(Note I will be traveling the nest 10 days or so so my daily messages will be on a more sporadic schedule)

Quotes of the Day:

"Psychological warfare is the secret weapon of victory." 

- William J. Donovan

"We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, 'What is real?' Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms."

-Philip K. Dick

"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos."  

- Stephen Jay Gould 

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 23, 2023

2. Ukraine's military is overcoming Russia's dense minefields and its counteroffensive is poised to 'gain pace,' Zelenskyy says

3. China and the US are finally talking again -- but can they really work together?

4. Don’t Give Poland a Pass

5. China Announces New "Loitering" "Collaborative" Missile -- Another "Rip-Off?"

6. Asian Allies Have a Role to Play in NATO By John Bolton

7. Ukraine live briefing: Drone strikes skyscraper in Moscow; another night of attacks in Odessa

8. How Franchetti’s experience made her Biden’s pick to lead the Navy

9. Ongoing nominations fight could delay first woman on Joint Chiefs

10. American special operations command in Africa puts Navy SEAL in charge

11. Opinion | We’ve Been on the Front Lines. We Know What Ukraine Needs.

12. Army asks 20 high-ranking officers to stay in roles amid hold on military promotions

13.  Cambodian leader's son, a West Point grad, set to take reins of power — but will he bring change?

14. Google, Meta, other tech companies agree on Biden’s AI safeguards

15. FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Secures Voluntary Commitments from Leading Artificial Intelligence Companies to Manage the Risks Posed by AI

16. (Re)assessing the near-term Chinese carrier threat in a Taiwan scenario

17. Redeveloping Regimental Combat Teams (RCTs) for Large-Scale and Mega-City Combat Operations

18. What Allies Want: Delivering the U.S. National Defense Strategy’s Ambition on Allies and Partners

19. Opinion | What I Learned in Ukraine

20. Beijing Mounts Record-Breaking Warship Deployments Around Taiwan as Island’s Presidential Election Approaches

21. Politics Risk Derailing One of America’s Most Important Strategic Agreements

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 23, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-23-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed his continuing concern over the potential threats that the Wagner Group and Yevgeny Prigozhin may pose to him through symbolism and posturing during a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg, Russia.
• Lukashenko told Putin that the Wagner Group in Belarus will remain in central Belarus likely subtly reminding Putin of the threat the Wagner military organization still poses to him and underlining Lukashenko’s control over that power.
• Putin and Lukashenko also amplified information operations targeting the West.
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on July 23 that Ukrainian forces have liberated approximately 50 percent of the territory that Russian forces captured since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front line and advanced on July 23.
• Russian forces conducted another series of missile strikes against port infrastructure and the city center in Odesa City overnight on July 22 to 23, severely damaging civilian areas.
• Further speculation about former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin’s arrest and the public posturing of Girkin’s affiliates suggests that a limited section of the pro-war community may have been contemplating political action in opposition to the Kremlin.
• Angry Patriots members likely view Girkin’s arrest as an existential threat to the segment of the ultranationalist community he represents and will likely intensify their campaign to cast Girkin as an opposition figure.
• The Kremlin may be attempting to censor an isolated segment of the Russian ultranationalist community that is consistently vocally hostile to the Kremlin.
• The head of one of the largest suppliers of surveillance equipment to Russian special services died on July 22.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line and reportedly made tactically significant gains.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line and in the Bakhmut area, and reportedly made gains near Bakhmut.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut and Avdiivka-Donetsk City areas but did not advance.
• Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblasts border area and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblasts border area.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to recruit prisoners to fight in Ukraine.
• Russian occupation authorities are bringing foreign citizens to occupied Ukraine to artificially alter demographics.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 23, 2023

Jul 23, 2023 - Press ISW

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 23, 2023

George Barros, Nicole Wolkov, Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, Thomas Bergeron, and Frederick W. Kagan

July 23, 2023, 7:15pm ET

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

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

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 12:30pm ET on July 23. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 24 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed his continuing concern over the potential threats that the Wagner Group and Yevgeny Prigozhin may pose to him through symbolism and posturing during a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg, Russia. Putin made several significant symbolic gestures during his July 23 meeting with Lukashenko, suggesting that Putin sought to project power and confidence in his own supremacy over the Prigozhin-aligned St. Petersburg-based faction. Putin took Lukashenko to visit Kronstadt in St. Petersburg – the historically significant island fortress where Russian soldiers and sailors conducted a famous unsuccessful anti-Bolshevik insurrection in early 1921 that the Soviet government ultimately suppressed.[1] Putin and Lukashenko toured Kronstadt with St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s younger daughter Ksenia Shoigu.[2] Both Beglov and Shoigu are personal enemies of Prigozhin, and Putin‘s public meeting with Beglov, Shoigu‘s daughter, and Lukashenko on the historic grounds of the failed Kronstadt rebellion was almost certainly intended to signal Putin’s and his loyalist cadre‘s defeat of Prigozhin‘s armed rebellion and Prigozhin’s St. Petersburg-based supporters.[3] Putin also made an unusual effort to take photographs with crowds of local Russian citizens, including children, while at Kronstadt, likely to present himself as a popular and beloved leader among the Russian people.[4] These symbolic gestures indicate that Putin is concerned about his perceived popularity, the security of his regime, and the array of factions competing for power within the high echelons of Russian governance.

Lukashenko told Putin that the Wagner Group in Belarus will remain in central Belarus likely subtly reminding Putin of the threat the Wagner military organization still poses to him and underlining Lukashenko’s control over that power.[5] Lukashenko’s statements were likely meant to make Putin reflect on the uncomfortable (for Putin) fact that Wagner’s new garrison in Belarus puts its forces half as far from Moscow as Wagner’s previous base in southern Russia. The Wagner Group’s previous base in Krasnodar Krai was about 1,370 km from Moscow, whereas its new base in Belarus is about 720 km along an excellent military highway.

Putin and Lukashenko also amplified information operations targeting the West. The leaders amplified their false claims that Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed.[6] Senior Western and Ukrainian leaders--and ISW--continue to assess that it is too early to evaluate Ukraine’s counteroffensive since Ukraine still has significant uncommitted prepared forces and retains the ability to launch decisive operations at times and places of its choosing.[7] Lukashenko and Putin also reiterated an information operation that the Wagner Group poses a threat to Poland.[8] There is no indication that Wagner fighters in Belarus have the heavy weaponry necessary to mount a serious offensive against Ukraine or Poland without significant rearmament, as it was a condition of the Putin-Lukashenko-Prigozhin deal ending the armed rebellion that Wagner surrender such weapons to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD). Maxar imagery of the main Wagner base in Tsel, Asipovichy, collected at an oblique angle on July 23 indicates that the vehicles currently parked in and around the vehicle storage area are primarily hundreds of cars, small trucks, and approximately 35 semi-trailers.[9] Wagner forces in Belarus pose no military threat to Poland or Ukraine, for that matter, until and unless they are re-equipped with mechanized equipment. They pose no meaningful threat to NATO even then.

Caption: Wagner Group Field camp in Tsel, Asipovichy, Belarus. Collected on July 23, 2023.

Credit: Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Technologies. 

Caption: Wagner Group Field camp in Tsel, Asipovichy, Belarus. Collected on July 23, 2023.

Credit: Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Technologies.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on July 23 that Ukrainian forces have liberated approximately 50 percent of the territory that Russian forces captured since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.[10] This figure is largely consistent with ISW’s current assessment of control of terrain. Analysts can employ several methods to calculate control of terrain with varying results depending on the cartographical projection used and other factors. An estimate using ISW’s control of terrain data and the Mercator projection indicates that Ukrainian forces liberated about 53 percent of the land that Russian forces captured since February 2022. Estimates made using different data sources, measurement methods, or projections will generate different numbers. Factors, such as higher confidence about unconfirmed Russian claimed territorial gains, can impact such estimations as well. ISW appreciates and closely studies government officials’ statements about control of terrain geometry to cross-reference, confirm, and where necessary correct assessments.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front line and advanced on July 23. Geolocated footage published on July 22 shows that Ukrainian forces made some advances in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area near Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka), and some Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces also advanced near Pryyutne (14km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[11] Geolocated footage published on July 22 also shows that Ukrainian forces made marginal advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast near Kamianske, and Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted additional ground attacks south of Orikhiv near Robotyne (12km south).[12] The Ukrainian General Staff reported continued Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in both areas of the front.[13] Some Russian and Ukrainian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued attacking on Bakhmut’s northern and southern flanks and reportedly made advances near Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut).[14]

Russian forces conducted another series of missile strikes against port infrastructure and the city center in Odesa City overnight on July 22 to 23, severely damaging civilian areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 19 missiles, including five Onyx, five Iskander-K, four Kalibr, two Kh-22, and two Iskander-M missiles, and that Ukrainian forces shot down four Kalibr and five Iskander-K missiles.[15] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Russian strikes hit the Odesa Transfiguration Cathedral, and Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk stated that the city center strikes injured 19 civilians.[16] Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov stated that Russian strikes against Odesa City and Oblast intend to disrupt Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea and intimidate international partners working to restore the Black Sea Grain Initiative deal.[17] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Vadym Skibitskyi warned that Russian forces are also evaluating Ukrainian energy infrastructure to identify critical infrastructure objects, presumably to target in future strikes.[18]

Further speculation about former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin’s arrest and the public posturing of Girkin’s affiliates suggests that a limited section of the pro-war community may have been contemplating political action in opposition to the Kremlin. Angry Patriots Club member and leader of the “Civil Solidarity” movement Georgy Fedorov claimed on July 22 that the Club developed a strategy and specific action plan for a campaign to defend Girkin and will be reaching out to grassroots supporters for help.[19] Fedorov also announced that the Angry Patriots Club will release a political statement sometime next week.[20]   A Russian insider source claimed that Girkin planned to start formal legal procedures to create a political party in the spring of 2024.[21] The insider source claimed that Girkin had discussed with Angry Patriots members the possibility of holding a founding party congress in fall 2023 and plans to form regional branches for the Angry Patriots Club.[22] The Angry Patriots Club has opened a St Petersburg regional chapter and published a 17-point political resolution on June 26 that signaled its interest in participating in Russian politics.[23] The Angry Patriots Club’s political resolution explicitly states that it will use legal means to compel Russian leadership to ”end the policy of appeasement and behind-the-scenes agreement with the West” and declares its ”intention to claim political power.”[24] The Angry Patriots Club’s resolution indicates that this section of the pro-war community may have attempted to set conditions for future political actions opposing figures in the Kremlin whom the Angry Patriots Club believes seek to end the war. Girkin previously claimed that there is a faction within the Kremlin arguing in favor of freezing the front line in Ukraine and negotiating with the West, and the Angry Patriots appeared to be preparing to explicitly challenge this faction through a political project.[25] Factions within the Kremlin are likely aiming to maneuver for more influence against the backdrop of Russia’s 2024 presidential elections, and Girkin’s alleged plans to explicitly cast himself and his affiliates as political actors ahead of the elections likely threatened some of these factions.

Angry Patriots members likely view Girkin’s arrest as an existential threat to the segment of the ultranationalist community he represents and will likely intensify their campaign to cast Girkin as an opposition figure. Angry Patriots Club member Yevgeny Mikhailov continued to criticize the Kremlin, calling Girkin’s arrest a ”gross mistake” and highlighting the double standards that Russian authorities use for prominent Russian officials who have criticized Russian forces’ conduct in the war in Ukraine.[26] Mikhailov noted the hypocrisy of arresting a ”Russian patriot” who he claimed ”led the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics to victory in 2014” while allowing Russian State Duma Deputy Sergei Morozov to go unpunished for saying that officers who sent mobilized personnel into combat without preparation “should be shot themselves.”[27] Another Angry Patriots member, Vladimir Grubnik, expressed his loyalty to Girkin claiming that he joined at Girkin’s invitation and would leave the organization if Girkin chose to leave.[28] Grubnik claimed that 95 percent of the people joined the Angry Patriots Club because of Girkin’s personality and reputation.[29] The continued support for Girkin despite his arrest suggests that Girkin established a strong personal loyalty among his affiliates reminiscent of other ultranationalist figures, particularly Prigozhin’s support among Wagner personnel and affiliated milbloggers.[30]

The Kremlin may be attempting to censor an isolated segment of the Russian ultranationalist community that is consistently vocally hostile to the Kremlin. Russian news outlet Kommersant reported on July 21 that Russian law enforcement is investigating Angry Patriots Club Chair Pavel Gubarev for extremism because of his Telegram posts.[31] Milbloggers outside of Girkin’s relatively isolated Angry Patriots Club have notably not commented on Girkin’s arrest, suggesting a fragmentation in the Russian ultranationalist community along factional affiliations and ideological differences on Russia’s approach to the war in Ukraine. Continued Russian law enforcement censorship of Angry Patriots members likely indicates that the Kremlin does not intend to censor the wider ultranationalist community at this time and is likely isolating this round of censorship primarily to the Angry Patriots movement and their affiliates.

The head of one of the largest suppliers of surveillance equipment to Russian special services died on July 22. Russian law enforcement found “IKS Holding” Head Anton Cherepennikov dead in his office on July 22 and later claimed that Cherepennikov suffocated during a xenon gas therapy session.[32] IKS Holding owns the developer of the YADRO data storage system, which Russian authorities reportedly use in efforts to monitor Russian internet users, and the Citadel Group, which produces operational-search measures that Russian special services use to listen to phone calls and monitor internet activities.[33]

Key Takeaways:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed his continuing concern over the potential threats that the Wagner Group and Yevgeny Prigozhin may pose to him through symbolism and posturing during a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg, Russia.
• Lukashenko told Putin that the Wagner Group in Belarus will remain in central Belarus likely subtly reminding Putin of the threat the Wagner military organization still poses to him and underlining Lukashenko’s control over that power.
• Putin and Lukashenko also amplified information operations targeting the West.
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on July 23 that Ukrainian forces have liberated approximately 50 percent of the territory that Russian forces captured since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front line and advanced on July 23.
• Russian forces conducted another series of missile strikes against port infrastructure and the city center in Odesa City overnight on July 22 to 23, severely damaging civilian areas.
• Further speculation about former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin’s arrest and the public posturing of Girkin’s affiliates suggests that a limited section of the pro-war community may have been contemplating political action in opposition to the Kremlin.
• Angry Patriots members likely view Girkin’s arrest as an existential threat to the segment of the ultranationalist community he represents and will likely intensify their campaign to cast Girkin as an opposition figure.
• The Kremlin may be attempting to censor an isolated segment of the Russian ultranationalist community that is consistently vocally hostile to the Kremlin.
• The head of one of the largest suppliers of surveillance equipment to Russian special services died on July 22.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line and reportedly made tactically significant gains.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line and in the Bakhmut area, and reportedly made gains near Bakhmut.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut and Avdiivka-Donetsk City areas but did not advance.
• Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblasts border area and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblasts border area.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to recruit prisoners to fight in Ukraine.
• Russian occupation authorities are bringing foreign citizens to occupied Ukraine to artificially alter demographics.

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

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast) 

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line on July 23 and reportedly made tactically significant gains southwest of Svatove. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Nadiya, Luhansk Oblast (15km west of Svatove) and Torske (16km west of Kremmina), and Hryhorivka (11km south of Kreminna) in Donetsk Oblast.[34] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful assaults in the Serebryanske forest area south of Kreminna and near Nevske (18km northwest of Kreminna) and Makiivka (23km northwest of Kreminna).[35] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces crossed the Zherebets River west of Karmazynivka (12km southwest of Svatove) and made further advances on the west (right) bank of the river towards Novoyehorivka (15km southwest of Svatove).[36] One milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced up to four kilometers in depth west of Karmazynivka, although ISW has not seen visual confirmation of any recent Russian advances in the area.[37] Another milblogger claimed that elements of the 21st Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) were responsible for the recent Russian advances and that elements of the 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) and 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade (41st Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) are also participating in the offensive operations in the area.[38]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line but did not make any gains on July 23. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian elements of the Central Grouping of Forces repelled six Ukrainian assaults near Novovodyane (16km southwest of Svatove) and Karmazynivka, four Ukrainian assaults in the Kreminna area, and Ukrainian assaults south of Kreminna near Bilohorikva, Donetsk Oblast (30km south of Kreminna).[39] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces also conducted unsuccessful offensives near the Serebryanske forest area, Nevske, Torske, and Dibrova (5km southwest of Kreminna).[40]

Russian sources may be exaggerating Russian gains and Ukrainian offensive activity along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line to portray ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive operations as a failure. ISW has observed recent Russian claims of Russian advances northeast of Kupyansk, southwest of Svatove, and west of Kreminna, although corroborating visual confirmation has not accompanied these claims.[41] Russian sources previously amplified older footage on July 8 to claim that Russian forces advanced near Torske, but ISW has not observed any current visual confirmation of these claims.[42] The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported on July 23 that Russian forces are intentionally trying to portray marginal gains in Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts as significant tactical advances.[43] The Russian MoD and a few select milbloggers have claimed widespread Ukrainian counteroffensive activity along the Kreminna-Svatove line in recent weeks. A notable Ukrainian counteroffensive effort in Luhansk Oblast would likely generate substantial discussion amongst Russian milbloggers, however, which ISW has not observed.[44] Significant Russian gains in this region would also generate geolocated footage and other confirmation, which ISW has also not observed.

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian Objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area and reportedly made gains near Bakhmut City on July 23. A Ukrainian source reported that Ukrainian forces advanced northwest of Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut), and a Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces pushed Russian forces to the city limits of the settlement.[45] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian elements of the Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut) and Mayorske (20km south of Bakhmut).[46] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are conducting ongoing offensive actions near Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut).[47]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut area on July 23 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut), Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), and Klishchiivka.[48] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian counterattack near Hryhorivka (9km northwest of Bakhmut) and that Russian forces conducted assaults near Kurdyumivka.[49]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front without advancing on July 23. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian elements of the Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Vodyane (8km southwest of Avdiivka) and Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka).[50]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front on July 23 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Avdiivka, Nevelske (13km southwest of Avdiivka), Krasnohorivka (22km southwest of Avdiivka), Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka), and Novomykhailivka (36km southwest of Avdiivka).[51] A Russian milblogger also claimed that Russian forces made unspecified gains north of Novomykhailivka and conducted an unsuccessful assault near Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka).[52]

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

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and advanced as of July 23. Geolocated footage published on July 22 shows that Ukrainian forces have entered northern Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka), though the extent of current Ukrainian positions in or near the settlement is unclear.[53] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced north of Staromayorske and on the northern outskirts of Pryyutne (14km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[54] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces repelled small Ukrainian assault groups near Staromayorske and Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[55]

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and did not advance on July 23. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attempts to retake lost positions near Pryyutne and south of Novodarivka (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[56] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted a failed counterattack towards Blahodatne (4km south of Velyka Novosilka) from the south.[57]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced on July 23. Geolocated footage shows that Ukrainian forces made marginal advances south of Kamianske (30km southwest of Orikhiv) as of July 22.[58] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Major Valery Shershen reported that Ukrainian forces advanced over two kilometers into Russian defensive positions and across the front line in the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) direction between July 21 and 22.[59]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled two Ukrainian ground attacks near Robotyne (12km south of Orikhiv).[60] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted waves of mechanized attacks towards Robotyne overnight from July 22 to 23 and on July 23 but that Russian forces repelled all the attacks.[61]

Ukrainian and Russian forces continue to skirmish in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast and on the Dnipro River delta islands. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces still maintain a presence in east bank Kherson Oblast near Oleshky and that Ukrainian special forces are probing Russian defenses near Hola Prystan (10km south of Kherson City) and Krynky (31km northeast of Kherson City).[62] Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk reported that Russian Airborne (VDV) units and other special units are deployed along the Dnipro River and attempt sabotage activities along the river and near the delta islands.[63] Humenyuk stated that the Russian military command transfers degraded units from various parts of the front to Kherson Oblast to recover and that Russian forces recently established training grounds on Dzharylhach Island (in the Black Sea 70km southeast of Kherson City) for this effort.

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

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to recruit prisoners to fight in Ukraine. Russian opposition news outlet Mobilization News reported on July 23 that the Russian MoD conducted a survey of prisoners asking about their veteran status, possession of a driver’s license, and civilian profession at the IK-4 prison colony in Tomsk Oblast and in prisons in Leningrad Oblast.[64] Mobilization News also reported that the Russian MoD took 54 prisoners from IK-2 prison colony in Rostov Oblast to serve in Storm-Z detachments.[65]

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

Russian occupation authorities are reportedly bringing foreign citizens to occupied Ukraine to artificially alter demographics. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on July 23 that Russian authorities are bringing Belarusian citizens and “citizens of other countries,” likely in reference to recent reports of Uzbek citizens arriving in occupied Mariupol for construction work, to occupied areas.[66] The Ukrainian Resistance Center stated that Russian authorities are bringing in law enforcement officers, officials, and blue-collar workers and their families, leading to housing shortages.[67] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian authorities continue to move Ukrainian citizens to Russia as Russians and other foreigners move into occupied Ukraine.[68]

Russian forces continue to purposefully endanger Ukrainian civilians to protect Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs). Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk stated on July 22 that Russian occupation authorities are diverting civilian vehicles along routes that Russian forces use to deliver military equipment, weapons, and ammunition to Russian forces in occupied Ukraine to prevent Ukrainian forces from striking Russian columns.[69] Such actions would violate Article 51 of the Geneva Convention IV which states that, ”the presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favor or impede military operations.”[70]

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

Another convoy of Wagner trucks reportedly departed Russia and entered Belarus. Independent Belarusian monitoring organization The Hajun Project reported on July 23 that a Wagner Group convoy of at least 10 transportation vehicles (trucks, vans, and minibusses) crossed the Russia-Belarus border from Smolensk Oblast and headed in the direction of the Wagner field camp in Tsel, Asipovichy, Mogilev Oblast.[71] There is no evidence that Wagner Group forces in Belarus have the heavy equipment necessary to threaten Ukraine (or Poland) as of this writing.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko empowered the All-Belarusian National Assembly (BNA) with legal authorities to approve Belarus’ military doctrine, introduce martial law, and deploy Belarusian forces abroad on July 17.[72] This is not an indicator that Belarusian forces will deploy to Ukraine or that the Kremlin secured more control over Belarusian forces. The BNA is a congress of Lukashenko loyalists that meets every five years and that previously had no governing power under Belarusian law until Lukashenko passed constitutional amendments in 2022 expanding the BNA’s powers.[73] ISW previously assessed that Lukashenko likely seeks to develop the BNA into a dual power structure that he can use to control Belarus’ government if he leaves the presidency.[74] Lukashenko may face a crisis during Belarus’ planned 2025 presidential election given that Lukashenko reportedly stated that he would not seek another presidential term in 2020.[75] Lukashenko may also seek to use the BNA’s expanded powers to balance against the Kremlin’s longstanding and alarmingly effective effort to operationally subordinate Belarus’ military to the Russian Western Military District.[76] Lukashenko customarily frames his efforts to maintain or reestablish his independence from Moscow as measures aimed at helping defend the Russia-Belarus Union State against the West.

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

2. Ukraine's military is overcoming Russia's dense minefields and its counteroffensive is poised to 'gain pace,' Zelenskyy says

Ukraine's military is overcoming Russia's dense minefields and its counteroffensive is poised to 'gain pace,' Zelenskyy says

Business Insider · by Sinéad Baker

The leader of a clearance team explains the operation as the Ukrainian army's 35th Marine Brigade members conduct mine clearance work at a field in Donetsk, Ukraine on July 11, 2023.Ercin Erturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine's counteroffensive was poised to "gain pace."
• Russia's dense minefields have slowed Ukraine's counteroffensive, Ukrainian officials said.
• Analysts say Russia had more time to lay mines and traps due to slow Western weapons deliveries.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine's military is overcoming Russia's dense minefields and that its counteroffensive was about to ramp up.

Speaking via video link, Zelenskyy told the Aspen Security Forum: "We are approaching a moment when relevant actions can gain pace because we are already going through some mines locations and we are demining these areas," the Financial Times reported.

Zelenskyy told CNN earlier this month that Ukraine had been "slowed down" by entrenched Russian defenses and that he wanted the counteroffensive to start "much earlier" but felt he had to wait for more Western weapons to arrive.

Russian defenses like landmines, tripwires, and booby traps have so far hampered Ukraine's progress, with soldiers forced to use metal detectors and other equipment to slowly search and clear pathways.

The dense minefields laid by Russian forces have also meant that Ukrainian soldiers have had to leave behind some of their advanced Western tanks and progress on foot.

A decorated former US Army Special Forces engineer who cleared out improvised explosives in Afghanistan and has since been tackling threats in Ukraine said the monstrous minefields Russia is laying down are unlike anything he has ever seen.

Ukrainian soldiers have said that Russia was able to use the long buildup to the counteroffensive to lay these defenses.

Satellite imagery from before Ukraine started its operation showed Russia strengthening its 600-mile front line with minefields, barricades, "dragon's teeth," and anti-tank ditches.

Land mines — along with unexploded bombs and artillery shells — now contaminate a swath of Ukraine roughly the size of Florida, up to 30 percent of its land mass. It has become the world's most mined country, reported The Washington Post.

Analysts told Insider last month that delays in giving Ukraine weapons also gave Russia more time to prepare its defenses, likely hindering Ukraine's counteroffensive results.

unexploded munitions and other explosive devices as members of a demining team of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine clear mines off a field not far from the town of Brovary, northeast of Kyiv, on April 21, 2022, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine.OLEKSII FILIPPOV/AFP via Getty Images

Despite the mine threat, Zelenskyy insisted that Ukraine's counteroffensive was about to "gain pace."

But it is not clear how much of Ukraine's forces have so far joined the counteroffensive efforts. Multiple Ukrainian officials recently said that the bulk of Ukraine's forces had not yet been dispatched to the frontline.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told the forum that the progress of the counteroffensive would only become clear when Ukraine properly committed all of its forces to the fight.

"It is at that moment when they make that commitment that we will really see what the results of the counteroffensive will be," he said, per the Financial Times.

Ukraine started the long-awaited counteroffensive effort in early June, but it has only made small gains so far.

Meanwhile, Russia has only managed to capture a tiny amount of Ukrainian territory over the last few months, including taking less than 6.8 square miles in April.

Business Insider · by Sinéad Baker

3. China and the US are finally talking again -- but can they really work together?

Excerpts:

Expectations of major breakthroughs on cooperation were low going into the meetings, and a critical stumbling block remains sharply different baseline perceptions, observers say.

Beijing views Washington as bent on suppressing its development and global rise, while Washington has proclaimed the need to protect its national security and the world order from an increasingly authoritarian and assertive China.

“(Both sides) say they want to stop the downward spiral and put a floor under the relationship, but neither side is willing to make any compromise to meet the other halfway,” said Suisheng Zhao, director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the University of Denver.

China and the US are finally talking again -- but can they really work together? | CNN

Analysis by Simone McCarthy, CNN

Published 10:24 PM EDT, Sun July 23, 2023

CNN · by Simone McCarthy · July 24, 2023

Hong Kong CNN —

The three top American officials who traveled to Beijing in recent weeks had a challenging brief: stabilize the world’s most consequential — and contentious — bilateral relationship.

Already rocked by the Covid-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine and tensions over trade, tech and human rights, relations between the United States and China had cratered to a historical low over the past year, as Beijing cut multiple lines of communication with Washington after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last August.

Efforts to restore dialogue after a November summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden in Bali then sunk alongside a Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down over the US earlier this year – sending relations into a further spiral.

Sequential visits to Beijing since late last month from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury chief Janet Yellen and climate envoy John Kerry to meet Chinese leaders, including Xi, Premier Li Qiang and top diplomat Wang Yi, have been widely hailed as a significant step forward from that low.

The stakes for such meetings are high.

The success of global efforts to combat climate change may depend on how well the two powers can cooperate – and their relations impact issues from the shape of global supply chains to the risk for conflict in the Indo-Pacific.

But the recent visits — which ended with pledges to continue to communicate, but no concrete agreements — have also spotlighted questions of how much room there is for the two world powers to work together on issues of global importance.

“This contact reduces the risk of miscalculation, so that’s a start. It is not the same as moving ahead on ties,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.

And when it comes to what was actually agreed upon in the meetings, “there’s a willingness to engage further and that’s a good sign … but there’s nothing substantive,” he said.

A US Air Force U-2 pilot looks down at the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon as it hovers over the central continental United States on February 3, 2023 before later being shot down by the Air Force off the coast of South Carolina.

U.S. Air Force/Department of Defense/Handout/Reuters

Meeting halfway

Expectations of major breakthroughs on cooperation were low going into the meetings, and a critical stumbling block remains sharply different baseline perceptions, observers say.

Beijing views Washington as bent on suppressing its development and global rise, while Washington has proclaimed the need to protect its national security and the world order from an increasingly authoritarian and assertive China.

“(Both sides) say they want to stop the downward spiral and put a floor under the relationship, but neither side is willing to make any compromise to meet the other halfway,” said Suisheng Zhao, director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the University of Denver.

US Climate Envoy John Kerry looks on during a House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee hearing on "The State Department's Climate Agenda: A Budget Overview by the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate," on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on July 13, 2023. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

John Kerry steps into searing China heat as world's two biggest polluters try to fix fractured ties

“Both are under the impression that they will not get any positive response from the other side,” he added.

While Kerry stressed that the two countries “cannot let bilateral differences stand in the way of making concrete progress” on climate cooperation, China’s top diplomat Wang insisted this cooperation “cannot be separated from the overall environment of Sino-US relations.”

Yellen, meanwhile, sought to impress that the US in its policy was only “taking targeted national security actions,” and not seeking to “gain economic advantage” over China.

But China’s Premier Li, saw things differently: “overstretching the concept of security” would hurt the economic development of both countries and the world, he told the Treasury chief earlier this month.

Washington last year imposed sweeping curbs on exports of critical technology to China in the name of security, and Beijing has responded with export controls of its own.

These are part of a stack of grievances between the two, which also hit on US sanctions on Chinese entities, Trump-era trade tariffs, military operations in the South China Sea and relations with the democratic island of Taiwan, which China’s Communist Party claims but has never controlled.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 19, 2023.

Leah Millis/Reuters

Despite Blinken's visit, China and the US still have dangerous gulf between them

Movement on any of these issues could help enable the two to work together on less prickly areas, experts say, but this ranges from difficult to impossible given strategic concerns and domestic circumstances.

Even restoring high-level military dialogue is at an impasse. China has refused US overtures to restore those ties, apparently until Washington removes sanctions against its defense minister Li Shangfu.

Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at the Renmin University in Beijing, said that both the US and China “want to prevent their rivalry and confrontation from significant worsening, and both sides place a high priority on preventing military conflict with each other.”

“At the same time, however, neither side has given or is prepared to give the other significant and lasting concessions, and is continuing, or even escalating, to do whatever it considers vital, for strategic security, technical security, and more,” he said.

US climate envoy John Kerry during a meeting with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in the Great Hall of the People on July 18, 2023 in Beijing, China.

Florence Lo/Pool/Getty Images

What’s next?

But all this doesn’t mean there’s no room to work together, according to Shanghai-based international relations scholar Shen Dingli.

“The two countries are now on a fast track of cooperation, even though neither side has announced it, internally, they are committed (to this),” Shen said, noting that it was likely both sides in the recent visits had listed out concerns for the other to consider while working toward the next round of exchange.

And despite tough talk from Chinese leaders like Wang Yi, Shen said Beijing was open to cooperate on issues where it was possible, like climate, even amid broader tensions.

As Kerry closed out his trip earlier this week, the climate envoy, too, seemed hopeful. Though they “realized that it’s going to take a little bit more work to break the new ground,” the two sides would be meeting on a regular basis in the coming weeks, said Kerry.

Speaking from a security conference in the US on Sunday, Blinken told CNN the US is attempting to strengthen “lines of communication” with China to avoid conflict between the two superpowers.

“We weren’t doing a lot of talking before. Now we are. We have different groups that are engaged, or about to engage, on discrete issues … that are problems … in the relationship where I believe we can, I think, get to a resolution,” Blinken said, adding “the proof will be in the results.”

Observers will also be watching whether China reciprocates with its own high-level visits to Washington in the coming weeks – especially as leader Xi may visit the US when it hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks during a press conference at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, China, July 9, 2023. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Thomas Peter/Reuters

The world is big enough for US and China, Yellen says as she concludes Beijing trip

The most obvious first step for a first follow-up – a visit to Washington from Foreign Minister Qin Gang, whom Blinken invited during his Beijing visit last month – has been complicated, however, by Qin’s mysterious disappearance from public view in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, both sides will need to carefully weigh the optics of their diplomacy for their domestic audiences, where neither government wants to look soft on the other, especially as the US moves toward its presidential election season.

“The expectation is to continue and strengthen the channels of communications and strive for practical, specific steps to address issues in bilateral relations,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

“Military-to-military (communication) and fentanyl (drug control) are high on the US agenda and I think the Chinese are likely to work something out later this year … (But) the Chinese will demand reciprocity, which will induce more domestic criticism on US policy,” she added.

And while the prospect of further communications is a positive development, observers warn the situation remains fragile.

“The relationship is on firmer ground, but its still brittle,” said Chong in Singapore. Any number of incidents related to flashpoints in the relations “could still derail things,” he said.

CNN’s Nectar Gan contributing reporting.

CNN · by Simone McCarthy · July 24, 2023

4. Don’t Give Poland a Pass

Excerpts:

One could argue that Poland is just one of many places—including India, Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia—where Biden’s human rights promises are taking a backseat to strategic interests. And indeed, Israeli protesters against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government regularly cite Poland as an example that they do not wish their country to follow. But if Biden cannot speak for human rights in a frontline NATO country, where can he?

Poland needs the United States far more than the United States needs it. U.S. direct investment in Poland was estimated at over $25 billion by the Warsaw-based American Chamber of Commerce. Can American investors trust a country whose parliament nearly succeeded in forcing the sale of U.S.-owned media shares? Or whose newly created Commission to Investigate Russian Influence can unilaterally void any contract deemed to be “Russia-friendly,” a pretext to go after political opponents? The State Department, whose latest report on Poland lauds the investment climate, can instead start encouraging investors to call Warsaw’s bluff. The United States can also follow up on its calls for fair elections this fall by encouraging Warsaw to allow election monitors.

At the same time, given its own raging culture wars, the United States needs to be firm and outspoken but avoid hypocrisy. As the former U.S. ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried wrote last month, “In both Poland and the United States, authoritarian temptation—a crouching demon—exists. Elections, approaching in both countries, can bring out anti-democratic temptations.” The United States should use its economic leverage, call out xenophobia and hate speech, and shine a spotlight on any irregularities as Poland’s parliamentary election campaign gets into full swing. There should be a consistent call for the safeguarding of Polish democracy—rather than simply praise for a Polish solidarity that may not be there tomorrow.

Don’t Give Poland a Pass

Warsaw’s Support for Ukraine Should Not Obscure Its Assault on Democracy at Home

By Piotr H. Kosicki

July 24, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Piotr H. Kosicki · July 24, 2023

When Joe Biden campaigned for president, he called out the democratic backsliding that had taken place in eastern Europe on his predecessor’s watch. “You see what’s happened in everything from Belarus to Poland to Hungary, and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the world,” he told a town hall audience in October 2020. Biden was lumping Poland together with countries where democracy was on life support, if not already dead. Biden’s comments alluded to the fact that Law and Justice, the right-wing populist party that has governed Poland since 2015, had been steadily eroding judicial independence, press freedom, and civic pluralism. That summer, President Andrzej Duda won reelection promising “LGBT-free zones” and a war on “gender ideology.” Two days after Biden’s remarks, Poland’s high court decreed a near-total ban on abortion.

In 2021, when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko began busing Afghan and Iraqi refugees to the Polish-Belarusian border, Duda likened the moves to “hybrid warfare.” The Polish government had its guards repel the migrants with water cannons, banned media access to the area, and spent over $407 million to build a 115-mile-long steel wall on its border with Belarus.

And yet, in March 2022, when Biden traveled to Poland to rally support for the war in Ukraine, he lauded the country as a leader in the global fight for democracy. “Democracies of the world are revitalized,” Biden said, standing before the Royal Castle in Warsaw, which Biden described as having a “sacred place in the history not only of Europe but humankind’s unending search for freedom.” Biden’s 2022 speech in Warsaw was, to say the least, a startling reversal from his campaign trail rhetoric.

In February of this year, Biden returned once again to the Royal Castle, praising his host country for being one of the United States’ “great allies.” But although Biden talked about democracy and Poland in both of his Warsaw speeches, in 2023, he never put the two words in the same sentence. Poland may have demonstrated solidarity with the Ukrainian fight for sovereignty, but democracy belongs to activists in Belarus, Moldova, and of course Ukraine. In reality, Poland has continued its democratic backsliding while supporting its neighbor’s struggle against Russia. Yet Biden no longer criticizes Poland’s growing illiberalism.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the United States and its European allies have looked the other way as the Polish government has continued its assault on democracy because of the country’s unique strategic importance. Of all NATO and EU countries, Poland has the most heavily trafficked border with Ukraine. Poland has occupied a central place in NATO’s eastern flank since 1999, when it joined the alliance. But its strategic position took on new importance in 2022 as, overnight, Poland became a bustling transit hub for refugees, aid workers, and military personnel.

But Poland’s strategic position must not insulate it against criticism. With parliamentary elections in October, the Polish government is fomenting culture wars that paint Ukraine as a historic agent of genocide, and it is pushing economic policies that could impede Ukraine’s recovery. Ukrainian refugees whom Poland famously welcomed beginning in February 2022 are beginning to face more and more xenophobia across Polish society—in large part due to the sweeping anti-migrant rhetoric that Law and Justice has made the centerpiece of its reelection campaign.

Over the past 18 months, commentators have gone back and forth debating whether Poland’s newfound strategic importance would lead the right-wing government to embrace liberal democracy. In August of last year, influential Polish commentators Jaroslaw Kuisz and Karolina Wigura noted in Foreign Policy that “hopes are therefore high that Poland not only aligns with the rest of Europe strategically but also finds its way back onto the liberal democratic path.” (In an incisive New York Times op-ed published this June, Kuisz and Wigura made clear that they now see this as impossible.) In an April op-ed for Politico, German Marshall Fund analyst Marta Prochwicz-Jazowska noted that “war makes for strange bedfellows,” but concluded that “there can be no free pass when it comes to democracy.” Yet recent events make clear that Poland is getting exactly that. Continuing to give Poland’s government a free pass will facilitate the international spread of illiberal democracy by teaching other governments that attacks on democratic institutions are tolerated as long as you support the larger goals of U.S. foreign policy. It is time for Biden to tell the truth again about what’s going on inside Poland.

LAW AND JUSTICE IN NAME ONLY

Founded in 2001 by the twin former child actors turned political operatives Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, Law and Justice began as an anticorruption movement to investigate politicians from Poland’s postcommunist left. Upon the formation of its first government in 2005, however, Law and Justice foreswore cooperation with the center-right liberals led by Donald Tusk, turning to agrarian populists and far-right religious extremists to form a coalition government.

By 2007, the party had moved far to the right, criticizing the European Union and allying itself with a fundamentalist Catholic media empire called Radio Mary, until a corruption scandal brought the government down. But Law and Justice kept the Polish presidency until Lech Kaczynski perished, together with 95 other government officials and social activists, in April 2010 in a plane crash outside Smolensk, Russia—which his twin brother was quick to blame on both Putin and Tusk, who was then serving as prime minister. From that crash was born the so-called Smolensk cult, an accusation of conspiracy between the Kremlin and most of the Polish political spectrum.

When Law and Justice returned to power in 2015 by scoring both a parliamentary majority and the presidency under Duda, the accusation that political opponents represented foreign interests remained, and helped to dictate a political agenda combining illiberal nationalism with a substantial expansion of the Polish welfare state. The government garnered press for suppressing strikes by schoolteachers, nurses, and ecological activists protesting deforestation in Poland’s east. It has increased cash welfare payouts to families and farmers, while at the same time, coopting the public media, eliminating judicial independence, and promoting the interests of the Catholic Church. The government’s transformation of state-owned radio and television into Law and Justice propaganda outlets was completed in 2016.

Biden no longer criticizes Poland’s growing illiberalism.

Dismantling the independent judiciary has taken longer and has been subject to challenges before the European Court of Human Rights and threats of sanctions from the European Commission. The judicial takeover involved lowering retirement ages, auditing and smearing independent jurists, and dismantling the apolitical, collegial system that previously set rules and enforced standards within the judiciary. Poland’s justice minister now doubles as a greatly empowered attorney general whose politically appointed state attorneys have the power to initiate disciplinary proceedings against judges of their choice. It was Law and Justice’s co-optation of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal that resulted in the court’s announcement in October 2020 of a near-total ban on abortion in Poland, which was followed by months of street protests. In the end, the protests waned, and the ban became law.

The most recent chapter in Law and Justice’s democratic backsliding is squarely tied to the parliamentary elections in October, in which Tusk’s coalition has a real chance of taking power. Making no secret of its intention to prosecute Tusk himself, Law and Justice has created a new standing Commission to Investigate Russian Influence, signed into law by Duda on May 29. Commission members are appointed by the Law and Justice–controlled parliament and have the right to investigate any suspected “Russian influence” in Poland during the years 2007 to 2022 (including eight years when Tusk was prime minister). The commission can unilaterally cancel contracts in defense, technology, and other sectors of the economy if it decides Russian interests are at play. On June 4, Poland saw its biggest civic unrest since the 2020 protests against the abortion ban: 500,000 people took to the streets to celebrate the anniversary of Poland’s exit from communism and to protest the new commission.

THE BACKLASH

On the international stage, this backsliding has garnered less and less attention as Poland’s welcoming of Ukrainian refugees has received widespread praise—which of course it should. Since February 2022, over 13.7 million Ukrainians have transited through Poland, with over one million remaining in the country. The outpouring of Polish solidarity with Ukrainians was genuine, unprecedented, and extraordinary. But it will not last, as Poles blame both cyclical and structural problems in their social services on the Ukrainians who have sought refuge in their country. Already in November of last year, Polish headlines announced the troubling results of major studies of public opinion: “Poles are for Ukraine, but against Ukrainians,” as sociologists Przemyslaw Sadura and Slawomir Sierakowski put it. They sum up their interviews as follows: “In every social group, age group, in big as in small towns, without differentiation by gender, negative feelings predominate toward refugees from Ukraine. And so we are sitting on a ticking time bomb.” A January 2023 survey by Warsaw Enterprise Institute/Maison & Partners notes that 62 percent of respondents said that “Poland cannot afford” Ukrainian refugees and 41 percent said that “refugees from Ukraine are in truth economic migrants.”

Since the fall of 2022, swing voters who helped return Duda to the presidency in 2020 have increasingly worried that financial assistance for refugees will compete with the cash payouts that the government provides to Polish families. Concerns are growing that Ukrainian refugees are taking away jobs, preventing Polish children from attending sought-after schools, and forcing Polish patients to wait longer for surgeries. Law and Justice is looking to trade on these anxieties to win the support of swing voters this fall, hoping to exploit Poles’ “cratering levels of confidence” (Sadura and Sierakowski’s words) in each other. The government’s occasional far-right partners who form a political bloc known as the Confederation have been actively stoking these anxieties almost from the start of the war in Ukraine, and Confederation politicians have campaigned aggressively to limit refugee numbers and cut their social benefits and access to jobs.

Since late 2022, Amnesty International has reported more and more anti-Ukrainian hate speech on Polish social media. Public officials also broadcast these messages. The state superintendent for schools in the Malopolska region, a prominent Krakow-based activist for Law and Justice, tweeted, “The wave of Ukrainians fleeing the war has given our country’s anti-Polish circles hope that they can finally succeed in watering down Polish identity. They demand an end to teaching Polish history and literature, under the pretext of coddling the feelings of Ukrainians. We refuse to surrender our Polishness!”

Poland’s strategic position must not insulate it against criticism.

The Polish government is also using history to stir up these sentiments. On July 11, the same day that NATO leaders met in Vilnius to discuss Ukraine’s possible future in the alliance, Poland commemorated the 80th anniversary of a campaign of slaughter carried out by Ukrainian nationalist militias in Nazi-occupied Volhynia, a region that before World War II belonged to Poland but is now part of western Ukraine. Estimates of the number of Poles massacred throughout 1943 range from 60,000 to 100,000. Volhynia has long been a festering sore in Polish-Ukrainian relations. In 2016, the Polish parliament passed legislation designating the Volhynia killings a Ukrainian “genocide” against Poles, a decision the Ukrainian parliament formally condemned. Several months later, Ukraine banned distribution of the major blockbuster Polish-language motion picture Volhynia (distributed in English under the title Hatred), which dramatized the killings. Last summer, months after Russia’s invasion, Poland’s Education Ministry mandated new history textbooks—which include the contested “genocide” language—for Polish secondary schools nationwide. This textbook came into use just as 185,000 Ukrainian refugee children were heading into the Polish school system.

The Polish government has been playing both sides, affirming Ukrainian sovereignty while calling on Ukraine to make amends. In May, Lukasz Jasina, the Polish Foreign Ministry’s press spokesman, said in an interview that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should issue a formal apology for Ukrainians who killed Poles during World War II. As journalist Pawel Wronski recently noted, there is a correlation between Law and Justice’s weaponization of memory and Kremlin disinformation: Russia, too, demands Ukrainian apologies for Volhynia, because pro-Kremlin historians claim the Polish victims as Soviet citizens. “Could this mean that, by issuing an apology for Volhynia and for Ukrainian nationalist genocide, the President of Ukraine would, in a time of war, be saying: yes, the Russians were right?” Wronski wrote.

At a joint commemoration ceremony for Volhynia in July, Duda and Zelensky issued a statement that contained no mention of either who the victims or perpetrators were, noting only that “We are stronger together.” But Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Law and Justice party chair and since last month also Poland’s deputy prime minister, has bluntly declared that the Ukrainian “genocide was exceptionally brutal, gruesome, even worse than the German genocides.”

The Polish government’s growing indulgence of anti-Ukrainian sentiment goes beyond culture wars to policymaking. When Zelensky visited Warsaw in March—the first time since Russia’s invasion began—Polish farmers took to the streets of the country’s major cities to protest preferential pricing in Europe for Ukrainian grain. Poland rallied Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia to successfully pressure the European Commission to eliminate Ukrainian grain from those countries’ markets. In turn, Zelensky protested Poland’s actions as “a gross violation of the Association Agreement and the founding treaties of the EU.” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki made clear that, in Poland, “We care first and foremost about the Polish farmer.” The import restrictions are set to expire in September, and Kyiv and Warsaw seemed to have buried the hatchet—until Poland began demanding this month that Brussels extend the ban. If the EU fails to do this, the five countries have pledged to ban Ukrainian grain on their own. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal responded, tweeting, “This is an unfriendly and populist move that will severely impact global food security and Ukraine’s economy.”

MEMORY HOLE

The burgeoning attacks on Ukrainians fit a pattern. For a decade, Poland’s government has honed its ability to abuse history to find scapegoats and suppress criticism, a technique it has used to quash academic freedom and shore up support from the Catholic hierarchy. The gist of Law and Justice’s approach is to water down Polish history to a morality tale of untainted heroism and martyrdom. Critics of this tale face persecution and branding as “traitors to the nation.” Painting Ukrainians as agents of genocide who need to confess and beg forgiveness from the righteous Polish nation is part of a larger memory-making agenda that Law and Justice believes is needed to keep Poland strong in the international arena.

The party has long targeted former president and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Lech Walesa, whom Law and Justice has denounced as a onetime communist agent. Law and Justice has also tried to scrub Polish anti-Semitism from the history of the Holocaust. In 2018, it adopted an amendment threatening to criminalize scholarship that might “assign responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish Nation.” In response to pressure from Israel and the United States, the government partially backtracked, dropping the criminal provisions. Yet, in April, Morawiecki denounced Poland’s most prominent historian of the Holocaust, Barbara Engelking, after she said in a televised interview that “Jews were unbelievably disappointed with Poles during the war.” Following the prime minister’s comments, Poland’s Education Ministry announced salary cuts for all researchers at the public-funded Polish Academy of Sciences institute where Engelking is employed; these cuts were withdrawn a month later, but only following an organized international protest campaign led by institutions such as the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

The United States should be prepared for further frontal assaults by Poland’s government, not just on Polish historians but on American media interests, too. A key barometer is the station TVN, which is majority U.S.-owned, and the only major TV outlet in Poland that remains critical of the government. In 2021, the Law and Justice–controlled parliament passed a law that would have forced Warner Bros. Discovery to sell TVN. Duda’s veto ultimately saved the network, following months of shuttle diplomacy by the United States. But TVN is once again under threat. In March, it aired a documentary film containing revelations that, before his election to the papacy, Pope John Paul II knew about and covered up cases of child molestation by clergy in his archdiocese in Poland. Rather than take the revelations seriously, Polish government ministers began denouncing a “foreign-backed” conspiracy trying to smear Poland’s greatest native son. Within days of the documentary airing on TVN, U.S. ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to discuss the national security implications of TVN’s programming. (It was TVN that aired the Engelking interview, as well.)

TOUGH LOVE

The United States needs to take a firmer stand on Poland. The example of Viktor Orban’s Hungary shows that dismantling the independent judiciary and muzzling free speech aren’t merely election-year strategies; they are the building blocks of a durable illiberal democracy. The U.S. State Department needs to call out Polish government attacks on media and on rule of law.

The State Department’s May 30 press release expressing U.S. “concern” over the new Commission to Investigate Russian Influence is an important step in this direction. But Brzezinski should return to his predecessor’s policy of publicly denouncing Polish campaigns against U.S. economic interests—and publicly rebuke the Polish government for targeting TVN. The Polish Education Ministry’s about-face on punitive measures against Holocaust scholars shows that international pressure works, especially when U.S. institutions get involved.

One could argue that Poland is just one of many places—including India, Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia—where Biden’s human rights promises are taking a backseat to strategic interests. And indeed, Israeli protesters against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government regularly cite Poland as an example that they do not wish their country to follow. But if Biden cannot speak for human rights in a frontline NATO country, where can he?

Poland needs the United States far more than the United States needs it. U.S. direct investment in Poland was estimated at over $25 billion by the Warsaw-based American Chamber of Commerce. Can American investors trust a country whose parliament nearly succeeded in forcing the sale of U.S.-owned media shares? Or whose newly created Commission to Investigate Russian Influence can unilaterally void any contract deemed to be “Russia-friendly,” a pretext to go after political opponents? The State Department, whose latest report on Poland lauds the investment climate, can instead start encouraging investors to call Warsaw’s bluff. The United States can also follow up on its calls for fair elections this fall by encouraging Warsaw to allow election monitors.

At the same time, given its own raging culture wars, the United States needs to be firm and outspoken but avoid hypocrisy. As the former U.S. ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried wrote last month, “In both Poland and the United States, authoritarian temptation—a crouching demon—exists. Elections, approaching in both countries, can bring out anti-democratic temptations.” The United States should use its economic leverage, call out xenophobia and hate speech, and shine a spotlight on any irregularities as Poland’s parliamentary election campaign gets into full swing. There should be a consistent call for the safeguarding of Polish democracy—rather than simply praise for a Polish solidarity that may not be there tomorrow.

• PIOTR H. KOSICKI is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland.
• MORE BY PIOTR H. KOSICKI

Foreign Affairs · by Piotr H. Kosicki · July 24, 2023

5. China Announces New "Loitering" "Collaborative" Missile -- Another "Rip-Off?"

As one of our former National War College students said: The Chinese R&D Strategy is called "steal to leap ahead."

Videos at the link.

China Announces New "Loitering" "Collaborative" Missile -- Another "Rip-Off?"

China's CH UAV firm is developing a new "loitering" munitions based on the PRC's AR air-to-ground missile

• KRIS OSBORN, WARRIOR MAVEN - CENTER FOR MILITARY MODERNIZATION19 HOURS AGO

https://warriormaven.com/china/china-announces-new-loitering-collaborative-missile-another-rip-off?utm

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

The idea of "loitering" munitions able to identify and destroy targets with increased measures of autonomy is now a well-evolved technology, as one must merely think of the now quite effective "Switchblade" drone now attacking Russian tanks in Ukraine. 

The US Air Force is also well along with a cutting edge, AI-enabled weapons technology enabling bombs themselves to share information and adjust course autonomously while approaching targets. The Air Force Research Laboratory program, called Golden Horde, is testing with great success and shows promise for a massively increased ability for air-dropped and air-fired weapons to change course in flight and share data in response to new information or changing targets. 

Sure enough, it is hardly surprising that the Chinese newspapers are now announcing that its CH UAV firm is developing a new "loitering" munitions based on the PRCs AR air-to-ground missile. In a manner quite similar to Golden Horde, the emerging Chinese weapon can reportedly perform "communications relay on the battlefield, radar disturbance and suppression, precision strikes against time-sensitive targets as well as battle damage evaluation," a write up in the Chinese government-backed Global Times reports. 

While the Chinese paper only discusses the weapon in general terms, its description of the new "munition" sounds like a clear Golden Horde "rip-off" attempt. The Chinese article says the weapon can "collaborate" with other weapons. Its not clear what "collaborate" may mean in terms of the Chinese weapon, yet the paper does say the weapon can share information in flight, a technology which seems to closely mirror Golden Horde. This considered, it is by no means clear that China's data-linked collaborative weapon, autonomy and guidance is by any means comparable to evolving US systems, however the Chinese paper at least reveals the intent or "ambition" to achieve Golden Horde-like in flight weapons "collaboration" and a Switchblade-like ability to "loiter" and strike using a kind of ISR or surveillance capability. 

"Characterized by its long endurance, super long range, high damage, high reliability and low cost, the loitering munition can conduct missions either independently or collaborating with other weapons and systems in an integrated system," the Global Times reports. 

The Chinese language very specifically mirrors several operational US programs and also appears as an attempt to replicate both the US "Switchblade" Kamikaze drones and the Air Force Research Laboratory's Golden Horde. 

Golden Horde "rip off?"

While Golden Horde advances the technology to a new, paradigm-changing level, the ability for weapons to "datalink" in fight has been operational with the US military for years. The Tomahawk Block IV missile, for example, has a two-way data link enabling the weapon to adjust in flight to new target detail as well as "loiter" with an ISR, drone-like ability so survey a target landscape. The Air Force's "Stormbreaker" is a long-range, precision-guided bomb which also operates with a data link and can travel as far as 40-miles to a target using its tri-mode seeker. The now operational Stormbreaker uses infrared, laser and millimeter wave targeting to guide its way to moving targets, in part using a "data link" to respond to changing target details. 

"Referred to as a small suicide drone, typical loitering munition can carry out reconnaissance missions and hit its target through a self-destructive attack, the expert said, noting that multiple loitering munitions can work together for a combat chain of reconnaissance, attack and damage evaluation," the paper says. 

Kris Osborn President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University. Portions of this essay 

6. Asian Allies Have a Role to Play in NATO By John Bolton

Excerpts:

By contrast, most other alliance members welcome closer security relations with like-minded Indo-Pacific allies. Lithuania published its own Indo-Pacific strategy, emphasizing cooperation with Taiwan. Germany’s foreign minister stressed that Berlin was “not naive” on China.

South Korea’s president and prime ministers from Japan, Australia and New Zealand participated in the summit, signaling converging interests. Signing an extensive new NATO-Japan defense-cooperation agreement, Mr. Stoltenberg described Tokyo as NATO’s closest partner. Seoul signed a similar agreement. Canberra and Wellington will follow.

...

Washington should give careful, strategic thought to expanding NATO’s Asian role. It need not admit Asian members tomorrow, but it can certainly work toward that goal.

Asian Allies Have a Role to Play in NATO

China’s rising threat has splintered Europe while creating a need for global leadership.

By John Bolton

July 23, 2023 4:14 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-allies-have-a-role-to-play-in-nato-japan-taiwan-india-china-weapons-threat-da62c2e7?mod=hp_opin_pos_2#cxrecs_s

Ukraine dominated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s recent summit, but concern with Asian threats was evident. While the final communiqué asserted China’s “stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values,” it was mostly diplomatic verbiage. NATO’s 75th anniversary summit next year should aspire to a sharper focus.

Some alliance members find that unappealing. France’s Emmanuel Macron no longer claims that NATO is experiencing “brain death,” but he still chafes at the thought of U.S. global leadership. He grouses that a Sino-American confrontation over Taiwan is “a trap for Europe.” France even objects to a NATO liaison office in Japan “as a matter of principle” (although Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says the issue is “still on the table”).

By contrast, most other alliance members welcome closer security relations with like-minded Indo-Pacific allies. Lithuania published its own Indo-Pacific strategy, emphasizing cooperation with Taiwan. Germany’s foreign minister stressed that Berlin was “not naive” on China.

South Korea’s president and prime ministers from Japan, Australia and New Zealand participated in the summit, signaling converging interests. Signing an extensive new NATO-Japan defense-cooperation agreement, Mr. Stoltenberg described Tokyo as NATO’s closest partner. Seoul signed a similar agreement. Canberra and Wellington will follow.

The difficulty for some Europeans lies in the diverging institutional perspectives of NATO and the European Union. During the Cold War, as the EU was evolving and the Soviet threat was proximate to Western Europe, aligning economic and strategic priorities was less fraught than it is today. By contrast, after victory in the Cold War, NATO seemed marginal to many Europeans (and Americans), the EU strengthened institutionally, and Franco-German economic objectives increasingly centered on China.

Moreover, in both the U.S. and Europe in the 1990s, economic concerns dominated. With globalization all the rage, global geostrategic thinking withered along with NATO-member defense budgets, which remain chronically underfunded. Whether it was U.S. furniture manufacturing, children’s toys, or high-tech capabilities with important military applications that poured out of North America to Asia, it all looked the same. Washington watched, and, during the Clinton administration, encouraged the shrinkage and consolidation of the defense-industrial base.

China’s rising threat has now splintered the EU, with France and Germany on one side and much of what Donald Rumsfeld called “new Europe” on the other. By contrast, American attention to the Chinese threat has risen dramatically, and imports from China are dropping sharply. Most EU members are now retracing America’s path, increasingly appreciating the gravity of Beijing’s menacing activities (economic as well as politico-military), though they don’t yet fully understand them.

In preserving peace and security, NATO’s extraordinary success makes it an unparalleled vehicle for defense cooperation in any region where its core interests are at stake. And while NATO’s institutional involvement in Asia is desirable, like-minded members can work together even if the alliance itself isn’t initially involved. Ad hoc programs could grow over time.

Potential cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners is boundless. NATO members and key Asian allies, for example, are already central to the Wassenaar Arrangement, successor to the Cold War’s Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls. Unfortunately, Wassenaar has dubious members, including Russia and South Africa, so reinvigorating international export controls will require more creative thinking.

Or consider winter warfare. Post-1945, top contenders for Olympic gold in the biathlon always seemed to be Soviet or Nordic athletes. Combining cross-country skiing with marksmanship, the biathlon emerged from military team sports. With India still playing the great game against China, and with all the Nordics soon to be in NATO, imagine the training and joint exercises possible in mountainous areas near China’s border.

Sales of weapons systems are an important way the U.S. strengthens its Asian allies, as Mr. Macron understands. Furious at losing a submarine deal with Australia to the U.S. and Britain, he celebrated Bastille Day with Indian Prime Minister Modi, announcing beforehand some $9 billion in weapons sales. While the U.S. might prefer that New Delhi purchase American arms, any non-Russian acquisitions diminish India’s reliance on Soviet technology, hopefully drawing India closer to NATO interoperability standards, and inevitably throw shade on Beijing.

Washington should give careful, strategic thought to expanding NATO’s Asian role. It need not admit Asian members tomorrow, but it can certainly work toward that goal.

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.

7. Ukraine live briefing: Drone strikes skyscraper in Moscow; another night of attacks in Odessa

Ukraine live briefing: Drone strikes skyscraper in Moscow; another night of attacks in Odessa

The Washington Post · by Kelly Kasulis Cho · July 24, 2023

By

July 24, 2023 at 1:32 a.m. EDT

A drone struck a large skyscraper in Moscow early Monday, Russian officials reported, shattering glass on its 17th and 18th floors. The wreckage of a second drone was found on Komsomolsky Prospect, a thoroughfare in central Moscow. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said two nonresidential buildings were struck but there were no casualties.

The incident comes after another night of attacks on Ukraine’s Odessa region. Drones targeted port infrastructure along the Danube River, injuring six people and destroying a grain hangar, said Oleh Kiper, the regional governor.

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

Key developments

Moscow downed the drones by electronic means, the Russian Defense Ministry said, blaming Ukraine and calling the incident a “terrorist attack.” Drone strikes are a rarity for the Russian capital, and a similar strike on two residential buildings there earlier this year was widely considered a prelude to further escalation in the war. Though Ukraine denied responsibility for the drone attack in May, the event struck a chord among Russians, who for the first time witnessed wartime hostilities trickling into residential parts of the city.

The overnight drone attack in Odessa lasted four hours, Ukrainian officials said on Telegram, part of a string of attacks in the port region that has been ongoing since Russia pulled out of a U.N.-backed grain export deal. An earlier bombardment razed several parts of the southern Ukrainian port city before dawn on Sunday, killing at least one person and injuring 21, including four children.

Ukraine has so far taken back about half of the land that Russia initially seized, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during an interview with CNN on Sunday. However, he tempered Kyiv’s inroads with warnings of a tough path ahead: “These are still relatively early days of the counteroffensive,” he said.

Battleground updates

Ukrainian pilots will begin training with F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft developed by the U.S. Air Force next month, the country’s defense minister told CNN, saying that the training sessions may be split between multiple European countries. As for supplying the aircraft, Blinken on Sunday cautioned that it could take “months and months” before F-16s are delivered and operational. The White House in May agreed not to stop allied nations from sending Kyiv the advanced fighter jets.

Zelensky said a lack of munitions forced Ukraine to delay a counteroffensive planned for the spring. “We had not enough munitions and armaments, and not enough brigades properly trained in these weapons,” he said in a CNN interview that aired Sunday.

Global impact

Unilever said it will allow Russian employees to be conscripted if they are called to fight. “We will always comply with all the laws of the countries we operate in,” Reginaldo Ecclissato, the company’s chief business operations and supply chain officer, said in a letter to the B4Ukraine Coalition this month. He added that Unilever, a British multinational packaged goods company that employs about 3,000 workers in Russia, “condemns the war in Ukraine as a brutal, senseless act by the Russian state.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko met in St. Petersburg on Sunday, Russian state media reported. The Kremlin previously said the leaders would discuss their nations’ “strategic partnership.” The meeting came two days after Putin warned that any attack against the neighboring state would be considered an attack against Russia.

Putin accused Western partners of the Black Sea grain deal of failing to address global food insecurity. In an article posted by the Kremlin on Monday, the Russian leader said high- and middle-income countries benefited from exports shipped under the deal instead of African nations. The United Nations, which helped broker the deal, has argued it allows more grain to enter the global market, lowering food prices around the world.

Analysis from our correspondents

The moral dilemma of sending cluster munitions to Ukraine: For the past week, Ukraine has fired U.S.-provided cluster munitions at Russian targets. Their use comes with a moral dilemma — and at a particularly fraught moment in the course of the war, Ishaan Tharoor writes.

The bombs are banned in 123 countries, including the bulk of NATO member countries, but the United States, Russia and Ukraine aren’t signatories to a convention prohibiting their use. This month, the Biden administration finally agreed to dispatch them to Ukraine — a move that could give Kyiv an advantage on the battlefield, but not without a cost.

The Washington Post · by Kelly Kasulis Cho · July 24, 2023

8. How Franchetti’s experience made her Biden’s pick to lead the Navy

How Franchetti’s experience made her Biden’s pick to lead the Navy

Defense News · by Megan Eckstein · July 21, 2023

WASHINGTON — Adm. Lisa Franchetti was five weeks into leading U.S. 6th Fleet when she oversaw the first-ever Tomahawk missile strike by a Virginia-class attack submarine.

Days after Syrian President Bashar Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on his people in April 2018, then-President Donald Trump threatened to use military forces to destroy the Syrian chemical weapons facilities.

Franchetti, then a three-star admiral still settling into her new office in Naples, Italy, was tasked by Defense Department leadership with striking Syria from European waters using naval vessels.

The target was complex: Three facilities in Damascus and near Homs were close to Russian forces and air defense systems, which the U.S. wanted to avoid hitting.

Franchetti and her 6th Fleet team both successfully used the new submarine John Warner to fire upon Syria from the Eastern Mediterranean and rearmed the boat afterward, marking two firsts.

“There were some real challenges there,” retired Adm. James Foggo, then the commander of Naval Forces Europe and Franchetti’s direct superior, told Defense News. “Afterward, we all kind of breathed a sigh of relief because all the elements of that strike mission directed by the president were met: The targets were destroyed, minimal collateral damage, didn’t bring the Russians into it, a strong message sent to Assad, and then the reload afterwards.”

Five years later — and after completing her tour as 6th Fleet commander, serving as the director for strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then becoming the vice chief of naval operations — Franchetti is now President Joe Biden’s nominee for chief of naval operations.

The White House announced the nomination July 21. If confirmed by the Senate, Franchetti would be the first woman to lead the Navy or any Defense Department military service. The Coast Guard was the first U.S. armed service to be led by a female; Adm. Linda Fagan became the 27th commandant of the branch last year.

Franchetti’s nomination is likely to be sidelined by ongoing political fights on Capitol Hill over the military’s abortion access policy. The ongoing hold by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has stalled more than 250 senior military confirmations over the last four months, with no resolution in sight, over the Defense Department’s abortion policies.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Under rules put in place last fall, troops stationed in states where abortion is limited or illegal can be granted leave time and travel stipends to help cover the cost of moving across state lines for abortion services. Tuberville and a host of Republican lawmakers have decried the policy as illegal.

Top Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Ryan Perry confirmed the nomination in a statement and said that “she has worked across the Navy and the Joint Force with an emphasis on strategy, international engagement, and interagency collaboration, most recently serving as the Director, Strategy, Plans, and Policy, J-5.”

Biden also announced the nomination of Adm. Samuel Paparo — who in recent weeks had been rumored to be in line for the CNO post — as commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

Foggo said Franchetti has the right character and experience for the job.

“She cares a lot about her people [and] you want a CNO that cares about the troops on the deckplate,” he said. “At the same time, you want a CNO that has experience in some tight, tough situations and some combat situations.”

Surface warrior and policy wonk

If a group of Navy ROTC students at a Midwestern university hadn’t decided to have a cookout one day more than four decades ago, there’s a chance Franchetti would not have embarked on a career that landed her as the nominee.

She grew up in suburban Rochester, New York, according to a 2015 Northwestern University profile of Franchetti.

Franchetti attended Northwestern’s Medill journalism school and wanted to become a reporter covering the Middle East, according to the profile. That changed in 1981 during freshman orientation, when she came upon a group of Navy ROTC students grilling out and playing football, the profile recalls.

ROTC midshipmen at Northwestern University listen to speakers about the working relationship chiefs and officers need to have in a command. (Scott A. Thornbloom/U.S. Navy)

“They said: ‘We could get you $100 a month, and maybe you could get a scholarship next year if you joined ROTC,’ ” Franchetti said in the piece. “I was whisked away to their office building on Haven Street, talked to a lieutenant who told me how great the Navy was, and next thing, I’m signed up and getting my uniform and some books. And that’s how it started.”

From there, she commissioned as a Navy officer in 1985 — five years after the first woman graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, putting her at the forefront of gender integration on ships.

As such, Franchetti began her career on auxiliary ships, or those that support vessels in the naval fleet. She served on the destroyer tender Shenandoah and then the oiler Monongahela, and eventually moved onto destroyers, commanding Ross.

Franchetti became the second woman to serve as vice chief of naval operations on Sept. 2, 2022.

Retired Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, who in 2010 became the first woman to command a carrier strike group, said Franchetti’s resume makes her an ideal candidate to serve as the next chief of naval operations, regardless of gender.

Tyson told Defense News she first worked with Franchetti at the Navy’s Logistics Group Western Pacific in Singapore, and during Franchetti’s leadership of Destroyer Squadron 21.

Franchetti “is probably one of the best, well-rounded officers that we could put in as CNO. And that’s because she’s had, A, the leadership experience; B, she has had a lot of experience working with our allies and partners around the world,” Tyson said.

Later, when Tyson led U.S. 3rd Fleet and Franchetti reported to her as commander of Carrier Strike Group 9, Tyson made the unusual decision to ask Franchetti to lead two strike groups.

“I had the utmost confidence in Lisa,” she said. “Lisa is just a great person and a good leader and has the right values, characteristics, experience, training, whatever, that she’s one of those people that you can trust to get the job done.”

Foggo said Franchetti’s time as 6th Fleet commander put her leadership skills to the test: She came into the job managing ongoing naval aviation strikes against the Islamic State group, and she left in July 2020 after seeing the command through a horrific start to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.

Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Jonmichael Heldorfer, left, performs a COVID-19 test on Cryptologic Technician (Technical) 2nd Class Nareba Brady aboard a ship while in Gaeta, Italy, on May 6, 2020. (MC1 Kyle Steckler/U.S. Navy)

By March 2020, 1,000 people a day were dying in Italy. Foggo said he and Franchetti had daily meetings to discuss how to keep their people both safe and ready for any missions.

“We were making dozens, if not hundreds, of decisions every day about how we’re going to continue to sustain the warfighting posture of this theater with Americans who are on ships, deployed or in port, or need to be ready to go and meet any contingency when we have this murderous pandemic upon us here in Italy,” he said.

Sailors and their families were scared, he added, but he and Franchetti communicated well during that time to explain their rigid policies. “Lisa was my wingman for this,” Foggo said.

Retired Vice Adm. Ron Boxall was a fellow surface warfare officer who has known Franchetti for years and led the Joint Staff’s resources directorate while Franchetti led the policy directorate.

He said her time in that job meant she “learned a lot about what went on with the [National Security Council] over [at] the White House, a lot of the inner dealings with the political-military side with [the] State Department.”

Foggo noted that, while leading 6th Fleet and Naval Forces Korea, she worked closely with allies and partners.

Breaking gender barriers

While Franchetti’s resume includes many of the same posts as other top surface warfare officers — ship captain, carrier strike group commander, fleet commander — she’s been the first woman to take on many of these roles.

“She’s a role model for a lot of young female officers, mostly surface warfare officers, and she’s always taken it as a personal mission for her to be that mentor that she never had, or that she had very few of,” Boxall said.

But he said that Franchetti, as a woman, may be uniquely positioned to help the surface warfare community and the Navy as a whole address some thorny policy issues that have thus far eluded resolution.

Then-Vice Adm. Lisa Franchetti, commander of U.S. 6th Fleet, takes a selfie with Midshiman 1st Class Elise Vincent while visiting the destroyer Bainbridge in June 2018. (MC1 Theron Godbold/U.S. Navy)

Speaking about retention — an issue for all the services — Boxall said it would be “refreshing” to see how a female service chief would tackle the challenge.

In a competition for people, he said, “it may be she will be able to come up with policies and confront them head on as a female officer” in a way that male officers have struggled to do.

Franchetti could lead on these issues because she’s lived them all herself. She spoke to the Northwestern University magazine about caring for sailors and maintaining a work-life balance, even with a demanding profession.

“I have my work sphere, my mom and wife sphere, and my mental and physical health sphere. When I was younger, I thought: ‘I can do all of this at the same time!’ ” Franchetti was quoted as saying.

“But when I became older, I realized, ‘OK, this week I’m going to focus on work because it’s going to be really busy,’ ” she added. “‘And next week I’m going to take a day off and go to the zoo with my family. And then next week I’m going to make sure my running is going well and get that back on track.’ A lot of rethinking and reevaluating your priorities is really important. Every day you have to think about this.”

Tyson, the first woman to command a carrier strike group, said that Biden selecting Franchetti to lead the service sends two messages to young women in the Navy or considering joining.

“First, a woman can do that; I can go as far as I want to go. And two, the Navy as an organization has the right values that they put the right person in the right place for the right reason,” Tyson said.

Foggo said he spoke to Franchetti several times about the intersection of being a naval officer and a woman.

“One of the things she said is, I learned a lot a long time ago that you do not have to sacrifice your femininity or your gender identity to be a good leader in the Navy,” Foggo explained. “In other words, you don’t have to lower your voice. You don’t have to yell. You don’t have to use bad language. You can just lead. You can be an effective leader by listening to your people, caring for your people, understanding your people, knowing something about your people.

“That’s leadership, and it has nothing to do with gender.”

Leo Shane III contributed to this report.

About Megan Eckstein and Geoff Ziezulewicz

Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.

Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.

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Defense News · by Megan Eckstein · July 21, 2023

9. Ongoing nominations fight could delay first woman on Joint Chiefs

Ongoing nominations fight could delay first woman on Joint Chiefs

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · July 21, 2023

President Joe Biden on Friday nominated Adm. Lisa Franchetti to serve as the next Chief of Naval Operations, putting her in line to become the first woman ever to serve as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Franchetti, who has served 38 years in the military, currently serves as Vice Chief of Naval Operations. She is only the second woman ever to reach the rank of four-star admiral in service history.

Friday’s historic nomination of the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff was muted by the White House’s acknowledgement that the appointment is likely to be sidelined by ongoing political fights on Capitol Hill over the military’s abortion access policy.

RELATED

Pentagon abortion policy talks fail to yield compromise on nominees

More than 250 military promotions and nominations have been stalled over objections to the military's abortion access rules.

In a statement Friday, Biden praised Franchetti’s “extensive expertise in both the operational and policy arenas” as the impetus for her nomination. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a statement said Franchetti’s nomination as the first woman on the Joint Chiefs of staff will allow her to “continue to inspire all of us.”

Biden also announced the nomination of Adm. Samuel Paparo — who in recent weeks had been rumored to be in line for the CNO post — as commander of Indo-Pacific Command, and Vice Adm. Stephen Koehler as commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet.

“These two officers both have significant experience serving in the Indo-Pacific, where our military strength is critical to ensuring the security and stability of this vital region of the world,” Biden said in a statement.

All three are expected to face confirmation hearings before the Senate later this fall. However, timing of a confirmation vote is less certain because of an ongoing hold by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., over the Defense Department’s abortion policies.

Under rules put in place last fall, troops stationed in states where abortion is limited or illegal can be granted leave time and travel stipends to help cover the cost of moving across state lines for abortion services. Tuberville and a host of Republican lawmakers have decried the policy as illegal.

That showdown has stalled more than 250 senior military confirmations over the last four months, with no resolution in sight.

Earlier this week, Defense Department officials briefed senators on the policy in an attempt to convince Tuberville to drop his holds. But exiting the closed-door briefing, Tuberville said he was unimpressed and unmoved.

On Friday, Biden blasted Tuberville’s tactics.

“It has long been an article of faith in this country that supporting our servicemembers and their families, and providing for the strength of our national defense, transcends politics,” he said in a statement. “What Sen. Tuberville is doing is not only wrong, it is dangerous.

“In this moment of rapidly evolving security environments and intense competition, he is risking our ability to ensure that the United States armed forces remain the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. And his Republican colleagues in the Senate know it.”

The Senate is scheduled to break for a late-summer recess next week. Franchetti, Paparo and Koehler are likely to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to answer questions about their new roles sometime in September, when lawmakers return.

Megan Eckstein contributed to this story.

About Leo Shane III

Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.

10. American special operations command in Africa puts Navy SEAL in charge

American special operations command in Africa puts Navy SEAL in charge

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · July 21, 2023

Rear Adm. Ronald Foy, shown in a 2021 command photo, replaced Rear Adm. Milton Sands as head of Special Operations Command Africa on July 21, 2023. Foy, a Navy SEAL, comes to the command after a stint as deputy director for global operations at the Joint Staff. (U.S. Navy)

STUTTGART, Germany — A Navy SEAL took command Friday of special operations missions in Africa, where countering terrorists in Somalia will be a major task for U.S. commandos involved in a yearslong effort to build up local forces.

Navy Rear Adm. Ronald Foy replaced Rear Adm. Milton Sands, who served as head of Special Operations Command Africa for the past two years.

U.S. Africa Command’s Gen. Michael Langley, speaking during a change of command ceremony at his Kelley Barracks headquarters in Stuttgart, said SOCAF serves as a first responder in defending U.S. interests on the continent.

Foy arrives after a stint as deputy director for global operations at the Joint Staff. He enlisted in the Navy in 1985 and received his commission in 1992. His career has revolved around SEAL missions, with commands at various levels.

Foy’s top priority will be to give African partners the tools to “rid themselves of terrorism,” and the command also needs to focus on ensuring the U.S. maintains access on the continent to carry out crisis response missions, Langley said.

During Sands’ tenure at SOCAF, he “spoke truth to power” and often played devil’s advocate when AFRICOM was dealing with tough decisions, Langley said.

“I want to thank you for that. It made us a better organization,” he told Sands.

In Africa, counterterrorism has been a primary focus, particularly in Somalia, where several hundred U.S. special operations troops are training and advising local forces in their battle against the al-Shabab militant group.

However, China’s growing military presence and Russian efforts to gain influence in Africa are other factors.

In particular, the Russian private military contractor Wagner, which had been fighting in Ukraine but recently relocated to Belarus after a failed mutiny in June, is a concern for Washington.

The group’s footprint has expanded in trouble spots such as Mali and Libya. Earlier this week, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a speech his group’s fighters are done with the war in Ukraine and are shifting attention to Africa.

Langley said the U.S. can serve as a “partner of choice” in Africa by distinguishing itself from how the Kremlin and entities like Wagner do business.

“Our people and allies and actors’ competitive advantage is a result of the trust we engender,” he said.

John Vandiver

John Vandiver

John covers U.S. military activities across Europe and Africa. Based in Stuttgart, Germany, he previously worked for newspapers in New Jersey, North Carolina and Maryland. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · July 21, 2023

11. Opinion | We’ve Been on the Front Lines. We Know What Ukraine Needs.

Opinion | We’ve Been on the Front Lines. We Know What Ukraine Needs.

By Mark Kelly and Tammy Duckworth

Mr. Kelly is a U.S. senator from Arizona. Ms. Duckworth is a U.S. senator from Illinois.

The New York Times · by Tammy Duckworth · July 24, 2023

Guest Essay

July 24, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

By Mark Kelly and

Mr. Kelly is a U.S. senator from Arizona. Ms. Duckworth is a U.S. senator from Illinois.

Both of us have been the targets of enemy fire. It nearly cost one of us her life. We know a truth every combat veteran learns: For all the planning and consideration that goes into a war, much of it gets thrown out the window the moment the shooting starts. You often learn more about your enemies in the first 24 hours of a conflict than you do from years of studying them.

This has unequivocally been the case in Ukraine. At the outset of the war, Russia had one of the largest militaries in the world, and it was widely assumed Russia would march through Ukraine and take Kyiv in a matter of weeks, if not days. That didn’t happen. The limitations of Russian military hardware, training and discipline became evident quickly — as well as the strength of Ukrainian resolve.

Still, from the earliest days of the conflict, we both saw that military aid from the United States would be critical for Ukraine to win this war. For the past 17 months, we have advised the Biden administration, urging it to continually assess and reassess the shifting realities on the front line to understand what Ukraine needs and then deliver it quickly. We must remain committed to keeping Ukraine supplied with the missiles, artillery shells and other munitions that at this stage in the conflict can be the difference between a commander’s being able to approve an attack or not. And we have to do that while analyzing where new capabilities, like modern fighter jets, can give Ukraine the edge.

War is dynamic. It requires us to look around the next corner. We heard from President Volodymyr Zelensky and met with other Ukrainian officials, and it was clear to us that Ukraine needs not just guns and ammunition but also other, newer capabilities that can decisively alter the direction of the fast-evolving conflict. In the early weeks of the war, Javelin and Stinger missiles were needed to blunt the advantage of Russian armored vehicles and aircraft. Then long-range, mobile artillery to hit Russian positions. After that, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to strike strategic targets farther behind Russian lines and then main battle tanks to break them.

A rocket launch on May 18 in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine.

Not every weapon system can come off a warehouse shelf and quickly be put to use on the battlefield. That is certainly the case with the F-16. We have both flown in combat. It took hundreds of flight hours to learn to fly the aircraft and more to master the range of different missions we’d be asked to carry out, whether that was dropping bombs on a target or conducting combat search and rescue. That’s why we encouraged the Pentagon in March to analyze what it would take to train Ukrainian pilots and maintainers on modern F-16 fighter jets to replace their aging fighters such as MIG-29s and understand their specific uses in the context of this war. Last week the United States reiterated its commitment to supporting its allies to train Ukrainian pilots to fly the American-made F-16 — a great step toward strengthening Ukraine’s capabilities in the long term.

A public bus with a mural on it urging the arming of Ukraine, on the first day of the 2023 NATO summit, July 11, in Vilnius, Lithuania.

In all of these cases, the United States had to assess not just whether certain weapons would be effective but also how urgent each priority was relative to others, how quickly Ukrainians could be trained to use the weapons and whether the equipment could be sustained over the course of the war. The more complex a system is, the more difficult to keep it working.

The same assessment went into the administration’s decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, or rounds that disperse smaller explosives. While some oppose this decision because of the risks to civilians associated with using cluster munitions, Mr. Zelensky and his military leadership asked for these weapons because they see them as critical to their nation’s survival. Russia has used cluster munitions — with dud rates as high as 40 percent — since the early days of the war, very likely firing tens of millions of small bombs on Ukrainian soil, including in civilian areas. Unlike Russia, Ukraine has promised to deploy the weapons (U.S.-made cluster munitions have significantly lower dud rates) only in self-defense and away from civilians and to document where to facilitate cleanup after the fighting ends.

The cluster weapons that Mr. Zelensky has requested are effective against spread-out targets, like groups of dug-in infantry, artillery batteries and vehicle convoys. Those weapons will help Ukraine carry out a successful counteroffensive and help ensure its military has sufficient munitions to defend itself. Failing to do so, after all, is what would pose the gravest risk to the people who call Ukraine home.

These are the difficult calls that must continue to be made every day until Ukraine prevails. Some will criticize our decisions as too slow; others will say they go too far. What matters is that the United States continue to lead in backing Kyiv — because even as the war grinds on into its second year, the stakes haven’t lowered an inch. The Ukrainians are now several weeks into their counteroffensive, hoping that with the correct tactics, determination and Western hardware, they can retake their country. Vladimir Putin is conscripting his citizens, seemingly banking on the belief that he can outlast the West and conquer Ukraine, then move on to his next objective.

It is vital that he fail. A world with a Ukrainian victory is a safer one. It’s a world in which we can further strengthen the NATO alliance and establish a bulwark against tyrants like Mr. Putin.

The two of us know what it means to sacrifice for our country, but even we have never experienced what it is to fight on your own soil, with your own families and neighborhoods in harm’s way, to defend the ability of your children and their children to inherit a free homeland. Now as much as ever, we must remain steadfast in our belief in the Ukrainian people and undeterred in our work to get them the support they need.

Mark Kelly is a U.S. senator from Arizona and retired U.S. Navy captain who served in Operation Desert Storm. Tammy Duckworth is a U.S. senator from Illinois and retired U.S. Army National Guard lieutenant colonel who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

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

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

The New York Times · by Tammy Duckworth · July 24, 2023

12. Army asks 20 high-ranking officers to stay in roles amid hold on military promotions

Army asks 20 high-ranking officers to stay in roles amid hold on military promotions

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has for months held back promotions for over 250 high-ranking military officers in protest of a Defense Department abortion policy.

NBC News · by Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee

The U.S. Army asked nearly 20 high-ranking officers who were planning to retire or move to another job to delay their career moves and stay in their current roles through December, according to two defense officials, a consequence of hundreds of military promotions being blocked by a Republican senator over a Pentagon abortion policy.

Of those officers, 13 agreed to stay on, some for nearly a year longer than expected, the officials said.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has for months held back promotions for over 250 high-ranking military officers over a Defense Department policy that pays for the travel expenses of service members who seek abortions in states where they are legal.

Tuberville says he wants a vote on a bill introduced by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., that would codify the Pentagon abortion policy into law, and that he will end his blockade if it passes. In return, Tuberville says that he wants the Defense Department to agree to cancel the policy if the measure fails.

One individual who agreed to extend until December is Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, the commander of the Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Alabama, the officials said. He has been in the role since December 2019 and was planning to retire this year.

Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, the Army’s director of the Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, based in the Pentagon, was selected to replace him.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved and signed the extensions.

Those generals planning to retire had to delay job offers and stop their VA benefits and retirement process.

Speaking at the Aspen National Security Forum on Thursday, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said the blockade is not only affecting the general officers and their families, but is trickling down to other troops. She said the frustration and uncertainty could prompt some to walk away from the military.

“Basically what’s happening is our whole system is getting kind of constipated,” Wormuth said. “I really worry that we’re going to have a brain and talent drain as a result of this really unprecedented step that Sen. Tuberville has chosen."

Wormuth said she does not believe the Pentagon or Austin will move to change the abortion policy.

“I see this, and I think the secretary does as well, as taking care of our soldiers, and it’s the right thing to do, and I don’t think we’re going to change it.”

Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision removed the constitutional right to abortion last year, more than 40% of female service members stationed in the United States have no access, or severely restricted access, to abortion services, according to the Rand Corp. think tank.

NBC News · by Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee

13. Cambodian leader's son, a West Point grad, set to take reins of power — but will he bring change?

But from some reports I have seen China is rooted very deep in Cambodia by flooding it with Chinese expats who very quickly receive citizenship and then influence the political process.

Cambodian leader's son, a West Point grad, set to take reins of power — but will he bring change?

AP · July 22, 2023

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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Hun Sen has been Cambodia’s autocratic prime minister for nearly four decades, during which the opposition has been stifled and the country has grown increasingly close to China.

With his Cambodian People’s Party virtually guaranteed another landslide victory in Sunday’s election, it’s hard to imagine dramatic change on the horizon. But the 70-year-old former communist Khmer Rouge fighter and Asia’s longest-serving leader says he is ready to hand the premiership to his oldest son, Hun Manet, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who heads the country’s army.

Tens of thousands of supporters packed a central square in the capital before daybreak on Friday to hear the 45-year-old’s 7 a.m. kick-off to the CPP’s final day of campaigning before the vote.

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US announces punitive measures over concerns Cambodia’s elections were ‘neither free nor fair’

Cambodia’s longtime ruling party is lauding its landslide victory in weekend elections as a clear mandate for the next five years, but the United States says its stifling of the opposition meant the vote could not be considered free or fair and that Washington was taking punitive measures.

Hun Sen’s ruling party claims landslide win in Cambodian election after opposition was suppressed

The ruling party of Cambodia’s longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen has claimed a landslide election victory that was virtually assured after the suppression and intimidation of the opposition.

Cambodian leader’s son, a West Point grad, set to take reins of power — but will he bring change?

Hun Sen has been Cambodia’s autocratic prime minister for nearly four decades, during which the opposition has been stifled and the country has moved closer to China.

Cambodia’s leader returns to Facebook weeks after an acrimonious breakup with the platform

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Facebook account has been reactivated, three weeks after he announced he was forsaking the social media giant in favor of posting on the Telegram messaging app.

With a warm smile and soft tone, a stark contrast to his father’s stern look and military-like cadence, Hun Manet said the CPP had brought peace, stability and progress to the Cambodian people.

“Voting for the Cambodian People’s Party is voting for yourselves,” he told the cheering crowd, promising to return Cambodia’s national pride to a “greater level than the glorious Angkor era” of the Khmer Empire, centuries ago.

After he cast his ballot Sunday, Hun Manet told reporters that he just came to vote “as an ordinary citizen,” then left without other comment.

With the only credible challenge to the CPP barred from participating in the elections on a technicality, Cambodians are being offered little choice but to vote for the ruling party again. The arrests over the past week of several leading opposition figures have served to help stifle visible support for anyone but the CPP on the streets of Phnom Penh.

“Authorities in Cambodia have spent the past five years picking apart what’s left of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association,” Amnesty International’s Montse Ferrer said Friday. “Many people feel that they are being forced to participate in this election despite their party of choice not being on the ballot.”

There was, however, a palpable sense of excitement at his pre-election rally as Hun Manet walked through the crowd of some 60,000 shaking hands and taking selfies, before taking a position next to his wife in the back of a pickup truck for a long parade through the city.

Sixteen-year-old Sin Dina, one of many young people who turned out, jumped up and down and waved the Cambodian flag as Hun Manet drove slowly by, said it was the first time she had the opportunity to see him in person.

“He looks like a gentleman, down to earth, approachable, and he’s well-educated” she said, adding she only regretted she was too young to vote. “He’s an appropriate successor to his father.”

Many in the crowd spoke of Hun Manet’s education — his bachelor’s at West Point being followed by a master’s at New York University and a doctorate in economics from Britain’s Bristol University.

His background has given rise to hope from some in the West that he might bring political change, but it will still take work to regain influence in the Southeast Asian country of 16.5 million, given China’s strategic and economic importance, said John Bradford, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

“A Cambodia led by Hun Manet might very well be a stronger U.S. ally, but the U.S.-Cambodia relationship can only thrive if it is built on strong fundamentals of common benefit and mutual respect,” Bradford said. “U.S. diplomats should focus on these things.”

At the top of Washington’s concerns is China’s involvement in construction at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, which could give Beijing a strategically important military outpost on the Gulf of Thailand.

Ground was broken last year on the Ream project, and satellite imagery of the ongoing construction from Planet Labs PBC taken about a month ago and analyzed by The Associated Press shows a jetty now large enough to accommodate a naval destroyer, if the water is deep enough.

Regionally, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which Cambodia chaired last year, has criticized Phnom Penh for undermining its unity in disputes with China over South China Sea territorial claims.

It is not clear when — or even if — Hun Sen will hand off to his son during the next five-year government term, though most seem to think it will happen early enough for Hun Manet to establish himself in the job before the next election.

Both men refused requests to be interviewed by The Associated Press.

Even when Hun Manet does take over, Bradford said it might not mean any change at all, noting that educational and personal background do not necessarily translate into leadership style or political stance.

“We have a dictator in North Korea who went to school in Switzerland,” he said. “His choices don’t exactly reflect Swiss values.”

Hun Manet has given few clues himself, posting frequently on Facebook and Telegram like his father but revealing little of his political leanings.

And few think Hun Sen will fade into the woodwork, instead choosing now as a good time to turn over power so that he can still maintain a large degree of control from the sidelines, said Gordon Conochie, a research fellow at Australia’s La Trobe University and author of “A Tiger Rules the Mountain: Cambodia’s Pursuit of Democracy,” which was published this month.

“It means that while his son is establishing his own authority as prime minister, he’s still got a relatively young, healthy — physically and mentally — father behind him,” Conochie said.

“The reality is that as long as Hun Sen is there, nobody’s going to move against them. And Hun Sen will be the man in charge, even if his son is the prime minister.”

Hun Sen joined the Khmer Rouge at age 18 as it fought to seize power, losing his left eye in the final battle for Phnom Penh in 1975.

When a series of purges within the genocidal communist regime, blamed for the deaths of some 1.7 million Cambodians, put his own life at risk, he fled to neighboring Vietnam, returning to help oust his former comrades in 1979 alongside an invading Vietnamese army.

By his late 20s he was installed as foreign minister by occupying Vietnamese forces, and in 1985 became prime minister, the world’s youngest at the time.

Over the decades he tightened his grip on power while ushering in a free-market economy and helping bring an end to three decades of civil war.

Ly Chanthy, who braved a steady downpour to watch Hun Manet’s parade through the city on Friday, said she remembered the Khmer Rouge days and would be forever grateful to Hun Sen, and was happy to back his son.

“I will vote for the Cambodian People’s Party until I die,” said the 58-year-old, a Cambodian flag on a makeshift pole over her shoulder.

“I will never forget that he rescued our lives from the Pol Pot regime.”

Under Hun Sen, Cambodia has seen an average annual economic growth of 7.7% between 1998 and 2019, It was elevated from a low-income country to lower middle-income status in 2015, and expects to attain middle-income status by 2030, according to the World Bank.

But at the same time the gap between the rich and poor has greatly widened, deforestation has spread at an alarming rate, and there has been widespread land grabbing by Hun Sen’s Cambodian allies and foreign investors.

As discontent strengthened opposition, the country’s compliant courts dissolved the main opposition party ahead of 2018 elections, and over the past five years the government has strongarmed any dissent while effectively pushing a message of peace and prosperity.

An element of “diehard opposition” remains, but even though a “silent majority” may want more options, most are comfortable enough in their jobs and lives that they’re not motivated to demand change, said Ou Virak, president of Phnom Penh’s Future Forum think tank.

With Hun Manet due to take over as prime minister, and an expected wholesale replacement of top ministers, the election will bring a “generational change” to Cambodia’s leadership, which could begin a “honeymoon period” for international diplomacy, he said.

But people will be disappointed if they expect a sharp pivot away from China, he added.

“China is still Cambodia’s main backer, Cambodia’s main superpower partner,” he said. “So I think any shift to the West will be limited, because you can’t alienate your main supporter.”

___

Associated Press journalists Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

AP · July 22, 2023

14. Google, Meta, other tech companies agree on Biden’s AI safeguards

Google, Meta, other tech companies agree on Biden’s AI safeguards

c4isrnet.com · by The Associated Press · July 21, 2023

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and other companies that are leading the development of artificial intelligence technology agreed to meet a set of AI safeguards brokered by President Joe Biden’s administration.

The White House said Friday that it has secured voluntary commitments from seven U.S. companies meant to ensure their AI products are safe before they release them. Some of the commitments call for third-party oversight of the workings of commercial AI systems, though they don’t detail who will audit the technology or hold the companies accountable.

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Opinion

ChatGPT is creating new risks for national security

AI-generated content can exhibit a phenomenon known as “truthiness.”

By Christopher Mouton

A surge of commercial investment in generative AI tools that can write convincingly human-like text and churn out new images and other media has brought public fascination as well as concern about their ability to trick people and spread disinformation, among other dangers.

The four tech giants, along with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and startups Anthropic and Inflection, have committed to security testing “carried out in part by independent experts” to guard against major risks, such as to biosecurity and cybersecurity, the White House said in a statement.

The companies have also committed to methods for reporting vulnerabilities to their systems and to using digital watermarking to help distinguish between real and AI-generated images known as deepfakes.

They will also publicly report flaws and risks in their technology, including effects on fairness and bias, the White House said.

The voluntary commitments are meant to be an immediate way of addressing risks ahead of a longer-term push to get Congress to pass laws regulating the technology.

Some advocates for AI regulations said Biden’s move is a start but more needs to be done to hold the companies and their products accountable.

“History would indicate that many tech companies do not actually walk the walk on a voluntary pledge to act responsibly and support strong regulations,” said a statement from James Steyer, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Common Sense Media.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he will introduce legislation to regulate AI. He has held a number of briefings with government officials to educate senators about an issue that’s attracted bipartisan interest.

A number of technology executives have called for regulation, and several went to the White House in May to speak with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other officials.

But some experts and upstart competitors worry that the type of regulation being floated could be a boon for deep-pocketed first-movers led by OpenAI, Google and Microsoft as smaller players are elbowed out by the high cost of making their AI systems known as large language models adhere to regulatory strictures.

The software trade group BSA, which includes Microsoft as a member, said Friday that it welcomed the Biden administration’s efforts to set rules for high-risk AI systems.

“Enterprise software companies look forward to working with the administration and Congress to enact legislation that addresses the risks associated with artificial intelligence and promote its benefits,” the group said in a statement.

A number of countries have been looking at ways to regulate AI, including European Union lawmakers who have been negotiating sweeping AI rules for the 27-nation bloc.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently said the United Nations is “the ideal place” to adopt global standards and appointed a board that will report back on options for global AI governance by the end of the year.

The United Nations chief also said he welcomed calls from some countries for the creation of a new U.N. body to support global efforts to govern AI, inspired by such models as the International Atomic Energy Agency or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The White House said Friday that it has already consulted on the voluntary commitments with a number of countries.

15. FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Secures Voluntary Commitments from Leading Artificial Intelligence Companies to Manage the Risks Posed by AI

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Secures Voluntary Commitments from Leading Artificial Intelligence Companies to Manage the Risks Posed by AI | The White House

whitehouse.gov · by The White House · July 21, 2023

Voluntary commitments – underscoring safety, security, and trust – mark a critical step toward developing responsible AI

Biden-Harris Administration will continue to take decisive action by developing an Executive Order and pursuing bipartisan legislation to keep Americans safe

Since taking office, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and the entire Biden-Harris Administration have moved with urgency to seize the tremendous promise and manage the risks posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and to protect Americans’ rights and safety. As part of this commitment, President Biden is convening seven leading AI companies at the White House today – Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI – to announce that the Biden-Harris Administration has secured voluntary commitments from these companies to help move toward safe, secure, and transparent development of AI technology.

Companies that are developing these emerging technologies have a responsibility to ensure their products are safe. To make the most of AI’s potential, the Biden-Harris Administration is encouraging this industry to uphold the highest standards to ensure that innovation doesn’t come at the expense of Americans’ rights and safety.

These commitments, which the companies have chosen to undertake immediately, underscore three principles that must be fundamental to the future of AI – safety, security, and trust – and mark a critical step toward developing responsible AI. As the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to remind these companies of their responsibilities and take decisive action to keep Americans safe.

There is much more work underway. The Biden-Harris Administration is currently developing an executive order and will pursue bipartisan legislation to help America lead the way in responsible innovation.

Today, these seven leading AI companies are committing to:

Ensuring Products are Safe Before Introducing Them to the Public

• The companies commit to internal and external security testing of their AI systems before their release. This testing, which will be carried out in part by independent experts, guards against some of the most significant sources of AI risks, such as biosecurity and cybersecurity, as well as its broader societal effects.
• The companies commit to sharing information across the industry and with governments, civil society, and academia on managing AI risks. This includes best practices for safety, information on attempts to circumvent safeguards, and technical collaboration.

Building Systems that Put Security First

• The companies commit to investing in cybersecurity and insider threat safeguards to protect proprietary and unreleased model weights. These model weights are the most essential part of an AI system, and the companies agree that it is vital that the model weights be released only when intended and when security risks are considered.
• The companies commit to facilitating third-party discovery and reporting of vulnerabilities in their AI systems. Some issues may persist even after an AI system is released and a robust reporting mechanism enables them to be found and fixed quickly.

Earning the Public’s Trust

• The companies commit to developing robust technical mechanisms to ensure that users know when content is AI generated, such as a watermarking system. This action enables creativity with AI to flourish but reduces the dangers of fraud and deception.
• The companies commit to publicly reporting their AI systems’ capabilities, limitations, and areas of appropriate and inappropriate use. This report will cover both security risks and societal risks, such as the effects on fairness and bias.
• The companies commit to prioritizing research on the societal risks that AI systems can pose, including on avoiding harmful bias and discrimination, and protecting privacy. The track record of AI shows the insidiousness and prevalence of these dangers, and the companies commit to rolling out AI that mitigates them.
• The companies commit to develop and deploy advanced AI systems to help address society’s greatest challenges. From cancer prevention to mitigating climate change to so much in between, AI—if properly managed—can contribute enormously to the prosperity, equality, and security of all.

As we advance this agenda at home, the Administration will work with allies and partners to establish a strong international framework to govern the development and use of AI. It has already consulted on the voluntary commitments with Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, the UAE, and the UK. The United States seeks to ensure that these commitments support and complement Japan’s leadership of the G-7 Hiroshima Process—as a critical forum for developing shared principles for the governance of AI—as well as the United Kingdom’s leadership in hosting a Summit on AI Safety, and India’s leadership as Chair of the Global Partnership on AI.

Today’s announcement is part of a broader commitment by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure AI is developed safely and responsibly, and to protect Americans from harm and discrimination.

• Earlier this month, Vice President Harris convened consumer protection, labor, and civil rights leaders to discuss risks related to AI and reaffirm the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protecting the American public from harm and discrimination.
• Last month, President Biden met with top experts and researchers in San Francisco as part of his commitment to seizing the opportunities and managing the risks posed by AI, building on the President’s ongoing engagement with leading AI experts.
• In May, the President and Vice President convened the CEOs of four American companies at the forefront of AI innovation—Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI—to underscore their responsibility and emphasize the importance of driving responsible, trustworthy, and ethical innovation with safeguards that mitigate risks and potential harms to individuals and our society. At the companies’ request, the White House hosted a subsequent meeting focused on cybersecurity threats and best practices.
• The Biden-Harris Administration published a landmark Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights to safeguard Americans’ rights and safety, and U.S. government agencies have ramped up their efforts to protect Americans from the risks posed by AI, including through preventing algorithmic bias in home valuation and leveraging existing enforcement authorities to protect people from unlawful bias, discrimination, and other harmful outcomes.
• President Biden signed an Executive Order that directs federal agencies to root out bias in the design and use of new technologies, including AI, and to protect the public from algorithmic discrimination.
• Earlier this year, the National Science Foundation announced a $140 million investment to establish seven new National AI Research Institutes, bringing the total to 25 institutions across the country.
• The Biden-Harris Administration has also released a National AI R&D Strategic Plan to advance responsible AI.
• The Office of Management and Budget will soon release draft policy guidance for federal agencies to ensure the development, procurement, and use of AI systems is centered around safeguarding the American people’s rights and safety.

###

whitehouse.gov · by The White House · July 21, 2023

16.  (Re)assessing the near-term Chinese carrier threat in a Taiwan scenario - Breaking Defense

Excerpts:

Various observers, including this author, have suggested this heterodox concept of operations for carrier forces in general as the operating environment becomes increasingly non-permissive with the maturation of the reconnaissance-strike complex. And while takeaways from the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war are not totally applicable to a Taiwan scenario, they nevertheless offer glimpses of how a high-intensity contest over the island might pan out. One of the key lessons from the Ukraine war is that even limited (not to mention robust ones) enemy air defenses may reduce the role manned aviation plays and increase the accent on standoff weapons, at least during the opening stages of a conflict.

This is likely to happen too during a Taiwan scenario. In such circumstances, a PLAN “missile strike group,” rather than the traditional CSG, poses a greater threat to the island. With the relevance of even the American supercarrier being questioned in the face of A2/AD challenge, when it fully comes onboard, the more capable Fujian will face similar problems, albeit to a lesser degree, compared to its small-deck predecessors should it operate on the eastern front of a cross-Strait war.

The answers to these issues will involve substantial blood and treasure, so hopefully we will never get to find out.

(Re)assessing the near-term Chinese carrier threat in a Taiwan scenario - Breaking Defense

In this new op-ed, Ben Ho of IISS looks deeply at the question of how China may use its aircraft carriers in a Taiwan invasion.

breakingdefense.com · by Ben Ho Wan Beng · July 21, 2023

Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning arrives in Hong Kong waters on July 7, 2017, less than a week after a high-profile visit by President Xi Jinping. (Photo credit should read ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images)

With the fast approach of the Davidson Window, which sets the date for a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan as soon as 2027, much attention has been focused on Beijing’s aircraft carriers and how they could come into play. In the following analysis, Ben Ho of IISS looks at two prevailing theories about how effective the carriers may be in an invasion, before raising a new way of looking at the issue.

In the past decade, there has been much talk over China’s staggering pace of defense modernization. Of note would be Beijing’s aircraft-carrier program, and this aspect of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has spawned a bustling cottage industry. There have been additions to this conversation in recent months. For instance, in a May Reuters article, various experts maintained that the Chinese carrier force is still embryonic and poses “little threat yet” despite 10 years of development and counting. The story came on the back of the early-spring deployment of the PLAN’s second flattop, the Shandong, into the western Pacific and approaching Guam.

The Reuters piece added that there are questions over the value of Chinese carriers during a Taiwan contingency, at least in the short term (read within the next few years or within the timeframe of the “Davidson window.”), and such doubts are largely due to the limited capabilities of the Liaoning (China’s first flattop) and Shandong. (While China’s third carrier, the Fujian, is much more capable owing to its catapult-assisted takeoff and barrier-arrested recovery, or CATOBAR, flight-deck configuration, the ship will probably be operational only in the late 2020s given the “first-in-class” issues that will invariably surface). In response to the Reuters article, military analyst Rick Fisher warned of underestimating the Chinese carrier threat because of the protective cover of Beijing’s shore-based anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) edifice. The arguments both sides put forth have merit, but need more nuance. What is more, that PLAN carrier airpower could adequately menace Taiwan’s east coast — an argument which seems to be gaining traction — needs to be addressed.

One issue with the Reuters story is that it seems to compare Chinese flattops with American ones on an individual basis, as Fisher rightly noted. In such a setting, the United States CATOBAR supercarrier, with some 70 aircraft onboard, simply outmatches its Chinese counterpart. On paper, the Liaoning and Shandong have relatively meager air wings (about 20-30 strong). In addition, the PLAN’s mainstay carrier-borne fighter, the J-15, has relatively inferior capabilities as it can only operate in the short takeoff and barrier-assisted recovery flight-deck configuration from the Liaoning/Shandong, thereby limiting the aircraft’s performance in areas such as range and payload.

In the real world, however, weapon platforms do not operate in isolation, and this is another area where Fisher was on point. Ditto the analyst quoted in a Global Times (interestingly, as it is seen as an unofficial Chinese mouthpiece) response to the Reuters article, who argued that “the Shandong does not fight alone, but in a comprehensive combat system.” Indeed, during a Taiwan war, Chinese carriers will arguably operate under the protective umbrella of the PLA’s much vaulted “fortress fleet.”

Simply put, this concept would see Beijing employing land-based weaponry, especially long-range missiles, to hold enemy navies at risk, concomitantly protecting PLAN forces. The Reuters piece gave short shrift to this aspect of Chinese strategy, with just a brief mention of Beijing’s flattops “working in tandem with submarines and anti-ship missiles to attempt to control… (the) near seas.” Observers cited in the Reuters story also mentioned that the Chinese carrier fleet has “relied on land-based airfields… for extra air cover and surveillance,” but this is to be expected in a fortress-fleet concept of operations.

On the other hand, Fisher goes too far when arguing that Chinese carriers “will operate within a dome of PLA anti-ship missile superiority” and that they “will be hiding behind a literal phalanx of missiles.” To speak in such absolute terms is probably overstating the case. To be sure, in principle, the fortress fleet should give the PLAN carrier strike group (CSG) a meaningful degree of cover during a Taiwan contingency. In reality, however, Beijing’s idea of “using the land to control the sea” has never been tested in the crucible of war.

Ultimately, the confidence of Chinese planners in the deterrent value and combat viability of their fortress fleet will ultimately influence what mission, if any, PLAN carriers will have against Taiwan.

Chinese Carrier Deployment East of Taiwan?

This brings us to the assumption that these vessels have a role to play, especially in an “eastern front,” should cross-Strait hostilities break out within the next few years. Any such role is likely to be secondary given that the island is within range of even short-ranged aviation from the mainland, and the latter could generate more sorties than one or two small-deck carriers, as the Liaoning and Shandong really are. Afforded cover by the fortress fleet, in theory the Chinese CSG could threaten Taiwan from the Philippine Sea and use its mobility to exert a strategic effect ashore by making Taipei divert forces to protect the east coast. (Operationally, the amount of power the two Chinese flattops could project is rather limited, but strategically, even a feint could tie up substantial enemy forces and complicate Taipei’s defense planning.)

Recent contributions to the Chinese carrier discourse show that there are members in this “Beijing’s flattops are useful against eastern Taiwan” camp. In an April Focus Taiwan report, local experts cited warned of the “serious threat” the Chinese carrier airpower would pose to the island’s east side. A day later, Reuters ran a story on the same issue where it noted that the situation could be perilous should there be an “unfettered, more coordinated attack from the east.” Tellingly (and rightly so), the Reuters story added a caveat: “Beijing could not operate carriers with impunity in that area during a conflict, analysts said, especially if nations friendly to Taiwan were involved, but added that Taiwan would struggle to deal with such a threat on its own.”

Looking at the map, Beijing would probably think twice of using its crown jewels as the centerpiece of any naval operation against eastern Taiwan, should there be external intervention. After all, any Chinese carrier fleet sailing relatively close to that part of the island could find itself boxed in from four directions between unfriendly forces, notwithstanding any cover provided by Beijing’s fortress fleet. Besides dealing with any forces Taiwan sends to reinforce its east coast, to the north and northeast, Japan’s Ryukyus have substantial military assets operating from them and these islands are being fortified apace. To the south, the Bashi Channel chokepoint and the northern Philippines loom with Manila leaning towards the Americans. There is of course the possibility of the US Seventh Fleet steaming in from the eastern Pacific.

Large warships in general, not just aircraft carriers, enjoy greater freedom of maneuver in the open sea to reduce their vulnerability, and this means any Chinese carrier sent to threaten eastern Taiwan would do well to stay further away from the coast. A Catch-22 situation then arises. Deploy nearer Taiwan and the PLAN CSG finds itself more vulnerable to detection and attack. On the other hand, deploy further east into the Philippine Sea to reduce the chances of being boxed in, and Chinese carrier jets could find themselves near or at their operational limits.

It would not be surprising if the concerns outlined above were probably also in Lee Hsi-ming’s mind when the retired Taiwanese admiral and former vice defense minister spoke last month of PLAN flattops not being useful in a cross-Strait war as they “would not be able to withstand attacks by the US military.”

Role Reversal for the Carrier?

The dilemma for the Chinese carrier discussed above could, however, be alleviated should the notional PLAN CSG center its operations around its surface combatants rather than the carrier. In other words, the task force’s cruiser and destroyer force should paradoxically dish out the “Sunday Punch” rather than the flattop they are screening. In a reversal of roles, the carrier will protect its supposed consorts.

Earlier this year, retired US Navy commander Michael Dahm contended —and rightly so given the relative infancy of Chinese carrier aviation— that “the centerpiece of PLAN strategy, especially over the next decade, will likely continue to be the strike capabilities of its surface combatants and submarines.” He added that the carrier’s “fighters provide an air-defense umbrella, leaving power projection and striking capabilities —at least for the near term— to Chinese ships and missile-capable submarines.” The PLAN’s greyhounds for its carrier fleet, the Type 55 cruiser and Type 52D destroyer, are compatible with the CJ-10 land-attack cruise missile. This weapon’s thousand-mile range far exceeds the several hundred miles striking reach of carrier-borne aircraft, providing the Chinese force with more operational vistas should the missile be deployed.

Various observers, including this author, have suggested this heterodox concept of operations for carrier forces in general as the operating environment becomes increasingly non-permissive with the maturation of the reconnaissance-strike complex. And while takeaways from the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war are not totally applicable to a Taiwan scenario, they nevertheless offer glimpses of how a high-intensity contest over the island might pan out. One of the key lessons from the Ukraine war is that even limited (not to mention robust ones) enemy air defenses may reduce the role manned aviation plays and increase the accent on standoff weapons, at least during the opening stages of a conflict.

This is likely to happen too during a Taiwan scenario. In such circumstances, a PLAN “missile strike group,” rather than the traditional CSG, poses a greater threat to the island. With the relevance of even the American supercarrier being questioned in the face of A2/AD challenge, when it fully comes onboard, the more capable Fujian will face similar problems, albeit to a lesser degree, compared to its small-deck predecessors should it operate on the eastern front of a cross-Strait war.

The answers to these issues will involve substantial blood and treasure, so hopefully we will never get to find out.

Ben Ho is an associate editor at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, where he heads editorial projects of the Cyber Power and Future Conflict Programme. He also has research interests in airpower and seapower issues, especially of the Indo-Pacific.

breakingdefense.com · by Ben Ho Wan Beng · July 21, 2023

17. Redeveloping Regimental Combat Teams (RCTs) for Large-Scale and Mega-City Combat Operations

Introduction below. Read the entire paper at this link: https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/redeveloping-regimental-combat-teams-rcts-large-scale-and-mega-city-combat-operations

Abstract: This article argues that the US Army’s pursuit of Divisions as Units of Action is a mistake. It instead proposes shifting the Army force structure to Regimental Combat Teams (RCTs) as Units of Action, and Battalions as Units of Replacement, enabling more efficient logistics and sustainment across the force. It also highlights how these new unit formations align with joint expeditionary warfare that will frequently take place in urban areas and incur high casualties and resource consumption.

Sun, 07/23/2023 - 7:49pm

Redeveloping Regimental Combat Teams (RCTs) for Large-Scale and Mega-City Combat Operations

By Justin Baumann

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/redeveloping-regimental-combat-teams-rcts-large-scale-and-mega-city-combat-operations

Introduction

“As USARPAC [United States Army Pacific] reminds us frequently, is that wars may start at sea, but they finish on the land” [1] – Brigadier General Pat Ellis

In his commencement address to West Point graduates in 2022, describing the battlefield of tomorrow, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mark Milley stated, “Additionally, the battlefield will be highly complex and almost certainly decisive in urban areas, against elusive ambiguous enemies that combine terrorism and warfare alongside conventional capabilities, all embedded within large civilian populations. In this world, your world, you’re going to have to optimize yourselves for urban combat, not rural combat. That has huge implications for intelligence collection, vehicles, weapons design, development, logistics, commo, and all the other aspects of our profession. The battlefield is going to be non-linear, compartmented, and units are going to have non-contiguous battle space, with significant geographical separation between friendly forces … This type of battlefield is going to place a very high premium on independent, relatively small formations that are highly lethal and linked to very long-range precision fires.” [2] 

The main thesis of this article is that the US Army’s force development doctrine for large-scale combat operations reached its culmination near the end of the Korean War and that the lessons learned from that conflict can significantly benefit Army force design into the future. [3] The leaders and Army at that time, especially General Ridgway, were personally familiar with large-scale combat operations across the European and Pacific theatres of WWII, [4] and they incorporated the difficult lessons learned into their force designs when fighting in Korea to great effect, reversing early defeats and turning the Army into a more efficient fighting force before the armistice was signed in 1953. [5] [6]

After Korea, Army doctrine distracted itself by experimenting with the Pentomic Division based on strategic nuclear developments, pivoting to the Vietnam War, adjusting to the Cold War, and finally, designing AirLand Battle with the Big Five as a framework, ending with the Counter Insurgency (COIN) failures in the Middle East. [7] This article seeks to incorporate the knowledge and lessons about large-scale combat operations from these previous doctrine periods into the RCT force design concept presented here, in contrast to the division-centric approach currently favored by the Army, [8] with the intention of creating a more effective and lethal multi-domain land Army spearheading the joint force prepared for positional, maneuver, proxy, and attritional warfare. [9]

18. What Allies Want: Delivering the U.S. National Defense Strategy’s Ambition on Allies and Partners

Excerpts:

However, U.S. rhetoric on allies and partners is ahead of practice. Previous attempts to introduce “Guidance for Development of Alliances and Partnerships” was too focused on foreign military sales, while failures in the Department of Defense’s Global Force Management System drive a “whiplash effect” that ends up “peanut-butter spreading” U.S. forces across the globe with scant regard for the contributions of allies and partners. The current administration also missed opportunities to improve the situation. The 2021 Global Posture Review failed to consult with and reassure allies about global U.S. force presence, while the recent update to the chairman’s “Joint Planning and Execution Overview and Policy Framework” fails to mention allies and partners even once.

The Biden administration and Defense Department leaders should meet their own “call to action.” A Center for New American Security report calls for a new review of strategic alignment with allies and partners, focusing on threat perception and prioritization. This exercise could generate the meaningful dialogue that the Global Posture Review failed to deliver and signal that the administration is serious about the “center of gravity” of its National Defense Strategy. Based on the review’s findings, U.S. leaders should specify what they need from allies and partners to implement integrated deterrence in the European and Indo-Pacific theaters, including global posture, presence, modernization, a multilateral exercise schedule, and division of labor. For example, European allies need to understand the trajectory of U.S. force posture in Europe so they can design their forces to fill any gaps and do what they can further afield to support a free and open Indo-Pacific.

America’s network of friends is unrivaled — and a critical source of advantage in the strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party and other lonely autocrats. Yet without bold action to reform information sharing, export and technology controls, and joint strategic planning, the “Allies and Partners” strand of the National Defense Strategy will remain a bumper-sticker slogan. Time is of the essence. While allies and partners are a priority for Biden, this may not be the case for the next administration. The U.S.-led campaign to support Ukraine hints at what good looks like with intelligence sharing, joint planning, training, co-production, and coordination with allies central to these efforts — and the benefits of getting it right. The challenge is doing it before war breaks out, to deter it in the first place.

What Allies Want: Delivering the U.S. National Defense Strategy’s Ambition on Allies and Partners - War on the Rocks

SEAN MONAGHAN AND DEBORAH CHEVERTON

warontherocks.com · by Sean Monaghan · July 24, 2023

In contrast to first president George Washington’s advice to “steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world,” a core principle of U.S. grand strategy since 1945 has been to grow and nurture its unrivaled network of allies and partners. This approach took a brief hiatus during the Trump administration, when it was replaced by a more questioning and bellicose tone under its “America first” policy. The Biden administration was quick to return to a more traditional approach, declaring in interim National Security Strategic Guidance: “Alliances are back.” Or as Colin Kahl, outgoing undersecretary of defense for policy, puts it: “Even Michael Jordan Needed 4 Other Bulls.”

The 2022 National Defense Strategy elevates the role and importance of America’s friends to a “center of gravity” — a loaded term in military planning jargon. The document commits to “anchoring our strategy in allies and partners.” The “centerpiece” of the strategy, integrated deterrence, “entails working seamlessly across … our network of Alliances and partnerships.” The reason for this approach is simple: strategic competition demands no less. In Europe allies and partners have proved their worth supporting Ukraine while the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy is based on leveraging a wide network of regional friends, from the trilateral AUKUS partnership to Japan, South Korea, and growing ties with India and Pacific partners.

Yet just as the United States wants its friends to rally behind efforts to compete with China and beat Russia in Ukraine, the allies and partners themselves also have demands of Washington. They want transformational change to Department of Defense policies and processes that hamper their efforts to support U.S. strategy. The three areas most ripe for reform are information sharing, export and technology controls, and joint strategic planning.

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A case in point is the trilateral AUKUS initiative. AUKUS is a flagship policy for the Biden administration, which the president lauds on page one of his National Security Strategy. Yet the key risk to AUKUS — both the “pillar one” submarine agreement and “pillar two” advanced capabilities — is existing U.S. export controls and information-sharing practices. Each hampers innovation and undermines trust, just at the moment when both are needed in spades to compete with China. Meanwhile, failures to involve allies in U.S. strategic planning threaten to leave integrated deterrence — the “centerpiece” of the National Defense Strategy — “dead on arrival.”

Without bold action by military leaders, the administration, and Congress, the “allies and partners” strand of the National Defense Strategy will remain a bumper-sticker slogan rather than a real source of advantage in the strategic competition with U.S. adversaries, potentially hamper key U.S. initiatives in the Indo-Pacific, and undermine partnership with NATO allies.

Information Sharing: From NOFORN to YESFORN

The first item on the wish list of U.S. allies and partners is reform to information and intelligence sharing. As Daniel Byman of Lawfare puts it: “Access to U.S. intelligence is high on the list of what allies want and need. Department of Defense procedures allow for intelligence sharing, but … the procedures are complex, confusing, and often overly restrictive.” Part of the reason is overclassification within the U.S. system, a habit described by Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as “unbelievably ridiculous.”

Information sharing with allies is a perennial issue. In 2007 a report on intelligence reform, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence included a “100 Day Plan” to “dismantle barriers to information sharing” with “key foreign partners.” While those 100 days have long since passed, key allies remain frustrated at the lack of progress. The United Kingdom is a case in point. The U.K.-U.S. intelligence relationship is the closest in the world, described as the “special relationship within the special relationship.” Yet despite decades of cooperation “there exists today a significant misalignment between the strategic prioritization of this “special relationship” and the regulations, policies, organizational cultures, and technologies that facilitate its day-to-day activities.” The same goes for the U.S.-Australian relationship, where information-sharing practices “reflect a strategic and technological age that has long since passed us by. It’s a self-inflicted Achilles’ heel.”

The basic problem is the need to balance two important policy imperatives: protecting classified military information from foreign disclosure vs. “anchoring our strategy in Allies and partners.” Unfortunately, U.S. policy remains stuck in “Cold War” mode. As Andrew Radin points out, “National Security Decision Memo 119, issued in 1971, remains the central document for today’s Defense Department disclosure policies.” This means that allies and partners — who played an important but ultimately peripheral role in U.S. Cold War policy — lose out. According to a previous director of national intelligence, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) James Clapper: “With a federated approach to intelligence and an emphasis above all on protecting national capabilities, the priority has remained firmly on risk aversion. This has been a source of frustration for the United States’ most trusted international allies.”

This policy belies an outdated mindset. The United States can no longer afford to treat the friction and inefficiencies associated with information sharing as a byproduct of alliance management. Instead, reforming information sharing practices should be seen as an opportunity to find marginal — or even transformative — gains in the strategic competition with China.

The solution is contained in the National Defense Strategy. The primary interagency policy for disclosure requires that “disclosure is consistent with U.S. military and security objectives.” The fact that U.S. military and security objectives are now anchored in allies and partners provides ample justification for routine disclosures. This requires modernizing outdated and labor-intensive approaches to foreign intelligence disclosure and information sharing. Current practice is based on creating “tear-lines” that treat all allies the same, applying the NOFORN (Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals) marking by default. This should be replaced with a system based on “tiered risk management” designed around tiers of allies and partners, calibrated to share critical information with those closest (AUKUS, Five Eyes) and more routinely through other vital partnerships (NATO, Japan, and the Republic of Korea). In practice, this could be achieved through replacing NOFORN with a new default, such as “Releasable to Five Eyes” (REL-FVEY).

Making information-sharing policy fit for strategic competition also requires adapting to the new information age. As the United States and its allies accelerate the development of critical cloud capabilities they should design for interoperability and common standards, even developing shared networks. The Department of Defense’s move to expand its Joint All Domain Command and Control initiative to incorporate allies under is encouraging. The same goes for the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office’s initiative to test and deploy data integration solutions through the global information dominance experiment. More broadly, the addition of a dedicated information sharing strand of the AUKUS pillar two agreement on advanced capabilities is a also good opportunity to pilot more competitive information sharing practices.

Modernizing information-sharing culture and practice would meet the commitment in the National Defense Strategy to reduce the institutional barriers that inhibit intelligence and information sharing. More importantly, it would strengthen U.S. national security.

Export and Technology Controls: Where There Is a Will, There Is a Waiver

Second on the wish list of America’s allies is reform to U.S. export and technology controls. Designed to prevent sensitive technology ending up in the hands of adversaries, their current application hinders cooperation with allies and the competitiveness of U.S. industry. The two main culprits are the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Foreign Military Sales program, both developed during the Cold War and barely updated since.

The State Department’s current approach to export control forces a significant burden on allies. One assessment reveals that the United Kingdom spends at least half a billion dollars every year complying with U.S. export controls — nearly 1 percent of its defense budget. International Traffic in Arms Regulations also harms U.S. innovation by discouraging firms from bidding on military contracts for fear of being hampered by U.S. export controls. For example, U.S. company Boeing recently decided to develop its Ghost Bat drone in Australia, while Anduril Australia aims to develop autonomous submarines without U.S. export-controlled components. How to fix U.S. export controls has become a hot topic in recent months as politicians and officials realized it could hamper AUKUS, as well as other priorities such as the burgeoning U.S.-India defense and technology partnership.

Several positive signs have emerged recently but require the executive branch and Congress to follow through. In May Sen. Jim Risch introduced the aptly named “Truncating Onerous Regulations for Partners and Enhancing Deterrence Operations” — or TORPEDO — Act to reform export and technology controls for AUKUS. Three weeks later two senior State and Defense department officials in testimony to Congress committed to “seek legislative change that would clear a path to new exemptions to licensing requirements for much of our defense trade with the U.K. and Australia.” In June U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and President Joe Biden signed the Atlantic Declaration and Action Plan which included steps to “modernize export control laws to enhance collaboration between and among AUKUS nations.” Such rhetoric is welcome but requires action. AUKUS provides U.S. leaders an opportunity to signal a change in mindset through new exemptions and a light-touch approach to implementation. Increasing U.S.-Indian cooperation also highlights the need for allies to play their part by demonstrating their own export control regimes can be trusted to protect U.S.-origin technologies.

Foreign Military Sales, the program that facilitates sales of U.S. arms and services to foreign governments, creates fewer headlines but gives allies and partners just as many headaches. The process is slow, even by defense procurement standards: Standard contracts take on average eighteen months to award. The Foreign Military Sales process and U.S. export controls also undermine the ability of America’s allies to deploy and maintain forces at readiness. This process delayed a routine sonar upgrade on British Royal Navy submarines by several months, while another submarine could not be serviced until the State Department approved an export-controlled component.

Here too, the Department of Defense agrees there is a problem. In July, the secretary of defense approved the recommendations of a Foreign Military Sales task force. But even if the department follows through on these actions it can only do so much, given that the State Department owns this policy and Congress has a key legislative role. The proven task force model should be expanded to investigate and recommend changes across the Foreign Military Sales ecosystem, beyond the Department of Defense.

As for information sharing, a new mindset is required for U.S. export and technology controls. The question is not how to strengthen controls, but how to leverage America’s unique advantages in innovation and allies to out-compete China. More stringent controls that fail to keep up with changing economic and strategic realities will do more harm than good. Old habits die hard, but as two authors at the Center for Strategic and International Studies point out: “the mission focus of the government means that where there is a will, there is a waiver.”

Joint Strategic Planning: A Call to Action

Finally, meeting the ambition of the National Defense Strategy will also require steps to better integrate U.S. allies and partners into strategic planning. The U.S. has not fought any major conflict alone since the Mexican-American war of 1846. Today, America’s allies and partners can help solve its “two-front predicament,” providing political support and legitimacy, enhanced capacity, and niche capabilities — but only if they are able to align their operational and strategic planning efforts with those of the United States.

The Biden administration’s defense strategy was a “call to action for the defense enterprise to incorporate Allies and partners at every stage of defense planning.” A host of flagship policies depend on improving joint planning, from integrated deterrence to AUKUS. Improved joint planning can also address perennial burden-sharing concerns. As Kahl puts it, the point is not “for allies and partners to do more so we do less” — rather “we need to do more and others need to do more alongside us.”

However, U.S. rhetoric on allies and partners is ahead of practice. Previous attempts to introduce “Guidance for Development of Alliances and Partnerships” was too focused on foreign military sales, while failures in the Department of Defense’s Global Force Management System drive a “whiplash effect” that ends up “peanut-butter spreading” U.S. forces across the globe with scant regard for the contributions of allies and partners. The current administration also missed opportunities to improve the situation. The 2021 Global Posture Review failed to consult with and reassure allies about global U.S. force presence, while the recent update to the chairman’s “Joint Planning and Execution Overview and Policy Framework” fails to mention allies and partners even once.

The Biden administration and Defense Department leaders should meet their own “call to action.” A Center for New American Security report calls for a new review of strategic alignment with allies and partners, focusing on threat perception and prioritization. This exercise could generate the meaningful dialogue that the Global Posture Review failed to deliver and signal that the administration is serious about the “center of gravity” of its National Defense Strategy. Based on the review’s findings, U.S. leaders should specify what they need from allies and partners to implement integrated deterrence in the European and Indo-Pacific theaters, including global posture, presence, modernization, a multilateral exercise schedule, and division of labor. For example, European allies need to understand the trajectory of U.S. force posture in Europe so they can design their forces to fill any gaps and do what they can further afield to support a free and open Indo-Pacific.

America’s network of friends is unrivaled — and a critical source of advantage in the strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party and other lonely autocrats. Yet without bold action to reform information sharing, export and technology controls, and joint strategic planning, the “Allies and Partners” strand of the National Defense Strategy will remain a bumper-sticker slogan. Time is of the essence. While allies and partners are a priority for Biden, this may not be the case for the next administration. The U.S.-led campaign to support Ukraine hints at what good looks like with intelligence sharing, joint planning, training, co-production, and coordination with allies central to these efforts — and the benefits of getting it right. The challenge is doing it before war breaks out, to deter it in the first place.

Become a Member

Sean Monaghan is a visiting fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he focuses on NATO, European security, and defense. You can find him on Twitter at @SMonaghanCSIS.

Deborah Cheverton is a visiting senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Sean Monaghan · July 24, 2023

19. Opinion | What I Learned in Ukraine

Opinion | What I Learned in Ukraine

The New York Times · by Bret Stephens · July 23, 2023

Bret Stephens

What I Learned in Ukraine

July 23, 2023, 6:00 a.m. ET

People walking last week amid the tanks and vehicles left as a memorial to the war outside St Mykhalo’s Monastery in Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit...Natalie Keyssar for The New York Times

By

Opinion Columnist

WARSAW — Last week, a friend asked me what I could learn from a four-day trip to Ukraine I was planning that I couldn’t glean just by reading the news. It was a fair question. With the trip now behind me, I can answer.

I learned how strange it is to visit a country to which no plane flies and, as of last Monday, no ship sails — thanks to Vladimir Putin’s cruel and cynical withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative through which Ukrainian farm products reached hungry countries like Kenya, Lebanon and Somalia. The only feasible way for a visitor to get from the Polish border to Kyiv is a nine-hour train ride, where the sign inside the carriage door urges, “Be Brave Like Ukraine.”

I learned that you need to download the Air Alert! app to your smartphone as soon as you enter the country. It sounds an alarm every time the system detects drones, missiles or other incoming aerial threats in your vicinity, something that happened time and again during my short stay. Following the alarm, a recording — in English by the “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill — intones: “Proceed to the nearest shelter. Don’t be careless. Your overconfidence is your weakness.”

I learned that Kyiv is hopping. Despite what the U.S. Embassy says have been 1,620 missile and drone attacks on the city — and despite an economy that contracted 29 percent in the first year of the war — cars jam the roads, people dine in outdoor cafes on well-swept sidewalks and activists, civil servants and elected officials freely share divergent views with visiting columnists. To adapt a phrase attributed to Yitzhak Rabin, Ukrainians are going about their everyday lives as if there is no war, while waging war as if there is no everyday life.

I learned that every member of the American Embassy staff in Kyiv, led by our courageous and cleareyed ambassador, Bridget Brink, volunteered for the duty. They have been separated from their families and living for months on end in hotel rooms. They have the job of overseeing one of the largest U.S. assistance efforts since the Marshall Plan, ensuring that tens of thousands of individual pieces of American military hardware in Ukrainian hands are properly accounted for, reconstituting an embassy that was gutted on the eve of Russia’s invasion and keeping tabs on Russian war crimes — some 95,000 of which have been documented so far by the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office.

I learned what it was like to sit in conference rooms and walk along corridors that would soon be shattered by Russian ordnance. On Tuesday, I joined a diplomatic group led by Administrator Samantha Power of the United States Agency for International Development on a visit to the port of Odesa. Power met first with Ukrainian officials to discuss logistical options for their exports after Putin’s withdrawal from the grain agreement, then with farmers to discuss issues like de-mining their fields and de-risking their finances. The stately Port Authority building in which the meetings took place, a purely civilian target, was struck barely a day after our departure.

I learned that Ukrainians have no interest in turning their victimization into an identity. Years ago, in Belgrade, I saw how the Serbian government had preserved the wreck of its old defense ministry, hit by NATO bombs in the 1999 Kosovo war, in keeping with its self-pitying perceptions of that war. By contrast, in Bucha, the Kyiv suburb that suffered some of the worst atrocities during Russia’s brief occupation in the early days of the war, I witnessed the transformation of apartment buildings dotted with patched-up bullet holes into trendy co-working spaces. As Anatoliy Fedoruk, the mayor of Bucha, told Power, “Memory will stay in memoirs but residents want to rebuild without reminders.”

I learned that Ukrainians aren’t likely to trade sovereign territory for Western security assurances, much less for some kind of armistice deal with Moscow. They tried the former in the 1990s with the Budapest Memorandum, in which they surrendered the nuclear arsenal on their soil to Russia for the sake of toothless guarantees of territorial integrity. They tried the latter with the equally toothless Minsk agreements after Russia’s first invasion in 2014. The goal of Western policy should be to provide Ukraine with the military means they need to win, rather than to pressure Ukraine into again bargaining away its rights to sovereignty and security for the sake of assuaging our anxieties about Russian escalation.

I learned that, for all the aid we’ve given Ukraine, we are the true beneficiaries in the relationship, and they the true benefactors. Ben Wallace, Britain’s usually thoughtful defense minister, suggested after this month’s NATO summit that Ukrainians should show more gratitude to their arms suppliers. That gets the relationship backward. NATO countries are paying for their long-term security in money, which is cheap, and munitions, which are replaceable. Ukrainians are counting their costs in lives and limbs lost.

I am writing this column from Warsaw Chopin Airport. Parked outside the terminal are jetliners destined for Doha, Istanbul, Rome, Toronto, New York. The sight of them here could scarcely have been imagined 40 years ago. It came true because the Polish people remained, in Ronald Reagan’s apt words, “magnificently unreconciled to oppression.”

Today, it is Poland’s neighbors in Ukraine who are magnificently unreconciled to invasion. What I learned from four days under closed skies is never to take a bustling airport scene like this for granted.

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Bret Stephens has been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. Facebook

The New York Times · by Bret Stephens · July 23, 2023

20. Beijing Mounts Record-Breaking Warship Deployments Around Taiwan as Island’s Presidential Election Approaches

Beijing Mounts Record-Breaking Warship Deployments Around Taiwan as Island’s Presidential Election Approaches

fdd.org · by Krystal Bermudez · July 21, 2023

July 21, 2023 | Policy Brief

Craig Singleton

China Program Deputy Director and Senior Fellow

Chase Moabery

Intern

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) deployed a record number of warships near Taiwan this month, surpassing a previous high established after former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s travelled to Taiwan last August. These latest provocations, which coincided with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Lithuania, augur Beijing’s plans to maintain a high operational tempo in the lead-up to next January’s Taiwanese presidential election, thereby increasing the potential for miscalculation between the U.S. and Chinese militaries in the near to mid-term.

The PLA has dispatched ships and jets into and around Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) nearly every day since Pelosi met with outgoing Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. However, last week marked a noticeable uptick in China’s baiting. Specifically, in mid-July, the PLA dispatched 16 warships within a 24-hour period near Taiwan’s territorial waters. That figure exceeded the 14 ships deployed after Pelosi’s trip and the 12 ships China deployed in April after Tsai met U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.

In addition to the 16 warships, Taiwan’s defense ministry detected more than 100 Chinese sorties involving at least 73 PLA aircraft, including bombers and drones as well as advanced Su-30 and J-16 fighters. Many of these planes crossed the median line, or the informal demarcation point between mainland China and Taiwan, with several entering the southwestern and southeastern portions of Taiwan’s ADIZ.

These unannounced PLA maneuvers occurred days after Chinese leader Xi Jinping conducted his first-ever inspection of the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command — which is responsible for combat and non-combat operations involving Taiwan. While there, Xi reiterated the importance of deepening war and combat planning while also breaking “new ground” in military training. Consistent with Xi’s recently announced indoctrination drive, which is aimed at neutralizing residual opposition to his leadership, Xi also affirmed plans to reinforce the Chinese Communist Party’s oversight of the command’s operations to enhance combat readiness.

These developments occurred as NATO leaders announced plans for Japan and South Korea to enter into enhanced partnership agreements with the Atlantic alliance. The new NATO pacts, called Individually Tailored Partnership Programs (ITPPs), extend the scope of existing cooperation to include cybersecurity, arms control, technology, and counterterrorism. Respective agreements are expected to be announced with Australia and New Zealand by year’s end.

China’s military maneuvers coincided with news that Taiwan’s vice president and current presidential front-runner Lai Ching-te will transit the United States next month while en route to the inauguration of Paraguayan President-elect Santiago Peña, who campaigned on strengthening ties to Taiwan. Such transits are customary, and Lai will not travel to Washington for meetings with U.S. officials. Nevertheless, Beijing reacted angrily to news of Lai’s trip and announced its resolute opposition to “sneaky visits by Taiwan independence separatists.”

China’s assertive military actions appear aimed, in part, at undermining Lai’s presidential campaign. Such provocations reinforce messaging from Taiwan’s Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) party that voting for Lai, who represents the ruling Democratic People’s Party (DPP), is a vote for “war.” These military maneuvers also appear intended to signal Beijing’s “resolute opposition” to NATO’s growing interest in the Indo-Pacific, including NATO’s criticism of China’s “coercive” posture against the alliance.

In the lead-up to next year’s Taiwanese presidential election, the U.S. military and intelligence community should exercise enhanced vigilance. Legislators have also advanced several Taiwan-related measures included in the House-passed fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. These include bipartisan provisions stemming from the House Select Committee on China’s Ten for Taiwan report, which focuses on deterring Chinese military aggression against the self-governed island nation.

Craig Singleton is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and deputy director of FDD’s China Program, where Chase is an intern. For more analysis from Craig and the China Program, please subscribe HERE. Follow Craig on Twitter @CraigMSingleton. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.

fdd.org · by Krystal Bermudez · July 21, 2023

21. Politics Risk Derailing One of America’s Most Important Strategic Agreements

Excerpts:

There are a range of possible reasons for the change in position on the part of Marshall Islands negotiators, including positioning for the upcoming November elections in the RMI.

However, if the current team is counting on logic and justice to get its way in Congress, there are a few hundred million Americans they may wish to speak with about how that tends to work out these days. The repeated questions about where the offsets for COFA funding would come from during the House hearing may have started to give them an inkling about how the House is operating these days.

On this issue, Congress is bipartisan, and supportive, but it’s still Congress. And even in better times, anything can happen. In 2010 there was Support from Congress for Palau’s funding but the Departments of the Interior and State bickered over who and how to transmit to Congress and it was sent too late to be approved in 2010. Then it got even more complicated, to the point that funding around helium got involved. It took until 2018 for that to be sorted out.

The extended insecurity affected the Palau-U.S. relationship. China saw the opening and rushed in to take advantage. That was the window in which China made huge political and economic gains in Palau (a country that recognizes Taiwan).

Under the best circumstances, getting the COFA renewals passed by September 30 will be a minor miracle. And these are not the best circumstances. The clock is ticking.

Politics Risk Derailing One of America’s Most Important Strategic Agreements

China is the biggest winner from the current train wreck that is the Marshall Islands–United States COFA negotiations.

thediplomat.com · by Cleo Paskal · July 22, 2023

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Of the Pacific Island states, the three countries that are unquestionably the closest allies of the United States are the Republic of Palau, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI).

The closeness of the relationship between the United States and each of the three is legally captured in the Compact of Free Association (COFA) each of them has with Washington.

The COFA agreements allow citizens from the Freely Associated States (FAS) to live and work in the U.S. or serve in the U.S. military. The COFAs also provide for some U.S. federal services in the FAS – to the point that not only are they served by the U.S. Postal Service, but they have U.S. zip codes, and mail to and from the U.S. is charged at domestic rates. They are, as then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan put it when the agreements were first being set up, “family.”

The COFAs also give the U.S. defense rights in the air, waters, and on the land of the FAS that are second only to what the U.S. has in the homeland (and likely more). The U.S. also gets the right of strategic denial, allowing it to block others – including foreign militaries – from the area that Washington deems a risk.

And the area involved is enormous, and strategically essential. The three countries are contiguous and cover a section of the Central Pacific the size of the United States. The uncontested operational environment granted to the U.S. by the COFAs allows the U.S. to deploy unimpeded from roughly Hawaii to the Philippines.

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Think Guam, Saipan, the First and Second Island Chains, and bases in treaty partners like Japan and South Korea are important? Try resupplying them if the FAS are under hostile control.

What’s the Problem?

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While the COFA agreements themselves continue indefinitely or until a party withdraws, the financial and services components are periodically renegotiated. We are currently in that phase.

The U.S. Congress has until September 30 to pass renewals that are designed to last for the next 20 years. The amounts being proposed are $6.5 billion to cover the three countries over 20 years, plus $600 million for the post office. That means around $110 million per country per year. As U.S. Senator Angus King put it, the entire amount is less than half of 1 percent of the annual defense budget.

But there are problems. All three FAS signed MoUs agreeing on the topline amount they would get, allowing an overall budget to go to Congress. Palau and FSM seem satisfied, and held formal signing ceremonies with U.S. officials in May.

However, Marshall Islands has since changed negotiators and is now asking for more than the $2.3 billion it agreed to in January. Specifically, the new team says they want more money to compensate for the damage and harm caused by the 67 nuclear tests the United States conducted in the late 1940s and 1950s.

The existing MoU it signed includes $700 million for a trust fund that Marshall Islands could chose to put toward that end, but reportedly State Department lawyers refused to allow it to be said by the U.S. side that the money was specifically compensation for the nuclear test.

The change in Marshall Islands’ position – and how it might dramatically affect not only the relationship with the United States but the lives of Marshallese – became clear over the last ten days.

Delegations from each of the FAS came to Washington for a Senate hearing on July 13 and a House of Representatives hearing on July 18. In the hearings, Palau’s president and FSM’s chief negotiator gave strong positive endorsements of the COFA renewal agreements that have now been submitted for introduction and approval by the U.S. Congress.

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Marshall Islands’ delegation was represented in the Senate hearing by the new foreign minister and in the House hearing by the speaker of Parliament. Marshall Islands’ chief COFA negotiator led discussions.

All three RMI officials expressed their commitment to COFA renewal, but each openly called for additional funding for Marshall Islands tied to the damaging U.S. nuclear testing legacy, and for other purposes. The January MoU signed by the Marshalls was explicitly disowned in the Senate hearing.

This visibly disconcerted some members of Congress. In the hearings, Republicans and Democrats disagreed on a few procedural and housekeeping details, but were united in advising and even admonishing Marshall Islands not to engage in brinksmanship in the current volatile political climate in Congress.

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The message is being conveyed outside the hearing rooms as well. Before and after the hearings, the three delegations made the rounds separately to meet with a reported two dozen Congressional leaders.

There was understanding and sympathy about the continuing harm caused by the legacy of nuclear testing, and acknowledgement of past unmet promises by the United States.

However, there was also concern that, given domestic politics in the U.S. and constraints resulting from internal House politics (offshoots from the bruising House speaker battle), attempting to rewrite the MoU with less than 20 legislative days left to get it passed could mean that Marshall Islands gets nothing.

That in turn would mean that, rather than have a massive increase in money coming into the country – including $700 million in new money for a trust fund that the RMI could decide to use for nuclear justice – Marshall Islands would need to take principle from its trust fund in order to just meet the costs of running its government.

Most if not all members of Congress the Marshall Islands delegates met have been consistently sympathetic with and supportive of the RMI’s unique needs and requirements due to the impacts of the U.S. nuclear testing program on the peoples and environment of the islands

Yet, in statements and questions during the congressional hearings and in meetings with U.S. senators and representatives, every member of Congress – without exception – strongly advised and urged Marshall Islands to end its brinkmanship over signing the Compact in their hopes of getting increased funding.

That included the Bipartisan House Indo-Pacific Task Force Chair Amata Radewagen (R – American Samoa) and Co-Chair Kilili Sablan (D – Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands), who both spoke in the hearing of growing up in the U.N. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and understanding the RMI’s quest for justice.

Radewagen even spoke about her father walking through the craters resulting from the nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll, and wondering if it contributed to his fatal cancer.

Still, each of these Pacific Islands leaders urged Marshall Islands in public and private, as one Congressional staff member said, to “take the money and run – and live to fight another day.”

Another congressional source who could not speak publicly stated, “The RMI was not going to get any new supporters by lobbying, but by going back for more after signing a deal that people regard as fair the RMI may have lost some supporters.”

Some of those who supported Marshall Islands most strongly in the past strongly supported the deal being offered. For example, in the hearing, Congresswoman Katie Porter (D – California), who has a strong record of support for the RMI on nuclear legacy issues, endorsed the U.S. offer negotiated by Biden Special Presidential Envoy Joseph Yun. Porter urged the RMI to get the $2.3 billion into the RMI COFA resiliency fund, and then continue educating Congress and the United States regarding ongoing U.S. responsibilities to the impacted communities.

One U.S. official familiar with the meetings stated, “Members of Congress who worked at RMI’s request to get a presidential negotiator appointed believe he did a good job, doubling the Trump offers, and getting Congressional approval guaranteed for 20 years appropriations for economic assistance, which repeatedly was referred to by members of Congress as ‘a really good deal for RMI in this budget environment.’”

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At the same time, high-level leaders in Marshall Islands are deeply concerned about the direction of the negotiations, and the statements by their team. Kitlang Kabua, the RMI’s former negotiator, went so far as to publish an article in the Marshall Islands Journal stating: “I write this article to correct slanderous claims and misinformation against me that were raised by my colleagues in the Senate Committee hearing on Energy and Natural Resources… It is unfortunate that the blaring message from the statement made on behalf of our government, was not what the RMI expected to come out with from the negotiations… The Memorandum of Understanding that I had signed on behalf of President Kabua and the RMI Government was authorized and supported by Cabinet.”

What Now?

There are a range of possible reasons for the change in position on the part of Marshall Islands negotiators, including positioning for the upcoming November elections in the RMI.

However, if the current team is counting on logic and justice to get its way in Congress, there are a few hundred million Americans they may wish to speak with about how that tends to work out these days. The repeated questions about where the offsets for COFA funding would come from during the House hearing may have started to give them an inkling about how the House is operating these days.

On this issue, Congress is bipartisan, and supportive, but it’s still Congress. And even in better times, anything can happen. In 2010 there was Support from Congress for Palau’s funding but the Departments of the Interior and State bickered over who and how to transmit to Congress and it was sent too late to be approved in 2010. Then it got even more complicated, to the point that funding around helium got involved. It took until 2018 for that to be sorted out.

The extended insecurity affected the Palau-U.S. relationship. China saw the opening and rushed in to take advantage. That was the window in which China made huge political and economic gains in Palau (a country that recognizes Taiwan).

Under the best circumstances, getting the COFA renewals passed by September 30 will be a minor miracle. And these are not the best circumstances. The clock is ticking.

GUEST AUTHOR

Cleo Paskal

Cleo Paskal is non-resident senior fellow for the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. From 2006 to 2022, she was an associate fellow at Chatham House where, among other projects, she led Chatham House's project “Perspectives on Strategic Shifts in the Indo-Pacific 2019-2024.”

thediplomat.com · by Cleo Paskal · July 22, 2023

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