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Quotes of the Day:
“It was indicative of the US Army's basic misunderstanding of what special forces really are, that the official lineage of special forces traced back to the first special service force. The OSS was a much more legitimate ancestor of today's Green Berets, but the problem with the US Army recognition of that fact is a syndrome that has wider implications. OSS was a hybrid with strong, political and intelligence flavors.”
- LTG (RET) William P Yarbrough, Southern Pines, North Carolina, December 1982
“You see, we are here, as far as I can tell, to help each other. – our brothers, our sisters, our friends, our enemies. That's to help each other, not hurt each other.” - Stevie Ray Vaughan
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
- Dr. Seuss
Just back from Korea but still travelling for the next week but just in the eastern time zone.
1. Ellsworth Johnson, Last Survivor of a Secret Army Unit, Dies at 100
2. Army Plans Major Cuts to Special-Operations Forces, Including Green Berets
3. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: October
4. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 6, 2023
5. 21,000 casualties in seven days: The push to update medic training
6. Commandant wants all Marines to do a tour in the Indo-Pacific
7. The newest threat to elections is AI-boosted disinformation
8. Former Soldier Indicted for Attempting to Pass National Defense Information to People’s Republic of China
9. We Need the Monroe Doctrine
10. ‘A new form of warfare’: how Ukraine reclaimed the Black Sea from Russian forces
11. The CIA’s data-challenged AI imperative
12. China Is Becoming a No-Go Zone for Executives
13. ‘It’s going to be huge’: Cyber Command gains new authorities to hire & buy
14. What Time Is It at the Heritage Foundation?
15. US Army scrambles to catch up to rising drone threat
16. Inside the secretive business of geopolitical advice
1. Ellsworth Johnson, Last Survivor of a Secret Army Unit, Dies at 100
The last of a special breed of men from the Greatest generation.
We must never forget our legacy, even if the keepers of the Army's lineage and honors will not recognize it (no disrespect meant to the 1st SSF):
“It was indicative of the US Army's basic misunderstanding of what special forces really are, that the official lineage of special forces traced back to the first special service force. The OSS was a much more legitimate ancestor of today's Green Berets, but the problem with the US Army recognition of that fact is a syndrome that has wider implications. OSS was a hybrid with strong, political and intelligence flavors.”
- LTG (RET) William P Yarbrough, Southern Pines, North Carolina, December 1982
Ellsworth Johnson, Last Survivor of a Secret Army Unit, Dies at 100
The New York Times · by Sam Roberts · October 6, 2023
During World War II, he parachuted into France and China as part of a special operations group on missions for the Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the C.I.A.
Ellsworth Johnson in 2019. As a medic he parachuted into occupied France during World War II 400 miles behind enemy lines.Credit...Sgt. Dominique Cox/U.S. Army
By
Oct. 6, 2023Updated 5:47 p.m. ET
Ellsworth Johnson, an American medic who parachuted into enemy-occupied France and China during World War II and was believed to be the last surviving member of an Operations Group that spawned today’s Green Berets, died on Sept. 30 in Zeeland, Mich. He was 100.
His death was confirmed by his daughter-in-law, Anna Johnson. It came four weeks after he was presented with an Army Special Forces tab and a Green Beret in a ceremony at the assisted living facility where he lived near Grand Rapids, Mich.
“This is an extremely rare event and, quite frankly, the last of its kind that will ever occur,” Major Russell M. Gordon, the director of public affairs for the 1st Special Forces Command, said of the ceremony.
And Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson, the deputy commanding general of the Army Special Operations Command, said during the event: “Everything that he did in 1944 — we model ourselves on in our training and the operations that we conduct. It’s our origin story.”
Mr. Johnson, who was known as Al, was born in an Army hospital in Ohio and spent his early years on bases where his father served in the military. When Al was drafted in 1943, he was trained as a medic but volunteered for an unidentified hazardous assignment while awaiting deployment in a Denver Army camp.
“My disappointment at being a medic was great,” he wrote in a memoir, “Behind Enemy Lines: The O.S.S. in World War II” (2019). “I knew that surgical training would at least keep me out of a ward where I could expect to be no more than a bedpan jockey.”
He drew a distinction between participating on the field of combat and treating its victims after the battle.
“I wanted to get into the fight,” he said in a television interview. “I didn’t want to see the results of the fight.”
He was assigned to an Operations Group of the Office of Strategic Services, a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was then shipped overseas and trained in North Africa.
In August 1944, he parachuted from the belly of a B-24 bomber 400 miles behind German lines to harass enemy troops and feed intelligence to London as the Allies were poised to invade southern France. His team and the French Resistance captured a vital dam and its hydroelectric power plant after forcing the German garrison guarding it to flee.
Mr. Johnson, top right, with fellow members of his Special Forces unit when they were training in England in 1944.Credit...via 1st Special Forces Command
After serving in France for about a month, he and many of his comrades chose to transfer to the Pacific Theater as members of an Operations Group rather than be absorbed into the regular Army.
Joining recently trained Chinese paratroopers, Mr. Johnson and other Americans, all serving officially as advisers, jumped some 600 miles into Japanese-occupied territory in the summer of 1945.
“We learned to live under the noses of the enemy,” he wrote.
They successfully intercepted enemy supply lines and communications and inflicted casualties in an unsuccessful attempt to retake a town.
“I could not help but wonder what I had gotten into again,” Mr. Johnson wrote. “I kept telling myself we had trained these Chinese as best we could. We had provided them with arms and food and put all we could into making them a viable force. Nevertheless, as I surveyed the 30 some men around me, I could not help but feel that any fighting we might get into would be done in large part by the Americans.”
As a medic, he stabilized and evacuated wounded troops and barely avoided injury himself when a shell exploded 100 feet in front of him.
Technician 4th Grade Johnson (he was commissioned an honorary colonel in the Chinese Nationalist Army) received two Bronze Stars. Office of Strategic Services veterans were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for intelligence and special operations during World War II. His missions remained classified until 1995, after which the Army determined that he met the requirements to join the Special Forces Regiment.
Ellsworth Johnson was born on July 5, 1923, in Ohio, the son of parents of Swedish and Dutch descent. After leaving the Army, his father, John, worked as a handyman. His mother was Marie Johnson.
Ellsworth graduated from Central High School in Grand Rapids in 1942 and was drafted in 1943. After the war, he earned an associate degree from Grand Rapids Junior College and became a machinery and beauty supply salesman.
In 1947, he married Jeanette DeBoer; she died in 2021. Survivors include his children, Jim Johnson, Nancy Moseler and Vern Dulany; seven grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.
Mr. Johnson recalled that when he and his fellow soldiers signed on to go to China after their harrowing experience in France, he wondered what they could have been thinking.
“The bunch of us must really be without common sense,” he wrote. “After all, how many G.I.’s would willingly go into two wars.”
By the time the war in the Pacific had ended and the Americans had become caught in the crossfire between Nationalist and Communist forces in China, he and his comrades were ready to return home.
“When the news came that we were to leave, we were all happy to go,” he told Soldier of Fortune magazine in 2021. “We had had enough of war and all the stupid things that go along with it.”
Sam Roberts, an obituaries reporter, was previously The Times’s urban affairs correspondent and is the host of “The New York Times Close Up,” a weekly news and interview program on CUNY-TV. More about Sam Roberts
The New York Times · by Sam Roberts · October 6, 2023
2. Army Plans Major Cuts to Special-Operations Forces, Including Green Berets
Mr. Lubold lost it right up front. Scotty Crear is rolling in his grave.
"Green Beret commando units"
The only "commandos" in US SOF are the Air Commandos which is the nickname for the Air Force Special Operations Zone.
What makes Special Operations "Special."
Excerpts:
“It’s why the Ukrainian army has been so lethal against the Russians—it’s undeniable, why would you cut that?” said one person familiar with the proposal. “Anyone can squeeze the trigger, but in order to hit something, you gotta be trained.”
Sen. Ted Budd (R., N.C.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, said that special operations forces remain relevant and called on the Pentagon to provide an analysis of the tradeoffs of trimming special forces.
“It’s their specialized training, equipment, and relationships with partner forces that will create the dilemmas necessary to deter or defeat an adversary like China,” he said in a statement.
Let's consider the definition of Special Operations - they require a lot more than specialized training and equipment but I am glad to see that there is a focus on relationships and creating dilemmas for our adversaries.
Special Operations — Operations requiring unique modes of employment, tactical techniques, equipment and training often conducted in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments and characterized by one or more of the following: time sensitive, clandestine, low visibility, conducted with and/or through indigenous forces, requiring regional expertise, and/or a high degree of risk. Also called SO
Another way to describe what special operations forces do are the two SOF trinities:
Unconventional Warfare
Irregular warfare
Support to political warfare
influence
Governance
Support to indigenous forces and populations
While sustaining the no fail mission of national mission counter terrorism
"The Two Special Operations Trinities"
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/two-special-operations-trinities
Army Plans Major Cuts to Special-Operations Forces, Including Green Berets
After post-9/11 expansion, Army struggles with recruiting, focuses on China
By Gordon LuboldFollow
Updated Oct. 5, 2023 3:56 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/army-plans-major-cuts-to-special-operations-forces-including-green-berets-4ac28684?utm
WASHINGTON—The Pentagon is poised to make controversial cuts to the Army’s storied special-operations forces, amid recruiting struggles and a shift in focus from Middle East counterterrorism operations to a threat from China.
The Army is cutting about 3,000 troops, or about 10% from its special-operations ranks, which could include so-called trigger-pullers from the Green Beret commando units who have conducted some of the nation’s most dangerous and sensitive missions around the world, from the jungles of Vietnam to the back alleys of Baghdad.
The reductions would enable the Army to rebalance toward the large conventional ground forces needed in a potential fight in Asia. The trims in the ranks of special forces would also help the Army cope with a recruiting shortfall in a strong labor market. But opponents of the cuts, notably senior special-operations officers, have argued they could hinder training of U.S. partners, including the Ukrainian and Taiwanese militaries, and limit the elite units’ ability to respond to crises.
The service plans to brief Capitol Hill in the coming days on the reductions. Mostly, the Army plans to cut special-operations troops in supporting roles such as psychological warfare, civil affairs, intelligence operators, communications troops, logistics and other so-called enablers, U.S. military officials said. The cuts would follow the reallocation last year of more than 700 special-operations troops from the Army and other services. In sum, the cuts to the Pentagon’s umbrella Special Operations Command would amount to about 3,700 troops since last year.
The reductions have been fought hard from within the special-operations community, but they are expected to happen, U.S. officials said. The final documents have yet to be signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, officials said.
New candidates hoping to become Green Berets standing for a morning inspection at Camp Mackall, N.C., in January. PHOTO: TRAVIS DOVE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
As with any such force reduction, however, the proposed cuts could be overturned by Congress, which has loud advocates for the Pentagon’s special-operations community. If it goes through, it would amount to only about 5% cut to Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla.
But more broadly, the reduction would mark the beginning of a new era for the Pentagon. The U.S., long engaged in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict zones, has relied heavily on special-operations troops as the go-to force to fight counterterrorism and conduct the counterinsurgency operations in the war on terror.
Hunting and killing Bin Laden
Allied special forces fought extensively in World War II, and Army units deployed to Vietnam early on, training and advising South Vietnamese fighters. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy authorized them to wear their signature green beret, according to a U.S. Army history.
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, SOCOM, which also includes the Navy SEALs, the Marine Corps’ special-reconnaissance force, Air Force special operators and others, has grown to about 75,000 from 45,000, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. The Army contributes about half of those forces, or about 36,000. Troops and civilian support staff now operate in about 80 countries.
Special Operations Command oversaw the hunt and ultimate killing of Osama bin Laden, the ground raid in Syria that killed the head of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the 2003 rescue of soldier Jessica Lynch in Iraq, and hundreds of other sensitive, perilous operations over the years.
U.S. special-operations units have helped train forces in Taiwan. Taiwanese military personnel participate an amphibious landing drill in Yilan, Taiwan, in May. PHOTO: ANNABELLE CHIH/GETTY IMAGES
Today, special-operations units are peppered across Europe, to help train Ukrainian forces to fight Russia, as well as East Asia, including in Taiwan, where they are training allies to defend against possible aggression from China, and West Africa.
But as the U.S. focuses more on the so-called great power competition with China, some policy makers see less of a need for the highly trained and specialized troops, officials said. Instead, they favor pouring more resources into the kind of conventional forces expected to be more relevant in a peer-on-peer conflict. The Pentagon has shrunk its presence in the Middle East, leaving half-empty the sprawling American bases that were a hallmark of the war on terrorism and the springboard for some special-operations missions.
In addition, the Army is struggling with a debilitating, multiyear recruiting crisis amid a strong economy. This year, the service missed a 65,000-soldier recruiting goal by 15,000 people, and its overall strength is projected to drop it as low as 440,000 in 2025 from about 453,000 now. Special-operations forces have contributed to an imbalance, Army officials said, in which some jobs have gone unfilled and units aren’t fully manned.
Ultimately, the issue went before Austin, who ordered that the cuts go ahead as planned but not include trigger-pullers, a U.S. official said. Other officials anticipate that some Green Berets and some “unfilled” Green Beret slots will be cut. In any case, the cuts will occur at the discretion of Special Operations Command, and officials expect they could come through attrition of soldiers in coming months and years, officials said.
“The Army is in a moment of transformation,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told reporters at the Pentagon this week. “There are new capabilities that we need to bring into the fore.”
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth beside an Abrams battle tank in Lima, Ohio, in February. PHOTO: CARLOS OSORIO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Most senior special-operations officers, including SOCOM commander Army Gen. Bryan Fenton and Christopher Maier, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, opposed the cuts out of fear that the reductions will deprive the command of the flexibility it needs to conduct counterterrorism and training of partner nations.
“It’s why the Ukrainian army has been so lethal against the Russians—it’s undeniable, why would you cut that?” said one person familiar with the proposal. “Anyone can squeeze the trigger, but in order to hit something, you gotta be trained.”
Sen. Ted Budd (R., N.C.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, said that special operations forces remain relevant and called on the Pentagon to provide an analysis of the tradeoffs of trimming special forces.
“It’s their specialized training, equipment, and relationships with partner forces that will create the dilemmas necessary to deter or defeat an adversary like China,” he said in a statement.
Write to Gordon Lubold at gordon.lubold@wsj.com
Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the October 6, 2023, print edition as 'Army Plans 10% Cut To Elite Special Forces'.
3. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: October
October 4, 2023 | FDD Tracker: September 2, 2023-October 4, 2023
https://www.fdd.org/policy-tracker/2023/10/04/biden-administration-foreign-policy-tracker-october/?utm
Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: October
John Hardie
Russia Program Deputy Director
Listen to analysis2 min
Trend Overview
By John Hardie
Welcome back to the Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker. Once a month, we ask FDD’s experts and scholars to assess the administration’s foreign policy. They provide trendlines of very positive, positive, neutral, negative, or very negative for the areas they watch.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has yet to confirm whether he will attend November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco. He may hope that dangling his attendance will deter the Biden administration from advancing tough China policies. Beijing may similarly hope that two newly announced U.S.-China working groups will lead Washington to tread more cautiously for fear of sinking the diplomatic initiative. Elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific, the administration is working to shore up vital relationships with Pacific Island countries while avoiding the fallout from a diplomatic spat between Canada and India.
As the fiscal year drew to a close, Congress passed a last-minute continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. GOP members, however, stripped out provisions related to Ukraine aid. That short-sighted move forces the Pentagon to delay replenishment of U.S. stocks and inhibits planning for future phases of the war. In better news, President Joe Biden reportedly promised to grant Ukraine’s longstanding request for ATACMS missiles.
The administration issued a sanctions waiver enabling Iran to access another $6 billion in frozen funds as part of a broader deal with the regime. Yet Tehran continues to demonstrate bad faith on the nuclear file, most recently by barring some international inspectors from the country.
Check back next month to see how the administration handles these and other challenges.
Access the entire FP tracker here: https://www.fdd.org/policy-tracker/2023/10/04/biden-administration-foreign-policy-tracker-october/?utm
Trending Positive
Trending Neutral
Trending Negative
Trending Very Negative
Cyber
Defense
Europe and Russia
Israel
Indo-Pacific
Latin America
China
Gulf
Korea
Sunni Jihadism
Syria
Turkey
International Organizations
Iran
Lebanon
Nonproliferation and Biodefense
4. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 6, 2023
Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-6-2023
Key Takeaways:
- Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Bakhmut and advanced in western Zaporizhia Oblast on October 6.
- Russian forces appear to have recently conducted a regimental rotation in the Orikhiv area, demonstrating an ability to sustain their defenses in this critical sector of the frontline.
- Russian forces reportedly resumed an offensive effort near Kupyansk on October 6, but the majority of the Russian forces reportedly deployed to this sector of the front likely remain combat ineffective.
- Russian forces may be expanding military training infrastructure in occupied eastern Ukraine as part of ongoing efforts to increase the training and mobilization capacity of the Russian military.
- The Kremlin’s continued attempts to deflect blame for the crash of Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane crash and disgrace Prigozhin are generating continued praise for Prigozhin and efforts to defend his legacy among select information space communities.
- Former Russian military commanders who participated in the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 reportedly remain in peripheral positions of some influence within the Russian military or defense-industrial base.
- Russian forces conducted a Shahed-131/136 drone strike targeting port, grain, and border infrastructure in southern Ukraine on the night of October 5-6.
- Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Lyman line, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced in some areas.
- Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations near Bakhmut and advanced in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
- Russia has reportedly recruited up to several hundred Serbian nationals to fight in Ukraine.
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 6, 2023
Oct 6, 2023 - ISW Press
Karolina Hird, Christina Harward, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, and Mason Clark
October 6, 2023, 6:30pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.
Note: The data cut-off for this product was 2pm ET on October 6. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the October 7 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.
Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Bakhmut and advanced in western Zaporizhia Oblast on October 6. Ukrainian military sources noted that Ukrainian forces continued successful offensive actions south of Bakhmut near Andriivka (8km southeast of Bakhmut).[1] Geolocated footage posted on October 5 shows that Ukrainian forces have advanced towards a tree line between Robotyne and Verbove, about 6km southeast of Robotyne.[2] Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash noted that Ukrainian forces are preparing for offensive operations throughout the autumn-winter period. Yevlash emphasized that while supply requirements will increase and rainy and foggy conditions may complicate the use of drones and tactical and army aviation, Ukrainian forces will continue to fight through the winter.[3] Yevlash’s statement supports ISW’s longstanding assessment that weather will not prevent either side from conducting offensive operations throughout the winter of 2023-2024 if they are well-supplied and choose to do so, as they did in the winter of 2022, and that the pace of Ukrainian offensives will largely be metered by Western provision of appropriate small-arms and ammunition and non-lethal supplies to Ukraine - not simply winter weather conditions or any specific weapons system.[4]
Russian forces appear to have recently conducted a regimental rotation in the Orikhiv area, demonstrating an ability to sustain their defenses in this critical sector of the frontline. A Ukrainian military observer reported on October 6 that elements of the 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District), which were recently “partially restored,” withdrew to positions east of Nesteryanka (about 10km northwest of Robotyne) after the Russian command previously committed them to the area.[5] The Ukrainian observer also suggested that elements of the 71st Motorized Rifle Regiment (also of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division) are ”persistently” counterattacking on the northern outskirts of Novoprokopivka (2km south of Robotyne).[6] ISW observed in mid-September that critical elements of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division, particularly its 291st and 71st Motorized Rifle Regiments, withdrew behind the Russian defensive line between Verbove and Solodka Balka (about 5km south of Robotyne) due to casualties that may have rendered them combat ineffective.[7] Following the withdrawal of elements of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division to rear areas in western Zaporizhia Oblast, elements of the 7th and 76th Airborne (VDV) divisions laterally redeployed to the area from Kherson and Luhansk oblasts to fill in the gaps left by 42nd Motorized Rifle Division elements.[8] By late September, ISW observed elements of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division apparently recommitting to the front near Novoprokopivka, suggesting that they rotated back to the front after resting and reconstituting for a short time.[9] The Ukrainian military source’s observations about the 291st and 71st Motorized Rifle Regiments, as well as increased recent Russian reporting of these regiments defending against Ukrainian attacks in the areas south and west of Robotyne, suggest that Russian forces have conducted regiment-level rotations in this sector of the front over the past month.[10] ISW previously assessed that Russian forces were likely struggling to conduct tactical to operational level rotations along the entire frontline, but is revising this assessment considering the apparent rotation of substantial elements of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division and two VDV divisions to and from the frontline south of Orikhiv.
Russian forces reportedly resumed an offensive effort near Kupyansk on October 6, but the majority of the Russian forces reportedly deployed to this sector of the front likely remain combat ineffective. Ukrainian military officials reported a decrease in Russian activity near Kupyansk in recent weeks, but Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash stated on October 6 that Russian forces resumed combat operations in the Kupyansk-Lyman direction.[11] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces launched an offensive push near Synkivka (8km northeast of Kupyansk) and that Russian forces are heavily shelling the N26 (Shevchenkove-Kupyansk) highway.[12] One milblogger characterized the renewed Russian offensive push towards Kupyansk as “large-scale” in a now-deleted post.[13] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov previously reported that the Russian military deployed elements of the newly formed 25th Combined Arms Army (CAA) (reportedly formed under the Eastern Military District) to the Kupyansk direction to replace elements of the 41st CAA (Central Military District).[14] The resumption of Russian offensive operations near Kupyansk, possibly including elements of the 25th CAA, is likely intended to draw Ukrainian attention away from other sectors of the front in southern Ukraine. ISW previously assessed, however, that the 25th CAA was hurriedly deployed ahead of an intended deployment date of December 2023 and is likely severely understaffed, poorly trained, or both.[15] ISW has also previously observed the presence of heavily degraded Western Military District (WMD) elements, particularly of the 1st Guards Tank Army and 6th Combined Arms Army, in the Kupyansk area, and ISW does not assess at this time that a grouping comprised of the newly formed 25th Combined Arms Army with degraded WMD elements will be able to sustain meaningful offensives in this area.[16]
Russian forces may be expanding military training infrastructure in occupied eastern Ukraine as part of ongoing efforts to increase the training and mobilization capacity of the Russian military. A Ukrainian reserve officer published satellite imagery on October 5 showing that Russian forces are expanding multiple training facilities in rear areas in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, including near Novopavlivka in occupied Luhansk Oblast.[17] The Ukrainian reserve officer stated that Russian forces are likely attempting to alleviate logistical bottlenecks and improve infrastructure to support continued mobilization and training.[18] Russian forces may be expanding training infrastructure in rear areas of occupied eastern Ukraine as part of the effort to establish nine reserve regiments, as well as ”self-sufficient” force groupings, in occupied areas of Ukraine as part of ongoing large-scale military reforms.[19] ISW assessed with low confidence that the nine reserve regiments undergoing training may be training regiments through which Russian volunteers could flow on their way to the front.[20] The Russian military may also be expanding bases in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts as part of ongoing efforts to integrate and formalize Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic forces within the Russian military and to increase the self-sufficiency of Russian groupings in occupied Ukraine by establishing forward training and C2 infrastructure in occupied Ukraine, rather than running operations in Donetsk and Luhansk from the Southern Military District itself.[21]
The Kremlin’s continued attempts to deflect blame for the crash of Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane crash and disgrace Prigozhin are generating continued praise for Prigozhin and efforts to defend his legacy among select information space communities. Pro-Wagner and Wagner-affiliated channels largely lampooned Putin’s suggestion on October 5 Prigozhin’s plane crashed due to grenades detonating onboard, possibly due to the passengers using alcohol or drugs onboard.[22] Some channels called Putin’s claims “laughable,” “a farce,” and disrespectful to “heroes” of Russia.[23] A Russian insider source claimed that members of the Russian Presidential Administration ”provoked” Putin to deliver these statements in order to “de-heroize” Prigozhin, since Prigozhin’s previous statements questioning the reasons for the start of the war in Ukraine are apparently gaining popularity throughout Russia.[24] Putin’s comments do not appear to have had the intended effect and have instead pushed some elements of the Russian information space to attempt to preserve Prigozhin’s reputation and disprove Putin‘s implication that Prigozhin was to blame for the plane crash by continuing to discuss Prigozhin and criticize the Kremlin’s official line on his death. However, the Kremlin’s apparent perceived need to continue to discuss Prigozhin’s death and denigrate him further is noteworthy regardless of any information space responses, indicating the Kremlin likely perceives some continuing threat from Prigozhin’s statements and stance on the war.
Former Russian military commanders who participated in the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 reportedly remain in peripheral positions of some influence within the Russian military or defense-industrial base. A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger amplified a claim by a Russian insider source on October 6 that listed the current positions of Russian military commanders whom the Russian military leadership replaced after the initial invasion of Ukraine in 2022 failed to achieve its intended goals.[25] The source claimed that former Western Military District (WMD) Commander Colonel General Alexander Zhuravlev and former Southern Military District (SMD) Commander Army General Alexander Dvornikov are currently advisors to High Precision Complexes (a subsidiary of Rostec, Russia’s primary state-owned defense conglomerate) and the Almaz-Antey Aerospace Defense Concern (another state-owned defense enterprise), respectively. The source claimed that Dvornikov is still in “army circles” and hopes to return to the military. The source claimed that former Central Military District Commander Colonel General Alexander Lapin is currently the Chief of Staff of the Russian Ground Forces. The source claimed that former Eastern Military District (EMD) Commander Colonel General Alexander Chaiko served in Syria and the Russian General Staff after his dismissal as EMD commander but that his current position is unknown. Former United Kingdom Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace stated on October 1 that the Russian military leadership had removed all commanders who led major Russian units into Ukraine in February 2022.[26] These insider source claims are largely consistent with ISW’s previous observations of a pattern of Russian military leadership shifting disgraced and ineffective commanders to peripheral positions far removed from Ukraine without entirely discharging them from military or security sector government positions, leaving open the option of returning to a command position.[27]
Russian forces conducted a Shahed-131/136 drone strike targeting port, grain, and border infrastructure in southern Ukraine on the night of October 5-6. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 33 Shahed drones from Cape Chauda, Crimea and that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 25 of the drones.[28] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that the Russian strike damaged port infrastructure and a granary along the Danube River in Odesa Oblast, and geolocated footage published on October 6 indicates that the strike hit the Orlivka-Isaccea ferry crossing that connects Odesa Oblast and Romania.[29]
Key Takeaways:
- Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Bakhmut and advanced in western Zaporizhia Oblast on October 6.
- Russian forces appear to have recently conducted a regimental rotation in the Orikhiv area, demonstrating an ability to sustain their defenses in this critical sector of the frontline.
- Russian forces reportedly resumed an offensive effort near Kupyansk on October 6, but the majority of the Russian forces reportedly deployed to this sector of the front likely remain combat ineffective.
- Russian forces may be expanding military training infrastructure in occupied eastern Ukraine as part of ongoing efforts to increase the training and mobilization capacity of the Russian military.
- The Kremlin’s continued attempts to deflect blame for the crash of Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane crash and disgrace Prigozhin are generating continued praise for Prigozhin and efforts to defend his legacy among select information space communities.
- Former Russian military commanders who participated in the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 reportedly remain in peripheral positions of some influence within the Russian military or defense-industrial base.
- Russian forces conducted a Shahed-131/136 drone strike targeting port, grain, and border infrastructure in southern Ukraine on the night of October 5-6.
- Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Lyman line, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced in some areas.
- Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations near Bakhmut and advanced in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
- Russia has reportedly recruited up to several hundred Serbian nationals to fight in Ukraine.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
- Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
- Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
- Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
- Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
- Activities in Russian-occupied areas
Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on October 6 and reportedly advanced. Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash stated that Russian forces resumed combat operations in the Kupyansk-Lyman direction.[30] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces launched renewed offensive operations near Synkivka (8km northeast of Kupyansk) while simultaneously counterattacking in unspecified areas of the Svatove sector of the front.[31] The milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are heavily shelling the N26 (Shevchenkove-Kupyansk) highway.[32] One milblogger characterized the Russian offensive push towards Kupyansk as “large-scale” in a now-deleted post.[33] Other milbloggers claimed that Russian forces made unspecified progress northeast of Kupyansk.[34] A Russian news aggregator claimed that Russian forces advanced near Kyslivka (20km southeast of Kupyansk) and successfully attacked near Makiivka (22km northwest of Kreminna) on October 5.[35] A Russian milblogger claimed on October 6 that Russian forces attacked near Torske (15km west of Kreminna) and Makiivka but did not specify an outcome.[36] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Synkivka, Ivanivka (20km southeast of Kupyansk), and Makiivka.[37]
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Kreminna on October 6. The Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attempted to recapture lost positions near Yampolivka (17km west of Kreminna), Dibrova (7km southwest of Kreminna), and Kuzmyne (3km southwest of Kreminna) and that Ukrainian forces conducted four unsuccessful attacks in the Kupyansk direction in the past week.[38]
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut direction and reportedly advanced south of Bakhmut on October 6. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces were successful east of Andriivka (8km southwest of Bakhmut).[39] Russian milbloggers claimed that a battalion-sized Ukrainian group attacked towards the railway line between Andriivka and Klishchiivka (6km southwest of Bakhmut) but that Russian forces defended against the attack.[40]
Russian forces conducted unsuccessful counterattacks near Bakhmut on October 6. The Ukrainian General Staff and Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash reported that Russian troops unsuccessfully attempted to regain lost positions east of Dyliivka (15km southwest of Bakhmut), south of Andriivka, and near Klishchiivka.[41] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces counterattacked near Andriivka, Klishchiivka, and Hryhorivka (7km northwest of Bakhmt), but did not specify the outcome of these attacks.[42] Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), amplified footage of the 98th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division firing on Ukrainian positions in the Bakhmut direction.[43]
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on October 6.[44] Several Russian sources amplified footage that reportedly shows a group of around 17 Ukrainian soldiers surrendering near Marinka on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City.[45]
Russian forces continued ground attacks on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on October 6 and have recently made marginal advances. Geolocated footage posted on October 5 shows Russian positions south of Avdiivka near the E50 highway that runs along the outskirts of Donetsk City.[46] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks near Avdiivka, Marinka, and Novomykhailivka.[47] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces continued offensive operations in Marinka, resumed attacks towards Krasnohorivka and Sieverne (both on the northwestern outskirts of Donetsk City), and tried to advance on the southern approaches to Avdiivka.[48]
Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)
Ukrainian forces continued limited offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area without advancing on October 6. Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack near Pryyutne (16km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[49]
Russian forces launched a series of counterattacks in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on October 6 but did not make any confirmed or claimed gains. Russian sources claimed that Russian forces counterattacked towards the north and northeast of Rivnopil (8km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) and from Novomayorske (18km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[50] Some Russian milbloggers characterized these attacks as Russian forces’ attempts to seize the initiative in the area and force Ukrainian forces to react to the Russian attacks.[51] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks north of Pryyutne and near Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and Zolota Nyva (12km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[52] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported unsuccessful Russian ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast near Vuhledar and Vodyane (6km northeast of Vuhledar).
A Ukrainian military observer suggested that communication issues on the command seam between headquarters of the 5th Combined Arms Army (CAA) and 36th CAA (both of the Eastern Military District) south and southeast of Velyka Novosilka is exacerbating Russian forces’ inability to make gains during localized counterattacks in this area. The military observer stated that the 127th Motorized Rifle Division and 60th Motorized Rifle Brigade (both of the 5th CAA) are tasked with defending the Staromlynivka area (14km south of Velyka Novosilka) and the Novozlatopil-Staromlynivka-Novomayorske line (25km southwest to 18km southeast of Novomayorske).[53] The military observer stated that elements of the 60th Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 394th Motorized Rifle Regiment (127th Motorized Rifle Division) have been unsuccessfully counterattacking over the past month to push Ukrainian forces to the northern outskirts of Pryyutne and that elements of the 37th Motorized Rifle Brigade (36th CAA) conducted failed attacks near Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and west of Novodonetske (12km southeast of Velyka Novosilka) to pressure Ukraine’s eastern flank.
Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on October 6 and recently marginally advanced. Geolocated footage published on October 5 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced to a tree line west of Verbove (18km southeast of Orikhiv).[54] The “Storm Ossetia” and “Alania” volunteer battalions operating in the area claimed that Ukrainian forces are gradually shifting the frontline closer to Verbove.[55] Russian sources claimed that small Ukrainian infantry groups continued attacking Russian positions on the Kopani-Robotyne line (up to 5km northwest of Robotyne) overnight on October 5-6 and on October 6.[56] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continued attacks near Verbove and Novoprokopivka (18km southeast of Orikhiv).[57]
Russian forces continued limited unsuccessful counterattacks in western Zaporizhia Oblast on October 6. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions in western Robotyne.[58] Another Russian milblogger claimed that the 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) has been periodically counterattacking while defending against heavy Ukrainian attacks on the Kopani-Robotyne line in the past three days.[59] A Russian news aggregator claimed that Russian forces counterattacked from the Verbove direction on October 5.[60]
Russian forces likely temporarily regained and subsequently lost the sub-tactical initiative on the Ukrainian flank near Robotyne during a series of counterattacks in the past few weeks. A Ukrainian military observer reported that elements of Russian Airborne (VDV) formations have attacked Ukrainian positions on the Kopani-Robotyne and Novofedorivka-Mala Tokmachka (9-18km southeast of Orikhiv) directions in a failed attempt to alleviate pressure on Russian forces near Novoprokopivka.[61] The military observer stated that the Russian 104th VDV Regiment (76th VDV Division) instead failed to reach the outskirts of Robotyne and even lost several positions near Kopani, and that the 108th VDV Regiment (7th VDV Division) tried to drive a wedge along the T0803 but failed and had to withdraw. This report is consistent with ISW’s recent assessments that certain Russian units, including elements of the 7th VDV Division, 76th VDV Division, and 58th CAA have been consistently counterattacking in western Zaporizhia Oblast to their detriment.[62] While these Russian attacks did not capture territory, the extent (or lack thereof) of their spoiling effects on Ukrainian offensive operations is unclear.
Russian sources continue to discuss Ukrainian activity in the Dnipro River delta in Kherson Oblast. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces maintain positions on a narrow section of east-bank Kherson Oblast near the Antonivsky Bridge and also on Kozatskyi Island (northwest of Nova Kakhovaka).[63] Russian milbloggers expressed continued concern that limited Ukrainian raids across the river indicate that Ukrainian forces are preparing for a broader offensive effort.[64] The Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully tried to capture footholds on the Dnipro River delta islands in the past week.[65]
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
Russia has reportedly recruited up to several hundred Serbian nationals to fight in Ukraine. BBC’s Russia service reported on October 6 that Serbian citizens have reportedly been fighting as part of the separate “Wolf” unit of the 106th Airborne (VDV) Division since the start of the war in February 2022.[66] BBC reported that another group of 30 Serbian nationals signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and flew to Russia to join the 106th VDV Division at an unspecified date after September 15, 2023.[67] BBC reported that a group of Serbian nationals fought in eastern Ukraine in 2014 as a part of the Wagner Group, and ISW has observed alleged Wagner recruitment efforts in Serbia in winter and spring 2023.[68] Serbian President Alexander Vucic called on the Wagner Group to cease recruitment in Serbia in January 2023, however.[69] ISW has also observed reports of Cuban and Nepalese nationals serving in Russian VDV formations, including the 106th VDV Division.[70]
The Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church’s Tatarstan Metropolitanate has reportedly helped to organize aid for Russian military personnel fighting in Ukraine. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty branch Idel Realii reported on October 5 that the Tatarstan Metropolitanate’s main charity department “Kazan - Mercy” claimed that it raised 8 million rubles (about $80,000) in 2022 to help “refugees” and “families of ‘Special Military Operation’ participants” but later noted that over a half a million rubles went to “the needs of soldiers.”[71] Idel Realii reported that local eparchies (an ecclesiastical unit in Eastern Christianity roughly equivalent to a diocese) of the Tatarstan Metropolitanate also collect funds for Russian military supplies.
Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)
Russian occupation authorities are likely prioritizing providing medical care to Russian forces in occupied Ukraine, thereby causing medical shortages for Ukrainian civilians. Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported on October 5 that Russian occupation authorities have converted most civilian hospitals in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast to facilities for the treatment of wounded Russian personnel. Fedorov also stated that there is a shortage of doctors at remaining civilian hospitals which causes long wait times for civilians to receive medical treatment.[72] Crimean occupation administration head Sergei Aksyonov claimed on October 6 that occupied Dzhankoi Raion and other unspecified raions in Crimea lack doctors.[73]
Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus)
The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated that peacekeeping forces from the Belarusian 103rd Separate Guards Airborne Brigade, officers from the Belarusian Special Forces and Belarusian MoD commands, and elements of the internal troops of the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) will participate in the “Indestructible Brotherhood 2023” Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) joint exercises in Kyrgyzstan from October 9 to 13.[74] The Belarusian MoD stated that the exercises are aimed at improving the skills of CSTO peacekeeping forces operating in CSTO states in Central Asia.
ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.
Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.
5. 21,000 casualties in seven days: The push to update medic training
Yes, the GWOT created medical expectations that will be unattainable in large scale combat operations. In addition to developing new medical capabilities we need to be working on how to mitigate the impact on troop morale when high combat casualty rates take place as well as how to mitigate the loss of public support for military operations when the public sees the high casualty rates. "The moral is the physical as three is to one," or so said Bonaprte.
21,000 casualties in seven days: The push to update medic training
Defense News · by Todd South · October 6, 2023
In a recent corps-level wargame, U.S. Army forces sustained 21,000 casualties in seven days. That’s nearly half the soldiers in a full-strength corps.
“It will take everyone to clear the battlefield as quickly as we can when we’re talking about the scale of 21,000 casualties in corps warfighting,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Talley, head of the Army’s Medical Center of Excellence. “That’s reality. How do you keep going? How do you sustain momentum?”
Talley laid out these challenges the military medical community faces, and what can be done, during a recent Maneuver Warfighter Conference panel at Fort Moore, Georgia.
The two-star noted the successes of medical treatment and casualty care in the demanding but comparatively low-casualty conflicts of the last two decades, during which medics would sustain a soldier until the wounded could be transported to higher levels of care.
But those successes have a time limit, and military medical leaders have been warning that the “golden hour” — the critical first hour of treatment following a major injury or wound — may stretch to hours or even days, depending on a unit’s level of isolation during large-scale combat.
“They may have to stay on the ‘X’ a lot longer, with perhaps less capability but have significantly less know-how,” Talley said.
But now, experienced medics in the security force assistance brigades will spearhead a pilot program starting this fall to upgrade medical training, equipment and skills that Talley expects will set the standard for all 68W (the medic MOS), which has the second highest number of soldiers of any MOS in the Army.
That will mean more training for Guard and Reserve counterparts, he said, because more than two-thirds of those medics are not on active duty.
Right now, medics leave their schools with basic emergency medical technician qualifications. Once completed, the pilot aims to have all standard training put every medic at the paramedic-qualified level.
The training goes beyond CPR and tying tourniquets. Talley said observations from the war in Ukraine, where soldiers have fought for more than 17 months straight, show disease, not battle injuries, are consuming much of the force and resources.
As the U.S. Army shifts from using the brigade as the unit of action to focusing on the division as that unit, Talley said Army leaders are considering inserting a Role 3 unit into the division. (Role 3 is a category of medical support.) Those units include specialist surgical and medical capabilities, diagnostic resources, dentistry, food inspection, and other elements, according to the Defense Department.
But while the service improves medical kit, it must also provide the knowledge to use it, Talley explained.
“We can build all the kit we want, condense it, ruggedize it. But if those medics don’t understand physiology, don’t understand if I put a ventilator on you it’s going to have an effect on your kidneys, we’re not going to be able to sustain life the way we have, certainly not going to be as successful as we have in the last 20 years of combat,” Talley said.
But changing the curriculum at the school will likely be the easy part, he added. “What’s most important is how do you sustain that skill set?”
The key to that involves medics drilling those skills at home station in the medical simulation training centers. But Talley did acknowledge they’re not of uniform quality across the Army.
He encouraged commanders to ensure their medics are trained and their medical officers are involved in all training and planning. Even the lowest level soldier can contribute.
“It starts with the [individual first aid kit], knowing how to use everything inside,” Talley said.
The major general pointed to training and practices that are standard in the 75th Ranger Regiment, where universal blood donors are identified in each unit and every soldier has combat lifesaver and additional medical training.
The center is currently revamping each of its 190 medical training courses to include large-scale combat scenarios.
Talley pointed to recent studies by the Army, noting 17 gaps for formations as they transition from a focus on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism to large-scale combat operations.
“Not one of them has anything to do with casualty evacuation,” Talley said. “I think that’s about to change.”
About Todd South
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
6. Commandant wants all Marines to do a tour in the Indo-Pacific
Commandant wants all Marines to do a tour in the Indo-Pacific
Marines’ promotions are not based on where they are assigned.
BY JEFF SCHOGOL | PUBLISHED OCT 4, 2023 3:17 PM EDT
taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · October 4, 2023
In a recent message to the force, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith urged all Marines to spend at least part of their careers in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command theater of operations, which includes Japan, Guam, the Philippines, and Australia.
“If you haven’t done a tour in the Indo-PACOM, your career, your professional development [is] not yet complete,” Smith said in a video along with Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlos Ruiz. “You need to go. It’s a great place to be.”
While Smith did not say explicitly that Marines assigned to units in the Pacific will be more competitive for promotions than those in other combatant commands, whenever the commandant speaks, commanders listen.
Marine Maj. Joshua Larson, Smith’s spokesman, told Task & Purpose that where Marines are stationed does not affect their promotion status. The process for promoting Marines, he said, looks at skills and other factors, but not duty stations.
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“Official policy announcements are released via official USMC communication channels and not via social media,” Larson told Task & Purpose. “CMC’s [the Marine Corps commandant’s] comments were simply a result of his recent visit with Marines at III Marine Expeditionary Force, U.S. Forces Japan, and U.S. Forces Korea, where he witnessed and received positive feedback from forward-stationed Marines training and operating in the Indo-Pacific theater. We measure all Marines based on their skills, talents, and merits.”
U.S. Marines conduct a simulated amphibious assault of exercise Talisman Sabre 19 in Bowen, Australia, July 22, 2019. (Cpl. Tanner Lambert/U.S. Marine Corps)
Still, Marine Corps commandants’ don’t typically think out loud. Their public comments are commonly taken as guidance and direction for the force. Smith’s comments may sound familiar to Marines who remember then-Commandant Gen. James Conway’s January 2007 statement that struck some as akin to an order to deploy: “Every Marine into the fight.”
At the time, the Iraq war was the U.S. military’s highest priority, and American service members were starting to pour into the country as part of the surge. Conway wrote in a Corps-wide message that all Marines should have the opportunity to fight.
“I want our Corps’ leadership to initiate policies to ensure all Marines, first termers and career Marines alike, are provided the ability to deploy to a combat zone,” Conway wrote.
The Marine Corps is currently in the midst of a massive force structure overhaul meant to make it light and lean enough to fight a 21st Century version of World War II’s island hopping campaign against China.
In 2022, the Corps activated the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in Hawaii, and it expects to stand up other such units on Okinawa on Guam. In a war with China, the Marine Littoral Regiments would likely deploy to remote Pacific islands and attack enemy ships.
Each regiment will be made up of roughly 2,000 Marines and they are expected to be armed with anti-ship missiles that have a range of up to 115 miles. The Marines have also submitted a request for Maritime Strike Tomahawk missiles, which would allow them to sink ships up to 1,000 miles away.
Smith’s comments about the Indo-PACOM theater should not be interpreted as a new directive on Marines’ career paths, said retired Marine Lt. Col. Dakota Wood, a defense expert at the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, D.C.
A U.S. Marine with 3d Littoral Combat Team, 3d Marine Littoral Regiment, 3d Marine Division, sets security with an M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle during the conduct of a simulated airfield seizure during Marine Aviation Support Activity 23 at Parades Air Station, Philippines, July 13, 2023. (Sgt. Israel Chincio/U.S. Marine Corps)
Instead, Smith was likely speaking in general terms about how the Indo-Pacific region is a much bigger and different environment than other parts of the world where Marines operate, and that is why he is encouraging Marines to gain experience from working in that theater of operations, Wood told Task & Purpose.
“The Corps’ interests and reputation lay in succeeding across the board,” Wood said. “That might change, of course, but at present I don’t think Smith meant to imply harm to career if one doesn’t serve in the Pacific or that other theaters and commands should be seen as lesser assignments. Bad guys with bullets are as dangerous in Syria as they would be in the jungles of the Philippines.”
However, the Marine Corps is also in the process of returning to its roots as an amphibious force following years of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when it served as a smaller version of the U.S. Army, said Katherine Kuzminski, director of the military, veterans, and society program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C.
The Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept, or EABO, which calls for deploying small teams of Marines to temporary operating bases, is also geared to the geography of the Indo-Pacific region, Kuzminski told Task & Purpose. In fact, an August 2021 Marine Corps news release referred to EABO as a “modern island hopping campaign.”
Smith’s comments about Marines needing to spend time in the Indo-Pacific region may not be a change to Corps’ policy, but it can affect promotion board members’ personal preferences when they look at a slate of candidates, Kuzminski said.
The formal guidance for promotion boards is outlined in board precepts, but individual members may look more favorably on an officer with EABO experience in the Pacific than another officer based on the East Coast, she said.
“There’s a lot of art to board selection beyond the science of what the precepts say,” Kuzminski said.
The latest on Task & Purpose
taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · October 4, 2023
7. The newest threat to elections is AI-boosted disinformation
We must be vigilant. We need an informed and educated citizenry.
And the first step in solving a problem is to admit we have one. Too many people discount these efforts and actions to undermine our election and democratic process.
Excerpts:
Disinformation campaigns in the AI era are likely to be much more sophisticated than they were in 2016. I believe the U.S. needs to have efforts in place to fingerprint and identify AI-produced propaganda in Taiwan, where a presidential candidate claims a deepfake audio recording has defamed him, and other places. Otherwise, we’re not going to see them when they arrive here. Unfortunately, researchers are instead being targeted and harassed.
Maybe this will all turn out OK. There have been some important democratic elections in the generative AI era with no significant disinformation issues: primaries in Argentina, first-round elections in Ecuador and national elections in Thailand, Turkey, Spain and Greece. But the sooner we know what to expect, the better we can deal with what comes.
The newest threat to elections is AI-boosted disinformation
Studying how Russia, China, and Iran meddle in other countries can help the U.S. prepare for 2024.
BY BRUCE SCHNEIER
ADJUNCT LECTURER IN PUBLIC POLICY, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL
OCTOBER 6, 2023 12:38 PM ET
defenseone.com · by Bruce Schneier
Elections around the world are facing an evolving threat from foreign actors, one that involves artificial intelligence.
Countries trying to influence each other’s elections entered a new era in 2016, when the Russians launched a series of social media disinformation campaigns targeting the U.S. presidential election. Over the next seven years, a number of countries – most prominently China and Iran – used social media to influence foreign elections, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. There’s no reason to expect 2023 and 2024 to be any different.
But there is a new element: generative AI and large language models. These have the ability to quickly and easily produce endless reams of text on any topic in any tone from any perspective. As a security expert, I believe it’s a tool uniquely suited to internet-era propaganda.
This is all very new. ChatGPT was introduced in November 2022. The more powerful GPT-4 was released in March 2023. Other language and image production AIs are around the same age. It’s not clear how these technologies will change disinformation, how effective they will be or what effects they will have. But we are about to find out.
A conjunction of elections
Election season will soon be in full swing in much of the democratic world. Seventy-one percent of people living in democracies will vote in a national election between now and the end of next year. Among them: Argentina and Poland in October, Taiwan in January, Indonesia in February, India in April, the European Union and Mexico in June and the U.S. in November. Nine African democracies, including South Africa, will have elections in 2024. Australia and the U.K. don’t have fixed dates, but elections are likely to occur in 2024.
Many of those elections matter a lot to the countries that have run social media influence operations in the past. China cares a great deal about Taiwan, Indonesia, India and many African countries. Russia cares about the U.K., Poland, Germany and the EU in general. Everyone cares about the United States.
AI image, text and video generators are already beginning to inject disinformation into elections.
And that’s only considering the largest players. Every U.S. national election from 2016 has brought with it an additional country attempting to influence the outcome. First it was just Russia, then Russia and China, and most recently those two plus Iran. As the financial cost of foreign influence decreases, more countries can get in on the action. Tools like ChatGPT significantly reduce the price of producing and distributing propaganda, bringing that capability within the budget of many more countries.
Election interference
A couple of months ago, I attended a conference with representatives from all of the cybersecurity agencies in the U.S. They talked about their expectations regarding election interference in 2024. They expected the usual players – Russia, China and Iran – and a significant new one: “domestic actors.” That is a direct result of this reduced cost.
Of course, there’s a lot more to running a disinformation campaign than generating content. The hard part is distribution. A propagandist needs a series of fake accounts on which to post, and others to boost it into the mainstream where it can go viral. Companies like Meta have gotten much better at identifying these accounts and taking them down. Just last month, Meta announced that it had removed 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 Facebook pages, 15 Facebook groups and 15 Instagram accounts associated with a Chinese influence campaign, and identified hundreds more accounts on TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), LiveJournal and Blogspot. But that was a campaign that began four years ago, producing pre-AI disinformation.
Russia has a long history of engaging in foreign disinformation campaigns.
Disinformation is an arms race. Both the attackers and defenders have improved, but also the world of social media is different. Four years ago, Twitter was a direct line to the media, and propaganda on that platform was a way to tilt the political narrative. A Columbia Journalism Review study found that most major news outlets used Russian tweets as sources for partisan opinion. That Twitter, with virtually every news editor reading it and everyone who was anyone posting there, is no more.
Many propaganda outlets moved from Facebook to messaging platforms such as Telegram and WhatsApp, which makes them harder to identify and remove. TikTok is a newer platform that is controlled by China and more suitable for short, provocative videos – ones that AI makes much easier to produce. And the current crop of generative AIs are being connected to tools that will make content distribution easier as well.
Generative AI tools also allow for new techniques of production and distribution, such as low-level propaganda at scale. Imagine a new AI-powered personal account on social media. For the most part, it behaves normally. It posts about its fake everyday life, joins interest groups and comments on others’ posts, and generally behaves like a normal user. And once in a while, not very often, it says – or amplifies – something political. These persona bots, as computer scientist Latanya Sweeney calls them, have negligible influence on their own. But replicated by the thousands or millions, they would have a lot more.
Disinformation on AI steroids
That’s just one scenario. The military officers in Russia, China and elsewhere in charge of election interference are likely to have their best people thinking of others. And their tactics are likely to be much more sophisticated than they were in 2016.
Countries like Russia and China have a history of testing both cyberattacks and information operations on smaller countries before rolling them out at scale. When that happens, it’s important to be able to fingerprint these tactics. Countering new disinformation campaigns requires being able to recognize them, and recognizing them requires looking for and cataloging them now.
Even before the rise of generative AI, Russian disinformation campaigns have made sophisticated use of social media.
In the computer security world, researchers recognize that sharing methods of attack and their effectiveness is the only way to build strong defensive systems. The same kind of thinking also applies to these information campaigns: The more that researchers study what techniques are being employed in distant countries, the better they can defend their own countries.
Disinformation campaigns in the AI era are likely to be much more sophisticated than they were in 2016. I believe the U.S. needs to have efforts in place to fingerprint and identify AI-produced propaganda in Taiwan, where a presidential candidate claims a deepfake audio recording has defamed him, and other places. Otherwise, we’re not going to see them when they arrive here. Unfortunately, researchers are instead being targeted and harassed.
Maybe this will all turn out OK. There have been some important democratic elections in the generative AI era with no significant disinformation issues: primaries in Argentina, first-round elections in Ecuador and national elections in Thailand, Turkey, Spain and Greece. But the sooner we know what to expect, the better we can deal with what comes.
Bruce Schneier, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
defenseone.com · by Bruce Schneier
8. Former Soldier Indicted for Attempting to Pass National Defense Information to People’s Republic of China
What are the reasons for spying? ideology, money, sex, blackmail?
Does not seem like this solider is of Chinese descent (based on the name).
Excerpts:
“Joseph Daniel Schmidt was once a trusted guardian of our nation’s secrets and swore an oath to defend and protect U.S. national security,” said Assistant Director Suzanne Turner of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “As alleged by the government, Schmidt betrayed his promise and potentially placed our nation at risk in his attempts to pass national defense information to Chinese security services. The FBI and our partners remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting the American people and U.S. national security."
...
According to records filed in the case, Schmidt was an active-duty soldier from January 2015 to January 2020. His primary assignment was at JBLM in the 109th Military Intelligence Battalion. In his role, Schmidt had access to SECRET and TOP SECRET information. After his separation from the military, Schmidt allegedly reached out to the Chinese Consulate in Turkey and later, the Chinese security services via email offering information about national defense information.
Former Soldier Indicted for Attempting to Pass National Defense Information to People’s Republic of China
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-soldier-indicted-attempting-pass-national-defense-information-peoples-republic-china?utm
Friday, October 6, 2023
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For Immediate Release
Office of Public Affairs
Defendant Arrested Upon Arrival in San Francisco on Flight from Hong Kong
A former U.S. Army Sergeant whose last duty post was Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) in western Washington was arrested today on an indictment charging him with two federal felonies: attempt to deliver national defense information and retention of national defense information. Joseph Daniel Schmidt, 29, will appear in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California later today and will be brought to the Western District of Washington for further court proceedings.
“Individuals entrusted with national defense information have a continuing duty to protect that information beyond their government service and certainly beyond our borders,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew G. Olsen. “The National Security Division is committed to identifying and holding accountable those who violate that duty.”
“Joseph Daniel Schmidt was once a trusted guardian of our nation’s secrets and swore an oath to defend and protect U.S. national security,” said Assistant Director Suzanne Turner of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “As alleged by the government, Schmidt betrayed his promise and potentially placed our nation at risk in his attempts to pass national defense information to Chinese security services. The FBI and our partners remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting the American people and U.S. national security."
“Members of our military take a sworn oath to defend our country and the Constitution. In that context the alleged actions of this former military member are shocking – not only attempting to provide national defense information, but also information that would assist a foreign adversary to gain access to Department of Defense secure computer networks,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman for the Western District of Washington. “I commend the FBI for their diligent work to end his alleged efforts to betray our country.”
According to records filed in the case, Schmidt was an active-duty soldier from January 2015 to January 2020. His primary assignment was at JBLM in the 109th Military Intelligence Battalion. In his role, Schmidt had access to SECRET and TOP SECRET information. After his separation from the military, Schmidt allegedly reached out to the Chinese Consulate in Turkey and later, the Chinese security services via email offering information about national defense information.
In March 2020, Schmidt traveled to Hong Kong and allegedly continued his efforts to provide Chinese intelligence with classified information he obtained from his military service. He allegedly retained a device that allows for access to secure military computer networks and offered the device to Chinese authorities to assist them in efforts to gain access to such networks.
Schmidt remained in China, primarily Hong Kong, until this week when he scheduled to fly to San Francisco. He was arrested at the airport.
Attempt to deliver national defense information and retention of national defense information are both punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The FBI is investigating the case, with valuable assistance provided by the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Command.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg for the Western District of Washington and Deputy Chief Matthew J. McKenzie of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Schmidt Declaration
Schmidt Indictment
Updated October 6, 2023
9. We Need the Monroe Doctrine
Not the conclusion I expected based on the title of the article, But this is a very libertarian position.
Excerpts:
Whoever our next president is, he or she has a wonderful opportunity to turn the tide and embrace peaceful foreign policy. America can set an example for nations abroad. We can curtail our meddling and military spending, withdraw from entangling alliances (like NATO), and encourage European countries to fund their own national defense instead of relying on the American military.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State William Seward declined an invitation to join Napoleon in a protest of the Russian Tsar. Seward said he was defending "our policy of non-intervention." American could make history again by offering a hand in diplomacy and firmly declining further invitations into long, drawn out, unwinnable wars.
We Need the Monroe Doctrine
ANGELA MCARDLE , CHAIR, LIBERTARIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
ON 10/6/23 AT 7:00 AM EDT
Newsweek · October 6, 2023
During the past 20-plus years, the United States has involved itself in wars in the Middle East, in Africa, and now in Europe with the Ukraine War. In 2001, George Bush Jr.'s administration brought to life the War on Terror with the "Bush Doctrine." He propagated conflict abroad, molded our foreign policy into one of aggression, and normalized war in the minds of the American public.
Donald Trump, for all his flaws, did not involve us in any new wars, and many advocates for peaceful foreign policy were optimistic that aggressive militarism was on the decline when President Joe Biden pulled American troops out of Afghanistan. Those hopes dissipated, quickly, though, when the Biden administration sent American money overseas to Ukraine and when Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed to keep us involved in the Ukraine War.
The United States desperately needs to mind its own business internationally, which is why we need a return to the Monroe Doctrine now, more than ever.
In 1823, amid the backdrop of Napoleon Bonaparte's conquest, European countries began to look at Central and South American, hungry to re-establish dominance over their former colonies. In response, President James Monroe issued the "Monroe Doctrine," with the following three main points—"separate spheres of influence for the Americas and Europe, non-colonization, and non-intervention."
The Monroe Doctrine was designed to signify a clear break between the New World and the autocratic realm of Europe, but its message of non-interventionism is the most poignant and timely today.
The Doctrine stated, "In the wars of European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken part, nor does it comport our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced that we resent our injuries, or make preparations for our defense."
Our country's foreign policy no longer bears any resemblance to the Monroe Doctrine or its admonitions of temperance and restraint. The United States has 750 military bases in 80 countries (that we know of) around the world. Our military is actively participating in wars in Yemen, Somalia, and Syria, in addition to pumping billions of dollars into the war in Ukraine. Regime change, entangling alliances, and wars for empire are dangerous practices and should be abandoned by the United States government. We should return to the Monroe Doctrine if we want the United States to remain a successful country.
A soldier salutes the U.S. flag. John Moore/Getty Images
Empires fall when they over expand to enforce large territories. The United States defense budget is $ 2.04 trillion. This bloated budget is a point of contention in American politics, especially when so many people feel the pains of inflation and the rising cost of groceries and gasoline. In response to the United States' militaristic foreign policy, other countries have banded together to form the BRICS currency agreement, a plan to shift away from using the U.S. dollar as their common currency for trade and investment. Hostility is bad for business.
Having war guarantees and entangling alliances puts a military obligation on the domestic population. In the mid to late 1960s, thousands of Americans rallied in D.C. to protest the military draft and our failed war in Vietnam. There has been no military draft for decades, but we still feel the pain of strained relations with other countries via embargoes, bad PR, and travel restrictions. Let's also not forget the thousands of disabled veterans in the United States, or the high veteran suicide rate.
Whoever our next president is, he or she has a wonderful opportunity to turn the tide and embrace peaceful foreign policy. America can set an example for nations abroad. We can curtail our meddling and military spending, withdraw from entangling alliances (like NATO), and encourage European countries to fund their own national defense instead of relying on the American military.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State William Seward declined an invitation to join Napoleon in a protest of the Russian Tsar. Seward said he was defending "our policy of non-intervention." American could make history again by offering a hand in diplomacy and firmly declining further invitations into long, drawn out, unwinnable wars.
Angela McArdle is chair of the Libertarian National Committee.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Newsweek · October 6, 2023
10. ‘A new form of warfare’: how Ukraine reclaimed the Black Sea from Russian forces
A headline that always gets my attention and triggers me is "a new form of warfare."
‘A new form of warfare’: how Ukraine reclaimed the Black Sea from Russian forces
Kyiv has turned the region into a no-go zone for Moscow’s bristling warships
The Guardian · by Luke Harding · October 5, 2023
It was a moment of humiliation for Moscow. The headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet – a building of elegant white columns overlooking the Crimean port of Sevastopol – was ablaze. Smoke billowed into a blue sky. First one, and then a second Storm Shadow missile slammed into its roof. Video captured the impact: a precise, deadly, thunderous strike.
The attack on 22 September killed 34 officers, including Viktor Sokolov, the fleet’s commander, according to Ukraine. Russia denied this, releasing footage of Sokolov, suggesting he was still alive. Whatever the truth of the admiral’s fate, the blow deep into enemy territory was of major significance. It was further proof that Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion, 19 months on, had not gone to plan.
Ukraine strikes Russian Black Sea fleet HQ - video report
On land, Kyiv’s counteroffensive has made slow progress. Ukrainian troops have run into formidable Russian obstacles. But on water, it is a success story. Largely unnoticed, Ukraine has reclaimed the Black Sea at least in part, by turning it into a no-go zone for Russia’s bristling warships – no mean feat given that Ukraine has no navy to speak of, and a handful of old jets.
In Sevastopol, a naval exodus has occurred. Two frigates and three attack submarines have left port and moved east to the safer Russian harbour of Novorossiysk, according to satellite data. Five large landing ships, a patrol boat, and small missile vessels have joined them there. A cluster of other boats have sailed from Sevastopol to Feodosia, a port on Crimea’s eastern side.
Driven from Sevastopol, Russia has reportedly signed a deal for a new naval base. It will be located in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, further along the Black Sea coast. On Thursday the region’s leader, Aslan Bzhania, said the permanent facility would be built in the “near future”. “This is all aimed at increasing the level of defence capability of both Russia and Abkhazia,” he told the Izvestia newspaper.
A view of the Port of Odesa
Speaking this week, James Heappey, the UK armed forces minister, said Russia’s Black Sea fleet had suffered a “functional defeat”. “It has been forced to disperse to ports from which it cannot have an effect on Ukraine,” he told the Warsaw security forum. The liberation of Ukraine’s waters was “every bit as important” as the counteroffensive last year in Kharkiv oblast, during which Kyiv regained territory, Heappey added.
According to Ukraine’s former defence minister Oleksii Reznikov, drones have been vital to winning back the Black Sea. Reznikov likened the boom in indigenous drone production to the early days of Silicon Valley, when Steve Jobs built the first Apple computers in his garage. He said: “This war is the last conventional land one. The wars of the future will be hi-tech. The Black Sea is like a polygon. We’re seeing serious combat testing.”
Reznikov said Ukraine was making an array of uncrewed aerial vehicles, as well as drones that travelled on sea and underwater. There was “competition” between rival outfits – Ukraine’s navy, special forces, GUR and SBU intelligence agencies – as to who made the best drone. “We have no serious fleet or naval capability. But we can hit them with drones,” he said.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Reznikov’s predecessor as defence minister, said Kyiv had pioneered “a new form of warfare”. It cost $10,000-$100,000 (£8,260-£82,600) to build a sea drone filled with explosives. Released in “swarms”, they targeted Russian ships costing hundreds of millions of dollars. “It’s an extremely asymmetric way of fighting enemy boats. This is true of cost and time. You can’t build a new ship quickly. They are huge platforms,” he said.
After annexing Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin became the Black Sea’s dominant power. It declared large areas off limits to Ukrainian ships including much of the Sea of Azov, around the port of Mariupol. On the first day of the invasion, Moscow bombarded and occupied Snake Island, a strategic territory near the Danube estuary. Russian troops swept into the southern city of Kherson, practically unopposed, and besieged nearby Mykolaiv.
Street sellers in central Odesa
From spring 2022, however, Ukraine fought back. It thwarted a Russian amphibious landing in Odesa, Ukraine’s biggest and most strategic Black Sea port. That April, Kyiv sank the Moskva, Russia’s flagship carrier, using two Neptune cruise missiles. Then in June, Russia was forced to leave Snake Island. This was down to Harpoon anti-ship missiles, supplied by the west and deployed from the coast, Reznikov said.
These setbacks led Russia to agree a “grain corridor”, brokered by Turkey and the UN, in which merchant ships departed and arrived in Odesa and two other ports. Ukraine’s forces, meanwhile, stepped up long-range attacks. “We started hitting them in an unconventional way, with rockets and drones,” Zagorodnyuk said. One target was the Kerch bridge linking occupied Crimea with Russia. In October 2022, a lorry bomb blew up part of its road section.
Slowly but surely, Russian naval vessels found themselves squeezed. In autumn 2022, Reznikov said he had swapped secret WhatsApp messages with Ben Wallace, then the UK’s defence minister. They discussed the provision of game-changing Storm Shadow missiles. He said: “We used a special code: whisky. I would ask about Glenfiddich and Glenmorangie. One day Ben said to me: ‘Strong whisky is coming.’”
Recently, Ukraine has pummelled Russian bases in Crimea. It knocked out at least two S-400 air defence systems and a radar station. In September, Ukrainian special forces seized gas drilling rigs west of Crimea. Next, a missile slammed into Sevastopol’s shipyard. It damaged a Russian landing ship and submarine that was undergoing repair. It was the first time since 1945 that Moscow had lost a submarine in combat. Days later, Kyiv hit the Black Sea fleet HQ.
These various attacks have had dramatic consequences. As Zagorodnyuk said: “They’ve run away.” Significant Russian naval staffers have moved to Novorossiysk, as well as numerous ships.
Ukrainian officials are more cautious. Dmytro Pletenchuk, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s navy, said Kyiv had achieved a “technical knock-down”. He stressed it was too early to write off Russia. “We are talking about a powerful grouping,” he said. Moscow had 30 warships, many smaller boats, and coastal vessels guarding the Kerch bridge. Five carrier ships and five Kilo-class submarines were able to unleash Kalibr cruise missiles on Ukrainian cities, he said.
On Wednesday, British intelligence said Russia was planning to sabotage the new humanitarian grain corridor, through which more than 30 ships have departed and arrived from Odesa and neighbouring ports. The Russian plan was to use its submarines to put sea mines in the middle of the channel. If a ship sank, Moscow would blame Ukraine. The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, described the tactic as “pernicious”.
Nevertheless, Ukraine is now relatively free to manoeuvre in the Black Sea. Earlier this week, a group of commandos from Ukrainian military intelligence landed on the Crimean coast in five amphibious boats. They raised a Ukrainian flag and killed Russian soldiers. A smaller number of “Ukrainian defenders” died in the special mission, spokesperson Andriy Yusov said. He added: “The operation to de-occupy Crimea continues.”
The Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine published a video of the landing during one of the operations on the coast of the Crimean Peninsula.https://t.co/AgvFmajn8S pic.twitter.com/AiHB2plx0O
— Special Kherson Cat (@bayraktar_1love) October 4, 2023
Security experts say winning back Crimea is essential to Ukrainian victory, and to its progress on land. “If the Russians keep Crimea they can target the whole mainland of Ukraine,” said Alexander Khara, deputy chair of the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies. Moscow faced a dilemma, he said. The port of Novorossiysk was vulnerable to drone attack, and Russia had too few air defence systems to protect all its naval assets, he said.
“The idea of Russian invincibility in the Black Sea has been shattered,” said Yevgeniya Gaber, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “There has been a cognitive shift,” she said, and Ukraine’s allies were helping. It was unlikely British naval warships would patrol the Black Sea, a plan suggested on Sunday by the UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps. But the UK was helping in other ways, with reconnaissance and drone technology, Gaber said.
Ukrainian observers now dream of a new treaty of Paris – the 1856 deal that ended the Crimean War. It led to Russia’s diminishing influence in the region, after its defeat by the British, French and Ottoman empires. The treaty prohibited Russia from putting a navy in Sevastopol. “This war must end the same way, with the Black Sea fleet sunk, and Russia banned by international law from building a new one,” Zagorodnyuk said.
And what about Adm Sokolov? Ukrainian sources are increasingly confident he was killed last month, in the strike using Storm Shadow missiles. “The Russians can prove he is alive by making an interview with him,” Pletenchuk, the navy spokesperson, said.
The Guardian · by Luke Harding · October 5, 2023
11. The CIA’s data-challenged AI imperative
Hmmm... I scan the news manually every day. Maybe I need some AI.
But I don't know how you can understand anything and synthesize news (and then make assessments and decisions using the information) from all sources unless you actually read it and understand it.
Excerpts:
The IC already uses AI to do things like scan the news. The CIA is building its own Chat-GPT-like tool to help with research and writing. Other intelligence agencies have talked up AI’s potential to improve their jobs, including analysis. And, the National Security Agency recently announced it’s opening an AI security center to focus on cyber threats, following a study to learn how the technology could apply to its missions.
But mastering the technology, and the data that fuels it, is critical, because it could give organizations and governments that do the upper hand.
“Those entities that augment their activities with AI applications will likely disrupt those entities that do not. So I think it's imperative that we find a way to tap into this technology to support the activities that we are entrusted with,” Richard said.
AI has clear “areas of concern” that “we have to address head on,” including cyber defense and disinformation, Richard said. “But those solutions cannot be at the expense of the innovation that we really need to more effectively and efficiently conduct the mission that we are asked to do.”
The CIA’s data-challenged AI imperative
Mastering the technology is key to being able to “disrupt those entities that do not,” said an agency cyber policy official.
BY LAUREN C. WILLIAMS
SENIOR EDITOR
OCTOBER 5, 2023
defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams
The Central Intelligence Agency is developing its own Chat-GPT-like tool, but the agency is still struggling to manage its data and quickly adopt commercially available solutions, said Dan Richard, the CIA’s chief cyber policy advisor.
“One of the things that we are grappling with is data management. We assemble and review large amounts of data information and we are constantly looking for ways to be able to more effectively analyze, synthesize, and provide insights that we can get from that information out to the private sector,” Dan Richard, the CIA’s chief cyber policy advisor, said during a Billington Cybersecurity virtual event Thursday. “We are constantly on the outlook for better ways for us to manage our data, better ways for us to more efficiently and effectively use the data we have to get it to where it needs to more quickly and in a more efficient manner.”
That need to improve data management is grounded in how the CIA collects and integrates intelligence data other agencies use to inform policymakers and private companies.
“Although invisible to most, we actually support a lot of the information that [Department of Homeland Security], the Defense Department, [Director of National Intelligence], FBI are actually providing to the private sector and take that feedback and fuse that into all of the information that we possess,” he said.
The CIA is also struggling to rapidly adopt commercial tech solutions, like applications, instead of spending time developing them in house.
“Something that could take us several months to sort of assemble in terms of an application solution, the commercial sector has already taken advantage of it,” Richard said. “And what we're looking to do is leverage those solutions to more quickly address some of these problems that we're currently facing.”
The CIA isn’t the only agency struggling to manage its data. Earlier this year, the Director of National Intelligence issued a multi-year strategy that puts data and AI at the center to improve how the intelligence community achieves its missions.
“The intelligence community has been working on AI and artificial intelligence issues for over a decade. So this is an area that we have already been grappling with [on] how to take advantage of this technology and apply it for our mission,” he said.
The IC already uses AI to do things like scan the news. The CIA is building its own Chat-GPT-like tool to help with research and writing. Other intelligence agencies have talked up AI’s potential to improve their jobs, including analysis. And, the National Security Agency recently announced it’s opening an AI security center to focus on cyber threats, following a study to learn how the technology could apply to its missions.
But mastering the technology, and the data that fuels it, is critical, because it could give organizations and governments that do the upper hand.
“Those entities that augment their activities with AI applications will likely disrupt those entities that do not. So I think it's imperative that we find a way to tap into this technology to support the activities that we are entrusted with,” Richard said.
AI has clear “areas of concern” that “we have to address head on,” including cyber defense and disinformation, Richard said. “But those solutions cannot be at the expense of the innovation that we really need to more effectively and efficiently conduct the mission that we are asked to do.”
defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams
12. China Is Becoming a No-Go Zone for Executives
China Is Becoming a No-Go Zone for Executives
Foreigners are thinking twice about business trips to the country after Beijing has barred some executives from leaving
https://www.wsj.com/business/china-is-becoming-a-no-go-zone-for-executives-626250dd?mod=flipboard
By Chip Cutter
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, Elaine Yu
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and Newley Purnell
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Updated Oct. 6, 2023 12:03 am ET
The reluctance among foreign executives to travel to mainland China could put more strain on the relationship between Beijing and the U.S. PHOTO: GREG BAKER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Foreign executives are scared to go to China. Their main concern: They might not be allowed to leave.
Beijing’s tough treatment of foreign companies this year, and its use of exit bans targeting bankers and executives, has intensified concerns about business travel to mainland China. Some companies are canceling or postponing trips. Others are maintaining travel plans but adding new safeguards, including telling staff they can enter the country in groups but not alone.
“There is a very significant cautionary attitude toward travel to China,” said Tammy Krings, chief executive of ATG Travel Worldwide, which works with large employers around the world. “I would advise mission-critical travel only.”
Krings said she has seen a roughly 25% increase in cancellations or delays of business trips to China by U.S. companies in recent weeks. A U.S. government-linked survey, published in September and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, found that nearly a fifth of respondents are reducing business travel to China.
The reluctance among foreign executives to travel to mainland China could put more strain on the relationship between Beijing and the U.S., which has been damaged by tensions over Taiwan, competition for supremacy in the race for AI chips and a prolonged trade war. Foreign businesses have recently adopted the approach of “siloing” their China risk, which means isolating their activities there from global operations.
A major fear among large U.S. companies is that their employees could be barred from leaving mainland China, either temporarily or for long periods, corporate travel and security advisers said. A Hong Kong-based senior executive at U.S. risk-advisory firm Kroll has been blocked from leaving the mainland for the past two months, the Journal reported last week. A senior investment banker at Japanese firm
Nomura also can’t leave the mainland. Beijing uses travel restrictions to help it with criminal investigations, to pressure dissidents or to gain leverage in disputes with foreign companies and governments, according to Western officials and human-rights groups. These exit bans can last years and are sometimes imposed on those who aren’t suspected of a crime. Neither the Kroll executive nor the Nomura banker was the direct target of investigations by Chinese authorities, according to people familiar with the cases.
The Shanghai skyline. A major fear among large U.S. companies is that their employees could be barred from leaving mainland China. PHOTO: YING TANG/ZUMA PRESS
Dale Buckner, chief executive of Global Guardian, a U.S. private security firm, said that in the past eight months some of his clients—including those working at law firms, manufacturers, consulting companies and others—have been detained or “soft interrogated” for typically two to five hours inside Chinese airports or hotels.
“You see this stuff in the movies. It feels very Hollywood-ish, but it is unnerving,” Buckner said.
Some U.S. companies have hired security consultants to run background checks on their employees to determine whether there is anything that puts them at greater risk of detention by Chinese authorities, Buckner said. Those risks include military experience, dual nationalities or politically sensitive social-media posts, he said.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t respond to a request for comment, and the Ministry of Public Security couldn’t be reached during a weeklong national holiday. Beijing officials have previously said they would do more to improve China’s business environment and attract foreign investment. China relaxed visa rules for business travelers in August.
China’s use of exit bans has deepened a sense of nervousness among foreign businesses that worsened earlier this year, when authorities raided the offices of due-diligence firm Mintz and expert-network consulting firm Capvision, and questioned the staff of consultant Bain. American firms’ optimism about the business outlook in China is now at its lowest level in decades.
This week, Capvision said it had finished a government-supervised program of “rectification.” It pledged to safeguard China’s national security.
Not everyone is staying away from China. Chief executives including
Apple’s Tim Cook, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Tesla’s Elon Musk have made high-profile trips to the country this year. China has also hosted business conferences, including a meeting held by the World Economic Forum known as the Summer Davos.Merck KGaA, a pharmaceuticals company based in Darmstadt, Germany, hasn’t made any changes to its corporate travel policy in China, said Christoph Carnier, head of global travel management at the company and president of the German Business Travel Association. Employees can still travel to the country for “business-critical” meetings, he said.“Face-to-face meetings, especially these days, are more important than ever, especially with China,” he said. But security experts and business advisers say visitors should think carefully about the type of work they will be doing while in China. Examples of what to avoid: research that supports foreign economies decoupling from China, or that criticizes local companies. Experts also advise leaving behind everyday phones and computers and taking only “burner” devices, such as a smartphone or laptop wiped of data or apps.
The September survey found that reduced business travel to China is partly due to an expanded anti-espionage law, which has tightened state control over data and digital activities. About a third of the respondents to the survey said they had changed their security policies for China, mostly by attempting to mitigate data risks and figure out how likely travelers are to draw the attention of Chinese authorities.
The State Department ranks mainland China in its second-highest risk category when providing travel advice, alongside countries such as Egypt, Honduras and Lebanon. It advises potential visitors to “reconsider travel” to the country, due to what it calls the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including the use of exit bans.
Write to Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com, Elaine Yu at elaine.yu@wsj.com and Newley Purnell at newley.purnell@wsj.com
Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the October 7, 2023, print edition as 'Some Executives Avoid Traveling to China'.
13. ‘It’s going to be huge’: Cyber Command gains new authorities to hire & buy
I think Cyber Command can benefit from the SOCOM R&D and procurement and budget processes (and JSOC hiring and firing policies!)
'It’s going to be huge': Cyber Command gains new authorities to hire & buy - Breaking Defense
breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · October 4, 2023
Networks / Cyber
on October 04, 2023 at 5:39 PM
U.S. Cyber Command members work in the Integrated Cyber Center, Joint Operations Center at Fort George G. Meade, Md., April. 2, 2021.(Photo by Josef Cole)
WASHINGTON — The 13-year-old US Cyber Command had grown dramatically in size, power and bureaucratic heft since its creation in 2010. Its most recent expansion came this week, with the beginning of a new federal fiscal year Oct. 1, when new fiscal and hiring authorities granted by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act came into effect.
“This will be the first year that we execute those new authorities,” CYBERCOM executive director Holly Baroody told a Billington webinar Tuesday. “We have a team in our J-8 [planning staff] who focuses on budget, [and] every day they are working [on this], not only within their team, but across all of the services, to make sure that we have all the right processes in place, the right systems in place, the right training… to take advantage of the authorities and execute them well.”
“It’s going to be huge,” she said.
What’s the big deal? Since the Goldwater-Nichols reforms of the 1980s, there has been a sharp legal and administrative division in the Defense Department between the armed services — Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Space Force — and combatant commands (COCOMs) such as CYBERCOM. By law, the services recruit, train, organize and equip servicemembers, who then get assigned to COCOMs for specific periods or missions. Essentially, services hire the people, buy the weapons and form them into units, while COCOMs command those units in the field.
But a few select organizations have the authority to do both, such as Special Operations Command, and now, Cyber Command.
RELATED: Lawmaker ‘definitely’ considering value of independent Cyber Force, but wants more study
On the personnel side, while the services will still recruit cyber specialists, manage pay and benefits and do some of their training, CYBERCOM will have greater authority and resources to run its own training programs, officials testified in July. On the equipment side, CYBERCOM will be able to run its own acquisition programs — nothing on the scale of massive service procurements like the F-35, but more like SOCOM’s famously fast and focused programs to buy cutting-edge tech.
“Before this enhanced budget control, all of that money was dispersed in different elements,” explained Baroody, a former Navy cryptologist who’s now the top civilian at CYBERCOM. “This allows us to bring it all together, [but] to continue to partner with all of those elements.”
“[We’ll] be able to manage all of the funding that comes for the Cyber [National] Mission Force and to make sure that we are identifying areas for efficiencies… and prioritizing,” she said. “That’s going to be critical.”
“We’ve also gotten some unique authorities from Congress in terms of hiring [civilians],” Baroody said. “Just at the headquarters level, we have over 400 open vacancies. [Now] we’re able to hire things like data scientist[s] that are highly competitive at a higher rate.”
Read more at Breaking Defense →
breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · October 4, 2023
14. What Time Is It at the Heritage Foundation?
What Time Is It at the Heritage Foundation?
‘Reagan’s think tank’ sees America ‘on the brink’ of decline and incapable of helping in Ukraine.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-time-is-it-at-the-heritage-foundation-regan-war-ukraine-military-funding-taiwan-invasion-9a3f8ece?utm
By Kate Bachelder Odell
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Oct. 5, 2023 3:59 pm ET
President Reagan and Heritage founder Ed Feulner at the 10th Annual Heritage Foundation Dinner in Washington, Oct. 3, 1983. PHOTO: HERITAGE FOUNDATION
When Mikhail Gorbachev met Ronald Reagan in 1985, the Soviet leader offered a complaint: Reagan was influenced by the Heritage Foundation, Washington’s conservative think tank. The outfit lent intellectual energy to the Gipper’s agenda, including the Reagan Doctrine—the idea that America should support insurgents resisting communist domination.
Fast forward nearly 40 years. Heritage is arguing against President Biden’s request for additional aid to Ukraine. Thomas Spoehr, who ran Heritage’s Center for National Defense, left the think tank this fall because of its stance on Ukraine. Is an influential institution abandoning Reagan’s animating ideas precisely as Russia and communist China have formed an axis to challenge the U.S.?
“Our country is a lot weaker in 2023 than it was, say, in 1983,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts told me in an interview this week. “We aren’t saying that we’re in decline,” he says, “but we’re on the brink of it.” He rejects the idea that Heritage is walking away from the Reagan legacy. But he points out that social order, such as U.S. marriage rates, has collapsed since the early 1980s and warns that the country may soon “literally be bankrupt.” These, he says, are “material reasons we can’t be as active and interventionist as we might otherwise be.”
Lately, anyone clinging to a Reaganesque worldview can expect to be accused of not knowing “what time it is”—the preferred insult of the so-called new right for those conservatives who don’t appreciate America’s desiccated state. Mr. Roberts used the phrase in passing in our conversation. Yet the argument that America is reaching exhaustion wouldn’t be novel to Reagan. He rejected it.
“One of the most valuable lessons that history has to teach us,” Reagan told a Heritage Foundation dinner in 1986, “is that after the most terrible frustration and discouragement sometimes change can come so quickly and so unexpectedly, it surprises even those who have made it happen.”
Reagan repeatedly told Americans weary from internal division and embarrassment abroad—the circumstances may sound familiar—that the U.S. could still summon “the moral energy and spiritual stamina” to confront problems both at home and abroad. It wasn’t an argument set to expire in 1989; it was an expression of enduring faith in America’s inherent capacity to change course when things have gone wrong.
This history is relevant to today’s debate over aid for Ukraine. Heritage says it’s merely trying to provoke a more substantive discussion. Nineteen months into the war, “there has been no desire by any of our political leaders to say what the end game is,” Mr. Roberts says.
Mr. Biden’s record on Ukraine is weak and halting. If he aims to evict Russia from Ukrainian soil, he isn’t doing enough to make that happen. If the goal is a settlement, the president isn’t saying so. He is leaving Americans to fill in the blanks about why they’re sending billions of dollars abroad. The Democrats’ partisan preening about democracy is irritating, and no doubt if President Trump were the one sending the tanks, they would be holding up aid.
But Heritage’s case against Ukraine aid goes beyond the administration’s poor strategy or hypocrisy. “We have to take care of our interests at home before spending any more money on Ukraine,” Mr. Roberts said on Fox News recently. When asked what victory looks like, he answered: “We believe in peace, and we believe it needs to happen immediately.” That rhetoric is reminiscent of George McGovern in 1972 (“come home, America”) and Barack Obama (“nation building at home”), even as Mr. Roberts describes Heritage’s bent to me as merely advocating more restraint in American foreign policy.
And the think tank’s new tilt isn’t limited to Ukraine. U.S. spending on national defense is at about 3% of gross domestic product, down from roughly 6% during the Cold War. America now has fresh military competition from the Chinese Communist Party, which Heritage identifies as the greatest existential threat to the U.S.
So should the U.S. urgently rebuild its defenses as Reagan did? Mr. Roberts tells me Heritage would support substantially more defense spending “if and only if that starts also with a reform mindset” at the Pentagon and elsewhere. “We want the Department of Defense to be the most effective, the most efficient that it’s ever been,” Mr. Roberts said earlier this year to Responsible Statecraft, an outfit that routinely agitates against the larger military Reagan supported.
Heritage’s Index of U.S. Military Strength last year rated it as “weak.” The Navy’s submarine fleet is too small and in disrepair; long-range munitions stocks could be exhausted within weeks of fighting. Such deficiencies will cost tens of billions of dollars to rectify, beyond what even worthy Pentagon healthcare or pension reform could drum up in short order. The country’s looming fiscal problem is fueled by entitlements, and Heritage supports reform even if most of the putative populist right doesn’t. But Reagan didn’t abide a false choice between economic revival and self-defense.
Alexander Velez-Green, a Heritage analyst imported from Sen. Josh Hawley’s staff, wrote recently that increasing the Pentagon budget is untenable: “There is little to no evidence that most Americans want to spend more on defense.” Yet Heritage’s ostensible writ is conviction and persuasion, not riding the polls. Heritage relies on small donors for support, so the shift may in part reflect the discontent burning through the GOP base.
But note that Ed Feulner, Heritage’s president from 1977-2013, recently endorsed Mike Pence for the GOP presidential nomination. Mr. Pence has spent the better part of his campaign defending U.S. support for Ukraine, in the tradition of the Reagan Doctrine.
The Cold War is a useful if imperfect parallel to today’s China-Russia axis. Mr. Roberts argues the attention on Ukraine “often obscures the saber-rattling Xi [Jinping] is doing in the Pacific.” The war in Europe, he suggests, is drawing focus and resources from the larger priority and threat of the Chinese Communist Party.
But Moscow and Beijing are working in tandem to mount a challenge to the West with no equivalent since the 1980s. Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine may be a warm-up for a larger test of American military power and will in a conflict over Taiwan. Ukrainian resistance has given the U.S. a strategic gift: a chance to wake up and rearm before American troops are in a fight. A plan to “end” the war in Ukraine is distinct from a plan to prevail, and the U.S. won’t leverage a negotiated surrender in Europe into success in Asia.
There are also risks in stoking American cynicism about U.S. support for Ukraine—to frame it as siphoning attention from America’s bigger problems. Reagan wasn’t a cynic. “Whatever the imperfections of the democratic nations, the struggle now going on in the world is essentially . . . between what is right and what is wrong,” he told Heritage’s 10th anniversary dinner in October 1983. “This is not a simplistic or unsophisticated observation. Rather, it is the beginning of wisdom about the world we live in.”
The point is resonant again for a new cold war. A country that won’t help Ukraine defeat an invasion by Mr. Xi’s junior partner, at no cost to American life, isn’t a country that will put U.S. sailors and pilots in the way of Chinese missiles off Taiwan. Those who aren’t connecting the dots between Ukraine and the Chinese Communist Party are confused about the stakes of the moment—or, to use a trendy phrase, they don’t know what time it is.
Mrs. Odell is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
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Appeared in the October 6, 2023, print edition as 'What Time Is It at the Heritage Foundation?'.
15. US Army scrambles to catch up to rising drone threat
US Army scrambles to catch up to rising drone threat
Years after it eviscerated its air-defense units, the service hunts for ways to fend off quadcopters and their deadly ilk.
defenseone.com · by Sam Skove
LONDON—Dangling from the ceiling and laid flat on display stands, sleek drones of every shape and size were ubiquitous at last month’s sprawling DSEI arms show. Far less common were weapons to stop them.
The same is true on the battlefields of Ukraine—and in the arsenals and training grounds of the U.S. Army.
Army officials say NATO’s largest land force is making progress when it comes to defending troops from drones. But service leaders have yet to make definitive plans for their future counter-drone force, even as they field far fewer defenses than analysts suggest will be needed.
Drones are ubiquitous on Ukrainian battlefields, where they have been used for everything from artillery coordination to strikes on civilian infrastructure. Russian loitering munition drones, for example, are the leading cause of destruction of Ukraine’s Polish-supplied artillery, Polish Land Forces’ Lt. Gen. Wieslaw Kukuła told Defense One.
Consequently, Ukraine and Russia both field a wide array of drone-killing tech, from hand-held jammers to vehicle-mounted autocannons. Ukrainians say Russian electronic warfare is particularly potent against their drones.
But both sides’ drones regularly slip through air defenses, mounting strikes on Moscow and on Ukrainian power stations. The latter concerns Ukrainian Air Force Command, said spokesman Yuriy Ihnat, who added that Ukraine lacks sufficient short-range air defenses to fend off this winter’s expected attacks by Russia on electrical plants.
Ukraine isn’t alone. If anything, the U.S. Army may be even more behind when it comes to drone-killing solutions.
About two decades ago, the Army radically cut spending on short-range anti-air systems, under the belief that the Air Force could control the sky. In 2005, the Army reduced its short-range air defense, SHORAD, units to two active duty battalions and seven National Guard battalions, both operating the 1980s-era Avenger.
“Army SHORAD by 2014 was, for all intents and purposes, extinct,” wrote Army Capt. Peter Mitchell in an essay for West Point’s Modern War Institute.
The Army has since made moves to address the drone threat. The Army leads the Pentagon office tasked with combating small drones, and will launch a counter-drone training academy at Fort Sill in 2024. It’s testing various types of defenses, including microwave weapons from Epirus.
In 2021, the first Army unit took delivery of the M-SHORAD, a Stryker-mounted short range air defense system that sports four Stinger missiles and an autocannon. The Army plans to field 144 M-SHORADS, enough for four battalions.
The Army has also approved the purchase of three types of hand-held drone-jamming systems. It’s unclear how many are fielded. The maker of one approved system, the DroneBuster, reports having sold 2,000 to “military and law enforcement customers around the globe.”
The Army also has the Mobile-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Defeat System (M-LIDS), which is currently deployed to the Middle East. In April, Aaron Hankins of Leonardo DRS Land Systems said that the Army wanted to equip nine divisions with five sets of MLIDS each, and would start fielding systems next year.
Spurred in part by reports from the Ukraine war, Army leaders say that they are working on a new counter-drone strategy. “We're going to need to probably have organic air defense with our maneuver units so that they can protect against drones,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth at think tank CSIS.
"The Army is very much watching the kinds of drone/counter-drone war in Ukraine and doing the best we can to incorporate those lessons into our future plans,” said Doug Bush, assistant Army secretary for acquisition at a September press briefing in the Pentagon.
Some in the Army want to add anti-drone strategies at every level of command. The drone threat is “going to be so prevalent,” said Lt. Col. Richard Brennan, who participated in an Army-led counter-drone tabletop training event in September. “It has to be something you’re accounting for at the lowest level.”
But despite active debate, the Army has yet to figure out just who needs counter-drone systems and how many to buy.
The problem of how many counter-drone systems the U.S. need is a “key question” for the Army, said Chris Pernin, a senior physical scientist at the RAND Corporation who also participated in the September counter-drone training event.
Meanwhile, the number of weapons fielded are likely far under what’s required. Past air defense plans gave each Army division its own dedicated short-range air defense battalions. With plans to field just four M-SHORAD battalions, that means that 15 Army divisions will have to do without.
The problem, in fact, may be even worse. Nick Reynolds, a research fellow for land warfare at RUSI who has written extensively on the Russo-Ukrainian war, believes that Western armies should have “some sort of counter-drone capability at every echelon from company-level and above.”
The Army fields a collective 19 active duty and National Guard divisions, with a minimum of 950 companies. With the Army planning just 144 M-SHORAD systems and 45 M-LIDS sets, most of those companies will therefore go without a dedicated anti-drone system.
Nor, even, is it obvious which anti-drone system the U.S. will use. The U.S. has tested microwave weapons, lasers, auto-cannons, and jammers against drones, but has not chosen one single system to invest in.
“The Army is going to have to face reality,” on counter-drone policy, said Peter Wilson, a senior defense policy analyst at RAND Corporation.“How do you protect your mechanized armored forces? How do you maneuver under the threat of surveillance?”
Other nations, meanwhile, are plowing ahead with anti-drone acquisition, representatives of two companies that produce anti-drone weapons told Defense One at DSEI.
Multiple countries have purchased MSI Defense Systems’s jammer- and- gun combination, and the weapon is currently in serial production in several variants, said product manager Robert Gordon. APS is even refining its jammers based on data collected from sending them to Ukraine’s frontline around Bakhmut, said Maciej Klemm, CEO of APS.
Still, despite a rise in demand related to Ukraine, industrial manufacturers see every country as being one step behind. “Yes, there is a lot of investment; yes, there are a lot of requests for information; but it’s an education process so far,” said Silje Jahr, head of sales at anti-drone company MARSS.
MSI’s Gordon agreed: “The drone threat has moved so much quicker than both industry and the military's ability to find solutions. Everyone is behind the curve.”
defenseone.com · by Sam Skove
16. Inside the secretive business of geopolitical advice
Hmmm.. employment opportunities?
Conclusion:
Such moves are happening thick and fast as firms in the industry race to nab talent. The supply of good geopolitical advice is constrained, argues Ms Miscik. Michèle Flournoy, managing partner of WestExec, says that her line of work “is all about the people, and those people can’t be manufactured”. But they can be acquired. After the takeover of Albright Stonebridge by DGA, McLarty and WestExec were bought by, respectively, Ankura and Teneo, two management consultancies. Eurasia now has a partnership with KPMG, a professional-services heavyweight.
...
After years of trimming their public affairs departments, many multinational companies have been busily hiring geopolitical experts, too. Mr Reilly says such teams are fast becoming DGA’s biggest competitors. Eventually, that could force the fragmented industry of advisers to consolidate. For now, it reinforces the growing realisation among multinationals’ bosses that global politics will shape their success in the years ahead.
Inside the secretive business of geopolitical advice
As multinationals grapple with a fragmenting world, specialist consultants are cashing in
Oct 5th 2023
The Economist
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These are anxious times for the bosses of Western multinational companies. After decades of being wooed by governments the world over, many now live with an ever-present fear of being caught in the crossfire of fraying geopolitical relations. An increasingly assertive China has now taken to slapping exit bans on the executives of foreign firms. The latest example came on September 29th, when a Hong Kong-based restructuring consultant at Kroll, an American advisory firm, was reported to have been barred from leaving the mainland.
Doing business in China is far from the only source of worry. American chief executives are contending with the regulatory zeal of Brussels just as their European counterparts are dealing with a more interventionist America. Both groups are trying to tap the cash gushers of the Gulf without appearing to cosy up to its authoritarian rulers. A diplomatic spat between Canada and India over the alleged assassination of a Sikh activist on Canadian soil will have sent shivers down the spines of many Western business grandees. Trouble, it seems, is everywhere.
Luckily, an industry of consiglieri is at hand to help multinational firms traverse these treacherous waters. Although geopolitical advisers have existed for decades, demand for their services is now soaring, thanks to the growing complexity of doing business abroad. Bankers, lawyers and management consultants are pouring into the field. What was once a niche and secretive business is entering the mainstream of professional services.
Retiring statesmen have long sought to cash in on their knowledge and foreign connections. In 1982 Henry Kissinger, previously America’s secretary of state, set up Kissinger Associates to that end. Later administrations produced their own equivalents, from McLarty Associates and Albright Stonebridge Group to WestExec Advisors and plenty more. All are packed full of former government luminaries.
Lee Feinstein, a one-time ambassador who now works for McLarty, notes that many clients value advice from those who have been “in the room where it happens”. The exact services these firms offer are opaque and vary between them, but generally range from gauging the policy intentions of foreign governments to helping open doors for companies that want to sell or manufacture in a new market.
Spooky action at a distance
Such “formers” are not the only source of specialist counsel available to multinationals. Geopolitical consultancies like Eurasia Group and Oxford Analytica rely less on retired bigwigs and more on professional analysts who monitor global affairs and provide briefings to clients. (EIU, The Economist’s sister company, competes in this business.) Another flavour of service is provided by Hakluyt, a firm founded in 1995 by former British spooks. It sources intelligence from a global network of associates with connections in high places, and offers clients the inside scoop on anything from a regulator’s opinion of a possible takeover to the probity of a potential supplier. Geopolitics now permeates nearly everything it does, says Varun Chandra, the firm’s managing partner. (The chairman of Hakluyt is also chairman of The Economist’s parent company.)
In recent years the breadth of advice being sought has widened. Amy Celico of Albright Stonebridge notes that the focus of her firm’s work has broadened from helping companies expand overseas to also helping them defend themselves against a deteriorating geopolitical climate. An increasing number of multinationals are finding themselves used as pawns in global politics, rarely to their advantage. In May China banned memory chips made by Micron, an American company, from being used in the country’s critical infrastructure. The firm generates a quarter of its sales in China, half of which it now expects to lose. Advisers can help businesses pre-empt such blows, and in some cases lobby against them.
The focus of geopolitical advice is expanding beyond emerging markets, too. Mr Chandra observes that America’s technology giants are increasingly coming to Hakluyt for assistance in navigating Brussels. An executive at another firm notes that America’s Inflation Reduction Act, with perhaps $1trn in handouts for climate-friendly investments, has brought many clients to its doors.
The upshot has been a surge in growth. Most advisers keep their revenue figures closely guarded. Hakluyt, which does not, has doubled its sales in the past four years, according to Mr Chandra. Younger entrants are also gaining steam. Macro Advisory Partners, founded a decade ago, has more than doubled the size of its team since 2018, according to Nader Mousavizadeh, its chief executive.
Larger corporate advisers, eyeing an opportunity, have muscled in. McKinsey, a management consultancy, has launched a geopolitical-risk practice. Ziad Haider, who co-leads it, says that demand from clients has rocketed. EY, a professional-services giant, has set up a similar service.
Dentons, a multinational law firm, helped launch Dentons Global Advisors (DGA), a stand-alone advisory firm that acquired Albright Stonebridge in 2021. Ed Reilly, DGA’s boss, explains that its services have a “natural adjacency” to the practice of law. Lazard, an investment bank, is also building a geopolitical advisory business. Teddy Bunzel, who oversees the effort, says that geopolitical questions have become central to much of Lazard’s conventional advisory work. In October last year the bank hired Jami Miscik, formerly the chief of Kissinger Associates.
Such moves are happening thick and fast as firms in the industry race to nab talent. The supply of good geopolitical advice is constrained, argues Ms Miscik. Michèle Flournoy, managing partner of WestExec, says that her line of work “is all about the people, and those people can’t be manufactured”. But they can be acquired. After the takeover of Albright Stonebridge by DGA, McLarty and WestExec were bought by, respectively, Ankura and Teneo, two management consultancies. Eurasia now has a partnership with KPMG, a professional-services heavyweight.
After years of trimming their public affairs departments, many multinational companies have been busily hiring geopolitical experts, too. Mr Reilly says such teams are fast becoming DGA’s biggest competitors. Eventually, that could force the fragmented industry of advisers to consolidate. For now, it reinforces the growing realisation among multinationals’ bosses that global politics will shape their success in the years ahead. ■
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The Economist
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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