Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything,

That points clearly to a political career."

- George Bernard Shaw

"If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval,

realize that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness,

be your own.

- Epictetus

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information,

which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance

– that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

- British philosopher Herbert Spencer [1820-1903]

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 15, 2023

2. Opinion | Is China ‘Probing With Bayonets’?

3. Pentagon technology chief seeks low-cost deterrence concepts

4. Political fights over military make US look weak to China and Russia, experts tell senators

5. For better defense spending, split the Pentagon’s budget into two

6. Update Now: iOS Devices Receive Vital Security Updates from Apple

7. ‘We Didn’t Have the Ships’ to Send ‘Best Option’ to Help Earthquake Victims, Commandant Says

8. Delta Force Legend Gary Harrell Dies in Tennessee

9. The World After Taiwan's Fall

10. The Most Powerful Weapon to use Against Democracies

11. US working with ‘Five Eyes’ nations, Japan on information warfare

12. Three Years’ Delay To Rein In TikTok

13. Further Evidence Emerges of Iran’s Support for Russia’s War in Ukraine

14. China is already at war with America and the Biden administration is ignoring the signposts

15. Cameras Now Rolling on Movie About Churchill's Secret WWII Spec Ops Unit

16. U.S. tracked China spy balloon from launch on Hainan Island along unusual path

17. Smartphones Are Changing the War in Ukraine

18. China has U-turned on almost all major policies it put in place in the last 3 years — and it's not surprising, given the state of its economy

19. How Democracy Can Win

20. China’s Hidden COVID Catastrophe

21. The Kremlin’s Grand Delusions

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Maps/Graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-15-2023

Key Takeaways

Russia’s costly military campaign in Ukraine has likely significantly depleted Russian equipment and manpower reserves necessary to sustain a successful large-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s inability to reconstruct spent mechanized material in the short term further restricts the Russian military’s mechanized maneuver warfare capabilities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to announce measures for further escalation of the war in Ukraine, major new Russian mobilization initiatives, or any other significant policy in his planned address to the Russian Federal Assembly on February 21.
Russian forces continued offensive operations northwest of Svatove and along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, along the western outskirts of Donetsk City, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
Russian sources implied that Ukrainian forces may hold positions on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast, although ISW has not observed any confirmation of the claim.
The Kremlin continues to fund its war efforts in Ukraine from regional budgets.
The Russian government continues to further integrate occupied territories into Russian governance structures.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Feb 15, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

understandingwar.org

Riley Bailey, Kateryna Stepanenko, George Barros, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson, Kita Fitzpatrick, and Frederick Kagan

February 15, 7:30 pm ET

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

Russia’s costly military campaign in Ukraine has likely significantly depleted Russian equipment and manpower reserves necessary to sustain a successful large-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine. UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the BBC that the UK had not seen the Russian “massing of a single force to punch through in a big offensive” and noted that Russians are now trying to advance in Donbas at a “huge cost.”[1] Wallace estimated that Russia could have committed up to 97 percent of its army to the fight in Ukraine and that its combat effectiveness has decreased by 40 percent due to an “almost First World War level of attrition” that measures Russian advances in meters in human wave attacks. ISW cannot independently confirm Wallace’s estimates, but his observation that Russia lacks sufficient mechanized combat power for a breakthrough aligns with previous ISW assessments that the conventional Russian military must undergo significant reconstitution before regaining the ability to conduct effective maneuver warfare.[2] Wallace’s observations also suggest that Russia does not have untapped combat-ready reserves capable of executing a large-scale offensive, which is also ISW’s assessment.

Russia’s inability to regenerate expended mechanized vehicles in the short term further restricts Russian maneuver warfare capabilities. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) reported that Russia lost about 50 percent of its T-72B and T-72B3M tanks and many T-80 tanks, forcing Russian forces to rely on older equipment.[3] Wallace noted that two-thirds of Russia’s tanks are destroyed or unusable. The UK Ministry of Defense assessed that the Kremlin likely recognizes that Russia’s low industrial output is a “critical weakness,” and that Russian production is not meeting the Kremlin’s long-term requirements.[4] Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, for example, called for increased production of weapons and modern tanks on February 9.[5] The Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS) noted that Russia is still capable of producing large quantities of small arms, missiles, and tanks but that its defense industry base (DIB) will continue to struggle to offset the effects of Western sanctions.[6] The NIS added that Russia will also need to undergo an extensive effort to set up new production lines and will need time to recruit and train workers. Some Russian defense firms continue to complain that they do not have sufficient personnel to support the intensified industrial effort, while Russian pro-war milbloggers noted that Russia needs to immediately embark on modernization and personnel recruitment efforts to solve issues with tank production.[7] Such measures are unlikely to increase the Russian defense industry’s capacity to produce tanks rapidly and at scale, and would certainly not do so in time to affect the outcome of the current Russian offensive or of a Ukrainian counter-offensive launched in the coming months. The timely Western provisions of tanks and armored vehicles to Ukraine would further offset Russia’s ability to conduct mechanized warfare as Russia struggles to restart its defense production in the immediate term. Ukraine likely continues to have a window of opportunity to initiate large-scale counteroffensives over the next few months, but its ability to do so likely rests heavily on the speed and scale at which the West provides it the necessary materiel, particularly tanks and armored vehicles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to announce measures for further escalation of the war in Ukraine, major new Russian mobilization initiatives, or any other significant policy in his planned address to the Russian Federal Assembly on February 21. The Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly to the Russian State Duma and Federation Council is an annual speech introduced to the Russian constitution in February 1994 that is roughly equivalent to the US President’s annual State of the Union Address. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on February 15 that Russian federal television channels will set aside an hour to broadcast Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly on February 21.[8] Putin postponed his annual address to the Federal Assembly several times in 2022 likely in hopes of eventually using this speech to celebrate sweeping Russian victories in Ukraine but was unable to do so due to the lack of such victories and amidst heightened criticism of the Kremlin’s management of the war.[9] Putin has delivered unimpressive addresses in recent months to mark symbolic anniversaries and dates and likely scheduled his postponed address to coincide with the first anniversary of Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR/LNR).[10] Putin will likely repackage Russian measures to integrate occupied territories into the Russian Federation as a novel achievement.

Russian military failures in Ukraine continue to deny Putin the ability to present military success to the Russian public. The Russian military has not achieved significant operational success in Ukraine since the capture of Severodonetsk in July 2022. Ukrainian forces have liberated almost 18,000 square kilometers of territory since then. Putin may have scheduled the address to the federal assembly in the expectation that Russian forces would secure at least a tactical success in the Bakhmut area, although Russian forces have only gained about 500 square kilometers in the Bakhmut area in intensive campaigning since July 4, 2022, while suffering extravagant casualties. Putin could announce the start of a subsequent mobilization wave, although most indicators and assessments suggest that he will not do so at this time.[11] ISW, along with UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace, assesses that the Russian military has already committed a significant number of its available formations to intensified offensive operations in Ukraine and that the lack of large uncommitted reserves will likely prevent Putin from announcing the start of an entirely new large-scale offensive effort.[12] Putin will likely continue to deliver insignificant public addresses as the absence of Russian military success in Ukraine deprives him of the opportunity to claim or convincingly promise a victory of any significance. The stubborn Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut itself, despite the cost in Ukrainian lives and materiel, would prevent Putin from even claiming that Russia has secured that city on the war’s anniversary, a claim that could give Putin, the Russian military, and the Russian public renewed hope of winning and possibly increase the Kremlin’s willingness to demand more of its people to press on.

The Kremlin continues to pursue efforts to censor dissent through societal intimidation tactics. Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko proposed on February 15 that federal communication supervisor Roskomnadzor publish a list of Telegram channels that are hostile to Russia and label such channels with icons indicating this status.[13] The Kremlin is unable to force Telegram to introduce these icons and is seemingly unwilling to block Telegram, which pro-Russian milbloggers use heavily to speak to the Russian people. The list is likely meant instead to intimidate the Russian public into refraining from engaging with content that the Kremlin deems to be dangerous to Russian security. The Kremlin is likely to include independent media, Western sources, and opposition outlets on the list. The Kremlin is highly unlikely to use the measure to target milbloggers, even those critical of the Russian military or the Kremlin itself, as they continue to appeal to the ultra-nationalist pro-war community that is their audience.

A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on February 15 that Iran and Russia were creating and sharing technology on high-precision bombs, missiles for UAVs, and attack aircraft. The milblogger alleged that Russia has agreed to purchase over 100,000 Iranian artillery and mortar rounds and especially 152mm rounds. Rybar stated that Iran possesses large stocks of 122mm shells for D-30 howitzers and BM-21 Grad Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS). The milblogger suggested that Russia could employ Iranian proxies and partners in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and other unnamed countries to fight in Ukraine.[14]

Key Takeaways

Russia’s costly military campaign in Ukraine has likely significantly depleted Russian equipment and manpower reserves necessary to sustain a successful large-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s inability to reconstruct spent mechanized material in the short term further restricts the Russian military’s mechanized maneuver warfare capabilities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to announce measures for further escalation of the war in Ukraine, major new Russian mobilization initiatives, or any other significant policy in his planned address to the Russian Federal Assembly on February 21.
Russian forces continued offensive operations northwest of Svatove and along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, along the western outskirts of Donetsk City, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
Russian sources implied that Ukrainian forces may hold positions on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast, although ISW has not observed any confirmation of the claim.
The Kremlin continues to fund its war efforts in Ukraine from regional budgets.
The Russian government continues to further integrate occupied territories into Russian governance structures.

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

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 continue offensive operations into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

ISW continues to assess the current Russian most likely course of action (MLCOA) is an imminent offensive effort in Luhansk Oblast and has therefore adjusted the structure of the daily campaign assessments. We will no longer include the Eastern Kharkiv and Western Luhansk Oblast area as part of Ukrainian counteroffensives and will assess this area as a subordinate part of the Russian main effort in Eastern Ukraine. The assessment of Luhansk Oblast as part of the Russian main effort does not preclude the possibility of continued Ukrainian counteroffensive actions here or anywhere else in theater in the future. ISW will report on Ukrainian counteroffensive efforts as they occur.

Russian forces did not make any confirmed gains in northern Kharkiv Oblast on February 15. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian attack near Hryanykivka, Kharkiv Oblast.[15] The former deputy interior minister of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), Vitaly Kiselev, claimed on February 15 that Russian forces are clearing Hryanykivka and advancing in the direction of Masyutivka to expel Ukrainian forces from the east side (left bank) of the Oskil River.[16] Kiselev also claimed that Russian forces have mostly expelled Ukrainian forces from near Synkivka in fighting there. ISW is unable to confirm Kiselev’s claims at this time. Ukrainian Eastern Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Serhiy Cherevaty stated on February 15 that Russian forces currently are not conducting ground attacks in Kharkiv Oblast but are shelling.[17]

Russian forces conducted ground attacks on the Kreminna and Svatove line on February 15. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks against Nevske, Kreminna, and Bilohorivka in Luhansk Oblast.[18] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces made tactical gains near Ploshchanka and attacked in the direction of Zarichne and Nevske and that episodic fighting continues near Yampolivka and the Balka Zhuravka gully.[19] Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai stated on February 15 that Russian forces are accumulating equipment and personnel in an unspecified area in the Luhansk Oblast area.[20]

Russian sources may have made tactical gains in the forested areas near Dibrova on February 15. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian artillery elements of the Central Military District defeated Ukrainian forces near Dibrova and other locations.[21] Multiple Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced 2-3 kilometers from Kreminna in the Dibrova forests and posted pictures of trenches in the forests that Russian forces reportedly recaptured.[22]

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut on February 15. Ukrainian Eastern Grouping of Forces spokesperson Serhiy Cherevaty reported that there were at least 25 combat engagements between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area in the past 24 hours.[23] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Bakhmut itself as well as Fedorivka (18km north) and Ivanivske (6km west).[24] A Russian milblogger claimed that Wagner Group fighters tried to advance in the direction of Vesele (19km northeast of Bakhmut) and successfully advanced towards Rozdolivka (18km north of Bakhmut).[25] Geolocated footage published on February 15 indicates that Ukrainian forces likely hold positions on the western outskirts of Krasna Hora (6km north of Bakhmut).[26] Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner Group fighters advanced in the southwestern outskirts of Paraskoviivka (8km north of Bakhmut) and that they have encircled Ukrainian forces in the settlement, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims.[27] Geolocated footage published on February 14 indicates that Russian forces likely secured marginal advances in the northeastern outskirts of Bakhmut.[28] A Russian milblogger claimed that Wagner Group fighters conducted assaults on Bakhmut’s outskirts from Blahodatne (10km north of Bakhmut), Krasna Hora, and the Stupky area of Bakhmut.[29] Wagner Financier Yevgeny Prigozhin stated that he expects Wagner Group fighters to encircle Bakhmut by March or April but acknowledged that several factors including the Western provision of weapons could delay Bakhmut’s encirclement.[30] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces have cut off a section of the E40 highway from Bakhmut to Slovyansk and that Ukrainian forces now must use a network of country roads to supply their grouping in Bakhmut from the north.[31] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of Russian forces reaching any section of the E40 that is needed to interdict the Ukrainian ground line of communication (GLOC) between Bakhmut and Slovyansk. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces counterattacked near Ivanivske and are freely moving along the T0504 highway between Kostyantynivka and Bakhmut.[32]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the western outskirts of Donetsk City on February 15. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults within 32km southwest of Avdiivka near Vodyane, Pervomaiske, Marinka, Pobieda, and Novomykhailivka.[33] Geolocated footage published on February 13 indicates that Russian forces advanced into Novobakhmutivka (13km northeast of Avdiivka) and likely captured the settlement.[34] A Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the 11th Regiment of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) People’s Militia captured elevated positions near Novoselivka Druha (9km northeast of Avdiivka).[35] Geolocated footage published on February 15 indicates that Russian forces have likely secured marginal advances in northwest Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka).[36] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces changed tactics around Marinka and are now conducting assaults on the settlement from the north and the south in an attempt to compel Ukrainian forces to withdraw from their positions in the western part of the settlement.[37] This change in tactics is unlikely to be any more effective than previous Russian efforts to capture Marinka.

Russian forces continued offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast on February 15. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Vuhledar (30km southwest of Donetsk City) and Prechystivka (40km southwest of Donetsk City).[38] Geolocated footage published on February 15 indicates that Ukrainian forces likely pushed back Russian forces from positions south and southeast of Vuhledar.[39] A Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the 155th and 40th Naval Infantry Brigades of the Pacific Fleet, the 29th Combined Arms Army of the Eastern Military District, the 3rd Army Corps, and the DNR “Kaskad “ Battalion are continuing to conduct offensive operations around Vuhledar, but that open terrain around the settlement is making Russian advances difficult.[40]

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

Russian sources implied that Ukrainian forces may hold positions on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast. A Russian milblogger amplified footage on February 15 of a correspondent from Russian outlet Izvestia claiming to be one kilometer from Ukrainian positions in an unspecified settlement in the Kakhovka Reservoir area.[41] The correspondent claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces out of half of this unspecified settlement during a reconnaissance-in-force operation two weeks ago.[42] Russian and Ukrainian forces are reportedly continuing to engage in reconnaissance activities and small-scale skirmishes in the Dnipro River Delta, although ISW has not observed any confirmation that Ukrainians hold positions on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.[43]

Russian forces continued routine fire west of Hulyaipole and in Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and Kherson oblasts.[44] Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces struck Kherson City and in the vicinity of Ochakiv, Mykolaiv Oblast.[45]

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

The Kremlin continues to fund its war efforts in Ukraine from regional budgets. Republic of Chechnya Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that the Chechen government provides 1 million rubles (about $13,400) to families of Chechen servicemen killed in action and 500,000 rubles (about $6,700) to Chechen servicemen wounded in Ukraine before the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) provides material assistance.[46] Kadyrov‘s statement was likely intended to either criticize the Russian MoD for lack of timely monetary compensation for Russian servicemen or to encourage recruitment into Chechen units over other Russian units. Republic of Buryatia Deputy Chairman Ivan Alkheev also claimed that his administration allocated 1.9 billion rubles (about $25.6 million) for the war effort, while natural resource extraction companies have contributed about 40 million rubles (about $537,000).[47] These reports, if true, suggest that the Kremlin continues to rely on Russian federal subjects to allocate funds to support the war, which likely places some financial burden on regional governments - especially in ethnic minority republics.

Russian officials and entities are attempting to manipulate Russians into donating money to support the war. Russian opposition outlets published a document dated February 2 from Kabansky Raion Administration in Buryatia, which reportedly requested donations for the war in Ukraine. The document included slogans reminiscent of the Great Patriotic War and promises of victory in return for monetary donations.[48] Russian opposition news outlet Astra reported that a priest from the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Krasnodar City is offering to bless Russian volunteers' supplies for those on the frontline in exchange for monetary compensation and is asking for donations likely for the war effort.[49] The Kremlin has long used the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to promote its regime and will likely continue to exploit worshipers to support the war in Ukraine.

Russian authorities struggle to recruit more military personnel without officially announcing a second wave of mobilization. Kuznetsk (Penza Oblast) Head Sergey Zlatogorsky proposed sending 256 unemployed Kuznetsk residents to join the Russian military and expressed interest in proposing an amendment to the Penza Oblast law that would require unemployed individuals to join the military.[50] Russian regional officials are likely continuing to face challenges in recruiting volunteers, however. Social media footage purportedly shows only a handful of personnel training as part of the Kursk People’s Militia (narodnoe opolcheniye).[51]

Russian officials are trying to downplay brain-drain problems stemming from emigration from Russia and mobilization. Russian Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin claimed that over 60 percent of Russians who left the country have returned and are working at the same enterprises as they had previously.[52] Vladimir Oblast media outlet Dovod, however, reported that defense enterprises in Vladimir Oblast are experiencing personnel shortages and need specialists in over 300 specialties.[53] Dovod claimed that Russian defense plants faced a record shortage of qualified personnel due to mobilization and mass emigration from Russia.[54] Reports of defense industry personnel shortages come at a time when the Kremlin seeks to increase its defense production, which likely impedes the Russian MoD’s efforts to meet its defense production goals in its desired short time period.

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

The Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) released a report on February 14 supporting ISW’s ongoing assessment that Russian officials are involved in the systematic reeducation and forced adoption of Ukrainian children in occupied territories.[55] The report states that HRL identified 43 facilities holding at least 6,000 Ukrainian children, the majority focusing on pro-Russian re-education efforts with some forcing children into adoption in Russia.[56] The report states that four of the camps prevented Ukrainian children from returning to Ukraine, supporting ISW assessments that Russian officials are likely trying to relocate children under the guise of recreation schemes.[57] The report details that the Russian federal government is centrally coordinating this effort and that these efforts represent a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.[58] ISW assesses that these efforts are likely part of a wider Russian ethnic cleansing campaign in Ukraine.[59]

The Russian government continues to further integrate occupied territories into Russian governance structures. The Russian State Duma adopted a bill in its third reading on February 14 to integrate occupied Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts into the compulsory Russian social insurance system.[60] The Duma announced that the compulsory social insurance will begin operating in occupied territories on March 1, by which time the Russian Pension and Social Insurance Fund will have established territorial offices in occupied territories.[61]

Russian occupation authorities are continuing efforts to intimidate Ukrainian parents into sending their children to Russian schools in occupied territories. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on February 15 that Russian occupation authorities created “juvenile affairs commissions” to issue fines to Ukrainian parents who educate their children in Ukrainian schools via online learning.[62] The Center also reported that Russian officials are conducting raids to inspect private homes to identify any children who have missed many classes in Russian schools.[63]

Russian federal subjects and occupation authorities continue to formalize patronage-like programs to develop infrastructure in occupied territories. Head of the Zaporizhia Oblast occupation administration Yevheny Balitsky met with Governor of Penza Oblast Oleg Melnichenko on February 15 to discuss Penza Oblast’s support for infrastructure repair operations in occupied Rozivka, Tokmak, and Molochansk, Zaporizhia Oblast.[64] Balitsky thanked Penza Oblast for having already helped restore schools, hospitals, and outpatient clinics in the settlements and noted that Penza Oblast will support occupied Polohy, Zaporizhia Oblast, to repair water supply, apartment buildings, a sports school, and a cultural center in 2023.[65]

Significant activity in Belarus (ISW assesses that a Russian or Belarusian attack into northern Ukraine in early 2023 is extraordinarily unlikely and has thus restructured this section of the update. It will no longer include counter-indicators for such an offensive.

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, but these are not indicators that Russian and Belarusian forces are preparing for an imminent attack on Ukraine from Belarus. ISW will revise this text and its assessment if it observes any unambiguous indicators that Russia or Belarus is preparing to attack northern Ukraine.)

Nothing significant to report.

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.

[5] https://iz dot ru/1467709/2023-02-09/medvedev-prizval-uvelichit-proizvodstvo-vooruzheniia-i-sovremennykh-tankov; https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1625746370291290112/photo/1

[8] https://tass dot ru/politika/17057559

[17] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2023/02/15/bahmut-zalyshayetsya-najgaryachishoyu-dilyankoyu-v-oboroni-nashyh-vijsk-sergij-cherevatyj/

[20] https://suspilne dot media/385856-rosiani-namagautsa-nastupati-na-5-napramkah-konferencia-z-vidbudovi-ukraini-357-den-vijni-tekstovij-onlajn/; https://t.me/serhiy_hayday/9432

[23] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2023/02/15/bahmut-zalyshayetsya-najgaryachishoyu-dilyankoyu-v-oboroni-nashyh-vijsk-sergij-cherevatyj/

[26] https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1625881936093650944; https://www.tiktok.com/@dyadya_fedyya/video/7200102460436794630

[50] https://www.penzainform dot ru/news/social/2023/02/14/glava_kuznetcka_predlozhil_otpravit_bezrabotnih_zashishat_rodinu.html; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-feb-13-14

[52] https://vk.com/wall-160662967_247363; https://www.vedomosti dot ru/society/news/2023/02/14/962908-volodin-60-pokinuvshih-rossiyu-vernulis?utm_campaign=vedomosti_public&utm_content=962908-volodin-60-pokinuvshih-rossiyu-vernulis&utm_medium=social&utm_source=telegram_ved; https://t.me/vedomosti/29871; https://t.me/meduzalive/78645; https://n...

[60] https://digital dot gov.ru/ru/events/42722/?utm_referrer=https%3a%2f%2f www.google.com%2f&utm_referrer=https%3a%2f%2fdigital.gov.ru%2fru%2fevent...https://t.me/vrogov/7719

[61] https://digital dot gov.ru/ru/events/42722/?utm_referrer=https%3a%2f%2f www.google.com%2f&utm_referrer=https%3a%2f%2fdigital.gov.ru%2fru%2fevent...https://t.me/vrogov/7719

[62] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/02/15/vorog-pochav-shtrafuvaty-batkiv-ditej-yaki-navchayutsya-v-ukrayinskyh-shkolah/

[63] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/02/15/vorog-pochav-shtrafuvaty-batkiv-ditej-yaki-navchayutsya-v-ukrayinskyh-shkolah/

understandingwar.org

2. Opinion | Is China ‘Probing With Bayonets’?

It is a good thing Mr. Stephens provides the "coda" to the Lenin quote at the end of his OpEd because that "coda" provides the antidote to the "probing."

“You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw”

― Vladimir Ilich Lenin

Excerpts:

Finally, there’s Beijing’s policy of the ambiguous but probably calculated insult. Chinese officials greeted Barack Obama and his team with a chain of petty snubs during his last presidential visit to China, in 2016. Chinese foreign policy supremo Yang Jiechi took the opportunity to lecture Secretary of State Antony Blinken at length at their first meeting in 2021. The balloon that overflew Montana and other states arrived just before Blinken was supposed to visit Beijing in an effort to patch up relations.

Maybe there are explanations for each incident that amount to accidents of timing or trivial misunderstandings. But, again, the pattern adds up.

There’s a coda to the Leninist maxim about probing with bayonets. It concludes: “If you encounter steel, withdraw.” Vladimir Putin found little steel in Washington or European capitals after he invaded Georgia, seized Crimea and obliterated much of Syria. Beijing has found little steel as it has probed everywhere from the cyber domain to the South China Sea.

That needs to change. Announcing a multibillion arms sale to Taiwan is the place to start. Alternatively, if the U.F.O.s really are Martians, it might at least give both countries the opportunity to set their differences aside.

Opinion | Is China ‘Probing With Bayonets’?

The New York Times · by Bret Stephens · February 14, 2023

Bret Stephens

Is China ‘Probing With Bayonets’?

Feb. 14, 2023, 7:00 p.m. ET

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Opinion Columnist

It’s easy to let your imagination run wild when it comes to the unidentified flying objects now making frequent appearances over North America. At least one object was reported to be cylindrical, eerily suggestive of past imagined visitors. “The cylinder was artificial — hollow — with an end that screwed out!” wrote H.G. Wells in “The War of The Worlds.” “Something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top!”

Maybe the Martians really are coming.

Alternatively, maybe the U.F.O.s that were shot down over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron emerged from somewhere in China, just like the large balloon that was shot down on Feb. 4 off the South Carolina coast. There’s a lot we still don’t know, and the White House is being appropriately careful not to jump to conclusions. Maybe it’s the Russians, or something altogether innocent. But let’s think through the implications of the Made in China hypothesis.

Why would Beijing do it? The likeliest answer comes in the form of an old Leninist maxim: “Probe with bayonets. If you find mush, push.”

Balloons (if that’s in fact what the mystery aircraft really are, a point that remains unconfirmed) may hardly seem threatening like bayonets. But, as The Times reported last week, Beijing has sent balloons over more than 40 countries. Balloons can scrape up photographic and other data that reconnaissance satellites cannot. And they can operate in a zone known as “near space,” between 12 and 62 miles above the earth, that the Chinese military calls “a new battleground in modern warfare.”

Balloons could also expose gaps in what the Pentagon calls “domain awareness.” They do not move in predictable patterns, as satellites do, and they can more easily evade radar than most aircraft. They help an adversary find our blind spots, not just in terms of how we detect threats to national security but also in how we conceive of them.

The point is crucial — and too easily forgotten. In October 2000, a billion-dollar American destroyer, the U.S.S. Cole, was nearly sunk at dock in the Yemeni Port of Aden by a small fiberglass boat carrying high explosives. Less than a year later, nearly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11 when 19 hijackers turned commercial airliners into giant cruise missiles.

Both cases are examples of effective low-tech aggression. More important, they are also case studies about how a lack of imagination cripples our own defenses. We tend to think that our adversaries might act against us the way we would act against them: by using the most advanced technologies at our disposal. But part of Chinese military doctrine is based on the idea of Sha Shou Jian, or the “assassin’s mace” — an inferior power using weapons that can surprise and defeat a superior one. In that perspective, balloons operating in near space fit the paradigm.

Then there’s the possibility that Beijing operates this way because it has gotten away with so much worse.

If sending surveillance balloons into U.S. airspace is nervy, what about setting up a network of illicit police stations across the world, including in New York, to surveil and sometimes intimidate Chinese nationals living abroad? Or how about hoovering up the personal information of as many as 22 million U.S. federal government employees, a Chinese hack that was exposed in 2015? Or pilfering information about the F-35, America’s most advanced jet fighter? And what about the Chinese-owned TikTok, which President Biden belatedly banned on all U.S. government devices because of its potential to scoop up its users’ personal data?

Any person, or country, that spends decades brazenly spying and stealing without real consequence will probably spy and steal some more. In that perspective, too, balloons are just parts of a familiar Beijing pattern.

Finally, there’s Beijing’s policy of the ambiguous but probably calculated insult. Chinese officials greeted Barack Obama and his team with a chain of petty snubs during his last presidential visit to China, in 2016. Chinese foreign policy supremo Yang Jiechi took the opportunity to lecture Secretary of State Antony Blinken at length at their first meeting in 2021. The balloon that overflew Montana and other states arrived just before Blinken was supposed to visit Beijing in an effort to patch up relations.

Maybe there are explanations for each incident that amount to accidents of timing or trivial misunderstandings. But, again, the pattern adds up.

There’s a coda to the Leninist maxim about probing with bayonets. It concludes: “If you encounter steel, withdraw.” Vladimir Putin found little steel in Washington or European capitals after he invaded Georgia, seized Crimea and obliterated much of Syria. Beijing has found little steel as it has probed everywhere from the cyber domain to the South China Sea.

That needs to change. Announcing a multibillion arms sale to Taiwan is the place to start. Alternatively, if the U.F.O.s really are Martians, it might at least give both countries the opportunity to set their differences aside.

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

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The New York Times · by Bret Stephens · February 14, 2023

3. Pentagon technology chief seeks low-cost deterrence concepts

Pentagon technology chief seeks low-cost deterrence concepts

c4isrnet.com · by Courtney Albon · February 15, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s chief technology officer is looking for low-cost options for deterring, and, if necessary, intervening in, overseas regional conflicts that involve U.S. allies.

Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu is commissioning a study from the Defense Science Board that considers how the U.S. military can apply technology, training and operational approaches in ways that deter “emerging regional powers” from invading neighboring countries.

“The concepts may devolve from novel technology, improvements in training and doctrine, alliance building or exploitation of inherent asymmetric vulnerabilities of adversaries,” she said in a Feb. 13 memo. “The goal is to deter local conflict involving allies or partners and prevail at the lowest cost should deterrence fail.”

The study is driven by concerns that adversary countries and regional aggressors are investing in technology designed to make it more costly for the U.S. to assist its allies or fulfill international treaty agreements.

“Emerging regional powers have invested over the last decade to discourage the United States from intervening,” Shyu said in the memo. “These investments are aimed at raising the cost of United States intervention to unacceptable levels; cost in terms of loss of life of military personnel and loss of high-value assets.”

While the memo doesn’t mention Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly one year ago, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with more than $61 billion in military aid since the war began, including air defense systems, artillery weapons, missiles and tanks. Lawmakers have widely supported the funding packages, but some Republicans have expressed skepticism about the cost of continuing to provide aid.

The Defense Science Board, established in 1956, is made up of former senior military and government officials, academics, and business leaders who advise the Department of Defense on various science, technology, manufacturing and acquisition challenges.

Shyu notes a specific interest in advanced undersea capabilities and operational concepts, new uses for space systems, electronic warfare countermeasures and cyber weapons.

The study should take no longer than one year, according to the memo, and any findings or recommendations will be offered to the full science board during a public meeting.

About Courtney Albon

Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.

4. Political fights over military make US look weak to China and Russia, experts tell senators

Excerpts:

She issued the warning in response to a question from Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who asked during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing what China thinks of a focus on “[gender] pronouns and things like that” in the U.S. military. Some Republicans have attacked the Pentagon for social policies that aim to promote racial and gender equality in the armed forces.

“They watch all of this and frankly, they think we’ve lost it,” Hill said in response to Scott. “The more I'm afraid that we make statements like this, the more that we start attacking our fellow Americans for whatever perspective we think they come from, the more that Russia and China think that we're working ourselves out of history.”

Hill, now a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, said the U.S. needs to show solidarity to be able to deter adversaries and unite its partners.

“I think China and Russia do know that we still can be lethal, but we’re most lethal when we get our act together, and [show] that we're all Americans fighting together on one side, and that's what our adversaries and our friends are looking to us for,” she said. “They’re watching us and thinking, you know, has America lost the plot at the moment.”

Political fights over military make US look weak to China and Russia, experts tell senators

Stars and Stripes · by Svetlana Shkolnikova · February 15, 2023

At left, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, March 8, 2022. At right, in a screenshot from C-SPAN video, former White House national security aide Fiona Hill speaks at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on global challenges and security concerns on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP, left; C-SPAN, right)

WASHINGTON — Political bickering over the military makes the United States appear weak to adversaries such as China and Russia and contributes to dropping public trust in the uniformed services, experts told senators on Wednesday.

Fiona Hill, a former U.S. National Security Council official during the Trump administration, said conversations about “wokeness” infiltrating the military and other political fights undermine the strength of the U.S. in the eyes of its enemies.

She issued the warning in response to a question from Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who asked during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing what China thinks of a focus on “[gender] pronouns and things like that” in the U.S. military. Some Republicans have attacked the Pentagon for social policies that aim to promote racial and gender equality in the armed forces.

“They watch all of this and frankly, they think we’ve lost it,” Hill said in response to Scott. “The more I'm afraid that we make statements like this, the more that we start attacking our fellow Americans for whatever perspective we think they come from, the more that Russia and China think that we're working ourselves out of history.”

Hill, now a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, said the U.S. needs to show solidarity to be able to deter adversaries and unite its partners.

“I think China and Russia do know that we still can be lethal, but we’re most lethal when we get our act together, and [show] that we're all Americans fighting together on one side, and that's what our adversaries and our friends are looking to us for,” she said. “They’re watching us and thinking, you know, has America lost the plot at the moment.”

That thinking is also shared by some Americans who were recently polled about their opinion of the military. A 2022 survey performed by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute found trust and confidence in the uniformed services dropped from 70% in 2018 to 48% in November.

“We asked the respondents why, and the response was clear that the American people believe that the military has become politicized,” said Roger Zakheim, director of the nonprofit Reagan organization. “I think it is not a concern of the American people that the U.S. military is unable to carry out their core mission of protecting this country and being the best military force in the world, it's a concern about politicization penetrating their mission.”

About 62% of surveyed Americans said they believed military leadership has become overly politicized, including 43% of Republicans and 24% of Democrats. Republicans named “woke” practices as the main culprit, without defining what those practices were, while Democrats said they were most concerned about the presence of far-right extremism in the military ranks, according to the survey.

The performance and competence of presidents, the military’s civilian leadership and uniformed leadership also contributed to the public’s souring perception of the military, the survey found.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a former Army officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, described the public's declining opinion of the military as “alarming.” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Hill’s message resonated “loud and clear” with the committee and the Senate at large, which he said needs to appear united on the armed forces.

“If we have laundry that is dirty and needs to be washed, don’t do it in public when the military’s involved,” Manchin said. “I feel very strongly about that.”

Stars and Stripes · by Svetlana Shkolnikova · February 15, 2023

5. For better defense spending, split the Pentagon’s budget into two

Excerpts:

The coming release of the Biden administration’s 2024 defense budget presents a ripe opportunity for lawmakers to evaluate whether it is time to move some defense spending into mandatory accounts and shift other funds to more appropriate agencies. When lawmakers identify programs that are not directly linked to military capability, they should either move them or cut them out completely, freeing up resources for much-needed capital reinvestment across the armed forces.

As important, lawmakers themselves should resist the urge to include their own non-military projects within the defense budget. It is understandable that the defense bills are attractive targets for parochial projects given their size and that they actually become law each year. But the lack of opportunities to legislate elsewhere should not make the defense budget everyone’s Christmas tree upon which they hang every policy and spending ornament — related or not.

While messy and complicated, this shift in how defense budgets are scrutinized and paid is a necessary effort in order to get a much deeper understanding of how much Congress is truly spending on core military capability versus critical supporting programs and efforts. Separating defense dollars into capital and operating budgets, shifting mandatory spending in defense from discretionary and into mandatory spending accounts and taking non-defense investments off the Pentagon’s books (or stopping certain activities altogether) will go a long way towards ensuring that the military receives what it genuinely needs to execute its central mission to defend the nation.

For better defense spending, split the Pentagon’s budget into two

BY MACKENZIE EAGLEN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 02/15/23 11:30 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3859140-for-better-defense-spending-split-the-pentagons-budget-into-two/?utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sailthru&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d

In the pursuit of “life, liberty and happiness,” safety precedes the others. Therefore it makes sense that the federal government’s mandatory, exclusive and primary job is to provide for the common defense. What is curious, however, is that funding for this core responsibility is considered discretionary.

Many states in America have two separate budgets: one for capital expenses and another for operating activities. Part of the reason for this is that capital improvement projects can take years to plan and execute (think highway construction, land acquisition and large renovation of real property). In other cases, there are two state budgets because the method of financing major, multi-year projects may vary. Some capital projects are financed by general purpose taxes while others may be paid for by federal grants, borrowing, or dedicated revenue such as a gasoline tax.

By separating investments from the costs of annual operations, long-term capital improvement projects are not seen as deficit drivers. They’re seen as what they are: necessary — if expensive — upkeep to continue providing robust services to voters.

It is time for the federal government to pay for the U.S. military’s two budgets similarly and separate the Defense Department’s capital and operating budgets. By moving important and necessary funds for pay and benefits, for example, into direct (mandatory) spending, policymakers will have a more clear understanding of where defense dollars go and how much of the defense budget actually buys direct military capability.

In undertaking this shift, Congress would also need to consider what defense priorities and spending should move to other federal agencies or be eliminated altogether. As my colleague, American Enterprise Institute’s Elaine McCusker has documented, over $100 billion of the $773 billion requested by the administration for its fiscal year 2023 defense budget went to “programs and activities that do not directly contribute to military capability.”

This is money allocated not for weapons systems, munitions or training but rather for a slew of other programs — including environmental restoration, health care, foreign security assistance and dependent education. These non-defense costs in the defense budget are largely concentrated within the operation and maintenance appropriations account, where nearly half of the $109 billion is spent.

In the military’s operations and maintenance account, however, tens of billions of dollars are dedicated to programs and activities that would be logically at home in another agency’s budget. Take dependent education as an example. For the current year, the Defense Department asked for $3.3 billion to fund the education of military members’ children both in the United States and abroad. While providing schooling to these kids is incredibly important, it may be worth considering whether the Department of Education should take up the mantle and oversee this priority and receive these funds instead.

Base operations support offers another example. In this year’s budget request, the Defense Department asked for $1.7 billion in such funding for the Army to spend on environmental programs, climate change mitigation and community services. That is in addition to the Army’s request of $169.7 million specifically for environmental conservation. Again, while important, it also begs the question of why any service is conducting environmental conservation when there are federal agencies (read: the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior) that are dedicated to this very task.

A persistent challenge for policymakers is understanding why defense budgets are so high and buy so little tangible combat power. One reason is all the non-defense spending being included in the defense budget, which artificially inflates the topline with priorities that do not directly advance warfighting capability.

The coming release of the Biden administration’s 2024 defense budget presents a ripe opportunity for lawmakers to evaluate whether it is time to move some defense spending into mandatory accounts and shift other funds to more appropriate agencies. When lawmakers identify programs that are not directly linked to military capability, they should either move them or cut them out completely, freeing up resources for much-needed capital reinvestment across the armed forces.

As important, lawmakers themselves should resist the urge to include their own non-military projects within the defense budget. It is understandable that the defense bills are attractive targets for parochial projects given their size and that they actually become law each year. But the lack of opportunities to legislate elsewhere should not make the defense budget everyone’s Christmas tree upon which they hang every policy and spending ornament — related or not.

While messy and complicated, this shift in how defense budgets are scrutinized and paid is a necessary effort in order to get a much deeper understanding of how much Congress is truly spending on core military capability versus critical supporting programs and efforts. Separating defense dollars into capital and operating budgets, shifting mandatory spending in defense from discretionary and into mandatory spending accounts and taking non-defense investments off the Pentagon’s books (or stopping certain activities altogether) will go a long way towards ensuring that the military receives what it genuinely needs to execute its central mission to defend the nation.

Mackenzie Eaglen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

6. Update Now: iOS Devices Receive Vital Security Updates from Apple

Public service announcement.

Update Now: iOS Devices Receive Vital Security Updates from Apple

If you are using an Apple product, it is time to update it right now and make sure the automatic updates are enabled.

hackread.com · by byDeeba Ahmed · February 15, 2023

Apple has released an emergency security patch to fix a critical vulnerability that has been targeting all iOS devices, including iPhones, Macbooks, and Tablets.

Apple has released urgent security patches for a newly detected zero-day vulnerability that can be exploited to hack vulnerable iOS devices, including Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

The vulnerability (tracked as CVE-2023-23529) was found in the WebKit framework of the browser. So, if maliciously designed web content is processed, it would allow arbitrary code execution after an unsuspecting user visits a compromised URL.

“Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited,” the company noted. This explains why the iPhone maker released patches urgently for its flagship devices.

Still, the impact is extensive, as from the iPhone 8 to all subsequent iPhone models will be impacted, as well as every model of iPad Pro, the iPad Air 3rd generation and above, iPad 5th generation and above, and iPad mini 5th generation.

Which Devices are Impacted?

An unidentified researcher discovered the flaw, which has been patched with the latest edition of security updates. Apple didn’t specify how this vulnerability could be exploited.

In fact, it is the first time a zero-day has been defined as a newly discovered security flaw. It is a WebKit confusion issue. Moreover, all Macs running Ventura will be impacted. Fixes for all these versions were released in the security update.

Security Update Details

The small point update released by Apple on Monday contains WebKit security patches for iOS 16.3.1, iPadOS 16.3.1, and macOS 11.2.1 to fix a zero-day bug. The updates are available for iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, and the latest edition of Apple Safari, as well as the preceding versions of Big Sur and macOS Monterey.

In addition, Apple released patches for tvOS 16.3.2 and watchOS 9.3.1. The company has yet to release the CVE entries, though. It is also unclear if a fix will be released for iOS 15 devices. If you haven’t updated your device, please do so immediately to stay safe.

RELATED NEWS

hackread.com · by byDeeba Ahmed · February 15, 2023

7. ‘We Didn’t Have the Ships’ to Send ‘Best Option’ to Help Earthquake Victims, Commandant Says

Excerpts:

At the time, Heckl said the problem deploying the Kearsarge ARG illustrated the state of readiness of the entire amphibious Navy, and warned that a similar incident could happen again.

“And in the Navy's defense, I understand, you know, they have Columbia [submarine], the nuclear triad, and amphibs just unfortunately fall out on the bottom,” Heckl said. “But the reality is that the mission sets that a MEU/ARG is most likely to do are very real, they're fairly regular, and pretty frequent. And unfortunately, we don't have the assets right now to respond like we should.”

The Marine Corps supports any funding that addresses the Navy’s ship maintenance and readiness problems, Berger said.

“Every dollar that goes into maintenance for ships is a good dollar spent. Amphibious ships, destroyers, submarines, all of it. We have to resource that, we have to fund that,” he said. “And the [chief of naval operations] has been pretty open about the unacceptable backlogs in repairs and times to get a ship out of the yards. He's been very forthright about, hey, that has to improve to build our readiness.”

‘We Didn’t Have the Ships’ to Send ‘Best Option’ to Help Earthquake Victims, Commandant Says

Incident comes a year after maintenance problems delayed the 22nd MEU’s deployment to Europe.

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

The Marine Corps could not send a large crisis response unit to aid Turkey after the devastating earthquake there because there weren’t any amphibious ships in the region, the Marine Corps commandant said Wednesday, raising new concerns about the service’s ability to carry out one of its core missions.

“We didn't have a Marine Expeditionary Unit, a MEU, nearby that could respond…I owe the secretary of defense, the President—we joint chiefs owe them options…all the time. Here, I felt like the best option, we couldn't offer them because we have the Marines and the equipment and they're trained, we didn't have the ships,” Gen. David Berger said during an interview with Defense One.

The incident comes a year after Marines with orders to deploy to Europe were delayed because some of the amphibious readiness group ships they were supposed to use were not out of maintenance in time.

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, victims quickly needed basic supplies such as water, medicine, and equipment to deal with the rubble, Berger said, but without the added burden of more people ashore, which a MEU aboard an amphibious ship could provide.

“We would have liked for a MEU/ARG, or amphibious ready group, to be in the Mediterranean all the time, and then they could get there quickly to a NATO member like Turkey, but we couldn't do that,” he said.

The military has provided other help to Turkey as part of the U.S.’ response to the Feb. 6 earthquake, including air transport of people and equipment.

The Marine Corps needs at least 31 amphibious ships, or more risk will be passed to combatant commanders, Marines, and sailors, Gen. Eric Smith, the Marines’ assistant commandant, said in a keynote speech at WEST 2023 in San Diego on Tuesday.

“So 31 is the answer, and we can't accept less. And when it does, we just have to highlight that there's increased risk now for us, for those American citizens waiting to be evacuated for humanitarian assistance / disaster relief operations,” Smith said.

Pointing to Smith’s comments, Berger said the Turkey incident is an example of what can happen when the Marine Corps has fewer amphibious ships than needed.

“Anything less than that, anything less, then the combatant commanders start to accept risk where they can't get to something, they can't deter something. And at that point, there's risk,” he said.

The Navy already has the minimum of 31 amphibious ships; however, its 30-year shipbuilding plan would have reduced the number to a low of 24 next year before bringing it back up to 31 by 2030. Congress last year intervened by putting the minimum of 31 into law.

Last February, amid growing concerns of Russia’s buildup of forces along Ukraine’s border, the 22nd MEU was ordered to deploy to Europe. But while the Marines were ready to go, the three warships of the USS Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group were not, said Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command and deputy commandant for Combat Development and Integration.

“The bottom line is, we should have been there and had that available to the combatant commander and we weren't,” Heckl told Defense One in April.

At the time, Heckl said the problem deploying the Kearsarge ARG illustrated the state of readiness of the entire amphibious Navy, and warned that a similar incident could happen again.

“And in the Navy's defense, I understand, you know, they have Columbia [submarine], the nuclear triad, and amphibs just unfortunately fall out on the bottom,” Heckl said. “But the reality is that the mission sets that a MEU/ARG is most likely to do are very real, they're fairly regular, and pretty frequent. And unfortunately, we don't have the assets right now to respond like we should.”

The Marine Corps supports any funding that addresses the Navy’s ship maintenance and readiness problems, Berger said.

“Every dollar that goes into maintenance for ships is a good dollar spent. Amphibious ships, destroyers, submarines, all of it. We have to resource that, we have to fund that,” he said. “And the [chief of naval operations] has been pretty open about the unacceptable backlogs in repairs and times to get a ship out of the yards. He's been very forthright about, hey, that has to improve to build our readiness.”

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

8. Delta Force Legend Gary Harrell Dies in Tennessee

May he rest in peace.

Delta Force Legend Gary Harrell Dies in Tennessee

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February 14, 2023Carl Prine

Retired US Army Maj. Gen. Gary L. Harrell, a legendary Delta Force leader, will be buried on Monday, Feb. 20, 2023, in Mountain View National Cemetery outside Johnson City, Tennessee. Composite by Coffee or Die.

Maj. Gen. Gary Harrell, a legendary Delta Force leader, is being remembered as a quiet professional who lived a daring life of service and sacrifice during America’s shadow wars.

The retired two-star Green Beret general died early on Valentine’s Day in Johnson City, Tennessee, following a long battle with glioblastoma brain cancer.

He was 71 and had hunted Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, led an operation to free an American hostage from a Panamanian prison, and battled the nation’s enemies in Grenada, the Gulf War, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan during three decades of service.

“He was a strong, Christian patriot who loved his country and would’ve done anything for his country, until the day he died,” his wife, Jennifer “Jenny” Harrell, told Coffee or Die on Tuesday. “That was foremost to him. He loved his military service, every minute of it.”

US Army Maj. Gen. Gary L. Harrell served as an infantry and Special Forces officer, including tours in Panama, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. US Army photo.

Command Sgt. Maj. Jay F. Lovelace, the retired senior enlisted advisor at US Special Operations Command Central, lauded Harrell as a “giant among giants,” who heroically carried out some of the nation’s most daring clandestine missions without ever neglecting the welfare of his troops.

“He was loved by every person he met,” Lovelace told Coffee or Die. “It didn’t matter if it was a foreign soldier or an American soldier. He was a caring man. He kept his word on taking care of his soldiers and his Marines. He was my best friend. He was a man of honor. That’s what he was.”

Retired Master Sgt. Mark Stephens recalled serving under Harrell during Operation Gothic Serpent, a 1993 manhunt for Somali warlords that led to the pitched Battle of Mogadishu.

Severely wounded in the fight, Stephens was evacuated by plane, sharing space with four service members killed in action. Shortly after that, on Oct. 6, 1993, a mortar strike felled Harrell. The shrapnel nearly severed his legs.

“He didn’t live to be on the tongue of America’s mouth, with everyone knowing his name,” Stephens said. “But does he deserve it? Hell, yeah, he deserves it. He sacrificed everything for this country.”

Then-Brig. Gen. Gary Harrell visits Afghanistan alongside then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in this undated photograph. US Army photo.

Harrell overcame his wounds and served another 15 years in uniform, including leading Delta Force commandos on missions no one talks about.

“A quiet professional,” said Stephens. “He really was. What I really respected, as a commander, was when you had an issue, personal or professional. He’d listen to the people who worked for him. Could he lead from the front, and did he? Yes. He always did first what he would ask of you. But he always listened to the people around him. He trusted them and gave them all the room to be successful, and that’s a powerful lesson to learn.”

Stephens said that Harrell “was like a dad to me,” a servant leader who taught all his commissioned and enlisted leaders how to lead soldiers the right way, with honor, and quiet dignity, and valor.

“He taught us when to make the hard call. That was his biggest attribute,” Stephens told Coffee or Die. “Look at the people who surrounded him. He cultivated loyalty and people gravitated to him. He brought people from different commands together, and they inherently followed him. He took care of his people, and he gave you the respect of listening.”

Retired US Army Master Sgt. Mark Stephens, left, poses with retired Maj. Gen. Gary Harrell. Photo courtesy of Mark Stephens.

When Harrell retired from the Army in 2008 as the deputy commanding general of the US Army’s Special Operations Command, his chest was spangled with some of the nation’s highest awards for both service and combat, including the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Bronze Star Medal with a V-device for valor and two oak leaf clusters, and his Purple Heart from Somalia.

He also survived a helicopter crash in Panama and a serious flashbang grenade injury, according to his wife, Jenny.

She told Coffee or Die she met the East Tennessee boy during a sleigh ride. She was only 16, and they fell in love.

“I thought he was good looking. And he had this great personality. You couldn’t help but like him,” she said.

“He always wanted to be in the military,” she continued. “When he was in high school, he was a junior. And ROTC came to present about how to get a scholarship, which he thought sounded better than going to math class. That fascinated him. He applied, and the rest is history.”

Inducted into the US Special Operations Command’s Commando Hall of Honor in 2022, retired US Army Maj. Gen. Gary Harrell, center, died in Johnson City, Tennessee, on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. Photo courtesy of Mark Stephens.

Harrell was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1973 through East Tennessee State’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. In 2020, he was inducted into the US Army’s ROTC Hall of Fame for his significant contributions to both the service and his country.

Harrell first led rifle and anti-tank (TOW) platoons with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, before earning his Green Beret. In early 1977 he was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), at Fort Gulick, in Panama.

He commanded a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha team and, in 1985, was assigned as a troop commander at 1st SFOD-D at Fort Bragg, which is better known as Delta Force.

In 1989, he led the Operation Acid Gambit team that broke into Cárcel Modelo prison to rescue American spy Kurt Muse shortly before the invasion of Panama officially kicked off.

For nearly four decades, US Army Special Forces carried out clandestine training and operational missions with Colombian forces, including these troops serving on Operation Willing Spirit on July 11, 2006. US Army photo.

In mid-1992, he took command of Delta Force’s C Squadron and deployed to Colombia, where he spearheaded the hunt for the drug lord Escobar.

Then it was off to Somalia as a ground force commander supporting UNOSOM II. After recovering from his wounds, he was named deputy commander of Delta Force in 1995.

He later served as director of US Central Command’s Joint Security Directorate. In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he formed CENTCOM’s Joint Inter-Agency Task Force, merging military, espionage, and law enforcement teams to track down the al Qaeda network.

On Nov. 25, 2001, he took command of Task Force Bowie and served as the assistant division commander for the 10th Mountain Division during Operation Anaconda, a campaign to clear Taliban and al Qaeda forces from Afghanistan’s Shai-Khowt Valley.

The US military’s ground campaign in Afghanistan began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, with Army Special Forces waging war, sometimes on horseback, alongside irregular anti-Taliban troops. US Army photo.

The next year, Harrell led Special Operations Command Central during the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

He later held key positions at NATO and US Special Operations Command.

His post-Army career included directing KASOTC — the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center — in Amman, Jordan, from 2009 to 2012.

Hours before Harrell died, the regent called to say farewell to his longtime pal.

“He considered Gary one of his close, special friends,” Jenny said.

A US Marine with the Maritime Raid Force, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, moves to contact during a live-fire exercise at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center in Jordan on Aug. 27, 2019. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Matthew Teutsch.

After running KASOTC, Harrell became a senior vice president at the San Diego-based Cubic Applications Inc. He wooed Stephens to join him in the special operations and intelligence division. In turn, Stephens got Harrell to join the board of the Task Force Dagger Special Operations Foundation, a Florida charity that aids wounded, ill, and injured operators, and their families.

“We get people at their worst, in many cases, and we do things that are game-changers for their families, so they can get to where they need to be.”

Stephens credited Harrell with tight oversight of the nonprofit, scrutinizing how funds were spent and making sure “it stayed lean, agile, and never became a bureaucracy.”

He also served on the board of the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and chaired the Washington County Republican Party.

President George H.W. Bush greets troops in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Dec. 31, 1992. The humanitarian mission would grow increasingly difficult. US Navy photo.

Gary Lynn Harrell was born on June 1, 1951, in Jonesborough, Tennessee, to Henry and Louise Harrell.

He was raised in the Baptist faith alongside his brothers, Robert and Jim, and his sister, Mary.

Maj. Gen. Harrell was preceded in death by his father.

He’s survived by his wife; his mother; his siblings; his children, Andrea Burchette (and her husband, Kevin); Chad (Marcia) Harrell; Amanda (Nathan) Schwamburger; and his grandchildren, Carson Grace and Callie Faith Burchette, Rory and Finnegan Harrell, and H.T. and Hadley Schwamburger.

A restored World War II jeep will bear the casket of retired US Army Maj. Gen. Gary Harrell to his Tennessee grave on Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. Photos courtesy of retired Command Sgt. Maj. Jay F. Lovelace.

Morris-Baker Funeral Home and Cremation Services is handling funeral arrangements, which are being finalized by Harrell’s family.

Visitation is tentatively scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday at Boones Creek Christian Church in Johnson City. Harrell’s funeral service begins three hours later.

A public burial with full military honors will follow Monday at 9 a.m. at Mountain Home National Cemetery near Johnson City.

A World War II jeep restored by Command Sgt. Maj. Lovelace will bear Harrell’s casket to his grave.

“He loved life. He loved people,” said Jenny. “He fought the good fight. He battled to the very end. But, unfortunately, there was no cure.”

Carl Prine

Carl Prine is a senior editor at Coffee or Die Magazine. He previously worked at Navy Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He served in the Marine Corps and the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. His awards include the Joseph Galloway Award for Distinguished Reporting on the military, a first prize from Investigative Reporters & Editors, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR2 – The World After Taiwan's Fall - Pacific Forum

pacforum.org

Introduction

Let us start with our bottom line: a failure of the United States to come to Taiwan’s aid—politically, economically, and militarily—would devastate the Unites States’ credibility and defense commitments to its allies and partners, not just in Asia, but globally. If the United States tries but fails to prevent a Chinese takeover of Taiwan, the impact could be equally devastating unless there is a concentrated, coordinated U.S. attempt with likeminded allies and partners to halt further Chinese aggression and eventually roll back Beijing’s ill-gotten gains.

This is not a hypothetical assessment. Taiwan has been increasingly under the threat of a military takeover by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and, even today, is under attack politically, economically, psychologically, and through so-called “gray zone” military actions short of actual combat. The U.S. government, U.S. allies, and others have begun to pay attention to this problem, yet to this day, they have not sufficiently appreciated the strategic implications that such a takeover would generate. To address this problem, the Pacific Forum has conducted a multi-authored study to raise awareness in Washington, key allied capitals, and beyond about the consequences of a Chinese victory in a war over Taiwan and, more importantly, to drive them to take appropriate action to prevent it.

The study, which provides six national perspectives on this question (a U.S., Australian, Japanese, Korean, Indian, and European perspective) and fed its findings and recommendations into the second round of the DTRA SI-STT-sponsored (and Pacific Forum-run) Track 2 “U.S.-Taiwan Deterrence and Defense Dialogue,” outlines these strategic implications in two alternative scenarios. In the first scenario, China attacks Taiwan and it falls with no outside assistance from the United States or others. In the other scenario, Taiwan falls to China despite outside assistance (i.e., “a too little, too late” scenario).

Click here to download the full report.

Introduction

David Santoro & Ralph Cossa

Chapter 1 | If Taiwan Falls: Future Scenarios and Implications for the United States

Ian Easton

Chapter 2 | Chinese Victory over Taiwan – An Australian Perspective

Malcolm Davis

Chapter 3 | China’s Takeover of Taiwan Would Have a Negative Impact on Japan

Matake Kamiya

Chapter 4 | If Taiwan Falls to China: Implications for the Korean Peninsula

Duyeon Kim

Chapter 5 | The Implications for India of a Successful Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

Jabin T. Jacob

Chapter 6 | The Consequences for Europe of a Successful Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

Bruno Tertrais

Conclusions

David Santoro & Ralph Cossa

pacforum.org

10. The Most Powerful Weapon to use Against Democracies

Conclusion:

There are several implications from the challenges on the existing world order. A study from the Rand Corporation on Russian influence campaigns found that social media education could prove to be an effective counter and recommended creating a counter-disinformation strategy with a commitment to the freedom of speech.[33] Providing education to people on how to analyse information critically and the capabilities of AI are an enormous challenge when compared to the low cost of an automated disinformation campaign. Another implication is an increase in instability from the decoupling of economies. For example, while China and the US both benefit from their large economic trade and dependency, they are beginn

The Most Powerful Weapon to use Against Democracies

By Cole Herring

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/most-powerful-weapon-use-against-democracies

In the year 2000 around one tenth of the world’s population had internet access, and global internet traffic was 2.5 million gigabytes of data per day. By 2025 over seventy-five percent of the world will have access and global internet traffic will be over 9.1 billion gigabytes of data per day.[1] Currently 93 percent of people that are connected to the internet use social media. Facebook, a predominate social media platform, can reach over half of the adults in the world between the ages of 18 to 34.[2] The surge in global connectivity has distributed influence in international politics to social groups that span multiple countries.[3] Recent advances in artificial intelligence have given state’s an unprecedented power to control and influence messaging domestically and abroad. China and Russia challenge the existing world order through traditional means that have existed for thousands of years, such as using military power, creating parallel institutions, and increasing economic ties through infrastructure projects. They also challenge the world order through means that were unfathomable just 20 years ago by leveraging artificial intelligence and global connectivity to conduct influence campaigns against democracies.

China and Russia challenge the existing world order by using military power, creating parallel institutions, and increasing economic ties through infrastructure projects. To support all of these means they use influence campaigns that leverage global connectivity, social media, and AI to change accepted behaviours and norms. Rapid technology developments in realistic image generation have outpaced general knowledge, which increases the effect of misinformation and is a disadvantage to democracies because of authoritarian regimes’ ability to censor content domestically.

The battles become changing the accepted behaviours and norms of other states into norms that are in one’s own interests. An example is the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the recognition of Taiwan. The PRC continually stives to change other state’s recognition and relations, both official and unofficial, with Taiwan.[4],[5] If one accepts that other states should not interfere in domestic issues, then the PRC must ensure the accepted international norm is that Taiwan is part of China. Sovereignty is the basis of the PRC’s argument regarding Taiwan and China’s 2019 national defence strategy states that Taiwan is a domestic issue under the One China Policy, and other states should not interfere with domestic issues.[6]

Before exploring how major powers like China and Russia challenge the existing world order, it is appropriate to consider what the existing world order is. According to the theory of constructivism a world order is a set of shared behaviours and norms conducted by states.[7] The behaviours and norms are established through social interaction to which international organizations and alliances are often the conduit. Dr. Lawrence Finkelstein served in the UN secretariat from 1946 to 1949 and had a career in international affairs and academia. He highlighted the ambiguity of the world order by saying “global governances appears to be virtually anything.”[8] Under this construct, shaping the accepted beliefs and norms through influence campaigns becomes a powerful lever.

Major powers like Russia and China argue that the existing world order favours European countries and specifically the United States of America. Since the United States of America was an undisputed and indispensable leader, it was able to shape an order out of its own interests and abuse its power. The leaders of China and Russia both want their nations to be national powers and view the current world order as being western dominated and holding back their progress. In 1999 the leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin, said “Russia has been a great power for centuries, and remains so. It has always had and still has legitimate zones of interest.”[9] When the leader of China, Ji Xing Ping, took office he said “The greatest Chinese Dream is the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” and in subsequent speeches he called for a stable international order in which China’s national rejuvenation could be achieved, a military capable of fighting and winning wars, and demonstrating the superior system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.[10]

While China is more insidious and traditionally uses soft power, Russia has relied more on hard military power. However, recent rhetoric suggests that China will increasingly rely on hard power.[11] Although their approaches vary, China and Russia use military, diplomatic, and economic means to challenge the existing world order. When Russia invaded Ukraine, it used its military power to challenge international law established by the United Nations. China’s one belt road initiative seeks to increase economic interdependence and make China the economic centre of the world. As part of the one belt one road initiative, China has also used investments and military aid to gain port access for its navy and army, known as the string of pearls that encircles India.[12] China and Russia also build parallel organizations, for example Russia’s Collective Security Treaty Organizations and China’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization parallels NATO. China has also created Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, an alternative to the World Bank.[13] To accomplish these means both authoritarian regimes use influence campaigns, which are arguably becoming their most powerful weapon against democracies.

Globalization has caused the line between domestic and international issues to become difficult to define. An example is Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing (IUUF). While the PRC views the ability to feed its population as a domestic issue, the methods it uses have international implications. To feed its population the PRC uses around 800,000 fishing boats, which is half of the world’s fishers.[14] The boats fish by trawling, which uses nets that devastate the ocean floor and frequently fish in other countries exclusive economic zones. Every year, the PRC sends 350-600 deep water finish vessels to fish off the Galapagos islands, and account of 99% of the fishing conducted there.[15] Despite the environmental destruction and constant incursions on other countries economic exclusive zones, the PRC continues the practice and is the largest offender in IUUF.[16] With the aid of artificial intelligence systems that can replicate media throughout multiple social media platforms, the PRC can censor data domestically and influence it abroad to suppress information about the fishing fleets.

State actors weaponization and use of artificial intelligence in influence campaigns present a significant challenge. While the use of state propaganda is not a new concept, the scope and scale that it can be conducted is unpresented. Misinformation is “the purposeful distribution of fake, misleading, fabricated, or manipulated content.”[17] In the past the distribution of misinformation or propaganda across borders involved the costly process of opening a printing press, news outlets, or manually distributing content in the form of pamphlets.[18] The ability to spread content in mass to populations was not tenable until recently. In a democratic system the influence on people at scale will ultimately influence policy makers and international interest. This is product of democracy that major state powers seek to exploit. By influencing masses at scale, they can change the perception of norms and indirectly influence heads of state through the people.[19] The pace of growth in AI has outpaced education on misinformation, especially in the young democracies that often become a battleground for influence.

In 2019, a neural network created by Nvidia could produce images of human faces that are indistinguishable from photographs. In 2021, google released Imagen, a text to image model with unprecedented photorealism. Photorealism refers to an image that appears to have been taken by a human with a camera. A user can enter text and the model will generate a realistic image, in seconds, to the user. One example is “a cute corgi lives in a house made out of sushi.”[20] The image generated combines all the aspects in the text to create a realistic image, one that is so realistic humans cannot distinguish a computer-generated image with a photograph taken by a human with a camera. What previously would have taken hours of labour using photoshop software can be accomplished in seconds. When this model is combined with a traditional algorithm to input key words and automate the process of posting the content on social media it gives the users the ability to flood an information environment with fake content.

Major powers like China and Russia have already shown that they are capable and willing to use technology to fuel their propaganda, disinformation, and public opinion campaigns. In 2020 Twitter deleted 32,000 accounts linked to state sponsored propaganda from China, Russia, and Turkey.[21] The power and influence appears to be acknowledged by all governments, with recent claims in 2022 that pro-west social media networks were discovered distributing propaganda.[22] Using AI models that can produce photorealistic images and bot networks state powers can create and distribute propaganda and disinformation campaigns throughout the world in a cheap and efficient manner. The developing countries where the understanding of AI is lower will likely be easier to influence.

Compounding the power of using AI to influence perceptions to change norms and behaviour is the ability to target specific populations and beliefs on social media. The marketing and advertising business have led to the creation of powerful tools that can show advertisements based on a person’s likes and interests.[23] The same tools can be used to target a population with specific beliefs for a desired effect. A major state power could target a country that has traditionally been neutral on the recognition of Taiwan. They could then rapidly create content targeting people that believe in the one China policy, and those that support Taiwanese independence. The social influence campaign would seek to reinforce the beliefs of those that support it while discrediting those that oppose it.

China’s great firewall has made it more resilient to influence campaigns because of its extensive censorship. The ability to censor the internet presents a major advantage for authoritarian regimes against democracies because they can simultaneously control a domestic narrative while influencing a global narrative. A small and mundane example is with the book Bend, not Break by Ping Fu. A negative review campaign was launched from China to reduce the popularity of the book and discredit the author.[24] The negative review campaign was aimed to reduce the book’s popularity in foreign markets, yet there was not a mechanism to promote the book within China because it was simply banned.

Major state actors also use influence campaigns with the intended effect of dismantling and discrediting alliances or states from within. The United States select committee on intelligence investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.[25] The committee found numerous cases, outside the scope of the election, where Russian state sponsored actors in Russia orchestrated divisive protests at the same location as counter protests in the United States of America. They also spread disinformation and encouraged the use of violence to both parties.[26]

The influence campaign conducted by Russia against the United States of America in 2016 included Russian agent’s use of social media to organize protests in the United States from Russia, messaging people to encourage violent participation, and financially reimbursing members that would participate if they fit the mould of being extreme. In the example from 2016, state sponsored Russian activity specifically targeted the Black Lives Matter movement to create negative and emotional reactions. The activities explicitly sought to exploit and exasperate a racial divide and targeted both left and right wing parties.[27]

The campaign was especially effective because it created content based on users known likes and interests. A book written by Estonian academics and published in 2021 describes Russia’s information warfare doctrine and strategy, and it notes that Russian information campaigns “are targeted at particular audiences in a considerably narrowed-down manner and with unprecedented precision.”[28] Global connectivity, especially in social media, is what makes an unprecedented level of precision possible.

Another example that highlights the use of information campaigns in conjunction with traditional levers of power is the Russian campaign to preserve their influence in energy. In 2017, the US Congressional Committee on Science, Space, and Technology wrote to US Department of the Treasury stating that “U.S. presidential candidates, European officials, and the U.S. intelligence community have all publicly noted that Russia and its government corporations are funding a covert anti-fracking campaign to suppress the widespread adoption of fracking in Europe and the U.S.—all in an effort to safeguard the influence of the Russian oil and gas sector.”[29] Russia was providing funding and influencing environmental groups to counter fracking in the United States, which Russian policy makers saw as threat to their economy due to Russia’s reliance on exporting energy.

Russia influence campaigns have made attempts to cause divides with the EU by manipulating political groups.[30] Several examples of Russian disinformation can be found in Poland, where Russian actors targeted the local population. In 2020 during a rotation of US troops as part of a NATO battalion, the slogan “No US troops in Poland!” was posted on a mayor’s official website, along with encouragement to march in protest. Russian sponsored news agencies and unattributed social media networks disseminated the information about the movement. By the time the mayor could declare they had been hacked two days had passed, and the story had already been propagated. Another example used the same technique of combining a cyber hack with immediate news stories that are spread through social media. In this example a fake letter with the heading “A Polish General Calls on Polish Soldiers to Fight the US Occupation,” was circulated. Both were aimed to divide the local population in Poland against the US presence, in an attempt to weaken NATO.[31] Following the events, a spokesman for the Polish Prime Minster said Russia was using methods to “break the security measures and hijack social media accounts or websites in Poland and use such infrastructure to sow disinformation.”[32]

There are several implications from the challenges on the existing world order. A study from the Rand Corporation on Russian influence campaigns found that social media education could prove to be an effective counter and recommended creating a counter-disinformation strategy with a commitment to the freedom of speech.[33] Providing education to people on how to analyse information critically and the capabilities of AI are an enormous challenge when compared to the low cost of an automated disinformation campaign. Another implication is an increase in instability from the decoupling of economies. For example, while China and the US both benefit from their large economic trade and dependency, they are beginning to go through a technological decoupling.[34] NATO allies reducing their dependence on Russian gas also created a level of instability that impacted the civilians in all the countries involved with the decoupling.

[1] “Recent Trends in the Data Driven Economy,” in Digital Economy Report 2019: Value Creation and Capture: Implications for Developing Countries (New York, New York: United Nations, 2019), 13-14.

[2] Simon Kemp, “Digital 2020: Global Digital Overview - DataReportal – Global Digital Insights,” DataReportal (DataReportal – Global Digital Insights, February 11, 2021), https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-global-digital-overview.

[3] Dylan Kissane, “A Theory of Complexity,” in Beyond Anarchy: The Complex and Chaotic Dynamics of International Politics (Stuttgart, Germany: Columbia University Press, 2018), 208-220.

[4] Bill Chou, “China-Taiwan-Portugal Relations and Macau in Cultural Revolution: A Year of Advance, Withdrawal and Isolation,” East Asia 37, no. 2 (2020): 107-120, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12140-020-09331-0.

[5] Wong, Edward, and Amy Qin. "Report Urges U.S. to Act To Curb Taiwan Isolation." New York Times, March 25, 2022, A7(L). Gale OneFile: News (accessed September 24, 2022). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A698152379/STND?u=jscscoll&sid=bookmark-STND&xid=f39ae2cd.

[6] China's National Defence in the New Era. Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press, 2019, 6-7.

[7] Alexandra Gheciu, William Curti Wohlforth, and Michael Barnett, “Constructivism,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Security (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2020).

[8] Shridath Sir Ramphal and Lawrence S. Finkelstein, “What Is Global Governance?,” in Global Governance, 3rd ed., vol. 1 (Cambridge England: Global Security Programme, 1995), 367-372.

[9] Nelli Babayan, Special Issue: Democracy Promotion and the Challenges of Illiberal Regional Powers (Abingdon, Virginia: Taylor & Francis, 2015), 30-36.

[10] Elizabeth C. Economy, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 3-6.

[11] Xi Jinping, “Full Text of Xi Jinping's Speech on the CCP's 100th Anniversary,” (Nikkei Asia, July 1, 2021), https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Full-text-of-Xi-Jinping-s-speech-on-the-CCP-s-100th-anniversary.

[12] Petrovski, Aleksandar, and Nenad Taneski. “One Belt One Road - How Does It Affect the Eurasian Economic and Security Issue.” Contemporary Macedonian Defense / Sovremena Makedonska Odbrana 19, no. 37 (December 1, 2019), 69–77.

[13] Marc Lanteigne. China and International Institutions: Alternate Paths to Global Power. London: Routledge, 2005, 26-29.

[14] Judith Bergman, “China's Fishing Fleet Is Vacuuming the Oceans,” Gatestone Institute, April 22, 2021, https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17297/china-fishing-fleet.

[15] Bergman, “China's Fishing Fleet Is Vacuuming the Oceans.”

[16] U.S. Mission Ecuador, “Remarks: General Laura Richardson, Commander of U.S. Southern Command at South American Defense Conference, SOUTHDEC,” U.S. Embassy & Consulate in Ecuador (U.S. Embassy & Consulate in Ecuador, September 14, 2022), https://ec.usembassy.gov/remarks-gen-laura-richardson-commander-of-u-s-southern-command-at-south-american-defense-conference-southdec/.

[17] Bradshaw, Samantha, and Philip N. Howard. “The Global Organization of Social Media Disinformation Campaigns.” Journal of International Affairs 71 (January 2, 2018): 23–31.

[18] Marshall Soules, Media, Persuasion and Propaganda (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 1-9.

[19] Soules, 119-130.

[20] Chitwan Saharia, “Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding,” Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding, May 23, 2022, http://export.arxiv.org/abs/2205.

[21] Mary Papenfuss, “Twitter Axes 32,000 State-Linked Propaganda Accounts from Russia, China and Turkey,” HuffPost (HuffPost, June 12, 2020), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/twitter-china-russia-turkey-accounts-trump-election_n_5ee2f717c5b6cea9276d893c.

[22] Isobel Asher Hamilton, “Meta and Twitter Discovered a Network of pro-West Propaganda Accounts That Criticized Russia, China, and Iran, Researchers Say,” Business Insider (Business Insider), accessed September 24, 2022, https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-twitter-discover-pro-west-propaganda-network-criticized-russia-iran-2022-8.

[23] Eric Butow, Jenn Herman, Stephanie Liu, Amanda Robinson, and Mike Allton. Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing. Irvine: Entrepreneur Press, 2020. https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=88e80f67-10e9-3acc-abff-37637a101397.

[24] Rongbin Han, “Debating China beyond the Great Firewall: Digital Disenchantment and Authoritarian Resilience,” Journal of Chinese Political Science, May 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-022-09812-4.

[25] Select Committee on Intelligence, Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate, on Russian active measures, campaigns and interference in the 2016 U.S. election, 5-11.

[26] Select Committee on Intelligence, 67.

[27] Select Committee on Intelligence, 4.

[28] Mölder Holger et al., “Mass Media Instrumentalization in Foreign Policy of States: Russian Strategic Toolset,” in

The Russian Federation in Global Knowledge Warfare: Influence Operations in Europe and Its Neighbourhood (Cham: Springer, 2022), 84-91.

[29] Lamar Smith and Randy Weber, “Letter to the Honorable Steven T. Mnuchin,” US Congress Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. (2017), pp. 1-6, https://republicans-science.house.gov/_cache/files/7/a/7ab01fca-7258-4b35-9580-11500c67ec76/C13408FE3E3819EA58ABE2155B1E86D9.06-29-2017-cls-weber---mnuchin.pdf.

[30] Abrams, Steve. "Beyond Propaganda: Soviet Active Measures in Putin’s Russia." Connections: The Quarterly Journal 15, no. 1 (2016): 5-11.

[31] Ray, Arthur. “Poland and the Baltic States under the Gun of Russian Disinformation.” Democratic Europe without Borders, December 9, 2020. https://democratic-europe.eu/2020/12/09/poland-and-the-baltic-states-under-the-gun-of-russian-disinformation/.

[32] Telewizja Polska, “Russia Uses Cyber Measures to Attack Other States: Polish Official,” TVP World, July 28, 2022, https://tvpworld.com/61532517/russia-uses-cyber-measures-to-attack-other-states-polish-official.

[33] Cohen, Raphael S., Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Joe Cheravitch, Alyssa Demus, Scott W. Harold, Jeffrey W. Hornung, Jenny Jun, Michael Schwille, Elina Treyger, and Nathan Vest, Combating Foreign Disinformation on Social Media: Study Overview and Conclusions. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2021. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR4373z1.html. Also available in print form.

[34] Bateman, Jon. U.S.-China Technological Decoupling: A Strategy and Policy Framework. Carnegie. Endowment for International Peace. Accessed October 9, 2022. https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/04/25/u.s.-china-technological-decoupling-strategy-and-policy-framework-pub-86897.

About the Author(s)

Cole Herring

Cole Herring is an Army Special Forces Officer with over 17 years of experience with multiple deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, and South America. He believes in balancing experience from past wars with the need to adapt and prepare for future conflicts.

11. US working with ‘Five Eyes’ nations, Japan on information warfare

Excerpt:

Information warfare is a fusion of offensive and defensive electronic capabilities and cyber operations. It combines data awareness and manipulation to gain an advantage, before, during and after battles.

I guess psychological operations and influence operations are not part of this definition of information warfare.

US working with ‘Five Eyes’ nations, Japan on information warfare

c4isrnet.com · by Colin Demarest · February 15, 2023

SAN DIEGO — The U.S. is consulting with its “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing partners and additional allies to share and sharpen information-warfare techniques in the Indo-Pacific.

Dialogues and exchanges of best practices are ongoing with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and other countries including Japan, according to Vice Adm. Kelly Aeschbach, commander of Naval Information Forces.

“I want to say we have at least a dozen countries or so that are either establishing information warfare programs, or are interested in partnering further in the information warfare realm,” she said Feb. 15 at the WEST 2023 conference in San Diego. “We are leaning in there, we are focused.”

Japan, specifically, has expressed significant interest in information warfare, “in a really positive way,” Aeschbach told C4ISRNET. Japan and Australia, among others, are considered critical U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific, a region national security officials are invested in as they seek to counter an increasingly aggressive China.

Information warfare is a fusion of offensive and defensive electronic capabilities and cyber operations. It combines data awareness and manipulation to gain an advantage, before, during and after battles.

China developing own version of JADC2 to counter US

The Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army, “refers to systems destruction warfare as the next way of war,” a U.S. defense official said.

The proliferation of communications and other advanced technologies and their prevalence in militaries the world over has given meteoric rise to the discipline and its persuasive powers.

Having allies in the arena, Aeschbach said, “can be very powerful, particularly in the Pacific.”

The service in recent years established Fleet Information Warfare Command Pacific. The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy document emphasized the need to beef up lines of communication in the neighborhood.

“Consistent with our broader strategic approach, we will prioritize our single greatest asymmetric strength: our network of security alliances and partnerships,” it states. “Across the region, the United States will work with allies and partners to deepen our interoperability and develop and deploy advanced warfighting capabilities as we support them in defending their citizens and their sovereign interests.”

Aeschbach, who is tasked with ensuring information warfare specialists are properly trained and equipped, foresees a growing number of avenues for international collaboration. She cited the AUKUS nuclear submarine pact — involving Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. — as an example.

“I think we’ve got really good bilateral processes right now for how we’re trying to work through that with different countries and make our techniques and training available if they’re interested,” she said. “I think there’s a lot of promise across the board there.”

About Colin Demarest

Colin Demarest is a reporter at C4ISRNET, where he covers military networks, cyber and IT. Colin previously covered the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration — namely Cold War cleanup and nuclear weapons development — for a daily newspaper in South Carolina. Colin is also an award-winning photographer.

12. Three Years’ Delay To Rein In TikTok

Enough time for the Chinese data vacuum to Hoover up the information of all free people.

Who gets this subtitle?

National Security Risks Remain Unacceptably Unresolved

Three Years’ Delay To Rein In TikTok

By Thomas Feddo

February 15, 2023

National Security Risks Remain Unacceptably Unresolved

The drumbeat regarding national security risks posed by TikTok, the popular social media app owned by Chinese big-tech firm ByteDance, has reached a fever pitch. After recently blocking it from federal government devices, Congress might now seek an outright national ban of the app. Given the failure of a prior attempted ban due to regulated speech concerns, policymakers should instead press the Biden Administration to fulfill a still-active 2020 presidential order to counter the risks. Continued neglect of its implementation could diminish the credibility of future presidents and will surely be interpreted by America’s adversaries as fecklessness and weakness.

Serious policymakers—including the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee, an FCC Commissioner, and the Director of the FBI—have pushed for decisive action. But today’s “ban TikTok” discourse loses sight of two consequential steps taken by President Trump nearly three years ago.

On August 6, 2020 (a point when Americans had already downloaded TikTok more than 175 million times), the President directed the government to essentially prevent the app’s use in the U.S. He explained that it could allow the Chinese Communist Party to track federal employees, build blackmail dossiers, and undertake corporate espionage. ByteDance quickly won a federal court injunction against the ban, however. And in the summer of 2021, President Biden revoked the order while the U.S. government settled the litigation.

Critically, President Biden did not revoke a second presidential order issued by President Trump on August 14, 2020—the result of a national security review by the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Finding “credible evidence” that ByteDance could harm national security, President Trump prohibited the Chinese company’s direct or indirect ownership of the U.S. app and ordered divestment of both U.S. user data obtained by TikTok and all property that supported its operations here. In effect, the President directed CFIUS and the Justice Department to eliminate foreign ownership and control of the U.S. app.

That the 2020 CFIUS order remains on the books today means the articulated national security concern about TikTok is the considered judgment of two presidents. It also means that recent news reports of a CFIUS-led effort to negotiate protections of U.S. user data is not a Biden Administration initiative, but rather a nearly three-year slog to implement the 2020 CFIUS order. Those reports say that a potential agreement may include storing Americans’ data in the U.S. and independent third parties screening the “secret” algorithm (if it’s secret, will the CCP permit it to be shared?). Importantly, these reports indicate that ByteDance seeks to maintain its ownership of TikTok.

Why the protracted delay to enforce the order? Some key agency principals might judge the risks too high without severing ByteDance’s ownership—that a complex oversight structure of the Chinese-owned company may not adequately screen the algorithm and protect U.S. data. Perhaps the Administration hopes to avoid provoking the CCP at a time of strained geopolitics. The White House, which has frequently leveraged TikTok influencers for messaging campaigns, could also be under immense pressure from ByteDance, its investors, and its advocates to reach a deal that best preserves the company’s value through continuity of ownership.

Part of the reason for the delay is very likely that the 2020 CFIUS order requires divestment. For CFIUS to negotiate something less would obligate the President to revoke or modify the order. If he didn’t, it would signal to future parties before the Committee that a Presidential prohibition is negotiable and doesn’t necessarily mean what it says. That would seriously impair CFIUS’s effectiveness. But revoking the aging divestment order could bring political pain—appearing soft on the CCP and uncommitted to protecting Americans’ sensitive data.

Rather than prioritizing a national ban of the app (guaranteeing litigation, further delay, and potential failure in court), Congress should dedicate its resources to bipartisan oversight and insistence on implementation of the August 14, 2020 CFIUS order, and to legislation endorsing that order’s findings and directives. In the nearly three years since then, while TikTok has only grown in influence and further insinuated itself into American life, why hasn’t the national security risk been mitigated? Have interim safeguards been implemented, and to what extent has the app and its data remained accessible to Chinese entities? If an agreement relies on independent third parties for protecting Americans, how will any compliance failures be enforced and who will be held accountable?

Whatever the answers or the remedy, the President and his national security team need to act in Americans’ interests soon. At some point deliberation and debate become equivocation and paralysis—which is not an effective national security strategy.

Mr. Feddo is the founder of The Rubicon Advisors, LLC. He served as the first Treasury Department Assistant Secretary for Investment Security from 2018 to 2021.

13. Further Evidence Emerges of Iran’s Support for Russia’s War in Ukraine

Further Evidence Emerges of Iran’s Support for Russia’s War in Ukraine

fdd.org · by Danielle Kleinman · February 15, 2023

Latest Developments

Citing sources in Iran, The Guardian reported on Sunday that Tehran has smuggled more drones to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine. Russia reportedly received a dozen Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) as well as six Mohajer-6 drones, primarily used for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance missions. Tehran reportedly delivered the weaponry last November along with more than 50 Iranian technicians to help the Russian military integrate the systems.

Expert Analysis

“Tehran has emerged as a key defense industrial partner for Russia. Iranian-supplied loitering munitions supplement Moscow’s dwindling stocks of cruise missiles, helping Russia prosecute its strategic air campaign targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure, with the added benefit of forcing Ukraine to expend valuable interceptors. The Shahed-191, Shahed-129, and Mohajer-6 provide much-needed additional capacity for Russia, which came late to the drone game and has not indigenously produced UAVs in sufficient quantities.” — John Hardie, Deputy Director of FDD’s Russia Program

“Iran’s experience with low-cost weapons systems that require expensive offsets is being replicated by Russia in Ukraine. With the anniversary of the war right around the corner, Iranian weapons are increasingly what is behind Russia’s ability to mete out punishment and keep the conflict going.” — Behnam Ben Taleblu, FDD Senior Fellow

New Drones in Ukraine

Open-source evidence had already confirmed that Iran provided the Mohajer-6 to Moscow beginning late last summer, along with hundreds of Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 loitering munitions. By contrast, the Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 have not been spotted publicly in Ukraine. After a Russian delegation reportedly expressed interest in the two UCAVs last summer, The Washington Post, citing an unnamed allied security official, reported that Moscow had received the Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 as part of its initial shipment of Iranian drones in August. But no evidence has since emerged to confirm their arrival in Ukraine, save for a sole, unconfirmed Ukrainian military report in October claiming that Ukrainian troops had downed a Shahed-129.

Russia and Iran’s Deepening Partnership

Moscow and Tehran have doubled down on their partnership following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The two authoritarian regimes have pursued deeper economic cooperation, including by working together to evade Western sanctions. In October, the White House accused Moscow of advising the Islamic Republic on how to suppress anti-regime protests in Iran.

In addition to providing drones directly to Russia, Iran is helping Moscow localize production of the Shahed-136, potentially enabling it to produce thousands of the loitering munitions. The two sides have also reportedly discussed a Russian purchase of Iranian short-range ballistic missiles, although so far there has been no public indication that Russia has received the missiles.

Russian Support for Iran’s Military

In return for the Iranian weapons, Moscow has offered Tehran “an unprecedented level of military and technical support that is transforming their relationship into a full-fledged defense partnership,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in December.

Moscow has also reportedly sent Tehran captured Western military equipment for Iran to dissect. Russia is now preparing to sell Iran advanced military equipment, including the Su-35 fighter aircraft. Iranian pilots began training on the Su-35 last spring.

Related Analysis

“Iranian drones could make Russia’s military more lethal in Ukraine,” by John Hardie, Ryan Brobst, and Behnam Ben Taleblu

“Iran Aids Russia’s Imperialist War Against Ukraine,” by John Hardie

“Iranian Shahed-136 Drones Increase Russian Strike Capacity and Lethality in Ukraine,” by Ryan Brobst and John Hardie

“Iran Is Now at War With Ukraine,” by John Hardie and Behnam Ben Taleblu

fdd.org · by Danielle Kleinman · February 15, 2023

14. China is already at war with America and the Biden administration is ignoring the signposts

Unrestricted Warfare and psychological, legal, and media warfare.

We may not like "warfare" but the fact is China (and Russia, and Iran, and north Korea) is conducting its own form of political warfare. We must conduct a superior form of political warfare to protect US interests.

Notice that most of the criticam of US actions focuses on the threat of the balloon either from intelligence collection and the potential for a balloon to carry lethal capabilities (WMD or EMP). No one seems to assess that the Chinese may be trying to create the conditions of political division in the US to undermine strategic decision making.

George F. Kennan defined political warfare as “the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine in time of peace.” While stopping short of the direct kinetic confrontation between two countries’ armed forces, “political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command… to achieve its national objectives.” A country embracing Political Warfare conducts “both overt and covert” operations in the absence of declared war or overt force-on-force hostilities. Efforts “range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures…, and ‘white’ propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of ‘friendly’ foreign elements, ‘black’ psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.” See George Kennan, "Policy Planning Memorandum." May 4, 1948.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/65ciafounding3.htm

Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience to include another state's government, military, and/or general population. Governments use a variety of techniques to coerce certain actions, thereby gaining relative advantage over an opponent. The techniques include propaganda and psychological operations (PSYOP), which service national and military objectives respectively. Propaganda has many aspects and a hostile and coercive political purpose. Psychological operations are for strategic and tactical military objectives and may be intended for hostile military and civilian populations. Smith, Paul A., On Political War (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1989)

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a233501.pdf

China is already at war with America and the Biden administration is ignoring the signposts

The surveillance balloon China sent is in fact a serious threat and a sign of worse to come

foxnews.com · by Rebekah Koffler | Fox News

Video

Rebekah Koffler says China balloon worked to build 'composite' of US military abilities: '100% planned'

Strategic military intel analyst Rebekah Koffler discusses the significance of the Chinese spy balloon shot down by U.S. forces Saturday.

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On Thursday, President Biden characterized as "not a major security threat" the breach of U.S. sovereign airspace by a Chinese high-altitude reconnaissance vehicle that executed a pre-programmed flight path across the continental United States, surveilling America’s most sensitive military facilities.

After an American F-22 warplane finally shot down Beijing’s intruder, three more mysterious aerial objects crossed into U.S. territory and were subsequently downed by fighter jets. In an even more peculiar reaction to a potentially unprecedented in peacetime series of intrusions into the homeland, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said, "while authorities don't yet know what the objects are, they are not a threat."

Let’s look at the Biden administration's own words. The surveillance balloons are not a threat, but we are sending F-22 warplanes to shoot them down. And we somehow know they are not a threat even though we don’t know what they are.

CHINA IS WINNING THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR AMID MASSIVE US, RUSSIA WAR EXPENDITURES

The spy balloon drifts above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina, with a fighter jet and its contrail seen below it, on Saturday, Feb. 4. (Chad Fish via AP)

As a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who has briefed top officials at the Pentagon and NORAD/NORTHCOM on foreign aerospace threats and space warfare doctrines and participated in wargames, simulating a U.S.-China conflict, I disagree with President Biden and his security team. The China threat to America is at its highest yet, and the spy balloons it is sending are one tip – sent all the way across the Pacific – of its many spears.

Transitioning onto a wartime footing

On Feb. 2, CIA Director William Burns revealed his agency’s intelligence assessment that Xi Jinping had directed his military to be ready for assault operations against Taiwan by 2027. On Feb. 5, Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, forecast that the U.S. and China "will fight in 2025." Taiwan is the epicenter of the escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing and the road to potential war.

There are multiple signposts, indications and warnings (I&Ws, in intelligence parlance) pointing to Beijing’s transitioning onto a wartime footing. During a recent visit to China’s armed forces’ operational command center, Xi directed China’s military to be ready for war. "The entire military must… concentrate all energy on fighting a war, direct all work toward warfare and speed up to build the ability to win," Xi said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands on the sidelines of the G-20 summit meeting, Nov. 14, 2022, in Bali, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

To augment its war-fighting capabilities, China is beefing up its space order of battle, having doubled its number of satellites in orbit from some 250 to 499, between 2019 and 2021, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency. Satellites provide critical wartime functions, including missile warning, navigation, communications, reconnaissance, and command and control, among others. In mid-January, the Chinese Navy conducted a series of military drills in the South China Sea that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) characterized as "realistic combat-oriented confrontational exercises."

Probing vulnerabilities in US aerospace security

The recent breach of U.S. sovereign airspace by the Chinese unmanned high-altitude reconnaissance airship, demonstrated that the PLA has identified a glaring gap in U.S. aerospace security, which Beijing will undoubtedly exploit during wartime. This seemingly low-tech intelligence collection device contained a multi-sensor payload, which highly likely transmitted sensitive U.S. military data, including high-fidelity photos, communication intercepts, and nuclear intelligence to Beijing in real time.

The U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is a part of Northern Combatant Command, whose primary mission is to protect the U.S. homeland and Canada from missile strikes and aerospace attacks, failed to detect what the media initially termed a spy balloon. This maneuverable airship, controlled by the Chinese military, was both an intelligence collection asset as well as a delivery platform and could have easily contained a kinetic or a chem-bio payload presenting a much bigger threat to Americans.

A soldier checks the missiles on an air fighter at a PLA military airport in a training session in east China's Zhejiang province in late August 2021. (Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

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The Biden administration and the Pentagon minimized the threat, arguing that the spy balloon didn’t add any value because of its inability to gather any additional intelligence beyond what China’s low earth orbit satellites already collect. They are missing the point by focusing only on the surveillance aspect while China likely had a much broader mission for this covert operation.

First, China’s doctrine is to "blind and deafen" U.S. forces by rendering our satellites inoperable in wartime. Beijing expects Washington to do the same with China’s space assets. Having a low-tech alternative to do the mission would give China an advantage, emboldening it to attack U.S. low earth orbit constellation.

Second, having a fleet of unmanned aerial intelligence assets could prove a valuable tool to deter or delay U.S. intervention in the China-Taiwan conflict.

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The Biden administration was paralyzed when it came to the decision whether to shoot down the spy balloon, even after witnesses on the ground spotted it. Imagine China sending 20 or 100 balloons in the run-up to its invasion of Taiwan. How many F-22’s will our military need to down these assets, even if it detects them? Can it properly identify and characterize them, discern those with harmful payloads from those without, prioritizing the targeting and neutralize this threat in a timely manner?

The chaos that the employment of dozens of these balloons can cause, threatening commercial airliners, triggering panic among Americans, and spurring all sorts of other disruptions, could prove crippling.

It is high time for President Biden and his security team to face reality. China is a much bigger threat than they care to admit. Instead of shooting down the aerial reconnaissance vehicles one by one, the Pentagon and the administration must develop a serious and comprehensive strategy on how to deal with America's top strategic opponent.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM REBEKAH KOFFLER

Rebekah Koffler is the president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting, a former DIA intelligence officer, and the author of "Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America." Follow her on Twitter @Rebekah0132.

foxnews.com · by Rebekah Koffler | Fox News

15. Cameras Now Rolling on Movie About Churchill's Secret WWII Spec Ops Unit

UW - "Ungentlemanly Warfare."

Excerpt:

Churchill's Special Operations Executive was nicknamed "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare," because the prime minister pushed the unit to abandon the traditional military rules of engagement and embrace the realities of 20th-century warfare. The spec ops unit was tasked with finding ways to harass and stymie the Germans by any means necessary.

Cameras Now Rolling on Movie About Churchill's Secret WWII Spec Ops Unit

military.com · by James Barber · February 14, 2023

"The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" will tell the story of Britain's World War II Special Operations Executive, a top-secret unit personally overseen by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Director Guy Ritchie, best known for his "Sherlock Holmes" movies and British gangster flicks like "Snatch"), started filming this week in Turkey.

The production is facing a few challenges as the country deals with the fallout from a series of earthquakes. Ritchie and his producers issued a statement as filming began that said, "As we begin production in Turkey, we do so with profound sympathy for everyone affected. Our thoughts are with the members of our crew with family in the region. We wish to express our sincere condolences to the people of Turkey. We stand by them and are committed to supporting members of our production team and the wider community over the coming weeks and months."

The film features an all-star cast that includes Henry Cavill ("Man of Steel"), Alan Ritchson ("Reacher"), Henry Golding ("Crazy Rich Asians") and Cary Elwes ("The Princess Bride"). Producer Jerry Bruckheimer is fresh off an Oscar nomination for "Top Gun: Maverick," and Ritchie has just finished "Guy Ritchie's The Covenant," a movie with Jake Gyllenhaal about an Army sergeant determined to get his translator out of Afghanistan.

Churchill's Special Operations Executive was nicknamed "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare," because the prime minister pushed the unit to abandon the traditional military rules of engagement and embrace the realities of 20th-century warfare. The spec ops unit was tasked with finding ways to harass and stymie the Germans by any means necessary.

The SOE invented many of the tools and techniques that came to define post-war espionage. The group embraced trial and error, and more than a few of its outrageous ideas seem comical in retrospect. Of course, there were also plenty of innovations that greatly helped the war effort.

Ritchie's movies prove that the director can handle both comedy and action, so he seems like a perfect choice to bring this story to screen. We'll look for "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" in theaters sometime next year.

Keep Up With the Best in Military Entertainment

Whether you're looking for news and entertainment, thinking of joining the military or keeping up with military life and benefits, Military.com has you covered. Subscribe to the Military.com newsletter to have military news, updates and resources delivered straight to your inbox.

military.com · by James Barber · February 14, 2023

16. U.S. tracked China spy balloon from launch on Hainan Island along unusual path

Graphics at the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/14/china-spy-balloon-path-tracking-weather/?utm_source=pocket_saves

U.S. tracked China spy balloon from launch on Hainan Island along unusual path

The large Chinese surveillance device that flew across Alaska and the continental United States may have been diverted on an errant path caused by atypical weather conditions

By Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris and Jason Samenow

Updated February 14, 2023 at 8:41 p.m. EST|Published February 14, 2023 at 5:34 p.m. EST

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/14/china-spy-balloon-path-tracking-weather/?utm_source=pocket_saves

By the time a Chinese spy balloon crossed into American airspace late last month, U.S. military and intelligence agencies had been tracking it for nearly a week, watching as it lifted off from its home base on Hainan Island near China’s south coast.

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U.S. monitors watched as the balloon settled into a flight path that would appear to have taken it over the U.S. territory of Guam. But somewhere along that easterly route, the craft took an unexpected northern turn, according to several U.S. officials, who said that analysts are now examining the possibility that China didn’t intend to penetrate the American heartland with its airborne surveillance device.

The balloon floated over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands thousands of miles away from Guam, then drifted over Canada, where it encountered strong winds that appear to have pushed the balloon south into the continental United States, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive intelligence. A U.S. fighter jet shot the balloon down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, a week after it crossed over Alaska.

Watch the U.S. shoot down Chinese balloon

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A U.S. military aircraft on Feb. 4 downed the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had been floating over the United States for several days. (Video: Brett Adair)

This new account suggests that the ensuing international crisis that has ratcheted up tensions between Washington and Beijing may have been at least partly the result of a mistake.

Meanwhile, the White House on Tuesday said that three other objects shot down over North America in the last week may have posed no national security threat, striking perhaps the clearest distinction yet between those flying anomalies and the suspected spy balloon. John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters that the U.S. intelligence community “will not dismiss as a possibility” that the three craft instead belonged to a commercial organization or research entity and were therefore “benign.”

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has sent spy balloons over Guam before, as well as Hawaii, to monitor U.S. military installations, officials have said. But the days-long flyover of the continental United States was novel, and it sparked confusion inside the Chinese government as diplomats scrambled to disseminate a cover story that the balloon had been blown off course while it was collecting innocuous meteorological data, U.S. officials said.

The furor caught Beijing on its back foot. Initially it expressed “regrets” over what it insisted was a wayward weather balloon. Then it shifted to criticizing Washington for what it said was overreacting, and this week it accused the United States of sending 10 spy balloons over China. The White House has strongly denied the claim as false. “We are not flying surveillance balloons over China. I’m not aware of any other craft that we’re flying over — into Chinese airspace,” Kirby said Monday.

U.S. intelligence and military agencies tracked the balloon as it launched from Hainan Island. Intelligence analysts are unsure whether the apparent deviation was intentional or accidental, but are confident it was intended for surveillance, most likely over U.S. military installations in the Pacific. Either way the incursion into U.S. airspace was a major misstep by the PLA, prompting a political and diplomatic furor and deeper scrutiny by the United States and its allies of Beijing’s aerial espionage capabilities.

Its crossing into U.S. airspace was a violation of sovereignty and its hovering over sensitive nuclear sites in Montana was no accident, officials said, raising the possibility that even if the balloon were inadvertently blown over the U.S. mainland, Beijing apparently decided to seize the opportunity to try to gather intelligence.

The balloon’s journey

U.S. agencies tracked the balloon as it launched from Hainan Island, China.

Tuesday, Jan 31

Reenters U.S. airspace over northern Idaho.

Wednesday, Feb. 1

Seen above Montana, over Minuteman III launch facilities.

Saturday, Jan. 28

Entered U.S. airspace north of Aleutian Islands, then tracked across Alaska.

Friday, Feb. 3

Seen flying near St. Louis.

Approximate path over the

Pacific Ocean based on

atmospheric wind models

Saturday, Feb. 4

The U.S. military downed the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean near the coast of the Carolinas.

Sources: China’s Foreign Ministry, NOAA, United Nations

The incident was just the latest indication of how purposefully China is going about expanding its surveillance capabilities — from advanced satellite technology to balloons, officials said.

The balloon fleet is a part of a much broader air surveillance effort that includes sophisticated satellite systems and into which the Chinese government has poured what analysts say are billions of dollars of investment over the years.

“This was a discrete program — part of a larger set of programs that are about gaining greater clarity about military facilities in the United States and in a variety of other countries,” said one senior U.S. official. It appears to be meant to “augment the satellite systems.”

The balloon was launched from the ground, part of a program run in part by the PLA air force, and it may have been taken off course by strong high-altitude winds, officials said. It was partly directed by air currents and partly piloted remotely, they said. With propellers and a rudder, it has the capability to be maneuvered.

After the balloon launched, computer modeling conducted by The Washington Post indicates steering currents would have pushed it due east over the Pacific Ocean, probably passing between the Philippines and Taiwan.

Computer model trajectory by The Washington Post of air currents originating from Hainan, China on Jan. 20 at an altitude of roughly 60,000 feet. The model projects the path eight days into the future. Each triangle on the red line marks one day. (Image by Washington Post/NOAA) (Image by NOAA)

Around Jan. 24, when the balloon would have been roughly about 1,000 miles south of Japan, model simulations show it began to gain speed and rapidly veer north. This would have been in response to a strong cold front that had unleashed exceptionally frigid air over northern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Ordinarily, atmospheric steering motions would have kept the balloon on much more of a west to east course, historical weather data shows. However, the intense cold front forced the jet stream and high altitude steering currents to dip south and may have scooped the balloon northward.

Left: Historical average flow pattern on Jan. 24 to 27 at altitude of roughly 60,000 feet. Currents flow typically west to east off the coast of China. Right: Actual flow pattern on Jan. 24 to 27 this year. The flow curls more to the northeast of China, in response to cold air pushing off Asian continent. (Image by Washington Post/NOAA) (Image by NOAA)

The airship entered U.S. airspace off Alaska on Jan. 28, crossing Canada and reentering the United States over Idaho on Jan. 31, one day before it was spotted over Montana by civilians, prompting a ground stoppage at the airport in Billings, as U.S. officials considered shooting it down.

When officials determined they could not mitigate the risk to people on the ground, they decided to wait until they could shoot it down over water.

Analysts are still awaiting the retrieval of the balloon’s payload, which officials estimated to be the size of three school buses, but “it doesn’t look like it’s a dramatic new capability,” said a second U.S. official. “It looks like it’s more collection — everybody always wants more.”

Kirby said Monday: “These balloons have provided limited additive capabilities to the [People’s Republic of China’s] other intelligence platforms used over the United States. But in the future, if the PRC continues to advance this technology, it certainly could become more valuable to them.”

U.S. officials stressed that they took steps to defeat any efforts by China to gather sensitive information from military sites. Any such information or communications were encrypted, Kirby has said.

“The name of the game of spying is always new capability, new mitigation,” said the second official.

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By Ellen Nakashima

Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter with The Washington Post. She was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, in 2018 for coverage of Russia's interference in the 2016 election, and in 2014 and for reporting on the hidden scope of government surveillance. Twitter

By Shane Harris

Shane Harris writes about intelligence and national security. He was a member of reporting teams that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, as well as two George Polk Awards. He is also the winner of the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense. Shane is the author of two books, "The Watchers" and "@War." Twitter

By Jason Samenow

Jason Samenow is The Washington Post’s weather editor and Capital Weather Gang's chief meteorologist. He earned a master's degree in atmospheric science and spent 10 years as a climate change science analyst for the U.S. government. He holds the Digital Seal of Approval from the National Weather Association. Twitter

17. Smartphones Are Changing the War in Ukraine

Smartphones are important on a number of levels. One area that I focus on is their value in support to the resistance. We must have a good understanding of the communications environment in every conflict area and potential conflict area.

Smartphones Are Changing the War in Ukraine

Millions of sensors document the conflict, provide targeting information and much else

https://www.wsj.com/articles/smartphones-are-changing-the-war-in-ukraine-adb37ba1?mod=hp_lead_pos6

By Stephen FidlerFollow and Thomas GroveFollow

Feb. 16, 2023 5:30 am ET

Smartphones are making the war in Ukraine the most intensively documented in history, changing the shape of the conflict and transforming the world’s understanding of it.

Each of the millions of devices in and around Ukraine are sensors that can provide data located to place and time. Their microphones and cameras can record and transmit sounds and images that depict the facts of war or provide tools for propaganda. These records are allowing investigators to build extensive visual archives of the conflict that could eventually provide a reckoning for war crimes.

They have been deployed to identify military targets with the witting or unwitting involvement of users and to assess damage. They allow ordinary people the means to provide the military with targeting information, blurring the division between civilians and combatants. They are used by the Russian and Ukrainian public to raise funds for uniforms, drones or other military equipment, and by the Ukrainian military to guide drones and bomb targets. They are also used to phone home.

“The war is in the palm of your hand, which is astonishing, really, you could be anywhere in the world,” said Matthew Ford, associate professor at the Swedish Defence University. “One device becomes the means by which you produce, publish and consume media, but also target the enemy,” he said.

Devices have a significant military utility.

PHOTO: BERNAT ARMANGUE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The digital documentation provided by smartphones is already overwhelming. Mnemonic, a Berlin-based nonprofit documenting human-rights abuses in Ukraine, said it has collected 2.8 million digital records in less than a year. Over 11 years of war in Syria, the Syrian Archive, a sister organization, has collected and preserved 5 million digital records.

The devices also have a significant military utility. “Smartphones are a dream come true for the intelligence people and a nightmare for the counterintelligence people,” said Eliot Cohen, a military historian and strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington—the former because they can help to identify enemy movements, the latter because they can equally expose one’s own side.

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Chechen fighters, loyal to strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov and known for their use of TikTok and Instagram to advertise their exploits, have on several occasions exposed their locations by using cellphones, drawing at least three strikes after Ukraine’s military intelligence was able to locate them through their social-media posts, according to a Ukrainian official.

One incident was at a school building in a rural part of Ukraine’s Kherson region during Ukraine’s fall offensive there. “The author of a video filmed his colleagues from different angles as well as the premises and territory of the school where they were located,” the official said. Hours later, the building was hit with precision artillery. The strike killed around 30 fighters, Chechens said on social media.

The use of phones on the battlefield is a test of fundamental discipline, said Mr. Cohen. “A really well-disciplined military will probably never be perfect in preventing people from using mobile phones and things like that. But they’ll do a lot better than, say, the Russians.”

Each of the millions of devices in and around Ukraine are sensors that can provide data located to place and time.

PHOTO: VALENTYN OGIRENKO/REUTERS

Smartphones also give the home front a window into the battlefield and open up opportunities for information warfare.

Platforms such as Facebook, which is blocked in Russia, and VKontakte carry significant war content, but the service where much of the war is playing out on both sides is Telegram, an encrypted app that allows widespread distribution of content with almost no curation.

“Over Telegram, there’s this unadulterated pouring out of the horrors of war in real time, that we’ve never ever seen before…without being sanitized, without being censored,” said Andrew Hoskins, professor of global security at Glasgow University.

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“On some channels, every image and video, I think, is a breach of the Geneva Conventions,” which forbid, for example, the distribution of photographs of the war dead and insist on preserving the dignity of prisoners of war.

Making sense out of this mass of digital material requires “some human in the loop,” said Mr. Ford.

The Ukraine files held by Mnemonic already run into years of digital footage. Investigators from the organization are poring over these records, with the help of computer vision, artificial intelligence and machine learning, tools that they expect will develop further to aid investigations in the future, said Brian Perlman, a Mnemonic investigator. Each of the files is given a unique identifier that ensures it can’t be subsequently altered.

Data and photos from smartphones allow investigators to build extensive archives of the conflict.

PHOTO: CHRIS MCGRATH/GETTY IMAGES

His colleague Eugene Bondarenko said one aspect distinguishing the Ukraine conflict from the one in Syria is that there are only two parties to it. That makes apportioning responsibility for an atrocity easier.

He said it might in the end prove difficult to bring accountability to individual soldiers responsible for abuses on the ground. But, he said, “It does a lot, in my view, in terms of cementing an understanding that, hey, this is what Russia is doing in Ukraine, and that it’s not just going to be swept under the rug.”

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

How has Ukrainians’ access to smartphones shaped your view and understanding of the war?Join the conversation below.

In one investigation, Mnemonic confirmed two separate air attacks on civilian facilities, including two hospitals, in early March in the city of Zhytomyr, almost 90 miles to the west of Kyiv and deep in Ukrainian-held territory. Moscow routinely denies it attacks civilian targets.

Another organization documenting the conflict from smartphone footage and other materials is Bellingcat, which was among the first able to determine that Russian-backed forces had received a Buk missile system from Russia and fired it at Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014.

“People started following the conflict when average Russians began filming tanks being transported to the border in the lead-up to the invasion,” said Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins.

Since the start of the war, he said, Bellingcat has begun operations consulting Ukrainian and international prosecutors on how to process and archive materials online to meet the standards necessary for them to be used in court.

“We’ve developed a process that specifically is intended for legal accountability using open-source evidence,” he said. “It’s the first open-source war.”

Graffiti depicts an antitank missile, reading, ‘The only target,’ in Kyiv, Ukraine.

PHOTO: SERGEI SUPINSKY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Write to Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com and Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com

18. China has U-turned on almost all major policies it put in place in the last 3 years — and it's not surprising, given the state of its economy

China has U-turned on almost all major policies it put in place in the last 3 years — and it's not surprising, given the state of its economy

Business Insider · by Huileng Tan

Chinese President Xi Jinping's regime has reversed major policies in a bid to boost growth in the world's second-largest economy.

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

For the past few years, China has focused on zero-COVID, and reining in the tech and real-estate sectors to promote "common prosperity."
But the country reversed some major policies in response to the abysmal GDP growth.
China's GDP grew by 3% in 2022 — the worst since the chaotic Cultural Revolution ended.

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In recent months, China has pulled major U-turns on a series of political and economic policies.

Most recently, after three years of pandemic lockdowns and isolation, China abruptly reversed course and abolished its zero-COVID policy — leaving the world guessing why.

And one major economic indicator — its GDP — was throwing up alarming signals.

China's GDP grew only 3.0% in 2022 — the worst in nearly half a century since the chaotic Cultural Revolution ended. Even though the growth was better than the 2.8% that economists polled by Reuters had expected, it was still far lower than the average growth rate of around 7.7% that the country posted in the decade before the pandemic, according to World Bank data.

While nobody could point to specific reasons for China's sudden reopening, analysts say economic stress and popular discontent with zero-Covid measures, contributed to the country's shift from on-off lockdowns.

"Caving to economic disruptions, widespread protests and worsening geopolitical tensions, Beijing has kicked off a comprehensive policy reset by completely scrapping its unpopular zero-Covid policy, easing tensions with the West and wooing private sector entrepreneurs and multinational corporations," Nomura economists wrote in a February 1 note.

China's GDP growth is vital because it is the world's second-largest economy after the US, so it's a driving force for global investment and trade. China is also home to one of the world's largest populations, so there is a considerable demand pull from the country.

China's recent shift in tone has been palpable. It's no wonder then that on January 30, the International Monetary Fund upgraded global growth to 2.9% from its forecast of 2.7% for 2023 — in part due to China's reopening.

Experts break down the stunning reversal of a few major policies and what this means for China and the global economy.

1. 'From zero-COVID to zero COVID policies in 30 days'

The most dramatic policy reversal China has put in place is the U-turn of its zero-COVID policy that was firmly in place for all three years of the pandemic.

Rory Green, the head of China and Asia research at TS Lombard, wrote in a January 11 note seen by Insider that China went "from zero-COVID to zero COVID policies in 30 days."

The about-turn came after on-off lockdowns in China slowed economic activity, causing GDP to grow just 0.4% in the second quarter of 2022, compared to the previous year. Even Apple — the world's most valuable company — had to deal with delays in iPhone shipments ahead of the holiday season last year, as COVID restrictions hit their massive manufacturing facility in Zhengzhou, China.

While Xi Jinping's administration was doubling down on zero COVID on November 10, it started rolling back restrictions less than a month later on December 7. On January 8, it significantly loosened border controls by scrapping quarantines for incoming travelers.

Three weeks later on January 28, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pledged to make consumption the "main driving force" of the Chinese economy.

Earlier in January, Chinese vice premier Liu He — who is in charge of financial and economic affairs — said as much at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the opening up of China is a "basic state policy" and a key driver of economic progress.

"China's door to the outside will only open wider," said Liu, who was pitching for foreign investments.

Economists are generally hopeful about the opportunities China's reopening brings, as the global economy risks tipping into a widespread recession.

"China reopening will be important and stabilizing for the economy in the region," said HSBC's Herald van der Linde at a conference call on January 16. HSBC estimated that Chinese households stashed up 6.6 trillion Chinese yuan, or $977 billion, in the last three years, which they would be eager to spend due to pent-up demand.

However, China's abrupt reopening also comes with a human cost, as the country saw a rapid rash of COVID infections since December.

Beijing has reported nearly 99 million COVID infections and 119,000 deaths so far, according to the World Health Organization. In comparison, the US reported 101 million infections and 1.1 million deaths.

2. Beijing has toned down its 'common prosperity' rhetoric

Beijing's stance on "common prosperity" — a policy to redistribute China's wealth among its population — and its crackdown on real-estate and tech companies had hit China's wealthiest tycoons hard.

Some of the more prominent victims of the crackdowns were Hui Ka Yan, the boss of embattled Chinese developer Evergrande, and Alibaba founder Jack Ma.

Hui was worth $42 billion in 2017, but saw his net worth tank by 93% to about $3 billion as of January 19, per Bloomberg. Ma's net worth fell over 40% from its 2020 peak of $61 billion to nearly $35 billion as of February 14 after shares of the Chinese tech giant were battered amid the crackdown, per Bloomberg.

And now Beijing's stance is changing.

China has slowly been relaxing policies it has put to drive down debt and put the brakes on unfettered growth.

The US-based Asia Society Policy Institute analyzed the readout of the 2022 Central Economic Work Conference — which sets out China's economic policy agenda for the next year — and found that the term "common prosperity" was dropped. In contrast, the term was mentioned five times in the 2021 report.

"The decision in the 2022 report to delete any reference to what had (as recently as the 20th Congress Report two months earlier) been seen as a signature market intervention on the part of Xi Jinping represents a significant change," the think tank added.

On January 14, a Chinese central bank official said the country may relax the "three red lines" policy regulating debt ratios for property developers. This measure was introduced in August 2020 to limit leverage for property developers.

In January, a top Chinese central banker also suggested earlier that Beijing's tech crackdown is coming to a close. The crackdown sought to rein in the once free-wheeling sector with measures such as anti-monopoly probes and mandated cybersecurity reviews for foreign listings.

3. Moving away from the 'Wolf Warrior' diplomacy approach

Beijing also appears to be toning down on its combative "Wolf Warrior" approach to diplomacy, moving one of the most prominent advocates of this approach — foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian — to a department that manages land and borders, according to an official notice.

"Beijing is trying to reset domestic and international economic and political relations by toning down "Common Prosperity" and "Wolf Warrior" rhetoric and, more important, delivering stronger growth," wrote TS Lombard's Green in the January 11 note.

The "Wolf Warrior" approach to diplomacy — which is named after a popular movie franchise — describes an aggressive and confrontational approach to international relations.

This approach had consisted mainly of Chinese officials issuing harsh and sometimes-untrue statements in an attempt to garner support for the ruling party and undermine external critics, Insider's Alexandra Ma reported back in June 2020.

One example of this kind of hardline policy can be witnessed through a conspiracy theory posted by Zhao on Twitter in March 2020, wherein he said that the US army may have brought the coronavirus epidemic to the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Strong growth and consumption carry a hefty price tag

While China's policy shifts could be linked to its economic health and GDP growth, we should also bear in mind that this growth carries a hefty price tag.

Strong growth and consumption could bring with it inflation, which central banks are trying to tame. This may also end up complicating rate-hike efforts, Fred Neumann, the co-head of Asian economic research, said at the HSBC conference on January 16.

Nomura economists even said in their February 1 note that Beijing likely made the policy pivot reluctantly and may tighten some of its COVID measures when current economic, social, and political pressure abate.

"Over the past decade, China's policy pendulum has swung wildly between austerity and stimulus, and this time may be no different, especially given the need for top political leaders to regain lost ground after making substantial concessions both domestically and externally," they added.

Business Insider · by Huileng Tan

19. How Democracy Can Win

Excerpts:

Democracy is not in decline. Rather, it is under attack. Under attack from within by forces of division, ethnonationalism, and repression. And under attack from without by autocratic governments and leaders who seek to exploit the inherent vulnerabilities of open societies by undermining election integrity, weaponizing corruption, and spreading disinformation to strengthen their own grip on power. Worse, these autocrats increasingly work together, sharing tricks and technologies to repress their populations at home and weaken democracy abroad.

To fend off this coordinated assault, the world’s democracies must also work together. That is why in March 2023, the Biden administration will host its second Democracy Summit—this time, held simultaneously in Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Korea, the United States, and Zambia—where the world’s democracies will take stock of their efforts and put forward new plans for democratic renewal.

After years of democratic backsliding, the world’s autocrats are finally on the defensive. But to seize this moment and swing the pendulum of history back toward democratic rule, we must break down the wall that separates democratic advocacy from economic development work and demonstrate that democracies can deliver for their people. We must also redouble our efforts to counter digital surveillance and disinformation while upholding freedom of expression. And we must update the traditional democratic assistance playbook to help our partners respond to ever more sophisticated campaigns against them. Only then can we beat back antidemocratic forces and extend the reach of freedom.

How Democracy Can Win

The Right Way to Counter Autocracy

By Samantha Power

March/April 2023

Published on February 16, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Samantha Power · February 16, 2023

When U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the United States had just witnessed four of the most turbulent years in recent memory, culminating in the failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Without a doubt, American democracy had been shown to be far more fragile than it was when Biden left the vice presidency in 2017.

The picture abroad wasn’t much brighter. Populist parties with xenophobic and antidemocratic tendencies were gaining momentum in both established and nascent democracies. The world’s autocracies seemed newly emboldened. Russia was clamping down on dissent at home and encouraging authoritarianism abroad through election interference, disinformation campaigns, and the actions of its paramilitary Wagner Group. Meanwhile, China’s government had become even more repressive at home and more assertive abroad, stripping Hong Kong of its autonomy and leveraging its vast bilateral financial investments to secure support for its policies in international institutions. In February 2022, just three weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a new strategic partnership that they claimed would have “no limits.”

But early 2022 may prove to be a high-water mark for authoritarianism. Putin’s ambitions to dominate Ukraine failed miserably, thanks to the unwavering resolve and courage of the Ukrainian people. Putin made mistake after strategic mistake while the free people of Ukraine successfully mobilized, innovated, and adapted.

The root causes of Moscow’s disastrous showing are numerous, but several bear the hallmarks of authoritarianism. Graft has rotted the Russian military from within, yielding reports of soldiers selling fuel and weapons on the black market. Russian commanders have taken massive risks with the lives of their soldiers: conscripts arrive at the front having been lied to and manipulated rather than properly trained. To avoid upsetting their superiors, military leaders have supplied overly rosy assessments of their ability to conquer Ukraine, leading one pro-Russian militia commander to call self-deception “the herpes of the Russian army.”

Russia’s ghastly conduct in Ukraine has left Moscow more isolated than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Most European countries are in a race to decouple their economies from Russia, and Finland and Sweden are on the brink of joining an expanded and united NATO. Public opinion of Russia and Putin has plummeted in countries around the world, reaching record lows, according to the Pew Research Center. In Russia’s immediate neighborhood, Moscow’s traditional security and economic partners are staying neutral, refusing to host joint military exercises, seeking to reduce their economic dependence on Russia, and upholding the sanctions regimes. Russians themselves are voting with their feet: officially, hundreds of thousands of citizens have fled, but the true number is likely well over one million and includes tens of thousands of valued high-tech workers.

The past few years have also demonstrated the shortcomings of Beijing’s model. In 2020 and 2021, senior Chinese officials claimed that the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the superiority of their system. They regularly took potshots at the United States for its high COVID-19 death toll. Unquestionably, the United States and other democracies made mistakes in handling COVID-19. But unlike Chinese citizens, dissatisfied voters in these countries were able to elect new leaders and consequently change their governments’ approach to the pandemic. By contrast, Beijing withheld vital data from the World Health Organization, refused to work with other nations in developing a vaccine, and stuck with its harsh “zero COVID” policy until late 2022. It continues to be opaque about the COVID-19 situation in China, limiting the international community’s understanding of potential variants.

The world’s autocrats are finally on the defensive.

Elsewhere, public support for populist parties, leaders, and antipluralist attitudes has dropped significantly since 2020, in part because of how populist-led governments mishandled the pandemic. Between mid-2020 and the end of 2022, populist leaders saw an average decline of 10 percentage points in their approval ratings in 27 countries analyzed by researchers at Cambridge University. In the same time frame, prominent leaders with autocratic tendencies lost power at the ballot box. And American democracy has proved resilient; the U.S. Congress passed meaningful electoral reforms and held powerful public investigations into the events leading up to January 6.

Autocrats are now on the back foot. Under Biden’s leadership, the United States and countries around the world have joined forces to protect and strengthen democracy at home and abroad and to work together on challenges such as climate change and corruption. After a year of faltering authoritarianism and stubborn democratic resilience, the United States and other democracies have a chance to regain their momentum—but only if we learn from the past and adapt our strategies. For the last three decades, advocates of democracy have focused too narrowly on defending rights and freedoms, neglecting the pain and dangers of economic hardship and inequality. We have also failed to contend with the risks associated with new digital technologies, including surveillance technologies, that autocratic governments have learned to exploit to their advantage. It is time to coalesce around a new agenda for aiding the cause of global freedom, one that addresses the economic grievances that populists have so effectively exploited, that defangs so-called digital authoritarianism, and that reorients traditional democracy assistance to grapple with modern challenges.

NOT A FRAGILE FLOWER

In his address to the British Parliament in 1982, U.S. President Ronald Reagan observed that “democracy is not a fragile flower; still, it needs cultivating.” Since then, the cultivation of democracy abroad has largely meant the provision of what we call democracy assistance: funding to support independent media, the rule of law, human rights, good governance, civil society, pluralistic political parties, and free and fair elections.

This assistance from the United States, which grew from just over $106 million in 1990 to over $520 million in 1999, supported democratic actors in countries locked behind the Iron Curtain as they became proud, thriving members of a free Europe. After brave protesters broke the grip of Soviet rule, our assistance helped newly independent countries establish everything from public broadcasters to independent judiciaries. Similar initiatives aided reformers throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America as they solidified their democracies.

Although it is difficult to measure just how much these programs have advanced democratic progress around the world, multiple studies have identified ways in which democracy assistance from the United States and other donors has supported positive outcomes. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the institution I lead and the largest provider of democracy assistance in the world, has had “clear and consistent impacts” on civil society, judicial and electoral processes, media independence, and overall democratization, according to one study of the agency’s democracy promotion programs between 1990 and 2003. A later study commissioned by USAID found that every $10 million of democracy assistance it provided between 1992 and 2000 contributed to a seven-point jump on the 100-point global electoral democracy index maintained by the nonprofit Varieties of Democracy.

Delivering aid in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, December 2021

J. Countess / Getty Images

But the same study showed that these positive effects began to falter in the years after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Between 2001 and 2014, the same amount of investment only saw an increase of a third of a point—still two and a half times more than the average annual change among countries in the electoral democracy index over that period, but a much more diminished impact than in previous years.

Of course, a host of interrelated factors contribute to democracy’s struggles: polarization, significant inequality and widespread economic dissatisfaction, the explosion of disinformation in the public sphere, political gridlock, the rise of China as a strategic competitor of the United States, and the spread of digital authoritarianism aimed at repressing free expression and expanding government power. Many of these challenges can only be solved domestically. But those of us invested in the global renewal of democracy must help societies address economic concerns that antidemocratic forces have exploited; take the fight for democracy into the digital realm, just as autocracies have; and adapt our toolkit to meet not just long-standing challenges to democracy but also new ones.

BLINDED BY THE RIGHTS

At the core of democratic theory and practice is respect for the dignity of the individual. But among the biggest errors many democracies have made since the Cold War is to view individual dignity primarily through the prism of political freedom without being sufficiently attentive to the indignity of corruption, inequality, and a lack of economic opportunity.

This was not a universal blind spot: a number of political figures, advocates, and individuals working at the grassroots level to advance democratic progress presciently argued that economic inequality could fuel the rise of populist leaders and autocratic governments that pledged to improve living standards even as they eroded freedoms. But too often, the activists, lawyers, and other members of civil society who worked to strengthen democratic institutions and protect civil liberties looked to labor movements, economists, and policymakers to address economic dislocation, wealth inequality, and declining wages rather than building coalitions to tackle these intersecting problems.

Democracy suffered as a result. Over the past two decades, as economic inequality rose, polls showed that people in rich and poor countries alike began to lose faith in democracy and worry that young people would end up worse off than they were, giving populists and ethnonationalists an opening to exploit grievances and gain a political foothold on every continent.

We must look at all economic programming as a form of democracy assistance.

Moving forward, we must look at all economic programming that respects democratic norms as a form of democracy assistance. When we help democratic leaders provide vaccines to their people, bring down inflation or high food prices, send children to school, or reopen markets after a natural disaster, we are demonstrating—in a way that a free press or vibrant civil society cannot always do—that democracy delivers. And we are making it less likely that autocratic forces will take advantage of people’s economic hardship.

Nowhere is that task more important today than in societies that have managed to elect democratic reformers or throw off autocratic or antidemocratic rule through peaceful mass protests or successful political movements. These democratic bright spots are incredibly fragile. Unless reformers solidify their democratic and economic gains quickly, populations understandably grow impatient, especially if they feel that the risks they took to upend the old order have not yielded tangible dividends in their own lives. Such discontent allows opponents of democratic rule—often aided by external autocratic regimes—to wrest back control, reversing reforms and snuffing out dreams of rights-regarding self-government.

The task before reformist leaders is enormous. Often they inherit budgets laden with debt, economies hollowed out by corruption, civil services built on patronage, or a combination of all three. When Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema took office in 2021 after winning a landslide victory over an incumbent whose regime had arrested him more than a dozen times, he discovered that his predecessors had accumulated over $30 billion in unserviceable debt, nearly one and a half times the country’s GDP, with very little new infrastructure or return on borrowing to show for it. In Moldova, where the anticorruption advocate Maia Sandu was elected president in 2020, a single corruption scandal had previously siphoned off a whopping 12 percent of the country’s GDP.

Election Day in Chisinau, Moldova, November 2020

Vladislav Culiomza / Reuters

To help rising democracies overcome such hurdles, USAID has stepped up with additional support. We have identified and increased our investment in a number of democratic bright spots, including the Dominican Republic, Malawi, the Maldives, Moldova, Nepal, Tanzania, and Zambia. That list is by no means comprehensive, and admittedly some of these bright spots shine more intensely than others in their commitment to democratic reform. But all are working to fight corruption, create more space for civil society, and respect the rule of law. Biden has also created a special fund at USAID so we can move quickly to help bright spots deliver on their key economic priorities as they pursue reforms and consolidate democratic gains.

But we don’t just want to boost our assistance to these countries; we want to help them prosper beyond the impact of our programming. The U.S. government’s flagship food security initiative, Feed the Future, which works with agribusiness, retailers, and university research labs to help countries improve their agricultural productivity and exports, recently expanded to include Malawi and Zambia. USAID has also partnered with Vodafone to expand the reach of a mobile app called m-mama to every region in Tanzania. The app is akin to an Uber for expectant mothers, helping pregnant women who lack ambulance services reach health facilities and contributing to a significant decrease in maternal mortality. In Moldova, which is pushing ahead with anticorruption reforms despite ramped-up economic pressure from Russia, USAID has worked to increase the country’s trade integration with Europe. And at the UN General Assembly in September, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and I gathered the heads of state of many of these rising democracies, together with corporate executives and private philanthropies, to encourage new partnerships.

That event illustrated a crucial point: strengthening democratic reformers cannot be the task of government alone. All who believe in the importance of transparent and accountable governance must mobilize whenever there is a democratic opening, helping reformers deliver tangible benefits to their people. For governments and multilateral institutions, that could mean enacting favorable policy reforms, lowering tariffs or quotas, or simply making high-level official visits to visibly embrace reformers. For foundations, philanthropies, and civil society, that could mean offering new grants and partnerships. And for businesses and financial institutions, it could mean expanding existing investments or exploring new ones. Even individuals can do their part to support democracy by considering a democratic bright spot for their next vacation.

PRINCIPLED AID

Everywhere they provide assistance, democratic countries must be guided by and seek to promote democratic principles—including human rights, norms that counter corruption, and environmental and social safeguards. In contrast to the approach of autocratic governments, we showcase the potential benefits of our democratic system when we provide assistance in a fair, transparent, inclusive and participatory manner—strengthening local institutions, employing local workers, respecting the environment, and providing benefits equitably in a society.

Over the past four decades, Beijing has transformed from one of the largest recipients of foreign assistance to the largest bilateral provider of development finance, mostly in the form of loans. Through its enormous infrastructure investments, Beijing has helped many developing countries build seaports, railways, airports, and telecommunications infrastructure. But the second-order effects of China’s financing can undermine the long-term development objectives of partner countries and the health of their institutions. Much of the development financing China offers, even to highly indebted poor countries, is provided at nonconcessional market rates through opaque agreements hidden from the public. According to the World Bank, 40 percent of the debt owed by the world’s poorest countries is held by China. And attempts by highly indebted borrowers such as Zambia to restructure their debts to China have been slow and fractured, with Chinese lenders rarely agreeing to reductions in interest rates or the principal.

Because they are subject to little public oversight, Beijing’s loans are often diverted for personal or political gain. A 2019 study in the Journal of Development Economics found that Chinese lending to African countries increased closer to elections and that funds disproportionately wound up in the hometowns of political leaders. These loans skirt local labor and environmental safeguards and help the Chinese government secure access to natural resources and strategic assets, boosting state-owned or state-directed enterprises.

Democratic donor countries and private businesses must increase their investments in projects that elevate economic and social inclusion and strengthen democratic norms—decisions that ultimately yield not only more equitable results but also stronger development performance. Together with the rest of the G-7, the United States plans to mobilize $600 billion in private and public investment by 2027 to finance global infrastructure. Crucially, we will do so in a way that advances the needs of partner countries and respects international standards—a model for all such investments moving forward. This new Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment will finance clean energy projects and climate-resilient infrastructure; fund the responsible mining of metals and critical minerals, directing more of the profits to local and indigenous groups; expand access to clean water and sanitation services that particularly benefit women and the disadvantaged; and expand secure and open 5G and 6G digital networks so that countries don’t have to rely on Chinese-built networks that may be susceptible to surveillance.

DIGITAL DANGERS

Like inequality and economic privation, potentially dangerous digital technologies have not received nearly enough attention from most democracies. The role that such tools have played in the rise of autocratic governments and ethnonationalist movements can hardly be overstated. Authoritarian regimes use surveillance systems and facial recognition software to track and monitor critics, journalists, and other members of civil society with the goal of repressing opponents and stifling protests. They also export this technology abroad; China has provided surveillance technology to at least 80 countries through its Digital Silk Road initiative.

Part of the problem is a lack of global norms and legal or regulatory frameworks that embed democratic values into tech design and development. Even in democratic countries, programmers often have to define their own professional ethics on the fly, developing boundaries for powerful technologies while also trying to meet ambitious quarterly goals that leave them little time to reflect on the human costs of their products.

Biden came into office recognizing the vital role technology will play in shaping our future. That is why his administration partnered with 60 other governments to release the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, which outlines a shared positive vision for digital technologies as well as a blueprint for an AI bill of rights so that artificial intelligence is used in line with democratic principles and civil liberties. In January 2023, the United States also assumed the chair of the Freedom Online Coalition, a group of 35 governments committed to reinvigorating international efforts to advance Internet freedom and counter the misuse of digital technology.

We must break down the wall that separates democratic advocacy from economic development.

To build resilience to digital authoritarianism, we are kicking off a major new digital democracy initiative that will help partner governments and civil society assess the threats that misuse of technologies pose to citizens. We launched a new initiative with Australia, Denmark, Norway, and other partners to better align our export controls with our human rights policies. We blacklisted flagrant offenders, such as Positive Technologies and NSO Group, both of which sold hacking tools to authoritarian governments. And in the coming months, the White House will finalize an executive order barring the U.S. government from using commercial spyware that poses a security threat or a significant risk of improper use by a foreign government or person.

But perhaps the biggest threat to democracy from the digital realm is disinformation and other forms of information manipulation. Although hate speech and propaganda are not new, the rise of mobile phones and social media platforms has enabled disinformation to spread at unprecedented speed and scale, even in remote and relatively disconnected regions of the world. According to the Oxford Internet Institute, 81 governments have used social media in malign campaigns to spread disinformation, in some cases in concert with the regimes in Moscow and Beijing. Both countries have spent vast sums manipulating the information environment to fit their narratives by disseminating false stories, flooding search engines to drown out unfavorable results, and attacking and doxxing their critics.

The most important step the United States can take to counter foreign influence campaigns and disinformation is to help our partners promote media and digital literacy, communicate credibly with their publics, and engage in “pre-bunking”—that is, seeking to inoculate their societies against disinformation before it can spread. In Indonesia, for example, USAID has worked with local partners to develop sophisticated online courses and games that help new social media users identify disinformation and reduce the likelihood that they will share misleading posts and articles.

The United States has also helped Ukraine in its fight against the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation. For decades, USAID has worked to enhance the media environment in the country, encouraging reforms that allow greater access to public information and supporting the emergence of strong local media organizations, including the public broadcaster Suspilne. After Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, our work expanded to help the country’s local journalists produce Russian-language programming that could reach into Kremlin-occupied territories, such as Dialogues With Donbas, a YouTube channel that featured honest conversations with Ukrainians about life behind Russian lines. We also helped support the production of the online comedy show Newspalm, which regularly racks up tens of thousands of views as it skewers Putin’s lies. And even before Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, we worked with the government of Ukraine to stand up the Center for Strategic Communications, which uses memes, well-produced digital videos, and social media and Telegram posts to poke holes in Kremlin propaganda.

A RECIPE FOR RENEWAL

Despite these successes, the global fight against digital authoritarianism remains fragmented and underfunded. The United States and other democracies must work more closely with the private sector and civil society groups to identify challenges, build partnerships, and increase investments in digital freedom around the world. At the same time, we must react to new challenges that journalists, election monitors, and anticorruption advocates face, updating democracy assistance programming to respond to ever-evolving threats.

To that end, the United States has launched several new initiatives—many of them inspired by activists, civil society, and pro-democracy nongovernmental organizations—under the banner of the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal, which Biden unveiled at his 2021 Summit for Democracy. For instance, we have heard from independent journalists around the world that one of the major impediments to their work, in addition to death threats and intimidation, is lawsuits brought against them by those whose corruption they seek to expose. These frivolous lawsuits can cost journalists and their outlets millions of dollars, putting some out of business and creating a chilling effect for others. In addition to helping strengthen the physical security of news organizations, therefore, USAID has established a new insurance fund, Reporters Shield, that will help investigative journalists and civil society actors defend themselves against bogus charges. In recognition of the economic challenges all traditional media outlets face even in the United States, we have also organized a new effort to help media organizations that are struggling financially develop business plans, lower costs, find audiences, and tap into new sources of revenue so that they do not go bankrupt when independent journalism is needed most.

The United States is also working with its partners to support free and fair electoral processes around the world. Autocrats no longer simply stuff ballot boxes on election day; they spend years tilting the playing field through cyber-hacking and voter suppression. Together, the leading global organizations that support electoral integrity, both within governments and outside them, have formed the Coalition for Securing Election Integrity to establish a consistent set of norms for what constitutes a free and fair election. The coalition will also help identify critical elections that the United States and other donor countries can help support and monitor.

A Chinese-built train in Athi River, Kenya, June 2022

Thomas Mukoya / Reuters

Finally, we are taking a much more aggressive and expansive approach to fighting corruption, going beyond addressing the symptoms—petty bribes and shady backroom deals—to tackle the root causes. In late 2021, for instance, the Biden administration announced the first U.S. strategy on anticorruption, which recognizes corruption as a national security threat and lays out new ways to tackle it. We are also working with partner governments to detect and root out corruption that is occurring on a grand international scale, abetted by an industry of shadowy facilitators. In Moldova, for instance, we helped the country’s electoral commission to encourage greater transparency in financial disclosures so that external actors looking to exert influence over elections cannot hide their contributions. And in Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Slovenia, where USAID had previously closed its missions, we have restarted assistance to local institutions in part to support their efforts to curb corruption.

At the same time, we are raising the costs of corruption by bringing to light massive multinational schemes to hide illicit gains. We support global investigative units that unite forensic accountants and journalists to expose illicit dealings, including those detailed in the Luxembourg Leaks and the Pandora Papers. And as corruption grows more complex and global in scope, we are helping link investigative journalists across borders, including in Latin America, where such efforts have uncovered the mismanagement of nearly $300 million in public funding.

BACK FROM THE BRINK

Democracy is not in decline. Rather, it is under attack. Under attack from within by forces of division, ethnonationalism, and repression. And under attack from without by autocratic governments and leaders who seek to exploit the inherent vulnerabilities of open societies by undermining election integrity, weaponizing corruption, and spreading disinformation to strengthen their own grip on power. Worse, these autocrats increasingly work together, sharing tricks and technologies to repress their populations at home and weaken democracy abroad.

To fend off this coordinated assault, the world’s democracies must also work together. That is why in March 2023, the Biden administration will host its second Democracy Summit—this time, held simultaneously in Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Korea, the United States, and Zambia—where the world’s democracies will take stock of their efforts and put forward new plans for democratic renewal.

After years of democratic backsliding, the world’s autocrats are finally on the defensive. But to seize this moment and swing the pendulum of history back toward democratic rule, we must break down the wall that separates democratic advocacy from economic development work and demonstrate that democracies can deliver for their people. We must also redouble our efforts to counter digital surveillance and disinformation while upholding freedom of expression. And we must update the traditional democratic assistance playbook to help our partners respond to ever more sophisticated campaigns against them. Only then can we beat back antidemocratic forces and extend the reach of freedom.

SAMANTHA POWER is Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. From 2013 to 2017, she served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Foreign Affairs · by Samantha Power · February 16, 2023

20. China’s Hidden COVID Catastrophe

Excerpts:

Part of Beijing’s resilience was due to its control of information. Through obfuscation, stonewalling, and misinformation, the government managed to deflect the frustration of ordinary people away from itself. Instead, popular anger was directed at public health experts, who were accused of misleading people on the severity of the virus, and those who favored living with COVID-19, who were blamed for pressuring the government to reopen without any preparation. For the large portion of Chinese who think of themselves as being tizhinei (inside the system) or who have access only to government-sanctioned information, it was also relatively easy to buy into the narrative that the state had protected the people against the pandemic for three years, and now it was their turn to protect themselves.

...

By mid-January, it was clear that COVID death rates had peaked and that the government had muddled through. For all its daunting magnitude, the viral wave was fleeting and its exact extent, for many people affected by it, uncertain. The outcome has paved the way for the government to use its upcoming annual parliamentary meetings, or “Two Sessions,” to declare another victory over COVID-19 similar to the one it proclaimed after the lifting of the lockdown in Wuhan three years ago. It is a stark display of the ability of a strong authoritarian regime to withstand even large-scale social crises through the control of information and the levers of power.

Still, Xi’s extreme COVID strategies have left lasting scars on the Chinese state and its ability to govern. In 2022, China’s economic growth fell to 3 percent, the slowest growth rate since 1974. And although the economy is expected to rebound in 2023, it will be difficult for the hundreds of millions of Chinese who were affected by Beijing’s power overreach over the past three years to forgive and forget. In addition to eroding public trust in the government, the COVID crisis has made clear that a political system that has been tailored to a single superordinate figure is highly susceptible to disruption, shocks, and arbitrary decision-making. For now, like their government, ordinary Chinese may be glad to return to business as usual. But barring fundamental changes in the highly centralized and personalized rule under Xi, there is no guarantee that similar catastrophes will not be repeated with even greater consequences in the future.

China’s Hidden COVID Catastrophe

How Xi Obscured a Lethal Viral Wave—and What It Means for the Future of His Regime

By Yanzhong Huang

February 16, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Yanzhong Huang · February 16, 2023

Over the past three months, the Chinese government has faced a seemingly debilitating series of crises. In late November, after years of large-scale lockdowns, closures, quarantines, and almost constant mass testing, Chinese citizens took to the streets and, for the first time, called into question the leadership of President Xi Jinping. Soon after, in response to the simmering discontent and other pressures, the government ended, virtually overnight, the “zero COVID” measures it had staked its public reputation on for nearly three years. Perhaps not surprisingly, what followed was a public health emergency in which the virus spread across some 80 percent of China’s highly vulnerable population. Hospitals and morgues overflowed, and more than one million people may have died. On top of all this, by the end of 2022, economic growth—long a sustaining pillar of the communist regime—had fallen to its lowest level in years.

Yet instead of going into crisis mode, Beijing has largely shrugged off these setbacks. It offered no official explanation for its abrupt reversal of zero COVID, and it weathered the high death rates that followed mainly by suppressing official data and not talking about COVID fatalities. On January 14, the government asserted that the viral wave had peaked. And to herald the Lunar New Year a few days later, state censors even launched a campaign aimed at “preventing the exaggeration of gloomy emotions.” To the outside world, meanwhile, China announced that it is open for business and that its economy is back.

For now, the strategy appears to have worked. Unlike the zero-COVID measures, the chaos and death that followed reopening produced little domestic backlash against the government. Many ordinary Chinese seem to have concluded that the health crisis was not a big deal; in rural areas, where the health system is weak and the virus ran rampant, many people who experienced symptoms or even died were unaware that they had been infected. In the go-go atmosphere of Beijing’s reopening, COVID-19 seemed to be quickly forgotten. “The virus has gone away . . . God blesses China,” Hu Xijin, the former editor in chief of Global Times, the Communist Party tabloid, wrote on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform, in late January.

In fact, Beijing’s response to the pandemic—both before and after zero COVID—could have significant implications for the one-party state over the long term. For one thing, as the years wore on, the zero-COVID strategy, sustained at enormous social and economic cost, seemed to have more to do with tightening the government’s grip on society than with effective pandemic mitigation, as the protests in November made clear. And the strategy was ultimately unable to prevent a devastating viral wave. Moreover, the high death toll that followed the sudden reopening—and the lack of active government engagement—raised new doubts about the ability of the regime to keep the population healthy. If the lesson for the Xi regime is that it is strong enough to weather a severe public health disaster, the government’s handling of the virus has also made clear that it is willing to sacrifice effective governance and even science in the interest of extending its power and control. In the long run, by breaking down the trust between Chinese society and the state, this power grab will create new challenges for Xi when the next crisis comes.

ONE MILLION DEATHS

The combined human toll of Beijing’s prolonged zero-COVID measures and its abrupt policy U-turn is by no means small. A growing body of evidence shows that during the three years that China maintained zero COVID, the very low rates of infection and mortality from the virus were achieved at significant cost to public health in other areas. For example, according to data from the National Health Commission, in 2020–21, deaths caused by cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases in urban areas increased by 700,000 over 2019 levels—a soberingly large number, even taking into account China’s population size. This very likely was the result of anti-COVID measures preventing timely access to health care.

Beijing’s excessive pandemic measures also had far-reaching psychological and economic consequences. By December 2022, some 530 million Chinese were subject to lockdowns—more than the entire population of the European Union. Quite apart from the economic costs, such harsh measures, prolonged over weeks and months, also created profound social ruptures. In December, Qiao Zhihong, a leading Chinese psychologist, observed that over the past three years, there has been a considerable increase in the number of students with depression, anxiety, self-injury, and suicide. This trend became all the more pronounced in the later stages of the pandemic, when many Chinese began to see the government’s actions, such as the full-scale lockdown of Shanghai in the spring of 2022, as increasingly arbitrary and punitive. Out of step with the rest of the world, these measures also ran contrary to science and common sense, with some residents deprived of access to food and even medicine.

China likely had more COVID deaths in two months than the United States had in three years.

The rampant spread of infection and death that followed the abandonment of zero COVID on December 7 was in some ways even more traumatic. According to the official government tally, there were 82,238 COVID-19 deaths recorded in Chinese hospitals between December 8 and February 2, but both anecdotal evidence and case fatality data indicate that this is a vast undercount of the actual number. According to Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), by January 21, more than 80 percent of the population, or 1.13 billion people, had been infected with COVID-19. If we use his own case fatality ratio for the winter, which he put at between 0.09 percent and 0.16 percent, the reopening would have been associated with at least one million COVID deaths.

Wu's data is supported by other models, including the Economist’s projection of 1.0 to 1.5 million deaths, based on assumptions about the unencumbered spread of COVID-19 after the reopening; the British-based Airfinity’s estimate of 1.3 million COVID deaths between December 1 and February 6; and a New York Times analysis, published on February 15, also estimating between 1.0 and 1.5 million deaths since the reopening. Anecdotal evidence from clinics, hospitals, morgues, and obituaries published by state-backed institutions suggests that the true death toll may have been closer to the high end of these estimates. Of course, the viral wave was playing out over a far larger population, but it is very likely that there were more COVID-19 deaths in China in two months than there were in the United States over the span of three years.

Even leaving aside the human lives lost because of the stringent zero-COVID measures, the estimated deaths the Chinese government claims to have avoided—950,000 during 2020–21, according to Wu himself—have very likely been canceled out by the deaths associated with the messy and chaotic policy reopening. In other words, China spent billions of dollars maintaining an economically disruptive and ultimately socially damaging zero-COVID program for years only to suffer the same, if not worse, health consequences in the end.

CONTROL AT ANY COST

China’s misguided and erratic COVID policies have exposed some fundamental truths about Xi’s regime. For one thing, they have demonstrated that contrary to his predecessors from Deng Xiaoping to Hu Jintao, who sought to make decision-making more technocratic and collective, Xi has strengthened the nonscientific and nondemocratic features of Chinese governance. Rather than providing the most effective and efficient solutions to the pandemic, many of the zero-COVID strategies served to extend the reach of the state. With the onset of the pandemic, Beijing saw an opportunity to pursue almost unchecked surveillance and control of the population. Reuters has reported that Chinese provinces spent more than $50 billion on COVID containment measures in 2022; over the three years that zero-COVID was in effect, the government is estimated to have spent as much as 200 billion yuan—$29.2 billion on PCR testing alone, according to data compiled by Hua Chuang Securities and Goldman Sachs. These immensely costly and invasive programs came at the expense of more efficacious policies such as full vaccination programs for the elderly. As Yasheng Huang, a scholar of international management at MIT, has observed, in implementing these far-reaching measures, Xi also broke the post-Tiananmen social contract “in which the Party would observe certain boundaries in exchange for society observing its own.”

By restricting the movement and freedom of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens for almost three years, however, Xi also fell into a trap. He overestimated the extent to which preventing the spread of COVID-19 could be used to justify any measure, no matter how extreme or for how long. Indeed, it had already become clear during the lockdown of Shanghai in April 2022 that public tolerance was reaching its limit. Yet lacking effective feedback mechanisms, China’s top decision-maker evidently failed to realize the extent of public dissatisfaction until street protests erupted across major cities seven months later, calling for the zero-COVID program to end and even for Xi to step down.

As the virus raged through the country, the government talked about economic growth.

Beijing’s failure of governance was also apparent in the abrupt policy shift that followed. Although a winding down of zero COVID was long overdue, the government’s December 7 decision immediately went awry because of the capricious and reckless way it was implemented. Rather than taking an incremental approach and preparing for the shift—say, by vaccinating the elderly or investing in surge capacity at hospitals and health clinics—Beijing simply announced the policy was ending. Worse, the government encouraged a “let-it-rip” approach to viral spread. Instead of trying to “flatten the curve”—the strategy that epidemiologists around the world have generally advocated—local administrations across China implicitly encouraged what was known as yingyang jinyang, “those who should be infected are all infected,” and kuaisu guofeng, “quickly bring the population to the viral peak.” That strategy, in combination with the shortage of medical supplies, hospital beds, and ICU equipment, led to the explosive rise of COVID-19 infections and deaths in December and January. And as the virus raged throughout the country, the government quickly shifted its policy agenda to economic growth.

In addition to exposing Xi’s policymaking as fundamentally autocratic, the shift from one extreme to the other also undercut people’s trust in government. After all, Beijing had spent nearly three years highlighting the grave danger of the disease and vowing to avoid the approach taken by other countries of living with the deadly virus, or tangping—“lying flat” as Chinese officials derisively called it. Yet in December, the government was suddenly saying the exact opposite: it justified the pivot away from zero COVID by downplaying the severity of the virus, and it adopted precisely the accommodationist approach it had once ridiculed.

At the same time, Chinese authorities also reneged on their promise to do whatever it takes to maximize people’s safety and health, abandoning much of the state’s vast testing infrastructure and asking people to bear the “first responsibility” for their own health. On social media, people shared information on their symptoms—which were often more severe than government health experts had described—and mocked the government’s official data on infections and mortality. As the columnist Yuan Li noted in late December, “Having nearly exhausted its resources and the good will of the public, the government has now simply disappeared, just as many Chinese are getting very ill with the virus or dying from it.”

THE HELMSMAN WILL NOT SAVE YOU

Despite the multiple ways they have undermined the government’s credibility, Xi’s COVID blunders do not pose an existential threat to his regime. The government has continued to show it can cope with even deep challenges to its rule. Notably, it took officials just three days to quell the massive late November protests, which represented one of the most significant challenges to the party’s rule since the Tiananmen uprising. And although the abrupt, unplanned reopening did lead to many of the worst-case outcomes that zero COVID had been expressly designed to avoid—an overwhelmed health-care system and an exponential increase of COVID deaths—the widespread anguish and anger did not lead to mass panic or protests.

Part of Beijing’s resilience was due to its control of information. Through obfuscation, stonewalling, and misinformation, the government managed to deflect the frustration of ordinary people away from itself. Instead, popular anger was directed at public health experts, who were accused of misleading people on the severity of the virus, and those who favored living with COVID-19, who were blamed for pressuring the government to reopen without any preparation. For the large portion of Chinese who think of themselves as being tizhinei (inside the system) or who have access only to government-sanctioned information, it was also relatively easy to buy into the narrative that the state had protected the people against the pandemic for three years, and now it was their turn to protect themselves.

Nowhere was this attitude more apparent than in rural areas. In the countryside, the fragile health-care system was woefully unable to handle the explosive growth of COVID-19 cases. But abetted by poor information and a fatalistic approach toward the pandemic among many local populations, rural areas weathered the crisis in large part because of the underutilization of local health-care institutions and the lack of access to COVID testing. In a strange twist, then, the weakness of the system proved to be its strength: since only those who were tested for COVID-19 and died in hospitals were officially registered as COVID fatalities, many deaths simply didn’t count. “The death of one man is a tragedy,” Joseph Stalin famously said. “The death of a million is a statistic.” But during China’s reopening, many who died did not even become a statistic.

By mid-January, it was clear that COVID death rates had peaked and that the government had muddled through. For all its daunting magnitude, the viral wave was fleeting and its exact extent, for many people affected by it, uncertain. The outcome has paved the way for the government to use its upcoming annual parliamentary meetings, or “Two Sessions,” to declare another victory over COVID-19 similar to the one it proclaimed after the lifting of the lockdown in Wuhan three years ago. It is a stark display of the ability of a strong authoritarian regime to withstand even large-scale social crises through the control of information and the levers of power.

Still, Xi’s extreme COVID strategies have left lasting scars on the Chinese state and its ability to govern. In 2022, China’s economic growth fell to 3 percent, the slowest growth rate since 1974. And although the economy is expected to rebound in 2023, it will be difficult for the hundreds of millions of Chinese who were affected by Beijing’s power overreach over the past three years to forgive and forget. In addition to eroding public trust in the government, the COVID crisis has made clear that a political system that has been tailored to a single superordinate figure is highly susceptible to disruption, shocks, and arbitrary decision-making. For now, like their government, ordinary Chinese may be glad to return to business as usual. But barring fundamental changes in the highly centralized and personalized rule under Xi, there is no guarantee that similar catastrophes will not be repeated with even greater consequences in the future.

YANZHONG HUANG is Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Professor at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, and Director of the school’s Center for Global Health Studies.

Foreign Affairs · by Yanzhong Huang · February 16, 2023

21. The Kremlin’s Grand Delusions

Excerpts;

The war is about more than Ukraine. Kyiv is also fighting to protect other countries. Indeed, for states such as Finland, which was attacked by the Soviet Union in 1939 after securing its independence from the Russian empire 20 years earlier, this invasion seems like a rerun of history. (In the so-called Winter War of 1939–40, Finland fought the Soviets without external support and lost 9 percent of its territory.) The Ukrainians and countries supporting them understand that if Russia were to prevail in this bloody conflict, Putin’s appetite for expansion would not stop at the Ukrainian border. The Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and many other countries that were once part of Russia’s empire could be at risk of attack or subversion. Others could see challenges to their sovereignty in the future.

Western governments need to hone this narrative to counter the Kremlin’s. They must focus on bolstering Europe’s and NATO’s resilience alongside Ukraine’s to limit Putin’s coercive power. They must step up the West’s international diplomatic efforts, including at the UN, to dissuade Putin from taking specific actions such as the use of nuclear weapons, attacks on convoys to Ukraine, continuing to escalate on the battlefield to seize more territory or launching a renewed assault on Kyiv. The West needs to make it clear that Russia’s relations with Europe will soon be irreparable. There will be no return to prior relations if Putin presses ahead. The world cannot always contain Putin, but clear communications and stronger diplomatic measures may help push him to curtail some of his aggression and eventually agree to negotiations.

The events of the last year should also steer everyone away from making big predictions. Few people outside of Ukraine, for example, expected the war or believed that Russia would perform so poorly in its invasion. No one knows exactly what 2023 has in store.

That includes Putin. He appears to be in control for now, but the Kremlin could be in for a surprise. Events often unfold in a dramatic fashion. As the war in Ukraine has shown, many things don’t go according to plan.

The Kremlin’s Grand Delusions

What the War in Ukraine Has Revealed About Putin’s Regime

By Fiona Hill and Angela Stent

February 15, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Fiona Hill and Angela Stent · February 15, 2023

Despite a series of blunders, miscalculations, and battlefield reversals that would have surely seen him thrown out of office in most normal countries, President Vladimir Putin is still at the pinnacle of power in Russia. He continues to define the contours of his country’s war against Ukraine. He is micromanaging the invasion even as generals beneath him appear to be in charge of the battlefield. (This deputizing is done to protect him from blowback if something goes badly wrong in the war.) Putin and those immediately around him directly work to mobilize Russians on the home front and manipulate public views of the invasion abroad. He has in some ways succeeded in this information warfare.

The war has revealed the full extent of Putin’s personalized political system. After what is now 23 years at the helm of the Russian state, there are no obvious checks on his power. Institutions beyond the Kremlin count for little. “I would never have imagined that I would miss the Politburo,” said Rene Nyberg, the former Finnish ambassador to Moscow. “There is no political organization in Russia that has the power to hold the president and commander in chief accountable.” Diplomats, policymakers, and analysts are stuck in a doom loop—an endless back and forth argument among themselves—to figure out what Putin wants and how the West can shape his behavior.

Determining Putin’s actual objectives can be difficult; as an anti-Western autocrat, he has little to gain by publicly disclosing his intentions. But the last year has made some answers clear enough. Since February 2022, the world has learned that Putin wants to create a new version of the Russian empire based on his Soviet-era preoccupations and his interpretations of history. The launching of the invasion itself has shown that his views of past events can provoke him to cause massive human suffering. It has become clear that there is little other states and actors can do to deter Putin from prosecuting a war if he is determined to do so, and that the Russian president will adapt old narratives as well as adopt new ones to suit his purposes.

But the events of 2022 and early 2023 have demonstrated that there are ways to constrain Putin, especially if a broad enough coalition of states gets involved. They have also underscored that the West will need to redouble its efforts at strengthening such a diplomatic and military coalition. Because even now, after a year of carnage, Putin is still convinced he can prevail.

BACK IN THE USSR

One year in, the war in Ukraine has shown that Putin and his cohort’s beliefs are still rooted in Soviet frames and narratives, overlaid with a thick glaze of Russian imperialism. Soviet-era concepts of geopolitics, spheres of influence, East versus West, and us versus them shape the Kremlin’s mindset. To Putin, this war is in effect a struggle with Washington akin to the Korean War and other Cold War-era conflicts. The United States remains Russia’s principal opponent, not Ukraine. Putin wants to negotiate directly with Washington to “deliver” Ukraine, with the end goal of getting the U.S. president to sign away the future of the country. He has no desire to meet directly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. His goal remains the kind of settlement achieved in 1945 at Yalta, when U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sat across the table from the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and accepted Moscow’s post-World War II dominance of Eastern Europe without consulting the countries affected by these decisions.

For Russia, World War II—the Great Fatherland War, as Russians call it—is the touchstone and central theme of the conflict in Ukraine. Putin’s emphasis a year ago on ridding Ukraine of Nazis has faded somewhat into the background. This year, the victorious outcome in 1945 is his primary focus. Putin’s message to Ukrainians, Russians, and the world is that victory will be Russia’s and that Moscow always wins, no matter how high the costs. Indeed, beginning with comments ahead of his 2023 New Year’s speech, Putin has cast off the depiction of the war in Ukraine as just a special military operation. According to him, Russia is locked in an existential battle for its survival against the West. He is once more digging deep into old Soviet tactics and practices from the 1940s to rally the Russian economy, political class, and society in support of the invasion.

Putin is capable of learning from setbacks and adapting his tactics in ways that are also reminiscent of Stalin’s approach in World War II, when the Soviet Union pushed back Nazi Germany in the epochal battle of Stalingrad. In September 2022, as Russia was clearly losing on the battlefield, Putin ordered the mobilization of 300,000 extra troops. He then declared that Russia had annexed four of Ukraine’s most fiercely fought-over territories: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, transforming the military and political picture on the ground and creating an artificial red line. Putin has repeatedly made changes in Russia’s military leadership at critical junctures, and he has worked fiercely to ensure his country has enough weapons for the war effort. When Russian forces began to run out of armaments, Putin purchased drones from Iran and ammunition from North Korea.

Putin is practiced at playing people, groups, and countries against one another.

Putin has also shifted his narrative about the war several times to keep his opponents guessing about how far he might still go. He and other Russian officials, including his spokesman and foreign minister, have openly stated that the invasion of Ukraine is an imperial war and that Russia’s borders are expanding again. They have asserted that the four annexed Ukrainian territories are Russia’s “forever” but then suggested that some borders may still be negotiated with Ukraine. According to newspaper reports, they have pushed for the full conquest of Donetsk and Luhansk by March but also indicated that another assault on Kyiv could be in the offing. At this stage of the conflict, Russia’s actual war goals remain unclear.

What is clear is this: after more than two decades in power, Putin is practiced at playing people, groups, and countries against one another and using their weaknesses to his advantage. He understands the weak points of European and international institutions as well as the vulnerabilities of individual leaders. He knows how to exploit NATO’s debates and splits over military spending and procurement. He has taken advantage of European and American partisan divides (including the fact that only one third of Republicans think the United States should support Ukraine) to spread disinformation and manipulate public opinion.

At home in Russia, Putin has proved willing to allow some hawkish dissent and debate about the war, including the grumbling of pro-war commentators and bloggers who used to serve in the military. He seeks to use these debates to mobilize support for his policies. But although Putin is adept at managing quarrels, he cannot always control the content and tone of these disputes, just as he cannot control the battlefield. Some of the domestic commentary on the war has become shrill, and even threatening to Putin’s position. There is speculation that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner paramilitary group, whose forces have been doing some of the war’s bloodiest fighting, could even seize power at some point in the future. Russia’s wartime casualties appear to be approaching 200,000. As many as one million people are estimated to have left Russia in the past year in response to the war, either because they oppose the invasion or simply to avoid being drafted. In this regard, the world has learned that there are some limits to Putin’s coercive capabilities, even if this mass exodus of dissenters seems to leave behind a more quiescent majority.

DISSUADABLE, NOT DETERRABLE

Russian opponents of the war may have had no chance of stopping Putin from invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022. And none of the United States and Europe’s mechanisms and practices for keeping the peace after World War II and the Cold War had much if any effect on his decision-making. The West clearly failed to stop Putin from contemplating or starting the invasion. Nevertheless, the United States’ release of declassified intelligence prior to February 24 clarified Russian aims and mobilization and helped the pro-Ukraine Western coalition quickly come together once the war started. Furthermore, this past year has shown that even if he cannot be deterred, Putin can be dissuaded from taking certain actions in specific contexts.

Strategic partners of Russia, such as China and India, have criticized Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield. He allowed grain shipments from Ukraine through the Black Sea after complaints from the United Nations, Turkey, and African countries. Putin and the Kremlin remain committed to maintaining partner countries’ support, as was demonstrated during the G-20 meeting in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia. Russia still seems not to want a full-on fight with NATO. It has avoided expanding its military action outside Ukraine (at least so far), including by not shelling military supply convoys entering the country from Poland or Romania. But Moscow’s aggressive rhetoric has risen and ebbed throughout the war. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, once known as a moderate leader willing to engage with the West, now plays the role of Putin’s attack dog, periodically threatening a nuclear Armageddon.

The Kremlin is shameless in its rhetoric, and no one in Putin’s circle cares about narrative coherence. This brazenness is matched by domestic ruthlessness. Putin and his colleagues are willing to sacrifice Russian lives, not just Ukrainians. They have no qualms about the methods Russia uses to enforce participation in the war, from murdering deserters with sledgehammers (and then releasing video footage of the killings) to assassinating recalcitrant businessmen who do not support the invasion. Putin is perfectly fine with imprisoning opposition figures while sweeping through prisons and the most impoverished Russian regions to collect people to use as cannon fodder on the frontlines.

Only 34 countries have imposed sanctions on Russia since the war started.

The domestic ruthlessness is in turn exceeded by the brutality against Ukraine. Russia has declared total war on the country and its citizens, young and old. For a year, it has deliberately shelled Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and killed people in their kitchens, bedrooms, hospitals, schools, and shops. Russian forces have tortured, raped, and pillaged in the Ukrainian regions under their control. Putin and the Kremlin still believe they can pummel the country into submission while they wait out the United States and Europe.

The Kremlin is convinced that the West will eventually grow tired of supporting Ukraine. Putin believes, for example, that there will be political changes in the West that could be advantageous for Moscow. He hopes for the return of populists to power in these states who will back away from their countries’ support for Ukraine. Putin also remains confident that he can eventually restore Russia’s prewar relationship with Europe and that Russia can and will be part of Europe’s economic, energy, political, and security structures again if he holds out long enough (as Bashar al-Assad has in the Middle East by staying in power in Syria). This is why Russia is seemingly restrained in some policy arenas. For instance, it has vested interests in working with Norway and other Arctic countries in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and the Barents Sea, where Moscow has been careful to comply with international agreements and bilateral treaties. Russia does not want its misadventure in Ukraine to embroil and spoil its entire foreign policy.

Putin is convinced that he can compartmentalize Moscow’s interests because Russia is not isolated internationally, despite the West’s best efforts. Only 34 countries have imposed sanctions on Russia since the war started. Russia still has leverage in its immediate neighborhood with many of the states that were once part of the Soviet Union, even though these countries want to keep their distance from Moscow and the war. Russia continues to build ties in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. China, along with India and other key states in the so-called global South, have abstained on votes in favor of Ukraine at the United Nations even as their leaders have expressed occasional consternation and displeasure with Moscow’s behavior. Trade between Russia and these countries has increased—in some cases quite dramatically—since the beginning of the conflict. Similarly, 87 countries still offer Russian citizens visa-free entry, including Argentina, Egypt, Israel, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. Russian narratives about the war have gained traction in the global South, where Putin often seems to have more influence than the West has—and certainly more than Ukraine has.

BLURRING THE LINES

One reason the West has had limited success in countering Russia’s messaging and influence operations outside Europe is that it has yet to formulate its own coherent narrative about the war—and about why the West is supporting Kyiv. American and European policymakers talk frequently of the risks of stepping over Russia’s redlines and provoking Putin, but Russia itself not only overturned the post-Cold War settlement in Europe but also stepped over the world’s post-1945 redlines when it invaded Ukraine and annexed territory, attempting to forcibly change global borders. The West failed to state this clearly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The tepid political response and the limited application of sanctions after that first Russian invasion convinced Moscow that its actions were not, in fact, a serious breach of post-World War II international norms. It made the Kremlin believe it could likely go further in taking Ukrainian territory. Western debates about the need to weaken Russia, the importance of overthrowing Putin to achieve peace, whether democracies should line up against autocracies, and whether other countries must choose sides have muddied what should be a clear message: Russia has violated the territorial integrity of an independent state that has been recognized by the entire international community, including Moscow, for more than 30 years. Russia has also violated the United Nations Charter and fundamental principles of international law. If it were to succeed in this invasion, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states, be they in the West or the global South, will be imperiled.

Yet the Western debate about the war has shifted little in a year. U.S. and European views still tend to be defined by how individual commentators see the United States and its global role rather than by Russian actions. Antiwar perspectives often reflect cynicism about the United States’ motivation and deep skepticism about Ukraine’s sovereign rights, rather than a clear understanding or objective assessment of Russian actions toward Ukraine and what Putin wants in the neighboring region. When Russia was recognized as the only successor state to the Soviet Union after 1991, other former Soviet republics such as Belarus and Ukraine were left in a gray zone.

Some analysts posit that Russia’s security interests trump everyone else’s because of its size and historical status. They have argued that Moscow has a right to a recognized sphere of influence, just as the Soviet Union did after 1945. Using this framing, some commentators have suggested that NATO’s post-Cold War expansion and Ukraine’s reluctance to implement the Minsk agreements—accords brokered with Moscow after it annexed Crimea in 2014 that would have limited Ukraine’s sovereignty—are the war’s casus belli. They think that Ukraine is ultimately a former Russian region that should be forced to accept the loss of its territory.

Kyiv is fighting to protect other countries.

In fact, the preoccupation of Russian leaders with bringing Ukraine back into the fold dates to the beginning of the 1990s, when Ukraine started to pull away from the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (a loose regional institution that had succeeded the Soviet Union). At that juncture, NATO’s enlargement was not even on the table for eastern Europe, and Ukraine’s affiliation with the European Union was an even more remote prospect. Since then, Europe has moved beyond the post-1945 concept of spheres of influence for East and West. Indeed, for most Europeans, Ukraine is clearly an independent state, one that is fighting a war for its survival after an unprovoked attack on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The war is about more than Ukraine. Kyiv is also fighting to protect other countries. Indeed, for states such as Finland, which was attacked by the Soviet Union in 1939 after securing its independence from the Russian empire 20 years earlier, this invasion seems like a rerun of history. (In the so-called Winter War of 1939–40, Finland fought the Soviets without external support and lost 9 percent of its territory.) The Ukrainians and countries supporting them understand that if Russia were to prevail in this bloody conflict, Putin’s appetite for expansion would not stop at the Ukrainian border. The Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and many other countries that were once part of Russia’s empire could be at risk of attack or subversion. Others could see challenges to their sovereignty in the future.

Western governments need to hone this narrative to counter the Kremlin’s. They must focus on bolstering Europe’s and NATO’s resilience alongside Ukraine’s to limit Putin’s coercive power. They must step up the West’s international diplomatic efforts, including at the UN, to dissuade Putin from taking specific actions such as the use of nuclear weapons, attacks on convoys to Ukraine, continuing to escalate on the battlefield to seize more territory or launching a renewed assault on Kyiv. The West needs to make it clear that Russia’s relations with Europe will soon be irreparable. There will be no return to prior relations if Putin presses ahead. The world cannot always contain Putin, but clear communications and stronger diplomatic measures may help push him to curtail some of his aggression and eventually agree to negotiations.

The events of the last year should also steer everyone away from making big predictions. Few people outside of Ukraine, for example, expected the war or believed that Russia would perform so poorly in its invasion. No one knows exactly what 2023 has in store.

That includes Putin. He appears to be in control for now, but the Kremlin could be in for a surprise. Events often unfold in a dramatic fashion. As the war in Ukraine has shown, many things don’t go according to plan.

FIONA HILL is Senior Fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. From 2017 to 2019, she was Senior Director for Europe and Russia on the U.S. National Security Council. She is the author of There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-first Century.
ANGELA STENT is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Professor Emerita at Georgetown University. From 1999 to 2001, she served in the Department of State’s Office of Policy Panning. She is the author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest.

Foreign Affairs · by Fiona Hill and Angela Stent · February 15, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

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

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

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RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Feb 15, 2023 - Press ISW

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