world to the virtual.

FILE - Taiwanese people line up to vote outside of a polling station in Taipei, Taiwan, Jan. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

People have long assigned human characteristics like gender to inanimate objects — ships are one example — so it makes sense that human-like traits would make fake social media profiles or chatbots more appealing. However, questions about how these technologies can reflect and reinforce gender stereotypes are getting attention as more voice assistants and AI-enabled chatbots enter the market, further blurring the lines between man (and woman) and machine.

“You want to inject some emotion and warmth and a very easy way to do that is to pick a woman’s face and voice,” said Sylvie Borau, a marketing professor and online researcher in Toulouse, France, whose work has found that internet users prefer “female” bots and see them as more human than “male” versions.

People tend to see women as warmer, less threatening and more agreeable than men, Borau told The Associated Press. Men, meanwhile, are often perceived to be more competent, though also more likely to be threatening or hostile. Because of this many people may be, consciously or unconsciously, more willing to engage with a fake account that poses as female.

When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was searching for a new voice for the ChatGPT AI program, he approached Scarlett Johansson, who said Altman told her that users would find her voice — which served as the eponymous voice assistant in the movie “Her” — “comforting.” Johansson declined Altman’s request and threatened to sue when the company went with what she called an “eerily similar” voice. OpenAI put the new voice on hold.

Feminine profile pictures, particularly ones showing women with flawless skin, lush lips and wide eyes in revealing outfits, can be another online lure for many men.

FILE - Scarlett Johansson attends the Golden Heart Awards, Oct. 16, 2023, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

Users also treat bots differently based on their perceived sex: Borau’s research has found that “female” chatbots are far more likely to receive sexual harassment and threats than “male” bots.

Female social media profiles receive on average more than three times the views compared to those of males, according to an analysis of more than 40,000 profiles conducted for the AP by Cyabra, an Israeli tech firm that specializes in bot detection. Female profiles that claim to be younger get the most views, Cyabra found.

“Creating a fake account and presenting it as a woman will help the account gain more reach compared to presenting it as a male,” according to Cyabra’s report.

The online influence campaigns mounted by nations like China and Russia have long used faux females to spread propaganda and disinformation. These campaigns often exploit people’s views of women. Some appear as wise, nurturing grandmothers dispensing homespun wisdom, while others mimic young, conventionally attractive women eager to talk politics with older men.

Last month, researchers at the firm NewsGuard found hundreds of fake accounts — some boasting AI-generated profile pictures — were used to criticize President Joe Biden. It happened after some Trump supporters began posting a personal photo with the announcement that they “will not be voting for Joe Biden.”

While many of the posts were authentic, more than 700 came from fake accounts. Most of the profiles claimed to be young women living in states like Illinois or Florida; one was named PatriotGal480. But many of the accounts used nearly identical language, and had profile photos that were AI-generated or stolen from other users. And while they couldn’t say for sure who was operating the fake accounts, they found dozens with links to nations including Russia and China.

X removed the accounts after NewsGuard contacted the platform.

A report from the U.N. suggested there’s an even more obvious reason why so many fake accounts and chatbots are female: they were created by men. The report, entitled “ Are Robots Sexist?,” looked at gender disparities in tech industries and concluded that greater diversity in programming and AI development could lead to fewer sexist stereotypes embedded in their products.

For programmers eager to make their chatbots as human as possible, this creates a dilemma, Borau said: if they select a female persona, are they encouraging sexist views about real-life women?

“It’s a vicious cycle,” Borau said. “Humanizing AI might dehumanize women.”

AP · June 12, 2024

12. 2024 U.S. Federal Elections: The Insider Threat 

Access the 9 page document here: https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/2024%20General%20Elections_Insider%20Threat_6.11.24_footnote_508c.pdf

2024 U.S. Federal Elections: The Insider Threat  

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) prepared this overview to help partners defend against insider threat concerns that could materialize during the 2024 election cycle. For years, federal, state, local, and private sector partners nationwide have worked closely together to support state and local officials in safeguarding election infrastructure from cyber, physical, and insider threats. Because of these efforts, there is no evidence that malicious actors changed, altered, or deleted votes or had any impact on the outcome of elections. Over the past several years, the election infrastructure community has experienced multiple instances of election system access control compromises conducted by insider threats. While there is no evidence that malicious actors impacted election outcomes, it is important that election stakeholders at all levels are aware of the risks posed by insider threats and the steps that they can take to identify and mitigate these threats. 

This document outlines several recent examples of election security-related insider threats, discusses potential scenarios that could arise during the 2024 election cycle, and provides recommendations for how to mitigate the risk posed by insider threats.1 

13. ‘Shoot and Scoot’ – War in Ukraine Overturns Another Conventional Tenet of War

‘Shoot and Scoot’ – War in Ukraine Overturns Another Conventional Tenet of War

kyivpost.com · by Steve Brown · June 15, 2024

The threat from drones, loitering munitions and precision-guided weapons applies as much to artillery systems as it does to tanks and other armored vehicles.

by Steve Brown | June 15, 2024, 8:58 am

Ukrainian servicemen firing a French Nexter Caesar 6×6 155mm wheeled howitzer towards Russian positions in eastern Ukraine on Dec. 28, 2022. Photo: Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP

For decades the conventional wisdom among military strategists has been that artillery was the king of the battlefield. It was only threatened by the counterbattery capability of the enemy’s guns. If your guns outnumbered or outranged those of the opposition, if you sited them correctly, and had a good strategy – then you would prevail.

The artillery of the 20th century came in two main forms towed and, mostly tracked and armored self-propelled howitzers.

The appearance of truck-mounted guns like France’s Caesar were seen as an interesting but inferior hybrid of the two. While they generally allowed the guns to be redeployed faster than their towed cousins, experts thought that they lacked the cross-country capability offered by tracks and were, therefore, more vulnerable.

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The war in Ukraine has seen loitering munitions, precision-guided weapons, and most particularly drones, being the catalyst for a change in the balance of the artillery equation.

Artillery is still and probably always will be an indispensable weapon on the battlefield but now, even more than ever, speed in deployment, rapid firing and moving on will be the key to survivability – what the military calls: “shoot and scoot.”

An article in the US military issues magazine Defense One says that the Ukrainian experience, where wheeled guns have proved so effective, has impacted on US army plans for the future modernization of its artillery systems.

Other Topics of Interest

ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 14, 2024

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

It cites Gen. James Rainey, the chief of the US Army Futures Command telling a Senate hearing in May that “… there are some very good, wheeled howitzers that are having great effect in a place like Europe,” in reference to what was happening in Ukraine.

His views contrast to the US' previous preference for tracked self-propelled artillery. In 2021 during a competition to select mobile artillery support for its Stryker Brigades, it rejected the foreign wheeled offerings in favor of the M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer.

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Rainey said that on the future battlefield, artillery systems must be constantly on the move to avoid being detected, identified and destroyed. He said that, in addition, the US was also examining ways of improving and extending the range of mortar systems to supplement that need.

Ukraine’s experience has shown the utility of wheeled howitzers, including Sweden’s FH77BW L52 Archer, France’s Caesar, Ukraine’s own 2S22 Bohdana, compete favorably with tracked guns in terms of firepower, rate of fire, precision and range.

Ukraine recently announced it has expanded its production of Bohdanas to 10 systems a month.

While wheeled guns may not be as mobile off-road as tracked artillery there are sufficient trails and roads in Ukraine (and Europe) that combined with all-wheel drive makes that less of a disadvantage than once thought. Wheeled guns are generally much cheaper, easier to maintain, and modern armor technologies offer protection comparable with most tracked vehicles.

In 2023 the unit cost of the French Caesar MkII was €3.2 million ($3.5 million), compared with Germany’s tracked Panzerhaubitze 2000s was €18.4 million ($20 million) apiece, according to Defense News. It also says that studies have shown that the cost of operating and maintaining wheeled systems can result in cost savings of roughly 30 percent.

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Defense News points out that not only the US but others including the UK and Germany, have taken the decision to invest in wheeled howitzers – a direct result of the Ukrainian experience. It cites a spokesperson for Israel’s Elbit Systems, which makes the Atmos truck-mounted howitzer saying that there has been “an uptick in the focus on wheeled, self-propelled howitzers as the war in Ukraine has highlighted a ‘critical need’ for improved mobility.”

Systems such as the Atmos can pull into position, fire multiple rounds and race off in a matter of minutes. The Finnish newspaper Aamulehti reported in April that Helsinki’s Patria Group was developing a truck-mounted version of its 155K98 155mm towed artillery piece following its own assessment of lessons learned in Ukraine.

Russian milbloggers say that Caesar is feared by Russian troops, particularly in the counter-battery role where its superior range, accuracy, mobility, and agility doesn’t give Russian forces enough time to locate and target the Ukrainian weapons and has killed many Russian artillery crews.

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The modern, European wheeled systems being used in Ukraine with their 155mm, 52-caliber barrels have a range of about 40 kilometers (25 miles) which is more than the older US towed M777 and tracked Paladin howitzers, as well as most Russian tube artillery. It is drones that pose the biggest threat to Ukrainian gun crews, making the combination of hiding from sight before deploying as well as being mobile, agile and able to rapidly move on from the firing point the key to surviving.

Defense News says that the Eurosatory defense and security exhibition will feature at least 10 artillery makers this year with howitzers and rocket artillery being major draws. This will include the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) as well as the latest versions of Caesar six and eight-wheeled variations. Elbit says it planned to showcase its PULS multiple-rocket launcher and Sigma next-generation howitzer, both wheeled, before being banned from attending.

Even Russia has bucked its usual tradition of relying on tracked self-propelled artillery with Rostec, the state-owned arms conglomerate, revealing the Malva wheeled howitzer last year.

According to Spencer Jones, a senior lecturer in war studies at the UK’s University of Wolverhampton, the use of wheeled artillery was initially forced on Ukraine as a function of weapons availability rather than a tactical or doctrinal choice.

It may be a happy accident, but in a battlefield where intense counter-battery fire supported by drones and other smart weapons became the order of the day the use by Ukraine of “shoot-and-scoot artillery fire” may well be ushering in a new era of highly mobile howitzers for which these wheeled guns are eminently suited.

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Steve Brown

After a career as a British Army Ammunition Specialist and Bomb Disposal Officer, Steve later worked in the fields of ammunition destruction, demining and explosive ordnance disposal with the UN and NATO. In 2017, after taking early retirement, he moved to Ukraine with his Ukrainian wife and two sons where he became a full-time writer. He now works as a senior writer and English language editor with the Kyiv Post.

kyivpost.com · by Steve Brown · June 15, 2024

​14. A Reimagined G7

Excerpts:

The so-called Global South, middle economies, and nondemocratic states may find little appeal in this reimagined G7 as they are still excluded from it. At the same time, we can’t address this criticism by letting the G7 become the G20. Instead, it will be important to set up formal consultation mechanisms with these constituencies to maintain legitimacy and effectiveness as a global governance institution. This should include annual pre- and post-G7 summit consultations by the host country’s foreign and finance ministers with the African Union, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China, the G20, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Many G7 gurus might reject these reforms because they covet the exclusivity of their grouping. It’s a place where leaders can have candid, unscripted conversations, and then have their countries act on those discussions. But this is not your grandfather’s G7 anymore. The disorder in the world and the vacuum of global governance institutions mandate the G7 to step up. Otherwise, that vacuum will eventually be filled by predatory actors interested in fomenting chaos or building an illiberal order.

A Reimagined G7

csis.org · by Commentary by Victor Cha and John J. Hamre Published June 14, 2024

Photo: -/AFP via Getty Images

Remote Visualization

Our traditional institutions of global governance are floundering. The UN Security Council is stymied by Russian and Chinese vetoes. The G20 and World Trade Organization (now up to 160 members) are paralyzed by a lack of consensus. Meanwhile, two bloody wars in Ukraine and Gaza, cohesion among a bloc of autocratic powers, and the renewal of Cold War–like geopolitical rivalries with China have precipitated a world in crisis. At the same time, profound advances in the use of artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, resilient supply chains, and clean development demand new standards and norms, as well as sustained cooperative action.

The G7 leaders must converge in Italy this week with the recognition that their grouping remains the only viable institution of global governance going forward. The G7 must transform from an old boys’ club of financiers chatting about monetary policy to a coalition of action-oriented, like-minded partners inspired to sustain the rules-based international order by addressing issues ranging from Ukraine to digital security. To do this, G7 leaders must consider serious reforms that enhance the group’s capabilities, effectiveness, and legitimacy.

The G7, now composed of the advanced industrialized economies of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union, started out in 1975 to coordinate economic policy in the wake of the oil shocks. Over time, changes in the international environment led to changes in membership (Russia was added in 1998 and then dropped 16 years later) but also pushed the members to expand the scope of their perceived responsibilities. While no G7 declaration carries the compliant force of a UN Security Council resolution, agreements by G7 members to devote resources to a particular issue have had the effect of setting standards and norms globally. Japan’s hosting of the G7 in 2023 was a turning point of sorts. There, the leaders identified cooperation on eight global issues that evinced an aspiration for the group to become the preeminent institution of global governance: the future of the Indo-Pacific, supply chains and economic security, food security, digital security, climate change, sustainable development, labor standards, and the future of Ukraine.

The G7 is currently not equipped with either the capabilities or the organization to carry out this mission of global governance. In the 1990s, the G8 represented 67 percent of world GDP, whereas today it is only 43 percent. Moreover, key players on issues like emerging technology, global health science, and critical mineral supply chains sit outside the group. The world benefits from a G7 fit for purpose, but the grouping badly needs an upgrade.

First, the G7 needs an infusion of new players. Australia and South Korea should be at the front of the line. These two countries offer the combination of trustworthiness and effectiveness that G7 leaders prize as the hallmark of their group. Both are advanced industrialized democracies that have fought with the free world in every war since the Korean War. Adding the two would diversify the traditionally heavy European bias in the group and include more views from Asia, the entirety of which is currently represented by one member, Japan.

Most important, these countries bring capabilities badly needed by the G7 given its ambitious agenda. A new CSIS study finds that of the nine priority global issues identified at the 2023 Hiroshima summit, South Korea and Australia, the 12th- and 13th-largest economies in the world, are ranked higher in terms of overall performance on these issues than several current G7 members (based on 300-plus publicly available performance metrics). On digital security, for example, Australia and South Korea are outperforming France, Japan, and Italy. On economic resilience and economic security, Australia’s performance is ranked higher than all G7 members except three (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany).

G7 sherpas may fret that enlarging the group will hurt effectiveness. One additional membership revision would be to consolidate the two European Council and European Commission seats into one in order to keep the numbers manageable and allow for inclusion of non-European members.

Membership is not the only problem. The G7 needs better structure in order to keep sustained focus on key global issues. G7 leaders currently value the informality of the group and defer on the agenda to the year’s host. For example, last year’s summit saw host Japan prioritize the Indo-Pacific, economic security, and supply chain resilience. But this year’s host, Italy, has shifted the agenda to a parochial issue, migration from North Africa. While all issues are important, what is needed is a consistent, consensus-based agenda, driven by a troika of the current, past, and upcoming years’ G7 hosts, to ensure sustained attention and follow-through on critical global issues.

The so-called Global South, middle economies, and nondemocratic states may find little appeal in this reimagined G7 as they are still excluded from it. At the same time, we can’t address this criticism by letting the G7 become the G20. Instead, it will be important to set up formal consultation mechanisms with these constituencies to maintain legitimacy and effectiveness as a global governance institution. This should include annual pre- and post-G7 summit consultations by the host country’s foreign and finance ministers with the African Union, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China, the G20, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Many G7 gurus might reject these reforms because they covet the exclusivity of their grouping. It’s a place where leaders can have candid, unscripted conversations, and then have their countries act on those discussions. But this is not your grandfather’s G7 anymore. The disorder in the world and the vacuum of global governance institutions mandate the G7 to step up. Otherwise, that vacuum will eventually be filled by predatory actors interested in fomenting chaos or building an illiberal order.

John Hamre is president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Victor Cha is senior vice president for Asia and Korea Chair at CSIS and professor at Georgetown.

Commentary is 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).

© 2024 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

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Victor Cha

Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair

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John J. Hamre

CSIS President and CEO, and Langone Chair in American Leadership

Programs & Projects

• Korea Chair

csis.org · by Commentary by Victor Cha and John J. Hamre Published June 14, 2024

​15. Force Design 2030: Operational Incompetence

Excerpts:

To reiterate, the “first cause” in crippling the Marine Corps as the nation’s 911 force was the lack of operational competence by some senior leaders. These generals are focused on Stand-in Forces and Marine Expeditionary Units - - small unit formations that lack an offensive punch or staying power. They neglect the larger Marine Expeditionary Brigades and Marine Expeditionary Forces, which can conduct “single battle” operations in support of a combatant commander against a determined enemy with peer or near peer level capabilities at major theater of war levels.

We do not intend to imply that the entire generation of current and recently retired senior Marine Corps leaders are operationally incompetent because we know several who display exceptional competence. We also know that the former Commandant asked some of the most operationally competent to retire when they still had much to offer the Corps. And the law of averages tells us there must be at least a few on active duty, but they remain silent.

Force Design is an operational and strategic dead end. It invites defeat in detail. But even worse, renders the Marine Corps irrelevant because it offers virtually nothing to combatant commanders in a full spectrum war against a determined enemy.

The national defense desperately needs Marine Corps leadership and members of Congress to speak up and help rebuild Marine Corps capabilities to fight any foe, anywhere, and win. The American people deserve no less.

Force Design 2030: Operational Incompetence

By Walter Boomer & James Conway

June 15, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/06/15/force_design_2030_operational_incompetence_1038257.html

Photo: U.S. Marines with 3d Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion and 3d Battalion, 4th Marines supports anti-aircraft training during Stand-in Force Exercise on Okinawa, Japan, Dec 7, 2022. SiF-EX is a Division-level exercise involving all elements of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force focused on strengthening multi-domain awareness, maneuver, and fires across a distributed maritime environment. This exercise serves as a rehearsal for rapidly projecting combat power in defense of allies and partners in the region. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Davin Tenbusch)

Operational Incompetence Dangerously Crippled America’s Expeditionary Force-in-Readiness

The United States Marine Corps is no longer capable of effectively conducting combat operations across the spectrum of conflict. Who is responsible? Over the past five years, some Marine Corps senior leaders have myopically reorganized and restructured Marine forces to perform regional small unit operations focused on a single enemy. The results of these efforts have become clear: the Marine Corps’ ability to project force “in every clime and place” to maintain global deterrence and to fight and win the Nation’s battles has been compromised.

Today, the Marine Corps is hard pressed to field a robust and resilient combined arms Marine Expeditionary Brigade (brigadier general level command) and unable to field a Marine Expeditionary Force (lieutenant general level command), such as those that fought in Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. As a result, the Marine Corps can no longer support those combatant commander requirements that call for major combined arms forces to engage in mid-to-high intensity sustained ground combat.

How did this happen? A flawed operational concept termed Force Design 2030 eliminated Marine Corps capabilities to maintain forces forward in global hotspots and fight and win across the warfighting spectrum should deterrence fail. But one needs to look deeper to truly understand the genesis of this destruction.

In theology and philosophy there is a theory known as “first cause”: an acknowledgement that any event or outcome has a precipitating cause. What was the “first cause” for Force Design 2030? The culprit was a lack of operational competence in some current and recently retired senior Marine Corps leaders.

These officers’ operational experience was developed during almost twenty years of fighting the Global War on Terrorism. Following the defeat of the Iraqi Army in 2003, our adversaries, while deadly, fought asymmetrically at the lower end of the tactical spectrum. In countering them, there was no need to employ strong combined arms capabilities. Absent were requirements to conduct armored operations; counterfire operations against powerful artillery threats; breaching, obstacle clearance, or bridging operations; and large scale coordinated combined arms maneuvers. Instead, operations were often conducted from fixed bases supported by contracted logistics. As a result of this narrow combat experience, it should be no surprise that capabilities not exercised during the wars against terrorists are those that have faced the Force Design chopping block.

In their rush to restructure the Marine Corps for a limited mission in a known location (the sinking of Chinese Navy warships inside the Pacific First Island Chain), the advocates of Force Design essentially reduced Marine operating forces into tactical Stand-in Forces and Marine Expeditionary Units (colonel level command).

Stand-in Forces are small, single purpose units designed to be forward deployed inside contested areas on remote islands in the First Island Chain. Armed with short-range, subsonic missiles, these units are isolated and vulnerable. The Marine Corps has yet to articulate a viable concept for inserting, repositioning, and logistically supporting these tactical units, sans reliance on an ill-defined future Landing Ship Medium (formerly Light Amphibious Warship). This small, slow, and lightly armed ship is neither survivable nor likely to be built in numbers approaching Marine Corps requirements. While arguably ineffective in the Indo-Pacific Region, Stand-in Forces have virtually no utility outside it.

A competent warfighter would never have put forward an untested and unproven operational concept without first having determined its logistical supportability. The Corps has yet to find an answer to the logistics needs of Stand-in Forces, isolated and unsupported inside contested areas.

Marine Expeditionary Units are highly versatile and capable air and ground task forces. While built for global employment, they are not suitable for sustained combat against a determined enemy, as they lack the requisite firepower and logistics. Unless quickly reinforced or resupplied, they have limited utility in the close or rear battle.

The adoption of Force Design and its supporting concepts suggest that Marine Corps leadership is predominately focused on a Pacific War with China and has given minimal consideration of how the Marine Corps may be called upon to meet the challenges presented by great power competition across the globe. The architects and proponents of Force Design apparently forgot that a war with China, if it comes, will be fought globally and not just in the South China Sea. China, through its Belt and Road initiative, has been cultivating access to key countries in nearly every continent by providing financial aid and building infrastructure that could support the Chinese military during a future conflict. Expeditionary forces will be needed to deter or defeat threats from China or its allies and proxies emanating from these strategic locations inside and outside of the Pacific region. This has been the Marine Corps role since the Barbary Wars in the early 19^th century.

To implement Force Design, it was believed necessary to divest proven combined arms capabilities needed to prosecute a “single battle” approach to warfighting. Single battle is the understanding that battles and campaigns are fought by Marine Air-Ground Task Forces, supported by complementary logistics, seamlessly integrated for combat across the rear, close, and deep areas of the battlespace.

A full array of combined arms capabilities (including cannon, armor, close-in fire support from rotary/fixed wing aviation - - not just missiles) is required to allow a commander to deliver long range and close supporting fires in all areas of the battlespace; to maneuver the force by air or ground; to logistically support the force; to sense throughout the battlespace; and to effectively command and control forces. The divestitures of combined arms capabilities mandated by Force Design have jeopardized the Marine Corps’ ability to conduct major combat operations without significant support and augmentation from the U.S. Army. Even with Army augmentation, the ability of disparate units to operate as an effective fighting force in combat is questionable absent extensive pre-deployment training and exercises.

Of all the flaws evident in Force Design and the Stand-in Forces concept, none is more consequential than the alarming reduction of amphibious assault ships. It has long been accepted that a minimum of 38 large amphibious ships are required to maintain three Marine Expeditionary Units forward, support the training and preparation of the next deploying units, maintain a surge capability of ships required to deploy an amphibious brigade for crisis response or contingencies, and allow for programed ship maintenance and refit.       

The previous Commandant arbitrarily reduced the requirement to 31 ships.  This was a strategic blunder from which it will be difficult to recover without immediate action by Congress. The reduced number is insufficient to quickly deploy an amphibious brigade and barely sufficient to meet global requirements for two forward deployed Marine Expeditionary Units and one forward based Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Another smoking gun is the lack of appreciation for maritime prepositioning. The rapid deployment of a Marine Expeditionary Brigade and especially a Marine Expeditionary Force is not possible without a robust and strategically located fleet of maritime prepositioning ships. Marine Corps leadership have remained silent as the U.S. Navy emasculated the three squadrons of maritime prepositioning ships, reducing capabilities from 3 squadrons of 17 ships to 2 squadrons of 7 ships.  Previously, each squadron was capable of rapidly deploying weapons and equipment for a 16,500-man combined arms brigade with 30 days of sustainment. For operational context, the rapid and effective deployment of the Marine Expeditionary Force during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Iraqi Freedom would not have been possible without robust support from the maritime prepositioning force.

To reiterate, the “first cause” in crippling the Marine Corps as the nation’s 911 force was the lack of operational competence by some senior leaders. These generals are focused on Stand-in Forces and Marine Expeditionary Units - - small unit formations that lack an offensive punch or staying power. They neglect the larger Marine Expeditionary Brigades and Marine Expeditionary Forces, which can conduct “single battle” operations in support of a combatant commander against a determined enemy with peer or near peer level capabilities at major theater of war levels.

We do not intend to imply that the entire generation of current and recently retired senior Marine Corps leaders are operationally incompetent because we know several who display exceptional competence. We also know that the former Commandant asked some of the most operationally competent to retire when they still had much to offer the Corps. And the law of averages tells us there must be at least a few on active duty, but they remain silent.

Force Design is an operational and strategic dead end. It invites defeat in detail. But even worse, renders the Marine Corps irrelevant because it offers virtually nothing to combatant commanders in a full spectrum war against a determined enemy.

The national defense desperately needs Marine Corps leadership and members of Congress to speak up and help rebuild Marine Corps capabilities to fight any foe, anywhere, and win. The American people deserve no less.

General Walter (Walt) Boomer, USMC (ret.), is a career infantry officer. He was the Commander Marine Corps Forces Central Command and Commanding General I MEF during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. His last assignment was the 24th Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.

General James (Jim) Conway, USMC (ret.), is a career infantry officer. He was the Commanding General I MEF during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the First Battle of Fallujah. His last assignment was the 34^th Commandant of the Marine Corps.

16. Merlin cuts co-pilot from flying C-130J with new AI tool

So AI is putting people out of jobs. Where will all the co-pilots go? (sarcasm). At some point will a lack of (human) redundancy cause damage?

Merlin cuts co-pilot from flying C-130J with new AI tool - Airforce Technology

airforce-technology.com · by John Hill · June 13, 2024

US pilots fly a C-130 Hercules with simulated medical patients from Fort McCoy, Wisconsin to Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport during Patriot North, 18 July 2018. Credit: DVIDS.

The US is making strides in the evolution of their enduring transport aircraft and at the heart of the innovation is an autonomous systems supplier called Merlin.

In its latest milestone on 11 June 2024, the company was given the go-ahead to start producing its ‘Merlin Pilot’ technology, which will be used to automate certain aspects in flying the C-130J Super Hercules transporter – an aircraft that is used by more than 20 nations and has been in continuous production for more than 25 years.

Under the new contract the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a joint combatant command within the Department of Defense, has awarded Merlin $105m to begin working toward a production-ready reduced aircrew capability.

Who’s flying the plane!?

“The target will be the co-pilot,” confirmed a Merlin spokesperson, “the idea is to have a pilot that can fly the C-130 by themselves.”

Taking over the co-pilot, Merlin Pilot will streamline the workload on the aircrew.

“Our production system will look to provide sufficient autonomy and automation to reduce workload below a to-be-determined threshold for single pilot operations,” added the spokesperson.

Automated communications will be the first autonomy integration Merlin will integrate for workload reduction.

“For the demo, it will perform audio translation to text and once the pilot concurs with the proposed flight changes, the Merlin Pilot will command the aircraft to honor those commands.”

Merlin Pilot is due take over five aircraft types

This latest contract builds on a previous agreement made in February. Signed by Merlin and Air Mobility Command as well as the Air Force Materiel Command, the deal would demonstrate aspects of the product on the KC-135 Stratotanker.

Between the C-130J and the KC-135 these are the bulk of the mobility fleet in the US Air Force.

At the time the founder and CEO of Merlin, Matt George, spoke with Airforce Technology in an exclusive to explain the plans to reduce transporter aircrews across the US Armed Forces.

“So we have integrated the Merlin Pilot on five different aircraft types. So the Merlin pilot, just like human pilot, can transition between different aircraft platform structures.

A KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft is flying at Pittsburgh International Airport as part of a local training mission, 23 February 2024. Credit: DVIDS.

“Each aeroplane is different,” said George. “So having a close collaboration and a close partnership with our customer is tremendously important to be able to go get this done in a way that is very safe and also in a way that is seamless, for the end user and for the end customer as we integrate the Merlin Pilot.”

“Over the years, [these current platforms] will probably be in service for the next 100 years, right? So we’re at a really unique point between the next generation tanker, NGAD and the sort of the tactical side, where these aircraft will be built around autonomy.

“So a big part of the work that we’re doing with the US Air Force and these aircraft, is certainly solving today’s problems, but building that trust and confidence in an autonomy system that can perform and step into being the underpinning for future systems in a way that’s pretty different from how we’ve traditionally deployed aircraft.”

airforce-technology.com · by John Hill · June 13, 2024

17. For Hamas, Everything Is Going According to Plan

Excerpts:

Hamas was hoping to lure Israel into Gaza, where it would get stuck in the quicksand of reoccupation while fighting a long-term, albeit low-intensity, insurgency. Hamas would then wave its bloody shirt to Palestinians and the world, announcing itself as the legitimate national leadership, because it would be the one fighting Israeli occupation forces for control of Palestinian land on a daily basis in Gaza. Against its blood sacrifice, Hamas would cast the Palestinian Authority as the Vichy gendarmerie of the occupation in the West Bank, and the PLO as a humiliated dupe, waiting pointlessly at an empty negotiating table for peace and independence that never come.

The insurgency that Hamas hoped for has already begun. That’s why the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, reportedly sent a message in February reassuring anxious Hamas leaders in Qatar and Lebanon that “we have the Israelis right where we want them.” Everything appears to be going according to plan. Why, then, would Hamas possibly be interested in Biden’s peace plan? It has even less motivation than Netanyahu.

The grim reality is that the only two groups of people left in the world who seem to want the war to continue into the indefinite future are also the only ones who could stop it: the Hamas leaders and Netanyahu. Biden deserves credit for trying, but he has almost no chance of success.

For Hamas, Everything Is Going According to Plan

Why accept a peace proposal when the goal is “permanent war”?

By Hussein Ibish

The Atlantic · by Hussein Ibish · June 14, 2024

The leaders of both Israel and Hamas seem content for the war in Gaza to grind on into the indefinite future. Such is the upshot of their ambiguous, but essentially negative, responses to President Joe Biden’s peace proposal, which is now fully backed by the United Nations Security Council. And the reasons are obvious.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have concluded that the best way to stay out of prison on corruption charges is to stay in office, and the best way to do that is to keep the war going. Hamas, meanwhile, believes that it is winning. On October 13, I wrote in these pages that Hamas had set a trap for Israel. The trap has sprung; Israel is fully enmeshed in it, with no evident way out, and Hamas is getting exactly what it hoped for.

Biden’s three-phase proposal was meant to end the war and establish an unspecified postconflict reality in Gaza. Phase 1 involves a 42-day cease-fire and the release of hostages held by Hamas and prisoners held by Israel, as well as negotiations for a complete end to the fighting. Phase 2 includes, as its centerpiece, a permanent cessation of hostilities. According to Biden’s plan, if the talks at the end of Phase 1 don’t produce a clear understanding of how to implement Phase 2, negotiations would then continue for as long as both parties abide by their Phase 1 commitments. The trouble is that this would, in effect, indefinitely freeze the war at its current stage.

Netanyahu won’t accept that. On May 31, Biden declared, “It is time for this war to end.” Netanyahu effectively replied that this is no time for the war to end, and has insisted that the war will continue until Hamas is destroyed.

Graeme Wood: Israeli rage reaches new levels

By saying that the war must continue until his poorly defined military and political objectives are achieved, while at the same time saying that he is open to the 42-day cease-fire of Phase 1, Netanyahu is signaling that he would like to pocket the release of Israeli hostages and then return to conflict—exactly the scenario Biden seeks to avoid. Hamas, too, might eventually agree to try to implement Phase 1, in order to gain the release of some Palestinian prisoners and regroup its remaining forces for the next round of fighting. But neither has any real interest in the all-important Phase 2.

Hamas leaders know that they can’t put themselves on Biden’s side against Netanyahu, but they hope to seize on the disjuncture between the two allies by saying that they will accept the agreement “providing Israel agrees to end the war.” A Hamas spokesperson, Sami Abu Zuhr, said that the group accepts the plan in principle, and is ready to negotiate the details, but no word has come from the group’s senior leaders in Gaza. Like Netanyahu, in other words, Hamas hasn’t said no but has avoided a clear yes, not least by making Biden’s ultimate goal, which Israel has bluntly rejected, its starting demand.

So why would Hamas possibly want the war to continue, given the devastation of Gaza and its beleaguered Palestinian population, and the decimation of the group’s organized military strength? The answer is that Hamas leaders in Gaza almost certainly believe that the war is going according to plan.

Hamas has never really hidden its motivations. The October 7 attack proved even more devastating than Hamas surely anticipated, and afterward, the group’s leaders repeatedly insisted that they would have continued such assaults until they produced “a state of permanent warfare” with Israel. But what could they have meant by “permanent warfare”? Hamas surely understood that its civic power, military infrastructure, and above all its organized paramilitary forces stood no chance against the Israeli military. The group’s leaders knew that practically everything tangible they possessed would be smashed in relatively short order by the Israelis. And that’s essentially what has happened, although some important tunnels apparently remain, along with, reportedly, three or four battalions in Rafah.

The scale of the destruction can’t be a surprise to Hamas. Provoking the Israelis and luring them into Gaza was in fact Hamas’s intent. Once Israel blundered into reoccupying the Strip’s urban centers, its forces could serve as a lightning rod for a long-term insurgency, which was what Hamas was counting on all along.

While the world’s attention is focused on Rafah, the low-level but potentially “permanent” insurgency against Israeli forces has already begun in the cities of Gaza and Jabalia, and other parts of the northern and central Gaza Strip that Israel supposedly “pacified” and rid of any capable Hamas military forces. Hamas fighters even attempted another infiltration of Israel near the Kerem Shalom border crossing. That Israeli leaders have expressed surprise at this development suggests that they never really understood what kind of war the enemy had in mind. Hamas undoubtedly took steps in advance of October 7 to prepare for the insurgency that appears to have started.

American and Israeli policy makers tend to ignore internal Palestinian politics, but to understand Hamas’s choice—to trade its stable and limited rule over Gaza for a state of “permanent war”—requires taking seriously the struggle for power among Palestinian factions. In the Palestinian nationalist movement, the Islamists of Hamas have always played second fiddle to the secular nationalists of Fatah and the two institutions they dominate—the Palestinian Authority, which governs the small, autonomous Palestinian areas in the West Bank, and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which speaks for the Palestinians on the world stage. Of these, the latter is the more significant, really the crown jewel of the Palestinian nationalist project since it was reconstituted after the Six-Day War in 1967.

Through the PLO, the nominal State of Palestine not only participates in the UN General Assembly as a “nonmember observer state” but has gained membership in most significant multilateral institutions. South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice is predicated on the State of Palestine’s having subscribed to the ICJ Statute, which Israel (like the United States) has not. Similarly, potential actions against Israeli and Hamas leaders by the International Criminal Court are predicated on the State of Palestine’s having signed the statute guiding the ICC. This gives both courts jurisdiction over Gaza, a presumptive part of the State of Palestine (which is really the PLO). Yet Hamas has never been a part of the PLO and is a bitter rival of the secular nationalists who control it. Any time a Palestinian rises at an international forum, including the Arab League, to speak on behalf of the nation, it is a Fatah voice that resonates, with no input whatsoever from Hamas.

Andrew Exum: Is the destruction of Gaza making Israel any safer?

Hamas leaders evidently concluded that their fiefdom in Gaza had become more of a trap than a launching pad. Controlling Gaza wasn’t going to help them expand back into the West Bank or marginalize Fatah and eventually take over the PLO. Yet these were the prime directives of their organization when it was founded: The first purpose of Hamas is to turn the Palestinian cause from a secular project to an Islamist one and, in doing so, to take over leadership of the Palestinian nationalist movement.

Hamas was hoping to lure Israel into Gaza, where it would get stuck in the quicksand of reoccupation while fighting a long-term, albeit low-intensity, insurgency. Hamas would then wave its bloody shirt to Palestinians and the world, announcing itself as the legitimate national leadership, because it would be the one fighting Israeli occupation forces for control of Palestinian land on a daily basis in Gaza. Against its blood sacrifice, Hamas would cast the Palestinian Authority as the Vichy gendarmerie of the occupation in the West Bank, and the PLO as a humiliated dupe, waiting pointlessly at an empty negotiating table for peace and independence that never come.

The insurgency that Hamas hoped for has already begun. That’s why the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, reportedly sent a message in February reassuring anxious Hamas leaders in Qatar and Lebanon that “we have the Israelis right where we want them.” Everything appears to be going according to plan. Why, then, would Hamas possibly be interested in Biden’s peace plan? It has even less motivation than Netanyahu.

The grim reality is that the only two groups of people left in the world who seem to want the war to continue into the indefinite future are also the only ones who could stop it: the Hamas leaders and Netanyahu. Biden deserves credit for trying, but he has almost no chance of success.

The Atlantic · by Hussein Ibish · June 14, 2024

18.  On writing strategies. by Sir Lawrence Freedman

For all wannabe strategists (and real ones). Some weekend reflection. I think this essay will become a core reading at PME institutions (especially SAMS, SAAS, and SAW) and really all ILE and War Colleges.

I have been guilty as charged in the last sentence of this conclusion. (That said, I have Sir Lawrence's book Strategy on my desk next to me. It is 749 pages! But there is no power point in it.)

Lastly documents that are really meant to persuade and inform will be written in lucid prose, presenting evidence clearly. Documents that require too much decoding will soon become subject to multiple interpretations, while something important is bound to be missed if too many separate points are packed into each paragraph. Remember that most people will only read the executive summary, so make sure that this conveys the highlights, crisply and unambiguously (the caveats can go in the main body of the report). And if you want the main messages to be understood the worst way to achieve this is by means of a power point presentation with as much information as possible crammed into every slide.

That is why this quote stands out to me today:  “When a writer tries to explain too much, he’s out of time before he begins.”

– Isaac Bashevis Singer

Comment is Freed

99+Upgrade to founding

On writing strategies

https://samf.substack.com/p/on-writing-strategies?publication_id=631422&r=7i07&utm

LAWRENCE FREEDMAN

JUN 15, 2024

∙ PAID

With a new government will come new strategies. Every new minister with new responsibilities will wish to make their mark by showing how they can bring new thinking to policy areas that the previous government had found uninteresting or intractable and had allowed to drift. Sometimes these will be internal exercises but if intended for external consumption they will need to be published in an attractive format, to be rolled out at a media event or presented to parliament as providing a guide to government action over the coming years. Outside bodies will seek to influence these strategies by offering their own versions, and then, once a new government strategy has been promulgated, affected organisations will ponder their meaning and start to respond.

This new strategy production will give a boost to an activity that is always underway to some degree, in and out of government. As few speak up for complacency and continuity, there is a constant demand for radicalism, reform, and reappraisal. Change is considered good. Nobody in charge of any organisation wishes it to be thought that have run out of ideas or that they only move forward in ways that are largely reactive and improvised, essentially making things up as they go along, though that is what they may be doing. Carry on this way and critics will soon warn of policy drift, pointing to gathering storm clouds and lights flashing amber that may soon turn to red.

Governments therefore have any number of strategy documents in circulation at any time, dealing with individual departments (‘a strategy for health’), the implications of new technologies (‘a strategy for AI’) or a dangerous international environment (‘a strategy for national security’). Big companies publish them to explain reorganizations or new market initiatives. Startups need to convey their potential to appeal to new investors. Universities must show how they will manage the twin challenges of teaching and research. Charities need them to explain how they will raise funds and disburse them responsibly.

Those writing these documents face a challenge. They are likely to have multiple audiences and it will be hard to satisfy everyone. If they cover too much the treatment of individual topics will be dismissed as superficial, but a laser-like focus on one topic and the accusation will be one of missing the bigger picture. If they deal with immediate problems the thinking is too short-term; look far into the future and its all speculation. Too bold is synonymous with losing touch with reality; too timid and then what’s the point?

In my time I have been involved in writing such documents and I have studied many more. I have sympathy with those tasked with producing them, although I have become sceptical about their value for reasons I will explain. Some of the strategies produced can be truly foundational, genuinely charting a new course and standing the test of time. But many turn to have short half-lives and are quietly forgotten or even become an embarrassment because of unfulfilled promises and flawed assumptions.

The best strategy documents have a clear audience in mind, address a real problem and show a way forward. That may seem simple enough but the process can easily go awry. For the benefit of those who find themselves tasked with the job of preparing one here are some of the potential pitfalls.

Disconnected from Decision-makers

When decision-makers agree that a strategy document is necessary the task of producing it is often delegated to a special group put together for the purpose, or strategy departments that exist solely to produce a stream of such documents, or outside consultants. The risk for the decision-makers is that they then lose control over the process, as it takes on a life of its own. Such groups are often told that nothing is ruled out, that ‘blue skies’ and ‘outside the box’ thinking is encouraged, that the conventional wisdom is there to be challenged. Such thinking can be bracing and genuinely innovative, but it can also misfire badly.

Serious decision-makers should not mind a bit of challenge and some radical ideas, especially if circumstances call for fresh ideas. Too much of this, however, and the producers will become disconnected from the interests and concerns of the deciders. If they frame their own questions and provide suitably radical answers but without reality checks then they risk stepping outside the realm of the practical. This is most likely to happen if those who have to implement the strategy and will be accountable for its success or failure only get their chance to comment at a late stage in the process, when it is impossible to rewind and start again. If they haven’t been paying attention they may be nonplussed by what they find.

Much will depend on how much the decision-makers have taken those in charge of the production of the document into their confidence (which may be a function of how prone to leaks they expect the process to be). The producers need to know the real purpose of the exercise. Is there a hidden agenda that the process is designed to obscure? Or is vital information so sensitive that it cannot be shared? Or do personnel considerations mean that moves that make apparent sense won’t happen because there are no competent people around to make sure that they do?

Lastly the producers need to be aware not only of the concerns of the deciders but also the implementers. Proposals that sound exciting but cannot be implemented because essential capabilities are absent will discredit the process. It is all very well to think ‘outside the box’ so long as one remembers that the box is there for a reason.

Publication

The process can be tightly held, especially if the outcome is expected to be controversial, or involve widespread consultations. As soon as lots of people are involved then, whether or not the document is intended largely for an internal audience, it is best to assume that details of the process and the product, even in draft, will soon be leaked. This will be done to influence the internal debates by mobilising opposition to the most ‘courageous’ proposals.

A document that is likely to be leaked, and certainly one that is published and easily available, places limits on what can be said about problems and risks, even if they are glaringly obvious. An optimistic and positive stance must be projected, even when failure and disappointment is quite likely. The fact of publication means that not only the intended audience must be addressed but also rivals and opponents. Language must be found that persuades the friendly and impresses neutrals while not giving away too much to the hostile.

So while in principle these documents should serve as guides to what to expect in the future and what needs to be done, the authors may be wary about being too candid or providing too much detail to back up their headline conclusions. Awkard issues may be played down or fudged. In this way they can turn out to be largely public relations exercises, helping the organisation look impressive and feel good about itself, while avoiding controversy. There is a tension between the need to demonstrate that a strategy exists and not setting it down in such a way that it makes it harder to achieve. This can lead to documents that are bland so that the real meaning can only be found by reading between the lines.

A published strategy can be scrutinised and assessed. If a really daring move is planned then it may be important to hint at what is coming, to avoid accusations at a later date of being deceitful and insincere. But it may also be tempting fate to spell out exactly what this is. Here ambiguity can be the drafter’s friend, helping to ensure that the intended move is not spotted or at least its meaning is left vague. This might be done by describing the truly big move briefly while some other, but less controversial, move is highlighted and explained in detail.

Aspirational Objectives

Although much actual strategy is a response to adverse developments, and is inevitably defensive, the natural inclination in a published document is to be forward looking and positive. Unless there is a particular problem to be addressed the objectives are likely to be framed in general terms. The tendency will be to aim high rather than low. Objectives will be aspirational - make the country secure, prosperous and green, or the company known for exceptional returns to shareholders and being socially responsible. There will often be promises to perform favourably against peers (world-beating, internationally-competitive, excellent, first in class, and so on). Mission statements are unlikely to include phrases such as ‘stop the rot’, ‘make fewer unforgivable errors’, ‘jog along as best we can,’ or ‘do a bit better than last year.’

Trade-Offs Ignored

Aspirations that are deliberately pitched high and list everything that could possibly be desired result in awkward trade-offs being ignored or left unexplored. Economic policy will be about achieving high growth, full employment, and splendid public services, with low inflation, debt, and tax. Who can disagree or even say that they cannot all be achieved? The actual strategy will only be found when priorities are set and tensions managed, and these in turn will depend on circumstances which may change.

When aspirations are pitched high the available means will struggle to match. The temptation will be to insist that asserting desirable objectives is in fact the strategy and that implementation will naturally follow. To show that a start has been made any vaguely relevant activity that has already been approved, or might reasonably be promised, can be mentioned. If sufficient activity can be accumulated, no matter how disparate and of uncertain effect, then that counts as an answer to the question of method. This can follow the politician’s syllogism: ‘Something must be done!’ ‘This is something’. ‘Then do it!’ 

Where there is no activity available to report then the gap can be filled by promising lots of sub-strategies, often involving consultations with interested parties, commissioned research, and high-level task forces.

Pressures for Inclusion

Internal audiences will scrutinise the document to see what it means for them, including whether they are properly appreciated and what support they may get in the future. Any discussion of priorities, with particular activities emphasised, will be taken as implied restructuring. The easiest way to avoid an unnecessary fuss and to ensure that everybody stays calm is to be inclusive, so that all departments get mentioned and nobody feels left out. This will make for a long document and a loss of focus.

Proposals for Better Coordination

With governments, or indeed any large and complex organisation, there will always be some structural dysfunctions, with questions about how controlling the centre should be and how much authority can be delegated. There will be overlapping responsibilities and duplication of effort, and tension between different departments because their objectives conflict. This can either be viewed as an inherent feature of organisational life (my view) or a problem that must be solved. If the latter then there will inevitably lead to proposals for an approach that is more comprehensive, integrated, holistic, coordinated, etc. This will lead to more meetings and much frustration.

Resource Allocation

There are a number of things that can be done to demonstrate that a document needs to be taken seriously and is more than a public relations exercise. One of these is real restructuring, with units being cut or merged, as well as expanded.

The most important method is through budgets. Strategies are about setting priorities for the allocation of scarce resources. (Note John Lewis Gaddis’s definition of strategy as 'the alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities.') Often a trigger for a serious and difficult strategy process is concern about whether it will be possible to continue with everything currently being funded and pressure for cuts.

Even without a financial squeeze, annual budgets or expenditure reviews are often the most appropriate mechanism through which to develop and implement a strategy, and why treasuries exercise such a powerful influence on the process. Unfortunately, in government these have increasingly become geared to the pathologies already mentioned – of creating the right political impression, talking in terms of high-flown aspirations, presenting activity as method, leaving little out to be inclusive, and so on. This means that it is necessary to look hard at the detail to work out exactly what is going on and make inferences about the strategy from the numbers.

If a strategy document lacks any section on resource allocation then it is unlikely to be taken seriously. At best it will be for guidance only, or to convey a direction of travel, while signifying that the hard choices have yet to be made.

Limited Imagination

Strategies will be expected to look out for new opportunities but also to anticipate future problems. Some horizon-scanning, warning of dangers to come, might be their most valuable function but we still come back to the problem that lists of potential problems, just like lists of aspirations, may not add much, unless some are picked out and resources allocated to meeting them.

Even then it will always be difficult to allocate enough or identify the right responses. This may be because of a lack of imagination, an inability to persuade others that the danger is real, that the allocations are warranted, or that the risks can be mitigated with the proposed steps. Even if generally prescient there is still a risk of being let down by the specifics. The contingency may still present in unexpected ways (for example preparing for a pandemic but assuming the wrong sort of virus). Moreover, in a public document, talking about a great crisis that has yet to materialise may simply trigger alarm, speculation, and demands for action that may be inappropriate. These documents therefore tend to err on the side of complacency more than panic.

They are also likely to be overtaken by events, which is another reason for caution. Even when tough decisions have been made and presented in a strategy document they can be caught out. It used to be a standard rule of defence reviews that any capability scheduled for cuts would be desperately needed the next year (The 1981 Nott Review targeted the Navy but was followed by the 1982 Falklands War; the 1990 ‘Options for Change’ review targeted armoured units but was followed by the1991 Gulf war). Labour’s 1998 review required a ‘new chapter’ after the 2001 al Qaeda attacks on the US. The Conservative’s 2021 integrated review got a ‘refresh’ after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine the next year.

Strategy in Practice

In a previous post, I explained why I prefer to talk more about ‘acting strategically’ than ‘having a strategy.’ Strategy is an activity more than a product, a verb more than a noun. This is why having a strategy document is not the same as having a strategy. The best strategies are those that address the problem at hand, acknowledge trade-offs, flag up awkward consequences, and may have to be developed with a degree of secrecy to avoid alerting every internal and external opponent. 

Strategy will be at its most demanding at moments of crisis - a pandemic. a terrorist attack, a strike in a vital industry, or a surge of fighting in a long-simmering conflict. These are circumstances requiring flexibility and adaptability. The time pressures may be merciless, as they will be, for example, in a financial crisis, yet decisions still must be taken. Once taken they will soon be tested. If the actions taken fail to have the desired effect, then decision-making will start all over again, having to pay attention to the realism of the objectives as well as the means of attaining them. Strategic communications in these circumstances will be essential but they will often have to be produced at speed and so are terse and to the point. 

These are times when past failures of imagination become apparent, and options unthinkable in the absence of an emergency suddenly become not only plausible but even essential. The situation can only be salvaged by taking exceptional measures which go against all inclinations. For a government these might be nationalisation of banks, deployments of troops, or lockdowns. For companies these might be fire sales to raise money urgently to stave off bankruptcy, sacking a senior executive to defuse a scandal, compensation to wronged employees or litigious consumers.

This is strategy at its most dynamic and dialectical and therefore at its purest. If the problem persists, or takes on a more routine form, then the cycles of decision-making may slow down but there will still be a need to respond to a developing situation as some uncertainties are resolved and yet others emerge. The appetite for reliable information will be strong, and if it is not satisfied by those in authority, rumour and misinformation will rush in to fill the gaps. Communications will need to be regular, and because people will be paying attention unwarranted reassurances will soon be punished and credibility will be lost.

The quality of communication will in the end depend on the quality of the underlying strategy. If the course of action being followed does not do the trick then no amount of reassurance and eloquence will obscure the evidence of failure. We can look back at the financial crisis of 2008, or the start of the Covid in 2020, or the responses to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to see the importance of effective communications at times of crisis and the consequences of getting it wrong. These communications are an essential part of the strategy but do not constitute the strategy itself.

Can Strategy Documents be Useful?

There are therefore reasons to treat strategy documents with a degree of scepticism. They may not influence much in practice and may be no more than props. Like a drunk with a lamppost, the value lies more in support than illumination. Few political leaders or chief executives wish to commit too early to a course of action. Many prefer to keep their options open, wating for more clarity on the scale of the problem and better information. Even when they must decide they may be unable to keep a focus on a single issue unless it is one of those moments of great crisis. They will always be addressing a number of problems at the same time. An attractive option for dealing with one problem may have to be discarded because if adopted it would aggravate another.

Yet, as Eisenhower observed, plans are useless but planning is essential. Even when what is actually published may have limited value the process of putting a document together can help illuminate problems and issues, generate ideas and proposals, encourage soul-searching and at least some forward thinking. When there is a clear focus, objectives defined in such a way that performance can be assessed, proposed measures that might even achieve those goals, and a commitment to adjust budgets, the exercise may even have a lasting benefit.

A useful strategy document will deal with real problems which the policy-making community ought to address. This does not only mean considering the big issue of the moment. It can also mean putting an item on the agenda that has hitherto been ignored or under-appreciated. (Note the ways in which the problems of climate change or cyber-attacks were introduced into the consciousness of the governing classes). They may also be inputs into a wider strategy-making process, providing the evidence and analysis to enable one group of decision-makers to persuade their colleagues and constituencies that there is an issue to be addressed and that there is a way of doing so.

Lastly documents that are really meant to persuade and inform will be written in lucid prose, presenting evidence clearly. Documents that require too much decoding will soon become subject to multiple interpretations, while something important is bound to be missed if too many separate points are packed into each paragraph. Remember that most people will only read the executive summary, so make sure that this conveys the highlights, crisply and unambiguously (the caveats can go in the main body of the report). And if you want the main messages to be understood the worst way to achieve this is by means of a power point presentation with as much information as possible crammed into every slide.

19. The U.S. Invasion of Iraq: Strategic Analysis and Consequences

Excerpts:

CONCLUSION

The U.S. invasion of Iraq and its aftermath underscore the complexities and challenges of military interventions aimed at regime change and nation-building. While the U.S. achieved its immediate military objectives of toppling Saddam Hussein and later dismantling ISIS's territorial control, the broader strategic goals of establishing a stable, democratic Iraq and promoting regional stability remain unfulfilled.

The key lessons from the Iraq War highlight the importance of comprehensive post-conflict planning, the need for long-term commitments to political and security stability, and the dangers of creating power vacuums that insurgent groups can exploit. For students of history and future policymakers, these lessons emphasize the necessity of integrating military objectives with political, economic, and social strategies to achieve sustainable and enduring peace.

Focusing on multilateral approaches, robust post-conflict reconstruction plans, and a deep understanding of regional dynamics are essential to improving U.S. strategy. The legacy of the Iraq War continues to influence U.S. foreign policy and regional politics, serving as a critical case study in the complexities of intervention and the pursuit of strategic objectives in volatile environments.

The U.S. Invasion of Iraq: Strategic Analysis and Consequences

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/the-u-s-invasion-of-iraq-strategic-analysis-and-consequences?utm

By Monte Erfourth – June 15, 2024

INTRODUCTION

The U.S. invasion of Iraq, commencing on March 20, 2003, marked a significant chapter in modern geopolitical history. The G.W. Bush Administration claimed it as an act of preemption driven by three strategic objectives: disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime, and establishing a democratic government. What resulted was widespread military conflict, political turmoil, and enduring regional instability. This short essay delves into the strategic successes and failures of the U.S. in Iraq, from the decision to invade and de-Baathification to the U.S. withdrawal in 2011 and the return of U.S. forces in 2014 to combat ISIS. 

THE DECISION TO INVADE

The decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was heavily influenced by groupthink, where policymakers in Washington exhibited a lack of critical debate and a consensus driven by shared misconceptions.[1] This environment stifled dissent and alternative viewpoints, leading to an overestimation of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and an underestimation of the complexities of Iraqi society. Policymakers failed to appreciate the deep-seated historical and religious dynamics in Iraq, such as the significance of Shia Islam and Iran's longstanding influence in the region. The pervasive belief that Iraqis would greet American forces as liberators further skewed strategic planning.[2]

The primary public-facing rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq was the belief that Iraq possessed WMDs, which posed a significant threat to global security. President George W. Bush's administration argued that Saddam Hussein's regime not only harbored these weapons but also supported terrorism and violated human rights. The U.S. aimed to eliminate these threats by toppling Hussein and replacing his regime with a democratic government that could serve as a model for the Middle East.

Despite extensive military intelligence and UN inspections, no substantial stockpiles of WMDs were found. This revelation led to widespread criticism and controversy, undermining the legitimacy of the invasion and raising questions about the intelligence and motives behind the U.S. decision.

Several critical errors marred the U.S. strategy in Iraq. Key among them was the failure to develop and implement long-term plans for Iraq's political and economic development. The U.S. relied heavily on its military might, underestimating the importance of rebuilding robust Iraqi security forces and governance structures lost with the post-invasion de-Baathification policy. The emphasis on defeating immediate extremist threats became a major strategic distraction and overshadowed the need to address deeper issues of governance and sectarianism.

Additionally, the U.S. did not adequately coordinate with allies or use international institutions effectively to support Iraq's reconstruction and stability. The efforts often lacked coherence and sustainability, wasting resources and opportunities.

DE-BAATHIFICATION AND IRAQI RESPONSE

Following the initial military success in toppling Saddam Hussein's regime, the U.S. implemented a policy of de-Baathification aimed at purging Iraq of Ba'ath Party members. This policy, executed by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), removed former Ba'athists from positions of power and banned them from future governmental roles.

However, de-Baathification was an unforced strategic error that had unintended consequences. It disenfranchised a significant portion of the Sunni population, many of whom were Ba'ath Party members due to the party's dominance during Hussein's rule. This exclusion fueled resentment and contributed to the insurgency, as many Sunnis felt marginalized and turned to insurgent groups, including al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which later evolved into ISIS.

THE UNFOLDING COMBAT OPERATIONS

The Iraq War unfolded in distinct phases, each marked by varying degrees of military and political challenges. The initial invasion, dubbed "Operation Iraqi Freedom," swiftly toppled Hussein's regime. However, the lack of a comprehensive post-conflict plan led to chaos and instability. The power vacuum and disbandment of the Iraqi army created an environment ripe for insurgency and sectarian violence.

From 2004 to 2010, the U.S. engaged in counterinsurgency operations against various militant groups. The 2007 troop surge, aimed at quelling violence and stabilizing the country, achieved temporary success but failed to establish long-term stability. Political corruption, sectarian divides, and the inability to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure hindered efforts to create a functioning democratic state.  Although the U.S. was able to assist the Iraqi government in rebuilding Iraqi security forces to around 650,000 personnel by 2011, the poorly led and trained forces were not reliable and crumbled when confronted by ISIS in 2014.[3]

U.S. WITHDRAWAL IN 2011

The formal end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq in August 2010 and the complete withdrawal by December 2011 had profound implications. The departure of U.S. forces created a power vacuum, exacerbating sectarian tensions and instability. The Iraqi government struggled to maintain control, and insurgent groups like AQI capitalized on the situation, leading to the rise of ISIS.

The withdrawal highlighted the strategic failure of the U.S. to establish a stable and self-sufficient Iraqi state. The ensuing chaos and the rise of ISIS underscored the lack of a coherent long-term strategy and the consequences of prematurely ending military support without ensuring political and security stability.

RETURN TO COMBAT ISIS

The declaration of a caliphate by ISIS in 2014, coupled with its rapid territorial gains in Iraq and Syria, prompted the U.S. to return to Iraq. The U.S.-led international coalition provided air support, training, and assistance to Iraqi and Kurdish forces, playing a crucial role in dismantling ISIS's territorial control.

The fight against ISIS demonstrated a more adaptive and collaborative U.S. strategy, leveraging local forces and international partnerships. However, the underlying issues of political instability and sectarian divides remained unresolved, posing ongoing challenges to long-term peace and security in the region.

REGIONAL IMPACT ON IRAN, SYRIA, LEBANON, ISRAEL, AND SAUDI ARABIA

The invasion of Iraq and subsequent events significantly impacted the broader Middle East, reshaping regional dynamics and power structures:

• Iran: The removal of Saddam Hussein, a major rival, enhanced Iran's strategic standing. Iran expanded its influence in Iraq through political, military, and economic means, supporting Shiite militias and establishing strong ties with key political figures. This increased Iran's regional leverage, allowing it to project power across the Middle East effectively.
• Syria: The instability in Iraq and the rise of ISIS had spillover effects in Syria, exacerbating the Syrian Civil War. The conflict drew in various regional and international actors, further complicating efforts to achieve peace and stability.
• Lebanon: Iran's strengthened position in Iraq bolstered its influence over Hezbollah in Lebanon, impacting Lebanon's internal politics and its stance towards Israel.
• Israel: The destabilization of Iraq and the rise of militant groups like ISIS posed security concerns for Israel. The broader regional instability and the empowerment of Iran and its proxies threatened Israel's security landscape.
• Saudi Arabia: The power vacuum in Iraq and Iran's growing influence heightened Saudi Arabia's concerns about regional security and the balance of power. Saudi Arabia viewed Iran's actions as a direct threat to its interests and increased its involvement in regional conflicts, such as in Yemen, to counter Iranian influence.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF THE INVASION

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to numerous unintended and mostly detrimental consequences.[4] One of the most immediate outcomes was the rise of sectarian violence and insurgency. The disbanding of the Iraqi army and the implementation of de-Ba'athification policies disenfranchised many Sunnis, contributing to the emergence of insurgent groups and a prolonged internal conflict. This power vacuum facilitated the rise of extremist groups like ISIS, which exploited the chaos to establish a caliphate and spread terror across the region.

The invasion also significantly strengthened Iran’s influence in Iraq. With Saddam Hussein, Iran's primary adversary, removed, Tehran capitalized on the resulting power vacuum to extend its reach through Shia militias and political alliances. This shift in regional dynamics enhanced Iran's strategic position and increased its influence over Iraqi politics.

The broader Middle East experienced destabilization as a result of the invasion. Neighboring countries, particularly Syria, suffered spillover effects, including the movement of refugees and the spread of extremist ideologies. The instability in Iraq contributed to regional conflicts and heightened tensions, undermining efforts to maintain peace and security.

The human cost was consequential.  Approximately 4,431 U.S. military personnel were killed in action during the Iraq War, and Over 31,000 U.S. military personnel were wounded.[5] The invasion led to a severe humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed and millions displaced. The destruction of infrastructure and public services, combined with ongoing violence, created dire living conditions for many Iraqis. The long-term impact on Iraq's health, education, and economic systems has been profound.

Additionally, the invasion damaged the credibility of the United States on the global stage. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and the flawed justification for the war led to widespread distrust of U.S. foreign policy—this loss of credibility complicated diplomatic efforts and strained alliances.  The financial cost of the war was enormous, with trillions of dollars spent on military operations, reconstruction efforts, and veteran care. These expenditures have had long-term economic implications for the U.S., contributing to budget deficits and impacting domestic priorities.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVE

The Bush Administration's arguments for the Iraq War were seen as wishful thinking and often misleading in hindsight. The presence of the U.S. military in Iraq drew more terrorists, and there is evidence of Iran gaining more significant influence in the region after Saddam's removal. Despite obvious negative unintended consequences, the Bush Administration insisted that the invasion had achieved several long-term strategic successes for the United States.[6] Chief among them was the removal of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq, which marked a significant shift towards political representation and governance, contrasting sharply with the previous authoritarian regime. 

Another benefit of the invasion included the U.S. establishing a strategic military presence in the Middle East. This presence provided a forward operating base for operations against extremist groups, not only in Iraq but also in neighboring countries like Syria. This capability was crucial in the fight against ISIS and served as a deterrent against regional threats.

The administration claimed that the U.S. invasion led to significant counterterrorism achievements. They further claimed the removal of Saddam Hussein disrupted potential state-sponsored terrorism and severed alleged links between the Iraqi regime and terrorist groups. Saddam was not a major sponsor of terror, meaning no link was severed. U.S. special operational forces were very successful in operations against al-Qaeda (AQI) in Iraq. Combined operations against ISIS severely degraded the groups' operational capabilities and prevented them from using Iraq as a safe haven for launching attacks against the West.  However, AQI and ISIS were both the result of the 2003 invasion, not something pre-existing, so the defeat was a hollow victory.

One of the more egregious claims was that the invasion contained and counterbalanced Iranian ambitions in the region. The military and diplomatic U.S. presence in Iraq did not check Iran's influence, nor did it support Iraqi sovereignty against external interference. Despite the U.S. presence and investment, Iran has come to dominate the Iraqi political landscape.

The most accurate claim of strategic success was stabilizing global oil markets. Iraq's vast oil reserves are crucial to global energy markets, and the invasion helped ensure that these resources remained accessible to international markets. By preventing Iraq from falling into the hands of a hostile regime or extremist groups, the U.S. played a role in maintaining stability in global oil prices.

An additional positive outcome of the invasion and subsequent military operations did foster closer cooperation with international allies, strengthening military alliances and fostering interoperability among allied forces. These relationships have been beneficial in subsequent international operations and continue to bolster global security cooperation.

The Iraq War provided the U.S. military with extensive experience in counterinsurgency and asymmetric warfare. The lessons learned in Iraq have been invaluable in training and preparing U.S. forces for future conflicts, leading to the development of new military doctrines and strategies.

President Bush does not regret his decision to remove Saddam Hussein and believes the world is a better place because of it.[7] The large-scale loss of civilian life, the brutal conditions under ISIS, and the massive refugee problem, and THE loss of American lives will remain a tragic human toll.  The expanded influence of Iran and broad mistrust of the U.S. in the Arab world will remain a strategic challenge.  However, oil prices have been relatively stable, and despite the mistrust, the U.S. remains the security and diplomatic partner of choice. A positive-leaning analysis of the administration’s strategic claims is almost impossible to produce given the facts that have unfolded since 2003.

 WHAT TO MAKE OF THE FACTS AND THE ADMINISTRATION’S ASSERTIONS?

While the U.S. invasion of Iraq achieved a few modest, long-term strategic successes, the unintended consequences of the invasion were profoundly negative and far more impactful. The rise of sectarian violence, the empowerment of extremist groups like ISIS, the strengthening of Iran's influence, and the destabilization of the broader Middle East have had lasting effects. The humanitarian crisis, loss of U.S. credibility, and enormous financial costs further underscore the adverse outcomes. These consequences have overshadowed the strategic benefits.  It’s natural for any administration to spin a major strategic decision positively.  However, the adverse strategic outcomes of the invasion are significant and the national security community would be wise to accept and learn from the failures of this self-inflicted strategic failure. The minimum lessons learned from Iraq are the importance of comprehensive planning, understanding local dynamics, and considering the long-term implications of any foreign intervention.

CONCLUSION

The U.S. invasion of Iraq and its aftermath underscore the complexities and challenges of military interventions aimed at regime change and nation-building. While the U.S. achieved its immediate military objectives of toppling Saddam Hussein and later dismantling ISIS's territorial control, the broader strategic goals of establishing a stable, democratic Iraq and promoting regional stability remain unfulfilled.

The key lessons from the Iraq War highlight the importance of comprehensive post-conflict planning, the need for long-term commitments to political and security stability, and the dangers of creating power vacuums that insurgent groups can exploit. For students of history and future policymakers, these lessons emphasize the necessity of integrating military objectives with political, economic, and social strategies to achieve sustainable and enduring peace.

Focusing on multilateral approaches, robust post-conflict reconstruction plans, and a deep understanding of regional dynamics are essential to improving U.S. strategy. The legacy of the Iraq War continues to influence U.S. foreign policy and regional politics, serving as a critical case study in the complexities of intervention and the pursuit of strategic objectives in volatile environments.

[1] https://tnsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/TNSR-Journal-Vol-6-Issue-3-Stieb.pdf

[3] https://www.justice.gov/file/276486/dl?inline=

[4] Richard Hass. “Revisiting America’s War of Choice in Iraq.” Counsel on Foreign Relations. March 17, 2023.

[5] https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf

[6] https://tnsr.org/2023/06/why-did-the-united-states-invade-iraq-the-debate-at-20-years/

[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/us/politics/george-w-bush-iraq-war.html

20. How the Sino-American rivalry is reshaping the world order

How the Sino-American rivalry is reshaping the world order

The Korea Times · June 12, 2024

By William R. Rhodes and Stuart P.M. Mackintosh

William R. Rhodes

WASHINGTON, DC – Tensions between the United States and China continue to flare, even as Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and several other senior U.S. officials visit the country for talks. The two sides may disagree on most things, but maintaining dialogue is an essential part of geopolitics. The breakdown in communication last year, following visits to Taiwan by prominent American politicians and the U.S. downing of a Chinese spy balloon, was dangerous and destabilizing, because when adversaries do not engage, misperceptions – and the risk of a clash – mount.

But, midway through 2024, dialogue is proving unable to bridge deep divides. This major superpower conflict looks set to continue, and may even worsen, as positions on the war in Ukraine, national-security concerns, and trade tensions harden into a long-term standoff. Global institutions, forums, and solutions will be among the biggest losers in an ongoing U.S.-China decoupling, while regional alliances will increase in importance.

Stuart P.M. Mackintosh

Some weakness was evident at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings in Washington. The International Monetary and Financial Committee did not issue a communiqué, as it normally would, because China and its allies refused to include a reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. U.S. and European shareholders, for their part, wanted to recognize the war and its impact. The resulting silence was a victory for both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The G20 has also become more divided and less effective. In contrast to 2008-09, when G20 leaders quickly forged a coordinated response to the global financial crisis, the group currently lacks the collective will to address crises and achieve common goals. To be sure, the G20 still holds annual summits, and technical experts have made progress in some areas. But Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 opened fissures in the group, which have only deepened in the years since. Consequently, the G20 is no longer the principal forum for global diplomacy.

Meanwhile the enlarged BRICS+ forum, an initiative pushed by China, seeks to counter American influence, especially now that the US is caught in what Graham Allison calls Thucydides Trap – the tendency toward war when an emerging power threatens to displace a regional or international hegemon.

By putting new BRICS in the wall – the group now includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, in addition to Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – China is trying to build an alternative world order, in which the Global South has greater geopolitical, economic, and diplomatic heft. In 2024, the BRICS+ countries account for around 36% of global GDP and 45% of the world’s population. While its members do not always – or even often – agree, they are shifting power away from the US and its allies, especially in the IMF, the World Bank, the G20, and the United Nations, where they promote China’s positions.

The expanded group is buttressed by the New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and huge resource transfers, valued at roughly $1 trillion, through China’s Belt and Road Initiative to partners around the world. These are part of China’s efforts to construct its own global financial architecture that will support its goals and compete with the European-led IMF and the US-led World Bank.

Whether China will succeed in coordinating the Global South is unclear. America certainly hopes not. But others see BRICS+ as a new global economic paradigm. The reality is somewhere in between, although the US seems to be falling out of favor.

Tellingly, the US has responded to China’s growing might by taking a step backward and attempting to reinvigorate the G7, an unrepresentative group that is no longer as effective or relevant as it once was. To be sure, a forum for Western allies is necessary. But the notion that a group as small as the G7 can advance global goals at a time of heightened tensions and hardening stances is fanciful. Moreover, the G7 is far from united: despite US pressure, its members have been unable to agree on commandeering Russia’s frozen assets.

While the exact impact of the changing geopolitical balance remains unknown, it is clearly becoming an impediment to addressing global challenges, whether related to climate change, migration, disease, or other worldwide crises. We are entering a period of deteriorating US-China relations, with each side backed by its own allies and operating in its own international forums. As the risk of a great-power confrontation increases, the window of opportunity for solving humanity’s most pressing problems is closing fast.

William R. Rhodes, president of William R. Rhodes Global Advisers LLC, is the author of “Banker to the World: Leadership Lessons From the Front Lines of Global Finance” (McGraw Hill, 2011). Stuart P.M. Mackintosh is Executive Director of the Group of Thirty. This article was distributed by Project Syndicate.

The Korea Times · June 12, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com